V3 Chapter 14: I Will Remember You, Little Things
The moment Yvraine redirected the flow of souls, the silent wailing across the plaza stopped.
The souls of the dead who had been in the process of being drained by the towers began to gather. A cold green light surfaced from within the tide of souls, and then a tall, slender shape raised its head from within the light of the dead.
It had the outline of an Aeldari.
Pale hair extended behind it, and cold green flames rotated slowly around its body. A long blade appeared in its hand, a sword edge condensed from the will of death itself.
Sylandri said quietly from across the plaza: "the Yncarne."
"A manifestation of the death god Ynnead."
She understood. The souls of human dead could not truly awaken an Aeldari death god.
But death itself made Ynnead's shadow easier to draw near to reality. What was answering Yvraine was the voice of Ynnead buried deep within her soul.
The shape did not fully step into reality.
It only raised its head from within the tide of souls—like a death god casting a single glance across a battlefield.
And with only that single glance, Shalaxi Helbane's low laughter stopped.
The Monarch of the Hunt turned its head.
For the first time it was not looking at Duvette, and not looking at Yvraine. Those eyes carrying pleasure and malice fell on the Yncarne, and the spear came slowly up.
In the next instant, the death god's manifestation charged at Shalaxi.
Cold green flames crossed the plaza. The soul sword and the Soulpiercer came together. Two shapes that had not fully entered reality crossed each other, and the shockwave tore apart everything in the immediate vicinity.
Duvette watched the shape fighting the Monarch of the Hunt and felt the tightness in his chest ease by a fraction.
Something that could match it had finally arrived.
But he did not allow himself to rest in that brief window.
"Confirm the Black Shield Squad's status!"
Duvette turned and shouted.
Markus was being pulled from the rubble. His storm shield had been almost completely pierced through. The front of his power armour was covered in blood, but he was still trying to push away the warrior attempting to support him.
The other Black Shields had gone down not far from him.
They were alive. But their armour had been torn open by Shalaxi and their injuries were severe.
"Ultramarines Apothecary!"
Duvette's voice went through the vox channel.
"Get here now!"
Ideaus turned immediately to the Ultramarines beside him.
"Apothecary, get to them."
The Apothecary did not hesitate. He moved immediately with two battle-brothers toward the Black Shield Squad's position.
The arrival of the Men of Iron was already taking weight off the battlefield.
These well-equipped war machines were killing tools in their most fundamental form. They pushed forward into the daemon tide step by step, their armour being scored by claws, and they did not slow. Volkite beams swept the streets. Daemonettes were burned to ash in the firestorm. Plasma bolts punched through Seekers' mounts and turned rider and beast into fragments. The whispered enticements of the daemons meant nothing to the Men of Iron. They only carried out the commands Cawl had written into the master cogitator array.
Kill the daemons.
Advance.
Kill more daemons.
Duvette looked into the distance.
the Yncarne and Shalaxi were exchanging blows at the far end of the plaza.
The Monarch of the Hunt's furious shrieks and the death god manifestation's cold cuts went back and forth. The Soulpiercer drove toward the Yncarne again and again. The soul sword swung at Shalaxi again and again.
Neither could gain a decisive advantage.
Shalaxi's hunting shadow was still terrifyingly fast.
the Yncarne moved like a blade rising from death, every appearance accompanied by the murmuring of the souls of the dead.
Then, one of the towers on the distant city wall suddenly exploded.
The detonation came from the tower's base structure.
One of the beams sustaining the psychic vortex dimmed instantly. The vast vortex in the sky shuddered, and one of the six columns broke.
Duvette blinked and immediately checked the strategic map.
A friendly marker was moving in the ruins near the tower.
Stroud.
The Catachan Hunting Company's marker was there as well.
From the movement trace, they had not gone through the main approach. Reconnaissance troops and Catachan hunters had used the maintenance pipelines to enter the tower's base structure, packed melta charges into the load-bearing framework, and detonated them before the daemons could react.
Duvette thought a single, quiet word of acknowledgement.
After the tower's destruction, the Slaanesh daemon forces on the field weakened noticeably.
Some daemonettes slowed.
The Seekers' laughter began breaking up.
Shalaxi's hunting shadow became momentarily unstable.
Duvette did not miss the opening.
