Bands of Thousand Sons warriors defended the ends of a number of other causeways, each one leading back to the bulk of the mountain. Magnus the Red stood at the edge of the plaza, his armour a blaze of gold and crimson. His curved sword was bared and his entire body crackled with aetheric fire. Behind Magnus stood his ancient scribe, and Ahriman was amazed that the old man had survived the fury of this fight.
Phosis T’kar ran over to Ahriman, his heqa staff alive with hissing lines of energy.
“Ahzek, Hathor, you took your time,” said Phosis T’kar.
“We got here as soon as we could,” snapped Hathor Maat.
“You’re both here now, that’s what matters I suppose. Any sign of Khalophis?”
“No,” said Ahriman. “He is crystal-joined with his robots. It is hard to pinpoint his location when his consciousness is so dispersed.”
Phosis T’kar shrugged.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll need to deal with this situation without him.”
“T’kar,” said Ahriman. “Tell me what is happening! We heard a psychic shout more powerful than anything I’ve ever known.”
“It was Leman Russ,” said Uthizzar. “Wasn’t it?”
Phosis T’kar nodded, turning and indicating that they should follow him.
“Most probably,” he spat. “Killed almost every Athanaean in my Fellowship, and most of the ones that aren’t dead are reduced to drooling lackwits.”
“Dead?” cried Uthizzar. These warriors were not of his Fellowship, but as Magister Templi of the Athanaeans, they were as much Uthizzar’s as they were Phosis T’kar’s.
“Dead,” snapped Phosis T’kar. “That’s what I said. Now stop wasting time. The primarch calls you to his side.”
Ahriman put aside his anger at Phosis T’kar’s brusqueness and followed him to where Magnus stood at the end of the widest causeway.
“Where is the Wolf King?” asked Lemuel.
Phosis T’kar looked down at the man with disdain.
“Answer him,” said Ahriman.
“We don’t know for sure,” said Phosis T’kar, “but he is on his way, thatwe do know.”
Magnus turned at their approach, and Ahriman felt the force of the primarch’s anger. His flesh seethed with life, pulsing red just beneath the skin, and his eye was a similarly belligerent hue. Magnus’ stature had always been one of variable proportions, but his rage had made him huge.
Ahriman felt Lemuel’s fear, but was surprised not to feel any from Mahavastu Kallimakus before realising that the man’s will was suppressed by a mental connection to the primarch.
“Who would have thought it would come to this?” said Magnus, and Ahriman put thoughts of the primarch’s scribe from his mind.
“Come to what?” asked Magnus. “What is going on?”
“That,” said Phosis T’kar, pointing down the length of the causeway.
A wedge of Space Wolves massed at the end of the causeway, led by a warrior in a leather mask whose eyes were chips of cold, merciless flint. Their blades were bared, and a pack of slavering wolves hauled on thick chains, desperate to rend and tear.
“Amlodhi Skarssen?” said Ahriman. “I don’t understand. Are they attacking us? Why?”
“No time to explain,” said Phosis T’kar. “Here they come!”
THE CHARGE OF the Space Wolves was a thing of great and terrible beauty.
They advanced in a great wave of clashing armoured plates, beating shields and waxed beards. They did not run, but came on in a loping jog, their feral grins, exposed fangs and lack of haste speaking of brutal confidence in their abilities.
These warriors didn’t need speed to break through their enemies.
Their skill at arms would be enough.
Ahriman’s horror mounted with every stride the Space Wolves took towards the Thousand Sons. How had these warriors, so recently their allies, become their enemies? The chains holding the snarling wolves were let slip and the monstrous beasts sprinted along the causeway.
Phosis T’kar took up position in the centre of the Thousand Sons line. His fellow warriors of the Raptora cult knelt to either side of him.
“Kine shields,” ordered Phosis T’kar, extending his hands before him. The air before them hazed as the force shields rippled to life.
“Give those wolves something to think about,” said Hathor Maat, as his Pavoni conjured writhing electrical storms in the path of the bounding wolves. Hastar took up position beside Hathor Maat, his gauntlets crackling with potent lightning.
“There is to be no killing, my sons,” said Magnus. “We will have no blood on our hands from a fight that is not of our making.”
The crackling webs of lightning paled as Hathor Maat diminished their power, though Ahriman felt his reluctance.
“My lord?” begged Ahriman. “Why is this happening?”
“I secured the Great Library with the Scarab Occult,” said Magnus, “but Skarssen’s Great Company arrived right on our heels. They sought to destroy the library. I stopped them.”
Ahriman had the sickening feeling of events spiralling beyond control. Pride, ego and the primal urge for war had collided, and such blinding drives almost always had to run their devastating course before they could be halted.
The charge of the Space Wolves was an unstoppable, elemental power.
The Thousand Sons were an implacable and immovable bulwark.
What force in the galaxy could yoke these unleashed forces?
THE BOUNDING WOLVES were the first to feel the fury of the Thousand Sons. They bounded into the flickering web of lightning and their fur instantly caught alight. Howls of agony echoed from the mountainside as fur was seared from their backs. The wolves snapped and rolled in their frenzy to douse the flames. Two fell from the causeway, fiery comets streaking to their deaths far below. Others fled, while a hardy few pushed onwards.
None survived to reach the Thousand Sons.
The Space Wolves jogged through the wall of aetheric fire, their armour hissing and blackening, but keeping them safe from harm. Wolf-painted shields locked together, and swords the colour of ice slid between them. The cries of the beasts had died, replaced with a furious, ululating howl torn from the throats of Amlodhi Skarssen’s warriors.
Ten metres separated the two forces.
“Push them back!” ordered Magnus.
Phosis T’kar nodded, and the warriors of the 2nd Fellowship marched onto the causeway, kine shields matched against physical ones.
“We have to stop this!” cried Ahriman. “This is madness.”
Magnus turned his gaze upon him, and his primarch’s towering fury coalesced around him, a crushing rage as primal as anything felt by a Space Wolf.
“We did not start this fight, Ahzek,” said Magnus, “but if need be we will finish it.”
“Please, my lord!” begged Ahriman. “If we take arms against the Wolf King’s warriors, he will never forgive us.”
“I do not need his forgiveness,” snapped Magnus, “but I will have his damned respect!”
“This is not the way to get it, my lord. We both know it. The Wolf King never forgets and never forgives. Kill even one of his warriors and he will forever hold you accountable.”
“It is too late, Ahzek,” said Magnus, his voice haunted by some nameless fear. “It has already begun.”
The shields of the Thousand Sons clashed with those of Amlodhi Skarssen’s Space Wolves with a discordant squealing, scraping sound of invisible force meeting ice-forged steel. Space Wolves and Thousand Sons bent their backs to push one another back, a battle of strength against will.
No guns were drawn, as though both forces realised that this struggle needed to be settled with each warrior looking his foe squarely in the eye. They locked together, unmoving and as rigid as carved Astartes in a triumphal battle fresco, but it was a deadlock that couldn’t last.
Slowly, metre by metre, the Thousand Sons were being forced back.
“Hathor Maat!” ordered Magnus. “Take them down!”
The captain of the 3rd Fellowship hammered a fist into his chest and directed his ferocious will to aiding his battle-brothers. Hastar stood next to him as his fellow warriors of the Pavoni unleashed the full force of their bio-manipulation.