Craftworld Iyanden
The Fall
"Kraaaaah!"
I descended upon the Daemonettes in a storm of shifting colors.
There was no intelligence in their eyes.
No cunning.
No strategy.
Only pure hatred and an endless hunger for the pleasure they drew from slaughtering Aeldari.
Yet beneath all that, I noticed something else.
Fear.
A subtle, instinctive fear directed toward the false Pariah effect generated by the artifact hidden beneath my clothing.
The Laughing God's Eye.
Their gazes were already unfocused thanks to my active holo-suit, which continuously blurred and distorted my outline.
A moment later, their eyes ceased to exist.
Along with the rest of their heads.
I unleashed the full power of my flip belt and casually violated several laws of physics, inertia included, as I lunged toward the nearest Daemonette with a Harlequin's Kiss.
To an outsider, the name would sound highly questionable.
In reality, it was one of the most common weapons carried by Harlequins.
The device resembled a narrowing tube mounted beneath the wrist. Inside were tightly coiled monofilament wires. The instant the weapon struck, those wires exploded outward.
The Daemonette's skull became mush in less than a heartbeat.
Pink ectoplasm, the closest thing daemons possessed to blood, burst from the ruined head as the creature screamed and was banished back into the Warp.
I didn't stop there.
Leaping again, I effortlessly evaded attempts to skewer me with clawed limbs.
Twisting through the air.
Bouncing from Daemonette heads.
Flipping and spinning along impossible trajectories.
I unleashed a barrage of point-blank shots from my fusion pistol.
Fortunately, the weapon required no conventional ammunition magazine.
I could fire almost continuously.
The fusion pistol was a thing unto itself.
Its closest Imperial equivalent would be the much larger meltagun.
Each shot generated a devastating thermal reaction.
A blazing sphere of energy struck the target, inducing hyper-vibration at the molecular level. The already tremendous heat intensified dramatically, causing the point of impact to ignite before the daemon's semi-material flesh liquefied and vaporized into nothingness.
It worked wonderfully against Daemonettes.
One shot after another erased their heads.
Accuracy wasn't a problem, and given my mobility, the weapon's short range hardly mattered.
Like every Harlequin, I ran faster than any mountain antelope, vaulted across the battlefield, and danced through the air while my holo-suit shattered my outline into dozens of false images.
Even the eyes of daemons struggled to follow me.
The deception never lasted long.
The Neverborn perceived reality differently from mortals.
But every fraction of a second I gained was enough.
Enough for another shot.
Enough for another kill.
I had trained for as long as I could remember in this universe.
Now those years of training were finally paying off.
"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!"
The words escaped me with a laugh.
The comparison felt oddly appropriate.
The Daemonettes answered with enraged snarls.
Heh-heh.
Mocking daemons might actually be the best part of serving Cegorach.
No matter how heroic or intimidating a Space Marine might be, they would never experience this.
Yes, daemons feared them.
But fear alone wasn't particularly satisfying.
Watching these Neverborn descend into frothing fury because they couldn't even touch me?
Now that was exquisite.
Of course, I wasn't fighting alone.
My partner, Killing Mockery, was thoroughly enjoying herself with a razor-thin psychic blade resembling a rapier.
She effortlessly dismembered daemons, pierced vulnerable organs, and struck with surgical precision.
Supporting us were the grim figures known as Death Jesters.
Some people might laugh at weapons that fired shuriken.
What is this, ancient Japan? We're in the 13th millennium!
That assumption would be catastrophically wrong.
Their weapons reminded me more of the mass drivers from Mass Effect.
In simple terms, impossibly sharp and durable monomolecular discs were accelerated to absurd velocities.
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The result?
They punched through almost every known form of protection.
Any shortcomings in accuracy were more than compensated for by an utterly ridiculous rate of fire.
Roughly one hundred rounds per second.
The damn things fired like top-tier rotary cannons from ancient Earth.
Entire swathes of Daemonettes vanished beneath the barrage.
The projectiles didn't stop after striking a target.
They continued onward.
Through another daemon.
And another.
And another.
The weapons carved enormous corridors through the enemy horde.
Naturally, those corridors became invitations.
Harlequins specialized in close combat.
We immediately dove into the openings, drawing attention away from the Death Jesters and preventing the daemons from reaching them.
Even our grim comrades occasionally needed a moment to reload.
During those brief intervals, we remained grounded a little longer and shifted positions, careful to avoid friendly fire.
Soon the defenders of Iyanden fully joined the counterattack.
Not that they had ever stopped fighting, but our sudden arrival had clearly shocked them.
Wide-eyed Aeldari warriors watched us tear through the enemy ranks without the slightest hint of fear.
The daemons abandoned almost everything else to focus on the followers of Cegorach.
Unfortunately for them, unless they suddenly learned how to fly and master aerial combat, they weren't catching Harlequins.
Most Daemonettes lacked ranged weapons.
Such methods offered little direct pleasure.
They ran contrary to the very nature of Slaanesh's servants, who preferred intimate proximity to their victims.
A few launched barbed projectiles attached to strands of living flesh.
