by Joe Parrino
The Nightspear met her eyes, his face an aspect of dread and death, blood still drying on the sigils. His eyes were dead, brutal things, carved of ice.
‘We climb,’ he said.
Amonther Numeriel, lost son of Iyanden, ran. His feet slipped against the snow, breath streaming from his lips, writhing before him like the ghosts of lost kin. It was tinged with green. His whole vision was tinged with green.
Panic gripped his soul. Panic and resignation. Death stalked him.
He could hear the souldark coming. He could hear their clanking steps. He could hear their laughter, buzzing back and forth. He could hear the tyranids that followed them, feel their claws, feel their acid across his face.
The soulstones, last remnants of lost kin, lost friends, lost souls of Iyanden, jangled across his chest, the light within accusing. He almost sobbed. He had failed. He had failed Iyanden. He had failed his family and his friends. He had failed the Nightspear.
Now he would die, unredeemed, unremembered, unlamented.
He stumbled in the snow. The normally sure-footed pathfinder, boot caught on some grasping rock, stumbled to one knee.
His skills were failing him. The shadowcraft, learned from Illic, had kept him alive. Now the memories slipped from his mind, memories of life on Iyanden, memories of horror and terror.
The green filled his vision. The slavering silence of the tyranids filled his ears, filled his mind, unleashed by fear. He could feel the Shadow in the Warp pressing at his mind.
He shook and shivered, crawled forward on hands and knees.
The webway.
He needed to find the webway. He needed to flee, to run. To abandon.
Amonther Numeriel, lost son of Iyanden, memories clawing at him, stumbled to his feet, filled with sudden resolve. The shadowcraft returned with his surety.
Thoughts still dogged by accusation, with memories of death in the dark, the pathfinder fled deeper into the canyons, towards the safety offered by the webway. All the while the green mark danced about his head, stealing the shadows.
The sudden transition from darkness to half-light was almost blinding to the keen-eyed eldar. The Mawr, stony-faced, clan-chief of the Carnac exodites, stared in wide-eyed wonder at the skies above. The darkness of the caverns was forgotten. The sacrifice of the Mawr’s son, of the other clan-blooded exodites, was forgotten in the wake of the vista that met them.
The clouds, still dropping snow, were illuminated green and red and blue. Aircraft danced in the heavens. They moved almost too fast for the eyes to follow. A fierce whine lanced into sensitive eldar ears, painfully loud, deafening.
Snow swirled around them, the clouds whipped to and fro, driven by air pressure created in the wake of duelling aircraft.
They clashed with a sound like rolling thunder. Lightning spat from souldark machines, curious crescent shapes of brushed silver metal, tarnished and jagged.
Eldar craft, hulls Alaitoc-blue, sweeping, noble, jinked and fired. Aircraft exploded, showering sparks, metal and flame over the night-shrouded landscape.
The Crobh Derg stood by the Mawr’s side. She hissed words. ‘We must keep moving,’ she urged.
The Mawr grunted his assent. The exodites, what few remained, clambered down from their perch and re-entered the canyons, fleeing back into the night.
Illic Nightspear stood at the top of the cliffs, Teryen’s soulstone clutched in his hand. He stared down, deep into the bowl. The landscape flickered around him. Lit by green and yellow and red.
Deep booms split the night, tore apart the silence. The scream of tortured metal, the howl of the world spirit, the chattering fire of Nightwing interceptors and Phoenix fighters, the reality tearing sound of souldark tesla weaponry. More green lights split the canyons, illuminating the shadows. There were no screams. Here and there, Illic could see the telltale glimmer of a longrifle firing, evidence that some of his band yet lived. He lingered for a moment, keen eyes picking out the body of his fallen friend. He swore vengeance. One more grievance against the souldark. One more act cast at their feet.
Idly his left hand traced the runes he had marked in blood across his face.
Catritheyn stood by his left side, Ruterias his right.
Ruterias only spoke two words. Two words to split Illic’s reverie. ‘The webway,’ the shadow-swathed pathfinder reminded.
