Valius was dead. Or at least he should be. His body had taken enough damage to kill a normal man a hundred times over. He had been thrown aside, lying on his back on the temple steps, bleeding from countless injuries. His power armour was just managing to hang on to his battered form, the midnight black paint scored and rent from the damage it had taken to spare his life from sword and bolt and fire. The winged sword symbol emblazoned on his left shoulder pad was split, the blade shattered horizontally where a blade had scarred his armour. His flesh felt on fire, bare face scorched by psychic flames. An unnatural wind blew, ruffling his sweat-drenched dark hair, carrying the smell of sulphur and blood with it.
The cracked flagstones crunched beneath him as he struggled to rise, the effort of even dragging his body upright sending agonising stabs throughout his body that the painkillers flooding his system couldn't compensate for. His right fist closed slowly, the firm grip of his force sword bringing some focus back to his mind. Forcing his body upright, Brother-Librarian Valius, Epistolary of the Wraith Angels Third Company, staggered to his feet, leaning on his blade, spitting out blood as he surveyed the sight before him… A battle of sheer attrition had been waged there. Countless power-armoured Astartes lay dead, his brothers with black armour melted, scored by bolt rounds or worn down by thousands of blade strikes before one finally brought them down. They had not fallen in vain. One could walk across the length of the temple' chamber while remaining feet off the ground, such was the number of cultist dead intermixed with those of the fallen Angels.
The inner chamber of the Chaos temple was a ruin, every inch of wall pulverised by the furious battle that had raged within, a tempest barely contained inside. Hundreds of depraved and possessed cultists, branded with the heretical runes of the Chaos Gods, had hurled themselves screaming at the Astartes, dying by scores as bolters opened fire. They had not heeded their losses and leapt upon the Astartes warriors with blades. They had been merely a distraction. The real threat had lain with the traitors who the Wraith Angels had come to purge. Traitors, corrupt Astartes warriors…corrupt warriors of their own Chapter. Fury and vengeance had burned in the heart of every Wraith Angel as they saw what had become of their fallen brethren.
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The assault should have been led by the Brother-Captain Gavriel but he was gone now, the last vision of him being rent apart by a daemon as it took its host's body for its own. Leading the strike force of forty warriors of the Third Company, Valius had torn the heavy gates of the temple apart with his hands. The blindfold that usually concealed his blank eyes had disintegrated as they burned with psychic fire, energy surging through his body as he lashed out left and right with his force sword, the powered blade cleaving the spirit and body apart of those who stood before him.
Around him, his brothers had blasted their way inside, bolters firing in harmony with the whine and hiss of plasma guns and meltaguns. The Wraith Angels' battle doctrine usually favoured heavy fire support before moving in for the kill but their fury overrode such tactics. They sought to tear the heart out of the fallen Angels' force and crush them utterly.
A fallen Angel had lunged at Valius, the twisted and distorted face of Sergeant Kyrius snarling at his former brother, a baleful rune axe slicing through air with a scream. The mark of Tzeentch, the God of Change, was upon his brow, burnt over the symbol of their Chapter. His corruption was absolute and his punishment was immutable. Valius parried two blows with his sword, gripped two-handed, wincing at the force of the blows, far more powerful than even the enhanced physiology of an Astartes warrior. He lashed out with his mind, knocking the fallen Angel back, drawing back his hand for a decapitating strike.
His arm was suddenly held, power-armoured hands holding his sword-arm back. Valius spun around, evading a stab to the gut and backhanding a second traitor in the face causing him to drop his chainsword. Before the other could recover, Valius lunged, driving his sword through the warrior and sending a pulse of energy down its length that amplified the wound, blasting a hole in the fallen Angel. Kyrius was coming again, axe screaming for his throat. Valius fought to free his blade but the heavy weight of the dead body impaled on it dragged it out of his hands. He spun as Kyrius attacked, the daemon weapon racing towards him with enough force to take his head off in a single swipe. His sword was lodged in the other traitor and his bolt pistol wouldn't stop the berserk sergeant. He resorted to the only weapon left in his arsenal…
Time slowed as Valius drew energy from the Warp, letting the psychic energy flow through him and re-energise his limbs. The axe fell but he reached out, fist seizing Kyrius' wrist in an iron-grip, stopping it dead. The fallen Angel strained with all his sorcery-enhanced strength but now Valius had drawn on the Warp himself and his power was his equal. Without giving him time to react, he lunged forward, and planted a hand in the sergeant's face. Energy flared, his gauntlet crackled and with a roar, Valius boiled Kyrius' brain within his own skull before hurling the smoking corpse away where it fell heavily, crushing a pair of cultists.
