A challenge too far...

The Huntress watched from her skiff as the uncouth thing plummeted from the sky and slammed into the earth, distracting her from the oncoming mon-keigh army. A hideous armoured pod-thing painted black, still glowing from the heat of its harsh journey down from orbit, the new arrived thing's sides blasted open and slammed down and black armoured mon-keigh elite came bounding out with a battle roar.

The human warriors fired their weapons with suprising discipline and scored several hits on one of the Kabal's Venoms zooming past their pod, which exploded spectacularly. Through the flames the Huntress could see an ornately armoured mon-keigh barking orders in that guttural tongue of the humans, and brandishing a mighty dark blade.

With a signal to the pilot the skiff swooped towards the human warriors and slowed slightly. With a gesture with her spear to the Archon's Incubi clustered behind her she leapt from the still moving skimmer, with the bodyguard acrobatically flipping off behind her and following in her wake as she and the Striking Shadow Incubi broke into a sprint towards the newcomers that the barbaric humans could barely follow with their eyes. The black-armoured Space Marines seen them coming at the last moment and opened fire, but such was the speed of the onrushing Dark Eldar that the majority of the shots found no purchase save for one Incubi took two fist-sized holes through his chest and went down without a sound. The Human leader with the black sword stepped forth to meet her head on, and the Incubi smashed into his squad around them.

The human champion swung the mighty blade at the Huntress' head as she came at him, but to her it was almost as if he were moving through water it appeared that slow. She rolled under the swing, and before the mon-keigh could turn and face her she landed several strikes with her poison bladed spear. The prey-thing's armour was of suprisingly good quality and held, though the succubus found a weak point under the arm and sunk the blade in deep, before retracting it as the warrior turned to face her. She had fought space marines before however, and was not overly suprised when the champion fought on after such a wound, fainting with the blade - which she fell for - then landing a vicious kick into her abdomen. As she stumbled back the mon-keigh came after her, and brought the mighty black sword down towards her. At the last moment the Huntress backflipped out of his range, the blade smashing into the ground where she had just stood. The Huntress leapt forward as the champion tried to return his sword to guard position and just as she knew she would be she was too fast for him. She ran up the flat of the blade of the sword as he tried to raise it, and with all her strength she thrust her venom spear straight through the space marine's helmet. The Huntress flipped from her dying opponent and as she landed howled a banshee cry of victory as she drunk in the essence of her enemy's agonising death.
As she looked on one of her Incubi swung his Punisher and delivered a decapitating stroke to the last of the Marines in the human champion's squad.

A deep roar of challenge caught the attention of the Huntress and she turned to see another space marine leader crashing out of woods up ahead, leading a very large squad of the lightly armoured mon-keigh elite. The leader was different to other marines though - its helmet faceplate had the rictus grin of a skull and it carried a large sparking war mace.

Already the Incubi were breaking into a run towards the new human warriors and the Huntress joined them. The Incubi were outnumbered almost three to one by the newcomers, though the Huntress knew that their numbers would count as nothing compared to the bladecraft of her silent bodyguards. But the leader was hers again.

Enriched by the soul-capture of their previous foes the Incubi struck the space marines with a ferocity that their opponents could not hope to match, and waded deep into their mass with Punishers rising, falling and hacking as human limbs and heads flew everywhere. Again the human leader stepped out to meet the Huntress and she leapt at the last minute, driving her spear towards the enemy's chest. Like the last time however she found it difficult to penetrate the armour. Again and again she struck to no avail whilst dodging the lumbering mace blows of her slower opponent. Becoming frustrated she swept her spear up in a clumsy thrust at the Skull-faced marine's head. Suprisingly, the marine leader grasps the spear haft and holds it in an iron grip. As she tries in vain to pull it from him the human leader pulls the spear towards him and then lets go, jerking the succubus closer and as she loses her footing delivers a hammer blow with his crozius.

As the the weapon connects with the Huntress' light arena helmet a shock burst detonates, caving in her skull. The Huntress is distantly aware of her Incubi finishing the last of the space marines in the combat, but the last thing she sees before losing conciousness permanently is the rictus Skull-faced Marine leader glaring down at her triumphantly with its green-lit eyepieces.

Nice descriptive piece, Caranthir. I really liked the description of the futility of the spear against the armour.

A couple of times towards the begining you repeated yourself and there was an odd tense shift towards the end, but I did enjoy this combat narrative. Is there more to come?

thank you Cavash. I wrote it just quickly after a game against Black Templars at a tournament, so its representing actual combats from my game.

I have another short story that I wrote previously, will post it below. Apologies for any slight repetition, grammar mistakes etc, more just wrote briefly and not proofread!

