Valedor, p.13
Valedor, page 13
Sunspear dismissed the image.
Forlissiar dipped into the skein. ‘You will withdraw, and you will salvage your reputation.’
Sunspear looked into the valley. His warriors, unaware of what approached, continued the hunt. ‘No. The task is almost done.’
‘You will withdraw,’ repeated Forlissiar.
Sunspear’s pride overwhelmed him. He would not add defeat to his unblemished tally of victories. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘We need only a little more time.’
For the second time in two days, Thurliarissa found herself retreating. She fought as if possessed by Khaine himself. Screaming hordes of winged aliens fell from the skies, swooping low to discharge their vile flesh weapons at the Aspect Warriors. The sky was black with them, numberless pairs of wings blotting out the sun. The aliens’ composite mind was a crushing presence. A cold intelligence regarded her through a million eyes, staring at her with an indifference that made her feel small and afraid, ancient and powerful though she was; prey for an infinitely superior being.
‘Starving Dragon!’ came the cry over the communications network. ‘Starving Dragon has awoken!’
First was a shadow on the sky, a swirling mass that could have been mistaken for smoke driven into frantic curls by some inferno. As the eldar paused in their hunt for Far Ranging Hunger’s creatures to look up at this new occurrence, the reddish sun went dim.
The swarm had fallen upon them, and the fight for survival had begun.
Leathery wings flapped at Thurliarissa as small beasts scrabbled hard claws against her. Guns and mouths ejaculated searing acids onto her armour that pitted its ancient surface. Under such pressure, her personalities coalesced into near-perfect unity, each one of the souls which made up Thurliarissa supporting the other.
She swiped her chainsabres through delicate membranes, sending creatures crashing down. She stepped and whirled, ending the lives of crippled voidspawn with controlled bursts of shuriken fire, or blasting away their faces with her scorpion’s sting. Metal splinters shot from her mandibles; atomised by high-intensity laser blasts in the air, they burned flesh from the creatures with ease.
The shouts from her squad were losing their joy, becoming those of alarm rather than exhilaration. She ducked as a warrior variant swooped low on broad wings, claws outstretched. It missed her, only to jink sideways and snatch away Raelian. He struggled in its grip, blasted at its underside with sting and pistol simultaneously, but it bore him away into the flapping maelstrom and she did not see him again.
Her shrine was down to three members besides herself. They worked their way together, fighting in perfect concert, each blow powered by desperation. The swarm whirled around them, crashing through the thin trees of the forest. They caught glimpses of aerial combats: Swooping Hawks mobbed by dozens of creatures, jetbikes moving at insane speeds, far faster than the winged beasts could fly, dodging artfully only to be dragged down by the sheer density of the beasts. A constant rain of squirming bugs and weapon fluids spattered the ground, spent ammunition fired above them. A Crimson Hunter flight screamed overhead, spitting rapid death from its wingtips, but the skies were clogged, and one suddenly lurched to the side, flames spewing from its port engine, the result of an alien being sucked into its air intake. It plummeted, winged horrors bouncing from its fairing, going down somewhere to the south-west.
‘Exarch, I fear we are overmatched,’ said Ulieneathar, one of her last remaining warriors.
‘We shall fight on, we kill as many as we can, we die with pride,’ said the exarch, leaping high to eviscerate another large beast. It slammed into the ground. Creatures were falling from the sky, crashing through the trees. The noise of the swarm was tremendous, as overwhelming to the ears as the hive mind’s presence was to the mind, a hideous cacophony.
Falcon grav-tanks drove overhead, turrets swivelling. ‘Even the poorest marksman cannot hope to miss!’ said Ulieneathar, and laughed.
A scream to the left. Hadirel went down, clawing at his shattered faceplate. Blood spurted as writhing grubs pushed through the fingers clutching the wound and into the soft meat beneath. Three of them left in total.
The gems of Thurliarissa’s communications suite coloured red. A command pulse, broadwave broadcast. A voice spoke solemnly in her ear-beads.
‘Retreat, retreat. The day is lost. Retreat, retreat. We return home to mourn our dead.’
Maps sprang up in her lower visual field – fallback points.
