"Here they come again!" shouted Brother Korpes, of Squad Topes. Topes had died about three hours ago, just as they had penetrated the defenses around the Temple. He had been blown apart by a missile. Five other Marines were dead, as well as some of Inquisitor Kovash's retinue. They had managed to find the alter, and Kovash and his priests were working to close the portal, while Squads Erasmus and Topes were holding the one corridor to the alter. It was lined with bodies of orks.
Erasmus leaned right from behind a wall and firing his bolt pistol into the charging green skins. This wave was lead by dozens, if not hundreds, of little slave creatures, most likely 'gretchin'. Gunner Morenas took care of those with his flamer, ending gouts of purifying flame down the corridor. The air was filled with the stench of burning flesh. From behind the smoke, charged orks. They were armed with crude cleavers and several threw stick grenades, but none landed near the battered Marines. A Marine from Squad Topes fired a thrumming melta-gun into the press, blasting a hole that was soon filed up by more orks. Gunner Jorres fired his shrieking plasma-gun, and sent goblets of burning plasma into the screaming orks. Another stick grenade soared in, this time landing in the midst of them. Brother Kirlin, of Erasmus's squad, dived on the grenade and curled it into his stomach. The grenade went off with a dull crump and Kirlin was thrown backwards, the ceramite on his torso shredded beyond recognition, his dark red blood mixing with foul green ork gore. The orks fell back, leaving another fresh pile of bodies, but every charge got further and further down the hall as the Marines ammo began to run down.
Erasmus heard the chanting from the large room the alter was in and wondered how long it would be before Koresh and his bloody Ecclesiarchy priests would take to close the damn portal. They had been in there for almost two hours, chanting and praying. Occasionally, thick clouds of incense would billow out. He resisted the urge to burst in there and demand to know what was going on, but Koresh had given him specific instructions not to go in and interrupt, because it might have catastrophically bad results. They might be here all night.
The battered and bleeding group of Marines saw off two more assaults over the next hour, losing two more Marines in the fighting. Ammo was getting to be scarce, especially flamer canisters. Erasmus took a heavy slug round to his helmet and he had to pull the shattered lens of one of his eye pieces out of the bone around his eye. He would probably lose the eye, unless he got back to the Apothecarion soon. Which would be unlikely.
The chanting stopped suddenly and the silence was engulfing. Koresh burst out of the room and screamed "We have failed! The portal is open!"
Erasmus turned back, confused by the Inquisitors words, and glanced back into the alter room. And the sight almost drove him mad. The portal was open and it looked out into a screaming, braying mob of daemon-kin. Screaming the Prayer of Deliverance, he raised his pistol and emptied it into the mob. No effect. Turning, the rest of the survivors pumped hundreds of rounds in the daemon horde as it tumbled out of the portal. Dozens of daemons must have fallen, but there were so many, so very many… Snarling, Erasmus reloaded his pistol and emptied it again. A gigantic daemon, probably a daemon prince or something charged at him. He ducked the first blow and swung his chainsword in an upward slice, gutting the daemon bastard. Laughing, the daemon prince chopped down with a massive, rusted cleaver. Erasmus rolled out of the way, but the cleaver took off the bottom inch of his foot. Screaming in rage, Erasmus rolled to his feet and stabbed the sword through the rend in the daemons belly. The chainsword stuck there, lodged in the daemons spine. Gunner Jorres pumped plasma rounds into the daemon, burning off huge chunks of flesh. The daemon reeled and Erasmus reloaded his pistol. Glancing at Koresh, he saw the Inquisitor was fumbling with a device on his belt.
A whoosh of wind, then total blackness. Then, a loud pop, and Erasmus was starring face to face with an ancient tech-priest. Erasmus laughed out loud. The Inquisitor had a teleport homer and had used it to transport the survivors out. Then, he stopped. One of his Marines had ended up outside the marked lines on the teleport pad and was neatly cut in half, exposing layers of armor, muscle and bone. With a wet sound, the Marine collapsed into a pool of blood.
Koresh ran past the tech-priest, but Erasmus no longed cared. He had survived one of the hardest missions he had ever been on, and faced down a greater daemon and survived. In the 1st Company, only Captain Mepesto and Chaplain Kylan could claim that.