Tessarl easily weaved through the rock debris and vehicle wreckage as she advanced down the battlefield. She crouched behind a burned out leman russ battle tank, her warp beasts also taking refuge in what cover they could find. She took stock of her surroundings. First this place was the sight of a large armored engagement between the two warring human factions. Now it seemed this would be the sight of the dark eldar's last stand.
The Archon had massed his forces and moved them towards a large webway gate, and with good reason. A massive daemonic incursion had caught them all unaware, destroying a quarter of their strength before any of them had realised what was happening. Fighting a battle against daemons was different from fighting a normal one. They could appear anywhere, at any time, ripping their way through reality with complete surprise. Battle lines and tactics meant next to nothing in such a battle. Splitting his forces would leave the smaller parts easily isolated and destroyed by a more mobile daemon army.
Massing in one group meant they could simply push forward in one bloody assault towards the gate. It would take a huge force, even if composed of daemons, too stop the eldar. The daemons would have little choice but too mass in the same fashion in order to cut off their escape. Unfortunately, Tessarl realised, the daemons seemed to have just the numbers needed to halt the Archon's aggressive push. Tessarl watched from behind the russ as daemons continued to emerge from the warp, wave after wave of daemonettes meeting with the Archon's warriors.
She watched as a ravager, the heaviest vehicle in the dark eldar's arsenal, blasted away with disintegrator cannons at a charging group of slaaneshi seekers. As the ravager decimated the flanking daemon cavalry, a monstrous construct erupted from the warp behind it. Half daemon and half machine, the soulgrinder was the daemon's answer to mortal heavy vehicles. The beast heaved forward on four mechanical legs, seizing the ravager with its massive right pincer. Hydraulics hissing, the claw bit into the ravagers thick plating quite easily, holding it fast. In such a fight, only mobility would have saved the stricken eldar skimmer, but now its fate was sealed. The soulgrinder opened its cavernous maw and spewed forth searing warpfire onto the open deck of the ravager. Tessarl watched with detached interest as the crew died in screaming agony.
Similar scenes were being repeated across the field. At first the eldar's resolve was strong. None could deny that a dark eldar was most dangerous when cornered. These daemons were especially lethal to all dark eldar, however. They were Slaanesh's own. They didn't simply fight with brute force, though they were very capable at such base acts. Their real strength lied in their subversiveness. They appealed to every eldar's darkest desires with their warp magic and turned it against them. She watched an eldar warrior squad simply walk into the embrace of a group of daemonettes, whom no doubt appeared to the addled warriors as fair maidens or some such. The warriors were than slowly quartered, eviscerated, etc.
Tessarl wouldn't fall for their parlor tricks. She was a wych. Her only desire was to kill. Their beguiling magics would only enhance her need to destroy them. Appearing to Tessarl as the most worthy of opponents wouldn't be conducive to a daemon's goal of stealing away her soul. Fighting lowly daemon foot soldiers wasn't what she was after here, however. This battle was lost, and little can be salvaged of it. She wanted to make something count before she quit the world. She had no doubts of her own ability to survive this debacle.
She was a hunter first, always a hunter. She was looking for something here. She watched countless combats across the field, but none were particularly special. Groups maneuvered and outmaneuvered, and combatants died. She was looking for something different, a focal point of death that nothing approached. Not a squad, but an individual. Something so deadly it created its own space, moved about where it pleased until it found something worthy of its attentions.
Suddenly she spotted it. A sybarite had been steadfastly holding the right flank with two squads of warriors. They had excellent cover and concealment, and it would take something drastic to uproot them. And something was currently doing just that. Tessarl growled commands at her warp beasts, and she began to move at a sprint towards the sybarite and his squads. She quickly reached the escalating melee, warriors being shredded all around her. They were no match for these daemonettes at close quarters. Already covered in blood, Tessarl set about her grim profession, lashing out with her agonizer whip and bisecting a daemon in the process of impaling a warrior. Her warp beast joined in as well, their own warp crafted claws and teeth proving mor than a match for the daemon's own unnatural physiology.
