The erasure of the cavalry broke the field's rhythm.
The Bloodthirster roared.
It plunged from the sky like a comet of brass and hate, wings slamming the storm apart. Its axe spun arcs of molten sparks, every swing loud enough to drown the battlefield.
Around it swarmed its shield—Screamers and Furies wheeling tight, bodies overlapping to form a living cyclone of shrieking flesh and warped wings. Each one flung itself willingly into the fire, masking their lord's descent.
—
"Sky's yours, Vaeleen, Caldrin." Obol voxed. His tone was iron, unshaken.
—
"Yes, High-Scion." Their reply sang with sharp delight.
—
Phorxys' lightning lances screamed skyward. Forks of white fire licked through the swarm, vaporizing Screamers mid-shriek, turning Furies into falling ash.
Every strike punched wounds into the Bloodthirster's guard.
—
Through the holes she opened, Vorgane spoke.
BOOM.
A single round tore the storm apart, a thunderbolt wrought from iron.
The shell punched into the living screen, shattering wings and bodies by the dozen, and detonated just shy of the daemon-lord's chest.
The explosion flared like a false dawn, brass hide seared black as the Bloodthirster staggered mid-flight.
—
"Hit," Caldrin rumbled, reloading with a growl.
"Again, Vaeleen!"
—
Vaeleen laughed, her voice bright in the storm.
"Then keep up, uncle!"
—
Phorxys darted higher, her lances carving fresh scars into the swarm, while Vorgane's cannon boomed again and again—
AP and HE, driving the Bloodthirster from the sky one wound at a time.
—
Then the sky twisted.
The Lord of Change lifted its staff, and with it reality seemed to fold.
A shimmer rippled out—a barrier of warped light, prismatic and shifting, like glass shards suspended mid-air.
Shells from Vorgane struck the veil—slowed, warped, some stopping altogether as though drowning in honeyed air.
Others unraveled, their metal shells peeling apart into streams of sparks before dissolving.
—
Then came the counterstroke.
Flamers spiraled low, vomiting technicolor fire that wrapped around the stopped rounds, igniting them mid-air into blossoms of warp-flame.
Above, Rot Flies heaved forward, their riders loosing bursts of bile and corroded shot, spattering against the Covenant's shields.
—
Vaeleen's voice cracked sharp over the vox.
"High-Scion! The birdy is doing something—the rounds aren't landing!"
—
Caldrin spat, Vorgane's battle cannon cycling stubbornly.
"Xenos trickery." His tone was iron-wrought frustration, edged with disdain.
"Some kind of bioweapon, or corrupted air."
—
Isera cut in, her voice sharp and cold.
"Not a weapon. An amplifier."
"That staff—see it? It bends the volleys. Nothing natural does that."
—
Vaeleen snorted from Phorxys, her lances still crackling.
"You call it a staff, I call it a glorified targeting beacon. Xenos tech, nothing more."
—
"Tech, bio, or witchery—doesn't matter," Thrykos rumbled flatly, Avenger whining as it reloaded.
"The thing blocks your fire. Solve that, or we choke here."
—
While the others argued across the link—bioweapon, amplifier, trickery—Obol's gaze stayed locked on the glimmering giant at the rear.
Its staff cut through the storm like a spine of glass, and when the volleys bent against the air, something in him stirred.
—
He knew the sensation.
Not from books, not from teachings—he couldn't name why—but his gut recoiled at the familiarity.
The storm, the warping, the command of unseen force.
He felt it before.
His voice slipped low, almost a mutter, lost beneath the reactor-hymns.
"Xenos witchery...."
".....No, Xenos Psyker."
The word hung in his mind like a blasphemy, a thought he did not want but could not shake.
—
The vox went quiet for a heartbeat after Obol's low murmur.
"Psyker."
The word was a curse, a fracture in the air. It should not have been spoken.
Even the machine-hymns seemed subdued, reactor growls fading into a low, uneasy thrum.
—
Vaeleen's voice broke the silence, thin with awe.
"High-Scion… are you saying they have their own?"
—
Caldrin spat, iron hard to mask the edge of fear.
"You give them too much honor. Call them what you will, they're still beasts. Trickery and lies, nothing more. To name them psykers is to raise them above carrion."
—
Isera cut him off, sharp as her spear.
"Temperament, husband. Don't let them get under your nerves."
