Farseer Kiskantsh had given the order to attack. From the mountain peaks, the warriors of Alaitoc swooped down to claim the human interlopers. A trio of glimmering grav tanks and their heavy cannon sang lances of destruction into the buildings the Halivorians had garrisoned. When they exploded into sparkling displays of detonated energy, the Dire Avengers were there to slice down any survivors. Following behind the grav tanks came a flight of graceful transports, from whose streamlined bodies came squads of green armoured striking scorpions. These cities would be their jungle, they would be the hunters and their sting would be the death of the dark kin. They were out there, somewhere.
The farseer stood with his three warlock bodyguards and a squad of Dire Avengers. Beside him, Arcantillius and the Morchaghan troops had just broken their silence. Lasguns mowed down rebel humans that scampered from their homes to avoid the raining death.
This was wrong. Halivorians dropped under lasgun fire or were turned to ash by grav tank cannon. But where were the cursed ones? Where were the dark kin?
What is the matter, farseer? asked Moliliquie from behind her warlock helm.
I sense…I sense there is something I have not foreseen. The dark kin are missing Kiskantsh whispered back. His eyes stared ahead, not only at the burning buildings and dying Halivorians, but through the future. This was no battle, but a slaughter of animals. But Kiskantsh knew not to think of it as a victory. There were limitless humans in this galaxy. It was the evil ones that he was interested in.
"Is there a flaw in this plan?" the human captain asked in his regal voice. He was a lot unlike that other one with the metal hand.
"Yes," Kiskantsh felt a poison creep into his mind. A fetid pollution, coming closer. It was the soul of his enemy. Duck! Kiskantsh ducked with the other eldar as the ignorant humans were attacked. Warriors upon skyboards swooped over them, blades hacking off heads. One of the noble Dire Avengers was killed by a harpoon through the heart. A second was cut down by a blasting splinter rifle, which shattered through his armour like glass. The humans were devastated. Half of them lay dead. Arcantillius was not among them.
"Bastards!" he cried, shedding his noble visage and blazing at the retreating foe. Such a shot could not be made, or so Kiskantsh thought.
One of the warriors toppled forward as his skyboard twirled out of control, slamming into the ground. Kiskantsh was genuinely impressed, but had no time to applaud.
"They come!" the farseer called, his mind sensing the enemy. "From behind us!"
From a hidden trapdoor upon the ground, the dark kin came. Their sleek black armour was half covered by the grey rags they wore to hide themselves in the forest of debris. None of them wore helmets.
"Bayonets!" Arcantillius roared, just as the skyboards came around for a second time. Only, those were not the same warriors upon them. Kiskantsh saw Sectraa on one. Their eyes met, but Kiskantsh had to duck to dodge the shots of one of Sectraa's escorts, who was armed with a stolen pulse rifle of the Tau Empire. Its precise shots burnt a hole through Moliliquie's helmet, roasting her elegant face to a disfigured rot of blackened skin. Behind Sectraa came more skyboards and a pair of great dark shadows.
There they were, the things Mhal had warned of.
Talos.
Fire flew between the two sides as both groups rushed into one another. Human and eldar against the soulless. Imperial bayonets stuck dark kin in the chest or lasbolts blasted aside their deadly grace with hard ferocity. Dire Avengers stayed near the back, firing through the melee with maximum accuracy or firing at Sectraa's host.
At the same time, humans were butchered by dancing black knives or gutted by wrist-mounted hooks. Splinter rifles were a cruel weapon and Arcantillius of Morchaghan soon learned how deadly they were. He fell back, his guts bleeding as his men died around him.
The talos grew closer. Sectraa, on the other hand, flew away, towards the mountain.
…
Curth and Tigerson and the other 89th boys had garrisoned a hab that sat by a great hole that was drilled into the mountainside. From their perch on the second floor, they could see the streets that approached the hab. They could hear the alien gunfire illuminate the air. They could feel the tension in the air.
"You ready to shoot some strawheads?" asked Curth.
"Yep. You?" Tigerson's ruthless stare. Curth wasn't sure. He'd fought Halivorians once and learned quickly that shooting another human wasn't like shooting an ork. It wasn't because humans died fast and orks took more to drop them, it was because of something else.
When he was talking down to Stolce with Cav back in the academy, he had been so full of himself. This war had shown him a side of him he didn't like: the side that showed fear and the side that showed pity. Slaughtering orks was easy. They were unfathomable monsters that were too detached from humanity. But another human was something else.
