Axion's response to the Aeldari circling his column was clinical and decisive. He signaled his Servitors and Automata to break their rigid parade formation, fanning them out into an encircling maneuver that easily snared several Aeldari Rangers whose movements had become desynchronized from the rest of their warband.
Despite being surrounded, the xenos were not fired upon. This calculated restraint stayed the hands of the jittery Rangers, who held their fire in a state of tense readiness.
When an Aeldari soul-crystal was brought before them, a flat, synthesized voice emanated from a nearby Automata.
"Deliver this crystal to Yvraine of the Ynnari."
The Rangers offered a curt nod. Immediately, the Combat Servitors and Automata parted, resuming their phalanxes and marching forward as if the xenos had ceased to exist.
Confusion flickered across the Rangers' faces, but they did not linger. They vanished into the jagged terrain, crystal in hand. By the time the Blood Ravens caught up with the mechanical legion, the Aeldari scouts were gone.
In the distance, Yvraine awaited her scouts. Upon receiving the crystal, she performed a deep psychic probe before unfurling the data within via her sorcerous arts. Satisfied, the Aeldari set their plans in motion.
At the target coordinates, the shimmering veil of a Webway Gate tore open. Yvraine led her host into the labyrinthine dimension, taking up a vigil just inside the threshold.
Axion reached the gate but did not immediately enter. He stood like a silent sentinel at the portal's edge. While he did not doubt the mission's feasibility, the reliability of the legion provided by Cawl was suspect, save for his own personal guard and the twelve Erratana-class Armored Wardens. To ensure the highest probability of success, Axion chose to wait for the Astartes.
Cohn soon arrived at the head of two companies of battle-brothers, their power armor grinding against the gravel. He moved with a sense of grim purpose, his eyes darting between his Auspex readings and the coordinates provided by the Archmagos.
The locations were a perfect match.
"Something is amiss," Cohn muttered, his tone steeped in the caution of a man whose visions were being denied him.
The Blood Ravens were a Chapter defined by their foresight, yet they were haunted by history. The Kaurava Campaign, led by Captain Indrick Boreale, remained a festering wound, a disaster where five entire companies were lost to the meat-grinder of war. Since the birth of the Cicatrix Maledictum, psychic divination had become a fickle tool, often clouded by the interference of Chaos traitors or the suffocating pressure of Warp storms.
"Your progress is inefficiently slow," Axion stated, stepping forward to meet the Chapter's Librarians.
Even in this second meeting, Axion found Cohn's panoply striking. While the other battle-brothers wore the Chapter's standard red-and-black plate, Cohn wore a suit of Artificer Armor in deep cerulean blue, heavy with liturgical scripts and reliquaries. Only his left pauldron remained the traditional red, bearing the black raven of the Chapter, while his right was adorned with a grim decorative skull. In his hand, he gripped a long, ornate Force Staff.
In Axion's brief experience with the Adeptus Astartes, he had rarely seen such baroque ostentation.
Yet, that armor was the envy of the Chapter. It was the "tithe" of a previous excavation, a masterwork suit painstakingly cobbled together from the remains of three different eras of Ultramarines found in an ancient ruin. True to the traditions of the Blood Ravens, such a relic had been "recovered" and repurposed for the Chapter's own elite.
Cohn frowned as he looked at the machine-entity. The Automata's speech patterns triggered an instinctive revulsion, the same condescension an Astartes might feel toward a mortal levy. More unsettling, however, was the psychic void where the machine should be; in the tides of the Warp, this entity cast no shadow.
"We are here at Cawl's behest to assist," Cohn replied, his voice cold. "That does not grant you the authority of command. We shall determine our own tactical path."
Scouts soon returned to report. Beyond the xenos-tech of the Webway gate, there was no sign of Necron presence, nor any visible ruins.
Axion offered no explanation. He simply turned and led his iron ranks into the shimmering portal.
The blatant lack of cooperation stung Cohn's pride. As a Blood Raven, he knew the Webway by reputation. It was a realm of treacherous geometry. To enter without an Aeldari guide was to court eternal madness, yet to stay behind was to fail the mission.
Thumping his Force Staff against the stone, Cohn made his decision. He signaled one company to prepare for full deployment, ordering them to carry every scrap of ammunition and supplies they could haul.
"The rest of you, fortify this position," Cohn commanded. "If we do not return, report to Archmagos Cawl and request reinforcements."
He could not risk both companies. If a hundred Astartes were swallowed by the Webway, the blow to the Chapter's strength would be catastrophic.
Inside the Webway, the Aeldari took the lead. Their destination, the Xendu System, lay on the literal edge of the galaxy, a vast distance even by the standards of the labyrinth.
It was a journey of necessity. The Pariah Nexus had stripped the Warp from the region; Imperial warp-drives were useless there, and even approaching the zone's perimeter was a harrowing ordeal for human vessels. The Webway, though strained by the same anti-psychic phenomena, remained navigable at its fringes.
According to Yvraine's intelligence, a Necron phase-gate lay near the Webway exit on their destination world. It was through this gate that Ynnari assassins had escaped with news of the Breath of the Gods. If they could seize it, they could strike directly at the heart of the Nexus.
Time was an enemy. The Necrons were accelerating their "Great Work."
The Breath of the Gods was a relic of such magnitude that even the Necrons could not easily replicate it. Yvraine was uncertain which dynasty originally held the secrets of its construction, but the device currently held by the Nihilakh Dynasty had been won through a bloody three-way conflict involving the Aeldari, the Necrons, and a long-forgotten civilization.
The Nihilakh were notorious hoarders of antiquity, led by a ruler whose eccentricity was matched only by his avarice: Trazyn the Infinite.
The Aeldari understood the catalyst for this sudden mobilization. The Great Rift had rattled the Nihilakh Hegemon, Krispekh. Since the dynasty's defeat at the hands of the Custodian "Wrath of Terra" task force, they had viewed the modern Imperium with newfound trepidation.
If the Pariah Nexus were completed, all soul-bearing life within its reach would wither into husks. The Warp would be banished, and the Nihilakh Dynasty would reign eternal over a galaxy of silent, glittering wealth.