Low murmurs followed them. Former criminals, gangsters, the survivors that were not beyond salvaging. The Sanctuary Guard. A detachment of more than a thousand men and women in her service.
“My Lady, our scouts are skirmishing with their forward elements in the chamber ahead. We’re on schedule. Loses have been higher than expected.” her scout Captain admitted with the aplomb of a man used to far worse clashes and casualties. They were not higher than he expected, just higher than the battle plans called for. It was bad enough. The Pyrrha of Remnant wasn’t an Atlesian officer. She’d never planned to hear casualty reports from men sworn to live, fight and if needed, die in service.
“I didn’t plan to die either.”
It was an old and familiar wound, never healed. Some nights she still had nightmares of what happened to Beacon and Vale after. Pyrrha didn’t know but this place had given her nightmares plenty of fuel. At least it made the nightmares of her own making easy to tell: hers were filled with Grim, not demons.
She shook of the dark thoughts with the ease of long practice. An unintentional smile lit her face, followed by a soft chuckle. The Captain put up an impassive front but her students were not so restrained: “Professor?”
“Just thinking how much practice we have all been getting in fighting dark thoughts. It is excellent training and I’m proud of you all.”
The Hunters joined in on with chuckles of their own, while the Captains blank mask collapsed into ruefulness.
“Well my Lady, if it’s training for dark thoughts you’re looking for, do I have a gift for you.” The Captain responded, with significant trepidation and caution. Pyrrha knew what other nobles were like. She wanted nothing to with it.
“We will make good use of it Captain Ortwin.”
The air of levity cleared.
“Pull them back Captain.” Pyrrha raised her voice. She wasn’t comfortable with command of an army, but she could do it.
“The enemy has decided not to follow the path we’ve laid out for them, which restricts our options everyone. And we have new arms and armour to test, against what is likely to be our most dangerous enemy in the near future: other people.” Her voice was solemn. She would prefer not to do this, but she’d examined all the other options with her council. It was a bad choice, but she found no better one.
“Everyone knows their assignments. Push yourselves and your arms, but if you’re nearing Aura break, retreat. Our goal is to judge our effectiveness against an organized force, not the mutant hordes we are used to. If all goes well, they will break and we can be done today. If not, hit and run everyone. Don’t get pinned down in place.”
A number of plans had been discussed. Hunters were severely advantaged without clear fields, firing lanes, and when they could get into melee. The stretched out force bearing down on them would make it difficult for House Vormir to use their numbers.
They were speeding up. Past their own outer guards and into the corridors being skirmished over.
Oskar. The smuggler who only cared about his family, banished into the Underhive when his parents lost their lives in an industrial accident. Oldest of them, and only fourteen at the time. Oskar had refused to live the same life that had killed his parents. Working away in conditions worse than any Pyrrha had known on Remnant. Everyone who could afford it wore masks this low in the Hive. The very air was poison. Oskar decided he did not want to spend his whole life watching all he loved slowly suffocate, if the Emperor did not grant them mercy to die under the uncaring hammers of the manifactoriums.
Oskar became a smuggler. He ran guns, drugs and whatever else he could get his hands on. One day, as successful criminal scum he woke with unnatural powers and fled into the Underhive, knowing his family would be doomed if he lingered. Witches were burned. Oskar didn’t talk about those days in the dark. He came out of it hard and cruel. Touched in the head. Hearing voices. Until the day a stranger in red offered him a choice. He’d spent his whole life drowning with no good choices.
The oath that won her heart was simple: even half mad he did not ask for his own salvation.
By the time they’d found them, two of his sisters had died. But Oskar was a proud uncle and gentle father. And each year he spent raising a family and pushing back the darkness and madness, his own inner struggles eased. The cruelty passed. Oskar remained uncomfortably ruthless. Cold to his enemies. But Pyrrha trusted him and he’d proven worthy of that trust many times. So long as he was never given power over enemy prisoners. Some things couldn’t be fixed.
All the members of her first team, the first generation were hurt in some way. Still healing. Fenksworld did not encourage kindness in its people. It made them survivors or obedient cogs in the machine. There was no middle ground.
