Path of the Dark Eldar

by Andy Chambers

  CHAPTER 6

  NEW ARRIVALS

  Despite its subterranean location the World Shrine of Lileathanir had been a pleasing and naturalistic place. Sardon remembered that the living rock had formed sweeping buttresses and towering pillars that gave the caves an open-air feeling, as if the viewer had wandered into a narrow valley beneath a starlit sky. Glittering waterfalls had rushed from cracks in the stone to fill plunge pools so crystal clear that they could seem like empty clefts at first glance. The stars in the upper reaches of the shrine had been made with a forgotten craft and shed light wholesome enough for living things to grow there far from the sun and sky. The whole shrine was alive with greenery from simple ferns and mosses to miniature eloh trees and gloryvine. Mineral veins and crystal outcrops that twinkled among the pools and grottoes had lent the place an aura of fey otherworldliness as though shy magical beings gambolled just out of sight.

  The altered shrine had few, if any, of its original characteristics intact. Sardon had to squeeze along a narrowing crack to even reach it, not the broad and welcoming path she had imagined. Instead the jagged edges of the volcanic rock lacerated her hands and knees unmercifully. Eventually she was forced to wriggle on her belly like a snake before finally dropping out of a metre-wide fissure and into the shrine in an undignified heap. Hissing and bubbling surrounded her, the sounds magnified by the enclosed space. Not two metres from her outstretched hand a pool of boiling mud spat dollops of caustic slime, and there were palls of smoke and vapour wreathing a dozen similar spots. The floor had been tilted and torn open. Great fissures lit by inner fires gusted hot air into the chamber like a hellish furnace. In places the roof had collapsed into a jumbled mass of slabs where a handful of the fallen stars still glowed from their recesses like evil eyes.

  The World Shrine represented the symbolic and metaphysical confluence of a planet-wide system of psychic conduits. The disruption of its material fabric was symptomatic of a far greater underlying harm. The psychic aura of the place was a sickening miasma of impotent rage, a swirling hate so strong that it had turned inward and poisoned its source. Sardon wept to feel it so closely, the world spirit a raging monster pounding at the walls of her sanity and threatening to suck her into its whirlpool of fury and loss.

  Every living thing on Lileathanir was connected to the world spirit, and at their passing they joined its essence and strengthened it. It felt as if all of the mass deaths of the cataclysm had fed only the most dangerous aspect of the world spirit: the dragon. The dragon was the destroyer, the force that swept the slate clean to allow new growth. He was the forest fire and the great storm, his fury raised mountains and drank seas. Sardon honoured the dragon, and admitted the necessity of such forces having to exist but she had no love for it. Now the dragon was unleashed and consuming all of Lileathanir in its fury.

  After what seemed a long time weeping in the semi-darkness Sardon finally levered herself to her feet, coughing in the acrid fumes. She wavered about what to do next. Seeing the shrine had confirmed her worst fears, but did nothing to resolve them. She could return to the refugees outside and see their hopeful faces drop as she told them that there was nothing to be done. She could remain sitting inside and weep until she choked on the fumes or she could try to investigate further, however futile that might be. Demonstrating the inherent resilience of her people she opted to investigate.

  Here and there polished sections of stone were carved with complex runes that pulsed with their own phosphorescent witch-light. None of these had been touched by the convulsions, their connections to other mystic sites on the planet remained intact. Sardon could not dare herself to reach out and use the runes to connect with the world spirit fully. She tried to sing a soothing chant as she had been taught in her days as a worldsinger, her song seemed nothing but a hollow and lifeless mockery screeched by a crone. Afterwards she felt a distinct feeling of resentment gathering about her and the walls shook disapprovingly. She determined to try and sing no more.

  As she stumbled across sloping stones she came across a skeleton wedged between two slabs. The body belonged to one of the shrine wardens judging by his aggressive-looking male attire. The warden had been crushed, but that had happened later. Falling stones or boiling mud had not killed him. Straight-edged knife cuts covered his bones from virtually head to toe, none of them deep enough to be immediately fatal. Such flagrant cruelty could only mean one thing – the dark kin must have penetrated the World Shrine itself. Sardon’s mind whirled at the concept and the rush of sick relief that she felt come close on its heels. Someone else did this, not us.