Mieel was in the window beside him, looking down at the street in fear. In their time here, the 89th had learned to get used to the crushing hardships of war. The thought that today was his last no longer bothered them. Every day was their last day. Only Mieel was still afraid.
When ununiformed men appeared behind a broken wall to shoot at them, Curth returned fire. Good. This distance was a good distance. Slain enemies would not register too heavily on his conscience.
"Some of those bastards are girls," Tigerson grinned through a burst of lasfire. What?
"Woah! Woah! GRENADE!" it was Hivven, one of Cav's boys. Curth turned in time to see a rolling grenade come to a stop by his feet. He felt a tremour of pressure as the grenade bumped into his boot.
Crap.
Mieel screamed and jumped into a corner, like that would help. Everyone else ducked down. Without thinking, Curth scooped up the grenade and hurled it out the window. Bullets shattered the wall he stood near and he ducked down. The grenade went off outside.
"YAAAAA!"
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Curth spun around and pointed his lasgun at as good an angle as he could towards the door. He saw the half-fallen Halivorian warriors hit the ground. Two of them, a young man and a young woman, with matching clan tattoos on their faces, dressed in civilian clothes. Blood was pooling quickly around them. They looked so normal, but they had tried to murder Curth and all his friends.
Mieel didn't stop shooting until his lasgun was dry and he didn't stop screaming until Curth walked over to him and held his mouth shut. He felt Mieel drop his gun and start to sob, hugging Curth the way he had when he had first found him in the ruins, before they knew he'd been bugged.
"Hey big brother," Tigerson shouted to him with a laugh. "Looks like little has his uses."
"They musta crawled in through a hole near the back," someone else said. Mieel didn't say anything, even when he stopped wailing.
…
Kins' chainsword whirled as three ink-skinned figures leapt from the dark, cruel hooks in hand. One of them bit one of Mhal's rangers in the neck. Kins sliced through the depraved warrior's own neck, leaving his head hanging from the ranger. As the last one died, Kins realized they were not human.
"There's your dark kin, you eldar bastard," Kins said to Mhal as they neared the mountain, passing thorugh burning buildings and piles of dead strawheads. "How many of them do you think there'll be?"
"Too many," muttered Mhal. They neared the mountain. There! In the side of the mountain, was a definite shaft. No doubt, it was the vaunted entrance that Mhal was so worried about. They took a few steps towards it.
"HAHAHAHAH!" Everyone took cover in the ruins as flight of strange flying boards zipped overhead. Dark eldar mounted them and fired their alien guns down. A few Water Dogs spurted blood and dropped. Kins collected a fallen lasgun as he ducked behind a wall with Mhal.
"It's Sectraa, the leader of the dark eldar here," whispered Mhal. "He's the one with the hood." Kins peeked over the wall to see the dark eldar had dismounted and were probably moving thorugh the ruins, hunting them. "Go, now. To the tunnel, get Cav."
"Me? No. You do it." It wasn't just because Cav was a strawhead, it was because he'd be exposing himself. No, it wasn't even that. It was just because Kins would be exposing himself. How could he have time to hate Cav with the dark eldar right there? Perhaps, if he were here, Lystartro would remind him of the lessons of Rynn's World.
"The Emperor protects," Kins whispered, before shooting out to get to the tunnel. He leapt down and ran the rest of the way, to the very bottom.
"Commissar?" Cav asked from beneath the bulk of a mechanical spider. Kins raised his pistol and lasgun as the two machines in the room attacked him. Both fell to the floor, hissing with smoke. Kins tossed Cav a lasgun.
"Who's this…Cav?" Kins asked, deciding not to use the other word.
"Issinel," Cav said as the girl backed away in fear. "She can stay here." He looked at Kins. "I…um…thank you commissar. The door there is still closed. I wouldn't open it, I just couldn't." Kins looked at the closed door and nodded.
"Very well. There's a hell of a fight going on uptop." He turned to leave. "And…well…good job, Cav." He led the young PDFer back up the shaft. But just as they reached the surface, they jumped aside.
"WAAAAAGH!" cried a mad ork who flew upon a rocket as he shot down the chute. For a moment, Kins caught a glimse of wide yellow eyes and an enlarged brain that bulged out of the top of a broken skull. An ork psyker.
Both jumped away from the hole as an explosion of psyker energy shot out of it like fire. The energy disappeared quickly.
"Issinel!" Cav cried, running back down.
