Path of the Seer

by Gav Thorpe

  The outlying ships of Alaitoc were already moving, engines charged from their solar sails, drifting undetected from the cover of asteroid fields and gas clouds. The humans were still half-blind as their ships scoured the star system with laser and microwaves, and in their moment of weakness, the eldar struck the first blow.

  Launching salvoes of torpedoes, the Alaitocii announced their presence. Waves of frigates made attack runs on the lead human ships, their laser batteries rippling along the energy shields encasing the armoured vessels.

  Thirianna was impressed for a moment. The human ships were protected by warp-based technologies, their fields dissipating the energy of the fusillade into the alternate realm. With each barrage stopped came the scream of the warp, every failing shield a tiny pinprick break through the thin barrier between reality and the immaterial. She had not believed them capable of such technology, though it was still simplistic compared to the eldar mastery of the warp.

  The humans struck back as best they could, launching flights of bombers and waves of torpedoes. Their clumsy cannons hurled plasma and huge explosive shells, but their tracking systems were unable to cope with the holofields hiding the eldar vessels. The frigates skipped away from the counter-attack, a few suffering minor damage from the sheer weight of fire furiously hurled out by the human guns.

  The runes moved, growing brighter or darker as fortunes favoured one ship or another. Khaine’s rune howled madly as a human ship exploded, consumed by its own reactor. At least half a dozen of the other vessels were severely damaged, their threads bleeding on the skein as they limped away from the eldar attack.

  The main force of the invaders now appeared, arriving in small groups scattered around the edges of the star system. This also the seers had foretold, but the fleet of Alaitoc was not numerous enough to cover every approach. The farseers had located the flagships and the vessels with fates that would favour the humans and the autarchs had concentrated the efforts of the fleet towards them, determined to snuff out their potential before it could be realised.

  The eldar attacks were fast and damaging, but could not be sustained against the immense firepower of the arriving ships. The autarchs had heeded the warning against a prolonged battle, and duly the fleet responded, melting away into the void before they suffered badly from the humans’ retaliation.

  The first phase was complete. There was no future in which the humans had been prevented from entering the system, but damage had been done. More importantly, doubt had been sown in the minds of the enemy commanders. Thirianna could see their threads wavering, splitting rapidly as they considered their course of action. A myriad scenarios filtered across the skein: the humans gathering into a single fleet and driving straight for Alaitoc; the enemy vessels dispersing, attempting to make their own way towards the craftworld before gathering for the attack; lighter vessels sent rapidly ahead to scout the way while the lumbering battle cruisers and battleships followed behind.

  To confound the planning of the humans, eldar vessels continued to make hit-and-run attacks, directed towards lone and vulnerable vessels by the autarchs, who in turn were guided by the constant commentary from the seers.

  ‘The Finrairni Ano and Lasthetin are the stalkers of the void, moving along the bloody crescent,’ intoned Thirianna, her words spoken without thought as she concentrated on the visions filling her mind, channelling what she saw into a stream of description. ‘A human light cruiser delays, suffering engine trouble in the shadow of the ninth world. The fiery blooms upon the arc of the stars wither the enemy, and in shadow we pass into light.’

  A chorus of voices filled the chamber, the words and the images behind them directed through the infinity circuit to the waiting autarchs who passed on the messages to the admirals and captains of the fleet.

  The ships themselves were part of the skein, their wraithbone hearts merged with the eternal matrix, forged from the infinity circuit of Alaitoc. No light or radio wave could travel as quickly as thought on the skein and every movement and action of the humans was almost instantaneously known to those aboard the craftworld.

  The artful interplay of rune and fate was a graceful veneer atop the violence unleashed. Thirianna could feel every death brought about, played out in flickers of desperate struggle across the skein. Bodies froze in the void and burned in the fires of expelling gases. Mothers and fathers, sons and daughters perished, consumed by plasma and laser. Pain and fear flowed, feeding the rune of Khaine. Dread stalked the strands of fate, sapping the strength of the living, turning heroes to cowards. Blood was spilled, its taste lingering in Thirianna’s mouth. Every thread that ended was a life lost, human or eldar.

