"The Sacrifice of Valor" | WH40K FanFiction

[Katharon]

The Sacrifice of Valor

+++Archival Data; Security Clearance Vermillion+++
+++Belicose Campaign+++
+++Imperial Date M42.177.29+++
+++Subject: Brother-Sergeant Darius, 4th Company, Knights of Sanguinius+++


[First three minutes of recording is too filled with static to make out clearly]...and we are being forced to withdraw into the Carmine Pass. I've been informed by the local Imperial Guard commander that his men are cut off and are beyond saving. Colonel Alaric Morendein, of the 438th Beres Praetorians, shall be honored by my battle-brothers for his sacrifice. His men distract the horde while my squad shepherds the last of the refugees through the mountain pass and prepare to buy time.

Everything has been mishandled by the addled idiosyncrasy of the planetary governor. The inbred pig even tried to...[More static discharges. Bolter fire and screams are heard in the background at times.]...the loss of life was staggering. Only a few of the Planetary Defense Force commanders would listen to my call when I informed them that my brethren and I would be moving those civilians willing to the protection of the Agamemnon Mountains.

They can find safety there behind the giant doors that lead to the underground labyrinths made by the Mechanicus. I had to force Adept Johannes with...[the roar of thrusters and more bolter fire interrupt all recording feeds]...but he finally relented. My tactical squad will guard the doors until the last citizen is safely within. I send this message to you Lord Arqaetus, because I believe the task for retaking this world is one that only the Knights of Sangunius can handle. For the Emperor and Sanguinius!

---

Darius shut down the long-range vox communicator. The message would reach the Imperial Navy frigate, the Arghost, or it would not. It was all in the Emperor's hands now. Darius turned his head and looked at what remained of his tactical squad. Out of the original ten, only four now remained: Nikeas, Zanatos, Octavian, and Cassius.

A steady steam of huddled, dirt and filth-caked men, women, and children pass between the battered and giant forms of the Astartes. The path named the "Carmine Pass" is narrow, to the point where only three Astartes could manage to stand shoulder to shoulder and walk abreast. The path only opens up when one reaches the mighty iron gates that lead to the Under Vault, a place originally created by the Adeptus Mechanicus to experiment in secret. Now it is to become a mausoleum. Darius could see it on the drawn and resigned faces of the human beings that walk past him. These normal men and women were worn and beaten.

They look at him. Some with hope, others with fear, and even one or two with loathing. He had heard all their protests, cries, and screams. Why have you not protected us? Why did you let my son die on the Dragost Fields? Why have you not summoned more of your mighty Space Marines? Darius felt the anguish that they are experiencing, the overriding sense of hopelessness that they must experience to see even the Emperor's finest and strongest warriors pushed back to the brink. They cannot know that Darius would have summoned his brothers, except that a greater threat lies elsewhere. They cannot know that their own planetary governor tried to sacrifice them all just to save his own life and personal wealth.

“Here, Brother-Sergeant.”

The voice brings Darius up from his thoughts and he turns to see Brother Cassius standing next to him, a canteen of water held out. Darius nodded and took the canteen, drinking a heavy drought from it. The dust and ache that had plagued him for ten days is slightly abated.

“A sad business,” commented Cassius. Cassius was nearly as old as Darius. Both of them had been neophytes within the chapter together, had been in the same scout squad, and later the same tactical squad upon being raised to full Astartes. He was Darius' oldest friend and confidant.

“Our duty,” replied Darius. “The Emperor, in his perfect wisdom, made us to protect his realm and people. That is our duty this day Cassius.”

“Would be nice if they cheered us then,” grinned Cassius sardonically.

“You shouldn't expect any such acclaim Cassius,” added a third voice. The two turned to see Octavian walking closer, carefully polishing his bolt pistol. Octavian was a rising star in the Knights of Sanguinius Chapter. Quick to learn every lesson taught him, and surpass every expectation when put to the test. It had given him a small bit of hubris, a trait that had seen him delegated to Darius, who was renown for his dour nature; it was felt that the veteran sergeant could humble the young Space Marine. Octavian had taken to Darius like a young brother idolizing his elder brother.

“That's rich coming from you, young whelp -- I thought you lived off praise,” jeered Cassius good-naturedly.

“No use wasting it on you senile, old men,” Octavian grinned back.

Nikeas and Zanatos, sitting and polishing their weapons, both turned to watch this exchange, shaking their heads while doing so. It was old-hat for them, the exchanges between Octavian and Cassius. Like their sergeant, Nikeas and Zanatos were dour and even morose in personality. Both were dedicated and skilled Astartes however, and could be gripped with a righteous fury when the Emperor laid His hand upon them in battle.

