I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
Inspired by the Dornian Heresy, by Aurelius Rex.
I am Eldrad Ulthran.
High Farseer of Ulthwé. Founding member of the Second Cabal. Avatar of Ynnead.
I was born amidst the cinders of greatness, to a people reeling in the aftermath of the Fall. I grew up on stories of what we had been, and learned enough from the gaps in the tales of my ashamed tutors to understand the true horror of what the Aeldari Empire had become.
There are those born to the Craftworlds in recent cycles that yearn for that lost glory, who seek a return to a golden age they know only through stories passed down for thousands of cycles. They believe themselves to be the rightful inheritors of the stars, that it is only the cruelty of fate that has stripped them from the power that should be theirs.
They are fools, all of them. It is good that our ancestors' Empire fell. The Aeldari ruled the stars for sixty million years : they had their chance to build something more than a playground for all their worst indulgences, and their corruption might yet doom the galaxy.
I watched with eyes then young as Humanity rose from the ashes of its first dominion, brought low by a very different hubris than my forebears' own. Through sheer happenstance, I glimpsed the deceit by which the Blood God sought to enslave the Lord of the Red Sands, and prevented my people from being Khorne's unwitting instruments.
When the Dark Gods used the Thirteenth Son to set the galaxy ablaze, I fought alongside those my kin disregarded as barbarians to prevent the ultimate victory of Chaos. I uncovered a conspiracy of self-proclaimed oracles and masterminds that would have brought damnation to all, never realizing that plan that required an entire species to be consumed by Chaos in order to defeat the Dark Gods couldn't possibly be anything but a trap.
From them, I learned that it is possible to be blinded to the obvious by one's own perceived brilliance. And from my new comrades, I learned that the ends do not justify the means, for the consequences of our actions echo throughout eternity, and our future ever reflects our present deeds.
In the ages since, I remained in the shadows. Hidden from the Dark Gods' own gaze, I took part in the hunt for the last remnants of the First Cabal, to ensure that all of their schemes were extinguished. I stood side-by-side with Omegon atop a pyramid older than either of our species, and together we brought an end to one of the last survivors of the War in Heaven. If it is possible for two beings so different as us to bond, then I truly believe us to be friends, rather than comrades-in-arms fighting the same foe.
That friendship is why I did not tell Omegon what awaited him at the end of his path and the beginning of the new age. I didn't see any point in burdening him with that knowledge. But though I could guess the course the Master of Mankind would choose at Light's End, I was just as blind as to what laid beyond it as anyone else. Even Ynnead's blessing wasn't enough to pierce through that blinding light.
It was that blindness that made me realize the unprecedented opportunity before us, who would bring about the Primordial Annihilator's end.
The cycle of the Gods our ancestors believed to be eternal was forever broken when She-Who-Thirsts was born. No longer will the divines of the pantheon we still honor in song rise anew to herald another cycle, only for it to end once again in fire and bloodshed. Never again will Asuryan rule over the stars, for all that an ember of His light yet shines within the breast of the champions He chose with His dying breath.
Now the sands of time of our species' broken hourglass have run out, bringing us to these Times of Ending. As was foretold by those of our ancestors who yet saw with unclouded eyes, Rhana Dandra is upon us. The wheel of Ages has turned, and what was impossible has been written into the fabric of the Sea of Souls by the Human Emperor's sacrifice. For the first time in my entire life, I feel the hope that we might achieve something more than survival in the face of our Doom.
I am Eldrad Ulthran, and I will see the Eldar free at last.
Times of Ending : The Cadian Apocalypse
Part Four : To Forge Salvation
With the coming of Light's End, the eyes of the Dark Gods are directed upon Holy Terra and Cadia, the Ruinous Powers watching the battles that will decide the fate of the Imperium. But the galaxy is vast, and there are those who would take advantage of the Chaos Gods' distraction. Among them, the most daring is Eldrad Ulthran, newly-ascended Avatar of Ynnead, the slumbering Eldar God of the Dead created by the machinations of the Second Cabal over a hundred centuries. Seeking to free his people from their Doom and the galaxy from the Primordial Annihilator, the High Farseer of Ultwhé has designed a plan that will either bring them closer to that lofty goal, or see all hope for the future of the Eldar race dashed into ruin …
Since the battle of Ynnead's Awakening against the Necrons, Eldrad Ulthran had used his new status as the Whispering God's avatar to gather more Children of Isha to his banner. His initial plans had been thrown into disarray by the interference of the Necrons, which had prevented Ynnead's full awakening, but millennia of fighting the machinations of the Primordial Annihilator had taught the Farseer to adapt. The Farseer had returned to his home on Ulthwé, accompanied by the Phoenix Lord Asurmen, and begun to plan for the next stage of the Cabal's long war against Chaos.
The Seer Council of Craftworld Ulthwé had long been divided, despite sharing the same goal of protecting their people. Unable to escape the pull of the Eye of Terror, the Craftworld had been beset by threats all across its history, resulting in a war-like people who took nothing for granted, not even the promise of tomorrow. More Eldars followed the Path of the Seer there than on any other Craftworld, but while this had allowed the Craftworld to survive, it had also led to the Farseers holding more or less absolute authority, with their word being regarded as law by those who depended on their guidance to survive.
Despite having benefited from that attitude a number of times, Eldrad Ulthran had also had cause to regret not doing more to combat it during his long life. Ulthwé's Seers were rightfully proud of how their guidance had preserved the Craftworld, but pride all too easily turned to arrogance, which led to fractures and dissension between those who should be the closest of allies. The looming shadow of the Eye of Terror had prevented things from ever escalating to outright conflict, but the Craftworld's politics had only gotten more vicious as a result.
Now, at last, Ulthwé stood united under Eldrad's command. The power of Ynnead within him had cowed his detractors on the Council, as had the presence of Asurmen at his side. The Whispering God's rise proved beyond doubt that the Rhana Dandra, the End of All Days prophesied in the Asuryata, was at hand, and if the Eldars didn't prove their worthiness, they would be swept away by the tides of History once and for all.
Eldrad had a plan, however – in truth, he had many – that would give his people a fighting chance to see victory in their long struggle against Chaos, and perhaps even allow them to survive past that seemingly impossible victory. At his command, Ulthwé mustered its forces, recalling strike forces that had been deployed across the galaxy. Not all of the Craftworld's warriors were summoned : with help from the Council, Eldrad chose those warriors whose threads shone brightest, for the task for which they were assembled would be perilous in the extreme.
Months after Ynnead's Awakening and Eldrad's return to Ulthwé, the Warhost was finally complete. Counting thousands of Aspect Warriors, it was a force capable of breaking entire armies from more numerous races, especially when led by such august figures as the Avatar of the Whispering God and Asurmen, the Hand of Asuryan and mightiest of the Phoenix Lords. Yet still, Eldrad did not share the purpose of this muster. With the insight given to him by Ynnead, he knew that, though all gathered were loyal in their dedication to Ulthwé, it did not mean that the Dark Gods wouldn't be able to learn his plans once he shared them with those whose minds weren't shared by a nascent Power.
Then, on distant Terra, Lorgar Aurelian freed the Human Emperor from His aeons-old agony. With his own divine power, Eldrad was able to shield Ulthwé's Infinity Circuit from the psychic cataclysm, and as his kindred were still reeling from the shock, he finally revealed to them his plan for the Warhost :
To sail into the Eye of Terror itself, and steal hope from the clutches of Slaanesh.
For any Eldar to enter the Eye of Terror was a nightmarish proposition. The only expeditions into the Gravebirth had been aimed at recovering the soulstones scattered on the croneworlds, that they might be used to safeguard the souls of the Craftworlds' people. Even these expeditions had come to a high cost, with heroes sacrificing not just their lives but their very souls to steal the salvation of their kin from the grasp of She-Who-Thirsts. Slaanesh forever hungered for the spirits of the race whose excesses had created it, no matter how they had turned their back on such decadence generations ago. Though its dominion over the Eye was contested by the other Dark Gods, no Child of Isha could hope to escape the Doom's attention within that corrupted region of space.
Now, however, the gaze of the Dark Prince was fixed upon the homeworld of Humanity. Not since the Fall had such an opportunity presented itself, and Eldrad was determined to seize it. The Avatar of Ynnead knew that, should Humanity fail in the Angel War, all hope would be lost; but he also knew there was nothing he and his people could do to influence the result of that apocalyptic conflict. This was Humanity's story to write, and all he could do was hope that the three sons of the Emperor would be able to find a way to victory. In the meantime, he would act as if the galaxy still had a future.
Long-abandoned sections of Ulthwé were reopened, and an ancient Webway Portal that had been closed off thousands of years ago was carefully unsealed. The section of the Webway it led to had become infested with daemons when the Eye of Terror had opened, crippling the antediluvian network to a mere shadow of its former size. For many cycles, the Neverborn had hurled themselves at the sealed-off gateway in a vain attempt to break through, but had ultimately given up when no progress had been made and other parts of the Great Game had drawn their attention.
The trip through the Webway was harsh, even for the seasoned veterans of Ulthwé. The combined powers of their Seers kept them hidden from the sight of Warp predators, but they still advanced through a place where already alien natural laws had been further corrupted by Chaos. Sourceless whispers burrowed into the soldiers' minds, while temperature and pressure varied wildly with only a few seconds' warning from the Farseers for everyone to adjust their armor's configuration adequately. Every member of the Host wore their void-sealed armor at all times, upon which new wards had been added – but even so, whole squads were lost during the journey. Due to the perilous path, few Engines of Vaul had been taken along for the journey, and none of the comparatively clumsy Wraithguards.
Time meant as little in this section of the Webway as it did in the Warp, yet eventually, the Host of Ulthwé reached their destination : the Daemon World known in the Inquisition's archives as Belial IV.
Belial IV
Much to the dismay of those who stand against the horrors of Chaos, the Eye of Terror's borders aren't fixed. Since its opening at the Fall of the Eldar Empire, it has waxed and waned, swallowing entire star systems and spitting out hollowed shells populated only by demented wraiths or mutated wretches.
In the Fall's immediate aftermath, the Belial system stood on the very border of the Eye, and remained so long enough to be discovered and named by the explorers of the Great Crusade, though no attempt at colonization was ever made. At the time, there were five planets in the system, though only Belial IV, the fourth planet from its sun, was deemed of any interest due to strange structures of clear xenos origins being observed from orbit. Interestingly, these structures were only mentioned in the explorer captain's own journals, and not in the official report he made to the growing Imperium.
The star system was engulfed by the Eye of Terror not long after the end of the Heresy, when Slaanesh's power was surging as the Clone Wars raged and the Blood Angels devoured entire worlds. Even after the War of Woe erupted between the Ninth and Seventh Legions and the Sons of Horus rallied to the Imperium's defense, Belial remained shrouded in darkness, one more star lost to the madness of the Eye of Terror. To the Imperium, this was just one more system lost, but to the Children of Isha, it was much more.
Built upon the planet's surface was the Temple-Palace of Asuryan, one of the holiest sites of the Aeldari faith. Even after the slow corruption of Aeldari society and the death of the Phoenix King at Slaanesh's hands, it had remained outside of the Eye of Terror, and served as a source of priceless soulstones for the Craftworlds. During the Clone Wars, however, the Temple-Palace's last defenses were overcome by agents of the Dark Prince, allowing the Eye of Terror to finally claim the system.
