Sixty-six kiloters. To a baseline mortal, that was a Herculean feat of endurance. To an Astartes, it was roughly an hour of light jogging.
Enkidu didn't overthink it. He focused on steadying his breathing, slipping into a state of active rest, and rose exactly five minutes later.
In a proper Chapter, training weights would be precision-engineered blocks of dense alloy. Here, in a Chaos warband, they used whatever was lying around. Slaves hauled in crates of jagged scrap tal: decommissioned turret housings and sliced-up plates from salvaged Chira transports.
It was the quintessential Chaos aesthetic: if it's broken, use it as a blunt instrunt.
What followed was a mind-numbing slog of endurance training. As they ran with the scrap strapped to their backs, the two veteran marines periodically released corrupted servo-skulls. These drones zipped through the air, firing high-velocity monomolecular blades at the recruits.
Initially, Enkidu and the others scrambled to dodge. Eventually, they stopped wasting the energy. They learned to sense the displacent of air, shifting only a few centiters at the last possible mont to let the blades whistle harmlessly past their skin.
The endurance run was followed by strength conditioning and weapons forms—a relentless cycle of violence designed to drain every drop of stamina from their new bodies.
By the ti they returned to their dusty, mold-choked dormitory, the cramped room felt like a palace.
"Ugh..." Pius collapsed onto his bunk, his limbs splayed out like a discarded marionette. "Throne... Throne preserve us. I thought those bastards were going to work us to death. I never... I never thought being an Angel would be this exhausting."
"Be glad you're alive to feel tired," Soler grunted, inspecting a massive bruise on his thigh. "And at least we still have rations."
The recruits chatted in low, weary tones. Enkidu sat on the edge of his bed, kneading his aching shoulders. He listened to the complaints of his "brothers," his mind already calculating how to survive the days ahead.
Suddenly, a sharp, cloying scent of rot hit his nose. It grew stronger by the second.
Enkidu frowned. He traced the sll to the corner, where Bellator was huddled in a ball, his body tensed as if he were fighting back a scream.
"Bellator?"
The recruit flinched but didn't turn around. He muttered sothing about being tired and needing to sleep.
The sll of sweet decay was now overpowering.
Enkidu didn't waste ti with words. He reached out and yanked the sheet back.
"Don't—"
Beneath the fabric lay a jagged, deep laceration. Enkidu couldn't tell if it was from a beast's pincer or a training blade, but like Sebastian's previous wound, it wasn't closing. It was weeping an oily, dark fluid, and the edges of the flesh were turning a bruised, necrotic purple.
"When did this happen?"
Truen leaned in, his expression darkening as he saw the wound.
"Right at the end... one of the beasts got a nip in," Bellator wheezed, his face as pale as parchnt and dripping with cold sweat. "I thought it was nothing, but it won't stop bleeding. And... and it burns. It feels like thousands of needles are stitching my insides."
Enkidu's heart sank.
Warp-taint. It was everywhere in this place—insidious, infectious, and impossible to guard against completely.
"Hold still."
He turned to his locker and pulled out a tin box. The salve Paul had provided had worked for Sebastian and Vitaly; it had to work now.
"Grin and bear it," Enkidu said, handing the tin to Bellator. "It'll sting at first, then it'll start to heal."
Bellator nodded, giving him a look of desperate gratitude.
One minute passed. Two.
The grease was simply washed away by a fresh surge of pinkish, tainted blood. The wound didn't close. Instead, the chemical irritation of the salve made Bellator hiss in renewed agony.
It failed?
Enkidu stared at the ss. That shouldn't be possible. It was the sa Slaaneshi toxin as before. Unless the salve hadn't been the thing that worked the first ti.
He activated his vox-link and summoned a serf. Paul arrived within minutes, looking frantic.
"Paul," Enkidu said, his voice cold and clinical as he applied pressure to the artery above Bellator's wound. "The dicine you gave last ti. What was in it? How does it work?"
Paul stole a glance at the bleeding Astartes and began to tremble.
"My Lord... that dicine... we make it ourselves in the dark. It's... it's made of whatever we can find. Moss from the lower decks, ground-up herbs, sotis... sotis just industrial waste from the vats."
Paul's voice trailed off into a whisper.
"It's not real dicine, my Lord. It just stops the swelling. It's for minor scrapes..."
Enkidu understood. It was under-hive folk dicine—little more than a placebo for a transhuman body.
He sent Paul to fetch a fresh tin and requested "proper" dical supplies from the ship's dical bay. Within ten minutes, Paul returned with both.
Enkidu decided to run an experint. He cleaned the wound and applied the high-grade dical gel from the Apothecarion. He watched closely.
The good news: The color of the wound stabilized slightly.
The bad news: It was a marginal improvent. The Warp-taint was still eating through the flesh.
Enkidu fell silent. He wiped away the gel and placed his own hand directly over the injury.
A faint, almost invisible white luminescence flickered at his fingertips. It flowed into the wound like water, washing away the purple stain of the Immaterium and jump-starting the Astartes' natural regenerative processes.
"Huh?"
Bellator's eyes went wide. He felt a cool, soothing sensation penetrate deep into the bone—a sharp contrast to the burning toxins. The pain vanished almost instantly.
Enkidu stared at the rapidly closing flesh. His expression was a mask of confusion and growing dread.
The other recruits looked at the wound, then at Enkidu. Simultaneously, they made the sign of the Aquila.
"His Majesty has blessed you!" Sebastian whispered, his eyes shining with a fanatical light. "He has given you His power!"
"Listen to ," Enkidu said, his voice stern and sharp. "If you ever go out into the world with a brain that small, you'll be tricked into a shallow grave. This isn't a 'blessing' from the Emperor."
He looked at his hand, then back at his brothers.
"This is psychic power. I am a Psyker."
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