She had shrouded them in death.
Striking Scorpions danced angular steps around Bielanna, while the Howling Banshees spun like acrobats. Blades sang and the chorus of mon-keigh gunfire was a harsh staccato backdrop to their elegant symphony of death-dealing.
The crystaliths fought with extruded blades, fast and agile, but their strikes without artistry and pride. They died by the score. Each of her warriors was entwined in an invisible web of fates that fractured and divided in the same instant. Past diminishing, present blooming and future unseen to all but her.
Her hands moved in complex patterns, blindingly swift, guiding her warriors like the conductor of a billion musicians playing the most complex song imaginable. She made Vaynesh step a finger’s breadth to the right, saving him from a thrusting blade of glass. Uriquel adjusted the grip on her sword, giving her the strength to hack the limb from a crystalith. In a hundred ways she moulded the fates of her warriors: a step back here, a quarter-turn there, a leap just a moment earlier.
Each element was insignificant in itself, but combined to form a web of cause that put Bielanna’s perceptions two steps ahead of effect. She had tried to mould the fates of the Space Marines, granting them a measure of her newfound power, but the fates of such warriors were not hers to shape. They would rather die than suffer the touch of one they would normally consider a foe.
Only Roboute Surcouf’s mind was open enough to be guided. The touch of another eldar, a bonesinger named Yrlandriar, made it easier to reach him. With Bielanna’s help, Surcouf’s every shot was fired with pinpoint accuracy.
Her mastery of the fates could not last, she knew that.
For all that she might guide the steps and sword arms of her warriors, limbs of flesh and blood grew tired, skills once razor-sharp would dull.
And then death would come.
A shadow rose up to envelop Bielanna, shockingly sudden and suffocatingly intense in its darkness. Like a veil of black velvet had been drawn across her sight, she saw the skein blacken as the terminus of every thread came into view, unravelling towards extinction with horrifying speed.
The end of all things.
An impossible boundary in what should be infinite space.
Bielanna gasped, her chest constricting at the sight.
This was the doom she had seen ensconced within the Speranza. Space and time were coming undone, ripping apart like the solar sails of a wounded wraithship.
Doom had come to this world, but that was the least of the danger. The rift beginning here was pulling wider with every passing second, drawing every thread within the skein to it. Like a weaver’s shuttle reversing through the warp and weft of a loom, the future was unravelling to its omega point.
Exnihlio was becoming the temporal equivalent of a black hole, a howling abyss in which no time would ever exist again. Its effects were yet confined to the deeps of the planet, but Bielanna felt the catastrophic geomantic damage the hrud had wreaked racing to the surface.
The physical death of Exnihlio was nothing, but the temporal shock waves would spread into the glacial void of space, reaching into the galaxy of Bielanna’s kin.
It would be a slow death for the galaxy, as all time was devoured by the rift torn by the Yngir’s device. But that it would end all things for evermore was certain.
Unless Bielanna could stop it.
She rose smoothly to her feet, ignoring the sinuous war-dance of her people and the brutal, heaving clashes of the Space Marines. Her hands balled into fists and she thrust them out to the side, letting the power of the skein pour from her in an almighty torrent.
A hurricane of roaring, seething psychic fury streamed from Bielanna. The crystaliths closest to her simply vanished, vaporised in the raw fury of the storm. The rest were hurled back as if from a bomb blast. Pellucid blue fire swirled around Bielanna in a cyclonic vortex.
Glass and crystal shattered, killing the crystaliths, but leaving beings of flesh and blood unharmed. Green fire bled from broken bodies that spilled black dust onto the plaza. The swirling tempest of psychic energy swelled around Bielanna to form a howling wall of impenetrable storm fronts.
Stunned silence filled the void that had previously been rich with grunting mon-keigh and laughing, singing eldar.
Tanna of the Black Templars turned to her, his armour buckled and clawed back to bare metal. She sensed his hostility, primitive drugs boosting his aggression levels to psychotic heights.
She pre-empted his inevitable questions with a single imperative.
‘You have to go,’ she said. ‘You have to stop Telok.’
