Valedor, p.12
Valedor, page 12
Sunspear caught his breath. The third beast, the wide-mawed one, was dying under a barrage of fusion gun fire coming from a squad of advancing Fire Dragons.
He signalled the Banshee exarch. Unusually, a male. ‘Aseterion, where is the rest of the battle group?’
‘Delayed, Autarch Sunspear. The ambush slowed our withdrawal, they are under attack.’
‘The Great Dragon turns its attention that way, autarch,’ said Kellian. ‘We have our chance. Bring forth Khaine now!’
Sunspear retrieved his fusion gun and allowed the exarch and warriors to guide him, leaving his map dormant for fear of its distractions.
They came to the edge of a low rise; below them an arc of Aspect Warriors were embattled by dozens of large tyranid creatures. The hive mind was particularly strong here, the density of its synaptic web apparent to the sensitive eldar.
‘Here,’ said Sunspear. He pulled his webway homing device from his belt. Kellian leaned heavily upon a tree and inclined his head slightly in affirmation.
‘Khaine will wreak much havoc.’
‘Then this is the correct place,’ Sunspear said to the warriors. ‘Come, we will aid them, and bring the wrath of Khaine down upon the enemies of Biel-Tan. The Avatar will lead us into battle.’
Sunspear circled away from the fight at the base of the hill, taking his group of Aspect Warriors with him. Kellian remained behind; the might of the hive mind was taking its toll upon him, but he shielded Sunspear and his warrior band from its psychic senses as best he could. They went through the trees undetected, gained the level ground without incident and ran into a clearing floored with hard stone. The forest was unexpectedly still, though the combat rumbled on out of sight. There were no voidspawn present. All had been drawn off in the swarm’s attempt to destroy the Aspect Warrior force.
Sunspear tapped at the floor. What at first looked to be a natural stone pavement was in fact made up of shattered paving slabs. He looked around, at moss-covered boulders and lumps in the understorey. On second inspection, many looked formed by sentient hands.
‘A garden of the old empire. A fitting place to call forth our wrath,’ he said.
With a flick of his thumb, Sunspear activated his webway beacon, casting it into the air. It hovered, spinning, gentle light emanating from it. The light intensified, glimmering like a star as the device was consumed, its power generators forcing open the skin of reality as they burned out.
A long slit appeared in the air, and widened, peeling back the forest scene as if it were upon painted cloth. A nebulous shape of light hung there.
A tremor passed through the ground. Sunspear’s heart quickened, his war mask surging to the forefront of his consciousness and threatening to drown his reason in blood.
‘The Avatar of Khaine! Blood will flow freely by his hand, death approaches and we serve,’ Aseterion whispered, joy in his voice. His mostly female shrine set up an ululating cry, while the Fire Dragons and Dire Avengers with Sunspear declaimed their own complex war chants.
An outstretched hand the size of an eldar’s torso emerged from the portal. Hot blood dripped from it, hissing when it hit the mossy paving. The Avatar stepped through the rent in reality, and onto the surface of Dûriel.
The Avatar resembled a stylised statue of an eldar warrior, many times life size, its roaring face crowned with a regal helm. A core of white-hot metal was its body, iron plates that glowed red with heat its armour. In its hand it held a long spear, the Suin Daellae, the Wailing Doom. The weapon sang its wrathful song, and it fired the eldar’s hearts with battle lust. The warriors whooped louder as they gathered around it, hands tightening on weapons in their eagerness to spill blood.
‘Now,’ said Sunspear, his voice hard and savage, ‘let us sever mind from flesh, and destroy the ability of our foe to control its body. Onwards, to glory and the restoration of our kind!’
‘Biel-Tan! Biel-Tan! Biel-Tan!’ the Aspect Warriors chanted.
The smouldering figure of the Avatar leading the way, the eldar fell upon the concentration of tyranids.
Thurliarissa and the Shrine of the Patient Blade killed and killed, and the tide of voidspawn did not abate. Four great creatures directed the horde of red and bone beasts, guarded by squat, dome-headed monstrosities. At their command, waves of shrieking monsters crashed into the Aspect Warriors. Raw terror emanated from these leader things, battering at the minds of the eldar, causing them to falter and sapping the strength from their blows. Even so, many of the eldar had managed to withdraw, broken free to go back to the transports and reinforce the eastern front. Wave Serpents rushed overhead, heading for the spore-hazed cliffs on the far side of the valley. That was good.
