Winterburn realized that the xenos were the "switch" that triggered the enslaved psykers' attacks. He shouted loudly.
"Attack the xenos!"
Raising his hand, he fired a bolt round at the Andres, chanting as he did so.
The Bard's voice poured strength into the Shadows of Order, quickening their pace and driving them into a furious charge.
Explosive shells roared, tearing the Andres into fragments, and gradually the psy-weapons' attacks began to falter.
The Bard noticed that, with his song, the psykers' rate and strength of attack also weakened.
'The Andres force the psykers to strike through pain. My song eases their torment?'
Realizing this, Winterburn hoarse song grew louder and more resolute.
When the warriors of the Second Company killed the Andres crew operating a war-chariot, the Shadows of Order turned cautious eyes to the "human-shaped weapons" strapped to its hull.
Their suffering was etched into their faces, unstable and volatile, they were like living time bombs.
The Second Captain turned to the Librarian.
"These psykers are yours now."
The Codicier accepted the grimly. Luckily, he was a telepath; through direct communion, he could at least calm them for the moment.
Winterburn and his men stormed into the structure from which the saucer-like craft had emerged. After smashing its guards, he discovered it was a weapons factory.
Here, the Andres used ordinary humans to manufacture psykers.
At its center stood a pool nearly a hundred meters wide, exuding a strange stench.
Within floated colorful fungi and black crystals. Dozens of people were submerged in the pool, most of them common mortals, only one showing the faintest psychic spark.
Other parts of the factory produced saucer craft and components, which, combined with these psykers, became engines of war.
When Nareth received Winterburn's report, he immediately understood: the Andres were fabricating psykers.
Beyond those born naturally, there were many ways to forge psykers artificially.
In his memory, rulers like Helmawr of Necromunda and other noble houses used phantasmagoric drugs to induce psychic mutations.
As Nareth pondered this, his aide spoke up:
"My lord, the Light Lord has launched an assault on marker B-I. He has confirmed that sector is filled with palatial structures."
"By all signs, that region is the noble quarter."
The Andres' underground palaces seethed with elite guards, holding back the Second Company's advance.
Wilshire observed that the guards' elbows had been severed, replaced with energy weapons; their crab-claw blades moved as though part of their very joints.
Compared to ordinary soldiers, their attacks were unnervingly swift.
The Bard raised his voice again, his resonant song filling the Shadows of Order with vigor.
Forming around him as their center, they charged the xeno line.
On the left flank, a Shadow of Order swung his power blade, its disruption field tearing open a foe's chest.
Another lunged at him, he twisted aside, his sword sweeping along the join between its humanoid torso and scorpion-like lower body, cleaving the creature in half.
After cutting down more than a dozen Andres guards, the warrior drew the attention of three more.
They struck together.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The Shadow's power sword turned aside the crab-claws of the two in front.
But the third, hanging back by half a step, struck with a sudden, vicious blow, its scorpion tail lashed out and pierced straight through his chest.
Wilshire watched his warrior fall. He donned the War Mask.
Anger surged into strength. The Thunder Hammer in his hand exploded with destructive might, blasting five Andres guards into a red mist.
Wilshire wielded the War Mask's power with ease, his mind still cold and sharp.
In just four minutes of fighting, he had already counted two of his men lost to the guards' claws.
The Bard sang all the louder, amplifying his warriors' strength while watching closely, searching for weaknesses in the foe.
And then, in his song, his spirit burned brighter.
The Thunder Hammer in his right hand shivered suddenly. Wilshire's eyes lit.
He noticed that the palace district was darker than the other Andres structures.
Brilliant lamps were muffled under heavy shades, the light kept deliberately dim.
Each time a disruption field flared blue, the eyes of the Andres flickered.
'They've lived in the depths too long, adapted to twilight. Strong light unsettles them!'
He tested his theory carefully, watching as the Andres guards consistently formed a triangle formation, two in front, one behind.
The third struck from the rear, both to kill and to avoid the searing brilliance of the power fields, which revealed their weakness.
Wilshire did not need to command others to create light, he was the Light Suppliant. He could make radiance himself.
Golden motes swelled in his eyes until they became two miniature suns.
He took in the battlefield with perfect clarity, sketching routes in his mind.
Then he raised his right arm and hurled the Thunder Hammer.
Blue brilliance erupted, over a dozen Andres guards were shredded by the disruption field.
Wilshire's pupils contracted. He clasped his hands under his chin as though in prayer.
Light flared through the underground gloom, an entire district flooded with radiance.
A beam of pure fire-wreathed light descended, striking the three guards who had charged in their triangular assault, engulfing them in flames.
The cleansing ray illuminated the palace halls.
The Andres guards cried out, their eyes stabbed with pain. They could see nothing but the hated brilliance around them.
Like vermin dragged from their nests, they stumbled blindly, scattering in panic.
"Attack!" Wilshire seized the Thunder Hammer once more and roared his command.
The Shadows of Order surged forward. The guards, who moments ago had held them at bay, broke instantly.
Blinded and weakened as though fever-stricken, their strength faltered.
The Shadows cut through them like scythes through grass, their blades carving the foe apart.
Wilshire swung the Thunder Hammer again and again, reducing alien forms to showers of blood-mist.
And in his heart he knew, 'If I remember correctly James' relic grants its bearer the power to discern an enemy's weakness. I recall that when he received Father's gift, he was a "Lawyer."'
As the Second Company broke through the noble quarter, Nareth himself led a fresh assault.
The King of the Andres appeared, crowned and wielding a scepter, flanked by ten thousand elite guards and a thousand war engines driven by enslaved psykers.
Together, they descended upon the Honor Guard.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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