01 - Path of the Warrior

by Gav Thorpe - (ebook by Undead)

  In the midst of the ritual, Lideirra stood immobile, skin stained with blood, a thickening crimson pool around her bare feet. Cup and spear were unmoving in her hands, and save for the subtlest rise and fall of her chest she was no more than a statue.

  Another reverberating heartbeat throbbed through Morlaniath. Then another, and another. The bass pulsing fitted with the tempo of the strident hymn, both quickening with each other.

  With a rush of heat, the bronze doors opened, bathing the antechamber with dazzling light. Morlaniath could barely make out the form of the Avatar in the brightness, a hulking ember sat on its throne, a shadow amongst the light.

  The Young King paced into the throne room, spear and cup held before her. She was swallowed by the light and then briefly appeared before being engulfed again by the shadow of the Avatar.

  With a dull thud, the doors slowly closed, ending the hymn, the quiet that followed eerie, full of febrile tension. Still the sounds of metal melting and fire burning came muffled through the doors. A rumble as of distant thunder gently shook the bronze barrier.

  The warlocks departed wordlessly as the exarchs formed a circle, standing hand-in-hand with each other, Iriethien to Morlaniath’s left, Lathorinin to his right. The ring thus formed, the exarchs’ spirits flowed into one another, mingling and swirling together. Their voices were raised in a single chant, a soft, bass humming that set the chamber to vibrating. Morlaniath drifted away, losing himself in the maelstrom of spirits created by the conjoined exarchs.

  Morlaniath’s next moment of awareness came as he stepped back from the circle. Aranarha had taken his place at the vigil. Morlaniath returned to the Chamber of Autarchs where the other exarchs waited.

  He rested, waiting for his time to come again. Around his dormant form, exarchs came and left, but he did not notice them. He dreamt, wandering in his memories of battle, delighting in the recollections of previous times spent fighting alongside the Avatar. The dreams became more vibrant, more distinct and he knew the Avatar’s awakening was coming closer.

  The exarchs began to drift away from the chamber, singly at first, and then in small groups, returning to their shrines. Morlaniath lingered a while longer, revelling in the life that flowed into him.

  His contemplations halted abruptly. He sensed Kenainath behind him. Opening his eyes, he turned to his fellow exarch.

  “There is something amiss, I feel a disturbance, your spirit is troubled.”

  “Your thoughts are correct, I have need to speak with you, come now to my shrine.”

  Morlaniath felt for the presence of the Avatar, knowing that he would have to return soon to the Hidden Death and ready them for the Avatar’s awakening. He knew that there was yet still time. He nodded his acquiescence and accompanied Kenainath from the hall.

  Morlaniath followed the other exarch into the armouring chamber of the Deadly Shadow. Silence reigned, the squad not yet called to war by their leader, though surely they felt the coming of the Avatar.

  “Where are your warriors? The time is approaching, they must soon be ready,” said Morlaniath.

  Kenainath took off his helmet and placed it upon the top of its stand. His face was emaciated, his eyes sunken and dull, his dry skin clinging to the sharp bones of his cheeks.

  “I cannot lead them, I will not see this battle, my time here is short.” Kenainath’s voice was barely a whisper. “This body is old, the time of its end draws close, and will pass away. No other comes here. The Deadly Shadow will sleep, waiting for rebirth.”

  “It is a cruel ending, on the eve of battle, one more glorious war,” replied Morlaniath.

  Kenainath gripped Morlaniath’s shoulders and fixed him with a penetrating stare.

  “There is not much time; I have something to ask you, a boon to request. Your squad is untested, your warriors not ready, you cannot lead them.”

  Morlaniath opened his mouth to argue but Kenainath ignored him and continued on.

  “You need warriors, take on the Deadly Shadow, lead them in battle. They need an exarch, let them be the Hidden Death, with you their exarch.”

  A reflex shimmered through Morlaniath’s consciousness: the Avatar’s awakening was approaching. Time was short. He looked at Kenainath, seeing him through a hundred different memories. It was a harsh fate that took his life from him, at the brink of Alaitoc’s greatest need. Yet this body had fought longer than any other exarch. Perhaps he deserved peace for a little while; perhaps this was a battle others needed to fight for him.

