Art by unknown, because GW doesn’t fucking credit people
The Warden of the Void stood, waiting, on the far side of his commander’s arming chamber. Veyran had sent the serfs away, which the Warden considered wise – the commander was thoughtful, and famously even-tempered, but the Warden knew that he was a handsbreadth from his composure cracking, and good serfs were hard to find.
He considered his words carefully.
“Have you…” he began. Any number of possible approaches ran through his mind, none of them particularly good. He went back over the whole list again, discarded all of them and decided to simply speak his mind.
He said, “have you thought about perhaps winning a battle?”
Veyran was already roaring. “By the Primarchs, I will – “
“Because our current strategy of not winning is starting to affect our operational readiness,” the Warden went on as though his commander’s voice were not already shaking the viewports. “If nothing else we do not possess an unlimited supply of bolt shells. Or ceramite. Or legionaries.”
The commander’s voice dropped to a growl. “I should have killed you on Memnax.”
“Probably.”
“When that exocrine was about to devour you on Curzell VI,” Veyran had pulled off his helmet and slammed it on the arming mannequin beside him. He started working off the seals on his gauntlets. “Think where we’d be now if I’d let it.”
“I’d have been eaten by an exocrine,” the Warden said. “And if reports are to be believed, you still would have been knocked unconscious by a commissar with a power fist.”
Veyran dropped his left gauntlet onto the deck. “I was on fire.” Ripping open the last latch on his right forearm, he flung the armored glove across the room, where it smashed into a rack of power axes. “The Oathforged were already a pile of smoking corpses by then, and they are not exactly easy to replace. And now you – “
“Kallor.” The Warden found his commander’s gaze, held it a moment, and squinted. “What happened down there?”
They both stood there, glaring at each other. Three heartbeats later Veyran gave a short sigh and started pulling his pauldrons off his shoulders.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Field artillery. An entire squad of Chosen incinerated by mortal field artillery.” He yanked off his left pauldron and dropped it to the deck. “It beggars belief.”
The Warden began the thought he had prepared before he arrived. Veyran needed to hear this. “Have you considered – “
“I will butcher you wi – “
He held up a hand. “Listen to me. Take a breath and listen to me.”
They waited. Finally, Kallor Veyran took a deep breath. “Say your piece.”
Now it was the Warden’s turn for a deep inhalation. “Have you considered that treating the gods as playthings may not have been a good idea?”
Veyran’s hand dropped from his shoulder and his gaze fixed at some point beyond the viewports, deep in the void. “You think I angered them?”
“We angered them,” the Warden said.
“It was my decision.”
The Warden snorted. “I am Alpharius as much as you are.” He snorted again. “We.”
Veyran turned back to the stars and the Warden took this as an invitation to go on. “Khorne cares not how many times you annihilated the Blood Legions he sent you. And Nurgle never seemed interested in us at all. But a number of men feigned service to She Who Thirsts, which was a poor choice for placing false oaths. And Tzeentch…” He sighed and leaned on the bulkhead a little. “The soul grinder. How many times did you fling that monstrosity into the enemy guns with no support? How many times did it return to the Crystal Labyrinth a smoking, shredded wreck? Did you see, after the mortals ripped off its iron claw, the new one Tzeentch gave it? It must have been forged in a star.” He shook his head. “That thing was one of Tzeentch’s favorites and you repeatedly sent it to a gruesome death.”
His commander did not turn around. “Earning the ire of the Changer of Ways would explain a great deal of what has happened since this campaign resumed.”
“It would,” the Warden said. “It is the only rational explanation I can think of. And it isn’t that rational.”
Veyran thought for another dozen heartbeats, then finally turned to face him. “You think we should recall Calchas ahead of schedule.”
The Warden inwardly thanked the Primarchs that Veyran had grasped his point so quickly. “At the very least he might offer us some protection from Tzeentch’s whims.”
“He won’t like it.”
The Warden made a spitting noise. “In ten thousand years have you known him to like anything?”
Veyran’s face dropped sharply on the left side in an ugly half-frown. I have not. “Send the recall signal.”
“And when he ignores it?”
“We trace the return and go get him,” Veyran said. “He’s been with them long enough.”
The Warden chuckled quietly. “I’ll be sure our brooms are sharpened.”