eldar in the back as it fell away from him, severing its spinal column.
The weapon was phenomenally light in his hands, and he slashed it to the right, cleaving the arm
from another of the eldar lord’s bodyguard as it despatched another daemonette.
There was no order to the battle. The eldar were completely overrun by the daemons of
Slaanesh. The musk had a powerful, intoxicating effect, and everything was brighter, more alive,
and more intense than in any battle Marduk had experienced before. He heard every groan, scream
and gasp, and every splatter of blood as it struck the flooring. The blood being spilled was the most
entrancing, vivid colour imaginable, and he felt a savage joy at the play of light across the armour of
the eldar warriors, the alluring smell of death, and the feel of the xenos weapon beneath his hands.
He saw the guards of the eldar lord fall one by one, dragged down into the mist, until the blackarmoured
figure stood alone, defiant and savage, yet hopelessly overwhelmed. This one moved well,
and Marduk longed to test his strength against him, but it was not to be.
The daemonettes circled in around the eldar lord, snarling and hissing, closing off any chance of
escape, and Marduk had no wish to come between the daemons and their prey.
Another series of detonations rocked the eldar ship, and Marduk swung away from the doomed
eldar lord, leaving him to his fate.
“That one is mine,” said a voice, and Baranov looked up to see the Space Marine that had released
him from his imprisonment striding towards him through the pink mist, eyes blazing with
dominating power as he glared at the daemonette that held Baranov in its thrall.
The daemonette hissed in anger, but obediently spun away from Baranov, who cried out in
desire and pain as it relinquished its hold on him. Bloody, stinging welts covered Baranov’s body,
and his eyes lingered on the fey creature as it spun away on one clawed foot and slashed its arm
across the neck of a slave, who was standing nearby, mouth agape. Blood fountained from the
mortal wound, yet the man moaned in pleasure, and the daemonette bore it to the ground in its
embrace, the pair disappearing into the knee-high mist.
Baranov was insensible, shaking and gibbering from the horrors he had witnessed as the Space
Marine hauled him brutally to his feet.
“Take me to your ship,” growled the immense figure, eyes blazing with fury and power.
“My ship,” muttered Baranov, his sanity in tatters, but he was brought back into reality as the
Space Marine slapped him across the side of the head. His brain was rattled inside his skull by the
force of the blow. The immense figure grabbed Baranov by the front of his shirt and pulled him
towards his snarling, bloody face.
“Take me to you ship, or I’ll gut you here,” he growled.
Dracon Alith Drazjaer turned on the spot, his eyes darting between the encircling daemonettes. All
his long centuries of decadent life, avoiding the claim that She Who Thirsts had over his soul, and it
had come to this. Anger, bitterness, desperation and fathomless terror flowed through him in equal
measure, but his body had been well trained in the death-cult temples of Commoragh, and he reacted
instinctively as the daemonettes closed in on him.
He spun towards one of them, catching the daemonette’s blow in one hand and slashing his
bladed forearm across its neck with his other arm. He spun the daemonette into the path of one of its
companions, and ducked beneath the slashing claws of the third daemonette, coming up inside its
guard and ripping its abhorrent body apart with twin swipes of his arms.
Turning swiftly, he swayed beneath a swinging claw that would have ripped his head from his
shoulders, and slammed a kick into the daemonette’s perverted, backwards jointed knee, shattering
it. As it fell, he rammed his elbow into its face, spitting it on the blade that jutted from his armoured
plates.
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He caught a blade on one forearm, and then another on his other arm, and snapped a kick into
the daemonette’s leering face. Blades snapped forwards from his knuckles and he stepped in close
and punched the bitch daemon in me throat twice, hissing fluid spraying from the wound even as the
infernal lesser daemon returned to smoke.
Drazjaer felt the presence of the mandrake, Ja’harael, materialise at his side.
“Save me, half-breed, and all that is mine will be yours,” Drazjaer hissed in desperation.
The mandrake stepped in close behind him and rammed blades into the dracon’s unprotected
back.
“You have failed Lord Vect, dracon,” hissed the mandrake in his ear. “Your path is your own.”
The daemonettes closed in once more, licking their lips seductively.
