Ahriman: Sorcerer by John French Page B

shock flicker down the pathways in their minds. Slow, so slow. He saw Iobel’s mind haloed in an aura of confused red. He dived towards her, claws extending.
    Iobel’s mind flared to white as it tried to form a defence. It was a strong mind, but it was not strong enough. His claws met aetheric flesh, and his mind ripped into hers.
    Iobel . He tasted the name; it tasted like forged steel and fire. It was her, without doubt. The one they needed.
    The crowd on the stone tiers rose, weapon breeches swallowing rounds, blades scraping free, shouts forming in a hundred throats. Cendrion’s sword was rising. Astraeos could feel the distant beats of his hearts.
    Time, there was not enough time. Astraeos ripped free from Iobel’s mind. The Grey Knight’s thoughts blazed even as his body moved, so slow but faster than an eyeblink.
    Cendrion’s mind form roared into the aether as he charged forwards. Lion-bodied and reptile-winged, it was the echo of myths from mankind’s past. Silver fire fell away from its scaled wings as its jaws opened wide. The two thought forms collided. Ice flashed into existence across the platform. Astraeos’s claws raked Cendrion’s flanks, scattering smoking blood into the warp. Aetheric teeth ripped into his mind. He could hear voices, a choir of voices singing deep within the Grey Knight’s soul. It was beautiful, and terrible, like rage turned to bitter grief. They tumbled together, falling through nothingness, jaws and claws raking at each other. Cendrion fastened his jaws around Astraeos’s mind and bit down.
    The chamber and platform were a distant tableau moving with stopped-clock slowness. Only Cendrion’s sword was clear, a bright line in Astraeos’s sight as it cut towards a body he was only distantly aware of.
    I am going to fail . I am not strong enough, not for this, not against a creature like this . They had not predicted that such a warrior would be here.
    Astraeos felt his thought form tear under Cendrion’s aetheric jaws. He bit back, but his strength was failing. Cendrion’s thought form was all around him, jaws closing, claws hooked deep.
    I cannot… he gasped to himself. I cannot fail. If I fail I end here, it all ends here. He thought of Thidias, dead in the cold void, of Cadar grinning with the hunger of a daemon, of the skies burning above his home world so long ago. The silver warriors had come from that sky, the inferno staining their armour black and crimson. All my dead brothers, he thought. All my murdered pasts end here . In the real world he felt the heat of Cendrion’s blade. It was a finger span from his neck, slicing in fast. This is it – the last stretched moment of a life of broken oaths and failed revenge.
    +No.+ The word roared from his mind as he ripped his thought form free. Chunks of emotion and tattered thoughts tumbled in his wake. He could feel wounds open on his body as his mind bled into the warp. But he was free.
    +Ahriman,+ his soul screamed.
    He slammed back into his body. His kine shield snapped into existence just before the sword struck. Light sheeted through the chamber. Shouts cut the air. Astraeos split his will into pieces and called the warp. It answered.
    The metal of the bindings around his body exploded in a shower of liquid metal. A wave of telekinetic power ripped out from him. Cendrion staggered, recovered and cut again. His silver armour glowed, sucking the invisible force into its core and dissipating it into the warp. His sword spun up and cut down. Astraeos ducked. The blade sliced into the empty casket in a shower of sparks. Someone was shouting for the null shields to be activated. Gunfire began to hiss through the air. Screams and babbling roared at the edges of Astraeos’s mind. He ran for the edge of the platform, blood sheeting down his skin from the stigmatic wounds in his flesh.
    The Grey Knight moved just as fast. His hand came up, the barrels of his storm bolter wide open. Astraeos reached the edge of the platform