The tenacity of the Death Guard was legendary, as was their ability to absorb punishment and just keep coming. Now, witnessing them in combat for the first time, he appreciated just how true it was. The silent Deathshroud were as implacable as their master, still fighting with the keshig amidst the wreckage. Warriors of both sides had already fallen, their bodies caked in the drifting dust, but the fighting continued around them, bitter and unyielding.
The pyramid’s vast interior rose up around the combatants, terrace upon terrace, blotting out what little light remained under its blackened shell. The two primarchs had torn through what must once have been the antechambers and audience halls, kicking aside fire-crisped books, old instruments and carbonised artefacts from a thousand worlds. Now the heart of it loomed before them – a circular floor of obsidian, ivory-traced with mystic swirls of silver and clogged with the atrophied cadavers of the long-fallen. Banded columns as wide as Rhino transports towered all around, rearing up into the gloom like sentinels. At the very centre, inlaid into the dust-streaked floor in gold, was the Eye of Magnus, still glistening faintly even beneath the filth that caked it. Directly above them, hundreds of metres up, was the apex itself, open to the fury of the skies.
As they broke into the circle, the Khan felt himself tiring at last. Never in uncounted years of combat had he felt more than trivial stirrings of fatigue. He had fought the greatest champions of xenos races, had brought down creatures that stood as tall as Warhound Titans, had carved his way through fields of greenskins as violent and unending as the tides of the sea, and still he had never felt the bone-deep drag that Mortarion inspired.
Only the primarchs could destroy the primarchs.
Mortarion began to laugh in his coarse way.
‘Never had it this hard, eh?’ he grunted, still wielding Silence heavily. He was suffering too – blood flecked his cheeks and forehead, and his rebreather rattled as he hauled in thick breaths.
The Khan launched another attack, flourishing the dao before searching for a way through Mortarion’s stony defence. He was still faster, still more accomplished with the blade, but it was like duelling with entropy itself.
‘You neither,’ the Khan observed, gesturing to the lines of reddened sweat trickling down Mortarion’s ash-grey temples.
‘True enough.’
Mortarion’s voice gave away his regret. Even amidst the slow-burn resentments, the long bitterness, the Death Lord was still sane enough to see the irony of the situation. The primarchs had been bred to fight as part of one army, each brother making up for the deficiencies of the other. For all the jealousies and rivalries, in terms of raw conquest that army had been perfect. The Emperor’s vision – the Great Crusade for Unity, sweeping across the stars, governed by twenty immortal avatars of his own unmatched psyche – had been impeccable.
Now, though, here they were: brawling amidst the embers of Russ’s vandalism. The fall was already severe, and they both knew that it would plummet deeper before the end.
‘You could recant,’ the Khan said, falling away from a whistling sweep of the scythe just as it angled at his helm. ‘Horus does not own you.’
Mortarion snorted. ‘No, and he never will.’
‘You have seen our father’s glory unleashed – none of us could stand against him.’
Mortarion surged back on the offensive. Around them, the columns flickered and leapt with the reflection of fiery disruptor energies. ‘He is hobbled by his own mistakes. The Throneroom is a den of nightmares, one that he cannot leave. The field is open – it is ours to claim.’
The Khan beat away a scythe-strike and went for Mortarion’s gorget. At the last minute he jutted the blade down, slipped below the defence and cut a long gash in the primarch’s breastplate. This time the blade cut deep, paring already fractured armour and delving into the ribcage below.
Mortarion grimaced and jerked clear, cracking the Khan’s sword away with his scythe-shaft and staggering backwards.
‘There is nothing to seize,’ growled the Khan, going after him. ‘Nothing but burned earth. Look around you – you will make this the whole galaxy.’
Mortarion snarled defiantly and barrelled back at him, using the scythe like a halberd and smashing the hilt into the Khan’s midriff. The Khan lurched away, stumbling across the uneven floor, and Mortarion lumbered after him. More blows came in – hard, heavy, earth-shaking blows. The Khan was driven further, only barely able to weather the explosion of fury directed at him.
