Now Phosis T"kar knew why his powers had failed. He heard screams of pain as the kine shields failed and more of the Silent Sisterhood made their presence felt. She came at him with a lancing thrust of her sword. He blocked it with his staff once more, sliding the hook down to the hilt of her blade and twisting.
She read the move and drew her blade back, spinning around and going low with a slender dagger aimed at his groin. Phosis T"kar stepped in to meet her and her dagger shattered on the plates of his thigh. He brought his knee up into her face and crushed the mask hiding her jaw. Blood and teeth flew from the impact, but the woman rolled out of reach.
All along the edge of the plaza, hundreds of armoured warriors came together in a battering clash of plate. No longer was this a battle to be fought with one side having the advantage; this was now a brutal, sweating, throat-tearing fight at close quarters.
Phosis T"kar unsheathed his combat blade and dropped into a fighting crouch before the armoured woman. He held his staff out before him with his knife high at his shoulder.
"Very well, null-maiden," he snarled. "I"ll just kill you the old-fashioned way!"
THOUGH HIS BODY lay rec.u.mbent on a crystal throne of golden fire, Khalophis marched through the ruins of Tizca with the strides of a mighty giant. Structures were children"s building blocks, the fires flickering embers. People were specks to be crashed beneath his thunderous steps.
He marched past the Kretis gallery towards the Skelmis Tholus with the wide expanse of ocean at his right shoulder. The streets of Old Tizca were too narrow for a t.i.tanic battle engine such as Canis Vertex, and ancient buildings exploded as he smashed through them like some destructive colossus from ancient legends.
Gunfire lashed up, but none of it could harm him. He felt the heat of Sioda gather in his right arm, and unleashed a torrent of fire that bathed six streets in billowing clouds of sticky flames. He couldn"t hear the screams, but he saw his howling victims falling to their knees and begging for salvation.
The guns of Canis Vertex were functional, but with his Tutelary"s connection to the Great Ocean, his pyrokinetic abilities were boosted a hundredfold and he had no need of them. The mighty fists of the t.i.tan were wreathed in flames, and with every gesture, tank-sized fireb.a.l.l.s slammed into the enemy. Khalophis laughed as he spat tongues of flame from both arms, burning the invaders back to their ships.
The attacking forces had cut a deep wound into Tizca, but Khalophis saw how far the invaders had extended themselves in their urgent need to break the defenders in two. Canis Vertex could cut them off from their reserves, and the Thousand Sons" lines would drive them back to the ocean.
The Athanaeans dispersed word of the enemy movements, and the Corvidae met and countered any surprise attacks planned on a whim. The battle was by no means won by either force, but from his G.o.d"s-eye view Khalophis could see the battle was turning in favour of the Thousand Sons.
"You bit off more than even you could chew," roared Khalophis, the words coming out in the real world as a deafening blurt of eardrum-busting static from the engine"s war horn.
Gunships and speeders slashed forwards, guns blazing and missiles arcing towards his armoured hide. Without voids, he would have been vulnerable, but a shield of flame turned sh.e.l.ls to molten droplets of lead and detonated missiles before they could impact. He felt his Tutelary"s savage joy, its power jostling for control, and he clamped down his authority.
It shrieked in jealous spite and Khalophis spasmed with a soul-deep sensation of nausea.
Canis Vertex halted its rampage and explosions erupted across its armoured chest as its aetheric armour vanished. Scenting blood, the Jetbikes, speeders and gunships closed in to deliver the deathblow.
"Get back," he hissed. "This is mine!"
Sioda screeched and angrily returned to the body of Canis Vertex.
A billowing flare of heat erupted from the t.i.tan, and a dozen aircraft were swatted from the sky by the intense burst, their engines fused and pilots seared to charred bones.
Khalophis spat onto the floor of the Pyrae temple, the blood hissing as it boiled in the intense heat. His armour was smoking, and dark light built behind his eyes as he wept tears of fire that cut blackened scars down his cheeks.
