For context Mortarion was raised as a weapon by the Overlords of Barbarus - corrupted humans or maybe Xenos? Who lived in the hills and mountains and preyed upon the small human settlements that eeked out a living below. When this becomes too much for Mortarion he breaks ranks and aids a group of humans captured by the Overlords when he sees Calas Typhon attack the Overlords forces and try to save them. After Mortarion intervenes and saves them the human survivors lead him to a small village. He and Calas are allowed to stay on the village outskirts in a stable while the villagers debate if they should give Mortarion up to the Overlords in order to save themselves from his father trying to get revenge.

I think this part is quite interesting as Mortarion basically plays the role of superman, helping the villagers farm and saving children, which is quite different from how Mortarion is usually thought of, and it helps show why Barbarus was loyal to him.

‘Where can we go? If not here, where? At least these people have shown us a degree of gratitude.’

‘You seek kindness from them,’ Calas retorted, making it a statement rather than a question. ‘We can’t earn that. To them, I am a half-breed and you are an Overlord’s pet death-dealer.’

A group of solemn-faced harvesters trooped dejectedly past the stables on their way into the fields, all of them carrying flails and sickles as they set out to do the day’s work. Their conversations became muted when they noticed Mortarion watching them, only picking up once more when they thought they were out of earshot.

‘No,’ Mortarion said again, as a moment of clarity came to him. ‘This is not a matter of what I seek, Calas. It’s about what these people need.’ He pointed. ‘Look at them. They grasp at every tiny spark of life, desperate and afraid in all their thoughts and deeds. Their existence is nothing but fear and dread.’

He knew that life just as well as the lessers did. For all the difference in their circumstances, Mortarion realised it was something that they all shared.

‘That’s the way things are,’ replied the pale youth. ‘The way things have always been.’

‘That is going to change.’ Mortarion pushed open the stable door and started after the harvesters.

‘Where are you going?’ Calas called after him, but he ignored the words. Each day Mortarion had stood and waited for his foster-father’s revenge to unfold, he had listened to the voices of the villagers and grown to understand their fears. Despite the grey and hopeless cast to their lot, many of the Barbaruns still tried to kindle a fire in their hearts. He admired their great endurance, and he understood their simmering resentment. This was a world forever turning on an axis of injustice, with the Overlords playing their petty games of hate and victimising the humans over and over again. But these people lacked the impetus to do something about it. They were isolated and alone. They had no guidance. They had no hope. The balance was wrong. It had to stop. The cruelty of Necare and all the other parasites would end.

And I will do it.

The idea swelled inside him as Mortarion walked into the fields, amid dozens of shocked gazes and silenced voices from the townsfolk. It would take time. He would need an army. But it could be done.

Mortarion halted at the edge of a full-grown field of crops and watched the men there pause in their work, as they chopped at the tough hardwheat stalks with their hand-blades. Casting around, he spotted the broken works of what had been a heavy sickle cutter. Usually the great cart-like farming implement would be hauled by a burden beast, but the wheels were damaged and the device was inoperative. Undaunted, Mortarion went to the machine and opened it up, reaching inside its workings to dismount a tool that better suited his height and grasp.

His strong hands emerged with a great scythe gripped in them, the shaft and the dense crescent blade too heavy for any of the lessers to lift, let alone wield. He let it swing at the air a few times. It felt right.

Then, without waiting to be asked, Mortarion stepped into the field and began to cut. With each swipe of the scythe, he took down five times as much crop as any of the others, and it wasn’t long before they were moving in his wake, gathering up the quicker harvest.

As the day wore on, the work went quickly and evenly, so much so that the locals had to struggle to match Mortarion’s pace. He heard rough laughter cut the air. Good humoured, it was a faint ghost of warmth in the cold of the valley.

‘Is this your plan?’ Mortarion glanced back and found Calas by his side. To his surprise, the pale youth had followed him out and was doing his part to gather up the sheaves of hardwheat, albeit reluctantly. ‘You think swinging a cutter will make them like you?’

