#drakharn

Standing calm, the warrior-lord stepped forwards. His muscular features were thrown into light. A chiselled jaw, a squared off nose, and a smile that shone. All made for a handsome, powerful looking man. Everything about him was perfect. Everything except his eyes. Luminous green, glowing with inner light, with jet black slitted pupils, they were one of the only things that marked this planet`s inhabitants as slightly less, or slightly more than, truly human. They were like fires, drawing everyone else`s eyes to them like moths to a kindled flame. Lizardlike, totally inhuman, they still somehow managed to gleam with happiness, kindness, love, and tears of joy. Here was a survivor, a race of humanity that had stared into the void, and spat on the false promises of the gods of chaos. Here was a worthy inhabitant of the galaxy, a true heir to the universe. For all the glory that she was, Inquisitor Dellaja felt jealous. The man`s companions stood further behind him, a row of ten, all with the same eyes, all with the same burnished skin, the darkest mahogany-brown imaginable. Next came two of the lord`s lieutenants, a Beast-tamer, and a Mecharim lord. Both were important to these people, both held skills that were vital to this offshoot of humanities` survival. One tamed and cared for the primeval, reptilian, semi-sentient beasts that stalked the ice, whilst the other ensured that any technology that remained on this Emperor-forsaken icy windblown wasteland survived intact through wars of attrition against any and all aggressors. The lord smiled again, and stepped forwards. Holding out a hand, as was the ancient Terran custom, he initiated the reunion of the Drakkom Starsystem and the Imperium of Man. The future had begun.

The Ancient swung his staff without warning. The recruit took the full brunt of the hurtling lump of gnarled wood. It crashed against his torso, sending hairline cracks through ribs. The force of the sudden, unexpected blow shocked all but the most hardened of veterans, plus the few recruits that had seen him do it beforehand. Thudding to the floor, the inductee groaned in pain and frustration. The Ancient was one of the few who could claim direct Terran heritage, and had personally slain a drakhil. A meandering, carnivorous and sinuous creature composed outwardly entirely of claws and scales, it took either serious guts or serious stupidity to fight one alone. That he had triumphed was honest testament to his formidable combat prowess. He had fought the vicious predators of his homeworld, he had slaughtered greenskins, repelled the Evil From Beyond The Dark, and butchered the legions of the great corruptors. He could certainly best a human in single combat. Even if the human in question possessed all his senses, was a fresh recruit into the Dragon Company space marines chapter, and was a twentieth of his age.

The creature drove itself forward upon scythlike limbs, it`s maw a whirlpool of malice, teeth and acid. Trantine`s helm had been torn off earlier, after another of the skittering Tyranid blade-beasts, a horma-gaunt, had slashed at the blessed ceramite, shattering the right eyelense and making vision impossible. The creature screeched it`s hatred of humanity and Trantine roared his anger-fuelled reply. Green eye met green eye. Slitted pupil met none.  The creature surged forward, but this time, Trantine caught the chittering alien star-spawn unaware. With a choking hiss, he vomited forth acid, acid that seared and burned at flesh, armour and ferrocrete alike with unparalleled ferocity. The marine`s carefully monitored diet had allowed him to produce Acid-toxin that were stronger than even the hydrochlorides used so much in the technolabotories back on DriHarWal. The hive mind would be taught to fear humanities’ superhuman defenders once more.