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He and his warriors reached a crossway, and he brought them to a reluctant halt. Only a sliver of possibility had been made available to him at this junction, but he could not afford to press on without investigating the possibility. He did not touch the Immaterium. If the sliver was accurate, he would have his answer in a few moments. Alexandros pointed to his left. "Form up, prepare for large contact."

His sons dispersed into a prearranged formation. One not of Alexandros' creation. Before any of the Primarchs had been found, the Legiones Astartes, probably with the Emperor's guidance, had crafted a series of tactical responses. Alexandros was curious what danger the Emperor had foreseen that would require a tactical deployment specifically against giant creatures.

The Wardens scattered, taking positions against the walls. Unlike formations against smaller, more numerous foes, the general philosophy against larger foes was to allow them space to flow in-between the formation. Simply standing and holding against such bulk would have pointless consequences. Best to spread out, invite the beast within the prearranged firing lanes, and blast it from all sides, until a weakness could be identified.

The said beast crashed through one of the tunnels. It was the centipede-beetle giant hybrid reported previously. Volkite fire slammed into its flanks. It howled, but Alexandros ensured its attention was on him.

He had not taken cover like his sons. Instead, he stood in the center of the crossway, blatant and defiant. As he wished, the beast focused on him. A bolt of plasma helped. The liquid fire melted a limb off and identified Alexandros as its greatest threat.

It released an insectoid roar and charged at him.

Alexandros held his ground as he hefted Aegis. The beast threw fifteen metric tons against the Lord of the Fifth. Alexandros grunted as he was forced back a centimeter. Then two. No more. As limited as the beast was, Darshan sensed a note of confusion in its mind. Alexandros grinned before he shoved the beast back a centimeter. Appendages slammed against the Primarch but his immaculate armor held. Another centimeter slid against the Scaran war-beast. "There," Alexandros said before Xiphos sliced from its sheath. The beast screamed as the powered blade cut deeply into its head.

The beast reeled back before a fatal blow was inflicted. It mattered not. Great gouges in its side burned of charred exoskeleton as the Wardens made excellent use of their sire's distraction. Alexandros lunged forward faster than the war-beast could retreat. More alien blood sizzled as Alexandros struck deep. It released a dying wail as its wounds tipped it over towards Death's waiting scythe.

~~~

"Brigadier, we're engaged."

"Carry out your orders!" Crassus growled into the vox. It was not that he was angry with his subordinate. It was the distraction the few hundred Scarans were providing. They came charging into the tunnel in broken groups of a dozen or two. This rendered them not much threat to the various defensive points Crassus commanded, but he was greatly concerned with ammunition. As such, all units, unless threatened by overwhelming force, were under orders to engage in melee to save supplies where possible.

With a single swing, Crassus bifurcated one of the ugly aliens. Beside him, Geist shook the cave entrance as the dreadnought crushed two of the aliens with a bulky arm. Crassus was thankful for the large, mechanical warrior. Between the two of them, they had successfully held the entrance, preventing any from slipping past them. As much as Crassus wanted to claim credit due to his impressive swordwork, Geist's sheer size was the true reason none of the Scarans had slipped past them.

That did not mean he was leading in kills, however.

Crassus was already using his momentum to shift into another stance was another two aliens came at him.

Crassus swept his his sword in a wide arc, catching both of them. Xeno bile and blood sizzled as the power field sliced and burned flesh. One died immediately, while the other shook with pain. Not enough pain to stop it from lunging at Crassus. The former Storm Rider grunted as it lobbed against his armor. Too close for his blade, Crassus slammed his head into its. The alien warbled something as the force sent a step back. That was all the room needed for Crassus to curve his blade upward. It carved deeply into the Scaran's exoskeleton. The thing fell dead, and Crassus hurried to stop another four.

~~~

Rubble rumbled before exploding into the primary hive chamber. Alexandros and his sons charged through the new gap. On the opposite side of the chamber, Icarion led his own Lightning Bearers in a similar assault.

Their target laid between the two.

The shadow from Alexandros' vision revealed itself in its full hideous. The queen was thrice the size of the war-beast he had slain. It lay in a bloated pile of mass and chitin, eight massive legs stretched to its sides. Its abdomen displayed the majority of its bulk, occupied as it was in laying more eggs. The most dangerous physical aspect was undoubtedly the large jaws extending from its mouth. As Alexandros watched, those jaws crushed an elephantine creature as it fed.

