Chapter 23: Unto the Breach
"Can't you see I'm busy, captain?" Erebus's thin reedy voice whispers from the ether coalescing from the hide bound book. Incandescent blue and white mist froths in billowing clouds that drift down from the red spattered page.
Targost steadies the book in on gnarled hand as it clutches the leather while the clotted stump holds down the other side on the uneven surface. "I apologize, First Chaplain, but we have a problem."
The response stutters for a moment before Erebus's disembodied voice rasps irritably, "What kind of problems?"
"Chief Apothecary Vaddon is dead, and he was in contact with Loken and Torgaddon just moments before. The Anathame is beyond our grasp." Targost bites his lip, eyes still fixed on a small glittering point of softly pulsing light in the midst of a barely outlined eight-point star.
"Dead?!" The voice seethes and hisses again. "Loken. That self aggrandizing mutt? I thought you were watching him? Listen to me carefully, Serghar, you MUST get the Anatheme blade. Its powers are-"
"Erebus!" Targost's roar halts the First Chaplain. "He said it was made to kill Horus Lupercal. That's not what it was for, was it?"
Not even a breath passes before Erebus's churlish huff breaks the silence, "And that's what Vaddon told you, did he?" But there was a degree of wariness.
Erebus lets the moment pass as Targost presses the book down harder, as if looming down on it. More red seeps into the pages and bubbles up through the parchment. "Whatever gods and plans you have, be damned; if you planned to kill Horus I will skin you alive and then throw you to Abaddon to finish off. Do you hear me?!"
"Have a little faith, Serghar. The Anatheme is, indeed, the blade that wounded the Warmaster. However" he carries on in a breath that couldn't be interrupted, "it would never kill him. We got to him in time, and he is even now, remaking the future of the galaxy. He is being healed by our ministrations. Horus Lupercal is safe and sound, and will be returned to us in full health soon enough." Erebus's timbre slowly melts from irate to the steady sacerdotal rhythm of his station. "It is the way forward, to save Horus from a far worse betrayal that would come to pass."
"Answer me truthfully, did you know about this Erebus? Did you have a part to play?" Targost's twin hearts seize in his chest as he stares into the focal point. He sniffs back a wetness forming on his upper lip while glaring into the roiling abyss.
"No." Erebus replies with methodical ease, "I would never seek to wound the Warmaster, kill his sons, nor manipulate him. I have seen the architecture of the future, of the greatness of our kind. I have seen the ruin and deprivation that will arise if we do nothing. What are salvaging the future. What we do is saving humanity. I would not risk Horus Lupercal. Ever." Erebus replies, every trace of his former ill humours banished.
"Swear it to me, Erebus. Swear to me that you are here to help the Lupercal and that Vaddon was wrong and there is no plot to murder Horus." Targost's breath still rasps shallow as the black green fog whispers down from the skulls watching over the fell communion.
Serghar Targost waits, the open book splayed across the corpse of Timmult Vaddon. The apothecary's blood soaks into the pages like water in a sponge. But still the Lodge Master hunches over the body like a carrion feeder, awaiting his answer.
"Serghar Targost," Erebus croons, "you are the disciple of change within the sixteenth legion, I swear on my life, that I would not lie to you. The Anatheme blade is dangerous, yes, but its powers are multitudinous. It must be reclaimed. It is a weapon of the xeno that can be turned to our purpose with remarkable ease. With it, all who oppose us shall fall by our hands. Eyes will be opened to the true dangers that encompass us. Serghar-"
"I can't reach it." Targost sighs heavily, falling back on his knees as he kneels back in the cold puddle gathering around him.
"What?"
Sensing almost an implicit eye-twitch of irritation, Targost takes a breath and swallows back the mixture of saliva and blood seeping into the hollow of his cheek. "Vaddon locked it in the genevaults. And you know that only the Primarch or a legion's Chief Apothecary can gain entry." The revelation results in a moment of silence, letting the captain sniff as more liquid dribbles from his upper lip. The bitter tang of copper doesn't even register as the sanguine droplet falls into the roiling mist and disappears.
Erebus's reply is icy, pensive, and paced, "I see." After a moment, the First Chaplain continues, "I can handle that. But we must be careful as every moment that passes is a moment closer to the edge. The death of the Chief Apothecary is both unfortunate and problematic."
