The happy bubbling of his amniotic slurry was barely an afterthought to Lord Yaxley Draedis as his mind connected once more to the complex systems of his Warlord Titan, Ultimum Spes. He tested his massive weapon limbs, letting the plasma destructors on each arm spool up and then cool down as if flexing his muscles for the coming combat. Mind-impulse signals to his four moderati set the gangway umbilici free as the Ultimum Spes shook free of its moorings and began its earthquake stride in the direction of Alpha-Zabel. The thunder-crack of distant weapons fire filtered in through his Titan's sensory equipment and he shuddered at the delicious thought of incineration and crushing astartes underfoot. Close at heels, taking up flanking positions to protect him from boarding action and small-arms, came his daughers, Rory and Negan, in their warhounds: the Specula Veritas and the Dapemaclava, respectively.
Today would be a good day.
The rushing of air moving to escape a space suddenly filled with a pop of warp-fire heralded the appearance of Ptar'nek at Morias's side, the Tzeentchian sorcerer teleporting directly onto the field.
"Why is the priest still alive?" He demanded immediately, and Morias wheeled on him amidst the whine of bolter fire.
"Why is the little angel still alive?" Morias retorted. "She should have died on Ido, but her appearance ruined my shot. Now she wields our own temporal magic against us. So explain to me, Ptar'nek: how exactly does this fit our plan?"
"I owe you nothing. We require her to entice the Blood God, and the priest must be removed from the field for her thirst to overcome her. Can you manage that, Lord of Huntsmen?"
Morias's eyes narrowed through the lenses of his helm, carefully observing Leandro's grip on his dagger through the corner of his gaze.
"The priest will die, and the Blood God will have his trophy. Here," he twisted the glittering bracelet – that warp-creature that allowed the bending of the flow of time – and yanked it from his wrist, handing it to the sorcerer as agreed. "When he is off the field, I will meet you in the manufactorum for the final act."
Ptar'nek nodded, taking the scintillating entity and sliding it onto his own wrist, opposite the entity he already wore.
"What of the third?" Morias inquired.
"She will bring it to us, once she has embraced her destiny," said Ptar'nek. A second clarion sounded, more deafening than the first, as the moving castle-form of the Ultimum Spes drew closer to firing range. The battlefield had lost all cohesion, ceasing to be an orderly fight between advancing and holding lines – now little more than pockets of single-combat in a sea of churning chaos. Still, somehow, the Blood Angels had begun to rally their heavy weapons behind the void shields to repel the oncoming Titan engine assault, while their Death Company ripped and tore heedlessly.
"Fine. It will be done," said Morias, and with a pop and an odour of sulphur, the sorcerer vanished. Air sucked back in to fill the void, nearly bowling him over, but Morias planted his feet and turned to the unfettered madness below.
After all, there was no better cover than the fog of war.
Remiel Ardos had never in his centuries of life faced such a deadly opponent. The serpentine noise marine moved with a fluidity and grace far beyond what should be expected of a creature his size: each slash and stab with his wicked blade a killing stroke, and the stinger that had extended from the tip of his tail whipped and sought every opportunity for an opening.
Distantly, he heard techmarine Vallon calling over vox: "Predators to the fore! Devastator squads behind! Xyphons protect the storm eagles on strafing runs! Aim for the joints and focus fire on any gaps in the void shields!"
Remiel parried a blow and moved into a counter riposte, only to be dodged by the serpent. The noise marine slithered aside and stabbed with his tail stinger, howling with ecstatic laughter all the while.
He backhanded the flat-edge of the stinger away as he rolled through the dust and made an about face just soon enough to parry a second slice from the creature's sword.
Normally, his psychic ability afforded him a measure of prescience in battle, able to read his opponent's intentions mere moments before the blow came, but the noise marine – Phaltrix, he had been able to glean – had a mind as slippery and writhing as his physical form. Phaltrix's consciousness was a mess of indecipherable notes and melodies, an opera without a conductor, every bit as insane and chaotic as the music he had spewed from his blastmaster. If one could even call it music.
Combat stims rushed through his bloodstream, pushing back the tide of exhaustion threatening to overwhelm him. One microsecond too slow, one single mistake, and it would be over.
Phaltrix showed no such signs of weariness. In fact, with each passing second the noise marine seemed to grow stronger and quicker, as if feeding on the joy of single-combat.