Thurliarissa was lost in her art, the five minds that made up her personality working as one, drawing on dozens of arcs of experience. Although the Great Dragon was a new foe in the galaxy, many savage beasts and psychic horrors had fallen to her blades over the aeons and she was not afraid.
She slashed and cut, severing weapon-limbs at the elbow, ripping open hardened thoraxes, blasting shuriken from the pistols built into her chainsabres into vulnerable eyes and mouths. Not all weak points could be engineered away.
She bent over backwards as a crackling sword of bone swept over her. The creature that wielded it did not hold the weapon; rather the hilt was melded to its hand, ribbed tubes going from the sword into the arm. Thurliarissa caught sight of dark eyes near the base of the blade, vestigial legs fused to the fingers of the warrior beast wielding it. It too was alive. A claw came after the sword, then another, weaving a cage of talons around her. She saw the sword coming again, and did an elegant cartwheel away. She spun on her heel, driving her chainsabre into the hilt of the living weapon and cracking its shell. The sword squealed piteously; the creature carrying it roared, sharing its weapon’s pain, and she took her chance. Dodging under its other arms, she raised her fists and decapitated the creature with a hail of shuriken. It staggered forwards, arms waving, the body perhaps under control of its symbiote-sword, but its mind was evidently not strong enough, and it jerked spasmodically before crashing down.
The Shrine of the Patient Blade was down to five. Four of her warriors had been killed, including rash Dariathanar. He had lost the opportunity to learn his lesson of earlier in the day.
Her warriors fought well, working in pairs as the scorpion’s claw works with its sting, pinning and then destroying alien after alien. Not far from her position, Dire Avengers of the Diligence of the Argent Fault Forgotten cleared a wide arc with the endless firing patterns of their catapults. The ground before them was littered with shattered flesh, the ground sodden with alien life fluids.
The Burning Rebuke fought again alongside the Patient Blade, Oskirithil of the Sorrows directing his warriors to vaporise those creatures too mighty for the Striking Scorpions’ weapons. And so, as each eldar was deadly in his or her own right and was made deadlier by fluid cooperation within the squads, the multipliers of force where several different elements worked together were astounding. This is art, Thurliarissa thought, the greatest art known to our kind. She revelled in her exarchhood; a fate terrible to most eldar was to her the finest of all things the galaxy had to offer.
Yet deadly as they were, still battle’s tide turned against the aspect shrines.
Fully half of the taskforce’s Aspect Warriors had been trapped in the valley, attacked by voidspawn drawn to the Swordwind’s initial thrust. Such was the way of the Tempest of Blades, to strike and withdraw and strike elsewhere. The greatest danger to its warriors was to become bogged down and lose their formation’s fluidity. This had happened in the valley. Slowed momentarily by the ambush, they had been caught by their pursuers. Two hundred Aspect Warriors of many shrines battled the horde, but deadly as they were, they were ill-equipped to fight such a war of attrition. The eldar slew the voidspawn by the score, but every rare death they suffered in return was calamitous.
Thurliarissa glanced to their flanks and saw the Aspect Warriors were being pressed back. They were surrounded. Some kind of munition like a large fruit blurred through the air, landing in the middle of Diligence of the Argent Fault Forgotten. The seed pod erupted in a frenzy of tentacles, whipping out and tearing the Dire Avengers from their feet. Its activity reached a crescendo, ripping limbs from fragile bodies, and the tentacles fell limp, their energy expended. The Diligence of the Argent Fault Forgotten was no more.
Jetbikes and Vypers streaked overhead, strafing the horde and bringing down the living tank that had fired the strange munition, but heavier weapons were not being utilised, probably for fear of hitting the vastly outnumbered eldar in the maelstrom. The remaining three great leader-beasts, a massive swarmlord at their head, suddenly pushed forwards. No readying themselves, no sign of preparation, no signals, no warning, they just moved. Three-score of the large warrior organisms came with them, heading for the weakened centre of the line.
They were going to lose.
Thurliarissa vowed to sell this body’s life dearly.
