“Fuck me, she’s missing half of her bloody brain- if you had been a millisecond slower with that stasis gun we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Get me a Neurothetic now!”
-Solar Operator Corporal Gasper Kinelli, during the Battle of Ullanor at the height of the Second Galactic War, M22. 918.
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M24, 200
Webway City of Ulthwe
Ulthwe was burning. One of the last remaining bastions of civilization and morality within the decadent Empire of Ten Million Suns, for generations the city had been a place for still-sane Aeldari from every corner of the Empire to seek refuge, where the ancient traditions were still upheld and the inhabitants not driven to commit acts of madness in the name of pleasure.
Amidst the opaque, crystalline ruins of a castle, a young Eldar groaned, his consciousness slowly coming back as he felt someone shaking his shoulders. “Boy!” The sound was muffled, like an underwater echo. “Get up boy! We have to go now!”
Blearily, the Aeldari opened his eyes, greeted with the sight of an Eldar in a full suit of rune-patterned silver armor. “Khiraen? Wha… what happened? What’s going on?”
The other Eldar helped him to his feet, face obscured by a mirrorlike visor. “There was an attack. The gates have been breached, and most of the city has fallen already.” He made a wide gesture with his arms; the ruins of once-beautiful buildings now dotted the landscape, skittering figures darted in and out from the shadows, while ghostly laughter echoed everywhere. “We have to leave now- we are running out of time, Eldrad.”
Eldrad Ulthran, scion of the Ulthran family glanced wildly around, eyes filled with confusion and panic. “My family… what happened to my family? Where are they, Khiraen? WHERE ARE THEY?” The young being half-pleaded, half-shouted, his distress manifesting as psychic hoarfrost forming around his feet.
Khiraen Goldhelm, bodyguard to the Ulthran line grabbed Eldrad’s shoulders. “Control yourself, boy! Remember your training and fix your wounds first.” The Eldar glared rebelliously for a few seconds before he looked away, the hoarfrost evaporating while he channeled psychic power through his body, healing cuts and bruises, while a particularly nasty gash on the thigh began to close visibly.
“Our manor was hit in the first wave, but by Isha’s mercy they weren’t using Eradicator warheads.” The old soldier tossed a Discordion Pistol to Eldrad, the teenager fumbling with the weapon. “I have your parents’ souls here.” He tapped his belt, where two silver pods were attached, encasing the delicate soulstones within. “The survivors are fleeing to the Craftworld at Port Xaka, just like the evacuation contingencies intended. If we want any hope of survival, then we need to get there.”
“But-” Eldrad started, looking around the shattered remains of his home. He was raised here, had grown up here- some of his fondest memories had taken place within this house. Then the sound of a faraway explosion snapped him out of his reverie. “At least let me-”
Stop. Khiraen’s voice echoed in his head. Stay close to me, boy. We are not alone. The warrior had unsheathed his sword, the Composite Blade crackling with psychic power, while the gauntlet on his left hand began to hum.
Standing back to back, the two Eldar stood in place, watching the flickering shadows around them. Four heartbeats passed, before a pack of snarling figures leaped out, claws extending. An appalling combination of wraithbone and flesh, these were psychomaton hybrids, machines combined with the bodies of still-living slaves in agonizing ways.
Khiraen flicked his wrist, the interlocking shards of the Composite Blade in his hand transforming into a razor sharp whip that cut down two of the maddened beasts. Another lunged at Eldrad, the boy squeezing off three shots, the last of which slammed face first into the monster’s face, entropic energy dissolving the head into separate molecules, only for yet another one to vault over the headless corpse and swipe at the Aeldari’s head.
Before it connected it burst into fragments of gore and metal, Khiraen finally using his psychic power in the form of telekinesis to destroy the rest of the pack. “No more time to argue, boy- their controller must have sensed their demise already. Run!” Even as they spoke, more shapes were closing in from the shadows, accompanied by feral snarls.
Needing no more convincing, Eldrad broke into a sprint, followed by Khiraen. Funneling psychic energy into their legs to increase their speed, the two of them zigzagged past the streets of the soon-to-be razed city. Platoons of psychomatons battled each other amidst the ruins of crumbled houses, and in the distance slender, ghoulish giants drifted across the land while jetbikes and strike fighters flew across the skies, bearing the emblems of the three Great Houses that had attacked Ulthwe. The artificial sky of the Webway city, normally a pale purple-blue was now ridden with ugly red-black scars and hordes of daemons.
They continued running, turning a corner and straight into the Boulevard of a Thousand Stars. A suspended crystal bridge that ran straight through the city, the statues of venerated gods that stood along its two sides were now defaced and shattered, with all manner of beings prowling the road, from towering Pain Engines to depraved Eldar raiders looking for prey.
The two took cover behind a beheaded statue of Morai-Heg. There’s too many of them. Eldrad sent telepathically. We have to find another way through!
Khiraen shook his head. The Craftworld is leaving soon. This is the closest route to the port- if we delay any longer Xaka is going to be overrun, and you know what those outside Ulthwe’s halls do to their prisoners. The ancient soldier who had lived more than a million passes stood up, and began to walk out of cover.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
What are you doing? Eldrad shouted in his mind. There’s too many of them! Two Pain Engines had already spotted him, their grotesque bodies moving closer with syringes and scalpels sliding out.
