Then the eldar reappeared.
It was a blurring shadow that darted, spun, whirled, cavorted, and left death in its wake. Necks were snapped, torsos were shredded by a lethal stream of projectiles from its pistol and bodies fell spasming from the slightest kiss of its bizarre forearm weapon. The cultists wavered as this new threat cut through them, and for the first time, Alyss saw Davis of Rawl’s power sword slay a heretic trying to scale the barricade with no new attacker coming to replace them.
The horde turned in on itself, but to no avail. Autogun shots punched through other heretics, clumsy blows smashed a neighbour’s ribcage instead of connecting with their target, and in the middle, the eldar wove its dance of death. Alyss watched in awe as the cultists floundered, like a wheeling flock of avians blundering straight into the jaws of a predator in their midst. By the time they realised it was hopeless, it was too late. The last few scattered and tried to flee, but now Ngiri had advanced out from behind the barricade. Davis skewered one cultist, the inquisitor’s own power sword claimed another, and Jekri shot down a third. One fled blindly straight towards Alyss; Fell simply punched the man in the face with his bionic arm so hard Alyss heard the cultist’s neck break.
‘Your assistance is appreciated,’ Ngiri called to the eldar. The inquisitor had apparently had either the time or the foresight to don her customised suit of power armour and she looked largely unscathed save for a cut on her forehead.
The grinning mask turned towards her and the eldar spoke, its mellifluous voice flowing oddly around consonants. ‘I tried to warn you. I tried to make you see for yourselves.’
‘And we thank you,’ Ngiri said, inclining her head. ‘I wonder if–’
‘You still lack comprehension,’ the eldar said, cutting her off. ‘Your stupidity is dangerous.’
It flowed across the ground between them and drove its forearm weapon at Ngiri’s chest before anyone could react.
The inquisitor’s power armour held, so instead of being pierced by the xenos weapon she was hurled backwards into the barricade by the force of the blow. Davis of Rawl lunged, power blade crackling, but he was plucked off his feet and hurled through the air to collide with Carmine, who had just started to raise his force rod in an attempt to bring the eldar down. Jekri’s arc-rifle spat bolts of energy but the eldar flipped into the air, easily evading them. Alyss raised her laspistol but the fiend was simply too fast, too blurred to target.
At least with her eyes.
She closed them, forcing the calm to come, blocking out the shouts of alarm and pain from her comrades. Her precognition, always a nebulous, unreliable ally, flickered just beyond her reach. She felt her physical body grit its teeth as she reached for it, forcing it to do her bidding.
There. The eldar’s path seemed to slow, traced out through her brain in glowing lines. Nothing was certain, nothing was ever certain, but she could read where it was most likely to touch down next. She forced her muscles to move, felt them strain as they struggled to catch up with her racing mind.
‘Fell!’ she shouted, the words booming and echoing in her head. She pulled the trigger, felt the lasbolt leave the weapon, heard the buzz as the powercell died.
But her shot blew straight through the eldar’s knee from behind as it landed, sending it sprawling.
Alyss opened her eyes and the world seemed to speed up again. Fell primed his krak grenade and threw it, faster and more accurately than anyone with an arm of flesh and blood. The eldar was already rising, but for once it wasn’t quite quick enough. The grenade struck it and detonated, the potent explosive force concentrated in one place, and suddenly the eldar’s left leg was nothing but a few ribbons of meat.
It collapsed, shrieking, but twisted around to aim its pistol at Fell. Then Davis of Rawl severed its hand with his power sword, raised his blade again and plunged it through the alien’s spine. It spasmed and keened, yet somehow still clung to life.
‘The sword!’ the eldar spat desperately, its shaking mask turning towards Ngiri. ‘Destroy the sword!’
‘The sword?’ Ngiri repeated. She wrenched a part of the barricade aside and strode through it to where the stasis cabinet rested.
‘Destroy it!’
‘I’m not as stupid as you think,’ the inquisitor snapped, giving the eldar a withering glance. ‘I had doubts about this the moment I saw it.’ She flicked a switch and the stasis generator powered down. Suddenly Alyss heard a song, a sickening crystal disharmony that pricked her thoughts but disappeared when she tried to concentrate on it. She shook her head, trying to clear it.