THE LIBRARY OF the Corvidae, normally a place of quiet sanctuary and solitude was now a site of frantic activity. Ankhu Anen directed the labours of hundreds of scribes and servitors as they emptied the shelves and datacores of the library. The vast chamber contained hundreds of thousands of texts, too many ever to be evacuated in so short a time, but Ahriman"s orders had been explicit.
Everything that could be saved was to be transferred to the Pyramid of Photep.
The light of fires filtered through the crystal walls, and danced over the steel and gla.s.s shelves of the library. Ma.s.sively overladen bulk servitors carried panniers of books, and terrified scribes swept even more onto protesting load lifters.
He had tried to impose some kind of order on the evacuation of the library, but soon found that impossible. The panic of being so close to the fighting was a plague spreading through his minions, and his carefully ordered plans had fallen apart within moments.
"Ensure the Pnakotic ma.n.u.scripts are kept separate from the Prophecies!" he shouted, seeing a tearful scribe bundling books from different eras together in a servitor"s overflowing pannier. Scrolls and torn pages fluttered to the terrazzo floor. Dust fell from the high ceilings as something exploded nearby, and the library echoed with terrified screams.
Bodies flowed past him, their arms filled with heavy books and rolled-up maps and parchments. The Corvidae had collected so much in their researches into the future, so much that had yet to be studied and properly interpreted. How much knowledge of things to come would be lost in this senseless attack?
A wave of dizziness swamped him and he reached out to steady himself. His hand closed on the cold steel of a shelf and he glanced over at the book nearest his fingers. It was a tattered, worn, leather copy of Liber Draconi, incongruously sitting next to the Book of Atum and twine-bound pages of the Voluspd.
He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand away as though burned.
"The dragon of fate," he whispered.
Since his earliest days in the ranks of the Thousand Sons, Ankhu Anen had been haunted by dreams of a hissing dragon born of ice and fire. Its breath was the death of stars and its eyes the light of creation. Long had he sought the meaning of his dream, but the symbolism of dragons was manifold.
To some, the dragon represented intellectually superior man overcoming the untamed natural world, or creatures of primal chaos that could only be destroyed through disciplined marshalling of mental and physical prowess. To others, it was a symbol of wisdom, adopted by primitive emperors to enhance their perceived power. To Ankhu Anen it was a symbol of impending doom.
He backed away from the bookshelf, and looked up as a sudden premonition of danger flashed into his mind. A flaming ma.s.s was hurtling towards the temple, its form blurred and indistinct through the crystal panes.
Ankhu Anen turned and ran back towards the entrance of the library as a tremendous blast rocked the temple. Gla.s.s panes and adamantium columns shattered as a blazing, golden-skinned Thunderhawk gunship smashed into the temple. The wreck spun as its remaining wing caught one of the enormous structural members and it slammed into the ceiling before dropping to the floor of the library with a thunderous explosion.
Razor-sharp fragments and blazing sheets of jet fuel sprayed out from the wreckage, and the dry pages contained within the library eagerly caught light. Ankhu Anen was hurled through the air by the force of the blast, slamming into a high shelf and crashing through it to land on an overturned load lifter and its spilled cargo of books. The shelf buckled and crashed down on top of him in a rain of twisted metal and gla.s.s.
Ankhu Anen tried to extricate himself from the remains of the shelving unit, but fell back as searing pain flared in his leg and chest. Taking a deep breath, he took stock of his wounds. His leg was pinned beneath a fallen column, and a jutting spar of steel protruded from his chest. The fall had torn the wound gapingly wide, and blood pumped from his ruptured heart. Not even his secondary organ would be able to keep up with so rapid a loss.