She sensed his confusion, but had no time to explain what she now knew in anything but the most basic concepts.
‘Everything is ending,’ she said. ‘What Telok has set in motion will end everything. Your Emperor, His domain, my kin and all we have fought to preserve. Everything will die. Worse, they will never have existed. All that was and all that might ever come to pass will be wiped away.’
Tanna nodded, as his battle-brothers stood with him.
‘How long will that barrier hold?’ said Anders through gritted teeth. His thread was shorter than all the others.
‘Not long,’ said Bielanna. ‘The skein’s power waxes strong within me, but soon it will wane like a winter’s moon, so I do not have long to do what must be done.’
Archmagos Kotov said, ‘You said Tanna had to go. How can any of us go anywhere?’
Bielanna let her mind drift over the surfaces of every one of the mon-keigh, searching for an emotion strong enough to provide an anchor. The Templars and Cadians were useless, adrift and far from all they knew. Kotov’s mind was too stunted in its logical functionality, its emotional centres long since closed off.
But Surcouf…
She felt his love for his crew and his ship, and wasn’t love the strongest emotion of all? It had healed wounds, ended wars and seen bitter enemies brought together as brothers. It had also brought empires to ruin and seen the greatest minds humbled.
Nothing was more powerful than love, and Surcouf was blessed with an abundance.
Bielanna said, ‘Your talisman. Do you still have it?’
Surcouf looked confused, then reached inside the breast pocket of his coat and withdrew his astrogation compass.
‘This? Is this what you mean?’
Bielanna saw the confluence of fates bound to the device, the slender thread that set the path the mon-keigh’s life had taken. He sensed its importance, but not on any conscious level.
‘Yes, hold it out to me,’ said Bielanna.
‘Why?’
‘Because I need a focus,’ she said, and her eyes misted with sadness. ‘And because I need someone to remember me.’
Though he was puzzled at her words, he nevertheless did as she asked. Bielanna cupped her porcelain white hands around his, feeling his deep connection to those he had left behind. He would die for them, and they for him. The needle on the compass danced and spun, unfixed and wandering. Their minds met and she lived the entirety of his life in a heartbeat.
‘Look into my eyes and picture those dearest to you,’ she said.
No sooner had he done so than the needle stopped moving.
Bielanna released Surcouf’s hands, holding on to the connection between them, picturing what he saw. A functional room with a wooden desk. Pictures on the wall, scriptural commendations and a holographic cameo of a woman.
Such was the strength of Surcouf’s emotions and the surging power within her, that it was the simplest matter to open a path through the webway. A flaring oval of orange, arched and spilling gold light onto the plaza, opened behind her.
‘That will take you back to your ship,’ said Bielanna. ‘Go now and stop Telok. Do whatever needs to be done, but he must not return to your Imperium.’
Kotov nodded and gestured to his skitarii.
They stepped through the gate and vanished.
‘You make it sound like you’re not leaving,’ said Surcouf.
‘I am not,’ said Bielanna. ‘It may be possible to heal what Telok has done, but to do that I must be here at the heart of it all, the site of the wound.’
Surcouf looked out towards the barrier. The tempests were already dying, and the army of crystaliths pressed against it in overwhelming numbers.
‘You’ll die.’
‘The future I was to share with my daughters is lost,’ said Bielanna. ‘There is nothing left for me. Death will be welcome.’
‘I wish–’
‘Say nothing,’ said Bielanna, harsher than she intended. ‘No human words can offer me comfort.’
Surcouf nodded and turned away, helping Magos Pavelka to her feet. Giving Bielanna a last look of profound gratitude, the two of them went through the gate together.
Tanna watched Surcouf and Pavelka vanish and felt the weight he had carried since Dantium Gate lift from his shoulders. Cut off from their Chapter and without the guidance of Kul Gilad, he and his warriors had been lost. Strange that it had taken the words of an eldar witch to show him just how lost.
On any other day he would have gone to the Reclusiam and submitted himself to pain-shriving for such thoughts.
‘Can you really undo what Telok has done here?’ he asked.