  It had always been too great a coincidence to imagine that the slave-takers raid was unrelated to the cataclysm that followed it. But in her worst imaginings Sardon had never truly entertained the idea that the Children of Khaine might have actually penetrated the World Shrine. Everything made sense now. The rage of the dragon had not been unleashed by the clans as she’d feared, but by the vile depredations of the dark kin in the very heart of the world. Sardon could conceive of no reason why they should come and violate the World Shrine, but she could conceive of no reason why they did any of the nightmarish things that were attributed to them. Evil, pure and simple, seemed their only motivation.

  Sardon spat in an attempt to get the noxious taint of death out of her mouth but it lingered stubbornly as she tried to think. The lower caves of the shrine had held gates to the spirit paths… and a secret that had been forgotten by many. She began to work her way downward as far as she could get, trying to mesh together in her mind’s eye the layout of the shrine as it was now in comparison to how it had been fifty years before. She eventually found a sloping ramp that was only half-choked with debris and followed it. At the bottom it opened into a domed chamber that was riven with cracks and slicked with drying mud but otherwise miraculously intact.

  Seven arches were carved into the chamber’s stonework, doorways that opened onto only blank walls behind. The runes carved around their edges seemed dim and lifeless but Sardon could sense their latent energies flowing just out of reach. She moved to the central arch of the seven, one that was just a shade larger than the others. The twining runes on the central arch were more intricate too, older looking than their siblings to either side. Sardon struggled to recall her teacher’s lesson from five decades before.

  ‘In time of most dire need the attention of the far-wanderers can be summoned to this place. They are haughty and judgemental but their powers are great and it is said they will help if they perceive the need.’

  The words were there, but the instructions were not. A sequence of runes touched in the proper order would send out the call, but Sardon could not remember what the sequence was. She turned away and attempted to centre herself, closing her eyes and clearing her thoughts with a moment of meditation. Her eyes flew open after only a second, the relentless beat of the dragon’s fury too strong in her mind to concentrate. Her memory kept returning the teacher’s warning, an unnecessarily dour admonishment as she had thought it at the time.

  ‘Lileathanir has not called out to the far-wanderers for succour in a hundred centuries – give thanks that it is so and never think to call upon them lightly. The wings of war beat ever at their backs.’

  Sardon was suddenly startled to realise she could see her own shadow. It was stretching across the muddy floor and back to the ramp as light grew stronger behind her. She hesitantly turned to look at the source, one hand raised to shield her eyes against the glare. The central arch was filled with silver light, its framework of runes blazing with internal fire. A figure was silhouetted against the arch, unnaturally tall and misshapen-looking. Antlers spread from the figure’s bulbous head and it gripped a blade almost as tall as itself that crackled with etheric energies. Sardon’s knees wobbled treacherously beneath her as she stifled a cry. The newcomer swept its blazing, amber-eyed gaze over her and advanced with one empty hand raised. More figures were emerging from the arc
h behind it, skinny, straight-limbed and even taller than the first.

  ‘Peace,’ the word sounded in Sardon’s mind like the tolling of a bell. She felt her fears begin ebbing away at the mental touch, but she angrily shook it off. The dragon was too strong here to be assuaged by such a simple trick. It boiled with outrage in a corner her mind, converting her momentary fear into fury.

  ‘Speak your words openly, invader,’ Sardon bristled, ‘and declare yourself before I call for the Shrine Wardens to eject you.’

  The figure halted and lowered its arm before sketching a bow that seemed devoid of mockery.

  ‘Forgive me,’ the figure said in a rich, mellifluous voice of pleasing timbre. ‘I sought only to reassure, not to offend.’

