Battle of Biel-Tan - The Tempest of Blades: The Windrider host, well used to striking their enemies at speed, made ready to peel off and attack further down the line. Against a mortal enemy, they would no doubt have proven swift enough. The daemons of Slaanesh, however, were no normal foes.Out from the massed ranks of Daemonettes darted a ﬂock of Seekers, long-limbed, bipedal Steeds of Slaanesh with bejewelled Daemonette riders atop them. Shrilling and hooting, the beasts ran at impossible speed alongside the racing Jetbikes before they could pull away, lashing them with long, ropy tongues and pulling the Eldar from their saddles.Close behind were Seeker Chariots festooned with spinning, scything blades. Those Windriders still lying dazed on the forest ﬂoor were unceremoniously slashed to ribbons, their violated body parts strewn across the loam.Monitoring the counterattack from the passenger bay of his grav-craft, Autarch Meliniel ordered his elite troops into the fray. The warhost known as the Coiled Serpent, translated in the Eldar tongue as Thiellan Aq Saim, drove forward into the enemy ﬂank.Its massed Wave Serpents disgorged hundreds of Aspect Warriors. Every colour and shape of the god Khaine's war aspect was suddenly on the attack, their armour vibrant and strong amongst the sickly hues of Ursulia's corrupted forests.First came the Swooping Hawks, darting from blue-grey clouds so similar in hue to their armour the winged warriors seemed no more than ﬂickers at the limit of vision. From their thigh holsters they dispensed small but powerful grenades, falling like acorns from a gale-tossed oak. They landed within the mass of Khornate daemons at the edge of the cliff.Where they struck home, spheres of crackling white plasma appeared, each string of explosions hurling mutilated, red-skinned bodies into one another before they discorporated entirely. Lasblaster fire stabbed down to reap the tally anew. By the time the Khornate daemon cannons had ground their way up a nearby ridge to retaliate, the Swooping Hawks were gone.In their place came Warp Spiders, materialising behind the cannon batteries without a sound. They fired tangles of monofilament wire so sharp they cut through daemon ﬂesh and hell-forged brass alike. Then, in a crackle of unlight, the Warp Spiders too were gone.Down in the valley, the Slaaneshi counterattack was fierce. A crowd of lithe Daemonettes charged the Aspect Warrior host, hissing with glee at the prospect of a rich banquet of souls. The first wave pressed towards the rematerialised Warp Spiders that had taken such a toll on the Khornate daemons on the ridge, the Slaaneshi host screaming loudly to draw the focus of their enemies.The Aspect Warriors opened fire once more, a fusillade of monofilament wire engulfing the fiends to carve them to disturbingly bloodless chunks. But the distraction had played its part. A second war band of she-daemons, having slunk close and climbed into a copse of spiked trees, dropped shrieking on the Warp Spiders from above.Several of the fearless Eldar were ripped apart, their severed limbs cast with abandon into the air. The rest simply vanished, triggering their Warp jump generators to reappear with a ﬂicker of light some hundred Terran feet distant.The celebrating Daemonettes were left confused and wrong-footed. They hissed blame at one another as they cast about for more victims, only to be greeted by a devastating fusillade from the Dark Reapers stationed within the walkway of an arboreal palace.Reaper Missiles detonated in the daemons' midst, a chain of explosions so fierce it blew apart the iron-hard fungi of the valley even as it tore through dozens of the Daemonettes taking shelter amongst them. The thumping boom had barely faded from the valley walls before another Slaaneshi attack raced in -- a wave of daemonic cavalry with daemon chariots racing close behind.Another squadron of Wave Serpents closed in as Meliniel reacted to this new assault by directing the mounted counterattack known as Fedhein Saim Zarakhain. Whilst the daemon cavalry sprinted on, a shrine of Dire Avengers disembarked with smooth swiftness to unleash a storm of shuriken at the Seekers racing past.Monomolecular discs slashed out by the thousand, even as the enemy cavaliers rode the lithe Steeds of Slaanesh close. Not even the preternaturally nimble daemons of the Dark Prince of Chaos could avoid a salvo delivered with such expertise. The daemons were sliced to ribbons much as their charioteer sisters had cut apart the Windrider Guardians mere moments before, ﬂesh ﬂying from their bodies.Whilst the Dire Avengers were reloading, those Seekers that made it through the hurricane of firepower darted in to lash and slice, laying high-crested warriors low. The shrine's Exarch stepped in to duel the riders at close quarters, taking the snake-fast blows of their opponents with shimmering force shields before ending the threat with thrusts of their swords and Power Spears. The chariots in the Seekers' wakeburst through the ectoplasmic mist that was all that remained of their vanguard, blades whickering and riders hunkered down so as to avoid another shuriken assault.A trio of Wave Serpents glided smoothly from a