I had begun to dream, of times long forgotten, of a child, an outcast who had the power of the psyker.

I dreamt of the Noblewoman, being attacked by the thieves in the midspire of hive city 1 on Thracian Primaris and the moment this 6 year old boy had killed them without making any physical contact whatsoever, I saw the fear grow in the woman's eyes when she realised not just who, but what had saved her, instead of thanking her saviour she screamed and ran.

I dreamt of the witch hunts, the baying of the crowds as they descended on him through level after level of the hive, trying to corner him like a beast, I could hear them... "Burn him! Kill Him! Suffer not the mutant to live!" Then the gunfire, only it wasn't directed at him. "Disperse! Disperse now in the name of the Emperor! This boy will go into the custody of the Adeptus Arbites! We shall determine if he is a psyker or not!"
The arbites officer looked at the boy, his gaze softening when he realised just how young he was.
"Come, you are safe now, I wont hurt you. What is your name?"
The boys grimy, dirty face and shockingly blue eyes looked back at him, "I'm G-Gabriel"
3 weeks later the black ships came and took the boy away.
The boy had been me.

My dream changed, it was some years later, I was roughly 6 feet tall corded with muscle, I was no longer a boy, nor was I yet a man. I was in a training hall on Mimas, sweating and panting heavily, with battered and bruised bodies of 10 other males writhing and groaning on the floor all around me. I was holding a wooden staff in my hands.

There was a clapping coming from behind me and a voice that sounded like two pieces of granite rubbing together... "Good, very good! You are progressing well young Angelos I doubt that it'll be long before you are inducted into the Grey Knights. Your body is strong as is your mind..."

My dream lurched forwards in time once more. Now I was on Galthalamor, standing just over 8 feet tall now clad in the gunmetal grey artificer armour of a Grey Knight, I was now a giant, a warrior without peer and this would be the battleground where I would prove myself and earn my place as Justicar of the Grey Knights. To the left and right of me were more giants clad in the same way. All were saying their final blessings to their wargear. 20 squads... 50 marines in all and 2 Titans of the Legio Invicta. Across the plain, coming along the valley about 20 miles distant, were the minions of Chaos. Heretics... corrupted humans who had given their souls to Chaos, Daemons and the Traitor Legions, the Chaos Space Marines.

The war on Galthalamor had been raging for nearly 3 months, the PDF (Planetary Defense Forces) had been taking everything that the Heretics could throw at them. One by one the Hive Cities had fallen until only one remained and the Adeptus Astartes could arrive to reinforce the beleagered troops... and then the Traitor Legions finally made planetfall, bringing with them the worst of the daemon spawn that now confronted us.

Our task was a simple one... hold the line long enough for what remained of the Imperial forces, civilian and military alike, to evacuate the planet.

I dreamt of the deluge of fire from the Titans that decimated the ranks of the enemy as they came with enough firepower to level entire cities, felling scores with each burst but for every enemy that fell it wasn't enough, they came on like a tide.

I dreamt of the roaring of the enemy, the death, the sizzling of corrupted flesh splitting apart under blow after blow from our Nemesis Weapons, explosions of gore under the relentless power of wrist mounted storm bolters.
I saw warriors that I had known and fought with for 3 decades fall under the sheer weight of numbers that opposed us. I saw my mentor, Justicar Alaric, torn limb from limb by a Daemon Prince his final roar of defiance heard in the helmet vox of every Knight still alive.

Inquisitorial records would state that we were outnumbered approximately 55'000 to 1. We held the line for almost 17 hours before the order came for us to pull back.

By then we had been pushed back as far as the main gates to the city outskirts... and we numbered only 9, the Titans were also suffering losses, 1 Titan was in flames down the one side having taken tremendous damage, 90% of it's crew were dead or dying, it's power core, almost at critical mass. The other was running low on ammunition and taking hits that were rocking it with each one scored.

