Gathering Storm III - Rise of the Primarch

[dikii_kot]

значит там где-то есть целые некрополи с урнами дворников...

Зачем, если можно сделать жратъ для следующей смены?

[Inkor]

Не, ну в отрывке понятно, что нагнетался гримдарк. Типа террра монстроузный лабиринтообразный улей и по прямой ко дворцу никак не проедешь даже по самому короткому маршруту, а подлететь напрямую наверняка местная безопасность не позволяет. Но два дня это многовато, если только конечно Жилле не решили устроить экскурсию или там адовые пробки, единственный способ расчистить которые являются не мигалки, а прямые залпы орудий.

Изменено 11 марта, 2017 пользователем Inkor

[BrEd Pitt]

Собственно, там и есть пробки, которые нужно орбитальными бомбардировками расчищать. Тем более на орбите (в пассаже из чего-то там про пилигримов было, что за время паломничества сменяются поколения, а иногда проходит поколение, прежде чем с орбиты Терры паломники попадут на поверхность). И это в объеме пробки. Что на дорогах - ....

[Howling griffon]

а прямые залпы орудий.

Есть мнение что в дефолт сити только так и можно бороться с ними..

[Miralynx]

"Критикам двухсуточного забега до Золотого Трона"

Экие вы все шустрые. Взгляните на происходящее со стороны Экклезиархии. Сын самого Импи явился на Терру, а вы хотите, чтоб раз-два, и Жиля приехал к Папке. Да на святой Земелюшке одних представительств всяких там Мухосрансков могло оказаться на многие-многие тыщи. А чо, услышали, что Жиля проснулся, и приехали посмотреть. Может, эти двое суток Жилю показывали всяким там ноунеймам, чтобы те в своих Мухосрансках, бия себя пяткой в грудь, заявляли: всё правда, всё! Одних пафоса и шикарности со смотрин в увидевших людях может хватить на выпиливание пары орочьих набегов, осколков тиранидских роёв и прочих там ушастых диверсантов. Это же ваха, ноу лоджик и всякое прочее. В конце концов, на одних смотринах Экклезиархия могла поднять столько бабла, что Жилины потуги что-то там исправить на этом фоне - детский лепет.

[Листригон]

Не, ну в отрывке понятно, что нагнетался гримдарк. Типа террра монстроузный лабиринтообразный улей и ....

вот странно, что народ этого не понимает, хз, про Ваху они вообще слышали?

Но два дня это многовато...

это из каких-таких соображений?

могли и две недели ехать, как раз было бы в стиле старого-доброго варХаммера

[Curator]

вот кстати в версию что это Жилю всем показывали - верится больше чем в "примарх в пробке простоял" ))

[MoonPhoenix]

вот кстати в версию что это Жилю всем показывали - верится больше чем в "примарх в пробке простоял" ))

Скорей всего так и есть. Если бы в Империуме не была такая :oops:, то Жилю вообще несколько месяцев водили. :)

[Boooomm]

Гурону было мало 8 халков, на которых его банда вышла на штурм Чогориса? Кстати, интересно как там дела. Похоже Корсарам прилетело не слабо, раз срочно взялись Жилю ловить всем составом.

30, батенька. 30 спэйс халков.

п.с. Кстати, все персонажи Ультры живы. Я аж даже удивлен. Калгар жив, Тигурий жив, Сикарий жив, Агемман жив.

[Листригон]

а про Лордов Терры есть инфа?

как они к появлению Жиллимана отнеслись?

что лорд "жиллиман" теперь делает?

[Skallagrimr]

а про Лордов Терры есть инфа?

как они к появлению Жиллимана отнеслись?

что лорд "жиллиман" теперь делает?

Безбожно сокращает штат :)

[WildDuck]

В книге так же присутствуют бековые вставки о других событиях, надеюсь, как и в прошлый раз - их тут переведут

"1"

>>>Message Fragment Commences.

‘…epeat, this is station Dema, vox operator Naum Hestro transmitting over all channels. Our Astropaths are dead. Station Overseer Munce is dead. There’s… so many dead… anyone hears this message, I beg you, carry it on to Segmentum Command. To Holy Terra herself. Throne, they have to be warned…’

********Message corruption // background sounds of gunfire, screaming voices // breaks to static approx 73 seconds // Message fragment recommences, severe vocal stress detected.

