“There are Eldar explosives and demolition charges all around the menhir, captain,” reported Matiel. His squad of Space Marines were working their way around the great stone marker, studying the ground and noting the relays clamped into the stone itself. “We dare not move them-the trip mechanisms are unknown to us, and we would risk destroying the stone… and us.”
“I understand,” said Gabriel, his attention still distracted by the scouts who were carrying their sergeant into the back of one of the Rhinos. Corallis was not quite dead-it took more than a few bullet wounds to kill a Space Marine-but he was as near as it was possible to get.
“What about the triggers?” he asked, collecting himself again.
“I think that we can replace the triggering devices, but that is all I would care to do with this xeno-tech,” replied Matiel, somewhat reluctantly.
“See that it is done, Matiel. We would not want the eldar to pay us a surprise visit and blow us all into the warp,” said Gabriel, a characteristic smile drifting across his face, in an attempt to lift the mood.
“Was this a trap?” asked Isador, striding over from the Rhino, into which Sergeant Corallis had just been loaded. The Librarian looked resolute, as though the ruin of Corallis might have been the last straw.
“No, I don’t think so,” replied Matiel, nodding a swift greeting to the Librarian as he joined the group. “Judging by the placement of the charges, it seems likely that they planned to collapse this area of the summit-burying the menhir, and anyone else who happened to be nearby.”
“Corallis did say that the eldar left in a hurry, so perhaps we disturbed them before they could finish the job? Maybe the Warp Spiders were left to complete the demolition?” suggested Gabriel, looking to the others for their opinions.
“Or perhaps they left the summit to lure us in, leaving this stone as bait, planning to use the Warp Spiders to blow it when we arrived?” said Isador, more suspicious than his captain. “We should not give these aliens the benefit of the doubt, Gabriel. Just because they are the enemy of our enemy doesn’t mean that they are our friends. Look at what they did to Corallis.”
“Either way,” said Gabriel, nodding at the plausibility of Isador’s version, “the eldar clearly thought that we would want to take a look at this stone, and it also appears that they were keen to ensure that the Alpha Legion did not get the chance to look at it.” Gabriel flicked his head towards the killing field behind them.
“We should certainly see what is so special about it. Isador, please take a look at the stone… Take as much time as you need.”
Isador nodded and made his way over to the menhir, carefully stepping between the Space Marines that ringed it. He raised his hand and touched the smooth, featureless surface of the stone, closing his eyes in concentration. Somewhere deep inside the rock, there was a faint, rhythmical pulse, as though it was breathing. He leant in closer, pressing his ear against the rock, straining with his mind to discern the hint of sound within. It was a whisper.
The roar of a Rhino engine starting up made Matiel and Gabriel turn away from the menhir. One of the Rhinos started to roll down the mountain side, heading back towards the field-station in the Pass of Korath. An escort of scout bikes ran alongside it, as Corallis’ squadron refused to abandon their sergeant. The banner of the Blood Ravens was held by the company standard bearer, who stood solidly on the back of an open-topped armoured transport, marking the passage of an honoured warrior. It fluttered in the strong winds that blew across the mountain top, beating the wings of the black raven and making the scarlet drop of blood in the centre of the emblem pulse like a heart.
“May the Emperor heal his wounds,” whispered Gabriel, staring after the convoy. Matiel just bowed his head in respect.
As the vehicles dropped out of sight, the sound of another engine drifted through the breeze, and Gabriel watched the horizon intently. It didn’t sound like another Rhino, but it was moving much faster than the slow procession that was taking Corallis down for medical care, whatever it was. After a couple of seconds, a red and black Tartaran Chimera crested the summit at high speed, lifting into the air as the angle of the ground flattened out and then crashing back down onto its tracks.
The transport skidded abruptly, sliding in an ugly arc as its momentum pushed it precariously close to the side of the summit, but then its tracks bit into the rocky ground and dragged it towards the Blood Ravens, sending sprinklings of soil and stones cascading over the edge of the peak.
