Editing Trip Into Hell (Warhammer High) (section)

===Hell comes to Seadelant===
The first victim was an Astartes from the Death Guard second grand company. His squad were advancing forth towards one of the Rok Fortresses, when one of the dying Orks suddenly burst asunder, its flesh and blood spraying everywhere. In its place stood a hell-creature, a tall scaled bestial monster with a sharp blade and a long tongue. Within seconds the Death Guard warrior had shouted out a warning, but that was the last thing he would ever do. Seconds later, the warp monster was standing beside him, swinging its blade in a wide arc.

The blow almost effortlessly bisected the Death Guardsmen, cleaving through his Mk IV Plate like it didn’t exist. His fellows watched in horror as he fell and swiftly turned their bolters upon the intruder, but the shells had no effect. Within seconds another three Astartes were cleaved apart by the monster, and then another four as they tried to get a bead on the target which moved almost too fast for them to see. The sergeant swung at the intruder with his power sword, parrying the hell-spawn’s death blow, but it moved faster than he could and finally it beheaded him with a single sweep, lifting his head up and roaring its triumph to its infernal master. The remaining Death Guardsmen finally finished it off with an entire clip to the head, the monster exploding in a cascade of red sparks. Almost an entire squad of Astartes warriors had been wiped out in less than ten seconds.
The remaining Death Guard warrior dazed and confused checked back over his vid-capture trying to identify his assailant. It took him only a few seconds to identify, but when he did he wished he was wrong. It was classified as a Bloodletter, a Daemon of the Blood God. He immediately sent the information over the Legion vox network to his captain and his Primarch, but by then it was too late.

All across the battlefield more of the Daemon’s kin spawned into life fuelled by the Warp Rift opened up by the Deathstrike’s Vortex warhead, first in ones and twos, then in their dozens, and they fell upon the warriors of the Emperor’s Legions with a primal bestial fury. More of the red skinned sword-monsters hacked their way into the ranks of the Astartes, while pink skinned abominations with no fixed form threw torrents of pink Warpfire which immolated flesh and metal in equal measure. In the air packs of stingrays covered in eyes and tusks hunted the Jetbikes, fighters and bombers with relentless vigour, and on the ground more Bloodletters riding massive metal-beasts crashed through the Legion lines, trampling Astartes underfoot and ramming tanks over. The Orks, caught between fire and flood died where they stood, several thousand fleeing from the three way fight as the Astartes and the Daemons confronted each other. The Titans stood mutely, unable to aid the forces on the ground deal with this new threat as it manifested too close for them to engage safely. Lightning cracked the sky and puddles of blood boiled on the plains.

Hell had come to Seadelant.



“Lord Solar Admiral! Our scanners are going haywire! Something is pushing out of the rift!”
Kulenka pulled up his Dataslab and checked it. The demise of the Hulk had created a warp rift in the fabric of space-time, and his ships were carefully keeping their distance from it. The Hulk had died, but it had died hard. Nine ships had been destroyed by it before it fell apart, and the Blood Angels Strike Cruiser Shield of Sanguinius had been nearly destroyed, and was even now only just holding together. It would require several years to repair the damage, and Kulenka didn’t relish having to explain to Lord Sanguinius what had become of his warship.

His wandering mind snapped back into focus when something pushed its way out of the rift, closely followed by a second, and then a third object in quick succession. Kulenka’s eyes widened and he bellowed for a closer look. He got one, and for several seconds he started at the pict-captures of the new arrivals.

He had never seen their like before, but he had heard of them from admirals who were based at the Cadian gate. Ships trapped in the warp and turned into sentient monsters, living vessels hungering for blood.

“Daemonships.” He whispered, his throat dry.



Nathaniel Garro swore as he reviewed the messages from the ground. According to them, Daemons were popping up everywhere, tearing into the Astartes lines with the Death Guard taking the brunt of their attentions. How they had manifested, what fell ritual must have summoned them to this world Garro had no idea, but he could do nothing to help his Primarch. He was stuck, marooned in the high atmosphere on board the Iron Tide. The Savage Gunship was long gone; a well timed salvo from the Iron Tide tearing it apart and all the Tide was doing now was sitting at anchor, its engines keeping it from plunging to the planet below.

His transhuman hearing heard the word ‘boarder’ mentioned, and he turned to the Ship’s Captain, who was listening intently to his vox. “First Captain,” he called out. “Message from below decks. Something about there being… there are intruders on board.”
Garro knew what they were. “Daemons.” He growled. He turned on his vox to address his veterans. “Attention, incoming Daemons. Sweep the ship for them and terminate with extreme prejudice. Avoid crew casualties at all costs.”
A series of clicks indicated that his men had received their new orders. In a single fluid move he drew Liberatas, the move starling the crew of the command bridge, who turned to stare at him. 

