Wild Rider - Gav Thorpe

by Warhammer 40K

  It advanced after him, half-substantial, continuing its sonic assault.

  The crack of a fusion pistol interrupted the stream of noise. The intense blast of radiation vaporised the crypt-wraith’s head, silencing it immediately. What he saw of its torso faded like shadows in the light, falling groundwards for a heartbeat before they vanished.

  He risked a glance to his left, from where the shot had come. His saviour was Yvraine’s autarch, the one called Meliniel, standing at the ramp of his Wave Serpent. A squad of Ynnari guardians fanned out at his gesture, completing the circle of warriors trying to contain the ethereal attack.

  Nuadhu shuddered at the recollection of the horror that had attacked him. Its chittering screech echoed in his thoughts, terrifying yet startlingly familiar. There was something within the noise, a pattern to be recognised. Or remembered.

  A hiss of splinter fire drew everyone’s attention to the opposite side of the gathering, where most of the Bloodbrides kept watch. One of the wychs pointed to her left.

  ‘It was that way,’ she said, pistol aimed at empty space. ‘Just in front of us.’

  Nuadhu tapped Caelledhin with a free hand and nodded towards their father. She understood his intent and together they slipped towards Naiall, wary of attack. Other squads continued to sweep the area with their weapons, without any report of contact.

  ‘I think it’s gone,’ said B’sainnad. ‘We’ve scared it off.’

  ‘The necrontyr do not fear death,’ said the Visarch.

  ‘You cannot kill that which does not live,’ added Yvraine. ‘They are animate but soulless. Never forget that.’

  ‘And they do not relent,’ the Visarch continued. ‘If it is hiding, it does so only to strike in the future. Stand ready.’

  Caelledhin took over from Druthkhala, half carrying Naiall to his transport while the Bloodbride rejoined her arena-sisters. Nuadhu held his spear at the ready, though it was a little unwieldy to use on foot. Other members of Clan Fireheart stayed close at hand, shuriken catapults and pistols moving back and forth as they kept watch.

  ‘We cannot remain here indefinitely,’ said Nuadhu, feeling his patience already wearing thin. ‘Perhaps this is the intent of the necrontyr. While we are paralysed by a single enemy, more foes awaken in the catacombs.’

  ‘My son is correct,’ said Naiall, stirring with visible effort at the foot of the Wave Serpent’s ramp. ‘This delay is counter to our every intent. We cannot hope to overcome the massed warriors of the tomb complex, we must open the vault before the number of our foes is overwhelming.’

  ‘And let that crypt-stalker pick us off?’ replied Meliniel.

  ‘More will be sent,’ said Yvraine, her fan held up like a shield, the Sword of Sorrows in her other hand with tip raised to strike. ‘While Nuadhu’s urgency may have been ill-tempered before, he is right that we cannot be held in one place like this. This lull serves the enemy better than us.’

  Beside her, the Visarch lunged, the Sword of Silent Screams a blur. The cronesword cut the air just a hair’s breadth from one of his incubi, the tip slashing past the back of his neck. An otherworldly shriek split the quiet and a half-seen thrashing churned the air in front of Yvraine for a heartbeat and no more.

  ‘I believe the issue has been simplified,’ said the Blade of Ynnead, lifting his weapon to a guard position. ‘For the time being.’

  Still unsure that invisible assailants did not lurk in their midst, the gathered aeldari reluctantly separated, moving back to their transports, jetbikes and Vypers. The Bloodbrides and Coiled Blade remained close to Yvraine, and likewise Nuadhu stayed at his father’s side until he was back on board his Wave Serpent, Marifsa and the other Fire Dragons ready to protect him. Stepping down the ramp of the transport, he noticed that the light was dimming.

  ‘We’d best hurry before nightfall catches us,’ he called to Yvraine, who was in conference with Caelledhin, the Visarch and Meliniel. ‘Eldrad will have to meet us when we have secured the vault-temple.’

  ‘Dusk is still some time away,’ said the autarch.

  Yvraine looked up with a frown, her gaze turning in the direction of the distant pyramid-mountains.

  ‘Our need for urgency has not diminished,’ said the Emissary of Ynnead.

