Since his duel with his fallen Daemon Primarch brother, the Lion's strength had been fully restored. Yet, the combat prowess of the daemon before him surpassed even the mindless savagery of Angron.
The Lion's blade, Fealty, moved with the fluidity of quicksilver, possessing the lethal force and speed of a pouncing apex predator. Yet, every strike was neutralized by the daemon's uncanny, unnatural technique, its parries flowing with the Lion's momentum.
In a single exchange lasting less than a nanosecond, the combatants traded hundreds of blows. To the veteran battle-brothers of the Dark Angels, the duel was nothing more than a blurred, indistinct cacophony of shadows and steel.
The Lion's expression turned grim. He realized this daemon was no mere filth to be swept aside. With the solemnity of a true knight, he raised his blade and bellowed, "Daemon! Name yourself! He who claims your head is the First Son of the Emperor, the First Primarch, Master of the Dark Angels, Lion El'Jonson!"
By declaring his name, the Lion acknowledged the strength of the abomination before him. This was not born of respect, but a cold necessity to understand a new and dire threat to the Imperium.
Sneek's crimson rat-eyes fixed upon him. To reveal one's identity was an insult to the creed of the assassin. However, the enemy was of exalted status. If the terror of Clan Eshin could be etched into the racial memory of the man-things, it would surely smooth the path for the Clan's future tithes of shadow.
"I am the Right Paw of the Great Horned Rat... Lord of Eshin, Nightlord Sneek. Man-thing... you shall witness your wretched kin perish in the dark!"
Sneek's voice sounded as if it were dragged from the depths of an abyss. He crouched low, twin weeping blades angled outward, never breaking eye contact with the Lion.
In an instant, the two towering figures vanished again, the air exploding in a localized storm of gold and warp-green sparks.
"Father!"
The Dark Angels surged forward to intervene, but living shadows suddenly erupted from their own towering silhouettes.
These lithe, wiry vermin possessed the graceful proportions of the Aeldari but bore the heads of rats. Their grey and black fur was shrouded in tattered cloaks that seemed woven from the darkness itself.
Those with swift reflexes brought down their chainswords, forcing the sudden interlopers back; those a fraction slower were instantly impaled through the cranium or throat.
These Eshin Vermin Herders stood roughly 1.8 meters tall, barely half the height of an Astartes, yet they moved with a preternatural agility. Every strike from the Astartes was effortlessly evaded, met immediately by a tempest of counter-attacks.
Assassins.
The battle-hardened Astartes instantly recognized the daemons' combat doctrine. Without needing a command, they shifted tactics, forming small fire-teams of three to five, standing back-to-back.
The maneuver proved effective. By minimizing the assassins' flanking vectors, they forced the fragile vermin to expose their bodies to the devastating power of the Astartes' counter-offensive.
"For the Emperor! Haah!"
Chainswords and power swords swung in frenzied arcs. Gradually, the casualties among the Eshin Vermin Herders mounted. When the Astartes' blades found their mark, the frail daemon-forms were cleaved in two, their essences banished back to the Ruinous Domain of the Great Horned Rat.
Yet everyone knew the true outcome of the battle rested not here, but in the duel between Lion El'Jonson and Sneek. Should a daemon capable of rivaling the First Primarch emerge victorious, none present would survive.
"This daemon... is stalling for time?" The Lion keenly observed that Sneek was prioritizing evasion over aggression. Anxiety gnawed at his heart. He understood the enemy's intent, but the situation was becoming too perilous.
I cannot fail my Father. I cannot fail my people.
Steeling his resolve, the Lion decided to end the duel at any cost. Instead of raising the Emperor's Shield to block an incoming strike, he merely deflected the blade's trajectory and lunged forward, his hand snapping shut around the daemon's wrist.
Sneek's eyes widened. He flicked his blade, shearing through the Primarch's power armor and carving a furrow into his arm that laid bare the bone.
