"Is that high enough?"
"Hehhe... Higher, Typhon!"
"Here we go, take off!"
The laughter of children rang like silver bells, leaping across the waves of golden wheat.
Typhon carried Debbie on his shoulders, running wildly along the ridge between the fields. The wind whipped past them, turning her flax-colored hair into a fluttering banner.
"So childish," Mortarion murmured.
He stood quietly on the earthen path as the wheat swayed in golden tides. It was harvest season again, golden stalks bent under their own weight, casting fragmented shadows at his feet. Hunched villagers toiled in the distance, swinging their sickles in rhythm as they cut through the wheat.
Caelan had given them a day off. He wanted to join them, just as his brothers had done before him.
If he was to lead these people, he couldn't remain aloof, clean, and untouchable. He had to wade into the same muddy fields, shoulder to shoulder with them.
But nothing here was made for him.
He had grown, again. The sickles that fit a peasant's hand were now little more than toys to him.
Mortarion's gaze swept across the fields and settled on a rusted, broken harvesting machine.
During the Dark Age of Technology, such machines once filled Barbarus, gleaming metal blades flashing cold light under the sun as they tirelessly tilled and harvested the land.
But at some point, the people of Barbarus forgot how to use them. They lost the knowledge to maintain or repair these intricate devices, leaving them to rust and sink into the mire, dragged by beasts too weak to bear their weight.
Mortarion stepped toward the dead machine, prying open its warped metal casing with a shriek of grinding steel.
Inside was a labyrinth of gears and shafts, long silent yet frozen in a final posture, as if whispering of the glory days gone by.
He reached deep into the machine, pulling apart mechanisms no one alive could understand, until he finally drew forth a great scythe, its blade glinting with a cold, silvery light.
No one knew what it was made of, but even after millennia, it bore almost no rust.
To a mortal, it would have been unbearably heavy, enough to snap a spine. But Mortarion merely tested its weight, slicing the air with several deadly arcs.
Perfectly balanced.
Under the villagers' stunned and fearful gazes, he stepped into the wheat fields. Each swing of his scythe brought down entire swathes of grain, the crisp sound of cutting echoing like rain.
His towering figure stood out like a colossus among the golden tides.
He did not need to stoop like the farmers; that massive scythe suited his stature flawlessly.
He was a born reaper. Each motion flowed with a natural rhythm, as though the act of harvest was woven into his very being.
The villagers were ignorant, yes, but not fools.
Though fear still lingered in their eyes, something else began to stir, a faint, wordless sense of kinship.
Lords did not bend their backs in muddy fields. Lords did not labor under the same sun.
Mortarion understood their fear, and how to dispel it.
Over the past months, he had listened to Caelan's patient teachings, and he had listened in silence to the murmurs of the people.
He understood why they feared, because for so long, they had been crushed beneath tyrants.
Yet still, some spark in them refused to die.
He called that spark tenacity, the greatest of all virtues.
Even they did not see it in themselves: in their quiet obedience, their daily endurance, their endless survival beneath despair, was a seed of rebellion waiting to sprout.
But they were scattered grains of sand, each one full of anger, yet unable to unite.
Fear's chains weighed heavier than any iron, and the poisonous fog of Barbarus smothered every road ahead.
No torches to light the way. No horns to summon courage. Only numbness, learned as a substitute for breath in a world that suffocated them.
They lacked a leader. They lacked hope.
So Mortarion studied, studied how to ignite the flame of hope within them.
Caelan's words echoed in his heart:
"A leader's awakening must come before the people's. Only when you see the light of hope yourself can you pass it to those trapped in darkness."
Thus, he must become even more tenacious.
If he faltered on this thorny path, who would lead them?
He labored beside them, and in that labor, he forged his conviction, until his tenacity could burn bright enough to pierce the fog.
Someday, even silence would thunder.
And one day, perhaps, they would give him everything, and he would still remain among them.
At dusk, a horn echoed across the golden fields. Its long call was both signal and warning: work's end, and the reminder to return before nightfall.
"Mortarion! Time to go!" Typhon waved, his voice barely carrying over the rustling grain.
Mortarion turned. Typhon and the others were bundling sheaves of wheat, stacking them onto a cart in neat piles.
Beyond the field, the poisonous mist was already gathering.
Every night on Barbarus was perilous, they had to be home before the sun was gone.
But then came the crash.
A deafening boom split the twilight.
The cart overturned. Children screamed. Typhon's voice tore through the smoke and dust,
"Mortarion! Help me!"
The villagers froze, then fled. They saw the swirling mist and knew what followed it. Some held back crying children who tried to run back for their friends.
Mortarion gripped his scythe and charged toward the wreck. It was Typhon's cart.
The wheel had snapped, fresh splinters jutted like an open wound.
Debbie was pinned beneath the overturned frame, blood gushing from a wound on her forehead, streaking down her pale face like a scarlet river.
The villagers had overloaded the cart, greedy for more harvest, deaf to its groaning protests.
Now the bounty had become an instrument of death.
The mud moaned underfoot, sucking deeper with each movement as the broken frame crushed the life out of her small body.
"Move," Mortarion said.
He buried his scythe into the mud, crouched, and gripped the axle. With a guttural roar, he lifted the cart clean off the ground.
The mud screamed as it tore free, thick strings of muck stretching between cart and earth.
Typhon's hands shook as he cradled Debbie's limp body. She was as light as a leaf, her blood soaking through his clothes.
He clenched his teeth and ran for the village. The teacher could save her.