Flaming liquid spread through the library, clawing at groaning shelves and seeking out fresh paper to sate its rapacious appet.i.te. Dead and dying scribes surrounded Ankhu Anen, their bodies shredded by flying debris or burned beyond recognition. He looked up to see a shimmering rain of gla.s.s falling from the enormous, smoking hole the crashed gunship had torn. It was like a waterfall of crystal, and as he stared at the mesmerising sight, he saw a golden eye reflected in the shards as they fell in slow motion. The eyes watched him sadly, and Ankhu Anen had the powerful sense that they could easily save his life, yet chose not to.
"Why?" he begged, but the eyes had no answer for him.
A faint scratching of metal sounded at his ear, and he twisted to call for help, but his words trailed off as he saw a black raven watching him with its head c.o.c.ked to one side. Its wings were glossy and black, though he could see psyber-implants worked with great subtlety into its skull. The bird regarded him quizzically, and he smiled at the sight of his cult"s symbol.
"What are you?" he asked. "A vision of the future? A symbol of salvation?"
"Neither, I think," said a coa.r.s.e voice at his shoulder, and Ankhu Anen twisted to see a warrior in armour the colour of a winter"s morn. It shimmered as though sheened with a layer of frost, and Ankhu Anen saw nothing but hatred in the s.p.a.ce Wolf"s body language. The raven took flight with a sharp caw and landed upon the warrior"s shoulder-guard.
The warrior carried a long staff topped with a golden eagle, and a host of warriors flooded into the Corvidae library behind him. They were golden and grey, and they carried long-necked weapons with blue flames at their hissing nozzles.
"Who are you?" cried Ankhu Anen, trying to summon the aether to strike down this impertinent invader. No power was coming, and he felt the ache of powerlessness as a jagged pain in his heart.
"I am called Ohthere Wyrdmake, Rune Priest to Amlodhi Skarssen Skarssensson of the 5th Company of s.p.a.ce Wolves," said the warrior, removing his helmet to reveal a bearded warrior of great age with pale eyes and a braided beard. A leather skullcap covered the top of his head, and Ankhu Anen saw a willowy female in skin-tight armour of bronze and gold behind him. Her eyes were dead and unforgiving, and he recoiled from the emptiness he saw within them.
"Wyrdmake? The dragon of fate," hissed Ankhu Anen, his eyes widening in understanding. "It"s you... It"s always been you."
The Rune Priest smiled, though there was no amus.e.m.e.nt, only triumphant vindication.
"Dragon of fate? I suppose I am," he said.
Ankhu Anen tried to reach his heqa staff, but it was lost in the devastation of the crash. He tried to pull his leg free.
"Do not struggle," said Wyrdmake. "It will make your death easier."
"Why are you doing this?" begged Ankhu Anen. "This is a dreadful mistake, you must see that! Think of all that will be lost if you do this terrible thing."
"We are obeying the Emperor"s will," said Wyrdmake, "as you should have done."
"The Thousand Sons are loyal," gasped Ankhu Anen, and a froth of bubbling blood spilled from his mouth. "We always were."
Wyrdmake knelt beside Ankhu Anen and pressed an icy gauntlet to his face.
"Do you have a valediction? Any last words before you die?"
Ankhu Anen nodded, as the future opened up before him. Through gurgling, b.l.o.o.d.y coughs he hissed his final prophecy.
"I can see the aether inside you, Rune Priest," he hissed with the last of his strength. "You are just like me, and one day those you serve will turn on you too."
"I almost pity your delusion," said Wyrdmake, shaking his head, "almost."
Wyrdmake stood to his full height and waved more of the warriors with flame-weapons forward. Ankhu Anen heard the whoosh of streaming jets of fire destroying a hundred lifetimes worth of knowledge, and tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.
"You will tell me one thing before you die," said Wyrdmake. "You will tell me where I can find the star-cunning one called Ahzek Ahriman."
PHOSIS T"KAR HAD the advantage of weight and strength, but the null-maiden was lightning quick and her blade whipped like a silver snake. They duelled in the ruins of the plaza amid of a sprawling melee of armoured bodies. Blackened hulks of wrecked tanks littered the plaza, and gla.s.s fell in a glittering crystal rain from smoking holes punched in the Raptora pyramid.
