by Gav Thorpe
This was not the legendary tale she had expected. Life had suddenly become a terrible, tenuous reality. Neridiath choked back a rising terror, sobbing, trying hard not to think of the danger she had brought upon Manyia. Her stomach was so tight with dread that she almost fell. It was no comfort at all that she had brought Manyia into harm’s way to guarantee her future. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to move on, looking for somewhere safe for her daughter. Asurmen had chosen her, and the farseer had seen them victorious. Neridiath focused on that truth, drawing what strength she could from these facts.
An explosion ahead sent a wave of noise and air flooding down the passageway, buffeting the refugee pilot. She was terrified to turn back, but could not go on further, and found herself caught in mental stasis, not knowing what to do.
Just then she felt a soothing presence filtering into her thoughts. It calmed Manyia and eased her worries, coalescing as the mind of Hylandris. The farseer transmitted control and authority, a tranquil pool of understanding amidst the storm.
Follow my instructions and I will guide you to safety.
In the brief oasis of calm afforded by the farseer’s intervention, Neridiath’s desire to get away manifested itself in a more practical form.
‘Should I head to the control chamber, to lift off? We can escape the attack that way.’
We are too vulnerable to take off whilst there are enemies aboard and their armoured vehicles can attack us with impunity. A moment of misfortune could send us crashing back down with disastrous consequence. Also, the humans are concentrated towards the prow – it is safer to head down to the lower decks.
Following the farseer’s guidance, Neridiath made her way down several levels, past the weapon decks to the storage levels. On two occasions she was forced to double back, forewarned of roaming humans by an impulse from Hylandris. Eventually he deposited her in an empty storage chamber beneath one of the laser cannon arrays.
There are other matters that require my full attention, Neridiath. Rest assured that all is as we wish. The humans were allowed to board so that we could thin their numbers more efficiently. The process of ejecting them has begun. I will find you when it is safe.
The feeling of loneliness when Hylandris had gone was matched by the emptiness of Neridiath’s surroundings. The fighting seemed more distant here, though it still swelled and pulsed across the matrix, a background discordance that Neridiath avoided.
She sat down on the bare floor, Manyia in her lap. The baby was no longer screaming, but her thoughts were a whirl of agitation. Neridiath stroked her hair and whispered comfort, accompanying the physical reassurance with mental projections of safety and calm.
A sudden clatter from the corridor snapped Neridiath from her bonding trance. Footfalls approached, many of them, too heavy to be eldar. Human voices, unintelligible, barking out every few heartbeats. The matrix was awash with their thoughts, of loot and destruction, just as the faint internal breeze brought the stench of their unwashed bodies through the door of the storage chamber.
Neridiath was frozen with dread, her sanctuary violated against all expectation. There was nothing she could do, her shelter had become a trap. She desperately looked around the room but there was nothing to hide her or Manyia. The floor and shelves were bare.
She eased herself to her feet, sliding her back up the smooth wall, moving sideways so that she could not easily be seen through the open door.
A moment later the first of the humans stepped into view. It had bare legs and arms, neck to thigh covered with a thick tunic tied at the waist with a broad belt. Its flat face was sallow, eyes a sad brown as they turned towards the storage bay. Its head was topped with an unkempt thatch of black hair, greasy. It stank of oil and exhaust smoke combined with a rank bodily odour.
Manyia whimpered, loud enough for the intruder to hear. The male turned, eyes widening with surprise as it met Neridiath’s panicked gaze. The human opened its mouth, issuing a series of grunts and growls to its companion as it stepped across the threshold. Another followed, a step behind, of darker complexion, head hairless but with a growth of black curls on its chin.
Neridiath realised what she should have done the moment she had heard the humans.
Door shut! Lock!
The ship responded instantly to Neridiath’s instinctive reflex, the door plates of the storage bay sliding together like an iris, cutting the second human in half. Head, torso and one arm flopped to the floor of the room in a spray of blood and bisected organs, the human’s piercing shriek cut short.