“Keep the ship flying Captain. The Hell-Spawn are a distraction, nothing more. They can’t harm the ship, so they are trying to keep us from interfering with the battle on the ground. My men and I will deal to them. We must remain on station, if things get too bad on the ground you will have to cover the evacuation of all loyal forces before the planet is sanctioned.”
Their faces blanched when they heard his words. The Endurance had several Cyclonic Torpedoes as standard, and it could easily turn them on Seadelant.  He didn’t like the idea of killing the planet they had come to save, least of all a world as strategically important as Seadelant, but what choice did they have?

He made a gesture of protection before thundering off, Libertas held at the ready.



Julius stared at confusion at Lord Ahriman as he struggled to his feet. What did he mean by ‘incursion’?

Before he could ask, an explosion came from the head of the column. The spearhead Caorst scout vehicle had just gone up in a fireball. The Orks again. Julius checked his Hellpistol and turned to face the incoming horde. But what crawled out of the smoke and fire wasn’t Ork at all.

Crawling towards them was a metallic monster, a russet red scorpion made of brass and iron scuttling forward on spiked legs. Its body was covered in overlapping segmented plates, a massive cannon jutting from its maw and a pair of huge claws snapping at the air. A tall arching tail ending in a repeating Autocannon whipped back and forth.
Julius felt sick just by looking at it, the same feeling he had when he had seen the Daemon beneath the bunker, and glancing over at Summer her expression matched his own. Scvott, Flynn and Dyllion gaped open mouthed at it as it approached the head of the column, the blood drained from their faces. Scvott with a pale face was almost comical, but Julius wasn’t laughing. He wouldn’t wish this on anyone, least of all someone who had wished to deny their existence.

“Brass Scorpion!” Ahriman yelled, gesturing with his heqa staff. A Daemon Engine. 
Ahriman’s spat word now made perfect, chilling sense. His worst fears, the ones he had confided to the others were coming true all around them. A Daemonic Incursion. The mass invasion of reality by the beasts of the warp out for blood and souls.

The Salamanders and Caorst troopers rushed to confront it, but they blanched when they saw what they were facing, none of them had ever seen a Daemon Engine before. The monster had no such qualms, and its tail cannon tore through the Caorst troopers and Salamanders in equal measure. They scattered and returned fire, scattered anti-tank shots bounced off of its segmented body as its tail cannon tore through the infantry and raked the armoured personnel carriers. It was not carefully selecting and destroying its targets; it was trying to kill everything in front of it regardless of what they were. A weakness.

Julius watched as the lead Baneblade rotated its turret and let off an ear-splitting shot at the Scorpion. The shell missed, and the machine scuttled over to it at breathtaking speed, plunging its claws into the Baneblade’s armoured glacis plate, peeling it open.
The Baneblade went up in a mushroom cloud, silhouetting the scorpion against its fiery demise. For a second Julius dared hope the Scorpion had gone up with the Baneblade, but once the glow had faded it was still there, standing over the wreck of its victim. The machine almost drank in the carnage; it seemed to revel in the destruction it was causing.

A Salamanders Tactical Support Squad armed with Melta weapons ran up to it, but the infernal machine scuttled up before they could deploy and doused them with molten brass from vents under its jaw. The screams of the Salamanders as their armour liquidified and they were melted would haunt Julius for years to come.

A Predator Infernus with Magna-Melta let of a heat blast, but it did little more than blister the red hide of the Scorpion. A cannon shell ended the Predator before it could fire or retreat. The head of the column disintegrated into bloody shambles as the scorpion turned the tanks and troop carriers into scrap and carpeted the ground with the bodies of Caorst Troopers and Salamanders. Julius retreated with the rest of the troops, constantly looking over his shoulder as the Scorpion worked its way along the column, blood and fire in its wake.

He reached Lord Ahriman, who was co-ordinating a counterattack against the Scorpion. He nodded at Julius before taking off towards the Scorpion, throwing bursts of aether-fire from his gauntlets at the brass beast, but they winked out before touching it, the runes on its armour glowing with each failed attack. If Ahriman couldn’t harm it, what could?

