Rhunefyre, Gladius-Class Escort Ship, Close to the Eye of Terror

Gerald, Navigator of the House Belisarius saw Chaos wherever he looked. He did not look out of any viewport-that invited madness even for one like him. He looked with senses not given to the vast majority of humanity and filtered it through a lifetime of experience and training. Yet even then what he saw frightened him. He had seen many storms and disturbances in the warp during his service, but the towering forces that railed all around the starship were dwarfing these by a fair margin. He had to concentrate every minute of his shift just to keep the ship unto a course and away from forces that would dismantle the ship in seconds.
To push any ship, especially such a comparatively small one, so close to the Eye of Terror was a grave risk undertaken only for the most dire of reasons. Not that anybody would tell him about them, but it would have been nice to know why he was risking life, limb and soul against terrible odds. To die within the warp would give his soul to powers he dared not name and he would not be alone.

But all of that was not what made his shiver in his seat. It was the memory of the encounters he had on this trip. All Navigators knew of the powers that were in the warp, inscrutable, frightening and overwhelming. Normally one steered clear of them and hoped that the ship`s Geller fields would protect the souls on board. Yet during the last days his ability to steer any other path than that the ship already had was reduced to nil as the warp storm where nearly everywhere. Several times shapes which seemed as large as moons and as powerful as vengeful gods had approached the vessel and the Navigator had seen his end right in front of him. Just to have these powers stop short of the tiny vessel in and retreat after the briefest of pauses. Could it be that they were frightened by something-something on this ship?
Close to the heart of the ship Captain Rothgar was alone in the ready room, and never before was he more happy than now for the solitude it provided. And if he saw things correctly he never would appreciate it any more. He was just reading the sealed orders that he had been provided with and what he had read had drained his wrinkled face of all color. He had served his Space Marine Chapter well for several hundred years now. Never in a totally spectacular fashion but as well as anybody could ask of him.
He had read his orders and it had taken him hours to understand them right. The Primarch had been honest enough to tell him the "why" for the "what" and "when" and while this normally would be a salve for the soul he knew that simply by reading them he had damned himself and his crew for all eternity. The knowledge offered in these terse few sheets was sufficient to make a man shiver who had survived the Fenrisian glaciers with nothing more than his bare hands. He did not move for a long time, and when he did he opened a strongbox he had not touched in years. Extracting a bottle that had cost him much to acquire he twisted the neck off without bothering with the stopper and swallowed a mead in one go that would have been worth a king`s ransom.

Straightening himself he pushed himself to go into the command center as is nothing happened and went to his command chair.
"What is our status Hargar?"
"Geller Generator No. 5 is acting funny, engineering is on it and we switched to no 7. The warp engines are 7% hotter than they should be and we had to grant the Emperor`s mercy to two serfs who showed signs of possession. Quiet watch so far, considering where we are."
"Very well Lieutenant Hargar, relive you for the rest of the watch."
"I stand relieved Captain. Do you need me for anything?"
"No Hargar, it is all right."
When the Captain settled in the command chair he could feel several cables that sought and found connections to sockets along his spine had head. Communication programs ran and his perception was expanded from his mundane senses to a plethora of information that had taken him decades to get used to. He did not dwell on the data from outside the ship, to anybody but a Navigator this would just be falsehood and madness. But he saw and felt the old ship around him in ways that few other mortals could and only long training kept him from showing his dismay. He watched the crew of so few Marines, of Chapter Serfs and servitors perform their duties as ever, saw the few that had spare time trying to find a rest in the midst of the turbulences of the warp and others who sought solace in prayer. His crew, a body of men and near-men he had formed into a competent cohesive whole and who lived to serve their chapter, their ship and him. It was the most sad thing Captain Rothgar ever saw.
He pulled up the programs needed for what he was about to do, checked that all was all right and froze. His memory displayed his orders in all their brutal clarity and the core of his very life was fulfilling these orders, but at the very moment he was unable to.

