Ghost warrior, p.22
Ghost Warrior, page 22
Its face was elongated, steel teeth like daggers beneath a brow ridged with nodules of iron-bone. Eyes of burning embers regarded Iyanna, like perfect black diamonds lit with a spark in their centre. Its smoke-wreathed body was heavily ribbed, a hard carapace of bronze that shimmered as though still molten, armoured over flesh that pulsed and fumed like boiling magma.
Two hands lay upon the black iron arms of the throne, ending in elongated, articulated tripartite claws rather than the slender digits of an aeldari. Two more limbs stretched to either side; in the right a long spear tipped with a blade near half its length, itself as tall as Iyanna; in the left a large goblet of gold studded with red gems. The spiritseer remembered both well enough from her earlier Paths, when she had trod as warrior and warlock. The weapon was the Wailing Doom, Suin Dallae, and the crucible the Cup of Criel in which the blood of Khaine’s priests was sacrificed to the Bloody-Handed.
About its shoulders hung the ceremonial blood-red cloak, pinned into its chest by a sword of shining silver. Other amulets and sigils were inserted into its carapace, like offerings on an altar or temple wall.
It seemed immobile at first, but Iyanna knew from its scrutiny across the groupmind that the Avatar of Zaisuthra was aware of her. She could feel a delicate touch upon the borders of her thoughts, a massaging pulse of welcome quite at odds with the terrifying apparition before her.
A tendril of the creature’s thoughts brushed against Sydari, who advanced at her shoulder, his presence urging her forwards without force.
‘Witness the Patriarch of Khaine, our beloved protector,’ said the Lord-Guardian. He knelt and Iyanna offered no resistance to the gentle pulse of supplication that sent her to one knee also. Another sigh sounded about the chamber from the other attendants, accompanied by the whisper of cloth and the creak of leather as they too paid respects to the Patriarch.
‘For generations the Patriarch of Khaine has watched over the people of Zaisuthra. When we thought the gods dead, when we had fled into the bitter darkness between the most distant stars, we thought we were alone. Like you, and the other misguided, we feared the gods had finally died or left us. Yet there was one that had not. She Who Thirsts you have named her. Her touch followed us still, her curse was in our bones and in our minds. Our society was on the verge of collapse, our culture almost as depraved as the one we had fled. Assailed by our own weaknesses and assaulted by the daemons of the Dark Powers, there was no hope of salvation.’
Iyanna could imagine it well – Iyanden stood upon a similar precipice, despite all that had come before. They had the benefit of the Path, of farseers and aspect warriors, bonesingers and spiritseers. Even so, the dead outnumbered the living and their society was a stale replica of the force it had once been. What chance had a small craftworld alone on the tides of fate?
‘What chance indeed?’ echoed Sydari, Iyanna’s thoughts now part of the groupmind. ‘One chance, a miracle of heavenly proportion. We came upon the messengers of Khaine, who sought us from the outer realms. We and they became one, and with their strength, with the power of the Patriarch and the groupmind we stalled the decay and found fresh purpose.’
The unparalleled majesty of the primogenitor flooded the chamber and Sydari basked in the light of his creator. His adulation fluttered back across the groupmind.
First of first, I have brought the potential. His thoughts were hurried, fuelled in equal part by excitement and apprehension. He could sense across the groupmind that the conflict with the Ynnari was far from conclusive. Thinking of the fighting swamped his mind with images of gunfire and vicious close quarters combat swirling through the burning manses and sullen gardens in which the Ynnari had been housed. He felt the pinpricks of loss as another group-son or group-daughter was cut down or shot. Through the miasma of their dying thoughts the bright flame-minds of the grouplords, the renewed incarnations of the primogenitor’s pureness. They waited still, almost ready to spring forth when the enemy were most beset.
A psychic impulse snatched his attention back to the creator.
Bring closer, prime of the first clasp of the fourth binding, his groupfather bid, addressing the Lord-Guardian as it did all of the Zaisuthra, not by name or rank, but lineage. Mind-touch for harmonious congress.
