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Chapter Text

===Chapter I Prelude: Home===

The Yearning.

The obscene curse of Seminoth the Virile, laid upon all their shoulders as the terrible toll for his defeat.

Every sister of Craftworld Morrigan paid that price, every day, every hour, every minute of their lives. It manifested as a constant haze upon the senses, an otherworldly assault on their bodies, tantalizing them, tormenting their very souls. All of them, every last one, had to practice and master methods of controlling or ignoring the urge to reproduce that the curse instilled in them. Even the dead, who could no longer fulfill those desires, knew no peace, save that which the Farseers granted them by laying them to rest within the Infinity Circuit.

But not all were equipped to resist the baleful power, not at first. The Seers of the Craftworlds had rituals and methods to aid children in dulling their emotions and sensations, blocking off entire portions of a developing mind and only gradually returning them, teaching them control over the delicate and sensitive heart and soul of an Eldar. This proved vital to protect them from the dangers of corruption until they were old enough to choose their own Path. As they reached maturity, these safeguards were gradually reduced, allowing them to blossom.

These techniques could fail, however, and the Yearning was a particular complication of the traditional methods—the mind could be segmented through rituals and spells, but the curse was not something so kind as to spare the innocent. Though to them it was often less intense, perhaps unable to fully understand its sinister allure yet, it was these undeveloped hearts and minds that were also the most susceptible to the corrupting influence, and inevitably, after the last breeding cycle of the Craftworld, there was born a fire-haired girl whose youth, even with the aid of the Seers, had been especially difficult.

How could a girl who had begun to grow into maturity yet still was not master of her own heart resist such a foul power? Cycles were lost to it, struggling to tame the compulsions—there were days, sometimes continuous weeks of madness and desperation. The stern pedagogues meant to guide her into spiritual fullness to prepare her to choose her first Path could not bear to be around her in such fits, and the girl could not follow any teachings in such a state regardless, and soon the rituals of binding and severing meant to seal off the excessive reaches of her feelings began to fray and fail as the curse ran rampant, rendering her a danger to herself and others.

When the halls of Morrigan, long ago darkened by Seminoth’s invasion, were once again threatened by her uncontrolled mind and psyche, her own mother discarded her to escape the hateful glares and accusations of her peers. The people of Morrigan had already endured the unthinkable, collapsing their own Chaos-tainted Webway gates to forever deny the daemon armies of She-Who-Thirsts a foothold within their home, a terrible sacrifice that stranded and isolated the Craftworld from the heart of Eldar civilization. But that sacrifice was meaningless if the child would become a potential new gate through which their enemies could infiltrate them, and so a grim wind blew through the domes of the crystal planet.

When all traditional efforts to right the girl’s wayward path had borne no fruit, the leaders of Morrigan gathered to decide her fate. They came before her in their regal dress and magnificent armor, seeing her in her wretched state, her ragged robes worn away at the wrists, ankles, and neck from her constant struggles against the bindings meant to protect her from herself, starved and sleepless, skinny and frail.

Two narrowed violet eyes glared up at them, far beyond mere sorrow, no tears left to be shed, left only with anger and hatred towards the world which had imprisoned her, abandoned her, and left her to suffer, like a feral beast.

And five immaculate faces gazed down at her in judgment.

Two voices, coming from shining helmets, spoke of execution, swift and merciful, sparing both the girl and the Craftworld from an unimaginable fate. Her soul, if it remained pure, would be given to the Infinity Circuit, where it would rest with all the others, lulled to an eternal sleep where the curse could not torment them.

Two voices, coming from hooded shadows, suggested expulsion, abandoning the girl, but letting her seek her own fate—even if it would only be damnation. There was little hope of her finding salvation on her own, but this at least would not deny her the chance of it, however meager it was.

And a fifth voice, belonging to a face marked by a long, jagged scar, said, “Look at her. Such defiance, even as she suffers, sure to bite our fingers off if we try to soothe her. She may be a poor Craftworlder, but she’d make a fine corsair.”

“…But those days are past you now. Do you know of another Path for the girl to walk?” asked the High Autarch.

“I’ll take her on my ships,” said the proud Fleetmistress, smiling. “If she falls to the Great Adversary, the damage will be easily contained, and more importantly, it will happen away from the Craftworld. If she proves herself useful, then she may be a Mariner, like myself. Is that acceptable?”

The other leaders looked between one another, and all voiced consent through the subtlest motions of their bodies—perhaps not confident, but accepting nonetheless.

“However, there is some risk, Aydona,” said one of the hooded, robed women, tall and dark-haired and beautiful, her lips moving slowly, her melodic, motherly voice filled with concern. She gripped her strange staff tightly, her beautiful eyes glowing with arcane might, gazing beyond the chamber of trials, gazing beyond the moment and beyond the Craftworld, beyond even the veil of reality itself.

“Is that a prophecy of ill fate for the girl, High Farseer?” asked the Fleetmistress with little regard for formality—ignoring all the common taboos of asking Seers of dark futures.

“…Fate is ever-changing,” replied the Farseer quietly, the lightning fading from her ethereal stare.

“Then the girl may change hers, aye?” Aydona asked, gesturing for the Guardians to come and remove the restraints. “Come, girl. There are many tasks that must be done aboard a ship, tasks which even those who walk no Path can complete. Earn your keep, and my crews will show you the Path of the Mariner. But if you lose yourself, I’ll personally vent you into a sun.”

Aydona would tell her this quite often, in fact, from that day on.

The brutal honesty was a powerful motivator.

All the strict lecturing, meditation, and wards in the universe could not have saved that girl. But when she first set foot upon Aydona’s glorious flagship, and she felt the thousands of voices that spoke through the wraithbone it had been forged of, the girl forgot herself for the first time—and the Yearning, too, was forgotten. No longer was she a girl, or a Morriganite, or even an Eldar. She became a part of something greater, a formless, faceless no-one who scrubbed the spiraling halls and spherical chambers, who hefted heavy baskets piled up past her head through the long, dimly lit corridors, who brought the Mariners their meals, who fetched tools for the Artisans, who washed the clothes of the captain dutifully by hand in a soapy basin, though this particular task, she later learned, was a joke at her expense. She listened to the soul-soothing songs of the Bonesingers as they maintained the hull and the weapons of the crew, and she peeked through narrow gaps in sacred curtains to watch the Aspect Warriors train their deadly crafts, and she sometimes just followed the Fleetmistress around, a little shadow with big, bright eyes who thought she was much more hidden than she really was.

Aydona called her “Eshairr,” one of the lowest insults in the Asuryani dialect. It meant a rebel against the order of the Paths: an outcast, an unforgivable sinner. The fire-haired girl wept the first time she heard it, but Aydona laughed, and the rest of the crew laughed as well, mystifying her to no end. Such as it was, every woman in the fleet came to know her as Eshairr, not by any other name. And in time, she came to understand the meaning behind it, and she proudly left her past, and her birth-name, behind.

Chapter Text

===Chapter I: Begging at the Devil’s Knees===

The City Eternal.

Alien spires, vast and grotesque like distorted steel moons bathed black in the blood of a dying race, slithered up from pollution-choked depths towards stolen suns—as though the fingers of depraved gods seeking to seize and crush the blinding jewels of star-flame that burned above them.

There was no true up, and no true down. There was no east, nor was there west. Such directions held little meaning from one street to the next, for each domain obeyed laws of its own. The wicked civilization had grown like a dread tumor, spiraling its deadly roots into the arteries of the wondrous Webway which it systematically raped, clogged, and swallowed beneath its evil metal and smog. Entire solar systems had been stolen away by the arcane machines of these vile overlords, mounted in the great voids between the opposing foundations of the city like grand trophies, testaments to the black guile of the arrogant lords who ruled from atop their palaces of pain and decadence.

Into such a terrible realm, they sailed their pure and delicate wraithship, the color of white quartz, its eye-ravishing, glittering violet solar sails capturing and harnessing the mighty energies which shone perpetually off of the hateful stars that rained their malice down upon the gothic steeples of Commorragh. The emblem sewn into their sails was a simple rune of common meaning in the language of the Aeldari, a name: the Hunter’s Howl.

Before they could find the path to the habitat spire they sought, three dozen metallic raiders descended upon them, much smaller than the cruiser that had intruded into their territory, yet even a great beast could be hounded to death by many small predators. Though elegant and equipped with much more powerful engines and sails, the wraithship struggled to outmaneuver them due to the strange gravitational eddies which coursed through the city’s airspace, yanking the vessel out of its intended course before its sensors could detect the erratic, flickering rivers of invisible force.

Not merely avoiding the gravity currents but dipping into them to propel their crafts faster and faster, their flight patterns growing ever-more wild and unpredictable as they weaved in and out of the firing angles of the defensive lances of light trying to swat them out of the sky, the raiders fired their black-light fusillades, scoring the armored hull of pure wraithbone from aft to bow, but inflicting little more than superficial damage—for a time. Beleaguered by the difficulties of traversing the twisted space of Commorragh, the wraithship was destined to fall to the swarming gnats stinging it. It was only a matter of time.

But perhaps the Dark Muses were displeased with such a sudden end to the beautiful ship that had so foolishly trespassed into the Eternal City, for other black ships arose from the smog-cloaked depths, turning their weapons upon the raiders. Outgunned by a factor of three, the raiders turned tail and scattered down into the narrow, fog-blinded depths between the elongated buildings of the city long before the much larger, more intimidating Commorite vessels came near enough to blast them out of the sky, but this was a discretion that the Hunter’s Howl could not imitate, struggling to free itself from a rising eddy that sought to drag it up into the nearest star within the fractal hell.

The small fleet of destroyers and frigates quickly surrounded the outsider, and, after only a moment’s tension, arcane technologies mounted upon these ships activated, dispersing the unreal flow of gravity waves as though such a terrifying anomaly were but a passing annoyance, freeing the Hunter’s Howl only for it to sail into the jaws of death—save for the fact, of course, that these ships proudly bearing the emblem of a black rose did not fire their weapons upon it.

“Hail, dear kin,” hissed a serpentine voice through the vox, speaking into the heart of the intruder vessel at an unsettling rhythm, shrill and breathy. “The Kabal of the Obsidian Rose, ehehe, welcomes ye to blessed Commorragh.”

===

The great tyrant spires of Commorragh were so unfathomably vast that they enslaved their own weather systems, storms of lightning gathering about them in layers of black clouds, born from the raw energy and the constant outflow of waste moisture that coursed through the immense structure from its peak to its foundations. The outsiders gazed with equal awe and dread upon the sheer majestic hatred inborn to the terrible structure their ship approached, evident by its gnarled, thorned construction and the evil tempests which spiraled around it, as they were led to the deep and immense ports near its base.

As they descended with the ominous black ships that had become their escorts, every woman in the crew, attuned to each other and all the systems of the vessel through the wraithbone that was its chassis, could see through the keen psychic scopes of the Hunter’s Howl, inspecting the dread exterior of the spire with what could only be called morbid curiosity.

They saw winged mutants clad in jet-black armor flitting to and fro, stringing up the corpses of the slow and the impudent to dry and be slowly smoked by the toxic pollution that rose from fires and factories below—soon to become tough jerky, pleasing to the sharp tongues of the twisted messengers. But this was a merciful fate compared to the still-living, mutilated bodies of screaming Kabal aspirants for whom the excessive trials of initiation proved too difficult… to cheat. Hung by stakes jammed through their wrists and torsos, pinned and dissected slowly by a dozen knives at once, each of them served as a delectable feast of pain and misery for the black-hearted Scourges, gifts offered freely by the Kabal to earn their favor.

Indeed, that favor manifested as Scourge-nests resembling festering boils upon nearly all the alcoves of the great steel leviathan, poised above all the broken hovels and shattered titans that stretched on for untellable leagues around the supreme spire, where the Scourges cackled, ate, and sang together like harpies of myth. Some looked up and saw the visiting vessel, and every spine aboard the Hunter’s Howl tingled with unspoken, shared unease as hundreds of the monstrous men and women waved at them, welcoming them. The attention of these black-hearted messengers was found, unanimously, to be most undesirable.

The interior of the Pike of Vaul was nothing like the outside. As one of many hab-spires ruled entirely by the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose, which stood among the most powerful of all organizations in Commorragh, it was a thing of beauty to behold—breathtaking at even a glimpse, even these docking ports were built as if by the hands of master artisans to be nigh-angelic, every tile, every piece of machinery polished, the miles of walls in all directions of the hangar pristinely clean at the cost of unthinkable numbers of slaves’ lives spent wearing their fingers literally to the bone with rags doused in flesh-eating, noxious, cancerous cleaning chems to ensure the ultimate sheen everywhere the eye could look.

For such unbelievable beauty, wasteful and lavish, painstakingly applied to even a mere dock, for all that to be just inches away from the vile pollution and abject poverty of the city surrounding the spire—left the crew of the Howl nauseous, dizzy, teetering on the edge of feverish illness shared by one and all.

But there were many minds within the ship which remained strong against the tides of emotion coursing through its crystal interior, and one soul in particular called out to those who faltered. Her voice rang out through the bones of the Howl, a psychic impulse that reached all their minds at once, sweeping away the appalling disgust with firm resolve.

“No. We do not falter, not here—not among these wolves. Remember our home, remember why we came here. When we leave this accursed place, then we may all share this horror and let our bodies tremble as one. But not here. Not now. Be strong, sisters!”

This was the voice of fierce Eshairr, Mariner-Captain of the Hunter’s Howl.

And the storm within the vessel settled, just as they came to the docking instruments which aligned with the wraithbone hull, sealing it in place—like a beautiful and noble elk, caught in a vicious, serrated trap of interlocking gilded teeth.

Perhaps the jaws of death had closed around their throat.

===

Angelic imps of twisted metal, drones built as though little statues carved out of ancient shapeshifting steel by the peerless hands of the sanguinary smiths of the Obsidian Rose, followed them like swarming flies and crawling infants as they stepped out into the bowels of the black spire. Each masterpiece of workmanship danced or rolled with uncanny movements unnatural to a humanoid frame, and some offered drinks of wine, others held up plates of biscuits—delicacies each worth fortunes in their own right were laid out before them like a feast by the tiny arms and legs of the metal things.

Eshairr did not look at them, distracting and disorienting as they were no doubt intended to be. Her violet sapphire eyes focused only forwards, where servants of the Kabal, prized, brilliant slaves dressed in opulent suits and dresses—who, as the captain noticed, were once free Craftworlders by the brands on their faces that showed they originated from Ulthwé and Mymeara, captured and bent to the will of the Archons, and perhaps chosen to greet them here for that reason—bowed and gestured at a great lift more than large enough to fit a score or two of fresh slaves on for delivery straight to the mistress.

But though she could have brought thirty bodyguards and subordinates with her, only six Asuryani including Eshairr herself stepped into the elevator, discovering that it was lined with mirrors on all sides, forcing them to look upon themselves. Was it meant to taunt the ugly, the weak, and the defeated with their own reflection? Or was it meant to flatter the beautiful, the mighty, and the victorious? Perhaps it served both purposes, or perhaps it served no greater purpose at all and their confusion was the point.

As the lift kicked into smooth, quiet motion, passing by floor after floor with thousands between them and their destination, the six women stood in deep silence, eyes scattered in different directions, some lost in troubled thought, others more openly anxious with tapping fingers on their belts or shifting around where they stood.

Eshairr had not the will to ponder anything, for fate was out of her hands, yet she was too stiff to fiddle. Instead, as time flowed like the oozing of blood from a half-clotted wound, she glanced at her own image shown to her by the wall. What peered back at her was a tall, proud woman whose beautiful red hair reached down her back, clad in a white greatcoat, which was the symbol of her rank, and a figure-fitting suit of mesh armor beneath it. She looked at her own body with indifference, caring not for her generous bosom or long, lovely legs.

But when she gazed into her own eyes, and saw her thick, red lips and gaunt, pale cheeks staring back at herself, she felt a strange twinge of emotion. Those who walked the Path of the Mariner for long enough were known to feel as though they were blind, deaf, or hollow outside of their ship of hundreds, if not thousands of minds interlaced through the wraithbone. After some years of service, the ship became a part of the Mariner, and the Mariner became part of the ship. One began to see through the eyes and ears of the vessel as though it were one’s own, began to feel the engines and sails like they were one’s own arms and legs—and the crew became siblings, family, sharing one home, one body, one mind.

How long had it been since she had looked into a mirror and truly saw herself? When had she forgotten her own appearance? Was it after the fall of her home to Hive Fleet Eros, during their long, lonely wandering through the Webway seeking aid for Craftworld Morrigan? Or had she already begun to forget herself before then, in all the cycles she spent serving as a Mariner before earning high rank and her own ship by worthiness? Paradoxically, what she saw reflected back resembled a stranger more than her own self. Yes, a beautiful stranger.

Would Fleetmistress Aydona laugh if she heard such thoughts?

Or would she think me mad?

Fleeing those unpleasant questions, Eshairr looked to the others, and soon her troubles were forgotten, for her heart grew warm with pride.

There was Druzna, her most trusted and reliable officer, the First Spear of the Howl. She was a short woman with a sharp face, with an odd tribal tattoo on her cheek for as long as Eshairr had known her. She wore a similar suit of grey, skin-tight mesh as the captain did, which flattered her narrow waist and wide hips, with a blue shawl hanging from her shoulders, elegant and comfortable. Her pitch-black hair was short, a bit of a mess on the best of days—thick, tangly waves, hanging loose and wild, often getting into her eyes and dispelled with a quick run of a hand to slick it back, just one or two locks left as girlish bangs.

In another world, Druzna might have been the captain of the Hunter’s Howl. She was a veteran of Aydona’s corsairs since before they joined with Craftworld Morrigan’s navy, and her experience was invaluable to Eshairr, who had served for not even a third as long. Druzna noticed Eshairr’s thoughtful stare, and she offered a soft, reassuring smile.

“Are you troubled, Captain?” Druzna asked, splitting the silence with her low, strong voice.

“No,” Eshairr answered, returning the smile, hoping that it was as soothing to Druzna’s nerves as Druzna’s small expression had been for her. “I am impressed with your calm.”

Druzna nodded, looking to the others. “Perhaps it is because I am of this city. I hail from a far-distant quarter, but I feel… nostalgic, almost. It reminds me of when mistress Aydona carved out her own empire in the stars. We came here, sometimes, to bargain and to recruit.”

Eshairr’s gaze fell to the floor, thinking of Aydona, her final transmission to what little remained of her fleet. She ordered them to flee, charging headlong into certain defeat, honoring her oaths to the Craftworld till the end. But the end that awaited her, and all their kin, was not something so blessedly conclusive as death—no rest would be their reward for their heroism, their defiant courage. What came after that last command, transmitted directly to the Hunter’s Howl and what few other vessels managed to escape the Hive Fleet’s encroaching grasp, was a fate even more terrible. What they learned, watching Aydona’s futile struggle against the boarding beasts on her bridge, was that Hive Fleet Eros did not slay its prey or consume them for biomass. Rather, it had adapted a far more insidious, bone-chilling method of replenishing its numbers.

The breeding of captured females.

The memories returned, though she did not wish to recall them. But they had been so deeply burned into her mind, she could not go a day without them creeping into her thoughts, like slithering vipers, taunting her, torturing her. Memories of hard chitin and moist flesh clasping together, gyrating, thrusting, the body of her most beloved idol and mentor, slick with slime and semen, bouncing in the arms of a Tyranid Warrior, receiving his seed again and again and again. Moaning. Gasping. And, though the thought of it turned her stomach, Eshairr recognized full and well what those telltale spasms of Aydona’s beautiful body meant.

Orgasm.

Something awoke within Eshairr’s smooth, taut belly, and she quivered for a moment at the unpleasantly warm, moist tingling inside of her core. An itch. Faint at first, yet too deep to be scratched—by reflex, she took hold of her own midriff, feeling the growing heat reach her fingers through the thermal layers of her mesh. It was a sensation that she usually suppressed with ease, and yet now, in the territory of demons that wore the flesh of Eldar, the Yearning made itself known to her once more.

Druzna glanced down at where Eshairr’s hand had gone to rest, and her smile vanished. The former Commorite said nothing, but she reached out and gently tugged the captain’s arm till Eshairr realized what she was accidentally doing and let her hand fall away, limp. The others made no show of noticing it, but all who lived in Craftworld Morrigan knew the meaning of such a gesture—showing the feeling of the Yearning. Even something so innocuous could inspire others to sense their own Yearning more intensely, and one sympathetic echo of arousal could inspire a thousand more. Fortunately, Druzna was one who had never struggled too much with the curse. Rather, she often boasted that she drew upon it as a source of strength, much to the awe of the crew and Eshairr herself.

“Captain,” said one of the others, a tall, blue-armored Dire Avenger, her face strong and sharp, beautiful like an eagle, a ritual gemstone embedded upon her forehead and an ornate masterwork of a Diresword slung at her back, her shuriken catapult resting over her shoulder with casual indifference. Her name was Azraenn, and she had taken the place of the Exarch in command of her detachment—no more than a dozen Aspect Warriors—meant to hold off boarding attempts during the battle against Hive Fleet Eros, only they never got the chance to do so. Their Exarch had perished in a skirmish with Chaos corsairs who had occupied a Webway outpost normally maintained by the Harlequins. The sword she carried was once the Exarch’s, but as the most senior of the warriors aboard, she had taken it for safekeeping and the temporary title of Bladebearer to lead the rest. “We should discuss escape, if negotiations fail.”

Eshairr stroked her chin for a moment. “Escape? Look around you. That is a generously optimistic thought, Azraenn.”

“Then let us discuss how we wish to die,” replied the cold warrioress, twisting her long ponytail of golden hair which reached down to her waist between her fingers idly. “I will kill at least seven of them before I fall. That is my decision. How many do you plan to kill?”

Eshairr crossed her arms together. “None, as I intend to complete negotiations.”

Azraenn scoffed. “Were it so easy.” Saying only that, she unclipped her helmet from her belt and pulled it on, locking into place.

“There is no need for violence,” Druzna said. “The people of this city are not savages. A collapsed deal is no grounds for killing one’s trade partners. They would gain nothing from our deaths.”

Azraenn simply loaded a crystal ammunition core into her customized, scoped shuriken catapult with a series of satisfying clicks. “We shall see.”

“We are not going into battle, Azraenn,” said Lady Lynekai beside her, reaching out to gently push the carbine in her hands down. A Bonesinger, she was tall and curvaceous, her soft, ash-colored features framed by curly silver locks. She was dressed in ceremonial robes common to the Bonesinger order, covered in the glyphs of the Eldar language which told a beautiful, short poem about the love between Isha and Kurnous if read from top to bottom, front to back. Unlike the others, there was not a piece of armor or weaponry to be found on her. She was the picture of purity, an icon of stability and wisdom, one of the oldest and most respected women in all of Craftworld Morrigan, and recruiting her be the Master Bonesinger of the Howl had always been one of Eshairr’s greatest triumphs.

Azraenn did not scoff at Lynekai, but instead allowed her weapon to be pushed, offering no resistance. Perhaps she respected the noble-natured Bonesinger famous for her pacifistic writings, or perhaps she simply saw no merit in challenging the one who maintained her weapons and armor—and could just as easily destroy them with but a word.

Eshairr relaxed somewhat. Azraenn had always been somewhat abrasive towards the crew of the Howl, perhaps taking her frustrations at being denied battle out on them. In truth, the Bladebearer had made little secret of the fact that she considered Eshairr barely better than a coward for fleeing what was a doomed battle, regardless of the fact that Aydona ordered the retreat. But she had never shown the will to challenge Eshairr’s authority, even if there were ritual duels in Morrigan’s tradition which could be used to overthrow an incompetent commander. Perhaps that was Lady Lynekai’s work all along; she always had a way of solving even the most bitter disputes and raising the morale even when it was grinding in the gutter.

“Remember, Azraenn. We cannot afford to die here, no matter how noble or valorous our deaths may be,” Eshairr said. “Our sisters need us.”

Azraenn answered with a curt nod. It seemed she accepted the logic, even if she disagreed with the spirit of what was said. But then, it was always a trial to convince an Aspect Warrior that violence was not the answer. War, after all, was their whole reason for being.

The quiet Ranger, a walker of the Path of Exile, looked from Eshairr to Azraenn. She was a short, slender girl, even petite: her dark hair was tied into a single braid that hung down along her shoulder, sticking out of her dark blue hood. She was the only Ranger aboard the Hunter’s Howl, having served aboard it as a scout for landing parties for years. Or rather, she was the only Ranger left. There were others, originally, but in the years since the Fall of Morrigan, skirmishes aboard citadel-stations in the Webway and against mon’keigh on planets had cost the lives of her fellow exiles. Now, there was only frail Tulushi’ina, delicate like a pale porcelain doll, holding her longrifle close. A melancholy rumor whispered in the halls of the Howl claimed that she could no longer sleep without hugging her weapon in her arms.

Tulushi’ina raised her voice, whispery yet melodic. “We mustn’t show them our weak links,” she squeaked. “They will pull on them, and pry on them, and break them. We are sisters, are we not? Regardless of what Path we walk.”

Lynekai nodded politely. “The greatest wisdom is often spoken by the softest voice.”

“No. Let them see our weakness, for we are divided,” replied Azraenn coldly. “It is in hiding weakness that we show our accursed foes where we most dread to be struck. We are not all as close as sisters—but we are united by purpose. So long as we remember this, we have naught to fear from these degenerates.”

Druzna chuckled. “Yet now the loudest voice is beginning to make sense, as well.”

Lynekai joined the First Spear in the mirth with giggles of her own, but Eshairr remained quiet and pensive.

“Azraenn. You already know that if we have no choice but to fight, your duty is to the Bonesinger and the Wayseer,” said Eshairr, returning to the previous topic after reconsidering her answer. “Do not slay seven enemies. First, save two lives. Then you have my permission to die.”

Azraenn simply nodded, and the subtle twisting of her blue-armored digits around her beautiful hair at her side spoke of approval.

Munesha, the Seer of which Eshairr spoke, leaned against the wall, arms crossed. With the privileges of a Wayseer, a specially trained navigator and tracker employed by Aydona’s fleets, she chose to dress in an unusual white fur coat that covered her arms but left much of her ample cleavage and smooth, soft midriff bare, as well as tight green briefs wrapped up in a long fur belt. She was neither tall nor short, born with naturally white hair, but her skin as dark as onyx. Exotic, living, shifting tattoos, engraved by sacred psycho-sensitive inks into the flesh of her back by the Exodite tribe she was born into, crackled with neon red and pink energy pulsing and melding together, the image of a mythical demon’s fanged and bloody jaws partially covered by her apparel. Crimson red eyes, dyed that shade by tribal surgeries, stared through the others and into an endless horizon.

“It is a moot point,” Munesha said. “Millions of murderers and their broken slaves dwell within this maleficent spire, and thousands of halls spiral in every direction, with luxury and decadence pouring out of tens of thousands of doors, yet so many of its dark chambers are murderous traps or naught but bare walls. It was not built for the convenience of any but its rulers. For all others, it is like a fortress built to stand against both that which lies without and that which lies within, and we are riding into its very heart.”

“Be wary of using your sight, Munesha. The Drukhari abhor psykers,” Druzna pointed out. “They may tolerate the Seers of our people, but it is a flimsy tolerance. And they will know if you use them in their presence.”

Munesha turned her eyes to Druzna, but only faint shadows were left of her pupils, otherwise a sea of red. “No better than mon’keigh, then.”

Druzna’s lips twinged into a horrified scowl. “Do not say such things where they can hear! A single impudent word, or even an unfortunate implication, will spell a fate worse than death for you and likely for the rest of us as well. What the Kabals do to psykers… to say nothing of psykers who have dared to insult them…”

Munesha offered only a shrug. To a Wayseer, so often called upon to scout upon foreign planets or to venture into the Webway on a jetbike to seek safe paths ahead of a disoriented ship, fates worse than death were assumed for any who were caught.
“Yes, but we should all watch our words carefully,” said Eshairr. “We are not the High Council of Morrigan. Perhaps they can fearlessly trade barbs with the one whom we are here to meet, but we lack the backing of an entire Craftworld. Speak only when spoken to. And if you are uncertain what to say, say nothing.”

The other five women all nodded.

“Now, let us return to silence. We should use this time to meditate and gather ourselves.”

===

After many minutes, the lift finally arrived at its destination: the pinnacle of the spire.

When the doors opened, the opulence of the Archon’s personal palace could have brought a blind man to tears.

The walls were covered in masterpieces of artwork and craftsmanship, from simple paintings to power weapons. One could not turn in any direction without seeing a veritable fortune from one corner of sight to the other, treasures worth as much as, if not more than, entire miles of Low Commorragh—including all the people in those wretched miles—gathered into room after room, display after display, and even the ignorant would know at a glance that even the smallest trinket left sitting on a table could surely earn a lifetime of luxury for ten generations of a family in the highest reaches of Commorragh.

They stared at it, unable to even speak. There were no words for it.

Then Druzna fell to her knees, shaking, heaving with wet gulps, struggling not to vomit on the floor—which itself consisted of priceless fossils of ancient dead races encased in clear wraithbone, which was nigh-impossible to find, let alone purchase in the Eternal City. Lynekai knelt down beside her, touching a finger to her forehead and whispering a spell—the little runestones concealed in the sleeves of her robes glowing faintly with power as she quelled the involuntary illness.

“Shh,” whispered the Bonesinger musically. “Be at peace.”

“I can’t—!” Druzna squeaked, a miserable expression on her face.

Eshairr touched Druzna by the shoulder, and just that gesture was enough to settle her tempestuous heart. “We know.”

Druzna closed her eyes, then climbed back to her feet, still somewhat shaky, but composed once more. “Forgive me.”

“Ah, good, you kept it down. Then I don’t have to kill you,” said a voice coming from behind them, and the six whirled, more than one weapon drawn at the surprise. From inside the elevator, the mirrored walls shifted unnaturally, a strange figure stretching out from within the reflective metal, arms, then legs, then face and body, until the tension broke, and the metal parted away, revealing the shape of an Eldar woman—beautiful and tall like a deadly blade, dressed in an open silk nightgown and a black corset which bound her weighty breasts and narrow waist in crushing, shining leather, with a glass of some manner of unholy wine in one hand, her distinctive blue hair thick and wavy, as full and puffy as clouds, wild and free to hang down over her eyes, in wavy locks beside her face, and long down her back. She was pale, her lips painted black, her dark and ancient eyes watching their every move, and as she approached, the living metal reformed and gathered itself behind her, returning to its original shape as a wall.

“Lady Syndratta,” said Eshairr at once, bowing politely, only for the Archon to stroll right past her, leaving the cup of wine in the captain’s offered hand, her dark lipstick imprinted boldly on the rim.

“We, we are—” Eshairr began, turning around to introduce herself, only for her eye to be caught by the eerily familiar weight of the cup left in her hand. Only when she examined it closely did Eshairr realize, with a shock through her spine, that this was not glass, nor crystal, nor any merely exotic material—it was transparent wraithbone. Never before in her life had she seen such a trivial use, nay, waste of such a precious resource.

“Yes, yes, I know who you are,” said Syndratta, walking at a leisurely pace in front of them to pay them all a meaningful scan with her eyes, from head to toe. But her eyes settled upon Munesha, and did not leave the beautiful Wayseer as she spoke her next words with razor-sharp meaning: “I was paying attention, indeed.”

Nearly all the Asuryani shared a tremor of dread, which her sly eyes instantly caught, and her grin deepened.

“No better than mon’keigh?” Syndratta asked, circling the six in her atrium, gaze never leaving Munesha, lingering upon her half-exposed breasts, shaking her head with severe reproach. But then she smiled, an expression that seemed more terrifying than her mock anger. “Really, do you think we are brutes? Is our reputation that misleading? Please. No, for a woman of my stature, to torture to death over such a puerile and amateurish insult would be beneath me,” the Mistress of Blades said, gesturing at herself with pride.

Though she spoke with lighthearted fancy, no one joined her in laughter. She kept weaving around them, almost prancing on her long, beautiful fair legs, the length of her untied nightgown dragging for several feet behind her as she strutted and danced with unnerving grace and glee.

“Really, the only thing your words deserve is mockery—ahahaha! You really thought such a simplistic slight is worthy of so much effort on my part? No, no. When an Archon of my caliber decides to murder you in the most gruesome and delightful ways, it must be for an insult paid in such a layered, subtle manner that it takes decades for the true intent to be unearthed by the mind. Believe me, I have a list, a very long list, and for what you said, you aren’t even worth the blood I use as ink.”

The lady Archon spun on her toes, darting in to peck Munesha upon the cheek before the dusky Wayseer could even think to react, and something glinting like black steel dropped out from her gown’s sleeve as she turned—and her arm shot out as a blur—
“So no endless torture beyond imagination for you, Wayseer. You are unworthy of my fine arts. For the likes of you, death is sufficient enough.”

Syndratta let go of the weapon in her hand, and Munesha slumped backwards in a slow, shocked collapse, staring down breathlessly at the handle of a dagger embedded in her stomach.

There was a moment, a halting second of absolute tension, where even the slightest shifting of muscles of those gathered there seemed to grind into infinity.

Eshairr yelled, acting faster than the rest, the chainsaber on her hip drawn like curved lightning out through the air, monomolecular teeth tearing through the space where Syndratta had been only an instant before she dove beneath the arc, deftly rolling into a kneeling stance just in time for Azraenn to bring her crackling Diresword down on her skull. But it stopped when it came within an inch of her beauty—as a repulsive force field flickered into existence around her, matching the sharpness of the power field and deflecting it away, sending the Dire Avenger stumbling back, nearly toppling over.

Syndratta held up the small, personal force field device which she had slipped out from her sleeve and activated at just the right moment, deactivating it and dispelling the powerful shield. “Tsk, tsk, you can do better than that, can’t you?” she asked them all, spreading her arms wide in a welcoming gesture, grinning like a beast.

Eshairr nearly charged her again, only for Druzna to grab her from behind and drag her away even as she fought against her grasp.

“Let me go!” Eshairr howled, baring her teeth like a wild animal.

“Don’t!” Druzna hissed. “Don’t give her what she wants. She’ll kill you, too.”

Syndratta smirked smugly. “Hmm. Your first officer is smart. You should listen to her. I don’t mind being attacked—but I might take offense if you waste my time with feeble attempts to kill me. The only thing I can’t stand is boredom.”

While she spoke, the Bladebearer circled around behind her, quiet as the night, tense, every part of her armored body radiating fury. Just as Syndratta finished, Azraenn lunged and swung at her a second time, but Syndratta, without even glancing in her direction, dialed up the strength of her device to the maximum setting, and the deafening collision of energy against energy repulsed Azraenn, sent hurtling through the air, slamming into the far wall of the decadent atrium, floored and beaten, and her sword snapped in half. “Case in point… a pathetic attempt.”

“You bitch!” Eshairr shouted, but Druzna’s hold on her was impossible to break.

Syndratta’s smile deepened, the smile of one who held all the power and none of the risk, and she disabled her force field again. “What did you say? I couldn’t quite hear you, darling. The repulsion field neutralizes most sounds, as sonic weapons have gotten popular again here in the Eternal City. Terribly annoying, I know. It seems like that fad returns every other century. Oh, though I can’t help but notice your marvelous bosom. Tell me, are they natural? I always wonder if the healers of your Craftworld are skilled in the cosmetic arts.”

Eshairr stopped struggling, glancing down at her own breasts—tightly bound up in grey mesh as they were—noticing that all her squirming only made them jiggle and bounce for the eyes of the twisted Archon, and she felt the hair on her neck go stiff with dread. The Mistress of Blades was ogling her like a filthy lech, and while she was no stranger to such gazes, the fact that it was her, who had just mortally wounded her close friend, left Eshairr reeling and dizzy.

Giggling at the captain’s stunned reaction, Syndratta’s eyes glanced over at the rest, seeing Tulushi’ina frozen in indecision and the Bonesinger moving to the fallen Munesha. “Leave her, or you’ll join her,” said the near nude, breathtaking Archon, brushing her bangs back with casual indifference. “Relax. Death is not on her agenda. Not yet. She is part of an important test for the rest of you. A trial of character, so to speak, that I might come to know who it is that dares to deal with me. So at the snap of my fingers, my healers will ensure her survival. But her ultimate fate will depend on what you have to offer me, you see. And you’d better talk quickly, because she won’t last long.”

Eshairr glanced at the others, at Munesha, and clenched her fists. Azraenn, groaning, managed to lift herself up onto her elbows and knees, trying to crawl for the handle of her broken sword, but she was across the entire room, and in no shape to fight, and her rifle was in no better shape than her blade. There was nothing they could do except play along with the Archon’s games, deadly as they were. Though her heart burned with rage, she reminded herself of Aydona—of all of Morrigan—and she managed to swallow her pride. She glanced back at Druzna, showing her the eyes of a resolved leader, and her First Spear finally let her go.

Stepping forward, she pressed a hand to her own chest. “Lady Syndratta, Mistress of Blades, we of Craftworld Morrigan have come to request your aid.”

Syndratta twirled around with dancelike grace, a hand going to her hip, striking a playful pose. “Aid? Ah, is there an important campaign being planned? I love it,” she giggled, resembling for all the world an adolescent girl with her excitement. “Tell me more.”

All at once, the strangeness of this warlord, her totally alien mindset, struck Eshairr to the very core of her being. In the same breath with which she had mortally wounded Munesha with sinister hatred, she could be so unsettlingly playful without even a moment’s difference.

“Our home, Morrigan, it’s been… by the Great Devourer…” Eshairr faltered, unable to cope with the rushing emotions she felt, made all the more confusing and difficult by the choking and gasping of her dying friend, which was the only noise in the dreadful silence. She had lived with it for years, and yet admitting it out loud had never grown easier.

“Dead? Destroyed? Oh, such a shame!” Syndratta exclaimed, lifting a hand to her forehead in dismay that felt so exaggerated it could only be feigned. “The Tyranids have gone too far this time. Then I assume you’ll ask my help in avenging your home?”

“Vengeance, yes, but not for its destruction…” Eshairr said, her voice trailing off, and Syndratta’s eyebrow raising with surprised interest. “…This Hive Fleet, which our leaders called Eros, it… it doesn’t kill the women it defeats. It seduces them, and it…”

Bile rose in her throat just trying to say it out loud. The other Craftworlds they had gone to were able to scan her mind with their Farseers to spare her the pain of explaining through language. But that was not an option here.

“Yes? Go on,” Syndratta said, stroking her chin.

“It rapes them, and uses them to breed more of its disgusting kind.”

“Oh!” Syndratta exclaimed, a hint of curiosity in her voice. “Fascinating. Marvelous. Do go on. How does it do so? I assume that it has specialized biomorphs for this purpose? What is the composition of its seed? It must be terribly strong, ideally so strong that it can force an ovum through our usual mating cycles in a matter of months or even weeks. But weeks is still too much time to leave it at that… too easy to abort whatever abomination is in the womb during that period, so it must use some form of aphrodisiac to make its prey more submissive and willing, of course. Perhaps multiple layers of it, in fact, to be absolutely sure. Eldar women are not easily conquered, not without great effort…”

Eshairr stared at the Mistress of Blades, far beyond nausea or emotion. All she felt was emptiness, listening to the monstrous woman before her prattle on and on about the scientific basis of Eros’s methods. No one aboard the Hunter’s Howl had ever tried to analyze these things, at least not vocally. It went unsaid that Eros’s mechanisms were insidiously advanced, because no one could bear to praise the monsters that had conquered their home.

Syndratta talked almost entirely to herself for a minute before she seemed to notice the dismay of the women before her, bringing a smile to her lips. “Ah, but I suppose you would not be the ones to ask about such matters, hm? How crass of me not to notice that the subject makes you so uncomfortable. But is it not good news, my kin? If this ‘Eros’ you speak of breeds your sisters, then it must go out of its way to avoid harming them physically. In fact, it might even work to protect them from other, worse dangers, or use methods of prolonging their lives beyond the natural limit! Imagine the evolved behaviors of this hive splinter! It could practically bring paradise for the women it enthralls!”

“Please, no more of that,” begged Lady Lynekai, bowing down to her knees.

Syndratta cracked a pleased grin at the submission of the Bonesinger. “Ah, but that is all just speculation, isn’t it? Now, about the matter of your Craftworld… I assume I was your last choice for support, yes?”

Eshairr had not been planning to mention it, but nodded regardless. “Morrigan’s other allies expressed their sympathies, but claimed that they foresaw only ill omens should they intervene now. No matter how much I begged, their Farseers refused to condone a rescue action until their visions became more promising.”

“Ah! The ruling class of the Craftworlds strikes again, permitting injustice to go unpunished if it means a better future. Hahaha!” cackled Syndratta. “Fortunately for you, even just the forces that I command of my Kabal, which is far from the sum of its military might, are more than enough to cleanse your home. But… I can’t just deploy every asset in my employ, now can I? What would become of my holdings? Even the other Archons of the Obsidian Rose would be quick to claim that which went unguarded, to say nothing of my enemies.”

Eshairr felt her heart sink into her legs. She knew what was coming. Worse than death, her greatest fear was to be unable to secure any aid at all for Morrigan.

“So I will have to be measured in what I commit to your efforts—say, a battleship? Perhaps a handful of frigates to serve as escorts, but that should be sufficient in itself,” Syndratta said dismissively, leaning back against a wall, idly running her fingers through her poofy hair. “And a modest army of ground forces to strike within the Craftworld itself, of course. But then that leads us to the next question… what’s in it for me?”

Hope.

For the first time in a long time, Eshairr allowed herself to feel it.

But it was tinged with the displeasure of having to bargain away precious belongings of her own people, which she herself had no true authority to offer. She clenched her fists, knowing that freedom was worth more than valuables, and that she would certainly be willing to face the judgment of Morrigan’s people—even the High Council—for her decisions here.

“Looting rights,” Eshairr mumbled. “You can have what you come across. Wraithbone. Precious metals. Rare artifacts. Our clothing, our artworks, our tools. Everything. But the people of Morrigan must be protected, and you cannot take anything vital to the Craftworld’s defenses or mechanisms. You can keep it all, or you can ransom it back to us later. It doesn’t matter.”

Syndratta smiled pleasantly, reaching up to adjust the seat of her corset over one of her lovely breasts. “Yes, yes, very good. I wouldn’t take anything too important even if you didn’t demand that. After all, I benefit more from our continued business relationship! Morrigan has been such a wonderful supplier of wraithbone and military aid, and she has flourished with the raw materials and intel I have to offer. Still, Tyranids are a troublesome target to strike at. They do not… suffer… in a way that is fulfilling to the dwellers of this noble city, which means our necessary sustenance cannot come from them, and you’ve already mentioned we cannot take it from Morrigan’s people, so I would have to invest in a sizable complement of fresh slaves to sustain the needs of my forces. Quite an investment, and if the attack fails… tsk, tsk. What a waste that would be.”

Druzna grabbed Eshairr by the shoulder, a reassuring gesture, and the captain looked back at the others, seeing Munesha lying in a pool of her own blood by now, surely soon to perish.

“Yes,” said Eshairr hastily, disregarding all considerations of risk. “My ship is yours. It will be an… investment to supply your forces. It should be worth more for the wraithbone it is made of than its value as a ship, to your kind.”

“True! That is a pleasant little fortune sitting in my hangar,” Syndratta observed with catlike amusement. “I look forward to claiming it, once the expedition is complete. It will be an acceptable compensation regardless of whether it meets success or failure.”

“Then we have your support!” Eshairr exclaimed, unable to fight the rising excitement.

“Hmm. Let me think for a moment…” Syndratta murmured. “No.”

“Why?!” Eshairr yelled, so conditioned to hearing it that the anger seemed to pile together from every single Craftworld she had begged on hands and knees up to this point.

“Though there is much to be gained, there are currently too many thorns in my side that need removing,” Syndratta said, turning her back and walking over to casually examine one of the weapons she had lying on a table, testing its sharpness with a finger. “I am not the most powerful Archon within the Obsidian Rose, despite my wealth exceeding most others thanks to Morrigan’s contract. And there are certain… shall we say, pressures being exerted upon me to solve various problems for the greater Kabal. What, don’t look at me like that, girl. Surely you did not think that the Mistress of Blades has nothing to do all day?”

“My crewmate, my friend, is dying, and you’ve been toying with me all along!” Eshairr yelled, throwing her arm out in outrage. “You never planned to agree! You’re feasting on her suffering, aren’t you?! On all our suffering?!” As she swung her arm, she realized that she was still holding something in it—the glass of wine. Even though she threw her arm out like that, it was such a graceful motion that it did not cause any wine to spill, only rock around the interior of it, a drop escaping the rim and landing back within the crimson liquid precariously. Eshairr realized that the keen balance of a Mariner, used to turbulence rocking the entire ship even during meals, had subconsciously kept the drink from spilling even through all the havoc and the fighting. For a moment, she considered hurling it right at the fiend.

“Ah, yes, I have indeed been savoring your despair, much like I savor that wine, thank you,” Syndratta said, strolling up and plucking the wine back, drinking deeply of it with a satisfying sigh. “Indeed, your misery is even more delicious than I had expected it to be when you begged for a meeting in that communique. And you did not spill a single drop of my precious wine throughout all of that, so I must applaud you. Had you spilled it, I most likely would have just killed you all. Consider that your first test… captain. A success. Well done.”

“That was the trial?” asked Druzna, and Eshairr realized that even she, native to Commorragh as she was, must not have been able to comprehend the bizarre logic of the Archon.

“And what else should a trial be, then?” Syndratta asked dismissively. “I entrusted my possession to your care and you kept it well, even after I put a dagger through your beloved sister-in-arms. You did not toss it away in anger, nor did you drink it for yourself, even though you’ll likely never enjoy a vintage as superb as this. And what good is a captain who spills her wine? No, no. I simply could not bear to do dealings with such a useless woman, no.”

“I just forgot I had it,” Eshairr explained honestly, even though admitting it was sure to be a mistake.

“Perfect!” Syndratta laughed. “Who cares about the methods, so long as you get the results? Amnesia is a weapon as much as anything else in Commorragh. There are things you should remember, and many more things you should endeavor to forget.”

With only those cryptic words, she raised a hand and snapped her fingers. “Tend to the Wayseer,” she ordered, and as if out of the very walls, a half-dozen Kabalites wearing especially decorated suits of armor marked with twin black roses on their pauldrons indicating elite status poured in, swiftly and quietly trotting into the atrium from nearby doors. They rushed past the Asuryani, grabbed Munesha, and dragged her into the lift, vanishing as the doors shut. As they departed, two drones armed with strange cleaning devices crawled out of nearby vents, turning the laser-like beam guns in their mechanical arms upon the blood stain and evaporating it into nothing.

“Wait!” Eshairr exclaimed, but they were gone before she could stop them.

“Relax,” Syndratta giggled. “They’re going to my personal healing ward, merely one floor below us. When my menders are finished with your crewmate, there won’t even be a scar left.”

“She shouldn’t have needed treatment in the first place!” Eshairr snapped back. “So I passed your test, what now? More trials?”

Syndratta scoffed dismissively. “Hmm! If you prefer, you can call them… errands. You know those little problems I mentioned before? If you want me to be able to commit anything to saving your home, then I want them removed for me. Understand?”

“And you’d have us, Asuryani, do your blood-drenched work for you?” asked Eshairr, gritting her teeth. “What can we do that your Kabal, in its vast manpower and resources, cannot?”

“A very good question!” Syndratta exclaimed excitedly. “And the answer is that you are outsiders. While you may not be native, and thus less savvy than any of thousands I could command or hire to try to resolve these matters for me, it is precisely because you are outsiders that I desire your… fleeting assistance. After all, my underlings would use any chance to undercut me, and for some of these matters, I do have some concerns about… vulnerabilities. It is only natural; they seek my rank and authority, and I seek to prevent them from getting it.”

“And you know that we need you alive and powerful if our deal is to go through,” Druzna added.

“Precisely!” Syndratta said. “So, what is your answer, daughters of Morrigan?”

Eshairr looked to the others behind, then to Azraenn afar, who had collapsed halfway into her dogged crawl, clearly in need of care. There were none willing to speak for her. There were none else who could speak for the whole of the Howl. This burden was hers, and hers alone. She shut her eyes, knowing that to agree was to plunge herself head first into the dirty affairs of the Eternal City, and that there would be no going back for her or for anyone who joined her.

“Fine,” said the captain, glaring into Syndratta. “Fine.”

The Mistress of Blades simply leaned back and grinned, licking her lips with a tongue that seemed too long to be natural, so many inches of moist pink dragging over her sumptuous black mouth, leaving a moist, slimy trail behind wherever it slithered—and the sight of it put a bolt of lurid lightning through Eshairr’s core, as if the Yearning within her recognized what that tongue seemed to imply, much to her disgust. “Wonderful, my darlings. Serve me well, and I assure you, you will be richly rewarded.”

===

They had gone into that spire-palace hoping to make a deal to save their home. But what they emerged with was only wounds and a pact to perform the bidding of the black-hearted Archon instead. Eshairr could not dispel the dread in her heart, and she saw in the faces of her subordinates much the same feelings. But even so, she could not see any other way that the dealings could have taken place, and if her hands had to be dirtied in the hateful business of the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose, it was an acceptable price to pay for the liberty and security of Morrigan.

However, the Master Bonesinger and the First Wayseer, both adept in the art of foresight, could not clearly see what the future held—haze and twilight, like the eternal gloomy daylight of Commorragh, lied at the end of every thread their eyes followed, no matter how deeply they peered into the labyrinthine weave of Fate. Only one truth among ten thousand falsehoods revealed itself to their prying gazes—which neither Lynekai nor Munesha dared tell the others.

The Eternal City welcomed all, but it was loathe to let them leave.

Chapter Text

===Chapter II Prelude: To Break These Iron Bars===

The hazy smog of the Eternal City’s depths permeated almost everything, and it took herculean machines to cleanse a building of that toxic, sickening pollution that could melt the lungs from the inside out or smoke a corpse into tough jerky. Corrosive to exposed skin, tasting of metals and blood and waste, it was like a cloud of pure pain had descended upon the impoverished lands that toiled in eternal servitude to the great spires that reigned over them.

But inside that cramped bedroom, barely large enough for the double bed, the fumes that choked the life out of every soul in Low Commorragh could barely be felt despite certainly being present to some extent. A leering dispenser flickered nonstop from where it hung on the wall, bathing the room in alternating colors of pink, purple, red, blue, yellow—and colors that the human eye could not even perceive, that there were no words among them to describe, advertising its lurid wares at exorbitant fees for such things as ‘rental’ toys which would self-destruct after a designated time span, which could result in grievous injury specifically as intended. After all, there were only two things one sought at a whorehouse in Commorragh: pleasure and pain.

Two bodies, covered in the fresh sweat of sex, reclined apart on the bed, catching their breaths. The man rolled over, sitting up on the foot of it, digging around in his satchel for a pack of blendsticks. He found one, pulling it out, sticking it in his teeth and lighting the tip with a blazebit, which cracked unhealthily as it activated, the sign of nearing the end of its internal battery life.

Puffing on the ‘blend’ of over a dozen assorted crude chems burning out of the paper cigarette and absorbing into his lungs, he reached up and slicked the dark hair on his scalp back, staring at the ground. “What a fucking awful fuck you are. Every time. Worthless bitch.”

She looked at his back, counting the jagged scars on it as the machine trying to coax them into buying its products lit up his pale, unhealthy skin. He always told her a story for each scar, but his stories were always different every time he told them. Underneath those scars were muscles, strong, lean, like a whole suit of armor covering him from head to toe. But even so, she could still see the individual vertebrae sticking out of his back, so slender as he was. She liked to count those as well, just to pass the time as he insulted her.

“You know what they call whores who can’t get the job done?” asked the stranger who paid for her services every day.

“Haemonculus meat,” she answered in a monotone. How many times had he asked that question?

“Yeah,” he said. He blew out a long stream of smoke, adding to the pollution in the air.

“Hey,” she said.

He ignored her, looking around and taking a long drag on his blendstick. “Fucking trash blends. Not even a dose of good stimm in ‘em. Who do those bastards think they are? Shit. Selling a Kabalite this kind of trash. I’ll shut down their whole fucking operation.”

“Hey.”

He slowly turned his head, peering at her face through his dark eyes. She always forgot how handsome he was, gaunt, young.

“What?”

“Will you take me to that place tonight?”

He took the burning stump out of his mouth and blew smoke in her direction.

She let it wash over her, tasting on her tongue the faintest traces of cheap chems, stuff the Hellions running the brothel usually kept her pumped up on to keep her docile.

“Shit, right?” he asked, but the look in his eyes had no fire in it.

“Yeah. It’s shit,” she said back, looking down at her own perky breasts, which rose and fell as she breathed the disgusting fumes in and out. Streaks of his seed dripped out from between her legs, a feeling she disliked even more than when he breathed his trash in her face.

“Knew it,” he muttered, taking another long drag on it anyways. “How many men today?”

“Seven,” she answered, no feeling in it. It was just a number to her.

“Shit, slow day, huh?” he asked, chuckling.

Same joke everyone made. It only hurt when he said it.

“Hey, take me to that spot,” she mumbled.

“What spot?”

“You know.”

He paused, looking away from her, turning as still as a statue.

“You promised me.”

“Never promised shit. I just said some things.”

She watched him smoke for a minute, saying nothing.

Eventually, he threw his head back in a long groan, eyes shut, as if letting rain pour down over him—though the only rain that reached these depths was so corrosive it could melt straight to the bone. He straightened back up, then walked over to the narrow window and punched through it, reaching around outside till his fingers found a bag delivered to the lofty alcove far above the streets by the hands of a Scourge, for appropriate payment of course.

He took the bag, worn out and stained by the pollution hanging in the outer air, and pulled it into the room, unsealing it and dumping its contents out onto the floor.

She looked at the mess of metal and blades that spilled out. Weapons. Explosives. The brothel never allowed anything of the sort inside.

“Alright,” he said. “We’ll go. Put on some fucking clothes.”

===

The door of their bedroom swung open, and the black-armored man slapped a handful of bonechits in the waiting hands of the Hellion enforcer who always collected, whether in money or in pain, both acceptable currencies to their kind. The enforcer, a massive hulk of an Eldar given enough meat implants by the flesh cults to turn him into something resembling a mon’keigh Ogryn, or even a Pain Engine, smiled a greasy grin down at the Kabalite, showing off his gilded fake teeth.

“The Roofrunner Clan thanks you for your patrona—”

Ptchang.

A needle of crystallized venom tore through his skull, beginning at the soft beneath his jaw and traveling upward, through his brains, exiting out through his balding scalp, shattering into pieces in the ceiling. He slumped down against the wall, dead before the venom coursing through his blood would ever matter.

The Kabalite lowered his splinter pistol and glanced left, then right. The brothel was heavily guarded as a matter of course; Hellion gangs like the Roofrunners were always fighting over turf, and locales like this were one of their most important sources of income and power over the local quarter. Even if not for the constant threat of assault by upstart gangs, the desperate and the poor always tried their luck on getting service without paying, and they had to be made to pay with every tooth and nail pried out in the basement by the finest street slicers the gang employed.

As expected, the noise, though reduced by the silencing modifications he used compared to the average splinter weapon, could not be totally nullified. Other door men came rushing from around the corners in the sprawling hallway, and the Kabalite drew his second pistol, aiming to his left and to his right, unloading a half-dozen needles into the unfortunate bastards and turning them into pincushions simultaneously.

Without even waiting for the increasing footfalls of gangsters to come into view, he grabbed one of the orbs clipped to his belt and pulled it off, tossing it over his shoulder in their direction. It did not beep. It made no sound except the sound of its smooth, metallic weight rolling on the stone tile floor. When the first of the reinforcements came barreling around the corner, the timer inside the dark device reached its limit.

BOOM.

Screams and agony filled his ears, but he was already charging through the smoke at full speed, rounding the corner, finishing off any thugs that were not already in pieces or burnt to a crisp by the plasma blast. The walls and floors glowed a superheated red, and those within the bedrooms screamed in terror, but he was already leaving them behind.

Stairs.

He burst through the door, putting enough splinters of venom into the first man he saw coming up to kill a grox. Not an Eldar this time, a mon’keigh slave—the cheapest kind of guards in Commorragh. The enforcer groaned, dead before he hit the ground, collapsing back into the arms of the men behind him, and two pinpoint needles penetrated their skulls next. The Kabalite leapt over the pile of corpses all the way down to the next landing, peering over the rusty railing at a dozen, no, two dozen more mon’keigh bruisers on their way up. More than expected. The explosion must have upset the man in charge. This time, they had guns, too. Cheap gutter-irons and lasguns—mon’keigh weapons for mon’keigh muscle. The poverty of the slums could hardly be any more pitiful.

He grabbed the rappel line from the bundle on his back-plate, hooking the magnetic claw to the rail, then vaulted over it with one hand on the rail. He fell down the entire shaft, far too quick for these cheap goons to aim as they started blasting wildly into the center—and ricochets downed a couple of the idiots. Only near the bottom, after leaving the gunmen behind, did he grab the unwinding synthetic cord and reduce his velocity, having only a split second to slow himself before he collided with the bottom.

Thud.

Groaning, he flopped over and shot the man that came rushing into the stairwell, a straggler, whose finger slipped as he dropped and he fired wildly until his crude leadsnapper ran out of ammo. The Kabalite heard the confusion above, the yells and the stomping as the men he had bypassed started coming back down after him.

He managed to struggle to his feet, detaching the rappel line from his armor at the press of a buckle, staggering past the dead man beside him—the poison finished him off by melting his arteries from the inside out—and took a round metal disc from his pack, slapping it onto the doorway as he moved right along. With that, the Kabalite limped out into the central atrium, splinter pistols spread out left and right, and the handful of men there had no idea he would be there so quickly—in the leg, the arm, the shoulder, the throat, the eye, he filled them with instant death by lethal poison.

Behind him, the yells and the running got loud. He holstered his left pistol, grabbed the remote from his belt, flipped the cover off, and pressed the little lever with his thumb. Someone tried to hop over the corpse of their comrade, clueless about the plasma charge attached to the door.

BOOM.

The entire stairwell collapsed in hellfire.

Something impacted the Kabalite’s chest armor, and he turned his head, huffing through his helmet—a man had been hidden behind the front desk. He unloaded with the autopistol in his hands, spraying wildly without any regard for the jerking recoil, and the bullets smashed into the Kabalite, sparks flying as they struck his armor plates. He stumbled back, but his right arm lifted even while he lost his balance, and he did not even have to aim down the sights to fire a splinter through the doorman’s forehead.

Huff. Huff.

He could feel warmth seeping down his leg. His left arm squeezed up, no longer working, a chunk of muscle missing from it. Blood was leaking down his armor plates from multiple places. Just one little mistake was all it took. Bad luck.

Huff. Huff.

He went stomping over to the doorman’s twitching body, hearing his death rattle as he swiped the datakey from the necklace he wore. When the Kabalite turned, the girl was there, having taken the elevator, as he told her to. She stared at him, and she saw the wounds on him, his ruined arm, but she said nothing. He moved the key to her bomb collar, and as its signal reached the metal band, it beeped and disarmed, detaching from her neck and clattering to the floor.

He panted heavily, shoving her out of the way and stomping for the exit, drawing his pistol again. As he forced his way through the doors, the people waiting their chance to enter the brothel, who were either too high or too desperate to run away even when they heard the explosions and gunfire, stayed right where they were, faithful that the Hellions would resume operations in due time.

The Kabalite limped down the steps, keeping his pistol handy, aiming it at anyone who got too close to persuade them to leave him and the girl alone. Not far from the entrance, a Kabal-marked Venom sat unaccosted even by the greediest or most desperate thieves. There was no need for locks or security for such a vehicle, as even laying hands upon it, besmirching its polished black sheen with even a smidge of one’s filth, meant a fate worse than death. He climbed into the driver’s seat with a grunt of pain, holstering his pistol and slamming the ignition of its skimmer engines. The girl stepped aboard behind him into the dark chariot, and he pushed the throttle forward—taking off away from the streets.

===

The Hellions had a veritable army of skyboard-riding thugs to send after anyone who crossed them, but there were no signs of them.

The Kabalite chuckled underneath his helmet. There was no need to chase him, and they knew it. His fate was already sealed. That syndicate was owned by the Covens. Not even the Archon could intervene in his favor, as if they ever would.

The girl did not know why he chuckled. The blistering winds made her shiver, even in her heaviest clothing. She pressed herself against the vehicle, seeking warmth, but there was none to be found from the cold machine.

They could always see the docking spar, an enormous construction of ancient steel machinery towering over the hovels around it, from the window of her room, its immense length rising out of the clouds of smog like a curved claw. Now, however, they finally approached it in person, together. There were several ships moored there at any given time, typically merchants selling slaves and loot won from the latest Realspace raids, but this time it was a fleet of outsiders. Corsairs.

Aydona’s Sky Slicers.

He set down the vehicle at the entryway to the spar, a deserted marketplace. Unlike the usual hordes clamoring to purchase every scrap and piece of flesh there was to offer, the people had no interest in the dealings of the corsairs. They had nothing to sell except their services, which only the wealthy could afford, and they were too dangerous to steal from.

Without a word, the Kabalite grabbed the edges of the driver compartment, hoisting himself up and out. But his strength failed him, and he fell out onto his side with a groan. Only with great effort did he manage to right himself to sit with his back to the vehicle’s cold exterior.

She looked over, and she saw how much crimson had painted the inside of the driver’s compartment. How broken was his body?

She hopped out and went over to him as he pulled his helmet off and threw it aside carelessly.

He looked up at her, blood dripping from the corners of his lips. When his weak eyes found their way to her face, he scowled.

“I love you,” she said, breathless.

“You’re a terrible liar, you pathetic whore,” he said.

Even now, his words wounded her deeper than anyone else’s.

“Fuck, I’ve wasted my time coming here, look at—hguh—you, tarrying while those ships prepare to depart. Go seduce the men loading that cargo, won’t you? Yes, you will, you no-good slut,” he coughed.

She stared at him, motionless.

“Fucking… bitch… you want to watch me die that badly?” he chuckled, though every word seemed to send a new shudder of physical agony through his chest. “Fine. Slake your Thirst. You, gbbgh… worthless…”

He reached down to his belt, tapping his detonator.

“Take it, pop the cover, push the lever. It’ll blow me… and this piece of shit skimmer… straight to the arms of She-Who-Thirsts,” he explained, lacking the strength to pry it from his own belt and hand it to her. “Better… than what the Covens… will do to me.”

She obeyed numbly, taking and holding the detonator in both hands, stepping back, further, further, backing up all the way to the midst of the cargo being loaded onto the big elevator for stowage into the corsair ships’ holds. The corsairs around her glanced at her, confused.

The Kabalite turned his head to look at her from afar. He mouthed something with his lips.

She pressed the detonator.

BOOM.

The corsairs all whirled, looking at the explosion in surprise. Of the vehicle and of the Kabalite, nothing was left after the inferno of sun-hot plasma faded into just smoke and ash.

The girl turned to them.

“I want to join you,” she said.

A short-haired woman, bearing a nasty scar on her face that looked relatively fresh, sitting atop a hill of crates due to be loaded up, looked down at her and adjusted her greatcoat. She radiated calm and control, authority and prestige.

“Hell, after an entrance like that, I’ll take ya,” said Aydona, grinning from ear to ear. “You know how to scrub decks?”

===

In the end, the brothel’s business was only briefly interrupted. Fresh muscle was brought in, the mess was cleaned up, the stairs and walls were repaired in less than a day. The needy and Thirsty got their money’s worth out of the girls in there as usual. The Roofrunners raked in absurd profits earned entirely from vice and sin, and they paid their dues to the Covens on time. One missing whore meant nothing to them when a thousand more were born from the vats every second. One Kabalite, vaporized beyond any ability to regenerate him for due punishment, was only a transient annoyance, soon forgotten as they had so many delights to enjoy.

The girl found a place among the corsairs. They were not kind, but they were not cruel, either. Worthiness and worthiness alone earned greater responsibilities and higher privilege, and nearly all of them had started as she had. No one forced her to pleasure them. No one hurt her to slow the withering of their black souls. Here, she was not expendable flesh to be drugged, used, broken, and patched back up between the men and women who purchased her services.

After her first day of exhausting labor, she crawled into the narrow bunk she was given, and she finally allowed tears to run from her eyes.

The image of his shifting lips, forcing out one last cruel barb at her before he was obliterated had never left her mind.

“I despise you… the least, Druzna,” he said, smiling without pain or Thirst.

Chapter Text

==Chapter II: The City Where All Debts Are Paid==

The suns in that twisted city never set, locking the Eternal City in eternal twilight.

If it were possible, the people would never sleep, either. For most, it was an inconvenience at best, or a dreadful thing promising only nightmares. Only a few were powerful and secure enough in their empires to enjoy true, invigorating rest when they closed their eyes, and these were often the ones who least deserved it.

Eshairr sat nude and cross-legged on a floormat in her quarters, sparse as they were, save for the artworks and decorations she had collected from many Craftworlds and Harlequin holds in her service under Aydona’s fleet.

She could not sleep.

This was the usual state of affairs, even years after the fall of her home to Eros.

But she could also not meditate, despite her best efforts to concentrate.

She had never particularly cared for the spiritual ways, but after Morrigan was conquered by those beasts, only meditation allowed her to relax and rest properly. Lady Lynekai had taught her everything there was to know of it, and it had saved her sanity across the cycles since.

Yet now, even that did not work.

Her mind would not obey, even when she closed off her senses and submerged herself in the peaceful darkness of total oblivion.

She kept seeing it.

The false mirrors deforming around the Mistress of Blades as she walked through them.

The dagger buried in Munesha’s gut.

That bone-chilling smirk on Syndratta’s lips, which never seemed to end.

That tongue slithering out and wetting them, inch after inch, too long, too sensual to bear.

Her womb jolted.

The Yearning made her body betray her again.

Need.

Desire.

Not for her, Eshairr thought, begging herself. For anyone but her.

She could not even reproduce with the Archon, yet still the curse afflicted her with paradoxical cruelty.

But it had never been a matter of logic. The Yearning was born from Chaos. It defied the reason of mortals, and it would not behave according to convenient, pre-determined laws. Either it was sated, or it was not. And even then…

Eshairr opened her eyes, looking down at her own body, nude and blessed with graceful fertility as it was.

She was pale, but not as much so as Lady Syndratta.

She bit her lip. Why was she comparing herself to the Archon this way?

A memory of breasts, almost as large as her own, bound tightly in a leather corset.

The Archon’s body was exquisitely beautiful. The perfect mixture of slender elegance and sumptuous femininity. And her hair, such a rich, vibrant azure, was so full, so thick, wavy and lovely, the perfect companion to her body. Rivers of sapphire-twinkling locks that flowed so beautifully as she moved.

Eshairr took a lock of her crimson hair between her fingers, letting the straight, thick strands slowly escape her grasp. It was wrong. Yet her body insisted.

She had not engaged in the private rites which Aydona taught her for massaging away the Yearning for nearly a century. She had not found need of them; the voices of the crew, singing through the wraithbone, had always deafened her to the touch of Seminoth tickling through her core. But now, even with more than a thousand minds joined together as a chorus within the Hunter’s Howl, that soothing choir could not drown out the sensations afflicting her.

And so, Aydona’s lessons grew more and more compelling to her. They were not officially condoned by Craftworld Morrigan, but they had proven quite effective and pragmatic, as with all things Aydona had taught.

For a moment, Eshairr dared to reach down between her legs, and at the slightest stroke of her tender flower, already faintly moist, a thrill of excessive intensity rocked up from her pelvis to the tip of her tongue and the ends of her toes, coaxing a stifled gasp out of her throat. Like lightning. So wrong, yet so good.

She thought of Syndratta. Her feline voice. Her lips and fingernails, both painted in shiny black. The beauty of her bare, pale collar, and her legs, and the tight, smooth quim exposed between them—her corset had never covered it, as if to tempt the women of Morrigan to look upon it and admire it, to fall in love with it, to seek it, to thirst for it, to want to taste it—and it felt even better when she touched herself.

“No,” she panted, taking her hand away from herself shamefully. “Not to her. Not for her.”

Repeating those words to herself under her breath, Eshairr stood and donned a comfortable robe, one which clung to her ample curves and outlined them in lustrous green silk, tying it together. If she could not sleep, and if she could not meditate, then she would pass the time another way.

===

When she politely knocked on one of the many columns that marked the edge of the Aspect Warriors’ enclosure within the Howl’s arboretum, the only barrier being the lightly waving curtains upon which were written ancient poems attributed to Kaela Mensha Khaine, one of the Striking Scorpions came and lifted the curtain before her, permitting the captain access to what was otherwise a sacred and restricted place, dangerous for the eyes of all who did not walk the Path of the Warrior.

“Thank you, Ynnatta. I was hoping to discuss deployment strategies for the streets below,” said Eshairr to the short, masked woman, who did not acknowledge the statement. She stepped into the enclosure, seeing all the tools and weapons that had been collected into pristine workbenches, as well as the two separate small shrines that had been built by the warriors to serve as temporary replacements for the ones they could not return to on Morrigan. The complement of Aspect Warriors for the Hunter’s Howl had been twenty—nine Dire Avengers, nine Striking Scorpions, both led by their respective Exarchs. But both Exarchs had perished, tragically, in one of the many engagements the wandering Howl was forced to endure between the fall of Morrigan and their arrival at Commorragh, along with nearly half of both the squads.

Now they had no more than a dozen Aspect Warriors in total left, and their morale had never fully recovered without someone to lead and guide them on the Path they walked. Munesha and Tulushi’ina had bravely retrieved the bodies, wargear, and waystones of the fallen in the aftermath of the battle, but little could be done with any of it under current circumstances. Stagnant, listless, they could only practice old forms and techniques, and when they encountered troubles that challenged their beliefs, there was no one to teach them the answers.

Azraenn had changed that. Though she herself was of no special rank, she had claimed the ownerless Diresword of Deivalaga, a dangerous deed—for the ancient and mighty soul that inhabited the waystone housed in its pommel was quick to challenge all who trespassed to wield the blade. Even handling it briefly for cleaning purposes had left the other Dire Avengers weakened and exhausted, and if anyone but an Aspect Warrior were to try to touch it, they would surely be slain. But Azraenn took it up when no others dared, and for three days and three nights she struggled with the soul of the ancestral warrior of legend that gave the sword its name and its fell might, refusing to release the handle even as psychic energies arced from the blade and struck her, torturing her savagely.

None could intervene, lest they anger the spirit even more and drive it to kill her outright. But on the third night, she emerged from her quarters, and Deivalaga rejected her touch no longer. Though she was no Exarch, Azraenn had proven herself worthy to wield the fearsome power of the sword, and the others knelt before her, accepting her as Bladebearer. In the couple years since, she had taken command over the remaining Aspect Warriors. The tactical flexibility of the Dire Avengers made her capable of teaching the Scorpions as well to some degree, and she trained exhaustively with them to improve her swordsmanship from excellent to sublime, accelerating her own learning to become worthy of the legendary artifact which she wielded.

So, when Eshairr stepped into this place, she expected to see the usual—Azraenn instructing the others in new battle forms, or communing with the spirit of Deivalaga by the shrines, or strategic analysis of the battles of yore. But what she saw instead nearly stopped her heart. She had seen many training matches before—participated in a few, at Azraenn’s request, to forge stronger bonds between the Mariners and the Warriors—and she knew the movements of bodies for training. Likewise, she had seen the Aspect Warriors move in battle—and it was nothing alike, the difference of night and day between learning, practicing, and executing.

When she saw the fighting taking place, Eshairr knew right away that the blows being exchanged were not for teaching or for demonstration. They were to kill.

“What?! What is this?!” Eshairr shouted in alarm.

“It is the Bladebearer’s penance,” said Ynnata quietly.

“Penance? A deathmatch for penance?!” Eshairr yelled, the surprise turning swiftly into anger.

But as she thought on it, she realized it was only natural that, when Azraenn returned to the Howl with the Diresword in shattered pieces, she would face stern castigation. As far as Eshairr knew, there was no way to judge a failure or crime within a Shrine without the presence of an Exarch, and if the Bladebearer serving that role was the one implicated, it naturally caused issues for their warrior code. Thus, deprived of any option to arbitrate the issue save for what they knew best, the only recourse left to them was, obviously, a duel of honor.

“When did this start?” Eshairr asked, and Ynnatta held up three fingers. Three hours of fighting to the death, and it continued even to this very moment without abating.

Azraenn, her helmet lost at some point, spun around, her long golden pony tail whipping smoothly as she kicked back, knocking the Striking Scorpion trying to charge her from behind onto the floor as two fellow Dire Avengers came charging at the Bladebearer from the front, swinging their wraithbone swords—personalized blades which nearly every Aspect Warrior received, normally reserved for training and rituals—in deadly downward arcs. But Azraenn fell backwards out of reach, catching herself just before she slammed into the floor, and her legs kicked out in a scything motion, tripping both of her peers onto the ground right before she somersaulted back onto her feet using just the strength in her powerful, toned arms to propel her.

“HYAH!” Azraenn shouted, finding herself the only one still standing, covered in the sweat of intense battle. The others rose to their feet, and, trained to the same ridiculous levels of stamina as her, they once again took up a battle stance, preparing to attack.

“That’s enough! Fight no more!” Eshairr commanded.

“No. It is not enough. You have no say in our ways,” said Azraenn, eyes still locked on the warriors across from her, not even looking the captain’s way.

“I need you as their leader, and they need you as their Bladebearer. This is tantamount to suicide; they’ll just keep coming until either you or they die, and both are unacceptable outcomes!” Eshairr growled. “Whose idea was this?”

“It is a fitting punishment,” Azraenn replied coldly, wiping her brow with the back of her armored arm. “Death—or victory—is the only penance I can pay.”

“It’s just a sword, relic or no!” Eshairr hissed. “This was your idea, wasn’t it? Don’t you dare try to get yourself killed so you can get out of what we have to do to help our home!”

At that, Azraenn dropped her fighting stance and turned to face Eshairr. Following suit, the others did the same. “You have infringed upon our sacred duel with one word too many. Captain or not, you do not have the right to speak to the followers of Khaine with such disdain for our Path.”

Eshairr could not help but laugh, which certainly did not curry any favor with the assembled warriors. “Look at yourself! They’re still just following your orders, as before! Do any of you actually want to kill your own Bladebearer?”

She looked among the warriors, and though their faces were all concealed by helms, the language of their body movements spoke all that needed to be said. Azraenn as well looked about, seeing the same, and she scowled with anger.

“You’ve all lost your nerve?” Azraenn asked them, sneering. “You finally disarmed me mere minutes ago. I will fall to your blades in less than forty steps. The ending is clear. Let us finish it as warriors.”

None of them raised their swords.

“If you will not fight me, then I have no choice to but take my own life in shame,” Azraenn said, walking over to her own ritual sword, which had been knocked across the entire enclosure and embedded into one of the pillars. But when her hand grasped the handle to yank it free, Eshairr arrived a split second later, closing a fist around the razor-sharp blade.

“Let go of my sword,” growled Azraenn.

“If you draw it forth, you will spill my blood. I know your ways better than you think, Azraenn—harming an outsider, to say nothing of your superior officer, in a duel of honor that they are not part of is a grave dishonor.”

The Dire Avenger halted, glaring at Eshairr with the blazing eyes of Khaine himself. But she did not pull.

“Stop and think for a moment!” Eshairr said, now that she had Azraenn as a captive listener. “Honor be damned, I need you! Every single one of you! Who else am I to call upon if I need elite soldiers deployed in this city? My Mariners and Guardians lack even half your expertise!”

Azraenn let go of her sword, walking away with a scowl on her face.

“Azraenn, this is no time to sulk. Tell me that I can count on your strength!” Eshairr insisted, following right behind her.

“My strength is ever at your command, Captain,” said Azraenn. “But my honor is broken along with the Diresword. I have shamed my Shrine and Deivalaga, Khaine bless her name, with my weakness, and I am unfit to be Bladebearer. You speak of practicality—I do not devalue it, but there can be no Aspect Shrines without the honor of Khaine to guide us. And you, of all Aeldari, would hate what we become if we were to abandon that honor.”

“Of what do you speak?” Eshairr asked, confused.

“You are still so young, Captain. Some might even call you a child. And there are many evils you have yet to meet. Pray you do not encounter the one I mean… for it dwells in this wretched hell we have sailed into,” said Azraenn, wiping her face dry with a towel.

One of the curtains that were not tied down flipped up, and all the Aspect Warriors prepared to hurl fierce curses at the careless intruder into their forbidden domain—only for them all to see that it was Lady Lynekai, silver-haired and ashen skinned, beautiful as the twilit dawn, smiling when she looked upon them. The immediate tension vanished as quickly as it had been born.

“I feared I was too late to stop the dueling, but I see no dead Bladebearer, so I can only assume you are to be thanked for that, Captain,” said Lynekai. She raised her left hand, which held the Diresword of Deivalaga by the blade, not broken, but full and intact. “I worked as quickly as I could.”

There was a flicker of shock on Azraenn’s face. “How… how?”

“There are many reasons why it was not so difficult for me to repair it… chief among them that only the blade had been broken, as the blade is the least important part of a Diresword, you see,” said Lynekai, approaching and presenting it for inspection, flat upon both her hands. “It is the soul that grants a Diresword its unique might—everything else about it is a simple power sword. Look upon it, feel it for yourself, and tell me if the mend is satisfactory.”

Azraenn reached out for it, but her hand halted just before she touched the handle again.

“I am unworthy of it,” she said, her face and voice both cold and emotionless, yet somehow conveying the enormous gravity of her guilt.

