Warhammer - Ultramarines 03 - Dead Sky, Black Sun (McNeill, Graham)

  He rounded on Onyx, raising his axe and saying, 'You told me that no sorcerous powers could defeat the Heart of Blood!'

  'And none can, but it is free now and not bound to Khalan-Ghol any more.'

  'We are defenceless?' asked Cadaras Grendel.

  Onyx shook his head. 'No. The fortress's own sorcerers can maintain the barrier for a while, but without the power of the Heart of Blood, it is only a matter of time until Toramino's magicks break through and destroy us.'

  'Blood of Chaos!' swore Honsou, heading for the great doors that led from his inner sanctum and waving his chosen warriors to follow him. 'How could the daemon get free?'

  'The warsmith bound the Heart of Blood with three defiled awls, and it could only be freed if someone were to remove them.'

  'But who would dare risk such a thing?'

  Honsou pulled up short as Onyx said, 'Ventris and his warrior band?'

  'Of course!' snapped Honsou. 'I should have known Toramino would never have stooped so low as to employ renegades just to fight for him. He and Ventris must have planned this whole thing! Free the Heart of Blood and then destroy us with sorcery. I'll have those bastards' entrails fed a piece at a time to the Exuviae.'

  'Then Toramino never intended to blood his army here!' snarled Cadaras Grendel.

  'No.' agreed Onyx. 'It would seem not.'

  'How long do we have before the barrier falls?' demanded Honsou, setting off into the darkness of the

  tower of iron and towards the Halls of die Savage Morticians.

  His warriors followed him, bolters and swords at the ready.

  'I do not know for sure.' admitted Onyx, 'but it will not be long.'

  'Then we'd better hurry!' said Honsou. 'I want to kill Ventris before Toramino brings Khalan-Ghol to ruin!'

  Uriel dropped to the gantry that ran the circumference of the chamber, thumbing the activation rune on his sword's hilt and slashing its bright blade through the air. Pasanius landed beside him and together they hurriedly made their way to the chamber's floor as the Heart of Blood stepped from the lake, red liquid running from its crimson body in grisly runnels.

  It towered above them, fully four or five metres tall, its powerfully muscled physique running with hot streamers of light that snaked beneath its flesh like fiery veins. It looked down on the bloody ground before it - at the corpses of the Unfleshed, the Savage Morticians and their servants - and a bloody leer split its bestial face. The surviving mutants fled before its terrifying power and even those Savage Morticians the Unfleshed had not killed backed away from this diabolical presence in their midst.

  Only the Unfleshed stood their ground, too ignorant of the horrifying power of a daemon prince to fear it. Though they felt its abominable power, they had no concept of the threat it represented.

  The Lord of the Unfleshed stood before the mighty daemon, his chest puffed out in challenge, and it regarded him with as much interest as a man might notice an ant. The Lord of the Unfleshed roared and charged the daemon, but before he could so much as land a blow, the Heart of Blood swatted him aside with a casual flick of its scaled arm.

  The monstrous leader of the Unfleshed smashed into the side of the cavern with a bone-crunching thud and Uriel knew that the force of the impact must have shattered every bone in his body.

  Seeing their leader so easily defeated, the Unfleshed howled and scattered before the horrendous daemon, seeking shelter in the dark nooks and crannies of the deathly cavern.

  Uriel and Pasanius watched as the Heart of Blood turned from the fleeing Unfleshed, the tremendous booming of its vital organ diminishing now that sor-cerous magicks were no longer pouring into it. Uriel felt his senses becoming sharper, the smothering numbness lifted now that the daemon was free.

  Leonid hurried over to where they stood and shouted, 'I thought it was supposed to be destroyed when the awls came out!'

  'So did I.' replied Uriel as the Heart of Blood threw back its head and gave vent to a terrible roaring that overwhelmed the senses, not through its volume, but by the sheer sense of loss and fury that it contained. Its hunger pierced the wall of the dimensions and echoed across the vast gulf that separated universes.

  Uriel and every living thing in the chamber fell to the ground, shaken to the very core of their being by the daemon's cry.

  'What's it doing?' yelled Leonid.

  'Emperor alone knows!' cried Pasanius.

