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Warrior Coven – Extract

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Chapter One:
Traitors

The two figures moved in utter silence and with incredible speed. They were only suggestions of images, lingering on the edge of visibility like the shadows of a lurking death. They flicked and whirled with motion, flashing like darkness in the deep shade of the dimly lit corridor. Moments of deepest quiet darted out from their movements, as though they were emitting shards of nothingness, covering themselves with a shower of imperceptibility. The total silence in the corridor hissed with unnatural menace, as though it were an aberration, and the dark figures bathed in it like composers in their own symphony.

As the two dark eldar wyches worked, the air between them started to shimmer and liquefy, as though curtains of watery darkness were being drawn across the corridor. Sparks of light from the glowing veins that ran through the mysterious, shimmering substance of the ceiling and floor caught the unearthly ripples like bursts of starlight. As the liquefaction intensified, so the shadowy motion of the wyches was cast into even deeper darkness, silhouetted against the erratically glimmering curtain. They dashed from one side of the corridor to the other, making adjustments to the devices that they had already fitted to the walls, touching their fingers to buttons that did not compress or click but which glittered as the wyches’ flesh approached.

At an unspoken and invisible signal, the two wyches snapped into stillness and then dropped to their knees, bowing their heads towards the warp field that they had just created in the bowels of the vast Ulthwé craftworld. The rippling field started to pulse with waves, scattering droplets of dark-light over the kneeling figures. The waves rose and gathered momentum, crashing into interference patterns that sizzled with unspeakable power.

Somewhere in the maze of corridors behind them, the wyches could hear the metallic trampling of running feet. They presumed that the effete Ulthwé had finally realised what was going on. Pathetic: it was about time. Involuntarily, both of them snarled their upper lips in disgust at their feeble and distant brethren, but they did not move. They had no fear of the eldar guardians – the lightlings. They knew what was about to emerge from the warp gate that they had constructed in front of them, and in comparison the closing eldar were insipid, puny and spineless. Having seen the horrors at the command of the haemonculi, fear took on a whole new meaning, and there was nothing that the Ulthwé could do to perturb the wyches. Despite themselves, the two interlopers smiled, letting the dim light spark off their black teeth; knowing that their own superiors would happily exact more terrible suffering on them than their enemies could possibly imagine liberated them for the fight to come. There was always a small chance that they would suffer even if they returned triumphant, but part of their souls rejoiced in this masochistic prospect. The gentrified and pompous eldar had no idea what the gods had cast into their future. They didn’t even know that their gods were dead, the short-sighted fools.

As the footsteps grew louder, so the ripples and waves in the warp field grew more violent. Refusing to look up, Kroulir and Druqura held their gazes into the polished deck, letting the reflections of the warp dance and flash beneath them, watching the erratic and spectacular patterns gradually resolving themselves into familiar shapes. Fragments of the field splattered out of the gate, spitting icy pain over their backs as they remained bowed in patient deference.

Behind them, the sounds of footfalls shifted in tone, as though they were no longer muffled by walls or corners in the corridor. It seemed that the eldar guardians had finally reached the two wych raiders. As if to confirm their calculation, a cloud of tiny projectiles whined past the bowed figures, slicing into their scant, sculpted armour, peppering the devices that they had implanted into the walls, and splashing into the immaterial substance of the warp field itself. With suitably masterful timing, tendrils of warp started to reach out of the shimmering pool, questing into the thick, soupy reality of the craftworld passageway. They snaked and grew, reaching and thickening, intertwining and interlacing, oblivious to the hail of shuriken fire that sizzled out from the eldar guardians who were charging down the corridor towards them, behind the bowing wyches.

The running eldar guardians were shouting, sending blasts of sound and psychic noise thundering down the passage. Kroulir could hear the fear in their voices and sense the urgency in their thoughts. As tiny shuriken shards of toxic pain bit into her back she grinned, running the tip of her tongue around the glistening points of her upper teeth. Not long now. She could feel the saliva moistening her mouth in anticipation as she stared fixedly down into the deck, still unmoving.

Finally, the warp field before the wyches erupted, as though struck from the other side by a tsunami of energy. Waves of sha’iel – warp energy – broke and crashed out of the gate, washing over the two dark eldar wyches like an ocean over rocks, covering them in freezing pulses of agony. Kroulir thrilled. Behind her she could hear the gasps of the eldar guardians and sense them fighting against their own panic – it was humiliating to think that those pathetic lightlings shared anything in common with her.

Another rush of sha’iel flooded out of the gate, swamping the deck with immaterial pools. Then a curdling shriek pierced the icy air. It was a single, tremulous tone, like a tortured soul. Another joined it, and another, until in an instant there was a chorus of agonising sound searing out of the warp gate, filling the corridor with memories of pain and thoughts of misery. Inchoate yells and screams ricocheted around the corridor, the war cries of the approaching eldar guardians blending into the curdling shrieks that emanated from the warp gate. Kroulir could hear a couple of the Ulthwé stumble.

There was a clatter as weapons were dropped, and Kroulir could imagine the guardians clutching at their oversensitive ears like weakling mon-keigh, howling like children. She stole a glance over at Druqura, and saw that the young wych had not moved at all; she remained stooped in a reverential bow, and there was a faint glint from her bowed face as the dark-light of the warp reflected from her eyes and the tips of her pointed teeth.

A sudden rush erupted through the air above the heads of the wyches, but neither of them had to look. They knew what was emerging from the warp gate. They could hear its signature in the way that the screams of the eldar changed, stopping abruptly. Only Quruel, mistress of the beasts, could bring such a shocking silence into the cacophony of battle. The wyches grinned, finally unfolding from their reverential bows and spinning into pirouettes as they unsheathed their blades and turned to face the eldar behind them.

Still dripping with sha’iel from the warp gate, Quruel stood in the centre of the corridor between the wyches and the eldar guardians, her hair a snaking nest of fiery tendrils, with a warp whip crackling darkly in one hand and a staff-mounted talon spinning in the other. She was flanked on both sides by ungodly, barbed and scaled beasts. They were like small dragons, gnashing and thrashing around Quruel’s legs, spitting fragments of sha’iel like saliva. Their ruddy, rust-red scales seemed to swim and shift over their bodies, twinkling with black stars, as though they were tiny, refractive windows into the immaterium itself. And their eyes burnt like pitch, deep and soulless. The only parts of them that looked material and real were their green claws, their yellow teeth, and the barbed silver spikes that ran from the crests on their heads to the very tips of their lashing tails. They were horrifyingly real.

A formation of black and red Reaver jetbikes flashed out into the jungle clearing, sprays of projectiles hissing out of their nose mounted splinter rifles. The dark eldar riders were craned forward over the controls, leaning along the scaled nose cones of their vehicles with their wild, long hair flooding out behind them like jet-streams. They were howling like warp beasts, and their eyes glinted with maniacal passion. As they sped into open ground, a volley of fire smashed into the front of their line, shattering their formation as the riders peeled away to avoid the onslaught.

The leading rider pulled up short, smoke and debris pluming out of his ruined Reaver. Just as the machine’s engine core detonated, the rider vaulted to the ground, flipping neatly and turning a crisp somersault before landing with his splinter pistol already drawn. Before he could get off a single shot, his body was punched and riddled with a tirade of fire, throwing him shredded to the ground.

The eldar of Ulthwé’s Dark Reaper Aspect Temple, dug into their bunkers around the edge of the clearing, tracked the flight of the speeding Reavers with their reaper launchers, lashing flurries of rockets out through the foliage as though it were paper. They stood with their leg stabilisers planted firmly against the massive report of their fearsome weapons, unleashing an inferno that even the dark eldar should fear. Ulthwé may not have hosted as many of the Aspect Temples as some of the other eldar craftworlds, but they had always provided a home for the sinister Dark Reapers.

So close to the lashes of the Eye of Terror, the Dark Reapers of Ulthwé were constantly vigilant for signs of the return of their Phoenix Lord, Maugan Ra, the Harvester of Souls, who had vanished into the great Eye when the lost craftworld of Altansar had been swallowed whole. For now, Ulthwé was the closest place to home.

Truqui roared his fury into the wake of the speeding Reavers as they skirted the circumference of the glade, darting between the streams of fire that flooded out from his fellow Aspect Warriors. His reaper launcher was a formidable weapon, especially at range, and its constant recoil was driving his braced feet steadily into the ground. He yelled again, willing the tiny rockets into ever increasing ferocity, driving them after the treacherous raiders as though convinced that his hate for the darklings was a weapon in itself. But the rear afterburners of the Reavers were becoming faint as the dark eldar penetrated more deeply into the jungle climate of Ulthwé’s forest-domes.

Without lowering his weapon or releasing the trigger, Truqui spat in disgust. ‘Reapers!’ he yelled, keeping his eyes fixed on the vanishing darklings, watching the threads of reaper rockets tracing their path behind them. Before he could utter another word, his command seemed to be fulfilled: a black Wave Serpent drew out of the tree line behind him, hovering a metre above the earth, its twin-linked shuriken catapults and cannons sizzling with constant fire.

Without turning, Truqui released one hand from its brace along the elegant barrel of his singing weapon and snatched it into a signal. At the sign from their exarch, the squad of Dark Reapers broke their firing lines behind him and vaulted into the anti-grav transport tank. The Wave Serpent accelerated forward, speeding after the rapidly disappearing Reavers. As it flashed past him, Truqui reached out his free hand and caught hold of a brace on the side of the vehicle, lifting himself up onto its hull without taking his eyes off his distant prey.

The massive guns of the Wave Serpent coughed and spat shuriken fire after the Reavers, but the dark eldar jetbikes were too fast and too manoeuvrable to present effective targets weaving erratically between the trees. From the tank’s roof, Truqui trained his eyes on the darklings, letting his reaper launcher twitch and scan automatically with his line of sight. He knew that the guns of the Wave Serpent would not be precise enough from this range, but he was an exarch of the Dark Reapers and he lived for moments like this. Squinting his eyes in momentary concentration, Truqui released a volley of rockets from his weapon, targeted into a small, empty clearing in the trees in the distance. There was nothing there.

Whether by divination or calculation, the reaper rockets arrived at exactly the moment when a dark eldar Reaver streaked into the clearing. The warheads punched into the exhaust tubes that protruded out of the back of the jetbike, shattering the rear of the engine block and detonating inside the energy core. The Reaver was wracked with explosions along the line of the exhaust, and then it erupted into a sudden fireball as the engine caught, incinerating the bike and the rider instantly.

Truqui held his gaze on the dying flames for a second and then started to track his next target, realising in dismay that the Reavers were much too fast to be caught by his Wave Serpent. Just as the realisation dawned on him, a bank of Ulthwé guardians slid up alongside the transport tank on gleaming black and silver jetbikes. Truqui turned to acknowledge the timely reinforcements, and the squadron leader nodded in recognition, before gunning her bike and streaking off in pursuit of the Reavers, a squadron of glittering jetbikes falling into formation behind her.

Watching the jetbikes streaking off in pursuit of the vile infiltrators, Truqui cursed beneath his breath, unwilling to accept that his Dark Reapers could not finish the job themselves. Beneath his feet, he could feel the Wave Serpent decelerate, as though attuned to the disappointment flowing from his mind. Then, with a sudden start, it lurched back into acceleration and Truqui grinned. The vehicle banked sharply, angling away from the chase and plunging into the deep jungle like a shark into water. This was not over yet.

The two inquisitor lords sat in silence, their features almost invisible in the half-light, hidden in the deep shadows cast by their heavy hoods. Vargas peered over his steepled fingers at the concerned expression on the face of his oldest acquaintance, his eyes glinting with untold pain.

‘We have heard nothing for centuries,’ muttered Seishon, as though merely voicing his thoughts.

‘Perhaps there has been nothing to hear?’ offered Vargas, but even he was unconvinced.

‘You are too charitable, my old friend.’

‘We have no reason not to trust in our arrangements. They were made by devout servants of the Emperor with the glory of the Imperium in mind. We must not doubt ourselves, especially not in such testing times,’ replied Vargas, his voice tinged with defensiveness.

Seishon unfolded himself from his chair and stalked over to the viewscreen that dominated the wall. A million stars twinkled back into his bright eyes, filling his mind with expansiveness and icy void. The image was steady and crisp; the old inquisitor might have been looking out of a window at a local starscape, instead of off into the terrible distance. The joint Inquisitorial substation, Ramugan, was positioned as close to the Eye of Terror as was safe, but it was still a very long way away.

‘Yes,’ he whispered, half to himself. ‘These are indeed testing times.’

As he spoke, Seishon leaned closer to the screen, letting his proximity trigger the zooming mechanism that scrolled the designated quadrant into closer focus. A deep red mist was faintly visible around the minor constellation of Circuitrine. The red colour had been deliberately lightened and enhanced on the screen, but the mist was real enough. It was a red so deep that it was almost indistinguishable from the blackness of space around it. Not for the first time in the last few weeks, Seishon wondered whether anybody else had yet noticed it.

‘Re-phase and unfilter. Bring up the Eye.’ Still seated at the long table in the centre of the room, Vargas snapped the command to an unseen servitor.

The screen flickered and then flashed with colour, forcing Seishon to step back and shade his eyes from the sudden burst of light. The speckled darkness was instantly replaced by a supernova of colours: bright reds and pinks burst out through clouds of blues and purples, riddled with explosions of dark green and rings of yellow. It was as though an impossible quantity of toxic chemicals had suddenly erupted into flames and set the galaxy itself ablaze.

‘It is utterly invisible in the lashes of the Eye of Terror,’ observed Vargas, as though reading his friend’s mind. ‘I would be surprised if anyone else has noticed it.’

Seishon nodded slowly as he stared into the blinding maelstrom of warp energy that defined the Eye of Terror on the screen. It was certainly true that the gentle red mist around Circuitrine was imperceptible against the massive rush of energy discharged from the Eye every second.

‘I do not share your optimism, old friend,’ he said, finally, turning back to face Vargas at the table. ‘If we can see it, I am sure that there are agents in the Ordo Malleus who can also see it very clearly. They will not be dissuaded of its importance simply because we have not heard anything about it from the aliens…’ Seishon trailed off, realising that he had gone too far. He and Vargas may well be inquisitor lords, and they may be secreted away in the Ordo Xenos sanctum of Ramugan, but walls nearly always had ears, especially in a facility of the Inquisition. And Ramugan was no ordinary facility.

‘If it were a major storm, we would have heard,’ insisted Vargas, carefully avoiding vocalising the identity of the agents from whom they would have heard. ‘Look at where the emissions and eddies are, Seishon! They are pluming out around the Circuitrine nebula. You know full well that our… associates have been based there for untold centuries. They would have told us if there was anything to concern us – that is the very meaning of the coven, after all!’ Vargas chose some of his words carefully, but his confidence betrayed him.

