Текст книги "A Thousand Sons"

Автор книги: Грэм Макнилл

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

CHAPTER EIGHT

Slayer of Giants

THE GIANTS WERE moving. The fact was as undeniable as it was inconceivable. The ground shook with the force of it. The cliff face cracked and broke, vast boulders falling like dust from the side of the Mountain. Straining with the effort of breaking the shackles of their ancient bindings, the behemoths tore free of the rock.

Ahriman felt the howling shriek of something primal roar from the mouth of the cave with insensate hunger, a force of mindless destruction given free rein after uncounted aeons trapped in the darkness. Rank winds roared from the depths of the Mountain.

He dropped to his knees, hands pressed to his helmet as the Great Ocean tried to force its way inside his skull. He remembered his primarch’s warning and fought to keep it out.

Even in the desolation of Prospero, amid the ruined cities depopulated by the psychneuein, there was not this ferocity of psychic assault. Through tear-blurred eyes, he saw Astartes scatter, those without a connection to the aether spared the worst of the keening knife blade that gouged at his mind.

The ground shook as the first of the great machines took a ponderous step, its foot slamming down with seismic force. Lord Skarssen shouted at his warriors, but the words were lost to Ahriman. Ohthere Wyrdmake sagged against his staff, its haft swirling with coruscating arcs of black lightning. Beside him, Phosis T’kar and Hathor Maat fought against the corrupt power Magnus had warned them against. He couldn’t see Uthizzar or Khalophis.

Another shockwave shook the valley as the second giant tore free, the thunderous crashing of hundreds of tonnes of rock slamming down a forceful reminder of the physical world. Slabs of roaring red metal ground past Ahriman, churning the dusty ground with their passage; Land Raiders, their hull-mounted guns crackling with furious energies as they swept towards the Titans.

Ahriman felt a presence beside him and looked up to see Khalophis bellowing at his warriors. Astartes bearing the symbol of the scarlet phoenix moved to obey his orders, rushing to optimum firing positions and bringing their weapons to bear.

Ahriman wanted to laugh. What use would their weapons be against such war machines?

He tried to stand, but the pressure battering down his mind’s defences held him like a moth pinned to a slide. His resistance was locking his limbs together, fusing his joints with a stubborn refusal of the power that could be his were he only to let it in.

Ahriman recognised these temptation as the insidious whisperings that lured void travellers to their doom, as corpse lights had once ensnared those lost in ancient marshes.

That recognition alone was not enough to keep him from wanting to heed their siren song.

All he had to do was let it in and his powers would be restored: the power to smite these war machines, the power to read the currents of the future. The last of his will began to erode.

No, brother… Hold to my voice.

The words were an anchor in the madness, a lodestar back to self-control. He latched onto them as a drowning man holds fast to a rescuer’s hand.

Ahriman felt someone touch his shoulder guard, and saw Uthizzar standing above him like a priest offering benediction. The Athanaean pulled him around so that they were face to face. They gripped each other’s arms tightly, as though locked in a test of strength.

Rebuild your barriers, brother. I can protect you for a time, but only for a time.

Ahriman heard Uthizzar’s voice in his mind, the telepath’s measured tones stark against the raging torrents that threatened to overwhelm him. He felt a blessed quiet in his psyche as Uthizzar shouldered his burden.

Rise through the ranks, brother. Remember your first principles.

One by one, Ahriman repeated the mantras that allowed a Neophyte to control the powers of his being, easing into the energy-building meditations of the Zealator. Then came the control of the mind of the Practicus, the achievement of the perfectly equanimous perspective of the Philosophus. With every advance, the barriers protecting his mind were restored, and the furious howling of the aether abated.

Hurry, brother. I cannot shield you much longer.

“No need,” said Ahriman, as the world snapped back into focus. “I have control.”

Uthizzar sagged and released his hold on him.

“Good,” he said. “I could not have kept that up.”

Ahriman pushed himself upright, the world around him chaotic as the Astartes aligned themselves to face the gigantic war machines. Both were free of the cliff, the black tendrils enveloping them pulsating like newly filled arteries pumping strength around their bodies.

His situational awareness was complete. The Space Wolves had found cover in the huge piles of debris at the side of the valley. Ahriman was impressed. The Sons of Russ had a reputation for wild recklessness, but that didn’t make them stupid. To charge headlong into this battle would see them all dead, and Skarssen knew it.

