The cacophony of gunfire echoed and boomed through the colossal halls of Craftworld Saaremaa. The Black Templars stood firm and unloaded their holy weaponry at the horrors that bound and leapt towards them in demonic delight.

Hector had spotted the daemons first as the Marines crossed a titanic causeway that could’ve easily supported even a titan’s immenseness. The way ahead grew dark and ominous and the Black Templars we wary as the causeway stretched into the gloom. In those shadows something moved with an unholy speed towards the two squads of Marines and Hector alerted both units to the barely detected ambush. Before they could even identify their targets, the Black Templars of Squad Baptiste levelled their weapons and began to lay down heavy fire. The Terminator Sword Brethren of Squad Apollon took a rear position to Squad Baptiste, ready to unleash their devastating assault should the enemy draw nearer and after the firepower of the crusader squad had weakened the enemy.

What emerged from the darkness under the storm of bolts, plasma and flechette was almost too horrible to look upon. They were the spawn of the warp, hideous daemons barely bipedal and whose flesh was a mottled, revolting pink but that wasn’t the worst of it. Amorphous tendrils of flesh almost mimicking hair lashed about the daemons’ heads with a life of their own. Their faces were almost entirely taken up by a horrid maw of needle-like, crooked fangs and from within their gullet something indescribable stirred and writhed. For it seemed that as the warp spawn rushed forward, another daemon thrashed and reached to emerge from within them…

Lesser men would have fled and put as much ground between these nightmares and themselves as possible. But the daemons hurled themselves at the Emperor’s finest warriors, the Adeptus Astartes, and these supermen gave ground to no one. Bolts blew apart twisted legs and grasping talons, but the daemons giggled in bliss and continued their inhumanly fast gait towards the Black Templars. Initiate Machaon severed one daemon in half with concentrated plasma fire, only to see a smaller, darker monster scramble out of the remains and continue towards the marines as it laughed inanely.

They could not keep enough of the terrors down and Squad Baptiste was on the verge of being overrun. Yet the Marines kept their stoic resolve, even Neophyte Hector - who had almost run through his ammunition as he fired his pump-reactive shotgun with growing hatred. It was then that the lumbering powerhouses of Squad Apollon pushed by their brethren and moved forward to engage the daemons. Thunder hammers crackled with barely contained energy and lightning claws flashed with power as the Terminators rumbled to meet the enemy head on. The daemons cackled with monstrous appetite as they surged into Squad Apollon.

The battle was a scene of unbridled violence. Daemons piled onto the Terminators dragging the mighty warriors down in a wave of chaos-tainted limbs. The damage the daemons endured was horrific and it was clear that their warp-fuelled stamina was all that kept the giggling terrors in the fight despite the terrible punishment, enough to kill anything mortal. The daemons ripped at armour plating and tore at protected joints in a bloodthirsty obsession to get at the meat within the armour of the Terminators.
Just as Initiate Cyrano was about to give the order to support the Sword Brethren in close combat there was a tremendous thunder crack and the causeway shuddered. Brethren Damocles in desperation had driven his thunder hammer through one of the warp spawn blasting it apart in an explosion of spraying chucks and gory debris. His downward hammer stroke impacted into the causeway floor splintering the wraithbone and cracking the floor in all direction around him. There was a moment of stillness, where both man and daemon stopped their savagery and time itself seemed to halt.
The floor of the bridge collapsed inward dragging the stumbling Terminators and the flailing daemons down with it. The whole section where Squad Apollon battled was gone. Even as the two sides fell into the endless abyss of Saaremaa they fought on. The crusaders of Squad Baptiste rushed to the lip of the massive hole in the causeway, but the Sword Brethren were already lost to them and had fallen from sight.

Read the finale of the Saga of Hector here