As the first rays of the dawn pierced the heavy shadows of the mountain pass, Brom walked away from the newly completed field-station. He kicked at the pebbles on the ground, frustrated and discontented. Before the arrival of the Blood Ravens he had been the ranking officer on Tartarus-a commissar in all but title. It was not that he was not thankful for the help of the Adeptus Astartes in the war against the orks, but he had not anticipated the way in which the Blood Ravens captain would take control of all the military affairs of the planet after their victory.
The arrival of the inquisitor had not improved matters. Toth and Angelos had been at loggerheads from the start, squabbling over their powers and jurisdictions. They had even had the gall to argue about who would have control over the Tartarans in front of him. Brom shook his head in disbelief, kicking a stone so hard that it shattered against the rock-face at the side of the crevice. Who did they think he was? Treating him like a grunt. He was a colonel in the Emperor’s own Imperial Guard, and he deserved some respect. He had stood his ground against the uprisings of cultists and the raids of ork pirates, fighting for the honour of the Emperor Himself, and for the safety of the people of his homeworld. What would Captain Angelos know about that, he scoffed, kicking another stone against the cliff face.
The colonel paused as he reached a large boulder. It had been rolled up against the edge of the pass after a Blood Ravens dreadnought had blasted its way through the avalanche in the middle of the night, splintering the rockslide into smaller boulders that the Space Marines had pushed aside like pebbles.
He pulled himself up onto the rock and tugged a lho-stick out of his pocket, tapping it several times against the packet in a personal ritual. Flicking it into life, he gazed back over the new field-station, bathed in the fresh light of morning. Despite his resentment, he was proud of what his men had achieved here in such a short period. If Angelos persisted in assigning the Tartarans such menial and logistical functions, at least they could take pride in how well they performed.
In truth, some of his men were only too pleased to become support personnel-to let the Blood Ravens do the fighting for them. Brom shuddered slightly at the thought of those cowardly troopers, feeling the disdain pouring out of Angelos even from the other side of the camp. But there were some Guardsmen who knew the true value of war-they knew that combat was a goal in itself, that shedding blood was the highest form of offering to the God-Emperor, whether it was the blood of the enemy or your own. There was but one commandment for the loyal soldier: thou shalt kill. Sergeant Katrn knew, and Brom knew that he could rely on Tartarans like him to sustain the honour of his proud regiment.
He took a deep drag on his lho-stick, letting the local weed fill his lungs. He held it there for a few seconds, and for a moment he thought that he could feel the substance of Tartarus itself bleeding into his soul.
Yes, he thought, we will fight again. The Tartarans will show these Blood Ravens what it means to be Tartarus born and bred.
“I see their faces every day, Prathios. They scream into my dreams and disturb my prayers. It is as though they haunt my mind, now that their planet is no more,” confessed Gabriel, kneeling in supplication before the company Chaplain. The two Marines were hidden in the heavy shadows of a temporary shrine, hastily constructed by the Tartarans in the heart of the new field-station.
“Their souls are at ease, brother-captain. It is yours that can find no peace. You call out into the warp, like a beacon for the pain of those who have passed before you,” said Prathios in a low voice.
“I am calling daemons into my mind?” asked Gabriel, his voice tinged with horror.
“No, Gabriel, the daemons come by themselves, drawn by the agonies of a soul at war with itself. Your anguish exposes you to their taunts, just as a ship at sea exposes itself to a storm.” Prathios’ voice was deep and soothing. He had seen Gabriel change since the Cyrene affair, and he was concerned for his captain. Inside all the magnificent power armour, and behind the myths and legends, a Space Marine was just a man. Not quite a man like any other, but a man nevertheless.
The Apothecaries and Techmarines of the Adeptus Astartes could effect profound transformations on the body of an initiate-augmenting the internal organs, adding sensory implants and bolstering muscle strength, they could even insert a delicate carapace under the skin of the whole body, ready to interface with the power armour. However, there was only so much that could be done for a Marine’s mind and soul.
The selection procedure for induction into the Blood Ravens-the Blood Trials-were rigorous in the extreme. Not only were aspirants required to demonstrate the physical prowess of a superior warrior, but their genetic code would also be tested for the smallest sign of mutation. But genetic mutation and a taint of the soul were not the same thing. For detection of the latter, the Blood Ravens would rely on the shadowy expertise of the librarium sanatorium-where all would-be Librarians were screened psychically, to the point of insanity, probing the depths of their souls to find the cracks and fissures for which the forces of Chaos would quest constantly.
