A Thousand Sons

by Graham McNeill

  The scale of such a gross betrayal shocked them all to silence until Phosis T’kar responded in the only way he knew how.

  “No one is being destroyed,” roared Phosis T’kar. “If Russ’ dogs want a fight, we’ll give them one.”

  “No! You must not,” said Magnus. “The gathering darkness needs us to turn on our brothers. It wants two loyal Legions torn apart and broken on the anvil of blind hate before the coming war. We cannot allow that to happen, for the Emperor will have need of his loyal Wolves before the end. We must accept our fate and let our devastation run its course.”

  Ahriman’s anger cut through his state of detachment in the spheres and his fists clenched.

  “All this time, you knew there would be a reckoning,” he said. “We are the Red Sorcerers of Prospero, damned in the eyes of our fellows, and this is to be how our story ends, in betrayal and bloodshed.”

  “It is the only way, Ahzek,” said Magnus. “I am sorry.”

  “No,” said Ahriman. “It is not the only way. You may find it nobler to suffer your fate, but I will take arms against it.”

  Ahriman focussed his will upon the crystals of his fellow Magister Templi.

  “The Corvidae will fight the invaders,” he promised. “My brothers, are you with me?”

  “The Raptora are with you,” said Phosis T’kar.

  “The Pavoni will fight,” said Hathor Maat.

  “As will the Pyrae,” hissed Khalophis. “Oh, the Pyrae will most definitely fight.”

  THE LAND AROUND Tizca was in flames, a ruined wasteland from which nothing would ever rise again. The city’s high marble walls, glorious museums, libraries, silver towers and great pyramids remained intact, the protection of the Raptora holding firm in the face of one of the most sustained and powerful bombardments ever unleashed in the history of the Imperium.

  The mountains burned, the skyline forever changed by the world-shattering detonations.

  Hot on the heels of the bombardment, the invaders came in their thousands. At first, the people of Tizca thought them to be particles of ash-blown grit, so numerous and so small were they. But as they closed, it became apparent that wave after wave of drop-ships, assault boats and gunships were inbound. Behind them came bulkier cargo transports bearing armoured vehicles and artillery pieces.

  The kine-shields of the Raptora could not protect Tizca from the attack, but their cover was no longer needed. The bombardment from orbit had ceased, and packs of roaring Stormbirds led the charge, skimming low over the water towards the Tizca’s port. Hundreds of craft flew over the churning seas, leaving foaming breakers in their wake. The idea that any enemy could reach the surface of Prospero to launch an assault had been discounted, and as a consequence, there were no antiaircraft batteries to meet the oncoming craft.

  The route into Tizca was wide open.

  The first craft, an enormous, blade-like Stormbird with steel-grey sides and the image of twin wolves painted on its blunt, pugnacious prow smashed into the port. It blasted its way into the berths with a salvo of missiles and a sawing blast of cannon fire. Landing skids deployed at the last second, and the craft came down hard in the wreckage.

  No sooner had it set down than the assault ramps dropped and a savage giant leapt down. His armour was hung with wolf pelts and his helmet bore two enormous fangs jutting from the lower portion of the faceplate.

  Leman Russ set foot on Prospero, the first invader ever to do so. He roared to the skies, and the devastation wrought by his fleet above was pleasing to him. Two enormous wolves howled at his sides, and a score of his most powerful warriors fought their way into the port.

  Dozens more craft smashed into the docking berths and explosions mushroomed skyward from damaged silos and ruptured fuel lines. Hundreds of warriors took the field of battle, a howling tide of warriors surging through the burning port towards the city proper.

  Hundreds of smaller Thunderhawks roared in from the sea towards the undulating length of coastline between the port and the rearing escarpment of the Acropolis Magna in the east. Atop this glistening cliff of blond sandstone, the bronze statue of Magnus watched over his city with a stern, paternal gaze.

  The eastern quarter of Tizca had been the original extent of the city before Magnus had designed the rest of its layout. Its street plan was chaotic and winding, and was a popular promenade for Tizca’s more bohemian citizens. Old Tizca, as it was known, was built on a gentle slope that meandered down to the sea, its narrow, winding streets awash with Fountain Houses, intimate markets, chic eateries and theatres.

