could see the object of our endeavours, fighting just ahead of us. I saw the aura of gold and the flash of hard silver light, and knew that we would come among them soon.
Even our proximity aided them. I saw them kill more swiftly and more surely, and saw the daemons fall back before their onslaught. The Custodian was ploughing through them now, throwing shedim aside in great haymaking thrusts of his guardian spear. Those with him – Adeptus Astartes in archaic plate of silver-grey – blasted them into shrivelled ash. I began to see a way for us to survive this – together, fighting hard to link up with the huge counter-attack even now surging down from the walls.
Then the shadow fell across us all, huge and repulsive. I looked up, and suddenly survival looked a very distant prospect indeed.
Valerian
In truth, I never saw Aleya fight her way towards me until she was virtually among us. She finds this extremely irritating, though I have since learned that Aleya is angered by all manner of strange things. If I had detected her earlier, it might have changed our strategy, since I became aware in those few moments just what a critical advantage it was to have the Sisters fighting with us.
Valoris was, as ever, prescient in this. Alone of the High Lords he had anticipated the need to restore the structures of the past, and alone of the High Lords he had no prejudice against the non-soulled. The records will tell a different tale, I suspect. They will announce that the Fenris disaster prompted the Council to act, and this version will reflect glory on the mortal masters of the Imperium. Though the story has some truth to it – the later order originated, I understand, from the same Chancellor Tieron whom I met myself – anyone who understands the vast distances they had to cover and the nature of the warp will know that the programme must have been enacted many months, maybe even years, before that command was given.
In all that followed, I remain struck by how instantly we slotted back into those ancient modes of combat. We needed no exhaustive instruction, but fell into our roles instinctively. They are formidable fighters, the Sisters. I have nothing but respect for the physical prowess they display, although that is not their primary function on the battlefield. They position themselves in the greatest danger by doing what they do – they are more lightly armoured than we, and attract the larger share of animus from the creatures of the warp.
As for ourselves, we had never lost the ability to converse in fluent Thoughtmark. It was one of the martial disciplines we had maintained over the many millennia, and on that day our prudence was rewarded. Those who marched with the Captain-General from the Lion’s Gate were able to do so in perfect concert, and even for those of us sundered from the main host by circumstance, such as Aleya and myself, our combined methods of controlled violence proved instantly effective.
It was less easy for Alcuin and his battle-brothers. They were all psykers of the most acute kind, and their every waking movement was animated by the warp. For them, the ether and the materium were intrinsically linked, two sides of the same blade that they balanced on effortlessly, and they were accustomed to fighting with the two worlds enmeshed. Even their armour is psy-enhanced, augmenting the cruder biological links used by their counterparts in other Chapters. The arrival of Aleya and her sisters restricted what they could do, and reduced them to fighting as solely physical warriors.
In the circumstances, however, that was a sacrifice I was willing to make. The Grey Knights, even stripped of the bulk of their psychic expertise, were still among the finest fighters I have ever encountered, and they adjusted to the new situation with uncomplaining precision. Robbing the daemons of their most dreadful powers was worth the fractional reduction in my allies’ flexibility, and we all fought from then onwards as if facing beasts, rather than thought-monsters.
Indeed, they yowled like beasts then, the daemonkind. Their exultation was torn from their jaws and their feral glee was replaced by a kind of outrage. They hated this. They hated being denuded of their own realm’s purest dimension and being forced to engage us on mortal terms.
In the moments before I saw Aleya emerge, I do remember finding the fighting suddenly and inexplicably easier. We had pushed hard