When they slammed together again the impact was bone-jarring. They tore into one another, each strike powered by raw defiance. Fragments of armour flew like shrapnel. Gas exploded from Mortarion’s store of vials as the glass was shattered, nearly blinding them both. Blood flew in straggling splatters, trailing across both combatants and staining their armour. As they hacked and countered, neither giving up so much as a centimetre of ground, it mingled upon the blades’ edges, as rich and dark as wine.
As the Khan fought on, the taste of copper in his mouth and the burn of acid in his muscles, he felt the lore of the plains nag at him. He needed space – room to use his speed. He had to break free, to turn the fight to his strengths, to rip clear of Mortarion’s cloying grasp.
Summoning up one last burst of energy, the Khan bludgeoned aside the scythe and pulled away, beckoning his adversary to come after him. The Death Lord heldSilence high, casting a sickle-shadow over the eye-device upon the floor. His ripped cloak billowed out in an almost parodic vision of old legends – the reaper-myth of a thousand human worlds, summoned into life on a world of extinguished souls.
The Khan held position, panting hard, trying to drag up energy for the final clash. His hearts thudded, his lungs burned. He held the dao poised, waiting for his enemy to move.
Come to me. You can see my weakness.
One thrust. One perfect thrust, angled precisely – he had the strength for that. It would have to be flawless; if it were not, no defence remained. Nothing else would suffice for this enemy. No lesser move would accomplish the kill.
But Mortarion did not move. He stood, rigid, as though suddenly listening for something. His scythe fell into guard. A thin coughing broke from his mask, which the Khan soon realised was an exhausted kind of chortle.
‘So the choice has been made.’
The Khan held his ground, unsure what he meant. Mortarion gestured to the Deathshroud, and they began to pull back towards his position.
‘Our ships are at war, brother,’ wheezed Mortarion acidly, limping into retreat. ‘This was not what we were promised, but I will not lose a fleet for this fight.’ The words blurred from all the blood bubbling in his mouth, spilling out from the edges of his mask. ‘Mark it, though – this thing is eternal between us, now. You and I, our fates bonded in this place. Remember that. It was here that it started.’
The Khan felt the dust stir around his feet. Coils of marsh-green energy rippled down from the pyramid’s open apex.
‘And when we next do this,’ rasped Mortarion, ‘the lines will already be drawn.’
He saluted mockingly, and spears of hard-edged light suddenly lanced down from above, bursting through the cloud cover and crashing through the heart of the pyramid-carcass.
The Khan sprang forward, seeing too late what was happening. The dao moved quickly – blisteringly fast, as fast as he had ever moved it. If it had connected then it would have stabbed straight through Mortarion’s neck, darting over his guard and severing the coils that kept him breathing.
But in an instant, the Death Lord and his retinue were snatched away, sucked into the vortex of the warp. The world’s wind howled in their empty wake, the ash stirred, the lightning forked.
The Khan, carried by his momentum, staggered through the empty space where his enemy had been. He whirled around, wrong-footed, still poised to strike.
Qin Xa faced him, unblooded but for his blades. The Thousand Sons legionary was still there, as were five of the keshig.
‘Get me back to
him!’ the Khan roared, still pumping with aggression. The hunt had not been concluded – the kill had been ripped away.
Qin Xa lowered his weapons. For a moment he said nothing, but faint clicks from his helm gave away the attempts he was making to contact the ships in orbit.
Then he shook his head. Whatever means the Death Guard were using to penetrate Prospero’s aether-barrier, it could not be replicated.
The Khan turned to Arvida. ‘This is your world,’ he hissed. ‘Get me off it.’
The sorcerer looked unsteady on his feet.
‘Your ships are still in orbit?’ Arvida glanced at Qin Xa. ‘The barrier is the problem?’
‘I believe so.’
