The autocannons opened fire. Howling, gibbering genestealers exploded as they rushed up towards the fortress, their bodies exploding into sprays of ichtor. From the crevices on the cliffface they poured, scuttling up the cliff and across the plains to the fortress. Since anti-tunneling efforts now blocked the genestealers, the tyranids were forced into an open charge at this, which the hive mind designated as a strongpoint.
Guardsmen filled the trenches around the fortress and the great ramparts of the building, adding themselves to its formidable defense of gun batteries. Their lasguns were raised and the autocannon emplacements were blazing. As the first genestealers crossed into the sighted killzone, a barking commissar fired his boltgun at the tyranids and the lasguns opened fire, punching more of the aliens off their feet. The wide-eyed guardsmen could see the genestealers through their scopes or at the ends of their ironsights. They were not falling fast enough, forty every few steps, but there were tens of thousands, and only a few hundred steps to the guard lines. It fell to each man to kill four or five hundred genestealers.
"The Emperor watches! The Emperor watches!" yelled the greatcoat-clad commissar over the blaring scream of the guns around him. The tyranids were coming closer, and their claws were sharp. "He watches us! He judges us! To flee will bring you a worse fate at His hands then…" the commissar swallowed, nervous beneath his sweltering cap. "…worse fate than what those aliens will bring!" He was transfixed by the size of the hoard. He thought about ordering a tacticle fallback.
Just then, Chapter Master Constantor strode up next to him, the chistled look of a man who'd seen centuries of combat stared forth from his visage.
"Prepare your men for their hour of glory, commissar," Constantor instructed. "The Emperor does indeed watch, and he will note your men's bravery when he accepts them into his eternal grace." The guns of the fortress fired. The genestealer swarm was blanketed in the holy fire of pure imperial guns, whose deep barrels had been the burning death of hundreds of ork invaders. The ancient guns yelled again and again until the pieces had heated to the point where the techpriests would need to maintain the artifact-weapons.
"Forward!" Constantor yelled, "drive the aliens back!"
"Affix bayonettes!" yelled the commissar as he drew his sabre. "For the Emperor!" As the smoke cleared, to reveal the genestealer swarm killed to its last tenth, with no more coming, the guardsmen billowed out of the trenches, their lasguns fixed with bayonettes, Constantor at their fore.
The carnage was terrible. Leaping, hacking genestealers killed guardsmen in twos and threes at a time. The crashing wave of the genestealers swept down the guardsmen, rolling over them with ease. One genestealer leapt into a group of five guard. Two tried to parry with the lengths of their guns, but found them chopped in twain while two others had dagger-claws thrust into their necks. The final fifth man stabbed the alien in the gut, but the beast chomped deeply into his throat, spilling his lifeblood all over himself. Everywhere, humans screams wailed and human blood was spilled in dark puddles across the grass. Only Constantor himself remained the bulkhead in the sea of alien. His fists smashed aliens to pulp or tore them into halves. He gave punches that could flatten oldgrowth to soft alien flesh.
"For the Emperor!" Constantor yelled, his cry mixed with the dying wails of guardsmen and the screeches of mindless tyranids.
…
Constantor had too great a love for heroics. He believed driving men into honest fights inspired others to vigor and valor. Instead, it thrust thousands of good Imperial warriors to meaningless deaths. Though there was no shortage of willing young guardsmen to be herded into the charnel by their burecratic overlords, Tigurus knew Constantor had been unwise.
"It is not a mistake that we can afford to make," Tigurius said to the assembled assault marines who had poised themselves on the ramparts. "Aid them, brothers." With the noise of a whole storm rolled into one moment, dozens of assault marines lifed off the wall and plunged into the fray.
The distant sound of fighting was all Tigurius could hear on the now lonely rampart: silence enough to concentrate on his thoughts. What, in all the galaxy, was clouding his mind?
Tigurius did not see the fighting down below, now in its climax. Constantor battled in the middle of a sea of genestealers, alone, while his brethren slaughtered their way to him. The surviving guardsmen fled for their trenches, no commissars standing over them to shoot them into bravery.
"While you remain faithful, you can never know true defeat!" Constantor yelled as he brought a squirming genestealer down onto his knee. The beast broke and was cast like waste to the ground.
