band up between the prongs. To either side of the Imperial advance, a hundred thousand soldiers of the foe swarmed and regrouped. But the sixty or so Imperials cut a line up through them that wouldn't be denied.
Years later, painstakingly reconstructing the details of this assault from patchy data collected at the time, Imperial tacticians on London would be utterly unable to account for the success of the action. Even given the surprise nature of the assault, from the rear, there was no sense to the data. Simple statistics should have had Gaunt's expeditionary force cut down to the last man, at most a half kilometre from the ruin. The tacticians would factor in charismatic leadership, tactical insight, luck… and still there was no mistake. Gaunt's men should have been entirely slaughtered long before they reached the ruin.
But that was not the case. Gaunt drew his forces, without the loss of a single man, up to the walls of the ruin perhaps thirty minutes after they had first engaged the back of the enemy positions. They had cut through a legion of the foe who outnumbered them ten thousand to one, and attained a target area the enemy had been trying to force its way into for hours. They slew, approximately, two-point-four thousand soldiers of the enemy.
Eventually, after a prolonged analytical study, the tacticians would decide that the only explanation could be that there were no enemy units on the field that day. It was all an illusion. Gaunt had mounted an assault through open, undefended ground. Only then did the computations and the statistics and the possibilities match up.
None of them could admit that this wasn't the case. And so, perhaps the greatest and most spectacular success of Macaroth's great Crusade, out-classed and out-numbered but still successful, was deleted from the Imperial Annals as a phantom engagement. Such is the fate of true heroism.
There was a door: a tall, pointed arch of stone faced with stone, in the side of the smooth flank of the ruin. Gaunt grouped his force around it as relentless firepower strafed up at them from the muddled but regrouping legions of the enemy.
Gilbear intended to mine the door in the hope of blowing it open, though, as Corbec pointed out, the scorch marks on the stone facing seemed to indicate that the enemy had tried that more than once and failed.
They were about to argue the point some more when the door opened. Brin Milo stood there, looking out at them, flanked by Caffran and a spectacularly grim eldar warrior with a red plume set behind his white helmet.
The storm flashed above, still furious and wild.
'You've come this far,' Milo said. 'Now let's finish this.'
Sealed inside the onyx walls of the Way-Place, Gaunt and his force heard the low wailing of eldar mourners, remorsefully singing the last songs of closure.
Muon Nol faced Gaunt for a long while, until Gaunt saluted and held out his hand.
'Ibram Gaunt.'
Nothing more need be said, Gaunt thought.
Muon Nol looked at the proffered hand, then slung llliowye over his shoulder and clasped it.
He spoke, a bewildering slither of otherworldly language.
'You've just been formally worshipped as a fellow warrior,' Lilith said, stepping up. Muon Nol turned his huge gaze to look at her.
'I am Lilith, of the Imperial Inquisition,' she stated. Muon Nol, a head taller than even Gilbear, paused and nodded slowly.
Gaunt looked round sharply at the inquisitor. 'We're not getting anywhere fast,' he hissed. 'Does anyone here speak eldar?'
'I do,' Lilith said, but Muon Nol spoke simultaneously.
'There is no need,' he said in melodiously accented Low Gothic. 'I understand. You must follow me now. The farseer-lord awaits.'
'Fine…' Gaunt began.
Muon Nol stepped back. 'No. Not you. The female.'
Lord Eon Kull felt the wash and burn of the Chaos hosts as they assaulted the ruin around him. Fuehain Falchior had begun to rattle in her rack again.
The door of the Inner Place slid open and Muon Nol entered, escorting a cowled human female, a hulking stormtrooper in grey and gold, and a human male in a long coat and cap.
Muon Nol bowed. Lilith did likewise. Gilbear and Gaunt remained upright.
Eon Kull spoke, perfectly using the clumsy low Gothic he had once wasted a brief year mastering.
'I am Eon Kull Farseer. My enchantments have brought you into this. I make no apologies. The Way must be closed to the Dark and I will use all my powers to accomplish that.'
Muon Nol took a step forward, gesturing to indicate Lilith. 'My lord… this female is called Lilith, in the human tongue. Is that not a sign?'
'Of what?'
'Of purpose… lord?'
Eon Kull seemed about to answer, as if he too recognised the symbolic coincidence. But then he slumped against the side of his throne, blood leaking from under the seal of his helmet.
'My lord!'
Gaunt reached him first, pulling off the tall helm and cradling the pale skull of the worn-out, dying Eldar farseer in his gloved hands.
'I can send for medics… healers,' he began.
'No… n-no… no time. No purpose to it. I want to die, Gaunt human. The Way must be closed before Chaos can corrupt it.'
