Editing Story:Warhammer 60K: The Age of Dusk (section)

==Additional Background Section 32: The Battle For Varsavia’s Soul, and The Return of Heroes==

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Across the galaxy, in the silent places where no one lived, the craftworlds drifted; lifeless and guided by nothing but the faint tides of unseen energy that still washed at the psychic shores of the infinite matrices at their hearts. They were filled with billions of the dead; their entire populations drawn into the infinity circuits as one, leaving naught but miles upon miles of silent crystalline statues. They were translucent and eerie in their immobility, for they were paused in mid action like the dead of ancient Pompeii.
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Around them, empires were falling and worlds unnumbered burned in the pyres of madness. This was the closing years of the fifty fifth millennium; the final screaming challenge before reality and oblivion met in single battle, with the fate of all existence as a prize. Things were finally coming to pass that had been predicted by madmen, while other prophecies were utterly ignored and voided by destruction. 

Yet, the craftworlds were still moving. Despite the assumptions of all who still lived, the craftworlds were moving. Yet, so far apart were they, that no one could see the pattern or direction of these living tombs.

No one could fathom why a vast Eldar ship, covered in the scars of battle, headed towards the heart of Vulkan’s Imperium armed for bear and at full cruising speed.

Nor could anyone have predicted that the ultimate fate of the entire Eldar race would be determined upon a cold and unassuming world called Varsavia.

The Eastern Chaos Imperium was embroiled in many minor wars throughout its history, as the Blackheart attempted to defeat, conquer or otherwise subvert entire sectors and regions to his demented will. Huron Blackheart, despite his reputation as a butcher, always preferred to break his enemies and turn them into his dark allies.

There was only one exception to this rule and they lay at the heart of his Corsair Empire. The Silver Skulls had been a chapter during the First Imperium, and were ever Huron’s most bitter of opponents. The Silver Skulls’ Prognosticator Librarians had foreseen the fall of the Emperor at the opening of the Second Strife. Their warnings had been ignored by their fellow chapters, so rather than convince them; they instead built up their forces and the surrounding sector in anticipation of a large scale collapse, swelling their ranks and stepping up their recruitment and training procedures.

Once the Emperor’s death washed through the galaxy, and the madness descended, they were prepared and they held out. Their fleet battled marauders, invaders, and desperately they held their empire together for thousands of years and many generations of Astartes.

They had received the news of Vulkan’s return via intercepted chaos courier ships bound for one of Huron’s thrall worlds, and had eagerly offered themselves to Vulkan, who had made them an honourary Commandery. However, Vulkan could send no real material aid to the Skulls, for they remained trapped and surrounded by the chaos empire of Huron, who made every effort to exterminate every last Silver Skull. He offered rewards to the various champions in his army for the destruction of the Silver Skulls, and amnesty from invasion to several Petty Imperiums, if said Imperiums managed to destroy the Astartes, whilst simultaneously promising terrible punishments to any who allied with his nemesis.

These ploys failed, yet over time, as the intensity of wars between not only chaos but the xenos interlopers and ancient empires increased, the Silver Skulls were weakened; gradually drained of surplus resources and stripped of many of their allied worlds.

It was then that Huron unleashed hell upon them. He sent his most powerful Lieutenant, Katan of the Pyre, at the head of a huge invasion fleet, to destroy Varsavia, the homeworld of his hated foe. Soldiers from across the empire were dragged to Katan’s banner. Merchant vessels, converted into hateful steel sharks with bellies full of millions upon millions of heretical cultists, joined midnight-clad Night Lord Vessels, the barbaric bone-coated berserker barges of the World Eater Skrax, oddly spartan cruisers from the planet of Hopegone and the gloriously depraved flagships of Huron’s Fifth Corsair Fleet. 

Various xenos mercenary armies were also drawn to this coming battle like crows to a corpse. Chaos-tainted Kroot followed the fleet. These Kroot had become servants of chaos unwittingly, and wished to kill and devour the Silver Skulls for the simple reason that their shapers hoped eating the pious Astartes flesh might ‘cure’ them of their blasphemous infestations. The heavily-armed, blunt-nosed Harn Skiffs of the crocodilian Groevians also joined this armada. Their leader was called the Junnergan, which translates roughly as ‘the armoured carapace upon which foes shatter’. The Groevians had thrived after the fall of the Thexians, and were cold-blooded and callous, uncaring of whom they chose to kill. Groevian Breaker troops were well feared across the former Thexian region of space, but were a relatively unknown element to those not from the eastern fringe. The final faction of alien mercenaries were Khornate Viskeon warriors, recruited by Skrax for their martial prowess in melee and their fanatical desire to sever limbs and take heads.

Together, this was a fleet not of invasion, but of annihilation. The Silver Skulls sensed this fleet approach, and knew its purpose. Gathering what few forces they had left, the Silver Skulls began to ready the defences.

Chapter Master Argentius traveled from ship to ship, from orbital battery to orbital battery, inspiring the mortals there and organizing the defences in exacting detail. The Prognosticators informed him and guided his actions, making sure areas they knew would be attacked were more heavily defended than others. Weakpoints in the defences were identified and Argentius, in his genius, turned these areas into traps to lure in overeager enemies and neatly surround them. 

