Sanguinius cut eyes over to his brother's equerry as the Red Angel closed his eyes and brought his hand up to rub his temples. Several of his own sons were present with him but they seemed to overlook the lapse in behavior on the part of Angron. His equerry, however, did not miss the gesture and his eyes echoed Sanguinius' concern.
"I can think of no strategy beyond landing and killing every one of these Xenos in direct combat." Angron declared, his voice straining to hold back the growl that wanted to leave his lips.
"Perhaps, we should open with an orbital bombardment?" The equerry posited in a similarly strained tone, as if he was certain he knew what the answer would be.
"No." Angron answered, "they will need to fight the void war, besides, the twice damned mechanicum wants the hives intact to recover any salvageable archeotech."
"Do we fight for the mechanicum now, Angron?" Kharn challenged.
"What do you suggest?" The Primarch inquired, gritting his teeth against the pain pounding in his skull.
"Level the hives, whether we do such from ground or orbit matters little, our delegation by the emperor was to bring this world to compliance, not to ensure the machine cult has first access to the choicest toys."
"Kharn…do you know what would await us should we make foes of the mechanicum?" He made no artifice of his own hatred of the words leaving his mouth, but they were driven by a most dire practicality.
"I can think of no particularly negative consequence, Angron. The machine cult pays lip service to the Emperor but they know a crusade against Mars would serve to break them for all time, making them thralls to the Imperium rather than partners, besides…your brother's ingenuity may rid us of the need for them in the entirey."
Angron let out a bitter laugh, the sound coming as a hacked cough, wet with mucus and chopped by ground teeth, "Just because your beloved cousin deigns to lavish you with gifts from the seventh legion does not mean we all sit in such a position, equerry."
"I simply mean to present you with an alternative course of action, Angron." The captain of the 8th Assault demurred, "Our mandate was not explicitly to pander to the mechanicum but to bring this world to compliance, that we may do so without spending our lives so callously means we will be able to engage in other compliances at a quicker rate, this benefit to the Emperor will outweigh some slight bout of machine cultist distemper."
Sanguinus took the opportunity to speak up, "Actually, brother, I bring a gift from Rogal."
Angron turned to eye him, "Oh?"
The Angel smiled at his brother and bowed his head slightly, "To your legion…in my holds Rogal sent three hundred suits of the Araneus Pattern mark three Iron armor, one hundred Inwit Pattern Cataphractii tactical dreadnoughts, and eight Cobulo Pattern Spartan assault tanks."
"Oh, a fine gift indeed, four hundred of my hounds and eight of my tanks will not require the ministrations of the red-robes, I am forever indebted." The sarcasm in his tone was obvious.
"Also…" Sanguinus continued patiently, "He wished you to have these."
The Angel gestured and a pair of servitors approached bearing a long lacquered box, two and a half meters in length by one meters wide and a third of a meter in depth. The dark wood of the chest was carved in the heraldic rampant hound of the XIIth legion. Sanguinius took the burden from the barely sapient attendant servitors who turned with surprising crispness of movement for their ilk and walked back to their place ten meters from the strategium hololithic display. He set the box on the smooth crystallite surface and slid it towards the Red Angel, stepping around to his side of the table then gently lifting the silver latch and lifting the top on its ornate hinges style to represent the devouring jaws that had become informal heraldry in the legion.
Inside the chest, laid into recesses lined in blood-red velvet sat Rogal's gift and a small folded piece of parchment scribed in the dark ink Rogal favored in his own hand. Angron's eyes fixed on his tribute but turned them reluctantly to the note, lifting it, taking the step of reading it aloud.
"'Angron,'…well let no one say he is one for needless formality, 'You need not worry about these breaking in battle, it will be as constant as the reminder of our oaths, those public and those dearest to us'." His voice took on a softer tone as he spoke those words, Sanguinius knew why Rogal had penned those particular words, Angron's dearest oath had been to the slave rebels he had led on the twisted world of his upbringing, it was an acknowledgement from Dorn that he knew that some things were more precious than their duty.
Angron continued, "'As you wield these, make true all your oaths. Mors in Victoria, Rogal.' Well, he does have some talent for wording."
