“Ready yourselves for the bloodletting,” she called out to her brothers and sisters on the raider and to those on the other two raiders who heard her over the communications relay.
As one, the horde of wyches drew syringes from leather belts and stabbed them into thighs and forearms. They simultaneously shuddered as the Hypex adrenaline flooded through them. Xwe herself noticed a sudden sharpening of her vision as if every edge of every shape she saw were outlined by a manic artist.
This zone of the small temporary empire the Dark Eldar had carved out was the site of a power generator that the warlord Desiato had been counting on to fuel the warhost’s transports and it could not be allowed to fall. Even now Xwe could see the Necrons syphoning power from the large structure.
The raiders slowed slightly and snapped off a volley of dark lance shots at the spider-like walkers that formed the frontline of the Necrons’ defences. Their aim was true but the lances of darklight were mostly deflected by shimmering shielding that surrounded the walkers. The only successful hit sheared one of its legs away and it steadied itself against a boulder, unable to move but still tracking the Eldar with its guns.
Then came the return fire; a brutal fusillade of lightning which wrapped around the raiders’ hulls, throttling them. Two of the three transports crashed to the ground and Xwe and her wyches leapt deftly from the skimmers’ decks moments before they impacted on the ashen ground. Ahead of her, the haemonculus, Gret, had summoned a webway portal and through it she could see nostalgic glimpses of the dark city where she was born.
Overhead the reaver jetbikes screeched across the battlefield and spiralled down over the heads of a squad of necron immortals, decapitating a handful, only to have them miraculously reassemble before her eyes. From behind her, Desiato’s trueborn appeared let loose with their blasters which pulverised one of the walkers as it ambled towards Xwe. She laughed scornfully as the thing’s eldritch shield flickered and died, followed by the pathetic collapse of the whole construct.
Across the field, the first squad of wyches charged the nearby Necron immortals and again they stabbed and crushed eyes, skulls and spinal columns with expert strikes of their feet and vicious jabs of their blades. Fully half of the Necron squad fell and Xwe felt sure that they would flee and be cut down, but the Necron lord in the squad stoicly held a palm up and without a word his warriors refused to be moved. Light emanated from the arcane orb the lord held and all but one of the number the wyches had felled rose again to their feet. Xwe snarled in frustration, knowing that with the momentum of their charge robbed from them, the wyches would have a hard time finishing their target.
She herself charged across the field but the deep wound and recently healed bones in her left leg painfully slowed her, especially over the rocky terrain. She looked to the webway portal but still nothing emerged. On the far side of the battlefield, the reaver jetbikes had been charged and caught by the immortals and though they fought like cornered beasts, they were outnumbered almost five to one.
Finally, with a banshee cry, the hellions ripped through the glassy liquid surface of the webway portal and flew over Xwe’s head, charging the third squad of immortals ahead of her. Hope began to rise in her until a moment later she caught sight of glimmering lasers tracing over her body. She looked to her left in time to see the ghostly Necron snipers that targeted her and her wyches. At once they let loose a cloud of fire in the form of energy beams that seemed to have no noticeable physical effect on her wyches but then she saw in horror as blood poured from eyes, ears and noses and with wide-open mouths and bulging stares, the entire squad dropped to their knees and then fell face first into the dirt.
The deadliness of the Necron weaponry was truly impressive and all the more to her disliking since it seemed they intended to blast her forces from the face of existence without feeling the sting of the Dark Eldar’s blades. She frantically charged the immortals that were quickly scything through the hellions and began to slash and whip at them her agoniser, but as before, every time she killed three of the silent warriors, two of her victims stood again.
Almost all her warriors were now engaged, but no matter how much fury they brought to bear and no matter how grievous the Necrons’ losses were, they seemed incapable of routing. She imagined that if it had all been some kind of game and the Necrons had needed to roll 5 or less on two dice to keep themselves from fleeing, they would have managed this feat twice already in the course of the battle and she could tell that they never would fail any test of their bravery throughout the battle.
Unbidden came the harlequins to battlefield, their reasons for joining the fray inexplicable to Xwe. Perhaps Desiato had struck some kind of bargain with them. No matter the reason, they charged the Necron snipers and like the wyches, found themselves locked in a seemingly never ending struggle.
As the last of the hellions were cut down by the immortals, Xwe ground her teeth in anger. Ignoring the half-dozen enemy warriors that crowded around her, she leapt with all the hatred she could summon at the Necron Overlord before her. Her agoniser whipped out before her and its crackling edge tore through the overlord, slicing him in twain. She cried out like a hawk in exaltation at her victory and readied herself to tear apart the cronies that closed in around her but before she could strike she turned at the sound of metal clinking together. The Overlord stood before her again, torn off body parts snapping back onto his torso as if his absent heart were emitting a gravitational force. Her eyes went wide in disbelief and unendurable frustration.
At that moment, she saw the same immortals who had slaughtered the reavers, cut down the last of the wyches and set them to rout. The Harlequins finished off one of the deathmarks squads but faced a sure death from the second. It was all falling apart and all she could fathom was some possible escape to save her own skin.
At that moment the webway portal shuddered again and this time scores of reinforcements came streaming from it. Finally the Necrons calmly turned and walked away into a shroud of darkness summoned by the Overlord. It was over.
Xwe, panting from the exertions of trying to fell and seemingly unkillable foe, glanced around her, seeing dozens of bodies, bloody and torn. The senseless carnage brought a little warmth to her loins but the sensation warred with the relief of the marginal victory she had achieved and the irritation at the escape of her quarry.
“Next time, I shall prove that no one is immortal…” she muttered to herself as she began to limp away to the closest functioning transport.
Great! Would love to see some pictures too. Helps visualise it all.
ReplyDelete