Iulus nodded back as the man went down on one knee.

'Execute me if you must. I would have gladly done it again.'

The Ultramarine growled. 'Get up. I've not come for your life nor do I care about what you've done. We are at war. There is no time for bureaucracy.'

Adanar got to his feet, frowning. 'Then what is it you need?'

'Your men,' replied the cobalt giant. 'Enough to make a difference.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

Three groups tracked through the mountains. Scipio was up front just behind Captain Evvers. He could see now why the Ultramarines had struggled to find a route through. She took them on a winding route, through almost invisible canyons, secret pa.s.ses and sunken valleys. It was treacherous but no one fell to their deaths, the humans more sure-footed than their armoured protectors.

Scipio activated the comm-feed. 'Brothers. Vox-silence from this point.'

They'd reached an outer marker of five hundred metres. Both Vandar and Octavian, who were in the other two a.s.sault groups, replied with affirmation runes that lit up Scipio's retinal display.

'What's wrong?' he called ahead.

Evvers, with three of her kinsmen arrayed around her, held up a hand. They were making certain of the route. Snow-shawled crags surrounded them, barely visible against the high mountain drifts. A wicked wind was howling in from the north and the humans had to keep low to avoid being blown off the peaks. Scipio approved of their caution; one false step could be terminal in this white-out.

Tigurius joined him, the inner glow of his eyes only just fading.

'The truth is still veiled to me,' said the Librarian.

'What of our endeavours here? Can your prescience divine a path, my lord?'

He shook his head. 'I cannot breach the veil. Something is blocking my sight.' Tigurius looked down into the impenetrable fog and gloom. 'Below,' he added.

Although he could not see them, Scipio knew that a small army of the necrons awaited them there. The route through the mountains would allow them the element of surprise and they would need to make the most of it. Outnumbered and likely outgunned, the Ultramarines' plan was predicated on causing as much damage to the artillery as possible before the defenders roused into action. There was a lord amongst the mechanoids, too, the one Tigurius called the 'Voidbringer'. From their encounter with the ghoulish necron commander at camp, Scipio was well aware of their power. He wondered briefly what abilities this one would possess.

Evvers was waving them on.

Scipio would find out soon enough.

Voidbringer was frustrated. By attaching him to the artillery in the Thanatos Hills, the Monarch had effectively leashed him. He wanted to cow these worms, eradicate them from the face of the earth and reclaim it for the necrontyr.

'I am a conqueror,' he decided, visions of conquest flashing across his memory engrams in a blur, 'not a custodian.' he decided, visions of conquest flashing across his memory engrams in a blur, 'not a custodian.'

It only convinced him further that the Undying had submitted to the Destroyer curse and his sanity was all but eroded. The long sleep had taken a heavy toll and as such he would not be able to lead the tomb. Cast out by the other lords he would be reduced to a king of madmen, those who would butcher their metal bodies to the cause of annihilation.

Voidbringer wanted to annihilate but he also wanted to rule. He felt the pull of the infinite, time-eternal stretching before him like an endless conduit, but he did not fear it. He embraced it. His glory would be everlasting.

The orb given unto him by Ankh hummed with power. He regarded it idly as the gauss-obliterators thundered all around him. He did not pretend to understand the arcane science of the crypteks; his own technologies were esoteric and well-guarded by just a few of the royal cohort. Energy whorls shimmered inside it, like trapped event horizons collapsing and coalescing in microcosm. If he stared long enough, Voidbringer fancied he could unravel the inner secrets of the universe, unlock the vagaries of chronomancy and the manipulation of living metal. Such things didn't interest him. Let the crypteks be distracted by such petty diversions. Rulership required action not contemplation.

Even still, the resurrection orb was fascinating. With it his ascendancy would be a.s.sured. A subliminal command, like a muscle reflex, opened a chamber in his metal breastbone. The chest cavity opened wide enough to accommodate the orb and Voidbringer placed it carefully within. It glowed briefly, connecting with the necron's systems and enhanced physiology. The surge of power it radiated through him made Voidbringer shudder. His staff of light crackled in sympathetic symbiosis. The cryptek could be useful, he supposed, but he also didn't trust him. Voidbringer also hated the fact he referred to him by his old name. That That appellation was no longer fitting. None whose memory engrams still functioned remembered the royarch's name, he was just the Undying. It gave him power, a resonance that elevated him above the other n.o.bles. appellation was no longer fitting. None whose memory engrams still functioned remembered the royarch's name, he was just the Undying. It gave him power, a resonance that elevated him above the other n.o.bles.

