The Initiation

The sons of Dul'hasa had always loved the shadows, Idir reflected. Secrecy came naturally to them, for the deserts of their home were vast, lonely places, forcing one to spend enormous amounts of time with only yourself for company. This, in turn, led to an introverted nature that was ill suited to a place within the enormous, sprawling, Imperial bureaucracy where everything needed to be noted down, verified, and approved before action was taken. Some legions coped with such constraints, Idir could only guess how. For some he understood why, those such as the Godslayers whose operations required extensive supply lines to ensure that supplies could keep flowing in no matter what, but not how. Those who actively immersed themselves in it, the Crimson Lions and Halcyon Wardens chiefly, he could not even begin to fathom why. Were they insane? Did they not see or feel the lead weights they had attached to their feet? How could they not? Idir shook his head in bemusement as he always did when he turned his mind to the matter. He simply couldn’t understand it, no matter how hard he tried.

Behind him, Idir heard a sound, like fingernails or claws scratching on metal. Whirling around, he had his scimitar drawn and in a low guard, his eyes looking out for the source of the noise from underneath his cloak’s cowl, scanning back along the adamantium corridor he had come down. He saw nothing. Releasing the breath he had been holding, he turned back around, sheathing his scimitar and wrapping the black cloak back around his armour. Secrecy he thought again and grinned. The legion was soaked through with it, incapable of taking anything at face value as other legions did.

Like all legions it was a brotherhood. However, the sons of Dhul’hasa did not open up easily, not even to each other. They tended to be guarded, silent individuals, contained within themselves and secretive to a fault and so tended to appear as distant as the Warriors of Peace when compared with the louder brotherhoods of the Black Stars and Tempest Reavers. However, unlike the Warriors of Peace, this distance was not a mirage. In the one hundred and six years he had been a legionary, Idir had only ever known four brothers whom he had counted as genuine friends and of them Idir had only trusted one enough to reveal a fraction of the secrets he carried with him. When Idir died, those secrets would die with him.

Looking around at his surroundings, illuminated only by the dim light of the glow globe he carried, Idir allowed himself a small smile at his surroundings. This was not the usual place a legionary in the upper echelons of his legion’s command structure would find himself. Deep in the bowels of the *Lurker of the Dust*, it was a corridor of rusting metal and water that reached up to Idir’s ankles, with Idir’s sense constantly kept alert by the scratching of rats running along the pipes. Quite how the rats and this much water got on there, Idir did not know nor did he wish to. He preferred the secrecy of it. Secrecy allowed the imagination to roam free, whereas truth bound it down to a world of cold, hard facts reducing the world to nothing but a dull run of numbers and data with little room for thought or spirit. Such freedoms comforted Idir even as the Imperial Truth shrank his world to a smaller and smaller screen of numbers.

Walking along the corridor, Idir eventually came to a door. It looked unsuspicious at first glance. Any unaugmented human or son of another legion would walk past it without giving it a second glance. But a son of the XIVth knew to look closer. Two pipes, one either side of the door, ended in sculpted serpent’s heads as they went into the wall. Recognizing the door for what it was, Idir approached it and withdrew a bottle from his belt, pouring a small number of the granules contained into his hand within. *Mila*. A wonderful substance from Dhul’hasa, one which the legion’s techmarines had perfected the art of imbuing with different smells, undetectable to normal human sense but obvious as sunlight off water to a legionary.

Sure enough, within moments, the door had been opened and Idir stepped inside, nodding his thanks to the figure who had opened it. The chamber he now found himself inside was dark, as the corridor outside had been. However, where the corridor had been dark due to negligence, this chamber was dark by purpose, illuminated only by a few sticks of burning incense in the corners of the chamber. Before Idir, six figures knelt on both knees upon simple rugs after the fashion of the nomads of Dul’hasa. Like Idir, these seven figures were hidden by their black cloaks, hiding all but their lower faces although the bulk of their armour was still evident through the cloth. While he couldn’t see their faces, Idir didn’t need to to recognize the warriors he stood before. It was impossible for any legionary of the Fourteenth not to recognize them.

