Wild Rider - Gav Thorpe Read online

  ‘To war!’

  It often felt to Meliniel as though he were at the centre of a thousand spinning galaxies, each of which required his constant attention lest it be pulled apart by the power of its own stars. Fleeting from one concern to the next, poring over every last scrap of data from the scout craft, he formulated and revised, strategised and planned. Each concern seemed to spawn a dozen more, so that when he turned his thoughts to the ad-hoc expeditionary fleet of Saim-Hann he immediately wondered how the coalition of clans would hold up. How would the seers of the craftworld bend their powers alongside Eldrad? The Aspect Warriors that accompanied them, would they see common cause with those shrines now sworn to Ynnead or would their dedication to Khaine cause animosity, perhaps even hostility between them?

  And all of these considerations crowded upon his thoughts before paying any attention to the unknown nature of the foe. He had gleaned what little he could from the reports of those that had come back from Nuadhu’s foray, including a lengthy debrief with the Wild Lord himself. Other than some geographical and topographical features, and the scantest dialogue on the nature of the enemy force they had encountered, he knew almost nothing about the necrontyr.

  He moved about the command chamber in the heart of Ynnead’s­ Dream adjusting the psycholithic display, so that the mirrored red surface perfectly captured the shape and dynamic of attack he hoped to attain.

  It was more than a science – there was an art to wielding an army at war. Intuition played as much a part as logistics, improvisation was as important as preparation. In order to be ready he had to absorb the essence of the plan as well as the practicalities of it. He had learned those lessons with hard-earned victories at the command of the Bladewind of Biel-tan. Over the time that had passed since he had left his craftworld to aid Yvraine, he had endeavoured to turn the Ynnari warhost into something approaching the perfect weapon of Biel-tan’s deadly force.

  The echo-beat of his pulse was strong in his chest, a reminder of the creature that lurked within him now. He could feel its rage radiating through him, trying to colour his every thought.

  The presence of the Warshard’s spirit inside Meliniel made it all the harder to concentrate on any given task. It filled him with a desire to attack even when retreat would be prudent. Its supernal anger tainted every strategy, pushing him to more aggressive plans, desiring him to create bloodshed for the sake of it. Meliniel had to constantly revisit his schemes for signs of the Warshard’s pollution, often spying small gambits that added nothing to the chances of victory but carried within them greater risk.

  And always was there the threat of positioning himself too close to the fighting, wishing greater personal glory at the expense of strategic competence. The knowledge that he could unleash the Warshard hovered in the background, but he never exploited the possibility in his planning. It was too tempting to fall back on the power of the First Avatar as a crutch.

  He started at the sound of boots just behind him. He whirled around to confront the arrival, an aeldari garbed in ornate kabalite armour, an insincere smirk smeared across his face.

  ‘You missed a bit,’ said Azkahr, his second-in-command and source of much consternation for the autarch. The former dracon of the Dark City sauntered further into the twilit command room without so much as a request for permission, eyes roving expertly over the projected battle display. His customary half-sneer faded as he felt the scorn of his leader’s stare full upon him.

  ‘What?’ Meliniel tried to keep a score of whirling thought processes in motion even as he focused on the intruder. ‘Missed?’

  The Commorraghan pointed at a gap in the interweaving runes and lines that described the attack waves and potential victory paths for the assault.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘A hole.’

  ‘I am aware of it,’ snapped the autarch. He sighed aggressively, abandoning any attempt to retain his inspiration in the face of the interruption. ‘I am seeking confirmation of certain facts from clans Flamewalker and Ashdancer, and the Saim-Hann seers.’

  ‘I see,’ conceded Azkahr. ‘That seems acceptable.’

  ‘And are our own ships ready for deployment?’

  ‘That’s why I have come,’ said the former dracon, face screwed up in consternation. ‘We have a problem. The webway is blocked.’

  ‘Blocked? What does that mean?’

  ‘It is the word used by the clan windweavers,’ Azkahr explained with a shrug. ‘It is blocked. No further progress. We are halted.’

  ‘But we are not even within low orbit over Agarimethea yet.’ The psycholith screen faded into motes that reconvened in a new arrangement, approximating the aeldari fleet dispositions. They were still within a main arterial route of the webway, from which the windweavers were supposed to create a temporary delving down to the surface of the tomb world.

