Wild Rider - Gav Thorpe Read online

  The liquid metal under his feet melted away as the ark initiated its recall protocols. In moments it would transfer back to its vault below the surface, potentially taking Nuadhu with it.

  Sensing B’sainnad closing from the right, the Wild Lord vaulted up to one of the rib-like spars that had held the necrontyr and leapt without looking, landing gracefully upon his platform as Alean sped past. A heartbeat later, the ark had faded from view.

  Cohorts of warriors marched from yawning rampways and the glimmer of monolithic portals heralded the arrival of even more, but the Wild Rider host of Saim-Hann had broken through and there was clear air – and ground – between them and their objective.

  Nuadhu recalled the boundary markers from his previous visit, though at that time they had been inert. The seven needle-towers crackled with necrontyr energy, occasionally linked together by lightning-like discharges. Their purpose was not defence – at least in any normal sense – for Nuadhu could see aeldari craft passing into the inner reaches of the tomb complex without effect. Even so, he suspected some excoriating blast to consume him and B’sainnad as they raced across the tomb’s perimeter. The unsettling sensation he had encountered on the first expedition was increased tenfold, as though his insides had been flipped outwards and his skin turned inwards. His thoughts similarly turned about for an instant, simultaneously crushed into an impossibly small point and expanded to infinite breadth.

  Also afflicted, B’sainnad lost control of the Vyper for a heartbeat, and recovered just in time to stop them screaming into the flat ground.

  The light was different within the border, suffused with an ochre taint. Hot air burned in his lungs where just before he had breathed in the chill of Agarimethea. The whine of other craft filled the air as raiders and Wave Serpents slowed and circled, the Wild Riders of Nuadhu braking hard behind him as they entered the otherworldly vista.

  ‘Where are we?’ said B’sainnad, slowing Alean.

  The question brought home the strangeness of their environs, confirming that the environment had drastically changed. Yet the features remained consistent. The pyramid and its surrounds had not moved, only the forest was no more, replaced with arid wasteland, the sky overcast with turbulent dust clouds kept at bay by warding screens.

  ‘I think it may be more a case of when are we…?’ whispered Nuadhu.

  Chapter 20

  THE PANTHEITIKHON OPENS

  Yvraine’s attention fluctuated between the immobile form of Eldrad Ulthran as he regarded the glimmering pyramid, and the fresh surge of fighting that burst across the perimeter of the tomb complex. The hiss of shuriken catapults and crackle of gauss rifles added a disharmonious backdrop to the scene. Now and then her gaze was drawn to the golden pyramid and the oscillating runes upon its surface, but she could still make no sense of the shifting inscriptions.

  Just behind her a knot of scarlet broke the crimson of Ynnead’s warriors, where Clan Fireheart looked at their surroundings with interest. Nuadhu’s gaze was fixed upon the pyramid, perhaps reliving the moment he had awoken it, or transfixed by its appearance. Naiall and his seer, Alyasa, were in quiet conference while the clan chieftain imbibed another of his sustaining elixirs. The potion had little effect on the sagging leader, though Yvraine felt a flutter of psychic strength and a surge in the other presence she detected.

  Yvraine returned her attention to Eldrad.

  ‘Can it be deciphered?’ she asked, gown billowing as she strode across the central plaza, the only one of the present company bold enough to address the farseer.

  That is a polite way of asking if I can decipher these writings.+

  ‘They seem so familiar,’ said Druthkhala. ‘More like drukhari ideo­grams than craftworlder runes.’

  ‘Yes.’ The others flinched to hear Eldrad speak. His voice was resonant even without the amplification of the messenger device in his helm. The farseer’s head turned to look at the Bloodbride, eye-lenses shimmering in the auric gleam. ‘What does it say to you?’

  ‘I cannot read it,’ replied Druthkhala.

  ‘Guess.’

  The Bloodbride shook her head.

  ‘I cannot. The script is meaningless to me.’

  ‘Yet it is aeldari, even if ancient in origin.’