"So is this." He tries to raise the stump, though it stuck to the page in the grip of rigor mortis. "How do I explain a missing hand, Erebus?"
"As I said, have a little faith. At this time it is imperative that you keep the tome and the body of Timmult Vaddon safe. Hmmm..." a moment of pause brings Erebus's voice back to its pensive rasp, "I still have need of you, Serghar. But that will come in time. Now, you said that Vaddon made some assumptions and had contacts, where are they now?"
"Atmospheric re-entry complete. Please be ready for imminent impact." The soft female voice whispers into each and every helmet before a single melodic chime breaks the silence. Harsh red strobe lights glint off pale green plate and armourglass lenses for another moment before mellowing to a steady amber.
Torgaddon cackles a little before sighing wistfully, "Well, at least she's in a good mood."
"It's a machine spirit, Tarik." Tybalt Marr snorts, "They don't have 'moods'."
"What? You serious, Marr?" Targaddon's helmeted face cranes forward towards the grav harness on his chest. Marr could almost see the lofted brow and methodical smirk behind the fellow captain's helmet, "Never had a temperamental Land Raider buck you around a time or two and wonder if it weren't just holding a grudge?"
Just then, the shivering drop craft gave a series of juddering groans as it plunges into an even steeper descent. But the mechanical growl didn't disappear right away. It calls from across the circle of grav harnesses strapping in ten armoured figures around the edges of the ribbed hull. They hunch in their spider-like web of restraints around a single great metal iris in the floor.
Loken lolls his head low to his chest, the quiet grunt and snarl of disapproval rising as the vehicle rolls and the inertia compensators struggle to catch up. "I hate drop pods." he hisses through gritted teeth.
"A Dreadclaw is actually an assault boat, because it doesn't have to be recovered by something else." Nero Vipus's stern voice and helm mask the slight mirth almost certain to be dancing across the aged veteran's face.
Now an even more disconcerted growl echoes from Loken's helm. He takes in a sharp breath when the dreadclaw's descent becomes even steeper.
"Attention, attention: fifteen seconds until retro-thruster deceleration." The Dreadclaw's feminine machine spirit urges the fully aware squad. Though most of Squad Locasta looks unaffected, Loken slowly raises his head up, gaze quickly tracking to Marr.
A sharp metal glint stands out on his right vambracer as he sheathes his combat blade. A simple insignia stands out starkly in the pale yellow glow, glittering with a brand new edge only seconds old. Scraped in the armour panel was the image of a waxing moon. Taking a scrap of cloth, he wraps it around his bracer and audibly intones, "I will bring back the Lupercal. By the light of the moon and in the witness of my brethren, I do here swear by it. No force in the heavens or the earth shall stop me." An Oath of Moment had been made.
The vox springs to life amid the crackle of atmospheric interference, and Loken cocks his head to the side. A small vox icon and ID from 5th company flickers to life in the corner of his retinal display. "Loken! Loken I know that's you! What are you doing?!" Horus Aximand's strained tenor voice stammers before cutting out abruptly.
Loken merely blinks as he spots the terminated vox-link sigil. He glances up and over at Torgaddon who's shoulders lift with a shrug, "Not really the time, is it?" Despite the haste, they were too far in now to amend or argue their plan with anyone.
Five.
The Dreadclaw's machine spirit flashes an indicator icon in squad Locasta's retinal displays.
"Remember, standard breach doctrine." Vipus quickly looks at his squad as the Dreadclaw's retrothrusters scream to life with a raptor's shriek.
Four.
'Sir, yes sir!' Six voices echo with the force of thundering rockets.
Three.
"Kill for the living," Loken's bass grunt intones the beginning of the Legion motto mingled with the racking slide of a bolt gun.
Two.
"Kill for the dead." Marr finishes, tapping his armoured finger against the leather grip of his sheathed longblade.
One.
"Kill for the Lupercal!" Torgaddon takes up his own epilogue.
Mark.
The dreadclaw shudders with a scream of rushing air, and a sudden whir of compressed liquid floods through pipes beneath their armoured feet. The screaming cry of melta nozzels compressing super-heated gas fills the compartment as the bone-shattering jutter was made only vaguely tolerable to the post-human warriors through the grav-harnesses.
