Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 72
His Drake tore through the fray, carrying him into the mad violence of war. Everywhere he looked the Kinbands of Athelling gave battle to the invaders, meeting their brutish machines with the superior skill and grace of the Eldar. Elhyn had followed his hunter back to the main mass of the Mon-Keigh force and now his kin wrought death and destruction freely. The scions of a race ancient before these savages' ancestors had first stood upright tore through the fray, cutting down enemies left and right. Elhyn gloried in the exhilaration of battle, feeling the surging blood pounding through his veins and the depthless passions of his kind grip him hard. For a fleeting instant he could understand the Craftworlder's wariness of their passions, for it was exhilarating indeed, but in this instant he didn't care.
His exuberant mood was cut short as he spied a Kraken succumb to one of the fleeter enemy machines. A salvo of rockets tore the noble steed apart and sent its crew hurtling to their deaths. The sight shocked Elhyn from his delirium and forced him to focus. Many Mon-Keigh were dying but just as many Eldar were being snuffed out in return, precious lives his people could not afford to lose. Unless something tipped the balance victory for his people may prove as bitter as defeat. Elhyn forced his mind to focus and gripped Wrymfang tight as he urged, "Take me to them."
Ilfavor cawed in anger as he dove into the midst of the invader's formation. He passed between two transports, so close that his wingtips barely avoided being snarled as he did so Elhyn struck. Wyrmfang flashed and one of the Transports went into a spin, its engine spewing flames as it sank away. The other piled on speed and tried to evade but Ilfavor banked about, reversing course to give chase. Together they tore after the fleeing machine and Elhyn's lips drew back as he anticipated the kill. For a primitive the pilot was vexingly good, jerking his cumbersome machine to and fro as he sought to escape. The passengers must have been left violently sick by the extreme manoeuvres but it succeeded in keeping Elhyn at bay. He snarled in frustration as he saw it was going to get away and urged Ilfavor to close. The drake responded by flapping his wings in great beats, surging them forward. Inch by inch the distance shrank as the Mon-Keigh frantically sought to evade but it was futile. Elhyn was drawing nearer with every second and in moments would be in a position to strike. He lifted Wrymfang and held its point forward, eager to lop off the machine's wings and send it spinning to its doom but at the last possible second he saw the impossible occur.
Through the swirling bedlam and flashing tracers Elhyn saw his mother closing on the largest invader machine, her gunner bringing the Bright Lance to bear. It was a bold and confident strike, one that might just tip the balance of the battle to the Kinbands but what Celasia had not seen was the smaller enemy machine gunning for her rear. Elhyn gasped as he forgot his prey and through the communion Ilfavor shared the distress. Instantly the pair turned to intercept the attacker, the sheer turn nearly wrenching Elhyn from his perch. Frantic desperation filled his heart as he sought to prevent disaster unfold but a cold whisper in his mind told him it was too late, they were too far away and the enemy was committed to the attack run.
Time seemed to slow down as Elhyn watched the laser weapons stab out, cutting the Drake apart at the very moment of victory. The regal Drake shrieked as its spine was broken, torn apart by volleys of deadly energy and the Bright Lance misfired, sending its fury out into nothingness. Denial whelmed up in Elhyn and he urged his partner for more speed, foolishly believing he could snatch his mother from the jaws of calamity but it was impossible. A heartbeat later a roving las blast caught the Dynast square in the back and blew her heart out, spearing her through the chest with one shot that took her from Elhyn forever.
"No!" Elhyn screamed as the Dynast dropped away, his mother's corpse lost to his sight as the collapsing wings of her mount wrapped her like a shroud. Elhyn physically pushed Ilfavor to chase her vanishing body, leaving the battle in his wake. Frenziedly he forced his mount to dive, crushing the Drake's will with a brutal command. He knew he was hurting his friend but cared not; his desperate need to reach his mother consumed him. Her spirit stone must still be intact, he told himself, if he could save that he could snatch some part of her from the jaws of death. The alternative was too horrible to consider, if her spirit stone had been destroyed in the blast that killed her then Celasia' soul would be forfeit to the hungry Gods of Chaos. She Who Thirsts craved the delectable souls of the elder above all and only the safeguards of Infinity Circuits and World Spirits held her at bay.
Elhyn was diving hard but still too slow and he saw the Dynast's Drake hit the forest floor. Elhyn would have followed her to his grave but Ilfavor refused, bucking against the will holding his mind he forced his wings to spread out and pulled out of his dive, coasting over the crash site. "Land!" Elhyn cried, "We must land!"
But Ilfavor cawed, "Danger, danger above!"
Elhyn's head snapped upwards and he saw a nightmare unfold. A thick cloying blackness was spewing out of the back of the Mon-Keigh machines. A putrid, diseased miasma that filled the air with the promise of decay. The sight of it was vile but to his psychic senses, limited as they were, the cloud hid a vile malevolence. There was something fundamentally wrong with the cloud, a sickness beyond the material realm that carried with it the stench of the Warp. The Mon-keigh couldn't possibly understand what horror they had unleashed, else they would never have even considered it, the filth of Chaos had been carried to Athelling and was now free to take whatever it wanted.