Remiel's boots kicked up dust as he spun, deflecting another blow and feinting right. He hopped over Phaltrix's tail, seeking to trip him, and stabbed straight and true, nicking the noise marine's pauldron but scoring little more than a scratch as his momentum carried him past the creature. He spun again, half-swording his relic blade to block a furious blow that would have otherwise cleaved straight through and into his shoulder. Remiel shrugged away Phaltrix's curved sword and danced back, out of range of the seeking tail stinger, panting.
Sweat tinged his brow, and his combat stims were building to dangerous levels in his system.
Phaltrix skittered back a pace, taking measure of his opponent, licking his lips lasciviously with a forked tongue.
"You are quite an opponent, Captain Ardos," Phaltrix hissed through grinning lips. "My respect to you. I haven't had a fight this satisfying in ... well, never. Almost a shame to kill you, cousin."
"Come on then," said Remiel through gritted teeth, hearts pounding in his ears, "let's not waste anymore of each other's time."
The pair charged once more as the first impacts of white-hot plasma impacted against the void shields of Alpha-Zabel.
The first time she had taken a hit from a blastmaster, the sonic interference had brought her to her knees and nearly made her ears bleed from the maddening cacophony. The second time, now, Sabina barely felt the waves of pure warp-noise washing over her – even has they scrambled nearby skitarii and astartes alike, causing more than a few to turn their weapons on themselves to end the agony – as she flew headlong through the hurricane, straight for the source. The noise marine did not have a chance to unleash a second sound wave before she tackled him off his feet, her power sword lost in the dust and his blastmaster coming unhooked and clattering away in the force of impact.
Blood was everywhere. It was all over the ground, it was in the air – she had been breathing in a fine mist as she had torn her way through the battlefield with the Death Company, and now she could see nothing but red as she went careening with the noise marine clutched beneath her. Mid-air, in free-fall from their momentum, she wrenched at the gaps in his armour between the breastplate and helm, tearing at it with her gauntlets until she saw black carapace and, unthinking, dove in for the kill with fangs extended. Chomping and tearing at his throat, she tore at his veins as they crashed to the dunes with his hot blood squirting over her face and into her mouth. Greedily, she lapped at the red torrent, spitting out the chunks of flesh and swallowing down a mouthful of blood.
Beneath her the noise marine thrashed and attempted to throw her off before bled out, but she slapped aside his arms with one hand – his life blood invigorating her, supercharging her with strength – and punched straight though his breastplate, breaking through his skin and fused ribs into the meat beneath. Her fingers wormed through his body, heedless of the organs she pulped and arteries she severed along the way, until she felt the pulse of his progenoid within her grasp, and twisting, yanked it from his squirming body in a fresh spray of blood.
Chest heaving, eyes wide and wild with fury, she licked the slick redness from her lips as she watched the noise marine twitching his last at her feet, his progenoid gland clutched in her hand. His eyes met hers, and before his soul passed into the Immaterium he watched her crush the gland in her fist and toss the ruined mess away.
Sabina inhaled, full and deep, feeling the fresh blood trickling down her throat and already filling her stomach tingle her omophagea – vague flashes of instinct and memory flooding her mind – and she threw back her head and screamed into the sky from the exhilarating joy of the kill. The fallen noise marine's blood invigorated her, energized her, his strength becoming her strength. With an idle thought she stretched out her hand and her power sword came sailing back into her grasp at her psychic command, even as her eyes searched for a new enemy.
She needn't have looked far.
The turreted spires of the Ultimum Spes rose over the horizon, its every footfall an earthquake that threw skitarii and space marine alike to the ground. Even the churn of its great pistons and motors was earsplitting as it brought its plasma destructors to bear, coils spooling up with the heat of ten-thousand suns, and in a searing flash, began its onslaught.
"Where is the Spear of Telesto!" Remiel heard Vallon bellowing over the vox, in between the lightning crack of impacts against the void shields, his own panting breath, and each narrowly avoided sword stroke. "We need an orbital strike to take down that throne-damned engine, now!"
Phaltrix hissed as Remiel parried two quick strokes and managed to land a glancing blow against the marine's serpentine tail, cutting through a nick in an armoured plate to draw a line of purple-black blood. He slithered back, coiling himself up for a strike as the stinger at the end of his tail rattled.