It was his fault. If he hadn't shown off, she'd be safe.
"Leave," Mortarion ordered.
He wrenched his scythe free, its blade flashing cold light in warning to the few villagers who still lingered.
"You don't understand! That wheat is our life!" one shouted.
Mortarion looked down at him, voice flat. "This isn't a request. It's an order. Leave, they're coming."
The villagers faltered before his towering frame and the deadly gleam of his weapon. Fear took hold; they stumbled back, glancing at one another in silent terror.
But who were "they"?
"Too late," Mortarion said.
A black shadow rose from the wheat like a hunting bird. Its cloak blended with the dusk, its bronze dagger hissing toward his throat.
Steel met bronze with a shower of sparks.
The assassin recoiled, but Mortarion's wrist twisted. His scythe spun like a living thing, slicing a flawless arc through the air.
The assassin's world tilted. His body fell in two halves, his innards spilling into the mud.
Before the villagers even processed what had happened, the fight was already over.
The corpse lay still at the edge of the field, its stench soaking into the soil.
Then someone screamed, and the crowd broke. Terror spread like plague as they fled toward the village, leaving behind crushed hats and trampled footprints.
Mortarion knelt over the corpse's upper half.
"Disarum… who gave you courage? Where is Nacrae?"
Disarum, Nacrae's loyal servant, a petty overlord, a schemer too ambitious for his own good.
Mortarion knew his type well. Nacrae himself would never face him directly; he'd send worms like this to test the waters.
"The fool thinks he can impress his master by attacking me," Mortarion muttered.
Disarum's severed body still twitched in the mud, spine jutting white and raw, entrails writhing like cut snakes.
Mortarion watched calmly, like studying an insect's death throes.
The mist thickened. Poison filled the air.
He breathed deeply. The venom burned, but it was a familiar burn.
Then, from memory, a voice:
"Little Mort, are you going to turn into one of those freaks who carry poison tanks just to huff them all day?"
Mortarion froze. His grip tightened. "You… don't like it?"
"If you must, fine, just not in public. Don't let your brothers see."
Caelan rarely voiced his dislikes, but even he found Mortarion's habits strange.
"It makes me stronger," Mortarion muttered.
"You're already strong enough, little Mort," Caelan said softly. "All those years alone, tortured by tyrants, and still you never let the pain twist your soul. If that's not tenacity, then what is?"
Warmth welled in Mortarion's chest.
"Then… I'll stop," he said quietly.
His father had called him the most tenacious, that was all the recognition he'd ever wanted.
"Father," Mortarion asked, "what about Debbie?"
"She'll live," Caelan answered. "Even without my help. Barbarans are tougher than they look."
Mortarion nodded. "Typhon's changed. He truly cares for her."
"And who do you think taught him that?" Caelan smirked.
He was rarely boastful, but in the art of shaping minds, few could rival him.
"The human heart," he often said, "is the easiest fortress to breach. Pride is its gate, approval its guard, and praise the Trojan horse."
Typhon was proof of that. So was Mortarion.
Mortarion smiled faintly. "Father… let's go."
"Back to the village?"
"No," he said firmly. "We leave this place. I've wasted too much time chasing vengeance. Nacrae will die, but not today. I'm a Primarch. I have a mission. I must save the people of Barbarus."
"Little Mort," Caelan's voice softened to a whisper, "you don't need to prove anything to anyone. Just be yourself."
Mortarion bowed his head. "Yes, Father. I promise."
They walked the narrow ridge back toward the lights of the village.
For so long, Mortarion had stayed near the Heller Pass because it was closest to the Overlord's fortress, close enough to strike when the day came.
But he had stayed for another reason, because once, that monster had called himself his foster father.
That name… it was an insult to Caelan.
No one else deserved it. Not even the Emperor himself.
He had never told Caelan this, but that shame had burned within him for years, a thorn lodged deep in his pride.
Now, with Caelan's quiet approval, the thorn finally dissolved.
The humiliation had never been real, it was a prison he had built for himself.
Revenge would come, yes, but only after his people were free.
He was a Primarch, a protector of mankind.
If he abandoned his duty for hatred, he'd be no better than his corrupted brothers.
His gaze cut through the mist to the mountain's shadowed summit, where the Overlord's palace loomed faintly.
"One day," he whispered, "I'll come for you."
No matter what, it would end in blood.
"We're leaving," Mortarion said.
In the torch-lit square, he stood tall as a mountain. The villagers stared up at him, their faces flickering in the firelight.
"You have a choice," he declared. "Stay here, bow to the tyrants, and live like wheat awaiting the next harvest, or come with me. Unite with others. Ignite the fire of revolution."
Whispers rippled through the crowd. Fear warred with uncertainty.
Caelan and Mortarion had kept their promise, they had defended Heller Pass. The Overlord's forces hadn't returned in months.
Even this attack had harmed no one.
Mortarion alone had reaped the enemy like wheat.
"Master," one man said timidly, "what about our fields?"
The others lowered their heads.
Yes, what about the fields?
Without them, how would they live?
But staying meant endless submission, generation after generation, harvested like crops.
They had survived that way for centuries. Could they ever live differently?
Mortarion would not answer for them.
He needed warriors, souls of courage, not slaves of fear.
"You have until dawn," his voice rang out. "Then we march."
They all knew what it meant: once he left, Nacrae's vengeance would come.
Mortarion could drag them away by force, but he wouldn't.
For only those who chose to rise could ever become the spark of freedom.