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Sanguinius gazed out into the woods, alerted by the unnerving feeling in his gut that something evil was shadowing their party. Possibly, and he hoped, the same evil they were hunting.

"From where do you hail, noble Sanguinius, that you have been blessed with the wings of a god?"

The young angel smirked, looking down at the much smaller woman who addressed him so. They had walked quite a way since the turbulent night in the cave, and Sanguinius then basked in the attention of the lesser men, particularly the fetching mecha-warrior Commander Vestra. "I was not born of this world, if that is what you ask of me. But I grew up here, so I call it my home."

"What prompted you to undertake this task?" Vestra inquired, curious that such a lowly errand would require the attention of the demigod.

Sanguinius' smirk disappeared, replaced by a disgusted sneer as he turned his gaze to look at his father. "There are some who do not possess your well-placed awe, reason enough for one to fight hard to prove what already has been proven." He avoided Horus' eyes when the patriarch met his own, "Alas, such is the fate of a son whose own father doubts his strength. No matter, I shall wrest away such doubts soon enough."

"You speak as though the quarry is already yours." His sister remarked disapprovingly, "I do not see the creature's head in your hands."

"Then you too shall know shame for doubting your brother, dearest Gia." Sanguinius replied. When they had reached a fork in the road, he looked both ways before deciding upon some mad strategy that only bravado could ever beget. "Enough. I tire of these damned marchings. I shall take to the skies and see what the land has for us."

With a loud whoosh, the angel unfurled his wings and took flight. Vestra and the others looked up after him with amazement, while Aggregia rolled her eyes and their father shook his head.

"What's the story with that one?" Borinn, the mighty dwarf, asked Horus.

"Not a very observant one, are you?" Horus answered.

"Words laced with spite hardly tell the whole story." Borinn retorted, "Out with it, tall one."

"Beyond that which concerns you, you shall not have." Horus said, remaining tight-lipped about his family's personal affairs. The dwarf frowned and crossed his arms, clearly offended by his abrupt refusal.

Sanguinius returned to the earth with one graceful landing, pausing to brush off the dust on his arms before sharing what he had seen from above. "No sign of danger from all around. But I caught sight of the monster's trail, and its latest victims."

"Where?" Horus asked, urging his son to lead the way.

The party trekked past the forest to the edge of a grand canyon, where a chasm of grey rock and shale represented the bed of a long dead river. A lonely cottage sat at the clearing just outside the forest, sitting at the foot of a dying tree yielding its dried leaves to the wind as it blew past its aged branches. When the party reached the cottage, they were greeted with a most horrifying sight.

"Gods above!" Vestra gasped.

A fairly middle-aged farmer knelt upon the dirt, impaled in place by a wooden beam shoved violently down his throat. Eyes grey with death stared out unseeing, and his blood reeked its coppery stench as it bled fresh from his wounds. His sons lay stretched out around him in an eight pointed star, their torn limbs serving each dark patron twice over. Worse still was the fate of his wife, whose untold suffering broke even the composure of the Primarch.

She hung there, at the cottage door, bolted down by nails the size of short knives. Her stomach had been carved open, her intestines spread out evenly to match the eight pointed star her husband and children adorned. With the way she moaned quietly, they knew the life had not left her yet.

"This is no ordinary horror." Borinn growled, "I smell the work of demons."

Aggregia approached the dying woman, offering what little comfort she had for her. She didn't flinch when the woman's face rose up to meet her gaze, finding empty sockets where her eyes had been gouged out.

Aggregia closed her eyes and felt the woman's thoughts howl out through her own. She saw the terrible being that wrought this destruction upon the farmer and his family, through the memories that soon after flooded her mind. Then, she saw the visions. Visions of blood, pain and death. Ill omens of the very near future.

With a terrifying screech, Aggregia put one hand to her head as the sudden rush of maddening imagery seized her with a crippling pain. "Father! Behind us!"