  Nuadhu shivered as he turned around to see a green-flecked blackness flowing up from the necrontyr complex, casting a shadow across the ground in a creeping eclipse.

  Chapter 18

  PIERCING THE PHALANX

  The keening of Drake’s Fang through the air was the song in Nuadhu’s heart. Around him the Wild Riders carved through animated skeletal warriors, their scatter lasers, shuriken cannons and brightlances slashing through the ranks of necrontyr marching forth from their tombs. The air shimmered with emerald gauss fire, a companion jade glow streaming from the open catacombs. More gauss-shimmer lit the peak of the main temple, illuminating the clouds that roiled above the ancient complex.

  Some distance to his left, and a little behind, the Ynnari warhost broke towards the mountainous flank of the tomb city, while on the right the remainder of the Saim-Hann advanced on the ground and above the trees to an opposite outlying area. Before the wraith-assassins had interrupted proceedings, Yvraine and Naiall had devised a plan to split apart the defending necrontyr host. Nuadhu had not been present to agree to this strategy, but he would have given his consent to the simple but effective ploy. The Wild Riders were the first thrust, probing towards the tomb complex. When the necrontyr responded, the two flanking forces would be pushed forward swiftly, coming at the pyramid vault from two directions, relieving the pressure on the Wild Lord and his warriors to allow them a final piercing strike into the heart of the dead city.

  Nuadhu raised his spear to wave forward his squadrons, while overhead flights of bombers made more passes. Sonic bombs thrummed in the heart of the tombs while energy beams lanced down into the emerging swarms of skimmer craft. Centauroid necrontyr skimmers flashed over the open ground bathed in the otherworldly glow of the tomb city, their weapons pulsing green rays into the approaching host of Ynnari and Saim-Hann kindreds. With them came squadrons of bizarre anti-grav craft like smaller versions of the arc-guns that had targeted the aircraft, each bearing a skeletal pilot meshed within the upright semicircular curve of its chassis. Underslung guns spat animated lightning that skittered across the divide like serpents seeking prey.

  Streaks of heavier weapons fired from aeldari grav-tanks split the crisp air. Volleys of scatter laser fire lit the metallic foe alongside the scintillating beams of pulsars and prism cannons. Where they touched the body or machine of a necrontyr these beams left bubbling welts across the living metal. Amid bursts of vaporous light such wounds healed over, restoring broken engines to functionality, bringing downed warriors back to their feet.

  Bitter experience had taught the aeldari that necrontyr casualties were not permanently disabled. Their entire society was constructed around the resurrection of the fallen, from the whirring scarab repair constructs that flitted overhead to the tomb world itself. Nuadhu watched those grievously damaged by the aeldari attacks disappear, melting into the jade energy that suffused the tomb complex. A few detonated into emerald sparks beneath the fury of a particularly accurate or potent beam, self-atomising back to rejuvenation chambers hidden deep beneath the surface of Agarimethea.

  The exchanges were harsh, each volley of fire from one side or the other meting out destruction. Technologies as old as the colonisation of the planet itself warred as much as the combatants that wielded them. Distort cannons ripped open void-gulfs amid the enemy to suck them bodily into the warp while ravening particle beams from the necrontyr scoured flesh from bone and then turned bone to dust. Nuadhu remembered the spectacle of the frozen seers and the ancient memories awakened by Yvraine.

  This was not a new war, but the recommencement of hostilities after a break of thirty thousand lifetimes.
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  B’sainnad wove the Vyper between the crashing fusillades, dipping and dodging emerald flares and coruscating rays. At times they whipped past the ground just a hair’s breadth from destruction, other times climbing swiftly to elude a chasing necrontyr skimmer. Around them the other Wild Riders charged into the teeth of the enemy, trusting to keen reflexes and instinct to keep them safe. Just to Nuadhu’s left Alyasa rode with wand held aloft in one hand, a dome of protective runic power shimmering about the windweaver. Gauss fire and living lightning skipped from the cerulean hemisphere to discharge harmlessly into the skies.

  Nuadhu’s eye was drawn to the pennants whipping behind Vypers and jetbikes, and to the streamer from his own weapon dancing on the breeze of their swift passage. He shared their lightness, feeling carried along by the currents of fate as much as they were slaves to the gusts of wind.