"Stop!" Kins shouted, "it's dangerous!" at the end of the short run back down, they found the chamber had changed. The wall with the runes was gone. The ork responsible was now a pile of ash: burnt to nothing from his suicidal expendature.
"They did it," whispered Issinel in joy. "They did it. In the end, not even the Imperials could hold the vault shut. The orks." Kins considered killing her, but chose not to. That idiot look on her face couldn't belong to anyone who could ever give him trouble.
"Come on," Kins said, dragging Cav back out. They passed by several Halivorians on the way out, pushing past them as they walked like pilgrims to the opened vault. "Let the damned eldar deal with it now."
"Wait," Cav said, "we shouldn't just leave. That Sectraa man, whatever he wants, we can't let him have." Kins stopped and grinned on the inside. There it was, that devotion to duty that all guardsmen should have. To make it worse, Cav was right. They should press into the mountain, whatever Sectraa is looking for.
"Right then," Kins replied, "follow me." He and Cav rushed off into the city, disappearing among the ruins. Moments later an evil shadow descended to the ground before the chute.
…
Sectraa jumped off his skyboard and hurried down into the chute. His cold, reddish eyes were hot with excitement. Though many centuries old, he was as agitated as an excited child with this victory. The Halivorians had been good servants, but the final key was opened by the orks. Now it was out before him, as bare as a slave's body that had been made ready for torture. There it was, for him to clasp. Now this boring, dragging conflict in Urbanis 1 was over for him. True joys awaited his depraved senses as he stepped into the chamber.
"Step back," he ordered to the Halivorians who had swarmed down here like rats to food. So ignorant, so numerous. Humans made him sick. He was glad to finally be rid of them. "BACK!" His voice cut like steel and the humans who had entered the hole the ork had made were shrinking into the wall.
"Where is the angel?"
"What happens now?" Sectraa didn't want to waste time on their questions. He stepped through the hole, pushing aside a pair of older men. Upon sensing his arrival, the vault he had just stepped into came to life.
Before him, a large light burst into life, covering the short wraithbone hallway he had entered with teal light. The hallway beyond opened up into a gargantuan chamber, which was revealed piece by piece as, one by one, lights came on. Sectraa stepped through and into the heart of the vault.
All the water from a small lake could fit in this ovoid cavern. The walls were plated with smooth wraithbone and the lights from complex eldar circuitry were woven delicately through it like threadwork. Odd wraithbone devices grew from the walls. Their purposes were only barely hinted at by their flowery shapes. But Sectraa had no time for them. His attention was fixed on the middle.
In the center of the gargantuan vault was a raised section of floor, like some altar to the craftworlds. The stairs leading to it looked like crossed swords made into wraithbone, rather than the carvings that they were. Rising up was the flying half arch of an eldar webway gate, woven with circuitry that would make anything worked into the walls look primitive. To the humans who came in after him, the gate looked like the neck of a swan. To Sectraa, it was a hook, a meathook.
"Come in, bunch in," Sectraa called behind him, grinning as he stepped up the sword-stairs to the webway gate and pressed his finger onto its activation jewel, which jutted from the side as naturally as a crystal that had grown there. With a hum, the arching structure began to pulse with an ethereal glow, as though lit from within. A shimmering, crackling nimbus of energy appeared within the air in the arch's grip. It was like a miniature storm was being called into being. Amazed at the show, more of the dozens of Halivorians came forth. Their wondering eyes turned upwards when the sky began to crack.
Sectraa looked up and saw a chasm of light breaking across the ceiling. The mountain was opening its jaws to the open air. And from it, Sectraa knew, would come the warriors of the Dark City. It would be a mocking reflection of local human superstitions about this place. There was no angel, only the hunger of Commorragh!
…
Hurry! Kiskantsh was breathless. He had collected as many Dire Avengers as he could from his warriors. Exarch Nhimeia stepped up beside him, a silvery blade in his hands, slashing down another dark kin. Kiskantsh's warlocks were all slain, torn apart by the ghastly talos, which were scattering the melee and killing any human within reach. The 112th were dispersing, fleeing those evil machines.
The mountain is opening! the exarch said. The farseer did not need to be told that. Upon the mountainside, he could see a great crack opening as the gates to the vault rolled back. The titan must be roused. Kiskantsh nodded and beckoned. He and eight noble Dire Avengers ran from the fighting, slipping through the ruins of the human city as fast as their eldar feet could move. Kiskantsh dodged over a pile of rubble and landed on his feet. Nhimeia jumped after him, decapitating a Halivorian who jumped from the shadows. They were gone before the dead human hit the ground. Leaving the battle behind them was different to the eldar farseer. Where a man like Kins or Arcantillius would think it a dreadful act of cowardice, the farseer knew it was a needed sacrifice. It was why they needed human help, to dampen eldar losses, for the battle for the gate would be desperate. As humans behind him died, Kiskantsh knew it was for the best.
