Wild Rider (Rise of the Ynnari Book 2) by Gav Thorpe

Author:Gav Thorpe [Thorpe, Gav]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2018-11-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

FINAL DELIBERATIONS

Though the Ynnead’s Dream’s infinity circuit had been more dormant than Nuadhu was used to, it now thrummed with the tension of pre-battle preparations. With the necrontyr blocking any extension of the webway, the attack would launch from near-orbit, a prospect that filled Nuadhu with foreboding. The glimpses of the past – the horrors of the necrontyr in that long-lost age – kept returning to the clan heir. He imagined arcane weapon systems incinerating starships in orbit, and immense war machines levelling the forests of Agarimethea, burning the hosts of the Ynnari and Saim-Hann. They were almost like waking dreams at times, swelling up from the awakened memory to distract him from what he was doing. Cold trembles beset his body without warning, accompanied by the shrieks of the scythe-craft that had hunted them, now seeming like the heaven-splitting war cries of vengeful deities.

He wandered the halls and corridors, restless, knowing that the time to depart was fast approaching but consumed by a dread he could not voice. Nuadhu told himself it was not cowardice, but when he was alone with his thoughts, away from the bustle of his kindred, he felt a very real and insular dread of the battle to come.

The clan heir cursed Yvraine. He thought her spiteful for setting this horror in him, conjuring waking nightmares from his overactive imagination. Such it had to be; her talk of a soul as old as the aeldari themselves was pure fantasy.

Pacing the passages of the lower decks, earning himself strange glances from the few Ynnari that passed, he muttered to himself, fists clenching and relaxing, teeth gritted. Never before had he been afraid to die, and even now it was not the notion of his mortality that vexed him. Something more substantial worried at his being, unleashed by the meddling of the Opener of the Seventh Way. Other images flashed through his turbulent mind. He saw his father as a skull-faced ruin, but at the same time he saw his mother, her expression troubled.

He chased the thoughts around each other – Yvraine and his father, his mother’s death, the aeldari soul within him. There seemed to be a connection, a pattern that would link everything together into a semblance of sanity if only he could look at it the right way.

A shout cut through the loop of confusion. His name.

‘Nuadhu!’ Caelledhin called again, running along the corridor.

He read the concern in her face and let out a shuddering gasp before falling towards her, arms thrown about her shoulders.

‘Yvraine…’ said the heir. ‘She placed something in my mind. Broke me.’

When Caelledhin did not reply straight away, her body rigid in his grasp, a chill of lucidity stilled his thoughts. Nuadhu stepped back, feeling her anxiety seeping into him, displacing the torment. Her concern had not been for him.

‘Father?’ he guessed, his gut becoming a knot of ice. She nodded. ‘Is he…?’

‘No,’ she replied quickly, emphasising the point with a fierce shake of the head. ‘No, he lives. But you must come right now.

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