For now, such truths would have to wait.
Through the haze, a small band of eldar emerged to attack the primarch. Their armour was different to the others, azure plated and more martial in aspect. Crested helms, more ornate in design than those of their ranger brethren, concealed their faces and from within the folds of vermillion capes they drew long angular swords. A low hum presaged a crackle of energy fed down the blades.
Vulkan signalled to his praetorians.
Several eldar kindreds had been drawn to the primarch to try and slow or even stop the obvious threat, but his retinue were killing everything around them.
“Pyre Guard… make it swift.”
Despatching the last of their enemies, they rushed ahead of Vulkan and into the eldar blademasters.
They weren’t alone. An ululating war cry announced a vast herd of raptors, powering through the dissipating fog. Energy lances dipping, they thundered towards Vulkan from the side. The blademasters, trading flashing blows with the Pyre Guard, had deliberately drawn off the praetorians.
“Cunning,” Vulkan muttered.
Facing off against the raptors, he hefted Thunderhead. “Those tiny spears cannot scratch me!” he roared, and smashed the weapon into the ground.
The earth… splinteredunder the incredible hammer blow, cracking and fragmenting outwards in an ever-widening crater. Through sheer strength, Vulkan projected the bone-shattering force into a massive earth tremor that radiated lethally towards the charging raptors. Chunks of dispersing rock spewed up from the ground in a brittle spume of grit and shards. The raptors screeched and faltered, rearing madly as the quake hit. Riders toppled or were swept from their saddles by the earthy deluge. Staggered, all but annihilated, the front rankers disappeared in the mud storm and were crushed by the momentum of the stampede behind them.
Hindered by the dead and dying, the survivors could only cry out as Vulkan rose to his haunches and sprang into them.
The eldar and their saurians didn’t last long. By the time Vulkan was done with the grisly work, the Pyre Guard had slain the last of the blademasters. Ganne had a savage dent in his battle-plate and Igataron had lost his helmet during the fight but otherwise the praetorians were intact.
“We are losing ground,” said Vulkan, seeing that Ferrus had killed the last of the giant carnodons.
Numeon gestured with his bloody halberd blade. “Scattered remnants are all that stand in our way, primarch.”
The equerry was right. The eldar were almost done. They’d fought tooth and nail against the Imperium, but with the destruction of the carnodons their resistance was at an end.
Only one feat remained before total victory was assured.
The monolithic arch stood unharmed behind the psychic shield, the coven of witches in place around it, their chanting uninterrupted since the battle began. Vulkan scoured their ranks, peering through the psychic energy veil, but he could find no sign of the female seer. Yet, the sensation of being watched from overhead persisted.
“She is here somewhere,” he muttered, turning his gaze from the enshrouding jungle canopy to the battlefield. “The aliens have one last card to play before this is over.”
By now the other Salamanders were close at hand. Even the Army divisions were nearing the outer boundaries of the arch. Ferrus Manus wasn’t about to wait for reinforcement. He was advancing on the coven. Vulkan turned to his retinue. “Come on.”
Though spirited, the last of the eldar defenders broke against the brutal determination of Vulkan and his praetorians. Maimed and mangled aliens lay cold behind them. Memories of Breughar’s death at the cruel blades of the eldar witch surfaced inexplicably in the primarch’s mind, stoking the flames of his violence further. He barely saw his enemies anymore. Their identities were lost to him, subsumed collectively into the face of the female slaver.
“Primarch.” It was Numeon who brought him back again, loyal, steadfast Numeon.
Vulkan gripped his armoured shoulder. “I’m sorry, my son, the fires of battle overcame me for a time.”
Numeon needed no explanation. “We are here.”
Luminous blossoms of energy flashed along the shield as the Iron Hands tried to crack it open. Bolter shells exploded impotently against the inviolable surface, whilst flamer bursts and heavier fire had similar effect.
Ferrus Manus swung Forgebreakerand the weapon rebounded harmlessly. Seeing Vulkan in his peripheral vision, he turned.
“Any idea how we bring this thing down?”
Vulkan looked through the transparent psychic membrane. Despite the continuous chanting, the eldar witches were beginning to show signs of fatigue. Sweat veined their pale, eldritch faces and they grimaced with extreme concentration. Their strength was fading.
He hefted Thunderhead, enjoying the feel of the grip and the sense of its power. “I was going to try hitting it over and over again until it cracks.”
Ferrus grinned, a rare sight on one so serious and taciturn. “It’ll be like breaking in a new anvil.”
He was about to swing again when a deafening screech radiated from above, shaking the entire jungle canopy for kilometres around. The earth trembled as the screech became a throaty, bestial roar. In that moment, the light died like a cloud obscuring the sun. At the threshold to the arch, a dappled light had fallen on the shield, lending it a brilliant sheen. It disappeared in an instant as something vast and terrible eclipsed it.
A noisome stench had filled the air, making it heavy and thick. Looking up into the benighted sky, Vulkan wrinkled his nose. It emanated from a monster. The massive shadow descending towards them was shaped like a pterosaur only much, much bigger. Though it barely moved its membranous wings, the downdraft pushed the advancing Phaerians to their knees. Some stayed like that or sank further, huddling in foetal terror. The Legionaries stood their ground with the primarchs, appraising the beast coldly through their helmet lenses. A bleat of reptilian voices snapped at the air as a flock of smaller pterosaurs appeared from behind the pteradon’s incredible wingspan.
Ferrus Manus levelled his hammer at them.
“Scything rain!”
The Morlocks released a bolter storm. Whirling and shrieking, the pterosaurs were torn apart. Several stray bursts exploded against the thorny hide of the giant pteradon, which only maddened the beast further. It was gnarled and old, like some monster of myth made flesh. Myriad scars stitched its leathery torso and a vast horn, dark with age and blood stain, jutted from its bony snout. Talons, as long as the primarch was tall, curved from rough-hided toes. Umber-coloured scales, thicker than any battle-plate ever forged, scalloped its back and limbs, while a long prehensile tail ended in an axe-headed barb.
Impressive as the monster was, Vulkan’s attention was drawn by its rider.
“There you are…”
The female seer had bound this creature to her will and saddled it. Incredibly, she needed no hands to ride the monster and carried an eldritch staff in one and a glittering rune-blade in the other. Garbed for war, her intent was obvious as she glared at the two primarchs.
Vulkan removed his drake-helm, wanting to meet the monster eye to eye, and his face curled into a snarl. “We must kill this thing, you and I.”
A primordial roar drowned out the Gorgon’s reply, showering its enemies with hot saliva and reptile stink. Men quailed. Some soiled themselves and fled. The Legionaries opened fire. Brass bolter shells erupted like fiery blooms across its ribbed belly. The beast rose to its haunches, wings splayed like some saurian angel, and then slammed the membranous tissue together in a thunderous collision. A deep throb raked the air, carried by the dull boom resonating from the point of impact. A tempest was unleashed upon the Imperial forces. Phaerians and officers alike were flung back screaming, their innards pulped by the massive shock wave. They spun, doll-like, limbs flailing brokenly in the hurricane. Trees bowed, bent and ripped apart. Severed trunks and clumps of scattered foliage impaled tanks and flattened entire cohorts in the savage welter of debris. They resisted determinedly, but even the Legionaries were sent sprawling, a thick and dirty cloud spilling after them.