Auric Gods

Chapter Twenty-Three City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

They were close. Orn knew this as he shrugged off the vague feeling of nausea and the lingering existential dread of matter translocation. Strands of warp residue clung to the edge of his robes, dissipating rapidly with the reassertion of the real over the incorporeal realm of dreams.

He had nowhere else to fall back, no more boltholes. This was the last one, a place in the depths of Vorganthian that would be hard to find. Orn was forced to admit he had reached the point of desperation. Meroved had seen to that, and they would be coming. His kind. Very soon. It saddened Orn to think of how blind they were. Revelation would come. Illumination would come. Then it would not matter. He would have fulfilled his purpose.

‘Make ready,’ he said to one of his men, a believer. The light of illumination burned in the soldier’s eyes. He nodded at his master’s commandment, and issued gruff orders to a handful of others.

They would perish. No mortal army could withstand the Ten Thousand. He doubted few foes that lived in the galaxy could. So he had been forced to look beyond the veil of the void.

‘It won’t be long now…’ Orn said to himself, only now aware of the Vexen Cage and its infernal revolutions. ‘Turn, turn, turn…’ he said as the hosts grew restless in their chains below.

And the Cage did turn, and the heir of the Sigillite screamed with it.