Voidbringer wanted that. He also wanted an advisor who was more pliable and less likely to betray him. The pact with Ankh was ended; Voidbringer resolved to destroy him once they had achieved victory on this world.

If he could have smiled, he would have.

'Soon,' he whispered to himself, the thought caressing his ego, 'I will rise above all.'

Coc.o.o.ned by images of his ambition, the Voidbringer failed to notice the figures creeping closer. Perhaps his awareness had been dulled by some outside agent, perhaps the dulcetly throbbing orb embedded in his chest played a part...

Ankh saw all. His tiny burrowing machines kept close to the genebred humans, followed them through the pa.s.s and into the mountainous peaks. They kept out of sight; the Architect ensured they remained undetected. Tahek had activated the orb, or at least begun its cycle Ankh felt this too.

Multiple futures played out across his synapses, each one a subtle variation of the last. The attack of the artillery would cripple the necrontyr and cause a chain reaction throughout the royal court. n.o.bles would be destroyed, their memory engrams forever degraded. But then Ankh was not a n.o.ble, he was merely an elevated servant with certain skills. The rule of law in the tomb was about to change and he, in part, would bring about its apotheosis. His actions, or inactions, had helped to bring this about. The war on d.a.m.nos was about to take a debilitating turn.

Ankh was a necron, his loyalties were unquestionable in that regard, but he was also a survivor.

The raider sentries patrolled the perimeter with predictable regularity. Like automatons, they marched back and forth, gauss-flayers at rest, their fell eyes aglow. A blizzard was rolling down off the mountain, bringing with it a shrieking wind and veiling snow. It built up on their joints, settled on their vast shoulder plates. They betrayed no signs of discomfort. Essentially they were dead things, barely sentient and moving only through the borrowed will and animus of other more powerful beings.

Three pairs performed sentry rotations on the small section of the perimeter that ab.u.t.ted the sheer-sided cliffs of the Thanatos mountain range. One of the necrons paused in its cycle, alerted to something in the icy mists. Its sockets flared with baleful energy as its twin also stopped, a few metres away. The inquisitive raider took two steps forwards at this sector of the perimeter they were largely isolated until the other sentry pairs crossed them again before its head jerked violently to the side. It raised a hand, releasing its grip on the barrel of the gauss-flayer, to touch the bra.s.s sh.e.l.l lodged in its cranium. Emitting a low-pitched whine the sh.e.l.l exploded, taking the necron's head and most of its torso with it.

Realising it was under attack the other raider switched to defensive protocols and was about to unleash its gauss-flayer in a spread firing pattern before a second sh.e.l.l punched through its eye socket to similar effect. Both mechanoids phased out instantly.

Seconds later, Sergeant Octavian and his Swords of Judgement were tracking low across the rugged hill line. The heat from the capacitors on the artillery was turning the snow into a thick, obscuring mist. It was above waist height and utterly occluded the Ultramarines from view. Reaching the site of the sentries' demise, Octavian opened the closed comm-feed by tapping the side of his helmet, red against the starkness of the ice-fog with the first kills, vox-silence was no longer necessary.

'Attack group "Iron Sights": h.e.l.lfires away and mission achieved.'

The affirmations from the other sergeants came swiftly through Scipio's comm-feed. The sentries were down and all Ultramarines were in position. With the perimeter breached, the way to the necron artillery was open. It was a minute aperture for a small commando force to enter and Scipio meant to exploit it to the full.

The necrons had used machineries, perhaps tunnellers and other large mechanoids to reshape and flatten a section of the Thanatos Hills. He'd taken vantage from the cliff top, just before they'd descended to the base. Thermal-imaging through the scopes revealed a roughly diamond-shaped area, with the artillery pieces arranged around it, one at each point and another weapon in the centre. Five targets for three a.s.sault groups they'd miss Strabo and Ixion, but it couldn't be helped. Evvers and her guerrillas would have to do their part.

He regarded her through the uncompromising slits of his retinal lenses. She was watching the route ahead through a pair of infra-goggles, and seemed tense her heart rate and breathing were elevated. Only Adeptus Astartes could undertake a mission of this magnitude and hope to survive. Some might consider it reckless for Scipio to throw the humans into it without consideration for their safety. He cast any lingering doubts aside as he felt an iron fist clench around his heart. Orad had paid the price for his lack of resolve. It would not happen again. They would do their part or they would die in the attempt.

Tigurius emerged out of the fog next to him. He kept low, just like the rest. The Ultramarines were crouching, whereas the humans only had to stoop to become invisible. If the Librarian knew what Scipio was thinking, it didn't show. He seemed preoccupied.

