A Thousand Sons

by Graham McNeill

  “Heliosa,” corrected Ahriman. “Its people call this world Heliosa.”

  “Not for long they won’t,” said Wyrdmake, looking up as a thunderous howl of engines exploded over the highest peak. “The Wolf King is here.”

  LEMAN RUSS: THE Wolf King, the Great Wolf, Wolf Lord of Fenris, the Feral One, the Foebane, Slayer of Greenskins.

  Ahriman had heard all those titles and more for the master of the Space Wolves, but none of them came close to capturing the sheer dynamism of the towering wolf in human form that set foot on the cracked stones of Raven’s Aerie 93. The jetwash of his Stormcrow had scorched the pale mountain stone and smelled of burnt rock.

  A pack of wolf-clad Terminators armed with glittering harpoon spears followed the Primarch of the Space Wolves, a towering warrior forged from the ice of Fenris and tempered in its freezing oceans. Magnificent and savage, Leman Russ was the power and violence of the Space Wolves distilled and sharpened to the keenest edge. A black-furred wolf pelt encircled his broad shoulders, and clawed fetishes adorned a wolf-stamped breastplate and hung about his neck. His battle-plate was the grey of a thunderstorm’s heart, its every surface scratched and gouged as though he had recently wrestled the two mighty, blade-shouldered wolves that prowled at his side, one silver and one dark as night.

  Ahriman’s skin shivered at the presence of Leman Russ, as though an icy wind whistled through his armour. The primarch’s hair was a resin-stiffened mane of molten copper, his piercing grey eyes cold and unforgiving, forever moving and on the hunt. A mighty blade, fully a metre and a half long, was sheathed at his side, and Ahriman saw its hilt had been rune-bound with symbols to draw the frozen ice of winter to its edge.

  It seemed impossible that any foe could stand against this warrior. Ahriman saw wild, unchecked power in Russ, a recklessness of spirit that jarred with his own strict discipline and dedication to duty. Leman Russ blazed with incandescent white fire, his aura filled with unnameable colours. So forceful was it that Ahriman shut himself off from the aether, the primarch’s searing presence in the Great Ocean like the first instant of a supernova. He blinked away the glittering afterimages, feeling a nauseous surge of dislocation before his mortal senses adjusted to the sudden absence of extra sensory information.

  Ohthere Wyrdmake dropped to one knee, and his lupine companion prostrated itself before the wolves of Russ.

  Ahriman felt his body move of its own accord, and the mighty primarch seemed to stretch towards the sky as he knelt before his primal glory. The cold of the mountain air intensified as Russ approached, striding with the easy confidence of a warrior who knows he has no equal. Russ’ swagger was arrogant, but it was well-earned.

  Ahriman was used to being in the presence of his primarch; they shared a bond of brotherhood attained through their scholarly mien, but this was something else entirely. Where Magnus valued understanding, perception and knowledge acquired for its own sake, Russ cared only for knowledge that helped him better annihilate his foes.

  Ahriman was not intimidated, but being so close to Russ immediately made him feel acutely vulnerable, as though an unknown nemesis had revealed its true face.

  “You are the star-cunning one?” asked Russ, his voice coarse and heavily accented. The guttural bark of his voice was like Wyrdmake’s, yet Ahriman’s keen ear detected a studied edge to it. It was almost as though he was trying to sound like a feral savage from one of the regressed worlds whose people had forgotten their technological heritage and reverted to barbarism.

  Ahriman hid his surprise. Was the impression a true one? An ancient Strategos of Old Earth had once claimed that all war was deception. Was the Wolf King’s noble savage a mask to hide his true cunning from those he considered outsiders?

  Russ met his gaze, his eyes brimming with barely controlled aggression. The urge to do harm was wrought in every line on Russ’ face, a constant presence that could be loosed in a moment.

  “Ahzek Ahriman, my lord,” he said finally. “You honour us with your presence.”

  Russ brushed off the compliment, turning his attention to the fire-blackened ruin of the Avenian’s mountain fortress and the smouldering wreckage of those few aircraft that had reached the launch pads.

