170. Demigods

Titus and Tiberius had taken their unconscious lady away from the spot where she had killed Abaddon while the rest of Aegis had returned to the ‘Cornix’. They would establish contact with the ‘Primarch’s Bride’ and bring Horus to the apothecarium. Hopefully, there were no forces of Guilliman on board yet that could pick up on something suspicious like most of Vox’s honour guard bringing one naked man back for medical attention in the middle of a battle.
Wandering through an area that would become a canyon system in a few thousand years, the two Ultramarines had been held up by Guilliman and his honour guard after more than an hour. Vox had awoken only a short while before.
Meeting their Primarch had been a solemn and indescribably intimate moment for the two Ultramarines. Kneeling left and right to the lady they had both sworn themselves to, they showed their beloved forefather the respect and worship he deserved.
Guilliman had graced them with a nod of acknowledgement but his main interest rested with the angel. He had instantly noticed that she wore the reversed colours of Sanguinius and inquired about this. Now, they were talking quietly while they made their way back to the lines.
After coming to terms with the fact that Guilliman’s honour guard consisted solely of Primaris Space Marines, apparently a new kind of Astartes, he had never seen before, Titus quickly noticed that the men surrounding them in watchful silence were just as human as any Space Marine he had met. Right now, only Ascius, the leader of the guard, showed his face. The others wore their helmets but Titus was very interested to see the expression in his features when he glanced over to his lord from time to time. It was the expression, Titus was sure he showed as well. The man was relieved to see his lord commander talking animatedly to someone.
Roboute meanwhile was just as observant as his subordinate and had to smile at himself about the way he was acting. Coming here had been against all sensible considerations already. This could just as well have been a trap. He had done it anyway, for once allowing himself to give in to his curiosity. He was tired of having others take the risks in any case.
When he had departed from his troops to find the angel he had seen over the battlefield, he had been determined to be cautious but since he had seen her, bruised and exhausted like she was, something had gone wrong inside his head. At least the rational part of him insisted that this had to be the case.
Talking to Vox was the most enjoyable thing he had done for thousands of years. He had fun doing it. Vox tried to flatter him by pretending that her repartee and capability of keeping up with his train of thought was all due to her Primarch resting in her mind but, even though she knew a lot of what Sanguinius would have known, Roboute could very well distinguish that he was not talking to his brother.
The certainty that something had gone wrong solidified over the next few minutes and the Primarch could tell very clearly that this wrongness was originating within himself. He was disobeying rules. Not anybody’s rules but his own. Roboute Guilliman, Lord Commander of the Imperium of Man, the Blade of Unity, the Lord of Ultramar did not talk to strangers as openly as this. He did not let them know more than they needed to know, especially if they refrained from posing questions like Vox did. He did not smile at some woman he had just met and he did not laugh at old memories trickling by like droplets of gold that had been buried under the weight of the millennia gone by.
Roboute felt something unravel inside him and for the life of him was unable to say what it was. He could not even tell if this was a troubling development or a desirable effect. Once upon a time, Roboute Guilliman had known people he had trusted by default. They had been his brothers and then, one of them had betrayed them, others following on his malicious path. Since then, his trust had been well-nigh unattainable.
Right now, he found himself trusting someone he had never met. It was wrong and he did it anyway.
The lady Vox was reluctant to assure him that Abaddon was dead because she had no proof for it and only time would tell that the black Crusade was now raging leaderless.
For a whole second Roboute was prepared to take her word for it until, his conscientiousness cut in and demanded that he stopped this foolishness in an instant. Yet, for the first time in his life, he did not know how.
He had clung to the rules as hard as he could, had carried the galaxy on his broad shoulders and here was a creature of chaos. A psyker, a strange woman, tall as an Astartes with armour ducts visible just inside the gorget of the vox com she wore, carrying the most beautiful warp mutations on her back he had seen in a long time. Against everything the Blade of Unity had held true and dear since he had entombed his father on the golden throne, he just wanted to rest.
He had been so alone, so lost, so despaired and suddenly, there was someone here with him, making the world brighter, bringing a waft of hope and all Roboute wanted to do was to lie down and crumble into the ground. For a reason that was completely beyond him, Vox Sanguinius melted his resolve and eased the frost inside him, but while she was doing this he realised that there was not much left under the ice.
Maybe, if he had gotten more time, the effect would have been less severe. Maybe, he would have found hope again and pushed towards it, shrugging off the effects of a life of constant war but Roboute got far less than enough time.