As was customary, Idir knelt in front of them and inclined his head in respect, forming the aquila across his chest as he did so, lowering his hood. This was a ritual action more than anything else, ritually granting the warriors in front of him power over him by revealing his own identity as their stayed, theoretically, concealed.

“You are Idir Al’Wahiwatis?” asked one of the figures, his voice carrying a weight of wisdom and history that Idir had only ever heard in one legionary of the Fourteenth: Jon Lawrenz, the former legion master. Many Dhul’hasan legionaries had fleeting, ethereal voices, as if their voices were trying to drift off to some other place, as free as the souls of the legionary from which they came. Even the voice of the primarch was a shadowy whisper. By contrast, the legion master’s voice was strong, striding, wise: the voice of a leader.

“I am” Idir answered. *Idir of the Ninety first*. The ninety first. Wahiwatis in Dhul’hasan. His company. His tribe. Even the mention of it made Idir’s heart fill with pride, a rare emotion for a legionary of the Fourteenth. As it did so, Idir flicked his eyes left and right looking for the figure whose presence he could feel but not see. It was like seeing a shadow behind you but not being able to see the source of the shadow, at once irritating and unnerving.

“You were the chosen successor of Salihmali Nafasnari Al’Shaba ben Alrrabeshr” Lawrenz continued. Upon hearing this, Idir’s breath caught in his throat. This was why the legion had gathered on the blindside of Lira’s third moon. He had been chosen to succeed Salihmali, fallen to the eldar on Roymar, as mali, or chieftain, of the Shabahashd. The northern horde. The highest rank a legionary of the Fourteenth could hope to gain. “Would you honour your chieftain’s last wish?” asked Lawrenz finally.

“I would” whispered Idir.

“Who here will vouch that this legionary will do honour to Salihmali’s legacy?” asked Lawrenz to the figures seated around him.

“I will” rumbled a figure on the far left “This is my bond” he stated bluntly, placing a curved scimitar in the middle of the semi-circle. Looking at it, Idir recognized it as the blade of Zulfiq Fal’uak Al’Shamshir ben Alrrabeshr, commander of the Fourteenth’s shamshir elite.

“As will I” said another, his voice barely higher than a whisper “This is my bond” he stated, his voice almost drifting away as if swept away on a non-existent wind as he finished his sentence, placing a bejewelled dagger next to Al’Shamshir’s scimitar. It was small by comparison and its handle covered with jewels yet appearances could be deceptive. Idir had seen the weapon used once and that had been more than enough to convince him of the effectiveness of the poison in which the blade was covered. It was the dagger of Tariqmali Afeahamraa Al’Algha ben Alrrabeshr, mali of the western horde.

“Are there any who would oppose his right to rule and stake their objection in a trial by combat here and now?” asked Lawrenz, a question which was answered with silence and shaking heads.

“Very well then” spoke a voice from the shadows, a whisper that carried all the danger of a poisoned goblet “Idirmali, as is custom, you must take up a regal name. What shall it be?”

Idir paused. His regal name. All of the mali had one, a name which they had taken up upon being bestowed their privileged rank. Tariqmali had taken the name of the serpent whose poison he used to envenom his blades, the red viper. The legion’s chief librarian, Yusuf Aistiralsm Al’Sahir ben Alrrabeshr, had taken on the name Aistiralsm, poison breather, in commemoration of his decades of service in the destroyer cadre. Then, after several moments it came to him.

“Sharri’larramadi”. *He whose blade turns others to ashes*.

Emerging into the light for the first time, Azus Bahmat allowed himself a small smile. It was not a pleasant thing as some primarch’s smiles were. It was an assassin’s smile, the last smile you would see before a poisoned dagger was plunged into your ribs. He then said “So be it. Let the name of Idir Al’Wahiwatis be carried away on the wind and buried beneath the sand and may the name of Idirmali Sharri’larramadi ben Alrrabeshr live forever on the winds of the world and tongues of men”.