‘It will be difficult,’ Arvida murmured, looking back at the Khan. ‘I can only manage a short while. Let us hope someone is watching carefully.’
The Khan nodded. ‘Do it.’
Arvida backed away, the others giving him plenty of space. He collected himself, clasping his hands together. Witch-light coalesced around him, drawing to his armour like spinning stars. Flickers of silver kindled upon his gauntlets, picking up strength; in a few moments, both his hands were blazing with light so intense that it was hard to look at.
Then he extended both hands heavenwards, and released a column of coruscating luminescence, electric-white and searing hot. It shot out vertically, leaping up the central shaft of the pyramid and bursting into the skies above.
He staggered, only just keeping his feet, but the line of aether-force kept thundering out of him. The sky ignited into a chain reaction of silver. Answering peals snapped out from above, as hard as thunderclaps. A lattice of iridescence cobwebbed across the underside of the cloud cover. For the first time, the unbroken wall of occlusion broke, revealing a rainbow-spectrum of lurid shades beyond it that burned and danced like aurorae.
Arvida himself began to shimmer, his crimson armour blazing. The incandescence intensified until it became blinding. For a moment, the Khan thought that he might be staring straight into the Astronomican itself, and had to turn away.
He looked upwards, over to where Arvida’s released energy still shot into the turbulent skies.
‘Now we hope,’ he muttered, darkly.
Shiban’s elation at Jemulan’s entrance had been short-lived. The forces were now even, each carrying devastating amounts of firepower. Every stage of the escalation had brought the ruin of the Legion closer – weapons that had been made to turn upon enemies were now opening up at one another.
He stayed crouched, his guan dao activated and ready, gauging where to strike. Hasik and his forces still had control of the command throne area at the far end of the bridge hall, plus the high observation deck and the wall terraces. Jemulan’s troops had teleported in two groups along the flanks, and the bulk of them were at the near end, clustered amidst the sensorium stations. There was plenty of cover for both sides, though the presence of hundreds of mortal crew members, locked down at their consoles and stricken with uncertainty, made the prospect of a clean confrontation less likely than that of a collateral bloodbath.
The prospect filled him with a sensation close to nausea.
How have we come to this? How has this madness taken hold?
Putting aside such thoughts, Shiban leapt from cover. ‘To me, brothers!’ he roared, beckoning them back into the fray.
His brotherhood surged into the open again, keeping low and sprinting towards the enemy. The fighting was just as tight and claustrophobic and horrifying as it had been before. Space Marine crunched into Space Marine, full-blooded and committed. Jemulan’s Terminator retinue crashed through balcony railings to get at their counterparts, already laying down a blistering curtain of combi-bolter shells. Ornate pillars and buttresses took damage, quickly becoming pocked and cratered.
The mortal crew, unable to do anything in the face of such unleashed fury, cowered behind what defences they could find.
All but one. A grey-haired woman, her Army general’s uniform rumpled and torn, ran straight towards Shiban as he charged the servitor pits, waving her arms frantically.
Shiban’s first reaction was to shove her aside and get to the enemy. Jochi and the others streaked ahead of him, leaping over stairways and around obstacles to charge at Torghun’s warriors.
Something in her eyes stopped him.
She was desperate – not to survive, but to get his attention.
Her face was familiar. He had seen her before, somewhere.
‘Stop!’ she shouted, bawling her lungs out over the roar of battle. ‘The Khagan! I have a locus!’
Shiban scraped to a halt. She looked incredibly frail, out in the open with no blast-armour – not even a lasgun – and he towered over her.
‘The teleport platform,’ she panted. ‘Get me to it.’
The chamber was two hundred metres away across an open stretch of marble flooring, criss-crossed with bolter-trails. Already the columns were taking hits, caught in the concentration of fire between the rival factions.
She would never make it. Even he might struggle.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded, moving around to shelter her with his armoured form.
‘Damn you!’ she screamed, looking like she might punch him. ‘Who do you think opened the docking bay doors? I’ve got a lock! You understand? Get me there or watch your Legion destroy itself!’
