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Spirits of Tir-Namagesh - Gav Thorpe

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A Black Library Publication

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Spirits of Tir-Namagesh

Gav Thorpe

A dead city and a city of the dead.

Beneath a sky of red static hung infamous Tir-namagesh, the City of the Ever-young, said to house the souls of ten thousand princes. Stretched between the immaterial bonds of the webway, Tir-namagesh was shaped like two vast ziggurats, one inverted upon the other like an hourglass, the steps of its levels broken by edifices, obelisks and statues from a time ancient even before the Fall. A maze of alleys and stairs linked the broad boulevards and plazas, while an equally labyrinthine arrangement of bridges criss-crossed like spiderwebs over the domes and spires of the city's rooftops.

About a third of the way along the upper structure the city was scarred. Like the hilt of a knife in a corpse, the remains of a starship protruded from the elegant piazzas and towers. Its exposed decks were a mess of broken gantries and hard edges, its slab walls, girders and metal pillars anathema to the organic shapes and artificial stone work in winch it was embedded. Like a damaged eggshell, the buildings and roads of Tir-namagesh were cracked and broken around the impact, crevasses and chasms torn into foundations laid down when the eldar empire had reached its zenith.

The ruin was old also, as reckoned by the humans that had been unceremoniously dumped upon this enigmatic construction.

Generations of survivors and their descendants had scratched a survival in this grave-city, building what little they could from the ravaged systems of their voidship. A scrap settlement of several thousand inhabitants clustered about the immense wreck, plate-metal roofs and wire-cable ladders and walkways linking them across the steep inclines of the city's levels. Scant scrub-farms of red and blue algae stretched over old decking, soaking in what little heat and energy could be generated by the temperamental plasma reactors. Photosynthetic systems and hydroponics now barely understood by their operators buzzed and hissed amid generators that sparked and spat lightning arcs.

The settlement hugged the ship not only for sustenance but also protection. The crash had ruptured the outer soul-vaults, unleashing terrors that still flitted about the camps, their wails and alien shrieks the stuff of nightmare. Many had been driven insane by the vengeful eldar spirits that now roamed the deserted streets, while others turned upon their own in their fear-dementia before being gunned down.

But they had survived and learned rituals to ward away the spiteful dead. Icons and totems to powers stronger and darker than the essence of dead eldar ringed the settlement and marked the safeways along the farm-decks, twisting the air with baleful energies. Those once blessed to commune with distant worlds now allowed their minds to be the vehicle for other messages, spewing forth the raving demands of creatures not of the mortal sphere. By such bargains were they kept safe, offering up praise and sacrifice in return for salvation from the spirits of the nightless world.

Such uneasy peace had lasted for a generation and more, but now the shaman-speakers gave voice to a fresh horror. As a storm crackled in the unnatural skies, they screamed and moaned, imploring their gods to deliver them from the blade about to fall.

Those whose task it was to interpret such manias consulted and debated the meaning of these new omens, to no satisfying conclusion.

It was thus that the squatters of Tir-namagesh were already in a state of agitation and apprehension when the storm broke, accompanied by the screams of tortured souls used to prise open the barriers between worlds. To their primitive eyes it seemed as though the sky split, fractured open from without amid forks of purple lightning and showers of white fire. Roaring their defiance of this elemental attack they fetched such weapons as they possessed and gathered to watch the splintering heavens.

A webway portal built twenty thousand years before the Fall opened to disgorge a fleet of starships in the skies above the silent city: seven in all, with dagger-sharp prows and spined dorsal arrays streaming like hunting sharks from the roiling aether of the webway. Silhouetted against the tempest of their arrival it seemed as though jagged blades cut the air, wielded by the invisible hand of a god.

Some of the humans shouted and sang praises to the new arrivals, believing them messengers of the gods sent to rescue the faithful from their prison. Most were not so optimistic as the ships disgorged swarms of smaller craft, some single-pilot bikes that descended in hornet swarms through the flickering air, others barques and blade-flanked barges carrying scores of shrieking eldar warriors. Pirates from Commorragh, the Dark City, the eldar descended like locusts on their raiders and ravagers, intent upon the soul-vaults while flights of aircraft and more transports peeled away to confront the human vermin infesting the eldar tomb-city.

The humans' leaders gave orders to defend their home, manning the old battle towers and gun points as best they could, remembering by rote the ancient drills and firing sequences their great-great-great-grandparents had first passed on. The old cannons barked their defiance, splitting the air with screaming shells and shrapnel.

The response was swift and without mercy. Beams of azure and ruby light flared down from the voidships while sparks of plasma fell like shooting stars. Where they touched they left death and ruin. In moments the broken human starship was ablaze from prow to stern, its decks flowing with molten metal like river cataracts, the algae fields burning with dark smoke. Ammunition stores detonated in bright flashes, their thunder masking the yells and screams of the dying and wounded, pinpointed by the gunners of the flotilla above, while other weapons on the descending skimmers scythed through the savages trying to flee the voidship barrage. Fusillades of toxin-laced shards slashed along the streets and crackles of dark energy snapped through the flimsy cover afforded by the close-built hovels.

As the lead raiders touched down they released a flood of lithe warriors onto the pale stone streets of Tir-namagesh. Some were clad head-to-foot in plate and mesh armour, their splinter rifles adding to the hail of deadly shards that cut down the humans. Others, the arena fighters known as wyches, wore little more than vambraces and pauldrons, relying upon speed rather than physical defence. They sped ahead of the others with whoops and war shouts, firing their pistols and slashing with serrated-edged blades, thrusting triple-tined spears into their slow and awkward foes.

Upon one of the lead transports waited Maensith Dracon. She stood a little taller than most of her followers, raven hair tied in three tight braids that hung down her back. Sculpted plates of purple armour edged with silver blades and golden scale clad her slender body. The senior warrior from the Crimson Talon Kabal watched the warriors slicing apart the humans and grimaced. She activated her communicator to speak to her ally from the Kabal of the Ascendant Spear.

'Khiadysis Hierarch, you need to rein in your warriors' excesses.'

'Is that so, Maensith Dracon?' he replied. 'And what makes you think you have the right to give me commands, or that I should heed them? They are my warriors. Do not overstep yourself. Without the strength of the Ascendant Spear you would not even dare these vaults.'

'And without my ships to carry them, your warriors would be idling their time in the spires of Commorragh or, more likely, plotting your assassination so that they might find themselves a more competent leader.'

'Your mockery is wasted on me, Maensith. The Crimson Talon are of little consideration. You have no influence in Commorragh - that fleet is the only asset you have that is worth anything, and one day someone will take it from you and you will have nothing.'

'Not today. You are wasting souls,' she told him with a sneer. 'Why kill what you can capture?'

'The soul-vaults of Tir-namagesh are ours for the taking and you fret about a handful of human souls?'

