SethWolf

With a wordless shout, the Angel twisted his arms, his hands tearing at the strange, grisly material of the axe-head. A sickening crack broke about the room like the snapping of a spine, and Ka’Bandha’s weapon shattered across its length, scattering pieces of shrapnel. Before the creature could react, Sanguinius grasped one of the Bloodthirster’s curved horns and jerked it forwards with all his might. The primarch brought up his fist to meet the beast’s snout and landed a flurry of quick blows from the knuckles of his gauntlet before Ka’Bandha shoved him away.

Spitting out gobs of black, fuming blood and broken teeth, the daemon growled.

'Look at you. Where is the noble angel now, abhuman? Better the sweet blood to smother you!’ Ka’Bandha’s arm swung back, the brass cords of its whip scraping across the bone floor, flicking up into the air for another lethal blow as powerful as the one that had struck down the Angel upon the Plains of the Damned.

Sanguinius reacted faster than the eye could follow. He flashed into the air, wings crackling, and caught the razored tips of the whip before they could reach him. The cords burned where they touched the ceramite, pennants of vapour issuing from between his armoured fingers. The primarch dove at the Bloodthirster, dragging the lash with down him, and before the creature could react, he pulled the whip into a loop across the howling monster’s throat.

Angel and daemon collided, crashing to the floor. Ka’Bandha released its grip on the lash, but it was too late; the brass cables pulled tight. Sanguinius gave the whip a violent tug and the Bloodthirster’s howls became strangled, frenzied barks. The beast tried to break free, swatting at the primarch, grasping at air. Its bat-like wings unfurled, the talons at their tips, scratching gouges in Sanguinius’s armour. With cold and lethal precision, the primarch arrested the wild, beating motion of one of the freakish wings with his free hand.

‘Only angels may fly,’ he said darkly, tearing out the black pinion. The sound was like the splitting of a great sack-cloth sail, and the daemon Ka’Bandha screamed loud enough to shake the walls. Warpfire gushed from the stump of the wing and it shuddered in agony, a sensation it had only known previously from the cries of its enemies.

With the whip still coiled about its neck, the Angel dragged the spitting, wounded fiend to the lip of the pit in the middle of the chamber, then lifted it up so he could look it in the face. The daemon cackled through its pain, convulsing as it tried to shake free.

‘I will take your skull yet.’

The primarch’s eyes flashed with a powerful hatred. ‘If you truly do hail from the realm that men once called Hell,’ he intoned, ‘... when you return there, tell your kindred it was Sanguinius who threw you back.’

With a grunt of effort, the Angel took hold of the beast and shoved it over the spiked edge. Ka’Bandha’s curses echoed all the way down, before it finally vanished, shrieking, into the warpflames.