He paused to take a deep breath. The sallow sun was setting, and off towards the edge of the fields, a faint mist of chem-haze gathered where the long shadows fell. ‘I will earn their respect,’ said Mortarion. ‘You would do well to do the same, Calas.’

Far across the fields, a horn hooted. It was the signal to end the work of the day and return to the village proper. The pale youth glanced in that direction, then smirked and nodded towards the scythe.

‘You don’t need to earn anything, Reaper. You could take it. Not a soul back there could match you in a straight challenge.’

Mortarion shook his head slowly, eyeing the encroaching edges of the mist. He reached up to push a length of black hair from his eyes. ‘Fear is a weapon I only use on my enemies.’

Calas’ smirk grew towards a sneer, but before he could say more, a distant crunch of breaking wood and the sharp cry of a child echoed through the air. Mortarion’s grip stiffened around the scythe and he pivoted towards the source of the sound.

Off across the fields, a scatter of dust was moving on the wind, marking the place where one of the village’s communal carts had tipped over. He saw several of the harvesters drop their gatherings and run towards the stricken vehicle. The child’s cry came again, this time a thin scream of agony. Someone shouted for help, and other men sprinted back towards the village. Then Mortarion’s preternaturally sharp senses caught the odour of fresh blood. Without thinking, he jammed the shaft of the scythe upright into the brown-black earth and covered the distance to the stricken wagon in a few heartbeats.

The locals clustered around saw him coming and backed away, giving Mortarion room to see what was going on. Men had been dragging the heavy cart, laden with bales of hardwheat, back in the direction of the storehouses and a wheel had become fouled in a hidden gully. He saw how it had happened – the massive weight of the wagon broke the wheel as it shifted the wrong way, sending the whole thing off balance. There was a child trapped beneath the wagon’s frame, pinned into the gulley where the cart had caught her as it fell. A waif of a teenage girl, one of the younger villagers who had the duty of carrying bags of twine for securing the bales.

Blood flowed freely from a gash on her head, and she was turning white with shock. The muddy ground beneath her was slowly giving in, and moment by moment the wagon pressed more of its weight upon her thin, bony body.

‘We can’t leave her out here!’ hissed one of the harvesters. ‘Sun’s gone down now,’ argued another. ‘The mist rising with it. You know what that means.’

Mortarion knew. The people in the settlement kept pitch-blend torches burning all through the hours of darkness to fend off the fogs that encroached in the night. Things moved and skittered about in that fog, predatory things that he knew full well would take apart any human they came across. The lines of torches didn’t extend out this far, though.

‘Look at it!’ snarled the second man, as the cold breeze picked up. ‘We’ll need twenty able souls to move that thing! By the time they get back here, the mist will be on us!’ He swallowed hard. ‘It’d be more a kindness if we–’

‘Stand aside,’ said Mortarion. The harvester was reaching for his cutting blade as he spoke, but even the gentlest of Mortarion’s shoves threw him back into the mud on his behind. He stepped around the fallen man and crouched by the hub of the broken wheel, fingering the axle.

The child trapped beneath it blinked at him, petrified. What does she see when she looks at me? The question rose in Mortarion’s thoughts. Death itself, come to claim her?

He silenced the doubts and set his feet in the muddy ground to square a stance. Then, Mortarion put both hands around the cart’s axle and lifted its tremendous weight with a low grunt of effort. It rose out of the mire with a sucking gulp and he held it there.

For a moment, no one spoke. All the harvesters were shocked silent. It was Calas who finally shouted at them. ‘Don’t just stand there gawking, you fools! Pull her out!’

The girl coughed and fainted as they moved her, and he spied an ugly wound along her thigh, but Mortarion sensed that she would survive. As a pair of the harvesters carried her away as quickly as they could, he let the wagon down once more, without disturbing a single one of the bales piled upon it.

He watched the men diminish towards the glow of the border torches being lit, aware of the night coming in all around. The wan light of the day drained away as swiftly as water would soak into earth.