The Chapter’s Chaplains would oversee all of this, and Prathios had done so innumerable times in his long life. Over a century earlier, in his younger years, the Chaplain had even recruited Gabriel himself in one of the Cyrene trials.
Prathios could remember the trial clearly. He could still see the defiant face of the young Guardsman, burning with passion and smothered in the blood of his competitors, as the young Gabriel Angelos fought for his right for a place on the Blood Ravens’ Thunderhawk. His brilliant green eyes had flared with resolution-certain that of the millions of Cyrenean warriors, he was the best. And he had been the best, reflected Prathios, without a doubt.
Even then, there had been something unusual about the young Angelos. His sparkling eyes burned a little too brightly, and his soul seemed to shine almost too purely, as though it were untouched by the horrors of the universe. His genetic tests had all come back perfectly-absolutely flawless, which was almost a mutation in itself, especially on Cyrene. Although he had a sensitive mind, the Chapter had decided not to push Gabriel through the horrors of the sanatorium-he was not a psyker and he would never be a Librarian.
Prathios himself had voiced some reservations about this decision. Part of him was concerned about how the prodigal young initiate would respond when the horrors of the galaxy finally breached the purity of his soul. He was concerned that the Blood Ravens should attempt to prepare his mind for the shock of the terrible responsibilities of the Adeptus Astartes. No matter how spectacular his physical and tactical capacities, Gabriel’s soul shone with naive clarity, and Prathios feared that this beauty belied fragility.
And then there had been the return to Cyrene, and Gabriel had looked upon his homeworld with the eyes of a Space Marine for the first time, charged with conducting the Blood Trials himself. What he had seen there had filled him with horror, and what he had done had shattered his naivety forever.
Prathios sighed deeply, reaching his hand down to Gabriel’s shoulder, and he shivered at the thought of the storm raging in his captain’s soul. No man, not even a captain of the Adeptus Astartes, should have to exterminate his own home planet-what effect had this duty had upon his unsullied mind?
“It offends me to flee from combat, sorcerer. The Alpha Legion has not won its reputation by turning its tail in the face of aliens. We may not have the pathetic paranoia about honour that is shown by the Adeptus Astartes, but we are still warriors, Sindri, and you would do well not to forget it.” Bale was breathing hard, struggling to keep his temper under control. The sorcerer’s plans were not playing out in accord with his own, and he was being humiliated at every turn. If the sorcerer did not promise so much, Bale would have flayed him years ago.
From the entrance to a cave in the side of the Lloovre Valley, Bale could see the sun rising above the shimmering city of Lloovre Marr. The Alpha Legion had sped down into the valley during the night, taking cover in the dense forest. Sindri had spotted the cave, and the Chaos Marines had made their way up the opposing wall of the valley to set up a temporary camp in the cover that it afforded. From there they could monitor movements along the river basin and Sindri could attempt to divine the intent of the eldar. Meanwhile, Bale had sent out a rider to summon reinforcements; the next time he came across the eldar, he would not bow to their onslaught.
“My Lord Bale,” whispered Sindri, as the first light of the morning glinted menacingly off the blades that adorned his helmet. “We work towards a common end. The honour and prowess of the Alpha Legion are under no threat. Rather, we stand on the brink of a great awakening-something infinitely more powerful than our pride is glittering just out of reach. Our rewards will justify our sacrifices a thousand times over.”
“You had better be right, sorcerer,” said Bale, almost spitting with distaste at his manipulative ways. “Otherwise your sacrifice will follow quick on the heels of your failure. Your reassurances that the orks would keep the Blood Ravens busy have proved false, and your calculations appear to have underestimated the strength of these eldar. I will not tolerate another mistake, sorcerer, and you would not survive it.”
“My lord, I will not fail,” replied Sindri, without bowing. Inside his helmet, his jaw was clenched, and it required a real effort of will to smooth his tone. “The eldar will guide us to our goal-they will underestimate our strength and our vision. Their arrogance will be their undoing. As we fled, we reinforced their prejudices, my lord. And, as for the Blood Ravens, they are of no consequence. They are… in hand.”
The Chaos Lord scoffed audibly and brushed past Sindri, pushing his way further into the cave, where his Marines were tending to their weapons in preparation for the combat to come.
