"And this one is for you," Lirelle Il'sari said, handing me a small crystal from the satchel she carried. "Keep it on yourself and socket it within your armor before leaving the ship."
I curiously played with it between my fingers, observing its inner light glittering from within. I felt a strange tingling in my hand and could perceive a memory of listening to a concert while focusing on it. If I allowed the War Mask to slip away completely, I would probably even name the piece by its title.
"It's not a dream-crystal," I said.
Those were a staple entertainment, known to every craftworlder. I was even more intimate with them than most, having created numerous myself. Lirelle's gift, despite similarities, was something different.
"No, it is a dreamstone," she explained. "They are alike, but the latter is a memory or dream of a seer given form. Even with Khaine's claim to your soul giving you a modicum of protection from the Great Enemy, it would be careless to ignore other methods, given where we are heading."
I pocketed the stone and thanked the warlock.
"Now if you excuse me, there are a bunch of corsairs I still need to attend to," she sighed, shaking her satchel for emphasis.
"Belial. Once a jewel of Aeldari Dominion, a star system known throughout the galaxy for its beauty. And a fourth planet therein, the one whose rich history inspired scholars and poets alike for greatarcs. Now, only a haunted shadow of what it was. Not even a true part of any solar system anymore, but a desolate rock floating on hellish tides of the empyrean from one system to another, following the whims of Primordial Annihilator.
"Its air thin and toxic, the atmosphere paints the sky with perpetual gray, shielding it from the kaleidoscopic insanity that is the Eye. Great spires and webway gates, once standing tall and proud, with arrogance matching their creators, now naught but a crumbling ruin, broken sentinels upon barren wasteland.
"Howling winds blow through the plains, accompanied only by the occasional rumble of seismic activity. And screams. Of hungry beings prowling there, pitiful and twisted, fearful of no god nor Aeldari. A place of isolation and despair, a forgotten relic of the past…Aw!"
A miststave loudly smacked Cirith's head, the Troupe Master comically pivoting and prostrating himself before the shadowseer.
"Forgive me, Amireth, but someone had to set our gathering into a proper mood."
We all stood around a holo-display depicting a planet; Cirith and Amireth, Lirelle and the banshees from my Shrine. Curiously, Rhiodhna, our exarch, was absent.
"Is this really necessary?" the warlock asked. Her voice and complexion were strained, in a complete opposition to the harlequins. She twitched to a barely perceptible sound of a distant crack.
"Yes, yes! The actors need a proper place to enter the stage! This world is vast, full of mysteries and terrors," Cirith strolled around, gesturing dramatically. "Which should we confront? Which to avoid? Where to land?"
"Stop playing your games, clown!" Cailyth said. "You were to guide us, just pick a spot yourself!"
The shadowseer waved her miststave and the banshee disappeared, "Like the exarch, Khaine holds her too tightly to be of use for us here."
"You!" Lirelle pointed at Elain. "Just choose the spot and let us be done with thisss!" Her words turned to hiss when a glass shattered nearby.
Elain approached the projection, but before her hand touched the planet, Amireth waved and she too disappeared.
"Nah, it won't do either. Are you really on the Path of the Seer?" she tilted her head in disbelief. "Random guesses are for blind, we need to follow the connection to both of their patrons."
Suddenly, cracks began to form everywhere. The holographic globe shattered, its pieces scattering throughout the hall or freezing mid-air, mocking both common sense and reality.
"This divination is no longer safe, we should abort it!" Lirelle shouted. "I won't be able to shield us any longer!"
"We won't get another chance," the shadowseer said.
"Cegorach favors daring," Cirith exclaimed, brandishing his blade and lunging at the nearest crack.
An unearthly agonized laughter answered the strike.
From the tears all around us, formless, colorful masses were starting to seep inside. Following the Troupe Master's example we charged, drowning the enemy with shuriken fire until our blades could reach them.
