Valedor, p.24
Valedor, page 24
A great shout went up from six hundred warriors. Aloec smiled with savage glee, but as he did so he glanced to the sky. A fresh wave of drop spores were streaking fiery trails through the air.
And still there was no sign of Prince Yriel.
Four hundred million paces astern of the Flame of Asuryan, the majority of Yriel’s fleet engaged the tyranids in space as Yriel and five squadrons of escorts drove planetwards like a spear, forcing their way through a cordon of Kraken ships. The shelled monstrosities were fast for void ships, acting as a screen for those larger hive vessels descending to feast upon Dûriel. Yriel’s task force rushed past them, leaving the creatures lumbering in their wake. High-velocity boarding worms shot across space. Most missed, the eyes of the hive fleet baffled by the holo-field-shattered silhouettes of the ships, but in such great volume the torpedoes came that some hit home. A couple of vessels lagged behind as they were penetrated and warrior beasts disgorged into their interiors. Screams and the sounds of fighting echoed through the communications webs, those conveyed psychically distorted by the hive mind’s crushing might.
The input from one hundred and ninety-seven ships would have been overwhelming for most commanders – tactical displays and bridge views, external images of close engagements, voice feeds, psy-feeds, all coming into the bridge of the Flame of Asuryan – but Yriel was no ordinary admiral. Burdened by the spear, he hunched like a crow, but he watched the displays with a hawk’s eye.
Audio reports sounded from every quarter.
‘Get those cruisers away from Vaul’s Caress!’
‘Under heavy fire, taking damage…’
‘We shall draw away the thirteenth echelon from the rearguard…’
Every so often, the sober reports of Iyanden and Biel-Tan’s captains were interrupted by the whooping shouts of some of the more free-spirited corsairs or Dark Kin, or the hysterical laughter of Lord Sarnak as another hive ship detonated, spilling its entrails into the void.
‘Sarnak is bold,’ said Yaleanar.
‘He is reckless, my shadow,’ said Yriel, watching as the Kabal of the Black Heart’s void cutters sliced deep into the hive fleet’s heart.
‘Sounds like someone I know,’ said Yaleanar.
‘He seeks to kill the norn ship, the queen at the heart of the swarm, and garner glory for himself. He mocks us also for our supposed timidity. He should wait until we have delivered Vaul’s Caress to the surface. Sarnak!’ he said loudly. ‘Do not penetrate too deeply. Pull your fleet back. You cannot hope to take the heart of the swarm yourself.’
Sarnak appeared in an image sphere. ‘Oh, don’t be so tiresome. Could you leave me be, I am a little occupied.’ The picture broke up as his ship took a hit. The bridge juddered, and Sarnak and his crew were thrown from their feet. A scream followed. ‘On the other hand, perhaps we should reconsider our tactics,’ said Sarnak, more soberly than Yriel had ever heard him speak. ‘Yes, I will do as you say.’
‘Concentrate your efforts on drawing away their quicker vessels. Keep them off my fleet until the Fireheart is delivered. If you can destroy the swifter escorts, we will have a greater advantage when we attack.’
‘You send me into danger to save yourself?’ Sarnak raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure you are not a Commorrite, Lord Yriel?’
The Flame of Asuryan jibbed sharply to starboard, the violence of the motion overcoming its dampening fields and causing Yriel to lean into it to keep his balance. ‘I assure you, it is equally perilous here. If you do not do as I ask, breaking through to the core ships will be impossible and no matter what the result on the surface, we will have lost. Draw them off, destroy them piecemeal. If you dare the swarm entire, they will overwhelm and destroy you.’
‘Aha! The death of a thousand cuts, I like it. A particular favourite.’ Sarnak looked directly at Yriel, eyes alive with amusement over his preposterous grin. ‘I ask you again, are you sure you are not a Commorrite, Lord Yriel?’
‘Will you do it or not, Sarnak?’
Wrath kindled in the kabalite’s eyes at being addressed so, but another massive detonation rocked his craft and he nodded. Yriel cut the feed, switching back to a remote view of the Dark Kin’s impressive fleet. They sped through space alive with void-hardened organisms as they broke off from their attack run. One of their larger cruisers was not quite nimble enough, and was snared by the thousand-kilometre tentacles of a Kraken ship. Delicate spars were wrenched free from the vessel and it was brought to an abrupt halt. The ship opened up with its weapons batteries, blasting directly into the creature’s shell aperture. The Dark Kin’s vessels had been equipped with toxin cannons, and the tentacles blackened rapidly and the creature drifted away.