  ‘We do not have time for this diverting but pointless conversation,’ insisted the Visarch, a nod of the head indicating the fighting that had erupted not far away. Though she had dulled the input of the messenger bead in her ear, Yvraine could well imagine the waves being alive with the orders and reports of those fighting for their lives at the boundary of the tomb vault. Her kin were dying, their spirits trapped within the prison of cooling flesh that had been their bodies, the pressure of the necrontyr anti-psychic wards enough to chain a soul to its physical incarnation. In contrast, the regular buzz of necrontyr bodies transitioning back to their resurrection tombs was clear, sudden flashes of static across her perception though they were utterly soulless.

  She focused again on the runes, her desire to know what lay within almost unbearable, as was the frustration of her ignorance.

  ‘Why would it have aeldari script?’ said Nuadhu. ‘Why would the necrontyr use the language of our ancestors?’

  ‘They would not,’ replied Eldrad. ‘But you might say that our ancestors used the language of the necrontyr, or a divergent child of it.’

  ‘But these are clearly aeldari runes, as you said,’ insisted Yvraine. ‘Not a proto-language shared by the Old Ones. The style is ancient, but definitely of our people.’

  ‘Then perhaps if I was allowed a little more time to think, I might unravel this linguistic knot,’ grumbled the farseer, moving away from the others with staff held up so that its gleaming head illuminated the writing. His head tilted occasionally from side to side, as if reading the runes sideways.

  ‘Last time we were here, Nuadhu touched the pyramid,’ said Druthkhala, stealing forward to stand beside her mistress. She threw an inquiring look at the clan heir. ‘Perhaps he should do so again?’

  ‘Not I!’ gasped the Wild Rider. ‘Its discharge threw me across the plaza and even now I feel the pain in my bones.’

  ‘Yet it reacted?’ Eldrad’s movement was sudden and incisive, stalking towards Nuadhu with a finger pointing. ‘You laid flesh upon the surface?’

  ‘My palm outwards,’ he confirmed, acting the gesture. ‘Upon the rune-metal itself.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said the seer, turning back towards the vault-stone. Yvraine followed his gaze as he looked up and down the steep-sided edifice, but could no more make out the meaning of the runes than she could have translated the strange chittering of the wraiths that had attacked their brief encampment.

  ‘Alright,’ said Nuadhu, striding forwards, shoulders hunched. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Eldrad whipped round the Staff of Ulthamar, its point coming to rest just in front of the Wild Rider as he made to step past.

  ‘Not yet,’ insisted the farseer. ‘Perhaps it is not the physical touch that awakens the vault, but that it conveyed your spirit-presence within the null field of the necrontyr. Though it weighs heavily upon my thoughts, I am not so bound by the mortal shell as you.’

  He pushed Nuadhu back a few steps within his staff, and then turned fully towards the pyramid with the Staff of Ulthamar raised high in both hands. A golden lambency played about his ghosthelm and Yvraine felt the faintest stuttering of psychic power. Her gaze moved from the seer to the object of his attention, desperate to see some reaction to his psychic probing.

  ‘There!’ Nuadhu’s shout startled them all, save for Eldrad, who stood as still as an inhabitant of a craftworld’s dome of crystal seers. The clan heir pointed to the foundation stones, and more specifically the runes planted upon them.

  There was indeed a matching shimmer from the ideograms, though Yvraine at first dismissed it as simple reflections of the light from Eldrad. Y
et as she watched, the reflection impossibly spread, becoming brighter as it leapt from one rune to the next, climbing up the side of the pyramid and coursing along the other faces. Sparks danced between the runes, red and silver, black and green, their convoluted streams forming other runeshapes in the after-shadows across her eyes.

  ‘It’s opening!’ Druthkhala’s declaration was unnecessary. Everyone present could see the silver thread that seemed to run from the base of the pyramid to its tip.

  At the same instant, Yvraine felt a surge of connection, a sudden influx of the Whisper. Not of her kin fighting still at the boundary, but from within the vault itself. It remained muted, muffled beneath the layers of construction, but unmistakably a frisson of warp power.

