They would soon come from the darkness, Valencia knew. Out here in the fringes, furthest from the light, the agents of the enemy were everywhere. Patient beyond human measure, unfettered by mortal constraints. No bastion -perhaps no faith- was impregnable. Certainly not the blasted ruins at her back, monuments of ancient ruin that leaked sickly moonlight through crumbled walls.

The armored figure rose, and the noise of her chainmail coif and layered armor pierced the deafening silence. Shadowed eyes glared into the darkness from behind a marbled mask, as if to scorn the gloom away.

Her footsteps did little to stir those within as Valencia stalked the tower's perimeter, warhammer clenched in hand. Less her attempts to stay silent and more ward that had been cast to deaden noise was responsible, she assumed. These high-city Grafted were intolerant of being without their small comforts. Expressionless beneath the mask, she set her foot atop a shattered corpse that had died in vain attempt to scrabble over the wall and heaved. The half-mechanical, half-flesh contraption scraped over the stone and into the shadowed void below. The shriek of metal and the sickly squelch of flesh being crushed heralded its arrival upon the rocks below a heartbeat later.

They had nearly made it over the walls in their latest assault. A grim reminder that ammunition was now a precious rarity. Valencia grimaced inwardly at the thought. Soon they would be forced to fight the enemy wholly by hand. The outcome would not be pleasant for any involved.

And so she trod along the tower’s circumference, dead bodies wordlessly disposed of onto the jagged terrain below. Obstacles that might hinder a charge for a heartbeat longer, cause an enemy to stumble. Small, near worthless distractions, but she would utilize them nonetheless.

The scrawny elf was, to no surprise, perched atop the wall herself as Valencia rounded a corner. Blank eyes stared into the darkness, towards the chokepoint in the sheer cliffs that surrounded Kal-Ahta, the Last Tower. A rocky maw from which the foe would flow to claim their lives. Her gaze remained focused as the other woman approached, expression hidden under the dark veil she wore.

“Nothing stirs.” Ilorath muttered at Valencia. “Yet.”

“It is the mid of night.” She bluntly replied. “They prefer the hours before dawn, when the darkness is deepest. They will come soon, I suspect.”

Ilorath raised an eyebrow at that.

“They came several hours ago and were repulsed. We both know their stratagems. They will analyze for a time, adapt and then strike again.”

Valencia shook her head slightly, arms folded across her armored chest now. She frowned into the gloom, slightly unsettled by the sheer silence beyond their earthen fortifications. Had her eyes not witnessed the sight herself, she would not believe there was an entire war-factory’s worth of the enemy out there.

“Too predictable.” She frowned at the corpse-riddled valley below. “That pattern has been repeated too many times. It is over ripe for change. We are being lulled into a falsehood of security.”

“Hence why I am here, instead of blessedly asleep.” The elf finally moved, a hand flicked up to cut off Valencia's rebuttal. “Indeed, I am painfully aware that I’d sleep even better dead, and that this is a small sacrifice to pay.”

Seems the enemy was not the only predictable entity in this blasted wasteland.

“Not that such matters are within your expertise.”

A shrug was all that comment elicited from the armored woman. Opting to instead glance skyward rather than spew forth some witty comment, she glowered at the faint traces of blood-red light that spilled from the tower’s highest point.

“Foolishness.” She remarked bluntly as Ilorath followed her gaze from the corners of her eyes. “Magicka that would be much better served turned against the enemy at the gates than whatever treachery the Grafted have in store.”

“Graftmaster Ilanthis would disagree.” The elf spoke, some amusement in her voice at Valencia's disdain. “Perhaps one might ask his thoughts on the matter. Again.”

“And be rebuffed by vague answers as to the all-importance of this warp-weave they have so tirelessly worked upon instead of rending help upon the walls? I have far superior stratagems as how to waste my own time.”

The pair stood in silence, a duo of the living amidst a sea of the damned.

“They have approached me several times.” Ilorath casually revealed to her. “Come to ask for my help with the construction of the weave. Made promises of rich reward and vaguely hinted it would serve as an avenue of escape.”

“Desperate.” Valencia grumbled into the cold air. “Grafted lowering themselves to ask an elf and their “inferior, unbound sorcery” for aid? Perhaps matters do not progress as smoothly as the Graftmaster hopes.”

“The evidence of that is aplenty.” Ilorath snorted. “Simply gaze around us. A simple contract, they promised. A spearhead expedition into the Throne, seize whatever secrets this tower holds and be gone before the Machine-Children learned we were here.”