The neverborn's shapes were ever changing, limbs forming and disappearing from their grotesque torsos. They cackled madly when shurikens pierced their flesh, sporting bluish wounds over their pink skins. The first horror I cut down squealed with delight, its torn pieces giving birth to two lesser creatures. Following my instincts I rolled to the side, evading a bolt of warpfire aimed at my chest, before finishing the creatures with another thrust and slash.
I bent over to dodge another projectile, deciding that the annoyingly cheerful monster casting them while scampering and somersaulting through the hall would be my next opponent.
As I ran to the creature, one of the banshees screamed in anguish. A blue mass was wrapped tightly around her neck, while a circle of diminutive bright daemons danced around her, their burning hands joined together as they sang a twisted version of children's lullaby.
I turned towards them instead, first shurikens already fired, but it was too late. The daemons jumped forward, turning the encircled banshee into a blazing inferno, and moments later all that remained was a charred, rapidly mutating corpse.
All around me, the fight continued.
The Troupe Master and the shadowseer fought with mad laughter, as if competing with the neverborn's cackles. Even to my enhanced senses, Cirith's moves were a dazzling blur, the Troupe Master performing seemingly impossible aerial maneuvers in his pursuit of the daemons. For Amireth, confronting the creatures seemed to be only an afterthought, the dancer nimbly moving from one crack to another, her miststave a bizarre eraser.
Lirelle stood alone facing a gaping tear in reality. A halo of runes was floating around her, some of them latched to the crack, slowing its widening; the shadowseer must have given up on mending this one, opting to erase the ones that were salvageable. The few enemies that dared to approach the warlock were cut by her witchblade, its strikes delivered with a grim efficiency of someone resigned to her fate. For within the tear something stirred. A nightmarish, twisted monstrosity, tentacled mass whose tendrils tried to peel the crack open.
I turned away from the sight, cutting another creature with my sword. And the next after it.
The fight continued.
The enemy was there, and my blade was hungry for the kill. It should be obvious what I had to do; slay the enemies and claim the victory. However… Was this the correct path to achieve it? How long would the warlock prevail until her rift spills its content outside?
Not bloodshed and carnage, but a goal to complete.
Not a mere martial prowess, but strategic victory.
The path hidden, thread waiting to be uncovered.
The hall shook, and I found myself sprawled on the floor. Two tentacles pierced through the crack, and were now trying to peel the warlock's runes keeping it in place. Somewhere else, another banshee cried when the daemons slain her.
Distractions. All of this.
I felt something welling within me, vying for my attention. A flickering string, strained and ready to snap at any moment. I frantically threw myself forward, following it.
I twisted and dodged, evaded and rolled, suddenly feeling as if the attention of every daemon was focused solely on myself. But the string was there, and it bent and curved, as if heralding the movements I was to perform. The attacks all missed, warpfire bolts passing me by a hair's breadth.
There, on the ground, seemingly forgotten, laid a piece of the holographic planet.
"This one!" I shouted.
Even before the shadowseer materialized to pick it, I knew it was the place we've been searching for.
"The curtain falls," she whispered, and darkness engulfed us.
As I woke up in my quarters, the air smelled stale and noxious; something unusual on the Aeldari vessels. Pieces of shattered crystals were scattered on the floor all around me. My hand instinctively reached towards my spirit stone, finding relief in finding the gem unblemished.
A soft chime called my attention to the chamber's door and I let them be opened, sensing the Asuryani standing on the other side.
Lirelle cast a quick glance around the room. I felt her gaze linger on me for a moment before she decided to lower her witchblade. I, too, released the blade, for which my hand must have reached at some point.
Her regalia were bloodstained, and she wasn't hiding her weariness from my senses.
"Not everyone has awoken after the harlequins' stunt. At least, not as themselves anymore. Your shrine lost two sisters."
I remembered the strange dream, two banshees that fell during the fight. Recalled their faces, their names. I knew that I should grief, feel pain borne from their deaths. But I found no such feelings. Maybe after returning to Il'sariadh, after removing the War Mask, there will be time to mourn the fallen. But not right now.