Statues fell from its golden ledges to shatter on the stone below, and the constant thud of artillery impacts further east set a rhythmic tone for the battle. Fire bathed the combatants in a ruddy orange light, and Phosis T"kar felt a liberating sense of his own strength even as his aetheric powers were denied him.
He spun his staff in lazy circles as the Sister of Silence stared at him with her dead eyes.
"There is nothing to you, is there?" he said. "I pity most mortals who cannot see what I see, but you? You live in dead s.p.a.ce with silence as your only companion. It will be a mercy to end your life."
The woman did not reply and launched a rapier-quick thrust to his throat. Phosis T"kar swayed aside and swept his arm out as she came in for a reverse stroke. Her blade whipped around his forearm, cutting a grove around his gauntlet, and he lunged towards her with his staff outstretched.
She bent back beneath his strike, sweeping her legs out and hammering her heel into his knee. His armour cracked and pain shot up his thigh. Phosis T"kar stepped back, favouring his good leg, and grinned.
"You"re quick, I"ll give you that," he said.
She didn"t answer and dodged his next attack with similar grace. A flurry of shots sent up geysers of rock-dust beside them and he flinched back from the heavy impacts.
"Time to end this," he said.
The woman came at him again, and this time he made no move to stop her. Her sword plunged into his chestplate, slicing through the compound ceramite and armaplas, but before it could penetrate the ossified bone-shield over his ribs, he stamped forward and rammed his combat knife up into the woman"s arm.
The blade sliced between her radius and ulna, and she screamed in agony.
"Not so silent now, eh?" he snarled, dragging her towards him. She fought against his strength, but her struggles only intensified her pain. Phosis T"kar slammed his helm into her face, and the Sister of Silence"s head caved in.
He wrenched his combat knife clear as he felt his power surge back into his limbs with a frisson of painful pleasure. Utipa flared into existence above him, and he welcomed his Tutelary"s presence, feeling its return boost his power. Phosis T"kar sheathed his b.l.o.o.d.y blade and unslung his bolter, ramming a fresh magazine home and racking the slide. He snapped the silver blade protruding from his chest, and turned from the body before him, jogging back to the fighting and firing his bolter at targets of opportunity as he went.
The raging combat swirled like a seething tide, with neither force quite able to gain the upper hand. The s.p.a.ce Wolves fought with furious abandon, utterly directed and focussed, but without the clarity of vision to appreciate the whole picture. The Thousand Sons fought with clinical detachment, every warrior having achieved the lower Enumerations to better focus their skills. As Astartes, they were trained to excel in the brutality of close combat, but Magnus had taught them there was always another, cleverer way to win.
"Understand the foe," Magnus had said, "and you will know how to beat him."
It was a lesson the s.p.a.ce Wolves and Custodes had taken to heart, for how else would they have thought to bring the null-maidens of the silent sisterhood with them? Knowing that gave Phosis T"kar all he needed to turn this battle around.
He ran through the thick of the fighting, casting his mind out into the swirling ma.s.s of heaving emotions. The red mist of anger and hatred hung over the straggling fighters, but three patches of deadness were like islands of silence amid the oceans of carnage. "Got you," he hissed.
He saw Hathor Maat fighting back to back with Auramagma, and shot his way through the crash of bodies to reach his fellow captains. A warrior in grey armour slashed at him with a saw-bladed axe, but Phosis T"kar wrenched it from his grip with a thought, and drove the screaming teeth into the warrior"s face without breaking stride.
His pace slowed as he came within range of another null-maiden. He stopped and climbed onto an empty plinth that had once supported the statue of Magister Ahkenatos, pulling his bolter tight into his shoulder, and scanning for the dead zones within the battle through Utipa"s eyes.