Deep inside the bowls of the Rhunefyre one of the cavernous storage rooms held an assortment of rarely needed spare parts, junk that would be reclaimed on their next stop at Fenris and one medium-sized black container. The surface of the container had been shrouded with hoarfrost as its contents had been exceedingly cold, but during the last 30 minutes the frost had evaporated when the temperature inside had increased. Gap developed around the container and the upper half opened with a hiss. Inside was a human clad in a black-form-fitting black overall studded with equipment belts and pouches. His head was protected by a helmet with a skull-shaped front side. E did not move for a minute and then sat up with the suddenness of a rat trap closing. Drugs that would kill the figure in mere hours while giving him far-above human strength courses through his veins. Other substances went into centers of his brain and stimulated centers which were normally dormant.
From a dreamless hibernation the Eversor assassin went to a psychotic furor in mere moments and implanted memories showed him his target. He needed only seconds to defeat the locks of the store room and then ran down one corridor after another at breakneck speed.
He passed several servitors and crewmen who were allowed only a glimpse of him before poisoned needles from his gun sent them to a fast painful and silent death. Running deeper and deeper into the ship`s bowels he left a trail of death and bleeding till he was faced a pair of Techmarines. Warned by the demise of their servitors both tried to raise command and threatened him with bolt pistols and the deadly tools of their trade. The assassin never wavered, just accelerated his mad charge and jumped. Two bolts grazed his armor enough to trigger their charges, breaking two ribs, collapsing a lung and mashed the small bones of the right hand. The Eversor did not even notice these except for the handicaps on his movements. His gun fired an unending stream of bolt that blasted the head off one Techmarine and managed to slip by the other one. His left arm punched out despite it maiming and the neuroglove at its end injected such a potent mix of poisons into the opponent that even his superhuman physiology broke down in mere seconds.

The assassin slowed down after this encounter as oxygen was now harder to come by, yet a few minutes later he stood in front of a huge enigmatic machine. His briefing told him it was the main Geller shield generator, the source of the bubble of order inside an ocean of madness. It destruction was the goal of his mission and he was still planning the charges to make that happen when the generator changed its deep rumble to near nothingness.
A series of explosions, both from scuttle charges and overloaded plasma generators wrecked the warship when Captain Rothgar had found that he could follow his orders after all. The Eversor assassin was so full of drugs that he never resented the fact that his mission was just a backup in case the Captain was found wanting.

When the Geller generator ran down the bubble of order inside the warp collapsed like a soap bubble. The raw forces of the warp were quick to claim supremacy and the materials that made up the wreck that had been a proud warship only moments ago ran out of reasons to stick together and dissipated.
Among these were the stasis generator that closed a generator-and within seconds the sarcophagus that it had contained so far. When both dissolved into raw energy they exposed their contents to the warp.

60 million years ago a race of god-like beings had wrought war against the Old Ones. Living off the energy of stars and living beings they had manipulated the Necrontyr into giving up their mortal bodies for vessels made out of living metal. While these bodies provided the immortality the Necrontyr had sought so much they also transformed their inhabitants to mere shadows of their former selves. When the war against the Old Ones ended the Necrons rebelled against their former Gods and smashed them to pieces they imprisoned into Tesseract Labyrinths to use them. Some of these shards escaped over time and reunited. One of the most dangerous of these was the Void Dragon, a C`tan that had a very special relationship with all machines. It took the shape of a Dragon and tried consumed sacrifices on earth when the Emperor forced it to battle. There are legends and rumors of this, no more, but the result was clear. The Emperor managed to subdue the Dragon and imprisoned it on Mars with the intention that is dreams would help the colonists there to become the Mechanicus that the Emperor knew he would need.

Now that C`tan had outlived its usefulness for sure and the reemergence of Leman Russ had given the Emperor a means of getting rid of his old mistake. But how to kill a being that had survived hits from Blackstone Fortresses and that lived of stars? One exposes it to its anathema, the one environment where he could not exist-the Warp.
Navigators and others who had a connection to the warp would report "the scream" for years. By that time the deep gulf which had been cut inside the "Eye of Terror" was already exploited by countless fleets and armies who went after systems so far hidden inside his region of madness.

Himalaya, Old Earth, later

Any movement, every word and all procedures that went on in the Emperor`s throne room were governed by protocols and rules so old that their origins were hopelessly forgotten. Any day inside this room was like many other ones that had come before and surprise was not expected inside.
Today was different. Instead of guards that stood motionless, processions that moved from here to there and applicants that were trying to gain the attention of officials there was silence. Instead of movement there was the waiting with baited breath for the hammer to fall and the search of a meaning for the unprecedented.

Prostrated on their stomachs the inhabitants of the throne rooms had watched the impossible-the Emperor had moved by his own volition. There had been rumors about changes in his skin tone and some swore that the eyes were no longer dead holes in a skull but something was inside them. But this was no rumor-they had seen it all and the records would prove them right.
For about five minutes the Emperor`s middle finger on his right had had extended itself straight before curling itself back onto the armrest.