The Chimera rumbled heavily over the corpses that were strewn over the mountain top, squashing them unceremoniously under its thick caterpillar tracks, apparently unconcerned about whether they were Chaos Marines or the smouldering remains of eldar. As the transport ground to a halt in front of Gabriel and Matiel, it left a path of mulched flesh and pools of blood in its wake.
Given the manner of the arrival, Gabriel already knew who to expect when the rear hatch lowered into a ramp and Inquisitor Toth stamped out into the mid-morning sun, dragging Colonel Brom behind him like a beaten dog.
“Captain Angelos, this is insupportable-” began Mordecai, striding straight up to Gabriel and breathing directly into his face.
“Inquisitor Toth,” interrupted Gabriel smoothly. “How nice to see you. As you can see, we have been rather busy, and I should apologise for not finding the time to keep you informed.”
“It is too late for pleasantries,” replied Mordecai, unimpressed by Gabriel’s transparency. “Not only did you break from camp without informing the official representative of the Emperor’s Inquisition, but I am given to understand that you also found and destroyed a potentially valuable alien artefact, before declaring war on an eldar force and then requisitioning a detachment of Brom’s Imperial Guard to oversee your field-station. Needless to say, captain, the Inquisition will not look favourably on these actions.”
“And Colonel Brom, greetings,” said Gabriel, choosing to ignore the tirade from Mordecai-reminding everyone that the inquisitor had no power over the Adeptus Astartes. Brom nodded a brisk greeting and then shrugged his shoulders, perhaps indicating that he was as much a victim of Toth’s umbrage as Gabriel.
“I will not be ignored, Captain Angelos, and you will answer to me. I may not have the power to commandeer your precious Blood Ravens, but I certainly do have the power to have you placed into custody for obstructing the affairs of the Inquisition,” said Mordecai, fuming.
“You overstep yourself, inquisitor,” replied Gabriel quietly, fixing Mordecai with his sparkling green eyes and narrowing them slightly. “I am obstructing nobody. You made it perfectly clear that you had no interest in the events on Tartarus, having already condemned it to the ravages of the imminent warp storm. In this context, I fail to see why it would have been more than mere impoliteness not to inform you of our movements here. If you wish to dispute this matter in the company of the inquisitor lords, then I will be happy to entertain you. But not now-perhaps later. As you can see, there is rather a lot for me to attend to here first. You may notice, for example, the litter of dead Alpha Legionaries strewn over this very mountain top-the very forces of Chaos that you seemed certain did not exist on Tartarus,” finished Gabriel with something of a flourish.
“Yes, captain, it is an impressive sight,” responded Mordecai, recovering his composure and affecting a survey of the scene around him, “but I did not claim that Chaos had never set foot on this planet. I said, rather, that if the forces of Chaos were present, then the impending warp storm would eliminate them for us-saving us from needless conflict, and saving the lives of many of your Blood Ravens and Brom’s Tartarans. Sergeant Corallis, for example, would be alive and well,” he added, twisting the blade.
“Sergeant Corallis is alive,” replied Gabriel from between gritted teeth, “and he will be well.”
“I hope you are right, captain, since his death would be entirely on your conscience. And I would think that your conscience is crowded enough already.” Mordecai did not flinch away from the Blood Ravens captain, even as Gabriel’s muscles bunched in his neck. Sergeant Matiel stepped up to his shoulder, but Mordecai was not sure whether he intended to support or restrain his captain’s anger.
“As I have already explained, Inquisitor Toth, the Blood Ravens will remain until the very last minute-and, until then, we will pursue this unfolding riddle. There is still time-nearly two days,” managed Gabriel, his jaw still knotted in tension.
“Captain, I do not… presume to question your decisions concerning the Blood Ravens.” Mordecai’s words were carefully chosen. “But when it comes to employing the colonel’s Imperial Guard in your quest-”
“My quest!” cried Gabriel, struggling to control his outrage. “Yet again you accuse me of pursuing my own personal agenda, inquisitor. If you were not an agent of the Emperor, I would slay you where you stand for challenging my honour and that of the Blood Ravens. But the badge you hide behind also confers a duty on you, Toth,” said Gabriel, almost spitting the man’s name into his face. “It is your duty, as well as mine, to expunge any scent of heresy or taint of Chaos. My conscience is clear about my duty, is yours?”
