MAGISTER – CHAPTER 2
Tzenaar, Sorcerer-Lord of the Thousand Sons, considered the view as the Eye of Change flew through the Immaterium. Kitharat was an oddity in the Eye of Terror, a daemon-world where no prince among daemons ruled, where no being of the Empyrean commanded. Instead, it was commanded by the terrible will of High Magister Mordeghai, formerly Tribune Senioris to the Cyclopean Primarch himself, now a sorcerer of great and terrible power.
Speaking of daemons, as Tzenaar sat in the command throne aboard the mighty battleship that was the Eye of Change, Tzenaar commanded the many possessing spirits that dwelt within, allowing him to command the mighty vessel with nought but an act of will.
That was so satisfying, to command the adamantium, the plasteel and durachrome of the mighty battleship, commanding it without need of crew, save the soldiers and cultists aboard, ready to strike at the unsuspecting planet they were headed towards. Already, he could see a small pack of daemon-vessels join the great battleship, scarcely any larger than a Cobra-class destroyer yet terrible in their own way, drawn by the slaughter they could see in the future.
The spirits inhabiting the battleship were agitated, but Tzenaar was not surprised. They were carrion come to peck at the bodies of the dead and dying, not competitors for the kill. That reminded him, they were at the edge of the system now, and it was time to jump out of the Warp.
The Eye of Change emerged at the stellar system's edge, amidst the great cloud of planetary detritus, the remains of the system's formation, ceaselessly orbiting the main-sequence star in an intricate, almost beautiful dance of gravity, but Tzenaar reminded himself that this was not what he had come for.
These petty worlds were lifeless, the sensors showed that, as did Tzenaar's psychic senses. All save a small, moon-sized monitoring station that was apparently exchanging frantic comm-bursts with Akkad VI. It was time to end that.
Three lance-strikes tore the station apart, in an explosion of superheated hydrogen and metallic debris, which began to float its endless path through the infinite void. There were no survivors, Tzenaar was sure of that.
They proceeded to move at full speed, the daemon-ships following, making sure to destroy everything which remotely looked like it was going to block their way.
Above the planet, the sapphire sphere of Akkad VI, with beautiful greens and browns and blues and sandy yellows, stood a single Mars-class battle-cruiser.
Tzenaar grinned. At last he had a worthy opponent.