Lynekai’s smile turned a little sad. “Now, now. That was no ordinary foe which you faced. I suspect, of our greatest living warriors, only First Exarch Maerai, High Autarch Eshana, and perhaps Autarch Kyne’macha, if she returned to the Path of Command, could face her in single combat in the heart of her own sanctum. That you escaped with your life is a small miracle already—and I do not intend to let you waste all the healing I performed on your broken bones so that you would be able to fight again when Captain Eshairr had need of you.”

Azraenn shook her head, closing her eyes as if to berate herself. “I am not dishonored in defeat to a greater opponent. It is that my first and foremost duty was to safekeep it, and it was my own recklessness which saw it damaged.”

“And yet, it is repaired, and it is offered to you once more,” Lynekai said, a soft, reassuring smile on her lips. “Take it, my dear. You and you alone can wield this.”

Azraenn looked upon the Diresword for another moment, and her fingers tensed, nearing the grip offered to her. But then she turned away, and Eshairr saw upon the warrior’s face, for the first time, what could only be sorrow, pure, undiluted. Eyes closing shut, a quiver of her thin, pink lips, almost the edge of tears—a single crack in her warmask, her mindset and composure as a warrior. A proof that she was still Eldar, underneath all her training, proof that she was not lost on the Path of the Warrior, at least not yet. It was only there for the briefest moment, and then Azraenn was cold and stoic once more.

“First, I must regain my honor,” said the warrior, turning to Eshairr, her eyes burning with resolve. “If you will not allow me to die honorably, then give me penitent quests fitting for my failures.”

Eshairr could only nod in the face of such a demand. “Fear not. I suspect the Mistress of Blades will have tasks in excess of what you need to regain your pride.” Even though it was no joke, she could not help but laugh at the absurdity of it, once more astonished at how she had come to be serving such a vile woman. The warriors surrounding her did not laugh, but they seemed to forget a little of their tension—subtle, but clear around the room, postures relaxing ever-so-slightly. If an Aspect Warrior could share in merriment, then this was surely how they did so.

Lynekai lowered her head, frowning faintly, a moment of pain, of failure. Then she walked to the improvised Shrine of the Dire Avengers, and over it she laid down the Diresword, then turned and left, hands anxiously clasped together beneath her heavy bosom, lost in her thoughts.

===

In the cantina, the mess cellar, a hooded girl sat alone in the corner of the room, slowly eating at a plate of fruit and leafy greens. Pinched between the two elegant twin-sticks that she controlled deftly between her fingers, she popped another violet berry into her soft mouth and chewed it, breaking through the crisp outer skin with a quiet crunch, filling her mouth and washing her tongue in sweet sustenance. With her other hand, she lifted a small loaf of plain bread, biting in and tearing out a mouthful of it, slowly chewing and swallowing.

She was not a fast eater, unlike most others aboard the Hunter’s Howl. And she always seemed to dine when few others did—the food was often cold, then, not freshly made by the kitchens if she came in at odd hours opposed to the usual schedule, but this was the way the little woman preferred it to be.

After all, she was an Exile. Conscripted as a Ranger by Morrigan, certainly, but her way of life led her away from her home, away from the Paths, away from her own people. This was the way she had lived for centuries.

She continued eating, savoring every bite, bit by bit. Exiles did not always have regular meals to look forward to. Living aboard the Howl had been an unusual difference in that regard. Eshairr always kept the kitchens well-stocked, though the near-total self-sufficiency of Eldar ships in regards to food and water supply made that natural, barring unforeseen circumstances. But there was a difference between subsisting upon only that which the ship could itself produce and that which took effort and focus to procure as ingredients. Eshairr made sure that this difference was always enjoyed by the crew.

It was pleasant. Tulushi’ina treasured her meals, even if she had no one left to share them with.

She set down the half-eaten bread, and her fingers reached up to gently stroke her long, shoulder-length braid of raven-black hair, shining beautifully despite its dark color. The cantina was as silent as the wilderness. Even the cooks had gone to sleep. Turning her eyes back to her meal, she popped a crunchy, wet leaf into her mouth and chewed it up.

Suddenly, someone sat down across from her.

Tulushi’ina jumped in her seat, eyes wide—when had anyone approached her? She had not spotted any movement in the corner of her eye, nor had her ears caught any footfalls, nor had her nose detected the delicate scent of an Eldar body in the room. She knew of no one aboard the ship who could conceal all three of such things at once well enough to deceive her senses. Slowly, she lifted her gaze from the meal to see none other than Lady Syndratta, in the flesh, relaxing with a casual elbow on the table right across from her. Unlike their previous meeting, the Archon’s body was perfectly outlined in a rich bodyglove, the skin-tight, deep blue material lavishly engraved with wondrous patterns of ebon roses outlined in golden streaks. The suit matched her hair, but what caught Tulushi’ina’s gaze were Syndratta’s eyes—staring through her, as if peering into her very soul.

Timidly, the Ranger’s face paled, and the wooden utensils she held clicked together rapidly as her hand shook of its own accord.

“Hello,” said Syndratta. “I thought I would come and tour this little wraithship of yours, but to my surprise and embarrassment, there were Guardians your captain posted at the port to prevent entry by anyone, even me! They unfortunately became indisposed, ever so strangely, as I passed them by. Fortunately, it seems their… injuries won’t be fatal.”

Tulushi’ina said nothing. She simply stared, shivers running down her spine.

“What’s the matter? Could you, perhaps, be afraid of me? But I would never do something so crass as hurt such a beautiful little doll like yourself…”

“Go away,” whispered Tulushi’ina, as if speaking to a nightmare.

“Is that any way to treat your host?” asked Syndratta, a catlike grin splitting her lovely lips. “That laspistol in your hand—do you really plan to fire it so recklessly?”

The Ranger froze, and her heart stopped cold in her chest.

“Ah, nervous? Let me guess what you might be thinking right now,” Syndratta purred, resting her chin atop her palm in a posture of idleness, slowly running one of her blue-clad fingers around the smooth surface of the metal table. “Did I somehow hear you draw it from under your cloak, you wonder? How could I have possibly known otherwise? Then again, how did I know it was a laspistol crafted by our own kind that you wield right now, not a shuriken pistol or some other thing you collected in your wanderings?”

It was like she was reading her mind.

“Leave. Now,” Tulushi’ina said, more firmly, like an animal backed into a corner.

“So you do have some fire in that little heart of yours! How cute,” Syndratta smiled deviously. “Of course, you must be aware that, from our current positions, I can kill you with my bare hands three times over before you even think to fire your death-lantern.”

The Archon’s smile deepened, subtly, almost imperceptibly. Any other Eldar might have missed it, but Tulushi’ina shivered at the sight. It was impossible to believe that even she, the Mistress of Blades, could somehow kill her so swiftly from across a table, out of arm’s reach, with her body tangled up in a chair—there were no motions of the humanoid body that could reach the Ranger linearly. Even if Syndratta were to move with perfect grace and precision as though she had practiced such an awkward movement ten thousand times, deftly extricate herself from where she sat, and dive over at her, to compare that with the single pull of a trigger it would take to put a laser through her midsection was mind-boggling.

And yet, Tulushi’ina trusted her threat. Not out of logic, not out of fear, but because of Syndratta’s smug, little, smirk.

She lowered her pistol, letting the psychic safety engage as she slid it back into the thigh-holster beneath her cloak.

Syndratta’s smile twisted from dangerous to friendly with just the slightest shift of her eyes, and suddenly it was like sitting across from one of the loving great-grandmothers of Morrigan, too old to fight or do much of anything anymore, bodies crystallizing bit by bit as they reached the end of their lifespan. Except, of course, that Syndratta was physically in her prime, and age was as meaningless to her as the lives of the billions of stolen slaves and half-born serfs toiling through bone-breaking, blood-burning exhaustion in service of her Kabal.

“See? No need for such hostilities, my dear,” said the Archon. “But don’t worry. I’m not offended. If anything, you’re well in line with Commorragh manners. To sit across from the Mistress of Blades and not keep a gun at the ready under the table—that would be offensive. Suffice to say, I think I like you, Tulushi’ina.”

She was not certain when Syndratta had learned her name, as it had never come up at the previous negotiation, and it had not been announced or included in any communications prior to that.

“Enjoy your meal, dear. I must go and give your captain an unwelcome surprise, now. And since you’ll no doubt be wondering—let me spare you that headache. I wasn’t bluffing, my lovely little Exile,” Syndratta said, rising from her seat slowly, casually, not an ounce of tension in her body. She turned, strolling out of the cantina with swaying hips, waving farewell without even looking back.

Tulushi’ina waited, quietly, for the Archon to leave. Only once the door had closed behind her did she move at all, but rather than gaining the strength to move her own body, it was more like she lost the strength to hold herself together. The utensils dropped from her dominant hand, clattering on the table, and all the constant shivering she had been repressing as best she could suddenly broke out into a storm as she let out a heaving gasp, like she had not breathed even once in the whole conversation.

===

The onyx-skinned woman slowly undid the bandages wrapped around her waist. As each layer of synthetic cloth came off, more and more of her stomach was unveiled—and when the last strip of it fell loose, there was no mark left of her mortal wound at all, just as the Mistress of Blades had promised. Nor did she, for that matter, feel any weaker or fatigued at all. Perhaps it was somewhat unsettling, in fact, how prime and vigorous she felt now, after the surgery she could not remember and a short rest aboard the Howl. Munesha was certain that she did not feel as healthy before the wound as she did now.

“I would advise you not to think on the matter of what they did to you in there, as the medicines of Commorragh’s elite are an arcane and dreadful secret,” Lynekai, the most expert healer on the ship, had told her during the initial checkup after she was returned to the ship. “And as for your memories of that hour or so that you were gone… as best I can tell, they are not forgotten due to the haze of anesthesia, if you understand. Rather, it would seem that they were forcefully expunged from your mind by some sort of technology. I fear that if you still recalled their healing arts, your mind would be wounded even more severely than your body was… for the flesh-menders of this city do not seek to relieve pain, but often to deepen it before the healing is complete. It is not an excuse for efficiency—efficiency is their excuse to make their patients suffer beyond imagination, all to slake their wicked Thirst.”

Munesha reached down and felt her gut, pressing down on her smooth, soft flesh, finding nothing out of the ordinary, just as Lynekai had said after a swift psychic scan of her organs. Munesha’s scrying was even more keen than the First Bonesinger’s, especially if she reached out from what her hands touched, but even as she cursorily searched her own insides seeking any trace of malice that a hidden killing device or tracking implant would naturally possess, she found nothing save for her own organs, which, like her exterior, showed no sign that they had ever been punctured by blade.

She rose and pulled on her white fur jacket, then a white thong woven of lace silk that clasped its long loops in a tight V around her hips, complementing her shade of skin perfectly. Never one to wear more than what was absolutely necessary due to her origins as a tribal Exodite on a tropical world, feeling no shame whatsoever in baring her exquisite, curvaceous body to the eyes of others, Munesha left her quarters and immediately saw Druzna standing there, confident in her face, but speaking of melancholy in the other movements of her body.

“First Spear,” said the Wayseer. “What troubles you?”

Druzna’s smile faded, and she looked down, to the side, a gesture of shame. “It is my fault that you were harmed, ‘Esha. What you said that incurred the wrath of Syndratta was in response to me. Had I not broached the subject in an effort to protect you from that very same fate, you would have said nothing of the sort. Forgive me.”

Munesha reached out with just one finger to lift Druzna’s chin, angling her eyes up to meet her own crimson gaze, sharing a single moment of connection, pure, unsullied by words or actions, nothing more than the meeting of two souls that looked into each other. From there, the former Exodite pressed her dark lips to Druzna’s pale mouth, not a kiss of romance, but one of friendship, as the custom of her tribe. It was only a transient meeting of the lips, perhaps a brush of softness against softness. Munesha pulled back and said, “No. You are not the one who spoke those ill-considered words, nor the one who plunged that knife into me. You will not claim that sin and bear it upon your shoulders.”

With only a firm, reassuring squeeze of Druzna’s shoulder, the Wayseer moved on without another word, and Druzna smiled once more, following her down the brightly-lit corridor towards the bridge. The night cycle simulated by the Howl was drawing to a close, and most of the crew was awakening and preparing for their duties. Soon it would be time to receive Lady Syndratta’s first errand, as the Mistress had seen fit to grant her guests a reprieve of several hours while she attended to some other business. As to what that business was, Syndratta had only said, “Merely a pressing matter deciding the fate of a few billion souls; nothing that will delay me overmuch.”

Munesha had considered astral-projecting into Syndratta’s palace earlier to spy on her and find out what precisely she meant by that, but decided against the risk of being caught. The technology of the Kabals was uncannily advanced, particularly so for the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose, the greatest weaponsmiths and ship builders in Commorragh. Psycho-reactive materials were common enough that they surely had sensors to detect prying minds, or perhaps much worse—traps made to ensnare such minds and torture them to insanity or destroy them outright. But even so, curiosity was one of Munesha’s great weaknesses, and to be taunted with hints at something like this made her squirm with it. It would only take one juicy secret, overheard with her powers from a safe distance, to use as leverage against Syndratta and make her aid Morrigan all the quicker. Just one little secret.

She could not help but wonder if that, itself, was another trap Syndratta had laid out for them. A trial to see if the Seers of Morrigan could resist violating the terms of their contract with the Kabal.

When they arrived at the bridge, entering through one of the side bulkheads, they were surprised to hear the captain yelling in anger.

“—and who else have you attacked of my crew? Do you think I will just let you march in here and do whatever you please?!”

“Why, Eshairr—may I call you Eshairr? ‘Captain’ is so dull and formal, after all…”

“No! Address me by my rank, you—!”

“Hahahaha, I am merely jesting, my dear captain. Dropping your title is for when we’ve become much closer friends…”

Munesha stepped through the entryway, looking over to see Eshairr arguing with Lady Syndratta, who had taken the command chair as though it were hers to lounge in.

“We will never be friends!” Eshairr hissed. “We are here for business, nothing more!”

“Oh, how hurtful!” Syndratta said with mock dismay, swooning meekly. “Then, shall I skip to business?”

“Yes!” Eshairr yelled, fury in her eyes. “Tell us what foul deeds you’ll have us enact in your name!”

Syndratta smiled, hopping out of the chair and strutting around the beautiful bridge with casual indifference, running her fingers sensually along a wraithbone statue built into one of the corners of the room, crudely testing the shape of its breasts by touch.

“Ah, believe me, this is no foul deed I’ll have you doing,” Syndratta said dispassionately. As she turned, her eyes caught sight of Druzna and Munesha, and a grin split her lips, briskly going straight over to them and leaning over Munesha, staring into her eyes. “Oh! How are you feeling, my dear? Better, I hope?”

Munesha did not flinch. “Yes.”

Syndratta’s eyes narrowed ominously. “Good.”

“Lady Syndratta,” said Druzna, bowing slightly. “It is a pleasure.”

The Archon turned her gaze over to the First Spear, looking her up and down meaningfully. “You have hips, haven’t you down there! A shame you’re not putting them to use in that brothel anymore, hmm?”

Druzna’s confident smile lost its splendor, and her face grew pale.

Syndratta reached out and pressed one blue finger over Druzna’s thick lips, grinning at her with barely contained delight. “Shhh. No need to ask. I have my sources.”

“Don’t touch my officers!” Eshairr shouted, grabbing Syndratta by the shoulder and swinging her stumbling away.

Syndratta quickly recovered her balance, hardly bothered, as though nothing they said or did could faze her. “Hmm? Ah, of course. Silly me. I forgot, for but a moment, that the last one I touched was stabbing that one over there—of course you would be sensitive about that, still.”

Eshairr swung her fist into one of the railings, and it was not just a light thump. It was a hard, loud bang. “Enough! Stop with the games!”

The Mistress of Blades allowed a single flash of genuine emotion on her face—but it was not anger, or annoyance, or anything such as that. It was a grin, deeper, wider than any other, razor sharp, the smile of a predator.

“Are you certain you wish me to stop playing around?”

And then, as quickly as it had appeared, that bone-chilling expression was gone again, and all who beheld it could not be sure if they had really seen it. Instead, Syndratta was back to her pleasant, venomous little smile.

“Well! Now that a good portion of your officers have arrived, it should be sufficient to tell you of your task,” Syndratta said, lifting her head, letting her long blue locks shift and spill all over her body in a totally different way, like a river changing course. “A certain Corsair Princess has been struggling with debts to various lords of Commorragh for a century or two, now. I have kept her on retainer to my Kabal for some time, and while her service was adequate to my demands, she has always been concerningly ambitious, shall we say, when it comes to her funds. Risky gambles here, poor investments there, a string of ill-advised and expensive purchases… I’ve covered for quite a bit of her debt by buying it off of those less fond of her than I, but now it has reached a breaking point.”

“So?” Eshairr snapped, crossing her arms.

“So, I want you to go and collect on her debts for me!” said Syndratta. “I would send one of my own ships, but regretfully, she always flees whenever she sees the emblem of the Obsidian Rose in the skies. It’s quite difficult to catch a determined corsair if they know the realms of Commorragh, and she does, indeed, know them. More specifically, she knows what parts are owned by my rivals, who happen to have no quarrel with an independent ship but would certainly not permit my fleet to access their claimed space…”

“So you need another independent ship to get to her,” Druzna pointed out, slowly recovering from the shock the Archon had given her.

Syndratta smiled and wagged a finger in her direction. “Precisely! As expected of a fellow Commorite, you think just like I do.”

Druzna squirmed where she stood, her discomfort at being called such a thing obvious. Eshairr, too, noticed it, and she unfolded her arms to stand with clear hostility directed at Syndratta.

“You will not call my crew Commorites, regardless of where they were born. We are all of Morrigan!” Eshairr declared.

Syndratta offered only a dismissive shrug. “As you wish. But just as a mon’keigh is a mon’keigh, a Commorite is a Commorite. You can’t change that, my dear, no matter how far you run from the Eternal City, no matter what freedoms you sacrifice in exchange for the security of the Paths.”

Eshairr opened her mouth to immediately argue that point, only for Druzna to speak first: “But Mistress of Blades, you could hire any of a thousand different corsair bands to do this for you. Why us?”

Syndratta giggled with the amusement of the one who had all the answers. “You are right to ask—it is because your ship is not just any corsair ship.”

Druzna rubbed her chin, trying to act as though she were not so off-balance. “If they have worked in this city for this long, they would recognize the colors of any other corsair bands right away and flee. We would be unknown to them, so they will not react right away.”

Munesha, however, had listened and considered her answer for a while.

“It is specifically because we are of Morrigan that you chose us for this, is it not?” Munesha asked.

Syndratta laughed. “Indeed! Let that be all that you need to know… for now. The rest will become evident once you meet my debtors. I shall furnish you with all the knowledge I’ve collected of the Tempestuous Chariot and its last known positions as well as my guarantee that so long as you are within space allied with my Kabal, you shall have nothing to fear from anyone. Once you pass into the regions that have no alliance with the Obsidian Rose, however, you will be on your own. Do you understand?”

Eshairr sighed. “Yes. We understand you. You wish us to go and acquire… currency from this Tempestuous Chariot. Very well.”

“I am pleased you are so quick to comprehend,” Syndratta smiled. “Now, unfortunately, I have many important matters I must attend to swiftly, so I shall go and tidy up. If you have need of me, contact me through the usual channels.”

With just that, she waved and departed the bridge, her strange bodyglove crinkling quietly as she walked. She paused for only a second at the doorway—turned and said, “Oh, and before I go, I do suggest placing heavier security at the docking port. Two Guardians won’t last long against someone who really wants in… Try Aspect Warriors, or better yet, install remote-controlled turrets and several nasty traps.”

Only once the door was closed behind her and her footsteps were no longer audible did Eshairr relax, collapsing into the captain’s chair and holding her face in one of her palms.

“What have we come to?” she asked.

“We do what we must, Captain,” said Munesha. “For Morrigan. Our home.”

Eshairr sighed, then nodded. “You are right, Munesha. It will be worth it.”

Druzna, however, looked as though she had just seen a banshee of Aeldari legend.

“Druzna? What is the matter?” Eshairr asked.

“The Tempestuous Chariot… That was Aydona’s former flagship, when she was a corsair,” Druzna said. “I served aboard it and its sister ships.”

Eshairr crossed her arms together. “It is not an uncommon name. I know of one with that name serving in Biel-Tan’s fleet. I have read of another in Alaitoc’s fleet, in old battle reports. And we have another by that name in Morrigan’s navy as well. I am sure it has been used many times in Commorragh and by corsairs as well.”

Druzna ran her hand up through her short black hair, a couple loose locks dangling down as pretty bangs despite her best efforts to tame them. “Yes… you are right. It is an ordinary name.”

===

The Hunter’s Howl was released from the metal clamps trapping it in place, and it departed the spire’s hangar swiftly. The choir of minds that spoke through its skeleton exclaimed in relief to be gone from such a wicked place, only for the image of the rest of Commorragh to silence them as they arose out of the foamy peaks of pollution-clouds and beheld the infinity of hatred and agony which the Eternal City had become a broken reflection of, stretching on for light-years through the Webway.

The Howl remained quiet, save for the voices and thoughts of common discussion of tasks, as it soared through the vast reaches of space, veering into different layers and realms though inlets and branching tunnels. Syndratta’s maps of the Eternal City, projected in three dimensions and constantly updated to match the shifting of realms within the living, flowing Webway, proved sufficient to guide them along with Munesha’s psychic expertise, and as the ship was not under attack, they could fly at a much safer speed, carefully scanning for the flight hazards which had given them so much trouble before and avoiding them.

There was always an abundance of ships traveling through Commorragh’s space at any given time, some of them patrols of the Kabals, others being corsairs serving one dark lord or another, merchants unaffiliated with any particular force but which acted as go-betweens for the sale and purchase of the constantly flowing materials and valuables either captured or produced, and even some Wych Cults possessed small armadas which served several purposes—to project their influence upon others, of course, but also to advertise their arenas and games with enormous neon-glowing screens built into the sides of the thorny black frigates. Little communication was had between any of these vessels excepting for transmissions of flight paths to ensure no ‘unfortunate’ accidents, and they left the Howl alone as well.

Perhaps Craftworld ships were not so uncommon to see there as initially expected—many corsairs plied their trade with ships purchased, gifted, or stolen from Craftworlds, after all. It allowed the Howl to blend into the thousands of other ships with surprising ease, but then again, if the Mistress of Blades had spoken truly, then the protection of the Kabals was with them as well. Many of those merchant ships and corsairs had to trouble themselves with Kabal ships deliberately flying into their paths and forcing them to redirect to avoid collision—acts of dominance, ensuring they remembered who allowed them to conduct their business. Even the Howl was given such crude treatment occasionally, but only by ships not belonging to the Obsidian Rose Kabal.

But there was one manner of ship that all others never dared fly close to. Eshairr noticed the oddity of even the normally swaggering and bullying Kabalite ships granting these strange, bizarre obsidian ships such a wide berth, and Druzna was the one who knew the answer to the question.

“Coven ships,” said Druzna, quietly speaking into Eshairr’s ear. “The Haemonculi own them and send them on tasks through Commorragh and realspace.”

“The Covens… you haven’t spoken much of them,” Eshairr replied, curiosity obvious on her face. “Who could possibly be so vile that even the Kabals fear them?”

Druzna gave her captain a look of dread. “Sorcerers of flesh, artisans of pain. The masters of our most ancient knowledge and secrets. They and they alone possess the dread technologies of our people before the Fall—the horrid and fell powers invented purely to serve the bottomless decadence of our almighty Empire—no, rather, they’ve developed even beyond that. Everyone in Commorragh desires the protection of the Kabals and the delights of the Cults, but the Covens, we… no, rather, it is with the deepest dread that the people of this city court the favor of the Haemonculi. For though the boons they offer are tempting, nay, absolutely irresistible to all who live in this city, the price they ask may be even more terrible than the blessings they provide. But then, how could anyone turn away the dark promise of eternal life?”

Eshairr had never known Druzna to express such fear and sorrow before, not even when speaking of She-Who-Thirsts. Druzna did not let her feelings leak into the wraithbone web of the Howl, either. They were given only to Eshairr, whispers of terror that even the rest of the bridge officers were not privy to.

“As you say,” Eshairr said, leaning back in her chair. “Then let us pray we go unnoticed as well. If the maps are true, we do not have far to go before we reach our destination…”

===

The psychic scopes of the Hunter’s Howl were quick to pick their target out of the many ships dancing through the skies of the Null City, Sec Maegra, a mild name for what the realm represented within Commorragh—a lawless place, ungoverned by any proper Kabals to give it at least a semblance of order within anarchy. If the poverty of Middle Darkness and Low Commorragh was sickening, then the sea of desperate misery that unfolded before their eyes could only be called a pit of hell itself. Populated heavily by alien mercenaries and escaped slaves who foolishly thought that this, of all places, would be better than subservience to an established master, Sec Maegra existed in eternal chaos of gangs and mercenaries killing each other over half-built and half-ruined hovels. It was like a grand joke played on the masses—a corrupted wish for freedom, a region that was deliberately kept free of the evil tyranny of the lords and ladies of the Eternal City, which somehow had degenerated into something even worse.

The lack of laws, taxes, and authority made the region most attractive to xenos lords who desired territory of their own in Commorragh, but it also made it near-certain that they would never rise to gain any appreciable power or clout. In this way, Sec Maegra had become something more akin to a cruel proving ground for outsiders to show their worth in bloodshed—the most successful of the killers often hired on to supplement Drukhari ground forces. They won recognition and acceptance from Commorragh, this way, but they would never find enough stability to forge a proper empire that could last when betrayal and corruption were so commonplace and war pressed upon them from all sides. It was a fool’s errand, with great riches and respect dangled on the end of hooks, baited into this hellpit by proud greed—and the many mon’keigh races, Humans, Tau, Orks, Kroot, Sslyth, or whatever their names might be, inferior one and all to the Eldar, certainly had arrogance to spare in thinking they could ever rise to become equals of the Drukhari lords.

But the crew had no time to dwell on the dark and bloody history of Commorragh’s sub-realms or the frightening implications of Sec Maegra’s pathetic state, the questions as to the true nature of their own race, the worries about who they really were, deep down, if all their power structures were stripped away.

For the Tempestuous Chariot was there, in range, hovering over the market-palace of some petty human warlord, linked to it by great chains to anchor it in place and allow the delivery of cargo by skimmers to its holds. It was a grey-painted cruiser of clear Commorite make, constructed out of arcane metals that were both light and nigh-indestructible, and it looked to be quite heavily armed—exceeding even most Kabalite vessels in its abundance of weaponry.

“Captain, shall we arm the lances and prepare for a fusillade?” asked Druzna, standing by the captain’s chair with her arms crossed.

Eshairr glanced back and forth rapidly, watching the tactical display projected in front of her, wary for any signs of raiders. Fortunately, it seemed the thousands of xenos ships clustered into quaint little fleets around the vast realm were quite slow and primitive compared to the Howl—and they showed no interest in trying to chase a swift hare like lumbering tortoises. Their attention was too focused on the other alien fleets that threatened their borders to be able to spare the ships needed to chase the Howl into a trap, and more importantly, the Howl could drag them into enemy space, sparking almost certain war between the little factions pretending at being Kabals below. It was to everyone’s benefit to leave the Hunter’s Howl be.

“It does not seem like we’ll be in Sec Maegra long enough to need to worry about an attack—all these ships are more than busy enough as it is,” Eshairr responded.

Druzna shook her head. “Not to defend ourselves. To disable the Tempestuous Chariot.”

Eshairr’s brow furrowed, thinking on the suggestion. “We… should not engage them as enemies. Not at first, anyway. Syndratta demanded their wealth, and we could destroy it in a battle. I am prepared to fight them, if I must to protect us, but it should not be our first action.”

Druzna frowned, and her body language spoke of hesitancy and doubt. “Captain… I am not sure if telling you this is wise, but that is indeed the very same ship Aydona left behind to join Craftworld Morrigan.”

Eshairr had to pause, at that. “Are you certain?”

Druzna gestured around. “Listen to the thoughts of our sisters. More than two hundred of them were likewise part of Aydona’s corsair band. We all know it by heart. That is our mistress’s former ship. The capital ship of the Sky Slicers.”

Eshairr took a deep breath, drumming her gauntlet-clad fingers on the arms of her chair. “I see. Hmph. So these would be the ones who refused to join her when she became a sister of Morrigan. Syndratta has the twisted humor of the Laughing God to send us for this!”

“There is more, Captain. If they have not changed leaders since Aydona departed, then the captain of that ship is Renemarai,” added Druzna quietly. “Aydona’s daughter.”

Eshairr received the information without much of a reaction. “Her daughter. Then she must be quite formidable. This may pose a challenge.”

Druzna glanced at the ground for a moment, a nonverbal expression of anxiety or guilt. “Captain, if it is her, then there may still be bad blood between us. Though I was never particularly close with Renemarai, she was… very angry at all of us for leaving our way of life behind.”

“I understand,” Eshairr answered calmly. She lifted an arm up, issuing a command to one of the officers. “Attendant, transmit a message to the Tempestuous Chariot. Greet them in the name of Craftworld Morrigan and ask to dock with them for contract negotiations.”

The attendant bowed and turned to compose the message through their communications consoles.

Druzna raised an eyebrow. “You would lie? We’re not here to hire them…”

“Indeed,” replied Eshairr. “If we alert them to our mission too soon, they may flee or attack. We are at a disadvantage here; they know this land. They may even have allies on the surfaces around us, and if they have anti-ship emplacements, we could easily be destroyed. If we are docked, however, they cannot escape or fire their weapons, and their allies won’t be able to risk destroying them along with us. Then we will have the chance we need to persuade them to cooperate.”

Druzna nodded. “As you say, then.”

The attendant turned back to the captain. “They have answered our message, milady. They welcome us to Commorragh, and invite us to dock on their starboard facing.”

“They have less weapons on that side,” Druzna said, both eyebrows raised. “Surprisingly diplomatic of them. Perhaps the old grudge has been forgotten in the days since our departure…”

Eshairr touched her fingers to her lips, pondering deeply.

===

The docking procedure was swift and elegant, for the Chariot remained anchored to the surface and the master steerswoman of the Howl had, in fact, docked with this very ship many times in the past. The Chariot extended a gangway from its core, which sealed easily into the matching port on the Howl. The hermetic seal between them was established, and through the airlock stepped Eshairr in her beautiful white greatcoat, flanked by Druzna and Azraenn, with Munesha and Lynekai bringing up the rear. Tulushi’ina opted to remain aboard the Howl, as there was little for a Ranger to do on the Chariot.

When they arrived at the other side of the gangway, the airlock of the Tempestuous Chariot opened at their approach, and standing there to meet them was a black-garbed warrior covered in light resin armor plates, a dark mask concealing her entire head, and with countless daggers and blades strapped to her body.

“The mistress extends her regards,” said the strange woman through a gruff voice, crossing her arms together as though to exude the most hostile appearance imaginable. “I’ll show you to her.”

“A Shade Runner?” Druzna asked with a note of surprise in her voice. This particular type of hired dagger was a common sight in corsair retinues—as masters of infiltration and quiet killing were always useful in their line of work. There were hundreds of slang names for such specialists, of course, but most often they were simply known as Shade Runners, as that was the only glimpse anyone could catch of them when they were on the field, vanishing shadows dashing out of sight. Aydona had employed a couple of them herself, back in the day, but Druzna did not recognize this one. It was rather odd to see one on doorman duty. Even stranger for one to be geared up from head to toe inside their own ship. It could not be comfortable.

“Tsk, children’s questions,” growled the woman. “Spare me the wagging of your weak tongues and the emanations of your dull minds, Craftworlders.”

With only that, she turned and marched off, and the others followed behind her when they realized she was apparently leading them to the captain of the ship.

“Thank you for showing us the way. Do you have a name?” Eshairr asked. “Or how shall we call you?”

“Need I repeat myself?!” hissed the Shade Runner, turning around and slamming a strong fist into the wall of the passageway.

Eshairr looked to Druzna, then to Azraenn, who both offered confused shrugs.

“Do you not want us to know of your reputation?” Druzna asked as a follow-up. “The Shade Runners I’ve known were rather proud of their notoriety.”

“Yes, you, a Craftworlder, must know so many top-notch killers like myself, huh?” asked the masked assassin sarcastically, jerking a thumb at herself with an attitude bleeding through her tight mask. “Silence is a better companion than your arduous queries, fools!”

Throwing another painful-looking punch into a nearby bulkhead, she stormed off, leaving them all behind with heavy stomps.

The Morriganites all exchanged looks, trying to figure out if they had said something wrong or offensive, before eventually giving up and just following her.

===

“Thank you, Deadheart,” said a voice in the promenade ahead of Eshairr, who stepped up to the top of the stairs and into the luxurious deck made for entertaining guests.

The Shade Runner immediately groaned and stomped away in annoyance with her name exposed, but the Morriganites who filtered into the beautiful semi-circular chamber lined with viewports, gold, and jewels all over the walls and ceiling felt their gazes drawn to the living people standing around the room instead.

There were around forty corsairs, an even mix of male and female, gathered in the promenade, most of them rugged and salty and unreasonably well-armed—sporting tattoos or scars on every inch of flesh that was exposed. They mumbled and whispered to each other, eyeing up their guests with wolfish glares that expressed both a desire to see them gone and a desire to see them naked. More than a couple pairs of eyes seemed glazed with chemical influence, and more than a few eyes were singular, the other lost long ago and yet to be replaced with a bionic, expensive as they were for those not part of a Craftworld or Kabal.

But there, at the center of the promenade, seated atop a throne carved out of some kind of glittery ivory which must have come from a rare, exotic creature, no doubt a treasure in its own right, was Aydona—or so it seemed at first glance, before the subtle differences in her appearance became more obvious to their eyes. Dressed in a green, high-collared coat fashioned from a strange kind of synthetic material and wearing an extravagantly decorated suit of shiny black mesh overlaid by hard plates of jagged Kabalite armor that cupped her bust and hips with extra protection, her short, dark hair was a wild tangle that draped over her fair skin, her soft, red-dressed lips pursing curiously as she beheld the entourage that had come before her. One hand remained resting on her crossed thighs, while the other rubbed its fingers together thoughtfully in the air by her face, her suspended boot rocking up and down with obvious excitement.

It was her face that was so convincing, her sharp physiognomy just the slightest bit different; if not for the fact that she bore no jagged scar like Aydona did, she could have easily impersonated her even to the discerning eyes of the Eldar. As it was, the likeness was so uncanny that Eshairr could not deny the irrational admiration she felt for the stranger, borrowed from what she felt for her mother.

“So my mother was too much of a coward to face me herself,” said Renemarai, clicking her tongue and shaking her head with projected disappointment. “To think she would send you, Druzna! Where are Kuvina and Olochia? My dearest old friends, who knew me so well? I would certainly be pleased to see them again, even though they abandoned me. I might even entertain the idea of taking a contract from my dear mother if they were here to sweeten me to it. Instead, as if to insult me, she sends Captain Druzna of her quaint little Craftworld navy to open old wounds!”

Eshairr stepped forward right away with a strength to her stance, pointing at herself. “I am the captain of the Howl. Pleased to meet you, Renemarai.”

Renemarai frowned. “Who are you?”

“My name is Eshairr,” answered the fire-haired captain. “And I have come to bargain.”

Renemarai halted, lifting her nose up, as if disappointed. “My mother made some whelp of a girl a captain before you, Druzna? A whelp named such an ugly thing, no less? What is this farce?”

Druzna smiled. “Such a pleasant greeting, Ren, as always. What you hear is the truth. She is better suited to it than me.”

“I don’t believe it for a second. You were one of mother’s finest!” Renemarai scoffed, throwing up a hand of red-painted nails. “Losing you to her foolishness hurt.”

“Now, now,” said Lynekai, interrupting the predictably unfriendly path of the conversation with a sweet tone of voice. “There is no need for hostility.”

Renemarai’s mouth split into an open scowl. “Silence, cow! Am I to understand that this braying varlet speaks for you, Druzna?”

“This is Lynekai, the Master Bonesinger of the Hunter’s Howl. She’s actually quite pleasant, you know,” Druzna answered, watching Lynekai stand there in shock at the depths of profanity so casually thrown at her. “If it makes you more comfortable, I can leave, Renemarai.”

“And leave these good little wenches here to torment me instead? I’d rather stab myself,” Renemarai groaned.

Druzna could not deny the grin creeping across her lips. At the sight of it, Renemarai seemed unable to resist offering her own smirk.

“You haven’t changed,” said the First Spear. “Be it righteous or damning, you are all that you are, Ren.”

“Oh, shut up,” said the Corsair Princess, still smiling. “At least that Path you walk hasn’t stamped out every last mote of your personality. I can’t even imagine what it’s done to my poor, idiot mother, though.”

Eshairr stepped forward again, only for an ominous black blade to be leveled in front of her throat. She turned, noticing the big warrior clad in gunmetal grey powered armor, interlocking metal plates shifting autonomously with the movements of her body like a second skin—a beastly figure taller than everyone else with the height added by her armored suit. She had to have crept into the room and pushed through the crowd while they were distracted talking to the captain.

An Incubus.

And she had just placed her long, curved Klaive in Eshairr’s path. If she moved even one more inch closer to Renemarai, the invisible power field of the blade would slit her throat open and kill her without the Incubus so much as lifting a finger.

“Ah, vigilant as ever, Leraxi,” giggled Renemarai. “No need for it—this little fawn is unworthy of your skills.”

Leraxi pulled back her two-handed greatblade and offered a small and courteous bow. But the glowing red eyes of her helmet focused in on Azraenn—and Azraenn, as well, looked at nothing but Leraxi in the whole room. If others were not standing in the way, the tension between them might have sparked into a spontaneous battle. Both of the deadly warriors were kept at heel… for now.

“You must tell me how you managed to get an Incubus as a Bladesworn,” Druzna said.

“Yes, I must—later. Right now, I think there’s a much more important question waiting to be answered. What’s your offer?” asked the Corsair Princess, adopting the most bored pose she possibly could.

Eshairr once more approached, eyes wary of the leering corsairs surrounding them, dozens of weapons hanging from belts that could end her and her companions in a heartbeat.

“I lied in that communication,” declared Eshairr without hesitation. “We are here on Lady Syndratta’s behalf. The Mistress of Blades demands you extinguish your debt to her immediately.”

Renemarai recoiled, not in fear but in shock, dealt so heavy a blow to her preconceptions that her composure shattered. “What? You would lower yourself to the service of that old, venomous tramp? She’s worse than the mon’keigh lords beneath us. The trade deal your Craftworld honors with her could not possibly demand such petty thuggery! This manner of thing is beneath my mother, be she Asuryani or freelance! No! I don’t believe you.”

Eshairr hung her head for a moment. “Aydona did not dispatch us here.”

“No… she’s dead?” Renemarai asked, voice trembling, a complicated blend of emotions tearing across her face. Corsairs did not seal the intensity of their emotions or distort them into sadism and malice like the Asuryani and the Drukhari, respectively. Nor did they mask them under a performance, like the Rillietann. To be a corsair, bereft of any home or stable way of life, was to live on the very edge of damnation at every moment—vulnerable to the fullest extent of Eldar feelings, wild and immense as they were. Only now did Eshairr realize how true that was, watching Renemarai’s expressions change the way they did. It was like a tidal wave—a terrible storm in the heart.

“No… but she is captured by the Great Devourer, and she is suffering terribly even as we speak,” said Eshairr, feeling only a fraction of the despair that Renemarai must have felt, but even a fraction of the full heart of an Eldar was still easily overwhelming.

“Captured? By Tyranids? What?” asked the Corsair Princess, now totally baffled.

“They’re using Morrigan’s people to breed, Renemarai,” Druzna explained. “We don’t know what manner of foul mutation made them this way, nor do we care. But we need a fleet to retake our home, and to that end—”

“—you need Syndratta’s ships and Kabalites,” Renemarai interrupted, the emotion vanishing from her face, returning to her cold, aloof attitude. “So, my dear mother is reduced to a lowly breeding sow, is that it?”

“And everyone else on Morrigan, to our knowledge,” said Eshairr.

“Ahahahahahahaha!” Renemarai laughed. She laughed, and she laughed, and she laughed. Even the other corsairs joined her. Only the Morriganites did not share in the mocking howls.

“What’s the matter, you don’t find it amusing?” asked the Princess. “By the looks on your faces, you seem positively furious. But you Asuryani can barely feel anything, so really it’s like machines trying to express the barest extent of sensation, clumsily playing out the roles they were given. Look at you, Druzna! If you were still a corsair, you’d have tried to rip my face off with your bare hands for such an insult. You threw away your edge, your instinct! And if I’m being honest, that was all you ever really had.”
The corsairs around them erupted in laughter, all of them mocking the Craftworlders with the best insults they could find.

“Enough!” Eshairr yelled, remaining calm despite the anger in her heart. “Renemarai, surely you understand our plight. Give us the funds necessary to clear your debts, and we will leave you to your laughter.”

The Corsair Princess shut up for a moment, suddenly looking especially cold and superior. “Ah, yes, the ‘funds.’ Do you Craftworlders even know what money is, with your little charitable utopia of plenty, where everyone can just give the fruits of their labors to everyone else and it all works out?”

Eshairr nodded. Young as she was, she had served as a Mariner for long enough to see more than one alien port that operated on currency. Druzna and Munesha had, likewise, been born into the use of it—Azraenn and Lynekai, however, seemed rather lost about the idea.

“Just give us the money,” Eshairr said. “The fate of an entire Craftworld—and your own mother—hangs in the balance.”

Renemarai grinned. “Do you have any idea how much ‘money’ I owe Syndratta? Do you know why I owe her? Do you know why I will never pay her back?”

Druzna crossed her arms together. “Tell us, then.”

“I’ve been swindling the high lords and ladies of Commorragh for centuries—in ways my dear mother could never have even imagined,” Renemarai said, leaning back with relaxed smugness. “Sure, I did my duty for them, raiding outposts and worlds they needed softened to pave the way for their own assaults. Assassinating generals, capturing valuable information, harassing supply shipments, leading enemy fleets on wild chases to divert their strength, razing cities from orbit—getting a generous share of the slaves and loot once the fighting was over—I’ve done it all, just like mother did.”

“But she never had the guts to cross them—she was always so careful around them, like a coward. Me? I flatter them, I get into their good graces, and then I challenge them to a friendly contest in front of all their court, for a fair bet of course! Naturally, they’re sure to accept to preserve their precious egos, especially as I pretend to be only a middling swordswoman at first. Then I turn the tables on them, draw the first blood, win, and collect the prize of my ‘friendly’ wager while they curse my name under their breaths, but show a smile for the crowds. And how could they affect reprisal without admitting to all those who bore witness that they were indeed humiliated before the eyes of their rivals?”

Druzna’s eyes went wide. “Lunacy! Ren, you can’t toy with the masters of Commorragh! Sooner or later, they’ll find their vengeance!”

Renemarai scoffed and leaned back in her throne. “Everyone says that, but you are forgetting that these masters and mistresses themselves engaged in much the same schemes to acquire their own wealth. They’re not nearly as clever as they try to make everyone think.”

“And yet, you owe Syndratta a great sum,” Eshairr pointed out.

Renemarai’s eyes narrowed on her, glaring.

“And what lord in this city does not have terrible debts to their name?” asked the Princess dismissively. “Every fortune in every vault is owed to another. It’s all lies and illusions, anyway. I’m simply playing the same game as the rest of them.”

“But you are no Archon, nor Succubus, nor Haemonculus. You have no title, no rank, you have no house of blood standing behind you. You were never playing the game that they played; you did not even stand at the same table as them! And did Syndratta not cover for your debts? Debts that were incurred, I presume, when your gambles backfired,” Eshairr countered.

“What is it to you, girl?” Renemarai asked, shaking her head and chuckling at her as though she were but a pitiful, innocent child. “Spare me your morality.”

“I have only been in this city for a handful of days, yet I can see clearly that they are no fools; perhaps they found your gambits entertaining for a time, but it is inevitable they would weary of them. Tell me, did you run afoul of your own risky wagers when you ran out of easy prey and were forced to challenge the true swordmasters of this dark realm? Or did the rulers of this city catch on to your greedy tricks and shut you out of their affairs, deny you duels and even proper contracts? And even still you would abuse the kindness of your own most faithful employer, then discard her when she asks for recompense?” asked Eshairr.

“Captain, please relent,” Druzna hissed, worried for the increasingly displeased looks the corsairs around them were making. But it was not all directed at the guests. More than a few of them were beginning to glare at Renemarai as well—because Eshairr was asking questions too sharp to ignore.

Eshairr silenced Druzna with a raised hand, flashing her a confident smile before returning to her stoic speech to the Princess. “Indeed, one must wonder why you are here in this Null City, where there are none of those fearsome lords. Do you sell your services to these mon’keigh now that you have made so many enemies elsewhere? Do they pay you well, I wonder? Having beheld the wretched state of this realm, I doubt they can match what the Kabals offered you. And what of the other ships the Sky Slicers employed? I checked the old records of Aydona’s arrival at Morrigan with the librarium aboard the Howl. Six ships parted to seek their own path when Aydona brought her fleet to join our home—where are the other five ships you should have under your command, Renemarai? Did you sell them to cover your piling debts? Were they destroyed fighting off Kabals come to collect? What I see in the Sky Slicers is not a growing enterprise like that your mother reigned over, but a dwindling candle-flame burning down to the bottom of the wick.”

The corsairs around them, who had been so eager to laugh and enjoy humiliating their guests, fell silent, and their whispers changed in attitude. Perhaps Eshairr had exposed certain truths they were not happy to acknowledge—and the Corsair Princess was not blind to the way her underlings were beginning to rumble with open discontent.

“Who in the name of the Dark Muses dares to lecture me?!” Renemarai shouted, rising out of her throne and pointing threateningly at Eshairr, a dramatic flair in her movements that captured the attention of her servants. “You are no mother of mine, little girl!”

“I am not Aydona. However, I owe her my life,” responded Eshairr proudly, standing tall. “It is because of this that I offer you the same honesty that Aydona would, if she were here. And I would fail to live up to her example if I did not admit this to you: I expected more from the daughter of such a great woman.”

Renemarai’s hand went to the jewel-encrusted hilt of her saber, staring severely down at the captain challenging her. “Rescind your words, Captain. Lest I divest you of that impudent tongue! You certainly won’t be getting any of my fortune after such insults!”

Eshairr lifted a hand, holding it open, palm directed upward, a gesture of defiant explanation. “Captain Renemarai, you made your stance, and stubbornness, clear as soon as I asked. You are not in a position of persuasion to reason—even if it is undeniably for your own good to earn back Syndratta’s good graces before the chance to do so is lost forever. Need I remind you, you showed open contempt for the suffering of my kinswomen and mocked them. For that, I have every right to respond in kind: with open contempt.”

“No, you don’t. This is my ship! And I can do as I please on it!” Renemarai hissed through her gritted teeth, drawing her sword—and Druzna gasped at the sight of its magnificent splendor, for it was no mere masterwork but a Void Saber, a legendary artifact forged with anathemic crystals interlaced into its pale blade, one of the infamous cursed swords that brought the foulest misfortune upon the craven that dared to own them. A thousand whispered tales spoke of Void Sabers so sharp that they could tear open rifts through the Warp with but a single slash, or ones so mighty they had felled great daemons of Chaos and their short-sighted wielder in the selfsame blow. To even hold such a thing was to wield both fortune without limit and wicked doom in one’s hand, the ultimate expression of the way of life that corsairs pursued to self-destructive extremity—wealth and death, entwined as coiling serpents biting the arm of she who dared to possess them.

And no corsair could look upon such a twisted thing—beautiful beyond measure, and deadly as the burning sword of Khaine himself—and feel no quiver in their heart, no lust to take it for themselves.

The ruminating unrest of her men was quelled in an instant as they beheld the glory of her sword, and once more Renemarai commanded an absolute grasp of the room and all within.

“How did you find such a thing?” Druzna asked, dark eyes glittering with the hypnotic glow of the evil, red crystals twinkling within the wraithbone of the blade.

Renemarai smirked down at Eshairr, who noticed the entranced stare of her First Spear with grave concern. “It is a prize my mother could never have taken! Look upon it, and despair! The likes of you shall never have this—Mariners of Morrigan, I pity you. The Path you walk dulls your senses and your skills, denies you so many pleasures, and suppresses your ambition even just to improve yourselves, all out of fear of what you might become! Are you truly satisfied merely sailing your ships for a heartless Craftworld? Nothing more than pawns of a greater order, sacrificed on a whim to protect the weaklings and the crony Seers hiding in their false little paradise?”

Eshairr scowled, stepping forward and pointing her white-gauntleted index straight at Renemarai’s face. “There—that sword you have, is it worth a great sum?”

Renemarai laughed, and once more her choir of void pirates laughed with her, unified by greed.

“Of course, little girl!”

Eshairr opened her hand and beckoned. “Give me that thing.”

Renemarai’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Excuse me?”

“Syndratta will be satisfied with such a treasure as payment, I am sure of it,” said Eshairr calmly, repeating the gesture. “Give it here.”

“Did you hear nothing I said?” Renemarai growled, sneering down at the captain. “You could be free right now—you could turn your back on Morrigan. No, you should! They were weak, they have fallen, you and your ship can forge your own path! Don’t bow down to vanquished leaders who failed their people, ruling over you through guilt and shame! Don’t submit to the will of Syndratta—she’ll use you and discard you as she pleases! They are both worthless! Find your own way! Take hold of your destiny!”

“I cannot save your mother with hollow words,” Eshairr retorted, and Renemarai recoiled as though slapped across the face.

Druzna blinked, startled out of her dreamy stupor by the fierce, yet calm defiance Eshairr continued to mount.

Azraenn made only the slightest subtle nod, one unnoticed by all present, approving, twisting her fingers around her long blonde ponytail.

Lynekai smiled behind the fire-haired captain, warm and proud.

Munesha glanced around, fondling a little ivory-carved fetish of a stag hanging at the center of her tribal necklace wrapped in holy beads and finger-bones, which glowed ever-so-faintly as she turned her head, searching the ship around them through sight beyond sight. This faint sign seemed to go unnoticed by the many eyes around them, perhaps because her bare dark cheeks, round and taut, her beautiful, gleaming obsidian thighs, and the faint outline of a cleft between her legs just under the narrow clasp of her thong were so tantalizing to the pleasure-addicted mercenaries. More than one mouth was moistened by a hungry tongue, dreaming of what they would do to such a beautiful, shameless vixen.

“Yet another disappointment, hmm,” said Renemarai after she had regained her composure. “After I reached out in earnest generosity, my hand is once again slapped away. I should not be surprised. That bloody Craftworld of yours took my family, my home away from me once already. You, who know nothing but subservience, are doomed to it!”

Eshairr shook her head. “You did not appeal to me out of kindness. You are desperate for understanding: the only thing you think that Aydona could not give you when you parted ways, when she was willing to surrender even her rank and her flagship to you. You would turn to someone like me for it? Then you must feel no kinship with anyone here, yes?”

For just a moment, a brief, tangible instant, Renemarai’s face softened, as though realizing something—perhaps that Eshairr was right, perhaps that she should not have been so stubborn to inherit her mother’s way of life and the rank she had always wanted to claim for herself when an alternative was offered. Maybe she felt sorrow, regretting every curse she had hurled upon her mother when they parted from each other. Perhaps, even, Renemarai thought for just a fraction of a second—that this stranger knew her better than all the men and women she commanded, and desperately yearned to forge a bond of sisterhood with her.

Or perhaps it was just a moment of weakness, for her expression hardened to the most severe it had ever been, and she descended the steps from her throne with her saber at the ready.

“In the end, I am not here to judge you—only to take from you what is Lady Syndratta’s by right,” said Eshairr. “I cannot know what life you have led, nor what the future holds for you. But I can say, without any doubt in my heart, that you cannot run from your mistakes forever. They will haunt you to the ends of the galaxy. I urge you to choose the path of reconciliation. Make an ally for once, not an enemy. That is how a true empire begins—one stable stone first, before a castle can be built.”

In an instant, the Void Saber was swung, halting only just before it touched the elastic mesh armor outlining Eshairr’s neck, certain to slice straight through it and sever her head at the slightest motion. Renemarai’s eyes glared into Eshairr’s stony gaze, and she spoke with the utmost disdain.

“No. An empire begins with the heads of one’s enemies, collected one by one,” Renemarai answered, a sadistic gleam coming over her face. “Just as my mother claimed the throne of the Sky Slicers when its first Prince perished, I, too, have carried the torch of this noble band even in its darkest hours. A hundred foes more powerful than you have challenged this Coterie, and not one has proven victorious. We are the chosen few. Our destiny stands unchanged by three generations of bloody battle: greatness! And you are about to learn that, whelp.”

Eshairr did not flinch. “So, it is an impasse. Tensions have risen too much for fruitful discourse—we shall take our leave of you for now. When hearts have calmed, I will return in hopes of convincing you.” She turned her back on the Princess, hands throwing back the length of her white leather greatcoat—a gesture of washing one’s hands of the matter—and beginning to march for the exit.

Azraenn’s face twisted in alarm from afar, the first and only warning Eshairr needed. Her hand went to the hilt of the sword on her belt—and she whirled like noble flame twisting through the air, her hair flying behind her as she met the murderous swipe of Renemarai’s blade with her own weapon.

Clash.

Wraithbone groaned against wraithbone.

Biceps flared beneath sleeves, and their blades wrestled with the force they mutually put into them, grinding together, yet unable to break free without freeing the other’s sword to put an end to them in one swift strike.

Renemarai’s lips switched from furious to a savage smirk, and Eshairr’s cold, dispassionate glare did not back down.

“You are quick, indeed, but I doubt you’re even half the swordswoman that I am. I surpassed my mother long, long ago. I’ve humbled Archons and Bloodbrides of the Cults. Kneel down and set aside your sword, girl. Beg for my mercy and I might even grant it if I believe you’re earnest,” said the Princess, oozing smug superiority.

Still holding her sword locked against Renemarai’s, Eshairr glanced around, seeing that she and the others were surrounded by such overwhelming numbers of drawn blades and guns that escape was certainly outside the realm of possibility. Though no shots had flown yet, the tension was so thick that the slightest spark would turn it into a bloodbath.

No—something was wrong. A faint tingle at the edge of her awareness, at the back of her skull.

“If you plan to surrender, you had better do it now, girl,” said Renemarai. “Soon you won’t be able to do much at all. Eltaena!” she called, jerking her head as if signaling for something.

The first to realize the true nature of the odd sensation afflicting all five of the trapped women was Lynekai, whose eyes went wide, immediately lifting a hand and whispering words of power as the runestones within her sleeves clacked together, glowing blue as channels for her might.

“Lynekai?” asked Druzna, holding her pistols at the ready for the first sign of attack from the horde surrounding them.

“I am too late—we are ensnared,” Lynekai said, her voice layered with a strange oscillation, as though she spoke through the Warp itself. Her posture staggered, a look of pain shooting through her face. “She is… strong.”

And with just that, Lynekai collapsed, all the power draining from her.

The others looked to her fallen body, stunned. Munesha soon joined her on the ground, followed by Druzna, while Azraenn grabbed her head, dropping her shuriken catapult and emitting a heavy groan of struggle against the forces that worked against her. But even the will of the warrior could not hold for long, and she, too, fainted as she tried to pick her sisters up off of the ground.

In just that instant of distraction, the chainsaber went flying from Eshairr’s hand, disarmed with the most casual flick of the wrist by Renemarai, who once again lifted her blade to the neck of the captain. “Don’t worry. I want every last one of you alive. Asuryani are so, so valuable on the slave market,” grinned the Princess. “But if it soothes your broken pride, Eshairr, we both have engaged in deceit today; you lied that you wanted my services, and I lied that I was curious in your offer. Never did I actually care to hear your words; I always planned to pay Syndratta back. And that pretty cruiser of yours is worth enough on its own to satisfy Syndratta’s demands and much, much more… so, thank you for opening your doors to me and wasting time with this pointless argument. My men are taking your ship as we speak!”

Eshairr stumbled back, the crawling sensation in her brain deepening and worsening, like a drilling claw scooping out everything over, and over, and over again. Every thought she managed to muster was stolen from her, not by pain, but by this invasion of her mind—plucked away along with her reason. Nausea mounted, only to turn into a weakness of the body, able only to look up at the sinister smile on Renemarai’s face and hear her taunts.

“If this is the best mother’s Mariners can do, she has truly settled for mediocrity. No wonder she fell, along with her beloved home,” Renemarai said down to the kneeling captain, reaching out to gently pet her on the head, fingers running through her beautiful fiery locks. “Hush, lay down now, my sweet child. You have so much to learn before you are ready to be sold…”

Eshairr’s eyes slowly shut against her waning will, and, submerged in total darkness, the last vestiges of her resistance gave way, slumping over on the ground.

Chapter Text

==Chapter III: The Howl Amid the Tempest==

They hardly expected it to be so easy.

Certainly, it would be no simple matter to force their way into a sealed, battle-ready wraithship, not even with the most elite lockslicers they could have hired—ones with expertise in breaking through Craftworlder defenses, which was no easy task given the complex, psycho-interactive nature of their technology. And they had not hired on the best of the best, regardless.

But they had something even better.

A Shade Runner.

Doors, locks, bulkheads, walls—did not even matter to her like.

She could not suppress a barbaric chuckle to herself as the world swirled in grey mist around her, an ethereal weight upon her senses as she drifted on the edge of the Warp, dancing with sudden death should her blink pack suffer even the slightest malfunction. Nothing more than a vague, transparent silhouette outlined in wavy haze to the eyes of the corsairs behind her, she walked right through the heavily sealed airlock of the Howl that should have blocked her passage. And, on the other side, she phased back into reality, slapping the exposed crystal outlet with a hand and issuing a mental command to the unprotected inner control circuit—open.

So many safeguards to prevent undesired entry, yet none to defend from within its own immaculate white halls. The only thing that could have stopped her, or at least troubled her, would have been guards stationed there. The fools.
Too trivial.

In just those few brief moments it took to walk from the gangway to the interior of the Howl, Deadheart allowed scores of Sky Slicer boarders in, who rushed ahead of her with their weapons at the ready, sweeping towards the most vital place aboard the Howl.

The bridge.

So long as they took that, the ship was theirs, and everyone aboard it their hostages.

Deadheart could hardly contain her excitement.

She just hoped the idiots would put up a fight, so she had an excuse to get her knives dirty.

===

Boots stomped in the halls of the Howl, echoing deep within her hull.

“So they’ve come after all.”

Teeth spun slowly, idly on deadly blades, impossibly quiet, so much so that even an Eldar could not pick up the sound.

Grips shifted around the handles of pistols, index fingers finding their way to rest upon triggers.

Dark, violent figures raced beneath them, barely perceptible through the narrow slats beneath the green-armored warriors.

“We await your command, Ynnatta.”

She counted the number of feet falling by ear, sifting through the overlapping echoes with honed practice—one hundred and seven distinct enemies, a full-scale boarding action. She counted the silhouettes darting past their position below, subtracting down as they went, until there were only ten more left to go by.

“Swift. Quiet. No mercy,” she said to the others.

“Aye, Ynnatta.”

“Now.”

The ceiling—or what had seemed to be a ceiling to the rushing pirates, who had no time to watch for the subtle differences in the architecture above them—slid open with a soft click and a hiss, answering the mental command Ynnatta issued the ship’s control systems linked into her armor’s helm. What was a series of hatches meant for maintenance opened in an instant, and—

They dropped like green thunder.

Chainswords grinding, slashing, corsairs screaming—blood splattering all over the pristine, marble-white passageway.

Flesh and bone, ripped asunder.

Death in an instant, ten souls sent to She-Who-Thirsts before they could even blink.

And then, as swiftly as they struck, the five scorpions slipped away into doorways and hatches, vanishing into the labyrinth of wraithbone before the rest of the Sky Slicers could turn to try to help their long-dead brethren.

There were trails of blood, dripping from armor, smeared by bootprint, spattering from spinning chain-teeth, leading those who came to investigate through five different narrow, winding passages and cramped, claustrophobic ducts.

More than mere bait.

Invitations.

Come and follow us.

Feed our starved swords.

===

Deadheart heard the screams from the rear, but the shouts from the front had already occupied her attention.

A bulkhead had sealed itself on one of their officers leading the party. He was simply ripped in twain by its cold, cruel mechanical strength. The ones who had been in front of him were banging on the bulkhead, separated from the rest and unable to make the door crystals do their bidding.

“Deadheart, how did that thing seal itself?” asked one of the corsairs by her. She did not know his name. Some fresh sack of meat who had yet to be bloodied in battle.

She cursed in the Aeldari tongue, under her breath.

“Craftworlder ships answer to the souls of their sailors,” Deadheart said, looking all around the passageway full of tapestries and engravings, all masterpieces crafted by hand alone—the products of civilian Asuryani paths. Each of these art pieces would be worth a fortune on the streets of Commorragh, but there was no time to go looting when there was a far greater prize to be had. “Tsk. So that’s why we have yet to see any of them. They’re sequestered away somewhere, doing everything they can to delay us through the psychic circuits of the ship. They were only playing defenseless all along…”

“What do we do?” asked another Sky Slicer.

“Keep moving. Turn around, break up into bands, follow the main passageways and watch for ambushes!” Deadheart commanded. “Don’t stand under bulkheads. Stick to cover. The more you spread out, the harder it will be for them to track and react to your movements!”

“But what about the men on the other side?”

Deadheart turned to the sealed bulkhead, reaching back, preparing to activate her blink pack.

Then she heard three distinct thuds, and the yelling from the other side ceased instantly, replaced with dreadful silence from the coterie around her.

“And don’t get separated from the others,” Deadheart added quickly.

“But what will you do?”

Deadheart just drew a pair of wicked daggers from the sheaths on her breastplate.

“What I do best,” she answered, her voice distorted by the blink field that suddenly flickered around her, rendering her little more than a wraith—and then she vanished through the bulkhead, leaving a trail of menacing chuckles in her wake.

===

Guardian Defenders posted at every critical junction, armed to the teeth. Scatter lasers and shuriken cannons mounted on armored grav platforms, easily maneuvered from one hallway to the next, providing hardened overwatch for every single passage that could lead to the bridge. Storm Guardians positioned behind cover, ready to ambush anyone who entered range of their swords and flamers. Mariners the next line of defense, though equipped mostly with sidearms, but masters of the ship itself—no doubt able to control the ship’s internal systems with mastery that could be even more dangerous than all the skill and weaponry of the Guardian squads.

Such an annoyance. Even scouting ahead like this and relaying every position to her corsairs, the idea of trying to break through such a painstakingly prepared defense was dreadful. The entire point of attacking the Howl during negotiations was to catch them unawares for an easy victory.

And what was this, then? This ugly meatgrinder they had stepped into?

Where was the so-called naivete of the Craftworlders? Where had they acquired such stockpiles of weapons and ammunition and explosives? What mad Craftworld would consider this degree of preparation necessary, even for a warship? No, she had not ever seen another ship, be it Corsair, Kabalite, or Craftworlder, this well-stocked, its crew this rigidly drilled, as if to be ready for the Rhana Dandra. Not even the Tempestuous Chariot.

For the love of Khaine, had they expected to be boarded by an army of daemons?

Deadheart cursed, her voice resonating faintly through the wall she was peering out of as she trotted from one end of the ship to the next, hurrying desperately to find a hole in their defenses.

Her troops were not going to take the bridge without casualties that would drive Renemarai mad with fury. That is, if they could take it without morale crumbling and the whole party routing. More of the Chariot’s crew had been padded out with cheaper muscle than Deadheart liked to admit. Unblooded, unsalted guns, exiles fresh from a Craftworld or dregs out of the depths of Commorragh. And with that being the case, Deadheart herself was going to be in the Princess’s line of fire, regardless of whether she pressed the attack or ordered a retreat.

She swore, and swore, and swore. She needed more men. No, she needed better men.

Proper Voidscarred. Seasoned, clever killers, with the guts to take on these odds and the brains to survive doing so. If she just had a handful of them… like all the ones that walked out on the Chariot years ago.

Because she sure as Hell was not going to risk her own hide on a one-woman assault against all of this. Not when there were Aspect Warriors and Seers lurking out there somewhere.

If only Renemarai had spent less of everyone’s shares on vain purchases like that pretty throne of hers.

“Tch,” Deadheart clicked her tongue, pulling back and pressing a finger against the crystal communicator tucked under her belt.

===

It was as though a great burden lifted from her mind, and suddenly she was awake. Suddenly, she was aware. She could think again. And she heard the voices around her.

Eshairr opened her eyes, lifting her head, finding herself chained up by the wrists above her head, feet dangling just off the floor. A quick glance in either direction told her that her fellow officers, hanging on either side of her, were in similarly dire straits in this ugly dungeon, gunmetal grey from ceiling to floor, cold, unfeeling, ruthless, a reflection of the minds which had built this Commorite ship. It seemed she had been the last to awaken, but the others remained silent, exchanging looks of concern or steely-eyed glares.

The stains of blood spilled from countless prisoners in the past were still evident on the ground beneath her.

And hers would no doubt be joining that mess, soon.

“Deadheart, if you cannot take the Howl with the band I dispatched with you, then perhaps we need to earnestly reconsider your rank as one of my chosen best,” said Renemarai, her back to her prisoners, chatting through a handheld communicator shaped like a small crystal orb—an advanced and rare type she must have stolen from an Asuryani or a Rillietann at some point.

“What would you have me do? Send them all to their deaths?” retorted Deadheart through the crystal. “This isn’t what we planned for! I need reinforcements!”

“A hundred men not enough for you?” Renemarai asked, a hint of venom creeping into her voice. “I’ve taken warships with half that number behind me.”

“There are Seers on this ship!” Deadheart hissed. “I don’t know where they are, but they are here somewhere, and you know that any of them can rip me to shreds with a single thought if they catch me while I’m phased!”

Renemarai sighed, shutting her eyes in a moment of frustration. “Calm down. They’re Craftworlders. They’re not cut out for battle. They’ll surrender once you inform them we have all their leaders, and we’ll kill them one by one if they keep up their cute little resistance.”

“Talk to them? No one can even get close to them!” replied Deadheart, anger in her tone.

“Then what good is that fancy blink pack of yours? And what good are you, to me?” asked Renemarai, turning to look at Eshairr, a small smile emerging across her red lips when she saw that the young captain was awake. “Oh! Greetings, Captain Eshairr. I was just talking about you.”

Eshairr was still dizzy from the eerie assault on her senses, but she was cognizant enough to answer in defiance: “The Howl will not surrender. We can’t afford to fail here. My Mariners fight for their home, the Howl, and the Guardians fight for their home, Morrigan. Your threats will fall on deaf ears.”

Renemarai walked over to Eshairr and smirked at her from inches away, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look into her eyes.

“Perhaps they’ll be more willing to listen if you give them the command to set aside their weapons?” asked the Corsair Princess, grinning. “After all, you Asuryani pride yourselves on your iron discipline.”

“Perhaps you should release us and end this, rather than throwing away so many lives on such meaningless bloodshed,” replied Eshairr coolly. “How many are you prepared to lose, Princess? One hundred? Two? Three hundred? How many more will desert you rather than charge into likely demise?”

She did not recognize the sensation at first—she felt it against her cheek, turning her head with brutal force, and then the stinging began, her cheek turning red. Her ears rang, lightly, with the sound of her own skin struck by Renemarai’s gauntleted hand.

And after such a show of anger, Renemarai caught herself, touching two fingers to her forehead in exasperation. “Please, Captain, with the profits I stand to gain, I will have more than enough to hire on ten thousand new hands if I cared to.”
“And who will be eager to work for a Princess so reckless in the disposal of her subordinates?” Eshairr added sharply.

For that, her other cheek was stung with a swift slap, turning red to match the other. But Eshairr showed no reaction to the pain, staring into her enemy’s eyes fearlessly.

“Then it is fortunate! I do not need your agreement to have you issue an order to stand down,” Renemarai smirked. “Eltaena, make her submit.”

Out of the shadows stepped a hooded woman, wearing robes unmistakably belonging to a Farseer—clean as ever, but tattered, worn till it tore in several places from centuries of neglect, revealing much of her left arm with the long rip in her baggy sleeve, much of her bare, snow-white leg with the gap in her skirt. Most notably, all the glyphs that should have identified her homeworld were destroyed—a mark of banishment. She was short, her long hair a shining shade of black, her face gaunt and shady, almost skeletal with how thin she was—dark, narrow tattooed marks hanging below each eye, each a rune that when read together meant “Light Seeker,” the meaning of her name in one of the countless dialects of Aeldari tongue.

“As you wish,” said Eltaena, her voice gravelly and low, lacking the musicality normally used to convey layers of meaning in their language. All the artistry of their tongue was lost in her, curious indeed if she was a former Farseer, who often served in key social roles on Craftworlds. But what was most troubling was that there was not a hint of doubt in what she spoke.

Eshairr glanced over at Lynekai, who returned the look with concern in her body’s movements. The Bonesinger’s sleeves had been torn off, and her runestones were gone along with them. Without the most important tool of their craft, a Seer could do very little. It was not that they were powerless, but that to invoke their powers without the security of the runes with which they wove their eldritch spells was to invite destruction at the hands of all the wicked things that lurked in the Warp.

“Eltaena, is that your name?” asked Lynekai, and the frail, deathly woman turned to look at the ashen Bonesinger without a spark of life in her eyes.

“Bonesinger,” said Eltaena, as though recognizing the iconography on Lynekai’s robes after some struggle to recall the meaning. “Ah. I do not know your Craftworld’s markings.”

It was no surprise. There were likely hundreds of Craftworlds in existence, many of them hidden or isolated from the rest for any number of reasons, just like Morrigan. Even the wisest of their race were sometimes surprised to learn of Craftworlds they had never known before. Only the Harlequins could claim to know them all—and even that was doubtful.

“Eltaena, how have you come to be here, in the service of this sybarite?” Lynekai asked, concern obvious in her face and body.

The fallen Seer looked around the room, slowly, staring through everything, as though her thoughts wandered afar. After a few tense moments of it, she glanced back at Lynekai. “I no longer recall.”

Renemarai touched a hand to Eltaena’s shoulder. “Focus, my love. You’re the key to saving our brothers and sisters fighting aboard the Howl.”

Eltaena slowly turned to look at Renemarai, then nodded.

And then her pale blue eyes turned to settle upon Eshairr, never blinking.

“I beg of thee, open thy mind, do not fight it, lest I do thee harm which cannot be undone,” said Eltaena, and Eshairr felt a jolt of unease climb her spine, shaking to all her extremities. The rogue psyker lifted a hand, an uncanny glow blazing from her eyes, but no obvious effect manifested. At least, none that was visible.

The same sensation as before, in the promenade, struck her at once.

Only now did she understand what it really was—the intrusion of Eltaena’s will, slithering into her thoughts. Slime—that was the impression she felt, as though Eltaena’s psychic touch was drenched in slime and filth, muddy and wet, as it burrowed into her mind. Not the sharp, clean, almost fire-like touch she had felt from so many Seers, but an oozing, bleeding, disgusting caress, drilling into her. It was unnatural, as though Eltaena’s thoughts and mind were submerged in a deep, dark haze—the sensation of chems dulling the senses and quelling the heart.

But unlike before, now she knew what it was that afflicted her. Now, she could fight back before it went too far. So she looked up into Eltaena’s wraithlike eyes, grit her teeth, and pushed back against the invasion.

Eltaena blinked in surprise, and projected her hand closer to Eshairr with a quiet hiss of what must have been annoyance.

A tidal wave of compulsion rushed through Eshairr’s mind, and she began to speak—“Sisters, lay down your—”

She bit down on her own tongue, drawing blood and pain, and the words were stifled, and the assault was pushed back again. Thankfully, her communicator attached around the neck like a collar had no working link to the Howl.

“Surprisingly resilient,” Eltaena explained half-heartedly, none of the surprise she mentioned evident in her movements or tone. “Not a fortress of walls built up high, but a field of well-dug trenches; not an inferno raging wildly, but a cold blaze, tame yet untame; not a mighty hammer, but a keen blade, swift in the night. It will take time to break her.”

Renemarai tapped her boot heel impatiently. “How much time?”

“Months, normally. Perhaps days and nights, should I devote all my waking hours to assaulting her,” she explained, her voice rumbling with coarse disinterest.

“That’s the best you can do?” asked the Princess, scowling.

“She is resilient,” Eltaena repeated matter-of-factly. “It does not matter how fast you fly. If the distance is vast, you may only cross it one hour at a time.”

Renemarai scoffed, shaking her head. “She is but a lamb. A child. How many doses are you on right now?”

Lynekai could not help but smile. “Captain Eshairr was too wild and willful in her youth to be bound by the rituals of our Seers. And if they, as one, failed to contain her budding mind, you will find it no less difficult to conquer her as she is now.”

Renemarai shot Lynekai daggers from her eyes, but Eltaena did not look at anything except straight ahead as she replied: “Ah. One of those children. How nostalgic.”

Renemarai marched over and drew a knife from within her coat, holding it to Druzna’s throat as she ripped the waystone from the First Spear’s belt, where it was kept as a buckle, and tossed it across the room. It bounced and tumbled with little clacks on the metal floor, and the crystal slid all the way to the far wall, much too far for it to do as it was meant to and capture her soul if she should perish.

“Eshairr, if you will not order your women to stand down, I will start with this one, your first officer,” Renemarai said plainly.

Druzna grit her teeth, glaring up at Renemarai. “And here I thought we were friends of a sort. Is this some twisted revenge against your mother, Ren? Have I slighted you in some fashion which I fail to recall?”

The Princess bashed Druzna in the temple with the hilt of her dagger, drawing blood, leaving Druzna’s head spinning. “Quiet. If this were personal, you would already be dead and your spirit stone shattered, traitor. Now, Eshairr, tell me. Are you prepared to sacrifice your most trusted sister?”

Eshairr said nothing, staring defiantly at Renemarai.

“…Very well.”

There was only an instant of hesitation in her words.

And the edge, monomolecular in quickness, was drawn across Druzna’s neck, slowly at first, and then—a swift stroke at the end, splashing blood across the wall like paint from a saturated brush.

She barely had to put any strength into it to spill a terrible deluge of red, which dripped over Druzna’s mesh suit, staining the grey a dark, sanguine red, down to her dangling ankles, then to the floor, as Druzna choked, eyes wide, unable to breathe, drowning in her own arterial spillage as she wrestled, twisting and dangling, truly helpless to stop the onset of sleep eternal.

Eshairr fought against her chains, unable to even muster words that could describe the outrage in her heart. What came out of her mouth was hollow—so lacking in the true enormity of her despair that it could only be called a frail protest. “No! You madwoman!”

Renemarai just shook her head and wiped her knife clean with a cloth from her coat pocket, flipping it over and twirling it in her hand simply as a toy as she walked back over to the captain, a grin so wide she resembled a wicked serpent from Eldar myth.

“Are you reconsidering my demands now?” asked the Princess, running a hand through her slick, dark locks. “Fear not. I have no desire to hurt any more of your underlings. And I give you my word, I will not harm them if you surrender peacefully. Is that not fair?”

“And why should I believe you?!” Eshairr shouted. “After you so easily killed your own comrade of old!”

Renemarai’s devilish smirk darkened, as though she had been awaiting that precise question. She lifted a hand, snapping her fingers. “Eltaena… show them my mercy.”

The fallen Farseer muttered some manner of arcane phrase under her breath, not a spell, but more of a mantra of concentration. Lifting both hands, she began to course with unnatural energy, rising even off of the floor with invisible force, her hair flowing wildly around with unsettling winds that came from nowhere and only affected her.

They watched Eltaena as she unleashed powers unbound, charged with uncontrollable energies surging through her limbs like crackling lightning, a terrifying proof of the sheer Warp-might she commanded. She was indeed a Farseer, former or not. No—perhaps this was the power of a Farseer who had abandoned all channels, all controls for her own strength, unleashing all that she was, carelessly, teetering on the brink of annihilation every waking moment of her existence, no different from the thoughtless mon’keigh and their self-destructive psychic teachings.

But what Eltaena’s efforts accomplished went unnoticed at first, for it was subtle indeed compared to the great show of light and power swirling about the Void Dreamer.

The waterfall of blood reversed.

Liquid crimson climbed in defiance of entropy, returning to the wound from which it had spilled.

And once the majority of it had crawled back into Druzna’s veins, the gash itself knit back together as though it had never been made.

And the First Spear gasped aloud, heaving with breath, alive—and in a state of shock, shivering, convulsing with fear and pain remnant of the psychic healing.

“You see? Like the rulers of this beautiful city, with the power at my command, even death can be undone… well, so long as the wound is not too grievous, and the body is still warm,” Renemarai giggled mischievously. “And you know what that means, little girl?”

Eshairr ground her teeth together, refusing to dignify the murderous delight of her captor with an answer. All the more pleased, Renemarai reached out and caressed her face with the back of a gloved hand—the same hand which held the knife. The strong, flexible material of her gauntlet was cold against Eshairr’s cheek.

“I can, of course, kill you pretty little things as many times as I need to until you learn compliance.”

Druzna, eye twitching, screamed just to scream. “Aggggh! Agh! Aggggh! By all the torments of Khaine, you… you… may She-Who-Thirsts devour your godforsaken soul! Aydona would wring your neck herself if she knew you would stoop to this!”

Renemarai grinned with superior delight, returning her blade to the sheath. “She could try. Well, Captain? Have you thought the better of your idiotic resistance yet? If not, I may have no choice but make you the subject of my next demonstration… and I am only beginning to show you what I have in store.”

Eshairr glared into Renemarai not as a fellow Eldar, not anymore, even if she was an obstacle before—but as an enemy, one who had lost the right to mercy.