'I must seek out the veil across my sight and cut it loose,' he said, as if penetrating Scipio's mind after all. 'Lead them in, Sergeant Vorola.n.u.s, but wait for my signal. Courage and honour.'

The Librarian moved off into the fog on his own private mission.

Scipio watched him go until he was lost to the mist. He opened up the comm-feed again, 'All Ultramarines: close on targets.'

A tremor of unease rippled through the aeons-old consciousness of Voidbringer. It niggled insistently at the edge of his awareness but he allowed the rea.s.suring drone of the orb to comfort him and eclipse it.

Tigurius hunted through the mist. He stayed clear of the places where the necron forces were most concentrated, guided psychically. They were little more than unmoving shadows, statues in the ice-fog. Emerald fire in their eyes was the only evidence of unnatural animation in the necrons and even that was dampened by the mist. Not that he truly needed to see. The Librarian's witch-sight might be temporarily blinded, the strands of fate shut to him, but he could still feel...

It was close, the void blanketing his thoughts, that which had almost destroyed him with its malice when he had ridden the Sea of Souls as a psychic avatar. The hulking silhouettes of the pylons and ma.s.sive gauss-cannons loomed here and there in the ice-fog, rising above the artificial white tide. In part of his mind, that which was largely committed to his subconscious for now, he was aware of his battle-brothers closing swiftly on the structures. Before they committed fully to the attack, he needed to find the one called 'Voidbringer'.

Emotions were easy things for a psyker to detect, even a nascent one. Hatred bled off this monster, as hot and acerbic as acid. Tigurius followed it, a jagged trail of red in his mind. At the end of it he knew he'd find his nemesis.

Without any Scouts, the attack force's best chance of making stealth an effective option was through the Thunderbolts. Scipio had drilled his warriors in the arts of subterfuge and operating behind enemy lines, much of his skill imparted by Torias Telion. They were not even close to matching the Master Scout's abilities but the blizzard and the fog were useful tools he could exploit, as was the fact the necrons seemed uncharacteristically sluggish.

Hugging close to the ground and sticking to the channels where the ice-fog was thickest, Scipio and his battle-brothers had crossed almost half the distance to their target without raising an alarm. The stillness of the necron defenders, eerie as it was, made the task of avoiding them easier. If they possessed some kind of sensors or form of auspex that didn't require visual confirmation they were either fouled by the weather or simply not attuned to the presence of the s.p.a.ce Marines.

A strange, preternatural darkness lapped at the edges of the artillery zone. Tigurius had described it as the 'Night Shroud', some piece of necron technology and part of the reason for his psychic blindness. Scipio tried not to look at the darkness too long. They'd penetrated it easily enough at the perimeter and once through the veil, it was just the ice-fog in front of them.

The Thunderbolts' target was a pylon, situated at the farthest apex of the diamond. He checked the melta bombs mag-locked to his armour. Upon returning to the encampment after the encounter with the flayed ones, they'd re-equipped and resupplied. The original plan was a lightning attack, spearheaded by the a.s.sault squads and supported by tactical squads, but without Ixion and Strabo that strategy was no longer viable. They'd stealth their way to the objectives instead, attach incendiaries and ignite them at once in a single hammer-strike. Whatever the explosives only managed to cripple, the heavy weapons would finish.

For their part, the guerrilla fighters were well tooled. Carrying improvised bombs and grenades, as well as some of the magnetic foiling devices they'd used to prevent necron phase-out, they were capable of delivering a significant punch of their own. It was insanely dangerous, but Scipio had no compunction about throwing them into the battle just like his brothers.

He stopped a second to interrogate his retinal display. A series of runic indicators were making their way across his plane of vision. Distance notifiers expressed formation and proximity to the targets. All were making solid progress but a further engagement was nearing.

Each of the artillery pieces, pylon or heavy gauss-cannon, were manned by a small group of raider constructs. Scipio doubted the machineries needed crew to function. He didn't understand necron technology but he had discerned enough to realise that much of it was autonomous or controlled by the lords. Whatever their role, the raiders would need to be dispatched first before incendiaries could be deployed. The attack also had to be simultaneous. Wits dulled as they appeared to be, the necrons would still activate with defensive protocols as soon as they realised their perimeter was breached and were under fire.

A rune flashed silently on Scipio's retinal display. Vandar was already in position. He judged Octavian wasn't far either. Casting caution aside he increased the pace, not realising he'd attracted the attention of something dwelling in the Night Shroud.