Sindri, left alone in the mouth of the cave, walked out into the morning air and raised his arms to the sun, bathing himself in the red light of dawn as though it were a shower of blood. His mind was racing with resentment at the ingratitude of that near-sighted oaf, Bale. But he laughed quietly to himself, whispering his voice into the trees: at the end of the affair, nobody will be able to treat me with such disrespect.
The runes on the altar fragment were unusual, and Isador could still not decipher their precise meaning. He had retreated to the very edge of the camp, climbing into the shattered remains of the avalanche out of sight of the rest of his battle-brothers. The early morning sun was shedding a faint, reddening glow onto the inscription, coating each of the runes in the suggestion of ghostly blood. Isador sighed humourlessly, wondering how much actual blood had coursed across these etchings in their long history.
The character Treraum-storm-kept drawing his eye, and his memory ached as he tried to recall the meanings of the runes that appeared after it. He hated himself for being unable to remember, and his hate seeped through into resentment against Gabriel for making them abandon the site so quickly.
They were Blood Ravens, after all, was it not their Emperor-given nature to seek out new knowledge that might be of use to the Imperium? And who was Gabriel to judge whether this altar might be of use? He had not served his time in the librarium sanatorium, not like Isador, and had not spent long years exposing his soul to the torturous mantras of heretics and aliens. He had never read the forbidden books of Azariah Vidya, the Father Librarian of the Blood Ravens, may the Emperor guard his soul. Gabriel had never even heard the silver tones of the Astronomican; never had his soul been seduced into the unspeakable symphony of that choir and left hanging in the deepest reaches of the immaterium, utterly alone with only his knowledge and discipline to bring him home again.
Home. Gabriel knew nothing of the value of homecoming. Cyrene had been Isador’s home too.
In truth, Isador had never understood why the Blood Ravens did not require all of their senior officers to be Librarians. There were enough of them in the Chapter-far more than was typical in any other Chapter of Space Marines-and the Chapter Master himself was a powerful Librarian. It was ridiculous to expect that captains like Gabriel could really make sensible decisions about relics like this altar-only a Librarian could know the true value of the artefact. But Gabriel would not ask advice on command decisions, he was adamant that the responsibility was his.
In practice, however, only a handful of Librarians ever acceded to positions of command, except temporarily, in the absence of their captain. It was as though the Chapter had learnt nothing from the example of their Great Father, Azariah Vidya.
Once, during the early stages of his training, Isador had asked Chaplain Prathios about the politics of promotion within the Blood Ravens, but the Chaplain had just shaken his head sadly and said: there is no promotion, young Isador, there is only service-we all have our parts to play for the glory of the Great Father and the Emperor. At the time, Isador had nodded sagely, believing that he saw the sense in subsuming himself into the organic unity of the Chapter. But now, with the morning wind whispering down through the valley and whistling between the rocks, after two days of war against orks and eldar, on an alien planet that was about to be swallowed by a warp storm, he was not so sure. Different decisions could have been made-and he would have made them better.
But all was not lost, since he had saved this altar fragment, and he would work out a way of using the knowledge that it contained to save the Blood Ravens Third Company from making any further mistakes.
“Knowledge is power,” he muttered to himself, reciting the Chapter’s motto as though it were his own. “Guard it well.”
“Librarian Akios. What a surprise to see you here.” The familiar voice came down from the top of one of the large rocks behind which Isador was sitting.
“Colonel Brom. I had no idea that you were there,” said Isador, wondering exactly how long the Tartaran had been watching him. He had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed, and he made a mental note that he should not let that happen again. For all of his faults, Gabriel was never complacent enough to be taken by surprise by a Guardsman.
Brom breathed a plume of smoke out of his lungs, enjoying being higher than the massive Marine for the first time. The smoke settled slowly down towards Isador, dissipating as it reached his immaculate, blue armour. Instead of speaking, Brom took another draw on his lho-stick and looked off into the sunrise, apparently enjoying the beauty of dawn on his homeworld.
“It is beautiful, is it not?” asked Brom openly.
Isador turned and looked at the sunrise for the first time and nodded. “Yes, colonel. Tartarus is a beautiful planet.”
“It is my home, Librarian, and I will not give it up. Not to the orks, not to the eldar, and not even to the Blood Ravens.” As he spoke, Brom turned his head away from the sun, fixing Isador with a firm and determined stare.
“I can assure you that Captain Angelos has no designs on your planet, colonel… beautiful though it is,” said Isador, trying to diffuse the anger that seemed to bubble in the background of Brom’s tone.
