The Carnac Campaign: Nightspear
Page 4
Illic sighted down Voidbringer and ignored Uldanoreth’s voice in his mind.
They came out of the darkness, ululating war cries streaming from lips, weapons steaming, firing, killing. Their words were shrill, carrying over the pounding rain, carrying over the buzzing of the souldark.
Their crested hair was a sodden mess, flopping about. Eyes burned with fury in their faces, mouths wide. Shuriken fire, laser fire streamed from clutched weapons and sliced through deathmarks.
Green marks flickered at them. Exodites, clan-blooded warriors and scouts of Carnac, died, brains melted by necron guns. They came on anyway, swords and spears flashing in the moonlight, flashing beneath the lit sky.
Bright, fast, they struck. The Outcasts joined the attack, their own weapons firing into clumsily moving souldark.
Sparks flew as impacts rained upon the metal bones of the necrons. Sparks flew as limbs were cleaved from the slow-moving machines. Reality howled as Illic fired Voidbringer, the cold of the void seeped over the battlefield as holes were punched into space, drawing pieces of deathmark away. Illic’s voice was a howl on the wind, a scream, a promise of bloody vengeance. Deathmarks felt the kiss of Voidbringer, the pain of the void, of the warp as their metallic forms were blasted into other places.
The Mawr, spittle streaming from his lips, hair lank and matted with rain, spun and swirled: graceful eldar sword licking out to carve clutching souldark limbs. Each stroke, each cleave, was an act of grief, an act of vengeance, for his fallen son, for his fallen world, for the loss of his way of life. The Crobh Derg was a blur beside him, slender claws of red wraithbone glittered on her hands, sparking into deathmarks. Every attack of hers was both offensive and defensive, aimed at preserving the reckless exodite clan chieftain. Her face was grim as she killed.
Catritheyn rode the skein in quick jumps, plucking at its strands, peering down its paths with all the skill of the virtuoso she was. She pushed events, prodded, stepping forth in each path, ensuring Illic survived, ensuring that his hope remained undimmed. Witchlight bled from her eyes, bled from the sword in her hand. Even as she followed the twisting paths of the skein she killed, ending necrons.
The webway beckoned, its welcoming light bleeding into the Carnac night. The eldar, sons and daughters of the craftworld, clan-blooded exodites of Carnac, desperately shoved and killed their way through the necrons standing between them and safety. Shots strobed through the night. Green lightning, green marks, flickered towards eldar, spelling death.
Some fell, caught by the clumsy swings of the deathmarks, clubbed into the mud, battered, bloody. Others were marked, marked and shot. The rifles of the deathmarks destroyed their minds, destroyed their brains, left them pouring from noses, eyes, ears.
But the necron numbers were thinning, as souldark died beneath the fury of caged eldar. They could not bring their fearsome weapons to bear in such close quarters, could not move fast enough to counter the swiftness of the eldar.
The only thing they could do was die, crushed into the mud and the grass.
Suddenly the way was clear. Ruterias dragged Illic towards the webway. The other eldar joined, running, jumping towards safety.
Behind them the canyons erupted in fire, lurid and green.
Illic Nightspear burst through, stepping from the bloody mud of Carnac, away from the grasping hands of the souldark. He wasted no time, made no pause. Vengeance drove him forward. He had a message to impart to Eldorath Starbane, a warning. His followers, both Outcast and exodite, swept up in his wake.
The eldar, sons and daughters of the craftworlds, clan-blooded exodites of Carnac, united by survival, numbers dimmed, souls missing, followed Illic Nightspear as he walked the Hidden Paths, as he brought warning and words of doom and hope to his people.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A lifelong reader and unabashed fan of the Black Library, Joe Parrino is an American writer currently adrift within the United Kingdom. Still mired in the realm of higher education, when he’s not writing papers he’s writing stories and working his fingers and brain into mush. Awed and eager in equal measures, he’s leapt into the realm of writing with gusto. In his off hours, he reads, writes and wanders about the gothic splendour of Edinburgh.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
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Cover illustration by Kevin Chin
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