  Uriel picked himself up, his hands clamped to the side of his head in an effort to shut out the monstrous noise of the daemon's howl. Something in the tone of the long, ululating cry spoke to Uriel of things lost and things to be called back. He realised what it was as he saw a twisting blob of dark light appear in the air before the daemon.

  'It is a cry of summoning...' he said.

  Pasanius and Leonid looked strangely at him as the daemon's roar ceased and the fragile veil of reality pulled apart with a dreadful ripping sound, as of tearing meat. A black gouge in the walls separating realities opened, filling the air with sickening static, as though a million noxious flies had flown through from some vile, plague dimension.

  Awful knowledge flooded Uriel as he stared into the portal opened in the fabric of the universe. He saw galaxies of billions upon billions of souls harvested and fed to the Lord of Skulls, the Blood God.

  'Emperor's mercy.' wept Uriel as he felt each of these deaths lodge like a splinter in his heart. New life and new purpose had once filled these galaxies, but now all was death, slaughtered to sate the hunger of the Blood God... whose fell name was a dark presence staining the coppery wind that blew from the portal, a stench of deepest, darkest red, whose purpose was embodied in but a single rune and a legend of simple devotion: Blood for the Blood God... Khome... Khorne... Khorne...

  A single shriek of dark and bloody kinship, a pact of hate and death. It echoed from the portal and grew to shake the dust from the ceiling. And there was an answering roar of bloody welcome, torn from the Heart of Blood's brazen throat.

  Light blazed from the portal as an armoured giant, clad in burnished iron plates of ancient power armour stamped down into the chamber, the portal sealing shut behind it as it marched to stand before the Heart of Blood.

  Taller than a Space Marine, its vile presence was unmistakable, its malice incalculable. White light, impure and corrupt, spilled like droplets of spoiled milk from beneath its horned helmet and its shoulder guards bore stained chevrons that marked the figure as an Iron Warrior.

  The daemonic warrior carried a great, saw-toothed blade and a gold-chased pistol, both weapons redolent with the slaughter they had inflicted. Powerful and darkly magnificent, Uriel knew that this... thing was the most consummate killer imaginable.

  Uriel caught a glimpse of a shambling shape limping towards the passageway that led from the cavern, recognising it as the vile creature, Sabatier. Barely had he registered its presence when the iron-armoured warrior snapped up its pistol and fired.

  The bolt caught Sabatier high in the back, exploding through its chest and blasting a great crater in its body. Sabatier grunted and toppled over and Uriel felt sorry that it hadn't suffered more before it died.

  'We can't fight both of them.' said Pasanius.

  'No.' agreed Uriel, 'but maybe we will not have to. Look!'

  The armoured figure dropped to its knees before the Heart of Blood, but Uriel could see that it was no simple a gesture of abasement. The daemonic Iron Warrior dropped its weapons and raised its arms, a blood-red glow spilling from every joint of its armour and bathing the Heart of Blood in its light.

  'I return to you!' shouted a high voice from beneath the armoured warrior's helmet.

  The Heart of Blood raised its arms, mimicking the warrior's pose and, piece-by-piece, the iron armour detached from the kneeling figure and floated through the air towards the massive daemon.

  'Now what the hell's it doing?' said Leonid, barely keeping the terror from his voice.

  'Oh no...' whispered Uriel as he remembered a tale he had b
een told not so long ago by Seraphys of the Blood Ravens in the mountains. A tale of how the Heart of Blood had forged for itself a suit of armour into which it had poured all of its malice, all of its hate and all of its cunning, a suit of armour so full of fury that even the blows of its enemies would strike them down.

  Truly it was the avatar of Khorne, the Blood God's most favoured disciple of death.

  Iron armour floated from the figure who now diminished as each piece deserted it. Though the Heart of Blood was larger by far than the armoured warrior, each piece somehow moulded itself to the daemon's form, darkening from the colour of iron to a dark and loathsome brass. Its greaves and breastplate clanged into place and, unbidden, the warrior's weapons leapt from the ground, writhing in midair to change from a pistol and sword to a moaning axe and snaking whip of rippling, studded leather.

  Lastly, the iron helm was snatched by invisible hands from the warrior's head and placed upon the Heart of Blood's great, horned skull.

