Guiding the swarm through his Tyranid avatar—Bladewing—Eden arrayed the biofleet for the assault.
A vast living star-cloud wrapped the Redemption Hive Mothership, while thousands of drone escorts and even more drone pickets ringed the core vessel in tight layers.
Heavier cruisers spread outward in concentric shells until the Redemption Hive Fleet presented a spear-tip formation in the void.
Three massive Narvhal bioships keened with bio-electromagnetic song, compressing space to open an FTL corridor and leading the swarm into transit.
Before long—
Ripples trembled through the dark, and the Redemption Hive Fleet reappeared in deep space at the edge of a star system, holding position—as if waiting.
They were waiting for a Webway gate to open.
On the Savior's order, the Webway Administration verified and executed his command, opening the major Webway gate that served the Aedilar System.
Hum—
A colossal, circular ripple cohered out of empty space. An ancient, monumental archway phased into being, and a gossamer film of distortion spread across its heart.
The Webway gate yawned open.
Under the Savior, Master of the Swarm, the Redemption Hive Fleet dipped and filed through the titanic arch—one after another—into the Webway.
…
Inside the Webway.
The living star-cloud above threw down a suffocating pall of shadow, a lightless canopy swathing the ground beneath.
In one sector, a substantial Aeldari ground column sped along a broad Webway causeway—the host was formidable in size.
This was the Ynnari host led by Yvraine.
Yvraine stood upon the open deck of a heavy grav-transport, a pale figure bathed in cold moonlight. Her eyes—shard-black, like broken obsidian—stared far ahead.
The Herald of Ynnead was uneasy.
Commorragh's Webway had been breached by Chaos daemons, most notably by She Who Thirsts—keen to devour their Drukhari kin entire.
She held no love for those cruel Drukhari cousins, yet for the sake of Aeldari survival, the Ynnari would march to their aid.
Yvraine already knew this would be a hard war.
Per the intelligence they held, too many Greater Daemons had forced their way into the Commorragh reaches of the Webway—including an old, terrible foe of the Aeldari: Syll'esh, the Doom of Secrets. She had nearly annihilated an allied strike-group; only by joining with Lelith Hesperax and others, and by summoning the Yncarne, had Yvraine finally driven the fiend away.
This time, she would be ready—no matter what it cost, she would bring Syll'esh down.
"Roboute's message leaves me…unsettled."
Yvraine's mind supplied a vision of Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines. Only a short time before, their ally had reached out, asking her to join the Savior in repelling the daemonic tide.
Since Roboute's return, the Aeldari had cooperated with Mankind now and then against their mutual foe—the horrors of the Immaterium.
But all knew such alliance was only ever temporary. Interests would clash; blades would cross.
Even so, the Herald wished that day would come later, not sooner.
"The human 'Savior' is a dangerous ally. The Aeldari must be wary."
She was willing to work with Roboute because there was trust, and because he lacked the Imperium's more fanatical dogma.
He was a benevolent ruler, a steady partner—able to keep cooperation within acceptable bounds.
The human Savior was different.
His ideology, though less extreme than the Imperium's, was more troubling—and more threatening.
His ambition felt too immense—so vast the Aeldari could not bear it. Even his gentle gaze carried an unsettling sense of standing above all.
He bore no hatred for Aeldari or other species; in truth, he was more welcoming than Roboute.
But that was not friendship—merely the desire for absolute control.
He would not settle for leading only Mankind. He meant to rule other species as well—to become the true overlord of the galaxy.
In Yvraine's private judgment, this Hope Primarch of Humanity posed a greater threat than Roboute—the single most dangerous man alive.
She had even entertained the thought of striking first—of ending the Savior and removing the risk.
But she had set that thought aside.
She could not be sure she could kill him—and she could even less afford the consequence of failure: to invite the enmity of a Primarch-Savior of Mankind. Roboute himself would turn against her.
The Aeldari teetered on the razor's edge of extinction. Their farseers had read the skeins: they must work with humanity to escape She Who Thirsts' pursuit—if there was to be any hope of dawn.
She gathered herself and turned to the aged farseer at her side.
"Have you reached Commorragh? We need eyes on the battle there."
"My lady, the warp-shadow cast by the Dark God clouds my second sight. Commorragh lies beyond my grasp."
The farseer's wrinkled face tightened; he grimaced and shook his head.
No contact. No clarity. Only the unknown.
The Herald's worry deepened.
She prayed Commorragh would hold—that the Dark City would not fall beneath a coordinated daemonic onslaught, and plunge the war into catastrophe.
If Commorragh fell, retaking it would be almost impossible.
"It may help that the human Savior has entered the Dark City. Perhaps he'll draw some of the daemons away."
