Tazareah sighed wearily and leapt over the charging mon'keigh, twirling gracefully around its revving chainblade. The bulky, armored figure was already showing signs of weakness. She kept count of the number of slices she made into its gene-sculpted flesh. This next one made for a hundred and seventy-four. Blood sprayed from the back of its neck as her monomolecular blade cut through the weaker joint just below its helmet. The crowd cheered with each blow, as the arch-Succubus of the Cult of Agonized Flesh drew out her victim's death over the course of hours.
Another hundred and twenty-five small wounds later, Tazareah decided to finally deliver the blow the bloodthirsty crowd were waiting for. The mon'keigh was down on its knees, the leg servos of its armor cut along with the tendons in its knees. Its chainsword clattered to the ground with a resounding echo as she drove her blade into the neck, spraying bright red arterial blood across the arena ground. She licked her lips, and wiped the warm, red liquid off her face with a disinterested flick of the hand.
While the masses in the colosseum stands cheered, drinking in the agony of her victim, Tazareah felt nothing but boredom. Even the silent agony of her dozen kills in the arena this day alone failed to satiate her thirst. While she'd hoped the transhuman would at least offer some challenge, it had not been any more satisfying than the eleven others.
She ran her hands through her blood-slicked hair as she exited the arena. She felt the blades wrapped in her tight ponytail draw blood from her fingers, but she was numbed to the sensation, as she was with everything else. She felt… empty.
This was not a new feeling, though. She'd first noticed the dissatisfaction and emptiness fifty years ago, when, for the first time, she found herself still starving for pain after a particularly brutal arena kill. Slowly, her brutal slaughter in the arena became less about satiation and more about simply avoiding starvation. It was the repetition of it all, really. She'd managed to slow the decreasing effect by finding new species of victim, new weapons to master, and new ways to kill, but a thousand years of experience meant everything felt monotonous after a while.
Entering the bloodworks, Tazareah began to clean her blades, and used fresh water to clean the blood from her face and hair. The other wyches of her cult showed appropriate reverence as she entered, lowering themselves to one knee. Pathetic, she thought dismissively. Part of her wanted to grab one of them and slit their throat, but what was the point in dealing death when it offered no joy?
She elected to look in the mirror before returning to her den, though she knew what she would see. Though her otherworldly beauty still remained, her face was more gaunt, with the first signs of wrinkles making their appearance on her brow and cheeks. She growled in frustration and shattered the reflection with her fist, feeling the shards of broken glass between her knuckles. Even this failed to register for her.
The wailing screams of tortured souls greeted her as the warriors guarding the gate to her den let her pass. She looked at the baleful, innumerable suns in the sky, wistfully trying to remember past glories that it might offer some degree of satisfaction. She noticed the fresh heads adorning the spikes of the fence surrounding her Cult's home. Her Cult had aligned itself with the Kabal of the Venomed Blade, and it seemed they had returned with fresh captives.
She carried herself with grace towards her den, passing the still-living victims nailed to the crosses that marked the borders of the path. Their wails of sorrow and pleading requests for death fell on deaf ears, as she continued on her way. The living eyes that acted as sentries, the living mouths that acted as alarms, both of which had used to bring her great amusement, were nothing more than a footnote in her subconscious.
She arrived at the main atrium, to find archon Lanurith standing in front of several hundred captive mon'keigh. Though Tazareah would never fool herself into considering the archon a friend, she at least regarded Lanurith with some degree of respect. Lanurith had ascended to power in the typical drukhari fashion - working to earn the trust of her superiors by destroying their rivals, then stabbing them in the back when the time came. Tazareah remembered the previous' archon's surprised face when Lanurith greeted him as an apparent ally to put down the ongoing coup, only to strangle him to death with razor wire when his back was turned. Tazareah had helped plan the coup, in exchange for a share of the slaves from the kabal's raids for use in her arena and the private needs of her Cult.
The archon did not turn to face her, but regarded her with a nod. Tazareah came to stand beside the archon, regarding the captives with cold detachment. While some appeared to have what passed for 'armor' by mon'keigh standards, many were clad in no more than rags, muttering prayers to their corpse-god for aid that would never come.
