Da Portal of Darkness

Chapta 22

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  Da Portal Of Darkness

Prologue

Chapta 1

Chapta 2 

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Chapta 6 

Chapta 7 

Chapta 8 

Chapta 9 

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Chapta 12 

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Chapta 18 

Chapta 19 

Chapta 20 

Chapta 21 

Chapta 22 

Epilogue 


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Jarr was the first to react to the sudden appearance of his target, and he fired shot after shot into the governor.

“You’re too late foolish mortal, the vessel is already dead,” a voice replied from the mouth of Venris Highbalt, but it was less human than its first statement, as if changes were taking place inside it that were affecting how it forced air through its throat to communicate, and as Jarr watched the bullets he had just fired dropped out of the wounds they had inflicted. Instead of blood, a strange blue fluid seeped from the wounds briefly before solidifying and forming a glistening, spiky shell over them.

“Get ‘im,” Thuggrim shouted, and the entire warband raised whatever guns they held and opened fire.

Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal, the thing that had been Venris just laughed and leapt through the air, clearing several vehicles and landing next to a madboy that he promptly ripped in two with his bare hands. A second ork stepped forwards and swung his axe at the daemon, slicing clean through its arm. Almost immediately another arm sprouted from the blue oozing stump, one that looked far more muscular than Highbalt’s original limb, and ending in a clawed hand with talons that looked deadly sharp. The daemon demonstrated just how sharp its claws were by lashing out and slicing through the axe blade that had taken the human looking arm.

Drazzok unleashed a bolt of green energy at the creature, and it shrieked before leaping clear of the lightning bolts that came from the weirdboy’s fingertips.

“Watch out lads!” Two Heads shouted, “Don’t be where dat thing lands.”

Hazug watched the path that Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal was taking through the air and held his arm out to Ratish.

“Gis a bomb,” he said, “I saw ya put one in ya bag earlier.”

The gretchin reached into his bag and handed an explosive to his master.

“’Ere ya go master,” he said, and Hazug snatched it from him without a word. Hazug pulled the pin from the grenade, and observed the daemon’s path again. It was now on its descent, following a curve downwards towards a point clear of any of the warband, and Hazug hurled the grenade at that spot. Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal landed at almost the same time as the grenade and it detonated before he could leap away again.

The blast of the grenade threw shrapnel, dirt and flesh in all directions. Surprisingly, there was no sound from the daemon thing as it was consumed in the blast, and as the cloud of debris produced by the explosion clear the ground was littered with the broken fragments of what had been the host body.

“Ya got it master,” Ratish said, leaping up and down.

“I don’t think so grot,” Hazug replied as he saw blue crystalline growths sprout form where pieces of the body had landed and travel across the ground to link p with one another. At the point where they joined the crystal growths grew up out if the ground and began to forma body, vaguely humanoid in form it was larger than even the ork nobs present and wings unfolded from its back.

Its true form unveiled, Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal spread out its arms and released an almighty shriek that made Sophie shut her eyes tight and clamp her hands over her ears, not caring that she dropped her gun to the ground.

Again it was Jarr that reacted first. The assassin had reloaded his weapon, but instead of inserting another standard magazine of armour piercing rounds, he had reached to a spot no his thigh where several more specialised projectiles were located and placed one of them into the chamber of his gun. He fired the gun, aiming for the centre of the daemon’s body, but the creature moved unnaturally swiftly, and the round instead just clipped the thing’s shoulder. The bullet was designed to defeat personal energy shields, and was made using rare materials that disrupted the focused energy patterns used in such devices. It had a similar effect on the field of mystical energy that allowed the daemon to maintain its form, and where the bullet passed through it, the crystalline flesh blackened and shattered, leaving a deep gouge through Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal’s shoulder and a hole in it’s wing.

Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal screamed and unleashed a blast of its own, sending a beam of brilliant white light towards the assassin. But before his attack could find its target, Drazzok countered with a lightning bolt of his own, and from where the two forces met there was a massive explosion that sent everyone diving for cover.

As Hazug rolled over on the ground and grabbed hold of his warscythe he heard the rattle of gunfire coming from the few remaining orks, and he looked towards the daemon to see what effect it was having. The monstrous creature stood in the path of the barrage, bullets blasting fragments of crystal away from its body, in unlike the injury inflicted by Jarr’s shot, these wound were healing instantly with new growths of crystal sealing them.

“Jarr, ya got any more of dem bullets like dat one ya just used?” Hazug shouted to the assassin.

“No,” he replied, firing another magazine of standard ammunition at the daemon as he did so, “I just had the one.”

“Wot was it anyway?” Hazug asked.

“A round designed for penetrating force fields.”

A thought occurred to Hazug, his warscythe, alien weapon recovered from one of the guardians of an underground city, had demonstrated an exceptional ability to slice through both living tissue and non-living materials. Perhaps it would be just as effective against whatever this creature is made of, he thought to himself.

“Cover me!” Hazug shouted, and he leapt to his feet and ran directly towards the towering form of Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal.

The daemon paid no attention to Hazug as he ran towards it; it was more interested in the hail of gunfire being directed at it. Though the bullets were tiny and, with the exception of the single field shattering round that had struck its shoulder, lacking the ability to do great harm on their own, the sheer quantity was starting to become an issue as Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal was compelled to devote an ever greater amount of effort into maintaining its form in this realm. A force with superior marksmanship to orks would have likely forced it to retreat back into the warp by now. So it was only at the last moment that Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal actually reacted to Hazug’s charge.

