A/N: The original description for this story stated that "things don't immediately go horribly". As some of you may have realized, the key word there was 'immediately'. And now, at last, everything finally comes crashing down around Fenwick. Thanks to all who read and review, and I hope you enjoy.
There, at the center of the maelstrom of clashing armies, it seemed like my vision had improved to the point where everyone around me appeared to be moving in slow motion, while the sounds and the background had simply faded into an indistinct blur. Every time my guns barked and a Boy fell, a sheet of red flashed behind my eyes, and my own breathing had grown deeper. I could feel a string of spit hanging from between my teeth, and I didn't bother to wipe it away – the thick of combat was not the place to be worrying about such things. The only constant in this rush of flesh, blood and explosions was Marrlë's red mop of hair, forging ever onwards as he cut down anything unlucky enough to find itself in his path. It was my guiding light through the dust, spurring me on with the knowledge that if I was left behind, I'd be swallowed whole by the battle. Fiercely as we fought, though, we could not dent the green tide as they raced past us to engage with the Ultramarines. Even in this mad rush, I sensed that Marrlë knew where he was going. He charged and struck with visible purpose, but as we pushed ever deeper into the fray, it didn't look like we would be getting out again. I only had a bit of ammunition left, and if it came down to my lasgun and knife, I wouldn't last a minute. Strangely enough, the thought of making peace with my Emperor was far from my mind; my only concern was where I would point my guns next, which ork would meet its end at my hands. When to duck, when to shoot. And with every kill, that red flash behind the eyes.
It was frightening… and exhilarating.
Suddenly, after the last bolt flew from my forearm-mounted pistol, I saw him – Damantin, soaring over the battlefield on his disc. I shouted and waved, but he could not hear me, and did not change his trajectory. His armoured form blazing with Warp energy, he closed on the Titan, and before my disbelieving eyes, began to rend the gargantuan god-machine to pieces. This was a Damantin I had never seen, displaying power that no person should be capable of wielding. The Thousand Son tore its guns from its carapace, wrenched its arm-cannons from their sockets, crumpled its metal shell like a beetle's exoskeleton and cast it all down in pieces upon the army of orks, crushing them in their hundreds. A piece fell within a dozen metres of us, blasting us with earth, dust and shrapnel. That was my single luckiest moment on Armatura – an ork that had been about to brain me was instead shredded by flying chunks of metal. In retrospect, I wonder if Damantin had meant it to.
Another ork charged me, brandishing a spiked mace, and this one was intercepted by a flash of purple-white. The Boy was disembowelled in a brutal flurry of blows, and it took me a moment to register what I was seeing. Rosie stood before me, grinning over her shoulder at me, claws dripping with blood. Then, her physical form faded; she flickered through the air in a haze of purple as she danced between reality and the Warp, appearing to strike down the orks around us. Marrlë roared an unintelligible greeting, and then we three advanced. An inhuman, blood-hungry grin split my face; if we were indeed to die on this barren, wasted land, we would die together.
Under Marrlë's guidance, we rounded the side of one of the Titan's cast-off guns. Ahead of us rose a mound of bodies, accumulated throughout the battle. There were Astartes there, but only a scant few compared to the dozens upon dozens of orks. They all lay dead together, and as I looked upon them, the curious thought struck me that not all are equal in death. The orks died to sate their lust for combat, while the Space Marines died to free Armatura of their taint. My hand tensed around the grip of my autopistol. Would I die well, when my time came?
Atop the mound, I saw him; Damantin appearing in a flash of sorcerous light, and with a whirl of his staff, taking a weirdboy's head off. Three more falling to his unstoppable power, until a towering shape, over twice his size, stomped into view from the other side of the mound. Damantin swivelled, his body alight with psychic energy, but when he extended his hand, there was no flash, no explosion, no sound - only the bellow of the warboss as it ploughed into him, crushing his armour in its massive claw, and casting him earthwards with vicious force. The Chaos sorcerer's broken body bounced once before crashing into the gun we just came around. He lay at our feet, unmoving. Unbreathing.
I saw his face, saw the unnatural light of life that had preserved him these past ten thousand years dim and sputter, and finally wink out forever.
I saw Rosie as the horrific implications of this dawned on her: I was the knot that bound her to the Materium, but Damantin was the rope. I saw her reaching out for me, calling my name, asking me to save her. I could not – she knew I could not, but still she pleaded. I was no sorcerer, just a man. I saw her fade from reality, screaming those same haunting final words that she mouthed when she left me the first time.