‘Their weaponry is efficacious,’ said Yaleanar. ‘Next time, we should do the same.’
‘There will be no next time. And they are not efficacious enough, my dear Yaleanar. Watch.’
Three more ships grabbed at the cruiser as it limped away. One made straight for the vessel, energy fields playing over its stubby tentacles. There was a flash as a massive discharge of bio-electricity shorted out the dark eldar ship’s shields. It was rapidly torn apart.
‘A costly loss,’ said Yriel.
Yaleanar reached for his friend, placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘Leave them to it, my prince. We have monsters of our own to slay.’
Yriel nodded, directing his attention to a frontal view. Dûriel rapidly approached, its atmosphere swirling with red cloud, lit from within by lightning. A swarm of ten space-borne leviathans, strange organs within them counteracting the pull of Dûriel’s gravity, were descending into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, their feed tentacles probing down from their undersides. Their sides rippled as they ejected mycetic spores.
‘In all my life, I have never seen anything like this,’ said Yaleanar. ‘At once I am astounded by what the galaxy has to offer, and surprised how the same forms are repeated endlessly. To look upon the voidspawn from above, like fish in a pond, I do not know whether to be amazed or bored.’
‘These fish have a powerful bite,’ murmured Yriel. His quick eyes darted over the image, tactical scenarios playing in his mind. He spied a weakness quickly enough; not a fatal one, but one that would allow Vaul’s Caress through and that was all that was required of them at this stage. ‘Squadrons Kurnous’s Eye, Isha’s Grace, the Star Wraiths, target the creature on my mark. Honourable Way, The Third Imperative, drive its friends away.’ Targeting runes locked on one of the beasts, slightly off the group’s centre. ‘On three, two, one. Now!’
Swift eldar vessels sped ahead of the Flame of Asuryan. At the same time, the Flame opened up with every forward facing weapon it had, a barrage of lasers and torpedoes cutting across the void and slicing into the flesh of the beast.
The Flame of Asuryan sailed close to the planet, the last tenuous wisps of Dûriel’s sheath of air dragging at the keel, Vaul’s Caress and its escorts close behind.
‘Come about, go for another pass!’
The Flame banked, broadsides raking across the group of creatures. To their stern, the Wraithborne acted as fleet rearguard. They turned side on, tempting the Krakens to snare them in their tentacles. The creatures on the boarding worms were quickly overpowered by the ghost warriors crewing the ships. The dead eldar then boarded the craft holding their own ships, blasting the Krakens apart from the inside with their distortion cannons.
‘So far so good,’ said Yaleanar.
‘Let us not count our blessings yet, my shadow,’ said Yriel as the Flame lined up again on the targeted bio-ship. Its fellows were being herded back by flights of fighters and bombers and the harrying actions of his other escorts. The bio-ships had anti-gravity, of a type, but their beast munitions did not, and Yriel had the advantage of being higher in the gravity well.
‘Again!’ he shouted. Another fusillade ripped along the voidspawn, and gaseous clouds of atomised body fluid billowed out. Vaul’s Caress opened fire a second later, adding its lesser fire to that of the Flame. The bio-ship slid to one side, tentacles flailing feebly. ‘Again!’
The Flame turned sharply, dodging a Kraken that had made it through the Wraithborne. Behind the flagship one of the wraithships exploded in a brief nova-flash. Below it, laser and plasma fire stitched bright lines of blue and red across the roiling mass of Dûriel’s atmosphere.
‘Admiral!’ said Yaleanar excitedly. ‘The ship is dying, it is dropping! A masterly stroke!’
‘Again!’ said Yriel through gritted teeth.
The Flame sent another broadside smashing into the wallowing bio-vessel. The port side of it split open entirely and it fell with sudden rapidity, its skin glowing hot with the stresses of atmospheric entry.
‘Fighter wings, form up. Vaul’s Caress, go now. May Asuryan guide you safely to the surface.’
The Naiad-class cruiser shot out from behind the Flame, sails folding as it drove into the atmosphere at great speed, friction fire streaking from its energy shield. Fighters flew either side as they punched through the hole in the feedships’ swarm.