“Goodbye, lord dracon,” said Ja’harael, and his form turned to shadow, even as the graceful
claws of a daemonette slashed towards him. The daemonic blade-limbs sliced harmlessly through
his insubstantial body, and he disappeared, retreating into the refuge of the webway.
Drazjaer screamed, his earthly voice and that of his damned soul joined together in union.
Delicate claws snapped closed, and Drazjaer’s body was shorn into a dozen pieces. His soul was
sent screaming to feed the insatiable hunger of the daemonettes’ master.
Screams and screeching inhuman cries echoed in the distance, and Baranov was pulled sharply into
the darkness of a side-passage as yet another troop of eldar soldiers ran past, heading towards the
escalating mayhem of the battle underway within the heart of the eldar vessel.
“There,” whispered Baranov, unable to stop his body shaking. He pointed across the open dock
towards his ship, the Rapture, which was, thankfully, still where he had left it. The yawning expanse
of space could be seen beyond, held at bay by an invisible integrity field.
Another explosion rocked the ship, and Baranov fell to his knees, though his companion yanked
him back to his feet instantly.
“Keep behind me,” boomed his immense, bloodied benefactor, who broke into a run towards the
Rapture. Baranov had no time to think, and he bolted from cover after the towering, terrifying Space
Marine.
There was a shout, and Baranov saw a pair of eldar move to intercept the hulking Space Marine.
Pistols spat shards of death towards the immense figure, but they barely slowed him, and he
thundered into the pair, his halberd swinging in lethal arcs. Two slices and the fight was over, and
two eldar bodies fell to the floor with mortal wounds.
The Space Marine reached the Rapture some ten paces ahead of Baranov, and swung around, his
hellish eyes scanning for the enemy. Baranov ran underneath the landing gear of his prized shuttle
and keyed the entrance code. The gangway ramp lowered towards the floor with a satisfying hiss.
He ran up the ramp and bolted towards the control cabin, throwing himself into the pilot’s seat.
Flicking levers and turning dials, the Rapture’s engines roared as they made ready for flight, and
Baranov ran through a hasty diagnostics check. “Are you in?” he called out over his shoulder. “Go,”
came the roared reply, and Baranov heard the sound of weapons fire. “Hold on,” he shouted, and he
gunned the engines. The Rapture lifted from the deck, and her landing gear folded up beneath her as
she turned on the spot, aiming towards the gaping docking bay doors and the refuge of space
beyond. Weapon fire struck the hull, and Baranov swore as he saw a flashing damage report register
on one of his pict screens. Then he slammed the two propulsion levers flat to the console, and the
Rapture filled the dock with the flames of her engines. The rogue trader vessel speared out through
the gaping bay doors, shooting free of the eldar vessel that had so nearly claimed his life and soul.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Solon pushed through the bustling crowds with growing desperation and fierceness, shoving people
brutally out his way, ignoring their curses and cries of anger as he fought his way towards gate D5,
one of more than fifty that was still taking passengers. He dragged Dios through the press,
determined not to release his grip on the boy now that they were so close.
They had seen the mass transport from some two kilometres distance as it descended through the
atmosphere, hundreds of massive retro engines roaring to slow its vertical descent. The storms that
had raged over the moon had been rolling away to the south for the past six hours, and for the first
time in almost three months Solon had seen the stars overhead from horizon to horizon.
The angry red glow of the Eye of Terror dominated the sky, a circular corona of hellish light that
peered down on Perdus Skylla with evil intent, gloating over its fate.
Flashes of light sparked in the heavens, like a hundred stars being born and dying again
instantly, and it took Solon some time to realise what the flashes were.
“An Imperial armada is fighting for us, Dios,” he had said in awe when realisation had finally
come to him, and he marvelled at the spectacle, trying to imagine the colossal battle raging
overhead.
It had taken them almost four days to close towards the Phorcys starport, and they had met
thousands of refugees, joining their convoys as they gravitated towards their last hope of salvation.
Burning streaks of fire could be seen in the distance as hundreds of alien spores descended on the
ice world, each one filled with xenos warriors intent on slaughter, and Solon knew that the final
death of the world drew near.
