Tarvitz snarled and his bolt pistol kicked in his hand as he fired at the Warsinger, the sound of the shots drowned by the cacophony. Shells impacted against a sheath of shimmering force around the Warsinger, blooms of white light exploding around her as they detonated prematurely. More and more of the Astartes, Emperor's Children and Death Guard both, were being pulled up into the air and sonically dismembered, and Tarvitz knew they didn't have much time before their cause was lost.
The surviving Isstvanian soldiers were regrouping, storming up the pyramid after the Astartes. Tarvitz saw Lucius among them, sword slashing black-armoured limbs from bodies as they fought to surround him.
Lucius could look after himself and Tarvitz forced himself onwards, struggling to keep his footing amid the chaos of the Warsinger's wanton destrucВtion. Gold gleamed ahead of him and he saw Eidolon's armour shining like a beacon in the Warsinger's light. The lord commander bellowed in defiance and pulled himself up the last few levels of the pyramid as Tarvitz climbed to join him.
The Warsinger drew a shining caul of light around her and Eidolon plunged into it, the glare becoming opaque like a shining white shell. Tarvitz's pistol was empty, so he dropped it, taking a two handed grip on his sword and following his lord commander into the light.
The deafening shrieks of the Warsinger filled his head with deathly unmusic, rising to a crescendo as he penetrated the veil of light.
Eidolon was on his knees, his hammer lost and the Warsinger hovering over him. Her hands stretched out in front of her as she battered Eidolon with waves of force strong enough to distort the air.
Eidolon's armour warped around him, his helmet ripped from his head in a wash of blood, but he was still alive and fighting.
Tarvitz charged, screaming, 'For the Emperor!'
The Warsinger saw him and smashed him to the floor with a dismissive flick of her wrist. His helmet cracked with the force of the impact and for a moment his world was filled with the awful beauty of the Warsinger's song. His vision returned in time for him to see Eidolon lunging forwards. His charge had bought Eidolon a momentary distraction, the harmonics of her song redirected for the briefest moment.
The briefest moment was all a warrior of the Emperor's Children needed.
Eidolon's eyes were ablaze, his hatred and revulВsion at this foe clear as his mouth opened in a cry of rage. His mouth opened still wider and he let loose his own screeching howl. Tarvitz rolled onto his back, dropping his sword and clutching his hands to his ears at the dreadful sound. Where the Warsinger's song had layered its death in beguiling beauty, there was no such grace in the sonic assault launched by Eidolon, it was simply agonising, deafВening volume.
The crippling noise smashed into the Warsinger and suddenly her grace was torn away. She opened
her mouth to sing a fresh song of death, but Eidolon's scream turned her cries into a grim dirge.
Sounds of mourning and pain layered over one another into a heavy funereal drone as the Warsinger dropped to her knees. Eidolon bent and picked up Tarvitz's fallen broadsword, his own terВrible scream now silenced. The Warsinger writhed in pain, arcing coils of light whipping from her as she lost control of her song.
Eidolon waded through the light and noise. The broadsword licked out and Eidolon cut the Warsinger's head from her shoulders with a single sweep of silver.
Finally the Warsinger was silent.
Tarvitz clung to the crumbling summit of the pyraВmid and watched as Eidolon raised the sword in victory still trying to understand what he had seen.
The Warsinger's monstrous harmonies still rang in his head, but he shook them off as he stared in disbelief at the lord commander.
Eidolon turned to Tarvitz, and dropped the broadsword beside him. i
'A good blade,’ he said. 'My thanks for your interВvention.'
'How…?' was all Tarvitz could muster, his senses still overcome with the deafening shriek Eidolon had unleashed.
'Strength of will, Tarvitz,' said Eidolon. That's what it was, strength of will. The bitch's damn magic was no match for a pair of warriors like us, eh?'
'I suppose not,’ said Tarvitz, accepting a hand up from Eidolon. The dome was suddenly, eerily silent. The Isstvanians who still lived were slumped where they had fallen at the Warsinger's death, weeping and rocking back and forth like children at the loss of a parent.
'I don't understand-' he began as warriors of the Death Guard started securing the dome.
'You don't need to understand, Tarvitz,’ said Eidolon. 'We won, that's what matters,’
'But what you did-'
'What I did was kill our enemies,’ snapped Eidolon. 'Understood?'
'Understood,’ nodded Tarvitz, although he no more understood Eidolon's newfound ability than he did the celestial mechanics of travelling through the warp.
Eidolon said, 'Kill any remaining enemy troops. Then destroy this place,’ before turning and making his way down the shattered pyramid to the cheers of his warriors.
Tarvitz retrieved his fallen weapons and watched the aftermath of victory unfolding below him. The Astartes were regrouping and he made his way back down to where he had left the wounded Garro.
The captain of the Death Guard was sitting propped up against the side of the pyramid, his chest heaving with the effort of breathing and Tarvitz could see it had taken a supreme effort of will not to let the pain balms of his armour render him unconscious.
Tarvitz, you're alive,’ said Garro as he climbed down the last step.
'Just about,’ he said. 'More than can be said for you,’
This?' sneered Garro. 'I've had worse than this. You mark my words, lad, I'll be up and teaching you a few new tricks in the training cages again before you know it,’
Despite the strangeness of the battle and the lives that had been lost, Tarvitz smiled.
'It is good to see you again, Nathaniel,’ said Tarvitz, leaning down and taking Garro's proffered hand. 'It has been too long since we fought together,’
'It has that, my honour brother,’ nodded Garro, 'but I have a feeling we will have plenty of opporВtunities to fight as one before this campaign is over,’
'Not if you keep letting yourself get injured like this. You need an apothecary,’
'Nonsense, boy, there's plenty worse than me that need a sawbones first,’
'You never did learn to accept that you'd been hurt did you?' smiled Tarvitz.
'No,’ agreed Garro. 'It's not the Death Guard way, is it?'
'I wouldn't know,’ said Tarvitz, waving over an Emperor's Children apothecary despite Garro's protests. You're too barbarous a Legion for me to ever understand,’
'And you're a bunch of pretty boys, more conВcerned with looking good than getting the job
done,’ said Garro, rounding off the traditional insults that passed for greetings between them. Both warriors had been through too much in their long friendship and saved each other's lives too many times to allow formality and petty differences between their Legions to matter.
Garro jerked his thumb in the direction of the summit. You killed her?'
'No,’ said Tarvitz. 'Lord Commander Eidolon did,’
'Eidolon, eh?' mused Garro. 'Never did have much time for him. Still, if he managed to bring her down, he's obviously learned a thing or two since I last met him,’
'I think you might be right,’ said Tarvitz.
SIX
The soul of the Legion
Everything will be different
Abomination
Loken found Abaddon in the observation dome that blistered from the hull of the upper decks of the Vengeful Spirit, the transparent glass looking out onto the barren wasteland of Isstvan Extremis. The dome was quiet and dark, a perfect place for reflecВtion and calm, and Abaddon looked out of place, his power and energy like that of a caged beast poised to attack.