‘We must fall back, she said coldly. ‘The fight is done untimely, home awaits us.’ What did she have to fear, who had lived lifetime after lifetime? Her last two warriors, Ulieneathar and Ralitheen, signalled their understanding. They turned and ran.
Foliage whipped across their faces. Creatures came at them from everywhere. Thurliarissa threw herself aside as a pair of Swooping Hawks crashed into the ground directly in her path, mauled flesh bloody through their broken armour. Something exploded in the sky, and burning debris pattered down. Slow-moving creatures, large as young void whales, had joined the swarm. Hundreds of the smaller beasts detached from these aerial brood mothers. Wings sharply folded, they swooped upon the fleeing eldar like eagles.
Other warriors joined the Patient Blade, other far-spread squads who had been engaged in the hunt for Far Ranging Hunger’s remnants converging on the evacuation point. Thurliarissa snapped off shots as creatures lunged for her. Their death screams, she fancied, were more of frustration than pain. Ulieneathar killed a couple of the lesser types with his shuriken pistol. Ralitheen chopped in a controlled frenzy about herself, every blow severing a wing and tumbling a screeching monster to the ground. Fist-sized beasts bounced from Thurliarissa’s armour, tiny mouths lined with rows of diamond-hard teeth snapping at her. She crushed them underfoot, where she could.
There were several dozen eldar Aspect Warriors streaming back. Their shrine markings were familiar to her from long association; Burning Rebuke, Hail of Tears, the Edge of Silence… They were all depleted, most under half strength, and they were still falling, plucked from the forest floor or smashed to the ground as multiple creatures mobbed them.
Calm instructions came to them over the communications web, directing them slightly to the west. They went up an incline. The noise of engines reached Thurliarissa’s ears, then heavy weapons fire.
A dozen grav-tanks were arrayed in a circle in a break in the trees, guns blazing at everything around them. Laser light and actinic bolts of plasma lit up the clearing, large-diameter shuriken scythed the sky of monsters. The sky rained burning tyranids, and the assault on the group grew less ferocious.
Guardian squads aided by the Shrieking Havoc shrine swept the evacuation zone free of voidspawn. Thurliarissa was a warrior first and foremost; death held little fear for her, for she was unlikely ever to truly die. If she did, another would come, don her armour and add their soul to those who had gone before.
But even she felt relief.
Eldar were emerging from the trees, pursued by warrior beasts. The monsters, intent upon their pursuit, ran straight into the barrage of cannon fire streaking from the tanks, and the eldar broke free. By order from the Inner Command, some joined the firing lines of eldar, other ran up the boarding ramps of the tanks. When full, the tanks closed up their doors and shot off into the sky, using their greater speed and agility to evade the swarm. Thurliarissa saw the flare of webway gates on the mountaintop, another storm of weapons fire there clearing a way for the tanks to drop off their passengers. Other tanks landed, empty, their doors hissing open and turrets adding to the aerial barrage around the clearing.
The tanks were several hundred paces away. Thurliarissa shouted for her last warriors to run. They were nearly there.
A roar split the air. A giant creature landed directly in front of her, the ground shaking with the impact of its taloned feet. A hive tyrant, a general of Starving Dragon. It bellowed again, raising its high-horned head to the heavens, wings spread wide. Thurliarissa took this as a challenge.
The creature was three times her height, heavily built, and surrounded by an aura of utter malevolence. Below the wings, two enormous weapon arms were held up in front of it, similar to those of a praying mantis, but broad and flat, the deep purple carapace on the front full of tiny holes. The creature shook, and these arms twitched, shooting a shower of sharp-toothed organisms at Thurliarissa. She dodged, but some caught her. The impact was phenomenal, the velocity of the creatures equal to that of solid-shell bullets. One of the things found a chink in her armour, and pain flared as it burrowed manically into her flesh. She ripped the grub out, crushing it between armoured fingertips.
The creature charged, horned head down. The psychic horror it projected had little effect on Thurliarissa. She had in her time fought the daemonic servants of She Who Thirsts, and the perils of the flesh held no fear for her. But it was big, and fast, and her battle skills were sorely taxed by its prowess.