‘Three-tenths until Starving Dragon makes contact with the fleet, admiral,’ said the master of the ship’s eye.
Yriel gave a dry laugh. He wore a rictus grin not dissimilar to Sarnak’s. ‘They are slow, we will be long gone by then. Destroy the rest of those wallowing below us, then we shall go and help our Dark Kin take their prize. Far Ranging Hunger will trouble the galaxy no more after this day, I swear. Charge all weapons! We engage at close quarters.’
In the thick air of Dûriel, Vaul’s Caress burned bright, and then was swallowed by the cloud. In its wake, bio-ships died under Yriel’s relentless barrage.
Chapter Thirteen
The Battle for Dûriel
The eldar were an island of colour in a ravening sea of bone and blood. Sunspear stood at the peak of the island, a bold figure atop a promontory of the dead. Far Ranging Hunger’s weapon creatures were ranged against them from one side of the plain to the other, an endless tide coming at the Aspect Warriors of Biel-Tan. Immense gun beasts carrying symbiotic cannon were crawling into range, their waddling gait sending their high backs rocking, so that they looked like bizarre, knobbled ships bobbing on a swell of claws. Sunspear directed his tanks and aircraft against these creatures, gunning them down before they could bring their own guns to bear. This still left his Aspect Warriors to deal with the heavier assault beasts. No matter how many his shrines of Fire Dragons brought low, there were always more. And yet more came in their wake; a steady rain of spores came in heavy over the northern plains, each landing with a wet crack that could be heard over the racket of battle, disgorging yet more warrior creatures.
Hethaeliar the Fourth-Blooded’s contemptuous purr sounded in his ears. ‘Autarch, Starving Dragon attacks.’ Images of the other hive fleet, the mass of its creatures writhing as if they were one organism surging up the valley, came into his viewing sphere. The roars of the beasts were clear through Hethaeliar’s audio pick-up. ‘We have no contact yet upon the peak. Our warrior-seers are ready, but the device and the rest of the council have yet to arrive.’
Sunspear looked heavenwards. The hive ships were invisible behind Dûriel’s atmospheric death shroud, but his helmet lenses painted their outlines onto his retina. Fiery trails cut through high altitude clouds, but from what the debris came, he could not tell; eldar or voidspawn, it could so easily have been either.
The meteor storm intensified. The rain of spores diminished, replaced by much larger chunks of burning matter. Several were of many megatonnes, and came rushing through the sky trailing smoke and fire. They came to ground tens of thousands of paces distant, their impacts shaking his position. His instinct was to tell his troops to take cover, but there was nowhere to hide. His heart lifted a moment as he saw a wreck that was identifiably voidspawn. The massive creature floundered in the sky, crumpling under the influence of gravity it was not bred for. Eldar cheered as it fell sideways towards the earth.
‘We must fight on,’ said Sunspear. ‘Prince Yriel approaches.’
Vaul’s Caress shook, a toy in the hand of a mad giant. Ariadien gritted his teeth. He was helpless in his cockpit, the Sound of Sunlight strapped fast into the hold of the cruiser. He was frightened, more frightened than he had ever been. The roar of gases against the hull was the roar of the Dragon, the fire its fire, the swiftly approaching ground its maw… He could see it in his imagination, coming up at them remorselessly, the jaws ready to snap shut.
The ship bucked, throwing him about in his steersman’s chair. He bit his tongue, and tasted blood in his mouth.
+Brother.+ His sister’s voice in his mind. +Be calm, brother. Do not be afraid.+
She was unafraid, her soul peaceful. Her calm enveloped him as surely as a caress, driving back the thunder of descent. He pictured her, cradling his head against her breast. Ariadien burned with shame at his cowardice. +It is I who should be brave for you. You never wanted this.+
She laughed sadly in his mind. +Can a poet not be brave? To write the heart’s desires and present them, raw and bloody, to an uncaring audience is more terrifying than war!+ In his mind’s eye she kissed his brow, a tender sending from her. +You are no coward, brother. All your life you have sickened yourself with worry for me, and I thank you, but it was needless. I am your twin, and am as strong as you. Together we are stronger than any other. Do not be frightened.+
+Neidaria…+
A psychic pulse rushed from the spirit core of Vaul’s Caress. The Sound of Sunlight’s systems came to life, its own spirits stirring at the command of the ship. Ariadien came back to the present with a rush, his mind slipping from that of his sister and into abrupt communion with the souls of the Titan’s core.