The mag-locks snap open with a magnetic buzz, releasing the warriors from their restraints. Even as the astartes find their footing amid the nauseating lurch of the inertial compensators, the hardened ceramite iris slowly changes colour as the melta cutters begin their work on the outside hull. The ceramite brightens from dull grey to a faint red, then slowly heating up past other incandescent hues. The squeal of pumps feeding the fuel hoses sends sucking sounds through the compartment. It stops, and just a moment later, the iris expands and flicks open with a rasping scrape.
'LUPERCAL! LUPERCAL!'
The words come unbidden, but not unwelcome, as the first footfalls clamour across the unadorned metal grating. Loken and Vipus take the lead, surging out with bolt pistols leveled as they vault through the breach.
Incandescent heat blooms wash back through the compartment as a thick slag of rapidly cooling stone sloughs to the floor. More than three feet of stone had been bored through by the Dreadclaw's melta array, leaving a slurry of rapidly cooling lava that cast a dull hellish glow on the surrounding rockface.
There was no other light, not that the astartes needed it as the storm squad plunges into the breach. There was, likewise, no room for subtly. The revving of a chain bayonet attached to Kamphaddon and Caphon's bolters echo as loudly as the snarling of Loken's chainsword. Pale green figures splash through the lava, spitting up liquid fire that spatters the wall.
They turn into a narrow tunnel that looks like a natural volcanic pipe. The rock shimmers glossy black, everything naturally bored rather than roughly hewn. Ten astartes rush through the hallways, barely taller or broader than themselves. Already the wash of crackling static rings in their helmets as unwanted background noise.
Loken blink-clicks a squad vox frequency, "Try to modulate the frequency and filter it, Basek."
"Trying," the vox-specialist replies with a grunt, "but we're getting the same kind of atmospheric breakup as on sixty-three-nineteen."
Loken's pace stutters for a second, but he redoubles it in an instant when a glint of metal appears from up the run. "Keep me appraised. Vipus, corridor coming up, break and breach!"
Taking the bend, the glint of metal came from a silver stake driven into the rockface. A twisted braid of horse hair strings a rotted line of vermin carcasses up by their necks. A low rasping wind billows up from the corridor ahead, bringing with it flashing alarm sigils warning of concentrated methane and pollutants in the air. Loken took the corner, bolter upraised as he scans the empty passageway that curved around into the tower.
He spots the shadow, and instead of wandering forward, calls to his squad. "Grenade it!" Even before the words left his lips, the jangle of a pin and durasteel leaver patters to the floor. Vipus pitches the fist-sized explosive forcefully down the corridor, cracking it off stone and bouncing it around the bend out of sight.
The throaty roar blasts bits of rock and meat back into the shallow run. Loken marks off holographic markers on the tactical display, calling to the squad, "Stairs, five meters left."
Marr takes the lead, darting past them with his long bladed sword clenched in both hands. He'd mag locked the pistol and boltgun to his waist and charged in with only the long Cthonian blade. A clamour of confused voices bleeds in from the chambers beneath them as Locasta charges down the steps.
Loken slips back in the pack,"Nero, take that run."
Vipus points, dispatching Caphon and Larekkon while he and Loken rejoins the advancing main body as they descend the steps. The sound of startled shouting breaks the silence along with a bestial snarl. He'd missed just two or three seconds, but already Loken was drawing up his pistol as they emerged into a wide open chamber. A trio of conjoined altars stand upon a dais at the centre of the room, surrounded by a small coterie of animal fur clad cultists. There was few words better or more accurate than that.
Just over a dozen sickly humans milled about in the flickering blue methane flames housed by corroded copper lanterns ringing the room. Their apparent leader was a hulking simian thing of mangy greying fur, fecund fat, and layers of pocks marring her blistered blubber. Her curled and broken horned ceremonial helm held a white wedding veil of antiquity, green tinged lace and little jangling bells rang from tassels on her matted fur gown. She barely could suck in a wet and sloppy breath through the veil before Marr flung himself at her.
Marr barrels through the host, shouldering one waif-like man aside and overrunning a second that crunches with a scream under his boot. But the captain didn't look anywhere but the bloated form of the simian priestess, letting out a wordless roar that shakes the room. The snapping blade sweps through the air with a wide stroke and continues effortlessly through her body, sizzling through fat and meat alike. A follow-up kick spatters the bisected corpse across the raised dais, flopping coils of innards in a greasy heap.
A wail escapes some, a shriek of alarm some of the others. But human bodies couldn't compete with the post-human killing machines. Squad Locasta only begins to fan out as the first bolt shots ring out in the enclosure.