Angon set the note aside with almost peculiar care and reverence, in most situations he would have simply crumpled the parchment for the barest hint of catharsis destroying something would bring, but he made no such attempt here. He reached in the chest and lifted the chain axe, the head following a waving form on the head, a crest at the top sloping down to the spine of the axe-head, the belly of the blade wide and then recessing to once again flare outward on the axe's beard. The slabs of adamantium plate that formed the axe head were beveled to a sharp edge with a toothed temper-line, the plates themselves bearing a delicately raised relief of mountains with the word 'juramentum' scribed faintly into the slope. The teeth were fashioned from polished Carbonados, the black diamonds shaped into hooked talons each six centimeters in length, and socketed into the chain by a wide flange opposite the chain of the cutting edge, nothing short of total destruction of the chain itself would serve the strip the teeth and the hardness of the black diamonds themselves made them effectively indestructible. The haft of the axe was sectioned with inlays, the handle itself was of high gauge steel pipe, formed from a rolled slab of wootz steel, and along its length, a spiral of wootz steel formed ridge in the valley of which lay the carved bone inlay set into the handle with twisted copper wire and brass tacks, the massive butt cap of the axe had a single thick ring to which a chain of precisely rolled, joined, and welded wootz was attached, four meters in length. Opposite the head of the axe along the back of the socket was a sinister hawkbill, recessed into which sat the motor for the chain-edge. The hawkbill itself was mundane, neither a power or chain weapon but it's razor edge and merciless point made it no less an effective weapon, with the strength of a primarch it would serve to puncture armor with ease or to drag an opponent from a vehicle, or to the ground. In the spiraling scrimshaw of the bone inlay were the words, 'These oaths we make unto ourselves, unto our brethren shall be parted from us by no power.'
Angron hoisted the weapon with reverence and as close to delight as Sanguinius had ever seen from him. Beyond just a work of art or a weapon of war or a demonstration in masterful artifice, it was a secret acknowledgement and demonstration of respect and affection from brother to brother, neither who truly understood each other. But, perhaps, in this gift, Rogal demonstrated that he understood Angron more than he let on, more than he was willing to verbally acknowledge. On the underside of axe head's socket, engraved in letters almost too small to see there was an acknowledgement, 'Thee who behold this weapon bear witness, he who bears it is Angron, Primarch and Commander of the XIIth Legion, in respect and love from his brother.'
"I shall enjoy trying to break this." Angron chuckled, his voice a gurgle of mucus from his inflamed esophagus, the product of a voice that often came our as howls, growls, screams, and shouts. But his eyes said anything but, his crass words were the expectation, but his eyes said he would cherish this weapon for it was not given to him out of expectation or obligation, it placed not burden upon him save to be who he was, to triumph for his own reasons.
Angron was transfixed by the combined brutality and artistry of the weapon, style and finesse as flourish on something inevitably and unquestionably functional. A smile touched his mouth, lips pulled back over teeth to give a predatory grin, but in his eyes was another truth, he was impressed and enraptured by the weapon.
"Kharn, come see what my brother sends me."
The 8th Assault Company captain approached eyeing the weapon, his momentary staid, almost apathetic demeanor giving way to his own marvel, and his could not color his tones with the laconically level-headed tone for which he was famed when not engaged in slaughter of his foes, the other thing for which he was, perhaps unjustly, most famed. "It is, truly, one of the most exceptional pieces I have ever witnessed, Angron."
Angron laughed, the sound harsh but indicating his genuine delight, "My puerile brother thinks I will not break this weapon…he may even be right, oh but I will try! I will name it…Oath."
"Oath?" The equerry prompted.
"Yes…Oath…I swear here and now, before witnesses, that I will do my best to break this weapon on the bodies of our foes." It was another subtle window into his soul, it was acknowledgement that with this axe at his side he would never use another.
Kharn cut his eyes back over to The Angel and Sanguinius had no trouble reading what his brother's equerry was thinking, This is not the oath of which he speaks, he knows what this is meant to signify, he is glad because of it.
"Let us see what else Rogal sent me!" Angron was barely suppressing the joy that the promise of battle with the weapon in his hands brought him, and also the very personal acknowledgment the artistry in the weapon was meant to represent. In a smaller recess sat a plasma pistol, normal and mundane at first glance but on closer inspection one could see the care that went into its construction. To any other being it would be an astartes plasma gun, but fit to a primarch's hand it would serve as a side-arm. It was plain in appearance but closer inspection of the accelerator coils revealed a doubled layer of the magnetic coils, an oversized and reinforced exciter chamber, and a complex turbine system over the barrel under the cooling vent that would speed the dissipation of heat from the weapons discharge. Ceramic backed brass accents concealed discharges veins that would bleed off over-capacitance of the accelerator assembly as static, and an accented grip of the same spiraled wootz, scrimshawed bone, and copper wire accents matched it to the haft of the chain axe. Once again the buttcap of the grip had a ring to which a chain of wootz steel was connected, forged in no less a meticulous fashion as anything else. Engraved in the bone was another litany, 'Let those who have wronged we of oaths feel the heat of judgement's fury,' once again, an acknowledgement from Rogal of the Oath that had been broken in Angron's stead and the revenge he was due because of it.
