C. Goto - Dawn of War

The others nodded in agreement, but Gabriel remained motionless for a moment. His mind was racing with the other words of the eldar woman-she had said that Inquisitor Toth knew more than he was revealing and, if he was honest with himself, Gabriel had known this from the start. Rather than putting his mind at ease, this insight made his soul shrink from his consciousness, hiding from the articulation of the idea that he may possess unsanctioned psychic abilities. This was not the time to confront his own daemons-there were real daemons to slay on Tartarus, and it was up to him to see it done.

“Get a bridge built over this chasm, and get it done now,” he barked to Matiel, delegating command of the logistics to the sergeant, and cursing inwardly that all of the Thunderhawks were in use in the evacuation at the spaceport. Matiel nodded sharply and hastened off to organise the emergency construction.

“And Isador, get a message to Toth-tell him… tell him that we respectfully request his presence in the capital city,” said Gabriel, considering how best to phrase it.

As Isador’s face cracked into a faint smile, a gunshot pinged off his shoulder plate. A flurry of activity instantly erupted behind them, as the Blood Ravens organised themselves for battle, fanning out across the street to form a bristling barricade.

Turning, Isador saw crowds of people pouring out of the side streets into the main road. They were human-or had once been human. Their flesh was melted and disfigured, and they loped and staggered through the street in vulgar lurches. They each bore the touch of Khorne-mutating them into the minions of the Blood God-and there were hundreds of them. And they just kept coming, spilling out of the side streets and stumbling along from the other end of the main road, as though there was no end to their number. Perhaps there were thousands. They pressed down the road, trapping the Blood Ravens between that sea of cultists and the chasm of blood, hurling crude projectiles, and snapping off shots with shotguns and pistols.

“The people of Lloovre Marr?” asked Gabriel, a nauseating sickness dropping into his stomach as he braced his bolter. “Living on the consecrated ground of a daemon can have unfortunate effects on people,” he added, his thoughts dizzy and spiralling with images of Cyrene.

“Brother-captain,” said Tanthius, stepping forward in his massive Terminator armour and placing a firm hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Allow your blessed Terminators to cleanse these aberrations in your place. Your attentions are needed elsewhere.”

Gabriel looked up into the visor of his long-serving sergeant and smiled weakly. “Thank you, Tanthius,” he said, “but this is not a responsibility that I can shirk.”

He appreciated his sergeant’s concern and his unspoken understanding, but there was no way that Gabriel was going to hide from his responsibilities just because of events on his homeworld. If anything, he was buoyed by a violent sense of justice for all-if the heretics on Cyrene had to die, then so too did the vile mutants of Tartarus. There could be no exceptions.

Nonetheless, Gabriel’s stomach churned with nausea as he drew his chainsword. But then, just faintly in the back of his mind, the gentle tones of the silver choir started to wash across his soul once again, reassuring him that his direction was correct and his purpose firm.

“We will fight together, Brother Tanthius,” he said, striding towards the Blood Ravens’ barricades with his chainsword held high and his bolter braced in his hand.

The Thunderhawk roared over the street, strafing fire through the throng of cultists, overshooting them and coasting over the Blood Ravens as they retreated across their makeshift bridge. The gunship pulled up dramatically, soaring vertically into the sky and arcing back on itself. It rolled to level out and then dived back down into the street, its guns pulsing with fire as its strafing run ripped through the cultists a second time. But the thinning crowd did not disperse, and the cultists pressed on towards the temporary bridge over the chasm, walking relentlessly into lashes of fire from the retreating line of Blood Ravens and falling in droves.

As his Marines filed over the narrow bridge, Gabriel stood shoulder to shoulder with Tanthius and Isador, blocking the path of the cultists and cutting them down with bursts of bolter fire and hacks from his chainsword. The three of them held the crowd at bay until the rest of the Blood Ravens reached the other side of the chasm, where they peeled left and right, lining the opposite ledge of the ravine. As one, the line erupted with fire, sending a hail of bolter shells flashing across the chasm, leaving glittering trails as the sun finally dropped below the horizon and the street was cast into darkness.

The disciplined volleys of fire punched into the cultists, dropping dozens at a time, driving them back through sheer pressure of fire.

“Isador. Tanthius. Time to go,” said Gabriel, as a shredded cultist fell at his feet. The supporting fire from the far bank had given them a little breathing space.

Loosing a couple of final blasts with his storm bolter, Tanthius turned and sprinted across the bridge, with Isador close behind. Gabriel hesitated for a moment, listening to the pristine chorus that still echoed in his head as he stepped forward into the throng, carving his blade through limbs and cracking skulls with the butt of his gun. Then, as though suddenly changing his mind, he turned and ran towards the bridge-the cultists being sucked into the fire-vacuum left by his departure.

From the far side, shots flashed through the night, picking off the cultists that tried to run after the sprinting captain, knocking them wailing into the depths of the chasm itself. Repeated splashes could be heard as the corpses dropped into the river of blood that filled the bottom of the ravine.

As Gabriel ran, the Thunderhawk swooped in for another run, dragging its fire through the crowd but then dumping a whistling projectile towards the bridge itself. Gabriel threw himself headlong as the bomb smashed into the apex of the bridge, detonating in a great ball of flame. The flimsy structure buckled and collapsed, free-falling into the chasm together with the cultists who had managed to evade the fire of the Blood Ravens.

A strong arm reached out and caught the grasping hand of Gabriel as the bridge fell away from under him. For a moment, the captain was held dangling precariously over the bloody chasm, but then he was pulled clear and deposited on the flagstones.

“Thank you, Isador,” said Gabriel, climbing to his feet. “My apologies, Tanthius-thank you,” he corrected himself when he saw that it was the sergeant who had saved him.

Another explosion erupted behind him, and Gabriel turned to see the Thunderhawk dump more explosive charges into the cultists on the other side of the ravine. The brief fireballs shed sudden bursts of light in the darkness, highlighting the grotesque and contorted agonies of the cultists as they were blown apart. Then the Thunderhawk stopped its raids, and the remains of the road fell into abject darkness. Gabriel could only assume that the cultists were either all dead, or that they had finally fled.

Plumes of fire jetted against the flagstones as the Thunderhawk lowered itself gently onto the road. The hatch opened, and a shaft of light flooded out, silhouetting the impressive figure of Inquisitor Toth in the drop chamber within. He stood for a moment, his ornate warhammer slung over his shoulder in the image of a barbarian warrior, and then strode down the ramp, his boots clanking solidly.

The dramatic gesture was wasted, as Gabriel and Isador were deep in conversation. The inquisitor made his way into the midst of the Blood Ravens, most of whom were busily securing the area.