The air stank of blood and oil.
Garn couldn't breathe. His gas mask filters were clogged, half-caked in the dirt kicked up by shell impacts. Somewhere to his right, he heard someone choke. He didn't look; couldn't afford to. Bodies piled at his feet, grey and blue and green, mangled by the churned mud. He just kept his eyes forward, his lasgun held tight, the muzzle shaking in his grip.
Ahead, the fog parted for a moment. He wished it hadn't.
A swarm of horrors crawled over a rock ridge, pouring down like a waterfall of flesh and claws. Pink and blue things, shrieking, shifting. Limbs where mouths should be, eyes that blinked and split, turning to something else each time he blinked. One creature with three heads and a mouth that stretched across them all leaped forward, clawing at a Guardsman who'd tripped on his own foot. There was a gurgling scream. Then silence.
Garn's fingers wouldn't move. His lasgun trembled, but he didn't fire. It was no use. Nothing he had could stop that.
A flash of red.
A Space Marine – a Space Wolf – barreled forward, chainsword roaring. The blue-and-gold horror turned, its eyes – too many to count – fixating on the towering warrior. The Marine's chainsword tore into the horror, spraying ichor that hissed in the mud, but even as it bled, the thing just giggled, reshaping its mass around the blade. Pink fingers, sharp as needles, formed on the horror's arm, stabbing through the Marine's shoulder joints.
The chainsword stopped.
Garn heard a terrible laugh, then a sharp crack as the Marine was torn apart, armor screeching like it was made of tin. Bits of ceramite hit the ground, scattered like broken shells. Garn stumbled back, bile rising in his throat.
A crackling roar broke through the air.
Behind the horrors came something taller, hunched under the weight of massive wings. A creature of shifting feathers, its beak hooked like a blade, eyes smoldering with a blue fire that seared the fog itself. This thing did not laugh. It just looked at the battlefield, silent and terrible, as if sizing it up, considering what to devour first.
One of Garn's squadmates – a kid barely old enough to be here – tried to run. He didn't make it far. The creature flicked a single, feathered claw, and he crumpled, legs buckling before he hit the mud.
Garn's throat was dry. His feet were numb. He could barely move, barely think. The massive creature turned its burning gaze away, and for a moment, Garn felt relief. He could still see its afterimage, bright and painful against his eyes. But even after it turned, he could still feel the weight of its gaze, as if it had marked him.
The ground shook, heavy, fast.
Orks burst into view, their hulking forms tearing through the fog. They barreled toward the horrors, bellowing, smashing their choppas into anything that moved. Greenskins met the tide of horrors with howls and laughter, their crude weapons hacking through the twisted bodies. Ork blood mingled with the horrors' slime, sizzling in the mud as both sides tore at each other.
And still, more kept coming. From the rift in the sky, the portal opened by the white haired heretic, new monsters poured out, wave after wave of writhing, cackling things that clawed at each other in their frenzy to reach the battlefield. The screams and roars blended together until they were just noise, rattling through Garn's skull, louder than anything he'd ever heard.
To his left, a tank fired. The shell exploded in the midst of the daemons, scattering limbs and viscera. But where they fell, they only melted, pooling into new shapes that slithered and crawled forward with fresh, eager eyes. Garn's pulse thundered in his ears. He took a step back, fired into a mass of vaguely humanoid shapes, and stumbled, his boot sinking into something soft.
He dared to look down.
A face, half-buried in the mud, stared up at him. Its eyes were wide, unseeing, mouth twisted in a silent scream. It was a fellow Guardsman, armor marked with the same insignia as his. Only a few hours ago, they'd marched together. Now his face was half-eaten, skin stripped away to bone in places, the mud bloated with blood.
Garn tried to scream, but his throat locked up.
Someone else grabbed his arm. He spun, nearly firing, but stopped when he recognized the man. Trooper Harken, who hadn't said a word since landing. Now his face was pale, lips trembling. His voice, when he spoke, was barely a whisper.
"They just keep… coming."
Before Garn could reply, the ground shuddered. A blast of energy lit up the fog, red and searing, cutting through the daemons. When it cleared, there he stood.
The white haired heretic, still as a statue, the bluest eyes he'd ever seen on a human being. Garn could hardly look at him. The man didn't have armor, didn't have weapons. He wore only a black shirt, hands in his pockets, his eyes glinting. The horrors that surrounded him paid him no mind, parting as he moved, like he was walking through smoke. The daemons obeyed him for her was their master.
Then he raised a hand. A small, casual gesture.
There was a flash of blue, bright enough to blind. A column of Guardsmen crumpled instantly, torn apart by some invisible force. No blood. No screams. They simply… folded inward, as if erased from existence. The air seemed to burn where they had stood, shimmering with a strange, rippling energy. And then, the white-haired sorcerer cackled and leapt into the air. And five oddly-dressed Space Wolves came after him. With a gesture, he sent them all hurling back into the ground.
Garn's legs buckled. He dropped his lasgun, his hands too numb to hold it. Around him, the fog thinned, revealing the full scale of the battlefield. And for a moment, he saw it all. The swarms of daemons, the twisted horrors crawling over Ork corpses, the hulking Space Marines battling creatures as tall as trees, their armor already scarred and burned, and his brothers and sisters in the guard, fighting for their lives. He saw the white-haired heretic's legions tear through the world, unstoppable, relentless, as if they were born from the planet's very soil.
