V3 Chapter 9: Where Did This Stray Dog Come From
Fourth Company Captain Ideaus led his warriors into the governor's palace at full drive.
Tigurius moved in the middle of the formation. The Chaos taint was everywhere inside the governor's palace: walls, floors, ceiling domes, and columns all carved with foul marks.
The sights made every Ultramarine hold their anger down tight.
They saw guards stripped of their skin. They saw servants hung on the walls. They saw Ultramar's banners torn apart and wound around bones. Ideaus did not slow his pace. He tightened his grip on his chainsword and ordered the advance to continue.
Tigurius raised his force staff. Psychic light ran along the shaft.
Several contamination runes hidden in the side galleries were crushed before they could activate. Corrupted Tarentus rebels who had been waiting in the shadows charged out and were quickly cut apart by bolt rounds and chainswords.
The Ultramarines pushed forward.
Under Tigurius's guidance, they avoided several halls that would have triggered psychic contamination, passed through the sonic-weapon corridors the Noise Marines had reshaped, and finally reached the governor's palace's central hall.
The hall was vast.
The dais that had once belonged to the governor was covered in blood, surrounded by dismembered bodies. Broken amplifiers were still functioning, filling the hall with discordant music and indistinct laughter.
Lucius stood at the centre of the dais.
He held the Blade of the Laer. The Lash of Torment moved gently at his side. The warped, pale face carried a smile, as though he were welcoming guests to a banquet.
"Welcome to my stage."
The Ultramarines did not answer.
Ideaus raised his hand.
Boltguns fired simultaneously. A dense volley poured toward Lucius. The dais broke apart in the detonations, bodies and stone fragments scattering in every direction.
Lucius was no longer there.
He had moved with a speed that was wrong by any normal measure, passing through the gaps between shell impacts like a laughing shadow.
In the next instant, concealed doors on both sides of the hall opened.
Noise Marines and Emperor's Children blade champions poured out of the side galleries. They had been waiting there from the start, and in this section of the palace their numbers even exceeded those of the Ultramarines who had entered the hall.
Sonic weapons fired first.
A wall of harsh sound struck the psychic barrier Tigurius had raised. Ripples spread across the barrier's surface. The Chief Librarian raised his force staff and sent a bolt of lightning from its tip that drove one Noise Marine into the wall and left it motionless and scorched.
But the enemy had come prepared for him.
Several sonic weapons turned onto Tigurius's position simultaneously. Runes carved into the walls began to glow. The runes and the sonic weapons worked in conjunction, building an interference zone.
Tigurius had to maintain the barrier, suppress the sonic contamination, and protect the battle-brothers closest to him from being pulled into hallucinations.
He could still attack, but every psychic release first had to push through that wall of sound.
The Ultramarines began to pay for the ground they were taking.
They were well-trained, their fire organised with precision, their tactical movements without hesitation. But the enemy were Astartes too—Emperor's Children veterans who had been killing for ten thousand years.
These warriors who had given themselves to Slaanesh lived for sensation.
The pain of wounds only made them more eager. They moved in ways that should not have been possible, deploying the blade-craft of a hundred centuries of slaughter against the Ultramarines.
Ideaus was fighting hard.
Three fallen Emperor's Children had surrounded him. Their blades came from three directions with showmanship in every stroke, and their laughter kept breaking his concentration.
Ideaus cut aside the first blade, turned his body to avoid the second thrust, and used his pauldron to drive the third attacker back.
His chainsword bit into one of the fallen warriors' chest armour and the teeth tore through the plating. The Emperor's Children warrior let out an excited laugh and turned his blade back across Ideaus's waist.
The power armour opened. Blood ran from the gap.
The smell of blood made all three of them keener.
Ideaus did not give ground. He raised his bolt pistol and blew one opponent's pauldron apart at close range, then drove the other two back with his chainsword.
Then a low, sharp voice came from behind them.
"Out of the way!"
"Out of the way!"
"Leave him to me!"
"To me!"
Lucius came screaming through.
The three Emperor's Children plainly still wanted to continue the encirclement. They had pushed Ideaus into a wounded position, and a few more exchanges would very likely have put the Fourth Company captain down.
Lucius would not allow anyone to disturb his perfection.
The blade swept past behind all three of them.
