‘Do it.’ Caelledhin realised the words had passed her lips. Hot tears welling up, she laid a hand on her father’s arm, feeling the quiver of agony running through him. ‘No more good can come from keeping her.’
Nuadhu leapt down and moved to his other side, hand on his shoulder in a show of unity. He nodded wordlessly, adding his endorsement to Caelledhin’s.
Closing his eyes, Naiall sagged to his knees, and then bowed his head to the floor, wracked with sobbing. But his defiance was gone and an aura played about him for several heartbeats before it streamed across the divide to coalesce into Yvraine’s waiting palm.
The Opener of the Seventh Way looked down at the shimmering star with a joyous expression and then she tilted her head back, gaze moving far further afield as she listened to the Whisper of Ynnead.
The soul-gleam spread into her body, rippling along limbs and torso like a second skin. Caelledhin gasped as it touched Yvraine’s face, not following the contours of her expression but moulding a new visage: the face of Iyothia Icewhisper, her mother. A wordless shout of angst escaped Nuadhu and he sagged, face buried in the crook of his arm.
Caelledhin forced herself to watch, to study every line of the emerging face, as though updating the memory she had held since a child. But there was no difference. It was the same look she had known from memory, preserved by her father’s thoughts as well as hers.
The face smiled, but the warmth seeped from it, replaced by a cold glare. One cheek melted away, reforming into sharp-boned features, while the other half of the face distorted into a cruelly smiling expression, a spiral horn curling from the brow.
Heart thrashing at her ribs fit to end her, Caelledhin watched the last of her mother fade away, to be replaced with the stare of Ynnead, the Whispering God, Keeper of the Dead.
Chapter 27
WAR OF THE DEAD
While battle raged between necrontyr, daemon and aeldari, an impossible bubble of stillness enveloped Yvraine. She had threatened to drag the soul of Iyothia Icewhisper from Naiall, but it felt as though the aeldari spirit fled the confines of his body for sanctuary within her. Naiall, Nuadhu and Caelledhin all stared at her with a mixture of fear and awe.
The escaping spirit energy hit her like a thunderbolt, crackling through the Opener of the Seventh Way from head to foot, infusing each part of her with its power. Yvraine had not noticed how divided from the Whisper she had become and it was a revelation to feel the presence of another soul again. Like a rush of blood, the spirit of Iyothia charged her nerves with feeling and coursed through her synapses, awakening the other dormant souls inside Yvraine.
With the power came a distant connection, as though a slender thread issued from Yvraine into the daemon prison. Just as the escapees were sustained by the warp energy within the vault so Yvraine was able to tap into the deeper consciousness that was her god. Through the veil of reality the breach provided a means for the tiniest echo for the Whisper to penetrate.
Her inner voice was a cry for succour, silent to the others but screamed from every part of her Reborn soul.
In the abyss a voice answered.
Like an approaching storm its energy boiled and swelled within the warp, forcing itself through the permeable layer of the necrontyr prison dimension. Gathering speed the apparition rushed upon Yvraine, breathless in its haste to be free, carving through the pulp of daemon-froth that still hung swollen in the vault.
In the instant of connection Yvraine gasped. A mix of terror and joy scorched through her, dancing upon every reanimated cell to muster a foothold in the physical world of mortals.
Like an uncoiling serpent the Yncarne reared up from Yvraine’s thoughts and burrowed out of her body.
It rose, still coalescing into a half-handsome, half-deformed monstrosity. A cascade of hair sprouted from the scalp, a mane of pale death-colour that writhed with its own soulpower. Streamers of deathly energy fell from its limbs and back like a cloak, spreading far as it lifted higher and higher.
The incarnation of Ynnead held up a hand and a beam of corpselight formed into a leaf-bladed spear – Vilith-zhar, the shape-changing cronesword, forged in an inferno of burning aeldari spirits while Craftworld Biel-tan had been wracked by the birth-tumult of the Yncarne.
