The night sky spread before him like a blanket of darkness penetrated by the trillions of solitary lights that hung suspended there. In the two centuries that he had fought and bled for his God-Emperor, his Primarch and his Chapter he had conquered innumerable worlds and untold star systems; yet he could not help but sense the enormity of the galactic tapestry that lay above him.

The night chill of Kasr Partox caressed his exposed skin and he could feel the cold ebbing its way into his bones. The crimson gauntlet surrounding his right hand and arm was shredded to pieces and the arm contained within was flayed nearly to the bone. He expected to see warning sigils flashing across his vision, informing him of the injuries to both himself and his armor, when he realized that his helmet had been removed by some force he could not recall.

Sweat poured down his forehead and over his brow as he tried to focus on retarding the pain shooting from his ruined appendage that had arrived so suddenly and so violently. His arm was the least of his concerns, however, as he slowly became aware of the other wounds he had sustained. A single, deep score ran across the crimson and gold breast plate of his power armor that could only have been caused by the explosive tipped round of a bolter. A second round had rent a hole as large as a fist in his left shoulder pauldron, defacing the right hand wing of his Chapter’s symbol and shattering the ruby blood drop encrusted in its face.

His senses began to feel dull and distant as the life he possessed came flowing out of him in cascades of crimson. He could taste the copper tang of vitae permeating the air and from within him came a sickening blood lust. He could feel the fury of the Thirst rising within him, threatening to consume him from within his noble warriors frame. The welling of such an emotional torrent was difficult for him to bear; however, he had been forced to overcome it every day since he had joined the hallowed ranks of the Adeptus Astartes and he quickly kept himself in check. He tried to remember how he had come to be where he now lay and slowly began to recover his thoughts.

He could recall the screaming of the Thunderhawk Gunship’s engines as the craft had rocketed toward Thraccian Hive located in the southern hemisphere of Kasr Partox. He strained to assemble the fragmentary pieces of his memory and he suddenly recalled the violent jarring of the gunship as it had crashed into its intended landing hanger. It was then that he remembered how he had come to be here, sprawled across the smooth ferrocrete steps. He lay on the great stone steps of the Cathedral of Saints, built crowning one of the largest spires of Thraccian Hive known as Sector 11. Sector 11 consisted of the Xeren Space Port, a hub for most of the southern hemisphere’s transportation, making it strategically vital to both the Imperium and its enemies, and Manufactorum Darros, one of the largest producers of rare and formidable weaponry in the sector.

The steps of the Cathedral were immense, and the bas relief in their countenance, lit by the distant fires of war, displayed battles and acts of heroism long since forgotten. He cast his gaze to the left and the lights from dozens of battles raging across the Hive’s various spires and far deeper below toward the Underhive made the figures in the stone seem to come alive. For a moment Brother Sergeant Eligio felt as though he had been cast back in time, his shadow dancing and jumping across the stone heroes displayed so proudly. Several of the priceless works of masterful Masonic skill were scarred by the streaks of stray plasma and chunks were shorn from the thick ebon slabs where heavy bolter rounds had burrowed their way into the obsidian structures. Then with unnatural swiftness the lights from the distant battlefields died and a sinister shadow was cast over his broad warrior frame.

The figure stood what seemed to be miles above Eligio, clad in blood-colored armor that very nearly mirrored his own. But where Eligio’s armor was proud, the figure’s was vain, where Eligio’s armor was beauteous, the figure’s stood grotesque. Golden ceramite barbs decorated the figure’s armor from head to toe and seemed to celebrate the damage that every individual one of them could reap on some poor innocent soul. From the unholy images and icons displayed across the figure’s armor, Eligio knew that this was a Champion of the foe, a World Eater and slave to the Chaos god Khorne. The vile air that ebbed and flowed through and from the unholy cladding of the traitor was a testament to the nightmares that the once proud members of the XII Legio Astartes had become in the millennia since their fall to the Ruinous Powers.

The stench of freshly spilled vitae and death enveloped the Khornate Champion as though the very air surrounding it was revolted by the heresy and the affront to nature that this foul beast was. The Champion brandished a chain-axe, characteristic of his primogenitor Legion, in his right hand and a plasma pistol in the other that shed violet light over the horrific scene unfolding before it. The axe’s adamantine blades whirred around the head’s circumference as though urging its master to let it bathe in Eligio’s blood and bury itself deep in his flesh. The Champion of Khorne stared at him for a moment as still as a statue and then with a growling snicker that betrayed its delight, the figure spoke. The words hung heavy on the air and their sound was one of guttural report. 

“So low do I lay the sons of the bastard Primarch Sanguinius for Khorne. No better an example of your pathetic Legion could I hope to find. Such wastes of flesh and bone, so weak and full of hubris you all are.”

Eligio did not make a sound. He would not grant this foul denizen of the warp the pleasure of tormenting him with worthless banter. He simply stared back at the Chaos slave through gritted teeth, his canines pronounced and bared. The Champion seemed to enjoy the moment all the same and with a final blasphemous utterance raised his howling axe high above his head to bring death to Brother Sergeant Eligio.

After all the horrors he had faced with sword and bolter, chain and axe in the name of the Emperor of Mankind and Sanguinius, was this to be his end? Death did not cause his disquiet, his inner discord that seemed to split his very skull with intensity, only the thought that his duty had yet to be completed. A duty that had begun on a gore colored desert planet far from the place he now lay. A duty that had been given to him by a living legend amongst the ranks of the Adeptus Astartes and indeed the very Imperium itself, his Chapter Master and leader of the Blood Angels, Lord Commander Dante. He had been entrusted with such a vital and sacred task in this, the darkest of hours. Eligio could not fail in his mission for he was a Blood Angel and he would never give in to despair while he still drew breath.

Suddenly the cursed axe head was hurtling down toward him and with an effort that threatened to sap the last of his strength he hurled himself straight forward and then upward, underneath the wide arc of the swing and hit the Champion squarely in the chest with his blood soaked pauldron. The thunderous report of ceramite on ceramite resonated off the Cathedral steps and Eligio knew that he had caught the servant of Khorne by surprise. Adrenaline flooded through his system and with one swift motion he crashed his functioning gauntleted hand against the traitor’s helm driving him further back. Eligio collapsed to the ground in exhaustion and the synapses of searing pains from his numerous wounds flooded his mind, but he knew that he had bought himself precious time.

However, before he could press home his sudden advantage, a violent crash ripped through the air and blasted from the floor around Eligio, flinging him sidelong into a giant plasteel pillar. He rolled himself onto his stomach and watched as the great edifice of the Cathedral began to collapse and disappear into the floors below him. A great maw had ripped open in the face of the spire and was swallowing everything in its path. The steps of the Cathedral fell away underneath Eligio and suddenly he was weightless, the lights of the battles above him fading as he fell into the darkness below.