An ear-splitting howl followed as the giant, who up until then had managed to emerge from the shadows unseen, flung himself forward and attacked the party. His claws, still fresh with the blood of the slain innocents, shot out with an unearthly sheen. Lightning coarsed through the shafts, and the monstrous skulls that adorned his gauntlets glared red, still eager to drink more of its fill of blood.

Borinn was the first to die. The look of surprise remained plastered to his face as the claws cut through his neck, chest and abdomen. The pieces fell with a loud, sloppy clap on the dirt.

Without even slowing down for a second, the giant dove for his next victim. But Horus was faster, and his great-mace slammed hard against his would-be killer with a force that could level the hills. The giant landed some fifteen meters away, coming to a stop when his back hit the tree next to the house.

His recovery was surprisingly swift, and he got to his feet, shaking off the crippling strike of the Primarch with the tenacity of one blessed by the Dark Gods.

Horus' eyes widened as he recognized the ancient yet familiar armor of the Eighth Legion. "A Night Lord? Ah, now it all makes sense." He turned to warn Sanguinius just as the angel prepared to engage in the melee. "Caution, my son! This one may prove more than you can handle!"

"I accept your challenge." Sanguinius said with a grin.

The heretic astartes recoiled as if the mere presence of the demigod offended him. His head shook violently, and his hands trembled with the powerful surge of energies that suddenly overwhelmed him. "You reek of the false god!"

"Then behold a true god, monster." Sanguinius returned, flapping his wings to gain the height advantage before diving down hard to throttle the Night Lord through the dying tree and down into the chasm below. The tree uttered a loud groan, snapping into two clean halves as the titans tore through its trunk. Sanguinius plummeted with the astartes in his grasp, breaking free at the last second and kicking him off that he might plunge to the earth alone.

The Night Lord, possessing the experience of untold centuries of combat, immediately recovered in mid-air and twisted about so that his feet might meet the earth.

Sanguinius tilted his head to the side in amazement as he hovered above the canyon, his smile grew as he realized he was about to get the fight that befitted his strength, and the glory that came in overcoming it.

The Night Lord grunted in frustration, pausing to retract his claws so he might turn to pluck a massive boulder from the rock-face. He then hurled the boulder at the angel, missing his mark as Sanguinius dove again to meet him on solid ground.

Armed with only the master-crafted gauntlets stolen from his Custodes guardian Arther, Sanguinius drew his right hand back and struck the heretic astartes in the face. Propelled with the momentum of his dive, and with the strength of the Emperor's grandson, Sanguinius shattered the thick ceramite plating on the Night Lord's helm and threw him back against the canyon wall.

The entire canyon shook with the demigods' blows, and the remaining party quickly descended for fear of getting caught in a landslide.

"Does he even need our help?" Vestra asked, watching the exchange from a safe distance. Her feline companion shared her awe as it stared dumbfounded at the unearthly powers battling in the chasm.

"Only to remind him that this endeavor is not for glory alone." Aggregia answered, now recovered from the psychic visions she had earlier. Horus had taken notice of this for the first time, but made a mental note to check up on her later, choosing instead to focus on helping his arrogant son learn a good lesson from this experience.

"Wait." Horus said to his daughter, "Sometimes, humility can only flourish in the face of adversity. If we intervene at the moment he clearly has everything under control, he will only despise us, and the fraying thread tying us together will be severed."

"The way I see it, letting him claim the glory will only fatten up his pride." Aggregia scoffed. "We should stamp out his arrogant spirit at every chance we get!"

"And that is why you are his sister, and I the father." Horus chided his daughter gently, reminding her that his mind was set. Sanguinius still listened to him, and while he still did, he would not allow that to be jeopardized. "If he overcomes this, then give credit where it is due. There will be other trials in the future."

"Fine." Aggregia relented with a dark scowl.

Sanguinius turned to look at his companions and threw up his hands in disbelief, "Well? Are you going to let me have all the fun?"

Aggregia threw her father a sidewards glance, "I think you have this all well and handled."

"True, but a battle's fire is warmer with company." The angel shrugged, then offering Vestra a moment to shine with him. "Commander? Care to show me what the Watchers' Guild is all about?"