Then, the aliens withdrew, shuddering, and peacefully forming a circle of emptiness around Constantor. The confused Ultramarine had never known these creatures could succumb to the poison of fear. So what…
"I find you at last," said a mysteroious voice. The genestealers parted and a space marine in brown armor pushed through them. "Your injury upon Macragge all those years ago made me believe…" the marine paused. "No. It is not you. But you look like him, you dress like him. He who fought me on Macragge: Guilliman's equal." Constantor stared through him.
"What are you?" Constantor asked.
"The enslavers strike soon, man of the Ultramarines Legion," the space marine replied from behind his old-style helmet. "And you are not he who can bring me to the Emperor. The Emperor must hear my judgement for mankind."
"You are no pure space marine, you are not dressed as a servant of the Emperor," Constantor spat. From behind his helmet, the man laughed.
"No, for I am the single greatest servant of mankind the Emperor shall have. The enslavers and I are the formula that will temper it into something invincible." He raised his hand above the ground. The claws and teeth of fallen genestealers cracked off their corpses and floated up to the man's open hand, turning into a molten mass and shaped by an unseen force like clay. "I am the truest servant, for I am Apollyon." The mass had solidified into a sword. He swung it around just as an assault marine dove on him from the sky. The two halves of the man crashed into the dirt.
"You disgrace that armor!" Constantor roared as he leapt forward, but the genestealers were already swarming him.
Apollyon strode through the genestealers and engaged the first Ultramarines. His blade stroked deeply into the back of an astonished assault marine, lashing out, and parrying a chainsword from a second. Apollyon's mind reached out to the Ultramarine and began to boil it. The Astartes lurched back, dropping his bolt pistol and lowering his sword. Apollyon cut through the man's body, beginning at the head and ending at the waist. The Ultramarine fell in half. Apollyon shook as a bolt pistol round clattered off his carapace. He reached down and took a fallen bolt pistol, then turned it on the shooter. He turned the pistol on another marine, but ran out of bullets before he could break the marine's armor. The assault marine was about to charge Apollyon, when he was dogpiled by swarms of genestealers, on Apollyon's will. The primarch strode over to the swamped Ultramarine and stabbed him to death, killing two enslavers in the process. Then he stabbed the marine coming up behind him.
"You are pitiful," Apollyon told the dying man before stabbing again. "The Hornet Legion would never have sunk so low."
Then, the genestealers around him exploded into blue fire, burining to ash in seconds. Apollyon hardened his flesh to the psyker attack and readied his sword to confront this new Ultramarine. Traitors, all of them, whose primarch had lacked the vision of a true lord of the Astartes. But as the smoke cleared, Apollyon could feel a familiar presence nearby, someone he had sensed thousands of years ago, probing his mind.
"It is you," he told Tigurus as the smoke cleared, revealing the field to be empty. The surviving Imperials were wither fleeing guardsmen or a half dozen assault marines dragging another half dozen away from the fight. Apollyon could see they did not notice him. "Yes, you who managed to isolate my mind amidst the collection of enslaver minds, you who picked me out from the hive mind."
"It is I," Tigurus replied, "So it is true then. You are the eleventh primarch. What is your name?" Apollyon answered. "Why did you attack Macragge?" Tigurus looked around him at the slain. "Why did you lead the tyranids here? Why have you been directing the tyranids?"
"I have directed them to test the galaxy," Apollyon replied, "only the strongest humans will live to rebuild the empire. While you struggle mindlessly against the infinite horde, I can end this eternal conflict. That is why I, and not you am a true servant of the Emperor." Apollyon lowered his sword. "Take me to Terra, or you shall be slain." Tigurus drew his own weapon: his ancient staff, and wielded it like a quarterstaff, its ends crackling with warp-energy.
"Never, traitor," replied Tigurius. He and Apollyon lunged at one another.
…
The cities of Sifo II were unanimously overrun with orks, save Sifish itself. In each of these cities, the tale was the same. Several thousand to several million orks choked the cities, either partially or totally, fighting the most brutal house-to-house combat that anyone in the campaign had ever seen. The Imperials were losing tens of thousands on every front every day. Ork and Imperial dead choked the streets like debris in the wake of a flood, festering, turning to skeletons, fattening the plagues of vermin that filled the jagged wrecks of Sifo II's once proud metropolises. This endless, grinding war of death was causing even some of the most seasoned, stoud Imperial commanders to sweat blood and tremble beneath the pressure.
