face again before rising from the kill and gunning down another.
Something struck him from behind and he was thrown forwards, falling at the feet of a man dressed in black. A commissar, he recognised dimly, seeing the man level a pistol at his head. He stared back at the commissar hatefully, awaiting the shot that would end his life.
But it never came. The commissar's hand was hacked off by a chainsword and Varnus surged to his feet.
'This one is mine!' he roared and the Chaos Marine towering over him turned its helmeted head in his direction. With a dignified nod of its head, it left the wounded commissar to Varnus and leapt back into the fray, its twin chainswords whirring.
Varnus stood on the one good hand of the commissar as he scrabbled for a weapon and the man turned his face towards him, twisted in hatred and pain.
'Where is the Emperor now?' asked Varnus in a language the commissar could not understand. 'He has abandoned you, just as he abandoned me.'
Varnus placed the barrel of his lasgun against the commissar's forehead. The man's eyes were defiant till the last and Varnus pulled the trigger. He watched as the life faded from his eyes and a pang wrenched inside him. He dropped to his knees over the dead figure, confused and lost. The anger drained from him and was replaced with self-loathing, guilt and anguish.
He caught the sight of his own reflection in the highly buffed, silver pin on the commissar's hat and he lifted it up, staring at his own hate-filled visage.
What had he become? This was the face of the enemy.
He looked upon the two-headed eagle symbol upon the black leather hat he held in his hands and he felt duel emotions: hate and sadness.
Maybe it was a lie, but was this a better alternative? This embracing of evil and slaughter?
The madness was descending upon him again and he had not the strength to fight it any longer. He would continue to fall into damnation. No, he would not fall, he would embrace it. He felt the rage building within him and it terrified him that it was not unpleasant. He would be lost and he would not care that he was lost.
With the last vestiges of himself, he lifted the pistol from the commissar's hand and raised it to his head. Emperor, save me, he thought. Before the unrelenting rage descended upon him once again and he was completely lost, he pulled the trigger.
At last he had found release from the sound of Chaos in his mind.
'Those damned explosives set! We ain't got much time!' shouted Laron as he hunkered down behind the Valkyrie. His storm troopers were firing on the incoming enemies, but they would be on them in a moment. Bolter rounds impacted against the aircraft, and the crewman operating the heavy bolter flew backwards as a bolt shell detonated in his skull, splattering Laron with blood. He swore and took the man's position, swinging the heavy weapon towards the enemy. A missile slammed into one of the other Valkyries, which detonated explosively, throwing flaming debris in all directions.
Laron pressed the twin thumb triggers of the pivot mounted heavy bolter and fired a spray of heavy calibre rounds towards the incoming foe, dropping several of them. Rhinos could be seen cutting towards the storm troopers from further off, and Laron swore.
'Set the damned timers! Move it!' he roared in between bursts of fire.
'Sir, we have incoming hostiles from the east,' said a wounded storm trooper as he pulled a piece of metal from his shoulder.
'Just great,' muttered Laron as he gunned down another enemy.
'All set.' Captain Elias shouted.
A sudden scream from the base of the tower made Laron glance around and he did a double take as he saw the scene unfolding. A long, spined arm had reached out of the stone of the tower, grabbed one his men around the throat and was dragging him towards the wall. Another storm trooper was hacking at the arm with his knife, and hissing ichor dripped from the wound. Fleshy, hooked claws burst from the wall and latched onto another man. He was pulled off balance and tumbled into the wall. He half disappeared into the surface of the stone, and tentacles and claws gripped his armour and hauled him fully inside as he screamed.
The storm troopers backed away from the wall and began firing at the things materialising out of the stone surface. Hissing, fanged faces pushed out, bulbous, mutated eyes opened up all over the stone. A flickering figure of a huge, horned daemon with a twisting blade of fire in its hand strained to escape the stone, and hellguns blasted as the soldiers targeted the emerging monster.
'Back! Get back to the Valkyries!' shouted Laron, ducking down behind the heavy bolter as rounds of incoming fire peppered the aircraft.
One of the storm troopers shot their comrade who was still being pulled into the tower. It was a mercy killing, to end whatever cruel fate had awaited him.
A heavily muscled humanoid figure pulled free of the wall and ran at the storm troopers, hefting a heavy, archaic broadsword in its muscular red arms. With one sweep of the blade it carved a man in half from shoulder to waist, and it roared, flames spilling from its eyes and throat.
Laron swung his heavy bolter around and unleashed a long burst of fire into the daemon's chest. It was driven back several steps by the impacts, though it appeared unharmed. It turned its snarling head towards Colonel Laron and began to advance through the barrage.
'Go!' he shouted to the pilot as the surviving storm troopers scrambled aboard, and the Valkyrie lifted straight up into the air, its powerful vertical thrusters roaring. Boltgun fire ripped through the undercarriage of the aircraft as it lifted and several men were killed, their blood spraying the roof.
'The charges blow in ten, sir!' shouted one of his men, and Laron nodded as he fired upon the Chaos Marines below. More things were emerging from the walls of the tower.
The Valkyrie turned steeply, and a missile destined to smash into its side flew through the open doorway, screaming over Laron's head and miraculously passing straight out of the other open doorway, filling the interior with the smoke of its propulsion.
Open-mouthed, Laron turned.
'The Emperor protects!' shouted Elias, laughing at the sheer improbability of the occurrence.
'It certainly seems that way,' agreed Laron, shaking his head in utter disbelief.
He didn't see the hulking, winged daemon pushing out of the wall behind the turning Valkyrie. Nor did he see it leap towards the aircraft, nor hear the power of its roar over the screaming engines. But he felt the impact as it struck.
The tail of the Valkyrie tipped earthwards with the sudden additional weight, and the pilot struggled to keep it airborne. The head of a giant axe slammed through the raised rear assault ramp, smashing it asunder. The ramp was ripped from the aircraft as the axe was pulled free, and it tumbled end over end to the ground below.
The daemon roared as it pulled at the tail of the Valkyrie, its wings beating furiously and its infernal muscles straining to bring the aircraft down to the ground. It was thrown off as the Valkyrie's jet turbines kicked in, but with a beat of its powerfully muscled wings it turned in the air and its whip flicked out, wrapping around the tail of the aircraft, pulling it sharply downwards.
With its engines roaring, the Valkyrie screamed up into the air as its tail tipped beneath it, and the pilot lost control. The aircraft slammed into another Valkyrie before flipping upside down and plummeting to the ground. Laron leapt from the aircraft as it slammed into the earth, rolling into the dust.
The daemon landed atop the flaming wreck, its massive hooves twisting the metal beneath it. It seemed impervious to the flames, and Laron scrambled backwards as the malevolent thing stepped out of the inferno, its burning eyes fixed upon him.
It was over twelve feet tall and it seemed to flicker as if it were not fully there. Its skin was as black as pitch and a burning symbol was emblazoned on its chest, the mark of one of the ruinous powers.
'Emperor, protect my soul,' whispered Laron.
The charges exploded. Both man and daemon were ripped apart by the force of the detonations.
But the tower still stood.