The answer hit Julius as he watched several Salamanders rush past him. The Scorpion’s bloodlust blinded it to other dangers, one in particular, how his father had won his third Star of Terra destroying a Warlock Titan on Quetansk. But first he would need to find something.
One of the Salamanders Rhinos was sitting there, engine growling. He ducked into the back of it, confident what he sought would be in there. Sure enough, resting in the back of the Rhino was an Astartes pattern melta charge. The Salamanders never went anywhere without pacing some serious heat. It was not made for ordinary humans, he had to sling it on his back to carry it, but it would serve.

“What the hell are you doing with that thing?” Dyllion called at him as he ran past his squad, providing covering fire on the Scorpion from behind a pile of rubble.

“Doing a Pius.” Julius called back, before taking to his heels.

He ducked in behind a burning Russ, watching as the Scorpion lashed out at another Predator Infernus, ripping its turret off and tossing it aside in a single fluid move. He had to hit the hell-machine while it was distracted, else it would rip him to shreds in an instant before he could deliver his cargo.

He ran from cover to cover, carefully timing his moves to ensure its attentions were elsewhere each time. At one stop, he rolled the melta charge in a puddle of Ork blood it was disgusting, but it would help mask him from the scorpion’s sight. Closer and closer he came to the machine, and it still hadn’t noticed him. Its desire for blood and carnage was blinding it to his approach, and he would make it rue that lack of sight. As it lashed out at a Malcador, he seized the chance and ran up straight to the Brass Scorpion, ducking under its spiked legs until he faced its engine.

Its back was made up of hundreds of armoured cables squirming like infernal worms. Julius nearly retched at the sight, but he held his composure and waited for an opening.
He saw it and in the blink of an eye pulled the tab on the melta charge and rammed it into the opening. No sooner had he withdrawn his hand than the cables obscured it. Thirty seconds. Move or die.

Julius ran. He ran like he had never run before. He ran so hard his muscles stretched and nearly tore. He couldn’t hear if the Brass Scorpion had noticed him or was after him, he couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of his heart and the blood pulsing in his ears. The battle vanished, the world vanished, all that remained was for him to get away before the melta charge detonated.

He didn’t hear the blast, but it picked him up and threw him far. He slammed into a nearby building with deadly force. Pain shot through his ribcage as he felt something break. Blood filled his mouth and he could barely see due to shock. Unconsciousness grasped at him, but he resisted its touch with all his might. If he went under now, he might never wake up. Had his feat of heroics killed him?
He felt something reach down and grab him, but he was too weak to resist. He waited for the end.
But the end never came. His vision cleared enough to see he was being gently carried by a Salamander Legionnaire, the warrior cradling him like a babe. He let himself be carried over to where Ahriman and his friends were. No sooner was he on the ground than Summer ran up to him. She bent down and held him as Ahriman came over.

“You killed the Brass Scorpion Julius, though it nearly killed you with its dying blast. Had Brother Tu’var not been there, you might well have died without any of us knowing. Fortunately he saw you and recovered you. Now Apothecary Luminor will see to you.”
Summer moved off, and the Salamander Apothecary bent over him, scanning his body with the instruments attacked to his right gauntlet.

“Three cracked ribs, and a dislocated shoulder. You got off lucky trooper Pius.”

The Apothecary reached over and with a single fluid move popped his shoulder back in. Julius yelped in pain, but his curse was cut off as the pain receded. His ribs still throbbed and he hurt all over, but he could still fight. The Apothecary helped him to his feet, and straightaway Flynn, Scvott, Dyllion and Summer came up and began congratulating him for killing a Daemon engine. Dyllion slapped him on the back, then immediately apologised as Julius scowled in pain. Summer gave him a peck on the cheek, and then broke off as Ahriman approached him again.

“I’ve spoken with Captain Ir’Sem, and we’ve agreed on what to do next. We’re never going to reach the bunker at this rate, not with every Daemon in the immaterium throwing themselves at the convoy. So the convoy will continue towards the bunker, and hopefully the Daemons will continue to attack it. Meanwhile we will make our way there on foot,” gesturing at Julius and his friends, “and bypass the Daemonic forces guarding the bunker.” 

As he spoke, the roar of small arms fire rose up from across the convoy, along with the infernal scream of Daemons. A grim reminder of what was consuming the planet around them. Ahriman’s next words were terse. “We have to move now, and move fast. Come with me.” Ahriman started off, and the others followed. Julius was last, and as he gingerly followed them he heard the squeal of tracks as the convoy started moving again. How many of them would die so they could get to the bunker? Julius hoped their willing sacrifice would not be in vain. The fate of this world depended upon it.