Wild Rider - Gav Thorpe Read online

  ‘The vault-space-prison has been sealed. The manifestations-of-intemporal-psychic-deceit have been returned to captivity.’

  The voice seemed to resound from every surface, not loud but omnipresent, as if the city spoke to them. Eldrad advanced a few steps towards the Phaerakh, staff thudding deliberately with each pace.

  ‘It is in the interests of all that your vaults remain locked,’ said the farseer.

  ‘The vault-space-prison will remain sealed.’

  ‘If we desire it,’ declared Nuadhu. He pointed his spear at the pyramid. ‘By aeldari hand the nightmares can be unleashed again. Any move against my people and we will ensure that before we are slain we will break open one of your vaults and see your domains destroyed.’

  ‘The threat-mock-boast is unnecessary. The Septaplurachy exists only to guard-maintain the vault-space-prison. There is no expansion-intent-ambition. Mutual survival-need-peace is binding.’

  As though a gesture of goodwill, the four parts of the sun-eater’s massive casket whined shut, enclosing the demigodly creature again. A darkness fell upon the plaza in the wake of the sun-eater’s light being swallowed. The prison-edifice slid across the sky back to its housing and descended into the emerald gleam of the underground tomb city.

  With its departure the umbra that tormented the skies cleared, wiping away the last remnants of the trapped starship to allow twilight to shine down upon the opposing forces. Yvraine felt the Whisper grow in strength, the background hum that was her people becoming the familiar tingle of their soul-presence.

  ‘The null field is lifting,’ said Eldrad.

  ‘Your intemporal-burrow-bridge is made possible.’

  More breaks in the lines of immortal constructs revealed pockets of Ynnari and Saim-Hann gathering from other parts of the city, escorted towards the plaza by slowly marching phalanxes of warriors. Transports and squads on foot advanced along the pathways left for them, like wayward flock animals returned to their herder. From the skies, shadowed by silent scythe-fighters, the aeldari aircraft descended, dawnsails and other drop-ships landing amid clouds of impellor-scattered dust.

  The Warshard grimaced as it watched the proceedings, but bowed to one knee before Yvraine, showing deference in the moments before it relinquished control. Its flames guttered and iron flesh faded to ashen grey before flaking away upon a sudden wind, leaving Meliniel in its place, surrounded by a golden nimbus that collapsed into the Heart of Asuryan upon his breast.

  The autarch stood and approached Yvraine.

  ‘As much as I am sure the Phaerakh is sincere, let us not tempt a terrible fate by dwelling here any longer than necessary.’

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed Yvraine. She sheathed the Sword of Sorrows, and crooked her arm for Alorynis to jump to her. The gyrinx nuzzled close, contented for the most part, though an occasional twitch of the tail betrayed agitated memories. ‘Let us leave Agarimethea to the dead.’

  Watching the Opener of the Seventh Way ascend the ramp of the dawnsail, Aradryan marvelled that any of them had survived at all. He sensed Tzibilakhu crossing the control chamber but kept his gaze on the scene through the side canopy, eyes following the Visarch, Meliniel and then Eldrad as they followed Yvraine.

  ‘Is it always like this?’ he asked.

  ‘Like what?’ replied the former drukhari, leaning against the canopy sheet to share the view.

  ‘Like living in a myth?’ He took a deep breath. ‘Demigods and avatars, sun-eaters and necrontyr… I would say that it was a ­legend from the War in Heaven if I was told it.’

  She laughed softly and stepped back

  ‘Not always. But often.’

  He made his way back to the pilot cradle and settled into it in preparation for the command to lift off, but did not seal it completely about himself. He took the spirit stone of Diamedin from its pouch at his waist and stroked a finger across its smooth surface.

  ‘Can we really find the fifth cronesword and bring about the Rebirth of the aeldari?’

  ‘Does it matter to you? Is that what you were willing to die for?’

  Aradryan frowned.

  ‘Of course it does! If we are to free our people from She Who Thirsts the Whispering God must ascend.’ He cradled the spirit stone between his palms. ‘Every soul, given fresh release to live again as we were intended. Free.’