Vestra smirked, readying her weapon as she approached the fallen champion of Chaos. Her axe hummed with the energies of its core, as did her armor. The Night Lord did not accept his death so easily, however, and put his feet back under him. He then lunged for the Watcher, beaten and wounded but still full of life, and missed his mark.

For such a crude jumble of gear, piston and wire, her power-armor was quite effective. She was not as quick as the demigod, but she was quick enough to avoid death borne at the claws of the Night Lord.

And strong. She was strong enough to raise the axe, bring it down, and cleave through the monster's skull.

Momentum throttled the heretic's body across space, and he soon came to rest upon the cracked, dried earth. The Watcher's axe remained buried deep in his head, and unsurprisingly, he remained alive despite what would have been a fatal wound.

He put his hands against the earth, defying death with all he had, and pushed himself to crawl on all fours.

His words were slow. Every breath spent to bite out the blasphemous mantra, "Blood...for the Blood...God." He raised his head, adorned with a crimson crown running in streams across his ruined face.

Vestra grimaced, then viciously retrieved her weapon from the monster's head. She turned to Sanguinius and beckoned him to approach, "He's all yours."

The angel nodded, clapping his hands over the Night Lord's ears. The heretic, even then, forced out his final words to glorify his dark patron. "Skulls...for the Skull Throne."

With a loud crack, followed by a gruesome squelch, his head burst apart. Blood and brains spilled out, caking Sanguinius' fingers and chest with ichor. The angel let the twitching corpse to the ground, and raised his gaze to meet his father.

"Satisfied?"

Horus' expression was hard to read, and it frustrated his son to no end.

His face grew hard as stone. He resolved himself to this. His home held nothing for him but restraints, pain, and rejection.

"His carcass does not deserve a proper burial." The priest spoke up when all were silent. "We should burn it, let the demons of hell have their lost kin."

"That is ceramite, though twisted by the hands of the Warp." Horus said, referring to the armor. "No mere fire can turn it to ash, no earth heavy enough to keep it buried."

"I know the perfect place that can outdo both." Sanguinius said, still glaring at his father and sister. He bent down, seizing the corpse by the pauldrons, and raised himself above the heights of Y'ttetia, heading for the lone volcano sitting in the middle of some far-off sea. The timing was perfect, for the volcano had opened its heart to the world, pouring out its burning red blood onto the sea, eager to give life to a new land.

"Back to hell with you." Sanguinius murmured, tossing the corpse onto the gaping maw of the volcano and flying back to the mainland.


In the late noon, the light had begun its slow fade into dimness, then giving way to the encroaching darkness.

Celestine moved away from the windows of her bedchamber, unable to find rest with the absence of her husband at her side. She got up, dressed herself in her favorite white toga, and moved downstairs to visit the shrine dedicated to the God-Emperor erected in the family courtyard.

The shrine was home to a simple stone statue of the Emperor, weathered down slightly by the elements and by age, yet meticulously kept tidy by the Saint. What felt like a lifetime ago, she would come with the children to pray and meditate in this place. Her intentions were good, but her efforts in teaching the twins of reverence, piety and holiness largely resulted in disaster.

Celestine missed those days when the childlike innocence of her little Gia and Sangy brought warmth to her heart, feeling only sorrow for how quickly the times had changed.

Heaving a weary sigh, Celestine knelt before the crude effigy of her maker and prayed.

"My Lord, your daughter asks for guidance. My days grow dark, and I weary of the struggles of motherhood. Truly, I am more fit to guide my sisters in battle than to raise children, yet this is the task you have set before me and my beloved. My son, Sanguinius, refuses to heed my corrections. His pride keeps instruction at bay, and his insistence on this independence undermines all my husband's efforts to bring him back to the fold. I pray for strength, I pray for temperance...for I have neither."

"And you shall have it, my daughter..."

Celestine closed her eyes and smiled upon hearing the still, small voice. "Ah, my Emperor...your words indeed grant me strength."

"You say my grandson is arrogant. Indeed, the apple does not fall far from the tree."