“Do you remember your homeworld, Librarian?” There was some acid in the question, and Isador flinched slightly as it stung him. Even if Brom had been watching him for a while, how could he know? A cold wisp of wind flickered between the rocks, making them both shiver.
“Yes, I remember it well,” he replied plainly.
“And did the good captain save it?” asked Brom. He knew. Somehow he knew.
“Gabriel did what had to be done,” snapped Isador, suddenly leaping to the defence of his old friend. “I would have done the same thing had the decision been mine.” And I would have done, he realised as he spoke.
Brom let another thread of smoke ease out between his pursed lips, as though unconcerned by the Librarian’s sudden emotion. His eyes were still burning into the radiant blue of Isador’s, glowing with an inhuman taint of red. For a moment, Isador wondered whether it was really Brom that was staring down at him.
“And what of Tartarus?” he asked, changing the subject and watching the colonel carefully. “You mentioned some legends about a storm, colonel. I would be most interested to hear more about it.”
“You can read it yourself, can’t you?” hissed Brom, his voice dripping with venom as his eyes swam with red, as though riddled with burst capillaries.
Stung again, Isador vaulted up the side of the rock and grabbed Brom by the collar of his coat, lifting him clear off the ground. As they turned away from the dawn, the red faded from Brom’s eyes and he began to cough violently, exhaling gouts of smoke into a sudden gust of wind.
“Librarian Akios!” The voice made Isador drop Brom into a heap on top of the rock, as he turned back towards the camp.
Standing just outside the fortifications was Sergeant Corallis, waving a summons to Isador. “The captain wants to see you. You can bring the colonel.”
“Captain Angelos, I am here as you requested,” said Brom, pushing aside the curtains that hung across the entrance to the command post next to the shrine. Isador loomed behind him for a moment, before pushing past him into the hab-unit and nodding a greeting to Gabriel.
“Colonel Brom, thank you for coming. We need your Tartarans to cover this pass. The combat in this sector will be sure to attract the attention of the remnants of the ork forces, and we cannot afford their interference further up the mountain. If the Blood Ravens have to engage the eldar, we will need no other distractions,” explained Gabriel, watching the tension between Brom and Isador with unease.
“Understood, captain,” replied Brom professionally. “You may count on the Imperial Guard to hold this pass. No ork will get through while a Tartaran still holds his weapon.”
“Very good, colonel. Keep me appraised of the situation and, if possible, I will send support if the orks do attack.” Gabriel hesitated for a moment, as though on the brink of adding something. But then he waved his hand dismissively “Thank you, colonel. Your assistance in this matter is much appreciated.”
Brom bowed sharply and then left, leaving Isador and Gabriel alone.
“What is wrong, old friend?” asked Gabriel-the angst on Isador’s face was plain to see.
“I do not trust him, Gabriel,” said Isador, watching the curtains close behind Brom.
“He is a good man, Isador. A good soldier. His men love him, and they follow him without question, mostly. He may not be a Space Marine, and he may not even be the finest officer in the Imperial Guard, but he is a good man. I have been too harsh on him, and it is time for me to share some responsibility. This is his homeworld, after all,” said Gabriel frankly.
Isador observed his old friend for a few moments, a torrent of emotions flashing through his mind as the events of the last few minutes rehearsed themselves in his head. They had been through so much together-born and raised on the same planet, and then inducted into the Blood Ravens in the same Blood Trials. A wave of remorse and affection washed over him, and he felt like himself again.
“Forgive me, captain, I am still thinking about the altar,” confessed Isador.
“There is nothing to forgive, old friend. You are a Librarian of the Blood Ravens, and I would be disappointed if you stopped thinking about it before you have solved the riddle,” replied Gabriel, laughing faintly.
“I am frustrated that you decided to destroy it so quickly, Gabriel. I think that we could have used it to learn more about what we are facing here. Knowledge is power, and we sacrificed some of that power today.”
Isador’s honesty touched him, and Gabriel slapped his friend heartily on his shoulder. “You may be right, Isador. My decision was made in haste. There is much that I do not understand on Tartarus, and I fear what I do not understand-such is the bane of our Chapter. It is the other side of our nature, and that part of us with which we must all struggle. Speed is very important on this expedition, with the storm only two days away, but I was wrong not to give you more time. It will not happen again.”