  He let his thoughts free upon the Whisper.

  Eldrad?+

  I know of what you seek, but it cannot be done.+

  There must be some way of getting us closer.+

  None. I have tested the barrier and it encompasses the entirety of the planet. It is a null field of considerable power, which I assume has been activated following Nuadhu’s rapid departure via the webway. The necrontyr have erected their anti-psychic defences to prevent webway burrowing. We will not be able to breach the surface.+

  Meliniel suppressed a sigh and signalled his affirmative before withdrawing his thoughts.

  ‘You sensed that?’ the autarch asked his companion.

  ‘Yes,’ Azkahr replied distractedly. ‘Like I said, the webway is blocked.’

  ‘Then we must assemble our fleet for an atypical attack,’ said Meliniel. In his breast he felt a pulse of satisfaction, recognition that such a strategy brought with it far more attendant risks than direct webway insertion.

  ‘Atypical for you, perhaps, but not I,’ said his subordinate. ‘Many raids I led did not benefit from the luxury of a webway portal.’

  Meliniel held back the surge of wounded pride that would fuel a rebuke. Always aware that he could not allow uncertain temper to sway his actions, he took a deep breath, manipulated the psycholith to a rudimentary image of Agarimethea and turned to the former dracon. He indicated the display with a wave of the hand.

  ‘I am no stranger to void war either, but please, furnish me with your expertise…’

  ‘What do you see?’

  Nuadhu turned away from the glass-like plate of the viewing gallery as Yvraine swept through the broad arch in her full regalia. Like a crimson shadow, the Visarch waited just beyond the doorway. Alorynis showed no such compunction for the veneer of privacy and trotted after his mistress, tail twitching.

  ‘Out there?’ asked Nuadhu, flicking a nod towards the window. ‘Or in here?’

  Yvraine flicked out her war fan and Nuadhu flinched at the glint of starlight dancing across the sharpened leaves. The Opener of the Seventh Way continued along the narrow hall, her gaze fixed on Nuadhu like a swooping predator. Pinned by her stare, he could neither speak nor move, disgusted at his own fear response but incapable of mastering it.

  She stopped beside him and turned, waving the fan towards the green orb of the world before them. The solar sails of other ships in the fleet reflected the local star, appearing to give Agarimethea a halo of flickering lights.

  ‘A world,’ Nuadhu managed to say, focusing on the planet rather than the reflection of Ynnead’s chosen daughter. Having her standing so close sent cold tremors through his soul, as though simply being near would pluck the spirit from his body. He swallowed hard. ‘A lost world?’

  ‘It is history given substance, Nuadhu.’ She tapped her fan against the window. ‘I have followed our oldest myths, seeking artefacts of a time before even our ancestors’ notion of antiquity. A time when gods and Old Ones were not the subject of legend, but a reality of life. On this world lies a remnant of t
hat time. We think that the Fall signifies the old times, but six thousand times the span between the Fall and now have passed since the necrontyr began their slumber.’

  ‘It is almost impossible to imagine,’ said Nuadhu. ‘Thirty thousand lifetimes.’

  ‘And yet the animated mechanical beings of this world, and the many others like it, are not the only survivors of that time.’

  Quicker than Nuadhu could follow, Yvraine lifted a hand, her finger touching lightly upon his forehead. He gasped at the connection, as though an icicle had been driven into his brain. From the point of contact flowed a sudden explosion of images, starting with a rapid fire of vignettes from his own life but blurring into a seemingly endless stream of scenes and faces he did not know.

  He staggered back, breathing quickly, heart racing.

  ‘What was that?’ he demanded, stumbling against the window-wall. After-images of arcane yet disturbingly familiar vistas floated through his thoughts. He remembered – recalled as though he had been there – vast cities in space larger than any craftworld. Giant figures that reminded him of the avatars of Khaine stalked alongside them, taller than Phantom Titans, bearing weapons that devastated strange cities and incinerated armies of unkempt alien beasts. He witnessed flights of starships that dwarfed the ­Ynnead’s Dream laying waste to whole star systems. Endless legions of skeletal warriors and terrifying engines of destruction fell upon him, razing worlds. With them flew the sun-eaters, feeding upon the suns of their foes, the galaxy swathed with shadow by their passing.