‘…oh two hundred seventeen sidereal, the Astropaths complained of empyric disturbance. Our instruments triangulated its source as quadrant eighty eight of the Ocularis Terribus. By zero two hundred forty six, Immaterium flux increased to magnitude crimson, and the Astropaths experienced waking visions of a black stone hammer shattering a castle gate. Overseer Munce ordered the Geller generatorums roused.

Emperor curse his soul, he waited too long.

The screams began at zero three hundred. So many voices. So much death. The Astropaths went into terminal seizure, hundreds of voices spilling from their mouths. We recorded what we could, then gave them the Emperor’s mercy.

It was Cadia. Cadia is gone. Broken in the Despoiler’s fist. Without it, the Eye of Terror is spilling forth, overflowing reality. I do not understand how, or why, but it is so. Our empyric augurs, the audio-retrieval from the Astropaths’ death screams… they all confirm.

Again I beseech you, don’t attempt rescue. We are lost. When the Astropaths died, something… else came through to… wear their skin. It is stalking us. Hunting. We don’t have long, but none of that matters.

Only the warning matters.

Please…’

"2"

ADDENDA INQUISITORIA

ASTRAL MISSIVE

(HARBINGER TRAGEDIUM)

<<Astropathic Intercept // Blood Angels>>

Entry 1 – Sender: Blood Angels Librarian Asmasael. Recipient: Unknown.

Dire omens and portents abound [stop] Empyric energies around Hub Beta-Secundus excavation site increasing exponentially [stop] Amethal, all of Diamor System in jeopardy [stop] Request advisory, reinforcement, transmission of message to <redacted> [end]

Entry 2 – Sender: Unknown, origin point Baal. Recipient: Librarian Asmasael.

Report received [stop] Tyranid presence increasing spinward [stop] Demonstrable and increasing threat to Baal System confirmed [stop] No further reinforcement available [stop] Message relayed to <redacted> [end]

Entry 3 – Sender: Blood Angels Librarian Asmasael. Recipient: Unknown.

Understood [stop] Malefic manifestations spreading across planets Amethal, Tourmalid, Peridos [stop] Metalican forces overrun, current strength approx 27% [stop] The Cage is breaking, brother. Commend our souls to the Angel [end]

Entry 4 – Sender: Unknown, origin point Baal. Recipient: Librarian Asmasael.

Negative [stop] Splinter Fleets encroaching upon outer piquet fleet elements [stop] Successors still gathering, interference from shadow in the Warp increasing [stop] You are ordered to abandon Amethal, salvage all Imperial materiel, make haste for Baal [end]

Entry 5 – Sender: Unknown, origin point Baal. Recipient: Librarian Asmasael.

No response received to previous message [stop] Confirm receipt of new orders [stop] Darkness gathers, Brother. The Angel has need of your strength [end]

"3"

ADDENDA INQUISITORIA

ASTRAL MISSIVE

(BESTIALIS AGGRESSOR)

<<cf:// Thraka, Ghazghkull Mag Uruk>>

<<dt:// Sightings and Falsehoods>>

My Lady Inquisitor,

I have compiled a chronicle of sightings and reports. I must stress to you once again that the full body of accounts rune-locked within this dataslate make for impossible reading. You of all people must surely be aware of the malefic dissonance plaguing communication. They say that the storms rage from Oberica to the Eastern Fringe, and with every convulsion of the Immaterium, messages will be interrupted, reports conflated, and errors made. It is simply impossible that the Beast of Armageddon could be sighted in so many localities at once!

To suggest that he has progressed so quickly from one Segmentum to the next? To claim that he leads a fleet in excess of five million warships, or that ‘leering Orkoid faces manifest in the void, avidly watching their progress’? Nonsense! It cannot have been the same Ork that led the attack upon the Drakenfyr System, and overran the Chapter planet of the Knights Obstinate. Those actions were divided, as best we can tell, by mere weeks! Valion’s Tear? Red Reach? Modexia? To claim that one mindless brute was responsible for all of these Imperial defeats is, at best, deluded excuse-smithing.

Thus I urge you once more to discard this needless investigation and to concentrate your efforts upon those threats that we know to be real.

But of course, I do so only with the greatest respect, my Lady Inquisitor.

Your servant,

Arch-Scrivener First Class and Etchmaster of the Gilded Quill,

Allouicious Dunt

"4"

ADDENDA INQUISITORIA

ASTROPATHIC INTERCEPT

(MALEFICUS EXACTIS)

<<sub ref::: White Scars// sub ref::: Red Corsairs// sub ref::: Chogoris>>

Hear us, brother. The Great Hunt falters. The lair of the Khans is beset, and you are called home. Abandon your quarry, Kor’sarro Khan, for your people have need of your wisdom and strength.