So Yvraine told herself.
He was very good at killing daemons; he would become a lodestone for their fury.
Under such pressure, Commorragh might not collapse so quickly.
She clung to that slender reassurance.
Hum—
Yvraine's head snapped up.
Her guard rose; a warped vision stabbed through her mind—her ancestors screaming beneath She Who Thirsts' claws—a sickening augury.
The daemons were here.
She gave the order at once. "Vanguard! Form the line—brace for She Who Thirsts' charge!"
The Ynnari—the Reborn faithful of Ynnead—deployed across the broad, plainlike expanse of Webway floor and built their position.
They would meet the onrushing tide.
Nerves twanged taut. No Aeldari took the Prince of Pleasure's hosts lightly.
Worse—Syll'esh might be among them, sworn to vengeance, sworn to Yvraine's death.
In the line, breaths turned heavy. The air itself seemed to congeal. They waited for the crash.
When the Slaaneshi host finally crested the horizon, every eye bulged.
They were seeing the impossible.
The daemons…were not charging. They were—running?
Yvraine had fought daemons many times. She knew their cadence and posture the way a dancer knows a drumbeat.
This was wrong at a glance.
"What—could possibly be hunting the hosts of She Who Thirsts?"
Her chest tightened.
Any foe that could send a daemonic wave fleeing in panic would be terrible indeed—and if they were swept into that new battle, the Reborn would be facing an enemy unknown.
What could it be—what could terrify daemons into a blind, stumbling rout?
Far off across the field—
A screech rattled the Webway.
A Keeper of Secrets—spider-legged and elegant—skidded so hard her six bladed limbs left afterimages, sparks screaming from the floor.
She looked as if she'd sprout more legs if it would help her run faster.
Behind her pounded several more Greater Daemons of Slaanesh.
And not only the greater fiends—their lesser kin, entire battalions of the Host of Excess, all ran full tilt, desperate to outpace the pack snapping at their heels.
A waking nightmare.
Only moments before, the hidden Slaaneshi force had received delicious news: a Ynnari column would be passing this hub.
They had rejoiced and raced to lay sorcerous snares, to ambush the prey.
A banquet of souls.
To Slaanesh's servants, Aeldari souls are rare feasts—fat, fragrant, exquisite.
If they could seize high-grade spirit stones…perhaps even earn their Prince's favor.
But they had taken a beating in the Dark City; that nauseating Barag the Glutton had wrecked their appetites and left them with little to show. So, on their god's command, they burrowed into the Webway to hunt again.
They needed a win—needed to dine.
The Ynnari's approach looked like Slaanesh's own blessing.
Then, before their trap was even set, came a treacherous ambush.
From nowhere.
The attackers were Tyranids—soulless, foul.
At the very scent of daemonflesh, they drooled and hurled themselves forward, mindless, tireless.
Irresistible.
It was disgusting. To fight was to be gnawed; to be gnawed was worse than death. The Host of Excess broke and ran, hoping to lose the swarm in the maze.
But the Tyranids would not stop.
The Keeper of Secrets shrieked and crushed in her fist a feeder-beast gnawing at her haunch, then sprinted harder.
These Slaaneshi were at least smart enough to run toward Commorragh. That suited Eden just fine—he was going that way anyway.
Within the core-hollows of the Redemption Hive Mothership, Eden watched through the eyes of the swarm as the Slaaneshi column tore down the Webway. He nodded, satisfied.
He issued a new directive: the Tyranid commander was to cut down this daemonic force quickly.
The commander he'd sent was one of his trusted lieutenants—a mutant Hive Tyrant nicknamed Old Eight.
Old Eight's Tentacle Fleet was bred for extreme adaptability and possessed…particular tastes.
They loved to devour warp-tainted flesh—whether Slaaneshi or Nurgle's rot-swollen swine.
To Old Eight and his broods, Nurgle's rank meat was a rich, fermented delicacy, while Slaaneshi flesh—dusty with glittering powders and drenched in heady energies—was a confection, sweet as chocolate.
They wouldn't gain much biomass from daemonic carcasses—but oh, the flavor.
Reality fouled by the warp tasted better still.
So Old Eight's broods howled and gave chase—and ate.
Hsss—
Old Eight felt the Hive Mind's will surge. He lengthened his stride, his armored bulk smashing through daemons like a black tide, chitin carapace bowling them aside.
Those that fell were swallowed by the onrushing swarm, dragged down and devoured, their screams ripping the Webway air.
Old Eight's eyes fixed on the Keeper of Secrets.
He bunched, sprang—and smashed her down mid-flight.