‘Ma’am? The sword… That’s no sacred blade.’
‘Not sacred to the Emperor, anyway,’ Ngiri replied, sliding the point of her power sword under the Blade of Saint Aruba and flicking it out. The blade landed in the red dirt. ‘I wanted to see how events played out, however. Alyss, you’re certain the xenos has the truth of it?’
The song was rising. Alyss nodded, trying not to retch. ‘I am, milady.’
Ngiri raised her plasma pistol and fired repeatedly.
The ravening bolts of energy tore into the blade, melting and warping it, finally blasting it into nothing. The song was replaced with a howl that assaulted Alyss’ mind, a bellow of fear and loss and thwarted rage that felt as if it would leave her brain bleeding. The dying eldar hissed in response, and as the cry faded as though it were falling into an abyss, Ngiri turned back to it.
‘I’ve been wanting to talk to one of you ever since I learned of your intervention with the Manchewer.’ She looked with distaste at the blood-slicked ground where the eldar’s leg had been, at Davis’ power blade that still transfixed its body, then down at the chip in her armour where she’d come so close to death. ‘I fear the conversation may not now be a cordial one.’
The eldar laughed weakly. ‘Death comes for me. Soon I shall be beyond your reach.’
Ngiri pursed her lips. ‘I believe you. But even your corpse and possessions will have academic value.’ She sheathed her power sword and gestured at Fell and Davis.
‘Put it in the cabinet.’
The eldar thrashed its head, but could make no other movement as Davis and Fell dragged its limp body to the stasis cabinet, then hoisted it up and stuffed it inside. Xenos blood immediately began staining the clear sides as it continued to bleed to death from its grievous wounds. Alyss’ ears could hear nothing but its laboured breathing, but she could sense the dying creature’s mounting horror as a silent scream.
At least, until Fell closed the lid with a snap and Alyss was left with nothing but the stench of blood, and echoing silence in her mind.
SHADOWS OF HEAVEN
Gav Thorpe
Aradryan looked at the bridge with distaste. A brutal span of partially corroded metal and pitted artificial stone substitute, erected by the humans in some distant era to cross the sluggish, oil-tainted waters of a broad river. A cold wind keened through the stanchions and spars. The vegetation around the crossing was near-dead, browned by the inclement season. In the shadows of the broken buildings that flanked both sides of the river, the remnants of night frost coated the ground.
The river snaked slowly between rolling plains, curving around steeper slopes on either side that rose from the undulating expanse. The highway the crossing served was little more than a path of broken paving that cut a darker line through the wilderness flanking the waterway. In many places it had been swallowed again by the grasses and bushes through which it had once mercilessly slashed.
It reminded Aradryan of the humans in so many ways. Transient, yet arrogant. Blindly resisting the elements rather than accommodating them. Stubborn but ultimately doomed to fade from existence and memory. Just as this latest alliance with the humans would fail in time. The galaxy had been sundered by warpcraft and battle, and there was a mutual need, greater than ever, that united the two races. That was all it was, an unspoken pact
of survival, nothing more. The Imperium and the craftworlds were not friends. They would always be rivals even when they were not outright enemies. For now, he and the other Alaitocii who had travelled from the craftworld were aligned to the shared cause.
A short distance away, Diamedin sat in the pilot’s cradle of a large support weapon. Like Aradryan she wore a golden-yellow helm with a short crest of deep blue. Her armour was the same azure, as was the floating anti-grav platform of the weapon she rode. The vibro-cannon itself was encased in curved plates of matching yellow, banded with tiger stripes of black. From within gleamed the energy cell’s pale silver shimmer.
Aradryan and his companion were situated in the tumbled-down ruins of what might have been a toll station or perhaps a hostelry for travellers. It was impossible to tell the former function of the low building from the broken walls and scattered bricks. Twisted metal reinforcing rods jutted among the crawl of climbing plants, the bare stone-like floor patched with bright green lichen and criss-crossed with runners and tendrils from the questing vegetation.
