Stormseer - David Annandale
Page 12
‘Though the army is not defeated.’
‘No. The main force is on the offensive.’
The eldar nodded, accepting a fact he had already known. ‘Then do not free me. The orks must not triumph in this system.’
‘They will not,’ Ghazan assured him.
‘You have no idea how vital their defeat is.’ His smile was bitter. ‘I envy you, human. I envy your wealth of choices.’
‘I had none today.’
‘You did. You found the path to your victory. I thought I had a choice. I do not. To stop the orks here, I must place my faith in the future choices of your species.’
‘I don’t understand.’
The psyker looked past Ghazan’s shoulder at the Stompa. ‘The end of that vehicle is almost upon us. If you want to save your fellows who are fighting the ork army, you should alert them.’ He closed his eyes. His body contracted in on itself. Psychic energy crackled.
‘What are you doing?’ Ghazan demanded.
‘What I must.’
The teleporter platform began to hum.
Ghazan opened the vox-channel to Temur.
The warning came to retreat behind the bastion walls. ‘We are already there,’ Meixner told Temur. There were still Battlewagons in the field, and the thousands of orks that had arrived in a wave had swept the remains of the Iron Guard away. The Thunderhawk had succeeded in killing one more tank, but it was limping through the air, one engine smoking. The White Scars assault squad had delayed the orks long enough for what was left of the Iron Guard to retreat to the final defensive position. But that was all. The moves were finished.
The bastion was crumbling. Its walls had been hammered by cannon fire. They were plasteel and rockcrete rubble now. Cover behind which to shoot. Nothing more. Meixner had a panoramic view of the orks massing on the plain below the plateau, and the tanks moving towards its base. He imagined his command would exist for at most another hour.
There was a flash at the far end of the plain. Meixner’s jaw dropped. The Stompa towered above the field. The orks cheered its arrival. A green wave prepared to rise up and swallow the bastion.
Meixner wondered why the Stompa wasn’t moving.
Temur’s warning kept coming over the vox: Take cover. Take cover. Take cover.
Meixner dropped behind his chunk of wall.
A green sun incinerated the plain with its birth cry.
EPILOGUE
Merentallas was dead. The energy that the teleporter had drained from him had reduced him to a husk. Ghazan stood for a moment before the body, honouring the sacrifice. Then he crossed the cavern. On the other side was a tunnel that had been concealed by the Stompa. Cables ran into it from the teleporter pad. After the Stompa had vanished, the machine had not shut down right away. It had dragged a few more seconds of use out of its captive. There had been a second energy burst in the tunnel.
The passage was a short one. At its end was a small cavern. In it was another platform, just large enough for an individual. There was also another set of controls. Ghazan stared at the device, a sick certainty in his gut. He was still there when the brotherhood arrived.
Temur joined him. ‘I have heard from the Khajog’s Stand. The orks have been exterminated.’
Ghazan nodded. ‘Good.’
‘You seem troubled.’
Ghazan gestured at the teleporter. ‘I believe the ork engineer has escaped. We have only half a victory.’
‘We will send a warning to the Raven Guard planetside,’ said Temur. He hesitated. ‘Or is your fate tied to that ork, too?’
‘It isn’t,’ Ghazan said. The tugging of destiny that had driven him to this system had ceased. He felt a sense of release, a pause between the commands of his visions.
‘You were right,’ Temur said. ‘I should not have doubted your judgement.’
Ghazan laughed softly. ‘The line between judgement and compulsion is a thin one.’
But there is one, he thought. He remembered the moment when he had glimpsed the force that was feeding the ork witch. He had turned away from making that power his own.
He saw his path ahead with a new clarity.
He had chosen his compulsion, and the choice had been real.
He had chosen the storm.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Annandale is the author of the digital short story ‘Eclipse of Hope’ and the novellas Yarrick: Chains of Golgotha and Mephiston: Lord of Death for Black Library. By day, he dons an academic disguise and lectures at a Canadian university on subjects ranging from English literature to horror films and video games. He lives with his wife and family and a daemon in the shape of a cat, and is working on several new projects set in the grim darkness of the far future.
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Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
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