They raced to the mountainside just as the mountain door finished opening. Now, a half kilometer up, there was a huge opening in the rock, both long and narrow, like a crack.
My lord farseer! Nhimeia shouted. Kiskantsh saw one of the habs they'd ran past collapse as the two talos tore through them like wet paper, thirsting for eldar blood. There was nowhere to hide except...
The eldar ran down the chute. All made it to safety, except the last Dire Avenger. She was just entering when a cruel claw grabbed her from behind and tore her back out. Kiskantsh heard her terrible scream, following him in the dark as he descended down into the abyss.
Stop whispered the farseer suddenly. He could sense it, humming on the edge of thought. It was a dancer in the edge of his sight, a song that lay just beyond his hearing and a sensation that his skin just forgot. It was the guardian of the gate. It was down here. Kiskantsh saw down and instructed the Dire Avengers to guard him. His mind reached out to the ancient guardian.
Today, a giant would walk on Essendrav.
…
Cav crouched behind the fallen hab as he considered all the things Kins had told him. Mhal was working with the eldar, Lystartro was dead, Frens worked for the inquisition and the Imperial Guard were trying to knock Skullkicker out of the war. All those, added to the two great machines who had just killed that eldar outside the chute, was overwhelming. He now focused on survival. Those machines were on the hunt for more lives.
"They look like the spider that took me," Cav noted.
"Same builders," replied Kins. They slowly backed away, deeper into the ruins. He was a warrior, but no hearthguard could kill those monsters with a lasgun.
Both of them froze when Arcantillius and a squad of the 112th slipped in beside them.
"Commissar, I'm glad you live," whispered Arcantillius, ever formal, even covered in blood and bleeding. Kins nodded. "Cav, you're alive."
"Oddly enough," replied Cav. "Where's Mhal?" No one had an answer.
Just then, there was an explosion. One of the machines shuddered as a grenade went off beneath it, throwing it to one side. It landed on the ground and raised itself back up. Cav thought it looked angry as it overturned rocks, looking for the source. Another explosion tore off its right claw. Both machines looked clumsy, going through the ruins.
Just then, Mhal jumped from a shadow, his sword cleaving one of the legs from the nearest machine. He dodged back as it snapped at him and jumped beneath it, stabbing its body. The other reached beneath its companion, and Cav saw Mhal sever its claw.
Then, there was a prismatic flash of light, bursting brilliantly along the hull of the machine Mhal had just attacked. A flaming hole burst into its metal carapace. It turned to confront its attacker.
A sleek eldar craft had just emerged from the ruins, its single cannon blowing another hole in the machine. Cav heard no noise beyond a shrill squeal of energy. The first machine fell as Mhal jumped out from beneath the second one and stabbed it from behind. The machine jolted like a man startled, then fell forward. Its flying vanished and it hit the ground with a heavy thud.
"YEAH!" A knot of PDF boys emerged from the ruins, waving to Mhal and shaking their grenades. Cav's face lit up and he stood up.
"Hey!" Cav shouted to them. He felt powerful arms pull him back into cover.
"Down!" Kins shouted as the eldar vehicle disappeared behind a curtain of fire. Bits of it flew in all directions, shattered, like a broken window. Cav didn't have time to ponder why Kins, of all people, had chosen to save him. He felt his breath stolen when the largest ork he had ever seen slammed down atop the wrecked alien machines.
Three rocket packs, two huge claws, an armoured suit that was practically a vehicle and huge guns. Cav hoped this was Skullkicker himself, only because he prayed that nowhere else within this sector was there an ork of that size.
Mhal turned to run and was sent sprawling towards Cav by a backhand from the ork. The giant roared as his packs fired up again and lifted his huge weight towards the opening.
"WAAAAGH!" the sound of orks filled the ruin.
"The old enemy!" Arcantillius shouted as two 112th ran to collect Mhal. The 89th ran towards them too, just as ork warriors began to climb out of the ruins. They came through open doors, down alleys and in thick knots that barreled down roads. At once, the guardsmen fired. Cav shouted to his soldiers and yelled out his orders, organizing them into fire teams that would hit the biggest concentrations of aliens.