Their scouts flashed by them, on retreat. Pyrrha’s senses stretched. Mundane and Semblance as well. They did little against mutants, but Pyrrha had trained her fine control since before coming here. It took her years to extend it, and it was still something she trained to improve. But in the confines of the Hive, she was a living sensor. She didn’t have to fire a single bullet, just point them out.
They spilled out of the gate and into the chamber. This one was off the Hunter paths Sanctuary had set up as part of their defences, and the soldiers of Vormir were busy bridging the gap. It wasn’t large, 10-12 meters. Hunters spilled out of the gate and spread out at speeds the scouts present on this side of the gap were not ready for. A few got off shots, but only a few.
Pyrrha judged the enemy. About 400 soldiers had crammed themselves into the chamber and were reacting to the alarms. Pyrrha and her first team made five. They’d each gotten on to train a second generation. The third was a still a year out. To shouts and whoops 25 hunters charged over the gap, announced by a hail of bullets and several explosions. Auras and Semblances flickering. Pyrrha threw Miló at the leader in power armor and jumped after it. The bodyguard reacted, so Pyrrha had to adjust, nudge Miló a bit before impact.
Plasma guns were raised by the three other bodyguards currently not dealing with Miló sticking out of the noble. She felt the moment they pulled the trigger. That had taken significant practice with the Magos and the plasma generator. In the moment their guns started forming containment fields her Semblance invaded them and induced catastrophic flux. Even the bodyguard hauling away his charge had aimed her way. Four balls of plasma consumed her landing site. Just before Akoúo̱ met her target’s faceplate, her hand closed around Miló and pulled sideways. Miló spear form ripped out of him and tore a mortal wound as he was struck in the face and thrown back. After bathing in plasma.
Miló didn’t even burn her hand. Pyrrha didn’t so much as lose a step. Her feet touched metal, Miló shifted into a blade and in two swings four power armoured men, still reeling from the blasts lost their heads. Just like that. She’d studied the force blade in the vaults to create her Aura blade technique. Been told how formidable force and power weapons were. As Miló beheaded four powered armored men in a few seconds, she believed it. It hadn’t been easy, Pyrrha had to put her all into each blow, but that was still frightening. Frightening and reassuring.
While thinking about the effectiveness of Aura blade against armor being as impressive as it had been against the hides of mutants in the depths, her body kept moving. A few heartbeats after landing, swings, stabs. Six deaths. A glance around the field told the same story. No one was struggling. Twenty five lines of death had stabbed into the mass of soldiers, and shredded them. No one she could see had less than four bodies behind them, and they were barely touched in the moment of crossing, the enemy unprepared for massed fire.
Some officers were trying to rally, but it was slow. Too slow. As three more fell around her Pyrrha realized that she owed the cold Magos an apology. Every scenario should be considered and planned for. Even the ones she considered wildly optimistic.
There was no need to panic the enemy army. Everyone this side of the chamber would be dead before panic could settle in. The students came behind them, with the Guard to clean up and salvage what could be saved. Pyrrha and the Hunters didn’t slow. Everyone knew the plans. The moment she stepped forward and leapt into the cramped passage out, cutting solders down as she traveled above them in short jumps, they followed. She killed maybe a tenth of the men advancing towards the chamber on her way past. She didn’t worry about the rest.
***
The Arbites were frozen in place. The first warning Kruden and Grunen had was the chief bodyguard’s head snapping to the chamber exit and saying: “We’ve lost contact with the scouts. Everyone ready!”
Not twenty seconds later, while most were still scrambling into position, the enemy had leapt out of the gate, in a rainbow of colours. Both the Arbites knew that was bad. Horrifically, terribly bad. In moments, every scout on the other side was dead. Lasbolts were starting to fly when the line of enemies reached the gap and just jumped over it. Moving at speeds beyond un-augmented men, they did not crash into the quickly cobbled together defensive lines. They went right through them without stopping.
While Kruden was overwhelmed by the sudden scale of the slaughter, Grunen kept his head and fired of a few shots, keeping his eye on what mattered. He saw the armoured, red haired knight follow a spear that curved in flight to strike Jocop Vormir despite the bodyguard’s best efforts. Saw the red sparks erupt from it for a moment before the explosions blinded him. His helmet visor stopped that, so he saw the next moment as the knight struck down a noble and his retinue as if they were beneath her.