  Where once had knelt a fearsome, armoured giant, there was now only a waif-like figure of a woman in a filthy and tattered sky-blue uniform of the Imperial Guard.

  '383rd!' exclaimed Leonid.

  'What?'

  'That jacket.' pointed Leonid. 'It's the uniform of my regiment!'

  'It can't be.' said Uriel. 'Here?'

  'I know my own regiment, damn it.' snapped Leonid. 'I'm going to get her!'

  'Don't be a fool.' said Pasanius, gripping Leonid's jacket.

  'No!' protested Leonid, struggling in the sergeant's grip. 'Don't you understand? Along with me, she's probably the last survivor of the 383rd! I have to go!'

  'You'll die.' said Uriel.

  'So? I'm dying anyway.' shouted Leonid. 'And if I have to end my days here, I want it to be with a fellow Jouran. Remember your words, Uriel! We all die bloody, all we get to do is choose where and when!'

  Uriel nodded, now understanding Leonid's desperation, and said, 'Let him go.'

  Pasanius released his grip on Leonid, and they watched as he ran towards the swaying woman, gathering her up in his arms as another set of thick, curling, bronze-tipped horns ripped through the metal of the daemon's helmet. The Heart of Blood's eyes shone with renewed purpose and awareness as it lifted its head and sniffed the air, grinning with terrible appetite.

  'Psykers...' it roared, turning towards the upright iron sarcophagi that surrounded the lake of blood.

  The iron-meshed cage sped downwards into the depths of Khalan-Ghol, ancient mechanisms and sorcerous artifice combining to make the journey as quick as possible, oily sheets of beaten iron slicing past at tremendous speed. But Honsou knew it was still not fast enough. The mystical barrier protecting his fortress was still holding firm against Toramino's sorcerers, but it wouldn't last much longer unless they could somehow re-imprison the Heart of Blood.

  He and his chosen warriors, deadly killers loyal only to him, journeyed into the depths of the fortress, ready to kill whatever they encountered. Onyx stood backed into the corner of the speeding elevator cage, his silver eyes and veins dulled and sluggish in his features.

  'What's the matter with you?' snapped Honsou as the daemonic symbiote moaned.

  'The Heart of Blood is powerful...' hissed Onyx.

  'And?'

  'It could snuff out my essence in the blink of an eye.' snarled Onyx, his dead eyes shining with murderous lustre. 'And if it commanded me, I could not resist its imperatives.'

  'You mean it could turn you against me?' asked Honsou.

  'Yes.' nodded Onyx. 'It knows my true name.'

  Honsou turned to Cadaras Grendel and said, 'If this creature so much as makes a move towards me, kill it.'

  'Understood.' said the mohawked Iron Warrior, his scarred features alight with relish at the thought. 'I never killed one that's possessed before.'

  Honsou looked down through the grilled floor of the cage, seeing only a dimly glowing shaft roaring upwards. Its end was lost to perspective, but as he watched, the dark square of the tunnel's base rushed up to meet them.

  With a gut-wrenching sensation of nausea, the iron cage slowed and ground to a halt with a shriek of ancient metal. The grilled door squealed open, but before Honsou could step through, he was knocked from his feet by a tremendous impact and felt the crash of falling masonry from far away, accompanied by the distant boom of massed artillery.

  What the hell?' he roared, climbing to his knees as he heard the clang of metal on stone, and an approaching, crashing din.

  Onyx dropped to his knees, screaming in pain and clutching his head with his dead-fleshed hands.

  'The barrier is down!' he yelled. 'Gods of Chaos, the barrier is down!'

  Honsou pulled himself to his feet and looked up as he pinpointed the source of the approaching noise.

  'Out of the elevator!' he shouted, diving and rolling into the tunnel as he saw thousands of tonnes of rubble plummeting down the shaft. His warriors moved quickly, but some not quickly enough, as a torrent of massive chunks of stone and rockcrete hammered into the base of the shaft and crushed the elevator cage flat. Roiling banks of choking dust and smoke billowed from the wreckage.

  The impact and deafening noise disoriented Honsou, but he quickly gained his feet, seeing that nearly half his warriors were missing, crushed beneath the deadly rain of debris.

  Onyx stood unsteadily before him, the threatening form of Cadaras Grendel close by.

