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Rise of the Ynnari: Ghost Warrior – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Chapter 1

Concerning the Ynnari

Never trust a god.

You can be certain of one thing, if anything. Gods order the universe to their design and nothing else, and you can be sure that your wants and needs feature little in their agenda. For the aeldari, distrusting gods is in their nature, having been abandoned by one pantheon of godheads and destroyed by the birth scream of a deity forged from their own wanton excess. Such experience breeds caution if not outright contempt.

And of the gods that survived – excepting that ravenous maw of destruction known as She Who Thirsts – they are but a pale shadow of their former status. Khaine, shattered into little pieces of angry metal and scattered through the craftworlds. Cegorach, the supreme trickster, the Laughing God, dancing merrily through the webway just one step ahead of the predatory intent of the Great Enemy, plucking souls from his grasp as and when chance allows.

So imagine the towering hubris of not only serving a god in such times, but trying to create one.

Such accusation cannot be levelled wholly upon the first of our players in this plot, for she was unwittingly brought into the fold of the Ynnari, something of a cosmic side effect. Collateral deification one might call it. The hubris was that of Eldrad Ulthran, but the weight of his mistake – his error being to only partially succeed in bringing about the apotheosis of Ynnead, god of the dead – fell upon the shoulders of Yvraine, formerly the Daughter of Shadows and many other titles before and since.

Far too complex for this retelling are the tales that led to this terrible turn of events and their immediate consequence. They are but a few threads in the tapestry of a galaxy torn asunder by the resurgence of the Dark Powers and the failures of aeldari and human alike.

But while Eldrad did not bring about the rise of Ynnead, he did succeed in part, for in the wake of his actions came the Ynnari, sworn to find and unite the croneswords of Morai-Heg to bring about the final elevation of the Whispering God.

So they believe.

Myths, like gods, should be treated with some scepticism also. They have a habit of being retold to the benefit of the teller. You would not doubt the advice of this reliable narrator would you?

In pursuing this goal, the Ynnari broke a craftworld – Biel-tan – and brought much grief to the aeldari, but from these ashes arose a new understanding with some of the servants of the Emperor. One was brought forth from the distant past, a true legend from the time when the Emperor of Mankind walked abroad among the mortals, rather than existed as a vampiric husk sustained by the souls of his own servants and technology stolen from the aeldari.

This individual was a primarch, whom humanity foolishly called a man in their ignorance of what their master had truly created. Roboute Guilliman, their finest leader and statesman, a warrior and commander beyond anything their crumbling empire could muster in the previous ten thousand orbits of their homeworld.

Even so, the tide was not stopped, but it was slowed and the dominance of the Realm of Chaos stemmed for a time.

And by roundabout means we come back to the tale of Yvraine, who had dared the heart of vileness known as the Eye of Terror, the storm that swallowed the centre of the old aeldari dominions, on an errand for Guilliman. As part of a grander scheme between aeldari and humans, she had promised to retrieve an artefact of Chaos from the clutches of a renegade primarch, the daemon prince of Nurgle, called Mortarion by the humans.

She is, unexpectedly, in danger. We join her as she flees the castle of the daemon prince with her prize, the Hand of Darkness, passing through the metaphysical Garden of Grandfather Nurgle himself to reach the relative sanctuary of the webway. Her small force was beset by plaguebearers and slobbering beasts of Nurgle, their portal to safety waning in its power.

Rancid matter dripped along the length of the Sword of Sorrows and dribbled over the knuckles of Yvraine’s armoured glove. A thick swarm of red-and-black flies closed about the daemon blood, sticking to the gelatinous filth as they supped on escaping warp energy. She fought back her disgust and hewed Kha-vir into the next foe, another gangling, pot-bellied plaguebearer with a cyclopean face and protruding horn. It bared razor teeth in an inane grin even as its rusted blade shattered on the runesuit beneath her layers of courtly attire. The psychically-charged armour pulsed with silver light in the other-realm of Nurgle’s garden, just as the Sword of Sorrows seemed as much a blade of keening despair as a physical object. She cleaved away the plaguebearer’s arm. More ichor spewed, splashing thickly to the mouldering leaves that covered the ground.