The Thousand Sons had assumed the formation of the Nine Bows, an aggressive configuration of three warrior groupings named for the ancient Gyptus kings’ representation of all their enemies.

“He has gathered them all into his fist, and his mace has crashed upon their heads,” said Ahriman in recognition. Khalophis stood at the centre of the first block, Phosis T’kar commanded the second, Hathor Maat the third.

Geysers of fire spiralled around Khalophis, pillars of white flame enveloping him with searing light. Ahriman felt the enormous power surrounding the captain of the 6th Fellowship, its incredible potential bleeding into the warriors who followed him.

“Trust Khalophis not to take heed,” said Uthizzar, his voice scornful.

“He was not the only one,” said Ahriman, seeing blooms of aetheric energy centered on Phosis T’kar and Hathor Maat.

“Fools,” snapped Uthizzar, his stoic manner faltering in the face of such power. “They were warned!”

In the midst of the chaos, Ahriman saw Yatiri standing on the basalt altar, its gleaming surface splashed with the blood of his fellow elders. He held his falarica above his head and he was screaming. The winds from the cave mouth howled around him in a hurricane of corrupt matter, a blizzard of unnatural energy revelling in its freedom. At the centre of the hurricane stood Magnus the Red.

MAGNIFICENT AND PROUD, the Primarch of the Thousand Sons was the eye of the storm, a quantum moment of utter stillness. Though a giant amongst men, the soaring Titans dwarfed him, their towering forms still trailing thick tarry ropes of glistening black.

The first Titan inclined its enormous head towards Magnus, its alien mind picking out the primarch like a golden treasure in a junkyard. Its body shook with what might have been disgust, regarding him as a man might view a loathsome insect. It took a step towards Magnus, its stride unsteady and hesitant, as though it were unused to controlling its limbs after so long inert. The Mountain shook with the reverberative weight of its tread, yet still Magnus did not move. His cloak of feathers billowed about his body, the violence of the Titans’ awakening seeming not to concern him at all.

The machine’s enormous fist flexed and its arm swung down, the movement so unlike the monstrous, clanking machine noise of Imperial engines. A haze of electromagnetic fire vented along the length of its smooth gauntlet.

Then it fired.

A blizzard of slicing projectiles shredded the space between its fist and Magnus, a thunderous storm of razor-edged death. Magnus didn’t move, but the storm broke above him, shunted aside by an invisible barrier to shred the ground and fill the air with whistling, spinning fragments of rock and metal.

The enormous, lance-like weapon in its other arm swung around, and Ahriman was again struck by the fluid, living grace of the Titan. It moved as if its every molecule was part of its essence, a living whole as opposed to a distant mind imperfectly meshed to a mechanical body with invasive mind impulse units and haptic receptors.

Before it could unleash the destructive fire of the weapon, a storm of energy blistered its limbs. The Thousand Sons Land Raiders stabbed it with bright spears of laserfire, like ancient hunters surrounding a towering prey-beast.

The Astartes of the 6th Fellowship let fly with explosive warheads and storms of gunfire. Ceramic plates cracked and spalled. Fires rippled across the surface of the Titan’s armour. Imperial engines marched to war protected by shimmer-shields of ablative energy – not so this behemoth. Whatever protection it had relied on in life was denied it in this incarnation.

Magnus stood firm before the Titan, a child before a towering monster. He lifted his arm, palm upward, as though to offer the giant some morsel to sate its appetite. Ahriman saw a thin smile play around his primarch’s face as he drew his fingers back to make a fist.

The enormous gauntlet that had spat such venom upon Magnus was crushed utterly as an invisible force compressed it. Fire bloomed from the shattered hand, black tendrils like dead veins hanging from the rain of its shoulder as Magnus coolly crashed the entire length of its arm. The giant war machine shook, the movement unnatural and hideous in its imitation of pain. Land Raiders swept in to press the advantage, furious, rippling bolts of laser energy smacking the Titan’s legs and torso.

The second machine rotated its lance, and the air grew thin, as though the Mountain had sucked in a great breath. An impossibly bright pinpoint of light grew at the end of the weapon before a pulsing storm erupted in a blaze of streaming fire.

Three Land Raiders exploded, instantly vaporised in the blast, and a fireball of burnt metal mushroomed skyward. The surging beam of liquid light swept on, carving a glassy trench across the valley and immolating everything in its path. A group of Hathor Maat’s warriors on the periphery of the seething fire burst into flames, their armour running like melted rubber. Ahriman could hear their screams. The heat wash of their death was a rancid flesh stink that threatened to break his concentration.

