It had been the moment of Tza’tchaka’s ultimate triumph when the daemon would finally breach the veil separating the warp from reality. He had planned for this – for when Chaos would assault the Imperial world of Tykhon. And now that time had finally come – the world was on the edge of being dragged into the warp. It would be the first and possibly last chance for Tza’tchaka to claim a mortal shell for himself.
With the barrier between dimensions so thin, Tza’tchaka had slipped through easily, finding purchase in the mind of a latent psyker – one of the guardsmen defending Tykhon. The human had been easy prey; Tza’tchaka had devoured the man’s soul without resistance.
But what Tza’tchaka had not expected was to discover an intruder — another daemon already possessing the body he had coveted. In the gaping absence of the psyker’s mind, he had felt them like a watery slime, slick behind his newfound eye, and a pustulent taste on his tongue. It held the taint of any Tzeentchian daemon’s greatest enemy: Grandfather Nurgle.
Around Tza’tchaka, the battle still raged: guardsmen pressed close, firing wildly into oncoming daemons clambering over sandbags, as the Imperial sergeant shouted orders. The warp ripped around them, above the panicked screams of the dying. Tza’tchaka knew he had been lucky to possess the psyker, and still carried his weapon – a lasgun, held loose in fingers that had forgotten how to fire it.
The other daemon shifted within their shared body, bumbling at the edges of their joined awareness, like thick fingers crawling on skin, leaving cysts and bloated flesh in their wake. Tza’tchaka recoiled.
‘This body is mine!’ he gritted through rotting teeth, throwing the weight of his psychic might behind his words, willing to expel his rival.
The Nurglesque daemon’s reply was wet and amused, echoing in the space where their consciousness touched. ‘My name is Blagalor, childling of the Changer,’ he said, ‘and it is you who has intruded…’
Pustules burst, hidden under their flak armour, pushing Tza’tchaka out. He fought back with his own wave of mutations, growing pinions and rippling flesh, staking his claim. Their joint body convulsed as they fought, and Tza’tchaka’s fingers twitched, setting off the lasgun suddenly. The blast hit an ambitious nurgling which had climbed over the sandbag barricade, dissolving it into nothing.
At Blagalor’s gurgle of disappointment, an uncontrollable giggle escaped the Tzeentchian daemon. ‘You pox-ridden maggot!’ he screeched, lurching forward on unsteady feet he couldn’t control.
A hand grabbed his shoulder, and a nearby guardswoman held him steady. ‘Don’t give up, Darien!’ she said. ‘Have hope and faith in the God-Emperor – they haven’t taken us yet!’
Tza’tchaka almost cackled again.
The Imperial sergeant cried, ‘Keep your hearts pure and your faith unrelenting – the Archenemy will worm beneath your skin and clutch at your fear! Trust in your fellow man, and do not despair!’ He raised his laspistol high as the warp cracked around him, as though the sky would break in.
‘Keep firing!’ he shouted. ‘For the Emperor!’
Blagalor babbled in their joint nerves, sodden and unintelligible, and Tza’tchaka’s control over his fingers left again. More daemons were breaching the barricades, but the sergeant’s proclamation had rallied the Imperial forces, and they were fighting back in earnest now. Multiple lasgun shots rang past Tza’tchaka, and he realised he could lose his human frame quickly if the battle went awry.
The two daemons could not coexist and remain unchanged; one would triumph over the other eventually, or both would transform into something new. No – the thought was repulsive. Tza’tchaka needed to ensure the success of the daemonic assault on Tykhon, keep his body intact, and expel Blagalor.
But how?
Tza’tchaka could feel the threads of hope that tied the guardsmen together, wound into a central point: the Imperial sergeant. Kill him, and their resistance would unravel. If he could raise his lasgun enough to line up a shot, Tza’tchaka could single-handedly win this section of the incursion and save his own skin.
The next step – banishing Blagalor – could come later. The next part of his plans always did. First, he needed control of his fingers, so Tza’tchaka tried another tactic.
‘The longer this battle goes on, the greater chance we both lose,’ he said, pushing his intent into the space that Blagalor held. ‘Help me take out their leader – or would you rather stagnate here?’
The guardswoman gave Tza’tchaka an alarmed look.
‘An interesting plan…’ Blagalor replied. ‘I agree.’
The other daemon’s opposition withdrew, and their awareness joined. For one, blessed, unholy moment, Tza’tchaka knew what it would be like to exist in a mortal shell without restraint, without the unwelcome presence of another. He raised his lasgun at the sergeant, his mouth spreading into a too-wide grin.
‘Darien – what are you doing?’
He didn’t deign her with an answer and fired. His las-bolt found its mark – the sergeant collapsed, the blast taking off half his face.
The chaos was immediate. Shouts of panic rang out as the firing line devolved, abandoning hope, with most guardsmen fleeing. Daemons of all kinds poured over the barricades, slaughtering those who remained, and Tza’tchaka felt the world lurch closer to the warp.
The guardswoman beside him was rooted to the spot, her hand still on his shoulder. He turned to face her and relished the dawning horror in her expression – the too-late realisation as Blagalor’s virulent mutation spread to her – then the birth of despair.
One of the few remaining guardsmen yelled, ‘We need to keep them out!’
Tza’tchaka cackled in response as his body warped, talons growing from the bones of his fingers. His lasgun dropped, clattering to the ground. He wondered if he and Blagalor had already changed in their brief acquaintance; he’d roused Blagalor from his stupor, and perhaps the Grandfather’s pestilence was just another kind of change.
‘Keep them out!’ the voice cried again.
Tza’tchaka grinned again and said, ‘It’s too late for that now.’
‘We’re already here…’