‘Perhaps,’ replied Seishon, as he turned back to the viewscreen. ‘But we have heard little from these associates since the coven was formed. I am not sure that we can trust them. I am not even sure that they will remember us at all, when the time comes.

‘If the Ordo Malleus have not yet seen this, and if they discover that we have known about it for weeks, there will be questions, Vargas. This is their territory, after all. Why should we be monitoring that quadrant so carefully? Why didn’t we share our intelligence with them immediately? These are not questions that I would be prepared to answer before a Hereticus Commission.’

‘There will be no questions. Who would dare to interrogate two inquisitor lords of the Ordo Xenos? When was the last time that we received any intelligence from our associates in Malleus, or even Hereticus? Sharing is not what the Inquisition does best, Seishon, not even here in Ramugan,’ replied Vargas dismissively. ‘Besides, we have nothing to hide, Seishon. Our souls are untarnished.’

‘I hope that you’re right, old friend,’ said Seishon sombrely. ‘I hope that you’re right.’

Every face in the council chamber turned to gaze on the beautiful features of Eldressyn, her translucent white robes cascading freely around her elegant form, as though caught in a divine breeze. She had uttered the words that none had dared to voice for untold centuries, and her startling blue eyes shone with a radiance too terrifying to comprehend.

‘There is not strength enough amongst the Sons of Ulthran,’ she repeated quietly but with such force that they seemed to penetrate directly into the minds of the eldar on the council. ‘We cannot face this threat alone.’

‘What you imply is a kind of sacrilege,’ hissed the angular and pale face of Ruhklo. He was by far the oldest seer on the council, and his sibilant voice carried the liquid gravity of the years. ‘Do you presume that this council did not foresee these events many centuries before you had even seen this chamber? Do you really want to suggest that we are not prepared?’

There was a murmur of assent from the others. It was unthinkable to believe that incidents of this magnitude would have gone unnoticed by the Seer Council. The mighty Eldrad Ulthran himself should have seen them on the horizon from a distance of several millennia.

‘If we are so well prepared, Ruhklo of the Karizhariat, then why are our forces so ill-equipped to deal with the darklings?’ Eldressyn turned her glorious blue eyes on the veteran seer, peering into his soul and testing his heart.

The old eldar recoiled, as though touched by beautiful, icy fingers.

The grand council chamber of Ulthwé was located in an elaborate dome, high up amongst the peaks and towers that rose gloriously out of the top of the massive craftworld. It was shrouded in a cloud of sha’iel, which made the dome pulse in and out of material existence – only members of the council itself could be guaranteed to find the chamber in phase when they approached its ancient, wraithbone doors. Other visitors might pass through the legendary doorway and find nothing but void on the other side of it. For the uninitiated or the uninvited, the doors to the Seer Council were literally a gateway into the tortured void of the warp itself.

Even though the dark eldar incursions were happening in the very bowels of the craftworld, countless thousands of metres below them, the seers in their grand hall could hear every shuriken burst and feel each shudder of sha’iel released in the various combats that raged. Inside the hall of the Seer Council, the rulers of Ulthwé could bear witness to any event taking place in their massive, sprawling, semi-organic vessel. The infinity circuit itself could be tapped from Ulthran’s Dais, the altar in the heart of the chamber, and its labyrinthine expanses reached into every flickering speck of life in Ulthwé.

Hence, even from the sanctuary of the ancient chamber, the councillors were well aware that Eldressyn was not entirely overstating the danger posed by the recent and ongoing raids of the darklings.

‘Preparation may breed success, young Eldressyn of Ulthroon, but it does not guarantee it. You may bear witness to the ending of time itself, but what would you have us do in order to prepare for it?’ The voice of Eldrad Ulthran himself eased into the air, as if from everywhere at once. The sound was so deep that it was almost inaudible.

‘Are you saying that this is the end?’ answered Eldressyn quickly, forgetting the courtesy owed to the great farseer in the heat of her passion. She glanced suddenly towards the elevated podium in the centre of the chamber, where the shimmering image of Eldrad Ulthran had smoothly faded into existence.

Eldrad’s face creased into a complicated smile, mixing paternalism, patience and condescension into a single expression. ‘No, my child, I am making no such claims. Events without choices are rarer than the crest feathers of a Phoenix Lord. The end is something we create; it is not something that happens to us. I mean to suggest merely that there are some things that cannot be avoided, as well as some things that should not be avoided. An ending is nothing more than a failed beginning. We must not fail now.’

‘My lord,’ replied Eldressyn, recovering herself. ‘You are saying that choices must be made–’

‘Do not presume to tell Eldrad Ulthran what he means,’ interrupted Ruhklo, his voicing hissing through her words like a serrated dagger through flesh.

‘He can speak for himself, Ruhklo,’ shouted Eldressyn, snapping her glowering eyes round to face him. But, when she turned back, the voice of the great farseer had fallen silent and his glittering image had already faded from the raised dais in the heart of the chamber.

‘It seems that he has already spoken enough,’ hissed Ruhklo with an acid smile.

For a long moment there was a heavy silence in the cavernous chamber. The shadows that laced the ornate, domed roof like snaking frescoes seemed to slither and twist, as though writhing in the discomfort of the hostile atmosphere. The council chamber of Ulthwé was more than accustomed to this kind of heated debate, as the seers argued and railed about their divergent interpretations of visions, and, over the millennia, the tortuous energies exuded from the eldar seers had gradually seeped into the structure of the chamber itself. Every few thousand years, the hall had to be ritually purified by Eldrad Ulthran himself in order to prevent it from exerting its own violence on the council of seers that met within its hallowed walls.

Eldressyn sighed and glanced around the assembled councillors. She was relatively new to this chamber, and she was one of the youngest seers to be appointed to the ruling body of Ulthwé for generations. It was rumoured that her appointment had been forced through by Ulthran himself; such a rumour was enough for some eldar to fear the role that fate held in store for the beautiful, young female, and it was more than enough for others to hate her youthful brilliance. Ruhklo, an ancient seer from a family of seers that stretched back for millennia, was certainly to be counted amongst the latter. Nobody knew Ulthran’s own opinion on the matter – it was often hard to understand his opinion on anything.

There are many things unclear, said Thae’akzi, reluctant to break the silence and so speaking directly with her mind. But one thing that cannot be hidden from even the least sensitive of minds is the turmoil in the Eye itself.

The others nodded, relieved that the maturity of the Emerald Seer had returned calm to the council once again. None of them could remember a time when Thae’akzi had not been on the council – not even Ruhklo. She was a constant presence in the collective mind, soothing and calm, like a psychic balm. In the absence of Eldrad Ulthran himself, it was to Thae’akzi that the councillors looked for leadership and guidance. For the last few decades, Ulthran had been increasingly absent from the council, present only as a ghostly apparition and a resonant voice. The reasons for his absence were unspoken, but the council accepted on faith that his actions had the welfare of Ulthwé at heart. The seers whispered that he was preparing himself for something in the future – something unavoidable that loomed like a menace just over the temporal horizon, just beyond the restrictions of their own sight.

Eldressyn bowed her head slightly, acknowledging the wisdom of the older seer. They were the only two females on the council, but their bond was far more profound than the vulgar simplicities of gender. Their bond appeared to reside in their mutually complicated and unspoken relationship with Eldrad Ulthran himself. In different ways, he had chosen them both personally – to one he had granted the emerald robes of seniority, and to the other he had given a place on the council, honouring her in advance of her years. They were the chosen ones, and they felt their commonality even in the absence of any discussion about it. They took it on faith that Ulthran would not have brought them together on the council without a reason.

Yes, Thae’akzi of the Emerald House, it is true that the Eye’s stare has become unusually fierce. The darkling raids are a menace to Ulthwé, but the swirling torrents of sha’iel that spill out of the Eye with them represent something far more terrible. Not since the loss of Altansar have we witnessed signs like this. The heavens are full of agony, and the stars weep like children. The ancient Bhurolyn, bedecked in glorious sapphire robes that were edged with a phosphorescent black, seemed calm, but his thoughts were tinged with an anxiety that was shared by them all.

Something is emerging from the future, bearing down on us like the sky itself. It is too huge to be distinguished, but we can even now feel the gravity that its existence exerts on the present, continued Bhurolyn, the tinge of anxiety germinating into a hint of hysteria.

Yes, Bhurolyn of the Sacred Star, the future contains something beyond the ability of this council to comprehend. It looks like an ending, beyond which there is an expansive nothingness that sucks the soul from our breasts and the breath from our lips. But that future lies invisibly on the other side of our choices in the present. Eldressyn’s thoughts were calm and smooth, like strong fingers in a velvet glove.

We must shed light into our future through our actions now. The darklings raid our craftworld at will, darting through the lower levels of Ulthwé and stealing away our eldar brethren as prisoners. We cannot allow this to happen. The darklings must be stopped. Her thoughts were gathering passion once again.

I do not understand why Ulthran would allow Ulthwé to occupy a timeline that passed through this present. We have always survived in the past by navigating around crises of this nature – by avoiding all of the presents that represent a threat to our future. This present looks like a disastrous mistake–

Compose yourself, Bhurolyn, interjected Thae’akzi, cutting him off. Lord Ulthran does not control the stars or the rivers of time, he merely navigates a path through them. There is not always even a single route clear of storms–

And sometimes you must weather a storm to reach the safety of port, offered Eldressyn, as though concluding the older seer’s thoughts.

‘What do you suggest that we do?’ asked Ruhklo bluntly, breaking the psychic communion and shattering the silence of the council chamber. He could see where the conversation was heading, and he was damned if he was going to let it get there without a word of protest.

Eldressyn turned her implacable eyes back to the Karizhariat Seer. ‘Ulthwé is ill-equipped to confront the darklings on its own. We must call for aid.’

‘And who will come to our aid?’ asked Bhurolyn, his tone suggesting that he could think of nobody. ‘Altansar was lost long ago, and the other craftworld eldar are scattered throughout the webway. They are too distant and care not for our safety. And the harlequins have no force that could be of assistance to us now, breathtaking though they may be.’

‘The mon-keigh will come,’ stated Eldressyn simply, as though oblivious to the shock and outrage that such a suggestion would provoke.

‘You realise that you could be thrown off the council for such sacrilege!’ boomed Ruhklo. ‘Ulthwé will never stoop to request aid from those animals. It would be unprecedented. I am sure that Lord Ulthran would never stand for such a heinous idea.’

‘You would be wrong to make such an assumption, Ruhklo of the Karizhariat, and you are well aware of that. Many millennia ago, Eldrad Ulthran himself made a covenant with the mon-keigh. You yourself were there. The Coven of Isha still stands to this day. We could call on the mon-keigh for aid… if the council is in agreement,’ explained Thae’akzi calmly but with some hesitation.

Ruhklo glared at the Emerald Seer, his eyes burning with suppressed fury, as though she had just insulted him terribly. ‘The council does not agree, Thae’akzi of the Green Robes. Not now, and it did not agree in the past either, as you well know. Ulthwé needs no help from the stinking, ruinous, primitive “Imperium of Man”.’

As the words slid out of his throat, a shrill scream drew itself across the collective minds of the council, as though a jagged blade were being dragged against a metal plate. Involuntarily, the council shivered, wincing at the psychic violence that convulsed through the infinity circuit of their craftworld. Deep in the bowels of Ulthwé, death was clawing at the souls of their eldar brethren.

Before he turned the last corner in the passageway, the Ulthwé warlock, Shariele, could already hear the screams of the eldar guardians. There was a flood of psychic agony in the corridor, making the atmosphere thick and toxic, as though the souls of his kinsmen were already decaying in the fecundity of the craftworld’s bowels. Even before he turned the corner, he knew what he would see and his blood boiled with hatred and pain at the prospect.

The guardian squad had already been reduced to three beleaguered eldar warriors. Their comrades, broken and twisted beyond recognition, as though tortured to death by visions of their own personal hells, lay dead, scattered across the floor like slaughtered animals. Darting between the corpses, feasting on their decomposing flesh, flashed creatures of another realm. Their yellow teeth glinted with decay even as they plunged into the pale skin of the slain eldar, slobbering toxic saliva into the puncture wounds. Their green claws pawed at the bodies, shredding the pallid flesh like tenderised meat. And when Shariele rounded the corner to face them, their pitch-black eyes snapped instantly to meet his own, singeing his thoughts with visions of hell as a dim light sparked off the barbed silver spikes along their spines.

Squeezing his eyes into starbursts of hate, Shariele immediately reached forward with his arms and unleashed roiling blasts of psychic lightning from his open hands. The flames of sha’iel crunched into the faces of the two warp beasts, blasting them clear of their prey and sending them skidding over the blood-sheened wraithbone deck. They crashed up against the legs of a breathtaking darkling wych, who howled at them in disgust. She cracked her cackling warp whip across their backs, making them rear in agony and shriek with terrifying force. Then the beasts scrambled back to their feet and lurched forward again, bounding and leaping towards the eldar warlock, as though more afraid of their mistress than their enemy.

For a fraction of a second, Shariele flicked his eyes to the scene beyond the figure of the dark eldar beast mistress. He could see the shimmering curtain of a warp gate stretched across the corridor, unspeakably dark images roiling and swimming towards the surface from its ineffable depths. In an instant he realised that the gate had to be closed – it was a portal from the dark realms directly into Ulthwé itself.

As the two warp beasts charged towards him, snarling with uncontrollable hatred, Shariele also noticed the rest of the scene in the corridor around him. The three remaining Ulthwé guardians were spinning and yelling, firing their weapons in all directions at once, as though driven mad by the turmoil that seethed around them. Finally, the warlock noticed the suggestions of two shapely figures dancing through the shadows with incredible speed. Flashes of dark blades caught his eye as another of the Ulthwé guardians collapsed to the ground clutching a gaping wound across his neck. Wyches, realised Shariele, his thoughts knotted in disgust.

As the warp beasts pounced, Shariele stood his ground. He reached his burning hands forward with his fingers spread wide, holding them out like pathetic shields against the bestial fury of the vile creatures. But as the warp beasts reached their jaws around his arms, a convulsion of purple energy ripped through the warlock’s body, radiating power like a dying star. The yellow teeth dug through Shariele’s psychoplastic armour, but as they touched his skin they sizzled and vaporised instantly.

Like a potent venom, the thrill of Shariele’s touch spread rapidly through the bodies of the two beasts, transforming each into a stinking cloud of vaporised warp-energy. In less than a second, the clouds lost their shape and all evidence of the warp beasts vanished from the material realm.

