Pain filled the universe. A shrieking like a million banshees drowned her senses, and clouds — worlds — of darkness stormed into the air. The warp lazed into reality like a descending blade, and every light that had ever existed was snuffed, every happiness was shredded, every quiet joy and instant of ecstasy was swallowed up and burned away.
A giant stood at the threshold of the shredded wall. It folded wings of tattered leather, wings that slipped between material and ether as if on fire, venting smoke and ash. It moved on legs of incorporeality, it bled across the spaces of the cavern like an echo of a figure.
It was not real.
It was more than real.
It was Chaos given form.
And through psychic torture that blinded her, through the shrieking of warp-beasts that exploded her ears, through coils of darkness that snared her soul and promised damnation to all who felt their touch, she saw the Night Lord Zso Sahaal stagger from the smoke and frost, arm hanging limp, face bleeding from a dozen cuts, and stare up at the vision of terror incarnate that had defiled reality with its presence.
'It's been a long time, Acerbus,' he growled. 'I barely recognise you.'
Zso Sahaal
He was too late.
He knew it the instant his ancient brother insinuated himself upon the chamber, like an infection taking root. There was no place for focus, here. No hope of reclaiming his master's legacy. No hope of inflicting order and control upon a creature so utterly lost to Chaos.
The daemon prince that had once been Krieg Acerbus paused, shadows shifting despite its stillness, and eyes that had once been human glared down upon Sahaal and narrowed.
'You're smaller than I remember...' it said, amused. Its voice was a thing of mingled screams and the echoes of tortured souls, harmonised and directed. It bypassed sound and arrived fully formed, like a migraine, in the centre of Sahaal's brain.
He fought the urge to vomit. The creature radiated despair as a fire emits heat, and he felt it coil through his senses, churning his confidence to paste, reducing every triumph he had ever enjoyed to failure.
That the creature was Krieg Acerbus was beyond doubt. He was changed almost beyond belief, but still there remained about him some essence of self, some expression of his eyes, perhaps, that betrayed his identity. He had always seemed monstrous to Sahaaclass="underline" now his outward appearance had merely altered to reflect its inward counterpart.
He had grown massive. Where once there had been armour now there was iron flesh, living warpstuff that writhed and tightened, swarming with wicked runes. He was no longer a thing of corporeality, that much was clear. In every dimension he ghosted and hardened, then faded to smoke, as if uncomfortable with solidity: burning with immaterial energies that flared not with light, but with dark. Smouldering emissions poured from his long limbs like steam from a smithy, tentacles of shadow bulged from his spine, and when he moved, when he unfurled the shadows that crooked upon his shoulders like a vulture's wings, it was as if the existence of light itself was forgotten. It was as if perpetual night had arisen, and morning would never arrive.
At the tips of arms so long they plucked at the floor, claws glittered and spat sparks: forged not from flesh nor metal, but from the raw stuff of darkness itself. They made the air bleed.
'Where,' Sahaal said, pushing down the stifling failure, denying it for a sweet second longer, bolstering himself with foundationless courage, 'is my Legion?'
The beast crooked its pale face, sneered through lip-less jaws, and aimed a smoking talon at the rent in the wall.
Sahaal approached the torn metal like a cripple, limping from more wounds than he could count, wincing at every movement, his dead arm hanging by a nerveless thread at his side.
The skies of Equixus were on fire.
An orbital bombardment had been the first step. Great glittering teardrops of incandescence flared below the clouds, hurtling down at impossible speeds to inflict ruinous tears across the city's surface. Those few defences untouched by the Shadowkin attacks were picked clear one by one, gouged from the surface like tumours, and with each impact shredded metal churned up and out, the hive wobbled as if shaken to its core, and thousands upon thousands died.
The Raptors followed the bombardment, and in the face of their dizzying descents Sahaal's hopes were crushed further. These were not the agile warriors whose kind he had created. These were not the assault squads he had formed and trained an aeon ago, spreading amongst the other Legions as their successes became legend. These were not the Raptors he knew.
They came like daemon vultures, chainswords snarling, pistols flaring in the snow-choked sky. They whooped and cackled and shrieked, and their twisted armour shimmered with unholy light, like an ember's dying glow. Ghastly deathmasks patterned ancient helmets, crooked forwards in beak-like snarls and aquiline grimaces. They flocked above the hive like carrion birds, gathering for a feast, and when they dived together the sky was filled with their ululations and the hissing of whatever unnatural forces buoyed them up. They were a plague, Sahaal thought, and as they vanished one by one inside the wounds of the hive's surface he slipped to his knees, his mind rebelling against what it witnessed.
And then the warriors themselves: a rain of drop pods and assault craft that vomited from the heaving stormclouds, smashing against the city's shell like hammers pounding anvils. In lightning-flash tableaux and the stolen flare of detonating munitions Sahaal could glimpse the ranks of his so-called brothers as they fell upon the crowds within.
Blue and bronze whirlwinds. Without grace or poise. Frenzied. Out of control. Utterly Chaotic.
The Night Lords descended upon Equixus like a bloody rain, and the screams of the population drowned out even the howling of the perpetual ice storm. Oh, my master... What have they done? What have they become?
The failure was a firebrand, slipping into his eyes. It was a tidal wave, the bow-blast of a supernova, rolling and boiling to devour him whole. It settled on his shoulders like the weight of the galaxy itself, and he felt every bone in his body splinter to dust, every blood vessel burst, every atom of every part of him split and die. He was too late.
He wondered if he'd already known, deep within himself. Perhaps he had always known, since awaking in the ruptured belly of the Umbrea Insidior. Too long had passed. Too many centuries had glided by, bereft of his influence and leadership. His master had chosen him as his heir to bring focus to a Legion in peril, to unite a body that threatened to tear itself apart, to offer some measure of temperance against the whispering seductions of power and rage. He had been selected as the Legion's deliverance from corruption, and he had not been present to fulfil his vows.
One hundred centuries — unguided, unprotected — was more than long enough to succumb.
The Daemonlord Acerbus hissed behind him, delighted by the carnage enacted below. Howls rose like smoke: the shrieks of dying men, the moans of tortured women, the tears of youths.
'This is without purpose...' Sahaal whispered, gazing down into the flames. 'Where is the sense in this? Have you no worthier targets than women and children?'
'Every target is worthy,' the Daemonlord breathed, waves of despair carrying his voice. 'And the purpose...? Little Talonmaster, do you not remember our master's lessons? The purpose is fear. It is always fear.'
Sahaal turned to face the abomination, tears in his eyes, and above him it drew sensuous claws across its incorporeal chest, eyes closed, face upturned, as if savouring a fine scent.