I dreamt of the moment we finally broke free of the enemy, having taken command I recieved a transmission from the Princeps of the leading Titan. They were both damaged to the point that they couldn't make it out of the warzone, so they wern't going to try. The critically damaged Titan marched out into the massing enemy, as far as it could get from it's brother... and exploded.

The blast was so bright that it burned itself onto my retina and the shockwave stunned the forces of chaos into a standstill, long enough for the second Titan to maneuver itself into the mouth of the city gate for it's final stand.
As our Thunderhawk shot away from the city and into orbit, we could see the stricken Titan being swarmed by enemies, almost like a man being covered in insects, but it was still fighting. It saw that we were in the air and I recieved one final transmission from the Princeps, "the Emperor Protects" followed by a voice that could only have been the God Machine itself - a request that would doom itself and everything else on the planet... "EXTERMINATUS."


Suddenly I was surrounded by total almost suffocating blackness, I didn't know where I could possibly be... then there was a blinding light, like a star. It was followed shortly after by a sound, a note, quiet at first but constant, growing in a creschendo like a choir of sopranos. It was at once the most terrifying yet lifting experience I had ever encountered.

Then I saw them... two figures approaching out of the light... One was tall well muscled and the other was shorter and looked for all the world like an Inquisitor, or at least he walked like one, confident, powerful strides. Even though they were silhouettes I had no idea who they could be. Slowly though I managed to make out details. The shorter man was dressed almost regally, a long high necked olive coloured coat with a white sash around his waist, navy blue trousers and black jack boots. His face was a mask of contempt but it didn't look like it was me he held contempt for, since the look in his dark brown eyes betrayed his facial expression entirely, they looked almost pleased to see me.

The other man wore simple boots and dark trousers and a white shirt, the top few buttons of which were undone giving the impression of powerful shoulders. Where the first mans face held contempt and looked like it had suffered some sort of hardship, this one was the opposite. A handsome face with a powerful jawline and high cheek bones was smilling at me but his eyes! There was nothing there, not dumb, like the many heretics I had slain in my years that were held, almost hypnotised with power, these had an intelligence to them but they were pure white, pupiless... blank. My eyes were fixed on him... I didn't know if I should have felt threatened or not.

It was the blank eyed man who spoke first. "Hello space marine, do not fear, I mean you no harm but I am not the one who summoned you here." At that he looked at the man stood next to him.

Just as he spoke I saw the Inquisitorial Rosette around his neck,
"Thorn requests ageis, darkness shrouding, yet light grows."
I couldn't understand him but before I could reply he spoke again, this time I knew exactly what he meant,
"The eastern fringe is succumbing Gabriel Angelos, there is not much time, although the Marauders are pure of heart it will not be enough, unless you let me help you, do you understand?"

I was stunned, I had no idea who this person was, yet he knew my name.
"Who are you?" was all I could manage in reply....

But he was gone.....


Gabriel awoke to the sound of a somewhat panicky Thule calling his name... "My lord wake up, wake up please!"

Gabriel was stripped from the waist up, covered in a sweat that the warding tattoos etched onto his body were sizzling away, at the same moment he realised this he saw the walls of his bed chamber, they were caked with a thick layer of frost. 'So it hadn't all been a dream' thought Gabriel as he sat up, whatever had been happening in this room was using so much psychic power that it had caused the room temperature to plummet considerably.

"I was begining to think you were never going to wake up sir," said Magos Thule. "Your vitals had spiked just over an hour ago, are you alright?"

"I am fine, thank you for your concern Magos." The men he had seen were troubling him greatly. "Were you monitering my dreams?" he asked.
"Yes sir, the meme programs were running almost from the moment you closed your eyes."

"Good, I had some sort of a vision towards the end where I saw two men, I want you to make picts of them and I want you to find out who they are from your data core."
"I will do so my lord, also, I recieved an urgent message from Commander Volker, time stamp was 15 minutes ago."

As Gabriel played back the message he felt uneasy, something was awry, he couldn't stop thinking about the Inquisitors message... and the man with blank eyes..........