—
"But, is it even possible? It could just be another tricks...like Eldar."
He shot back, doubtfully.
—
Obol's reply came low, heavy as stone cracking.
"Is it not possible, my brethren? Would you deny what you saw? Iron bent to thought, fire swallowed by will. Tell me that is not the work of a witch."
A pause followed. None dared answer.
—
The field did not pause for their doubts.
Vaeleen's lances screamed skyward again, defiance in every strike. Bolts of white fire clawed through the shrieking swarms of Furies and Screamers, each one slamming against the unseen grip that froze them in midair.
The sky bloomed with false suns as round after round detonated in suspension, blossoms of warp-flame tearing apart the air. Still Vaeleen fired, every bolt a curse hurled into the storm.
Beside her, Vorgane's cannon thundered without pause. Caldrin's growl carried through the noosphere, each shot spat upward like a clenched fist raised against the heavens.
The Bloodthirster staggered with every blast, wings thrashing as though it too could feel the stubborn fury that hammered at its guard.
The sky boiled, barrier shimmering—but the AA team did not falter.
Their fire rose like an oath, unbroken, no matter how the storm bent it.
—
Below, Thrykos kept Morvhar's Avenger raking, tungsten shells sawing a horizontal line through the crimson and violet mass.
Every sweep bit into the exposed core, and still the wall of green shambled forward, its corpulent lord igniting and healing in equal measure like some dying anthill too stubborn to collapse.
The air stank of burning rot and ozone, their firestorm painting the ash plain in lurid light.
Across the link, silence lingered on Obol's murmur of psyker.
—
Then Thrykos' voice came, flat as gunmetal, cutting the tension with its steadiness.
"Then let us deal with them as we would deal with any threat—within or without. Witch, or weapon, it matters not."
His Avenger roared again to underline the words, a string of detonations chewing through the horde as if to remind them all of the truth: enemies bled, and enemies died, whatever names they bore.
—
Obol drew in a long breath, the Throne's hissing hymns steadying with him.
"Right," he said at last, his tone flat as iron.
"Let's get rid of that bird."
—
His lenses locked on the glimmering giant in the haze.The staff shimmered, cutting the storm in half as volleys of iron rounds froze mid-flight, suspended unnaturally in the air.
Then the Flamers swept low, vomiting ribbons of witch-fire across the hanging shells. One by one, the suspended munitions ignited and burst, turning into blossoms of technicolor flame that scattered harmlessly in the wind.
And in those moments, the barrier flickered—every gout of flame weakening the hold, until the shimmering field guttered out with the detonations.
Obol's gaze slipped lower. The bloated mountain of the green general lumbered forward, fire clinging to its skin, boiling but never ending, healing as fast as it burned.
Something in him kindled, hot and sharp.
"The bird can't guard all his friends at once," he muttered.
"Let's divide and conquer."
"Isera. The time for Bastion to answer is now."
—
Her helm tilted, eyes narrowing as her gauntlets danced over the uplink runes.
"Yes, milord," she said, steady—but her breath caught as Obol's targeting lances flicked across her display, swift and deliberate, each sweep landing on a different monster in the storm.
—
"Lightnings—there, and there." His tone was iron, precise.
Isera's eyes widened, understanding snapping into place like a blade locking home.
"Thunderbolts on the green one," Obol finished, low and cold.
"Mules on return."
—
The noosphere chimed once as her confirmation rune flared bright.
"Yes, High-Scion. The Bastion acknowledged."
—
In the orbit, inside the Bastion's communication room.
The relay-vox chimed shrill and urgent.
A junior communicator jolted upright, knocking over his ink quill as runes blazed across his slate.
"Priority command," he rasped, almost tripping as he rushed across the tiered command deck.
He skidded to a halt before his superior, pressing the slate forward with shaking hands.
"The Covenant calls Bastion to answer."
—
The commander did not flinch. He took the slate, eyes skimming the runes as he walked briskly back to the dais, the glow of the hololith painting his features in cold blue.
At the raised rail he paused, then pressed the speaker with a practiced motion that made the room fall into a sharpened quiet.
"All personnel—prepare the launch bay," he intoned, voice even and hard as a bell.
—
An alarm answered him: a high, mechanical wail that rippled through the decks and set hatch clamps to clacking. Runners snapped to life; servitors snapped open tool-racks.