natural boulevard, spinning to reveal their hull doors. The Fire Dragons inside stepped out and formed a line, forcing their zen-like focus into lethal accuracy as the daemon machines careened in close. Their Exarch spoke a single word. A moment later, chariots and riders were vaporised in hissing streams of ichor, molten metal spattering and hissing from the bright orange plates of the Fire Dragons.One lone Slaaneshi daemon made it past the newly formed battle line to engage the Dark Reapers in the arbor behind, leaping from the burning remains of her chariot to swing from a low bough and vault into the midst of the heavy weapon team. With their cumbersome missile launchers and reinforced armour, the Dark Reapers were easy prey for the slashing, spinning alluress. Claws darting, she claimed the lives of four Aspect Warriors before a heavy kick sent her tumbling into the fires below.At the Obsidian Gate on the shoulders of the valley, the daemons of Khorne had run down and decapitated every Eldar Ranger sent to keep them from the greater fight. First one, then three, then eight Bloodletter war bands charged down the forested slope towards the battle. It was an eventuality Autarch Meliniel had foreseen, and his warriors fell back with ﬂuid grace to the transports waiting nearby. Watching from the valley's edge, the Masque hissed in frustration. She shrieked a hunt-and-retrieve order to her chariots -- for her plan to work, the Eldar had to contest the henge itself.Nearby, Skarbrand was hacking his way through a war band of Daemonettes in a ball of ﬂame and white-hot anger. He loped past the Obsidian Gate to look with longing at the explosive carnage in the valley. The Masque had lured him there by insisting that the fighting would be fiercest outside the portal, and the brute had taken the bait. Now that ploy might come to naught, for the Eldar were falling back. Something had to be done, or the Bloodthirster was likely to dive into the fight half a Terran mile from the location where the Masque needed him most.In less than a solar minute, the Masque's chosen charioteers had returned, the mangled bodies of three fallen Warlocks laid across their yokes. The vehicles slewed to a halt as the Masque leapt nimbly atop the mossy capstone of the Obsidian Gate, and the riders tossed the psykers' corpses up to their mistress as if they were little more than straw-stuffed effgies. The Masque gave a piercing cry of delight, plucking the glowing Spirit Stones from the breastplate of each psyker's armour and sliding them down her throat one after another as a greedy human gourmet might guzzle a dish of oysters.The herald's grandstanding did not go unnoticed. Three squadrons of speeding grav-tanks changed direction, spearing in with their guns spitting death. The Masque danced and dodged, cackling with glee as the skimmers came in low.Skarbrand leapt high, his axes arcing in a tremendous overhead blow. They smashed into the first grav-tank so hard it came apart in a double fireball of burning wreckage that smashed into the cliff beyond. Aspect Warriors tumbled out, stunned and broken, to land on the alien foliage below. The daemons of Slaanesh and Khorne alike fell upon them, thrashing and slicing, desperate to claim their heads. Nearby, Jetbike-riding Shining Spears charged in, opened fire and withdrew, expertly drawing the daemons away with bait-and-switch manoeuvres.Autarch Meliniel had watched the violation of his kin's spirits upon the Obsidian Gate with utmost horror. With the thunder of Khaine's fury in his blood, he issued another series of curt orders to his Exarchs. His wise and careful plan to draw the daemons into his guns piecemeal was all but abandoned. Now his strategy became one of all-out assault.In his haste to make the Daemonette herald pay for her heinous acts, the Autarch ordered his own squadron to close upon the Obsidian Gate. The leaders of the enemy armies had gathered there; not only the Slaaneshi daemon, but a heavily scarred Bloodthirster that glowed with ruddy light every time the storm's screaming winds billowed past it. With enough concentration of force, Meliniel reasoned, the Swordwind could deal a death blow to the enemy's cohesionand take revenge for those souls torn away from the salvation of the Infinity Circuit. The daemon hordes would be far easier to stymie without direction -- and perhaps even turn upon themselves, as his sister Lathriel had intimated they would.The Autarch commanded his Sunstorm Squadrons to combine their fire, highlighting Skarbrand as their target whilst designating the Masque as the priority kill for his remaining Outcast snipers. Ranger fire spat from the high hills in response, each needle-thin burst of laser fire met with puffs of ichor from the dancing Daemonette's ﬂesh. Glutted with Eldar soulstuff after her dark feast, however, the Masque was proving resilient.The Fire Prisms coming around for another attack run along the valley glowed bright, the complex laser cannons of the rear grav-tanks channelling their fire into the giant crystals of the skimmers at the fore. Beams of coherent directed energy blasted out; each was so thick it could have punched through a craftworld's wraithbone