by Gav Thorpe
‘Your inspiration. You were the instrument of Asuryan’s intervention, now I have become the instrument.’
‘You know that the gods are dead, right?’ The girl looked down at herself and reeled at the sight. She staggered to the wall and threw up.
Asurmen moved to her, close but not so close that she would feel threatened. The knife was still in her hand, after all. Faraethil looked back past him to the bodies.
‘Did we do that? Did I do that?’ She looked horrified. ‘How? How could we?’
‘It is in all of us, that violence, waiting to be unleashed. Just as the yearning for delight, for adulation, for satisfaction is in all of our hearts. We must resist its lure, be strong against its temptations.’
‘Have you done this before? The killing?’
Asurmen shook his head.
‘I was a vessel, nothing more. The violence is in me, but I am a being of serenity now.’
‘Really?’ Faraethil laughed without humour, staring at the bloodied carcasses of the cultists. ‘Serene is not the word that springs to mind.’
‘Violence is an intent, not an act,’ said Asurmen. ‘I have thought long about this, since the Fall.’
‘The Fall? What is that?’
Asurmen waved a hand towards the doors and to the vaulted ceiling of the entrance hall.
‘Everything that happened. The loss of innocence. The damning of our people. The doom that came.’
The girl looked at him with suspicion. ‘You remember the time before?’
‘How can you not?’
‘I was a child, I don’t remember anything except the death and screaming. My brother survived for a while, looked after me long enough for me to learn how to look after myself, avoid the cults and the daemons. It has been some time, several years of the old reckoning, since I was last here. Have you been alone all that time?’
‘For far longer than I had realised,’ said Asurmen. He gestured to the blade in Faraethil’s hand. ‘Let me take that.’
She gave it to him, hesitant, and he threw it away, the metal clattering across stone tiles.
‘How am I supposed to protect myself!’ she cried, taking a step after the discarded blade. Asurmen held out a hand to stop her.
‘It is not safe for you to carry a weapon yet. Your rage will get you killed. It blinds you to danger, fuelled by your fear.’
‘So you are not afraid? Really?’
‘I have seen the world consumed by a thirsting god, Faraethil. There is nothing left to scare me. I have spent enough time alone. Let me teach you what I have learnt, of the world beyond the cults and streets. Let me help you control the fear and anger, to bring calm to the turmoil in your heart.’
‘I will have to fight. Nobody survives without fighting.’
‘I did not say you will not fight. I will teach you to fight without the desire for it overwhelming you. Our people have been laid low by our emotions, and our desires and fears have consumed us. Those of us that can must learn control. We must walk a careful path between indulgence and denial. We must not pander to our darker passions, but we cannot deny that they exist. Both must be tempered by discipline and purpose. Only then can we be free of the burden of ourselves.’
The girl looked at him, hope and gratitude in her eyes.
‘Is that true? Can we really escape this nightmare?’
‘Would you like to try, Faraethil?’
‘I need another name. You were not Asurmen when we first met. If I am to be reborn, like you, I need a new name.’
Asurmen thought for a while and then a smile turned his lips, something that had not happened for a long time.
‘I will teach you to channel your rage into a tempest of blows that none can withstand, and your scream shall leave the quiet of death in your wake. You will be Jain Zar.’
The Storm of Silence. The first pupil.
21
The beast summoned by the mass sacrifice of the cultists towered above its subjects, who threw themselves onto their faces to make obeisance at its passing. Of the Dark Lady’s mortal body, nothing remained. Her new form was black as coal, eyes like sapphires, wings of shadow stretching broad from her back. She advanced on cloven feet, one hand wreathed in a ball of lightning, the other clutching the hilt of a long golden scimitar.
The dark princess stopped some distance from the Patient Lightning, sword pointing up to the starry night. The air churned around the blade. A whirl of warp power grew in strength, summoning unnatural black clouds from out of nowhere.
At the daemon princess’s feet the cultists gathered, clutching their weapons to their chests, eyes wide with awe and fear at the storm gathering above. Purple energy flickered across the clouds, bathing the battlefield with stark flashes of light. The growl of tank engines was like thunder, rolling across the corpse-littered hillsides.