I saw Marrlë, saw him looking down at Damantin's shattered corpse. I saw him look up to fix the warboss with his glare. They were not human eyes, if ever they had been, but pools of liquid fire, ablaze with rage. I saw the warboss roar jovially, and heard it bellow down to us. "You was friends with them Space Marines, 'umie gitz? Dey was 'ard, ded 'ard, but not as 'ard as Boss Skullrippa!" I saw it laugh, beating its barrel chest with its power klaw of a left hand. In its right hand was-
I froze at the realization: in its right hand was Thurion's power sword.
Marrlë let out a scream of insensate rage, and Gorelady howled right along with him, sparks running along her head as she spun with vengeful hunger. The Khornate and his axe wanted, needed to kill, and the warboss was the only one whose death could slake their thirst. Everything else was erased, and I was swept up in their bloodlust, racing towards the mound of bodies, seconds behind Marrlë. I could not feel myself breathe, could not hear the thundering battle around me, could not taste the dirt and sweat pouring down my face. All that was left was the sight of that laughing ork, and the desire to see it dead.
The two of us reached the edge of the mound and began to climb. I was rapidly outstripped by Marrlë, who was practically leaping up the pile, the less-than-stable ground not seeming to slow him in the least. Despite the murderous rage reddening my vision, I was still only human, and quickly fell behind. It was just as well; somewhere in that fury, the thought occurred to me that if I came within reach of the warboss's sword and claw, I would be quickly disposed of. Of course, I still had every intention of blowing the bastard's head off – it only meant I would have to be careful not to draw too much attention to myself… while also hammering the ork with all the ammo I had left.
Fortunately, this seemingly impossible task was made considerably easier by Marrlë surging up the rest of the mound and hurling himself at the warboss with the ferocity of a man possessed – certainly no mortal man could be strong or fierce enough to drive such a monstrous hulk as Warboss Skullrippa back a step, seemingly taken by surprise as Marrlë showered him with bone-shattering blows from his chainaxe. But one did not become the unifying leader of ork warbands by succumbing to initial onslaughts, even ones as ferocious as that, and before I had gained a foothold and trained my guns on what little unarmoured flesh the ork did have, Marrlë had been forced onto the back foot, leaping and strafing frantically to avoid the swinging Legion power sword and the enormous power klaw. Even the Khornate's monstrous strength would be sorely tested if he attempted to turn either of those aside.
For a moment I grasped the sheer hopelessness of our predicament. We were facing a creature that had butchered two Space Marines, one of whom had been a master swordsman, the other having been a powerful sorcerer. The autopistol in my hand seemed tiny and ineffectual. How were mere bullets supposed to pierce the warboss's thick armour? Even the powerful bolt pistol fixed to my arm might not be enough… and I had a single bolt magazine left. Beyond that, I had my plasma pistol, which would be my best bet at punching through that armour. And my puny combat knife, which I wasn't even considering at the moment. All of that, I grasped for a single moment.
Then the madness of battle took me once again, and I slammed a new magazine into my autopistol before opening fire.
It would have been a swift death for me if Marrlë hadn't been so unrelenting in his attacks. Even while forced on his guard, he still threw everything he had at the hulking brute, axe blurring through the air, seeming to be already swinging in from another direction before a blow had landed. What allowed us to last as long as we did was Skullrippa's relative unfamiliarity with Thurion's sword; it was more of a trophy than a practical weapon, its grip undersized for the ork's massive hand. Marrle must have noticed this, because he redoubled his assault on the warboss's right side. This would have been an infeasible tactic were it not for me forcing the ork to ward off my shots with its klaw. Still, even as Marrlë attacked, carving a bloody gash into the warboss's arm with every other slash of his axe, it still wasn't enough. We needed a good, clean strike to our enemy's head, but as tall as he was, there was simply no way for us to do so – without me getting in range of its klaw, that was.
I knew then that to have a chance of defeating this monster I would have to die. The truth ran through my veins like a river of ice, turning my arms to lead and my stomach to boiling oil. Now, after all I had lived through, was the moment where I would be called on to do my duty as a Guardsman and give my life to take down the enemy. My feet felt like they were encased in stone as I looked up at the bristling mountain of armour that was fighting Marrlë. Could I? Could I give my life, in the Emperor's name, to vanquish the foes of mankind? Most Guardsmen had to choose between their enemy's guns or their own commissar's, whereas I only had the former to worry about. I could scramble back down the pile, leaving my companion at the warboss's mercy, and probably catch a stray bullet, or I could run up to the warboss, shoot it in the face, and be inevitably pounded into a bloody paste.
I holstered my autopistol and shoved every bolt I had into my arm-mounted gun. I would need both hands free. Then, taking a deep breath and allowing the mad courage of battle to bear me forwards, I, Thomas Fenwick, charged the fifteen-foot tall ork warboss.