  Tzibilakhu approached and placed a hand on his shoulder. She smiled again, the expression so at odds with her fierce Commorraghan appearance.

  ‘Are you not yet free, Aradryan?’

  He thought of the lightness in his spirit since he had accepted Ynnead’s voice into his life. The weight of the aeldari’s doom had been lifted from him, no matter what came next. He thought about the endless lives he had lived – lives he did not recall but could still feel in his immortal soul – and of the great cycles of the universe.

  ‘How many Wars in Heaven have there been?’ he asked, struck by the sudden thought. He glanced out of the window at the distant figure of the necrontyr queen who stood immobile observing the departure of the aeldari, surrounded by thousands of unmoving warriors. ‘Necrontyr and aeldari created these vaults together. Did all of this happen before?’

  ‘Who knows?’ replied Tzibilakhu, moving to her piloting space. ‘Perhaps in a thousand lifetimes the events that unfold around us will be known as the War in Heaven.’

  Aradryan nodded, pleased by the idea. He tucked Diamedin back into his belt, safe in the knowledge that one day she too would be Reborn. Even if not, if the last cronesword was not recovered before his mortal time ended again, this one was not a bad life to live through.

  When all was over, it still remained to count the cost of a dubious victory. Though equilibrium with the necrontyr of Agarimethea had been established, such balance was precarious at best, a delaying of conflict and nothing more.

  Even so, the folk of Clan Fireheart could number themselves among the privileged to have survived the encounter, the spirits of their fallen guided to peace by Yvraine and her god. On returning to their starship, it was not the past that concerned the leaders of the clan, but the future.

  ‘What do you intend now?’ asked Naiall as he settled into a chair aboard the Eltereth.

  His question was directed to Nuadhu, who had spoken little since Caelledhin’s sacrifice to close the portal. The Wild Lord studied his father. He looked healthy, though still thin and hairless. There was no listlessness in his movements and no hesitancy in his breath. Eyes full of strength watched thoughtfully.

  Nuadhu looked at the other family members gathered in the chieftain’s chamber, feeling keenly the absence of his sister.

  ‘This is not the end of our woes,’ said Nuadhu. ‘Clan Icewhisper will not take kindly to the death of Caelledhin, as much as they disowned her in life.’

  ‘No, but the enmity of Lady Laileh is nothing new,’ replied Naiall. ‘But I speak not of the clan, but you, my son. Fates willing, it shall be some time before you inherit my title. You need not hide from the burden of heir.’

  Nuadhu thought to argue against the assumption, but instead accepted the truth of his father’s statement with a shrug.

  ‘I do not know,’ he admitted. ‘For what seems my whole life I have been caught between my fears. I think I might remain Wild Lord for a while longer, but to embrace my freedom, not to run from responsibility. While the dread of your imminent death hung over me, while my unease at succeeding you weighed upon my thoughts, I wasted the opportunities of being a Wild Rider.’

  Nuadhu regarded them all in turn, filled with a sense of belonging he had not felt for a long time. In extremity, Clan Fireheart had been brought together, reforged by the hammers of adversity and the heat of battle.

  ‘I think I have discovered who I am and what I want, but it will take time to work out what that means,’ he told them. ‘I will see the name of Clan Fireheart sung with pride again
from every vale and peak of Saim-Hann. The Flameglades will again become the envy of all others.’

  He stooped over his father and placed a kiss upon his brow, relishing the new warmth that came from the touch where before had been the coldness of near-dead flesh.

  Fireheart, he thought. We shall burn brighter than ever before, my sister.

  About the Author

  Gav Thorpe is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Deliverance Lost, Angels of Caliban and Corax, as well as the novella The Lion, which formed part of the New York Times bestselling collection The Primarchs, and several audio dramas including the bestselling Raven’s Flight. He has written many novels for Warhammer 40,000, including Ashes of Prospero, Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah, Rise of the Ynnari: Ghost Warrior, Jain Zar: The Storm of Silence and Asurmen: Hand of Asuryan. He also wrote the Path of the Eldar and Legacy of Caliban trilogies, and two volumes in The Beast Arises series. For Warhammer, Gav has penned the End Times novel The Curse of Khaine, the Warhammer Chronicles omnibus The Sundering, and much more besides. In 2017, Gav won the David Gemmell Legend Award for his Age of Sigmar novel Warbeast. He lives and works in Nottingham.

