Chapter 191 - The Great Angel and the Red Angel
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Draggon's Reach.
Under Supreme Grand Master Azrael's leadership, the Dark Angels had fought for several nightmarish hours across this daemon world.
They had finally pushed through to their destination.
An ancient daemon-forge industrial palace.
The situation was dire.
Azrael stood at an elevated position, overlooking the plaza ahead.
A brass shrine paved with skulls dominated the center, its towering altar stabbing straight into the clouds. Khorne's sigil was carved into the altar's surface, and blood-colored flames roared across it without pause.
A group of red-robed priests lined the altar's edge, chanting the Blood God's name at the top of their lungs.
They raised their ritual daggers and offered their own lives as sacrifice.
Azrael never even got the order to retreat out of his mouth. The ritual circle was already complete.
The last red-robed priest's chanting cut off mid-syllable. The altar and shrine detonated in a cataclysmic explosion. Flames and dark shadow twisted together, and the shockwave tore through the surrounding ruins like they were paper.
A colossal crimson monstrosity came roaring out of the smoke.
Angron, the Red Angel, had arrived.
People often say Astartes know no fear. Taken literally, that is not entirely accurate.
Azrael was no exception. He had weathered storms of bullets, faced hideous xenos abominations, and looked upon the maddening horror of Warp daemons without flinching.
When Angron roared and came for him, Azrael's every biological instinct screamed. Fear hit him like a physical thing.
But that did not mean he would run.
The moment Angron appeared, the World Eaters came boiling out from every direction, following their daemonic Primarch headlong into the Dark Angels' lines.
"For the Lion! For the Emperor of Mankind!"
Azrael raised the Sword of Secrets and roared back.
The Dark Angels snapped into a defensive line to meet the charge.
The battle turned white-hot in an instant.
Deathwing Terminators held the front, power hammers and storm shields slamming into the charging crimson-armored madmen with bone-cracking force. Plasma incinerators fired beyond their safe limits again and again, turning entire clusters of World Eaters to ash.
The vox channels were already dead, drowned out by scrapcode blanketing Dragon's Reach.
Azrael had no idea what was happening with the fleet in orbit. He had no idea reinforcements had already entered the system. There was nothing to do but hold. Dig in, keep fighting, and hope their blood bought something in the end.
And the Dark Angels held. Punishing firepower and ferocious counterattacks beat back the World Eaters' assaults, again and again.
But the cost was devastating.
Battle-brothers fell around him one by one. Power armor was split open by great axes. Blood soaked into the scorched black soil of Dragon's Reach.
Azrael kept leading the retreat, fighting every step of the way.
He hated himself.
Hated his own impulsiveness. Hated the schemes of that damned daemon Vashtorr and the trap they had walked straight into.
The situation was critical, and he could no longer pretend otherwise. If this continued, the glorious history of the Dark Angels would carry a shameful stain — one written by his hand. He had already lost too many warriors.
"Look to the sky!"
A battle-brother's shout cut through Azrael's thoughts.
He followed the direction they were pointing.
Golden warriors with great wings swept down from above. Behind them came a formation of Thunderhawk transports, far more than anything the Dark Angels had left on the ground.
Azrael's mind went blank.
He recognized them. Their cousin legion. The Blood Angels.
"Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
Angron's war-howl shook the air as more Blood Angels poured in. The arrival only drove his fury higher.
He sensed the threat descending from the sky. The roar he unleashed was loud enough to crack a tactical visor.
The daemon Primarch's legs drove him skyward. Wings beat. His massive battle-axe swung in a wide arc, aimed at a Thunderhawk closing within reach.
The pilot wrenched back on the control stick. It wasn't enough. That strike was already coming, and nothing was going to stop it.
The next second.
A golden figure hit Angron at a speed no warrior present could track.
The kinetic impact was immense.
One casual flick of the golden figure's arm and Angron's colossal body lost all control, hurled back down to the ground with tremendous force.
BOOM!
The daemon Primarch cratered through the ruins of the brass shrine. Dust billowed in every direction.
The golden figure descended slowly, great wings glowing faint and steady against the daemon world's dark sky.
Azrael saw who it was.
Around him, Blood Angels poured bolt rounds into the enemy and shouted over the roar of battle.
"For Sanguinius! For the Emperor of Mankind!"
A Primarch.
Sanguinius had brought the Blood Angels here. For them.
Azrael's hands were shaking and he couldn't stop them. The despair that had been crushing his chest began to crack open, replaced by something he hadn't felt in hours.
Something like a miracle.
Commander Dante landed nearby, a few Sanguinary Guard touching down around him. Azrael crossed the distance in quick strides and gripped Dante's hand tight.
"Thank you — thank Lord Sanguinius for me. Thank you for the rescue, Commander Dante."
"Think nothing of it, Supreme Grand Master." Dante's gaze moved past Azrael to the Dark Angels behind him.
It was not a good picture. Wounded everywhere. The number of warriors still on their feet had dropped sharply.
"Azrael. You need to pull your people out. Lord Lion does not wish to see you bleed any further here for nothing."
Hearing the Lion's name from Dante's mouth, Azrael and several of his senior officers went very still.
A short silence.
Then Azrael pressed forward, urgency in his voice.
"Where is Lord Lion?"
"He's already led a boarding action onto your Rock monastery. Cleansing operations." Dante's tone was steady, certain. "Once he's dealt with that, he'll come here. He'll fight alongside my father Sanguinius."
Dante raised one hand and pointed toward Angron.
"Withdraw, Azrael. What comes next is a war for Primarchs."
Azrael's chest heaved.
His gene-father had returned.
That news hit harder than any reinforcement could. And with it came shame, sharp and immediate. He had nearly destroyed the Dark Angels with his own decisions.
He nodded. Then he turned and started directing his forces to contract the line and move toward the extraction point.
Out in the distant ruins, the daemon Primarch's face was twisted beyond recognition.
Angron pulled himself out of the rubble. What was left of his sanity was just enough to recognize the figure standing before him.
His breathing came ragged. Broken syllables ground up out of his throat.
"San... gui... nius!"
The Great Angel's face was calm. He looked at the brother he had once known.
"It has been a long time, Angron."
Sanguinius raised his sword. The blade pointed straight at the daemon Primarch.
"It is time to end this senseless slaughter." His voice carried no heat. "Look at what you have become."
"Where is the gladiator who once fought back against the slaver tyrants?"
The Great Angel's voice was not loud.
But those words went in deep, like a blade finding the gap in the armor.
"Shut — up!"
Angron's bellow shook the ground beneath them.
"Blood for the Blood God!"
The Butcher's Nails were screaming in his skull. Everything before Angron's eyes was swallowed in red. His whole life he had fought against chains, against masters, against every form of enslavement, and he had ended up Khorne's most complete slave. That truth was unbearable. Having a brother say it to his face was worse.
He roared and charged.
His battle-axe trailed a crimson storm as it tore through the air.
The Great Angel said nothing more.
To spare his sons and nephews further casualties, Sanguinius chose to move the fight elsewhere.
He beat his wings and climbed, streaking out over the desolate plains of Dragon's Reach.
Angron, every last scrap of reason gone, roared and came after him. Buildings and rock formations shattered as he passed through them, obstacles that no longer registered as anything but obstacles.
The Primarchs' war carried itself further and further from the drop zone.
➤ Next: The Tuchulcha Engine
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