As the force rod grew hot in his gauntleted fist, Tigurius knew he was getting close to his prey. The crimson energies he'd been following sparked and forked with almost palpable expression. Briefly, he portioned out a small part of his mind to check on the situation of his battle-brothers they were nearing final positions.

Perfect synchronicity was needed, but the slow-returning threads of his prescience told him that would be so. Satisfied, Tigurius shut them out and focussed all of his thought on finding the Voidbringer. Though he didn't know why, the veil was thinning. Visions swirled in his psychic eye, the fragments of those he'd tried to grasp before slowly coming together.

Marshal your thoughts.

Now was not the time to seek out the elusive truth and uncover the forbidding threat that had dogged him since the mission began; now was destruction and the unleashing of his psychic might. At last, he caught his prey, surrounded by a hot corona of red light. It was standing alone on a desolate ridge, surveying its majesty.

Inside his mind, Tigurius coaxed a ball of lightning into being.

Scipio became aware they were under attack when Densk was lifted off his feet as if a set of invisible hooks had caught him and begun reeling the guerrilla fighter in.

Jynn screamed, swinging her gun around to try and draw a bead on his attacker, but it was as if the fog had come alive to take him. Blood was spewing down Densk's beard, his cries of pain m.u.f.fled by the fact he had no tongue. It was an odd, discordant sound. When a slash of crimson washed the ground like the insouciant sweep of a painter's brush, Densk fell apart. His body disintegrated into shreds as his a.s.sailant revealed itself through the red haze.

Serpentine, with a necron's torso and a set of wicked talon-blades on each hand, it was a wraith. Only partially corporeal, the thing was half-blended into the ice-fog. Its eyes blazed with a yearning for further carnage.

Jynn's snap-shot went wild. She half-fell, backing up because the monster was so close. Scipio pushed her down as the necron's tail whipped out and the barbed tip missed her head by the smallest margin. He roared, weighing in with his chainsword. Like an adder, the wraith jinked aside and the blade-teeth bit ice-frozen earth. It flicked out a talon, which Scipio fended off with his forearm. Gouges raked down his vambrace but they weren't deep enough to penetrate.

Cator appeared behind it and thrust his gladius between its neck and collarbone. The wraith emitted a sort of part-scream, part machine-whine and twisted to slash at the Ultramarine. Scipio took his chance and cut off the monster's head with his chainsword. Critically damaged, it phased out, leaving only blood in its wake.

Jynn knelt by Densk's remains, sobbing. Scipio seized her by the shoulder and pulled her up. Their subterfuge was exposed. They had to act.

Furious at his impatience, for sealing Densk's death warrant on account of it, Scipio snarled down the comm-feed. 'All Ultramarines, attack now!'

Psychic lightning arced from Tigurius's force rod. It struck Voidbringer's staff as he turned, breaking his strange torpor. A serpent of light and energy, the discharged psychics roiled down the haft of the weapon. He wrestled with it, trapping the force as it coursed across the staff and a.s.serting dominance.

Tigurius's eyes widened. That bolt should have ripped the creature apart.

Energies dissipating from the psychic attack, Voidbringer turned his attention to the Librarian facing off against him on the ridge. A nimbus of power was playing across the psychic hood the Ultramarine wore and his eyes were alive with actinic force. He held the rod out in front of him, so it formed a cross with his body as the spine.

'Fell creature of the void, oblivion awaits you.'

Unmoved by the threat, Voidbringer only glared. The necron lord appeared... curious.

Again, Tigurius was surprised and horrified at the ancient intelligence in that gaze. It was like the mechanoid was appraising a laboratorium specimen. The sensation was unsettling. Tigurius knew enough of the galaxy and its species to realise mankind's pre-eminence was far from a.s.sured. Alien races clamoured to devour, usurp or study humans. It was part of the reason the Emperor had created s.p.a.ce Marines. But the necrontyr were something different, something so old and enduring that even an Adeptus Astartes as powerful as Tigurius was given pause.

Victory against this aeons-old culture with all their knowledge of the universe, their advanced technology, it was... impossible impossible. They should give in now, submit to will of the necrons and accept annihilation. They should Stop! The psychic echo was as much a command to his own subconscious as it was to the metal monster. Rea.s.serting his composure, Tigurius smiled mirthlessly at the Voidbringer. 'I thought the other one was the Herald of Dismay.' The psychic echo was as much a command to his own subconscious as it was to the metal monster. Rea.s.serting his composure, Tigurius smiled mirthlessly at the Voidbringer. 'I thought the other one was the Herald of Dismay.'

