by Braden Campbell, Mark Clapham, Ben Counter, Chris Dows, Peter Fehervari, Steve Lyons
It was lying on its stomach in the long grass at the lip of an escarpment, overlooking a natural forest path: an eldar scout with pale skin, dark eyes and sculpted cheekbones. It wore a hooded cloak of animal hide, and had decorated its arms and face with tattoos and bone jewellery. It carried only a simple recurve bow.
Up close, it turned out that the bow was sculpted from wraithbone, while the arrows were tipped with explosives.
The scout hadn’t moved, hadn’t made a sound, for as long as Setorax had been watching. It had cloaked itself in silence – but it didn’t know the silence like he did.
He approached it on his elbows, inch by painstaking inch. With each movement, he settled into position carefully, so as not to snap any twigs or crunch any leaves beneath him. Not once had his prey so much as glanced in his direction. It probably thought it impossible for anyone to sneak up on it – least of all a fully armoured Space Marine – through foliage so dense.
Its mistake.
Setorax waited for the breeze to waft by him again, carrying with it the sounds of the distant battle. He used those sounds to cover him as he had pounced.
The first the eldar knew of his presence was when he seized it in a chokehold with his left arm, driving a knife through its back and into its heart with his right. It expired without a sound, just as he had intended.
He left the lifeless body where it lay, overlooking the path, its bow wedged against its shoulder, eyes open and staring. From a distance, anyone would think that it was still on sentry duty. No one would know that Edryc Setorax had ever been here.
There were two more sentries in the nearby trees.
Setorax had scouted their positions earlier, before dealing with their fellow on the ground. He had to be sure they wouldn’t see him, or hear him, as he did what had to be done. He was deep in enemy territory. He was alone. He knew that the moment his presence here was detected, it would be the end for him.
And the eldar were famed for their keen hearing.
He slipped into the shelter of a sprawling, thorny bush, and dropped into a crouch behind it. He raised his bolt pistol and sighted along its barrel. He had a clear head shot at one of the scouts, lying across a low branch. The other was more difficult to target, higher up and nestled in the crook of a broad, gnarled trunk.
He preferred not to use the gun anyway – not until he had to. Even suppressed, it would make too loud a noise out here.
He circled his prey, using the trees for cover. He worked his way closer, ever closer, towards their positions. It was a meticulous process, almost painfully slow, but Edryc Setorax had learned how to be patient.
At last, he made the tree in which the first scout – the one closer to the ground – lurked. He eased himself into a hollow between the tree’s roots. The scout was immediately above him now. He couldn’t see the xenos – it was perfectly hidden from him at this angle, as he was from it – but he knew it was there.
In a flash, he uncoiled himself to his full eight-foot height. He reached up and snatched the eldar scout from its perch. Taken by surprise, it fell backwards into his arms, and he twisted its neck until the bone snapped.
He heard a rustle in the larger tree beside him. He cast the first scout’s body aside to round on the second, above him. It was just beginning to react to his sudden appearance: too slow, as he had hoped. It had nocked an explosive-tipped arrow.
Setorax fired his jump pack. He winced at its engine roar, but that could not be helped. A rapid burst was enough to propel him twenty feet up in an instant. He cannoned into the second eldar scout, splintering its arrow. He overbalanced it, and they plummeted into the soft bed of the undergrowth together.
He landed on top of his enemy, his fingers locked around its throat. It was stronger than it looked, but still utterly helpless beneath the crushing weight of Setorax’s genetically enhanced bulk and heavy power armour. He crumpled the xenos’ windpipe, and held it down firmly while it choked.
Like the other eldar before it, it died in silence.
Setorax listened for approaching footsteps. He heard nothing. He concealed the bodies of the scouts in a nearby bush, piling leaves on top of them for additional camouflage. As long as nobody stumbled across them, it would likely be some time before they were missed. Just like the others.
He could make up a little lost time now.