Illic nodded.
The ground shook. Stone screeched as canyon walls collapsed, tortured by awakening souldark technology. Carnac itself shuddered, violated by the presence of the necrons.
The eldar, sons and daughters of the craftworld, clan-blooded exodites of Carnac, fled across the tops of the canyons, feet moving shadowfast. They left little mark of their passage. No souldark marred their flight.
They were alone with the night for the moment.
Alone while the snow fell. Alone while eldar and souldark duelled in the heavens above.
Amonther Numeriel, vision filled with green, had almost made it out of the canyons. He was close. Close to freedom. Close to survival.
He would not make it.
The souldark emerged with no warning.
One second Numeriel was alone, fleeing down through rocky canyon walls, flitting from shadow to shadow. The next he was surrounded by a knot of necrons.
The air crackled as they stepped from nowhere, green eyes flaring. They stared at him.
Amonther Numeriel, lost son of Iyanden, met their implacable gaze. The fear left his heart, replaced by shame, replaced by dishonour. The soulstones. Last remnants of dead kin, dead friends, dead eldar. They would be trapped here in the darkness of the canyons, lost on Carnac, denied final unity in the infinity circuit of Iyanden.
This was his doom. This was the moment of his death. His heart beat faster. Thumping away in his chest.
The soulstones, clustered across his chest, mirrored his heart.
He stared over the necrons’ shoulders, stared past the burnished metal, through the flickering green, and into the darkness beyond. One eye glimmered out there.
Amonther Numeriel met the one-eye’s gaze. Please, he thought, begged, pleaded. The pathfinder from Iyanden nodded once. The shame fell away and hope dawned.
One of the necrons, one of the damned souldark, raised its long-barrelled weapon.
There was a flash.
Then blood and oblivion.
The Fachan watched as the craftworld pathfinder died, watched as blood spattered the snow, as the body slumped to the ground, thudding wetly into the rock.
He waited with the patience of a hunter. He ignored the ache in his bones, ignored the thudding of his heart. He waited with the souldark, standing forgotten vigil over a forgotten son.
The Fachan felt fury. The Fachan felt anger.
He was no young man hungry for glory, however. He would not act on this, not cast away his life in some foolish display. He knew the significance of the glowing stones.
The Fachan waited, crouched in the snow, silent, still, hidden.
He waited for the necrons to step back into the Otherworld from which they came, to leave this benighted place, to leave this death and search out others. Subconsciously, the exodite traced warding gestures in the air, taking care to move slowly. They were appeals to Kurnous, dead god of the hunt. There was no answer.
Minutes trickled by. Time crawled as the snow fell.
The necrons stood, green lightning flickering along their limbs. They made no move.
They emerged from the canyons, grassland stretching before them. The sky burned over their heads, snow vaporising into rain, cascading down in fat sheets. The air filled with the stink of wet grass, wet leather and burned metal. The eldar were losing the aerial war for the skies as souldark machines emerged from the depths. The ground was a sodden mess.
The Mawr was tired, no longer a young man. Running by his si
de was the Crobh Derg, a solid presence. Her mind whispered reassurances to the exodite, redolent with a strange accent.
The clan-blooded exodites, tribal scouts of Carnac, were nearly to the webway, nearly to freedom. The warning they carried burned bright in their minds, while sadness and grief pulled at their souls.
They could all feel the world spirit fuelling their flight, hastening their limbs. Images flashed through their minds; warnings and glimpses of the future provided by the world spirit, rumblings of possible futures. All present except the Crobh Derg saw them.
Carnac dies in green fire.
The exodites evacuated onto spacefaring craft, taken to the craftworlds, taken from freedom in the name of survival.
Skeletons, skeletons carved from burnished metal.
Pain, flashing through the molten heart of Carnac.
Illic Nightspear dead, deathmark still flickering about his bloodied head.
The Mawr stands by Illic’s side, the webway blaring open behind them. The exodites sacrificing themselves to see them safe, brought into the bosom of the eldar.
