Warhammer 40k: Rise of the Great Horned Rat

Chapter 195 195: Playing Mount & Blade via the Hive Mind

Hive Fleet Tiamet was a highly peculiar breed of Tyranid. For a fleet that should have been stubbornly entrenched in the Tiamet System to "farm" its territory, the fact that a splinter had broken off and ventured into the southern Galactic Core was an exceedingly rare phenomenon.

"The Hive Mind? Just what are you, exactly?"

Lucius muttered to himself. He had noticed that with the arrival of Hive Fleet Tiamet, the Shadow in the Warp had cast its pall over the Immaterium, as if a layer of thick, dark ink had been splashed across a mirror. Even when Lucius attempted to intervene personally, it felt like clawing blindly through that same ink, everything remained blurred and indistinct. This sent a jolt of genuine surprise through him.

Even when the Four Gods themselves acted, they had never managed to obscure his control over the Skaven. Every spark of a rat's soul had always remained as distinct as a firefly, easily held within the palm of his hand. Yet, under the shadow of the Hive Mind, he found his observations of Clan Mors nearly severed. He could barely perceive the vermin, a realization that filled him with cold fury.

Because the Great Devourer's Warp shadow smothered most psychic activity, Queek was stunned to find the voices in his head becoming intermittent and distorted. Those self-important Grey Seers fell into a state of frantic panic as their sorcerous magics flickered in and out of existence.

"What-what is this?!" Queek snarled, looking up at the sky where the light of the sun was being blotted out by an infinite swarm of Tyranid aerial organisms.

Gargoyles and Spore Mines carpeted the heavens like locusts, drawn here by some mysterious ancient relic of the Leagues of Votann. It had to be said that the "stunties'" plan to set one enemy against another had, at the very least, been successfully implemented.

"Bugs… bug-things! Do not fear—Mors fears no bug-things!" the Skaven Warlords shrieked, desperately trying to bolster the morale of the verminous masses.

The Skaven had encountered the Tyranids before and found the xenos utterly detestable. Even in the domain of sheer numbers, these insects were a match for the ratmen, and they were just as insatiable.

The Tyranids descended from the stars to strike at every living thing on the planet with cold impartiality. Hive Fleet Tiamet was a "builder" fleet, and though this was merely a splinter, its biomass was immense, ranking as one of the most formidable secondary tendrils outside the main hive fleets.

Of course, the direst complication for the Skaven was that with the Warp shrouded in shadow, the reinforcements of Clan Mors could no longer use the tolling of the Great Bell for navigation! In all of history, such a failure was unheard of.

"No! I must hear Father's voice! You-you useless-weak filth, do it now! Make it happen!"

Queek's bellows left the arrogant Grey Seers trembling and ashen-faced. They knew that the only reason the mad Warlord showed them any "respect" was that he hadn't killed them yet, provided they didn't truly push him over the edge.

"Yes-yes! We go now! The Great Horned Rat will not… shall not abandon-leave us!" the Grey Seers squeaked, wringing their paws in haste. But how could such a cosmic interference be resolved by mere seers?

As Spore Mines drifted down, joyfully blasted out of the air by Orks using them as target practice, the Tyranid third party officially joined the fray. Though initially lured by the Votann relic, the Hive Mind was immediately drawn to the massive accumulation of biomass generated by the meat-grinder battle between the Skaven and the Greenskins. The main Tyranid force plunged headlong into the slaughter without hesitation.

"The organisms have been diverted. Your wisdom is absolute, my Liege," a Necron Overlord stated, his voice a mechanical chime of genuine admiration directed toward his Phaeron, Isamakh.

"Let these primitive creatures slaughter one another. But this world… it shall return to the hands of the Samnokh Dynasty," the Phaeron replied, appearing remarkably relaxed upon his throne. "Go. Dispatch my legions of Immortals. Eradicate the foolish demi-humans first, then we shall dispose of the rest of this rabble."

At the Phaeron's command, the Necron tomb fleet, owing to its cold, inorganic nature, was largely ignored by the Tyranids. This allowed them to strike at the Votann, who were already battered from their struggle against the Skaven and Orks. Once they secured the core regions held by the Kin, the Necrons could unearth the buried Blackstone Pylons. With the anti-psychic matrix active, these biological pests would wither and die.

Suddenly, countless Necron Warriors and Immortals phased onto the battlefield through Eternity Gates. Their mechanical frames marched in lockstep as Gauss Blasters spat molecular-disintegrating beams toward the Votann fortresses. To an outside observer, the Necrons and Tyranids appeared almost like allies under a non-aggression pact.

As Bio-ships made planetfall and birthed swaths of Tyranid combat forms, the Hive Mind's terrifyingly precise collective intelligence instantly calculated the path of least resistance. On the southern reaches of the northwestern continent, a three-way deadlock formed between the Skaven in the south, the Orks in the north, and the Tyranids in the west.

The Green Tide, the Vermin Tide, and the Tyranid Swarm crashed into one another like three competing oceans, each consuming the fallen only to leave more corpses in their wake.

It was common knowledge that the Great Horned Rat was a god who took his role as an appreciative spectator very seriously. How could he possibly accept the Hive Mind blocking his view?

"I'll find a way to kill you later," Lucius hissed inwardly at the Great Devourer. He quickly devised a solution.

If the dark god could not descend in his true majesty, he would simply possess a vessel. He would use the body of a lowly mortal rat to experience this war firsthand. Lucius nodded and, with a flick of his hand, projected a sliver of his consciousness downward.

This was a trick the Chaos Gods used frequently. The "Golden Corpse" was particularly fond of it; during the Plague Wars, he had even possessed a fourteen-year-old girl, utterly shameless.

Lucius, however, was unburdened by such pretenses. Since rats were plentiful, he casually cast his consciousness into a Clanrat currently fighting for its life in a trench against the Tyranids.

Instantly, the pungent stench of blood and the sharp, irritating ozone of Warpstone smoke flooded into the host's brain. It had been an eternity since he had touched the chaotic, visceral reality of the physical realm. Looking down, he saw a pair of mangy rat paws clutching a long Warplock Jezzail.

"Don't… don't just stand there! For the Great Horned Rat! For Mors! Fire-shoot your cursed bullets!"

A Stormvermin behind him was shouting curses, completely unaware that among the thousands of rats in front of him, one lucky wretch had been inhabited by a fragment of the Great Horned Rat's own mind.

Lucius let out a cold sneer and squeezed the trigger. It was as if he had started a new game, opening fire on the lunging Hormagaunts and Termagants. Even with only a sliver of his will, his marksmanship remained divine. With every pull of the trigger, a xenos head exploded with unerring precision.

Yet even Skaven firepower struggled to stem the Tyranid tide. Before long, the chitinous, clawed horrors closed the gap. Forced into the fray, the rat possessed by Lucius raised its bayonet.

With a flurry of steel, the Clanrat began slaughtering the organisms with a level of speed and grace utterly alien to its kind. Seeing this, the nearby Skaven began to flock toward him as if he were their salvation.

——————

If you want to read ahead of everyone, go to my pat-reon: pat-re-on.c-om/magnor (remove the hyphen to access normally)