Within the shattered hive-fortress.
Looking out from the fortress balcony, the horizon was an apocalypse in collapse.
Warp-leaking crimson mists were swallowing one city district after another.
Keening, twisted things wheeled through the air. Burning skeletons clawed up from beneath the earth.
Magma-spitting Daemon Engines and Heldrakes flattened every structure in sight.
Death and ruin were the feast of these abominations, and everywhere the dying of mankind howled.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Explosions and cave-ins came in waves, making the fortress totter as grit and rubble pattered down.
The tactical hololith at the hall's center had long since gone blood-red; jittering under shock and dust, while more debris pinged and clattered against dark green plate.
Two Dark Angels with winged crests on their helms stood over the display, blades grounded, faces set.
"Perhaps we can stop staring at the map of the Calisde System. It serves no purpose now."
Company Captain Lazarus of the Fifth's voice was heavy with defeat.
"In mere hours we've had over a thousand battle-brothers return to the Throne. Tens of millions of Astra Militarum are slain or shattered. Four worlds have already lost tens of billions of souls.
"We haven't even had the chance to evacuate the populace. Loyal servants of the Imperium are being butchered by the Ruinous, and even if we throw everything into stopping it, we can't pull them back from this.
"Our Navy in-system is inadequate. We can't protect every theater, and we can scarcely get distress calls out.
"Master Sapphon, we should consider withdrawal—fall back to the sector capital and build a new striking force, or we'll lose everything."
The meaning was plain.
Abandon parts of the battlespace, preserve the remnant, reach Vostonia's capital and call in more Chapters.
Grand Master of Chaplains and High Interrogator Sapphon—back hunched beneath a cross-shaped reliquary coffer, plate festooned with litanies and instruments of penance—listened without interruption, but his expression barely shifted.
He fixed Lazarus with a steady look. "You, of all of us, hate Chaos most. I had thought you would choose to fight here to the last."
Lazarus had stood the defense of the Rock and watched Calibanite home soil profaned. The Fifth had been ground to near extinction.
He alone had crawled back from that fire.
After, he shouldered the Fifth, rebuilt it by inches, and took up the Captain's mantle.
But the wound never healed. The hatred never cooled.
"Yes. No one hates them more than we do," Lazarus drew a deep breath. "But if we die here and fail to shield this sector, how many more humans will die in the time ahead?
"Draw back the fist, gather strength, and strike again. Only then do we hurt the abomination worse."
"I would agree—if Calisde were all. It is not.
"The eruption is not confined to this system but is spreading across the entire Vostonia Pan-Sector. The capital will only bear greater pressure, and our cousins guarding it cannot spare more aid."
Sapphon slowly shook his head.
"If we depart these lines, we concede the system. Knights of Caliban abandoning Imperial soil to the foe while our people die? There is no honor in that.
"And besides—we have no avenue left. The low-orbit spaceports are in enemy hands and smashed.
"Leave these defenses and we only court greater peril."
Silence fell again. Only one choice remained to the Dark Angels.
Stand. Or be swept away.
A Librarian hurried in.
Warp lightning still crawled faintly across his armor, the grey in his irises not yet faded. His face held a spark of joy.
"Master Sapphon, I have news of relief."
The pall in the hall lifted. Even Sapphon's eyes narrowed with surprise.
"Relief? Which brother Chapter? With what strength?"
"Not a fleet. A vision. I have received a revelation from the God-Emperor."
The Librarian's gaze turned devout.
"In this black hour, the God-Emperor has looked upon us and granted a miracle. One chosen by His hand will come to deliver us."
"A miracle…?"
Around the hall, Dark Angels straightened.
For the Emperor's Angels who fight in the Imperium's shadow, miracles are real enough. In the deepest dark, visions descend. Warriors are chosen.
Some take up the Black Sword and become an Emperor's Champion. Some tilt the tide entire.
Sapphon's initial thrill passed; cold returned to his voice.
Even an Emperor's Champion would not reverse this storm outright. The onslaught was too fierce.
Unless—unless the God-Emperor sent His sacred host?
Sapphon knew more than most. He had heard the whispered legends.
