Mike Lee - Fallen Angels

Luther and Zahariel emerged into the cavernous room with the rest of the command squad close behind. Ahead, arcs of violet lightning leapt from the monolithic bulk of the thermal core and etched looping scars across the permacrete floor. The air stank of ozone and the sickly-sweet reek of decaying flesh; it rippled invisibly against the skin, churned by unnatural energies that radiated from the vast ritual circle at the centre of the space.

A half-dozen queen worms were curled about the outside of the circle, their segmented bodies writhing frenetically in response to the building intensity of the ritual. Their mandibles clashed and their multiple eyes glowed with a power of their own as they drove thousands of corpses against the arcology's hard-pressed defenders.

Just beyond the worms, standing at precisely-determined points along the perimeter of the ritual circle, stood the sorcerers. The Terrans were clad in torn and stained robes that had been painted in arcane sigils that shone with a strange, pellucid light. Zahariel saw that their skin was waxy and mottled in shades of black and grey, as though they were little more than corpses themselves. Their heads turned fearfully at the arrival of the Astartes, but their leader, a towering figure with his back to the Dark Angels, rallied them with clenched fists and shrieked curses until they resumed their efforts.

At the centre of the circle, Zahariel could just make out massive coils of scaly hide, larger by far than the queen worm that had nearly slain him and his squad at Sigma Five-One-Seven.

Zahariel felt a surge of power in the great chamber that seemed to rise up from deep within the earth. Black vapours, reeking of sulphur and rot, rose in a flood from the deep pit where the thermal core was set. The ritual was reaching its culmination.

'We're nearly out of time!' he cried out.

Luther heard and nodded grimly. He raised his glowing sword. 'For Caliban, brothers!' he cried, his voice echoing like a trumpet call over the cacophony of the ritual chamber.

'For Caliban!' the Astartes answered. 'For Luther!' As one, they charged forward.

The queen worms outside the circle reacted at once, whipping about and screeching their fury, but they were caught in a veritable storm of bolt pistol fire, searing flame, and the fearsome blasts of meltaguns. Mass-reactive rounds punched through thick layers of scale and detonated in the soft flesh beneath, blasting gory craters in the worms' flanks. Two of the creatures thrashed and hissed, bathed in streams of fiery promethium. A third blew apart as a pair of meltagun shots struck in at the head and midsection, showering the rest with splashes of steaming ichor.

Yet despite their terrible wounds, the surviving worm queens fought on. Two of the creatures focused on Luther, their mandibles clashing as they lunged at the knight from the left and right. Zahariel saw it unfold, and thought of Brother Gideon, his body shorn in half by a worm's scissor-like bite.

But Luther was a born warrior, a man who had been fighting the monsters of Caliban all his life. As the monsters lunged, he ducked low and to the left, bringing up his power sword as the worm's leap carried it just past his right shoulder. Nightfall pierced the side of the worm's head, just behind the mandible, and like a claw it tore a burning gash more than halfway along the worm queen's length. The second worm found its attack blocked by the first creature's lunge, causing it to check its thrust and slide, snapping, over the mortally-wounded queen's back. Luther saw it coming and put out one of its eyes with an explosive bolt from his pistol. A plasma shot from Lord Cypher struck the opposite side of the queen's skull a moment later, leaving a glowing crater gouged into the bone and boiling its brains in the blink of an eye.

Brother Attias fell upon the mortally-wounded queen and began to saw its head off with his roaring chainsword. To Zahariel's left, a burning worm leapt into the midst of one of the attack squads, flattening them beneath its bulk and madly snapping at armoured limbs and torsos. Another worm, streaming ichor from scores of bolt-pistol wounds, snatched up a Dark Angel in its mandibles and lifted him high, crushing his armour plates like paper. The Librarian watched the warrior slap a krak grenade right between the monster's eyes, and both he and the worm's head disappeared in an angry yellow flash.

Zahariel ignored the surviving worms, heading instead for the ritual circle and the madly chanting Terrans. The power of the ritual trembled in the air; he could feel it against his skin like a searing brand. A bridge was being formed, linking the physical world with the seething madness of the warp. He knew all too well what would happen next.

He struck the sorcerer's ward a moment later, just outside the first lines of the summoning circle. It felt as though he'd run right into a solid wall of lightning. Agony tore along his nerves; warning telltales flashed in his vision as the neural feedback began to overload his synaptic receptors. Had it not been for the dampening power of his psychic hood, the shock would likely have killed him outright.

The cries of the sorcerers grew exultant. In the centre of the circle, the giant worm began to slowly rise into the air, its scales throwing back the lurid glow of muzzle-flashes and liquid fire. Pain threatened to overwhelm Zahariel. It took all his concentration, all his courage and dedication, to raise his force staff and strike at the energies of the ward with all his might.

Warp energies collided with incandescent fury. Zahariel focused his anger through the staff, pouring all the psychic energy he could through the focus and into the ward. Its energies surged for a moment, resisting then like a pierced bubble it burst with a ringing peal of thunder.

Zahariel fell, his strength spent, but a strong hand at his side gripped his arm, bearing him up. Luther, his blade gleaming like an avenging angel, stepped past him and reached the Terran leader. His shadow fell across the sorcerer, who realised, too late, that his powers had failed him. The sorcerer spun, hands curled into claws before his face, and Luther smote him with his burning sword. Nightfall sliced through both of the Terran's legs, just below the hip joint, and the Terran fell screaming to the stone floor.

A sorcerer to Zahariel's right jerked and twitched under a fusillade of bolt pistol rounds. Another melted like wax in a gout of burning promethium. He could sense the energies of the ritual grow unstable as the sorcerers were slain, but the rite itself continued to unfold. A tipping point had been reached; the rite had accumulated enough energy that nothing would stop its culmination.

Luther spun and held out his hand. 'Cypher! The book, quickly!' he cried. His gaze fell to Zahariel. 'Join me, brother! We have to get control of this, or we're finished!'

A sense of horror welled up inside Zahariel as he realised what he had to do, but Luther was right. At this point, there was no other choice that he could see. Gritting his teeth, he staggered forwards, moving under the weight of his damaged armour by sheer muscle power alone.

He dimly sensed Cypher pressing the grimoire into Luther's hands. The Master of Caliban opened it and went quickly to a particular page. 'Can you sense the energies, Zahariel?'

Zahariel nodded. It was nearly impossible not to feel the unnatural forces impinging on his mind. He shook his head grimly. 'If I do this, I'll have to deactivate my dampener,' he warned. 'There's no other way.'

'Don't be afraid, brother!' Luther cried. 'You can master it!' He lifted the book close enough to read the pages in the shifting light. 'Now, repeat the words exactly as I read them!'

Zahariel felt a wave of icy dread. There was no time left for arguments. It was act, or perish. He reached to a set of controls at his belt and deactivated the psychic hood.