C. Goto - Dawn of War

Gabriel watched them fall, and then turned back to the mountaintop, looking up as Sindri started to glow with power, radiating purple light from his body as the blood of the dead Marines blended with the swirling ocean that consecrated the tainted ground of Tartarus. The Blood Ravens captain swung the hammer over his shoulder and started to climb up towards the emergent daemon prince.

“Yes!” cried the bellowing voice of Sindri as the storm pulsed through his veins, filling his body with the oscillating energies of the warp. A great ring of purple flame blew out from his position, rippling across the fragmented mountaintop in concentric circles, dousing the combatants in warp energy. The Alpha Legionaries roared with renewed passion as the power washed over them, and the Blood Ravens staggered under the tidal onslaught. But Matiel blasted over the waves with his jump pack spilling orange flames into the sea of fire. He roared towards the Chaos sorcerer, determined that his Space Marines would not meet their end at the hands of such a foul creature. His bolter coughed and spat shells, and his chainsword spluttered in readiness as he barrelled through the hail and wind, yelling his determination into the storm: “For the Great Father and the Emperor!”

Gabriel pulled himself up onto the summit just in time to see Sindri turn his head towards the sergeant, as he seared through the air towards him. A sudden javelin of purple flashed out of the daemon’s eyes, punching into the jetting form of the Blood Raven and halting him in midair. Sindri shrieked with pleasure, immersing himself in the daemonic energies that flowed through him as a conduit into the material realm.

Matiel was held for a moment, suspended in the onrush of warp fire, held high above the frantic battle that raged on the sundered mountaintop. His arms snapped out to his sides, and his weapons fell away from his hands, as he was held in a blaze of agony for all the warriors to see.

“No!” yelled Gabriel, hefting the daemonhammer onto his shoulder and crouching, ready to pounce. “Matiel!”

Suddenly, a blue fireball hissed through the sleeting rain and punched into the levitating form of the Chaos sorcerer, knocking him back. Sindri, the emergent daemon prince, snapped his gaze back round to face the eldar farseer, raking his flaming eyes in a great arc of destruction across the islets of the mountaintop, exploding rock and incinerating Marines as his stare touched them. The purple river crashed against the figure of the farseer, splitting into a series of streams that ran around her, as she stood defiantly against the current.

Meanwhile, released from the daemon prince’s thrall, Matiel tumbled out of the sky, crashing down against a rocky outcrop far below.

“No!” yelled Gabriel, as he launched himself into the air, swinging the daemonhammer up in a vertical arc and throwing himself towards the pulsating form of Sindri. He jumped three metres into the sky, carried upwards on the back of the eldar chants, the chorus of the Astronomican, and the righteous will of the Blood Ravens themselves. The daemonhammer seemed to drag him higher and higher, pulling him into the eye of the storm as though it were a guided missile, as though it had a will of its own.

Sindri narrowed his eyes, concentrating the river of fire into a torrent that crashed into the farseer as she staggered back under the daemonic onslaught. But she would not fall, and the daemon prince roared his rage into the storm, bringing down forks of purple lightning and ravaging the mountain with hurricane force winds. Just at the last minute, he saw Gabriel out of the corner of his eye. But it was too late.

The daemonhammer swept up and around in a spiralling blur, dragging Gabriel in a loop around the daemon until he was suspended in the eye of the storm alongside the husk of Sindri. Without even a moment’s hesitation, Gabriel shouldered the hammer and spun his whole body, bringing the daemonhammer around with all his strength. The ornate, rune-encrusted hammerhead flared with blinding light as it punched into the chest of the emergent daemon, driving straight through its body in an explosion of warp fire and gore. Sindri’s body was rent in two, as his chest crumpled into nothing and then exploded out of his back, leaving his head hanging momentarily in the air above his stomach.

The storm itself seemed to reel in agony as its eye was shattered by the captain of the Blood Ravens. The clouds whipped into a giant whirlpool, pulling the lightning into spiralling streams that seemed to be sucked back in towards the core, dragging the energy of the immaterium back through the Chaos forces in an immense backwash that left the Alpha Legionaries boiling within their armour. The storm was collapsing back on itself, as Gabriel tumbled down towards the rocky summit of the mountain, and the floating islets of rock themselves started to fall back into place on the mountaintop.

As Gabriel crashed into solid ground, he pulled himself to his feet and watched the maelstrom raging all around him. The remaining Blood Ravens were struggling to maintain their balance as the mountain shifted and rocked, spilling the boiled Alpha Legionaries and the treacherous Guardsmen into fiery chasms that were quickly sealed as the mountaintop reformed. Further down the mountainside, Gabriel could see the remnants of the orks turning tail and fleeing down into the valley. Then, with an earth-shattering crack, the Maledictum dagger thudded into the stone at his feet, its curved blade biting into the rock with the hilt holding the stone itself.

He hoisted the daemonhammer for one last strike, but a thought stayed his hand, pressing into his mind.

Human! Do not destroy the stone… you will doom us all!

Gabriel paused with the hammer held aloft, poised, ready to crash down on the Maledictum. He could see the eldar farseer, shining like an angel in the spiralling maelstrom of the collapsing storm. She was staring at him, willing him not to crush the stone. There were a few eldar warriors standing beside her, a couple of wraithguard and a warlock. The eldar had paid a heavy price for the souls of the Tartarans.

“Captain!” came a shouted voice from behind him. “Destroy the stone before it leads others to ruin-it lies at the root of the damnation of Tartarus!” cried Mordecai, straining his voice against the torrential storm, standing on the edge of a nearby islet.

Gabriel shook his head and closed his eyes, trying to find some calm in the eye of the storm, searching his soul for the guidance of the Astronomican. But there was nothing but fire and darkness swirling behind his eyelids.

You know not what you do… came the thoughts of Macha once again, but this time they were accompanied by a rain of shuriken and blasts of wraithcannon. I cannot let you destroy it.

The fire zinged against Gabriel’s armour, ricocheting in sparks, but he did not move. He stayed silent and still, waiting for calm, waiting for certainty. The hammer hummed in his hands, hungry for destruction. His mind was congealing with disparate images: he saw flickers of the silver choir transforming into the tortured faces of the people of Cyrene; he saw Isador’s eyes burning with fury and hatred; and he saw the disfigured form of Brom, a bullet hole fresh in his forehead.

Opening his eyes, not even wincing at the sleet of shuriken that peppered his armour and sunk into his flesh, he looked down into the Maledictum. Something dark and shadowy moved within, and inchoate whispers reached for his mind.

“No!” he cried, bringing the daemonhammer crashing down on the stone, driving the dagger down into the rock below but shattering the Maledictum into a rain of tiny shards. An immense explosion detonated as the hammer struck the daemonic stone, sending concentric shock-waves of warp energy radiating out from the mountaintop. The explosions knocked everything flat, rippling down the mountainside after the fleeing orks. Then, with a sudden reversal, the Shockwaves were sucked back up the mountain, gathering in the storms, the hail and the lightning, dragging the darkness back to the hilt of the curved dagger, and sucking them into the abrupt implosion.