Asurmen: Hand of Asuryan, Page 2

  Asurmen broke from cover as the half-human creature turned its gun away from the Phoenix Lord. Sporadic fire from other defenders sparked from the stone around him but he was too swift, the las-bolts streaming past. He was almost upon the creature before it even noticed his approach and started to swing its weapon towards him.

  Asurmen leapt the last gap, his diresword glittering in his grasp as the point slashed across the bulging pipes that spewed from the monster’s mouth and throat. He landed behind it and thrust his sword into its back, rupturing veins that spilled greenish, chemical-tainted blood. Oxygen hissed out of the damaged face-pump and the creature thrashed, unable to drop the weapon that had been melded to its forearm. Wild as it choked to death, the cannon-beast continued to fire, spraying shells into the air and across the tombs, cutting down humans and eldar in a burst that only ended when the ammunition hoppers on its back ran empty with a loud whine.

  Not looking back to see the final death of the creature, Asurmen continued towards his goal. He leapt over piles of discarded soil and bricks and dodged around a litter of twisted foundation rods and the metal legs of the craneworks above. A few of the humans tried to bar his progress and were swiftly slain for their foolishness, either by a hail of shurikens or the edge of Asurmen’s diresword.

  He finally reached the main excavation and looked down into the pit that had been dug. Despite his supernatural gaze he could not make out much detail – just an inky blackness darker than the shadows that concealed the Shards.

  Looking around, Asurmen saw the steps leading down into the antechamber of the Shard tomb. As he headed towards the stairwell he thought how typical it was of the humans to meddle with something so deadly, utterly ignorant of the doom they were bringing upon themselves and others.

  It was still a mystery to the Phoenix Lord how the Fa’ade’en had found the Shards, for the Annihilator Obelisks had last been seen at the distant end of the galaxy, on the outskirts of the ancient eldar empire. But the artefacts of the Chaos gods had minds of their own, and an evil will to be discovered – none more so than the Shards. Even when the Annihilator Obelisks had been broken and the Shards scattered, it had not been enough. The fall had beset Asurmen’s people and the final destruction of the Chaos weapons had never come about.

  Taking the steps three at a time he descended into the depths, passing the glowing red globes of the humans’ lights. It was not far down into the first chamber, adjoining the ground in which the Shards had impaled themselves a long time ago. He could feel the malevolence leaking from the alien things, trying to persuade him to free them.

  How easily they must have turned the humans to their cause. Scavengers, picking over the remains of the Jhitaar core worlds, about to be consumed themselves.

  The antechamber was alive with light, which came from no source but the arcane friezes that lined the walls. Asurmen could make no sense of the carved pictograms, but could see that they moved subtly, crowds of strange figurines coming together, closer and closer, raising their hands as if in praise.

  A thunderous crash reverberated through the tomb, almost throwing Asurmen to the ground. He moved to the opening that led to the chamber of the Shards and watched in horror as the black wall beyond slid upwards.

  The wakening minds of the Shards howled, echoing through the Phoenix Lord’s thoughts. In moments the blackness had gone, leaving behind the harshly lit excavation. Standing on the lip of the deep abyss left by the Shards’ exit, Asurmen looked up to see the jagged weapons rising against the sky, blotting out the stars with their shadow-wreathed forms.

  And then blackness pulsed downwards, a ripple against the night sky.

  The cranes evaporated, the scaffolding and girders melted. The humans had no time even to shout as the energy wave smashed into them. Asurmen threw himself backwards, but there was no eluding the monumental undulation of pure warp energy.

  It burst through the opening like water through a breached dam, picking up Asurmen to hurl him across the antechamber. He slammed into the ceiling and then the far wall, tossed around and spun about as the Shards’ energy whirled about the room in a vortex.

  And all went black as life left him, his final thought a lament at his failure.

  3

  We are betrayed.