"Recompense…" Angron muttered, "this shall be called 'Recompense'."
The Primarch of the XIIth returned the pistol to the recess in the chest and hoisted the axe once again, still distracted by its form and construction examining it more closely, running his finger down the razor sharp bevels of the axe-heads frame, slicing his finger in the process, his dark blood staining the edge. His thin, cracked lips once again drew back from his clenched teeth and he chuckled, the ease with which this weapon would cut was undeniable, the chain track with the black-diamond teeth would just expedite the process, unlikely most chain weapons there would be no need to bear down on it to push the blade through, it would slide through flesh and armor with ease, more brutal than a power weapon but with more finesse than the average chain blade. Sanguinius could see his brother's uncontrollable desire to wield it in battle, to strike down foes, to wade into battle was only enhanced by the promise of getting to use the weapon.
The Red Angel licked his lips, the anticipation of a battle that was still days away gnawing at him, but of late he had begun to strive towards some measure of discipline, in a way it was Angron's own attempt at acknowledging the affection and trust he had felt from both Sanguinius himself and Horus at the direct prompting of Rogal. They three had enjoyed a closeness that was unrivaled anywhere else in the legions of their father, a unique bond and filial devotion that would, perhaps, seem strange and disturbing in this dark and twisted time. Rogal had insisted that all of the sons must come together and form an unbreachable bond of trust and friendship amongst each other, for if they did such, there would be nothing that could move the Imperium. Rogal had suggested that Angron must be attended too, must be made to feel trusted and cherished for his was a dark path that they could see clearly, and if they folded him into the warmth of trust, friendship, and support, perhaps he could fight back against the song of the nails. Horus, himself, had been the one that had managed to convince Angron to cease his implantation of the nails in his sons, a practice he had begun early after his assumption of command of the legion. Those that had received the nails were skating various edges of insanity, of those that had received the implants, Kharn seemed to be most in control of the implant except when battle overtook him where he fought with a strange focused brutality. Sanguinius' own son, Nassir Amit, was similarly brutal, but the Flesh Tearer's rage was different from Kharn…he did not seek to punish a foe as much as to simply destroy them and move on to the next, leaving a wake of cleaved, smashed, and eviscerated dead in his wake as he sought to move further and further afield in search of worthy foes.
"Sanguinius," Angron spoke, drawing his attention from his introspection, "what do you think, my brother, how should we proceed? You and some of your sons will join us, what do you think our course should be?"
His wings fluttered as he drew his hand up to his chin and stared at the hololithic display of the Xenos hives and the surrounding lands. "I share with you a lack of love for the mechanicum…"
Angron chuckled, "It is not just a lack of love on my part, brother, it is outright revulsion."
Sanguinus lips curled into a smile, "I was attempting delicacy of phrase, but aye, I feel much the same, brother. However, I can see benefit to our legions with leaving the hives intact, the mechanicum will not venture afield until we have absorbed the brunt of the danger, but with proper artifice we can glean that which would benefit us first without their knowledge."
Angron bounced his head in a loose sort of acknowledgement of the point, "Possibly."
"However, we should not spend the lives of our sons carelessly, not when there are other worlds to bring into compliance, not when there are still deadly foes we must strike down." Sanguinus lowered the hand from his chin, looking fully at Angron, "I long for a worthy battle, brother, one where we must rely on our might and fury and skill."
Kharn rapped his knuckles on the brass edge of the table, "Here, here."
Angron nodded, he desired a worthy battle too, perhaps more than any of them for his rage and fury were not just his own but a product of the foul archeotech that invaded his mind, his expression was uncharacteristically pensive. "Something I noticed though…"
Sanguinius arched a brow, "What, brother?"
"Observe the hive spires…now look at the Xenos construction around it…they are not the same."
Sanguinius had utterly overlooked it, Kharn nodded, "I noticed the same."
"This…Xenos filth builds itself upon the remains of a human civilization…I am convinced of this. This, stain of a race…took this world and slaughtered the humans who built the civilization they live upon, they are naught but carrion feeders, picking at the corpse of humanity's works."
