With a thrum that set the ground shaking, the Cobra opened fire. The air itself screamed as the distortion cannon tore at its fabric, a rent appearing in the air above the closest Space Marine vehicle. The gap widened into a whirling hole framed with purple and green lightning, its depths a swirl of colours and reeling stars. Even at this distance, Morlaniath felt a slight nausea tremble through his body and a burning in his spirit stones. The warp rift tugged at his spirit, immaterial fingers prying into parts of his mind locked away behind barriers learnt as a child. Tempting whispers and distant laughter echoed in the exarch’s thoughts.
The Space Marine tank was dragged to a stop by the implosive energies of the warp hole, its tracks grinding vainly through the soil, smoke belching from its exhausts as the driver gunned the engine in an effort to maintain traction. With a drawn-out creak, the vehicle lifted from the ground, tipping backwards, stretching and contorting as the breach into warp space opened wider. Rivets sprang free and disappeared into the ravening hole, followed quickly by the tangled remains of the gun sponsons. An armoured figure was drawn out of the top hatch and spun crazily into the maw of the warp a moment before the tank slammed upwards and was sucked into the spiralling vortex. With a crack like thunder the vortex closed, sending out a shockwave that sent a nearby Space Marine transport slamming into a tree with a shower of wood splinters and leaves.
The clearing fell still again as the Cobra’s cannon recharged. Undaunted, the humans continued their advance, almost reckless in their haste to close. The whine of descending shells caught Morlaniath’s ear and he looked up to see several black shapes falling from the flickering skies. Their trajectory was taking them somewhere off to his right and he followed their fall until they disappeared into the trees a moment before a series of ground-shaking detonations. Flames and smoke leapt into the air. Amidst the flash and turmoil, the exarch saw eldar bodies being tossed like leaves on the wind.
Lascannon blasts flashed across the clearing, shrieking off the Cobra’s curved hull. The superheavy tank lifted again as more power surged along the length of its main gun. Again came the scream of tortured reality and the concussive blast of the warp vortex forming. More than a dozen armoured figures and a pair of troop transports were sucked into the energy maelstrom, their forms thinning and twisting before they disappeared from sight while raw psychic energy forked to the ground from the breach’s undulating rim.
Morlaniath strode to the statue and pulled himself up onto Isha’s knee to gain a better vantage point, looking past the bulk of the Cobra. He felt that it would soon be time to act; he chafed at being a witness to the battle so far and longed to let the Teeth of Dissonance cut a bloody path through Alaitoc’s foes.
Wrecks and bodies littered the valley floor, but the Space Marines had gained the higher ground to either side and from their vantage point their tanks poured chattering fire into the tree line. Within this cordon, batteries of self-propelled guns lumbered into position, bringing them into range of the dome’s heart. A least twenty tanks grumbled towards Morlaniath’s position, painted in the same grey as the soldiers’ fatigues. Four brightly-coloured Space Marine transports charged ahead of the advance and would be at the edge of the clearing shortly.
Morlaniath flexed his fingers in anticipation and was about to lower himself to the ground when something crashed through branches behind him, their snapping audible above the din of war. He turned to see a trunk bending and then cracking violently under some unseen pressure. The ground trembled slightly from a massive tread, and a patch of earth sank, squashed by a tremendous yet invisible weight. Craning his neck, the exarch looked up and saw a shimmering presence, a vague outline of contortion against the dark red of the dome’s sky.
Holofields shimmered and Morlaniath found himself staring up along the giant, slender leg of a Phantom Titan, half again as tall as the lianderin trees. The Titan was like a giant rendition of Korlandril’s sculpture of Eldanesh, its slender limbs and narrow waist a perfection of proportion and design. For all its beauty, it was the perfection of destruction embodied by the Titan that impressed Morlaniath more. Instead of arms, the immense walker had two elegant guns, each longer than a grav-tank. From the Phantom’s right shoulder hung the ribbed barrel of a tremor cannon; from the left a lance-like pulsar.
