Khârn touched his shattered pauldron in disbelief. This xenos had actually evaded his strike? The realization ignited a boundless conflagration of war-fury within his heart.
Khârn leveled Gorechild at Queek, his voice a distorted roar of rage. "Xenos! You have earned the right to die by the hand of Khârn, Chosen of Khorne! Speak your name! Let me howl it in prayer when I offer your skull to the Skull Throne!!"
Queek's whiskers twitched. With a look of pure loathing, he crossed his Warp-power sword and power pick, grinding them together to send a shower of emerald sparks flying like a whetstone's kiss. He glared at Khârn, his voice a manic, epileptic screech: "Khorne? Khorne?! No-no! Queek hates-loathes this… Great Horned Rat YES-YES, Khorne-thing NO-NO!!"
Queek truly detested Khorne. Though he was the most "Khornate" of all Skaven, as a child of the Rat he instinctively worshipped the Great Horned Rat, and he found the concept of "Blood for the Blood God, regardless of the source" repulsive. As a Skaven, Queek only wanted the enemy's blood; spilling his own was simply bad business.
"Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!!" The expression beneath Khârn's helm grew more ferocious by the second. He swung both axes in unison, charging Queek like a runaway crimson locomotive.
This full-tilt charge put Queek under immediate pressure. Fortunately, having undergone Astartes augmentation, his speed and reflexes could now rival those of the transhuman giants, in fact, thanks to the Skaven's hyper-accelerated metabolism, Queek's twitch-reactions were arguably faster than Khârn's.
Gorechild roared as it swept toward Queek's face. The Warlord of Eight Peaks, possessing no sense of warrior's pride, immediately performed a frantic "rat-roll" to dive under the arc of the axe.
"Queek! Kill you-you!!" Queek continued to tumble across the dirt, his twin weapons blurring in a frenzied whirl against Khârn's shins and ankles, forcing the Chosen of Khorne to stumble back.
Khârn slammed his axes downward to pin Queek's weapons, then delivered a brutal front kick. The sheer force dented Queek's power armor and sent the Skaven flying a dozen meters. Queek hit the ground and lay there, whimpering and twitching, seemingly incapacitated.
Khârn closed in for the execution, his eyes fixed on Queek's head. Even Lucius, watching from afar, thought Queek was finished; the Archmagos was already preparing to intervene personally.
But then, the prone Queek flashed a cunning, jagged grin. His tail snaked behind his back, plucking a Votann electromagnetic grenade from a pouch on his lower spine.
"YES! Die-die! No one beats Queek! NO ONE!!" With a frantic claw-flick, Queek hurled the EM grenade directly into Khârn's face.
"What?!" Khârn was caught completely off guard. He had assumed Queek was a noble, if alien, berserker like himself, committed to a fight to the death. It seemed xenos were xenos after all, treacherous to the core.
The EM grenade detonated against Khârn's helm. The high-tech Votann device sent a massive surge through Khârn's systems, temporarily paralyzing the power cells of his armor. His movements seized as he was suddenly forced to carry the dead weight of several hundred kilos of ceramite and fiber-bundles.
Queek seized the opening. His arms blurred into a "windmill" of erratic, berserk strikes, raining a flurry of desperate blows upon Khârn. Seeing the danger, Khârn hurled one of his chainaxes at Queek, the heavy weapon striking the rat-man and knocking him back, halting the assault.
"Treacherous xenos, you will not escape!!" Khârn bellowed, straining against the locked joints of his dead armor as he forced himself upright through sheer, bloody-minded strength.
The sight terrified Queek. His beady eyes darted around, noting that his Red Guard were beginning to take casualties. He decided the math didn't add up. Springing into the air, he landed in the thick of the melee between the World Eaters and the Red Guard.
His power pick shattered several skulls in an instant. Queek shrieked: "Retreat-flee! Now! Queek does not do bad deals! Yes-yes!"
Ska Bloodtail swept his Warp-Lightning Glaive in a wide arc, knocking back a World Eater armed with a massive greataxe. He nodded to Queek; though silent, his loyalty was absolute.
The battle had reached a white-hot intensity. Led by Ska, the Stormvermin of the Red Guard began unleashing arcs of warp-lightning from their glaives to push back the ferocious Berzerkers.
When the lightning struck, neither the World Eaters' rage, their mutated musculature, nor their power armor could protect them. The warp-energy left charred, weeping furrows in their flesh.
"Retreat! Retreat!" Queek screamed, leading the Red Guard as they turned tail and bolted.
Khârn watched the xenos flee with a murderous roar, desperate to order a pursuit, but his armor's power had not yet reset. When the other World Eaters tried to give chase, they were met with a parting volley of warp-lightning.
Forced to take cover from the unnatural bolts, the World Eaters were reduced to firing their bolters in frustration as they watched the Red Guard vanish into the distance.
"Hahaha, truly entertaining. What a pathetic display," Typhus jeered from his vantage point.
Though he loathed xenos as much as any man, Typhus was Nurgle's "favored son" who had dragged his entire Legion into damnation. In a "game" personally orchestrated by the Grandfather, he wouldn't dare slip up. Seeing Khârn humiliated by a rat-man filled him with glee; he immediately ordered the Death Guard to fortify their positions, intending to win through a war of attrition.
Mad as he was, Khârn was no fool. He pulled the World Eaters back to regroup and repair. Thus, the three-way skirmish between the "Rat-startes" and the Legions came to a temporary, panting halt.
Inside the Forge of Souls…
Lucius wore a look of smug satisfaction. Queek hadn't shamed him. Once this was over, he'd promote the rat to "Chosen" as a reward.
Slaanesh was even more delighted. Seeing Khorne's most prized champion made to look a fool by a common rat-creature made the Dark Prince hum with joy. Slaanesh turned to Khorne, preening and swaying provocatively.
"Ooh~ I never expected the Lord of Skulls' own Chosen to end up in such a state. How tragic, hahaha~ And if I'm not mistaken, our newcomer hasn't even officially Chosen him yet. Oh, how very sad~"
Slaanesh's repeated taunts finally snapped Khorne's patience. The Blood God surged to his feet, eyes glowing like molten magma as he glared at Slaanesh and the Great Horned Rat.
Slaanesh, completely unbothered, draped a long, slender, silk-smooth arm around Lucius's neck. A serpentine tongue flicked out from a rose-bud mouth, emitting a soft hiss.
"Don't be afraid, newcomer. With big brutes like this, you have to show them who's boss before they'll calm down~" Slaanesh teased, clearly trying to draw Lucius into a common front against the Blood God.
Just as Khorne looked ready to strike, Nurgle reached out and pulled him back. The Great Father spoke in a heavy, jovial rumble: "Now, now... don't be a spoilsport. It's rare we all play together. Don't ruin the fun for everyone."
Though he sounded like a peacemaker, Nurgle was clearly siding with Slaanesh and the Great Horned Rat, after all, Typhus hadn't embarrassed himself yet.
With three gods standing together and the Emperor watching coldly from the sidelines, Khorne knew he was outnumbered. He took the opening to sit back down, simmering in a cold rage.
"Giggle~ Well done, darling~" Slaanesh let out a bell-like laugh, licking Lucius's cheek with a flick of the tongue as a reward.
Lucius glanced at the gods but said nothing. In his eyes, the Four were like four spoiled players with the power to unmake reality. But that suited him just fine.
"Let us continue," Lucius said. "The main course is about to be served."
——————
If you want to read ahead of everyone, go to my pat-reon: pat-re-on.c-om/magnor (remove the hyphen to access normally)