Chapter 36: Petros vs. U'zur
"KOLIN!!!"
Seeing his brother cut down, Fledri roared. He slammed the throttle, wrenching his bike hard and charging straight at the Herald.
Fledri executed a perfect 180-degree tail-spin, his tires digging a deep furrow in the ash. He was now facing the Juggernaut and its rider head-on.
He gunned the engine and charged. This wasn't recklessness. Fledri knew that against a true daemon of Khorne, guile was weakness. The only path was a direct, brutal, head-on assault. The daemon would be forced to meet it in kind.
As the two machines hurtled toward each other, Fledri squeezed the triggers, emptying the bike's twin-linked bolters into the Juggernaut. The bolts exploded uselessly, like autogun rounds against ceramite, leaving nothing but shallow, blackened pits in the daemon's brass hide.
At the moment of impact, the Juggernaut lowered its great, horned head. Like a Terran bull tossing a wild dog, the massive Warp-construct gored the assault bike and flung it, end over end, into the air.
The bike crashed, a twisted wreck.
But Fledri was no longer on it. In the final second before impact, he had leaped from his bike, using the momentum to launch himself onto the Juggernaut.
He landed on the Juggernaut's neck, his right hand gripping his chainsword, his left holding his combat knife in a reverse-grip. He was going to avenge his brother.
The Herald was right-handed. Fledri brought his left-hand knife up to parry the daemon's Hellblade. His right hand swung the roaring chainsword in a deadly arc, aimed straight for the Herald's neck.
Fledri was confident in the move. His knife would parry the blow, and his chainsword would take the daemon's head. A clean kill. Blood for his brother's blood.
But something caught the chainsword mid-swing. The Herald's left hand. The chain-teeth screamed, tearing through daemonic flesh and warp-stuff, but the Herald's grip was iron, and it held.
Fledri felt a sudden, cold shock in his left arm. The Hellblade hadn't been parried. It had sheared his combat knife in two, and his arm with it. The severed limb clattered onto the Juggernaut's back.
With no hesitation, Fledri released his stalled chainsword and drove his remaining gauntlet into the Herald's face. It was like punching solid ceramite. The daemon's warp-forged bones didn't even rattle, though the blow left a dark, sizzling bruise.
The Hellblade struck again, a vicious, upward thrust. It was a perfect, killing blow, piercing Fledri's chest and impaling both his hearts.
Fledri felt his throat fill, his helmet flooding with his own blood. He finally understood. Kolin's death hadn't been an accident. This daemon was no mere Bloodletter.
With his last breath, he screamed into the vox: "Neophytes... Run!"
The four neophytes, hearing their sergeant's final command, didn't hesitate. They wrenched their bikes around and scattered, speeding back toward the main Imperial line.
U'zur tossed the smoking chainsword aside, ignoring the deep, grievous wound it had left in his hand. With his sharp talons, he tore Fledri's helmet from his head.
The Skull-Taker stared into the dying Astartes's eyes. Even with his hearts pierced, Fledri's superhuman physiology still clung to life.
U'zur grabbed the Astartes's head in his bloody, ruined hand and began to chant in his rasping, daemonic voice:
"A warrior's rage, a battle's cry!
A hero's blood, a noble way to die!
Your fear is sweet, your skull is mine!
A worthy offering to the Lord of Skulls!
Eight, the number, your life is paid!
Eight, the number, my master's blade!
Your blood for the God, your skull for the Throne!"
As the chant finished, a red-hot, unholy fire erupted from within Fledri's armor, consuming his flesh in an instant. U'zur, satisfied, ripped the clean skull from the warrior's gorget and hung it from his belt.
Aboard the Land Raider, Petros watched his brother beheaded and butchered. A cold, black rage filled him. "PHELON!" he roared into the vox. "FULL-THROTTLE! NOW!"
The Land Raider surged forward, breaking from the main battle line. The steel behemoth, like a maddened grox, charged straight at the Herald, its sponson-lascannons and heavy bolter firing at point-blank range.
Petros, on the hull, fired his plasma pistol, each shot boiling the air. But the Herald and his Juggernaut ignored the barrage, charging directly into the tank's path.
A deafening, earth-shaking CRASH echoed as daemon-machine and tank collided. Impossibly, the Juggernaut, Khor'dillan, stopped the Land Raider's charge. The two were locked in a stalemate, metal screaming against daemonic brass.
Petros, still on the hull, holstered his overheating plasma pistol. He drew the power axe, Blood of Crassus, from its mag-lock and leaped from the tank to the ground.
Through his helmet's visor, Petros stared at the Herald. The daemon, in turn, also dismounted. It stared at Petros, a horrific, dawning recognition in its eyes. It opened its fanged maw and hissed again, this time with certainty: "It's you!"
Petros was confused. "I do not know you, daemon," he growled. "But you will pay for my brother's life."
The Herald, U'zur, threw back its head and laughed, a dry, rattling sound. "Hahahaha!"
On the other side of the tank, Antonius and Phelon had bailed out. Antonius, with his chainsword and bolt pistol, and Phelon, with his power hammer, charged the Juggernaut, Khor'dillan. The neophytes inside the Land Raider would provide fire support.
Petros and U'zur stood alone, facing each other. Power axe and boarding shield against a burning Hellblade. The fires of battle burned in their eyes, one seeking vengeance, the other seeking favor from his dark god.
Petros charged first, his boarding shield raised, intending to smash the daemon with its mass and integrated power field. U'zur took a single step back, catching the shield-bash on the flat of his massive blade. The impact sent a shockwave of crackling energy across the field.
Undeterred, Petros pressed the attack, using his shield to feint, then brought his power axe, crackling with its disruption field, down in a heavy chop aimed at the Herald's shoulder.
U'zur caught the axe-blow on his sword's crossguard—a dangerous, high-risk parry that the daemon executed with contemptuous ease.
The daemon's long, purple tongue flicked out, and it hissed, "This time... I will be the one to win."
Petros smashed his shield into the daemon's face, breaking the weapon-lock. He ignored the daemon's insane words. "We have never met."