by Ben Counter
The aeldari were exceptional warriors. The Aspect Warriors were all the more so, each type specialised for its own form of war. But no aeldari could out-shoot a Space Marine.
Cyvon’s bolter coughed in his hands and a corresponding bloom of blood and sparks burst in the chest of the nearest aeldari. The alien fell back as the gun dropped from its hands. Two more fell to Squad Phraates’ bolt rifles. The aeldari returned fire and a fusillade of silvery discs studded the side of the Impulsor. Cyvon felt the impact as one of them hit his shoulder guard, but the ceramite held. He fired again, this shot finding another aeldari’s thigh. It fell, but he could not tell how badly wounded it was.
‘Keep going,’ said Oxyath, teeth gritted. ‘Do not let them separate us.’
Another grav-tank sped alongside the flank of the Soul Drinkers column. This one had a huge energy weapon mounted on the turret. Storm bolter fire from Squad Mihrab’s Impulsor hammered against the grav-tank’s hull, but the turret emitted a terrific blast of white-hot power, ripping through the air in a burst of heat radiation, and sheared off the front portion of the Impulsor’s thruster. The vehicle skidded to a halt, almost tipping on its side, as its storm bolter continued to chatter out chains of fire.
‘Squad Otanes, Khosrau!’ ordered Quhya over the vox. ‘Support the stricken! Chaplain Visinah, deliver them! The rest, we press on! We strike!’
Cyvon did not know if he could have made that choice. The Soul Drinkers could have ceased their advance and rallied around the squads forced to halt by the aeldari attack. But the force would never have reached the Tomb of Saint Innokens before the xenos took the shrine and the Lyre, and their purpose on Kepris would have been lost. Quhya had decided to split the force and trust those left behind would regroup and rejoin those who continued. Almost half the Third Company would fight off the aeldari in the desert, while the rest struck the tomb.
Quhya believed both parts of the Soul Drinkers force could win their respective battles. He had faith. Cyvon had to have it, too.
Two Impulsors peeled off from the advancing force to join the stragglers. The rest tore through the rocky desert towards the Tomb of Innokens. The tomb’s shape resolved into a pair of gatehouses in a fearsome defensive wall, surrounding a building crowned with golden minarets and spires hung with the banners of the Imperial creed. The bivouacs and makeshift barricades of the cultist besiegers scattered the desert in front of the temple, around the scorched breaches they had opened up in the walls.
Trails of dust marked the approach of rapid-moving vehicles at right angles to the Soul Drinkers’ approach. Aeldari grav-tanks, carrying payloads of Aspect Warriors. The Biel-Tan Swordwind was already there.
‘We’re going straight through the cultists,’ voxed Sasan from the driving seat.
‘Let us hope they aren’t expecting us,’ replied Cyvon.
‘We shall match their welcome with greetings of our own!’ said Sasan.
Ruby-coloured multi-laser fire streaked around the battlements. The return fire from the Imperial defenders barely registered. It was from autoguns and heavy stubbers manned by valiant but ill-trained militia and pilgrims. The tomb’s defenders were exhausted and depleted, armoured in nothing but their faith.
Doom and deliverance were approaching the faithful of Kepris at the same time. The doom would get there first.
‘Break column into line!’ voxed Quhya. ‘Inceptor squads, engage and sow bedlam! The rest, we crash through!’
Two of the column’s Impulsors sped off ahead. They skidded to a halt before the rest of the strike force as the cultists turned to face this new threat. Squads Karavad and Astyagon disembarked. The Inceptor squads hurtled off the ground on columns of exhaust from their jump packs, and immediately fire was pouring from their assault bolters into the cultists rushing to face them. They would be the spearhead that opened up the heretics’ defences for the rest of the Soul Drinkers to crush.
Even from a distance, Cyvon could see the ruin torn across the bodies of the cultists. Explosive bolts ripped bodies apart. Klaxons sounded in alarm and cultists hauled heavy weapons around to face the rear of their lines, but already the Inceptors were among them, riddling them with assault bolter fire at point-blank range.
Cyvon could hear the cries of panic, and the screams.
The Impulsors spread out and shot past the parked vehicles, whose heavy bolter turrets were hammering fire to support the Inceptors. Squad Phraates’ Impulsor was aimed for a bank of steel junk and scorched wreckage wrapped in razor wire. Cultists were rushing to man the barricade. Cyvon saw among the cultists the mingled clothing of rich and poor, and handmade masks aping the Uppermost Hand’s.