I acknowledged the warlock's words with a nod. She too was a follower of Khaine's ways; there was no need to speak on the matter any further between the two of us. We both shared a desire for vengeance, deaths of the allies yet another kindle feeding the cold anger within.
She threw me a dreamstone before turning around and leaving.
"Fates will it, you won't need any more by the time we finish this affair."
It was decided that we make a planetfall by burrowing to Belial through the webway.
Each of the Il'sariadh's Wave Serpents was joined by at least one of the harlequins.
"Just to boost the morale," Rhiel claimed.
"There's no doubt it has an effect" I mused, taking a glance at a group of corsairs joined by a Death Jester.
I wasn't certain about the depths of their enthusiasm. Still, as it was Rhiel who boarded the vehicle along with my Shrine, I wasn't the one to complain.
The tunnel the harlequins led us through was an ancient one.
It wasn't one of the gleaming, featureless corridors of color and light I was familiar with, instead taking the appearance of a narrow, dark passage snaking between crumbling walls. Here and there arched gateways opened to side plazas and avenues, revealing decaying villas and forgotten estates. Not a mere tunnel, but the extension of the city lying in the realspace.
It was also broken. The corridor's darkness was periodically suffocated by glimmers of unlight, brain-churning vistas into the raw warp seeping through its failing wardings. Where they were the weakest, ghost-like moss was already spreading its filaments on walls and buildings, an ephemeral herald of the realm beyond. At one point I could swear that I've seen a corpse shrouded with them, as if a prey cocooned in spider's silk.
Throughout the journey, at the back of my mind I heard soft, calming music originating from my dreamstone. This presence somehow diminished a vexing, nonphysical tug that I felt on my spirit stone since entering the passage. A sensation I expected to lessen when we finally reached the planet's surface, a sentiment soon proven wrong.
+So this is it? I expected something grander,+ one of the corsairs projected when we left the tunnel, his remark eliciting a forced notion of amusement from others.
I needn't have to be a thought-talker before to perceive the corsairs' distress. According to Lirelle, Khaine was protecting the souls of the Aspect Warriors; the grasp of She Who Thirsts must have been firmer on the corsairs. A part of me felt pity for them; our expedition had just begun, and they were already shaken. That pity was quickly swept away by the conviction that they needed to be stronger to overtake the obstacles on our path. For it was Khaine's way.
+Pull yourself together,+ I said. +Fear is the soul-killer. Face it, and don't let it pull you from your path.+
+That's it, my friends, listen to him. Or if you really have a deathwish, I'd provide you with relief. A ridiculous end, instead of a grotesque one your doubts would invite,+ from another transport a harlequin projected, his thought accompanied by an image of a rictus grin of the reaper he wore on his mask.
As for the planet itself, Cirith's prior description of it was to the point. As far as one could see, it was a barren desert, marred with barely recognizable remains of wraithbone structures. The sun on the gray firmament was a curious thing - its baleful light pierced Belial's clouds, providing us with dim light, yet as far as I remembered the planet itself wasn't orbiting any star anymore.
+I've seen stranger,+ Rhiel said, having noticed my attention. +Don't overthink it.+
As with prior communications, his thought was slightly drowned out, muffled. It was true that on Belial IV screams were carried by the winds, but not only through them. Our armors were picking echoes of communications, both mundane and psychic ones. Radio frequencies were scrambled, static mixed with chaotic orders in crude languages of human Imperium, jumbled together without any semblance of logic. Psychic echoes were even worse; messages in barely comprehensible ancient dialect from the days long gone, from the times when paradise abruptly turned into a nightmare, insane thoughts carrying agony and pleasure. They already made communication with Praie's cruiser night impossible, and would also interfere with our internal arrays if we spread too far. Maybe the warlock or the shadowseer would dare to enhance them, but given where we were and what I sensed so far, I doubt any thought-talker would be up to it.