  The thought entered Neridiath’s mind the moment she felt a surge of energy washing over them – a sensor feedback from the human ship raising its defensive shields. It made her skin prickle with apprehension. The other vessel had not slowed. In fact, it was increasing speed even as Neridiath had been slowing the momentum of the Joyous Venture.

  Afraid.

  The thought was not hers but it was in her mind all the same. It emerged from the rush of concern that flooded the starship’s psychic matrix, directed at Neridiath through the babble of emotions from the rest of the fourteen-strong crew.

  ‘Their weapons are powering up.’ This was from Kaydaryal. She sat on Neridiath’s left, wholly interfaced with the sensor screen of the Joyous Venture.

  I need to concentrate. We’ll be safe.

  Neridiath’s subconscious had been guiding the ship but it was time to take direct action. She allowed the rest of her thoughts to be swallowed by the matrix: one moment she was a flesh-and-blood creature with two arms, two legs and a head, the next she was a twin-sailed tradeship sustained by energy drawn from the nearby star. From the solar sails the power coursed through her, fuelling the matrix and engines, flowing through scanning blisters and life-support domes. The rest of the crew were as much a part of the ship as Neridiath, fourteen minds separate but interlinked.

  Through Kaydaryal’s eyes she saw the human ship turning, bringing its broadside weapons to bear. It seemed a lazy manoeuvre, punctuated with the blast of retro-engines, brutal and slow. She was already adjusting the trim of the sails and manipulating the gravity drive to turn the Joyous Venture away from the humans, pushing the nose down relative to the plane formed by the two ships, turning like a breaching whale.

  ‘Where are you going?’ demanded Faelanthil, manning the weapons array. ‘You are turning our lance arrays away from the enemy.’

  ‘We are not fighting,’ she replied tersely. ‘Taerathu, why are the holofields not activated?’

  ‘Redirecting energy from the core matrix now.’ Taerathu sat on Neridiath’s right but her words came through the ship’s systems, an echo of the voice that Neridiath’s ears were hearing. She tried to block out the distraction as the Joyous Venture continued to dive and roll, heading for a course that would take them under and astern of the human vessel.

  ‘Why are we running?’ Faelanthil’s question was underscored by a hot slash of energy build-up in the lances. ‘We should disable their engines, destroy their life support and when they have all died of exposure we take what they owe us.’

  Fael has a point, added Laurennin, the merchant that had commissioned Neridiath’s ship for the deal with the humans. She could feel that he was currently in the starboard living quarters, helping himself to a goblet of restorative tonic. Why should we sacrifice our part of the bargain because of bad faith by the humans?

  Neridiath felt a flutter of dislocation as the holofields activated, scattering the visible signature of the merchant vessel and casting scan-echoes across the nearby void.

  ‘I am not fighting.’ Neridiath started turning the Joyous Venture back upon its previous course as the humans clumsily fired attitude thrusters to compensate for the evasive manoeuvres of the eldar vessel. ‘You want to become pirates, find another ship.’

  We have come all of this way, insisted Laurennin, it would be unfortunate to return with nothing to show for our efforts. Certainly not for the lives of a few human ill-faiths. I would have to make my displeasure known to others.

  ‘Do whatever you feel necessary, Laurennin. I can live without your praises.’

  And your crew, will they stay with you?

&
nbsp; ‘That is a decision I leave to them at the end of every voyage. Now, allow me to concentrate on getting us away from here intact.’

  As the Joyous Venture raced towards the turning human ship it became obvious that Laurennin’s ‘contact’ was not a merchant at all. The human vessel bristled with weapon systems, its scanners far more powerful than anything the eldar tradeship had encountered before. The humans’ crude arrays lashed out tracing lasers and radiation waves in an effort to locate their foe.

  ‘It was a trap all along,’ said Taerathu.

  ‘Just as well we did not try to fight,’ said Neridiath. ‘They have us heavily outmatched in firepower.’

  ‘They cannot hit what they cannot see,’ insisted Faelanthil. ‘Move in behind them and our forward lance will soon disable their shields and engines.’