Though his rictus jaw didn't move, a metallic voice, edged with the bitterness of millennia and abyssal deep, droned from the Voidbringer. 'You are the one who tried to penetrate the veil.'

Tigurius nodded slowly. He felt like an insect being studied beneath a slide, but his resolve was as steel now.

'I am your doom, creature.'

A tinny, grating sound rattled from the necron's mouth. It was laughter, or what pa.s.sed for it at least.

Describing arcane sigils of warding that lingered in the air in fire, Tigurius beckoned the monster on.

Voidbringer's eyes narrowed. 'Are you a pyromancer, worm?'

A flash of light burst from the staff before the Librarian could stop it and hit him square in the chest. Tigurius was spun off his feet and sent sprawling from the ridge.

'Not a very good one,' he heard the necron lord remark.

Picking himself up, the Librarian scowled. 'I think I loathed your race less when I a.s.sumed you were humourless machines.' Fire sprang from his fingertips, reaching up towards the ridge line above and forcing the Voidbringer to retreat. Earth blackened and cracked as the flames lapped at the edge of the spur, spilling over the lip of rock rising higher and growing hotter. Snow condensed into steam in an eyeblink, scalding the air.

The necron's withdrawal didn't last. A hazy silhouette resolved through the conflagration and the Voidbringer leapt through it, fire trailing on his ancient vestments.

Ice cracked under the impact as the necron lord landed next to Tigurius. He threw out an arm, bodily catching the Librarian who was smashed aside and sc.r.a.ped across the ground. Blood was drooling down his lip as he rose; he could taste the tang of it in his mouth too.

Voidbringer was strong, much more unyielding than the lesser constructs. And he possessed cunning beyond mere programmed response to attack and external stimulus. The necrons, especially these n.o.ble castes, were far from machines. Even artificial intelligence didn't describe them accurately. They were something else, something vengeful and terrible. Spite, hatred, malice the emotions were raw and tangible. Tigurius could feel them like tiny blades rubbing against his skin, like acid-edged pins in his mind.

Though the creature was not a psyker it bore no warp-aura that the Librarian could detect the artefacts he wielded were formidable.

As the Voidbringer rose, energy crackled the length of its arcane staff. It coruscated around the tip, a strange p.r.o.nged sigil Tigurius had seen emblazoned on the carapace of some of the larger constructs. Darkness exuded from his body. Tendrils of night coiled around his limbs and weaved through the necron's skeletal frame.

The monster was well named. Casting about, the Voidbringer a.s.sessed the level of infiltration by the Ultramarines and acted accordingly. Shadows stirred in the mist around Tigurius as the necron constructs guarding the artillery began to animate.

'You are no warp sorcerer,' said the Librarian, his voice echoing with gathering power.

The Voidbringer's eye sockets flared emerald-bright and Tigurius was transported back to his narrow escape in the world-between-worlds. 'I am more than you could ever comprehend, human. I am eternal!' A cascade of magnesium fire coursed from the necron's staff.

Tigurius was ready for the attack and quickly fashioned a defensive sigil in the air. The arc of flame spilled against it, dispersing around the edges of a cerulean shield. It struck again, the necron throwing more force behind the blow. Staggered, Tigurius struggled to maintain his footing but repelled the energies. Sweat froze upon his brow as quickly as it formed, only to melt into hot steam a moment later. He needed to a.s.sert dominance in the duel and threw a bolt of chained lightning.

Voidbringer's body became as incorporeal as mist as the darkling mantle he wore engulfed him, rendering the psychic attack ineffective. The Night Shroud expanded, drawing strength from the blackness surrounding the artillery. Shreds of shadow became as hard as onyx as they wrapped themselves around Tigurius and all light was eclipsed. As the baleful gaze of the Voidbringer filled his vision, the Librarian felt his armour contract.

Seals cracked, ancient parchments and votive charms tore and broke apart as the necron lord exerted his cruel will.

'All is night. All is black at the end of days...'

Tigurius was fading. His mind was awash with endless darkness. It filled his senses, overwhelmed his thoughts and in that moment of near-destruction he achieved a mote of clarity. The visions, those that had dogged the Librarian since he'd made landfall on d.a.m.nos, became as clear as crystal. Death, it was death that he saw. Not the death of a world but the death of a hero. At first he believed it was him and this was, now, the instant of his demise. But the visions sharpened, just as the real world dimmed, and became more lucid. The truth was opened to him, a final torment before the end.

Tigurius saw...