Loken twists his pistol at a man with thin milky skin, distended body and bubbled clusters of buboes clustered at his armpit. The snub barrel flares to life, kicking back in the same second as the creature's upper half bulges and explodes in a pink mist.
Select shots patter down like rain. Just more than half a dozen ring with deafening thunderclaps, leaving ragged meat and red streaks. Several had been hit simultaneously. There was even less left of them as the mass-reactive munitions made human flesh almost unrecognizable.
A bronze bell tolls, echoing in the tower and shaking the ground. A wheezing cackle echoes from the upper half of the bisected priestess. She clutches her staff, still laying split open on the floor. "Sons of star light, wolves of night. By Nurglith, you will d-"
The static crack of another bolt blasts her upper body into pulp. Torgaddon just shrugs, bolter barrel wafting smoke. "I thought we didn't have time to stop and talk, otherwise I might have been a little less sharp with Aximand. C'mon, keep up!" He lopes forward towards an egress room in the right general direction of the spoke-like halls connecting to the main temple. Locasta hurries behind him.
Nero Vipus's voice echoes with a crackle. "Caphon, Larekkon, report!"
Nothing but the sound of buzzing responds. It wasn't static interference, but the sound of flies. A short glance to Basek gets a faint roll of the legionnaire's shoulders, "The walls are thick and I don't have a full nuncio-vox. Could be any number of reasons."
"And until we know, I don't like it." Loken grumbles, clenching his teeth, "It's too close to what happened at the Whisperhead."
Marr closes in to Loken's side as they hurry into a small antechamber, "what happened at the Whisperhead?"
"I'll tell you later, Tybalt." Loken waves Marr off as the antechamber looms up before them.
Dual doors stand wide open with shafts of pale sickly light cast from behind rows of broad embossed columns. As large around as an astartes was wide and towering ten meters high, three centerline pillars block out most of the view of the corridor beyond, and two pairs support the arched roof on either side. Each looked like a mockery of a tree, festooned with carved fruit and tangled vines.
Marr and Kamphaddon are the first to cross the threshold, almost simultaneously. A sickly burbling bellow roils in the chamber as wraith like figures pull themselves from the deepest shadows. Pale yellow light becomes a sickly sallow sheen, and already the groan of doors closing meets their armours' preysense.
Kamphaddon guns the chain attachment on his bolter, sending it screaming back a challenge as the first figures all but materialize from behind each of the pillars. Seven bulbous shapes shamble out into the glassy marble room, plodding on grotesquely swollen limbs as fat and thick around as tree trunks. The droning buzz of flies spews out from the columns, blotting out the armours' finely tuned optics in a mass of squirming insects.
Loken points with his pistol, "Setar, hit it!"
"The methane, Loken!" The special weapons specialist's gaze snaps to his commanding officer.
"Do it!"
With a sharp whine, the pilot light on Setar's flamer snaps to life. The methane chocked room took as well as any promethium canister. With a single wildcat roar, sheets of flame blossom out from the back of the legionnaire's formation, sending incandescent clouds of pale white and blue billowing out in a tumbling torrent. The swarms of flies evaporate, burned to less than cinders as the sucking whine of combusting air fills the cavern.
The licking tongues of flame lap around the pillars, showing the squirming reliefs of rot, life, and ruin: maggot cored fruits and unnatural growths adorn each of the carvings. And their tenders look little better with pale swollen skin bulging from between grey-green armour plates nearly the same as the Legion's own.
And in moments, the firestorm snuffs itself out, leaving the last few trailing tendrils of flame flicking through the air. Armour indicators flash heat warning signs as the armour lenses fade back from the opaque black, no longer obscured by insects or their own protective measures.
The first shout of surprise registers a half second later. An axe blade as broad as Loken's chest had crashed down on Kamphaddon's pauldron, slipped in the gap, and chopped clear into his torso.
The obscene guardians had still approached through the conflagration, seemingly inured to pain. Even though skin sloughed off on weapon handles, and armour plates sizzled, they had plunged through the firestorm at the Sons of Horus. Kamphaddon reels back as Marr grips his crackling longsword and swings it hard at the obese half-smouldering creature. The powered blade hacks through layers of molten fat and ruined leather plate before lodging fast against its spine.
