Ben Counter - Galaxy in Flames

'To the roof!' ordered Tarvitz, not knowing if anyВ­one could hear him over the cacophony of the Titan's guns. Abandon the nave!'

Tarvitz reached the gallery running the length of the temple, finding it crammed with Space Marines, their Legion colours unrecognisable beneath layers of grime and blood. Such distinctions were

irrelevant, Tarvitz realised, for they were one band of brothers fighting for the same cause.

Above this level was the roof, and Tarvitz spotted Sergeant Raetherin, a solid line officer and veteran of the Murder campaign.

'Sergeant!' he yelled. 'Report!'

Raetherin looked up from the window through which he was aiming his bolter. He had caught a glancing blow to the side of his head and his face streamed with blood

'Not good, captain!' he replied. 'We've held them this long, but we won't hold another attack. There's too many of them and that Titan is going to blow us away any second,’

Tarvitz nodded and risked a glance through a shatВ­tered loophole to the ground far below, feeling his hate for these traitors, warriors for whom notions of honour and loyalty were non-existent, swell as he saw the multitude of bodies sprawled around the palace. He knew these dead warriors, having led them in batВ­tle these last few months and more than anything, he knew what they represented.

They were the galaxy's best soldiers, the saviours of the human race and the chosen of the Emperor. Their lives of heroic service and sacrifice had been ended by brute treachery and he had never felt so helpless.

'No,’ he said, as resolve filled him. 'No, we will not falter,’

Tarvitz met Raetherin's eyes and said. The Titan is going to hit the same corner of the temple again,

higher up, and then the traitors are going to storm us. Get the men back and make ready for the assault.'

He knew the traitors were just waiting for the temple to fall so they could storm in and kill the loyalists at their leisure. This was not just a battle; it was the Warmaster demonstrating his superiority.

Massive calibre gunfire thundered from the Dies Irae, an awesome storm of fire and death that smashed the plaza outside the temple, blasting apart loyalists in great columns of fire.

Infernal heat battered against the temple, and a hot gale blew through the gallery.

'Is that the best you've got?' he yelled in anger. 'You'll never kill us all!'

His warriors looked at him with savage light in their eyes. The words had sounded hollow in his ears, spoken out of rage rather than bravado, but he saw the effect it had and smiled, remembering that he had a duty to these men.

He had a duty to make their last moments mean something.

Suddenly, the air ripped apart as the Titan's plasma gun fired and white heat filled the gallery, throwing Tarvitz to the floor. Molten fragments of stone sprayed him and warriors fell, broken and burning around him. Blinded and deafened, Tarvitz dragged himself away from the destruction. Hot air boomed back into the vacuum blasted by the plasma and it was like a burning wind of destruction come to scour the loyalists from the face of Isstvan III.

He rolled onto his back, seeing that the bolt had ripped right through the temple roof, leaving a huge glowing-edged hole, like a monstrous bite mark, through one corner of the temple. Fully a third of the temple's mass had collapsed in a great rockslide of liquefied stone, flooding out like a long tongue of jade.

Tarvitz tried to shake the ringing from his ears and forced his eyes to focus.

Through the miasma of heat, he could hear a war-cry arise from the enemy warriors.

A similar clamour rose from the other side of the temple, where the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children were arrayed among the ruins of the palace.

The attack was coming.

Loken dropped то his knees in horror at the sight of Torgaddon's head parting from his shoulders. The blood fountained slowly, the silver sheen of the sword wreathed in a spray of red.

He screamed his friend's name, watching as his body crashed to the floor of the stage and smashed the wooden lectern to splinters as it fell. His eyes met those of Horus Aximand and he saw a sorrow that matched his own echoed in this brother's eyes.

His choler surged, hot and urgent, but his anger was not directed at Horus Aximand, but at the warВ­rior who pulled himself from the rubble behind him. He turned and forced himself to his feet, seeing Abaddon pulling himself from under the collapsed

portico. The first captain had extricated himself from beneath slabs of marble that would have crushed even an armoured Astartes, but he was still trapped and immobile from the waist down.

Loken gave vent to an animal cry of loss and rage and ran towards Abaddon. He leapt, driving a knee down onto Abaddon's arm and pinning it with all his weight and strength to the rubble. Abaddon's free hand reached up and grabbed Loken's wrist as Loken drove his chainsword towards Abaddon's face.

The two warriors froze, locked face to face in a battle that would determine who lived and who died. Loken gritted his teeth and forced his arm down against Abaddon's grip.

Abaddon looked into Loken's face and saw the hatred and loss there.

'There's hope for you yet, Loken,’ he snarled.

Loken forced the roaring point of the sword down with more strength than he thought could ever inhabit one body. The betrayal of the Astartes – their very essence – flashed through Loken's mind and he found the target of his hatred embodied in Abaddon's violent features.

The chainblade's teeth whirred. Abaddon forced the point down and it ripped into his breastplate. Sparks sprayed as Loken pushed the point onwards, through thick layers of ceramite. The sword judВ­dered, but Loken kept it true.

He knew where it would break through, straight through the bone shield that protected Abaddon's chest cavity and then into his heart.

Even as he savoured the idea of Abaddon's death, the first captain smiled and pushed his hand upwards. Astartes battle plate enhanced a warrior's strength, but Terminator armour boosted it to levВ­els beyond belief, and Abaddon called upon that power to dislodge Loken.

Abaddon surged upwards from the rubble with a roar of anger and slammed his energised fist into Loken's chest. His armour cracked open and the bone shield protecting his own chest cavity shatВ­tered into fragments. He staggered away from Abaddon, managing to keep his feet for a few secВ­onds before his legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees, blood dribbling from his cracked lips in bloody ropes.

Abaddon towered over him and Loken watched numbly as Horus Aximand joined him. Abaddon's eyes were filled with triumph, Aximand's with regret. Abaddon took the bloody sword from AxiВ­mand's hand with a smile. 'This killed Torgaddon and it seems only fitting that I use it to kill you.'

The first captain raised the sword and said, 'You had your chance, Loken. Think about that while you die.'

Loken met Abaddon's unforgiving gaze, seeing the madness that lurked behind his eyes like a mob of angry daemons, and waited for death.

But before the blow landed, the parliament building exploded as something vast and colosВ­sal, like a primal god of war bestriding the world smashed through the back wall. Loken had a

fleeting glimpse of a monstrous iron foot, easily the width of the building itself crashing through the stonework and demolishing the building as it went.

He looked up in time to see a mighty red god, towering and immense striding through the remains of the Choral City, its battlements bristling with weapons and its mighty head twisted in a snarl of merciless anger.

Rubble and debris cascaded from the roof as the Dies Irae smashed the parliament building into a splintered ruin of crushed rock, and Loken smiled as the building collapsed around him.