  The crack emitted a keening cry, short and piercing, and a sudden blue bolt leapt from the summit to earth along Eldrad, It sparked violently from his rune armour. He stood shuddering in its coruscating grip for several heartbeats, arcs of energy playing around his upraised staff. Then, with ponderous momentum, he fell backwards and crashed upon the plaza flags.

  He lay unmoving.

  Others started towards him but a fresh wail screeched from the opening vault halted them. Silver poured across the plaza, the colour of reflected moonlight. It was almost a liquid, moving with fluid slowness as it spilled from the widening gap in the pyramid.

  Yvraine stared at the encroaching gleam as though it were a pool of acid about to swallow her, filled with foreboding. She stood rooted to the spot as it flowed across Eldrad’s inert body and settled upon her.

  The sensation she had thought was the Whisper was anything but that. The voice of Ynnead was drowned in her thoughts by a triumphant laughter, part titter of excitement and part guffaw of deep amusement. As the light fell upon her arm she felt a shiver of touch, as though delicate fingers caressed her skin beneath her bodysuit. Her flesh responded with agony, sending needles of pain shooting through, as if her bones had erupted spines where the insubstantial fingers had traced across her body. The amusement intensified, and became a lascivious purr.

  Hot breath on her neck set her heart racing with fear. A presence just out of sight, to the side, behind her if she turned her head, stripping her down to her soul with an unblinking gaze.

  Yvraine felt utterly alone. Her scream choked in her throat, lungs tight with dread and gut churning with the horror of the light that folded about her in an unwelcome embrace.

  A yowl of anger and a scratch across her cheek broke the spell. Alorynis sat upon her shoulder, a drop of Yvraine’s blood dripping from his extended claw. Hissing, the gyrinx bared his fangs at the apparitions shimmering from the silver portal-light.

  Jade beams laced the heavens, slicing between the twirling squadrons of aeldari craft. From below, necrontyr defences spat their deadly rays from the broken forests; from above, the scythe-craft dived to the attack again and again, every pass accompanied by the soul-leeching wail of otherworldly engines. The air itself boiled with the dissipating energy of brightlances and scatter lasers, while missile trails and the blossom of rocket detonations marked the passage of interceptors. Flights of bombers unleashed the last of their payloads upon the forces gathered about the tomb complex, the shuddering burst of seismic bombs and sonic detonators accompanied by plasma blasts and the furious hunger of living flame.

  The dawnsail dropped near-vertically, pivoting about its centre to fall between the crossing rays of two necrontyr attack craft. Their minds enmeshed, Aradryan and Tzibilakhu pulsed the engines and rolled the craft simultaneously, punching it past the swooping attack run of another scythe-ship. A Hemlock fighter flashed past, stabs of deadly light from its wings piercing the necrontyr. The scythe-craft splintered like glass, the broken pieces falling to vapour as it teleported back to its reconstitution chamber.

  How much longer?+ asked Aradryan.

  How would I know?+

  There had been nothing from Yvraine and her task force since they had passed into the shield-barrier of the inner tomb. Not a single flutter upon the Whisper nor the briefest communication across the messenger-waves.

  What if they are dead?+ Aradryan thought the question at the same time as he pulled the dawnsail into a steep, climbing turn. Bolts of deadly energy chased them from pylon-cannons in the forest below. +Are we to die while we wait for them?+

  If needed.+ Tzibilakhu engaged the main thrusters, powering the craft out of range of the alien guns. +We will not abandon the Opener of the Seventh Way.+

  So what if they need rescuing?+

  Aradryan cast his thoughts through the main sensors of the dawnsail to witness the legion of necrontyr warriors converging on the hazy silhouette of the central pyramid. Jetbikes and grav-tanks, Commorraghan Ravagers and squads of Aspect Warriors slashed through the advancing cohorts, but with each passing moment the aeldari forces were being pressed back further and further. A fresh wave of destroyer-skimmers rose from a trench-break and set off after scattering Wild Rider Vypers. Soon Yvraine’s forces would have their backs to the energy wall and with no space to manoeuvre their end would become inevitable.