Every last one of the dreadnoughts in the vaults of their fortress monastery were roused for battle, and the two eldest venerable dreadnoughts, Ikek and Gileas, took overall command of the defence of the main gates, while the rest of the dreadnoughts were assigned to various battle companies across the planet’s surface and in orbit. Every ship they could find, steal or scrounge was gathered in system for the coming battle, placed in areas of space where they would do most damage to the oncoming horde of vessels.

First Captain Jonal was entrusted with overall of the Fortress-Monastery, alongside his psychic warrior champion, Prognosticar Grold. Meanwhile, Argentius took command of the fleet, while the Chief Prognosticator Allaten, took to his cell and sealed himself inside, as he began the rituals needed to summon his greatest abilities as a Seer.

They knew the battle was inevitable, and all they could do was wait.

They did not have to wait long.

Searing through the warp, ahead of the fleet, came a rolling tide of daemonic abominations. Every Librarian and psyker in the Silver Skulls recoiled from this dark presence, which blunted their abilities to predict the future with their sheer proximity. Though this deep-warp barrage lasted only a millisecond, it was enough to cause the crew of the cruiser Gleaming Blade to go mad, and steer their ship into the heart of Varsavia’s sun.

Barely an hour after this, the main Corsair fleet and its allies began to burst into the system in wave after wave. The two fleets clashed, and a running naval battle ensued, with each fleet hunting each other across the void. Slowly but surely, the Silver Skulls made a controlled retreat towards Varsavia, drawing in and destroying the enemy even as they contracted their defensive lines every couple of hours. Despite the consummate skill of Argentius, the enemy were simply too many to stop them all. Some of the fat-bellied chaos transports broke through the naval cordons, speeding towards the planet. The orbital defences gutted several vessels before they even came close to the atmosphere, spilling their corrupt human cargoes into the chilling void. Others managed to get through, but crashed on the northern hemisphere, the Fortress-Monastery’s void shields burning their hulls black as they crashed. Yet, those crashed transports had survivors, who issued forth from the downed transports at the behest of Red Corsair slavers behind them. Even more managed to land on the surface relatively unscathed. They did this by landing on the southern hemisphere instead of battling through the void shields defending the north. They would march on Varsavia’s capital on foot. Sorcerers with this force also subverted the hateful Xiz who lived in the south, using them to summon horrendous daemon allies from the heart of the world.

In orbit, Argentius found himself battling countless capital ships and boarding actions against his battle barge, repelling their invaders whilst simultaneously organizing his fleet in opposing the Corsair vessels. His mighty flail, the Grinning Death, reaped a bloody toll on any who fell beneath the double-headed skull-topped weapon, while his storm bolter chewed through those who avoided his blessed relic weapon.

Skrax and his berserkers succeeded in weathering the barrage of the orbitals, and eventually managed to disgorge Dreadclaws filled with his berserkers and Viskeon warriors. The humans and Astartes on board the orbitals fight bravely in the close confines of the space stations, but are forced to abandon their guns in order to prevent the capture and repurposing of their orbital weapon grid. Seventh Company Captain Piet personally took up his chainsword, and led the defence personally, engaging in a furious close quarter battle between his men and the frenzied foe. The horrific bloodbath inside those chilling, lightless corridors lasted many hours and effectively knocked the orbitals out of the battle.

Meanwhile, on the northern hemisphere, the tundra of Varsavia was alive with criss-crossing gunfire and the endless din of battle, as the Silver Skulls main battle companies rode out from their mountainous Fortress-Monastery mounted in Predators, land raiders and Rhinos, supported by armoured companies of PDF. They clashed with the half-burned survivors of the transport crashes, who used their downed vessels as fortifications against the furious blitzkrieg. The Silver Skulls knew just where to smash the invaders to cause maximum damage, and the leader of the force, Captain Trelvuge, howled like an animal as he rode in the cupola of his land raider, blazing away with his storm bolter at the masses of jeering mortals and their handlers.

However, even though the main body of the mortal force was already landed on the southern hemisphere and unable to yet join this fray, the orbitals no longer protected the skies; only the void shield prevented enemies from landing upon the monastery itself. Nevertheless, the Silver Skulls leading the armoured assault were not under the aegis of the void shield, and the Chaos Space marines and Groevians could deploy rapidly onto the planet’s surface in support of the traitors already deployed. Dreadclaws and drop pods slammed into the ground, deploying hundreds upon hundreds of traitor Astartes, while the brutal Groevian landers followed the Red Corsair and Pyre-marine Thunderhawks down through the rising smoke of battle. The snow on the tundra became a scorching steam as the intense gunfire continued, scalding anyone not sufficiently armoured. Corsairs and Pyre-marine clashed blades and exchanged bolter fire with the Tactical marines of the Fourth, Third and Second companies of the Silver Skulls, each combatant a living maelstrom of destruction. Each clash of bodies was like the clarion call of a struck bell, followed by the crushing crunch of bone and muscles being torn or shredded. The Groevian Breaker Troops were surprisingly dangerous to even hardened Astartes, for the older a Groevian got the larger and stronger they became, and each Groevian was a veteran killer, slashing with their super-heated thermoglaives and unleashing kinetic hell with their belt-fed gatling pistols. Men were ripped limb from limb, and tanks were flipped and melted by sudden barrages, before their slayers were in turn slain by vicious counter attacks. Despite the madness and seeming chaos, both sides attacked and counterattacked with a precision which would not be out of place on a regicide board; each ploy was punctuated by a powered fist, and every deft move by a screaming, fiery retort. Despite the carnage, the Skulls held their own.

