Path of the Warrior (36 page)

Morlaniath spared no more thought for the other squads as he chopped the head from an Imperial soldier with a twist of his wrists. One of the peak-capped officers bellowed incoherently at him, raising a fist sheathed in a crackling mechanical gauntlet. Morlaniath sliced the human’s arm at the elbow, the powered glove clanging to the floor. Las-bolts sprayed from the officer’s pistol, catching the exarch on the right side of his chest, leaving smoking holes in his armour. Annoyed, he flexed his arm and sent the
Teeth of Dissonance
through the officer’s other elbow, leaving him literally disarmed. The officer collapsed to one side, still shouting, kicking out with his legs in hopeless defiance. Morlaniath ended him with a surge from his mandiblasters, the laser bolt punching through the human’s gilded breastplate. The whole affair had taken less than three heartbeats.

A human crouched over a buzzing piece of equipment looked up in horror as Morlaniath loomed over him—on the end of a coiling wire he held a cup-shaped receptacle to one ear. The
Teeth of Dissonance
cleaved through the human’s upraised arm and came to rest halfway through his skull, showering the fizzing electrical box with blood. Morlaniath let go of his sword with one hand and stooped to pick up the receptacle and hold it close to his helmet’s auditory pick-up. Between bursts of static, meaningless human gibberish rang tinnily in the exarch’s ear.

Being overrun at sector six—by the Emperor’s holy shrivelled gonads, we need more ammunition—did you see what they did to the captain? Is that him over there? Where did the rest of him go?—Remain at stations, reinforcements incoming—The door won’t open, Command. It swallowed Sergeant Lister—Say again, corporal, report position—Reinforcements imminent, the Asta—

Morlaniath dropped the comm-device and looked across the wide hangar. A few pockets of humans held out, defending their shuttles to the last soldier. His squad was too far away to intervene, there would be none left by the time the Hidden Death reached the landing craft. He watched with a twinge of envy as Aranarha boarded one of the assault boats with his warriors.

“Enemy reinforcements have reached the docks,” announced Arhathain. “All units fall back to the Dome of Midnight Forests. Do not engage the enemy, fall back at once.”

Morlaniath was confused. The hangar and docking platforms were in eldar hands. Heavy weapons were moving up the access ramps. Any enemy foolish enough to make a landing in the teeth of the eldar squads would be cut down as soon as they set foot on the craftworld. He turned towards the glimmering one-way field that protected the dock opening. There was no sign of approaching craft outside, just a swathe of stars.

Of the attacking ships, there was nothing to be seen save for a handful of flaring plasma drives against the darkness. Morlaniath could not see how so few reinforcements had so unsettled the autarchs.

The docks shook with a thunderous impact as a torpedo-like craft smashed through the outer wall to Morlaniath’s left, the nose cone of the boarding vessel surrounded in a red haze of energy. Two more slammed into Alaitoc to either side of the first, sending cracked shards of wall flying across the docks. Light within recesses around the torpedoes’ noses flared and Morlaniath dropped to his belly in an instant, warned by instinct. A barrage of rockets filled the dockside, a mass of fire and smoke trails and deafening blasts that cut through the eldar. Secondary detonations tore apart the human landing craft, creating a fresh storm of shrapnel.

Morlaniath jumped back to his feet and checked on his squad. Arhulesh held his arm where a long gash had ripped through his armour, and there were minor cracks and scratches in the suits of the others, but no serious injuries. The same could not be said for other eldar forces. The limp forms of Guardians lay sprawled across walkways, sparks fizzing from the remnants of their heavy weapons. Erethaillin’s squad had been close to the wall and bloodstained armour littered the hangar floor, the tattered strands of the Howling Banshees’ helmet manes floating around their corpses.

In every direction Morlaniath looked, he saw dead and dying eldar.

His gaze was drawn back to the three glowing projectiles jutting through the wall surrounded by a lingering haze of smoke. Though scorched, they were painted in white and red. In unison, the noses broke into four petal-like segments, opening up to reveal a harsh white interior. The bottom petal touched down like a ramp and in the dizzy aftermath of the rockets blasts, the dock rang with heavy feet.

