Story Time Part 2

 So this is Part two. If you haven't read Part One, you might want to think about it, lest confusion sink in.

Part II

Flanked by his apprentices Kelmon prepared himself for the battle. His lithe fingers toyed idly with the wraithbone tiles of the battlerunes. The air carried the scent of ozone and blood. He gazed into the viewing tesseract and studied the disposition of the armies, fixing them in his mind.

The forces of the Craftworld stretched out across a long front.  The Avatar and most of the Aspect Warriors held the center in strength. The Wraith Guard held the right flank. The left flank was secured against the base of a huge butte. Dark Reapers commanded the heights. A strike force of Banshees waited in the gulleys ready to advance in cover along the dry stream bottom. The squads of Guardians reinforced the center. Swooping Hawks cast long shadows upon the ash plain. The Eldar force was a river of color suddenly frozen.

The chaos cultists faced them along the top of a nearby ridge, a huge ragged army of depraved humans clutching ill-assorted weapons. Once, perhaps they had been part of the Planetary Defense Force before this world fell to the forces of depravity. Now they stood mouthing silent obscenities. A few hastily converted armored vehicles lay hull down against the great ridge. The sigils of Slaanesh, chaos god of pleasure were splashed along their side. The skeletal fingers of dead tree branches clutched at the sky. Beyond them Kelmon sensed, rather than saw, an obscenely powerful presence.  A dozen of the humans armored walkers advanced through the sparse vegetation on the ridge.

It was time. 

Kelmon breathed deeply and entered the trance. His fingers danced through the air scattering the red and blue runes representing the opposing forces. He emptied his mind and sifted through the possible futures, searching for a probability line that would give the Eldar victory. As always, the future was turbulent, waves of possibility and psychic power and passion clouded the potential course of events. The power of the Avatar itself warped the timelines round it.

He felt a surge of exhilaration as the power flowed through him- nothing could compare with this feeling of power. All the game playing and Event Challenges among the Seers were but preparation for this moment and offered only pale hints of its satisfaction. He focused all his attention on the runes and under his scrutiny, they moved deliberately into conjunction with each other, establishing the weave of the pattern. The runes danced around him, shifting like a shoal of fish shimmering in the oceans depths. Each represented a part of the assembled forces and through them, he could maintain a psychic link with the Eldar troops.

The blue stone representing the Wraithguard moved off cautiously and on the battlefield the great war machines strode forward. In his multi-compartmented mind, a dozen potential futures blossomed. He saw the machines fall blasted by heavy weapons. He saw them stride among the humans sentinel walkers and engage in melee. He saw them stumble upon the rough ground.

In the air, the red runes rearranged themselves. In his mind ’s eye, Kelmon saw the humans heavy weapons belch flowers of flame at the feet of the Wraithguard. Kelmon reeled, feeling the pattern of the conflict emerging from the maelstrom of probability. Events were speeding up and the dance of the runes reflected this. He struggled to keep track of the pattern as it became ever more complex and intertwined, twisting into impossibly convoluted designs symbolic of the battle’s state.

One group of runes moved, another set responded in turn. Images flickered through his mind. Swooping Hawks soared over the enemy front line dropping explosive grenades. A storm of laser bursts erupted around them. Several Hawks dropped like wounded birds into the ranks and were swiftly torn to pieces. Their rune flickered away from its endangered position and the airborne troops drifted into the sky out of range.

Traitor Guardsmen/Chaos Cultists

A wave of ragged screaming humans raced forwards. They slid down the slope of the ridge, plumes of ash billowing around their feet, weapons spitting laser fire, looks of ecstatic bloodlust frozen upon their faces. The armored vehicles provided supporting fire. The red runes spun around each other like a wheel and touched the blue rune of the Dark Reapers. A hail of missiles leapt from the mesa top and tore the cultists to shreds.

Another blue rune moved into the pattern and the Banshees started sneaking forward up the culverts of the stream bottom.