“Get away from me, you lowly scum,” said the captain.

For that, she earned another slap across the face, and Renemarai turned her back, walking over to Eltaena to whisper something in her ear. The Void Dreamer nodded, and Renemarai clapped her hands together twice.

At that signal, six Aeldari men dressed in nothing more than loincloths swaggered into the gaol, with such eager glee in their movements that it was all-too-easy to guess what their intentions were.

“These are some of my lowest cutlasses, freshly recruited in fact,” Renemarai said, strolling around them, stroking their strong chins, their muscled bodies, with the familiarity of an old lover, her fingers so intimate with the lean strength in their bodies that she effortlessly coaxed tents arising within their dark underwear, and as she touched them, they returned the affection—hands wandering up her thighs to grind between her legs with slow, forceful presses that left her pliable mesh creased inwards when they withdrew their digits, or tickling up her collar to give her lips something to kiss, earning giggles of amusement from the Princess. “I’m sure you clever ladies can tell why they are here. Last chance to rethink your answer, Captain!”

Eshairr paled, but still she refused to bow.

And so, Renemarai gestured with just a couple fingers. “They must feel your filth crusted on every inch of their skin, your scent stuck in their senses, your flavor unforgettable on their tongues. And, of course, carve yourselves so deeply they’ll never feel empty, or pure, again. Come, Eltaena. Let us go and salvage what we can of Deadheart’s mess. Those pitiful Craftworlders will never know what hit them with your witchcraft.”

With that, Renemarai and Eltaena departed, leaving just the five prisoners and their new tormentors, who salivated at them like starving hounds, approaching with eyes which carefully planned every step of the depravities they had in mind as they wandered the beauty of the Asuryani women, so exotic and so pure-hearted compared to the typical damsels of Commorragh.

===

“Blasted Aspect Warriors!” Deadheart hissed, seeing the discs of razor-sharp crystal shatter one by one into the wall where her body had just been, dashing for cover and finding it behind a bulkhead which tried to close on her before she could escape the passageway. It almost had her, but she activated her blink pack at just the last instant—phasing through it and deactivating the field around herself as soon as she could.

She had been using it too much, and the wrist controller for the device now flashed with yellow warning lights, indicating its internal systems were beginning to strain and needed time to rest. But if she did not use it, she could not possibly survive the ongoing advance of the six Dire Avengers which were hunting her boarders down squad by squad and cutting them into bloody ribbons with terrifying reflexes and accuracy, far too quick on the draw for her marauders. They were riflemen drilled to absolute perfection, and while they lacked the specialization of other Aspects, the single-minded simplicity of their role was itself terrifyingly efficient and deadly.

But the Avengers were not the most fearsome enemies lurking in this cramped, mazelike territory.

Deadheart only noticed the shadow creeping up on her because she stopped for a moment to glance back and check the bulkhead out of curiosity—seeing the scorpion who had crawled out from a vent just behind her, like their namesake crouching, poised to strike—

Clang.

Only by the barest hair’s width did she manage to parry the chainsword aimed at her neck with one of her daggers.

A clash of metal against wraithbone—sparks flying between them as grinding teeth bit into her blade, cutting a jagged nick into its edge.

“Khaine’s flaming piss…!”

Swearing at the top of her lungs, Deadheart leapt backwards into a graceful somersault to make some distance between them while the scorpion held back with unnerving patience, holding her sword out in an offensive stance and creeping closer, one foot shifting forward at a time, tense like a loaded coil. The pistol in the scorpion’s other hand stayed at her side, ready to fire from the hip at any moment, like a barbed tail wound back for the kill.

Turning her back to retreat would mean a shuriken shot through her spine.

So, Deadheart chose the only option.

Attack.

She threw one of the daggers she held right at the scorpion’s throat—cut in half in an instant by a spray of metal shards from the guns on her helmet, ignited by a tracking laser into blazing white plasma which blinded them both.

The perfect chance.

Before the searing flare of light and heat subsided, she charged right through it, lunging her other knife into a low stab aimed at the Warrior’s belly.

Leaning forward, she shrank as much as she could to present the smallest target—but her head had moved to the exact height of the scorpion’s pistol.

Schring—!

A supersonic serrated sliver of crystal shot right through Deadheart’s skull, shattering on the far wall.

Certain death.

Yet, not a drop of blood spilled.

Because that head of hers had become translucent and blurry, more shadow than woman.

The blink pack crackled, shutting itself off a fraction of a second before it malfunctioned—and Deadheart rematerialized.

The scorpion halted, frozen in place, weapons dropping out of her hands.

The Runner’s dagger had phased back into reality inside the Warrior’s gut.

Deadheart yanked her blade free, or rather, the handle—for the blade had been broken to pieces within the armor and flesh of her foe in its haphazard return to the material plane. Blood seeped into the elastic underlayers of the scorpion’s armor as the victor tossed the useless hilt over her shoulder.

And the Warrior collapsed with a gasp, her mandiblasters firing one last, desperate time—but lacking the strength to direct her gaze at her foe, merely scorching the floor beside her.

“Don’t worry. You’ll live. Probably,” said Deadheart, chuckling. She drew two more knives from behind her back and gave them a dexterous flourish in her fingers, smiling through the cloth of her mask. “And fetch such a good price for us. Living Aspect Warriors, with their waystones intact no less, are worth so much to the arenas and the Incubi.”

In the distance, echoing through the arteries of the wraithship, there came shouts of her men exclaiming that Renemarai had come. At last, thought Deadheart, the Princess had deigned to grace them with her presence and reinforcements. Welcome news, after that disastrous scouting-gone-wrong—and bragging to them about her duel with death would go a long way towards galvanizing them to victory. She left the Striking Scorpion there, bleeding slowly, where the Avengers would find her and have to waste time carrying her back to a safe part of the ship for treatment.

One Aspect Warrior down. Not so many more left to go. And if they fell, the civilian defenders aboard would surely lose all hope, perhaps even surrender.

===

“Greetings. I am Diquizo,” said the handsome blonde who seemed to be the leader of the pack, bowing politely as he approached Eshairr, grabbing the half-plate of wraithbone cradling the underside of her breasts and detaching it, freeing her supple bosoms to the full weight of the Chariot’s artificial gravity. As she shut her eyes and looked away in disgust, he simply reached out and grasped ahold of both full hills clad in elastic mesh, hefting and kneading them experimentally, discovering that the material, while strong enough to grant adequate protection against a wide variety of weaponry when it automatically hardened in response to trauma, was thin and pliant enough to feel nearly all the softness of her flesh beneath it if assaulted with mere hands rather than blades, bullets, and blasts.

For the captain, even such rough and undesired touches were enough to make her squirm. Part of her, between her legs, reacted so traitorously that she could not even believe how quickly the curse of Seminoth had begun to afflict her.

“What’s this? Blushing like a maiden already?” asked Diquizo, but she refused to answer. “Hah! You’ll be a fun one, indeed.”

Druzna bit her lip, hanging her head low. Even with her wits scattered by the dreadful torment she had been put through, she knew what needed to be done to protect her captain. Not for hundreds of years had she ever been made to endure such an indignity as this, but now, if it was the chastity of her good friends at stake, she could easily handle the six of them altogether. Moreover, the constant, undulating pulse of the Yearning in her womb made the idea somehow more… palatable.

But before Druzna could open her mouth to throw herself to the hounds, another spoke in her place.

“Fun? That cowardly ewe knows nothing of love,” said Azraenn, breaking her silence with a smug smirk directed at Diquizo and his fellow scabs.

The attention of all six ravenous wolves turned to Azraenn in an instant, curiosity aflame in their eyes and their bulging manhoods.

“And what do you know of it, then? Lady Warrior?”

“I once walked the Path of the Courtesan,” said Azraenn, not a hint of shame in her features, but proud of it, glowing like an ancient statue of Gea, puffing out her ample chest so well-defined by her tight, flexible Aspect armor. “Come and beg for my sensual delights, if ye be true sons of Kurnous, the pursuer of beast and maiden alike.”

Druzna watched in horror as Azraenn was surrounded by wandering hands and strong bodies that set to work divesting her strong body of its armor, unable to summon the courage to challenge Azraenn’s mad invitation. She turned her head away and shut her eyes, refusing to watch. She wished she could blame it on experiencing the darkness of cold death just minutes ago, but rather, deep down, she could not deny the ugly truth: an immense relief that Azraenn had done this and not her.

Twelve hands made quick work of Azraenn’s armor, and her bare body hung between them, lifted up by hands holding her thighs in place, massaging them apart, while Diquizo turned the Warrior’s head to meet his lips in a tight, forceful kiss, which she returned—with tongue.

A set of fingers massaged the bare, soft, moist flower between her legs, and she voiced a muffled protest, even while her breasts were assaulted by another with tight squeezes and rough pinches of both mounds, leaving her squirming from head to toe, breaking away from Diquizo’s kiss to catch her breath only to be assaulted by a different sort of kiss, as one of the corsairs bent down and pressed his mouth to her slit with a loud ‘oomph.’

“Ah,” Azraenn gasped, hips twisting in the air around the one-eyed scab as he tasted her most vulnerable place with deep, loud slurps, glancing left to right and seeing only turgid lengths in all directions, waiting for their chance to fill her up.

How severely was the Yearning afflicting the Warrior, here, now? Surrounded by fertile mates, who intended to use her body to the fullest, the curse of reproductive desire must have burned in her so badly it would drive a lesser woman mad. They barely had to work to make her drip, and the gaunt, scarred man tasting her nectar was quick to lick up every last drop she oozed with sloppy abandon, as though addicted to her taste.

He did not stop eating her out. He continued, and continued, thirsty like a dog, making her moan aloud in spite of her feeble resistance.

They meant to make her beg before they would give her the honor of being their bitch.

Eshairr grit her teeth, meanwhile, lifting her legs up and trying to contort her body in such a way as to somehow twist and leverage the chains that bound her into fracturing, but it was pointless. They were well-maintained, not worn and rusted by years of neglect.

Munesha, across the other side of the cell, glanced at Lynekai, who returned the look with a cold, steely resolve in her eyes and the movements of her body that left Munesha wary and concerned. The Wayseer had been prepared to offer herself up to them as well, but Azraenn’s subtle gestures of the body had told all who were not distracted otherwise that she, and she alone, would endure this indignity, under threat of a duel of honor should they disobey her.

But it was Lynekai’s wordless speech to Munesha which unsettled her more than the idea of all the cocks aboard the Tempestuous Chariot.

A guilty admission of the forbidden immorality of her intentions. Now that the corsairs were fully engrossed in Azraenn’s body, they would not be wary of such a thing.

The Bonesinger’s voice rang out through the gaol, strange, distorted, no, entirely normal—or so it seemed to the untrained ears in that room.

“How do you think to truly enjoy her pleasures if half her limbs are bound?” asked Lynekai, speaking not to anyone in particular.

The men paused in their licentious groping and grinding of the Warrior, heads turning in confusion, yet unable to tell where the otherworldly, sensual voice had come from.

“After all, a Courtesan’s hands are two of her greatest tools… you are many, and she is one… she is not to fear…”

“She is right,” said Diquizo, grinning.

“S-should we let her down, then?” asked one of the other men, much more uncertain of the idea.

“Of course! There is only one of her, and six of us,” answered Diquizo, reaching up and working the manacles around Azraenn’s wrists. The others joined him, and the mechanical contraption was quickly deciphered and unsealed, releasing Azraenn totally into the arms of the men determined to put every part of her body to use.

Azraenn looked around in a moment of genuine surprise, as their hands continued to roam her suspended body. Quick to adapt, she reached back, draping her arms around Diquizo behind her, as his hands roamed her fertile hills, lifting and squeezing them like a massage which brought her nipples to a stiff peak.

Snap.

The handsome blonde Aeldari crumpled behind her, neck shattered by a twist of her hands.

Her mighty thighs clenched around the throat of the man kissing at her tender flower.

He choked.

He sputtered.

And he died slowly, face turning purple, veins bulging through his brow.

Her thumbs found the eyesockets of the two men holding her on either side.

“AAAAAAAGHHHH!”

Crunch.

Blood splattered across Druzna’s face as she watched in shock.

The remaining two men, who had not been in reach of Azraenn’s limbs, tried to flee—but that odd voice spoke to them again, and they halted in their flight.

“No, you must not run—the mistress will have your heads for that. Stay and surrender. You will be spared.”

As if unable to disagree with the strange logic of the suggestion, both of the pirates froze in place, then simply knelt down and put their hands on their heads, driven to weep silent tears of terror by the bizarre fear the words seemed to inspire in their hearts.

===

“It’s the mistress!”

“Lady Renemarai is here!”

“Huh?!”

Walking with a sway of confidence in each step, Renemarai lifted a hand, waving to her corsairs as they stayed hidden behind cover, pinned down by sprays of high-powered lasers that could cut them clean in twain if they dared step into the cross-way.

“Who’s in command of this squad?” asked Renemarai.

One of the rugged salts jumped up and bowed his head to her.

“First, allow me to compliment you on having made it this far into the Howl,” said Renemarai. “Now, a word of critique…”

Sching.

Schhhhnk.

Faster than anyone could even see, the curved sword in her sheath was drawn and replaced back where it belonged at her side, not even a blur—simply executed with such flawless swiftness that the result was as instantaneous as any of those lasers ripping through the air.

And the man’s head slipped from his shoulders.

Every part of him flopped over, and the wound where the Void Saber had so effortlessly cleaved through his neck burned with an unnatural scarlet energy, crackling through his flesh.

“Cowards are not permitted in my crew,” said Renemarai coldly, as all her soldiers flinched. “Do you think they’ll run out of ammunition? Of course not. Those mounted scatter lasers can fire for months on end without needing recharge, and they can feed them with the ship’s own energy, and the ship is constantly replenished by the solar energy its sails collect! No, the gun will not overheat and melt. No, it will not stop when the Guardians aiming it grow tired; they will work it in shifts if they have to. So tell me, why are all of you gathering on these floors like BLOODY lichen?!”

Eltaena, flanking Renemarai, reached out and touched her on the shoulder. “My lady, they need reassurance.”

Only now realizing that she was short on breath from her screaming, Renemarai panted and slowly worked to regain her composure, adjusting her coat and sighing deeply. “Yes, yes. I know. All of you, stand back and watch how a true corsair handles this sort of thing. But if you crumble like pitiful children to the next weapons emplacement you run into, I will make an example of every last one of you!”

Tapping the silver buckler on her arm, a hazy field of refracted light suddenly appeared around her, generated by the shield—and to the eyes of those around her, it seemed as though there were four, no, five Renemarais standing within the bizarre color-warping field that surrounded her.

“Shall I turn my skills to bloodshed? It will not take long to crush their resistance,” asked Eltaena flatly.

“No. Remember, we want them alive and intact, if possible. Incite confusion among the defenders. I want them distrustful, paranoid, turning on each other, or scurrying away from their posts to hide, or brawling among each other—nothing like that to soften them up for a proper assault. In the worst case of total insanity, we can pay for mind-mendings from the flesh cults,” said Renemarai, her voice singular despite there seemingly being five of her now. “Leraxi!”
The Incubus beside her bowed and stepped forward. “Your command?”

“I am sure the Aspect Warriors will come for me, seeing me as the head of the serpent… your mission is to remove them from the battlefield,” said Renemarai. “If they cannot be taken alive, I will endure the blow to my profit margins. They’ve killed too many to deserve careful preservation.”

Leraxi bowed and slinked back, blending into the squads of corsairs, and awaiting the coming of her quarry.

With that, all the wavering, distorting images of the Princess drew the long, curved blade from her scabbard, and she walked out into the flowing laser barrage without an ounce of hesitation, every single shot spraying wildly aiming at mere illusions of herself—and refracted off of the edge of the field into fragments of rays which pockmarked the walls and ceiling of the hall around her, lighting tapestries aflame and melting stone busts of ancient figures of myth into slag as she marched forward with slow confidence, and the Guardians behind the scatter laser began to scream in terror born from waking nightmares raped into their minds.

They could not stop her. Her strange shield was both deceptive and impenetrable. No matter how many lasers or shurikens were sent her way, they would either miss entirely or shatter harmlessly upon her. And the figments of dark imagination which appeared in their vision made the chromatic distortions of that mist-field all the more extreme, twisting the visage of beautiful Renemarai into a howling daemon come for their souls, driving all their unstoppable firepower into the floor as they thought themselves to be attacking that monster.

But—

The Rangers of Morrigan knew an old remedy for such arrogance.

Renemarai’s head snapped back, a hole bored through her brow, everything within her skull liquified in an instant by a shining white lance.

A hand grabbed Renemarai by the shoulder, and the Princess whirled, inches from stepping into the hallway to challenge the killzone within.

“What is it, Eltaena?” asked Renemarai, annoyance plain in her tone.

“Please do not go. You will die,” answered the fallen Farseer, looking out into the abyss beyond the veil of reality.

“What? How?” asked the Princess.

“There is a hooded shadow hidden afar, who will see through your shield and the illusions I create. She will execute you,” answered Eltaena flatly.

“Then I will swerve to make her work impossible,” answered the Princess, frustration burning through her tongue.

“You have already attempted that, and failed, in three hundred futures,” replied Eltaena.

Subtly, Renemarai’s fair skin turned a paler shade. “Then tell me which future I need to destroy that scatter laser!”

“You cannot,” answered the Void Dreamer. “I see no future among thousands in which you succeed. The Ranger or the Guardians will have your life if you challenge them.”

Renemarai blinked, staring halfway to the floor, smote to silence by what her trusted advisor told her. She looked at her pirates, who stared at her with eyes that judged her for her boastful declaration, killing their leader only to commit the same cowardice of refusing to challenge the enemy’s deadly defenses. It made her burn with fury, not at herself for the hypocrisy, but at them—for daring to think her no better than them.

But, she reasoned, this was not so terrible a setback. Eltaena had, after all, preserved her life. The elation of survival struck her, clearing her heart of the storm of hatred for all her insubordinate underlings, or at least pushing it back to rage another day. With the clarity came inspiration—and her own genius cheered her up more than she expected.

“Fine. There is a better path to victory than a direct assault. They foolishly abandoned large swathes of the ship to concentrate their numbers and firepower in more critical areas. This strategy of theirs is flawed. We’ll fall back—and they’ll follow us with those grav platforms of theirs, thinking to corner us. But we’ll choose the field of battle, one beyond these narrow corridors, where they’ll no longer have such an easy time pinning us down and trapping us with these accursed bulkheads,” Renemarai said, a confident smile returning to her features. “Eltaena, my comm crystal can only reach Deadheart because she has its sister stone, so I’ll need you to transmit this psychic command to all our living subordinates. Tell them to gather together in the largest room, where we can turn every entrance into chokeholds of our own advantage.”

“Which is that?” asked Eltaena.

“To think, a Craftworlder like yourself wouldn’t know immediately!” Renemarai laughed. “Those mellowing chems of yours must be rather potent today, hmm? I was correct in choosing them for you, was I not?” she asked, tapping her on the forehead, and Eltaena flinched reflexively, though there was truly no harm in it.

“These soft weaklings could never travel the stars without the comforts of their home. The arboretum will be where we make our stand, and where we make them come to us.”

===

“Well done, Azraenn. But what was that, Lynekai?” asked Eshairr as she pulled her half-plate back on, rubbing her sore wrists to force life back into them.

The Bonesinger looked down, a heavy note of melancholy in her eyes. “A forbidden power, a secret that many Seers are never taught. A technique of spoken suggestion—words layered in the will of the speaker. It is not a direct imposition upon the mind, but it is all the more dangerous and wicked. What force cannot achieve in the bending of thoughts, a subtle touch will. On Morrigan, it is permitted only to be used against mon’keigh. To employ it against those of our own kind is an unforgivable sin, for it echoes the abominable whispers of Seminoth and his mistress.”

“Do you not need your runestones to use your powers?” asked Druzna, confused.

“Not necessarily. There are many manners of psychic foci which can be used. The runestones are merely the most common among Craftworld Seers. Munesha often makes use of fetishes and the bones of beasts, for her traditions come from the Exodite tribes. Those of my order work our craft through the power of our voice, the melodies which we sing, to create and manipulate crystal wraithbone, and this is the most noble purpose which the voice can be utilized to accomplish… as the other potentials are far more dreadful,” explained Lynekai. “Captain, more than one Seer has been executed for wielding the power of suggestion against our own kin, for it is truly insidious and its effects can wreak terrible consequences despite how slight it may seem.”

Eshairr nodded. “Grasping the circumstances, I believe the High Council will forgive you this once. Come, we must be swift.”

Azraenn had the most work to do, donning her Aspect armor again from the near-total nudity the corsairs had reduced her to. “Shall I finish the prisoners?”

The two surviving reavers had begun to gibber and sob aloud, having not moved from their positions of surrender.

Lynekai watched them with sorrow in her gaze, sorrow in her movements, holding one of her arms. “I… I have already wounded them with my words. I was too forceful in my haste to keep them from alerting others. They may never be quite whole again. They are no threat to us any longer.”

Munesha raised one of her white eyebrows in surprise. But she kept her thoughts to herself.

“What is the plan, here?” asked Druzna. “I remember this ship perfectly, so I can lead us anywhere you think we should go, Eshairr. I’m sure Munesha’s talents will let her lead us to safety as well. Do we go for our wargear, or do we retreat straight to the Howl?”

Eshairr tapped the communicator on her collar, but no connection with the Howl could be established.

“They’re jamming all vox signals,” observed Druzna. “We did much the same when boarding under Aydona. We’ll need to get back aboard the Howl to coordinate with the defenders there.”

“Should we not strike while the enemy is unaware of our freedom? If we sabotage critical systems from within, we can seize victory instantaneously,” Azraenn pointed out.

Eshairr crossed her arms together, thinking hard and fast. “No, those will be heavily guarded and sealed, and they will come down on us like a murderous hammer before we can destroy them. Our priority must be protecting our sisters. Fighting our way off the Chariot will be difficult, but with much of its crew battling our sisters, it may be possible if we move quickly and decisively. Azraenn, Munesha, you are our best fighters. Take the lead and clear a path; Druzna and I will take up the rear. We must get to the Howl and aid our defenses. Lynekai, you will stay in the middle, for you are the most important of us, our most skilled Seer—the best qualified to challenge that fallen Farseer. I know, it is an absurd thing to ask of you. But if you join powers with the other Bonesingers and Munesha as well, you may be able to overpower her.”

The others nodded in acceptance.

“However… my foci, my runebones, and my fetish-necklace, these I must not leave without. They are unique, and I do not have the means to replace them unless we visit a planet of worthy fauna to hunt,” added Munesha. “I cannot use my abilities to the fullest without them.”

“You can still fight, can you not? We do not have the time to search their armory for what they took,” Eshairr pointed out. “But heed this: Our goal is ultimately to capture, or if need be, slay Renemarai and her retinue. If they should fall, the discipline of this greedy rabble will likely collapse, and the battle will be ours. If we win, we will recover our equipment then. Now go! Teach them regret for their deceit!”

Azraenn and Munesha both bowed slightly and raced out the door. Two thuds soon followed—of the armed guards standing just outside. Lynekai followed just behind them, stopping to glance back at Druzna and Eshairr with obvious concern for their safety as the rear guard. Munesha tossed a lasblaster from the guard slumped at her feet into the room, caught by Eshairr, and, now properly armed, she offered Lynekai a confident nod, spurring her to go on out with the others.

===

Red lightning ripped through the wraithbone gateway barring their progress, once, twice, thrice, four times, slicing a crackling crimson shape in the invincible crystal. Shifting under its own weight, the carved rectangular portion of the bulkhead simply slid out and crashed on the floor of the room ahead, its edges still charged and seething with the pure, destructive energy born from her blade.

“Annoyances like these cannot stop me,” said Renemarai with a dismissive huff, returning her long, curved sword to the sheath as she stepped through into the beautiful, soul-soothing chamber at the heart of the Howl. Trees, bushes, flowers, even small buzzing insects dedicated to the service of these precious plants sprawled the area, its stone-lined sidewalks carved with ancient poetry meant to be read as one ambulated through the vast forest.

Eltaena glanced through the walls behind them, as if seeing afar. “The defenders have begun to pursue us, as planned, and… hm.”

“Hm?” repeated Renemarai as she strolled over gardens of rolling grass and herbs without any respect for the painstaking care even these must have been given by the crew of the Howl. Her reavers followed her example, laughing and trampling over flowers that would only bloom once in three centuries, or quickly carving their own names in runes over the bark of ancient, sacred flowering trees older than anyone aboard the ship, purely to mock the traditions of their foes.

“My apprentice reports that the prisoners have escaped the brig,” explained Eltaena. “They are nearly to the gangway; he is attempting to cut them off there, but the crew aboard the Chariot is scattered and lacking in coordination without you.”

“What?!” Renemarai shouted, catching the attention of more of her underlings than she truly wished to hear such news. Much lower in volume, she grabbed Eltaena by the collar of her robes and pulled her close. “How could they possibly escape?! We took their weapons, we took their psychic tools!”

Eltaena shook her head. “I do not know. However, it is the truth.”

Renemarai grabbed her own face in both hands and let out a ringing shout of frustration. “Arrghhh!”

Eltaena glanced around the arboretum, eyes warily scanning the growing number of whispers of divisive intent around the forested chamber. “Mistress, it seems they think your control of the situation is slipping.”

“Of course they think that, they’re brainless!” Renemarai hissed. “It hardly matters either way. We’re turning these Asuryani’s plans against them. We have the heart of the ship under our command now, full of fruit, roots, and water we can subsist on. This isn’t just their place of peace and rest, it is also where they grow much of their sustenance! We can hold here for days, starve them out! You there, get that splinter cannon set up!” she ordered one of the dawdling corsairs. “We’ll have lanes of fire on every entryway!”

Like a figure emerging out of a thick mist, the black-armored Shade Runner appeared beside Renemarai. “Mistress,” said Deadheart. “I see you are preparing for a siege.”

“That’s right,” Renemarai smiled, clapping her officer on the shoulder fondly. “And the others tell me you defeated one of their Striking Scorpions, correct? Forgive me for my earlier harshness.”

“This is not really the time for that…” Deadheart muttered. “I think we should retreat to the Chariot and make our escape while we can.”

“Did I ask for your thoughts?”

“Did you ask for hers?” retorted Deadheart, pointing at Eltaena, who seemed mesmerized by a small violet soul-lily blooming in one of the gardens.

Renemarai scoffed. “Very well. Eltaena, what fates do you augur?”

Eltaena answered distantly, while still staring at the precious little speck of life at her feet. “Victory is the clearest future, here.”

“See?” asked the Princess with smug superiority oozing through the sensual movements of her body. “We’ve reversed the tides of the battle in one move. This is the difference in experience between us and these naïve Asuryani.”

“More like we barely scraped together some kind of last stand,” Deadheart remarked, digging a fragment of a crystal shuriken out of her breastplate. “Listen, the fact is that if we hadn’t captured their commanding officers pre-emptively, this would have been a very different battle—that defensive strategy of theirs was designed to defend the ship without commanding oversight.”

Renemarai shrugged. “No strategy is perfect. And I am showing you how that defense can crumble, more easily than you might think.”

Deadheart sighed, shaking her head. It seemed she was not conveying her point adequately. “Imagine! If their captain were here, directing the defense, they could have encircled my boarders in an instant and massacred us, and you would have arrived just in time with your reinforcements to meet the same fate. How blessed we are to have survived somehow to this point! We removed the greatest authority of this ship before we attacked it, and from what I just overheard, we just lost that advantage. The scales swing against us!”

Renemarai dismissed her concerns with a wave of the hand. “Settle down. Eltaena prophecies victory; she has never been wrong.”

“Then why was she banished from her home?” asked Deadheart, and Eltaena’s gaze fell in muted sorrow.

“Be silent! Were you anyone else but my friend, I would have your head for such insinuations!” growled Renemarai.

“Friend?”

Renemarai’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t pretend like we aren’t—”

Deadheart shook her head. “I have no friends. Do not dare to speak for me, Princess.”

“Why, you little ingrate…!” muttered Renemarai.

Leraxi stepped forward from the tree she had been leaning under, the mechanisms of her armor softly whirring as she came over. “Friends? You are insufferably thorny, both of you. You have fought shoulder to shoulder, back to back, for long enough,” said the Incubus, resting her klaive on her shoulder. “By deeds, you have become blood-sisters.”

“Stay out of this!” yelled Renemarai.

Leraxi just lifted a hand of aloof insouciance as she walked by them.

“Keep your petty bickering out of my sight, then,” replied Leraxi scathingly.

“The… the crew is watching,” said Eltaena, pausing as though searching for a reason for them to stop. “Morale is already tenuous… it will fail… if you continue to argue.”

Renemarai bit her lip, driven once again to hold her face in a palm of exhaustion.

“We just have to hold out for a little longer,” said the Princess. “If our defenses are overwhelmed, I’ll order the retreat and have Eltaena clear a path as violently as necessary. Is that satisfactory, Deadheart?”

The Shade Runner folded her arms together. “Fine. But I still dislike this plan.”

===

Renemarai was proven correct in short order—despite the supremacy in numbers and firepower that the Howl’s crew boasted over her boarders, the forested gardens were easily turned into a killing field, with corsairs hiding behind every tree, every hedge, every pillar, every curtain, weapons trained on the dozen or so entrances with more than enough guns between them to easily hold back every squad of Storm Guardians that tried to force their way in. With splinter rifles and cannons loaded with potent sleep venom, they packed all the military effectiveness of Commorragh’s weapons of choice with the cold efficiency of simply knocking out the Asuryani that were caught in their sweeping, rapid fire salvos, preserving the lives of their quarry for the sake of profit—each disabled body another pile of wealth from the markets.

Moreover, the lack of bulkheads and machinery here ensured that the Mariners could not get very creative with how they harassed the Sky Slicers. There was no separating the boarders from each other; rather, they were united as hundreds strong, standing firm against all avenues of attack. Any other tricks they might have, such as removing all oxygen from the room, would do little to bother corsairs, who were always equipped for such hazards. And time proved this belief right. The Mariners, bereft of any options save direct force, tried to assault their position once the Storm Guardians had failed, and they too were tranquilized and driven back in short order.

Eltaena continued to work her illusions, luring whole squads of deceived troops into the arboretum to be shot and neutralized. But all attempts by the corsairs to go and take the incapacitated ones hostage were met with salvos of weapons fire shot out of the entrances, creating a stalemate of sorts, which only worked to the Sky Slicers’ favor. As the inner siege progressed, the corsairs began to forget their grievances with Renemarai, sensing that the tides had indeed turned. Even Deadheart ceased her angsty grumbling for a while.

But Eltaena soon turned to the others with grim tidings. Despite the best efforts of the crew aboard the Tempestuous Chariot, the escaped officers had managed to cross the gangway back into the Howl before the disorganized inner security forces could block their path with any significant resistance. Reports sent psychically from the Dreamer’s apprentice spoke of the ferocity of the Dire Avenger, who could apparently blast a whole room to death with such impeccable accuracy and unsurpassed speed that none of the corsairs available to fight could hope to compete or even slow her down. Worse still, the Exodite was apparently punching holes through anyone foolish enough to stand in their way, though Renemarai and her officers were quick to discredit this as unreliable testimony.

But even with the enemy’s leadership back aboard the vessel, Renemarai was not worried. She knew that there was no clean answer to the strategy she had adopted. She had forced her foe to take the offense, which meant all the advantages of defending were now hers to wield against them. And as the tense minutes wore on, it became more and more obvious that the escaped officers had changed little, much to her relief. The Asuryani continued their clumsy attacks, uncoordinated and doomed to failure.

Perhaps the leadership had no idea on how to counter Renemarai’s strategy after all.

This assumption, however, would prove to be a grave mistake.

===

It was true that there was no way to assault the wood-gardens without great risk.

But perhaps the Princess of the Sky Slicers had made a slight miscalculation in her hasty scheming.

While she commanded her Guardians and Mariners to continue their probing strikes on the arboretum to keep the Sky Slicers occupied, Eshairr issued the order to fire a lance.

The gangway connecting the Tempestuous Chariot and the Hunter’s Howl was blasted apart with a ray of the brightest light, and the Howl engaged its engines immediately, swooping away into the higher reaches like an eagle with its prize in its talons.

The Chariot hesitated. Only after a minute did its junior officers realize they needed to pursue the Howl to recover their boarding party, and it took another minute for them to realize their engines were not functioning—or rather, they were still chained to Sec Maegra miles below, and detaching the anchors took several more minutes. In their hesitance, in their clumsy error, they had awarded the Howl a lead which the Chariot could never recover, for it had long ago traded swiftness for greater armor and firepower at Renemarai’s behest.

Renemarai, upon realizing Eshairr’s ploy, raged so immensely that she slashed through trees and pillars of wraithbone on a wild rampage, lost for control and driven to enact what petty little retaliation she could muster. The captain had simply accepted the little siege for what it was, and calmly resolved the entire situation with a single brilliant stroke. The Princess had made herself and all her men prisoners of the Howl without so much as a second thought, and now they were to be delivered straight to the waiting arms of Lady Syndratta.

All the progress in recovering the morale of the Sky Slicers had been reversed as swiftly as the bright lance had ripped the link between their ships asunder.

She was no longer the proud leader who had inspired them to turn defeat on its head.

Now, she was the fool who had stranded them aboard the very vessel that would deliver them to the Kabals.

“Mistress,” growled a voice behind the madly furious Princess, who was covering up her face of fury as she leaned forward against a great, glittering stone larger than herself, almost ready to bash her own skull against it, a founding stone taken from an ancient temple of Isha before the Fall of the Eldar. Many such relics were preserved by the Craftworlds, and for a starship to be gifted one to carry was one of the highest honors that could be bestowed. But it was fortunate she had no interest in such history, for if she knew how valuable it was to Eshairr, she might have destroyed it.

Renemarai turned, finding twenty men and women aiming their splinter rifles and pistols at her, and the raw emotion on her face vanished, replaced with cold, distant observation. “Ah, mutiny, is it? Ha. Hahaha. Ahahahahahaha!”

She laughed so hard that she leaned back, hand on her forehead, jaw wagging, holding herself as though so breathless and dizzy she could nearly collapse. Only a corsair, the countless facets of her mind and emotions unbound, could find such peril so amusing, as though laughing at herself in spite of the anger she felt for such a betrayal. In truth, the agonizing despair weighed even more heavily, but the dark humor had a way of forcing its way through to the surface ahead of everything else.

She was almost glad to be rid of them. Twenty or so less headaches.

Glowing optical units housed within adamantine armor blazed to a shimmering red life behind the mutineers, and the great cleaving blade was lifted up like a scything harvester.

They were dead before they even knew whose wrath they had incurred, and the spraying showers of blood from their bodies, hacked into clean pieces, soaked into Renemarai’s features and armor, much as it dyed Leraxi’s steely plates in wet crimson. Renemarai slicked her moistened hair back, the blood thick like grease, still chuckling as she stepped over the dead fools. There was one perk to hiring dregs. They hardly understood how to stage a proper mutiny.

The other reavers pretended not to watch the massacre. Once again, the Incubus had served her purpose as the Princess’s executioner. A cold reminder of the price of disloyalty.

But these little demonstrations would only hold the rest at bay for so long.

Indeed, the Sky Slicers were beginning to feel the fatigue of a sustained battle, something they were unused to. Beyond the morale, they were not equipped for a battle of attrition. Their ammunition supplies were more depleted than any of them dared to mention, and they lacked the proper tools and experts to mend their wounded, left to slowly suffer and die while the others watched.

And now, Renemarai mused to herself, after digging in like this and letting themselves be surrounded by the enemy, she had to tell them that their only chance was to try to fight their way to the hangars and steal whatever fliers and skimmers the Howl stocked.

It was so, so comedic.

This wretched farce would delight any of the Dark Muses. Even the Living Muse himself might be laughing at her, for all she knew.

So she laughed as well, thinking herself to be in good company.

Her crew did not appreciate that.

Still laughing at the top of her lungs, Renemarai pointed out their only hope of escape, and her men hardly waited for her to spit out the words before bolting for the exits, hoping to rush the defenses and reach the hangars before the noose tightened around their throats. Renemarai continued laughing, breathless, hoarse, stumbling to a tree stump and bracing against it, and then she laughed no more. Then her face was cold, her eyes narrowed with hatred, and she watched the fools throw themselves into the traps prepared just for them by Eshairr. She should have laughed at them, given how amusing it was to watch them be so easily rounded up and taken prisoner, or if they were too stupid to surrender, be split in half by a storm of shurikens and lasers.

But now that she was watching someone else’s tragedy, her heart could only muster warm satisfaction at the beautiful sight of these accursed wretches receiving what they deserved for abandoning her. Nearly half of her privateers left their posts and disappeared into the halls, and not one of them would make it halfway to the hangars. Fortunately for her, the havoc created by their departure would make it far, far easier to make her own run for the nearest transport. Around a hundred boarders remained with her, unsettled though they were, having retained some sense of sanity against the fear of capture by these law-lovers. These were sufficient to her needs.

“Prepare yourselves. If you fall behind, you will be left. We will not turn back,” said Renemarai to all the desperate faces surrounding her.

She led them on the run, aiming for the gateway which showed the thickest fighting—

Only to halt in her tracks, when the floor itself wrenched and shifted ahead of her, the crystal somehow bending and twisting itself apart—and from the hole sprung an ear-splitting voice ringing out at an uncanny, unsettling melody of destruction.

“What—!”

Seven blue-armored Warriors, their leader one whose long blonde ponytail billowed beautifully behind the mighty and swift movements of her strong body, leapt up from the hole in the deck, lifting their shuriken catapults to engage their bloody work.

Her eyes went wide, only barely able to activate her mistshield in time to block the first salvo of the deadly discs aimed at her vitals. The powerful and rare escutcheon did its work—saving her and swathes of the corsairs behind her from an instantaneous death.

Renemarai whirled, her sword drawn, pointing it back towards the safety of the forest, yelling at them all to retreat. But as her eyes looked over her troops, she saw that similar wounds in the wraithbone deck had been torn by echoing, shrill voices all around the chamber, and the Howl’s fierce Guardians flooded in from below in key points within the inner sanctum and the outer gardens.

Checkmate.

She thought it immediately—knowing in an instant that all hope was truly lost.

How many times had she put other commanders in this position?

Why was this happening to her, now, when her destiny was so much greater than this?

There was no time to ponder her misunderstanding of the capabilities of the Craftworlders, nor was there a chance to regret her decisions.

Before she even knew what her plan was, her legs were already carrying her towards the nearest cover she could find—an enclosure of pillars and curtains, and anyone with sense followed her as quickly as their legs could carry them, for so long as they stayed near their Princess, the light-bending force field she bore would protect them from the supersonic blades hunting their backs.

She ducked under the nearest curtain, finding that as the hectic and one-sided battle raged outside, this former odeum insulated her from it; meant for song and poetry, it had been converted temporarily to shrines for the Paths of Kaela Mensha Khaine because of how secluded it was from the rest of the ship by its pillars and walls of stone and crystal.

“Mistress, what is the plan?” asked Deadheart, arriving at her side.

Renemarai shook her head, staring straight ahead, not even registering her surroundings anymore, only able to grin madly.

Why was she so happy? There was nothing to be glad of in this hell.

Ah.

Perhaps because she would no longer have to endure the eternal burden of command.

Yes, of course.

How foolish of her, all along, to be so blind to such an obvious thing.

She never liked being in command of the Sky Slicers. It was miserable from the very beginning. She only enjoyed the power it granted her. Beyond that, it served only as a collar of responsibility, chafing around her neck.

Deadheart, wordlessly, reached back and unbuckled the equipment from her back, wrapping the straps around Renemarai’s shoulders and tightening them to fit her taller frame before the Princess stirred from her detached dreams, turning around and backing away from her subordinate in confusion.

“Ren, use this. You should have enough time to reach the hangar if you run at your best,” said the Runner without hesitation. She reached up and ripped off the mask concealing her identity, nothing more than a scrap of cloth. Her short blonde hair spilled free around her face, cute, flushed, fae and youthful, the first time that she had ever shown it to the Princess. “Get back to the Chariot. Defeat these dogs of Syndratta!”

Renemarai stared, struck dumb. Deadheart must have known there was little hope of survival for the pirates that refused to give up. What she had given away was her only chance at escape.

She turned, seeing Leraxi burst into the shrine, klaive swinging and twirling wildly in the changing grips of her ultimate martial forms. She was an Incubus, one of Commorragh’s mightiest warriors, invincible and unbreakable. But four Striking Scorpions dashed all around her, firing their mandiblasters to spark holes through the reinforced alloys of her armor, firing their pistols to slice into the less-protected seams between the plates, and clashing their chainswords with her blade left to right, slowly wounding the Incubus bit by bit, turning her damaged suit into more of a burden on her movements than a boon. Any of them individually would have died in an instant to her skill, but the four of them together were too much even for her to handle.

Renemarai heard a moan of exertion, and she looked forward to Eltaena, who stepped back into the shrine as well, hands raised high, shouting mantras of focus as she called down dark powers upon her enemies. But these powers did not perform their work—for a greater force matched hers, dispelling the curses which would have slaughtered dozens of Asuryani had they properly manifested. The seven Bonesingers of the Howl worked as one now, standing as a choir of psychic potential united under Lynekai, who led them in spiritual songs of witch’s bane—undoing the wild magics which Eltaena summoned. The Void Dreamer stumbled back, the backlash of her untame powers being strangled afflicting her frail body as arcing jolts of her own psychic energy, striking her like serpents biting into her flesh.

“Are you listening? Go!” shouted Deadheart, whirling only just in time to see Azraenn come barreling through one of the curtains, noble blue armor wreathed in the blood of Sky Slicers, her carbine aimed at both of them, the glowing irises of her helmet’s visor burning like blue embers of divine wrath.

“Surrender!” yelled the Bladebearer. “Or die!”

Deadheart drew her last pair of knives—

And Azraenn fired twice, one shuriken piercing straight through Deadheart’s armored thigh with a spray of blood, the other parried on Deadheart’s lightning-fast blade—

—an obstacle the Avenger had accounted for—

—deflecting only slightly from its path, cutting a deep gash in the Runner’s shoulder, disabling her arm in one deadly shot.

With a groan of weakness, Deadheart collapsed, still holding a knife out with her one good arm. But she was now helpless, and Azraenn lowered her rifle for the finishing blow—

There was a knife on Renemarai’s belt, once. But now it was embedded in Azraenn’s shoulder before she could even see her throw it, and the fury behind it took her straight down.

“Banshee’s shriek!” Azraenn cursed under her breath, holding the handle of the dagger with a pained hiss, unable to work it free of her own muscle and bone.

Sparing only one last glance at her underlings—no, sisters, Renemarai allowed the blink pack to hear her mental command.

And then, she was no more than a phantom, slipping down through the floor.

But her goal was not the hangar.

No, in that moment of rage-fueled clarity, something came to her.

A memory, hazy, half-remembered, of her mother’s words.

Trying to convince her to follow her to that rotten Craftworld.

“I know you have longed to sit upon the throne of the Chariot for many cycles. She is sturdy and noble indeed, and she will need a worthy captain. But these vessels—they are much more than the Chariot ever was. They live, they pulse with the souls of fallen sailors, housed in great crystals within their innermost sanctums. To walk such halls is to feel the glory of our race around us, to hear the songs of our great ancestors in our hearts every moment of every day. Won’t you hear me, light of my heart? This is not surrendering freedom, but becoming a part of something greater than just personal ambition. Please, I ask that you at least try to understand, Ren.”

And a mad grin split her lips.

===

“Where could she have gone?” asked Eshairr, walking through the second hangar bay warily, seeing that all the vehicles within were accounted for, much like the first. She had thought to post guards and await Renemarai when she received word from Azraenn that she had somehow slipped away in the battle, vanishing like a Shade Runner. Squads of Guardians swept every corner, searched every crate, even checked the cockpits of the fliers and skimmers just in case, but there was no need.

After all, the ship itself could feel every soul that walked its interior, the most advanced sensory net in the galaxy. The Spirit Circuit which governed the ship’s internal and external functions, filled with the souls of Mariners, was indeed unsurpassed in its capacity to identify souls familiar and foreign, as well as track their general whereabouts with only a small degree of error due to the foggy, dreamlike senses of Eldar souls. While it might not be able to say exactly which chamber a person was in, it would certainly never fail to notice a soul that was present.

Eshairr lifted her fingers to her chin, thinking carefully. Had Renemarai slipped out through the outer hull when she used the blink pack? No, that seemed unlikely. Such a thing would almost certainly mean death to either the frozen vacuum or the tens of thousands of miles of falling down to the city below. It was a wild assumption that the blink pack could even carry one through the hull’s armor, as resistant as it was to the touch of the Warp.

More than likely, the Princess was still aboard, somewhere. The only reasonable explanation was that the blink pack itself was interfering with the Spirit Circuit’s ability to find Renemarai’s soul by pinning her existence somewhere just on the edge of the Warp.

And then came terror.

It struck her in an instant, more like a wave of nausea, dizzying every part of her body, turning her limbs to jelly, her mind to mush before she got hold of herself, managing to quell the worst of it through strength of will.

She had stared down the great, armored champions of Chaos, even faced them in single combat, and yet this, this alone was the most terrifying sensation she had ever experienced.

Not just her, the entire ship felt it. Violated wards, placed from the very day the ship’s keel had been sung forth by Morrigan’s Bonesinger choirs. They rang out like a klaxon throughout the entirety of its hull, screaming psychically to all who would hear.

Intrusion!

Danger!

Beware!

Every pair of boots that was not occupied or rendered unable by the intensity of the psychic alarm kicked into motion, and every heart raced with the deepest dread.

None faster than their captain, who realized the true nature of the alert before any other.

They did not need to think where to go—the ship itself whispered the way to their souls.

But Eshairr already knew the destination without the Spirit Circuit’s guidance.

She was there in an instant, the fastest she had ever run in her entire life, and she saw that the outer gate to the Spirit Sanctum had been ripped apart, still aflame with crimson energy that crackled and seethed like the heart of the one who wielded the sword responsible.

And through the destroyed doors, which had been made to withstand all but a solar flare, was the living heart of crystal forged from Isha’s Tears, only a tiny fraction of the size of Morrigan’s Infinity Circuit, but even so immense and powerful beyond measure, glowing and twinkling with slow, warm lights within the deep turquoise stone as the ancient souls within it wandered in the void of restful death.

And standing beside it, there was Renemarai, a belt of plasma bombs in her outstretched hand, smiling at the captain as though seeing an old friend, dearly missed.

“Hello, Eshairr,” said the Princess. “Consider this a lesson: one of the first things I learned was that there’s no substitute for a set of explosives when you need them. You should learn to bring some everywhere you go as well.”

“Give me the grenades, Renemarai,” said Eshairr, walking closer and reaching out a hand.

“Stop. Don’t come in past that doorway, or I might slip and blow your precious crystal to Hell,” said Renemarai, grinning coyly. “How many precious souls are preserved in this thing? Hundreds? Thousands? This will not only consign them all to She-Who-Thirsts, I’m certain the resulting blast from something like this shattering will crack your whole ship in half, too.”

“Idiot! You’ll die too!” Eshairr hissed. “This was never worth so much bloodshed! And it’s not worth your life, either!”

“How many of my crew have you murdered, when I went so far out of my way to only disable yours?” Renemarai asked, shaking her head like she was disappointed in a child. “Don’t you dare speak to me of bloodshed.”

“What?! So that you could enslave and sell us to this bleak city!?” Eshairr countered, outraged. “We are defending our lives, our freedom! If you wanted your crewmen to live, you should have kept them aboard your ship! We could have settled this a thousand better ways! But you chose the path of violence, and I answered in kind!”

“Freedom? Hah!” laughed the corsair, strolling back and forth as though this sacred chamber, dressed in the most ancient and precious curtains and tapestries, were her own quarters. “Come now, child, we both know you have nothing of the sort. Those scum have you lobotomized! How much of who you really are do you think they have taken from you?”

“You spoke like this before: Both then and now, you are mistaken. We walk the Paths of our own free will, and if they should chafe us, we are also free to walk the Path away from the Craftworld,” retorted Eshairr.

“Choosing to serve an order that denies your true self is throwing away everything that you are, just to believe in a meaningless cause!” Renemarai snapped. “The Asuryani cannot save our race. They worship the selfsame gods who are to blame for the downfall of our people, all because of their weakness! So why join with them? Let us carve out our own path in the stars and seek a new destiny!”

“We do not serve the cause of righteousness for the sake of our gods! We serve it because it is noble and just! Because we can make a difference in this galaxy beyond just more suffering and misery and war!” Eshairr said, stepping into the chamber against her threats. “Renemarai, please! This serves no purpose but empty spite! Even life as a slave must be worth more than death!”

“Stay away,” growled the Princess.

“No!” snapped Eshairr. “I will not! I always intended to bargain with Syndratta for your freedom. I will stand for you when no others would, if I must. I have never wished upon you ill, save for when you killed Druzna. And even then, I saw the hesitation in your eyes, and the swiftness with which you reversed your impulsive choice and spared her instead!”

“You saw nothing of me!” screamed Renemarai, thumb inching towards the arming key for the entire belt of bombs. “You know nothing! You are nothing! A puppet! A pawn, dancing to the song of the gods or the Dark Muses, whichever serves your lowly Craftworld better!”

“Are you arguing with me, or are you arguing with your mother?” asked Eshairr, and Renemarai lost her footing, stumbling back against the Spirit Core as though struck in the gut.

“You’re all the same, it doesn’t matter!” Renemarai hissed. “You’re more your Path than your own selves. Isn’t that so? You’re just aping some ancestor or another, who supposedly found the ‘right’ way to live in your profession! So when I argue with you, I argue with all Mariners, of every Craftworld! Even her!”

Druzna arrived to the entrance of the Heart of Stone, and she held up a hand to keep the other Mariners and Guardians back. She had overheard the entire conversation through the thought-web of the Howl on her way there, and now she spoke earnestly. “Captain, you can’t reason with her! I know her; she’s too stubborn! You must kill her before she acts!”

Eshairr held out a hand behind her, silencing her First Spear with a stern look. “No, Druzna. Silence.”

“She’s right,” giggled Renemarai, sounding more and more deranged. “You should just kill me. If you’re quick enough, you might be able to disarm all these grenades before one detonates, setting the rest off and… well.”

“There has been enough murder between kin today!” Eshairr answered boldly. “Let it go, Renemarai. If not for your own sake, then for your sisters-in-arms. Your officers still live, and the majority of your crew has been captured alive or stabilized by our healers. Even as we speak, Lady Lynekai fights with all her will to return the spark of life to more and more of your number, enacting miracles that have brought your own men to tears to behold. If you destroy the Howl, you will be ending all your subordinates with it.”

“So be it!” Renemarai laughed. “I care not for any of them.”

“A hollow boast,” replied Eshairr. “Do not lie to me, woman. This is the time for truth… and, Isha willing, reconciliation.”

“I may exaggerate from time to time, as one must, but a corsair never lies. Our word is our bond, and without it we are nothing. Do not test mine!” laughed the Princess, pressing the activation key of the first grenade, and sliding her thumb down to arm the rest in a blur.

“No! Stop!” exclaimed the captain, dropping to her knees, holding out both arms. “Please. I surrender myself and my ship to you.”

Renemarai’s grin could not have stretched wider across her face, resembling a wicked banshee of legend, laughing and laughing to no end. An instant before the fuses of the bombs would have run out—she casually tapped their keys again, disarming them, even as she howled with raucous glee, screeching with animal glory to the heavens.

Druzna grabbed the lasblaster out of the nearest Mariner’s hands—

But the Princess was quicker, grabbing Eshairr and drawing her sword to hold the edge at her throat, a new hostage. “You heard your captain. Drop it, Druzna. Or her head comes off.”

The First Spear grit her teeth, baring them like a wild wolf at her old ‘friend,’ the sights of the lasblaster trained on that skull with murderous accuracy.

“Forgetting my mistshield?” giggled Renemarai, shaking her arm with the buckler on it to cause the field to refract for a second, showing a half-dozen false shimmering images of herself before it stabilized back into invisibility. “You truly are hopeless, Druzna. Your captain may be an idiot, but at least she recognized that attacking me was a fool’s errand. Oh, do you wish to defy her command, so that everyone dies in a short-lived mutiny as ignoble dogs without honor?”

“Do as she says,” said Eshairr. “Please, trust me. It is for the best.”

Druzna shook with rage, and it was no longer clear who she was most furious at as her eyes darted between Eshairr and Renemarai. But after a pregnant pause, the carbine slipped from her hands, clattering on the floor. “Whore.”

Renemarai just smirked, radiating the most superiority that any face in the galaxy had ever glowed with. “I accept your surrender. Every weapon on this ship shall be unloaded and discarded in a pile in the arboretum until they can be collected by my reavers. Disable your engines, release my captive men, continue to heal those in need, and… of course, prepare to dock with the Chariot. This time, I expect, there won’t be any clever escapes. After all, one false move and I blow everything here to the cold, flaying tides of the Warp.”

Eshairr said nothing. She simply closed her eyes, accepting this fate.

Chapter Text

==Chapter IV: Salvation at the End of a Sword==

They came to the docking instruments which aligned with the gunmetal hull, sealing the Tempestuous Chariot in place—like a savage and murderous bear, wrapped about by a crown of interlocking gilded teeth.

Yes, a mantle of victory was draped over that ancient vessel, and the four commanding officers of the Sky Slicers departed their ship, crossing into the Pike of Vaul, Syndratta’s battle-spire. Behind, the six great officers of the Hunter’s Howl were dragged in chains, nude and bare, their voices silenced by leather gags, some of their eyes glaring forward with hatred and rage, others looking down to the floor, defeated and sullen. Only the captain showed no overt emotion, calm like a rock. If any of them lingered too long, Leraxi yanked the chains and choked all six of them at once, and so they were forced to obey like good little dogs.

The exquisite décor was familiar and pleasing to the Sky Slicers, and when the little mechanical imps came rolling and dancing out of little nooks and crannies to entertain them on their path to the lifts, and Renemarai took great delight in popping as many little snacks and hors d'oeuvres into her mouth as possible, sampling life-changing cuisines from across the galaxy. Deadheart kicked any of them that came too close to her, sending them stumbling away, while Leraxi simply ignored them.

Eltaena, meanwhile, lagged behind the others, not eating the food or drinking the wines offered by these contraptions, but kneeling down and examining the bizarre, grotesque faces and figures around her with a dull look in her eyes, mesmerized by the impossible way that the expressions on the drones seemed to change, as though the metal they were forged of was alive and shifting before her very eyes.

“Eltaena!” Renemarai yelled, and the Void Dreamer slowly stepped away from the horde of metal cherubs, dizzy and confused, before finally catching back up with the others.

At the entrance to the lift, two Kabalites of the Obsidian Rose stood guard, splinter rifles shouldered, as still as statues, staring directly forward without even acknowledging their guests. Renemarai waved in front of one of their faces with a giggle, and she did not shift even an inch in response. When she pressed upon her helmet with an index finger, tipping her head over, she still made no reaction, save to lift her head back up to the statuesque pose of before as soon as she released the pressure upon her. She reached down and yanked on the long blue twin ribbon wrapped around the Kabalite’s collar, likely choking her. Yet still, no response.

“How soulless,” muttered the Corsair Princess, sweeping her greatcoat back with a hand as she boarded the lift sized for around two-score slaves, finding her own reflection in the mirrors on all sides of the elevator, and grinning at her own beauty.

The others piled on, with only Eltaena lagging behind to stare into the eyes of one of the Kabalites, as if trying to see through the visor-slits into their souls. But another quick bark from Renemarai brought her attention back, and she stepped aboard just in time for the lift to kick into motion.

The four Sky Slicer leaders stood around in pitched silence, Deadheart tapping her boot impatiently, and the six slaves with them knelt, forced to endure the anticipation of their arrival at Lady Syndratta’s palace.

As their journey through the spire progressed, covering uncountable miles upon miles at speeds they could not even feel with the advanced technologies incorporated into the labyrinthine lift system, Eltaena began to sway lightly, humming a curious melody on her lips, twirling and dancing around. She came to the slaves in her aimless reverie, and she knelt down to wrap her arms around Lynekai, squeezing her in a tight hug.

Lynekai looked over at her, her eyes dark with sympathy and sorrow.

“Stop that incessant noise, and leave the slaves alone,” growled Leraxi.

“We can suffer her fun for a while,” Renemarai countermanded. “After all, we ask so much of her.”

“She needs to focus,” Leraxi retorted. “We can’t have her distracted and wandering off in a Kabal’s fortress. They’ll put her to knives if they catch her alone. Any chance to kill a psyker.”

“I’d like to see you focus on as many chems she’s got in her right now!” Deadheart snapped.

Eltaena stopped humming and let Lynekai go, turning away and staring at the floor.

“So be it. A dose, then,” Leraxi growled through her helmet, holding out a hand.

“You know she was not really challenging you,” Renemarai sighed, shaking her head, pacing around, back and forth. “What is taking so long?”

“You’re just excited,” Deadheart said.

“The last lift we rode up to the peak of the spire only took an hour and twelve minutes, thirty-six seconds,” Leraxi pointed out.

“What, you counted?” asked Renemarai.

“You do not?” asked the Incubus. “It has been two hours and twenty-five minutes now.”

“These lifts are not linear, but can lead all over the spire through the serpent-tunnels,” replied Deadheart, leaning back against one of the walls. “Perhaps Lady Syndratta is inconveniencing us out of spite for our disobedience.”

“Yes, yes, let her have her petty stabs at our patience,” Renemarai sighed, rolling her eyes. “Knowing her, she’ll drag out the bargaining for the Hunter’s Howl as well to try and force a lower price than we both know it is worth anywhere in Commorragh. I will play her game, and let her earn a decent victory over me; it will still be more than ample to clear our debt to her. For the slaves and their possessions, however, I will present a much greater challenge… for they are worth, numbering just over a thousand fresh Asuryani with their spirit stones, near as much if not more than a ship of wraithbone. After all, wraithbone might be precious and rare here, as are ships, but slaves that can feed their Thirst so perfectly are vital and irreplaceable.”

“Quite,” Leraxi agreed.

“I hate negotiations,” Deadheart groaned, thumping her head back into the mirror-wall behind her. “Eltaena, do you foresee boredom in our future?”

“No,” said the Dreamer, having become fascinated with Renemarai’s reflection, peering around the Princess to stare at the image as though fearful or shy of it.

“No boredom? In bargaining?” Deadheart asked, scoffing. “This is her least believable prophecy yet.”

Renemarai, as though reminded of that power Eltaena held, reached back and patted the shrunken violet her on the head gently. “What do you see, then, my dear?”

“Salvation,” whispered the Dreamer. “Salvation from a sword, that sword, wielded by her,” she added, pointing at the reflection of Princess.

“My sword?” asked Renemarai, taking the sheath of the Void Saber by its throat with one gauntleted hand. Pushing the ornate cross-guard with her thumb, the sword clicked free of the vacuum-tight seal the scabbard created around the blade, showing just an inch of its crystal blade, just a faint glow of crimson murder.

“No. That one, wielded by the other,” said Eltaena, one hand covering her face save for her dark eyes, again gesturing at the mirror insistently.

“Right,” Renemarai said slowly. “Ah, you mean of course that this is metaphor. The bargain will bring our salvation, freeing us from our debts. And we won this result through the sword, yes?”

She pulled her thumb from the gilded cross-guard, and it slid back down into the sheath.

Eltaena said nothing, hugging Renemarai from behind tightly.

“I love you,” said the Dreamer. “Please be strong.”

Renemarai just smiled. “Of course, dear. I am always almighty. I brought us this far, did I not?”

===

The elevator finally reached its destination, and the Sky Slicers aboard all let out a quiet sigh of relief to be free from the monotonous ride, only to be delighted by what awaited them.

When the doors opened, the thrilling pulse of deep drums washed over them, a heavy, tribal beat filling the palace created by the Cacophony of Bliss, an elite order of musicians so skilled that it was said the Harlequins envied them. Unlike the ancient and traditional melodies the servants of Cegorach played and sung throughout the Eternal City and many Craftworlds, the Cacophony practiced with instruments of the old Aeldari Empire during the peak of its decadence—tonight showing their mastery of electronic rumbles, ear-splitting pipes, and an immense and ornate crystal organ which had to be painstakingly pieced together and dismantled for every performance at a new locale.

The atrium, no, the entire palace was filled with their music, veering from orgasmic peaks of harmony to soul-shivering trenches of clashing tones. So masterful was their work that even the noisy dialogue of the crowds they played for became part of their performance, as did the sounds of battle when they joined Realspace raids upon soaring Raider skimmers, able to drive even hardened soldiers to tears at the beauty of their own weapons firing amid the paradoxically incoherent yet nerve-quiveringly extravagant symphonies they performed. It is said they never learned any songs, nor did they need to practice together—every performance was unique, a spontaneous eruption of their sheer, raw skill and talent, adapting to their surroundings with the grace of virtuosos in the face of unthinkable interruptions and developments. Even if attacked, they were proudly able to kill with their instruments, if hand-held, or with concealed and improvised weapons for those whose tools of the craft were too unwieldly, to say the least.

Legend held that the current Deacon of Dissonance, Maestro Molari, their leader and ruler, once slew a Brother-Captain of the Solar Hawks and his entire Honor Guard with nothing more than the small, flimsy wooden baton he used to coordinate his musicians, turning their screams and the burning crashes of their bikes into the final instrument to complete his grand symphony, winning Supreme Overlord Vect’s most earnest applause.

But perhaps this was merely hearsay.

There were many such fables whispered throughout High Commorragh’s social circles, and only Vect himself could claim to know the full truth behind them all.

“Hah, what a welcome!” laughed Renemarai, glancing up with gleaming respect for the band of murderous musicians on the terrace overlooking the atrium.

The crowds that had piled into the palace turned and welcomed them as the Sky Slicers pushed into the vast palace, smiling at the slaves they dragged behind them with the eyes of those who admired such a prize, wishing to have it to themselves. There were courtiers and merchants, administrators and warlords, courtesans and seneschals rubbing shoulders together from wall to wall within Syndratta’s palace in the midst of this grand party. Renemarai recognized Archons and Dracons of a hundred lesser Kabals eagerly working to impress the Obsidian Rose’s Trueborn sons and daughters, who often served as the lowest echelons of a Kabal’s dignified envoys.

In fact, as she slipped between dancing throngs of the crowd, her shoulder bumped into one such Archon, who turned to her with an unusual smile on his ancient, scar-pocked face. She paused for just a brief moment, realizing in the haze of the smoky chems and neon glows filling the air the familiarity of his physiognomy: Kelanjo the Cannibal, Master Archon of the Ghastly Fang. He was, in fact, one of the lords she had all-but-robbed with her schemes of swindling swordplay. How strange to ever see him smiling at her again, she thought, but then she dismissed the concern. Naturally an Archon of his low status could not afford to dwell on old grudges, at least not when the lady of the spire had invited them. Even one ugly sneer paid to an honored guest could cost him all prospects of a contract with the Obsidian Rose, if ever he had them. It was far from unusual to see one like him in these High Commorragh parties, as well. Gutter-Kabals like his, barely better than Hellions, had to scrape and scrounge for every scrap to crawl up from their squalor, begging like dogs at the feet of the true masters and mistresses of Commorragh.

She dismissed him with an equal smirk, moving on towards the vast stairs which led to the upper levels of the palace, where she knew Syndratta would be lingering. After all, the lady of the estate was needed at the throne for these simpering fools to slobber on her fine leather boots, was she not?

As Renemarai ascended the stairs with her friends not far behind, she noticed another familiar face—one of the lower Archons of the Black Heart, whom she had also humiliated in one of her little dueling wagers. The Lady Archon gave Renemarai a quick and efficient bow as she passed, showing not even a hint of malice.

Renemarai walked a little faster, cresting the stairs to the terrace and finding Syndratta atop a simple throne forged by hand out of common black steel. It was surprisingly plain, given how opulent the rest of the palace was. There, seated with legs crossed and both hands quaintly resting on her thighs like the picture of propriety, was Lady Syndratta herself, dressed in a beautiful, strapless white silk evening gown which covered none of her back and little of her substantial chest, like she herself was a white rose amid a swelling tide of darkly-dressed and heavily armored warmongers and sycophants. Such was her status that she could host such a grand festivity with little fear for her own life—no need to bear arms, no need to wear armor, no need to even keep visible guards at the ready. No one on the terrace even seemed to belong to the Obsidian Rose Kabal, and many of the elite guests there were in fact geared as if for full-scale war and flanked by retinues of deadly bodyguards and assassins, yet Syndratta lounged in her seat with as much comfort as though she were surrounded by hundreds of her most trusted lieutenants.

Yes, even great Archons of illustrious Kabals had come prepared as if to fight their way out of the entire damn spire if they had to.

But her? She had prepared for nothing but purest pleasure.

That was power. That was respect. That was fear.

Renemarai remembered now why she despised Syndratta so much. Her absence from this disgusting place for the last half-century had been such a pleasant reprieve from this stomach-turning game of bloodthirsty politics.

An annoying part of her heart warned her this arrogant attitude was but a thin mask for envy. She wished to silence it, but the many sides of an Eldar could no more be silenced by one who walked no Path and felt no Thirst than a mon’keigh could be taught to dance.

The Princess gestured to her subordinates with a secret knack forged between the Sky Slicers alone, not even bothering to speak in the now-deafening crescendo of anarchic melodies and crooked harmonies erupting from the performers.

Stay close. Stay silent. Stay vigilant.

Renemarai donned her finest polite smile, entering the proximity of the throne, waiting for Syndratta to pretend to notice them for the first time and feign surprise and delight.

Even though she was prepared, the instant Syndratta deigned to turn her head and lock her eyes upon the Princess sent a chill up her spine and instilled the urge to flee. She was not this nervous with the Mistress of Blades even the first time they met.

With that glance, all the eyes of the courtiers assembled there, chattering of inane nonsense trying to trip each other up and win Syndratta’s favor through humiliation of their peers, turned likewise to Renemarai. Syndratta lifted up a hand, just an open palm of no significant meaning—

The party stopped.

At first, it seemed like time itself had ceased to flow, but quickly it became obvious that the stillness and the silence she felt was not simply the rush of excitement stretching her sense of the moment.

Everything had ceased.

The music, the chatter, the dancing, even the slightest movements of the guests halted.

The entire palace was suddenly suspended in a dense ocean of tension, as if lying in wait.

Waiting for her.

Renemarai advanced, every step of her boots echoing through the dreadful quiet, soon followed by the footfalls of her officers, then the clinking chains of the slaves.

Her eyes scanned the crowd, left to right.

Many of the faces here she recognized as well.

How… odd.

“And so comes our guest of honor!” announced Syndratta with a welcoming gesture. “Forgive us; we began the festivities without you, for it can oft mean days of travel from Sec Maegra to High Commorragh, or even months, all dependent on which passages are open and which have been barred by the Kabals ruling those places. Your swift arrival is most fortunate! We have been expecting you with the utmost anticipation.”

Her words were only half-heard, for Renemarai was occupied counting her enemies among the crowd of staring faces, turning around only to see more of them, not just the ones she passed on her way in, coming up the stairs behind her and her entourage. They did not present an overt obstacle, but the way they clumped together, as if to hold conversation, seemed to subtly seal the way out with their bodies while presenting a perfectly civil appearance.

And a bead of sweat escaped Renemarai’s brow, tickling coldly down her face. No, it was not particularly warm, for the palace was kept chilly enough that even a party like this could not heat it significantly.

“Is everything alright, my dear?” asked Syndratta in that heavy pause. “You seem distracted! Did I not invite you to my home to negotiate a fair bargain for those slaves and that ship you took?”

A dagger the shape of a jest, thrust verbally into Renemarai’s heart.

The Princess of the Sky Slicers composed herself, wiping the single proof of weakness from her brow with her sleeve.

More games from Syndratta. To be expected, really.

All was well.

She turned, and she marched past the staring, smiling masks worn by her enemies. While they were true flesh, they were but masks nonetheless, and beneath those bone-white, ashen-grey, or obsidian-black façades was only a monstrous, soulless being sustained only by the dying, tortured agony of hundreds, if not thousands, every day.

Until at last, she stood at the foot of the steps leading up to Syndratta’s throne, and Renemarai looked up into Syndratta’s coyly grinning face.

“Well? Where are your wares?” asked Syndratta, a note of impatience staining her tone.

Renemarai quickly gestured at the six slaves behind her. “This is merely a sample. There is more than a thousand more of them aboard the Hunter’s Howl which we escorted into your hangars, of course. All Asuryani. All clean and untortured. With spirit stones, no less.”

“You mentioned you wished to sell the Howl as well?” asked Syndratta, tapping her finger on the arm of her throne.

“Indeed. So, let us dispense with the issue of my debts for now, as the Howl should more than cover them. I’m far more interested in what you will pay me for these highly prized captives,” said the Princess, smiling smugly.

“Hm,” Syndratta sounded, standing up and descending like an angel to stand beside Renemarai, gazing down at the chained up officers below. Eshairr looked up into Syndratta’s eyes, and the Mistress of Blades saw something in them that set her to laughter.

“Ahahahahahahaha! So that’s what it was!”

Renemarai blinked, glancing around, puzzled. “What?”

“Ohh, Renemarai, Renemarai, sweet child,” Syndratta giggled, shaking her head pitifully and running her fingers along the Princess’s cheek. “The ship is worth nothing in your hands; it was already promised to me.”

Renemarai’s eyes went wide, head snapping down at Eshairr. “No…”

“Oh, she did not tell you of this?” asked Syndratta, her voice seeming to curl through the air like a slithering tongue against Renemarai’s sensitive ears. She leaned in close, close enough to kiss, lips hanging open with glistening black sumptuousness, offering the barest whisper which seemed to echo through the silent palace.

“My love, she let you win.”

Renemarai stepped back. “No. No, no no. She fought me every step of the way!”

“Certainly. But do you really think she would be so quick to surrender to your last little ploy if she did not know how this would invariably end?” asked the Archon, advancing on Renemarai with slow, powerful steps, her heels clicking on the smooth wraithbone flooring like a splinter rifle being loaded each time she neared.

“What end? What do you mean by that?!” Renemarai shouted, splitting the silence, being pushed back step by step until her back bumped into the crowds of lords and ladies, who did not move for her, not anymore. Now, they were a wall of demons, sneering with their perfect grins at her from all directions.

Leraxi stomped at Syndratta, klaive swinging out into a battle stance.

“Leraxi! Stop!” Renemarai yelled. “Syndratta, what are you talking about?”

“Certainly, she could risk calling your bluff; it’s what I would have done. Of course, that would mean potentially losing everything. Or, she could simply let you have your way of things, let it all play out like the script of a Harlequin festival must be played out to the end, tragic as ever. After all, you did tell her yourself: you always planned to sell the Howl and every last one of them to me,” Syndratta explained, not even glancing at Leraxi’s ominous stature.

“How do you know that?” growled Renemarai.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Syndratta asked, smiling.

“No! I vetted every single recruit; I saw every little Kabal rat coming from miles away! No matter how much information you control, no matter how carefully you disguise them, they can’t escape the prying gaze of a Dreamer like Eltaena!” Renemarai hissed.

Syndratta laughed. “My dear, all the Kabalites I sent to infiltrate your crew were merely to keep you on your toes. I could hardly afford to let my rivals seed you with agents and keep tabs on whatever I sent you off to do for me, now could I?”

The dark-haired Princess scowled, baring just a hint of her pearly teeth. “Then who was your spy?”

Her gaze turned, seeing the Incubus standing there, and she turned paler. “No… Leraxi?”

The Incubus shifted her helmet, peering sidelong at the Princess. “What? I am no pawn of the Kabals,” the warrior said, confused.

And then, a knife was pressed between the plates on her back, the metal sparking against her armor as it was forced straight into her insides.

Shnnk.

“Hghh,” Leraxi groaned, falling to a knee, struggling even just to breathe with a lung pierced, blood bubbling up her throat, soon coughed out into her enclosed and sealed helm, covering her visor in crimson, blind to the world.

And the Shade Runner stepped around the collapsed Incubus, kicking the klaive out of her hand to go sliding across the floor, and then bowing to Syndratta.

“I trust my performance was to your satisfaction, Lady Syndratta?” asked Deadheart.

“Indeed. Well played to the end. Expect a bonus in your reward,” Syndratta replied, running her fingers through her long blue hair with a grin.

Her eyes were as wide as glowing gemstones, and Renemarai’s lips trembled for only a moment of weakness. “Deadheart?”

The Runner shrugged. “Though I doubt it will ease the pain, I set my price as high as your debt… which is quite a fee for anyone’s loyalty in a city like this. What terrible things the promise of a fortune must do to us.”

“WHY?!” Renemarai screeched.

“Because anyone could see the Sky Slicers were on their last legs, Ren. Except for you, I suppose. If you weren’t so convinced by your own fantasies, you would have flown us out of Commorragh decades ago while we still had a few ships left to weather the raids on the way out,” said Deadheart, pulling her mask off and shaking her short, fluffy blonde hair out to look the Princess in the eye before she said the next part: “I tried, Ren. I really did. But do not confuse the matter: this is your fault.”

With that alone, Deadheart simply turned her back, wiped the blood from her dagger, and walked away, vanishing into the crowds.

Renemarai looked to Eltaena like a lost canid. But the fallen Farseer was already flanked by Trueborn Kabalites of the Obsidian Rose, splinter pistols pressed to her neck and side, ready to kill her if she so much as breathed. And a Dreamer’s wild powers could not be wielded subtly, not like the refined and controlled skills of the Seers.

Renemarai stepped back, reeling, unable to even think of what to say. The thousand parts of her heart clashed, fury and despair in equal measure, somehow balanced in a way. It brought clarity of the mind, and she realized what this all truly meant—and turned it upon Syndratta, gritting her teeth as she spat it out with rumbling hate. “I knew you were slime, Syndratta, but I never imagined you would go this far! Crossing a deal?! In front of all these witnesses?! To cast away the worth of your word so brazenly, you must be mad!”

The Archon just smiled, gesturing at the enslaved Morriganites where they knelt in chains. “I sent these Craftworlders in my name. They may not be my underlings, but nonetheless, they acted with my blessings. Had you willingly come here with them, or had you sent at least some manner of payment back, I would certainly make an effort to forgive some of your indiscretions towards me, and we would not be having this conversation. If you had fled them, I would not hold it against you. Even had you simply killed them, I would not feel too bothered about it either. However… of all the things you could have done, you brought them here, tied up in chains, parading my mercenaries around in front of every pair of eyes you could, thinking to leverage them against me. This, yes, this I cannot abide.”

Renemarai paled, and the leering faces surrounding her grew darker, the shadows lengthening upon them as they crinkled in the most fae delight, watching her squirm.

“Yes,” Syndratta continued, eyes narrowing dangerously. “You thought you could ransom someone I hired back to me. You rubbed your pathetic, whining air of superiority all over my palace, mocking me with these poor girls you’ve deprived of even the dignity of clothing. No, no, no. Foolishness.”

“Ransoming is to be expected!” Renemarai yelled. “This is Commorragh! It’s just business!”

“Ah, but there you are wrong!” Syndratta replied, grinning murderously. “If it were just the unfortunate result of a battle, I would be glad to pay the price demanded for the return of my assets. But this? My dear Princess, I never cared about what you owed me. T’was a pittance of a pittance—hardly worthy of keeping the figure in my ledgers. Yet I have not been able to overlook the fact that you ran off, thinking you were above the idea of paying me back. No, I certainly could not let that slide, now could I? You are due no good faith! You violated my trust long ago.”

“Trust?! As I could ever hope for that from any of you scum!” Renemarai howled. “You can’t even trust each other!”

Syndratta raised a single eyebrow. “On the contrary, the Obsidian Rose keeps its pacts and dealings ironclad. We fulfill and uphold them, no matter what. Not even Khaine’s Gate could interrupt our contracts—just ask the seething daemons we slaughtered until we could extract all our vital resources from the realms they invaded. However, for all the effort we give, for all the blood we spill to ensure our success… If anyone betrays us, they will have no forgiveness. They will have no mercy. And before their final end, they will scream to the dying stars in our skies how wrong they were to cross us.”

Renemarai shivered, as if unable to help but imagine herself screaming in just such a manner.

“But listen to me! Perhaps I speak too quickly, hm? Is there anyone here, nay, anyone in all of Commorragh who will stand in your support?”

Syndratta paused, looking left, looking right, searching for a single sympathetic face.

There were none.

“Oh, why, it seems you have earned a multitude of critics, my dear, and a reputation that has made anyone you haven’t insulted or swindled all the less interested in aiding you,” said Syndratta, oozing smugness. “And does anyone here wish to accuse me of dishonesty? Destroy my name and ruin me throughout the entire city for what I have done here? Go right ahead.”

Silence.

Smug, cruel, silence.

The throngs there might have all been at each other’s throats on any other day—but here, now, they had come together.

In a twisted irony, Renemarai had accomplished something even Syndratta might struggle to do.

She had united an entire palace of murderous vipers and hateful tyrants, for all their grudges and prejudices towards each other, for all their desires to conquer and steal from each other, for all their dreams to bring about the most unspeakable agonies upon each other—

They stood as one, purely to spite her.

Hissing like a wild beast, the Princess wrenched a small device from her coat, her crystal communicator. “To Hell with all of you! You think I would just walk in here without contingencies in place?! Yes, ones I never even discussed with that traitor!”

Syndratta held up a hand to halt the Trueborn who slipped into the clearing around the throne, weapons at the ready. “Hold.” The Archon paused to let out a long sigh. “What’s your threat, then?”

Despite her caution, her tone could not have sounded more bored.