To the south, the horde of chaos-bred killers marched forth, the very ground itself rumbling at their passing. Entire forests were torn up, villages were swallowed whole by the swarming mass of murderers; the Xiz took great delight in maiming and torturing the native Varsavian tribes, for the Xiz tribe had long been their foe. These poor ruined souls were then offered up to the building numbers of daemons attracted to the carnage. Furies capered through the woods wearing the skins of children, and lakes and rivers were poisoned by their bile and unnatural juices. Only one natural barrier posed a significant problem for this grand army; the sour sea, the great equatorial ocean which girdled the planet and divided north from south in a rough, jagged line from east to west as far as the eye could see. There was only one path across the sea; a colossal bridge, seventeen miles long and wide enough for two land raiders to drive along it abreast. This bridge was known as Ur’ten’s Crossing. Both sides were desperate to reach the bridge first. The forces of Katan wished to capture it, while Argentius’ men needed to put the bridge out of action. It became a race across the planet between the two foes. Fortunately, the Silver Skulls deployed their fastest elements to race ahead of their main southbound forces; Thunderhawks and Stormravens, supported by hundreds of land speeders and attack bikes, which bore the majority of the Tenth Company scout forces. Millions of Varsavian tribesmen from the Hotzi plains looked out from their huts, to witness this glorious aerial convoy speeding towards Ur’ten’s Crossing. They realized something was gravely wrong. The gods were at war.
The storm class land speeders arrived on the bridge just before the vanguard of the chaos horde, disembarking their scout marine cargoes before speeding off to harry the approaching vanguard of daemonic wolf riders and bikers that served as the chaos army’s advanced guard. As the scouts frantically attached their demolitions charges, they were covered by their sniper teams, who picked off any foe who came too close, and by the Thunderhawks, who strafed the enemy lines with laser fire and flights of missiles. Yet, the enemy could only be delayed and for every howling cultist vaporized, there were a hundred more scrambling over the hissing puddles of fat that had been their comrades. Defilers and corrupted Russes sped forwards, belching multi-hued smoke from their daemon-snouted exhausts as they came. Amidst the barrages of heavy fire, most of the scouts were evacuated once their charges were set. The last scout to depart was Scout brother Kelfdon, who managed to set his final set of charges amidst the maze of cables that streamed from one of the great suspension towers. With impressive dexterity, he managed to avoid the talons of a defiler which had ascended the cables in order to kill him. As his brothers gave him cover fire, he hopped between cables with the agility of a great ape. Each time, he narrowly avoided the claws of the frenzied defiler. Finally, he dodged aside one of the beast’s clumsy swings, causing the daemon engine to overbalance, and topple onto the bridge below with titanic force. Sundered, the defiler could only roar impotently as a land speeder Typhoon finally plunged a barrage of missiles into its heart and slay the festering nightmare. Kelfdon was picked up by the speeder, which escaped just as the final charges blew, plunging the bridge into the choppy sea below. Kelfdon returned to his fellow scouts amidst a clamour of cheers. However, he and his comrades knew they had bought their northern allies time, nothing more.

Back in space, and Argentius’ battle barge was in trouble. Upon every deck, desperate rearguards were being fought, as five cruisers and Katan’s own battleship flooded the ship with boarders. The ship was out of control, as those who guided the ship were forced to fight for their very lives. Eventually, even the bridge, located at the heart of the ship, was breached, and Argentius’ personal retinue battled those who would seek to destroy their master. However, there was one foe they could not hope to best. When Katan of the Pyre took to the bridge himself, he crushed his foes. Katan had once been one of Bile’s ‘New Men’, but centuries of diabolical sacrifices and carnage had bloated his soul with warp power; he was on the cusp of daemonhood and his power was beyond anything Argentius and his retinue could throw at him. He towered over them, his dark scaly flesh fused with his armour, while his mouth and eyes glowed with his internal fire. When faced with the command squad, the traitor laughed in their faces. Showing casual disdain for their fighting prowess, Katan cast aside his weapons and fought them with his bare hands. His flesh was proof against the veteran Sergeant’s bolter fire, and soon the marine was broken and sodomized with his own firearm. Katan broke the Apothecary Julivan over his knee, and used his broken corpse to beat the banner bearer Goltran to death. His hellish daemonflesh was immune against Prognosticar Ulfun’s power weapon, but the Company Champion nevertheless fought with all his physical and psychic might. He lasted barely a minute longer. 

