Chapter 109 - The Battle of Baal (End)
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The Great Angel and the Wolf Shepherd moved in perfect synchrony.
Sanguinius wielded the Crimson Blade, banking and weaving through the air with effortless grace, striking always from the daemon's blind spots.
Horus hefted his great axe. The massive Terminator plate showed no hint of bulk on him. He moved like a swift gray wolf, savaging Ka'Bandha's lower body again and again. The firepower modules on his pauldrons unloaded without pause, choking off any space for the greater daemon to retaliate.
Ka'Bandha was, without question, one of the most lethal greater daemons in Khorne's service. But its opponents were the mightiest and most gifted sons of the Master of Mankind, and there were two of them.
Speed. Strength. A touch of cunning. And between them, the wordless harmony of brothers who had fought a thousand wars side by side.
All of it unfolded before Jole's eyes.
In less than half a minute.
A dozen gashes had been carved across Ka'Bandha's thick, dark-red hide, each one deep enough to show bone.
The daemon's movements slowed. Its breath came in heavy, sulfur-stinking heaves.
In the Warp, the Blood God seemed pleased with the duel. He even granted his champion a blessing, trying to keep Ka'Bandha standing a little longer.
But Horus had no intention of giving the thing room to breathe.
Drawn-out fighting had never been the way of the Luna Wolves, nor of their father.
Horus charged.
Ka'Bandha did not see the shift coming. Until now, Horus and Sanguinius had kited it from ground and sky, wearing it down. But even sheathed in heavy Terminator plate, Horus came on like a streak of white lightning, unstoppable, aimed straight at the daemon's ankles.
A twist of the wrist. The axe blade swept low. Both of Ka'Bandha's hind legs were severed at once. Blood fountained up in dark, scalding arcs.
Ka'Bandha pitched forward onto its knees, and Sanguinius seized the moment. He dove from the sky, his power sword wreathed in blinding energy, and drove the blade down through the crown of the daemon's skull with all his weight behind it.
Steel punched through bone. Most of the blade burst free beneath Ka'Bandha's jaw, pinning that screaming mouth shut from the inside.
But Sanguinius wasn't finished. His eyes had already fixed on the wings.
"Only angels are permitted to fly."
Through the agony, Ka'Bandha heard the words again — the very same words Sanguinius had spoken ten thousand years ago.
The same cold, quiet grimness behind them.
Then Horus and Sanguinius bore down together, using their combined weight and strength to pin the daemon to the dirt.
The Great Angel reached back and locked his grip around the base of Ka'Bandha's massive, prideful wings.
No hesitation. He tore them out by the roots.
Riiip.
A great mass of dark muscle came with them, trailing boiling daemon blood. Sanguinius wrenched the wings free and flung the wet, ruined mess into a sand pit a dozen meters off with naked disgust.
Horus gave the greater daemon no chance to recover. He planted a boot on the back of its neck, took the axe in both hands, and brought it down.
A sharp, brittle crack.
The huge, hideous head rolled free of the body, and then dissolved into a great cloud of foul red ash, scattered across the sky by the sandstorms of Baal Secundus until nothing of it remained.
All that was left was a chipped, blood-slick axe, standing alone in the dirt.
Victory.
What remained of the Khornate horde, seeing their champion slain, did not dare to step forward. Instead, they threw themselves into a brawl with the Tyranids.
"I can feel your anger, brother."
Sanguinius flicked the filth from his blade with a quick flourish, turned to Horus, and laughed openly, without reservation.
Horus didn't look up. He was bent over his armor, checking for damage.
"What that fool said to you was sickening." Horus snorted, shaking red sand from his boot. "The one at your side in battle, from beginning to end, can only ever be me."
"Even as an opponent?"
"Don't even start." Horus finally lifted his head, arching a brow at the Great Angel. "I never want to stand against you again. Not in this life. I want us to be the best of partners. Always."
Sanguinius smiled. And then, under the stunned and reverent gazes of his sons, he reached out, utterly natural, utterly unselfconscious, and brushed a clump of daemon viscera off Horus's chestplate.
Then the Great Angel turned to his sons.
"We have much to speak of, my sons. Though I do not yet know you, that does nothing to dim my love for you."
At that very moment, a Thunderhawk descended on roaring engines.
The downwash caught Sanguinius's golden hair and lifted it. Jole and the others stood transfixed.
The Great Angel extended his hand.
"Will you come home to Baal with me? My sons."
"I have need of you. And the Imperium has need of you."
Their gene-father's smile struck the Blood Angels to the core. Chapter Master Jole reached out with a trembling hand and gripped that vast palm tight.
"We are yours, my lord!"
---------------
On Baal Prime, the tide had turned.
Curze and six battle-automata moved through the city. If pressed, he would have admitted he didn't much care for the iron things. During the Heresy on Thramas, the Lion's Excindio-class automata had pinned him down and beheaded several of his Legion's officers. He had not forgotten.
But that didn't mean he would refuse their firepower now.
The six automata served another purpose besides: they drew the swarm's attention, freeing the Night Haunter to slip through the labyrinthine streets of the Angel's Fortress and hunt down the synapse creatures one by one.
Along the way, Curze gathered melta charges. His visions had shown him a much larger prey on the ground — the swarm's commander.
A Hive Tyrant.
Following the prophecy, Curze tracked the huge, malformed thing to its lair.
The Hive Tyrant saw only a shadow lunge toward it. It had no time to react before five melta charges, planted across its body, detonated and tore it open.
But that wasn't the end. The Night Haunter reappeared in a blink, and took the Tyrant's head from its shoulders before its body had even finished falling.
"Ah. Sweet victory."
Curze felt the same quiet pleasure he used to feel hunting rats in the lower decks of a starship. Humming softly to himself, he carried the Tyrant's severed head back to the Angel's Fortress and dropped it at Dante's feet.
This is the power of a Primarch, Dante thought. They are blades forged by the Master of Mankind's own hand. Even the mightiest Astartes is only a shadow cast by their light, and Konrad Curze, named for speed and the killing stroke, is no exception.
For all the questions still circling his mind, Dante resolved then to set aside his old prejudice against the traitor Lord of the Eighth Legion.
If Curze stood here, riding with Imperial reinforcements, then he had almost certainly been pardoned and reinstated. His own father had forgiven him. That was enough.
And besides, Konrad Curze, dread Night Haunter though he was, still cut a better figure in the eyes of Sanguinius's sons than the [Arch-Traitor] Horus Lupercal who rode at his side, did he not?
"On behalf of all the Blood Angels, I extend our highest respects to you, Lord of the Night Lords—"
But before Dante could finish, Curze idly dug a finger in his ear and waved the rest away.
"I was sent by your father to pull you out of the fire. That's all. And I stopped being a Legion lord a long time ago."
"Now then, dear nephews. Tidy yourselves up. Make the place presentable. Your father will be here soon enough."
"Oh, and so will your beloved Horus~"
The Night Haunter showed them a grin full of teeth.
(My head doesn't feel as sharp as it used to. I may have to drop to two chapters a day from here on.)
➤ Next: At Least Horus Won't Get Chased and Hacked at Anymore
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