STAR OF IPPICRUS
3
THE STARS HAD ONLY JUST BEGUN TO APPEAR IN THE FIRMAMENT. A huge bolt of piercing, blue sunlight leapt from the end of Aramon's plasma cannon, vastly outshining the soft glimmer above.
For a brief moment the deep purple of the early evening was ripped back into glaring daylight as the plasma bolt arced high into the air. When it struck the wreckage of the crashed Valkyrie a portion of the wing evaporated, along with the shoulder and leg of one of Draznicht's Ravagers.
The Chaos space marine screamed as what was left of his armoured body toppled away from sight.
It was the first tangible turn of fate for the Dark Angels, Sergeant Raphael noted. They might just see the other side of the ambush!
The veteran sergeant raised his own plasma pistol and fired. The bolt missed its target by a fraction. It skimmed over the head of the stubber gunner, forcing the barbarian to dive away from his station and cower against the valkyrie's ruined engine cowling.
The Dark Angels had their opening.
'Aramon!' Raphael cried. 'Free Turmiel! Tars with me!'
Raphael sprinted forward up the sand dune. He fired again. Behind him he heard the howling roar of Tars's plasma gun. It too missed its target as the two marines scaled the steep drift of sand.
The dune had a 34 degree angle of repose along its slip face, rising thirty meters skyward. No easy feat, not even for a space marine. Every step dug deep holes into the sliding sand, the furrows washing more and more sand down into them.
Charging the high ground was suicide, Raphael knew. But there was little choice in it. If they remained with the trapped Librarian the whole squad would be picked off by the Fallen's boltguns. At least with this tactic it would bring Draznicht's attentions solely upon Raphael and Tars, perhaps giving Aramon time to free the Librarian. To defeat the Fallen and win the day they would need every marine and piece of rare raw luck they had.
'May the Emperor's Light shine upon us,' he heard Tars mutter as they charged upward.
Atop the crashed Valkyrie Draznicht turned his baleful yellowed eyes upon the cowering gunner. The huge deamon eye in the Champion's forehead rolled in its skull socket. It too glared balefully down upon the human. Even the murmuring creature caught in the armour of the Chaos Champion's right greave ceased its murmurings and watched to see what would happen. The Fallen leader levelled his boltgun at the gunner's head. Words were not needed, the gesture was enough - as were all those Unholy eyes. The gunner found his courage again and skittered back to his station. He sighted the heavy stubber upon the marines and the long barrelled weapon thundered.
Tracer rounds flashed through the gloom, cutting up whirls of sand around the advancing Dark Angels.
Heavy calibre rounds shrieked off Raphael's gauntlet and vambrace as he raised his arm to protect his face from the gunfire. The shots were quickly followed by the deafening bellow of bolter fire. Draznicht and his three remaining Ravagers added their own fire to the heavy stubber's withering blaze.
Turmiel screamed in agony as Aramon heaved at the vanjileen spikes buried in the Librarian's ankle, digging his fingers deep into the locked mechanism of the trap. The spikes creaked slowly, ever so slowly open.
As the huge metal jaws retracted the Librarian's bright blood spurted over Aramon's gauntlets.
Ribbons of flesh were all that remained of Turmiel's calf. The gaping holes the vanjileen spikes left behind were big enough to fit a man's fist through.
Ignoring the torn mess of his leg Turmiel reached out his hand to his brothers upon the sand dune.
Witchfire shot from the Librarian's fingertips, darting over the heads of Raphael and Tars. It arced upward straight toward the Valkyrie.
Although the jagged blue bolts of fire barely reached their target it was enough to distract the foe. The boltguns of the Fallen failed to find their mark. The Dark Angels advanced further up the slope.
Raphael and Tars were already at the place upon the great sand dune where the Blood Kin had burst out to ambush them. The veteran sergeant noticed the ribbed, black walls and padded coffin-like capsules buried in the sands. That was how the Blood Kin had hidden their heart beat and heat signatures from the Dark Angels auspex and autosenses. Cloaking pods! Only the Fallen's techmarines could have built such advanced rigs for their human cannon fodder.