A bellow from the north, from the trees. The voidspawn there turned their heads as the Avatar of Khaine strode into their midst. Its green and white plume whipped in the convection currents coming off its glowing body, its green cloak streaming behind it. It cast the Wailing Doom hard. The spear sped through the air, leaving fire in its wake, and plunged into the side of one of the leader-beasts. The voidspawn crashed down, eyes smoking, its internal organs burned out from within. Before the spear flew back to the Avatar’s hand he had smashed several lesser creatures down with his fists, their touch setting the broken corpses ablaze. Behind him came the Autarch Sunspear, greatest of Biel-Tan’s generals, and a portion of those eldar who had earlier withdrawn.
Suddenly, explosions rippled in the forest. Thurliarissa consulted her viewing orb; Dark Reapers had been brought down from the cliffs to the east. Guardians protecting them, they fired from the trees into the rear of the alien force.
The Avatar roared, hatred emanating from it so powerfully that the hive mind shrank back as dry grass shrinks back from fire. Smoke pillared in the distance, evidence of grav-tanks scouring the valley floor with high energy weapons.
The autarch’s voice came through to her helm’s ear-beads. ‘We have them trapped. Destroy their leaders, let Khaine bathe in their blood, for Biel-Tan!’
‘Biel-Tan! Biel-Tan! Ancient days reborn, our time comes again!’ came the shout from the Swordwind, and Thurliarissa’s heart sang. With laughter on her lips, she danced back into the fray.
Night came again to Dûriel. From the shelf on the mountainside the Inner Command watched the fires burn unchecked in the forests.
‘Every one must be slaughtered,’ said Sunspear.
‘They have gone to ground, autarch, it will take some time,’ Autarch Hethaeliar the Fourth-Blooded said.
‘It is to be expected. Their leaders slain, they will revert to animalistic impulses. At the least they will stay put and await their end. Seers?’
‘The mind of the Great Dragon is in disarray,’ said Kellian. ‘Its presence is upon the skein heavily, yet here it has little influence. We have rooted out the greater beasts of Far Ranging Hunger, rupturing its synaptic web. The integration between Far Ranging Hunger and Starving Dragon has yet to begin. The lesser creatures of Far Ranging Hunger will be easy prey to our warriors.’
‘Do not be so certain, Kellian, it ever was your weakness to see invincibility in Biel-Tan’s greatness,’ Forlissiar said. ‘As it is our autarch’s.’
Kellian bowed his head in acknowledgement of the older seer’s rebuke. ‘And yet you have thus far been wrong.’
‘Autarch Sunspear has fought a masterful engagement, it is true, and flawlessly exploited fate. The fact remains that we are pressed. As you yourself say, autarch, we do not have much time. We have kept the swarms apart, but to what end? Can we annihilate them all? I think not. The joining has yet to commence, but it will not be long before the fleet’s minds merge and then we will have a far more numerous foe to contend with.’
‘But how long will that take?’ said Kellian. ‘I see much confusion.’
‘It is a mistake to think of them as separate entities, they are one and the same,’ said Forlissiar. ‘I see a great chance that their bonding will go quickly. Once the two fleets are of one psychic accord, it does not matter how stealthy we are, the greater numbers of Starving Dragon will fall on us. And what of the creatures yet in orbit? There are several hundred of their hive ships, no doubt greatly equipped with more monstrosities to unleash upon us. One spore fall, and our work will be undone. We will have achieved a worthless victory at great cost in eldar lives.’
‘I have the night,’ said Sunspear.
‘You do, but it will not be enough. Daybreak will bring more death, and defeat,’ said Forlissiar. ‘This I foresee.’
Sunspear turned away from the flames in the valley and stared at the farseer. ‘That is as may be. We have bought Iyanden time.’
‘Ah, so you retreat from your initial aim of victory alone?’
Sunspear twitched with annoyance.
‘And this time. Time bought for what?’ said Forlissiar. ‘Altariec saw this clearly also. They have no means of preventing this merging. Even together, the two craftworlds are outmatched.’
Sunspear shook his head. ‘You are wrong. Kellian does not agree with you, nor did Serriestalor.’