Before him, his main adversary stood; a daemon prince, an Astartes who had fallen so far that his flesh had given way as daemonic essences filled him, causing his body to grow to gigantic proportions so that he now towered over everyone else by several feet, the vestiges of black armour hanging off his enlarged form, the symbol of their Chapter emblazoned tauntingly before all their eyes. To normal eyes, the sight was horrific enough, an armoured giant with raw, twisted features, barely recognisable as human. Piercing black eyes, long bloodied fangs went with a pair of razor-like horns upon its head as it struck left and right with a massive sword, the blade large enough to cleave through a row of soldiers in one swipe. Cries of pain reached Valius' ears as four Wraith Angels were bisected by a careless backwards swing as they tried to advance on the leader of the fallen Angels' leader.
To Valius' eyes, the sight was still more terrifying, for he saw the daemon prince on the psychic planes of the Warp as well as the physical, watching the waves of power that pulsed off its beating as it moved, feeling the immense backwash of energy that would have burned out the mind of a lesser psyker. It was impossible for him to emerge victorious. The might of the daemon before him was too great and his was too small. His hands were sweaty in their gauntlets and his body shook involuntarily. The daemon prince turned its gaze upon him, black eyes locking on to his own gaze and it smirked, fanged mouth twisting in triumph. It knew his worth and knew he didn't have it within him to defeat it. Screams and explosions, battle cries and the clashing of blades sounded all around him but none of it registered in his mind.
His heavy blade stabbed down into the stone before him as he stumbled. He fell to his knees, the floor cracking. This was more than just his own despair… Sorcery was at work, weakening his resolve. The daemon hacked apart another row of his brothers, a low rumble of laughter shaking the walls, striding through the battlefield, coming closer. His men were dying and he did nothing. The traitors were taunting him and he did nothing. Valius closed his eyes. Slowly, wall by wall, he restored his mental defences, forcing back the external sorcery that sought to unnerve him. Through the Warp, he felt a shift as the daemon prince found its grip over its victim weakening. He could hear it, bounding forward now, crushing both enemies and allies alike as it tried to finish him before its influence could wear off. Instinct made him reach out and grasp his sword before him. His eyes opened.
The world had exploded as he struck, lunging forward, sword extended. The Terran-forged blade had punched through corrupted breastplate of the daemon prince, exploding out its spine in a spray of viscous blood. Even as he made contact, Valius unleashed all his psychic power behind the single blow, destructive power rippling from the core of his being and channelled down the sword blade into the fallen Angel. The daemon's face twisted into a parody of shock and surprise before its essence was unravelled in a wave of hatred and fury given form. The blast had hurled Valius several metres away where he crashed down hard on the steps of the temple and lain there, on the verge of death. As for the other combatants…their scorched and shattered bodies lay scattered all around the chamber.
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Valius looked down at the daemon prince at his feet. It was spread out on its back, black, leathery wings extended. Its breastplate had been vaporised by the blow he had struck it and smoke and the smell of charred flesh filled his senses as he stood there, sword clenched in one hand. The daemon prince was just about still alive. It turned its horned head to look at Valius a groan on its scarred lips. Despite the contorted features of daemonhood, it pained the Angel to see his former brother like this. He looked it in the face and Captain Gavriel looked back, some sort of humanity returning to the twin pools of darkness of its eyes. Blank white stared into the infinite black for an eternity.
Two centuries of battle alongside each other, countless wars and battlefields they had stood shoulder to shoulder against the traitor, alien and daemon…and then his friend had become that which they had dedicated their lives to destroying. The lure of power had been great and Valius had arrived in time to see the other Angel selling his soul to the higher powers. What temptations he must have been offered, he didn't know, to turn such a devoted warrior…
Valius placed a boot on the daemon prince's chest to steady himself. His body strained with the simple effort of raising his sword…or maybe it was the unwillingness to carry out his duty. It came eventually. "I'm sorry, brother…" The sword fell and it was done. He sheathed his sword across his back and left, marching from the temple and leaving it all behind as he stepped into the light.