The hate riddled wail of the darkling beast mistress was incredible. It rippled throughout the whole of the craftworld, sending waves pulsing through the spirit pool itself. She strode forward, cracking her warp whip and spinning the immense talon that served as a halberd. As she advanced towards Shariele, the two wyches that had been plaguing the remnants of the guardian squad appeared at her side, spinning their vicious blades with deathly grace.

Meanwhile, the two remaining guardians regrouped at Shariele’s shoulders and braced their shuriken catapults for a final battle over the corpses and souls of their brethren. For a moment, both sides paused as though weighing up the confrontation between the ancient and disremembered kin. Both sides had heard legends of the time when the eldar and dark eldar were not as different as they were now. For both, the thought merely inspired even greater hatred for the other. After less than a second, both sides let out curdling cries and charged.

The gap was closing quickly. Dhrykna’s squadron of guardians knew the jungles of Ulthwé’s forest domes down to the last tree, and their jetbikes flashed through the foliage as though completely unobstructed. Although they were fast and manoeuvrable, the Reavers up ahead had never been this far into Ulthwé before. The darkling riders were relying on their impressive reflexes and instincts to thread them through the dense jungle.

Without turning, Dhrykna knew that Exarch Truqui and his Dark Reapers had abandoned the chase; there was no way that their Wave Serpent could keep pace in this terrain. Besides, formidable though the Dark Reapers may be in ranged combat, they were not at their best in high speed chases through confined environments. Dhrykna was sure that Truqui would find a more appropriate way to engage these raiders, and she was not disappointed.

Blasting out of the tree line in pursuit of the streaking red and black Reavers, her shuriken cannons flaring with fire, Dhrykna grinned. Up ahead, arrayed across the access tunnels that peppered the boundary wall of the forest dome, she could clearly see the shining black form of the Dark Reapers. Truqui had left the Wave Serpent blocking the main tunnel mouth, with its long gun barrels angled forward into the forest. As soon as Dhrykna had broken the tree line, she could see the reaper cannons firing on the Reavers that screamed forward towards the tunnels, directly towards the waiting line of Aspect Warriors. Truqui had established a crossfire.

The darkling raiders showed no signs of slowing. Instead, the remaining Reavers started to twitch and swerve even more erratically, roaring towards the bank of fire at greater and greater speeds. Dhrykna lay low over the fuel tank in front of her, pressing her body down against the humming machine beneath her as she willed it to catch the speeding enemies, a stream of shuriken fire lashing out of the nose batteries of her jetbike.

One of the Reavers spluttered and decelerated rapidly, smoke pluming from its engines where the jetbikes of the guardian squadron had riddled it with fire. Dhrykna had to bank abruptly to avoid the wreck as her bike flashed past it in pursuit of the rest of the raiders – the interval between hunter and quarry had been reduced to less than a second. As she zipped past the ruined Reaver, she glanced at the figures of two eldar hunched over the saddle. One was a semi-clad, wild haired darkling, grinning and whooping insanely as his Reaver splintered and vaporised beneath him, but the other was sitting in calm silence, her gentle beauty so incongruous that it was startling. In an instant, Dhrykna realised that the second figure was an Ulthwé eldar – probably an artist or a dancer, judging by the elegance of her robes. Were the dark ones taking prisoners?

In the fraction of a moment that it took her to consider turning back, the ruined Reaver was wracked with heavy fire from the Wave Serpent’s cannons, transforming it into an explosive fireball that incinerated all organic matter within a ten metre radius. Whoever she was, the Ulthwé artist was now a casualty of war.

Two more Reavers plumed into smoke and dropped behind the leading pack, run through by volleys of staunch fire from the waiting bank of Dark Reapers. Dhrykna kept focused on the fastest of the raiders, watching it weave and thread itself around the tirades of fire that erupted from the Aspect Warriors up ahead, ignoring the rapidly increasing casualty rate amongst the other dark eldar riders.

After only a matter of seconds, the leading Reaver reached the bank of Dark Reapers. Dhrykna could see Truqui tracking the darkling, spraying out a hail of rockets as it flashed through the Aspect Warriors’ position. But the Reaver was too fast to be tracked at such close range, and it roared through the eldar emplacement without receiving so much as a scratch, vanishing instantly into the shadows of the access tunnels beyond. Moments later, two more Reavers flashed through the line of Dark Reapers, shrieking into the tunnels in pursuit of their leader.

Lying almost completely flat against her jetbike, Dhrykna gunned the engine and roared past Truqui for the second time that day. This time she did not pause to share a greeting, but she rolled her bike on its axis as she passed the Dark Reapers, suggesting both a salute and a reproach for letting the raiders through. The rest of her squadron sped into the access tunnels behind her, desperate to stop the Reavers before they could make their escape with the prisoners.

Truqui watched them go and cursed, muttering an incantation to Maugan Ra, reproaching him for the failure of the Dark Reapers, but beseeching him to give strength to Dhrykna’s guardians. The Harvester of Souls should not permit the souls of the eldar to be harvested by anyone else.

The image of the deep red mist filled the wall of Inquisitor Lord Seishon’s chamber. A feed from the main image amplifiers had been connected to Seishon’s personal quarters so that he could keep an eye on developments as they happened. The dull, ruddy light of the gathering cloud filled the apartments with long, dark shadows, since the inquisitor had not activated any of the other light sources. He was sitting in the near-darkness in silence, gazing at the mist, considering his options, and resting his head against a tube of paper that had just been delivered to him.

He already knew what was written on the message scroll. He had heard the rumours and the reports circulating through the intricately bugged, anti-bugged and de-anti-bugged corridors of Ramugan. If there was one thing that could be relied on in a substation shared by more than one branch of the Inquisition, it was that nobody could keep a secret.

Seishon shook his head involuntarily and sighed. What a perfect place to keep a secret, he thought. Right under the noses of everyone who would be interested in it. Nobody would dare to suppose that a secret coven was housed in a facility that provided a base of action for all three arms of the Inquisition simultaneously. Ramugan was the last place that such an institution should be found, which made it the perfect home for the Coven of Isha.

It had been there for centuries, since its inception. In truth, the existence of the coven lay at the foundations of the rationale for the substation’s very existence. What could possibly have convinced the three services to cooperate on the development and maintenance of a station so close to the Eye of Terror? The expense of such a facility was astronomical, and the psychic shielding required to keep the residents sane was absurd. It was the worst possible place for a base of operations. It was the most troublesome possible location. Only together could the Inquisitorial services sustain the station.

After Ramugan had been built, people stopped wondering about its rationale. Existence has its own weight. People accept things once they exist, once they have invested in them. So it was with Ramugan: the substation was created to service the Coven of Isha, but as time passed and the coven was never activated, everyone forgot about it and it passed into legend. Legends are quickly forgotten or buried in the vaults of massive libraries with infinite aisles of books and numberless pages of documents. Soon, nobody can remember them at all.

Seishon could remember. Vargas knew. And there were a few others in the Ordo Xenos who were initiated into the coven after they had proven their worth and been seconded to the substation of Ramugan. For most junior Xenos inquisitors, a posting to Ramugan seemed like a nightmare assignment. It was now well-known as an Ordo Malleus stronghold, and for good reason. Its proximity to the Eye of Terror meant that the station could serve as an early warning post if anything started to spill out of the maelstrom. More than once it had been used as a base of operations for the Grey Knights Chapter of Space Marines. And it suited the secrecy of the coven to allow the local sub-sector of the Ordo Malleus to invest Ramugan with its own identity.

Nodding faintly, Seishon flicked open the scroll and scanned the text that had been handwritten onto the parchment.

Inquisitor Lord Seishon of the Ordo Xenos, Ramugan sub-sector.

A matter has come to my attention that requires your wisdom. I dutifully request your presence at an Inquisitorial concert in the Chambers of Conference. Although it is principally a matter for the attention of the Ordo Malleus, it appears that you may also have some interest in these circumstances. For this reason, and for the glory of the Imperium itself, I trust that you will satisfy my request.

In service and in faith,

Glorina Caesurian, Inquisitor Lord, Ordo Hereticus, Ramugan sub-sector.

It was as he had expected. Despite his anachronistic revulsion to the way Glorina had adopted the traditionally male honorific of ‘lord,’ Seishon knew better than to doubt her resolve or power. He stood and smoothed his cloak, before turning and breezing out of the door.

The warp gate oscillated at their backs, sending crestless waves rippling across its surface in a curtain of sha’iel. Kroulir and Druqura thrilled, spinning their short blades in their hands and grinning. Quruel, the mistress of the beasts, was alive with fury in front of them, lashing out with her warp whip and daring the effete eldar to approach her talon tipped halberd. The three wyches moved with a sickly grace, as though oozing through the tension filled atmosphere.

Only a few metres down the corridor, the eldar guardians persisted in their feeble attempt to defend the lowest reaches of Ulthwé. Two warriors were braced with their species’ characteristic weapon – the shuriken catapult – spraying out clouds of monomolecular projectiles that hissed and whined with toxicity as they sizzled through the air. The third figure, standing in mock defiance between the other two, was a weakling warlock. His cloak billowed out behind him with dramatic effect, but the jagged blasts of warp energy that jousted from his fingers were no match for the power of the beast mistress.

Quruel was actually laughing as the warlock’s energy engulfed her form. Her head was thrown back and she was howling with sickening pleasure as her body was wracked with pain and burning agony, her feet slowing lifting off the ground.

Somewhere behind the tumult of battle, Kroulir could hear the distant roar of Reavers and the staccato percussion of rocket fire impacting into the substructure of the craftworld itself. Even as she spun and pirouetted around the shuriken fire from the guardians before her, Kroulir could make out the cackling cry of the raiding party as their signatures pierced the psychic soup of the corridor. They would be there soon, she grinned.

Stooping and spinning, she kicked up into a graceful arc, spiralling forward towards one of the clumsily immobile lightlings, letting the weight of her outstretched blades carry her forward. At the last moment, the lightling guardian staggered back, his shuriken catapult still spitting its lethal projectiles as he struggled to keep his feet amongst the fallen corpses of his kin. But Kroulir’s momentum carried her, and her blades sliced down through the eldar’s weapon, paring the barrel in two and rendering it into a useless mass of sparking connections.

Before Kroulir could turn again and force her blades to kiss the flesh of the reeling lightling, a blast of energy struck the side of her body, lifting her off her feet and smacking her against the side wall of the corridor. She shrieked with frustration as she slid down the wall, snapping her glowering eyes around to face the warlock that had dared to interrupt her killing dance. The fingers of his left hand still crackled with flashes of sha’iel, while the right maintained its torrent against Quruel, holding her aloft like a burning icon.

Narrowing her eyes with hate, Kroulir clambered back to her feet. How dare the lightling warlock interfere with the plans of the wych queen? Who was he to stand in the path of fate? Did he really think that his cheap tricks could hold back the tide of the future? She spat in disgust, drawing the back of her hand across her mouth to wipe the saliva from her lips, but as she did so she cut a deep gash into her forearm with her teeth and sliced a bloody tear into her lips with her dagger at the same time. Her face shimmered with blood and hatred as she glared at the eldar warlock.

Druqura engaged the second guardian, who had abandoned his catapult and produced a long, curving sword, which he flourished with some skill. The beast mistress herself was still held in the flood of warp energy that gushed out of the warlock’s other hand. Kroulir could see Quruel’s teeth flashing and arcing with power as she drank in the warlock’s power like a desert absorbing rain. It had been a long time since Kroulir had seen her mistress so happy, and for a moment she even pitied the hapless lightling warlock, who probably thought that Quruel was suffering terribly in the onslaught.

A sudden blast of noise shook the corridor, as though something had just exploded, sending shockwaves throbbing through the wraithbone structure. An instant later, and a plume of flame billowed into sight, expanding down the corridor towards the combatants and the shimmering warp gate, consuming the air and filling the space instantly. As one, the eldar and dark eldar ceased fighting and turned to face the fiery tide.

A dark shadow appeared in the heart of the inferno, as though something were rushing through the flames. Then the roar of a Reaver engine flooded into the confines of the corridor and a black and red jetbike erupted out of the fireball, its splinter rifles hissing into life as the rider spotted the eldar guardians and the warlock ahead of it.

Kroulir watched the lightling eldar scatter for cover as the remnants of the Reaver raiding party and the fire flashed through the corridor. The feeble warlock even released Quruel.

Running the tip of her tongue around her bloody lips as the flames caressed her exposed skin, Kroulir smiled. The wych queen would be pleased, and that could mean a symphony of exquisite pain when she returned.

The Reavers ploughed on, plunging into the shimmering curtain of the warp gate and vanishing instantaneously from the bowels of Ulthwé. With a brisk nod to the two wyches, Quruel flipped backwards into the portal and vanished, as though she were merely diving into a deep, dark pool. Kroulir and Druqura shared a look as the lightling jetbikes emerged from the smoke and dissipating flames in the corridor, roaring in pursuit of the already vanished Reavers. The lead rider’s eyes were set with ferocious intent, focused intensely on the warp gate ahead of her.

With a swift sequence of elegant movements, Kroulir and Druqura spun and flipped to the sides of the corridor, flicking and twitching their fingers over the devices that they had established so recently, reversing the sequence with effortless speed. The curtain of sha’iel between them started to flicker and pulse, as though losing its already dubious stability. It flashed and strobed as material reality started to repel its immaterial structure.

Druqura dived quickly into the fading portal, plunging after her escaping kin. But Kroulir paused for a moment. She turned her back to the collapsing warp gate and stared into the eyes of the charging jetbike rider, watching the desperation piercing the squadron leader’s mind. You are too slow, muttered Kroulir into the thoughts of the lightling rider.

With ostentatious and deliberate slowness, Kroulir stepped backwards and blinked out of existence. Instantly, the warp gate collapsed around her, making the space it had occupied implode in on itself. Less than a second later, Dhrykna’s silver and black jetbike flashed through the location of the vanished portal, missing its mark by the tiniest of temporal distances and skidding to a halt just millimetres from the solid wraithbone wall beyond.

Chapter Two:
The Coven

It was highly unusual for senior ranking representatives of the three branches of the Emperor’s Inquisition to occupy the same station; it was almost unthinkable that they would sit in the same room. Hence, the Ramugan Chambers of Conference, which had been specially constructed for exactly this purpose, were so rarely used that a special detachment of menials had to be sent to prepare them before the Inquisitorial conference could commence. Following the departure of the bustling sanitization team, a bank of cloaked Inquisitorial mystics was deployed around the perimeter of the great hall, where they dropped to their knees and began to chant litanies of purification. After a few minutes the chambers were filled with the resonant, rasping voices of the mystics and the thick, smoky reassurance of incense.