Confronted by the daemonic storm the aircraft of the eldar dared not approach. Grav-tanks glided into position, their starcannons and brightlances levelled at the monstrosity that confronted them. Aspect Warriors disembarked from their Wave Serpents, taking up positions guarding the approaches to the downed starship, forming knots of colour against the scorched earth.
At a signal from Hylandris, the host opened fire, bright beams of energy and blasts of plasma obliterating the darkness in a flickering display of destruction. A dozen of the humans’ tanks exploded and swathes of their infantry fell in moments. Pulses of blue and white converged on the daemon, but the concentrated discharges of energy flared ineffectually from her ebon body.
The daemon lowered her sword, the tip bursting into flame as it pointed towards the Patient Lightning. She snarled something in a bestial tongue and the cultists surged forward, a living wave even more desperate and wild than the previous assaults. Drivers gunned the engines of the vehicles and accelerated, their mad charges crushing comrades beneath their tracks. Led by their living god, the Chaos worshippers hurled themselves into the teeth of the eldar defence, dying with smiles and laughter, every death greeted with joy rather than fear.
On board the starship, Hylandris searched for the pilot, Neridiath. She was not where he had left her, so he followed a trail of dismembered and decapitated human bodies until he found her with Asurmen in one of the empty lockers on a lower deck. The corridor outside was choked with corpses, their throats slashed, disembowelled, limbs cut clean away. Axes, knives and guns lay scattered amongst the dead.
Fighting back a wave of nausea, the seer exerted his will and a pulse of psychic energy parted a path through the carcasses, throwing bodies aside in a bloody wave as he strode through the gore. Hylandris stopped at the door to the storage bay, shocked by what he saw.
The Phoenix Lord looked as though he had bathed in blood, the crest of his helm matted with gore, the gonfalon that flew from his back soaked crimson. There were spatters of the same on the face of Neridiath and the child she clutched in her arms as she sat with her back against the wall. Her eyes were locked on Asurmen, or more particularly the shimmering blade in his hand. The floor was slick with a covering of fresh blood that rippled as Asurmen turned.
There was no reaction from Neridiath but the girl in her tight embrace looked at the farseer with innocent eyes.
Afraid. Help?
‘The time has come,’ Hylandris said, ignoring the child’s worried question. ‘We can delay no longer, we must take off. Our foe has ascended into the darkness, now a daemon of the warp.’
Asurmen looked at him and the air burned with the aftermath of his rage. Slowly the anger receded into the shell of the Phoenix Lord’s armour. He lowered his blade and glanced at the pilot.
‘I know,’ Asurmen said. He pointed at Neridiath. ‘Wake her.’
Hylandris looked at the pilot. She had not moved, sitting staring at some distant scene that existed only in her mind.
‘Come back to me,’ he said q
uietly, but there was no reply. Her spirit had sunk within itself, hiding from whatever horror she had witnessed. There was only one way to reach her. Hylandris crouched beside the inert pilot and laid a hand on the child’s head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, releasing just an iota of his psychic energy into Manyia.
The child screamed as if stuck with a pin, her psychic cry even more piercing.
PAIN!
An instant later, Hylandris was flat on his back, Neridiath on top of him with a knee on his chest, one hand around the bawling child, the other at his throat, a human dagger in her grasp. Asurmen made no move to defend the farseer.
‘Touch my daughter again and I’ll kill you,’ she snarled. Asurmen suppressed a smile. Events were eventually turning towards the fate he had seen in the vision.
‘The ship,’ the farseer gasped. ‘We are in immense danger. You have to pilot the ship.’
Neridiath stepped back, confused and distant as though waking from a dream. She saw the knife in her hands.
‘Did I…?’ She shook her head, remembering. Her gaze turned to the Phoenix Lord. ‘Asurmen. You slaughtered them all.’
‘You would be dead if he had not,’ said Hylandris, offering his hand. ‘Come, we must leave now or we shall all be dead.’