Darius was about to chastise the both of them when a disheveled PDF trooper came running and collapsed in front of them. The line of refugees was drying up, with only hand-fulls more still coming. The trooper was gasping and Darius could see blood flecking his uniform, not all of it his own.

“M-My lords,” he managed between gulps of air. “The line is broken. The orks are beginning to come through.”

“Is this the last of the refugees?” asked Darius, rising up and putting his helm back on.

“It is lord,” said the trooper. “We held them back for...as long as we...could.” The PDF trooper staggered and fell to the ground. Darius' enhanced hearing enabled him to listen to the trooper's pounding heart come to a thundering halt. His exertions had seen the end of him. It gave Darius pause for thought that humans were so frail next to his giant, gene-forged frame.

Darius knelt and closed the man's eyes while whispering the Emperor's Benediction. It was the least he could do for a man who had given everything for his people and his service to the Emperor.

The vox suddenly came alive with a voice that sounded far more machine than man.

“Brother-Sergeant Darius, are you receiving my signal?” came the voice of Tech Adept Johannes.

“I am Adept,” replied Darius. “What is it? We're about to be in combat.”

“That is just it, Brother-Sergeant,” replied Adept Johannes. “You must hold back the enemy for one hour and twenty-three minutes and nineteen seconds.”

Darius actually turned his head towards the mountain, as if he could see Adept Johannes through the rock. “What do you mean, hold for an hour?”

“And twenty-two minutes and twelve seconds,” added the Adept. “That is the amount of time it will take for the machine-spirits to fully close and lock the doors to the Under Vault. If the Orks are allowed to gain entrance or somehow damage the locking mechanism of the gate, this entire endeavor will have been fruitless.”

Darius ground his teeth together. “I wish you had informed me of this earlier, Adept.”

“It was not entirely pertinent at that time. Now it is.”

“Very well. We will hold them back. Get that door shut as fast as possible. Darius out.”

Darius cut the link and turned to his men. They had all heard the conversation as well, with the Adept transmitting over a broad-band signal. Cassius shrugged.

“I didn't feel like going down into the Under Vault anyway,” he said. “I hate dark, musty places.”

“I'd think an old relic like you would be at home in such a place,” pitched Octavian.

“More like the both of you,” said Nikeas, breaking his stoic silence for once.

A loud wave of noise washed over them. Darius turned and used his helmet's magnification ability to zero-in on the approaching Orks. Even hemmed in like rats by the walls of the Carmine Pass, they were advancing like a solid green block of destruction. They were less than a hundred meters away when the front leaders paused -- seeing five red-gold armored Astartes standing in their path. Cries of delight echoed out in their guttural language upon seeing worthy opponents, targets upon which they could test their mettle.

“Bolters then blades,” ordered Darius. “We need to hold them off for an hour and more.”

“Executing,” murmured Zanatos. The hulking Space Marine stepped forward and leveled the heavy bolter gun that he carried with consummate ease. The Orks howled and charged. Zanatos pressed the firing stud of his weapon and a torrent of mass-reactive shells rained down upon the advancing Orks like a deluge of rain.

It was pure butchery; no finesse or fanciful combat form. When Zanatos had to reload, he would step back and Darius and the other three would step forward with their bolters and bolt pistols. Darius ordered them to make every shot count, to conserve ammunition.

Darius whipped another clip into his gun and swung it up in time to send a bolt flying along an arrow-straight trajectory. His heightened Astartes senses could almost just watch in slow motion as the round entered an Ork's skull right between its glowing red eyes. The body fell forwards as the small explosive package inside the bolt round exploded, the spirit within it sensing dense tissue around it. Bits of blood, viscera and bone splattered across the rocks.

The Orks came on, heedless of their losses. Within the first ten minutes, the floor of the narrow pass was covered knee-deep in dead Orks. Behind them even more Ork warriors pressed forward, crawling and scrambling over their fallen brethren like the wild savages that they were. A wall of compressed Ork carcasses was being built, and Darius and his half-squad were the masons.

Zanatos cursed and threw down his heavy bolter.

“I'm out of ammunition,” he growled. He pulled out a large chain-axe and hefted it in his hands, glaring hatefully at the orks as they suddenly realized the small respite from the constant hail of heavy bolter shells.

“Nikeas, Cassius, Octavian; how much do you have left?” asked Darius.

“One full clip.”

“Half a clip.”

“Two clips.”

“And I have two for my bolt pistol,” growled Darius, which he raised and shot an enterprising Ork through the head that had tried to peak over the mound of bodies. The barricade of Ork flesh had grown to near chest-height.

“Alright, tight fire discipline. One shot, one kill. Nikeas and Octavian, form a firing line. Cassius you are with me,” ordered Darius. “Once you run dry, fall back behind us.”