With grim determination he pushed on through the crowd, elbowing his way forward, struggling
along with more than a hundred thousand other desperate souls to pass through gate D5 and secure a
berth upon the last of the mass transports.
It was like a form of hell, with so many thousands of people straining to push into the narrow
defile leading to the boarding gate, and the stink of humanity was heavy. People screamed as the
breath was crushed from their lungs by the press, and others cried out as they fell, to be trampled to
death underfoot.
Women wailed as children were swept away from them in the surging crowd, and thousands of
voices rose, yelling out in desperation to loved ones lost in the press. Other voices lifted desperate
pleas to the Emperor, crying out for aid, for salvation, for forgiveness.
Wild-eyed priests had climbed up radial spires along with gaggles of frenzied supporters, and
they raved and screamed their sermons over the heads of the crowds that rippled like a living sea
beneath them.
A form of mass hysteria and mania gripped the flood of humanity, and fights broke out in
isolated pockets of madness within the sea of bodies, with men clubbing each other to the ground,
their faces twisted in rage and fear, only to be trampled en masse as the crowds surged back and
forth.
A woman that had scratched a bloody aquila into her forehead screamed that the time of
repentance had come, calling out for others to join her in joyous suicide, so that their souls might
join with the Emperor in glory. She grabbed Dios by the arm, pulling him towards her, but Solon
smashed his fist into her face, and she disappeared into the crowd once more.
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Other desperate Imperial citizens, knowing that they had no chance of getting on board the mass
transport and driven mad with despair and terror, hurled themselves to their deaths from the upper
levels of the starport, screaming for the Emperor to draw their souls to Him. They plummeted down
into the crowds, creating momentary gaps as they crushed those beneath them, before the gaps were
instantly filled with more desperate people, clambering over each other towards the boarding gate.
Solon was nearing the vast gateway that led towards the immense transport ship, and was being
carried along with the crowd down the centre of the vestibule area that angled into the gate. Those
on the outer edges of the crowd were pressed against the rockcrete walls as they angled inwards, the
weight of bodies behind them surging into the narrowing defile crushing the life out of them.
Someone stumbled in front of Solon, and soon dozens of citizens were pulled down, screaming
and roaring. Dragging Dios behind him, Solon clambered over the morass of bodies, uncaring of
who he stamped underfoot in his desperation to get to the gates.
A wailing roar rose from the crowd as the immense gates began to close, grinding in from either
side, and Solon pushed on with added fury, smashing people aside as he strove towards the front.
He was only fifteen metres from the gates, and he surged forwards, pulling those in front down
and clambering over them in desperation. Skyllan Interdiction Forces were screaming out over the
crowd on loudhailers, ordering them back, but no one listened to their words. The gates continued to
close, the press unbearable, and Solon was pushed back further from the gates, crying in anguish.
Once again, the crowd surged, and more people fell to the ground. A gap opened up, and Solon
stumbled forwards, pulling Dios behind him, towards the closing gate.
The Skyllan Interdiction soldiers opened fire into the crowd to force them back, laslocks
stabbing into the crowd. People screamed, but there was nowhere to flee, and the sickening stink of
burnt human flesh caught in the back of Solon’s throat, making him gag. Soldiers roared, ordering
the crowd back, but it was an impossibility, and again they fired into the crowd, indiscriminately
spraying las-fire into the mass of humanity.
Solon was struck a glancing blow high in the shoulder that spun him around, and he almost fell.
Dios shouted something that was lost in the deafening roar around them and leapt forwards, trying
to pull him to his feet. Knowing that to fall was to die, Solon grabbed at those around him,
scrabbling for purchase. Hands punched down at him, trying to dislodge his grip, and boots kicked
him in the ribs, and trampled on his legs. With a burst of energy, he dragged one man down,
scrambling to his feet as he condemned the man to death, crushed to pulp beneath the surging
crowd. Five metres.
The gates were grinding closed, but Solon was so close it was painful. He pressed forward once
more, and made good progress, battling his way towards the gates. He reached the front just as the
gates slammed shut with a resounding crash. The sound struck Solon like a death knell, and he
reached forwards and grabbed the bars of the gate, crying out in anguish.