The two space marines took aim with their weapons as the servo-motors in their power armour screamed, the gyroscopic stabilisers working frenziedly against the endless slipping drifts of sand beneath them.
So fiercely did the space marines work to climb to higher ground the temperature within their power-core units had built up to such an extreme it hissed out the heat-sink nozzles of their backpacks. Short steaming jets wafted outward, even in the dull heat of the early evening. They had almost reached the crashed Valkyrie.
Sergeant Raphael fired his plasma pistol and Draznicht snapped his head out from the path of the incoming bolt. Whatever Chaos gods he had given his soul to had bestowed the Champion with unholy reflexes.
Behind Draznicht, however, another of his Ravagers went toppling off the valkyrie - not as quick to dodge as his master. The Ravager's helm was little more than a smoking, black hole with glowing edges.
Draznicht cackled with glee.
'So eager to greet your old brothers, Raphael?' Draznicht spoke as though the battle were nothing more than a pleasant exchange between old friends. 'Let us meet half way then, and we can dispense with the pleasantries! To arms brothers!' And with that the Chosen Champion lifted his power-maul and leapt from the wreckage.
Draznicht's two remaining Ravagers followed their leader over the side, their jetpacks shrieking as they dropped to the red sands below. Draznicht's Lieutenant Jibbek, brandishing a power-axe, and Hyllus flying in with his lightning-claws.
Left alone atop the crashed Valkyrie the stubber gunner opened fire once more. But with his leader charging into the fray in his line of sight his shots flew wide.
The Chaos space marines fired their bolters as they charged. The bolts ripped apart the sands about the Dark Angels' feet but no damage was done.
'Jibbek with me!' Draznicht called. 'Hyllus, that little one there is yours!'
It was a hundred times quicker going down then it was for the Dark Angels coming up. The two sides met in a crash of hurtling ceramite.
Draznicht and Jibbek leapt upon Sergeant Raphael as Hyllus swung his razor-sharp lightning claws at Tars.
At the base of the sand dune Turmiel reached down and took hold of the vanjileen spikes.
'Aramon,' he hissed. 'Go to them! They need you more than I.'
'Yes brother,' Aramon nodded. The big marine released his grip on the spikes and bolted up the dune toward the melee.
Turmiel watched his battle-brothers spin and circle the foe. Aramon was slowly closing in on them. The Librarian prayed the big marine would reach his brothers in time.
Turmiel roared as he hauled back the snap-lock jaws of the vanjileen spikes. The trap finally locked back into place with a sharp metallic snick!
The spikes had done short work of him. The bone was snapped clean through, all the tendons severed around the ankle. Already the soft white mucus of his Larraman Cells were struggling to form scar tissue around the edges of the gaping wounds. He would likely need a replacement limb if he lived long enough to see it. Only the punctured and bent greaves and sabaton of his armour would keep him standing - and that would be precarious support at best. Certainly not good enough to fight upon - but what choice was left to him? None. Turmiel drew in a sharp hiss of pain as he stepped away from the vanjileen spikes.
Tears of agony poured from the Librarian's eyes as he took his first step across the battlefield. The medicae support system in his armour was working overtime, even as his blood gushed bright and slick across his armoured boots. His second heart thundered alongside the first, struggling to draw what blood was left in him. Painkillers and adrenalin shot through his vascular system.
There was little strength left. Turmiel raised his force sword and reached deep into the Empyrean to channel what power he might find there. Where his body and armour might fail him the gift of his biomancy would tide him through. The Librarium had taught him enough to know that.
The force sword glimmered into life in his fist. Behind him a long trail of blood pooled into the thirsting sands of the Bleeding Sea. Up on the sand dune the battle waged savagely between the two sworn enemies. They had survived the ambush this long, Turmiel thought. But would they survive the wrath of Draznicht and his Ravagers in hand-to-hand combat? He had witnessed first hand the heavy toll the Ravagers could inflict upon their enemies in a melee.
Turmiel staggered forward. He would find the answer out for himself.