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Flame and Darkness

The scattered habitats of the workers of Idris, an outlying mine town, were burning.......

The many corpses of the former inhabitants of Idris were burning.....

The shattered temple to the Emperor of Mankind were burning....

Amongst the devastation drifted hungry shadows, searching for scraps of suffering and lost hope that would mark the presence of survivors. Lithely they stalked through the dangerous maze of collapsed buildings and still burning transports, before the rumbling caught their all too sharp and predatory attention.

The Imperium was often slow to react to threats to its populous but those who enacted His will often took comfort that where they could not save the innocent, they could enact vengeance on those who would defy Him. In particular the Adepta Sororitas, the Sisters of Battle, were very well practised in the arts of vengeance - through the Holy trinity of bolter, flame and melta.

The small force of power armoured women began to dismount from their rhinos, their movements economical, efficient and with little need for the shouted commands of the Guard. Immolators covered the cautious advance, heavy flamers and multi-melta ready to cleanse the unknown perpetrators.

Bolters and Melta guns swung in complex sweeping patterns, searching for targets and forming transient kill zones, whilst the comforting hiss of the flamer was audible through the autosenses of the armour. From above came a roar as the Seraphim arrived, alighting on a formerly towering hab block, now a guttering ruin full of the blackened skeletons of its inhabitants.

..........................

The Archon was old, the agonies, despair and torments of his most recent victims only sharpening his thirst rather than slaking it, so it was with some relief that his inferiors reported the arrival of the Mon'Keigh warrior females.

The Kabal dispersed quickly and silently through the buildings as the Lord mounted his blade strewn Raider, flanked by silent Incubi and sycophants alike. Already on board, his Haemonclus whispered to himself and his creation, a massive monstrosity of blades, metal and hunger. Two more Raiders drifted behind, one awash with near naked Wyches, constantly in motion on its deck, hull and rigging. The other bore more of the statue like Incubi, a heavy investment for the Archon, one that would need to be paid in souls reaped before he returned to the Dark City of Commorragh.
........................

Palatine Lucretia was a veteran of many conflicts - having fought heretics and Xenos alike and it always filled her heart with righteous fire to see the works raised in His name undone by the enemies of mankind. She hoped that the raiders had not already fled the scene of their outrages, as had previously been the case when her forces had responded to frantic calls for help from outlying settlements.

She was confident of her Sisters ability to cope with whatever the galaxy threw at them, but still she was unsure what to make of the communication she had received from the Astartes commander regarding creatures he named Dusk Wraiths, the Xenos he thought responsible for the raids.

Vox was still unreliable and only fragments of his words had reached her and those that did seemed to be passages from an unknown piece of scripture. She of course appreciated the value of such words - catechisms and verses were after all often on her own lips, but she also appreciated plain speaking.



There was no warning of the ambush, the machines of the attackers hidden from the sensors and auspex of the primitive Mon'Keigh drifting over or through the machines of the Dark Eldar. An imperious and theatrical gesture from the Archon and the arcane power of the Dark Lances reached out across the chosen battlefield to caress the lumbering blocky vehicles with the arcane energies.

.................................

Surprisingly little damage was inflicted on the silver and black Rhinos and Immolators of the Sororitas force and their response was swift and decisive. Having revealed itself by its ineffectual fire, the Archons raider found itself sought out by a sleek missile, which obliterated the delicate engines and sent the vehicle crashing to the ground in flames.

The Archon stepped out of the wreckage at the very moment it hit the ground and he and his retinue flowed towards the nearest group of Sisters, but his mind was already questioning how and why his first strike could have been so ineffective - was a traitor at work?
....................

Lucretia smiled as she saw the Xenos filth charging towards her, she had not fought the Eldar before but she recognised their forms from combat briefings and scripture alike. Reciting the litany of hate she and her bodyguards moved forward to meet them, firing bolter and melta to thin out the ranks of the creatures that bore the mockery of humanities divine form.

Several of the dark clad creatures succumbed to the hail of rounds and then they were upon her and her Dominions, glowing glaives slashing with obscene ease through the sacred ceramite of the Sisters, in a span of seconds the Palatine was alone with the silent murderers. Lucretia parried a decapitating blow with her own blade and used the momentum to twist aside from a second blow, spinning round to remove the masked head of one of the tall armour clad forms.

