Damage from previous engagements within the throne room was evident from the scaffolding that dominated a shattered roof section. But it was still well defended. Battle-scarred gargants loomed over the arriving Space Marines, their engines and weaponry roaring to life.
Tychor battered his way through the remaining orks to join his Chapter Master, the battle standard of the Imperial Fists held high. Zoldt was not far behind, with Captain Berengard and his hammer-wielding Terminators stomping up beside them. Lady Brassanas and her remaining Sisters struggled to drag the captive psyker through on its chains, watched over by the brute threat of High Chaplain Bachorath and his whirring assault cannons. As they entered, the Imperial Fists aimed their all-but-empty weaponry up at the gargants. Even with full magazines and power packs, the Space Marines’ weapons could not have hoped to pierce the thick plate of those mighty war machines.
Thane looked about the colossal throne room. Its galleries were empty, as were its monstrous thrones. Only the gargants, towering above the Imperial Fists, seemed to display any evidence of life.
‘The sons of Dorn have come for you, Beast of Ullanor,’ the Chapter Master called about the cavernous chamber. ‘I have come for you. It is time, Beast. It is time to face your doom in the Emperor’s Angels of Death. In his Imperial Fists. In me.’
With the rumble of gargant engines about him and the clunk of loading magna-bore weaponry, Thane approached the Sisters of Silence and the last ork psyker. The alien’s eyes wept the brilliance of otherworldly energies and dripped with spidery threads of green power. The Chapter Master peered into the darkness of the throne room’s gargantuan exits. In their depths he saw the movement of monstrous beasts, colossal ork warlords of extravagant tusk and fang. In the galleries above, the shadows solidified into more massive orks — tribal chieftains and their warriors, wielding chunky weaponry and heavy, serrated blades. They pushed forward, but made no move to attack.
‘Fight me, monster!’ Thane called out. ‘Fight me for Ullanor. For Terra. For the galaxy.’
The Chapter Master turned, and what remained of his glorious Chapter turned with him. Thane felt the quake of the alien’s step. The monster that had felled Vulkan, and in killing Koorland had doomed the Imperial Fists to extinction, was coming to meet him. Dust and debris rained from the chamber ceiling with each heavy stomp of the gigantic ork’s boots.
Ducking into the chamber, the Beast of Ullanor entered the throneroom. The towering ork looked down at the Imperial Fists. It stared at the Space Marines with, Thane thought, a look of amused disdain.
It was huge, like a death world reptile that had grown so large that it had no natural predators. Green muscle. Mounds of furs. Plates of black and white armour as thick as a gargant’s hull. Like its palace, the Beast’s brutish form crackled with defence fields and protective shielding. With colossal claws wreathed with green fire, it lifted a great horned helm from its head to reveal the tusked and scar-mangled horror of its face. Eyes that burned with doom. Monstrous fangs too large and warped for its massive jaws. Green skin cracked with age and scarring.
On the balconies above, the watching orks shouted and howled in adulation of their ultimate champion.
Thane glanced over at the last ork psyker, which Lady Brassanas and the remaining few Sisters were struggling to control. It was a monstrous brute covered in the scars and markings of a tribal shaman. It was wreathed in a blinding nimbus of ethereal energies like a star about to go supernova. It thrashed against its chains, driven into a frenzy by its surroundings and the presence of so many other orks.
‘The galaxy totters,’ Thane told his battle-brothers. ‘but Dorn is with us and the Emperor guides our hand. The Beast must die!’
The throne room became a raging bolt-storm of vengeance. Imperial Fists squeezed the triggers of boltguns, heavy bolters, storm bolters and pistols. Their weapons spoke with the last of their fury. Lascannons and multi-meltas sent streams of death at the colossal monster. Nothing phased the creature, however. Bolts ricocheted harmlessly off its sizzling force fields, and those that did manage to penetrate overloading patches sparked off armour as thick as a frigate’s hull. Beams shimmered from the energy field and the detonations of missiles bloomed uselessly against the Beast’s shielding.
The Beast of Beasts thundered forward. It seemed monstrously amused, not only at Thane and his words but at the useless rage of the Imperial Fists’ weaponry. With an almighty swing of its hugely muscled arm, it brought a colossal, green-wreathed fist down on Thane.
‘No!’ Tychor yelled, running towards his Chapter Master. Barging Thane aside, the standard bearer disappeared — hammered into the floor by the towering monster. The impact of the ork’s fist ripped through the chamber like a thunderclap. Gore splattered across the chamber floor. Sickened to his stomach, Thane pointed the finger of his power fist at the Beast.
‘Again!’ the Chapter Master roared.
The half-demolished chamber lit up. Storn and his Ninth Company unleashed the devastation of their heavy weapons. Missiles struck the Beast, exploding against its shielding, while balls of superheated plasma raged off it. The heavy bolters of Second Company Centurions chewed into the crackling force field while beams of pure energy struck the monster from arm-mounted lascannons. Assault squads of Space Marines ran forth with the thrashing teeth of their chainswords held high, while Imperial Fists of other companies emptied their boltguns and threw grenades at the Beast in hatred and fury.
Thane watched the monster emerge from the vortex of destruction. Nothing could stop it. Stamping down furiously on the charging Space Marines of the Eighth, the Beast went wild. With fists of blazing green fire it smashed squads aside, breaking them within their plate. It back-smacked charging sergeants into the stone of the walls and snatched up battle-brothers in its ferocious claws. Some it threw with lethal force into the throne room floor. Others it pulverised, allowing gore to leak down between its green fingers.
Space Marines in Centurion war-plate were smashed to bloody pieces. Instant death greeted Terminator veterans who were struck from the ground and across the chamber. Within a handful of furious moments, the greenskin giant had painted the throne room with the blood of Dorn. Smashed plate. Body parts. Imperial Fists torn in half. It was a slaughter. One moment High Chaplain Bachorath was a raging Dreadnought, roaring from his vox-casters and emptying his assault cannons at the Beast; the next he was smouldering scrap, as the hulking abomination put its armoured boot straight through him.
In a moment of horror, the Beast brought his blazing fist around, smashing it through the squad of Sisters of Silence. Like broken dolls their bodies flew across the chamber, leaving only their leader holding on to the alien psyker’s chain. The creature tried to break away, forcing the Lady Brassanas to wrap her length of chain about a column for leverage.
The Chapter Master turned just in time to see the Beast’s lethal fist hurtling towards him. The bone-shattering impact took Thane off his feet and across the throne room, where he crashed to the ground and skidded through the bodies of dead Imperial Fists. He struggled to catch his breath, but even his multi-lung was struggling to sustain him. His armour’s diagnostic systems were dead but he was fairly certain that his arm was broken. The breastplate of his Terminator armour had been smashed open down to his black carapace.
Within moments the Beast was looming over him. It stared down at him with the contempt of a barbarian god and brought its flaming fist around to deliver one last crushing blow. Thane did the only thing he could. One half of his cyclone launcher was a crumpled mess, but the other was still functional. Arming its remaining missiles, the Chapter Master blasted them ceilingward. They struck the partially demolished roof of the throne room, and rock and scaffolding crashed down upon the Beast.