What became of the other planets is known only to the Dark Gods themselves, but the name of Belial IV is known across the Eye of Terror as a stronghold of Slaaneshi power in the Eye of Terror. Under the light of six false suns, the daemonic choirs of She-Who-Thirsts revel in endless excess, every unholy deed further desecrating this once sacred world. The very ground convulses under the strain of Excess. Entire islands of earth and rock have broken off from the surface, floating in the air in blatant defiance of gravity, their shape twisting and contorting in impossible, obscene forms. Once great cities lie in ruins, frozen in the aftermath of the Fall, with broken statues of Eldar worthies weeping tears of blood at the desolation surrounding them. Shadowy spirits, all that remain of the planet's Eldar population after an eternity of torment, haunt this hellish landscape, preyed upon by grotesque beasts and daemonic hunters seeking to bring them back to the revelries they fled from.
And at the heart of it all sits the Temple-Palace, remade and twisted into something worthy of Slaanesh's dark majesty.
At the end of their journey, the warriors of Ulthwé found that the Webway Gate leading to Belial IV had already been unlocked, and the first wary scouts sent through returned with word that they were awaited. Thankfully, this welcome party wasn't composed of a daemonic horde ready to devour their souls, but of a Troupe of Harlequins from the Masque of the Veiled Path.
Long had the eldest living Farseer of the Eldar race consorted with the disciples of Cegorach. Over the millennia, Eldrad had conceived many plans to destroy Slaanesh and free his people. Some of them had been the results of his meditations, while others had been designed together with Omegon, the sages of the Black Library, and even, on one memorable occasion, with one Harlequin Shadowseer he still wasn't sure hadn't been Cegorach in disguise. Of these plans, many had been thwarted by the Ruinous Powers, the intervention of uncontrollable factors, or just plain bad luck. But he'd kept trying, pouring his life into running as many of them as possible in the hope that one of them might work.
The Thrice-Born, Ephrael Stern, was one of them. Eldrad hadn't had anything to do with the terrible circumstances that had shaped her into such a potent weapon against the Dark Prince, and as far as he knew no Eldar hands had anything to do with them either. But when she'd been reborn for the first time, the Daemonifuge had immediately been revealed to him and his allies, and the servants of the Laughing God had moved to bring her to safety in the Black Library until the time came for her to be unleashed upon the galaxy yet again. The knowledge that she'd been on Terra when Light's End had happened was one of the things that gave Eldrad hope that not all was lost.
How the Harlequins had managed to reach Belial IV ahead of the Ulthwé forces was a mystery, but few were surprised at their presence, for it was well-known that the performers could go anywhere they pleased. Eldrad met with their leader, the mysterious Shadowseer Sylandri Veilwalker, and after a brief discussion, the two Eldar groups joined forces.
Little trace remained of what Belial IV had looked like before the Fall. The planet was a full-fledged Daemon World, its surface entirely remade in the image of the Daemon Lord that had ruled there since it had been swallowed by the Eye of Terror : Shaha Gaathon, the Harbinger of All Pleasures.
Shaha Gaathon, the Harbinger of All Pleasures
Known as the Harbinger of All Pleasures by its servants and enemies, Shaha Gaathon is a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince of great power and ancient origins. All daemons of the Dark Prince have a particular hunger for the suffering of the Eldar race, whose Aeldari ancestors gave birth to their god. But Shaha Gaathon's hatred for the Children of Isha runs deeper than this, for its roots go back to long before Slaanesh was born. Only faded legends remain of that time, for even the exiles who founded the Craftworlds as they fled the Aeldari Empire knew little of the Harbinger.
From these scraps of lore, confessions extracted by the Inquisition and visions gleaned by powerful seers both human and alien, those few who know of the Harbinger's existence without having been enslaved by it believe that it once was an enemy of the Aeldari Empire. Shaha Gaathon itself has given a thousand different reasons for its hatred of the Aeldari, and when one considers the scope of the atrocities performed by that corrupt civilization as the rot set in, each might very well be true. Regardless of its source, Shaha Gaathon's obsession with destroying the Aeldari was so powerful that, when the Fall happened and Slaanesh was born (something for which Shaha Gaathon claims partial credit, and as the reason for its title of Harbinger), the Dark Prince of Chaos rewarded the Harbinger with daemonhood, granting it all of eternity to pursue its vendetta against the few survivors of the Old Race. Ever since then, Shaha Gaathon has hunted down the remnants of its ancient enemies, and is one of the few entities in the cosmos to be aware of the general location of every single Craftworld in existence, despite the efforts of generations of Farseers to keep the continent-sized vessels hidden.
Meanwhile, its cult, the Great Masque – named in blasphemous mockery of the Harlequins' own sub-groups – has been a poisonous thorn in the Imperium's flank for thousands of years. Across scores of Imperial worlds, cult cells pay fealty to their distant daemonic patron, forming hedonistic secret societies that practice forbidden rites in secret. Its members worship Shaha Gaathon as a benevolent figure, who rewards the faithful with ever-greater pleasures, with those who prove their worth taken away to join it in paradise.
That seeming benevolence is, of course, only a cruel illusion. In an echo of the pleasure it gained from witnessing the downfall of the Aeldari Empire, Shaha Gaathon relishes the inevitable fall to decadence of those it ensnares. Its personal attendants, those who succeeded in 'proving their worth', were all once powerful men and women, holding the lives of thousands in their hands, but are now reduced to nothing more than adoring slaves with no other thought in their minds but how to please their living god. Apart from this, the Great Masque is the Daemon Lord's instrument in prosecuting its long war against the Eldars, manipulating the Imperium in waging war against the Craftworlds wherever possible. Billions of human and Eldar lives have been lost to conflicts engineered by the Harbinger's servants, and it is believed by some of the Second Cabal's analysts that much of the enmity between their races could've been adverted if not for its corrupting influence.
Though its name is known to the Daemonhunters of the Inquisition, Shaha Gaathon has remained on Belial IV ever since the planet fell into the Eye of Terror, only ever directing its cult from afar. In truth, Shaha Gaathon has no choice in the matter : it is bound to Belial IV by the will of Slaanesh, compelled to remain in order to guard that which lies within the Temple-Palace of Asuryan. As is typical of the Dark Prince, this duty is both punishment and reward, for while the Daemon Lord derives much honor and pleasure from its posting, it is also denied the more varied pleasures of the galaxy – chief among those the opportunity to pursue its dark crusade against the Craftworld Eldars.
For thousands of years now, Shaha Gaathon has searched for a way to escape its fetters that wouldn't draw the ire of the Youngest God, creating and manipulating entire covens of petty wyrds in the process. In a way, its obsession with escaping its gilded cage is both a strength and a weakness, for though it gives Shaha Gaathon a focus on mortal affairs shared by few Daemon Lords, it also blinds it to opportunities to spread darkness in other ways.
The portal delivered the Warhost not far from their objective, though navigating the Daemon World was even more perilous than the trip through the Warp-corrupted Webway had been. The Seers and Warlocks of the host couldn't use their psychic powers to their full potential lest they attract unwelcome attention, but with Asurmen leading the way and Eldrad guiding the Phoenix Lord through the demented landscape, they soon arrived in sight of their goal : the fallen city of Zytheraa, and the colossal structure at its center.
The Temple-Palace of Asuryan had been remade into a colossal structure that stretched impossibly high, seeming to vanish into space. At their commanders' orders, the warriors of the host averted their gaze, for to look upon what Shaha Gaathon had wrought was to court madness. The outer walls were covered in living statues of Eldar, human and other alien species, each of them a soul that had succumbed to the Harbinger's false promises. For millennia, their moans of agony had formed the backdrop music for the Slaaneshi revels.
Now, however, these revels were all but silent. As Eldrad had anticipated, the call of the Angel War had left Belial IV with only a fraction of its usual daemonic population. Instead of limitless hordes stretching from horizon to horizon in endless bacchanalia, the Eldar Warhost only faced thousands upon thousands of Slaaneshi Neverborn. Furthermore, most of those who remained were the weakest of their kind, who had been unable to claw their way off-world to join the battle at Terra, which might deliver ultimate victory to the Dark Prince.
Surprisingly for such an important world, there were no renegade Astartes on Belial IV. Shaha Gaathon preferred to work through mortal and infernal pawns it could fully dominate, rather than having to manage the delicate balance of an alliance with a Chaos Lord. Even the Blood Angels weren't welcome in its domain, and it had gone to great lengths to enforce that interdict. Those in the Eye of Terror who knew of the Harbinger whispered this enmity toward the Traitor Legions was rooted in some long-ago humiliation, dating back to the confused days that had followed the Heresy, but if it was true, no evidence remained.
After getting into position, the Warhost struck the demented crowds like a lightning bolt from a cloudless sky. From afar, the Dark Reapers rained destruction upon the daemons, the last of their projectiles detonating mere heartbeats before the charging vanguard reached the dazed Neverborn. Asurmen was there at the forefront, and though the daemons of Slaanesh converged on him in their hundreds, drawn by the embers of godhood in his soul, they could not bring him down. For he was the first of the Phoenix Lords, who had matched the King of the Night for days – and this time, there was no innocent blood on his blade to cloud his mind with doubt.
Accompanied by the vanguard of Warp Spiders and Howling Banshees, the Hand of Asuryan reapt a great toll of daemonic ichor, pushing ever forward to the open gates of the desecrated Temple-Palace of his murdered god. Swooping Hawks descended upon the daemons, keeping them from rallying, while the few wings of Shining Spears that had been spared for this operation harassed the flanks of the horde. Then came the main force, a host of Dire Avengers clustered around the Seers and Eldrad himself.
The Eldar psykers still couldn't use their powers in full, for to do so in the Eye of Terror would have been beyond risky : even the soulstones and wards of Ulthwé couldn't keep the influence of Chaos at bay completely. They restrained themselves to support roles, facilitating communication between the elements of the host and keeping up the veil of obfuscation that kept the forces of the Great Enemy from realizing the true scope of the intrusion yet.
Despite the advantage of surprise and their overwhelming firepower, the children of Ulthwé couldn't avoid taking casualties. But thanks to the power of Ynnead, the souls of the fallen Eldar warriors were neither drawn to their soulstones nor devoured by their infernal enemies, but instead absorbed by the Avatar of the Whispering God. This, however, required most of Eldrad's focus, leaving him little margin to assist in the battle directly – a price that he was willing to pay, for to abandon his comrades' spirits to She-Who-Thirsts when he could save them was abhorrent.
After a long battle, the Warhost reached the open gates of the Temple-Palace. The bulk of their forces remained there, holding the entrance against the hordes outside, under the command of a trio of Autarchs, each of them a veteran of a thousand battles against the slaves of the Ruinous Powers. The Avatar of Ynnead had also bestowed a blessing upon each member of this triumvirate : they had sworn themselves to the Whispering God, renouncing the blessings of Bloody-Handed Khaine in exchange for becoming vessels through which their soldiers' souls could be saved, like Eldrad himself.