Sanguinius' face paled as he suddenly realized the truth of it, he had seen this hive layout again and again across numerous worlds, likely adhering to some ancient STC that had helped govern the building and colonization efforts of humanity as they took to the stars thousands of years before. "Damnable Xenos…" he muttered.
"I am torn by this…while it should suggest that the humans that fell were weak, it may be that the alien filth used deception and the basest of artifice to achieve this end, if that is the case, we must punish them."
Sanguinius saw an option in this, one he felt no specific moral compunction again given his disdain for the methods of Xenos. "Phosphex!"
Angron pursed his brows, "Phosphex, brother?"
"Lob shells into the hives, drive them out into the fields, and lay about them with all the fury we can muster, a righteous slaughter in the grass and dirt where neither side will be able to rely on anything except for their own mighty and indignation. They can face us in battle to be remembered as a foe with at least the courage to face their demise or they can sit huddled in their cities to die a coward's death unworthy of thought or consideration."
It spoke to something at the core of Angron, of his sons, there was a layered insult to it, his legion viewed phosphex deployed from artillery to be cowardly, it was not a warrior's method to kill, but at the same time, using them for the purpose of area denial would force the foe to either live up to the ideal of courage or die a coward's death to a coward's weapon. None of his sons would need sully themselves with the weapons, the auxilia could do that much, and at the same time he could force these Xenos to prove some measure of worthiness and save the cities.
Angron rubbed his chin, considering it, wincing as the nails began to once again pound his hand shifting from his chin up to his forehead which he rubbed, "I abhor the use of phosphex by anyone lacking the courage to make themselves a possible vicim to it, but at the same time…there a sort of grim justice to the plan. Yes…I like this plan, more than I would like the idea of blasting these hives from orbit or trying to wade through narrow street by narrow street to clear them from their hovels. Let them either stand the field and face us as a worth death for their race or let them hide and cower to have their corpses burned from their burrows and warrens and be forgotten as anything but as a nuisance. What say you, Kharn?"
The equerry nodded, a pleased, almost aggressive smile on his face, "I do like this plan, Angron, let them face us might for might or let them just die forgotten."
"Then it is decided! Thank you brother, I do not think I could have devised an option that was so…poetic."
"I do enjoy poetry." Sanguinius jested.
"Part of the affectation of a fop you strive for?" Angron sniped in return.
He simply shrugged at his brother in return.
"They say you are prettier than Fulgrim, more charismatic than the Lion, and a greater leader than Guilliman…but unlike them, I see the fire that burns in you, your lust for a great battle, a worthy foe…in that you are just like me. We are more alike than they credit us for, brother."
Sanguinius nodded, he knew this to be true, he and Angron were opposite side of the same coin, but it was a coin forged of bloodshed and fury. "We are, which is why we must triumph together, brother."
Angron rarely was able to sleep without the nails beginning to sing to him, the pounding pain of their song keeping the catharsis of rest from reaching him without powerful drugs or battling to exhaustion. The former he despised and the latter came to far and in between to avail himself of. But, when one of his brothers sat with him, he could sometimes find enough ease of mind to where the song was dulled to a mutter and sleep could overtake him. Sanguinius knew he had this effect to greater degree on his brother than any of the others so he would sit with Angron, in his quarters while he slept, ten hours ago he had accompanied the Red Angel to his chamber, they spoke a while then Angron lay down on his thin mattress which topped a stone slab, closed his eyes, and drifted into sleep, the first time in weeks. Sanguinius entertained himself with reading, pict casts, and vox recordings, no sound which he made or produced by the media he perused served to rouse the Primarch of the XIIth for once he was in his comfort enough to sleep, nothing would rouse him. After ten hours had elapsed Angron opened his eyes with a sharp hissing intake of breath through his nose and rose.
"How long did I sleep?"
"Just a little over ten hours." Sanguinius replied softly.
"I needed that."
"I know."
Bedecked in only a loin cloth, Sanguinius could see the trail of scars that formed his Triumph Rope snaking around his body, a physical testament to his victories with but a single space where should have lain his token of defeat. But it was not a defeat…not truly…his victory or triumph had been stolen from him, by their father. But was it a defeat…it was a bloody forfeiture, a justly deserved resolution stolen from him. Angron stepped over to the table and took up a pitcher, pouring the red wine within the brass vessel into a cup which he brought to his lips and gulped down. Spirits had no effect on him, but the alcohol served to preserve the fluid from stagnation and spoilage, for a mortal is would have been a truly heady brew, much stronger than any normal wine. Sanguinius could smell the sourness of the brew from where he sat, and as Angron cleared his parched throat he sat down the brass cup and spoke, his voice even and clear of the inflammation that usually turned his speech into a raspy or gurgling utterances.