Renemarai cackled, her voice, the movements of her body increasingly unsteady. “I can snatch that pretty little ship out of your hands any moment I please, Syndratta. Bombs! Mon’keigh ones, but one can’t always be too discerning in one’s weapons. Enough of them, in all the right places. Hidden, most of them. It won’t just shatter—that whole hangar it is nested in and a chunk of the spire might go with it! I hope your foundations are well-laid!”

Syndratta nodded. “I see. And I presume the detonator is in the hands of your first officer aboard the Chariot? Ensuring your own safety, of course.”

Renemarai grinned, sweating profusely now. “Indeed! And—no, how did you…?”

Syndratta smiled venomously. “You carry quite a number of presumptions, girl.”

“Shut up!” Renemarai hissed. At a mental impulse, the crystal in her hand lit up with energy. “Varanis, prepare the detonator. On my mark…”

But the face that appeared in the crystal was not that of Varanis, her first mate.

No, he was not there.

Her eyes grew wider and wider as she beheld the cold, unfeeling helm of a Trueborn Kabalite, ornate and beautiful.

A familiar one.

A chill up her spine, like silent lightning.

Renemarai looked up from the orb in her palm, turning her head, scanning the crowds—and seeing an identical crystal orb, held in the black-gauntleted fist of a mighty lady Kabalite, her armor decorated with metal roses and thorns.

“W-what?” Renemarai mumbled.

It did not make sense.

There was only one sister comm-crystal paired with this one, and she had given it to Varanis for this scheme. He certainly would not have left the bridge or given it away.

So why was it in the hands of this woman?

She sounded like a confused child. “W-why do you have that?”

The Kabalite looked at Syndratta, and the Mistress of Blades offered the slightest nod.

A signal.

“Surprises, yes, I do so love surprises,” Syndratta smirked. “I prepared one for you as well, Ren. May I call you Ren?”

“No!” yelled Renemarai at Syndratta, petulantly. “Why do you have that!?” she shouted at the Trueborn.

Her answer arrived in silence. Several more Trueborn stepped into the circle, but in their hands was the tangled and knotted, bloody hair of severed heads, their expressions permanently twisted into horrible, blood-dripping rictus.

Aside from the ones who had come aboard the Pike of Vaul, every officer of the Chariot was grasped in their hands.

Even Varanis.

Renemarai let out a hollow, sucking gasp, as if every part of her lungs and muscles rebelled against the idea of taking another breath.

“H-how?” the Princess whined. “That’s not possible. Those are fake! No matter how many spies you might have had in my midst, you couldn’t pull something like this off!”

Syndratta chuckled, shaking her head, reaching out and simply patting her on the shoulder. “Ren, Ren, Ren. My dear Ren. Do you think my Kabal is just for show? All my servants, all my killers, nothing more than mere decorations I leave about my spire to intimidate guests? Did you not wonder why that elevator ride took three whole hours, when if I wished it to, it could arrive from the hangars to the peak of my spire in less than ten minutes?”

Renemarai stared in abject horror, only now beginning to realize three things: first, that this was no elaborate ruse on the part of Syndratta; second, that she had been dancing in the spider’s web from the moment she left the Chariot and ascended this dark tower; and third, that this was truly the end.

“You see, even when it was Aydona’s Sky Slicers that I hired, before you were even born, I always made sure to have a few tricks in case it ever became necessary to… shall we say, remove her and her little independent fleet from the calculus of Commorragh’s politics and subterfuge. As it happens, the Sky Slicers were once the Kabal of the Sliced Sky, a fairly minor one in the grand scheme even if it had quite some prosperity during its peak. Sadly, all things save for Commorragh itself must end, and so too, did that Kabal. Let us speak no further of it; t’was a terribly ugly affair.”

Syndratta gently patted Renemarai on the shoulder, as if comforting her for such a loss. Such mockery.

“But some of its fleet, in fact your very forebears, survived by being away from all the devastation on some ultimately meaningless task, and carried on as best it could, as guns for hire. After a generation or two, your mother, born into this difficult, roving lifestyle, ascended to its ruling throne, and… Ah, I’ll spare you the rest of the history lesson, my dear. You surely know the rest, hm?”

The question was cruel. But the barb was lost on Renemarai, who gazed at the floor, at all the ancient and previous fossils preserved in the wraithbone beneath their feet, trembling gently where she stood.

“But you see, the Kabal’s astral manufactory which built the Tempestuous Chariot and others like it fell into disrepair with the loss of its masters, and it was looted thoroughly by Hellions in the few hours before it crashed back down to Low Commorragh, like flies raping the corpse of a metal eagle on its descent to earth. It was quite the challenge to track down every piece of its stolen machinery and harvest every scrap of encrypted secrets from their broken, half-purged databanks, but… my Squires Obsidian are quite resourceful and especially relentless when I tell them to do something.”

Slowly, Renemarai looked back up at Syndratta. She said nothing. Frozen, as though her sharp wit and enormous ego had simply… collapsed under its own weight.

But Syndratta grinned, for she had plenty to say still.

“Having the master control indices to every system on your ship would have made short work of even your mother’s defenses and all her best efforts to repel boarders; I could hardly expect a miserable failure like yourself and a crew of sycophantic degenerates to put up half as much a fight as her under the same circumstances. Indeed, when faced with Kabalites who need fear no death, your crew hardly held firm for even a moment! Ahahahaha! They mutinied in the blink of an eye, and your first officer did not even have time to think of setting off those bombs before they shot him through the back. Your ship was taken without a single casualty among my troops. How does that feel, Ren?”

“You… you broke your word, you promised we would be welcomed as guests of honor,” said Renemarai, her voice barely a whisper. “You promised negotiations and a bargain to be made.”

Syndratta sighed, sounding exhausted at the feeble retort. “Ren, Ren my dear, you are certainly the guest of honor here. Look! All these lords and ladies, your old friends, have come together to welcome you!”

She gestured with both arms spread wide, twirling once, then twice, showing all the ‘friends.’ Only, now, their smiles were not feigned politeness. They grinned like sharks circling a bloody feast.

“And I do indeed intend to offer you a bargain, my dear. Do not fret!”

Renemarai shivered. “What?”

Syndratta bowed to the Princess with an elegant flourish. “Your most trusted friend is mine. Your officers are all mine, in death. Your ship is now mine. And your prizes, my hirelings, are mine once again. But my love, there is still one thing I have not taken from you. And I intend to have it as well. So this is my offer: a duel. Fitting, yes? If you win, you and anyone who still wishes to follow you are free to go. You can leave. You can seek your own fortune once more on the streets of Commorragh. I’ll forgive your debt. All your enemies will have little choice but to forget their grudges towards you, if they want the service of the Obsidian Rose’s weapon forges. It will be a clean, new beginning. I’ll even provide you with a small stipend, as a fair severance of our relationship.”

Of course, what Syndratta considered a small stipend could most likely purchase an entire new ship, or several of them.

Her heart quickened, and her hand drifted down to the hilt of her long blade. Syndratta thought she would seek the most ironic defeat for her foe, it seemed, by turning her own game back on her. A foolish error, born from the greatest arrogance.

Renemarai had never lost a duel, and that was no exaggeration. She had been tutored by the greatest swordmasters of Commorragh since she was but a child. She had met and overcome all the greatest warriors of the galaxy—even a mace-wielding champion of the Adepta Sororitas, the Celestial Sacrificia, or whatever their name. She never really cared to know what the lumbering, power armor-clad lady apes called themselves—they died too quickly for it to matter, and their tongue was a disgusting, crude mockery of even the lowest language the Eldar spoke. Then there was the dozen Wyches who had tried to ambush and assassinate her in the depths of Commorragh, led by a Hekatrix of course. They were more of a challenge—even an ordinary Wych was said to be equal to a mon’keigh Astartes in his armor, and this proved no exaggeration. But still they fell before her.

And, obviously, she had humbled a few Archons, and many lesser rulers of this city.

Now, it seemed, she would be adding one more to that tally.

“And if I lose?” she asked, strength returning to her limbs, confidence awakening within her heart, quelling all other feelings.

“Then, of course, you will recognize that your freedom has been rescinded; you will accept my collar and recognize me as your mistress forever, or at least till I grow bored of you and pass you off to someone else; you will exist only for my pleasure, or to slake my Thirst; and finally, of course, you will declare the end of the Sky Slicers before the eyes and ears of all present. You will admit your own culpability in this failure, and you will beg for forgiveness from every single lord and lady whom you offended with your puerile games,” said Lady Syndratta, toying with a coil of her wild blue hair. “On your hands and knees.”

Renemarai drew her Void Saber. “So be it.” There was no emotion in her voice or her movements. She concealed her glee, for she wished to surprise the arrogant bitch just as she had done with all the others who thought themselves her better. She looked forward to claiming that proud title of hers, Mistress of Blades. Though it was written and spoken in a different dialect, it held the very same meaning as the epithet of great Qa’leh, the true Mistress of Blades, the ancestral warrioress whose bloody legend and fervent worship long predated the Fall, to whom nearly all Wyches paid due sacrifice before battles in the hopes of emulating just a fraction of her fabulous skill. No matter how rich or powerful Syndratta was, she could not possibly dare to think herself the equal of a Dark Muse, and it was finally time that someone humbled her for it.

Syndratta raised an eyebrow. “What, did you think I’d face you myself? That would be such an unsatisfying climax, don’t you think? Not even with all the handicaps in the world would it be fair.”

The Princess’s eyes grew wide, realizing her folly. Did Syndratta plan to use a Succubus or a Klaivex as her champion? Of course she did. Her wealth was more than sufficient. In such a case, Renemarai would be facing a true challenge, and she could not deny the unease of such an idea. “What, you would challenge a duel and then flee from it? Your dishonor knows no bounds!”

Syndratta laughed aloud. “I have a reputation to uphold! What would I be seen as if I were to bully you like that? No, no, my dear. Believe me. Wyches are right about one thing—a battle is far more entertaining when it is not so one-sided. It will be one of my Kabalites who faces you.”

The Archon snapped her fingers, and an ordinary Kabalite stepped forward, nonetheless a mighty warrior clad in the blackest, ornamented steel, tight to her beautiful figure. However, she was no Trueborn, one who might normally be called upon as a champion to carry the name of the Kabal in such a duel. It was, Renemarai realized, one of the guards that had greeted them at the lift. The very same one she had teased and mocked, judging by the ribbon hanging from her collar.

“Renemarai, allow me to introduce you. This is Kanbani,” said Syndratta. “Kanbani, you remember what I asked of you, yes? If you fail here, I will be most embarrassed.”

The helmeted Kabalite bowed low to the Princess, the two long ribbons of blue silk hanging from her collar dangling loosely. The unspoken threat of horrific consequences did not seem to affect her much, if at all.

Renemarai cackled out loud, unable to suppress her reaction. “What? You’re sending some mere Kabalite to face me?”

This was surely some manner of a bad jest.

Kanbani handed her splinter rifle to one of the Trueborn elites flanking her, and she stepped into the clearing in the middle of the crowds, drawing a long knife sheathed on her hip. It was no special blade, simply cold, blackened metal. It would not stand up to even a single blow from her Void Saber. Nor would that Kabal armor be of any real worth, for that matter. It would just weigh the lowly footsoldier down.

“First blood heralds victory,” declared Syndratta with a dreamy gesture of her arm. “Go.”

This would not even be a real fight. Her mistshield, due to its extensive modifications, provided little protection in close combat due to its force fields being modulated to be especially strong against ranged firepower such as lasers and bolts, but slower movements like those of a sword were allowed to pass through the field to avoid hindering her own attacks. However, the illusory copies of herself that it projected would still provide an enormous advantage in close combat, on top of her already masterful skills.

Kanbani lifted her dagger, pulling it back under her arm, as if to prepare for a lunge.

Renemarai awakened her mistshield with but a thought, and it crackled with a flash into life around her, surrounding her with false images.

Something warm dripped down her cheek.

The Princess reached up and wiped it away, seeing the crimson seep into the mesh of her gauntlets.

Her heart stopped.

Her eyes turned to Kanbani.

The knife that had been in her hand was gone, and her arm was extended as though she had thrown it, slowly returning to the Kabalite’s side.

The stinging of the shallow cut in both Renemarai’s face and ear came to life.

“Wh… at…”

“How disappointing!” Syndratta laughed.

The Kabalite had simply thrown her knife? No, impossible. It was not as though she had dropped her guard—her sword was already drawn and ready to deflect anything so obvious as that.

Yet still the knife had already cut her before she could even register the movement in Kanbani’s arm.

“That—that… cheating! Someone else threw that!” Renemarai shouted, whirling around and glaring at all the regal figures sneering at her. To her horror, she saw that the knife itself was, in fact, held in the digits of a Mandrake, one of the bodyguards in service of the visiting masters and mistresses. The green-eyed, obsidian-skinned, more-beast-than-Eldar man dangled the knife by its handle, grinning impishly at the Princess as he showed her irrefutable proof that the blade had indeed been flung and she had lost.

“No, my dear. You must be confused,” said Syndratta. “Perhaps you did not see her throw her weapon? Hmm… could it be that you have developed a bad habit of relying on that mistshield of yours in duels? Certainly, that should confer quite the advantage, but one might suggest to be very, very careful when activating it, for the same instant that it comes online, it blinds you to your surroundings as its field energizes. One might even say that if a certain Archon had researched your methods, she could simply tell any of her servants to just throw something sharp at you when you turn on your little crutch… tsk, tsk, that would be truly unfortunate, wouldn’t it? To wallow in stagnation for so long that you grow oblivious to your own weaknesses?”

Renemarai listened, feeling more and more ill as she understood the nature of her defeat, and she grabbed the mistshield from her wrist, tearing the straps away and throwing it to the ground. “Lies. Lies! I won’t fall for your deception, Syndratta! Whatever you did, I’ll never accept it!”

The leader of a slaver guild, a young woman of long, flowing black locks wearing a decorated gold mask, picked up the discarded device and turned it over in her hands. “My… do my eyes see that this was once a masterwork, now ruined by some cheap craftsman’s crude touch? A mistshield is a noble and rare thing, but this hardly resembles one anymore! More now a paltry imitation of a Harlequin’s holo-suit, lacking all the artisanry of the real thing… perhaps I am too quick to judge: If it was her intention to pitifully ape a clown, she has admirably succeeded!”

And with those words alone, she paid Renemarai back a hundredfold for the humiliation she had endured at the hands of the Princess.

The entire palace burst into heaving laughter, and after but a moment of wrenching shame nearly shattering her spirit, Renemarai grit her teeth, seething at each and every one of them. She memorized all their faces—for if she did escape this predicament, she intended to see them all dead by her own hand.

“Hahahaha! Well said, Madam Nalorys. Still, if you intend to dispute the result, Renemarai, that is permissible. We’ll repeat the duel, just to avoid the argument altogether,” said Syndratta. “But if the ending is the same… do not expect a third chance.”

The Archon lifted her arm and grinned. “Begin.”

Kanbani stood there, fists raised, slightly crouched, ready to spring into action any second.

But she had not gotten her weapon back.

She was effectively defenseless and as still as a statue carved out of onyx.

Renemarai blinked rapidly, glancing around the opulent palace, searching for hologram projectors, psychic illusionists, traps in the floors and walls, anything that could be used against her. What was Syndratta’s next trick? She had to know—she had to be ready.

Kanbani did nothing, naturally. She was unarmed. Or was she?

Renemarai twitched, stepping forward haltingly, dreading the proximity of this Kanbani.

She could effortlessly best her—right?

Right?

Chuckles and chortles from among the crowds stabbed into her heart, goading her. Taunting her.

Go on, girl. Test your luck.

Show us that vaunted skill you are so proud of.

They spoke to her, sang to her without words, using only their giggles and the shifting of their bodies.

An ocean of derision.

“Is something the matter, Ren?” asked Syndratta. “Go on. Kanbani is clearly taking the defense—press the assault.”

Renemarai shook where she stood, twisting around, desperately searching for some manner of deception. Leraxi was limp on the ground, most likely dead by now. Deadheart was long gone. Eltaena had been forced to take the barrel of a splinter pistol into her mouth, and the Kabalites holding her captive were making her mock-fellate the weapon as tears formed in the fallen Farseer’s eyes. And all the faces of her decapitated officers shot her with glassy stares, hanging from the iron grips of Trueborn murderers.

But slowly, her gaze settled on the ones in chains, gagged and bound, at the edge of the circle of lords—and she looked into Eshairr’s eyes, the only one whose face was not concealed by other bodies standing in the circle.

In all the palace, even among the other officers of Morrigan, only Eshairr did not look upon her with hatred and scorn. There was no ridicule offered. There was only pity.

Her heart skipped.

Why?

Why, of all in this miserable place, would Eshairr show some manner of sympathy, after what she had done to her?

Even if it was only a look of the eye.

Part of her wanted to weep for what she had done to the fire-haired captain.

And another, much louder part, screamed in fury.

To be pitied by a Craftworlder, of all things?

Or to be pitied by her own mother.

Yes, those eyes were much the same as the ones Aydona showed her, long ago.

What had Aydona foreseen for her beloved daughter on the path she chose?

What had Eshairr foreseen for her, when she surrendered?

What was she even doing, now?

She knew how this would end already.

Syndratta had merely dangled the hope of escape just out of her reach to tempt her into this farce.

And now she would be worn down, mocked, humiliated in front of all these tyrants and plutocrats. Her greatest pride, her swordsmanship, would be turned against her. Unraveled. Stamped down into the dirt.

She did not even need to know what the next part of this grand plan was.

Rather, she refused to dignify Syndratta and all these daemons with her cooperation in this elaborate ritual of humiliation.

“Whoever takes me from this spire and delivers me to freedom, you may have this sword,” said Renemarai aloud.

Syndratta’s eyes narrowed. “Hmm? What was that?”

“I said, whoever frees me from this place will have my sword! A Void Saber! A priceless relic!” shouted the Princess, holding her sword aloft, maddened desperation in her voice. “Look! A fortune beyond fortunes! Take it! And help me!”

What was she doing?

She no longer knew anymore. Perhaps she realized, at last, long after it would make much difference, that her life was more precious than her pride.

But she knew these monsters well—their greed had no boundaries, and they would have any number of plans in place for a hasty retreat from this spire.

This would surely work.

Yet, silence descended upon the palace, and no answer came.

Then someone chuckled. Someone else giggled, and a third burst into laughter.

Altogether, the horde of scum resounded with good humor.

“Why on earth do you think any of us would want that sword?” Syndratta asked, grinning. “Have you forgotten what it represents? Why your kind finds it so precious, yet no one else seems to pursue such artifacts? We have seen countless corsairs greater than you wield those blades, and we have watched them one and all perish for it. The Craftworlders call them cursed—whether this is true or not, we have witnessed the ill-fortune that they bring for ourselves. More importantly, those swords are symbols of self-destruction, and this is entirely contrary to our ways. Even the lowliest scabs of Commorragh would refuse to take possession of such a thing, for eternity is our birthright, and taking hold of such a thing is to forget that.”

Maddeningly, the laughter did not cease.

No one stepped forth to save her.

“Do you give up the challenge, then?” asked the lady Archon, strolling right up to Renemarai and stepping behind her, reaching up to gently massage her tense shoulders through her greatcoat. “My dear, don’t you wish to at least try for your freedom?”
The Princess let the sword drop from her hand, clattering on the floor.

And now, at last, she truly had nothing left.

“To Hell with you,” Renemarai hissed, staring straight at the ground.

Only a moment of displeasure crossed Syndratta’s features. But it passed quickly, and if Renemarai had seen the expression that followed the annoyance, she might have picked her sword right back up and tried to defend herself from the black widow tangling her up in her web.

If Renemarai thought that she had denied the Mistress of Blades the full satisfaction of prolonging her shameful defeat into a torturous dissection of her skills, pride, and hope…

She was soon to learn how sorely mistaken that foolish belief was.

A smile, then a kiss at her sensitive ear.

“Very well, my dear. I accept your surrender.”

There was a trill in her voice, a little revelry, as her hands roamed Renemarai’s body, gently pulling her greatcoat off of her shoulders and letting it fall to the ground. Next came the Kabalite plates cradling her bust and hips, joining the crumpled green jacket below. The mesh suit beneath was a self-fusing material, which could be parted and opened for removal by simply dragging a finger along the nearly invisible seam in the back, and Syndratta did this too. Renemarai’s back, smooth and silken fair skin, was revealed from the top of her neck down to the top crease of her backside as the psycho-reactive material lost its tension, divided along the path of her fingertip, and pulled itself apart.

The mesh, too, fell down at Syndratta’s touch, and at last the Princess was truly bare and defenseless before the eyes of them all.

Renemarai offered no resistance.

She felt as though she might vomit, the world spinning around her. Even so, she knew her role in this gruesome little dance. Somehow, a part of her understood all of this—respected it. It was such a perfect plan. There was almost no result that would not please the Mistress of Blades in this conflict, but she had gotten the best possible one effortlessly. From top to bottom, it was as though Syndratta had known all along what would happen if she sent the Morriganites, that this was always going to be end of things. And the Craftworlders had played their part perfectly—even losing the battle seemed to have only served Syndratta’s goals all the more sweetly. This went beyond merely sending Kabal ships to obliterate the Tempestuous Chariot.

This, this was what an Archon did to those who truly pissed her off.

It was beautiful. Ultimate. The sheer artistry of this gambit. Every little piece calculated and set into motion as it needed to be. It put every plan Renemarai had ever envisioned to shame.

She wanted to weep for it, to throw herself on the floor and proclaim the awe she felt for it all. The tears nearly formed before Renemarai realized they would be mistaken for an expression of despair, not exhilaration. So she swallowed them down.
There was no hope of besting the Mistress of Blades. No, there was little point in even asking what the Archon had in mind for her; these consequences were guaranteed to happen no matter how hard Renemarai fought. Even so, the Princess played the only role left for her, now. She asked the question Syndratta awaited, just to move this sordid theater along.

“What will you have of me, mistress?”

===

Gloved hands reached around the chains binding the Morriganites. They were locked with a highly advanced digital seal, the only keys to them likely being in Renemarai’s discarded clothes. Certainly, it might have been faster to go and dig them out of the discarded apparel.

Might have, were these not the cunning skills of Commorragh’s elite at work.

In less than the seconds it would have taken to walk over and rifle through those pockets, the lock was already unlatched, and all the manacles around their wrists and ankles snapped open, detaching from their bodies. This was accomplished with naught more than a basic data manipulation blade, a simple and unsophisticated interfacing device resembling a stiletto dagger, usually used to calibrate the interior machinery of terminals. Of course, with his wealth, he could have brought an omni-key to do the work for him.

But the Archon who had set his mind to this task had risen from the depths of Commorragh, and he did not have an omni-key in his golden days of thievery. It was not about reputation. Only he held himself to this standard, choosing cheap tools for this old hobby of his.

Solely because it was more fun this way.

He reached down and grabbed Eshairr by the arms, helping her to rise to her feet, and without even a word, he already had his coat off, a long, dark leather trench jacket of luxurious value, some might say priceless. He draped it upon the young captain’s shoulders, asking no compensation for the gift of dignity. Eshairr turned, seeing an almost kindly look in his eyes.

“This is no place for free Eldar to go unrobed,” he said. He was handsome, sharp featured, his eyebrows thin but his brow itself strong and angular, his hair long and dark, tied in a ponytail reaching down his back, a long blue tribal tattoo from old days as a Hellion still sported on his cheek. Now lacking his coat, the ghostplate resin armor he wore was fully bare to the air of the palace, along with a number of deadly-looking blades and pistols strapped to him.

“Thank you,” Eshairr said, so surprised that she lacked the respectful gratitude in her movements that she should have displayed. Even so, this did not seem to offend him.

Inspired, perhaps, by this act of kindness, several more Archons stepped forward and handed their own coats to the other naked officers.

“But… why?” asked Eshairr.

The deft-handed Archon who had freed them smiled at her, taking her hand and bringing it up to his lips to kiss it gently. “Such innocent, curious eyes. Violet, the very same color of your Craftworld, though just a little darker—full of life and vigor, quite unlike the cold and unfeeling hearts of your leaders. Lovely, simply lovely. A sight I will cherish for a millennium, yes. The coat belongs on you, for I cannot bear to let anyone else behold your full beauty revealed.”

Eshairr blanched white, pulling her hand away as she recognized the predatory gleam in his eyes. “You dream of torturing me, do you?”

He continued to smile as he responded. “Those who dwell in this city dream of cutting all they meet to pieces—this, I will not deny. However, your physiognomy causes me the least displeasure of all in this room. Rest assured: of all assembled, you will be the last to feel the kiss of my blades.”

She stepped away from him, and watched the others do likewise. If not for the fact that Syndratta had given her blessings to the Morriganites, would these other lords and ladies of the city be so eager to impress? Or would they be bidding over them like an auction this very moment, picking which girl to bring back to their wicked homes and dissect slowly?

“However,” added the Archon quickly, “if you do feel as though you owe me something, Craftworlder locking devices are so rare here… I would relish the opportunity to play with a few again, like in my youth.”

Eshairr shook her head, an open denial of the mere idea.

He gave a disappointed smile. But it was obvious that he never truly expected to be given such a chance—rather, the delicious discomfort of Eshairr at the thought of someone like this breaking into her ship seemed to be all the remuneration he desired for the service and the coat.

“Well, that is a shame. Still, I suppose I at least have the show to look forward to…” he said, subtly redirecting Eshairr’s attention to Renemarai.

Eshairr was not the only one among the Sisters of Morrigan to feel pitched disgust burning in her throat at what she witnessed.

===

Syndratta was gently molesting her now, massaging her light, perky bosoms one second and rubbing the exposed slit between her legs with two soft digits the next.

The shame of it.

She should have killed them all, but there was no point trying to fight anymore.

Everything she could try was already accounted for in Syndratta’s plans—and if she did resist too much, they would not hesitate to execute the only two allies she had left in this world, Eltaena and Leraxi. If Leraxi still lived, even.

So the Princess hardly reacted much at all, except to hold onto the woman behind her, allowing her to work the girl to full arousal without even a whimper of discomfort.

She was supposed to not care anymore.

She thought she had already given in when she gave up her sword.

But every touch of this vile woman, caressing her fertile hips, her young skin, even her lips hurt more agonizingly than any blow she had ever taken in battle.

Moisture gleamed on Syndratta’s fingers as they dove up and down within Renemarai’s womanhood. She pulled them free, holding the digits up to the light for all to behold the unspoken admission of submission.

And then, Syndratta wrapped her lips around them, sucking down every drop she had stolen from the beauty’s quim, sampling the fresh nectar of her most vulnerable and delicate flower.

They were all watching. Every last bitch and bastard whom she had duped and frauded.

Watching her like this.

Naked.

Weak.

Wet.

Something moist and warm slithered against her ear, and Renemarai let out a feeble moan from the spine-tingling pleasure of such a small touch, twisting her head away from Syndratta’s coiling tongue.

She hated how easily her body responded to it.

How it reminded her of those nights spent in the crew quarters of the Chariot.

On her hands and knees, with all the newest recruits.

Letting them carve themselves into her lovely body.

The exhilaration of surrender.

Of feeling the lust of those lowly men, shot into her one after the other, or sprayed senselessly across her back or face.

How their hands would wander over her body after such unions, even openly in view of the rest of the crew.

Syndratta was a loathsome, disgusting creature, a monster beyond age, and yet—

Even if it was only one small part of her, it began to accept Syndratta’s touches as too deft to fully hate.

She was really quite good at this.

Better than all the clumsy gropes of her crewmen.

Better, even, than Eltaena’s dreamy attempts to pleasure her, when such fancies took the chem-crazed girl.

In spite of Syndratta leading the affair, it felt good. Strangely so.

Even if the audience was nothing but hateful beasts.

She looked upon their leering faces, and wondered which one Syndratta would make her ‘apologize’ to first.

Using her whole mouth and throat, most likely.

Such a traitorous part of her began to anticipate it with more than just dread. Such was the curse of being Eldar, truly Eldar with no filters or inhibitions—a thousand parts of her heart could clash at any moment, and all her pride as a corsair and as a woman could be answered and undercut by the overwhelming lust of a whore.

Her mouth watered.

She swallowed.

And behind her, Syndratta’s lips spread into a sinister grin.

She raised a hand, snapping her fingers just once.

“It is at last time for the main event!” she announced.

“Bring it out. And, friends, please… enjoy.”

And from within the crowds, Renemarai saw it come.

The mighty masters and mistresses parted, eager to avoid the touch of such an ugly thing.

Even the scent of it was noxious enough.

A stinking, stumbling ape.

A human.

Naked and ugly.

Dark hair crested his balding scalp, a stubbly beard grown from captivity scratching across his unlovable face.

He was anything but slender and delicate, but underneath his flab there was an underlying musculature that made the creature all the bulkier.

He walked with less balance and grace than an Eldar infant, and he constantly glanced left and right, his dim eyes wide with terror.

No guards escorted him.

He had merely been told to walk, and so he did.

He knew what the price of disobedience would be.

This was what made humans such ideal slaves. They were so attached to their short little lives, even though they were, as a rule, miserable beyond words.

Only after a moment of surprise and disgust did Renemarai finally realize it.

“No,” she said.

Syndratta grabbed her, holding her in place, trapped completely.

“No!” Renemarai yelled.

“You asked for my command, did you not?” asked Syndratta, grinning madly as she whispered into Renemarai’s sharp ear. “Copulate with this thing.”

Renemarai wrestled, but Syndratta had her totally pinned in place.

The mon’keigh stood there, surrounded by laughing aliens, shivering in terror. He must have thought he had been brought out to be slaughtered like so many other of his fellow slaves. But even so, his eyes found the time to linger upon Renemarai’s body, her feminine curves, the rosy nipples cresting her soft breasts, and down to the flushed flesh dripping between her legs.

And he grew hard.

Renemarai’s eyes went wide at the sight.

“We were careful to choose only an impressive one from the pits,” Syndratta explained. “The incense-chems should be taking effect on him already. They only produce a mild buzz for us, but to his species… well, it shall not be long before he forgets his terror entirely and becomes nothing more than a drooling beast. A lowly animal, ehehe, but a gifted one. What do you think of it? Quite big, yes?”

And so it was, large and thick, reaching up well past the odorous fellow’s belly button with its throbbing length, capped by a purple crown. It seemed he was not as slow and dim-witted as most of his species—he must have realized the meaning of the nude woman before him, even if she was an Eldar and he a human. He clearly knew nothing of their language, spoken or motioned, but some things were universal among sapient cultures.

“No! No! Absolutely not!” Renemarai screamed, struggling, attempting to elbow the Mistress of Blades in the side, but she was always one step ahead. How was she possibly so quick and precise even in that impractical white silk dress of hers?
“You can either obey me, or I can hand you to all these wonderful people to find their own entertainment… and I doubt theirs will be of the pleasurable kind,” Syndratta whispered smugly.

Renemarai glanced around, seeing fingers stroking the hilts of swords and knives all throughout the palace, as if gently jerking themselves with anticipation. With Thirst.

“This is ridiculous! This is beneath anyone, even you! Throwing an Eldar to a mon’keigh? Even Commorragh has standards!” Renemarai hissed.

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” asked Syndratta. “Even I would not do this to my enemies. But then, who was it here that decided she preferred the company and the employment of lesser races to that of her own kin? If you enjoy serving them so much, then I would be remiss to deny you the chance to demonstrate your talents in this regard.”

Renemarai froze, terror throbbing through her heart. “Corsairs work for such races often! They’re easily misled and haggled with, and even easier to betray for greater bounty! This isn’t poetic; it’s grotesque!”

“They have. And they are free to do so. But you?” Syndratta asked at a pitched whisper, just loud enough for everyone to hear it, licking Renemarai’s ear again. “You betrayed one of us to do it. You broke your word to an Aeldari in favor of filthy mon’keigh.”

Renemarai’s lips quivered, so profoundly disgusted by the nauseating scent of the creature barely better than a beast before her that she became lost for words.

All she could muster was a feeble protest.

“You can’t.”

“Yes I can.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Ohh, yes I would…”

“This goes against all that our race stands for!” Renemarai howled, eyes burning, nearly weeping.

“On the contrary, my dear. This is justice,” Syndratta giggled.

And with that, she threw the Princess down before the ape.

Renemarai scrambled onto her hands and knees, trying to crawl away—but Syndratta barked out a command in Low Gothic, the language as ugly as the race that spoke it, managing to make the Archon grimace at the guttural crudeness she subjected her own tongue to.

“Take her.”

The human, drunk on the fumy smoke enticing him, hardly needed the order.

He fell upon her with a savage grunt, grabbing the nude corsair by her hips as she clawed the floor helplessly.

No.

Not like this.

She felt him aligning himself, forcing her hips down lower to where they needed to be.

Anything but this.

She felt his crown, heavy and hot, against her rump, brushing roughly over her left cheek—a trail of hot, sticky precome left in its wake.

It was wrong. So, so wrong.

Bestiality was more noble than this.

Surely even this dim-witted mortal could see that?

She glanced over her shoulder at him, eyes wide, hoping to see disgust in his features. Yes, these humans were indoctrinated by their terrible regime to despise all who were not like them—even Eldar, who were so similar in appearance. Certainly, even the most common human male of the dreadful Imperium would regard the idea of mating with an Eldar woman, no matter how beautiful she was, as unspeakably twisted. If he were even slightly disturbed by what he was being forced to do—then she could endure it, for he, at least, would understand her plight.

But instead, she saw him panting, flushed red, eyes glazed over with lust for the round bottom and leaking cunt beckoning traitorously at him.

He was not even looking at her—his eyes were locked to her body, ignoring her pleading face, betraying the debased instincts ruling over him.

How irrational. How pitiful of her. Hoping, dreaming that she might find in this base creature a sympathetic eye, at least a pang of pity in his face, as he was forced to violate her.

Why did he not understand her misery? Was she truly brought so low that even mon’keigh would see her as just an object, not a person? Was he not a slave, a target of the cruelties of the Kabal just like her? Even as foolish as he must have been, clueless of the meaning of their majestic language, surely he saw that she, too, was no less of a victim.

No. There was a smile on his face.

His scent was disgusting, and his greasy fingers smeared their slimy oils over her soft, pale skin as he fought her down.

She could smell his cock, stinking, as it rubbed against her flower—more disgusting than any other part of him, it was a musk worthy of retching, likely unclean as well.

Renemarai thought to vomit.

Until she felt him finally press into her.

She felt herself spread around his slimy girth, felt him push in with these short, rapid thrusts, fighting against the tightness of her quim.

Wrong.

No.

The meat that pierced her was not Eldar.

Not of her own species.

Her fingers clenched into fists, and she let out a whine of desperation.

“Please, no,” Renemarai begged, making use of the crude language his people spoke. To think that what she learned of it in Sec Maegra would be used for such a desperate purpose—

But it meant nothing to him.

He bucked into her, settling his fullness within her, forcing her body to endure the weight, the heat, the incessant throbbing of his mon’keigh prick.

The nausea left her.

There was no point trying to fight it any longer. Even if she killed him, as she could do barehanded, Syndratta would just escalate with something even worse.

He had her.

He was in her to the very root, and she could feel his fat, pent-up testes hot like fire against her.

Her core crackled with lightning, feeling the raw tip of his manhood rub deep within her, just the slight outer ridge of it enough of a bump to put her limbs to shivers when it tickled over her depths.

She felt him shift, in and out, slowly at first, as if savoring the heavenly grip of her tightness around him, and then quickly driven to greater speed, greater force, as if he could not bear the sensations when they were so tantalizingly little.

And a part of her heart whispered, so traitorously—it felt good.

By Gea, foreign as his cock was, it fulfilled its purpose just as well.

“Ah,” she gasped, eyes wide. No, no, no. Not like this. Not in front of these bastards.

She could almost feel them drinking up her despair, feasting on her suffering. And the part of her that shamed her by liking what this hideous ape was doing only exacerbated the rage, the sorrow of the rest of her. To think her pride as a corsair, as an Eldar, as a woman could be so thoroughly undermined; the gaping wound in her heart, her soul, was so terrible and so intense that they did not even have to physically harm her to be glutted by it. An Eldar soul was such a powerful thing, so capable of extreme emotion and sensation far beyond what any mere human could muster, that even small discomfort from an Eldar could be more satisfying to the Thirst than dying agony from a human. And to be not only raped, but despoiled by this lowly being?

Half of the lords and ladies there looked ready to either orgasm or rip each other in half. The rest were older, more refined, better able to control the thrilling impulses born from such a font of suffering, but even they showed excitement in their faces that was quite unlike such ancient things.

And then there was the Morriganites.

The last ones Renemarai wished to look at.

But the grunting hominid plunging into her leaking quim dragged her forward with his clumsy thrusts, and she bent and contorted in front of him, legs spread wide, jaw dropping in shameful sensation, gritting her teeth to force down the moans trying to escape her lungs. She arched her back up on the next swing of his hips, unable to deny the physical, fundamental, animalistic pleasure of it, no matter how much the shame burned in her chest like a lump of molten lead, heavy and painful. Her voluptuous, traitorous body had already surrendered, for the Eldar body was made by the gods to feel the true ecstasy of heaven itself when they engaged with a mate—the same wondrous bliss shared by Isha and Kurnous—and this beautiful ideal was corrupted so easily, turned into a wicked torture. She twisted and turned, unable to fight free of his bucking hips and strong arms, until she found herself twisted almost sideways under him, unable to look anywhere but at the women she had thought to sell into slavery.

There was Azraenn, the Warrior. She watched with a detached glare, disgust at the nature of the torture taking place plain on her face. Munesha was the least expressive of them all, simply watching with her arms crossed beneath her onyx breasts. Tulushi had covered her face with a hand, but between her parted digits, she peeked curiously at the debauched rape. The Bonesinger, Lynekai, had closed her eyes and turned half-away from it, refusing to even watch.

Then there was her old friend, Druzna. When had she recognized her as a friend? Only just now? Was she this desperate? The First Spear looked down at her with a smirk on her beautiful lips, a twinkle in her dark, glossy eyes—she, too, feasted on her anguish. Oh, the satisfaction she must have felt, even beyond the Thirst. Renemarai felt tears singing her eyes, knowing that it was her fault and hers alone that Druzna had turned so totally against her.

And the last that she dared to look upon was that woman.

She almost expected to see the face of her own mother peering down at her, radiating disappointment in her failure of a daughter.

But what she saw was a tear, instead.

A single, lone tear, running down the fire-haired maiden’s face.

Renemarai gaped at it, eyes wide with shock.

She, and she alone, wept for the Princess.

“Ah-ahh,” Renemarai moaned, that momentary surprise interrupted and taken from her by the manhood tearing into her deepest reaches from the snorting man pulling her round, pretty ass down on him.

The pleasure was mounting, swelling in her belly, spreading through her as he plunged into her faster and faster.

“No!” Renemarai shouted aloud, pushing herself up by her arms, glaring up at the ceiling above. “Stop! No more!” she yelled. “Forgive me! Syndratta, spare me!”

Anything but this.

She knew what was coming, and it was unforgivable.

She bounced in the mon’keigh’s lap, her hips wrestling to break free from his incessant humping, but all she accomplished was helping him drive his shaft into her at new, all the more scintillating angles.

“Go on, then, beg,” Syndratta said down to the Princess, planting one of her long heels on Renemarai’s head and forcing her to kiss the floor, grinning down at the desperately twitching and moaning slave.

The room spun around her, a thousand faces of dark glee laughing at her, mocking the bitch who spread her legs for a human.

The shame of it only seemed to make it better. Worse.

She shivered, clawing the floor helplessly, trapped beneath Syndratta’s boot and in the swampy grasp of the human fucking her so roughly, grabbing onto his hands and digging her nails into his flesh as the beast of a man let out a piercing yell. Her voice joined his, shrill and hoarse, a peal of twisted ecstasy—everything became so hazy, her thoughts so light, that she forgot to hate it all.

And she felt it.

Keen as lightning, erupting within her belly.

His seed.

She could feel every single drop.

Shooting into her.

Staining her body forever with the stinking semen of a mon’keigh.

“Nnngh,” Ren grunted, the strength leaving her body as she finally, exhaustedly, ceased her last shred of resistance. The peak she struggled so hard to deny washed through her entire frame, spreading out from her tingling core, until every muscle in her relaxed, and all she felt was the gushing of his essence into her, burning so wrongly. No, rightly.

The voices laughing around her sounded so distant, and for just this one moment, all the shards of her emotions collapsed into agreement: sweet, sweet ecstasy.

She heard Syndratta’s voice, sounding hazy and muffled under the boot. She could not make out the words, nor could she see the movements that gave them context—but she felt the heel grinding into her hair, and she knew well enough what she was saying from that. At last, her boot lifted away, and the Princess was at last able to straighten up.

“Simply pathetic,” Syndratta purred with daggers of superiority in her tone. “To think it only took a few minutes of humping by this savage thing to make you surrender to it… tsk. You truly are a storm of disappointment.”

Renemarai, eyes shut in searing shame, tears running down her flushed face, heard footsteps, a Kabalite nearing. Something metallic was handed to the Lady Archon above. The man inside of her suddenly pulled out, but far too slowly to escape.

He gibbered, babbling prayers and pleas in Low Gothic, crawling away pitifully.

Ptchang.

The sharp noise of a sliver of crystalized poison—carved off of an ammunition core and accelerated by electromagnetic force to hypersonic velocity—rang through the air, and Renemarai opened her eyes, rolling onto her side to see the poor bastard had been lanced through the thigh by the splinter, and he grabbed onto his wound, screaming in pain beyond comprehension. Of the millions of killing poisons designed and utilized by Commorragh, even the most common and cheap pattern was capable of driving a hardened human mind to complete insanity in a matter of minutes. That was the intent, for they needed to suffer the most agony possible to satisfy Drukhari Thirst before they perished. Even the most immediately lethal poisons—Lightbane Extract, Veinsear, Toothshatter Serum, and many others were tailored to still inflict at least one brief instant of especially brutal, mind-rending torment before death.

The slave’s demise was nothing special, however. Compared to the delicious suffering the corsair had just been subjected to, even an expensive and rare poison could only draw out so much of it from such a dim, faint-burning soul. He died swiftly, his heart giving out long before whatever venom coursed through his blood could totally dissolve it and his other organs. Nobody made much of a fuss. There were millions more slaves they could turn to for their needs.

But Renemarai watched the face of this mon’keigh, the terror in his expression, as he looked upon her tear-stricken features and—his voice cracked, unable to speak, but she could still read his lips.

“Forgive me,” he tried to say, gargling his last wet breath before he fell limp.

The moisture running from her eyes redoubled, hot and wet, burning her cheeks.

What right did a lowly creature like him, barely better than an animal, have to apologize like that after what he did to her? Did he really think he could clear his conscience so easily?

What good was this to her?

She stirred with fury like that of the sun, ready to hurl curses upon him were he not already dead.

And a quiet part of her, the darkest, most honest and most suppressed shadow within her heart, asked why she thought herself so much better than this human. He had been dosed with chems, prodded and most likely tortured to do this for days as part of Syndratta’s plans. She, herself, was like him: merely a toy to the Mistress of Blades. Both slaves to their instincts, both driven to the edge, both trapped in a game that only ended one way.

This nameless human was more like her than anyone would ever know.

What a terrible thing the Eldar heart was, in its full, complicated, paradoxical and contradictory nature.

For now she grieved for mon’keigh, of all things in this wretched galaxy, when she had butchered countless of his kind by the lances of the Chariot and by the blade, thinking nothing of it. When he had violated her more deeply than the most profound poem could ever describe. When she should have been glad to see him die in such misery. Indeed, part of her was elated.

But part of her mourned nonetheless.

Syndratta giggled, knowing precisely what awful emotions ran through the girl by the way she stared at the corpse and the peculiar twinge of mourning that she tasted from Renemarai’s pain. “Really? Pity for that animal? Truly, I overestimated you greatly, my dear. To think you would break in just one duel and just one rape. Just how coddled were you, really?” asked the Archon, shrugging and shaking her head down at the Princess.

“Well, I suppose it is time for the grand finale of this little story. A terrible shame the main actress has proven so inept at her role… Ah, try not to underwhelm with your dying pains, would you dear? If you could last just for one minute of sweet, delicious pain, I promise I won’t have you resurrected and handed off to every lord who wants a piece of you as a memento.”

And then she raised the pistol in her hand, aligning the sights with Renemarai.

The Princess looked up slowly, weakly, looking at the gun with wide eyes.

So this was how it ended.

“Mother, I’m sorry,” Renemarai whispered.

Syndratta dragged the trigger back, bit by bit, relishing the sweet, invigorating despair that swelled from the girl’s soul, carefully harvested with every moment of bitter anticipation.

All eyes were on them.

For a moment, the entire palace—nay, the whole of the Eternal City—seemed to halt, not even a breath stirring in the dark calm before the storm of death.

And then—

Ptchang.

===

The sliver of venom shattered harmlessly on the ceiling, twinkling shards of the narrow splinter drifting back down to the floor.

Syndratta glanced down at the hand which had seized her arm, then followed the arm it belonged to with her eyes till she came upon the face of the one responsible for pulling the gun away from her target.

Fire-haired Eshairr stared into her eyes, jaw squarely set, determined and resolute.

“I must humbly ask that you spare her life,” said the young captain.

“E-Eshairr, no!” Druzna hissed, but she knew best of all that directly involving herself in the faux pas her leader had just committed would only worsen the social indignity—and incur more of Syndratta’s wrath.

Syndratta, however, merely smiled, and this sent a chill up Druzna’s spine.

Had she predicted this reaction from the captain? No, deliberately baited it?

If so, then Eshairr had walked right into the trap.

“Oh? I see,” Syndratta said. “You wish the satisfaction of killing her for yourself, then? I suppose that is fair. After all, you are the one who worked so hard to bring her here.”

She spun the pistol in her hand and offered it to Eshairr grip-first, running her other hand up through her long, luxurious blue locks with dismissive airs.

Eshairr took the weapon, glanced at it, then discarded it behind her, spurring a few chuckles from among the crowd at such a careless, yet bold move.

“No. Rather, I ask to take her into my custody. Her subordinates as well,” declared Eshairr. “I am willing to bargain for a fair price.”

Syndratta rubbed her chin, pacing back towards her throne, making a show of considering the offer. “Hmm. I doubt you have anything left of value enough to pay for these new slaves of mine—I already own your ship by rights.”

Eshairr gestured at her companions. “Is our service to your name worth so little, then? We have not even discussed payment for our success in bringing them here.”

Syndratta turned back to face the captain with a gleam of delight in her eyes. Daring, indeed, to assume and then assert, before the eyes of all present, that they were owed something that had not been promised to them. But it was also respectable, in its own way.

A little bit of ambition was a good and admirable thing, in Commorragh.

She raised one of her hands, pointing back at Eshairr. “Payment, yes. Very well. I will admit you have pleased me so far, and as a great and generous patroness, I go to some lengths to reward worthy service. You may have the false Incubus and the fallen Farseer, and any others of her crew lingering still—I have no use in mind for them.”

Eshairr glanced at Leraxi, still lying in a pool of her own blood, and then over at Eltaena, trapped as before. “I will take them—but I want Renemarai as well.”

Syndratta sighed, glancing around the room with exaggerated dissatisfaction. “My dear, you can’t just stroll into a long-awaited execution like this and demand we release our prey. Imagine leaving all these peers of mine unsated—there will be Hell to pay.”

Eshairr looked left, then right, calmly regarding the masses. “You are all resourceful—I trust that you can find other sources of the bloodshed that sustains your kind.”

Syndratta raised an eyebrow, leaning in closer. “An odd thing for a Craftworlder to say. It seems you understand the nature of our city, yet what difference does it make? If she is given mercy, others will have to die in her place. Possibly many more… so why are you trying to save this filthy wench?”

“Because if she were to die, Fleetmistress Aydona would be heartbroken,” answered Eshairr, calm, but firm.

“You stupid child!” Renemarai whined from the floor, like a woman shattered both physically and emotionally, limp and crying like a broken doll. “I do not desire your protection! I welcome death, arms wide. I wish it all to end! Have you not seen me humiliated enough, Craftworlder?!”

“BE QUIET!” Eshairr shouted down at her with open anger, booming voice projected throughout the entirety of the palace, and Renemarai shut up, stunned into silence.

Syndratta grinned with sinister delight. “I understand, but what you ask is simply not possible. So sorry, Eshairr, my dear.”

The Archon strutted past the captain, moving to end the matter swiftly.

Only for her head to be turned with the loud clap of an open hand against it.

Syndratta paused mid-step, completely motionless, eyes staring into infinity—as though she simply could not comprehend what had just been done to her, as though she lacked the words, the instincts necessary to respond. As though a fury so great it was incomprehensible to all present had been unleashed within her soul, and a thousand scenarios of instantaneous, vicious vengeance played through her mind in an instant.

The crowd of lords and ladies quivered, rumbling with footfalls and hissed commands to their underlings as they retreated, the circle widening, as though concerned their mere proximity could spur Lady Syndratta’s wrath against them, as well. In particular, the Archon who had freed Eshairr and clothed her, once standing proudly at the edge, had already vanished, racing along with his retinue for the lifts, cursing under his breath—for even though he was not the offender, he had enabled her, and in so doing he had made himself a target as well.

“If there must be a death here, today, then there are righteous ways of bringing it,” Eshairr announced. “I challenge you to a duel beneath the eyes of Khaine, Lady Syndratta.”

Syndratta’s eyes swiveled in her skull without any other part of her body moving in the slightest, narrowing in on Eshairr’s beautiful visage. A small, dark smile creased her black-painted lips, and all that anger seemed to just melt away, replaced by feline interest.

Perhaps this, too, was part of her plan. How could anyone ever know otherwise?

“A duel before Khaine? A cute but apt metaphor, fitting of a Craftworlder like yourself. You mean, of course, that it will only end when Khaine would declare it ended—with the death of one or both the participants,” murmured the Mistress of Blades cordially. “Hmm… and the wager, then?”

Naturally, such a gamble would have to be greatly skewed in favor of Syndratta, or else she would never risk the prize already owned.

“The freedom of all aboard my ship, against Renemarai’s freedom,” declared Eshairr fearlessly.

Syndratta glanced over at the other officers of the Howl, seeing in their faces and bodies a mix of surprise and dread to be used as pieces of a bet. Her smile widened just a little. “Acceptable terms, but of course, this would be hardly entertaining if I were to participate myself. I choose a champion, who shall be Kanbani. You, as well, are free to do so.”

Azraenn stepped forward, without a doubt the best suited among them to this manner of confrontation. Her loyalty could never be questioned, for even when selfishly offered up as a sacrifice, she did not refuse to fight. However, deep within her cold and warlike exterior, the Aspect Warrior could not deny it: an Exarch should have been standing here, offering themselves as substitute duelist, not her.

Eshairr looked to Azraenn, to all the others, recognizing in an instant how they must have felt, then shook her head and smiled. “This is my battle. Fear not, sisters.”

Azraenn tried to step forward more insistently, opening her mouth to speak, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her. She turned, seeing Lynekai’s face, who offered a strong nod. Faith. The Seer had faith, and in her wordless movements, she asked the others to share it with her.

“And what weapon will you use, hmm? I should certainly hope you do not plan to fight barehanded…” said Syndratta, sneering sadistically as she petted Eshairr on the head like a child.

Eshairr disregarded the insulting gesture and walked over, stomping the handle of the Void Saber and sending it flipping up into her open hand. “This will suffice.”

Hushed whispers of surprise ran through the masses, a Mandrake rather loudly noting that she must be mad to claim such a cursed thing for herself. The irony was palpable.

Syndratta held up a hand, silencing her guests. “Kanbani, are you prepared?”

The Kabalite stepped forward, drawing the dagger from her sheath—having apparently retrieved it since the duel with Renemarai. She adopted the same crouched knife-fighting stance as she had used before. In response, Eshairr took up a simple swordsman’s stance, blade vertical in front of her as a guard, her body turned sideways to present a minimal target.

“Water the Ebon Rose with your blood,” declared the Archon, and the duel commenced.

Kanbani rushed at Eshairr, crossing the space between them in an instant—

Blazing lightning flew at her in spiraling red death.

She stopped the hurled sword with the blade of her dagger, even the dark, mighty steel it was forged of deeply wounded by the edge of the Void Saber, which bounced and flipped high into the air, its wraithbone blade softly ringing as it rose up and fell back down, embedding itself into the floor and standing tall.

Eshairr walked over and took the handle, drawing the sword forth from the ground, the barrel of the splinter pistol in her other hand smoking with leftover fumes of poison mist.

Kanbani staggered, lined with purple splinters from leg to collar, dagger falling from her hand as she collapsed to a knee, strength leaving her frame.

“What?” asked one of the visiting Trueborn of the Broken Sigil. He was not alone in his astonishment, for many eyes had been rightfully drawn to the dazzling and brilliant crimson flare of the flying saber—and had missed the rest of the action, as quick and decisive as it had been.

Syndratta’s eyes, however, were among those that had gone undeceived.

Eshairr threw the Void Saber as Kanbani rushed her.

It was clearly no act of desperation, but a considered move. The flash of the sword as it spun through the air blinded most, including the Kabalite. In that singular instant, the duel was decided.

Eshairr dove for the pistol she had left on the floor—not an indignant discard, but a keen-minded preparation for what was to come—in that exact moment of distraction, and she slaughtered her opponent with a dozen needles of crystalline doom.

Without even a moment’s hesitation, the Mariner-Captain was already up and strolling past Kanbani’s frozen body, which had yet to even realize it was dead where it stood, just in time for the Void Saber to land, for her to take.

The Mistress of Blades felt a quickening of her own heart, an excitement which she had not felt in many years. Oh, the shame of it, even though this was the result she was most interested to see. “Exquisite. I would almost call that… masterful,” Syndratta said, clapping modestly, even as her soul erupted with unbearable chagrin.

The other lords and ladies remained confused, but joined in the applause. The agony burning out of Kanbani as she perished was indeed satisfying, and Commorites were almost as good as any other Eldar in this regard. But the embarrassment Syndratta felt at having suffered this loss was especially delicious—perhaps it was an even more potent flavor of suffering than the tortured deaths of a hundred pure Craftworlders combined. Yet, to fully embrace the rush of exhilaration as their Thirsts were drowned in this divine suffering from her ancient and twisted soul would also draw the ire of their host with disastrous consequences, so they were forced to stiffly clap, rather than roar with heaving laughter and mockery as they might have wished.

Kanbani gasped, unable to move a muscle as the torment of all that poison rushed through her veins, and even her body trained to tolerate and resist many common venom-strains of Commorragh could not endure it. Syndratta walked up to her and ripped the helmet off of her, revealing her beautiful grey skin, her face that was a reflection of Syndratta’s own physiognomy, just slightly softer. Short white hair hung down to her chin, as beautiful as moonlight. It was by this pretty hair that she was painfully seized by Syndratta, who pulled her head back so she could look into the eyes of her daughter from above, ominous shadows spreading across the gaunt and beautiful face of her mistress.

“M… Mother, forgive me,” Kanbani wheezed breathlessly.

“When you’re done regenerating, I will personally see to your punishment,” said the Mistress of Blades with a cold, cruel glare.

“As you w-wish…” Kanbani whimpered, eyes rolling back in her skull as the agony swelled with every beat of her heart, losing her mind to the pain.

Syndratta flung the failure down on the ground, every single venom-splinter being forced deeper into her body, poisoned blood slowly pooling around her.

“Take the whore and go,” Syndratta snapped at Eshairr. “We will talk… later.”

Eshairr dropped the pistol and the sword like they were annoyances, then signaled the other Morriganites. Druzna and Azraenn picked up the limp and helpless Leraxi, while Lynekai went straight to the Kabalites holding and groping the beleaguered Void Dreamer.

As the ancient elder approached, no hostility in her body, the duo of Trueborn who had tormented Eltaena chuckled at her.

“Oh, you want this chem-slut?” asked one of them with a chortle of amusement.

“Ask nicely for her, now, Craftworlder, or maybe one of our fingers will slip and ventilate this psyker bitch,” growled the other one, shoving his pistol so hard into Eltaena’s side that the fallen Farseer let out a cry of pain as the metal barrel dug into her ribs.

Lynekai had not been looking at them. Her eyes had been on Eltaena, who looked weak and dizzy from the torment and the intense dread and emotion of what had taken place. But now her ancient irises, silver like her hair, turned to them.

There was no anger in her face, nor hostility in her body wrapped up in some slaver’s coat. She simply stared through the lenses of their helmets, eerie silence growing between them even as the crowds chattered quietly all around about the disastrous result of the duel and the ramifications it would have for Syndratta and her daughter. The mocking jeers they had given her faded into the past.

And then both Trueborn released her to Lynekai without further goad or taunt, quietly withdrawing into the crowds.

Munesha came over, glancing at Lynekai’s face, but she simply smiled over at the former Exodite as she helped to shoulder the frail Dreamer.

“Did you say something to them?” asked Munesha, curious and amazed.

“No,” Lynekai answered.

“Then why did they flee?”

Lynekai smiled as they made their way through the dark masses, heading for the exit. “I may not be a native of this city, but I know Eldar. Deny our kin their petty games, offer them no foothold in your mind, and you would be surprised how quickly they grow bored and run off to find new entertainment.”

Munesha glanced at the leering faces of the elite watching them go, and she wondered to herself, would that really be enough to safeguard them from the predations of these wicked masters?

And at the center of the clearing, the last of the Sky Slicers was met by Eshairr’s face looking down at her, an arm offered to the weary woman clutching herself on the floor.

“Come, Renemarai,” said Eshairr, offering a smile, shining like the sun. “It is time we left.”

Renemarai hesitated. She was stained. Broken. Ruined. She had nothing left, and she was nothing now.

“Leave me,” said Renemarai, looking down at the floor.

Eshairr frowned. “So be it, then.”

The captain’s feet stepped around Ren, and she let out a sigh of relief. She could simply die here—and it would be done with.

But then hands wrapped around her torso, and the Princess felt herself become as light as air as Eshairr swung her up and lifted her on her shoulders.

And before the eyes of all present, when Renemarai could go no further and suffer no more, Eshairr carried her onward, home.

Chapter Text

==Chapter V Prelude: The Call of Khaine==

Azraenn froze mid-step on the streets, looking up at the immense white bust of Isha carved into the side of one of the Towers of Honor. It had overlooked the inhabitants of the city for eons with a mysterious face that seemed to reflect warmth and love some days, and instead a gut-wrenching sorrow on others. It was a curious thing, and Azraenn admired the work of the Artisans who had so painstakingly cut that marble to achieve this perfection.

But today, there was a different thing on her face.

Paint.

Runes.

“Bitch of Kurnous.”

Azraenn dropped her bag of poet’s tools, one of the inkwells shattering within and ruining its interior with fresh red washing through it.

The other women stopped, noticing what Azraenn looked at—and likewise becoming stunned, gaping at the vandalism.

Frozen in horror.

The sacrilege. The shame of it.

Some were driven to tears.

Others… burned with hatred and fury.

But Azraenn remained afraid, for she knew who had done this unspeakable crime.

Her sister.

She raced down the streets, driven by instinct, hurrying to the steps of the small temple.

The Shrine of Asuryan.

A place that most simply ignored.

An annoyance, a nagging reminder of a time before the Yearning, long abandoned, yet none could bring themselves to outright destroy it.

Until one woman, in a fit of what Morrigan’s people had called either foolishness or madness, had come and taken up those halls, lit those candles, and began once more to hold sermon within it.

Azraenn’s eyes went wide as she saw her standing outside the shrine, preaching to the streets with a sacred tome in one hand.

Her Priestess robes were stained with paint. The same color and, likely, the very same composition as what had defaced Isha’s icon. The daft woman had not even bothered to dispose of the evidence of her misdeeds?

“Eallari!” shouted Azraenn, running up to her.

Fair Eallari turned and waved with a smile, short, dark-haired, with streaks of pink running through her thick strands—a defiantly feminine choice, lacking in the elegant, sometimes stiff pragmatism so favored by the women of Morrigan and its heavily martial society. To call it out of fashion was understatement. But the girl had never truly cared for fitting in, despite being centuries older than Azraenn, born from a much earlier breeding cycle. Their mother was the same, but the difficulties of mating with the same man each breeding cycle were well-known on Morrigan. As such, the majority of so-called “sisters” were only half so much the case, and those who happened to have full blooded siblings were seen as oddities as rare as natural twins.

“Welcome, Raen!” Eallari exclaimed, performing a graceful twirl where she stood and then grabbing her sister for a close hug before Azraenn could escape her clutches. “Have you seen my great accomplishment?”

“Eallari, you mustn’t have done this!” Azraenn hissed, finally breaking free of the embrace only to glance down and see how her own Poet smock had been absolutely ruined by the paint smeared between them. “For the love of Lileath! Do you have any idea what you have done?”

“I would prefer to have the love of Kurnous, for he was truly a magnificent god who knew what he wanted and claimed it without hesitation,” Eallari said, radiating irritating airs that could drive a Seer to spit on her. “Lileath was a wretched little girl who nearly spelled the doom of the Eldar race out of petty jealousy! And we are to worship her over Asuryan, who saved us all from Lileath’s schemes?”

“I am not here to debate religion with you!” Azraenn hissed under her breath, glancing around frantically. “If you apologize now, the consequences may be lesser…”

Eallari turned to the crowded streets of pedestrians, most of whom were simply going about their days. “Apologize? Hah! For what? I should be proud, for I defaced the great image of Isha in this city! Yes, for Isha was indeed the mongrel-woman who eagerly spread her legs for Kurnous, stealing her own daughter’s promised husband! Gea was a whore, whose sole purpose was to service men greater than herself! Lileath was a manless, weepy little virgin, and Morai-Heg? A miserable hag who gave birth to monsters, Banshees, terrible things which tormented and slaughtered us! And indeed, only a blind mother could love such wretched creatures!”

“What are you saying?!” Azraenn yelled, horrified. Her reaction was shared by more than a few of the passerby, most of whom hurried away shaking their heads, pitying the Priestess.

“We must worship others!” Eallari declared proudly. “None of our divinities are perfect—no matter how much we wish them to be. The pantheon we once bowed to was a thing of balance, weighing what was good and what was not carefully, a god or a goddess for any occasion. What have we so foolishly done by excising the gods from our world? We have crippled ourselves spiritually! We are half a people, paying worship to half a pantheon! And in our arrogance, we sought to forget the failings of the few we have left!”

Azraenn stared, eyes wide. “Sister, you are overstepping! You are a Priestess of Asuryan! You have no right to preach of other gods that way!”

Eallari smiled. “I am not a Priestess of Asuryan. I am a Priestess of the Forgotten, of all that we have so wrongly abandoned. Asuryan. Kaela Mensha Khaine. Hoec. Kurnous. Vaul. Cegorach. Even Ynnead has a place in my shrine. But I have no choice; I must inhabit this broken temple, take up these ancient tomes, and wear the dusty old robes of the King, for all other temples to these great gods were destroyed long ago. A sin that we must atone for, in due time.”

“Eallari!” Azraenn yelled, grabbing her sister by the arm. “Come with me. We shall go to the Seers and explain what you meant to do; they will arrange for an atonement ceremony. The Artisans who built the icon of Isha shall forgive you, and soon so will the public you offended with your impiety.”

“Raen, I do not expect you or anyone else to understand now. I know this must seem as madness to you, but I shall not apologize,” said Eallari. “However, it is our Craftworld that is mad. Yes, we were all driven mad long ago. But I know what the cure for this madness is, for I have felt it myself in the arms of a man.”

Azraenn paused, struggling even now to find common ground with her eccentric elder sister, and failing, to her endless dismay. This, now, was an even more disturbing revelation. “Sister… there has not been a breeding cycle for so long—who have you lain with? How? You know that is forbidden!”

At that, Eallari offered a bright grin, as though invincibly proud of her crimes. “The war, Raen. When I fell to the swords of the abominable knights of Tzeentch, it was a corsair of the Azure Reavers who saved me and carried me to safety. A man, a wonderful, handsome, proud, avaricious, and sometimes cruel man—who nursed me to health in his very own quarters, as there was no room for me elsewhere. You asked me once why I did not return with the rest of the Craftworld’s detachment, why I was not home for so many years. It is because I loved him and gave to him all that I was, and together we brought life into this universe. Oh, the beauty of it, Raen, the glory and the sweet, cloying joy…”

Azraenn released her sister, recoiling as though she had been struck across the face. “Eallari, no!”

The breeding cycles—the name for the rare handful of years that Morrigan lowered its guard and sought out men, loathsome men, of their own race to permit reproduction—were not a thing of love and romance, respect and union, but oft a grim, cold, mechanical affair. And this was the intent, for what Morrigan’s leaders feared most was the Yearning driving them to animalistic depravity, which could very well happen to any number of women during a breeding cycle if the Seers did not carefully monitor them. The women who participated were separated from the rest of Morrigan, isolated with only their chosen mate, and observed carefully whenever they emerged from this cloistered life to spend time with nature or mingle with fellow participants for signs of the seeds of corruption. And once they had created progeny, these mothers were made to perform many rituals of purification to cleanse their bodies, minds, and hearts of the experience before they were allowed to return.

For someone to do as Eallari had, then, to take a mate among men and produce a child in secret, unsanctioned, was to risk total social ostracism—to have flouted all the laws and customs of Morrigan and then to proudly boast of it could not be forgiven. She would be shamed, harassed, argued with, all but exiled for what she had done.

“Raen, I pray that you will one day come to know the bliss that I have known, and that Morrigan as a whole will one day see that to condemn all men for the mistakes of a few was a terrible error for which we have been paying the price so, so long. But it is not too late for us. We can stop this wretched torment we have inflicted on ourselves and walk the true Path of Love once more!” Eallari declared. “We must open our doors and hearts to men, reunite our sundered people! For we are indeed only half of a whole without them. We are a race of love, Raen. An ineffable miracle between man and woman is what spawned us! We were never meant for this perpetual, lonely battle our Autarchs demand against the wickedness within and without our walls.”

Azraenn stepped back again, staring at her own flesh and blood as though she were a daemon.

The worship of the gods was one matter—and it could be dealt with to a reasonable extent. There was room for debate, even if it might cause many heated arguments with the other Priestesses and the more devout of their kinswomen. It was not a total madness to suggest restoring a small cult of worship of the rest of the pantheon, though Eallari’s extreme methods in advocating for it were certainly unacceptable.

But this?

What Eallari preached was the certain damnation of all the souls that lived in its halls, to embrace the corrupting influence of Seminoth’s malediction and throw all caution, all control to the wind. For the Yearning was so powerful that even brief contact with men could cause a failure of one’s inhibitions. The idea of filling their world with men could only be taken as a suggestion for utter self-destruction and a long, slow slide to Chaos.

With Azraenn’s look of utter disgust, Eallari’s confidence faded. She looked down, a faint melancholy in her eyes. “Ah. I am not surprised, but how could I have prepared myself to see that face of yours, Raen? I can survive without the forgiveness of Morrigan, but this anguish of rejection is a wretched one, indeed.”

“Your child—it’s a boy, isn’t it?” asked Azraenn, lips quivering. “That’s why you want men to return.”

Eallari smiled softly, more to herself than to anyone. “Would it soothe your heart if it were indeed? Grant you an excuse to justify the things I have said as the ravings of a lonely mother? No, Raen. She is a girl. I could have brought her here. But I did not wish for her to suffer as I have suffered. As you all suffer even now. She will be happier with her father.”

“Happier, raised by pirates?! On some ship destined to be destroyed in any number of conflicts driven by greed and aimless ambition?!” Azraenn yelled. “Listen to yourself!”

“It is not so terrible,” answered Eallari quietly. “Many Coteries lead lives not too different from our own. Perhaps their freedom to become whatever they wish and wander the stars is, in fact, an even greater joy than our own security and stability…”

“Why even come back?!” Azraenn screamed. “Just to stir up strife? Anger everyone, shame yourself, our mother, and me?! If you hate our way of life so much, then go! Take the Path of Exile! Go be with your man and daughter, then!”

Eallari smiled once more, though pain was clear on her beautiful features. “Your words are a sharp blade, Sister. You would make an excellent Priestess. I would even fear for the livelihood of High Priestess Ptumea if you walked such a Path, for her lasting tenure would likely be cut short by your rise to greatness. Had I even a fraction of your talent, perhaps I would not have hurt you today. Perhaps I could forge a shrine worthy of Asuryan and his fellows. Perhaps I could even save this world. Alas.”

The young Priestess paused, once more turning her gaze to the floor. “I am not a great orator. What few talents I possess could be called useless trivialities. But even so, I cannot bear to live knowing that you, my blood, and all this world shall simply continue stumbling in the darkness, blinded by hate, fear, and millenia of misguided dogma. This way of life, it harkens of the mon’keigh. I can only pray that what I seek to teach is heard by just a few others… for then the seeds I have sown may grow into a sturdy tree and bear fruit, far into the future.”

===

How many decades had passed?

The icon of Isha had been cleansed of the vandalism long, long ago. The people of the Towers of Honor went about their daily lives without much thought at all paid to the lonely little temple buried deep in the residential district.

But when they walked past it, none dared gaze upon it or the single madwoman who inhabited it. When she came out to preach to the pedestrians, none listened. When she walked among them and offered tomes of worship painstakingly scribed by hand, for none would aid her in her attempts to preserve and expand on the religion she practiced, those tomes were summarily dumped in the nearest wastebins. She was untouchable, to them. Most voiced a hope that the wayward Priestess would change her ways once she had been shunned enough. Some, though, thought her already unforgivable, and hoped to see her exiled forever. A few even advocated for her Path to be changed by force, for her own welfare—for such power was indeed held by the Seers, though only used in the most dire of circumstances.

How many Healers had ventured from across the worldvessel hoping to save Eallari from her lunacy? How many had left the hallowed eaves of that place in shame, shaking their heads, themselves broken long before they could break the will of the obstinate, impetuous girl within?

They must have thought it was actual insanity that drove her, something familiar to them, something which could be cured. They did come before her with the noblest of intentions. But it was not a wound of the mind that compelled her to follow this terrible Path. On the contrary, it was certainty born from having known joy and wholeness far superior to that of anything the Craftworld could offer its people. And so, when those Healers came and joined minds with her in hopes of mending her soul with their powers, they came to realize something dreadful—that they were the ones in need of healing, not her.

And so they fled the Shrine of Asuryan, for all their magnificent powers humbled by the one and only Priestess of Morrigan who still knelt before his wisdom and grace.

Only the Harlequins dared visit her and—as Azraenn heard from others—threw festivals in her Shrine, bedecking the Priestess in holy robes brought from other Craftworlds, gifting her sacred relics and helping rebuild the crumbling edifice. The Harlequins laughed at the stigma surrounding the Priestess and mocked the people of Morrigan with songs and dances that called deep chills into their hearts, unveiling the wickedness and hypocrisy that none wished to see, speaking the truth—as ever they did, in the form of a joke. Rumor had it that the High Priestess and her many apostles, an empire of faith built upon the goddesses which stood almost totally unchallenged on Morrigan, were livid at their insulting jeers, and tried to expel them with every ounce of clout they held. Nothing came of it, of course, for the Troupe vanished long before the High Council of Morrigan could convene to address the social unrest they stirred, their work complete for the time being. But their visits to Morrigan were rare, to say the least, and they stayed for such a short time, and then Eallari was alone again.

If only she had known…

When the Seer walked into her apartment, finding Azraenn meditating, she knew at once that something was terribly wrong. The hooded mystic, old and wise, gazed down upon the Poet with eyes of distant melancholy, and Azraenn needed only another moment to realize what the unspoken language of her body meant.

The Seer took her upon a small skimmer and led her to the Shrine of Asuryan, where a dense crowd of civilians and Seers stood gathered, filling up the temple more than it ever had known since the War of Yearning.

They whispered and chattered quietly amongst themselves, respectful enough not to raise their voices.

The masses parted when they saw Azraenn, and the Seer led her to the inner sanctum, lifting curtains hanging in the doorways for the dumbstruck Poet.

And there, lying against the altar to Asuryan, was a skeleton around which several senior Seers were gathered, staring down with grim looks beneath their hoods. Beside the skeleton was a small scroll with a tiny poem written on it, which seemed to be a death haiku, often left behind by those who took their own lives.

“What? Where is Eallari?” asked Azraenn, glancing around in surprise.

A Spiritseer there walked solemnly to Azraenn, holding something out to her, which Azraenn caught in her palm, noticing immediately how it tingled so strangely against her skin. As the silk-gloved fingers left the heavy thing, revealing the azure crystal about the size of a large berry, Azraenn giggled. “What? What is this? I do not need another waystone…”

It was hysteria. Denial. For she could not believe her eyes. For her heart could not bear such an agony, so she closed her mind to the idea. It was clearly someone else’s bones. Relics brought by the Harlequins, surely. And this was just a stray waystone unearthed in the Shrine, left behind from another age, surely.

Surely.

She laughed.

No one joined her.

Sorrowful eyes looked down at the floor, every woman there fully knowing of the pain Azraenn foolishly sought to avoid. They knew that there was no need to correct her. For though Azraenn spoke lightly and laughed, her body, the window into her true feelings, was already trembling in grief and despair.

Outside the Shrine, the people waited in hushed dread.

After a few minutes of laughter, which slowly lost its vigor and life as she lost the strength to deny the truth, silence fell over the Shrine. A few choked sobs split the air. And then, the wailing began.

A funeral was organized swiftly—a Wake of Passing, as it was called on Morrigan—and ten thousand attended it, crowding out into the streets.

Azraenn sat by the altar Eallari had once prayed at, dressed in mourning robes of white. She did not remember putting them on. Had one of the Seers dressed her? It did not matter, she decided. The faces of thousands of unfamiliar women came before Azraenn one by one, bowing, speaking a pitiful platitude, and then departing. Azraenn held her sister’s spirit stone in her lap, no tears left to weep. She just stared blindly into nothingness, paying barely any attention to the strangers who paid their respects more to assuage their own guilt than to comfort her.

Every single one of these people could have visited the Shrine and offered just a moment of their time to hear what Eallari had to say. Every single one could have spared but a single minute, even once in a moon, to light a stick of incense and pray just one little thing to the gods Eallari worshiped. Or at least pretend to do so. They could all have so easily come and just exchanged pleasantries with the Priestess, even without joining the cult she was trying to build.

Yet, no one had even cared when the Priestess stopped emerging from her temple. She had died, and her body had rotted to bones, all without notice. Even the Infinity Circuit of the Craftworld had gone oblivious to it, for the Shrine was insulated psychically from the outside as was tradition in the ancient times, to grant holy solitude to those within.

Every single one of them was guilty. Eallari’s blood was on all their hands—and they had the audacity to come here and try to clean their conscience of it?

“Azraenn,” said a Seer who had come to her. At the sound of her name, she looked up into the ashen-grey face of the High Bonesinger of Morrigan, seated on the Seer Council. She pulled down the hood of her sacred robes and stared down into the maiden’s eyes. “Look into the eyes of those who have come to pray for your sister. Do not avoid their gazes. See for yourself—that they are wounded just as you are. They are not your enemies.”

The Bonesinger’s face softened, reaching down to hold Azraenn’s shoulder. “Your sister loved you more than you could ever know. She chose this fate for herself. And look how she has united us, so cleverly. There are those that believe she sought to divide and destroy us, but now she has proven them terribly wrong.”

“Why are you here?” asked Azraenn in a dreadful drone, empty-hearted. “What right do you have to preach to me about my own flesh and blood?”

Lynekai smiled. “There are a few of us left that remember worshiping at temples much like this one, before the War of Yearning. I came here once, and I spoke with your sister for much longer than I should have. Hahaha, the High Autarch was far from pleased that my work was set back that day. Eallari is a beautiful and noble soul, my dear. The Infinity Circuit will be greatly bettered when she joins our ancestors in their peaceful rest.”

“Did your kind foresee her death?” asked Azraenn, a question that had burned in her mind since the moment she realized Eallari was dead. “Surely you saw it! Surely you could have saved her!”

“Suffice to say, such precise knowledge of the future is rare to have indeed,” Lynekai answered unflinchingly. “But even if we had known fully of her intentions, we would not have stopped her. To deny her that freedom of will would be a crime unspeakable. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Azraenn blinked, confused. “What?”

“It is not your fault,” said Lynekai, smiling gently as she leaned down to kiss her on her forehead, lips touching both skin and the psychically-attached gemstone passed down through her family. “Your sister chose this of her own will, and no one could have possibly convinced her otherwise. Not the Seers. Not even you. She accepted it, and she embraced it, all for a single grain of hope for a better future. Yes, she was truly unstoppable once she put her mind to something. Her stubbornness may even shift this whole Craftworld one day, long after her death, with the seeds she has sown. To move a mountain on faith alone—to sacrifice all that she had for a cause greater than herself—that is a glory we ought to praise and remember.”

Saying this, Lynekai gestured to several of her apprentices, who brought forth a large cube of unshapen wraithbone on a hovering platform. She snapped her fingers, a nonverbal command for them to step aside, and then—she began to sing, and the wraithbone began to shape itself with the song. Her apprentices joined the melody with their own voices, a mourning dirge, a choir of sadness, and in mere seconds, with the ease of mastery of this uncanny art, the cube rose and grew and shrank in many ways, contorting and bending, taking on the shape of an Eldar.

Azraenn watched, dumbfounded.

For the face that twisted out of the psychoplastic to the music of their voices was not merely a resemblance to her sister, but a flawless recreation of that beautiful physiognomy from Lynekai’s memory.

It was only a statue, white as marble, and yet it was as if they had plucked Eallari out of an instant of joy, standing with hands held outward as in sermon, smiling with warm eyes at all that lied before her.