It was the face that did it. That and their survival of the following moments. While they’d shouted in joy on charging, none of the wrongness that followed every servant of the Great Enemy was about them. And while they made a garish rainbow of colours together, each was clad in only one, with a unique symbol on the armour. Or shield in her case. Red circle, crossed by a diagonal spear.
Another came their way, a short man in green. Then he was past them, and their guns fell apart in their hands. The Hunters, for what else could they be, disappeared into the crack behind them. On came another crowd in flashy outfits, maybe fifty of them. Giving mercy to the fallen and keeping a wary eye on them, followed by more regular troops armed with autoguns who started salvaging.
After a pull from the bottle of amasec on his belt, Grunen adjusted it. Their armour was not made for comfort while his passions were up. He really needed to get one of those girls into bed.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Their endurance must be terrific. We could go for a full rest cycle.”
He turned a shit-eating grin to Kruden “Nithart, my dear partner. I think you owe me an apology.”
He unfroze and cursed.
***
Kiki followed. She wasn’t supposed to. The students in the second wave were supposed to clean up survivors, not try to keep up with the Hunters. But Kiki was Kiki. She could keep up. Kiki didn’t try to get into it with them, following in their wake. She kept to the sides of the passage. The floor was covered in dead. She burst into a wider passage. It too was a graveyard, filled with dead and dying. With the enemy stretched into an advancing column, the Hunters were almost traveling faster than news of them. Here and there, a knot of actual defence would form.
They got to make the Hunters spend bullets and the rare flare of a Semblance. As they ran, Kiki herself broke one. A heavy stubber in the back, mounted and braced that spat fire ignoring friendly targets. The jump was a bit far, but this wasn’t truly her fight. She could be wasteful.
Kiki leapt. The ground beneath her feet and the tops of the gunners head were suddenly just a step away. The world didn’t change. Her team described it for her. Kiki would flicker from one place to the next in the space between heartbeats. Using her Semblance was a nasty drain on her Aura, especially over longer distances.
It wasn’t like that for her. There was no flicker. No Warp, or any such. The space between her start and destination was just unimportant. It did not matter, touch her. Kiki jumped, landed. Her sword danced. She didn’t know the Aura blade, only strengthening. Against these, her mono-sword was more than enough. Her Lady spared only a glance in her direction from her advance, but she knew she’d be getting a talking once this was over.
***
After chasing down the last survivors, it was still less than an hour after stepping foot on the battlefield. This fight was over. Kiki was still lingering forward despite orders. The originals, the first Hunters were gathered around the Lady. She was in pain, head bowed. A couple of surrendered Arbites lingered outside earshot. Kiki was closer.
“I did not think it would turn out like this. I do not want this.” Pyrrha Nikos, Lady of Sanctuary spoke. Her voice filled with regret. Kiki could not see her face, not past her four original students. The second team kept a perimeter around the Lady. Kiki knew her continued presence was an indulgence as Class Melee Champion nearing graduation.
Quiet Oskar was not a large man. He slipped forward hands, resting them on her shoulders in support, turning to look up at his teacher. His voice was gentle: “When the sky screams and heavens weep, be as the cliffs and mountains, unbowed.”
“Rain runs down the mountain and the cliffs weep, not untouched, but enduring.” Pyrrha continued the story, both in the tongue of her homeland. A secret tongue, reserved for Hunters.
Her hand rose, landing over the hand on her shoulder, in thanks. Looking back at her team, returning support. She raised her vox and the Lady ordered: “Aura check.”
After listening to the update, she made her decision:
“They’ve been overrun and our Aura’s have barely moved. Dust-forged arms in Hunter hands are estimated at sixty to seventy percent performance to a Force blade. Confirm?” A number of voices, both Hunters and techs assented.
Some of the Hunters were petting their weapons like children or lovers. Kiki was jealous.
“We’re looking at Theta-three. They’re not going to let this go, not after this.” Her helmed head rose, looking at the dirty ceiling: ”Get everyone ready above.” She donned her new helmet again. “And Magos? Start refining the designs for engraving patterns on the weapons. Treat the patterns as power lines for Aura effects. I’m thinking poetry, legends or epics.”
