by Gav Thorpe
‘We must defend ourselves,’ Njal said, pulling his pistol from its holster.
+No, the gunships! Their fire is causing even more damage to the node system of the Portal Maze. Everything is so taut even the slightest further imbalance could break open the entire warpway.+
‘So?’
+Think of a smaller Eye of Terror engulfing the whole planet. With you still on it.+
‘I see.’ Njal activated his company-address channel on the vox to speak to the other Space Wolves as he marched along the street. ‘Target only visible foes. Avoid all further structural attack. Valgarthr, stabilise the situation. Arjac, do you have me on sensorium?’
‘Aye, Stormcaller. About three-quarters of a kilometre from our position.’
‘Can you come to me?’
‘It would be better if you came to us.’ There was a break and a burst of interference static that betrayed heavy fire before Arjac continued, grunting between words. ‘We are at the great pyramid.’
‘Hold your position, I will be there imminently.’
Njal cast his gaze about, aware of the unarmoured Navigator just a pace behind him. Tracer fire and the flicker of bolts lit every surface while the red beams of lascannons and the trails of missiles cut the dark blue evening sky.
‘Izzakar, how much of the city is within the Portal Maze?’
+All of it. Portals are placed throughout Tizca and across Prospero. These… degenerates could potentially break out of the maze from anywhere.+
‘These degenerates are followers of your primarch, allies of the Thousand Sons. What more do you need to see to believe that your Legion is anything but a paragon of virtue?’
+You take a cruel delight in heaping insult upon misery, Fenrisian. A better man would mourn the loss of the Thousand Sons’ wisdom, not relish it.+
This counter troubled Njal as he continued deeper into the city’s heart, Majula close on his heel. Bird-faced abominations charged from the broken buildings towards a squad of Stormriders a little way ahead. Creatures with metallic wings dropped from the upper floors onto the Space Wolves that moved to counter the attack. Each assault was accompanied by fresh bursts of las-fire and sprays of bullets from the upper storeys of the grand pyramid. The Space Marines responded with drilled bolter fire and the promethium rage of their flamer while thralls near at hand tracked their weapons to suppress the attack from the higher levels.
The air itself tasted rank with mutating energy, shimmering like a mirage.
+This is all very disturbing.+
‘The part of you within the Portal Maze, can it sense anything from the inside? Any clue as to what we must do?’
+Battle rages afresh. I smell blood in the vortex, hate and fear washed down the maelstrom of the maze’s heart. The stasis is broken.+
‘So it was not in idle curiosity that my slumbering thoughts delved into the maze, but Magnus’ servants attempting to break free that drew my wyrd-gaze. The Portal Maze was cracking open and that is why your spirit leaked out.’
+I am forced to agree with your assessment, Stormcaller. The opening of the Portal Maze was no accident.+
Njal gestured up with his staff, to the apparition of Magnus high above like a malevolent crimson stormcloud.
‘The architect does not try to hide his involvement.’
+It makes no sense to me.+
‘What is to understand?’ said Njal. ‘Dark Powers whispered in your lord’s ear and he listened. All else after that is plain to see.’
+I… The evidence suggests that you are right. The Thousand Sons appear to have fallen from glory. But it was not of that I speak. It makes no sense to me for Magnus to reclaim Prospero. If what you tell me of this Planet of the Sorcerers is true the Crimson King has no need of this world.+
The Stormcaller had no argument, and was not of a mind to debate whilst battle still raged. He fixed his thoughts on a more tangible subject.
‘You said that battle continues inside the Portal Maze. It is not this fighting you sense?’
+There is most definitely conflict inside the maze’s boundaries. I believe it is the warriors you seek, embattled on the other side of the portals.+
‘It is testament to Bulveye’s spirit that he fights on after ten thousand years of entrapment.’