The Maelstrom’s wrath grows greater by the day. Like a storm cloud that races swiftly from the distant horizon to darken the skies above, the Warp rift has billowed and swollen until it seems it will blot out the stars. Chogoris writhes at its touch. Grasslands burn. Beasts run wild, or turn to monstrous, deformed things.

From the heart of that storm has the enemy come, turncoats and renegades marching beneath the banners of the Tyrant of Badab.

The tribes of the plains have suffered beneath their tainted claws. They have built mountains of the dead, ritual ziggurats of corpse flesh dedicated to their Dark Gods. We know not what goal they work toward, but they are surely close to its completion, and we who remain are too few to hunt them all.

Holding actions. Ambushes. Feigned flight and sudden strikes. The Great Khan would be proud of the fight that we have fought, brother. But we cannot prevail alone, that much now becomes clear. Thus do we cry for aid, from yourself and from those Khans whose hunts have born them far across the stars into the lairs of the myriad foe. No prey, nor matter of honour, is as important as this fight.

You must come, now, while there is still time, and slay them all in the name of the Great Khan. Their insults shall not go unpunished.

"5"

>>>LOCALITUM BELLICOS: ARMAGEDDON SECUNDUS

>>>AUTOMATED ALERT BEACON DELTA-DELTA-RHO

>>>CLARION PEAL AWOKEN

>>>MALEFIC MANIFESTATION DETECTED 011100010101100

– – – –

– – –

– –

–

Input> Empyric augurs registering exponential energy increase – Armageddon southern polar region

Observation> Warp anomalies manifesting through coordinates 124/33-863/22

Input> Greenskin ‘Bloodjaw Offensive’ entering 7th day of successive fighting in this region

Query> Correlation?

Query> Previous experiential data available within sacrosanct data-stacks?

Action> Interrogating….

Action> Interrogating….

Action> Interrogating….

Exception> [DATA REDACTED]

Exception> [VERMILLION CLEARANCE DEMANDED – UNAVAILABLE]

Action> Interrogation abandoned

Action> Clarion Peal repeating – vigilance subroutines auto-sanctified – missive caution lodged with Armageddon High Command

Observation> Malefic manifestations increasing – full Warp breach imminent…

Observation> Malefic manifestations increasing – full Warp breach imminent…

Observation> Malefic manifestations increasing – full Warp breach imminent…

"6"

ADDENDA INQUISITORIA

ASTROPATHIC INTERCEPT

(PERDITUM EXTREMIS)

<<Origin: Unknown>>

<<Temporal Reference: Unknown>>

<<Astrogation Locality: Unknown>>

Course holding steady, Captain. Empyric disturbance still increasing, but the light of the Emperor shall bring us home. Soul traffick within acceptable parameters.

Noting some malefic buildup around abaft the primary port side batteries. Recommend the Martian magi redouble their prayers and attend the Geller fields in that sector, lest we risk a breach.

There is… increased storm activity on the currents to port… I… what is that? An eye opens… Are those… mountains? No, fangs…

Hngh… my head…

Oh Throne…

Captain! Massive empyric surge to port! Magnitude unendurable! Ahh… it…hurts… Captain VanDent, you must perform crash translation at once or we are all lost! Alert the fleet! This Warp surge will devour us all!

The Emperor’s light… oh throne, its gone! The Astronomican is gone!

Captain!

No, no, NO…

<Excerpt Ends

"7"

**We scribe a tale of bloodshed and woe, my mentor. A tragedy is wrought.**

**What has befallen, Lladrea? What of the Ynnari?**

**The priestess and her warriors may yet bring us victory. A thousand grav-craft are still in the field. Were it only the spawn of the sea of sorrows that we fought, victory would be ours.**

**Another power intercedes, then? The skein is tangled?**

**The black pylons are not all that languishes upon Thenicali. The ghosts of the Necrontyr rise.**

**Such arrogance! Is their bitterness so great?**

**It was our hatred that fanned these flames. We landed in the valley of statues and swept the Daemons aside. We fought in the shadows of the pylons, with the Ynnari at our head. The foe could not prevail…**