His limbs, crackling with a skinstorm of bio-fields, danced like power blades, hacking apart her blades and carapace in a blur.
"Wretched, inferior thing. You'll drown in ecstasy and die!"
Hysterical, the keeper exhaled a hallucinogenic miasma, hoping to fog the mutant tyrant's senses and lay him low.
To her horror, he inhaled deeply—and only grew more excited.
"Food. Sweet, sweet food."
The tyrant's bio-magnetic aura thrummed in guttural clicks.
He crashed atop her, his long slime-slick tongue lapping her warp-touched flesh; his corrosive saliva pooled like burning tar.
The keeper could barely struggle. The scene looked obscene—like a monster doing the unspeakable.
Her screams broke the air—not merely from pain, but from a profound spiritual disgust. The touch of the Hive Tyrant would leave wounds that would not close.
Who would have thought a fiend who lived to toy with prey would end like this—helpless as a pinned insect.
"…Yikes. That's rough. Here's hoping Old Eight doesn't traumatize the whole daemon legion."
Eden's face went impassive, like a bored old man scrolling his phone on the subway.
To any bystander, it looked less like a battle than like a tyrant beast humiliating a greater daemon. Which, on balance…wasn't far off.
Then, to the horror of the watching Slaaneshi, Old Eight tore the Keeper of Secrets in half and fed, sending her howling back to the warp in terror and agony.
That grisly ritual was the dinner bell. The swarm threw itself across the field, a storm of chitin drowning the host of Excess.
From above, the battle looked like a black tide consuming silk-pink foam.
…?
Eden felt something.
Through the eyes of a hidden Lictor, he saw an Aeldari column.
One warrior—more than most—caught his eye.
"Huh. Isn't that Old Roboute's 'wife'—Yvraine?"
He couldn't help the thought.
In his past life he'd seen too many fan-made pictures of the pair—memes had become reflex.
He dimly remembered Roboute telling him Yvraine was marching to support Commorragh. He hadn't expected her to be this slow.
Any later and he'd be popping champagne in the Dark City already.
To be fair, it wasn't on Yvraine. The gods' invasion had packed the Webway with daemonic armies, turning transit into a nightmare. The Ynnari had fought through multiple battles just to reach these approaches to Commorragh.
"Pity. The Dark City is about to be mine. I can't have the Ynnari blundering into the middle of it—that's a political mess I don't need…"
Eden studied the sizable Reborn host and weighed his options.
A faint chill sharpened his violet gaze. "Or…use this chance to erase the entire Ynnari column from the board? No witnesses, no complications."
The Tyranid urge—hungry, ruthless—scratched at his mind.
He mastered it and let the thought go.
The priority was purging daemons from Commorragh. Picking a fight with the Reborn now would only complicate things.
Worse—if they brought out the Yncarne, that would be a headache.
However he tallied it, clashing with the Ynnari here was a bad move—and risked wrecking hard-won ties between humanity and the Aeldari.
"Better to pull Yvraine toward the Redemption Satellite Zone."
Decision made, Eden sent the order: the Drukhari archon in the Redemption Satellite Zone was to find a way to contact Yvraine.
Then he whistled the swarm back to their bioships and left the Ynnari alone, pressing on toward Commorragh. The living star-cloud rolled overhead and kept on going.
…
"Ynnead preserve us…"
Yvraine watched the Tyranids devour the Slaaneshi tide—and felt death at her throat.
When the last daemon fell, the swarm's many eyes turned hungrily toward her lines. An attack felt moments away.
She began to form the Reborn to receive the charge—when the sky itself darkened.
The entire Webway above…filled with a living nebula. The swarm's bioships blotted out the world.
"Perhaps it's time I gave my life to the God of the Dead."
The thought cut through her.
She could see no path by which the Ynnari could survive an attack by a full Tyranid biofleet. Not even a stand.
Only one gambit remained: unleash the caged shard of a star god, and with her host's lives call forth the Yncarne. Maybe that would bleed the fleet.
But the price was everything.
She hesitated.
She could also tell the swarm's true heading: the Dark City of their Drukhari kin.
If they had no hope of escape anyway…perhaps the right move was to strike first—stake their lives for the Aeldari's future.
And then, unexpectedly, the swarm withdrew into their bioships.
They showed no interest in attacking the Ynnari at all. They simply drove on, their falling shadow washing over the entire column as they passed.
Not a soul moved. No one dared breathe.
Yvraine's fingers tightened around the trigger-rune that would loose the star-shard. If the swarm twitched—
She would spend everything.
Szzzt—
For reasons unknown, a Firestorm heavy anti-air platform suddenly opened up, raking the Tyranid bioship overhead with a stream of fire.
(End of Chapter)
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