The Spires reminded her of home. The poor of Nova Castillia were worse off than the dregs of Mistral, but standing among the rising Spires Pyrrha was reminded of the cliffs of home. High above rose polished mansions, done in ornamental stone, covered in art. While deep below, in the dark valleys crime flourished. Castilla was harsher. Harsher conditions, laws, crimes, but just the same in ways that mattered.
Nobility and the wealthy sat at the top. Here the rising towers were spires of steel and metal, covered in faux-stone, instead of being carved into the sides of mountains. But it made little difference. Escorts kept careful eyes on them as they marched by, as they did back home when someone from the cities underbelly managed to earn the right to walk the streets at the top. She’d met and ended multiple legends from the bottom in the arena to earn her title.
Pyrrha didn’t like that part of her home. She wasn’t ignorant, she choose not to practice it. From what she’d learned since making Sanctuary, the elite of Mistral, if given free reign without Grim, may one day have built something as despicable as Malfi. Then again, perhaps not. She’d met good people since leaving the rarified heights of sponsors and arenas, so maybe she never truly had a chance to meet the people fighting far below her supposed social standing, stuck on a pillar as she was.
The Spires were a large flat plane, the last complete floor of the Hive, as it built up. Dozens of towers, the named spires, rose out of that flat top, dominating the sky. Some of them made the framework of the outside ring, doing something to protect the area from pollution and high winds. The floor was seemingly open, but the air was as good as Sanctuary.
The towers were huge, most larger than Beacon, with massive bridges spanning between them, turning the sky into a forest of metal, faux-stone and light. All covered in artwork, announcing to all whom held which spire floor mixed with more common Imperial artworks. Gardens, parks and sports fields mixed with streets, floor level restaurants and the ever-present but much thinner crowds. Up here, it was more like being in Vale or Mistral, than walking through the halls of a true Hive. People were still everywhere, but it was no longer packed.
The crowds were easy to sort to a couple categories. Rushing adepts, of various Adeptus, hurrying about on duties. Their heads down and watching only not to offer insult to a passing noble. Otherwise uninterested in the flowing rivers of people around them. Trusted servants and retainers, traveling on jobs and playing their own part in the games of Nobility. Slights, insults, sabotage and games. Her helmet helped Pyrrha keep track of it all, observe patterns where groups clashed or avoided each other.
Above them were the Nobility themselves. Mostly young men and women out on a walk in company, doing what nobles everywhere did. Which in this case was that as soon as they noticed Pyrrha and her escorts, it was watching and careful listening for the subtle ones, and gawking for the rest. Some were even below that base competence. Or was it arrogance?
They’d probably accuse her of it, as she trampled all over their careful positioning. With Inquisitorial and Governerial representatives trying to keep up with her, they could move or be run over.
Pyrrha had to prove under the eyes of all that she was worthy of such consideration. She needed to establish their starting bargaining position. Because the writ and charter of every Noble House was the result of many compromises and long negotiations between the House, the Governor and the various Adeptus of the Imperium.
Before an official debriefing with an Inquisitor. Or some zealot or fool tried to send her and the Hunters to the pyre.
“Walk and smile, Pyrrha, walk and smile. Just another arena, another Grim.”
She missed Ren. Nora. She missed her home, her team.
*
Pyrrha missed how her moment of quickly covered up grief, loss and longing made her look. Lady Nikos didn’t look a day over thirty. But when her eyes got that faraway look in the middle of subtle probing and posturing by the representatives, she no longer looked like a young upstart.
Lady Nikos in that moment gave the impression of an older woman, one benefiting from rejuvenat and reminiscing over fond if painful memories. Someone not new to the game, but starting over again. The posturing, probing, they didn’t stop. But the observers became careful of the unknown, and in that act the intensity of the probing dropped.