“Now, it is you who overstep yourself, captain,” replied Mordecai, flinching inwardly against Gabriel’s words. This captain was not like any he had encountered before: his mind was sharp, and he had turned the tables on one of the Emperor’s inquisitors. The scholarly reputation of the Blood Ravens was not without merit, it seemed.
“Perhaps, but you have overstepped the mark and then marched off into the killing zone: they are not ‘the colonel’s Imperial Guard’. They have sworn their lives to the Emperor, not to Brom and certainly not to you, and it is by His mandate that I employ the Tartarans in this war against the forces of Chaos and the xenos here. Through the glory of this holy battle, I elevate them to a status worthy of their oaths of allegiance.” Better that than run away and hide like cowards, Gabriel added to himself.
“I can see now that coming here to Mount Korath to reason with you was a mistake. If you are set on this path that will lead nowhere except to the destruction of you and your Blood Ravens, then I can do nothing to stop you. But I will not allow you to drag the rest of this planet down with you. By Inquisitorial edict, I am taking control of planet Tartarus-all requests for planetary resources, including its military resources, must be approved by me. Captain, from this point on, you and your Marines are on your own,” concluded Mordecai dramatically, turning immediately and striding back up the ramp into the waiting Chimera.
For a moment, Colonel Brom stood at the foot of the ramp, looking from Gabriel to Mordecai and back again. The inquisitor’s voice boomed down the ramp, “Brom!” and the colonel looked up at Gabriel, apparently searching for a sign.
“Go,” said Gabriel quietly, releasing him. “Make sure that the spaceport at Magna Bonum is held against the orks until the last of the civilians are evacuated.”
The eldar force, arrayed in all of its glory, swept across the valley floor like a bristling dam of lethal weaponry. The gates of Lloovre Marr had been slammed shut hours before, and the remaining defenders of the capital city had hastened to the gun emplacements in the great wall. It was a testament to the tumultuous history of Tartarus that all of its major cities were walled-and Lloovre Marr was no exception.
The sheer, white walls curved around the southern perimeter of the city in a sweeping semi-circle. Each end butted up against the high cliffs of the Lloovre valley, and the northern sectors of the capital had been built in a great cave, scooped out of the rock itself. This unusual defensive design had withstood the test of time, and Lloovre Marr had only ever fallen once in its whole history: a revolt had erupted within the city walls, and the governor had been unable to escape the bloodshed, trapped in the impregnable fortress. Since then, a complicated system of tunnels and caves had been dug into the cliffs, in case the rulers of Tartarus ever needed to escape again.
Looking out on the awesome might of the Biel-Tan craftworld-the Bahzhakhain, the Swordwind, the Tempest of Blades, a maelstrom of alien power, silent, beautiful, and breathtaking-the leaders of Tartarus could have been forgiven for taking to the caves at once.
However, the leaders had already fled the city. The governor had been on the first transport to Magna Bonum, and then on the first shuttle to the Litany of Fury, when he had received word from Inquisitor Toth that the warp storm was on its way. The ruling council had left a skeleton force of Imperial Guardsmen behind to defend the city against looters and pirates until the storm broke. Then they would be airlifted off the surface by a Blood Ravens’ Thunderhawk.
Looters and pirates were one thing, the Swordwind army of the Biel-Tan was something else entirely. There were one hundred Guardsmen lining the walls of the city, and a smattering of others throughout the streets of the capital itself; not one of them had ever even seen an eldar before in their lives. Now they could see more of them than they had ever wanted to.