Sydari edged Iyanna forwards several more faltering steps. Her resistance was instinctive, a simple reluctance to advance towards the unknown. Deep inside her thoughts the groupworms of his delving were still in place, settled about her consciousness to release their tiny but persuasive interventions. Not enough to control, not to dominate, though the creator and grouplords could do so if they wished. Just enough to lower her guard, to smooth away suspicion so that she would be more open to the truth.
The first, inserted when the shock of recognition had flowed from her to him in the shuttle, was almost withered and gone, but reinforcements in the form of his subsequent insertions were more than enough to guide her towards acquiescence.
Bind her to me.
It was a request made out of love, not lust. In Iyanna was all of their future. The Patriarch’s thoughts reverberated across the groupmind, echoing the distant sighing call that had been a siren song to them for half a lifetime, bringing them back from the outer voids. The spoor of the Host of Lords was upon Iyanna’s mindscape, as distinct as a scent or mark. Her memories betrayed her, flashes of the brood-creators from which all life was spawned. With her induction into the family the emptiness would be filled, her purpose restored.
Sydari swelled with the thought that he would be the one to bring Zaisuthra into a new era of growth. With Iyanna turned, the others would follow or be eliminated. Iyanden would come next.
Bind her!
Sydari snapped from his musings, responding to the plaintive desire of his primogenitor, father of all Houses. All would proceed as he had commanded.
The Zaisuthrans pushed into the teeth of the Ynnari firepower. The devotees of the Whispering God did not fear death, but their dedication was nothing compared to the unthinking sacrifice demanded by the groupmind. Almost heedless of their losses, the Zaisuthrans gained ground, determined to secure a foothold in Withershield. Warriors clad in armour, some of them heavily disfigured, hunched and facially horrific, pushed over the walls and into the lower chambers, sometimes over the bodies of their dead.
Meliniel did what he could to slow their advance but his troops were outmatched. Supported by heavier weaponry and scouring fire from circling anti-grav gunships, the tainted aeldari were able to seize the outer grounds swiftly even while the last of their number were purged within.
The battle entered a fresh phase, with the Ynnari trying to stem any incursion into the manse and its outer buildings, knowing that once the fighting broke out in the sprawling halls and corridors it was only a matter of time before they would be cornered. Repulse and counter-attack worked for a time, but Meliniel was forced to withdraw deeper and deeper into the cloisters and courtyards with each new Zaisuthran offensive, his squads unable to remain long in the open before drawing attention from the aerial foes – enemy he was loath to dispatch his own flying troops against until some solid gain might be made from such counter-attack.
The conclusion was inevitable. They were still losing ground and, through that, losing the battle.
CHAPTER 25
THE YNNARI EMBATTLED
Sydari paused and the assembled family rose, impelled by an unspoken wish of the Patriarch. The others of the House of Arienal came closer, their faces still lit with smiles, their eyes fixed upon Iyanna and the Patriarch with unabashed adoration.
Iyanna saw the younger ones more clearly, the gloom of their hoods and the vapours of the throne chamber no longer such an impediment. And through the groupmind also, she realised, their immature minds like bubbles on the lake into which all of their thoughts pooled.
Those she had taken to be the youngest were not so, their height was simply masked by hunched posture. Their faces were more like those of the Patriarch, with sharp cheekbones and brows and jutting jawlines. Flecks of hardened chitin marked them, their skin cast with a reddish-purple sheen.
And she saw also other limbs hidden in the folds of cloaks or tucked carefully behind backs – third and even fourth arms, ending in long claws.
‘Yes, we are all children of the Patriarch, one way or the other,’ said Sydari, smiling warmly at the youths. They grinned back, showing razor-sharp teeth and slender tongues. His demeanour shifted, becoming sombre. ‘Of late the predations of the Corrupt Ones have become almost overwhelming. You have seen the damage that has been done. The Patriarch is strong, but he is not all-powerful. Alone we cannot aspire to overcome this renewed danger. The attacks are fierce and determined, full of guile and hate of what we have become.’
