Nareth sat upon the throne, listening to an urgent report from Arsena Dunn.
"My lord, Alrenis has sent an emergency distress call."
"Francesc Soler, the Imperium appointed governor, reports that a large number of Aeldari have suddenly appeared on the planet."
"Governor Soler is leading the Planteray Defence Force in resistance, but they are being driven back at every turn. He has now retreated to the Governor's Palace for a final stand."
Nareth considered the situation. The House Saesac, who ruled Alrenis, were sworn to him, and the planet was a critical supply hub for the upcoming Wheel of Fire campaign. He made his decision swiftly.
After the Throne of Shadow's Sovereignty docked in high orbit over Alrenis, the Primarch led his Honour Guard aboard five Stormbirds and set course for the Governor's Palace.
Mid-flight, his aide noticed his gaze drifting toward the Stormbird's inner hull and spoke up:
"My lord, the Techmarines have been studying the complete schematics of the Stormbird. They have made progress on the quantum field repulsor project."
"At the current pace, we expect substantive breakthroughs in five months and to produce the first prototype of a new experimental craft."
Nareth nodded and turned his gaze to the viewing port, toward the palace.
The first thing his pitch-black eyes picked out was a green heavy vehicle.
In that instant, he recognised it, Biel-Tan, the most warlike of all craftworlds.
The Void Spinner was unique to Biel-Tan, a tank whose Doomweaver cannon not only fired monomolecular filaments but also unleashed swarms of bio-engineered bacteria and wraithbone parasites.
These would dissolve anything, leaving not even the spores of the Orks, the Aeldari's old foes.
Although effective, many Aeldari loathed such killing methods, regarding the tanks as abominations.
For them, bacteria and wraithbone parasites were meant to remake worlds, to create life, not destroy it.
Only Biel-Tan, dedicated to restoring the glory of the ancient Aeldari Empire, made use of such machines.
Preparing to go to war against the Ork Empire, Nareth could not help but think: 'This is a gift delivered to my doorstep. We have to capture some of the Void Spinner for study… If we could breed wraithbone parasites, the Wheel of Fire campaign, and even future wars against the greenskins, would be far easier.'
He scanned the other vehicles and warriors, reading the runes they bore.
The attackers on Alrenis carried markings composed of three symbols: a heart shape, a semicircle, and a cross.
Biel-Tan, as expected.
For Biel-Tan, the runes symbolised not only reincarnation but also the rebirth of their lost age, emblems of their dream to restore the empire.
"Open fire!"
At the Primarch's command, the Stormbirds loosed six Dreadstrike missiles, locking onto the Void Spinner.
The missiles, trailing fiery plumes, screamed into the tank's forked prow.
The Void Spinner belched black smoke, spinning into a fall.
Its Vaul-engine roared, the Doomweaver firing a storm of monomolecular filaments at the Stormbirds.
Warning klaxons shrieked from the void shields before going silent.
Turrets of twin-linked lascannons and twin-linked heavy bolters spat beams and detonations toward the ground.
A dozen green-armoured Dire Avengers were torn apart by the withering fire.
Before the Stormbird even touched down, Nareth had leapt from its open hatch.
The Primarch hit the ground and immediately charged, slamming into the blue-armoured Avengers.
In the endless war of the galaxy, more Aeldari had walked the Warrior Path than any other. Unlike the Guardian "militia," who only took up arms in crisis, these warriors dedicated their entire existence to the perfection of war.
The Warrior Path was long and complex, divided into branches called Aspects, each embodying a facet of the war god Khaine.
The Avengers traced their origins to the first Phoenix Lord, Asurmen.
After the Fall of the Aeldari, Asurmen had led his craftworld away from the ancient homeworlds, founding the first Aspect Shrine, the Dire Avengers.
Those Dire Avengers wearing elaborate green-crested helms, crests woven from the hair of exotic beasts, raised their shuriken catapults and unleashed a precise blanket of fire.
The shuriken weapon was almost synonymous with the Aeldari, but most, like the Guardians, could not control it with such precision. These Avengers could lay down a filament storm more accurate than any human marksman.
Their faith came from Khaine's rage at the Smith-God Vaul.
In Aeldari myth, the dream goddess Lileath foresaw that the Aeldari would be the cause of the downfall of Khaine. When he learned of this, Khaine began slaughtering the Aeldari.
Isha, goddess of life, begged Asuryan to save her children. The Phoenix King agreed, erecting a barrier between the Warp and realspace, forbidding divine interference in mortal affairs.
But Isha and her consort Kurnous could not abandon their children, secretly guiding them forward.
Khaine discovered this and told Asuryan, who handed the two over for punishment. The war god used every torment he knew upon them.
Vaul then struck a bargain: he would forge a hundred swords for Khaine within a year. Even wielded by a mortal, a Vaul-forged blade could slay a thousand foes.
For a year, Vaul toiled without rest, yet made only ninety-nine; he was forced to slip a mortal-made weapon into the set.
The tale of the "Hundred Swords of Vaul" had two endings; in the Avenger Shrine's telling, Khaine's defeat against the Necrons came because of that one flawed sword.
The Avengers' perfect marksmanship was born of this rage at betrayal; they sought for every shuriken to strike true and punish oath-breakers without mercy.
Each Avenger was a master of the shuriken catapult, wielding a long-barrelled variant unique to the Shrine.
Advanced targeting computers in their pauldrons linked armour to weapons. Multi-spectrum zscanned and tracked multiple targets, feeding data to their helmet displays and marking friend from foe.
They also bound their weapons to spirit stones, using psychic precision to guide every shot.
Under the command of a finely armoured Exarch, the Dire Avengers unleashed their "Bladestorm."
Over a hundred catapults locked onto Nareth and fired.
In an instant, their magazines were emptied, yet not a single shot strayed.
Razor-edged disks filled the air, each containing a thousand monomolecular threads, each one psychically driven toward the Primarch.
The Exarch's coordination turned the hail into a storm, engulfing his black armour.
No one could evade such density of fire, not even a Primarch.
Nareth raised his left arm to shield his head.
The storm of filaments lashed against black armour sheathed in iron-hued scales.
The scales had been taken from an iron-scaled kraken the Primarch himself had hunted, reforged by the Techmarines and set into his armour.
Enough to shred a dozen Malcador heavy tanks or pierce a Stormbird's void shield, the monofilament storm could not harm it.
With a swing of his arm, Nareth's power fist smashed into an Avenger, golden light shattering his weapon and tearing through his blue-and-white tabard.
Going into the first layer of the Thelema mind state, he caught the Exarch's blade on his sword.
He felt no psychic assault, then remembered: the Aeldari had not yet discovered the spirit stone, and the Sword of Fury had not yet been forged.
Khaine's emissary roared in anger and donned the "Mask of War."
...
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