And, like the elder Farseer, they knew that such a boon would not be without cost, but it was one they were more than willing to pay.
With their back secured, Eldrad and Asurmen pushed ahead with a small group of elite warriors, toward the black heart of this once sacred place. The insides of the Temple-Palace were as nightmarish as its outside had been. Where once had stood statues of the Aeldari gods and heroes, along with depictions of their exploits during the aeons-long reign of the Aeldari Empire, now there were a thousand images of the Fall, showing the lowest moment of Shaha Gaathon's hated foes. Worse than the images of destruction were those displaying the tainted Aeldari who had embraced the corruption whole-heartedly, and been rewarded with immense power when Slaanesh had taken its first breath and swallowed the souls of their race.
Though Eldrad had been born years after the Fall, Asurmen remembered it all too well. He had met some of the dark Aeldari shown on these mosaics, and while he'd slain many of them, and more yet had been slain in the first wars of the Eye of Terror when the other Dark Gods had challenged Slaanesh's hold onto the warp storm, not all had met their end. The Hand of Asuryan knew that, in the darkest pits of Commoragh, some of the old monsters that had orchestrated the ruin of his people continued their evil, feared even by the cruel nobility of the Dark City.
In time, the Phoenix Lord swore for the ten thousandth time, they too would be brought to judgement.
Ancient Aeldari specters also haunted the Temple-Palace, watching mournfully as the Eldar champions advanced through their violated home. Once, they had been Aeldari priests of the old gods, who had resisted the corruption of the Aeldari Empire but refused to join the exodus of the Craftworlds. Instead, they had stayed behind in the hope of turning back the tide of corruption, only to watch as the Fall ended their people. When Slaanesh's forces had come during the Clone Wars, they had fought the last battle of the untainted Aeldari, and their souls had been condemned to watch over the desecration of all they had loved, spared the jaws of the Neverborn only because this was a far worse torment.
As the light of Ynnead touched them, however, these wraiths were released from their infernal bondage, and knew hope for the first time in ten thousand years. They gathered to Eldrad's side, helping guide him through the twisted labyrinth, down paths that, when seen from above, formed forbidden runes in the Aeldari language. Only the disciples of Shaha Gaathon had walked these paths since the Clone Wars, each step twisting their flesh and soul a little more without they ever realizing it – but thanks to Eldrad's presence, his warriors were protected.
The embers of divine power in the Hand of Asuryan and the cold fire of Ynnead within Eldrad's body combined to repel the corruption that had taken hold of the Temple-Palace : where they walked, the passages flickered back to what they had once been, revealing glimpses of the glory of the pre-Fall Aeldari Empire in the moments before the taint of Chaos resumed its hold. They saw monuments to champions of the War in Heaven, including statues of the legendary Eldanesh and Ulthanesh; depictions of the beauty and tranquillity of the Aeldari Maiden Worlds, and more besides. But even these lost glories were not without their dark sides : the farther they went, the more violent the images became, reminding them once more that even before the Fall, the Aeldari had not been a peaceful race.
How could they have been, when they had ruled over the galaxy for sixty million years ? Not even the Old Ones had been able to hold such unrivalled hegemony without bloodshed, and as many Eldar scholars suspected and Eldrad knew for certain, the Aeldari had originally been created as a warrior-race, not that different from the Krorks whose degenerate descendants continued to plague the stars aeons after they'd outlived their purpose.
(Of course, Eldrad didn't often speak these truths out loud. He was old, not senile.)
To their surprise, the Eldars faced no direct attack as they made their way through the Temple-Palace. They could hear the laughter and screams of the daemons that cavorted in its halls echoing down the corridors, and a palpable sense of malaise weighed them all down, but from the moment they'd crossed the temple's threshold, they hadn't seen any enemy.
None of them thought this was a good sign. They were far to experienced for that.
At last, the company of heroes came upon the throneroom at the heart of the Temple-Palace, where Shaha Gaathon and its court awaited them. Thanks to the whispers of the dead priests, Eldrad knew that this had once been the gateway to the holiest of holies, a place only a few souls were allowed to enter so that they may commune with the Aeldari gods. Briefly watching through ghostly eyes, the Avatar of Ynnead saw the vast tunnel leading down into a great hall decorated by visages of the Aeldari Pantheon, each sculpted from crystal and over ten times the size of an adult Eldar.
Now that pit had been dug out, each and every ward broken. The ancient crystal visages had been broken into a billion shards that were spread all across the floor, cutting the naked feet of Shaha Gaathon's mortal slaves with every step they took. Scores of mutant cultists were scattered across the room, most of them ignoring the Eldar intruders, too busy indulging in their own lusts or watching the occupant of the throne at the center of the room with worshipful gazes. Daemonettes prowled among them, whispering dark promises in their ears and caressing exposed flesh with razor-sharp claws.
There, on a living throne made of the merged flesh and bones of the last Aeldari priests to have fallen in the Temple-Palace's last battle, sat the Harbinger of All Pleasures. Shaha Gaathon wore the flesh of a human male of noble bearing, whose body radiated psychic power. His rich clothes were daubed with various fluids and marked with Chaotic runes, and on his forehead was an Eldar soulstone, cracked and dark and blazing with eldritch energy. In one six-fingered hand, he held a bejewelled golden goblet filled with a mixture of blood, wine and tears, while the other rested atop the pommel of a sword that seemed to shiver whenever it wasn't directly looked at. He welcomed the arrival of the Eldars by raising his goblet and emptying it one gulp before tossing it aside, carelessly crushing the skull of one of his slaves with the strength of the throw.
Eldrad's divine sight let him trace back the path that had led that unfortunate soul to this place : once, he had been Janus Darke, Rogue Trader of the Imperium of Man and, unbeknownst to him, a latent psyker of great power. Through a combination of manipulation and brute force, the Harbinger had brought him inside the Eye of Terror and turned him into a mortal vessel. Darke's psychic potential was potent enough that the possession hadn't caused his body to immediately start decaying, unable to withstand the Daemon Lord's power.
It was fortunate, Eldrad thought, that Shaha Gaathon was bound to Belial IV by the command of its dark master. Had it been free to move as it pleased, the galaxy would've faced a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince able to hide in plain sight, free to spread corruption wherever it so wished. By the time someone in a position to do something about it noticed, entire worlds would have been lost – and that was an optimistic supposition, for Shaha Gaathon might also have chosen to continue its cult's work and engineered a total war between the Imperium and the Craftworlds, which would have let the weakened winner at the mercy of Chaos. There were very good reasons why the human Inquisitors were so utterly ruthless when stamping out daemonic taint.
At the foot of the Daemon Lord were two pale slave-things that, to the mortal eyes, appeared to be human children, one boy and one girl. But Eldrad could see through their disguise too, much as the old Farseer might wish otherwise. Somehow, Shaha Gaathon had acquired the services of a twin pair of Children of the Raven, the sheer bravado of which impressed Eldrad, however reluctantly. To risk the ire of the Nineteenth Legion by appropriating their monstrous creations was something even daemons feared, yet this wasn't this that held Eldrad's attention the most in the Daemon Lord's throneroom.
Atop the Slaaneshi prince's throne, held in place by thorns that pierced through stick-thin limbs, was an emaciated figure that, to his shock, Eldrad recognized. This was Kysaduras the Anchorite, the Farseer who had made the first prophecies of Ynnead's rise based on old scraps of Aeldari myth. His predictions had been used as the foundation for the Second Cabal's god-forging scheme, but Kysaduras himself had vanished centuries ago and no one had been able to find him again. Now at least his fate was revealed, and Eldrad saw his peer's tragic fate unfold in his mind's eye.
During a journey of contemplation, the Anchorite had been captured by the Daemon Lord's cult and brought to Belial IV as an offering. There, he'd been subjected to all manners of abject torments for Shaha Gaathon's sadistic amusement, his body broken and made whole again and again. His mind had been driven to the very brink of madness, yet the discipline of the Farseer endured still. Now, though his eyes had long been gouged out, he could sense the approach of his brethren, and weakly called out to them psychically, begging for aid.
One way or another, Eldrad decided, the torments of the fabled Seer would end today.
"Asurmen," said the incarnated Daemon Lord. "I didn't think you'd ever dare show your face here after you abandoned your burning empire to my master. And what's this ? The great Eldrad Ulthran himself ? You flatter me !"
"Shaha Gaathon," the avatar of the Whispering God replied coldly. "Your crimes are known to me."
The daemon cocked its head to the side, observing him.
"Hmm. Now, what have you done with yourself, little seer ? Your body is on the verge of falling apart ! And that fire …" Its stolen eyes widened in shock briefly, before it smothered the expression under a contemptuous sneer. When it spoke again, the false warmth was gone. "Ah. I see. You're a greater fool than I took you for, Eldrad. Tell me, how much of you is left inside that shell of crystal and withered flesh ? How much of that hollow god has already consumed you ?"
Eldrad forced himself to laugh, loading the sound with all the derision he could muster. It drew every gaze in the room to him : the followers of Slaanesh were ever poor at dealing with mockery.
"Do you think to shake my resolve with such empty words, Shaha Gaathon ? I know the price of this power. I always knew. If sacrificing myself is what it takes to save my people, that is a price I'll gladly pay."
"You'll pay far more than you ever thought possible," snarled Shaha Gaathon, "and in the end it will all be for nothing. Your people do not deserve that hope you think you can give them, Eldrad, and I will extinguish it, here and now !"
"No, Harbinger," interrupted Asurmen. In his hands, the Sword of Asur blazed with power. Since Ynnead's partial awakening, the soul of Tethesis, the Phoenix Lord's brother, had been more awake than ever before. "You shall not ! For too long have you defiled this holy place. Now, in the name of Asuryan, I shall bring you to judgement !"
"Asuryan is dead," mocked the Daemon Prince. "Nothing remains of him but dust and the empty prayers of fools such as you. But rejoice, you relic of a lost age ! Soon, you shall be reunited with him in oblivion !"
"Your kind has made that threat for millennia," answered Asurmen, holding his arms wide in provocation. "And yet, I'm still here !"
"Not for long," promised Shaha Gaathon. "Even now, the great champion of my lord marches to claim his throne. Soon, the light of Slaanesh's glory shall bathe the galaxy, and your entire miserable race shall be extinguished in its radiance !"
"Don't try to pretend you knew about Sanguinius' plot in advance," declared Eldrad, a mocking smile on his lips. "Why would the False Angel share it with one such as you, a mere warden ?"
The Daemon Lord's furious scream shook the very walls and stripped all semblance of humanity from its face.
Before the eyes of its ancient enemies, Shaha Gaathon unleashed the fullness of its power, warping the body it had possessed so that it could express all of its dark majesty. Empowered by millennia of gorging itself on the souls its cult reaped in its name, the Harbinger was a terrible foe, and its might was further increased by the unholy energies of the desecrated Temple-Palace. The body of Janus Darke grew, his clothing transmuting into a purple segmented armor edged in silver and gold while his skin grew pale as chalk and a pair of black horns erupted from his forehead.
Upon seeing their master transform, the two Raven-blooded children screamed, making a sound that no mortal throat should ever make. With a gesture, Eldrad summoned a barrier around his party, shielding them from the unholy noise. As one, the cultists in the room seized their heads, suddenly struck by an awful pain that brought with it no pleasure. Their flesh rippled and mutated, and in the blink of an eye they were all transformed into hideous, hulking brutes of pale flesh and black claws.
