Chapter Twenty
Volgatis, Divinus Prime.
Volgatis was burning. Flames of every hue had spread across the battlements, dancing over corpses and hanging in the air, dripping from the smoke as though reality itself had been set alight. The garish fumes were almost indistinguishable from the screaming daemons that were spiralling through the tumult. Antros tumbled and staggered through this explosion of noise and colour, his bolt pistol barking at the myriad horrors that surrounded him, spewing shells and death. The daemons were not his only problem. As he fought he was being dragged along the top of the walls, wrenched by powerful currents of aetheric power.
The warp storm hauled him up onto the top of a collapsed section of wall and as he rose out of the fumes, he caught a brief glimpse of the battle spread out around him. The walls were crowded with battling figures, but all of them, Seraphim, Blood Angels and daemon alike, were all caught in a furious psychic storm. And at the eye of the storm, Antros found what he had been searching for: Mephiston and Mariah. They stood above the gates, arms spread, and fingers splayed, surrounded by a tornado of lightening and blood. Daemons of every conceivable colour and shape were hurtling towards them, caught in the crimson vortex. Mephiston and Mariah were silhouettes within a fierce, bloody corona, two single points of darkness at the heart of the violence.
Antros dug his heels in the rubble and managed to hold his place. Bones, corpses and daemons rushed passed him as he tried to make out Mephiston and Mariah's face. It was like trying to stare into a black sun. the darkness burned and blinded, making it impossible to see whether the Chief Librarian was still in control of his actions, or consumed by the Gift.
A shriek of giggles alerted Antros to the daemon that was bounding over the ruins towards him. It was a pink jumble of body parts, scampering on eight limbs like a spider, then six, then two, as its body morphed and flipped into a confusing variety of shapes. Only its face remained constant: hideously elongated jaws, quivering hysterically as it hurled a gobbet of pink fire at Antros.
He loosed one hand from the wall and cried out a warding, causing the missile to explode seconds before it hit him. The force of the blast rocked him back on hid heels and kicked him from his perch, throwing him into the fury of Mephiston and Mariah's tornado.
Antros cursed as he rolled and tumbled across the wall, smashing through the rubble with the giggling daemon scuttling after him.
He slammed into a column and managed to grip it, halting his free-fall through the clouds of blood. He braced himself with one hand and extended the other one, palm outwards, towards the daemon.
It gambolled through the air towards him, laughing hysterically and drawing one of its many hands to hurl another ball of warpfire.
Antros howled an evocation, lines of energy crackled down from his psychic hood and along his extended arm, becoming a white-hot blast that tore from his palm towards the daemon's face.
The daemon's head vanished before the blast hit, and reappeared on its side, still giggling, as its body formed an O shape, allowing Antros' blast to ripple uselessly over the wall behind it.
Sprouting even more limbs, the daemon grabbed a bent girder and hurled itself at Antros, crashing into him like a sack of thrashing eels.
Antros fell back, caught once again in the currents of Mephiston and Mariah's conjuration.
He rolled across the ground, the daemon latched on to him, pummelling his face and chest with its fists and stabbing a serpentine blade into the mask of his helmet.
The daemon's sword was not made of any real, physical material and It cut through the unbreakable ceramite of Antros' faceplate. Fumes and heat washed over his face as the daemon's blade raked through his jaw, rending muscle and bone with a flash of pain. Pain suppressants kicked in immediately but blood rushed from his helmet, filling his eyes, blinding them as the daemon's teeth shredded bone and ceramite.
Antros jolted to a halt, jamming his feet into the rubble and looking around. Volgatis was littered with dead Seraphim. The Adepta Sororitas had been almost entirely overwhelmed by the daemons. He scoured the walls for sight of living Seraphim and could only see a few, huddled in small groups, blasting at the warp horrors with the same well-drilled accuracy they had shown in the first hours of the battle, but unable to see through the psychic storm. There were no more than a few dozen of them left alive, but none of them showed any sign of fear or doubt.
He saw Blood Angels firing too, but they were also scattered and divided – caught in the blood storm emanating from Mariah and their Chief Librarian Mephiston.
He yelled into his vox. "Squad Seriphus?"