The other human turned, mouth gaping in horror. As it moved Neridiath saw that the front of its tunic was open, revealing a chest crudely shorn of hair, a branded mark laid upon the left pectoral. A symbol she did not know in detail but recognised all the same – a rune of the Dark Gods.
The human looked down in horror at the remains of its companion. It wavered slightly, unsteady on its feet, and then vomited, ejecting a stream of bile and half-digested matter onto the floor. Neridiath backed away, though there was nowhere to run, Manyia squirming in her grip.
Retching twice more, the human straightened, slit-like animal eyes turning on the pilot, a lip curling in anger. It barked something, jabbing a finger towards the remnants of the other human, spittle flying from vomit-flecked lips.
Neridiath started to cry, tears flowing down her cheeks, chest wracked by deep sobs.
‘Save me,’ she whispered. She did not know to whom she pleaded for aid, perhaps the universe itself. She felt very small and alone and foolish all of a sudden. Fate could be as cruel as it was kind; there were no guarantees in life. ‘Save us. Don’t let this happen.’
Through the mist of grief, she watched the human take a step closer, one hand closing around the grip of a pistol hung on its belt. It lifted the weapon and beckoned her to approach, snapping and snarling in its savage tongue.
There was no power in the universe that was going to let this beast take her child. The pistol was pointed right at her, the demand repeated with greater volume. But even now she could not do what had to be done. She knew she was faster than the human. She could seize the pistol and fire it before the clumsy alien could stop her. But for all that the knowledge was there, the action was not. A terror deeper even than her fear for her child rooted her to the spot.
She saw only one solution.
Neridiath’s fingers closed around Manyia’s throat, while she told herself over and over that it would be a mercy for her daughter. There was no telling what the humans would do with an eldar child.
Scare mummy! Die!
Neridiath only caught the edge of the burst from Manyia. The full force of the psychic imperative was directed into the human’s thoughts, shaped not by language but by primal need. The human reeled back, wincing in pain. Its gaze moved to the child in Neridiath’s arms, half horrified, half confused. A trembling hand raised the pistol to its left eye. Manyia’s tiny face was set with a deep scowl, toothless gums bared, unfettered psychic energy gleaming in her dark eyes.
Die!
The human pulled the trigger, sending a bolt of energy searing into its skull. It fell backwards, arms flailing wide, head crashing against the floor.
Neridiath watched the human, wary of any movement, but only spasmodic muscle twitches disturbed the body.
Safe?
Manyia started to cry and wriggled around to bury her face in Neridiath’s chest. The pilot’s thoughts veered between shock and horror and relief, the three emotions whirling together in an overwhelming mass.
Through the haze she heard the sound of banging on the door. She realised it had started the moment the door had closed, but she had been focused entirely on the human inside the room. It was just a simple storage locker, not barred by a security door or blast portal. It would not take long for the humans to batter their way in.
Safe?
‘Yes,
safe,’ Neridiath lied, eying the pistol that was still in the dead human’s grasp.
X
It was pity that moved him, not anger, and in that came his strength. Asurmen was on the wild maiden in an instant, the fingers of his extended hand crushing her windpipe. As she spun to the floor choking, he caught the blade falling from her spasming fingers. He tossed the stiletto to Faraethil and moved to the next cultist, kicking his legs from under him, snatching the sabre from his grasp in one movement.
He had never fought before, with hand or weapon, but it seemed as though his foes moved slowly, his body acting and reacting without thought. He drove the sword into the chest of the eldar he had taken it from and ducked beneath a wildly swinging axe. Pulling the blade free, he turned, lifting the sword in time to block the next blow.
Faraethil hurled herself at the blood-drinkers with a feral screech, bowling over the closest with her charge, stabbing again and again into the female cultist’s chest.
