Venerable Kelrulon looked up seeing the glowing trails of the drop pods dropping towards them. He did not need to see their markings to know their name. They had been his brothers once, once.
Now the black shield dreadnought waited for his death. His task was one most noble and he could not allow himself to fail. No matter the cost.
…
The dops crashed into the soil before bursting open the squad of 12 hell brutes began moving for their target location already aware of the path they would need. The lead hell brute made sure to observe the ground for signs of weakness and ensure that their ground pressure would not exceed the strength of their footing.
They were moving slow by astartes standards but there is only so much speed that a hell brute can move with while also watching their step on the soft forest floor. As they drew closer the lead brute froze, sending a message about how his scanners picked up something moving just beyond visual range.
Whatever it was had to be large and was to their right flank, alongside the mountain.
Before the order to activate spot lights and search could be given the sound of smashing stone filled the air. "The mountain side!" the commanding brute ordered as they all saw the rockslide about to hit their position.
Acting with the quick thinking that a squad of seasoned marines would, the brutes all started moving out of the path of the tumbling boulders. All but two of them were able to clear the debris' path with one of them stuck in a soft patch and unable to move and the other just too far from clearance to make it. Their armored carapaces may have survived the first few but boulders twice the size of the brutes crashed down over them the squad opted to list their brothers as dead and move on.
They advanced a little faster than before once they were out of the forest and onto the mountain pass itself. As they did again the lead brute saw something on sensors and not wanting a repeat the entire squad activated their spot lights and began to scan the area. One of them saw the figure and opened fire, the auto cannon pulverizing rocks that the figure ran behind.
"It is a dreadnought" it called to the others. "Black shield, contemptor class"
"Kelrulon," the leader snarled. "Have you come to stop us brother" it bellowed into the darkness of the pass and surrounding trees.
The answer returned as a salvo of assault cannon fire raked the pass below them trying to remove their footing and send them all into the chasm below. They were ready this time tracking back to the source and returning fire at Kelrulon's cover suppressing the fire after a few seconds allowing them to spread out and advance on his position two of the moving for it directly firing to maintain suppression and four of them moving to the high ground and four more moving to flank the cover position.
Before they could get there however, Kelrulon made his move triggering the planted charges destroying the cliff face that the high ground force was standing on, casting the four of them into the very chasm they thought they were safe from before.
In the moment of pause after the explosion he burst from his cover meeting the flanking force before they could react and moved too close for the suppression unit to engage as well. Too close to use his own assault cannon Kelrulon reached out smashing a metal hand into the nearest brutes sarcophagus, the short range internal armor piercing bolter firing and blasting a bloody smear deep into the chassis as the lifeless brute fell to the ground. Spraying his assault cannon at the suppression unit Kelrulon engaged his former battle-brother and leader of the helbrutes.
They locked up each trying to engage their weapons but unable to do so too close to their own frames. Finally the lock broke as the hellbrute managed to get leverage enough to toss Kelrulon towards the cliffs. The suppression unit was drawing a bead on him as the youngest member of the squad who was thirsty for glory charged the downed dreadnought.
As the leader attempted to order him to halt he was within range and Kelrulon grabbed him, dragging them both over the edge into the chasm below to join their kin in death.
…
The remaining four hell brutes continued on determined to complete their assignment. As they approached the crash site they saw signs of Kelrulon's prior violence in the form of broken and shattered astartes of the world eaters and Emperor's children.
The heaps of metal and flesh littered the surrounding area and while the leader of the brutes would never admit it he was glad that their arrival was delayed. He could see the scattered remains of Kelrulon's battle brother the venerable Imperial Fist Ironclad class Oslak and around him well over three dozen crushed world eaters each one with another part of the dreadnought in his arms.
Had they arrived to find both Kelrulon AND Oslak it would have been a slaughter. One that he would not have wanted to be a part of. As they stopped to ponder how they would have possibly been able to handle the two dreadnoughts, the sound of their whirring gears and machines was overwhelmed by the blast of an auto cannon from the crash site.
The round pinged harmlessly off of the nearest brute as it turned its armor carapace to source protecting its targeting sensors while the leader turned to face the threat. It saw entrenched guardsmen and as it readied to fire its own cannons three of them were aiming missile launchers.
"Rockets" the leader called out while the brutes broke for cover, aware of the destructive power of such implaced warheads. Of the four who ran all but the one already taking fire made it. And he was the one being focused on. All three rockets boomed in a clearly trained and timed order, each successive warhead blasting deeper into the armor of the staggered brute until the last one could be seen to have punched clear through the front of the sarcophagus sending the lifeless brute to the ground in a heap.