Katan exhaled in the carnage, chuckling as the blood flowed across his face. His laugh was cut short by a brutal blow to the face by the heads of the Chapter Master’s flail, which made the giant stagger backwards; the first blow to truly hurt him since the battle had begun. He avoided the second and third sweeps of Argentius’ weapon, and launched himself bodily at the Chapter Master, who rode the impact and added his momentum to Katan’s own. Together, they slammed through a bulkhead at some force, but Katan bore the brunt. As the giant rose, Argentius used his storm bolter to disorientate him; firing point blank into the monster’s face as he rained blow after blow against Katan’s chest and shoulders. A backhand shattered the storm bolter, and a follow up punch sent Argentius crashing through toughened glass, to fall thirty metres into the flight deck below. Katan leapt after the Silver Skulls’ commander, heedless of the battles being fought across the ship. Only killing Argentius now mattered. Loading servitors automatically turned to attack the giant, but he swatted them aside like troublesome children, shattering them against the walls with the mindless force of his blows. Argentius rose from the crater his fall had smashed into the deck, and rotated his shoulders in readiness, his grinning skull helm glaring at the festering muzzle of the Aspiring Champion of chaos. Slowly, he began to swing his flail.

On the plains and pine forests before the Fortress-monastery, the battle continued to rage. Though the Skulls were masterful fighters, the sheer scale of the attacking force had a quality all of its own. The Pyremarines poured daemonic hellfire across their foes from corrupted flamers, while Corsairs got close with knife and bolter and poisonous daemonic barb. Also, the open-topped marching tanks of the groevians, though lightly armoured, possessed extremely powerful weaponry. As they fought, the Librarians and sorcerers dueled in spectacular rippling conflagrations of psychic power. The armoured might of the Silver Skulls was a force to be reckoned with, but they had lost momentum, and Captain Trelvuge knew his forces needed to return to the monastery.

This was not to be. For the chaos Kroot utilized the disturbing camouflage granted by the daemon-tainted flesh they had eaten, allowing them to circle around the Space Marines and attack their rear. Constant bombardment against the fortress-monastery’s void shielding prevented the garrison from providing sufficient artillery support to the beleaguered sally force, and they were forced to watch as their soldiers were pinned into a defensive ring, centered on their tanks. Warp-tainted gnarlocs and twisted krootox abominations attacked without fear or reason, as the other chaos forces trapped them with sheer firepower. But worse was to come. Trapped in one location, the Silver Skulls force was easy pickings for the orbital weapons of their enemy, who unleashed terrible lance bombardments directly into their lines. Fire and confusion took hold, as their leaders were melted and tanks were turned into superheated plasma. The screaming and cursing over the vox lasted long after the heartbroken defenders shut off their links to the massacre. In blind fury, the first captain ordered the defence lasers to fire upon ground positions, extending their range for a few moments. This was long enough to give the murderous Corsair forces pause, as thousands of their men were destroyed in a few seconds. But it was not enough. Inevitably, more landing parties began to deploy unopposed to Varsavia’s surface, protected from the defence laser bombardments by a theatre shield the heretics had finally managed to set up. Unharmed by the megaton bombardment, the chaos siege force approached the shimmering force shield of the Fortress-Monastery.

Eventually, the two force fields met and like two water droplets meeting upon glass, they merged. The defence lasers and anti-orbital torpedoes of the Fortress could no longer engage the enemy; they were too close now. Only the First Company and the reserve companies manning the defences could hold them back now.

Katan was sent reeling after Argentius pummeled his head with the Grinning Death, howling curses as he did so. As Katan tried to compose himself, the Chapter Master unleashed volley after volley of bolt pistol shells into his eyes, forcing the stone-skinned abomination back.

Katan and Argentius fought across the entire flight deck, Argentius barely able to avoid the monster’s furious blows as he flipped Thunderhawks and smashed servitors with every sweep of his claws. Katan, swollen with power, had sprouted all manner of terrifying daemonic weapons with which to destroy his troublesome foe, but Argentius would not yield, even as his armour was torn and his helmet dashed from his head, revealing the adamantine of his polished bionic face, etched in a permanent, joyless grimace. Eventually, their relentless battle took them down into the drop pod bays. As they wrestled like gladiators of old, they fell into one of the drop pods, and together triggered the pod’s fiery descent into the storm-wracked skies of Varsavia, hundreds of miles below.

In the south of the world, the dread forces of the invaders found themselves trapped on the banks of the sour sea. However, such an obstacle could not hold them for long. They scoured the surrounding villages and settlements, raiding them for all the building material they could find, even going as far as using the gory bones of their slaughtered victims. With this cruelly-obtained materiel, the chaos horde built vast ocean-going barges, which they crammed with braying cultists and screaming madmen clad in the fresh skins of their foes. As this huge armada crossed the sea, daemons swam in the cold depths; spiny, segmented forms impossible to identify yet lethal beyond reason. Overhead, the fliers of the force covered their approach, for this fleet could not pass unopposed.