Kamphaddon snarls, his right arm all but severed by the corroded axe embedded deep in his clavicle. He tugs back, other hand reaching for his pistol. The snub barreled side arm buries itself in the rippling folds of slimy skin before the muffled thumps of detonating bolts rocks through its form.
"Aim for the head, the head!" Torgaddon roars, though it breaks into a mirthful laugh, "Forget about the Glory of Terra already?"
The chorus of bolt fire rises immediately. Kamphaddon's assailant bulges under each shot before an internal blast bucks Marr's blade free, and the captain wrenches it sideways with a howl of anger, bisecting the creature's midriff. It tumbles backwards, nearly sliced in two.
The hail of bolt fire from lights the chamber again in stark monochromatic relief. One of the bulbous figures collapses to one knee, the limb severed above the ankle before bracketing fire walks up its torso and into its head. Even then it uses its axe heft to pull itself closer, like an aged patriarch with a walking stick.
But still the others encroach in a wide semi-circle, those at the back shuffling to use the pillars or their compatriots as cover.
Loken's bolt pistol runs dry after another round slams into one of the guardian's skulls, emptying it out like a broken soup bowl. But It staggers and shuffles, awkwardly clinging to life for longer than it had any right too. Stowing his pistol, the same motion produces a single round object. Flicking the pin free, he tosses it at a third guardian raising its axe up for an overhead swing at Basek. Nero pauses and jumps back as Loken's grenade makes contact.
With a whip-crack, the creature bursts into scraps of skin and misting fluids. Bits of its armour and several unidentifiable pieces ricochet off the walls. But amid the krak grenade's commotion, Loken's own proximity senses warned him of something emerging behind him.
He turns, hoping to spot Caphon or Larekkon, but a sluggish shape of grotesque size pulls its slovenly form from behind the altar.
"Nurglith gifts those who are humble and worthy." a barely feminine voice rasps as the sickly mire of ruined cult limbs begin to pool and flow towards her.
"Right, no time for that either." Torgaddon darts forward, ducking low and bringing the trailing end of his blade up under his opponent's guard. It slices deep and gouges out a lump of engorged tissue before a backhand cracks across his power pack. The shove sends him skidding several paces, but he promptly springs right back, slamming the full blade through the creature's unprotected back and driving the tip through its sternum.
The thick set simian face looks down at the hazy blue blade protruding from its chest. Its fanged maw drools blood as the axe drops from its hands. Torgaddon twists the blade, straining to wrench it free as it lodges in the bone. But the Davinite clutches the sizzling blade and, with a wet growl of effort, brings its palm straight against the flat. In a spluttering crackle of energy, the tip of the sword snaps off, sending scads of violent uncontained energy crackling from the shattered steel.
"Oh, oh that damned well didn't just happen!" With a snarl of anger, Torgaddon's combat blade glints from its sheath and he plunges it down into the back of the creature's head, splitting it wide open. It collapses forward, taking both blades with it and leaving Tarik a moment of disbelief, almost dully looking up at Loken who had no better response to give.
Wrenching the ruined sword free with a grunt, the rest of Locasta darts by him, pumping shots into the two remaining creatures. Bolts carve torrents from the flesh, but others skip off the stone pillars as they clear at least a single lane through the room.
"Well this is an oath damned Cthonic tragedy, this is." Tarik looks at the shattered and sparking power sword in disbelief. The combat blade is torn free a moment later, though the captain was stuck near the back of the squad.
But by then, the thick stone doors were shut, and the two remaining guardians and the lumbering monstrosity from the altar room slowly amble forward.
Loken quickly stows his chainsword and draws a large canister enclosed charge.
"Not how I pictured my day going, honestly." Nero Vipus calls from right next to him, dropping to one knee and snapping a trio of rapid fire shots at the first creature. It had held a swollen hand in front of its face, taking the bolt shots and blowing massive craters in its forearm. But still it kept coming.
"Doubt anyone saw today going like this." Loken growls as he clamps the bulky melta charge in place, "Alright, stand back, melta breach in three!" He twists the handle and flicks the ignition toggle in a single motion while taking a step back.
The device makes a whirring noise for a moment before a series of conduit pops let a building screech fill the air. It glows as the chemical reaction turns the stone from dull grey through the spectrum of fiery colours until a clear two meter section was pure white and giving off rippling heat waves. And with a thump-crack, the melta bomb's charge blasts the softened material outwards, sending scorching hot rock spattering out in a cone behind the door and leaving a sizable gap in its wake.