His hand was on her back, not forceful but encouraging. The two of them drifted towards the immense creature on the throne, moving without effort or volition, drawn by its charismatic gaze.
‘You can be part of this, Iyanna,’ said Sydari.
The Lord-Guardian broke away and stepped forward, taking up the Cup of Criel as it was proffered by the Patriarch. He held it towards Iyanna and within she could see blood, thick and sticking to the sides, its strange aroma like incense in her nostrils.
‘You are one of us, Iyanna,’ he continued. ‘In spirit, and in blood, the House of Arienal called to you across the void and you answered. And we have come to you, perhaps, to find the alliance, the fresh blood we need to survive. Come with us, unite the House of Arienal once more, bring together our craftworlds. We will save Zaisuthra. We will make Iyanden great again.’
Iyanna looked at the cup and it was clear what was intended. She need only drink and she would become one with the groupmind, reunited with her family.
The Hall of Gates resounded with ongoing battle. The dim runelight of the portals caught on hails of poisoned splinters, twilight lit by dazzling klaive-arcs and the luminescence of Idraesci Dreamspear’s holosuit. Flares of white-ice power scoured from Yvraine’s eyes, becoming freezing flame that engulfed the tumult of alien and hybrid that spread into the chamber.
The Iyandeni contingent fought together, a tight group of yellow-armoured warriors close to the Gate of Malice. The guardians formed a firing line with their shuriken catapults, cutting down anything that followed from the passageway by which Dreamspear had arrived.
Their backs were protected by the twin warlocks. Side by side, Iyasta and Telathaus left a tide of broken genestealer bodies heaped about them. They fought seamlessly together, the one projecting lightning and fire while the other slashed and thrust with witchblade, alternating and interweaving between the roles as the ebb and flow of battle dictated.
They spun about each other, directing their ire first one way and then another, stepping in time with twinchronicity so that as one ducked, the other’s blade passed to cut down a foe, as the first dodged, the second unleashed a torrent of psychic wrath.
Rune armour gleamed with psychic power, warding away errant lasbolts and the clawscrapes of the purestrain aliens, sleeve and hem of robe scorched and tattered but no grander wound inflicted upon them.
Iyanna’s fingers curled around the stem of the cup, her fingers touching Sydari’s. The shock of contact reminded her that she still wore no glove, her skin against his skin, the warmth of him next to the coldness in her flesh.
‘How long have you welcomed the presence of the dead more than the living?’ the Lord-Guardian asked.
She did not answer. Could not answer. Even before Ynnead, before Yvraine and the Ynnari, she had been a tombkeeper, a soul lost between the worlds of mortal and immortal, living and deceased. There was a place here where she would belong, not simply be accepted or tolerated, or used.
This last thought kindled bright, igniting a passion she had not experienced for the longest of times. Yvraine called her sister, but what really did she offer? Servitude and oblivion. There had to be more to Iyanna’s remaining existence than simply as herald to an uncaring god.
Thoughts of Yvraine rippled through the groupmind. Now that Iyanna was part of it, on the periphery at least, she gained some of its function and awareness. She could feel the tendrils of its power throughout Zaisuthra, just like the nodes and capillaries of an infinity circuit, but far closer and hotter.
The Patriarch’s presence was a sun at the centre, the others all planets caught within their orbits. The craftworld was more than an amplifier, more than a tool, it was an extension of the Patriarch, and in return it was more than simply an unyielding avatar of a war god, it was the father and preserver, the font of life.
She knew why Sydari and his companions were called Lords-Guardian, for all was bent towards the salvation and protection of the Zaisuthrans, from the House of Arienal to all others. There was no concern greater in the minds around her, and in the groupmind that bound them, than the preservation of their extended family. Zaisuthra was one and whole, a stark contrast to the divisions that wracked Iyanden.
