The forces of Chaos had suffered an unfortunate turn of fortunes as
of late, going from within a hairs breadth of cutting the Imperium in two throughout
the sector, to losing all of their gains at Paradorn. For years this had been a
repeating pattern, Stahl cursing the failures of his allies. Over the
years he had been forced to decimate more than one warband for their foolishness
and in 1407.018M42 his wrath fell upon Marcus and the Emerald Serpent.
Knowing the Emerald Serpent were regrouping on Mordecai,
Warsmith Stahl took a force of Iron Warrior veterans, all true sons of
Perturabo and a horde of mortal expendable flesh to punish Marcus; no monstrous
creatures of the Warp would taint the IV's revenge.
The forces of the 144th Grand Battalion crested
the frozen hills, as the flesh screened the Havocs, and Rhinos transporting
Iron Warriors held in reserve. In the early morning gloom the dull armour of
the Iron Warriors was silhouetted against the rising sun, the cacophony of
their heavy weapons shattering the armour a number of Rubrics announced their
presence.
The Emerald Serpent immediately knew what the Iron Warriors
attack meant and commanded the Scarab Occult Terminators forward into the teeth
of the Havocs guns absorbing much of the fire using magicks to speed their
advance. Stahl callously drove forward the horde of Expendable Flesh; many captured Imperial
citizens, to slow down the Scarab Occults advance. Hundreds of pitiful humans were
slaughtered, but the Iron Warriors had already redirected their fire into the
Rubric Marines on the left of the column, with a storm of concentrated Heavy
Bolter and Autocannon fire the Rubrics were cut down. Marcus, the remaining
Rubrics and Sorcerers butchered the last of the mortals and began to resume
their march, only too late to realise the kill zone that the Iron Warriors had
lured them into. A storm of precision fire bisected the Scarab Occult
terminators Cataphracti armour, who returned fire even as they fell, felling
some of the Iron Warriors. The Emerald Serpent Thousand Sons continued to
march, attempting push through the fire into the Iron Warriors left flank,
Stahl had accounted for this and sent a second wave of flesh to their flank and
even allowed Tong the Younger, a Hellbrute, to charge forward into Marcus, who
had been holding the centre. The machine and the daemon clashed, Marcus far
more skilled but Tong clearly more ferocious.
For those more concerned with the glory of the gods, this
would have been an epic clash, but Stahl had no interest. The last of his forces
started to move forward, the Thousand Sons pinned and now completely trapped.
Marcus and his Sorcerers were captured...
Amid the broken ruin of the Hellbrute, Marcus was bound
to the earth in Rune marked chains, his twitching and inconsistent form
desperately trying to break free, with only his two eyes remaining constant and
locked with a mix of fury and fear upon the approaching Legionaire.
“I'm sorry I broke your pet” hissed Marcus sarcastically,
nodding towards the broken form of the
emaciated creature hanging out the Hellbrute Sarcophagus.
“Tong is not quite dead yet, not to me, I do not let
those who have wronged me release so easily” Stahl replied, glowering at the
shifting form of the Daemon.
“Wrong? We did nothing wrong-”
“YOU LOST PARADORN, YOU LOST THE BASE AT MORDECAI! Our
entire offensive ruined by you and your wretched kinds failures.”
“It all proceeds as the Great Changer wishes”
Stahl sighed and shook his head.
“Your broken essence can contemplate those words in the forge”
Stahl looked to his own assembled Iron Warriors “The rest of these fools, they
will be reforged , Decimate the living survivors”.
“And perhaps we can have some tools that are something
approaching reliable” thought Stahl despairingly.
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