At the tunnel's end, a monumental gate, thirty meters high and of immense width, barred the path of Julius's army. The metal, thick and etched with ancient carvings, seemed to defy any attempt at intrusion. A Death Trooper sergeant approached, his black armor smeared with dust and soot.
"Lord Commander, we are at the exit point. But I have a bad feeling. There are too many side branches, some blocked by explosions, others by clean cuts. It looks like a funnel. A trap."
Julius turned his helmet towards the sergeant, a cold smile on his lips beneath the visor. "Of course it's a trap. They're waiting for us on the other side. But a trap only works if the prey is weaker than the hunter."
He made a gesture. The Irons Skulls advanced with a heavy tread, forming a wall of black steel before the gate. Behind them, the frontline CMC-400s raised their heavy shields, kneeling to form a bulwark. The HK-Tanks positioned themselves in support, their laser cannon turrets seeking angles. The clones and Terran soldiers dispersed into firing formations, every man and woman awaiting the final order.
Julius dismounted from his command vehicle, his massive frame towering over his troops. He pointed his Black Spear at the gate. "Hecatoncheires. Open the way."
As the multi-armed machines charged forward, their energy blades activating with a sinister hum, a roar came from the other side of the gate. A guttural, inhuman clamor that turned into a war cry repeated by hundreds of throats:
"SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"
It was Khorne. The challenge had been issued.
Julius leapt back onto the anti-grav tank, standing to his full height. He raised his black spear towards the tunnel ceiling, and his eyes blazed with an electric blue intensity so bright it illuminated the helmeted faces around him.
"FOR BASTION! FOR VICTORY!" His voice, amplified by his armor's speakers, rolled like thunder, drowning out the daemons' chant.
His troops' response was a unified roar, galvanized by the palpable power of their leader. "VICTORY!"
---
The gate gave way under the blows of the Hecatoncheires, not by opening, but by tearing inward from the force of concentrated explosions. And hell poured forth.
Hordes of mutants, amalgamations of flesh writhing with a forest of clawed tentacles, charged screaming. Behind them, mobs of corrupted cultists, eyes bulging with madness, brandished smoking weapons.
Bastion's wall responded. The HK-Tanks fired first. Bursts of blue lasers, lethally precise, swept through the first waves. The beams didn't just kill; they disintegrated, vaporizing malformed flesh, making bodies explode in geysers of blood and bone fragments. The air filled with the acrid smell of ozone and burning meat.
Then the Marauders went into action. The deep roar of their heavy flamers drowned out the screams. Torrents of pure promethium gushed forth, enveloping the next waves in a mantle of liquid fire. The cries became high-pitched shrieks, then fell silent, replaced by the crackle of burning flesh and the satisfied roar of the flamers.
---
On the Other Side of the Breach – Boris's Group
They were almost there. Boris, leading several hundred exhausted civilians and a score of guards still able to fight, could see the massive silhouette of the gate at the end of a wide conduit. Hope, mad and tenuous, made his heart beat faster.
Then that hope shattered.
From the shadows before the gate emerged forms. Distended musculature, armor of rusted bronze, double-bladed axes dripping with never-dried blood. Khorne Daemons. A half-dozen, but it was enough.
"FIRE! FIRE AT WILL!" Boris screamed, raising his lasrifle.
A ragged volley went out. The daemons, barely inconvenienced, charged with a bestial snarl. The first guards were chopped to pieces, their cloth armor and light weapons mere toys. The civilians screamed and fell back, the corridor becoming a slaughterhouse.
Boris, heart clenched, looked at the gate so close. "We were almost there..."
Then the world exploded.
A titanic blast shook the entire structure. The gate, struck from within by a cataclysmic force, disintegrated. The heavy metal doors, flung like matchsticks, crushed the Khorne daemons who had just turned around, surprised. Part of the horde pouring in behind them was buried under tons of steel.
In the cloud of dust and smoke that rose, Boris saw the army.
An army of nightmare and order. Giants with iron skulls, soldiers in midnight blue heavy armor, multi-armed bipedal war machines, all advancing with iron discipline, crushing and burning anything that dared face them.
Hope was reborn, wild and desperate.
"WITH ME!" Boris screamed to his survivors, pointing his weapon no longer at the remaining daemons, but at the flanks of the enemy horde. "JOIN THEM! FIRE!"
His men, galvanized by this apparition and by the fury of survival, turned. Civilians who could grabbed fallen weapons. Their fire, weak and disorganized, mingled with Bastion's deluge of fire. It was perhaps just a drop in the ocean of battle. The hope of victory was minuscule, almost absurd. But it was hope. And for the first time in hours, they were fighting for something, and not just against the horror.