"Grenades! Away!" Cav shouted. Moments later, a group of orks that were crouched in a crater were blasted apart. "Curth!" he shouted to his friend, "take five and help the captain. Tigerson! Shoot that one!" he pointed to an ork hefting a rocket launcher. Tigerson's aim was good and the creature died when a shot detonated its rocket.
"Cav!" Mieel jumped in beside him. "I'm sorry…"
"Shut up and shoot!" Cav shouted, helping Kins gun down a horn-helmed greenskin that was firing at them from a rooftop.
"At what?" Ork rounds were skipping off the ground around them.
"Anything!" Cav screamed. Behind him, the mountain had cracked. It would be such a shame to die in this furious crossfire after coming all this way. Guardsmen and PDF fought side by side against the orks as they emerged. It was pure firepower: no greenskins charged. Here, they would win or be shot to death.
Cav aimed at a trio of orks in a window, only to see them all shot in the head and topple down. There were very few of the aliens near the part of the city he was aiming at. As more came in, they too were felled by precise shots. It was the work of the eldar: Mhal's false stormtroopers. What did it matter what they were? They created dead orks. Cav fought on.
…
Sectraa didn't even turn his head when Skullkicker came down and landed near the edge of the cavern. The huge ork tore open a side of the wall, revealing a hallway behind it. Sectraa didn't even care when Skullkicker's machine guns cut down a number of Halivorians, who crouched in terror. He didn't take his eyes from the portal.
"Ork!" he heard someone shout. Shots cracked off, forcing Skullkicker in through the hall he had revealed. "Sectraa?"
"Shut up!" roared the evil eldar with a slash of his sword. The speaker, a yellow-haired young fighter, fell back. His neck was a crimson fountain.
"Why did you…" the words didn't finish. The air beneath the arch shimmered like glass. The very air seemed solid and shivered, like a disturbed pool. From the shimmering air came a long Invader class raider anti-grav skiff. Its closed deck was studded with firing holes for the warriors inside. From the prow port gazed the masked face of the archon himself. Always the first one into battle. Sectraa knew it would be the archon's death, one day.
"What…what is that?" someone whispered. "Where's the angel?" Sectraa smiled evily as a second invader crept from the webway. Marching out alongside them came the elite of the Slaughterfeast Kabal. They were not the ragged looters Sectraa had, or vile, naked mandrakes. Dressed in their daemon-faced helmets and clad in warp-touched armour, they were the Black Phalanx. Their elongated splinter rifles were grafted to their forearms, leaving their hands free to wield mauls and nets.
The Black Phalan advanced on the Halivorians, surrounding them. The second invader opened its ramp, to let the new slaves aboard.
Well done Sectraa said the voice of the archon, broadcast from the speakers on his invader. Behind him, raider after raider was emerging, to carry the lesser warriors of the Slaughterfeast kabal into battle. Sectraa could see them upon the decks, armed and prepared to kill. They were his kin, his true allies. At last, the Halivorians could go.
Here is my first tribute to you, my lord Sectraa said with a bow as shivering Halivorians were herded like cattle up into the midnight bowels of the invader. The mauls of the Black Phalanx made them move if they did not. He spotted Issinel and smiled, unfolding his claws.
Are you sure this will be as easy as you promised? asked the archon.
These humans are at war with the orks. I know of plenty refugee camps. Tens of thousands of people to fatten the cages Sectraa could see the huge anti-grav cages the raiders were towing. He clasped Issinel by the shoulder. She cried as he pulled her away and pinned her against the side of the invader. And some Alaitoc eldar too, if we are lucky He looked into Issinel's beautiful, staring eyes, now glossy with tears. There was no anger at his betrayal in them, not even defiance. As the last Halivorians were herded aboard and the invader disappeared into the webway with them, she did nothing but sob.
So weak.
Sectraa's claws dug into her flesh. Bright red blood dribbled down her clothes. She screamed and thrashed, but Sectraa kept her pinned. His claws tore and tore and tore. He finally stepped back. Issinel's clothes were torn and bloody while her head had been flayed right down to the skull. Her bald head glistened in the lights of the dark eldar raiding force as he fell down, slowly dying. Her empty sockets did not see the raiders rise up and fly out of the chamber to attack Ersonia.
You've had your reward the archon said, now, get aboard and help Sectraa stepped up the boarding ramp and into the invader. It joined the last dark eldar skiff and soared outside to war.
On the ground, Issinel gave one last whimper and finally died.