Aspect Warriors and the larger war machines had already engaged the enemy over the preceding night, manoeuvring the foe into a killing position. The farseers had warned of a splinter force of warriors despatched by the enemy to break out over the river. They could not be allowed to cross lest the whole flank of the Alaitocii host was compromised. By standing in this place, alongside his fellow Guardians, he protected the lives of others.
So Aradryan told himself.
‘They are heading your way.’
The voice of Arhathain sounded directly in Aradryan’s ear. It came with a slight itch at the point between ear and jaw, caused by the microscopic messenger-wave implant that had been inserted there before the expeditionary force had left Alaitoc.
It felt strange, to hear the voice of the autarch yet sense nothing of his presence. In the slow turn of the latest arc of his life Aradryan had become reacquainted with the omnipresence of the infinity circuit aboard the craftworld. He had buried deep the memories of his wilder life as an Outcast, the remembrance of the time when he had been carefree but alone like a distant, half-heard echo. The ever-present sensation of the others on the Asuryani Path had been a backdrop of constant sound and movement in his thoughts.
So it was that he heard the words of Arhathain but caught nothing of the host commander’s thoughts or feelings on the pronouncement. It was a cold fact sent to the Alaitocii contingent stationed by the dilapidated bridge, devoid of emotional substance.
Aradryan’s thoughts were not totally isolated. Through the local spirit circuit of the vibro-cannon he could feel Diamedin. Though he could not see her face, Aradryan felt her reassuring smile through the interface of the weapon’s spirit stone.
She glanced down at him from her perch.
‘Worry not,’ she said. ‘No foe shall cross that bridge.’
His gaze moved to the rest of the small force that had been positioned to contest the crossing. Two more vibro-cannons flanked him and Diamedin, the targeting web that connected them currently focused on a point at the far end of the span. Like the gunner beside him, the other crews made only the faintest impression on his awareness, conjoined by the interlinked network of the battery, which was but a pale imitation of the infinity circuit of their home.
The half-felt distance put Aradryan in mind of the spirits of the departed when they were newly joined with the other souls of the craftworld. On the Path of Grieving he had dedicated himself to remembrance and commemoration of the dead. He was no spiritseer, but in his role as Mourner he spent much time among those who shepherded the spirits into the post-mortal existence of the infinity circuit. In that capacity he had felt the fleeting loss and uncertainty of a spirit released from its stone into the endless maze of the psychic circuit.
Outside the local circuit other support weapon batteries were arranged: two more vibro-cannons on the shallow slope of a hill to the right, and a trio of distort-cannons covered the river from the left. In the thick foliage along the river bank nestled two squads of Guardians, their exact location obscured by the concealing power of a warlock, Hanlaishin.
‘If you are so concerned by danger, why did you answer the call to arms?’ asked Diamedin, sensing Aradryan’s unease as he scanned the horizon across the river and fidgeted with the shuriken catapult in his hands.
‘I am no stranger to bloodshed,’ Aradryan replied quietly. ‘I am not afraid of death.’
‘Then what is it that agitates you so?’
Aradryan thought not to answer. He owed her no explanation. Yet if he was to purge himself of his grief, if he was to connect with his people in a way he had not been able to do in living memory, he had to make the effort.
‘Death used to frighten me. The thought of being swallowed by the infinity circuit, of losing who I was, terrified my younger self. It drove me to flee the craftworld, seeking sensation and a meaning for life, though I found myself lost in the former and discovered nothing of the latter. And death followed me still, all the way back to Alaitoc.’
He paused, stunned by his unplanned confessional. It felt good to unburden himself.
‘And yet...?’ prompted Diamedin.
‘I took to the Path of Grieving, but even then I hid from life rather than death. I thought that perhaps battle might stir something of my old emotion.’ He sighed. ‘It scares me that I am not afraid to die…’
Any further chance to cast light upon the shadows in his soul was curtailed by a sudden heightening of tension across the Guardian force. Aradryan saw the cause at the same moment he felt it: a smudge of greyness past the ridge of a hill on the opposite side of the river.