Isador was overwhelmed by his captain’s confession and he fell to his knees before him, bowing his head. “Thank you, my lord,” he said, adding the epithet that he had never before used with Gabriel.
Captain Angelos of the Blood Ravens returned the bow formally, and then dragged his friend back to his feet. “What is it, Isador? There is something else?” he said, gazing directly into his blue eyes.
“Nothing. There’s nothing, Gabriel,” replied Isador, his fingers rubbing involuntarily against the altar fragment in his belt as he spoke. “When do we get to kill some eldar?”
As the morning sun broke the horizon, the summit of Mount Korath was already speckled with light. Torches adorned the great menhir and circled it in a gradually expanding spiral. Strewn over the mountain top were the dead bodies of Biel-Tan eldar and the Alpha Legionaries. The eldar dead stood out gloriously in the dawn, as a single, blue flame licked out of the heart of each, picking them out like candles in the faint morning light.
After the battle, Macha had moved through the eldar corpses one by one, kneeling silently at the side of each and muttering in an ancient tongue. She had carefully removed the waystone from the breastplate of each warrior, storing them in an elaborate crystalline matrix-a fragment of the infinity circuit of the Biel-Tan craftworld. The waystone contained the very soul of the warrior, sealed into an impenetrable gemstone that kept the eldar safe from the ravenous clutches of the daemon Slaanesh, that roamed the warp in a perpetual search for their souls.
If their waystones were lost, so too would be the precious soul of this ancient, dwindling race. When Macha returned to the Biel-Tan craftworld, their giant space-born home, she would return the crystalline fragment to the craft’s own spirit pool-the infinity circuit in which the souls of deceased eldar could swim until they were called on again.
Having removed their waystone, Macha had reached out with her long forefinger and delicately touched the tiny crater left in their armour. As she had done so, a burst of blue fire had leapt from her fingertip and settled into a single, perfect flame on the fallen warrior’s chest. The Chaos Marines she left as they lay.
By the time the morning light had pushed the darkness down into the valley below, the bodies of the slain eldar were a blaze of glory on the mountaintop. The surviving warriors knelt onto one knee and bowed their white and green elliptical helmets to the rising sun, welcoming the new day and giving thanks that Tartarus had not stolen the souls of their brethren.
As the eldar climbed to their feet and broke free of the observances of the ceremony, they set about readying themselves for the short journey to Lloovre Marr. The path down into the valley on the north side of the mountain was steep, and the valley floor itself was shrouded in tree cover. Macha was certain that the Alpha Legion was laying in wait to exact their vengeance on the Biel-Tan, and she wanted to ensure that her warriors were ready. The fate of Tartarus was in their hands-and it was a fate just as precarious as that of the souls of the eldar themselves. Macha had a responsibility, and she would be damned if she was going to fail to live up to it.
The farseer stood on the far side of the menhir, gazing out across the valley below while her warriors busied themselves. It looked so peaceful in the gentle light of dawn, and the deep shadows seemed to languish sleepily.
“Farseer. May I speak with you?” asked Jaerielle, stopping a respectful distance from Macha and touching his left knee to the ground.
Macha turned and smiled weakly at the Storm Guardian. “Of course, Jaerielle. I was expecting to see you this morning. You want to ask me about the eldar path, do you not?”
“Yes, farseer,” replied Jaerielle, unsurprised by the precise question. “I fear that I may be straying from it.”
“You are a warrior, Jaerielle, and have been one for many centuries. I wonder whether you can even remember a time when you trod any of the other paths of our ancient culture,” said Macha, explaining how he was feeling, rather than asking. “The Path of the Eldar was put in place to guard us against ourselves, Jaerielle. We are a passionate people, and easily fixated. The path allows us to cycle through various arts and explore all aspects of ourselves, not only the warrior within. It does sometimes happen,” she continued, “that an eldar becomes trapped in one path or another. His soul becomes unable to make the transition into another part of itself, and the eldar becomes consumed by the art that has chosen him. In your case, Jaerielle, you have been chosen by the Path of the Warrior, and it seems that you may never leave it.”
“War for its own sake, farseer? You are talking about the Way of the Exarch?” asked Jaerielle in whispered tones, hardly daring to speak the name of the most feared of all eldar warrior castes. The exarch is completely lost to himself, enveloped by a passion for war, and utterly dedicated to the arts of one of the eldar aspect shrines. Over time, he will gradually be assimilated into his armour, which will never be taken off. And when he is finally slain, there will be nothing left but the armour itself, a testament to the dedication and sacrifice of this most lonely path.