Even as he watched the cloud wrapped its tendrils around the nearest trees and began its calamitous work. The Everforest shrieked as the corruption of Chaos was introduced into its vital arteries, spreading through its body like a cancer. Black veins of rot shot down the lengths of the trunks, growing at an astonishing rate. The Mon-Keigh may have thought this remarkable but they had no way to grasp the nature of the threat. The Everforest pulsed with psychic power, every tree, every blade of grass and small animal was bound into its otherworldly harmony and the rot feasted on that potential like a glutton. Trees sagged and groaned as their life-forces were consumed, feeding more fuel into the corruption. Elhyn was aghast as his home was violated, its essence doomed by ignorant savages. Small animals fled across the forest floor, racing to get away but too slowly as the black veins overran them and poured its vile essence into their innocent forms.
Ilfavor kept a good distance from the airborne spores but Elhyn saw it all unfold. Then he glanced at Wyrmfang and his heart went cold. The spear was bound into the life-force of the World Spirit, drawing its lethal power from that depthless spring. But now its green light was stained by black motes, a filthy spoor akin to the rot touching the trees. The spear reflected the vitality of Athelling and so too its fall. The rot was in the spear and it was growing. As the crystal deformed and the wooden shaft began to flower with mould Elhyn threw the spear from his hand, casting it away before it could infect him too. Wyrmfang sank out of sight, lost to him forevermore and never to be found again.
Elhyn had no time to mourn for suddenly Panthiro dropped to fly beside him crying, "Elhyn, what do we do?!"
Elhyn shook his head and barked, "I don't know!"
Panthiro yelled, "The Dynast is lost, you inherit the rule now. Our people need direction!"
Elhyn could barely understand what he was saying, how could anyone be thinking of rulership in this disaster. He was about to rebuke his friend but before he could speak a terrible groan filled the air. Elhyn's jaw fell as he saw a mighty tree collapsing, riddled through with rot and sagging into itself. The kilometre high bough fell straight down, giving birth to a fog of splinters and spores and leaving the achingly bright sky exposed. The tragedy would have drowned his spirit in woe, were it not already consumed with agony.
As the tree fell every Eldar dropped their weapons and slammed their hands to their heads in suffering. Their minds were being violated by an anguished scream of terror, heard not with their ears but with their psychic senses. It was the Song of Athelling, the harmony of the World Spirit falling into discord and alarum. The Everforest was inextricably bound to the Song of Athelling and as it was violated so too did the World Spirit break apart, its arcane defences and wards shattering in response. It was like a great dam breaking open, spilling out torrents of water once held safely behind its banks.
Elhyn screamed as he sensed a terrible rent torn into the World Spirit, a hungry whirlpool of collapsing matrixes that sucked in everything it found. The souls of his ancestors, kept safe for millennia, were snatched from their peaceful slumber, pouring out of the breach to drop into the raw Warp. Elhyn could feel them tumbling past him, crying in fear and pleading for aid he could not offer. Hundreds, thousands then tens of thousands of souls were lost in moments, any soul lingering too close to the region being sucked out. Elhyn couldn't grasp the scale of the calamity, then She came.
From the roiling depths of the warp a laugh arose, cruel and hungry and malevolent, the sound of the eternal enemy of the Eldar opening her maw to feast. She Who Thirsts, the Chaos God Slaanesh, came to claim her due, her jaws scooping up the souls of all those who had been taken and swallowing them whole. Thousands of years of safety had been undone, the souls of the ancestors forfeit to the doom that the Eldar race had never escaped.
Elhyn couldn't begin to fathom their pain and woe and his mind forced itself blank at the very idea, lest be sanity be lost. He forced his mind to the physical and he saw the Mon-Keigh powering away, blind to the damage they had done. The primitive apes would never comprehend the scale of the disaster they had unleashed, for they would never see beauty they had so thoughtlessly trampled. Athelling would never be the same; even if some part of it managed to survive their losses would mar the hearts of the Kinbands forever.
Elhyn forced himself to cry, "Panthiro, we must flee!"
Panthiro looked to be in agony but he yelled, "How, where?!"
"Away!" Elhyn shouted, "Spread the word, we must flee. We must get away from this decay before it spreads."
Panthiro looked aghast as he said, "But our lands."
"Are already lost!" Elhyn roared, "If we have any hope of saving a part of Athelling we have to get ahead of this. Tell our people to flee and pray to the dead God Asuryan that this rot can be stopped before it takes the whole planet."
Panthiro turned to fly away, calling out to the distressed survivors to take their Drakes and Kraken and flee. Elhyn had time for one last glance at the Mon-Keigh, still pushing for the Vale of Midnight Tears. He spat one final curse, "May Chaos take your accursed Empire and may the Four gnaw upon your bones." Then he steered Ilfavor away, conceding the field and leaving the apes to the ruin they had made.