The Hotzi tribesmen, desiring to aid their godly heroes, took to the sea on their long ships, great red sails stretched tight by the fierce southerly winds blowing down from the north. The Hotzi fleets were huge, for they traded with every nation of Varsavia, and were built to resist the worlds unforgiving seasons. The tribesmen were armed with weapons granted to them by the Skulls. They were not alone; a flight of land speeders swept across the sea alongside them, as the Thunderhawks soared high to engage the enemy flyers. There, in the middle of the churning sour sea, the two fleets clashed, in the largest wet naval engagement in living memory. Thousands of ships clashed in glorious combat. Though the chaos barges were of poor quality, their passengers were deadly as only chaotic servants could be. The battle was close ranged, as each ship drew to within pistol-range of each other, with boarding parties leaping between vessels. Assault marines ignited their packs, to clash with raptors and impromptu chaos seamen, who were slaughtered in droves by the furious Astartes. Occasionally, a Hotzi long boat would sink beneath a deluge of thrashing tentacles, or be swallowed up by the ravenous maws of devils who imitated the forms of sea monsters dreamed up in the nightmares of sailors across the millennia of human experience; every kraken, daemon whale or oceanic leviathan emerged to plague the brave loyalist fleet. The battle of the sour sea was one legendary conflict out of several that occurred during this dreadful siege. During this battle, the scout captain of the Tenth was slain, swallowed whole by a daemon-whale with whirring buzzsaw-jaws a hundred feet wide. Kelfdon found himself and his scout squad trapped in the middle of this naval engagement. Fuel oil had leaked from the barges and had ignited due to the withering gunfire being exchanged all around. Sails were engulfed, bathing the sea in smoke. Men screamed and daemons squealed or groaned with the voices of a billion damned souls. The only constant was the bodies, floating face down in the rolling waves. The parts of the sea not aflame seemed to boil with the thrashing of drowning men, who were continually killed by opportunists hanging from the sides of boats or sharpshooters high in the masts.

There were scattered reports of ghosts in the rolling fog; shimmering green phantom ships that sailed through the air above the water, and killed silently, hampering the chaos armada’s rear and flanks. But inevitably, the Silver Skulls and their allies were forced to land back on their beaches, and soon set up emplacements and trenches, to meet the onrushing amphibious assault. The cost in Hotzi lives can never be accurately measured, as the Astartes did not keep accurate or up to date records of the local population numbers of the natives, but it is speculated that throughout the war, seventy percent of the Hotzi people were slain in this bitter planetary war.

Battered, ammunition spent, the defenders prepared to take on the enemy with combat knife and gunstock, fist and tribal axe. What happened next was as swift as it was unexpected. Unexpected, that is, by everyone save the Prognosticator Librarians themselves...

Back in the north, the siege of the Tower of Skulls began in earnest. The Space Marines had sensibly destroyed the bridge which spanned the great chasm before the main gate, and had heavily mined the eastward mountain ranges that formed the spine of the mountainous fortification. The invaders formed their men into several discreet forces that constantly probed the defences of the tower for any weaknesses. The Pyre-marines and Corsairs ushered their more expendable allies ahead of them initially; the cultists, Kroot and various breeds of xenos mercenaries. The mortal cultists, barely clothed and armed with whatever weapons they could scrounge or salvage, were shunted forwards first as living shields from the lethally accurate devastator teams manning the towers and ramparts of the lower keep. Whirlwinds and basilisks took to the high keep, and rained down thunderous barrages of high explosive on the enemy. As the siege went on, the chaos forces brought forth great infernal engines; living siege towers of bone and living brass, or bridge-laying machines that slavered like hounds as they scrambled to span the cavernous chasm dividing attackers and defenders.

First Captain Jonal directed the defence from the high keep, mustering tactical and assault squads to sally forth and attack each of the bridge-layers before they could reach the wall. The central conflicts of the battle were concentrated around the capture and recapture of these bridges. Silver Skulls would rush forth and slaughter the operators of the bridges, before being beaten back by the frenzied offensive forces. Prognosticar Grold led several of these sorties, the twinned force swords he had liberated from the vaults glittering as he cut down enemy after enemy. The only time Grold came close to death was when his force clashed with the host of the Groevians, and he was nearly crushed by the relentless onslaught of the Junnergan on bridge seven, known as the ‘Luscious Rapture’. The reptilian beast’s sloping armour plate was tough as dragonscale, and his jaws and thermo-glaive carved a bloody swathe through those who sought to bring him down.

But the Corsair horde’s vast scale hampered their ability to react swiftly to tactical changes, which Jonal took advantage of this, and herded the enemy where he wanted them to go. He did this by using his whirlwinds to seed minefields ahead of the enemy. The mob of deviants, though fanatical, were not all suicidal, and they avoided these areas. Slowly, imperceptibly, the horde was channeled towards the main gates of the Tower of Skulls, where most of the Silver Skulls’ prodigious arsenal was focused. Whirlwinds, basilisks, hydra batteries, devastators, Icarus lascannons; all were trained upon the great mass of deviant flesh. They did not even need to target specific figures in the horde; every shot struck something. 

The tower, in turn, weathered relentless bombardment, not only from the artillery of the Corsair force, but also from flaming debris falling from orbit, that was set alight by the void shields as they crashed into the upper galleries of the colossal fortress. Amongst this debris was a drop pod, which smashed through roofs and floors and shattered flagstones as it crashed into a hold deep inside the monastery. The pod’s shattered doors fell away, as Katan threw Argentius bodily across the cold marble floor of the pillared chamber they found themselves in. Katan was getting less and less human by the minute; great tusks erupted from his jaws and horns pierced his shoulder blades at odd angles, and the stuff of the warp literally drooled from him as acidic ichor. Argentius, by contrast, was near-broken. His armour was mostly ripped off save for one pauldron and his greaves. His body was blackened and scarred by heinous wounds inflicted in the close confines of the pod. Yet still, he raised the Grinning Death, and charged into battle once more. Yet, just as he swung the flail, Katan caught it in one of his hideous craw-claws. With a sickly cackle, Katan hoisted Argentius from his feet, dashing the Chapter Master against the pillars in the chamber by his flail, before tossing him against the far wall like a ragdoll. Argentius crashed into the wall, ripping away the polished, silver-plated trophy skulls that hung upon the walls by thick chain links. 