A legion born of the souls of the fallen, whom no material harm could truly slay, whose assault was sanctified flame.
They would stand in the path of heavy guns and not yield.
They would arrive where fate demanded, when fate demanded—prescient, inexorable.
They would turn defeat.
"If the God-Emperor sends the Legion of the Damned, we may yet be saved," Sapphon murmured.
Hope, thin but bright, touched the old Chaplain's clouded eyes.
"Master… the God-Emperor has not sent His sacred legion." The Librarian's words cut across the hope, and he could not hide his regret.
"Are we—Dark Angels, loyal sons, the Lion's get—unworthy of deliverance?!"
Sapphon severed that thought at the root. The warp's whispers were constant now, and doubt was their hook.
The Librarian straightened and spoke with fiercer reverence. "Though He has not sent that host, He has sent one more holy still.
"One chosen by His hand.
"A warrior clad in the golden war-plate He bestowed, wielding His sacred sword. He will descend upon Vostonia and deliver all mankind.
"His name—Hope Primarch, the Savior."
"The… Savior?"
Sapphon couldn't help it; the name left him sharp, almost shrill.
Not just anyone could bear that title. If the God-Emperor Himself had given it, that spoke for the bearer's might.
Around the chamber, Dark Angels mouthed the name. Awe turned swiftly to expectation.
A hum rippled the air.
Warp-light blossomed.
"This is what I saw," the Librarian said hoarsely, forcing more power into the projection. "Proof enough of what is true."
A tableau hung in the air, radiant with gold.
Out of a holy sun strode a giant in golden plate, Emperor's Sword held aloft.
"In the name of the Golden Sun and the Savior, I will descend upon Vostonia and drive out all darkness and evil!"
So spoke the golden-armored Savior.
"My Emperor…" The hall fell almost mute, Dark Angels near speechless—then bowed, as one, to the towering figure.
In a sweep, doubt washed out of them. No heretic or would-be usurper could work such sanctity. The Librarian himself had presided over a Champion's anointing. He would not be deceived.
In truth, Eden's (the Savior's) warp-borne sending had reached the Pan-Sector—pared thin by the storm, mistaken for an oracle of the Throne for its very tenor. It carried scraps—truth of the war, relief times, provisional supports, a word to the Lion.
Most of it was torn away in the gale, leaving only this shining fragment. And wrapped in its own aura, it looked like a God-Emperor's prophecy.
"A miracle," Sapphon said at last—and sealed it. "It is the God-Emperor's favor.
"A new Primarch, named Savior, is sent to us.
"I know that sword. The Emperor's own blade. None but one as great as a Primarch could bear it.
"This Hope Primarch—the Savior—will save us, this system, all Vostonia.
"He will cast out the dark."
The order went out at once.
"Lazarus—signal every company and Imperial commander. Spread the word of the Savior. We have hope of redemption.
"We will hold until He comes. The holy one is descending."
The image and the word flashed across the planet, then leapt from Calisde to its sister worlds.
Men and women saw the Savior's calm, terrible strength, and they believed.
Guns redoubled. In the crimson mists, the Imperium's fire burned hotter.
The counterblows came—harder, heavier, with fresh daemons landing in ruinous droves.
But mankind did not fear as they had.
What man dreads most is to be without hope.
Now they had hope. Now they had a reason to stand. Wills caught fire.
Back in the broken hive-fortress, Sapphon and the others read the newest reports. Morale spiked. Brothers and Guardsmen held longer than forecast.
Joy flickered—only to gutter at the next message.
A monstrous Greater Daemon had appeared.
It smashed a curtain wall, butchered multiple squads. The last Chaplain at that redoubt was leading a final charge.
"Our turn," Sapphon growled, hauling up a pole-axe that looked more like an instrument of penance. The priestly robe and ink-heavy litanies stitched to his armor snapped and streamed in the blast-heated wind.
It is known.
Among Astartes, Chaplains are often foremost in the press. A Master of Sanctity more so.
Thunderhawk gunships screamed off a surviving pad. Westward, toward the killing ground.
…
In the ruins:
"For the Lion!"