Before the crashing of metal could cease the other three returned fire blasting the entire position into blood and smoke to cover the position while they moved in. Keeping up the fire one of them clicked dry of ammo and washed the strong point in flame.
The remaining two kept firing in bursts obliterating the screaming guards who tried to escape the promethium pyre. With the position broken they continued unwillingly even in the face of such resistance and losses to turn back. This target was too important.
Now more alert and waiting for an ambush they were ready when the melta-blast gun fired from the hidden fortification on the high ground nearby. The blast smashed one of the brutes but they were prepared for it and managed to angle to make the blow glance while the other two destroyed the position with their auto cannon and missile pods.
As the staggered brute regained its balance more guards from the crash site opened up another hidden post firing anti armor warheads that mostly missed save the first and last. The first landed cleanly on the brute's nearest knee, blasting it apart and sending it to the ground. The last warhead was fired in unison with the return fire that decimated the post and blasted deep into the sarcophagus, slaying the traitor within.
It was at this moment that Oslak made it clear he was not quite dead yet his nearly lifely body weakly raising it's enhanced Plasma cannon and firing a charge blast that both destroyed another one of the brutes but also cause the cannon to overload and explode finally killing Oslak as well.
Moving in alone the leader of the squad saw what he was looking for. The armored chamber within the crashed shuttle was still there and intact. Without delay he sent the message that they had found it. He was moving in for it when he heard the cries of "AVE IMPERIATUS!" and the remaining guardsmen out of warhead, hiding spots, and tricks charged him in flagrant defiance of the normally crippling fear that he imposed on people.
It was a futile effort as he deftly strafed half of the group with his flamer and blasted entire squads with his cannons. By the end only three were left but they charged anyway, their brothers exploding behind them in their fiery ends.
His arms smashed one guardsmen into paste and another was crushed as he grabbed the final one more intrigued than off put by him. Him and his fervent courage. "What do you die for?" he asked about letting his past of breaking false gods from their people out while he waited for an answer.
In response the guard grinned broadly and struck at his armored plate. "For the Imperium" the guard snarled with an unnerving smile. The brute crushed the man in his grasp, viscera dripping from the claw before he remembered that the previously slain guards had exploded. Glancing at the bodies he melleed he saw the shaped charges from anti armor warheads on their chests just before they exploded and his own armor detected someone stuck to the sarcophagus. The brute tried in vain to reach the object only managing to flail his arms wildly before…
…
The rift from the warp was torn open as the prince of ruin strode out his mace in his hand. Seeing the battle he silently lamented the loss of so many of his sons. Drawing closer to the marked site he found the venerable leader of the strike team his sarcophagus blasted in killing him.
He kneeled down next to one of his oldest sons and rested a hand over him offering what prayer he could for him before approaching the ship. Ripping it open with his raw might, Urizen found it. A travel pod buried within. It bore the mark of his brother and rival Roboute.
With his brother's tactical prowess he would normally have been worried about being so close to his goal without encountering any more resistance. But a brief sensing of the area revealed that the blade of their father was nowhere to be found and Roboute would need to be suicidal to engage a demon prince without it.
The capsule offered no more resistance than the rest of the ship as it was pried open, the seal breaking with a loud crack. Urizen was about to see what he had been fighting for, what his brother would try to move in secret and with such life lost to defend it when he heard something.
Turning around he saw him. Kelrulon badly damaged but struggling to move crawling forwards. "Father," he weakly hissed. "Know you not what you do, know you not what you seek?"
Abandoning the stationary pod for the time being he turned to his lost son. "And what do you know of my acts, and of what I seek. You clearly do not even know yourself as you cannot decide with whom your faith lays" Urizen spat with venom and pain at the betrayal of another one of his eldest sons.
"I was misled by your father, an act for which I have long remorsed. And now it comes your turn to admit to your failings. Father it is not too late to turn from your path." Kelrulon gasped, forcing himself up on broken legs only to fall this time caught by his father. A father who in spite of his own sense loved his son.
Looking down he considered the words. Weighed them against the odds of them being lies and distractions. "My path is true, though it may not have been the emperor's plan for it."
"A true path is not what I warn of. A willful ignorance is. We are to be faithful, not blinded." Kelrulon managed to choke out before his vocalizer shut down along with the rest of him.
Feeling tears he hated falling from his eyes he reached out and offered an older prayer, one from a better time. As he finished he laid his fallen and yet risen son down and returned to the pod.