Shaha Gaathon strode toward the intruders in its domain, while its transformed minions rushed them, driven by a mad hunger for Eldar flesh. Drawing upon his power, Eldrad rose up in the air, arcs of pale fire erupting from him. Meanwhile, Asurmen moved to face the Daemon Lord, trusting the Aspect Warriors who had accompanied the two Eldar Lords to handle the mutated horrors.
Once more, the inner chamber of the Temple-Palace of Asuryan echoed with the sound of battle between the followers of the old gods and the slaves of the one who had ended them. Asurmen and Shaha Gaathon clashed, and though the Daemon Prince held the advantage in raw power, the Phoenix Lord had known nothing but the most desperate battles of the Eldar race for ten thousand years, while the Harbinger had remained on Belial IV unopposed.
The two Raven-blooded children leapt at the Farseer, and despite their lithe bodies Eldrad knew they would tear him limb from limb if they got their hands on him. Moving with a speed that belied his age, he struck one of them with a sweep of his staff, sending it hurtling back down. The second had almost reached him when the Avatar of Ynnead punched through its throat with a dagger he'd drawn from his belt with his free hand, the blow carefully calculated so that not one drop of its tainted blood touched him – not out of any disgust, though he certainly felt it, but out of genuine fear of what such contact might do to him.
Channelling psychic power through the blade, Eldrad ignited the creature's body, reducing it to ash in a single flash of bright light. Pain lanced through his body at this brutal use of his power, but he knew he couldn't take any risk when facing the ill-begotten creations of the Raven Guard. His caution was soon proved warranted as the remaining Child crashed down on Shaha Gaathon's throne and, sensing its sibling's demise, immediately shed its human guise. A thing made of pale flesh and black fangs (or perhaps claws, it was impossible to tell anymore) rose up toward Eldrad in a tide that made a mockery of biology, moving with impossible speed and howling its rage through a hundred mouths.
Fortunately, the Farseer was still Eldar despite his advanced age, and possessed of the lightning-quick reflexes of his race, honed further by the countless battles he'd taken part in. He drew upon his divine power once more, the agony of it burning even brighter for being suffered again so soon. Death poured out of him in a torrent, and the Child of the Raven's darkling soul was snuffed out like a candle.
Shaha Gaathon's throne detonated in a shower of bone shards and gore under the weight of the swiftly-decaying corpse, seeming to breathe a sigh of relief as its unnatural 'life' ended. Kysaduras' limp body fell, but even as Eldrad reached out to catch him, his flesh turned to dust : the Anchorite had died long ago, and only the cruelty of Shaha Gaathon had kept him from passing away. It was all the Avatar could do to secure his soul, though with all the torments the Anchorite had endured it would be some time before he could question his spirit.
With a pulse of telekinetic power, Eldrad swept aside the throne's morbid detritus, revealing a warded cache hidden underneath. There, surrounded by unholy sigils and shrouded in black fire, was the object of the Warhost's quest : Vilith-zhar, the Sword of Souls, one of the fabled Croneswords of Morai-Heg.
The Croneswords of Morai-Heg
Among the storytellers of the Craftworld Eldars, there are many different tales of the Croneswords of Morai-Heg's origins. According to some, these legendary blades were forged from the fingers of the Aeldari Goddess of Fate after she tricked the God of War Khaine into cutting off her hand so that she could drink her own blood and learn the divine secrets it contained. Others claim that they are the last creations of the Smith God Vaul, crafted following Morai-Heg's instructions during the time of his servitude to the Bloody-Handed One. And in the pleasure pits of Commoragh, it is whispered that each was once a lover of the Hag Goddess who spurned her when her cyclic nature deprived her of her youth, whose betrayal she punished by pouring the secrets of Death into their souls until all traces of their identity was erased, leaving behind only cold instruments of murder.
Meanwhile, Imperial xenologists who have gleaned scattered hints of the War in Heaven sixty million years ago theorize that the Croneswords are remnants of that terrible era, forged by the Old Ones to fight the first Warp horrors spawned by that galaxy-rending conflict. Of course, given the mythical nature of these cataclysmic events, that particular theory might very well be combined with any of the tales told by the Children of Isha.
Regardless of the truth, it is wildly accepted that five of these mighty weapons exist. Each of them holds tremendous power, but only special individuals (according to legend, those marked by Morai-Heg from beyond the grave) can wield them without being destroyed. The tales of the exploits performed by their bearers are many, but always end in tragedy : perhaps as a sign of Morai-Heg's own cold cruelty, or perhaps as a reminder of the perils faced by any Eldar who would fly too close to the sun of their race's past glory.
By the time of the Fall, the Croneswords were long lost, scattered across the galaxy over the aeons-long reign of the Aeldari Empire. Many Eldar adventurers searched for them, as well as champions of Slaanesh wishing to earn their Dark God's favor. Often, these questors found the mysterious Harlequins crossing their path, though whether to help or hinder was never certain. If any ever found one of the fabled weapons, however, they left no trace of their success.
Even as Eldrad and Asurmen led the expedition to Belial IV, others sworn to their cause sought the remaining four Croneswords. They knew that, once the Dark Powers were alerted to their interest in the ancient weapons, they'd move to secure them – and not even the Second Cabal felt up to the task of, say, robbing the Silver Palace of Slaanesh itself, which Eldrad knew was a distinct possibility should She-Who-Thirsts realize the scheme of the Ynnari.
The High Farseer did not know for certain that these other parties would succeed, for he was as blind to what laid past Light's End as any other seer. But he'd made what preparations he could to maximize their odds of success, and trusted in those he had chosen to lead each expedition. Now all that remained was for him to do his best. And yet, though Vilith-zhar was so close, Eldrad couldn't touch it, for the protections surrounding it had been woven by the greatest Sorcerers of Slaanesh, and empowered by the will of the Dark God itself. Disabling them would take time, time the Avatar didn't have.
Then, thanks to the vagaries of time whilst travelling through the Webway or walking upon a daemon world, far away, on burning Terra, Lorgar Aurelian and Ephrael Stern struck Sanguinius down. The Dark Prince itself was wounded by the Sword That Was Promised, in a blow that echoed throughout all of reality. Shaha Gaathon stumbled in sudden pain, its mind unable – or perhaps not allowed – to grasp what was happening, and in doing so missed its chance to deal a killing blow to Asurmen.
The Chaotic runes that kept the Cronesword ever-so-slightly ajar from the rest of existence blinked off and fractured, the delicate balance of their existence shattered by She-Who-Thirsts' scream of outrage and pain.
Though he hadn't foreseen it, Eldrad seized this opening at once, and reached for Vilith-zhar. Mere flesh would've been consumed immediately by the black fire surrounding the Cronesword, but Eldrad's limb was made of living crystal, permeated with the power of a nascent god and proof against such peril. His fingers closed around the sacred weapon's hilt, and with a cry far more martial than any that had left his lips in a great many cycles, he pulled the Cronesword free of its infernal prison.
Despite its confusion, Shaha Gaathon sensed at once that it had failed in its god-appointed task. Knowing that its only chance to avoid Slaanesh's wrath – and sensing that, at the moment, such a thing was to be avoided at all costs, for the Dark Prince's rage presently rivalled that of the Blood God himself – the Harbinger leapt at Eldrad, abandoning all defense to kill the Avatar of Ynnead before it could make use of his new weapon.
It failed.
Eldrad plunged Vilith-zhar through Shaha Gaathon's chest. The Daemon Prince screamed in pain as the ancient weapon burned through its infernal flesh, but it wasn't enough. Eldrad wasn't satisfied, and neither was Ynnead.
He reached through the Cronesword with divine senses, feeling the thousands of tormented Eldar spirits the Daemon Lord had fed upon. Unlike most Neverborn, it hadn't completely devoured them, reducing them to nothing more than a single scream of agony added to the symphony of horrors that made up what passed for its soul. Instead, it had left them with a shred of sentience, just enough to despair at their fate, so that it could better enjoy their pain for all eternity.
It was a mistake Shaha Gaathon wouldn't live to regret. The Sword of Souls sang to the Avatar of Ynnead, telling him what he must do, and he gladly obeyed.
"Harbinger of Ruin," spoke Eldrad Ulthran, his voice echoing with eldritch power. "It is time to return what you stole."
"You -"
Before the Daemon Lord could speak its final words, Eldrad pulled, and tore its essence asunder. Shaha Gaathon screamed in terror and agony, and then was forever unmade. A flash of pale light briefly blinded all within the chamber, regardless of what mortal or immortal senses they possessed, and when it faded the fruits of Eldrad's latest miracle stood there for all to see.
It was tall, as tall as Shaha Gaathon had been. It was beautiful and terrible to behold, a macabre embodiment of the fears that all souls, no matter how enlightened, held toward Death. A vortex of faceless spirits surrounded it, and the temperature in the room dropped, icy crystals forming at its feet. Its body was clad in an armor of ancient design that was not so much black as it was the total absence of light, and its impossible long mane of white hair crowned a face to haunt the dreams of even the bravest souls. It held Vilith-zhar in one hand, a hand that had only five fingers, while in the other it held a construct of psychic fire shaped like the rune of Ynnead.
"Behold," declared the Avatar of Ynnead to the awed Eldar warriors and horrified daemons around him. The crystal part of his body had grown, consuming even more of his flesh, for no miracle came without price. "The Yncarne, avatar of the Whispering God's vengeful fury !"
The towering figure opened its maw and let out a terrible scream, full of all the grief and rage of the Eldar race, of every love that had ended in the separation of death, of every future that had never been because of the machinations of She-Who-Thirsts. The nearest Daemonettes shrieked and turned to ash, their essences snuffed out in a single moment.
With Shaha Gaathon's destruction and the Yncarne's manifestation, the battle of the Temple-Palace ended swiftly. Every blow of the Yncarne obliterated a handful of Slaaneshi daemons, not merely banishing them but unmaking them entirely, and wherever it turned its burning hand, the Dark Prince's minions recoiled in terror from its pale radiance. Realizing that, for the first time since the Fall, they could actually, permanently harm the Doom that had stalked their people for generations, the Aspect Warriors' morale soared.
Within moments, the throneroom was cleared of the last servants of She-Who-Thirsts. For all the skill and bravery of Ulthwé's Aspect Warriors, just over half of their number had fallen, though their souls were safe within Ynnead's embrace. Asurmen himself was wounded, a glancing blow of Shaha Gaathon's blade having cut his leg – but the Phoenix Lord had fought through worse.
With Shaha Gaathon destroyed and the Cronesword reclaimed, the complex web of eldritch energies that sustained the Temple-Palace's impossible architecture began to come undone. With the Yncarne following, the Eldars rushed outside before the entire structure could collapse atop them. At the entrance, they met with the rest of their force, which had managed to hold despite the overwhelming odds, at least partially thanks to their enemies suddenly being struck by the same disturbance that had momentarily crippled Shaha Gaathon.