'The humans are an unexpected bonus, Khiadysis, not to be wasted. Do you think the likes of Vect and his Kabal of the Black Heart waste a single soul? They ascend above us because they are ruthless and diligent.'

'Vect over-reaches himself if he thinks he will rise to control Commorragh. While he wars and politics with the decrepit old noble houses we shall establish dominion.'

'You forget that I come from one of those decrepit old noble houses. I would show you the corpses of those that underestimated Vect's ambition, but I can't as they are never found or returned. If nothing else, the human souls will make good barter for the mandrakes and lesser kabals, or to pay our warriors while we keep the treasures of Tir-namagesh for ourselves.'

Khiadysis said nothing, but his warriors ceased their projectile onslaught at his command and switched to lashing agonisers and razorsnares. A few of the eldar fell to volleys of fire from crude slug-throwers and las-weapons, the dead disregarded by their companions. Kindred meant little to the Commorraghans, any other loyalty even less. Even so, the slavers of the Crimson Talon and Ascendant Spear fought their way side by side into the heart of the human settlement, where they herded their foes like livestock, moving them into the path of the capture teams.

A message from the voidships warned that their breach into the pocket-realm of the dead city was weakening. Maensith signalled Khiadysis again.

'The fleet will have to withdraw for the time being. The barrier we broke is repairing itself, and if trapped inside our ships will not be able to open the portal again.'

'And what of us?'

'I will call my ships when we need them.'

'I am sure you will.'

Above them all but two of the voidships turned and disappeared back through the coruscating energy of the fractured portal, leaving jade and cyan trails as they passed through the boundary into the malleable flow of the webway beyond. The pair of vessels belonging to the Kabal of the Ascendant Spear continued to drift back and forth, void-tethers trailing like vines behind them.

Leaving a small portion of their force to deal with the rest of the humans, Maensith and Khiadysis moved their attention to the goal of the expedition – the psychic repositories at the heart of Tir-namagesh. Where the two inverted pyramids met, four immense gatehouses guarded entry into the interim, the only way in or out of the soul-crypts within.

Landing outside one of the tower flanked barbicans, the Commorraghans found themselves set upon by the spirits that had haunted the humans for generations. Like leaking vapour, the apparitions melted into being, seeping up through the stones of the street, sliding half-seen from the surrounding cloisters and galleries. Their moans and whispers drifted on the wind, not quite audile until they rose to wordless wails. Fluttering like gossamer threads, the intangible remains of the ancient dead clawed insubstantial fingers into Maensith as she disembarked from her grav-transport. She wafted a hand through a pale-eyed spectre as though bothered by a shadowfly, unimpressed by its hoarse dirge.

'Fetch the wraithlocks,' she told her crew, marching with purpose towards the gatehouse. There was no shadow here, the light of the red sky ever-present, leaving her feeling as though she was exposed, being watched every step. She shook off the feeling when Khiadysis approached, flanked by several dozen of his kabalites.

Even for a denizen of the Dark City the hierarch was gaunt and pale Beneath a sharp brow, dark eyes regarded Maensith with a piercing glare, part suspicion and part distaste. A white scalplock was the only hair on his head, hanging down across a shoulder, beaded with silver wrought in the shape of elongated eldar skulls. He eschewed armour of the physical kind, dressed in robes reminiscent of the ancient scholars of the empire. However, the glimmer of a protective field distorted the air as he moved, edging his appearance with dark aura.

The co-comanders eyed each other with mutual antipathy but said nothing while their followers brought forth crystal-studded wire cages from the decks of their raiders. Golden coils hung around the top of each cage, glinting with internal energy. Each soultrap was borne between two warriors and accompanied by a handful more armed with slim ruby-tipped wands connected to the spirit-cage with more slender cable. At signal from Khiadysis they approached the immense gatehouse.

Detecting their approach, the arched portal opened before them, the plate that blocked it sliding up into the barbican above to let a chill draught issue forth. A swirl of spirits followed the gust of air, shimmering like sunlight on water as they fled the confines of the tomb-vault. Kabalites with wraithlocks moved ahead, the tips of their rods sparking scarlet lightning at the fleeing ghosts, their discharge accompanied by ear-piercing whines. Where each bolt touched one of the fugitives the air danced with crimson fire for an instant and a shriek cut the still. Red sparks surged down the rod and into the cage, where a miasma of psychic power started to coalesce. More energy buzzed from the bars as the spirits tried to pass between them, writhing in torment, their faces letting forth silent howls, clawed fingers thrashing at their confines.

'I hope some of the vaults are still intact,' moaned Khiadysis as the party moved into the darkness beyond the gate. 'Let us hope that the humans' crash did not break all of them. I would rather we did not have to chase our prizes all over the city.'

Sensors detected their arrival and will o' wisp lights sprang into life around them, each eldar suddenly joined by a gently gleaming companion of silvery illumination. The glow lit friezes on the high walls, revealing a repeating pattern of stylised figures in the various stages of preparation for psychic internment.

Maensith had already read much about them, though Khiadysis' interest began and ended with the contents of the soul-vaults. Though long-lived, their spans expanded far beyond that of the eldar post-Fall, the followers of the ancient sect feared death as much as any mortal, disbelieving the widely held belief that their spirits would be returned to their people in a future generation. They eschewed the possibilities of wraithbone bodies, preferring a non-interactive existence to a muted half-life in a constructed vessel. Considered vain outsiders by mainstream eldar culture they nevertheless accrued substantial resources and eventually built Tir-namagesh to house their immortal essence until such a time that fresh organic bodies could be created for them.

The abstracted images showed them near death, brought to the mortuary salons that had filled the streets beyond. The pictures showed their souls being teased forth by the archaic machinery of the tomb-complex, floating above the reclining figures like suns. Webs of insubstantial energy distilled the spirits into raw psychic essence to be siphoned into precisely arranged crystal vaults.

Ward symbols lined the ceiling, burning gently with black fire, still keeping the vaults free from warp intrusion after so many generations. Maensith eyed them warily.

'Are they supposed to flicker?' she asked.

The murals of the upper level gave way to unadorned flat plates, the floor gently sloping downward towards the centre of the floating city. The moan and susurrant passing of escaped spirits followed them as they descended, their dirge broken by the snap and crackle of the spirit-snares. Flutters of movement twitched in the shadows and footsteps echoed where nobody trod. Maensith remained alert, weapons to hand, while for his part Khiadysis swaggered with the air of one surrounded by well-armed allies. Both opportunists, each had staked much on the success of the expedition, but they could not be further from one another in character.

Lit by the glow of the hoverlights and the crackling flare of wraithlocks brimming with captured souls, the expedition followed the broad passages deeper and deeper into Tir-namagesh. They continued to seize upon any errant wraith they came across, until several soultraps were filled entirely, and dispatched back to the surface to be lifted to the waiting ships.