The main chamber had three great archways, one cut massively into the adamantium structure of each side of the triangular room. On the centre stone of each archway was the emblem of one of the branches of the Inquisition, cut in tiny but intricate precision, all but invisible to the casual observer. In the heart of the triangulated, domed ceiling of the main chamber, a massive Inquisitorial icon had been carved in relief, dominating the room. Beyond the archways were three identically constructed antechambers, entrance to which was provided by three identical doors.

At exactly the same moment, each of the three entranceways opened and the Inquisitorial retinues slipped into the sub-chambers, establishing themselves around the circular walls and securing the space within. Only the inquisitor lords themselves would be permitted to pass through the archways into the main chamber – their retinues would have to wait in the antechambers. But after long decades of service in the Emperor’s Inquisition, their lordships were not naive enough to appear before even another servant of the Emperor without first making plans for every possible contingency. Their retinues served as much for security as for ceremony.

The Chambers of Conference had been specially designed to accommodate the mutual, internal suspicions of the Inquisition without heightening them. The triangular room, which offered precisely equal space and position to each of the arms of the service, was a masterpiece of diplomatic architecture. The elaborate archways, which bristled with every kind of alarm and sensor known to the Imperium, but which disguised each and every one as a decoration or tribute to the lords who might pass through it, were the epitome of refined, elegant distrust. The readouts from the various sensors could be read from the monitors in each of the three antechambers – hence, the retinues of each inquisitor lord could keep each of the other retinues under continuous surveillance.

The only glitch in the design was one of timing: if any of the retinues entered before the others, it was theoretically possible that a stealthy and lithe assassin or death cultist could slip through the archway and secrete herself in the main chamber without the other retinues being able to note the sensor displays. Custom had conspired to solve the problem by dictating that all three retinues must enter the chambers simultaneously. If this custom were breached, then the aggrieved parties would have indisputable grounds to call off the conference.

The mystics that lined the main chamber were specially selected from all three arms of the Inquisition and subjected to egregious cycles of hypnotherapy by each of the services. Their minds were carefully picked apart by interrogators and explicators, who worked to ensure that the psychic potentials of the mystics remained potent but that their capacity to innovate or create the impulse to employ those abilities for themselves was entirely eradicated. By the time they were permitted to enter the Chambers of Conference, they were little more than psychic menials, producing a constant atmosphere of purity and calm, effectively blocking out the various formidable psychic powers of some of the inquisitor lords themselves.

Inquisitor Lord Seishon stood in the doorway to the circular antechamber of the Ordo Xenos, watching his retinue spread out around the walls with practiced efficiency. He shook his head in faint despondence, disappointed yet again by the elaborate ceremony of distrust enacted between ostensible comrades. The Inquisition was a vast and complicated institution, and it was certainly not monolithic, but it saddened him that there could be such passionate distrust amongst the agents of the Emperor even there on Ramugan.

As he took his first step into the ancient chamber, he laughed quietly, realising that the distrust was entirely justified, there more than anywhere – Zhaul, Seishon’s Vindicare assassin, was the first member of his retinue to enter the chamber. In the past, he had sent her to hide in the domed ceiling vaults of the main chamber days before a conference, just in case. This time, he had not had sufficient notice for such precautions, and it worried him. After all, he didn’t even trust Vargas.

He strode through the circular room, paying no attention to the banks of monitors that flashed and bleeped against the wall. There was really no point in worry about the alarms and sensors: if an alarm sounded, then the threat was too clumsy to worry about; if an alarm failed to sound, it was already all over. For a moment he wondered whether his compatriots in the Ordo Malleus and Ordo Hereticus were really reassured by the presence of the alarm systems. He suspected that they were not.

What a ridiculous set-up, he reflected as he passed into the grand, triangular conference chamber. Pausing for a moment, he noted that cloaked figures were already waiting under the other two archways: Lord Aurelius from the Ordo Malleus and Hereticus Lord Caesurian. He nodded to them and walked forward towards the conference table.

In the icy shadows of the mountain pass, a tiny starburst of light sparked out of the Librarian’s eyes as he knelt softly by the shoulder of his fallen battle-brother. He appeared to be checking his comrade for vital signs, holding his palm over the shattered Space Marine’s face as though attempting to feel life itself emanating from his frazzled mind.

The kneeling Librarian paused, as though noticing a noise on the edge of hearing. Slowly, he turned his head under the deep folds of his heavy hood, bringing his glittering eyes around with patient deliberation.

How can I be of service? Before he had even turned, the thoughts were already out of his head and pushing implacably into the minds of the two Space Marines that stood waiting for his attention.

The two towering, black-armoured Space Marines showed no outward signs of surprise. Their helmets and heavy visors obscured even the faintest hint of human emotion. They simply nodded a silent greeting towards the Librarian, who remained stooped over his comrade with one hand resting delicately over his bleeding face. Only the Librarian’s burning eyes were turned towards the newcomers.

A rattle of explosions shook the mountain pass, shaking rockfalls from the cliff faces above and below, and sending avalanches of snow cascading down into the valley. The two Deathwatch Space Marines did not even flinch, and Librarian Ashok of the Angels Sanguine hardly seemed to notice.

‘As you can see, you do not come at the most convenient of times,’ said Ashok, his voice hardly more than a whisper as he rose to his feet. He paused and then gestured up the rock face behind him. ‘The orks have been driven into the mountains, but they are not yet a spent force. They will regroup if they are not broken now.’

‘The orks are not our concern right now, Librarian,’ replied one of the Space Marines flatly, as another boom of ordnance smashed into the narrow pathway, showering them with fragments of stone and ice. A single patch on the Space Marine’s right shoulder had been left uncovered by the pitch-black colouring of the Deathwatch, and Ashok could see an emblem that identified the Space Marine as belonging to the Revilers Chapter, a successor of the Raven Guards. Despite himself, the Librarian’s jaw clenched in agitation.

Ashok knew that there was nothing he could say. He knew that there was nothing he should say. He had been initiated into the Deathwatch many years before, after he had conquered his rage on Hegelian IX, leading the remnants of the Angels Sanguine Death Company in a tyranid hunt through the catacombs. Since then, he had been called upon to serve the sacred Emperor’s Inquisition a number of times, and on none of those occasions had he been asked. The Deathwatch did not ask. He had been sworn into service, and it would be his honour to perform his duty. Why else did all initiates into the elite service leave their armour painted black, even when they returned to their home Chapters, even at the risk of offending the machine-spirits of their armour, leaving only one shoulder guard to proudly display the emblem of their own Chapters? To have been in the Deathwatch even once meant that you must be ever ready for its call again. It was the greatest honour that a Space Marine could be awarded.

As though reading the Librarian’s mind, the Reviler continued. ‘The Emperor’s will does not await the leisure of his servants, Librarian Ashok.’

Ashok turned slowly away from his fallen brethren, bringing his shadowed face around to fully confront the Deathwatch Space Marines for the first time. The words had stung him unnecessarily, and, for an instant, his eyes flickered with a primal, red fire. He was more than aware of his duty, and he certainly did not need to be reminded of it by this Reviler. He was the bearer of the Shroud of Lemartes, the Guardian of the Damned; there was nobody whose soul had been through more in the name of the Emperor.

‘This Space Marine can yet be saved,’ he said, controlling his ire and indicating the Angel Sanguine who lay broken on the ground behind him. Ashok had deliberately turned his gaze on the second Deathwatch Space Marine, who had remained silent until now. The icon of a black raven insignia on a white background was unfamiliar to the Librarian.

There was a moment of hesitation before the Deathwatch Space Marine spoke. ‘Very well,’ he said simply. ‘We will take your battle-brother back to a med-station. But we have no time for the orks, Librarian. The orders of the Ordo Xenos are not to be taken lightly, and we must make haste. It has taken us longer than expected to find you, detached from your squad and so high in the mountains. The Angels Sanguine Death Company will be more than a match for the orks here on Trontium VI, even without you, I am sure.’

‘Thank you,’ nodded Ashok with genuine gratitude, as the red fires in his eyes faded to a fathomless black.

The faintly pulsing image hovered like a mythical bird, floating effortlessly over the wraithbone dais in the hidden sanctum of the Coven of Isha. The small, circular chamber occupied an unusual space within the substructure of the Ramugan station. It would have been impossible to mark its location on a schematic, since it was not entirely present in the material realm. In the forgotten past, when the station had first been constructed, Farseer Eldrad Ulthran of the Ulthwé craftworld had supplied the chamber for the coven himself, presumably foreseeing that its secrecy would be important in the years to come. Now, the wraithbone chamber teetered on the edge of material reality, almost entirely enveloped by the tortuous and incomprehensible currents of the warp, from which it was protected by the mysterious eldar materials and craftsmanship.

Inquisitor Lord Vargas sat in the ceremonial throne that was cut into one of the interior walls of the sanctum, watching the flickering holograph of Farseer Ulthran gradually materialise above the podium in front of him.

Vargas had been the keeper of the coven for more than thirty years, but never once in that time had he come into contact with Ulthran himself. Never once in that time had the coven been invoked. Indeed, the records of past coven-keepers, hidden away in a small librarium that was kept out of sight and out of reality by being dipped entirely into the otherworldliness of the warp, suggested that the coven had never been activated in its entire history. Not once.

The eldar had provided information to the coven-keepers of the Ramugan Ordo Xenos, but they had never asked for anything in return. And the information itself had usually proven ambiguous or even dangerous. Records in the coven librarium traced intricate and mind-bending links between these intelligence reports and apparently disastrous events in the history of the Imperium such as the Sanapan Scouring, the Mortis Annihilation, the Third Coming of Orian and even the epic Battle of Armageddon.

As a consequence of the relative inactivity of the pact, even Vargas himself had fallen victim to moments of doubt about its authenticity: perhaps it was only a legend after all? It was only his direct experience of the sanctum and the librarium that reassured him of the coven’s continued existence: there was simply no other explanation for the secret presence of the largest wraithbone construction in the Imperium, nor for the existence of a force-shielded tentacle that prodded out from Ramugan into the webway, attached to a little librarium that was filled with the scribblings of generations of inquisitor lords.

Just keeping these things secret from the rest of the Inquisition was a terrible heresy, although secreting away xenos technology for reasons of research was part of the raison d’être of the Ordo Xenos. It was an open secret, although even that was frowned on by some of the more puritanical inquisitors. There were even members of the Ordo Xenos who did not approve of attempting to make use of alien technology at all. The late Lord Agustius, for example, had been so adverse to all types of technology that he had even refused to accept bionic implants in his crippled legs, preferring instead to trundle about in his wheelchair.

Thankfully, inquisitors of Agustius’s persuasion were rather rarer in the Ordo Xenos than in the other arms of the Inquisition – the Thorian Puritans, for example, had very few members amongst the alien hunters. It was difficult, after all, to reconcile the need to hunt the alien without simultaneously developing an appreciation for their technologies.

Particularly eldar technology, mused Vargas as he gazed around the wraithbone chamber once again. It never ceased to amaze him. He was sure that the Adeptus Mechanicus would risk a small war to appropriate this chamber, just to take it apart and see what made it tick.

Unfortunately for Vargas and the other keepers of the coven, although puritanical inquisitors might be relatively scarce within the Ordo Xenos, in this sub-sector at least, the alien hunters were not alone on Ramugan. The local Ordo Malleus and especially Ordo Hereticus were riddled with the kind of self-righteous Puritanism that drove Vargas to distraction.

Some of them must have heard the rumours and legends about the coven, but it was beyond their wit to locate the sanctum or librarium, and they must have considered it ridiculous to believe that such an institution could have existed for all these long millennia without taking any action whatsoever. Even for those who had heard the stories, the Coven of Isha was little more than a fantasy ascribed to the mythical figure of Eldrad Ulthran, on whom the inquisitors of Ramugan liked to pin responsibility for any unexplained disasters in the quadrant. Hardly anyone even thought that he was real – he was just an emblem, a caricature of the cunning, manipulative and merciless eldar.

Yes, thought Vargas, watching the ineffably elegant figure of the eldar farseer materialise before him, the coven is safer here than it might be anywhere else in the Imperium.

Greetings, Lord Vargas… As they flowed into his mind, the words were cold and fathomless, like currents running along the bottom of a deep ocean. They seemed to wash back and forth, trailing off as though forgotten in mid-sentence. The sanctum glowed and pulsed with life as Ulthran’s mind made its presence felt.

Vargas nodded uncertainly. He was not a great psyker himself, and was unsure how to communicate with the eldar apparition. Part of his mind thrilled at the contact from so eminent a presence. He had never dared to dream that he would come into direct contact with Eldrad Ulthran himself. Now, it seemed, the ancient farseer even knew his name.

You may speak. I will hear you, lord. The thoughts warmed slightly, as though trying to reassure Vargas’s mind with a new atmosphere of comfort. Despite himself, Vargas smiled at the use of the word ‘lord.’ He was a vain man, and not beyond flattery, even by aliens.

‘You honour me with your… presence, Lord Ulthran,’ managed Vargas, uncommonly flustered in his speech. He felt like an excited child.

Yes, replied Eldrad simply. It was true. I am pleased to see that the Coven of Isha remains honoured amongst the servants of… your Emperor. There was a pause before the farseer spoke the exalted title, as though he were going to say something else. Vargas gasped, anticipating the revelation of a personal name; he had heard the rumours that Ulthran and the Emperor were not strangers to each other. But, he was disappointed.

‘It has been carefully and patiently maintained, my… Lord Ulthran,’ replied Vargas honestly, fighting the sudden impulse to address the farseer as his own lord. ‘We stand ready to fulfil our side of the coven.’

That is good, Lord Vargas, for the time has come at last, as we knew that it must. The tides of time and space have been swept by ill winds to bring us to this place. But we are here, and it is only with the present that we cannot argue. Although it is only in the present that we may fight. And fight we must, servant of the Golden Throne. Fight you must. Doom skirts the horizon like a rising star, and Ulthwé has need of your warriors to prevent its ascension into the heavens. As it says in the Coven of Isha, it is for me that you do this, and it is for… your Emperor.

Despite himself, Vargas bowed his head in deference to the farseer. When he looked up, the holograph had vanished and the wraithbone chamber was darkly silent once again.

The massive viewscreen that filled the wall still glittered with stars, holding the slowly expanding mist of deep red in its centre, filtering out the chaotic blaze of the Eye of Terror itself. Seishon stood facing the sparkling images, watching the infinitesimal developments in the cosmos with studied care. His back was to the door when it slid open noiselessly.

‘Vargas,’ he clipped, recognising the sweep of air that eased into the room without turning around. ‘Thank you for joining me. We need to talk.’

‘Yes, old friend,’ replied Vargas, walking towards the table in the middle of the room with unsteady steps, unwilling to look over at the cloaked back of Seishon. ‘There is much to discuss.’