No sooner had they emerged from the Temple-Palace that, at long last, it fell apart behind them. The defiled echo of the Aeldari Empire's glory crumbled to ruins, and the sight of it combined with the terrible presence of the Yncarne and the still-echoing pained scream of their Dark God put the remaining Slaaneshi daemons to flight.
Asurmen and Eldrad led their remaining warriors back to the Webway Portal that had delivered them to Belial IV, still accompanied by the Yncarne. They had succeeded in their mission on the Daemon World, but they wouldn't return to Ulthwé yet. For all that Slaanesh was the ultimate enemy of the Eldar race, it was only the youngest of the Ruinous Powers, and there could be no hope of a better future for the Children of Isha until all facets of the Primordial Annihilator had been extinguished.
With the False Angel destroyed, Terra was safe for the moment, though Eldrad didn't doubt the human homeworld would've paid a terrible price for such a great victory. Which meant that there presently was only one fulcrum where the fate of the galaxy turned :
Cadia.
His daughter was dying.
It should have been impossible. Melusine's biology was a work of art, and she had survived much greater injuries than the ones inflicted on her by that brute Loken. She should have recovered already, even without all the effort he'd put into healing her.
And yet, she was still dying. The readings returned by the machines of his personal lab aboard the Pulchritudinous were clear, not that he needed them. He knew his daughter's body as well as he knew his own. He had memories of the centuries spent stabilizing her after they'd parted ways with the Raven Guard and the dubious 'gifts' the Nineteenth Legion had left in her genetic code had begun to manifest themselves.
Fabius knew there was more than mere biology at play. Neither Melusine nor Loken were purely physical creatures. After who knew how long in the Eye of Terror, Loken had become the 'Cerberus' creature which had hounded his operations and killed more of his bodies that he cared to count, costing him entire lifetimes of knowledge and experimentation. And Melusine … well, Melusine had never been entirely of the Materium. Long before she had opened her eyes and taken her first breath, his daughter had been far more than just human, even if he'd disagreed with her other parents as to what her ultimate fate should be.
"Father." The voice of the Eldest echoed in the laboratory, as devoid of emotion as ever. Fabius hadn't heard him enter, but then he wouldn't have.
"What is it ?" he asked, his tone short.
"Your Consortium are growing uneasy with your absence. The Black Crusade is floundering. Nephalor attempted some ill-advised scheme that failed miserably, and Sigismund has summoned Dorn and joined the ranks of the Neverborn."
"I care not. I knew Sigismund's plans, and I'm not surprised Nephalor keeps failing. As long as the data keeps being collected, all is well. I won't leave your sister."
"Is Melusine more important than all the assets you've put in this operation, father ?"
Fabius laughed bitterly at the question. He knew that the wrong answer would lead to his creation following the instructions he'd embedded in its mind so long ago and killing him for the sin of letting emotions contaminate his work. Sometimes he wished he'd given himself more leeway, but then he remembered how easily the trans-dimensional intelligences that fools called 'Gods' could subvert even the brightest of minds.
"She is unique," he replied. "Even now, I cannot replicate what went into her creation. Every single one of the New Marines on Cadia, every single demented cultist and renegade can be replaced if necessary, but she cannot be. I won't let her be taken from me like this !"
"You know why she's dying." Still, the Eldest's voice was calm and cold as the void between stars. Usually Fabius found it comforting – but not today.
"Of course I do !" he snarled. "It is their doing. The so-called Gods our allies so fervently worship. They have taken advantage of the wound this 'Cerberus' inflicted on her."
"They're holding her hostage."
"Yes ! And all I need to do if I want her to live is to ask. That is all. I can recognize the pattern, son. If I only pray," he spat the word like the curse it was, "for her salvation, it shall be delivered – and I shall be doomed."
"I cannot let you do that, father. And you don't have any other bodies in the fleet."
"Not after all of the remaining ones were destroyed by those Imperial dogs," Fabius growled.
Someone in the Imperium, probably a member of that annoyingly competent Temple Vanus, had finally caught onto his current nature as a network of clones. Over a dozen Assassins had been deployed in the system, and they had coordinated with the Night Lords' boarding action to sabotage all of the bodies he'd hidden through the Black Legion fleet as back-ups if the active ones were incapacitated.
Some had been subtle, altering the contents of the life-sustaining pods discreetly enough that he might've mistaken it for human error, but others had been … less so. The cruiser Teeth of Agartha had been reduced to a cloud of debris after the Eversor beast inside had reached its plasma reactor and activated its suicide bomb. A crew of twenty thousand, lost in a single second, along with his last back-up bodies in the entire star system.
Fabius wasn't afraid of death. Losing this body's memories would be a setback, especially since it was the only one with first-hand knowledge of the field testings taking place on Cadia's surface, but one that his greater self would recover from in time. His assistants were already monitoring the New Marines, and they knew to record everything for him to review later without him needing to tell them to. Some of them had worked with him for thousands of years by that point, after all.
No, what worried him more was the possibility that the Eldest might fail when he went after him. Fabius knew that the revenant Primarch was far stronger than he was : it was why he had raised him despite the considerable costs and dangers, after all. But with the Emperor dead and the Black Legion ascendant, it was possible the Dark Gods would seize the opening to completely transform this version of himself into their puppet, imbuing him with enough power to resist even his strongest creation.
He did not think it arrogant to believe that investment would be worth it to them, given the amount of military power and influence currently at his fingertips. And he knew that the Eldest could make the same connections – truth be told, he was surprised he hadn't already killed him, just in case. Hopefully he wasn't getting sentimental : Fabius had hoped a lack of a soul would prevent such nonsense.
"What will you do, father ?"
He looked at his daughter. She looked so frail at this moment. She had always been so strong, even if he had always worried that something would happen to her despite that strength. Now she was dying …
… but she hadn't died yet. Her vitals were fading away, but it was a slow process. If the plan was to force his hand, then why ? There were wards in place in the lab to keep the Warp from interfering with his work, but the observation chamber where the fight had happened hadn't had them. Melusine's affliction could've been far quicker.
Understanding dawned within the Clonelord's mind.
"They don't want her dead either," he whispered. "They see as much potential in her as I, even if they'd twist her in their vile image and ruin what she could become."
A slow smile crept on his face.
"Father ?" Sensing that a decision had been made, the Eldest stalked closer, ready to perform his primary function if needed. Fabius chuckled.
"Do not worry, my son. I have found a way out of our predicament. Kindly tell Skalagrim that he's in charge of the Consortium until my return. As for you, I've told you my plans for Cadia itself : make sure the proper conditions for further field testing are maintained."
Fabius drew the plain, unadorned bolt pistol at his belt. It was a common weapon, no different from the thousands that had been distributed to his creations even now fighting and dying on Cadia so that he might learn from them and forge the next generation of Humanity's protectors even better.
"And tell your sister not to blame herself for this. After all, what parent isn't willing to die for his children ?"
He placed the gun's muzzle against his skull, and pulled the trigger.
On Cadia, things had tentatively improved for the Imperium after Cain's victory at the Elyseon Fields. Kasr Kraf had become the new headquarters of Imperial resistance on the planet, and with Bile's continued silence, the Black Legion was without clear leadership, letting the New Marines rampage alongside Black Legion cultists and the Khornate forces that had followed the Destroyer.
Meanwhile, Grand Master Nephalor of the Dark Angels was torn between fury at the ruination of his plot to drag the system in the Eye of Terror and the loss of the Lord of Wraiths, and terror at the thought that the same man at the center of all his latest failures was now endowed with a portion of the False Emperor's own power. Again and again, Ciaphas Cain had foiled him, and was now more powerful than ever before. Even in death, the False Emperor continued to defy the God of Change.
With his oracles still blinded by Light's End, the Lord of Stars was paralysed by indecision. Part of him wanted nothing more than to take to the field in person and strike down the Living Saint himself, but the idea of bringing the Firetide-born spirit bound within his blade close to Cain struck him as an incredibly bad idea. And so, another of the three leaders of the Black Crusade dithered aboard the Invincible Reason, unsure of the path his Dark God wanted him to take.
There still remained one of the dread triumvirate of Chaos Lords who had brought ruin to Cadia, however. As Dorn recovered from his confrontation with the Grey Knights, the Daemon Prince Sigismund had marched across the fortress-world toward those who had escaped his liege's wrath. His mind aflame with his new daemonic power, the Destroyer didn't go directly to Kasr Kraf, taking instead a circuitous route that led him to the remaining Imperial strongholds. Faced with the might of the Daemon Prince of Khorne added to the Black Legion hosts besieging them, the Castellums fell one by one, with those who managed to escape the slaughter rallying to Kasr Kraf under Cain's banner.
The Living Saint ordered and led sorties to rescue those who could be saved, filling the shelters of the last free Castellum with millions more refugees. His power purified those who'd been unwittingly infected with Khornate madness, driving out the corruption that would've seen them turn on their own people in time, as had happened on Kasr Partox.
Days passed, which turned into weeks, and still Cadia stood, wounded but defiant. Dorn's presence on the planet made vox-communication and astropathic transmissions even more dangerous than they'd been before, but the new Imperial High Command knew that the Vengeful Spirit still lived, her presence preventing the Invincible Reason and the rest of the Dark Angels fleet from razing the Castellum through orbital bombardment. Meanwhile, the sorcerous shroud cast around Cadia by the First Legion's Sorcerers was weakening, both due to the psychic backlash of Light's End and the repeated defeats inflicted on the sons of Lion El'Jonson.
With the possibility of reinforcements on the horizon and the constant efforts of the Commissar-Castellan, morale within Kasr Kraf was as high as one could expect given the dire circumstances. The forces of Chaos laying siege to the Castellum suffered heavy casualties as they attempted to break through defenses designed by Iron Warriors architects and manned by a great coalition of Imperial forces. Space Marines, Guardsmen, Sisters of Battle and Mechanicus Skitarii fought side-by-side, with Cain spending as much time on the walls as he did in conference rooms keeping the vast egos of these factions' respective leaders from turning against one another. Fortunately, a century of service in the Commissariat had given him plenty of experience in that domain, and his dual authority as Commissar-Castellan and Living Saint gave his word plenty of extra weight.
Then Sigismund arrived at last, followed by a vast horde of the Lost and the Damned. The Destroyer blazed with Khorne's favor, and the skies above Kasr Kraf filled with storm clouds as the psychic auras of the two armies' leaders clashed in the Immaterium.
I stood on the Martyr's Rampart, looking south as our doom approached. At last, Sigismund was here.
I wanted to give the order to fire; to focus every gun on the walls on him, along with every artillery piece for which we still had ammunition left, and blast him until nothing remained. But I knew better. That had already been tried on Kasr Partox, and the Destroyer had still been mortal then. Even the great, beautiful guns of the Iron Warriors wouldn't kill him now. I could see (though sight only bore the slightest resemblance to the senses I used) the shroud of power that surrounded Sigismund, the literal divine will of Khorne made manifest, ready to warp reality to fit the Blood God's designs.
Of course, explaining that to my subordinates (it still felt weird to think of them like that, which I found reassuring) was another matter. Since my resurrection, I'd found myself sympathizing with Rakel, to my horror. The people around me were so blind, so limited. They didn't understand things that now seemed as obvious to me as the act of breathing.
