Valedor, p.26
Valedor, page 26
‘You use the world to slingshot us.’
Yriel stabbed a finger at his friend. ‘Exactly!’ He flung his hands wide, and called out with theatricality, ‘All ships, into formation!’
Behind the Flame, Vaul’s Caress and the dozen or so remaining escorts fell into line, captains apprised of their admiral’s plan. Sails filled with solar energy, pumping power into the vessels’ stardrives. They sped on, outpacing the remaining Kraken ships of Far Ranging Hunger. Dûriel’s bruised sky slid beneath their keels, and then they were over the terminator, from day into night.
‘Steady at the helm, we come at them now,’ said Yriel.
‘Asuryan’s grace,’ said Yaleanar hoarsely.
Ahead was the vast fleet of Starving Dragon, that which the Imperium named Leviathan. It was a name well chosen. Starving Dragon attacked like Far Ranging Hunger, spreading itself as tendrils across a broad range of space. But the hive mind had learned, and the fleets of Starving Dragon, though divided, were far bigger than those of Far Ranging Hunger. There were so many voidspawn vessels in the Dûriel fleet they blotted out the stars, a long, snaking line of them a billion paces across stretching far back into space.
‘Quickly now! Make all speed. We are seen,’ said Yriel. He snarled. The shaking in his limbs subsided to nothing. A dry heat burned in him.
The small taskforce whipped around Dûriel. The hive mind saw them – they all felt it, its immense, alien psyche reaching across the stars to crush them – but they were too fast. The ships crashed through the picket line of Starving Dragon’s Kraken ships – these of mottled purple and slightly different evolutionary form to those of Far Ranging Hunger – and went hurtling through the crowd of hive ships dipping their beaks to the feast below. A lucky volley of bony torpedoes clattered on the hull of the Flame, and they were through, outpacing the bio-ships before they could come around to face them. From night to day they went again, accelerating to a substantial fraction of the speed of light under the impetus of Dûriel’s gravity. The wraithbone core of the Flame pulsed with the delight of its resident spirits, and they were away. Dûriel fell behind them until it was a coin of light and Sarnak’s rearguard came speeding into view, heavily invested against the larger part of Far Ranging Hunger’s void swarm.
‘Drop sails! Prepare for immediate attack!’
The battle here had gone worse for the eldar. Far Ranging Hunger’s hive fleet was vast, and the sons of Eldanesh had been forced to abandon some of their speed in order to tempt the voidspawn to stay in place and keep them clear of Prince Yriel and the Fireheart. The flotsam of broken eldar vessels spun everywhere. The Flame dodged past a dark eldar cruiser snared in the crushing embrace of a Kraken ship. Squadrons of escorts duelled with void-hardened fighter creatures propelled on daggers of bio-plasma.
‘This,’ said Yriel angrily, ‘is an unforgivable mess. Sarnak! Lord Sarnak of the Black Heart Kabal! I call upon you! Answer me!’
An image, much disrupted by rainbows of interference, sprang into life. Sarnak was bloodied, his bridge even darker than before. Sparks showered in one corner. A dead eldar hung from a wrecked steering console behind him. Gunfire could be heard from some distant quarter. His ship, the Poison Leer, had taken a good deal of damage, but Sarnak, true to himself, was still smiling.
‘Ah! Prince Yriel!’ he said, as if they met upon a pleasant boulevard rather than in deadly battle. ‘So good of you to join us. You were successful in your venture, I trust?’
‘The Fireheart is delivered, we were successful. You less so.’
‘This is no pleasant feast, my prince,’ said Sarnak. ‘You see their numbers. We have done what was asked of us, and might I add, only at the charitable intention of my Lord Vect.’
‘You did not listen. You did not do what was asked of you. You are glory-mad. I told you to wait for my aid, and you did not.’
Sarnak’s eyes narrowed. ‘Nobody speaks to me like that, prince. I should blast you from the sky this very…’
‘Cease your idiocy, Commorrite!’ shouted Yriel. ‘Your ship is coming apart at the seams. Are we to fall to blows while our common enemy waits to pick our flesh from the void? Truly you of Commorragh have become insane!’ He slammed his spear shaft hard upon the deck, setting it ringing.
Sarnak’s expression darkened further. Yriel sighed deeply, collecting himself. He spoke quickly before Sarnak could retort.