  “Ohthere Wyrdmake,” said Russ, reaching out to tousle the dappled fur of the Rune Priest’s wolf. “Once again I find you in the company of a fellow wyrd.”

  “That you do, my king,” laughed Wyrdmake, rising from bended knee and taking his primarch’s outstretched hand. “He’s no Son of the Storm, but I’ll make a decent rune-caster out of him yet.”

  The words were spoken lightly, yet Ahriman again sensed a hollow ring to them, as though this were a pantomime for his benefit.

  “Aye, well see you keep some of our secrets, Wyrdmake,” growled Russ. “Some things of Fenris are for its sons and no others.”

  “Of course, my king,” agreed Wyrdmake.

  Russ returned his attention to Ahriman. The Wolf King was not looking at him as an individual, but as a target for his aggression. The primarch’s eyes darted over Ahriman’s armour, identifying weakened joints, areas of damage and points of entry for a blade. In an instant, Russ knew his physique better than he knew it himself, where his bones could most easily be broken, where a sword might best penetrate or where a fist would break open a protective plate and sunder internal organs.

  “Where is your liege lord?” demanded Russ. “He should be here.”

  “I am here,” said the deeply resonant voice of Magnus, and the force of Russ’ presence diminished, like a storm kept at bay by one of Phosis T’kar’s kine shields.

  The Wolf King’s natural state of aggression slackened, the hostility he’d displayed towards Ahriman mitigated. Such was only to be expected, for Magnus was Russ’ brother, a genetic kinsman who shared a connection to the Emperor few other beings could claim.

  Decades ago, Magnus had attempted to tell the tale of his creation to a gathering of the Rehahti. “Creation”, deliberately chosen instead of “birth”. Magnus had not been born as mortals were born, but had been willed into life by the designs of the Emperor. As philosophically advanced as his captains were, the concepts were too alien, too beyond mortal comprehension for any of them to understand.

  To be conscious of your body growing around you, to have awareness of your brain taking shape as architecture instead of organism, and to have discourse with your creator even as your existence moved from conceptual possibility to tangible reality had proved too complex to explain to those who had not experienced such a uniquely hastened evolution.

  And these were the simplest of concepts to absorb. To know these things and to not be driven insane required a singular mind, a mind advanced enough to grasp the ungraspable, to conceive the inconceivable: a primarch’s mind.

  To have shared that moment of creation with another being, to know that amongst all the galaxy’s aeons of creation there had never existed beings like you and your brothers, had bonded the primarchs in ways unattainable by mortals.

  Yet despite that shared heritage, there was no love lost between Magnus and Russ. The legendary brotherhood of primarchs, so beloved of the iterators orations was utterly absent.

  “Brother Russ,” said Magnus the Red, moving past Ahriman to stand before the Wolf King. Magnus wore his horned armour of gold and leather, his feathered cloak snatched and fluttered by the winds. The two primarchs had served in the same war for just over six months and this was the first time they had met in thirty years.

  Ahriman wasn’t sure what he had expected of two primarchs meeting after decades apart, but it certainly wasn’t this stilted display of forced friendship. Russ’ wolves snarled and bared their fangs. Magnus shook his head slowly, and they stepped back, pressing close to their master’s legs with their ears pressed flat to their skulls.

  “Magnus,” said Leman Russ, the fraternal shake perfunctory and lacking any warmth. Russ looked Magnus up and down. “That cloak makes you look like the enemy. It’s the feathers.”<
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  “Or perhaps, their cloaks make them look like me?”

  “Either way, I don’t like it. You should get rid of it. A cloak is a liability in battle.”

  “I could say the same of that mangy wolf pelt.”

  “You could, but then I’d have to kill you,” replied Russ.

  “You could try,” said Magnus, “but you wouldn’t succeed.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “It’s what I know.”

  Ahriman was horrified by this exchange. Then he saw the faintest smirk on Russ’ lips, and a glint of mischief in his primarch’s glittering amber eye.

  He let out a tense breath, sensing a familiar pattern to their argumentative banter. Ahriman had often observed that soldiers who exchanged the most vulgar comments were often steadfast brothers-in-arms, where the level of friendship could be judged by how foul their greetings were to one another. Might this be something similar?