‘The doors open, let Khaine set forth his bloody plans and take his tally of blood,’ spoke the captain.
Immense g-forces tugged at Ariadien as the ship pulled up from its dive and levelled off, its inertial fields useless in the gravity well of the world. Another shift in gravity as it banked around, and a sudden, chest-crushing halt.
The restraints holding the Sound of Sunlight whipped free. Ariadien turned his – the Sound of Sunlight’s – head to the right, and watched as the Curse of Yriel stepped out from its throne, head bowed against the low ceiling. Its weapons appeared from the wall, and it took them up in huge hands. The rear doors of the cruiser swung open with haste, and red light flooded into the hold from outside.
The Curse of Yriel drew itself up to its full height, and strode off, framed against a boiling red sky.
The Sound of Sunlight looked to its sibling, the Silent Scream, seated opposite.
+After you, dear sister,+ it said.
Their souls bonded to each other and the spirits of their Titan’s cores, now it was for Ariadien and Neidaria to be giants, and to take their turn at shaking the world.
Around Khaine’s mound, voidspawn died in their hundreds, but each successive wave came closer to the lines of Aspect Warriors, and in two places assault beasts had broken through and were being destroyed only with much loss. In the centre of the worst of these conflicts, the Avatar of Khaine fought, his spear bringing death with every thrust. Confident that the god-shard would bring victory there, Sunspear turned his attention to the right, where four living tanks bellowed out the hive mind’s anger, tossing their heads and sending brave warriors flying from their brow horns.
‘Shrines Ninth Blackened Hearth and Words of Reason to the right flank. Destroy the breakthrough of Far Ranging Hunger.’
‘Yes, autarch,’ said the exarchs of the shrines together. Sunspear looked down the hill of corpses. The two shrines pulled back smoothly from the front line and moved the hundred paces to the breakthrough, traversing the treacherous, ichor-slick carapaces of the dead tyranids quickly. He waited for them to engage, watched Ninth Blackened Hearth melt half a living tank with concentrated fusion fire before turning away to find another target.
He was alone on the mound of the dead, the rest of the Inner Command remaining upon the Godpeak. He checked his multiple viewing orbs. He itched to join the fight, to hold his sword in his hand and spill blood by the side of Khaine, but his place was to oversee. His honour had been compromised by failures in command, not in combat. His direct involvement would have to wait.
A sonic boom shattered the sky, rolling across the battlefield. A few of his warriors looked up, and several were pulled down by their foe in doing so, for the Great Devourer’s creatures were of more singular purpose.
Sunspear looked up himself, as a flight of twenty bright yellow fighter craft came towards the ground, engines howling. They pulled up at the last moment, screeching scant dozens of paces from the ground over the horde besetting Biel-Tan’s Aspect Warriors. Baleful energies crackled around their prows and were released, a crescent of howling, horrifying force that carried with it the cries of the dead. Sunspear felt a shadow upon his soul, a bitter taste on his tongue.
‘They have made weapons of the souls of the dead,’ he said unbelievingly. ‘Now Iyanden goes too far…’
His outrage dissipated when he looked again to the horde of aliens. Broad swathes of them had been felled, as neatly as crop stalks fallen to a scythe. The aircraft came hurtling round, eldritch weapons charging again. He watched this time as the discharge rippled out over the heads of the voidspawn, and saw them collapse like puppets with their strings cut. The pressure on his lines abated. The assault beasts assailing the right lost their support, and were soon surrounded and shot down.
A second later, another peal of ship thunder, and a larger shape came tearing down from the heavens, as roaring and deadly as the rage of Asuryan himself.
Vaul’s Caress plummeted earthwards, fire streaming from its fins and weapons blisters. To see a void-runner in atmosphere was a rare thing, for even the ships of the eldar struggled against the heavy embrace of a planet, and yet here one was. Sunspear gazed up at it, transfixed. It seemed as if it would crash down on his very head, but it too corrected course several thousand paces over the battlefield, its gravity generators halting its downward trajectory in short order. Its momentum redirected, the great craft swept on towards the Godpeak, weapons suited to the great destruction of space combat blasting huge holes in Far Ranging Hunger’s endless hordes, sending spumes of earth high into the sky and eliciting a loud cheer from the Biel-Tanians.
