Everqueen Reclamation - 40

Author's Note: I apologize again for the shortness of the chapter. This is only Part 1, I will update Part 2 as soon as possible. My problems with my hand and arm keep resurging, which makes writing difficult.

****

The rush of power was exhilarating. 

The divine fire had burned through Cadaith's veins for some months, but this was the first time he had gone into battle since the Everqueen had Chosen him.

And there was nothing like it.

Orks, those lumbering brutes that he had only struggled to match in single combat, died beneath his blades in moments. Before, they had always moved surprisingly fast despite their weight and clumsiness, but now? To Cadaith's eyes, it was as if they were struggling against the far greater gravity than he was subject to, too slow to react before he beheaded them. 

It was hardly even a contest when he clashed blades with an Ork. Once, he would have struggled to match their strength, but now, their weapon and their arm buckled almost immediately under the pressure he applied, unable to match the divine might of a Chosen.

Cadaith practically danced across the battlefield ld, and the Orks were barely even a threat to him.

He felt like laughing in triumph at how easy this was, at the glory of it.

So he did.

Cadaith threw his head back and laughed uproariously, a sound of pure joy echoing across the battlefield to join the noises of gunfire and screams of combat.

Behind him, his guards flinched at the noise, clearly unnerved. Some Orks tried to take advantage of what they thought was his inattention.

Cadaith killed them all, still laughing maniacally. They were but prey, and he was the hunter.

"Lord Cadaith?" A voice cut through his ecstasy. "My lord, please, slow down, we can't keep up with you. You're wounded, please."

The words pierced through the veil, and Cadaith snapped back to his senses. For the first time, he noticed that he was bleeding, gashes across his skin where the Orks had broken through his armour, the grazes of their crude bullets.

It was already healing, but the wounds had happened, even as he had not noticed them, lost in the haze of power. 

Cadaith looked at his guards for the first time since they had joined battle, and felt a sharp jolt as he noticed their wounds, far more severe than his own, their visible exhaustion.

He had become drunk on power and lost himself in the glorious light of divinity.

Fool, he berated himself. He had nearly lost track of what they were here to do. Chosen or not, there were millions of Orks on this planet. More than that, he had risked the lives of his warriors. They might all have been ready to lay down their lives for the Everqueen, but there was a difference between the simple peril of battle and dying because he, their lord, had been a fool.

"Fall back," He ordered. "The psychomatons can handle the rest."

His men were visibly relieved, and they slowly withdrew back to their ship. Meanwhile, Cadaith checked the feed in his visor for how the psychomatons were doing.

The fight was going well.

Cadaith had never seen psychomatons in battle before. For most of his life, he had lived in the mid-rim of the Dominion, away from the core worlds where the pleasure cults were at their worst, but still well behind the Arcadian Ring that shielded the Aeldari from the rest of the galaxy. There had never been any reason for him to go with one of the many psychomaton armadas tasked with maintaining order across the galaxy. The only psychomatons and spirit drones Cadaith cared about were the servants maintaining his palace and lifestyle.

Recordings had existed, of course, liquid memories of Eldar who had witnessed psychomatons at war, but Cadaith had never felt any compulsion to watch them. Who cared about what the war machines were doing beyond the gates of paradise? 

Even after he had rallied the House of Ulthanesh and led them away from the Dominion, ultimately joining with Iyanden, there had been no chance to see psychomatons go to war. Most of them had been destroyed, even the ones beyond the Dominion's borders shattered by the backlash from the annihilation of the Eternal Matrix. Iyanden had a few crippled psychomatons left, which the artisans and bonesingers had made various attempts to restore, but they had never been able to.

Clashing with the Orks, pleasure cult remnants, pirates and other horrors of a galaxy gone mad had been something the Eldar had to do on their own for the first time in a long time.

It was part of why they had merged with Iyanden. Cadaith would rather not have subordinated himself to mere traders, nomads who strayed far from the Dominion's borders, but the meagre fleet he had managed to gather in the last days before the Fall was not enough to keep his people safe, sheltered and fed.

In turn, he knew that Mehlendri and Iyanden's other leaders had mistrusted him, considering the House of Ulthanesh to be eccentric fools clinging to outdated ideas, barely a step above the pleasure cults. But they had needed more people, more warriors, and those of his House that had survived the Fall and the dark days after had proven their mettle.

So it was they had slowly, painfully made their way to Terra, fighting whichever battles they could not avoid, scrounging for resources wherever they could. It had grated against Cadaith's pride whenever Iyanden had fled from a foe rather than clash against it. It had been humiliating, to know the Eldar, the rightful masters of the galaxy, had to flee from vermin such as Orks.

But there had been no choice. It was run or die.

But now, the Everqueen had restored Iyanden's psychomatons, the ancient war machines that had served the Eldar since the days of the Aftermath. There were only a few of them, true, nothing compared to the massive fleets and armies which had once imposed peace and order upon the galaxy.

But damn if they weren't impressive.

Cadaith whirled his blade, beheading an Ork Boy, but most of his attention was on the psychomatons. Even as the smell of blood filled his nose, joining the rancid air of this world, he could only watch in awe as the psychomatons did their work.

They were fluid, and graceful despite their size. And yet, they were strong. Ork weaponry failed to so much as scratch their skin, and the Orks themselves were obliterated by dense beams of energy.

The psychomatons moved with military purpose and coordination, a unity of the kind Cadaith had never seen from Sernalla's ragtag troops or - he was forced to admit - his household guard. They were perfectly in sync, not a movement wasted as they mowed through the Orks like grass.

Was this even warfare? It was too elegant, too effective. It was more like a farmer on those primitivist Exodite worlds weeding his crops.

It almost made Cadaith want to stay on the planet until the Orks were all exterminated.

Don't lose your head. He reminded himself again. There are too many Orks on this planet even for the psychomatons.

Once the Warboss was dead, they would leave.

He and his guards were at the ship now, safely behind the psychomaton guards assigned to keep the vessel safe. But as Cadaith's warriors began patching their wounds, he noticed something else.

Across the battlefield, the Imperial Primarch, Horus had rushed ahead, leaving his guards behind as he dove into the fray of the battle.

And he seemed to be heading straight for the Warboss.

Isha give me strength, Cadaith thought with a groan even as he readied himself to intervene.