His anger bubbled up at the pain he felt. This was Guilliman's fault. If HE had refused the order at Monarchia if he had even QUESTIONED it then none of this would have happened. Raising his mace high overhead he prepared to crush the thing no longer caring to know what it was. As his mace reached its apex a crash of brush was heard just in time for a bolder the size of a man to be crushed over Urizen's head staggering him.
Before the unaligned son could even regain his feet a barrage of unarmored fists crashed into his face and chest each one to his head breaking bones and teeth and each one to his chest breaking bones of the hands that struck him.
Swinging wildly the ambusher backed off as he finally saw him. Roboute stood before him in nothing but the most basic of armor, and weaponless. The hate in his heart burst again as Lorgar summoned a dark flame. "You fool of a man, you come now to face me not only without your armor but without the blade of our lying father." thrusting his hand out the dark fire burned from him as Roboute leapt through it keeping his arms before his head accepting the burns to close with his brother.
The mace that swung was late and Guilliman seized Lorgar by his chest. Setting his hips and lifting with all his might Roboute hoisted his much larger deamon brother into the air jolting with his hips and arching his back to slam Lorgar down into the wreckage. Such an impact would have wounded a mortal primarch and may even have killed Lorgar where he still a man.
But against a prince of chaos it was nothing more than inconvenient rising up; he beat Guilliman to his feet and brought an armored hand down hard on his brother's back, buckling the lord of ultramar's knees.
Raising his mace again Lorgar repeated the failure of underestimating his brother as Roboute lunged up gouging his thumbs into Lorgar's eyes. Lorgar roared in pain and tried to impale Guillman with the pommel of his mace. But the regent of the imperium was too close and instead the blow was of Lorgar's forearms on his back.
Lorgar could tell that bones were now broken in his brother's shoulders as he dropped the mace and grabbed him by his neck, wrenching him off and tossing him away. Collecting the mace Lorgar approached as Guilliman desperately crawled for the pod.
Thinking that it contained a weapon Lorgar rushed to meet him only for Guilliman to not reach into it. Instead he stood against it slowly breathing hard and in pain with a desperation Lorgar had never seen in him before.
"Please, brother," Roboute said. Lorgar would have killed him for such an insulting term were it not for the sincere pleading within it. "If you want my life for Monarchia take, do as you wish but please I beg of you, don't"
Lorgar grabbed his brother again, tossing him away a few yards he pried open the capsule to see what could spurn Roboute to such depths of foolishness and mistaken action.
Inside was a loudly crying baby. Small and weak with blonde hair, blue eyes, and clearly elven ears. The baby was wrapped in a blue blanket with the symbol both of Ultramar and of the Ynarri emblazoned on it.
The mace fell to the ground as Lorgar pieced together what he was seeing. Rumors and whispers had been told of a child born of the Emperor's reigning son and an Eldar woman of the Ynarri.
Looking closer Lorgar recognized the child as his nephew. He almost reached to touch it but stopped as he wondered if his chaos would taint the soul. As he thought, Guilliman dragged himself back between them, his body too weak to speak but his eyes begging for the boy's life.
Lorgar stepped back from his brother, stunned and now locked in deep conflict. All at once he saw just how far, irrational, and even foolish a father could be for his child. And at once the acts of his own father made sense.
The Emperor had loved him, loved him and his brothers too much to retain his normally cold and emotionless mind when it came to matters of them. Lorgar stumbled from the crash site unable to even stand with this crushing revelation that he had been a fool.
Played against a father who loved him by monsters who didn't
Sinking to his knees he felt his chest heave and wretch as his soul burned with mourning pain. As he sat there wasting his place a form of claw, feather, and darkness manifested before him.
Corax.
Remembering their battle on Istvaan 5 Lorgar remembers what Curze said about it after he saved Lorgar. "Your death was not to come by him on this day." For a long time Lorgar assumed the night haunter was simply mad to the point of rambling again. But now it all made sense.
Lorgar could feel the influence of the dark gods burrowing into him again. That meant they knew he was free. Looking up at the vengeful son Lorgar repeated their final words from the duel on Istvaan five. "Do it" he said this time not a defiant shout but a desperate beg. He could not let them retake him.
As his darkness faded Corax struck the claws of his blade, cleaving his brother's head from his shoulders granting the final wish and a final mercy to the one meant to be the most loyal of sons.
Corax approached Guilliman, his warp form wispy and shadow to the wounded man. He saw his brother lean against the pod, his left hand clutching at the baby and his right holding the transponder to call for aid from within the pod.