He slowly rose to his feet, spitting out a mouthful of silver teeth, and resetting his dislocated shoulder with a dull crunch. He had a plan.

Under a withering onslaught, the chaos forces forged ahead with an assault on the main gate. Their last bridge-layer managed to latch its claws onto the sheer cliff face of the outer wall, and spanned the gap between the gate and the opposite cliff with a bridge reinforced against the bombardment of the Skulls. Soon, thousands of cultists, traitor guard and leering daemonspawn scrambled across the walkway; desperate to be the first to breach the gate and earn the gaze of the Nex-[CHRONICLE SHUDDERS]. However, to their surprise, the great silver/white gates opened before they reached them. And from those doors, two venerable dreadnoughts emerged, assault cannons already primed and whirring.

Ikek and Gileas’s weapons chewed through the compressed mass of flesh, liquefying hundreds of enemies on the spot, with hundreds more dying as they were trampled by their panicking fellows, or pitched over the side of the bridge in the confusion. Those who escaped their assault cannons were roasted by their flamers, or crushed between energized claws. Gileas roared with mechanical laughter, while Ikek carefully counted his kill tally in a somber tone. The two had been rivals in life, and remained rivals in the half-life of the sarcophagus. Yet, together, they were unstoppable. They cleared the bridge within minutes, leaving a carnal house of pulped organs and pulverized bone decorating the vile bridge. 

The dreadnoughts had a brief reprieve then, for the enemy fled before their might, leaving the bridge an empty butcher’s yard for a moment. Using the time fate and the fists of dreadnoughts had given him, Jonal himself took to the bridge alongside the best men his First Company could muster. Each veteran was mounted into tactical dreadnought armour, and had armed themselves with hammer and claw. Jonal himself bore a dual set of lightning claws.

“Not one step back,” was the only order he needed to give his men. They knew their place was at the dreadnoughts’ side. Their role was simple; hold the enemy on the bridge, while the gate’s emplacements cut off the attackers on the bridge from any support.

But the attackers were not done yet. There was a stirring within the chaos horde, as a column of armour approached the bridge, meaning to break the embattled dreadnoughts in one concerted assault. A phalanx of eight clanking, bellowing dreadnoughts marched towards the fortress, the demented chaos walkers clad in chains and monstrous fetishes that hurt the eye to see. They were madmen with broken minds, unlike the fearsome discipline of the two Silver Skull veterans. If the chaos dreadnoughts had come alone, Ikek, Gileas and their Terminators could have easily held off their degenerate sarcophagus-kin. Alas, the enemy did not come alone. With the dreadnoughts came a snarling menagerie of daemon engines; not only the scuttling Deviler Engines, but Banelords, thrashing Khornate Blood Slaughterers and even towering Brass Scorpions, which ripped through their own allies in their haste to shed fresh human blood. The Corsair forces gave them a wide berth so as to avoid the directionless wrath of the daemons and madmen trapped within these coffins of adamantine.
Leading this force of primal destruction and ruination strode a monstrous Decimator Engine. Taller and broader than any dreadnought, the thing walked with the monstrous arrogance of a gladiator, and its great helmet set beneath its huge armoured shoulders glowered at the defenders, its eyes slits blazing with internal flame. Even over the deafening din of the war horns, Ikek and Gileas could hear the rumbling laughter of the Decimator, reverberating within their very souls. Nevertheless, the defenders set their feet and prepared to sell themselves dearly. If it was to be their final battle, they would make it a battle that no one, be they man or god, would forget it.
Meanwhile, in the trophy vault, Argentius fought for his life. He was unarmed now, his flail destroyed. Katan was fast and terrible, striking out with ever greater speed and power. His claws raked the walls and pillars, desperate to catch Argentius. The chapter master denied the aspiring champion each time, deftly leaping aside moments before the claws disemboweled him. Each time, he waited until the very last moment before rolling away from the blows. Each time, he darted to a new location behind Katan and each avoided attack dislodged another trophy display. Soon, the chains and skulls that had been on the walls had been ripped away, tangling around the prospective daemon prince and the pillars themselves, like a great web of clanking adamantine hoops and silver-plated bone. It was then that Argentius took up the master chain, winding it around a dozen pillars to give him leverage.

For the first time since the battle had begun, Katan felt the balance shift against him. Too late, he realized he was entangled. Before he could free himself, the chains pulled tight as a noose. Katan roared, his daemonic voice deafening in its affronted wrath. He writhed and struggled in his bounds with all his might. Argentius responded with pulling ever tighter. His muscles bulged until his blood vessels burst under the pressure. Argentius hissed in pain as he dug his heels into the flagstones for more purchase. Each time Katan pulled, he was almost dragged form his feet, but he recovered and redoubled his efforts, screaming in hatred as he did so. Argentius had planned this end game. Every since Katan had entered the system, his Prognosticators had envisioned Argentius’ death at the monster’s hands. Katan could not be pierced by blade or bullet, and they saw visions of the Master broken upon his own bridge. Thus, Argentius ensured he had an escape route. He also ensured that he could reach the drop pod bay easily, and that he and his foe could reach the pre-programmed drop pod at the appointed time, and land at the precise location he needed to defeat Katan once and for all.