Fenris, about the same time

The Fjords waters were black in their cold darkness and ice floes were breaking up the waves. Snow covered the shoreline under a bright sky that promised a warmth that it could not deliver. The participants of the ships launch were not inconvenienced by these temperatures at all, they all had endured far worse. Impressive even outside their power armor the Space Wolves watched the wooden ship as a steady wind inflated the square sail and propelled the vessel into the fjord.
It had gained about half a kilometers from the shore when it started to burn from a pyre that sat in its middle. The wood and sails did not need long to erupt into a fiery blaze and the ships maiden voyage ended in blackened timers that floated on the waves. The Space Wolves cheered as one and watched their Primarch throw a salute of a style they had never seen before.
Lehman Russ was at the head of the procession that went back to the fang for the funeral feast that promised to be worthy of a legend or two. Lehman had spoken to the Skalds and they would sing their new saga to the Wolves. The saga of Jens Johannsen, German paratrooper sergeant, whose memories had given Leman Russ a starting point to regain his own. The soldier who had lived in his head for a time when he really needed advise and who had given him the key to the Iron Warrior`s fortress. The man who had provided the motivation to change the tactics of a Space Marine Chapter.
The man who no longer was. His body had died on a world in another universe. His memories had been taken up by the Primarch when he had consumed the long-chain proteins and RNA in his brain when he was as empty as a newborn. The voice in his head that had stopped talking six months ago. For all intents and purposes Jens Johannson was now dead and the Space Wolves had given him a worthy funeral. They would remember him for a long time to come, the Primarch and the Skalds would make sure of that.

Emperor Battleship Ravensburg, Medrengard system, formerly within the Eye of Terror, two years later

Admiral Calvary watched the last wave of bombers leave the huge ship and take course towards the world below him. Using his datalink to change the view in the hololith before him he saw a world shrouded in smoke and illuminated by fire. Formerly the Iron Warrior`s home world it had been exposed to "normal space" after a mysterious event. The High Lords of Terra had been remarkably quick to capitalize on it and had sent fleets all over the huge gap that had appeared in the "Eye of Terror", the region of space where the Warp had direct access into real space and the normal laws of physics did not apply.
Calvary`s fleet was one of the bigger ones, commanded by Warmaster Romals and contained a veritable Imperial Guard army, two Space Marine Chapters and several detachments of Inquisition and the Adeptus Mechanicus. All of them were under great pressure as nobody knew how long the break in the eternal warp storm at the outer edges of the Eye would last.
The tactical situation that was presented in the hololith was making Calvary cautiously optimistic. The battle to get into the system had been nasty, the traitors fleet had been giving way only after bloody and drawn-out engagement. Calvary knew very well that he had caught a lucky break when several bomber squadrons had attacked the "Eternal Agony" and the Razors kiss when their escorts were out of position. He had feared that the planet below, known to be a complete fortress with positions rumored reaching within a few thousand kilometers to the planets core, would be too much even for the Imperial might. And yet, the planetary anti-space defenses were nearly absent and while the first reports of orbital bombing runs were a bit inconclusive the Admiral wondered if this campaign would be easier than he had feared.
"It is as the Omnissiah prophesized Admiral."
"Sorry Venerable Archmagos Daim-La, what had he predicted."
There was no face in the being in front of him to read, just a mass of sensors and a loudspeaker. The body below it was mostly hidden by a robe, but it definitely had too many appendages for anything human. Such was to be expected from the Mechanicus Delegate to this fleet but communication with him was still hard.
"When the forces of the warp were evicted from this sector the righteous rules of physics asserted themselves as is just. Many of the abominable constructs erected by the Iron Warriors flaunted these laws openly and crumbled when the applied again. The towers and fortifications were destroyed long before we arrived Admiral and our victory here is assured."
"Thank you for that input Archmagos. I will try to include this into our strategies now that it is proven, but my experience tells me that victory is only assured when you are the only one alive on the battlefield. We are not there yet."
"I find your lack of faith disturbing Admiral."
"Not in the Omnissiah Archmagos, lack faith in the enemy."
"That is acceptable"
Both human and half-human watched the next hours watching the rows of bright explosions that walked over the surface of the doomed planet below them.

Ethaine, 5. Bezahltag Nachhexen, 2524.