"Krrrsk – have engaged the orbital – krrrrsk – defences. Unable to – krrrrsk! Krrrsk!"
Too much static interference. Mechanicus ECM, lance batteries, torpedo strikes, likely boarding actions.
Phaltrix lunged just as the Ultimum Spes fired another blast at the void shields, throwing off his strike and forcing both combatants to the ground. Remiel tucked into a roll, the flat of his relic blade meeting Phaltrix's sword edge. He twisted his wrist, twirling the edge down the length of the sword to nick the serpent's wrist, forcing him to drop the sword. But it was too little, too late.
At that close range and with the serpent's greater reach, Remiel found himself unable to disengage quick enough to avoid Phaltrix's lower half coiling around his legs and hoisting him into a crushing embrace. It was like trying to wrestle a constrictor: Phaltrix wound him, pinning his sword arm with his bleeding hand and closing around Remiel's throat with his other. The stinger plunged into his chest, pumping his already taxed and combat stim-filled body with paralytic venom as the serpent's grip tightened around him, squeezing the air from his lungs.
"Delicious," Phaltrix hissed, running his forked tongue along Remiel's face plate. Saliva streaked his lenses, obscuring his vision. He felt the pop of a blood vessel in his eyes. "So our dance ends in an embrace, cousin. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way."
Remiel struggled and thrashed, his limbs feeling limp as the venom coursed through his bloodstream. With every sluggish movement, Phaltrix tightened his coiled muscles, squeezing ever harder.
"Shhhhh," the serpent cooed, "it will all be over in a mo–"
A spray of blackish blood spattered Remiel's helm and the tightening coils immediately slackened. The adamantium claws of a blood talon had exploded through Phaltrix's face, holding for a moment as he gurgled helplessly before scissoring the serpent's head into a cloud of gore.
As he flopped lifelessly to the ground, Virgil continued past them heedlessly, leaving Remiel to shudder amidst the twitching muscle, paralyzed and unable to extricate himself.
He was barely aware of the white armoured figure throwing the dead weight off him and yanking him free of the corpse. Malister had come to his side, immediately going to work with his apothecary's tools. A needle full of detoxifiers preceded another injection full of adrenaline that sent the 7th Company captain gasping for renewed breath.
A single feather, pure and dazzling white, drifted out of the sky before them.
"Slow, slow," Malister coached, distantly, muffled. "Try to engage your sus-an membrane. It will sustain you until I can properly treat you."
"... Van Zan," Remiel muttered.
"What?"
Summoning his last ounce of remaining strength, Remiel took Malister's helm in his hands and forced the Sanguinary Priest to look him in the face.
"Th-they won't ... f-force ... Mechanicus to a-act until ... t-t-titans are off the field. Make sure," he managed, before consciousness finally fled him and the world was naught but darkness.
I will not die today, Sabina told herself as she stared down the approaching god engine. She checked her plasma pistol, then stared back at the immense form of the Ultimum Spes. Behind her, a Predator Annihilator let loose with its turret and pintle-mounted lascanonns before being vaporized by a shot from one of titan's plasma destructors. The void shields surrounding Alpha-Zabel would fall soon, and once it was gone there was nothing keeping the Ultimum Spes and its two warhound escorts from turning the rest of the 7th Company to superheated glass.
All there was was to give it another target.
"Techpriest Vallon!" She shouted into the vox over the din of battle. By now, the 7th Company had retreated into defensive firing lines while the Death Company continued their relentless melee assault. "Have your heavy support focus fire on the gaps in the Ultimum Spes's void shields!"
A crackle of static, then:
"Why? Who are you?"
"Because I am Canoness Sabina Marlowe, and I am going to bring down that damned machine from within."
Another crackle of static, then:
"Do as she says," said Versato, suddenly. "Myself, Librarian Alecto, and the 2nd Squad veterans will accompany her."
"No!" She cried out. "Stay in reserve; we will need you to make a second run if I fail."
I will not die today.
"I need confirmation from Captain Ardos," said Vallon, obstinately.
"Captain Ardos is down," came Malister's voice over the vox.
"Which puts myself, and Alecto in command of this company now," said Versato without missing a beat. "Do it."
Without waiting a further moment, Sabina beat her wings and launched herself into the air, diving straight for the Ultimum Spes.