**What, then, occurred? Where did we misstep?**

**The chasms lit with green fire. Perhaps the old foe sought common cause with us? They fired only upon the Daemons, until we fired upon them. Had we but offered a chance to stand at our side, as Yvraine urged… Autarch Kaerathael directed the Engines of Vaul to fire upon the Necron engines rising from the chasm. We are beset, now, upon two sides. The bodies pile higher. The ground cracks and heaves, and the pylons sing their last lament.**

**Remain strong, Lladrea. We draw close, my friend, with Asurmen himself at our side. Endure, and we shall prevail.**

**I fear otherwise, Cthelain. But we shall fight. Until the very end, we shall fight…**

[Skallagrimr]

В эпоху межзвездных перелетов добираться из одного конца планеты в противоположный двое суток - это гребанный стыд. За двое суток можно и сейчас на другом конце глобуса очутиться.

Сказ о том, как Гиллимана на Терре встречали (в картинках).

Изменено 11 марта, 2017 пользователем Skallagrimr

[Стрилятель]

В книге так же присутствуют бековые вставки о других событиях, надеюсь, как и в прошлый раз - их тут переведут

Meh. Ничего нового, единственно что на Армагеддоне походу демоническое набигание ожидается, а у Гази якобы уже флот в 5 мильенов корабликов.

[Sekhmethotep]

В книге так же присутствуют бековые вставки о других событиях, надеюсь, как и в прошлый раз - их тут переведут

Око растёт, у Ангелов проблемы на Баале, эльдары страдают от некронов.

Но с чего это Газкул косплеит альфу - он везде и нигде. И что за варп-аномалии на Армагеддоне. Теперь это будет поле битвы с хаосом?

Ну и странная передаче о чём-то большом в Варпе - это тот самый пустотный кит-переросток, что ли?

Ох думаю актуальный таймлайн восьмёрки будет лет через 100 минимум.

[Dehn]

Господи, смилуйся над людьми с настолько хилым воображением, что и представить себе не могут, как это: добираться двое суток до Дворца примарху и несколько поколений обычному смертному.

[dimon_metalist]

Комрады, а что-то всплывало о мече Льва у Сайфера? В плане чего это Жиля от его вида содрогнулся и спужался его близко к папке подводить? Не припомню в бэке ничего такого у меча Льва вроде

Изменено 11 марта, 2017 пользователем dimon_metalist

[Гиар]

Мутный парень хочяет встречи с батей? причем у парня откуда-то мечик братца и этот же парень ничего толком не объясняет. Действительно, все нормально...

[dimon_metalist]

вот об этом я. Ну меч Льва, ну сломал его когда-то. С фига ли ли содраться от его вида?

[Дарт Йорикус]

Но с чего это Газкул косплеит альфу - он везде и нигде.

В 32-м тысячелетии Империум едва не нагнули шесть Зверей-приморков, по одному на клан. Газгкулл - перерождение одного из них.

А с чего косплеит? Меки сварганили ему теллипорту, позволяющую перемещаться по всей галактике.

И ещё одна маленькая, но забавная деталь. Армагеддон это телепортированный Улланор.

Изменено 11 марта, 2017 пользователем Судья Йорик

[Monique]

Надеюсь, Улланор-Армагеддон вернут оркам, это ведь их Святая Терра.

И надеюсь, что в остальных кланах появятся свои Звери.

[Howling griffon]

Этоджъ орковъ придется переиздавать. Газзи примархоподобным делать. А то сейчас его Жиллиман мелкой стружкой нарежет даже не напрягаясь...

[Дарт Йорикус]

Приложение инквизитория

Астропатический перехват

(Малефикус Экзастис)

<<Ссылка::: Белые Шрамы// Ссылка::: Красные Корсары// Ссылка::: Чогорис>>

Услышь нас, брат. Время повременить с Великой Охотой. Осаждено логово самих Ханов, и мы зовём тебя домой. Оставь свою добычу, Кор'сарро-хан, твоя сила и мудрость нужны нашему народу.

Гнев Мальстрима с каждым днём становится сильнее. Подобно грозовому облаку, мчащемуся с далёкого горизонта, чтобы омрачить всё небо, варп-разлом бурлит и раздувается, и похоже, что он затмит сами звёзды. Чогорис увядает от его прикосновения. Травы горят, а звери бегут или превращаются в уродливых чудовищ.

Из сердца бури пришёл враг, перебежчики и отступники, собравшиеся под знамёнами Тирана Бадаба.

Их гнилые когти терзают племена равнин. Предатели строят горы из трупов, ритуальные зиккураты из плоти мёртвых, посвящая их своим Тёмным Богам. Мы не знаем, какую они преследуют цель, но похоже, что враги близки к ней, а нас осталось так мало.