*
They knew little about the spire manse. Getting information about the other holdings had been far easier with their allies, but few who had business in the Underhive entered the Spires, and they were all spoken for. It was an imposing edifice, with armored shutters, taking up several floors of one Spire. Inaccessible from above or below, with foundational plates between the segments and active defences on top in a maintenance spaces between two Noble holdings.
Not that it mattered. Several bridges hung over the drop to the floor. They’d picked one of the side entrances, for in the hours while she rested, agents of Sanctuary had gone knocking on doors. And with everything turning against house Vormor and Nikos rising, previously closed doors had opened. Said brokers had tried to demand ruinous prices for their services, but the moment they gave an offer they lost.
It was proof the information was no longer sacrosanct, the house doomed in the Spires. Other, lesser dealers could now dare to deal what they would not have before it.
At far more reasonable prices.
***
Four Auto-cannon shells struck the metal shutters and shattered the window beneath. Elaine ran and threw herself from a bridge several floors above. The line stuck to the hand-rails pulled her back, momentum turning as fall became swing. Judging the moment to let go and jump was the trickiest part. Elaine fell four floors before her feet drove through the just punctured hole in their defences. She felt that landing, turning the impact into a forward roll to bleed speed. Her hand’s still slapped into the opposing wall hard enough to hurt, but she was in.
A line of men in carapace armour were turning her way, the closest already firing, tracking shots burning the floor behind her while the rest spat fire back at her teammate. Elaine had time for her eyes to focus, to get a good look at the hallway.
She reached out and wished with all her heart she’d been quick enough.
The view froze, the last look she’d taken lingering in her eyes. Elaine was already moving, drawing sword and dagger. She had to use the single look she’d gotten, move from memory, now blind and deaf. With no breath or heartbeat and the floors and walls more obstacles that firm blocks. She had to judge each step, each swing from memory, stuck in a moment between heartbeats.
With a thunderclap the world started moving again. To the elite private guard of House Vormir and the observers outside, it looked as if the Huntress had jumped in, shimmered into a flicker of purple light and flashed across the fortified hall. In her wake, the defenders slumped, where they didn’t just fall apart, limbs and heads rolling. With the fire suddenly silenced, the rest of the team crossed the bridge at speed and jumped into the same breach, evading fire from the entrance with some difficulty, but all making it across.
Elaine, the mutant. Elaine who once upon a time dwelled in the wastes outside the Hive proper and dreamed of stars while she hunted other mutants for tasty blood. Elaine who knew that for all their bullshit, some of the accusations that mutations were a sign of corruption and taint were right. Elaine who’s form had slowly over the years changed.
“We might be monstrous dear Elaine, but we don’t have to be monsters.”
The dream of her mad, mad father who died pursuing it. Teaching his brood to hunt other monsters, not people trapped in monstrous bodies. Elaine, his only surviving daughter. The woman with skin scattered with scales and the eyes of a snake who dreamed of stars.
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Who was still a mutant, but not. For as she spent years purging the taint from her soul, the body followed. Twisted, mutated flesh righting itself. Not alone, but with help. Until for all her differences, she wasn’t a mutant anymore. Wasn’t repellent or twisted. Not human but still something right: a snake Faunus, the first of her kind. Who danced with blades, dreamt of stars and whose Semblance was Light. A sneak, a killer, and the deadliest Huntress on Fenksworld, when all that stood against her was flesh and metal. Power, now power could halt her blades, throw her out of her Semblance, but the rest?
Each heartbeat as light was costly, but as long as they were in one place, one sight, they were already dead the moment she caught them in her eyes.
Only to hear Oskar behind her: “Don’t trip Elaine!”
Her head spinning back to glare at the familiar dig when his serious tone registers. Right. Noble house, expect hair-trigger hi-tech traps. Instead of a grin, she finds Oskar utterly serious and Elaine nods, waiting for Oskar and the Prof to advance. Between them, they should be fine.
***
Hagiwolf Vormir readied himself. His family was ancient. They’d seen the rise and fall of many upstarts, and multiple other noble families. While his children and grandchildren were still in denial, he was not. He would die as he had lived, on his feet and with gun and sword in hand.
