Medusa Mountains.
The convoy of Clan Sorrgal had halted.
Though they held the advantage in their brief, fierce firefight with the Clan Avini, losing only five warriors, they had lost the majority of their Yarrk beasts.
The warriors of the Clan Sorrgal lined up in formation, advancing into the mountains under the command of Amadeus DuCaine.
DuCaine asked the black-armored Gabriel at his side: "Distance to the coordinates Adams marked?"
Gabriel checked the runic indicators on his helm display and replied:
"5.1 kilometers."
With Gabriel leading, the Sorrgal warriors marched forward.
At 1.4 kilometers from the marked site, two squads of black-armored Shadows of Order appeared ahead.
They bore the green skull insignia of the Fourth Chapters upon their right pauldrons. The Shadow warriors saluted Gabriel and DuCaine.
A Court member stepped forward: "Lord Gabriel, Lord DuCaine. I was ordered to guard the ruin's entrance and secure the retreat path."
DuCaine looked at the cold-faced squad leader and grinned, "Relax, there are no ghosts here."
The "Corpse Collector" froze for a moment.
"My lord… forgive me, but this mine does have wraiths."
The scar-covered face of DuCaine grew uncharacteristically stern:
"I don't see any."
The "Corpse Collector" cold face flickered with unease, the name of the Storm General was thunder across the Imperium.
Gabriel interjected, "Ease yourself, DuCaine is just teasing you."
He strode into the tunnel first, "DuCaine, time runs short. The Iron Moon is about to begin."
"Indeed." DuCaine barked to his warriors:
"Boys, move! Form exploration lines!"
The mineshaft was too narrow for his famed "Storm and Hammer" tactics.
The formation shifted quickly: the Tenth Legion warriors without the Sorrgal mark formed the center, serving as the line's core, drawing fire and striking back.
The Sorrgal warriors flanked them, shielding the Astartes' sides.
DuCaine, as always, held a power axe in his left hand and a bolter in his right, leading from the front.
He strode deep into the mine, soon spotting severed limbs, broken tools, and blood-smeared picks scattered across the ground.
Descending two sloping shafts, the passage opened into a vast subterranean refinery, where black-armored warriors battled shambling flesh-beasts.
The abominations staggered, colliding with furnaces several meters tall and toppling them with brute force.
Their bloated forms hid terrifying strength.
"Attack!"
DuCaine raised his bolter and fired.
Diamantine shells burst through rotting flesh, splattering gore, but the creatures did not fall.
Each monster was stitched together from dozens, perhaps hundreds, of corpses, grotesquely fused. One loomed with twenty-four arms, brandishing picks, spades, and broken autoguns.
DuCaine emptied a magazine, finally shattering the beast.
He quickly discerned their weakness, shouting to his warriors:
"They're corpse-grafts! Bloated and sluggish!"
"Target the joints, the seams where the bodies join!"
The Tenth Legionnaires heeded him, striking precisely at the seams.
Sorrgal warriors darted in and out, baiting the monsters, exploiting their speed.
DuCaine pressed a rune and plunged into the horde.
His axe's charged edge carved deep, a dozen brutal hacks tearing apart a beast. Blue disruption fields crackled like lightning, dissolving its mass into putrid slurry.
He cut through one after another, killing more than a dozen. Then his eyes narrowed.
He saw Adams swing once, just once, and a towering flesh-beast collapsed.
DuCaine tracked him, astonished.
Every strike of the Death Lord felled a monster outright.
'Impossible…'
'I have fought beside countless Legionnaires. In raw martial prowess, my former comrade, now Captain of the Luna Wolves' First Company, Ezekyle Abaddon, is the mightiest I've ever known.'
'Even he could not slay such beasts in a single blow.'
'How is Adams doing this?'
Then DuCaine noticed more. Over a dozen Shadows of Order fought with equal lethality, three to five precise strikes, and each beast fell. Their kill efficiency even surpassed his own.
His gaze sharpened, not angry, but coldly observant.
Each attack struck the weakest joints, where the flesh grafts were most fragile.
'So… their perception is sharper than most.'
'But Adams… his awareness surpasses all others.'
The Gravediggers fought almost effortlessly.
Their Eyes of Death perceived weaknesses beyond mortal senses.
When the battle ended, DuCaine approached Adams.
"Adams, my first time fighting alongside you, and you and your warriors have left me deeply impressed."
"I am simply… skilled at fighting the undead," Adams replied, face like stone.
Before more could be said, the ground trembled violently.
DuCaine's expression darkened.
"The Iron Moon!"
He roared into his vox:
"Convoy! Seek shelter!"
Once each year, during the lunar eclipse, Medusa's moon resonated with the pull of its star Sthelenus, unleashing gravitational disasters beyond imagining.
A greedy Mechanicum vessel descended toward a ruin. At barely a kilometer above the ground, lightning engulfed it, shattering it into fragments that rained fire upon the land.
Elsewhere, mountains rose thousands of meters in moments, while others sank into the earth.
Another transport, ordered to deliver resources to carve statues of the Clan-Chiefs, ignored warnings. Superstorms ripped it apart in midair, scattering wreckage like leaves in a gale.
Only the Felgarrthi Range stood untouched, protected by colossal stasis-field generators from the Dark Age of Technology.
Techmarines of the Iron Hands continued their work in cold indifference, ignoring the brutal duels of Medusan youths fighting for the honor of being noticed, and chosen.
The Iron Moon remade Medusa's surface: hundreds of mountains born, hundreds erased.
The ruin Adams had discovered shook for hours, then stilled.
The next day, Gabriel looked out from its mouth. A mountain they had passed on arrival was gone.
'Such terrifying natural power… Compared to this, Medusa's "competitions" are nothing.'
'The Iron Hands are raising monasteries for every clan. The next generation will fight harder than ever, for the chance to be chosen and sheltered.'
As he pondered, his vox crackled with broken static.
"Signal unclear… repeat!"
He called to the Master of Vox, when DuCaine strode over.
"A command from the Gorgon. You and I are ordered to head to a neighboring system of Vostroya, to strike the xeno Fra'al together."
He added, "Our fleet is prepared for these disturbances, it is, after all, a design of Lord Ferrus Manus himself."
"You're welcome aboard my ship."
Then DuCaine glanced at Adams.
"A pity, Lord Nareth has not summoned his Fourth. I had hoped to fight beside you longer."
The Death Lord's face was calm, though a flicker of regret passed through his eyes.
"There will be another chance."
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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