As the Hunters scattered on assignment, heading for the Hive, Lady Nikos turned to the Arbites. A single glare sent Kiki running back to her team.
“We’re going up!”
She’d finally get to see what all the fuss was about. And kill some stupid nobles before they could threaten Sanctuary.
***
In the middle stacks of the Hive, the shooting was rapidly growing louder. The Administratum adepts armed themselves with their reserve laspistols, and fired when the door opened. Lasbolts filled the empty doorway. The rain of fire was interrupted by a blinding flash that spoiled their vision. The adept kept firing blindly from behind his station until something rammed into him, ripped the pistol from his hand and laid him out flat on the floor. His vision cleared to the point of a sword and armoured red woman above him at his station. She was typing.
“What? Hey! You can’t do that!”
She ignored him, typing one handed as a servo skull landed on the desk and plugged into his station.
“It is the duty of every citizen of the Imperium to resist the enemy and those who serve him whenever possible.” the madwoman recited at him.
His struggling colleges hesitated. Righteous fury filled him: “How dare you! I am a loyal servant of the Emperor!”
“You are a loyal servant to House Vormir who pad your pockets. They have been holding on to a number of proscribed and heretical items, and some of their smuggling support has gone directly to not only heretics but servants of the Great Enemy. Which makes you a collaborator and a traitor.”
The scribe shook in his fury: “You are the traitors here, assaulting the Office Administratum! You will all burn! Of course you’ll say anything to justify your lies, traitor.” he spat back.
“My next destination, after I copy your files, are the offices of the Holy Inquisition to deliver those proscribed and blasphemous artifacts seized from the warehouses of House Vormir. And your records. You will be coming with us. I’m sure the Inquisition will want to talk with you. Would anyone else like to come along?”
The moment the Inquisition was invoked all struggle in the room ceased. The red leader was either telling the truth, or suicidally brave. Or entirely out of her mind. No one wanted the attention of the Inquisition.
The scribe franticly looked around the room for support and felt his heart sink through the floor. While unarmed and under guard, that was an Arbites issue armor on the man in the doorway. And the Arbites were one of the few arms of the Imperium that regularly had the right and need to bring matters to the attention of the Inquisition.
“Who are you?” the scribe asked, voice gone shrill. Because while he was a true servant of the Emperor, so were the Noble Houses. He had helped them in some matters, but he thought it was a matter of business and intrigue among the nobility, not helping the Enemy!
“No one important. Not yet. Simply mercenaries called in to help an Arbites investigation that spiraled out into a heretic hunt.”
The scribe’s disbelieving eyes kept switching between the two main actors before him. Reluctantly, the Arbites nodded.
***
They’d been ready. The council of Sanctuary knew it was only a matter of time before they would clash with House Vormir. They could not turn them away with force, not forever, so a sudden assault was mounted on every location of importance below the Spires. They went in looking for evidence, on the repeated assurances of both smugglers, traders, and her tech contingent.
In the words of the former Logicians: “Every Noble House in the Imperium has something to hide. Many regularly shed members to traitors, shame or heresy. If we go looking we will find something. Which will by then matter not at all. Just the proof that we could do so against the best they could throw against us will doom House Vormir. Corruption is rife among the Nobility. Open corruption is of course to be rendered unto judgment, but it is an understood part of noble life that the rules don’t apply to them, if they’re not caught.”
“The intolerable sin of nobility is incompetence. In getting caught, or weakness, failure. It won’t matter if we genuinely find heretical evidence by then. Not if we show we could have taken it from their very factors, manufactoriums and homes. The only allies to stand behind them then will be those who covet their rights, and those trying to puppet them. Afterwards, the fall of House Vormir is assured. To secure the rise of yours you need but prove an achievement worthy of a noble writ. The Hunters are worthy, so is the act of building Sanctuary without a title, right in Vormir’s domain. That will be their death-kneel.”
Hunter teams went through sites alongside civilian academy graduates and Sanctuary mechanicus elements, ripping out the nerves and muscles of House Vormir. By the time members of the Sanctuary Guard delivered trucks full of evidence into an Arbites-Inquisitorial station just below the Spires, everyone in the Spires but the inhabitants of House Vormir’s Spire section knew the House was doomed.