The three fallen Emperor's Children froze simultaneously. A moment later, three heads came off and rolled to a stop at Ideaus's feet.
The traitors surrounding them produced louder laughter.
They were not angry. They might have been watching a new piece of entertainment.
Lucius laughed softly, raised the Blade of the Laer, and drew his tongue along the blood on the edge.
He was in no hurry.
The hall was still in chaos around him, boltguns and sonic weapons crossing each other through the air. But he moved as though isolated inside a different contest entirely, walking slowly toward the Ultramarines Fourth Company captain.
He liked this part.
Watching the prey struggle. Feeling their despair and fear. The stronger the prey, the more satisfying what it returned.
Lucius pointed his blade tip forward.
The gesture was an invitation for Ideaus to come.
Ideaus roared and charged with the chainsword raised.
He did not know who this traitor was, but from the warped power armour, the blade-craft, and the reaction of the traitors around him, this was very likely the core of whatever Chaos presence had taken the governor's palace.
Chainsword met Blade of the Laer.
The first exchange was turned aside by Lucius without effort.
The second was avoided with a slight turn of his body.
The third stroke had barely descended when Lucius was already beside Ideaus. The silver blade cut precisely into the joint between his gauntlet and vambrace, then twisted outward.
The arm armour fell away and struck the floor with a heavy sound.
Ideaus's arm came away with it. Blood poured from the stump.
Lucius laughed.
"Yes, yes, yes!"
"Just like that!"
"Desperate struggle, helpless fury!"
"More of it!"
"More!"
Ideaus was breathing hard, one hand gripping his chainsword.
Warning runes appeared in his vision, his body beginning to seal the wound. He forced down the pain and charged at Lucius again.
Without one arm, maintaining his original tempo was no longer possible.
Lucius did not finish him immediately.
The flat of the Blade of the Laer struck repeatedly against the stump of Ideaus's severed arm. Every impact broke the pain open again, and Ideaus drove a low sound from his throat.
The enemy was toying with him.
Fury and humiliation rose together.
Then, just as Lucius raised his blade again, a second slash cut in from the side.
Lucius jerked back fast.
The stroke he had been preparing did not reach Ideaus. Instead, Lucius let out a shout of anger.
A new scar had appeared on his face.
The cut ran across his cheek, blood flowing down through the old scars beneath it.
"We are here, Captain Ideaus."
Duvette's voice came from the side.
The Black Shield Squad and the Second Assault Regiment's leading elements charged into the engagement. Behind them, more 112th elite troops were securing the side galleries and the outer corridors of the hall. At the governor's palace's outer approaches and connecting areas, their forces had already formed an encirclement.
Anderson drove his thunder hammer with every combat skill active and put a fallen Emperor's Children warrior through the wall before it could get clear.
Duvette stood at the front of his troops. His power sword still carried the blood from the cut that had just opened Lucius's face.
King of War and Flesh Engine were both running. The auras from the Star of Terra and every other relic on his person radiated outward through the formation.
Three thousand against two hundred.
The odds had shifted.
Lucius's eyes settled on Duvette with open hatred.
He saw the mortal. He also saw something wrong in the mortal's bearing. One of the targets the Prince of Pleasure wanted—and this one had walked onto his stage personally.
The hatred curdled quickly into excitement.
Lucius raised the Blade of the Laer and pointed it at Duvette.
"Excellent. Excellent."
"You came to me."
"Then let Lucius show you why a mere mortal cannot possibly..."
"Lucius?"
Duvette cut him off.
His face showed nothing that could be called surprise. What it showed was undisguised contempt.
"Where did this stray dog come from. Wretched thing."
He said it, then turned his head and spat on the floor beside him.
The sound in the hall appeared to stop for a single instant.
Lucius went still.
The next moment, fury rose into his face.
This mortal knew his name. And the contempt he had just expressed was a crude blade drawn straight across every piece of pride Lucius had ever built around his own perfection.
The Champion of Slaanesh let out a sharp, rising howl.
He threw himself at Duvette.
The Blade of the Laer pulled a line of silver through the air. The Lash of Torment rose at his side.
Duvette tightened his grip on the power sword and did not step back.
Anderson and the Black Shields closed in from both flanks.
In the central hall of the governor's palace, the real hunt began.