Lord of the Night

They came like daemon vultures, chainswords snarling, pistols flaring in the snow-choked sky. They whooped and cackled and shrieked, and their twisted armour shimmered with unholy light, like an ember's dying glow. Ghastly deathmasks patterned ancient helmets, crooked forwards in beak-like snarls and aquiline grimaces. They flocked above the hive like carrion birds, gathering for a feast, and when they dived together the sky was filled with their ululations and the hissing of whatever unnatural forces buoyed them up. They were a plague, Sahaal thought, and as they vanished one by one inside the wounds of the hive's surface he slipped to his knees, his mind rebelling against what it witnessed.

And then the warriors themselves: a rain of drop pods and assault craft that vomited from the heaving stormclouds, smashing against the city's shell like hammers pounding anvils. In lightning-flash tableaux and the stolen flare of detonating munitions Sahaal could glimpse the ranks of his so-called brothers as they fell upon the crowds within.

Blue and bronze whirlwinds. Without grace or poise. Frenzied. Out of control. Utterly Chaotic.

The Night Lords descended upon Equixus like a bloody rain, and the screams of the population drowned out even the howling of the perpetual ice storm. Oh, my master... What have they done? What have they become?

The failure was a firebrand, slipping into his eyes. It was a tidal wave, the bow-blast of a supernova, rolling and boiling to devour him whole. It settled on his shoulders like the weight of the galaxy itself, and he felt every bone in his body splinter to dust, every blood vessel burst, every atom of every part of him split and die. He was too late.

He wondered if he'd already known, deep within himself. Perhaps he had always known, since awaking in the ruptured belly of the Umbrea Insidior. Too long had passed. Too many centuries had glided by, bereft of his influence and leadership. His master had chosen him as his heir to bring focus to a Legion in peril, to unite a body that threatened to tear itself apart, to offer some measure of temperance against the whispering seductions of power and rage. He had been selected as the Legion's deliverance from corruption, and he had not been present to fulfil his vows.

One hundred centuries — unguided, unprotected — was more than long enough to succumb.

The Daemonlord Acerbus hissed behind him, delighted by the carnage enacted below. Howls rose like smoke: the shrieks of dying men, the moans of tortured women, the tears of youths.

'This is without purpose...' Sahaal whispered, gazing down into the flames. 'Where is the sense in this? Have you no worthier targets than women and children?'

'Every target is worthy,' the Daemonlord breathed, waves of despair carrying his voice. 'And the purpose...? Little Talonmaster, do you not remember our master's lessons? The purpose is fear. It is always fear.'

Sahaal turned to face the abomination, tears in his eyes, and above him it drew sensuous claws across its incorporeal chest, eyes closed, face upturned, as if savouring a fine scent.

'Do you taste it?' it whispered. 'Do you taste the terror of this world? It is... mm... it is intoxicating.'

Sahaal felt disgust engulf him.

'You dare to lecture me on the Night Haunter's lessons?' he snarled, anger gripping him, breaking through the shame and failure like a hatching beast. 'You dare, when you've fallen so far from his wisdom? Fear is the weapon, fool, not the goal!'

The devil crooned, maw spreading in delight.

'Ah... Righteous little Sahaal. How I have missed you...'

'Look at you! Look at what you've become! You've spat in the face of his legacy. Have you no shame?'

'Our master's legacy lives, little Sahaal.' The beast brandished a fist, clenching claws together. 'Through me, it prospers!'

Sahaal's bolter was in his hand before he had even considered drawing it.

'You are not fit to call yourself a Night Lord,' he said, and squeezed the trigger.

The Mordax Tenebrae spat shells like a hateful dragon. With every blast he saw his master's haunted features, heard his soothing words. With every shell he whispered his master's name.

And then the smoke cleared, and he saw that he'd barely scratched the monster's skin. Through boiling frost clouds and shifting shadows its eyes burned, and before Sahaal had even registered movement its great paw slipped from the smog and swatted him like a fly. His armour cracked. He crossed the room on his back.

'You,' Acerbus said, pouncing across him at a speed inconceivable in a creature so massive, holding him down with invisible cords of warpstuff and poking with child-like interest at the wound on his shoulder, 'should have more respect for your lord.'

His whole body burned. Each vicious slash-stab, each playing prod of the daemon's claws, was a universe of agony compressed upon his brain. Acerbus ate his fear and crooned to himself.