"Anderson!"
"Take the Second Assault Regiment to another tower."
Anderson raised his thunder hammer.
"Understood, Commissar!"
"All assault elements, with me!"
The Second Assault Regiment pulled a portion of its strength from the plaza's flank and advanced toward another tower, pushing through the corridors the Men of Iron had cleared.
The Salamanders also saw the opportunity.
Harath Shen looked once at the Men of Iron advancing in silence, then at the civilians still struggling in the plaza. His gaze held for a second. Then he ordered part of his force to stay and continue guarding the survivors and led the rest toward the tower on the opposite side.
"Fourth Company, advance."
"Burn that tower down."
Flames rose from the Salamanders line.
With the Men of Iron taking the main pressure of the daemon tide's frontage, the Astartes finally had room to redirect force toward the counterattack.
Tigurius finally had room to act.
The Chief Librarian stood at the centre of the line and raised his force staff. He did not send his psychic force directly at Shalaxi; instead he pressed it into the space around the Monarch of the Hunt.
Psychic chains materialised from the floor and the air.
They closed around Shalaxi's landing points and sealed off the movement paths it could use. The Monarch of the Hunt was still fast, but it could no longer vanish from everyone's sight the way it had before.
Shalaxi let out a furious shriek.
the Yncarne seized that moment. The soul sword cut across its shoulder.
Yvraine and Duvette looked at each other.
No words between them.
In the next instant, both charged again.
This time it was four against one.
Shalaxi was still laughing through the encirclement.
"Weak."
It swung the spear and drove Duvette back.
"Cowardly."
The living whip struck at Yvraine. She cut one length of it with the Crone Sword.
"You only dare to rely on numbers."
the Yncarne's blade came from the side. Shalaxi caught it hard with the piercing talons.
"I will remember you."
Its voice went cold.
"One day I will come in person and collect your despair and your deaths."
Duvette did not respond.
He simply kept his eyes moving, looking for the gap.
Shalaxi's speed still exceeded theirs. But Tigurius's psychic chains meant every transition was delayed by half a beat, and the Abyss of Ithaka stretched that half a beat further.
the Yncarne's pressure forced it to defend frontally.
The Monarch of the Hunt was held in position for the first time.
In the middle of its furious shrieking, another tower exploded in the distance.
This time, the explosion was followed by heavy cannon fire.
The armoured elements outside the wall had finally reached firing range. Leman Russ tanks and heavy artillery opened on the towers, shells pushing through the thinning psychic storm and striking the remaining contamination nodes.
The emotional energy sustaining the psychic vortex began to thin.
The vortex in the sky began to fracture.
Shalaxi's hunting shadow became more unstable.
Tigurius drove his force staff forward.
"Now!"
The psychic chains contracted simultaneously.
Shalaxi's movement was forcibly locked for one instant.
the Yncarne pressed its blade down against the spear.
Duvette seized the opening and drove inside the spear's reach.
The power sword thrust forward.
The blade drove into Shalaxi's abdomen and pinned it to the ruined wall behind it.
Shalaxi looked down at Duvette.
Its face held no fear. Only hatred and contempt.
"Pitiful mortal."
"Little Bride of Death."
"This time, you have only broken my shadow."
the Yncarne's blade fell.
Cold green sword light crossed the Monarch of the Hunt's neck.
Shalaxi Helbane's projection began to dissolve.
It did not fall.
The hunting shadow fragmented in laughter full of hatred and contempt, as though reality was rejecting it back into the Warp.
Its voice still echoed across the plaza in the last moment.
"I will come again."
"Next time, I will come myself."
The hunting shadow was gone entirely.
the Yncarne turned its head and looked at the human figure at its feet, braced on a sword and breathing hard.
Duvette raised his head and met the gaze of the death god's manifestation.
There was no gratitude in that look.
There was no acknowledgement either.
It was like death itself looking across for a brief moment, then losing interest.
Then the Yncarne also began to fade.
The cold green flames dispersed back into the tide of souls. The light on the Crone Sword withdrew slowly. The souls of the dead were no longer flowing toward the towers. The wailing had stopped.
Duvette looked down and breathed, his fingers still locked tight around the power sword.
The greatest threat in front of him had finally been driven back into the Warp.