Part III
The Avatar turned its burning gaze on the Daemon, silently responding to its mocking challenge. The slow drip-drip-drip of blood from its left hand intensified. Its blade glowed brightly in its clenched right fist.
Kelmon sensed that they had reached the crisis point of the battle. Two mighty probability waves were about to clash, one bringing screaming terror and defeat to his people, the other joyous victory. The outcome was uncertain. Forces beyond his ability to comprehend had been unleashed here.
The Daemon led its followers down the ridge. The Eldar charged to meet them. Great clouds of dust rose around the combatants. Now all subtlety was thrown aside in the primal fury of conflict. The fighting became close and deadly as the two forces mingled. The Avatar and the Keeper of Secrets ploughed towards each other, leaving destruction in their wakes. The Daemon rent two Exarchs asunder before it confronted the Avatar.
The ground shook as the two mighty beings clashed. The Avatar and Daemon wrestled each seeking advantage. Auras of power flickered around them as they dueled with blades of psychic force. The daemon's claws locked tight on the Avatar’s armor, striving to crush the being contained within. The Bloody Handed One’s left hand closed on the Daemon’s throat as it sought to strangle its foe.
Kelmon felt a surge of power as the Warlocks entered the fight. Their witchblades flashed, cutting into the daemon's hide, distracting it for a second as it lashed out in fury, breaking bodies with each terrific blow.
For a long moment, the conflict stood in balance. The Avatar and the Daemon stood locked, straining to their uttermost, neither able to break the deadlock. Kelmon sensed the total nature of the combat. Here were two beings driven by burning hatred battling on every level, physical, mental, spiritual; re-enacting an age-old cosmic battle. Around them, the struggles of man and Eldar were dwarfed by the energies unleashed. It was like two giants fighting in an ant pile.
Slowly, painfully, the Avatar forced the Daemon back. The Daemon attempted to hold its ground, but was forced to sway, curving its back away from its foe. The Avatar seemed to grow as it exerted itself more fully. Suddenly, with a final desperate surge it lifted the Daemon and broke its back over one armored knee. A terrible psychic scream rang out. The feedback through the runes nearly caused Kelmon to faint.
The Avatar stood now in the center of the battle and raised its blade in triumph. The cultists moaned, having seen their god destroyed. The Avatar glared around. Its gaze fixed on one man who fell to his knees screaming. The Avatar reached out with its bloody hand. There was a great splintering of bone as the man’s heart burst out through his chest and floated into the Avatar’s grasp. The cultists fell back demoralized.
The battle was over. The massacre began.
Part IV
Solara walked across the plain of ash. All around Bonesingers in wraithbone armor loomed from the twilight, their ornate helmets and baroque armor turning them into ominous spectral figures. They stood over the bodies of the Eldar dead, singing the Requiem for Fallen Heroes.
A thousand points of light glittered in the shadows transforming the battlefield into a carpet strewn with tiny stars. Each small fire was a way stone, pulsing with the soul of a slain warrior, a refuge against the ultimate death. Slowly the lights winked out as the Bonesingers reverently collected them for merger with the Infinty Circuit in the heart of the Craftworld.
Solara passed the burned out remains of a fallen Wraith Lord. The machine was shattered beyond repair, its external carapace pitted with blast craters, its head fused to molten slag.It lay on its side like the skeleton of a fallen giant.
He remembered the Wraith Lord as it marched to battle among the wraithguard, striding like an elegant thoroughbred, spider silk pennons aflutter. He mourned its passing. Another artifact of ancient times destroyed, another object of irreplaceable beauty ruined, another soul removed from the universe by the forces of senseless destruction.
He stepped over a human corpse. The man looked small and pitiful now that he was dead, hands outstretched, begging for mercy he never received. His eyes were open, looking up to the unforgiving sky with an expression of shock. The Warlock bent down and closed his eyes gently, thinking that no one, not even a human, should gaze out into the darkness forever.
Shocking quiet had fallen over the field now that the battle was finished. Solara found it hard to believe that only hours earlier he had been trapped in a roaring melee, partially defened by the clamor of battle. Now his ears seemed to ring with the absence of sound.
Nearby a Dire Avenger sat cross legged by the body of her fallen comrade. She had removed her mask and bright crystal tears ran down her face. He knew her name was Kshatriya. He placed his hands on his own mask and toyed with the idea of removing it. He did not.
He knew that when he did so, the last remnants of his fighting persona would fall away and he would have to confront his own reaction to the battle. Then he too would weep. At the moment, armored in the role of Warlock, he could ignore the worst of his sorrow.
He stalked through the aftermath of carnage, wondering if it was always like this, the grief and the hollowness of the heart. He began to understand why some Eldar became trapped on the warrior path. Dealing with the sight of so much ruin could be to much to bear.
We have won the battle, he thought, but we can never win the war. In the end, this ceaseless conflict will destroy us. Every fight leaves us diminished, a few more souls lost to the Warp forever. He thought of Kratithiel, the Banshee whose waystone the daemon had devoured. That bright joyous girl would dance no more at the Feast of Forgotten Sorrows. She was gone now and a small part of the Eldar race had departed with her. The universe is colder for her passing, he thought.
All the bloodlust and the bright madness of battle had gone now. It was as if the Avatar had taken it with him when he vanished back to his nether realm in the bowels of the Craftworld.
Contemplating the darkness of spirit that the Bloody Handed One’s presence had revealed to him, Solara almost hated the creature. Part of him had enjoyed the battle, had reveled in the taking of life and the terrible excitement the being had led them into. The Avatar is a part of us, he thought. We cannot escape the fact or shift the blame to him. We created him and we summoned him. His destructive potential is part of every Eldar. The Avatar’s presence was simply an excuse for unleashing our darker selves. He is only our reflection, an incarnate nightmare of violence and death made real by our desires.
He reached the center of the field where the remaining troops had gathered. Most of the Aspect Warriors had removed their masks, were becoming themselves again. Some sat quietly, some wept, some laughed. The faceless precision of the Aspect Squads was gone, replaced by the reactions of individual Eldar.
A group had gathered around the Farseer. Among their ranks Solara could make out the face of his mentor, Bressa. Kelmon emerged to be greeted by their quiet approbation. His face was flushed, triumphant. He was raised on high by two Guardians, who lifted his thin, wasted body easily and was taken down towards the bulk of the army.
Somewhere, someone struck up a tune on the splinterpipe. The wild melody drifted over the battlefield, moving slowly from a mood of melancholic sadness to exultant triumph. It was the music of survival, of people who had passed through the inferno of combat unscathed. It spoke of the strange joy of victory, of the simple gladness of being alive. It mourned the passing of the dead yet spoke to the hearts of the living. It said tomorrow we will grieve but tonight let us give thanks for our lives. All things pass, life goes on.
“It is over, Solara,” Bressa said. “The time for heroes is past.”
For a long time he looked at her, wondering whether he could face being a simple mortal again, a dying thing in a dying world. The music and the message of her eyes reached out to him and Solara took of his mask.
He became truly himself again and wept.
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