The winter was good to the Phoenix Kings summer residence. A few clouds coursed through a blue sky, the sun warmed those who were directly in its light and a dry spell had removed a lot of the mud. There was a beautiful palace in the background that had seen many hunts, feasts and intrigues but it was just a backdrop to today`s events. Today the center of activity was at the edge of a field that belonged to one of the farms that provided the palace with victuals. A small crowd gathered around a small red machine.
Aeolus watched the multitude that had assembled around the small red machine with a face that gave of nothing of his amusement or annoyance. There were three different groups in that small crowd that all kept some distance from each other and that could easily be differentiated.

The smallest group were a few Germans in their mostly green winter clothing. While they were about as tall as the Asur they were stocky in a way a High Elf never would be. The second largest group were a couple of Ulthuan nobles from Ethaine and Caledor who wanted to have a look at the innovation the Phoenix King wanted to spend so much money at. The third were a lot of farmers, often the village elders who had come to see what newfangled madness was going to make their life harder. In some ways they were like a cross between the Germans and the nobles-they were more stocky than the other Asur, had coarser skin and did not carry themselves as if the world should be happy that they walked on it. Winter was a not a time to plant or harvest, so it was a good time to convince some of the farmers to try new ways.
Yet the Germans were not exactly at ease-they could read the signs well enough and the farmers were quite conservative. Having tilled the land for hundreds of years they were very skeptical of anybody who thought he could show them a new trick.
Aureilius had been correct again when he had sent him to Ulthuan to grease the wheels a bit for the first introductions of the Phoenix King`s scheme. Harold Gerbs, the Porsche sales manager and DELUA instructor started his spiel.

"What you can see here is the new Porsche Super tractor that is produced since last year. It is an updated version of a machine that has been produced till 50 years ago and is tailor-made for farms like yours. It is very lightweight compared to the tractors used in Germany, is twice as efficient with fuel as the Lanz Bulldogs sold in the empire and rugged enough to be used with minimal care. The engine is an air-cooled two-cylinder with 40 horsepower which allows you to perform all tasks on a farm. There are three pick-up points for power, which allow you to use various implements for reaping, threshing, moving, harrowing or for the use with a power saws or pumps."
"So what can this thing do better than my horses Herr Gerbs?"
"I could tell you a lot Elder Hiratok, yet I believe it would be best to show you."

A short time later Aurelius watched as the small tractor shuddered to life and headed to the field. He saw again why it was a wise choice not to introduce the Lanz tractor. It might be a lot cheaper, but the clamor it made upon starting or the soot it emitted would have put off any of the farmers present. Not to speak of the fine sensibilities of the Ulthuan nobles of course. This one clattered to life with little drama, emitted hot air with nearly no discoloration and started to accelerate into the field. When the tractor reached the starting point the German lowered the plow and started to make his furrows.
While the nobles watched bored Aeolus could see the farmers getting interested all of a sudden. He approached one of the Elders.

"I take it you see something interesting honored Elder?"
"Might well be Assistant to Ambassador, might as well be. That plow over there is 80 cm across if do not miss my guess, one more blade than the one I use and he plows a bit deeper. Yet-he is about twice as fast as I am with a team of six good horses and that makes quite a difference you know. But they will probably not last, human works never do."
"Oh, you might be surprised with these humans, really."
"Well-I will listen to this Gerbs when he is back for sure. I think I also like the plow he is using-turns up the soil a lot, it does. Could not do that with horses either."
"Nice to see you are interested."
"Ah, I do not know yet…"
When the German was back from showing off the plow he wasn`t exactly bombarded with questions, but questions there were and a lot more attentive listeners too.

"Maintenance comes in three different stages. Stage one you can perform yourself, like changing the oil or getting the tractor safe for the winter. We offer a training course with every truck we sell. Stage two can be performed by a local blacksmith, we will train them if a village buys enough. Stage three will be performed by roving teams with German support, but it will be very rare, like every 300 working hours."
"Fuel and lubricants will be distributed through a system of stations close to the main rivers and channels. I like to point out that this tractor is twice as fuel-efficient as the Lanz."
"This is an attachment for a reaper. You can combine it with a baler, it will automatically bundle the grain you reap into bundles, puts twine around it and then dumps them to the side-yes I can demonstrate that later on."
"This is an attachment for power tools. You can get a pump that is good for several thousand liters an hour or a circular saw. I am told this is very popular in the Empire. We can demonstrate later, but maybe I can show you a video now that makes the point…"