  Yet there was no way to aid them. Defences ringed the precinct, ready to rip through any aircraft attempting to land. In the air above the pylons scythe-craft patrolled, darting forward in coordinated forays when they sensed a vulnerable foe, content to circle menacingly when they did not.

  Sharp urgency across the connection with Tzibilakhu snapped him back to their immediate situation just in time to detect three scythe-craft converging on their position. There was no aeldari fighter within range.

  We have to run,+ he pulsed.

  We need to evade,+ Tzibilakhu replied. +We cannot outpace them.+

  We can climb higher, orbital if needed.+

  No! We must remain close to help!+

  A flash of jade power screamed across the divide, missing the wing by a shockingly narrow margin. Aradryan acted rather than thought, his instinct to wrench the dawnsail away from the line of attack. Tzibilakhu thought otherwise, seeking to drop below the rising enemy fighters. The fuselage squealed its protest and a pain-like sensation flared along the dawnsail’s subsystems.

  The drop-craft foundered like a ship hitting a reef, its sudden stall fortunately dropping it below the next flurry of necrontyr death rays.

  Without needing any prompting, he submitted himself to Tzibilakhu’s will again, letting her lead the flight. Banking hard, they raced for the cover of the trees, daring the ground fire in preference to the interceptors.

  Too late.+ Tzibilakhu’s verdict was delivered with resignation rather than fear.

  It was true. Aradryan could feel the trio of scythe-craft sweeping around to either side, two to the left, one on the right. It would be only a matter of moments before they opened fire again, and there was nowhere for the dawnsail to turn.

  Regret welled up, swiftly followed by anger. The promise of everlasting spirit-immortality suddenly felt like raw compensation for the loss of fleshly endeavour. He was not afraid, not after Yvraine had lifted the curse of She Who Thirsts, but it seemed such a waste of potential now that he had found a purpose. Ever since he had felt sundered from his friends on Alaitoc he had been craving a direction to his life. He had finally found a creed to which he belonged and now he was going to die.

  Aradryan let out a howl of frustration.

  He cast about for some source of salvation, a fighter racing to their rescue, a break in the trees into which they could plunge.

  There was nothing.

  Tzibilakhu’s spirit cleaved tight to his, a psychic embrace in the face of their imminent mortal end. It felt like daggers through his eyes but he relished the sensation all the same, a last biological thrill before his body perished.

  An instant before opening fire the scythe-craft broke off their attack runs.

  Aradryan gasped, shock like ice cast across his body.

  The
necrontyr hurtled back towards the pyramid. Everywhere, alien craft wheeled away from the aeldari flyers, their screeches silenced. The quiet of their departure was even more unsettling than their screaming attacks.

  That bodes ill,+ thought Aradryan.

  It seemed to be a sentiment shared across the remaining craft and squadrons. Possessed of the same thought, Phoenix bombers and Vampire raiders, drop-craft and interceptors, Nightwing fighters and Crimson Hunter Aspect Warriors chased after the departing necrontyr.

  Minds in union once more, Aradryan and Tzibilakhu turned the dawnsail towards the tomb complex and accelerated hard.

  The crack widened and the howling increased, becoming an almost physical assault upon the senses. Within the brightness, shapes moved. Nuadhu stood entranced by the writhing, coiling shadows where he had expected nothing of the sort. The howling became a far softer susurration, whispering into his ear of deep desires and dreams fulfilled, Unbidden, his gaze moved to Druthkhala, who stood in rapt attention staring into the light.

  The clan heir saw himself with the Bloodbride, not simply lovers but rulers of a world, of a star system – a king and queen worshipped by their followers. The adoring masses chanted the name of the Wild King and brought exotic tribute from distant worlds to lay at his feet. His word was their law, his whim their greatest wish to obey.

  Freedom beckoned. Freedom from clan and craftworld, the bonds to his people cast aside like shattered manacles. They held nothing over him; he was free to indulge his slightest desire without fear, while the scrabbling masses clawed at each other for the smallest hint of his favour. They sung praises to his greatness, to utter his name a reward in itself.