Chapter1: Blood of the Fallen
Blood oozed from the corpses of the many slain warriors, pooling onto the craters in the ground created by the constant shelling. Already, all of the five Battle Companies deployed to Mackan were engaged in battling the Chaos onslaught led by the infamous Abaddon the Despoiler. The battle itself was a bloodbath, a swirling mass of swinging chain-blades, bayonets and chain-axes. There was no respite from the unending torrent of death and destruction, and Brother-Sergeant Hadrian Arten was in the thick of it, his squad of Space Marines forming a solid wall against the overwhelming mass of heretics smashing up against them.
"Hold the line! Warriors of the Blood Angels, stand and fight!" bellowed Arten. He knew that his soldiers would live through the assault, but another attack was imminent. This time, they would be facing their traitorous brethren, fallen to the whims and desires granted by the Blood God. The heretics fought madly, but to a Blood Angel they were just a distraction, nothing more. Angered by the time being wasted by the fighting, Arten yelled, "For Sanguinius and the Immortal Emperor! Finish them!" With little effort the strength of ten Space Marines charged, smashing the rabble of nearly a hundred heretics to pieces. Within seconds, all were dead or fleeing. Brother Helon and Brother Doren gave chase, driven mad by the death of their brothers that they had witnessed. Arten hated his warriors breaking ranks, but suddenly, he spotted a group of crimson armored Chaos warriors heading toward his line of Blood Angels. The Sergeant turned on his squad's inter-vox, yelling orders to his Marines.
"Reform and maintain the firing line! Do not pursue the heretics, we shall slay them from afar! Repeat, disengage and maintain the squad firing line!" His command came too late, as he watched in horror as the maddened Brothers fought with ferocity, two Blood Angels against twenty World Eaters. "Squad Arten! For Sanguinius! To our Brothers!" Arten bellowed to his squad as he surged toward the battling Marines.
The Berzerkers were relentless, but Brother Helon and Brother Doren were so overcome by the Red Thirst that they were near unstoppable as they rent apart traitor after traitor in a bloody whirlwind of chainswords. Helon swung his blade wildly, chopping of the limbs of two Chaos warriors to his right and slicing through a third traitor's waist. The Berserker fell, clutching his wound as he laughed insanely and yelled guttural oaths to the Blood God, before a bolter round blew a hole through his cranium. Doren was fighting barehanded, wrestling, punching, slamming and improvising anything he saw as a weapon. He grabbed a World Eater and ripped his arm clean out of the socket, armour and all, and beat the Berzerker to death its chain-axe still whirring. Another came too close to him, and was greeted by a fist to its faceplate and a series of blows to the chest armor, which buckled under the powerful hits. The traitor's interlaced ribs snapped under the force of the impact, causing the warrior to reel back from the impact and crash to the ground. A ceramite-encased boot punctured the weakened breastplate and carried on into the Berserker's chest, rupturing everything within the cavity into a bloody pulp killing the Chaos servant where it fell. Suddenly the two Blood Angels were overcome by sheer weight of numbers as the World Eaters flew into a bloody rage. The traitors dragged the pair to the ground and tore them limb from limb, screaming "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!" as they fell upon the Marines.
Arten saw them fall in battle, overwhelmed as the Chaos warriors surged onto them. Rage engulfed his senses at the loss of his warriors, he raised his chainsword and charged the ranks of the traitors, roaring his fury at them, and his squad followed unleashing a hail of Bolter fire.
"For the Emperor and Sanguinius! Death! DEATH!" yelled the Blood Angels as they crashed into the Berzerkers with the unimaginable might and righteous fury. The Marines ripped apart every enemy they faced with hate-driven strength and zealous rage. Arten, infuriated by the loss of his men, unleashed a fury of bolter rounds and well placed strikes with his blade into the Chaos warriors. Three of the traitors leapt at him, their chain-axes roaring. Arten shot one in the chest with his bolt pistol and swung his blade at the second, beheading him in a spray of gore. As the third Berserker brought its chain-axe down at his head, Arten parried the strike with his ornate blade, bought up his bolter, aiming directly at the warrior's helm, he fired. The deuterium-encased shell tore through the traitor's head, exploding inside and ripping apart its skull, sending bloodied flesh, metal, and bone in a spray of gore. Around him the squad had finished of the other Chaos warriors, smashing their way through the traitor ranks. Twenty Berserkers on the ground lay broken and bloodied, dead alongside Arten's fallen Marines.
Blood flowed into the soil, the blood of the fallen.
I have had some help form TheLoneHunter who co-authored this better version of the Teaser.Please leave your comments. The whole tale of Brother Hadrian Arten and the legendary Massacre of the Blood Angels at Mackan, will be revealed later on. Thank You! :)