Resolve burning in their breasts; survival, of family, of clan, of their world rested on their shoulders, rested on the survival of Illic Nightspear.
They stepped sure and fast through the mud, through blades of grass, through rain and darkness.
The exodites, clan-blooded scouts of Carnac, raced for the webway, splinter rifles, shuriken catapults, spears, swords clutched between scarred and tattooed knuckles.
Catritheyn ran alongside Illic, tasting his anger. Runes floated about her, keeping pace, orbiting her head. She could not resist riding the skein. It had been ingrained in her over the centuries. Sight the future. Follow its paths. Use it to guide the now. This was the way of the farseers, the way of the eldar. Tradition could not be denied. Habits could not be discarded. She could not abandon her Path, even in the face of catastrophe.
Her eyes were open. They saw nothing.
She closed them and saw everything.
She saw the skein.
Death.
It is everywhere, all along the skein. She searches for Illic’s thread, trusting in his fate. She cannot find it. It is lost in the shadows. She sees others.
Ailill Allithuel runs. She is swift-footed. She is running, fleeing, hiding. She is clever. She has doubled back and waits. Her patience will keep her safe. It does not. There are beings more patient than she. They watch. They wait. She runs. A green flash. She dies.
Keladry Ragefyre’s mind is made up. Sacrifice. Sadness, but exultation. These are the flavours of his thread. She can taste his death. Taste it on the wind. His death, moments, heartbeats away, screams for him. Khaine’s mask hides in his mind, driving his thoughts, driving his actions. Sacrifice. He is a Crimson Hunter, at one with the skies, floating like a leaf on the breeze. She watches him soar through the night and the snow. His guns spit. Souldark die. Lightning fills his vision. A Doom Scythe rushes for him, lightning crackling… Keladry Ragefyre meets it…
A one-eyed exodite waits, metres away from waiting deathmarks. He waits. She can taste his thoughts, taste the duty imparted onto him. She sees the necrons leave, stepping away into some other place, some other pocket. The exodite moves furtively forward, hands outstretched towards a body, reaching towards bright souls. He reaches…
She finds Illic.
Illic’s fury is terrifying. Vast, deep, it surges in his mind like an ocean. Grief, deep, appalling. The aching loss of an old friend. The aching loss of an old… failure. It haunts him, pulls at him like the wind tearing at his topknot. Resolve burns in his breast, cradled in the ocean of grief, cradled in the ocean of hatred. There is an eldar running alongside him, eyes crackling with witchlight, distracted. She sees herself.
She moves forward along his thread but loses it amid the deaths of others.
There is a light. Bright, pure. Six souls wait at the bottom of a gorge. There was a seventh but it is lost. Maireth Voidwalker jinks and dives, souldark Doom Scythes following her path. She leads them away. Distraction, misdirection. Draw the necrons away. Keep the Alaitocii host safe. The voice of Khaine rumbles loud in her ears, it sounds like blood pumping through her heart. The ground rushes up to meet her. Missile pods fire. There is a massive explosion of light, fire. It consumes, cleanses. Maireth Voidwalker dies with a smile on her face.
The skein blurs. She draws back, driven into the sky. She sees so much. She sees what happens elsewhere on Carnac, what will happen.
They are nearly out of the canyons. Nearly safe. The horizon is no longer dark. It is green, bright, unwholesome. She tastes death on the wind. It burns. It devours. Souls wink out. Some are drawn into the world spirit, others are caught by She Who Thirsts, torn apart by waiting Neverborn. Distractions. Misdirection.
Illic. The Nightspear. There is an ambush. There are deathmarks. He is marked…
Paths branch, moving from this moment.
Death.
Illic dies, flopping lifeless, hand reaching towards the webway gate. The future, his future, his hope. The Alaitoc host dies in a climactic battle after, Starbane’s rage leading to the loss of priceless eldar lives, of priceless eldar souls.
Alaitoc falling, trampled beneath the metal feet of necron vengeance. The mon-keigh corpse-kingdom burning, the upstart race rendered extinct by dynastic struggles.