‘Perhaps, but I will need time,’ she answered, removing her helm and holding it in the crook of her arm. ‘And I will need the strength of my people to do it.’
‘The crystaliths will kill you long before then.’
‘They will,’ agreed Bielanna.
Tanna glanced towards the diminishing barrier.
‘Then the Black Templars will give you that time.’
‘Tanna?’ said Anders. ‘You’re staying?’
‘If she can do what she claims, then I have no choice,’ said Tanna. ‘Here is where I can serve the Emperor best.’
Anders sighed. ‘And here was me thinking that all of us might actually get back to the Imperium.’
‘It was an honour to fight alongside you, Ven Anders.’
The colonel held up a hand.
‘Cadians don’t do last words, valedictions or brotherly farewells in the face of certain death,’ he said. ‘We just fight, and I have a regiment on the Speranza that needs me.’
Tanna nodded and returned Anders’s salute with a fist across his breastplate. The Cadian colonel led his men through the portal as the eldar gathered around their farseer and began unbuckling their armour. Smooth plates dropped to the ground and as they removed their battle helms, it seemed their angular, alien faces softened, like dreamers awakening from a daylight reverie. They each handed Bielanna what looked like a polished gemstone and sat cross-legged around her before closing their eyes, as though entering a meditative trance.
The storm front keeping the crystaliths at bay began to diminish almost immediately. Glassy blades cut through it and their inexorable strength began slowly pushing their angular bodies through.
Tanna turned from the eldar.
His own warriors stood before him.
Proud and undefeated, they were heroes all.
‘My brothers, we come to it at last,’ he said. ‘The last battle of the Kotov Crusade.’
‘Will you lead us in our vows, brother-sergeant?’ asked Yael.
‘I will,’ said Tanna, knowing that what he had to say next would crush the young warrior. ‘But you will not take a vow with us.’
‘Brother-sergeant?’
‘Go through the gate,’ said Tanna. ‘If Telok is to be killed, it should be a Black Templar blade that cleaves his head from his shoulders.’
‘No! Please, Tanna,’ said Yael, forgetting himself in the heat of his despair. ‘Do not deny me this last fight.’
Tanna shook his head.
‘Go back to the Speranza, fight with all your heart in that battle. Win glory and carry word of us back to the Chapter. Tell them what we did here, of our courage and sacrifice. Tell them that we died as heroes in the name of the Emperor.’
‘I want to stand and fight with you,’ pleaded Yael.
‘This is my last command. You will not disobey it.’
Tanna ached for the young warrior, knowing full well the anguish he would be feeling at being denied a glorious death alongside his brothers.
‘No more words,’ said Tanna. ‘Go.’
Yael rammed his sword back into its scabbard and without a backward glance turned and ran through the eldar gate.
‘Harsh,’ said Varda. ‘But it needed to be done, and it’s time for that vow.’
Issur joined the Emperor’s Champion, his fingers twitching and his features dancing with involuntary muscle movements.
Tanna nodded, and both warriors took a knee, leaving him standing over them as Kul Gilad had stood over them all on the Adytum. With the crystaliths pressing through the psychic barrier, Tanna knew there could be only one vow worthy of being made.
Kul Gilad’s valediction.
The words heard over the vox as the Reclusiarch died. Tanna raised his sword to his shoulder in salute of his warriors.
‘Lead us from death to victory, from falsehood to truth,’ he said, bringing the sword around.
He touched the blade to Varda’s shoulder.
‘Lead us from despair to hope, from faith to slaughter.’
Issur was next to receive the benediction.
‘Lead us to His strength and an eternity of war.’
The two Black Templars rose, and each placed a fist upon their breastplate. Their voices joined with Tanna’s to complete the vow.
‘Let His wrath fill our hearts!’ they cried. ‘Death, war and blood – in vengeance serve the Emperor in the name of Dorn!’
Issur and Varda stood side by side, blades bared and held out to the enemy.
‘This is what you saw, Varda,’ said Tanna as he took his place at the Emperor’s Champion’s side. ‘When we reforged the links binding you to your sword.’