From above, the battle looked like so many ants fighting over the ruined tree stump that was Alpha-Zabel: the reds and blacks of the 7th Company raging against the gunmetal and orange of the Belleros heretic Mechanicus. Below her, she saw Alecto bisect a kastellan robot with his power halberd.
A great swell of power rose from the librarian, energizing her with his psychic might to fly faster, harder: his strength lending to her own.
An arc of missiles flew out below her, streaking out to impact against the Ultimum Spes's void shields. She rolled in midair, following the contrails to mask her approach, but the warhounds had already spotted her. A return volley of missiles zoomed toward her in a blind-fire mode, their target lock scrambled from the smokescreen, but she tucked into a dive nevertheless to avoid them. Sweeping back up before she hit the ground, Sabina surged into a climb to put her above their range even as las bolts from the few remaining Predator Annihilators and devastators met the missile strike in midair.
Vallon had done his job well: the heavy weapons had turned, focusing volley after volley into the gaps between void shield generators to weaken them enough for her to slip through. Yet, unless she timed it perfectly, it would all be for naught. Too slow and the Ultimum Spes's point-defence cannons would blow her out of the sky – too fast and the displacement reaction would catch her anyway, sending her atomized remains careening into the warp to face the disapproval of the Emperor once more. She shook away the thought, steeling herself.
I will not die today.
She twirled in midair as she soared ever higher, firing off a blast from her plasma pistol behind her to obliterate a trailing missile. Her hearts pounded in her chest, her breath tight and deep.
I will not die today, she repeated. It had become her mantra, though she was damned if she knew where it had come from. Something deep within her genetic memory, a fragment of Sanguinius himself, within her, perhaps.
Smog parted for her as she completed the arc of her climb. Sabina tucked her wings and dived, allowing herself to free fall to gain momentum before sweeping out her wings again to slow her descent. Her HUD flashed warning after warning of velocity and incoming fire, but she ignored them, instead trusting her instincts to avoid the incoming fire as the Ultimum Spes's point-defence cannons cycled upward to face her. She burst through the cloud layer like a comet, blazing with furious vengeance.
Flak shells exploded all around her as she dodged and wove, keeping the gap in her sights.
"I will not die today," she whispered to herself through gritted teeth.
The massive spires loomed below her. The void shields shimmered and rippled with each missile, las bolt, and plasma impact. Her breath came in short gasps as her wings strained against the air pressure of her descent.
Too fast, too fast. Need to slow. I do not die today.
She swept into a turn, narrowly avoiding a flak shell, and careening toward the gap. Her wings beat furiously to slow her descent; her hearts pounded in her ears as her grip on her power sword tightened. She had become the storm, the very air around her warping and swirling in her wake.
"I will not die today!" She screamed as she tucked her wings tight against her body and dove headlong for the gap in the shields, unfurling just in time to arrest her fall, forty metres off the ground, hung for a moment, and dropped through the gap onto the Ultimum Spes's enormous head. She plunged her sword deep into the metal before her feet touched the Warlord's surface, gouging a sparking trench of twisted metal as she slid to a halt, her momentum carrying her in a swing as she pivoted around the hilt of her sword, anchored deep in the head of the beast. Her opposite hand moved in lockstep, aiming her plasma pistol to the deck and with a flick of her finger to set it to overcharge, squeezed the trigger.
The first blast melted a hole straight through the armour plating, showering her in molten sparks. Heedless, she fired again. And again.
The second shot bored through layers of wiring and ancient gears, setting off secondary explosions in the nape of the beast's neck, behind her.
The third shot breached the cockpit.
The plasma flash-boiled Lord Yaxley Draedis within his amniotic tank as the fibre bundles and cable wires weaving and crisscrossing through his command throne overloaded from the sudden energetic burst. Fire crackled along circuits, burning out conduits and travelling through the mechanical nervous system of the Ultimum Spes. Lord Draedis was sludge before his amniotic tank exploded out of the Warlord Titan's eyes. The plasma blast kept going, hitting the deck and exploding out the Warlord's massive chin. A chain reaction of detonations followed the surge along its circuits, blowing out servos and overloading the reactor.
Smoke billowed from dozens of blasts along the engine's waist, back, and arms. The immense plasma coil of one of it's destructors sparked and blew up, carving a hole from hip to shoulder as the great Warlord teetered, unsteadily, no longer able to support its own immense weight. The void shields sputtered and died completely as it swayed in its death throes, and careening, finally collapsed as a few more missiles impacted against its knees and brought it down.