Here it goes::

Ca'ranthir's soul ached for combat. As her Venom wizzed accross the battlefield towards the Alaitoc forces, she orchestrated the forces of the Kabal of the Annihilated Souls in a graceful pattern of destruction that the craftworld fools could not hope to match. The Archon and her silent Incubi bodyguard were en route to gut a cowardly rabble of pathfinders that had proved problematic to shift by splinter fire, entrenched as they were. So beautiful murder by the blade it would be!
Many of her rival Kabal leaders had elected to employ Incubi that weilded the relatively new klaive weapons, but the Annihilated Souls had a long history of fantastic service by the Silent Shadow Incubi Temple, and they favoured the traditional weapons of the Dark City's warrior elite - the punisher and tormentor helm. The graceful patterns that these weapons in the hands of her formidable bodyguard displayed whilst butchering her foes pleased Ca'ranthir greatly.

Out of the corner of her eye, she seen a blur of bright colour move rapidly through the cratered landscape. Before she could focus on it the Venom was hit by... something, there was an explosion and the Venom plowed into the earth and flipped over. Ca'ranthir was thrown clear, and landed heavily and ungracefully on her face. Two of her armoured Incubi bodyguards were already at her side as she groggily got to her feet, their punisher halberds held menacingly in both hands and looking around for assailants. A third Incubi moved over to them, but was limping heavily and could only hold its punisher in one hand, with its right arm dangling uselessly. Looking over her shoulder at the burning wreck of her Venom, Ca'ranthir could see the immobile form of her Incubi Master, pinned under the vehicles' wing. With a murderous expression on her pale face, the Archon looked back towards the direction were she had spotted the curious colourful blur. It was coming straight towards them, and Eldar forms could vaguely be distinguished from within it, flipping over the obstacles in the gap between them and the Archon's bodyguard. Ca'ranthir activated her clone field, and two perfect projections of her sprung up in close proximity, and she leveled her agoniser halberd at the onrushing foe, knowing exactly what was coming for them.

A scything volley of shuriken fire came at them, but the Incubi formed a close phalanx round their client and the lethal spinning shards sparked uselessly off their power armour. The coloured blur disappeared as it came upon the Dark Eldar, and six Harlequins threw themselves at them. One of the Harlequins relentlessly pounded at the wounded Incubi with an artistic sword and its pistol as a club, and it was all the Incubus could do to try and fend away the blows, being unable to effectively weild its deadly punisher with a broken arm. Another of the Harlequins landed blow after blow upon one of the able Incubi with the fearsome Harlequins' kiss, but could not penetrate the thick armour. The Incubi regained its composure after the onslaught, and slammed its armoured knee into the Harlequins' crotch. As the unfortunate Harlequin doubled over, the female Incubi pivoted, brought its glowing halberd up in a glittering arc, and brought it down in a decapitating strike. Ca'ranthir saw a menacing Death Jester -its shrieker cannon still smoking from the killing shot to her Venom - swipe at one of the projections of the Archon. The bladed heavy weapon passed straight through the holo, and Ca'ranthir lauged as she stepped forward and flattened the Death Jester with the shaft of her agoniser halberd, then rammed the poisoned blade through the thin chest plate the Harlequin wore. As she looked up she witnessed the injured Incubi cut down by a glowing power sword wielded by the Troupe Master, swung far too quickly for the unfortunate Incubi to evade. Almost silmultaneously one of the other Incubi had its punisher strike deflected by the holosuit of another Harlequin, and the troupe's Shadowseer grasped the opportunity to dart in and ram its Kiss into the weak point of armour under the arm. The Incubi fell face forward onto the ground, its internal organs shredded by monofilament wire.