It was later when Gerbs drove his tractor through some wheat that had been untimely grown for this purpose by a mage that the farmers started a whispered but animated conversation among themselves. They saw the tractor moving down wheat at a speed that a dozen experiences farmers with scythes would not be able to match and leave well-tied bundles. Normally this would have been a job for a farmers extended clan, here it was obvious that two or three could do the same job and with far less back-breaking.
It was the same village elder that Aeolus had spoken to before who approached him.
"Might be that this contraption has something going for it Assistant to Ambassador. The Elders of Tiran county would give it a go if you could negotiate the price down a little bit."
"I will see what I can do Hiratok."

By now Aeolus was quite good at hiding his emotions. He had predicted this to Gerbs when they prepared the presentation and the German had not been surprised in the least. It seemed that no matter of Human or Asur-farmers had a lot in common.
By the end of the week the presentation had its first results. Porsche had made quite a few sales financed by loans backed by the Phoenix King.
And Imrik, Price of Caledor had issued an edict, banishing these "stinking, dangerous and unnatural abominations" from his land.
By that time Aeolus was on a steel river barge that putted but a river against a decent current without showing undue strain. It would have to compete with a paddle steamer build in the Empire which was not as fast or big but much cheaper and could burn coal or wood.

Great Wall close to Hsinchu, Cathay, same time

Li Chung watched the plains beyond the wall while his stomach grumbled and his bowels hinted they wanted to void for the umpteenth time. Damn the greedy merchants who had sold rotten rice and vegetables to the army and double damn the Quartermasters-on-a-take who had accepted the slurry that posed as food. Normally he would have given in to his needs and used the latrine but today this was not possible. The darkness in front of the wall was broken by what seemed to be hundreds of smaller and bigger campfires. The Hobgoblins had arrived yesterday and had made their camp in sight of the garrison. The had appeared as a green tide that had covered the ground in front of the wall within hours in warriors, animals and tents. Usually the 30-meter-high wall instilled the Cathay soldier with confidence, yet even such might seemed puny against the army that had assembled to challenge it. Ever since then Li could hear the clamor of hammer and saw and while he could not see them clearly how he knew of ladders and siege towers that were erected in the enemy`s camp. It was then that the grumblings from his nether regions became loud enough to mask even these sounds and the Cathay soldier again whished for even the smallest break in his watch.

Thirty meters below Li the wall`s shadow contained a bubble of even greater darkness from which no sound could be heard. Inside the bubble it was a different thing. Small, green, hunched-over and with huge eyes, clad in various outfits of leather and feathers and festooned with fetishes a small number of Hobgoblin shamans were performing a ritual. One of them was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bubble of silence he projected while a smaller circle inside held the master shaman and some of his acolytes.
These were the reason for the bubble as their high-pitched chant would have been easily detectable by the walls defenders. The Elder shaman who led the chant and used the energy provided by his acolytes to enhance his own capabilities no longer realized anything that happened inside the tent. His mind had wondered outside his body a while ago and now searched his surroundings. What he saw would have made few sense to somebody lacking the warpsight as he did not see the material world but the shadows it left in the warp.
Multicolored but badly-defined blobs appeared and receded with no rhyme nor reason and he was about to think that the tales he had heard were wrong when he found something.

Getting closer to the something he saw that he had indeed found what he was looking for but it might be harder to get at than previously estimated. The many spirits in front of him were angry, resentful and wanted revenge-yet they had been here for so long that they were just an ember when there had been a raging fire centuries ago. The Shaman was disappointed yet had no choice but to work with what he was given. Reporting to the Hobla Khan that he would be unable to perform what he had promised was unthinkable.
Taking whatever energy he had in himself and in what he could draw from his acolytes he stroked that ember, pushed, prodded and poked for all he was worth. He called on energy reserves he had carefully husbanded and on spirits that were in his debt despite all the risks that entailed-and nothing happened. The longer he tried the more frantic he became and he started to use shortcuts he had been warned of many times. Feeling himself getting weak by all the effort he was about to despair when finally an ember started to glow and then break into full light. It ignited others in turn and before long the barely sparkling block in front of the Shaman burned with white-hot fury. Good.

When the Shaman returned to his meat body he found himself nauseous with weakness, raging with thirst and hot with fever. Several of his helpers were now mere husks, their life forces ripped from them. No matter, there would always be more. The bubble of complete darkness moved back towards the lights on the plain a bit later.
A few hundred meters from its starting point, on the other side of the wall still soil started to move and creaking sounds could be heard from below the yellowed grasses that covered it.