  Dozens of Thunderhawks touched down on its wide, seafront esplanade, smashing through the marble seawall and unleashing hundreds of howling warriors with bright axes and wolf-skulled battle helms. Coordinated gunfire took down a number of invaders, the citizen militias of Tizca mobilising with military swiftness, but their weapons were nowhere near powerful enough to fell enough of their enemies.

  As Russ’ warriors loped through the burning wreckage of the coastal districts, heavy landers crushed seafront structures and disgorged thundering tanks in the grey livery of the Space Wolves. Enormous Predators, Land Raiders and Vindicators rumbled through the lower town, levelling buildings with their enormous cannons and mowing down anyone foolish enough to expose themselves.

  Squadrons of Whirlwind rocket tanks rumbled from their transports and hunkered down in the ruins, turning their boxy missile pods towards the Acropolis Magna. The pods vanished in fire and smoke, as rocket after rocket streaked skywards in rapid succession. A dozen or more impacted on the tip of the rock, obliterating the statue of Magnus in a storm of molten detonations. This symbolic act complete, the missile pods swivelled and yet more salvoes arced upwards to land with devastating results in the centre of Tizca. Raging thermals spread the fire from building to building, and the City of Light burned.

  As the troop carriers and heavy landers touched down, sleek speeders screamed overhead, unleashing endless torrents of missiles into the city. Their fire was indiscriminate, the gunners instructed to fire at will. Hundreds of civilians died in the opening minutes of the aerial assault, and scores more were gunned down as hunting speeders strafed the streets with cannon fire.

  The Skyguard Air Command launched every squadron of their two-man skimmers from their hangars to the south. These disc-like aircraft were armed with heat lances and missile pods, and the sky above the city became a frantic mess of gunfire, streaking missiles, explosions and dogfights as the two forces duelled for supremacy.

  As the Space Wolves drew first blood, Prospero’s military responded.

  The citizen militias of Tizca rose in defence of their city, gathering what arms they could and taking up firing positions on rooftops and at windows. No one was fool enough to think they would be anything more than irritants to the Space Wolves, but to let the invaders simply walk into Tizca without a fight was as abhorrent as it was unthinkable.

  The Spireguard, already on high alert after the commencement of the bombardment, moved out en masse under the guidance of the Corvidae. Magnus had blinded his Legion to the approach of the Space Wolves, but the immediate paths of the future were clear to those with eyes to see them.

  Elements of the 15th Prosperine Assault Infantry, under Captain Sokhem Vithara, occupied the upper slopes of Old Tizca, anchoring their defence between the fire-wreathed pyramid of the Pyrae cult, the Skelmis Tholus a kilometre west and the Corvidae pyramid. Vithara set up his command post in the vestibule of the Kretis gallery, the oldest repository of artwork and sculpture on Prospero.

  In the south-west of the city, the Prospero Assault Pioneers rallied what little was left of their soldiers after avalanches caused by the orbital shelling swallowed three of their barracks. The northern Palatine Guard deployed on the edges of the burning port, occupying the high parapets of overlooking libraries and galleries of the Nephrate district. Their commander, Katon Aphea, was the heir apparent to one of Prospero’s oldest families, a young and gifted officer with great potent
ial. He anchored his defence on the Caphiera Tholus and positioned his troops with a tactical acumen that would have been lauded at any Imperial Army scholam.

  Leman Russ and his Wolves overran Aphea’s position in less than two minutes.

  Tizca burned as dawn’s light crept over the horizon, but for all that the Space Wolves had struck an overwhelmingly bloody blow, they had yet to face the city’s true defenders.

  The Thousand Sons deployed, and suddenly the fight took on a very different character.

  AHRIMAN RAN THROUGH the streets on the edge of Old Tizca, his armour’s autosenses easily penetrating the thick clouds of smoke pouring from the blazing buildings. The Scarab Occult marched with him, their hearts hungry for vengeance. Ahead, the Aquarion Fountain House burned, its graceful, columned structure and artfully carved fountains crumbling in the awful heat.

