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As a GM, I love encounters like this, (also such as Ellyrium, the goblin druid, etc.) not because I'm sadistic and I *want* to kill off the party, but I find too many players go into a fight *assuming* that they are preordained to win. Having a badass that actually makes them consider running away or having to try again another way is useful for a couple reasons:
1) Failure helps the players grow. Sure, you learn from success, but you learn *more* from failure.
2) It gives the players a proper sense of anxiety and risk, a proper wariness that makes an encounter exciting.
Of course, I am also the type of GM that tells my players up front before a campaign that just because a monster is there doesn't mean you *suppposed* to fight it. In fact, sometimes leaving something the hell alone is the *right* decision. Sometimes I don't want my players to kill something, or to even engage it.
For Xanesha, having read the encounter through a couple times, I honestly don't care if the players win the fight or not, because her death at that point is honestly irrelevant to the story, and in fact, her getting away might even allow for some great dramaticizing later on, with some of the later baddies having been properly warned of their presence. Maybe she gets sent after them again as punishment for failing to finish them off last time, but this time she doesn't get to pick her battle ground of a tall, unstable, treacherous-footing tower.
So, in summary, sometimes the story benefits more by the players actually *losing* a fight.