“Ahzek!” cried a voice, almost lost amid the shriek of the Titans’ weapons fire. His anger fled, the rigid mental discipline of the Enumerations reasserting itself. He turned to the source of the cry, seeing Ohthere Wyrdmake frantically beckoning him from behind the cover of a spit of red rock. Gunfire streamed from the Space Wolves position.

Logic took hold, the measured calm of mental acuity honed over a century of study.

“Uthizzar,” he said, “let’s go.”

Uthizzar nodded and together they ran through the deafening, blazing crescendo of weapons fire that filled the valley. Firepower to end entire regiments surged back and forth: heatwash, ricochets and shrieking intakes of breath from guns capable of mass murder. The shape of the battle was fluid and its tempo was increasing.

The Astartes were fighting back, filling the valley with disciplined volleys, but save for the augmented fire of Khalophis’ warriors, it was having little effect. There were too many targets for the Titans to effectively engage them all, but that wouldn’t last long. Fifty more Astartes died as the second Titan’s fist spat a shrieking hail of death, the impacts sounding like a thousand mirrors shattering at once.

Ahriman ducked into cover with Uthizzar, feeling strange at taking refuge with warriors in midnight-grey armour instead of crimson and ivory. A shaggy wolf snapped its jaws at him, thick saliva drooling between its fangs.

“What were you doing out there?” shouted Wyrdmake over the din of gunfire.

“Nothing,” replied Ahriman, unwilling to speak of the mental ordeal he and Uthizzar had endured, “just picking our moment to run for cover.”

“What I would not give for a Mechanicum engine right now,” hissed Wyrdmake as a rolling wall of boiling air washed over their position. The Rune Priest’s staff crackled with miniature lightning bolts. The power filling the valley had almost overwhelmed Ahriman with the urge to wield it, but Wyrdmake appeared oblivious to its temptations.

Space Wolves shouldered missile launchers, sighting on the undamaged Titan. Skarssen shouted an order, lost in the din, pointing towards the Titan’s head. Spiralling contrails zoomed upwards, detonating against the surface of the giant’s head, rocking it back, but doing little obvious damage.

“Again!” shouted Skarssen.

“That won’t bring it down!” cried Ahriman over the booming cough of missile fire.

“Never hunted a Fenrisian Kraken, have you?” cried Skarssen.

“How perceptive,” snapped Ahriman, ducking down as the rocks around him exploded in pinging fragments. A Space Wolf went down, but picked himself back up again. “What has that got do with anything?”

“A single wolfship will be smashed to kindling and its crew devoured,” said the Wolf Lord, as though enjoying this fight immensely, “but put a dozen in the water and then it becomes a hunt worth undertaking. Shield scales buckle, flesh tears and blood flows, the beast weakens and then it dies. Every harpoon matters, from the first to the last.”

Then all thought was obliterated as a world-shaking scream of ancient loss and pain ripped through the mind of every warrior.

IT WAS THE sound of worlds ending. It was the birth shout of a vile and terrible god, and the death scream of glory that died when the race of Man was young. Ahriman collapsed as pain like nothing he had ever known wracked his body with a torturer’s skill, finding the secret parts of him and driving itself home without mercy. His fragile control crumbled in the face of it, his mind ablaze with images of a civilisation overturned, worlds consumed and an empire that had spanned the stars brought low by its own weakness.

No one was spared the scream’s violence, not the Space Wolves and certainly not the Thousand Sons, who suffered worst of all. The pain drove Ahriman to the edge of sanity in the blink of an eye.

Then it was over. The echoes of the scream retreated, its power like a breaker upon a seawall, forceful and spectacular, but quick to fade. Ahriman blinked away tears of pain, surprised to find he was lying flat on his back.

“What in the name of the Great Wolf was that?” demanded Skarssen, towering over him as though nothing had happened. Once again, Ahriman was impressed by the Space Wolves.

“I’m not sure,” he gasped, blinding spots of light sparkling behind his eyes from burst blood vessels, “a psychic scream of some sort.”

“Can you block it?” asked Skarssen, holding his hand out to Ahriman.

“No, it’s too powerful.”

“We will not need to,” said Uthizzar.