He weaved his way quickly through the forest, sure that the immediate area was clear of eyes and ears. He trusted to his armour – matt black, its silver trim deliberately dulled – to cloak him if he was wrong. He trusted his auto-senses to detect more sentries, or find their tracks, before they heard him.
Setorax was a silent shadow, flitting through the foliage.
The next marks he encountered, however, were making no attempt to hide. He heard them mustering in the centre of a clearing ahead of him. He could probably have found a way around them, but he was curious to see what they were doing.
There were thirty or more of them: eldar warriors, better equipped than the scouts, with several power blades and shuriken catapults among them. A pair of dragon riders stood out from the crowd in their sturdy but elegant wraithbone armour. They had brought their hulking, reptilian mounts with them. Setorax was careful to remain upwind of the creatures, lest they pick up his scent.
He wondered why these eldar weren’t out fighting with their main force.
He could only imagine one reason. They were setting up an ambush.
He lay on his stomach, in cover at the edge of the clearing, and watched for a while. He kept an eye out for farseers among the eldar, but saw none. He knew they had to be close by, though. He had learned a great deal about the eldar’s psykers on the craftworld of Yme-Loc. It was they who must have divined his kill team’s approach.
Setorax had lost vox-contact with them hours ago. He couldn’t warn them about what lay in store for them. He could stay where he was, though. He could wait until the ambush was almost sprung, then erupt from hiding behind his enemies and turn the tables on them.
Not this time, he thought. He had come this far behind enemy lines for a reason. He wasn’t ready to reveal his presence here yet. His battle-brothers, he decided, would have to look after themselves. They were more than capable. Inquisitor Gravelyn might not like it, he thought; but then, the inquisitor need never know.
The eldar were digging a linked series of pits, setting monofilament tripwires. As ever, their traps were so subtle, so elaborate, that even a Space Marine might find himself ensnared – or at least distracted a second too long. When Setorax had seen enough, he backed away from his vantage point and circled around them.
He hadn’t gone much further when he discovered the first formation.
It stood between the trees, in a spot where narrow shafts of afternoon sunlight pierced the canopy, and it sparkled in their radiance. It was four and a half feet tall, a solid slab of crystal, abstract in shape – one side was bulbous, the other almost razor-edged – but, like the eldar themselves, it was beautiful in a dark, twisted way.
Setorax found his eyes drawn to it, despite himself. He regarded his reflection, distorted by the crystal’s facets. There was a suggestion of circuitry embedded within the crystal, and he thought he saw xenos machine-spirits working busily, but that might have been merely a trick of the light.
He had seen formations like this one before, on Yme-Loc and other worlds since. He knew what it was, and he knew that it was entirely organic.
It was because of this structure, and others like it, that this world was at war.
An Imperial colony fleet had arrived here, months ago. Surveys had suggested that the planet was uninhabited, an ideal site for new agricultural facilities.
The settlers had begun the process of clearing the forest, which blanketed the planet’s only continent from coast to coast.
They had happened upon some of the crystal formations and, believing them to be ancient xenos ruins, had naturally razed them to make way for new construction.
They had left their souls here.
The human settlers didn’t understand that. They didn’t know the eldar like Edryc Setorax knew them. All they knew was that pale, willowy, deadly figures had emerged from the trees and set upon them. They didn’t know where their attackers had come from – there had been no reports of any ships approaching the planet.
They had been massacred.
And, of course, the survivors had sent a distress signal. And, of course, the Astra Militarum had despatched an Imperial Guard regiment to find out what had happened here and deal with the apparent xenos threat.
The battle had been raging for several weeks now.
The Exodites were relatively few in number, but they knew this environment well and they knew how to hide in it. The guardsmen had suffered significant losses. They had turned to the Ordo Xenos for help in understanding their foes and their tactics; and the alien hunters in turn had called in the Deathwatch.