  It was a liberating experience. As his blood coursed faster and the din and blinding flashes became almost hypnotic, he could lose himself here. Gone were the worries of the clan heir. The politics of seers and councils, though they had led them to these moments, were now of no further concern. Self-doubt was left whirling away in the wind with the pennons.

  Here he was free.

  The leading edge of the necrontyr skimmer squadrons met the lance tip of the Wild Riders, Nuadhu at its point. He could hear the whine of Vyper engines and the strange purring of the necrontyr repellors. The kaleidoscopic sparkle of las-fire and gauss rays skittered across the skeletal frame of the closest rider and its arcane machine. A gleam lit the eye sockets from within, the whole machine-soldier potent with an emerald aura.

  Nuadhu knew that the creature was sentient but not truly alive. Its kind had bargained away their souls for the protection of the sun-eaters, encasing consciousness but no spirit within their undying bodies. The spark that illuminated its gaze was a mockery of life, not the glimmer of anything deeper. A flicker of motivating energy and nothing more.

  Detached from the world of the living, even the most sophisticated technologies and a carcass of living metal could not approach the senses and reactions of a flesh-and-blood aeldari. B’sainnad banked Alean left as the gleam of the skimmer’s guns brightened in the instant before firing. An emerald beam passed harmlessly to Nuadhu’s right as he detached his harness strap. With only a little effort, he leapt to the rail of the fighting platform and then forwards, landing with spear in both hands plunged into the chest of the necrontyr rider. A crackle of disintegrating power burst into the animated metal as the blade continued on, slicing through the creature and into the engine.

  A heartbeat later, Nuadhu somersaulted away, landing upon the back of Alean once more as the bisected parts of the necrontyr craft crashed into the ground amid a shower of green sparks and lashes of released lightning.

  He had no time to spare for his first kill. Another arc-craft peeled towards him, the expressionless monster within intent on the master of the Wild Riders.

  A hail of shuriken fire from B’sainnad ripped into the approaching skimmer, each of the scores of monomolecular discs leaving slashes across the living metal frame and the deathless creature huddled within. A flare of azure laser fire from behind Nuadhu followed in the moments after, punching neat holes through the chest and skull of the rider. Jade light blazed from the gaping rents, consuming it from within even as it dipped groundwards. The whole entity phased out before it slammed into the ground, leaving a strange aura for an instant before that too evaporated.

  Ahead, the pyramid loomed larger and larger, but Nuadhu knew that there was still a great distance to cover. And between him and his goal marched a legion of the animated dead.

  The Sword of Sorrows parted a necrontyr warrior from clavicle to hip, shearing through the living metal without effort. Yvraine pirouetted through the vanishing body parts to cut the arm from another with her war fan. Around her, gauss rays crackled jade death, the phalanx of reanimatrons almost oblivious to the death-dealers in their midst, their fire still concentrated upon the vehicles bringing more aeldari to the fight.

  At her side the Visarch swept the legs from a foe as he ducked beneath a scintillating beam. Rising, he bisected the falling warrior, sending its constituent parts scattering into emerald vapour. A clumsily swung gauss rifle passed through the space he had occupied a moment before, its wielder met with the tip of the cronesword, skull split from jaw to cranium. The rest of the Coiled Blade advanced with their leader, their two-handed klaives striking a furrow through the press of reanimated foes, cleaving into the necrontyr squad just as their powered duelling blades cut through immortal bodies.

  Further afield the Bloodbrides wove a mesmerising trail of destruction through the swarms of scarab-constructs that whirled above the mass of the Returned Dead. Clouds of sparks followed the progress of razorflails and hydra gauntlets, the destruction of each beetle-machine denoted by a small explosion of sparks. Weaving through their sisters, reaver-riders cut longer swathes across the construct swarm leaving gleaming wakes like the remnants of phosphorescence left by the demise of certain deep-ocean creatures.

  Portal gates had risen all across the tomb structures, each crackling archway a window into a resurrection vault far below the surface. For every warrior destroyed, another emerged from the gates, pushed into battle by animation protocols laid down in the mists of prehistory. From beyond the advancing squads of necrontyr fresh swathes of scarabs wove into the air, breaking into devouring clouds above the heads of the warriors. Yvraine knew well from legend that even more powerful constructs would be stirring, brought out of dormancy as the threat to their tombs increased.