  The light dimmed as the arch reverted back to an unremarkable stone carving. Six figures now stood in the domed chamber with Sardon. She could see that the first to emerge and the one that had spoken was swathed in tawny robes from neck to ankles, its head enclosed by an amber-lensed helm affixed with thick bone-coloured antlers. The robes were covered with austere looking battle-runes of fortune and protection with an ornate chest guard of woven wraithbone. The long, straight sword in the figure’s hands bore still more runes, these of destruction and of the witch path. This could only be one of the fabled warlocks of the far-wanderers, a battle-seer of the craftworld clans and something that had been unseen on Lileathanir in hundreds of years.

  The other five newcomers remained silent, their attitudes ones of alert watchfulness. Each of them wore sapphire-tinted armour of subtly varying design, but all were well-proportioned and heroic-looking like animate statues. Their full-faced helms were adorned with tall crests marked in alternating bands of blue, white and yellow. They carried long-necked ancient weapons Sardon knew only as Tueleani – star throwers that were reputedly able to slice through a pack of charging carnosaurs or the bole of a forest giant with equal alacrity.

  The warlock reached into a satchel at his side and drew forth a miniature carving of a rune. He released it in the air between them and it hung there, slowly spinning. The rune of weaving.

  ‘My name is Caraeis. I tread the Path of the Seer. I have come at your call,’ the warlock intoned. ‘This path was so ordained.’

  Caraeis reached into his satchel again and drew forth another rune. He placed it in conjunction with the rune of weaving and it span around it in an erratic orbit. This was the jagged, scimitar-like rune of the dark kin. The world spirit came next, and then the profane shape of the soul-drinker. Finally there was Dysjunction. The twisting, spinning runes formed a pattern in the air that was painful to Sardon’s eyes. She held up her hands and looked away.

  ‘Enough tricks,’ she said. ‘You know of our pain, you know of our world spirit’s pain. I believe you. Can you help us?’

  ‘The pain of Lileathanir is felt far and wide,’ the warlock said. ‘It must be healed before it can cause yet greater harm.’

  ‘How can all this be healed?’ Sardon murmured in disbelief. ‘The very core of the world is violated, the spirits hunger only for bloodshed and revenge.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Caraeis. He released another rune above the whirling confluence and it steadied the dissonant patterns immediately. The rune of vengeance. ‘I have tested a thousand other variants,’ the warlock said, ‘each with the same result. This is the only path forward.’

  ‘Vengeance?’ Sardon cried bitterly. ‘How can we avenge ourselves against what we cannot reach? With so few of us left, how can we even think of fighting back?’

  ‘I ask only that you permit us to be your instrument in this. Allow my companions and I to bring the perpetrator of this heinous crime to justice.’

  Sardon blinked in disbelief. ‘You-you could do that?’ she stammered, daring to hope for an instant. ‘Find them and punish them?’

  The warlock’s antlered helm nodded solemnly. ‘It is within my power to trace the destinies of the dark kin that came here and violated the shrine. The pattern is shifting and diffuse, but there are junctures yet to come where decisive action can be taken. Do you give your permission for this to occur?’

  Punishment, vengeance. Ugly words to Sardon, but what she had seen in the World Shrine had shaken the very core of her beliefs. If the warlock was right and they were the things to begin the healing process who was she to deny the dragon its due? A part of her wished she could consult her people and hear their wishes, another part knew precisely what they would be. The hard life of the Exodite clans gave them an uncompromising view of justice – an eye of an eye, blood for blood. It would be hard to restrain their basest instincts after all they had suffered.

  Sardon wasn’t even sure she could find her way back down the mountain in her weakened state. Would the warlock be prepared to sit by while the trail grew colder and she wrangled with the clans? Probably not. He stood patiently watching her, the pattern of runes rotating between them silently as he waited for her response.

  ‘Very well. Bring them to me, I ask this of you, Caraeis.’

  ‘You wish to render judgement yourself?’

  ‘I want to look them in the eye before I give them to the dragon,’ Sardon said with finality.

  The flickering light and close horizon made it hard to judge how far away the gate truly lay across the ravaged plain. Perhaps as little as a few thousand metres, perhaps as much as twice that.

  ‘Will they actively try to hit us or is it in the hands of lady luck?’ Motley demanded.

