Valedor, p.28
Valedor, page 28
He could endure no longer. With a sob, he fell, the protective dome winking out.
The swarmlord of Far Ranging Hunger reared over him, its head cocked on one side. Taec looked up into its alien eyes. Two minds looked back at him: the individual thread of the swarmlord was strong and readily apparent to the seer, but like all the creatures, it was but an extension of the hive mind. Its individuality was a useful illusion. Even in his terror, Taec found it somewhat fascinating.
Snorting, the swarmlord turned towards the seer council. It cut one down, then another. The psychic choir faltered, the song grew weak. The seers bravely kept up their ritual. The swarmlord’s followers were finishing the remainder of the Guardians protecting the south passage. Only a tiny group of corsairs and Prince Yriel stood between the Fireheart and the lords of Starving Dragon on the southern side of the peak. The jaws of the Great Devourer were about to snap shut.
Yriel’s veins burned with the power of the Spear of Twilight. His weak and aching body retreated from his consciousness, and he became only motion. One of the hive tyrants of Starving Dragon carried some secondary beast, a creature bent into the shape of a cannon: long-snouted, vestigial eyes at the root of an immense proboscis, tiny legs gripping the wrist of the creature that carried it. Ridged tubes led from its rear into the hive tyrant’s elbow, joining them as one. A flaccid sac pulsed sickeningly beneath it. The palpitations of the sac became rapid, and the tyrant raised its weapon to fire.
Yriel ran past the foremost leader-beasts, dodging their blows. A scythe-like claw whistled through the air at him. Empowered by the spear, he leapt clean over it, spinning as he went. Pushing off a chitinous limb with his feet, he landed upon the back of the cannon-carrying tyrant. He gripped the respiration chimneys on its back, raised the Spear of Twilight one-handed, and drove it down, aiming for a join between the armour plates. The spear’s tip blazed with heat as it penetrated. An almighty crack sounded, and the blade went through the outer armour layer. Slowed only a little by ablative cartilaginous layers under the exoskeleton, the spear passed right on into the soft meat beneath. Yriel let the spear take the merest sip of the creature’s soul, then yanked it free. Denying his weapon its feast took all his effort.
The hive lord howled and reared backwards, stamping its feet. Yriel clung on for a moment, then used its motion to leap free, landing on his feet as it hit the ground.
He felt psychic impulses – orders, no, thoughts, thoughts that moved the lesser beasts as he might move his limbs. Creatures rushed at him from all sides, the hive lords pressed on into the mass of his corsairs, unwilling perhaps to attack him.
Yriel opened his eye.
Lightning spewed from the Eye of Wrath, stabbing at the creatures, burning holes in their bodies. They fell shrieking.
Yriel reeled a little; the Eye was not used lightly, and it taxed him further. He stepped forwards, leaving smoking bodies behind him.
He set the spear’s butt on the ground, and whistled.
‘I am not yet done, Starving Dragon!’
Another of the hive tyrants turned. A further was staggering, close to death, ichor leaking from a hundred small wounds inflicted by his corsairs.
Roaring a challenge, the hive tyrant moved to engage the prince.
Taec closed his eyes and awaited the deathblow. ‘So it has all been for nothing,’ he murmured.
A deafening scream hit him. He opened his eyes. The swarmlord was writhing, bright starpoints glowing from its body. More light shone behind it. With a wet crack, the creature collapsed in on itself, and Taec’s soul was buffeted by the open warp.
Through the dying beast strode the Phoenix Host of Iyanden. Five silent wraithguard marched at their head, their wraithcannons smoking. Althenian Armourlost was behind them, Kelmon the wraithseer at his side. With them was Iyanna Arienal. The webgate flared wider and wider, and a stream of grav-tanks and bikes shot out into the storm-troubled skies of Dûriel. In their wake came Asurmen himself, leading his legendary Crystal Sons. Iyanden’s Avatar of Khaine came behind them, its fury pouring into the heart of every eldar atop the mountain.
For the first time in a long time, Taec felt awe. Here was the glory of the elder days born anew.
The wraithguard deployed in a line, crashing into the tyranids following in the swarmlord’s wake. Taec sensed the enemy’s disorganisation; the last of their leader-beasts destroyed, the creatures of Far Ranging Hunger cried for Starving Dragon’s guidance, but it was taking time to assert its dominance over them.