Tessarl suddenly caught sight of the sybarite. He put up a much better fight than his warriors, and had already tallied 3 daemons for himself. He set about his fourth, charging her with a grin borne of blind battle lust. Tessarl looked on, mildly impressed by the male, when the new daemon he had set after simply removed his left arm. With forearms that ended in great chitinous scimitars, she repeated this for all the rest of the sybarite's limbs, until he was a limbless, headless corpse on the ground. Tessarl had found her quarry.
It was as she had hoped. This horde was led by a herald. Most daemonic leaders would be beyond even her skill, but a herald she could handle, if only just. It was exactly the kind of challenge she lived for. The herald resembled a rank and file daemonette, but they acted as officers for the rest of the daemons. They were also monstrously skilled fighters.
Tessarl ran straight for the herald, howling a challenge as she charged. The herald turned, just as Tessarl's whip snapped at her neck. The herald deftly weaved under the swift attack, riposting with a backhanded swing of her arm-scythe. Tessarl barely managed to avoid being eviscerated, rolling over the slicing claw and into a crouch. She turned in time to see the herald, already cutting downward to decapitate her. Just before the blow landed, Ychet, on of Tessarls beasts, slammed into the heralds side.
Tessarl's warp beasts were like extensions of her own body, and no opponent faced her without facing them also. Tessarl leapt into motion, seeking to take advantage of the turn of events, when Ychet seemed to explode. It seemed that even her beasts wouldn't prove much of an edge against this herald. She would have to do this herself, or not at all. She quickly closed the gap, and Tessarl the huntress danced with Slaanesh's herald. They moved with such blinding speed that any who watched, daemon and eldar alike, would have been hard pressed to see who was winning.
Suddenly the two broke apart, their dance seemingly finished for the moment. The two combatants stared each other down, not taking even a second to consider the battle that was still raging around them. Tessarl was the first to move, almost stumbling to the ground. Seemingly exhausted, she was forced to take a knee, sucking in ragged breaths in an attempt to recover from the excertion of their combat. The herald had no such weaknesses. She never tired. With a cruel chuckle, she advanced forward in a blur, intent on finishing this little game.
It was what Tessarl was waiting for. Her feint having apparently worked, she rolled to her right with miraculously renewed vigour. She lashed out along the ground with her agonizer, catching the ankle of her would be killer. Viciously wrenching the whip backwards, she unceremoniously dumped the herald into the dirt, stunning her. She than disengaged the whip from around the herald's ankle by first activating the energy field about the whip, severing the herald's lower leg. The daemonette recovered admirably, balancing herself on her one remaining foot.
Tessarl kept applying pressure. She attacked again with blistering strikes from her whip, constantly dancing and leaping about the wounded daemon, seeking to get around behind her. The herald kept her at bay, but only just. It was only a matter of time until it made a mistake. The herald simply wasn't able to keep up with the leaping wych. The whip found her other leg, and soon the daemon had nothing left to stand on.
Tessarl knew this fight was over. It was a good fight, a memorable one. Normally she might enjoy her worthy opponents a long, drawn out death. They deserved as much. But this thing was daemonic, and worse still, it was one of Her daemons. Servant of the Great Maw didn't deserve any special treatment. Tessarl began to walk away, making a dismissive gesture as she did. The warp beasts closed in on the herald as commanded, and proceeded to tear her apart.
Tessarl took a moment to catch her breath. The fight had exerted her, though not as much as she'd let on. Her trials in the arenas had seen to her attaining peak conditioning for prolonged, close quarters combat. She watched as the pieces of the herald dissipated back to the warp with slight annoyance. She would get no trophy from this kill. No matter. The memory alone will suffice. Not many of her peers could claim such an achievement. Her attentions returned to the battle at hand. Things had not improved for the eldar.
Even with their leader dispatched, the daemons fought on regardless. At this point the advantage was so in the daemons favor it didn't matter that Tessarl had removed their head of command. Self preservation now took priority. There was almost no hope of the raiding party making it to a webway gate as a whole. Alone, Tessarl could slip away and reach it herself. She called her remaining warp beasts to gather around her. She took in the battle one final time, before turning her back on it and slipping away into the darkness.