  An extract from Dark Imperium: Plague War.

  Weak light bobbed through pitchy black, casting a pale round that grew and shrank upon polished blue marble quarried on a world long ago laid waste. The hum of a grav motor sawed at the quiet of the abandoned hall, though not loudly enough to banish the peace of ages that lay upon it. The lamp was dim as candlelight, and greatly obscured by the iron lantern framing it. The angles of the servo-skull that bore the lantern further cut the glow, but even in the feeble luminance the stone gleamed with flecks of gold. The floor awoke for brief moments at its caress, glinting with a nebula’s richness, before the servo-skull moved on and the paving’s glory was lost to the dark again.

  The lonely figure of a man walked at the edge of the light, sometimes embraced by it completely, more often reduced to a collection of shadows and mellow highlights at its edge. The hood of his rough homespun robe was pulled over his head. Sandals woven of cord chased the light at a steady pace. The circle of light was small, but the echo of the man’s footsteps revealed the space it traversed as vast. Less could be discerned about the man, were there anyone there to see him. He was a priest. Little else could be said besides that. It would certainly not be obvious to a casual observer he was militant-apostolic to the Lord Commander. He did not dress as men of his office ordinarily would, in brocade and jewels. He did not seem exalted. He certainly did not feel so. To himself, and to those poor souls he offered the succour of the Emperor’s blessing, he was simply Mathieu.

  Mathieu was a man of faith, and to him the Space Marines seemed faithless, ignorant of the true majesty of the Emperor’s divinity, but the Mortuis Ad Monumentum had the air of sanctity nevertheless.

  Mathieu liked it for that reason.

  Beyond the slap of the priest’s shoes and the whine of the skull, the silence in the Mortuis Ad Monumentum was so total, the sense of isolation so complete, that not even the background thrum of the giant engines pushing the Macragge’s Honour through the warp intruded. The rest of the ship vibrated, sometimes violently, sometimes softly, the growl of the systems always there. Not where the priest walked. The stillness of the ancient hall would not allow it. Within its confines time itself held its breath.

  Mathieu had spent his quieter days exploring the hall. Its most singular features were the statues thronging the margins. They were not just in ones or twos, effigies given space to be walked around and admired, nor were they ensconced in alcoves to decorate or commemorate. No, there were crowds of stone men, in places forty deep, all Adeptus Astar­tes in ancient marks of armour. It may be that they were placed with care once, but no longer, and further into the hall, the more jumbled their arrangements became. The hall had been breached in days gone by, and the statues destroyed. Untidy heaps of limbs were bulldozed carelessly aside and ugly patching marked wounds from ancient times.

  The warriors remembered by the statues had died ten thousand years before Mathieu’s birth. Perhaps they had even fallen in the Emperor’s wars to create the Imperium itself. Such an incredible length of years, hard to comprehend, and yet now the being who had led these self-same dead men commanded the ship again.

  It dizzied Mathieu that he served a son of the Emperor. He could not quite believe it, even after all that had happened, all that he had seen.

  Mathieu stopped in the dark where a group of statues huddled together. White stone glowed grey in the gloom. He had the terrifying notion that they had come alive and gathered to block his path, a phalanx of ghosts angered by profanity. He put aside the thought. He ignored the cold hand of fear creeping up his back. He had come off course, nothing more. It was easy enough to get lost in a hall half a mile wide and almost as long.

  His servo-skull bore a large HV upon its forehead. By the letter V alone he called it. He could not bring himself to refer to it by her name.

  ‘V,’ he said. His voice was pure and strong. It cut the shadows and frightened back the dark. Mathieu was an unimposing man, young, slight, but his voice was remarkable; a weapon greater than the worn laspistol he carried on his left hip, or the chainsword he bore into battle. Loud and commanding before his congregations, it seemed tiny in the face of the dead past, but like a silver bell chiming deep in winter-stilled woods, it was clear and bright and lovely.