My brother, come join me; through battle, we grow stronger.
The ork roared and brought its klaw hammering down, several hundred pounds of scrap metal and matter-disrupting spikes crashing towards me. Fortunately, it was more concerned with fending off Marrlë's desperate onslaught, and so I was able to scrape by, dodging the slamming klaw and leaping to dig my fingers into the warboss's armour.
Our foes all shall falter, sacrificed on this altar.
Unable to reach me from that close without dropping his sword, Skullrippa roared and twisted madly, which resulted in Marrlë's axe biting into its ribs, shearing on through the armour and forcing it to retaliate with equal ferocity. Even so, I was hanging on for dear life, bloodying my nails on the craggy edges of the armour, my face smashing against the unyielding metal. Gritting my teeth and ignoring the blood pouring down my chin from several more broken teeth, I forced myself to pull myself higher, swinging an arm upwards and closing the three fingers of my right hand around the next outcropping on the armour.
Ten thousand years of waiting, over; now we claim what is rightful to us.
I heard shouting voices approaching, along with the familiar sound of plasma blasts. Turning my head to look, I thought I saw Spiker racing towards the bottom of the corpse mound atop which we were fighting, power sword blazing. That sight inspired little relief in me; we'd likely be dead before she could even reach us. A particularly forceful heave of the warboss's shoulders nearly threw me free, and holding on cost me another fingernail. My body slammed against the ork's armoured back once more, and his power klaw grazed my leg, carving a bloody slice along my calf. Tears and sweat mingled with the dirt on my face and ran down into my eyes, nearly blinding me altogether. Just one more push, and I would reach the warboss's head.
Come, my brother; with your courage we shall conquer.
With my face now pressed against the ork's broad, armoured back, the only indication that Marrlë was still alive was the continuous roar of Gorelady as she and her wielder pitted their warrior hearts against their opponent's brutal weaponry. As I swung my hand upwards, I heard the only thing that could've made me despair even more. "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" came the Khornate's distinctive war cry, and I smiled bloodily, humorlessly. If the warboss somehow didn't manage to kill us, the Inquisitor certainly would, after hearing that.
In your sword I put my trust that you will honour.
I took that final step, swinging my right arm up towards the last handgrip with all my might. My hand slammed down on the warboss's large pauldron, which, I remembered far too late, was covered in spikes. I screamed aloud as I felt my three-fingered hand be impaled by one of those cruel spines. Even through that pain, I knew that if I didn't haul myself up, all three of us would die. Blows to the limbs and torso, even if they pierced the beast's armour, would not fell or even slow it. Just one last push, and I could strike at its head…
I will hold the higher ground, should you concede it…
Pain coursed through every inch of my body as I pulled myself upwards, unholstering my plasma pistol and preparing to fire. At that moment of imbalance, the warboss heaved in the most inopportune way possible: forward, flipping me straight over its shoulders. My hand tore free of the shoulder-spike, sending a fresh jolt of agony through me even before I hit the mound of bodies. A dead ork's tusk jabbed into the small of my back, eliciting a hoarse gasp from me. Spiker had nearly reached us now, was only a few feet away from me when the warboss leaned down and reached for me with its klaw.
It was a critical mistake: by leaning forwards, it had given Marrlë a clear shot to its head. Of course, since orks took a few moments to realize they were dead, the power klaw would obliterate the upper half of my body anyway. Time seemed to freeze as I watched, hopelessness enveloping me, that klaw came closer and closer. My eyes then flickered to Marrlë, silently bidding him to strike the killing blow. I had served my duty as a Guardsman; my death would be the gateway to the enemy's defeat. I would, indeed, die well.
Helpless to do anything else, I looked on as Marrlë leapt, axe held high… and sank Gorelady into the warboss's klaw arm. A bestial howl ripped forth from the weapon, her wielder and the beast they carved into. Blood fountained forth as the arm was cleaved off, the heavy power klaw falling to the bodies with a sickening squelch, less than a metre from my head. With a roar of rage, Warboss Skullrippa turned and cut Marrlë in half.
And my body be your shield if you should need it.
