The Carnac Campaign (Warhammer 40,000) by Graeme Lyon & Joe Parrino & Rob Sanders

Author:Graeme Lyon & Joe Parrino & Rob Sanders [Lyon, Graeme]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2015-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Spirit War

Rob Sanders

He was Kael Ra – Prince Ecliptic of the Alaitocii. Avenger. Autarch… Legend.

His diresword knew only its desire to end enemies. His aspect armour was slick with the drizzle of barbarian blood. Gore dripped from the plume of his high-helm, while the fury of greenskin shells – crude but as unrelenting as a storm – turned to lead-splatter against the fluxing pulse of his energy shield. His craftworld kin were there: lithe, shadowy figures, whose blades and shuriken-fire were the bladed shaft of a spear thrust through the meat of the enemy ranks – a spear of which Kael Ra was the tip. The monstrous droves – living testaments to obstinate rage – split before the martial grace of the Prince Ecliptic’s advance. The orks bellowed their choler and contempt for the sleight craftworld host but could do nothing to stop the bloody, limb-strewn path the Alaitocii warriors were carving through their hordes. Kael Ra was a vision of serenity – cold, precise and deadly.

His diresword sang with the balletic demise of invader greenskins, while his body arced and extended about its movements, guiding it to greater devastation. Brute-bore weaponry spat its point-blank-range fury into the sizzling shell of the autarch’s shielding, while Kael Ra whipped his shuriken pistol about him like the grip of a whip, allowing the trailing flourishes of monomolecular death to scythe through the soon-to-be-dead. All the while, Alaitocii guardians, warriors and the high priests of the god of war, fought at their autarch’s back in choreographed darkness and determination.

For a moment, Kael Ra was lost to the battle. It was not rage or confusion. It was fugue not of the body or mind but of the soul. Thousands of foes had died before his blade on hundreds of worlds. Which was this? He had fought the greenskin plague on Ath-Ethon, on Lorachi and Talhennor, and many fringe worlds beyond. The pang of uncertainty shot through his heart, the kind of fear and uncertainty that the alien enemy had failed to put there. As his killing thrusts and elegant bladework took apart oncoming brutes, Kael Ra allowed himself a moment of consideration, a second or two away from the calculating contrivance of battle. Had he become lost on some darkened path? He had walked many but none seemed as potent and captivating as this. The figures about his pirouetting form – both foe and fellow eldar – appeared bleached in darkness. Their shapes were immediate and recognisable but their movements blotted into one another.

His diresword skewered one beastbreed, before slipping it out of the carcass and flicking gore into the face of another. As the monster greenskin blinked the muck from its eyes, it found that its throat had been slashed open by the twirling sweep of the autarch’s shuriken pistol. A clawed arm flew off here, a tusk-twisted head there. Kael Ra ducked. He back-flipped. He rolled, each movement taking him clear of a felling broadblade, crackling power claw or stream of lead.

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