  Morr looked across at his slight companion with a sharp movement that denoted surprise. ‘I do not know,’ he admitted, ‘but the weapons are crude and highly inaccurate, they rely on blast and impact.’

  ‘And real? Here and now real, I mean!’ Motley yelled.

  ‘Very real.’

  ‘All right, then I’ll try to draw their fire while you make for the gate,’ Motley shouted over the shell impacts. ‘Don’t. Leave. Without. Me.’ With that final admonishment Motley ran swiftly down the slope and out onto the plain. As the slender grey figure ran its silhouette flew into a storm of brightly coloured shards that whirled and darted capriciously. A new multi-coloured, kaleidoscopic explosion leapt up among its sullen cousins of orange and red, and it danced among them.

  The traceries of fire were the first things to react to the upstart presence. They whipped around to chase after the dancing motes of light as they raced away across the plain. Moments later the explosions came crowding in, their roar and tumult overlapping as they sought to crush the newcomer.

  Morr struck out towards the gate across sands that were still warm from the pounding of the bombardment. Tiny, twisted fragments of smoking metal lay everywhere – shrapnel to give it the properly archaic term. Occasionally there were fragments of what used to be living things too, chunks of meat and bone barely recognisable as having once been part of a greater whole. Blackened pits showed where larger shells had landed in contrast to the almost comically small scorch marks from smaller bombs. Not all of the incoming rounds were chasing after the madly running Harlequin. The heaviest of them continued to rain down on the plain seemingly at random, each one shaking the ground with its impact and throwing up a huge plume of dust. Morr bent low and pushed on toward his goal, the drifting clouds of dust soon swallowing him completely.

  The ground shivered beneath Motley’s flying feet. The air was filled with the whoops, whistles and shrieks of flying metal. He listened intently for the distinctive slobbering noise each shell made as it flew through the air incoming, and the dopplering whine of the shrapnel outgoing from each impact. He twisted back and forth to spoil the aim of his unseen attackers, dancing through the inferno with seemingly reckless abandon. His domino field dispersed his image and made it impossible to pinpoint him exactly. Unfortunately most of the primitive weaponry being used did not need to pinpoint him exactly – in fact it only needed to get lucky once. The slow-seeming swarms of tracer fire
would have been the most dangerous without the field, however, and even with its help he had to skid aside or leap over its questing fingers a dozen times.

  Even Motley’s preternatural agility had its limits. He was forced into doubling back as the fire became too intense to go on. Unfortunately that placed him in just as much danger of running back beneath a stray salvo behind him. A chain of explosions erupted within a dozen metres and threw Motley off his feet. Shrapnel whirred around him like a swarm of angry bees busily stinging at his chest and upper arms. He tumbled instinctively with the blow, bouncing to his feet and coming up running. Within a few paces he staggered, still dazed from the impact and almost fell.

  ‘No time for a sit-down right now, old boy,’ he told himself drunkenly, tittering as he mastered his wobbling legs, got them beneath him and ran on. A cold ache was spreading across his chest, never a good sign. Motley decided that he’d had enough of playing at being a target, the audience seemed unappreciative and surely Morr was approaching the gate by now. He deactivated the domino field and became an invisible flicker of grey among the flames as he sprinted off on a straight course for the gate.

  Morr emerged from drifting curtains of dust onto a beaten circle of dirt surrounding the gate. It loomed over him from a hundred metres away, an angular-looking sheet of jade six stories high that shone with its own inner light. With the barrage shifted away in pursuit of Motley’s distraction the area seemed almost peaceful for a moment. Morr’s headed snapped up at the sound of rifle fire crackling close by. He wasn’t the only one taking advantage of the distraction.

  The barrage raged impotently behind Motley, blindly smashing down on where he had been rather than where he was or (better yet) where he would be. However some of the tracer-gunners kept coming uncomfortably close as they sent their bursts of fire after his flitting grey shape. Motley increased his pace, each bounding stride taking him five or more metres at a time. Ahead and to the side he could see a flickering of tiny sparks on the ground. Two groups were firing rifles at each other as they tried to creep closer to the gate. Beyond them he could see the tiny figure of Morr standing beside the gate itself.