His Tutelary swooped over the battlefield, and Phosis T"kar felt a sudden burst of pain in his chest. He looked down. The wound was still bleeding, which was odd. Then he saw the iridescent shimmer to his blood and sensed its ambition. He knew what it meant, but angrily clamped down on the sudden fear that accompanied such recognition.
Taking a deep breath, he focussed on what he was seeing through Utipa"s eyes.
He saw the first of the null-maidens, and shifted his aim towards her. She fought in the midst of a knot of s.p.a.ce Wolves and Custodes against Hathor Maat"s warriors. The bolter slammed back against his shoulder, and the woman collapsed, the back of her neck and shoulder torn off by the blast of the sh.e.l.l.
Following Utipa"s guidance, he found the second null-maiden and put a bolt round through her chest. The third he killed with a snap-shot as she fled to the cover of one of the wrecked Land Raiders.
Immediately, the Thousand Sons went on the offensive. Lightning flashed from Hathor Maat"s hands, and Auramagma threw out blazing streams of liquid fire. Kine shields flared to life and the s.p.a.ce Wolves were hurled back from the edges of the pyramid.
Phosis T"kar roared and leapt from the plinth.
Bolts of pure force slammed into his enemies, scattering them before him like a charging cavalryman. As much as he had felt a strange sense of freedom when stripped of his power, it was a moment of fleeting enjoyment compared to this.
Hathor Maat and Auramagma appeared at his side, and he read their joy at this sudden turn in their fortunes. Auramagma was as feral as the s.p.a.ce Wolves, while Hathor Maat was pathetically relieved to have his powers back.
The Thousand Sons formed on their captains, a fighting wedge of lightning-wreathed killers, plunging into the body of the s.p.a.ce Wolf army like a lance. The s.p.a.ce Wolves and Custodes fell back before them, helpless without any means of combating the lethal powers of the Thousand Sons.
A terrible howl of fury echoed around the plaza, and every pane of gla.s.s within the Raptora pyramid exploded into diamond fragments. They fell in a crystal rain that reflected the fire and smoke of battle in every shard.
Phosis T"kar dropped to one knee, his autosenses screaming with the overload of sound.
"What in the name of the Great Ocean...?" he managed before he remembered where he had heard that howl before.
"Shrike," said Hathor Maat, recalling the same thing.
The s.p.a.ce Wolves parted, and Phosis T"kar saw the enormous majesty of the Wolf King and a coterie of gold-armoured giants striding through the battle lines towards them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.
I Must Not/Power Without Control/Syrbotae Down OLD TIZCA WAS no more. The peaceful warren of antiquated streets he had so enjoyed exploring as a youth on Prospero was now ashes and burning rubble. Warriors picked careful paths through the smouldering ruins, firing from the hip or fighting with axes and swords. The coastline was invisible, obscured by fog-banks of artillery fire. Spurts of yellow fire followed by dull metallic coughs s.n.a.t.c.hed at the clouds, and another portion of his beloved city would vanish in a rippling series of fiery detonations.
Magnus watched the death of Tizca from the highest balcony of his pyramid, the one structure that had so far escaped the destruction. Nothing reflective remained in his chambers, nowhere for the insidious voice of his temptation to wheedle and cajole him into making yet another error of judgement.
He gripped the edge of the balcony and wept bitter tears for his lost world and his dying sons. What had once been a wondrous beacon of illumination for all who cared to look upon it was now a maelstrom of battle.
The northern spur of the city was a raging inferno, its palaces ablaze and its parklands ashen wastelands. Further south, the port was a giant black stain on the horizon, its structures demolished in the wake of his brother"s attack.
He sensed Leman Russ in the western reaches of the city, fighting at the Raptora pyramid. Constantin Valdor was at his side and the warrior named Amon. With his inner eye, Magnus felt the courage and elation of the Thousand Sons who fought alongside Phosis T"kar, Hathor Maat and Auramagma. It grieved him to know that most of these men would soon be dead, for the Wolf King left only desolation in his wake.