+ inload: Lex Talionis – an Eye for an Eye +

+ Lex Talionis – an Eye for an Eye +

Past the Immortal, upright and poised, were the Company Colours. They were suspended from the command dome, far above. They were – and were not – my colours. Familiar white and black, plus the green of a Neptunian night.

I knew the hue of the banner was called sea-green, but that reference never had much cadence for me. On the troubled surface of Medusa, fresh water lakes were mostly young and new; inert and crystal clear. I sailed the void before I ever saw a body of water much larger than an artificial reservoir.

Teslo Comitans was the colour-bearer for Clan Kreto, a minor clan from the Arctus Reaches, to whom the Nereid belonged. Comitans was not an Ancient; he was not honoured. He was simply the poor bastard who happened to be dragging the hated thing onto the Storm Eagle when Arrowsmith spotted him. 

To bear the colours of the Clan was an honour. Usually. When the Warmaster's treachery became evident, Kreto's colours were less an honour than a stain. They were evidence of an intermingling. The Clan had many ties with the XVIth Legion, having fought alongside them on a number of campaigns in the coreworlds – notably Corun and Synn, abhuman strongholds. Relationships were cordial. Their Captain, one Berabbadon, had sanctioned a binding banner, and presented it to Arrowsmith personally as a mark of respect.

At the time, Kreto were ecstatic – for Sons of Medua, at least. Comitans had told me, through the sneer that seemed to have become etched on his craggy features, that the colours had been skirl-piped around the Clan's leviathan upon their return. They had been placed alongside the most precious mementos of Kreto.

When called upon now to bear it aloft, Comitans' face twisted, as though handling excrement.

The colours hung in the darkness now, the symbols of our Legions bound inextricably together. It was stained. Pitted. It looked as though it had been ritually besmirched. Perhaps we needed a totem; a focus for our disgust.

I looked at Kreto's colours without rancour. Before the drop, I think I could have understood the shame; perhaps even joined the chorus to bear it in battle and bury its treachery in revenge. After the events of Isstvan, it was hard to put it into perspective.

+++

+ Painting +

+ I do love a good banner. This is not the most complex design, but quite an awkward one. I introduced a new colour to the palette for this one in order to tie it into the broader theme of the army; the Battle of Dwell. +

+ The three figures you see above might form a Command squad, or might be split up into different groups. What do you reckon? +