The harlequins' Starweaver took the point and our expedition followed it. Just as I was beginning to acclimate myself to my surroundings - at least as much as it was possible with the presence of Prince of Pleasure hanging over us - the constant background noise changed.
Barely recognizable sound of engines, accompanied by staccato of shots and explosions, a crude symphony growing louder with each heartbeat. Soon, the visual feed of the Wave Serpent provided me with the sight of the musicians.
A group of vehicles emerged from behind a ridge. A squad of gray-white bikes, their riders deftly maneuvering and shooting their hand-held weapons. Following them were three robust, armored tracked vehicles bearing similar colors, copper and green accents more noticeable on them. Their pintle-mounted guns were also turned behind, releasing their payload, as were heavily armored Astartes firing through an open-roof from one of them.
+Rhinos,+ Rhiodhna conveyed, her thought filled with the exarch's understanding of the vehicles' capacities.
There was a short hiss soon followed by a deafening blast. One of the Rhinos had been engulfed with smoke and flame, charred and molten scraps of the metal flying in all directions. Miraculously, the explosion was not enough to kill passengers of the vehicle; the warriors were already leaving the wreck, using it as cover. One of the remaining vehicles abruptly turned around, as if intending to join the stranded marines making the last stand, delaying the pursuers so the rest of them could retreat.
The forces pursuing them were already descending the ridge. More bikers, along with four vehicles, slightly larger than Rhinos. And these were only the forces coming directly from behind them, for I could already spot a few more bikes speeding from the side.
Majority of the newcomers had their armors painted in garnish colors of purple, pink and black. At glance they looked similar to gray-armored forces, but the wear on their equipment was more noticeable. Also, most of them seemed to favor decorating it with spikes, blades and various gory trophies, few going as far as to include revolting chaos iconography.
+And thus the true heir returns to the land he was banished from. He cries, seeing it squandered by his ancestors, only vagabonds and squatters remaining to quarrel over remnants of wealth he was once entitled to,+ the shadowseer's thought swept over us just as Lirelle ordered us to engage the chaos tainted group.
The vehicles spread out, Varael adjusting approach patterns for their drivers. I felt the warrior inside me tingle with anticipation, my blade ready for another bout with the enemy. I lost my hand the last time, now was an opportunity for revenge.
The first shots took both sides by surprise; the holo-fields more than enough to let us blend with surroundings until we announced our presence. Or would have taken, should we have engaged any other xenos. If these were caught off guard, there was no outward sign of it. No panic nor disarray caused by the appearance of other forces, only adjustment to their own battle plans.
The purple armored warriors began splitting their fire between their main enemy and us, Belial's ambient scrambled signals working against their weapons targeting in tandem with our holo-fields.
The reaction of gray-white forces was more measured. With us ignoring them, they responded in kind, continuing to fire on the common enemy. Their retreating forces had chosen to engage in the skirmish again, save for the two bikers who continued onwards. Of course the marines were far from trusting us, their sentiment obvious in the formation they assumed. They might have been not attacking us, but were ready to do so at the first hint of hostilities. And so were we.
+Prepare,+ Rhiodhna projected.
Our Wave Serpent sped through the plains, heading towards marines making their stand near the wrecked Rhino.
For a moment my attention was caught by the sight of two bikers fighting on the side. They charged against each other, countless explosions blossoming over their armors as they fired their vehicle mounted boltguns. Unable to penetrate each other's armors, they closed the distance, in a barbaric rendition of dueling stances of Shining Spears. The white-armored rider eschewed his hand-held weapon for a chainsword, receiving a mocking salute from his chainaxe wielding opponent. The clash was short and violent; two riders passing each other with terrifying speed. The chainaxe bit deep into the white armored marine, decapitating him, the head sent flying high with a shower of blood.
+Khaine's with us. Go!+
The Wave Serpent's hatch opened and we ran out, the vehicle quickly picking its speed again. A hail of projectiles immediately greeted us, one of the banshees collapsing scant few steps after disembarking.