Setar's pistol shot tore the foot from one creature only for Vipus to blast out the back of its neck and spine with a single precision shot.
"I'd say we can take them, but lets leave some fun for the way back, right?" Torgaddon's hand shoots out, clamping down on Marr's pauldron before he could fling himself at the remaining creatures.
Torgaddon gets a deep guttural growl and a single nod. "Not the plan." Marr grouses aloud. But as Locasta filters through the door and into the start of the causeway, Marr was still the last to leave, never turning his back on the obscene monstrosities.
Loken had since resumed the lead, stepping into the causeway and making room. But it wasn't what they had been expecting. The massive spoke connecting to the main temple was a single enormous stairway, both sides dipping down to a V some seventy meters below where long pools and what was likely subterranean vaults skirted off in narrow runs into the honeycomb like labyrinth. The walls tower and arch twenty meters above them in ribbed stanchions all lined with narrow seemingly inaccessible causeways.
Movement on the far landing, some hundred and fifty meters distance, alerts Loken at once. Seven more Davinite tribesmen seem shocked at their sudden appearance. They stammer, pausing awkwardly with flint spears and hide shields. A quick staccato burst of bolter fire from Vipus and Marcellus drops them in a heartbeat. They were thankfully far easier to kill. But the buzzing hadn't stopped, in fact, it was only growing louder.
"Cover the steps and watch for tricks." Loken's voice softens despite the heady beat of adrenaline surging through his blood, "Marcellus, Basek, cover those gantries up along the side! I don't like the look of this."
"What's he doing?!" Aximand shouts, watching the con trials of the spider-limbed Dreadclaw drop-pod corkscrew towards the far tower. He hisses, though Ezekyle Abaddon and Kalus Ekkadon were already taking note. But It was Aximand who had reached his helmet first. Keying in an area-wide vox, he seethes through clenched teeth. "Loken! Loken I know that's you! What are you doing?!"
The static click kills the link, and Aximand was left to blink in surprise that his fellow mourneval member hadn't said a single damned word. He blinks, ignoring some question Abaddon barked at him. Ekaddon's did register with more than a hint of anger. "What's that stupid bastard up to?"
"Kalus, I don't know. I..." Aximand shakes his head. He could do little but watch as the Dreadclaw's pincer-like grappling arms spread out as it slams into the side of the tower and grabs. It latches itself on to the side like a limpet and settles as dust rains down from the crenelated structure. Fires flare from the tops of the other seven towers, catching Aximand's attention. "Damn you Garviel, you short-sighted fool. It wasn't supposed to be-" he cuts the thought free with a rough shake of his head. He unclasps the cloak and tosses it to the rain slicked steps. He'd made his choice, and Loken had made his.
"Probably that idiot Tarik, too." Ekkadon mutters wryly, though Aximand couldn't tell if he was smirking or scowling.
"Abaddon, what's the plan?" Falkus Kibre's sharp tone calls from the summit of the steps.
Regardless of how the First captain answers, Aximand toggles the vox link and cycles to a company wide band: his company. "Yade. Lieutenant Yade Durso, get everyone down here on the double. Full breach kit... now."
Abaddon's roar of frustration was almost enough to shake the temple's very foundations. "We should take a Storm Eagle, blow that piece of trash off the tower, go in after them, and haul them back by their throats!" It wasn't an order, as impulsive as Abaddon was, he wasn't stupid. Whatever that motley collection was doing, it was too late to say 'no'.
"That's not the worst idea, Ezekyle." Aximand offers up, turning to Abaddon. The First Captain glances down, rain soaked topknot slapping his neck as the murderous glare gave enough warning that he wasn't to be trifled with. "Reinforce the breach and push in, it's the only thing we can do, now." Aximand shrugs, "then hope that Vaddon can find a cure or Erebus can smooth this over."
Abaddon snarls a low, bestial growl. "I'll find Garviel, Tarik, and whatever other traitorous whoresons that are part of this, and bring them back in chains." Looking out over the landing ground, the First Captain then snaps a glare back over his shoulder to the breached tower of the Delphos, "Kiber, call down a gunship and bring me my damned armour!"
It hadn't been easy, and promises of caution were made in abundance to the solar regent, but the small cluster of ponies made their way towards the spiraling horizon. The tendril-like spans of ephemeral cloud boil away leaving leaching tines of violet tinged lightning in their wake.