The club-like weapons limbs flicked forwards. The air they displaced buffeted Thurliarissa as she pivoted on her back foot, bending her lithe body around the arms. As they passed, she saw the rear sides were lined with hundreds of triangular plates like teeth, each serrated and deadly sharp. She responded with a volley of shuriken at the creature’s eyes. The disks embedded themselves in its armour, only one finding its way through to the soft flesh beneath. The tyrant blew out air from its nostrils, and slammed its curved arms forwards again, whipping them back as fast in an attempt to snag her on their rear-facing blades.
Again she twisted, avoiding the blades by a hair’s breadth. She dropped to the floor, and slashed with her chainblades. The diamond teeth of the weapons caught at the horny plates covering the creature’s legs, jolting her arms, but did not cut through. She was forced to roll away as a foot descended, the sharp hoof and subsidiary claws upon its ankle biting deep into the ground.
Then Ulieneathar and Ralitheen were there, chainswords purring, raking the beast with shuriken fire from both sides. Through its pounding legs, she saw the flashes of colour as eldar sprinted past. Time slowed as her mind was filled with the memories of a hundred similar combats, each aspect of her composite soul appreciating the recollections in its own, subtly different way.
She pulled her knees under her. Pushing off from her feet, she leapt between the creature’s legs as it slammed Ralitheen to the side with its clubbed forelimbs. Ulieneathar drove his chainsword into the back of the creature’s knee joint. It stumbled forwards, wrenching the weapon from his hands.
‘Run! Run! This foe is too great for us!’ Thurliarissa called. Ralitheen was up and into a limping run, Ulieneathar sprinting ahead. The hive tyrant lumbered in pursuit. Building up speed, it spread its wings, gliding after them.
A crack of superheated air had Thurliarissa’s ears ringing as a lance beam snapped out from a Guardian support platform. It caught the tyrant square in its wing joint. The spread limb furled awkwardly, and the tyrant came down. As it got to its feet, other weapons came to bear on the giant beast, hammering into it mercilessly. Its chitin cracked, luminous ichor spilling down its exoskeleton. It roared weakly, and sank forwards.
Thurliarissa and her remaining warriors made it into a waiting Falcon grav-tank. Three more eldar leapt in after them. Warriors jumped into three other transports alongside their own, and the doors began to close.
The voidspawn were not done with the Patient Blade. With the tanks concentrating fire on the hive tyrant, a sudden surge of beasts flew in over the evacuation zone. Shuriken whistled at them in an upward hail, felling dozens. Scores got through.
As one, they opened fire, sending a tide of living ammunition streaming into the holds of the grav-tanks. The door to Thurliarissa’s transport hissed shut, sealing the warriors into the craft with thousands of squirming weapons grubs.
The creatures spasmed violently, expending what little life they had to destroy the eldar. First to fall was Ulieneathar, shrieking horribly as the beetle-like constructs burrowed through the weaknesses in his armour and through the hardened bodyglove beneath. Then Ralitheen. And finally Thurliarissa. They all swatted at their limbs, fingers digging frantically at flesh to pull the creatures out, but there were too many.
Pain of a kind Thurliarissa had never felt overwhelmed her as the creatures chewed through her soft tissues, their barbed bodies scraping against her bones. Acidic secretions burned her nerves. The strength left her legs. She collapsed to the floor, and was engulfed by the grubs.
The last thing Thurliarissa heard in this life was the screams of eldar in many transports being devoured alive.
All over the Valley of the Gods and the Godpeak, eldar were withdrawing. Craft fell from the sky as they were overwhelmed. Grav-tanks were chased by shimmering clouds of living ammunition. Webway portals burst wide as squads and vehicles fell back. Here and there, daring seers dropped webway beacons, and temporary doors opened into the network, allowing the evacuation of isolated units who otherwise seemed trapped.
It was as close to a rout as any withdrawal Sunspear had overseen. Screams filled the airwaves, adding to the insidious terror projected by the hive mind. Purple and white tyranids broke like a wild sea upon small islands of eldar resistance.
Sunspear remained to the end, directing the heavy weapons fire of his weapons batteries and tanks to aid the evacuation as best he could. To the west, on a crag below the command post, his Revenants fought with three gigantic hive crones, the bladed tips of the tyranids’ limbs slicing curls of wraithbone from the Titans’ armour. He clenched his teeth as he watched a giant winged creature knock a war walker from a cliff, snatch up a second in its claws and drop it onto the rocks below. In the valley, the Avatar of Khaine battled on, its giant form reduced to a glow surrounded by darting shadows by distance. Sunspear watched as its fires were gradually eclipsed by the creatures attacking it.