Where moments before the Bastion had hummed with steady readiness, now it thrummed with the precise violence of gearing-up.
"Squadrons, acknowledge," the commander barked as he paced, slate tucked under one arm.
From the hangars came the crisp return:
"Alpha reads."
"Omega reads."
Voices—some clipped human, some corrugations of servo-speech—bounced across the bridge like the struck wires of a bell.
—
"Lightnings Squadron Alpha and Omega—read the grid on your consoles," he ordered.
"Lock vectors on Lord Obol's marks."
—
At the far bulkhead, a row of Lightning fighters hunched in the hangar like coiled predators.
Their fuselages were needle-sleek, black-and-iron, rune-plates flashing as ground techs sealed canopies and cycled micro-compressors.
Crews in oil-dark harnesses scurried along the wings, checking control servos and tracer arrays.
Each craft's nose bore a painted tally—a ribbon of past kills—and each pilot's voice spoke through the interlink with the cool certainty of men who had flown through fire before.
—
"Thunderbolts, Zeta and Iota," the commander continued without slowing.
"Prep promethium payloads. Load the mule cages,"
"Drop on coordinates code-signed Obolus-Delta upon return."
—
In the thunderous belly of the Bastion, the Thunderbolts were beasts of another kin—broad-winged bombers with reinforced underbellies and cavernous bays for incendiary tanks.
Ground techs wrestled long canisters into place; rune-priests traced sealing glyphs over welds until metal hissed and smoke curled.
Beneath the ship, mechanics winched into place the M.U.L.E, a maw-like container of girded iron and field-locks.
Strapped into its belly with banding that looked as much ritual as engineering, the Mule's sides pulsed with faint blue light—cargo holds filled with replenishment pallets, replacement armaments, and arc-sealed promethium drums canted for rapid ejection.
The commander's finger tapped the slate; the projection over the dais flared—vectors, wind-lanes, blast radii—inked in translucent runes and tactical glyphs.
Around him the Bastion moved like a single organism: stokers cursed, servo-arms cranked, servitors rolled heavy gear on magnetic treads.
Tech-priests chanted low, the metal voices of their mechadendrites harmonizing with the ship's reactor thrum; incense of burnt oils and machine-glee threaded the air.
The commander nodded once, taking the slate as he turned back toward his seat.
He pressed the vox-stud, his voice carrying through the deck like steel on stone.
"All personnel, ready-check."
—
The sirens blared overhead, a rising, falling howl that shook dust from the girders. Consoles flared brighter as crews bent into their work.
Reports snapped back in staccato rhythm, crisp and clean.
"Zeta and Iota confirms—mules secured. Promethium cages primed."
"Omega green. Systems stable."
"Alpha green. Grid check complete. Awaiting cadence."
The commander let the slate drop flat into the crook of his arm, eyes sweeping the bay.
Faces glowed in the hololith's light, hands steady on rune-keys, movements sharp with urgency but never panic.
This was order carved into men and women by long drills, long wars.
The kind of steadiness that was its own faith.
—
The klaxons pulsed again, red light washing across the hangar's ribs, and the room answered in silence.
An army ready.
—
Outside, through armored shutters, the ash-clouded horizon waited—an obscene wound in the world.
The commander straightened, felt the ship's weight in his bones, and, with a nod to the nearest officer, released the speaker.
"All squadrons—stand by for vector. Await High-Scion's mark."
The hangar walls answered with the measured clank of crews locking down, and the Bastion—iron mountain in the void—caught a breath and held it, waiting to hurl its lightning into the storm.
—
The bastion drowned in red.
Klaxons pulsed overhead, painting the launch decks in strobing crimson, shadows jerking across the ribbed vaults like living things.
Every man and woman stood in their stations, waiting, breath held.
Pilots strapped into their cockpits, faces lit blood-red by their rune-slates.
Servitors clicked through last-second diagnostics, feeding data into the hololiths that churned with fire and storm.
At the command dais, the launch-commander's hand hovered over the priming stud.
His face glistened with sweat, rivulets cutting pale trails through the grime.
The slate under his arm buzzed with ready-runes, but he did not yet press.
All of them waited for the light.
—
Seconds stretched like hours.
The roar of engines idling in their cradles thundered through the cavernous hangar, the bastion itself seeming to tremble beneath the weight of restraint.