Asurmen slid his blade into the gut of another enemy, considering the killing a mercy, not a sin. He took no pleasure in it, for he had seen in his long meditations that the gratuitous act, the self-satisfaction of achievement had been the downfall of his people.
The anger and hate of his foes made them hasty and clumsy. They hissed and spat and slashed, but all they did was waste precious time and energy. In the moments of their posturing he cut down two more of their number, their blood flicking from the sword to spatter the main doors of the temple. He moved without fear or hesitation, the epitome of calm discipline. In this state it was easy to spot the flex of muscle, the flick of eye, the subtle movements that betrayed his enemies’ thoughts. He was reacting before they even knew what they were going to do.
Faraethil had fallen on another cultist, sawing her scavenged blade across his throat. Her fear propelled her, turning her into a wild creature of desperate violence, full of passion and fierce need. She leapt from the corpse, blood-soaked and dripping, tumbling to the floor with another enemy, biting and screaming while she plunged the knife down.
A curved sword missed Asurmen’s throat by a hair’s breadth as he dodged the attack of his next target. His empty hand grabbed the blood-cultist’s wrist, twisting, shattering bone with effortless ease. Asurmen’s sword cleaved down, taking the head from the body in one smooth motion.
One cultist remained. He scrabbled backwards through the blood of his dead companions. Crouching, snarling like a chained hound, Faraethil bared her teeth, little better than the eldar she had slain. Asurmen stepped in front of her, blocking her view.
‘What are you?’ the cultist demanded, the dagger in his hand shaking as he lifted it.
‘I am your evils returned to you,’ said Asurmen. ‘I am the justice your victims cry out for. The protector of the weak. The light in the darkness. The Hand of Asuryan.’
The sword sang as it cut the air.
‘I am the avenger.’
20
‘Where is the pilot?’ Asurmen demanded. There was no reply from Hylandris.
I… I have made a grave error.
‘Where is she?’
I thought she would be safe. There was fear rather than regret in the farseer’s voice. I cannot predict every tiny thing. It’s impossible. No, she will be all right. I saw us l–
Asurmen gave up on getting what he needed from the confused seer. He touched his presence to the matrix of the ship, a bolt of silver that sliced through the babble and noise of the humans, seeking out Stormlance in the flight bay below. Connecting with the rest of his consciousness residing in the warship he interrogated the Patient Lightning, using the bond that had arisen between Stormlance and the child. Wherever Manyia was, Neridiath would be close at hand.
He homed in on the child, finding her in a state of panic, after-images of what she had done looping through her mind. Manyia was reliving the moment of contact with the human’s filthy thoughts again and again, each time the sudden blankness of death cutting across the mental link. The destructive cycle was also spilling into the mind of Neridiath along the bond the pilot had created to protect her daughter, polluting her thoughts as well.
Detaching from the infant’s psyche, Asurmen wove his thoughts into the sensors of the battleship, locating the pair on one of the lower decks. There were around a dozen humans trying to break in through the thin storage-bay door, and twice that number were in the immediate surrounds.
Asurmen ran.
To the humans it must have seemed that the battleship was consumed by anarchy. The fighting spread across every deck; sporadic thrusts and counter-attacks shifted the lines of battle constantly. To the eldar there was nothing further from the truth. Guided in part by the warlocks and partly by the ship itself, the war host methodically dulled the initial impetus of the human assault and then proceeded to splinter the attacking force with misdirection, carefully conceived counter-attacks and deadly ambushes.
Asurmen navigated through the firefights and whirling melees without stopping until he found the nearest conveyor shaft. Summoning the transport pod he rode the conveyor down to the level where Neridiath and Manyia were trapped. He was deposited in an adjoining corridor, exiting the travel pod directly in the path of a group of humans coming around a corner ahead.