Tazareah pointed to one of the cowering figures. A kabalite violently grabbed the mon'keigh by his neck, and dragged him to his feet. Snickering, the warrior dragged the captive over to her so that she might see him closer, butting the young male in the back of the knee with a splinter rifle with a resounding crack.
He was clearly young, but his face was caked in soot and grime. His nose was already broken, and Tazareah bent down to smell the copper scent of fresh blood as it leaked from his nostrils. He was far from the ideal specimen, but he would have to do. She signed to Lanurith, whose nod made the transfer final.
Tazareah sunk her sharpened nails into the mon'keigh's skin, causing him to grimace in pain as she lifted him over her shoulder, carrying him to her private quarters.
—
Once more, Tazareah found herself utterly bored. The mon'keigh was suspended from the ceiling, shackled by the wrists. She'd driven nails through his feet into the floor, and even the piercing shrieks of his agony had done little more than take the edge off. She'd proceeded to remove his fingernails one by one, and while it had done more for her satisfaction than the arena combat, it still wasn't enough. She'd done it all - she felt no thrill of something new, or exciting. She'd consulted the haemonculi before, and that had greatly assisted her in finding new ways to draw pain from her captives, but after fifty years of doing so, even their dark rituals were beginning to feel monotonous.
"It's still not enough!" Tazareah shrieked, no longer able to contain her frustration. She violently stabbed the captive in the gut, and by reflex she began grabbing entrails and dragging them out, tearing them apart with her bare hands in a fit of rage.
In her anger she had been deafened to the creature's death throes, but now she drank in the sweet smell of torn flesh and ruptured organs. This soothed her somewhat, and she went to the wall of the chamber to demand slaves be sent to clean up the mess.
Tazareah stormed to her room from the private torture chamber. Those who passed her in the screaming halls of their cult's den sensed her mood and stayed well clear, lest they become her next victim. Though it was small consolation, Tazareah enjoyed the fear she inspired in her kin. It was the small things that were keeping her soul from She Who Thirsts, now.
She walked through the entryway and leapt onto her bed - it was a lushly crafted thing, commissioned by the haemonculi of the Coven of the Crawling Dark. The mattress was a stitched-together, still living mass of tormented flesh, its muted cries a plea for the mercy of death. The quilts were made of skin of multiple different sentient races, including her own - it reminded her of triumphs in the arena and rivals who had dared speak back to her. The memories helped to center her, and soothe the most intense of her emotions.
Tazareah knew she could not keep this up. The lack of adequately satisfying pain would starve her to death, if the growing weakness didn't inspire an ambitious, younger rival to kill her first. She had to find something new.
She sat in as much silence as was possible in the dark city, tuning out the sounds of agony and violence, and began to tend her garden. She had grown fond of keeping the galaxy's most venomous plants as personal curios from the many raids she'd gone on over the centuries. She could recite the deadly mechanisms by which each type of venom ravaged a victim's body, mind, or both, and would spend countless hours using them on her captives, just to observe the effects for herself. While it became monotonous like everything else in her life, plants were nothing if not diverse, so there were always new toxins out there waiting to be found and used.
Many of the plants were carnivorous, so she made sure to keep a constant supply of fresh meat around to feed her hungry little ones. Some were large enough that she had to be careful, lest she become their next meal. She was particularly fond of the Venus mantrap she had acquired on a raid to the notorious death world of Catachan. Seeing the fear in those brawny mon'keigh's eyes when placed in the same room as this seemingly inert piece of foliage had made her laugh until she thought she would pass out. Now, she took freshly-severed limbs, clearly of the T'au variety, and tossed them into the waiting leaves. They snapped violently shut faster than even she could move, and a curt smile crossed her face.
Though it was not sustenance, her plants were one of the few things that brought her something approaching calm and comfort in the dark city.
Her mind finally calmed from the tempest of whirling emotions, she began her meditations. When was the last time she had truly felt satiated? The question nagged at her for hours, as she searched her memories for the answer.
—
The Khymera led her to her target as the beastmaster had promised; the Asuryani witch Alinelle and her mon'keigh pet were here. It was a small raiding party, but Tazareah was not looking for an overwhelming display of force. All she wanted was satisfaction that had been denied to her for so long.