  The skein was awash with destruction, yet Thirianna drew on her war-mask to endure. She distanced herself from the struggle, seeing only sundered destinies and paths of hope. She did not let her anger come to the fore, instead she viewed the unfolding war with dispassionate eyes. To feel was to invite doubt and there could be no room for that.

  The humans floundered for some time and Thirianna sensed discord flowing through their fate. Internal division, debate, was splitting asunder their threads. All the while the eldar continued to shadow the humans’ ships, waiting for any opportunity to pounce, seizing on any moment of unwariness.

  The second phase of the attack was a drawn-out affair. The invading fleet broke into three waves, much like an ancient column of advance with a vanguard, main force and rearguard. Picket ships were despatched by the human commanders to keep watch for the Alaitocii attacks, while several squadrons of the fastest starships broke ahead to secure the orbital area between the fourth and fifth planets.

  Several times the enemy tried to lay traps, leaving vessels seemingly isolated and ripe for attack whilst in reality help remained near at hand. The skein revealed the blatant trickery behind these ploys and the eldar ignored the bait, instead launching raids against other parts of the enemy fleet.

  For cycle after cycle the humans encroached on the space around Alaitoc. Having split their fleet, the enemy commanders ensured that no part was left too far away from the others, nor too close, and so their advance proceeded at the pace of their slow battleships and sluggish transports.

  It was impossible to watch the skein for so long without pause, and the seers divided their labours so that some rested while the others watched for any new threat or opportunity. Like a choreographed performance in the Dome of a Thousand Shadows, the farseers passed on what they had seen to each other, their runes touching and parting, forming new patterns with each turning cycle, the collective far stronger than its individual parts.

  The humans were direct but not hasty, and the skein was filled with images of the inevitable clash. As the seers had witnessed, there would be no stopping the humans from launching a direct attack.

  Yet the delays of the humans provided some hope for the Alaitocii. The longer the invading fleet took to arrive, the more raids and passing attacks the craftworld’s fleet could make.

  The vanguard flotilla did its best to sweep away the waiting eldar ambushes, but their ships were too few and too slow to catch the elusive eldar vessels. Forewarned of any sudden changes in direction and speed of the enemy ships, the line of eldar vessels protecting the craftworld was able to quickly adjust, vanishing before retribution found them, stealing away to new hiding places.

  As time passed, the Alaitocii were helped in other ways. More ships arrived through the webway, bringing back warriors and rangers who had been away from the craftworld. One particular arrival caused quite a stir on the skein.

  On board were three of the greatest warriors of the eldar, the Phoenix Lords. They were the founders of the Aspect shrines, whose names were legend. Three founders of the Aspect shrines: The Cry of the Wind, Baharroth; The Harvester of Souls, Maugan Ra; The Shadow Hunter, Karandras.

  Three Phoenix Lords, almost without precedent, had come to Alaitoc for a single purpose: war.

  Thirianna marvelled at the threads of these remarkable being
s. Their lives stretched back to the time of the Fall, where their fates had blossomed into life under the leadership of the First Exarch, Asurmen, yet their origins were hidden by the great shadow of She Who Thirsts. Their threads also stretched forwards into the impossibly distant future, to the final battle known as the Rhana Dandra, the Last Battle against Chaos.

  Yet the threads were not a single thread, each was bound to dozens of other lives across their span. Other strands joined those of the Phoenix Lords, winding close about them before becoming part of the whole. Thirianna had seen something similar in the lives of the exarchs, their essence made up of a composite of eldar spirits. Examining them more closely, Thirianna saw that the initial appearance was deceptive. The lives were absorbed by the Phoenix Lords but the original thread continued on, bolstered by each new knot along its length.

  As she was about to turn her attention elsewhere, Thirianna noticed something familiar about the thread that represented Karandras, the Shadow Hunter, Phoenix Lord of the Striking Scorpions. There would come a miniscule break in the near-future, but the splitting of fate, the ending of a life, was swiftly healed by the binding of another strand: Korlandril’s. Thirianna was not sure what this presaged, but she did not have the time to investigate further.

