Blood Gorgons - By Henry Zou Page 0,7
pressured them, staying in their pocket and exchanging a blizzard of shots. Blood‐Sergeant Abasilis and his bond, Bond‐Brother Gharne, moved to intercept the dark eldar flanking pincer on their left, banging off crisp, precise shots.
Gharne had been blinded in the firefight, his helmet discarded and his eyes shorn by shrapnel. Abasilis called out coordinates to the sightless Gharne, directing his bolter wherever the enemy gathered to return fire.
Movement was the only thing that prevented the Blood Gorgons from being pinned in the open. Gammadin, still facing the enemy, moved backwards into the lake. His combi-bolter was spent of bolt shells. The dark eldar chased him, daring to rush so close that Gammadin could see into the vision slits of their helmets. Easily excited, the dark eldar 10
were growing careless in their pursuit. Gammadin raised his right arm, the monstrous chitin of his pincer, and caught them as they lunged in. With his left he expelled the last of his flamer.
The dark eldar caught in the high pressure stream shrieked and died loudly, their inferior carapaces charring under the chemical flame. Capable of stripping paint off a tank-hide in its raw form, when ignited the palmitic acid burned to a glowing white two thousand degrees. Within seconds the dark eldar were melted into stumps of fused plating and flesh. Corrosive fumes billowed out in a thick, cloying raft, driving back those dark eldar who were hounding Gammadin too closely.
Behind Gammadin, Blood‐Sergeant Khadath, Carcosa and Blood‐Captain Hammurabi escorted Muhr, who was extracting Nagael’s gene‐seed with his scissor hands. The trio surrounded the witch‐chirurgeon, firing outwards as they fought their way towards Gammadin. A dark eldar raider, too confident in his abilities, darted low at Hammurabi, twin blades trailing. The ancient captain dismissed him with a back‐handed slap, breaking the dark eldar’s neck while he continued to cycle through his bolter. Khadath suddenly fell, his neck ruptured. Carcosa caught him by his bolter sling and dragged him backwards.
Gammadin milked the last of his flame chambers as he watched the dark eldar close in.
How many of them were there? Hundreds?Certainly, judging by the bodies that were beached on the shores.
The remaining Impassives, their bolters now slung, slaughtered their way deep into the lake with mace, axe and hammer. They drove a path through the dark eldar who tried to engage them hand to hand. For all the speed and deft blade‐skill of the xenos raiders, the Impassives crushed them with brute strength. Bond‐Brother Gemistos led the way, sprinting at full speed, all three hundred kilos of him. An ironclad juggernaut crashed through the dark eldar, swinging his antlered helmet from side to side.
Together the Impassives clustered around Gammadin like a shield wall. They became a solid phalanx of ceramite. The dark eldar could not manoeuvre close enough to surround them. Bolt shells whistled and spat through the water grass.
And that was when Muhr revealed his hand.
Trailing behind, the witch moved away from his lord. The dark eldar around him did not strike nor fire upon him, even as he raised his arms to summon his powers. A sudden wind gusted across the river, flattening the grass on the banks as it reached a high‐pitched crescendo.
‘Witch!’ shouted Gammadin. ‘What manner of–’
Gammadin was cut short as Muhr clapped his hands. The air pressure dropped as if in a vacuum. Shadows began to rise out of the boiling current, humanoid in shape, with multiple reaching hands.
The water frothed violently around the Impassives. Shadowy apparitions bubbled forth from the river and began to swarm over them. The mud beneath the Chaos Space Marines’
feet gurgled wetly, slipping and sliding as if falling away.
‘Muhr. You are not worthy of the Blood Gorgon title,’ Gammadin whispered on the squad link.
The lake bottom suddenly imploded with a thunderous gurgle. It yawned like a sinkhole, thirstily draining water into its aqueous abyss. Four Impassives were carried down by the crashing flood of water. Gammadin sank down on one knee, fighting for purchase in the mud. Warning lights flashed across his vision as the spirit of his armour 11
began to babble nonsense in his ears. The ground beneath him continued to give way.
Sensing his weakness, warp hounds began to paddle across the lake towards him.
‘I have plenty left for you!’ he roared, drawing a scimitar from his back scabbard. The pitted blade was almost two metres in length, scarred and nicked from centuries of service.
It resembled a tool rather than a blade, a piece of metal stripped of any elegance in favour of the