As her transport cut through the skies, she ignored the excited cries of the kabalites and wyches as they fired their weapons into the fleeing, panicking mon'keigh below. Tazareah had a more tantalizing target.
Together with a small retinue of her own Wyches, she cornered the farseer in the main building of the mon'keigh settlement. The first sight of the farseer and the mon'keigh sent an ecstatic shiver down her spine. After so much monotony, it was finally something new. It took considerable self control to not squeal in pleasure.
The craftworld psyker held a hand out, as if shielding the mon'keigh from Tazareah and her wyches. She was fond of her mon'keigh… and her body language spoke of a deeper attachment, one that could provide a most delicious pain, indeed.
She found her fellow wyches incinerated in the opening moments of their duel, but she also found she didn't care. She kept an eye on the mon'keigh as she traded blows with Alinelle. Testing the waters, she taunted the farseer, and drank in the psyker's rage. Though it made her opponent even more dangerous, the raw emotion was too savory to pass up.
Just as interesting, if not more so, was the pain emanating from the mon'keigh. It was as if he was a resonator - sensing the pain of those around him and echoing it tenfold. It was more satisfying than the flaying of a thousand slaves at once.
Though the distraction provided Alinelle with an opening to strike several devastating blows, Tazareah was able to recover quickly and refocused her mind as her soul was revitalized.
Even still, she couldn't help but continue to taunt the farseer. It didn't take long for her to recognize the telltale signs of physical and emotional attraction - clearly the source of Alinelle's attachment. While disgusted at first, as their duel continued, Tazareah's thoughts began to change. The taboo of it all - oh, the stir such a thing would cause! An aeldari, involved with a mon'keigh! In all her years, Tazareah had never felt this kind of thrill. It was, for the first time in half a century, something truly novel.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized, despite herself, that she wanted to do it. She wanted to have the mon'keigh for herself. The emotional anguish the loss would cause the farseer would provide her with centuries worth of pain, while the thrill of such a forbidden tryst with someone who himself acted as a pain resonator would have her on highs she had only dreamed of.
Unfortunately, these were new thoughts to her, and she realized she may have gone too far in stoking Alinelle's anger. She felt pain of her own as the farseer channeled her emotions into a series of crushing blows, shattering bone and tearing deep wounds into Tazareah's flesh.
That's when Tazareah saw the kabalite. It was perfect. She made eye contact with the warrior, then moved her eyes to the mon'keigh. The kabalite got the message, and took the shot. The spike of agony as the splinter rifle's venom-filled round pierced the mon'keigh, Logan, she committed the name to memory, in the abdomen.
Tazareah limped her way out of the building, but not before drinking in the pain of the farseer as she held the crippled mon'keigh in her arms. The brutalized kabalite meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Tazareah had found what she had been looking for. Now, she just needed to stalk her prey until a new opportunity presented itself. Then, she would have everything she desired.
—
Tazareah slapped herself hard in the face, drawing blood. How had such a thing slipped her mind? It had been barely a year since that encounter. Perhaps the starvation in the time since had clouded her memories.
No more waiting, Tazareah resolved. I will take what I desire. What is rightfully mine.
First, however, she would grant herself the mercy of sleep. Tucking herself into the bed borne of unimaginable suffering, Tazareah closed her eyes and allowed empty dreams to fill her mind.
With no true day or night in Commorragh, Tazareah simply awoke when her body sent the signal that she was adequately re-energized. As always, the suns cast a moody gloom over her bedchambers, but the same was true for all of Commorragh - it was a city of no true sunlight, at least as inferior species might consider it.
Without a moment to waste, she donned fresh garb and exited to the main den. Though she had multiple combats 'scheduled' for the day, as arch-succubus, she would simply delegate them to one of her many Dracites. She did so, and made her way to the beast pens.
Tazareah's nose wrinkled at the noxious smell of animal musk in the air. She recognized some of the penned creatures as those she had slaughtered before - Ambulls, Astartes, various Tyranid bioforms, and even a Catachan Devil. She passed all of these, walking straight up to the Beastmaster himself. He prostrated himself before her, as was befitting his lower rank. She nodded approvingly.