***
It was a small Noble House, whose primary claim to power was the Cold trade in the Hive facilitated in the Underhive. Losing it broke the root of their power. Having it exposed and relevant portions sent to every other House? It was a mortal blow to their standing.
When a request to access the Spires to pursue suspected heretics from a mercenary company and the Arbites crossed his desk deep in the secure guts of the Inquisitorial Headquarters in the Spires, it was a formality. The Inquisitor sent his approval to allow a small strike force access and an observer.
For while the upstart and the doomed House warred, every other Noble House and Adeptus was watching them and starting their own plans.
While the Name of Vormir was to be consigned to oblivion, Nikos had yet to obtain the legitimacy of anything but an upstart. The Inquisitorial exemption was carefully worded, a test of both discernment, character and ability. This was before all the other actors, from Nova Castillia and the other hives of Fenksworld jumped on this opportunity with their own agendas and interests.
It didn’t help that Fenksworld was where schemes from all over the sector came to be tested, before being introduced to Malfi, the planet of schemes and intrigue or the sector capital of Scintilla. The Malfians were salivating at the chance to introduce a new actor. If they weren’t behind it.
All the while the Planetary Governor of Fenksworld and the Inquisition watched them all. Watched and readied judgment. For by now, it was clear that heretics were afoot and a purge was needed. The only question left in the eyes of the Holy Ordos Hereticus was how many would be consigned to the pyres. And who. Nikos and her ilk were near the top. Acolytes and colleagues from the Ordo Xenos were pointing out that these Hunters reminded them of Eldar in their movement. When Puritan Hereticus members weren’t insisting on immediate execution and burnings for them as rogue psykers.
Something that the seized servants sent to deliver heretical materials and proof of Administratum malfeasance were denying to their last breath.
Death, drama, heresy; it had all the markings of a major incident. Many eyes were looking at the family mansion of House Vormir and watching how Nikos would deal with the defenders and the members. Whatever happened, it would be the talk of Court for years to come. Who was behind Nikos? Was she a Witch, some neo-skitari model, or a new strain of zealot made from survivors among the Redemptionists that regularly disappeared to die cleansing the Underhive? Were they mutant off-spring of such survivors?
A thousand lies made their rounds all across the Spires by the time Pyrrha sat down at the entry check station. She was weary. Under the watchful eyes of Arbites and her own bodyguards, the target of everyone’s gossip fell asleep on a bench, waiting for her support team and her turn to pass. She’d been up for over a day. So were most of her Hunters.
The irritation and disappointment when the target of this play spent several hours resting in public with her selected agents was immeasurable. Of course, the only reason they felt confident in doing so was because of that investment. The Arbites had blocked of all paths to and from the grounds of House Vormir and Pyrrha and her people already had enough evidence to bury them. So they played on the interests of the watchers to face the assault fresh, and give time to all the plotters to participate in the event.
It was better than denying them that chance and facing endless probing actions over the weeks and months to follow. As long as they won, and won in a way that brought widespread acclaim.
***
“This whole mess is going to be part desperate war part theater. I hope everyone knows their lines.” Pyrrha joked, as her heavily armed forces filtered through the entry point and stepped into the Spires.
The first trial was waiting for her on the other side. A pair of observers, from the Governor and the Inquisition. Pyrrha was aware of the snarl of traditions and considerations at play here. Whom to bow, how much, where to genuflect and offer service. She did none of these things.
“Glad to have you. Come on, we have traitors and heretics to purge.” Pyrra was no-where nearly as happy as she pretended to be, and even with years of practice, she just wasn’t a talented liar.
But the lie wasn’t the point. She knew the modes of address. Knew the station of the man and woman before her. They should be screaming for her head after that greeting from what should be a Gang Lord with delusions of grandeur. They could.
Her greeting was the message. Only a few groups would dare speak so to such august representatives.
Nobility, and not minor ones. Rogue traders, with their ships and Warrants as shields. Sisters of Battle, their loyalty, faith and zeal unquestionable.
There was another group.
Angels of Death, children of the Primarchs – Sons of the Emperor: Space Marines.
Which was the comparison Magos Michiko Kappa, had made, while studying the first wide scale deployment of Dust armed Hunters during the operation.