  Despite his realisation, there was an edge to this exchange, as though cruel barbs neither primarch was aware of were concealed in the jests.

  Or perhaps they were aware of them. It was impossible to tell.

  “What brings you to Raven’s Aerie 93, brother? I had not thought to see you until the assault on Phoenix Crag.”

  “That time is upon us,” said Leman Russ, all levity absent from his icy tone. “My forces are poised to unleash the murder-make at our foe’s kings.”

  “And the Urizen?” asked Magnus, using the Word Bearers devotional name for their primarch. “Is he also ready to strike?”

  “Do not call him that,” said Leman Russ. “His name is Lorgar.”

  “Why do you dislike that name so much?”

  “I don’t know,” said Russ. “Do I need a reason?”

  “No, I was simply curious.”

  “Not everything needs an explanation, Magnus,” said Russ. “Some things just are. Now gather your warriors, it is time to finish this.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Phoenix Crag

  EXPLOSIONS PAINTED THE sky, burning wrecks spiralled down to destruction, and streaking blasts of anti-aircraft fire stitched bright traceries across the heavens. Ahriman felt them all moments before they happened, flinching in anticipation of shells that hadn’t burst or zipping lines of flak that hadn’t been fired.

  He reclined in a converted gravity harness built into the crew compartment of a heavily modified Stormhawk transporter designated Scarab Prime. Flying behind the main body of the aerial assault, the tempo of Ahriman’s pulse increased as the jerking images of the future blazed like miniature suns in his mind.

  A dozen warriors of the Scarab Occult stood behind him in vertical restraints, bolters clamped to their chests, looking like reliquary statues at the entrance to an ancient king’s tomb. Lemuel Gaumon was dwarfed by their bulk, his ebony features pale and sweat-streaked as he kept his eyes screwed tightly shut.

  To bring mortals on combat missions was a new development for the Thousand Sons, but in response to their repeated requests, Magnus had decreed that any remembrancers that desired to witness the full fury of an Astartes assault would be permitted to do so.

  Surprisingly, only a few had accepted. Ahriman knew Lemuel was beginning to regret his hasty decision, but as a Neophyte it was only right that he be here. Camille Shivani travelled on a Thunderhawk of the 6th Fellowship, her mind relishing the chance to get close to the front lines of war. Her normal line of research dealt with civilisations long gone.

  Now she might see one vanish before her very eyes.

  Kallista Eris had chosen not to fly into harm’s way. Another attack of what she called the fire had left her drained and exhausted. Mahavastu Kallimakus travelled with Magnus, though compared to the panicked and exhilarated thoughts of his fellow remembrancers, his mind was dull, like a fire all but smothered by suffocating foam.

  Within Ahriman’s Stormhawk, internal spaces normally reserved for troops and heavy equipment were filled with banks of surveyor gear and crystalline receptors. Heavy cables snaked across the armoured floor of the compartment, plugging into the elevated harness upon which he sat.

  Ahriman’s head was encased in a gleaming hood of shimmering light, a gossamer-thin matrix of precisely cut crystals hewn from the Reflecting Caves beneath Tizca. His mind floated in a meditative state, unbound from his mortal flesh and occupying a detached state in the higher Enumerations.

  Fine copper wires trailed from this crystal hood, their nickel-jacketed ends immersed in psi-reactive gels that amplified Ahriman’s thoughts and allowed others to receive them. His mind skimmed the surface of the Great Ocean, allowing Aaetpio to guide the currents of potential futures his way. This close to the present, such echoes were easy to find, and it was a simple matter for a Tutelary of a Master of the Corvidae to pluck them from the aether.

  His heightened sensitivity to the immediate future gave him an unmatched situational awareness. He could read the flow of thermoclines across the mountains, see every aircraft, and feel the fears of their crews as they surged towards Phoenix Crag. His awareness floated above the unfolding assault, reading its ebbs and flows as surely as if it were a slow-moving battle simulation.

