So powerful was the summons that he could practically see the rippling waves of power radiating from where the C'tan's tomb had once stood. Or, more precisely, the glowing metal talisman buried in the slab.
His strength was all but gone, but still he tried to pull himself across the floor. He moaned as he watched Pasanius fall and Uriel thrown across the chamber, the Nightbringer's long, claws punching effortlessly through his armour.
Barzano felt the last of his strength drain from his body, but desperately held onto life. Where there was life, there was hope. He saw Uriel fight to pick himself up from the temple floor and realised he had one chance left.
Uriel roared with rage as the Nightbringer effortlessly butchered his men. Knowing that there was no chance to defeat this impossible creature, still they faced it, refusing to give in. Pasanius fought one-handed, slashing wildly at the creature as it darted about the chamber, cutting and slicing. A dazed Learchus bellowed at the Ultramarines to stand firm.
Horrid roars, like breakers against a cliff, echoed throughout the tomb and with a start Uriel realised that the alien creature was laughing at them, taking them apart slowly, painfully and sadistically.
Hot anger poured fuel on the fire of his endurance and he rose to his feet, a snarl of anger and pain bursting from his lips. He gathered up his fallen knife and hobbled forward, pulling up short as a sudden powerful imperative seized him. For a second he thought that the Nightbringer's infernal presence had breached his mind once more.
But there was a familiarity in these thoughts, a recognition.
Uriel turned to see Inquisitor Barzano staring at him, sweat pouring in runnels from his face, veins like hawsers on his neck.
The metal, Uriel, the metal! The metal…
The thought faded almost as soon as it formed within his head, but Uriel knew that the inquisitor had given his all to make sure he had heard it and he would not allow that effort to have been in vain.
He dropped to his knees at the edge of the slab, the glare of the glowing metal blinding to look at. He could feel its heat through the rents in his armour. What was he to do? Shoot it, stab it? Shouts of pain and rage from his men decided the issue.
Uriel hammered the power knife into the edge of the metal, wedging it between the stone of the slab and the glowing icon. He sensed a shift in the tortured energies filling the chamber and looked up to see the vast shape of the alien towering above the Ultramarines, two battle brothers held impaled on its claws.
He pushed down on the inlaid handle, feeling the blade bend as the metal's substance resisted him. He did not have the strength to force it from the slab.
The Nightbringer hurled the Space Marines aside, spinning with a ferocious sweep of its dark matter. Uriel felt its fury, its outrage that this upstart prey creature dared meddle in its affairs.
The alien's mind touched his with an anger that had seen stars snuffed out and Uriel let it in, feeling its monstrous rage flood through his body, feeling that rage empower him.
His own hatred for this being merged with its fury and he used the power, turning it outwards, ripping the metal from the slab with the sheer force of his anger-fuelled strength.
The metal clattered onto the floor of the tomb, the Nightbringer roaring in bestial rage as the connection to its star-killing vessel was severed, stranding it once more in the haunted depths of the immaterium. Uriel gripped the blazing metal and scrambled backwards. He snatched at his grenade dispenser as Pasanius leapt towards the creature.
A casual flick of its midnight talons sent him sprawling, but the veteran sergeant's attack had given Uriel the chance he needed. As the Nightbringer swept towards him, he held up the glowing metal, showing the hideous alien what he had fixed to its surface.
Uriel doubted the Nightbringer had any concept of what a melta bomb was, but somehow he knew that it would understand what it could do.
The creature drew itself up to its full height, spreading wide its taloned fists, the burning yellow of its eyes fixing Uriel with its deathly gaze.
Uriel laughed in its face, feeling the alien's terrible power pressing in on his skull. Visions of death tore at Uriel's mind, but held no terror for a warrior of the Emperor. He could feel the creature's consternation at his resistance.
The darkness began to swell around the creature's form, but Uriel moved his free hand to hover over the detonation rune. He smiled, despite the pain and tormented visions in his head.
'You're fast,' whispered Uriel, 'but not that fast.'
The Nightbringer hovered before him, flexing its claws in time with the boom of its alien heart. Uriel could feel its power and anger as a physical thing pressing in around him, but he could also sense something else.
Unease? Doubt?
The connection made between them by the Nightbringer granted Uriel the barest insight into the manifestation of this utterly alien being and suddenly he knew that despite the carnage it had wreaked, it was but a fraction of its true power. It was still so very weak and needed to feed. Uriel knew that every second that passed granted the Nightbringer fresh power as it fed on the strong life energies blazing in this place.
This was as close a chance as he was going to get to defeat the alien. Keeping his voice steady he said, 'This place is filling with explosive fumes and if I detonate this device, you will be buried beneath ten kilometres of rock. I don't know what you are or where you come from, but I know this. You're not strong enough yet to survive that. Can you imagine another sixty million years trapped below the surface of this world, with nothing to sustain you? You will be extinguished. Is that what you want? If you can reach into the minds of men, know this. I will destroy us all before I allow you to have that vessel.'
The pressure on his mind intensified and Uriel weakened his mental barrier, allowing the alien to see his unshakeable resolve. Its claws rose and fell, the darkness swirling around its nebulous form as its rage shook the chamber. Cracks split the walls and the red soil of Pavonis spilled through.
Uriel watched as the veil of darkness spiralled around the Nightbringer's form, sweeping up and over it like a dark tornado, gathering up the shattered remains of its guardian creatures within its furious orbit.
Uriel had a last glimpse of the Nightbringer as its yellow orbs were swallowed up by the encroaching darkness of its ghostly shroud. An alien hiss filled the chamber as the black storm shot upwards, impacting on the gold cap of the ceiling, shattering it into a thousand of pieces.
Then it was gone.
Uriel lowered his arm, his mind feeling as clear as a summer's day as the oppressive weight of the Nightbringer's horrific thoughts departed. He smiled, unable to prevent a huge grin splitting his face. He felt no desire to smile, but the sheer clarity of his own thoughts, freed from visions of murder and torture allowed no other reaction.
He put down the metal, its surface now cold and lifeless, and crawled towards Ario Barzano, who lay unmoving in a vast pool of blood. Uriel knelt beside the inquisitor, searching for a pulse, almost laughing in relief as he felt a weak beat.
'Get Apothecary Selenus!'
Barzano's eyes fluttered open and he smiled, his empathic senses also free of the Nightbringer's visions.
'It's gone?' he coughed.
Uriel nodded. 'Yes, it's gone. You held it at bay for just long enough.'
'No, Uriel, I only pointed the way. You held it off yourself.'
Barzano shuddered, his lifeblood flooding from him.
'You did well, I am proud of you all. You—' Barzano's words were cut off as a coughing fit overtook him and his body spasmed, fresh blood frothing from his chest wound.