"It seems we will have quite the show," Tazareah mused, trying not to show her disinterest. She cared not whether she disrespected her subordinates, but she did not want a target placed on her back while she was still in a weakened state.
If the beastmaster had picked up on it, he showed no indication. "We haven't had a Catachan devil in our arena in at least two centuries. Last time it took three dozen Wyches to draw first blood, and by the end the damn thing was up in the stands butchering the crowd before it got under control," the beastmaster said with a cruel grin.
Arenagoers knew the risk, especially those that were eager to get as close as possible to the action. They were just as likely to be killed as the combatants. Sometimes, Tazareah enjoyed staging fights where the audience was the unknowing participant merely for the looks of shock and mass panic that ensued as a result. If anything, the news of such shows brought in even more drukhari, eager to see what she had planned next.
"It certainly sounds exciting," she managed. "But I am here on… other business."
"Very well," the beastmaster said. He got down to one knee, exposing his vulnerable neck as was the custom of submission to a superior in the Cult of Agonized Flesh. "How may I serve you, Archite?"
"I need use of your services on tracking a pair of individuals I want found," Tazareah began. "You need not know why, only that I want them found and I want this done at any cost."
"Yess, milady," the beastmaster hissed. "I will need something… physical or metaphysical… to give to my pets if we are to seek these targets. Do you have this?"
Tazareah reached into one of the many small dagger-pouches she had strapped across her chest, pulling out a small scrap of bloody cloth she'd found in the immediate aftermath of the events on Haarkian Secundus. The beastmaster held it in his gnarled, clawed hand, studying it, before placing it into one of several empty vials he had strapped to a belt at his waist.
"This will suffice for my purposes, Archite," the beastmaster said, bowing. "I will-"
"You will have the location I seek by the time I return. If not, I'm sure the Coven of Crawling Dark will be able to get some use out of you," Tazarea interrupted. She saw a small tremor in the beastmaster at the mention of the haemonculi.
Satisfied that he understood the severity should he fail, Tazareah left the pens and made her way to the kabal headquarters. No warriors dared to stand in her way as she entered, though several did cast glances in her direction as she ascended with confidence up to the Archon's chambers.
There, after stepping over a screaming face stitched into the floor, she found Lanurith. The archon did not have her armor, instead choosing to wear a set of luxurious robes. Though they were made of simple luxury cloth, Tazareah knew enough to understand the prioritization of comfort over display of power. In fact, that confidence was a display on its own. Still, the room was adorned with the heads of those who had made the mistake of crossing the archon, as a dire warning to those who would consider doing so themselves. Tazareah took a seat, and waited.
Tazareah refused to say the first word - to do so projected weakness, and she would not start from such a position. She would wait for the archon to acknowledge her presence, and only then would she make her request.
"Ah, my favorite Archite," Lanurith said, with a grand gesture. The archon ensured her body language was sufficiently mocking without crossing the line into outright insult. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I wish to collect upon the debt you owe me," Tazareah began. She paused, until she was sure Lanurith recalled the debt of which she spoke. "I have need for Kabal forces, to aid in some personal business that I must attend to."
"That is awfully vague, Archite," the archon replied. "You wouldn't happen to be planning another coup, would you?"
The words had the ring of humor, but Lanurith's face showed only an aura of menace. Tazareah shook her head.
"My ambitions are strictly personal," Tazareah stated. "I am perfectly satisfied with my position of power - I simply wish to pursue a… curiosity… I have come across, that will be of great personal amusement."
"I will grant you the forces you request, upon one condition. If you find anything that will be of benefit to myself or the Kabal of the Venomed Blade, you will share that with me and me alone. If I find out that you are keeping something of great value to yourself, I will have your entrails strung up and flown across High Commorragh for all to see," Lanurith answered. "And believe me, I will find out."