‘Serriestalor’s mind is greatly ravaged, a direct consequence of his taking part in this battle. His personal experience indicates that, just perhaps, his opinion was incorrect,’ said Forlissiar mildly.
The autarch looked out from the mountain again, across the fires, to where, in the distance, the bioluminescence of the feeding Starving Dragon glimmered in the night. ‘Time is all we need, and time I have secured. Between us, Iyanden and Biel-Tan have the might. We will not be denied victory. I can feel it.’
Forlissiar moved dismissively. ‘You are no seer, autarch. Vague feelings are no match for the skein.’
‘And the skein is nothing without will and the sword’s edge to make it,’ countered the autarch. ‘You are timid. We will scour this valley of Far Ranging Hunger’s creatures, and be away.’
In the valley, the slaughter continued.
Chapter Six
Leviathan Awakens
The next morning came swift and sultry, the carefully engineered climate disrupted long ago by the carelessness of the human interlopers. The sun was a bloated orb, its light dispersed by the thickening of the atmosphere. Angry red clouds striated the atmosphere, and there was a sharp scent on the air that, although faint, induced a sensation of queasiness in the eldar if breathed too long without filtering. Far to the south, a thick black band of cloud cast shadows upon the dying planet, shafts of sunlight stabbing through to impale the scarred lands below – sunspears. The autarch thought this a good omen.
Sunspear stood on the lip of the rock shelf, staring out at the ravaged world. His helmet was off, his topknot blowing in the stiff, hot wind. He let his body relax, allowed its sensations to engage his mind; the feel of the airflow over the runes of dried blood painted on his face, the way his feet made tiny adjustments to keep him steady, the grit under the soles of his boots, the clasp of his armour, the drag of his cloak as it billowed. The light sparkling from the salt in the dried seas arrested him, his heart swelled with profoundly sweet melancholy, and he allowed himself to enjoy the ruination of a world.
‘It is beautiful, is it not?’ said Forlissiar, coming up behind him. Kellian was there too. Both were fully masked and robed.
Sunspear nodded. ‘Our ancestors saw the beauty in destruction, but it is unwise to appreciate it for too long.’ He turned his attention to the valley. Smoke, trapped by temperature inversion, formed a bluish pall over the trees. The sun had not yet cast the full force of its light upon the ground there, and through the haze bright points of smouldering forest twinkled like dying stars. The eldar’s weapons were generally too quiet to be heard at such a distance, but the occasional crack as a laser beam superheated and displaced the air and the thin roars of dying creatures came to their ears frequently.
‘How fares the hunt?’ asked Sunspear.
‘The psychic presence of the hive mind remains strong,’ Kellian said, gesturing upwards. ‘The fleet of Far Ranging Hunger remains in orbit, and moves towards that of Starving Dragon.’
‘We inhibit this fate in one theatre, another remains,’ said Forlissiar. ‘The beasts of the earth may be prevented from merging, but the Great Dragon sails the void unopposed. You have led well here, autarch, but it was ever a fool’s errand.’
Sunspear scowled. ‘And I say no again. Iyanden will be here soon. With our fleets combined, we shall scour the voidspawn from space as surely as we have from the ground.’
Forlissiar assumed the posture of extreme disagreement, shoulders back, one fist upon his hip. ‘That is a…’
A frantic communication interrupted their argument. A Vyper patrol. ‘Autarch! To the south!’
‘Manifest the image,’ said Sunspear, cutting through the pilot’s panicked voice. He placed his helmet on.
When his helm activated, the viewing globe came to life in front of him. The storm clouds to the south leapt into tight focus, a Vyper banking round in front of them.
‘They move against the wind,’ said Kellian.
‘Those are not clouds,’ said Sunspear.
The image zoomed in. What appeared to be storm clouds was a wall of winged tyranids, thousands of paces across. Not red and bone, but purple and ghostly white.
‘Starving Dragon has awoken, as I predicted,’ whispered Forlissiar. ‘We are discovered.’
‘Why was I not warned?’ said Sunspear. Dread gripped him.
‘The skein is clouded, autarch…’ began Kellian, but Forlissiar interrupted, his voice hard.
‘You were warned, autarch. We told you, Altariec and I, that this venture was doomed. And behold, your doom approaches. If we survive, I pray our counsel will carry more weight next time you march to war.’