“Yes, Jaerielle. You have felt it. I saw it in your soul as you battled the Chaos Marines last night. There was delight in your heart, and joy in your abilities. Your memory is already awash with images of blood, drowning out the dances and poetry of your youth. Soon there will be nothing but battle for you,” said Macha with solemnity.
“Then I am lost?” asked Jaerielle, a hint of panic sounding in his voice.
“You are lost to yourself, child, but not to Biel-Tan. Your path is a glorious one, and we will rejoice in your majesty. The blood you spill will be for the Biel-Tan and for Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God. You will be a hero amongst the eldar, but you will be utterly alone,” explained the farseer.
“I am not ready, farseer,” said Jaerielle, denying the shouts in his soul.
“You came to me, Jaerielle. You are ready. And we need you to be ready. I will talk with the Shrine of the Striking Scorpions, your old aspect temple, and the ritual of transition will be performed before the sun reaches its third quadrant,” concluded Macha, as though this were the most natural thing in the world. She looked down at the kneeling eldar at her feet and shivered slightly-he was about to step into a place where even she could not see.
The column of Blood Ravens roared up the mountain side, dazzling in shimmering reds in the morning sunshine. At the head of the line was the command Rhino, with Gabriel and Isador shoulder to shoulder, leaning out of the side hatch. The Rhino was flanked on both sides by the remaining Typhoons, and a squadron of assault bikes sat in behind, ready to be deployed when required. Following behind the bikes were two more Rhinos, one carrying Matiel’s Marines and the other a squad of Devastators. A Land Raider tank brought up the rear, stuffed full of Tanthius and his Terminators.
The route to the top of the mountain was littered with debris and bodies. Chunks of eldar jetbikes and the ruins of a Vyper still smoked vaguely, but there were also burnt-out assault bikes bearing the markings of the Alpha Legion, and smatterings of corpses, both eldar and Chaos Marine.
The Blood Ravens ploughed on undaunted. The roar of their engines and the sight of the detachment deployed in such formidable force filled their hearts with pride. At the head of the column, heroically silhouetted against the red sun as he gazed out of the side of his Rhino, was Gabriel, his chainsword already drawn in readiness, and the image swelled the confidence of every Marine in the line, as they drew their weapons to honour their captain.
As the summit approached, the Marines could see bursts of blue flame jousting out of the mountain top towards the heavens, but the angle of the slope blocked their view of the ground up there.
Gabriel waved his chainsword, and two clutches of bikes peeled away from the convoy, drawing up along side the Typhoons on either side of his Rhino. He wanted to make sure that the eldar saw an imposing front line as they crested the summit. He gazed proudly across the line, and could think of few sights more splendid than a solid bank of Blood Ravens roaring over the crest of a mountain pass.
As the Rhino rolled up onto the mountain top, bringing the whole of the summit into view, Gabriel was surprised to see the extent of the killing field that unfolded before him. He raised his fist into the air, bringing the Blood Ravens to a halt, as he swept his gaze over the vista and tried to take it in.
There were dozens of Alpha Legionaries lying where they had died, riddled with holes and oozing with blood, their armour shattered beyond repair by the strange alien weapons. Their bodies gave the rocky mountain top an aura of acidic green. Intermixed amongst them were the bodies of the fallen eldar, each was a blaze of blue fire, with flames reaching seven metres into the air as the supernatural fire consumed their bodies.
Beyond them, on the very peak of Mount Korath, was an unusual-looking menhir, roughly elliptical in shape and covered with an indescribable array of blue torches. But, as far as Gabriel could see, there was no eldar army lying in wait. The scene was eerily silent.
Jumping down from the hatch of the Rhino, Gabriel strode off toward the menhir, picking his way between the corpses. Isador leapt down after him, and then the Rhino doors opened fully to let Prathios and Corallis join them. The four Marines fanned out and made their way towards the giant marker stone.
Suddenly Corallis dropped down onto one knee, inspecting the ground at his feet. The others stopped, watching the sergeant carefully, trusting his eyes. Isador planted his staff against the rock and Prathios spun his crozius arcanum menacingly.
“Something was here only moments ago,” crackled Corallis through the vox system. “But the tracks are strange. They just seem to appear and disappear, without leading anywhere.”