Argentius wound the chain around his left bicep and pulled the chain tighter. Finally, the chain around Katan’s thick trunk of a neck constricted. The titanic Pyre-marine was still struggling, even as he fell to his knees in an explosion of pulverized marble. Argentius was mindless in his fury now, pouring every ounce of strength he could muster into his final gambit.

“You cannot kill me, mewling mortal! You may break and die, but I live forever! I am a daemon prince!” Katan howled, spitting molten steel from between his tusks.

Argentius ignored him, and pulled for the last time. Though he felt his rib cage crack from the strain, Argentius felt Katan’s neck vertebrae weakening. Then, with an audible scream of released warpstuff that shattered every window, his bones snapped. Katan screamed for several moments, even after his head and spinal column were ripped from his body. His burning eyes widened for a moment, before they went dull, and Katan perished.

“Not a daemon... yet...” Argentius panted, spitting on the Pyre-marine’s corpse, as other Silver Skulls burst into the chamber. They found him standing over a vanquished Katan. He managed to remain standing for almost a minute longer, before he collapsed into his brother marines’ arms. He died several hours later.

As the siege continued, the Corsairs focused their attention upon the Tower of Skulls. They were slow to respond to the arrow-swift assaults upon their command echelons and logistical bases by darting figures emerging from the rolling fog of the vaporized frost. By the time the Corsairs brought sufficient forces to bear, the enemy was gone, leaving dead Red Corsair commanders and smashed theatre shield generators in their wake. The only sight of the mysterious foe was the many hues of their individual squad colors, capering into the mist aboard their sleek ships.

The battle on the bridge was the stuff of legends. It was a clash of gears, armour and powered claws, of the throaty roar of engines and the dissonant screaming of caged daemons, merged with the augmented yelling of posthuman warriors. The bridge was only wide enough to permit two of the daemon engines to travel abreast, granting the slightest advantage to the two venerable dreadnoughts and the terminator‘s storm shield wall. But it was still only a slight advantage. Assault and autocannons barked and whirred deafeningly, their fire pattering against the armoured skins of the combatants. Flamers and meltas hurled fiery death, but the clashing metal beasts on both sides weathered the blows until they finally clashed in epic close quarters. The sonorous clang of clashing sarcophagi and the thunderclap boom of dueling power claws echoed for miles in all directions. Throughout the halls of the Skulls, the marines could hear this battle as an ominous dirge, while across the plains the sound instilled fear in the mewling, vile masses, who quailed before this din. Each time power weapons and shields crashed together, lightning bolts and flashes of electrical discharge flickered across the bridge; caged thunderstorms unleashed. There was no finesse, only mechanical carnage and the pealing sound of torn metal as the combatants tore chunks from each other. Blood Slaughterers were pitched from the bridge, or had their legs smashed apart by opportunistic Terminators. Ikek plunged his assault cannon into the gaping maw of a Brass Scorpion, emptying his gatling gun into its fiery heart even as it wrenched the weapon from his shoulder mount. Gileas’ siege hammer cracked open the sarcophagi of five of his brother dreadnoughts; the former veteran sergeant relived his glory days in the combat cages, imagining his metal targets were the old foes he fought in centuries long past.
Terminators were broken like dolls by some of the enemy engines; a berserker dreadnought cackled in mindless triumph as it cleaved apart half a dozen terminators in as many seconds, before Jonal himself managed to silence the fiend with a well-placed thrust of a lightning claw into the broken hull of the traitor. The combatants clambered over the broken husks of their own dead and those of their foes, simply to reach their targets, and the stink of promethium and ichor clung to the air. Fleshy innards were ripped out alongside clawfuls of gears and snaking cabling, that sparked as it was ripped asunder. The Decimator waded through this walker’s graveyard to reach Ikek and Gileas, its siege claws shredding terminators almost dismissively. The bipedal war machine looked like some grotesque caricature of an Imperial dreadnought, yet dwarfed both of the venerable machines before it; even a Contemptor was small compared to this goliath. Only Jonal survived of his hand-picked retinue, and the Decimator passed him by without giving him a second glance, instead focusing upon Ikek and Gileas, who still stood sentinel before the main gates. Jonal, in indignant fury, snatched up a fallen thunder hammer in one of his fists (having lost one of his lightning claws to the berserker dreadnought) and struck the Decimator with the deactivated weapon.

“You will not ignore me, vile spawn of the pit! You will face me!” he roared at its back.

The Decimator rotated its torso around one hundred and eighty degrees, and with a single blow, bisected Jonal from armpit to opposite hip, killing him in moments.

In fury, Ikek charged the behemoth bodily. Sarcophagus plate and helmeted head collided with a great clang, like the ringing of some cathedral bell, sending the Decimator staggering backwards several paces. The three walkers battled alone on the bridge now, like cumbersome wrestlers or boxers in an arena of the dead. Claws clashed and legs struck hulls. They ripped each other open with relentless fury; taking punishment that would have slain a normal Astartes ten times over, and giving back just as much in return. They were consumed in their duel, that the two venerable warriors could not see what the rest of the garrison witnessed, out on the plains before the Tower.