  “It shall be an honour, to lead your warriors, to make them Hidden Death.”

  A thin sliver of a smile twisted Kenainath’s cracked lips.

  “The honour is mine, to stand in such company, to be found worthy.” Kenainath looked sharply past Morlaniath’s shoulder, as if someone had entered the room. “My pupils approach, I will send them on to you, at the Hidden Death. The Avatar comes, make them don their masks swiftly, take me from their minds.”

  Morlaniath nodded in understanding. There should be no time for the Deadly Shadow to dwell on the passing of their exarch, and there would be time enough for them to mourn after the coming battle. He clasped Kenainath’s hands for a moment, their spirits mingling for a moment before he broke the contact.

  “Enjoy your coming rest, it will not be forever, and we will fight again.”

  Morlaniath turned away and headed to the skyrunners below, sensing others approaching the shrine.

  As he straddled the skyrunner, he felt a surge of power coursing through him. He would have to be swift: the Avatar was almost awake.

  Morlaniath sped for the throne room of the Avatar, dragged on by the call of the war god incarnate. He had readied his own shrine, joined shortly after his arrival by the warriors who had been the Deadly Shadow. Though Elissanadrin, Arhulesh and the others had been full of questions, Morlaniath had allowed them no time to ponder the turn of events. He had left them ready to bring forth their war-masks; waiting in silent expectation for the Avatar’s coming, along with the dozens of other Aspect Warrior shrines across the craftworld. At the moment of his awakening they would don their helms and be suffused with his bloody power, ready to bring death to the humans.

  He took his place in the circle of founders, heart racing, breaths coming in short gasps. The doors of the throne room shuddered violently, smoke and flames licking beneath them. The humming incantation of the circle was drowned out by a metallic pounding and the roar of flames.

  A piercing scream cut through the chant, and silence fell. Morlaniath shuddered in the grips of ecstasy, the rage and hatred of the Avatar coursing through his body. Through the infinity circuit, the war-call of Khaine echoed through the Alaitocii, bringing everything to a stop. For a single instant every eldar on the craftworld, alive and dead, were joined as one, their psychic energy bringing forth the incarnation of their rage, their living idol of violence.

  In a quivering rapture, Morlaniath watched the bronze doors crash open.

  The Avatar’s eyes burned with dark fire, glowing coals of hatred. Its iron skin was blistered, cracked and pitted, molten rivulets dribbling over the plates. Between them, fiery hide burned bright, tongues of flame licking along metal muscle, flickering within immortal joints.

  In its right hand it wielded the Suin Daellae, the arcane weapon glittering with power, the runes upon its haft and head writhing with flaming sparks. Upon its shoulders it wore the ruddy cloak, its cloth and dagger-pin still stained with blood. Of Lideirra there was no sign, save for a gory slick of blood encasing the Avatar’s arms from burning fingertips to sharp elbow. The blood hissed as it dripped to the floor.

  All of this Morlaniath saw in a moment before the Avatar swamped his mind. The exarch relived every death he had inflicted, his joy reaching a crescendo. It was almost too much, a blurring kaleidoscope of pain and bloodletting, every flitting image heightening Morlaniath’s pleasure until he could restrain it no more.

  He arched his back and let loose a roar of rage, venting eve
ry atom of his hatred, his call joined across the craftworld by thousands of throats.

  WAR

  In the time following the Fall, Asurmen rallied the shattered remnants of Eldanesh and Ulthanesh’s children. Upon the craftworlds they fled, the ravages of She Who Thirsts following them swiftly. Asurmen knew that the children of Eldanesh and Ulthanesh could not flee forever, for the obscene god that had been born out of their lustful desires and perverse nightmares was still a part of them. Asurmen led a handful of his followers to a barren world free of distraction and temptation. Here Asurmen founded the Shrine of Asur. Dedicating his life to the preservation of the domain of Asuryan, king of the gods and arbiter of heaven, Asurmen taught his followers that they must give up their love of the gods, for indulgence had led to decadence and wickedness. The destructive impulses of Khaine had to be tempered with wisdom, and so Asurmen taught his followers how to forget the joy of slaying and the thrill of battle. At the Temple Shrine of Asur, his pupils each developed their own fighting technique, channelling only a part of the Bloody-Handed God’s rage. They were the Asurya, the first exarchs. When the treachery of Arhra destroyed the Temple Shrine of Asur, the Asurya escaped to the craftworlds to found new shrines to pass on their disciplines of war. The Asurya created the Path of the Warrior and would be known in ages to come as the Phoenix Lords, each reborn out of death until Fuegan of the Burning Lance calls them to the Rhana Dandra, the final battle, ending of the children of Eldanesh and Ulthanesh.