Abruptly, Seishon turned, whipping his cloak around in a swirl of drama. He stalked towards the seated Vargas and leaned forward onto the table. ‘I was summoned to the Chambers of Conference, Vargas. Lord Caesurian called for a meeting – and she summoned me…’ He let his voice trail off, as though the ideas he was implanting in Vargas’s mind should have weight enough already.

Vargas steepled his fingers in front of his face and then looked up slowly, meeting Seishon’s eyes for the first time. He could see the humiliation and the tinge of fear crackling around the inquisitor lord’s irises like the fringes of a storm cloud. ‘I know, Seishon. I also received a summons.’

‘What? But you were not there! There is no place in the Chambers of Conference for two lords from Ordo Xenos… Did you attend separately? What did you tell them, Vargas?’ Seishon’s mind was racing with questions and leaping to answers of its own, his customary composure lost for an instant. He had known Vargas for many years, and he knew that he could be trusted in his own way – but he also knew that the old inquisitor was unusually naive about the intricate and complex workings of the Inquisition. He could betray himself without even knowing it.

‘No, my old friend,’ soothed Vargas, his voice even and calm, ‘you misunderstand me. I was not summoned to the Chambers of Conference, but rather to the…’ He paused, as though mustering drama or simply unwilling to give voice to the word. ‘I was summoned to the sanctum,’ he finished.

Seishon stared at the composed old man before him, sitting at the table with his chin propped up on interlaced and steepled fingers. His eyes were clear and steady, as though his mind was mixed with wonder and certainty.

‘What happened?’ asked Seishon with slow deliberation, letting the syllables roll as though coaxing a child.

‘Eldrad Ulthran himself appeared to me, Seishon. He has called for our aid. He has identified this as the moment for which we have been waiting all these long years. The Eye of Terror is weeping torrents of Chaos into the galaxy, and Lord Ulthran has requested our aid to turn back the tide. This is the final realisation of the coven that we have protected for so many generations…’ Vargas trailed off, as though lost in a private reverie.

‘Vargas,’ snapped Seishon, fearing that the old inquisitor had fallen under some kind of spell. ‘How can you be so trusting of this… alien?’

The last word stung Vargas like a slap across his face.

‘Why else have we hidden the Coven of Isha in the shadows of Ramugan for millennia? Why else have we put our lives and our souls on the line, before the very eyes of those who would happily burn us as heretics and wyches? This is the moment that we and our forbears have waited for. How can you be so sceptical even now? Have you not sworn to uphold the coven? Is that not why you are here?’ Vargas’s voice was tinged with venom and reproach, even as his eyes glazed slightly with the romance of his accusations.

Lord Seishon lifted his hands from the table and turned away, walking back over to the viewing wall in silence. He gazed up at the billowing red mist that was oozing out of the Eye, and he sighed.

‘You are right, Vargas. This is why we are here,’ he confessed. ‘Yet, I cannot bring myself to trust the aliens as you do,’ he continued as he turned back to face his old friend. ‘The existence of the coven does not in itself make every call from Ulthwé into its realisation. The eldar are a cunning race, Vargas, and it would not be below them to call on us for reasons of their own. How can we know that this is the moment that was seen all those millennia ago?’

‘The signs are clear, Seishon,’ replied Vargas softly. ‘You can see the emissions from the Eye for yourself. The call from Lord Ulthran merely confirms the suspicions that we already had.’

It was true, reflected Seishon silently. They had already been concerned by the red mist that roiled around the quadrant in which they knew Ulthwé cruised the space lanes. But he could not shake the feeling that something was not right.

‘That is the second time you have called the alien farseer a lord, old friend. You should be careful with your words, lest they lead you along a path to damnation. The eldar are a slippery and treacherous race, and Eldrad Ulthran is the best and the worst of them. He is not to be trusted, even when he is right. Do you understand?’ Seishon peered through the half-light, trying to discern the intent hidden in Vargas’s eyes.

‘We must send a Deathwatch team immediately,’ stated Vargas without moving, as though dismissing the cautions of Seishon as the conservatism of an overprotective parent. ‘Captain Octavius has just returned to the Watchtower Fortress of Ramugan. He should lead the team.’

Seishon watched his old friend’s eyes for a moment longer and then nodded his assent. ‘Very well, Vargas, we will send a kill-team to assist the eldar. But the mission must adopt the greatest secrecy. Nobody must know of it. Hereticus Lord Caesurian is already suspicious enough about our activities. Malleus Lord Aurelius has detected the Eye’s unusual discharge, and he is considering dispatching a squadron of Grey Knights to investigate. Ramugan is not unaware that the warp signatures are shifting. If our team is discovered, it will look like the worst kind of heresy – we dispatch aid to the aliens whilst lying to the agents of the Inquisition. We are placing our very souls on the line, old friend.’

‘We are doing nothing more than fulfilling an Imperial oath, Seishon. It is our duty to the Emperor and to the Imperium of Man. If we failed to dispatch aid, we could be leaving the galaxy to burn. Our souls would be an insignificant price to pay to defend the realm.’

‘You are an idealist, Vargas, as is your choice of Deathwatch captain. We will recall Librarian Ashok from the Angels Sanguine for this mission. He will join the valiant Octavius’s team. They have fought together before. As for the rest of the team, we will permit Octavius himself to construct one from the Space Marines currently based in the Watchtower – there is no time to go out hunting for others. This mission must succeed before the Grey Knights are dispatched, if the honourable Aurelius decides to send them. It would not do for those Malleus Space Marines to find a black Deathwatch frigate already coasting around Circuitrine when they arrive – they would not… understand. It is bad enough that they know we are watching that sector at all. We must do our best to stall Lord Aurelius.’

With her long black hair tied back tightly in a semi-conscious echo of her disciplined existence, Dhrykna strode into the Seer Council’s audience chamber and dropped immediately to one knee. She pushed her fist against the shining wraithbone on the floor and closed her eyes, waiting to be acknowledged.

There was a long pause.

‘Rise, Guardian Dhrykna of the Shining Path.’ The voice was gentle and strong, soft like that of a mother goddess. Dhrykna recognised it at once as the voice of the Emerald Seer.

The young guardian had encountered Thae’akzi of the Emerald Robes many times before, but she was still flattered that the senior seer would remember something of her own history. The reference to the Shining Path recalled Dhrykna’s time in the service of the Aspect Temple of the Shining Spears, a rare and secretive Aspect with a tiny, well-hidden shrine in the lowest levels of Ulthwé.

Thae’akzi had been consulted when Dhrykna had requested ascension to exarch of the temple, and the Emerald Seer had raised a number of objections, which is why the guardian had been forced to leave the temple and rejoin life in the rest of the craftworld. Unable to settle into any of the other ways of life offered in Ulthwé, Dhrykna had dedicated herself to the way of the warrior under the auspices of the permanent core of Ulthwé’s Black Guardians. Because of her skill on a jetbike, she had quickly risen to a position of command in the jetbike service that constantly patrolled the lower levels of Ulthwé, searching for raiders and signs of infiltration. She may have abandoned life as an Aspect Warrior, but it was still not clear that the life of a Shining Spear had abandoned her. Thae’akzi’s reference to the Shining Path made Dhrykna’s heart thrill, sensing in it the possibility of a return to that pristine temple.

‘As requested, Seer Thae’akzi, I await your leisure,’ said Dhrykna in an even voice, lifting her eyes but leaving her fist and knee touched to the ground.

‘I understand that you have much to attend to, commander. We will make this brief.’ What did you see? The words and thoughts slipped into Dhrykna’s mind as one, and she could not differentiate between sounds heard and those merely known.

‘The darklings executed a well-planned raid, my lady. It is not clear how they gained access to Ulthwé, but it is certain that at least two teams orchestrated the strike. One worked to construct a portal in the lower levels, seeking to provide an extraction point for the others. Meanwhile, the others raided an artists’ colony on the cusp of one of the minor forest domes. They took a number of prisoners before being discovered and driven out of the encampments. Most of the raiders were destroyed, but more than a few escaped into the portal. Several Ulthwé eldar vanished with them as captives, while others died in the pursuit. Where possible, the waystones of the fallen have been recovered. Clearly, the souls of those who where thrown through the warp gate are in the greatest jeopardy.’

As she spoke, Dhrykna broke eye contact with the beautiful seer, forcing her own gaze down into the writhing energy patterns that swam through the wraithbone beneath her knee. Her heart burnt with the passion of vengeance and humiliation. The dark eldar would pay dearly for the offence that they perpetrated against the eldar of Ulthwé. The Black Guardians may not be the most numerous force in the galaxy, but they were feared throughout the Eye of Terror, and rightly so.

‘Your account is consistent with that of Shariele, Warlock of the Undercouncil, young Dhrykna.’ Can the Black Guardians repel this enemy? ‘The Seer Council has already met to discuss a response to this latest batch of raids by the unspeakable ones.’ Do you trust that you can do it alone, Dhrykna of the Shining Path? ‘What role was played by the Aspect Temples?’ How did Exarch Truqui fare in the battle with the darklings?

Thae’akzi’s words slipped into Dhrykna’s mind from all directions at once. Sometimes pouring in through her ears, but often spiking directly into her thoughts. The effect was intense and dizzying, like being trapped in an echoing cathedral. In the end, there was nothing but truth on the guardian’s lips.

‘The Dark Reapers fought valiantly, my lady. But…’

But?

But, their abilities are not well suited to this kind of battle. The Reapers are formidable warriors and their ferocity is unparalleled when Ulthwé requires a ground assault. In the confines of the ventilation shafts and in the intricate organic mazes of the forest-domes… They are Khaine’s hammer, my lady, and we are in need of his spear. It was as though she could not bring herself to speak such criticisms out loud, but even giving the words form in her mind made her soul shiver with perceptions of treachery.

‘I see,’ said Thae’akzi, breaking the silence and returning the tone to the mundane. ‘And what of the Spears themselves?’

Dhrykna had been waiting for this question. Unlike the bellicose craftworlds of Biel-Tan or Saim-Hann, Ulthwé did not host all of the Aspect Temples. For some reason, the eldar of Ulthwé tended to shy away from the ways of war, preferring instead to immerse themselves in the long and subtle path of the seer. It was because of this psychic intensity that Ulthwé could manoeuvre the webway with such success, skirting the various evils and calamities that might have befallen the less wary. There would be no need to fight if the enemy could be avoided at every turn. However, evasion is not always possible, and it is not always desirable; some of the most glorious futures lay in wait on the other side of war. And certainly not all Ulthwé eldar were unfamiliar with the paths of the warrior.

On the other craftworlds, the Dark Reapers were viewed with suspicion and awe. Their sinister dark armour was adorned with ancient symbols and glyphs of death and destruction, and their loyalty rested unequivocally with Maugan Ra and the lost craftworld of Altansar, once the sister of Ulthwé as a guardian of the great Eye. Their numbers were usually small and their reputations dubious. But on Ulthwé herself, the Dark Reapers were the most abundant of the Aspect Warriors. Where all warriors are viewed with suspicion, pity, and gratitude, the idiosyncrasies of each Aspect makes little difference. On Ulthwé, the Reapers thrived.

The Shining Spears were an entirely different matter, as Dhrykna knew well. They were a tiny and elite presence on only a few craftworlds, including Ulthwé, but they were universally prized as the embodiment of Kaela Mensha Khaine’s spear, which struck with the power and speed of lightning. There was nothing dubious or dark about the Shining Path. It was a glittering exemplar of the warrior way, and its jetbike mounted warriors were well suited to the internal security needs of Ulthwé.

‘I did not see the Spears, my lady,’ replied Dhrykna at last, able to vocalise her disappointment because it was a self-recrimination as much as a complaint.

Why would they not come?

I do not know, my lady. Their numbers are dwindling, and they are leaderless, as you know.

You will return to them, Dhrykna of the Shining Spears, and offer them direction.

The thought made Dhrykna’s heart pound. The Emerald Seer was directing her back to the Aspect Temple from which she had been expelled many years ago. Her soul had been calling out for such a return ever since her departure, funnelling her into a life that was really a pale imitation of the strictures of that Aspect. Instead of embracing the Shining Path with its pristine, white jetbikes, she had accustomed herself to the black and silver of the guardian jetbike squadrons, swapping her laser lance for a shuriken pistol.

I have been watching you, Dhrykna, as has the Temple. Since you made your request for ascension to exarch, we have been watching you. It is clear to us now that your soul is true and that your path is inextricably bound to the Shining Way. You will return to your shrine and don the ancient armour of your people. We have need of your skills now, as never before.

Warlock Shariele of the Undercouncil agrees with your assessment that the Black Guardians are insufficient to meet this threat, and that the Dark Reapers are unsuited to the task. The council has called for aid from the mon-keigh, but we were… reluctant to do this. If the Shining Spears will stand for Ulthwé in this matter, it will be to their great honour, and ours.

The delicacy of the situation was clear from the chill that accompanied the Emerald Seer’s thoughts. There was discomfort in her mind, and it sent shivers into Dhrykna, despite her elation.

‘I will have to stand with the mon-keigh, Seer Thae’akzi?’ asked Dhrykna with incredulity. She did not understand. She had assumed that she would be returning to partake in the rights of ascension, to take her place in the exarch’s gleaming sanctum. How could the exarch be separated from its Temple? How could it be expected to stand with the bestial mon-keigh. It would be heresy.

‘Yes, child, you will stand with them.’ It was as simple as that. You are not the exarch yet.

Despite the bright lights in the briefing chamber of the Watchtower Fortress, everything looked dark and sullen. The light sank into the matt, unreflective blackness of the walls, floor and ceiling, falling into the structure of the room as though it had never been there at all. Even the Space Marines who punctuated the wide space with their massive bulks offered little levity or light, their blackened armour only adding to the oppressive air. The only points of glossy differentiation were the right shoulder guards of each Space Marine, which displayed the glorious symbols of their various Chapters of origin.

The silence was as striking as the shadow. The Space Marines stood or sat in perfect stillness, neither interacting with, nor ignoring each other, always aware but never threatening or frivolous. There was a dense aura of respect dominating the atmosphere, but it was not without hints of suspicion and cynicism. The Space Marines of the Deathwatch were united by the strongest and most powerful of vows to the Emperor and His Inquisition, and they recognised that their battle-brothers were being honoured equally with themselves, but they were also fiercely loyal to their home Chapters and deeply suspicious of all outsiders.

Being seconded into the Deathwatch was one of the most profound challenges that a Space Marine could face. It not only meant that he would be dispatched on the most dangerous of missions to hunt down the alien menace – in many ways that was the simplest aspect of the position – but he would also have to resolve deep-rooted and fundamental psychological tensions between his joint loyalties to the Emperor’s will as interpreted by his Chapter and the interpretation espoused by the Ordo Xenos. Added to the mix would be the multifarious interpretations of the other Chapters, and the occasionally radical departures made by specific, idiosyncratic inquisitors.

