Biel-Tan - The Swordwind Descends: Finding himself without the means to transport anything larger than a man via the single wraithgate open to him, and not yet willing to reveal himself in an all-out assault from space, Mauryon was left with no choice but to begin his war with his Aspect Warriors alone. His entire army on foot, Mauryon and several dozen Aspect Warriors journeyed to Baran and the Swordwind was begun. The Gate by which Mauryon first journeyed to Baran was known as the Gate of the Dead, the Banshee Gate or the Hag Gate, for it was this ancient gate to which the Exodites of this and other worlds had journeyed in order to convey their dead to sacred barrows which lay nearby.Emerging from the Gate of the Dead, Mauryon found the barrows broken and defiled. Their great structures lay hidden beneath the ground, yet they contained much wealth and Orks have a keen scent for plunder. The great sweeping hills which formed the surface of these barrows had been cracked open by the Orks who now infested them, littering this sacred place with their own filthy greenskin mess, disturbing the spirits of the resting and causing much damage to the delicate wraithbone fronds of the world spirit which formed the barrows' architecture. A whole tribe had made its home within the barrows, just as simple creatures might populate caves and tunnels for shelter. The greatest and most magnificent of the barrows, the resting place of the ancient Exodite Kings of Baran, had been claimed by the tribe's own Warlord, the bloated Bogga-Bogga.The Aeldari were far outnumbered by the Orks, but came upon them unawares, moving swiftly up to the barrows themselves. Each barrow was guarded by the same Ork mob who had taken it for their den, and even with the advantage of surprise the Aeldari found resistance fierce. Orks are always ready for a fight, and bare moments after the Aeldari revealed themselves a great shout, accompanied by a bellowing roar of WAAAGH! energy swept over the landscape, rousing the Orks to battle. The Orks rushed from the barrows, but the Aspect Warriors moved swiftly and hemmed them in, charging right up to the entrance of the barrows so that the Orks could not pass cleanly, cutting down the greenskins as they filtered into the narrow tunnels and archways which led up from below ground. By means of clever feints and faked retreats, the Aeldari cleverly drew the Orks to push against themselves, or else drew them to one side so that Aeldari themselves could advance a little further into the barrows. Each and every one of the Aspect Warriors knew full well that their ultimate goal lay deep within these cairns, and that no time could be wasted in reaching it.As the Aspect Warriors hacked a way through to the Barrows, the handful of Seers who had been willing to accompany Mauryon broke through and took their place within one of the newly recaptured barrows. Here they paused for some moments to read of the fame and repute of those spirits which rested here, so that they might know them by both name and character, before solemnly turning their minds to commune with the dead. As the Seers spoke, the spirits awoke, drawing forth from the deep and hidden refuges to which they had fled when first the greenskins came. These bodiless spirits surged and rushed around the barrows and cairns, their formless voices ringing out from the walls and pillars of their ancient tombs, calling in voices of thunder and terror, startling the Orks as the battle raged all about. Their deathly wails stopped the Orks dead with fright and the Aspect Warriors found their blows striking home effortlessly as all fight drained from the terrified greenskins. In the Great Cairn of Kings, Bogga-bogga's Weirdboy, Zoombanga, began his own invocation to the spirits, casting his head upwards, shaking his primitive fetishes and totems in a savage dance before a single, barking howl from the dead shattered the WAAAGH! energy building up around him and dropped the Shaman lifeless to the floor.As he watched Zoombanga assailed by the screaming Aeldari spirits, Bogga-bogga himself fled from the barrow, surrounded by his Nobz and Grot attendants. Striking Scorpions of the Grieving Shrine surrounded the Warlord at the entrance to the Great Cairn and cut him down in an instant. With Bogga-bogga slain, the surviving Feral Orks broke and fled, seeking refuge in the great forest which lay in a circle all about the barrows. Mauryon had come for more than simple slaughter though, and with his objective in his grasp the Autarch ordered no pursuit. The Aeldari abated their attack and a silent, deathly calm once more fell over this ancient resting place. But Mauryon had not arrived as some reverential liberator, returned to lay his people to rest -- his war demanded greater sacrifice than that. Mauryon called forth the Spiritseers and Bonesingers which he had ordered accompany him from the craftworld. With them they carried the humble beginnings of wraithbone, a few component psycho-plastics, nothing in and of themselves, but it was all that the powerful Seers would need to begin fashioning their intricate constructs.From the broken tombs, from the scattered bodies and the partly buried wraithbone cores which lined the barrows the Seers plucked all the Spirit Stones they could find. The Seers muttered words of comfort and forgiveness as they went about their task, for this was sacrilege to them, an affront to the peace of death -- an atrocity, some might say -- but such was Mauryon's command. Alongside them, the Singers' voices boomed out as the wraithbone shells of great walking machines sprung upwards and were one by one assembled into silent, motionless ranks in front of the gloating Mauryon. Here and there the line was broken by the outline of a true giant, twice the size of a man, towering over the rest of these automatons. Into these same husks were placed the spirit stones taken from the barrows, and as the deathly Banshees danced and wailed about them, these tired and reluctant spirits were slowly coaxed from their slumber and brought once more to life inside their new wraithbone bodies. Larger than anything Mauryon could have hoped to get out of the solitary gate available to him, now before him stood Wraithguard and Wraithlords. As Mauryon and his army emerged once more from the barrows, an army of the dead now walked alongside them.