He knew his fault. He was a fine officer and a good leader in battle. And he bred children who were the same. But the zeal and principles of the solder served poorly as head of a noble family. He’d been tolerated as a compromise, outplayed by the other families before he was born, handed down a riven House fractured by competing loyalties. Where the choice was which of the other Noble Houses they would serve more. For all that the Cold trade flowed through his hands, it only meant every noble House of repute needed to ensure they had a handle on him.
He’d played them against each other as best he could, but it had cost him pawns, sacrifices. Of his own flesh and blood. No, Hagiwolf had learned well the lessons of his betters. To smile, while driving a dagger into a back. But he was never a match for his predecessors, or theirs.
The plot more than three hundred years ago that left the ninth son to inherit had ripped out too much of the roots of his family, and left too many rivals for the position. By the time Hagiwolf fought his way to the top, they were doomed if they could not meet their obligations. And so year after year, decade after decade, he had watched as Fenksworld rotted. No one else cared, so why should he?
They only pretended to. He knew several of his children kept company that would have the Inquisitors execute them on the spot. And him, for not reporting them. But their company were not dregs from the lover Hive, but other noble personages. Nobles powerful enough to throw the Hive into civil war. No doubt, the Emperor would clean them up, but at what cost?
No, Hagiwolf was not afraid. He was only tired. Let this damn rotten tree burn to the ground. And may she have better luck than he did. Though he doubted it. As he watched his children blame each other and almost come to blows even as their very manse was under siege, he knew the truth. No one kept clean hands in the Spires.
This Nikos would be ensnared soon enough, if she wasn’t a pawn of one of the others already.
It would be just like Malfians to displace one pawn with another.
***
Things only got worse as the three impossible witches advanced. Clad in barbarian, garish armour, their sorcery cut through his defences like glass. Mines and machine spirits were disabled from afar as soon as they triggered. The tech-priests had assured him they were among the finest on the planet and that it would be impossible for the readings they were getting to happen.
“It is illogical. Magnetic fields capable of plasma confinement do not self-generate spontaneously.” They droned. It was obviously sorcery. One to disable servitors and weapons, one to slaughter his men, and the last to shield them and break open barriers.
Everything else, they could deal with, delay. But where the three went, everything fell. Worse still, as his progeny realised they were coming, his fourteenth grandson suggested that perhaps the best way to deal with their Sorcery was with Sorcery of their own.
When his fourth daughter beheaded him he would have commended her, if she had not done it for daring to befoul the honour and pride of the house as warriors and tried to stage a coup in the name of Khorne. Truly, by the time the final blast door blew in, his people had long been left leaderless, as the command center fell to infighting between those still loyal to the Emperor and no less than three different Enemy cults.
Hagiwold Vormir died as he lived, on his feet, fighting impossible odds.
That the light of the Emperor did not shun him was perhaps the greatest surprise of his long life.
The Hunters walked into a slaughter house, where demons still spilled blood.
By the next dawn house Vormir was struck from all records, their name reviled and consigned to oblivion. There was no such house. There had never been one.
***
They tried to take them in, after. For interrogation and cleansing after exposure to the tainted force.
Her hunters laughed in their faces.
“You think this is the first time we’ve faced such filth? We’ve been hunting them in the Underhive for years!”
Oskar may have been a loudmouth, but he had a point.
They insisted.
At least no one died.
But there was a reason why almost ten thousand Arbites and their servants were holding the line between them and the Governor’s Spire.
***
Kruden and Grunen were about ready to piss their pants. “Now, good Arbites.” The Red Woman spoke. “Go find inspector Wandalbert. He’ll be somewhere in that spire, as the Arbites headquarters are there, yes?”
“Yes.” Kruden nodded repeatedly. Anything to get away from the madwoman.
“Do deliver our report.” She told him. “Me and mine will wait right here.”
