Sky Falling

Part II

By author Perfidious Albion

The universe convulsed. Everything shook. All sight turned into a hallucinatory kaleidoscope of colour: dark ruby-red, poisonous green, royal purple, black as rot, bone-white. A roar sounded in his ears, and also a whisper, sly, insinuating or sensual, and also a bell tolling the sound of doom.

A million different scents filled the air, delicious and vile, mouth-watering, disgusting and both at once. The world felt like sandpaper on his skin and like a soft silk caress.

Blazing runes in black fire gleamed where they had been lovingly carved upon the altar. Then, impossibly, the sigils rose up off the surface they had been carved into, and they shone. No, not shone, anti-shone. Whatever one would call the opposite of shining. They seemed to drink the light out of the universe greedily.

Dizzying swirls of colour slashed and danced with glee across his vision. The vibrations in the air went mad. His ears simultaneously told him he was oriented in a hundred different directions at once, contradictory and impossible.

Vergilius Masimus was a transhuman warrior of unnatural strength of muscle, strength of mind and strength of will, genetically enhanced by the superior science of the Emperor of Mankind to be more than merely human. Despite that, he fell to his knees.

The runes' glow intensified. From the space between the anti-glowing black runes in the air, fractal lines appeared—cracks, propagating inwards like cracks in glass.

The cracks in reality shattered. Reality shattered. For one terrible moment there was a gateway to something that was not real, should not be real, should not ever be known to or near to what is real. Then, from the gap in space, out of the mess of fractal collapse of reality…

…out came the single largest creature he had ever seen. It stood half a hundred metres high, with a huge bulbous head and a grotesquely bulging belly, like a snake that had swallowed its prey whole, all perched on two weedy legs that looked nowhere near enough to sustain the bulk of its form. It was riven with gashes, oozing out something rancid and vile. Its two arms—or was it three? Or five? Or seven?—were alternately slimy, spiny and hairy, or all at once. A sword the size of a passenger train rested casually in one hand.

Vergilius could hardly look at it. His mind rebelled at the sheer wrongness of such a sight. It was as if his eyes received light contained in photons and sent signals to his brain and then his soul said, No. I reject this. This cannot be. This cannot be real.

The thing from beyond space was surrounded by a horrific cloud of smaller creatures that looked like an unholy crossbreed of flies, spiders, cockroaches and malnourished human children. Around it, the air became thick and unspeakably foul, like the scent of a weeks-dead animal slowly decomposing inside his helmet. It was unbreathable. Vergilius felt faint and light-headed even through the air-scrubbers of his Power Armour.

"I am Canothrax, Sixth Prince of the Gangrenous Garden, Greater Daemon of the Dark God Nurgle," said the abomination, in a voice like the crumbling of cities and the wailing of the doomed. "You have failed. This world is mine to rule. Flee from the darkness or be consumed by it."

Then a strong voice sounded. And with wonder he beheld Gaius Valimens, his brother, the Legion Master, undaunted; and he heard the crackle-THRUM noise of the Power Sword in his hand.

"We have not failed," said the Legion Master. "Bold words, abomination. Flee from us, or you will come to know why all your kind have come to fear the Imperium of Man."

Canothrax laughed. It was a dreadful sound, a cacophony like the screaming death throes of a collapsing civilisation.

"Your false veil of bravado does not deceive me, little one," it said. "Nor does it deceive the Dark Gods beyond and above. You fear me greatly. You merely wish to pretend before your brothers that you do not, so as to help you manipulate them against me and my Grandfather.

"But the Grandfather is a generous and merciful god. Kneel. Kneel to me. If you will not flee, I grant you the chance to kneel and thus preserve your existence, such as it is." The Greater Daemon spoke with contempt unconcealed.

"No," said Valimens, calmly and coldly. "There is only one man I kneel to. You are not he. You are not even a man. Flee from the dominion of the Emperor, beloved by all, or you will fall."

He pointed his Power Sword. Loyally backing him up, thousands of other Space Marines lifted theirs and assumed combat stances and positions.

Canothrax grinned, a ghastly sight. "Then I shall enjoy watching you die."

Valimens sprinted forward. Just as the abomination was reaching for him, to clasp him in one of its titanic hands, his jump-pack roared to life. The Legion Master was propelled off the ground, high up in the enormous, millions-seating amphitheatre. He landed with terrific force on the head of Canothrax, and drove his sword down as far as it could go—as far as his length of arm could push it.

The sword sank deep and easily into the Greater Daemon's flesh, seemingly without resistance. Stinking ooze gushed out of the wound. And Canothrax…

…cackled.

The geyser of putrid filth engulfed Gaius Valimens. Vergilius caught a glimpse of the great man's Power Armour, solid ceramite, bubbling like metal in acid. Then he was gone.

Only a shapeless, faintly smoking mass remained, where there once had stood a Legion Master.

The greatest warrior of the Legion was dead, drowned in the blood of a monster from beyond reality. He had not even had time to scream.

Meanwhile, the decaying flesh of the creature effortlessly knotted itself back together.