A dozen fiery trails snarled from the opening portals, followed by the sharp crack of detonations, the bloodied remains of eldar warriors flung across the hangar floor. With morbid curiosity Morlaniath focussed on one, seeing a miniature rocket at least the size of his thumb propelled out of the white light. It hit a Guardian in the leg and punched through the thin armour into flesh. A moment later it detonated with a blossom of bone and blood, ripping the limb apart from the inside.

Morlaniath knew this weapon.

He had faced it once before: the time when not-Lecchamemnon had been slain. The memory of his death was unpleasant and the exarch looked at the boarding torpedoes with a disconcerted feeling as more of them burst through other parts of the dock wall. Hugely armoured figures ran down the ramps, their guns spitting fury.

Imperial Space Marines!

In the moment between Khaine’s sword blow and Eldanesh’s death, Asuryan the Phoenix King came down from heaven. Eldanesh asked why it was that the eldar had to die. Asuryan laughed at the question. He told Eldanesh that he could not die. The father of the eldar would live on in the spirit and memory of his children, reborn anew in every generation. While his children prospered, Eldanesh would be immortal. As death’s grip tightened on Eldanesh and the stars dimmed, Asuryan gave him one last message. The gods had no descendants, only they could truly die.

The retreat from the docks was swift. Faced with the devastating onslaught of the Emperor’s most fearsome creations, the eldar melted away into the inner corridors and halls of Alaitoc. The craftworld secured their retreat, delaying the pursuing Space Marines with closed doors and energy fields. Driven by the energy of the infinity circuit, Alaitoc remapped entire parts of its layout to stall the enemy advance, sealing corridors and collapsing walkways to strand the enemy and separate them from each other. When all was done, the infinity circuit shrank back from the docks, rendering the crystal network dead, leaving no means for the foe to exploit or infiltrate its energies.

As the squad boarded their Wave Serpent in silence, Morlaniath sensed the numbed shock of his warriors, the realisation that there existed foes in the galaxy that were the match of them.

“It is not the right place, to face our foes head on, standing with blade-to-blade,” he said as the Wave Serpent lifted off and turned sharply, heading for the Dome of Midnight Forests. “We are part of the whole, a sole Aspect of Khaine, not complete of itself. With others we will fight, much greater together, victorious in time. Space Marines are dire foes, deadly in their own right, but so few in number. They are strong of body, they know not dread or doubt, yet still they can be killed. No swift victory comes, this is a war of will. Alaitoc must prevail.”

“The enemy have secured many landing points behind the spearhead of their finest warriors,” Arhathain cut through Morlaniath’s encouragement. “Their numbers will swell and they will bring vehicles and heavier weapons. We cannot be dragged into their crude way of war, meeting them headlong. They will lumber after us with great crushing blows; we must be the blade that cuts a thousand times. We have killed many of the humans and we must kill many more before we know victory. There will be no swift road back to peace. The true war for Alaitoc begins now.”

The exarch sensed lingering doubt in the minds of his followers.

“The autarch speaks the truth: we fight for survival, to avoid extinction. Harbour no weaknesses, dispel the seed of doubt, harden yourselves for war. Know there is no retreat, we fight to guard our home, to keep our future safe.”

“Space Marines, tanks, countless soldiers, how can we fight against such things?” asked Arhulesh.

“With blade and with pistol, we fight what we can kill, trust others for the rest. We are not without arms. We have our own weapons, to meet these kinds of threats. Defeat is not our fate, not by the hands of men, not in this place and time. Let hate be your courage, let anger be your shield, let Khaine watch over us.”

Their disquiet receded as the Wave Serpent sped on. In silence, they each fell into a meditative state, drawing on their resolve to quench the fear that had risen. Morlaniath had no need to bolster his convictions with abstract contemplation. He had a very real reason to despise the Space Marines of the Emperor.

The fields around the town burned, pockmarked with craters. The bodies of gigantic miradons lay in burning heaps, their scales glistening in the flame-light. More blasts rained down from the skies, crushing the buildings of Semain Alair. Charred corpses were flung high into the air by the plasma impacts, while the screams of the burning Exodites mingled with the agonised bellows of their herds.