Then—
Every lumen in the chamber flared green.
"All wings—GO!" The master of ordnance's bellow cut through the storm of noise.
—
The commander slammed his palm down.
The mag-catapults fired in unison.
With a scream of pistons and the shriek of tearing air, the Lightnings and Thunderbolts were hurled from their racks, fire trailing like comet-tails as they ripped free of the bastion's iron throat.
One after another they vanished into the storm, formation lights blinking emerald in the roiling dark, streaking toward the ash-world below.
The bastion shuddered, then steadied, the hangar's ribs echoing with the fading thunder. The deck was empty now, save for the glow of runes and the ringing silence left behind when warriors depart.
—
Ten crafts tore free of the Bastion's hangars, hurled into the void by screaming catapults.
Six Lightnings — Alpha and Omega squadrons — knifed ahead in hunting arcs, their slender frames vanishing into the dark like shards of silver. Reactor trails burned brief, white scars across the black before the atmosphere claimed them.
Four Thunderbolts followed, Zeta and Iota, heavier and slower but steady as anvils. Both of Iota's Thunderbolts bore M.U.L.E. containers clamped to their underbellies, massive supply caskets caged in adamant struts.
They dragged their weight like crucifixes, promising salvation and fire both when they broke atmosphere.
Together they fanned into formation—interceptors above, bombers below—engines howling the Bastion's hymn into the endless night.
—
Alpha-1's world was vibration and red light. The catapult slammed him into his seat as the Lightning roared into the void. The canopy rattled with the sudden silence of space, stars sharp as shattered glass.
He forced a breath out between clenched teeth, checked his gauges—green across the board.
"Alpha wings, stay above the cloud." His own voice felt thin, lost in the thunder of engines.
—
Below, Zeta-2 grunted as the Thunderbolt bucked, slower and heavier, its frame dragging the burden of the M.U.L.E. container clamped underbelly. Warning runes flickered amber, but the casket held steady. He eased the stick, the bomber's wings rolling broad into the wake of the Lightnings.
"Iota confirms stable." A second voice crackled, calm. "Payload sealed."
The M.U.L.E. beneath him felt like a second heart—sluggish, heavy, but alive.
—
Omega-3's Lightning kissed atmosphere first. The skin of the craft screamed as fire licked across the canopy. Static clawed the vox, then cleared in a burst as the storm gave way to thinning ash clouds.
He saw it then. The horizon alive. Fire, smoke, impossible colors. And far below, the seven titans of House Kharon, their reactors flaring against the sea of 'xenos' like stars fallen to earth.
"Visuals on ground assets," Omega-3 breathed. His vox couldn't hide the awe.
—
Iota-1's Thunderbolt hit atmosphere seconds later, its bulk grinding against the air with a sound like tearing iron. Heat washed across the cockpit, warning runes flashing crimson before subsiding. His knuckles whitened on the throttle.
Then the clouds broke—
—and the battlefield yawned below.
And through the storm of fire and sorcery, every cockpit caught the same thing in flashes—
—the Bloodthirster driving down through flame and shield, a comet of brass and hate.
—the Lord of Change behind it, staff raised, suspending volleys in the air like toys.
—the Great Unclean One burning, healing, burning again.
—the pale daemon prince watching in silence, beyond the gate.
The war below was a wound. And they were the knives about to cut deeper.
—
"By Throne…" Iota-1 whispered. Then, louder,
"Iota confirms ground contact. Covenant sighted."
The promethium payload rattled beneath his craft like a caged storm.
The airborne squadrons held their vectors like spears drawn and braced..
—
The Bloodthirster's roar was a wound torn across the sky. It plunged like a comet, a living spear of brass and hate, wings hammering the storm into tatters. Its axe spun molten arcs, every swing thunderous enough to shake the very ground.
Around it swarmed its guard—Furies and Screamers wheeling in tight cyclones, their warped wings and screaming maws overlapping to form a living shield.
They threw themselves into the path of every gun, eager to die if it meant their lord descended untouched.
The Covenant shifted as one, titanic silhouettes squaring their stances across the ash plain.Obol's voice cut sharp across the noosphere, flat and absolute.
"Execute."
—
Kaelthorn knelt first, its massive form grounding like a fortress. Siege mortars elevated with hydraulic groans
Thunk-Thunk-Thunk
shells belched skyward in glittering arcs, their rune-fuses sparking like stars.
