Chapter 192 - The Tuchulcha Engine
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Vashtorr the Arkifane's Scourge Fleet reached the Rock before the Blood Angels reinforcements could arrive.
The daemon's computational mind was vast, and it put that vastness to work. Passage by passage, chamber by chamber, it mapped the labyrinthine interior of the Rock and locked onto the target it had come for: the Tuchulcha Engine.
The Arkifane boarded the Rock and entered the chamber housing the Old Ones' creation.
An ancient machine of immense size dominated the room's center, radiating strange energy, its bulk connected to a human corpse by a thick cable.
Vashtorr suppressed the excitement rising within and extended a courteous proposal.
"No need to remain imprisoned by primitives any longer. Show your true function. I will take you to reunite with the Plagueheart and the Ouroboros."
The human corpse, controlled by the thing inside the machine, opened its lips, dry and cracked as old parchment, and had just begun to answer.
A plasma shot answered first.
The Arkifane had no time to dodge. The bolt struck home.
Vashtorr recoiled, pain flaring, and looked up. At some point the room had changed. Green vines blanketed the walls, the ceiling, every surface. Mist clung to the floor. And from that growth and fog, a towering figure stepped forward.
Behind him came a host of Dark Angels in black and green armor.
"Lion El'Jonson?"
Vashtorr stared, genuinely surprised, at the son of the Emperor of Mankind appearing out of nowhere.
"You know me. I can't say the same for you, daemon."
The words barely landed before another plasma shot screamed toward Vashtorr, and with it came Lion's blade, sharp and relentless as a downpour.
"What are you waiting for?!"
The Arkifane shouted at the Tuchulcha Engine.
"Are you really going to let these barbarians keep you caged?"
Whether that word, barbarians, cut somewhere it wasn't supposed to, Lion El'Jonson's eyes went cold. His swordwork shifted with them.
No more knightly forms. What replaced it was something rawer, more brutal, something that didn't bother with rules at all. The dirtiest Calibanite swordcraft. And then Lion brought the muzzle of his plasma pistol, the Fang of Light, up to the daemon's chest and pulled the trigger twice.
Plasma burned through Vashtorr's chest. The daemon roared in agony, stumbling backward, eyes snapping toward the Tuchulcha Engine in desperation.
The withered corpse it controlled turned toward Lion El'Jonson. Pale eyeballs shifted slowly in sunken sockets. It looked at Lion El'Jonson, then at Vashtorr, and gently shook its head.
The other Dark Angels were already moving to concentrate fire. Lion El'Jonson himself was not done. Vashtorr did not linger. The Arkifane teleported away immediately, back to the Ominous Ark, the Unbroken Orak.
The fighting stopped. Lion El'Jonson looked at the corpse under the Tuchulcha Engine's control.
"Long time no see."
"It is a joy to see you again, my lord."
The Tuchulcha Engine's inner state was complicated in that moment. There was the instinctive loyalty it still carried toward Lion El'Jonson, its old master. But there was also something else, something urgent, almost impossible to suppress. A yearning. It pointed toward the depths of Dragonwood. Toward the moment of reunion with the Ouroboros and the Plagueheart.
Even so, it had not left with the Arkifane.
Lion El'Jonson glanced at Zabriel and Corswain and said a few quiet words. Both men understood without needing more. They led the warriors out of the chamber, leaving Lion El'Jonson alone with the machine.
"Just before I arrived, I heard that daemon mention the Ouroboros and the Plagueheart. You want to merge with them?"
"Yes, my lord."
The Tuchulcha Engine answered without hesitation.
Lion El'Jonson was quiet for a long moment.
"If I reclaim the Ouroboros and the Plagueheart and let you fuse with them — will you still swear loyalty to me?"
"I will, my lord."
"Where are they?"
"Deep within the Dragonwood. Beneath your feet."
Lion El'Jonson gave a small nod, then made his offer.
"Since you trust me — I ask that you teleport this daemon's Ominous Ark away, Tuchulcha."
A beat.
"I know what you're capable of."
"As you wish, my lord."
Their exchange had been short. The Engine agreed.
Aboard the Unbroken Orak, Vashtorr the Arkifane was already running calculations, next moves, contingencies, angles of approach. Then a force like a cyclone wrapped itself around the hull. Every calculation became irrelevant. The Ominous Ark vanished from the star system whole, hurled thousands of light-years away in an instant.
When word reached Lion El'Jonson that the Tuchulcha Engine had fulfilled its promise, he wasted no time. He declared he would personally help the Engine recover the two remaining artifacts hidden in Dragonwood. He summoned the sons of the Risen, left the Rock through the forest paths, and set course for the planet below.
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On another battlefield on the surface, Angron was struggling.
For the first time in ten thousand years.
Since his elevation to Daemon Prince of Khorne, this sensation had become alien to him. Every neuron the Butcher's Nails drove was screaming in revolt. How could he be struggling? He was the Red Angel. The Blood God's axe. The purest distillation of fury in the galaxy.
And yet.
He was losing.
Speed, he couldn't match it. Sanguinius blazed across the battlefield like a golden thunderbolt, so fast Angron's eyes couldn't track him. Every dive came with the shriek of massive wings shearing the air.
Strength, he couldn't match that either. The gap between them should have favored him. Angron was a mountain of red flesh, built from blood and brass, enormous and terrible. Sanguinius was slender, almost graceful by comparison. But every time the Angel's fist came down, Angron's jaw crumpled. Bone shards punched through skin and flesh. Blood misted the air around them.
The only reason he was still standing was Khorne. The Blood God poured blessings and rage into him from behind in a continuous flood, propping him upright through sheer divine fury.
Another heavy punch.
This one hit the Butcher's Nails dead on. Something about the angle, the force, some critical nerve bundle shook loose. And for one brief, impossible moment, those eyes that had been swallowed whole by blood-red for ten thousand years found a sliver of clarity.
Angron's first act upon regaining it was to roar.
"Impossible —! At the Siege of Terra, you were NOT this strong!"
Sanguinius hovered in the air above him. His white wings caught the light of burning wreckage below and glowed faint orange along their feathers. His expression carried a trace of helpless amusement, warm, even. Almost like a younger brother teasing someone older.
"Consider this, brother, before I fought you that time, I had just finished dealing with an Emperor Titan and your colleague Ka'Bandha. Back to back. Those two warm-ups cost me quite a bit."
Angron hadn't even finished processing the sentence.
The Angel's wings snapped shut. His body spun like a meteor in free fall. His foot drove into the dead center of Angron's chest with everything behind it.
The Red Angel left the ground.
It was deliberate. Every inch of it.
Because at the end of Angron's trajectory stood Lion El'Jonson.
Lion El'Jonson had just stepped through the forest path's exit onto the surface of Dragonwood when he saw it: a massive red shape hurtling toward him at killing speed. He didn't hesitate. His stance dropped, his shield came up, and the Emperor's Shield locked into place in front of him. The ancient eagle-faced shield blazed with blinding golden light on impact.
The full force of Angron's collision hit the shield and stopped.
Then it reversed, same force, opposite direction, returned without loss.
The Red Angel shot back the way he came, like a round fired from a gun.
➤ Next: The Lion Returns
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