The utter disbelief at seeing her father's cockpit explode had frozen Negan to inaction, almost so much that she and her Warhound were nearly crushed by the falling corpse of the Ultimum Spes. The Dapemaclava danced back just in time as her father's Warlord, the invincible god-machine that had stood through battle after battle, for untold generations of her family, finally died in the dunes of Belleros with a thunderclap trembled the very earth beneath them. The force of the impact made the Warhounds stumble; Astartes and Mechanicus alike were thrown from their feet, or treads; a Predator tank was flipped onto its back, tossed like a child's toy; and finally, no longer able to suffer any further abuse, the void shields surrounding Alpha-Zabel died as their rickety, hastily patched-up generators sputtered and died.
She looked to her sister, Rory, likewise paralyzed in her twin Warhound, Specula Veritas, heedless of even the reprieve their father's death rattle had given them from the heavy weapons fire.
A tiny figure, wings outstretched and shining with the light of day, rose from the wreckage of the Ultimum Spes's head. Smoke curled around her, as if the air itself was purified by her presence, toxins and smog too afraid to blanket her. And why wouldn't they be? She – whoever she was – had just destroyed a god-engine, their father: a tiny thing, alone against a Warlord Titan, and had brought it down. Glittering power sword in one hand, plasma pistol venting steam in the other, the figure stared Negan and Rory down through furious eyes, iron halo atop the power pack of her armour framing her face.
In concert, the twins dialed their visual sensors to zoom in on the figure and adjusted their auditory receptors to hear what the angel was screaming, even as they cycled their weapons and brought them to bear on her.
"Try it, if you like," the angel yelled up at them. "Shall we continue?"
A long moment passed between them. Then the Warhounds moved in unison. They took a step back, swung around, and surged back into the dunes the way they had come.
The moment the 7th Company was able to steady themselves after the earthquake of the Ultimum Spes's fall, they wasted nothing in hesitation to renew their counterattack against the heretic Mechanicus. The Death Company had recovered first, as was usual, and were ripping and tearing before the first mass-reactives flew.
As he charged through a small squad of skitarii, sending two flying as broken ragdolls from a backhanded swipe and crushing another underfoot, Alecto felt the pang of darkness clouding his psychic connection to Sabina. It was the same swell of darkness that filled the souls of the Death Company: a mind breaking and disassociating, her unconscious recreation of Sanguinius's own actions threatening to pull her further into furious madness.
The Black Rage had come for the sister, and there was no Chaplain to aid her.
By now, the Dark Rain was already far outside the gravity well of Belleros, headed through the void to Ido, to pick them up.
Versato! He cried – not over vox, but via direct psychic link to the Sanguinary High Priest. The rage has her. Swifty! Help her!
He felt Versato's acknowledgement and saw the priest's jump pack jets firing to fly to Sabina's position atop the Titan's corpse through his third eye. The librarian dreadnought crashed to a halt before the land raider sized mechanical form of Van Zan. The fabricator general let loose another volley of missiles skyward at a pair of strafing archeopters, and their massive siege melta array unleashed a blinding flare that melted through an approaching kataphron in an instant.
Alecto kicked the Fabricator General in the flank of his chassis, rocking him back and forth on track then another before they settled in the dune.
It is past time you showed your fidelity, Fabricator General, he boomed. The Ultimum Spes is destroyed. The heretic elements are fully engaged. Commit your forces, purge the rest of this rabble from the field. The Sanguinova is gone and the Spear of Telesto is under fire in orbit, so have your void ships relieve it before it is destroyed. Now.
My deal was with Captain Ardos, not you.
Alecto kicked the Fabricator General again, rocking them harder this time. Not one of the multitude of exotic and heavy weapons installed in their chassis could ever hope to deter the dreadnought's indomitable will.
Captain Ardos is unconscious, so you will answer to me. Uphold your end, or face mine.
He levelled the point of his enormous halberd at the Fabricator General, edge crackling with psychic power. A whir of cogitators sounded above the battle roar.
It is done, said Van Zan. My scrap-code virus will infect the heretic systems in moments and shut down the machine spirits of their orbital systems, for your battle barge to pick them off at leisure. My legions will arrive here shortly to rout them.