And they started setting up camp in the middle of the main avenue. Kruden and Grunen moved with all speed without looking like they were running. That might make someone shoot them. The only reason why anyone was hesitating was because news had already spread of what they’d done to the first two thousand sent after them. Which included a squad of Inquisitorial Acolytes.
No one wanted to lose their weapon and armour, and have multiple bones broken. The bones would heal. None of them would recover from failing to hold them back and losing all their equipment.
It was only when the crossed the distance and were swallowed by the ranks that the two arbites learned the real reason why the furious Magistrate had not ordered their deaths already. Not one but two Inquisitors wanted to talk to them.
“It just keeps getting worse.”
***
“This is a terrible idea.” Elaine murmured again, hidden behind her helmet. They were in the open, in a wide avenue. It was the worst kind of fight for Hunters against human opponents.
“The moment House Vormir was revealed to be in league with the Dark Gods, we had no choice. The Imperium lives and dies on politics. If we are to survive, we need friends.” the Professor explained again, patiently. “Powerful friends.”
She knew that, but she still felt terribly exposed. Las weapons were light speed. The first sign that any sniper had fired would be shots landing.
“They don’t look friendly.” She complained.
“They aren’t.” The Lady confirmed.
Elaine stopped complaining. There was bitching on a mission, and there was lowering morale. The first was fine, encouraged even. The second was not.
***
A mass of men came forward, alongside two figures in black. It had taken them several hours to do so. They could afford to take their time. The Hunters were surrounded by now, from all sides. The investigations and interrogation in the immediate aftermath wrapping up. They had their measure now.
Elaine couldn’t see how any reinforcements would be arriving. Now they were closing in, and in these circumstances, they could dictate terms.
But her Lady was smiling at the two men in black, the Inquisitors. It was not a nice smile.
“What amuses you so, Lady Nikos?” One of them asked sardonically, looking at them all as if they were filth.
“You should not have taken my people. You should not have kept them.” She told them.
They both scoffed, pointing right at her. “You and your witches will surrender to the-“
His voice was washed out by thunder. A massive craft billowing fire came down between the spires, to gasps from onlookers and soldiers watching. Many turned their guns on it only to freeze as it pointed cannon back, cannon backed by the symbol of the Imperial Navy.
It landed to the side of both parties, the Lady and the Inquisitors facing one another over a large stretch of road. The black robes had gone blank.
Hundreds of troops in imperial navy regalia poured out of the ship, before a person of some noble bearing appeared. A herald, following an honour guard that secured the landing site and watched everyone.
“PRESENTING!” He shouted. “HIS IMPERIAL EVER FAITHFUL SERVANT, ADMIRAL VOLKHARD LANDSTEINER OF SUBSTATION NOVA CASTILLA, BATTLEFLEET CALIXIS!
“What the hell is that?” Elaine asked, stunned.
“Our patron.” The Lady answered.
She was met with stunned silence and elaborated:
“The docks above Nova Castilla are full of Navy ships being repaired. Repaired of battle damage and swept for daemons and their influence. The cost of washing every deck in blessed promethium, or hiring the Ecclesiarchy to bless them sufficiently for the Warp are a significant percent of his repair budget.” she told them, as if she was at school, holding one of her lectures.
“We’ve been in talks for months. The Admiral simply required more evidence of our effectiveness. Evidence from an unbiased source. Evidence the Arbites have already provided, by now.”
Her students gawked at her.
“What?” She asked them innocently. “I’ve lived in this Sector long enough to meet a Malfian or two.”
Pyrrha allowed herself an impish smile. “You pick things up over the years.”
“Even if the lessons are rarely pleasant.”
She’d learned. Pyrrah had hated having to, but she’d learned. Being the Professor? That was easy. That was what she did in her off time. Her main duty was to her people. They didn’t need a Hunter, even a Master or Grandmaster one.
They needed a Lady. So Pyrrha became one.