The Chaplain ignited his sword's field and led the squad into the mists—straight toward the vast shadow.
A roar answered—savage enough to blast the fog apart. The sonic shock made the squad writhe.
Only the Chaplain, soul-steel strong, forced through it and leapt, axe falling—metal shrieked, warped, and tore.
"No—!"
The squad looked up, eyes blood-bright.
"Pah. Insects."
The thing took shape—wreathed in fire, two titanic brass horns spearing skyward.
In its hand squirmed the Chaplain, blood spilling through its fingers.
With a wet crunch, the Bloodthirster crushed armor and flesh as one.
It tossed the body like refuse, then dropped its bulk onto the shattered plinth of the Emperor's statue and stared down at the squad, amused.
"On knees. Beg. Or… bring stronger prey."
A brash brother lunged; the daemon swatted him to paste, its Low Gothic a rasp of knives. It didn't even bother to chase the rest, content to toy with the sweets while waiting for the main course.
Oppression pressed on the ruin like a thumb on an ant.
Crack-crack-crack—
Bolt fire stitched sparks across burning brass.
They fired anyway. They knew there was no escape. Better to die as knights than be defiled.
"Pitiful."
Irritated at last, the daemon reached to smash them flat—then flinched as cannons stitched its hide.
Thunderhawk flak. The Bloodthirster's gaze lifted.
Two armored figures vaulted from an open hatch and hit hard enough to fissure slabs.
Captain Lazarus. The Librarian.
They split, raking the daemon with twin-linked bolt salvos and gouts of witch-fire—anything to fix its eye.
"Hmph."
The Bloodthirster batted aside shells and flame alike or let them splatter against brazen plate. It did not step back.
Its gaze had locked past them—on the gunship door, where Sapphon stood, the litanies on his armor aglow.
"Heretic, die!"
Master Sapphon seized his moment. He roared, hurled himself from the sky, and brought the axe down like a thunderbolt.
The power field screamed.
A heavy alchemic shell from Lazarus punched the daemon's helm. Witch-chains from the Librarian snagged for a heartbeat.
No room left to slip.
The axe fell—
Clang.
When the smoke peeled away, axe-edge was sunk into the Bloodthirster's pauldron, tar-black blood spilling.
"Warrior. You fail."
The daemon leered. A fresh gouge scored one horn where it had jerked its head aside at the last instant.
Sapphon ripped his axe free and pressed with the others—strike and chant and shell—but the wounds were pinpricks.
"You are not enough. Send stronger."
Flame erupted. The Bloodthirster swelled red and hateful. It clamped a talon around the axe head.
"Aaagh—!"
Heat and might ran up the haft and over Sapphon's plate as the sacred texts sewn there flared and burned away in a heartbeat.
Whump.
A single blow hurled Sapphon through masonry. A lash of the tail scattered the other two. Armor split. Systems died.
They cratered in the wreckage, struggling—not to stand. To breathe.
A mountain of brass and fire loomed over them.
A thin ribbon of despair wound through Sapphon's chest.
A shriek ripped the sky.
A fleet—breaking the storm. A spear of light—falling.
And many more behind it.
Drop-pods.
Reinforcements.
A Heldrake scythed across the line and raked the leading pod with balefire. The pod blew apart mid-air.
A figure tore free of the blast in a shower of hull-iron, hit the daemon-dragon like a meteor, and rode it down.
The crash shook the quarter. Dust and crimson fog geysered.
Out of the shroud came a giant with a sword—pressure like a hymn rolling on the air.
He walked, and each step came toward the Bloodthirster—and toward Sapphon.
"Such presence…"
Sapphon glanced at Lazarus, then the Librarian. Joy flared in all three.
It could only be him. The figure from the vision.
He—had come.
At last the giant in the blood-mist spoke, voice weighty as judgment.
"I am… the Li—"
Cheers rose around him, drowning the words.
"By the Emperor, the Savior has come!"
"Savior! Savior!"
"…?"
In the crimson murk, the First Primarch—the Lion—choked on the title. The solemn lines of his face simply… collapsed.
(End of Chapter)
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