The daemonic warrior carried a great, saw-toothed blade and a gold-chased pistol, both weapons redolent with the slaughter they had inflicted. Powerful and darkly magnificent, Uriel knew that this… thing was the most consummate killer imaginable.
Uriel caught a glimpse of a shambling shape limping towards the passageway that led from the cavern, recognising it as the vile creature, Sabatier. Barely had he registered its presence when the iron-armoured warrior snapped up its pistol and fired.
The bolt caught Sabatier high in the back, exploding through its chest and blasting a great crater in its body. Sabatier grunted and toppled over and Uriel felt sorry that it hadn't suffered more before it died.
'We can't fight both of them,' said Pasanius.
'No,' agreed Uriel, 'but maybe we will not have to. Look!'
The armoured figure dropped to its knees before the Heart of Blood, but Uriel could see that it was no simple a gesture of abasement. The daemonic Iron Warrior dropped its weapons and raised its arms, a blood-red glow spilling from every joint of its armour and bathing the Heart of Blood in its light.
'I return to you!' shouted a high voice from beneath the armoured warrior's helmet.
The Heart of Blood raised its arms, mimicking the warrior's pose and, piece-by-piece, the iron armour detached from the kneeling figure and floated through the air towards the massive daemon.
'Now what the hell's it doing?' said Leonid, barely keeping the terror from his voice.
'Oh no…' whispered Uriel as he remembered a tale he had been told not so long ago by Seraphys of the Blood Ravens in the mountains. A tale of how the Heart of Blood had forged for itself a suit of armour into which it had poured all of its malice, all of its hate and all of its cunning, a suit of armour so full of fury that even the blows of its enemies would strike them down.
Truly it was the avatar of Khorne, the Blood God's most favoured disciple of death.
Iron armour floated from the figure who now diminished as each piece deserted it. Though the Heart of Blood was larger by far than the armoured warrior, each piece somehow moulded itself to the daemon's form, darkening from the colour of iron to a dark and loathsome brass. Its greaves and breastplate clanged into place and, unbidden, the warrior's weapons leapt from the ground, writhing in midair to change from a pistol and sword to a moaning axe and snaking whip of rippling, studded leather.
Lastly, the iron helm was snatched by invisible hands from the warrior's head and placed upon the Heart of Blood's great, horned skull.
Where once had knelt a fearsome, armoured giant, there was now only a waif-like figure of a woman in a filthy and tattered sky-blue uniform of the Imperial Guard.
'383rd!' exclaimed Leonid.
'What?'
'That jacket,' pointed Leonid. 'It's the uniform of my regiment!'
'It can't be,' said Uriel. 'Here?'
'I know my own regiment, damn it,' snapped Leonid. 'I'm going to get her!'
'Don't be a fool,' said Pasanius, gripping Leonid's jacket.
'No!' protested Leonid, struggling in the sergeant's grip. 'Don't you understand? Along with me, she's probably the last survivor of the 383rd! I have to go!'
'You'll die,' said Uriel.
'So? I'm dying anyway,' shouted Leonid. 'And if I have to end my days here, I want it to be with a fellow Jouran. Remember your words, Uriel! We all die bloody, all we get to do is choose where and when!'
Uriel nodded, now understanding Leonid's desperation, and said, 'Let him go.'
Pasanius released his grip on Leonid, and they watched as he ran towards the swaying woman, gathering her up in his arms as another set of thick, curling, bronze-tipped horns ripped through the metal of the daemon's helmet. The Heart of Blood's eyes shone with renewed purpose and awareness as it lifted its head and sniffed the air, grinning with terrible appetite.
'Psykers…' it roared, turning towards the upright iron sarcophagi that surrounded the lake of blood.
The iron-meshed cage sped downwards into the depths of Khalan-Ghol, ancient mechanisms and sorcerous artifice combining to make the journey as quick as possible, oily sheets of beaten iron slicing past at tremendous speed. But Honsou knew it was still not fast enough. The mystical barrier protecting his fortress was still holding firm against Toramino's sorcerers, but it wouldn't last much longer unless they could somehow re-imprison the Heart of Blood.
He and his chosen warriors, deadly killers loyal only to him, journeyed into the depths of the fortress, ready to kill whatever they encountered. Onyx stood backed into the corner of the speeding elevator cage, his silver eyes and veins dulled and sluggish in his features.
'What's the matter with you?' snapped Honsou as the daemonic symbiote moaned.
'The Heart of Blood is powerful…' hissed Onyx.
'And?'
'It could snuff out my essence in the blink of an eye,' snarled Onyx, his dead eyes shining with murderous lustre. 'And if it commanded me, I could not resist its imperatives.'
'You mean it could turn you against me?' asked Honsou.
'Yes,' nodded Onyx. 'It knows my true name.'
Honsou turned to Cadaras Grendel and said, 'If this creature so much as makes a move towards me, kill it.'
'Understood,' said the mohawked Iron Warrior, his scarred features alight with relish at the thought. 'I never killed one that's possessed before.'
Honsou looked down through the grilled floor of the cage, seeing only a dimly glowing shaft roaring upwards. Its end was lost to perspective, but as he watched, the dark square of the tunnel's base rushed up to meet them.
With a gut-wrenching sensation of nausea, the iron cage slowed and ground to a halt with a shriek of ancient metal. The grilled door squealed open, but before Honsou could step through, he was knocked from his feet by a tremendous impact and felt the crash of falling masonry from far away, accompanied by the distant boom of massed artillery.
'What the hell?' he roared, climbing to his knees as he heard the clang of metal on stone, and an approaching, crashing din.
Onyx dropped to his knees, screaming in pain and clutching his head with his dead-fleshed hands.
'The barrier is down!' he yelled. 'Gods of Chaos, the barrier is down!'
Honsou pulled himself to his feet and looked up as he pinpointed the source of the approaching noise.
'Out of the elevator!' he shouted, diving and rolling into the tunnel as he saw thousands of tonnes of rubble plummeting down the shaft. His warriors moved quickly, but some not quickly enough, as a torrent of massive chunks of stone and rockcrete hammered into the base of the shaft and crushed the elevator cage flat. Roiling banks of choking dust and smoke billowed from the wreckage.
The impact and deafening noise disoriented Honsou, but he quickly gained his feet, seeing that nearly half his warriors were missing, crushed beneath the deadly rain of debris.
Onyx stood unsteadily before him, the threatening form of Cadaras Grendel close by.
'If the barrier is down—' began Grendel
'Then that means Toramino is attacking!' finished Honsou.
Just saying the words gave Honsou a curious sense of reckless abandonment as he realised that this was probably the end. There was no way Khalan-Ghol could stand against Toramino's army and he had no more stratagems left to employ.
There was nothing left but vengeance for hate's sake and malice for the sake of spite.
If that was all he had left, then so be it.
It would be enough.
Uriel pulled Leonid into the scant cover offered by one of the corpse bulldozers and helped him get the muttering woman he had dragged to safety into a seated position. Tears of joy streaked the colonel's face and he kept repeating the name of his regiment over and over again.