[10-15] The Docks

[Okor]

Jaundiced skin stretched and tore itself apart in a physically impossible countenance of ecstasy, an armoured gauntlet closing around a mangled mace of rebar and cracked concrete, the makeshift bludgeon locked within his grip as he began the charge towards the horde, the dead still reeling from the barrage. The Crimson Killer had granted them an opportunity, and such a gift was not to be missed. An emaciated corpse turned to look at the approaching champion, their loosely attached jaw starting to open in an unearthly screech before several hundred kilos of ceramite and fossilized bone crashed into them, sending their remains flying deeper into the swarm. Rotting feet stumbled over the first of Okor’s victims, the empty-eyed beings shambling towards one of their own, claws stripped clean of flesh eager to embrace their long-lost kin.

Okor responded with a greeting of his own, the meteoritic descent of his mace driving the freshly shattered skull of the foe deep into the tarmac. ”Move!” He roared, his twisted visage freshly anointed with the blood of the lost and the damned.

The vermillion vengeance’s twinned blades lashed out, the masked man’s swords reaping a bloody toll on the horde, a brutal instrument of butchery slicing their way through the ever-encroaching swarm, an ambulatory charnel house intent on claiming the remaining primes for their number.

A piercing scream was issued from above, a sun-scorched corpse aloft in the black sky, a cybernetic harness built into its skeletal body boasting not only a jump pack, but twinned cannons set upon its shoulders, the hellish glow from its empty sockets leaving no doubt as to its will to use them.  At that moment, it loosed its volley, a flurry of smoke-belching bombs flying forth from it’s airborne position, obscuring its position as death came for the Prophet of Nurgle.

Many of the missiles went askew, wind or sheer over exuberance on the revenant’s part sending them into its fellows starting to swarm the Plague Marine, chunks of corpse sent flying as shrapnel from the expanding area of destruction.

Unfortunately, others found their mark. The explosives impacted upon the ceramite lifted to shield him, the force of their detonation cracking the eternal aegis, sending shards digging into the mummified flesh beneath. Dried muscle was scorched from his skull, torn away by the heat and force of the creature’s attentions. Were his nerves not deadened by the gifts of God, he would undoubtedly collapse in pain and shock, slain by the betrayal of his own body and left to be consumed by the ravenous corpses.

His would-be slayer still hovered in the air, rearing its head back as it screamed in victory, its engines glowing crimson as it glutted itself on the glory of victory.

In the embrace of the great Nurgle, I am no longer afraid.

His ravaged body stepped out from the cloud of smoke and still-falling detritus, his flesh hanging in ragged strips from his skeletal form, shrapnel embedded deep in his body, his naked arm barely hanging onto the rod pinning it to his body. He held his weapon behind his head, yellowed bone laid bare as his miraculously untouched eye stared down his victim.

For with His pestilential favour I have become that which I once most feared:

He completed the motion, flinging the makeshift mace towards the foe, their flame-forged eyes seemingly widening in fear as their boosters flared, seeking to escape the promised end hurtling end-over-end towards them.

They were too late.

The amalgamation of corroded steel and cracked stone hit home, sending them tumbling, trailing flame into the swarm beneath them, a fiery blossom borne from their fuel and ammunition setting their fellows aflame.

Death.

Claws scratched across his warplate, prompting him to turn and drive a fist into the body behind him, their skull snapping back as the sweet sound of cracking bone issued forth.

No weapons. One arm. A nigh-infinite number of the walking dead between the survivors and safety.

His half-flensed face looked towards the firepower possessed by whoever sheltered within the ship, sorcery and technology uniting to end the monstrous menace.

Final destination.

He began to run, crashing through the serried ranks of skeletal corpses as he began to carve a path through the horde with his own blighted biology, several hundred kilograms of festering flesh and ceramite a more than ample replacement for weaponry. Soulless bodies parted before him, his trampling greaves pulping the remains of those too slow to shamble out of the way of his onslaught, ploughing forward towards their seaworthy salvation.

790 words.