He stole a glance towards the top of the pyramid, seeing the burnished Death Guard warriors climbing ahead of him to reach the figure at the summit.

Leading the Death Guard was the familiar, brutal form of Nathanial Garro, his old friend forging upwards with powerful strides and his familiar grim determination. Even amid the furious battle, Tarvitz was glad to be fighting alongside his sworn honour brother once again. Garro forced his way towards the top of the pyramid, aiming his charge towards the glowing figure that commanded the battlefield.

Long hair whipped around it, and as sheets of lightning arced upwards, Tarvitz saw that it was a

woman, her sweeping silk robes lashing like the tendrils of some undersea creature.

Even above the chaos of battle, he could hear her voice and it was singing.

The force of the music lifted her from the pyramid, suspending her above the pinnacle on a song of pure force. Hundreds of harmonies wound impossibly over one another, screeching notes smashing together as they ripped from her unnatural throat. Stones flew from the pyramid's summit, spiralling towards the dome's ceiling as her song broke apart the warp and weft of reality.

As Tarvitz watched, a single discordant note rose to the surface in a tremendous crescendo, and an explosion blew out a huge chunk of the pyramid, massive blocks of stone tumbling in the currents of light. The pyramid shuddered and stones crashed down amongst the Emperor's Children, crushing some and knocking many more from its side.

Tarvitz fought to keep his balance as portions of the pyramid collapsed in a rumbling landslide of splintered stone and rubble. The armoured body of a Death Guard slithered down the slope towards a sheer drop into the falling masonry and Tarvitz saw that it was the bloodied form of Garro.

He scrambled across the disintegrating pyramid and leapt towards the drop, catching hold of the warrior's armour and dragging him towards firmer ground.

Tarvitz pulled Garro away from the fighting, seeing that his friend was badly wounded. One leg was severed at mid thigh and portions of his chest and

upper arm were crushed. Frozen, coagulated blood swelled like blown glass around his injuries and shards of stone jutted from his abdomen.

Tarvitz!' growled Garro, his anger greater than his pain. 'It's a Warsinger. Don't listen.'

'Hold on, brother,’ said Tarvitz. 'I'll be back for you,’ 'Just kill it,’ spat Garro.

Tarvitz looked up, seeing the Warsinger closer as she drifted towards the Emperor's Children. Her face was serene and her arms were open as if to welcome them, her eyes closed as she drew the terrible song from her.

Yet more blocks of stone were lifting from the pyramid around the Emperor's Children. Tarvitz saw one warrior - Captain Odovocar, the Bearer of the Legion banner - dragged from his feet and into the air by the Warsinger's chorus. His armour jerked as if torn at by invisible fingers, sparking sheets of ceramite peeling back as the Warsinger's power took it apart.

Odovocar came apart with it, his helmet ripping free and trailing glittering streamers of blood and bone as it took his head off.

As Odovocar died, Tarvitz was struck by the savage beauty of the song, a song he felt she was singing just for him. Beauty and death were captured in its discordant notes, the wonderful peace that would come if he just gave himself up to it and let the music of oblivion take him. War would end and violence wouldn't even be a memory. Don't listen to it.

Tarvitz snarled and his bolt pistol kicked in his hand as he fired at the Warsinger, the sound of the shots drowned by the cacophony. Shells impacted against a sheath of shimmering force around the Warsinger, blooms of white light exploding around her as they detonated prematurely. More and more of the Astartes, Emperor's Children and Death Guard both, were being pulled up into the air and sonically dismembered, and Tarvitz knew they didn't have much time before their cause was lost.

The surviving Isstvanian soldiers were regrouping, storming up the pyramid after the Astartes. Tarvitz saw Lucius among them, sword slashing black-armoured limbs from bodies as they fought to surround him.

Lucius could look after himself and Tarvitz forced himself onwards, struggling to keep his footing amid the chaos of the Warsinger's wanton destruction. Gold gleamed ahead of him and he saw Eidolon's armour shining like a beacon in the Warsinger's light. The lord commander bellowed in defiance and pulled himself up the last few levels of the pyramid as Tarvitz climbed to join him.

The Warsinger drew a shining caul of light around her and Eidolon plunged into it, the glare becoming opaque like a shining white shell. Tarvitz's pistol was empty, so he dropped it, taking a two handed grip on his sword and following his lord commander into the light.

The deafening shrieks of the Warsinger filled his head with deathly unmusic, rising to a crescendo as he penetrated the veil of light.

Eidolon was on his knees, his hammer lost and the Warsinger hovering over him. Her hands stretched out in front of her as she battered Eidolon with waves of force strong enough to distort the air.

Eidolon's armour warped around him, his helmet ripped from his head in a wash of blood, but he was still alive and fighting.

Tarvitz charged, screaming, 'For the Emperor!'

The Warsinger saw him and smashed him to the floor with a dismissive flick of her wrist. His helmet cracked with the force of the impact and for a moment his world was filled with the awful beauty of the Warsinger's song. His vision returned in time for him to see Eidolon lunging forwards. His charge had bought Eidolon a momentary distraction, the harmonics of her song redirected for the briefest moment.

The briefest moment was all a warrior of the Emperor's Children needed.

Eidolon's eyes were ablaze, his hatred and revulsion at this foe clear as his mouth opened in a cry of rage. His mouth opened still wider and he let loose his own screeching howl. Tarvitz rolled onto his back, dropping his sword and clutching his hands to his ears at the dreadful sound. Where the Warsinger's song had layered its death in beguiling beauty, there was no such grace in the sonic assault launched by Eidolon, it was simply agonising, deafening volume.

The crippling noise smashed into the Warsinger and suddenly her grace was torn away. She opened

her mouth to sing a fresh song of death, but Eidolon's scream turned her cries into a grim dirge.

Sounds of mourning and pain layered over one another into a heavy funereal drone as the Warsinger dropped to her knees. Eidolon bent and picked up Tarvitz's fallen broadsword, his own terrible scream now silenced. The Warsinger writhed in pain, arcing coils of light whipping from her as she lost control of her song.

Eidolon waded through the light and noise. The broadsword licked out and Eidolon cut the Warsinger's head from her shoulders with a single sweep of silver.

Finally the Warsinger was silent.

Tarvitz clung to the crumbling summit of the pyramid and watched as Eidolon raised the sword in victory still trying to understand what he had seen.

The Warsinger's monstrous harmonies still rang in his head, but he shook them off as he stared in disbelief at the lord commander.

Eidolon turned to Tarvitz, and dropped the broadsword beside him. i

'A good blade,’ he said. 'My thanks for your intervention.'

'How...?' was all Tarvitz could muster, his senses still overcome with the deafening shriek Eidolon had unleashed.

'Strength of will, Tarvitz,' said Eidolon. That's what it was, strength of will. The bitch's damn magic was no match for a pair of warriors like us, eh?'

'I suppose not,’ said Tarvitz, accepting a hand up from Eidolon. The dome was suddenly, eerily silent. The Isstvanians who still lived were slumped where they had fallen at the Warsinger's death, weeping and rocking back and forth like children at the loss of a parent.