More often than not, these differing world-views fell into a rough harmony; after all, they were all servants of the Undying Emperor. But from time to time the world-views would diverge or clash, and then a Space Marine was left to resolve the crisis in his own conscience. Joining the Deathwatch may be the greatest honour that could be afforded a Space Marine, but it was also the greatest challenge to his body and soul: victory and defeat, loyalty and heresy could become muddled together or fragmented into myriad aspects. More than any other assignment that a Space Marine might be asked to take, a secondment to the Deathwatch was a test of his character: duty before all else, but what happens when the meaning of duty is suddenly thrown into question by competing visions?

Sitting in silence on the floor in the corner of the room, almost unnoticed by the others, Ashok folded his well-muscled arms around his knees and let his hood drop down over his face. He was the only Space Marine in the room who had chosen not to wear his armour for the briefing. Instead, he was clad in a simple black smock that hung loosely over his frame. The hood had been fashioned out of the Shroud of Lemartes, which had been presented to him as a sign of his self-mastery following the incident on Hegelian IX. The rough sensation of its fabric against his skin offered him reassurance, keeping his mind fixed and focused. For that reason, the hood was always folded over his head, casting his fathomless black eyes into deep shadow.

Since being awarded the shroud, Ashok had never worn the elaborate Librarian’s helmet to which he was entitled by rank and status. Even in full armour, his head was exposed to the elements and his face was hidden under the shadows of the shroud. But he did not like even to wear his armour. He suspected, moreover, that its machine-spirit did not like to be in his presence. Together, he and his armour were terrible to behold, and Ashok felt that he needed to be rid of it when he was not actually in combat. There was no peace to be found in that ancient spirit of war, and Ashok had to strive constantly for balance in his mind.

Like the other Space Marines of the Angels Sanguine, who shared the gene-seed of the Blood Angels, one of Ashok’s primary concerns was to stave off the insanities of the Red Thirst, the primordial rage that hungered for blood in his soul. Unlike most of his battle-brothers, Ashok had passed through the affliction of his brethren and emerged a master of himself and his passions. In the process, he had done unspeakable things to his brothers and to the servants of the Emperor, and the scratching irritations of the Shroud of Lemartes ensured that these actions were never far from his mind.

On the other side of the briefing room, a door clicked and hissed open, revealing the outline of another Space Marine standing dramatically in the flood of light. Ashok’s eyes glinted in the rush of light, but he did not look up. He knew who it was already. The other Space Marines in the room drew themselves up to attention, and awaited the inspection of the great captain. All of them had heard about Captain Octavius of the Imperial Fists during their training at the Watchtower Fortress. Since his exceptional performance on Herodian IV, he had become a legendary figure among those seconded to the Deathwatch and had become an almost permanent fixture within its ranks. The Imperial Fists missed their eminent captain, of course, but it was a great tribute to them that the Ordo Xenos of Ramugan would desire to keep one of their finest sons in near-permanent service. It was a rare honour, and Octavius was a rare Space Marine.

Without looking up, Ashok watched the rest of the team assemble. He noted with barely suppressed disdain the presence of the Reviler vanguard veteran who had been sent to Trontium VI to recall him to the Deathwatch. He recognised the emblems of the other Space Marines immediately, including the emerald and gold claw of a Mantis Warriors Assault Marine – the Mantis Warriors were a Chapter with whom Ashok had served before under questionable circumstances. There was a second Assault Marine – a Black Consul – whose grizzly features and cluster of service studs betrayed decades of service. The half-mechanised form of a Red Talon Techmarine was an unmistakable addition to the group.

However, there was one insignia that he could not recognise, that of the other Space Marine sent to recruit him from the surface of Trontium VI: it was a black raven on a bone-white background, with a single droplet of blood-red through its heart. For a moment he thought that it might be a Blood Angel cousin, but it also looked like one of the conniving Raven Guard. Whoever it was, he was a Librarian and he emanated a latent psychic field that glowed like a star for anyone with the ability to see it.

Octavius strode confidently into the room, letting the door hiss closed behind him, shutting out the light and allowing the eyes of the Space Marines before him to make out his face for the first time. The face was struck through with a deep scar that ran from the jaw line on his right to his left temple. Fine hair fell loosely over its forehead, partially obscuring a row of golden service studs. However, it was the eyes that caught everyone’s attention: pale blue and startling, as though providing windows into a soul wracked by terror and beauty in equal measure.

‘Greetings, sons of the primarchs. You, each of you,’ he specified carefully, ‘honour this hall with your presence. The hour is dark and our resolve must be swift. We will depart immediately for the Circuitrine nebula, where we will rendezvous with the eldar craftworld of Ulthwé. Once there, it is likely that we will fight alongside the aliens against a common foe…’ His voice faltered very slightly, as though he found the words that he was speaking distasteful. Ashok looked up at last, fixing his eyes on the captain. More than one of the other Space Marines shifted uneasily. ‘We are not yet aware of the identity of this foe, but it seems probable that it is an agent from the Eye of Terror.’

Octavius paused, letting the weight of his words sink in as he looked around the faces of the assembled Space Marines. He had chosen the members of the team himself, drawing them from those currently stationed at the secret Watchtower Fortress near Ramugan station. He had seen them all complete the elite xenocide training routines, augmenting their already formidable combat skills with specialised alien hunting techniques known only to the Deathwatch. They were primed and waiting for a mission. Only Pelias, the battle-hardened assault sergeant of the Black Consuls had served in the Deathwatch before, but the team was rich with experience and talent nevertheless.

As he scanned the room, watching the expressions of his Space Marines as his instructions to cooperate with the aliens hit home, Octavius caught sight of the hunched figure of Ashok sitting in the shadows of the far corner. The Librarian’s hood hid his face, and his simple black smock betrayed no markings of any kind, but Octavius recognised him immediately. As the captain stared, a sheen of light glinted across the Librarian’s eyes, making them flash like those of a wild animal in the deepest jungle.

Greetings, captain. Ashok’s thoughts pushed silently and gently into Octavius’s head. It is good to see you again.

The captain’s surprise was clear, although his composure was unbroken. He had not expected to see the Angel Sanguine in his briefing hall. Ashok had not been on service at the Watchtower when Octavius had selected his team, and the captain had not included the Librarian in his plans. Indeed, he had already selected a Librarian for the mission, Atreus of the Blood Ravens – a powerful psyker with extensive experience of the eldar from campaigns on Tartarus and Rahe’s Paradise. It would be highly unusual for a Deathwatch kill-team to host more than one Librarian.

Octavius nodded slightly, returning the greeting with a little reserve in front of the others. His thoughts betrayed him.

Lord Seishon requested my presence, captain, but I am under your command, of course. The Inquisitor Lord felt that the team would need two Librarians, given the nature of the threat we face… and given the nature of the allies that we seek to aid.

The other Space Marines shifted slightly, becoming aware that Octavius’s pause had lengthened unnaturally. They looked around, spotting Ashok, some of them for the first time. Atreus, the Blood Ravens Librarian whose insignia Ashok had not recognised, was the only one that did not turn. He was already fully aware of what was going on in the room.

‘Our mission is vital and our deadline is tight. We are acting to fulfil an ancient pact between the aliens and the Ordo Xenos. We carry the oath of the Emperor on our backs, Space Marines, so there is no room for hesitation or doubt.’ Octavius had anticipated the revulsion on Pelias’s face, but had been more surprised to see it flicker over the features of Luthar, the Reviler. ‘We are the Deathwatch, and duty comes before all else.’

He who allows the alien to live shares in the crime of its existence. Ashok’s thoughts were mocking, but his tone lacked malice. He was quoting the famous adage of Inquisitor Apollyon, the maxim was carved into the centrepiece of the great arch that swept over the assembly hall of the Watchtower. Every Space Marine that entered into the service of the Deathwatch in this sector would have those words etched into his soul. Under the deep folds of his hood, Octavius could see Ashok’s eyes glint with the suggestion of a wry smile. He knew that the Librarian was right: at least some of the Space Marines in the team would find this mission heretical. They certainly didn’t expect to be fighting with aliens when they joined the Deathwatch.

‘It is not our place to question the oaths of the Imperial Inquisition. It is our duty to fulfil them in the name of the Emperor. We act to defend the realm from the greatest threats to the Imperium of Man; it is not the Deathwatch that judges these threats. We are the swords of policy and it is we who execute those threats. We hold in our hands the honour of the Emperor himself, and we will not fail him.’

Octavius paused again, looking around the faces before him. He had not convinced them all, but he knew that it would take more than a few stirring words to convince a Space Marine of anything. These men were the finest warriors in the galaxy, wrought from the trials and fires of their different Chapters, each with their own ways. He knew that he could not necessarily make them believe, but he also knew that he could trust in their sense of honour and duty to the Emperor. There was no higher ideal for any of the Adeptus Astartes.

‘We leave within the hour,’ he stated simply, turning and striding out of the doors, leaving the Space Marines alone with their thoughts and each other.

Chapter Three:
Wych-Hunt

The patterns of light danced over the polished floor like electric serpents slithering through oil. They slipped and slid, lashing into flickers as though convulsing with tension or anxiety. Shariele sat cross-legged against the wall on one side of the room, letting the waves of energy wash underneath him. Three other warlocks were positioned symmetrically around the perimeter, similarly lost in meditation, the bone-white hints of runes glinting off their black armour.

There was a faint chant infused into the air, although none of the warlocks worked their mouths and the room was shrouded in silence. But their minds were alive with song, bringing the psychic resonance in the carefully designed chamber into the realms of symphony. For the warlocks, this divination was a kind of rapture, suspending their souls in the violence of the abyss, letting their essential beings ride the wave of the present, peering constantly towards the horizon, searching for glimmers of the inevitable storms to come. Behind their closed lids, their eyes flashed and burnt with flames, as beacons to their kindred spirits, guiding them home lest they be lost to themselves and each other forever. This ritual could never be performed alone.

As the psychic chanting grew louder, clouds of sha’iel started to condense into the reality of the chamber. At first there were just wisps, just suggestions of cirrus formations taking shape near the ceiling. But gradually the thin mist started to curdle and thicken, drawing itself out into strips and whirling into the suggestions of eddies. The pace quickened and the movement broadened as the little swirls congealed and merged, slipping together and forming a single, slowly revolving whirlpool of sha’iel that spun around the perimeter of the room, skirting around the backs of each of the warlocks, bringing them into the interior of a spinning column of warp energy.

With an abrupt flash of orange fire, the eyes of the warlocks snapped open simultaneously, flames lapping at their irises as though consuming them. They remained seated in concentrated meditation, motionless and silent as their burning gazes converged on an invisible point at the centre of the chamber. The swirling clouds of sha’iel began to accelerate, whipping themselves up into a tornado of warp power, thrashing around the fringes of the room and threatening to rip the chamber itself from the structure of Ulthwé through sheer centrifugal power.

As the maelstrom raged around them, the warlocks remained silent and calm, blazing their vision into the very eye of the storm, their eyes glazed and shinning like liquid stars. In the convergence of their lines of sight, an image started to form, flickering on the edge of existence as though unable to bear the pressure of reality. Figures started to resolve themselves at the edge of the picture. They were running and fighting, firing weapons and spinning blades, each clad in pristine black armour.

Some of the figures were massive and ugly, with cumbersome and primitive weapons. There were smaller, more elegant shapes too, dancing and springing around the hazy, flickering combat zone. And there were corpses, dozens of corpses strewn over the ground beneath the feet of the others. Hundreds of corpses, stretching out into the distance as though trapped in an infinite regression of mirrors. There were thousands of eldar corpses, millions, rolling out over the horizon in layers several deep, like the crust of a planet.

The sky above the shimmering images seemed to crack with ethereal lightning, sending souls screaming through the atmosphere and ripping through the thick, viscous clouds of darkness. A sudden crack of brightness flared like a burning spear, but then it was gone.

‘Hesperax,’ muttered Shariele, the single word shattering the vortex of sha’iel like a bullet through an ice sculpture. The images and the clouds of warp dissipated rapidly, repelled by the intrusion of a fragment from the material realm – the artificial purity of the Undercouncil Chamber no longer pristine enough to sustain them. And it was not just any word; the name of Hesperax had not been uttered on Ulthwé for thousands of years. It was a cursed word, as though its syllables carried death to the very tip of one’s tongue.

The other warlocks broke their gazes and lowered their simmering eyes, gradually bringing their minds back into the present and back into the chamber as it appeared in the material realm. They had seen the vision as well, and not one of them wanted to give voice to the sights they had seen. They were more than accustomed to the darkness of their own souls – each had served for a time in the Aspect Temple of the Dark Reapers, immersing themselves in their own thirst for blood and battle – but none of them could ever reconcile themselves to the horrors that lurked in the souls of their lost brethren, the darklings.

Hesperax was a vision of all things unimaginable and unthinkable to them. It was a haven for the forbidden and a deeply suppressed temptation of their souls. There was a reason that the name was taboo on Ulthwé, and it was not simply because of an abhorrence for the horrors perpetrated there.

It was Hesperax, muttered Shariele, sharing his thoughts with the others. He was not looking for confirmation. He didn’t need it. He simply wanted to share the burden of the word, pushing it into the minds of the others as though splitting it into separate runes for each, dividing and conquering the word like a broken enemy force. I must inform the seers.

‘Lord Aurelius is as concerned as you are, Perceptia, if not more so. After all, it is the responsibility of the Ramugan Ordo Malleus to police the incursions of any daemonic forces into this sector.’ Hereticus Lord Caesurian’s voice was smooth and low, like dark velvet.

Standing formally in the entranceway to the inquisitor lord’s chambers, Inquisitor Perceptia was demonstrably agitated. Her hands clasped and unclasped before her, as though she were nervous. She had old fashioned eyeglasses perched precariously on the end of her nose, and she kept pushing them restively back up towards her forehead.

‘With your permission, Lord Caesurian,’ began the young inquisitor, ‘I would still like to take a closer look at this matter. It seems… unorthodox to me.’ Her tone was respectful but frustrated, as though she felt that her superior was holding her back deliberately. Finally losing patience with her errant spectacles, Perceptia snatched them away from her face and clutched them between her tense hands.

Caesurian rose from the comfort of her lushly padded chair and inspected the youthful inquisitor from a distance. She never invited Perceptia into her chambers. The inquisitor lord found the bookish young woman unnerving, and she was keen to ensure that her private space was not infected by her peculiar brand of nervous energy. Even as an interrogator, the young Perceptia had never been a favourite student. Caesurian would certainly not describe her as her protégé. Nonetheless, she could not help feeling a certain responsibility for the woman whose career she had helped to sculpt.

