'In the name of the Immortal Emperor,' cried a voice from nowhere, 'I dub thee Hereticus!'
A shower of blood and flesh was the head of a brute-mutant disintegrating. A falling shadow was the mutant's body falling and the spindly shape above it was Teturact falling with it, wizened limbs flailing.
Sarpedon forced himself to roll through the pain as Teturact and his mutant bearers fell to the hard earth around him.
INQUISITOR THADDEUS FELT the kick of the autopistol in his hand and was grateful that he could feel anything at all. He had been frozen in place as Teturact had seemed about to tear Sarpedon apart with psychic power, but whatever Sarpedon had done had worked and in the split second Teturact's attention was diverted Thaddeus had taken aim and blown apart the head of the closest brute-mutant.
He yelled out the protocol forms of the Inquisition as he fired. He was going to do this properly.
'By the edicts of the Conclave of Mount Amalath I claim your life as forfeit and cast your soul to the mercy of the Emperor!' Thaddeus pumped shells towards Teturact's spindly, momentarily vulnerable body but one of his mutant bearers got in the way and the explosive-tipped shells blew fist-sized lumps of flesh from its hide. Thaddeus had spent the last of his precious tracker-shells on Sarpedon, and seen it swatted out of the air before it hit - he had to rely on old-fashioned hand-aiming now.
Thaddeus ran towards Teturact, trying to draw a bead on his cowering mutant form, snapping shots between the brute-mutants sheltering him. The hammer fell on an empty chamber and Thaddeus holstered the pistol quickly, for he was out of ammunition and his remaining spare clips lay back in the storm trooper Chimera.
He still had one more weapon. He reached inside his flak-coat and drew out the massive, boxy bolt pistol Aescarion had brought back from Eumenix, its casing decorated with the golden chalice of the Soul Drinkers, half a clip of explosive bolts in its curved magazine. He had to grip it with both hands to take aim.
Teturact's wits were gathering and the cold, greasy feel of its deformed mind was evident in the air. The surviving mutants were rearing up to defend their master - Thaddeus's first shot missed high as the pistol's kick deceived him but the second hit, blowing a mutant's throat out. It fell backwards against its brother mutant and in a flash of strange black light the second mutant's body was sliced clean in two in a welter of strange-coloured blood.
Sarpedon, battering and bleeding, was back on his many feet, his armour scored and dented, the strange weapon with its twin shimmering black blades in one hand.
Thaddeus raised the bolt pistol. His opponent was battered, shocked and slowed, but would not remain so for long. 'By the authority of the Holy Orders of His Inquisition and the Chamber of the Ordo Hereticus.’ he said, 'I execute the destruction of your body and the release your soul for judgement. May the Emperor have mercy on you, for His servants cannot.'
His trigger finger pressed down and his whole body shook as the bolt pistol juddered, hot cases spilling to Thaddeus's feet. The pronouncement of execution ringing in his ears, he emptied the rest of the pistol's shells into Teturact.
SARPEDON HAD BEEN ready to die. But the final shots were not for him. The inquisitor fired off the last of his bullets into Teturact who was sprawled on the frozen ground beside Sarpedon, showered in the blood of his brute-mutant retainers.
You couldn't kill something like Teturact just by destroying its body. Sarpedon could feel the malevolent mind reaching out even now, seeking for some other living thing to take up roost, so it could escape and begin its reign again.
Sarpedon reared up on his back legs. Forgetting the pain of his torn muscles and ruptured organs, he took one last look at the ruined non-face of Teturact.
.’ serve the Emperor, mutant, he thought, knowing full well that Teturact could hear him. .’ need no other god.
He stamped down on Teturact's head, talons shearing through the feverish brain, and the dark light of Teturact's soul was extinguished forever.
TECHMARINE LYGRIS TORE the mem-circuits from the archive console. There was no time for finesse, they would just have to trust that enough would survive. From inside the command room he could hear the vicious din of battle and he knew that every second here cost more battle-brothers their lives.
Beside him, Sergeant Salk plunged a hand through the window of the command structure and, bracing his legs against the plasteel wall, hauled Apothecary Pallas out of the pulsing sea of rotting flesh that pressed in on the structure from all sides. Pallas was covered in filth, smoke rising where his armour's exhausts were clogged with gore, and somewhere he had lost his bolt pistol in the mire.
He held up a hand, and it held a specimen cylinder with a clot of pink, uncorrupted flesh inside.
'Got it.’ he said, almost out of breath. 'There was one containment unit intact. I think Graevus is still out there, he...'
That was all he could say before everything erupted in white noise. It was a scream so loud it filled the heads of every Soul Drinker, blocking out every sense. It was the death-scream of something vastly powerful, a keening of absolute rage and despair. The walls of mutant flesh shrunk back as they felt the death of one of their own.
Squad Graevus were revealed, hacking their way from beneath a web of flesh, where they had held position around the last functioning containment unit. The heaving mass of muscle and skin spat back Marines, some still alive, others half-digested. The mutant sea spasmed and the whole containment floor churned like a sea in a storm.
'Salk to all points.’ yelled Salk over the vox, which was barely functioning any more. 'It's over, every man out!'
He clambered onto the roof of the command structure where he could see Graevus's squad battering a path across the floor. The survivors of Salk's own squad were fighting their way up onto the top of the rolling mantle of muscle. They had seen him and were forging their way towards him, slicing and shooting through the malformed limbs that reached for them.
'I don't know if this is getting through.’ voxed Salk through the static on the command channel, 'but this is Squad Salk and we are withdrawing from the facility. If there's an army still up there we will need extraction in about five minutes. Salk out.’
No ONE KNEW where Colonel Vinn was. Inquisitor Thaddeus and the Pilgrim hadn't returned. Aescar-ion now had command of the Inquisitorial troops and she was organising them into a withdrawal. The Soul Drinkers were on the other side of an immense mass of walking dead and fanatical traitors, led by powerful witches who threw lightning or turned men inside-out with a look. Many of the storm troopers were dead or cut off, but the Sisters had formed a formidable hard core of warriors against which wave after wave of enemies had broken, chewed up by bolter volleys or blasted into guttering valleys of fire by flamers and melta-guns.
'Squad Rufilla, secure the Rhinos and cover us as we embark.’ voxed Aescarion as she snapped shots at traitors clambering over burning barricades of their own dead. She had personally led counter-attack after counter-attack into the shattered traitor lines, and her axe arm ached with the jarring of power blade against bone. Her Seraphim had fought as well as any troops on Stratix Luminae but in spite of the pride the warrior in her felt, the Sister saw only failure. The Soul Drinkers were on the other side of an army she could not hope to cut through, and no matter how many enemies of the Emperor fell here the strikeforce would not corner their quarry today.