The archon was amused now, thoughts of betrayal reduced to a secondary, if ever present concern as he analysed the females that confronted him. Although the Incubi had predictably dispatched all but one with ease, the remaining creature, despite her crude technique had managed to kill one his bodyguards. For a moment he considered applauding the lumbering beast but his thirst drove him into the conflict.

Lucretia recognised that she had engaged the leader of the enemy, as the others dropped back, seemingly to watch and she smiled again beneath her helm as she saw her tac display show the imminent arrival of the Seraphim into the fray. Her smile was swiftly transformed into a grimace as the Dark Eldar Archon slipped inside her guard and removed her hand and blade with a flamboyant flourish. She gasped in pain as she raised her bolter but his other hand brought a whip round that as it enfolded her armour in its strands, erupted in energy, sending her screaming into unconsciousness.

Too quick, far too quick, the Archon mused as he surveyed the recumbent warrior, annoyed that these females seemed to be far less prone to fear than the other Mon'Keigh. Still the wyches could find them amusing in the arena and he instructed the approaching minions to take the survivors to their Raider. Across the battlefield, he noticed with a mixture of amusement and surprise that the other females seemed to be taking a heavy toll of his kabalites. Even as he analysed the conflict, the vaunted, and highly expensive Talos was reduced to melted metal and flesh, and his amusement turned to irritation - could not his minions manage anything without him. As he prepared to reorder the battle in a more pleasing configuration he was blessed with an entirely new experience, something very rare and usually cherished by the Dark kin.

Descending from the sky was a powerful but feminine figure, seemingly with great wings composed of light and fire. The creature alighted gracefully and ignoring the Archon gestured with its sword at the oncoming Wyches, who had abandoned their mundane task and flung themselves at this new arrival. Cleansing fire engulfed and destroyed them and the winged woman moved to face the Archon. The remaining Incubi were caught in the open by a fusillade from the rapidly descending Seraphim's inferno and bolt pistols before they then launched themselves into close combat with the Dark Eldar elite.

Unsure as to what he was facing, the Archon was again surprised by the sheer speed of the winged female, and hard pressed to even survive its onslaught, but he had centuries of experience to draw on and the duel continued. The Incubi too took their toll of the elite Seraphim, their glaives slicing effortlessly through ceramite even as power sword and inferno pistol took them down. At last only the Serpahim Superior faced the last two Incubi, her power sword a blur as she tried to fend off their deadly blades. In seconds, the Incubi leader found an opening but was dumbfounded when his disembowelling blow rebounded harmlessly from her icon.

The winged warrior was gaining the upper hand and the Archon growing desperate as his agoniser seemed to have no effect on her glowing form. He made a last effort and pushed his drug enhanced body to new heights, only to find the glowing blade sheathed in his heart and soul. He gurgled and spat blood as she twisted the blade and as his body expired he could see his Haemonclus slipping away and praised his foresight in leaving part of himself in the twisted ones laboratory, She Who Thirsts could wait a bit longer.

He was thus able to watch the demise of his remaining two incubi with a degree of detachment as his consciousness slipped away. The rest of his force was faring little better with those that could fleeing for portals as melta, bolter and flame chased them through the ruins.

.....................
Lucretia awoke painfully to see an Angel standing over her, her face stern but inspiring.

"Good, you have returned to us, Sister - there is much work to be done ..........."

The "Dusk Wraiths" were gone, driven from the battlefield by the righteous with cleansing flame, melta and bolter shells, but other powers still assailed the Imperial world.

Not only did the heinous powers of the warp threaten but reports were coming into Imperial Command of metal beast arising from the Earth itself and even inconsistent reports that they drove a tryanid swarm before them. A green tide of Orkoid brutality had arrived on the world with many mechanised war machines made in mockery of those forms ordained by the Mechanicus.

Communications were still disrupted as the Imperial defenders struggled to co-ordinate their disparate forces to repel the invaders. The Astartes confirmed their intentions to strike at the heart of the Chaos incursion, their psyker sure that they sought to open a gate to the unreality of the warp.

Palatine Lucretia prayed to Him for their success in such a bold endeavour as she travelled with a response force to meet the ranking Guard officer on planet - Colonel "the Hammer" Hathaway. She hoped that fire and hammer would be enough to deal with the reported deviance ahead.

The two mechanised columns merged in the deep desert, approaching a area long abandoned and of no apparent strategic use - yet reports of beasts of flesh and metal persisted in the area and could not be ignored. With a flurry of terse communications, the Imperial forces deployed, the huge battle tanks and chimera of the Guard interspersed with the rhinos of the Sisterhood.