  Heavy fighting engulfed the streets beyond the nearby Skelmis Tholus, with the 15th Prosperine Assault Infantry in contact with the invaders. The narrow streets formed natural choke points, and the Spireguard commander was using the terrain to his advantage.

  Flames billowed further downslope, devouring structures set alight by the Space Wolves and threatening to spread further uphill. Warriors of the Pyrae were containing the blazes, hurling the fires back down the hill to block entire avenues and streets with seething walls of flame. The sky overhead was smeared with missile contrails and explosions, and a building behind Ahriman collapsed as an aircraft slammed into its roof, sending up plumes of smoke and fire. Blazing rafters and roof tiles spilled onto the street.

  The air was hot and acrid, the smell of a city in its death throes.

  Explosions and the constant bark of gunfire echoed from walls that had known only laughter and song. Drifting clouds of ash and burning parchment fluttered past, and Ahriman plucked a scrap of paper from the air.

  “What is it?” asked Sobek.

  “Evidence of the Unseen,” said Ahriman, reading the words on the smouldering parchment. “The sea rises and the light falters. The moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. On that day, the sun will go down for the last time.”

  Ahriman dropped the paper, watching it float off in the billowing thermals. The words were too apt to be coincidence, and he feared for what they represented. He watched the confetti of ashen books, scrolls and treatises dance like burning snowflakes above him.

  “So much will be lost, but I will restore it,” he vowed. “All of it, no matter how long it takes.”

  Ahriman took a deep breath, the scale of such an undertaking not lost on him. His senses were stretched to the limits of perception, his mind alive with the flickering light of possible futures. He drew deeply on Aaetpio’s well of power to enhance his awareness. His skin felt as though his Tutelary’s fire was burning him. He had felt something like this once before, but forced that memory from his mind as he sensed the presence of inimical souls nearby.

  “Scarab Occult!” shouted Ahriman, aiming his heqa staff towards one of the narrow streets leading down into the Old Town. “Stand to.”

  Flames and smoke belched from the street as a host of shadowy warriors smashed through the burning rubble and into the wider thoroughfare. Dust coated their armour and black, carbonised streaks marred the gleaming plate, but there was no mistaking the winter’s grey of the Space Wolves.

  The enemy Astartes had seen them, unsheathing bolters and viciously-toothed swords hung with wolf-tails.

  The moment stretched for Ahriman. His perceptions raced down the length of his bolter, following the path his shot would take. In his fleeting vision he saw it smash through the visor of one of the Space Wolves, blowing out the back of his helm in an explosion of blood and brain matter. The precognitive flash froze him for the briefest second with the enormity of what it represented.

  Astartes were at war with one another, and the sheer horror of that fact cost Ahriman a fraction of a second.

  It was all the Space Wolves needed.

  Though the Thousand Sons had been forewarned, still the Space Wolves fired first.

  A hail of bolter fire slammed into Ahriman and the Scarab Occult. One warrior went down, his chest-plate broken open and his vital organs pulped by a mass-reactive shell. Two others dropped, but returned fire. The spell on Ahriman was broken, and his choler came to the fore as his bolter bucked in his hand and a Space Wolf was pitched backwards, his helmet a smoking ruin.

  Another was lifted from his feet by Sobek, his Practicus using his kine powers to pound the wolf-cloaked warrior to destruction against the marble walls of the Fountain House. Three other Space Wolves jerked and spasmed as the Pavoni amongst his warriors vaporised the super-oxygenated blood in their veins. Flames licked from their eye-lenses, and they fell to the ground as their armour fused around them. The Tutelaries of the Scarab Occult spun around the Space Wolves, amplifying their masters’ powers with gleeful spite.

  The last three Space Wolves were blazing columns of fire, the plates of their armour black and molten, like onyx statues frozen in a moment of unimaginable agony.

  Ahriman took a moment to contemplate what they had done. Aaetpio flickered above his head and he felt its urge to flow into him. Crackling arcs of crimson lightning flickered at his fingers and he suppressed them with a burst of impatience.

  “Restrain yourself!” he snapped, not liking his Tutelary’s eagerness one bit.

