Sons of Horus

@#@#@# Taylor's POV @#@#@#

I had some rather unpleasant leeway with the Doorframe's dimensions, but I still had to climb in order to get the upper corners in place, otherwise my armored support would have to fight gravity and climb a vertical slope on this side. I only had one more link to go before I could open the way for Leviathan and cement my position as a heretek and heretic. The bit was only just placed when the rockcrete next to me exploded as warp-fire blasted it into oblivion. My foothold was annihilated, and I fell to the ground like a sack of retarded potatoes.

“Good shot, Saren,” a gruff, booming voice said, as heavy footsteps thundered towards me. I looked up, shaking myself as awake as I could, and focusing on the behemoth of a man who loomed over me. I was dazed, but my vision adjusted quickly enough for me to roll out of the way of a crushing stomp meant for my head. I jumped to my feet and beheld a sight that would have forced many men to soil themselves in terror; I fared little better, if I am to be honest. The nearest, the one who spoke and tried to crush my skull, was decorated enough in scripture form the Book of Lorgar to be their equivalent of sergeant, but his companion was much more terrifying.

“The Dark Gods grant gifts to their faithful, Jeremus,” the other posthuman replied, chuckling from behind his skull-like mask. Unlike most Marines, he wore no helmet, though I couldn't tell because of all the wires and cables sprouting from his shaved head. In one hand, he held a bolt pistol; in the other, he clutched a staff with a head wreathed in ethereal flames. Purple lighting crackled around his head as his eyes burned into me, and I saw I was against a Chaos sorcerer a score my age, and several orders of magnitude more powerful than I could ever be. “Now, mortal, what is it you were trying to do here?”

To answer him was to invite ruin upon myself, the the loyal soldiers in the tunnels, this world, and possibly Equus. I remained silent, slowly edging my hand towards my bolter, as I activated the Doorframe to the armor depot.

No Signal

“Worm!” Saren bellowed, throwing me against a wall with a shove of his mind. My entire body was pinned as his telekinetic grasp sent pressure warning flashing across my HUD; I could do little more than grunt as the metal buckled and constricted me further. “Obey when I command you!” With a flick of his wrist, he sent me careening across the chamber, but released me enough to bounced when I hit the floor. I pushed myself to my knees and scowled at them, though they could not see my face. One by one, red warnings flashed before my vision, and even as I turned to flee, my abilities were severely limited.

Saren chuckled and calmly walked after me.

Armor Compromised

Camouflage Disabled

Psionic Regulator Damaged

Thoracic Link Damaged

Lumbar Link Unresponsive

Beginning Distress Protocol...

@#@#@# Cain's POV @#@#@#

The rogue psyker, Unity as I recalled Lyra saying, fell to her knees and screamed, muffled only by her Lyra's hand. Her eyes rolled back as her cries took on structure, and I could only think of the shrieked prophecies I'd seen spooks give before their brains fried, sometimes quite literally. I drew my laspistol, and prepared to put her down if things got out of hand, but among the shrieking moans and cries, I heard words take form.

“That's the Burned Man's distress signal,” Lyra said, after a few moments, looking more scared than she had in ignorance. “We've gone over this before, and it's always been clear.”

“His regulator's busted,” the Ripper said, looking angry. I'd seen warriors like him before, especially in my time with the Valhallan 597th, and knew things were about to go ploin-shaped if whatever was causing the interference didn't stop. He barked something at Dirge in their brutish language, and the large man produced a small box. He took out a few adhesive electrodes and stuck them around Unity's shaved head. He turned a few knobs and the signal, that shrill screaming, slowly came into focus.

She stumbled over the garbled words, indistinguishable in his brutal language, and only after a few moments was any meaning found. Lyra, of course, had produced a small notebook, writing down, in plain Gothic, the Burned Man's current status. He was severely wounded, and battling a sorcerer, one of the Traitor Legions. After that was a list of basic ailments, broken bones, lacerations, minor wounds one wouldn't bother mending unless infection was a problem. There was a sudden jump in the message's cadence, before it fell silent. The killsquad looked to each other, wearing the masks of calm fury I'd seen on many of my men. They wanted vengeance, and no mortal man would stop them.

Unity gasped again, and the Burned Man's voice, unchanged by Jurgen's diminished interference, echoed form her throat. “Saren, I will die here, but I will not die alone.”

@#@#@#@#@#@#

Lord Inquisitor Dorosa and her team had broken from the path Inquisitors Vail and Till had made, and were now driving through the makeshift barriers erected by simpering cultists. Cutting them down was simplicity itself, as weak as they were, but that did not go without risks. Their transport was damaged and on its last breath, though they felt they were near the center of the interference blocking their vox network. Justicar Auros, as well as the other psykers, had been visited with a rather disturbing message, and were still puzzling over it.

“Saren, I will die here, but I will not die alone,” the Burned Man had said, echoed within the mind of every psyker near enough to listen. Auros was tracking him now, and maybe they would find this mysterious Saren. Either way, it seemed retribution was coming his way.

@#@#@# Taylor's POV @#@#@#

I steadied myself on a small console, bleeding from several rents in my armor. It was not a good pain in the least, but even as I held one shaky arm up to block the force staff as Saren swung at me, I could feel the fight leaving me. I parried and took another limping step back, firing a blast with my mind to hold the sorcerer back. “This is the end, maggot,” he said, bringing his staff down in a tall arc, which I only managed to move slightly out of the way before a sudden burst of telekinetic energy sent me flying down the walkway.

“Saren, I will die here, but I will not die alone,” I coughed out, raising my pistol. I had popped in a new cylinder, the sort Jay and I worked on a few months ago. Saren looked at the weapon and laughed, giving me enough time to fire a single shot. The thermite-coated round glanced off his helmet and buried itself in the console behind him, knocking out a single link in the chain. As it sparked and and smoked, the maintenance lights overhead cut off, flooding this chamber and several hundred blocks beyond in darkness. The vox jammers shut down, and at once battlefield information flooded my sensors, and it didn’t take a genius to realize we both knew this.

As Saren roared and raised his staff to strike me down, I smiled, because no matter what he did to me, I had already won.

Doorframe opened...

Author's Note:

Alright, so, I'm going to have to ask each and every one of you to check out a friend's story.
O Luna, Where Art Thou is a fair story, a pony on Earth, and neither of those are terribly common on this site,, sad to say.
So, Lucky424 is a friend of mine, so I'm plugging this for him. But, the story warrants the praise I'm giving, so, at the very least, check it out.

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