‘Tell me, Sarnak, do you wish to survive this engagement?’
Sarnak looked at him with amazement, and his hostility turned to a laugh. ‘Why, yes. That would be an agreeable outcome.’
‘Then have your ships withdraw to this quadrant. This is our prize, the lair of their queen.’ Bright lines delineated a huge, slug-like shape hidden at the heart of the fleet. ‘Destroy the norn ship, and these three ships here – her consorts – and their defence will falter. Are you with me?’
‘Yes, my prince!’ shouted the crew.
‘As you say, we have tried, with no success,’ said Sarnak.
‘I said, Lord Sarnak of the Black Heart, are you with me?’ Yriel hissed the words, spittle flying from his mouth, the Spear of Twilight across his chest.
Sarnak’s eyes flicked to the blade of the ancient spear. Slowly, he nodded. For a brief second, his eternal grin slipped from his face. ‘So be it.’ His smile returned. ‘It is the prize I wished for anyway,’ he said with forced breeziness, then, behind him: ‘We are in the hands of the exile now, all ships follow the Prince Yriel’s lead! This I, Lord Sarnak of the Black Heart, command!’
Upon the Godpeak the farseers sang. The subsonic pulses of the Fireheart grew stronger with every moment, resonating throughout the crust of Dûriel. Tremors erupted periodically, sending skittering avalanches down the flanks of the awakening volcano.
At the head of the valley, Ariadien and his sister flanked the Curse of Yriel, volleying fire into the swarming voidspawn of Starving Dragon. The eater beasts had retreated, and tens of thousands of warrior and weapons creatures had replaced them. Ariadien picked out the larger creatures as he had been instructed. He had not known which were the higher priority, but he had quickly identified which deaths had the most impact. The synaptic web of the hive mind was almost tangible to him in his heightened psychic state, and he felt it quiver with each of the leader creatures he killed.
His sister used her vibro-cannons to send shockwaves through the ground, ripping up linear plumes of rock dust across the valley floor, flattening aliens to paste. These tremors joined those of the Fireheart, creating complex earth music Ariadien found as pleasing as he did disconcerting.
As he rained fire on their enemies, he watched the other eldar forces. He and his sister were fortunate, as their guns far outranged those of the enemy. Although terrible in effect, the convulsive muscle mechanisms most of them utilised to propel their ammunition restricted them to closer quarters, and so far the twins had avoided any form of direct contact.
Others were deeper in the thick of it. Another Gemini squadron stalked the battlefield, these of Biel-Tan. More twins. One giant was all of white with a green helm, the other reversed, both with curling patterns of black thorns decorating their limbs. They stalked through the heaving swarm, crushing tyranids underfoot. He briefly wondered what it would be like to meet them, but the only communication they had shared was a brief dip of weapons by way of salute.
The sky was clotted with eldar grav- and aircraft. Starving Dragon had begun the battle with a terrifying aerial force; but that had been dealt with, mainly thanks to the large number of sky-runners the Dark Kin had brought with them, and now speeding jetbikes of both kindreds strafed the seemingly endless ground horde. Hemlock fighters arriving with Vaul’s Caress cut swathes through the masses, and the pulse of missile detonations launched by Crimson Hunters knocked hundreds of aliens flat. Ariadien zoomed in on different parts of the conflict; to the west, cult wyches of Commorragh leapt over giant creatures sporting huge symbiotic cannons, other wyches fought daring battles of speed with snake-like creatures that erupted from the ground. At the foot of the mountain the Great Troupe of Harlequins battled a horde of six-armed, bulbous-headed horrors that were possessed of reflexes almost to match their own. Almost. The motley-clad warriors were even more graceful in battle than they were in war.
At various points, Aspect Warriors guarded the way to the summit and the Fireheart, while around Ariadien and his sister was ranged a host of Guardians from both craftworlds, more of their own kind here than elsewhere. He heard occasional reports and orders coming from Sunspear’s position to the north, but how they fared, and where the rest of the Phoenix Host were, remained unknown to him. Near their position debris burned as it fell from orbit, and it was possible it was falling on the autarch’s force.
‘Be alert! Starving Dragon attempts to force a passage,’ said the triple voice of the Curse of Yriel.