Twilight chances a glance back, the catalyst for this all stands on the rise like a lighthouse in the dark. From here, what felt like countless leagues away, there was no single pony standing atop a hillock: but the sun come down to Equestria. Celestia blazes with a magnificence unknown, unseen by anypony in the last age. Where the horizon had once appeared in the same monolithic spinning darkness with its singular focus, now the world behind her boiled with a raging inferno that held back the abyss.
Each step forward was taken with a completely silent Luna, but slowly a single bass note rises from the swirling whirlpool in front of her.
"Are you sure this is the only way to help?" Twilight timidly asks as the shadows flee from her hoofsteps.
"Twilight," Luna intones in a quiet warning growl, "if you have any doubts, then turn back."
'Turn back, Little Star.'
It wasn't her mind, it was a whisper, a silent creeping sibilance hovering on her shoulder and lapping at her ear that came from elsewhere.
"I can't leave a friend." Twilight replies with a shiver as the fur on her nape prickles.
Luna never stops, or looks away from the middle of the jet-black pool. "If you have doubts, it will twist them into fears. If you fear it, it has power over you. Twilight. Head back."
Twilight steels herself, feeling a hoofstep forward falter. And pushes herself on with a far more resolute answer, "No."
Luna's teal eyes swirl with flickers of the distorting lightning as Twilight quickens her pace to pull up to Luna's right side. "Good."
Twilight's ears suddenly itch as the sound feels like its cutting in and out. The first squealing shriek bellows in her ears, a blot of darkness swirling through the mist somewhere on their left just from her peripherals past Luna's muzzle. She looks, but already the hulking quadruped was burning away to clouds of billowing cinders.
Each ray of sunlight trickles by them, pressing in upon the maelstrom, and whatever misshapen monsters crawled from the mist were turned to ash.
"What are they?" Twilight's question slips from her lips, only having seen a hulking mass of angry red muscle.
Luna's upper lip peels back in distaste as she spots the horrid creatures lurking in the shadows. "I called them Blood Hounds, Horus called them Hellhounds, and Discord called them Flesh Hounds. I don't know if any is their true name, Twilight, but they are appropriate."
"Horus?" Twilight's voice lowers to a squeak.
Luna nearly freezes, her trot continuing mechanically before she tilts her chin up in regal nonchalance, "He's the friend I made while I was... occupied."
Through their lumbering trot, the winds suddenly changes. It turns from a gusting blast to a sucking torrent that pulls their manes and tails towards a single spiraling blackness. It draws closer, a wall of shifting shadows in the center of the twisting whirlpool now only as tall as the tallest spire on Canterlot Castle.
"I had hoped you found a new friend, but how will-" A whisper of a voice pricks Twilight's ears and she quiets to hear it's words. They echo in a language certainly not Ponish but understandable all the same.
'How shameless is the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone they say come all their miseries. But they themselves, with their own reckless ways, compound their pains beyond their proper measure.'
Twilight freezes only long enough for Luna to sweep a wing behind her rump and forcefully shunt her forward. Twilight's hooves kick back into motion by the shove, and despite a tremor of fear at the bass whisper that echoed from everywhere and nowhere, she keeps trotting towards that event horizon.
"Ignore it." Luna snorts, lowering her head a bit and surging forward with her shoulder as if barreling through the attempt. But Twilight spots the change as Luna's star-spangled mane flares in the ethereal breeze, "They attempted such things before and it was disastrous. We will not allow them to do such again to another pony."
"Who are 'they'?" Twilight's voice bubbles up, ears flicking and pivoting as more sibilant gasps and whispers pull from the surrounding air. The first tendril's serpentine caress slithers along her hind leg and she bucks hard. Looking around, she sees nothing was there, no wisps, no vines, no creature. But the still distant blaze of Celestia's solar glory still fills the distant hills in a tumultuous inferno of pure golden majesty.
"They call themselves 'The Powers' or 'the Primordials'. They are responsible for Nightmares. They appeal to you, try to offer you things, and they can not be trusted. No matter what they say." Luna's voice drifts past warning to an almost mocking huff, disregarding the phantom-shades.
"How... how do you know?" Twilight pads up even closer to Luna's side, feathers brushing for a moment.