Khiraen looked back. Clearing a path, boy.
The Composite Blade blurred, the slashes forming a wall of white lines that enveloped the Pain Engines. A brief pause, then the cubed pieces of their bodies scattered, the Eldar striding through the bloody mess as his signature golden helmet was ignited with a corona of psychic light too bright to look at.
The monsters on the bridge turned to face him, eyes lighting up at the sight of new prey. Incoherent screams filled the air as they charged at him, Eldar raiders overdosed on stimulants, flesh hounds, Pain Engines, even newborn daemon servants of the God That Would Be.
They came, and they died.
With a roar, the living weapon that was Khiraen’s mind lashed out. In the same following moment, every attacker was burning with Empyreal fire that scorched their very souls, an expression of wrath manifest. War-cries turned into screams of genuine pain, while Khiraen’s sword flashed, cutting down the hordes in the blink of an eye.
Eldrad followed in his footsteps as the bodyguard massacred his way through the Boulevard. Telekinetic force grabbed ranks of opposing psychomatons and tore them apart, the pavement cracking under the strain of the old veteran’s power as he froze a daemon-possessed sculpture of Kurnous solid.
They reached the end of the bridge where a transit station awaited. From the branches of the tree-like station hung hundreds of pods, each one capable of moving through the Webway tunnel behind the station that led to Port Xaka at great speed. Grabbing Eldrad, Khiraen leaped upwards, assisted by telekinetic power, and landed on one of the Webway carriages. The top of the ovoid slid apart, the two of them jumping in. A quick psychic signal and the top closed shut, the pod detaching from the station and speeding into the tunnel.
Khiraen checked the chronometer in his helmet and swore violently. “Twenty revolutions until it leaves. We have to hurry.”
The carriage was a translucent colour, revealing the intricate decorations of the tunnel carved by psychomaton-artisans. The theme seemed to be one of the Aeldari’s great victories against the greenskin hordes millions of cycles ago, before they had degenerated into pests, where Titania Iceborn led her armies and slew the Overboss Kotgrar in single combat. The decorations of the tunnel changed every cycle, and briefly Eldrad wondered if it would be the last time he passed through this place.
Eldrad turned his attention the ancient veteran. The armour he wore was an antiquated relic from the last age, before the decadence had begun to set in, and on the left side of his breastplate was a glyph that he knew to be the Mark of Khaine. For as long as he had remembered Khiraen Goldhelm had served his family as a knight-bodyguard, and when Eldrad was at the age of fifty passes he had started to train him in the psychic arts, stating that a time would come when they were needed.
“...why do you serve my family, Khiraen?” The Aeldari teenager never had the right opportunity to ask the question; now facing mortal peril, whether or not it was the right time didn’t seem to matter.
His face obscured by the visor of his helm, Khiraen turned to face Eldrad. “A prophecy." Then the Aeldari turned away, seemingly refusing to answer any further.
The pod stopped, and the two clambered out into the massive shipyard that was Port Xaka. Stretching out in all angles, the shipyard was filled with ships battling each other, the air thick with pulsar lances and annihilating rays. In the center was the Craftworld in all it's moon-sized glory, the trading ship converted into an escape vessel ages ago as a backup plan while the Empire of Ten Million Suns fell further into madness.
Scanning the surroundings, Khiraen raised his left arm, the gauntlet opening up a miniaturized Warp Rift in the chest of the Aeldari piloting a jetbike above him. The pilot fell off the seat, even as the bodyguard used his telekinetic grip to grab the vehicle and bring it down to him, climbing onto the bike. “Grab my back, boy.”
The engine purred, and the jetbike took off at subsonic speeds. Fleets were battling around the Craftworld's orbit as straggler refugee ships tried to enter its holds without getting blown apart, while the warships of Houses Zenrith and Wyndseor, their designs simultaneously repellent and beautiful, engaged the Craftworld’s fleets and defenses, seeking to crack iit open and take the Aeldari inside as captives.
“We can’t get through that!” Eldrad shouted. The battlefield around the Craftworld was saturated by projectiles, mines and laserfire of all sorts, and the jetbike they were on was heading straight through it. “It’s suicide!”
Khiraen shook his head. “Use your gifts, boy! Have I taught you nothing?”
Eldrad gritted his teeth, focusing as he traced a rune in the air as guidance even as a glob of luminescent acid missed them by mere inches. A protective bubble of psychic force flashed into existence around the jetbike, and not a moment too soon as a hail of neurotoxin darts slammed into the shield. A trickle of blood ran down Eldrad’s nose, but the bubble held.
Khiraen dodged and weaved, the old Aeldari relying on millennia-old instinct and psychic senses to steer a path towards the nearest Craftworld hangar, while at the same time transmitting a psychic message to its crew, informing them that they were friendly. Just up ahead, a tiny hatch opened in the hull of the Craftworld with the shielding above it disappearing, enough for the jetbike to slip through.
They were so close, Eldrad thought. Just a little more, and then they would be safe-
Then from their right, a Ripper Torpedo slammed into them, the brilliant red torpedo exploding into a ball of destructive power. Pain lanced through Eldrad’s body, the negative feedback overwhelming him as the shield shattered. For a moment, all he knew was fire and pain.
Then nothing more, as he slid into darkness.