"Have they reported on how long until planet fall?"
"Fourteen hours." The Angel replied.
Angron swore, "Why didn't you wake me?"
"Because you only need six to prepare." He replied with a smirk.
"But my legion…" Angron didn't seem so much angry as upset, he viewed the failing as his own.
"Your sons have been attending to it per your normal plans of battle. All is in readiness, brother."
He nodded, "Still…it is not fitting for the commander of the legion to sleep while his men work."
"You…" Sanguinius pointed, "needed the sleep, and your sons were more relieved that you were able to get some than they were bothered by having to oversee preparations."
Angron pursed his brows again, his voice was still the calm, almost lovely evenness it exhibited before the nails forced growls and bellows from him, "Why do you call them our sons? They are not, by any appreciable measure, our sons. I never understood it."
"Are they not? They have been molded from our genome, they exhibit our traits, they seek to serve and honor us, how are they not like sons?"
"A son should love his father…not fear him." The nails clearly had yet to awaken.
"Are the two so different?" Sanguinius countered.
"What do you mean?"
Sanguinius sat down the book he was reading, "When a child first comes to love a parent, it is tempered by provision and protection, the parent is stronger, capable of doing things through their strength that a child cannot, a father's violence is to be turned outward to threats that may approach the child, the awe of might is a kind of fear, but in that fear there is reassurance…this might will not be turned against me."
Angron shook his head, then nodded, "You are correct, that is the way it should be. I have not been that kind of father."
"Nothing says that cannot change."
Angron reached up and slapped his hand against the steel tendrils that bore into his scalp between the red braids of his hair, "These…these…damnable nails…they make it so that…if I show joy or pride, they bite all the harder, only in slaughter do they quiet and give me any real joy."
"Then slaughter with your sons, let them kill the foe at your side, train the nails, conquer them."
Angron's face took on an open quality that was rare and Sanguinius believe his was the only one alive who had seen it, "I have tried, but when the bite…"
"You are stronger than them, Angron."
"Did you know they are killing me?" Anrgons brows arched at Sanguinius expression, "Oh yes, they are killing me, not as some sort of hyperbole, he has not deigned to tell any of you, has he?"
"No…he has not."
"These nails will kill me, but before that they will drive me completely mad, I would rather my men…my sons…fear and hate me than to mourn me when this happens."
"We will not allow that to happen." Sanguinius insisted, feeling a gnawing sense of sorrow at the thought of losing a brother.
"Well, the masters of the machines say there is no preventing it, they nails cannot be removed, and they will continue in their task until it becomes too much to survive."
Sanguinisu forced a smile, "What can a machine cultist truly know of this? We are Primarchs, Angron, the most perfect beings to grace the universe, we will devise a way."
"Not the two of us, you're far too pretty to be smart and I'm just a brute." Angron returned the smile with his own sort of fatalistic frank bemusement.
"Have you told Horus?"
"No."
"Let me talk to Horus…and Rogal, they will either devise a way or know who to consult."
Angron sighed, "I would say no out of course, but you would likely do so anyway. I do not believe they will succeed, but do as you will, brother. If anything they may preserve me the indignity of turning into a gibbering invalid and allow me a clean death."
"Thank you, brother."
"Thank me?" Angron let out a harsh laugh, "Why?"
"Because I would not lose you, you are my brother."
Angron smirked, "Enough sentimentality; let us see to our preparations, we have to make to battle, and I have an axe I swore I would try to break."
The Red Angel approached the chest which he had elected to keep in his living quarters rather than his arming chamber and worked the latch, lifting the lid to remove Oath from its niche and hoisted it, looking at it with the appreciation one did a piece of the highest art or a beautiful woman.
"To see this…I think, perhaps, Rogal does understand me…yes…you should speak to him about it, I think he will offer a keen insight."
"You know, he forged it by his own hand, he would not let his legion craftsman touch a single component of it."
Angron spun the axe around its haft in his hand, feeling the weight and balance of the hawkbill end, "Did he truly? I assumed he just guided the process."
"He took the steel from battles, worked it in a forge, beat and folded it, hammered and shaped it, ground the diamonds of the teeth, constructed the motor, and engraved the bone all by hand."
Angron let out a chuckle, "I never would have imagined as much from him, I saw him as a builder more than a smith."