Five levels below the surface they came upon the first of the tomb-sites. The wall was marked with a slab of heavily veined white marble, and upon the surface was a carved relief of a face, as tall as an eldar. From the stone glared the patrician visage, sharp-cheeked with high forehead, thin lips curved into a knowing smile. In the fitful light of the wavering ward runes and bobbing guidewisps it seemed to Maensith as though the face moved, perhaps wordlessly mouthing a warning, eyes darting from one intruder to the next.

Khiadysis saw nothing, his thoughts fixed upon the contents behind the grave-slab. At a gesture from their hierarch several kabalites of the Ascendant Spear moved to the wall and tried to detach the large piece of stone, investigating its edge and the surrounding material for some lock or catch. Maensith snorted.

'You plan to open each and every vault?'

'What do you mean?' replied Khiadysis. 'This is what we came for.'

'It would take an age to lever open each tomb, you ignorant thug. We go to the heart of the complex, to access the crystal network from its source.'

Khiadysis had no idea what she was talking about but motioned for his retainers to cease their search all the same.

'We go further,' said Maensith, pointing to the shadows between the gleaming scarlet runes ahead, 'into the deeps.'

The mood of the Commorraghans worsened at this declaration. Though no strangers to death and its infliction in many varied and entertaining ways, they had little desire to linger so long in its shadow.

A few wished they had remained to make sport of the humans on the surface. The lure of the treasures to be found, and the promises and threats of their leaders, sailed any protest, but the silence seemed more laden as they continued their descent. Weapons readied, those not tasked with operating the wraithlocks scowled and snapped at the spirits that continued to dog their steps.

Perhaps sensing the intent of their captors, the spirits within the soulcages became more and more agitated as they continued into the lower levels, passing scores, hundreds of capstones hiding the vaults of the ancient creators of Tir-namagesh.

The atmosphere became more oppressive as they continued to pass the staring stone faces of ancestors that had died ten lifetimes ago. Male and female, many with the faint lines of old age that were the only sign of an eldar nearing natural death. All had been rendered with expressions of pious disdain or noble distraction. Even so, it was hard not to feel accusation in their glares as the holes in their eyes for pupils caught shadows cast by the passing lights.

As testing was the unease between the two bands of warriors. Maensith and Khiadysis kept close to each other — not quite within striking distance but never allowing the other more than a few paces away. Their followers continually eyed their rivals, posturing and staring, hands on weapon hilts and grips in their efforts to intimidate one another. As much as their surrounds unsettled them, their nerves were equally tested by the presence of their rivals.

Shouts from one of the teams of wyches that had moved ahead a short distance brought everyone's weapons up - blades, pistols and rifles immediately ready to confront attack. They called for Khiadysis to come forward. Maensith tagged along, unwilling to leave the side of her companion-rival, suspecting treachery at any moment.

They found their scouts waiting where the corridor turned sharply to the left and descended to the next level.

'Look here,' said one of the wyches, pointing to the wall on the outside of the bend. Though the light from the hovering stars was inconsistent it was easy to see marks upon the stone that were unmistakably bullet holes and las-burns.

'The corrupted humans?' suggested Khiadysis.

'Most likely,' said Maensith. 'Fighting among themselves, I would guess, or the imbecilic creatures tried to use their guns to shoot wraithstuff.'

In the sterile environment of the vaults the marks were as fresh as when they were made, and it was impossible to guess how long ago the fighting had taken place. It could have been hours or millennia. There was no sound from the depths and they decided that whatever had occurred was certainly no longer happening, but it was an even warier expedition that proceeded.

Their course took them past more signs of skirmishes - as well as the weapon impacts, they could also smell and see bloodstains on the floor and walls. Not much at first, though on the next level there were patches several strides across where some unfortunate had bled out on the stones. Of the bodies there was no sign.

'The savages probably ate them,' said one of Khiadysis' sybarites. It seemed as likely an explanation as anything else.

Fourteen levels below ground, the passage flattened out. Though the light from the sunglobes was dim, it was possible to see that the tomb complex widened into a vast space beyond a great arch a short distance away.

Sudden gibbering and shrieking erupted from the soultraps as the encased spirits thrashed at their bonds. Sparks flared under the assault, cascading to the floor in fountains of red and gold. The kabalites snarled curses but there was no threat that could be levelled at the disembodied spirits to quell their agitation.

'Leave them for now,' said Khiadysis. 'Their racket is distracting and there will be ample opportunity to recover them on the way out.'

Maensith nodded for her warriors to comply while the kabalites of the Ascendant Spear set down their cages and rods. There were several dozen empty wraithlocks, and these the Commorraghans brought with them as they crossed the threshold into the grand chamber in the centre of Tir-namagesh.

Huge columns held up a ceiling beyond the dismal light of the guidestars. The walls were equally distant, their presence hinted at by the echoes of booted feet. In the half-light something could be seen on the floor ahead, quickly resolving into corpses.

At first they found humans, as they had expected, in the ragged clothes and rough armour of the Chaos-tainted. There were no signs of decay - the bodies lay how they had fallen, one with its throat torn out, missing the left leg below the knee. Given that they had heard no sounds of violence Maensith was forced to conclude that something about the tomb complex had preserved them. Many others missed heads and limbs, and most had tattered clothes and flesh, torn apart by a very distinctive type of weapon.

'Shuriken ammunition,' muttered the dracon, examining one of the corpses.

'Craftworlders?' said Khiadysis, bending next to her.

It was a few moments until others confirmed their suspicions. They found eldar corpses amongst the aliens, clad in flexible mesh armour and plates. Some wore jet-black uniform, others blue and yellow. They bore two distinct symbols across their chestplates and banners, though none among the contingent could identify their origin — the markings of the craftworlds were of little significance to the inhabitants of Commorragh.

'Something is wrong,' remarked Mai Dorain, Chancellor of the Winter Tower, Maensith's second-in-command. 'Look at their waystones.'

The chancellor was right — the protective gems embedded into each eldar's chestplate were missing. Or almost missing — the receptacles that had held the psychically charged crystals held glittering dust, presumably the physical remains of the spirit stones. There was no evidence of the soul stuff they were supposed to contain – the departing essence of the dead eldar, locked away before it could be devoured by the Thirsting God.

Khiadysis stood up and cast his gaze over their surrounds. There were several hundred corpses in the hall, human and eldar - more of the former, but several score of the latter. 'A pity. A haul of fully charged spirit stones would have been a handsome bonus for our efforts.'

Maensith nodded, but she was distracted, searching their environs for some sign of how they might access the main spirit vaults. The legends she had heard — and a few ancient accounts dredged up from archives in the Winter Tower - had attested to a network system somewhere close to the heart of each mortuary complex.

'It has to be around here somewhere,' she told the others. 'A crystal matrix, or something like that. Look!'

