“You bested nothing,” said the snake as Magnus broke its neck.

AHRIMAN SWEPT HIS heqa staff in a wide arc, clearing a space in which he and Wyrdmake could fight. It was a hopeless task. No sooner was one mass of writhing tentacles severed, than hundreds more would slither from the pit to take their places. His control of the Enumerations was lost, his concentration broken in the face of the primarch’s disappearance into the pit. Ahriman would normally fight divorced from the concerns of emotion that compromised his clarity of combat, but his mind was swamped with the competing fires of anger and hate.

With control stripped from his mind, Ahriman knew fear once more.

Only when he had watched Ohrmuzd die had he felt such a void in his soul.

He had vowed never to feel that way again, but this was even worse.

Ahriman fought to reconnect with his higher states, but his primarch’s fate was too near to be salved with the Enumerations. Instead, he focussed on the fight for survival, letting his consciousness stretch no further than the next enemy to be slain. Such a state of being was unfamiliar, but cathartic.

The air was thick with foes, making it impossible to tell in which direction the exit lay. The dark power that energised the tentacles bloated the chamber, a seething corruption that pressed on the surface of his mind like a lead weight.

He could no longer see Uthizzar, and did not know whether the warrior still lived. The Thousand Sons and Space Wolves fought in isolation, small groups cut off from one another in the midst of the black morass. Diametric opposites, they were united as one force as they battled not for victory, but for survival.

Ahriman’s pistol had long since run dry, and he swung his staff in a two-handed grip, laying about himself with crushing strokes. His every movement was leaden, his thoughts dull and slow. The Great Ocean was a potent force in combat, but the toll it took upon a warrior was equally potent.

Ahriman’s mastery of his battle powers was second to none, but even he had nothing left to give, his spirit exhausted and his body pushed to the very limits of endurance. He fought as a mortal must fight, with courage, heart and brute strength, but he already knew that alone would not be enough. He needed power, but all he could feel was the energy boiling from the chasm that had taken the primarch. Even in despair, he knew that would be the first step on a road that had but one destination.

He would face what was left of this fight without the aether.

That made it an alien fight to make, and he was reminded of his words to Hathor Maat when he had glibly told him he might one day need to go to war without his powers. How prophetic those words now seemed, though he had said them without any expectation of facing such a situation himself.

Ahriman’s concentration slipped, and a whipping mass of tentacles enfolded his arm, dragging his heqa staff aside. He struggled against its strength, but it was too late, and his other arm was entangled. His legs and torso were enveloped, and he was lifted from the ground, the joints of his armour creaking at the abominable pressure.

Wyrdmake tried to pull him down, but even the Rune Priest’s strength could not equal the alien power matched against him. Over the hideous slithering of the deathly tentacles, he could hear the sounds of warriors dying, the shouted oaths of the Space Wolves, and the bitter curses of the Thousand Sons.

Then the pressure eased and the tentacles around his body began crumbling and flaking to nothingness. Even in his exhausted state, he felt the rampant energies of the pit suddenly vanish, as surely as if a spigot had been shut off.

The sound of gunfire and chopping blades was replaced by heaving breaths and sudden silence. Ahriman tore himself free of the desiccating tentacles that bound him, bracing himself as he fell back to the ground. He landed lightly, and looked up into the towering mass of writhing blackness as its substance unravelled before his eyes. What had been dark and glossy was now ashen and bleached of colour. The liquid solidity of the tentacles was now as insubstantial as mist, and they fell in a powdered rain.

Floating in the haze of their ending was a blood-red figure, a blazing giant in dusty armour, who descended with his arms outstretched, his single eye shimmering with a golden light. His hair was matted and wild, like an ancient war god come to earth to scour the unbelievers with his divine fire.

“My lord!” cried Ahriman, dropping to one knee.

The Thousand Sons followed his example, as did many of the Space Wolves. Fewer than twenty had survived the battle, but the bodies of the fallen were nowhere to be seen.

Magnus set foot on the ground, and the gold and silver symbols worked into the rock at the edge of the chasm shone with renewed vigour, as though freshly energised. Ahriman felt the deadening effect immediately, a force like that which had once filled the deadstones, but cleaner, fresher and stronger.

“My sons,” said Magnus, his flesh invigorated and vital. “The danger is passed. I have destroyed the evil at the heart of this world.”

Ahriman drew in a cleansing breath, closing his eyes and rising into the first of the Enumerations. His thoughts cleared and his emotional peaks were planed smooth. He heard footsteps behind him and opened his eyes. Lord Skarssen of the Space Wolves’ 5th Company and Ohthere Wyrdmake stood beside him. The Rune Priest gave him a weary nod of respect.

“The battle is won?” asked Skarssen.

“It is,” confirmed Magnus, and Ahriman heard fierce pride in his voice. “The wound in the world is no more. I have sealed it for all time. Not even its makers could undo my wards.”

“Then you are done with this world,” said Skarssen, and Ahriman could not tell whether it was a question or a statement.

“Yes,” said Magnus. “There is nothing more to learn here.”

“You owe the Wolf King your presence.”

“Indeed I do,” said Magnus, and Ahriman caught a wry grin at the very corner of his primarch’s mouth, as though he were privy to a jest that eluded the rest of them.

“I will inform Lord Russ of our departure,” said Skarssen. The Wolf Lord turned away, gathering his warriors in readiness for the march to the surface.

“Direct, without fuss or unnecessary formality,” said Uthizzar, appearing at Ahriman’s side, “that is the Space Wolf way. Maddening at times.”

“Agreed, though there is much to admire in its simplicity,” said Ahriman, pleased that Uthizzar had survived the battle. The telepath was on the verge of collapse. Ahriman was impressed by his fortitude.

“It is not simplicity, Ahzek,” said Magnus as the surviving Thousand Sons gathered around him. “It is clarity of purpose.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Time will tell,” said Magnus.

“Then we are truly finished here?” asked Uthizzar.

“We are,” confirmed Magnus. “What drew us here is no more, but I have uncovered the existence of a prize beyond measure.”

“What manner of prize?” asked Ahriman.

“All in good time, Ahzek,” said Magnus with a knowing smile. “All in good time.”

BOOK TWO

MUTATIS MUTANDIS

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Shrike/A Good War/The Wolf King

DAWN WAS ONLY a few hours old and the battle for Raven’s Aerie 93 was won. The slender, feather-cloaked bodies of its defenders lay strewn around its craggy ramparts. Thanks to the foresight of the Corvidae, the battle to take the hidden crag had been a massacre.

Six months of flying the Great Ocean on the hunt for strands of the future and constant war had drained those warriors of the Thousand Sons Magnus had led to answer Russ’ summons. They had been bled white matching the war pace of the Space Wolves.