But the rest of us ran, the world around moving sluggishly, time between each heartbeat stretching infinitely. There was an undeniable beauty in fleeting patterns born in the wake of projectiles cutting through the air. The spectacle was just another deadly trap, one that many guardians fell into. Me-warrior knew there was no point in trying to react to the sight and dodge, one had to trust his own senses instead, moving in accordance to the premonition of where they would be in the next moment.
Around the wrecked Rhino, the surviving white-armored marines were outnumbered by the enemy. Fired upon from all sides, they stood their ground valiantly, with discipline befitting Aspect Warriors. Still, it was a losing battle; most of the defenders were lighter armored and the purple-clad warriors were taking advantage of their heavier equipment and numbers, pushing into melee range.
I must admit, it was eerie to watch them move and fight. Contrary to regular humans, they weren't as slow and ungraceful; actually, despite the obviously heavy arments they moved with the speed almost matching ours. Yet, the movements were still marred by some kind of crude stolidity, a brutish primitiveness that no eldar could ever emulate.
However the worst was the sight of those choosing to fight helmetless.
I've seen human faces before, experienced their awkward similarities to eldar's own. Their vacant stares, creepy wrinkles on foreheads, cheeks and around incongruously shaped eyes, smiles too wide to be honest. I was accustomed to the strange feeling their sight elicited.
Still, despite its quirness, the sight never before sent shivers down my spine. Seeing the Astartes up close, the feeling crept even through the War Mask. A certainty that the things before me weren't humans any longer, but something different. Abominations created in the name of the corpse-emperor.
I channeled revulsion welling up inside me, joining in with the vicious scream our exarch started. A psychosonic screech engulfed the purple-clad marines just as we fell upon them, most of them affected by the momentarily paralysis. Rhiodhna's glaive struck deep into one of the enemies, her war-scream continuing, its pitch reaching painful frequencies until the marine's eyes burst in the shower of blood and tissue. Before the corpse fell on the ground, she was already engaging another enemy.
With Elain on my left, I engaged my own opponent. During the charge, my sword managed to draw his blood, but the combination of both his armor and reflexes made it only a superficial wound. The towering monstrosity lunged at her, but Elain sidestepped his chainsword, responding with a slash to the throat with her power sword. The marine jerked his head back, what would have been a decapitating strike releasing only a brief flush of arterial blood, which momentarily stopped, as his wound coagulated and the armor sealed itself tight again. Still, this was the opening I needed, moving close to the ground, nimbly pivoting and stabbing through his knee-joint. Cursing in anger, he raised the chainsword to attack me, but with Elain closing the distance again, he decided to use it to force her back instead, hoping that a salvo from bolt pistol and a kick would be enough to stop me. They would have been, if he'd managed to hit me. All that terrifying strength was wasted when I evaded the attack, plunging the blade deep through his helmet.
It wasn't even a heartbeat during which me-warrior savored the kill, his symbolic revenge achieved, that I almost died. Me-thought-talker sensed an overwhelming distress from Elain, and it sprang me back to action, immediately putting the distance between the marine and myself. She noticed him priming the grenade in a last ditch effort before dying. I reacted not a moment too soon, as the area around the dead marine exploded, showering everything in proximity with viscera and pieces of shrapnel.
The skirmish continued, hails of shuriken growing in intensity as more Aeldari joined the fight. The tide of battle turned against chaos followers with our appearance, but the fight was far from over.
The difficulty in fighting the Astartes wasn't just their discipline, nor their speed which almost matched the eldar, nor even their prodigious strength. No, it was the fact that they simply refused to die.
Their armor was resistant to most small arms fire, forcing the Aeldari marksmen to aim for structurally weak spots at the joints, timing the shots so they wouldn't be able to dodge them. And even the wounds they managed to inflict had an unnatural tendency to clot before disabling them. Before the incoming projectile left their flesh, the opening wound was often already healed, the space marine barely swaying for a moment before returning to fight. For Astartes were nothing but tenacious.