A single, impossibly elegant figure strode forward of the eldar line. Her slender and shapely body appeared to be female, but she was taller than most men. Her emerald green robes flowed out behind her like water, and the white detailing seemed to dance over the cloth, as though it was merely the echo of a life being lived in another dimension. A veil fluttered around her face, shedding the vaguest glimpses of an unearthly beauty beyond. In her hand she carried a long, simple staff. It was nearly two metres in length and perfectly smooth from one end to the other. It appeared to be completely without decoration. But it moved, or rather, it seemed to move. It was as though it was a tiny tear in the fabric of space, the merest crack in a window to another realm. The mid-afternoon light just seemed to fall into it, as though being sucked out of this world altogether. And something on the side moved, curdling and gyrating in a world of pure energy, pushing up against the tear, eager to break through.
The figure opened her arms to the city, holding them wide as though trying to take in the whole of Lloovre Mar. And then her voice was heard by everyone. Each of the Guardsmen stopped their preparations for war and listened, struck by the angelic lilt of the feminine voice. It was as though they didn’t have to listen at all, as though the voice just slipped directly into their heads, delicately caressing their ears with the idea of sound.
People of Lloovre Marr, I bring you a choice, said Macha, letting her thoughts drift across the valley and into the city. And choice is the greatest gift that you can receive from anyone. For a moment, the farseer thought about her own life and that of Jaerielle. Indeed, the whole of the Path of the Eldar was premised upon the annihilation of choice. Choice brought selfishness. And selfishness was the beginning of the end. But still, even a farseer had choices to make-the future was not an uncomplicated place. Either you open the gates and leave the city… or you die where you stand. The choice is yours, but choose, and choose now.
Macha lowered her arms and stood quietly between the Swordwind of Biel-Tan and the walls of Lloovre Marr. Nobody moved. Her army stood perfectly motionless behind her, only the banners of the Biel-Tan fluttered in the wind that swept through the valley: crisp white flags bearing a golden rune, Treraum, and a crimson heart.
In the main line, the Storm squad and Defender squads shone in pristine white psycho-plastic armour, with elongated green helmets glinting in the sun. Behind them were the wraithguard, towering over their living brethren in inverted colours: green, wraithbone armour and white helmets. And in front were the Aspect Warriors, resplendent in the brightly coloured uniforms of various shrines. At various points throughout the formation were the sleek, deep green Falcon tanks and a few Vyper weapons platforms, each flanked by a couple of jetbikes.
On the city wall, the Guardsmen gradually realised that something was expected of them. Shaking their heads to clear their minds of the sweet invasion, they glanced up and down the battlements, looking to each other for ideas. None dared be the first to move. All of the senior officers had already left the city, and the soldiers needed their leadership more than ever.
Then, simultaneously, two different decisions were made. One Guardsman, Bobryn, started to work the release mechanism for the gate, reasoning that Tartarus was already doomed and therefore not worth dying for at this late stage. And another, Hredel, opened fire from his autocannon platform.
As the first shots rang out through the valley, Macha turned and walked back into the midst of her army. She shook her head sadly: humans, she thought, both the hope and the bane of the galaxy.
From their vantage point, high in the walls of the Lloovre valley, Chaos Lord Bale and the sorcerer Sindri watched the eldar force assemble at the gates of the capital city. Their own force of Alpha Legionaries was collected into the deep cave in the cliffs, where the Chaos Marines fumed in frustrated silence. Great fires had been lit, and swirls of noxious smoke filled the close air of the cavern, smothering the oxygen with a blanket of burning flesh.
The broken remains of eldar warriors were strewn over the cave floor, their armour cracked open and their flesh scooped out like giant shellfish. The thin, slender bodies of the eldar were broken and cast into the fires; there was precious little meat on them and they tasted disgusting, but they made pungent firewood.
“The eldar will take the city quickly, sorcerer,” said Bale, emerging out of the smoky cave to join Sindri on the ledge outside. The smoke and the corpses in the cavern had put his soul at ease, but fury remained bubbling beneath the surface of his composure.
Sindri nodded without looking round. His eyes were fixed on the distant scene to the north. The white walls of the city shimmered slightly in the sunlight, but the Biel-Tan army was a blaze of reflections and star-bursts before them. The rumble of cannon fire had already started, and Sindri was sure that he had caught the scent of a voice in the air before it had all begun. Tiny bursts of fire were visible in the walls as the heavy weapons platforms flared with activity, and the eldar lines had begun to swim with motion. And, unless his eyes were deceiving him, the great gates of Lloovre Marr were lying open in the centre of the wall.