Unsure of what they were facing as a dust storm began, Lucretia led a small force of Dominators in Immolators to flank the position, hoping to catch any enemy in the open and unawares. However as the Imperials closed, the dust storm grew to more disruptive proportions - causing problems with targeting and augury systems.

A patch of ruins loomed out of the clogging dust and for a moment the lead unit achieved a solid lock on a skulking mass of Xenos creatures in a patch of uneven ground. Reacting quickly, the lead Leman Russ locked on its powerful weapons onto the lurking monstrosities, now revealing their chitin beclawed forms.

The gunner smiled as he lined up his shot - "obviously they do show up on infrared" he mused and began the bombardment. Battlecannon shells, lascannon and multi-laser bolts and heavy bolter rounds swept through the creatures even as through the murk the Serpahim descended on fire, adding their own weapons to the conflagration. None of the Xenos survived as they swept forward.

Yet, the flesh beasts were seemingly only to lure the Imperials forward - as metallic forms executed their devious plan. The dust storm was nothing to their eldritch senses and from the skies descended lightning bolts, cascading across the Imperial armour, destroying a flanking sentinel, and burning into the armour of several other vehicles, disrupting targeting systems. Through the dust floated wraithlike beings, untroubled by the storm or the terrain, heading for the Living Saint whose baleful gaze apparently held no fear for them.

Lucretia and her sisters powered through the dust and emerged to find a strange mixture of Xenos before her, Tryanid beasts swarmed around a building, only meters from ranked regiments of unmoving metallic skeletons, with strange weapons aimed at the approaching Imperial armoured force. As the Sisters moved into an attack formation, more of the metal creations revealed themselves, strange floating weapon platforms with another iron skeleton seemingly melded to each base.

Fire and bolter vanquished the Genestealers in seconds, although in the aftermath several surviving sisters would report that they were sure that some of the beasts had some form of metal harness or collar. The Canoness herself, with her squad, used melta's to swiftly dispatch the floating weapon platforms even as the massed regiments of the skeletons turned as one to face her.

Following the Sisters came the gallant guardsmen, pausing only to finish off the last genestealer, but the sweeping advance was suddenly disrupted as more Tyranid monsters erupted from the ground. It seemed the Imperial forces had entered a carefully prepared killing zone. Indeed lightning bolts from the circling storm descended with fury on the Imperials - as if some malign force was directing the very elements to smite them!

The strange Iron Wraiths closed on the Seraphim, even as a gigantic Tyranid beast arose from the ground and drew the surprised ire of the imperial force. Energised tendrils of metal swept through the air, reducing the speed and agility of the warrior women and the Living Saint and they were struck down by the creatures.

Even as the victorious wraiths swept forward in search of fresh victims, the shattered body for the Saint was filled with the Emperors light and arose again brandishing her sword to incinerate the metal creatures as her vengeance was enhanced by melta, bolter and flame from a nearby battle squad of sisters.

And yet the Wraiths still stood, flame and shell alike passing through their bodies and for a moment it seemed they were invincible but then one at least melted under the onslaught of a melta beam and another succumbed to the holy fire. Seemingly unimpressed by the resurrection of the Saint, they again used their heretical technology to confound her and smash her to the ground before moving over and through the building to seek out the Sisters. Horrified by the sight of the Saint overcome by these seemingly unstoppable Xenos, several of the sisters broke under the onslaught of their flashing claws and energised polearms and fell back. Those few that survived would later only find redemption in the garb of the Repenta....

The Tyranid beasts were being hammered down by the Guards powerful tanks and the shells of the sisterhood, but again it seemed almost as if they only served as a distraction to allow some nefarious scheme to be enacted by powers unknown.

The ranks of metal skeletons turned their weapons on the Palatine and her few followers, flaying ceramite and flesh alike as they carried out the orders of their unseen commander. Even as she thought she saw a group of larger more impressive metal Xenos in the distance, Lucretia was herself struck down.

Across the battlefield, the Tyranids and humans battled on, as if mere puppets performing for the amusement of the unseen masters. Then as if they had never been there, the metallic Xenos vanished having achieved whatever they had come to this desolate place to achieve, despite the efforts of the Imperials they had achieved nothing and merely bled resources from the defence of the planet.

When the beaten remnants of the force limped into their forward base however it seemed the Emperor had been watching at least part of the ongoing conflict. The Astartes had been victorious and the Daemons of Chaos truly had been smote on the anvil of the Salamanders wrath.