A glance to his left was all he needed to confirm his suspicions. A bolt of lasfire cracked past his face and scorched a patch in a floating bulkhead. As his eyes darted to where the shot had come from, he saw a wide-eyed guardsmen perhaps a hundred metres down the corridor, and between Carrell and the Guardsmen was a vaguely humanoid figure, standing at 8 feet tall, with the legs and hooves of a goat, a conical head, and two pairs of jagged yellow horns sprouting from either side of it’s head. The thing turned it’s gaze to settle on Carrell, bearing a row of crooked, dagger-like teeth at the man, before a long, forked tongue lolled out of it’s mouth and licked it’s teeth.
Carrell could have sworn the thing had smiled at him, but either way, the daemon wouldn’t be able to smile if it wanted to in a moment.
He brought his shotgun to bear, glancing down it’s hand-crafted sights to place his shot between the abominations over-large skull.
The air split before him as he pulled the trigger, and the creature’s howls joined in with that of the chorus once more as it’s face was plastered with buckshot.
It’s howls grew louder, the creature charged as it’s tongue hungrily licked at what remained of it’s face, lapping up the blood that seeped from it’s now empty eyesocket.
The daemon was closing the distance between them with a blinding speed, the boy behind it was firing away with his lasgun as fast as he could, singing marks and cooking flesh on the things back, but it didn’t stop charging towards Carrell.
True, the daemon was fast, but Martha was faster. She’d dashed past Carrell from behind and was bringing her sword up to meet the daemon’s before he’d even realised.
The clash of iron rang true throughout the hall, the guardsmen on the other end of the hall had stopped firing, Carrell had to, the both of them searching for a gap in the fighting that would allow them to blast into the beast without injuring their ally.
Hungrily, Martha’s sword lashed out, intent on removing the burden of the creatures massive head from it’s body, it’s blade met with hers before she rent it’s flesh, the two struggled for a moment, Martha on the defensive as the Daemon’s bulk and muscle was quickly overpowering her in a test of sheer strength.
That was, until Martha slammed her boot into the creature’s shin. Well, she would have, if the thing hadn’t flickered from existence for a split moment, it reappeared just as quickly as it had vanished, Martha’s leg was entombed in flesh as the creature formed back around her leg, most worrying however, was that it had moved it’s flaming blade when it had vanished, the weapon now past Martha’s guard.
It’s blade sheered a strip of flesh from her shoulder as she attempted to avoid the blow, her reactions too slow and the creature too fast for Martha to be completely safe. Her bodyglove tore like paper as her flesh cooked and bubbled beneath it’s infernal blade.
A far more human howl came over the chorus for once, somewhere between fury and pain as Martha snarled, gritted her teeth and tried to bring her blade down upon the creature’s skull, though her footing was off, one leg being inside of her target after all, the blade went wider than intended, striking against the daemon’s horn, sending shards of warp-borne keratin to crunch against the floor beneath them.
The bloodletter raised it’s blade to strike again, Martha was guarding, but too slow.
Carrell closed the distance as quickly as he could, bring his shotgun up once more and levelling it at the creature’s head. The crack of thunder erupted through the ship once more as Carrell pulled the trigger, lead and iron turning the Daemon’s face into a fine mulch, yet it still didn’t die. The beast was sent reeling, blown back by the sheer force of the weapon. It flicked again. Martha brought her boot to the ground as it was free of the creature’s body and brought her blade down hastily where the daemon once was.
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It was met with an unfortunate surprise when it was drawn back into the physical realm with the hunk of metal that Martha called a sword lodged in it’s shoulder. He swore he saw the sister grin as she wrenched the sword downwards, sending the daemon’s sword arm clattering to the ground in a spray of blood and gore.
The blades flame dimmed, but the bloodletter’s determination to kill didn’t. It’s hooved foot kicked out, slamming Martha in the chest and sending her clattering to the deck. The daemon’s last eye settled on Carrell, what was left of it’s blasted tongue lapped hungrily again at the blood that poured from it’s own wounds.
The guardsmen brought his shotgun into position once more, a storm of pellets punching a ragged hole in the creature’s chest.
It didn’t stop moving.
He fired again, taking away the daemon’s final eye, and half of it’s jaw with it.
It didn’t stop.
He fired again, or would have, if he hadn’t heard the familiar click of an empty chamber.
No time to reload.
He brought the shotgun up defensively, the daemon’s clawed hand gripped the barrel of his weapon tight, the metal turned hot in an instant, smouldering beneath the creatures grip as it crushed the barrel closed, kicking Carrell squarely in the chest and slamming his back against a wall. It pulled the shotgun from his grip and tossed it into the void behind him. Carrell brought his arms up to protect himself, swallowing a mix of bile and blood as his heart slammed against his chest.
The daemon gripped his arm now, igniting his armour and cooking the flesh beneath it in an instant, a blast of pain flooded up through Carrell’s arm, which only intensified as the daemon gripped tighter and twisted, bone crunching beneath it’s grip and what was left of his forearm popped from it’s socket, hanging limply at his side.
It’s grip found something new, a red palm settling on Carrell’s neck and squeezing gently, granting Carrell the pleasure of smelling his own neck smoulder under the thing’s grip.
His vision was quickly fading, his body screamed in protest and he could do nothing but weakly quick as the air left his lungs.
The wailing around him rose somehow even higher, his mind capable of nothing but thinking of the screaming as his ears ran cold with blood.
Then the daemon was gone.
So was the ship, along with the floor beneath him and the wall at his back. He no longer looked towards an endless swirling rift, his ears no longer assailed by endless screams.
All that lay before him was an unending span of green, that slowly came into more detail with each passing moment.
His organs lurched in his stomach as he felt the rush of the wind against his skin and the howl of It at his ears. He was falling. Fast.
The green beneath him shifted and he saw what lay below him in even further detail, leaves rustling and waving in the gale, each individual leaf making up part of a canopy so thick it might rival the jungles of Catachan in sheer density. But hopefully not in deadliness.
The treetops grew closer as Carrell braced to hit the ground beneath him, his body slapped hard against a leaf, which he had now discovered were larger than a man, and almost as thick. But not thick enough to hold his weight, it bent beneath him and sent him falling against, slamming and slipping his way down the canopy as Carrell desperately tried to hang on to anything in reach, unfortunately for him, it looked as if the forest had seen some rain recently, the leaves still slick with water that allowed him no purchase.
And so he went tumbling down, the light of the sun growing narrower and dimmer with each layer of foliage he crashed through.
At long last, Carrell’s fall was brought to a hasty, sudden stop, his body slamming into a particularly thick branch, head snapping forward and crunching against the hard wood, sending him forcibly into slumber.