+It will not have seemed as such to him. The Portal Maze is not the warp but it is built around similar principles. You might say it is of the warp. One cannot step across a thousand light years with a stride whilst physical and temporal laws remain. The Old Guard might think only days or even just hours have passed since that oaf Bulveye killed me.+
A series of explosions rocked the main pyramid high above. Among glass shards falling like rain, Arjac’s Wolf Guard had formed a perimeter around a towering portico. Cracked crystal panes and hole-riddled columns framed a dark entrance within. The ground before it was heaped with the mangled remains of blue-and-yellow-clad cultists, their bodies torn by bolter shells, cut and mauled by the close-combat weapons of the Terminators.
Rockfist raised his hammer in greeting, head moving left and right as he kept watch for fresh attack. Njal returned the gesture with his staff and stopped just out of hearing.
‘You claimed to possess the means to free our brothers. We are in Tizca now. It is time to fulfil your part of the bargain. Tell me what we must do next, sorcerer. Can Bulveye escape without us entering the Portal Maze?’
+Do you think I would tell you, saga-spitter? If he could simply leave, it renders my continued existence pointless to you.+
‘I suppose not.’
+But I shall indulge you, because every instance of your ignorance offends me and the Thousand Sons were raised as students and tutors if nothing else.+ Izzakar paused for a second, probably enjoying Njal’s moment of need. +I do not think the Old Guard have the means to escape on their own, they must be guided free of the maze. If you wish to rid yourself of my presence, you must enter the labyrinth between worlds.+
Njal had suspected as much and accepted this without comment. He started forward again, eager to achieve his goal. The sooner he was able to breach the Portal Maze, the swifter the whole bizarre episode would end.
Arjac watched Njal carefully. The Rune Priest, shielding the Navigator behind him, advanced down the rubble-strewn street casting glances up towards the monstrous apparition that had materialised above, his staff leaving crackling marks on the chipped flags, a pistol in his other hand.
He certainly carried himself like the Stormcaller. As hearthegn, Arjac had made a point of studying the Great Wolf and his closest counsellors; their tone, movements and mannerisms in situations both peaceful and belligerent. He knew Logan’s hearthjarls and his Wolf Guard better than his own reflection, all the better to foresee any potential threat. A slight change in behaviour was like an alarm in his thoughts, betraying treasonous thought or potential misdeed, but looking at Njal, he sensed nothing amiss.
‘It isn’t the Crimson King, is it?’ said Arjac, swinging his hammer towards the cyclopean visage that glowered down at Tizca.
‘No,’ Njal replied. ‘It’s not an intrusion or manifestation. Merely a projection. It’s probably not even from Magnus, but some kind of psychic idol generated by his cultists.’
They fell into step with each other, the sensorium melding so that Arjac’s multi-view display adjusted, bringing up a new sweep of auspex data from the battleplate of the Rune Priest. The suit’s systems confirmed what Rockfist had seen with his eye – that Njal had been involved in combat before his arrival at the city centre.
‘So, the cultists are not just in the central precincts,’ the hearthegn said while the two of them joined his squad before the great portico. ‘How fares the force at the landing grounds?’
‘The area is still secure, at last report,’ Njal assured him, gaze fixed on the large doors of the pyramid. ‘But the second column will have to break through to the centre.’
An unexpected movement on the sensorium caused half of the Wolf Guard to turn wi
th weapons raised. The vox traffic that Arjac had been ignoring suddenly spiked with warnings.
‘Hold your fire,’ Arjac called out to his warriors as he saw the gleam of gold armour emerging from the dust and gloom.
‘My troops,’ said Navigator Majula, moving out of the Rune Priest’s shadow. Her face was grimed, streaked through with the lines of tears, eyes tired and red. Despite her recent experiences and bedraggled appearance, she spoke with confidence. ‘I have a transmitter, they will be moving on my location.’
The Navis Guard had lost a few of their number and the scorch marks and dints upon their carapaces and vambraces stood testament to the closeness of their encounters with the enemy. Their weapons buzzed with power, a silver shimmer in the dust kicked up by battle.
‘Navigator!’ Dorria’s call was part relief and part remonstration. The gold-clad warriors formed up protectively around their charge, subtly but purposefully detaching her from the looming presence of Njal. ‘We received no confirmation of your landing. Is your vox intact?’