But Sneek's wrist was caught in a vice grip. Scorning the wound, the Lion closed the distance. In his right hand, the power field of Fealty roared to maximum output, erupting in blinding cerulean lightning.
"RAAAGHH!" (Lion's Peerless Strike!)
The Lion let out a leonine roar and brought the blade down with cataclysmic force. Sneek parried with the weeping blade in his other hand, but his strength was inferior to the Primarch's; he was instantly overpowered.
The disruption field scorched Sneek's black fur and began to unmake his intangible flesh.
A surge of unprecedented agony galvanized the Nightlord. Gnashing his teeth, he executed a violent backflip, choosing to snap his own trapped arm to escape the decapitating blow. As he tore himself away, he lashed out with his blade, slashing the hand that held his severed limb.
The two combatants recoiled, both doubly wounded. The sight left both the Dark Angels and the Eshin Vermin Herders stunned, their blades momentarily stilled in shock.
"No! Father!" the Dark Angels roared, preparing to charge recklessly to protect their gene-sire. Sneek, meanwhile, retreated rapidly.
His eyes burned with hatred. Since the moment of his creation by the Great Horned Rat, he had never been wounded. This was the first time. Sneek swore that this bearded, weathered man-thing's head would become his greatest trophy.
The Eshin Vermin Herders fell back, gazing in disbelief at Sneek's mangled right arm and the horrific wound across his chest.
At that moment, an Eshin Assassin leapt from the surrounding ruins, looking upon these elite masters with reverent awe. "Lord, the Skryre-things are ready-prepared."
Sneek glared at the Lion, as if memorizing every line of the Primarch's weary, scarred face. Ultimately, he did not forget his duty. A single word hissed from his maw: "Withdraw!"
As suddenly as they had arrived, the Eshin daemons dissolved into the shadows and vanished.
The Lion did not pursue. His face was a mask of fury and grief. He spoke in a voice heavy with the weight of ages: "Go. Gather everyone you can at the Governor's Palace. We must evacuate them now."
"Why, Father? We have not yet lost!" an Unforgiven asked. Having regained their glory, they burned to reclaim the world in his name.
At that moment, on the distant horizon, where one of the hive city's thousands of primary spires stood, a green mushroom cloud billowed into the sky. Tens of seconds later, the terrifying thunder of the explosion reached them.
Then, more mushroom clouds began to rise. The Imperial vox-channels were suddenly choked with a cacophony of distress signals, pleas for reinforcement, and the screams of the dying.
[By the Emperor… our starport has been destroyed!!]
[The Bard Second through Twenty-Seventh Regiments are gone... the defensive lines... they've been wiped off the map!]
[No! Throne of Terra! The Balin Sector has vanished under the xenos assault—AAAGH!!]
The Lion took a deep breath, his teeth bared in a snarl. "What are you waiting for? GO!!"
The Dark Angels snapped to attention. "Yes, Father!" They scrambled into Land Speeders and Thunderhawks, racing toward sectors that had not yet reported hits, ordering a total retreat to the Governor's Palace plaza.
There, a forest that had no place on such a world had overgrown the industrial landscape. A steady stream of humans, ushered by Astartes and surviving Imperial remnants, entered the woods, vanishing from the world of Bard forever.
Then, the rat-swarm completely overwhelmed the hive city, filling the world with the deafening, chittering screech of the vermin.
…
"Game over. As expected of the First Primarch... I've never seen Sneek so badly injured. He was nearly banished." Lucius grinned as he watched the final fall of Bard.
The Emperor intended to speak, but the metaphysical laws of the Warp shifted. Across the Sanctum Imperialis, the souls of every rat slipped from the light of the Astronomican, their meager essences tethered instead to the palm of the Great Horned Rat.
Then, on every world within the Imperial Sanctum, every great bell began to toll thirteen times. In the sewers and the shadows, the rats began to chitter, stirring with a new and terrible hunger.
"The Skaven Great Crusade is over. My thanks, Emperor."
Lucius stood and bowed to the golden youth, a thin smile playing on his lips.