Yvraine finished it off with another cut, severing neck and shoulder with a single blow.

Ahead she could see her goal swirling through the canopy of decaying foliage and twisted branches of a dismal forest. The shimmer of the portal ebbed, becoming a little fainter with every heartbeat, the link back to the webway succumbing to the inevitable erosion of Nurgle’s power. If it closed…

She did not think any further along those lines. It was impossible to countenance failure. She had been anointed as the emissary of a god, her purpose was far higher than any mortal battle.

Beside her, clad in archaic crimson armour, the Visarch was a blur of constant motion. The corroded blades of Nurgle’s tallymen cut swirls through the fly swarm around him but not once did their attacks connect with the superlative warrior, each sword blow parting nothing but small furry bodies and pestilent air. His own blade, legendary cronesword Asu-var – Sword of Silent Screams – danced as light as a feather on a breeze, decapitating and dismembering without effort.

Once, he had burned with the fury of Khaine, but no longer. His righteous hatred and rage had been beaten into a far deadlier weapon, his soul taken from the grasp of the Bloody-Handed One to serve Ynnead. He saw everything with crystal clarity, having passed through the inferno of anger into the placid waters beyond.

Like the mistress he had sworn to protect, the Visarch paid no heed to his surroundings other than as it impeded their progress. Coming beneath the trees that surrounded their escape route, he stepped over roots that grasped at his ankles and swayed beneath creepers that flicked like serpent tongues to entangle his arms. Each time Asu-var licked out, it touched not only the immortal body of a daemon but severed the questing tendrils of Nurgle’s trees. He ignored the scrape and flutter of leaves on his helm, striking and flailing like lank corpse-fingers on the curves of his armour.

‘Any who cannot keep up, we leave,’ he told the armoured warriors around him – the Visarch’s guard, known as the Coiled Blade. Incubi had been their title in the Dark City, renowned as terror-inspiring and incorruptible mercenaries. What bargain the Visarch had struck with them was not known to any outside their group, but they fought as hard in the service of Yvraine as they had for any master of the kabals. They still bore their klaives, double-handed blades that could shear a foe in half with a single well-timed blow, whether mortal or not.

As the Visarch’s retainers fought with him, so Yvraine’s stayed close to her. Alongside the Coiled Blade at the heart of the Ynnari force were the oldest converts to the cause of the Seventh Way. Lightly clad, lithe and athletic, the Bloodbrides had been Yvraine’s sisters in bloodshed since her time in the Crucibael arena of Commorragh. They fought now as they did then – gladiatrices possessed of devastating speed and faultless teamwork, their weapons perfectly complementing each other as they ensnared, slashed and sliced their way into the press of plaguebearers and slithering daemons.

Together with the Coiled Blade they were known as the soulbound, the fierce heart of Yvraine’s host.

Beyond this knot of warriors the other Ynnari fought through the daemonic host, a slender blade of warriors that pierced the undulating mob of lesser daemons and slathering beasts spawned from the formless despair and quashed hopes of mortals. Those that had accompanied Yvraine into the immortal Garden of Nurgle hailed originally from the dark city of Commorragh. Raised without spirit stones, their souls empty but for that which they stole from others, the former wyches and kabalites projected less presence in the Realm of Chaos than their kin of the craftworlds.

Their ancient ties to their kabals and wych cults had been severed, replaced by service to the Opener of the Seventh Way and her god. Many still fought with splinter rifle and serrated blade, the trappings of their former allegiance masked by fresh colours – armour and helms of deep red, blazoned with runes of Ynnead, and decorations of black and white.

And then there were the Harlequins. Among the dreary browns and greens of the decaying lands, the bright suits, gleaming power blades and kaleidoscope holofields of the Harlequins were stark. They moved lightly across the muddied ground and danced between the boles of the trees, laughing and delighting in the running fight with the plaguebearers.

The Visarch was not sure what the followers of the Laughing God sought in return for their aid to Ynnead’s chosen, and he did not ask lest the offer be revoked. Likely it was simply the chance to strike back at the hated Dark Powers. If Yvraine succeeded in her ultimate goal of uniting the croneswords and wakening Ynnead, the Great Enemy would be slain and the Harlequins freed as much as any other aeldari.

