Path of the Dark Eldar by Andy Chambers

Author:Andy Chambers
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2015-02-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

ASCENSION

The sculpted face of the shrine of Arhra rose before Morr and Motley like a cliff. Tier upon crusted tier of frowning archways were shadowed by thickly clustered columns. Steeply sloping flights of steps interwove among crumbling plinths weighed down with a wide variety of grotesque statuary. The shrine was built of darkly lustrous obsidian that seemed to suck up the light falling upon it. A riot of foliage was festooned around the lower reaches of the shrine, a green wave frozen at the point of breaking across a black mountain. The fleshy looking creepers and bright blooming lianas softened the brooding edifice somewhat, but their verdant fecundity contrasted so sharply with the lightless stone that it lent the whole an alien, intrusive air that sickened the stomach.

Motley expected some kind of final challenge as Morr approached, but the towering incubus mounted the first steps without incident. The shrine was silent as a tomb, even the natural sounds of the surrounding swamps seemed muted in its presence. The sense of brooding watchfulness he had sensed from far off was overwhelming this close, as though every shadowed archway hid a silent sentinel. As Motley placed his first foot on the steps he felt an empathic chill run up his spine. Passion and murder-lust were etched into the very stones of this place, an echo of millennia of bloodshed and violence being honed to an artform with the kind of depth and clarity that only the eldar race could achieve.

Morr climbed steadily, seemingly confident of where he was going as he passed the first tier of archways and kept moving upwards. Motley forced himself to follow, passing plinths with their crouching beasts and towering warriors. There was a strong preference for low slung, multi-legged monstrosities that Motley assumed were scorpions from different worlds and realities. Some exhibited disturbingly humanoid characteristics: hands instead of claws, saucer-eyed faces. Unlike just about every other shrine Motley had ever seen all of the statues faced inward towards the structure itself, rather than out to the world.

Three tiers up and Morr vanished inside one of the archways without so much as a backward glance. As the incubus disappeared from sight a bell tolled once from deep within the shrine, the dolorous tone of it seeming to hang in the still air. Motley hurried up but then paused on the threshold despite himself, poised for a moment between the world of light outside and the darkness within. A cold breath seemed to blow into his face, a thing welling up from deep in the underworld and before him lay only shadows. Motley finally screwed up his courage and stepped inside the archway. No peal of the great bell greeted him, which was a fact he found to be disquieting and reassuring in more or less equal measure.

Within a few steps from the archway the path twisted and darkness became complete, Motley could barely see his own hand when he fluttered it in front of his eyes. The

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.