  The flame-crowned city of the Avenian kings lay ten kilometres east of the tightening noose of aircraft. It was a silver-sheathed mountain with an eternally burning plume of blue fire at its highest tower, a majestic creation of glass spires and soaring bridges that appeared as fragile as spun silk. Graceful minarets and pyramids of glass capped the mountain peaks, and sprawling habitation towers glittered like pillars of ice in the bright sunlight. Columned processionals marched their way into the mountains from the shadowed valleys below, their lengths wreathed in explosions and smoke as artillery brigades and the heavy armour of the Prospero Spireguard, Lacunan Lifewatch and Ouranti Draks laid siege to its lower levels.

  As Phoenix Crag was battered from below, so too was it assaulted from the air.

  “As above, so below,” whispered Ahriman.

  Three thousand aircraft streaked towards the last bastion of the Avenians, roaring through a storm of defensive gunfire and the last squadrons of enemy fighters. Impulsive Space Wolf Thunderhawks raced for the crown of the mountain, while heavier Word Bearer Stormbirds and Imperial Army bulk landers dived towards its sprawling base. Thousand Sons’ aircraft speared towards its guts, a mixture of darting Lotus fighters, Apis bombers and Stormhawk transports.

  Ahriman likened the Thousand Sons assault to a living organism, with the awesome force of Magnus the Red as its unimaginably powerful mind. Magnus directed the assault, but the Athanaens were his thoughts, the Raptora his shield, and the Pyrae and Pavoni his fists.

  The Corvidae were his eyes and ears.

  Ahriman saw a flickering image of an armour-piercing shell punch through the belly of Eagle’s Talon, a roaring Stormbird of the 6th Fellowship, and sent a pulse of warning into the matrix. He felt the brief moment of connection with the impossibly complex lattice of Magnus’ mind, the brightest sun at the heart of a golden web that eclipsed all others with its brilliance.

  No sooner had his warning been sent than Eagle’s Talon banked sharply. Seconds later, a stream of shells tore empty air and exploded harmlessly above it. This was one of a score of warnings pulsing from Ahriman’s enhanced awareness, the vessels of the Thousand Sons dancing to his directions to evade harm. Each permutation altered the schemata of the future, each consequence rippling outwards, interacting with others in fiendishly complex patterns that only the enhanced mental structure of a specially trained Astartes could process.

  On another modified Stormhawk, Ankhu Anen, a fellow disciple of the Corvidae, undertook similar duties. It was not an exact science, and they could not see every danger. Some aircraft were going to be hit, no matter how much the Corvidae sought to prevent it.

  To mitigate against such immovable futures, every assault craft carried a mix of covens from each cult.

  High ranking cultists of the Pavoni and Pyrae fille
d the air around the aircraft with crackling arcs of lightning and fire to detonate incoming shells before impact, while the Raptora maintained kine shields to deflect those shells that penetrated the fire screen. Athanaeans scanned the thoughts of enemy fighter pilots, skimming the manoeuvres and intercepts they planned from the surfaces of their minds.

  It was a dance of potential futures, a whirlwind of the possible and the real, each one moving in and out of existence with every passing moment.

  It was as close as Ahriman ever felt to perfection.

  A nearby explosion rocked the Stormhawk, the shell that had been destined to blow it from the sky detonating harmlessly off its starboard wing.

  “Two minutes to skids down,” shouted the pilot.

  Ahriman smiled.

  The dance continued.

  CAMILLE FELT SICK to her stomach, but relished the feeling as the aircraft hurled itself to the side and an explosion thumped their underside with a deafening clang of metal. The helmet she wore was dented and uncomfortable, but had saved her skull from being smashed open on the fuselage several times already.

  “Not like you read about, is it?” shouted Khalophis from the far end of the compartment.

  “No!” shouted Camille with a forced laugh. “It’s better.”

  She wasn’t lying. Though her skin prickled with fear and her heart was thudding against her chest, she had never felt more alive. The prospect of seeing up close what the Expeditionary fleets were doing in humanity’s name was a unique opportunity.

  Phoenix Crag was a combat zone, and nothing was certain in a place like that. A chance ricochet, a stray artillery round, anything could snuff out her life in a moment, but what was the point of being alive if you weren’t willing to come out of your comfort zone and see what was being done on the bloody knife-edge of history?