They brought the boy to us during the harvest of Thanatos III. Barely four years old, but already his eyes held something different - a hint of the predator within. The war beasts sensed it too. While most children cower from their presence, this one met their gaze without flinching.
The first test is always the same - we leave them alone in a chamber with a single war beast. Most children either break down in terror or try to hide. This one did neither. For six hours, he sat in perfect stillness, matching the war beast's vigil. When I returned, both boy and beast were in the exact same positions, evaluating each other.
"He has the blood of hunters," the beast handler reported. "Cygnus hasn't broken eye contact once."
We named him Marcus Shadowmane that day, foretelling his destiny as a hunter in darkness. Now, twenty years later, he serves in the Third Company, and Cygnus still hunts at his side. Some bonds are forged before the first drop of blood is shared.
Remember, young ones, the tale of Brother Corvus. We found him among the ice warriors of Varsavia, already blooded in battle at age six. But it wasn't his combat prowess that caught our attention - it was his hands.
While other children carved wood or shaped metal, he worked exclusively in bone. When we found him, he was surrounded by intricate bone carvings - each one telling a story of hunts and battles. The war beasts approached him with unusual deference, recognizing the respect he showed to fallen predators.
During his testing, he never once reached for a weapon. Instead, he took the bones of his trial beasts and began carving them, right there in the combat chamber. Through his work, he showed us not just what happened, but what would happen. His carvings predicted the outcomes of his trials before they occurred.
Now he serves as both warrior and artificer, his bone-carved talismans sought after by battle-brothers across all companies. Each carving, they say, carries a fragment of prophecy. The future, like the past, is written in blood and bone.
The underhive breeds a special kind of survivor. We found him in the depths of Hive Primus, surrounded by the bodies of three adult gangers. The boy couldn't have been more than five years old.
The war beasts were agitated in his presence - not with hostility, but recognition. When the Chaplain approached, the air grew thick with psychic potential. Without speaking a word, he had manifested a crude form of psychic defense.
His silence persisted through all testing. Even when the needles went in for genetic sampling, he made no sound. Only his eyes showed his pain, and even that he mastered quickly.
We named him Helios Voidwhisper, and passed him directly to the Chaplains for training. Some say he still hasn't spoken a single word, but his psychic abilities speak volumes in battle. The silence of his mind, they say, is louder than any war cry.
Sometimes it's not us who choose the recruits - it's the war beasts themselves. During a routine screening on Mordia, our beasts broke protocol for the first time in decades. Three of them separated from their handlers simultaneously, all heading for the same hab-block.
We found a pair of twins in the basement, hiding from the local authorities. Both showed psychic potential, but that's not what had drawn the beasts. It was their bond. Even at age four, they had developed a primitive version of our blood-bond, sharing thoughts and strength between them.
The beasts refused to leave their side. For three days, they stood guard while we conducted the necessary tests. Both boys tested positive for gene-seed compatibility - a miracle in itself for twins. More importantly, their pre-existing bond suggested exceptional potential for our chapter's rituals.
We named them Castor and Pollux Soulbound. They serve in the First Company now, their natural bond enhanced by our rituals into something unprecedented. The war beasts still favor them above all others. Some say the beasts knew, even then, that these two would help redefine what our blood-bonds could achieve.
Not all our recruits come from worlds. The void itself sometimes offers up candidates. We found him drifting in a damaged escape pod - a child no more than five, surrounded by the wreckage of what we later learned was a Chaos-corrupted merchant vessel.
The pod's logs showed he had been drifting for three weeks, far longer than its life support should have lasted. Yet he was not only alive but completely lucid. The war beasts approached his pod with unusual caution, sensing something different about his survival.
During his first blood test, we discovered how he had survived. The boy had unconsciously developed a form of psychic hibernation, slowing his body's functions to preserve air and nutrients. More remarkably, he had somehow extended this field to purify the pod's corrupted air recyclers.
We named him Void Dreaming, and his recruitment began immediately. Even now, his powers are uniquely suited to void warfare. They say he can sense shipping routes through the warp and predict optimal ambush points in space. The void may have tried to claim him, but it marked him as one of our greatest hunters instead.
Let this record stand as both warning and remembrance. During the recruitment sweep of Hive Tartarus, we discovered a boy with the highest psychic potential we'd ever measured. The war beasts were drawn to him like moths to flame, and our initial tests suggested perfect gene-seed compatibility.
But there was a darkness in him - not corruption, but a deep-seated rage that no amount of training seemed to quell. For three years we worked with him, trying to install the control and discipline our chapter demands. His power grew exponentially, but his restraint did not match it.
The warning signs were there. The war beasts grew increasingly agitated in his presence. Other initiates reported disturbing dreams when near him. Even the Chaplains began to feel the pressure of his unchecked power.
I executed him myself when the final signs appeared. Even as my blade fell, I grieved for the great warrior he might have become. But our chapter's strength lies not in raw power, but in the wisdom to control it. His gene-seed was burnt, his name struck from the records. Let his story remind us that potential without control is merely another path to damnation.
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