Ariadien followed indicators to the disturbance. There, at the foot of the mountain. His Titan brought up a close-in image, partly obscured by a shoulder of rock. A thick formation of Starving Dragon was forcing its way upwards. A guard of heavily armoured creatures was at its front, many dozen of the large warrior beasts behind them. A number of the larger snake-creatures followed and, at the centre, three of the great generals of the Dragon, hive lords, whose minds focused the diffuse attention of the hive mind to needled immediacy. Shining Spears and the Reavers of the Dark Kin darted around them, shooting many down, but they came in such multitude, and with such ferocity at arms, that the eldar’s valour made small mark upon the horde.
‘Direct fire upon the leaders and their guard. They must not get through,’ the haughty female Biel-Tanian autarch ordered them.
Ariadien dutifully swung his pulsar weapon arms around and opened up on the swarm. It was a poor angle, and many of his shots blasted red-hot scores into the rock between himself and the advancing aliens, but some got through. A blast of jets washed over him. He looked up to see his sister leap into the air, landing on a bluff where her vibro-cannons would have a better line of fire.
With foreboding in his heart, Ariadien followed.
The Poison Leer and the Flame of Asuryan flew side by side, their path cleared before them by the Wraithborne. On their flanks, eldar ships flew daring, jinking paths, drawing Kraken vessels away from the flagships. Dark eldar cruisers lured them close, before ravaging them with poisonous broadsides.
A wall of vessels, each tipped with a staggeringly-scaled bone ram, was forming up in front of the speeding eldar craft, blocking their final attack run to the norn ship. Dazzling light poured from one of the many viewing orbs on the bridge as another of the Wraithborne’s craft detonated. The five dark eldar destroyers that had been following it broke away in every direction in an attempt to dodge the debris cloud. One was too slow, or unlucky, and caught a chunk of wraithbone across its primary sail. Rolling out of control, it was easy prey for a darting shoal of attack annelids who latched onto it and, squirming obscenely, injected floods of acid into its hull.
‘Hard to port!’ shouted Yriel. The Flame heaved over violently, the remnants of the Wraithborne ship flaring up as they hit the flagship’s energy shields. They were closing on the ram ships, who were accelerating towards Yriel and Sarnak’s vessels. Long straight shells made up a third of their length, housing bio-plasmic drives. The remainder was taken up by their immense beaks. These were living missiles.
‘Concentrate fire on my mark!’ ordered Yriel. He selected three ships, painted them in the runes of firing, and sent his orders on.
The Poison Leer and the Flame of Asuryan blasted away at the ram ships accelerating towards them. At first, the laser blasts and torpedoes they flung at the tyranid vessels seemed to have little effect, exploding on the bone prows with no visible damage, or scoring deep gouges in shells intended to survive the worst the void could throw at them. But then one, and then a second, began to emit colourful clouds of burning gas from ruptures in their sides. The first detonated; the other drifted, propelled off course by the gas it vented, into the path of its brood mates.
‘Now!’ screamed Yriel. He wrenched control of the ship from his bridge crew. His fingers playing with supernatural speed over the control jewels of his command pod, he channelled power to the engines and adjusted the trim of the sails, sending the Flame leaping ahead of Sarnak’s ship. The gap in the wall of ram ships was closing. Two smaller eldar vessels shot through; a third attempting a bold manoeuvre impacted against one of the larger voidspawn craft, sending flame roaring around the bio-ship as it exploded. Wings of fighters ran out ahead of the Flame, guns silent. The pilots were aware that they could not harm the horned hides of the ramming ships, and saved their energy and concentration for evasion.
‘Sarnak! Follow!’ said Yriel.
All weapons blazing, the Flame of Asuryan blasted through the wall of ram ships, the Poison Leer behind it. More of the vessels collapsed or exploded as eldar broadsides opened up all around.
Then they were clear, and the norn ship was ahead of them.
‘And now the real test begins,’ said Yriel.
Half a dozen ships had made it through, along with several wings of fighters and bombers. The rest of the fleet remained entangled with the wall of ram ships; although the bio-ships could not catch the fleet eldar, they prevented them from proceeding to reinforce their admiral. To their rear Kraken vessels, tentacles waving, were closing.
‘Guard our backs, save yourselves,’ said Yriel. ‘Lord Sarnak and I shall kill the brain, and then we shall dismantle this swarm from the inside out.’