Сдерживающие бои. Засады. Притворные атаки и внезапные нападения. Брат, мы дали им бой, каким бы гордился сам Великий Хан, но ясно, что одним нам не победить. Потому мы зовём на помощь тебя и всех ханов, чья охота увела их к далёким звёздам в логов бесчисленных врагов. Ни одна добыча, ни одно дело чести не может быть важнее этого боя.

Вернись, брат, пока ещё есть время, вернись и убей их всех во имя Великого Хана. Это оскорбление не должно остаться безнаказанным.

[Sekhmethotep]

В 32-м тысячелетии Империум едва не нагнули шесть Зверей-приморков, по одному на клан. Газгкулл - перерождение одного из них.

А с чего косплеит? Меки сварганили ему теллипорту, позволяющую перемещаться по всей галактике.

И ещё одна маленькая, но забавная деталь. Армагеддон это телепортированный Улланор.

Ну про всё я знал, кроме супер тилипорты и того, что Газкулл связан со Зверьми. Об этом где писали? В цикле Зверя неужто?

[Monique]

Ну про всё я знал, кроме супер тилипорты и того, что Газкулл связан со Зверьми. Об этом где писали? В цикле Зверя неужто?

Именно в нём. Маг Урук Трака - это орочье название приморков.

"+++"

Chapter Seventeen

A matter of control

To the psychic sight of Eldrad Ulthran the skein was a living being, a complicated braiding of the life threads of every living thing in the galaxy. The main flow of fate resembled the corded trunk of a tree. From its mighty sides grew innumerable branches. Most were small, looping back to rejoin the main course of destiny; many more withered and died before long, the potential choices that predicated them so unlikely they would never come to be, or the creature intended to set those events in motion meeting its end before it could. Others branched many times into complex networks of possibility all their own. A few of these split the skein, forming mighty boughs upon the tree of fate. Sometimes a single choice could dictate a different future entirely.

It was upon these that Ulthran dwelt as his bodiless mind flew along the twisting ways of the future. Farseers were consumed utterly by the drive to preserve their craftworld, but Eldrad Ulthran’s calling was higher. He ignored the fates of maiden worlds, crone worlds, true stars, exodite clans, pirates, dark kin and craftworlds. Planets burned and kindreds were snuffed out in myriad futures. These extinctions pained him, but they were only a small part of the game and he could not afford to be distracted. He played at fate because he saw a greater prize than simple survival. Eldrad Ulthran would have the glories of old restored and Chaos’ influence banished from the material realm. There was no other goal worth aiming for; all others led ultimately to death and damnation.

A cracking roar announced the splitting of the skein. A new forest of possibilities grew rapidly out from the trunk. Familiar as he was with the skein, like no other being in the galaxy, Ulthran rarely saw such a dramatic reconfiguration of potentiality born before him and he followed it eagerly. Tendrils of individual fates, vanishingly small, sprouted from the main path, growing long with incredible velocity, wrapping around each other, twisting themselves into thicker and thicker ropes of complex interaction. These came together, and again, until the fates of worlds and sectors were bound up with one another, all generated from the actions of the galaxy’s uncountable creatures.

The wave front of possibility and its fronds of maybes raced away from Ulthran. Beneath him, more cords were being joined, wrapping around each other in tight embrace until in their coilings Ulthran descried the fates of entire species. A moaning rolled through the timeless spaces of fate. The other half of the fork, the original from his perspective, blackened and died, its unformed might-bes disintegrating into unrealised motes of chance and fragments of unfulfilled cause and effect.

He paused. Turning about, he looked back at the skein towards the present. He had outpaced the now by some days, but the origin of the split was only hours ahead of the present, and it approached swiftly, a boiling wall of yellow light that rushed unstoppably towards the future. When it encountered the What Might Be, it solidified it into the glimmering of What Is, a moment so short it could not be measured. When the present passed on by the skein was still and clear as glass, the dead times of What Was.

Ulthran looked down at where the split had occurred, now no more than a slight kink in the skein. He raced downward, into it, passing through the endless threads of individual lives, his powerful mind inadvertently tasting their short-lived joys and lasting pain. So many billion human existences, twined mostly with their own kind, but touching here and there against the fates of other creatures including the eldar, often disastrously.

He hunted to find the cause of the change, his practised astral eyes darting from deaths and births to the explosions of suns.

