Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy-Three
I am unsure how the Chaos Sorcerer's declaration can still be heard in the data stream when the microphones are all overloaded from the elite Noise Marines. Nevertheless, with his egotistical cry, the ritual completes, opening a portal to the warp.
My familiarity with this scenario is concerning and comforting. Concerning because I keep ending up in front of portals, rituals, and demon summoning lunatics; comforting because the solution is known to me. Force Commander Odhran knows it too.
Following Odhran’s traces through the noosphere records, I recreate his investigation and curse. The ritual is being powered by the dying troops in the vertical city and they’re dying because Odhran locked them all inside with Worgen, flames, and smoke. Knowing the reason for the minimal resistance to Odhran’s sabotage of the Imperial Heavy Transport leaves me bitter and frustrated.
Why is it that, no matter what we do, it is always a trap?
I’ve no doubt that the Chaos Sorcerer would have had another way of killing enough people to fuel his portal if Odhran did not do so. Just what is he hoping will come out of that portal that is more dangerous to the Astartes than millions of soldiers? Even with narrow corridors limiting the weight of fire on both sides, that’s more than enough people to wear down 40 Space Marines and 120 Barghest Auxilia.
Maybe the Chaos Sorcerer is mad?
If the ritual’s power source can’t be turned off that leaves destroying the ritual or killing the sorcerer, yet that’s not a reliable solution. The ritual has already been completed. There is no guarantee that either of those actions will close the portal. The next reliable option is for a skilled psyker, such as a Librarian, to shut it down with the right counter ritual and spells.
The Librarians are working as communication relays though and are nowhere near the battlefield. We thought the potential enemy sorcerers would be on Karad Vall’s flagship where they would think they were safest, thus the Librarians were not deployed as a frontline unit. One is with the Stellar Fleet and the other is with the D-POTs docked with Footfall. He has kilometres of winding, hostile territory to get through before he can assist. Most likely, Odhran will have to hold until the portal runs out of power.
My speculation is cut short by the first wave of creatures to exit the portal. Simultaneously, the Barghests charge through the barrier protecting the ritual, their wards flaring with a bright, blue-white light.
The Noise Marines are quickly riddled with bolter rounds and dismembered by mechadendrites. The Chaos Sorcerer titters in an effeminate manner then sprints towards the portal while firing his bolt pistol at the Barghests, his rounds exploding against Luminen protections.
Dozens, then hundreds of Eldar stream out of the portal, covering the Chaos Sorcerer’s retreat.
These Eldar do not leap and dance like thieving simians, instead they lurch and groan, the soul stones on their chests glowing with an eldritch, purple hue. Their shuriken rifles spew a stream of sparkling projectiles towards the Barghests as they try to form a cordon around the portal.
Verlin steps in, firing his Havoc Missile Launcher. The missile streaks over the heads of the Barghests and detonates in the air just in front of the portal. For a brief moment, the purple, swirling fog obscuring the portal clears, revealing the raw Immaterium beyond.
A massive industrial facility, fueled by burning souls and screaming slaves stretches on, seemingly forever. Towering smoke stacks, writhing with bound demons, blast plumes of black and purple smoke into the swirling sky of the Warp. Huge factories, built from bones and plasteel, boom with hammers and angry shouts. Hundreds of turrets cover the facility, many of them pointing at the sky, shooting at flocks of bird-like demons that get too close.
High in the sky, casting a shadow over the facility is a Space Hulk. Shuttles and Strike Craft flitter between the facility and the Space Hulk in the tens of thousands.
Most concerning, however, are the large stream of Eldar, Daemons, and Chaos War Engines sprinting for the portal.
My pict feed fuzzes slightly as my protections trip, cogitators burned out from the view of the Warp, even after the data has been purified and blessed by Tech-Priests before it reached me.
Seven Auxilia clutch their heads and start screaming, their minds broken by a glimpse at infinity. Without hesitation, their brothers execute them. The rest of the Barghests and their mastiffs remain unaffected, thank the Emperor, their protections and hypno-conditioning keeping their minds firm against the mutating properties of the Warp.
The Eldar are blown apart by the high yield missile and the Space Marines complete their cordon, taking cover behind their Luminen Barriers. More Eldar Guardians continue to rush from the portal with an odd lack of self-preservation and are immediately gunned down.
The fog rushes back in, covering the portal again and disguising what might come through next.
Odhran voxes his company, commanding them to withdraw all Auxilia and Armour, and half their Astartes, from the other two vessels then get to his position immediately. He also calls on the Librarian wired into the Thunderhawk’s vox to grab some Herald Mastiff Riders and a bike then advance to the Imperial Heavy Transport with any and all tools required to close a Warp portal.
Two squads of Auxilia, under Verlin’s direction, grab as much detritus as they can to start creating physical barricades and multiple lines of defence. They don’t even have time to grab the plasteel pews stacked against the walls before the next horror pushes through the portal.
The fog swells, then bursts as a red skinned demon, even larger than Verlin, emerges from the portal. Held aloft by four, spiky metal legs, it crushes the Eldar corpses and poses. In one arm it holds a Warp sword aloft like a banner. Its other hand is a large metal claw.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The Daemon laughs as it advances through stacks of viscera at a lazy pace, even as the Barghests bombard it with everything they have. Bolter rounds plink off its thick hide, making its flesh bruise and ripple like jelly. Plasma washes over the Daemon. Its skin reddens further and blisters, then heals.
My Rapid Decision Engine identifies the Daemon as a Soul Grinder.
Verlin teleports right in front of the Soul Grinder just as the Daemon exhales a stream of purple Warpfire. He bashes his Force Shield into the Soul Grinder’s face, crushing its jaw and directing the phlegmatic bombardment into the roof of the Auto-Temple.