The siege was being lifted. The corsairs’ leadership had been slain, and their theatre shields had been destroyed, and the culprits now flanked the horde with hawk-like speed and grace. These newcomers were Eldar, in the green and white livery of the Biel-Tan, though many of their warriors wore the various colored suits of Aspect Warrior armour. Dark Reapers had taken positions on the periphery of battle, launching constant salvos, while Falcon grav-tanks and wave serpents deposited lethal banshees and Avengers into strategic positions, before speeding off to engage and destroy any armour foolish enough to try and engage them. Without the protection of the theatre shields, the Tower of Skulls further punished the chaotic invaders by unleashing their defence lasers upon them. The Eldar flowed between these megaton barrages with consummate ease, as if they were fighting a choreographed, stage battle. Wherever the las bolts landed, they were not.

The chaos army turned to rout, heading south to meet up with the chaos force heading north. However, the Eldar had gotten to the south army first, sinking their barges before they had reached the northern shores in any great numbers. Instead of allies from the south, more enemies came to finish off the corsair ground forces. The southern force was a glorious sight to behold. It crested the mountains as one great mass, silver-painted hulls glimmering int he early light of dawn. Void dragon bombers and other Eldar flyers soared across the sky, alongside many hundreds of land speeders, both combat and storm speeders, as well as dozens of Thunderhawks, Stormtalons and Stormravens. Without air support, the forces of chaos were helpless as this air force unleashed a withering payload of missiles, rockets and laser bolts into the masses. Rippling explosions convulsed across them, as strafing run after strafing run turned the tundra into one rolling firestorm.

Upon the bridge, Ikek laid broken open on the floor, his semi-living flesh wrenched out of its shell violently. The Decimator itself was smashed and empty too, its daemon departed in screaming agony. Only Gileas remained standing, a severed Decimator arm impaling him through the primary hull section of his torso. The vox unit of his dreadnought was broken, so all he could do was open and close his claw in a symbol of triumph.

Oddly enough, the Junnergan was the closest thing to a leader the remaining chaos curs had, and the human and Astartes refuse scuttled after the Groevian, as it fought its way back to its transports and fled the system with the remainder of the routed Corsair fleet, picking up Skrax and the Viskeons on the way.

It had been a hard fought victory across Varsavia, and much of the planet lay buried under soot and ash, or else drowned by the sudden downpours of precipitation following the condensation of all the evaporated snow. So many were dead, and had the Eldar not aided them, it was likely all would have perished. But the reasons for the aliens’ sudden generosity were their own. It was said Chief Librarian Allaten held a secret meeting with the farseers of Biel-Tan; both factions eagerly peering into the raw potential of the future. The Eldar had come to Varsavia to retrieve something, but also to guide the Silver Skulls (who had felt lost ever since the Emperor’s light had failed). In exchange for an artefact, the Eldar would give the Silver Skulls an opportunity to finally kill Huron Blackheart once and for all.

Allaten gathered his surviving men to a muster hall in the Tower, where the Eldar and Astartes mingled awkwardly after the battle was won. Their stilted conversations were halted when the Librarian and the farseers emerged. There was an artefact on Pax Argentius, the cemetery world that could only be accessed through the internment of the latest dead Master Argentius. The Eldar explained that the artefact looked like a stone circle, but was in fact an ancient Dolmen Gate. The Eldar requested that they be allowed to accompany Argentius as he was taken to the cemetery planet, so that they might access the gate and travel to the Necron Tomb World that lay beyond.

In exchange, the farseers informed the Silver Skulls of the exact day they needed to attack Huron; it was a very specific window of opportunity which, if missed, would mean they would never get a chance to take down the Blackheart. Upon this day, as the Eldar legend went;

The Favoured Son of a Favoured Son, 
Foe to All and Friend to None,
Rode to the Ruin of a Black Heart.

Meanwhile, on the approach to Armageddon, another Eldar vessel rushed forth, armed and bristling with weaponry and battle damage. It was leaking fuel and its sails were shredded, but momentum carried it forwards.

In response, the Vulkan Imperium sent forth a picket fleet to surround and, if necessary, neutralize the threatening ship. For a tense hour, it seemed as if the fleet would launch an attack upon the ship; the Fire Beasts vessel ‘The Loyal Fiend’ threatened to board the vessel, and do... unpleasant things to the aliens within.

Then, a voice began to sing, rising in volume as he bellowed his boisterous, guttural song down the vox link. The song undulated and echoed across every vox link in the fleet. At first the Steel Legion thought it to be some brutish xenos war song, but when the song was taken up by the Wolf Brothers Commandery's marines, they hesitated in ordering a strike. 

It was the song of the Wolftime, being sung in the nominally dead language of Old Fenrisian.

Eventually, Vulkan’s voice cut into the vox link, interrupting the song.

“Hold fire. I know that voice... Leman? Brother?” Vulkan said, his voice sounding shocked.

The singer’s harsh voice paused in mid song. “I am surprised the din of the forge hadn’t dulled your sense entirely brother. It is I,” Russ replied, his voice strained and in great physical pain. “I return, and I do not do so alone. I fear... a boarding party by your 'Fire Beasts' would have been... foolish on their part...” Leman Russ laughed through the vox, as Imperial shuttles came in to dock with his stolen Eldar cruiser.
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