'Do you think the tomb has done something to the spirit stones?' mused Khiadysis. 'Perhaps it took their souls.'

It was not an encouraging thought and they set to hunting down some mechanism for seizing their prize with greater vigour. The kabalites, both Crimson Talon and Ascendant Spear, split into squads to search the hall.

Soon a call attracted the attention of the dracon and hierarch. Together they hurried to where Mai Dorain stood, a short distance from the centre of the vast chamber. Here there were no craftworlder bodies, only Chaos corrupted: several dozen, dismembered and beheaded, heaped upon each other, their wounds cauterised by the powered blade that had caused them.

'Even more a mystery…' Mai Dorain pointed his sabre, indicating that the bodies were arranged in rough circles, as though they had surrounded someone. Or something. He moved the tip at his weapon and Maensith saw that he pointed to several pieces of bone and black armour, smooth organic plates incongruous amongst the crude cloth and torn padding of the humans. 'Looks craftworld-made. Aspect Warrior, maybe?'

'There is more here,' said Khiadysis. He gestured towards a long curve of armour, its surface scratched in many places, edge notched by blows. 'Looks more like wychgear to me. A shoulder guard. A big one, but…'

Maensith could see what he meant. She looked at the scattered pieces, trying to fit them together in her thoughts.

'I found a helm!' declared one of Khiadysis' warriors, a wych half-clad in red armour, twinned hydraknives sheathed at her waist. She kicked aside a corpse to reveal a broken faceplate on the floor, lust looking at it made Maensith shudder. Others that saw it muttered in their unease.

It appeared fashioned from bone in the likeness of a screaming daemon.

'Find the rest,' said Khiadysis, thinking how striking he would look in such panoply. 'I want it all.'

'It might be Chaos-tainted,' warned Mai Dorain.

'Really?' Khiadysis was intrigued more than scared by the notion.

'For you, hierarch...' The wych allied to the Ascendant Spear bent to pick up the face mask. The moment her fingers touched the piece she stiffened as though shocked.

An agonised wail burst from the artefact. The kabalite shuddered and spasmed and then the scream burst from her mouth too, scattering fragments of teeth and bloody droplets with its eruption. The shriek became a living thing, swirling around the chamber, dragging with it the guidelights so that they danced upon the tempest of sound as it spun faster and faster around the chamber.

The vortex of energy earthed itself through the stricken kabalite, hurling out the witchlights in a blinding flash. In the afterglow of their dispersal her skin started to melt away, revealing tendons, muscle and bone. Vibrating with power, she staggered back, letting go of the mask.

It hung in the air, linked to her by a stream of golden dust pulled from her chest - soulstuff rendered visible in the psychic aura of the temple-grave.

A skittering screech drew their attention to the pieces of armour. They slid across the stone, small and large, tapping and clattering over the floor as they gathered together. At their centre the bewitched kabalite disappeared, armour, flesh, organs, bones, stripped into nothing but an auric gleam that gathered into a vague bodyshape behind the floating daemon face.

Piece by piece the armour reassembled and healed, dints and cracks growing out, shattered plates reforming to make a smooth cuirass and long vambraces, thigh guards and an elongated pauldron. A helm gathered behind the mask and from it flowed a mane of black, strands of solid midnight flowing in a psychic wind.

'Destroy it!' snarled Mai Dorain, opening fire with his splinter pistol.

Toxic shards engulfed the apparition, shattering on the reformed armour.

Within the storm of fire, the creatures' eyes lit with a pale gleam.

It burst into motion, one moment as solid as a statue, the next impossibly fast, leaping out of the line of fire to cartwheel over the mound of dead humans. As the apparition spun to its feet something flared from an outstretched hand — a three-bladed missile wreathed in black fire. It spun through the throat of two kabalites and slashed open the chest of a third, following the creature as it vaulted over more bodies and rolled beneath fusillades of splinter, shredder and blaster fire.

The Commorraghans' shouts echoed back from the high ceilings and walls, the creature lost for a moment in the fluctuating light as the miniature stars danced and wove as though caught on storm-tossed waves. Maensith fired her pistol at movement to her right. The burning disc of flame flew back, taking the top off the head of a kabalite unfortunate enough to step in front of her at just that moment. The projectile sliced the arm from one of her sybarites before careening off the chest of another warrior and disappearing into the thrashing shadows.

Something gleamed pale in the distance, quickly resolving into the blade of a long glaive as it slashed a warrior in half and with its return blow opened the skull of another. The daemon-thing was swifter even than the wyches, whose knives and tridents cut only empty air, their bodies opened up with flashing blows from the shining blade.

It spun on its heel to deliver a spine-snapping kick to a kabalite trying to drive a serrated dagger into its back. The triskele-shaped projectile leapt again from the fingertips to sever arteries and part flesh like ripened fruit leaving aftertrails of black mist in the wavering light of the guidestars.

The figure lashed out the tip of its glaive, its touch almost a caress as it parted the face of a wych. More splinters cracked harmlessly from its armour as it leapt over a flash of blaster energy, turning in the air to drag the edge of the polearm across the throats of two more unfortunates.

It landed in a crouch, hand snapping up to seize the circling projectile. For an instant the lulls between the gargling cries of the dying, the hiss of toxin splinters and the whine of blasters coincided, leaving a near-perfect silence.

And then it screamed.

The sound threw three kabalites to the ground, spasming, mouths bubbling with bloody froth from ruptured lungs. Others staggered away from the piercing noise, dropping weapons to clasp their heads, blood streaming from ears and noses.

The nightmare thing leapt over the sweeping blades of Khiadysis guards, bringing the haft of its weapon down across the side of his head. He fell hard, pistol dropping from twitching fingers.

Maensith's senses reeled from the sonic assault but she had enough wits about her to realise their attacker, whatever it was, could have easily slain the hierarch rather than incapacitated him. It seized his throat, hauling him up like a shield, the blade in the other hand a hair's breadth from his throat.

'Put down your weapons!' the creature yelled, the words an archaic but perfect form of the eldar tongue, voice unmistakably female. It continued to move, constantly turning, stepping backwards, giving none of the kabalites the opportunity to shoot without hitting the dangling hierarch. A few stray shots whispered past the pair.

'Do as it says!' Maensith could see that many more would die trying to overcome the nightmare spirit. The threat of hitting Khiadysis would not stop her troops, but if he was slain then any hope for their rough alliance was lost, and even if they prevailed over this she-devil the Crimson Talons would surely fall to the superior numbers of vengeful Ascendant Spears. She dropped her hands to her side. 'For all our sakes, stay your wrath!'

Still fell upon the tomb hall. The guidelights were still weaving and bobbing, their light causing the motionless plateau to dance with its own life as the Commorraghans and the daemon-beast faced each other.

'What are you?' demanded Mai Dorain.

