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  Be not sad, whispered the spirit that shared control of the Hemlock with her, the soul of Kyanorath, a long-dead warrior who had walked the Path of the Crimson Hunter before his fall. Death is not to be feared, Maireth Voidwalker. You, spiritseer, know that more than any.

  It was true that death, for an eldar of the craftworlds, was almost a second life. Communion in the infinity circuit was a peace of a kind that the lesser races could never experience. And yet… Maireth was young. There was so much more that she had hoped to do, to experience, to be.

  She was roused from her reverie by the singing of the spirits across the squadron of wraithfighters. It was time.

  War calls, they chorused, a dozen voices flowing through her. She joined in, and in the psychic communion she felt the spiritseer pilots of the other vessels do the same, their spirits mingling and imbuing her with strength and purpose, and a bravery she did not feel alone. War was calling, and it would bring her death.

  With a thought, Maireth Voidwalker ordered the attack.

  A crescent-shaped aircraft swooped down and opened fire, and Elarique Swiftblade rolled to avoid the deadly blasts from its weapons. But those blasts never came. Instead, the enemy ship was pierced by a blinding beam of energy. It continued its steep descent and crashed to the ground amongst a knot of souldark warriors, who were consumed in the fiery explosion that destroyed the craft.

  A shape shot overhead, black and red, followed by more – a dozen in all – of a deep crimson. He recognised the silhouette of the Nightshade interceptor and realised that – from somewhere, though he knew not where – a squadron of Crimson Hunters Aspect Warriors had arrived to turn the tide. As he gazed upwards, he saw also a flight of elegant ships in the blue and gold of Alaitoc, their profile similar to the Nightshades, but with a distinctive central fin… He fought back a tide of distaste as he realised what these were.

  ‘Hemlocks,’ he hissed. ‘Starbane has unleashed this witchery?’

  The Hemlock wraithfighter was a weapon of terror, not one of war. He watched as one of the craft swooped low over a pack of lumbering necron immortals, who raised their double-barrelled cannons to meet it with ineffectual gauss fire. The Hemlock’s weapons flared, and though there was no sign of a discharge, Elarique heard a discordant wail and the necrons fell, like puppets with cut strings. They did not repair, and their bodies did not phase out. Had they been mortal, their spirits would have been hurled into the warp, doomed to spend eternity as the playthings of daemons. What such infernal devices would do to the souldark, Elarique could not guess.

  ‘It cannot be pleasant though,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Not even upon my greatest foe would I wish it.’ He heard a sound behind him and turned, activating the power field on his sword with a thought and stabbing it straight through the chest of the golden lord, who had self-repaired and had been about to club Elarique with his great staff. He pulled the sword free and the construct collapsed again. It looked up at him through those baleful green eyes, the hatred of millennia gazing at the autarch. Elarique grinned, the look of a predator.

  ‘Stay down this time,’ he said, and stabbed the necron through the head.

  Keladry pulled up from his dive at the last moment, tail scraping the ground in a spray of sparks, and a thrill ran through him at the close call. The Doom Scythe that had been pursuing him crashed into the hard earth at full speed, a billowing green explosion annihilating it. He jinked left and right to avoid the fire of two more and then looped behind. He fired a stream of pulsar fire that caught one of the crescent-shaped craft on its starboard side, buffeting it to the side, before pulling around and stabbing bright lance fire into the other. One of the beams caught something explosive and the necron ship detonated, a green sun flaring briefly into life in the darkening sky.

  The other ship rose unsteadily, wobbling in the air even as the hole torn through it by the pulsar blast began to knit together. Keladry targeted the warrior construct in a nook on top of the ship and let loose more pulsar fire at it. A bright flare erupted around the pilot, clearly an energy field designed to protect it. The exarch let the fire continue as he flew towards the necron ship. Alarms began to blare as collision became imminent.

  He grinned and continued. If this would be his death, then what a death!

  The stream of crimson pulsar fire battered against the shield until, suddenly, with a blaze of energy, the field collapsed and the pulsar fire destroyed the necron pilot. The Doom Scythe dipped and fell towards the battlefield, and Keladry flew through the space it had occupied moments more, cheated once again of his demise.