A flurry of missiles streaked from shoulder-mounted pods on either side of the swept dome of the Titan’s head, engulfing the enemy tanks in a curtain of plasma blossoms. The air shimmered around the vane-like holofield wings splayed from the back of the Phantom, blurring its shape unto a dazzle of fractured images as the Titan took another step forwards. A broad, clawed foot swung gracefully over the clearing to find purchase beside the Cobra, the massive machine’s tread delicate for its size, dextrously avoiding the eldar warriors in and around the dell.
Bending one knee slightly, the Titan swung its tremor cannon into position, aimed along the left-hand valley slope. Even within his suit, Morlaniath felt a compression of air around him a moment before the weapon fired. A bass growl reverberated in the exarch’s gut, swiftly rising in pitch to a shriek that tightened his throat and set his ears ringing, until it scaled higher, out of the range of even an eldar’s hearing. He traced the path of the sonic pulse by the dancing of air molecules: overlapping sine waves of near-invisible energy that ended in the midst of the advancing humans. Where the line touched, the ground erupted, a huge gout of earth and rock rupturing into a widening crack that zigzagged along the hillside. Tanks shook themselves apart as the beam crossed over them; Space Marines were flattened inside their armour; unarmoured soldiers were torn limb from limb by the disharmonious sonic energy coursing through their bodies.
The whine returned and descended to a low rumble as the weapon powered down. There was no respite from the Phantom; more clusters of missiles streamed from its shoulder pods while its pulsar unleashed a glittering salvo of laser energy that tore along the front squadron of tanks, punching through armour, exploding engines and melting the crews inside. The Cobra fired again and the valley descended into an anarchy of swirling vortexes, wailing sonic explosions and the steady strobe of the pulsar. Shells screamed in return, flashing past the wavering image of the Titan to crash into the trees beyond the clearing.
Morlaniath climbed down from the statue, his excitement at the prospect of combat dissipated by the arrival of the Phantom. What use were mandiblasters and biting blade when compared to the awesome energies being unleashed upon the enemy? He rejoined the rest of the Hidden Death, who stood under the shadows of the trees watching the carnage in the valley.
“Do you think any will reach us here?” asked Elissanadrin.
“Not while we have our tall friend watching over us,” said Arhulesh, looking up at the Phantom Titan. “Oh…”
Morlaniath looked to see the Titan turning away, its outline refracting into a shimmering cloud as the holofield cloaked its movements. In a few strides it was gone, lost past the canopy of the trees. With a whisper, the Cobra followed, sliding between the thick boles of the lianderin. Clearly their weapons were needed more elsewhere. Morlaniath brightened at the prospect that the battle was not yet over.
The exarch directed his gaze back to the valley. He could see red-armoured figures moving between the smoking wrecks and grey-clad soldiers taking up positions in the rents and craters torn into the ground by the Titan’s weapons. Though the heaviest enemy vehicles had been destroyed, more of the gangling Imperial walkers advanced through the shattered stumps of the lianderin. Light anti-grav skimmers in the colours of the Space Marines streaked through the air, moving out to the flanks of the advancing force.
“They are needed elsewhere, but enemies remain, our blades will taste more blood,” said Morlaniath. He wondered whether to await the enemy attack, or to head out into the valley to take the fight to the foe. He felt the touch of Thirianna’s mind in response to these thoughts.
Arhathain is mustering forces for a counter-attack along this axis. We wait for the rein
forcements and then we will advance.
“Make ready your wargear, more warriors arrive, we shall be fighting soon,” the exarch told his squad.
They waited patiently, keeping an eye on the invaders as they approached along the valley, more circumspect than in their initial charge. Morlaniath saw squads of Imperial soldiers digging defensive positions into the hillsides: heaping up the earth to make barricades for trenches and mortar pits; creating semicircular redoubts for their anti-tank weapons; erecting spindly communications masts for their commanders to talk with each other. It was clear that they had abandoned their foolish hope of sweeping away the Alaitocii with a single attack and were now preparing to hold the ground they had taken.
“Their strategy is false, a folly of battle, to think that ground matters,” the exarch remarked to his squad. As he spoke, he pointed out the growing system of works. “Their minds think in straight lines, seeking grand engagement, counting only in numbers. Our way of war is swift, the fast and fluid strike, not tied to a sole place. They hope we will attack, throw ourselves on their guns, to drive them out of here. We will be more patient, we have the advantage, Alaitoc is our home. Their presence is fleeting, it cannot be sustained, without food and water. They defend an island, cut off from their supplies, and we will rule the sea.”