Smoke from the exhausts of the renegade Space Marines’ vehicles.
Crouched in the ruins, Aradryan watched the drifting smog with narrowed eyes and a knot in his gut. The detached thought of battle had not stirred him, but it was a different matter to see the approach of an enemy. His biology reacted even though his thoughts had not, sending a shiver of apprehension through him. It was almost welcome, to feel a tingle of dread when he had known so little that had moved him in recent times.
A small squad of jetbike-piloting windriders and a larger Vyper speared over the hillside. Explosive projectiles tore past the rapidly approaching jetbikes from the foes they had lured towards the crossing. Jinking and weaving between the volleys, the pilots guided their craft directly towards the expanse of the river, the anti-grav engines of their vehicles negating any need for a bridge.
The enemy sped into view: a trio of lumbering troop carriers that churned the earth with broad tracks. Their top hatches were open so that the embarked warriors could fire their weapons at the evasive eldar that had drawn their wrath. The transports were blocky, dark machines that belched grey fume, engines snarling and tracks sliding as they negotiated the steep slope that led down to the remains of the roadway.
Aradryan found all human aesthetic to be crude and distasteful, but there was a deliberate brutality to the black paint and golden ornamentation of the renegades’ vehicles. Barbed spears and gilded chains hung with skulls decorated the flanks of the transports. The stacks of the exhausts and muzzles of the mounted weapons were fashioned in the likenesses of bestial and daemonic faces.
Augmented by the magnifying lenses of his Guardian helm, his keen alien gaze picked out detail against the expanse of the hillside. From one of the troop carriers flew a broad, long banner of dark cloth marked by the eight-pointed star with an eye at its centre. They wore their slavery to the Dark Gods like a badge of honour, the eightfold Cross of the Lost emblazoned not only on the transports but also the shoulder pads of their powered armour. As with the vehicles, so too the occupants – armoured in black and gold, adorned with spikes and blades, chains and skull-headed rivets.
‘Wait until they are committed to crossing the bridge,’ commanded Arhathain through the messenger-wave implan
t. ‘We need those forces diverted.’
With the jetbikes out of range, the renegade Space Marines ceased their firing. Their advance slowed as they neared the bridge. The jetbikes and Vyper circled back, swerving between the cables of the suspension bridge to unleash a long-range fusillade of shuriken cannon fire. The volley did little more than shred the paintwork of the transports, but its goading effect was near-instant. Engines roared. Fresh billows of oily smoke billowed and the transports thundered towards the bridge once more.
Aradryan swallowed. His mouth felt dry. He could feel the growing anticipation from Diamedin. A former Dire Avenger, she drew upon a war mask to shut off her thoughts, guarding herself against the lure of bloodshed and the fear of battle. It had the simultaneous effect of blanking her thoughts to the soul-circuit, leaving Aradryan feeling very much alone and impotent as he watched the three armoured behemoths clatter onto the bridge. He looked at the slab-sided war engines, and the shuriken catapult felt heavy in his grip, useless against such metal beasts. His fate was entirely entrusted to the accuracy and timing of the support weapon gunners.
While the windriders drew back, ready to spring forwards once the ambush was under way, the Vyper continued to harry the approaching vehicles. The sleek craft veered one way and then the other, like an insect darting over a pool. Its yellow-and-blue carapace glinted in the pale light of winter, reflecting the flash of bolts and the glint from the polluted waters gurgling between the steep river banks.
Nearly halfway across the span, the vehicles seemed larger than Aradryan remembered from the invasion of Alaitoc. He only dimly recalled the battles that had raged through the domes of his craftworld, though the memory of the Emperor’s Space Marines was far more distinct. Terrifying giants with war engines that had killed hundreds of his fellow eldar. He had brought that slaughter to his home and it had pushed him onto the Path of Grieving. To consider such brutal power married to the worship of the Dark Gods sent a fresh shiver of anxiety coursing through his body. All instinct told him that he should flee. Yet he refused, drawing on superior reason and intellect to overcome his biology. He peered through a crack in the masonry at the monstrous warriors. There was no possible way the Traitor Space Marines knew what awaited them.
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