Chapter 242: Strategy (Patreon)

Abaddon the Despoiler did not flee.

Instead, he chose an open expanse of metallic terrain, ordering Typhus and Kossolax’s warband to establish defensive positions before falling into stillness, waiting.

To Abaddon, this place was far stranger than the rest of the Iron Planet.

It resembled a colossal warehouse, a cavernous hall where titanic machines labored without rest. Two massive platforms faced each other across a seemingly bottomless chasm, separated by a gulf of two kilometers.

The Iron Planet itself seemed to be siphoning minerals from other worlds of the Cadian system, to repair its broken twin.

When great rivers of ore poured down the conduits lining the left wall of the warehouse, the two platforms would suddenly draw together until they touched. At that moment, swarms of transport drones would emerge from the opposite platform, ferrying the mineral cargo across

Once the transfer was complete, the platform would retreat again, restoring the yawning gap of two kilometers between them.

It was as though reality itself were being folded and unfolded, as if the very laws of distance had been shackled, bent, and released at the planet’s whim.

The spectacle was so abstract that even Abaddon found it difficult to describe. His gaze drifted upward, ten kilometers above, to where a radiant device hung suspended from the steel heavens.

Whenever the platforms drew close, the device blazed with light. When they separated again, the glow dimmed and guttered.

“They’re using spatial technology to avoid the inconvenience of constructing roadways,” observed Kossolax, his voice edged with awe. “Remarkable.”

Abaddon’s head snapped toward Typhus first, then to Kossolax. He had not expected the oath-broken warlord to speak with such clarity.

“Tell me,” Abaddon sneered, “is it the Butcher’s Nails rattling in your skull, or the Scholar’s Nails?”

“This has nothing to do with the implant,” Kossolax said evenly, tapping the side of his head. “The Nails are only a tool. The wise control it, the foolish are controlled by it."

Abaddon chuckled, dismissive. He turned away, eyes narrowing at the void where the enemy would soon appear.

In his experience, the Butcher’s Nails were not merely an implant; they replaced entire sections of the brain and replaced them with madness, rage, and pain. Scholar or fool, once implanted, all warriors became slaves to the red haze.

Yet Kossolax bore them and still spoke with clarity. That was… troublesome.

“They are here,” Typhus rumbled, gripping the haft of his scythe, the head of Manreaper leaking a miasma that corroded the metal floor beneath his boots.

Abaddon looked across the gap. On the far platform, ancient Space Marines marched into position. Beside them strode an Inquisitor, an Thunderborn, and a contingent of mortal soldiers.

The device overhead had not yet activated. The platforms remained apart, two kilometers of fractured void between them.

Kossolax’s breathing quickened, rasping. His chain-axe twitched in his grip.

The Butcher’s Nails gnawed at him, and his warriors fared worse, clawing at the deck plating with their chainblades, desperate to kill, yet denied by Abaddon’s silence.

One of his men, armed with a bolter, finally broke. He fired across the gulf.

The bolt round flew into the void, and simply kept going, suspended between the platforms, propulsion burned out before it had traveled a hundred meters.

The space between the platforms was unstable, warped. Not only could the glowing device collapse the distance, it twisted the very fabric of reality itself to an unmeasured, unknown gulf.

Abaddon did not give the order to attack. Instead, he turned to his lieutenant.

“Deploy the beacon.”

This battlefield had not been chosen by chance. Abaddon intended to gather strength here. That was why Kossolax restrained himself, waiting for strategy.

Once the beacon was planted, light blossomed behind Abaddon. One after another, more than five hundred Chaos Space Marines teleported in. Behind them followed their mortal thralls, twisted abominations with axe-like limbs, howling as they surged forward in a wall of living flesh.

“Ready yourselves!” Abaddon roared, raising the daemon blade Drach’nyen high overhead.

Behind him, the hosts of Chaos howled their defiance, their war-cries shaking the vaults of the chamber.

....

On the other side of the void, Inquisitor Greyfax’s gaze hardened. “We will need reinforcements.”

Grey opened vox channels to Cadian command, calling upon Lord Castellan Creed to dispatch Astartes support.

Because an Inquisitor stood present, Grey did not request the aid of the Iron Men.

Creed relayed the call to all Space Marine Chapters nearby. Replies came swiftly.

“The Lamenters are preparing teleportation. The Space Wolves also answer the call,” Creed reported. “The other Chapters refuse to trust Talon’s teleportation technology. They will assist, but are en route aboard strike cruisers.”

Grey’s expression tightened as he relayed this to the gathered commanders.

“That makes no sense,” Captain Gaius frowned. “Your teleportation technology appears perfectly sound. Why would they refuse it?”

“I wouldn’t stake an entire Chapter on a technology of unknown providence either,” Greyfax answered coldly. “If it fails, it is annihilation. No remains. No return.”

“Unknown providence?” Gaius pressed. “Such advanced technology cannot simply appear without origin. Why has it not been sanctioned by the Mechanicus and put to full use?”

Greyfax’s patience finally snapped. Her eyes locked on him. “Because the age has changed, Captain....”

As if to prove her words, the air behind Gaius split into ragged rifts.

From them strode Chapter Master Phoros, leading seventy-two battle-scarred Lamenters, warriors pulled from the desperate defense of Cadia itself, stretched thin across the war.

Then came Sven, bearing with him fifty Space Wolves.

They were fresh from carnage. Their appearance was significantly different from that of normal Space Marines, hulking shapes like the nightmares of Fenrisian myth, resembling feral beasts more than men. Some dripped gore, ceramite claws caked with flesh and steel fragments still wet from their last kill.

Greyfax’s eyes narrowed. To her, they stank of heresy. Yet she noted: they had trusted Talon’s technology, perhaps because they had found the Talons to be more approachable during the ongoing war or simply because it was too useful to refuse.

Then another figure appeared, an Eldar.

Saal, the one charged with matters of the Blackstone Fortress, now garbed in custom-built Talon-pattern power armor, concealing his alien frame.

“Vengeance!” Saal cried, drawing his wraithbone blade. Only too late did he realize he had shouted in his own tongue. He glanced back nervously at the Marines.

The Astartes gave him a look of suspicion, but no one moved. The battle demanded greater focus.

“Tell me,” Sven rumbled, eyeing Gaius and his warriors, “From what century are you? Did your ship get lost in the warp?”

Gaius grimaced. “A long tale. For after the battle.”

The device overhead thundered, and the platforms slammed together in an instant.

Both sides surged into fire.

Grey was among the first forward, bolter shots whining past as he darted with impossible grace, his movements a blur of speed and precision. His plan was simple: strike Abaddon himself, blade to his throat, or crush him beneath his grav-shield.

But another force was faster.

As Grey wove between the volleys of explosives, a new presence appeared, silent as ghosts, their armor wreathed in flame.

A group of Astartes, their forms shrouded in fire and shadow, phasing into existence as though from nothing.