  The exarch checked the status of his warriors. All were still flying, though he had become separated from them. He located their beacons and turned in their direction. A few seconds and he saw them, locked in battle against ten times their number. The last time he had seen warriors under his command face such odds had been…

  ‘Alianna!’

  Keladry ran, his voice echoing through wraithbone corridors as he screamed for his love. He heard laughter, the cruel, dark laughter of a soul that was cold and dead, sustained only by suffering and evil. Around him were the corpses of his crew, his friends, slaughtered by the pirates, their spirit stones cracked and broken, their faces locked in the unimaginable agony of their final moments.

  He would not allow the same fate to befall. Alianna.

  He turned a corridor and there she was, the cameleoline cloak of a ranger over her armour, pistol trained on a Commorrite. She saw him and turned, and the soulthief seized his chance, knocking the pistol from her grasp and pulling her to him, arm around her throat…

  Pulsar and lance fire speared from elegant eldar craft as they wove through a barrage of crackling electricity that emanated from the long-barrelled cannons underslung on the falcate necron flyers. They jinked from side to side, the arcs of tesla fire bubbling paint from their hulls as they passed, but otherwise missing.

  Taking a deep breath and clearing his head, Keladry flew into the midst of the combat, targeting a squadron of three Doom Scythes. He signalled to his Crimson Hunters and five of the warriors peeled off and followed him. The enemy squadron faced away from them, hunting a Hemlock wraithfighter that swept towards the necron ground forces, cutting yngiract down with its blasphemous weaponry.

  The Hemlock dove low and the necron flyers followed, tesla blasts burning into the eldar ship’s rear. With a thought, Keladry oriented his fighter towards one of the foes, pulling into a steep dive and unleashing laser fire at the craft. Behind him, his Crimson Hunters did the same. Bright beams of energy tore through the necron ship, reducing it to a hulk that slewed down towards the battlefield below. The other two Doom Scythes pulled away in opposite directions, and Keladry ordered that the Crimson Hunters focus on one of the enemy.

  ‘Strength is in numbers,’ he said. ‘Focus on one enemy. The other can wait.’

  That had always been Keladry Ragefyre’s way. Focus on one enemy to the exclusion of all others. Kill it and target another. It worked for him in the training domes of the shrine, and it had worked on countless battlefields, against the crude ships and unskilled pilots of the humans, tau and orks. It was basic, and it was blunt, but that was what Keladry was – a weapon to be pointed at the foe and fired, a single-minded force of nature. He had not always been so, but the loss of Alianna… She flashed through his mind: her smile, her laugh, the feel of her skin against his. He hardened his thoughts and focused on the battle. On his impending – and oh so welcome – death.

  Maireth breathed a sigh of relief as one of the Doom Scythes raking her Hemlock with fierce streams of electricity slewed away, struck by volleys of pulsar and lance fire from the Crimson Hunters. The other two disengaged and Maireth pulled out of her dive and prepared for another pass.

  She avoided the main swirl of combat, wary of the great weapons mounted on the vehicles that floated around the centre of the swirling melee. If she was to avoid her fate, she must take no needless risks.

  Instead, s
he looked to the fringes of the battlefield. She spotted a knot of necrons far from the combat, draped in what looked like cloaks of freshly-flayed skin. Great claws tipped their long arms and they loped towards a squad of guardians who were pinned down by volleys of gauss fire. She locked the distortion scythes on to them, and Kyanorath chimed agreement.

  The Hemlock swooped low and sent what passed for souls in those creatures of the damned to oblivion. Exultation fought with disgust in Maireth Voidwalker at the effects of the infernal weaponry.

  She pulled the Hemlock back up, searching for another target, and saw the Nightshade interceptors that had saved her moments before sweep overhead in pursuit of another Doom Scythe. Bright blue streams of energy battered the necron ship, but still it flew, though. The Crimson Hunters continued on, so focused on their kill that they were oblivious to the death that approached… And not just for them.

