A whip cracked, down, down on the 15th Helcannon Deck...
Tanor cracked his whip and he was awarded with more screams. The Arrogance was caught in a frenetic void battle against an Imperial Navy squadron and his helcannon batteries were slow. This group of slaves was one of the worst he has seen and the old gaoler has seen many, many slaves in his long, genenhanced life.
"Load those charges you worthless dregs, if the mighty guns will not roar defiance I will have you served as the next ammunition for the helcannons. Don't make me come down there you scum..."
And so the loader crews redoubled their efforts. It was easy to break those worthless slaves, none could stand against a warrior of the Black Legion yet some uprisings were common, and Tanor enjoyed all of them. In a life now long past he would have hated to abuse his human charges, he was bred to protect them, not to gaol them, yet now he was finding it to his taste. His masters in the warband were quite demanding when it came to the guns of the mighty Arrogance and Tanor was all too happy to oblige. Some legionaries would consider service in the gun decks as a diminishing duty, a honourless task, but truth be told Tanor the White was not one of those legionaries. In the past two centuries he carved his own dimension of hell in the fifteenth helcannon deck of the Arrogance, this was his realm, this was his domain and all would pay tribute to him down here.
He personally rounded up the dregs for his guns and each and everyone of them was marked with his personal rune. He maintained a ruthless degree of discipline and backbreaking labor, his gun officers were some of the most cruel aboard the Arrogance and service on the 15th Helcannon Deck was seen as something as a capital punishment, but... but the guns rarely were silent when the battle was joined. Tanor smiled, he lived for the shattering recoil of the helcannons, for the roar of silent, distant death in the void, he lived to unleash the firepower that obliterated entire cities and destroyed entire cultures, he was the master of this hellish pit of cordite smoke, radiation and indiscriminate death, he was a lord among mortals. He was merely a legionary of the Arrogant Sons, but down here, in hell, he was master and commander.
Again he cracked the whip, shattering the jaw of a poor slave chained to the 43rd helcannon along with several dozen others. Death down here was an ugly affair, it came from mass ordnance, radiation, toxic pollution, malnutrition and disease, but the guns, the guns were never found wanting. Every whim of his precious charges was tended, every shell blessed with the blood of the unworthy, the slaves died, but the helcannons fired and fired and fired...
In an age past he was Tanor of the White Scars, a true son of Chogoris, but now he was Tanor the White, the lord of the 15th Hellcannon and he was death to millions, lord to two thousand souls and gaoler of the Arrogance. His whip was the law, his voice was the command that shattered walls, struck ships from the heavens and he was the roar of defiance, his guns the voice of the mighty Desolator-class ship. But he was also astartes and to him seconds mattered, his orders mattered, his slaves... mattered not. Again his whip cracked, again he was rewarded with a scream and a cloud of blood, he cared not how many he had to kill, he will beat the rate of fire of Zurdan Grojal and his scum on deck 19th.
While his adversary prefers automated guns and hardwired servitors Tanor despised things which cannot be broken and chained. He was a traditionalist at heart and he will prove today that blood and sweat are good substitutes to abominable intelligence, steel pistons and automated brain cogitators. His whip cracked again, more blood, more screams. He could feel it in his bones, in the tingling of his topknot, the enemy ship was closing in for broadside, the feint radiation of power shields colliding was unmistakable, the first slaves begun vomiting... he grinned.
"Get the flayed heads, let's see how the Imperial Navy fights the screaming dead..."
And a whip cracked once more, down, down on the 15th Helcannon Deck...
Edited by Tenebris, 25 September 2014 - 09:15 AM.