Ahriman: Undying (Ahriman: Warhammer 40,000 Book 5) by John French

Author:John French [French, John]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: FLS
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2024-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

XI

AS ORDAINED

Unnamed dead system

Relative chronometric position: 9

No one saw the necrons come to Ahriman’s fleet. Three ships, that was all Setekh had sent. Three smiles of carbon black. They reflected no light. Auspex and eye looked straight through them. Their passing did not even stir the stellar dust at the edge of the system. Each of the ships carried weapons that could have killed at least one of the Exiles’ capital ships and damaged many more. They did not fire their weapons. That was not their purpose.

From nine thousand light years away, Setekh received the news of the ships’ arrival. It had been difficult to locate Ahriman. The Thousand Sons fleet moved across space by crossing the barrier into the anathema realm. The necrons could not follow them there. They could not predict where they would emerge. Finding Ahriman should have been an impossible task. Setekh had solved it. In the end it had been surprisingly simple. Ahriman had kept one of Setekh’s chronometrons. That had been a mistake. The slaves to the anathema realm always underestimated the physical. That had been true during the First War, and it was true still. The chrono­metron was a simple tool. It lacked intellect or signal-transmission function. But Setekh had made it. He had set its mechanisms in place, enclosed its paradox-suspended atoms and tethered its power source to the background radiation of the universe. He knew its every detail. It had taken time and work by both him and two of his crypteks, but he had solved that puzzle. His reward was a thread of dimensional resonance that would lead him to the chronometron. To Ahriman.

The three necron ships ghosted to within ten thousand miles of the Exiles’ fleet. Still no one saw them. As expected. To most ways of seeing there was nothing there. The Exiles’ ships drifted through the vacuum. From his throne, Setekh watched them press against the skin of gravity and time. Bloated, crude things. He transmitted his will to the necrons dominating the three ships.

Bearer of the Black Disc, Most High Setekh – heed my will

Unakh, Holder of the Storm – this one supplicates itself, my phaeron

Bearer of the Black Disc, Most High Setekh – take their sight

Unakh, Holder of the Storm – from your will to the writing of eternity – Obedience

The three ships loosed the first of their payloads. Circular voids opened on their skins. Black clouds flowed into the vacuum and towards the Exiles’ fleet. Each mote in the cloud was a scarab unit no larger than a pupil in a human’s eye. Still no eyes in the fleet saw them. Their surfaces baffled all sensors. Even if the Exiles’ crude machines had seen them, there was no difference between the cloud and drifts of stellar matter. The scarab units passed the outer ships. Their targets were the great vessels that sat at the core of the fleet.

Time slid past.

Setekh watched as the cloud reached the first of the great vessels. A swarm of scarab units separated from the cloud and slid onto the ship’s hull.

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