A Blade In The Night
The night raged with the sounds of warfare. In the distance, the primitive weapons of the alien enemy hissed and roared, pouring tides of hot, poorly crafted metals and crude laser bolts toward the eldar forces. Around these sounds could be heard the soft, whispering report of shuriken fire, the buzz of grav engines, and the high, musical screech of starcannon fire. Commands were being shouted in the harsh, guttural tongue of the aliens, mingling with the panicked screams of the dying. The farseer's plan had unfurled exactly as predicted; the trap had been sprung, and the enemy were already dead. They just hadn't had the good sense to realise the fact for themselves yet.
The mon-keigh, these humans, had dared to build one of their fortresses on the maiden world of Eilenathrielle. It sat, lumpen and brutish, at the end of a valley that had been dedicated to Isha, squatting like some grotesque arachnid amongst the squalor and desolation that had been caused in its making. Groves of trees had been thoughtlessly burned to the ground, mirror-pools spoiled with stone, silt and worse, and the delicately woven organic statuary in Her honour had been despoiled. The whole world was being despoiled, sullied by their presence upon it; its very world-spirit cried out in anguish at the damage they had done. Arahayne could feel it, even now, sitting on the edge of his hearing, around and beneath the cacophony of war. The pain of the world plucked at the sensitive psychic edge of his mind, fuelling his anger at these foul interlopers. They would pay, he vowed. They would all pay, in time.
The exarch and his Warp Spiders stood, silent and patient, just thirty metres from the heart of the human command centre. This part of the complex had been easy to reach, with few sentries to warn of an approach from so deep inside their own lines. Walls and barricaded doors were no defence against the warp jump generators they wore; their deathspinners made little sound to alert their quarry. They were death unforeseen, the spider in the web. Farseer Quilindras had outlined the moment for their final attack very carefully. The moment was almost here.
Through a narrow window in the store room wall, Arahayne could see the main eldar force beginning their final advance. At their head strode the Avatar of Khaine, the visitation of the Bloody-Handed God stirring fresh feelings of anger and retribution in the hearts and minds of the eldar warriors. Unbound fury was written upon it's features, a bellowing war-cry poured from its lips, and bright inner fires spilled from cracks in its molten metal skin; it cared not for the firepower of the human warriors who still had enough courage to fire upon it. As the Avatar raised the Wailing Doom, preparing to strike, the eldar warhost surged forward, supported by bright thermal beams from Morthaniel's Fire Dragons, and deadly accurate missile fire from Barathaen's Reapers. The swordwind had come for the humans this night, and none would survive.
A brief touch upon his psyche brought Arahayne from his reverie; Sirillien and his Dire Avengers were in position. The last piece of the trap was in place. With a subtle gesture, Arahayne readied his squad, and began to charge his jump generator. From the other side of the thick stone walls, from the other side of the command bunker itself, he could hear the startled shouts of the foe, followed swiftly by the staccato shrieks of hundreds of shuriken being launched at once. Arahayne waited for one heartbeat, then two, then finally ordered the jump.
With a sickening lurch, the universe momentarily turned itself inside-out. When it righted itself, the Warp Spiders were inside the command centre, a wide, ugly chamber bathed in harsh yellow light. As predicted, the bulk of the humans were facing the opposite wall, where the sounds of Sirillien's bladestorm were just dying away. One of the humans though, wearing a garish, blue-and-yellow brocaded tunic, was just turning in the direction of the Spiders as they appeared; he began to yell a warning, his eyes widening in bovine panic, but it was too late. With a thought, Arahayne ordered his brethren to open fire.
With a sonorous hiss, the six closest humans were enveloped in a fine mist of monofilament web, including the unfortunate soul who had spotted their egress from the Warp. Their comrades could only watch in mounting horror as the ultra-dense material began cutting into the victims, quickly reducing them into gory piles of offal. Recovering their senses with surprising haste, the surviving humans turned for the door, rushing unthinkingly toward the Dire Avengers in the next chamber. One, though, did not. Dressed in a long, black coat, and wearing a crimson sash around his middle, one of the humans ran deeper into the bunker, drawing a weapon as he did so and opening fire on Arahayne's squad.
As explosive bolts ricocheted from the ceiling above their heads and the wall behind them, Arahayne ordered his kin to engage the escaping command staff, while training his paired deathspinners on this new target. He opened fire, but the human was well trained, and dove for cover behind a large, heavily built table. A second later, a hastily aimed volley of fire forced Arahayne to duck. The human, large even for his species, was bellowing in his native tongue; Arahayne spoke a little of their language, and understood the intent behind the words. The human clearly hoped that invoking the name of his Corpse-God would be enough to ward off the eldar attack. He was brave, after a fashion; Arahayne could appreciate that. Standing, the exarch called out to the enemy warrior.
"Come out, human!" he called, the word-shapes uncomfortable upon his tongue. The human soldier stopped firing for half a second, clearly surprised at hearing his own language from the eldar's mouth. The moment's reprieve was all that Arahayne needed. As the human began to raise his weapon again, the exarch took a step forward, closing the thirty-or-so paces between the two combatants by the smallest fraction. The human stepped back instinctively, moving away from his cover behind the table. As his finger closed on the trigger, and a fresh bolt-shell sprang from the breach, the eldar warrior in front of him disappeared in a coiling burst of light.
A moment later, and the exarch reappeared, his body inside the aim of the bolt pistol, his right powerblade erupting from the commissar's ruined spine. Uncomprehending, fearful eyes stared back at the exarch; flaccid lips worked, trying to form words but spilling only blood, thick and vicious. As the human began to slump, Arahayne caught him.
"There is no shame in this," he whispered in the human tongue, for some reason feeling the need to ease his opponent's passing. "This is a good death, a brave death. Your Corpse-God will reward you for your bravery, mon-keigh." Slowly, almost gently, the exarch lowered the human to the floor, taking a moment to close the warrior's dead eyes before standing once more. Turning, Arahayne found that the exarch of the Crystal Shard was watching him with cool interest from the bunker door, his diresword held lazily at his side. The human commander was evidently dead.
"Why concern yourself with the mon-keigh's fate?" Sirillien asked, his voice sharp, his posture derisive. "They are nothing but animals, beasts to be slaughtered. Would you shed tears for them, after all they have done?"
"No," Arahayne replied softly. "But by disrespecting them, we only disrespect ourselves. Beasts they may be, but we do not have to stoop to their level to defeat them."
A soft snort was Sirillien's only reply, before the tall exarch turned away, returning to the task of clearing the fortress.
O
A week later, and the world of Eilenathrielle was freed of human taint. The scars they had left behind would take generations to heal, but heal they would.
Standing at the summit of the valley where the human fortress had stood, Farseer Quilindras surveyed the world before him. At the same time, his mind ran along the skein of the future. He could see all of the varied futures, see the many paths that lay before Biel-Tan, before him and his forces; their fates, their victories, their defeats, and their eventual doom.
The path had been set, the Swordwind unleashed. Where it would eventually lead, not even he could tell...
To this day, I'm not sure where this came from... This odd little number was the second piece written for my army, for the 40k Throne of Skulls earlier this year. Somewhere along the line, the idea that one of Arahayne's previous hosts was a former priest of Isha popped into my head, and refused to go away. The character has become a kind of warrior-poet since then... some of that can be seen here, I hope. All thoughts welcome!