Skybreaker fired a second time during our final journey. It seemed as though Mortoc gave the command for the target of the awful artillery installation, but it was not given in a manner in which I could hear it, he instead using the secure channels available to the traitor-Astartes. And though the Citadel of Rust did shake tremendously from Skybreaker’s second firing, that we were inside and deep within its halls no longer necessitated the covering of my ears to spare me death by liquification. Instead, I experienced what felt not unlike an earthquake as another of my or Batos’s voidships was undoubtedly ripped asunder far overhead.
Slowly, over the span of our journey, my psykana returned to me. I could begin to feel the maddened thoughts of countless traitors all around me. I much preferred the previous silence I had been given. Still, I knew that if I was to kill Mortoc, I would need my mind—which begged the question, why would he return it to me? Why seek to strengthen me so? This I did not understand, but I was certainly not about to complain about it. These questions persisted throughout our journey, and the curiosity behind them intensified upon finally arriving at our destination, which was the great hall in which we had first come face to face with each other. Well, from my perspective, anyways; likely Mortoc had seen me unconscious elsewhere. Joining us in this great hall was Mortoc’s throne of iron, as well as a pair of Iron Warriors who held between them a large, metal warchest. Mortoc had them drop it to the ground upon our arrival.
“Go to it. It is yours, dear Inquisitor. Arm yourself,” he instructed of me as he made for his Throne. I looked at him with hesitant concern, and then returned my gaze to the warchest, as well as the two Astartes behind it. Mortoc addressed them, then. “You two, secure the entrance. No one disturbs us until I emerge to invite you back inside. Should Blackgar be the one to emerge, you will let him pass, and rejoice, for he will have taken my head and thus provided room for one of you to take my place as Captain,” Mortoc ordered, again giving his commands audibly such that I could hear them. The two Astartes nodded before marching off in the direction we had arrived from, leaving me alone with Mortoc.
“What are you playing at, traitor?” I asked him as I moved over to the warchest. I scanned it with my mind, but could not accurately perceive its contents. I did get the sense that it was not boobytrapped, which was my main concern at the time—I received no indication of inherent malice or ill-will emanating from the chest’s intended use.
“It is your indoctrination that keeps you from being my ally,” Mortoc declared. “Your dogma, your zeal. I will break those, as I will break you. But breaking a body is far easier than breaking a mind,” he explained, and as he did so, I opened the warchest at last. Inside, I found my augmetic arm, my Ignatus power armor, my two power swords, and my Boltpistol. The full extent of my armament. “Fight me, Callant Blackgar. Fight me at your best. Do this, and I will break you. I will lay you low, and while I will not kill you, I will monitor your recovery. When next I allow you to fight me, you will be weaker and more battered than you are now. I will beat you then, too. The third time we duel, you will be weaker still. This, now, is your best chance to kill me, and therefore your only one. Take my head today, or you will never manage the task at all, forever doomed to duel me as a lesser man than you are now. In this, I aim to destroy all other options for you, to crush your hope. After today, the only path for you is as my ally.”
“This plan of yours hinges on me failing to kill you now,” I reminded him, to which he nodded. “You would stake your entire war, against the Inquisition and against Ouranos, on this one duel?” I asked, already having slotted in my augmetic arm and beginning to don my power armor, which was a lengthy process, as it was usually one requiring the assistance of another—like Lucene.
“I am not much intimidated by you, Blackgar. I would take this bet a thousand times over. But if you can kill me, do so. Prove me wrong. Slay a Terminator-Captain of the Iron Warriors, if you can,” Mortoc demanded. We said no more to one another from there. I understood his gambit, then, and did not need to question it further, silly though I found it. One duel to decide the fate of an entire war, and the Sector in which that war took place. So, from my arm, to my armor, to my blades, I donned all I could to prepare myself to fight yet another Astartes, as so often I had in the past, albeit never a Terminator. The last of my armaments was my Boltpistol, which as I held it, I found its heft to suggest it was fully loaded. Still, I had been tricked by its weight before, and thought to test fire a round off to my side. Then, I got a better idea.
