As Many Are The Sands

“Wake up, young wolf…” the words echoed as if from a dream, and Einar gasped as he bolted awake. The monstrous corpse of a foe sprawled across his breastplate—a hideous amalgamation of man and goat and bird. Its pale blue tongue lolled from a toothy beak, and its many eyes stared like frosted marbles amid blood-matted feathers. With a grunt, he thrust it aside and pulled himself upright. The servo-motors in his power armor whirred quietly beneath the hissing of the tide, and before him stretched the ruin of a battle.

His brothers lay strewn across the beach, armored corpses scorched and pierced by sorcerous energies that still flickered faintly upon them. But for every warrior fallen, a dozen foes had joined them—hacked apart, hoof and claw, borne like driftwood by the tide. He alone stood among the sands. Unhelmed, his braided beard fell upon his breastplate, and his ice-blue eyes swept the churning sea. His rune-marked brow furrowed as he strained to recall the battle. The moments leading to it were there—plunging through the atmosphere like a comet in the Dreadclaw, tracking the acrid scent of the traitors with his brothers, finding them near the sea.

But then… nothing.

With bolter in hand and blade sheathed at his side, he turned from the sea and set out along the trail of corpses. He did not stop to look upon the faces of his brothers. He clenched his jaw in silence as he passed them by. Further ahead, he found where his Pack Leader had fallen, surrounded by the empty shells of the Hollow Ones. Their armor was much like his own, as they had been like him once, but from the gashes hewn by the Pack Leader’s axe, only dust spilled forth, mingling with the sands.

Beyond the fallen, a lone figure stood motionless, watching the sea. His armor, like the Hollow Ones, would have once marked him as an ally, but now the dark blue robes draped over it were adorned with scrolls whose blasphemous writings writhed and swarmed like insects.

“Turn and face me, witch!” Einar growled, training his bolter on the figure. “Turn and face your death!”

Slowly, the witch turned, and on his breastplate was etched a sorcerous circle with nine interconnected points, nine eyes. “I have…” the witch’s words echoed in Einar’s thoughts, though his mouth did not form them. “And I will.” He too was unhelmed, and from his eyes streamed deep blue flames. “Your brothers are all dead,” the witch’s words echoed, answering the question that swelled in Einar’s mind. Einar opened his mouth to ask another, but the witch answered first. “As are mine. We are the last.”

“I am the last. You are a dead man standing,” Einar snarled, baring his fangs.

“This is true… and it is not.”

“Your riddles will not save you.”

The witch bowed his head and closed his eyes, snuffing the blue fires out for a moment. “Was Prospero not enough?”

“So long as a witch still lives, it is not enough!”

“We were brothers once. We could be again.”

“Madness! You are attainted and accursed!”

“We can find the cure. You could help us!”

“I have your cure here, brother,” Einar nodded to his bolter.

“Why…why still?”

“It is the Emperor’s will. Prospero may be cleansed, but the Rout will hunt you until your stain is scoured from all worlds!”

Laughter echoed in Einar’s mind as a wry smile formed across the witch’s lips. “The Emperor did not call for our deaths. His words were twisted by the Warmaster. You were deceived.”

“Your words hold no weight with me, witch,” Einar spat.

“They’re why we’re here now… four words.”

“I’ve heard enough.” Einar squeezed the trigger of his bolter. Round after round burst against a shell of deep blue light that flickered into being where the bolts struck. The witch was unharmed.

“It is not by bolt that you strike me down.”

“You seem to accept that you are dead, yet you resist.”

“I can’t change what happened here, but you can. That’s why I sent you back. That’s why we meet again.”

“I have never met you, witch—”

“Or you would already be dead,” the witch’s words mirrored Einar’s as he spoke them. “That’s what you always say.”

A cold dread pulled at Einar’s gut, a sense that he had seen this all before. He let his bolter fall at his side. “How many times?”

“As many are the sands,” the witch gestured to the beach.

Einar’s jaw clenched, his hearts pounded quickly, and then they slowed, and a satisfied smile crept over his face. “Then I have not faltered in all those times. I have always struck you down.”

“And you were always sent back, as always you will be, until your way is changed.”

“I can think of no greater afterlife than to strike down a witch for all eternity,” Einar grinned.

“So you have claimed, and yet each time you draw your blade a moment later than the last.”

With a surge of rage, Einar’s gauntlet shot to his hip and drew forth a blade like a shard of a glacier. Cold fog billowed from its keen edges as he brought it between himself and the witch, whose fiery eyes narrowed to see it. “This was your undoing?” The witch nodded. “I’ll not keep you waiting any longer, then.”

Einar burst forward in a blur of speed, driving his blade through the luminous shell that shattered against it, through the nine-eyed breastplate, and one of the tainted hearts that beat beneath it. All at once, the sea fell silent as the waves ceased their motion. The witch’s breath poured out as frigid fog, and the blood that trailed from his mouth began to freeze upon his face. He leaned forward, impaling himself further on the icy blade and whispered, “Wake up, young wolf…” The words echoed as if from a dream, and Einar gasped as he bolted awake.`