  Another rune threw itself to the fore, demanding attention from every seer.

  The Wanderer rose high above the skein. Aradryan, unwitting instigator of this unfolding catastrophe, had returned to Alaitoc.

  ‘You will not see him.’ Kelamith’s statement was definite, though it was an assertion rather than a prophecy. ‘Your fate and his are too tightly bound for you to cause any more disruption.’

  ‘How can you deny me?’ argued Thirianna. ‘Aradryan is my friend, I should speak with him. Am I not owed this small courtesy for my part in warning you of the peril that has beset us?’

  ‘Your part in this remains unclear,’ said Kelamith. ‘The decision of the council is final. You will not see the renegade.’

  ‘He is outcast, not renegade, there is a difference,’ said Thirianna.

  ‘That too will be for the council to decide,’ said Kelamith. ‘Aradryan’s actions have brought untold disaster upon Alaitoc, whether he knew the danger or not. You have seen the skein, the uncertainty that surrounds your friend. He is a highly disruptive force and we do not yet know to what consequence his coming here will lead.’

  ‘He brings reinforcements,’ said Thirianna. ‘Surely that will count in his favour. You see as well as I do the rune of the Laughing God. Harlequins accompany him, plus many outcasts of Alaitoc that wish to defend their home.’

  ‘And that will be placed on the balance of judgement by the council,’ said Kelamith. He made a short, chopping motion with his hand, a sign of irritation and an indication that the conversation was finished. ‘Return to your duties and concentrate on your work.’

  Thirianna held her tongue, knowing that to argue longer would achieve nothing and risk further admonishment from Kelamith. She glared at the farseer’s back as he left the chamber, indignant at the council’s decision to subject Aradryan to their judgement.

  She made her way to the Chamber of the Orb, where the defence of Alaitoc had been moved. The divinations were becoming more intricate, as the human fleet massed again, barely three cycles’ travel from Alaitoc. The humans appeared to have stalled, and were busily reorganising their ships; flurries of transports and communications were exchanged as they devised the final plan for their attack.

  Half a dozen seers were immersed with the Orb of Elmarianin, keeping watch on the movements of the humans. Every ship had been brought back for the close defence of Alaitoc; the humans were gathered en masse and provided no easy target for attack. Perhaps, wondered Thirianna, they were hoping the eldar would foolishly try to confront them in a massed battle. Such a move would never happen. For the Alaitocii to surrender their advantages of speed and manoeuvrability would be a move of utter folly.

  As the cycle passed into the night phase, Thirianna examined the humans with her companions, whilst allowing herself the occasional moment to look at the fate of Aradryan. The council’s decision was in the balance, whether Aradryan was declared renegade and told to depart or if he would be welcomed back to the craftworld. His own temperament further complicated matters and several of his futures showed Aradryan leaving in anger or contempt at the council’s behaviour, abandoning Alaitoc to its fate.

  The humans had settled upon their course, the threads of fate coalescing once more, becoming a bright path that led directly to the rune of Alaitoc at the centre of Thirianna’s thoughts. Out in the darkness of space, plasma engines were flaring into miniature suns, powering the Imperial vessels along that path.

  Trails of fire criss-crossed the starry sky as missiles and torpedoes streaked across the firmament. The blinding flash of laser weapons flitted through the darkness, while blossoms of brief flame erupted in the void. Squadrons of graceful destroyers tacked effortlessly to bring their weapons to bear while battleships slid gently through the maelstrom, their batteries unleashing salvoes of destruction, open bays spewing wave after wave of darting fighter craft and wide-winged bombers.

  On the skein, the threads of fate looped and coiled, colliding with each other as ships exchanged volleys of fire and torpedoes streaked through space. Within every strand were dozens of others: the lives of the eldar crews. Within the threads of the human fleet, the mass of fates entwined together was enormous, an impossible tangle of humanity in which it was impossible to tell who would live and who would die. Death was indiscriminate, laying low admiral and crewman alike, favouring none.