The first Bolt sailed across the room without warning, but was deflected off the side of Mortoc’s great axe as he had once protected me from autogun fire previously. He blocked the second Bolt in the same manner, too, before shooting to his feet from his iron throne. In the same motion, he tossed the great axe across the room, where it would have crushed me to a paste where I stood had I not darted aside. I then dodged further away still, as Mortoc closed the distance between us to reclaim his axe and slash at me with his powerfist in the same motion.
He was faster than I was, I knew that. He was better armed and armored too. I expected us to be of equal wit, but I had two advantages on him—he wanted me alive, which was not a courtesy I intended to extend to him, and he was no psyker. Knowing this, when he smashed into the ground at my former position to reclaim his great axe, I repeated the technique I had first used on New Cealis, and lifted him into the air with my mind. He was far heavier than a traditional Astartes, which was to be expected, but not so great that I could not manage the task. And when I had, I drew Drepane, engaged the power sword, and raised it between my eyes. (Err, my eye sockets. Still only had the one eye.) I then focused my mind into the power of the blade itself, and through it channeled raw psychic energy through the metal floors of the Citadel of Rust, which leapt out at Mortoc in the form of conjured lightning, electrocuting him where he floated.
If that damaged him at all, he did not evidence it much, and wrestled against my mind to aim his Combi-Bolter my way. Two quick Bolts broke my focus of my electric psykana as I diverted attention to dodging and deflecting his assault, but still, I was able to keep him airborne. I thought to dive toward him and drive Drepane through his neck, but never got the chance. Instead, his cloak of chains began to glow, and as it did, the ground beneath Mortoc began to crack and give way. Gravity well, I realized a moment before Mortoc fell out of my grasp, suddenly weighing too much for me to hold with my mind. He crushed the ground below him into a crater not unlike that which I had once splattered Foxon Silverman to the bottom of long ago, but Mortoc was quick to emerge from the damage to his throne room. He shot forth like a cannonball of death and fury, a grey blur accented only by the gilding of his armor and weapons, while his powerfist sizzled and seethed through the air, opened wide.
I backpedaled, my head splitting in pain from the now-broken focus I had asked of it. I did not see myself landing many wounds on Mortoc without some measure of sacrifice, so I was more than willing to use my psykana in spite of the damage to my mind it might cause, but I was also aware of the fact that I needed to pace myself. I did not have the raw might to kill Mortoc outright, and so would need to inflict what I could upon the bastard and then play a bit of defense. So, for a time, I bobbed and weaved through attacks that he undoubtedly was slowing down considerably, to keep me alive. I played that advantage of mine to the fullest extent that I could, using it as fuel to recover my other advantage, that of my mind, all the while dancing around his own advantages of strength and speed.
It seemed, momentarily, that this dance of ours may have been able to continue forever. But that neglected our one similarity of wit, and Mortoc eventually deduced my strategy and countered it with further aggressiveness, trying to force me to use my mind to defend myself rather than to try to kill him. Bolt shots needed to be deflected or pre-detonated with my psykana, in such circumstances in which he fired them when I could not otherwise dodge them. It was a risk for him, too, as if he misjudged my stamina, he may have just killed me. But everything here was a calculated risk.
I had not been taking too many risks until then, but it was, then, that I decided I should. In that regard, I decided to try to test my own capacity for aggression against his, psykana or not. When next I dodged his attacks, I planted my feet to hold my ground, and stood to stare down the monstrous Terminator before me. I took another Boltpistol shot at him, which he easily deflected as he often had, before I tossed the firearm over his head. He tracked it for a moment, as one’s eyes were ever attracted to movement, but paid it no mind and instead closed the distance between us. As he neared, however, my mind grabbed hold of the Boltpistol while it was still airborne, and began unloading into him from the rear, as I had once wielded it when I dueled Gale Ryke and Foxon Silverman. Old habits…
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My ploy worked for what it was, and made Mortoc turn around to cleave my Boltpistol in two with his great axe. But in failing to face me, he provided me with an opportunity to better aim at him, my augmetic configuring itself into its firing mode. The moment I saw his MIU on the back of his neck, where a great many cybernetics plugged into his skull, I fired, and blew apart some control over his mechanized body in the process. Mortoc fell to his knees, but he was far from down and out, and instead spun about and whipped his great axe at me another time, though this time oriented horizontally, like a rotor blade. I ducked under it before it ripped my top from my bottom, letting it sail overhead before it came to a halt in shearing apart the ground behind me.