  ‘What…? How…?’ He regained a modicum of focus to find Yvraine standing directly in front of him, her stare no less penetrating than before.

  ‘Your aeldari soul remembers,’ she told him. ‘It has survived as long as the constructs buried beneath the surface of this world. In fact, it has thrived and lived, not dwelt in stasis. It has learnt and grown and become more powerful than ever. But trapped within the shell of your body it cannot express.’

  ‘Express what?’ Nuadhu pushed himself upright and looked at the planet again, only to avoid the unsettling stare of Yvraine.

  ‘Everything.’

  He dragged his eyes back to her, angered at what seemed a thoughtless violation of his mind.

  ‘Why did you show me that?’

  ‘So that you no longer have to imagine it.’ Yvraine’s expression softened almost imperceptibly. ‘And to think perhaps of what we seek, and to know the feats of which your spirit is capable if allowed free.’

  She started back towards the door but stopped as Nuadhu spoke.

  ‘I will not join the Ynnari,’ he told her. ‘My clan, my people, are everything to me. I will not abandon them for you, Yvraine. If you think to make me hear the Whisper, you have erred.’

  At first it seemed as though she was going to leave in silence, flowing ethereally to the door before she stopped and inclined her head to one side. Alorynis scampered past, mewing loudly. Yvraine regarded Nuadhu with a sidelong look.

  ‘The beauty of Ynnead is that you will be taken to her whether you follow me or not.’

  She departed, but for several heartbeats the Visarch stood at the archway, staring silently at the clan heir. The warrior raised a hand to his chest – a salute – before he turned away. Nuadhu was not sure if the gesture had been mocking or earnest, and the uncertainty gnawed at him as he returned his gaze to Agarimethea.

  Chapter 14

  FINAL DELIBERATIONS

  Though the Ynnead’s Dream’s infinity circuit had been more dormant than Nuadhu was used to, it now thrummed with the tension of pre-battle preparations. With the necrontyr blocking any extension of the webway, the attack would launch from near-orbit, a prospect that filled Nuadhu with foreboding. The glimpses of the past – the horrors of the necrontyr in that long-lost age – kept returning to the clan heir. He imagined arcane weapon systems incinerating starships in orbit, and immense war machines levelling the forests of Agarimethea, burning the hosts of the Ynnari and Saim-Hann. They were almost like waking dreams at times, swelling up from the awakened memory to distract him from what he was doing. Cold trembles beset his body without warning, accompanied by the shrieks of the scythe-craft that had hunted them, now seeming like the heaven-splitting war cries of vengeful deities.

  He wandered the halls and corridors, restless, knowing that the time to depart was fast approaching but consumed by a dread he could not voice. Nuadhu told himself it was not cowardice, but when he was alone with his thoughts, away from the bustle of his kindred, he felt a very real and insular dread of the battle to come.

  The clan heir cursed Yvraine. He thought her spiteful for setting this horror in him, conjuring waking nightmares from his overactive imagination. Such it had to be; her talk of a soul as old as the aeldari themselves was pure fantasy.

  Pacing the passages of the lower decks, earning himself strange glances from the few Ynnari that passed, he muttered to himself, fists clenching and relaxing, teeth gritted. Never before had he been afraid to die, and even now it was not the notion of his mortality that vexed him. Something more substantial worried at his being, unleashed by the meddling of the Opener of the Seventh Way. Other images flashed through his turbulent mind. He saw his father as a skull-faced ruin, but at the same time he saw his mother, her expression troubled.

  He chased the thoughts around each other – Yvraine and his father, his mother’s death, the aeldari soul within him. There seemed to be a connection, a pattern that would link everything together into a semblance of sanity if only he could look at it the right way.

  A shout cut through the loop of confusion. His name.

  ‘Nuadhu!’ Caelledhin called again, running along the corridor.

  He read the concern in her face and let out a shuddering gasp before falling towards her, arms thrown about her shoulders.