Nikeas and Octavian stepped forward and raised their bolters. The Orks began swarming forward again in even greater numbers it seemed like -- their small brains sensing that the end was nearing. Both of the Knights took careful aim and, as ordered, one Ork fell for every bolt round they fired.

In what seemed like mere seconds, the pair of them were falling back and Cassius raised his bolter. “Ready when you are brother!” Cassius said, his helmet hiding the smile that Darius knew was beneath it.

He raised his bolt pistol. A howling Ork with bits of metal bolted to its very body came howling over the mound of bodies, a giant cleaver raised in its right ham-fist. The choppa gun in its left hand was apparently forgotten in its berserk desire to reach the Space Marines and fight in hand-to-hand combat. Darius shot it through its right eye, barely registering as brain matter exploded out the back of its ruptured head, already moving onto his next target.

Again, in what seemed like mere seconds, their last rounds of ammunition ran dry.

“Swords!” cried Darius, drawing his power sword. It was a long weapon, two-handed. Lightning crackled along the length of the blade as he activated its power stud. Eldritch runes from ancient Gothic ran the length of the blade. It was a gift from his Chapter Master, for heroic deeds that Darius had performed as a youthful Space Marine. It was a chapter relic said to have been forged on Holy Terra itself under the watchful eyes of the Emperor's master craftsmen.

“I'm first!” cried Zanatos. Large even for a Space Marine, Zanatos was an imposing site when bearing his signature axe.

Zanatos stepped forward and raised his chain-axe threateningly, the chain roaring into life as he clicked the activation stud. “Come on you worthless apes! Come and meet your doom before a Knight of the Emperor of Mankind!”

Orks charged, bellowing in response to so obvious a challenge. They charged forward, swinging their cleavers and axes.

They were like paper dolls before Zanatos. He dipped, turned, lunged, crushed, and smashed. Every strike would kill one or two Orks. The walls of the pass were so close that it was near impossible for the Orks to get around the towering Astartes warrior's flank. His axe was a blur as he moved, killing with every stroke.

Zanatos killed thirty of them before his luck ran out. His chain-axe got caught inside the ribcage of a large Ork twice the size of himself. Another Ork appeared next to its fallen kin and thrust a large, iron spike forward and through Zanatos' throat, just barely passing between his armored helmet and throat gorget.

“No!” yelled Nikeas.

Before Darius could stop him, Nikeas rushed forward. With a fury fueled by fiery vengeance Nikeas fell upon the victorious Ork like a thunder clap. He swung a chain-sword around in a slashing arc and cut the Ork in two, from the collar bone to the hip. With green Ork blood covering his red armor, Nikeas strode forward like an unstoppable tide. His sword struck out like a snake, cutting necks open, lopping off limbs, and decapitating unwary Orks.

Octavian stepped up behind him, and warded off any attacks that came close to flanking the anger-charged Nikeas. The two of them wove a pattern of death. More and more Orks continued to climb forward, only to be met by the pair and die.

Nikeas fell next. An Ork that he had thought dead gripped his ankle and managed to make the Space Marine stumble to one knee. Before Octavian could come to his aid a large, burly Ork with two massive cleavers charged forward and, in a powerful swipe of its arms, cut Nikeas' head from his body. Octavian cut down three more Orks in front of him, ran up the mound of the dead, jumped off the side of the rock wall and came crashing down atop Nikeas' killer. With a roar of palpable hatred he plunged his chain-sword through the beasts neck, carving open its torso, and into its heart.

“Can't let the young pup have all the fun,” muttered Cassius, stepping forward now that there was room to fight.

“Indeed,” agreed Darius, raising his sword. “For the Emperor and Sanguinius!”

The older Astartes charged forward and together with Octavian they formed a sword line. They were forced to step backwards, foot by foot, because of the number of dead and dying Orks. None of them wanted to suffer Nikeas' fate by being fouled by a dying Ork that was too dumb to know it was already dead.

Octavian was stabbed through the armpit and lost his grip on his sword. Cursing, he grabbed the ork by its collar and smashed his helmeted head straight into the Ork's nose. With the sound of a wet impact, Octavian battered it to death by pulping its skull in. Cassius handed Octavian his fallen sword, which Octavian gripped with his other hand.

“Come now lad, I can't have you slowing us down,” mocked Cassius.

“What do you mean? I'm having to do all the work for you, since I don't want a frail old man like you to get hurt,” riposted Octavian.

Cassius turned his head to reply to the whelp when a cleaver smashes aside his chain-sword. The moments distraction caused his guard to drop by a fraction and the Ork cleaver cut his throat.

“NO! CASSIUS!” Octavian screamed. The wounded Space Marine sliced two Orks into gibbets to reach Cassius, who had fallen to his knees. Octavian caught him just as his body falls backward.