Every single one missed.
Our holo-suits ensured they always aimed where we had been instead of where we actually were.
As a result, the servants of the Laughing God had yet to suffer a single casualty.
"1-4-5214."
The code flashed across the internal communications network.
Like every Harlequin, I had spent years memorizing thousands of tactical codes.
Harlequins preferred relying upon their own minds rather than technology that might fail at the worst possible moment.
Fortunately, Aeldari memory far surpassed human capabilities.
The Sphere of the Old Ones had only improved mine further.
"A Daemon Prince? Seriously?"
I blew apart another daemon's head with a fusion pistol shot and shook my head.
Killing Mockery and I immediately broke away from the horde, heading toward the designated combat zone.
Towering above the battlefield stood an enormous daemon.
A Daemon Prince.
A former mortal elevated into one of its patron god's greatest servants.
In short...
A horrifying creature.
What puzzled me was how Slaanesh had acquired one so quickly.
Perhaps the newborn Chaos God had rewarded some decadent member of a younger species that had followed the Aeldari example and drowned itself in excess.
Entirely possible.
There were no Primarchs yet.
The Dark Gods had far fewer exceptional candidates to choose from.
The tactical order specifically forbade close combat.
Our task was to provide supporting fire with our fusion pistols, distracting the creature and dividing its attention.
A weak Daemon Prince was still a Daemon Prince.
Bringing one down required a substantial number of Harlequins.
From every direction, brightly colored figures swarmed the four-armed giant. The daemon stood nearly five meters tall, turning constantly as it tried to track us.
From a distance, the battle resembled a human trying to swat a mosquito.
You tried.
And tried.
And tried again.
Yet the irritating little thing kept flying.
Too small.
Too fast.
Too elusive.
Unlike mosquito bites, however, our attacks actually hurt.
Working in tandem with Killing Mockery, I fired a shot that drew the monster's attention.
At that exact moment, she twisted through a breathtaking aerial pirouette.
For an instant, she was upside down.
Then her psychic blade plunged straight into the Daemon Prince's eye.
"Wretched Aeldari!"
The creature roared.
A remarkably unoriginal line.
It never got the chance to continue.
Harlequins weren't fond of unnecessary monologues.
Several power glaives struck immediately.
A heartbeat later, psychic weapons tore into its throat.
The Daemon Prince staggered before lashing out in one final desperate attack.
One Harlequin was impaled upon a massive claw.
Yet even then...
The Harlequin laughed.
The sound echoed across the battlefield until both warrior and daemon vanished.
Before the creature completely dissipated, several Harlequins even managed to sever its clawed limbs.
"Rather weak for a Daemon Prince," I muttered.
Still...
Better to fight opponents like this forever than encounter someone like Lucius the Eternal.
That lunatic was arguably even more dangerous than his fellow champion, Fulgrim.
Then I noticed something strange.
"The daemons are retreating?"
I tilted my head as the horde withdrew toward the Warp rifts behind their lines.
The creatures visibly resisted.
It looked as though someone had grabbed them by their tails and dragged them back into the Immaterium.
Ping.
A notification appeared across my mask.
A message from Killing Mockery materialized on the display.
[No anchor. Problems with rebirth.]
Short.
Concise.
Classic Harlequin communication.
Ah.
Right.
I remembered now.
Whether this had existed in older versions of the setting or had been rewritten a dozen times by future writers hardly mattered.
Reality didn't care about continuity debates.
Reality followed its own rules.
And one of those rules was simple.
Without a powerful daemon serving as an anchor, most daemons couldn't remain in realspace for long.
Not beyond the immediate vicinity of Warp breaches.
If they persisted and died under such conditions, their restoration within the Warp became far slower and far more difficult.
A daemon abandoned by its peers risked losing influence, power, and status.
Thinking about it, that was probably one of the reasons the future Imperium managed to survive at all.
Otherwise, humanity would simply drown beneath endless waves of instantly resurrecting daemons.
"Return."
The order came through the network.
Killing Mockery glanced at me.
I nodded.
Together, we followed the other Harlequins back toward the Webway portals.
And if I had to summarize my first real battle...
It was fast.
We appeared.
We shattered the enemy formations.
We casually killed a weak Daemon Prince.
Then we vanished back into the Webway.
Strike.
Retreat.
Strike again.
That was the Harlequin way.
As for me...
My skills had proven sufficient.
The lessons drilled into me over decades had done their job.
I hadn't fallen behind my comrades.
I hadn't feared the daemons.
I hadn't hesitated to kill them.
Not for a second.
Perhaps I would feel differently about other intelligent beings someday.
Perhaps.
But Neverborn?
I could exterminate them by the millions.
Without mercy.
Without hesitation.
Without a trace of guilt.
And judging by the sort of horrors that inhabited the Warhammer universe, I suspected my hand wouldn't tremble when dealing with many of its other monsters either.
Still...
Despite everything...
There remained one thing in this galaxy more terrifying than any daemon.
A Harlequin who had become genuinely invested in your education.
Just remembering it sends a chill down my spine…