The slaves gathered from raids across who knew how many worlds didn’t move.
Every eye on Andrallo was full of suspicion and hatred.
Before making his move, Andrallo had cleaned up his armor, stripping away every blasphemous ornament and pattern until nothing was left but the bare ceramite underneath, and he’d deliberately pulled on a hood and mask to hide his still-distorted face.
But no matter how carefully the armor was reworked or the face disguised, his sheer size gave him away at a glance.
This same Slaanesh-worshipping band of Chaos Astartes had once disguised themselves as Imperial rescuers, only to lure these very slaves to a sacrificial altar, savoring the way their hope curdled into despair.
Right as the standoff hung in the air, Charlotte stepped out from a hidden passage nearby.
She took one look at the captives frozen in place and immediately raised her voice.
“The God-Emperor’s herald stands before you, and you still dare defy him where you stand?!”
Many of the captives here were servants of House Westminster, and seeing Charlotte walk out unharmed left them staring in disbelief.
When Maen arrived close behind her, it was enough to freeze them entirely in place.
“Lady Maen, Lady Charlotte, you’re…
not dead?”
“What kind of thing is that to say?
You wanted us dead, is that it?!”
“No!
That’s not it, I’m just, I’m just shocked.
After all, you and Lady Maen were both—”
Maen walked over.
She’d just learned through their telepathic link what trouble Andrallo was having, so she stepped forward to face the crowd herself.
“Lord Andrallo truly is the God-Emperor’s herald.
He saved my sister and me, and he’s the one behind this counterattack.
If he were really one of those blasphemous traitors, how could the two of us be standing before you completely unharmed?”
The sisters’ appearance was proof enough for everyone present.
Seeing nobility vouch for him, the captives rose to answer the call one after another, and House Westminster’s own servants gathered close around the sisters, falling in line right behind Andrallo.
Everyone moved quickly.
Most of those still capable of fighting gathered around Andrallo, while the rest went to look after the civilians and wounded among the captives who couldn’t.
Andrallo then followed the guidance of a few veterans among them toward the astropathic choir chamber and the bridge.
When it came to the ship’s layout, Andrallo was hopeless with directions no matter what, even with this enhanced body of his, he simply couldn’t hold the map in his head.
Since the warband was flat broke, the fighters following him couldn’t scrounge up anything resembling real weaponry.
Every standard-issue piece of gear they’d once had was already stripped from them by the warband and put to use down on the agri-world below.
With no better option, everyone armed themselves with scraps of scavenged metal filed down into makeshift blades.
Poor equipment or not, the fighters’ spirit hadn’t dimmed one bit.
Led by Andrallo and the Westminster sisters, they charged the cultists without a trace of fear.
“For the Emperor!!”
“Die, traitors!!”
“Vengeance!!”
Whether it was Andrallo’s presence beside them or not, the fighters clearly had no interest in stealth at all.
They struck at practically anyone they saw.
No matter how hard Andrallo worked to cut down the enemy, more than a few of the more worked-up fighters still broke formation and were killed by the cultists.
Even so, the group’s advance was rapid.
The cultists and blasphemous constructs in their path fell apart with barely a fight, and more often than not the mortal fighters handled things themselves without Andrallo needing to step in at all.
But everyone understood these were only cannon fodder.
The real threat was the Chaos Astartes still aboard the ship.
Sure enough, the noise Andrallo’s group made soon drew the attention of the genetically-altered warriors.
From somewhere down the corridor came the sound of decking flexing under heavy weight.
Maen came to Andrallo’s side, fine beads of sweat from nerves standing out on her forehead, and warned him seriously:
“My lord, my divination only reaches about a minute into the future, but even so, I can already tell you ten Chaos Astartes are coming.”
The news drained the color from every face around them.
Under normal circumstances it took heavy firepower and a well-chosen chokepoint just to have a chance at killing a single Astartes.
Now they had nothing but a pile of scrap metal.
If they somehow won this, it would only prove the Emperor himself had reached down and worked a miracle.
Andrallo looked over the fighters around him, then reached out to Charlotte through their psychic link.
Do you have the layout scanned yet?
Elsewhere, down the corridor.
Five Chaos Astartes moved through the passage, weapons loaded, blasphemous markings covering their bodies, human skin and bone worked into ornate decorations hanging from their chestplates and pauldrons.
“Do we really need to be this careful?
What chance do a bunch of unarmed mortals have against us?”
“Better safe than sorry.
What if it’s one of those mutants from the lower decks that got loose?
You planning to just wade in and go hand to hand?”
“And why not?
Brother, we’re Emperor’s Children, aren’t we?
Melee and art are our whole reason for living. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Don’t you think there’s something pleasurable about sinking a blade straight into some xenos skull?”
The one leading them didn’t answer.
He snapped his arm up in a warning gesture, and the four behind him went silent instantly, falling into formation without a word.
A nameless dread welled up in the squad leader’s chest, though he couldn’t place where it was coming from.
The rest felt the same.
Both of their hearts hammered under the influence of combat stimulants, flooding their brains with oxygen and nutrients so they wouldn’t miss the slightest change around them.
One second.
Two.
Time crept past, but no enemy appeared, and that same suffocating pressure kept pressing in around them regardless.
Just as the Emperor’s Children reached the edge of their patience, their sensors screamed a warning.
A violet mist rolled out of nowhere, and a shape emerged in front of the Chaos Astartes.
Without a shout, the Emperor’s Children pulled their triggers at once, laying down alternating fire.
But the sound of a hit never came.
If anything, the bolter rounds only churned the mist into greater chaos, and it kept spreading further.
“Fall back!!”
At the squad leader’s order, they all began to retreat, but at that exact moment a pipe overhead burst open, and a massive surge of violet mist billowed straight in among them.
The Chaos Astartes went weak all over, as if a boulder had settled onto their backs, their whole bodies frozen in place.
Worse still, cracks began spreading across their armor, their helmets began failing one by one, and even their bolters and combat blades started to break down.
“This is—!”
The squad leader remembered now.
He’d seen this exact shade of violet around Andrallo once before.
But before he could react, an ornate blade swept out of the shadows.
Violet ripples gathered along the arc of the swing, coalescing into a beautiful violet light on the blade’s edge, driving straight toward him.
The Chaos Astartes threw up his arms to block it, but the violet-lit blade slid through his body as easily as a hot knife through butter.
Agony and an icy cold shot straight into his brain, carried on nerve signals and chemical cascades alike, and as an Emperor’s Children Marine who drank in suffering like water, he knew exactly how impossibly clean that cut had been.
As the blade sank into him, the violet energy riding along it split apart into countless smaller edges, carving through everything inside him.
When it was all over and the violet mist finally cleared, the mortal fighters arrived at the scene, guided there by Maen and Charlotte.
What met their eyes was a floor scattered with shattered ceramite and flesh.
The five Emperor’s Children were nothing now but garbage lying at Andrallo’s feet.