"That is because those are the only two weapons he had made that I know of. He wanted them to be unique for you Angron."
"So I enjoy the love of my brother Rogal, there is a strange reassurance in that."
"You enjoy the love of your brother Horus and mine as well, Angron."
When he turned his head back there was a twinkle in his sharp eyes, "Oh, I already knew that."
The Angel slapped his hands on his thighs and stood, "Well, to our preparations then?"
Angron nodded, "Meet me in the strategium in twenty minutes, and if you could, request food, I am famished."
At this the seventh hive the foe had required no coercion to quit the city to fight they had come charging and ravening from the city before the artillery could even deploy, falling upon the Auxillia as almost feral hordes. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of the Xenos rolled forth from out the hive, up from the ground seeming to pour outwards like blood seeping from a wound. For almost thirty minutes the slaughter continued unabated as the mortals tried valiantly to defend the position from the Xenos horde. Among the vanguard of the howling, gibbering creatures were great monstrous siege constructs of flesh-craft. Purple skinned like their smaller antecedents with the same lustrous polished hematite eyes, set in descending rows of four on either side of their head, their hinged jaws showing sharp plate-like teeth, claws as long as a mortal's arm tipping in segmented steel sharpened to a razor's edge. The muscular forms were clad in plates of graven metal showing acts of unspeakable excess and as they tore into the mortals a dripping organ emerged from between their legs at the carnal delight of their slaughter. I have never witnessed such degeneracy in a foe, such lasciviousness mixed with their violent inclinations.
I was attempting to direct a rally of the Auxillia bolstered by my own sons when a piercing howl drown out the sounds of battle, the screams of the dying, the ululating screeches of the Xenos. I looked to the origin of the sound to see Angron leaping through the air, Oath clutched in both hands as he brought it down on one of the siege beast's neck the whirling chain teeth biting through the metal plates to meet flesh as the sharpened adamantium slabs parted through skin and muscle with ease, the chain sawed through the bone and just dragged the twin bladed housing deeper into the meat of the creatures neck as he struck through the neck and throat with ease. The creature fell as he did, spine severed along with blood vessels and esophagus, the brown blood poured from the open wound as the beast's huge heart continued to beat, a tattered flap of muscle and flesh holding the head to the body as Angron landed then kicked the massive skull, it flipped sideways with such force that the remaining meat tore and the head when bounding over the ground into a mass of its mortal sized brethren, flattening several in its path.
Angron lifted the axe over his head and howled a challenge, "Sons of the Imperium, my hounds, angels! To me!"
The dispirited Auxillia that had been embroiled in fighting for their lives lifted their rifles and gave a shout as they rose from their hastily dug fighting positions and took to ground. To Angron's left and right squads of his sons lay into other siege beasts, hacking and sawing at the bodies to bring them down, using the chains attached to their weapons to restrain the beasts arms, to trip their legs, and then hacking away with their falchions, axes, and chain blades.
The tide had not yet turned, but the Lord of the XIIth had given the Auxillia enough breathing room to begin a counter-attack in earnest. Angron took a bounding step forward, swinging the axed wide with one hand, cleaving ten of the lesser Xenos in half with a single blow. On the return stroke he cleaved and smashed seven more. Another of the siege beasts began to charge from thirty meters away and Angron grasped the handle of Recompense, blasting the creature in the face and turning the head into a mass of charred boned, cooked flesh, and burning ash. I almost gasped when the third beast closed the distance, approaching from Angron's flank, it was upon him before he had even turned, but I should have never doubted my brother for he turned at the last instant and releasing his plasma pistol smashed the hawkbill into the creature's face, punching through the plate of steel depicting the most vile acts of prurience I had seen committed to any medium and dragged it down.
"I am Angron, lord of the red sands, master of the War Hounds, conqueror of worlds! By what right do you exist xeno filth?" He bellowed at the creature.
One of the arms of the creature came forward to grasp at him, but Angron simply released his right hand from his axe, pulled the pugio from his right hip and filleted the arm open, cutting through the connective tissue of the wrist and elbow. He then twisted the haft of the axe pulling the hawkbill free with a chunk of skull and flesh as he did so then stepped the side of the giant head and sunk hawkbill through the base of the skull with a might two handed swing, striking with such force as to knock three of the eyes out of the creature's skull and shatter the plate-teeth in the upper and lower jaw.
I lifted my sword above my head, "Sons of Sanguinius! To the Red Angel! Attack!"