At the moment Hazug thrust the tip of his warscythe towards Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal’s body the daemon leapt into the air once more, and the alien weapon instead struck the daemon’s thigh. Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal let out a howl of both pain and rage as its leg was cut from its body, the unnatural cutting ability of the alien weapon proving itself against his crystalline structure. As happened with the wound from the shield piercing bullet fire by Jarr, the stump of the daemon’s leg did not sprout any replacement crystal growth; instead it blackened and remained proof of the lost limb. Meanwhile the leg itself dropped to the ground and melted away, a foul smelling blue liquid being the only evidence that it had existed, and that too disappeared moments later, evaporating into the air.

Thrown off balance, Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal came crashing back down to the ground near the still active eldar webway gate. The daemon looked towards the portal that lead back to its own realm and saw Rhia still chained to the arch like structure of bone that actually created the portal itself, and it saw the pattern created by the many injuries that had been inflicted upon her by his servants in this place. She had been anointed by them to allow him to disconnect the portal form the webway and bring his daemonic kin to this world in uncountable numbers. All it had to do was kill her and focus her soul into the sphere of light.

The daemon could of course incinerate her with blast of pure warp energy, but that would prevent him from harnessing her departing soul. No, to summon his kin he had to kill her with his own hands. Raising itself up as best as it could, Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal began to crawl to wards Rhia, who screamed as she saw it coming towards her. The gunfire continued to drain its power, but it still had more than enough to kill the anointed one, and then it could draw on all the power it needed from what would be a wide open doorway to the warp right next to it.

Hazug ran towards the crawling daemon. It was obviously heading for Rhia, though Hazug had no idea why. Her life meant nothing to him of course, but his instincts told him that the daemon would only focus on her if it gave it some advantage, so therefore Hazug wanted it kept away from her. It was obvious to Hazug that even running as fast as he could, he would not reach the daemon before it reached Rhia. So, acting quickly, he depressed the switch that activated his warscythe and held it in one hand over his shoulder. Then with all of his might he hurled the weapon as a feral ork would hurl a spear towards the daemon and he watched it fly through the air.

The warscythe embedded itself in the daemon’s back, right between where its wings met its shoulders, and sliced straight through its body. The daemon let out another howl as it collapsed to the ground, the warscythe digging in and impaling it on the spot. The alien weapon deactivated only when pressed from the daemonic flesh on it switched the activation button, suddenly losing the ability to dig itself any deeper into the ground. Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal thrashed about in rage, desperately reaching towards Rhia in an attempt to end her life, but she remained just out of reach.

As the daemon continued to thrash around and scream the warband approached it slowly. The thing was clearly dying, the spot on its back where the warscythe had gone through and pinned it to the ground was already black, and he discolouration was spreading over the rest of its body. Kas’Shes’Tck’Aztal’s screams became quieter, and more high-pitched as its entire body turned black. It suddenly became silent and lay still, the only movement being some random twitching of its remaining limbs. Hazug reached out and pulled his warscythe from the daemon’s back with both hands, then he reactivated the alien weapon and cut the daemons’ head from its shoulders.

A sudden rush of air marked the death of the daemon as its body imploded with a flash as it was drawn back into the warp, and Hazug was almost knocked off his feet. The he used the warscythe to steady himself and looked around.

“Hazug?”

The voice was Rhia’s.

“Hazug, I’m sorry. Please help me.”

Hazug ignored her and walked back to where the rest of the warband stood.

“Ya is goin’ to need more lads again,” he said to Two Heads, noting that only four of his Evil Suns had survived the battle.

“Yeah, and me battlewagon’s all bust up like every other time I does somethin’ for ya,” one of Two Heads replied before the other one continued, “But just take a look at all dis loot,” and he waved around the battlefield. Scattered about were several human vehicles, all intact apart from the one that Drazzok had destroyed with his psychic blast, and in addition there were the bodies of the marines to provide trophies for the survivors.

“Dat wagon alone it worth it,” Two Heads added excitedly, pointing towards the armoured vehicle that had a dead marine lying by one of it’s hatchways, a rhino the humans called them, “it’ll ‘elp get me own wagon’ ome without ‘avin’ to pay someone to come out for it, and its even already painted red!”

While Two Heads had been discussing the prospects for looting with Hazug, Jarr had gone to the gateway and he used his knife to prise the strange device that was stuck to the structure away from it, and the sphere of light promptly vanished as the gateway was deactivated. He let to device drop to the ground and the stamped on it as hard as he could until he heard a reassuring crunch as it was smashed.

“What about her?” Jarr then called out towards Hazug, indicating Rhia.

“Wot about ‘er?” Hazug replied in gothic.

“Well are we just going to leave her here?”

Hazug strode back towards the gateway and stood beside Jarr, looking down at Rhia. All it would take was a single blow from his warscythe to pay her back for betraying him. Though of course without her betraying him whatever the marines had been up to here would have succeeded, and Hazug doubted that that would have been a good thing. A single blow could shatter the chain that bound her, or it could deliver the punishment that Hazug had promised.

He raised the warscythe and swung it down.

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