A moment of disbelief. Then the Legion charged with screams of vengeance and hate. Plasma charges, meltas and all sorts of antitank weaponry detonated on the flesh of the monster. Big guns, artillery carried by hand all the way from the starships by Space Marine squads crossing over fiercely hostile terrain, were fired again and again. And the infantry swarmed its legs and feet, attacking with bolters and chainswords.

Nothing phased Canothrax. Charges tore great chunks out of its flesh. The thing simply did not mind having great chunks of itself missing, leaving its form pitted, gouged and scarred. Big guns pierced holes that it scarcely noticed, let alone complained about. Some aimed for the eyes or other vital body parts. That did not help. Whatever they did, the abomination endured with a ghastly smile.

"Fools," it said, and the softness of its voice did not make it any less terrible. "You believe you can harm me with such trinkets?"

It lifted that gargantuan sword—not as a warrior's stance but as a casual gesture, like a child picking up a toy he hardly paid attention to. It swung it. The enormous weapon did not carve through men. It pulverised them, squashing both flesh and bone, leaving nothing but faint red smears behind. Even ceramite Power Armour broke before the weight of a heavy train, thrown around with unspeakable force by a monster taller than most Titans.

A hundred Space Marines died in that first swing. It would have been hundreds, had the Emperor made Astartes reflexes the tiniest bit slower and less impressive. They barely dodged the blow. Then Canothrax swung again. And again. And again.

All the battle-fury of the Space Marines, all their skill, all their honour and courage… it mattered nothing before Canothrax. The great abomination waded through them with insulting, bored ease. They were easy prey. It was a child tearing wings off flies, more for want of anything else to do than out of desire.

Despair, then, touched its cold fingers trailing down the back of Vergilius Masimus. But he did not falter, did not surrender, did not allow himself to run. He had a duty. He had sworn an oath, and that mattered to him.

"With me!" he cried; and the survivors of his company followed him. The Brother-Captain raced on the ground, making for four of the big guns, hand-carried all this way, which had fallen on the temple's ground when their gunners were slain. They would not be able to bring down Canothrax by shooting. This he knew. But perhaps there was a way.

Vergilius barked sharp commands, and his men picked up a gun on their shoulders. Others of his men picked up another. Then another, then another. "On my mark!" he called as the grunting Astartes took up their burden. "Ready! Ready! Throw!"

They threw the guns—all at the same place on Canothrax's back, as he had demanded. And Vergilius did the maddest thing he had ever done: he ran towards Canothrax. To help his aim he ran as close as he could in the time he had available, exerting his muscles to every iota of speed he could force out of them. Then he fired… at the belts of grenades his men had tied up to one of the guns.

A tremendous BOOM echoed around the amphitheatre as first the grenades, then the gun's ammunition, then all the guns' ammunition detonated, one after the other. The daemon disappeared in belching smoke.

Then a giant grotesque outline faintly appeared, haloed in the smoke; and Vergilius's heart sank to the floor and through it.

He had failed. Canothrax was alive.

…Alive, but not unhurt. A great big chunk of flesh was missing from the left side of its belly. For the first time, Canothrax looked unamused. And Vergilius was right next to it.

"You," it said, staring at him, "will die slowly."

Vergilius grimaced. "Then I die for the Emperor!" he said, and held up his chainsword, knowing he was outmatched.

An ear-splitting crash came from above. The roof gave way. Solid stone, and it splintered like soft wood under the hammer. Stones rained down on the amphitheatre. Thankfully, with the Space Marines' reflexes, none died.

Vergilius looked up, not at the monster about to kill him, but straight up. There was a hole in the roof of the temple, where something at enormous velocity had come through. Twenty kilometres per second, supplied his helmet. Its Machine Spirit was as ever eager to please. At that speed, he should have struck the ground and been smashed into a flat smear of pulverised meat. That had not happened. He had simply stopped, a metre before he would have hit the ground, his fall suspended an instant before certain death by his all-powerful force of will.

The thing that had come through the roof was a giant, glowing, golden figure, six metres tall, hovering effortlessly in midair, and burning with a halo of furious energy. Green lightning crackled around his perfect, handsome face. His hair was as black as a raven's wing; his eyes as golden as his armour; his body so achingly beautiful it would move poets to tears just from the sight of it. He looked no more than twenty-five years old, perhaps twenty. Vergilius would later learn that he had simply stepped out of a starship, letting himself freefall all the way from orbit. In his hand was a golden sword, longer than a Space Marine was tall, aflame with brilliant tongues of red and white fire.

The Emperor of Mankind stood upon Tenebris IV, and his golden eyes glared at Canothrax.

The daemon's eyes narrowed. In an instant, it disregarded Vergilius. Indeed it dismissed and disregarded all of the Space Marines. They were beneath its notice, irrelevant, insignificant. Its focus was completely and utterly upon the Emperor.

"Anathema," it said, and Vergilius had never heard the terrible voice of crumbling cities full of such hatred. "You have come too late. This world is ours now. Flee, or I shall destroy you."

