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Shadows of Heaven – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Shadows of Heaven

Gav Thorpe

Aradryan looked at the bridge with distaste. A brutal span of partially corroded metal and pitted artificial stone substitute, erected by the humans in some distant era to cross the sluggish, oil-tainted waters of a broad river. A cold wind keened through the stanchions and spars. The vegetation around the crossing was near-dead, browned by the inclement season. In the shadows of the broken buildings that flanked both sides of the river, the remnants of night frost coated the ground.

The river snaked slowly between rolling plains, curving around steeper slopes on either side that rose from the undulating expanse. The highway the crossing served was little more than a path of broken paving that cut a darker line through the wilderness flanking the waterway. In many places it had been swallowed again by the grasses and bushes through which it had once mercilessly slashed.

It reminded Aradryan of the humans in so many ways. Transient, yet arrogant. Blindly resisting the elements rather than accommodating them. Stubborn but ultimately doomed to fade from existence and memory. Just as this latest alliance with the humans would fail in time. The galaxy had been sundered by warpcraft and battle, and there was a mutual need, greater than ever, that united the two races. That was all it was, an unspoken pact of survival, nothing more. The Imperium and the craftworlds were not friends. They would always be rivals even when they were not outright enemies. For now, he and the other Alaitocii who had travelled from the craftworld were aligned to the shared cause.

A short distance away, Diamedin sat in the pilot’s cradle of a large support weapon. Like Aradryan she wore a golden-yellow helm with a short crest of deep blue. Her armour was the same azure, as was the floating anti-grav platform of the weapon she rode. The vibro-cannon itself was encased in curved plates of matching yellow, banded with tiger stripes of black. From within gleamed the energy cell’s pale silver shimmer.

Aradryan and his companion were situated in the tumbled-down ruins of what might have been a toll station or perhaps a hostelry for travellers. It was impossible to tell the former function of the low building from the broken walls and scattered bricks. Twisted metal reinforcing rods jutted among the crawl of climbing plants, the bare stone-like floor patched with bright green lichen and criss-crossed with runners and tendrils from the questing vegetation.

Aspect Warriors and the larger war machines had already engaged the enemy over the preceding night, manoeuvring the foe into a killing position. The farseers had warned of a splinter force of warriors despatched by the enemy to break out over the river. They could not be allowed to cross lest the whole flank of the Alaitocii host was compromised. By standing in this place, alongside his fellow Guardians, he protected the lives of others.

So Aradryan told himself.

‘They are heading your way.’

The voice of Arhathain sounded directly in Aradryan’s ear. It came with a slight itch at the point between ear and jaw, caused by the microscopic messenger-wave implant that had been inserted there before the expeditionary force had left Alaitoc.

It felt strange, to hear the voice of the autarch yet sense nothing of his presence. In the slow turn of the latest arc of his life Aradryan had become reacquainted with the omnipresence of the infinity circuit aboard the craftworld. He had buried deep the memories of his wilder life as an Outcast, the remembrance of the time when he had been carefree but alone like a distant, half-heard echo. The ever-present sensation of the others on the Asuryani Path had been a backdrop of constant sound and movement in his thoughts.

So it was that he heard the words of Arhathain but caught nothing of the host commander’s thoughts or feelings on the pronouncement. It was a cold fact sent to the Alaitocii contingent stationed by the dilapidated bridge, devoid of emotional substance.

Aradryan’s thoughts were not totally isolated. Through the local spirit circuit of the vibro-cannon he could feel Diamedin. Though he could not see her face, Aradryan felt her reassuring smile through the interface of the weapon’s spirit stone.

She glanced down at him from her perch.

‘Worry not,’ she said. ‘No foe shall cross that bridge.’

His gaze moved to the rest of the small force that had been positioned to contest the crossing. Two more vibro-cannons flanked him and Diamedin, the targeting web that connected them currently focused on a point at the far end of the span. Like the gunner beside him, the other crews made only the faintest impression on his awareness, conjoined by the interlinked network of the battery, which was but a pale imitation of the infinity circuit of their home.

The half-felt distance put Aradryan in mind of the spirits of the departed when they were newly joined with the other souls of the craftworld. On the Path of Grieving he had dedicated himself to remembrance and commemoration of the dead. He was no Spiritseer, but in his role as Mourner he spent much time among those who shepherded the spirits into the post-mortal existence of the infinity circuit. In that capacity he had felt the fleeting loss and uncertainty of a spirit released from its stone into the endless maze of the psychic circuit.

Outside the local circuit other support weapon batteries were arranged: two more vibro-cannons on the shallow slope of a hill to the right, and a trio of distort-cannons covered the river from the left. In the thick foliage along the river bank nestled two squads of Guardians, their exact location obscured by the concealing power of a warlock, Hanlaishin.

‘If you are so concerned by danger, why did you answer the call to arms?’ asked Diamedin, sensing Aradryan’s unease as he scanned the horizon across the river and fidgeted with the shuriken catapult in his hands.

‘I am no stranger to bloodshed,’ Aradryan replied quietly. ‘I am not afraid of death.’

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A Black Library Publication

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