It sounded to me as if Thurion's power sword screamed in protest as it chopped through the youth's torso. Marrlë's upper half tumbled past me, down the pile of bodies and out of sight, while his legs stood almost defiantly by themselves, before slowly falling over backwards. I had seen a lot of horrible things on Armatura, but that was by far the worst. For now. Almost at the same time, Spiker swept forwards, her long coat flying behind her, and rammed her power sword through the warboss's chest… even as cold fury swept through my body. The righteous hatred that I had felt during the first battle against the Waaagh surged through me again, turning my heart to ice and my blood to fire. This… thing had taken everything from me. My future with the guard, when its Boyz had slaughtered the conscripts I had deployed with. My friends – Thurion, Damantin, and now Marrlë, all senselessly butchered. And Rosie, however misguided my feelings towards her might have been… the beast had taken her from me as well. It was more than a desire for vengeance, now: I owed the warboss death. To kill it was my right.
I picked myself up, ignoring the blood trickling from my ruined hand, my cracked teeth and broken nose, and clenched the plasma pistol tightly. Inquisitor Spiker, ripping out her sword, spun and slashed Skullrippa's tendons, her sword cleaving through the armour behind its leg. The ork stumbled forwards with a groan. Perhaps it was finally feeling pain, after having its arm chopped off and being run through. Good.
I stepped forwards, and as I did, I heard a voice, echoed by Gorelady's revving, calling out to me, demanding my attention, digging into my thoughts. It did not divert me from my path, instead spurring me on, fanning the flames of my hatred. He is gone, said the voice. A woman's, and one I did not know, but I felt I should recognize. He is gone, taken from me. This base, loathsome creature has taken Marrlë, my Marrlë. Make it pay. Take everything from it, as it has taken from you, from me.
"You're…" I let the thought trail off, for I was now staring the warboss in the face. It met my eyes, and there I saw fear. Rightly so, because at that moment, it was looking into the eyes of death. My left hand shot out, digging into the ork's non-augmetic eye and forcing its head to stay up with strength I did not know I had – and, in retrospect, should not have had. I cannot say if I was fully human in that moment, but I did not care. My right hand, bloodied and damaged, held the plasma pistol. Not hesitating a moment longer, I raised it to Skullrippa's face and fired once.
The ork's face burst as the blast of energy smote it dead on. My face tightened in an expression approaching grim satisfaction before I fired again. And again, and again. The gore of the ork's skull and brains were spattering my face, and my vision was clouded by a thick red mist, but I didn't care. I just kept shooting, over and over. It was dead after the first three blasts; six shots later, I was feeling no more satisfied. It didn't just need to die, it needed to be destroyed, annihilated, wiped out of existence like the stain it was. A scream left my mouth – not a battle cry, but a cry of anger, of frustration, of misery and emptiness; the cry of a man who has nothing at all left to lose.
I knew my pistol was on the verge of overheating, and I still emptied the entire canister of plasma into that bastard's face. When the gun exploded in my hand, I felt nothing, even as I tumbled down the bodies to land on my back, looking up at the dust-choked sky. I laughed – or rather, my lungs contracted and I coughed up some blood and dirt, but close enough. It seemed so similar to how I started on Armatura, staring up at the red sky and knowing I was going to die. Except this time, there really was no way out, and I really was going to die, gazing hollowly up at the sky.
I looked sideways, and was met with the sight of Marrlë's iron grin. He was staring sightlessly at me in an everlasting wink, his crimson eye glazed over and his fist still clenched tightly around Gorelady's haft. I ignored the awful mess at the bottom of his torso, blocked it out, and fixed on that spiked grin. Even in death, Marrlë's smile was the best damn thing on this hateful planet. Remembering all those times I had questioned how human my friend had been, I could have cried, thinking on how foolish and pointless those speculations had been. It didn't matter to what exact degree Marrlë was a human, or a mutant, or a daemon, or anything in between. The only thing that mattered was that he was bloody well human enough.
A shadow fell across me. With the last of my strength, I turned my head to look up into the grim face of Inquisitor Kalaina Spiker – the face of a woman inexorably bound by duty. After Marrlë's little 'confession'… well, I knew what was coming. I had consorted with heretics, and was going to die here anyway whether the Inquisitor killed me or not. I could only hope that she made it quick. I averted my eyes, instead electing to gaze back up at the red sky, and waited. I was not to be kept waiting for long.
"Thomas Fenwick, in the name of His Holy Majesty the God-Emperor of Man, I judge thee excommunicate traitoris by associations. Your sentence is death."
That sounded about right. It was sort of relieving to hear, after all this time spent in doubt. At least now I could be sure I was a traitor, instead of fruitlessly tripping over all these little nuances in my thoughts, hoping there could be some loophole, some way to prove I had not betrayed the Imperium. Perhaps I had forgotten how little the Imperium cared for nuances, unless they were incriminating – theirs was a black and white perspective, and it was quite clear into which camp I fell.
There was an oddly warm humming noise as Spiker brought her sword down. Then, there was nothing.