A Harlequin leapt towards Ca'ranthir with a buzzing chainsword and a howl, with the Troupe Master's leering masked face right behind. With her last bodyguard dueling desperately with the Shadowseer and other remaining Harlequin, the Archon braced herself to deal with these ridiculously dressed freaks on her own. As the Harlequin threw itself at her with a double-handed overhead strike, a black blur flipped over Ca'ranthir and smashed the shrieking follower of the Laughing God flat. Ca'ranthir was shocked to see the form of her Incubi Master standing before her. Blood was trickling from under the join between the death-mask helmet and neck armour and smeared onto the pristine whiteness of the faceplate, but the Incubus stood its ground as the Troupe Master lunged towards it. The Troupe Master slashed with its power sword, but sparks flew as the powered blade of the punisher met it again and again. The Troupe Master tried to get a shot off with his fusion pistol, but the Incubus head-butted him with its helmet. As the Harlequin staggered, the Incubi Master swept his halberd round in a glowing arc towards his foe's neck, but the Troupe Master recovered just in time to parry the death strike. Ca'ranthir watched as Incubi and Harlequin matched each other strike for strike. The Harlequin was ever so slightly faster, but needed to get more power behind the lethal thrust, as evidinced by the smoking gouges inflicted upon the bodyguard's power armour. The Incubi was equally skilled, and in compensation for the slightly slower reflexes, it had the advantadge of its two-handed, more powerful weapon. Already the Troupe Master's holo suit had deflected a certain-death blow, and such luck would not come twice for the Laughing God's messenger. The blades clashed yet again and both warriors took a step back to avoid the counter-strike that they each expected to come from their opponent. The Harlequin holstered its pistol and held out a hand palm-up. 'Enough, brother,' he said to his adversary with a chuckle, with an eye on the movement of the approaching Archon. The Incubi gave the slightest glance to Ca'ranthir, who nodded. The Incubi Master straightened up from its fighting posture, and held its punisher upright. The other combatants ceased as well. The Shadowseer was unable to rise, a deep gouge slashed through her thigh, whilst the other Harlequin seemed unharmed. The last remaing Incubi - the female - was leaning heavily on her punisher, with tears in her abdominal armour.

'Good day to you, Archon of the Annihilated Souls!,' exclaimed the Harlequin leader.
'Three raiders full of my troops are en route, Troupe Master. Tell me why I shouldn't hand you over to my Haemonculus right now for this outrage,' hissed Ca'ranthir. The roar of battle was moving further from their postion, but Ca'ranthir knew her reserve warriors were on their way.
The Troupe Master laughed, and gestured to his uninjured companion to pick up the Harlequin that the Incubi leader had knocked unconcious. 'There is no need for us to fight on, for we have accomplished our task. Since you have me at a disadvantadge and I wish to leave with my still-living companions, then I will tell you why we are here.' The uninjured harlequin had placed the groggy survivor beside the Shadowseer, who was trying to tie up her leg wound. The female Incubi had walked to the side of her Master. 'And why is that exactly, Harlequin? No riddles, or you all die' sneered Ca'ranthir.
The Troupe Master bellowed with laughter from under its' theatrical mask, One of your bodyguard had to die, mighty Ca'ranthir! That is all. We forseen that your Incubi over there that is pumped full of monofilament would provide the killing blow to one of the altered mon-keigh elites' leaders, in a upcoming raid of yours. This was unnacceptable.'
The Incubi Master had not moved or shown any sign of acknowledging the Harlequins' comment. 'Since when did you clowns care about preserving mon-keigh lives?' exclaimed the Archon. 'And of all places, why did this have to take place on MY battlefield, with no mon-keigh within lightyears!'
The Harlequin chuckled again. 'This mon-keigh warrior, no longer a victim of your bodyguard's blade, will now go on to eliminate a great champion of Slaanesh. This is part of our agenda. Now this may take place, for the benefit of all Eldar.
We did consider striking at the Silent Shadow Temple to get at the Incubi in question,' at this the Incubi Master stiffened, 'but thought that such a tactic may prove fruitless. But alas, mighty Ca'ranthir, now that one of your bodyguard shall not be in place for this killing blow - will you have the prowess to take the strikes of the Marine's blade?' At that, the Troupe Master pressed a button on its collar. A shimmering webway portal appeared behind him, and gestured for his troupe to head through it. The uninjured Harlequin helped the Shadowseer through, whilst the one who had been knocked out by the Incubi lord stumbled through the gateway.
'So long Archon. Perhaps we shall fight on the same side next time!' said the Troupe Master, as he moved towards the portal.
'Perhaps I will kill you next time,' replied Ca'ranthir tonelessly.
The harlequin laughed, and raised his sword in salute to the Incubi Master. The Incubi returned a curt nod, and the Troupe Master was gone through the portal. Before the portal closed, the corpses of the Death Jester and the decapitated Harlequin vanished. Ca'ranthir looked towards her Incubi Master. 'My thanks for your efforts, bodyguard.' The Incubus gave a shallow bow.

Ca'ranthir turned as the whine of anti-grav engines approached. Two raiders full of trueborn, and an empty Venom decelerated and stopped next to the burning wreck of the Archon's Venom. Ca'ranthir and her two remaining bodyguards climbed onto the back of the new Venom.

One of the trueborn from a raider called out, 'Are you hurt, my Archon?' in feigned concern.
'Spare me your worry, Dracon. I shall kill you if you speak to me again today before spoken to,' replied Ca'ranthir, her mood dark after the confrontation with the Harlequins. 'Lets rout these fools. No Alaitoc spawn are to escape, and no prisoners!'

Thank you for a tale! There are far too few writing DE tales, and short-stories such as these are always nice to read
Just where does that "A challenge too far..." topic name comes?