Harlequin vs Custodes

The Adeptus Custodes waited for them, opening fire as they ran down the vast processional way. Hard projectiles of metal whined past them, shot from the tips of long-hafted weapons as heavy as Lhaerial herself. Primitive, as all the technology of the humans was, but deadly. Just one round, were it to hit, would obliterate her slender body.

They did not hit.

Lhaerial wove around the bolts. Bho fired from behind, his screamer cannon punching the genetically enhanced warriors from their feet. They were too mighty to be felled by the shot itself, instead dying painfully as the gene-toxins in the shrieker rounds rewrote their life code explosively.

‘Stop, stop!’ she called out in their ugly language. ‘My name is Lhaerial Rey,’ she continued, ‘Shadowseer of the Ceaseless Song. I come here at command of Eldrad Ulthran to deliver a message of great import to the Emperor of Mankind!’

Only murder dwelled in their hearts. A giant moved to intercept her, his great halberd whirling in buzzing arcs around his head. This one moved with a grace and speed she did not associate with the humans. She fought ferociously with him, trading parries and ripostes like for like, the sheer strength of the human shocking her. She saluted him before she took his head from his shoulders. ‘Friendship! Friendship!’ she cried out, Gothic’s coarseness an affront to her tongue.

More of them came at her, shouting angrily. That she was swinging her sword at them probably belied her words, she thought ironically, but she refused to die for their idiocy. She called out as she killed, over and over again. ‘My name is Lhaerial Rey, Shadowseer of the Ceaseless Song. I come here at command of Eldrad Ulthran to deliver a message of great import to the Emperor of Mankind. Friendship! Friendship! Cease your fighting!’

Bho shot down the last of them. Lhaerial vaulted the human’s writhing form.

‘The gate!’ she cried to Bho. ‘It is near!’ Incredibly, the gate remained open, a sign of the humans’ arrogance. A stream of Adeptus Custodes flooded forth.

The Harlequins sprinted on, launching themselves over the heads of those who came to oppose them; cutting down any who came within striking distance and ignoring the rest, Lhaerial expected a lucky shot to take her in the back at any moment.

‘My name is Lhaerial Rey, Shadowseer of the Ceaseless Song. I come here at command of Eldrad Ulthran to deliver a message of great import to the Emperor of Mankind. Friendship! Friendship!’

The warriors of the Emperor would not listen, and the nearer they came to the Throne Room, the more furious they became. She only hoped that if she could get to the centre of the warding circles that girdled the Palace for thousands of lengths, her mind could touch His.

The door came closer, monumentally huge. She had rarely seen its like in the realm of flesh and matter. Only in the webway were such things to be seen, and they were the works of long ago. It towered five hundred lengths high, covered in ornate carvings too small to be made out, and fashioned from precious materials harvested from the entire galaxy. Doubtless this adornment concealed armoured plating many lengths deep.

The doors began to close. She and Bho ran faster, veering towards the bastion guarding the left of the doors. As they neared she put away her pistol and flicked a small ovoid of warm wraithbone from a pouch at her belt. The gates were closing with the steady certainty of glaciers grinding down mountains. A line of Custodians barred the way in front of the gates, halberds levelled and firing. Bho slew three with wailing shots of his cannon. His skill was marvellous to see. He leapt and dived, somersaulting over its barrel. He fired all the while, unencumbered by the shrieker’s great length.

Lhaerial arced over a wall of crested helms, and tossed the device into a vision slit in the bastion. There was a mellow flash as it discharged, spraying the room with a burst of softly glowing microscopic constructs. They pattered onto the walls, burrowing into the fabric of the building and attacking its systems. Eldar technology millions of years old overwhelmed the simple machines of the humans without difficulty. Their motive mechanisms suborned by the superior craft of her race, the gates ceased their closing barely a length apart. She and Bho jumped, threading the gap as a blaze of shells exploded all round the door edges.

On the other side was a hall bigger than all but the widest craftworld domes. On the far side were the great gates to the Sanctum Imperialis, wherein languished the morbid Emperor of Mankind. Twin Titans guarded it, poorly fashioned to resemble hounds, and festooned with vulgar attempts at art. They started towards her clumsily, jogging across the court and opening fire. Bursts of shattered metal and rock jumped skyward. She somersaulted between the impacts as the Warhounds tracked her. The noise of their discharge obliterated all senses, and Lhaerial danced through the thunder. The war machines ceased firing as she sought shelter among the ranks of the enemy.

They were so close to their goal. Lhaerial could feel the lessening of the Palace’s psychic defences. They were nearing the centre of the wards. She called out with her mind to the Lord of Man. There came no reply, but lines of Adeptus Custodes running at them. The great gates were far away.

For a moment her heart faltered. She could not succeed. But she must try.

Bho was surrounded, attacking his foe with the great energy scythe affixed to the end of his gun. He slew four of theirs before he fell, shot from so many angles even his reflexes could not save him. As in life, he died silently. Lhae­rial fought on, slaughtering her way through the humans as their war machines neared and slowed, stalking the edge of the melee. Were she to kill every one of the Adeptus Custodes, she would be obliterated immediately. Her progress slowed, the foe became too many; they were too accomplished as warriors. Their finest individuals would be a close match for her skills, and there were hundreds of them. She despaired. Her arms dropped.

‘Peace! Peace!’ she called.

She was brought down, wrestled to the floor by a dozen heavy arms.

Their leader forced his way towards her, his movements awkward with rage. He wore identical gold armour to all the others, but for a tall distinguishing plume of purple. Now would be the time to present the token, he was the one, but her arms were pinned and she could not move.

‘My name is Lhaerial Rey, Shadowseer of the Ceaseless Song. I come here at command of Eldrad Ulthran to deliver a message of great import–’

The blow was almost too quick for her to see. It struck her mirror mask hard, snapping her head painfully to the side.

‘Silence!’ roared the leader. ‘You come here shouting friendship as you slaughter your way towards the Lord of Mankind.’

A circle of boltguns pointed at her head.

‘And now you will die.