He was a pilgrim from hell, standing atop a towering spire formed from madness and pain, looking down at the army below.
All things were mere vermin.
Creatures no larger than grains of sand were waging a holy war, offering up their final sacrifice to an indescribable dark power with one last revelry.
A smile appeared on his tattooed face, while everything below his neck was covered in armor.
That scarlet armor had been smelted from bloodstained weapons salvaged from battlefields, repaired countless times after countless wars, its brass markings ever as pristine as new.
His sword was planted at his side. It was a weapon that had drunk deeply of countless lives, forged from sorcery and death, named Blood Tongue.
He looked down at the frenzied creatures below and realized—
For a time, he had once been one of them.
Serving as a vanguard in war, smiling with the corners of his eyes as he slaughtered, laughter spilling from his lips.
Yet from this distance, he could not make out the armies fighting below, nor whether they still retained any proper organization. Even so, a fleeting glance through the dust was enough to reveal the most obvious truth.
The forces they had gathered had no chance against enemies who vastly outnumbered them, especially the Orks.
Individual valor and heroic deeds were useless here.
A battle could consist of tens of thousands of duels between individual souls, but that was not how wars were won.
But victory was not the ultimate purpose of this revelry.
The wind, as always a traitor to the sky, carried irregular fragments of roars from the battlefield below to his ears.
And he let the wind blow past him without guilt, as indifferent to slaughter and screams as he was to his untied long hair