Crude banners hung from the barricades, depicting the enthroned Voice of All. Even by the standards of heresy, she was a false prophet. She didn’t even believe in herself.
The Impulsor slammed into the barricade surrounding the besiegers’ camp. Autogun fire pinged off the front armour as the vehicle rode up over the wreckage and crunched down on the other side, through tents and bivouacs, over trenches full of looted supplies and sheltering cultists.
‘Out!’ shouted Oxyath. The door swung open and Cyvon jumped out of the rear of the Impulsor. The dazed cultist that faced him, through the din of gunfire and screaming engines, wore the stained remnants of a Keprian military uniform. Those regiments, with their glorious histories and heraldry, had ceased to exist as cultists had mutinied and massacred those who defied them. This ex-soldier tried to bring his lasgun up but Cyvon didn’t even bother to fire his bolter. He smacked the stock of the weapon into the side of the cultist’s skull, and the man was dead before he crumpled to the ground.
Squad Phraates surrounded the Impulsor in a web of bolter fire. Cultists fell in the crossfire. The other squads were doing the same. Cyvon saw Captain Quhya behead one cultist with his power sword before he shot down another with his bolt pistol. Sergeant Tiridates charged into a knot of cultists manning a heavy bolter emplacement, and with a few strokes of his powerblade reduced them to smouldering ribbons of flesh.
Cyvon felt the change in the air before he heard the rumbling of the earth. Instinctively, he ducked into the shelter of the squad’s Impulsor. Brother Sasan slid into cover beside him, driven by the same instinct.
The ground beneath the cultist defences heaved up and fell with a tremendous roar. Cyvon’s stomachs turned as he was hauled up into the air and slammed down again in a storm of torn earth and tumbling wreckage. The Impulsor was thrown onto its side.
The cultists’ makeshift watchtowers fell. The Soul Drinkers fought to keep their footing. One of Squad Tiridates, Cyvon could not tell who it was, vanished into a fissure that tore open in the ground.
The walls around the Tomb of Innokens bowed and sagged. The land groaned as it settled again, the cultists’ defences wrecked and rearranged.
From a breach in the walls approached a figure Cyvon knew. It was the aeldari from the vision, the farseer of Biel-Tan. He was accompanied by a bodyguard of Aspect Warriors in deep-green armour with mandible blasters and chainswords. Striking Scorpions, Cyvon recalled, the heavy close-combat troops of the Swordwind.
‘The xenos show their hand,’ voxed Oxyath over the dull rumble of the settling earth. ‘Now, brethren. Now is the true battle for Kepris.’
The farseer swept his staff and the land sagged suddenly, forming a bowl-shaped depression into which Squad Phraates was thrown. Cyvon tumbled through the wreckage and fought to keep hold of his bolter. He rolled to his feet just as the Striking Scorpions charged in a shriek of chainblades.
One of the Scorpions singled out Cyvon. Cyvon was on his feet as the Scorpion’s mandibles lit up with emerald fire. Laser bolts peppered his shoulder and chestplate. White spears of pain flashed through him where they pierced the ceramite of his armour.
Cyvon bit down on the pain and raised the body of his bolt rifle in a guard, letting sleep-taug
ht instinct take over. He had learned what the Imperium knew of the Aspect Warriors in the Chapter’s tactical sermons. Their mandibles forced open an opponent’s defences, leaving them vulnerable to disembowelment with the chainblade. That would not be Cyvon’s fate.
The chainsword chewed through the housing of Cyvon’s bolt rifle. The weapon’s components pinged off his armour.
The only safe place was face to face with the enemy, within the arc of the chainsword. He felt the weapon’s teeth biting through the ceramite of his armour’s backpack and shoulder guard as he reached for the Scorpion’s helmet. His fingers closed around the back of the helmet and though the Scorpion tried to twist away, Cyvon was stronger and wrenched its head down towards him.
Cyvon’s other hand forced the damaged bolt rifle into the gap between them. He fired it upwards and the bolt cracked into the lower edge of the Scorpion’s faceplate. The aeldari was thrown back onto the ground with its helm split wide open.