“Perhaps their attacks are meeting with more success elsewhere?” said Litharain. “They make solid their position knowing that advances are being made on other fronts.”
Morlaniath directed a beckoning thought to Thirianna. The farseer acknowledged the question and crossed the clearing to speak directly with the exarch.
“We have abandoned the Dome of Lasting Vigilance, and the humans control more than a quarter of the access ways to Alaitoc’s central region.” Her voice was quiet, her tone non-committal. “We still hold the domes around the infinity circuit core. It is Arhathain’s wish that we drive these humans from this dome so that we can mount an attack on the flank of their other forces, severing them from their landing zone in the docks.”
“The enemy prepare, waiting is a peril, how soon do we attack?” said Morlaniath.
Thirianna said nothing for a while, her head cocked to one side as she communed with her fellow seers.
“The counter-attack is almost ready,” she said eventually. “The humans’ rough defences will be no obstacle. They think only of left and right, forwards and backwards. They still forget that we do not have to crawl along the groun—”
The farseer stopped and turned her gaze beyond Morlaniath. The exarch knew what had interrupted Thirianna, for he felt it too: a sensation in the blood, a quickening of the heart.
The Avatar was approaching.
Its presence joined the minds of the hundreds of eldar converging through the trees around Morlaniath, linking them together in one bloody purpose. The exarch saw Guardians and Aspect Warriors advancing through the woods around him, heading for the valley. Far above, Swooping Hawks circled in the thermals of the burning tanks while Vampire bombers with wings like curved daggers cruised back and forth awaiting the order to strike.
Amidst the increasingly strong background throb of the Avatar, Morlaniath felt something else touching upon his spirit, something cold, yet keen and familiar: a direct call to him unlike the burning beacon of the Avatar’s presence. He scoured the trees looking for the source. In the shadow of a split lianderin trunk, he saw a pair of yellow eyes flash. From the darkness appeared Karandras, oldest of the Striking Scorpion exarchs.
The Phoenix Lord stalked forwards, his helmet turning slowly as he looked at each of the Hidden Death in turn. He stopped a short distance away, gaze directed towards Bechareth. Morlaniath felt a quiver of worry. Did Karandras sense something of Bechareth’s past? Did the Phoenix Lord realise he had once been counted amongst the most hated foes of the Striking Scorpions? The Shadow Hunter stared for a long time, the only movement the dancing reflection of flames in the lenses of his heavy helm and the slow flexing of his power claw. Anxiety flowed from Bechareth, his shoulders hunched, fist clenched tight around the hilt of his chainsword.
“You will join me,” said Karandras, turning to Morlaniath. His voice was as of many speaking in unison, deep and full of power. Every syllable resounded through Morlaniath’s mind like they were his own thoughts given life by another. The exarch breathed out slowly, struggling to remain calm. “Serve as my guard.”
“It will be our honour, Hidden Death stands ready, for the Shadow Hunter,” replied Morlaniath, briefly bending to one knee in deference. As his psyche touched upon the Phoenix Lord’s, Morlaniath felt a huge depth opening out beneath him, a bottomless well of life and death. Morlaniath was old, almost as old as Alaitoc, yet the creature that stood before him was even more ancient.
“Your shrine has done well, it is a pride to the Aspect of the Striking Scorpion,” the Phoenix Lord said, gesturing with a nod for the Hidden Death to follow him into the trees.
“The teachings are not mine, the wisdom is from you, I am the messenger,” said Morlaniath.
“Yet the message can become confused, distorted by the passing of ages, from lips to ear to mind, and on to fresh lips. The ideals of the Striking Scorpion remain strong on Alaitoc. It is not so in all places. It is to your credit.”
The Phoenix Lord led them away from the others, the presence of the Avatar receding as Karandras forged on through the trees towards the enemy. A blur of shadow followed Karandras, an aura of darkness that surrounded the squad even when they crossed paths and clearings. Its tendrils lingered behind, caressing the trunks of the trees, lightly striking the Aspect Warriors that followed. One diaphanous trail passed across Morlaniath’s arm, chill to the touch. It came from the darkness between stars, the shadow of the deepest void. The tendril dissipated into the air and the sensation passed.
