I've been thinking about writing a Warhammer story for a while now, but I still don't feel quite ready for a long story. Consider this a practice attempt.

WARNING - Graphic content! I know it's rated M, but I still feel the need to warn anyone reading. If you don't want to see the effects of torture you may want to turn back now.

Disclaimer: I don't own Warhammer 40k or any of the characters associated with it

The world of Silvan, named for the human general who conquered it, was a peaceful one. Despite its origins, the planet faced little conflict aside from a minor ork infestation.

Perhaps that is why the planet fell.

If Silvan had been a thriving hub of Imperial rule, it might have been prepared for the inevitable attack. As it was, the ruling families were a scattered assortment of minor nobles, ruling over what few major cities had been developed on the planet's main continents.

These lords and ladies grew complacent in their new home. Silvan had more than enough natural resources to support its human population, but not so much as to attract the attention of Imperial miners. Thanks to this easy access to supplies that were not being lost to tithes, uprisings and rebellions were almost unheard of.

Even the savage green-skins posed only a minor threat. The beasts, dull-witted even by ork standards, simply couldn't band together long enough to threaten anything greater than a trading outpost. Some noblemen made monthly ventures into ork territory, bringing back the head of the largest monster they could find as a trophy to brag about.

It was for these reasons that Silvan had never requisitioned more than a minimal number of Imperial troops to keep itself safe. A mere ten thousand Guardsmen, backed up by PDF and Militia forces were all that stood against an invading army. When the invasion came, they might as well have fallen on their own blades.

The attack came suddenly, and without warning. They poured out from the darkest corners of the warp, descending on the planet like a swarm of locusts.

Chaos.

The followers of the Dark Gods, under the command of Chaos Champion Dirge, had taken note of Silvan. In their eyes it was a ripe fruit, ready to be plucked from the branch. The feeble defenses in place would make fine offerings to their sinister lords.

When the nightmarish warband arrived, the ruling families found themselves trapped in their former paradise. The Chaos ships prevented any attempt at escape, and a gathering warp storm shut down any attempt to call for aid from Imperial forces.

To their credit, the troops stationed on Silvan put up a mighty defense of their home. For months, they held the line against traitors, mutants, and demon-spawned horrors. They fought, bled, and died all in the hopes of protecting those they cared about from falling to the traitor legions.

But in the end, they perished. Slain to the last.

With the only line of resistance shattered, Lord Dirge led a bloody crusade against the rest of the planet. By his command, city after city burned, their inhabitants offered as gruesome sacrifices to the Dark Gods.

In desperation, some less faithful citizens flung themselves on the mercy of their invaders. They swore to renounce the false Emperor and live to serve their new masters, so long as their lives were spared.

Lord Dirge however, was not interested in growing his forces. To him, Silvan was a proving ground. It was to be his first major victory over the Imperium, and all who dared to oppose Chaos.

Those that sought the forgiveness of the Dark Gods found only suffering in return.

It was with grim determination that the surviving inhabitants of the ravaged planet rallied, praying for deliverance against the doom that had taken hold of them. Truly, these would be the last days of the Imperial colony.

Or they would have, had fate not chosen to intervene.

Aid did not come from the vaunted Space Marines. Nor did it arrive in the legions of the Imperial Guard, or even in the purifying flames of the Sisters of Battle. What halted the rampage of the Chaos warband was not human at all.

Their presence was unnoticed at first, nothing more than reports of missing troops and moving shadows. Lord Dirge took no heed of the warnings of his sorcerer. Feeble paranoia was not a trait the Chaos Champion respected.

By ignoring the new threat, he sealed his own fate.

The first attack came with devastating swiftness. Before the corrupted humans knew they were under assault, scores of cultists and mutants had already been cut down. The few, pitiful survivors couldn't give an accurate description of their assailants. Their babbling of 'living darkness' and 'howling death' were rewarded with brutality by the lord they had failed.

More attacks followed, each as painful as the first. Each time Dirge tried to rally his forces to crush the wretches that dared oppose him, all they would find was empty silence. The enemy left no trace of their passing.

What the fallen Astartes didn't realize was that while he had been gorging on the blood of Silvan's defenders, someone had been hunting him. Someone who would stop at nothing to destroy him.

For years, the Eldar under the command of Autarch Yuris had followed the movements of Dirge's warband with growing concern. The seers had revealed that, if left to his own devices, the Chaos Champion would grow in power until he set his sights on something more precious to them than life itself.

The Craftworld.