Cyvon saw the face beneath. From depictions and the descriptions of xenobiologists, an Imperial citizen might think the aeldari resembled humans – two eyes, a nose, a mouth. But in the flesh, they were utterly obscene. There was nothing about them that was not grossly alien. The huge dark eyes narrowed in hate and fear, and the mouth, too small and set in a flawless mask of an inhuman face, spat out an oath in the Aeldari tongue.
Cyvon fired down at the aeldari, but the damaged weapon’s action finally jammed. He used it instead to knock aside the chainblade the aeldari tried to sweep at his legs, and kicked the creature square in the chest. The aeldari was thrown against the Impulsor and Cyvon followed up with a straight punch to its face.
His fist crunched into bone. The unprotected face was shattered. He let the aeldari fall, dead, and took stock of his surroundings.
The Aspect Warriors of the Swordwind swept in from the walls of the tomb. The farseer’s force included Striking Scorpions and Howling Banshees, along with shuriken catapult-armed Dire Avengers, who had taken to the walls and were pouring volleys of silvery razor-sharp discs into the Soul Drinkers. Quhya was battling the Howling Banshees, whose charge was marked by a terrible shriek that could deafen and confuse an unprepared defender. The Scorpions had been halted by Squad Phraates, and the rest of the green-armoured aeldari were engaged with Intercessor squads, who had finished their butchery of the cultists to find themselves on the back foot against the aliens.
Epistolary Oxyath was running across the battlefield as psychic power spilled and sparked off his staff. Cyvon could see he was headed straight for the enemy farseer. The aeldari turned to face the charging Librarian and cast out a handful of silvery runes, each one a symbol of the Aeldari language. Circles and lines of multicoloured light sprang up around him, forming a shield that flickered into being just as Oxyath’s staff came down like a headsman’s axe.
The staff discharged its energy in a flash of purple light. The farseer’s psychic shield held, and as Oxyath reeled back from the impact he drew his plasma pistol to fight without needing to drain his dwindling psychic reserves.
The farseer was faster.
The xenos raised its own staff, head pointing down like a spear in the hands of a warrior despatching an enemy underfoot. With a burst of icy wind, the aeldari rose from the ground, striding into the air above Oxyath. The Librarian took aim with his pistol as the farseer brought the staff down, and Cyvon realised the Librarian was too late.
The staff plunged into the base of Oxyath’s throat. A split second later, the farseer’s psychic power channelled through the weapon in a flood of silver light.
The upper half of Oxyath’s body exploded. Cyvon’s auto-senses struggled to keep the sudden white glare from scorching his retinas. What remained of Oxyath toppled to the ground, as torn ceramite and shredded muscle and organs rained down around him.
The farseer landed deftly on the tortured ground.
‘Oxyath is down,’ gasped Cyvon into the vox. ‘I see him. The farseer. He is clear of the Tomb of Innokens. Captain, now is the time.’
‘Keep him in place,’ replied Quhya. ‘Bulgovash! Clear to fire, Brother Cyvon’s target!’
A new channel opened up over the vox. Cyvon heard the static of the vox change.
‘Brother Cyvon,’ came a voice he had only heard once or twice – that of Shipmistress Fyoda Bulgovash, commander of the spacecraft Suffering of Helostrix. ‘I can give you one shot! Name your target!’
The ship had brought the Soul Drinkers through the perils of the Great Rift and into orbit over Kepris, then swung away from the world to hide out of range of its planetary defence lasers. It had run the gauntlet through those defences now, to bring this fire to them. Cyvon knew the risk the ship was taking, and the damage it would be sustaining even now.
‘Fifty yards north,’ replied Cyvon. His hearts were hammering as the farseer turned to look at him. Cyvon had no gun to fire, and doubted a mundane weapon would do much against the aeldari witch.
‘That’s close to you, brother,’ said Shipmistress Bulgovash. The cut glass of her Naval aristocrat accent contrasted strangely with the chaos all around Cyvon and the Librarian’s blood spattered across the ground. ‘Minimum safe distance is one hundred and fifty…’
‘Fire,’ repeated Cyvon. ‘Fire now!’
He spotted Oxyath’s plasma pistol on the ground beside him. The Librarian had not had the chance to fire it. Cyvon snatched it up and felt the powercells humming in his hand as they charged up.