Ahriman took Skarssen’s hand and hauled himself upright, his head still aching from the pressure of the unexpected war shout. Uthizzar nodded at him and pointed out into the valley.

He glanced over the white-hot rocks he and the Space Wolves sheltered behind. The searing fire of the Titan’s weapons had vitrified them, the solid stone now smooth and translucent. Razor-edged discs the width of a man were embedded in the glass, caught by the molten rock before it hardened and singing with the vibration of their impacts.

Blinking away bright afterimages, Ahriman looked down the valley. The elongated head sections of the war machines were burned black, their previously impervious armour cracked and their bejewelled heads split open. Ahriman smelled the burnt metal taste of an incredibly powerful aetheric discharge. Whips of wild lightning lashed from the broken armour, and he watched with fierce pride as Magnus the Red stalked through the storm of fire and death towards the towering machines with twin fists of fire.

Ghostly light rippled across the Titans. Explosions bit chunks out of their ceramic skin, and viscous black liquid, like boiling oil, slithered from the wounds.

“You see!” roared Skarssen. “They bleed!”

“It won’t be nearly enough,” returned Ahriman, “no matter how many harpoons you bring to bear!”

“Just watch,” promised Skarssen, throwing himself flat as a shrieking wall of light broke against their cover. Superheated air hissed and greedily sucked oxygen from the air with a thunderclap.

“The Storm breaks!” roared Wyrdmake. “The Tempest gives its sign!”

Magnus faced the giant machines alone, his feathered cloak spread behind him like an eagle’s wings. His flesh swelled with power, and for a brief moment it seemed that he matched the Titan in stature. His unbound hair was a stiffened mane of red, and his limbs ran with electric light. The Primarch of the Thousand Sons drew back his arm and loosed a stream of blue fire that struck the nearest Titan square in the chest.

The alien engine was an artfully designed war machine from an age long-forgotten, the ancient craft of its makers wondrous to behold, but it could not resist such incredible, awe-inspiring power. Its torso exploded, vast ribs of unknown manufacture shattering like brittle china and falling in fire-blackened splinters. The pendulous head toppled from its neck and crashed to the rocks far below.

The war machine fell with infinite majesty, slamming down in pieces upon the rocky ground over which it had stood sentinel for longer than humans could comprehend. Blinding clouds of dust swept out from its fall, obscuring the fate of the second Titan.

A strange silence fell over the battlefield, as though no one could really believe they had seen the incredible war machine die. The silence was uncanny, but it did not last long.

A triumphant howl erupted from the throats of the Wolves, an ululating victory roar, but Ahriman took no pleasure at such destruction.

“A terrible thing to see something so magnificent brought low,” said Ahriman.

“You pity it?” asked Wyrdmake. “Does not the hunter feel the joy at the moment of the kill?”

“I feel nothing but sorrow,” said Ahriman.

Wyrdmake looked at him with genuine confusion, affronted that Ahriman sought to sour this moment of great victory. “The beast killed entire packs of your warriors. Vengeance demanded its death. It is right to honour your foe, but to mourn its death is pointless.”

“Maybe so, but what secrets and knowledge have been lost in its destruction?”

“What secrets worth knowing does such a beast keep?” said Skarssen. “Better it dies and its secrets are lost than to ken such alien witchery.”

The smoke of the mighty construct’s death parted, and a keening roar built from within the depths of the ashen clouds, a wail of sorrow and anger entwined. A mighty shadow moved in the depths of the billowing dust, and the surviving Titan emerged. It was wounded and bled black rivers of glistening liquid, but like a cornered animal it was still horribly dangerous.

Its lance arm slid around, the barrel aimed squarely at Magnus, and Ahriman saw that the enormous power the primarch had wielded had cost him dearly. Magnus’ skin was pale, the fiery copper lustre dimmed to a faded brass. He was down on one knee, as though offering servitude to a bellicose god of war.

The ground shook as the giant moved forward. It lowered its head to study the insignificant creature ranged against it. The remnants of its ruined arm spat flames and smoke. Its sweeping shoulder wings were aflame, sagging and useless at its shoulders, like a broken angel of destruction come to rid Aghoru of all life.

Killing light built along the length of its weapon, and a shriek of violated air built as it drew breath.

And a blazing lance of sunfire stabbed out, searing Magnus from the face of the world.

THE THOUSAND SONS screamed.