Gabriel strode forward of the group, unwilling to be intimidated by the unusual ways of the eldar. As he approached the menhir, something flickered into his path and then vanished. He paused, scanning the scene for other signs of movement. Another flicker made him turn. A heavy-looking eldar warrior appeared suddenly to the side of the menhir. It planted its feet and let loose with a spray of writhing filament from some kind of rotary weapon.
There were a series of cries from behind him, and Gabriel turned as he rolled clear of the gout of fire, and he saw three other eldar, similar to the first. They had appeared from nowhere, and were now arrayed against the rest of his team, cutting them off from him.
As he came out of his roll, Gabriel squeezed off a rattle of shots from his bolt pistol back towards the alien in front of him, but the Warp Spider had already gone. It had simply vanished. Turning, he saw his battle-brothers snapping their weapons from side to side, impotently searching for their targets in the same way.
“Warp Spiders, Gabriel,” hissed Isador’s voice through the vox. “This could be another trap.” A great flash of lightning jousted out of Isador’s staff, flashing towards the menhir. Just before the bolt reached the huge stone, there was a faint shimmer in its path and a Warp Spider chose that point to slip back into real space. Isador’s bolt crashed into the eldar, catching it full in the chest and lifting it off its feet, throwing it backwards against the menhir with a crack.
Immediately, Gabriel and Prathios opened up with their bolters, riddling the alien with fire and shattering his thick armour, leaving nothing but splatters of blood against the marker stone behind it.
Meanwhile, Corallis had stalked off to the other side of the menhir, keeping low to the ground as though tracking something. He stopped suddenly and rubbed his hand over the loose topsoil. As he looked up, back towards Gabriel and the others, the remaining Warp Spiders sprung into being before him, their death-spinners releasing a tirade of projectile-filaments from close range.
“Corallis!” cried Gabriel, pounding across the summit of the mountain toward the besieged Marine, his boltgun spitting in his hand. Prathios was with him, matching his run stride for stride, strafing his fire back and forth across the backs of the Warp Spiders. Without moving, Isador planted his staff and muttered something inaudible, sending sheets of blue power coruscating through the ground, racing against the storming Marines.
Isador’s bolts seared under the feet of Gabriel and Prathios as they ran, and then exploded into flames as they crashed into the stances of the Warp Spiders. The creatures shimmered slightly, trying to leap back into the webway, but Isador’s energy blast had done something to their warp jump generators. Before they could even turn to face the charging Marines, Gabriel and Prathios were upon them, riddling them with bolter shells.
In the last stride before he reached them, Gabriel cast his bolter aside and drew his chainsword into both hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Prathios dropping his own gun, and swinging the crackling crozius into his fist. Gabriel launched himself at the Warp Spider in the middle, crashing into its back and flattening it against the ground. In one smooth movement, he flourished his chainsword into the air and drove it down through the alien’s spine. The creature twitched momentarily, and then fell still.
A shower of fire speckled his armour as he sprang off the corpse and rounded on the last eldar, seeing that Prathios had already incinerated the other one in an inferno of power discharge from his crozius.
Gabriel brought his sword down swiftly, but the Warp Spider was fast, dancing around his blow and punching a flurry of shots straight into the captain’s chest plate. His chainsword missed its target but hacked into the alien’s weapon, where it stuck, spluttering impotently. As one, Gabriel and the eldar discarded their chewed-up weapons and started to circle one another like animal predators, flexing their shoulders ready for the fight.
A javelin of power flashed over his shoulder from Isador. It seared past Gabriel’s face, punching into the stomach of the eldar and blowing a hole clear through. The alien staggered for a few more steps and then sunk to its knees facing Gabriel-it seemed to be staring at him with the alien eyes hidden behind its elongated helmet. Then Prathios stepped up and swung at the Warp Spider with his hissing crozius, striking it cleanly and knocking the creature’s head crisply off its shoulders as its body slumped to the ground at Gabriel’s feet.
“Corallis?” asked Gabriel urgently. The sergeant was lying on his back in a pool of blood, his armour punctured by numberless holes, and Gabriel knelt swiftly by his side. “Corallis?”
“The others have gone on ahead, captain,” replied Corallis, coughing as a trickle of blood seeped out of the corner of his mouth. “They have rigged this marker to explode. It was a trap.” As he spoke, he lifted his hand from the ground, revealing what he had found before the battle started. A small, blinking device was buried just beneath the surface.
It was a mine.
C.S. Goto (ebook by Undead)
01 – Dawn of War