  A stream of lance fire split the necron craft in two, the broken piece tumbling from the sky.

  The unliving scythe will be sundered and your end will be at hand.

  The other necron flyer that had fled from them had returned, with reinforcements. Fully five of the enemy craft came from behind and beneath them. Their tesla cannons were silent, but great crystal orbs mounted between the long-barrelled weapons glowed a lambent green. Before Maireth could react or warn the Aspect Warriors, the death rays fired. Beams of blinding white light burst from the necron ships, and three of the blood-coloured craft simply disintegrated. Another two were hit in vital systems and, after a moment, exploded.

  The black fighter lost a wing, and plummeted towards the ground below.

  And Maireth Voidwalker, doomed to die on this world, at this time, was left vulnerable and without protection in front of five Doom Scythes, their death ray emitters recharging as they circled her like apex predators.

  Keladry smiled as his Nightshade hurtled towards the ground. If this was his death, he would meet it as a friend. If he was lost to the depredations of warp beasts, he would go to them with a smile. If today was his last day in the universe, he would–

  No, Keladry Ragefyre. Your path does not end here. Your part is yet to be played.

  A voice, ancient and dry, echoed in Keladry’s mind and he felt his body move, activating the control for the interceptor’s ejector. The canopy of the ship blasted outwards, carried away by the rushing winds, and as his seat was pushed out of the cockpit with explosive force, his last thought before the gravitational forces threw him into unconsciousness was that he had been cheated of death. Again.

  In desperation, Maireth fired her Hemlock’s weapons at the approaching Doom Scythes, to no avail. Designed to bring horrific death to infantry far below, the distortion scythes failed to penetrate the shields around the necron pilots. She screamed her rage at Kyanorath, but the only response was a sad and sympathetic voice in her mind.

  Death comes to all, little spiritseer. How we meet it matters as much as that we do.

  ‘But I’m not ready,’ she wailed. ‘It’s too soon.’

  Taking a deep breath, Maireth Voidwalker closed her eyes and began to chant a lament from the Long Ago, a song that was sung even before the Fall, when the eldar race ruled the galaxy. She prepared to meet her death. Through closed eyelids, she saw the bright flare of light that signalled her end.

  The light faded, and Maireth opened her eyes. She sat still in the cockpit of the Hemlock. She felt laughter on the edge of her consciousness.

  Perhaps it is not yet your time, little spiritseer, whispered Kyanorath.

  Maireth surveyed the skies around her Hemlock. The necron ships were all gone. In their place were more Crimson Hunters, four of the red and black craft, wings dipped in mourning for their lost brethren.

  A voice came to her over the communications system.

  ‘The battle in the skies is lost, necromancer. Gather your wraithships. We must flee.’

  ‘But what of below? What of Lord Swiftblade?’

  ‘He has come to the same conclusion, spiritseer. His forces fall back.’

  Maireth turned her sensors on to the battlefield. The Aspect Warrior was right. The eldar forces were falling back in disciplined lines, harrying the enemy with fire as they went. The other Hemlocks – those that had survived – flew low over the retreating craftworld forces, dissuading the foe from following with their deadly distortion scythes. Maireth cursed softly.

  ‘Very well. I will mourn for your fallen with you when we reach the ground, Crimson Hunter.’

  With heavy heart, Maireth Voidwalker joined the retreat.

  ‘Explain to me,’ said Elarique Swiftblade slowly, ‘what happened up there.’

  It was morning, and after a restless night spent tending to the wounded and mourning for the lost Maireth had been summoned to see the autarch.

  ‘I don’t understand what you–’ she began, before Elarique interrupted.

  ‘I have spoken to Lord Starbane. You and your fellows were sent to get into the midst of the foe and reap a mighty toll with your blasphemous weapons. Yet you followed your own agenda instead.’

  Elarique looked into her eyes.

  ‘You and I shared my body for a brief time, Maireth Voidwalker. Our spirits mingled, and you were laid bare to me.’

  He paused, and the implication of his words hit Maireth. Did he know? How could he?