“Yes, my lord. The eldar will take the city. But it is of no concern to us. We need not race against our guides, Lord Bale,” said Sindri smoothly.
“You’d better be right about this, sorcerer,” replied Bale, his voice tinged with his natural disgust for scheming and his frustration about watching combat without being able to reap the carnage himself.
“We do not need to be there yet. But when the time comes, we will move swiftly,” said Sindri calmly. “Then you will have your bloodletting.”
Bale inspected the territory between their cave and the city walls. Even for Chaos Marines the distance was too large for a swift attack. It would take them several hours to traverse the valley, and they would be clearly visible to the guards on the city wall-especially if those guards were eldar rangers. Launching a rapid strike would not be possible from this position, and the Alpha Legion would be humiliated yet again by Sindri’s meddling schemes.
“I do not like this, sorcerer. I do not place my faith in the hesitant or the probable-it is better to feel the certainty of my scythe than the inconsistency of your reassurances.” The effects of the smoke were wearing off, and Bale’s temper was rising yet again.
“Patience, my lord,” soothed Sindri. “We do not have to cross the valley.” He turned back towards the cave and pointed vaguely towards the entrance. A thick blanket of smoke hung across it like a curtain, but only the smallest wisps were escaping into the air outside.
“Where do you think all of that smoke is going?” asked Sindri coaxingly.
“I don’t have time for your games, sorcerer. And neither do you,” menaced Bale, unamused by Sindri’s rhetoric.
“The smoke is being drawn further into the cave, my lord, because there is a network of tunnels beyond. A network that leads right into the heart of Loovre Marr-I was given a map many years ago, by a… friend in the governor’s office. When the time comes, the Alpha Legion will already be in the city. There will be no storming through the valley and no cumbersome siege of the city walls… At least not by us,” added Sindri cryptically.
Looking from Sindri to the battle and then back again, Bale snorted an agitated acknowledgment. It did sound like a good plan, but Bale would believe it when he saw it happen. Until then, the sorcerer lived on borrowed time. Turning suddenly, Bale strode back through the curtain of smoke and disappeared into the interior of the cave.
The script on the menhir was different from that on the altar in the crater: it contained the characteristic angles and runic curves of an eldar tongue. Isador had searched the stone for a long time before he had found it, for it was not literally on the surface of the rock at all. Rather, the markings swam just underneath the surface, all but invisible to the eyes of men. They had been etched into the essence of the menhir itself, not hacked and carved into the mundane rock like the clumsy scribblings of cultists.
The Librarian had pressed himself against the rock and felt the residue of a soul oscillating deep within, as though the eldar artisan had left a fragment of herself to imbue the stone with meaning and life. As his mind tuned in to the gentle pulsing of the rock’s rhythm, the script had begun to flicker into life, glowing with an unearthly blue somewhere inside. It was as though the material of the huge rock had gradually shifted into translucence, revealing a liquid heart in which an ancient message swam like the memory of stars.
The message itself was straightforward enough, belied by the breathtaking beauty of its form. There was something about a curved blade-some sort of key. And there was a string of co-ordinates, coded in an elaborate manner than made Isador’s head spin; the figures spiralled and shifted until his mind discovered their secret, bringing them under control and settling them into a firm pattern.
When the eldar hid their secrets, they placed them in full view of all, knowing that only the rarest of individuals would be able to see them, let alone decipher them. The problem was not a linguistic one-the runes were simple enough for an educated Blood Raven to understand-rather, the problem was psychic. Only the most gifted of human psykers would taste even a hint of the presence of the runic script in the first place.
Stepping back from the menhir, Isador looked at it with fresh eyes. He could see now that it was a blaze of runes and twisting lines of script. The psychic etchings snaked and spiralled around the smooth form, flowing and coalescing like mountain streams, mixing their meanings together into transient poetry and garbled gibberish in equal measures. The tiny section on which his mind had focussed was merely the most miniscule fragment of a grand, sweeping narrative.