So dawn came to Sifo II: the start of another painful day.
"WAAAGH!!!!" The red-eyed orks caused the sanctioned psyker's head to explode with a psychic backlash as they rushed through the streets of Outer Sifish, fifty short miles away from the capitol itself. Throwing up dust from their boots, ivory teeth dripping with scum, they boiled out of the bombed-out ruins towards the tank column. At the front was a horn-helmed warboss.
"Men, firing lines!" the major ordered to his company, taking refuge amongst the Leman Russ ranks. Guardsmen, both dirty bloody veterans and boyish recruits, blasted all they had into the incoming orks, killing five of the monsters even before the tanks could shoot.
Battle cannons roared, tearing apart houses in cascades of leaping concrete, crushing orks like maggots under an Imperial jackboot. Heavy bolters roared, blasting axe-wielding orks to the dirty floor to join the rancid dead who already lay in stinking piles in this part of Outer Sifish.
Then, a third wave of Imperial weaponry smashed into the orks. Droppods, blue and emblazoned with the U shaped Ultramarines insignia. Three in total, the pods crushed orks beneath their screeching forms. The doors yawned open and two of the pods disgorged blue-armored Astartes, who assaulted the orks, shooting eyes and necks to bring the beasts down fast. The third opened to reveal the Black Tomb, whose rattling guns made short work of any alien that stood within his blank gaze. Within seconds, the orks were destroyed without a single drop of Imperial blood spilt.
"By the Emperor, a dreadnought," whispered the colonel. The starved, dusty officer took off his cap and beat it against his hand to clean it.
"Major Ja…" began the major.
"I care little for your name," interrupted the sergeant among the Ultramarines, "communications are difficult. We fear the Shadow in the Warp." The colonel didn't know what that meant. "Where are we to find the chapter master of the Ultramarines?"
"The Ultramarines are headquartered in Platoss; the fortress near Sifish," replied the colonel, straightinging his back and ducking his chin forward like a man from a propaganda shot. "There has been some fighting near Platoss."
"Then they are here," the Black Tomb replied.
…
Apollyon won the duel. The Black Tomb personally escorted Tigurius back aboard the Ultramarines battle barge.
Tiguius lay immobile on the medicare table, his body ruined from Apollyon's sword. The deep red gash that ran up his was a cause of great concern. Despite the best efforts of the chapter, it was not healing. Aboard the Ultramarine's battle barge, Tigurius lay. The Black Tomb would not leave until he knew he had arrived in time to save the chief librarian. Only those inside their isolated chambers did not notice the chaos aboard the ship, caused by Tigurius' return. Afennor sighed in boredom and gazed out the window.
"I can hear you," Tigurius kept murmuring. "I can…I can hear you." "What?" Suddenly Tigurius sat up, tossing the medicare adept aside. "Get as far away form Sifo II as you can!" A direct command from the chief librarian could not be ignored, and the battle barge flew off, while the other ships of the Ultramarines remained, along with their ground forces. As soon as they could, Tigurius concentrated as hard as he could, putting as much energy into his psyker powers as he could.
"The tyranids are coming out of the webway right now! They're everywhere!" Tigurius screamed out loud, speaking what he had seen etched in Apollyon's mind. His eyes and nose began to bleed as adepts tried to restrain him. "The eldar was right! The eldar was right! The High Lords of Terra have to know!" Tigurius did three things then.
First, he sprayed blood out of his mouth, which would not have happened except that he was greviously injured and lethally low on strength.
Second, he focused his power, so to send his message straight to the core of the Imperium.
Third, he died, every inch of energy drained from him.
The loss of ancient Tigurius would pale in comparison to what happened next
…
The Cadian Gate had fallen ten years prior.
Where ten billion times ten souls had died, eight had lived. Where thirteen thousand years had not been enough, nineteen months had been plenty. Where over one trillion tones of metal had found itself too light, sixty tones had been enough. Where one million assaults had been turned aside, a single, terminal attack had found a breach.