The nocturnal diarch treads forward, the stern glare plastered on her face almost disconcerting as the light dims to let swirls of crepuscular gloom cast writhing shadows across the ground. The single bass note impregnating the air around them rises in an arrhythmic drumbeat. "Because, a thousand years ago they offered me the same thing. I was foalish once, I won't be lured again. They can't lure me again. And I will not let them take him. Not everypony was as fortunate as myself to have a second chance, and I have already made a mistake that must be rectified, Twilight Sparkle." her eyes, flinty and cold, burn with a icy cyan flame..
But for an instant, and just an instant, Twilight spots flecks of swirling gold in Luna's endless blue eyes. Something deep inside her constricting breast breaths one word:
'Serpent.'
Amidst the rising orchestra of disharmonious screeches and staccato drum beats, she spots the shadows drift out of their way as if allowing passage towards the ink-blot now just a hundred paces in front of them. Dark islands emerge from the maelstrom's eddies in insubstantial icebergs shrouded behind a shifting wall of liquid smoke.
And the singing began, carried on the mounting whine of the wind sucking her mane into a violet ribbon. It sounds like it came from behind her, back towards Celestia, back towards Equestria. But now... now she heard a steady voice, deep and rhythmic that tightens her chest.
'No longer. Now through the age lost in darkness, titans stride amongst the ruins of that which was once called sacred. Convinced of the final march of the gods, they say now it is profane, but know not from whence they came. Now the philosophers creed comes to rest at the feet of the oracles of the Delphus, those who conjure up the tides of fate across the sea of stars. Warrior-kings shall cast down empires, shattering the glistening marble and bronze facades of a false order pilfered from rightful powers. They shall regain their immortality and cast off the shackles of a perverse creed. The third age of mythology dawns anew. The Hand of Fate sends warrior pilgrims to bring an end to the lie of New Man. They will be the vanguard of mankind. They shall cast down the puissant bastions of Unbelief and pave the way for the chariots of the gods.'
Twilight's eyes widen as the chorus of the multitudes drifts to her ears. Her rising breath chokes out a single word, "Luna."
"I hear it too." She confirms, and the vortex emerges with a rasping growl of bestial hunger. Luna never stops, but her steps do slow for a moment. "Twilight, I have to go, but you don't. If you have any apprehension, go back. Now. This is it. Everypony and everything beyond this point will mean you harm."
Cyan eyes search her and peer into her very core. For the first time in Twilight's memory, and she's sure she would have recalled if it had happened before, the veil of years peels back showing more than a thousand years of concentrated experience. Of disappointment. Of hardened emotions. But lethargy was gone, fear was gone, the weariness and note of indecision had fled from her. The princess of the night's Star-spangled mane twists and flares in the ghastly breath from the dark and foreboding ether. Comets and flashes of light dapple her normally serine mane, she was again the warrior of Equestria's distant age of legend.
The diadem clad princesses ruling over their little ponies had always seemed so wondrous, so vast and comforting. But to look upon the slightly taller Alicorn wasn't to gaze upon a mother, aunt, or sister: but a conqueror.
This wasn't a Luna she knew, and amid the whirling maelstrom that stretches around her, in the middle of shadows lurking in the dark, she couldn't help but glance back over her withers. Celestia's light was a soft yellow glow and nothing more. With a long steady breath, Twilight nods and looks back at Luna. "Alright, lets go."
Luna nods once, sidling up next to Twilight, and heads straight towards the vacuous whirlpool.
"No matter what happens," Luna folds a wing over Twilight's back and pulls her close, "I will protect you as best I can. Sister would be furious otherwise... but the light of the elements will be your guide, your talent and mind your shield. Trust in yourself, and know that we will take care of you no matter the trials you face." Twilight feels a reassuring nuzzle from the dark Alicorn. It was odd, but so many fears and worries just melted away in a soft breath of evening primrose and lavender. It was comforting as they took their first step into the swirling maelstrom. The howl of discordant sound melds with the shifting liquid vortex that narrows to a single infinitesimal dot.
Setting hoof inside the threshold, the world snaps and with a cold rending scream, mountainous shadows shift in the deep. With a flash of lightning and scream of something primal, writhing talons grasp on to the lavender Alicorn and pull. Luna never lets go, but the flurry of bat wings and sweeping torrent of blood red murk cocoons around her. With a last unnatural howl, it pries the two Alicorns apart.