The rock itself seemed to shimmer with release, as the texts that it contained were freed to swim and shift before the eyes of a reader once again. It was as though the menhir wanted to be read. For the first time, Isador realised that the menhir was not a rock at all-it was a giant tear-drop of wraithbone, the mysterious material employed by eldar artists and engineers to construct their unfathomable technologies.
“What do you see, Isador?” asked Gabriel, approaching his friend from behind and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.
Isador started at the touch, and his head snapped round to stare at his captain, his eyes wide and wild. “Oh, Gabriel,” he managed, bringing his shock under control and turning back to the menhir. The lights and the script had vanished, leaving no sign of ever having been there at all. “It was so beautiful…”
Gabriel looked at the rock for a moment, noting its graceful curves and its smooth lines. He shook his head vaguely. “Your eyes are different from mine, old friend. What did you learn?”
“The menhir is a marker. It must have been left here by the eldar thousands of years ago. It speaks of a bladed-key, buried beneath the ground for all time,” said Isador, his mind drifting back to the images that he had seen in the wraithbone.
“A key to what?” asked Gabriel.
“I am not sure. It would take me months to decipher all of the text,” lamented Isador.
Again, Gabriel looked up at the menhir and gazed at its perfectly smooth, flawless surface. He raised his eyebrows. “It is enough, I suppose, to know that the Alpha Legion and the eldar are both pursuing this key. Do you know where it is?”
“Yes. The runes are very clear. They were clearly intended to guide an eldar force to it at an important moment,” replied Isador, deep in thought.
Gabriel’s thoughts were catching up with those of his Librarian. “So, the eldar have been here before, and they anticipated the need for a return to Tartarus?”
“So it seems, Gabriel.”
“Did the historical records make any mention of an eldar invasion or presence on this planet in the past?” asked Gabriel, already sure that Isador would have mentioned such a thing.
“No, Gabriel. I can only assume that the eldar were here before the colonisation of Tartarus-before the Imperium’s records began,” said Isador, his mind racing with the possible implications of this knowledge.
“Can this all be coincidental?” asked Gabriel, giving voice to their joint concerns. “The return of the eldar, the presence of our old adversaries, the Alpha Legion, the invasion of the orks, and the imminent arrival of the warp storm?”
Isador shook his head. “I do not believe in coincidences-they are the symptoms of ignorance. I fear that the Blood Ravens may be the only force on this planet who do not know what is going on.”
The Striking Scorpion squad was first into the breach as the gate ground slowly open. Their new exarch-the eldar warrior that was once Jaerielle-was their spearhead, dancing and flipping through the hail of fire from the gunnery emplacements on the city wall. He was through the gate and into the courtyard on the other side before the mechanism had even wound open fully, flicking and darting between shots from the Imperial Guardsmen, as though they were moving too slowly to trouble him.
Inspired by their exarch, the emerald green figures of the rest of his squad stormed into the city behind him, flourishing their chainswords and dispatching sheets of shuriken fire from their pistols. Following in the wake of the Striking Scorpions came the reds and golds of the Fire Dragons, dousing the wall defences in chemical flames from their fire-lances and fusion guns. And then, bursting through the flames, hissed the Vypers and jetbikes, flashing through the open gate into the city streets under cover of heavy fire from the Falcon tanks outside.
The Falcons had slid to a halt in front of the walls, and were battering the gun platforms with barrages of fire from their shuriken cannons and lance arrays. The impacts strafed across the wall, blasting great chunks of rockcrete out of their structure and shaking the weapons emplacements.
The Imperial Guardsmen in the city defences found themselves in crumbling alcoves, with debris and rockcrete raining down onto them from great cracks in the superstructure. The fixings for their autocannons and multi-meltas were breaking free as the rockcrete splintered out from underneath them, denying them the stability needed for accurate fire.
Guardsman Hredel threw his weight against his weapon, hoping that his mass would keep the autocannon rooted while it fired a constant stream of shells down towards the breach in the open gates.