The crack of breaking twigs and the crunch of footfalls rang through the trees. To the left, three of the Imperial walkers advanced quickly through the woods. They lacked the grace of the eldar war walkers, strutting forward on their servo-powered limbs, swaying awkwardly from side-to-side. They were about twice Morlaniath’s height, the leaves brushing the top of the pilots’ open cockpits. Each was armed with a multiple-barrelled weapon that swung back and forth as the driver scanned the trees for enemies. Smoke drizzled endlessly from twin exhaust stacks mounted on an engine behind the cabin, leaving a sooty stain on the foliage of the lianderin.
More trampling alerted the squad’s attention to another squadron passing to their right. Immobile, they waited for the reconnaissance sweep to pass by and then moved on again, heading close and closer to the human line.
Karandras brought the squad to a halt beneath the eaves of the woods, within gunshot range of the leading human squads. They squatted in the shadows and watched as several squads of soldiers fanned out into the woods, though none turned their eyes upon the Phoenix Lord and his companions.
The slope of the valley was a scene of crude industry, the humans digging-in like parasites on Alaitoc’s flesh. Many of the soldiers were engaged with shovels and picks whilst their officers stood around, shouting orders or berating their men. A few sentries stood guard, but it was not these that drew Morlaniath’s attention.
In front of the progressing defences were thirty Space Marines, each squad stood beside a slab-sided transport. They held their weapons ready, their helmeted heads turning with metronomic precision as they patrolled the hillside, watching the woods for any threat. At the near end of their line stood another walker, different in design from those that had passed earlier. It was almost as tall, but far broader, almost square in shape, painted in the red and white livery of the Space Marines. It was mostly thickly-armoured hull on squat legs flanked by two massive shoulders; from the right a short arm extended tipped with a claw wreathed in crackling energy; from the left protruded a short-barrelled weapon fed by several fuel tanks that reminded Morlaniath—in a very crude and human way—of the fusion guns used by the Fire Dragon Aspect.
&n
bsp; “Which ones are we after?” whispered Arhulesh.
Karandras kept his gaze ahead as he replied, raising a finger of his claw to point at the Space Marines.
“The hardest prey makes for the worthiest prize,” said the Phoenix Lord.
“What will be our approach, the ground gives no cover, our enemies alert,” said Morlaniath.
“There will be a… distraction,” replied the Phoenix Lord in a mellifluous tone. Morlaniath detected a hint of humour.
They waited in silence. Above, the Swooping Hawks continued to circle slowly out of range of the enemy. Morlaniath detected the faintest of compression at the back of his skull, the passing touch of an immaterial presence. He knew that it was a leftover trail, a collateral effect of a Warp Spider’s jump generator being activated not too far away. Not for the first time in his long existence, Morlaniath wondered what manner of eldar would become a Warp Spider, willing to expose themselves to the perils of warp space. There was a violent darkness in the core of every exarch and Aspect Warrior, but the Warp Spiders balanced on a precipice of self-destruction. They were not only risk-takers, they had a bleak outlook on life, rarely mixing with warriors from other shrines.
“Be ready,” warned Karandras, driving away Morlaniath’s pondering. He had some inkling of what was to be expected and looked up into the sky. In the flickering, dim light of the humans’ starshells, winged shapes swooped down from the heights of the dome. The shriek of the wind from their wingtips grew in volume as the Vampires dived, six of them in a V-formation.
A cluster of spheres arced down into the human soldiers as the Vampires swooped overhead. No mundane detonations rocked the valley: each sonic bomb exploded above the defence lines to send out rippling shockwaves. The sonic pulses pulverised bodies and barricades—expanding, ethereal globes of devastation swept across the hillside to create a screaming storm of debris. Morlaniath saw soldiers lifted into the air, their fatigues ripped from lacerated bodies. Those at the outer edge of the sonic eruptions fell to the ground with blood streaming from ears, eyes and mouths, crimson seeping from the pores in their skin, bursting from ruptured blood vessels.
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