The heat of a million stars wreathed their primarch, and no matter that he was one of twenty towering pinnacles of gene-wrought superhuman warriors, even he could not survive such an attack. A surge tide of liquid fire swept out, turning the rock of the Mountain to glass.

Ahriman’s grip on the Enumerations collapsed in the face of such visceral horror; grief, anger and hatred jammed a twisting knife in his guts. The Titan poured its deadly fire upon Magnus, and Ahriman knew he would never live to see so hideous a sight.

Beside him, Uthizzar clutched his head in agony. Even in the midst of his grief, Ahriman pitied Uthizzar. How terrible must it be for a telepath to feel the death of his father?

Moments passed in utter silence, as though the world itself could not quite believe what had happened. One of the Emperor’s favoured sons had been struck down. It was inconceivable. What force could end the life of a primarch? The stubborn reality of it could not yet penetrate their legends, could not break the unassailable fact of their immortality.

That fact was fiction, and Ahriman felt his world crumble.

The Thousand Sons screamed.

The Space Wolves howled.

The vox exploded with it, an atavistic declaration of fury.

“With me!” shouted Skarssen.

And the Wolves were unleashed.

They poured from the rocks, bolters spitting fire and missiles launched on the run as they swept towards the Titan. The Terminators led the charge, a wall of armoured fury that would eviscerate any normal foe, but which would be next to useless against this enemy. Ahriman and Uthizzar went with them, knowing it was madness for infantry to move in the presence of so powerful and terrible a war machine. The Titan was king of the battlefield, a towering killing machine that crashed foot-soldiers without even registering their presence.

Yet there was an undeniable thrill in risking everything like this, a noble heroism and vitality he normally never felt in combat. The Enumerations gave a warrior focus, prevented his emotions from overwhelming him, and kept his mind free of distractions that could get him killed. The business of war was more deadly than it had ever been in any of the violent ages of Man, the surety of death or injury a warrior’s constant companion. The Enumerations helped the Thousand Sons face such thoughts objectively, and allowed them to fight on regardless.

To do otherwise was inconceivable, and Ahriman was always amazed that mortals ever dared to step onto a battlefield. Yet here he was, raw grief and the vicarious energy of the Space Wolves carrying him forward without the protection of emotional detachment.

As the Space Wolves came, so too did the Thousand Sons.

The last surviving Land Raiders, both black and belching smoke, darted like pack predators as they fired on the Titan. Desperate to avenge their primarch, the red-armoured warriors of Magnus charged with the same boundless energy as the Space Wolves, their cool detachment cast aside in this one, headlong charge.

It was reckless and futile, but also brave and heroic.

The seething fire began to fade, and Ahriman’s charge faltered at the sight before him. A vitrified bowl of a crater spread out at the mighty war engine’s clawed feet, yet at its centre was a sight that lifted his heart and filled him with awe.

A shimmering dome of golden-hued energy rippled in the heat haze, and within it, two armoured figures. Atop a crooked pillar of rock at the heart of the crater, all that had survived the Titan’s fire, were Phosis T’kar and Magnus the Red. The captain of the 2nd Fellowship was bent almost double, his arms raised to his shoulders like Atlas Telamonof Old Earth, the rebellious titan doomed to bear the celestial sphere upon his shoulders for all eternity.

“A kine shield,” breathed Uthizzar. “Who knew T’kar was so strong?”

Ahriman laughed in desperate relief. Magnus was alive! He was on his knees, weakened and all but exhausted by his destruction of the first Titan, but he was alive, and that simple fact pulsed through every warrior of the Thousand Sons in a connected instant of joy and wonder.

In that moment of relief, the Astartes of both Legions let fly their anger and hurt pride.

The Space Wolves unleashed the fangs of their every weapon, bolts, missiles and armour-cracking shells seeking out the Titan’s wounds and tearing them wider. In the midst of the Sons of Russ, Ahriman and Uthizzar did likewise, unloading magazine after magazine of explosive rounds at the object of their hatred. Skarssen exhorted his warriors with bellowed howls without meaning, but with a power all their own. Ohthere Wyrdmake prowled the length of the Space Wolf advance, surrounded by pack wolves as a frozen wind and the echo of a distant winter storm swirled around him.

The Wolves of Fenris attacked with all their weapons, and so too did the scions of Prospero fight with all of theirs.