Down in the courtyard inside the gate, a smattering of Guardsmen, led by the hapless Bobryn, who had opened the gate and then regretted it instantly, staged a last ditch defence of the city. Eldar jetbikes zipped past them into the capital, not even bothering to engage the defenders. The Vypers slid to a halt in the courtyard, but did not open fire on the Guardsmen. Instead, their gun-turrets spun around and started to blast away at the rear of the wall, where the wall’s gun platforms were unshielded. Hredel turned to look into the courtyard just in time to see the withering hail of shuriken crash into his gunnery platform, killing him instantly. Meanwhile, Jaerielle sprang into the line of defenders in the courtyard, flourishing his toothed blade in a dizzying display of virtuosity.
Bobryn’s mouth dropped open as the eldar warrior spun through the air in a graceful arc, vaulting the impromptu barricade in a single bound, its blade whipped into a blur by the speed of its motion. He just had time to marvel at the skill of the alien, before the blade passed straight through his neck.
Jaerielle swooped and sliced with his chainsword, letting it dance all by itself, pulling him from one kill to the next in a frenzy of blood. The little stand of Guardsmen dwindled into nothing in a matter of seconds, and Jaerielle spun to a standstill in amongst the spread of dismembered corpses, striking the victory pose of the Striking Scorpions, with streams of mon-keigh blood coasting down his emerald armour.
As he struck the pose, Farseer Macha walked calmly through the gates into Lloovre Marr, flanked on both sides by a retinue of warlocks, claiming the city for Biel-Tan. She stood for a moment, motionless in the entrance to the courtyard. The barricades of the defenders were still in place, and the Striking Scorpions and Fire Dragons had fanned out around the perimeters-they showed little sign of having seen combat today. But there, standing on the far side of the barricades, was Jaerielle, surrounded by a litter of corpses and running with blood. His blade was held dramatically above his head, and his pistol was pointing at the ground, as he stretched his legs into a long, low stance.
The sound of a distant explosion made Macha turn and look back out of the open gates. In the distance, directly below the sun, was the imposing sight of Mount Korath. Its peak was a blaze of light, and a mushroom cloud of thick smoke and debris had plumed into the air above it, casting the valley into shadow as the cloud obstructed the sun for a moment. The Blood Ravens, thought Macha, hoping that her Warp Spiders had done their job.
In the foreground, the rest of the Biel-Tan army remained positioned for battle before the walls. The wraithguard trained their wraithcannons on the defensive gunnery positions, although most had already fallen silent. The Storm and Defender squads were starting to file through the gate, keeping the farseer in sight in case they were needed, but the battle for Lloovre Marr was basically over. The Swordwind had swept the pathetic defence before it and, turning again to look at Jaerielle, Macha wondered whether he could have done it all by himself.
A line of ranger jetbikes hissed through the gates, and Flaetriu vaulted off the leading machine before it slid to a halt. He swept into a bow before the farseer.
“Farseer, the Chaos Marines are regrouping in a cave in the valley wall. They are several hours’ march from here. We have time to refortify the city before they arrive,” reported the ranger, his concentration suddenly broken by the sight of Jaerielle further inside the courtyard.
“Thank you, Flaetriu. In the meantime, take your rangers through the city, and find those cowardly mon-keigh that fled their positions at the wall. We want no surprises today,” said Macha gravely. Even as she spoke, she could feel that surprises were on their way.
As the column of Blood Ravens thundered down the north side of Mount Korath, Gabriel clicked the detonator-trigger that Matiel had given to him. Behind them, the summit of the mountain erupted like a volcano as the eldar charges exploded. The mountain top was vaporised and a huge cloud of debris and smoke blasted into the air, obscuring the sun. The rocks around the summit were instantly rendered into flows of molten lava that sprayed outwards from the mountain in a superheated fountain. Great sheets of molten rock started to ooze down the mountain side, chasing the heels of the Blood Ravens as they roared down into the valley towards Lloovre Marr.
C.S. Goto (ebook by Undead)
01 – Dawn of War