We have set traps en route to the lairs we have chosen, and we keep moving in an effort to confuse those who hunt for us. In the meantime I have worked to re-establish communication both with our forces on the surface and in orbit. So far, things up there are going better than things down here.
Our ships have engaged the enemy warship and it looks as though there is very much the possibility of victory this time. Our captains know what to expect and have not been taken off guard. On the surface, in the mountains, the army that had been tied down besieging the human cities is assembling alongside those forces I dispersed to avoid the orbital bombardment. It is only a matter of hours before they are in position to swoop down on the humans and punish their temerity.
For now, I must see to it that my forces below ground are preserved. The gate will be opening soon and that means I must be prepared to act quickly when the opportunity presents itself. I give my attention to one of the humans I have captured. It looks at me, eyes wide with fear. I am hungry and it has been some time since I have had any nourishment. I pull out my toolkit and prepare to feed.
‘This place feels odd,’ said Drake as we entered the deepest part of the labyrinth. ‘Strange psychic currents swirl in the air here. This is the centre of the psychic disturbance.’
‘I will take your word for that, my friend,’ said Macharius.
‘You would be well advised to, Lord High Commander.’
‘Your teams claim there were signs the eldar had been here in strength.’
‘We found flayed corpses and the bodies of those who had died under torture. It seemed reasonable to believe the eldar made use of this place.’
‘Why do they do it?’ Macharius asked. He sounded genuinely baffled. ‘Why do they indulge in such a despicable practice?’
‘Because they are deviant xenos scum,’ said Drake. There was no real anger or horror in his voice. He was simply stating a self-evident truth.
‘I have met other xenos. They did not feel the urge to be so cruel. At least not so consistently.’
‘The eldar are known for their decadence. Some factions more than others.’
‘It would appear we have met one of the crueller ones,’ said Macharius.
‘How would we know? We have so little to compare them to.’
Macharius shrugged. I looked at Drake. I realised I was seeing an unusual thing; the inquisitor was uneasy. It was not like him to admit ignorance on any subject.
We came at last to an odd, arched structure in the wall. It looked as if it were a gate or a doorway but made of solid stone. Drake took out some sort of portable divinatory engine and turned it on. He studied the results and said, ‘It’s solid. There is nothing behind this. This gate leads nowhere.’
‘Why put it here then?’ Macharius asked. ‘It is strange to have a representation of such a thing at this spot. You would expect a tunnel, something leading deeper into the earth, another chamber. Why place a gate here?’
Drake looked at his scanner, then at the gate and said, ‘I don’t know, but energies roil at this spot, and I sense something dark and strange beyond it.’
Macharius raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought you said there was nothing behind it, merely solid stone. Is there something buried there?’
Drake looked baffled. ‘It is solid. If we blasted the stonework away we would find nothing, and yet I sense…’ His voice trailed off into silence and he said, ‘It would not be a good idea to try and destroy the stonework here. It is permeated with psychic energies, and they are getting stronger.’
‘Has it any connection to the eldar presence?’
‘I strongly suspect some things,’ the inquisitor said.
‘What are they?’
‘I think this place was laid out according to some alien geomantic principle. It was intended to channel energies and achieve some goal.’
‘You could not be a little more specific?’
‘I am not any sort of psychic engineer. The ancient eldar were supposed to be, though. A lot of their so-called civilisation was built on such principles. I think this whole valley is an engine of some sort, and whatever is in it is coming awake.’
‘It would seem best to assume that whatever is happening here is not intended for our benefit.’
‘That would be wise,’ said Drake.
Macharius turned to the men guarding the gateway arch. ‘Remain here, and if anything unusual occurs report it at once.’
‘At once, sir,’ said the soldiers. We turned and made our way back to the surface.
Chapter Twenty
I have the reports from my commanders on the surface. It seems that everything is in place and that the warship in orbit has been drawn out of position to engage my fleet. The signal from the gate tells me that the opening must occur soon. It is almost time to give the order to attack.
And yet something stops me. I am not even sure what it is. Perhaps I simply want to savour the moment, to bask in those last few heartbeats before my plan of attack is implemented and that which was merely a possibility in my mind becomes wedded to reality. Perhaps I am afraid that it will all go wrong as so much has gone wrong during the course of this conflict. I have developed considerable respect for the human commander, which feels like an obscenity when I contemplate it but nonetheless is true. I would not have thought it possible that one of those hairless apes could have caused me so much trouble.
I give myself a few seconds, and then I speak the words that will send my forces into the attack and trap the humans in the Valley of the Ancients forever.
One by one my commanders report back. The assault has begun.
After we returned to the surface, Macharius dismissed us. As the afternoon sun rose over the mountains, Anton, Ivan and I hiked to the northern edge of the valley, directly beneath the great stone face.
Looking up at it from this angle it lost any of its resemblance to humanity, stopped being a face and was just a jumble of lines and stone protrusions. It was like the other cliffs surrounding us, the intelligence that had shaped it in no way evident.
All around us were a mass of boulders, some the size of a pillow, some the size of an armoured vehicle. There was lots of jagged scree. Green moss marked everything. Twin gulleys ran away from the bottom of the rock face. It was set on a separate peak that protruded into the north of the valley like the prow of a great stone ship.
The air was chill and clear, and our breath came out in clouds, like the exhausts of the vehicles in cold climates.
I studied the rocks. There was no sign that a large force of xenos had passed this way last night. There was no sign of tracks or wheeled vehicles. It was as though all the eldar vehicles moved without making contact with the ground. They must have been fiercely manoeuvrable as well. The rocks provided quite an obstacle course for any craft trying to move through them.
I looked up the gulleys and saw green-tunicked Lion Guard at work, laying mines, setting up wire and booby traps and gun emplacements among the rocks. If the eldar came back, they would be noticed and slowed by them. I took a seat on one of the smaller boulders, broke out a ration pack and began to eat. The others did likewise.
Anton let out a long, satisfied sigh. ‘I love work,’ he said. ‘I could watch people doing it all day.’
Anton munched some jerky and looked at the hills through the scope of his sniper rifle. Ivan propped himself up, back against a large boulder so that he had cover, and took out a small toolset. With a hooked implement he began to work at the hinge of his jaw. It was a disturbing sight. It’s a strange world when you can get used to looking at torn apart bodies but the sight of a friend repairing his augmetics is off-putting when you eat.