Yuris was no fool. He knew better than to oppose Dirge's army directly, so instead he had bided his time. Patiently, the Eldar had watched from the shadows as the warband of tainted Mon-Keigh descended on Silvan. Little by little they had positioned their warhost to lash out at a moment's notice.

Then, when the time was right, they struck. With precision honed by countless battles, Yuris launched a dizzying array of assaults. Under his watchful eye, the Eldar hit with such terrible speed and force that the Chaos soldiers had no chance to recover. Left reeling from one blow, they would immediately find themselves blindsided by another.

Had Lord Dirge kept calm and approached his opponent with tact, he might still have triumphed. Instead, he allowed his bloodlust to get the better of him. With murder clouding his thoughts, he gathered his warband to attack the witches head on. A move Yuris had both expected, and prepared for.

The Eldar forces proved more than capable of defending themselves. Each step forward was a hellish maelstrom of shuriken fire, and psychic energy. Each time the Chaos troops would close in on their hated enemy, Yuris's forces would vanish leaving behind a beleaguered and enraged foe.

When the servants of the Dark Gods brought their mighty war machines into play, they were answered in kind. Deadly Night Spinner tanks rained down clouds of wickedly sharp monofilament wire on the heads of Dirge's forces. Eldar Nightwing fighters slaughtered the Chaos air ships, and Phoenix air-to-ground assault crafts bombarded infantry and vehicles alike.

For Chaos Champion Dirge, it was the beginning of the end.

Unable to vent their frustration on the enemy, his troops turned to each other instead. Dozens of minor champions sprang up amidst his ranks, each thinking they could lead the warband far better than he. Singing praise to their god of choice, the Chaos forces butchered their former brothers in arms.

As the lines between ally and enemy dissolved, Dirge was forced to watch his mighty army crumble. His best efforts only succeeded in regaining a small fraction of his former glory. In a last desperate attempt to save himself, He launched a direct attack on Autarch Yuris. He would either come back with the Eldar's head on a pike, or die trying.

The two titans clashed in a battle that lasted for over two hours. Troops on both sides watched in rapt attention as Yuris's grace, skill, and speed were pitted against Dirge's savage power. In the end, there could only be one outcome.

Lord Dirge, Champion of Chaos, took his final breath as Yuris's chainsabre parted his head from his shoulders. It was a crushing victory against the Great Enemy.

For one individual however, triumph was the last thing he could feel.

Alaan and his fellow Fire Dragons had been given a simple job. By the time they arrived, the victory over Dirge was already a foregone conclusion, so they were put to work wiping away the taint that his warband had left behind. If allowed to fester, the markings of Chaos could be just as dangerous as its soldiers.

With their fusion guns blazing, the Dragons had burned away all impurities in their path. Chaos shrines, alters of sacrifice, and tainted structures were all vaporized under the careful scrutiny of the Eldar.

It was in one of these purges that Alaan found himself now, in a position that the centuries-old warrior simply didn't know how to approach.

It had started off ordinarily enough. Raid the structure, wipe out the unholy artifacts within, and kill any Chaos troops they found. Time was of the essence however, with a band of marauding cultists headed for them they had been forced to risk splitting up in order to hasten the operation.

Alaan was tasked with clearing the eastern wing of the structure, a duty not to be taken lightly. In the confines of a building, Eldar speed would be less of a saving grace if cultists ambushed him.

He worked quickly, scouring room after room with swift efficiency. It wasn't until the final dwelling that he came face to face with a Mon-Keigh, and it was far from what he had expected.

The room itself was rather tame by the standards of usual Chaos décor. Sigils lined the walls, and a single altar was erected against the center pillar. Upon the altar however, was something that took his breath away. A human child.

The miniscule creature had been crucified in some sick ritual. Most of her clothing had been torn away, revealing flesh that had countless Chaos markings carved into it. Her eyes had been gouged out at some point, leaving trails of blood down her cheeks in a twisted parody of tears.

This alone would not have been enough to halt Alaan. No, he had seen many atrocities committed by the forces of the Great Enemy, and this singular instance would not have given him pause if it weren't for one fact.

She was still alive.

Whether by the hand of a skilled surgeon, or sheer misfortune, the girl clung to life with whatever fading strength remained in her body. Alaan stood transfixed, as her sightless eye sockets slowly turned in his direction.

Still, he had a duty to do. Steeling himself, he stepped into the room. The child heard his footsteps and began whimpering in fear, perhaps thinking he was one of her tormentors.

This didn't last. Her throat, having not tasted liquid in Isha knows how long, was far too dry to sustain the noise. The child convulsed as her body was ravaged by a fit of coughing, spitting up a small amount of blood from her cracked mouth.