The thing turned its scream-fixed face upon the chancellor and he flinched from the golden gaze. It released Khiadysis' throat, discarding him to the floor like a rag. With a yelp he crawled away across the human corpses and scattered body parts of his warriors.

'I am one of the Asurya,' the terrifying warrior said, frighteningly calm and clear after the tumult of the confrontation just moments before. 'A Phoenix Lord, founder of the Aspect Paths. I am the Howling Banshee, the Storm of Silence. Jain Zar. And you are all in mortal peril.'

'You are no eldar, yet you speak our language,' said Maensith.

Hiding a little distance away, Khiadysis fought his shame, ignoring the urge to order his troops to open fire again. Looking at the cold glare of the Phoenix Lord he was under the distinct impression that it would seek him out the moment hostilities resumed.

'I am eldar, or was,' Jain Zar told them. 'My spirit is the same. I and others of my kind have visited Commorragh but our lessons fell on deaf ears for the most part, so I frequent the craftworlds instead. Now is not the time for a history lesson.'

'You said we were in mortal peril?' Khiadysis exchanged a look with Maensith. Without a word being spoken they renewed their commitment to the alliance in the face of this unlikely event, putting the success of the expedition before any consideration for this stranger.

'The crash of the humans did more than simply rupture the spirit-web of the vaults. Their brutal fracturing of the webway sphere and their ignorant rituals to protect themselves from the escaping spirits has drawn Chaos energy into the grid of Tir-namagesh. Put simply, the tomb-city is possessed by a denizen of the Great Enemy.'

All stiffened at this news — pirates and sellswords that would happily slaughter and torture for the slightest reason flinched at the memory of the daemonic incursions into Commorragh. The recollection of nightmares wreaking death through the shadowed spires was enough for the kabalites to take the warnings of Jain Zar seriously and suspicious eyes turned towards the ruddy gleam and shifting darkness.

For her part, the Phoenix Lord doubtless did not care for the fortunes or lives of the Commorraghans, but since her previous allies were evidently all slain, fresh companions of any persuasion were preferable to attempting the task she faced alone.

'You came to loot the spirits of Tir-namagesh?' she said, turning away from the doors by which the expedition had entered, gesturing that they should proceed across the hall.

There seemed little point in denying their goal, and both Khiadysis and Maensith nodded.

'Legends of the spirits stored here are whispered still in Commorragh,' said Maensith. 'When we liberate these souls from their prisons we shall become paramount among the kabals of the Dark City.'

'Your prize is tainted,' Jain Zar said as they crossed the hall. Maensith noticed that no guidestar approached the Phoenix Lord, but the light of her glaive was sufficient to illuminate a wide space around her. 'The daemon holds the core circuit. For the moment our goals re the same.'

'You speak of the city as if it were a device,' said Khiadysis.

'That is all it is,' the Phoenix Lord replied. 'The restitution chambers you use to bring back your most powerful leaders and the infinity circuits that house the dead souls of the craftworlders are both born from the technologies that were developed here.'

'The psychic matrix I understand,' said the hierarch, 'but the resurrection vats?'

Something that might have been a quiet laugh made Maensith hiver with a frisson of fear.

'The vaults of Tir-namagesh do not house the dead, plunderers of Commorragh. Part of the complex contains the storage mesh in which the psychic imprints of the dying were placed. The other part of the city is given over to the reproduction systems. A new body for an old consciousness. When even the rejuvenating technology of our ancestors could restore a body no further, the most influential simply created a new one here.'

They left behind the dead. It was obvious to Maensith from the way the bodies had been piled that the humans had pursued the eldar into the depths, fallen upon them in the lower levels and eventually overcome the craftworlders in the hall. Jain Zar being the last to fall under a mound of foes, her armour shattered by the desperation of the humans to see her banished.

'What brought you here? The spirits of Tir-namagesh are lost - what does it matter if daemons feast on them, or if we liberate them for our own needs?'

They came upon another vast arch on the opposite side of the hall. There were runes writ in silver upon the span but their archaic slant made them all but impossible to decipher - except to Jain Zar. She indicated the writing with a sweep of her glaive.

'Beyond here lie the core systems, the heart of the soul-vaults. It is here that the servant of She Who Thirsts has made its lair. The rupture caused by the humans' blundering leaks both ways. Feeding upon the souls here, the daemon grows stronger and stronger. The farseers of Ulthwe and Biel-tan both witnessed visions of a Chaos horde unleashed into the webway from this breach, threatening both craftworlds.'

'You came to destroy it first?' said Khiadysis.

'Such was the intent of the farseers. Our entry allowed the humans to follow into the depths and they ambushed us. I fear that our failure has endangered many lives. I do not know how long I have lain dormant here, but much of the daemonic presence has departed. If the attack on the craftworlds has already happened as I fear, if the visions of the farseers were accurate, the incursion was stopped only at the expense of many eldar lives.'

The scarlet light of the warding runes became a harsh glare beyond the threshold of the next hall. The walls and ceilings were veined through with tendrils of ruddy light, intermeshing into columns like roots that formed narrowing stalactites into the floor, pulsing softly like a beating heart.

'If the mission failed, what is the point now?' said Maensith. If they were to rid the system of its infestation they might need the strange warrior, she knew, and the dracon wanted to know as much as possible about her ally. 'The battle has passed, the crisis already happened.'

'I do not know if it has, for sure,' confessed Jain Zar. 'Nor whether the daemon has returned to feed and grow powerful once more, to strike again into the webway.'

By unspoken consent the group came to a halt just inside the great chamber, bathed in the hellish glow of the distorted core circuit. Khiadysis looked from the Phoenix Lord to Maensith and back, weighing up his options. Maensith was alert to any noise or movement, either from the hall or her companion's warriors. Jain Zar's full attention was fixed upon her goal.

'Why should we believe any of this?' said the hierarch. 'What exactly is an Asurya? An agent or manifestation of the daemon, I'd wager. You could be leading us into a trap.'

'One we were heading into anyway,' scoffed Maensith. 'I don't even think there is any danger. What could a daemon trapped in a soul-vault do to us?'

Before the Phoenix Lord replied a shudder rippled through the light of the hall, a pulse that momentarily bathed them in a crimson glow, as though beneath a rising sun. And then all turned a pale yellow, while sounds like mournful groans thrummed along the walls.

'It is not the daemon that is the threat,' replied Jain Zar. 'You have woken up Tir-namagesh.'

Where before the escaped wraiths had seemed like wisps of vapour, in the fresh light of the tomb complex they now came as shadows, flitting darkness that coiled across the ceiling, glaring with dozens of red eyes. Clawed appendages pawed and scratched as they drifted past the interlopers, the air alive with hisses and snarls.

