Xenos aircraft flew overhead at constant intervals while the Wolves sat and waited: transports and fighters, most bound in the direction of Oneiros. As Jurgen had reported, it appeared that the Harrowers had committed a great deal of their local strength to pillaging the city, no matter the cost. Bulveye watched the flights pass overhead and added the data to his evolving plan.
At precisely the appointed time, a trio of cloaked figures slipped from the woods bordering the road to the east of the pavilion and headed for the tribute site. The Wolves were impressed; no one had caught wind of the Antimonans until they’d broken cover. Bulveye watched them approach and crouch down at the rendezvous point, and made his decision.
‘I’m going down,’ he told his lieutenants. ‘Hold position here until I say otherwise.’ Then he rose from the shadows and made his way out onto the plain where they’d first ambushed the Harrowers some twelve weeks before.
The Antimonans saw him coming from a long way off. They watched him intently from the depths of their hoods, but made no move until he was just a few yards away. One of the figures rose smoothly and moved to join Bulveye. He could tell from the way the man moved that it was Andras.
‘Well met,’ Bulveye said quietly, extending his hand. Andras took it, clasping the Wolf Lord’s wrist in a warrior’s grip.
‘We’ve been waiting for two weeks, hoping you’d find the message,’ the young nobleman replied. ‘We’re glad you came. How are you faring?’
‘Well enough,’ Bulveye said carefully. ‘We’re grateful for the gifts your people have left for us. Has the Senate had a change of heart?’
‘The Senate is no more,’ Andras replied. ‘The raiders killed them last month.’
The news surprised Bulveye. ‘What happened?’
‘Our food stores are swiftly running out,’ Andras explained. ‘It’s the same all over Antimon. My father and the other senators decided to open negotiations with the leader of the Harrowers and try to organise some kind of settlement before our situation became untenable.’ The nobleman’s body stiffened. ‘The alien leader agreed on a meeting at the Senate building, but he did not come to talk. Instead, he and his warriors seized the senators and spent an entire week torturing them to death. Since then, the raiders have gone wild in Oneiros, filling the streets and tearing into the hill shelters with every tool and weapon at their disposal.’
‘What became of the alien leader?’ Bulveye inquired.
‘He personally took part in torturing the senators, but returned to the spire afterwards.’
The Wolf Lord nodded thoughtfully. ‘And what do you wish of us, Andras, son of Javren?’
Andras reached up and drew back his hood. A fresh scar marked the left side of his face, and livid bruises coloured his brow. ‘We want to join you,’ he replied. ‘There were always those of us in the aristocracy who secretly kept the ways of the armigers alive. When you fought the raiders here on that first night, it inspired us to take action ourselves. Lately we’ve been making attacks against the raiders inside the city and enjoyed some success, but we would be a hundred times more effective if we could fight with you and your warriors beside us!’
To Andras’s evident surprise, Bulveye shook his head. ‘Fighting aliens inside Oneiros will accomplish very little at this point.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Andras hissed. ‘How is that any different from what you have been doing these last three months?’
‘Because everything I’ve done so far has been with one objective in mind,’ Bulveye said. ‘And that is to divide the raiders and ultimately turn them against one another.’
Andras scowled at the Wolf Lord and shook his head in frustration. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘That’s because you were never a raider yourself,’ Bulveye replied. ‘I was, a very long time ago, and everything I’ve seen about the Harrowers so far tells me they aren’t much different from the reavers I dealt with back on Fenris.’
‘What does that mean?’ Andras replied.
‘It means that they’re a greedy lot, and greed makes a person treacherous,’ Bulveye explained. ‘A raiding band is only as strong as its leader, who holds the group together by dint of being harder, meaner and cleverer than the rest. He takes the best of the plunder for himself, but so long as everyone manages to get a cut, the gang stays more or less content. When the loot dries up, though, watch out. That’s when things get dangerous.’
Andras thought about that for a moment. ‘And you’ve been making it hard for the Harrowers to take many slaves.’
‘And killing as many of them as I can in the bargain,’ Bulveye said. ‘Every time a raiding party is ambushed, or a transport is shot down, the Harrowers’ leader is made to appear weak. And I guarantee that some of his lieutenants are feeling tempted to try and take control of the band themselves.’
‘So if the current leader dies, the rest will turn on each other to see who gets to be next in charge.’ Andras said.
‘Exactly,’ Bulveye agreed. ‘And now, while the majority of the Harrowers are in Oneiros, we’ve got our best chance of killing him and setting the bloody contest in motion.’
‘How do you plan on doing that?’ the nobleman asked. ‘I told you, he’s back at the spire now.’
‘All I need is a Harrower transport,’ Bulveye said. ‘The aliens think they’re safe in their floating citadels. I’m going to show them otherwise.’
Andras stared up at the Wolf Lord. ‘I can get you a transport,’ he told Bulveye. ‘But only if you let us help you attack the spire.’
Bulveye held up a hand. ‘I appreciate your courage, but we don’t need the help.’
‘Really? Do you know how to fly one of those transports?’
‘Not at the moment,’ the Wolf Lord replied. ‘Do you?’
‘Not… at the moment,’ Andras grudgingly admitted, ‘but over the last couple of centuries my people have gleaned quite a bit about the aliens’ tongue.’ The young nobleman drew himself up to his full height, which still left him at roughly chest-height next to the huge Astartes. ‘We can deliver a transport into your hands and tell you how to read its controls. All we ask is that you allow us to accompany you when you attack the spire.’
Bulveye could not help but admire the young man’s courage. ‘How fast could you accomplish this?’
‘We can strike tonight if you wish,’ Andras said confidently.
‘Is that so? All right. Tell me of your plan.’
Once Andras and Bulveye had agreed upon the plan, the Wolf Lord gathered his battle-brothers and the Antimonans led them back to Oneiros on foot. At the outskirts of the city the Wolf Lord saw first-hand the devastation wrought by the xenos occupiers. The sky above the city was orange with flames from burning buildings at the city centre, and Bulveye could see signs of activity on the hills surrounding Oneiros as the aliens besieged a great many of the white stone hill-shelters. Fliers buzzed back and forth through the night air, but Andras and his companions led the Astartes on a circuitous route down the winding streets towards a large square just a few kilometres from the Senate building. In the square sat four of the alien transports and close to forty of the raiders in an improvised field base.
Andras led the Wolves into the burnt-out shell of a municipal building and left them there while he and his compatriots went to set his plan in motion. Andras returned with eight others a short while later, this time wearing the curious scaled armour and weapons of Antimon’s warrior caste. The hexagonal links of the armour were polished to a mirror-bright sheen, and carried a faint scent of ozone that wrinkled Bulveye’s nose.