  ‘You have a great deal of faith to trust all of our lives to the effectiveness of our holofields and the paucity of their scanning capability. We already have to run the risk of them opening fire just to get past. I see no reason to attack.’

  If you wish to run away, why are we moving towards them? asked Laurennin.

  ‘The time any of you have the slightest notion how a grav-drive works or understand the forces that act upon a starship when turning at high speed is the time that any of you are welcome to come up here and steer instead. Until then, be quiet!’

  Her words were accompanied by a mental imperative that shut down the communications system across the ship. Neridiath could still feel the assortment of resentment, anger, fear and confusion amongst the crew and passengers but she no longer had to listen to it, leaving her free to focus on the threat at hand.

  The humans had timed their attack well, and despite the derision of Faelanthil and others like him, the other vessel was military in purpose, unlike the Joyous Venture. As it was, the Joyous Venture would have to brave the guns of the enemy in order to slip away.

  After a few moments she missed the arguing. It had distracted her from the fear. She felt the full weight of the situation pressing down on her as she glided across the vacuum of space towards the human ship, trusting her survival to a complex battery of sensory displacement fields. They faced firepower that could cripple them with a single salvo, and there was no choice but to avoid a prolonged contact.

  That was the reasoning Neridiath used to justify a decision made by instinct. Fear was leading her, but she did not try to fight it. The fear was better than the alternatives.

  The sensor feed from Taerathu showed the enemy scans grasping and flailing like hands across the void, seeking something to latch onto. It was tempting to try to steer between the greatest concentrations and pulses of energy but Neridiath knew that speed was their best defence. The faster the Joyous Venture moved, the greater the diffraction by the holofields and the less time they would be exposed overall.

  Neridiath made a small adjustment, trimming the sail for maximum exposure to the local star, siphoning off a little more precious energy to direct through the grav-engines.

  A tickling sensation, subtle at first, grew in strength, and soon become an unpleasant ache at the back of her head. She was already riding a dangerous line between the amount of energy coming in and the amount expended by the gravity engines. If she made a mistake in attitude and approach there would be a catastrophic power drain, or worse, which would leave them drifting and exposed.

  The sensation of a bubble bursting enveloped her as Kaydaryal impelled the communications matrix back online, overriding her order with a burst of willpower fuelled by panic.

  ‘They have us locked in their sights!’ she warned.

  ‘Too late,’ Neridiath replied.

  The Joyous Venture slipped under the human ship, passing through an exhaust wash of radiation and plasma spewed from its crude thrusters, scything through the mesh of tracer lasers and radio waves trying to pinpoint the eldar position. Neridiath levelled out the ship’s course as the human vessel continued turning laboriously astern, trying to bring its main weapons into firing position.

  Slipping out of the energy wake of the other ship, the Joyous Venture headed straight towards the star, sails drawing in the solar wind as a suffocating person might heave in a massive draught of breath. Not only did the stream of energised particles flood into the grav-engines, it washed over the eldar ship, the back-scatter blinding the humans’ sensors.

  Returning partially to her body, Neridiath let out a breath she did not know she had been holding. Almost immediately there was a timid mental contact.

  Safe?

  Yes, we are safe.

  Neridiath stepped out onto the oval landing at the top of a stair that led down into the habitation decks of the Joyous Venture. At the bottom she stopped by the first door – her chambers – and the portal opened like a dilating iris, disappearing into the smooth walls.

  Stepping inside, Neridiath moved quickly through the communal first room, furnished with several chairs and couches, arranged carefully between numerous low tables and shelves packed with hundreds of knick-knacks and mementos from her travels. There were gems both uncut and fashioned, nuggets and ingots of strange elements alloys, crude statues, and busts and charms from three dozen different pre-civilisation species along with amulets, jewellery, holy icons and figurines from a dozen thought to have reached the minimum level of technology and culture to be deemed worthy of formal approach.