'This is the threat?' snorted Khiadysis. He gestured to the warriors with the empty wraithlocks and they activated their traps, forking lightning into the seething mass of psychic energy that bubbled into the hall like smoke from a fire. Flares of angry purple and black flashes snaked through the descending miasma, accompanied by howls of torment and enraged roars.

'You cannot take these souls away,' said Jain Zar, turning a flashing gaze upon the hierarch. 'The city protects its charges.'

'It can do nothing with these insubstantial spectres. The wolf howls but has no teeth.'

He turned away and caught Maensith's eye. The two of them convened, speaking in a quick whisper while Jain Zar berated the Commorraghans harvesting the restless dead of Tir-namagesh, met by indifference and sneers.

'I think we need to rid ourselves of this Phoenix Lord,' said Khiadysis.

'I agree, but not yet. Whatever she is, she seems to know more about the city than us, and this daemon. I am not sure we have the means to prise free the treasures of this vault without her.'

'Then we are agreed? When the vault is free of daemonic influence we dispense with this troublesome craftworlder. We can take whatever we want afterwards.'

Maensith nodded her consent and they parted. She gave her ally one last look and then addressed Jain Zar.

'As you will have it, Phoenix Lord.' Maensith gestured to Khiadysis and he commanded his warriors to cease their operations, an order with which they only reluctantly complied.

'There, is that to your satisfaction, Storm of Silence?' the hierarch asked. He made no mention of the spirit-traps that had already been dispatched to the waiting ships. As much as he was dismissive of any threat the city might pose he was of a mind to spend as little time as possible in the sinister City of the Ever-young. Now, knowing that Tir-namagesh had been a huge rejuvenation machine, the name made more sense. Maensith was more concerned with practical issues.

'How do we get rid of this daemon?'

Jain Zar pointed to where the bright lines of the tomb halls circuitry converged at the far end.

'The nexus is there. From that point I will be able to access the psychic conduits that the daemon inhabits.'

'And it is from there that it is feeding on the soul-vaults?' Khiadysis asked the question casually but still earned himself a sharp look from the Phoenix Lord.

'You cannot take the spirits beyond Tir-namagesh.'

'Yes, you said so. Nothing is further from my mind.'

Jain Zar gave him a long stare. With the tomb city activated the daemon would be drawing greater strength from the psychic energy flaring through its systems. She did not have time to waste worrying about the treachery of the dark kin.

'If you wish to be of use, watch my back,' she raid them, striding along the hall. 'This may take moments or longer. I am not sure.'

'What are you going to do?' asked Maensith.

Their warriors fell in behind them, hurling insults and curses at the ragged shadows of the ghosts that followed, discommoded by their whispered laments and snarled threats. Jain Zar was impervious to their presence; the spectres shied away from the Phoenix Lord as she paced quickly through the hall, swirling from her path like fog parted by a strong wind.

'What are you going to do?' Maensith asked again.

'I'm going to transplant my consciousness into the matrix and drive out the daemon,' said Jain Zar. 'My… detachment from physicality has benefits other than immortality.'

'You are immortal?' Khiadysis could not stop the inflection that betrayed his sharp interest. He tried to assume a more disinterested air. 'How does that work?'

'A certain kind of immortality, as you witnessed with your warrior. My spirit remains, even when I do not.'

'And this is something we could help with?' suggested Maensith, sharing a look with Khiadysis. If they could rid the system of the daemonic taint themselves, they could deal with the Phoenix Lord beforehand.

'No. You have allowed your psychic nature to atrophy. You would not be able to synchronise with the spirit matrix.'

Maensith hid her disappointment; Khiadysis wrinkled a lip in irritation.

Jain Zar led them into the light that bathed the end of the hall, where countless threads of gleaming silver and gold converged. The wall was set with a circular arrangement of white gems about a large black stone hexagon. The light moved around the circle at a steady pace, lighting each gem in turn. Looking closely they could see that the stone was etched with hair-thin runes, its surface covered with hundreds of tiny sigils. Jain Zar read them swiftly.

'The instructions,' she said with something approaching a chuckle. She placed her hand on the stone and the runes burned with white light, streaming between her fingers to bathe her black-and-bone armour with shifting rainbow colours.

Khiadysis turned away to direct his warriors to take up protective stations while Maensith studied the complex weave of threads that swirled into the central nexus. Some time had passed before she realised that Jain Zar had not moved, standing as though carved from stone. The dracon waved a hand in front of the Phoenix Lord's screaming face but there was no reaction.

'She's… gone,' she told Khiadysis.

* * *

Jain Zar was a spark, an ember, a flame. As her spirit coursed into the matrix of the City of the Ever-young she felt the flow of psychic energy that underpinned the entirety of Tir-namagesh. She became part of that system, her self streaming away to leave behind raw essence that flared along crystal conduits and flashed past dormant soul-vaults.

The taint of the daemon was not hard to follow. Where it had passed the crypt-crystals lay emptied, sucked dry of their souls by the vampiric entity that now roamed the spirit circuit. Like blackened pods on a withered vine the violated soul-vaults led the Phoenix Lord in a looping trail around the tomb-city.

The daemon had roamed without pattern or reason at first, sampling here and there, siphoning off occasional morsels of psychic energy while it explored this new environment. And then it had started to gorge, breaking open vault after vault, feeding on swathes of souls to leave whole levels of the catacombs soulless and bleak.

Speeding past these ruptured crystals Jain Zar felt as though she passed through a desolate landscape, the trees withered and dead, the mountains tumbled to ruin, cities burned to ash. It left a bitter taste in the memory of her mouth, a cutting chill upon immaterial skin.

The silence was the worst, perhaps. Not just an absence of sound, but an absence of everything. As an eldar she had grown up surrounded by the constant background presence of her people - a nascent connection with every soul around her. In the outer tomb complex the interred spirits had been a hum on the edge of sensation, a warmth that always touched her from afar. But in these desecrated chambers there was nothing but the unfeeling, empty stone. It was too much like Eidafaeron after the Fall — a reminder of the dark times when she had thought herself all alone, believing herself the solitary survivor of the cataclysm that had all but destroyed the eldar race, left with nothing but dark memories and self-loathing as scornful companions.

She pushed these unwholesome recollections from her thoughts and focused on finding the daemon. She ascended, spiralling up through spirit-sarcophagi to gain a sense of the greater layout, able to feel the patches of light and dark, spirit and emptiness, like a schematic of the city below.

And in the entwined corridors of crystalline pathways a shadow moved, easing its bloated presence from a satiated stupor to regard the bright flash of heat that had invaded its twilight realm. Coiling in tendrils of power that supped on the nectar of dead eldar, the daemon of Slaanesh broke away like a ship snapping its moorings, leaving hooked tethers of itself embedded in the energy matrix.

Shark-like it homed in on the interloper, gathering power and speed as it closed on this fresh, living prey.