The statue lifted from the grav trolley by their psychic might, slowly floating over until it was placed, gently, upon the altar to Asuryan, which had gone without any such sacred adornments for millenia. And now, Eallari completed it once more, frozen in eternal service to Asuryan and all the other gods, standing tall in their stead.

What a complicated thing she felt, then.

She had thought herself numb to it, and then the pain burst forth all over again, and she wept so miserably.

In one brief song, this Bonesinger had done more for Eallari than she, as her sister, had ever managed to do.

Yes, she was truly worthless. Pathetic. What good was all her Poetry, now? She could not think of any words that would heal Eallari’s lonely suffering. There was no runesong which would reshape the world and bring Eallari back to her. Her time spent on this Path, nearly a century, was meaningless.

Azraenn shut her eyes, closing her fists so tight her fingernails cut into her own palms, fists shaking in her lap.

Lynekai allowed her psychically-attuned voice to echo away into the corners of the temple as she fell silent. She turned to Azraenn, and she smiled, reaching out with a finger to softly wipe the tears from her face. “There. You see? You had not nearly finished grieving yet. Go on. Release it all. Do not allow this sorrow to harden within you. Such a thing will drive you into the arms of madness.”

With that, the High Bonesinger departed, her retinue of apprentices following in heavy silence.

As they descended the steps of the Shrine, one of her senior students, Nevaeca, asked, “Was this truly a worthy use of our precious reserves of Wraithbone, my lady? It was not sanctioned…”

“Perhaps,” Lynekai answered, the smile gone from her lips as she stepped board the large transport skimmer waiting for her and her underlings at the street. She wrapped a hand around the railing as it lifted off, all aboard able to balance easily as the vehicle flitted deftly between the buildings towards the Dome of Sleepers. “If it is enough to save one soul among the ten thousand who blamed themselves for what happened, then I say so.”

“What will the High Autarch think? That much Wraithbone could have crafted a Wraithguard, or perhaps two… or a skimmer, to carry our warriors or our citizens… or served as a core strut for a new ship in Mistress Aydona’s fleets.”

“The High Autarch may go to Asuryan’s Shrine and sing it back to our stores herself if she takes issue with the remembrance of a girl we sacrificed for our own stubborn hubris,” answered Lynekai, fingers tightening around the railing standing between her and a long drop of a thousand miles to the forests flying by beneath them.

Nevaeca fell silent. “Lady Lynekai, I have the utmost respect for you as my teacher and as a master of our craft. However, frivolous usage of strategic resources is a threat to our survival. If it were for the reason you just claimed, then I would accept your explanation, as it is indeed virtuous to support our sisters in their grief. But you lied, did you not? What you have just done was a selfish effort to banish your own guilt in the death of the Priestess, not an act of compassion. You think that you and others should have done more to help her and salve her loneliness to prevent her suicide. I suspect this indicates a deeper dissatisfaction with the ways of our people—perhaps you even agree with the dangerous and subversive precepts that Priestess Eallari spread. As such, it is evident that your emotions have clouded your judgment. I am compelled to report my perspective to the Seer Council for review of your fitness as First Bonesinger.”

Lynekai closed her eyes, leaning back, a sad smile crossing her lips. Perhaps she even felt pride, a twisted, self-deprecating kind, in her student. “Ah, I have taught you well, Nevaeca. Forgive me for lying to you all. What was it that I always insisted? A Bonesinger must be dispassionate and ruled by reason, for we are craftswomen, builders, architects, the caretakers of Craftworlds. And we must cling to this state of mind, lest we become dull of wit, slow of imagination, clumsy of craft, and endanger this precious world. Ah… yes, you need not concern yourself with the Seer Council. I hereby resign my seat—the formalities, though, may take a few days to be done with.”

Nevaeca’s dark, glittering eyes fell to the floor, and a single tremble of her staff betrayed her true feelings. But Lynekai took her by the shoulder and reassured her with a firm squeeze.

“Do not doubt yourself, my dear. You are right to do this, and Morrigan has need of your wisdom. I have frayed, without even realizing. But you are strong, stronger than me now. I can think of none more fit to succeed the chair and title I leave behind today than you. I will recommend you to Auriel, and I am certain she shall agree.”

Nevaeca smiled, though tinged by no less sorrow in her eyes than Lynekai’s.

===

When the Wake was finished, Azraenn walked to the Wood of Kalinel, named after the legendary Autarch who took command of Morrigan’s scattered forces in the confusion of Seminoth’s invasion and formed a united defense after most of Morrigan’s leadership had been butchered or gone missing, never to be found, in the first hours of the daemonic rape and slaughter. Faced with an infinite army that could replenish itself through all the corrupted Webway gates, she took absolute command, united its weary defenders, mustered the single most immense legion of Guardians Morrigan had ever known, and gambled everything, nearly every living soul, on retaking the Craftworld rather than escaping it. It was she who issued the divisive, devastating command to destroy the Webway portals rather than attempt to retake and purify them—and this sacrifice proved vital to their success, in the end, despite the terrible cost.

And it was she who stopped the blind rampage of the Avatar of Khaine, having flown into a fury so fell after being awoken to the sight of Morrigan’s despoiling that it no longer cared whether it slew daemon or Eldar. To save the people of Morrigan, she faced the great and unstoppable fragment of a god single-handedly when no others dared, matching it blow for blow for three terrible hours of soul-incinerating battle until it yielded at last to her command, the clarity of the Avatar’s mind restored once more. For this great deed, he bequeathed upon her the title of Nobledrake, which would be passed down from one High Autarch to the next after Kalinel’s death.

Kalinel was crippled by the duel, unable to lead her forces in the field as she so deeply wished to, but even when confined to a chair by her terrible wounds, it was still her fearless courage, strategic brilliance, and tireless encouragement that rallied the desperate Guardians and Aspect Shrines to ultimately defeat the horrifying monsters bent on devouring their souls. Though she was but one of thousands of great heroines to emerge in the War of Yearning, few other than her could claim so much popularity as a revered ancestress.

Azraenn knew why she had come here. Kalinel’s many postbellum writings had become foundational for the new, proud and martial culture adopted in the wake of the invasion, yet she—unlike nearly all the rest of Morrigan’s leadership and population in that time—was one of the few who did not support what would come to be called the Banishing of Impurity, when all the men of Morrigan were expelled summarily, even the children, as both a measure to protect the women from the Yearning that drove so many into lustful madness in these early, dark days, and as a punishment for the role of the few hundred men who had been misled by desire and caused this horrific battle by allowing Seminoth and his armies entry.

Morrigan’s men at the time had little spirit to argue with the accusations. Indeed, history dictated that many among them were the most vocal proponents of this extreme action, rather than just being victims. Perhaps they feared for the sanctity of the women’s souls now that they were cursed by the Yearning, seeing only damnation in the futures of their lovers should they remain and allow those temptations to consume them. Perhaps for some, it was more self-serving and disdainful—hoping to sever relations with such cursed women, seeing them as broken, impossible to save. Or perhaps they truly hated themselves for what had happened, and sought simply to suffer this unthinkable agony as atonement.

Those who disfavored this act had a different name for it—the Sundering of Morrigan. But actually using that term, which carried with it such negative judgment, outside of merely historical observations was enough to risk ostracization. Eallari, of course, had always called it that. And now, in the poignant twilight of her grief, all her miserable emotions beginning to settle, granting an uncanny cognizance, Azraenn was beginning to wonder if her half-sister had been right about that.

Eallari had called it a tragedy beyond comprehension. There was no question that she was right. Even the most devout Scholars devoted to justifying it as a purging of weakness and iniquity had to admit that it was unfortunate it had to happen. The majority of both sides seemed determined to part ways, and the few voices of reason that tried to slow down this manic debate were drowned out by the sheer grief and need for change in all the others.

The truth was, of course, obvious in hindsight. The Sundering was a necessary evil, for the hearts of Eldar were not simple things which could be dominated by something so flimsy and fleeting as logic, and Morrigan’s people—both male and female—needed to act upon those feelings or else something far worse might have happened in its place. Azraenn was certain of that.

She sat down between the trees, alone.

Not to meditate.

Just to be.

Yes, now she understood the Banishing, or the Sundering, whichever one wished to name it.

Because she, herself, now knew the enormity of these feelings.

The need to act.

Lest something far worse happen in its place.

Eallari was as right as she was wrong.

For she had never known this suffering.

She had seen only the joy.

Not the pain.

She took the small scroll from her pocket, and, with a heavy breath, she unrolled it until all the runes were visible.

At last, the Poet read Eallari’s first and final runesong.

Then she closed it, laying it down on the ground beside her.

She remembered the Bonesinger and what she had done, seeking to console her.

But that was too little, too late. Meaningless, now.

For a voice had awoken in Azraenn’s heart, one which she could not deny even if she wished to. It was blind—as she was now blind to the faces of others.

It was loud, and it was dark, and it spoke not of peace nor understanding.

It hungered, as she ached. It growled, as she wept. It screeched, as she cried out.

It bore its fangs, and she showed her teeth. It drew its blade, and she—heard the voices of women in the woods nearby.

It showed her the reflection of her own eyes in the dagger in her hands. What stared back at her through that narrow mirror was not a Poet.

“Bloodshed is what broke us then.

May it now save us.

War begets war. But it must be this way.”

This was the only runesong left in Azraenn, now.

===

There was a metropolis there, yet none dwelled within it.

There were only white shadows, stone figures carved out of marble, frozen in perpetuity on the streets, in the buildings, in countless poses imitating the ways of the Asuryani.

Yes, beneath the habitats of Morrigan, housed within the vast depths of undeveloped hull, there was a ghost of a city. No, a mockery of one.

Into the silence and the stillness of this forlorn town she crept, wearing the Robes of Mourning, shimmering white silk stained crimson from collar to hem, bringing with her the sound of droplets falling on stone.

Wet.

Warm.

Painful.

Drip.

Drop.

Drip.

Drop.

She wandered the mazelike place, searching, but unable to find what she sought. Each block seemed almost indistinguishable from the last, the buildings themselves nearly identical, only the false populace different. Slowly, her eyes came to know the hand-crafted statues, identifying and recognizing one from another by the slightest contrasts in the craftsmanship—the difference of a single chisel-stroke.

She followed the landmarks of these faceless figures until at last she reached the center of the metropolis.

A temple lied there, not the modern and ergonomic buildings of the city, but an ancient thing crafted from sacred crystal and draped in precious curtains woven from crystal shurikens strung together. There, standing on the steps leading up to this lofty shrine, there was a single fair woman of silver hair tied up in a braided bun that had come half-loose and frayed into many loose locks with her labor, dressed in plain blue robes. Though, the top half of the garment had been rolled down and tucked into her waistbelt, leaving her ample chest and strong back bare, only her legs clad in a loose skirt down to the ankles. She was engrossed in sweeping the steps with her primitive broom, working without pause or rest to clean the dust from one end of each wide step to the next.

And as she approached, the silver-haired woman halted, lifting her gaze to stare through the pale, slender outsider who neared the base of the steps.

Drip.

Drop.

Drip.

The blood on the stranger’s hands fell and stained the stone steps, drop by drop.

The blood of Eldar.

The silver-haired Warrior turned and pointed to the Shrine of Khaine, at the pinnacle of the stairs.

The former Poet ascended those steps, passing the Warrior, looking at nothing.

And the Warrior returned to her sweeping, brsssh-brrsshh, brsssh-brhssh.

Chapter Text

==Chapter V: Last Testament==

Azraenn opened her eyes, rising from the flat wooden bed she used, no pillows or cushions, same as all her Warrior sisters aboard the Hunter’s Howl. She ran a hand up through her long, blonde locks, pulling them out of her eyes—and flinched, for a single moment seeing red on her hand.

But no, it was just the same pale hand as ever.

She turned her head.

All the others were accounted for. Seven Dire Avengers, including herself. Five Striking Scorpions, including Ynnatta. Somehow, in all that battle, despite several of them being grievously wounded, none had been lost. And thanks to the skills of the Healers aboard, their injuries were almost totally gone, as though they had never happened at all. Of the casualties throughout the ship, none were fatal in the end. A miracle brought about by sheer effort, preparedness, and good fortune on the part of the captain. The same could not be said for Renemarai’s pirates.

They were still cleaning up the bodies and the bloodstains. Those among the dead of the Sky Slicers who carried spirit stones had their gems collected and stored safely away near the spirit nexus, and when possible, they would be turned over to a Wayseeker to be returned to their Craftworlds of origin. But few Wayseekers were brave—or foolish—enough to wander Commorragh.

The dead pirates who were not so fortunate, whether due to not originating from a Craftworld or because they had lost, gambled, or sold away their stones like fools, were simply collected into piles to be burned in the incinerators aboard the Howl later. Nothing could be done for their souls. Their ashes could at least serve to fertilize the gardens, which had been largely destroyed out of sheer cruelty by the invaders, leaving so many of the crew heartbroken to behold.

Many of those responsible for the senseless vandalism and destruction were dead. Of the several hundred boarders who participated in it, nearly half had survived by being taken prisoner at some point. They had then survived Renemarai’s downfall by overthrowing her loyal officers and being allowed to leave with their lives intact as a reward from Syndratta. The Tempestuous Chariot, it seemed, was now property of the Obsidian Rose, and the Sky Slicers were no more.

Yet the ones actually responsible for this evil had escaped with their lives intact when they least deserved it.

An injustice they did not have the luxury of avenging. Yet.

===

“Yes?” asked Lynekai, reclining in her bath, the steaming water melting away her soreness. All the chains and straps and being dragged around in slavery was more than just an emotional discomfort, to say the least. But now, with her voluptuous body granted the chance to stretch out and recuperate, much of the stress was melting away. She pulled a damp rag up her own body, scrubbing her flesh thoroughly, her immense bosom given quite a lot of attention. Yes, her breasts were rather sore, for every corsair in the Sky Slicers seemed all too happy to molest them while she was a captive. Perhaps that was inevitable. She could count on fingers alone the number of women she had met of similar endowments.

Thankfully, Renemarai had forbidden anything more than touching the captives. Both to avoid a repeat of the last escape, and to keep them fresh for Syndratta’s pleasure.

Thankfully…

For a moment, Lynekai paused in her washing, looking down the valley of her own curves, and chewing her lip. How long had it been since the last breeding cycle? She seemed to ask herself that question constantly, now.

The beaded curtain to her personal bathroom lifted with Eshairr’s arm, who stepped in through the opening she made, dressed in her captain’s garb. “Apologies for the intrusion, Lady Lynekai.”

Lynekai, startled out of her thoughts, lifted a hand out of the water and waved the idea away. “Hardly, my dear.”

“I read your report—it is pleasing that the overall damage is minor and the repairs will be finished very soon,” Eshairr said, holding up the small datascroll with the information on it, winding the psycho-reactive, flexible plastic back up. “I would discuss possible modifications we can make to the entry ports of the Howl, as well as the Spirit Core. Recent events have proven Archon Syndratta correct in her assessment of our ability to deny entry to our ship. We should not, and cannot, rely on the fact that our airlocks and bulkheads are made of Wraithbone and our control systems are psychically-attuned to guard us.”

Lynekai smiled. “Ever so busy, aren’t you?”

Eshairr blinked, surprised. “Syndratta could call on the Howl for another task at any moment. Time is fleeting; we must be prepared. The battle with the Sky Slicers exposed vulnerabilities we must address. Our future foes may very well be informed, equipped, and inclined to exploit them.”

Lynekai’s smile grew somewhat sad. “Eshairr, you will wear yourself down.”

The captain shook her head. “I am fine. But regarding these adjustments I would like to request—can you install Spirit Circuit-controlled scatter laser turrets on our docking ports and within the Spirit Core?”

Lynekai sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. “You know that it is forbidden to bring weapons within the Spirit Core, dear.”

Eshairr shook her head. “This isn’t the time for customs. We need results.”

“It is not a law we obey for spiritual reasons, but because there are some things that no risk is worth taking on. The danger of even a slight mishap damaging the core is precisely why no weapons are allowed within the chamber,” Lynekai pointed out. “However, I would be willing to install turrets like you ask on the outer gateway. This would provide all the defensive effect while keeping the core safely isolated from the turrets themselves.”

Eshairr paused and thought it over. “That is, indeed, a wiser choice, I suppose. And the docking ports?”

“It will require a few days to plan and execute—alcoves and sealing panels will need to be carved in the area beside the airlock for the turrets to nest within while we are in transit,” Lynekai explained. “It is, certainly, possible. But there is another issue you have not considered, Eshairr, far greater than the physical effort of creating these things. It will take considerably longer to awaken and instruct the souls within the Spirit Circuit in how to operate these turrets and identify friend from foe. We don’t have a Spiritseer to handle such things… and it is quite a concern, so we must be absolutely thorough.”

Eshairr bit her lip. “I should have requested one, before all this happened.”

“Spiritseers are rare, indeed, and highly sought after as a result. I doubt High Autarch Eshana would have granted you even a single Spiritseer no matter how well you argued your case. They are too badly needed for preparing and leading Wraith constructs into battle to bolster our numbers, and we certainly needed as many as possible on the Craftworld facing such a foe as Eros,” Lynekai explained. She proceeded to smile, softly. “Actually, I was a Spiritseer once myself. I can accomplish what is needed, but it will take time. Months. Certainly not what you wished to hear, I am sure.”

“Your skills have declined?” Eshairr asked curiously.

“No. Not as such. Communicating with and guiding the souls of the dead is a central and critical aspect of the training of all Seers, for we all work to maintain the Infinity Circuit. Spiritseers are specialists that favor more… dangerous and forbidden arts, such as awakening the dead, or directing them to battle. And what you ask for amounts to training these souls to hold a weapon and be careful not to accidentally slay our own sisters with it, which is… troublesome. They can be stirred to violence easily, as it is a common emotion, but they lack the grounding to reality that only living Eldar possess, usually. Their senses are flawed, limited, no matter how well we construct the sensors for them to use. They persist in a perpetual dream, lacking true awareness, save for that which the Spiritseer can impart through their craft.”

Eshairr pondered what she was told for a moment. “So they are like children.”

“Not quite, but it suffices to say that they should not usually be trusted to handle weaponry, much like a child should not. The souls inhabiting our vessels are mostly lifelong Mariners, who can easily perform all the needed tasks to keep the Howl functioning even in their sleep. Quite literally, in this case. But when it comes to the weapons…”

Eshairr took a deep breath, nodding as she began to understand. “I see. Of course, that is why we use living crew to operate the ship’s weapons. As I was taught when I first began to walk this Path, yet forgot in my haste to reinforce our defenses. I am a fool.”

“Not a fool. You are simply driving yourself too far, too quickly,” Lynekai said. “Do not deny yourself your own greatest strength: your clever wit. As with all parts of our beings, the mind must also be allowed to rest.”

Eshairr looked down at the ground, her thick and full red lips trembling, suddenly resembling an exhausted young maiden, not the stern and powerful captain of a ship. “Yes, you are right. Thank you, Lynekai.”

Lynekai gestured down at her bath, more than large enough to fit a couple Eldar. “Join me?”

Eshairr paused, then shook her head. In that small motion, the strength returned to her frame, vulnerability extinguished by discipline. “I must check on the prisoners and the rest of our recovery operations… but I promise that I will heed your wisdom.”
Before Lynekai could stop her, the fiery young captain had already stepped out and left her behind.

The elder Bonesinger lifted more water from her bath, letting it spill over her beautiful breasts and collar, a sad smile on her lips.

===

The leafy greens crunched in her mouth as she chewed them and swallowed.

Tulushi’ina stared down at her plate. Every now and then, she would glance up warily, but there was indeed no one sitting across from her. When the door opened and Druzna marched in straight for the kitchens, Tulushi’ina relaxed. A familiar face was preferable to checking over her shoulder for rogue Archons.

Druzna came over with her meal prepared and joined her at the same table, as there were few others dining at this point.

“Good morn,” said Druzna with casual indifference.

“It is still night, actually,” Tulushi’ina corrected her.

Druzna chuckled. “Sorry. Rest escapes me. I lost the time.”

Tulushi’ina paused, frozen with indecision. At last, after a pointed silence, she spoke up.

“I heard what happened… aboard the Chariot…”

Druzna, shoving a berry in her mouth and eating it with a satisfying crunch, shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “Thank the goddesses Ren is thrice a failure of a Commorite cutthroat, or she might have discomfited me terribly.”

Tulushi’ina blinked in surprise. “Are you… alright?”

Druzna smiled, slicking back her oily dark hair, one little defiant strand of it hanging down her face as usual. “Of course. When I was a slave-whore under Hellions, I endured worse every tolling of the Coven bells—because there are indeed far worse tortures than death, which is agonizing but quick. In those chem-pumped bliss dens down there beneath us, pain becomes a pleasure, and pleasure a pain. One begins to leer at knives as… well… one might gaze upon the lips of another woman, or her legs. To that extent, Renemarai was a terrible lover.”

Tulushi’ina winced. “I… couldn’t imagine.”

“You did me no foul, Tulu,” Druzna chuckled. “That was almost a thousand years ago.” For a moment, she looked off into the distance, immersed in old, bittersweet memories that brought a smile to her lips.

“Druzna?” asked Tulushi’ina.

“Well… I suppose there are a few agonies too deep to overcome even in a millenium,” Druzna added. “Tulu, as an Exile, you stand unbound by the laws of Morrigan. If you meet a man, and he is yours, then do not let him cast himself away for you like a smitten fool.”

“I did not take the Pathless Path to pursue men…” Tulushi’ina answered, looking rather melancholy herself now.

Druzna giggled, eating another berry and then propping her chin on the back of her hand, with an elbow on the table. “Oh? Wanderlust, then? Or weary of the Paths? The family grown unfamiliar? Or something else that drove you to it?”

Tulushi’ina did not answer, instead continuing to eat.

“I took upon myself Exile for just over three cycles, myself,” Druzna added to break the uncomfortable quiet.

“Really?” asked the Ranger, perking up.

“Yes. I despised it,” Druzna answered. “Not the difficulty. The loneliness. Even among other Exiles. I expected it to be akin to life as a Corsair, but to my great dismay… well, obviously, it was nothing of the sort. I soon returned to grovel at Aydona’s thighs for my old rank. She really made me wonder whether she was going to reduce me to a lowly menial, that old deviless. I think her jealous of all the men I indulged in out there! Hahaha. I still have my old longrifle stowed somewhere aboard. I should let the light shine on it again.”

Tulushi’ina nodded, but said nothing—seemingly at a loss of what to contribute.

“A game of marksmanship, then? We could take places at the edge of the hangar and aim for gore-wyverns gliding over the city. Oh, but if they have prey in their jaws, we have to award less points. Much easier to hit them then.”

Tulushi’ina shook her head. “I would win.”

Druzna sighed, rolling her eyes and popping a fresh berry in her sumptuous lips to gnaw down with a smile. “It is rude, you know, to point out the obvious.”

Silence filled the air between them again, until Tulushi’ina spoke up unexpectedly.

“That’s… what I like about it… being an Exile. The loneliness, I mean.”

Druzna frowned, not in disapproval, but in understanding. “I see.”

“But… being here on the Howl has been pleasant, too,” Tulushi said after a deep pause of reflection.

Druzna could not help but grin at that. “Because of my company, certainly.”

“Actually, I like Eshairr more…” Tulushi’ina admitted.

“Candid,” Druzna said, the smirk on her face dropping off instantly. “Viciously candid, aren’t you? Even Munesha knows when it’s better not to say something like that.”

Tulushi’ina did not apologize. “You are fine, too. Like a songbird. You make music, fills the air. Makes everyone more comfortable. You tend the nest and guard it fiercely against all who would trespass, even greater beasts than yourself. But you, too, could become the prey of a hawk. Eshairr is a serpent. She is quiet, walks softly, very wise, very clever, makes a good leader. Even the greatest dragon fears her—because even if they crush her, she may slay them with venom that lingers after her demise.”

“Yes, thank you,” Druzna muttered. “The offense is minimal. So, if you’re comparing us to animals, what about the rest of the ship commanders, then?”

Tulushi’ina thought it over, eating more of her salad before answering. “Azraenn is a horse. Munesha is a fish. Lady Lynekai is an Eldar.”

“Sorry? An Eldar?” Druzna asked.

“Yes. Because she is clearly an Eldar,” Tulushi’ina said.

Druzna held up a single finger, bemused. “So are we all…?”

“No,” Tulushi’ina retorted flatly.

Annoyed and ready to strike back, Druzna pointed at Tulushi’ina, grinning. “Tulu, you are a… yes, a Clawed Fiend!”

The Ranger now sat back, shaking her head, blinking rapidly in confusion. “A what?”

“A Clawed Fiend!”

“I think I am a mouse…” Tulushi’ina answered.

“No, no, there is no question. A Clawed Fiend!”

Tulushi’ina began to pout. “Stop it. I don’t even know what that is.”

Druzna giggled, gesturing out of the ship. “Visit one of the Eternal City’s arenas.”

“I’d rather not.”

“We could go together. I have a Commorite vase dating to the Age of Dark Genesis, bought off an Exile tradeship, which could fetch a couple audience passes to a match from a bazaar,” Druzna suggested. “Several matches, actually. We’ll need to go armed, of course.”

“I’d… rather not,” Tulushi’ina repeated.

Druzna sighed. “I’ve asked Eshairr, Tyleni, Bavawe, Kolensa, Kavkke, Devaphea… no one has the bravery for it. Not even my fellow former Commorites. Perhaps you might?”

“I’d rather not…”

“Certain, are you?”

“I’d rather not!”

===

She stepped into the brig.

Her long, red hair flowing behind her, Eshairr walked to the gaol cell furthest from the entrance.

Removing her gauntlet, she reached out and touched the cell door—and it responded to her touch and mental command, the opaque crystal suddenly shifting its internal matrix like a line of cards flipping from one side to the other. In an instant, the cloud-white door became translucent, and Eshairr saw the dark-haired prisoner lying on her back on the simple cot built into the wall within. Her regal attire had been lost in Syndratta’s palace, no doubt stolen by a greedy Kabalite for sale, but a simple grey suit had been provided for her, baggy and loose.

“Renemarai,” said Eshairr, not verbally but mentally. The cells were completely insulated from the outside, so only the most deafening noises could reach anyone within one of them. Her voice would instead be carried into the cell by the psycho-resonators within it, so there was no concern over whether its inhabitant would hear it—it reached directly into her mind, circumventing the limits of spoken words.

But Renemarai did not respond, nor react. She just continued staring up into the ceiling, resting her head back on her arms, somehow looking almost relaxed.

“Renemarai. Do not ignore me like a petulant child.”

“Kill me or leave me to my solitude,” answered the Corsair Princess through the same mental connection. “I have nothing to say to you.”

Eshairr frowned, but did not relent. “No. It was my decision to delay your judgment, that you be brought back to Morrigan, not executed or punished yet. I am prepared to hold tribunal if need be aboard the Howl, but in truth, I believe that you are not irredeemable. And I will bring you before your mother, if I must, to prove that. The High Council will decide your fate… once we have delivered Morrigan from its dark torment.”

“One more mistake of sentiment. In time, these weak decisions will accumulate and cost you everything. You cannot survive in Commorragh on well-wishes and hope, girl.”

“It seems to have served us well till now,” Eshairr retorted. “Better than your greed and ambition.”

Renemarai did not answer.

“Renemarai, if there is something you need, notify the guard and I will see to it, if it is reasonable,” Eshairr said.

“Eltaena will be chem-starved soon,” Renemarai replied mentally.

“Chems? It will be difficult to risk caring for her with her rampant powers…”

Renemarai swung up into a sitting position on the cot, looking directly at Eshairr through the door. Eshairr noticed the fresh scar on the side of her face, the same one Kanbani had left her with, continuing into her long, pointed ear—and felt an odd pang in her heart.

“She has no powers now. They severed her soul when she was exiled from her home. Only potent drugs can unleash them.”

Eshairr’s eyes widened in alarm. This penalty, the act of partial severing of the soul from the body that left only the flimsiest connection to allow life to continue, was one of the most brutal justices that could be enacted by the Craftworlds. Many forbade it, for it was too cruel even for the most vicious offenders. The effect was so terrible in practice that those who suffered it could no longer even make use of psychoreactive technology, which was most Craftworlder tech. But it went far, far beyond that. The Eldar soul was inherent in almost all aspects of Asuryani life, even something as basic as communication. It was akin to having all of one’s limbs and voice removed, left no more than an empty prison of flesh.

Most simply took their own life after such a punishment.

“I… see,” Eshairr said. “I will have a Healer tend to her, then.” This was important knowledge to have—it meant Eltaena would not be able to communicate through the ship, and the Spirit Circuit would struggle to keep track of her faint psychic signature, smaller even than the one presented by the most psychically dull Tau. They would indeed need to take special measures to ensure her safety.

“But what about your needs?” asked Eshairr. “I can send a Healer, if you need aid in facing what has been done to you…”

“Anyone who sets foot in this cell to comfort me will die,” answered the Princess. “I am not some weakling. Leave me.”

“Fine, then,” Eshairr answered. “We do not have to be enemies, Renemarai. I hope you understand that.”

Renemarai’s gaze hardened, glaring into Eshairr. “Let me go. Then we will discuss laying this feud to rest.”

Eshairr sighed, taking her hand away from the door, allowing it to return to its default, obscuring state and ending the conversation. The Princess seemed unchanged by what happened in the spire… but that could be a façade. Even if it was just a front, there was no guarantee that the Princess would learn anything good from what had just happened to her. Many Eldar had been destroyed, emotionally and spiritually, by far less.

“If only the Fleetmistress were here…” Eshairr whispered to herself, donning her gauntlet again. “She would know what to do.”

===

Her greatcoat was flung across the room to rest on a chest of personal possessions, and Eshairr collapsed into the chair of her personal quarters with a weary sigh, rubbing her eyes with a grimace. She glanced at her bed, popping the collar of her mesh armor with a pair of fingers traced down the reactive material, splitting it in half down to her heavy cleavage, baring much of her huge, pale breasts. But before she finished disrobing, she stopped herself and looked at the scrolls piled up on her desk. These were communications from the other surviving ships of Morrigan, conducted through the Webway itself. Commorragh being situated so centrally within the Webway made such messages far easier to send and receive, and this had been the first real opportunity to get in contact with the other ships since they originally escaped. Of course, at that time, the chaos of losing their fleet commander and fleeing Eros’s ravenous tendrils had made it difficult to coordinate, and they had scattered wildly without any cohesion whatsoever.

These responses to her initial attempts to contact and apprise her fellow captains of the situation had piled up slowly over the days, and only now did Eshairr feel prepared enough to check them.

She unfurled the first scroll, seated at the top of the little pyramid.

“Eshairr, it is pleasing to know that you have survived these dark years. We have joined the Azure Reavers. Your intentions are admirable, but there is truly nothing that a handful of ships like us can do anymore. I advise you to seek employment and alliance, not to rescue Morrigan, but to secure your own safety. It is what Aydona would want for us. In that regard, Commorragh is the worst choice in the galaxy. Even the mon’keigh are more reliable. I recommend you extract yourself from Lady Syndratta’s affairs forthwith, then proceed to the coordinates as follows—the Azure Reavers cross this route often, and you will not have to wait long. They will be quick to accept you as they did for us.

——Mariner-Captain Byrneshe.”

Eshairr looked upon this message with soft eyes, sensing in these words a genuine desire to see the Howl well and reunite with them. But as tempting as the offer was, it would be sacrificing all hope of saving Morrigan.

And it was too late to turn back now.

Eshairr ripped open a new scroll, taking the quill Munesha had gifted her long ago—a colorful, scarlet crest-feather taken from a Venegorator, a fierce apex predator twice the size of an Eldar and nearly as clever, rightly feared by the Hoel’eyr tribe to which she belonged. She dipped it in her inkwell and immediately scribbled a short response in long, flowing runes, her chirography beautiful and refined, as any self-respecting Mariner-Captain ought to have.

“Byrneshe, I have greatly treasured your friendship and your guidance ever since I became captain, and I understand the difficulties of your position. Survival itself is a victory. Aydona will be happy to know that you are safe, once we have liberated our home,” Eshairr wrote with swift scratches of the alien quill across the scroll.

Immediately after she finished writing it, Eshairr rolled the scroll back up and set it aside to be taken by her personal Scribe later, who would then encrypt and transmit it via the very structure of the Webway itself.

She turned to the next message, unsealing and unrolling it.

“Eshairr. Morrigan is lost. Her allied Craftworlds offer no aid—your goal is futile. You have placed your ship and your crew in unspeakable peril to secure assistance that the Kabal has little reason to risk. No, we will not support you. We will remain with Iybraesil, where we can do some good. May Morai-Heg preserve you in your doomed endeavor, for few others could. I pray your downfall is swift and painless, but we both know that the denizens of that city will draw it out for every shred of suffering your idiocy is worth.

——Great-Captain Gernetia.”

Eshairr closed her eyes for a moment, touching her brow as an ache of exhaustion and strain set in. Great-Captain Gernetia was one of the most senior captains under Aydona, who had served in Morrigan’s Mariners even prior to Aydona bringing her Sky Slicers to merge with the Craftworld and redefining its fleets. With a long, distinguished record of unflinching service and matchless experience, she was one of the few in line to replace Aydona as Fleetmistress should she fall. It was no exaggeration to say that she, and likely she alone, could possibly rally the scattered and desperate survivor ships for the retaking of Morrigan once they had mustered sufficient allied support.

Her answer was scrawled in the slightest moment.

“You cowardly bitch. See you in Hell.

——Mariner-Captain Eshairr.”

This, too, she set in the small basket to be transmitted later.

And so Eshairr opened the next message.

“We cannot render assistance at this time.

——Mariner-Captain Pelemona.”

And the next.

“Only a fool would go there alone! Aydona only dared broker a treaty there with her full fleet behind her. Do you truly think yourself greater than her? Has your hubris grown so much, in such a short time away from Morrigan? I worry for your life and your soul, Eshairr. Is it truly worth gambling the thousand sisters serving you on such a dangerous venture?

We are fine, ourselves, with Iybraesil. I am sure Gernetia has already responded—she seemed furious when I spoke with her about your message, but I believe it is because she feels more helpless than any of us. She considered the very same plan herself, but Iybraesil’s Farseers pressured her against it. These Iybraesilians—they do not ken our ways. It is difficult, here. We miss you, all of you, dearly. Please, will you not come to us? That we may at least stand united?

——Mariner-Captain Falshoru.”

Eshairr threw this one aside, running a hand down her face and then gripping her own chin, fingers wrapped tightly over her lips, deep in thought.

By Lileath, she wanted nothing more than to be gone from this horrific city. For all her underlings to be safe. To have a place they could rest. Heal. Mourn.

Anything but this.

She opened the next response.

“Eshairr, be careful and be safe. We can only stand with you in spirit, for we are working to contain an Enslaver outbreak on the mon’keigh farm-world of Celtus Berenza III. The atrocities we commit here are nightmarish—we have had to burn several cities from orbit to save the rest of the planet from total invasion—but if we do not stop them here, these diabolical creatures could spread through the entire subsector on these blasted evacuation ships. The ignorant fools cannot even tell who among them is already infested even though we plead with them to heed our warnings. Please—if you could forward this message to Great-Captain Gernetia, we need aid to be sent immediately. It will not be long before reinforcements arrive to destroy us, and then the planet, and all its neighbors, will truly be doomed.

——Mariner-Captain Demenasca.”

Eshairr stared at the letter in alarm. She immediately scribed a quick response to notify Demenasca her call for help had been received and indeed forwarded, then marked the letter to be sent on to Gernetia and put both in her outgoing basket.
Then, she stared at the wall.

It would take only one command to send the Howl into the nearest Webway passage, bound for Celtus Berenza. With Commorragh located where it was, the fastest routes through the entire Webway all sprouted from it. If anyone could reach Demenasca in time to help, it would likely be… the Howl.

But it would risk everything they had worked towards. Syndratta would likely consider it an abdication of their deal. It could even turn the Archon hostile to them and their cause. It was possible they might not even make it out of Commorragh before they were destroyed by opportunistic raiders, without Syndratta’s protection.

No.

Leaving now, even if it was to help their sisters, was without a doubt a terrible idea.

The logic was clear on that.

But her heart bled cold, fighting to change her mind.

“Morai-Heg, see to Demenasca, I beg of you,” Eshairr said, shutting her eyes, lips shaking for but a single moment of dismay.

Wavering, feeling as though she might change her mind and rush to the aid of Demenasca any moment, she forced herself to look to the next message. This one, however, would not calm her heart.

“Captain Eshairr. In this final hour, I regret that I can offer only the most woeful tidings. When we received your message, we hastened to reunite with you. But we erred terribly; we risked an unsurveyed passage and ran afoul of a breach in the Webway. Before we could reverse course, we were already swallowed into the screaming vortex, and all direction has become meaningless. Our efforts to escape proved in vain. Within hours, the wards preserving our ship against the evil forces crawling over our hull began to fail. First madness struck us, then daemons began to claim the flesh and souls of our sisters from within. The captain was among the first to perish. Now we persist in a waking nightmare beyond words. There can be no salvation in this Hell, none at all. I shall soon see the Red Banshee shattered, lest our foes seize it for their own malevolent ends. By Isha, share this message and these coordinates with others. This is where our Path ends, but no one else should have to share our fate. Please, remember us.”

——First Spear Didaela.”

Eshairr stared at the parchment. Slowly, carefully, she wound it back up, hands shaking so hard that she feared she might tear it accidentally. This, too, she placed gently in the basket for outgoing communiques. It would be forwarded to not just Gernetia, but every other available captain they could reach. Everyone needed to know. Everyone.

There was moisture on her face. She must have smeared ink there accidentally. She wiped it away with her sleeve of mesh.

===

Renemarai heard the door of her cell hum quietly, reverberating with the internal motion of its crystalline matrix turning from clouded to clear.

“Go away,” said the Princess, not even bothering to roll over to look at the one standing there at the door. She pulled the blanket provided to her tighter around herself and shut her eyes.

There was a click.

Her eyes popped open, and curiosity led her to finally turn over and see who it was.

It was not Eshairr, as she expected.

It was wide-hipped Druzna, a hand on her hip, looking as stylish and confident as ever.

“What do you want?” asked Renemarai mentally. “Leave me be.”

The door opened automatically at a thought from Druzna, and she stepped into the cell before it closed behind her.

“Let us talk,” said Druzna.

Renemarai breathed deeply, holding her head with a hand. “Fine. Say what you mean to say.”

Druzna cracked her knuckles through her mesh gauntlets, the friendliest grin on her dark-painted lips.

“W-wait—”

There were no sounds that reached outside of that cell, but Leraxi, sitting against the wall in the next cell over, could feel conspicuous thuds against her back. The Incubus rolled her eyes and then closed them, returning to her deep meditation.

The Guardian on duty watching the brig stood there at attention, shuriken catapult resting on her shoulder, saying and doing nothing.

The cells were indeed insulated completely from the outside. There was not a sound that escaped.

The Guardian glanced over for just a moment, staring through the narrow visor of her helmet, seeing the grey-garbed prisoner suddenly fly into the translucent cell door, slumping down it shortly before a boot stomped down at her face.

And then she looked away.

Several minutes later, Druzna stepped out of the cell, turning and issuing the mental command by touching the node beside the cell for the door to shut itself and then turn opaque once more.

There was blood all over her mesh, some of it dripping on the pale white floors as she walked to the entrance, pausing for only a moment to look at the Guardian sidelong.

“You may report me to the captain now, if you wish,” said Druzna calmly.

“I have no desire to do such a thing,” answered the Guardian, staring forward dutifully.

Druzna smiled. “You are a fine woman, Nala.”

“Hardly,” Nala snorted at the thought.

Druzna clapped the Guardian on the shoulder, a show of camaraderie, then left the brig. Seconds after she walked out, a Healer quietly stepped inside, the soft glow of the Wraithbone runes sewn into her necklace seeming to disperse the blood trail that Druzna had left behind into evaporated fumes as she followed it back to Renemarai’s cell and entered.

Ten minutes later, the Healer stepped back out, pulling her hood up over her head again and briskly walking out of the brig. Nala did not look to see whose face it was.

No one would ever speak of what happened in that hour.

Save for Renemarai, who certainly could voice a complaint, but with so little evidence to support her claims, she would find it difficult to convince most.

===

Eshairr set the basket crammed full of outgoing communiques down at the armoire of her Scribe.

“I’ve marked the appropriate encryptions on each scroll,” Eshairr said, reaching down and grabbing a couple of the scrolls and laying them in front of her officer. “These are your priority, Loebeni.”

Short and red-haired, with a crystalline bionic arm, Loebeni nodded and immediately set to work.

Eshairr left without another word. Despite her troubled thoughts, she could trust Loebeni not to divulge the delicate contents of any of those messages. The Scribes that entered the service of the fleets were sworn to the secrecy of their mistresses, and Aydona had made such an example of the one Scribe in all of Morrigan’s navy to betray her captain in the last six hundred years that High Autarch Eshana, of all people, was forced to step in and reduce the punishment, calling it excessive. Aydona did not apologize. Rather, she insisted upon it being made standard for all future cases of disloyalty, as though a loose-lipped Scribe was as unforgivable as mutineers.

In a way, Aydona was right. This draconian policy was a holdover from her experiences as a Corsair Princess, wherein the life and death of her Coterie depended upon her clerks staying quiet on sensitive matters. While Morrigan was at far less risk of instantaneous destruction from one exposed secret, and so did not proscribe that same policy for its own naval Scribes, the High Council did eventually agree to harsher punishments for Scribes who violated their oaths of confidentiality, which would be measured to suit the gravity of the crime rather than cruel and unusual.

But this was, of course, all theoretical. In practice, none who truly felt any slight urge to gossip or divulge the affairs of others would ever feel much draw to the Path of the Scribe, which, as a subset of the Path of Service, already had its own extant principles regarding the privacy of those who called upon their skills. The incident that had caused this debate toed the line between accident and simple misfortune, an extreme unlikelihood complicated by the severity of the secret that had been revealed and spread throughout the ship. It was old history now, something Aydona looked back upon and laughed at, blaming her own somewhat clumsy transition from Corsair to Craftworlder for it.

Remembering when Aydona told her this story brought a smile to Eshairr’s face, a thought of simpler times, when her greatest concern was executing menial labors to the Fleetmistress’s satisfaction, and she could be exacting, indeed. One did not become a Corsair Princess, and then a Fleetmistress, and have lax standards of personal comfort and cleanliness. Rather, those standards were for others to live up to, while they created terrible messes with their haphazard discarding of clothes and leaving tools and papers scattered everywhere.

On second thought, Eshairr was indeed glad to have those times put behind her. And with this last task dealt with, she was looking forward to retiring to her quarters for proper rest.

“Captain!” exclaimed Loebeni, trotting out of the bridge after Eshairr, a fresh scroll in hand, the ink of its runes not even dried yet. She gave it to Eshairr, who immediately read it, and her smile soured instantly.

“Eshairr! Sweet dear, your presence and participation in my festival was ever-so-wonderful. Far better than all those sycophants kissing my feet and begging for the honor of my attentions, which has gotten rather dull these days. Has anyone ever told you that you would make an excellent Drukhari before? Such bare animosity, such a sharp wit! And quick with a pistol, as well. My, my. A talent for slaughter, indeed. It is a very Eldar quality.

In fact, I am so impressed with what you have accomplished for me, that I would like to introduce you to the true heart of Commorragh, where its lifeblood flows and clots and flows again. The streets await your presence, my darling.

I would have come myself to give you this task, but I have little interest in touring that quaint little ship of yours again. More importantly, I am occupied with greater matters more deserving of my concentration. So, my careless fool of a daughter shall be our, perhaps, attache? After a failure as spectacular as hers, she is fortunate not to be walking around without her skin for the next two hundred years. Alas, she is more useful to me with her skin unflayed, even if I believe such a beautiful and smooth shade of grey would wonderfully compliment her father’s magnificent pelt adorning my bed.

Ah, how the time flies. I yearn to impart some of my old love stories, but there is an important negotiation with the Kabal of the Iron Thorn I must attend. Of course, I did not inform them that this bargaining will take place. It is a surprise! My entire fleet is en route to visit one of their spires for this little gathering. I simply cannot wait to exchange… presents.

Kanbani will be along shortly with the details of what I would like you to do while I am away. Enjoy yourself, my darling. The depths of Commorragh can be as friendly as they are deadly; it is simply a matter of conducting yourself like someone to be respected. Or feared.

——Archon Supinia Syndratta, Mistress of Blades, Forgequeen of Roses, Steelsinger, Knightess Obsidian, Inheritor of Oldblood, Daemoncutter, Covenslayer, Scourgefriend, Thief of Tormentors, the Manyloved, Mother of Murderers.”

Eshairr lowered the message exhaustedly, immediately receiving a mental alert from the Guardians at the docking port through the Howl’s psychic network.

Someone was asking to come aboard. A Kabalite with a blue ribbon around her neck.

Eshairr replied mentally, permitting it and ordering for her to be escorted to the bridge under armed guard. Perhaps this was a meaningless gesture, given the Obsidian Rose could easily destroy them if the Kabal cared to, but she would not have Kabalites wandering the halls unattended, and certainly not without Guardians ready to ventilate them at the slightest sign of trouble.

===

Eshairr had called for her, a welcome respite from brooding over the destruction of the arboretum.

Azraenn marched down the halls, stopping for a moment when she saw one of the tapestries that the Sky Slicers had so heartlessly destroyed in the chaos of the battle. She took the scorched, half-torn fabric and examined it, tracing the runes sewn into it with her fingertips. This had once been a runesong of love named the Journey of Joy-As-One, written by Lady Lynekai herself. Curiously, these poems were not written on the Path of the Poet, which Lynekai had walked millenia upon millenia ago, but on the Path of the Seer, in the early days after the War of Yearning and the Banishing of Impurity.

It sang of the deep and complicated love between women, describing it as a sacred purity which the love between man and woman could never equal. The poem did not emphasize lust for flesh, but the virtue of sisterhood, of becoming whole in the arms of a dear loved one. Indeed, Lynekai had numerous other poems that focused more on the earthly, sensual delights of Courtesans she had hired (the experiences of which she described in such passionate detail that it was said to have brought a maidenly blush to the cheeks of a certain Exarch once upon a time), but this was something more idealistic, more tender and vulnerable, which had fascinated Morriganites ever since that era and repeated as a theme throughout much of its artworks to modern day.

Now, however, this tapestry which had been inspired by that very same runesong was ruined. A masterwork produced by a master Artisan, it was irreplaceable and irreparable. Even if the original weaver, who was not aboard the Howl, were to work to repair it, it would never be what it once was. One perfection could not be adequately replaced with another.

It was senseless. Had the Corsairs simply stolen it, they could have scored a generous heap of currency for the sale of such a thing. What could drive these miserly beings to such thoughtless destruction? Asuryani or Commorite, artwork was artwork—and the only division of the Aeldari race that might thumb their noses at it would be the Exodites, who had little time or care for such pursuits in the difficult, laborious lives they led.

“Bladebearer?” asked Loreyi, one of the Dire Avengers who had been following Azraenn on their way to see Eshairr. “Was this piece of personal value to you?”

“No,” Azraenn said, releasing the cloth and letting it fall back to the wall. “I am thinking only of retribution for what has been taken from us. From Morrigan.”

Loreyi nodded. The Dire Avengers were one of the more open-minded of the Aspects, seeking wisdom and philosophy to better understand the nature of war and in so doing become masters of it, much like Asurmen himself, their founder. But then, all the Shrines of every Aspect valued artistry and aesthetic as much as any other Eldar, though the art they pursued and evaluated first and foremost was that of murder. The devastation of that which was prized or sacred, even if it served no martial purpose, would not be forgiven easily by any Warrior.

Azraenn continued, and Loreyi and Ynnatta, the other Warrior who had chosen to follow her to see what the captain wanted, fell into line on her flanks.

When they arrived at the bridge, they found Eshairr and Druzna there, listening to a Kabalite who was quietly relating the terms of some sort of mission.

“—and Mother must have that tooth,” said Kanbani, standing with her arms tucked behind her back like a soldier at ease.

Eshairr glanced over to see Azraenn’s arrival, raising an eyebrow of surprise, but then returned her attention to Kanbani. “Understood. Report to Lady Syndratta that the Howl accepts this challenge in the interest of fostering a swifter response to help Morrigan.”

Kanbani bowed her head, then departed the bridge, the two Guardians assigned to her following her out on their way back to her quarters.

“Our next task?” Azraenn asked through her helm, voice slightly affected to be deeper, more powerful and intimidating by the vox-circuit of her armor.

“Yes. And I will be calling on your skills to accomplish it, Azraenn,” Eshairr replied, crossing her legs and rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

“Captain, it need not be said—we Mariners are best suited for anything involving the operation of vehicles,” Druzna said. “And I know the streets of Commorragh better than anyone else aboard. Even the other ex-Commorites.”

“So it seems. Yes, Druzna, I think you will be needed for this,” Eshairr said. “Pilot, gunner. We should enter more than one team to improve our chances. Kanbani already volunteered to join us, as well.”

“Munesha is our best jetbike pilot by far,” Druzna pointed out. “And her powers will make her especially useful in something like this.”

“No doubt. Now, if only we had a contingent of Shining Spears aboard…” Eshairr mumbled, pondering her next moves carefully. “They could be trusted to excel here.”

“You simply must request Shining Spears be our next Warrior complement next time we dock with the Craftworld, then,” Druzna joked, lightening the tense atmosphere. “In fact, I suspect those lances will be most effective in the Howl’s narrow corridors regardless of whether they are mounted on their vehicles or not.”

Eshairr chuckled. “Yes, indeed. I can already foresee the High Autarch’s face. Then I will of course next ask for a squad of Shadow Spectres, and she will already be running off, calling for the Healers to chase down and return my wits, which have clearly fled me.”

Azraenn glanced at her fellow Warriors, then back to Eshairr. “What, precisely, are we planning for, Captain?” she asked, cutting through the jovial moment like a glaive through flesh.

Eshairr’s good cheer seemed to deflate, and she turned to Azraenn, serious as ever. “Prepare yourself. We will be taking part in what Druzna has described as one of the bloodiest, most vicious events in Commorragh, with hundreds, sometimes thousands of participants and few survivors, tearing through the streets beneath these spires with wanton cruelty in blind pursuit of a great prize, as much a demonstration of speed and skill as it is of cunning and violence. Yes, we will be joining a Reaver race.”

Chapter Text

==Chapter VI: The Bloody Heart of Commorragh==

Far beneath the gargantuan spires that reigned over the Eternal City, each as vast as a small moon in sheer mass and scale, the foundations of the dark metropolis festered along the walls of the Webway. Though not even a fraction the height of the wicked spires, these blocks of billions of buildings housing trillions of impoverished slaves and weaklings stretched on into infinity in all directions, defying even the concept of direction—for the branches of the Webway were countless and paradoxical indeed, and the Eldar found little difficulty in constructing their edifices all around the weaving tunnels which often looped back into other, larger passages and nexi.

As one approached the almost tidal swells and falls of these crumbling slums, the light of the stolen suns grew fainter and fainter, much like nearing the edge of a solar system. The fading of this light and the constant clouds of smog that further dulled the gleam of those blazing jewels produced an eerie effect in the skies, one which unsettled all outsiders, and indeed descending into this dark atmosphere set the nerves of the Morriganites aboard that luxurious, bladed skimmer-yacht on edge.

Middle Darkness, it was called. This was where the sickly twilight of the Illmaea, the “stolen suns,” gave way to greater and greater shadow. In some quarters of the City, the pollution was so thick even this lofty height, dozens to hundreds of miles above the squalor of the masses, became absolute darkness. Few slum-buildings reached this high, save mostly for docking spars, ancient citadels or shrines dating back to the Eldar Empire, and the occasional shattered ruins of a spire, the grim graveyard of a fallen order. As one passed through the upper clouds of sickening smoke and lung-melting acidic fumes, a new light emerged from below—the almost blinding lights of Low Commorragh, the forlorn floor of the great conurbation.

Leaning against the railing along the side of the large pleasure barge, Eshairr coughed into her handkerchief, eyes burning in the air. The stink, the pain of the pollution was even more dire than she had expected. Even the few parts of her skin that were exposed to the air seemed to burn with the caress of the fumes blown against her by the cold, biting wind, as though she could feel the toxicity attacking her very cells. Druzna, well-aquainted with it, held her commander’s shoulder with a sympathetic grip.

“It will pass. Our bodies learn this acrid poison, and then one almost forgets it,” explained the First Spear. “It is good that you will have time to gain tolerance as we descend.”

Eshairr opened her mouth to ask a bitter question in how anyone could live in such a place, but even the act of inhaling to speak only set her into a deeper, fiercer fit of hacking, tears running down her face. The query was abandoned in short order.

Druzna turned to look across the weather deck of the venerable and ancient masterpiece of a voyage-ship, seeing Munesha even more disturbed than Eshairr by the sickly atmosphere. Exodites lived as far from the unpleasant consequences of rampant industry as any Eldar could—it was only natural that she would find it especially difficult to acclimate. Tulushi’ina, far more accustomed to traveling worlds blighted with such toxins during her time as an Exile, worked to comfort the dusky beauty much as Druzna did with Eshairr.

Leaning against the wall of the forecastle were Azraenn and Lynekai, both surprisingly unaffected by the clouds of poison. Though Aspect Armor helmets did typically include toxin filters, Azraenn had opted not to wear hers once Druzna explained the advantages of acclimating to the environment. Naturally, since losing her helmet would present a critical vulnerability in this situation, she judged it better to suffer till numb to the stuff like the others. But there was no clear reason why Lynekai seemed so immune to it all.

Druzna walked over to them, having to step aside for passing Kabalites several times—running such a ship was busy work indeed, but it seemed they took a certain delight in inconveniencing Druzna in particular this way—yet reaching them without letting her personal annoyance at being singled out for such harassment show on her features.

“I am surprised to see you both so stoic in all of this,” Druzna said.

Azraenn glanced out of her distant stare and began to say something, only for her breath to catch in her lungs. She coughed, grabbing her own throat as if to try and calm the involuntary reflex, but even the noble and proud Warrior’s iron determination could not withstand the additional intake of the noxious gases. And now that she had begun to cough, it seemed to spiral entirely out of Azraenn’s control in mere seconds.

“Oh… sorry,” Druzna muttered.

Lynekai smiled gently, patting Azraenn on the back to soothe her. “Her self-control is remarkable. Almost worthy of a Seer.”

Druzna raised a dark eyebrow at the Bonesinger. “Lady Lynekai, have you been to Commorragh before?”

Lynekai shook her head. “No, never.”

“Then, how are you so resilient to it? Have you visited worlds of great pollution?”

Lynekai nodded. “Of course, in my many long years. But this is no product of experience. The black mist here, it is as though the oppression of the Supreme Overlord himself seeks to strangle the weak and the ill. I am forced to make use of meditation and breathing techniques, much as Azraenn attempted to until now, to maintain my control.”

“You’re meditating? Even as we speak?” Druzna asked in awe.

Again, the Seer nodded. “There are many forms of meditation, inward and outward, shallow and deep. Most Paths make use of it in varying ways. Those of my order learn to make use of it to relieve exhaustion without the need of rest, which can at times be necessary, given the dangers of our unleashed powers. These techniques can aid in other matters, as well.”

Druzna seemed to deflate. “I see. Many of these things remain foreign to me, even now. Though I consider myself of Morrigan, I have never truly managed to master these common techniques. The Path of the Seer remains quite alien to me, in particular. In Commorragh, only the most wretched fools lurking in the depths dare gamble with their own souls… but upon Craftworlds, those ‘fools’ are the ones who lead the people.”

“Perhaps the Witch Path is indeed unnatural, given the risks,” Lynekai murmured, gazing off into the distance. “Your attitude is far from unusual. Most Craftworlders dread this Path. Morrigan as well shares many doubts. After all, t’was the negligence of the Seers that allowed the invasion of Seminoth. That is why the Seer Council’s influence has waned for so long, while the Autarchy only continues to grow in authority. Ah… but that is no longer a trouble that rests upon my shoulders.”

“Trouble? But Morrigan is more prosperous now than it ever was before,” Druzna pointed out. “The Autarchy and the Honor Council have led us well.”

“Yes… prosperous, indeed,” Lynekai remarked sardonically, her eyes falling to the floor of the deck.

“I-I did not intend such a meaning,” Druzna stammered, realizing what she had said.

Lynekai smiled. “I know. Even I forget, sometimes. Sometimes it is a blissful thing, to forget.”

Druzna looked down, saddened. “I cannot begin to imagine what our sisters have endured in these years. Will any of them even be sane, when we return?”

Lynekai sighed. “We must trust in their fortitude. We gain nothing from worrying of them.”

“Have you tried to scry for Morrigan since our arrival here? Have you had any success?” Druzna asked.

Lynekai shook her head. “None. There are any number of reasons why this might be the case, but I fear the greatest one is the presence of Eros. Even the barest omens of Morrigan’s fate cannot be read from the skein, let alone an augury worth any certainty. Such is the terrible Shadow cast upon the Warp by the Great Devourer, for past, present, and future are equally blurred and cast into darkness beyond the sight of any Seer.”

Druzna closed her eyes, sighing. “I see. So there’s little question that their suffering continues, even now.”

“Yes. Even now.”

Saying that, Lynekai stared into the distance.

===

When the choking smog grew too much even for Eshairr to suffer, she stumbled into the lounge cabin at the bow of the yacht, a large room of priceless decorations and lavish comforts, normally reserved for the Archon, her lieutenants, and valued guests. Eshairr was willing to take the chance that she was part of the lattermost category. Fortunately, it seemed the Kabalite guards at the door had no orders to prevent her entry, for they did not lift a finger to stop her.

“Isha mend me,” the young captain hissed between pained coughs.

“It will pass,” said someone—who Eshairr realized was lounging with her feet up on a table like she owned the place. The blue ribbon around her neck was obviously familiar, as were her beautiful ashen features and the short, white hair draped across her face, which she lifted and tucked back behind a sharp ear to get a better look at the guest.

“Druzna claimed the same, yet—hck—I have yet to feel any improvement,” Eshairr growled, marching over and throwing herself down on a couch across from Kanbani, dizzy, but rapidly recovering now that she had the clean air of the ship’s interior to breathe.

The Kabalite passively stared at Eshairr, almost limp like a doll where she rested, exuding a hollow relaxation. “It will pass. Or you will die.”

It was not at all a comforting thing to hear.

“Did you have to endure the same, your first time descending to these depths?” asked Eshairr.

“First time?” Kanbani asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes… that is to say, as a Trueborn, you would have lived in the heights of the spire with your mother for most of your life, no?” asked the captain.

“Trueborn?” Kanbani asked again, almost sounding confused by the question.

Eshairr blinked at her. It was true that Kanbani’s armor was nothing special compared to the Trueborn elite Syndratta employed—her Squires Obsidian, that is—but she had assumed this was an aesthetic decision on Kanbani’s part, not indicative of her actual rank or power within the Kabal.

But if she was not Trueborn, that would mean she would not be allowed into this cabin…

Eshairr glanced over at the guards, and only now, with her vision clear of the painful, eye-watering pollution, did she see the daggers impaled through their throats into the very walls, trapped where they stood as deceased statues, limp and lifeless.

“Uh…” Eshairr mumbled.

“They will be fine, once they are regenerated,” Kanbani said dismissively.

“Do you… do these sorts of things a lot? I can’t imagine a Kabal simply accepting such wanton slaughter…”

“You speak like a mortal does. We are immortals, death but a passing annoyance. Though, it was difficult at first, when so many sought to humble and tame me. But now the Sybarites leave me alone,” Kanbani answered without much feeling.

Eshairr paused, thinking over what she had been told.

If what Kanbani said was true, then she was granted some leeway, so to speak. Perhaps, to the Drukhari of such status and wealth, she would be valued for her skills enough to disregard her disobediences of this nature. That is, if she could survive the retribution of the ones she wronged, whether in immediate violence or long, clever schemes to destroy her from a distance.

“Will you not be punished?”

“They are the ones who will be punished for their failures. No command was given to me to remain outside this place,” Kanbani explained, relaxing.

“What manner of… corrections would they face?” Eshairr asked, curious now, albeit morbidly so.

Kanbani chuckled deeply, taking a deep breath to explain. “You imagine tortures? No. There are far more effective ways of tormenting us than merely breaking our bodies.”

“So you break the heart, with shame,” Eshairr suggested. Odd though it sounded, this punitive measure was preferred both within the upper echelons of Commorragh and within Craftworlds in general. Perhaps it was so central to the Aeldari nature that it was inevitable for it to feature so prominently in every society of their race, even Exodite and Harlequin.

“Yes,” said Kanbani quietly, lifting up her glass of tea and sipping from it.

“And that is what I have done to you, isn’t it? Shamed you before the eyes of all the Obsidian Rose, and your mother as well,” Eshairr whispered.

Kanbani paused mid-sip, lowering her cup without expression, saying nothing, just staring down into her tea.

“I apologize. I cannot imagine what I have done to you,” Eshairr said. “I took advantage of your immortality to further my own goals, shamelessly. But now I realize that I have done much to harm your standing.”

Kanbani seemed fascinated by such words, tilting her head, a loose white lock hanging over one of her beautiful eyes as she peered curiously at Eshairr with unsettling intensity.

“Yet you would do it again, would you not?” asked Kanbani quietly, showing a hint of a toothy smile which could only be called spine-chilling.

Eshairr nodded. It was no lie on her part. She was willing to kill everyone in that room to save Renemarai, selfish as it might have been.

“Then save your half-hearted apologies. You should be proud,” Kanbani whispered, her slow and subtle gestures suggesting amusement, but her voice resonated as though with venom. “Do not insult me with this show of weakness. Swallow your conscience. Claim your sins as your own, flaunt them like you might reveal your body to attract a mate. That is the way of this city.”

Eshairr looked down at her own lap, wrestling with her feelings.

Kanbani sipped again. “Rather, I owe you thanks. The favor of my mother was suffocating, even cloying. Now, without her burdensome expectations, I may enjoy a measure of freedom, small as it is, as her attentions shift to other promising talents within her camp.”

Curiosity burned at the forefront of Eshairr’s mind at this point, begging to ask countless questions—but knowing that the reticent Kabalite was unlikely to appreciate such childish pestering.

She knew enough now to understand a few key things about Kanbani. First, she was Halfborn, which meant she had climbed her way out of the depths of the city to become a Kabalite. Second, this meant that Syndratta’s favor had been earned through accomplishments rather than nepotism. Last, and most important of all, Kanbani did not seem to harbor a grudge, despite what Eshairr had expected—was this due to the immortality lessening Kanbani’s angst over the matter, or was it indeed an odd degree of forgiveness for a denizen of the Eternal City?

There was one question Eshairr could not resist asking, though.

“Kanbani. Why did you join the same Kabal your mother belonged to?” Eshairr asked. “Did you seek it out? Or is it happenstance?”

“Not the smallest coincidence can be found in Commorragh,” Kanbani replied coolly.

Eshairr waited, hoping for more of an answer, but Kanbani gave nothing further, simply enjoying her tea in silence. After a few minutes, her cup ran dry, and Kanbani set it aside, rising to her feet.

“The final descent will begin soon. We are entering a rare territory foreign and hostile to Kabals,” Kanbani stated flatly, taking her helmet from the table in front of her and cradling it under an arm. “Be prepared for raids.”

“Hostile?” Eshairr asked, rising as well.

“The Valley of Fallen Lords, a haven of peasantry,” Kanbani said. “Writhing in the shadows of toppled giants, maggots that they are.”

“Maggots? Are you not of the same origins?” Eshairr asked.

Kanbani ran a gauntlet through her short hair, shaking it out before donning her helm, which sealed into place with a click.

“Only when one has risen above these disgusting depths can one be called an Eldar. Till then, you are but a louse,” answered Kanbani with the same coldness that seemed to define her.

===

Throughout the ravages of time, even the mighty and the proud were inevitably laid low in the Eternal City, and when war between Kabals raged, all beneath their tyrant spires quailed and despaired, for they could do naught but watch the battles above in the deepest dread—knowing they, themselves, would inevitably be dragged into the conflict as factories, meat shops, and slave markets were assaulted by enemy forces to deprive their enemies of precious resources.

Skirmishes and tests of rival Kabals were one thing, an ordinary sight in the great games played by the self-styled nobility reigning over all. But should a line be crossed, should the conflict escalate beyond mere insults and slights paid from one Archon to another, necessitating the full mobilization of both until one has been purged utterly, then the ensuing bloodshed could only be called apocalyptic. The lesser races of the galaxy knew nothing of the true nightmares of war that only the Eladrith Ynneas, the Dark Eldar, could unleash. They, in their hubris, believed that the transient raids into Realspace were the height of Drukhari military potential, and their leaders prided and commended themselves for repelling a few such expeditions before the entire population of a world had been stolen.

The mon’keigh were permitted such blissful ignorance.

Yes, the spires that towered over Commorragh were nigh impenetrable fortresses, some equivalent in overall strength to a lesser Craftworld, but even these were not invincible. The only science possessed by the Drukhari that surpassed their unparalleled feats of construction—not only building spires of such scale that they could rival moons in mass, but even stealing stars to empower them—were their marvels of death and ruination. Indeed, unspeakable might was endowed upon their superweapons, each of them a masterpiece of the artistry of death capable of annihilating Battlefleets, slaying stars, collapsing entire sub-realms of the Webway, and even leaving wounds in the Warp that could never be healed.

“By the goddesses,” breathed Eshairr, beholding what they neared.

It was the collapsed ruins of not one, but five slaughter-spires, each once the seat of a great Kabal, each having toppled into the rest, forming an enormous mountain of shattered steel that loomed over countless leagues of slums which had grown up underneath, within, around, and on top of these ruins, forming a sub-city of breathtaking size and grandeur. From the distance, this vast structure somehow seemed small amidst the greater sprawl of Low Commorragh that stretched for unspeakable distances in all directions, but the vast, fused structure could almost be called akin to a small planet, an ugly cyst of the slums nearly reaching to the heights of Middle Darkness.

“Five Kabals once warred here, begun by the insults traded between two, and the other three were drawn into it by greed and hasty alliances, each hoping to betray the others and rise from the ashes supreme over all this territory,” explained Kanbani.

“But what could cause such destruction?” asked Eshairr.

“It was called the Horizon Imploder,” Kanbani said quietly.

Lynekai glanced over, apparently recognizing the concept. “You mean a gravitational singularity warhead. A cosmic vortex. The Great Devourer.”

Kanbani nodded, a slight smile crossing her lips. “As soon as the weakest of the five, the Kabal of the Bloody Horizon, had been totally crushed—the last of its masters chose violence rather than a graceful death or surrender to be enslaved. They deployed the weapon and all five spires were bent, broken, and crushed together, annihilating all that lay between them.”

“Billions dead in an instant,” Lynekai said, a hand going to her chest as if to try to steady her heart. “I can feel the grief and the despair of so many, lingering even now. Do those who live here, in this wretched place, not feel it as well? Even with their souls atrophied, surely…”

“A terrible thing. Such is why all-out war between the Kabals is almost unheard of,” commented Druzna. “Conflicts are usually much more cold and quiet, lasting thousands of years, lines of territory slowly pushing back and forth through proxy battles and cunning bargains, and a Kabal is so rarely destroyed outright. Even some of Supreme Overlord Vect’s greatest and oldest enemies retain immense power for that reason, albeit… humbled.”

“Yet, from death springs life,” Munesha observed quietly, gesturing at the vast city quarter before them.

“There is no life in such a pit of scum,” answered Kanbani dismissively. “Only wilderness and incivility. Still, a hive of animals has its uses…”

In one vast cliff of leaning ruins, their ancient artifices sagging on clumsy foundations—which were thousands of miles of other appalling, ugly, blood-stained constructions beneath them, drowning in an ocean of hazy pollution—countless Reaver gangs gathered in pits and garages ripped into these enormous buildings eons ago, like tunnels in rotten flesh left by hungry maggots burrowing and devouring from one end to the other. In a way, the shattered spires from long forgotten ages that leaned against each other, the crude architecture built within and around these slain steel leviathans, was almost beautiful to behold when the smog-clouds passed just right and precious gasps of sunlight managed to pierce the veil of Middle Darkness, casting light in through the distant edges of this shady quarter, bathing it in dim golden hue.

There was no proper name for this place. It was unsanctioned by the Kabals and the other masters of Commorragh. But on the streets, those who knew of these narrow, labyrinthine alleys between the collapsed ruins, perfect for evading the large gunships and transports the Kabals sent to enforce their laws on the lower reaches they ruled over, called it the Valley of Fallen Lords. Named, of course, for the mountain of broken steel which cast immense shade upon the depths below, like a rock that the refuse of Commorragh—insects—could crawl under to escape the malicious gazes of their rulers.

Like a grim reflection of the same war that had created this broken landscape, thousands of Reaver and Hellion gangs warred over this turf day in and day out, as it was simply too valuable to let any one syndicate claim it unchallenged. To take total control of such a domain would mean gaining independence and security enough to perhaps even declare sovereignty, becoming the newest and least of Kabals—but with plenty of potential to grow, nonetheless. Only the Supreme Overlord likely knew the exact number of rivers of blood that had flowed in foolhardy attempts to conquer the entire Valley. But one did not need his vast intellect and spy networks to know that countless billions had perished in battles here across millenia, and the vicious violence showed no signs of abating.

Or so Kanbani explained to them as they neared the shade of the black mountain, looking over the edge of the weather deck at the colorful, extravagant crackling signs and grotesque layers upon layers of streets, buildings, and tangled alleyways that rapidly approached in their descent. The honeycomb of confusing, almost labyrinthine pathways and hovels was interspersed with terrible chasms and holes so wide that entire battleships could easily fit through them, torn by devastating lance fusillades from fleets above in long forgotten disputes with the locals, or worse, by jury-rigged explosives laid as mines to destroy convoys of hated rivals. These scars were incurred in bygone centuries and yet to be repaired—for none had claimed superiority over this region enough to enact any such sweeping construction efforts.

Of course, if the Kabals were unwelcome there, then so, too, was Syndratta’s yacht.

Such outsider ships were not harassed much in the outskirts of the Valley, as they were vital for trade, but they were watched closely regardless, and if they should overstep the leeway provided to them and attempt to push deeper into this anarchic paradise of crime and slaughter, then swarms of Hellions and Reavers would offer a different greeting entirely.

It was a largely meaningless concern, however. They were not able to delve far into the region—soon enough such a large and unwieldy vessel proved unsuitable to maneuver through the sprawling, winding passageways and tunnels. But fortunately, their destination was built into the outside of one of the spire-husks, easily navigated to even by these pleasure boats.

Its signage was almost blinding. Designed to catch the eye at hundreds of miles away, these gigantic signs rivaled those of Wych arenas, and the closer one came, the more protection was needed for the eye to avoid blindness. The yacht possessed visual damping fields as part of its ghostfield generator, which filtered solar glares and other types of dangers including flash-bombs. Thus, the glowing signs of this place served more to keep out the poor and the unworthy, as such a prestigious establishment marketed its services only to the wealthy and the mighty. Such concepts were relative in Low Commorragh, of course, but even the leading officers of a small Hellion gang possessed power, wealth, and territory equal to that of the average planetary governor of the Imperium. Such, indeed, was the staggering scale and wealth of Commorragh that its criminal castes lived like kings, and many even dared to call themselves as such outside the judgmental gaze of the Kabals.

“Welcome, Obsidian Rose!” blared a voice through a powerful vox system built into the exterior of the massive, fortified club, itself the chief fortress of a prominent gang, the Razorjacks. “Welcome, and enjoy yourselves at the pride of the Valley, Blackspear Hollow!”

===

The gift of the coats from the Archons and guildmasters in Syndratta’s palace proved useful once more, as such things were designed purposefully to conceal nearly the entire body and what one truly carried beneath. This was ideal for Craftworlders hoping to draw little attention to themselves, though it did not stop Azraenn from complaining about the honor of it, desiring to proudly display her Aspect Armor regardless of where she went. However, using cloaks and other coverings for concealment was not unknown to the Aspect Shrines, so once Lynekai had reminded Azraenn of this, she grudgingly agreed to don the coat that best suited her.

When the gangway—this time, an actual plank of steel extended from the edge of the yacht, lacking railings and allowing for unfortunate slips that had likely served to rid Syndratta of annoying underlings or troublesome guests in the past—was extended, Kanbani led them across it, finding two emplacements of multi-barreled las-turrets that seemed to have been built out of scavenged scraps and grease, irrefutable proof of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the denizens of Low Commorragh. These turrets were perched on the edge of the platform that had been built into the side of the broken spire, along with a dozen hardened Hellions on guard duty, their customized and very deadly weapons at the ready.

This was more than an outer guard in case of raids from rival gangs. It was also a show of power to the Kabals and Wych Cults that chose to visit when trading with the locals, or using it as neutral ground for negotiations with their enemies, or when they sought out talent from the region as possible recruits. The gangs of the Valley were eager to remind such lords and ladies that for all their superior forces, when they came to this place, they were in foreign territory.

Indeed, as many Kabalites and Wyches could regretfully attest over the millenia, it was wiser to leave one’s arrogance at the door. Those who could not present even a façade of respect, or who thought themselves more clever than the Razorjacks and above paying them what they were owed, rarely escaped alive. Immortality was a privilege that could be rescinded in Commorragh, and the dregs of the depths found no greater pleasure than in ensuring there was not a scrap of flesh or blood left of a haughty Archon or Succubus to be regenerated. Their underlings were often far more accommodating and polite when they rose to take the throne of their former leader, as few Kabals or Cults could afford to mire themselves in the logistical nightmare that was a full-scale assault on the Valley.

As Kanbani stood at the door, waiting for the doorman to communicate her identity to his masters and acquire permission for entry, Druzna turned and looked at one of the Hellions seated by the doorway, noting that the pattern of greyscale tattoos covering his entire body from bare scalp to his uncovered toes was actually a masterful rendition of the legendary battle between Khaine and the Cosmic Serpent.

He glanced at her as he sharpened one of his long venom knives with some sort of metal grinding device that shot sparks out as he ran it up and down the edge, and a sadistic grin crossed his lips.

“You see something you like, woman?” asked the guard.

Druzna nodded. “Your tattoos are a work of art.”

He smiled. There was pride there. Rightfully so.

“Master Lo’nagyan is the artist,” said the Hellion. “The price, of course, couldn’t be counted in slaves.”

The claim of a particularly talented artist’s work was indeed worth any price in Commorragh, regardless of whether one was scum of the slums or Trueborn of the heights. Owning a masterpiece of artwork could buy one any amount of currency, if needed. But becoming the masterpiece was an even greater prize, for even one’s enemies might hesitate to besmirch such artisan craftsmanship with a blade. There were plentiful other ways of killing someone, of course, and it might only encourage rivals to keep the skin intact so it can be flayed into a wonderful decoration, but such a thing could still buy one a split second of advantage in a scrap.

But there was one small problem with it.

Druzna paused, lips pursing. “That is not Lo’nagyan’s work,” she pointed out.

He stopped sharpening his knife. “What was that?”

“Lo’nagyan tattoos the interior of the body, not the skin,” Druzna explained. “Surely you know that?”

All the Hellions around them slowly turned to stare at her.

Their hands on their weapons.

Truth was a dangerous thing in Commorragh’s depths, both sought after and feared in equal measure. Knowing it granted power, and daring to speak it could destroy enemies in but a few words or guarantee war.

“I must have misheard you, woman,” laughed the guard. He was offering her a chance to grovel and apologize. “This is Lo’nagyan, of course. You agree, yes?”

“No, it is not,” Druzna said. “Perhaps someone should inform Master Lo’nagyan that street trash is claiming property of his work? I wonder what that illustrious genius would think of such an insult.”

The guard might have paled at the threat, if there was even an inch of flesh uncolored by his tattoos. But then he glanced at his comrades, and it seemed the unspoken movements of their bodies offered their solidarity in protecting his lies. The truth was what the Hellions made it, after all.

Eshairr was not blind to this exchange. She could have ordered Druzna to abandon the subject and apologize, but she had no intention of stifling the truth her First Spear was speaking just to feed the ego of these monsters. Without missing a beat, without a word, she raised an arm and gave a brief gesture with her fingers to the others.

This conveyed instructions, which they had gone over in some detail prior to arrival.

Azraenn and Munesha moved to protect Lynekai, flanking the Bonesinger on either side and facing the Hellions. Tulushi’ina pushed closer to Druzna, a hand sneaking under her coat to rest on the grip of her Ranger laspistol. Druzna herself had several weapons to choose from under her own long jacket, but chose not to move for any of them, not yet.

But the preparations would not be needed.

Kanbani, without even looking his way, pulled the splinter pistol from her holster and shot the tattooed guard in the leg. In a split second, the poison coursed through his veins.

“Madwoman!” shouted one of the other guards, raising his splinter rifle to fire back, only to notice something terribly unsettling.

The guard who had been shot writhed on the floor, moaning at first, then weeping, his head swelling up like a melon. Flesh that seemed to grow from nowhere bulged with purple veins as his skull cracked apart from the expansion of his brain matter. He screamed in agony, his voice distorting as his vocal chords lengthened and twisted, and then—

Splurtssch.

It popped.

Blood geysered across the docking platform, and everyone, not the least the Morriganites, stood there in stunned terror, simply beholding the sheer horror of his demise.

Kanbani turned around at last, holding up her smoking splinter pistol. She said nothing. She simply stared into the eyes of each and every Hellion there through the black, glossy eyes built into her helm, like showing them all the void of death. It was a reminder of the difference between them, that every last one of them feared death, but she did not.

And they all backed off.