‘Destroy all, let weapons sing songs of death, end them now,’ said Althenian, his fusion guns turning warrior beasts to steam. He smashed one to a pulp with a blow from his fist. ‘Drive them back, let the living do their work, dead make dead!’
Asurmen led his crystal warriors into the fray, their weapons slaying dozens of warrior beasts. In short order, the voidspawn were driven back from the Fireheart.
The seers recovered. The faltering song re-established itself. Iyanna and Kelmon joined Taec. Seven seers of Iyanden silently filed around the Fireheart, filling the spaces made by the dead seers of Biel-Tan.
‘You took your time,’ he said to Iyanna.
‘We are here now,’ she replied.
‘Yriel is below.’ He inclined his head. ‘The three of us. It appears the High Council is gathered for the final battle.’
Iyanna looked about. ‘The end comes. We will begin evacuation, the spirit stones of the fallen will be retrieved.’ Already eldar spiritseers were plucking glowing jewels from the breasts of the dead. Others were taking to the air, borne away by swift transports or jetbikes to seek out others. The ritual collection bags they carried were empty. Taec knew they would come back filled with woe.
‘I will join the song,’ said Kelmon.
‘I have business elsewhere,’ said Iyanna. She looked from Taec to the statuesque Kelmon. They were both battle-worn; his armour was scratched in a dozen places, her face bloodied. ‘We share the burden.’
Taec hurried back to the circle. Iyanden’s warhost was deploying rapidly from webway gates crackling into life all over the peak. The remainder of Far Ranging Hunger’s attack from the north-west was isolated and butchered. Hive node creatures were tackled first, and once the coherency of the synaptic web was disrupted, the creatures of both fleets became easy prey.
Taec joined the song close by Kelmon. Bolstered by the newly arrived seers of Iyanden, the chanting of the group grew in intensity. The Fireheart pulsed with renewed rapidity. Gems blinked in sequence. Subsonics vibrated the ground at their feet. The mountain rumbled. Fissures opened around the device, running away in all directions. Steam spouted from them.
Eldar craft were taking to the air all around the mountain, troops falling back to their transports. The forces of Iyanden left their webway gates open, wraithguard and Guardians providing covering fire as they beckoned warriors to retreat from the shaking earth. With an almighty crack, the valley floor split, draining digestion pools in an instant. Lava welled up through the fissure, making the Valley of the Gods a lake of fire. The voidspawn were consumed by the hundred, and eldar too, cooking in their armour. The psychic perturbations of waystones shattering rippled over the skein as eldar experienced the horrors of the true death, their souls falling into Slaanesh’s waiting maw.
Still the seers sang.
A half-tenth cycle passed. The Fireheart stood on a tall column of rock, only its power fields maintaining its integrity. A vast pit had opened around the farseers, and they were lit by a fierce orange glow. The shields of the Fireheart rippled like oil on water as tephra pattered into them.
Still the seers sang.
Yriel plunged his spear deep into the rearing serpent. It keened terribly, and Yriel salivated as his weapon drank. Since the day he had lost his eye due to the spear feasting on the limitless hive mind, he had managed to control its fell power and its obscene appetites, but at this final pass he no longer had the strength, and the spear’s murderous soul overwhelmed him. He could not stop it feeding, drawing upon the infinity of spirit the Great Devourer possessed. Yriel felt the hive mind, heard it howl. It thrashed about, and Yriel was battered by its anger. Its thoughts were utterly, unimaginably alien. But one thing came through strong and loud. Hatred, hatred for this creature that had for the first time in untold aeons wounded it.
The spear drank and drank. Yriel’s spirit swelled with stolen soul-stuff, a tsunami of alien experiences drowning his mind. As it engulfed him, so it threatened to subsume him. Here was an ocean, an ocean of thought of a scale that was unimaginable. Only a god could drink an ocean. This ocean was pure poison, and Yriel no god.
For a moment his spirit flame flickered between two threads – that of Prince Yriel, and the immense cable of fate that was the hive mind, the Spear of Twilight black betwixt them.