While Jain Zar sought the daemon and the daemon sought Jain Zar, the Commorraghans waited awkwardly in the nexus hall.

'How will we know if she succeeds?' asked Maensith. Khiadysis shrugged unhelpfully.

'I do not know,' he said. He waved a pistol at the psychic conduits around them, which were turning from pale yellow back to a ruddier shade. 'Does that mean ill or well?'

Maensith said nothing, but eyed the dimming psychic circuits with suspicion. She cast glances back at Jain Zar, but the Phoenix Lord had not moved, still standing with one hand touching the interface plate. Was she alive? Dead? Something else?

'What happened to the guidestars?' she asked, noticing their absence. She was not sure when they had departed, but could not recall them entering the inner hall.

'It's light enough in here, who cares?' said Khiadysis. 'Annoying things.'

A sudden call of alarm from the far end of the hall caused everyone to flinch. A flickering light cast long shadows across the first hallway. Real shadows, thicker and darker than the miasma of wandering souls. Shadows cast by upright, shambling figures.

The call was swiftly followed by more cries and the rasp of splinter rifles. The guards set at the threshold could see a crowd of stumbling bodies shuffling through the fluctuating glow, the eyes of each lit with the same pale gleam as the missing starlights.

'The dead!' one yelled. 'The dead have returned!'

It was true. Side-by-side, human and eldar lurched into the hall. The chestplates of the latter glowed with the same energy as their eyes, the emptied sockets for their waystones glinting with psychic energy. The humans lumbered and flailed, as though controlled by something not quite at home in their crude bodies. An aura surrounded each animated corpse, moving just out of time with the dead like an after-image of darkness a half-step behind.

The toxin-laden ammunition of the kabalites' splinter weapons did nothing, neither the poisonous contents of the slivers nor the flesh-shredding projectiles themselves. Blasters were more effective, incinerating torsos and limbs, though the crippled corpses continued to hop, drag and flap their way towards the intruders by whatever means they could. Shredders tore away chunks of flesh and entangled limbs with their barbed webs, but the animated corpses simply pushed on through the constricting strands, tearing themselves apart in the process. Wraithpower flared and the bodies knitted together once more, hauntingly reminiscent of the resurrection of Jain Zar.

Silent and implacable, the dead advanced through the hails of fire. With them came more spirits, freed from broken wraithlocks, insubstantial blue and green flames in their rage.

Khiadysis hesitated, regretting that he had allowed himself to be lured into the dead-end of the nexus hall.

'Is this the daemon?' he demanded, staring at the glowing conduits around them, expecting horned and clawed monstrosities to erupt from the psychic circuit at any moment.

'Rally your warriors,' snapped Maensith, flourishing her pistol. 'I'll watch the Phoenix Lord.'

Khiadysis thought better than to argue though it was an insult for a mere dracon to think she could command him in such fashion. But the situation required his leadership and he left her, snapping orders to his warriors to cover the approaches.

Despite the firepower of the Commorraghans the dead would not be deterred nor destroyed. They pressed on through the gunfire, losing limbs and heads, their essential animus unharmed by the physical weapons of the kabalites. Those with the wraithrods fared a little better, the flurries of lightning from their wands separating possessing souls from animated carcasses.

The lead squads fell back until Khiadysis bellowed for them to hold position, ordering his warriors to turn their fire on any kabalite that retreated. The wyches stepped up to the front, their blades of no more useful than the guns of the kabalites, but better suited to the close quarters.

The first Commorraghan dragged down let out a shrill cry as lifeless fingers prised open his flesh and tore at his armour. He died in moments. A heartbeat later another fell: one of the wyches, crushed beneath the sheer weight of her unliving assailants. Khiadysis roamed back and forth behind the line, directing the fire of his warriors. Pulses of dark lances severed torsos and punched holes through chests, but even the most grievous wound was nothing more than a delay.

A sudden bolt of black lightning forked down from the soul circuits, flashing into one of the fallen Commorraghans. At the instant of contact a swirling spirit swept down into the corpse, spreading over it like a pool before seeping into the dead flesh. A hand and arm spasmed, snatching at the leg of a nearby wych. Another animating bolt sparked down to resurrect a second dead Commorraghan, which hauled itself up and set upon its former companions.

Others started to rise.

As their own dead turned against them, the kabalites were forced to fall back to form a fresh line of defence against the enemy swelling from within their own ranks.

In the circuitry around them Jain Zar felt the pulses of energy that accompanied each resurrection. Distracted, she almost did not sense the onrushing daemon as it sped through the crystal matrix towards her. Moments from its impact she felt its coming like a bow wave and managed to summon together her essence into a single point to meet its arrival.

As daemon and Phoenix Lord touched, the grid flared with psychic power. In the instant of contact the two essences mingled in the weave of the matrix, manifesting within Jain Zar's thoughts as two monstrous powers.

Jain Zar was the banshee of myth, a haggard, snake-haired witch with iron-clawed hands and fiery eyes. The daemon conjured something far different from its usual incarnation. Slaanesh's Keeper of Secrets formed a glowing cloud of incense; a whirling, vaporous apparition that flashed golden fangs and talons, and possessed many gleaming, beautiful violet eyes.

Banshee and daemoncloud thrashed into each other, one letting forth her wail of doom, the other sighing with ecstasy. Entwined, the two psychic motes pulsed through the circuit of Tir-namagesh, travelling along the crystal skeleton through wonderlands of the dead and barren deserts of the daemons feasting.

Maensith watched as the warriors from the Ascendant Spear and her last few followers from the Crimson Talon withdrew again, pushed from the entrance of the nexus hall. Mai Dorain snapped off shots and hacked with his sabre, leading from the front. More than a dozen of their own had been added to the undying horde arrayed against them.

If they were to break out, they had to do it now.

Maensith hesitated. She was loathe to abandon the Phoenix Lord. She told herself it was for purely practical reasons, that they might still need Jain Zar, but the truth was she felt drawn to the Asurya by something stronger. The dracon looked between Jain Zar's immobile form and the dwindling Commorraghan force and made a decision.

At just that moment a shriek erupted from the Phoenix Lord and she reeled from the nexus hub. It was as though she dragged a writhing black serpent from the hexagonal stone, ripping the stain from it to reveal it was in fact a plaque of pale gold. The shadow-viper coiled and wreathed around Jain Zar, her fingers digging into its immaterial form as they wrestled. A cluster of purple eyes regarded Maensith for a heartbeat, sending shivers of terror through her as though staring into the gaze of the Thirsting One itself. It swelled on her fear, blotting out the light of the crystal conduits that threaded the hall.

Jain Zar gripped the creature's throat, or where such would be, and tore her triskele from her belt, its three blades erupting with black flame. With a wordless shout of anger she slashed at its body, once, twice, and on the third blow severed its head.