Alaan tried to steady himself, but not even the numbing effect of his war-mask could blind him to the sight. For the briefest instant it was not a human child crucified on the altar, but his own infant sister. He shook his head violently to dispel the image, fervently reminding himself that his kin was safe back on the Craftworld.

Even so, as he gazed on the child he could not bring himself to harm her further. In such a dark moment, he could only offer her what little mercy he had.

Alaan continued forward until he was directly in front of the altar. The child quaked in fear, but he made no move to attack. Instead, he drew a flask from his side. It was somewhat unconventional to transport liquid in such a fashion, but the item had been in his family for generations. It had served him well in the past, and now it would serve another.

Uncapping it, he poured a small amount of water into his cupped hand. The crystal clear substance was a far cry from the brackish waste that most humans considered 'drinkable'.

He slowly lifted his hand to the girl's mouth, pouring a small amount over her parched lips. The child lurched back against the altar as if she had been struck. She whipped her head back and forth in an attempt to dislodge the liquid, no doubt fearing acid, or poison, or whatever other cruel instruments of torture she had been subjected to.

When no burning agony followed its touch, she paused. Hesitantly, she ran her tongue over the substance. Once its nature was revealed she lunged forward, desperate for more. A fresh trickle of blood dripped from her hands as the skin tore due to her sudden movement.

"Shhhhhh. Be at ease child." He cautioned, gently pressing her back. "I will give you more. I only ask that you do not injure yourself in your haste."

She was so consumed by her need for more water that she didn't seem to notice his strange accent, or the clumsy way he fit human words together.

Alaan lifted his hand up to her mouth once more, tipping it slightly to allow her a drink. This time she accepted readily, lapping up every drop as though it had been delivered by the Emperor himself.

For a moment it looked as though she was about to beg for more, but her body had other plans. Deprived of water for so long, it couldn't handle the sudden moisture. With a gargled cry, she emptied the contents of her stomach on the ground.

Stepping back quickly, Alaan barely managed to avoid being covered in bile. To some of the more refined Eldar, such a sickening display might have provoked hostility. To him however, it was nothing less than he expected. Before venturing down the path of the warrior he had spent many years tending to the sick or wounded. The less-than-dignified reactions of the body were something he was well acquainted with.

He moved back to her side, pouring another handful of water. Raising it to her mouth once more, he allowed a small trickle to pass her lips. This time she was able to keep the liquid down.

They repeated this action several times, until she could stomach no more. With one problem solved, Alaan moved on to the next.

Placing a hand on her forehead, he made contact with her mind. The girl gasped and shied away from the alien presence, but she was far too weary to put up a fight.

Slowly, he willed the pain and suffering away from her broken form. He blocked out the torment, and instilled feelings of peace into her consciousness. This action was not something normally done without permission, but he doubted that she would mind.

He stepped back as the last of her agony dispersed. The girl was crying, tears of relief mixing with the dried blood to form a reddish slurry that coursed down her face. She could no longer feel the terrible damage that her body had sustained.

For a moment, Alaan was seized by an utterly mad idea. He could bring her to a seer. Have her injuries fixed. He could bring her back to the Craftworld and raise her himself. After all the time he had spent killing, he could give someone another chance. Even if that someone was human.

The idea drifted away as reality set back in. There was little chance of her surviving her injuries, even less that a seer would deem her worth saving. Putting aside her chances of survival, there was the concern of her markings. She had been touched by Chaos and he had no way of being sure that the taint hadn't been implanted in her body.

There was only one option.

As Alaan braced his fusion gun against his shoulder, the girl turned to him. Her face still held the enraptured expression of one free from some terrible weight. Her mouth opened as she tried to speak past her scream-torn throat.

"Are you… an angel…?"

Her words, scratchy and weak, lanced through his heart with more force than a charging juggernaut. They were spoken with such an innocent awe that he couldn't help a small tear forming at the corner of his eye.

"No."

He fired. In an instant, the room was consumed in blinding light as the molten energy destroyed everything in its path. The flash lasted only a second, but its scars would no doubt plague him for years to come.

There was nothing left. The altar, the markings, and the girl had all vanished in a single blazing moment. Alaan felt the weight of his wraithbone armor very keenly. He had never even asked her name…

It was better this way. She had passed from this world with a reprieve from her trials. He could only pray, for her sake, that the Mon-Keigh 'Emperor' cared for his subjects after death as they claimed.

With heavy heart, he turned to leave.

He still had a duty to fulfill.