I planted my feet, and spread my wings, jumping as I beat them down and in a moment I was off the ground and soaring above the lines of battle, the thin line of our forces born down upon by the sea of the Xenos driven by their twisted bloodlust. The number seemed…insurmountable, thing as our lines were, our forces in the midst of their redeployment, a fraction of the number needed to stem this tide.
To my left I saw the 8th Assault Company in advanced, their captain, and first captain of the legion, Kharn the Bloody, equerry to my brother, was advancing through his foes at a full sprint with the brothers of his assault company on his heels, driving deep into the enemy's advance. The warsmiths of Angron's legion well understood the combat appetites of his sons and provided a steady stream of crude but effective hatchets, cleavers, falchions, gladiuses, and falcatas and the like for the direct purpose of slaking their desires for close combat without needing to constantly repair or replace maintenance-intensive chain weapons or rare and precious Power weapons. The Bloody first captain bore two falcatas, one in each hand, lashing out which slash, chop, hack, and stab as he pushed forward at a run. He was like a pellet of iron parting water, dragged inexorably into the sea of Xenos and disrupting the surface tension for his company which just seemed to run over any of the Xenos foolish or unfortunate enough to be in the path of their advance. Like an iron pellet the ocean provided no resistance to his path, pulled by the gravity of his own peculiar blood lust that manifested nowhere but in battle against a true foe.
Off to my right, my own son, Nassir Amit cut not quite so quick a path into the foe as he did a far wider one. In his right hand, his power sword flashed, parting the Xenos bodies while in the left chain-fist the carbide teeth whirred and the bolt-pistol chattered. It was clear his purpose, to establish a foot-hold and deny the foe the advantage of the shallow rise from which our forces could fire down into their lines. Nassir took relish in his work, and he slaughtered with a thoroughness I found disturbing, his was a fury that mimicked that on Angron but with an almost sadistic glee that drove him to break and despoil the foe, taking more satisfaction in the level of destruction to a foe he caused rather than in quickness. Of course, this did have a psychological effect against most enemies, the parodies of rent flesh, shattered bone, and torn skin his blades left could weaken the heart of any but the most stalwart and this foe seemed to be no exception as they hesitated to rush him and his battle brothers.
Below me Angron was laying into another of the siege-beasts as support squads began to close around him, their auto-cannons barking as they sent death into the advancing foe. The siege monstrosities were focused on him now, all moving across the field to try to get to him in order to lay him low. Angron roared in defiance at them, spreading wide his arms as a parent did a child running to an embrace, as a friend did a long absent acquaintance, as a man did a woman who longed to be folded into his warmth. But Angron's invitation promised not comfort, but destruction, and as the first made it to him he grasped his axe in both hands, cocking it back behind his head to swing it forward with alarming alacrity, the whirling teeth opening skin as the sharpened frame split muscle and flesh opening the beast's gut from side to side as peristalsis pushed the twitching steaming gut out of the abdomen and into a pile in the dirt. The creature reflexively bent forward, it's clawed hands slicing apart its entrails as it tried to gather them back to push into its opened stomach. Angron spun the axe in his hand and swung again, the hawkbill gouging out the creature's face with an arching swing.
My brother either ignored or missed the second of the group and I heard a cry of pain and fury from him as the long claws raked his back, cutting through armor to open bright red wounds on his back. No Warhound was to present their back to an enemy, I knew this would be a sore spot for him, but, I would remind him, that this belief did not account for an enemy so cowardly as to flank. Angron spun swinging his left fist wide to strike the beast in the face, denting its helmet as popping three of the eyes, its brown blood and watery humors of the eyes pouring down its face. It recoiled away and I dove, my sword finding purchase in its neck and passing through, the head lifting from the stump of the neck and I grabbed hold with my left hand, lifting it free and tossed it back and into its brethren before landing next to my brother who swung furiously into the press of the enemy.
"Angron, are you alright?"
"I am fine, brother!" He spat, his rage barely controlled enough to speak.
When his eyes met mine I saw the fury was directed away from me, instead there was something almost, joyous there. He opened his blood-stained lips and spoke again, "Come brother, fight beside me! Let us to this slaughter!"
This was how he knew to embrace me, how he could express himself, I, his precious brother who he longed more than anything else to fight beside, we…the two angels making holy this befouled field in righteous slaughter. Casting my eyes back to the ridgeline I saw our sons, cousins to one another, pouring down the slope weapons raised on high, charging to meet the foe, to crash back into the tide. To our right Nassir the Flesh Tearer pushed the pocket deeper into the Xenos, to our left the First Great Company of the XIIth with Kharn at the fore sliced deep into the Xeno lines, turning a pair of flanks now so that the divided portions of the army could be worn down, picked apart, and set upon by our combined legions and the doggedly fighting auxilia.