Which brings us to another worthy to whom attention must be drawn. He took the name of Idraesci Dreamspear when he joined the companies of the Harlequins; of his life before then only he knows, and he does not share such secrets. Dreamspear was both charming and witty, legendarily handsome and wise, of course. These and many other marvellous traits saw him ascend to the position of Great Harlequin with the Masque of the Midnight Sorrow. How his fate became entangled with that of Yvraine, and how he and his band came to follow both the Laughing God and the Whispering God is a fascinating tale full of intrigue, adventure and timelessly enchanting moments. And, alas, far too long to recount here.

Like many of the Ynnari, Dreamspear and the Midnight Sorrow were only occasional companions of Yvraine, sometimes charting their own destiny, other times rejoining the emissary on her quest to spread the creed of the Reborn. Like all of Cegorach’s sons and daughters, Dreamspear was knowledgeable in the winding tracks of the webway and the guiles of Chaos, and for such reason had been sought to accompany her on the mission to retrieve the Hand of Darkness. A mission he had been happy to accept, being sworn not only to the Reborn but also the destruction of She Who Thirsts.

Two oaths he regretted heartily as he bounded and somersaulted through the melee against the daemons of Grandfather Nurgle, their rusted swords and rank claws but a hair’s breadth from his throat and face.

‘Pray heed my words, my merry brothers and sisters,’ he called to his masque, slicing blade through daemonflesh, the beams of the neuro-disruptor in his other hand scattering the rudimentary sentience bound within the false synapses of another plaguebearer. ‘It is folly to live in regret, but I regret that I am doomed to live in folly.’

Dreamspear’s flashing powersword parted the chest of another wheezing, scabby foe, leaving a line of spattered pus on the dark leaves.

‘And if ever you should hear me declare that one never feels so alive as when one stares death in the face, be a good friend and remind me of this time.’

He was altogether convinced that he and his companions would meet their end in that dismal forest. This thought served to invigorate rather than cause sober despair, for if the heirs of the Laughing God know anything, it is that a life spent frugally is a life passed poorly. For all his contrite banter, Dreamspear held no real fear of death. In aligning himself not only to Cegorach but also Ynnead, he had not one but two chances at avoiding the tormenting damnation of consumption by She Who Thirsts, which when all things are considered, are better odds than most aeldari are given. It was thus that he laughed loud as he threw himself into the fight, leaping from one daemon to the next with dazzling blade. His naturally superb acrobatic ability, aided by the suspensor units within his flip belt, allowed him to use the falling corpses and the swaying tree trunks to tumble and jump to his next foe and the next, never once setting foot on the putrid earth.

And in his wake the Midnight Sorrow pranced and whirled a deadly dance, both carefree and lethal as only Harlequins can be.

Yvraine felt a weight tugging on her mind, more distracting than any physical encumbrance. It came from the object at her waist, the prize for which she had dared this lethal realm. Though kept within a psychically shielded container, the Hand of Darkness had flared into unnatural vitality the moment the Ynnari had passed the castle of Mortarion and back into the naked Realm of Chaos. She could feel it flexing talon-fingers, trying to grasp her thoughts, to claw at her heart.

‘Ignore it,’ said the Visarch, the words delivered between perfunctory but effective stabs of his blade. The grace of his earlier blows had been replaced with cold precision.

Yvraine swayed to avoid a rusted daemonblade before she replied.

‘You can feel it too?’ Her arm whipped out, the points of her warfan striking the eyes of the daemon to blind it, a heartbeat before the cronesword in her other hand parted its gut and spine. ‘It’s like beetles crawling through my soul.’

‘We’ll be well rid of it.’ For several moments they fought back to back, creating a mound of dissipating offal and festering daemon flesh around them. ‘Let Guilliman listen to its creaking whispers.’

A moment of respite and reflection.

The fury of the daemonic assault abated, outmatched by the ferocity and skill of the Ynnari. For each aeldari that fell, their spirit bolstered the others, their death-cry scattering across the Whisper to fuel the blows of Yvraine and the Visarch, steeling the courage of their followers. The unnatural energies of Nurgle’s garden retreated and regrouped, leaving Yvraine and her small host with an opportunity to make haste for the portal. The kabalites, incubi, wyches and Harlequins formed up about the emissary of Ynnead and the group set off into the now-dormant forest, swift but wary.