Spiralling over the aeldari, the Yncarne levelled its spear at the gilt-clad daemon prince, issuing a howl of challenge that pierced the ears. Watching the two of them facing each other, Yvraine was struck by the similarity – the hermaphroditic appearance of both and the elegance of their manifested limbs. She shuddered at the thought that the Yncarne might be born in the image of the Great Enemy, but the unease passed with the revelation that the opposite was true: She Who Thirsts had been moulded as the aeldari from whose perverse dreams the Chaos God had been spawned.
Sweeping aside necrontyr and aeldari with its whip, the daemon-warrior launched itself at the Yncarne, black fire trailing from the twin blades of its spear. Vilith-zhar gleamed with icy light as it met the downward slashing lance. The two artefacts crashed together with a detonation like thunder, hurling the daemon prince meteor-like into a phalanx of necrontyr warriors while the Yncarne whirled away like a reeling tornado.
Yvraine’s heart hammered as Ynnead’s avatar readied again, black sparks burning welts through its immortal flesh. The daemon prince rose up trailing streamers of gauss fire from the surrounding squads of Unliving, ignoring the particle beams whipping at its torso.
The exalted servant of the Great Enemy directed its whip towards the Yncarne, the grasping soul-lash aimed for the wrist of the hand holding the cronesword. The Yncarne chopped down, catching the twirling whip end with the haft of its mutable weapon. Tendrils of spirit-whip coiled about the haft and the Yncarne pulled, wrenching the daemon prince closer.
Among the silvery bodies of the necrontyr the unleashed sun-eater had fallen upon the scarab-prince and was prising apart its shell casing with energy-manifested limbs, vomiting fiery ejections into its writhing foe. At the head of the Ynnari Aspect Warriors the Warshard had despatched the snake-prince and now hewed its red-hot blade through swathes of fiends and daemon-riders, the guns of its followers cutting down dozens more.
‘Yvraine!’
The Visarch’s call warned her in time to dodge the daemonclaw that would have separated her left arm from the shoulder. No longer entranced by the duel between the immortals, Yvraine realised that she had been standing in a circle of the Coiled Blade, defended by their klaives while the Bloodbrides dealt death further afield with a storm of attacks. She sheared the head from the daemonette as it lunged again. Alorynis pounced from beside her, fangs and claws sinking into the long face of a monstrous fiend as it burst through the cordon of incubi. Hissing, the gyrinx leapt away, tearing the creature’s head to tatters as he did so. The remains flopped to the floor, becoming dried wisps like ancient parchment before scattering to dust.
All across the plaza the Ynnari were pushing forward again. Yvraine could feel their souls drawing strength from the fallen, a gathering power snared from the dead all across the tomb complex. The return of the Whisper brought not only the Yncarne but rejoined the Opener of the Seventh Way with her people once more. The lifeforce flittering around her was like a constellation of beautiful stars, shot through with the nebulous rising spirits of the dead.
‘We are the Reborn!’ she cried, raising the Sword of Sorrows above her head. She fed on the gathering energy of the dead, making herself the eye of a soulstorm that whirled faster and faster around her. ‘We are the wrath of Ynnead!’
Yvraine drew the tempest into herself, becoming the conductor for the lightning of the Whispering God, jets of immortal flame spearing from the upraised tip of her blade. With the fire of death enveloping her, the Opener of the Seventh Way drove forwards through her bodyguards, sword striking with a life of its own. Each sweep of the cronesword shattered the body of a daemon, turning them to scattering cr
ystal-like shards. From their demise wreathing flames erupted, jumping from daemonette to daemonette, earthing through the eyes of fiends and mounts, crawling across ornate chariots and burning hell-serpents to ash.
At the head of her host, Yvraine advanced and the daemons perished.
While Yvraine had reached out to her god, Nuadhu had been swept up by concerns far more visceral. The grief of his half-sister and father lingered like fog in the air, though shot through with relief. He was at odds with himself, his emotions wrenched at the sight of his family’s heartbreak but feeling little of it himself. He had spent so long ruled by simple passions it jarred him that he felt distanced at this time, as though he looked upon the scene from afar, and only witnessed his part within it.
‘She is gone,’ whispered the chieftain, face in his hands.
