The Draken Counterattack

Moloc

8-121-987.M41

++Lord Asterion Moloc and his honor guard were enraged at the route they suffered from Lisbeth's daemonhost.  He knew he had been betrayed by the cowardly Raptors… he hesitated to even call them Astartes.  As dusk approached the daemon city of Nil-Hgai, the Minotaurs silently disembarked planetside, and prepared to face down the nightmarish host.++

The night air was crisp and cool, and it was with revulsion that Asterion noted that this climate was utterly wrong for a hive world such as Draken, which in the past was sweltering and humid... but that was before the Heart spilled over.  The daemons were changing this world, from the most minute weather pattern to the color of the skies themselves.

Asterion snapped out of his thoughts when his librarian spoke.

"My lord, I sense their approach. We should draw battle lines." The librarian droned in the effervescent voice of the psyker.

"Let it be done."

He drew up his Astartes into defensive positions, taking shelter in the sprawling ruins and dilapidated palaces that once made this district the ostentatious home of Draken's wealthy elite. Lisbeth likely knew it well.  His men prepared themselves, each holding a fortified position, leaving the ornate plaza bare.  It will be easier to siphon the daemons through the plaza, where they can be whittled down from all sides, Asterion reasoned.

Before long he could hear them approach, a cacophony of discordant music, shouts of pleasure and pain, and unholy chants in an unknown language. The symphony reached a fever swell while the Astartes quietly prepared for battle.

Then, a rush.

The warp-spawn exploded through every opening and every crevice in the ruined cityscape. The tide was immeasurable, unending, and unstoppable. The scrabbling daemonettes were claws and fury, their taut skin shifting colors as easily as they themselves shifted form. One moment beautiful, the next monstrous.

One creature stood out amongst the tide. The massive, rippling frame of Lorne, The Lord of the Pit, one of slaanesh's champions.  His armor a constantly shifting surface of screaming mouths, pleading eyes, and grasping hands.  His face was constantly morphing from that of a thin man to a grotesque caricature of humanity, wailing in agony.  

The mighty Dreadnought Hecaton Aikos, through his sarcophagus' visual readout, saw this being as a true test of his mettle and flexed his claw in anticipation of the bloodshed to come.

"Fire, brothers! Bring them down in the name of the Emperor!" Asterion shouted over the din of his foe, as his marines unloaded their boltguns into the mass of pallid flesh. Front ranks exploded into a mist of iridescent blood, only to be replaced by the second.

Unending.

The marines fired until they were upon them. A screeching horror plunged her razor sharp claw straight through brother Theus' holy power armour, the first casualty of many.

Asterion saw his brothers folding under the weight of the foe, and plunged into the chaos himself, his terminator armour deflecting the creatures' rapid strikes. Each swing of his blade sent more monsters back to the warp. Each of his steps was the harbinger of their doom.

He was death.

++

Hecaton meanwhile, was slogging through a sea of scrabbling monsters, but he didn't notice. His armour was thick, and his mind was focused on his true foe, Lorne. He waded through the lesser daemons like a child through water. Every step he took was a death blow for a few of the screeching creatures, but there were always more, climbing across his massive frame, searching for weak points.

Before long, Lorne was in sight. Hecaton didn't have to expend any effort getting into battle, as in a blink, Lorne was upon him, his great sword meeting Hecaton's power claw in an explosion of lighting and ethereal haze.

"I have come to destroy you." The dreadnought bellowed in his dead voice.

The Keeper of Secrets merely smiled at this, revealing a mouth of gleaming white teeth, each filed to a point.

++

Asterion was surrounded.

His brothers were strewn about his feet, dead. His Armor was in ruins. His blade was buried deep into at least four daemons, so heavy he could scarcely move it. He could no longer see the light. He was utterly covered in the enemy. He cursed. This was not the way he wanted to die.

As he closed his eyes and recited his liturgy, he felt an odd sensation. His teleporter was activating. He screamed as he realized that he was being hurled through the warp. He moved at immeasurable speeds through the horrors of the immaterium, although he traveled nowhere.  It had been… how long since the battle?  He couldn’t remember.  It felt like hours had passed.  He felt stubble on his chin… had it been days?   

He realized with a start that a half-dozen Daemonettes were still clinging to him, scratching at his armour as they flew. Despite the nightmarish surrounding, Asterion was freed. His blade found purchase in every last creature clinging to his frame. As he finished his grim work, he appeared on the deck of his command ship. His loyal advisor Ivanus stood before him; a look of stern disapproval in his eyes. Asterion met his gaze.

++

Planetside, the minotaurs were in a rout.

Marines were being evacuated as Stormraven gunships kept the infinite hordes at bay with staccato bursts of heavy bolter fire. Hecaton, in a moment of rare sanity, blinded his foe with a point-blank plasma cannon blast, and was able to escape aboard a hovering craft. His massive bulk turned slowly to see the ruins of the battle from the ash-choked skies. Through the swarms of monstrosities, he saw Her…

Lisbeth. The target, the mistress of the cacophony. She was deep amongst the demonic hordes, shepherding the slaves of darkness as if she were one of them.

Her hair gleamed in the garish sunlight, her face was twisted into a snarl beyond recognition as human. His rage now overshadowed his shame.