Lank leaves dragged over helms and shoulders, leaving mucus trails on their armour. Though the ground no longer bucked and tripped, underfoot was slick with moss-covered rocks, threatening to trip at a careless step. The darkness lifted for a time, the cloud-swarms of the bloatflies dispersed by a surge of Ynnead’s protective power, but only to reveal a dismal, watery pair of suns like rheumy eyes glaring down at the departing group.

Ahead of them, coils of Chaotic power flowed once more, no longer content to pursue them but coalescing between the fleeing aeldari and their goal. Trickles of filthy water oozed up between the scattered rocks and a vapour seeped from knotholes and crevasses, bringing with it the stench of rotting vegetation and the slither of grotesque millipedes and other carrion eaters.

From the branches Alorynis dropped down next to Yvraine, claws thick with pungent gore, azure-furred face and silver whiskers matted with daemonblood. Shimmers of contentment pulsed from the gyrinx, soothing Yvraine’s troubled thoughts. Unfortunately, the gyrinx’s empathic link was with her alone, leaving the Visarch prey to a swelling concern.

‘What if Meliniel has not held the other end of the vortex?’

‘The battle was all but won when we departed,’ Yvraine replied, her gown a diaphanous cloud behind her as she sped between the twisted boles on the tips of her toes. ‘There is none among us better at leading a host. I summoned the Yncarne to aid him and there are few foes either mortal or daemonic that can face Ynnead’s corporeal avatar. It is not like you to give credence to baseless fears.’

‘Perhaps it is this place,’ the warrior replied.

‘No, it is something more. Something else that is giving you doubts. You cannot mask it from me.’

‘Are we set on the right course?’

‘The portal lies directly ahead.’

‘Not that, in the wider sense.’ He ducked beneath a low branch, the crest of his helm tearing through long, yellowing leaves. ‘What is the point? Are we to run hither and thither at the beck and call of Eldrad and the humans? What of the mission to bring forth Ynnead?’

‘In time it will come,’ said Yvraine, but his words struck a chord. When the Whispering God had first laid his spirit upon her, she had been filled with such zeal and purpose it had been like a cold burning. Much time had passed and though she and the Reborn had swelled in number, and achieved much in the fight against the Dark Powers, she was no closer to uniting the croneswords than when the Great Rift had sundered the galaxy and all had been upon the precipice of ruin.

‘There must be some way to fight back,’ the Visarch continued, sensing her conflicted thoughts. ‘Not simply to respond and defend, but to strike at our enemies.’

‘Perhaps we have gathered the means to do just that,’ she said, meaning the Hand of Darkness at her belt.

‘But you are happy to turn it over to the humans, a good little hunting hound.’

Yvraine skidded to a stop, her blade in her hand in a flash, its edge against the side of the Visarch’s helm as he halted. His sword was also free, point aimed towards her midriff with unthinking, instant response.

‘I am no other’s slave,’ hissed the Opener of the Seventh Way. ‘You would do well to choose your words more carefully.’

‘I speak as I see,’ said the Visarch. ‘When last did Yvraine of the Ynnari do her own bidding?’

She said nothing and the two of them stood with legendary swords poised to end one another. The soulbound gathered about them, unsure what to do while the rest of the Ynnari cast wary glances at the stirring forest, weapons readied. Harlequins circled beneath the canopy, calling out in their lilting voices, warning that the trees were waking again.

‘We are not done,’ snapped Yvraine, lowering her blade, the move matched by the Visarch.

With a surge of corrupt power, the Garden burst into fruitful destruction once more. A fresh heave of plaguebearers broke free from the miasma of polluting energy, creating bodies out of the mud and leaves, dragging half-formed physical vessels from bubbling pits of tar, creaking misshapen heads, limbs and torsos from lichen-dotted tree trunks. The resurgent stench was terrible, the freshly descending flies again an ever-present buzzing distraction.

Yvraine focused, drawing a line between herself and the diminishing portal. All that mattered was following that line. Nothing else.

Gritting her teeth, she ran on.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2017.
This eBook edition published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
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