"Yes, brother! Let us put them all to the blade!" I echoed as an enthusiasm I could not explain took me, this was the only just fate for these defilers and vitiates.
It took four days to fight into the hive itself, another two to reach the tower, in that time Angron had not once stopped in his inexorable push, Sanguinus never faltered in his step, at his side the entire time as hundred…thousands…tens of thousands fell to his axe and his brother's sword. The further in they reached, the greater the vile excesses they witnessed, the shrines to the debased form of their god we broken under boot as the Xenos attempted some dying rituals in devotion. Excess, carnality, base dissoluteness and libertinism that sought to satiate their god's hungers.
When they encountered such, they became the defilers, casting down the icons and slaying the worshipers in the throes of lascivious activity all they met they killed. Great chambers filled with pupal forms of their offspring, hatched as mindless larvae that existed only to feed until maturation were put to the torch, burner units laying into them with flaming promethium and melta blasts until all had cooked to ash. This was the judgement for their excess.
A master of signal approached, his white ceramite muddied with the blood of the foe, his boots trailing gobbets of still warm brown flesh and tatters of their ultra violet skin. The Warhound approached and knelt, "Sire."
"Stand up," Angron growled, "I am your commander, not a lordling that requires supplication."
The astartes stood, his chain sword browned and caked with the Xeno filth, the great antenna sprouting from the back of his armor's power plant bedecked with a pennant of the First Great Company.
"Auspex and Augury detect all Xenos have been purged, sire."
"Where is my Equerry?" Angron grunted.
"On the outskirts of the hive, sire, he was pursuing and put to the sword those that sought to escape the hive."
"Issue a recall to him, I must convene with my captains here in the spire to discuss the next phase of the assault."
"As you will it." The Master of Signal declared, clapping a fist on his chest plate with a lowered helmet and departed.
Angron pressed his back to the wall and slid down into a seated position, allowing his eyes to drift shut. Sanguinus watched him as he did, an inexplicable expression of contentment on the Red Angel's face.
"Say it…whatever it is…say it and get it over with, brother." Angron declared, not opening his eyes.
"I was just thinking, our forces are well matched, Angron."
He let out a rough chuckle, "Oh, aye, they are…any two other legions would have taken a month for this. Still, I cannot overcome the belief that the fair sons of the angel do not fit so well with my hounds."
"Our ideals differ, but the methods…" Sanguinius offered off-handedly.
"We are similar in that regard if no other. Your son's are better warriors than I would have thought."
Sanguinius bristled at this, "What would lead you to believe otherwise?"
"You…" Angron opened his eyes, a feeble grin cracking his mouth, "you're too damn pretty."
Angron chuckled again, his lips still drawn into an almost rictus grin. Sanguinius muttered a chuckle then started laughing, it was absurd, it wasn't particularly funny, but after one hundred forty four hours of constant fighting, anything seemed amusing that gave some outlet to an emotion other than rage and indignity. Sanguinius sunk down against a pillar, opposite his brother and close his own eyes, allowing a mote of exhaustion to take hold into relaxing his eyes. His own golden armor was caked in brown and dark dried-blood red, identical in many ways to Angron's. After a few minutes of blessed rest he heard the sound of Angron sliding his axe across the floor and he opened his eyes as Angron continued to admire the weapon.
"Well, Rogal…the oath still stands, one of these days I will break this, but apparently it was not this day."
As he looked at the axe-head he noticed on the relief of the mountain peak an area where the brown Xenos blood had caked and moved his hand across it to wipe it away clearing it from the raised area and leaving vestiges in a faintly scribed word he had not noticed before. He ran his gauntleted thumb across his tongue and re-applied it to the area clearing away the filth enough to reveal the words Fedan Mhor scribed in such fine letters as to be indistinguishable from the details of the relief.
He grit his teeth, feeling tightness in his throat, a burning in his eyes. Emotions, long since dulled by the nails, came back to him with shocking intensity; sorrow, frustration, defeat, but also…catharsis, a unique catharsis. Fedan Mhor represented not a failure he had earned but one force upon him, and in this failure there was a lesson, a lesson as only Dorn would teach it, never let an oath be broken again, never leave your men to fall again.
"What is wrong, Angron?"
He shifted his blurred eyes to the Angel, moisture hot against his cheeks, "I think it is time I made peace with my other brothers."