The next sunrise found Li Chung standing to on the wall again. He had been roused by his merciless NCO an hour before sunrise, had eaten a bowl of thin soup and maggoty rice each and now stood in the third rank that manned the wall. He had been here so many times at this ungodly hour that he could not count them, but for the very first time in his life as a soldier it made sense. The Hobgoblins had readied themselves for an assault during the last hours of the night it seemed and now were getting ready to assault the wall. Unending rows of small, wiry warriors sat of fierce wolves, parties carrying ladders or pushing towers could be seen behind them. Spearchuckers were pushed forward, and a couple of strange beasts were readying themselves.
Li was also treated to the sight of Lo Ping, the captain of the Watch regiment. He had not seen that worthy for more than a year but the lean body covered by an elaborate armor indicated he had not spent all the time with the ladies.

"Men of the 442 Watch Regiment-you see the enemy. You may fear him-that is natural-You may not act on that fear-that is treason. Look to the man to you left-he will protect your side. Look to the right-you protect him. Look at the ground-that one meter off wall is all you have to defend. This is all your noble ancestors ask you to defend and all the Emperor asks you to defend. Can you do that?"
"Aye"
I sounded confident enough, but any army worthy of its name has practiced shouting en masse often enough that they would sound confident regardless. Whatever was the case, they should was drowned in the braying of horns, the yowls of wolves and the undulating war cries from a hundred thousand throats. The Hobgoblin horde was advancing.
The Watch could do nothing but wait for the first minutes of the assault. The horde advanced like an avalanche, powerful and unstoppable. The first to be able to do anything were bolt throwers on the watch towers. Their bolts went into the advancing mass, toppled warrior and wolf as one-and the fallen were trampled without slowing the rest. In fact these shots were like throwing stones in a pond-they make beautiful waves, but the pond was still there.

"Crossbowman-forward" sent the first rank of soldiers directly to the ramparts where they took their positions at the crenellations. The first Goblin arrows arrived at the wall before they could respond-the short bows used by the enemy were very powerful for their size. Yet the wall gave cover, the height slowed the arrows and the soldiers armor usually took the rest. In two places marksmen dropped black, spilling blood, but the rest could react when the Captain managed to shout above the din.
"Take aim-let fly."
Hundreds of bolts were shot into the approaching horde and the victims were still dropping off their rides when the marksmen operated the levers on their weapons, pulling back the wooden box atop them. Fresh projectiles dropped into slots and when the crossbow`s string was at the apex triggers were pulled and more bolt released. These bolts did not penetrate more than one Hobgoblin, in fact they often only wounded or even bounced off the boiled leather armor. But there were so many of them that the enemy felt it for real this time. Wolves dropped into the paths of the ones in the rear rank, riders were trampled, other Wolves started to bite anything around them in blind pain-chaos. Not enough to stop the attackers, but enough to slow them among great clamor. When they arrived at the walls foot they were greeted by clouds of something that made those hit by it scream in pain and terror and many a Hobgoblin warrior stumbled back clutching his face of limbs.
The Soldiers of Cathay had heated sand in great cauldrons and dropped the contents down the wall. Far less expensive than oil it would burn anything it struck viciously and managed to get under armor with painful results. Ladders were brought up, but the great height of the wall meant there were few, they were ramshackle for the height and brought down by the halberd-wielding second rank soon.

Li did not have anything to do with the fighting yet, saw only a small part of it-and yet slowly he managed to gain hope. At first the commotion behind him did not make it to his attention and even when he hear something he could not place he knew better than to look backwards. It was only when the screams started that he chanced a look-and then his breath froze. A great mass of skeletons was climbing the ramparts at the back of the great wall. Using poles, tools and rusty weapons they attacked anybody and everything in sight. Some pockets of reserves at the far side of the wall managed to defend themselves against the onslaught but it became obvious that the undead would attack the Watch regiment from the rear. Looking further Li saw the great pit that disgorged more and more skeletons. The thought rose unbidden but sure-the pit was the place studiously avoided by all. While the ground there had not been marked in any way everybody knew that this was the place where all the conscripted workers who had died during construction of this part of the wall. It seemed like the honored ancestors did not want him to protect this part of the wall-the ancestors wanted to kill the defenders.