Alecto withdrew his halberd, mostly satisfied. He kicked the Fabricator General once again, lightly this time, to a shocked whirring of Van Zan's cogitators.
Do not make me ask you twice, ever again, he said.
If the Fabricator General were capable of sighing, the sound that escaped his vox speaker would certainly have been one.
High above them, dulled by the thick smog clouds of industrial manufactorums and battle, the lights of massive explosions lit the sky as the Spear of Telesto unleashed hell upon the helpless heretic void craft and orbital batteries. Muffled thunderclaps rolled over the horizon as ash and particulate rain began to fall.
Across the battlefield – a raging melee now reduced to scattered pockets of fighting – Versato cut his jump jets and hopped to the ground before Sabina.
She had left the dead god-engine, pacing furiously about the high dunes kicked up from its fall, a wild look in her bloodshot eyes. Her fangs were fully extended, the blood from the noise marine whose throat she had ripped out mixing with her frothing saliva.
Cautiously, chainsword and bolt pistol firmly clamped to his hip plates, he approached her one foot before the other, palms flat out as one would approach a rabid beast. Her eyes snapped toward him immediately and she straightened, suddenly rigid, hands tensing on the grips of her power sword and plasma pistol.
"I know you," she said in a voice not quite her own.
Unlike Alecto – the sole one among them who could make the grand claim – he had never met his gene-father, Sanguinius, but something in her tone reached him on a visceral, instinctual level, hard-coded into his very being. It was the same voice that the ancient Virgil spoke with, the same as every other battle brother in the throes of the rage.
"You do," he told her, reassuring. "I was the first you met, when you came to us."
"... Horus," she hissed, squaring her hips at him as if readying to pounce. Dauntless, Versato took another careful step forward, shaking his head.
"Versato," he said. "Sanguinary High Priest of the 7th Company Blood Angels. And you are Canoness Sabina Marlowe, from the Order of the Bloody Rose."
She cocked her head at him, eyes searching in confused fury.
"What trick ...?"
He shook his head again, taking another step. She tensed. He was barely an arm's length away now.
"The Arch-traitor is long dead," he said, keeping his tone level to desperately reach the rational being within her struggling to break free of the madness.
This was the tipping point: the moment.
A single measure one way and Versato would succeed, and bring her back from the brink of unstoppable insanity. A single measure the other, and she would rip his throat out, drink his blood and cavort with his skull, and there would be nothing to stop Khorne from having his new promised champion.
There were moments like this in all great leaps forward and all good hunts. One where all would be decided, hanging on the breeze.
Morias adjusted his sights to compensate for wind resistance. At this range, even the mass-reactive shell of a bolter would suffer drop, but he steadied himself, breathing slow and even. The shot was lined up, and he was ready.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
One shot, one round, and she would fly into a berserk rage and all would be won.
He breathed out as the muscles in finger squeezed in concert, letting the combi-melta become an extension of himself.
So perfect was the moment, so enraptured by the ecstasy of a successful hunt anticipated – the hunt to end all other hunts – he barely registered the dagger slip through the gap in the plates of his terminator armour, between his ribs and puncturing his third lung and primary heart simultaneously. His own dagger.
The shot went wild, careening off into the sky as Morias dropped his combi-melta, standing shock straight and stumbling around to face his assailant as he grabbed futilely at the buried dagger in his back. His bulky terminator plate offered him limited range of motion – not enough for him to reach it – but his hands moved on their own in a base animal urge to pull the knife free.
Leandro stood there in the dune, unhooking his blastmaster and throwing it in the dust as he regarded the Lord of Huntsmen.
"Not the greatest Hunter in the galaxy after all," said Leandro, almost sadly.
Morias sucked in a breath, his two working lungs staining as his third began to fill with fluid. His second heart screamed, trying to keep up.
"... Why?" He managed to wheeze, airy and faint.
Leandro shrugged. He fiddled at a small display at his wrist and Morias saw the falsehood cloak begin to flicker and fail, Emperor's Children pink and gold melting into dull silver and flashes of blue green.
"... Hfft ... hfft," Morias wheezed, falling to his knees. He tasted blood. "... Wh-who ... are ... y-you-you?"
"I am Alpharius," mocked the other marine as he turned and left the Lord of Huntsmen choking on his own fluids in the dune.