Art by Eugenia Ivanchenko
The Warden of the Void stared at the vox-caster at the center of the table, not entirely sure of what he was hearing.
“Could you… repeat that?” Kallor Veyran asked. Apparently he wasn’t quite sure either.
The unit crackled as the audio coming through it suddenly spiked in volume. “I’ve been cursed by Tzeentch!” came out of the vox, just before a long sequence of what the Warden had recently learned were Prosperine curses. “It was a trap!”
Veyran made a displeased face. “Orks set a trap for you?”
The Warden muttered, “Ghazghkull is quite cunning.”
Veyran gave him a baleful look, saying “ORKS?”
The Warden shrugged.
“TZEENTCH!” the vox shouted. There was another string of invective in the dead language of Prospero. “All of it! Everything since you came to get me, possibly before that! All of it to maneuver us here, make us confident, and then destroy us!”
Veyran suddenly looked as aghast as it was possible for an Astartes to look. “Our successes these last months… the victories, one after another…”
“ALL FALSE!” the sorcerer yelled from the speaker.
The lord looked to the Warden. “Do you – “
“I absolutely believe it,” the Warden cut him off.
“The curse – “ There was a static noise from the speaker, then a much louder noise that was similar to but not quite static, and then Calchas Saltram shouted in pain. “It will take me some time to unbind it. And I’m not the only one. The Pale Accord definitely. Scryix and the Fangguard, possibly. The Covenant. And the daemon prince, that – “ more 30th millennium profanity – “thing, I’m pretty sure was never on our side to begin with.”
As Veyran started to look angrier and angrier the Warden tried to get his head around the situation. “What is the nature of the curse?”
“No one can look at me!” Calchas yelled. “It makes unit discipline impossible. You’ll involuntarily turn away if you try to look in my direction. If you keep trying you’ll start getting physical symptoms, pain, nausea, dizziness. If you keep trying after that I think there’s a good chance your head will explode.”
“Very direct for Tzeentch,” the Warden said.
Veyran sighed. “What do we do?”
“For now – “ more pained shouting. “Nothing. We carry on without the afflicted units. I’ll crack it eventually. But once I cure myself I have to figure out how to cure the others without actually looking at them.”
The Warden muttered again, “as planned.”
“We’re tracking Grimnar as we speak,” Veryran said. “We anticipate contact in the next day or so. We are almost at the final push and he has to be broken first.”
“He’ll have to be broken without my help!” Calchas shouted. “And definitely not the Pale Accord either. Send someone to the Covenant and the Fangguard and see if they can be in the same room with them. Scryix, though…” A spitting noise.
The Warden commented, “perhaps there will be detectable changes in his constant incoherent screaming.”
“Calchas,” Veyran said, leaning into the vox unit. “Is this a complete disaster?”
“No,” the response came back. “Not indefinitely. I just need time. After the Wolves, when do you move against the Sisters?”
Veyran said, “soon.”
There was another loud staticky noise and screaming over the vox. “I’ll try to work faster.”