  All was still in the Dome of Crystal Seers. Trees of multicoloured wraithbone jutted from the exposed infinity circuit, their glass-like leaves casting rainbows across the white sand-covered ground. Beneath their contorted limbs stood the immortal seers, flesh turned to ice-like crystal, their robes hung upon glassy bodies, their spirits long departed.

  The dome throbbed with the energy of the infinity circuit as Alaitoc readied to defend itself. Morlaniath and the Hidden Death had been stationed to guard the dome alongside four other squads: Shining Spears on their silver jetbikes; Howling Banshees with their flowing manes and screaming masks; Dire Avengers in their blue and white; Warp Spiders with their glowing deathspinners.

  Behind them hovered three Wave Serpents, elegant troop transports coloured in the blue of Alaitoc with purple thorn patterns wreathing across their sleek hulls. Energy vanes crackled with power along their bows, distorting their shapes with a shimmering protective field. Each had a turret sporting shuriken cannons or pairs of brightlances that swivelled watchfully.

  Morlaniath spared no time for these sights. His attention was fixed far above, through the transparent force dome. Here the first battle for Alaitoc was being waged in the cold vacuum of space.

  Bright flares of light from crude plasma engines betrayed the positions of the Imperial ships. Ghostlike, the warships of the eldar flitted past, only the shimmer and glint of their solar sails giving them away, their hulls as dark as the void.

  Trails of fire criss-crossed the starry sky, as missiles and torpedoes streaked across the firmament. The blinding flash of laser weapons flitted through the darkness, while blossoms of brief flame erupted in the void. Squadrons of graceful destroyers tacked effortlessly to bring their weapons to bear while battleships slid gently through the maelstrom, their batteries unleashing salvoes of destruction, open bays spewing wave after wave of darting fighter craft and wide-winged bombers.

  An Imperial frigate hove into view, so close that Morlaniath could see its white hull and golden eagle-headed prow. It was a slab-sided, brutal vessel, encrusted with cornices and buttresses, its prow a giant golden ram shaped like an eagle’s beak. Flashes rippled from bow to stern as it opened fire with deck after deck of guns, the flashes cut through by the searing beams of laser turrets arranged along a crenulated dorsal deck. Alaitoc responded, a storm of lightning and laser leaping from the craftworld’s defence turrets and anti-ship guns. The human ship was engulfed by a torrent of fire and its hull quickly broke, sending plumes of burning air into the vacuum. Wracked by the eldar weapons, the frigate’s plasma reactors detonated in a blossom of white.

  It was as if the stars themselves fought, and Morlaniath stood entranced by the spectacle of destruction.

  The eldar ships glimmered with holofields, appearing as shimmering ghosts to open fire before disappearing against the star-filled backdrop. Human void shields sputtered with blue and purple flares as they unleashed bursts of energy to shunt the attacks of the eldar into warp space.

  For all the skill of the eldar crews and the agility of their ships, the humans drew inexorably closer, their coming heralded by fresh waves of torpedoes and the glare of attack craft. Burning hulks drifted in their wake, both human and eldar, debris gently spiralling away from shattered wrecks. The humans seemed bent on their course, coming straight for Alaitoc like armoured comets, punching through the craftworld’s fleet, heedless of the damage inflicted upon them. Morlaniath had to admire the humans’ single-mindedness, misguided as it was. Blind faith in their decrepit Emperor gave them a zeal that overrode all logic and sensibility.

  A massive shape loomed through the dome, dozens of armoured doors opening along its side to reveal bristling gun batteries. Defensive fire converged on the cruiser and its shields rippled, dissipating the blasts with actinic flares. Its bow erupted with blossoms of orange and moments later the streak of torpedoes hurtled towards Alaitoc, breaking into hundreds of smaller missiles as they crashed into the craftworld.

