Chapter 37: Slaying U'zur
The silver-grey Astartes faced the crimson daemon.
U'zur struck first. He raised his Hellblade, channeling the raw fury of the Blood God, and brought it down in a killing blow. Petros met the strike with his shield. The daemon-sword, forged from pure Warp energy, crashed against the shield's crackling power field, the impact screaming like tortured metal.
U'zur unleashed a relentless flurry, a storm of blows. Petros held his ground, catching every strike on the adamantium shield. With every impact, fresh gouges were torn in the ceramite, and the bone-jarring force sent tremors of numbness up his arm.
Petros knew the daemon would not tire. He wasn't waiting for an opening; he was making one. He stared through the shield's firing slit, enduring the punishment. Then, the instant the Herald's blade swung wide, Petros saw his chance. He exploded forward. His power axe, Blood of Crassus, hissed through the air, its disruption field crackling with energy, and he brought it down on the daemon's undefended left arm.
The master-crafted blade bit deep, shearing through daemonic flesh and warp-forged bone. The daemon's arm was severed.
"That," Petros roared, "was for Fledri!"
Petros instantly reset, his shield locked. The severed arm dissolved into nothingness before it even hit the ground, leaving only a dark, bloody stain on the ash. U'zur, the Herald, did not scream. He laughed, a high, shrieking sound of pure amusement.
The Herald raised his Hellblade high, the balefire upon it erupting into an inferno. He brought it down not in a slash, but a two-handed, cleaving blow. Petros raised his shield to meet it, his mind already calculating the counter-strike. But the force of the blow was absolute. The daemonic blade split the adamantium shield, shattering the power field, and slammed down toward Petros's skull.
Petros snapped his head aside, letting the blade scrape off his helmet. The burning sword bit deep into his Mark III pauldron, tearing through ceramite and into the flesh of his shoulder. In that instant, Petros released his grip on the ruined shield, abandoning it, and kicked it. The heavy, shattered shield, still impaled on the daemon's blade, was driven forward, staggering the Herald and freeing Petros from the pinned weapon.
An agonizing, cold fire flooded his shoulder. The Hellblade was a thing of the Warp, drinking his life-force. But the wound did not bleed. The Larraman's Organ in his chest instantly reacted, flooding his system with Larraman's cells, which sealed the wound in a second of white-hot, coagulating pain.
U'zur gave him no quarter, pressing the attack. But Petros, now free, exploded forward. He sprang, his power axe swinging in a high arc at the Herald's head. The daemon was fast, catching the blow on its Hellblade, the impact throwing a shower of sparks.
Without his shield, Petros was forced into a pure, two-handed offensive. This daemon was preternaturally strong, its skill bordering on that of a Daemon Prince. It was bloodthirsty, yet unnervingly calm. It met Petros's furious offense with slow, deliberate, and impossibly powerful parries, turning the power axe aside with jarring force.
Petros shifted his grip, changing from power-blows to a rapid series of feints and chops, trying to break the daemon's rhythm. The Herald met each one, its blade a slow, blurring wall. But in the exchange, Petros created his opening. He feinted high, then dropped his axe low, swinging it in a vicious uppercut that bypassed the daemon's guard and struck it square in the waist.
The disruption field flared, and the axe bit deep, severing the Herald in two. The daemon's upper torso slid from its legs, but it still cackled, its laughter a gurgling shriek. "Hahahaha!"
Petros strode forward and raised his axe high. "And this," he growled, "is for Kolin."
He brought the axe down, taking the daemon's head.
He reached for the trophy-skulls on the daemon's belt, to reclaim his brother. But the moment his gauntlet touched Fledri's skull, it crumbled to dust. The Herald, its cloak, its blade, and its brass armor all dissolved, its physical form banished, leaving nothing but a pool of crimson, steaming sludge.
On the other side of the clearing, the Juggernaut, Khor'dillan, finally succumbed to the combined fire of the Land Raider and the power-blows of Antonius and Phelon, dissolving into sludge.
The daemons were not dead. They were merely banished, their forms cast back into the Immaterium to be reformed, to kill again another day.
Petros had lost a shield and taken a deep wound. The others were worse off. The Land Raider was heavily dented, nearly overturned by the Juggernaut's charge. Antonius and Phelon were battered, their ceramite armor deeply scarred and concave from the fight.
The three brothers regrouped, a silent understanding passing between them. Petros nodded, and pointed his axe at the remaining few hundred Bloodletters, who were now leaderless. "Leave none standing."
The auxilia advanced, their lasguns and autoguns doing pitiful damage, but the sheer volume of fire, combined with the 5,000 Skitarii, was enough to banish the remaining daemons. The battle was not without cost. A few Bloodletters broke through the line, and the sheer terror of their presence shattered the mortals' discipline. Thousands routed, only to be cut down or forced back into the fight by the heavy stubbers of the enforcer-squads at their rear.
But there was one moment of pure bravery. A company of the Cloven-hoof cavalry, armed with melta-tipped hunting lances, charged the Skull Cannon. They were scythed down by the dozens, but their charge was relentless. The survivors plunged their lances into the daemon-engine, and it exploded in a spray of brass and bone.
After the battle, Petros asked Sachs for the name of the cavalry commander. The man, he learned, was a twenty-year-old named Maximus.
He had been an aspirant for the Warband, one of the Lacedaemonians from the beach. He had failed the Apothecary's final selection.