[Narrative] The Great Lie, I – Ulvstranden

Three figures stood around a table, towering over the robed servant who placed goblets of wine, trays of food before each of them. Their size and armour marked them as Astartes; the rich purple of their armour as Hawk Lords. One reached down and took up a goblet.

“Victory wine.” he said, bitterly “I have no taste for it.”

“Sooth your choler, Kaine – there is no place for it here.”

 

Kaine turned to the speaker, scowling. “Is there not, Cathartes? I led my brothers to battle a raid by the foul Necrons. My brothers fought with courage and honour, despite the very planet assailing us with weather so foul that we could barely see beyond the ends of our bolters. They did all that could have been asked of them and more! When Sergeant Leandros fell his men did not falter or despair, they redoubled their attack and fought with righteous fury!” His goblet banged down on the table; wine slopped. Trembling, the servant scurried to mop up the spill. “And only after the battle was concluded and the enemy defeated did we learn of the foul trick that had been played upon us! As the fog lifted we searched for fallen enemies, hoping that we might take a trophy or prize for the Victory Hall. And what did we see?"

Three Astartes regarded what lay between them. A grey painted helm, eye-piece shattered from an expert head shot; a pauldron painted with the likeness of a snarling animal, pocked and cratered by bolt rounds; a broken bladed sword with runic inscriptions.  

 

“All this and more. We were tricked! The Necrons were there, of that there can be no doubt. But by some foul magic they slipped away. They conjured the weather, jammed comms and blinded our auspexes so that we did not realize the truth until too late – we had been fighting brother Marines!” Kaine took up his goblet again and glared at the others. “Cathartes, Mithrac? What say you? Will you toast our great victory? I will have none of it!” He threw the goblet and it shattered against the wall. The cowering servant ducked, then fled.

Cathartes strode round the table till he was eye to eye with the snarling Kaine. He pointed to the doorway the servant had escaped through. “Control yourself, brother! We are their protectors, not their feudal lords! If you cannot control your temper, remove yourself.”

The two stood nose to nose, fists bunched for long moments. Their impasse was finally broken by Mithrac, who shook his head slowly, still staring at the table. “They can never know. The Space Wolves. We must bury this. All of this. Make it a Secret of the Chapter. ”

With an effort, Kaine forced himself to relax and stepped away from Cathartes, bowing his head in apology, and barking out a cynical laugh. “The Space Wolves lose an entire combat patrol, and you expect them to not notice? Do not take them for fools, Mithrac.”

“I do not think them fools...” Mithrac replied quietly. “Let them notice! What of it? What they will never learn is who slew their brothers. We have complete control of the combat zone as well as aerial and orbital supremacy – we will spot any approach well before they get close enough to see anything incriminating. We have plenty of time to destroy all evidence. By the time we are done, there will be nothing left for them to find.”

Cathartes nodded to Kaine, accepting the apology. “You would lie to brother Astartes, Mithrac?” he asked.

Mithrac shrugged. “All Chapters keep their secrets, Cathartes – it is naïve to think otherwise.”

“Yes, they do. We are no exception. But we are not Blood Ravens or Dark Angels, turning secrecy into a virtue – the Emperor alone knows what they hide! Would you take us down that path? We must remain true to ourselves, to the virtues the blessed Primarchs instilled in us!”

“Then what do you suggest, Cathartes?”

There was a long silence as Cathartes regarded the table, deep in thought.

Mithrac stood back, arms folded and a slight smile on his lips. Kaine strode around the room, searching for a means to safely vent his frustration.

 

“We must send an embassy to the Wolves. Return their honoured dead to them. Conceal nothing. Offer reparation for the deaths.”

Kaine turned on his heel to stare. “They killed our brothers and you would have us apologize, Cathartes?” 

“And we killed their brothers too, Kaine – like it or not, there is Fenrisian blood on our hands. We must not forget that.” Cathartes picked up the broken helm and stared into its dead eyes. “This injury, this insult... was done to them as well. This stain on our honour is also a stain on theirs. They will wish to know the identity of their true enemy in this.”

Mithrac stepped forward to look over Cathartes' shoulder at the helmet. “If you are wrong...” he said softly. “If they do not forgive, then it could be war between our Chapters.”

Cathartes turned to face Mithrac and pushed the helmet into his hands. “And if we hide the truth and they do learn of it, they will see that as an admission of guilt and then it *will* be war.”

Kaine's pacing ceased. He crossed the floor, returning to his brothers, and took the helm from Mithrac. "The Wolves cannot know," he said, finally. "That way lies the certainty of feud, and further bloodshed, as brother Astartes draw arms on one another. The lie gives us a chance to do better: lets us turn our combined strength against the Necron. Better we avenge those fallen for the Imperium that both our Chapters serve. Cathartes: do what you must to the battle record. Have it known that the Necrons massacred the Wolves and we came to avenge them. Let that be the truth, as far as the Librarium knows."

"You would have me defile my oaths?" said Cathartes, but Kaine held up a palm.

"I would swear another with you both. As long as we three live, it will be our sworn duty to avenge ourselves upon the Necrons. We will seek out whatever tomb or vessel spat them out and we will punish them for their deceit. This cannot end with the lie. We must make good on what we have done this day, and there will be no glory in it: no legend for the Hall of Record. The Chapter will never know why we hunt; only that we do." 

Garbutt wrote the bulk of this as an attempt to Forge the Narrative out of our early experiences with Dawn of War. Between Linux compatibility and rural Internet, my Necrons regularly phased out from three-player games with Benjie's Space Wolves, disconnecting and abandoning the match. The result: this prequel to the Maledicta Crusade, which I'll pick up in a later post...