Pain flared through him as the Avatar rune grew in size and luminescence, attracting more blue runes around it as the Bloody-Handed One led the Scorpions and Dragons towards the survivors of the humans charge. Kelmon threw his efforts into following the new probability line the Avatar had instigated. The Hawks flew down across the ridge to assault snipers and the vehicles. The attack was not elegant but it distracted the humans from the frontal assault as they concentrated on the fliers.

Human reinforcements raced down the ridge, throwing themselves madly into the fray, seemingly unafraid of the Avatar. Once again, Kelmon sense the presence of some daemonic power. The rune of the Accursed One span into the middle of the pattern and the sense of looming presence intensified. Men screamed as the Dragons’ meltaguns charred their flesh. The Scorpions ripped through them, mandiblasters spitting death.

On the right, the Wraithguard had bogged down in an exchange of fire with the sentinels and armored vehicles. They seemed to be losing. The Wraithguard rune flipped into a new position, placing itself in conjunction with the defense rune. The Wraithguard moved further right seeking cover.

The sentinels and other combat machines were on the move now heading towards the swirling melee at the ridge bottom. In his mind’s eye, Kelmon saw the Avatar turn and shred a mighty machine as if it were made of paper. Blood and oil mixed as the man inside was ripped in two.

Warlocks danced through the fray, blasting their foes with psychic bolts. Kelmon sensed the ebb and flow of their power within the runes. There was a brief flicker of unexpected contact where he looked through the eyes of Warlock Solara. He felt the shock of contact as the Warlock rammed his witchblade into the stomach of a cultist then withdrew it almost before the blood spurted.

The remainder of the armored vehicles began to move, rumbling forwards, weapons blazing. The hail of fire shredded through Eldar and cultist alike. It pattered off the Avatar’s armored body like gentle rain. When the vehicles came into range, the Dark Reapers went into action. Orange contrails of rocket fire flickered hellishly and explosions ripped the ground around the transports. A direct hit reduced one vehicle and its occupants to mangled wreckage. 

The withering rain of missiles stalled the armored advance. Kelmon let his attention slide elsewhere. The Howling Banshees had reached the hillside and their rune twisted as they charged up the slope to clear the ridge top. The outcome of the move was strangely obscured and when they were in position he found out why.

His hearts skipped a beat as he felt emphatically the terror of the warrior women. Row upon row of human warriors waited and when Kelmon recognized the being that lead them he realized what had hid them from his vision. A Keeper of Secrets. A greater daemon in the service of Slaanesh towered over the assembled throng. Jeweled eyes glittered in its bull like head. Its huge pincer arms caressed the head of a priestess almost lovingly.  It beckoned with one of its other pair of human arms and a wave of cultists surged towards the Banshees.

The dancers held their ground, vaulting among the frenzied soldiers. Their masks screamed and Kelmon could hear the high pitched wailing in his head. Men fell clutching bleeding ears, faces liquefying under the impact of high intensity sound waves. The humans that survived the scream quickly fell to the Banshees’ graceful skill with their power swords and shuriken pistols. Then the Daemon entered the fray and the Banshees died. The creatures fury was awesome to behold.

The Keeper of Secrets seemed almost to gloat as it thundered through the Eldar force, pincers ripping through flesh. It lifted one frail body and tossed it aside casually, like a discarded toy. Laser bolts reflected from its glowing skin. It ignored the strike of the Banshee leader’s power sword before playfully disemboweling her. The banshees tried to retreat but they were cut off by the cultists surrounding them. Mad laughter frothed from the humans foam flecked lips as they killed the aspect warriors.

Now the Keeper of Secrets emerged onto the ridge top, holding the shattered body of a Banshee over its head. It stood there silhouetted against the sunlight and roared its contempt of the enemy below. It plucked the brightly glowing way stone from the Banshees armor and popped it in its mouth like a sweetmeat. A look of obscene pleasure passed across its face as it consumed the soul contained within.

The Eldar army froze. Moans of terror issued from a few lips. A lull settled over the battlefield and even the chatter of small arms fire seemed to recede. 

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