  ‘We are progressing too slowly,’ she said to Meliniel, who fought from the board of a raider a little way ahead, using the advantage of elevation to aid his strategising.

  ‘Your assessment is, unfortunately, correct,’ replied the autarch. ‘The enemy’s tactics are sound. They have driven us from our swifter transports with their heavier weaponry and will now swamp us with numbers until they can resurrect their most deadly engines.’

  ‘Do not just agree, come up with a plan!’ snapped the Visarch. He hewed the head from a metallic skeleton and kicked the juddering remains into another. ‘I think it is time that the Warshard came to our aid.’

  ‘The battle is not yet that far gone,’ argued Meliniel, the words strained not by combat but the prospect of unleashing the aspect of Khaine buried within his soul. ‘If I go, who will command? A headlong rush into the foe will serve us poorly.’

  ‘Speaking of headlong rushes, what of the Saim-Hann?’ The Visarch smashed the brow of his helm into the shoulder of a necrontyr warrior, forcing its blow to pass harmlessly over Yvraine’s head. ‘Should they not be drawing the attack from us?’

  Alorynis leapt into the arm of another foe, dragging down its guard as Yvraine lunged forward, allowing the tip of her blade to sever its neck with one clean strike. The gyrinx dropped from the teleporting carcass to dash between the legs of the next warrior, causing it to stumble into his mistress’ descending sword.

  ‘They suffer the same adversity as us,’ said the Opener of the Seventh Way. ‘Jetbikes and Vypers are of little use against a concentrated foe that desires to protect a static target. The enemy seem wise to our ploy to draw them out and break through with a counter-attack.’

  ‘Then it is time we had another,’ said Meliniel. ‘I shall summon the final wave.’

  ‘This is not working,’ Nuadhu declared across the messenger-waves. He gasped as another scarab detonated on the tip of Drake’s Fang, becoming a shower of white-hot droplets spattered along the side of the swooping Vyper. His return sweep parted the bodies of two more, the flashes of their demise cutting bright sparks into his vision. ‘There are too many to destroy in this fashion.’

  ‘If they are attacking you, our assault towards the necrontyr stasis-­temple is spared their attention,’ replied Meliniel. ‘Keep attacking.’
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br />   Nuadhu cast his gaze down and to the left, where the Wave Serpents and grav-tanks of the force speared into the flank of the assembling necrontyr warrior phalanx. The thrust through the enemy ranks would soon reach the precinct grounds and allow the transported squads to deploy, dividing the defenders. A further glance at the swarming constructs around the Wild Riders ­reinforced Nuadhu’s assessment, despite the autarch’s assertions.

  ‘We will die or be driven off before you have cut through the necrontyr,’ he replied. B’sainnad rolled the Vyper hard as a trio of scarabs tried to grasp a hold of the jetbike’s nose, sending them spinning down the side of the craft, into the flashing blade of Drake’s Fang. ‘We should assist more directly in the breakthrough.’

  There is another way.+

  The sudden voice inside Nuadhu’s head caused him to flinch, his next blow almost missing its target, The edge of his spear slashed a wing from a diving scarab, sending the gleaming body trailing jade sparks to the ground below.

  The words were accompanied by a sensation of timelessness and deep understanding. The psychic tone hinted at secrets untold, a mind that had traversed both the light and the dark to arrive in its current place. The source needed no other introduction.

  Eldrad Ulthran.

  Seek the patterns within the anarchy to divine your target,+ the legendary farseer instructed. +There is a force that guides the attack. Trace it to the source and destroy it.+

  As sharply as it had appeared, the presence broke away, before Nuadhu could even acknowledge the farseer’s advice. It was typical seer-talk, at first pass bearing resemblance to a riddle and little else. But the seed sown in the clan heir’s thoughts swiftly grew and bloomed into understanding.

  ‘Take us a little higher,’ he told B’sainnad, placing a hand on the pilot’s shoulder. His companion complied, angling the Vyper upwards, away from the main swirl of the fighting.