‘The ship… Yes, I was moving to the control chamber, to take the ship away from the attack. But can’t you feel it? The distress?’
Asurmen allowed his consciousness to mingle with the essence of the battleship for a moment. He felt the presence of Hylandris close at hand as the farseer psychically interrogated the half-aware spirits that flowed through the matrix.
‘The storm, it is sorcerous in nature and could bring us down if it continues to grow,’ the farseer announced. ‘Even if we drive back the artillery and tanks, the daemon is feeding on the death of its worshippers, drawing strength from their continuing sacrifices.’
Asurmen moved away. ‘Get to the control chamber.’
‘You can’t leave like this,’ Hylandris said as the Phoenix Lord stepped out into the passageway. ‘Where are you going?’
Asurmen stopped but did not look back. His diresword flared and the blood streamed into the air, leaving the blade glimmering like a sliver of molten gold.
‘To fight your daemon.’
‘We cannot wait for you.’
‘You won’t have to.’
22
Most of the humans had been expelled from the ship. Those that remained were herded into killing crossfires by the crew of the Patient Lightning and the Guardians of Anuiven that had been lured to Hylandris’s cause.
The Aspect Warriors withdrew from the fight, following their exarchs into the lower reaches of the ship. In turn, the exarchs were responding to a call, a psychic beacon that flared in their blood and roused their warrior spirits.
Asurmen waited for them in a broad and high chamber. Once a dock for anti-grav tanks, its contents now lay wrecked and burning on the battlefield surrounding the warship. By shrine-squad and Aspect the warriors assembled. Dire Avengers to the fore, Asurmen’s own Aspect. Beside them, the Howling Banshees whose teachings descended from the lessons of Jain Zar, and Fire Dragons of Fuegan, the Dark Reapers that clove to the destructive creed of Maugan Ra. At the edge of the mass lurked the Striking Scorpions, swathed by the psychic shadow that followed them. A handful of Swooping Hawks were all that were left of three shrine-squads that had come, having suffered heavily in the storm unleashed by the Dark Lady. There were others Aspects too. Shining Spears and Warp Spiders, Crimson Hunters and Ebon Talons, whose creators had never been Asurya but whose legacies still echoed through the ages. Those squads whose exarchs had fallen drifted in last, slightly confused, only realising on entering the nature of the urge that had brought them.
‘Blood Runs. Anger Rises. Death Wakes. War Calls.’ Asurmen’s voice stretched easily to the furthest part of the chamber, filling it with his words. The mantra caused all that heard it to stiffen, to stand prouder, their senses and minds fired. ‘Battle rages and we must fight its last actions. You leave behind your shrines. I am the only shrine you need. I am Khaine the Avenger, the Hand of Asuryan that strikes down the wicked. Where I stand, you will stand. Where I lead, you will follow. Where I fall, you will avenge.’
He could feel their minds conjoining, their war masks returning with greater vigour, pushing aside all remorse, all mercy, all frailty. These were his warriors, all of them, no matter the Aspect or shrine. The Path was his creation, the war mask his discovery. The senses of all present were attuned to his every word and movement.
‘We are Khaine Incarnate. Not the Avatar, a broken shard of violence and death. We, the Aspect Warriors, united. There is no foe we cannot defeat, no enemy we cannot slay, no battle we cannot win when we stand together. As one, as Khaine, we shall destroy the host that besets us, and again prove that the eldar do not relinquish their lives lightly.’
The time had come to rectify his failings on the Jhitaar core world. He was the knot upon the skein, the force that had brought all of these warriors to this place at this time. He forged his own path across the skein, parting the threads of mortals and gathering them when needed. The exarchs had not known why they answered the request of Hylandris, only that they should. The Guardians, the warlocks, the corsairs, all had been unknowing instruments of Asurmen, falling into the wake of his fate like moons trapped in orbit around the gravity well of a world.
That fate had delivered them to Asurmen when he needed them most, just as it had delivered him to them.
