Eon Kull Warlock gasped at the sight. He clawed at the runes, gathering up the fragments and the ash, burning his fingers. In the name of Vaul the Smithy-God, what had he wrought this day? What had he done? Attempted too much, that was certain His age and his frailty had failed him, made him pass out and lose control, but surely for only a second or two. What had he unleashed? Sacred Asuryan, what had he done?
His exhausted mind sensed Muon Nol returning to the Inner Place. The warrior should not, would not see him like this, Eon Kull found strength from somewhere and hauled himself back into his throne, clasping the purse of ash and bone-cinders to his belt. Joints cracked like bolter shots and he felt blood rise in his gorge as his head span.
'Lord Eon Kull? Are you… well?'
'Fatigued, no more. How goes it?'
'Your… storm… it is a work of greatness. More fierce than I had imagined.'
Eon Kull frowned. What did Muon Nol mean? He couldn't show his ignorance to the warrior. He would have to reach out and see for himself. But his mind was so weak and spent.
'The Way must be closed now. The storm won't last forever.'
Muon Nol knelt on both knees and made the formal gesture of petition. 'Lord, I beseech you once more, for the last time, let us not abandon the Way here. Let me send to Dolthe for reinforcements. With exarchs, with the great Avatar itself, we can hold out and—'
Eon Kull bade him rise, shaking his helmeted head slowly. He was glad Muon Nol couldn't see the blood that tracked down his septum and over his dry lips. 'And I tell you, for the last time, it cannot be. Dolthe can spare no more for us. They are beset. Have you any idea of the scale of the foe here on Monthax?' Eon Kull leaned forward and touched Muon Nol's brow with his bared hand, sending a hesitant mental pulse that conveyed the unnumbered measure of the foe-host as he had sensed it. Muon Nol stiffened and shuddered. He looked away.
'Chaos must not take us. They must be denied access to the Webway. Our Way here must be closed now, as I have wished it.'
'I understand,' the warrior nodded.
'Go see to the final provisions. When all is ready, come and escort me to the High Place. That is where I will meet my end.'
Alone again, Eon Kull the Old One flexed his mind, trying to peer out beyond the Inner Place and sense the outside world. But he had no strength. Had he expended so much? What had Muon Nol meant when he remarked upon his storm?
Shuffling, unsteady, Eon Kull crossed the Inner Place and opened the lid of a quartz box set against the wall. It was full of charred dust and some empty silk bags. A rare few still held objects and he took one out now. The wraithbone wand slipped out of its protective bag into his hand. It was warm, pulsing; one of the last he had left. He shuffled back to the throne, sank onto the seat with a sigh and clutched the wand to his chest. He prayed that there was strength enough in it to channel and focus his dissipated powers. The embers of his power lit through the wand, and the spirit stones around him and set into his armour blinked back into a semblance of life. Most of them, at least. Some remained dull and dead. Many merely flickered with a dull luminosity.
His mind blinked, two or three times, flashing images of the outside which roared and wailed. Then it coalesced and he saw.
He saw the storm, the magnitude of the storm. He cursed himself. He should have realised that he had been too weak to control such a conjuration. He had intended a storm, of course, as a diversion to cover his more subtle, complex illusions. But the stress had robbed him of consciousness, and he had lost control.
He had unleashed a warp-storm, a catastrophic force that now raged entirely beyond his ability to command, far from covering the humans and allow them in close enough for the illusions to work them to his cause, he had all but blasted them away.
His head lolled back. His final deed had been a failure. He had exhausted his entire power, burned his runes, extinguished some of his guide spirits, and all for this. Kaela Mensha Khaine! An elemental force of destruction that fell, unselective, upon all. It roared about him, like a war-hound he had spent months training, only to see it go feral.
There were a few faint spats of light, the traces of a handful of humans who had been close enough to become wrapped in his illusions. But far from enough.
Lord Eon Kull, Old One, warlock, wept. He had tried. And he had failed.
Mkoll had been stumbling through the torrential rain for fifteen or more minutes before he stopped dead in his tracks, shook himself in amazement, and then hurled himself into the cover of a dripping, exposed tree-root.
It was not possible. It was… some kind of madness.
He look up at the stormy sky, shuddered and hugged himself. All along, he had suspected the storm was not natural in origin. Now he knew it was playing with his mind.
This was Monthax, Monthax, he told himself, over and over. Not Tanith.
Then why had he spent the last twenty minutes making his way home to the farmstead he shared with his wife and sons in the nal-groves above Heban?
Shock pounded in his veins. It was like losing Eiloni all over again, though he knew she was dead of canth- fever these last ten, fifteen years. It was like losing Tanith again, losing his sons.
He had been so convinced he was hurrying back through a summer storm from the high-pasturing cuchlain herds, so convinced he had a wife and a farm and a family and a livelihood to return to. But in fact he had been scrambling his way back towards the ruin and the massed forces of the enemy.
How had his mind been so robbed of truth? What witchcraft was at work?
He pulled himself to his feet and made off again, now in the opposite direction, towards what he prayed were friendly lines.
On Lilith's orders, a sizable force of men began pushing back into the storm-choked jungles. Her bodyguard formed around her, following a roughly equal number of Tanith Ghosts under Gaunt, the regrouped remnants of the first, Second and Seventh platoons. The wounded had been sent on to the lines.
