The Avatar danced around Ilyas, striking fiery blow after fiery blow with its blade, the Wailing Doom. The Avatar struck overhand at the golden warrior, from which he escaped by dancing aside, but the low backswing the Avatar followed with was unavoidable. Ilyas caught the fiery blade with the power field of his Guardian Spear and rolled with the blow. Without slowing or changing direction, the Avatar followed through with its swing and sent a half-dozen of Taliesin's Bloodsworn retinue diving for safety.
Ilyas capitalized on the opportunity to land a strike against the Avatar, his power spear piercing the thigh of the construct. A jet of white-hot molten lava shot out of the wound when he pulled his spear back and moved for another strike. But the strike was intercepted by the Avatar which moved impossibly fast for a construct its size. Its blade slapped away Ilyas' spear and then swung back at him. Fast as he was, Ilyas was only able to partially deflect the blade and it sliced through his aurumite armour and left a deep wound in his side.
Concentrated heavy bolter and lascannon fire from the walkers lit up the Avatar, piercing its Wraithbone structure in some spots. It pointed the Wailing Doom at one of the Imperial walkers and fire erupted from the cockpit, killing the pilot instantly, before the promethium tanks cooked off and exploded. But, in that instant, Ilyas landed another blow on the Avatar and a jet of molten lava spurted from another hole as he removed his spear.
Fynn fired his psycannon after finally getting a lock on the Avatar and hit. The reservoir of psychic energy unleashed by the bolt did more damage to the construct than all the bolter and lascannon fire combined. But the Avatar did not slow down, it only accelerated. It launched blow after blow at Ilyas with the Wailing Doom. Overhand he dove away from, followed by low which he blocked and rolled with, followed by another overhand which he only partially dodged and cleaved through his armour, removing a portion of his side beneath his shoulder.
Fynn fired a second time and missed, then a third and hit. The Apothecary caught a flash of movement over his shoulder and started to face it before quickly recognizing Jorik had slid in beside him. "Quick thinking," he said when noticing the boy had grabbed the psycannon Druthact had stripped from Basil's grasp. The boy used his psychic ability and braced himself, then the pair began to concentrate their fire upon the Avatar.
The Avatar continued its assault upon Ilyas, raining blow after blow down on him. Some he dodged and others he blocked. A few grazed off him, but a grazing blow from the Avatar did serious damage and the blows were adding up on the golden warrior. The concentrated fire from the walkers was taking its toll on the Avatar too and it paused twice from assaulting Ilyas to destroy two more of them. Fortunately for Fynn and Jorik, the Avatar was not able to pause long enough to target their small forms while Ilyas was dancing around it.
Taliesin took the head of another Aspect Warrior from Rubha Àird Driseig as he approached the dynamic battle between Ilyas and the Avatar. He looked beyond the two at the Oculus, hoping to catch a glimpse of Druthact, his true quarry, when a human Stormtrooper Sergeant casually walked up beside him. Despite being temporarily allied with the humans to save the Exodites he had declared himself the protector of, Taliesin cared little for them and with a flick of his wrist took the human's head off with his sabre. Only the head remained in place because his blade was met by a sabre in the human's hand.
"You simply aren't good enough to defeat me," the Sergeant laughed at Taliesin.
Taliesin turned to face the Trooper. Each stared the other in the eye as bolts and shuriken flew through the air around them. Though the Warrior Prince had not walked the Path of the Seer for any period of time, Taliesin recognized what stood before him. Caorthannach, a Keeper of Secrets and one of She Who Thirst's greatest servants.
The two simultaneously sprang into action.
The Prince rapidly alternated blows with his sabres, each draw back where he rechambered to strike with that blade again was a counterweight to his strike with the opposing hand, opposing actions that increased his speed. One after the other which the Keeper blocked with his single sabre. When Caorthannach broke Taliesin's flow with a counter, the Prince immediately flipped away with grace granted by has grav belt, but it did not grant him a reprieve. The Keeper followed through with a speed that could only have been matched by a grav belt…unless done so by the psychic power of a daemon.
Blow after blow was rained down upon Taliesin by the Keeper. A nick of the blade on the Prince's bicep followed by one on his thigh. Anger filled Taliesin as he recognized the Keeper was superior. He had defeated the best humanity had to offer, but the Keeper in human form was toying with him. The Prince gambled and flipped into the middle of the battle between Ilyas and the Avatar.
He and Caorthannach danced around the golden warrior and the Avatar of Khaine. But the Avatar was not a mindless construct and it recognized the Keeper, even if Ilyas and the walker pilots did not. Every second or third swing the Avatar took was at Caorthannach, buying the Prince chances to strike at the Keeper. Lascannon blasts and heavy bolter fire surrounded the Prince and Keeper as they danced while jets of molten lava erupted from the many wounds of the Avatar.
Taliesin saw it, saw the golden warrior go down, his body split in two, and knew it was his one shot. He struck for the Keeper's head when he knew the Avatar would strike. But the Avatar's strike did not come for it had taken its death blows from the Imperial walkers and was collapsing into a heap of molten lava. Caorthannach deflected the Prince's blow and followed with its own, a horizontal slice across Taliesin's waist. The Prince flipped away to avoid the blow but was caught by a telekinetic force from the Keeper and instead landed on his back just as the Keeper's next follow came, a lightning-fast coup de grace that would take his throat.
But the blow never landed.
A blast blew the Keeper away instead. The Prince sprang to his feet looking for the Keeper, but it was gone. All he noticed was the young human, little more than a boy, with a psychically charged lascannon in his hands. Saved by a human boy, the Prince sighed to himself. Can this day get any worse? Taliesin laughed at his own suggestion, instantly recognizing that being killed by a servant of She Who thirsts would have been worse. He quickly turned to the Oculus in search of Druthact.