The Black Legionnaires howled with perverse joy as they dragged Sydane free of the rubble. He'd lost his weapons when one of the cathedral's support columns had come crashing down, burying him and his opponents beneath a mountain of shattered stonework. The heretic artillery had been bombarding the massive temple even as his brothers fought the Legionnaires in a final last stand in defence of Hive Txherth's spiritual heart. As a warrior of the Chapter's elite Sanguinary Guard he had stood with Captain Jaerne, master of the 5th, intending to fight and die alongside his commander; then the turmoil of battle had seperated him from his remaining squad-brothers, consigning the Lamenters to different fates.
Sydane managed not to scream as they stood him upright and wrenched off his mangled deathmask. His artificer warplate was unrecognizable. His bones were crushed. Both primary lungs had collapsed and blood ran freely from his mouth. He was incapable of resisting and his fallen counterparts knew it; they released him and he immediately fell, collapsing upon blood-slick stone. Giant marble statues of the loyal primarchs, now vandalized, gazed down upon him in sightless judgment. He coughed up more blood and tried to stand. He failed.
"You are the last."
Sydane looked up at the Chaos Space Marine who had spoken. Clad in ancient ebon armor trimmed with gold and engraved with blasphemous sigils the Black Legionnaire tossed Jaerne's severed head to the ground before him. "Your captain fought well for a thin-blooded corpse-worshipper, as did your squad – not that their prowess or valor could ever match the martial splendor the Ninth Legion possessed of old." He gestured with his poweraxe toward the cathedral's central altar where the rest of his warband had gathered and Sydane caught a glimmer of yellow. "Your brothers are waiting for you – perhaps you would like to pay your final respects?"
Unable to walk, Sydane began crawling, cradling Jaerne's head against his shattered chestplate with one hand. The path to the altar was strewn with butchered bodies, splintered pews and chunks of fallen masonry. Scavenger bands of ragged cultists prowled among the corpses, stripping the cathedral's human defenders of their weapons, or inflicting cruel tortures on those who still lived. The Black Legionnaires kept pace with Sydane like some obscene honor-guard, the helms of fallen Lamenters dangling from trophy-chains looped to their belts. Sydane kept his eyes fixed on the altar as he crawled, heedless of the crimson blood-trail he left in his wake.
The Traitor Astartes gathered around the altar parted, allowing him to pass unopposed. Sydane pulled himself up the steps of an alabaster dais coated with congealed gore. There he found the remains of his brothers. The bodies of the Sanguinary Guard had been defiled and arrayed about the base of the altar in an esoteric manner that defied Sydane's comprehension. Weeping, he went from one brother to another, reverently whispering the name of each warrior even as his laboring multi-lung struggled to keep him supplied with oxygen.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Sydane gripped the stone edge of the altar-table and hauled himself to his feet. The body of Captain Jaerne lay upon the desecrated altar like a grotesque offering, mutilated and headless; unholy symbols had been carved into his exposed flesh and his own sword had been driven deep into his chest.
"For those you cherished you died in glory." Sydane whispered; uncaring of the tears coursing down his face, he closed his commander's lifeless eyes and aligned Jaerne's head with the bloody stump of his neck. Then he seized the hilt of the captain's sword and drew the powerblade from flesh and stone with a final surge of strength. Slowly, the Lamenter turned to face the assembled Black Legionnaires.
"Truly you are indeed the sons of Horus, for you do the deeds of your father, bringing death and misery upon those you were created deliver and protect. Traitors. Murderers. I stand against you. My Chapter stands against you. The people of Corillia stand against you."
"And you are likewise a true son of Sanguinius, for like your gene-sire you have chosen to throw away your life in a show of heroic futility, dying pointlessly to defend the weak and the unworthy," the lead Legionnaire replied, shaking his horned helm in contempt. Stepping forward, he held out a gauntleted hand. Smooth ebon claws extruded from the tips of his armored fingers. The blood of the innocent oozed from each porous tine as he advanced up the steps.
"For those I cherish I die in glory!" Sydane snarled through a mouthful of blood, raising his captain's sword in defiance. "No," the Legionnaire promised, "you will not. I shall make you curse the day you–"
Something solid and unyielding exploded through the cathedral's vaulted ceiling and slammed into the flagstones with enough force to send a shockwave ripping through the scavaging cultists. Before the Traitor Marines could retaliate, the sides of the white-liveried drop-pod peeled open and a whirlwind of lightning bolts sprayed out in all directions, spearing into the chests of several Legionnaires and blowing their bodies apart. Sydane was flung from his feet and hurled against the altar. From out of the lightning storm strode a tall Space Marine wielding a force-staff topped with an equine skull, his eyes blazing with warpfire, a feral smile spread wide across his darkly tanned face.
"Can you still fight, brother?" asked the White Scars Stormseer as his ordu brothers clashed with the surviving Black Legionnaires in a bedlam of whirling blades.
Stunned, Sydane gazed at the Librarian in shock, hope flooding his weary hearts. Reinforcements. After six weeks of unrelenting besiegement reinforcements had finally come to Corillia.
"The horrors persist but so do I," he said, and discovered that, much like his unexpected savior, he, too, was also smiling.