I raced to my feet and drew my power swords quick as I could while Mortoc turned toward me. I tried to drive my blades forward into his head, but he caught them both between the fingers of his opened powerfist, which he then closed and tightened to grasp the blades themselves. He then rose and spun his powerfist aside, tossing me away from him and, likewise, my blades out of my grasp. As I fell, I peppered him with autogun fire from my augmetic, and after I had landed, I willed my swords back to me while he began a slowed meander my way. Perhaps I had taken his ability to run from him, though betting on that was too risky still. Regardless, it gave me time to launch my augmetic hand for his head, after which I caught Drepane in my right hand while my other power sword cleaved through the cable that would have otherwise returned my hand to me.
That was by design, as when the cable was severed, my augmetic hand—then upon Mortoc’s helmet—dug in, its grasp extending into Mortoc’s head. Shortly thereafter, the hand detonated with the force of several Bolts, shrouding the Terminator in smoke and, again, dropping him to his knees—an event I heard, but could not see. I then willed the power sword that had taken my hand from me—intentionally, mind you—to stab back at Mortoc in the cloud of smoke, while in the meantime I made to take his head from him once and for all with Drepane. Mortoc, however, smashed his powerfist into the ground while forming another gravity well via his cloak of chains, which had the effect of dropping the shroud of smoke around him to the ground. By then, I had committed to the motions of my attack, which was unfortunate, as Mortoc had caught my other power sword and used it to block my attempted killing blow.
For a moment, I wrestled against the Terminator, blade to blade. His strength far outmatched mine, but I used my psykana to force him back as best I could. I looked into his eyes, which were exposed to me on account of my augmetic’s detonation; the glass covering of his eyes had shattered, bloodying the fleshy orbs that then stared back at me, while Mortoc himself loosed a low growl like a feral beast. I had wounded him, yes. It had just taken almost everything I had to do so. While we struggled against each other, blade to blade, he rose his powerfist from the ground and flicked Drepane out of my grasp, forcing me to back away from him, and with haste, once more.
Drepane landed some distance from me, near to Mortoc’s great axe. As it did so, Mortoc pointed my other power sword toward me, aiming it at my head. “Surrender, Blackgar. This doesn’t need to get any messier. You’ve fought well, and with honor, but you have little more to offer,” he insisted.
“You’re bleeding,” I acknowledged. Angels, fallen ones especially, could bleed.
“Yes, I am. The blood I lose is lost to spare you the spilling of yours. Surrender. End this all. There’s nothing for you in resisting further,” he pressed.
“Never. Not to you, not to anyone. You should know that by now,” I reminded him, happy to take a moment to gather my breath.
“As you wish,” he sighed, then turned his head to the side. “Ebon Shrike. Confirm,” he ordered, commanding Skybreaker to fire upon the vessel of my Strike teams. Sure, they were mostly deployed upon Jaegetri, but it was still a place for them to call home, and a critical component of my overall fleet. Yet, despite Mortoc’s orders, no great earthquake followed. “Skybreaker, confirm targeting of Ebon Shrike,” he insisted. Nothing followed.
“Seems they’re not dying upon your walls as much as you’d like,” I grinned. “So in light of that, why would I ever surrender to you now?”
“To avoid being broken,” Mortoc grumbled, and then tensed up to begin to move. How, I did not then know, but I still knew him for what he was, and knew that time could not be wasted against him. The moment I saw any movement at all, I willed Drepane back to me, where it arrived just in time to deflect my power sword from impaling itself in my chest cavity. I then tried to follow Mortoc, but he was moving faster than he had yet. My eyes could no longer follow him, which was itself terrifying. Transhuman dread. I had explained it once, to some Scions aboard the Dawnshadow. And I had felt it before. But the extent of that which I felt in failing to witness Mortoc’s movement was greater than I had yet known. Mortoc had reacquired his great axe and begun stomping my way before I had processed him covering even half the distance thereof. Whatever cybernetics I had disabled in him, by damaging his MIU, were not in charge of his motor functions.