Still, better than to have all these new perceptions and not know how to use them. According to Mott, I'd essentially skipped the painful and intense training all Imperial psykers went through in order to make sense of their powers by virtue of having a shard of the God-Emperor's own soul jabbed inside my own.
(I had later asked Amberley whether the old savant had been serious, and both she and Alpharius had confirmed that this was indeed the prevalent theory as to where Living Saints came from.)
He sees us, whispered the shade of Ibram Gaunt. The Lord of Wraiths was at my side : I had dragged him out of the Manifest Fury to join me. The Ordinatus was waiting behind the walls, and I felt my undead colleague would be more useful with me.
"I know," I told him. I could feel Sigismund's gaze, despite the abyss of smoke and dust-choked air separating us.
I was afraid still, but knew I couldn't show it. Not when so many were watching me, their Hero, their Commissar-Castellan, their Living Saint, bravely stand in the face of the Chaos hordes, undaunted. I had to look the part, to make it seems as if everything would be alright.
In a way, my entire life had prepared me for this. A shame sainthood hadn't given me the Emperor's foresight, though given our most likely future that was perhaps fortunate.
"Come, then," I whispered, just loud enough to be overheard by the nearest troopers, knowing the words would go around the entire Kasr before the hour was over. "Do your worst."
Despite months of bombardment by Chaos warmachines, the void-shields surrounding Kasr Kraf still held. Millions of Guardsmen stood ready within its walls, as did scores of Space Marines from every loyal Legion save the Third, thousands of Battle Sisters and Skitarii troopers. Yet they were still massively outnumbered by the cultist hordes of the Black Legion, which now seemed to spread from horizon to horizon all around the Castellum. As citadel after citadel fell, almost the entire might of Chaos on Cadia had converged on this, the last bastion of Imperial defiance.
Of course, Cain knew that there were still outposts of resistance left beyond Kasr Kraf's walls. Isolated Imperial forces still fought back against the invaders, waging a guerilla war that, on any other battlefield, would have earned them the greatest of honors. The Living Saint could sense these small sparks of light in a sea of darkness, and it gave him heart, though he knew they could ultimately do little to affect the course of the confrontation to come.
Within moments of his arrival, Sigismund took control of the disparate forces besieging the Castellum. Despite Bile's silence, the alliance that had forged the Black Crusade remained in place, and whether because of this or due to the simple fact that the Destroyer could kill anyone who challenged him, all but the most deranged of the Black Legion's forces soon followed his lead. Hierophants of Skulls spread among the hordes, preaching the dark word of Khorne and infusing all who heard their unholy prayers with savage bloodlust. This time, there would be no retreat, no breaking. This time, the forces of Ruin would hurl themselves at the walls of Kasr Kraf until they crumbled or all of them were dead.
Sigismund rose Storm's Teeth to the heavens, black clouds erupting with scarlet lightning as the Blood God roared his approval, and the battle began again.
All around the Castellum, thousands of artillery pieces spat out death at the approaching horde, thousands of slaves to Darkness perishing with every moment. But still the Lost and the Damned came. After the first few waves were slaughtered, a few Bile-born Astartes with unique abilities spearheaded the assault, using their genetically aberrant gifts to kill hundreds of Guardsmen from afar. As soon as they revealed themselves, they were immediately targeted and taken down, but they were still able to give an opening for those who came after them.
Kytan Engines thundered forward, heedless of the dozens of Black Legion cultists they crushed underfoot with each step. Breaches began to appear, and the hordes of Chaos poured through despite the relentless pounding of artillery, only to be met by Astartes reserve forces. For days, the onslaught continued unabated, slowly grinding the defenders down. Entire districts were abandoned and reclaimed, turned into killing zones where retreating Imperial forces bled the invaders for every meter of Cadian ground they took.
Nowhere was the battle most heatedly contested that to the south of Kasr Kraf. There, on the Martyr's Rampart, stood the Living Saint himself – and there, too, had come the Destroyer. Cain and Sigismund both knew that a confrontation between them was inevitable, but the Destroyer spent the first seven days of the battle watching from afar as his infernal will drove the forces of the Black Legion and the cultists of Khorne onward, straight into the embrace of Death. Under Cain's leadership, the defenders didn't break : any retreat was orderly and calculated, every shot carefully aimed, every blow given with righteous anger in one's heart. Though fear weighed heavy on their souls, they refused to give into it, refused to shame the Commissar-Castellan who fought alongside them, at the forefront of every engagement.
Then came the eighth day, though it had been a long time since the sun had pierced through the clouds of smoke and dust. At last, Sigismund advanced. Unlike the Bloodthirsters of Khorne, or his own daemonic Primarch, the Destroyer didn't have wings, but he didn't need them. He climbed up Martyr's Rampart, his claws tearing through the rockrete as if it were wet earth, heedless of all the suddenly panicked fire directed at him – until Cain managed to restore order despite the dark aura of terror emanating from the Destroyer and ordered a withdrawal from this section of the walls. Seeing the fire raining down had stopped, the Black Legion forces followed the Daemon Prince, using ladders or clinging to the side of mutants with bodies suited for the climb.
By the time Sigismund reached the top of the wall, the Living Saint stood ready to face him, accompanied by a handful of companions whose willpower he trusted to resist the Daemon Prince's presence, and whose skill he hoped would be enough to make a difference.
Inquisitor Amberley Vail, clad in a golden suit of power armor, who had known Cain for decades, perhaps better than he knew himself. Ibram Gaunt, the Lord of Wraiths, a specter animated by Vindicta, the new Power of Retribution and shrouded by the ghosts of the lost world of Tanith. Lieutenant Manawa Veltram of the World Eaters 59th Assault Company, holding a great chainaxe in both hands, his helmet lost on the fifth day of the fight to reveal a face that, despite its brutishness, had made countless soldiers and civilians feel safe in the months since Light's End. And the Alpha Legionary who was called Alpharius, standing at Cain's side where once First-Class Gunner Ferik Jurgen had stood.
Under burning skies, these five heroes stood together against the Destroyer of Khorne and his host of blood-crazed minions. Along with them were fifty Space Marines from several Legions – only transhuman warriors could be relied on not to succumb to Sigismund's presence up-close.
There was a brief pause as the two sides glared at each other across the width of the Martyr's Rampart. Then Sigismund stepped forward, and all hell broke loose. Bolter fire tore apart the first lines of heretics, but those behind them kept coming, unafraid, and soon the battlefield degenerated into a bloody melee. Within a few heartbeats, Cain clashed with the Destroyer, drawing upon his new power to match the Daemon Prince's monstrous strength. The Lord of Wraiths was at his side, his ethereal nature allowing him to withstand the terrible energies unleashed by the confrontation even as they forced the more physical allies of the Living Saint back.
Hundreds of vengeful ghosts reached out, clawing at the Destroyer's daemonic form, slowing him just enough for Cain to be able to match him. Yet even so, with every exchange of blows, the Living Saint was forced to give ground. Sigismund's inhuman determination and strength of will, which had seen him orchestrate the Breaking of his own Legion and spend ten thousand years collecting skulls for the Blood God in order to free his Primarch from the Arch-Traitor's manipulations, acted as a ward against Gaunt's specters.
Finally, just as Gaunt tried to strike at Sigismund himself, the Destroyer backhanded him with his free hand, infernal matter smashing the Lord of Wraith's incorporeal body aside. Cain tried to take advantage of the distraction, but Sigismund moved too fast, and it was all the Living Saint could do to avoid being cut in two. His last-second parry resulted in him being thrown to the ground, his still-human body breaking alongside the Rampart's reinforced rockrete.
Sigismund towered above Cain, whose allies were kept at bay by the rest of the Chaos forces contesting the wall. But before the Destroyer could strike the Commissar-Castellan, the air between them rippled and cracked apart, and two figures emerged from a hole in reality, one human-sized, the other matching Sigismund in height if not quite in bulk. Eldrad Ulthran and the Yncarne had come, jumping through space using Eldrad's psychic powers from the Webway Portal on Klaisus, the ice moon of Kasr Holn.
Opening a way through the disturbances Sigismund and Cain's fight had created in the Warp had nearly drained Eldrad, but the Yncarne was more than ready to fight. Vilith-zhar's edge met Storm's Teeth's in a shockwave of power, saving Cain's life. The Yncarne was mighty and the Destroyer taken by surprise by what, to him, looked like the Greater Daemon of a Power he couldn't identify – though mortal eyes might have been deceived into thinking the Yncarne a spawn of Slaanesh, a Daemon Prince of Khorne could tell the difference at once. Yet Ynnead was a young god, and the Yncarne was younger still. Rare as that might be, this time the Eldar combatant didn't have the advantage of experience.
Again and again the two divine champions clashed, but in the end, Sigismund prevailed. Storm's Teeth tore through the Yncarne's armor and plunged through its chest, and the skies rumbled with Khorne's mocking laughter as the avatar of the upstart god was slain.
The Yncarne's form dissipated into smoke, taking Vilith-zhar along with it. But Eldrad did not despair at the disappearance of the Cronesword : the two entities' essences had been irrevocably tied when he'd used the weapon to create the other Avatar of Ynnead. He could still feel the Yncarne's presence in the God of the Dead's song, slowly regaining strength. In a manner not altogether unlike that of the Daemons of Chaos, the Yncarne would soon be able to manifest once more in the material plane – though the period of banishment would be much shorter, thanks to the fundamental differences between Ynnead and the Ruinous Powers.
Now all that remained to be seen was if the Yncarne's sacrifice had bought enough time.
It hurt.
Throne of Terra, it hurt so much. My red sash was drenched in my own blood, as was most of my uniform. Each inhalation of breath felt like knives were tearing my lungs apart.
Sigismund was strong, so strong. Stronger than I had thought possible. Even that … that thing that had shown up out of nowhere hadn't been able to win.
How could I win ? It was hopeless. Sigismund was going to kill me, and then …
And then …
I thought of those who still fought across the Martyr's Rampart. I thought of all the soldiers who stood behind me, and the civilians who stood behind them. I thought of Amberley, of Kasteen, of all those Sigismund would kill once he was done with me.
I thought of all those he had already killed, of all the heroes who had fallen to his blade. Of all the worlds that had burned in the Seventh Legion's insane Blood Crusades.
I thought of my friend, who had died in my arms with a smile on his lips.
"No more," I whispered, and stood up. Golden light surged from within me, and I felt my wounds close, though the pain of them remained.
One way or another, Sigismund's bloody crusade would end here.
The Destroyer stalked closer, his proximity brushing against my senses like the sickly heat of a plasma weapon on the verge of detonating from overuse.
"You still stand ? Good. One such as you should die on their feet." I could hear the smile in his voice, past all the fire and screams. He had enjoyed the fight against the Eldar creature, and was looking forward to more. "But before I present your skull to Khorne, I shall teach you the true meaning of war, old soldier."
His words were nothing more than a taunt, no different from the hundreds I'd heard before. And yet, something in them made me pause. Deep within, past all the masks I used to hide my true self from those who relied on me, past the terrible fear I was barely holding back, I felt the faint stirrings of Wrath.
"War ?" I spoke softly. "What would you know of war, Destroyer ?"
The Daemon Prince's face was hardly suited to show confusion, but I knew he felt it all the same.