‘How delightful,’ said Sarnak. ‘I can’t wait to tell my friends about this at home. They will be so envious.’
Dark eldar, Biel-Tanian and Iyandeni ships rushed towards the norn vessel, a gargantuan slug-like thing a hundred times the length of an eldar battleship. What could be described as a head was apparent at one end, an arachnid protuberance surrounded by a fringe of pseudopods. The body was massive behind this tick-like thing, covered in a sheath of bone and horn armour that was pockmarked by long passage through the void. As the eldar started their attack run, glittering puffs erupted from spiracles studded all over the ship’s integument. The heavy presence of the hive mind grew thicker, muffling the eldar’s minds, and dulling their senses as if they were underwater. A sense of incredible terror came with it.
‘Ignore your fear, my Eldritch Raiders, it is a projection, intended to scare us away! Be more aware of the passive defensive systems,’ said Yriel. ‘Clouds of crystal and aggressive organisms. They will refract your laser fire and punch through your hull using your own velocity against you.’
‘I have done this before, you know,’ said Sarnak. ‘You speak to me as if this is my first battle.’ But his words lacked bite, his voice strained.
The two battleships, their escorts and attack craft sped on, running fast over the head of the norn ship and down its length. Laser banks set to a broad spread vaporised the clouds of living chaff, but one after another the smaller craft flew into unseen banks of the stuff. Their shields overloaded with sparkling flashes of light before their hulls were shredded, eaten through by suddenly active organisms whose instincts were triggered on contact, or the armour stripped away simply by dint of high-velocity collision.
‘Be wary of the clouds!’ screamed Yriel. ‘We are losing too many,’ he said to Yaleanar.
‘Incoming fire!’ shouted a bridge officer.
Banks of orifices along the flanks of the hive ship spasmed, shooting out larger munitions of bone and bio-crystal. Complex subsidiary creatures bedded into the norn ship convulsed, and balls of greenish plasma rushed at the oncoming vessels. More eldar craft were caught, wreathed in ghostly blue flames before exploding.
‘Here! It is here we must attack,’ said Yriel. He highlighted a portion of the hive ship’s body that looked much like any other.
‘Not the head?’ asked Sarnak.
‘Not the head,’ said Yriel. ‘That is only the sensory cluster of the vessel, and most probably a decoy. The seat of the hive mind dwells within the belly of the beast. Load vorpal torpedoes!’
The eldar ships yawed over, spiralling into the shadow of the creature. The underbelly of the bio-ship rushed over them, a strange landscape of wrinkled skin. Lesser tyranids scurried over it, closing its wounds with silk, while others toting weapons symbiotes headed to more advantageous firing positions. Eldar fire picked them off, smearing their juices over the body of their mother where they rapidly froze in the chill of space.
‘There!’ said Yriel. ‘The ship-birthing canal.’ A sphincter the size of an asteroid came into view, set into a ridged crater. Horn plates were closing over it as they approached.
‘All ships, open fire! Torpedo banks, loose on my order…’
The entire fleet swarmed around the orifice, launching hundreds of volleys of missiles into its depths. The weapons, directed by their own sophisticated guidance systems – the psy-links the armsmen normally used were non-functional in the face of the hive mind – flew under the horny plates and exploded. The sphincter was caught by the concentrated blasts and twitched, exposing the innards of the vessel for just a second.
‘Now!’ screamed Yriel, leaping to his feet and brandishing the Spear of Twilight. Its dark power burned through him. Time slowed. He saw the spread of vorpal torpedoes flung out from the bow of his ship, twisting deftly through scattered debris and chaff clouds. One exploded, brought down by a spread of hyper-velocity interception grubs, but the other four flew on, through the gaps in the horn plates as they slid closed over the torpedoes.
‘It is done!’ said Yriel. ‘All craft, break off or we will die with it.’
The eldar ships swooped around, tearing away from the massive norn ship as fast as they could. The flash of explosions was visible around the plates covering the birthing canal. Distortion warheads in the vorpal torpedoes activated, opening short-lived portals into the warp. The raw power of the Othersea seized at every eldar mind as the norn ship was torn apart from the inside, the rear section imploding with great violence. The front half of the vessel came away, leaving what was left of its rear end wreathed in flickering warp lightning.