  None of her prized souvenirs attracted Neridiath’s attention; she headed directly for the smaller of the two sleeping cabins. The door was sealed but petalled open at her command. Manyia stood by her table, still a little uncertain on her legs, and turned a wide-eyed look towards the door as her mother entered.

  Happiness!

  Her daughter’s psychic surge of pleasure was almost overwhelming and Neridiath responded in kind, enveloping her child with warmth and love. She took up Manyia in her arms, replicating with contact what she broadcast with her thoughts. Manyia pulled away slightly and delivered an admonishing look to her mother.

  Afraid. Bad people.

  ‘Not any more,’ Neridiath assured her daughter.

  4

  A detonation made Farseer Hylandris look up from his work. His thick robes were already dirtied by dust from the ceiling, the ancient plaster deteriorating further as more shells pounded the surface some distance above. The gems that studded Hylandris’s ghosthelm were smeared with the same, as were the skintight worksuits of the twenty eldar that had laboured for the past three turns of the world to unearth the sealed doors that confronted the farseer. All eyes, hidden behind mirrored blast-visors, were on Hylandris as he attended to the circular rune-wheel they had excavated next to the massive gates.

  Another shell showered more debris from the half-collapsed ceiling. The explosions were getting closer, which meant that the Chaos-corrupted humans were also getting closer to the Ankathalamon’s resting place, penetrating deeper into the City of Spires. Hylandris steadied his thoughts, studying the intricate pattern of gems and runes and the geometric shapes interlinking them.

  He ran through all the possible combination patterns and ciphers he knew, from the Twelve Keys of Heredorith, through the hexo­pulent algorithms of the Bethannis quartet, to the constellation-memes of Pathedesian. None of them seemed to fit the interlocking runestone plates that formed the activation panel of the last portal to the Ankathalamon’s vault.

  Farseer, the enemy are massing for attack on our right flank, through the Park of Winter’s Thief. If we remain longer we will be surrounded.

  The words of Nymuyrisan reached Hylandris without any mechanical aid. It came to him with a slight repeat – the thought-echo from the wraithknight pilot’s dead twin whose soul was encased within the spirit stones of the massive war engine’s body. When Nymuyrisan sent a psychic message, his brother Jarithuran could be felt lingering on the edge of the pilot’s consciousness.

  Counter-at
tack! Hylandris’s frustration with the runedisc lent extra venom to his thoughts. We have already lost several warriors and machines sealing the entrances to the lower levels – we do not have the firepower or numbers to retake the city if we surrender our grip. Coordinate with the Patient Lightning for a strike from orbit.

  If we continue to push further from Niessis, we might be cut off from the webway portal. We will be stranded here.

  Not while the Patient Lightning continues to dominate in orbit.

  Tynarin has reported detecting several enemy ships that will arrive within twenty more planetary rotations.

  Twenty days is more than enough time to break this code and retrieve the Ankathalamon. Remember, Nymuyrisan, if we fail here our craftworld is doomed.

  As you wish, farseer.

  Hylandris dismissed the concerns of the wraithknight pilot and returned his attention to the rune panel. There was certainly a base-six code, perhaps one of the Triumvirate of Asuryan that was so common in the days before the Fall.

  Lost in his contemplations, the farseer paid no heed to the communications relating to the ongoing battle above ground, so it came as some surprise when his thought processes were interrupted by a panicked intrusion from Tynarin, commander of the battleship Patient Lightning.

  We are under attack! The mon-keigh have managed to activate several defence platforms we thought defunct. Anti-ship torpedoes are closing on us at speed.

  Shoot them down or evade them, Hylandris replied irritably, wondering why this was a matter for his attention. Must I tell you how to do everything?

  There is no time, farseer. I must enter the upper atmosphere and hope that the missiles burn up before they strike us. We will suffer damage, but it is better than the alternatives. If we are destroyed, the surface webway gate is your only exit. I am sending a web-bound distress call back to the craftworld, but it may be some time before help arrives.