He was a monster.
Your lies cannot protect you here.
For the first time, I used my psykana to propel myself away from him, to give my eyes time enough to track him and formulate some plan of survival via the muscles of my body alone.
Your beliefs cannot save you here.
My muscles? Against his? Down an arm and an eye? No, any contest of the body was one he would win, and I had already given too much of myself to compete for very long at all.
Your hopes and dreams die here.
I could not defeat Valeran Mortoc in direct combat. The realization slowly crept in. Faith may have been my shield and contempt my armor, but Mortoc was aware of both, and had every intention of categorically smashing both apart bit by bit. If he could beat the body, the mind could only hold out for so long, for as long as faith provided. And he had beaten the body.
I had never lost before, not really.
Was today to be my first?
No, one trick remained, I decided. One final advantage remained, as it had from the beginning. He wanted me alive. So as he closed the distance, his powered great axe revving and humming not unlike his powerfist, I held my ground one last time, and welcomed death, if he was negligent enough to bring it.
He was not, and instead the large power weapon, larger than Lucene, hung microns in front of my face, between my eyes. I panted for a few moments, my breath being vaporized against the energy that coursed through Mortoc’s great axe. “Is this your surrender?” Mortoc asked, keeping his weapon steady in front of me.
“You’re a fool,” I muttered, and darted around his axe, putting it between myself and his powerfist, to stab at his waist with Drepane. And my blow connected, and blood was spilled. Mortoc countered, simply, by kicking me away from him, the knee of his gigantic leg crushing the chestplate of my armor while his lower leg launched me airborne. I landed some distance away, coughing up blood and pained more tremendously than I had been in several decades. Something was broken, internally. Many somethings, it felt like.
“Am I?” Mortoc laughed, moving to stand over me while I twitched on the floor, Drepane still embedded in his torso. He seemed not to care. “I promised I would break you, and here we are. Everything has gone as planned. Your injuries are not lethal, but your chest is broken, as are many of your ribs. You will heal, we will see to that. And we will do this again. But a full recovery from these wounds is unlikely. Indeed, you will prove a lesser creature when next we duel. For now, though, hang tight. We must discover what has befallen Skybreaker, to get it operational once more.”
“You’ll…never…leave…this…world,” I sputtered out, coughing out every word while my crippled remains fought in futility to put myself back together, even as the shadows moved across the ceiling and darkened all around me.
“Won’t I?” Mortoc laughed as the shadows fell from the roof behind him. “And what’s to stop me? You?”
His question was asked in another laugh, but that was cut short as a green blade pierced his chest where one of his hearts was, sending forth a splash of red gore onto the ground between us. “Jack Harr’s memory should suffice,” the shadows whispered in reply. Mortoc spun on his feet and whipped his powerfist through the air where his assailant had been, but even he was too slow for her. The black-synskin assassin rolled around him, and the very same green blade that had pierced him front to back then cleaved the arm of his powerfist off at the shoulder. Mortoc spun in futility a second time, trying to catch his assailant with his eyes, which instead sufficed only to provide her with the opportunity to draw Drepane out from his gut and use it to slice his head into the air, where it sailed high for a few moments before landing upright between my fidgeting remains and Bliss Carmichael.
Bliss, still wielding Drepane, crushed Mortoc’s skull under the heel of her right foot as she strolled over to me. She looked me over for a few moments while I struggled to breathe, though my eye did momentarily lock with one of hers. “Rest, Callant. I will get you out of here,” she assured me, then knelt to my side before ripping the chestplate of my Ignatus armor off with a single hand. I remember thinking, of all things, that she could not have been so strong. I also remember recalling the fact that she had lifted Lucene, in all of the Sister’s power armor, with relative ease not long ago. Such thoughts were my last ones, for the time being, before I blacked out, while Bliss lifted me into her arms, remaining armor and all.