7/27/2019 Dark Eldar Story

1/2

The dead, brown wastes of Corvus Majoris were slick with the viscous coagulated blood of the fallen

and decaying. For miles around fires blazed like torches in the distance, illuminating wreckages of

twisted, demonic vehicles and carcasses piled high so as to breach the impervious smog that covered

the lower atmosphere like a cloak.

The air was rife with the raucous cheering and guttural howls of a victorious band of Eldar

mercenaries. Demented psychopaths and maniacal scum roared with laughter as they toasted their

deceitful victory over the Chaos Space Marines that had once thought them allies. This land was now

theirs for pillaging.

Amongst those celebrating were the warriors of the kabals, resplendent in their rich purple plate

armour, helmets discarded as they drank from tankards of vintage wines and smiled through

clenched teeth at the other cutthroats around them. Not one of them trusting the other, but

reveling in the ruin they wrought upon their former allies all the same.

Dotted around were Wyches of the Cult of the Blade Denied. Small groups paraded their trophies of

war around the killing ground, showing off heads cut from their bodies, plague-ridden skins flayed

from bloated carcasses, bones and skulls and body parts no longer recognisable mounted on trophy

racks. Others simply continued to fight, accepting challengers from amongst the jeering crowds.

One figure stood apart from his fallen Eldar brethren. The Haemonculus; better known to his

subordinates as Karthurel of The Prophets of Flesh; and Worm or Maggot to his betters, sat alone

and pondered the precarious predicament he had come to find himself in.

Karthurel was a being of science. Like the others of his race, he too relished the thrill of combat. To

witness a being contorted in endless pain; to hear the agonising screams and simple pleas of the

lesser races in the face of annihilation; and to feel the very essence of life evicted from its host of

flesh and bone.

However, for him the fighting and warmongering was merely a means to test his hypothesise on the

bringing of insurmountable pain or to unleash monstrosities forged in his laboratory upon his foes.

To him, it was the creation and manipulation of tissue and sinew, designing the methods that

brought destruction upon countless worlds that sated his lust for violence.

On this dust and filth-ridden planet, surrounded by the cacophony of war and the stench of death,

Karthurel found he felt nothing. Nothing of the thrill or the maniacal glee he desired so deeply. No

new creations of flesh bringing havoc to the battlefield, nor new toxins to test upon the myriad races

of the Universe. He was merely a tool being used for a higher purpose, and it cut him like a blade to

be so uncertain of the reason.

7/27/2019 Dark Eldar Story

2/2

Karthurel turned and walked away from the battlefield. His senses had dulled after the bloodshed

had ended and the constant yelling of those hired as his subordinates left him with a throbbing

headache. He walked in silence, his concern rising for what was to come.

Fear was his craft, it was something he could study, test and replicate. A calculable goal, attainable

by uncountable methods of cruelty Karthurel inflicted upon his victims daily. Fear was unfelt by

those of the covens; but as he stood, staring at the ruined structures of a city of metal and smoke,

the clamour of unruly Dark Eldar behind him; Karthurel began to fear that he was sent here for

nothing more than his death sentence.

This was where he would draw his final breath.