“There is none, and will never be such a thing as a ‘simple’ journey into Famine’s Throne. We should have realized that immediately.” The armored woman spoke flatly. “But the promise of honeyed rewards served to deaden our sensibility, as the Grafted knew it would. And now we reap the consequences.”

Troubled silence was visited upon the watchers once more as the night slowly passed.

“Our position is excellent.” Valencia suddenly offered. “Natural formations surround us in entirety, a narrow chokepoint offers the only access to this valley, and the terrain favors us with upward climbs all the way to the tower.”

After a moment, the elf softly laughed.

“I know you mean to offer this as some means of comfort, but we both know the truth. We only delay the inevitable.”

“Then we shall rage against the inevitable until we are consumed by it.” She shrugged. “There is but one path, and sooner or later, all roads must end.”

“I care little for the others, and more for myself.” The elven Wych sighed. “Such is the curse of my nature. But, how do they fare?”

“Tired.” Valencia confessed sourly.” They sleep, burdened by the weight of their wounds, and the toll that protracted sieges tend to take.”

‘Wounds shared by many.”

A fact that caused Valencia’s sour mood to deepen even further. Out of the fate-woven string of misfortune they had bumbled into, the loss of both the expedition’s flesh-knitters in the siege’s first day rankled her the most.

With little else to do now but await the enemy, Valencia slumped to her knees and leaned back against the stone wall of the tower’s second level, weapons in hand. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and wondered where it had all gone wrong.

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The contract, as per usual. The payment, sweet but not honeyed enough to be truly suspicious. The clients, regulars who had hired her squad many times before. The risks, known. A journey into the bleak, poisoned wasteland of Famine’s Throne to investigate freshly uncovered ruins after the most recent earthquakes. The journey itself had been fraught with danger and the usual mill of threats that came from the blasted crags. All within her consideration, all prepared for.

It was the tower itself that threw off the fragile balance. With clear memory, Valencia distinctly recalled the exact moments it all changed. Within the tower’s top floor was a sealed chamber, for why would there not be one in a freshly uncovered ruin located in the buttfuck middle of nowhere?

The doors had withstood attempts to breach through means both physical and magical. As had the walls. The floor beneath, however, proved to be an oversight on part of whoever constructed this accursed place. Valencia’s own hammer had torn through the stone and steel, a path opened upwards by brute force.

That happened to be the exact time the Machine-Children chose to make their arrival outside. An entire Mechanus Legion that unceremoniously spawned right atop their position. Caught off-guard, the initial assault was repulsed with heavy casualties. Their flesh-knitters and the one singular Extracator attached to this unit lay dead. With escape via mass-teleportation cut off, they were trapped, The sheer walls of rock their protection, and their prison.

Valencia did not rest, for she needed little. Instead, she turned her attention from the battle outside to the grim war within. It clawed loose, the thing inside her. She grimaced beneath the mask and went about her work, a silent skirmish waged as Valencia rooted out the tendrils that grew upon her soul. The thing was aware, in some primitive way, stable enough to realize her efforts and buck against them. Yet she was master of her body and soul, commander of her own mind, and it would submit to her.

For now.

Silence reigned as she drifted from one clash to the next, avowed to root out this creature. Slowly, forcefully, this was how she reclaimed her own body. The price she paid for power. Resistance came stiffer than before, solidified by her constant uses of its blasphemous powers within the last few days. Cold rage burned beneath her skin at the sheer audacity of the thing. It dared try to infect her mind and body with its foul, heretical influence.

The only thing to be done with hearesay was to root it out, through fire and steel. Hatred was her sword, contempt, her shield. Scorn, her bastion against the long darkness.

Ilorath’s violent attempts to shake her was what snapped Valencia from her stupor, hours later.

“You were right, damn you!” The elf screamed at her. “Get up, they are nearly upon the walls!”

Cold dread sunk its claws into her being as she surged to her feet, warhammer in hand. Valencia swore and grasped for the auto-bolter that hung at her side, the bulky weapon pulled to ready.

“Wake the others.” She barked, the clank of her armor the only sound in this accursed gloom. “Dispel that goddamn sound weave and scream until the dead wake.”

She was nearly to the wall when her vision warped. The effects of Ilorath’s spell caused her to stumble as the gloom dropped away, her eyes now able to pierce the void. In gray and whites, she beheld the world below.

The steel tide was upon them.

They came in legion, unnaturally silent masses of steel and flesh, mankind overlaid by machine. The damned who had surrendered their humanity to the God Within the Machine. Objects of its bidding. Augmented figures that no longer resembled humans, save for stature.