It was a subtle and sly move; the crowning glory of the twentieth. Vashuss had sent his men in, found the cargo ships, and left after resting the huge virus bombs inside their depths. These unwitting carriers became the source of Cadia's death as these vessels drifted down to the planet, their bulk laden down with imports. The primitive scanners failed to find the well-crafted bombs with their jammers. When the inspectors threw open the doors, the bombs could not be missed. By then, it was beyond too late.
Cadia was engulfed in the inferno of a sun. Billions of souls screamed out in terror and pain, then turned to dust.
Abaddon planted his armored foot deep into the grey soot beneath his feet. There was not even a standing column that could attest to the existence of the kasr that had once been here. Now there was nothing but ash, over a meter deep in some places. His foot kicked the dust and a rare smile glinted off his pallid face.
'All that remains of the Cadians,' he thought, taking another breath of the planet's new atmosphere, gifted by Tzeench Even now he and his three brother gods were squabbling with one another, competing for the right to transform the ruin into their own paradise of hell.
"Well done," Abaddon said to Vashuss as he stepped away from his landing ship and towards the platform of earth that was presently rising out of the barren ash by Tzeench's dark will. Vashuss, his nose and nostrils dressed in a scaled breather, nodded his bald head and followed the Warmaster of Chaos to the platform. It looked big enough for the meeting.
"At last, I meet the man who gave me Cadia," Abaddon began, "successful. But the gods demand death and pain!" He turned about on Vashuss, eyes flaring. "The suffering I inflicted on the Cadians strengthened the warp so. Now you blast it to dust…"
"All power demands sacrifice. And we did it in your name, lord," replied Vashuss slyly. "But is it not worth the price? Can you not say the Cadian Gate was a worthy prize?" he looked out across the ashen desert. "All this, and in a moment. We did what over thirteen Black Crusades could not do. How many died fighting the Cadians Abaddon? How many servants sent needlessly to the gods? How many ships turned to rust? How many daemonic titans defiled? How much fuel used? How much time taken? With the energy that you spent on Cadia, how many bombs could you have snuck onto the planet?" From his power armor, Vashuss produced an unlikely object: an apple. "Why the Black Crusades? When all you had to do was lie?"
Abaddon understood as he stood on the platform's summit and flexed his talon-bearing hand. The Alpha Legion had selected freighters carrying apples to hide their bombs aboard. These ships were privately owned and not always subject to proper scrutiny when delivering their cargo to their rich customers. Such consumers always demanded speed with their deliveries. And so it was that apples destroyed Cadia by the Alpha Legion's deception.
"Do not test my patience, Vashuss," Abaddon dryly stated, scanning the winds. He could feel the warp.
"They come," Vashuss laughed, patting the shrunken head at his belt.
Nine explosions of warp-energy ripped apart the earth around the platform, each a half kilometer or so away. Nine tears in reality resulted: burning wounds in the very air itself. Streaming forth from these holes, came a vast number of the traitor legions.
From their hole glided the Emperor's Children, pink and black. Each of their number was back from conquest. Each marine held the leashes of six beautiful young slaves each, held captive by gold collars. These slaves, numbering six thousand, were dressed in revealing silk costumes, if dressed at all. Their faces were as barren in humiliated despair as the planet they stood on. At the forefront was Fulgrim himself, slithering on a serpentine body that gave way to a four-armed torso.
From their hole, writhing out like maggots from a wound, were the Death Guard. Dark green and boiled with rot, they marched out, their numb chanting mixed with the buzzing of the flies around them. At their head was the winged monster Mortarion.
Like fire from a daemon's eyes came the Word Bearers, from their own hole. They too chanted praise to Chaos, but unlike their Death Guard brethren, they howled praise to all Chaos. Lorgar himself led the infernal choir as blazing standards danced over his head, carried aloft by captives from their own conquest.
The Iron Warriors churned mechanically out of their own rift. They were unaccompanied by their famed tanks and engines of daemonic fury. Even from this distance, Abaddon could see their polished armor shining in the light of the distant sun. Perturabo led the brigade.
The Night Lords cackled as they flew out of their rift. Excited by the sight of the daemonic primarchs, the savage marines leapt into the air in vile glee. While the other legions came forth, the Night Lords hung back around their rift.