Shiban glanced again at the teleportation platform, looked back at her pleading expression, and made up his mind.
‘Don’t struggle,’ he said, scooping her up under his left arm. She weighed hardly anything. ‘Just hang on.’
Then he took off, head low, sprinting as fast as he could.
The first shell hit him only a few metres out, colliding with his right pauldron and nearly knocking him onto his chest. He staggered away from the impact and kept going. He made it halfway across the chamber before being struck on the leg – a direct hit. The ceramite of his knee-guard shattered, driving shrapnel through the armoured layers beneath.
He fell, crashing to his knees, arching his body to protect the mortal who still clung on. If she screamed, he did not hear her; the thunder of battle roared all around him, growing in volume as the two sides locked in earnest.
He got to his feet again, ignoring the blaze of agony in his leg. He dragged himself towards the chamber, still keeping the woman sheltered. More hits came in – a bolt-round to the back that exploded against his armour’s power pack, and another hit to the same leg that made his vision go black with pain. A plasma bolt smashed into his damaged pauldron, glancing from the curve but showering the wound with molten metal.
He kept going, gritting his teeth against the agony. As the platform’s columns rose above him, he pushed the mortal clear before his falling body could crush her.
She crawled free, darting into the relative safety of the chamber’s inner mechanisms. Shiban looked up, bleeding heavily, and saw her reach a control point. As more bolts exploded against the circlet of columns, she frantically punched in a series of codes, and the apparatus began to hum with building power.
A second later, and the space between them exploded with light. A hard bang shot out, radiating across the entire bridge like a series of krak grenades going off. Electric spears forked out, lashing and snapping at the columns before shuddering out again.
Shiban watched the woman recoil from the roiling sunburst, shading her eyes with her hands. For a moment he could not see anything within the seething mass of energy.
Then figures clarified within it – White Scars in Terminator plate, and a Space Marine in red armour on his knees from exhaustion.
Before them stood a greater silhouette, massive in ornate armour, his cloak shredded to ribbons, his helm-face a mass of burn marks and heavy cuts.
He strode out of the failing storm of light and cast a baleful gaze across the bridge. The hall was still in torment, with brothers at each other’s throats, lost in a maddened world of battle-cries and muzzle-flares.
Shiban c
oughed up blood, unable to move. The Khan walked clear of the teleportation chamber, twisting his helm off as he came. He gazed out across the bridge, his severe face twisted in horror. For a moment he did nothing but watch the carnage, shock etched on his features.
Shiban’s mind raced back to Chondax, to the last time he had been so close to the primarch. Back then he might have been content to die to achieve such an honour, for that had been in glorious battle against the xenos. This, though, was different, for so much still remained in the balance and there was precious little glory in what any of them had done. He tried to rise.
But the pain rushed back in, blinding him, filling his head with the throbbing swell of agony. He tried to drag himself closer, to speak, but could not. He felt his organs giving out, followed by a cold wave of numbness across his chest.
His helm clanged to the deck, and all went dark.
The Khan strode down from the platform, his keshig following him closely. Ahead of him, the command hall remained swamped in combat. Many of those close enough to the teleportation flare to hear it over the clamour of the fighting broke off in sudden confusion, but others remained committed, locked in the storm of bolt-shells that crisscrossed the entire space.
For a terrible moment, the Khan witnessed the warriors of his Legion at each other’s throats. Mortarion’s words rang in his head, as mocking as that final salute.
Half your Legion are already declared for Horus.
He scanned over to the command throne. The fighting was heaviest there. With a lurch of recognition, he saw Hasik occupying the dais, fighting hard to repel a surge from Jemulan’s warriors.
‘Qin Xa, with me,’ he snarled, striding out. The Khan’s battered body carried him into the heart of the storm. His dao felt heavy in his grasp, still slick with Mortarion’s blood. The keshig came with him, forming a protective cordon around their primarch.
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