In cold silence, she slammed down her warhammer to the side and braced the auto-bolter atop the wall. The hefty, clanking roar tore through the night as she opened fire into the figures below. Explosions from within rocked the weapon as its anti-material rounds were violently expended at the subjects of her contempt. Corpses were created where the shells struck directly, others by chance as the bolts ricocheted off those who carried personal deflector shields and struck their brethren instead.

Magazine expanded, Valencia let it drop to the floor and grabbed another from the scarce few in her pouch. With a grunt, she slammed it home, locked it into place and began to make corpses once more.

Precise, focused return fire roared up from below, deflected off her own personal energy shield. The generator warmed beneath her armor, strained underneath the burden of the swift retaliation. With a curse, Valencia dropped down and awkwardly shuffled aside. With gritted teeth, she hauled herself upright. Her eyes searched for any stationary tinback, her bolter being unloaded at those she found.

Another precious magazine was loaded as the doors to the tower finally burst open, and Johann charged out. The brave, foolish Blackguard bellowed through his immense mustache, greatsword that crackled energy in one hand, auto-shotgun in the other. The greatshield upon his back did little to slow him as the mercenary thundered upon to her, head of the charge as more followed his lead.

“Cogboys at this time of night?” He yelled over the roar of the burst weapons and mage-wrought spells of thunderous flame. “Do these abominations know no proper honour?”

Valencia shoved him aside instead of deigning to answer as a machine-child lept up and over the wall. The mass of steel and remnants of humanity landed in their midst, scythe-claws outstretched as it slashed at the nearest Grafted. Valencia was already upon it, bolter dropped and warhammer in hand. It turned at her, strike recommitted at the armored woman. The hammer smashed through it all the same. Blood, oil and machine spilled in equal parts across the stone.

More joined it, through superhuman leaps or short-range teleportation. The opportunity to inflict casualties at range ended, the conflict now turned to vicious close-quarter combat.

Valencia deflected a strike from a hulking Terminatus Machine with the warhammer’s handle, her counterstrike doing little to stagger it. The steel giant towered over her, its augmented claws a barrage that forced her onto the defensive. Wild weapon fire sprayed across its form, rendered useless by a velocity shield generator mounted upon its back.

One of the Grafted attacked it from behind, a body-warper that transmuted their body to become stronger and tougher. The Terminatus’s red claws sheared through the bone plate the human mage had grown over his chest with ease. He was hurled aside an instant later, disposed of with disdain.

It vanished, and Valencia ducked by pure instinct. Claws filled the void she had but just vacated, and her life was prolonged once more. Massive bulk barreled towards her, a wall of red steel and relentless fury.

Snarl upon her lips, Valencia called the thing within. Strength overflowed within her veins. It strained and demanded to be let free. She obliged. Lightning crackled upon the warhammer’s head as she slammed it forward. It crashed into the Terminatus’s shell, heretical power that halted the machine brute in its tracks.

Hammer yanked back, she switched it to a single hand and ripped up the auto-bolter. Barrel jammed directly into the tinback’s chest, she emptied the clip, its velocity shield doing little to stop the bolts that spawned inside its confines.

Chest torn open, it swung at Valencia. The blow broke through her guard, yet all it elicited was a stumble. Face contorted into zealous rage beneath her expressionless mask, Sshe raised the thunder hammer overhead. It crashed down like a steel meteor, its path through the Terminatus’s head met with futile resistance.

The monstrous machine dropped, and Valencia staggered away. Gasps came from her lungs as she forced the heretical force within herself away, teeth grit as it refused to loosen hold. With a roar, she ripped it free and banished it once more to the blackened corners of her soul, where it would lurk until called upon once more.

The wicked received no respite as another cogboy flowed towards her through the carnage. Still off-guard from the sudden withdrawal of power, she feverishly deflected a stab to the head, a slash across her gut and let her armor absorb a third strike to the chestplate. The long, fluid tinback swayed backwards to avoid a swipe from her hammer, only to be split in half by Johann’s greatsword.

“Where’s Ilorath?” Valencia shouted above the din. “We sorely lack her might.”

“She went after the Graftmaster!” The blackguard bellowed. “A matter of most mild importance. Asked for you to join her, if you could spare a moment.”

A steel tentacle whipped through the fray and slammed into his greatshield a heartbeat later, a signal that the struggle at hand waited for no polite conversation.

“Go!” He bellowed. “We will weather the storm here.”

“Smite these abominations.” She commanded with a snarl. “I will return as soon as fate allows.”

“Then you shall find me victorious, or not at all.” He saluted.

Hammer in hand, Valencia crushed a bloody path before her as she stomped back towards the tower. Whatever treachery the Graftmaster sought to commit, it’s time drew to an end, and she would see it ushered through to the afterlife.