From the corner of my eye I noticed two warriors ripping at each other with chainswords, pieces of armors and viscera drawing patterns of bloody gore around them. Still, they fought in feral fury, heedless of wounds that would have put down an eldar long ago. It was as if the two undying beasts were trading blows, each waiting for the other to make a mistake, exposing itself to a lethal attack.
Similar duels were being played everywhere around; either between the marines, or with Aeldari dancing a deadly dance around them. Here and there dazzling blur of harlequins' holo suits momentarily shone over explosions and clouds of dust. Somewhere, a Striking Scorpion followed his attack with an intense burst of plasma released from his mandiblasters, opening his foe for a finishing strike from a marine. Elsewhere, a harlequin tried to capitalize on an Astarte's feint, only to be brutally swatted and then crushed by his opponent.
I lost track of time, immersed in Khaine's work as Rhiodhna picked our opponents in accordance with the Aeldari battle plan. Sometimes it was my timely intervention which saved the lives of my sisters. Sometimes it was theirs which slayed the enemy before he could kill me. I knew their movements and they knew mine. We were the Shrine of Echoing Silence, an Aspect of Khaine given form, bound together through my senses of the thought-talker. Not a mere group of warriors fighting together, but the single warrior employing multiple bodies. As such we worked together, sometimes supporting the Striking Scorpion Aspect, sometimes covered by the Dire Avenger's. Even erratic movements of the harlequins, or a weathered echoes of long-dead Kurnous had their role to fulfill in the Khaine's theater, as had the unresponsive and crude Imperials engulfed in the spectacle.
It came to me as an almost physical pain when the lifeless corpse of the last enemy hit the ground and the battle was over. True, the remaining forces of the enemies were still alive and retreating, but we were given the orders to not chase, so for all purposes he was the last.
The area around us was littered with gore and corpses, pieces of vehicles and armors scattered everywhere. Varael was already ordering his crew to pick the wounded and load them on the detachment of Wave Serpents that would return to the cruiser along with the retrieved spirit stones of the fallen.
I heard the whoosh of the glaive to my right and turned just in time to see the exarch cleanly decapitating a body of a fallen marine.
"I've seen enough dead Astartes being brought back to fight again to not trust they are truly the corpses," Rhiodhna shrugged, continuing her grim task.
There must have been a point in doing so, as her movements were mirrored by other exarchs, some of the harlequins or even the Astartes themselves.
As for the latter, most of them were more interested in treating their own wounded or performing their own funerary rites. Or at least I think that was the case with the marines carrying strange, articulated protrusions on their backpacks, who used them to do something with the corpses of their fallen. Given other marines deliberately gathering around them to block our line of sight it was something they didn't want us to observe, and I was willing to respect that sentiment.
"His entourage battled the servants of the new regime and emerged victorious, but the heir's presence is no longer a secret now. Would the vagabonds they've met make fine allies on their quest? Or would they turn into just another obstacle?" Amireth, the shadowseer, gracefully skipped through the battlefield, her dancelike steps nimbly avoiding bloodstained sand; which given the amount of blood splattered on the ground was a real achievement.
"Pink, gold and black," Cirith said, the Troupe Master following in her wake. "The Emperor's Children's colors. Do you think they were his?"
"Bile's? Who knows. But it's not our concern."
"Still, he's an actor in Veilwalker's story. It would leave a bad taste to interfere with it."
"Don't tell me you are afraid of the Veiled Path. I'll deal with Sylandri if it comes to this. If we'd meet the Clonelord here, it'd mean that her narrative has already failed, that her actor has deviated from the role again instead of chasing the grail left for him. I'd say, we'd have been doing her a favor through our interference, if I actually cared for the conclusion of her story…"
The duet continued their discussion as they headed towards the marine who seemed to be an officer. He was already engaged in conversation with Rhiel, of all eldar. Seeing the marine had his entourage nearby, and that our warlock was also approaching them, I decided it wouldn't be out of place for me to also listen to the talk.