  Sobek approached him, wringing his hands, asking, “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” said Ahriman. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “They caught us unawares, but we’ll hurl them back to Terra,” said Sobek, and Ahriman saw the light of his Practicus’ Tutelary echoed in the fiery gleam pulsing behind his visor.

  “We have killed warriors of a brother Legion,” said Ahriman, wanting Sobek to appreciate the gravity of the moment. “There is no going back from this.”

  “Why should there be? We did not start this war.”

  “That doesn’t matter. We are at war and once you are at war, you fight until the bitter end. Either we defeat the Space Wolves or Prospero will be the Thousand Sons’ tomb. Either way we lose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If we survive this attack, what then? We cannot remain on Prospero. Others will come and finish what Russ has begun. If we lose, well, that speaks for itself.”

  Sobek hefted his heqa staff, its length rippling with fire.

  “Then we had best not lose,” he said.

  KHALOPHIS RECLINED UPON the crystal throne at the heart of the Pyrae temple. His armour reflected the flames billowing at the edge of the chamber. To anyone other than a cultist of the Pyrae, the chamber would have been unbearable, the air too hot to breathe, the fire too hot to endure.

  Fire sprites and elemental aspects of the aether spun and danced in the air, leaving incandescent wakes behind their insubstantial bodies. Sioda hung over him like a fiery guardian angel, the Tutelary’s form having swollen to enormous proportions since the treacherous bombardment had begun.

  Armoured Neophytes surrounded him, arranged in the sacred six-pointed hexalpha pattern representing the volatile union of fire and water. They carried soul-crystals hewn from the Reflecting Caves, and flickering embers of life force burned within them.

  “Are you sure of this, my lord?” asked Pharis, his Zelator’s voice betraying his unease.

  Khalophis grinned and flexed his fingers upon the carved armrests of the throne. Darting fire swam in its depths, and he felt the enormous rage of the wounded consciousness beyond the temple walls awaiting the chance to strike back at his enemies.

  “I have never been more sure of anything, Pharis,” said Khalophis. “Begin.”

  Pharis backed away from his master, and nodded to the Neophytes. They bowed their heads and Khalophis gasped as their energies surged into him. The throne blazed with light, and he fought to direct the raging power that threatened to consume him.

  “I am the Magister Templi of th
e Pyrae,” he hissed between clenched teeth. “The Inferno is my servant, for I am the Lord of Hellfire and I will teach you to burn.”

  Sioda swept down and enveloped his body. Khalophis felt his consciousness torn from his flesh to fill another body, one of iron and steel, of crystal and rage. No longer were his muscles fashioned from meat and tendons, but from enormous pistons and fibre-bundle hydraulics newly lined with psychically resonant crystals. The bolter was no longer his weapon, but vast guns capable of obliterating entire armies and fists that could tear down buildings.

  Khalophis surveyed the battlefield with the eyes of a god, a towering avatar of battle roused to fight once more. His limbs felt stiff and new, his senses taking a moment to adjust to their enormous dimensions and ponderous weight. He flexed his new body. The metallic grinding of long dormant gears and the shriek of rekindled pneumatics cut through the clamour of battle.

  Sioda’s fire flowed along the incredibly complex mechanisms of his body, filling them with new life. He took a thunderous step forward and let loose an atavistic roar, his voice that of a braying war horn.

  Like a mighty dragon woken from centuries of slumber, Canis Vertex marched into battle one more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Line is Holding/They Will Turn On You Too/Understand the Foe

  THE JETBIKES WERE golden, with curved prows shaped in the form of eagles’ beaks, their flanks carved to resemble swept-back wings. Phosis T’kar counted seven of them, swooping in low on an attack run towards his position at the end of the Raptora plaza. The warriors riding them were also golden, their red helmet plumes streaming behind them like pennants. Rapid-firing cannons blazed from underslung gun pods, ripping up the flagstone road leading from the Mylas agora.

  Geysers of rock burst from every impact, but Phosis T’kar wasn’t worried. He braced his weight on his right leg and snatched his hands through the air, as though sweeping a curtain open. Four of the jetbikes were plucked from the air as if they had reached the end of an unbreakable tether. Phosis T’kar slammed them against the high walls of the Timoran Library, shattering the statues of its first custodians.