  Morlaniath felt the tremor of their impact, not through his flesh but in his mind, the infinity circuit reverberating with a spasm of pain. More salvoes from the cruiser’s gun decks slammed into Alaitoc, crashing against the energy shields that protected the domes. This time the ground did shudder, so close were the impacts of plasma and rocket. The barrage continued for some time and then fell silent, the flare of laser and shell replaced by the small pinpricks of assault craft engines.

  The humans were sending their boarding parties.

  “The Tower of Ascending Dreams is under attack.” Arhathain’s voice cut through Morlaniath’s trance. “Stand ready to respond on my command.”

  The exarch signalled to his warriors to mount up in the Wave Serpent. As they ran up the ramp at its back, he saw the Warp Spiders wink out of existence, while the Shining Spears gunned the engines of their jetbikes and sped out of sight between the wraithbone trees.

  Morlaniath crouched in the back of the Wave Serpent as the ramp closed, sealing them inside. Above him motors whined quietly as the turret lowered into the hull, the pilot readying the transport for departure.

  The Striking Scorpions waited for the autarch�s orders, every heartbeat slowly ticking past. Arhulesh fidgeted with anticipation, flexing his fingers around the grip of his chainsword. Elissanadrin crouched next to Morlaniath, forearms gently resting on her knees, head bowed in concentration. Bechareth remained as silent as ever, his gaze fixed on Morlaniath. The exarch stared back, wondering what passed through the former incubi’s mind. Did he confuse Morlaniath with Korlandril, thinking perhaps that they shared some kind of bond? Did he ponder his fate now that Kenainath’s protection was no more? Morlaniath had questions of his own; questions that only time would answer. Was Bechareth truly reformed? He had fought as Hidden Shadow many times, but would he be willing to lay down his life for Alaitoc, an adopted home? Could he be trusted to fight if it seemed that Alaitoc was waning?

  “The humans have broken into the lower levels of the Tower of Ascending Dreams,” announced Arhathain. “Move forward to contain them. Do not over-commit. More human ships are closing along the starward rim. Be ready to fall back and redeploy. Guardian forces moving in support.”

  The thrum of the Wave Serpent’s engines filled the cabin as it lifted higher and turned on the spot. There was little sensation of movement save the slight pull of inertia as the transport accelerated, but on internal screens Morlaniath saw the crystal seers skimming past as the pilot steered the Wave Serpent towards the main artery to the dock
ing area being attacked.

  They passed through the low portal at high speed, veering onto a thoroughfare lit by bright bands of green and blue. The lights flashed past the screen, increasing to a rapid strobe as the Wave Serpent picked up speed. Other vehicles joined them at intersections; several Wave Serpents fell in behind them while two Falcon anti-grav tanks sped past, their helmeted pilots and gunners glimpsed briefly through armoured canopies.

  Suddenly deceleration pushed at Morlaniath as the Wave Serpent cornered sharply. He swayed with the momentum, readjusting himself on his haunches to keep his balance. The Wave Serpent picked up speed again as it accelerated along the ramp leading towards the dock towers.

  They burst onto the broad plaza of the rim, the whining of the engines lost in the cavernous space of the empty docks: all of the ships had let slip from their moorings as soon as the Imperial fleet had broken out of warp space.

  The Wave Serpent slewed to a halt and the ramp lowered even as the transport settled down into a low hover. Morlaniath raced down the ramp, the squad close behind. The outer part of the dock was deserted. Only the occasional flash of a laser or torpedo trail beyond the shimmering force curtain betrayed the battle that was raging.

  A spiralling rampway led up to the lower levels of the Tower of Ascending Dreams. The building formed a tapering curve into a soaring pinnacle that jutted out from the craftworld’s rim. Slender windows pierced the walls, sometimes lit by a flash of energy from within.

  Their armoured boots thudding softly on the rampway, the Striking Scorpions entered the lower level—several storeys of arched rings surrounding the central core of the tower—with the sounds of other squads just behind. Morlaniath looked over his shoulder to see Erethaillin’s Maidens of Fate catching up quickly, the lightly-armoured, swifter Howling Banshees passing the Striking Scorpions as they turned a loop of the ramp onto the second level.