The Emperor's lip curled. "You will try."

The daemon charged with a roar. Now truly did Vergilius realise it had been toying with them, for despite its great bulk it moved far faster than it had. It came at the Emperor with more momentum than a runaway train. It lifted up its sword like a tower-block and brought it crashing down upon the Emperor.

The Emperor lifted his own blade, one-handed. The lord of mankind looked tiny against the enormity of the gargantuan beast that faced him.

The great sword struck down with a massive impact that shook the earth. Then it just… stopped. The Titan-scale weapon struck the Emperor's golden blade and halted, dead.

Even as the world trembled so fiercely that the Space Marines were thrown off their feet, the Emperor stood there, calm, implacable, effortlessly holding forth against the full might of the monstrous beast. Canothrax strained with all its might, yet it could not move him.

Then he moved forward. The Emperor moved fast as a flash of lightning. One instant he was twenty metres away from Canothrax. The next, he was right up by it.

He put forth both hands, and—incredibly—he picked the Greater Daemon up off the ground. As the beast shrieked with outrage, he flung it upward. Canothrax's feet left the ground, trailing putrid puddles of hideous stinking ooze which almost instantly melted away in the golden flames of the Emperor's presence. It arced a dozen metres up into the air, then down—down—down.

The Emperor rose. It was not a jump—nothing so undignified. His knees did not bend for an instant. It was as if the laws of gravity simply stopped existing for him. Tall, straight of posture, the master of mankind shot up into the sky like a rocket. Then gravity resumed. He fell ground-wards. And as he fell, his golden sword swept down in a great, pitiless slash.

The flaming blade ripped through the daemon from groin to neck via grotesque bloated abdomen. A torrent of rotting guts spilt out from the great bulk. Its innards tainted the air with unbearable poison. Vergilius gagged, retching inside his helmet. His limbs felt light; his vision blurred and darkened. He was dying just from the nearness of it. Then the foul presence vanished, obliterated, melted away in the great heat of the flaming aura of the Emperor.

Canothrax hit the ground like a tower falling in an earthquake.

Its broken body fell prone on the earth at the Emperor's feet.

The Emperor approached. Slowly, the abominable creature's putrid flesh began to change form. Before the Astartes' disbelieving eyes, slimy solidity turned into light, airy wisps of stink that seemed to drift away on a breeze out of the known universe.

The ruined, rotting face smiled. It was a hideous grin, an expression of victory.

"Now you see. There is no victory against the Primordial Truth, Anathema," the Greater Daemon rasped. "I shall return. And when I do, in revenge for this insult I shall bring most terrible torments upon your realm."

For a long moment, its enemy said nothing. The Emperor regarded it, something unfathomable in his golden eyes. Then he spoke; and he said, simply:

+NO.+

And the wisps ignited. Golden flames seized hold of the fading unreality-creature. The Emperor's eyes turned from bright golden to outright luminous emerald-green that spat forth forks of green lightning; and wherever they struck, the wisps burst to furious life.

The great corpulent carcass dissolved into smoke, dark grey and dirty and stinking of death. It grasped the fading wisps, seeking to smother the flames with sheer mass of darkness. The daemon tried to flee to whatever foul domain it came from…

…and could not. Something pulled it back. The Emperor had extended a hand, a commanding gesture. More green lightning issued forth from his right hand, pulling back at the great dark mass of smoke. It would not escape. Not so long as he could prevent it.

Canothrax snarled, a terrible sound, the sound of dying planets and massive machinery succumbing to the ravages of time. It strained. It pulled with all its terrible strength, the same power that had torn through thousands of Space Marines like they were nothing.

And the Emperor pulled back. With every effort of the Greater Daemon, the master of mankind redoubled his own.

With the exertion of power, the Emperor's face turned from astonishingly to inhumanly beautiful. He rose higher and higher off the ground. And the emerald-green glow in his eyes grew brighter and brighter. From a faint background glow to lanterns, to bonfires, to twin stars, to suns in their own right, outshining the noon-day sun, so bright that he was impossible to look at.

From a figure that had once looked something like a human, albeit taller and far more beautiful, he now resembled the divine: a sun incarnate, outlined in human form; a figure not of flesh and bone but pure brilliant light. No green anymore, no gold, no colour could be discerned from him. He was too bright for that. A psychic supergiant star, barely contained in the shape of a man's body.

Canothrax snarled. Canothrax struggled. Canothrax screeched. And Canothrax could not prevail. He could not shake off the godlike strength of the Emperor's psychic grip. Against that figure of shining light, there could be no victory.

The figure of pure light that was the Emperor stared down at the shrieking pile of stinking dark smoke which was the Greater Daemon Canothrax. And the Emperor said:

+BURN.+

Golden flames exploded all around the putrid mass of darkness. Canothrax screamed… and it seemed something else screamed too, something even larger, yet more distant, like an echo of an enormous earthquake very, very far away. There was a wail, harsh and piercing at first, then thinning, fading away like a memory of a nightmare.

Then it ended. The Sixth Prince of the Gangrenous Garden was gone—forever.