‘I… I forgot,’ Majula admitted in a whisper. She seemed embarrassed, looking down at the cracked roadway. She squared her shoulders and addressed her troop leader. ‘Remain at my side until I command otherwise.’
‘Yes, Navigator,’ Dorria said, displaying considerable patience at being told her duty by the young woman under her guard.
‘What next, Stormcaller?’ asked Arjac. He did not like staying in one place, especially with the glowering face of Magnus looking down at him. ‘We have cleared the surrounds of the Pyramid of Photep, but we both know that these cultists and mutants were not just hiding in cellars… They’ve been using the Portal Maze somehow.’
Njal did not answer immediately. Another observer might have thought he was simply in thought, but Arjac knew what the slight tilt of the head and the way he held himself signified. He was listening, and as there was no second-hand vox static, the hearthegn assumed it was to a voice inside Njal’s head.
There was another explanation, which gave Arjac some concern. Was another doing Njal’s thinking for him?
He adjusted his grip on Foehammer and took a nonchalant step to his right, opening himself up for a better swing towards the Rune Priest’s skull. There was nothing suggesting threat in the Rune Priest’s behaviour but Arjac had fought psykers before, though never one as powerful as the runejarl of the Chapter. He would only get one chance to slay the possessed psyker and then the opportunity would be gone.
‘Yes, the maze. I can feel the apertures around us,’ said Njal, oblivious to Arjac’s train of thought. The Rune Priest stopped and looked around, inadvertently putting his pauldron between himself and Arjac. The Wolf Guard mentally adjusted, preparing for an overhand swing that would strike the top of the psyker’s head. ‘They are erratic, uncontrolled. The cultists do not understand how to harness its full power. But you’re right, there are likely more still lurking within. There’s certainly a strong residue of wyrdstok.’
Thralls arrived along with a Grey Hunters squad of Valgarthr’s Stormriders, securing the area around the Wolf Guard. Arjac watched them moving into position, quick and deliberate like dagger thrusts, despite the sporadic volleys that continued to whine down from the neighbouring buildings.
Njal pressed on towards the doors, striding across the bodies of the slain without thought, pulping torsos and limbs, and cracking skulls beneath his tread with no more distraction than trampling uneven rocks. The skulled tip of his staff brightened, its auric glow reflected from the armour of the Wolf Guard. Behind, Arjac could hear the Navis Guard and their charge keeping close.
The Rune Priest lifted a hand and the doors opened outwards. Light spilled forth as though released from captivity and washed across blood-spattered paving and piled corpses, dancing over the armour of the Wolf Guard. Arjac heard a couple of his brothers muttering protective skaldvers, thinking the light itself might be wyrd-tainted.
‘It’s just light,’ said Njal dismissively, advancing into the embrace of the gleam, becoming a thinning silhouette. ‘Let us see what these disciples of Magnus are up to.’
The surveyor sweep put the size of the enemy force moving towards the port gates between one hundred and one-hundred-and-fifty strong. Lukas reckoned it closer to the higher number. Under his guidance, the Stormfang swooped down across a landscape broken by pits and trenches where fuel lines and promethium vats had once stood. The spilling crowd merged from two buildings within the port compound – one on the dockside itself, another closer to the wall that separated the zone from the rest of Tizca.
Most were cultists, dressed in ceremonial robes or tabards, armed with blades, mauls and pistols, a few with lasguns or autoguns. Among them, Lukas identified the magistae, some with icons of their new lord – a monstrous eye with a spiral-wrought pupil, fashioned in gold and silver and bronze. Others carried staves with heads of intertwined serpents, rendered flames or scowling moon-faces. One caught the eye in particular, with a rod-tip fashioned in the likeness of a broad-winged two-headed bird with a single gleaming eye, a disgusting parody of the Imperial Aquila.
Rangier figures with avian faces or bestial heads crowned with curling horns ran alongside. With them, the most degenerate loped on all fours, more hound than human, their scaled flanks shining, and whip-tails tipped with curled stingers.
And something larger too. Gudbrand spotted it first out of his side-pane and called attention with a hoarse shout.