Icarion and Alexandros glanced at the most pressing threat. The hundreds and hundreds of flying Scarans who formed the final defense of their queen. "Engage covering fire!" The two brothers ordered as the pair charged for the objective.

Crimson beams of Mars carved through the insectoid flock as Wardens and Bearers obeyed. In answer, the Scaran fliers descended upon humanity's finest warriors. Alexandros did not fear them. He did not fear any physical threat in this chamber.

It was the enormous psychic presence which threatened victory.

The giant shadow long threatening Alexandros' visions manifested itself in the form of the Scaran queen. It was more hideous than the glimpses he had gleaned from his powers. It was twice as bulky as the Scaran war-beasts, not with muscle but fat. It was curled inward, leaving only enough room for its head and its egg-laying sac. Fat rippled as it sluggishly moved its bulk. Six black eyes regarded the intruders with scorn and rage.

Physically, it could not be an easier target.

Darshan and Icarion gritted their teeth as they braced themselves.

The Scaran queen screeched. The noise alone was piercing. The wave of Warp-heat following in its wake slammed against the Emperor's sons.

Both of them weathered the assault, but not equally. Icarion paused as his defenses blocked and redirected the energy around his soul. Three seconds later, he advanced without ill effect. Alexandros, on the other hand, stumbled as he prevented his life from being burned away. He could feel heat cocooning him as he kept the worst of it away, but it took ten solid seconds before he could safely move.

I really do need to work on my ethereal endurance, he thought sourly to himself.

By the time he moved, Icarion struck the first blow. His spear cut deep into the queen's flank, spraying ichor onto the ground.

~~~

Crassus couldn't stop the groan spilling from his throat. With a silent fury, he stopped the alien from retracting its talon as he slammed the pommel of his sword into its eyes. The blow was weak for a transhuman, but he was rewarded by its squeals of pain as soft tissue collapsed. Satisfied, he pushed the Scaran away from him. Its talon slipped out of the gap in his armor where blood now spitted. It would not be lethal in of itself, but Crassus recognized he was reaching his limit.

Swallowing his rage, he stepped back allowed his brothers to envelop him in their ranks.

No longer did the Scarans come in disorganized clumps of chitin. It was a steady stream of the xenos. Similar streams pushed against his entire command as the Wardens fought to not let any of them through. It was a goal they were succeeding at. But the first casualty notices were reaching the Brigadier's ears.

Crassus activated his vox-link. "All units, fire at will. Pay no heed to ammunition and send these beasts' corpses back to the surface!"

The thunder of bolters exploded across the vox and in Crassus' chamber. When would he escape VonSalim's damned, prophetic dooms?

For the first time, he felt a pang of regret as he watched the man-sized insects flood in. After his meeting with VonSalim, he had allowed his anger to rule his next deployment. He and his brothers with him were placed in the center of the firestorm. Back then, Crassus had imagined that not only would he disprove his Primarch's prophecies, but he would do so after surviving the worst position.

The first Warden halted fire. The first necessary reload had come. The marine volley suffered little more than a 6% reduction in strength. Yet, Crassus counted one, two, and then more Scarans surviving the fire. After being thrown back by the intensified firepower, the Scaran line inched back toward the marines.

Idly, Crassus wondered how his counterpart was faring.

~~~

Tasetar frowned as his volkite pistol was torn from his grip. It was unavoidable. For all of the great utility foresight offered, the power to see the future came with its own limitations. The body, after all, was only flesh and blood. No matter how much he might have willed it, he could not force his body to ignore the weight of gravity or command his bones to bear more than they could stand.

The future was its own master. He could learn from it and guide it to a degree. Yet, in the end, it would arrive in its own time without care for any desire or wish.