Nothing stands between the corrupt legions of the Eye, the Neverborn, the great evils lurking within the immaterium and reality.
The Rhana Dandra begins.
The last hope of the eldar race dies with Illic Nightspear, lost on Carnac.
Another path stretches from this moment.
Illic dies, slaughtered in the webway by the Lost Kin as he races to warn Eldorath Starbane. They stand over his body, over her body. Laughing in cruel voices, armoured in cruel spikes, black and purple and green. They take the bodies with them, melting away back to their dark city. She follows this path to its end.
The Rhana Dandra begins.
In another the Harlequins bar their egress, trapping them on Carnac. They do not laugh. They do not move. Illic and his Outcasts die dashing themselves against the bulwark of the Laughing God’s followers.
Almost every path leads to death, both for Illic, for the eldar. Almost every path leads to disaster, to catastrophe, to apocalypse. Almost every path save one.
Illic lives. The path is shadowed, obscured, coated with death. There is apocalypse at its end, but she sees survival too. It starts with a scream. A scream with her voice.
She opens her eyes. She voices a warning.
She screamed a warning, voice high. Illic snarled at her, eyes blank, devoid of compassion or feeling.
There was a flash, a massive crashing sound. Explosive, loud, booming, carried on a shock wave of air from deep within the canyons. The eldar are blinded for a moment, sensitive eyes overwhelmed by night turning into day. The sky screamed. The world spirit bellowed in pain, in rage. Aftershocks shook the ground, diminishing, unsteadying. An electric buzzing suffused the air as souldark technology awoke.
Sight returned.
The moonlight was no longer pure, no longer natural. The whole landscape was covered in the hellish neon green of necron light. The shadows in the canyons dissipated, shrank, receded, disappeared.
The canyons ended before them, descending down to grassland coated in snow. The moon rode high in the sky, impassive.
She was too late. Green haloed Illic’s head, marking him for death.
The Fachan reached forward, furtive. He already had five of the soulstones and was reaching for the last.
A whining stole into the exodite’s ears. He was already turning, already running.
He was too late. Green blinded him, neon bright.
He could hear the muffled stomping of deathmarks, could hear the buzzing crackle of their movements. H
e could smell the death they brought, metal-heavy on the air. Their tomb stink was obnoxious, foul, ancient.
Blinded, the Fachan crashed into a metallic chest. He gasped as cold metal slid through his stomach, breaking the soulstone on its cord, cutting through the leather and scales armouring him.
The soulstones tumbled from his scarred hands.
The exodite twitched, once, twice. Then was still.
He screamed in his head, pain burning.
Then there was laughter, deep, roaring, ancient.
The Neverborn tore his soul apart.
Illic, marked and coloured by the necrons, ran. The webway beckoned, safety, warning, hope. He moved faster than he had ever done, faster than he had fled the cage of Cano’var.
He would not die on Carnac. In his heart, buried beneath hatred and grief, lay a greater destiny for the Nightspear.
Ruterias ran by his side, the shadow-swathed eldar making no sound. Green lightning licked towards the running eldar, lancing through the snow and the dark.
Running Outcasts, driven towards their path by inherent selfishness, interposed themselves between the souldark pursuers and their pathfinder lord. They died with Illic’s name on their lips, with sacrifice in their hearts. His survival was paramount; their own lives given meaning through their sacrifice.
Lightning stabbed towards Illic, missing, confounded by his skill.
The webway shone before them, a glittering tear in reality held between slender pillars of wraithbone. Outcasts and pathfinders had taken up position around it, firing into the dark, culling the souldark.
The green filled Illic’s eyes, turning the blood-red runes black in the light. His face was a chilling thing, a mask, impassive, deadly.
He was one hundred metres from the webway when waiting necron deathmarks stepped from their pockets of nowhere. They stood, hunched, vapour flowing from their shoulders, lightning crackling along their joints. As one they raised their weapons and sighted at the rushing eldar.
Illic flung himself to the ground.
Others, reactions timed poorly, were caught in the fusillade, minds disintegrated by the pernicious technology of the necrons.