He was already moving before they raised their weapons. Hasty las-fire flashed down the corridor, too poorly aimed to hit its target. Asurmen tucked into a roll beneath the fusillade, launching a volley of shots from his vambraces. The shurikens sliced down the closest two humans, their robes and flesh left equally tattered as they fell to the floor.
Coming to his feet, Asurmen fired again, his volley slashing open the face of a third foe while the other humans tried to track the swift-moving Phoenix Lord. Las-bolts sparked along the wall in front and behind but none found their mark.
His diresword in hand, Asurmen reached the humans at full speed. The gleaming blade parted the head from the shoulders of one while a point-blank hail of shurikens tore the guts from another. Without a break in stride, Asurmen spun with sword outstretched, severing the spine of the last human. He was already around the junction before the body hit the deck.
The humans battering at the door of the storage bay were so fixated on their goal that they spared no attention on protecting themselves. They howled and bayed like a pack of feral beasts, hammering at the door with fists, rifle butts and the pommels of their knives and swords.
Three fell in quick succession when Asurmen reached them, limbs sheared away with a flurry of strikes. The door gave way as a fourth fell, ribs splayed open by the Phoenix Lord’s next blow. Over the heads of the humans he could see through the broken door, to where Neridiath was cowering against the wall.
Seeing her stricken, realising that they had all been a heartbeat away from a terrible doom, Asurmen unleashed his deepest fears and anger, channelling an ire that had lasted for an age.
His blade became a whirlwind of gleaming fire, opening up arteries and severing limbs in a blur of motion. The humans turned sluggishly, finally realising the threat in their midst, faces slowly contorting with shock as the Phoenix Lord carved through their number. Corpses fell from his presence like scythed crops, showering the passageway with arterial crimson.
As the last but one of the humans collapsed, his legs cut out from beneath him, the survivor turned his pistol on Asurmen. The Phoenix Lord grabbed the man by the throat and lifted while the human pressed the muzzle of his weapon against the side of the Phoenix Lord’s helm. With a mental command, Asurmen unleashed a storm of shurikens from his vambrace, pressed into the human’s chin. The cultist’s head disappeared.
Tossing aside the body, Asurmen stepped up to the door, a slick of red washing past his feet.
‘Neridiath!’ He tried to reach out with his mind but the pilot recoiled from the bitterly cold touch of his thoughts.
Asurmen was about to try again when h
e sensed something changing in the world. The barrier between realities was thinning. A tear ripped across his consciousness, accompanied by a psychic wailing. Looking down at his bloodstained hands, he finally realised what the humans had been fighting for.
They had been fighting for the Dark Lady. Their lives, thousands of them, sacrificed in her honour. The eldar had been only too willing to shed so much blood. Blood that had been promised to the Dark Gods of Chaos, and every body marked with a symbol of devotion. How could they have been so blinded to the truth?
The Dark Lady had provided her side of the bargain. She was about to receive her reward.
XI
The rage emanated from Faraethil like waves of heat, filling the antechamber with its oppressive presence. Asurmen held his ground as she turned her angry gaze upon him, the blood-drenched knife in her hands dripping crimson across the small tiles of the floor. As before her hair was a wild, unkempt mass, a physical representation of the aura of emotion that surrounded her.
Making no sudden movements, Asurmen slowly crouched and laid his sword on the floor. He stood again with equally deliberate motion, keeping his eyes fixed on Faraethil. Hands spread wide, he spoke softly, his voice barely more than a whisper.
‘They are dead. We have slain them. The danger has passed.’
Faraethil’s gaze flicked to the corpses and back to Asurmen. Her eyes narrowed, but the hand holding the dagger lowered slightly.
‘You remember, yes? You saved me. And now I have saved you. Why did you come back to me?’
The girl slowly straightened, limbs quivering. She sucked in a deep breath and exhaled it, eyes never moving from Asurmen.
‘You called yourself the avenger, the Hand of Asuryan.’ A hint of a smile played on Faraethil’s lips. ‘For me. You took the name for me?’