She holstered her gun, walking over to pat a loose, stretched flap of tattooed head-skin off of Eshairr’s shoulder. Eshairr turned to her, at a loss for words as the Kabalite drew a cloth from her belt to wipe the spattered blood and brains off of the captain’s face.

“Was that necessary?” Eshairr managed to ask at last.

“No,” Kanbani replied without hesitation.

Eshairr fell silent at that answer. There was no shame in it, no distaste for what she had just done. How could one even respond to such a thing?

Lynekai, however, had much to say. “Kanbani. Such carelessness is unlike an Eldar. Bloodshed echoes—by slaying even one, you have created a hundred enemies for us and for yourself in this place. You should be ashamed of yourself for such wanton slaughter, which is neither moral nor wise.”

Kanbani regarded the Bonesinger through her visor, slowly shaking her head. “Tsk. Will you complain for every other worm I crush, too?”

The Hellions flinched around them. First it was anger at the insult, then—they remembered what she had done to their compatriot, and they busied themselves with their watch duties.

Lynekai’s eyes narrowed, reading into the Kabalite’s movements and the slightest intonations of her words with the wisdom of millenia behind her gaze. “You have lost sight of your ambitions. You murder your comrades and your enemies with equal disregard for the consequences. What did your mother do to you, when you were resurrected?”

Kanbani froze up. Then she marched over and grabbed the Seer by the collar of her hooded greatcoat, the dark leather crinkling in her grasp, only for watchful Azraenn to draw and level a longknife at her throat. But it did not so much as give the Kabalite pause.

“Do not dare to peer into my mind, witch,” Kanbani hissed under her breath, her voice so low that it was doubtful any but Lynekai could hear.

Lynekai, however, reached up and gently pushed Kanbani’s arms away, and the Kabalite’s grip gave way to the slightest touch, as half-hearted as it truly was. Once the Kabalite had relinquished her hold, Lynekai tucked a finger around the edge of Azraenn’s blade with the utmost delicacy and pulled it back from the neck it threatened until the Warrior returned it to the sheathe underneath her coat. “I have done no such thing. It is obvious to any Eldar who beholds your speech, whether in words or in gestures.”

Kanbani glared at the Bonesinger for a moment more, then turned her back and returned to waiting by the door. This seemed to be the end of the dialogue, and Druzna smirked at the obvious discomfort of the Kabalite.

Until Lynekai’s black-gloved hand seized around Druzna’s shoulder, and her smug smile vanished as the Seer’s judging gaze fell upon her.

“Druzna, why? You knew full well where your provocations might lead.”

Lynekai spoke to her by mind rather than speech, preferring the privacy that only psychic communications offered in such company. She hardly needed to wait long before Druzna allowed her feelings to slip into the fore between them, like a guilty child unable to lie.

“T’was a moment of weakness,” Druzna admitted mentally. “His falsehood awoke old memories in me.”

And this, she showed to Lynekai through remembrance.

Even the most ignorant slum whore would have known the dead Hellion was lying, because internal tattoos were a special delight to offer their marks—to grant their customers sights of beautiful paintings inscribed upon formerly red and purple organs, or even the bones, while they were carving up the prostitute just enough to soothe the Thirst without killing. This could also be used to guide a customer towards less lethal avenues, tempting them with what they might see in one part of the body or another, guiding their knives away from the heart and the arteries, for most other manner of wounds could be healed with swift ease in the street clinics run by gore-seneschals, self-taught chirurgeons, and exiled Wracks. Druzna, in fact, had several such artworks within that she felt proud of in a somewhat twisted way, though none from as influential an artist as Lo’nagyan.

The gang running her brothel had been intent on educating their courtesans thoroughly in these matters because the quality of organ-tattoos could set equally beautiful men and women of the brothel apart from their peers. Some even went further, having their blood itself inscribed with chems and gene-adjustments that caused wondrous paintings to form out of blood puddles spilled from their veins. Others preferred to keep the blood natural to appeal to those who could only reach climax when bathed in the sweet crimson of their lovers, but the artists might still cause the flowing of blood over their work to alter the colors and composition into entirely different, mesmerizing masterpieces.

Only one of her customers never looked at any of her deep tattoos, despite promising to do so, despite drawing his blades and holding them to her neck so many nights, as if wondering whether to simply end her for his own sanity. Yet never did he allow a single edge to scratch her pale skin, for he could not bear the idea of it. For his heart was hers.

Perhaps it was thinking of him that had spurred Druzna to correct the guard, foolish as it might have been. Or so she admitted to Lynekai mentally.

“I see. This is no coincidence. You have been changing subtly,” Lynekai asserted through their telepathic link.

“What?”

“Ever since we came here, you have been shedding the ways of Morrigan, little by little,” the Seer pointed out. “You are remembering much of your old life, and forgetting who you are now. The Path of the Mariner is slipping from your grasp. Be wary, Druzna. The Paths are not easily walked, nor are they easily kept when one’s heart lies elsewhere.”

“That’s not possible. I have not grown lax in my duties, nor have I forgotten my allegiances to Morrigan,” Druzna replied, aghast, ashamed, and worst of all, unable to truly deny what Lynekai stated despite her feeble protest.

“I doubt not your loyalties,” Lynekai answered. “But this wretched city shall influence us all, inevitably. You are particularly prone to its touch because of the deep scars it has left within you. Yet, it is possible that what the Howl needs of its First Spear now is not a Mariner, but a Commorite… or even a Corsair. Only time may tell us which of the aspects of your identity will serve best.”

And with that, Lynekai released Druzna, walked over to Eshairr who was still staring at the corpse of the slain with wide eyes, and touched her on the shoulder next. The captain closed her eyes for a moment, no doubt receiving a great deal of communication in but a moment, much as had transpired for Druzna. Eshairr glanced at Druzna, then to Lynekai, nodding. Perhaps Lynekai had soothed her young and troubled heart, for Eshairr suddenly presented herself much more formidably, steel in her eyes.

Not a moment too soon—the door of the club finally opened, the doorman, a heavily augmented Hellion with an intense pink mohawk crackling with woven copper wires that seemed dangerously charged with electricity, bowing to the guests.

“Despite your… inflammatory actions, the mistress is yet willing to welcome a representative of such a prestigious Kabal to enjoy the Hollow’s delights, for all coin is welcome here, but if you are wise, you will heed my warning. You’re treading on a narrow tightrope,” said the doorman, grinning savagely, as though eager to see them hung should they spit even one wrong word. “There’s going to be a hefty markup on our prices… just for you lot, of course. But if you want to leave alive, you had better lighten your purse considerably. Make it worth our while.”

“We’re not here for your chems and degeneracy. We want to see Nolaei,” Kanbani spat.

“The mistress is not accepting visitors. She is entertaining prestigious guests in anticipation of the great race taking place soon,” said the doorman, wagging a finger at them. “And even if she were available, I doubt she’d ever grant you such a privilege as meeting her after what you’ve done, fool.”

Kanbani’s answer was a gauntleted fist into his face. Wiping the blood off of the dark metal of her knuckles with her belt rag, she strolled past the broken gangster into the smoke-glutted air of the roaring club.

Stepping over his slumped body, Eshairr passed in as well, followed by the rest of her retinue. As they ascended the steps into the main club, they passed through some sort of light-distorting defensive energy field that tickled their skin as they slipped past it. Once beyond the barrier, the booming music, streaking lights and fumes of chems instantly assailed them all. It was a tidal wave: an overwhelming wall of sensation stunning them all and forcing a moment of confused pause for all but Druzna, Lynekai, and Kanbani.

Bodies writhed together in the chaos of the club. There were countless dance platforms raised over the main floor, but this was only the realm of the most agile and energetic dances. All who so much as strolled through the outer reaches on their way to lounge areas or in search of refreshments were dancers, too, only more subtle in appearance. The rhythm of the music, deafening as the smooth tones and heavy beats were, became all-encompassing in their senses, and their bodies themselves reacted whether they knew it or not. Even conversations bent to follow the tempo, words exchanged as though in harmony with the melody, complementing the beat.

It was nothing less than the total immersion of the self into festivity, and to think that such a bizarrely sanguine thing could be found in Commorragh staggered Eshairr and several of the others. All present could be mistaken for Craftworlders throwing themselves into the thrills of self-expression in the purest form, coming together simply to move as their spirits bade them in the beautiful crystal parlors of the Dancers. Amazingly, the venom and the bloodlust of the Eternal City seemed blunted here, nearly forgotten. Only to Druzna and Kanbani were the subtle signs of the Thirst apparent, knowing what, precisely, to look for—like the predatory gazes of one dancer into another. But this was not a place for such matters. This was where the powerful came to forget such annoyances, their safety guaranteed—somewhat—by the Razorjacks.

This was where, for a brief set of hours or a precious few days, the world outside ceased to exist, and all that mattered became the grinding of bodies, the sensation of swaying to the beat, the fog of chems clouding the mind.

Despite the superficial similarities, it was not like Syndratta’s banquet. No, not at all.

That had been all a grand lie, a terrible trick, and none present had done anything more than gone through the motions of pretending to enjoy themselves. No, Syndratta had thrown a throat-slitting masquerade, no doubt a common social function of the Kabals.

This was nothing of the sort. Kabalites and Wyches and guildsmen came here, but they held no power. Rather, it was precisely because they held no power that they came here. This was no political theatre. This was a gathering of sin and desire. This was a party.

“Where is this Mistress Nolaei we hope to meet?” Eshairr asked above the furor of the crowds and the blasting song reverberating in her very bones.

Kanbani shook her head and shrugged. “She will either come to us, or I will draw her out.”

Eshairr glanced back, but the misty edge of the force barrier made it difficult to see the doorman, limp against the wall. She realized he was most likely the only one who could have guided them through this massive complex of dance rings, dark chambers, and the throngs of degenerates, but he was out cold thanks to the Kabalite.

“What do we do, then?” Eshairr asked insistently, but when she turned back to await an answer, Kanbani was already gone. “Reckless woman!” she hissed under her breath.

Druzna came up beside the captain. “She has her methods, and I suspect we are better to remain divorced of her bloody ways. Let us do as Kanbani told us. We will make a show of enjoying ourselves while the Hellions watch us. Eventually, they will approach us out of curiosity—and that will be our chance.”

“Enjoy ourselves?” Eshairr asked. “Should we not simply seek out the largest throne or the highest balcony?”

“Hellions have their tests and their games, no different from Kabals. In some ways, they are even more cunning in spite of appearances. It’s not easy to find the Helliarch, hidden as one inevitably is behind so many intermediaries and lieutenants. She may not even be here personally, despite what Syndratta’s spy networks claim,” Druzna explained. “However, this being the seat of their power, someone here will undoubtedly ken where Nolaei is and how to contact her.”

“And how do we convince the Razorjacks to aid us?”

“We ask very politely,” Druzna said. “And if that fails, we offer something they find too interesting to ignore.”

Eshairr stroked her chin, thinking it over. “Ask politely, hmm. Had we but a Courtesan or Dancer with us, one suited to such delicate social graces… Oh! Azraenn. Please, draw upon your experiences for us.”

Lynekai laughed, and Munesha giggled. Tulushi’ina covered her mouth with a hand, often the most she ever did—stifling her own amusement as a Ranger was trained to. All three seemed to know something that Eshairr did not. Were they not so well acquainted, they might all have assumed Eshairr meant it as an insult.

The Warrior slowly turned to glare at Eshairr with the utmost fury radiating through her gaze.

“I am not a Courtesan.”

“But you said—”

“I spoke lies to lure those fool corsairs to me,” Azraenn explained, her voice bleeding with frustration. “I am not a Courtesan. Nor have I ever been.”

Eshairr wilted in the face of her anger, realizing the insult she had paid the Warrior with such a thoughtless misunderstanding. “F-forgive me.”

Druzna smirked, patting Azraenn on the shoulder to calm her down, reducing the blonde Warrior from twitching rage to a frown so dour it looked like it might become stuck on her face. “I may not have walked either Path, but both of those things I am. Follow me.”

Eager to move on, Eshairr coughed lightly into her hand, the pollution as thick in the air as ever, she noticed. At least she had grown numb to it, as the others had predicted. “Very well. Lead on.”

===

Further exploration of Blackspear Hollow revealed some of its secrets—it was not simply built into the corpse of a spire on pure whimsy. Rather, they had accessed the interior of an immense and rare dark lance emplacement, a vast weapon of maleficent design known as a Blackmatter Spear—capable of annihilating titans, warships, and potentially an entire milli-sector of the city in but one mighty blast. The remains of the devastating weapon made for valuable salvage, but the true prize was the extensive hollow left behind, no longer occupied by the arcane machineries that empowered and stabilized such unspeakable destruction. It was in this steel cavern that the central fortress of the Razorjacks had been established.

Despite the unusual, layered, hive-like structure of the club, with not just two or three but sixteen distinct tiers ascending over the bottom floor, there were certain aspects of it that were so universally fundamental to such places that even the most avant-garde Drukhari builder could not neglect to include them.

And that is where Druzna brought them—leading them up the stairs to the second tier of the club, to one of the hundreds of chem booths situated on the edges of the dance areas suspended precariously over the crowds below by walkways and cables. The reason for this was simple. The first floor was where the dancing was the most intense, with countless bodies grinding together in twisted mockery of both lovemaking and battle—something Druzna knew would unsettle the others just to be around for too long, as they were unused to such barbaric maneuvers. Exposure could have a concerning effect on their psyche. The second floor was much less populated, and moreover it was filled with insulated and largely private chem dens, little alcoves dug into the walls with booths at which customers could order any number of exotic chems from the Razorjacks’ vaults.

This was, in other words, a floor for paying customers, rather than ones merely here to lose themselves in the masses.

“Sickening,” Eshairr growled, leaning against the wall just outside the booth the others were sitting in.

“Pay it no attention,” Lynekai suggested calmly from where she sat on a cushion, gently pushing a hookah on the floor filled with some sort of bile-inducing leaves and sickly green fluids away from herself with her boot. It was either leftover product a previous customer never managed to finish, or it was complementary, meant to whet the appetite for stronger, more expensive stuff.

Druzna took the device, sniffed at the mouthpiece, and then grimaced and tossed the whole thing out onto the ground—soon snatched up by scampering and nearly feral chem-fiends, whose hollow, sunken eyes glared into the Morriganites with clear hatred before they vanished into the flashing, misty darkness.

“Were those… Eldar?” Lynekai asked, concernedly.

“Yes,” Druzna answered, paying the roving, crawling, hairless and shriveled things no heed. “There are entire gangs of such wretched kinsfolk, dwelling in the deepest pits among mutants, monsters, and worst of all the Haemonculi. These light-hating Gutter-Walkers climb up to the brighter, more civilized parts of the slums in large packs, stealing, raping, and waging wars just to scrounge up enough doses to sate their endless appetites… and they can indeed earn their way into even a place like this. Only High Commorragh would reject the valuable loot they offer out of principle.”

“Or rather, you mean they would simply kill such trash and take what valuables they may have to offer rather than dealing with them,” Azraenn corrected. “And they should.”

“Pity their ilk, Azraenn. They are undeserving of your hatred,” Lynekai said sternly.

Azraenn leaned back with a huff of annoyance. “Hatred or not, such lowly things all deserve a blade in the heart.”

Druzna chuckled at the idea. “For them, such a thing would be a mercy, not a punishment. Lynekai is right. They are too pitiful to despise. Many of their kind are rejects who failed to earn their way into the service of the Covens, yet were still put to use as test subjects and then released once the Wracks grew bored of them. Many are so heavily mutated that they scarcely resemble Eldar at all anymore. Only chems may dull the agony of their twisted bodies, and only for a time. Still… the misery of their fates aside, they cannot be tolerated, either. They are dangerous to everyone, and they lack all reason. Intimidation is of little use—the only ones they seem to fear are the Covens, and that’s because even the insane know better than to cross them.”

“How terrible…” Tulushi’ina muttered quietly, glancing around and finding the daily menu hung on the wall, a scroll of human leather detailing what chems or other things were on tap and their relative prices. Written in blood, of course.

“Thinking of purchasing something?” Druzna asked, noticing the curiosity in Tulushi’ina’s movements.

“N-no,” Tulushi’ina protested, seemingly aghast at the idea. “It is that I have not heard mention of any of these chems before… what even are they?”

Druzna glanced at the chart. “The exact composition of each is a secret of the syndicate which manufactures them, and they would gladly die before sharing that knowledge. The names you see here are but poetic metaphor, slang given to describe what the usual dose does to an Eldar, as it would be impossible even for most Haemonculi to keep track of the millions of hand-crafted recipes constantly being invented as everyone strives to create the next great addiction.”

“The Chains of Khaine?” Tulushi’ina asked, referring to one of the names on the menu. It was clearly a reference to the moment in myth when the God of Murder crippled the Smith God, Vaul, and then trapped him to his forge with molten chains that left him unable to leave.

“Yes,” Druzna said. “A common medicine, for when one’s agonies have grown too great—it numbs them by attacking the nerves, at the cost of losing some control of the limbs for the duration. The longer it is used, the less it dulls the pain. Abuse leads to even worse torments, eventually sacrificing even the ability to speak or even breathe as the chains tighten around them. It is a dark path they walk, fated to expire in silence, trapped as prisoner within their own bodies. And yet, I fear the true suffering they experience in their last moments is that their hands cannot reach the next dose.”

Tulushi’ina listened, slowly nodding in understanding. “What of Heartstill?”

“A dangerous one, though not simply for what the name suggests,” Druzna explained. “Deadly, if too much is given at once. But if dosed correctly, it issues a great euphoria in feeling the heart slow to a crawl, dancing on the very edge of death, the moment lengthening into infinity. It is the ultimate calm, a forced peace so deep and so satisfying that many will sacrifice all they own, all they are, for just one more dose. That is its true threat.”

“An illusion of peace, a disgusting lie for the weak-minded to lose themselves in,” Azraenn hissed. “For we all know what truly comes after death.”

The den grew silent, as none had much to say in response to such a grim subject.

“The Touch of Gea?” Tulushi’ina asked, eager to begin a new topic.

“Ah, that one is exceptionally pleasurable, so long as you are mating for the entire duration. If you are not, it becomes a torture the likes of which you could not possibly imagine,” Druzna said, glancing at her black-painted fingernails idly.

“Torture?” asked the Ranger. “In the way of our own Yearning?”

Druzna blinked, surprised by the apt comparison. “Yes and no. Actually, it is far less focused than…” Druzna began to explain, only to notice Lynekai shaking her head disapprovingly, which cut the detailed description short. “Regardless, it is most unpleasant. I assure you of that.”

“Oh,” Tulushi’ina said. “Are there any here that you actually like?”

Druzna glanced back up at the scrawled list, raising a dark eyebrow. “By now you must realize that few of them are like the traditional herbs which Ranger-Captain Yllia enjoys in her pipe. These are offerings of sensations so intense that the first exposure might leave the innocent scarred for life, if not outright mad. But such is the need for these extremes here. Soft, gentle chems that simply induce a giddy mood are of little use to those who toil in these slums for all their miserable lives—which can last centuries, if they are clever and lucky enough to survive that long.”

Lynekai’s eyes darkened. “So, they turn from the waking torment they cannot escape by embracing a new torment all the deeper in their own minds, indulging their darkest desires for a moment’s respite.”

“Precisely,” Druzna said, nodding. “I am surprised you would understand that so easily, dear Seer.”

Azraenn spat with impressive accuracy, smudging the blood on the menu with her spittle. “We have no use for such disgusting things.”

Munesha, who had been listening quietly, somewhat distressed by the loudness of the music and the blinding, flashing, colorful light beams all around the club, finally spoke up. “We have not seen our escort in some time… I sense darkness has befallen her.”

Eshairr, still standing watch, glanced around the catwalks and platforms of the second tier. But in the foggy haze of chem-smoke hanging in the air, along with the constant shifting from pitch darkness to blinding light as the lights constantly altered their patterns and colors, made it nearly impossible even for the keen eyes of an Eldar to make out figures save for the most apparent of features. Kanbani was wearing her helmet and armor earlier, but she was not the only Kabalite here, and it was quickly proven a fruitless search.

“Munesha, can you find Kanbani?” Eshairr asked, turning around to speak into the den so that her voice would be heard above the din of the music.

Munesha coughed, lifting a bracelet of Eldar finger bones lashed together to the air, only to shiver and return it to her pocket.

“There can be no concentration here,” she admitted shamefully. “I daren’t wield my powers without the fullest control. I am weak, here. My senses…”

Eshairr bit her thumbnail. This was not what she needed to hear. But she could hardly demand a Seer risk their very soul if it were not a grave emergency. Munesha’s manner of Seer, a rare kind from Exodite tribes for which there was countless variation in teachings and practices, was not like those of the Craftworlds who were universally trained to endure and disregard sensory excess. Exodites possessed fundamentally different perspectives and mindsets compared to those of the Craftworlds, thus many of their psychic techniques had to be developed to complement their way of life, much as the Seers of Craftworlds did with their own. For Exodite Wayseers, the senses were themselves key to their mystic arts, and to seal them or ignore them would render such methods inert or useless.

Thus, the greatest strength of the Wayseers was equally their greatest weakness.

Lynekai rose from her cushioned seat. “I will find her. If she is indeed in trouble, perhaps there is something I can do. If she is not, I will return with that knowledge for us all.”

“That is an unreasonable task for an honored woman like yourself,” Druzna said. “Not all the levels and chambers of this place are safe to visit. You must understand, my lady. This is still Commorragh, regardless of the welcome we have been given. Should your nature as a Seer be revealed…”

Lynekai did not flinch at the idea. “I am more than capable of making use of my powers subtly, Druzna. Do not fear for my discretion.”

Eshairr stepped up into the den. “Druzna is right. I believe you could perhaps find Kanbani, but it is better that we do not take that risk.”

Lynekai turned to Druzna, giving her a look that asked for her assistance.

Druzna glanced around for a moment, then sighed. “Very well. I will go with her.” She dug around in her coat pockets and scattered a small pile of flakes of glass—colorful and varied in shape. The significance of this was lost on her cohorts, but that was acceptable. They were likely better off not knowing the sordid history behind the use of such things like this as currency.

“Use this—have drinks so that you do not draw undue attention. I recommend the valea’lei sukan ynnisle,” Druzna said, pointing at the menu. “We won’t be gone long. Stay here, all of you.”

===

Thud.

“Unnngh!” she screamed.

Thud.

“Agggh!” she yelled.

Thud.

Every blow to her midsection left a deeper, darker spot, veins bursting beneath her grey skin, forming into pale and purple contusions beneath her round, delicate breasts.

Her ribs broke several punches ago.

The knuckles slamming into her torso felt like someone stomping on broken glass inside of her guts.

It was pure, simple, pain. Though crude compared to the more advanced methods of Commorragh’s elite, there was no substitute for simply breaking the body of one’s enemies.

And moreover, it was satisfying. Quick, easy, and so very gratifying.

Thud.

“Nnngh,” Kanbani groaned, hanging limp, staring at the blood-stained floor. Her arms were suspended in chains hung from the ceiling, and even if she had the strength to contort her body at this point, she could do little to break such bindings.

Three men and two women wore savage grins on their faces that matched the ferocious snarls of the freakish tattoos covering their pale skin, gleefully soaking in the agony of their hated prey. They were scantily dressed in little more than loincloths and black scarves, the exposed skin allowing all to behold the long, sharp razor-blades surgically implanted in their skin like the quills of a beast all the way down their scalps, backs, and limbs. This agonizing modification which could draw blood by simply shifting one’s muscles too much was the proof of their allegiance, marking them proudly as Razorjacks. They stood around the dangling Kabalite, winding bandages around their fists to protect their own skin and bones from the devastation they were in the midst of inflicting on the fool woman who had incurred their spite.

“Weak,” Kanbani growled, coughing violently, a reflex that only inflicted even greater anguish—because it made her shattered bones stab harder into her organs.

“We’ve only just begun,” growled the man in charge, grabbing her by the hair and forcing her to look into his eyes. “Do you truly believe that you can just kill one of us like that and then slip into places you don’t belong, haughty wench?”

Kanbani regarded him coldly, head tilting as he yanked on her hair, a single lock hanging over her left eye. “Yes.”

For that, he punched her across the face.

Kanbani wheezed, inhaling weakly, and then—spat blood and a loose tooth in his face.

“Weak,” she said again.

He wiped the fluids from his eye, grimacing with displeasure. “How dare you?!”

After a moment of plain fury, the lieutenant seemed to realize he was being watched by his subordinates, and he composed himself more properly. He lifted his arm, showing Kanbani the razorblades sticking out of his flesh, anchored in his very bones. “Such a hurry to die, hmm?”

He flexed, and the dozens of blades flared outward as his muscles pressed upon them, changing the angle of the fixtures from nearly flat against his skin to almost totally perpendicular to his arm.

“These blades aren’t just for show,” he grinned. “The corpses of those who earn our ire are often found with every scrap of their skin flayed and raked into tangled shreds. It is particularly agonizing, as this is a fate which does not slay swiftly. Shall we dance, my dear?”

Kanbani glanced up at him after dangling for a moment more. “Get on with it, you tasteless maggot.”

===

The third tier of Blackspear Hollow was thick with the sense-twisting fumes of the chem dens rising up from below, and here was where the slave-whores ruled by the Razorjacks plied their trade in massive orgies within expansive, cushioned pits. Thousands of the ravenous wealthy secured themselves a place within these fleshy forests of writhing, thrusting bodies, pale skin stained by the erratic flashes of color which spilled over them from above like a constantly evolving painting of absolute indulgence. Moans, groans, grunts, and cries of ecstasy accentuated the bone-shaking beat of the electronic music raging throughout the entirety of this festival-fortress.

They did not linger here long—both Druzna and Lynekai knew the dangers of such wanton lovemaking around them. The Yearning was quick to react to such visions and songs of excess, and their mission could easily go forgotten in the haze of desire which it inflicted upon them. Lynekai gestured upwards, and Druzna led her to the nearest winding passage that ascended to the next level.

First was rhythm and bloodflow; second was chems and gluttony; third was flesh and oneness. Here, at the fourth circle and lattice overlooking the concupiscent fete below, another, higher vice entirely was indulged.

This was fortune, in both meanings of the word. No different from the mon’keigh languages which equated wealth with luck, there were many such terms in the dialects of the Eldar language that mixed these concepts together, for it was a universal observation of the tangled nature they shared.

The gambles themselves took the form of either games of simplicity like rolled bones inscribed with runic meanings, or games of great complication around tables of arcane contraptions which tabulated the thousands of components each player was forced to consider and judge carefully before taking their next action. Perhaps the most exciting events were live torture shows—a choice slave picked and the last few hours of their lives squeezed out for an audience who gambled on how long the slave might last until complete mental destruction or until final death.

Likewise popular were wagers upon participants of Reaver races raging through various quarters of the city, or similarly bets placed upon the fighters within a Wych Cult’s arena. Naturally, thousands of screens and holo-immersion suites were scattered throughout the entire floor to broadcast these events in real-time, while corvine and gaunt bookmakers and their tortured scribe-slaves prowled every corner of the room, hawklike eyes scanning for cheats and liars while claiming small fees and taxes upon both wagers and earnings to fill the coffers of the Razorjacks for all services provided.

But unlike the other realms of Blackspear, here the masses donned their finest garments, prim and proper, styled exquisitely in keeping with the thousands of concurrent, competing trends of Commorragh fashion at any given moment. Wealth was not merely the currency one carried or the assets one laid claim to; wealth was in the attire, the movements, even the diction of all who lingered here, and to forget that was to beg to be executed with the utmost disdain, lest the uncouth churl’s mere act of breathing soil the air belonging to the proud gentry, or would-be gentry, reclining throughout the gambling lounges of this floor.

Most curious of all, it seemed impossible to truly know who upon this layer hailed from above or below. The dwellers of Low Commorragh feigned the social graces of the heights with such practiced ease that not a single error could be found in their acts, and the denizens of the spires and arenas seemed to let slip just enough of the strenuous facades they maintained daily that they could be mistaken for particularly eloquent Hellions or Reavers.

In either case, there was an unspoken law.

One did not inquire as to from whence a guest came.

One merely placed the wager down and allowed the whims of Fate to decide who would walk away as the true nobility of Commorragh—the wealthiest, and thus, the most powerful. The rest, the ones who lost, they were clearly the peasants as proven by their lack of good fortune, which was just as valuable in determining the worth of anyone in the Eternal City as any other talent.

“Ugh,” groaned a passing Wych, or at least someone who seemed to be one, as she turned and noticed Druzna’s arrival from the stairs nearby. The strong, toned woman dressed in fine black glittering silks drew a long blade from the sheath on her hip and almost immediately turned it upon the First Spear. “You do not belong here.”

Druzna glanced down at herself in surprise. Her coat was formerly that of a mercenary guild mistress, and while the trends did oft shift rapidly from one day to the next, this custom-designed and hand-crafted masterpiece should have purchased weeks of fashionability. Were her movements so obviously those of the unworthy? Perhaps this was indeed a Wych before them, for it might take the exacting gaze of one attuned so keenly to the movements of others to so instantly detect the signs of low birth just in the language of the body alone.

“Look at you, filth, so confused by a simple command—leave at once,” the Wych hissed, turning her nose up at Druzna with the most disgusted look in her eyes and stepping closer, radiating malice.

Lynekai stepped forward, bowing lightly. “I must humbly ask that you spare my slave, milady of bloodshed. She is quite talented in many skills, despite her lack of refinement. It would be ever so annoying to seek out a replacement.”

The stranger Wych harrumphed, turning her chin away from Druzna and testing the edge of her dagger with a finger in a dainty pose of false boredom. “Hmph! Yes, yes, I know. I am merely entertaining myself. What good is a slave if one cannot threaten them for simply existing?”

Having said her piece and defended her pride, the Wych hurried off, huffing in annoyance as though she were the one who had been inconvenienced.

“I saw my life reflected in the steel of her blade,” Druzna admitted, a hand going to her chest to try and slow her pounding heart. “That was a proficient lie, Lady Lynekai. Never did I think to expect it from one like yourself.”

Lynekai smiled. “I simply imitated what we have already seen abundantly in Syndratta’s palace. We are fortunate that it was successful.”

Druzna giggled. “I believe there may be more to it than that, my lady. As a Seer of such great age and respect, you are the closest thing Morrigan has to nobility, in a way.”

Lynekai seemed bothered by the idea, shaking her head. “While I do enjoy the kindness in your words, it is almost more an insult than a compliment.”

Druzna, about to continue onward, froze and turned back to Lynekai. “What? How could noble blood and a fabled ancestry possibly serve as insult?”

“Ah, you would not necessarily know of this given you were not raised among us, but Morrigan long ago erased all records and traditions of the noble houses which survived within its halls. This served an important purpose: It brought us greater unity in the troubled years that followed the Fall,” Lynekai explained sagely. “And for good reason: many were quick to blame the noblemen of the Empire for its decline and the fate which befell us all. They were wrong to do so, but such terrible grief had need of an outlet. By forgetting the nobility of blood, our ancestors averted great civil strife.”

“But the Seers still know that history, do they not? Seers would not be quick to destroy any knowledge outright, no matter how dangerous. There are many records kept solely by your orders, forbidden to the eyes of the common kinswomen,” Druzna pointed out after a moment of consideration. “Even I know that.”

“Yes… there may be something to that effect preserved in the sacred archives and shrines sealed deep beneath the Dome of Sleepers, but this knowledge is only of historical worth, now,” Lynekai stated stiffly. “Morrigan has changed far too much for any of the noble lines that may still persist in it to be restored to their former glory and power.”

“You’re one of the forgotten noble scions, aren’t you?” Druzna asked, smirking her black-painted lips. “Even that Wych could tell. It’s a grace radiated from the very bones.”

Lynekai huffed, touching her brow with a couple fingers of exasperation. “No. No, I am not.”

“Yet that is what you are required to say per duty, is it not?” Druzna prodded, only growing more smug. “Perhaps you are a better liar than we ever realized.”

“No more of this, please,” Lynekai grumbled, sighing heavily. “We must find Kanbani. If Munesha’s instincts are correct, and I recall not a single instance of them being wrong, then she is in growing peril.”

Druzna nodded, though the teasing smile never left her pretty features. “As you will it, O Majestic Marquess of Morrigan.”

===

Valea’lei sukan ynnisle—'Crone’s Nectar,’ in one meaning, ‘Grey River,’ in another sense, but more commonly used to mean ‘Bone Water.’

It was a mild alcohol akin to ale or lager, only the principal ingredient was in fact the bones of a species of arboreal xenos that had been domesticated within some of Commorrragh’s countless accelerated hydroponics domes which provided the majority of foodstuffs for denizens. It was a rare quirk of the alien’s biology that the decay of its skeleton and organs produced potable alcohols, and the remnant compounds of this process also provided a curiously copper-like aftertaste.

The first to brave the bubbling brew was, in fact, Munesha, who so loved many hearty ales from her tribe, the Hoel’eyr. Further, the thought of inebriation was immediately becalming to her frayed nerves and scattered wits, and just as soon as the scantily clad slave waiter had arrived and deposited the tankards of the stuff for the Morriganites, Munesha had already downed half of hers in a heartbeat.

“Is… is it good?” Tulushi’ina asked, wide-eyed and curious. “It’s so… ordinary looking.”

Munesha paused only long enough in her drinking to nod to her companion, and then she threw herself right back into chugging until the last drop was caught on her tongue and she slammed the metal cup back down.

Tulushi’ina leaned in and sniffed at her own mug trepidly.

“It smells like blood,” Azraenn noted as she examined hers. She dared a sip, and then set it back down with a disapproving shake of her head.

Eshairr stared into the slowly fading foam spilling over the rim of her cup.

“How typical for such a flavor to be popular among the masses here,” Eshairr noted before testing the brew for herself. “Hmm. No, there’s more to it. Hints of spices.”

“It is far from the most pleasing I’ve partaken in,” Munesha declared, crossing her arms together. It seemed the stuff had already soothed her discomfort considerably. “But there is craftsmanship to this which must be acknowledged.”

Azraenn just pushed hers over to Munesha, showing little interest in such drinks—quite like a Warrior. Tulushi’ina, however, worked diligently on hers, consuming the tall flagon one dainty gulp at a time. Most of them seemed able to relax, perhaps a benefit of the strong drinks or simply because Munesha now had some relief from the assault on her senses.

However, one among them remained stiff and agitated.

“It has been too long,” Azraenn growled. “I will go and find Lady Lynekai.”

“Slow down,” Eshairr said, taking another drink of her bone water. “It has not been long at all. We must give them time. This is not a place of open bloodshed—at least, not without good reason. Rather, if we leave this position, they may not be able to find us when they return.”

Azraenn scoffed and turned to Munesha. “Do you foresee any dark omens for our comrades?”

Munesha, perhaps more able to focus now, took out her bracelet of fingerbones and rattled it a few times, eyes shut, chanting some manner of mantra under her breath. She spoke of things such as historical anecdotes and legendary events, of which there were countless millions taught to all Eldar regardless of their way of life. Gradually, as she worked, she seemed to narrow down the meanings she saw.

Then, at last, Munesha untied the strings binding her bracelet together, and she threw it into the center of the drug den, each and every single bone scattering at their feet between the women. No one moved a muscle, lest they disturb this mysterious rite.

There was no meaning to this, at least none that was obvious to any but Munesha herself. It was quite unlike the methods of the Craftworld Seers. But Munesha seemed to recognize the unspoken truths behind how each and every bone fell, perhaps aware of what the seemingly random pattern must imply.

“There is wandering. There are many delights which mark their path, yet they dare not partake. Then there is battle,” Munesha whispered.

Azraenn leapt to her feet, taking the shuriken pistol from within her coat. “As I knew. Lead me to them!”

Munesha ignored the demand. “No… It is battle, yet not a drop of blood spilt. It is a strange omen of twisted and confused meaning. Ah, one has noticed my gaze—Lynekai.” With that, Munesha leaned back in her seat, shaking her head. “I am rebuffed. No further omens can be read.”

“Where are they?” Azraenn asked.

“I cannot say. I merely read the omens—this is the extent of my powers of foresight, a shallow crudeness compared to what the Seers of a Craftworld practice.”

“I believe it was most helpful,” said Tulushi’ina, kneeling down to pluck up each sacred fingerbone that had scattered around the den, gathering them for the Wayseer.

“Where?!” Azraenn insisted. “You are a hunter-sorceress. You have many powers that are not of divination, but of tracking and searching. Hunt them!”

Munesha shook her head, folding her legs together where she sat. “I dare not project my mind into the depths of this club to find them. Should I attempt to do so, any defenses against psychic intrusion shall attack me and alert its owners to my nature as a Seer. However, their situation will be a precarious one, if I have read the omens well,” Munesha said. “I could, of course, track their path directly with my powers—hunt them, as you say. Though, if Lynekai has chosen to repel my reading of her fates, then she may have erased the signs of their passage as well. For a Seer to ward against the witch-sight of another is not uncommon, but if she felt the need to alert us of danger, she could have allowed it.”

“Then perhaps she believes we will only complicate matters if we intervene,” Eshairr noted.

“Or perhaps she fears we will walk into the same trap!” Azraenn growled. “This is not proof of her safety!”

“I will search for her!” offered Tulushi’ina bravely from below as she continued digging around underneath the seats for the last few bones, worried for the direction this conversation was headed.

“No, we must not divide further,” Eshairr answered. “Druzna is better equipped than any of us to face such threats here. Though it pains me to admit, we may only get in her way.”

Azraenn glanced out, looking over the field of throbbing masses.

“If we remain together, then we will find no one,” Azraenn pointed out.

Eshairr bit her lip. She was right, of course.

“Even so, we must trust that the others are able to face their trials alone,” Eshairr said.

Azraenn crossed her arms together, looking at Eshairr with narrowed eyes. “Cowardice.”

“It is no such thing!” she retorted. “It is called faith, Azraenn. I have faith in my First Spear and Master Bonesinger. Have you faith in anyone but yourself?”

“Sisters, please, no fighting,” Tulushi’ina whispered, delivering the pieces of Munesha’s bracelet back to the Wayseer, who kissed her on the lips as a token of gratitude.

Eshairr forced herself to breathe deeply before she continued, at Tulushi’ina’s behest.

“I speak not from fear, but from wisdom gleaned from many lessons,” Eshairr added, more softly.

But this was not enough to soothe the Warrior. Azraenn threw an arm out, grabbing Eshairr by the shoulder and shoving her back up against the wall, glaring furiously into her. “Your wisdom? The wisdom of flight before all travails? Yes, I have seen the lessons which taught you this with my own eyes.”

Eshairr grimaced. She was no doubt referring to the times whenever they slipped into Realspace to replenish their supplies, only for the hidden caches they sought out to be contested by hateful xenos. Light fighting took place, and in the end Eshairr always chose to flee with only partial recovery of the supplies rather than risk what few forces she had upon a sustained battle of attrition.

There was always a painful blow to her pride when Morrigan’s painstakingly prepared stockpiles had to be destroyed lest whatever they lacked the time to load aboard be looted by the unsavory lesser races. Nevertheless, how terribly angering it was to be contradicted and attacked for every decision like this for years on end. Every single compromise Eshairr had made to preserve lives had somehow become a sin in Azraenn’s eyes, another stain upon an already tarnished record.

But she would not flinch at this—the presence of their sisters aboard the ship was all the proof Eshairr needed of the rightfulness of her commands. “Silence, Azraenn. I have done naught but which has preserved the Howl on this perilous journey.”
Azraenn leaned in, eyes wide with fire, whispering with the intensity of a roar. “This journey? It began when you fled the Fall of Morrigan. Our home. You wretched coward.”

Fury.

Of all the tragedies for Azraenn to strike at, this, this could not be forgiven.

Incensed, Eshairr grabbed and struggled against Azraenn’s pinning arm, which shifted up to choke against her throat.

“Be silent, Captain. Quiet. I am not finished speaking. You left our kin to suffer unspeakable torments when our place was with them,” Azraenn hissed furiously. “No, that is a naïve perception. We assume too much of this offshoot of the Great Devourer. For all we know, Eros has had its fill of rape—perhaps by now it has already consumed them all to fatten its stores of organic matter.”

“No! That has not occurred!” Eshairr yelled, equally in anger and terror at the thought.

Azraenn throttled her harder with her elbow, choking the air from her lungs.

“Stop this!” Tulushi’ina cried aloud. “Please!”

Munesha grabbed Tulushi’ina by the shoulder, shaking her head. Perhaps she agreed with Azraenn—it would not be strange for the warlike Exodites to see much in common with those who walked the Path of Murder. Or perhaps she, in her wisdom, saw more to this argument than flaring tempers. Perhaps to her people, it was wrong to contain emotion and conceal festering hatred, as there was no time to dwell on such things when every day was a struggle for survival.

“Yes,” Azraenn pressed, “Indeed, I would think everyone we left behind is now naught but feces festering in the bowels of a Hive Ship, and look at you: still tarrying, still inventing excuses to linger and wait for others to solve your problems! When, precisely, is Syndratta planning to aid us? You do not know, do you? Of course not. You have avoided asking. You are happier here, aren’t you? Because you are afraid that as soon as we try to return home, you will meet the same fate as your beloved Aydona, the degenerate whore who failed to save our home!”

Eshairr’s eyes widened, not in shock, but in absolute rage.

Azraenn leaned in closer, staring into Eshairr’s eyes.

“You saw it too, did you not? That transmission that you have tried so desperately to forget. Yes, when your gutter-trash Fleetmistress found ecstasy in the arms of an alien. Eshana should never have allowed her such a rank—she was always a weakness in our defenses, and Hive Fleet Eros proved that. It is good that she and her fleet were destroyed. They deserved no quarter.”

Eshairr reared her head back.

Thud.

Azraenn stumbled back, a hand going to hold her aching brow where Eshairr had clashed skulls with her.

“Enough!” Eshairr shot back. “Insult me if it awakens some sliver of joy in your hollow heart of ash, but I will brook no cruelties spoken upon the Mariners of Morrigan who stood the line! Perhaps I am a coward for wishing to preserve the lives of our kin, for fearing death which can be avoided, but if I am, then what are you for wishing to die in meaningless conflict?! A rash fool!”

Azraenn blinked, staring off into the distance at such harsh words.

“Please, stop!” Tulushi’ina cried out, breaking free of Munesha and standing between them. “Lady Lynekai would be appalled! Why turn upon each other?!”

But this was far too little to calm either of the women, now.

“Do not do harm unto me again,” Azraenn rumbled, like the groaning of tectonic plates beneath vast oceans. “Or by Khaine, I will have your head.”

Eshairr twitched. She grit her teeth.

And then she slugged Azraenn with a furious right hook, decking her in one bone-shaking punch.

“That was for Aydona’s honor, you arrogant cretin!” yelled Eshairr. “And I’ll strike you down again for every Mariner you were pleased to see fall! You lower yourself and your shrine with every word you spit! You prove yourself no true daughter of Morrigan, but a barbaric warmonger, lost to your murderous and malevolent Path!”

Azraenn, stunned, reached up and held her red cheek, aching with the strength of Eshairr’s blow. Silent, she stared up at the captain as she continued to rage.

“Goddesses forgive me, I knew it! I knew this could never work! The Howl would have been better served had I left every last one of you to die at the Watchtower of Veneloc like you so clearly sought!” Eshairr yelled, shaking with anger enough to nearly go for her pistol. “If the God of the Dead himself offered me a second chance, I would trade your souls without hesitation to restore the lives of every crewmate who perished to preserve you and yours!”

But at the passing of those words, she flinched at herself.

The anger which had driven her to such unspeakable lengths fled her, replaced by revulsion at the terrible curses she had uttered upon her ally.

Aghast and burning with shame, she looked down at the ground.

“I am… sorry,” Eshairr said, holding her head in a hand, suddenly weary and weak-kneed.

“What are you doing?” Azraenn growled.

“I was wrong to say these things,” Eshairr whispered with a long sigh.

Azraenn gaped at the captain with increasing tension in her muscles.

“Enough weeping, you pathetic child!” Azraenn hissed, no forgiveness in her eyes. “I almost respected the sharpness of your tongue. Now look at you, near to tears in enemy territory! I cannot abide such weakness in the one who wishes to wield me.”

“What?! I wish only to make amends between us!” Eshairr shouted, roused to anger once again. “Are we not sisters-in-arms? What drives you to this belligerence?!”

Azraenn rose to her feet, drawing her long knife and aiming the tip directly at Eshairr. “You have lost your way. You are unbalanced of heart and childish of mind. As Bladebearer, acting in absence of great Morrigan’s Exarchs, I hereby challenge you! Face me in the Dance of Blades, or face the shame of your cowardice forever!”

Chapter Text

==Chapter VII: Battle Against the Beat==

The fifth level was most unlike the first four. This was an almost placid and soulless place, lacking in the luxuries furnished below. Instead of soft cushions and curtains of silk and floors of dark marble that hid the puddles of blood spilling upon them in the midst of the dancing hordes, there was only white steel, reflecting the faces and figures of the scores of armed guards and all who dared approach them.

There were many alcoves and branching passages here, along with no less than five heavily fortified checkpoints in a row which guarded the lifts to the sixth tier.

“What is this?” Lynekai asked, surprised to see such sterility.

“An insular layer, I would think,” Druzna said, gesturing at the many Hellions standing guard with rifles. “Below us is the first ring of admittance. Above is for more valued guests and the private business of the organization. And this serves as the barrier between them. From here on out, we are treading into open danger.”

Lynekai paused, closing her eyes for a moment, as if to meditate. Not long after, she opened them again. “I sense the soul of Kanbani here… she is not beyond these checkpoints, but she is not in an obvious location either. I believe that it is a dark and hateful place.”

Druzna nodded. “I feared as much.” She glanced around the area, then gestured for them to head to a side corridor. It was not a restricted part of the floor, as it led to a chirurgeon clinic open for the use of guests and customers who desired aesthetic surgeries or medical care, should they be wounded in the hectic chaos of the dance floor or overdose on chems. All at a ‘reasonable’ price, of course.

Once they had slipped into this passage outside the watchful eye of the Hellions on guard, Druzna stopped and pointed at one of the doors here—this one locked and restricted, though unguarded.

“There’s always alternate routes in and out of secure compounds, in case of siege or disaster,” Druzna said. “This one seems to head in the right direction. It, I would assume, can be taken to slip into the darker, fortified places of this floor. That would be where unruly guests like those who attempt to break through into the upper layers and enemies of the gang are brought, I might guess.”

Lynekai nodded. “I see. Your knowledge of the operations of these organizations is quite helpful, my dear.” She gestured at the door, and a faint hum filled the air—perhaps a reaction of the runestones sewn into her sleeves, each tone indicating a different trait and aspect of the lock to Lynekai’s honed hearing. “The security of this lock is not a system I am familiar with. There is little of Commorite technology which is familiar to me, though I do recognize certain principles of design shared between our cultures. I may be able to penetrate it if I spend a moment in study.”

Druzna opened her coat and reached into a pocket, withdrawing a small grey tool the size and shape of a tarot card and slipping it over the locking mechanism. Upon contact, the metal gadget which seemingly possessed no features sealed itself to the lock and a jolt of unhealthy blue lightning crackled through it—a series of azure Aeldari runes flashing through the grey metal of the card, inscribing in a pattern of engrossing beauty the intricate process it was engaged in, slicing through every last control protocol of the locking system. After a moment of silence, the lock disengaged, the activity of the card ceased, and the door swung open into a pitch-black passageway leading deeper into the concealed chambers of this floor. Druzna took the device back, bowing and gesturing for Druzna to head on through.

“That is a handy thing,” Lynekai noted.

“Yes. Aydona made sure to provide each of her Voidscarred with adequate equipment and training to use it, for when we were hired to infiltrate locales like this,” Druzna explained, sealing the door behind them. “Still, thinking of such days, I cannot help but bemoan that we do not have a Shade Runner with us for this manner of work.”

“I have faith in our success with what we have,” Lynekai replied as they made their way down the long, winding corridor into increasing darkness. Fortunately, the eyes of Eldar were keen even in the deepest night, and unlike mon’keigh who often relied upon crude light sources in this degree of shadow, just the faint glimpses of light slipping through the gaps between door and frame were sufficient to light their way.

Suddenly, Lynekai grabbed Druzna and stopped her in place with an arm across her chest.

“A trap,” Lynekai hissed, gesturing forward into seemingly nothingness.

Druzna glanced around at the floor, walls, ceiling, spotting nothing. She was one of the more proficient at catching such things due to her experience, yet she remained totally baffled as to what Lynekai meant.

“There are hidden sensory waves just ahead, and concealed weapons for slaughtering the fools who think this place unguarded,” Lynekai explained.

“How can you tell?” asked Druzna.

“Because I have already witnessed our demise,” answered the Seer coldly.

“Ah.”

“Does your expertise extend to fooling these devices of death?” Lynekai asked.

Druzna squatted down, touching the cold metal floor beneath them with her fingertips.

“A seam here,” she whispered. She followed the almost imperceptible crease in the steel up along the wall and to the ceiling, where the line terminated.

“Is it of any use?”

“Yes. Like any other piece of technology, this has to be maintained from time to time, sensors adjusted, ammunition in the weapons restocked,” Druzna replied. “And Hellions are quick to grow impatient with monotonous tasks like that. One can often find their secret shortcuts to disarming the trap—and that’s what this is.”

Druzna drew the same tool as before—her wyrdkey, a prized masterwork from an uncommonly skilled Commorite forgemaster—from her pocket and pressed the edges of the card down into the seam, which was not simply a gap between plates of metal. It was an access conduit leading directly into the control system for the trap mechanisms.

Faint blue electricity arced along the seam all the way to the ceiling, where it dove deep into the inner workings of the spire. Then, there was a faint click.

Druzna glanced up at Lynekai from where she sat. “Does your arcane eye still spy our ends?”

Lynekai smiled. “No. Well done, my dear.”

“Marvelous.”

“However…”

“What?”

The Seer frowned. “There are several more traps ahead, one around each corner.”

Druzna’s proud smirk fell off her face.

“How much further until you believe you can make use of your scrying, Seer?” Druzna asked, hoping not to have too much more work ahead of her.

Lynekai gestured forwards. “Worry not. I will let you know when my reach of the Skein clasps around our goal.”

===

The Dance of Blades.

From a young age, every citizen was taught the Dance of Blades as a foundational aspect of their Guardian training as well as a key aspect of their culture.

Should any citizens of Morrigan be faced with a seemingly insurmountable argument, the Dance of Blades was the means by which they laid it to rest. There were other contests they could draw upon, some friendlier, others more vicious, but none carried the emotional and cultural weight as the Dance, a rite nearly synonymous with Morrigan itself. In this way, the Dance of Blades had become precisely what Nobledrake Kalinel had envisioned when she invented it: a unifier of all Paths of the Craftworld.

As Eshairr stood across the catwalk suspended above the dancers raging with the music, she stared into Azraenn’s eyes, only visible when the sporadic flashes of light washed over her fierce features. Even in the foggy shadows without the light, she could feel the glare piercing her skull from the other side of the platform.

Both women had removed their coats and breastplates, disrobing everything they wore above the belt. Their undermesh suits were undone down to the waist and tucked down into their belts, leaving their beautiful upper bodies completely nude and bare to the light. This was tradition—the slightest scratch would end the fight, so it was necessary to make such injury obvious to the eye.

How fortunate that in a place like Blackspear Hollow, this state of partial undress was quite the norm, drawing no one’s eye at all despite the refined, beautiful strength of Azraenn’s arms and back, and the sumptuous shape of Eshairr’s chest, the curves unusually lush for such slender folk.

“For the all-hearing ears of Morai-Heg, I declare your weakness!” announced Azraenn.

There was great and far-reaching meaning in such a statement. When the argument was fierce and the stakes great, the accuser issued their challenge by declaring a goddess to be their patroness, bringing to bear the full weight of their religion and culture into the argument to establish cause. In lesser disputes, they might stake their claims upon smaller institutions such as the wisdom of the Seers or the strength of the Warriors. They could even state the exact issue upon which they disagreed in the simplest and most common form of the Dance, but this was inappropriate for the weight of Azraenn’s criticism.

Morai-Heg was the Crone, the Witch, a goddess who foresaw the ends of all beings with her dark powers. In this way, she passed judgment upon all Eldar, and it was believed that she held particular disdain for the weak, the cowardly, and the corrupt, as befitting the beloved wife of Kaela Mensha Khaine. To invoke her as the accuser was to proclaim one’s purpose to be that of rooting out unworthiness—and to win the contest in her name was to cast undeniable doubt upon the competence and courage of another, suggesting that their ultimate fate was defeat and failure. To call upon Morai-Heg as the defender was, in fact, quite rare. It was well known that the Crone scorned those who called her for aid, as she loved only the strong and cared not for beauty or virtue in her blindness.

“Before the all-seeing eyes of Lileath, I show my honor!” responded Eshairr.

Lileath was the Maiden, the Pure, the only goddess whose heart never wavered in its knowledge of good and evil, and in turn serving as the avenger of injustice. Her invocation in the Dance meant just that—an insistence of morality, whether meant to force it upon another or to defend oneself from other claims. Lileath was the most commonly called upon in defense of one’s deeds, for she was kind and loving indeed, and it was believed that so long as one had acted virtuously and honorably, she would guide the defender to victory.

Thus did the Dance take on a form much deeper than a simple duel.

It was equally a clashing of ideals, a meeting of religion with honor, a fusion of dance and battle.

That was why to deny such a challenge when issued by the worthy meant a grave loss of face and standing, sometimes enough to even risk demotion. Not even one standing member of the High Council looked fondly upon those who flouted the traditions of Morrigan, and the Dance lost all meaning if one simply refused to participate. Not that anyone could challenge others as they pleased, of course—but as leader of the Warrior contingent on the Howl and in turn the voice of their group, Azraenn did certainly possess the right to demand the contest.

“Please, must you do this?” Tulushi’ina pleaded beside Eshairr. “You are kinswomen! Surely you see that this Dance may only inflame your grudge?”

Eshairr did not look to the Ranger, though her delicate voice reached her heart, awakening quivers of guilt she could not afford to indulge in.

Munesha was the one who restrained Tulushi’ina, holding her back. Perhaps she, a former Exodite, understood the importance of these duels as clearly as an Aspect Warrior did. The Exodites were no strangers to such traditions, living the most primitive lifestyles. Many things, even the smallest decisions, could determine or deny survival for them. As such, it was only right that arguments over the ways of the tribe, or possessions, or even the choices of an individual be settled through violence, if words had failed.

Eshairr did not think on such things. She only watched her foe, nodding so slightly that it was questionable if Azraenn would be able to see it from such a distance, in such conditions.

But she did, most certainly.

For Azraenn returned the gesture.

Thus did both agree to what would come—be it wound or even death.

Their hands simultaneously moved to grasp the handles of their longknives. These were not the usual weapon chosen for this, given they were smaller, lighter, faster, more difficult to parry, and therefore easier to kill with, especially in the very close quarters that a knife fight had to take place in. Morrigan typically considered such things a barbarity, turning up its nose at such needless lethality—an important distinction between it and Saim-Hann.

But if no swords were available, and the duel could not be delayed, then this indeed was the only option.

Though the music blared around them both, though the crowds screamed and roared with the thrills of their unending, flowing movements, neither woman noticed.

They only looked upon each other, still and tense like statues of stone.

The first principle of the Dance of Blades, ingrained into the minds and bodies of all who studied it, was that with initiative came victory. While not always the case in practice, she who began the dance set the rhythm which both would have to fight by, a considerable advantage regardless.

And Eshairr seized upon that.

The catwalk they had chosen to serve as their arena was thirty paces long, and Eshairr was already across it in the span of a single heavy, bone-shivering beat of the music, swifter than the blink of a mon’keigh.

===

Everything was just a little bit off.

Not quite right.

A fog about the senses.

As though there were a crack in her eyesight, yet clearly she beheld it all with no difficulty. As though there were a static in her ears, yet she suffered no trouble in hearing what was to come. Even her own body felt just barely unfamiliar, as though she were for whatever reason a few inches taller, even though she clearly was not. So many details were missing around her, like the color of the walls was simply void, yet she noticed others that were so impossibly precise that it exceeded the capacity of the Eldar mind to comprehend.

A curious experience, this glimpse into the workings of the Seers. She soon forgot the oddities she felt. There was far too much else to worry herself with.

The door quietly clicked open from within the shrouded passageway, and Druzna burst out from it into the forbidden annex of the fifth tier—six Razorjacks were here managing scribework and guarding the entrance to several branches of this echelon, some leading to armories, others to training halls, some to lounges and barracks, and to many more important facilities besides. Not the least of which was the prison wing, in which Kanbani was kept according to Lynekai’s careful scrying.

All six Hellions rose at the surprise entrance, drawing splinter and laspistols, or whatever other weapons they had cobbled together out of scrap.

This was not a situation that could be reasoned away and explained delicately.

Fortunately, Druzna had a more overt means of silencing their concerns.

Ptchang-ptchang, ptchang-ptchang, ptchang-ptchang.

Her twin splinter pistols, dark, sleek, accurate, reliable machines of war, sang out in paired shots directed at entirely different angles throughout the annex. Hellions were quick—had to be, to survive on the streets—but she was quicker, and they were completely offguard. All six dropped in an instant, and Druzna did not even stop walking all the while, headed straight for the entranceway leading into the prison complex.

Of course, Druzna did not have time to slow down. She had built her pistols by hand to be virtually noiseless thanks to powerful sonic dampers incorporated in their grips, but more of the thugs could arrive in the annex and find the mess any second, exposing her work.

She smirked, spinning her pistols on her trigger fingers. How long had it been since she enjoyed a plain and simple assault like this? Not since her Corsair days, certainly. Every step she took, breathing the smoky fumes rising from the barrels of her guns, reminded her of those wild memories. Her stride—normally muted in meaning, as a Mariner’s should be—seemed to awaken into a proper privateer swagger that broadcast a message clearly to all who beheld her.

Come at me and die, she said through her body.

Hellions were absolutely not to be trifled with. Even the least of their number was an experienced killer who earned enough respect to be granted membership to a den of bloodthirsty savages like this. They crawled into relevance atop a pile of corpses, and each Hellion gang enforced its own trials and proofs of worthiness, some nearly as dangerous as those of the Kabals or Wych Cults.

But Corsairs were something else entirely—survivors of not merely the streets of Commorragh, but of battlefields and void wars across the galaxy. Many were former Hellions themselves. More of the fearless sailors had histories of even more dreadful weight—Kabalites who had fled their duties, Wyches weary of the confines of the arena, or even former Aspect Warriors who had taken the Path of Exile.

And what, then, should be said of the Voidscarred, the most elite and feared among them, who recruited from the best of the best of all realms of Eldar society?

Druzna raised her handguns and unleashed a torrent of faint blue crystal shards into the walls as she peppered her targets, swinging her guns around to pincushion a dozen Hellions spilling out of side passages before any of them could sound the alarm. Their dying agonies felt wonderful to her, feeding her oft-forgotten Thirst so well that it proved a veritable feast, honing her senses, sharpening her reflexes, even strengthening her body—and perhaps tempting her to fire for extremities rather than vitals, hoping to let the venom draw out each death as long as possible.

A bad habit, indeed. But old habits had a way of creeping back into one’s life over and over and over again.

The music of the club was faint here, but still present, heavy thumps of each beat reaching up into Druzna’s bones through the very floor itself. Her weapons shared this tempo, this pace, their machinery thrumming vibrantly as Druzna’s old instincts came alive once more. Nostalgia throbbed through her breast, almost a painful reminder of the glories she had left behind.

Druzna walked past an armored guard post. She did not turn her head to look at who was inside—the periphery of her vision and the keenness of her hearing were sufficient to casually lift her pistol and fire through the reinforced slats shielding the windows. She put a sliver of venom right through the neck of the man who nearly managed to unload his splinter carbine on her first, all while turning her head to curiously glance around at the gaol cells as she passed them, hoping to find Kanbani quickly.

She mused to herself, finding it easier and easier to follow myriad strands of thought and feeling simultaneously as she felt the rituals of the Paths fall away from her mind. Had Renemarai not squandered her birthright, had she recruited properly rather than favoring sycophants, had she worked to retain even a few of the Voidscarred Aydona so carefully cultivated rather than driving them all away, she might have overcome the Hunter’s Howl with terrifying ease.

The same way Druzna now strolled through the fifth tier defenses without pause, almost without concern.

At the end of the prison wing, there was an especially morbid-looking armored door, which Druzna walked up to and grazed with her wyrdkey. Blue lightning shocked through it, and it swung open on its pneumatic hinges, revealing the interior of the butchery room.

This, where the syndicate disposed of those who were of no further value to them, not even for torture.

Five Razorjacks here.

Then, as her pistols hummed in her fingers, there were none.

There was something that looked like Kanbani hung up by chains from the ceiling, but with most of her flesh ripped off, it seemed impossible to be sure.

“What are you doing here,” growled the presumable Kabalite dangling in bloody agony.

“Saving you?” Druzna suggested, shrugging with both pistols.

“I was so close, you idiot,” Kanbani breathed hoarsely.

“To dying, right?” asked Druzna, holstering her guns and walking over to hit the lever that released the chains, dropping Kanbani to the floor. The mostly skinless woman flopped and cried out in understandable pain from the impact, but she was surprisingly quick to recover.

“They weren’t going to kill me. They knew I was here to negotiate—this was but a game,” Kanbani growled through her lipless teeth.

“A game? Surely this was about their comrade you killed?” Druzna shot back, a hand on her hip.

Kanbani tried to laugh, despite the pain. She did not succeed, but the derision was obvious regardless. “Why do you think they only let us into the club after I killed one of them?”

Druzna raised an eyebrow, running a hand up through her dark locks to slick them back again. As she pondered it, the pieces fell into place. “Yes, I see. Trials upon trials, layered in ponderous detail. And here I thought you killed him because he was threatening us. But he was a spy, wasn’t he? One of Syndratta’s?”

Kanbani nodded, bleeding profusely.

“And that means they knew he was a spy—” Druzna continued, pausing to ruminate briefly on what that meant, in turn. “—so Nolaei was sending a message by assigning him to the outer guard, that you would be confronted with the proof of his failure. You knew that, so you sent a message back. Disposing of a useless pawn. Something almost akin to an apology. Am I wrong?”

“And now you’ve ruined it,” Kanbani hissed. “None of us will leave this place alive. Well done, fool.”

The barrel of a weapon pressed into her back.

“Oh dear. Which one of you did I fail to kill?” Druzna asked, almost turning in time to see the face of the Hellion who had somehow survived her onslaught before he pulled the trigger, ending her in one shot.

The room grew dark, collapsing around them, as reality itself seemed to lose coherency.

And then Druzna opened her eyes in sync with Lynekai, both standing in the dark hallway.

She had never actually stepped through the door.

Lynekai had used her powers to read the Skein of Fates—showing to Druzna through telepathic connection what the near future held with uncanny clarity. In reality, it must have been far more confused than what Druzna was shown, but Seers were trained extensively in building a comprehensive vision from the scattered fragments and confusing omens. In essence, a Seer as ancient as Lynekai was so skilled that, knowing the details as she did of Druzna’s plan to rescue Kanbani, the results of that potential action could be read with flawless accuracy. And in this way, one piece of knowledge could give way to hundreds more—probing at truths without ever setting foot in danger. Thus, the foresight of a master Seer was a powerful talent indeed.

“A game?” Lynekai asked, surprised by what she had observed.

“Yes… there is far more to Kanbani’s actions than we realized,” Druzna acknowledged with a shrug. “But I never cared much for the politics of this city.”

Lynekai nodded. “Do you think Kanbani will need our aid, knowing this?”

Druzna shook her head. “No. Not as such. Nolaei is using the pretext that Kanbani killed a member of the gang to have her tortured—both she and Kanbani know that she cannot afford to reveal it was a spy all along or there will be hell to pay. But the reverse is also true. Nolaei wants something from the Obsidian Rose, and killing Kanbani would mean provoking a war she cannot afford. Once they grow bored with vainly attempting to make a Kabalite beg for mercy, they will have her healed and then engage with her more properly. And that means we are unneeded here. Kanbani knows what she is doing.”

Lynekai sighed. “It is unfortunate that she must endure this under so many false pretenses. If there were only something we could do for her.”

“Far worse happens every second in this city, for far more absurd lies,” Druzna explained. “The best thing we can do is leave her to her work, painful as it might be. Come, we should return to the others. I’m sure they’ve been quite bored waiting around without us.”

As they walked, Druzna shot Lynekai a look. “These powers of yours are potent, indeed. How many deaths have you foreseen since we entered this club, had any of us taken reckless action?”

Lynekai shook her head. “You are better off not knowing the answer, my dear.”

“So, how does our visit end?” Druzna asked curiously.

“For now, the omens suggest success in our mission to meet Nolaei,” Lynekai answered.

“How vague. What of your witch-sight, then?”

Lynekai frowned. “I cannot read the Skeins directly so far ahead, not in a situation as complex as this and with so little to go on. We are surrounded by tens of thousands of individuals acting spontaneously, influenced by chems to further destabilize their minds, and every single action that every single one of them can take creates a radically different future.”

Druzna raised an eyebrow. “How different do you mean?”

“I have already chanced upon glimpses of dark destinies such as the massacre of nearly every living soul here by the blade of a single swordswoman.”

“A… single swordswoman?”

The disbelief hung in the air long after her words were spoken.

“Curious, indeed. But that is only one among innumerable futures stemming from this moment, and they bleed into each other in the Skein so as to become incomprehensible. Yes, that is why we had to come all the way here. It was only by narrowing the potentials that I could cleanly divine Kanbani’s location and status, using your potential attack upon the compound as a crux upon which to anchor my visions. It allowed me to sort out relevant from irrelevant vision fragments and untangle the weaves of fate, among other techniques that would take far longer to explain.”

“Can your kind not see through the chaos of war?” Druzna asked, surprised.

Lynekai gestured with her hand, indicating a mixed answer of both agreement and disagreement. “Some can read the currents of battle, yes, in spite of the complexities. Those who become Warlocks train exhaustively to do so, and can see as far as days ahead into a battle with exacting accuracy. But it is far more difficult for a Warlock to perceive the beginning or end of the war itself, especially one of great scale or duration. That is the domain of Farseers alone.”

Druzna blinked. “I see. Then I suppose we have much to thank High Farseer Auriel and her disciples for.”

A smile appeared on Lynekai’s lips. “Yes. Auriel is a wonderful leader who I am proud to call my most venerable friend. None on Morrigan could hope to surpass her gifts of prescience, honed as they are by the ages she has endured unflinchingly. I admit, I envy her powers, much as I have ever since we took our first steps on the Path of the Seer together.”

Druzna smirked. “None on Morrigan, you say. Could you be referring to the great Eldrad Ulthuan, perchance?”

“Yes, there is little doubt that he ranks among the greatest of Aeldari prophets,” Lynekai nodded. “We owe him much for what he has done to preserve us. All of us. Ah… but there are a handful of others who rival him, though much less infamous, and thus their names are not common parlance upon every Craftworld.”

“Controversy is a great builder of fame, this I know. Well, do you think him correct?” Druzna asked. “Is there still hope for our kind? No, hope for anything in this wretched galaxy?”

Lynekai fell silent, closing her eyes for a moment that seemed almost pained. But—then that passed, and she looked as stoic as ever, unmovable like bedrock.

“Yes. There is always hope,” Lynekai said, managing a perfectly heartwarming smile.

It might have fooled millions of Asuryani.

But this lie, beautiful and lovely, would be all too terribly transparent to the Dark Eldar.

Such deep turmoil, leaking out of the Seer’s heart.

Druzna looked to the ground, regretting her question. Her Thirst drank deeply of her beloved friend’s sorrow, and the unspeakable wrongness of that primal, nerve-tingling satisfaction made her wish to vomit.

===

Here was not a battle to the death. Not in its purest sense. The blows would be true, but they were in service of something greater.

Here was an art form.

The Eldar used movements to convey context, emotion, even short phrases.

The Aspect Warriors had evolved this into an entire separate language spoken only through the body, and they had long allowed their skills to speak for them in difficult arguments. Murder was their right, their purpose, and in murder even of each other, they found clarity of thought and unification in their ranks.

In the ashes of the War of Yearning, Morrigan was weak, its people broken and scattered, half a Craftworld, teetering on the edge of total collapse. Kalinel the Unbroken saw this, having ascended to the throne of High Autarch by unanimous decision of the Seer Council and the Honor Council both, one of the few things anyone could agree on. With her new, sweeping authority, she addressed the crisis. She ordered this language of murder be adapted and taught to all of Morrigan. But she was wise, and she knew that most of her subjects could not endure the full savagery of the Bloody-Handed God and his cruel ways. By her will, this tongue of battle was honed and evolved into a new form by her greatest servants, its purpose no longer to bring death to the opponent but to draw out the truth of their logic, their feelings, their convictions.

For only in the crucible of battle could her divided sisters be brought together once more.

The Dance was not a test of skill or strength, but a test of beliefs. The stances they took signified frameworks of thought. Every strike rang out a great claim, and every block announced a rejection of that idea. Counterattacks aimed for the weaknesses of each argument, no different from capitalizing on a gap in the enemy’s guard.

In this way, the Dance of Blades could settle a long and arduous debate in but a few blows.

And it was, indeed, dance as much as duel.

Or so it was supposed to be.

But as Eshairr charged across the catwalk suspended above the throngs of dancers below, preparing layers of maneuvers to express volumes of her frustrations to Azraen, she noticed something unusual.

Azraenn had drawn her blade and taken a battle stance, but she did not move a muscle from there.

Eshairr stopped before her, well within reach.

Both fighters were meant to share a rhythm, for this was not a simple contest of murderous speed. It was no dance at all if they did not maintain an equal speed, and it was not unusual for such duels to take place at a crawling pace, even attacks slowed to the dullest flow. This was crucial to ensure that no matter how excellent the warrior, it was entirely possible for a common civilian to overcome them through patience and careful planning. Therein lied the brilliance of the Dance, how it served to create balance and harmony throughout Morrigan.

But Azraenn had not even begun to share that tempo.

Eshairr stared, nonplussed, into Azraenn’s features, searching for meaning to her stillness.

Azraenn did move, then. But it was not to attack or defend. She simply stretched out her arms, as if in welcome. This was not one of the stances of symbolic meaning. This was not one of the thousands of beautiful, dancelike maneuvers all were taught to use to express not only their true beliefs and feelings, but also strive for the advantage in hopes of drawing first blood and securing victory.

That victory—she was offering it freely.

Eshairr blinked. Confusion roiled through her mind. Of all the things for the Dire Avenger to do, of all the vectors of assault she had expected and prepared for, this and only this could have surprised her.

Azraenn stared into Eshairr coldly.

With just her eyes, she said all which needed to be said, in complete mockery of the Dance of Blades and all that it stood for.

The fire-haired girl hung her head, looking to the ground in shame. Her heart sank to her thighs, it felt like. She felt ill.

“Do it,” Azraenn said.

“This was supposed to be a fight,” Eshairr answered, holding her face with a hand of dismay. “I will not strike you meaninglessly.”

“Draw my blood,” insisted the Avenger. “End it, and I will acquiesce to your command.”

“I refuse,” replied Eshairr, standing up straight and looking her in the eye. “It is a violation of honor. There is no good in this.”

Azraenn looked into her soul, or so it seemed, with the way her eyes shifted into a gaze of malice. It could only be called the Evil Eye, a terrifying rendition of the same piercing eyes of the statues of the Crone Goddess.

Judgment.

In that instant, the lights flickered, and the song ended—silence drowning the entire club, every figure imprisoned in darkness.

There was a stillness, a loss of sensation made all the more painful by the numbness of those who had grown used to the caress of the music against their skin and in their very bones. For some, it was an indescribable loss, as though abandoned by a lifelong lover.

Perhaps it was a reminder of the truth outside this haven of delight to others, a cold and chilling memento mori.

And then a new melody began.

A tortured and mutilated arachnoid xenos creature, once a member of a benevolent and loving race, began its anguished work once more. Its long, dark, spindly limbs danced across the lighting control board, illuminating the seas of delirious dancers that surrounded its hanging prison cell. The Lightmaster, the only name left for it now, was a miserable thing, likely the last of its kind, but it was remarkably skilled at guiding the lights to truly enhance the sensations of the music with its many beady eyes that streaked with eternal tears as it thought of its murdered family.

But neither Eshairr nor Azraenn knew of the Lightmaster’s unspeakable torment.

They knew only of its works—illuminating their arena once more.

Painting them in thousands of hues every second, or shrouding them in darkness.

And when once more they could see, Eshairr glanced down, seeing the knife stuck in her side.

“You have failed,” declared Azraenn. “There could be no simpler test. You needed only to draw a drop of blood from me. And you could not even do that.”

“This is not the Dance of Blades,” Eshairr hissed, holding the half-buried blade as Azraenn let go of it. The pain was immense, but the wound was deliberately placed with the skill of a Warrior to be all but life threatening.

“The Dance does not demand that both do battle,” Azraenn corrected her. “Only First Blood is asked for. And so I have taken it when you could not. In so doing, the Crone has unveiled your inadequacy, and the Maiden shields you not. The goddesses turn against you, girl.”

“And to what end, then? All this, just to name me unworthy?” Eshairr growled furiously. “Do you think to claim my title and the Howl for yourself?”

“I am not an Exarch, nor an Autarch, nor a Seer. I am only Bladebearer. My voice carries no weight beyond the meager ship-shrines I watch over. No, I cannot decide that you are unworthy as Mariner, nor do I care to replace you. I can only say for certain that you are unfit to command those who walk my Path. Henceforth, I rescind my service and the service of my fellow Warriors,” Azraenn answered defiantly.

Eshairr listened, despairing all the more she heard. She sought an answer which would lay Azraenn’s concerns to rest and end this dispute, but there was none she could see. The music was too loud, the lights too bright, the fumes of chems too thick and sense-dulling around them.

For the first time in her career as Mariner, she had no clever retort.

She was breathless.

“Know this, girl. If you desire thoughtless cutthroats with which to threaten your enemies and stand around like a petty bodyguard, seek them elsewhere. We are the Daughters of Khaine. We are living weapons. Our purpose is found only in slaughter. Unless you have a battle to bring us to, trouble us no longer.”

And with that, Azraenn pushed past Eshairr, yanking her knife free—forcing a cry of agony out of the captain.

When Eshairr came limping back to the others, Azraenn was already gone, vanished into the crowds. As to where she went, they could only guess. With little other choice, they returned to the drug den they were using as a gathering place and Tulushi’ina quickly treated Eshairr’s wound.

“Would that Lady Lynekai were here, for her skills as a former Healer are formidable indeed,” Tulushi’ina whispered as she applied a length of adhesive crystal-lattice bandage over the wound, sealing it and ending the bleeding instantly. The psychoplastic weave also extinguished all illness that might attempt to form in the injury, and was infused with a faint psychic signature that stimulated the local flesh to heal faster and reduce pain.

Munesha watched the medical care quietly. The technology of the Craftworlders far surpassed the primitive stitching, illness-banishing herbs, and pain-soothing poultices taught by the Hoel’eyr clan.

“Thank you,” Eshairr said, staring off into the distance as Tulushi’ina helped her pull her mesh suit back up to cover her upper body once more, dressing her gently to avoid aggravating the laceration. With it treated and concealed under her attire, the pain faded quickly, or at least the physical pain did. The ache in her soul was far more persistent.

===

Though it had been merely a vision of a potential future, it had felt as real as though she had actually murdered all those Hellions.

And it had felt so right. So great.

That vision awoke things within her that she had not paid attention to in decades. The Thirst was an obvious case, of course—even though she had not actually drunk the dying pains of those thugs, that age-old curse, typically of little concern, had been brought back to the forefront of her mind. It was like an itch that could never be fully scratched, which she had forgotten for years. In reality, the Thirst was not unique to Commorites. The reason why other aspects of Eldar society never felt the barest hints of the curse which had been placed upon the souls of all survivors of the Fall was because they were protected by their extreme ways of life.

For the Exodites, it was the difficulty of survival that prevented the Thirst. The Harlequins were said to have the protection of Cegorach himself. For the Craftworlders, the soul was shielded from it through rigid, virtuous lifestyles. Life on Morrigan had indeed blunted the Thirst to a great extent for her, though it could not undo the progression fully. That was why few Commorites fled to join Craftworlds—doing so would only delay the Thirst, not cure it. For those who had spent centuries rising to ranks of power and influence enough to actually escape the city, the Thirst was already so advanced that if they turned away from constant bloodshed for even a day, they would wither and hollow out as they were devoured from the inside.

Druzna truly owed much to her great fortune in finding escape at a young age.

Thinking on this, now Druzna realized what Lynekai had meant about her Path slipping. To think that so little could twist her heart and make the ideals of Morrigan which were forever enshrined in her mind feel so distant. To think the Thirst was still so close to her, even now.

Still, she was so much more relaxed now that their mission was complete, and, lingering further behind the Seer, she took in her surroundings with far more openness in her heart to what she saw.

“More,” someone cried out.

“Oohh, love me!” another whimpered.

Moans split the air from all directions, and alabaster-skinned Druzna blushed vigorously at the sight of the handsome Asuryani slave thrusting with thoughtless abandon into a Hellion woman who had chosen him to be her lover in the nearest pleasure pit.

“First Spear, focus,” Lynekai said, walking faster towards the lifts that would take them to the second tier of the club and away from all this degeneracy.

Druzna bit her dark-painted lip, watching the beautiful man-slave’s genitals pulse with intense power as he let out a yell of ecstasy and filled the visiting gang woman with a river of semen that spilled out and splashed to lower reaches of the pit, lapped up lovingly by drunken slave girls as it ran down the walls.