Vaerin's voice counted low and steady over the vox, each beat a hammer strike in the silence before impact. Her fire sought the swollen green mountain and the tides writhing behind it.
—
Thrykos fired at the red comet with no hesitation.Morvhar's Avenger whined to full fury, tungsten shells shrieking in a continuous scythe that tore through the daemon swarm. Every burst split shrieking wings and gnashing maws, the mass of Screamers and Furies breaking apart in showers of burning gore.
Vaeleen joined him in concert, Phorxys' lances crackling skyward in jagged arcs of white fire. Each fork split the storm, carving through daemonic flesh and warped wings alike, lightning-charred carcasses tumbling earthward like burning snow.
Together, their fields of fire carved gaping wounds into the living cyclone, stripping the Bloodthirster of its shields one body at a time.
Overhead, Caldrin's cannon thundered.
Vorgane's seismic claw dug deep into the cracked stone, locking him steady against the recoil. Each round boomed like a god's hammer, shells driving straight toward the comet-shape itself, aiming to stagger the daemon-lord through the holes Thrykos and Vaeleen had opened.
—
And then Obol and Isera brought the storm to bear.
Thanatos' thermal lance hummed high, a needle of sunfire slicing into the storm.
Beside it, Morphael's spear flared incandescent, a column of molten fury punching through the haze.
Together they bracketed the glimmering bird-giant at the rear, their combined fire hissing against its shimmering field.
—
That was the mark.
Above, the Bastion answered.
Alpha squadron tore through the void first, altitude steady, their cannons blazing defiance at the Lord of Change.
The witch-bird's shimmering wall seized their shells mid-flight, suspending them like beads of iron hanging in glass—but still Alpha fired, every tracer carving a declaration of will into the storm.
—
Omega followed like a spear-dive, engines screaming as they plunged low into the maelstrom.
Their guns stitched fire across the Bloodthirster's guard, shredding Screamers mid-swoop, vaporizing Furies as they lunged.
The sky rained daemonic gore, but still the brass monster forced its way down, staggering beneath the storm of fire.
—
Then Zeta came howling low.
Thunderbolts streaked over the Covenant's heads, their bellies opening with a thunderous—
WHUMP-WHUMP-WHUMP.
Promethium canisters fell like iron rain, bursting into tidal curtains of fire.
The Great Unclean One was engulfed whole, its swollen frame burning, bubbling, healing and burning again, like some ant-heap too stubborn to collapse.
—
And beyond them, Iota knifed deeper—lower than the rest, farther than the others dared.
Their payloads screamed into the breach itself, detonations rippling across the perimeter of the gate.
Fire roared into the daemonic maw, choking it in a wreath of unnatural light. Strapped to Iota's belly, the M.U.L.E rattled and shuddered, waiting for its appointed drop.
—
The battlefield convulsed under the weight of the strike.
For a heartbeat, there was only fire:Knight-lances, spear-columns, siege mortars, Avenger thunder, aircraft strafes, promethium curtains.
—
The Lord of Change realized what was coming.
It was inevitable.
With a shriek that shook the haze, it raised its staff high and wove a curtain of warped light, a shield of bending air that caught the fire of Thanatos and Morphael.
The barrier held—barely.
But the damage was already done.
—
The rotflies fell burning, their swollen carcasses splitting open mid-air.
The Flamers unraveled in shrieks of technicolor fire, their sorcerous flames guttering into smoke.
Even the Screamers and Furies broke ranks, scattering in panic as their lord faltered.
—
The Bloodthirster's roar ripped the storm in half as one wing tore wide open, molten brass and torn flesh scattering like meteors. Its fall was apocalyptic—a comet of fury and fire plummeting toward the ashen plain.
—
And below, the bloated mountain of the green goo staggered as fresh fire raked across its hide.
A few promethium shells landed true, clinging to its swollen flesh like molten chains. Each detonation ripped away entire slabs of putrid meat, black ichor spraying into the smoke. For once, its wounds did not close—the fire ate faster than the corruption could heal.
—
The battlefield shook under the twin dooms: one greater daemon falling from the heavens, another reeling beneath cleansing flame.
—
The Lord of Change shrieked, wings snapping wide as it tried to claw free of the barrage.But the Covenant did not relent—Avengers raked, battle cannons boomed, lance and spear flared white-hot, hammering it in waves.