The Soul Grinder’s eldritch protections flicker and Verlin drives his Power Sword right through its neck decapitating the ghastly construct in a single blow. Warpfire curls around his Power Shield and brushes against Verlin’s hull. His whole Dreadnought lights up as wards rebuff the spell and his void shield and field bracing stops even his paint from peeling.
Verlin’s Geist is the only model with a void shield and a few other tricks, like the self-repair archeotech device from the Barghest’s armoury. On the other hand, he has two micro-fusion reactors powering him, rather than one. If he explodes there will be no saving him, or anything else within a hundred or so metres.
To confirm the Soul Grinder is dead, Verlin shoves his Power Sword through the Daemon’s chest then dismembers it. He retreats, clearing the line of fire for the Barghests, while keeping his shield up and facing the portal.
The next wave of enemies is a hoard of Daemonettes.
They don’t do any better than the weird Eldar Guardians or the Soul Grinder did. Neither do the Eldar Windriders that follow them, despite the speed of their grav bikes.
There is a pause in the fighting. Several Astartes fire a few shots through the portal and one tries tossing a grenade, but nothing gets through. No attacks are shot through from the other side either.
Odhran sends a Barghest over to grab one of the Eldar corpses and it is handed off to an Apothecary who cuts off the Eldar Mesh Armour with his Narthecium then pokes at the body with his auspex and mechadendrites.
The Eldar’s flesh is withered and grey, toughened by chemicals and desiccation. Multiple implants, bearing similarity to Servitor augmetics, have been precisely bound with the desiccated flesh. The soul stone embedded in its helmet glitters with malevolent runes. There is a faint sound, like screams on the wind, coming from the soul stone.
The apothecary labels the enemy as an undead construct and I agree. The Chaos Sorcerer has turned these Eldar into Drauger. I assume he used the powers of Slaanesh to bind Eldar to their own corpses to make them serve Slaanesh a while longer before the Chaos God eats them. Perhaps the wait enhances the flavour?
An order ripples through the Barghests and they start smashing the soul stones, just to be sure.
Defences quickly pile up around the portal and the Astartes spread out better through the Auto-Temple, hiding behind pillars and pews as they layer their defences.
Before the fortifications can get too high, the next wave flies from the portal. Screamers and Daemonettes emerge simultaneously. Hellflayers, chariots pulled by long necked bipeds and driven by Daemonettes, follow behind.
Well prepared for the assault, the Barghests fire at the Daemons. To my shock, this has absolutely no effect, the Daemons turning incorporeal for just long enough to reach the Barghests.
Wards and Luminen protections hold against the Daemons’ assault, the screamers yelling and biting not deterring the Barghests in the slightest. Daemonette claws and swords find no purchase on Barghest Power Armour and, amusingly enough, the Astartes have more limbs than the Daemons for once. They have no trouble defending themselves.
Verlin does not move from his position in the centre of the chapel, keeping his twin-linked lasguns and conversion beamer trained on the portal as he waits for the inevitable follow up from the Daemons' bout of incorporeal magics. He’s clearly decided playing his own tricks is the only reasonable response to Warp magics and has triggered his invisibility.
Sure enough, four squads of Noise Marines, one of the squads in terminator armour, sprint through the portal and fire their cacophonous psychic weapons. This time, none of the Barghests are caught out of cover, and the pews and pillars absorb just enough of the discharge for them to survive the barrage.
Verlin’s invisibility distorts the air slightly as his void shield and wards brush off the deafening fusillade carelessly tossed through the room. Too lost in the rapture of their own noise, the Terminator Noise Marines are caught completely off guard when Verlin teleports on top of them, crushing two of them, then triggers his Volkite Incinerator. A circle of lightning rushes out from his body, covering the floor and filling the air. With a thunderous crackle, all of the Traitor Marines and most of the Daemons spasm and die.
Only the Hellflayers survive, the lightning playing over the chariots and beasts, charring them slightly as their wards fight off the great burst of heat and light.
As the beasts pulling the chariots screech and struggle against their bindings, Verlin shatters one chariot with a kick, then slices another in half with his Power Sword. Too close to be of much use, his Conversion Beamer remains unused, the antimatter weapon’s punch determined by the distance between the gun and its target. He does, however, fire a second missile, relying on his void shield to protect himself from the blast and clearing the remaining chariots and Daemons.
The portal fog is washed away for a second time showing a huge army and the Chaos Sorcerer arguing with a tall, bipedal Daemon with crescent horns and single blade-wing. One hand is a metal claw and the other holds a large red hammer. My Machine-Spirits start screaming at me, gibbering in terror as they flee into the noosphere shouting a name and a long string of titles:
Vashtorr the Arkifane, God in the Machine, Master of the Soul Forges. The cries echo through Torchbearer, eroding our extensive protections and trashing an entire communications suite. Fortunately we have three more, all on separate circuits. It’s still annoying though.
Before everything breaks completely, I get one last set of images as Vashtorr stares at me across time and space, his glowing yellow eyes flicking with hellfire. His lipless mouth and needle teeth deform into a mocking grin. He lifts his hammer and smacks the Chaos Sorcerer, battering him dozens of metres and into the side of a factory.
The Chaos Sorcerer pushes himself out of the wall, his breastplate cracked and blood flowing down his legs. He raises a middle finger at Vashtorr then flounces off.
Vashtorr ignores the Chaos Sorcerer and waves a claw in the air like he’s interacting with a display I cannot see.
A spine chilling surge of energy feeds into the portal from the vertical city as every living creature within withers and crumbles.
The portal explodes and my data feed expires, leaving me staring at a blank, holographic screen, clenching my fists and shaking with rage.
I’m starting to believe that the Barghests are descended from the Lamenters, rather than the Space Wolves. Either way, they still have dog shit luck.