They had brought a kill team to this world, ten members strong. One of their own inquisitors had chosen to lead it – that was how important this mission was to the order – and Edryc Setorax had been assigned to join him. He was a Raven Guard, a specialist in guerrilla warfare – and, of course, he knew the eldar.
They had been dropped into the thick of the forest. While the Astra Militarum kept the bulk of the Exodite force occupied, Setorax’s kill team were to strike unexpectedly at their heart; specifically, at the psykers whose precognitive powers were guiding the xenos forces, keeping them always a step ahead. There were two Librarians among the kill team’s number, keen to utilise their own warp-gifted abilities.
To Setorax’s frustration, they had been too slow, too noisy. They had talked too much instead of acting. And, inevitably, they had been detected.
Once this became apparent, as the first wave of warriors sprang from the trees around them, he had slipped away from the others. He hadn’t bothered to ask Inquisitor Gravelyn for leave. He hadn’t told his battle-brothers, any of them, where he was going. Those who knew him, however – those who had fought alongside him before – would not have been surprised to find him gone.
He knew what they thought of him. Setorax had heard them talking, when they didn’t know he was within earshot. They didn’t trust him to support them – one of the worst things that could be said about a soldier, any soldier. They speculated that the Raven Guard Chapter had been glad of a chance to be rid of him.
He knew that wasn’t true. The Master of Shadows had not volunteered him for service; in fact, the Deathwatch had requested him by name, after reading his record. He also knew that he had more than proved his worth to them.
He had saved the lives of too many brothers to count, sometimes with their knowledge, often without. He expected no gratitude either way. Setorax expected nothing at all, nothing from anyone. He only spoke to his fellows when he had to, during missions. In between these, he shunned their company entirely.
He was happiest – he had always been happiest – in solitude.
He preferred to hunt alone.
Someone was coming towards him.
The stranger was trying his best to be stealthy. To be fair, he was making a passable job of it. He was no eldar, however, and his presence lit up the display inside Setorax’s helmet. The Raven Guard flattened himself against a tree trunk and waited.
The stranger crept past him without seeing him.
He was an Imperial Guardsman in fatigues, flak jacket and battered tin helmet. He clutched his standard-issue lasgun one-handed, his right arm in a grubby sling. Setorax felt a flash of anger towards him. After all the effort he had made to get this far, this idiot could have brought an army down on top of him. He had to silence him.
He knew that, if he showed himself, he would likely startle the guardsman, perhaps make him cry out. He crept up behind him instead. Clamping one hand firmly over his mouth, Setorax snatched the gun away from him with the other.
‘Be quiet and still,’ he hissed in the guardsman’s ear as the man panicked and struggled, ‘else I will crush your throat.’ He considered doing it anyway.
When his captive finally calmed down enough to comply, Setorax let him go. The guardsman reeled out of his grip and whirled to face him. He was sallow-eyed, filthy and unshaven. He must have been wandering the forest for days.
Setorax made the sign of the aquila, the quickest – and quietest – way of demonstrating his loyalties. The guardsman was still frightened out of his wits. He had probably never seen a Space Marine before, let alone had one spring out at him from nowhere, like some macabre forest spirit.
‘How long have you been here?’ Setorax snapped. ‘Have you seen the eldar encampment?’
The guardsman gaped at him, unable to speak.
‘I… They ambushed us,’ he finally managed to say. ‘Three days ago. They were riding these… these huge creatures and–’
‘Did you see any farseers?’ Setorax interrupted him. Impatiently, he clarified, ‘Shamans. Have you seen the eldar shamans?’
The guardsman shook his head.
‘My sergeant gave the order to withdraw,’ he insisted. ‘I didn’t desert, I swear I didn’t, but I was injured, separated from my squad, there were eldar everywhere and I couldn’t get back to–’
Setorax had no interest in his story. He raised a hand to stem the guardsman’s babbling. He didn’t need an answer from him, anyway. He would likely only have confirmed what the Space Marine already knew.