As Asurmen strode towards the immense portal where Falcons and Wave Serpents had once disembarked, the shrine-squads parted like a bow wave, a rainbow of colour spreading and then falling into place behind him. He connected his mind to the matrix of the Patient Lightning, using it to amplify his thoughts, to send his battle cry into the minds of all the eldar. He needed no shout, no verbal declaration of intent. His will hammered into the minds of all that were part of the matrix, instilling discipline, courage and dedication, a call to war louder and more compelling than any oratory.
He descended the ramp as the gun turrets of the battleship opened fire, a deadly salute to the emerging Phoenix Lord and his warriors. The Shining Spears flitted past, joining Vypers and other jetbike riders to form the point of the descending spear. The air hummed with the crackle of warp jump generators as Warp Spiders slipped across the skein.
Given one will by Asurmen, a single purpose forged by his strength, the host of the Patient Lightning surged from the battleship’s bays and boarding bridges, laser and shurikens and plasma heralding the counter-attack.
Crimson hunters launched their aircraft into the ravening storm above, defying the wrath of the Dark Lady to strafe tanks columns and artillery batteries converging on the crashed starship. The last of the Swooping Hawks disappeared towards the cloud, ready to rain las-fire and plasma grenades. Striking Scorpions disappeared into the shadows and Howling Banshees sped ahead on swift feet. With a single purpose, a single fate, the Aspect Warriors attacked.
Asurmen strode into the fray as gunfire lit the sky above and shells tore the ground around him. The Dark Lady’s most blessed followers now came forward, those who had stayed close to her and avoided the ambush, determined to prove their worth.
Fusion guns and plasma grenades, shuriken catapults and whirring chainblades greeted the oncoming horde. No robe-clad peasants but armoured warriors with scars and tattoos marking their dedications to the dark powers. Warbands of Chaos, no less, led by Champions and chosen warriors, forged into an army by the will and promises of the Dark Lady.
Asurmen singled out an immense warrior clad in red-and-black war-plate, a banner marked with the rune of the Lord of Skulls flying from a pole upon his back. The Champion of the Blood God charged headlong towards the Dire Avengers that had formed guard around the Phoenix Lord. He held a plasma pistol and immense
chain axe, the former forgotten as he unleashed his wrath with the latter. Spittle flew from a fanged mouth, doubtless chanting mindless dedications to his bloodthirsty master.
His armour was riven with hundreds of shurikens, his flesh tattered and bloody in moments, but the Champion paid no heed to the fusillades of the Dire Avengers, laughing as blood coursed down his face and exposed arms. Asurmen moved quickly, sprinting to the fore of his followers. His blade met the oncoming Champion as a silver flash, the tip sliding through the monstrous human’s throat.
Asurmen did not even break stride as he left his Aspect Warriors to deal with the Khornate lord’s retinue. His gaze was set on the Dark Lady, a towering black presence beyond a sea of foes. Another howling beast of a Champion threw himself at Asurmen and a moment later the warlord’s head was spinning to the ground.
The Aspect Warriors advanced in the wake of the Phoenix Lord, a splash of colour across the dark, bloodied turf. As Asurmen slashed and dismembered all that came upon him, so the blade of Khaine cleaved into the army of the Dark Lady, aimed for the daemonic presence at its heart.
23
Pain throbbed up Nymuyrisan’s spine, mirroring the damage to the wraithknight. It felt as though he could not move, but it was just fear that kept him frozen. The Chaos beast-machine moved away, lumbering towards the battleship, the handlers believing the wraithknight destroyed. Nymuyrisan considered the possibility that they were not that wrong. There was no response from Jarithuran and the wraithknight’s systems, but for life support and basic sensory input, which were malfunctioning.
Nymuyrisan realised that it was not only the Chaos followers that perhaps thought the wraithknight dead. The other eldar were retreating, moving back onto the battleship with the humans in pursuit. He also realised he did not care. The emptiness, the loneliness had returned with the second loss of Jarithuran. Better to die here than to continue in a meaningless existence without his twin.