Then, the ground split open. Cracks spidered outward, glowing with an unnatural light, and from within, more daemons clawed their way out. Hands, faces, misshapen limbs reached toward the sky, clambering over each other to reach the surface. They surged forward, drowning the earth in a wave of teeth and claws.
"God Emperor save us..." Garn's vision blurred. He stumbled, fell to his knees, felt the mud soak through his armor. Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard laughter – high-pitched, gleeful, like a child's. It twisted and warped, becoming something monstrous, echoing through the fog, ringing in his skull.
Something wet and cold touched his face. He looked up.
A pink, gangly arm, stretched far longer than it should have been, reaching from one of the horrors. Its fingers, crooked and dripping, brushed his cheek, leaving a smear of something that hissed against his skin. Garn gasped, trying to pull away, but his body wouldn't move. The arm gripped tighter, fingers digging into his jaw.
In that moment, as he stared into its eyes – wide, unblinking, full of mirth – he knew there was no escape. Not from this.
The fingers tightened, pressing into Garn's jaw until he thought his bones would crack. His heart beat frantically, the only sound in the world louder than the horrors around him. Garn roared and kicked and punched with all he had, but it was for naught.
A blur of gray and blue crashed through the fog, splattering the daemon's twisted arm into a spray of ichor. Garn fell backward, clutching his throat and gasping for air as the towering figure planted itself in front of him.
A Space Wolf.
The Astartes' armor was scratched and dented, streaked with mud and blood, his eyes glowing with a predatory fire beneath his helm. He swung his chainsword, cleaving through three horrors with a single, brutal sweep. Their bodies shrieked and bubbled, melting into the mud as the massive figure roared, planting a boot on the remains to steady himself. Behind the chainsword, the Marine's bolt pistol barked in rapid succession, tearing through more horrors that screeched and spasmed in their death throes.
The Space Wolf took no notice of Garn. He moved with the single-minded fury of a beast defending its territory, hacking and shooting anything that came close. Another wave of daemons poured toward him, some floating, some crawling, others with limbs that seemed to twist and multiply as they closed in. The Space Wolf only grunted, bracing himself. He cut through the first, then the next, turning each strike into the next like an unbreakable chain.
But they were too many.
One of the horrors slithered up behind him, wrapping a coiled, ropey arm around his neck, digging claws deep into the vulnerable joints of his armor. The Space Wolf snarled, reaching back to tear it free, but three more daemons lunged, grabbing his arms, his legs. Each one bit down, claws piercing between the plates, rending flesh from beneath.
Garn scrambled back, his legs like water, hands slipping in the mud as he tried to crawl away. He wanted to shout, to do something – anything – but he was frozen, watching as the daemons climbed over the Marine, piling atop him, tearing at the ceramite and flesh beneath. They covered him like a dark tide, writhing and cackling, their eyes wide and shining.
For a moment, the Space Wolf vanished beneath the sea of monsters.
Then he roared, surging up through the mass, clawing his way free with sheer, brutal strength. He crushed a horror's head in his grip, its skull bursting like an overripe fruit, ichor splattering his faceplate. Another daemon tore at his arm, but he swung his chainsword, cutting it clean in two. He staggered forward, ripping and slashing, until he was free of the swarm.
But he was slowing. Blood ran from the joints in his armor, staining the mud around him. His breathing was heavy, labored, each breath rattling through his chest. The daemons sensed it. They closed in again, silent this time, like a pack of wolves surrounding wounded prey.
The Marine held his chainsword high, his eyes blazing, his posture unyielding. A final act of defiance. Garn watched, his stomach twisting. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't. He had to bear witness.
The daemons lunged. The chainsword roared, slashing one last time through their ranks before the Space Wolf disappeared beneath them again, a tide of claws and teeth tearing him to pieces. A final, broken scream echoed through the fog, then silence.
Garn stared, frozen, as the daemons reared back, blood dripping from their jaws. They turned toward him, their eyes glistening, teeth bared, ready to pounce. He breathed in and grabbed a combat shovel from the ground, his eyes narrowing as he held it close.
But before they could, a guttural, booming roar shattered the quiet.
Orks.
The daemons turned, and so did Garn, just in time to see the green-skinned tide surge forward, barreling into the horde with brutal, unrestrained force. The Orks roared and laughed, smashing their choppas into daemons with a savage glee. One of the larger daemons let out a screech, its head cleaved clean off by a massive greenskin wielding a crude axe as large as Garn himself.
"WAAAAAAGH!" the Orks bellowed, their voices rumbling like thunder, drowning out everything else. They tore into the daemons with wild abandon, uncaring for the loss of their own as they hacked and smashed anything that moved. Daemons that had looked unstoppable only moments before fell beneath the Ork assault, their twisted bodies crumpling, shrieking, dissolving into puddles of ichor that the Orks stomped through, howling with glee.
Garn lay in the mud, his mind numb, watching as the battlefield transformed into a chaos of greenskins and monsters, each side tearing at the other with primal, mindless fury. The sounds of battle – screams, snarls, the crunch of bone – blurred together until it was all just noise, deafening, all-consuming.
He pulled himself back, crawling through the mud, away from the carnage. His body shook, his limbs numb. How he was still alive, he didn't know. He didn't dare look back.
AN: Chapter 59 is out on (Pat)reon!