  V emitted a flat, static-laced melody of acknowledgement.

  ‘Ascend five feet. Elevate lamp, pan left to right.’

  The skull’s motors pulsed. It rose up into the high voids of the monu­mentum. The light abandoned Mathieu, angling instead for the still figures surrounding him. Stone faces leapt from the dark, as if snatching the chance to be remembered, quickly drowning again in the black as V turned away. For a moment Mathieu’s fear came back. He did not recognise where he was, until V’s pale lamplight washed over a Space Marine captain of some unremembered era, the right arm held so proudly aloft broken off at the elbow. This warrior he recognised.

  Mathieu breathed in relief. ‘Descend to original height. Rotate lantern downwards to light my way. Proceed.’

  V voiced its fractured compliance. There were pretensions to musicality in the signal, but the limited vox-unit was fifth hand at least, scavenged like all V’s other fittings, and overuse had blunted its harmonies.

  ‘Proceed to the hermitage, quickly now. My time for this duty is running out.’

  V banked around and swept onwards. Mathieu picked up his pace to keep up.

  The Adeptus Astartes pretended to disdain worship. It was well known among the Adeptus Ministorum that they did not regard the Emperor as a god. Mathieu had known this all through his calling. The truth had proved to be not so simple. On the ship there were many shrines, decorated lovingly with images of death, and containing the bones of heroes in reliquaries that rivalled those of the most lauded saint in their ostentation. The Ultramarines’ cult was strong, though they did not worship. In chapels that denied religion their skull-masked priests protested loudly about the human nature of the Emperor and the primarchs while venerating them as gods in all but name. Their practice of honour, duty and obedience was conducted with a fanatical devotion.

  There was an element of wilful blindness to their practices, thought Mathieu.

  The way the Adeptus Astartes reacted to Roboute Guilliman bordered on awe. From the beginning Guilliman had warned Mathieu himself not to be worshipful, that he was not the son of a god. The priest had witnessed how irritated the primarch became with those who did not heed his words. And yet, these godless sons of his looked upon him, and they could barely hide their fervour.

  Mathieu did as he had been told. He affected to see the man Guilliman wished to be, but his familiarity with the primarch was largely an act. Mathieu did revere the primarch, sincerely and deeply.

  Previous militant-apostolic
s had carved themselves out a little realm in Guilliman’s palace spire atop the giant battleship. The position came with appropriately luxurious quarters. Some time before Mathieu’s tenure the largest room had been converted into a chapel of the Imperial Cult. It was gaudy, too concerned with expressions of wealth and influence and not faith. Mathieu had done his best to make it more austere. He removed some of the more vulgar fixtures, replaced statues of ancient cardinals with those of his favourite saints. There had been a sculpture of the Emperor in Glory standing proudly, sword in hand, upon the altar. Mathieu had replaced that with an effigy of the Emperor in Service; a grimacing corpse bound to the Golden Throne. Mathieu had always preferred that representation for it honoured the great sacrifice the Emperor made for His species. The Emperor’s service to mankind was so much more important than His aspects as a warrior, ruler, scientist or seer. Mathieu always tried to follow the example of the Emperor in Service, giving up what little comfort he had to aid the suffering mass of humanity.

  The chapel was tainted by the dishonesties of holy men. He preferred to lead worship with the ship’s bonded crew in their oily churches. He maintained the private chapel only because the display was expected of him. He rarely prayed there.

  For his private devotions he came down to this deserted cult monument of irreligious men.

  At the back of the hall was a small charnel house, where the stacked skulls of fallen heroes were cemented in grim patterns. The dust lay thick on all its decoration when Mathieu had discovered it. Nobody had been there for a long time.

  Beneath the eyeless stares of transhuman skulls, he had set up a plain wooden altar, this also bearing an effigy of the Emperor in Service. Arrayed around it were lesser statues of the nine loyal primarchs, as could be found in any holy place. That representing Roboute Guilliman was three times the size of the others. Mathieu genuflected to both Emperor and His Avenging Son, though the real Guilliman might well shoot him for doing so.