superstructure, yet they were delivered with pinpoint precision. Three, four, five of the macro-beams burned into Skarbrand, their energies so bright they hurt to behold even from several Terran leagues distant.The Bloodthirster paused in his slaughter of the nearby Aspect Warriors, gritting his fang-like teeth as more and more energy poured into him. Glowing like a red sun, Skarbrand roared. His skin sizzled away as light poured out from his ﬂesh. Every nearby daemon save the Masque had been burned away by the terrible firestorm, Bloodletters and Daemonettes alike blasted into nothingness.Skarbrand staggered away, but the pitiless laser barrage followed his every step. The Greater Daemon's rage grew incandescent, stoked to the heights of apoplexy by the unwelcome thought that he might be slain so early on in the bloodshed, with a meagre skull-tally of less than a hundred to his name. Incensed, he cast his monstrous gaze around for something to kill. All he could see was the Masque, laughing cruelly at him from atop the lintel of the Obsidian Gate.Skarbrand lashed out with all his strength, the Daemon Axes Slaughter and Carnage arcing towards the Masque. At the last moment she leapt in a backwards somersault, evading the blow. The axes smashed through the lintel of the Obsidian Gate with force enough to shatter it, runes and all, to red-hot cinders.In an instant, the long-sealed Webway portal was ripped wide, a swirling tunnel of amber light stretching impossibly into the cliff face. Into the portal dived the Masque, her Daemonette hosts pouring through the gate behind her in a river of milk white ﬂesh.Autarch Meliniel felt panic rise in his throat. His impassioned insistence that the daemons would not breach that ancient Webway gate now seemed the folly of a proud youth. Even as he watched, the daemon infection of Chaos bled into the Webway, no doubt already making speed for the very heart of Biel-Tan. He felt the mind's eye of his sister Lathriel play across his thoughts -- seizing the opportunity, he sent a pulse of alarm through the aether towards her. Biel-Tan was in dire peril. Its protectors must be readied, for within a matter of Terran hours, the craftworld would be invaded by its worst nemeses.Though the Masque had accomplished her goal, the battle for Ursulia raged on. The Aspect Warriors, under orders from their Autarch, concentrated their efforts on the Obsidian Gate -- the ruses they had used to draw the daemons away from that critical location were now abandoned, and now all they could do was limit the number of daemons that broke through into the Webway beyond.Again and again they launched their assaults upon Skarbrand, but the monstrous Bloodthirster only grew more invigorated as the fires of his anger were stoked ever higher. He ripped through battle lines of Dire Avengers, burned through shimmering webs of monoflament coil, and smashed grav-tanks left and right whenever they passed within reach of his cruel axes.Before long, though, it was not the Eldar that Skarbrand sought to slay, but the daemons of Slaanesh. He now realised that he had been tricked into acting as the Masque's pawn, and that she had no intention of comparing kill-tallies at the end of the day's slaughter. He plunged through the Obsidian Gate into the Webway beyond, intent on revenge.The sheer unbridled mayhem that Skarbrand left in his wake drew hundreds, then thousands of daemons towards the circle of standing stones. A horde of Bloodletters and Bloodcrushers charged up towards the Webway portal from the ground below, a trio of Greater Daemons storming in their midst. The steep slope gave no pause to creatures that had no notion of tiredness or exhaustion, and even though opportunistic attacks from Windriders, Aspect Warriors and grav-tanks hurled Daemons back down the cliff by the dozen, the Eldar were soon outnumbered five to one.With a heavy heart, Autarch Meliniel realised the battle could not be won without blunting the Swordwind for Terran decades to come. The Obsidian Gate was still in the hands of their enemies, and more and more Slaaneshi daemons were using the cover of the fresh Khornate assault as a chance to slip into the Webway unhindered.Such a tremendous inﬂux of daemons could not be allowed to pass through the Obsidian Gate, or the Masque's incursion would turn from a few hundred daemons to a mass invasion. There was only one course of action left. With a curt order, the Autarch commanded his Sunstorm Squadrons to concentrate their fire upon the Obsidian Gate itself; with its protective runes shattered by Skarbrand's mighty blow, it was vulnerable to conventional attack.One after another the macro-beams shot out. Daemons died by the score as the backwash of tremendous energies rushed outwards, the psychoreactive runes that had previously sealed the portal aglow once more as the stone burned from within. Then, with a titanic boom, the Obsidian Gate exploded.The Eldar were already withdrawing, running hard to their grav-tanks and escaping away into the skies. Meliniel had ordered an immediate retreat -- though the Swordwind valued the Exodite Maiden Worlds highly, the craftworld itself was in dire peril. Biel-Tan was running out of time.