of movement within. When he squinted, Muhr could see a peculiar little thing – a tiny figure was trapped in the fragment. Sure enough, the creature moved again, dancing and prancing inside the crystal. Although Muhr could not see the microscopic expression of the creature inside, there was a malevolence that exuded from it. Muhr was sure the thing was sneering at him.
‘Thank you, Overlord. What do you–’
Opsarus cut him off. ‘Listen first, Muhr, then questions. Use this shard to disrupt the summoning. Cast it into the wards as you invoke. It will release the daemon within.
Yetsugei will not heed the call.’
‘Overlord…’
Opsarus turned away. ‘Leave.’
Muhr blinked and felt his consciousness resettle in the physical plane. When he opened his eyes, he was in his tower again, surrounded by the familiar pipes and boilers of his laboratory. He rubbed his eyes blearily. As he did so, he realised he clutched something in his palm.
He opened his hand slowly. There, cradled by the folds of his flesh, was a crystal shard.
93
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE PLAINSMEN TOOK Barsabbas northwards. They left the lowlands to spread out behind them, heading towards the darkening skies and the ruins of the deserted north. Soft sand gave way to a barren, rocky topography. The planet’s surface here was scoured dry.
The great muster of kinships was spread beneath the shadow of dormant volcanoes, a range of mountains they called the Weeping Sisters. Acres of tents and shade awnings surrounded the basking silver snakes of various road trains. In the dunes north of the encampment, a kilometre‐long stockade of wagons had been drawn up to protect the exposed flank. What few firearms the plainsmen possessed were there, facing the enemy.
Flocks of outriders on their birds roamed there, patrolling up into the mountains themselves to crow’s‐nest the region.
They spotted Barsabbas and his convoy winding their way through the narrow mountain shoulders. A dozen riders were dispatched to meet them. Together they rode down into the encampment.
Barsabbas counted the numbers with a cursory auspex sweep. He calculated the readout in his head, subtracting an estimation of non‐combatant families and livestock signatures. The total, even with a generous estimate, would be no more than twenty thousand fighters. It was a gathering of road trains, women and children. A mass exodus, not an army.
He had hoped for more. Twenty thousand men would amount to little more than a speed bump against a well‐drilled company of Chaos Space Marines. He needed the plainsmen to occupy the enemy in order for him to infiltrate unnoticed into the deep north.
But they would have to do. He would adapt.
The road train pulled to a steaming halt. Barsabbas alighted from the road train’s cab, dark eldar in tow. Outriders had ridden in advance to bring news of his arrival. Plainsmen rose to meet him, jostling crowds in bright red shukas. They chanted his name. Children spilled from their parents’ tents, eager to claim first sight of the Red God. Women wreathed in brightly coloured neck rings peered sheepishly at him from behind drawn shades. The plainsmen braves, trotting on their predatory birds, came out to regard him with a martial suspicion. They looked like savage men, and Barsabbas understood how his Chapter came to use their ancestors as genestock. Lithe and narrow‐waisted, they donned war crests of feather and hauberks of woven bark strips. He recognised the lineage of bronze skin and high cheekbones on many of his fellow brothers. Drovers, hunters, stock tenders, shamans, they all came to see him and exult in his coming.
As they threaded through the throng, Barsabbas could see a massed ring of hand-painted caravans shaded by a large canvas awning. That would no doubt be the command centre. Its conspicuousness annoyed Barsabbas. It was a large, vulnerable and easily identifiable target. The plainsmen may have been brave, but they certainly did not know war.
A procession of chieftains from the gathered kinships rode out to meet him. They were all elders, men with sun‐creased faces, long and wizened as if etched from aged wood. Their shukas were freshly re‐dyed and left traces of red pigment on their shoulders and arms. At 94
their front, riding several paces ahead upon a black and grey talon squall, was the elder of the entire gathering. Gumede had told Barsabbas of his name, Ngokodjou. Gumede had also warned Barsabbas of his insufferable superiority.
‘I am Ngokodjou Akindes, the elder of elders, wisdom of the dunes to the west. You may call me Ngokodjou,’ said the elder as he drew closer. He