How strange. Before, she had found it so easy to ignore this show of debauchery. And now, nostalgia raced through her mind. Older days, in some ways simpler days. Days of lust, unhindered by the burdens of Craftworld morality. She appreciated the spirituality of Morrigan, certainly, and she understood deep down that the Craftworlds were indeed right about the sins they preached against.

But sometimes, it was so hard to be good.

She licked her lips, and she allowed the Yearning to pulse through her womb, offering little resistance to the moisture building between her legs, the heat igniting in her core.

Seminoth’s call felt particularly potent, now, or perhaps she was just more receptive to it.

Make me feel good, daemon bastard, Druzna thought, drifting closer to the writhing horde of flesh. I’ll use you for all you’re worth, and discard you when I am satisfied.

The edge of the pleasure cage neared, and, chancing a glance over to check that the Bonesinger was not watching her, Druzna descended the steps into its interior, passing by the man-slave as the Hellion girl clutched to him, panting with sweet satisfaction. He, too, was exhausted, but she grabbed a nearby syringe and jammed it into his side, and he let out a groan as the Touch of Gea coursed through his bloodstream. It was common insurance against the lowly slaves here, stimulating them into tireless lovemaking—and if they should fail to please, they would be tortured by their inability to secure a patron or patroness in ways that Druzna understood entirely too well.

That is, by their blood boiling and their genitals stinging with such pent-up need that some were known to have hacked them off just to be free of the pain.

Without hesitation, the Asuryani slave immediately kicked into a rapid hump of the Hellion woman, who noticed Druzna lingering and giggled as her perky breasts bounced under the constant thrusting of her pleasure slave.

“Jealous?” asked the Hellion of their audience, running a hand up through her sweaty locks, the sides shaved off but the peak of her hair grown out long and wild, dyed purple.

“Hmm. I’ve seen better,” Druzna shot back, running a finger up the girl’s tattooed thigh as it bounced from the body slamming into it, dragging up along her soft skin and feeling the film of sweat left by the intensity of her sex with the slave.

“Fuck you,” the Hellion laughed, far too aroused and entangled to climb off and pay back the insult more properly. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Some menial street warlord, no doubt,” Druzna observed, scanning the tattoos all over her body and noticing a pattern. They were of murder, death, Nightshade flowers, skulls, blood… the symbols were craven, but clear in their meaning.

“I’m Feles. Ear-eater Feles. I own the largest butchery in the Valley,” she grinned. “And I’ll have you gutted and stuffed for dinner along with the rest of the cattle in my pens, if you disrespect me again.”

Druzna, smirking at that, climbed onto the small platform the woman was pinned against, towering over the trapped woman and slowly pulling off her coat.

Feles looked up at Druzna, examining her body with no small interest apparent in her eyes. The mesh underlay Druzna wore did little to conceal anything of her lovely thighs and large, round, taut rump—and the many pistols and knives strapped on her hips, legs, and back seemed to provide all the more authority as the First Spear traced a finger down her own belly, feeling the Yearning pulse all the more eagerly.

“Quite a mouth on you, whelp,” Druzna grinned. “Your gang isn’t shit, or else you wouldn’t be here for Nolaei’s scraps, now would you?”

The Hellion returned the smile. “I’ll rip your face off and eat it while you watch.”

Druzna drew her index up her own thigh to just between her legs, and the mesh reacted to her thoughts, parting along her slit, revealing her beautiful quim, puffy and moist, which the Hellion girl stared at with glitter in her eyes.

“You’ll be eating something,” Druzna retorted snidely, “you drooling whore.”

“Druzna!”

Druzna winced. It did not take Lynekai long to find her, it seemed.

“We do not have time for this!” Lynekai added, staring down at her between the cage bars.

The First Spear sighed, looking down at the Hellion woman who seemed so eager for this to continue. Much as she hated to admit it, Lynekai was right.

“You coward,” Feles laughed as she watched Druzna depart, but any further jeering was cut short by the maddened frenzy of the slave still reaming her against the platform like a rutting stag.

Listening bitterly to the deluge of moans and thrills behind her, Druzna trudged, with no small annoyance evident on her face, after the Seer.

“Let me be clear—I do not disdain or disparage any who turn to such pursuits for relief,” Lynekai said over her shoulder as she led onward. “There are many who do need such outlets from time to time, and it has been unusually long since our home last held a breeding cycle. Too long, some might say. More have flocked to the Path of the Outcast than ever in our history.”

“Well, if the High Autarch believes we’re too vulnerable for it, then there’s nothing to be done,” Druzna muttered, remembering at least to seal the crotch of her mesh with a quick finger stroke before someone else roaming the floor thought it an invitation.

Lynekai frowned. “The High Autarch has made many questionable decisions over the course of her reign, and the concern of our curse is not so simple an arithmetic as martial strength and weakness. Were I still seated upon the Seer Council…”

Old instincts flared in her heart. Perhaps she thought it was justified because the old Seer had denied her something she so badly desired. For a moment, her tongue moved not as a Craftworlder and not as a Corsair, but as someone crueller, someone without mercy, wielding the truth like a razor’s edge, as if seeking to gouge out sweet suffering from her companion to soothe her Thirst. Something needed to be slaked, after all.

“What, you’d do something about it? Hah!” Druzna laughed. “Lest we forget, the Seer Council is the same as anyone else there now—likely put upon the Path of the Mother, as cruelly and brutally as possible.”

And then the moment passed, and that fragment of herself was forgotten again. She already regretted it. The reminder, especially given in such graphic terms, was not a weapon to be used out of frustration upon another of their group. Lynekai’s features showed pain, and Druzna felt it as well, entirely self-inflicted in a moment of frustration.

Left speechless, the Seer said nothing. She simply closed her eyes and moved on.

And she left Druzna to carry that weight she had created for herself.

But just as they made their way for the exit—Lynekai froze.

A tingling in her senses, a warning.

No, a voice without identity.

Ah, yes, the suffering of Morrigan. An apt topic, no less, for you stand amidst a sea of the ravages of the flesh, carved upon the bodies of those who have no choice in it. In its own way, is this wretched hovel truly different from Morrigan’s own fate?

Lynekai listened, but this voice did not issue from lips.

Or is it the past that troubles you? Look! Behold! Does it not remind you of those dark days? You wish so badly to forget them. And yet this black city drags the memories into the light of your mind, again, and again, and again.

Slowly, in the midst of all the sensual excess surrounding them, she turned her head, eyes swiveling, passing over the murky crowds struggling to steal every last scrap of pleasure they could from each other.

The flesh writhing, these walking corpses indulging like madmen in pleasures that destroy them piece by piece. You saw it all. You could never forget. Men, women, even the children gave themselves to those daemons with glee, did they not? Spilling their own blood, severing their own limbs, disembowling themselves just to feed the hungry maws of cackling fiends. Because they enjoyed the agony of having their bodies eaten up, their minds and souls consumed piece by broken piece, once the invaders were through with them.

A masked figure watched her.

And now you watch this happen all around you now, only slower, more insidiously, as She-Who-Thirsts gnaws their souls, drinking the wondrous suffering from these fools who wish so profoundly to forget that they feel Her fangs sinking deeper into them every day of their wretched lives. Is this crude, tasteless music not a faint resemblance to the hedonistic songs played upon the screaming harps forged from the spines of still-living mortals? Sweet blood streaking through the air, hanging like a mist you could not help but breathe in, choking your lungs in the blissful agony of your own kin?

Sword and spear held tightly in hand.

And yet you pretend it does not strike terror into your heart just to be near these degenerates, knowing full well what fate awaits them in the end. Knowing that you can do nothing to save any of them.

Eyes radiating power which was so familiar, and so terrifying.

What a cruel joke you play upon your charges, pretending to be brave. Pretending to be strong. They are fools to trust in you, aren’t they?

And then, in the flickering of the lights, the barest instant, that figure was gone, leaving only laughter. Dry, mirthless, laughter.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

“Lynekai?” Druzna asked. “Is something wrong?”

“Goddesses preserve my soul,” Lynekai whispered, eyes wide.

“What? Have you seen something? A vision?”

Lynekai fell silent, gradually relaxing, as though she only just realized how tense her stance had become. She realized, glancing down at her side, that she had reached for the handle of a weapon she did not possess, and she shook her hand free of the intangible idea. “Yes… a vision, that is all it was. Fear not. It is of no concern to us now.”

Druzna looked at the Seer with all the more worry. “If there is a dark future you foresee, share it. Perhaps it can be avoided.”

“It is not always the future that ought to be dreaded,” Lynekai whispered, more to herself than to her companion.

“What? I could not hear you,” Druzna said. “Speak up.”

“We should make haste in our return—I witness an omen of fractured loyalty and wounded pride hanging over our group,” Lynekai said, louder. “I fear something may have happened in our absence.”

Druzna winced. If this had happened because of her brief foray into self-indulgence delaying their return, it would be difficult to forgive herself.

===

She knew as soon as she glimpsed from afar the look on Eshairr’s face, forlorn and weary, that something terrible had indeed happened.

Lynekai pushed past the dancing crowds, ignoring the attempts of a chem-addled Hellion man to gyrate his hips into her like a crude imitation of fornication, and she approached the booth with a grim expression on her face, tallying the others and noting Azraenn’s absence. She did not need to be able to feel the emotions of her companions, as she did so easily as a Seer, to know their bitter and sad moods.

“What happened?” Lynekai asked, though this was more formality. It was clear enough, and she was already peering into the past in a manner quite alike the way a Seer could gaze into the future. What she saw did not bring good cheer.

“A Dance of Blades,” Tulushi’ina explained.

Eshairr looked down at the table, none of the fire of her spirit present in her now.

“One of those? For what?” Druzna wondered as she brought up the rear.

“For Eshairr’s worthiness to command the Aspect Warriors,” said the Ranger.

“And I lost,” Eshairr muttered.

Druzna drew one of her splinter pistols and held it up. “No matter. Easily remedied.”

“Put it away!” Lynekai said, nearly slapping the weapon out of the First Spear’s hand.

Tulushi’ina turned to her captain, reaching out to touch her on the thigh reassuringly with but a pair of fingers. “Eshairr. Azraenn made a mockery of our rites. The Dance was never meant to be used to shame another as she has done. Do not dwell on this.”

“It is irrelevant. Azraenn proved correct,” Eshairr whispered. “I am unworthy of commanding her. And all of her ilk.”

Lynekai closed her eyes, sorrow sinking through her. “You must not blame yourself for the disaster at the Watchtower of Veneloc. And you must not blame yourself for what Azraenn has done here. This is my fault; I should have done more to salve her growing anger. I will speak with her.”

“Do not,” Eshairr said. “Leave it be. Let the Dance speak for itself. That is the way of things.”

“The Dance is a barbarism suitable only for mon’keigh,” Lynekai snapped. “And the idea that it can replace or in any way match the beauty of our ancient and wondrous tongue is an absurdity which was only peddled by Nobledrake Kalinel and her sycophantic cult of fame.”

All four of her companions looked up at her in shock, beyond speechless.

Lynekai blinked, paused, sighed deeply, and composed herself once more. “Let no more be said of what transpired for now. This must wait for another time. We have information which is of consideration, Captain.”

She gestured at Druzna, who lost no time explaining what they had discovered while Lynekai quickly tended to Eshairr’s wound, and before Druzna completed her digest of their adventure, Lynekai had already healed the stab wound such that not even a scar remained.

At least physically well again, Eshairr leaned back in her seat, looking up at the ceiling.

“What a terrible, twisted joke,” Eshairr hissed. “Can nothing be done for Kanbani?”

“Nothing which is within our power,” Druzna answered. “If Syndratta or one of her lieutenants were here, then things would be different. They could simply threaten punitive action upon this syndicate, and Nolaei would have to bow to such demands. But I would not be surprised if our ‘friendly’ Archon deliberately sent Kanbani to be her representative, lacking any protection like that, knowing full well what would happen to her.”

“Just further punishment for her defeat and disgrace,” Eshairr sighed, all the frailer and wearier in her expression.

“As you say, that is the way of things,” Druzna said dismissively. “Do not dwell upon it.”

Lynekai perked up, glancing over her shoulder into the darkness. “Someone is coming.”

“Someone?” Eshairr asked.

“Our host is coming to greet us at last,” Lynekai explained. “Ah. It seems time grows short. Captain, I know you are dismayed at the moment. But do not act hastily. No matter what happens. Use your wits, and address the situation as a Mariner ought to. Remember that I have the utmost faith in all of you.”

The others all looked at her with varying expressions of bemusement.

“Do you plan to go somewhere, Bonesinger?” asked Tulushi’ina.

“Not at all. In fact, I will be going nowhere, and no meaningful harm shall come to me,” Lynekai said. “Fret not.”

The Seer held out a hand, but it was not to Eshairr. It was to Tulushi’ina.

“Come to me for a moment, dear. I have something to ask of you.”

The Ranger, eyes wide, glanced around. The others watched her, curious to see her reaction to such an invitation. Eventually, after a moment more of hesitation, the Outcast obeyed, coming and taking Lynekai’s hand. The Bonesinger was gentle, holding her dainty fingers between both hands. And then she let go of the girl.

“Thank you. That will be all for now, dearling,” Lynekai said.

Tulushi’ina bowed and returned to her seat.

Munesha perked up suddenly, her red eyes widening in worry at something only she could sense. “Lynekai! Get down!”

But Lynekai held up an open hand and offered a reassuring smile. “No. Let it happen,” she said. “The elsepaths will cost us too much. Nolaei is dangerous. Wild. Unpredictable. And she will have me neutralized or she will have you all dead, here. Do not intervene.”

Something glinted behind the Seer, and she fell to one knee with a cough of agony.

A long needle of crystalized green venom struck through her back, penetrating her belly and becoming trapped in her flesh.

“Lynekai!” Eshairr yelled, grabbing her by the shoulders.

The Bonesinger looked up into her charge’s eyes, smiling still. “Ah, it seems I was regrettably wrong about the intensity of the pain, hegk. This is… much worse than I foresaw. Kch, kff. But not so terrible I cannot bear it.”

And Eshairr turned her gaze past Lynekai’s agonized form, looking above—and beholding the dozen Hellions mounted upon their skyboards as they descended from the upper tiers of the Razorjack fortress. These were swift, bladed, and gnarly flight machines custom built by the hands of each of these devilish killers to suit their own tastes. Skyboards were almost synonymous with Low Commorragh, and by extension, with the Hellions who ruled over the depths. Even the populations of menials who tended to the factories, hydroponic farms, chemical plants, slave pens, and so on would purchase cheap, mass-produced skyboards just to be able to navigate the spiraling sprawl of roads and passages too narrow for even a jetbike to slip through.

And at the head of the gang that now fell upon them was a beauty beyond words.

There was no need to examine her luxurious attire that could have driven an Archon mad with jealousy. There was no need to check for badges of office or the clear reverent fear of her mere proximity that the razor-implanted Hellions around her shared. She stood upon her personal skyboard, more of a hovering pedestal than a flying machine, with the airs of a goddess surveying her subjects. Or a goddess passing judgment, if one looked at the ornate masterwork of a splinter pistol in her hand, the faintest fumes rising from the barrel.

She was as fair and beautiful as a porcelain statue, slender and sleek of build, her red dress glossy like rivers of blood flowing over her body. It did not cover her light and perky breasts, but rather only shrouded her body from the waist down, with thin straps that clung to her shoulders and wrists like chains of bloody sinew. Her hair was the color of raven feathers, long and wild to her collarbones like the mane of a lion.

But that was where her natural beauty ended.

Piercings of glittering gemstones lined her pointed ears, and two auramite studs decorated her enchanting pink nipples with priceless alloy worth an Imperial noble house’s entire fortune. A small platinum ring pierced her nose, and a single stud of blackstone marked just beneath her left eye. Unlike her subordinates, however, she did not sport any razors embedded in her flesh, or at least none that could be seen.

That was a curious thing indeed, but Eshairr did not notice the discrepancy. Nor did she care.

Because she shook with so much fury that she could shatter her own teeth.

“Be calm, darling,” Lynekai managed to whisper between pained gasps for air, holding onto the young woman to trap her in place.

“I am calm,” Eshairr replied, staring at Nolaei with such open bloodlust that the lie convinced no one. “Crone judge me, but I am calm.”

Nolaei leapt from her skyboard and landed in front of the chem den with an elegant pose, tossing the pistol in her hand back up to one of her bodyguards.

“Greetings,” said the Helliarch.

“Is that all you have to say?” Eshairr hissed.

“Yes?” Nolaei replied, almost asking it as a question, twisting the knife in Eshairr’s heart as though she were the unreasonable one. “Oh, you actually care about this thing? This walking gateway to damnation? What possessed you to bring something like this into my territory as though I would simply forgive such a threat upon my domain?”

“She is a living being, not an object!” Eshairr retorted.

Nolaei laughed out loud, and all her subordinates joined her.

“Hahahaha! No, it is a weapon, and I do not appreciate weaponry being waved around in my face,” said the Helliarch. “It is rather crass of you, in fact. This may be Low Commorragh, but the Hollow services both the heights and the depths in equal measure. We have standards here, you know. That is precisely why I have merely tranquilized your weapon, rather than killing it and all the rest of you. Good manners!”

But though she spoke of civility as though it were expected of guests, and though she had the eloquence of royalty, Nolaei’s body reflected none of this. The gestures she made, the stances she struck as she paced back and forth, were unnecessarily sharp and curt—signifying the opposite of polite manners in what she said. No, on the contrary, her motions treated them as little more than halfwits incapable of understanding the subtleties of a gesture. It was an insult many mon’keigh stumbled into during their clumsy efforts to emulate the language.

Yet to see such a thing from a fellow Aeldari, yes, that was a thousand times more offensive.

Druzna reached into her coat, drawing before anyone else there could react.

But what she held out now was not a mere splinter pistol.

It was a crystal, long and jagged, like a bolt of lightning frozen in glass. It was set into a pistol grip, and it featured no apparent means of firing a projectile or any mechanisms at all.

“A neuro-disruptor?” Nolaei asked, raising an eyebrow at the First Spear. “My, my. Escalating already?”

“Just practicing good manners, as exampled by our host with a smoking gun,” Druzna retorted, smirking venomously. “Tell your thugs to flutter away. Cornering us is unnecessary. We came here to talk. Besides, you have plenty of guns aimed on us from afar, don’t you?”

Nolaei smiled and gestured with a hand, and her guards departed with screeching whirrs of the vehicles under their feet.

As this happened, Eshairr helped Lynekai to a seat. The Bonesinger gently extracted the sliver of poison from herself, demonstrating incredible self-control not to cry out in pain. The crippling toxins themselves would only fracture and spread further throughout her body by manually removing the shard, yet leaving it in would allow it to slowly melt and even more would enter her bloodstream as a result. Such was the insidious genius of splinter weaponry. The best one could hope for was that the missile exited the body under its own momentum so that contact with the toxins would be as minimal as possible, but they were not known for excessive penetration power precisely to reduce the odds of that.

“And now, introductions are in order, I think,” Nolaei said.

She did not introduce herself. This was a great rudeness, indeed.

“I am Eshairr,” said the captain, stepping out of the den with only one more glance of concern to their Seer. “I am the captain of the Hunter’s Howl. We want to bargain for the right to—”

“—to participate in my great contest, yes, I know. Your Kabalite friend already explained this,” Nolaei said, interrupting her guest crassly. “Tell me, Eshairr. Why do Craftworlders want to join an event your kind would deride as the work of savages so badly? I know why the Obsidian Rose is interested, but what’s your stake, here?”

“We were asked to join by Lady Syndratta,” Eshairr answered, wondering how difficult it would be to strangle the Helliarch and if her enforcers would arrive in time to stop her. “She wants the prize.”

“Craftworlders serving an Archon? How droll,” Nolaei said dryly. “You are aware that she is throwing you to your deaths here? This race is not for delicate hearts and gentle souls.”

“We are prepared for such an eventuality,” Eshairr growled.

“Are you? Are you really?” Nolaei asked, a bloodthirsty smirk crossing her red lips. “Yet you practically collapsed at the prospect of losing that Seer of yours.”

Eshairr clenched her fists. She was ready to test her theory.

“Do not mistake caring for our comrades as weakness, Mistress Nolaei,” Druzna interjected, keeping her neuro-disruptor trained on her. “It just means we have all the more reason to take revenge.”

Nolaei’s eyes swiveled to Druzna, evaluating her coldly. “Yes. Quite.”

Eshairr smiled at Druzna in turn, once more gladdened to have such a mighty bedrock as her first officer.

“So, with Syndratta herself covering any fees you might place upon entrants, do you agree to let us join the race?” Eshairr asked.

The pale Helliarch turned and ran a hand through her poofy black curls, grinning to herself. “For late entry? I’ll be charging that haughty wench ten times the fee, of course. But I’m not sure it’s worth going to the trouble of letting you into my exclusive event. This is no ordinary street race, you know! This is the Sanguine Gouge you hope to join. We have standards to uphold.”

“Our skills will meet any such standards you might have,” Eshairr pointed out.

“It’s not your skills I’m concerned with. You won’t win, no, but that’s beside the point. This race is as much entertainment for the masses as it is a test of skill,” Nolaei explained sidelong to them, as though they were unworthy of facing directly. She ran fingers wreathed in precious rings up her own belly, a gesture that might be seen as seductive if her eyes were not upon Lynekai—proving that she was drinking the Seer’s potent agony down and feeling such wonderful thrills from it. A psyker like Lynekai would exude every ounce of pain like a wellspring, filling the air for miles in all directions. And indeed, the club’s patrons seemed to grow agitated as well, dancing more feverishly, more delightfully, into each other, digging their fingernails into the flesh of their partners, biting each other’s arms, punching, kicking, mauling each other with terrifying grins of mutual joy.

“Entertainment,” Nolaei continued, running her tongue along her scarlet-painted lips. “Thrills. Excitement. Most of you may not know the Thirst yourselves, but I’m sure you understand what I’m saying, yes?”

Eshairr felt bile rise in her throat, imagining what sort of horrible fantasies Nolaei was no doubt picturing in her mind.

“So,” Nolaei continued, “I want to know what beats in that heart of yours, captain. And all the rest of you too. I seek to know what makes each of my racers alive, and what breaks them.”

“Fine. Ask your questions,” said Eshairr, brimming with anger.

Nolaei sneered with superiority glinting in her white teeth. “I already asked, where you are concerned, and the answer is obvious,” she said, gesturing to Lynekai.

Next, she turned to Druzna, regarding her with keen eyes of analysis, pupils tracing the Aeldari rune on her cheek that marked her as the property of the Roofrunners. “Of course, anyone can see that your lieutenant was a whore. A whore for a clan I’ve never heard of, but there are Hellions beyond count in this city. Hmm. The Thirst dwells in her eyes—” Nolaei pointed out, “—and it is obvious what drives her and what undoes her in equal measure. After all, she was quick to indulge herself in the pleasure pits above us, wasn’t she? All while you were dueling with that disobedient subordinate of yours. Terrible to think that she might have been there to help you enforce order, had she not decided her own pleasure was worth more than her duty.”

“What?” Eshairr spun, turning to Druzna.

Biting her lip, Druzna struggled not to let the incredible, warm pleasure of Lynekai’s boundless suffering show in her face. But that was impossible. The delicious agony was almost overwhelming. It hurt her—yet she could not fight the smile off her lips, her body betraying her in a way Nolaei must have predicted.

“It wasn’t—Captain, it was only for a moment,” Druzna said, her voice wavering with excitement, grabbing and covering her own mouth in shame. The way she shook, unable to stop drinking the pain filling the air, was little different from the stimulation of sexual appetite. She looked down and saw the stiff peaks of her nipples rising through the sheer mesh she wore, and she quickly covered her pert bosoms with her pistol arm.

But even if this was merely the result of the Thirst being slaked, was it any less twisted to look like this now? Was her guilt any smaller? She had indeed thrown herself into it, and were it not for the Seer, she would still be up there, engaged in boundless depravities. Nolaei was telling half-truth with her words, yet it was still true enough.

“You…” Eshairr squeaked, aghast with the reaction she saw. To her, it must have looked like the mere thought of those pleasures was still driving Druzna wild on memory alone. Or, worse, that perhaps being discovered made it even more arousing to her. “Druzna, why?!”

“Captain, she is turning us against each other,” Druzna whimpered, nerves aflame with physical delight. Half of her wanted to just take out her guns and start shooting into the crowds for even more of this wonderful pain to drink. The other half wanted her to go right back up to the third layer and find a cock to scratch the itch deep in her womb.

Oh, Druzna thought. So this was what it was like to be tormented by two soul-curses at once.

“Yet it seems you do not deny it. So it is true? You gave in to depravity at this critical moment?” Eshairr asked, still disbelieving. “She is not dividing us. You divided us.”

Anger, far too much anger than was reasonable swelled up in Druzna’s heart.

“How dare you?! After all I’ve given you, am I not permitted a moment’s respite from this hex I endure?!” the First Spear shouted, even though a part of her fought against every word—knowing this was driven more by the Thirst beating in her heart than it was by any genuine emotion.

Eshairr narrowed her eyes, frowning with terrible disappointment. “I see. Fine. Go back, then. Enjoy yourself. I don’t need you for this.”

Druzna lowered her gun, eyes wide with alarm. She could have fought back or attempted to explain herself, but she knew what it would end in. She could not muster even the slightest sensibility, the merest reasonable excuse. And how could she, so stimulated as she was?

So she did as she was told, dragged away by two curses and her own crushing dismay.

“Now you have your answers, don’t you?” Eshairr hissed furiously.

“Not all the answers I seek. What of the quiet ones back there?” Nolaei asked.

Munesha and Tulushi’ina, who had remained still and silent, straightened up.

“What of them? What do they matter to you?” Eshairr asked.

“Hah! I wish to know more of them, that I may know more of you!” Nolaei laughed.

“No. You’ve had your fun,” Eshairr said. “Now we bargain.”

Nolaei sighed exaggeratedly, as if perhaps frustrated by such defiance. “Very well. Seeing as Lady Syndratta herself agreed to cover your entrance costs, I can hardly turn down such a generous offer. But I still want some insurance.”

“Against what? You think we’re going to ruin your race somehow?” Eshairr asked.

“Against you simply running off when you come to your senses and realize that you have thrust yourselves into certain doom,” Nolaei replied, grinning murderously. “I think the least of Craftworlders. You are gutless little girls playing at importance. I don’t know why Syndratta sees fit to trust you with victory, but I suppose she had to sign up somebody, given what the prize is.”

Eshairr lowered her head slightly, looking at the floor. She wanted to spit an equal insult as she had been paid, but her wits were scattered. Even now, she thought of Azraenn and Druzna, and the chance to return the barb passed before she could capitalize upon it.

“Still, she would be better off swallowing her pride and buying it off of the winner, who will be none of you lot, that’s for sure,” Nolaei smirked, fluffing up her beautiful black locks with a hand. “Then again, perhaps I underestimate her and she has already prepared to do just that. For all I can guess, you’ve incurred her wrath to be given such a task.”

Eshairr shivered like a tree in the wind.

“Oh, so you did do something to earn her ire?” Nolaei asked, reading Eshairr’s surprise. “And you thought she would not actually act on it?”

“I…” Eshairr paused, touching a couple fingers to her brow, ruminating upon the idea with terrible worry. Was this the price of liberating Renemarai from Syndratta?

Perhaps this was not just Kanbani’s punishment, then.

No, they were assuredly fools to think the Kabalite was the only one being toyed with by the Mistress Archon. To think they could look at Kanbani’s torture and so arrogantly assume they were not due for their own, in time. Absurd.

“Terrible shame. Why can’t anyone just be honest with the help these days?” Nolaei chuckled, walking up and running her long, auramite-forged nail extensions along Eshairr’s chin. “It does seem a pity. I could make such use of you, all of you, in the Lust Pits.”

Eshairr, cold, withdrawn, regarded the Helliarch with as much fondness as a priest might hold for a daemon. “We aren’t prostitutes, Mistress Nolaei. Nor will we ever stoop to such lows.”

“Lows?” Nolaei asked, baring her glinting golden teeth inscribed with Aeldari runes telling a short poem on the meaning of power, looking all the world like a predator eager to taste blood. “Some of us might see such words as a terrible insult. I know you are rural heathens, but others may not be so… aware of such distinctions.”

“I will watch my words more carefully in the future. So, what do you demand of us for entry, then?” Eshairr insisted, leaning closer, eyes dark with bitter focus. “I assure you, we will not flee the race.”

Nolaei grinned, leaning in just close enough that their rosy lips could have touched, but then drawing back and walking a few steps away, throwing out a single finger at Lynekai.

“Her. Your precious Seer is worth more to you than your own lives, isn’t she? So I’ll keep her here, with me, on a little leash.”

“What? Why her?”

“Because I know your kind place little stock in objects, thus it means little to ask for such a thing from you,” Nolaei explained. “But a life? A soul? Now that you cannot dismiss so easily.”

“Do you not dread psykers?” Eshairr hissed.

“Not as much as you might think, not while they have Shattergift coursing through their veins,” Nolaei replied, smirking snidely.

Lynekai turned her head, sweat streaking her brow, looking terribly weary already. “So that is what it is called, then. I am humbled by the dark genius of this city’s inhabitants once more. A poison that reacts to any effort to summon forth psychic energy, and then multiplies its potency in response. This… this is brilliant in its design. Perfect, almost. The more you struggle, the worse it harms you.”

Nolaei brushed her hair back with her long golden nails, pleased with herself. “Yes, yes indeed. And I have much more of it for you to drink while you stay in my care. Or if you prefer, I can inject it more directly, as before. The choice is yours.”

“Stop. I haven’t agreed to this,” Eshairr said.

“Captain,” Lynekai said, offering her a smile. “I trust you. Do not fear for me.”

Eshairr looked into the eyes of her eldest advisor, and she spied not the slightest wavering in her venerable will and noble spirit.

But the blood seeping into her violet robes reminded her, nonetheless, that her beloved friend was far from invincible.

And who else could she turn to for guidance and reassurance?

Eshairr looked to Tulushi’ina.

To her surprise, the frail Ranger looked right back at her. And the girl nodded.

She turned to Munesha. Munesha, too, did not shrink back from the searching stare of her captain, but met it with her own blazing red eyes.

“Can we do it?” Eshairr asked.

Munesha sat forward, reaching up to grab her own shoulder and stretch out her neck, left to right, right to left. “I have matched speed with Reavers through the Webway many times. A common hazard; they enjoy their little ambushes. They are not half as impressive as this vainglorious wench would have us believe.”

“Oh? Bold words. Yet, why should anyone believe you?” Nolaei asked dismissively.

“Because I still draw breath, and I sit before you,” Munesha replied indifferently, inhaling and exhaling the chem-smoke laced air with power in her lungs. “Had I lost those races, I would not be here.”

“And what Reaver gang was this, then?” Nolaei asked, venom in her tone.

“Sadly, you will not know of those Reavers even if I told you their names and affiliation. None of their number walked away alive,” answered Munesha.

Nolaei narrowed her eyes at the Exodite. “I don’t like your tone, girl.”

“I don’t like your ugly piercings. Shall I remove them for you?” Munesha returned without hesitation, lifting two fingers and rubbing them together.

Nolaei cocked her head, blinking rapidly, as if uncertain what she just heard. “Excuse me?”

“Ah. No, forgive me,” Munesha said calmly. “I shall simply remove your face altogether and allow you to begin anew, for sinew and bone will be more pleasing to the eye than your tasteless jewelry and inbred flesh.”

The Helliarch, utterly nonplussed, simply shook her head in astonishment. “To think a filthy Exodite would call me, Trueborn, inbred. Hah! You are… something, yes. Certainly.”

“Munesha, thank you. But that’s enough,” Eshairr said, unable to suppress a small smile at the display of fierce loyalty, which reinvigorated her spirits indeed. “Mistress Nolaei, you intend to hold our most venerable Seer hostage. Am I to understand you will not return her to us if we abandon the race?”

Nolaei, shaking her head still, managed to settle herself down with a huff of dismissal. “Yes, that is precisely what I mean. As long as one of you reaches the finish line—you may have her back. You won’t win. But it will be interesting to see if you can even survive it, and this way I know you cannot walk away. As for her eventual fate if you fail, I assume you have imagination enough to guess.”

“Humor me,” Eshairr growled. “What would you do with her?”

Nolaei smiled, clearly quite glad she asked. “Well, you see, a Seer is feared here, but their rarity also makes them of great value to the right people. As long as you are careful to whom you sell them, you can avoid the fate of the self-styled Baron…”

“Baron?” Eshairr asked.

Nolaei simply held up a hand. “Ask someone else. I am not here to explain our famous tales to tourists. So, do you agree to my terms?”

Eshairr looked to the others again, and for a moment, she hoped to find Druzna’s face among them, or even Azraenn’s. She hoped to see the infinite pride of the Warrior and the endless confidence of the First Spear to shore up her last concerns.

But they were gone.

“I want insurance as well,” Eshairr said at last. “That you won’t simply betray us and sell her. That you will return her, especially when we win.”

Nolaei giggled at that. “Trust is such an annoyingly precious currency here, is it not? Very well, then.”

She reached up and slipped one of her rings free of her middle finger, a silver band encrusted with a mysterious black jewel. She threw it at Eshairr, who caught it backwards against her chest, turning her hand over and opening her fingers for a better look. The gemstone set in it glittered unnaturally in the light, yet seemed to contain an infinite, cloudy darkness through which no light could travel.

“And… this… is worth as much to you as Lynekai is to us?” asked Eshairr incredulously, turning the gaudy thing over in her hand.

“Oh, most certainly. That stone would be sought after by any collector in High Commorragh,” Nolaei grinned. “But it’s not the material value that matters. I gave my body and heart to a powerful man for that, a gift from his personal treasury. And then I killed him to keep it. I would never leave that in the hands of barbaric Asuryani who wouldn’t even know what to do with a captured mote of dark matter suspended in solid Warp stuff.”

Crystallized Warp energy. In other words, Wraithbone or something akin to it. It was something crafted out of technology long ago divided between the Asuryani—who made use of the Warp and derived materials—and the Drukhari—who gathered and wielded dark matter as a power source and form of ammunition. In other words, this gem was a rare relic of the old Empire which conquered the universe and bent even the very stars to their will.

Eshairr rolled it down the back of her hand and slipped it snugly under the mesh cuff of her gauntlet. Perhaps it was indeed worth a fortune beyond measure, then. It would be preferable to have something like this rather than a prisoner, anyways.

“And so the pact is sealed,” Nolaei noted aloud, clearly quite pleased with herself. “I look forward to seeing your performance, Craftworlders. Do try to put up a fight.”

“A fight,” Eshairr repeated sardonically. “Indeed.”

Nolaei turned away, boarding her master-crafted skyboard, only to pause and spin upon the flying pedestal with a grin. “Oh! Must not forget my new toy.”

She beckoned, and Lynekai forced herself to her feet, staggering over to the Helliarch. With a sweeping arm, Nolaei pulled the Seer aboard beside her, and then she lifted up and away, rising out of reach. And as Eshairr watched them go, her heart sank, seeing the sadistic sneer on Nolaei’s face, looking down at them with all the more amusement.

Something occurred to Eshairr only just then, and she reared back, shouting after the Helliarch. “Wait! What of Kanbani?! Where is she? Let her go!”

And with that, Nolaei cast her serpentine gaze down upon the captain with all the glee of a child that wanted to be caught.

“Oh, yes, her. I suppose you should take her off my hands,” Nolaei called down to them amidst the deafening beats of the music. “Come to the tenth ring if you want her so badly.”

Eshairr glared up at the woman with daggers in her eyes. “So be it.”

Chapter Text

==Chapter VIII: A Den of Gougers and Gorgers==

Once six, now three.

Three sisters of Morrigan rode the secure lift to the tenth ring of Blackspear Hollow.

And who would be next to leave?

That was what Eshairr wondered bitterly, unwilling to look at Tulushi’ina or Munesha beside her. She dearly hoped they would not leave her alone, but she could not help but fear they would, the pattern being what it was.

Who was she to blame for this?

Herself.

“Captain,” said Tulushi’ina, her wispy voice faint amidst the rumbling of the elevator’s machinery. She tugged some sort of white crystalline orb from under her coat, tapping it in a curious set of motions along its surface. The elevator was suddenly filled with a dim noise at the limits of Aeldari hearing, something which would interfere with nearly any manner of surveillance technology. A common piece of technology for Rangers—they often needed such guarantee of privacy in foreign territory.

With the stummer field established, Tulushi’ina took a deep breath and said what she meant to say.

“It is not your fault.”

It most certainly was, Eshairr immediately retorted in her thoughts. She had failed to keep Azraenn in line. She had failed to protect Lynekai. And she had pushed Druzna away. For a flight of lust? Aydona would have simply laughed at such behavior from her subordinate. Aydona would have done so not only out of love for her servant, but out of spite for Nolaei. Yes, the Fleetmistress would have laughed at such a childish attempt to pry them apart, they who had fought and bled together since long before the Breeding of Morrigan. Bonds of blood, the honor of Corsairs and Mariners, vastly outweighed a poorly chosen moment of lascivity from a beloved comrade who—like all of them—was tormented by this cursed Yearning.

And so, yes, it was indisputably her fault.

“Captain,” said Tulushi’ina again. “When she touched my hand, Lynekai shared many thoughts with me. When she first returned, she analyzed the contents of our tankards with her runes while we were explaining what happened. It wasn’t only bone water that we were served.”

“What?”

“There were chems in it, strong ones which influence the mind,” explained the Ranger. “Strange ones, she said. Not like the chems she was used to seeing from Commorragh.”

Eshairr turned at last, looking at Tulushi’ina with wide eyes. “We were drugged? I felt nothing unusual.”

“Yes. She said it was a composition which would not be obvious in its effects, but also that even a sip of it would be no less potent than drinking a whole cup… and it would draw forth the feelings buried deep within those who imbibed it.”

“The feelings…” Eshairr mumbled, staring off into the distance. For a moment, she had almost believed her actions could be excused on the grounds that they had been caused by mind-altering chems. Of course not. Not if the chems did what Lynekai suspected. That meant her reaction to Druzna was entirely true to her innermost self.

Did she truly value her closest and oldest friend so little?

No, of course not. She loved Druzna like family, no differently than she would love an elder sister or an aunt.

So what was it that had truly infuriated her so much?

Ah, of course.

“Ahhn!”

“More!”

The voice of Aydona echoed in her mind.

The memory of that transmission shocked through her, hands clenching into fists.

When Druzna was twitching, sweating, flushed and warm, so clearly aroused… she had thought of Aydona, Aydona’s pleasured weakness in the arms of the alien, and that angered her beyond reason.

It was because Druzna meant so much to her. It was because Druzna was her family that seeing her in such a state reminded her of Aydona’s final transmission, and seeing her so weak, so needy, left Eshairr seeing red.

“I blamed her for her weakness,” Eshairr whispered to herself. “Because it was just like…”

“Captain?” asked the Ranger.

Eshairr felt something warm and wet building in her eyes.

She blinked it away.

She reached up and tapped her Wraithbone choker, her communicator.

Druzna?

Where are you now?

Her thoughts were picked up by the device and directly transmitted through the Warp itself.

But no answer came.

At least, not from Druzna.

Captain.

Azraenn’s voice responded to her hail. Hearing it brought a twitch of surprise.

I returned to the Archon’s ship to await our return voyage. The First Spear is not here.

Eshairr froze, uncertain of what to say. Normally she would thank her for offering that information—which was indeed useful in narrowing down where Druzna was.

Acknowledged.

With just that, Eshairr cut the link.

Munesha reached out and grabbed Eshairr’s shoulder reassuringly.

“Captain, Druzna is better able to fend for herself than any of us here. Do not fear for her. She needed solitude—her heart is in a state of turmoil, her mind in flux. Let her tend to her own needs. She will return stronger for it.”

Eshairr smiled to her Exodite friend. “I hope so, Munesha. I do.”

But that moment of calm would not last.

“There was another message Lynekai left me with,” said Tulushi’ina, mustering the courage to speak of it. “Something… even more troubling.”

“Yes?”

Tulushi’ina cast her eyes down as she spoke. “How did the Razorjacks discover that she was a Seer? She never used her powers overtly. Nor did she sense any defenses that could have detected her abilities.”

Eshairr’s fingers twitched.

Of course. It was such an obvious question, yet it had not even occurred to her. If they had known Lynekai was a Seer from the beginning, they would never have let her enter Blackspear Hollow in the first place. And why let her wander around the club as she did, if they were so concerned with the risks she posed?

Because they did not know, then.

Much like they still did not realize Munesha, too, was a Seer.

Eshairr looked to her beautiful, obsidian-skinned friend, pondering these implications. Munesha’s scarlet-red eyes looked back at her, no doubt wondering those things now, herself. Both did not take long to arrive at a conclusion that was likely the same.

Someone told them.

“Syndratta,” Eshairr hissed, blood boiling in her veins. It was the only thing that made any sense.

That bitch of an Archon set them up.

===

By Isha, this was the loveliest sex she had ever had. How long had they been coupled like this? Minutes? Hours? Days? Memory escaped her, but her body told her all she needed to know.

Deep, intense, savage mating. Exactly what she needed.

But where was she?

The music sounded different. Slower, more ominous. Ah, no, this was not the music of the club.

It was her own heartbeat.

A flicker of recognition awoke inside of her, and she tugged the biting length of the injector from her neck, hearing the rhythm of her heart slow to a crawl in her ears as another shot of chems flowed through her veins, joining the rest already present. The courtesan goddess was already caressing her black-painted lips, kissing around her small, pretty nipples, circling her finger around Druzna’s aching clitoris, attempting to drive her insane in jealousy of her comeliness. Of course, Gea’s Touch was far too late: The Yearning had already done that hours ago.

It hurt her now, from the inside, from her deepest, most delicate place. It was like her womb had become a ravening beast, hungering and slobbering and yowling within her, storms of hot fire and lightning raging left and right through her core that all arose from her very soul.

She thought of the Hellion beauty she had almost seduced. Such a shame Lynekai had interrupted her, then. Blessings that now she was getting what she wanted, even if it was from a different soul. A feminine and beautiful one, she surmised from the glimpses of slender, gentle, dark, veiny, violet legs behind her, or the same shade of hands that were just a little too long clutching her sides, stroking her lush body, wrapping around to hold her belly as if able to feel the infernal curse screaming inside. Druzna had a fair taste for women, certainly. This seemed a somewhat different flavor of lover, but by no means one that she found unappealing.

A great force slammed into her full, round rear, that great and terrible manhood driving in to her deepest depths without any mercy, and Druzna spilled a moan, feeling her own hot juices leak down her lovely and voluptuous thighs.

It was unlike any she had ever become one with. No, that cock burning in her depths was either that of an alien or a surgically modified Drukhari woman, some dreadful fashion trend or another no doubt to blame for her bizarre appearance and… endowments. She wondered, if a xenos, what species, noting that the smooth, soft flesh of the lithe creature bucking into her felt wonderful and tingly against the bare skin of her sumptuous rump, and the scent that reached her nose was strong like flowers and liquor, intoxicating and overpowering, helping her to relax and embrace the pleasure of her mysterious, androgynous partner.

Gradually, Druzna lifted her gaze, beholding the smoky depths of the fuck-red pleasure pit around her. At the top of each silo, one sought after a beauteous mate and indulged in a specific desire. Careful, clean, controlled satisfaction. At the bottom, the most depraved place, one did not choose anything, not even how long one stayed. The throng of flesh decided everything, and those who dared such dark depths were lost in a sea of grinding bodies and ravenous, snarling intensity until the waves vomited them back onto the steps leading up in a long spiral towards freedom.

For a moment, Druzna noted in the back of her head that the pit seemed strangely vacant for what was supposed to be an eternal, persistant orgy.

But none of that mattered to her now, not as time grinded to a halt.

With hands that trembled in slow motion, watching singular shifts of her fingers around the injector turn into enormous, world-shattering movements, Druzna breathed hot pink frost into the air as her lover thrust into her all the way to the hilt, once more doubling her over the furniture, releasing a cry of absolute ecstasy. An eternity passed before that strange, pulsating cock began to withdraw, restoring a semblance of sanity to her thoughts. Only enough to feel the hollowness between her legs, the rivers running down her thighs.

Prying the vial from its chamber and letting it slip from her hand onto a loveseat created from human leather, the First Spear watched the leather swim and churn. Yes, the mortals it had been crafted from were still alive in some broken and unspeakable way inside its upholstery, struggling in vain to break free when their tendons were, in fact, spliced together into the very same web of tissues that trapped them in place, moaning and begging for mercy with a dozen voices of fused agony. She might have thought it a hallucination, but she had not injected that chem yet. The reminder gave her hand purpose, finding the vial full of toxic green fluid that had rolled into a weeping, leathery mouth and loading it into the device in her hand. Resembling little more than a modified Stinger pistol, she pressed it to her temple and fired.

Everything turned white for a moment. Blood filled her vision as the blinding flash faded. Oh, how long it had been since she enjoyed the invigorating fire of Spirit-Sight burning inside of her skull, filling her brain matter with hallucinogenic, sensory-scrambling drugs. Even still, the Heartstill slowed her body to the brink of death and the Touch of Gea turned her entire nervous system into an exotic instrument of psychic sensation which only a cock could play.

And so she was, played by master hands and a slithering meat, both her breasts and the breasts of her exotic mate jiggling as they crashed together, both panting hotly, Druzna’s supple rear reddened by the incessant pounding of beautiful pink hips. A long, sinuous, barbed tail wrapped around her ankle, as if sealing them together, and Druzna giggled at the slimy appendage slithering up and down her limb.

Her strange lover bucked into her again, the alien ridges and nodules flexing throughout the length driving Druzna into the wall. She allowed the injector to fall from her fist, but it took years for it to finally bounce onto the seat beneath her and from there to the ground. At the very moment that it clattered at the floor, it grew into a flower of a thousand colors, its petals dancing as it peered up at the wide-hipped woman who had discarded it with a sneer of unbridled hate.

“Filthy whore,” growled the flower, its eyes burning with the fires of the Warp.

“Yes,” Druzna breathed, her bare and naked beauty bouncing forwards from the thrusts of the one whom had chosen her. Even as the world transformed around her and all reason crumbled in the face of delirium, she could still feel that rigid meat plunging into her deepest depths with all the ferocity of a banshee, the voice of the one behind her ringing in her ears like an irresistible siren song.

Purple tentacles slithered around her wrists, and Druzna gasped as her arms were jerked back tightly, trapped where she was, bent over, hanging over the seat, her perky breasts bouncing hard amidst loud slurshes of her wet walls spreading wide against the immense, throbbing girth pierced with golden studs all the way up the undershaft, dragging over her pink folds with hard bumps that left Druzna breathless and weak in the knees. Soft hands caressed her strong, thick, round rump as the pelvis of the monster slammed into her again and again with loud claps of flesh to flesh. Even in the sluggish haze of the Heartstill turning time to a standstill, the wicked thing’s alacritous humping felt faster and fiercer than ever.

Such vigor.

Such skill.

“More,” Druzna whined.

The floor was melting away into ice and snow, the walls were now formless and undefined colors constantly refracting into mind-numbing patterns, the smoke rising around them becoming vines of ivy that sprouted clouds of rain which ejaculated lances of hollow invisible semen into the under-universe beyond sight and sound, but all Druzna could think about was the sex, mind-blowing, pleasure-shredding, womb-ravaging breeding.

Cackles rumbled through deadly sharp fangs. Sharp purple nails sliced into the skin of her wide hips with unnatural ease, torturing her with passing flares of pain that bled in little uneven globs like a catscratch, twisting into pleasure ten times as intense by the power of the chems coursing through her bloodstream.

“Oh, goddesses,” Druzna moaned, “Oh Gea, make this last; great Kurnous, grant my lover strength! Ohh, yes! Isha, let this seed take!”

“You pray to your dead gods? Hah! Wasted breath,” purred and growled the androgynous thing behind her. “Pray to me!”

At last, Druzna turned her head around to spit a playful retort, expecting to see some manner of surgically altered Drukhari woman by the spiteful poetry of her words, which only an Eldar could have possibly known to say.

But her breath caught in her throat, her lustful insult meant to goad into ever greater realms of pleasure swallowed back down in a fit of shock.

The beast behind her was indeed beautiful, but only in a twisted way, neither dominantly masculine nor feminine, her big, glossy, pitch-black eyes lacking even the white of a sclera. She did not possess hair, only facsimile of it, long, fleshy tendrils that rose and fell of their own accord, caressing her own face and lips with lascivious glee. Her purple and pink flesh was both intoxicating to gaze upon and equally disgusting, yet the infernal maelstrom in her womb demanded this invader to fill it, thrust after thrust after thrust scratching the many itches deep within her core yet digging up a dozen more aches and shivers on the drag back out.

A Daemonette.

Druzna was being fucked by a Daemonette.

When? How?

Her only answers were sensation and delight.

Thrust. Slursh.

Droplets of excess juices spattered to the ground between her beautiful legs, and Druzna arched her back, entirely at the monster’s mercy.

“Ah,” Druzna whined, chewing her lip. How could she describe the Hell blazing within her uterus, chilled and frozen by the touch of Warp-spawn much as her breath was? And yet it burned all the hotter, all the brighter, glowing fiendish purple in an intricate pattern from within her skin—a marking of ownership, different from the slave brand on her face in that this glyph was inscribed upon her very soul, merely the shadow of it appearing on her flesh.

“Please, spare me,” she begged, speaking words that simply flowed from her lips without consideration. What more could she do? What more could she say?

“Spare you? But you are the one who invited my master, and so he sent me to sow the first seed, to prepare your body and soul to bear his children,” giggled the beautiful, twisted monster. “After all, you said as much yourself—”

Make me feel good, daemon bastard. I’ll use you for all you’re worth, and discard you when I am satisfied.

Her own past thoughts echoed in Druzna’s visions, and she groaned in painful bliss—a sudden surge in the daemon, its manhood swelling up an entire extra inch into her, as if that mere realization empowered and emboldened it. And she could do nothing. Her body demanded this, surrendered to this without even a struggle, even as every instinct in her soul screamed in dread.

But it felt so wonderful. It stole the breath from her lungs, and no matter how she shifted or tried to slip off of that cock, the daemon simply twisted its body around into monstrous, rubbery contortions to ensure it could push, shiveringly, every last bit of its hardness straight into her drooling slit, straight into her weakpoints. The more she fought it, the better it felt. The better it felt, the more terrified she became, realizing the paradox only fueled the monster’s power over her as Druzna squirmed, rebelled, and then moaned again in an endless cycle of desperate pleasure.

Something twisted inside of her, deeply and metaphysically.

Her heart quivered, slowed to the slimmest motions to sustain her, her lips, weak and breathless as Gea kissed them, parted, and she gasped out another wave of pink mist, which transformed into spiraling serpents of daemonic vigor, filling the air around her, weaving around her body and yet leaping away. She watched them coil from her mouth, diving into the Great Sea which stretched beyond the horizon, vanishing down, burrowing into the core of Druzna’s world and becoming one.

“Yes,” Druzna whined, filled with the revelations of Spirit-Sight, caressed by Gea’s cruel fingers dragging over every inch of burning skin, the moment of her enlightenment, her ecstasy stretching on into eternity as her very life slowed to the friction of dying twilight. “Breed me, dark mistress!”

“Surrender, and I will bring you to heights that no mortal has ever lived to speak of,” whispered the Daemonette as though into her ear, even though she sneered down upon Druzna from high above, standing tall and proud. “So much of you already welcomes my master. And he has noticed you, yes, he loves you very much. He thinks of you, and he shall hunt you down, and he shall have you…”

“Moorre,” Druzna slurred, her eyes rolling backward, thoughts blending and melting into slop.

Laughing like keen knives, the daemon continued to fuck her, licking her long tongue around Druzna’s pointed ear, brutally burying every last studded, veiny inch straight to her stomach with a hiss of prolonged intensity. Trees arose around them, purple and throbbing, and from their sinuous branches slimy and monstrous fetuses sprouted like fruits, wreathed in flower petals, and within the Jungle of Fertility, Druzna accepted the purpose inscribed upon her very soul by the Yearning.

“Fill me! A thousand young—!”

Slursh. Throb. Splurch.

She felt it. An ocean erupting into her deepest reaches—filling her to the utmost, spilling all over the floor in a foamy, thick, churning mass of daemonic spunk.

It felt her, too. It was alive. It had a will of its own, and it crawled after her vulnerable eggs, sending searing lightning up her spine as it found them.

“Ahhn… nnnh…” Druzna gasped, all her strength fading as she sank into the muddy mire of shameful, world-crumbling ecstasy, able to feel it all, this wicked and obscene orgy within, powerless to stop it. But now, as it took place, as her body shivered, wracked in agonizing, intense sensation the likes of which no mortal could ever imagine, she was no longer sure she wanted to stop.

The curse of Seminoth exploded inside of her, and consciousness evacuated.

Only the veiny whites of her eyes were left, beneath flickering eyelids. Her mouth broke open in a prolonged moan, even as a daemon hand grasped her by her hair and shoved her face down into the leather of the seat, being bred even now, even harder, even as the beautiful Daemonette continued to fill her with rivers of semen which overflowed and spilled and pooled at their feet. Druzna felt it rising as the endless ejaculation continued, as her orgasm electrocuted her into agony, the white essence of her mate filling up the pleasure pit with loud sloshes as it continued unendingly, rising to immerse them both up to their hips in a bath of roiling seed that Druzna drowned in, trapped, forced to feel it swim up her throat, nose, ears, thick and slimy and alive.

“Hss, yes, ohhh, the first seed is sown! Yes, embrace it! Wonderful! Oh! Such resplendent lust! Such fabulous bliss, my dearling womb-slave! You love this, do you not?”

The daemon pulled Druzna’s head out of the ocean of sperm, the sticky mess slowly dripping down her chin and spattering onto her ample bosoms as she gasped for air.

“Yehh,” Druzna answered between desperate huffs of air, thoughtless, a mere vessel for tainted seed, a receptable of ecstasy and absolute surrender to the dark love of her Empyreal mistress. Her mouth opened once more to beg, not for mercy, but for a thousand times a thousand more hours of the daemon’s rape—

She was choking.

Breath refused to come when she opened her mouth.

A pressure. A weight.

Druzna’s eyes snapped open.

Something was in her throat. Deep.

Something was wrapped around her head. Thighs. A person, she realized. A deformed, ugly, stinking, pale wretch.

Throb. Throb. Splurt.

She felt fire blast down her neck, fresh from the misshapen testicles of the Gutter-Walker that had mounted her face while she was passed out. The thing must have come looking for leftover chems it could dose itself with, only to catch her in a state of weakness and make use of her. He could have been at this for minutes before she roused from her chem-induced torpor. A creature like him no doubt had few prospective mates other than the tramps he could scrape together enough coin to purchase for an hour or two. Like Druzna, when she was young. Her tight quim clenched at the memories, despite her ego rejecting such an unworthy mate on principle.

So she swallowed it. All of it. Every last drop. And her lips suckled on that long, twisted cock for more.

“Eeaaagh!” howled the lowly mutant in fear when he realized she had awoken, struggling to wrench its member free from her calm, powerful suction as she indulged in a long, relaxed drink of his spoiled essence.

Gulp. Gulp. Glug. Slrp.

As though his very life force was drained out into her gullet, he slumped over her body, wheezing and ejaculating even harder, then flopped onto the ground beside her, stimulated into a daze and too weak to do much more than twitch and shudder down there.

Druzna licked the last droplets of seed from her lips and sat up, taking in her surroundings now that she could see. She was still on the human leather loveseat she had passed out on, wearing nothing more than a cold sweat and surrounded by a dozen empty vials of chems, the injector still in her hand.

Dreaming of herself as the toy of a Daemonette was not the worst chem-terrors she had ever had. But she had definitely overdone it. That entire moment had almost felt too real. And yet… pleasant.

She glanced down between her legs, seeing the copious, sticky spunk oozing from her sore slit. Quite the mess. Druzna glanced at the Gutter-Walker, chuckling. Normally she would kill anyone who used her in such a way without her express accord. But she felt wonderful, despite it all. Giddy. Free. She could feel it: The Yearning was sated.

She was not a fool. Any woman entirely unconscious, or lost in the daze of chem-dreams, would not be left alone in a place like this. In point of fact, she had invited it purposefully. But unlike most women who came here to be abused and destroyed for the reckless thrill of it before returning to their lives of ceaseless control and mundanity, she had another goal, and she had succeeded.

Someone impregnated me, she thought without much feeling. Or at least, they began the first stage of Eldar pregnancy, and if they continued to couple for months or years, a child would be born. That would not be happening, but even beginning the process was enough to alleviate so much of the Yearning’s intensity.

The relief and satisfaction was so palpable and uncanny that she was in a fantastic mood, to her own surprise. And as she looked over the teeming masses filling the pit, locked into each other and gyrating with mindless intensity, once again she noticed the malformed mutant lying on the ground, twitching from head to toes, drooling from his mishappen overbite of a mouth, his long, crooked, warty penis still entirely stiff and throbbing in the air. It was quite large, almost overgrown for the squat size of the poor creature, who was a patchwork of many limbs and pieces from not only other Aeldari but aliens as well.

This one was, like the other goblins darting from shadow to shadow in the Hollow, a common and paltry experiment of the Covens, either escaped from captivity or simply released due to his tormentors growing bored of him as a canvas for fleshcrafting. And now that she considered it, his dark red, flared penis and overgrown, discolored testicles looked suspiciously not-quite-Eldar… but perhaps the genitalia of an animal or a mon’keigh.

Something inside of her twitched and pulsed with interest, and she could not forget the flavor of his filthy seed on her tongue, thick and bitter and oozing all the way down her throat like mud.

As he panted, scratching at his flea-ridden half-scalp of strawlike blonde hair, her hands suddenly pinned the hunchback down by his arms as she leaned over him, much taller, much stronger than his withered muscles could ever fight. She stared down into his scarred face with a feline smirk of pure, simple superiority, relishing the panic in his mismatched eyes as he realized he had become her prey.

“And why should I spare your life?” Druzna asked, lifting her head higher above him in haughty delight, digging her nails into his wrists just for the small thrill of the Thirst slaked for that. “Do you know who I am? Whose mouth you mated while she rested?”

Gibbering, the Gutter-Walker flinched. “I-I am useful, yes I am! I know many things, see secrets in the depths, hear even more!”

He thought her words were literal, that she was going to kill him, paying no attention to the language of her body, slinky and smooth, sexy and desirous. Adorable.

“Useful, yes…” Druzna purred, sinking down his body, dragging her lips against his overgrown face, her soft and warm breasts down his slimy chest, until her mouth found the tip of his meat against his belly. This she gave a small, amused peck, stirring a powerful, aching throb out of it. Long enough that both hands could not fully enclose its bumpy length, she gently stroked it for a moment.

And as he shivered in surprised pleasure, she leaned in and wrapped her lips garbed in black around the crimson crown of the mutant, sinking down to his hilt while staring the deformed freak in the eye. She let him jerk his hips forward impatiently, answering with a merciless kiss around the very hilt without a single flinch as his meat stretched into her throat…

===

“Awaken,” whispered a silken voice, with the malice of a blade’s edge.

With a groan of the utmost annoyance, the flayed Kanbani slowly stirred, no eyelids left to open. The highest suite of Blackspear Hollow, the Helliarch’s gaudy chambers, were what awaited her consciousness, surrounded on all sides by guards, at rest upon a hidebound chair. Seated beside her was none other than Lynekai, who despite having no visible wounds was panting in pain. Though she concealed it admirably, it seemed she was in a worse state than Kanbani, who showed little regard for the broken and bleeding state of her own flesh.

“My poor dear, you must be in such anguish!” Nolaei purred, leaning over the Kabalite where she reclined weakly.

“Hah,” Kanbani chuckled, bleeding from every inch of her body, only scraps of skin left, most muscles and bones exposed, and many of those bones visibly cracked. Even the words of the Eldar, in all their poetic gravity, could not carry the truth of her pain to another. But the Thirst was greater than language, deep as the soul, and Nolaei felt every twinge, every needle of anguish in her prisoners. She quivered with delight just to be in the presence of the tormented Kabalite and Bonesinger, running her sharp aurumite nails up her perky, exposed breasts just for the fun of it.

“Now that you know never to disrespect me by seeding my ranks with spies again, it is time that I heard your mother’s offer,” Nolaei said, sitting her narrow hips upon the table in front of Kanbani, staring into her lidless eyes with wild delight as she drank in the pain of her guest. “And we’ll be done with the games, and you will be on your way.”

Kanbani wheezed through her teeth. Once again, she chuckled.

“What offer?”

Nolaei cocked her head, pursing her lips, crossing her legs, and resting an elbow on her knee. The language of her body expressed dwindling patience towards her skinless captive. “For the prize of the race, of course. If she pays an adequate price, I will happily agree to part with it, and find something else to award the winner. But you already knew that. And I suspect you have guessed my price, as well. A contract for Obsidian Rose arms. Shall we discuss terms?”

“Lady Syndratta sent me here with only a single message,” Kanbani coughed through bleeding teeth. “She awaits the festivities with bated breath.”

Nolaei froze, glaring daggers at her prisoner, her hands balling into fists of emergant wrath. But then she sighed and leaned back, planting a hand behind herself, raising a single dark brow as the tension bled out of her limbs. Free of the anger drawn out by the taunt, she simply laughed. “Oh? She truly means to gamble it all upon those pathetic Craftworlders? My, my. How ludicrous! Hahahahaha!”

“Typical slum-vermin,” said Kanbani. “So arrogant, though you rule only this squalid pit of filth and degeneracy.”

Nolaei scoffed. “I am not just some lowly Helliarch, girl. I am an immortal, no different from you. Pay me the respect I am owed, or I will make you suffer the consequences.”

“Between us, a gulf of difference lies, vast as the stolen suns which bathe this city in cancerous light,” Kanbani answered. “No matter how high you climb, no matter how much power you grub for, you will never be worth as much as the lowliest Kabalite. A debased deserter of the Sisterhood of Lhilitu shall forever suffer the disfavor of the Dark Muses…”

The Helliarch, in all her otherworldly beauty, became the face of fury, lips curling darkly down, eyes bulging out of her skull, her fanglike teeth grinding audibly as ugly emotion contorted her very soul into a hateful visage.
“A wretch like you, who could never even dream of reaching the heights in society I once stood at, dares pass judgment upon me?” Nolaei hissed through gilded teeth.

For that, she grabbed Kanbani’s tongue in her mouth, and her aurumite nails cut into the tender flesh of her tasting muscle.

“Die. Die. Die. DIE. DIE. DIE!” Nolaei screeched, her voice building to the harrowing screech of Banshees.

Lynekai watched through weary eyes as the fist of the Helliarch tightened and closed, and blood splattered from within Kanbani’s jaws, a sickening tear, her tongue ripped asunder by sharpened claws and brutal force. Nolaei opened her hand, seeing the limp length of bloody meat in her palm, and she cast it aside, shuddering, growling with anger that she struggled to repress.

“Mistress…” rumbled the voice of one of her lieutenants. “We cannot kill her. The Obsidian Rose would retaliate.”

At that, Nolaei’s uncontrollable rage did not subside, but was forced into submission to greater need within her mind. Lynekai could see that it burned even brighter now that it was denied, but she knew that indulging herself further would mean a price too great to afford, and so a twisted sanity returned to the Helliarch’s lovely features.

“Keep her alive,” Nolaei hissed under her breath, the most grudging mercy she could ever offer, as Kanbani choked on her own pouring blood. Subordinates rushed in and dragged the Kabalite away for treatment, and the Helliarch stopped. She raised her hand to her brow, caressing her own face from top to bottom, adorning herself in the blood of Kanbani as she would any other makeup. She tasted it upon her lips, upon her tongue, and shook with relieving satisfaction. “Yes, to think I was going to simply give her to the Craftworlders and be done with it. No, no. Her punishment must be more severe! Let her be the prize of the Banquet tonight. For anyone to lay claim to, if they can survive.”

“You have made a terrible mistake,” Lynekai said at last, breaking her agonized silence.

“I shall not hear the whinging of a Seer whose gifts are now poison to her own self, unable to so much as gaze into the nearest of futures,” Nolaei snapped. “I was once a Lhamean consort. I have far, far more brutal toxins than Shattergift to torment you with, you fucking cow.”

“You allowed yourself to be goaded. All along you wished to give in to base hatred, and leapt at the excuse she gave you,” Lynekai added. “She is using you to—”

The only answer Lynekai received was pain, Nolaei swinging her clawed nails out with venomous disdain. Four long, bloody gouges tore into Lynekai’s peerless beauty, marring it with anger and envy in equal measure, tearing her cheek and splitting her lip, nearly blinding her. A tear of blood dripped from Lynekai’s wounded eye as it closed in sharp pain, and the Bonesinger exhaled weakly.

“Your wisdom is flawed and unsought. You know nothing of this city or its people. You know nothing of me!” Nolaei said, showing to Lynekai a fraction of the anger heaped upon Kanbani. “You will be silent, or I shall have your tongue next.”

Lynekai did as she was commanded, closing her eyes, blood running from the stinging, burning cuts on her face and dripping onto her leather overcoat.

===

When the lift arrived, Eshairr stepped out ahead of the rest, seeing the onyx floors and walls of the tenth ring, polished to a mirror sheen. Royal blue curtains and pennants hung from the ceiling, concealing much of the faces and bodies of all who entered this strange realm. This was not the same type of seedy locale as the lower echelons of the Blackspear Hollow, but resembled much more the inner beauty of Syndratta’s spire, no expense spared in creating the most lavish accommodations. It was also far smaller than the tiers beneath them, as the shape of the Hollow narrowed the higher one ascended. Where the lower floors could contain a vast landscape of dance floors, attractions, bars, and subchambers, this was a singular place with a singular devotion in its purpose: the most elite and exclusive club to be found in all the territory of the Razorjacks.

Two such sharply dressed Hellions, their backs left uncovered to leave their razors apparent, as was the fashion in their gang, stood at the entrance in front of them, pushing the beautiful onyx doors open to grant the Craftworlders entry with flourishing bows.

Here, the ever-pervasive, painful music of the lower rings was nowhere to be heard.

Instead, a small band with simple instruments plied their trade at the back of the club upon a raised platform, their dark music small and subtle—like whispered words of malice played upon strings.

She could think of no better accompaniment to the manner of conversations which must have been held in a place like this.

“Much more pleasant,” Munesha muttered under her breath as they all walked in.

There were dancers here, too, but unlike the mayhem of the first ring, only Razorjacks danced, their elegant and beautiful maneuvers underscored by the constant threat of death should they spin just a little too quickly and slit their partner’s throat with the razors embedded in their flesh. This was a more graceful dance, one all the more mesmerizing to watch, and it seemed only the Hellions themselves were skilled enough to survive. Several corpses of foolish outsiders lay at the edge of the stage, throats slit and arteries gouged, and the ones responsible seemed likely to be the Hellions with blood on their razors near the edge of the platform.

Surrounding the small dance platform, there were dozens of private booths and couches, half a luxury lounge and half a chem den, or so it seemed. Immediately Eshairr’s eyes were drawn to the other patrons and patronesses, who certainly looked influential with all the women or men or both clinging to them, seeing to their every whim and desire. Most seemed to be rich guildsmen or some such, no doubt valued clients and associates of the Razorjack syndicate.

But then there were others who defied such conventions.

Eshairr’s eyes wandered, scorning the scum around her.

And then she froze, for she met with the gleaming golden irises of the man across the room, who in his booth enjoyed the company of not a single pleasure-slave. Handsome was his face, strong and lean, marked with dark liner around his eyes and a silver ring rich with scarlet gems hanging from his ear. Dressed in shimmering azure robes, the obsidian leather of his jeweled gauntlets crinkled as he lifted a crystal cup of wine grasped between his fingers to his lips, staring at her with the frigid disregard of the void between stars. Those fur-collared robes were loose, much of his mighty torso bare, all his muscles rigidly defined like those of an ancient statue of the great Eldar heroes of yore. His long, flowing mane of raven locks and his two folded wings of onyx feathers were the shade of the dereliction of all light, the deepest abyss, only to be found at the heart of a collapsed star.

Yet still her gaze returned to his, enchanting and intense. As if waiting for her to see, only then did he turn his sights to her body, searching every curve and contour with slow, brooding purpose. He gave unto her the leer of a great Dragon, the fearsome and majestic carnosaurs entwined deeply in both the culture and mythology of their people. Dark and brooding intellect glowed through his slit pupils, perceiving of her and her alone in this vibrant jungle of razor-steel and broken souls.

So it was that she, and she alone in all this room, was worthy prey.

As the world ground to a halt around them, the dark master set down his crimson wine, lifted a hand, and beckoned.

And her legs almost carried her to him. Her heart stopped cold in her chest, and Eshairr broke away from looking upon him, breathless. Never before had she feared a man. Never before had she felt such a magnetism, an impulse to explore the dark thoughts of another, as though curiosity of his dreadful desires was more important than their goal in coming to this wicked place. But even so, she was terrified of it—of coming to know him, of approaching him, for she stood at the edge of a cavernous fissure from which she could never escape if she were to enter.

“Eshairr?” asked Tulushi’ina, worried at such a strange reaction.

The captain turned to her companion, expelling her shaken emotions. “I am well. Worry not. Munesha, do you sense Kanbani? I cannot find her…”

The dusky beauty ran a hand up through her white locks and looked to the dance stage at the rear of the club, where the Razorjacks were performing their strange and dangerous dances. “She is not here, but she will be soon.”

In that moment, the band ceased playing their latest song, and all the lights of the club dimmed save for the spotlights upon the stage. From the floor above, a hovering pedestal descended, and upon it was none other than Helliarch Nolaei, slender and beautiful as ever, a hand perched upon her own jutting hip, blowing kisses out to the most powerful and influential patrons in the booths overlooking the stage.

After a short pause and a smile of her wondrous, shiny red lips, Nolaei stepped forward, extending both arms wide into a flamboyant pose, her entire body as stiff as steel, controlled with absolute precision that mocked even the most talented Razorjack dancers to perform that night.

“My loves, I welcome you all to my most prestigious of clubs!” she announced, flicking her wrists downwards, allowing her shining aurumite nails to glitter in the light for all to see. Her pert breasts jiggled lightly with another step forward, all the grace and drama of a dancer flexing through her exposed arms, chest, and back, while her dress rose and fell into myriad shapes with her legs striking each magnificent stance one after another.

“The great race, the Sanguine Gouge, for which you all have waited so eagerly shall finally begin! And we have prepared such wonders of bloodshed for our beloved sponsors to admire and savor, this cycle.”

She declared this with the greatest pride and joy beaming from her lovely face, a mask of performance so impressive that even the Harlequins might applaud it.

“We have gathered the finest Reavers from not only the Valley of Fallen Lords, but every bordering district. But contrary to what they might claim, each and every last one of them has come begging to join this prestigious event, for the right and the privilege to race and die in the name of the Razorjacks! And this glorious day is all thanks to you, all of you!”

Applause, polite and restrained, filled the air of the club from every corner.

“And so it is to you that I dedicate this night’s main entertainment. May you find it… satisfying,” Nolaei said, bowing down with her arms spread wide, showing her back and the back of her neck to all present, the most extreme gesture of gratitude. Of course, at a safe distance and with a dozen Razorjacks standing between her and her audience, it lost much of its value. But still it earned more applause, even if only out of politeness.

She quickly rose back to standing at her full height and lifted a hand, snapping her fingers.

And from above, through the very same entrance she had descended from, a flayed woman was thrown down onto the dance platform. The dancers picked her up and threw her atop a cheap throne at the highest point, at the very rear of the platform, beside Nolaei.

“I have here a half-dead Kabalite of the Obsidian Rose,” announced the Helliarch with glittering eyes and lips that parted almost lustfully with every word. “And there are our most esteemed guests. New racers in the Sanguine Gouge! Craftworlders! Craftworlders who tried to sneak into my domain concealing their identity under coats that do not fit them. Hahahaha!”

The spotlights split their lumen-strength between Nolaei and the three Morriganites standing in the middle of the club. Tulushi’ina flinched, standing closer to her comrades, while Munesha crossed her arms together, nothing to hide or prove. Eshairr stood tall, glaring daggers into Nolaei as she realized who the skinless, ravaged prisoner was, incensed with righteous anger.

The guests all around the High Club clapped at them, uproarious laughter filling the air. Words of mockery and insult were paid to them from high above and all around, simply on account of where they had come from.

“Here is the great game. The contest! They want their Kabalite back. I want them to earn it. So, let us see how well they dance!” Nolaei declared, and all the lights moved to the dance floor. The music began again, an elegant melody with tribal drums that kept the rhythm, and all the Razorjacks commenced a ferocious, running dance, darting left to right, twirling and leaping over and between each other, so little space between them that anyone who dared intrude would be flayed in half by the razorblades implanted in their skin.

But Eshairr did not care. No, her heart quivered with terror and outrage in equal measure.

More games, more manipulations, toying with them all. No, she was done with this.

Eshairr immediately stomped towards the dance platform, but as she approached, someone swept at her from the side, seizing around her in a tight hug from behind.

“Unwise,” whispered the beautiful Scourge, an arm around Eshairr’s belly, his other hand clutching her by the chin and holding her completely still, trapped where she stood. Every instinct screamed at her to fight his touch, to resist and scream, and yet beneath it all, a deep and powerful voice told her to obey him and heed his words. “Many hope to prove themselves in the Banquet of Razors. Few succeed.”

“Unhand me!” Eshairr hissed under her breath, aghast, terrified, and yet scintillated. His firm touch burned her through the material of her mesh, his strong scent filled her senses like the rich smoke of a burning tree, and though such uncouth behavior from a man meant death on Craftworld Morrigan, she found no strength in her arms with which to exact that payment from him for his unspeakable sins.

But the hands of the Wayseer were not bound by such weakness.

He turned his head, sensing her approach, as though able to feel the air her body disturbed upon his beautiful wings. He released Eshairr, deftly stepping aside from the sharp, deadly hook of Munesha’s fist, his serpentine gaze evaluating the one who attacked him with cold indifference to her beauty. In her, he saw nothing.

Save for promising deadliness.

Munesha stared at him in turn. Where Azraenn or Druzna would have issued a biting insult, she only advanced. He backpedaled. No words were exchanged. None were needed.

“I am not so foolish as to walk into so obvious and obnoxious a trap,” Eshairr said to him, once her heart had finished with its palpitations.

“Then all is well,” he answered, sounding pleased, returning to his place in his lonely booth.

More mocking jeers rained down upon the Craftworlders, and Eshairr cleared her mind, breathing deeply, preparing to face this challenge. They could laugh at her and mock her all they liked. But she would not leave Kanbani to be the object of Nolaei’s tortures any longer.

After all, they both had been thrown to the wolves by Lady Syndratta.

“Munesha,” Eshairr said, with a degree of calm that should have alarmed the Helliarch to observe. She issued no verbal command. All Eshairr did was gesture towards Kanbani, and Munesha was at last unleashed.

The Exodite turned, nodded with a cold and impassionate gaze in her glowing crimson eyes, and then she walked up the steps onto the dance platform.

Nolaei leaned with cavalier grace upon the Fool’s Throne in which Kanbani bled and suffered, smirking down at Eshairr with glee. “Just how little do you understand, girl? This is more than a dance. It is the ethos of my clan, the proof of our ways. All who would become a Razorjack must survive the Banquet, navigating the thorns of others until they are worthy to wear their own. You send your pretty subordinate into this? She may not return to you alive.”

Eshairr simply crossed her arms together and glared at Nolaei from below. Her patience was finished, and her willingness to engage with the infinitely rude woman had come to an end.

“Behold!” Nolaei shouted, grinning murderously from above, all too pleased to continue talking. “This is a test of love! What is love but a banquet of billions, all navigating the great festival, hoping to find the one who can share their dance to the end? Yet no matter who you choose, or who chooses you, there are always blades beneath their skin, hidden edges which will cut you and bleed you dry. In the end, you cannot stay with them, lest they be the end of you. That is the gruesome reality of romance, the truth which I have lived, once the wife of an Archon, then his murderer. For all his talents, my thorny beauty destroyed him, and in his destruction I became a queen of Commorragh, a legend. This I have taught to all who would learn from my brilliance and follow my example. And you, now, think to challenge it?”

The patrons laughed all around while Eshairr glanced at them coldly. Nolaei’s confidence was difficult to blame. A dozen Razorjacks stood between them, no doubt among their most elite killers, and their daring maneuvers had already proven their lethal agility beyond question.

Of course, none of them had the slightest idea what Munesha was capable of.

“Hahahahaha!” Nolaei laughed with as much plain malice as anyone Eshairr had ever seen, building herself up into greater and greater mockery of the Asuryani below, as though the lack of response frustrated her. “So you still wish to risk your servant upon this? Very well, fool of a girl. But if her life should be threatened, I expect you to grovel for her safe return…”

Eshairr just tapped her finger against her arm, staring silently, her body exuding impatience. “Munesha, enjoy the dance.”

“Aye,” answered the Wayseer without hesitation, drawing down the meshlink of her borrowed coat and allowing it to open, freeing her from the tight prison of such artificial materials which had burdened her and weakened her powers through discomfort.

Munesha discarded the jacket, revealing her golden brassiere and silvered thong, clutching to her bountiful, ebon curves with the tightness of an irredeemable lecher’s grasp. Her attire suited the wanton, common dress of Commorites most among all the Howl. But though she was lovely beyond compare, the eyes of watchers fell not upon her generous bosom or her wide hips, but on the red, burning daemon-beast etched into her back by her own father’s hand.