  ‘My lord Swiftblade, I–’

  ‘You seek to avoid a fate foreseen, Voidwalker. This I understand. Know that it is possible. Death can be cheated, but always at a cost. You have cheated the fate that the seers had divined. What will you have to pay, I wonder?’

  Sighing, the autarch turned and walked over to the holo-map of the Carnacian geography, marked with eerie green sigils showing the locations of enemy forces, all moving towards the world shrine. He placed a hand over the marker for that spot, the repository for the souls of millennia of Carnacian exodites.

  ‘Sometimes, Maireth, an act of sacrifice is necessary, when there is a greater good to come from it.’

  Maireth saw the truth behind his words.

  ‘My sacrifice, lord autarch?’

  ‘I rarely speak in such singular terms, Maireth. It is a truth of our galaxy that great acts of conflict are often mirrored in lesser ones. What is true of one is often true of the other. Your sacrifice may be necessary to serve a greater purpose. As may the sacrifice of this world.’

  ‘You would flee this world? Give the souldark victory? You are a coward!’

  Keladry Ragefyre entered blazing with fury, his usually pale face flushed with blood as he spat invective at Elarique.

  The autarch turned from the holographic map table. He stared into the exarch’s face for a long moment, his eyes dark and cold, and when he spoke, it brought a chill to her bones.

  ‘You speak of cowardice, Ragefyre? You who seeks to embrace oblivion? You who are willing to sacrifice other precious souls in your own pursuit of death? How many of your acolytes died?’

  Keladry just glared. Elarique shook his head.

  ‘You disgust me. You have no conception of the greater picture of which Carnac is just a small part. Sometimes, we must accept defeat in order to secure a larger victory.’

  ‘Larger victory?’ Keladry’s voice dripped with contempt. ‘What use is that to us now?’

  ‘And what will your own death achieve, especially at the cost of innocent lives?’ Elarique waved a hand towards Maireth. ‘Victory does require sacrifice, it is true. But sacrifice for a cause is not the same as wasting a life that has meaning still. What if I were to tell you, Ragefyre, that the seers have seen a greater role for you in Alaitoc’s future? Darkness is coming, we all know this. The Rhana Dandra approaches, and the skeins of fate draw us together in ways we could never expect. Sometimes, a single life can be all that stands between the craftworld and oblivion.’ He glanced sideways at Maireth ‘Or sometimes, a single death.’

  Keladry snarled. ‘I care not for words. I will seek the fate I choose. Nothing else matter
s.’

  ‘You would put your own selfish desires above those of Alaitoc, above those of our very race? Alas, you are truly lost to us. Even the soulthieves of Commorragh would be less vainglorious.’

  ‘Alianna!’

  Keladry ran, his voice echoing through wraithbone corridors as he screamed for his love. He heard laughter, the cruel, dark laughter of a soul that was cold and dead, sustained only by suffering and evil. Around him were the corpses of his crew, his friends, slaughtered by the pirates, their spirit stones cracked and broken, their faces locked in the unimaginable agony of their final moments.

  He would not allow the same fate to befall. Alianna.

  He turned a corridor and there she was, the cameleoline cloak of a ranger over her armour, pistol trained on a Commorrite. She saw him and turned, and the soulthief seized his chance, knocking the pistol from her grasp and pulling her to him, arm around her throat, her own pistol aimed at her head.

  Keladry pulled his longrifle from his back, priming and aiming it in a fluid motion.

  ‘Release her, dark one, or you die.’

  The monster laughed that cruel laugh.

  ‘Then kill me, little outcast. The fleshworkers of Commorragh will clone me and revive me. But your lover here will be dead by my final act in this body. And then I will come for you.’ The soulthief leered at Alianna and whispered something to her that Keladry couldn’t hear. His focus shifted for a moment, from the scope of his rifle to Alianna’s face, the pleading look in her eyes.

  He heard, rather than saw, a pistol fire…

  ‘You dare say such things?’ shouted the Crimson Hunter, pulling Elarique around and delivering a strike to his face. The autarch fell back, blood flowing from a broken nose. ‘You compare me to the lost? You know not my heart!’