Bray Primus burned.
From the armaglass viewport on the battlebarge Kyd’s Revenge, Chief Librarian and Master of Philosophy, Thomus More watched as the battle for the system came to its end. From the ship’s rest in high orbit, Thomus could see the fleets of the Sons of Dorn and the Iron Warriors engaged in the colossal lightshow that was void combat. Over the curvature of the igniting planet, voidshields flickered brilliant mosaics of colours against blinding barrages of ordinance. Thomus stared on with ignited blue eyes as he witnessed a strike cruiser split in two from a laslance and explode into a white-hot sun as its reactors went critical. But his mind’s eye was elsewhere; time was short. Exterminatus of the planet had begun.
He walked in another plane of existence on the planet’s surface, searching for the source of psychic might that had drawn the Second Company and the ruinous powers to the planet. A power of a soul so engorged with the energies of the Immiterium that, for the first time in centuries, he had felt a flicker of doubt in his own abilities. But there was another presence walking with him, out of sight in the darkness of the Warp, but ever shadowing his movements and hindering his search.
‘We have reports of extreme battlefield phenomena in subsector 34-B7, lord,’ his Master of Voices crackled. ‘A woman walking through fire.’
Thomus’ warp ghost continued to scour the burning grounds of 34-B7 as his body made planetfall violently via drop pod, but to no avail. He was blinded by the shroud cast by his unseen adversary. Then he was grounded.
The black and white psy-knight burst from his pod, already firing his plasma pistol into the haze of planetary war, his force sword drawn and crackling blue lightning of another realm. He did not need to rely on his armour’s targeting systems to hit his targets, for he already knew where the foe would be before they did. He had seen it.
Debris from the void war overhead rained into the black smog of the atmosphere like smouldering shooting stars that would grant only fell wishes. As he raced through the cobbled-stoned city streets, he continued to fire, turning red-robed cultists into ash through the fog of war as he raced at transhuman speeds towards the last confirmed reports of the woman in fire. He danced in the firelight as lasbeams flickered violent yellows towards his position, but none hit their mark. Thomus breathed heavily in his ornate helm as he continued his path of destruction toward his target. The omnipresence of the Warp was building; he was close.
A roar of tectonic catastrophe filled his autosenses from a continent away as the Cyclonic Torpedoes deployed by the Sons of Dorn drove deep into the doomed planet’s core. He braced for the coming shockwave, but even his armour could not shield him from the might of Exterminatus. In a reverse grip, Thomas drove his force blade into the street, creating a bulwark of crackling nether energies against the invisible tide. A breath later, the Librarian was vaulting over the remains of a crumbled bridge and entered a courtyard that seemed not to have been touched by war. Then he saw her.
The woman ran with a group of other civilians through the court towards him. The others screamed in hoarse voices and panic, their tattered and burned clothes flapping brutally in the wind. But the woman was pristine, clutching two cloth bundles in her arms. The fleeing civilians faltered before Thomus, unsure if he was friend or foe, and he reached out with his mind and soothed the weak souls before him. Run.
Thomus felt a malevolent pressure build in the back of his skull, dulling his psychic senses just before he heard the bolter fire. Precise shots echoed out from the wall of smoke on the far side of the courtyard, and the fleeing citizens began to erupt into a bloody mist. Thomus’ armour gyros whirled as he lunged towards the woman, but it was too late.
In a matter of seconds, the courtyard had become a disgusting canvas of blood and bone painted by some murderous artist. The final brush stroke hit its mark, and the woman erupted into a red drizzle; the painter’s magnum opus.
Thomus saw the shrapnel and fire from the reactive round roll off the woman’s clutch as a boulder splits a raging river, and two infants rolled silently to the gore-stained street in tight cloth bundles.
With a roar, a monster speared from the darkness towards Thomas. The giant was clad in ancient ceramite adorned with the screaming skulls of the souls that it had claimed. Thomus parried the two-handed downward swing of a blade carved with hideous runes that whisked obsidian magicks of the Warp. The resulting shockwave of the parry sent a circle of blood and tattered robes outwards from the two titans, and Thomus discarded his relic plasma pistol in favour of a two-handed grip to keep the chaos sorcerer at bay. The interlocked swords burned against one another as power derived from the same source sought to snuff one another out.
Through gritted teeth, Thomus heard the chaos champion whisper blasphemies as the black wisps around the fallen blade began to creep their way into Thomus’ armour with shredding agony.
Suddenly, another seismic shockwave sent both warriors sprawling across the courtyard. As Thomas regained his footing, the small infant boy rolled gently to his feet, while the infant girl rolled to the chaos sorcerers.
‘A stalemate then, mongrel of Dorn,’ spat the sorcerer as he gazed at the burning horizon. The sorcerer then scooped up the female half of Bray’s psychic might and melded into the choking ashes of Exterminatus.
As Thomus knelt to retrieve the boy, he was met with two blazing warp-lit eyes of raw power. Ten thousand fates flashed before Thomus, but all paths led to one destiny. The twins would meet again.