Nuadhu felt Caelledhin crouch beside him but did not take his eyes from Naiall, whose shoulders sagged even further. Neamyh and others gathered about them but Nuadhu paid them no heed. The Wild Lord reached out a hand to his father’s shoulder, reassuring himself even as he hoped to lend his strength.
‘Look…’ Caelledhin pointed to Naiall’s hands, where tears leaked between his cadaverous fingers.
The flesh gained some colour, the skin seeming to thicken, masking the thick veins beneath. Hands quivering, Naiall sat back and moved them from his face. His cheeks had more flesh on them, his eyes brighter and white, not jaundiced as before. With lustre returning to his fingernails the chieftain pulled back his hood and ran thickening fingers over his scalp. Where before dead skin had flaked now was only smoothness, almost pink like an infant’s.
‘It was killing you,’ said Nuadhu.
‘No body can sustain two spirits,’ said Caelledhin. She reached out too and between them, Nuadhu and his half-sister helped Naiall to his feet.
An explosion not far away caused the chieftain to flinch, a reminder to them all that the battle was far from over.
‘What does this mean?’ asked Neamyh. ‘Will he live?’
Nuadhu could not say, but Naiall answered the question with a sorrowful nod.
‘The burden has been released from my body. Now it will return to its natural course.’ He looked first at Caelledhin, tears blistering in his eyes. ‘I am so sorry. I thought there would be some way… I thought that she might be returned to us. I could not…’
‘It was a noble gesture, but she would not want you to wither away simply to forestall her death.’ Caelledhin swallowed hard and wiped the tears with the back of her hand. ‘She died for me a long time ago, now she has simply been set free.’
‘You look much stronger already,’ remarked Nuadhu. Assured that Naiall was not at any immediate risk – no more than the rest of them – the raging sounds of battle now nagged at the Wild Lord. He took a step back towards Alean and flashed B’sainnad a look, receiving a nod of understanding in return. He looked at his father and half-sister. ‘Someone has to close the vault.’
Nuadhu turned away but was stopped by an unusually fierce grip on his arm.
‘No!’ Naiall drew in a heavy breath. ‘I have already lost so much. I cannot bear to lose my son also.’
‘It cannot be helped,’ said Nuadhu, gently pulling himself free. ‘The Phaerakh said as much.’
‘There must be another way,’ begged Naiall as Nuadhu headed back towards the Vyper.
‘There is,’ he heard Caelledhin declare.
The Wild Lord half turned at the sound of running feet, just in time to see Caelledhin dashing towards him out of the corner of his eye. In the next moment metal flashed and something hard hit him in the temple, sending him sprawling to the floor with stars flaring across his vision. She stood over him for a moment, her pistol in hand, and then set off running once more, dashing past her shocked father to vault into the saddle of her jetbike.
Nuadhu tried to force himself up but dizziness swept through him so that he tottered like a small child. Pain flared through his head as the whine of Caelledhin’s jetbike cut through his hearing.
Turning sharply, his half-sister arrowed the steed towards the silver rift, rising quickly above the embattled hosts, following the course of Yvraine as the Opener of the Seventh Way carved a broad path through the daemons.
Nuadhu mastered his nausea and raised a hand to the messenger bead, activating it with a wince.
‘You cannot do this,’ he transmitted to her as he staggered towards B’sainnad, the weight of Drake’s Fang dragging at his arm. The pilot guided Alean closer but all Nuadhu could muster was a weak grip upon the rail of the fighting platform; he could not pull himself up. ‘The Phaerakh said mine was the blood-that-awakens.’
‘Blood that I share, my brother,’ she replied. The jetbike was a dark blur against the coruscating veil of silver energy, almost impossible to see against the brightness. ‘One must die to close the barrier.’
‘But not you, my sister.’ Nuadhu grimaced and mustered what strength he could, hauling himself onto the platform to sit behind B’sainnad. Caelledhin was almost lost from view, caught in the splay of energy fronds about the breach. ‘I am not fit to be clan lord. Our people deserve better.’