  'If the barrier is down-' began Grendel

  'Then that means Toramino is attacking!' finished Honsou.

  Just saying the words gave Honsou a curious sense of reckless abandonment as he realised that this was probably the end. There was no way Khalan-Ghol could stand against Toramino's army and he had no more stratagems left to employ.

  There was nothing left but vengeance for hate's sake and malice for the sake of spite.

  If that was all he had left, then so be it.

  It would be enough.

  Uriel pulled Leonid into the scant cover offered by one of the corpse bulldozers and helped him get the muttering woman he had dragged to safety into a seated position. Tears of joy streaked the colonel's face and he kept repeating the name of his regiment over and over again.

  'Come on, hurry.' urged Uriel, desperate to keep Leonid out of the way of the Heart of Blood's murderous rampage. The mighty, armoured daemon was making sport in the centre of the lake of blood, ripping gold-robed sorcerers from their exsanguination coffins, toying with them in numerous terrible ways before slaughtering them with its axe or powerful, fanged maw.

  It waded through the blood, letting the terrified magickers tear themselves to pieces as they desperately fought to free themselves from their coffins. Not one amongst them survived the daemon's predatory malice and it inhaled their deaths like a fine wine.

  'Psykers!' it bellowed. 'The food of the gods!'

  Uriel returned his attention to the wan, lean-faced woman Leonid had rescued from the clutches of the daemonic armour. Her hair was long, lank and falling out in patches, while her features spoke of horrors endured and a mind on the very brink of sanity.

  'All dead, all dead, all dead, all dead...' she repeated, over and over.

  'Who is she?' asked Pasanius.

  Leonid fished out rusted dogtags from beneath her uniform jacket and turned them over to examine them in the chamber's dim light.

  'Her name is Lieutenant Larana Utorian of the 383rd Jouran Dragoons.' he said proudly.

  'Do you know her?'

  Leonid shook his head. 'No, I don't. Her tags say she was part of Tedeski's lot in Battalion A and he didn't like other officers mingling with his soldiers. He was old school you see.'

  'How in the Emperor's name did she end up here?'

  'I don't know.' wept Leonid, holding her in a tight embrace. 'Perhaps the God-Emperor didn't want me to die alone without someone from the old homeworld next to me.'

  Uriel nodded and locked eyes with Pasanius as he gripped his sword hilt tightly. 'Aye, perhaps you're right, m
y friend. If a man has to die, it should be with his friends.'

  The dead, white sky burned with magickal energies, whipping plumes of blue fire shooting up into the heavens from the geomantic towers Toramino's sorcerers had constructed around Khalan-Ghol. Monstrously powerful energies had been unleashed, and now that the eternal barrier that had kept Honsou's fortress safe from the fell powers of the warp was no more, it suffered terribly under the immaterial assault.

  Black lightning speared from the cloudless sky, blasting colossal slabs of rock from the mountain and fearsome red storms of bruised, weeping clouds hammered the few remaining towers and bastions with mutating rains that dissolved fortifications which had stood invincible for ten thousand years.

  Great, ravening beasts of the warp swooped and dived around the high reaches of the fortress, tearing apart the flying creatures that circled the topmost towers, and a fog of magickal energies enveloped the redoubts and bunkers that Honsou had only recently rebuilt in the wake of his victory over Lord Berossus.

  Nor was the fortress attacked only by sorcerous powers, for Toramino's grand artillery batteries were finally unleashed to bring explosive ruin upon the mountain of their master's enemy. Thousands of tonnes of ordnance rained down on Khalan-Ghol, smashing apart the very mountain itself.

  Huge columns of soldiers and an entire grand company of Iron Warriors, led by Toramino himself, marched upon Khalan-Ghol, a host of thousands that would destroy whatever of the half-breed's force might survive the furious assault now wracking the mountain. Khalan-Ghol's final doom was upon it.

  Uriel felt a familiar churning sensation in his stomach, hearing a chiming, splintering sound of glass breaking, and a terrible sensation of powerlessness gripped him. He experienced sickening vibrations deep in his bones as a restlessness rippled through the ground. A powerful vision of jagged stumps of bone jutting through the ground gripped him, and a mad howling built from the air, piercing and vile, with an unimaginable thirst for revenged