All he got was Vox suddenly stopping, tilting her head as if listening for something and even before she said “Incoming!”, Titus and Tiberius already were at her side, bolters in hand, scanning the surroundings. They knew how to read their lady and had trained for it innumerable times.
The shallow grooves in the rocky terrain they were wandering, widened to form a valley with steep walls here. Something like a natural arena. The walls were low enough that the Space Marines would be able to climb them with ease but it still was a good place for an ambush.
Roboute’s perfectly honed senses not only spotted the man at the other end of the valley as soon as he had been alarmed, he also instantly categorised him as a psyker. When the world ripped open around him, the Primarch had his sword in hand already.
“Protect the lady!”, he ordered over the closed vox channel for his honour guard and strode forward. He had too much experience with warp rifts he felt as he stormed forward. The essential thing was to reach the one who caused it and cut him down before the world got so unstable that the really huge creatures broke through.
The daemons presenting themselves here were no opponents, they were victims. Easy pray for the mighty fighter. Moving around in the uncertain distances the warp created was a matter of purpose Roboute had discovered but only a few steps in, he became certain that he did something wrong this time. He made far less progress than he should have. The daemons materialising around him seemed to grow into lethal distractions.
It was the blessed ignorance the rush of the fight brought he reasoned. He had longed for it all day and now the flow had seized him, he could finally forget his troubles and never ending considerations. The absence of his burden unexpectedly brought forth his pain. His body was still badly hurt and his armour kept him just this side of death but the physical agony was nothing in comparison to the loneliness eating away at his soul.
A few seconds ago, he had found connection to another being, now the isolation was back. He had reached out without really wanting it, scolding himself all the way that he was so easy to trust. Here in the fight, he was alone again and somehow, this took away the pleasure. What it left was just wrath and dismay and the grim acknowledgement that at least he had daemons to take this out on.
When Vox appeared at his side, taking up the position Sanguinius had occupied innumerable times, be it in training or in a real battle, Roboute stumbled. His powerful motions remained unhindered but in his mind something slipped.
The angel was hurt and exhausted, he had seen it. The mark in her face where Abaddon had hit her presented itself in more vivid colours now that her blood was set aboil but here she was. 
Roboute felt himself cracking. To fight beside someone again, to have a comrade looking out for him instead of him looking out for the whole, damned world all the time, was something he had missed so dearly. It should have soothed, unmade the pain and given him hope but the gratitude and delight only burned away what had kept him going.
Her wings gave Vox added potential for fast motion and balance and Sanguinius had helped her to develop a lot of new movement patterns in the past six months but right now was the first time that he sang along to the song of battle that reverberated inside her. With the Primarch at her side and the Primarch inside her, she entered the flow of the fight, welcoming the rush to take her and drive the physical fatigue away. It felt like dropping into place. There was a dynamic between her and Guilliman, an instinctive understanding that made them even more powerful and devastating than they had been on their own already. Vox saw him smile when their gazes met for the split-second of a turn or when they switched places as if they had practised it thousands of times.
While Guilliman’s men and Tiberius kept their flanks clean, the two of them went through their opponents like burning oil through a sheet of paper. Vox enjoyed it immensely even though she felt the exhaustion inevitably creep up. She could only hope that Titus, who had set out to circumvent the coil of fighting daemons and kill the psyker, would be fast enough. Sweeping up what had come out of the rift so far would be an exhilarating exercise but it could still get ugly if her beloved was delayed.
Vox had no time to fathom what piqued her concern. As she spun under the reaching claws of a large bloodletter, she noticed Guilliman turning his head and there was something in his gaze that unsettled her. She cut the daemon in twain, kicked its upper half into the next of its kin to get enough breathing space and turned to her companion in time to see the shadow peeling itself out of the swirling colours of the warp. It was as tall to Guilliman as he was to her and bore black, leathery wings from which the blood of the doomed flowed in steady streams. Its cloven hooves made the ground beneath it crackle as a strange kind of power lashed over its red hide. Bloodthirster was its name and it carried a double bladed axe and a whip.
It was the whip that came out of nowhere, slinging itself around the Primarch, seemingly pulling the beast into existence. Vox twitched with the shock of Sanguinius, who recognized the type of daemon. He had battled such an abomination once and overcome it only at the second attempt. Daemons had been a new kind of threat back then, though. Surely, Guilliman had gathered experience in the fight against them and would overcome the fiend, especially if Vox kept his back free. The endeavour of guaranteeing this, forced her to turn around and therefore she missed the complete lack of vigour with which the Primarch faced his foe. When she turned again, she was in time to see that the daemon was standing on Guilliman’s chest and brought the axe down with all its terrible strength.