So it was, Tasetar found himself and his brothers beginning to drown in an unending tide of chitin and critter.

~~~

Alexandros paused as he prevented his body from spontaneously combusting. Both physically and spiritually. The queen's rage continued to rise as Alexandros cut deep into its flank. Icarion mirrored a similar blow against the other side of its bloated body. The queen replied with more heat as it sought to defend itself and its domain.

The barrier between reality and unreality grew thinner as the instinctual beast pulled more of the Immaterium's unruly waves. Both Primarchs dodged. Icarion sliding gracefully to the side while Alexandros hopped away. The spaces where they had occupied erupted into pinkish flame coming from nowhere and everywhere.

This is taking too long, Darshan noted.

The issue was that the queen had yet to approach any theoretical limit of her power. She wasn't pulling on the Warp on her own but was channeling an additional fountain through the Scaran homeworld's strange network of magma-Warp flow. As the queen's efforts to defender herself grew more desperate, she forced more of the planetary system to funnel heat and power to her. Not only was there a real danger of a true Warp breach exploding into existence, but Alexandros sensed the planet's physical health would not be able to handle such brute manipulation of its upper mantle.

As if it to confirm his suspicions, a rumble roared through the entire hive as a different kind of heat grew angry below. Half-expecting it, Alexandros danced with the shifting earth as he dodged another combustion. He glanced downward for an instant.

Alexandros could survive many things.

Bathing in lava was not one of them.

No answer could be summoned by his potent future-sight. The Immaterium boiled and roiled and burned away any paths to the future for him to gaze. "The future is blinded to me," he called out to Icarion, forced to discard his telepathic gifts as well.

"As am I," Icarion replied as he spun his spear. The blade caught a limb of the queen and neatly sliced it off. "Even so, one does not need to see the future to see we have only minutes."

A loud crack whipped Alexandros' attention to the cave's ceiling. Weakened by the brief earthquake, a stalactite thrice his size lost its grip. The dagger of earth plummeted toward the Primarch. Alexandros sprinted from the impact zone a moment before the impromptu missile collided with the floor. Pieces of dirt flung against his armor with no effect.

Then the queen's monstrous tail slammed into him. Its bloated girth had enough strength to send him flying back several dozen meters. He landed on his feet, more chagrined than harmed. However, his forced withdrawal, momentary as it might be, allowed the Scaran queen to focus her entire attention on Icarion.

A flash of lightning fired from his person and struck her chest. An answering scream accompanied her counter. She swung a talon toward him. The talon missed as he easily dodged. The wave of fire which burst from the blow's wake caught Icarion by surprise.

He shielded himself with an arm, and the exquisite craftsmanship of Mars bubbled beneath the supernatural heat. The fire flitted from existence. Icarion recovered just in time for the queen to lay another blow against him. This one connected, and he was smashed to the cavern's floor.

She reeled back. Then screeched as Alexandros tackled against her bulky flank, Xiphos embedded deep within its body. Alexandros ran along the flank, cutting as he did. The queen wiggled and forced him back when she began to roll over.

He stepped away with time to spare and saw Icarion was back on his feet.

The cave's temperature continued its hellish climb.

~~~

Crassus heard the last bolt fire. He saw it hit. It rip a Scaran in half. And he knew his tactical situation had finally become desperate. Burned blood and sizzling viscera clung to his weapon in small clumps. Even with his mental conditioning, he struggled to remember how many aliens he had slain.

He gutted another one as he saw Bode dragged down by a swarm of the disgusting xenos. Beside him, Geist continued his implacable defense. The Scarans could not pierce his armor, but they had learned to aim for the hoses and gears enabling mobility. Three Scarans had sacrificed themselves to jam the dreadnought's left leg. It would have been a simple matter to pull out the bodies and parts, but no Warden could spare a single second to aid their ancient warrior.

A loud crack grabbed Crassus' attention. He saw the ceiling and floor shift. A chunk of the ceiling fell upon the Scarans butchering Bode. Crassus took no solace in the minor blessing of fate as the Scarans could replace their numbers.

He couldn't.

"Beware!" He bellowed over the vox. "Eyes open and hold!"

~~~

Tasetar saw a similar crack appearing before his head. Not at the moment, no. He possessed eight seconds before it would appear.

It, however, was unavoidable.

With a melancholic smile hidden behind his helm, Tasetar prepared himself. Truly, there was nothing so exquisitely painful as grim and unyielding foreknowledge. "My brothers, hold! Honor the Stormborn and Emperor and hold!"

The crack snapped across the cave's ceiling. A pebble fell from the new opening and bounced off of Tasetar's armor as he gutted the sixty-seventh Scaran. So many he had slain, and still more poured into the cave's entrance. The Lightning Bearers stood half in number. Yet, they did not yield a single metre without an extravagant blood price.

A pity we could not demand such a tithe from the planet itself, Tasetar mused to himself. Another tremor pulsed through the area. A boulder lost its grip on the ceiling. Tasetar's smile grew larger and more solemn as he killed the sixty-eighth xeno.

His sword never left the alien corpse as the boulder crushed its owner without care or knowledge of its preordained path.