Angron's reaction
The day that everything went tits up – was a day of war.
A normal war, a boring war, a war that did not need both the attention of his World Eaters and the Blood Angels, but the Emperor had thought it was best and Horus – the kiss ass – didn't think to ask the reason why so much fire power was needed. He just received the orders and handed them out as needed. Like always.
Angron had taken the orders with all the rage of the man that had nails in his head and went to work.
The planet of Eckery was a wet sticky place that had a stench that sat heavy in the air. One large sun and four moons. Not that odd of a planet. There were a few city centers and damn near every one was burnt, bombed to hell, the green skins having taken over areas and the Guard could not reclaim.
He stood on top the ridge that served as a natural barrier from the Orks that were flooding for the tree line. Arms crossed and a frown sitting firmly set upon his face, he stared down the wave of Orks that were coming at them.
"Entrenched?" He asked the son who stood by his side.
Kharn sighed. "The Orks." He pointed the west. "The Hive Restra and the Hive Eatern have fallen and from what the scouts can tell is nothing but death for humans. The civilians dead if they had not fled already." He looked behind them where the camp was being set up. "A little more time, then we will too. Entrenched that is."
"The IX are on their way." He said. "When their ships enter orbit order Orbital Bombardment."
"Father?" Kharn asked.
Angron didn't bother to answer him. Kharn would do as he said and he would ask no other question about it. He heard his son sigh, again, and then turn to his brothers. A shout of an order or maybe even a reprmaned of some kind was to leave his lips – Angron would never know because at that moment the Green Tide came.
He had been waiting for it.
Gorefather and Gorechild appeared in his hands as the wave got closer to closer to the line that his sons had set up.
Kharn sounded the alarm, something that was not needed all his sons could see their prey, and he was joined by many others.
The war drums got louder and louder and got closer and closer.
The nails sung.
"Ready, my sons!" It was a question that Angron yelled out but didn't wait for answer. He charged down the hill with his blades raised high and a battle roar in his lungs and wrapped around his tongue.
They charged down the ridge and the wave charged over the open lands.
And they met.
At the bottom of ridge, where the hill became plains, was a blood bath.
World Eaters yelled and Orks cheered.
Beings made for war, made by war, clashed in war.
The was a sick joy there. In the mud made by blood and salt stained sweat. There was a joy that he could not wright off as the deadly singing of the Nails. It was something that was there before the Nails were driven in and it was something that if he wasn't cursed with the Nails and had grown in a life like his XIII brother's own, then he may have hid it. But he did not. And the thoughts of what he may have done in a world the never had a chance to breath it's life were waisted.
Clear thoughts were rare.
He would not spend them on useless things.
Gorefather struck the head of one Orks and Goreson blocked the blow from another. Kharn was ahead of him and he was like a fish in the water, a dancer on the stage, he made the massacre look like art. Fullgrim, if he turned his artist eyes away from the paints and where it really mattered, would have agreed.
Blood filled Angron's mouth as a larger Ork managed to land a hit on his unhelmet head.
There was cry and the sound of a blaster jamming. A curse that would make a grown man weep and then nothing. In a battlefield that kind of noise would have been missed, by baselines that was, The World Eaters were no baseline. They were no weaklings.
Many turned to the sound. Many tried to get to the brother on the ground.
The fallen brother was not dead, but with Orks all around him, he made a choice. He pulled out a grenade and let it drop with him in the middle of a pile of Orks. The Orks were climbing on him, swarming him, no brother could get to him.
Boom.
A son had gone down.
But he went with enemy bodies all around him.
Angron and his sons led a charge to kill the Orks that remained.
Not that there was much to finish up. The Green Wave wasn't much of a wave and more of a scouting party that stumbled upon the World Eaters too early. Small and the least of a fighting force, they were the young and it was no wonder they failed to do anything but take only one his sons.
He turned back to the tents and looked over at Kharn.
He could handle his brothers for a night.
The pain in Angron's head started to ache as the blood dried. The shaking of his hands returned and a curse built in his throat.
"Kharn," He said that and nothing more.
Kharn looked up and nodded.
He knew the reason for Angron's leaving.
The nails had been taking more a toil and more of him lately. Pieces of him were flaking off into the abyss that was The Nails hungry maul and there was nothing he could do to stop it. There was no slowing it and he had long since out lived the oldest of his brothers and sisters that had The Nails.
Death had been every present and it was looming closer and closer.
Angron walked into his tent and lowered himself down onto his bed.
Night hadn't even fallen yet, and exhaustion was digging into his bones. Every waking moment was the claws of The Nails and the howls of his body as his mind fell apart.
His hands were on his lap and he watched the shake and did they shake. He counted his fingers, a habit he had formed to make sure he was in living world and not somewhere in his mind – there was ten. But there for a moment he thought there was twelve.
He was in the death throes of The Nails.
There was no doubt about it.
–X–X–X–X–
Angron woke up in the middle of the night with the sound was rustling from one of the far canvas walls.
The thought of it being an animal crossed his mind and then passed in a blink. The animals had long since ran from the Orks if they weren't killed. There wasn't a chance they would still be around, they would sooner take their chances in a Hive then in the open.
He breathed normally and slowly; like sleep still had a hold. What creature had the guts to wonder into the camp and much less his tent?
Bare skin tapped against the packed dirt.
That wasn't an Ork, not aggressive enough, and it was too small and light to be one of his sons.
The being got closer and closer to Angron and he could smell it.
The smell of blood, ash, smoke, mud, dirt, and sweat, not the most pleasant of combinations and yet it – there was something underneath that he couldn't name. Which – that, not knowing the underpinning scent made him question if he was really dealing with a living being – it wouldn't be the first time he questioned.
Hallucinations were common the Death Throes of The Nails right up there with the lose of the fine motor skill of the hands and sight that was becoming weak. All of that he had experience, so Angron wasn't worried about this new little being as it settled next to his bed.
The Nails clawed and growled and Angron held still in his bed.
Soon, that little Being moved, and he could feel it's eyes, It's hands when it touch The Nails, and maybe that Being was real. Not that that mattered. If this was his end let it be his end.
Please...
Let this be the end.
There was pain when those little hands grabbed The Nails.
Then darkness.
Sweet, painless, welcoming darkness.
Angron's eyes blinked open.
Canvas walls, blank and still enacted. The faint noise of the camp coming to life, and the fading sound of the bombardment coming to an end. He slept through the bombardment? He sat up with that thought. He hadn't slept that deeply in – he didn't know how long.
His hand went to his head, subconsciously, and felt skin.
His breath caught.
His hand moved slowly patting his head, searching, searching, and yet – nothing. Nothing at all; just bare skin.
His eyes popped open.
They were open before but unseeing as they looked around at everything. Finally seeing what was in front of him.
A damn pond of made of blood.
The Nails on the floor.
His dataslate tossed to the ground but on.
The smell of the blood.
He reached for his vox.
With steady – steady! – hands he called for Kharn.
"Has Sanguinius landed?"
There was a moment before Kharn answered. "Yes, he and a good portion of his sons."
"Send him to my tent and –" he looked around. "You will come too. That is an order."
Please, please, let this be real.
Angron counted his fingers and found all ten and smiled.
---
This took me forever to get out and frankly I'm glad that it's done. It's not edited and Sanguinius' reaction is coming up but not at the moment.
I've been working on rewriting the other drafts and have made it to 20k words! Oooooo! So those will be posted sooner then later. I don't have a beta reader but I think i did pretty good. There are chapters that I didn't even post the drafts too and scenes that aren't even on here so there is that to look forward to.
So what do you think Sangs reaction is going to be? The Emps? Any other thoughts?