Then—
SKREEEEEEEECH!
Six Lightnings tore down from the storm above, their silhouettes cutting like blades against the haze. Autocannons spat lines of fire, missiles streaked bright across the gloom—
—and the daemon-bird reeled straight into their rendezvous.
Its shimmering ward cracked, then shattered under the combined fury.
The air erupted as feathers and ichor burst outward, spraying in oily rain.
For a heartbeat it hung there, wings clawing against nothing—
—then the Lightnings' second volley met the Covenant's barrage.
Avengers, battle cannons, lance and spear all converged in the same instant.
The sky itself split.
—
The Lord of Change shrieked once, a sound like glass grinding on bone, before its vast frame tore apart. Its body sheared clean in half—one side tumbling in fire, the other dissolving into shrieking light as warp-flesh unstitched itself from reality.
The halves fell burning, crashing through its own host below, leaving only a wake of ash and feathers that smoldered as they hit the ground.
The witch-bird was gone.
—
At the same moment, more fire rained from the heavens.
Zeta and Iota's Thunderbolts tore through the haze, engines screaming as their payload bays disgorged streams of burning promethium. Canisters fell in streaks of orange, bursting across the battlefield in gouts of liquid fire.
The Great Unclean One vanished beneath the deluge. Its corpulent hide split and boiled, each blast flaying slabs of putrid meat from its body. Chunks of rot sloughed away in smoking heaps, writhing but unable to stitch back together beneath the inferno.
The Thunderbolts did not linger. Their climb began even as the last bombs struck, engines roaring as they tore for altitude. Lascannons flashed in rapid succession, missiles emptied in staccato bursts, and the final bombs tumbled free, carving the field behind the bloat into a pockmarked hell of blazing craters.
The rotlord staggered, pinned in its own pyre—its every step sinking deeper into the furnace left in Zeta's wake.
At the gate's edge, Iota's run hit like judgment. Promethium canisters burst across its perimeter, washing the screaming aperture in burning rivers. The light and shadow of the rift howled in defiance, its edges shuddering as the flames licked high, black smoke twisting into the storm above.
—
Below, the Bloodthirster heaved, one ruined wing beating ash into storms as it tried to rise again, but it had no time.
Cinerion was already there.
Maeric's Knight loomed over the daemon like an executioner, one reaper sabre raised high above its snarling skull.
"Hi," he muttered through clenched teeth.
—
The blade snapped down like a guillotine.
CRACK.
The daemon's head freed, its colossal body crumpling sideways with a sound like stone shattering. It hit the earth in ruin, ichor steaming as warp-fire chewed its form into tatters.
Behind the duel, white canopies blossomed in the storm.
—
The M.U.L.E. crates drifted down on their parachutes, massive steel caskets trailing cables, swinging gently against the wind. Iota's Thunderbolts wheeled skyward as they left their charge behind, engines shrieking, their silhouettes vanishing into cloud.
—
The battlefield burned.
Ash and fire danced in the stormwinds, every breath of air thick with smoke and ichor.
The Keeper of Secrets lay in chains of plasma and sabres, its mocking grace ended in ruin.
The Bloodthirster was nothing but a crumpled husk, its comet's descent halted in execution.
The Great Unclean One staggered, buried beneath fire and promethium, its mountain of filth collapsing into pits of burning slag.
And the Lord of Change—the witch-bird itself—was split in two mid-flight, torn apart by the wrath of Lightnings and the Covenant's fire.
—
Four generals gone. Four pillars broken.
Yet even in their death, the breach did not close.
The gate pulsed wider, bleeding shadow and radiance in the same breath, howling louder for its losses and from its depths came shapes without count.
—
The Covenant stood proud, smoke curling from every plate, reactors thrumming raggedly in the ash haze. Around them, parachutes drifted, M.U.L.E. crates slamming into the ground like the fists of angels, delivering steel salvation.
In the stillness between fire and the next tide, Obol's voice broke the noosphere.
"Four gone," he said, voice flat as iron.
"Yet the breach lives."
He paused, gold-filigreed lenses narrowing on the gate's screaming light.
"Let them come and meet The Ferrymen."
—
The Covenant answered with silence, seven titanic shadows outlined by fire — unfaltered, never yielding.
And the gate roared anew.