Varda nodded, but didn’t look up from his blade. Despite everything, it gleamed unblemished, without as much as a scratch on its obsidian surface. Varda scanned the ranks of crystaliths as the psychic barrier finally collapsed into scraps of fading light.
The sound of crystal bodies grinding together as the monsters charged set Tanna’s teeth on edge.
Fifty metres out, their heavy footfalls faster now.
‘You spoke of seeing yourself fighting alongside the eldar,’ said Tanna, rolling his shoulders to loosen the muscles. ‘You could not conceive of how such a thing might come to pass. Now we know.’
‘It pleases me to know I remained true to my oaths of loyalty,’ said Varda. ‘That I will die a true son of Sigismund.’
‘That was never in doubt,’ said Tanna.
Thirty metres away. Contact imminent.
‘At l… least the el… eldar will die with us,’ said Issur, glancing over at the silent, unmoving aliens behind them. The muscles at his neck were taut, but his sword was unwavering.
‘This is our time to die,’ said Tanna. ‘Far from the Emperor’s light on a forsaken world. Savour this moment, for you will die only once. How you meet that end is as important as every moment before then.’
Ten metres, translucent blades raised.
Tanna tipped his head back and lifted his sword to salute his coming death, knowing it would be magnificent.
Five metres.
The last battle of the Kotov Crusade began to the sound of breaking glass and the name of Dorn shouted to the sky.
‘Ma-ta-leo! Ma-ta-leo!’
The skitarii chanted the name as they charged alongside his new Iron Fist. Dahan’s awareness of every squad and pack’s position was total and even in the heat of the charge he
corrected vectors of attack through the noospheric link.
‘Ma-ta-leo! Ma-ta-leo!’
Weapons fire blazed between the skitarii and the crystalline attackers. Intersecting collimations of las and solid rounds, plasma and gatling fire. Explosions ripped through the ranks of his warriors. Scores of bodies were trampled underfoot. Dahan plugged the gaps, moving squads into each ragged hole.
‘Ma-ta-leo! Ma-ta-leo!’
Connected to the replacement Iron Fist’s logic engine, his mind was ablaze with accumulated combat-memes. Threat optics measured the alpha-beast before him in every conceivable dimension. The heavy bolter quads chugged a constant stream of mass-reactives into the enemy host. Blasts of energy from the blade of his Cebrenian halberd killed those closest to the Iron Fist. Enemy bodies came apart in explosive bursts of broken glass.
‘Ma-ta-leo! Ma-ta-leo!’
Hearing his Catachan war-name again made Dahan nostalgic for his days on the death world. The wealth of combat data available there was greater than on any other planet he had known. Every species of flora and fauna was deadly, and his database of warfare and close-combat predictors had expanded geometrically.
The closest analogue to the alpha-beast was the Catachan leonax den-mother he and Harker’s platoon had encountered on a slash and burn mission against a surge of hyper-aggressive jungle growth.
They had encountered the lair by accident when a point Chimera crashed through the jungle floor into its moist, wriggling depths. The den-mother’s hundreds of young erupted from pupal trap-lairs and attacked the Guardsmen and skitarii with a ferocity Dahan had previously only encountered in certain tyrannic blitzkrieg genera.
Dahan had killed the den-mother, a monstrous, clawed beast with a mutant mane of poisonous spines at its neck, the presence of which prompted Harker to bestow the war-name upon him.
He replayed that fight, dispensing the precise combination of combat-stimms, muscle enhancers and synaptic boosters into his system to replicate that state of being. The alpha-creature loomed ahead of him, bigger than the beast he had killed on Catachan. And attended by hulking shield-bearers.
Orders passed between him and his skitarii escort and a precise sequence of fire blazed from the Destroyer cadres. So precise was it that not a shot or iota of power was wasted. Four of the shield-bearers were instantly obliterated, their mantlets cracked with high-powered gatling cannons and blown apart by precisely timed grenade barrages. Volleys of plasma followed by pinpoint melta missiles finished the job, leaving a path open for Dahan’s Iron Fist.
Forge of Mars - Graham McNeill Page 106