‘Perceptia,’ she began, letting her smooth voice ease through the shadowy space between them. ‘You are quite right to have faith in your instincts. The Ordo Hereticus needs inquisitors with a nose for the… unorthodox, as you call it. However…’

She trailed off as she turned her back on her visitor and walked deeper into the room. Pausing at an old wooden cabinet that rested against the far wall, the inquisitor lord slowly poured a deep red liquid into a crystal glass and raised it to her lips. ‘However,’ she continued, the glass poised delicately at her mouth, ‘Ramugan is an unusual and carefully balanced place, as you may appreciate. The Ordo Hereticus is, of course, the paragon of subtlety at all times…’ Caesurian took a sip of the red liquid before continuing. ‘But, we must be particularly assiduous here. I’m sure that you understand?’ The nature of the question was ambiguous, and the inquisitor lord turned her head to the side to indicate that she required a response.

Perceptia was not sure what was expected of her. ‘I understand, my lord,’ she said, bowing her head with more resignation than respect. ‘But–’

‘Aurelius would dispatch the Grey Knights if he felt that there was a reason to do so. To do otherwise would constitute a failure of duty, and I am sure that you do not mean to impugn the inquisitor lord’s sense of duty, inquisitor? The fact that he hasn’t suggests that there is indeed nothing with which the Emperor’s Holy Inquisition need concern itself at this time. Hence, Lord Seishon’s previous silence on this issue is not a matter for us to investigate.’

Perceptia stared at the back of the inquisitor lord’s head, her mind racing and her frustrations bubbling just below the surface. She knew that Caesurian had never liked her. She was certainly not the old woman’s favourite, there was no doubt about that. The inquisitor lord was a political animal, which was why she had been left in charge of the Ordo Hereticus facility on the Ramugan station – possibly the most politically sensitive posting in the Imperium. Perceptia, on the other hand, had no flare for diplomacy at all. Her ethical world was a binary system. There was good and, far more often, there was evil.

In her youth, the venerable inquisitor lord had been a dashing witch hunter, a woman of action. Her experience of the best and the worst of the Imperium had given her a sense of perspective. Her world was a mosaic of shadows and shades of grey. The bookish, Manichean Perceptia might have been from a completely different planet.

‘Is it not possible, my lord, that…’ Perceptia paused, as though aware that her chain of thought was crossing a line. ‘Is it not possible that Seishon has some kind of hold over Aurelius?’

The wine glass froze at Caesurian’s lips and an icy silence slipped through the room.

‘Or perhaps,’ continued Perceptia, falling over her words to fill the gap. ‘Perhaps they have an agreement concerning that quadrant of the Circuitrine sector? Either way, isn’t this something that we should be aware of?’

Caesurian threw back the rest of her wine and turned very slowly to face the young inquisitor. On the far side of the room, her face was hidden in the shadows, but Perceptia could see her expression vividly in her mind’s eye.

‘My dear Perceptia, there is a very fine line between intuition and foolish fantasy. This is not the place to throw about accusations. Ramugan teeters on the edge of a political knife.’ Her voice was slow and even, but Perceptia could hear that its usual smoothness was now fighting an undercurrent of anger.

‘But, my lord,’ she protested. ‘Politics should not be an excuse for heresy. There can be no excuse for heresy.’ Perceptia forced the defiant words out of her mouth, despite her own nervousness about the confrontation with her one-time mentor. Her hands clasped together tightly and she wrung them as though trying to force all of the blood out of them.

The inquisitor lord said nothing for a moment and then took a step forward, bringing her face into the light. Her eyes were drawn taught and narrow but her brow displayed no furrows. Her mouth was set in a horizontal line and her jaw muscles were clenched.

‘Be very careful, my young Perceptia. If you are pursuing the fires of damnation, at the very least you should expect to burn your fingers.’ As though to reinforce the point, the inquisitor lord took another step forward and placed her hands over the back of her luxurious chair. One of her hands twinkled with metallic light, and Perceptia saw her augmetic limb for the hundredth time. ‘By all means search, Perceptia. But search quietly, and tell nobody what you are doing. If you are discovered and you have found nothing, I will offer you no protection from the wrath of Seishon or Aurelius. I will tell them that I knew nothing of your activities. That is how Ramugan will continue.’

Caesurian paused, waiting for Perceptia to speak or show some spark of understanding, but the young inquisitor was still digesting the magnitude of the implications of the conversation.

‘If I ever hear from you again, Perceptia, it will be with findings upon which we can act. Without such findings, you will never address me again.’ With that, Caesurian nodded imperceptibly and the doors to her chamber slid shut abruptly, leaving Perceptia standing in the corridor outside, her nose only millimetres from the armoured, adamantium panelling of the closed door.

‘The message has been sent,’ stated Thae’akzi simply, meeting the disbelieving gazes of the other council members with unflinching eyes. ‘Lord Ulthran himself made contact. He expects that the mon-keigh are already on their way.’

The council chamber seemed to shiver with its own sense of revulsion; little jets of light licked around the walls like the echoes of distant storms. The ambient light was dim, almost dark, matching the mood of the seers.

‘Let this council record that I have objected to this move from the start,’ snarled Ruhklo, his fierce eyes directed adamantly down into the polished floor in the middle of the circle of seers. The anger simmered around his features and the ground smouldered as though heated by the force of his gaze. ‘The mon-keigh are not to be trusted, and they will dishonour us with their presence.’

‘Had we been better prepared, Ruhklo of the Karizhariat, then there may have been no need,’ said Eldressyn softly, enjoying the defeat of the bitter old seer. Her startling blue eyes shone with faintly disturbed tranquillity.

Perhaps it was this eventuality for which we have been preparing, Eldressyn, whispered Thae’akzi into the young seer’s mind. Don’t be so quick to claim your victory in this council. Eldrad’s ways are beyond even us.

Eldressyn fell silent, acknowledging the secret words of the elder seer and respecting their wisdom. But in her heart she knew that Ulthwé needed the mon-keigh to win this fight, and she was certain that such a situation could have been avoided if the council had prepared properly for the future. At that moment, Ruhklo seemed like a liability – old, bitter and dark in his soul. She blamed him. It was his fault for filling the council with breaths of cynicism and malice. The very hall itself seemed to quake with his frustrations.

‘The council has prepared Ulthwé for its future as best it could, Eldressyn of Ulthroon,’ said Thae’akzi, smoothing the waters. ‘The crisis in the Eye and the darkling raids may be but a stepping stone on the way to a golden shore. The mon-keigh will assist us, as they promised long ago. It is fortuitous that they are so bound to us now.’

‘We cannot trust them, Thae’akzi of the Emerald Robes,’ muttered Bhurolyn as he pulled his sapphire and black cloak around him, as though suddenly cold.

‘We do not need to trust them, Bhurolyn. We just need them to come,’ replied Thae’akzi softly. ‘And so they come.’

There was a sudden and brief crack of light in one of the walls. It flashed and then cut its way through the wraithbone, defining a great door as it spread. After a couple of seconds, the door melted away, as though the wraithbone itself had withdrawn into the fabric of the walls around it. A dull, warm light eased through the open archway, mixing into the heavy darkness of the council chamber itself, sending hazes of interference patterns sprinkling through the air.

‘My lords of the Eternal Council,’ said Shariele, stooping into a deep bow on the threshold of the hall. The white runes on his black armour glinted in little starbursts as the light washed over him from behind, and his long cloak billowed and fluttered, as though the flow of light carried a breeze in its wake. ‘I bring greetings from the Undercouncil of Warlocks, and news.’

‘You are most welcome, Shariele of the Lost Souls,’ replied Thae’akzi, turning to face the warlock and bowing slightly. Enter freely – it is your right as much as our pleasure.’ She gave the impression of smiling faintly, without even a crease appearing on her smooth face.

Shariele remained in the doorway for a moment, holding his bow for an extra second out of respect for the hall and the seers therein. Then he rose and strode confidently across the patterns of light that swam through the floor beneath his feet. The Emerald Seer unsettled his heart. He had heard many of the stories about her and yet she remained a mystery to him. There was something profoundly different about their souls, and it rendered her almost impenetrable to him. He understood that she had once passed through the trials of the Shining Spear, in the past before she had taken up the path of the seer. Then, perhaps a century ago, after Thae’akzi had become a powerful seer, Ulthwé had done battle with a force of disfigured mon-keigh as they spilled out of the Eye of Terror. At that time, the Temple of the Shining Path had summoned Thae’akzi back into its sanctum: the temple’s ceremonial warlock’s mask was calling for her, bellowing her name in tones barely audible to the sensitive eldar ear, yelling her name through the immaterium itself.

Thae’akzi had returned to her old temple and entered the sanctum, locking herself in the sacred chamber with nobody to assist her and none to witness the events that followed. Days later, she had emerged as the Emerald Seer, bedecked entirely in the green robes that now covered her elegant form. But the warlock’s mask lay untouched on the altar in the temple’s sanctum – she had refused the call of Khaine and turned her back on the thirst for war that lurked in the souls of all eldar.

Unlike Shariele and the other warlocks, who had each trained as Aspect Warriors before embarking on the long path of the seer, Thae’akzi had made a conscious and wilful choice not to merge the paths – she had refused to transpose her immense psychic gifts into combative powers. Whilst it was certainly true that not all seers who had trodden the path of the warrior chose to combine the dual-ways into the dark road of the warlock, it was unheard of for one summoned personally by the spirit of Kaela Mensha Khaine to resist the calling. The warlocks of the Undercouncil felt a slight chill in her presence, as though she found them unhealthy, dangerous, or even weak of will. They were certain that the other seers on the Eternal Council did not understand who she was. How could they see the unfathomable strength in her soul?

As he approached the ring of seers, Shariele stopped and bowed once again. The councillors each returned his bow, paying him the courtesy of their respect. He was well known to them all.

‘The communion of the Undercouncil has yielded some worrying results,’ began Shariele. ‘It appears that the darklings are not our only concern along this time-line.’ There was a pause as Shariele awaited the inevitable questions. None came. ‘The warlocks have foreseen a force of mon-keigh in the battles of the near future. They stood back to back with darkly clad eldar, poised in blood and treading on a field of our slain kinsmen.’

There was a murmur around the room as thoughts of death and doom emanated from the seers and resonated through the psychically conductive wraithbone that encased the chamber. The trails of light in the floor and walls flashed and died with increased intensity.

‘The mon-keigh will be our doom – it is written,’ spat Ruhklo, as though Shariele’s words confirmed his fears.

‘It is not written, Karizhariat! Nothing is written, as you well know. We write our future in our choices and in our blood,’ snapped Eldressyn, the pristine whiteness of her delicate robes flashing starkly in the dark atmosphere. ‘We will the future with our power.’

‘What else did you see, Shariele?’ asked Thae’akzi softly, ignoring the quarrelling seers at her side. ‘Was it just the mon-keigh that brought blood into our future?’

‘No, Emerald Seer, the darklings were also there, and the corpses were disfigured beyond the wit or inventiveness of the mon-keigh. It was… It was Hesperax.’ Shariele hesitated before speaking those cursed syllables in the great chambers of council. As the forbidden sounds left his mouth, the room pulsed and lashed with a violence unseen for decades. The ground itself shook, as though repulsed.

The seers sank into silence, shocked that the Undercouncil could see what they could not. It was as though they themselves were blinded to the vision by the violence of its content. The souls of the warlocks walked in darker places, and they would not find the terror of Hesperax so utterly alien. That in itself worried Thae’akzi.

‘So, the Mistress of Strife has a hand in this?’ mused the Emerald Seer, nodding her understanding to Shariele as the hall flashed its own abhorrence. ‘This explains the pattern of the darklings’ behaviour. They are taking prisoners for the Wych Queen, so that she might harvest their souls to slake the thirst of her daemonic princess. We have encountered this foe before,’ she said, turning back to face the other seers, her eyes slightly out of focus, as though remembering something from long ago.

‘Yes, and we did not need the mon-keigh then,’ sneered Ruhklo.

‘Times change,’ answered Eldressyn sharply, her presence representing vivid proof of her words.

‘If the Wych Queen is collecting eldar souls, she must be seeking to manifest an agent of the Satin Throne,’ reasoned Bhurolyn, his deductions adding an edge of anxiety to his words.

‘Lelith’s ambitions are greater than that,’ said Thae’akzi, shocking Shariele by using the Wych Queen’s personal name. ‘She would not content herself with underlings, not even those of a daemon god.’

For a moment, the Emerald Seer seemed lost in thought. Then she turned to Shariele abruptly. ‘Warlock, we must prevent the loss of any more Ulthwé souls to this darkling monster. As you are aware, this craftworld, indeed our very species, cannot afford to lose any more of its own. Worse than this, stolen souls cast into the currents of sha’iel will serve to lead the minions of the Great Enemy – Slaanesh – to our doorstep. We may presume that this explains the current, unusual discharge from the Eye. The darkling raids must be brought to an end. Do you understand, Shariele of the Lost Souls?’

‘I understand,’ replied Shariele simply, bowing his head. ‘I can vow to be at the service of this council, as I have done many times before, but I can offer no promises of success, my lady.’ He paused. ‘I do not think that Ulthwé has the resources to win this fight.’

‘You will not be alone, warlock. The mon-keigh have been summoned to provide aid. A small squadron of their best will be here presently. You will help them to help us, Shariele.’

A long moment passed in silence as the warlock fought against his instinctive revulsion. ‘If it is the will of the council,’ he replied, before turning and sweeping out of the great hall.

The black Deathwatch frigate, Lance of Darkness, was one of a select few Nova-class frigates that had been specially refitted and based at the Watchtower Fortress near Ramugan in case the Deathwatch needed to act independently of other Imperial forces. It roared through the void of real space, not daring to dip into the maelstrom of the warp so close to the Eye of Terror, where the warp currents were torrentially violent and unpredictable.

In the vicinity of the Eye, even the relatively predictable spaceways of mundane reality were treacherous. The warp could rip through the fabric of space and suck a ship back into the clutches of salivating daemons. Pockets of violent energy could erupt like massive proximity mines, exploding and showering passing vessels with fragments of concentrated Chaos; and space itself seemed to warp and shift, twisting the space lanes and bending the light of the stars themselves.

Octavius’s team raced through the lashes of the Eye of Terror, engulfed in an eerie red mist that seemed to seep through millions of tiny perforations in reality itself. Warning klaxons were sounding continuously, as though the ship’s machine-spirit thought that it had slipped into the warp without a Navigator to guide it. The mist appeared to be a haze of warp energy, too dispersed to penetrate or damage the Lance of Darkness, but dense enough to trick the vessel’s sensors. The cloud was suspended in a bizarre middle realm between the material and immaterial dimensions.