The exarch watched the devastation from a stand of burning trees on a hill overlooking the farming settlement, the canopy overhead a crackling inferno. In irrigation ditches and hollows, others lay in wait.

He turned to Farseer Alaitharin.

“We have arrived too late, the slaughter has begun. Now we must count the dead.”

The seer’s ruby-like eye lenses fixed him with a stare. She reached into the pouch at her waist and drew forth a handful of wraithbone runes. They lifted from her open palm and arranged themselves into a circling pattern, slowly revolving around the farseer.

“It was not our fate to protect them,” she said slowly. “We cannot stop the humans from taking this world.”

“I do not understand, what is our purpose here, if not to drive them back?”

“One is coming who will become a greater military leader. In a generation from now, he will lead his forces against the fleet of Alaitoc in the Kholirian system and destroy many of our ships. I have followed his strand. He is most vulnerable here, during this conquest. Extinguish his light now and it will never burn our people.”

“Who is this great leader, a threat to the future, no human lives so long?”

“He is no human,” replied Alaitharin. The runes ceased their orbit and floated back to her hand. She looked up into the evening sky. “He comes upon a shooting star.”

Morlaniath and the other Hidden Death warriors followed her gaze. Pinpricks of light appeared in the sky, swiftly growing larger. As they neared, Morlaniath could see black liveried craft falling through the atmosphere, the glimmers of light the glare of their heat shields. The exarch counted them, fourteen in all.

Dart-like shapes appeared over the hills in front of Morlaniath, closing fast: Nightwing fighters. Lasers lanced from their prows, striking the falling drop-pods. The armour of many shrugged aside the attack, but three exploded into clouds of fire and debris, exploding into parts that burned away into nothing. The Nightwings twisted and fired again, destroying two more.

Bulkier shapes appeared in the twilight, rockets flaring from their wings—the gunships of the enemy. They were high-sided, clumsy craft, laden with weapons. The Nightwings were forced away from the falling pods by the weight of fire as they turned to meet this new threat.

With blazes of plasma, the drop-pods slowed their descent and slammed into the soft earth of the farms. Heat shimmer disturbed the air but Morlaniath could make out white cross-shaped markings on their sides. Explosive bolts crackled and ramps crashed to the burnt ground, disgorging squads of bulky, armour-clad warriors.

“This one,” said Alaitharin, pointing to a squad sergeant forging up the slope towards the burning settlement, his squad in close formation behind him. A rune—the symbol of fate sealed—appeared in Morlaniath’s vision, dancing over the head of the Space Marine. Even when he disappeared into a dell, the rune betrayed his whereabouts. “It is destined that you slay him. Go now, bring his doom swiftly.”

Morlaniath headed towards the burning buildings with his squad in tow while other eldar forces formed a ring around the disembarking Space Marines. The rune of fate was a constant presence, dragging him on. Gunfire erupted across the devastated field but he did not spare a glance backwards, intent only on the prey he stalked.

The outskirts of the settlement were as ruined as the centre, the high towers and long halls crushed to piles of rubble. Morlaniath skirted around a complex of half-fallen walls that had once been a storehouse. Twisted harnesses and saddles jutted from the shattered masonry. Here and there an arm or leg could be seen, dust sticking to the drying blood.

He found it hard to understand the farseer’s attitude. Surely this warrior could have been killed before the attack was launched? It was one matter to expend the lives of lesser species to further the cause of Alaitoc; it was another to sacrifice eldar, even if they were only Exodites. There may have been greater risk in an orbital attack, but it was the duty of the Aspect Warriors to face such dangers. The farmers lying dead in the ruins of their homes had made no such commitment.

Yet, it was the farseers that could foretell the perils facing the craftworld, and if this was the best course of action he was in no place to resist their judgement. He was glad he did not have to deal with the vagaries of divination. He had a clarity of purpose it was hard to argue against: kill the enemy. The fulfilment of that simple goal brought him contentment, often joy.

His prey had taken up a position in the ruins of a meeting hall, on the debris-strewn floor of the second storey. The squad’s fire screamed out over the ravaged fields, covering their comrades as they took up defensive positions against the eldar attack. Their attention was focussed outward, unsuspecting of the Hidden Death that came at them from behind.