The monstrosity that pushed its way between two warehouses stripped to bare ferrocrete was neither living nor machine but a wyrd-cursed amalgam. Its six many-jointed legs carried a flattened body from which protruded long growths with puckered openings at the top. Metallic plates grew from unnatural flesh, glinting with heretical runework. Warpfire flickered from the body-tubes, leaving trails of multicoloured exhaust fume. Its head was like that of a giant beetle, many-pronged antlers of black and red like a phalanx of spears thrust from the top. Behind the creature, a quartet of bird-headed mutants goaded the monster forward with sparking rods, their half-feathered bodies partly concealed within open-fronted blue robes hung with golden garlands.
Sporadic bursts of fire from the ground announced that the cultists had spied the approach of the gunship. Lukas glanced again at the infamous, daemonic face that glared down at the city from the Pyramid of Photep and knew there was no doubt to whom they pledged their fealty.
‘It might be wise to man the guns,’ he suggested, flicking the arming switches that brought the helfrost destructor, missiles and heavy bolters on-line. Control displays powered up across the console, bathing the cockpit with green.
‘There, and here,’ said Lukas, jabbing a finger towards the main gun’s augur display and then the control column in front of Gudbrand. ‘You need to prime with the thumb rune for five seconds and then, without moving your thumb, activate the forefinger trigger. Aim for clusters of targets.’
‘Yes, Lukas,’ said Gudbrand, earnestly staring at the display.
Lukas banked the gunship towards a mass of cultists that were converging on one of the wall gates, giving his companion a perfect target. Behind him came the clatter of the heavy bolters arming as Elof manned the starboard gunnery system and Jerrik the port side. A second later, the hum of the helfrost generator filled the confined space, trembling along the massive breech of the cannon that ran the length of the gunship.
The roar of the heavy bolters was sudden – a drumbeat that set Lukas’ remaining heart racing. On the ground, explosive fire stitched across the gangs of heretics flowing across the square. Like a filleting pike along the gut blubber of a kraken, the deadly fire of the gunship sliced a line through the suddenly panicked mass.
‘Quick, before they disperse,’ Lukas told his co-pilot.
Gudbrand pulled the trigger and the whole Stormfang throbbed with the release of energy. Even through the thermal shielding they felt the cold pulse, their breath forming fog at the instant of fire. A sphere of blackness spewed from the canno
n, as fast as a lightning bolt. It struck the square in the midst of the cultists, throwing out arcs of negative energy. Warp-based, the helfrost discharge inverted the physical laws of the mortal realm, ripping open a sphere of pure void that reduced the temperature to absolute zero in an instant. The sphere imploded a second later.
The desiccated remains of a dozen cultists exploded upwards as the surrounding warmer air crashed back into the vacuum pocket with a thunderous crack. The strike left an almost perfect crater, the edges rimmed with frost, frozen particulates drifting away on the breeze.
Gudbrand shouted in triumph, echoed by his pack-brothers in the compartment behind. More heavy bolter rounds chewed through the rapidly dissipating cultists, tearing open bodies and skulls, explosively removing limbs with their mass-reactive detonations.
A warning flared across the augur panel along with a piercing shriek. Lukas turned his head just in time to see the blast of ravening fire shrieking up towards them from the daemonic scarab beast. He wrenched the controls, rolling the Stormfang hard into the attack, trying to dive beneath it. The inferno roared past the canopy, splashing across the exposed topside of the gunship. Molten ceramite sprayed away from the blast while the Stormfang’s heat warnings buzzed its machine-spirit’s grievances.
The evasive manoeuvre had taken them into a tight dive, heading groundwards. Lukas adjusted, reversing the throttle power and pulling back, just as a second conflagration erupted out of the maw-spines of the cultists’s living engine. The warpfire passed beneath the ascending gunship to smash into the containing wall, cracking ferrocrete and raining rubble down on the streaming cultists attempting to find shelter in its shadow.
‘I can’t get a lock,’ growled Gudbrand, wrenching at the helfrost controls while Lukas weaved the gunship between bursts of groundfire. ‘I need a steady course.’