‘The time has come, Lord.’ Kalf’s voice was quiet, projected from a helmet speaker. Amenhotep

sighed, then rose. His limbs were stiff from hours of meditation, he began the movements to restore

his full mobility. The slow, precise motions brought the mind back to the body, and returned

Amenhotep’s focus to the physical realm. ‘I am on my way’ he replied, his voice thick from inactivity.

The meditation had revealed little, and the ritual ahead was not without risk. Donning his robes,

deep crimson trimmed with pale ivory, he began his descent to the ritual chamber. The location had

been chosen by Kalf. The small antechamber was deep in the bowels on the Yagboodah, away from

the crew and where the ritual would continue un-impeded. Amenhotep strode swiftly, taking the

route that would avoid most of the crew. It allowed him to gather what little he had gleaned from

the skeins of fate. His divinations had been cryptic at best, revealing little to him about what might

await him. “Now is not the time for doubt” he thought, as he strode onward.

The chamber had been prepared in the manner prescribed by the Word Bearers. Eight

sacrifices lay at the cardinal points of a warped, eight-pointed star. They stood bound, trussed tightly

to wrought iron poles, their skin lacerated by ritual cuts. They had fought to begin with, resisting

their bonds, their adrenaline lending them strength. It soon waned however, their eyes dulling and

muscles withering. They had been broken, and their life force was spilling out into the chamber,

tempting the dark beings of the warp.

At precisely the eighth hour, the bloodletting began. Special sacrificial knives shredded the

skin, blood pouring into the grooved floor. Amenhotep stood at the centre of the etchings, his mind

floating in the empyrean, observing the flows and eddies of the warp. A ritual hymn began to be

sung, acolytes dressed in dark robes chanting in a strange tongue. The words cause the sacrifice’s

cuts to sear and burn, their screams mixing with the chants to form a howling, unnerving sound that

filled the chamber. In the warp, Amenhotep could see foul beings forming, drawn by the disturbance

that was being cause by the ritual. Slavering mouths and baleful eyes watched, dancing parasitically

around the centre of the storm.

Amenhotep watched. His form in the warp was light, he didn’t want to draw attention to

himself, though that was not difficult to remain unseen, such was the uproar in the centre. As the

ritual began to reach its apex, the daemons became more and more formed, firmer outlines

becoming visible to Amenhotep’s vision. The souls of the eight were baiting the daemons further, a

melee was evolving, each daemon wanting to gorge themselves on the souls, proving themselves

stronger than the rest. This would be the test that Amenhotep would use. This would be how he

decided which daemon would be bound to his staff.

Meanwhile, in real space, things were little saner (apparently this is word, but I don’t like it).

The dirge was almost all engulfing, the barriers between the real and empyrean were thin. The blood

from the sacrifices was flowing freely, though there seemed to be far more than the human body

could naturally hold. It gushed into the etchings, avoiding certain channels, and rushing into others.

It formed chaotic symbols from one moment to the next, the shapes forming reflecting the battle for

the mortal souls in the warp. Amenhotep was watching these intensely, having abandoned his

attempt to make any sense of the things he was seeing in the Aether.

As time ground on, the fortitude of even the most resolved cultists was beginning to wane.

However, the song was no longer being powered by human lungs, it hadn’t been for almost the

entire duration, the roles of these cultists little more than vessels for the warp to flow through. The

symbols on the floor were beginning to take form, flowing between only two shapes, one with six

points, and the other with nine. Amenhotep grimaced, knowing what came next. He reviled Slaanesh

above all other of the chaos pantheon, the god’s excess disgusting him. Despite this, a Khornate

daemon would prove to be just as bad, the Blood God hating psykers and their ilk. Whoever won,

the weapon would certainly be a challenge to bind, either daemon likely resisting its being bound

with extreme prejudice. As Amenhotep pondered this, there suddenly came a lull, the strange winds

and sounds in the chamber quieting just for a moment. Then an evil screeching came from one of

the sacrifices, not a human sound in any way. As Amenhotep turned to see who or what was making

the sound, all the humans in the room violently exploded, covering every surface in a thick layer of

red gore. Helmetless, the space marine could barely react, as he was covered in the crimson tide. As

he recovered, he saw the outline of a large body standing nearby, curled horns protruding from its

head. Amenhotep recognised this as a bloodletter, a foot soldier of Khorne. He addressed the space

marine:

“Greetings Psyker, I am Odot mulouq. I see you have summoned me here. I know why you have

done this, and you are foolish to think a being such as I would be captured by one as weak as you.”

Amenhotep’s only response was to scowl, he was exerted himself greatly already, and had no time

for this kind of posturing. He withdrew his stave from the small plinth it was mounted on, and

adopted his initial fighting stance, one he had practiced for over a thousand years. The Daemon

simply laughed, and raised its weapon, a dark forged, wicked looking sword, taller than any of the

cultist littered around the room. After a short pause, they charged.