‘If this does not work, then feel free to follow me.’ Her laugh was short and forced, her next words delivered with heart-rending solemnity. ‘Do not overshadow my death with your fears. Leave me this glory. You must live, Nuadhu. I was wrong. Though he has many cycles left now, Naiall will not be chieftain forever. You will be a far better leader than I.’
‘I can barely control myself, never mind a whole clan,’ rasped Nuadhu.
‘You have time to learn. But do not change too much. Our people do not need a chaperone into the long night, but a star to light the way to glory for them. Burn bright, brother. Burn bright!’
It was impossible to know whether the stab through Nuadhu’s chest was simply a reaction, or if he literally felt the moment Caelledhin passed into the veil. With a loud moan he fell to his back, Drake’s Fang clutched tight. Against the dark skies the daemons, scythe-craft and aeldari fighters whirled and fought.
Silver flashes pulsed through the air, leaping from the prison vault. Each sparking sheet of power snatched at the daemons, setting barbs of energy in their immaterial bodies that dragged them back towards the breach. Searing flecks danced along the ground, looping tendrils of silver light about the host of the Great Enemy, shearing through them, whipping their screaming forms back into the breach.
‘It worked…’ B’sainnad muttered. ‘She did it.’
Nuadhu rolled to his side and craned his neck to look at the pyramid. Squinting against the intensity of the light, he saw the flailing shapes of daemon princes, fiends and steeds dragged into nothing. Flickers of portal-energy crawled across the empty ground devouring the incorporeal remains of the slain daemons, leaving nothing behind.
A dozen heartbeats after Caelledhin had disappeared not a daemon remained to pollute Agarimethea. Nuadhu sat up and stared about him in amazement, his gaze moving to the curtain of power that enveloped the pyramid. For a little while longer he strained to see anything, desperate for a darting shape to emerge.
But the Watcher of the Dark had not lied.
The silver fractured, became streamers of rainbow hue, which in turn faded to just memory. The pyramid stood inert against the dissipating aura of the daemon-taint.
Caelledhin was gone and would never return.
Chapter 28
AN UNEASY TRUCE
The quiet after battle can be more unsettling than the din of war, bringing with it the silence of voices lost and the nag of questions that cannot be easily answered. Such was the case in the aftermath of the daemons’ banishment. The lifeless eyes of the necrontyr phalanx glared from the gathering twilight, lighting the city with their pale green essence. Not a warrior or scarab stirred, not dormant but diligent, awaiting the next command of their Phaerakh.
Agarimethea had once again become a place of the dead.
Alliance forged in necessity easily breaks at convenience, and Yvraine was keenly aware of the metallic legion massed around her own, much-diminished force, their weapons silent for the time being but poised for immediate attack.
From the midst of her host strode the Warshard, Anaris bathing them in the gleam of its fire as the First Avatar raised the widowmaker in salute to her.
‘One foe is vanquished but another remains,’ growled the Warshard, turning its ember gaze upon the Unliving army.
‘We cannot face the Watcher of the Dark’s host and win,’ said Yvraine.
Around her the Coiled Blade and Bloodbrides gathered, the Visarch at her shoulder once more. Overhead the Yncarne drifted back and forth, sated for the moment but ready to unleash the power of Ynnead if needed.
The Saim-Hann were scattered all about, Wild Riders and clan warriors heading for each other as remnants of necrontyr formations dispersed back to their main lines around the pyramid plaza. Yvraine saw Nuadhu and his father side by side, surveying the unlikely scene together. Rid of the burden of Iyothia’s soul, Naiall Fireheart stood straighter, and even had a pistol in hand.
She looked for Eldrad and found him with two of the Saim-Hann seers – the third lay like a crumple of discarded robe not far away, wisps of vapour drifting from a body incinerated by daemonfire. Several warlocks loitered close at hand, witchblades and singing spears at the ready. Eldrad sensed her attention and broke away with a parting word to the other farseers.
‘Look.’ The Visarch pointed with his blade as ranks of armoured necrontyr parted to reveal the Phaerakh. Above the Watcher of the Dark loomed the imprisoned sun-eater, its baleful energies wrapped about itself for the time being, lapping along the sides of its levitating cell like waves on a shore.
Wild Rider - Gav Thorpe Page 29