Cyvon ducked behind the Impulsor as he fired. A fat bolt of plasma tore through the air and flared bright against the farseer’s psychic shield. The farseer held up a hand against the glare of the impact and dropped out of sight, behind a bank of torn wreckage. Cyvon ran past the Impulsor and into the open, trying to find the target. He spotted the farseer behind the wreckage yelling orders in the sibilant Aeldari tongue to the Striking Scorpions.
Cyvon didn’t need to know the language to understand. He was telling them to close in on the Space Marine with the plasma pistol, and kill him.
‘Take cover, brethren!’ voxed Cyvon as Striking Scorpions turned towards him, and the whirring of their chainblades reached a crescendo.
The heavens tore open. Cyvon could not see the Suffering of Helostrix in the sky overhead, but he knew it was there. A blue-white spot grew above him like a second sun, and the rising growl of superheated air was like an animal’s roar before it pounced.
The spacecraft’s ventral cannon was a lance weapon, configured to bombard target cities with barrages of fire. Set to its lowest and most accurate setting, it could hit a target spot with about a hundred yards’ deviation.
The bolt of blue-white light lasted half a second, stuttering as it pulsed hundreds of times and discharged immense amounts of thermal radiation into the ground. The entire section of the battlefield and a length of the temple’s defensive wall was vaporised and thrown into the air as a fine column of dirt and ash. The world was first impossibly bright, then suddenly dark.
Chapter Six
The Emperor’s voice, like the fiery death of a star, like the cry of agony of the planet itself. The falling of the hammer of justice. The fury of the galaxy, to have such blasphemy in it.
– Father Balthan Eugenivov, The Keprian Vengeance
The sound hammered against Cyvon. Heat battered against him as a scalding wind pulsed across the battlefield. Even his auto-senses could not prevent the din from deafening him temporarily, and the only sound he could hear was the vox transmitted directly into his inner ear. The static was broken by Shipmistress Bulgovash’s voice.
‘Direct hit!’ she said, and she could not hide the righteous glee in her voice. ‘Captain Quhya, do we have effect on target?’
Captain Quhya struggled to reply in spite of the filters of his armour and the third lung of his Primaris physiology. The dust fell thick, like a blanket of solid mist. ‘We have effect,�
� he coughed.
Cyvon fought to his feet and peered through the column of dirt the laser impact had thrown up. The shapes of the fallen wall section emerged through the gloom. And there was something else – a figure, stumbling through the darkness.
Lines of light flared around it. The figure was the farseer, protected from the laser blast by his psychic wards, but reeling and alone. The farseer was heading up the slope of the crater the laser had left, towards the breach in the wall and the temple beyond. Around him was nothing but scorched ground, the rocks of Kepris’ desert pulverised and glowing like embers in a fireplace. The Striking Scorpions were gone entirely, their corpses vaporised or blown far clear of the crater.
Cyvon raised the plasma pistol and fired. A bolt of plasma ripped just past the farseer and bloomed against the slope of the crater. Cyvon’s senses were swirling and his aim was off.
The farseer was swallowed by the billowing dust, and vanished.
‘He’s alive,’ gasped Cyvon. ‘He’s headed for the tomb. For the Lyre.’
‘Pulling up from low orbit!’ exclaimed Shipmistress Bulgovash. ‘Defence lasers are targeting from Hollowmount. Going silent and engaging the umbral fields!’ Her vox-channel cut off as the Suffering of Helostrix rose back into high orbit, away from the orbital weaponry in the cult-controlled cities of Kepris.
‘Advance, Soul Drinkers!’ ordered Quhya to all the squads. ‘Into the tomb! Cold and fast, the enemy falls back and we pursue!’
‘We have them!’ cried First Sergeant Tiridates. ‘The xenos turn tail and flee! Cut them down, my brothers! Trample them in the dirt!’
‘Squad-brothers, Oxyath is down,’ voxed Cyvon to the other members of Squad Phraates. With the sergeant wounded and the Librarian dead, they had no leader. ‘Through the breach to the tomb, and stay close. The aeldari are within. Our target is the farseer.’
The Tomb of Saint Innokens was a grand building tarnished by the cultists’ siege. Its four columns were topped with gilded minarets and a cluster of spires rose from its centre. Chunks of masonry toppled from its highest points and runnels of dust trickled down its walls, as the blast from orbit had shaken the fabric of the huge structure. A wide archway leading into the tomb had been barricaded with pews and debris, but it was nothing that could hold back a Space Marine.