Secret War: Upon Blood Sands

Chapter 35

Authors Note: I almost had as much fun writing this fight scene as Attelus had fighting it XD

Attelus and Kalakor didn't bother with stealth or subtlety, and the Space Marine led the way as they stepped out of the corridor and onto the hangar's catwalk.

Instantly las and solid shots rained against Kalakor's power armour, and Kalakor raised his bolter and replied in kind.

Attelus slipped past Kalakor and, in a split second, took in his surroundings. The docking bay was now crawling with dozens of cultists and guardsmen. Two huge, hunched, horned daemons were amongst them, standing head and shoulders taller than any of the Resurrected.

Grinning, Attelus smashed aside a few shots and vaulted over the handrail. His sword sliced through one unlucky cultist from head to the groin as he was in mid-fall.

Attelus landed into a kneel then lunged across six metres to cut through the chest of a guardsman as he was raising his lasgun. The throne agent whipped out his foot in a hook kick which sent the corpse's upper half flying and spinning, then smashing into the skull of a charging cultist who collapsed and crashed into a guardsman beside him.

He laughed and dashed aside a withering hail of shots that followed him as he continued to sprint.

A cultist stepped into his path; a chainsword held ready. Attelus slid into a kneel, and the chainsword swing, which was meant to tear through his torso, passed over his head. Attelus gutted the cultist with a horizontal cut, darted onto the screaming cultist's flank, then onward, so the rounds raining in his wake tore the heretic to shreds.

He charged for the enemy flank, a Marangerian trooper roared at Attelus, stabbing with a bayonet. Attelus sidestepped, then bisected the Maragerian's skull with a downward, diagonal stroke.

A cultist let out an enraged screech and came at Attelus, but before Attelus could counter the cultist's stabbing combat blade, the bastard's head exploded in a haze of red and sent spinning back, the neck spewing out a thick tendril of blood.

Attelus back-pedalled a Velrosian sergeant's whirling chainsword, then his sword parried through a swinging lasgun. Attelus sent a side-kick that bashed in the last guardsman's face. Attelus' backswing then opened the sergeant's throat. He carried his slash into a 180-degree arc that sliced through the elbows of a cultist as he was in the midst of a wild overhead chop.

A thrusting bayonet made Attelus duck, then as the enemy guardsman was about to swing out the butt of his lasgun Attelus kicked him under the jaw with his boot knife; Attelus pulled his foot out and kicked the man back into his ally.

Attelus blocked a slashing axe, then weaved beneath another cutting chainsword. He then impaled the axe-wielding cultist through the skull, pulled out his blade, then sliced straight diagonally from the shoulder to hip of the guardswoman sergeant with the chainsword.

A split second later, one of the daemons burst through its Resurrected allies; it snarled and, with a sword as long as it was tall, smashed out a downward, diagonal strike. Attelus danced back of it, then ducked its huge reverse swing. The second daemon pushed past the first's left and swung down vertically. Attelus dashed out of its path, and the black, hazed with blood-red blade hit the deck with a deafening clang and smashed in some of the steel.

"Get out of the way," Kalakor said over the vox, and Attelus started darting toward the stairs.

Two frag grenades clanged at the daemons' clawed feet and exploded. It sent them and the six nearest Resurrected flying.

Attelus sprinted up the stairs while drawing his autopistol from its chest holster and stood beside Kalakor.

"You are a fool," said the Raven Guard as he fired bolter round after bolter into the enemy horde, which seemed to grow and grow. "Why did you abandon cover and an elevated position?"