‘Captain Octavius,’ said Sergeant Pelias, stooping through the doorframe at the entrance to the control room. As he straightened up, he nodded smartly towards the hooded figure of Librarian Ashok, noting with surprise that he was still without armour, but then the sergeant turned his attention directly to Octavius. Aside from the pilot-servitor and a skeleton crew of serfs, the three Space Marines were alone in the low-ceilinged space. Octavius was gazing out of the main viewscreen. He turned to greet Pelias as the rugged Black Consul Space Marine presented himself.

‘Ah, Sergeant Pelias. Our arrival time is estimated as one hour. Please ensure the team is ready for our landing. It would not do to be ill-prepared when we meet our new associates.’

The sergeant nodded, but the grimace that snapped across his stubble-speckled and scar-laced face betrayed his true feelings about the etiquette owed to the aliens. ‘As you wish, captain,’ he growled. He turned sharply and began to duck back under the doorframe. As he did so, a series of metal implants in the back of his neck and head glinted in the dim light.

‘The eldar gave him those,’ muttered Ashok in barely audible tones, after the sergeant had vanished back into the body of the ship. The Librarian knew that Octavius had noticed the metal plates.

‘I am aware of the sergeant’s history, Ashok,’ said Octavius, turning back to the viewscreen without facing the Librarian. No matter how many times it happened, he could still not shake the feeling that Ashok’s abilities to read his thoughts constituted a discourtesy. He even wondered whether they compromised his command.

‘Really?’ Ashok’s low, quiet voice sounded doubtful. ‘Do you know what they did to him?’

‘He has never spoken of it.’ There was an edge of angst in Octavius’s voice, as though he was drawing on painful memories. ‘I would not ask him to.’

‘It is best that he does not,’ said Ashok carefully.

For a moment Octavius wondered whether Ashok could see the sergeant’s memories. As he gazed out of the viewscreen at the dim star that they were racing towards, he wondered what it would be like to know the memories of others. He wondered whether it was as natural to Ashok as peering into the eyes of a man and seeing the courage in his soul.

Octavius did not have to look into Pelias’s mind to see what had happened to him. He had been part of the same Deathwatch mission against the Biel-Tan eldar all those years before. Octavius had watched helplessly as the aliens had dragged the unconscious Black Consul into their hovering tank after the kill-team had first made planetfall. At the end of the campaign, when the planet was finally under the complete control of the eldar and the failed Deathwatch mission was being extracted, the eldar had thrown Pelias back to them, like a fish that was too worthless to be kept.

The wounds on his neck and head, which had been inflicted on the Black Consul during his captivity, had been healed perfectly by the eldar before they returned him, but the Ordo Xenos had reopened them all to make sure that nothing had been left inside the sergeant’s skull. The metal plates that now covered Pelias’s neck were testament to the inability of the Inquisition’s surgeons to match the skill of the eldar. As for the details of what the eldar had done to him to inflict the wounds in the first place, not even the skills of Inquisitor Lord Guerilian had been able to extract them. However, the official mission report contained reference to an intelligence leak in the Deathwatch team as one of the factors that contributed to the failure of the mission. Pelias was not named in the report, but Octavius suspected that the eldar had been inside the sergeant’s mind.

‘He is healed. There is no threat now,’ stated Octavius simply. ‘Pelias is a strong Space Marine and a first-class sergeant. He is an asset to our team.’

Wounds like that never heal, Octavius. He harbours unspeakable pain and hatred in his mind. He may never offer his back to our eldar friends. The words eased into Octavius’s mind like a whisper.

A shiver thrilled down the captain’s spine and, at first, he thought that Ashok had overstepped the line. He spun to face the Librarian, who remained in the shadows against the wall, his face hidden beneath the folds of his hood, with his eyes glowing faintly.

‘I felt it too, captain,’ said Ashok, stepping up to Octavius’s shoulder and staring out into space. ‘Where is Ulthwé?’ he asked.

The captain took Ashok’s innocence at his word and without question. The Angels Sanguine Librarian was almost a complete mystery to him, but he had learnt to trust his judgement during the campaign against the tyranids on Herodian IV. Somehow, the Librarian always seemed to be just outside the team, even just out of the reach of his command. But whatever else he was, Ashok was a peerless and trustworthy warrior.

‘We don’t have exact coordinates. It moves continuously and not always through real space. Our rendezvous point appears to be in the vicinity of that dim star,’ explained Octavius pointing.

Footsteps sounded behind them as one of the Space Marines from the transportation hold entered the control room.

‘He is here. He is alert to our presence, captain,’ reported Atreus, the Blood Ravens Librarian, striding into the control room alongside the other two to look out into the red-misted starscape ahead.

Octavius nodded a greeting, but Ashok did not take his eyes from the screen.

‘Who is here?’ asked the captain, addressing Atreus.

‘Ulthran,’ replied Ashok without turning. ‘The eldar witch lord.’

‘His mind fills this quadrant. It is like a giant sensor web stretched out from Ulthwé itself. He knows that we are approaching,’ continued Atreus nodding and searching the myriad stars for some sign of the massive craftworld. ‘It must be here,’ he insisted. ‘We should be able to see it.’

Octavius nodded, realising before the team had even reached Ulthwé why Lord Seishon had insisted on the presence of two Librarians on this mission. ‘It is probably on the other side of that large, dim star,’ he suggested, pointing at the light that he had been considering with Ashok. The colour-shift affected by the mist made it look like a red giant – a supermassive star on the verge of death.

There was a moment of silence.

‘That’s not a star,’ said Ashok in a slow whisper.

‘That’s Ulthwé,’ agreed Atreus.

The lowest levels of Ulthwé were barely lit. There was just a faint pulse of light easing through the structure of the corridors, like capillaries in a body’s extremities. Over the millennia, the eldar of Ulthwé had become accustomed to the darkness, and their eyes had developed sensitivities that found bright light shocking and even offensive. Theirs was a world of shadow and subtlety.

Many of the craftworld’s greatest artists lived in the murky underworld. Trekhulir of the Glittering Dark, one of Ulthwé’s most famed wraithsmiths, was reputed to have refused dozens of invitations to visit the sparkling heights of the upper levels. He excused himself on the basis that his work required him to cultivate the shadows; exposure to bright light would blind him to the subtleties of tone and shade. He explained that it was only in the darkness that true beauty could be found.

The crass, brashness of bright light was the domain of the clumsy, young races of the galaxy – the tau and even the mon-keigh craved the light. For the eldar, the half-light of the shadows should be home. Even more than the other craftworlds, Ulthwé had embraced this aesthetic as though it were an indisputable aspect of their existence.

Even on Ulthwé, however, the eldar path passed along many different roads. The nature of the eldar soul remained infinitely complex and multifarious. Darkness was not the only aspect that found a home in the labyrinthine corridors of the massive craftworld. Shining like a beacon of purity in the very deepest levels, the Temple of the Shining Path radiated an entirely different aesthetic. The temple was a glorious construction of light, as though built from the substance of the stars themselves. Its crystalline walls refracted the light from inside into myriad colours, rendering it into a burst of brilliance, like a pearl lost in the depths of an oceanic dark.

The Aspect Warriors of the Shining Spear, bestriding their shimmering white jetbikes, flashed through the underworld of Ulthwé, policing incursions and raids. They were objects of marvel, fear and repulsion amongst the various classes of eldar that lived in those levels. The Shining Spears brought dazzling light into the darkest realms, transforming the spirit of Ulthwé for brief moments and in tiny places as they sped through.

It was a small temple, especially compared with the massive temple complex of the Dark Reapers, which was based thousands of metres above in the upper reaches of Ulthwé, where it complemented the atmosphere of the craftworld with its sinister blacks and dull, bone whites. Very few eldar chose to tread the path of the Shining Spear when their souls started to hear the whispering call of Kaela Mensha Khaine. Most, on Ulthwé at least, chose to immerse themselves in the shadowy mystery of the Reapers, transforming themselves into manifestations of Khaine in his darkest guise as the destroyer.

It had not gone unnoticed in Ulthwé or amongst the eldar of the other peripatetic craftworlds that the eldar of Ulthwé showed a marked tendency to pursue the darkest aspects of their being. After millennia of skirting the lashes of the Eye of Terror, many had hypothesised that the Chaotic tears of the Eye itself had touched the very soul of the craftworld. In whispered tones, the eldar of Biel-Tan and even Saim-Hann would refer to Ulthwé as the Craftworld of the Damned – implying that it might one day follow its sister Altansar and plunge into the Eye itself, never to be seen again.

The only thing that seemed to preserve Ulthwé from its doom was its simultaneous tendency to produce unusually high numbers of seers and warlocks. Led by the mighty Eldrad Ulthran himself, the Seer Council had continuously and successfully navigated a path through the tortuous, myriad futures that spiralled out of the Eye.

Guardian Dhrykna was not unaware of the various significances of the Aspect Temple in which she had trained for so many years. She had known even before that fateful day, long years before, when she had felt the pull of the bloody hand of Khaine, his ethereal fingers beckoning her into the light. The choice of warrior aspect was a very personal one, and it was not something in which other eldar would interfere. However, Dhrykna had been aware, even then, that she was stepping out of the usual conventions of her society. At the time of her initiation into the sparkling temple of light, only four other aspirant warriors knelt at her side, waiting to take their first steps on the Shining Path. Meanwhile, in the cavernous and echoing halls of the Dark Reaper temple, high above them, numberless ranks of eldar knelt in obeisance and shadow before the altar of Maugan Ra.

Now, at the moment when Ulthwé most needed the lightning speed of Khaine’s fabled spear, the Shining Spears were a tiny force, bereft of leadership and all but forgotten in the depths of the craftworld. They had fallen into the realm of rumour and myth. Instead, where Ulthwé needed speed it had the solid power of the Reapers, where it needed mobility it had ranged fire power.

Even the Black Guardians, the craftworld’s principal force, were constituted mainly of warriors that had passed a cycle of their lives in the service of the Dark Reapers. They were a small and dwindling presence on Ulthwé. The glory days of the Black Guardians, when they were known and feared throughout the Eye, were dwindling, and their training made them ill-suited to meet the challenges of the current threat.

As she casually tilted her black and silver jetbike around the last corner, almost laying the machine on its side in order to pull its nose around tightly enough, Dhrykna’s pupils contracted suddenly, reacting to the flood of light that greeted her. Up ahead, half buried in the floor and half obscured by the low ceiling, the glowing, crystalline structure of the Shining Temple burst into view. It was radiant, and Dhrykna caught her breath, always awe-struck when she saw the incredible architecture of the shrine building.

In these days of darkness and shadow, it seemed almost inconceivable that Ulthwé wraithsmiths had once been able and willing to engineer such incomparable light in the bowels of their world. No matter how many times she saw it, it took her breath away each time.

Almost involuntarily, Dhrykna slowed her approach, letting the nose of her bike drop and easing off the power. She just coasted in, keeping her eyes fixed on the radiant brightness as she emerged from the darkness of the craftworld beyond. After a few moments, her eyes began to adjust to the light and she could pick out the runic inscriptions that laced the great crystal archway. On the centrepiece was the ancient rune slavhreenur – salvation. It resembled an arrow striving for heaven, crossed through with doubts, leaving a serpentine ignorance squirming beneath it. Its likeness was branded into the skin of the forearm of each warrior who took steps along the Shining Path; it symbolised that the warrior was one who had emerged out of the darkness and into the light.

As she approached, the brand on Dhrykna’s own arm started to throb. She could feel her blood drawing her onwards.

She had not been back to the temple for years, not since leaving it so hurriedly. In her memory, she had been expelled from the order, although in truth she had simply been refused ascension to the status of its exarch. She had left of her own volition. The sacred armour of the exarch had been vacant for decades, since none had passed along the Shining Path and found themselves stuck on that road, unable to move on to one of the other myriad eldar ways. It seemed that the souls of the Ulthwé eldar were increasingly at variance with the spirit of the declining temple. Dhrykna had felt that she was different. Her heart ached for the eternal embrace of the ancient armour, in which writhed the souls of all the previous exarchs of that exalted temple, each absorbed into the spirit stone of the very first exarch of the Shining Spears on Ulthwé, the radiant Prothenulh, whose name would always be in the mind of any exarch who donned his armour. In her dreams, Dhrykna could sometimes hear his voice whispering to her.

The hour is dark at which Dhrykna of the Shining Path returns to the Temple of Light. The words entered her mind with familiar ease even before her bike pulled to a standstill and she dismounted before the great gates. The source of the thoughts was nowhere to be seen, but Dhrykna knew better than to expect the temple’s guardians to show themselves so quickly.

‘I return to you at the direction of the Emerald Seer,’ said Dhrykna, standing before the gates and touching her right fist to her heart, displaying the brand on her arm. ‘Ulthwé has need of the Shining Spears once again.’

As she spoke, the runic brand on her arm crackled with light, like an intricate fuse. The great crystal gates before her sizzled in response, sending pulses of light lacing around their edges. After a second, the gates cracked open and slid back into the walls on either side, leaving a wide opening between. Beyond them, in the interior of the outer temple, Dhrykna could see the shimmering amethyst courtyard, radiant with a tranquil, lavender light. She sighed deeply. Having resigned herself to never seeing this sight again, Dhrykna’s heart was flooded with competing emotions. In the end, however, it was a homecoming, and she gathered herself to enter.

Know this, Dhrykna, the Shining Path permits no shadows. There is nowhere for darkness to hide in the Crystal Temple. There is nothing but eternal light in the innermost sanctum, receding off to infinity through an endless regression of refractions and reflections. Do not enter willingly. Enter because there is no other way for you to go.

The Black Guardian stood on the threshold of the Temple of the Shining Spears for the second time in her life and gazed in at the ineffable beauty of the amethyst courtyard within. The first time that she had passed through those gates, she had not known what to expect on the other side. She had only felt the inexplicable and implacable drive to enter. This time, she would take those steps onto the path in full knowledge, knowing that there was no way back into the ever-cycling life of the eldar way. These steps would condemn her to battle and bloodshed for the rest of her long life. Thae’akzi had warned her that she was not the exarch yet, but her soul screamed at her that this was her destiny.

‘I understand, and I take the light into my soul. I will become the spear of Khaine. Lightning flashes, blood falls, death pierces the darkness.’ With that, Dhrykna the Black Guardian stepped back into the Aspect Temple and the crystal gates slid shut behind her, sealing her into the brightness within.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2006.
This eBook edition published in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS UK.

Cover illustration by Philip Sibbering.

Warrior Coven © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2006, 2015. Warrior Coven, Deathwatch, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
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ISBN: 978-1-78251-934-8

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