Quintus Gate wasn’t just a fortress, it was THE fortress protecting Hallentia. So much of the hive city was underground that taking Quintus Gate would be necessary to gain any access at all, and that doesn’t solve the matter of having a lasting foothold within the city itself. The gate would need to be taken which would require an army, then the largest hive city of the planet which would require another, bigger army. Typhus had considerable forces yes, but with Mortarion fighting on other fronts, the resources simply weren’t there. There were no plans to take the city, instead there was the plague, and the plague followed typhus.

The pox was a fantastic bug. The sick were practically dead, but stronger than they ever were in life, obedient and in a constant state of satisfaction. You had all of the aggression of rabies but a much much quicker rate of infection. Where most plagues were hampered or destroyed by pollution and radiation, the pox was accelerated by it. It spread with very few symptoms, dormant until triggered by a carcinogenic compound, and populations would turn on their head eating each other alive. It was a beautiful thing. Typhus would let the city of Hallentia destroy itself. All it would take was to get the plague through Quintus gate, and Baron Oda’s subjects among others would carry it through.

The outer-most layers of the Quintus Gate were abandoned. Stationary guns were disabled or without ammunition, barricades were unmanned, an entire layer of the fortress was dark and without activity. The next line was the same. Tighter formations of barricades, more formidable guns, even missile silos sealed up and inactive. Quintus Gate, or as much of it as the eye could see, appeared to have been either evacuated or deserted. Baron Oda arrived first, along with the entire industrial district. Then Typhus materialized with a zap, scorching the ground beneath him and charging the air.

“This isn’t enough bodies” buzzed typhus “Where are all the bodies?” Typhus stared down at Oda without affect.



“Well, This is practically the whole city, I brought everyone! there… there wasn’t anyone else to bring” Oda stuttered and bumbled. He was so impared by the injections from his suit that he could hardly collect the words.



Typhus didn’t react at all, Oda was taller than before by Typhus was huge and still as a boulder. “That is not what I meant” Typhus replied. “These battlements should have been full, where are the imperial forces? Where is your sorcerer?”.

“There was no resistance, the soldiers simply aren’t here. Midas was to speak with Chernabog” stated Oda.



“and he has” rasped Chernabog. He emerged from the shadow of a battlement, twice the height of Typhus. One might have mistook him for a Dreadnaught. Chernabog was thick, coated with a glistening black armor, or was it his skin? It was hard to tell how much of him was demonflesh and how much of him was metal. Thick cables and tubes connected his forearms to his chest, one even ran from his massive hammer to somewhere in his ribs. There was eve a plug or injector of some kind protruding from his forehead.



“The militia have been drawn into the city. This is ambush.”



With that word, a Stormraven Gunship passed overhead, peppering the warband with bolterfire, debris, and missiles. The rumble of artillery sounded from from the east as an Imperial Knight stepped out from behind a bastion and began the attack. Land Raider guntanks burst their way through several layers of barricades firing wildly into the crowd, blue and with a faint white horseshoe pattern etched onto them. Oda’s hoard was there to rip and claw at entrenched soldiers, not to crack tanks. The Stormraven circled back for another strafing run.

It cut a clean line through a clump of zombies and buried Oda in the bodies of his people. Chernabog leapt upwards, carried by a pair of jet engines rumbling and smoking suspended over his back. He met the ship at the peak of his jump and struck a wing with his hammer tearing a sizable junk of metal free. It screeched and struggled but did not crash, it merely took a wider ark to return for yet another run. The land raiders, continuing to spew metal and lethal rays continued to advance, and clinging to the side of one was a titanic man wielding a burning sword.

“Guilliman” buzzed Typhus. “He is HERE, not on Konor?”



With that, Typhus issued a psychic command to the sea of bodies belonging to Oda. They wheeled, scrambling in the direction of the land raiders while the Imperial Knight began stomping and firing into the mass. Chernabog recovered Oda’s body and melted back into the shadows. Typhus watched for a moment as Guilliman chopped and lobbed zombies in every which direction while reinforcements began to arrive for the astartes, then dematerialized.