Editing Ashur of Banipal (section)

==The Necromancer and the Megatherion==
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Lambach wandered through the insides of the battleship Anu, the bottom of his spear Venus Gospel gently tapping the floor with each step. His psychik sight could already perceive the streams of Warp energies flowing through the ship’s walls, floors and ceilings like blood pumping through veins, but only as he came closer to his destination, reality did truly shift and distort through the powers of Chaos that had pervaded the vessel’s essence. A smile crept across his pale and sicklish face. The one brother who had always feared the Immaterium the most had now been the one fully swallowed by it. The one whose efforts had been greatest in quelling the psykers of the Imperium had now become a vessel for the Warp in Realspace. Ashur of Banipal, the Behemoth, the Lord of Bronze and Bone, the Giant Beast, was now a monster fuelled by Chaos, incarcerated within the bowels of his own once-proud flagship.

Lambach stood before the gate leading into the cargo hold. Powerful spells of holding were scratched across the metal plates in wild, seemingly erratic patterns, and Stargazers stood guard facing the doors. Their already bewilderingly decorated helmets were further distorted by the Warp as it merged flesh and steel into a terrible living tissue. “I demand entry”, Lambach announced, and the Stargazers humbly withdrew. A lazy gesture of his hand brought the inscriptions to life, gleaming in all the colours known and unknown to human vision, then they died off again. A deep growl, an aching noise, rolled from behind the doors, and the primarch of the Chosen of Hecate hesitated for a moment. He knew that his brother had been… Changed. The noise erupting from the cargo hold implied that it had been a lot more than he had previously imagined.

The doors slid apart agonisingly slow, as if they were reluctant to open the way for what they were holding, and Lambach Kropor entered the barely lit room. Immediately the stench of rotting carcasses stung in his nose, although he had grown accustomed to the sensation as the gifts of Grandfather Nurgle were spreading through the ranks of the Chosen. Crushed bones littered the ground and dried blood and gore were splattered all across the room. In the middle of the gigantic cargo hold was a circle drawn unto the floor, its symbols glowing faintly and appearing to shift and dance, almost pulsating, and within it, mighty chains kept a brutal creature in place. Its lower body, a mutilated shape alike an elephant and a giant lizard fashioned from flesh and machinery, was lying flat on the ground. Where its head would have been, the body of a man was joined from the waist up, equally disfigured and bent over, resting uncomfortably. Its head was like a skull. Bony plates and brass linings instead of skin, an unnatural spark glowered in hollow eye sockets and its teeth filed to a point with two mighty tusks protruding from the jaws. As Lambach approached the beast, it lifted its head, revealing a metallic collar that had fused with the tormented skin at its neck.

“Good to see you awake, brother Ashur”, Lambach smiled, a condescending edge to his tone. Ashur’s eyes flared for a moment before going dim, again. “The Immaterium’s gifts suit you well”, the primarch of the Chosen continued.

“Quiet”, a voice growled deeply, thrumming from Ashur’s chest. He spoke without moving his mouth, his vocalisation reduced to noises that through some unnatural trick mimicked human speech. “I warned you”, Ashur continued, though his rumbling speech was weaker now, as if exhausted. “You said I was wrong. You said...”, he faltered, his eyes flickering, “you said we had nothing to fear...” The hulking creature slumped, a groan accompanying the futile struggle to stay awake. “You… Lied...”, came the growling voice one last time, before Ashur drifted off into a delirious state.
The accusation faintly stung Lambach, yet he shrugged it off just as easily. What point was there in contemplating a guilty conscience? Although he did not seem to understand, Ashur had received blessings of masters whose power rivalled – Nay, exceeded! - Those of the Emperor’s. While indeed Ashur’s superstitious understanding of the Warp had suspected a much more accurate picture than Lambach’s academic teachings, the Primarch of the Chosen of Hecate gladly accepted to be wrong. The Dark Gods that dwelt in the Warp would teach him and all of mankind so much more than the Emperor would ever allow!
“No, I did not lie, Ashur”, Lambach finally replied. “I was wrong, simple as that. It is what scholars do: We are right, until we are not, and then we learn from it. And learn, I did...” Lambach raised his hand, and with a flick of his wrist did he end the banishing spell that held Ashur in place. The pulsating runes vanished, and life sprung back into the Daemonic Primarch’s eyes. “I need you to finally open your eyes, Ashur of Banipal! You have always been one with the land and the world of spirits and spectres! We are to become its warriors! We are to deal the finishing blow to the one man who would deny mankind its soul!” Lambach approached his mutated brother, who struggled into an upright position. “Carry us on your mighty shoulders, who is blessed by the Gods.”

Ashur’s fiery eyes fixated on Lambach, who appeared minuscule before his monstrous brother. The spark within the hollows surged to life. “The Gods?”, he growled, and he seemed to ponder the word for a long moment. “The Gods...”, he repeated, his unnatural voice an even deeper pitch than before, “what do I care about Gods? My sons… Chained me. My brothers… Abandoned me. All my life, people discarded me once they didn’t need me, anymore.” The daemon raised its head, fixating Lambach with its burning eye hollows. “What would make those Gods different?”

Lambach Kropor studied his brother’s reaction. Ashur of Banipal, so convinced of family and loyalty, speaking so low of it seemed unlikely – Unless, of course, certain voices had exploited a darkness in his heart. He smiled. “Those Gods, brother Ashur, will see to it that all will have their comeuppance. The Gods are not of this Universe and they will not lightly discard you like all the fools of your past. They love you, need you, they have already shown so by bestowing upon you gifts like none have received before.”
The Great Beast lowered his head, appearing defeated. “What could Gods possibly need me for?”

Lambach’s face lit up to an expression of mad excitement.

“To let the Galaxy burn.”

</div>
</div>

{{Warmasters Triumvirate}}