He could not save it. Shame filled him.
‘The heavier elements of our force have withdrawn from the valley, Autarch Sunspear,’ said Hethaeliar the Fourth-Blooded, her sing-song voice as empty of emotion as ever.
‘What of Guardian group Whispering Aid?’
‘All dead, autarch. As with so many others, their waystones remain where they have fallen. It is something of good fortune that none, as yet, have been destroyed.’
‘How many dead?’ said Sunspear quietly. A Crimson Hunter exploded in the valley below. To his left, a range of support weapons intensified fire to the front of the rock shelf, battering a rearing harridan out of the sky. Its cargo of gargoyle children shrieked as they burned.
‘Four hundred and eighty-seven,’ she said. She shrugged. ‘None damned. That is a thing.’
‘It is a thing,’ agreed Sunspear without conviction. ‘Sound the final retreat.’
‘What of the Avatar, autarch?’ said Hethaeliar.
Sunspear turned away from the battle below, refusing to look at the place he had last seen the god-fragment. His posture told Hethaeliar all she needed to know. Sunspear looked at the farseers by his Wave Serpent, entirely occupied with keeping the morale-sapping presence of the hive mind at bay. His heart was like lead, his tongue ashen. ‘I will inform the farseers myself.’
Hethaeliar the Fourth-Blooded dipped her head. ‘As you wish, Autarch Sunspear.’
Her words were bland. Hethaeliar seemed entirely emotionless outside of combat, but within the carefully phrased statement, Sunspear detected her censure.
The eldar left Dûriel. The last to leave were the great Revenants, the rearmost covering his sibling as the webway portal gaped wide to allow his entrance. Stalking backwards, pulsars blazing, the second Revenant left the plateau below the summit of the Godpeak.
Within, wayseers hastily performed the rites of closing, sealing shut that which had been shut for ten thousand passes, but they worked under great pressure, and the hive mind battered at them as they sought to lock the way. Thinking their task done, these eldar returned to their ships with heavy hearts, not knowing that the doors had not been closed.
Deep in the forests of Dûriel, a pile of corpses stirred. An eye opened underneath a tangle of limbs. With a snorting grunt, a leader-beast stood tall.
A four-armed creature, a great swarmlord possessed of deadly and sure purpose. The eldar had been thorough, but the creature’s cunning was depthless, with a sharp mind of its own, and able to draw upon millions of years of the hive mind’s experience. Red and bone was its armour, the colours of Far Ranging Hunger. It roamed the mountainside, gathering to it those of its kind that had survived, burrowed in the ground, hidden in cracks in the earth, or lurking under mounds of dead warrior beasts. As the hive mind, focused through this leader, made contact with the primitive cortices of the creatures they ceased their basic behaviours, sharpness returned to their eyes, and they moved with surer purpose. Those of Starving Dragon fell under its influence also, quickening in infinitesimal steps the merging of the two branches of the hive mind present on Dûriel.
All over Dûriel, Leviathan calmed, going back to its feeding. But Kraken did not. Scouring the site of the battle, the tyrant at last came to the peak of the mountain. There, through unearthly senses, it spied an emanation of energy suspended above the ground.
Driven by the limitless malice of the hive mind, it went to investigate.
Chapter Seven
Strange Ambassadors
There was no joyous welcome for Sunspear’s force. The ships exited the webway and slid into the docks of the Towers of Bloodied Knives without fanfare. A semicircle of seers awaited him, heads bowed and expressions grim.
+They believe he has failed,+ mind-whispered Taec to Kelmon. The two of them were on a balcony overlooking the quayside. Crowds of silent eldar looked on with them, lining the walkways and viewing platforms that jutted over the quays. Many cast their eyes askance at the Iyandeni. Kelmon’s presence elicited abhorrence in the Biel-Tanian civilians already, and Taec was uncomfortably aware that they were held accountable for Sunspear’s defeat. Their staring annoyed him.