Darius watches on his helmet display as the life signs from Cassius go blank.

“Watch your back! You are still in battle Space Marine!” Darius yells. Darius moved forward to defend Octavian's back, his mind slipping as the hatred built up inside him. He side-swept an Ork and gripped Octavian by the shoulder, standing him up. “Use your fury! Use your anger! In the name of Sanguinius, use your Emperor-made arms to kill more Orks!”

Octavian screamed like a mad-man, a hallow sound that chills the spine. Darius watched as Octavian sprang to his feet and ran forwards. The young Space Marine head-butted another Ork in the face before slicing its stomach open. An Ork cleaver slices into his already wounded arm. Octavian seemed inured to the pain, killing the offending Ork with a contemptuous back-slash. Red blood mixes with the color of his armor as he charges forward. Darius charged after him, trying to keep up with the berserk rage-fueled monster that Octavian had become. Darius did not have time to mourn for what he knew Octavian had now become.

Suddenly, a massive Ork appeared over the lip of the wall of the dead. Its easily the largest Ork that Darius had ever seen, and it is followed by dozens of near equally sized behemoths. The warboss had appeared.

Without a moments pause Octavian charges them wildly. One of the warboss's guards brought a giant axe crashing down and cuts through the ceramite of Octavian's armor with primal strength, spinning the young Astartes around to where Darius can see the light fade from behind his helmet. The other bodyguards spring upon the fallen berserker and hack away with abandon.

“I am alone...,” thought Darius, rage filling him. He quickly shook himself. “No! I am never alone!”

Darius focused his mind and uttered a prayer of devotion, vows which every Space Marine learns when they are a novice.

“O, Emperor, in wrath rejoicing at bloody wars: fierce and untamed.”

Darius ducked a swing by one of the bodyguards and cut off its hands with an upswing cut.

“Whose mighty power doth the strongest walls from their foundations shake.”

Another Ork bodyguard smacks the wounded Ork aside and tries to stab Darius through the neck. The brother-sergeant spun on his heel, watching as if in slow motion as the blade passes his head by half an inch. One quick counter-stroke, and the Ork's arm falls to the ground gripping a cleaver.

“O, Emperor, Lord of War, hear this my warrior's oath!”

Another riposte and the ork falls dead without a head.

“You who are mightiest of all men, the Paragon, the Exemplar, the All-Conquering Master of Mankind. Make these coming moments of your servant's life full of valor and worth.”

Two more bodysguards move in, trying to flank him. Darius ducked and spun, picking up Cassius' fallen chain-sword. Using them like a cross, Darius traps one of the orks blades between the chainsword and powersword, and with a twist - snaps it in half with a quick jerk. The befuddled Ork growls in anger only to have its throat opened and start gurgling, its life blood is spilled upon the rock. The second Ork's strike hits Darius on the pauldron. Only by twisting away from the impact does Darius keep his arm from being taken off. With a quick spin, Darius ducked inside the Ork's defenses and cuts him nearly in half with an uppercut.

For what seemed like aeons but what most likely only took seconds, Darius is left standing among the corpses of all the warboss' bodyguards. The warboss itself is standing defiantly before Darius, growling at him. Thick rivulets of slobber and blood run down from the warboss' gaping, fang-toothed maw.

“My sword shall not waver. Nor my heart weaken. I shall drown the Xeno in his own blood. I shall smite glorious ruin upon him. This I swear!”

Even as Darius found focus within the prayer, a red hue came over his eyesight. The world seems to slow around him, movement becoming stillness. The bodies of his battle-brothers seem to be frozen in a fresco, everything in sharp detail. The hate and animosity in the eyes of the Ork warboss is clearly shown -- but also a clearer emotion of dismissal, as if Darius and his battle-brothers are nothing more than a stumbling block.

In that moment something inside Darius snapped open. It was something that every Knight of Sanguinius knew was there, a reckless and blinding force that if left unchecked would devour the psyche of even a Space Marine. Unlike every time before when he had felt his emotions begin to rise, Darius did not fight it. He simply let everything go.

Darius charged straight at the warboss in a flash, sword held high and shining in the last rays of the setting sun.



+++Postscript Data Entry Note+++
+++Recovery Mission Delphinus+++
+++Imperial Date M42.180.52+++

--Remains of Knights of Sanguinius tactical squad found at entry-point of Adeptus Mechanicus facility, named the Under Vault.

--Recorded count of Ork bodies: 1,541.

--Confirmed Targets of Importance: Ork Warboss Gorarg Narzod. Body found mutilated. Head decapitated.

+++End of Entry Note+++



Author's Note: Feel free to comment, ask questions correct, or offer criticism.