  ‘Yvraine…’ said the heir. ‘She placed something in my mind. Broke me.’

  When Caelledhin did not reply straight away, her body rigid in his grasp, a chill of lucidity stilled his thoughts. Nuadhu stepped back, feeling her anxiety seeping into him, displacing the torment. Her concern had not been for him.

  ‘Father?’ he guessed, his gut becoming a knot of ice. She nodded. ‘Is he…?’

  ‘No,’ she replied quickly, emphasising the point with a fierce shake of the head. ‘No, he lives. But you must come right now. We need to speak with him.’

  They ran together, heading further down at the next grav-chute. Nuadhu barely paid heed to those that he passed, seeing only in sketch the black armour of Dark Reapers, the bone of Howling Banshees, and squads of scarlet-armoured Ynnari.

  ‘Tell me more,’ he demanded as they neared the bay where the Eltereth was docked. As a webrunner it was capable of atmospheric entry and would carry Naiall and many of the clan’s remaining fighting vehicles. He stopped just outside the gate-barred archways and grabbed his half-sister’s arm to halt her. ‘What am I going to find in there?’

  ‘A stubborn old lord,’ snapped Caelledhin. ‘He will not listen to anyone, but perhaps you can talk to him.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘His health deteriorates. Yet he insists that he will travel to the surface.’

  Nuadhu bit back an angry retort and retreated a step. Taking a breath, he mastered the sudden quickening of his pulse.

  ‘Do you understand just how scared you made me?’ he said quietly. ‘You made me fear for his life, his mental wellbeing. I thought some disaster had befallen us. But it’s simply because he won’t listen to you? Why should he not travel with us?’

  ‘Because he will die,’ Caelledhin snarled back. ‘If the necrontyr do not slay him, his condition will. I tell you, my brother, if our father goes to Agarimethea, he will not return. You of all people wish him to live.’

  ‘To live, yes. Not to eke out his existence coddled and sliding into dotage.’

  ‘So you
stand ready to renounce the title of Wild Lord and become chieftain of Clan Fireheart?’

  Nuadhu opened his mouth and then closed it again, rendered dumb by the idea of ascending to his father’s position. Caelledhin fixed him with a knowing look.

  ‘All of the time you claimed it was our father’s death that made you anxious, but it is really the responsibility that waits for you. You want him to live because it means you can remain as selfish as ever, without a consideration for anyone else. You are as ensnared by the role of Wild Lord as any poor soul trapped upon a Path.’

  Nuadhu stared at her, hating that he was so obvious to her, and hating her even more for using it against him like a weapon. With a shake of the head, he pushed past her.

  The dock gate sighed open at his approach, revealing a line of Wave Serpent grav-transports sliding into the carrier bays of the Eltereth, marshalled by members of Clan Fireheart and the Ynnari. There were others in the colours of Saim-Hann – the guardians that would crew the transports, as well as the Falcon grav-tanks and other more heavily armed war machines.

  The sight stopped him in his tracks. It was not the first time he had seen the clan called to war. Thrice in his life the Avatar of Khaine had woken and his father had commanded his kin to muster to the needs of the craftworld. More than that, he had fought with the Wild Riders many times, and lost family and friends.

  But this time felt different.

  He saw one of the guardian drivers, her helm held on her hip, white hair tied tight to her scalp. Nuadhu knew her, a distant cousin walking the Path of the Artisan. There was rumour that she might apprentice to one of Saim-Hann’s greatest living bonesingers. Or she might die within the turn of the cycle, her ambitions unachieved, her creativity unfulfilled.

  It put him in mind of what Yvraine had said. An everlasting soul trapped in a succession of physical forms. Nuadhu had been taught the philosophies of resurrection and reincarnation as a youth, but it had seemed an abstract concept. The Ynnari focused the mind on the matter of death, and the emergence of Ynnead raised uncomfortable questions about what happened to the aeldari when they died. The guardian, should her body be slain, would have her soul taken by the waystone in her armour. If it was recovered, the stone would be set within Saim-Hann’s infinity circuit to power the craftworld and guide its people for… forever? It seemed unlikely. All of existence was based upon a cycle, endlessly repeated with only cosmetic variation.