The raging combat swirled like a seething tide, with neither force quite able to gain the upper hand. The Space Wolves fought with furious abandon, utterly directed and focussed, but without the clarity of vision to appreciate the whole picture. The Thousand Sons fought with clinical detachment, every warrior having achieved the lower Enumerations to better focus their skills. As Astartes, they were trained to excel in the brutality of close combat, but Magnus had taught them there was always another, cleverer way to win.

“Understand the foe,” Magnus had said, “and you will know how to beat him.”

It was a lesson the Space Wolves and Custodes had taken to heart, for how else would they have thought to bring the null-maidens of the silent sisterhood with them? Knowing that gave Phosis T’kar all he needed to turn this battle around.

He ran through the thick of the fighting, casting his mind out into the swirling mass of heaving emotions. The red mist of anger and hatred hung over the straggling fighters, but three patches of deadness were like islands of silence amid the oceans of carnage. “Got you,” he hissed.

He saw Hathor Maat fighting back to back with Auramagma, and shot his way through the crash of bodies to reach his fellow captains. A warrior in grey armour slashed at him with a saw-bladed axe, but Phosis T’kar wrenched it from his grip with a thought, and drove the screaming teeth into the warrior’s face without breaking stride.

His pace slowed as he came within range of another null-maiden. He stopped and climbed onto an empty plinth that had once supported the statue of Magister Ahkenatos, pulling his bolter tight into his shoulder, and scanning for the dead zones within the battle through Utipa’s eyes.

His Tutelary swooped over the battlefield, and Phosis T’kar felt a sudden burst of pain in his chest. He looked down. The wound was still bleeding, which was odd. Then he saw the iridescent shimmer to his blood and sensed its ambition. He knew what it meant, but angrily clamped down on the sudden fear that accompanied such recognition.

Taking a deep breath, he focussed on what he was seeing through Utipa’s eyes.

He saw the first of the null-maidens, and shifted his aim towards her. She fought in the midst of a knot of Space Wolves and Custodes against Hathor Maat’s warriors. The bolter slammed back against his shoulder, and the woman collapsed, the back of her neck and shoulder torn off by the blast of the shell.

Following Utipa’s guidance, he found the second null-maiden and put a bolt round through her chest. The third he killed with a snap-shot as she fled to the cover of one of the wrecked Land Raiders.

Immediately, the Thousand Sons went on the offensive. Lightning flashed from Hathor Maat’s hands, and Auramagma threw out blazing streams of liquid fire. Kine shields flared to life and the Space Wolves were hurled back from the edges of the pyramid.

Phosis T’kar roared and leapt from the plinth.

Bolts of pure force slammed into his enemies, scattering them before him like a charging cavalryman. As much as he had felt a strange sense of freedom when stripped of his power, it was a moment of fleeting enjoyment compared to this.

Hathor Maat and Auramagma appeared at his side, and he read their joy at this sudden turn in their fortunes. Auramagma was as feral as the Space Wolves, while Hathor Maat was pathetically relieved to have his powers back.

The Thousand Sons formed on their captains, a fighting wedge of lightning-wreathed killers, plunging into the body of the Space Wolf army like a lance. The Space Wolves and Custodes fell back before them, helpless without any means of combating the lethal powers of the Thousand Sons.

A terrible howl of fury echoed around the plaza, and every pane of glass within the Raptora pyramid exploded into diamond fragments. They fell in a crystal rain that reflected the fire and smoke of battle in every shard.

Phosis T’kar dropped to one knee, his autosenses screaming with the overload of sound.

“What in the name of the Great Ocean…?” he managed before he remembered where he had heard that howl before.

“Shrike,” said Hathor Maat, recalling the same thing.

The Space Wolves parted, and Phosis T’kar saw the enormous majesty of the Wolf King and a coterie of gold-armoured giants striding through the battle lines towards them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I Must Not/Power Without Control/Syrbotae Down

OLD TIZCA WAS no more. The peaceful warren of antiquated streets he had so enjoyed exploring as a youth on Prospero was now ashes and burning rubble. Warriors picked careful paths through the smouldering ruins, firing from the hip or fighting with axes and swords. The coastline was invisible, obscured by fog-banks of artillery fire. Spurts of yellow fire followed by dull metallic coughs snatched at the clouds, and another portion of his beloved city would vanish in a rippling series of fiery detonations.

Magnus watched the death of Tizca from the highest balcony of his pyramid, the one structure that had so far escaped the destruction. Nothing reflective remained in his chambers, nowhere for the insidious voice of his temptation to wheedle and cajole him into making yet another error of judgement.

He gripped the edge of the balcony and wept bitter tears for his lost world and his dying sons. What had once been a wondrous beacon of illumination for all who cared to look upon it was now a maelstrom of battle.

The northern spur of the city was a raging inferno, its palaces ablaze and its parklands ashen wastelands. Further south, the port was a giant black stain on the horizon, its structures demolished in the wake of his brother’s attack.

He sensed Leman Russ in the western reaches of the city, fighting at the Raptora pyramid. Constantin Valdor was at his side and the warrior named Amon. With his inner eye, Magnus felt the courage and elation of the Thousand Sons who fought alongside Phosis T’kar, Hathor Maat and Auramagma. It grieved him to know that most of these men would soon be dead, for the Wolf King left only desolation in his wake.

In the east, Ahriman and his warriors were holding the invaders at bay. Not even the savagery of the Wolves or the power of the Custodes could break through Ahriman’s defences, his warriors using their predictive powers to counter every assault.

Few Sisters of Silence fought in the east, for the majority were at the side of Leman Russ and Valdor. The attackers had not brought enough of the null-maidens to take Tizca, assuming the assault would be little more than a mopping up operation. They thought the bombardment from orbit would be enough, and that alone angered him.

Though the majority of the Spireguard had been swept away in the opening moments of the battle, the Thousand Sons had rallied magnificently and prevented the battle becoming a rout. A thin line of warriors in crimson armour linked the six pyramids of Tizca, forming a circular perimeter with Occullum Square at its centre. The Pyramid of Photep was the southernmost of the pyramids, the glittering water surrounding it awash with sodden pages of ancient wisdom lost forever in the name of fear.

Crackling currents of aether surged through his body, begging to be released and let loose among the foe. Magnus fought to hold it in check. The fire of the Great Ocean battered him, like the most desirable addiction calling to him across the veil between worlds.

Magnus wanted nothing more than to descend to the streets of Tizca and turn back the invaders, to show them the true extent of his powers. His fingers sparked at the thought. He clenched his fists and turned his thoughts inwards.

He heard the voices of his sons crying out to him, begging him to take the field of battle, but he ignored them, forcing their voices from his head.

It was the hardest thing he had ever done.