"A fall is what I fear for him the most, for pride invites the attention of the enemy." Celestine replied, "My son is not ready."

"He will be, Celestine. I ordain it so. The darkness you fear would come for your children will still come. But even then as they suffer, they will rise stronger than before. Remember, humility cannot blossom in the absence of adversity. This, life has taught my son Horus. This too shall life teach your son."

A noise coming from inside the house interrupted Celestine's communion with her god. The Saint rose up, "Pardon me, my god. I must see what is amiss."

She turned away to venture back inside. There, she discovered the sprawled bodies of the family's servant-girls. Their throats had been slit, and their blood now gathered in thick red pools about the floor. Whoever intruded in her home, they were masters of their craft to elude the attention of the Saint and her guardians.

"Arther! To me!" Celestine called, now fearing the worst when no answer came.

The sounds of a struggle further into the compound caused the Saint to rush blindly into the living quarters, where she found one Custodes murdered upon the stairs leading to the bedchamber- where Horus kept his weapon Soulrender hidden beneath a hollow box beside their bed.

"Arther!" Celestine gritted her teeth in anger, calling for her blade to form. "Answer me, damn you!"

With a flash, her Ardent Blade answered the call and materialized in her hands. The threat was gravely serious, for there were a scant few that could slay a Custodes, even the least of them. She ascended the staircase, went past the still corpse of the guardian of her home, and boldly entered the room.

Her eyes took in the ransacked bedchamber, the overturned hollow box, the empty trapdoor where Soulrender once rested, and then to the thief that now held the hallowed weapon.

"Alien." The Saint's eyes blazed with the fires of hell as she beheld the aeldari intruder. Celestine had never seen the blood-red armor before, is she had she would have realized that this intrusion was betrayal. She cared only that a filthy xeno breached the sanctity of her home, slaughtered her handmaidens and guardian, and now moved to make off with her husband's cherished weapon. She raised her blade, preparing for battle. "That weapon does not belong to you."

"It does now." The eldar attached the spear to her back and flung herself backwards into the open window.

A violent crash followed as the Saint tore through the wall and dove after the fleeing eldar. As stone, plaster and chalk gave way, Celestine saw Arther engaged in combat with shades. Aeldari malice made manifest, called from the Warp like daemons, the shades took the form of their aeldari summoners but retained none of their mortality.

Arther's spear, as well as all weapons wielded by his fellow Custodes, mattered little as they passed harmlessly through the mist-like forms of the shades. It was like fighting the waves of an angry ocean. No blade of steel could harm its waters, but they were nonetheless powerful.

Celestine chose to pursue the fleeing thief, leaving Arther and the Custodes to deal with the spirits. In the moment she paused to watch the guardians do battle, she had lost sight of the thief, much to her annoyance.

Then, the sound of an engine humming to life reached her ears. A sleek aeldari wraithfighter slowly rose up from the woods below and picked up speed as it ascended to the skies. Celestine followed, but found to her frustration that she was lagging behind. For all her swiftness, the aeldari have mastered it first, as evident with their simplest of aircrafts.

As the wraithfighter gained distance and gradually shrank from sight, Celestine raised her sword. And in a moment of desperation, she hurled her weapon after the screaming alien craft.

The sword spun in the air, cutting the wraithfighter at the wing and sending it spiraling out of control. The engine erupted in flames, leaving a trail of smoke and burning debris as the wraithfighter began its quick descent into the valley below.

Celestine flew over to the crash-site where the wraithfighter came to rest and landed above the burning craft. Angrily, she seized the mangled wraithbone and tore the hatch free to reveal an empty cockpit.

Confused, Celestine took a step back and surveyed the crash-site. Her first thought was that the occupants escaped on foot, masked under an alien cloaking device that the aeldari were reputed to use, otherwise she would have caught sight of them if they attempted to flee.

Then, a faint rumble of a larger ship in the distance caught her attention. The Saint turned her gaze back to her home some two kilometers away, and saw an aeldari ship take off, quickly disappearing past the clouds and into the void of space. She realized she had been duped by the most basic tactic known in warfare.

Misdirection.

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