‘Follow me at a distance of twenty paces,’ he instructed. ‘Stay quiet – as quiet as you can. And don’t speak. Never speak to me, unless I ask you a question.’
The guardsman nodded. He seemed relieved to have orders to follow again.
Setorax had been following a set of dragon tracks, and he continued to do so. He winced as, behind him, his companion’s boots crunched into the undergrowth. He was taking a risk, but he judged it a risk worth the taking. If there were eldar in the immediate vicinity, he considered, the guardsman would be dead already.
And it was always useful to have a distraction to hand.
Setorax could hear a voice. An alien voice.
It was raised in a lilting incantation. The words were unintelligible, flowing into each other like the rushing of a river. He told his companion – he hadn’t asked his name – to stay back. The guardsman was only too happy to obey him.
As he neared the voice’s source, he saw another pair of misshapen crystal structures. Sitting cross-legged between them was a bony eldar figure, its pale face painted with natural forest dyes and wrinkled by age. It was wrapped in homespun robes that were fraying at the wrists and elbows and threaded through with faded sigils. The robe was cinched with a belt of twisted vines and hung with fetishes.
It could hardly have been anything but a farseer.
Setorax eased himself down onto his elbows and kneepads, then his stomach. He watched and planned. His prey, alas, was not alone – it was protected by three rings of eldar sentries.
Three lesser warlocks surrounded their master, each facing away from it. They were tall and wiry, their faces hidden behind carved wooden masks that lent them a ghoulish aspect. They wore breastplates of sculpted wraithbone over their robes, and carried blades of the same arcane material. Each of them wore a spirit stone as a pendant, hanging from a fine silver chain around their neck.
Eldar warlocks were powerful warriors as well as witches. Setorax didn’t relish the thought of fighting three of them at once. He knew he had to act soon, though – the farseer’s mind would detect his presence eventually, if its other senses could not.
He
raised his bolt pistol, seeking out the clearest sightline through the trees. He waited until no eyes were turned his way to see the telltale flash of a muzzle.
He squeezed his trigger.
A silenced shell struck the farseer’s unprotected head, detonating inside its skull and blowing brain matter in all directions. Setorax took no pleasure in the grisly sight. He was doing his duty – no more than that, no less.
He held his breath as the warlocks separated, seeking cover, hissing urgently to each other. They didn’t know where the assassin was yet – not exactly, thanks to his silenced weapon – but their psychic senses would pinpoint him soon enough. Setorax eased his hand behind his back, to his jump pack.
The warlocks, all three of them, turned his way at once. They began to stride boldly towards him. The closest of them was too close. It raised its hands, dark energy dancing and fizzing between its fingers. Had it unleashed that energy upon the prone Space Marine, it would surely have crippled or killed him. Having seen the farseer’s fate, however, it chose to defend itself until its fellows could reach it.
The air around the warlock rippled as it weaved the substance of the warp itself into a shield. At the same time, Setorax triggered the launcher on his jump pack, firing a blind grenade. The shell rocketed between the warlock’s feet and buried itself in the undergrowth, pumping out thick grey smoke in its wake. He launched himself at his enemy as the choking cloud swelled around them.
The warlock didn’t see him coming, couldn’t even try to dodge him. Setorax’s hurtling, armoured form bore it to the ground. Its psychic shield was little use up close, against brute physical force. Setorax hammered his fists into the warlock’s head, until his gauntlets were dripping with blood.
He listened for the others, couldn’t hear them, knew they would be close by all the same. He fired several rapid shots from his bolt pistol; he heard the rounds bursting against tree branches and roots, but the fog cloud swallowed up their flashes. He also heard two pairs of light footsteps, scampering for cover.
He turned and raced away from his invisible enemies. The fog confused his auto-senses as well as his natural ones, but this was a necessary price to pay. The eldar might have had scanning devices too, in addition to their witch-sight. Many Exodite tribes possessed equipment that belied their apparently rustic lifestyles.