"Lexicanium Antros?" came a reply over the vox-network. "Is that you? This is Captain Vatrenus. We are-" Vatrenus broke off and there was a crack of bolter fire, followed by daemonic shrieks of laughter. "Wretched warp spawn. Yes I am with Squad Seriphus. we're pinned down by this damned storm. can't reach you. Can't-" He broke off again to fire more shots. "No sign of Squad Hestias. Are they with you?"
"No," replied Antros.
"Is this the daemons' magic?" gasped Vatrenus.
"No. Mephiston and Mariah's." Antros was unsure what else to say.
"Hold your position," said Vatrenus. "We will get to you."
Antros was about reply when the air exploded with movement and noise. A storm of the screaming shark-like daemons rippled through the fumes, their jaws gaping as they dived towards him.
He blasted the first with a thunderbolt so powerful it broke the daemon in half, the pieces slamming back into the second and causing it to spin off into the smoke.
The third hit him, hurling them both back onto the battlements.
He fell on his back with the daemon thrashing on top of him. Both his hands were locked on its jaws, trying to hold it at bay, but the daemon was charged with warp energy and the teeth were already bearing down on his already wounded head. He chanted obscure, Baalite phrases, opening his mind to the same invisible currents that were powering his attacker. Strength rippled through his muscles and he rose to his feet with a howl, smashing the daemon to the ground. Then he drew his bolt pistol and tore it into pieces with a deafening barrage of shots.
Dozens more of the daemons sliced towards him through the smoke, but Antros was so enraged he relished the chance to face more of them.
He was almost disappointed when a wall of muzzle flashes erupted in the smoke to his right. The daemons disintegrated, leaving just a final, wounded wreck for Antros to stamp his foot on and execute with a few rounds from his bolt pistol.
A sister of battle strode through the rubble towards him, her gun still smoking. She was battered and bloody and surrounded by her dead sisters, but she saluted Antros calmly.
"Son of Sanguinius," she yelled over the din of battle. "The Astra Angelus is he here?"
"Astra Angelus?" Antros asked, surprised. "Confessor Zin used that name. I did not think it was known here.
They ducked as a series of Las-blasts detonated the wall behind them.
"We know who the Astra Angelus is," she cried, struggling to be heard. "We understand why you are here."
More Seraphim stumbled through the storm towards him and gathered around her, looking at Antros. "Where is your Lord?" She asked.
Antros waved them on and clambered through the wrecked aircraft, trying to lead them through the psychic tumult towards Mariah and the Chief Librarian were at it's heart.
He dragged himself over another piece of shattered wall and they looked down on Mephiston and Mariah. They looked like something from one of Zin's tales. Colossal arcs of power were coursing through the skies, knifing down from the clouds and flashing across the frozen crowns of the mountains, all of them terminating at Mephiston and Mariah's upraised arms.
"The Lord and Lady of Death," said Antros, awed by what he was seeing. As the lights connected with Mephiston and Mariah, they flashed out across the steep-sided valley. Hundreds of crimson strands, a network of lethal blood magic, each thread skewering a daemon. The Chief Librarian and Mariah were the nexus of a vast wed of energy, linking them to every warp entity within sight of Volgatis. Most of them were gathered beneath a huge porch that led to the gates, between the feet of the giant statues, and, as Mephiston and Mariah's magic tore through them, they were rooted to the spot, juddering and twitching as the blood consumed them.
The air was buckling under their wrath. More crimson threads lashed out through their fingers, piercing the pink, giggling daemons on the battlements. A dome of red power spread out over Antros' head slashing through hundreds of malformed silhouettes and fixing them in place.
Antros loosed his grip on the walls and gave himself to the gravitic pull of the blood storm. He bounced and crashed over the icy battlements until he was close enough to see the Chief Librarian and Mariah better. Some of the Sisters managed to follow, gripping tightly to the embrasures as they battled with the furious current. Then Antros crawled over a shattered lintel and managed to get near the top of the gates, close enough to see Mephiston and Mariah's faces as they began the next stage of their rite.
