Ahriman: Sorcerer by John French Page A

the second before their bones exploded. Threat runes blinked out inside Sanakht’s helmet display as he rolled to his feet. The blast door was gone. Rock dust filled a ragged hole where it had been. Blood pattered on Sanakht’s armour as he ran through the breach.
    Torn pieces of flesh lay amongst the rubble. He saw severed hands still clutching twisted lasguns. Blood seeped into the powdered rock as it settled. Targeting runes spun across his helmet display in search of a threat, but he had already seen the enemy that waited for him.
    A tall man stood amongst the rubble, his mind shining in Sanakht’s awareness like a fire on a dark night. A spherical kine shield surrounded the man, glowing where debris had slammed into its surface. A coat of grey leather hung from his thin frame. An axe’s haft projected behind his head from where it was sheathed between his shoulder blades. Augmetic eyes shone from beneath the smooth skin of his scalp. A battle psyker.
    Sanakht charged. A ball of lightning rose like a halo around the psyker’s skull. Sanakht threw the jackal sword. It blurred through the air, psy-fire clinging to its edges. The ball lightning catapulted from the psyker’s mind. Sanakht’s sword met the sphere, and a sheet of white light bleached the chamber. The human psyker reeled, and fell to his knees. The jackal sword was falling, its edge smoking. Sanakht caught it as he leapt into the air. The sword blazed at his touch. The human psyker was beneath him, still trying to rise. Sanakht descended, twin swords trailing fire and lightning above his head.
    The psyker moved at the last instant, his mind hardening even as he spun to the side. The hooked axe was suddenly in the man’s hands, its edge oiled with warp light, its crystal cores shrieking with fury. Axe and swords met.
    The force of the psyker’s mind slammed through Sanakht as the weapons kissed. Once Sanakht would have simply pushed his mind across that link and crushed the human psyker’s mind inside his skull. That, though, had been long ago, before the Rubric, before everything had changed. Now victory had to take a different, more mundane form.
    Sanakht scissored his two swords through the psyker’s axe. Its core exploded. Metal and crystal fragments rang against Sanakht’s armour. The psyker screamed, his arms truncated stumps, his face a shredded lump of meat. He was strong, though. He tried to rise, tried to find balance in his mind even as it boiled with agony. Sanakht spun the hawk sword through the man’s neck. Behind him he felt the minds of Ahriman and his brothers rush past him into the rest of the citadel.
    They were close, very close. All they had to do was reach Astraeos and–
    A psychic cry rose up from beneath his feet, sharp with pain, bright with anguish.
    Astraeos gasped and stumbled. The shockwave spilled across his mind, shrieking in dead voices as the storm broke and the Rubricae woke. Across the chamber men and woman reeled, and some fell. He suddenly smelled blood, vomit and faeces. He leapt up the stone tiers. Plasma screamed over his head. Iobel stood still, burst blood vessels blooming red across her eyeballs, her arm steady as she aimed at him.
    +Ahriman,+ he shouted to the warp. Only the thunder roar of the storm answered him.
    Behind him Cendrion leapt from the platform to the chamber floor with a crack of stone. Astraeos was a pace from Iobel. She began to step back, the pistol still raised, gas fuming from its vents.
    +Cavor,+ Iobel’s mind roared, her thought faster than her muscles. Astraeos struck her just below the elbow, and Iobel’s arm shattered as she pulled the trigger. Plasma sprayed into the air. Astraeos looped his arm under hers.
    The ground shook as Cendrion landed on the lower tiers and charged. Astraeos felt the warp take shape from the Grey Knight’s thoughts. Fire kindled and stabbed towards him. He focused his mind to meet the inferno.
    The explosive round hit him from behind, and ripped away a