markings could not mask the agitation in his eyes. He watched the still grass and blinked against the rising sun. Nearby, leafhoppers chirped, promising a hot, quiet day. There was a still tension in the dawn, a fragile peace that could not last. Muhr could feel the taut energy on the wind.
2
Picking up speed, Gammadin and his warriors cut through the yellowing hills that bordered the capital. They stopped every now and again, trying to catch the scent of a human; a pack of blackened hunters, crashing through dry branches, lifting their heads to taste the air. Belasia lay ahead, a shoulder of rockcrete that surfaced above the flatlands and pastures. In the distance, yet clearly audible, the early morning was accompanied by the waking screams of thousands.
THE WEATHER WAS unusually fine in the Capital State of Belasia. The sun shone lime‐bright on the highways and gridded, austere buildings. Such temperate weather only contrasted with the depressive state of each precinct. The air was hazed with heat and summer dust. There was not a single window within the rectangular ministry blocks and tenements that remained intact. Life still dwelled there, but it was sporadic and rare. The long silence of the day was interrupted only by sudden and intense swells of gunfire.
Belasia had once been a stable world of the Imperium. High density city blocks dotted efficient highways that traversed the wide plains of chemically wilted flora. It was neither a metropolis nor a thriving port of trade, but its governance had been effective. A modest export of coal and non‐ferrous metals to the domestic subsector maintained a reasonable standard of living for its large labouring populace. Like their plain proto‐Imperial architecture, Belasians were an uninspired group. Austerity, order and economic prudence were the prevailing ideology, alongside honest work for the Emperor’s glory.
But this stability had been undone by the discovery of rich mineral seams along the Belasian Shelf and the civil war that followed. As with all civil wars, it became a battle of interests. The wealthy collared the poor and the poor fought amongst themselves.
The military chieftains of the Belasian PDF were quick to declare their interests in the mineral wealth, mobilising Belasia’s ‘Red Collar’ regiments to forcefully secure mining sites.
In reaction, the Imperial administration levied a conscript force and transformed their modest primary production sectors into industries of war. The ensuing conflict wiped out thirty per cent of adult males in Belasia within a decade. When the number of able‐bodied young men dwindled, both factions turned to recruiting boy soldiers to continue their campaigns.
Rebels, looters and activists added to the degeneration of society. The entire infrastructure of Belasia deteriorated as her people descended into violent madness. It was not long before boy soldiers roamed the streets, proclaiming themselves rulers, brandishing lasguns. With the sudden proliferation of arms, no one argued with them.
By virtue of their obscurity within the star system, the Belasians fought a vicious war amongst themselves for seventeen years. Neither PDF militants nor the local government requested aid from Holy Terra, for neither wanted to share the spoils of victory. By 855.M41, entire cities were held by local warlords and their gangs. The Red Collar regiments became mere mobs of heavily armed children fighting for food and ammunition.
That was when the dark eldar chose to strike.
Not much can be remembered of the invasion, for nothing was recorded. Although the xenos were small in number, the population of Belasia possessed no means to repel them.
The Red Collars and child rebels, soft from plundering unarmed civilians, fled at the advance of the dark eldar. In the days following the xenos landings, the remaining military vox‐channels spread tales of alien raiders and mass murders. People hid in their public shelters or fled from the cities.
3
In the years that followed, the dark eldar cultivated Belasia as a farmer tends an orchard. They harvested slaves from the pockets of life, never taking more than the population could replenish. They indulged in orgies of bloodletting to keep the humans fragmented and fearful, but never pushed a region into extinction. These slaves were sold on to other dark eldar kabals, to Chaos cults in neighbouring subsectors and even to Chaos Space Marine warbands such as the Blood Gorgons.
IT WAS THE first meal Jonah had eaten in three days. That in itself was not uncommon on Belasia. Not many dared to forage wild cabbage in the city outskirts when pressured constantly by the fear of being hunted.
But finally Jonah had succumbed to hunger,