  The seers had narrowed down the possible landing sites of the attack to three locations. The autarchs had arranged their forces accordingly, ready to respond as the course of destiny became clearer. Squads of Guardians and Aspect Warriors waited in their transports, spread across Alaitoc.

  The infinity circuit was afire with the tension, the minds of all aboard the craftworld concentrated upon this single effort. Thirianna could feel expectation and fear from the many; anger and anticipation from the Avatar and the Aspect Warriors.

  Breaking the cordon of eldar ships, an Imperial frigate approached the voidward rim of Alaitoc, heading towards the Dome of Crystal Seers. Thirianna could see the slab-sided, brutal vessel through the thousand eyes of Alaitoc’s sensor batteries, encrusted with cornices and buttresses, its prow a giant golden ram shaped like an eagle’s beak. Flashes rippled from bow to stern as it opened fire with deck after deck of guns, the flares cut through by the searing beams of laser turrets arranged along a crenulated dorsal deck.

  Anger rippled through the craftworld and Alaitoc responded. Like a wounded beast, the craftworld lashed out at its attacker, sending a storm of lightning and laser leaping from defence turrets and anti-ship guns. The human frigate was enveloped by fire, shields scourged by the ire of Alaitoc. Under the torrential fusillade its hull quickly broke, sending plumes of burning air into the vacuum. The furious fire continued until the ship’s plasma reactor was breached, turning it into a brief-lived miniature sun.

  The breakthrough of the frigate was only the first foreseen by the seers. Thirianna saw more Imperial vessels smashing their way into range of Alaitoc. She spoke quickly, sending messages directly to the ships’ commanders placed under her guidance, redirecting them so that they would be able to blunt the reckless human attacks.

  The eldar ships glimmered with holofields, appearing as shimmering ghosts to open fire before disappearing against the star-filled backdrop. Human void shields sputtered with blue and purple flares as they unleashed bursts of energy to shunt the attacks of the eldar into warp space.

  Despite the efforts of Thirianna and her companions, the relentless ferocity of the humans would not be turned aside. The skein was awash with their hatred, their loathing of the eldar a unifying force that drew together disparate fates, focussing them upon a single goal: the destruction of Alaitoc.

  The humans drew
inexorably closer, their coming heralded by fresh waves of torpedoes and the glare of attack craft. Burning hulks drifted in their wake, both human and eldar, debris gently spiralling away from shattered wrecks. The humans seemed bent on their course, coming straight for Alaitoc like armoured comets, punching through the craftworld’s fleet, heedless of the damage inflicted upon them.

  There were too many converging destinies to keep track of them all and too late Thirianna saw a cruiser bursting past the burning remnants of one of the destroyers under her watch. She sent a warning to the captain but even his swift vessel did not have time to escape. Hundreds of explosions filled the void around the fleeing eldar ship, making a mockery of its holofields. Distraction and misdirection were no defence against the scattered bombardment unleashed by the human cruiser.

  Broken in half, solar sail shredded, the eldar destroyer slowly disintegrated. Thirianna found painfully few threads of those aboard, the lives of a handful of crew who had reached the escape shuttles in time.

  The cruiser ploughed on, intent on bringing its weapons to bear against Alaitoc. Thirianna reached into the infinity circuit, connecting with the minds of the gunners and urging them to concentrate their fire on the looming Imperial ship.

  There were too many threats though, and her call was lost amidst the clamour of other farseers sending their own warnings.

  Thirianna latched on to the thread of the human cruiser, flying ahead along its path to locate its destruction. She found nothing to give her hope, as she watched the long lines of armoured doors opening again to reveal bristling gun batteries.

  At the last moment the weapons of Alaitoc heeded her call for attention. Laser fire converged on the cruiser and its shields rippled, dissipating the blasts with actinic flares. Its bow erupted with blossoms of orange and moments later the streak of torpedoes hurtled towards Alaitoc, breaking into hundreds of smaller missiles as they crashed into the craftworld.