Hundreds of waving streams of fire licked up at the Titan, but this was no ordinary barrage. Warriors bearing the phoenix symbol of the Pyrae were firing on the move, hurling aetheric flames from their gauntlets. In the midst of the 6th Fellowship, Khalophis threw his fists like a pugilist, each jab sending a stream of coruscating fire against the enormous Titan. Where it struck, it burned away the Titan’s armour, exposing its crystalline structure and unmaking the bone-like material of its construction.

“Merciful fates!” cried Uthizzar at the sight of Khalophis. “What is he doing?”

“Rescuing our primarch!” yelled Ahriman. “As we should!”

The strength of the Pyrae was ascendant, but this was incredible. Within the cult temples of Prospero, such art could be wielded without fear, but to do so with outsiders present was reckless beyond imagining.

Nor were Khalophis and Phosis T’kar alone in their brazen displays.

Hathor Maat whipped his hands back and forth, each time casting traceries of purple lightning towards the towering machine. Explosions and dancing balls of fire crackled like electric chains around its body, burning its armour open. Arcs of lightning flashed between the warriors of the Pavoni as their captain drank deep of their energies and channelled it through his flesh.

Uthizzar grabbed his arm, and Ahriman read the fear in his aura.

“They have to stop!” hissed Uthizzar. “All of them! To tap into the Great Ocean is intoxicating, you know that all too well, but only the most disciplined and powerful dare wield power such as this!”

“Our brother-captains are powerful and disciplined practitioners of the hidden arts,” said Ahriman, shrugging off Uthizzar’s hold.

“But are they disciplined enough?That is the real question.”

Ahriman had no answer for him and returned his attention to killing the Titan.

The Titan was dying, but it didn’t die easily. Its limbs thrashed in its death throes, spitting incandescent pulses of energy that tore down the valley walls and obliterated dozens of Astartes with every fiery sweep.

Its defiance was finally ended when Khalophis and Hathor Maat combined a hurricane of fire and a spear of lightning that struck the war machine’s head with a killing blow. The curved skull exploded and the towering machine collapsed, plummeting straight down like dead wood hewn by a woodsman’s axe.

The noise was deafening: breaking plates, shattering glass and snapping bone all in one. It fell hard, breaking into a billion pieces, none larger than the size of a man’s fist, and a glittering rain of splintered ceramic fell upon the victorious Astartes like musical notes. The Astartes lowered their weapons, and took a collective breath as the dust and smoke of battle began to settle.

The golden dome shielding Phosis T’kar and the primarch collapsed with a squalling shriek. Phosis T’kar fell, utterly drained by the act of protecting his primarch, as Magnus the Red rose to his feet once more. Though the toll taken upon him was great, he remained as magnificent as ever. Magnus lifted the stricken body of Phosis T’kar, and stepped from the pillar of rock.

He did not fall. Instead, Magnus floated across the crater like a battle-weary angel, borne aloft by his incredible power through a billowing mist of shimmering crystal.

The Thousand Sons were there to greet him, ecstatic beyond words that their primarch had survived. Ahriman and Uthizzar pushed through the scrum of Astartes, their warriors only reluctantly parting to allow them through. Ahriman reached the edge of the crater as Magnus set foot on the glassy floor of the valley and gently laid Phosis T’kar before him.

“Hathor Maat,” said Magnus, his voice weary and thin. “See to him. Bend all the power of the Pavoni to his survival. You will not allow him to die.”

The captain of the 3rd Fellowship nodded. He knelt beside Phosis T’kar and swiftly removed his helmet. T’kar’s face was deathly pale. Hathor Maat placed his hands on either side of his neck, and almost instantaneously colour returned to his face.

“My lord,” said Ahriman, his voice almost too choked with emotion to speak. “We thought… We thought you lost to us.”

Magnus smiled weakly, dabbing at a trickle of blood that ran from the corner of his mouth. His eye shone a bruised violet and red. Never had Ahriman seen his beloved leader so battered.

“I will live,” said Magnus. “But this is not over yet. These guardians were perverted by the corruption imprisoned beneath this peak. It has lain dormant for an age, but it has awoken. Unless we stop it, everything we have learned here will be lost.”

“What would you have us do, lord?” demanded Khalophis.

Magnus turned to the cave mouth. It was thick with growths, like blackened roots from some parasitic weed burrowed into the meat of the Mountain.

“Walk with me into the depths, my sons,” said Magnus. “We will finish this together.”