The light of his being glowed low. With one last effort, Yriel plucked at the greedy sentience of the Spear of Twilight and dragged it free of its meal.
He staggered from the dead serpent, the spear rasping on the ground, for he no longer had the strength to lift it. The last moments of the battle raged around him, confusing and confused. All but a handful of the assault swarm were dead. His remaining warriors were snatching up the waystones of the dead, and calling the transports back to their position. The air was thick with grav-craft fleeing into the webway. As far as the eye could see, fountains of lava shot skywards, growing more violent with each tremor. The valley ran with molten rock. Screams of dying eldar sounded from everywhere, but they were brittle in Yriel’s ears, and his vision was lined by shadow. He breathed hard, but no air seemed to fill his lungs. His head pounded, the veins in his temples throbbed like wardrums.
He was dying. His heart ran slow, slow as a human’s. The spear pulsed with each beat, savouring the end of its meal.
He wavered at the edge of the precipice. A number of eldar bounded past him, driving back more of the creatures, breaking their assault. Yriel could not say from which kindred they hailed.
Slowly, he fell to his knees.
And then a hand, armoured and sure on his shoulder.
Yriel’s head lolled on a neck gone weak as rope. He tumbled, and the other stooped low to catch him across his knees. ‘Yaleanar? Is that you, my shadow?’
‘My prince,’ said his lieutenant, his voice clear despite being emitted by his helmet. ‘We will take you from here, your battle is done.’
‘No, not my battle.’ He managed a smile. ‘My time is done, loyal Yaleanar. Leave me, save yourself.’
Yaleanar unclasped his helm, and let it fall to the ground. His perfect face smiled down at the prince.
‘The eldar need you, my prince. Iyanden needs you.’ He set Yriel down gently, propping him against a fallen weapon-beast whose shattered cannon dribbled reeking fluids onto the rock. ‘I will summon aid. I love you, my prince, I will not abandon you.’ Yaleanar spoke aside, to others. ‘They will be here soon,’ he said when he had finished.
Yriel’s mouth ran with the bitter precursor to vomit, soaking his cloak and armour, but no vomit came. ‘Faithful, brave Yaleanar, there is nothing to be done,’ said Yriel, ‘it is the spear…’ He looked about him, suddenly frantic. ‘Where is it? Where is the Spear of Twilight?’
‘It is in your hand, my dear prince.’
Yriel gasped and clutched it to his bosom. He coughed, the pain of it ripping at his lungs. He closed his eyes. ‘I cannot give it up, even as it drinks the last of me.’
There was a surprised cry. Warmth came into him. ‘I feel stronger, a little. Stay with me, Yaleanar, stay with me as I pass. I will pass on my regards to Iyanna’s new god.’
There was no reply.
‘Yaleanar?’
Yriel opened his eyes. He was not sitting as he thought, but standing in a steady combat stance, the spear held out before him.
Transfixed by the spear’s tip was Yaleanar, his mouth round with shock.
Yriel’s eyes widened in horror. ‘Yaleanar!’ he screamed. He tugged the spear free. Yaleanar fell forwards. The waystone in the centre of his chest was lightless. Yriel rushed to catch him, moving with the pure energy the spear had taken from his friend. Still he was weak, and staggered under the armoured weight of Yaleanar.
‘No! No, no!’ he howled. He knelt upon the lip of the cliff, his friend’s corpse in his arms, as cries fuelled by the stolen soul of Yaleanar escaped his lips.
Below him, wide sheets of lava covered the lowlands of Dûriel. The ground roared and shook, and a plume of ejecta rained from the summit of the Godpeak.
Yriel wept before a red ocean.
A shadow fell over him, something in the sky blocking out the rain of rock and ash, but he was past noticing.
Yriel fell across Yaleanar’s soulless corpse, and the oceans all were gone.
‘Retreat! Retreat!’ shouted Sunspear, sending out the order by every means at his disposal.
Falcons dropped from the sky, and Aspect Warriors ran into them. The world was dying around them, and the voidspawn had been driven into a frenzy. They came on at speed, leaping the fissures spreading over the ground. Sunspear’s warriors fired as they fell back into their transports. A Falcon waited to evacuate him, together with four exarchs and their remaining warriors who had joined him at the peak, sniping from the summit of the dead, felling aliens so that more of the eldar could escape. He watched as the Avatar was guided into the hold of a Wave Serpent by a patient warlock. It bowed its plumed head, and entered.
