BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!
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The explosion echoed up the staircase; Adam and Kôrv paused momentarily as a single tear escaped Kôrv's eye.
Kôrv breathing deeply echoing in his helmet steeled his mind which was running towards grief.
'Run' he shouted already hearing the sound of pounding hooves meeting the first step of the great staircase a hundred meters below.
Fighting burning calf muscles both of them despite their respective boons were struggling to keep up their brutal rate of ascent.
They stumbled onto a landing, framed by a door covered in more spikes than a dark eldar homunculus' whip, leading towards unknowable horrors as the tortured screams from within seemed to indicate.
'I don't think that's our door' said Adam resigning himself to another flight of stairs.
Alighting the next, landing they heard the roar of a crowd, millions in number, a great coliseum visible through the arches entrance lined with horrific visages of the demonic champions of the arena.
'How does that fit in this tower' exclaimed Kôrv.
'It's the warp, space is just a suggestion in this hell hole', catching a glimpse of a red glow rising from beneath them, 'we must go they are almost upon us'.
The next floor they passed sweltered like the mouth of a volcano, another looked like a grotesque incubation chamber.
Finally, they reached another landing with a door greater than any other, sizeless and impossibly vast. Through it seemed to stretch a great dark cavern, miles across in which trillions of demons marched from blood pits through innumerable portals to an ever-increasing number of worlds.
'That's our way out' pointed Adam.
A few rotations below a stream of blood thirsters loped up the stairs leisurely endurance a foreign concept to them, wide lulling smiles across their daemonic faces.
Now, that's just disrespectful, thought Adam.
His lungs felt like sandpaper so hard had they been straining.
Having no other choice Kôrv and Adam dashed towards the gate, passing through it in the next, a cold feeling coming over them as they pushed through a membrane cold and wet like an icy lake.
Immediately, coming out of their cold water shock their eyes were drawn up towards the far end of the cavernous chamber. What they saw filled them with transhuman dread so vast that Adam felt both of his hearts skip a beat in tandem.
There it was, there IT sat.
Skulls from a hundred thousand species some the size of hab blocks towerered into an impossibly tall mounded pyramid, atop the macabre construction sat a skyscraper-sized being clasped in impossibly thick plate armour its head as grafted on a baroque helm was fashioned and decorated with the skulls of conqueror kings. Roars of bloodlust echo across the landscape.
macabre trophies are the fleshless heads of his champions, stacked alongside those of their defeated opponents. A hundred thousand species are represented, from Human heads beyond counting to Tyranid skulls the size of hive city hab-blocks. The ever-growing pile of bloodstained bone reflects the material victories of his followers, feeding Khorne's glory but never quenching his thirst for blood and death.
The being turned towards them its sight carrying physical weight. His feet punched into the ground, Adam looked across to Korv whose eyes had rolled up a manic laugh spilled from his mouth.
I think he's lost it I'm surprised any mortal lasted this long though, said Calcifer in his head, Khorne looks extra angry today.
Adam struggled toward Kôrv as the weight diminished somewhat.
'Snap out of it, Kôrv or we'll die'.
Adam noticed blood seeping from Kôrv's exo armour, Kôrv's hand having fallen away earlier.
Grabbing Kôrv by one arm he started down a hill straight for the nearest warp portal.
Behind him, he heard the familiar roar of Skarbrand coming up the stairs his eyes creasing.
This guy seems to fancy you, he won't stop his romantic pursuit said Calcifer.
Yanking Kôrv up onto his shoulder in a fireman's lift Adam all 4ft 7 of him struggled down the black muddied hill that was reminiscent of scene out of the war in heaven, necrons imbedded in the ground and the corpses of eldar strewn across the ground.
His leg caught on some white bone like barbed wire which seemed to slice through his leg like butter. Not daring to remove it fully he cut away the rest of the wire leaving only a few barbs in his leg.
Kôrv mumbled on his shoulder as he used his knife to cut through the next line of barbed wire, carefully pulling it apart as he manoeuvred the both of them through.
Without warning the mud became much deeper as Adam fell to his waist.
Even the ground hates me he screamed in his head. As he tried to get out with just his legs only driving himself deeper to his chest.
Hi, ground welcome to the club said Calcifer sarcastically in his head.
Adam shifted Kôrv off his shoulder and onto firmer ground, before crawling his way out of the mud his fingernails biting into the thick mud as he hauled himself out.
Kôrv finally came out of his epileptic stupor from having made eye contact with the literal personification of war.
Shakes littered his body as he sat up.
'I never wish to see that sight again'.
How long do we have said Kôrv, tiredness evident in his tone.
Adam looked back at the entrance to the space roars having grown louder. A minute at best, seconds at worst.
'How far have we got to go'. Adam looked towards the closet glowing portal.
'Two miles, 3 minutes but I'm not sure Skarbrands going to give it to us'.
'Well, you better get running lad. I'm not sure I have it in me, I just need a lil break, I'll be right after you'.
'No, No, no .... everyone I know disappears, you're coming with' Adam tugged on Kôrv's arm the first act in a long while that belied his actual age.
'Lad you need not worry, I'll gow ide in the muddd ore there, I will be making no heroic last stand unless it's absolutely necessary'.
'You'll be right after me, won't you' said Adam.
'Aye lad I'm just gonna wallow over ere in this mud and I'll be right after ya' replied Kôrv 'Now go lad, run'.
Kôrv lowered himself down blood spilling out of his mouth as he struggled to breath, 'good luck kid' he mumbled falling unconscious.
----
Adam weaved between shell craters now only two hundred meters from the closest portal.
Roooarr
He looked back only to see Scarbrand and friends, innumerable daemons swarm out of the gateway back up the hill.
Finding a new reason to run as fast as he could, he strained his lungs dashing over burnt-out husks of armoured vehicles like a springbok.
Behind him, he heard the great best of Skarbrand's wings growing closer.
He was now only a hundred meters away.
Closer, and closer, the wings beat louder.
[BEHIND]
Adam was wrenched off his feet as Skarbrand's clawed hand flew out from above catching him by his throat.
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[New Chapter to be released tomorrow concluding the first part of the novel, please review if you've enjoyed this fic].