Darnath Lysander - A Duel of Hate: Lysander saw none of it, for he was lost to the battle with his hated foe. This was no mere warlord he faced, but Shon'tu, ruler of vile Malodrax.The Fist of Dorn swung about, shattering Shon'tu's left shoulder guard, but still the warlord came on, a leer upon his face and a Daemon sword grasped tight in his left hand. Knocking Lysander's second blow aside, Shon'tu slammed his unwounded shoulder into Lysander's chest.As the first captain staggered backwards, Shon'tu pressed the fingers of his free hand tight upon his left gauntlet. Responding to this silent signal, the pods lined about the walls cracked open with a flare of greenish gas and the feeder cables tore free.Metallic roars echoed across the command spire, their timbre somewhere between rage and agony, and scores of glistening Daemon Engines lurched forth into the battle.As Lysander threw himself at Shon'tu once again, his comm-link crackled into life. The blockade fleet had been driven off; the Ultramarines had made orbit, and Captain Cato Sicarius now offered reinforcement. Lysander was incensed. This was the Imperial Fists’ battle – honour decreed that they would claim victory from this adversity as they had many times before.Hagan's forces would soon return from the depths to join the battle, and Perturabo's cursed children would be annihilated. Catching the strike of Shon’tu’s Daemon sword high upon his shield, the First Captain angrily refused the Ultramarines' assistance, and fought on.Elsewhere, the newly-birthed Daemon Engines had seemed disoriented at first, and this gave Sergeant Garadon some much-needed time to react. The 3rd Company were still some distance from linking up with their beleaguered battle-brothers, so Garadon ordered his warriors to form a defensive ring in the heart of the nearest courtyard.From this living fortress, his Devastators could track and destroy the onrushing Daemon Engines -- at least, that was the plan. As his Battle-Brothers took their positions, Garadon saw that these monstrosities were not quite the same as the creature that had slain Vogen. They were incomplete somehow, trailing metal tubing and viscous fluids.Some had stubby, half-formed weaponry; others had warped and mottled armour, the texture akin to molten wax. They were unfinished, Garadon realised, Shon'tu must have been desperate indeed. But half-forged or no, the newly-woken Daemon Engines quickly proved themselves fearsome foes.A roar of engines from the skies above at last denoted the arrival of a flight of Imperial Fists Stormravens, the heavy rasping of their assault cannons a welcome sound amidst the carnage. The heavy shells tore into the Iron Warriors, driving them back from where the 5th Company who had accompanied Lysander stood their ground, but they made little impact on the Daemon Engines' armoured hides.With a screech, a Heldrake plunged from the bleak skies, its talons tearing deep into one of the Stormravens. Crippled, the flyer plunged groundward, its impact tearing a bloody furrow through the 3rd Company's position.As more Heldrakes arrived from the skies, the surviving Stormravens banked away to begin their own fight for survival. Nevertheless, between their intervention and the fortitude of the 1st Company's Terminators, the 5th would endure. The same could not be said for those who had thought to rescue them.