The shadow-serpent became a slick of oil, splashing the armoured suits of the Phoenix Lord and dracon, leaving a slick of bubbling black fluid across the gleaming veined floor.

Maensith's attention snapped back to the battle with the corpses, hoping that the demise of the daemon would herald the end of the animated dead. She choked back her dismay as she saw that the deceased humans and eldar battled on regardless.

'I warned you not to take the spirits!' snarled Jain Zar, taking up her glaive. 'All of the city is ranged against us now.'

Like a black-and-gold thunderbolt, the Phoenix Lord slashed into the horde of the dead, her triskele and glaive weaving trails of fire and lightning. Jain Zar gave no thought to defending herself, the destruction of her foes a surer defence than any block or parry. In the wake of her assault the Commorraghans felt themselves dragged into the fray by the impetus of her attack, flowing into the wound carved into the mass of the dead.

With no time to think otherwise, Maensith and Khiadysis followed, urging on their warriors to cut down any walking corpse left by the Phoenix Lord's blazing progress. Concentrated splinter rifle volleys tore away chunks of dead flesh while wyches' hydraknives and falchions decapitated and dismembered in a frenzy of brutal violence far removed from the balletic duels of the blood arenas. Maensith unleashed salvos from her pistol and Khiadysis hacked down the dead with a silver-edged scimitar, almost tripping over parted bodies and grasping hands in their need to keep up with Jain Zar's meteoric attack.

Breaking from the press of dead assailants, they found themselves in the outer hall; ahead, the tunnels to the surface seemed empty. Jain Zar did not look back, and the Commorraghans followed her lead, sprinting up the ramp from the central halls with disembodied spirits flowing after them like streamers, their curses shrill in their ears.

They reached the surface unmolested but found the city itself had changed dramatically. The streets and alleys pulsed with a fey light and above them the static of the webway sphere had become a storm of scarlet and black that wreathed everything. In the throes of the tempest the two ships of the Ascendant Spear bucked and rolled, tossed about like leaves on breaking waves. Raiders and jetbikes did their best to stay airborne, hurled about on the unnatural air currents like a wasp swarm in a hurricane. Spying their kabal-kin emerging below, several of the transports descended, spiralling and bucking through the tumultuous swirls that wreathed the upper towers and bridges.

'Where are your ships?' snarled Khiadysis, turning his blade towards Maensith. She responded with her pistol, aiming for the hierarchs throat.

'I sent a signal,' she insisted. 'They should be here.'

They both turned on Jain Zar with demanding stares.

'The webway is locked, a barrier brought down to prevent the loss of the souls you stole.' She glanced back towards the gate of the spirit vaults. The dead were not swift but eventually they would catch up with the interlopers.

She did not need to point out the solution as both Commorraghan leaders came to the inevitable conclusion at the same time, their expressions souring.

'We'll leave with nothing,' moaned Khiadysis. 'I'll not abandon my prizes.'

Maensith was of a similar mind as she aimed her weapon at the Phoenix Lord.

'Open the barrier. You must know how.'

'And then?' said Jain Zar. 'When you think I am of no use, you will try to slay me.'

'If you are no use, why not kill you now?' said Khiadysis. His warriors responded by raising their weapons, forming a half-circle about the Phoenix Lord and dracon. 'Or both of you.'

The lead raiders were close to touching down, the air immediately above the city a lot clearer to traverse. Jain Zar stood with her triskele in one hand, glaive held lightly in the other, unmoving but full of energy that could be unleashed in an instant.

'The gate will only respond to my psychic contact, and it will not open even then if you do not return the spirits you have taken.' She cocked her head to one side, amused by the posturing of the kabalites. 'I think I will outlast you in this place. Eventually someone else will come and I will leave. Or would you prefer your bodies added to the army that will shortly be attacking us?'

The Commorraghans glared at her, hating their predicament. Maensith conceded first, lowering her pistol. It took a few heartbeats more until Khiadysis had to accept the inevitability of Jain Zar's words. He activated his communicator.

'Leave the wraithlocks here,' he told his followers through gritted teeth.

A raider touched down a short distance away. Several of the kabalites were already beading towards it, not waiting for their hierarchs permission. Jain Zar could feel the swell of energy approaching from the tomb depths and knew that the dead would be upon them before all had embarked.

'We need your warriors to form rearguard,' she told Khiadysis. 'And your ships to leave, Maensith. We need my spirit to open the barrier.'

'How quaint,' rasped Maensith.

The kabalites admitted their mutual need with reluctant nods.

The evacuation was swift, but as Jain Zar predicted, the dead burst from the tomb gates before all were lifted towards the ships above. Jetbikes and ravagers swooped down and raked fire across the walking corpses while the last of the Commorraghans fled to waiting transports. Amongst them, Jain Zar and Maensith found themselves on the same raider.

Looking back as they climbed, they could see the city was alive with light, every structure gleaming with energy. Where the human ship pierced the city, energy flared like an erupting volcano, spewing flames of green and white into the skies. Maensith thought of all the souls still trapped within and the desire to have them was like a raw hunger.

Guessing her thoughts, Jain Zar stepped in front of the dracon, obscuring her view. She looked up and let her thoughts pulse out to the webway portal hidden by the raging storm. Swirls of energy formed above the ascending flotilla, and through its calm eye streamed golden light, upon which sailed the dark shapes of the Crimson Talons' ships.

'I am the banshee — to cross my path is to know that your doom comes,' said the Phoenix Lord. 'Fate has decreed that you escape this time, but it is only a respite. If you come here again, you will die here.'

'And what of you, Phoenix Lord? What does fate have in store for you?'

'War and death,' said Jain Zar. She leaned closer. 'And I have a feeling this will not be our last meeting. Fate will see our threads entwined again, Maensith of the Crimson Talons.'

The dracon stared at the Storm of Silence and hoped fervently that it was the last time she had to look at that screaming visage, and if it was not, that she would also survive the next encounter.

About the Author

Gav Thorpe is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Deliverance Lost, Angels of Caliban and Corax, as well as the novella The Lion, which formed part of the New York Times bestselling collection The Primarchs. He is particularly well-known for his Dark Angels stories, including the Legacy of Caliban series. His Warhammer 40,000 repertoire further includes the Path of the Eldar series, the The Beast Arises novels The Emperor Expects and The Beast Must Die, Horus Heresy audio dramas Raven’s Flight, Honour to the Dead and Raptor, and a multiplicity of short stories. For Warhammer, Gav has penned the End Times novel The Curse of Khaine, the Time of Legends trilogy, The Sundering, and much more besides. He lives and works in Nottingham.

Jain Zar, the first of the Howling Banshees, travels to Craftworld Ulthwé to help avert disaster – but Eldrad Ulthran opposes her plans. What path will guide the eldar towards victory: the way of the seer, or the way of war?

A Black Library Publication

Published in Great Britain in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
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Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

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* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.