While others in Tazareah's position may have found such a condition intimidating, the prospect instead sent a barely-controllable shiver of excitement down the succubus' spine. The forbidden. The taboo - she could sense the unease with which the archon granted her request, the restrained curiosity, and the certainty of her intent. Tazareah would have to guard her prize carefully, which made it all the more worthwhile. Keeping this all behind a polite smile, Tazareah rose from her seat, and bowed before exiting the archon's meeting chamber.
"I will send you a list of the forces I require shortly," Tazareah said, before stepping out. This time, she made sure to stamp hard on the face on the floor, just to hear the muffled scream beneath her boot.
After listing up the forces she would need, Tazareah spent a few hours watching her subordinates in the arena. It was always coolly amusing to see how many desperately attempted to emulate her, and of those, how many utterly failed to do so. In the first scheduled match of the day, it was a dozen wyches, led by a hekatrix, against a brood of Tyranid genestealers.
Oh, how sure of their superior agility they were! That made it that much more amusing when half of them were torn to bloody scraps in mere seconds. She smiled as the rest panicked, the hekatrix frantically trying to restore order before one of the creatures slit her throat. It took a half dozen bloodbrides to finally kill the murderous insects. Ah, how easily arrogance burns, she thought. Though she admitted, she was somewhat jealous of her younger subordinates down there. This was still new for them. The thrill was entirely real, and the bloodshed was divinely satiating. It only made her eagerness for her new pet stronger.
Tazareah strode into the Beastmaster's pen, and found him in the center of a pack of creatures akin to flayed felids. These were the same tracking beasts that had led her to Haarkian Secundus, so at least the beastmaster was consistent. When the beastmaster noticed her presence, she saw him suppress a gasp of shock before he composed himself.
"My pets have found the prey you seek, mistress," the beastmaster said confidently. "You will find them on Endeon Quintus, in twelve hours' time."
"Well done, beastmaster," Tazareah replied, a statement more than praise. "I hope, for your sake, that this information proves true."
"I assure you, they will be there, mistress," he said, shaking his head fervently. "The Khymera never lose a scent."
—
A day later, Tazareah journeyed her away across the dark city, to the Port of Lost Souls. Ships by the hundreds docked and departed every second, sending out raiding parties and bringing back fresh captives to feed the teeming drukhari populace. Here, there was an uneasy truce - any and all political rivalries were temporarily put aside, as any damage here could compromise the inflow of new captives.
She headed to her allied Kabal's section of port, and found her force waiting for her, already embarked upon their craft. Quickly picking the largest of the three vessels she had requested, she nimbly leapt up the landing ramp and walked to the main deck.
She did not need to give the command as the ship lifted from the dock and sped off towards the nearest webway gate. She simply watched in the viewport as the ship made its way into the gate, and stood in silence until they exited at their destination. She checked the registered time - they actually arrived early. Perfect.
She quickly scanned the readings of the planet's surface. Though she knew nothing of why her prey journeyed here, it did not take the wit of Asdrubael Vect to surmise their target. A holomap projected on the deck as Tazareah began to give her orders.
"Take the ships down here," Tazareah said, pointing to a point at the northern edge of the jungle oasis, "but drop all ground infantry on the island. Run on silent, and no active comms once we land, until I say otherwise."
The affirmatives sounded across the board as their ships entered the atmosphere. Tazareah jumped off the ramp, followed by twenty kabalite warriors, a venom skimmer, and two dozen of her own wyches. She'd decided the focus would be on stealth, and elected to keep the hellions, sourges, and reaver jetbikes in reserve until the battle was joined in full.
She closely examined the surroundings, pointing out ambush positions for the warriors under her command. They obeyed her orders without question. In truth, the surroundings amused her. Perhaps her prissy cousin was coming here in an attempt to restore these decrepit ruins, desperately clinging on to the past as they seemed prone to do. She trampled as many pieces of the temple under her feet as she could while she walked, crumbling them into dust. Their people were destined for greater things than hanging on to lost glories.
As the thoughts crossed her mind, she saw another ship break atmosphere and land on the outskirts of the oasis. The rest of her party clearly noticed as well, because they stood completely motionless. The quiet was as relaxing as it was eerie, and Tazareah felt the anticipation growing, as she heard splashing noises from the not-so-distant shore. The succubus tensed every muscle in her body, ready to pounce.