They will wake the one who sleeps

They will wake the one who sleeps

It just didn't make any sense. Inquisitor Huron sighed heavily as he began reading through his log for the fifth time in the last hour. The dim light in the stark and spartan cabin of the Imperial cruiser Black Prince wasn't helping much either. Besides, he should really be investigating the Claws of Lorek and their ambitions, not this.

Huron had been travelling with Admiral Dreyer's fleet for over a month, heading into the Perseus Deeps and joining the crusade against chaos instigated by General Veers. The Inquisitor lord had an interest in crushing the heretics, and knew very well the consequences that would follow were the forces of chaos to unite under one banner. It was not however chaos which brought him into the dark places of the galaxy, far from the light of Imperial civilisation. No. It was much worse.

First, there was the prophecy. Written in an old language few loremasters of the 41st millenium had any knowledge of, Huron had managed to get it translated. Not that well apparently, as the grammar made for poor reading:

When chaos reigns in the Deeps,
they will wake the one who sleeps.
His metal ghosts will walk abroad,
and put his cattle to the sword.
They will sate his greatest need,
upon all races will they feed!

So far Huron had managed to piece together much of the meaning with reference to old and somewhat heretical scripts, as well as some of xenos origin. What he did know was that the Perseus Deeps were old. Millennia ago the density wave which formed the spiral arms of the galaxy had passed through this area of space, invigorating star formation and creating the ideal conditions for the growth of life and civilisation. Gone were those days. The larger, brighter stars had long since flickered and died or obliterated themselves in dramatic supernovae. All that remained were the long lived red dwarf stars and an all pervasive cloud of dust and gas. Out here days were dim and nights black as obsidian, distant younger stars glittering in the night sky of long dead worlds testament to their former glory. The spiral had moved on, and the civilisations which had once populated the Perseus Deeps were nought but ash...

Or so the Imperial texts explained. Now mankind laid claim to the stars and those dead worlds between the spiral arms were of no consequence. Poor in resources and of little strategic value, worlds in the Deeps were now home to bandits, raiders and the heretical outcasts of the Imperium. Orks of course were an ever present danger and other races also made their home here, but so long as the Imperium stood watch, there was no need to venture far into the Deeps, there was no threat.

If the forces of chaos had not begun to muster their armies and fleets here, Inquisitor Huron would not have been interested when the small world of Gamador and its meagre colonial population had stopped all communication. Local folk tales of an enslaving army of metal warriors would have gone unheeded. But Huron was here, and although no member of the Ordo Xenos, he had heard these stories before.

Necrons. That could be the only explanation. That much made sense. When the ancient race of the Necrontyr was at its height, they must have had a presence in the Deeps at a time when its stars were young and bright. Perhaps some remnant of that once great civilisation lived on. Perhaps they were just old folk tales. Huron could have let it go, he had far more pressing matters, but then the news from Malius arrived.

Huron had sent a spy ship, a cloaked vessel utilising arcane technology that only an Inquisitor lord knew how to obtain, to monitor the movements of the Claws of Lorek, the thrice damned traitors who were trying to unite chaos where the Imperium's hold was weak. His vessel had tracked the traitors to Malius but then lost contact. Something had happened. At great risk a small team ventured to the surface but found nothing except the signs of battle. Until the third day. The Adeptus Mechanicus agent Huron had sent identified a strange repeating digital signal from deep under the planet's crust, and with each passing day the signal increased in intensity. Placing an automated relay on the surface, the team had left.

Worrying signs. Huron rubbed his tired eyes and once again read his notes and was stumped by the prophecy. The one who sleeps. The rest of the prophecy was, once translated, painfully unsubtle, and it was coming to pass. The traitorous and foolish heretics had awoken the Necrons on Malius and it appeared Gamador had also awoken. Huron's scouting force to that world had barely escaped and the Inquisitor had lost a whole company of the Imperial Guard regiment he had requisitioned for the Veer's crusade, something that irritated him even more.

The one who sleeps. Who or what could that mean?

Knocking interrupted Huron's concentration. By the second knock he realised there was someone at the door.

"Come", Huron said, looking up as the pallid face of his scribe, Tyhrmenius poked round the cabin entrance.

"Lord, there is more news."

Tyhrmenius was clearly agitated, and Huron beckoned him in.

"Tell me", Huron's voice stern but calm.

Tyhrmenius rushed in, moving to the room's lectern which housed the holographic display. After several seconds of urgent fiddling the holograph lit up, presenting both men with a three dimensional schematic of the Perseus Deeps. Five systems were flashing.

"See my lord?" said the scribe, looking anxiously at Huron.

Huron did see. Malius and Gamador were there, both flashing icons, but now also three more systems, Cathasaea, Enaloth and Aganthus. A data readout picked out in light scrolled past each one. The same pulsing signal first recorded at Malius. A countdown. A countdown to what?

They will wake the one who sleeps

A feeling of dread was settling in Huron's consciousness.

"Get me Lord General Roover, Admirals Magnus, Jellicoe, Dreyer and General Veers." He said quietly.

Tyhrmenius looked shocked.

"All of them?!"

"Yes dammit, all of them!"