Capitan Ramiro watched the tactical overview screens with something rapidly approaching morbid depression. Depression might be useful when his honour required him to take his own life instead of be capture, and captured by the Inquisition. The clustered higher-ups in the command centre were producing a subconscious whimpering that penetrated Ramiro's tired brain and prevented it from concentrating on anything except the growing doom.
But then, what was there to concentrate on? Inquisitorial forces advanced everywhere, stormtroopers, guardsmen still loyal to the honourless theocracy, and even the silver shadows of shrouded Grey Knights converged on the Keep.
Ramiro glanced at the screen again to see the blips of another platoon being erased as if they were simple chalk markings, and then there was the ominous sound of the cathedral-like portal to the command centre being opened slowly. Ramiro saw the lone figure, dwarfed by the pointed arch of the gothic doorway, and all of the attacking troops ceased to matter.
The creature, wearing a cape of congealing blood, took slow steps that rang against the harsh exposed metal of the flooring. The sound of breath through its respirator floated from the thing like the static suddenly issuing from the vox sets of every squad inside the Keep. Ramiro glanced at the screen and saw that the corridors of the Keep were deserted.
"Hhhhhh… hhhhhh…"
"What are you?" The tones were arrogant, conveying the habit of command, and contained more than a little horror. Ramiro was amazed, that the Crown Prince had had the gall to speak when he, a Capitan, a veteran of war, was dumb and silent was shameful.
"Hhhhhh…" the creature breathed heavily, then, "hhhEversor."
The skull faced monstrosity charged.
A clawed gauntlet found the face of the first of the seven Royal Guards to step forwards. It forced its way through, shattering the face like glass and stabbing out of the back of the man's head with sickening bursts of blood and neural lightning. The Guard's power halberd fell from twitching fingers as the assassin brought its power blade down to cleave him into two bloody lumps.
The sword, now red and slick with fluids swung to point at the first, second, third, of the second line of three Guards in front of the high commanders. The men held their halberds with the set grimness of men who see their graves beckoning. Their lips moved in prayer to the Gods.
The assassin had leapt in the time between heartbeats and its power sword was embedded in the chest of the first. Its arm jerked and the sword blade, surrounded by a shimmering blue corona, swept cleanly through the chest of the second to embed itself in the third.
The three men dropped at once, as the assassin sheathed its power weapon and drew its horribly carved pistol. In a split second it put three tiny needles into the three foreheads of the remaining Royal Guards. Three faces, still moulded into expressions of ridiculous surprise, smashed themselves on the flooring panels.
The Crown Prince drew his own symbolic power sword and creature, outrage overwhelming fear in his face.
"In the name of the Gods, and on pain of thy honour I challenge you, face me in single-"
The high commanders stared at the suddenly headless corpse of the Crown Prince. The Eversor lowered its bolt pistol, and the men stared at it.
The first of the screams began.