Something threatened that harmony. Iyanna sensed it as a bruise of the groupmind, a creeping laceration that worked its way from the outer edges.
Iyanna flinched, feeling the loss of a mind.
She reeled back; a tiny part of the groupmind diminished, the particle gone forever. Loss. She was so inured to it now, yet the sense of it was like the deepest grief, sending waves of dismay through the groupmind. Sydari hissed in physical pain and a brief moan of lament rose from the folk of the House of Arienal about them.
‘Yvraine…’ She whispered the name. ‘There is fighting!’
‘She is killing your brothers and sisters, Iyanna.’
Where before he had been gentle, now Sydari was hard and forceful. He met her gaze with an insistent glare and pushed the cup forwards. ‘We need you. With your thoughts the groupmind will know all that you know. We shall see all that you have seen, feel all that you have felt, share all that you have lost. And you need not be alone anymore.’
Iyanna let the cup touch her lip, the rim hard against the soft skin. She could not remember when she had taken off her helm.
This thought caused her to pause.
There was too much she could not remember, too much lost in the haze that had beset her thoughts since Sydari had first met her in the shuttle. Even now it was almost impossible to think of anything from before they had met, past that instant of connection when she had looked into his eyes; the eyes of her father.
The Patriarch shifted, raising a claw from the throne. Nothing was said, but its impatience was felt through the groupmind. Beyond, Iyanna was aware of more lights falling dim in the firmament of stars that was Zaisuthra, more family slain by her former companions.
Why had she taken off her helm?
‘Drink and you shall be loved forever,’ said Sydari. ‘Your family is waiting.’
‘My family is waiting.’
The warmth of the blood within the cup was on her breath, its scent in her nose. It was her sister’s embrace and her mother’s kiss and…
Meliniel bounded up the shallow winding stairway, taking the steps three at a time. The thud of armoured boots on bare stone echoed from wood-panelled walls, his guard of Striking Scorpions and former guardians just a few strides behind.
He reached the next landing just as a group of Zaisuthrans reached the top of the stair, as Meliniel had predicted he would, having seen them from across a courtyard heading in this direction. His spear found the throat of the first without hesitation, the pistol in his other hand shredding coat and padded jerkin of a second. Shouldering aside their falling corpses he ducked beneath a crackling maul to make room for his warriors, who met the half dozen foes with snarling chainblades and monomolecular-edged swords.
The haft of Ahz-ashir was more useful in the close confines of the landing; tripping, stunning, breaking bones. He felt the wisps of the Zaisuthrans’ departing souls and reached out with his thoughts to drag them into the spring of his own psychic power. It was hard, the groupmind of the craftworld gripped fiercely at the energy of its departed minions, leaving only drifting tatters for the Ynnari to absorb.
A cry of pain and the sudden burst of soulstuff behind him warned of a fellow Ynnari falling prey. He felt the wraithpower pass through him and from its touch recognised Thasasa, who had once been a Black Guardian of Ulthwé. In a fleeting moment he shared all that she had been, witnessed her triumphs and losses, from infancy to the dagger buried in her back.
And then she was gone, only to live on in the embrace of the Whispering God, her energy more motes of glittering power in the veins of the autarch.
The remaining warriors fell upon Thasasa’s killer, who had been kicked down but not slain. One of the Striking Scorpions took off the Zaisuthran’s head with a sweep of his chainsword, sending the skull bouncing down the stairs.
‘We have lost the second wing,’ Azkahr reported over the messenger-waves. ‘We have the third tower and the main building left. I think we need to break for the transports and get out of here.’
‘Await my instruction,’ Meliniel signalled back, though he did not doubt his second-in-command’s assessment.
Leaving the guardians to hold the stair, he led the Striking Scorpions along the heavily carpeted landing and into one of the vast bed chambers that flanked it. From there they broke out onto a veranda, coming to a place above where several Zaisuthrans were attempting to breach one of the upper storeys across a skybridge.