The marine removed his helmet, a barely disguised revulsion present on his scarred face as he stared at the grinning mask adorning Rhiel's face. The harlequin actually managed to find himself a piece of rubble to stand on, negating the height advantage of the towering human.
"I, Captain Reliduk, on behalf of Brothers of the Anvil Chapter, offer you gratitude for your timely assistance in our fight, xenos."
"And I, Rhiel, an ordinary performer of no particular standing, accept your heartfelt gratitude on behalf of my companions," he responded with an elaborate bow. "We are always glad to support those opposing forces of the Great Enemy, whether they are eldar or xenos like you."
"You may have helped us in this battle, but do not think that I will stand your mockery. We are humans, the Emperor's chosen, so choose your next words wisely or I will teach you respect with my own blade."
"We are Aeldari, and you are not. What does it make you for us, if not xenos? Would you prefer another moniker, a mon-keigh perhaps? I assumed it was important for your culture to highlight the distinction with every phrase given the way you spoke…"
Reliduk made a few menacing, deliberately slow steps towards the harlequin.
"Enough!" Lirelle exclaimed. "Are you that eager to continue spilling the blood of your brothers? Is there no deeper purpose to your fight in these forsaken lands?"
"She's right, brother-captain," a marine from the entourage said. "We were sent to cleanse these worlds from the mutants and traitors. They might be xe..eldar, but are also the first beings we've met that fought against our enemies. Fighting them now would be a detriment for our Crusade."
"There is wisdom in your words, brother Bellicor. We've found the location of yet another fortress of the traitors on this planet, and the assault would require every brother we could muster," Reliduk admitted. "We should reunite with the rest of our Chapter as fast as possible."
Bellicor hesitated for a moment, before gritting his teeth and asking "Tell me one thing, eldar, what year is it?"
The sudden, unrelated question caught both Lirelle and Rhiel by surprise. And they didn't know how to respond to it.
"What year is it, he asks, such a simple question," Cirith used the opportunity to join the discussion. "Since the beginning of the diaspora? Vect's claim over Commorragh? Founding of the Dominion? Biotransference? The Big Bang? To be so entitled to think that everyone would count the time like you do…but don't despair, you are in luck today! Let me check; the sun's position, north is there…maybe…" the Troupe Master made a pantomime of trying to read a wrist held sundial. "Ah, ha! How would you say it? M37.582, give or take a decade or three."
"Lies!" Bellicor shouted. "We were fighting for long, but not that long!"
Reliduk raised his fist and the other marine became silent.
"He might be telling the truth. This is the Eye, time flows differently there," the marine sighed. "It doesn't change anything. You shouldn't have asked, brother."
"But if we've been really fighting for almost three centuries…"
"So what? Even if we wished to return, what remains of our fleet would be unable to make the journey. No, brother. From the moment we took our vow and began the Crusade, we knew we would all draw our last breaths cleansing these worlds."
"We could show you a way out from here should you wish for it," Cirith said. "A path ripe with dangers, swarmed with servants of the Great Enemy made manifest. A passage that none dares to take anymore. A challenge worthy of warriors such as yourself."
"So we would fight foes of your choosing instead of the ones He on the Terra wishes destroyed? I will take this for another jest your kind seems so fond of. But this talk tires me, and every moment we spend here gives the traitors more time to prepare. Farewell, eldar. If the Emperor wills it, we would once again meet on the battlefield to fight against the common foe."
Lirelle tilted her head slightly, a hint of sadness obvious in her posture.
"On another path, maybe. On the one you are choosing, we'd better never meet again. But I understand your decision. Don't agree with it, but understand nonetheless. Farewell, Brothers of the Anvil, may you always be remembered as you are today."
"So, what fate have you predicted for them?" Rhiel stage whispered to the warlock after the marines disappeared over the horizon.
Lirelle shrugged.
"Against better judgment they insist on dwelling on these cursed worlds. It doesn't take a farseer to deduce that it won't end well."