Argel’Tal

The rains had not stopped since the first bombardments.

Thick, ash-heavy clouds blanketed the sky of Carthae Quintus, a once-beautiful world now half-devoured by orbital fire and bolter song. Its defiant cities had fallen one by one to the slow, methodical advance of the XVII Legion, yet something had always been... unusual about this campaign. Too often, critical defensive systems had gone dead before the Word Bearers reached them. Too many enemy commanders had died in their sleep or vanished mid-siege, as if fate—or something else—had intervened.

Argel Tal had noticed.

He always did. Standing at the edge of a ruined temple square, the First Captain of the Serrated Sun peered through the mist as its ethereal weight curled around broken marble and blood-slick stone. The flames of resistance had all but died across this region, yet his instincts were sharpened—not from threat, but from curiosity. From invitation.

He still held the data-slate delivered to him that morning, slipped into his command cogitator by unknown means. There had been no trace of intrusion, no visible culprit. Just a message—no signature, no explanation, only coordinates and a line of text in High Colchisian script:

"You’ve seen me without knowing. I will show you why. Come alone." Such a thing would have drawn suspicion in another legion. But Argel Tal... he felt the presence behind the message. A kindred shadow, perhaps. A hand that had acted not in opposition, but in strange, silent accord with the Word Bearers’ own will. Even Lorgar had noticed, though the Primarch had only smiled cryptically when Argel Tal mentioned the pattern.

Now, at the appointed hour, the Captain crossed the threshold of a derelict amphitheater on the edge of the ruins—its once-grand structure swallowed by ivy and neglect. Every sound of his armored footfalls echoed like thunder through the empty air. It was quiet—too quiet. Yet he did not feel alone. The air held weight. Purpose. Intention.

He paused at the center of the open floor, looking up into the stands that overlooked him in shadow and fog. Somewhere, unseen eyes watched. He did not raise his blade. He did not call out. Instead, his voice—measured, calm, and thoughtful—cut the silence like a ritual blade.

“I am here,” Argel Tal said, his voice heavy with curiosity, “and I would know the name of the one who walks beside us in silence.”

And then… stillness. The kind before revelation. Before a mask falls. Before truth stands uncloaked.

He waited.

As he always had—for gods, for visions, for voices in the dark.

But this… this felt different. This felt real.