The rumble of the approaching present grew louder as he located the source of the change. One thread, one death.

Drakan Vangorich, master of the Imperium, was about to die.

Ulthran rapidly examined all possible futures for the Grand Master’s thread, but though they began as many, they all converged on that one point, when a Space Marine in yellow armour would put a bolt between Vangorich’s eyes.

Racing back to the surface of the skein entire, Ulthran looked ahead, to where the ghost of the dead futures yet lingered as a dying swarm of particulate maybes. That had been a bad future, the slow decline of the human Imperium, the resurgence of Chaos, the probable death of the eldar, but woven in amongst the doom were gleaming threads of salvation. These Ulthran had resolved to pursue, and he had been confident of success despite the grim nature of the predominate fates. But all of that had gone.

Behind him the present rushed on. Ulthran looked to the new future. Less certain, more fraught. The chances of survival were more numerous, the opportunity of restoration far more remote. Time stretched away unbrokenly. Ulthran saw his own fate weaving in and out of it until it was lost to sight among the uncountable tomorrows. The roar of the now thundered, waterfall-loud. A great shock hit his body and Ulthran was engulfed, carried along upon the wave of actuality towards futures he had not yet assimilated. It was time to leave, before he was consumed.

Eldrad Ulthran opened his eyes. His runes slowed their spinning in the air and sank to the crystalline floor around him. There, one by one, they came to a wobbling halt, fell and clinked to a standstill.

‘Drakan Vangorich is dead,’ he said aloud. His voice echoed weirdly through the forest of crystal trees of Ulthwé’s Dome of Seers.

His death was foreseen, replied a disembodied voice.

The skein is changed, said another.

Among the groves of trees were half a dozen silent, vitreous statues of eldar farseers, those psykers whose bond to the craftship’s heart had become too much to ignore, and whose spirit fled their flesh to join the infinity circuit while still alive. Their voices were hard to tease apart. Though they spoke individually, their words blended into one another’s speech. Male voices became female or something inbetween. They might speak all together, then split as they disagreed. Eldrad Ulthran knew all their names as he had known them all in life, but without joining in direct psychic communion with them it was impossible to identify which soul spoke.

‘We go on,’ said Ulthran. ‘The mon-keigh are aware of the threat of Chaos, they will continue the struggle.’

One thousand five hundred cycles ago you sought their destruction, and through it the extinguishment of Chaos, said another voice.

‘The Cabal did. I did not. I only ever sought our survival,’ said Ulthran.

The Cabal are gone. The Cabal did not have the best interests of the children of Eldanesh at heart. We were used. The trees pulsed with dancing witchlight, their boughs raced with the thoughts of the dead.

‘Yes. The only way our species is to survive is through the support of humanity. Our fates are inextricable. If they fall, so shall we.’

You chase ever-diminishing possibilities of salvation. We should depart this starwheel and begin anew elsewhere.

‘Even were that possible, and we are not assured that it is, then what? The Primordial Annihilator knows no limits. Time and space mean nothing in the Othersea. If we travel to another starwheel, we will take our daemons with us. She Who Thirsts will be waiting wherever we go. Our fate is here, with this place, for good or ill. Many fates are possible. If we guide them wisely, we shall prevail.’

You do not have the power of the Acuity. You do not have the foresight of the Cabal. We stand alone. Your actions could doom us all. The mon-keigh have proven again that they will not be manipulated. They will see us all dead before the end. Already it is two thousand cycles since the fall. Every pass brings us closer to extinction. The lights in the crystal danced with agitation. A period of instability awaits the humans’ empire, and they may not recover. If they do, they shall hunt us to destruction.

‘Not all threads say this is so.’ Ulthran picked up his helm and held it under his arm. ‘Humanity is our best chance, but it is not the only one. There are many more worlds of the krork,’ said Ulthran. ‘Beasts never die, they are only banished. The cry of “Mag Uruk Thraka” echoes still in the Othersea. Should one rise again, the greenskins may yet fulfil their original purpose. New races may evolve in time. There is hope while we live.’

You are arrogant. You are but one alone against eternity.

‘One mind is sometimes all it takes to change fate,’ Ulthran said defiantly.

The lights dwindled. The dead farseers retreated into the core of the worldship. The crystal dome took on its dark, marmoreal air again. Other craftworlds had lighter aspects, but Ulthwé never forgot, forever in mourning for an empire lost.

Eldrad Ulthran would not mourn. He would see the days of greatness return, no matter how long it took.