He followed the craft with satisfaction. There was a stain removed from his honour.
‘My autarch, you must go now, swiftly,’ Oskirithil of the Sorrows, exarch of the Burning Rebuke, said to him urgently.
Sunspear shook his head. ‘Not until every last eldar here is safely off the ground.’
Earthquakes rocked the plain furiously. To the north, where the bulk of Far Ranging Hunger had begun the short war, a lake of lava covered the ground. A fountain of molten rock spewed from its centre ceaselessly.
Black clouds of ash had replaced the red. Through them a fresh rain of tyranid drop spores came plummeting.
‘They come too late,’ he said with satisfaction.
Vaul’s Caress came from the sky, descending over the Godpeak itself, four smaller ships in its wake. Their shields sparkled with the constant impact of volcanic debris.
‘It is time for you to depart,’ said Hethaeliar. ‘Join us on the peak.’
Sunspear looked again at his men. There were few voidspawn near now. The last of the Falcons climbed skywards, heading for the webway gates over the mountain.
‘Very well.’
He took one last look around the battlefield. How much the planet had changed, two transformations in the space of four cycles.
‘It is the season of destruction,’ he said. ‘And the falling leaves have made their cuts. Away!’
The Falcon rose up from the heaped bodies. Lava was rushing towards it, the corpses it encountered bursting into brief pillars of fire. Before they had made it a thousand paces into the air, the lava was at the foot of the pile of dead.
Then they were up into the clouds, joining the streams of craft heading for the webway.
Sunspear brought up a viewing globe of the valley, and his heart turned to stone as he saw the many eldar of all kindreds falling into gaps in the rock, or being rent asunder by alien claws. Their souls would be forfeit to She Who Thirsts, for their spirit stones would surely be consumed by the fires of the world’s death. Some were stranded. He saw one group of a dozen trapped on a lump of rock. They clasped hands and bowed their heads as their refuge split, the pieces dissolving, sending them tumbling to their true deaths. Many others were leaping from rocky island to rocky island, heading for webway portals springing up all around the valley. A number of these, opening over beacon sites set at the beginning of the war, were suspended now over burning stone.
He watched as grav-craft performed daring swoops to catch as many of the stranded as they could. He lingered for a moment on the image of a group of winged scourges carrying Biel-Tanians away from the fires, and he wondered at that.
He had the Falcon set him down not far from the Fireheart. It was here that the end would come last, consuming the device when it had fulfilled its purpose. The mountain shook around it, and splits gaped in the stone as hungry as tyranid mouths. He ran down the boarding ramp and sent the craft away.
All was pandemonium. Eldar fled the planet with little order or discipline, breaking from their units, stopping only to help one another or let off shots at pursuing weapon-beasts.
An explosion sounded. The mountain rocked, sending Sunspear reeling. A cloud of grey ash spewed from the volcano’s side. His attention drawn to this, his eye caught movement beyond.
Out on the plains to the south, capillary towers stood tall. Most had collapsed or were collapsing, falling to burn in the planet’s lifeblood. But this one cluster stood tall, and above them were the looming shapes of hive ships. Prow down, they lowered questing feeder tendrils from their mouthparts. They locked one by one onto the capillary towers. With mounting horror, he watched variegated tubes pulse with peristaltic motion, pumping the biogruel of Dûriel up to the waiting ships.
Within were the combined essences of Far Ranging Hunger and Starving Dragon, rich with the genetic codes of man, ork, and eldar.
Sunspear cried out in despair.
Once more, he had lost.
Chapter Sixteen
The Red Death of Dûriel
‘Fly faster!’ Hesperax ordered. Her Venom skimmed over the boiling lava, gobbets of it splattering on the hull with every convulsion of the planet. Several Raiders followed her.
‘We have them ahead, my mistress,’ said Khulo Khale. ‘We shall have our prizes!’
On a large island of rock, wyches goaded large creatures into eight hex cages, hollow, polyhedral balls adorned with runes. Five of them were already full.