"I am -"
"Shut up," I hissed, and wonder of wonders, he did. "You don't know fear. You don't know pain. You don't know anguish or grief. You don't know the horror of watching your comrades die one by one, knowing you could be next and there's nothing you can do about it."
I saw it clearly then, with painful clarity. Sigismund had been a Space Marine, but he had turned his back on everything that made the Astartes even remotely human. Long before becoming a Daemon Prince, he had remade himself into a monster, throwing away his soul on the Eightfold Path, uncaring for all who fell on his way to glory, whether they be foes or allies. In his eyes, they had all been stripped of their own humanity and reduced to offerings to Khorne.
How long had it been, I wondered, since the Destroyer had seen someone else as a person, rather than a potential victim or instrument to spill more blood in the name of his Dark God ?
"You. Don't. Know. War," I said slowly, deliberately. "You are a demented child given power by a psychic abomination so that it can feed off your evil."
"I am the Destroyer of Khorne !" He roared, shaking the rampart under my feet with the force of his voice. "I am the will of the Blood God made manifest ! I am the hand of the God of War !"
"No," I refuted, feeling a strange calm wash over me. "You are nothing. Nothing but the lie that War can be wondrous instead of horrible. Nothing but the stories invented by those desperately seeking meaning in bloodshed wrought around a core of blood-crazed hate."
Because that's what Khorne was, when you really got to it. The Blood God might tempt his slaves with promises of strength, with claims that he represented the law of the jungle that meant that the strong prevailed and the weak were crushed. He could hide behind a facade of honorable combat, behind a sham rejection of sorcery and deceit as unworthy means.
But the truth was evident in that old saying, known to every follower of Khorne. He cared not whence the blood flowed, so long as it did. He was nothing but a monstrous shadow in the Warp, hungering for blood, skulls and souls. Guilty or innocent, strong or weak, brave or cowardly, it didn't matter, even if his followers deluded themselves into thinking it did.
So yes, Khorne was the true face of War, ugly and hateful. I knew this, I recognized it, and I hated it, like only someone who had seen a hundred years of conflict, who had buried far too many people who'd deserved to live more than I, could.
There could be no peace among the stars, so long as the Blood God sat upon his Throne of Skulls.
I raised my chainsword, Jurgen's melta-gun lost when I'd fallen, and pointed it at the Destroyer's face.
"You are the lie of glory," I declared. "And in the name of all those you have slain, I deny you."
I saw his sword come down, tearing the air with the sound of screaming souls. There was enough strength behind that blow to rip apart tanks as if they were made of paper. The shard of the Emperor's power inside me made me strong, but I'd learned first-hand that it wasn't nearly enough to make me the Destroyer's match.
But then, how different was this than any of the hundreds of desperate duels I had fought in my long and inglorious career ? I had always been one hair's breadth from death.
I did not think. There simply wasn't time. I merely moved, and the blow missed. Storm's Teeth smashed in the ground where I'd stood a mere heartbeat before. Pieces of rockrete flew in the air, and suddenly time seemed to freeze.
From where he had landed, I saw the ghost of Ibram Gaunt raise his hand and point it at Sigismund's chest. Briefly, so briefly I might have imagined it, I glimpsed a pale light on his flank, illuminating the tiniest of cracks in the infernal armor of the Destroyer.
A wound from his mortal life, carried on into eternity thanks to a heroine's dying curse. The promise of judgement upon one who had escaped retribution for far too long.
A weak spot in an otherwise invincible enemy.
I struck, burying my chainsword through that crack and into the Destroyer's flesh, all the way to the hilt, angling my strike so that the blade would reach where his hearts would be if he were still mortal. I poured all of my strength into the blow, ravaging the Daemon Prince's innards with reeving adamantium teeth and golden psychic power.
Storm's Teeth slipped from Sigismund's grasp, hitting the ground at the same time as the flying pieces of rockrete it had torn from it. The Destroyer fell slowly, too slowly – not like a man would have, but like a monument crumbling. I ripped my weapon free, using the momentum of his own fall to help me.
I heard the cries of the other Chaotic scum, but I ignored them, keeping my eyes on the Destroyer. He looked up at me from the ground, and I saw incomprehension in his burning gaze. He couldn't understand how I had done this, couldn't understand how it was even possible. For the first time in aeons – perhaps for the first time ever, if what I suspected of his human life was correct – Sigismund the Destroyer knew fear.
I felt no triumph at the sight, only an exhausted sense of relief.
"How ? HOW ?!" he asked. Blood poured out from his wound, and a part of me absently noted that the crimson tide parted at my ankles, refusing to touch me. "What are you ?!"
How many times had I asked myself that very question in the last months ? I hadn't been able to figure out a definitive answer, but here and now, I knew the truth.
"Retribution," I answered. Then, another insight struck me. "I can kill you," I told him. "Once and for all."
"I am eternal," he growled. "Khorne has granted me immortality ! Even Dorn himself couldn't kill me. What makes you think -"
He suddenly stopped ranting, eyes widening as his infernal senses somehow told him I was speaking the truth.
Because it was the truth. I could destroy him, truly destroy him. Sunder his newly-immortal essence and make a lie of Khorne's promise of eternity. I could annihilate the shard of power the Blood God had invested in the lord of the Black Templars, forever diminishing the might of the Lord of Skulls. I saw how to do it, how to unravel the tangle of his existence and burn every individual string until nothing remained for Khorne to pull back together.
I could make him pay for all he'd done -
A hand fell on my arm.
"Hold, Commissar Cain," said the Eldar who had arrived alongside the pale horned monster. "If you do this, the effort required will destroy you. And while you may consider it a worthwhile trade, your people still need you."
It said something, I thought, that the most surreal part of this entire experience was that an Eldar was speaking plainly. I sighed.
"You are right," I admitted, before turning my gaze back to the Daemon Prince laying down beneath me. "Congratulations, Destroyer. You'll escape oblivion this day. But when you grovel at the feet of your master's throne, give him this message from me."
Briefly, I flared my aura. A halo of golden fire surrounded me, and when I spoke, my words echoed as if spoken with a hundred voices :
"ONE DAY, I WILL COME FOR HIM."
Then I got to work. Sigismund screamed as I tore his chest to pieces with my chainsword. I didn't cut off his head, refusing him that sort of 'honorable' defeat. Instead, I butchered him, my weapon burning away at his daemonic flesh until he could no longer hold a corporeal form and his spirit was dragged to the Realms of Chaos.
… Alright, perhaps I did have some Wrath left in me after all.
As the last wisps of Sigismund's essence faded away and the battle atop the Martyr's Rampart ended, Amberley and Alpharius approached me. Her armor was covered in blood, but I could tell from a glance that none if it was her own. Reassured, I turned to face the Eldar who had stopped me from destroying myself to annihilate Sigismund's essence. He was clad in ornate robes and carried a staff that vibrated with contained energies, but it wasn't his gear that caught my attention.
Half his body was made of living crystal, and I could feel the power inside him. It reminded me of Gaunt's, but a lot stronger, and different in ways I couldn't quite put into words, but if I had to try, I would've said it was because Gaunt (and the Power that I had helped remake him and his ghostly cohorts) were of human origins, while this was … not.
"Greetings," he told me in perfect Gothic, though with an accent even a veteran wanderer like myself couldn't place, "Commissar Cain, Inquisitor Veil, and … who are you ?"
"I am Alpharius," said the Space Marine in a perfectly deadpan voice.
"I'm sure you are." He sounded amused, though you could never be sure with Eldars. "I wasn't sure one of your Legion would be here – well, I wasn't sure you'd have survived – but your presence should help clarify matters." He gave a slight bow. "I am Eldrad Ulthran, High Farseer of Craftworld Ulthwé."
"You are a lot more than that," I said. He nodded.
"Indeed I am, but that is a conversation for later. Lord Alpharius," and again, there was amusement in his tone, "can you please confirm for your associates that I'm a member of the Twentieth Legion's Second Cabal, an ally to Humanity and your Primarch ?"
The second what now ?
"That is correct," answered the Space Marine. His armor was badly damaged, but he still walked to my side as if the devastation all around us simply wasn't there. "However, I wasn't informed that you'd be here, Lord Farseer."
"I'm afraid my presence here is the result of being forced to improvise after our last joint venture. The sacrifice of your Emperor has changed many things."
"Sacrifice ? Do you know what happened on Holy Terra, Farseer ?" asked Amberley.
He nodded. "Not with any level of detail, I'm afraid. But I do know that the Emperor chose to embrace death rather than transcend the last limitations of flesh. Magnus the Red now sits the Golden Throne, and while Sol came under attack by the forces of She-Who-Thirsts led by one of the Crimson King's fallen brothers, that attack was repealed, and the False Angel slain – as permanently as you were about to slay the scion of the Blood God."
Sanguinius – I'd learned the names of the Traitor Primarchs decades ago, and it was easy to infer which one Eldrad was referring to – had attacked Terra. Sanguinius had died attacking Terra. If not for the fact I'd been moments from permanently killing Sigismund myself, I wouldn't have thought it possible, but if one such as I could destroy a Daemon Prince of the Destroyer's calibre at the cost of my life, then surely the loyal sons of the Emperor could do the same to their fallen kin.
Well, assuming Eldrad was telling the truth, but I didn't think he was lying – which was another surprising experience when dealing with an Eldar.
"Did you come here just to help us defeat Sigismund without me destroying myself ?" I asked, ignoring Amberley's jerk in my direction at my words. We'd have words about that later, I knew, and that conversation wouldn't be pleasant.
"That was one of my goals, but far from the only one. You need to evacuate Cadia."
I blinked. "Why ? With Sigismund gone and the void situation in a stalemate, we can hold against the Black Legion for years. If reinforcements arrive, we can stop this Black Crusade right there."
"Unfortunately, the situation has changed, or is about to change. There have been … developments in the Eye of Terror."
Eldrad Ulthran, I would soon learn, was the greatest master of understatement I had ever met.
With Sigismund's defeat, the power of Khorne on the battlefield had been broken, and with it the will to fight of the Chaotic hordes. Though the defenders of Kasr Kraf had paid a heavy toll, they had enacted one several orders of magnitude greater on their foe, especially during their panicked rout. The Imperial forces were still forced to abandon the first and second walls, which had been too damaged to be viable, but that still left them half a dozen fall-back positions before the final citadel.
Safely secured within that citadel, Eldrad Ulthran explained to the Imperial commanders how he had arrived to Cadia. He left the details of his expedition to Belial IV out of his tale, instead explaining how he and his cohorts had emerged on Klaisus, where his Warhost had joined up with fresh Ulthwé forces. Reports were coming in from the Word Bearers' Illuminating Dawn Chapter stationed on Kasr Holn of the xenos who had suddenly come to their aid on several fronts, led by a champion of great power, who Eldrad identified as Asurmen – a name that caused Inquisitor Vail to take in a sharp breath.
The Craftworld's fleet was also present in the system, having arrived through the Webway and now revealing itself on Eldrad's signal. Shrouded by Eldar technology, Ulthwé's ships struck at the Black Crusade's ships seemingly from all directions at once, forcing them to scatter and reassemble elsewhere, which gave the Imperial ships time to regroup.