Mephiston and Mariah remained utterly calm. Their battleplate were chipped and splattered with daemon-filth, but Mephiston was completely in control of his powers. They closed their extended hands, clenching them into fists, and as they did so every daemon held by their blood lightening crumpled and snapped. The screams shifted in pitch to something desperate, rather than rapacious, and the inhuman giggles broke into staccato, confused bursts that sounded more like chocking than mirth.
As Mephiston and Mariah's fists closed completely, the daemons imploded, sucked from reality like water whirling down a hole.
Then there was quiet. No screams. No gunfire. Everything ceased. The only sound left was the gentle moan of the wind, rushing across the frozen peaks.
The psychic force that had been dragging Antros towards his lord and lady ceased and he fell backwards, wrong-footed by the sudden absence of resistance. He landed in a mound of blood-slick rubble and saw that Mephiston and Mariah had lowered their hands and was staring out across the corpse-strewn valley.
Every one of the daemons had vanished, but a newcomer was emerging from the distant banks of snow. It was a warrior in gleaming white plate riding bareback on a massive snake-like creature that had gaudy wings and a long, bird-like head.
+He is more significant than I thought, more powerful than I thought+ said Mephiston in Mariah's head.
+We have defeated his army+ replied Mariah.
+He is not merely a sorcerer. He is a plaything of something far more powerful.+ Mephiston's tone grew urgent, passionate even.
+This is about more than just the blade. I see it now. I see why I have been called here. Someone wanted me to know this. Someone wished me to see him here – to be at this battle. It was fated.+
As the Unbegotten Prince rode his serpent across the crimson-splashed ice, he showed no interest in the mounds of slaughtered Guardsmen that clogged the road. Rage boiled through Antros. Every one of those men had died believing they were fighting for the Emperor. Pieter Zorambus had dazzled them with lies and happily watched them all die. He was wearing the same welcoming smile he had shown in Tarn Abbey.
Mariah stood up and unholstered her bolt pistol.
+He will crush you,+ said Mephiston. +And I can't lose you, wait, Mariah.+
There was a crunch of breaking rocks as the Sisters clambered to their feet. Antros whirled around, gun raised, to see Rhacelus striding towards him through the falling snow.
Mephiston froze as a Seraphim lurched and weaved towards them out of the whirling clouds. It was Saint Ophiusa. Her power armour was drenched in blood and there were ragged holes torn in the ceramite. Her veil was gone and her flayed, crimson face stared out of them from the white landscape. She was gasping in pain, clearly near to death, but there was a wild ecstasy burning in her eyes as she looked at Mephiston.
"Astra Angelus," she said, dropping to her knees, smoke trailing from her jump pack. "The moment has come! Providence and prayer… brought you… here. Brought us together. You answered my prayers." She glanced at the destruction taking place behind them. The huge golems were smashing through the walls of Volgatis, tearing down buttresses and towers. "I kept the blade safe for you. There is still time."
Rather than looking at the golems, Mephiston stared at Saint Ophiusa. "The vision was you?" he said. "You summoned me here?"
She looked confused. "Of course. You know I did." She stepped closer, frowning and reaching out to him her voice trembling. "We prayed together. I would not presume… to summon… one such as you. But we agreed that..." She shook her head. "But you know what we have done." She touched her face. "You saved me. You know that we are-"
Rhacelus let out a strange chocking sound and staggered away from them clutching at a hole that had appeared in his chest armour. His eyes were wide with surprise as he looked at Mephiston, Mariah and Antros "I..." he began. The his words trailed off as his skull began to ripple and sag, like it was a sack full of liquid rather than hard bone and brain matter.
"Gaius!" snapped Mephiston, raising his sword, but hesitating to strike.
Rhacelus grasped his head in his hands and bent over double. Then he stood up straight and looked at them. His scowl was gone, replaced by an amiable grin that had no place on Rhacelus' face. Mephiston, Mariah and Antros watched in horror as he stretched his limbs with feline pleasure and sighed. Rhacelus looked physically unchanged – but they knew they were facing Pieter Zorambus, clad in a suit of Blood Angels power armour.
"Impressive..." said Zorambus lifting Rhacelus' sword. "Antiquated but impressive." He dropped into a relaxed fighting stance and beckoned Mephiston and Mariah forwards.