Angron himself was the solitary representative of the World Eaters. Almost identical to a Bloodthirster, the primarch marched forward, wild eyes taking everything in. Abaddon would only have one World Eater here. More than three would turn the meeting into a brawl.
The Thousand Sons were also few in number. Only a bare handful of sorcerers and Magnus the Red emerged from their breach. They took a moment to watch the other legions before heading towards Abaddon, perhaps plotting even now.
Representative companies from the Black Legion and the Alpha Legion emerged from their own rift, but their leaders already stood upon where they were supposed to be. Abaddon glared at Vashuss until he had headed down to the dust below while the traitor primarchs gathered around the platform, all of them paying no heed to the others. Only when the primarchs were gathered did Abaddon speak.
"Behold, the first step on the road to Terra!" announced Abaddon to the primarchs as he waved to the ruined landscape. "For thirteen thousand years we have languished in the Eye of Terror, awaiting this time. For thirteen thousand years we have lived in exile. Now the time has come to sieze the Imperum and bring it under our heel."
"Your heel," spat Angron.
"Under the heel of Chaos, almighty," Lorgar corrected him. "Not even Abaddon can deny the true gods their prize." Angron's reply was hushed when Abaddon spoke.
"Under our heel, lords of the faithful. And every scream will be a praise to Chaos, but every soul we ensnare will be a tribute to our conquest." He looked around the circle, eyeing each primarch in the face. "Under my guidance you will succeed where the other one failed. Under my leadership, you will stand before the throne and laugh."
"You are not Horus," Angron spat, "Horus could give me freedom, war, glory. What have you got to offer me, to offer Khorne?" His yells could be heard by the Night Lords, who perched like cowards by their portal, their primarch long dead.
"It is good that you have noticed that I am not the same weakling who failed you before," Abaddon replied with a voice that could freeze a flame. "I will give you all that and one more thing, something the other one could not give. I can give you victory." He rose his daemon sword. "Victory!" he howled as he planted its tip into the platform and took his hand away. "Magnus knows what is coming, do you not?"
"By Tzeench's eyes, I have seen it," Magnus muttered.
"Is it defeat you see, Magnus?"
"It is not defeat I see, the Imperium will wither, it is inevitable," Magnus stated, "but not even the Lord of Change c an be so sure anymore." Abaddon ignored the last part.
"Then swear your loyalties to me on this last Black Crusade," Abaddon demanded, if not too forcefully.
"Abaddon is the disciple of Chaos, the Word Bearers are his!" Lorgar roared.
"By Nurgle, the Imperium will wither," Mortarion hissed, "if you all join, then so will I."
"The Emperor's Children will join," Fulgrim said.
"And the Iron Warriors."
"And the Thousand Sons." All eyes turned to Angron.
"Promise me blood," Angron demanded. Abaddon obliged. "Promise me Terra, promise me the Emperor! Blood for the blood god, promise me honour!" Angron went on, and each demand, Abaddon swore to grant.
"Ah, the primitive cackling of Khorne," Fulgrim sighed with a youthful grin.
"WHAT!?" Angron raised his axe.
"Strike Fulgrim, and the Black Crusade ends before it begins," Abaddon warned. "Do not be so quick to serve the Emperor." Angron seemed to settle down.
"The World Eaters then. But only as long as there is blood!" Angron spat.
"That will be given in endless supply," Abaddon replied. Vashuss cleared his throat.
"The Alpha Legion is yours," he said, peering out from behind Magnus' height. All eyes turned to him.
"What is this whelp?" snarled Perturabo's emotionless voice.
"Vashuss. And he has already surpassed most of you," Abaddon looked around. "Each of you must conquer one world and turn it into a daemon world. Even the Night Lords must." He gestured to the little group by their portal. "The Alpha Legion has already taken their planet: this planet. So has Lorgar, so has Fulgrim. The rest of you owe me one daemon world as tribute and proof of your loyalties." The primarchs already knew of this demand. "The Imperium will soon be at war with the tyranids and with the necrons. Use the chaos of the titanic conflict to steal away one of their planets and bring them here. It will be from these nine worlds that our forces will march. When the new warp-rift opens up, they will come through, and the Imperium's darkest hour will begin."
Some thought of the warp as a bottomless pit. Soon, the pit would be thrown open, and all the chaos held within the bottomless pit would spill forth.