C. Goto - Dawn of War

The Blood Raven has a fragment of the Wailing Doom-all is not yet lost. We must help him, said Macha, reaching out with her mind to the best of her warriors.

Understood, replied Skrekrea as she somersaulted over the collapsing form of a dying Chaos Marine and brought her blade round into a vicious vertical arc in her wake, driving it down between the neck and shoulder plates of another. She turned to face the farseer, and sprinted up the slope towards her, pushing her foot hard into the ground as she reached the summit, next to Macha, and leaping out into the fiery space between their islet and the one above where Sindri levitated. She flew through the flames, her legs cycling and her back arched with the effort of the long jump.

Macha sent out bursts of blue energy from her fingertips, incinerating the sleet of bolter shells that flashed out towards Skrekrea as she leapt towards the Chaos Marines. The warlock, just down the slope from Macha, power coruscating around his hands as he unleashed bolts of raw energy against the forces of Chaos that besieged their own island-summit, turned to assist the farseer, throwing blue flames across the chasm in support of Skrekrea. Macha nodded her thanks to the warlock and started to redirect her own assault against Sindri himself once again, forming revolving balls of blue energy and hurling them across the void towards the Chaos sorcerer.

But the loss of Skrekrea and the warlock from her own defences left Macha vulnerable to the pressing forces of Chaos behind her. Bolter shells zipped past her head, and she could hear the wails of her diminishing Storm squad as they fought to keep the Alpha Legionaries and fallen Guardsmen off her back.

The emerald-green wraithguard reorganised their positions behind the Storm squad, forming a solid shielding line between the enemy and the farseer, standing implacably with their wraithcannons a constant blaze. Aggressive fire zinged out of the Chaos forces, zipping into the wraithguard, and punching out great chunks of their psycho-plastic armour. But the un-living eldar warriors held their ground, unafraid of death, afraid only of failure.

Without their leader, the Storm squad began to falter, pinned down under the relentless fire of the Alpha Legionaries, and engaged on all sides by lunging blades and hacking axes. The squad leapt and spun, their own blades blurring into torrents of violence, but they were outnumbered, and their own numbers were falling all the time. It would not be long before the eldar were overrun and the Alpha Legion would have a clear line to the farseer.

You must hold the line-Kaela Mensha Khaine is with us, came the thoughts of Macha, filling the souls of the eldar with hope. The spirit of our avatar is with us in the mon-keigh’s daemonhammer.

The Storm squadron seemed to lurch with new energy, leaping and striking with inhuman speed, cutting a swathe through the Chaos forces, and an eerie chant flowed out of their diminishing numbers, filling the storm with a chorus of eldar magic: “Kaela Mensha Khaine!”

The daemonhammer seemed to erupt into flames as Gabriel crashed down onto the rocky platform, and the strange alien music flooded through the hail and wind. The hammer pulsed with power, radiating energy into his body as he brandished it above his head and charged towards the phalanx of Chaos Marines that stood guard around the very peak of the dismembered mountaintop.

As he closed, a group of Marines snapped round to face him, their bolters coughing with fire, while their brother-Legionaries continued to focus their shots elsewhere, to the other side of the pyramidal rock, where Gabriel could not see. The bolter shells flashed through the dark air, heading straight for Gabriel in a lethal horizontal sheet that threatened to cut him in two. But suddenly, the shots seemed to reduce into slow motion as the eldar chants rose into a deafening chorus, mixing with the silver tones of the symphony that still played in his mind. The daemonhammer glowed with power. With consummate and casual ease, Gabriel brought the daemonhammer round in a horizontal arc, sweeping it through the oncoming fire and detonating each shell as the hammerhead crunched into it. He didn’t even break his stride as he pounded onwards towards the shocked Alpha Legionaries, bursting out of the line of explosions unscathed by their vicious tirade.

As he ran, Gabriel saw one of the Chaos Marines suddenly throw up his arms, casting his bolter to the ground, and then slump forward onto his face. Standing in his place, her curving blade dripping with blood as lightning flashed behind her, an eldar warrior paused for a moment, throwing back her head and letting out a cry of victory. The cry rose shrilly, gathering volume and power until it drowned out even the sound of the storm and the chanting of her brethren.

The Chaos Marines on either side of the eldar warrior collapsed to the ground, clutching their hands to the sides of their helmets, shaking their heads in insane agony. As they fell to their knees, the eldar snapped back into motion, spinning into a pirouette with her blade outstretched, taking the heads of both Marines in a single fluid movement.

Gabriel was closing now, swinging the hammer above his head in preparation for the combat to come as he stormed over the uneven terrain. The Chaos Marines were in disarray, trying to deal with the slippery eldar in their midst and with the charging Blood Raven all at once-they snatched bolter fire in all directions, snapping their weapons from side to side whilst drawing their chainswords ready for close-range combat.

Diving forward into a roll, Gabriel cleared the last few strides in an instant as bolter fire zinged off his armour and flew over his head. He flipped back onto his feet, bringing the hammer down vertically on the head of one of the Chaos Marines, shattering his spine as the hammer flared with power. To his left, the eldar warrior was dancing and springing between Marines, slicing into their armour with her blade and spraying out shuriken from her pistol. For a brief moment, the eldar and Blood Raven came to rest, back to back in the midst of a ring of Alpha Legionaries.

Looking up, Gabriel could see the figure of Sindri, suspended above the floating mountaintop, hanging by tendrils of power that seemed to pulse, feeding him with the energy of the storm. Time was running out, and he leapt forward towards the Marines that blocked his path up the summit, sweeping the daemonhammer in front of him and clattering through their outstretched chainswords. He felt a movement breeze past his shoulder as he started to run forward, and then the eldar warrior landed lightly in front of him, having somersaulted over the Blood Raven’s head.

Skrekrea bounced into a spin, flashing her blade out in every direction, slicing into the Chaos Marines all around, but leaving Gabriel completely unscathed. As she danced through the combat, she opened a gap in the line of Marines, and Gabriel barged through it, dropping his shoulder and pulling the weight of the daemonhammer behind him. He knocked two Alpha Legionaries off their feet as he crashed through them, and then leapt up the slope towards the peak, the way ahead clear.

A wail of agony from behind him made Gabriel pause. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the eldar warrior skewered on the blades of three Chaos Marines. Her head was thrown back and a death cry was gurgling unevenly from her throat as the Marines twisted their blades. Gabriel turned to face them, his blood boiling and rage flooding into his head, and he brought the daemonhammer crashing down against the rock at his feet. The hammerhead exploded with power as it pounded into the rock, ripping a crack into the islet and rendering it asunder, breaking the platform under the Chaos Marines free of the mountain summit and sending it tumbling down into the sea of flames below. The Alpha Legionaries scrambled to keep their footing on the plummeting platform, but the rock flipped end over end, throwing the traitorous Marines screaming into the daemonic firestorm.