Then a transmission reached Kasr Kraf, and the last piece of good news any of the allies would hear in some time arrived. Through a combination of great skill and greater luck, the Mournival Lord Urkanthos had survived the destruction of the Eternal Crusader, his void-sealed armor protecting him long enough for the Sixteenth Legion gunships scouring the orbit of Kasr Partox to find him. Having left the Apothecarion – though 'escaped' might be a more appropriate word – he had returned to the bridge of his flagship, and was now sharing what the Vengeful Spirit's sensors had detected.
New Warp signatures had appeared at the edge of the system, where the Black Crusade fleet had emerged what seemed like an eternity ago. The hololithic table at the center of the command room flickered, showing the data beamed from the Gloriana-class battleship. Slowly, the grainy feed resolved itself, and an image that was painfully familiar to the humans in the room formed : that of another Redoubt, identical to the three gigantic transports which had vomited their cargo of Bile-born Astartes upon Cadia.
Then another emerged behind it, and another. And another. And another …
By the time the last Redoubt was identified on the Vengeful Spirit's long-range auspex arrays as the Omega Redoubt, twenty-one of the massive spaceships had arrived at Cadia, accompanied by swarms of escort vessels. They were moving at full speed away from the system's edge, which to Cain's eye looked not so much like they were eager to join the fray and more like they were running from something. Given his luck, it wouldn't surprise him to learn that such was indeed the case, even if he couldn't quite imagine what might give such a force cause to flee.
Three Redoubts had been enough to bring Cadia to its knees. The contents of twenty-one more could conquer entire Sectors. Fabius Bile had amassed the numbers of a true Space Marine Legion, matching the raw strength of the most numerous Legions back in the Great Crusade. His Bile-born Marines might not be the equal of a true Space Marine in discipline and skill, but their strange abilities made them a terrible threat. The Black Legion's name, once treated as an insult by both Imperials and heretics alike, now sounded like a terrible promise that had at long last been fulfilled.
The Imperial commanders were forced to admit that Eldrad was right : against such numbers, holding Cadia was impossible. The best course of action was to evacuate, to save as much manpower and civilians as possible and retreat to the next worlds of the Aegis Occularis, a network of systems reinforced by the Iron Warriors over the millennia. With typical Fourth Legion's paranoia, the sons of Perturabo had planned for the possibility that Cadia may one day fall, and made preparations for a collapsing defense on a galactic scale. The Black Legion and its allies would have free reign within the Cadian system, but they would still need to pay in blood in order to expand their territory, and should enough Imperial reinforcements be mustered in time, stopping them in their tracks might be possible.
It was a long shot, considering the state of confusion the Imperium was bound to be in following the Emperor's death, but it was also the only chance the Imperial forces in the system had to survive to fight another day. And so, with a heavy heart, Ciaphas Cain gave the order to begin the evacuation of the remaining Imperial strongholds in the system.
As he made this decree, Cain's thoughts were too busy with the logistical nightmare he'd sentenced himself to to notice the look of relief on Eldrad Ulthran's face, or the suspicious one Amberley Vail directed at the alien warlock. The Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos silently swore to herself that she'd do all in her power to protect her long-time lover from the manipulations of the xenos.
Fabius Bile awoke, which he hadn't expected.
The sudden change was jarring. One moment he'd been aboard the Pulchritudinous, the feeling of a bolt round penetrating his skull beginning to register – there were disadvantages to the speed of transhuman senses which only an immortal could learn – and now he was laying on his back, in … Where was he ?
He stood up, and looked down at himself. He was clad in black power armor, and held a chainsword in one hand and a bolt pistol in the other. There were corpses all around him, Guardsmen and renegades alike, and the burning ruins of what he recognized as the Fourth Legion's defensive architecture. The sky was choked in smoke illuminated red by the inferno, and he could hear the sound of battle in the distance.
From this, and a few other scattered clues – the markings on the Guardsmen's uniforms, the street nameplate still barely visible under a bloodstain, the chemical composition of the air once the smoke of the battle was filtered out – it was simplicity itself to put his location together. He was on Cadia, within the ruins of Kasr Jark. He felt his face with his hand, feeling the differences in the bone structure compared to what he was used to. Not a clone, then. He reached behind his neck, and … there. A reinforced shell of bone and adamantium, which he knew was meant to protect the delicate engine made of stolen Eldar crystal and Dark Tech plunging into the New Marine's spinal column underneath.
He checked the timestamp on the armor's systems – basic as the equipment of his creations was, there were some corners he just had refused to cut. Weeks had passed since he'd shot himself aboard the Pulchritudinous : he was lucky no one had stumbled on this body as the upload of his consciousness finalized.
But then again, luck had played a major part in this. The mind-transference across the void and into the prepared body of a New Marine must have been one of his back-up plans, put into place by a version of himself that had died before sharing the memory of its existence with the rest of him. Perhaps it even had been Cerberus who had killed that clone : the irony certainly would be delectable.
After all, if he'd known the existence of that fall-back plan, then his plan to sacrifice himself to force the Dark Gods' hand couldn't possibly have worked. It was only because he'd thought his death would be as final as it was possible for one such as he that he'd been willing to make that sacrifice.
Fabius Bile couldn't stop himself. He laughed, a deep, full-throated sound so unlike the wheezing that was all his cloned bodies could produce for most of their lifespan. The Blight would come for this body in time, he knew : he'd already tried to escape it by transplanting his consciousness into genetically unrelated flesh before. At some point, the affliction that had nearly wiped out his Legion and which he'd only survived by using means that would've seen him executed long before Guilliman's rebellion had evolved into a curse of the spirit, which followed him no matter what.
He suspected the Dark Gods were responsible for that, as a means to limit his activities and tempt him into slavery by promising a cure. But he'd never, and would never, bend the knee to them, and now he openly laughed at them :
"I WIN !"
Movement in the corner of his vision drew his attention, and he immediately readied his weapons. After such a stroke of luck, he simply refused to get killed in an ambush by some Imperial stragglers trying to heroically kill one of the attackers responsible for the fall of their Castellum.
But no, this wasn't a Guardsman. It was one of the observation constructs tasked with monitoring his New Marines and transmitting their activities to the Conglomerate aboard the fleet so that the best specimens could be identified and the next generation improved.
"Identification code 595348952483-Theta-Primus," he barked at the thing. It stopped, utterly immobile, and answered in a mechanized voice :
"Processing … Processing … Connection accepted. Establishing link … Link established."
"Hello, father."
The sound of his daughter's voice coming out of such a wretched creature might have disturbed Fabius, had he not been so overcome with relief to hear it again.
"Hello, Melusine." He didn't attempt to hide the smile in his voice. "How are you ?"
"I've recovered, father."
"Then I was right."
"You were. However, I'm afraid things have changed during your absence."
"Tell me."
"The other Redoubts have arrived in-system."
"What ? I told them to wait for my signal."
"We've established communication with them, father. They claim they'd no choice but to leave."
He frowned. Unless something had happened, there should be a version of himself in command of the Omega Redoubt at the very least. He wouldn't have deviated from the plan without a good reason.
"Why ?" he asked.
"The Salamanders came to the Cadian Gate. To avoid conflict, our reserve fleet decided to move in."
"The Salamanders ?" That was … unexpected. "I left more than enough ships to protect the Redoubts from any warband of Vulkan's get -"
"No, father, you don't understand," his daughter cut him off. "It wasn't just a random warband led by a Chaos Lord seeking to plunder the Redoubts for his own gain. It was the Eighteenth Legion, all of it, or close enough as to make no difference. And, father … Vulkan flew alongside them."
The Clonelord blinked.
"Oh."
Well. He certainly couldn't blame his other self for running from that.
"… I see. Kindly send a transport to my location then, my dear. I see I've a lot of work ahead of me."
AN : And here we are at long last. Gods, has it really been five months since the last update on this story ?
Ciaphas Cain is to Khorne what Ephrael Stern is to Slaanesh. Neither of them can kill a Dark God on their own, but they fit the "catalyst" part of the Metaphysics of Deicide as formulated by Magnus the Red. Their respective paths to becoming mini-Anathemas were different, but led them to the same place of (what Cain would call dubious) honor of being some of the greatest threats to the Ruinous Powers in the galaxy.
You may now start to laugh at the thought of our dear Commissar one day kicking Khorne in the balls. Also, writing Cain the Living Saint is going to make writing Cain the Chaos Warmaster a lot more awkward in my next story.
Shaha Gaathon and much of Belial IV's descriptions are based on the novel Farseer, by William King. It is an old novel, and reading it today certainly feels weird (there is a lot of stuff mentioned that just isn't canon anymore), but it's still good, and I certainly enjoyed reading it and plundering it for information. I changed some of the details of Belial IV's past, but that's my story, so I can do that. (Also, the planet is a Daemon World and the details in Farseer come from the mouth of an Eldar talking to a human, and therefore cannot be trusted).
That's one of five Croneswords recovered. Hopefully the other teams succeeded as well, heh ? I promise to the Eldar fans in my audience that I'll try to make the Ynnead story arc more satisfying than the one GW abruptly cut short. As for the Yncarne, I find its design too cool to waste, so I chose to put it in this story.
Keen-eyed readers will have realized that the title of this chapter, To Forge Salvation, is a direct reference to the prophecy at the start of the Rise of Ynnead chapter. After all, Cain is an agent of the Hydra, is he not ?
(That actually wasn't the plan when I wrote that prophecy originally, it was meant to be a more generic reference to the Second Cabal being an alliance of the Eldars and the Alpha Legion. Yet again, the story moves without my input. Gods, I love writing.)
Those same readers might also have seen the reveal that there were more Redoubts coming. In the Fabius Bile novels, something called the Omega Redoubt is mentioned, which gave me the ideas for the Redoubts of the Black Legion in this story (in canon, it's something completely different, don't worry). As for how Bile managed to make so many New Marines, I would point out that the Emperor managed to create the original Legiones Astartes in a fraction of the time and with only the resources of a single star system to draw upon. And maintaining operating secrecy is a lot easier when you can assume every important management function "yourself".
Shout-out to the Youtuber Majorkill, whose video on the Roboutian Heresy led to a sudden and massive increase in the number of readers (I had no idea what the reason was until someone pointed it out to me). Watching that video myself felt a little surreal, to be honest. And yes, Guilliman's fall to Chaos was lifted more or less wholesale from the fall of Arthas Menethil in Warcraft 3. What can I say, I played that game at a young age (probably too young, come to think of it).
Thanks to Jaenera Targaryen for beta-reading this and making sure there weren't any stupid mistakes left in it. The next chapter shouldn't take as long : it will be the epilogue of the Cadian Apocalypse, tidying up everything and preparing our characters for their next respective arcs. And after that, well, I was thinking of switching the order of "books" in the Times of Ending. Meaning that, instead of going to Olympia for Guilliman's attempt to break out of the Ruinstorm, we'll instead go to Sancour, where Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn fights tirelessly to prevent the birth of the Yellow King. I'm hoping to get it done for Halloween, for obvious reasons.
Yes, that change was influenced by the latest chapter of The Weaver Option, why do you ask ?
As always, I look forward to your thoughts on this chapter.
Zahariel out.