With a hand raised to her lips, a mantra of power uttered to awaken her slumbering gifts, the psycho-conductive inks churned and roiled, surging with life, distorting themselves from one shape to another. What was once the hideous face of a fanged daemon became the Eyes of Asuryan, the Red Moon of Eldanesh, then the Mark of Khaine blazing in crimson glow. The inks traveled freely within her, streaking off into her limbs, coiling around her arms and legs and neck like an ancient god was garbing her dark, shining flesh in wreaths of bloodvine.

To the jaded eyes of the Drukhari, they only saw a technological and artistic marvel worthy of some envy. But her companions knew better, and they knew that the inks flowed and followed the psychic might of the Wayseer, allowing even a psychically-blunt creature to observe the ever-shifting currents of Munesha’s stormy powers, so channeled with flawless grace and skill that they made no mark upon the world around her. The artwork upon her flesh began as a father’s gift, but through focus and control became her own handiwork, a wondrous masterpiece painted upon her own body as a canvas, the proof of her mastery of the ancient teachings of inner enlightenment.

Her skills in many arcane arts were lacking. Much of her novice repertoire could be weakened or negated by sensory excess, much like in the extremes of the Hollow’s lower tiers. But in this use of her gifts, nothing could stop her. Her own bones were her psy-focus, her rich blood the medium through which the unnatural energies would flow to every extremity. And when unleashed, the Exodite left the limitations of the Aeldari far, far behind.

The poor fools.

Prepared, Munesha strolled onto the stage. Nolaei quickly waved at the band to begin playing their next song, a brisk and lively reel. Immediately the dancers formed up into a complex routine, circling around Munesha, dancing, twirling, crossing the space around her, leaping and somersaulting with inhuman grace and ease. It was a dazzling affair, surrounding her with an intense circus of daring feats of acrobatics and balance, leaping over each other’s heads, only narrowly avoiding razor-bladed collisions. Anyone who hoped to cross the stage would be risking life and limb to the Razorjacks, and that was by design.

Munesha paused as her path was cut off by the dancers, looking around calmly. After a moment of observing the pattern of their movements, the white-haired Wayseer once again began to walk, following the rhythm with every step, almost dancing in her own way. When the Hellions came at her to block her passage, she burst forward, weaving around them—a blur of obsidian skin that slipped right between the gaps, leaving her “dance partners” stumbling in shock. She spared the astonished dancers only one glance, her radiant scarlet eyes striking them with the utmost disdain, and then continued her leisurely stroll onwards.

That earned laughter from the audience, but this time it was at the Razorjacks. And that left Nolaei to dig her long, sharp nails into the Fool’s Throne, scratching deep into the precious wood as she watched her finest performers struggle to catch one single Craftworlder. She made a subtle gesture with a nod, and the dancers changed their tactic.

The Banquet of Razors was a complex series of dance patterns, and while many were maimed or perished in trying to participate, no obvious attempt upon a life was made.

Usually.

The Banquet only needed a slight adjustment, a subtle shift in the angle of a turn or the closeness of a body, to twist dangerous maneuvers into lethal ones.

The lead dancer darted at Munesha, twirling upon a single foot and kicking her leg out at Munesha’s back—with the razorblades in her knee aimed at the Exodite’s spine.

Munesha stopped walking.

The dancer suddenly snapped back, her delicate and lithe body crumpling to the stage floor without any of the graceful strength it once had.

Her head landed a few meters away, an expression of surprise still left in her dying eyes.

The room fell silent, the band stopped playing, the dancers froze, and Munesha withdrew her tattoo-adorned fist, the Rune of Khaine blazing on the back of her hand for but a moment before it faded away.

Munesha turned back and continued, ascending the steps to the Fool’s Throne and lifting Kanbani’s broken body into her arms. As she rose back to her full height, she looked at Nolaei, at the barely restrained fury burning through every contour of the Helliarch’s face, the sheer, unbridled murderous rage blazing in her beautiful eyes. Nolaei’s hand opened, her fingers aching like loaded springs, aurumite nails gleaming with murderous potential.

But for all her dreadful intent, it was Nolaei who looked away, suddenly pale, breathless.

For in the crimson glow of Munesha’s gaze, through the psychic inks within her radiant eyes, Nolaei had seen the reflection of Death.

“Hmph,” Munesha grunted dismissively, and she left with the prize in her arms.

The remaining dancers simply parted like grass in the wind, allowing her a path back to her companions.

“Thank you, Munesha,” Eshairr said, smiling. Without another word, she, Tulushi’ina, and Munesha all began to walk towards the lifts together, but Eshairr paused for a moment, turning back to glance upon the room. When she looked for the Scourge, he was nowhere to be seen. Something inside of her twinged sorrowfully, and she silenced it, looking to the Helliarch instead.

“Mistress Nolaei, thank you for hosting us,” Eshairr said brusquely, with the utmost decorum and a slight nod of the head. “We look forward to joining your race.”

And as they left, they heard the sound of a wooden throne hurled onto the stage, shattering into a pile of splinters.

===

When they stepped out through the force field at the entrance of Blackspear Hollow, all the sounds of the Hellion club were left behind. And then they stood in the atrium, enjoying the blessed silence and peace as it washed over their aching senses, and then left through the doorway, the doorman, still sporting a bandage upon his nose from her pugilist entrance, grinning at Kanbani’s suffering.

The yacht awaited them, the Kabalite crew staring at Kanbani as she was carried across the gangway.

“Where is the sixth Craftworlder?” asked the Sybarite in command of the yacht as he tallied those who returned with crossed arms and a visored gaze. “The one with the breeding hips.”

“She will be remaining here until the race,” answered Eshairr, with a note of sorrow in her voice.

The Sybarite shrugged and lifted his gauntlet to press into the comm-piece built into his steepled helmet, and he gave an unintelligible signal to the crew. The yacht instantly burst into motion, its engines thrumming with power, flying swiftly away from the Hollow, ascending towards Middle Darkness once more.

Munesha carried Kanbani into the lower decks for treatment, while Eshairr walked to the other end of the weather deck, leaning on the gothic rail and staring out over the endless expanse of lights of Low Commorragh, glittering beyond the horizon like a sea of stars. Her skull pulsed rhythmically, the bone-shaking beat of the club’s music still tormenting her even now. Her lungs burned with the taste of the pollution in the air. The feeling of Azraenn’s dagger still throbbed sharply in her side, though little of the wound remained after Lynekai’s healing.

But the greatest pain she felt was absence. The absence of her friend, mentor, and confidant. She regretted leaving Lynekai in such a pit of misery and hatred more than anything in all her career, for it was shameful beyond words.

“Captain,” said Druzna, approaching her, unease in her step, no doubt worried that her presence was still undesired.

Eshairr looked to her First Spear, and her weariness must have been obvious on her face.

“I left her,” Eshairr admitted mournfully. “In a den of snakes and monsters.”

“Lady Lynekai?” Druzna asked, surprised.

“She agreed to do it. I trust her foresight. I prize her wisdom. But I should not have listened to her, no matter what Nolaei demanded,” Eshairr whispered.

Druzna stepped closer, touching Eshairr on the shoulder. “A deal for our participation in the race?”

Eshairr nodded. “We merely have to cross the finish line for her to be returned to us.”

Druzna laughed aloud. “Hahaha! Very good. That will be inevitable, given we must win if we are to obtain Syndratta’s support for Morrigan.”

Eshairr did manage a small smile. “Nolaei does underestimate us. So will, I expect, much of our competition. That means there is a chance.”

“No. A certainty,” Druzna smiled, leaning back against the rail beside her captain. Then, once she had braced herself, she let out a long and sober sigh, her features tightening in troubled tension. “I must apologize with all my heart for bringing shame to you and to the Howl.”

Eshairr perked up, startled out of her heavy worries. “What? You need not. I am the one who ought to be ashamed for turning upon you. The Fleetmistress would be aghast if she saw me treat you in such a way.”

Druzna raised an eyebrow, surprised and confused. “Eh? You seem to imagine Aydona like a wise Seer, kind and forgiving. If I acted so improperly while she was negotiating in Commorragh, she would part me from my spine and strangle me with it.”

Eshair giggled at the thought. “Nonsense, Druzna.”

The First Spear fell silent, a troubled look on her face that Eshairr entirely missed, staring off into the twisted beauty of the dark depths of Commorragh.

“The price of only hearing the better, valiant tales spoken about a great leader is only knowing half of who they truly are. There are many stories I should tell you about our our fearless Starwarden before she came to Morrigan…”

“Hmm?” Eshairr murmured, distracted.

“Do not mind it. More importantly, my friend, I secured something to aid our chances in the race. The most valuable thing in Commorragh. Knowledge,” Druzna smiled. “A shadowed eye who knows much of our opposition in the race, and can even tell us of the route we will be taking. We can prepare, memorize, plan for it. It is invaluable to our purposes. However, there is a cost.”

Eshairr raised an eyebrow. “So?”

“Our informant is a man. A Gutter-Walker, like the ones you saw. And he wants sanctuary and safe passage out of Commorragh.”

Eshairr grimaced. “You promised a man passage aboard my ship?”

Druzna shook her head. “I promised nothing. I am not a fool who would go above her station. That is why I now ask. If you believe that it is not worth the risk, I will go down and execute him myself.”

Eshairr looked up into the pitch-black clouds of smog they were about to fly into.

“Do you believe he is trustworthy?” asked the captain.

“Yes,” Druzna said. “Because though he is a slimy-hearted wretch, I have seen into his eyes. He is sane enough. He is well-aware that if he lies to us, his life is immediately forfeit. He is taking an immense risk by coming with us because on our ship there is no escape. And even Gutter-Walkers have masters they are sworn to serve, who will hunt them down if they flee their duties… Suffice to say, he has already thrown away his prior life by coming aboard this yacht. Aas much as we might disdain the company of men, even more of mutants, we do need someone who knows Low Commorragh like he does.”

Eshairr closed her eyes, thought on it, and then at last nodded. “So be it. But I am placing him under your supervision, Druzna. Secure him in quarters away from the rest of our kin, keep his door sealed. He will be safe as he wishes, but he will not have freedom. Needless to say, he is forbidden from visiting the rest of the Howl, and the crew is forbidden from contacting him. The only exception will be interrogating him for whatever secrets he might possess. And if he refuses to tell us what we wish to know, then you will end him and dispose of him immediately.”

Druzna smiled. “Of course, Captain. You need not worry. I am an old hand at these things. But there is one other thing.”

“Yes?”

“Well, someone is going to have to inform Azraenn that you left Lynekai behind…”

Eshairr’s eyes widened.

“Oh. Yes. Quite so.”

“I would recommend Tulushi’ina, for even Azraenn looks fondly upon the sweet little thing,” Druzna said, glancing at her nails idly.

“Yes… though I shall have to hope not to awaken to a sword in my face tonight,” Eshairr chuckled grimly.

Chapter Text

==Chapter IX: The Gouge Sanguine==

There was neither dawn nor dusk in the Eternal City, but the passage of time was accounted by many things—the rhythmic passing of buzzing skimmers through its congested depths, the tolling of Coven bells to mark the microcycle, the regular klaxons of incoming raids, or even the slight and subtle lengthening of shadows one direction or the other as the walls of the Webway flowed, breathed, and twisted beneath the foundations of Commorragh, ever-so-slightly altering the angle at which the light of the stolen stars fell upon them.

But when festivities arrived, and indeed Commorragh hosted many such events, the flow of time seemed to slow to an anxious, nerve-wracking crawl, as though all the inhabitants above and below, near and far, were counting each and every second with breathless anticipation. In such unusual times, the highways cleared themselves save for a few tweaked-out transports desperate to complete a last-minute job, and no raids from any rival powers seemed to arrive—more important matters to attend to. Even the Webway seemed unusually placid, as if the Warp raging just outside it had somehow fallen silent and still out of respect for the city’s maddening excitement. Only the Covens ignored this atmosphere, deaf to the hearts of their kin, ringing their bells from deep below on schedule, reminding the populace of how close and dear death was to them all.

Amidst this tranquil tension, one thousand ambitions gathered for the ultimate contest.

Uncountable millions of eager eyes watched, from nooks and crannies and lofty balconies hanging from decaying hab-stacks. Or they observed through any of the thousands of scanner-drones buzzing around the staging area like carrion flies, documenting the preparations from countless angles for both the wealthy to enjoy via advanced holo-displays that put them in the heart of the action, and the poor to watch through crude projectors across all of Commorragh.

For today, for just a brief few hours—the ceaseless bloodshed did pause.

For a different manner of war would soon be waged.

Not just a war of wagers—unspeakable riches flowing through thousands of bookmakers, as the lowliest laborers and slaves risked their life earnings upon the dream of winning wealth enough to purchase freedom. Those who had barely clawed their way out of poverty happily bet their meager fortunes as well, hoping just the same to rise to the next echelon of Commorragh’s society, driven by fear of their many debtors. Even the truly wealthy engaged in gambles here, staking amounts so vast that the fate of entire guilds or gangs might be decided by their chosen favorite’s victory… or defeat. And, in the secret confidence shared only between the true masters and mistresses of Commorragh, there were perhaps a few friendly gambles played on even greater stakes, like an industrial district or a percentage of a spire’s interior, a few million slaves, or even key intel on a delightful target in Realspace. The true prize, of course, would be the private humiliation of the one who lost, a most wonderful delicacy indeed.

This was but the shadow of the real conflict, the echoes of which would drive screaming masses into financial ruin or sudden prosperity.

Yes, the true battle would be fought in the streets of the Valley and far, far beyond it. The race itself was as much a test of skill as a test of brutality, for weapons were not forbidden. On the contrary, they were encouraged, nay, nearly enforced upon the racers.

It was undeniable: success was not measured in victory alone, but in earning fame enough to secure membership in the heights of society. Though no Kabals had declared sponsorship of the event, far too proud to lower themselves to such a level, there were many unmarked Raider barges hovering above, their passengers watching with keen interest to see if any of the dregs taking part might show a glimmer of potential to make a worthy addition to their esteemed organization. The Wych Cults, too, had their own interest in this matter, as Reavers of particular skill would be quickly snatched up on contracts to participate in their Arena’s own deadly races and support their forces on raids.

Such as it was, when whispers of an oddity joining the Gouge Sanguine rushed through the crowds gathering to savor this magnificent event, the quiet observers above turned their attentions to a few select garages in the staging area. Rumor claimed that within a few of these mechanic pits, Craftworlders lurked, preparing to join this grand race for mysterious reasons. A thrill of anticipation flowed through the audiences scattered far and wide—excitement to see if this madness was true. If it was, then they could look forward to a very special butchering, indeed.

===

She turned over the shuriken catapult in her hands, examining its elegant white crystal contours for any sign of flaw or fracture. But there were none, as she knew. Nevertheless, Kaela Mensha Khaine did not take his arms for granted. Nor would she.

Satisfied, she slid in the ammunition core and slapped it the rest of the way with a faint click.

“This is a race, not a war,” said Druzna, walking up behind Azraenn.

“In this city, there is no difference,” Azraenn retorted.

“Oh, but there is,” Druzna insisted. “And you are woefully underequipped for the real thing.”

Azraenn dismissed the idea with brooding silence until Druzna held out an open hand.

“I was merely playing with you,” said the First Spear, giggling. “I have half the Howl’s armory already stowed in my Vyper. Give that here and I will secure it.”

Azraenn blinked at Druzna for a moment.

“What? I won’t misplace it,” she said.

“This is no mere shuriken catapult. This is the heart and soul of my Aspect,” Azraenn protested.

“And I’m telling you, I’ll take good care of it,” Druzna said, a hand going to her hip and shooting the Bladebearer a sharp look.

“It is taboo for an Aspect Warrior to give their weaponry to an outsider,” Azraenn added.

Druzna scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You will have a much mightier gun to use. Do you wish to endure that thing against your back in the gunner seat, or do you want it kept comfortably in the pilot compartment?”

Azraenn seemed to pout, almost, but exhaled with reluctant acceptance, handing it over.

“There. See,” Druzna said with a smile. “That was not so difficult, was it?”

“Can we trust that dreg of yours? The loathsome flesh-twist?” asked Azraenn bluntly.

Druzna turned halfway and slid the catapult into one of the storage compartments within the half-sealed canopy of the Vyper. “Shall I remind you? I have given him a name. He is Kuron, Azraenn.”

“So you call him Beast,” Azraenn growled. “And yet you think his words worthy?”

Druzna smiled. “He may be a wretch, but he is still Eldar. He needs us to succeed, for his fate is now entwined with ours. And I have been thorough in extracting what he knows of our competitors and the landscape ahead of us.”

“And what if he betrays us?”

“Then he will be the first to perish, as I have commanded,” Druzna replied calmly.

The Avenger closed her eyes.

“What? Is it truly so galling to trust the words of a mutant?” Druzna asked, crossing her arms together.

“We must not fail here,” Azraenn said at last. “For Lady Lynekai’s fate depends upon us.”

Druzna paused for a moment, surprised. She could feel the anxiety radiating off of her comrade. “Such sentimentality from you? Quite unlike a Warrior, I must say. One would expect grim, but confident, resolve. After all, this was her choice, and it is not your place to correct her.”

Then, after a deep breath, the dark-haired beauty smirked. “Well, she’s not the one riding into a death-race. Ultimately, this is not her place. When we learned that we would be taking part, she worked tirelessly to augment our steeds for this; her part is played out. I believe she understands this better than anyone. That is why she agreed to be kept as a bargaining chip—so that she can still be of use, even now. That old rascal…”

Azraenn nodded, seeming to find some measure of peace in Druzna’s words, her stoic façade rising up and assuming itself upon her features once more. She climbed into the turret on the back of the Vyper with easy agility, and began to mutter a mantra of battle under her breath.

Druzna looked across the garage to the others, seeing Munesha and Tulushi’ina already prepared upon their two-seater Raptor Shroudrunner, black and unmarked, a sleek scout vehicle equipped with artisan stealth technology produced by Outcast Bonesingers. The pilot had command of a mighty Scatter Laser mounted under the fuselage, but in truth, those who had witnessed such a thing in battle rightly feared the Longrifle of the pillion rider a thousand times more.

Eshairr, lingering and staring at a pretty necklace of Wraithbone in her hand, looked to Druzna. Between them, though no movements were made and no words were spoken, both understood the similar apprehensions in each other’s hearts by the weight of their eyes, and that was reassurance enough.

Spurred, Eshairr leapt onto her Windrider jetbike, small, deft, and armed with twin Shuriken Catapults. She tucked her necklace under her pilot suit, a modified mesh armor crafted to repel friction with the air more than weaponry, donned her aerodynamic helmet, and threw her windcape over her shoulder.

And a great horn sounded over the silent depths of Low Commorragh, blaring out of a massive Raider barge hovering over the staging valley.

The first horn sounded the Sky-Gathering, the Assembly of Riders.

Druzna climbed into the canopy of her dark green Vyper, her precious and prized personal vehicle, proudly covered in her personal name-runes, and which she had taken into battle for as long as she had been a Corsair. The most heavily armored of all the common Asuryani jetbike configurations, it was almost more gunship than fast attack vessel, but those who assumed it to be slow and clumsy rarely survived long enough to regret such ignorance. Boasting twin nose-mounted Shuriken Catapults and a Shuriken Cannon on the turret, its firepower greatly exceeded that of all other jetbike-class vehicles used by the Asuryani.

And Druzna knew, better than anyone, that it would be sorely needed.

As they flew out and mustered at the starting line, marked by the observation drones forming the shape of the Rune of Beginnings with their glittering silver lumen-globes, Druzna looked left and right, scanning their arriving competition. Just over a thousand jetbikes came together to hover at the line. She had seen larger.

The Morriganites were not the only ones sizing up their opponents. Nearly every racer there exchanged quiet, scrutinous glances, searching for strength, watching for weakness.

“There,” said Tulushi’ina as she swept the assembled racers with keen eyes. She pointed below them, and the others looked to the one she had picked out.

He was bald, entirely nude save for a tight loincloth, covered in beautiful and colorful tattoos of ancient myth, as though his very body was itself a scroll of legend. His vehicle was fascinating, even at a glance—a fusion of Commorite and Asuryani technology, or so it appeared, some components sung from Wraithbone, others forged from Commorite steel. It created a strange, hybrid appearance, painted scarlet like blood, or perhaps simply stained by the blood of his enemies.

D’alarnix Garathun. Kuron had provided ample information about him, natural given his fame. He flew a custom two-seater Reaver bike, with his slave and mistress Ulnea the Outcast taking the pillion. She was his ultimate weapon, a peerless craftswoman, and no one could predict what foul invention or ingenious upgrade she would arm him with next. Some said that she was the true engineer behind his rapid rise to fame and power, as well, but no one dared to claim as much to his face.

They all stared at him warily, for he was said to be the greatest Reaver in all the Valley. And, as if able to sense their eyes upon him, D’alarnix looked up slowly, intently, offering the Craftworlders a small smile, then a lick of the lips, openly lascivious. Ulnea, just behind him, dug her nails into his chest till he bled, and he chortled amusedly at her envious wrath.

Something swooping in just beside Eshairr startled her, and she whirled at the sense of danger, only for her heart to skip when she saw him.

The Scourge, the very same one from Blackspear Hollow.

No, she knew his name now. Ravan kei-Narakai. The Fallen Hawk.

“Greetings, girl,” he said, staring into her eyes with his reptilian gaze, his golden eyes almost glowing in her direction. “It pleases me to face you in this contest.”

She was not surprised to see him. She had guessed him to be a star racer based upon his presence at Nolaei’s invitational banquet, and Kuron’s knowledge had confirmed her suspicions.

His long, elegant, burgundy jetbike was mastercraft, fashioned by his own two hands out of arcane and composite resins, nigh-indestructible and as weightless as air, an underslung darklight blaster its only obvious armament. He perched upon it with a sense of loaded tension in his limbs, one hand on the steering bars, the other held out in offering to her.

After a moment and a blink of surprise, she recognized his meaning. Slowly, she lifted her hand and, hesitating just long enough to peek at his eyes again, placed her fingers in his palm.

Ravan gently ran his thumb across her hand, then bowed, pulling it closer, and placed his lips upon her gauntlet with cold, exacting precision. Despite the mesh between them, she quivered at the faint pressure of his lips, the brief tingle of his warmth. Then he released her, his beautiful black wings spreading out with beastly strength for a moment before folding back against him.

“May we meet again, wherever this race brings us,” he said.

Eshairr felt her cheeks burn, flushing as red as fire. It was good that she was wearing a helmet—none but her knew of this vulnerability.

Before she could think of anything to say, her tongue lost for expression at the wild and strange, twisting feelings washing through her chest, he pulled away on his bike and took a different place far off in the formation, the bladevanes of his bike narrowly skirting her Windrider.

“My, how pleasant and polite,” Druzna commented snidely over their communicators. “A shame we’ll likely have to kill him.”

Munesha turned and looked across at Druzna, adjusting the straps of her white latex brassiere and thong. Unlike the others, dressed in their finest flight suits or cloaks, she wore nothing more than her usual skimpy attire, ever-proud to claim that feeling the air on her skin aided her focus. With her supernatural abilities, mesh and camouflage were of little use regardless.

“Perhaps it is not a matter that is ours to decide,” Munesha replied quietly, making a pointed glance at Eshairr. The meaning behind that look was lost on all but her and her mysterious ways.

“Knows-No-Name!” Tulushi’ina exclaimed, eyes wide, as she pointed.

Far to their right and slightly behind the bulk of other racers, they saw a woman dressed in a deep azure bodyglove that washed with a tidal pattern of glowing blues from her limbs to her substantial and tightly bound breasts, her body as bountifully curvaceous as her jetbike was sleek and narrow. Most Reavers seemed to take a perverse pride in broadcasting their identity as obviously as possible to cultivate a reputation. Some did indeed adopt an assumed name and identity for races, but she was different. Not an inch of her skin was exposed from top to bottom, and there were no marks of loyalty or meaning on her hand-crafted vehicle, not a single part of which originated from a guild or forge-company that could be used to trace her identity.

All that Kuron could offer about her was that she had begun to appear without warning in racing circuits around Low Commorragh several cycles ago. Every time she showed herself, she bathed in the blood of her unworthy rivals and vanished without a trace once the race was won. The mutant had only fanciful tales to offer about her, like that she had never been scratched by any opponent.

“If they have earned such a dire reputation without boasting of their deeds, then they must be especially dangerous,” warned Druzna.

In the very same instant that Tulushi’ina saw her, Knows-No-Name slowly turned her hooded, helmeted gaze, staring at her through a dark visor. Faceless, nameless, even wordless, there was little that Tulushi’ina could do but quail and shiver.

“Be strong, young Ranger,” said Munesha. “I sense she is amused by your anxiety.”

“Oh. We can’t have that,” Tulushi’ina remarked irritably to the Wayseer.

“Silence. It shall not be long now; we must be ready,” Eshairr said. “This is the time to enter battle-trance.”

For the remainder of their time, all the Morriganites save for Munesha began to chant under their breath, joining in with each other over their communicators. Soon the distractions of the moment began to fade from awareness as their voices melded together, the insults and the threats paid to them by the other racers distant and slurred and meaningless. For as long as they maintained the mental cant, the rhythm and the rhymes would imbue them with a union of movement and purpose that none of these savages could ever hope to match, or so Eshairr hoped.

===

How long had she stared at the walls, floor, ceiling of white crystal?

The spacious cell that had been her prison was, for every luxury provided to her, thrice as vexing. The cot was comfortable and adjusted its properties psycho-sympathetically to suit the one who rested upon it. The room temperature, likewise, was set according to her own preferences, read via psycho-conductors in the walls whether she wanted it or not. Even the very ship itself seemed to hum soothingly, whispers of ancient souls residing within its crystal beams reaching out to caress her from time to time, sensing in her, perhaps, a kindred spirit, a voyager of stars.

“Your loathing should never be borne upon your own shoulders,” said the Hunter’s Howl.

“Leave me be,” growled Renemarai.

“Hate not thyself. You may hate us instead. For we are your cage.”

Renemarai scoffed and buried her face in her knees.

Olden spirits or no, they could not understand her. She was not a fool. She knew precisely why these lodgings offended her to the very core.

Because she did not deserve them. She deserved a dark, moist chamber, cold and lacking even a bed. She deserved to be beaten every day, every night, not that she would ever be allowed to know when it was one or the other. She deserved to forget even the passage of time, her existence a living agony of torture and punishment until a cold, bitter expiration into the abyss of the screaming Warp.

That did stir a chuckle out of her angst. Wry, self-deprecating. She almost wished for Druzna to come back and settle the score again. Almost. How amusing that her old friend had been so careful to leave no traces of that beating behind, as though Ren would ever lower herself to begging Eshairr for justice.

“Prisoner,” said a voice through the psy-link at the door.

Renemarai did not bother looking up. She knew well the voice of Nala, the Guardian-Warden of the brig. When the door opened, however, that won Ren’s attention.

“It was Lady Lynekai’s wish that you and yours be allowed to observe this,” said Nala, tossing a silver circlet to the fallen Princess’s lap.

“What?” Renemarai said, holding up and examining it. It was Wraithbone, but its purpose was far from evident. As she touched it, however, clarity seemed to flow into her mind—provided by its internal systems, conducting knowledge into her by touch. It was a relay, of sorts, a means to provide limited access to the sealed systems of the Howl even when there were no psychic nodes to touch, like within the brig.

Curiosity and boredom won out over petty spite, and she pulled the circlet onto her head, her short, dark locks spilling over it.

And then the world opened to her.

In her mind’s eye, she felt Commorragh. High Commorragh towering above in all its glory, Middle Darkness congested with clouds of polluted vapors and cyclones of twisting lightning and gravitational anomalies that could sunder a frigate in an instant, and beyond that, Low Commorragh in all its twisting, cramped, beautifully malign squalor. It was disorienting at first, enough to potentially shatter the mind of a lesser being who could not process the sheer volume of information flowing into them. But then she recognized what it was.

The vision of the Hunter’s Howl.

The psychic scopes of the Asuryani were among the most advanced sensors in the universe, able to peer beyond nearly all obstacles and pierce all veils. Their precision was unspeakable, not merely seeing but hearing, feeling, able to reach out and touch and know what was projected through the scopes as though one were actually standing there, immediately outside the Howl or ten trillion leagues away.

Freedom. Oh, how grand and sweet. Flying like a falcon of myth, soaring over the universe. Even Commorragh seemed small, then, so distant even as she danced along its spires and walked the skies.

It was only with a great effort that Ren pulled away from that intoxicating sensation, finding herself in that cell, her senses merely her own again.

“Look again,” said Nala.

Renemarai almost spat a defiant insult at the command—reflex difficult to forget. But as she caught her breath, she had no power to deny it.

She wanted more.

The ship held out a hand to her, and Renemarai took it, diving into the deep without hesitation.

This time, she noticed that she was not alone when she gazed out into the world beyond. There were many quiet, unintruding voices, the crew among them, but also the heart-spirits of the Howl itself. They were watching something, engrossed in it. She was not forced to join the choir of minds, but her own forays into the horizons of the Eternal City were difficult to indulge when curiosity burned at the back of her mind.

There, beneath a mountain of twisted and broken metal—the Valley of Fallen Lords, she soon recognized it as—deep in the labyrinth of narrow corridors and alleys between crumbling hab-blocks and roughshod fortresses of recidivist syndicates, she saw more than a thousand jetbikes gathering in a steel valley torn into the hive of scum by the dark and brutal lances of the Kabals a thousand planet-cycles ago.

A Reaver race, common enough. Ren was unsurprised to see that more than half the eager participants were hanging precariously off of their vehicles with powerful tools in hand, swiftly cutting out slivers of metal from the hulls of their own vehicles to lighten them as much as could be risked without rendering their metal steeds too fragile to survive. Others traded fierce insults with their competitors, promising to kill them as soon as the race began, and others still were silent, focused, ominously calm.
But why? Of the thousands of violent festivities taking place in Low Commorragh every second, why take such an interest in—

She followed the gazes of the others, and then she saw the helmed woman upon a violet-and-white Windrider bearing the rune of Morrigan.

Then she was well and truly baffled.

Prayers of success and safety sung through the Howl’s halls, both by voice and by thought, and Renemarai quickly picked out Druzna’s old Vyper and a black Shroudrunner with familiar faces on it as well in the mass of lined up participants.

A voice echoed through the staging area, projected by the thousands of drones flying and swarming around the waiting racers.

“Welcome! It is I, the Widow-Baroness, the great Nolaei, your favorite overseer of our prosperous slums. Oh, welcome one and all to the Gouge Sanguine. It is a delight to once again be the host of this wondrous bloodletting! Let me begin with a story. Once upon a time, there was a spy in the ranks of the Kabal of the Iron Thorn. He was slippery and cunning, and he gleaned such incredible secrets as he rose through their ranks. But one day, with a single slip, the poor fool was exposed! As he fled the swift and merciless justice of our noble-blooded kin, he ripped out a single tooth and flung it into the depths of Low Commorragh, the only piece of him to survive once the Iron Thorn were finished with him.”

Nolaei paused, relishing the implications of the horrible torments he must have been subjected to, truly beyond imagination. And then, with a deep breath, she continued. “Of course, as you well know, the champion’s prize is none other than this very tooth of Spymaster Bonrei Lustwrai. Now his old masters, the Obsidian Rose, want him back, in hopes of recovering the secrets he stole. Such a shame they were too cowardly to appear in our wonderful domain themselves, too afraid of an honest competition, so they had to send Asuryani in their place! Mhmhmhm. Ahahahahaha!”

The racers laughed and cheered, as did the millions standing on balconies or leaning out of garage pits and hab-doors. They laughed at the Craftworlders, one and all, as though they were clowns sent to amuse them. But deep beneath their seemingly boisterous exterior, the movements of their bodies told a different tale. Everyone there, all of them, wanted only one thing: to hunt this prey and enjoy dragging out every last bit of Thirst-slaking torture they could from their broken, bleeding bodies.

And Nolaei had presented that idea to them, quite purposefully.

“But let me spare our thirsty audience the long, boring speech. We know why we are here, don’t we? These desperate Reavers want the prize. We want to see them all die! Hahahaha! Let the blade fall!”

As soon as the last word left her lips, the second horn sounded its booming tone throughout the Valley, the beautiful flag girls standing on skyboards performing their lurid dances for the delight of racers and audience alike bowed, the legion of drones forming the Rune of Beginnings split apart, and every single jetbike at the line burst forward into blinding speed.

Nearly a dozen of them exploded in the first few seconds, the result of sabotage or one modification too many by inexperienced hands. In the screaming chaos, they crashed into nearby bikes, taking more down with them simply out of spite. Right away several Raider barges swept down towards the burning collisions that tumbled down into the abyssal depths below, though these were not crewed by Kabalites or Wyches but by Wracks eager to offer their services to the desperate in exchange for prices that could never be repaid. These opportunistic fleshcrafters followed nearly every Reaver race and street battle they could, like black vultures circling corpses, or soon-to-be corpses, waiting until fire or crashing steel had broken their unwilling customers enough that they would beg for salvation against their better judgment.

The start was so intense, so quick, that Renemarai lost sight of Eshairr and the others, vanished amid the swarm of darting vehicles. In no time at all, pistols and mounted guns began to fire between the thousand Reavers, all so eager to clear space before the race entered the narrow and dangerous corridors of the Gutter-Tunnels ahead. The Vulture-Wracks were immediately glutted with hundreds more victims to save as poisoned riders fell off their mounts and damaged, sparking bikes spiraled out of control to strike into a wall. The tally climbed into scores dead or wished-to-be-dead, and this was by design; many dregs were given the privilege to join just for the chance at earning a name and a reputation, but it was well known that only a few could hope to survive. Their purpose was not to amaze the audience, but to scintillate them with the most gruesome and agonizing demises.

Most certainly they succeeded.

In less than a single minute, the swarm decimated itself.

But it was not the riders who had most to fear. It was the civilians standing on balconies or walking the streets, cheering or jeering—then dying by a splinter of toxins poisoning even their very bones, or a bladevane bisecting them. Drunk on chems and lacking better judgment, or hoping to kill some of the riders themselves, or desperate to taste the deaths of the racers more closely to slake their overwhelming Thirst, the scum of the Valley flocked as close as they could to the race and made themselves into unwitting targets, and their bodies were the canvasses upon which every single Reaver eagerly demonstrated their deadly skill.

Pain, searing and hateful and blood-curdling, washed through the Valley of Fallen Lords for leagues in all directions. Screams and agony merged into a symphony, and it flowed freely to all corners of the depths. As the hopeful perished, the jaded thrived; even the weak and the downtrodden felt the bite of their dark curse soften, elated by the mercy of a day’s respite. But only a fool would think this a nice and lovely thing. Soon, blood pooled and dripped out from the doors of households and ran together in alleys, simply out of the desire for more satisfaction and relief, for the thrill was irresistible once tasted. The death toll climbed both within and without the race, a quiet purge executed without fanfare.

The contest soon evinced its very name by the crimson lifeblood of thousands and thousands of its inhabitants sacrificed to the altar of deathly thrills, a murderous blade of cold steel slicing through the city itself.

The Gouge Sanguine was already a success in every measure.

===

“Ahh, an excellent commencement,” Nolaei said, holding up her glass of rich red wine as she watched the live feed of her scanner-drones following the racers from within her personal barge, high above the violence. “Such senseless slaughter is a fine omen. The next cycle for the Razorjacks shall be superb, I can tell. Don’t you agree, my dear soothsayer?”

Lynekai, seated upon a leathery couch, finished drinking the last drops of the latest phial of Shattergift provided by Nolaei’s personal stores of toxins. None but the Lhamean Cult and the many guilds and orders descended from it could claim to know the secrets of the oldest, most potent poisons in the entire Eternal City, not even the Haemonculi. Though deprived of resources by her banishment, Nolaei had proven quite able to reproduce much of what she had been taught. Of course, if she ever dared to sell such tinctures or, worse, the secrets of their production… not even the Covens would be able to save her.

“That is one possibility,” Lynekai answered at last, wincing at the fresh twinges of pain radiating through her body. Even without using her powers, the poison afflicted her just for the ambient connection between her body and soul, enough to make breathing alone a taxing endeavor. It was no surprise that this toxin had been the end of countless psykers on the battlefield. Few would recognize the true nature of the psycho-reactive poison before it was too late, frantically opening themselves to the Warp to either heal themselves or destroy their enemy. This alone would seal their fate.

“You actually believe that your comrades can win this race?” Nolaei asked with a smirk, taking another sip of wine. “Tell me, did you see that in your visions, then? Or did your pretty little runes tell you that?”

“I saw many potentials when I read the Skein prior to our meeting,” Lynekai answered. “Of course, I could be more certain of the result if I were to do so now. There are several paths in which my kin emerge victorious.”

“And what of paths in which they all die?” Nolaei asked, grinning murderously. “Every aspiring gunhand and second-rate rider is going to want their hides. No better way to earn a reputation than by being the one to break a Craftworlder before the eyes of millions. Immediately—even an utter scamp would become a name that is remembered and respected in the Valley.”

“I have foreseen many such possibilities, as well,” Lynekai admitted.

“And yet you believe these will not come to pass?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Lynekai smiled to herself. “You do not know what they have faced already just to survive, merely to reach this city. They have braved fire and war, escaped the ensaring jaws of the Great Dragon, and challenged the Great Enemy and its mightiest champions. And they have not yet been found wanting.”

“The Great Enemy! Hah!” Nolaei laughed. “And where were you when Khaine’s Gate shattered? I was a Lhamean, a goddess of Poisoned Lips who watched from high above as the legions of our foe washed against the indestructible bastions of our city, soon beaten back and destroyed to the last. Do not speak to me of the Great Enemy. Your whinging only reveals how terribly weak you are, that you fear such a thing.”

Pleased with herself, Nolaei came up behind and held Lynekai’s shoulders in the manner of a doting mistress, smiling down at her smugly. The Bonesinger frowned, but fell silent. If she were to voice her true feelings about the manner of woman who would voice so frivolous and damning a thought, she would only call down Nolaei’s wrath upon her. A sharper, subtler tongue was needed.

And so, as the Helliarch gently caressed her, she cut herself upon a razorblade.

“Impressive. Words worthy of a goddess,” Lynekai answered without the scathing sarcasm Nolaei deserved. Had she allowed even the barest hint of disapproval into her tone, her neck would have been wrung for it. Instead, Nolaei shot her a cold and probing stare, her burning paranoia revealed as she searched Lynekai’s gentle, honest smile and polite gestures for the slightest sign of disrespect.

When she found nothing of the sort, Nolaei scoffed and scratched her nails along the priceless leather-bound couch she was circling around idly, for she was left alone with the reminder of her own fall from grace, and no one to take her own shame out on. Instead, she could only dwell upon her own doubts and insecurities, and that alone wounded such a proud woman more deeply than any open insult ever could.

As the silence set in between them, Lynekai closed her eyes, regretting what she had said so cruelly. But then a strange, high-pitched, ear-tickling bell rang within the parlor, and Nolaei’s head snapped over at the door with clear recognition in her eyes.

“Watch the race. Enjoy the miserable fates of your kinswomen,” Nolaei said, gesturing dismissively. “More important matters demand tending.”

With that, the Helliarch strolled out of the room, and Lynekai managed to exert enough effort to turn her head in time to see the glimpse of Eldar legs clad in checkered green-and-black paint, or something as thin as paint, standing with eerie weightlessness in the barge’s atrium. But before she could lift her weary eyes to see their faces, the door sealed itself.

===

The Gutter-Tunnels. They plunged down, down, down, deep into the depths of the Valley, using trash chutes and atmospheric vent shafts barely large enough to fit a jetbike into.

It was not wind that screamed in their ears, but the resistance of the polluted atmosphere deep in the Valley’s depths. Yes, their own speed made stagnant, stinking air into blistering wind that weighed upon every inch of the body exposed to it, a constant distraction that could not be afforded in a place like this.

Or so it was for the others. Druzna, for her part, enjoyed the comforts of her transparent Wraithbone canopy as she maneuvered her Vyper with the speed of thought. The engines of a Reaver jetbike were heavily customized and engineered to surpass the speed of sound in mere seconds of acceleration, an incredible amount of power that even Craftworlders could barely compete with. But in these twisting, serpentine tunnels through solid steel, speed alone was of little value when every split second brought with it another corner, another instantaneous death.

How many insults and jeers did the Reavers spit at them at the staging area for bringing their “pretty little toy steeds” to the illustrious Gouge Sanguine? Yet here the truth was obvious. Asuryani tech needed no manual control; it simply listened to the thoughts and feelings of its pilot, able to adjust its trajectory as swiftly as one wished it to. Here, in these deadly dark passages and narrow crevices filled with rusted pipes and crackling power lines, even just the fraction of a second spent adjusting one’s controls could spell the difference between life and death.

Scores of Reavers were severed from their lives by that very difference in reaction, their necks broken by dangling cords or their ebon mounts shattering in a conflagration of bloody fire upon a corner they failed to take at a safe speed.

Druzna panted with warm heat in her belly, tasting the suffering of the poor scum in the last, messy moments of their lives. How could she resist indulging in the joy of watching the fools careen into obstacles by their own lack of skill, or ill-knowledge of the route? The secrets spewed by the lips of Kuron proved to be one of their greatest advantages by far, as they had no need to follow the other racers to guess at which branch tunnel to take or vent to shoot open with their weapons to clear a path forwards.

“Druzna, you’re pulling too far ahead!” Eshairr snapped over their communicators. “Stay together!”

“It’s so easy,” chuckled the First Spear. “We can pull to the front of the pack here! We can’t win the race with caution!”

The Shuriken Cannon mounted on the back of her Vyper screamed with its hypersonic shots at a constant rhythm, Azraenn swiveling and firing nonstop to cut opportunistic Reavers and their vehicles into gory chunks and keep them clear of attackers. Though her accuracy knew no flaws, compensating for the constant, unpredictable juking and weaving of the other riders while Druzna likewise swerved to evade incoming fire was incomparably difficult. With the bulk of the truly unskilled riders already dead or withdrawn from the race, the hundreds left were not so easily dealt with.

“There are too many,” Azraenn warned with unnerving calm as she spun in her gunner seat to fire another screeching shuriken through a Venom chariot trying to line up its Splinter Cannon at the Vyper’s rear. “We are alone here. We must withdraw to the others!”

A warning alarm in the Vyper’s mechanisms psychically alerted Druzna to a locked-on weapons system, and she grit her teeth and punched the engines into full burst, the grav-engines producing a bright light underneath them as she corkscrewed through a tangled web of piping just as the missile that would have ended them neared—striking the pipes instead, blowing half of them open.

The cold realization of how closely they had come to death struck her then, bringing cold sweat and a shortness of breath as her heart palpitated nervously in her chest.

Her Thirst was being overindulged. For all the thrill and the concentration and the sharpened reflexes it granted, it nonetheless was pushing her into hyperaggression and madness, closer and closer to the edge. She was unusued to such an extreme degree of it, and her battle trance had slipped as a result.

Spitting a curse under her breath, Druzna throttled the engines down for a half-second, even just such a small loss of speed immediately giving up her fleeting chance at reaching the front of the race.

“We will push for the lead, Druzna, but it will not be here,” Eshairr reminded her as she pulled back into formation with the others. “Remember our strategy! Focus!”

“Impressive maneuvers, however,” Munesha added respectfully as Tulushi’ina turned around, aiming her Longrifle at something fast approaching them, like the scythe of the Reaper.

A silent beam of light pierced the missile, and it erupted in a deafening explosion that echoed through the tunnels, but they outran even the sound of it as they weaved around the next several bends.

“Grudges-in-Fire! Seeker missiles!” Tulushi’ina said to the others. “We are hunted by the Reaver with the silver steed!”

Druzna felt the sensory readout of her Vyper pour into her mind. “That’s Belanoxa the Blaster! Kuron warned us of her!”

Eshairr glanced back at the swarm of Reavers behind them, seeing the silver bike and the heavily tattooed and pierced woman upon it, her golden mohawk waving in the wind behind her, a grin of utter glee on her crooked teeth. Slung under the nose of her jetbike was a compact missile pod, and with Aeldari technology, hundreds, even thousands of micro-missiles could be loaded within.

“So she’s after us,” Eshairr observed coldly. “Ranger, end her.”

The same second the command left her lips, a ray of concentrated light tore through their pursuer’s skull, and Belanoxa fell limp. A second later, she collided with a support strut that all the other Reavers effortlessly ducked around, and her missile pod’s contents detonated—the resulting explosion tearing the entire column apart and collapsing half of the tunnel, leading to thirty more dead caught in the collapsing darksteel and bloodcrete.

===

“Unbelievable! The great Belanoxa, dead in a flash!” yelled the announcer over the drone feed being projected to every corner of the Valley of Fallen Lords and even further beyond its borders. His sharp voice, elegant and grizzled, rumbled with both surprise and rousing appreciation for the destruction just witnessed. “Twenty cycles of sweet slaughter brought to a sudden, ignoble end! Perhaps these Asuryani have more bite than first believed… Hah!”

Even the Hunter’s Howl, high above, was able to pick up the transmission, and Renemarai watched it with part of her mind while the rest concentrated on what she could see from the Howl’s psychic sensors. But the deeper the race progressed into the ruins of those spires, the hazier its ability to perceive became thanks to interference from immense generatoriums, mountains of superalloy metal, and insular layers of dense materials placed by syndicates to conceal their movements from the Kabals.

“The Eye of Asuryan is blinded,” announced a voice through the ship’s psychic conductors, belonging to the Mariner-in-Command, Second Spear Kalaei. “We must look to the transmissions…”

And of those, there were thousands—each projected by one of the drones following the racers, providing the people of Commorragh with countless angles from which to view the gruesome massacre. As Renemarai switched from one view to the next with a thought, she realized that there were an unusual number of drones following and monitoring the Howl’s officers. Even the favored champion to win, D’alarnix, did not have as many angles on his spectacular feats of high-velocity murder.

A number of voices rang out in the ship’s mental communion as others recognized the same oddity, albeit more slowly than Ren did. As the crew speculated wildly to the reasons, their confusion annoyed her.

“You ignorant wenches,” Renemarai thought to them. “They will show how your leaders perish with the finest detail and the most thorough scrutiny. They’re going to turn the ends of your beloved officers into a cultural hallmark of the Valley and mount their broken remains on pikes for all to behold.”

Fear, alarm, and terror immediately shot through the Howl’s psychic network, hundreds of gentle minds recoiling at the mere idea of such a terrible thing happening to their leadership.

“Foolfoots, the lot of you,” Ren added, not projected through the Howl but whispered under her breath. “Joining a blasted Reaver race. In your arrogance, you have brought whatever is to come upon yourself, Eshairr.”

===

Upon a quiet street paved with bonesalt, a shriveled Eldar hobbled along, clutching to his walking staff. His flesh was wrinkled, loose, wrong, an appearance that no Eldar should have, but the pollution and scars of life in the slums could weather even a god to woe, or so it was said. Every step was an exertion, and as he climbed onto the next curb and turned, he continued in his weary path.

Hollowed from within, he was. Broken. He had gone far too long without slaking the Thirst, and the decay of his once mighty body was the most obvious proof of it. But even so, he had a purpose which refused to permit his demise.

He owned nothing save for a dilapidated hovel and a slave. A young boy, a human, had tended to him and served him faithfully. In return, this old Eldar had found a friend. The first and only friend in all his life, a mon’keigh. Even now, his dim thoughts found a chuckle at the absurdity of it. But no Eldar in Commorragh would befriend a wretch like him—fellowship was ever a lie, a ruse that could never be trusted. And yet, a lowly, stupid, stinking mon’keigh had, in earnest innocence, given it to him.

To think that all along, through his rise to power and fall from grace, all he had ever truly desired was companionship. Even a small-minded thing like the boy could laugh at his jokes without some ulterior motive, despite his admittedly poor grasp of the language of the feral tribe he had been taken from. They broke bread together without fear that the meal was poisoned, and when the boy suffered nightmares of the Dark Night when the sky-barges of the Drukhari had descended upon his world like locusts, taking his family away from him amidst screams and flames, something so simple as a hug soothed him.

But now the boy had taken ill, coughing and weak to the bone. It was a virus that to the Aeldari was as harmless as dust, but to the mon’keigh as deadly as daggers.

Though he was not long to live, something deep within his elder soul drove him onward. Each step was an exertion—but he remembered the glory of the armor he once wore, the destructive weapons he once wielded. Power long unsummoned arose within his limbs, and his stride quickened. The street apothecary would have tinctures which could cure the boy, for a price that he could just barely afford, and time was of the essence.

For just a single second, he allowed himself hope. The boy could be saved.

And, in a blur that came before any sound could warn him of the danger, that hope was taken from him along with his ultimately meaningless life, condemning his ward to slow, agonizing death, all alone, crying out for his friend and master, and finding himself abandoned till the bitter end.

The old man was simply ripped asunder by the bladevanes jutting from the lead Reaver’s jetbike, and a split second after, the quiet street screamed with the supersonic roar of the thousands more following him.

Weaving through these narrow streets was no less dangerous than the vent tunnels were, if not more so. Even Hellions voiced open loathing to travel to such a squalid place. Countless crude shacks and suspended gangways between hab-blocks littered the Deep Burg. More than once Eshairr was forced to slow down, as even when she was able to take each twist and turn at the perfect angle and speed, there were always more Reavers around her, nosing into reach, waiting for their chance to slash her with the blades and spikes built into their vehicles. If not for the serene combat trance she maintained, she might have been livid.

But there was no need for anger. Wrath was unwarranted, for they all paid the price for flying ahead of her.

Pssshink. Pss-ss-ss-sshink.

The muzzles of her weapons flared, and those who stole the space ahead of her died screaming, bleeding from several fresh wounds, careening off into the nearest obstacle. With that space clear, she and the others moved slightly forward, gaining ground on the leaders of the pack.

“Another clean, merciless kill!” yelled the announcer. “The dreaded Morrigan makes an art of it! May all who challenge her beware, for her tally of slain grows every second!”

“The Morrigan? Really?” Eshairr asked under her breath, glancing down at the large silver rune on the nose of her Windrider. The idea that it could be mistaken for an epithet did more to disturb her than all the attempts by the other racers to bully her into submission. Had these fools never heard of the Craftworld?

“Captain, your movements are growing erratic,” Munesha cautioned.

Eshairr quickly renewed the trance with a few whispered mantras under her breath, and just in time—she would have died on the next turn if the speed of her reflexes had been any slower.

“Oh! It looks like D’alarnix is finally making his play! He’s cutting a bloody swathe through everyone in his way and pushing to the front!” yelled the announcer.

Eshairr chanced a look behind. She saw him, D’alarnix, his mythical tattoos blurring at speed, almost seeming to move and come alive on his flesh. The arms of his fair consort Ulnea were tightly bound around his chest, her rainbow mohawk blowing wild in the breeze, a scarred grin directed at Eshairr’s back. As dozens of competitors swarmed around D’alarnix hunting for the chance to claim his head, he effortlessly wove a path between them, luring them to crash into each other, a collision that only piled up as those behind failed to avoid it in time.

Goddesses, he was good.

Rocketing towards them with gravitic antepulsers streaming on the back of his vehicle, his speed and control were completely beyond the pale. Many idiots behind him activated their own boosters out of hatred and envy, only to immediately lose control in the deadly twists of the streets and become splattered blood and flesh stuck to a wall.

But there was one who did not fail to pursue D’alarnix.

Eshairr saw him, her heart thumping faster in her chest at the sight of his face.

Ravan danced upon the wind, riding the distorted slipstream left behind D’alarnix as though tracing his every movement exactly. What was most amazing was his powerful, dark wings spread out wide around him—shifting up and down, coming in and spreading out like rudders, helping to control and guide his vehicle in ways no other could hope to match.

He, too, had his share of eager assailants hoping to take his wings and earn the many bounties upon his head.

And not one of them had the slightest chance.

Riding the gravitic wake of another was no simple task. Even approaching it could interfere with one’s own engine output, causing gravitonic inversion and a swift loss of all power. It required harmonizing one’s own gravity impulse to match the exact frequency of the one ahead, allowing one to gather speed by doubling up on gravitic waves. But even more than that, one was taking the full incoming gravitational forces on every part of the body—debilitating to the extreme, making even the flow of blood slow to a crawl.

But what was this to a Scourge? Someone who took to the wing by his own power as anti-grav skimmers buzzed all around, enduring the gravitic wake of even massive barges to survive the most efficient paths to deliver their parcels? One who lived every moment of every day amidst the uncanny gravitational flows and eddies of the Webway, enhanced and engineered to not only endure, but thrive in such anomalies?

Nothing. It was nothing to him. Six other racers thought they could handle what he did, steered into D’alarnix’s wake, and either their vehicles stalled or their hearts did. Regardless, there was little left of them after they struck the streets below.

Ravan did not even have to lift a hand to defend himself.

And as he and D’alarnix swept past the Craftworlders in a blaze of speed, he looked to Eshairr, and she to him.

The world froze around them.

A single instant of connection, as their eyes touched.

And then he was gone, veering ahead, and the race continued.

Her heart quivered.

“Captain?” asked Munesha. “You are pulling ahead.”

Eshairr looked down to herself, realizing an unconscious urge had accelerated her far beyond the others.

The desire to follow him. To fly alongside him. If she could just…

No. The others needed her.

“It is nothing. We maintain the strategy. Once we reach the Ruins-Made-Flesh, we push for the front.”

===

“It seems there has been a change in plans!” declared the announcer, shortly afterward. “The Kabal of the Iron Thorn has declared a blockade of the Black Scar, the lowest port of the Valley! Rumor is they want some concessions from the local authorities… The Gouge Sanguine can hardly pass through that, now can it?”

Renemarai, sitting on her cot, tapped her bare foot on the floor at a constant, impatient rhythm. “Coincidence, I’m sure,” she spat.

“Word from the Widow-Baroness! A detour has been approved! Rather than circling around at the Black Scar to the Flesh-Made-Ruins, the would-be champions will have to cross… the Charnel Chasm!”

The entire pack of Reavers immediately executed an almost synchronized pivot, turning completely the other direction and forking off into several new streets, each trying to ply their knowledge of the Deep Burg to gain any advantage.

Scanning the transmissions, Ren caught eye of Druzna. The First Spear was struggling to pull off that bone-breaking turn at the same velocity as the much lighter Reaver jetbikes. Unfortunate as it was, it did not seem to justify a dozen of spy drones suddenly focusing on her Vyper. It was an eerie, no, outright unnatural amount of concentration upon a racer now bringing up the rear.

As if the race’s management knew that something delightful, and terrible, would soon occur.

Her heart skipped a beat, and without even thinking, Ren leapt on her feet, tense, her muscles flexing with the instincts of a survivor.

“Druzna, go,” she whispered under her breath. “Burn your engines if you must!”

===

“Morai-Heg’s blind eyes!” Druzna snapped, gripping the manual steering holds of her Vyper as she swiveled it around, fighting against all the momentum she had built up going one direction to execute a complete arc twist, gritting her teeth and squeezing all her muscles, all her strength required to fight the weight of massive acceleration upon her body.

Everyone had been forced to turn around, swiveling on a dime, but here, Druzna paid the price for the additional size of the Vyper. It took longer, nearly a full second longer, to execute the maneuver, and Druzna watched her middle place in the pack transform into a lagging rear position with a sinking sensation in her chest. As the hundreds of remaining Reavers vanished ahead into the winding streets of the Deep Burg, she was left struggling to recover her former rank with little hope.

“Druzna, you must catch up!” Eshairr commanded. “We can’t slow down for you!”

“I know that!”

Druzna had only just finished spitting out the testy reply when a warning alarm twinged in her head. She twisted her neck, seeing skyboard-mounted bandits swarming around her and the other racers in the back, striking while they had yet to regain their speed. An opportunistic ambush on Reavers trespassing in Hellion territory was nothing out of the ordinary—except that these were not locals.

Razorblades glinting out of skin.

The instant Druzna caught that, her heart sank into her feet. Azraenn spun wildly on the turret, firing like mad, slaying a dozen of the vicious gangers as they swooped down on them from above, but there were too many, like swamp gnats buzzing around a Dragon’s blood-drenched jaws. The Warrior likely did not realize what was happening.

But Druzna knew. She twisted her vehicle in a serpentine pattern, yet instinct warned it would not matter.

Slum-crafted chrome bricks were hurled onto the Vyper from all sides, most bouncing off its hull, a few sticking to it with ominous success. Thunk, thunk-thunk. Druzna looked up at one that had glued itself onto the canopy directly ahead of her.

BOOM.

===

“Druzna?” Eshairr asked over comms. “Answer me!”

Munesha leaned back, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “I sense… the darkest of omens for her.”

The Hellions tried to catch them, as well, but they were simply too slow to keep up. Only one managed to maneuver close enough to attack by engaging every thruster on his flimsy skyboard—swinging his hellglaive straight at Munesha’s throat, but he had chosen his target poorly.

She caught his deadly weapon in her fist, and the superior speed of her jetbike carried the Hellion right off of his skyboard. He screeched in terror, clinging to his weapon hopelessly. The Wayseer afforded him only a single glance, spying the razorblades glinting on his back as his cloak lifted in the wind, and then, with the fury of vengeance, she swung him with as much ease as one would a knife, hurling him into a nearby Reaver’s bladevane. The impaled Razorjack screamed and babbled, his blood raining on the streets below, begging for a mercy that none cared to grant.

“Are you alright?” asked Eshairr, and in response, Munesha showed her the hand that held the glaive, free of even the slightest mark of injury.

Once again, the Wayseer’s Witch-Skin brought no end of awe.

Eshairr looked down at the nose of her Windrider, staring off into space.

Her hands clenched the steering bars, but her chest felt hollow.

If this were not for all of Morrigan’s sake…

“Wait… we must go to them!” Tulushi’ina exclaimed. “Druzna and Azraenn need us! Even if they do not yet live, their spirit stones must not be abandoned!”

“I agree, we cannot—” Munesha began, only to flinch and lean back with precognitive alacrity, a shining streak of venom-splinters only narrowly missing her skull. The grinning Reaver flying beside her bore a glowing red bionic visor, granting him some means of penetrating the Shroudrunner’s cloaking device. He aimed his pistol again, this time at her torso—impossible to simply weave around.

But he found it difficult to pull the trigger, because in that split second, the hull of a Windrider pulped him cleanly off of his vehicle, crumpling like a metal can, tumbling into a bloody landing below.

Eshairr pulled the steering bar of her bike to stabilize herself after that scything swerve, shaking, the fury of Khaine burning in her heart so brightly that her steed could no longer interpret her roiling thoughts. The flesh and fluid of her foe now glistened upon the white underbelly of her Windrider, upon her white boot, a bloody smear of skin that Tulushi’ina and Munesha watched peel off in the wind.

“We will not go back,” Eshairr commanded, her voice a wretched growl. “We must advance. We must prevail.”

And so they obeyed.

===

The explosion, a flash of white fire.

The careening Vyper, wreathed in burning plasma and choking smoke, colliding with a hab-hovel below.

That was the highlighted moment on the immense holo-scroll mounted on the wall, playing over and over again, by the command of Nolaei, taunting her hostage again and again.

“Two Morriganites, dealt with,” Nolaei said, reclining in her seat and crossing her long, beautiful legs, taking a long, satisfying draught from her wine. “And how confident do you feel now, soothsayer?”

Lynekai lowered her head, whispering a hymn upon her lips.

“What, you think the gods can save them? Don’t be so ridiculous,” Nolaei smiled venomously. “They’re dead. As dead as your beloved comrades.”

“Not all,” Lynekai answered, sorrow in her eyes, staring at the floor.

“Cegorach’s luck is promised to another. He won’t save you or your friends,” Nolaei rumbled with a superior smirk on her lips. “And the Bloody-Handed is broken, a shadow of his former might. Or do you beg at the knees of the unborn deity? Hah! Yes, now that I think on it, I recall the rumor that his followers wield the power of resurrection. Superstitious lies, of course. But I suppose desperate old whores are willing to believe anything.”

“My prayers are not for the likes of them,” Lynekai said. “May Isha hear me.”

“Hahaha!” Nolaei laughed. “Of all the divines, you turn to her? The Prisoner, the Sufferer? Laughable! What could she ever do?”

The Bonesinger did not grant Nolaei the dignity of an answer.

Instead, she continued to pray.

===

The race had begun with a thousand contestants.

Now, only a few hundred remained for the plunge into the Charnel Chasm.

The Valley of Fallen Lords was an ugly, hateful place, but beneath its rusted foundations, any naïve fool who believed it to be the absolute limit of Low Commorragh’s foulness were met with a cold, gut-wrenching revelation that it could always be far, far worse.

All the refuse and waste of the entire city quarter dripped, drooled, and dribbled down to here, following the call of the great mouth yawning wide. It grinned with terrible fangs formed by struts of shattered steel that had fallen and become stuck, stretching across it like groaning bridges. Yet only a fool would cross it lightly.

Here, at the very bottommost depths beneath the five fallen spires, was a jagged, crackling laceration in the Webway wall. Like a boundless graveyard of ages past, the Chasm was known as a fissure in time and space—all things that entered it were never to return, and it stretched on into an infinite abyss akin to the void between stars. Here was the epicenter of the forbidden gravitational torpedo that had ended a great war and created the Valley, which warped and fractured the Webway in strange ways, beyond anyone’s powers to mend.

A hail of splinter fire and shurikens split the gates that barred their entry, and the racers smashed through them into the wide, desolate expanse surrounding the hole. This place, the bare Webway, had its glorious effervescence dulled and dimmed to a gloomy glow beneath seas of lifeless, polluted water. The fleeing oceans were littered with scrap metal islands against which the currents crashed, and corpses, hundreds of corpses which fell from above, floated on their way to the abyss. This accursed place repelled even the Gutter-Walkers, whose wretched sort rarely dared stray into it.

Immediately, as the race swung down into this wretched pit, many champions were brought to hacking fits or blinded, for the red smog rising from the poisoned waves was many times thicker than even the choking toxin-storms of Middle Darkness. If not for her wind-helm, which incorporated toxin filters and shielded the eyes, Eshairr might have immediately lost control. To Eshairr’s shock, a few natives who failed to don protective gear such as rebreathers or goggles in time even collapsed, falling into the swampy rivers below. The acids and poisons coursing through the waters performed their agonizing work swiftly upon them, those who managed to surface more bone than flesh… a fate she would wish for no one.

With horror in her heart, Eshairr looked to Munesha, who had no such protections. But to her surprise, the Wayseer showed no signs of weakness. Her necklace of carved bones and beastly fetishes glowed faintly blue on her neck, no doubt providing some sort of blessing which rejected the poisons suffusing the air.

Munesha offered Eshairr a reassuring nod. Yes, of course, the Wayseer had charms against such evils.

Navigating within the venomous, stinking fog was, however, another matter. Even the eyes of Aeldari could scarcely see more than several meters ahead. Only by trusting the sensors of their own vehicles could anyone find their way through. Munesha alone seemed untroubled; her cthonic powers hunted out a safe path through the swampy pit, and soon most of the other racers noticed and fell behind her as their unspoken guide.

Feeling a strange disturbance beside her, Eshairr glanced over her shoulder, only to see one of the spy drones hovering mere inches away, broadcasting her visage to the entirety of the Valley. On reflex, she shoved it back with a hand. She did not need such distractions now, when weaving between obstructions hidden in the poison mist required all her concentration.

The very same moment, she saw a dark figure within the smoke and the smog beside her. At first her heart stopped, thinking it a monster or a daemon—until the crimson fog cleared somewhat, revealing the dark, sleek vehicle and beautiful figure of Knows-No-Name.

The mysterious rider, who had stayed near the back of the pack all this time, now kept pace with Eshairr, matching speed and maneuvers as they darted between walls of certain death with only the sensors of their vehicles to serve as warning. After a short while, Knows-No-Name accelerated and caught the lead over Eshairr. She almost let her go, only to realize she was no longer sure of her position in the race. Her opponent may not have caught up—Eshairr had likely fallen behind in her caution.

Shocked, dismayed, and especially furious at herself, Eshairr spurred her steed faster, every obstacle more dangerous, every evasion narrower, regaining on the cloaked rider until they were neck-and-neck again.

“Heh. Are you certain?” asked Knows-No-Name, her voice distorted into impossibly deep tones by a modulator in her helmet.

“What?” Eshairr replied, confused.

“Captain, where are you?!” Munesha shouted over the communicator.

It was only then that Eshairr realized, in her haste to follow Knows-No-Name, she had become lost from the others.

The red mists thinned every second that they hurtled forward, which was a great boon to their maneuvers, but nonetheless unsettling. Why would the atmosphere clear? They could not have been even halfway through the crater—

Oh, Isha.

Darkness unbound, the void at the end of time itself.

The yawning abyss loomed ahead.

The wind rushed around their backs, pulling them towards it. It was not simply a hole. It called to all things with the voice of gravity. No, it even sucked the air into it, forming a raging vortex of chill wind. How dreadful that it did cleanse the pollution, but at the price of purging all things along with it.

Absolute death.

Her heart quivered in her chest, and Eshairr gasped, realizing she was already caught in the sinking well of the Charnel Chasm’s grasp. Flight would not be possible against such a powerful gravitational pull.

Knows-No-Name maxed her engines and surged ahead, charging straight into certain doom with astonishing confidence. The dark-hooded rider gave Eshairr only a single glance back, but the language of her beautiful body spoke all that needed to be said. Taunting. Daring.

Can you keep up with me?

Eshairr looked down at her Windrider.

Her fingers clutched around the steering rods, and she felt the touch of Lynekai within its crystal heart. It was subtle, but it was ever-present—reassuring, encouraging, and, beneath it all, proud of her. A bedrock of faith. The certainty of steel.

Lynekai believed. Therefore, Eshairr believed as well.

She commanded the engines of her steed, and they answered.

The sheer gravitic force blasting beneath arced with lightning and shined like fire, and the waves below suddenly reversed course and moved back from the Chasm as they were crushed.

Knows-No-Name shot across the Chasm upon one of the long, twisted, cobbled spires of metal that stubbornly refused it. Eshairr saw, then, that her opponent had embraced the dragging forces of the fissure to accelerate even faster, a gravitic catapult much alike the techniques used by Mariners to accelerate around planets and stars. Now her speed was such that the nose of her jetbike glowed red hot from air friction, streaks of superheated wind blasting around her like tongues of fire.

Eshairr came only a few seconds behind, and soon her own vessel began to shake with the sheer velocity it reached, her pilot mesh beginning to burn from white to paintless grey on the outside, a discomforting heat against her skin. Her heart pounded, but her trance endured. Anything less would mean certain doom—even the smallest motion could fling her off the narrow, twisted bridge, which rattled away many of its welded pieces from the power of their engines pushing upon it.

Even so, she could not resist the curiosity of peering into the forbidden depths below.

The black reached beyond the edge of vision, beyond the edge of sensors, and beyond the plates of steel tumbling off of the bridge into Nothing.

Eshairr only barely managed to rip her eyes away from the mesmerizing, harrowing void when she felt the bridge giving way beneath with heavy, lurching cracks of its strained length. Without hesitation, Knows-No-Name swerved onto a slope of steel, rocketing high, high above until the eerie forces of the Chasm yanked her back down.

Would she make it? Would either of them make it?

The bridge was already falling down, down, down.

Darkness swallowed around her.

There was no time to think.

She pulled her Windrider onto the same sloped ramp, feeling herself soar, defiant of the wound in the Webway. She saw the jetbike in front of her crashing back down in a blue blur, narrowly avoiding a dunk in the acid seas, but quite alive.

The width of the Chasm, though vast, passed in a blink, her heart weightless, her thoughts empty, seeing nothing save for the land she prayed to reach.

How terrifying. She felt the fear keenly. But it was not terror which rocked through her chest.

Thrill!

So foolish, so wondrous! Paths be damned, she enjoyed it!

Defiance of the abyss, defiance of death, soaring above where so many others had fallen!

It lasted for an eternity, or so it seemed. When Eshairr glanced down again, she was catapulting into the same dark waters as her quarry—only for the engines to halt her descent at the last second, sparing her an ignoble demise. The remaining momentum carried them both far, far beyond the reach of the Chasm’s forces, right back into the mire of dark red fog.

And as she settled back into the thoughts of a Mariner-Captain, Eshairr felt a great and awful guilt weigh upon her shoulders.

===

“Fabulous! Tremendous! Ohh, I have never seen such recklessness go unpunished!” exclaimed the announcer, his voice rumbling with appreciation of the stunt, but also disappointment that neither racer had suffered any consequences for their gambles. “With the rest of the racers wisely circling the long way around the Chasm, Knows-No-Name now has a considerable lead, followed closely by the Morrigan!”

The drones that had attempted to follow them across the Chasm were slowly dragged into the darkness, and their transmissions cut out shortly afterward.

“Most gracious of apologies, my gentle audience! More Enthroned Irises will be deployed at the next checkpoint to follow the progress of the leaders. Let me direct you to the rest of the racers!”

Nolaei blinked, glaring at the holo-scroll mounted on the wall, arms folded tightly.

“One of yours, nearly in the lead. I suppose you must be terribly pleased, then?” asked the Widow-Baroness of her prisoner.

Lynekai did not smile, though she wished to. And rather than admitting her joy, she simply chose to remain silent.

“No matter,” Nolaei scoffed, going to pluck a Many-Faced Mirror from her desk. Resembling a shard of broken mirror, it was an expensive and luxurious means of contacting others at long distances in Commorragh when most simply used communications consoles. She drew a set of runes upon its surface with a finger, and the silvery material of its surface twisted and rippled until it produced a reflection of the one she had called upon.

“Greetings,” said Nolaei. “About that contract we discussed. I approve your terms. How soon can you muster?”

“We,” wheezed a shrill, thin voice, “will hasten to take up our places. By wing and, kff, claw, your will be done, Mistress.”

Nolaei tossed the shard back to her desk and collapsed into a chair covered in the scaly pelt of a rare beast, a hand running up through her curly black hair. “May the day’s torments be gentle.”

Lynekai shot Nolaei a sideways glance. “More assassins?”

“Better ones,” Nolaei answered with a smirk, disposing of her exhaustion in favor of oozing smugness. “The first ambush was simply an amusing hazard to enliven the race. This to come, however, shall serve as reminder of why no one dares disrespect me. I have taken the heads of a hundred Helliarchs who sought to conquer my domain. What are a few Craftworlders to that?”

===

They were as a blur.

Speed alone would make them such, but they had more than speed between the walls of the Flesh-Made-Ruins.

This district reigned over not by Hellions but the Covens was well-known to be cursed and haunted. The screams of thousands forever echoed through its warped and twisted fleshment roots. As much as the Deep Burg’s hovels had been cobbled together out of scraps fallen from high above, the Ruins were the opposite, fresh, almost beautiful in a horrific way, contours of rippling muscle constantly renewed, sculpted, and tended by the work of the Flesh Cults. The Ruins were alive, or so the rumors claimed, an abomination spliced together using the bodies of millions of still-living slaves plundered by the Coven of the Prosperous Tumor.

As to what their dark purpose was, none could say.

Yet for all the pulsating walls and throbbing veins hanging in the air, pumping literal lakes of blood, the horrors they passed by scarcely registered a single thought. Every second grew more and more intense. The remaining racers jockeyed for the front, incensed and infuriated by the massive advantage won by Knows-No-Name and the arrogant Craftworlder who had followed her.

If not for the Running Shadow, a light-distorting cloaking field generated by the arcane machinery within the Shroudrunner, Munesha might not have survived this far, not when every other racer was hellbent on slaying her for revenge upon Eshairr’s gains. Nearly invisible at such velocities, this was key to Munesha’s scouting work in the Webway, much as it was to many Rangers ahead of a Craftworld’s warhost.

And in battle, or a race, it made hitting her nearly impossible.

“Lovely steed you have! Hold still! My poison won’t kill you… quickly!” laughed D’alarnix, firing his splinter pistol wildly at the zipping, ghostly image of Munesha as she pulled ahead of him.

“Tsk,” Ulnea tutted behind her master, reaching up to stroke his gun arm and, at his allowance, take the pistol from him and return it to the holster on his hip. “Best not to bother. We have better weapons for such tricks, haven’t we, my dear?”

D’alarnix grinned back at his woman. “Aye, that we do.”

He kicked at panels on both sides of his jetbike, and it fell away, revealing flamer nozzles.

Tulushi’ina’s eyes widened at the sight, and she leveled her Longrifle at D’alarnix, only to see two more Reavers swing up behind the Shroudrunner, each trying to find an angle for their mounted cannons. She swiveled her aim and shot one of the Reavers cleanly through the heart. The other managed to find their aim, but—was instantly immolated in the searing red flames that jetted out from both sides of D’alarnix’s hybrid vehicle.

“Ahahahahaha! Die, die, die!” D’alarnix screamed with joy, immediately breaking into a spiraling spin. Both the spouts of flame twisted around him, catching several more of their competitors on fire and forcing the rest to move back, giving up their chance at passing him.

Those fires did not only endanger them. The walls of flesh shook and screamed as licks of fire cooked them. And like a living thing, the Flesh-Made-Ruins reacted. The muscles—if that is what they were rightly called—began to tighten, flex, filling the narrow passages with fat and flesh, squeezing in around the racers. Ahead, a large ring of muscle began to close, sure to seal their only path of escape. Digesting fluids began to pour down around them, exuded by the walls themselves. The Prosperous Tumor was no defenseless creature, but a goliath monster, and all who offended it would pay the price in the form of their own flesh and blood becoming new additions.

“Hah! Clever Covens,” D’alarnix shouted. “Now this is getting interesting!”

He twisted the handlerig of his jetbike, and the flamers turned backwards, becoming twin trails of scorching fire and blinding smoke that none of those behind could ever hope to bypass—only Munesha, narrowly ahead of him, had any hope of making it through the exit along with him. Even Ravan, for all his skill, was forced to break off of the gravitic wake of the champion, lest his wings catch flame. In so doing, his fate was surely sealed along with the rest.

Munesha and D’alarnix only narrowly slipped through the remaining gap in the lips above, only a fraction of a second before they closed.

“A shame. I liked that Ravan,” said D’alarnix. “A worthy foe.”

His pity was wasted.

Several spears of black light, impacting with the unholy weight of dying stars, tore through the mouth that sought to swallow the remaining racers. A split second after, Ravan tore through the bloody gore by the sharp blades at the nose of his steed, his wings flicking stinking viscera and flesh off as a dozen more racers managed to punch through just behind him. The rest… would never be seen again.

In that fleeting euphoria of death’s dance denied, the race now almost halcyon with only a handful of them left, Tulushi’ina turned her Longrifle to D’alarnix’s skull—

But something punched through her, first.

“Ghhuhn,” she gasped, guttural, weak.

Sharp pain—the presence of that which did not belong in her flesh, cold and alien and evil—shot through Tulushi’ina’s shoulder. The Ranger glanced down, seeing a barbed hook embedded in her shoulder to the very bone, rigged with micro bloodhunt thrusters on a xenosilk line. At such close range, the concealing cloak of the Shroudrunner could not protect her from such a sophisticated, self-guided weapon.

Ulnea’s cunning handiwork.

The Outcast clutched the hook-rifle in her hands, her mouth split from ear to ear in a terrifying, bloodthirsty smile replete with grimy satisfaction. In that moment, she resembled a goblin of myth, foul and cruel and lacking even the slightest of the nobility of the Aeldari in her features.

Then, with sinister satisfaction, Ulnea mounted the rifle to the back of the jetbike and swiped the trigger, and it swallowed its line back with machine strength.

“Tulushi’ina!” Munesha shouted, reaching out far too late to stop her from flying from the pillion seat.

Blood dripped from her windcape, spattered on her face, and Tulushi’ina dangled limply from the line, waving in the buffeting wind behind D’alarnix’s jetbike, tortured by the tugging teeth of the hook caught in her joint with two strong prongs. There was no hope of it ripping free.

Pain.

Yank, agony.

Pain.

Tulushi’ina stared at the cold, unfeeling steel walls flying by as they ascended.

She looked down at the Longrifle in her hand—even still, she refused to let go of it.

One arm was useless. Her trance was shattered, the anguish pushing her into near-catatonia, fleeing blood stealing the strength from her heart as it left her.

The wind blew her left to right, the gouging hook tearing into her bones deeper, deeper, and she lifted her rifle with only one arm.

Constantly spinning, waving back and forth, waves of crushing force washing over her from the engines burning above her.

All she had was instinct.

Waiting, waiting for her chance.

Then she found it.

There arose a faint glow in the air, twinkling like stars, streaking up so high that even Eshairr saw it fly past.

Ulnea and D’alarnix, lovers who crossed the divide between Asuryani and Drukhari. Twin stars, their fates forever entwined. In life, they were peerless as one. In death, even the Empyrean could not part them.

They slumped together, the holes in their craniums boiling over with superheated brains and blood, their final smiles never to leave their lips.

D’alarnix’s steed lost its momentum without guiding hands, its engines going dormant. It tipped backwards, falling back down the shaft. The Ranger saw the walls slow down around her, and then reverse, dragged down towards a final end.

As Tulushi’ina’s eyes closed, the last glimpse she saw was of Munesha, who had become a fierce goddess, swooping down to her.

Crackling red lightning arced over her flesh, a deafening shout upon her lips, seizing hold of the xeno-twine chaining the Ranger to certain doom. The power of the Warp raged across Munesha’s jaws, and she bit down upon the shining white line.

===

As D’alarnix’s vehicle crashed and exploded in a blinding flash below, the Wayseer pulled the unconscious Ranger back onto her Shroudrunner, cradled in her lap. The hook was still locked in her flesh, but the line was broken. In choosing to return for her, Munesha had discarded any hopes of taking the race. And rather than bothering to continue, she simply flew off into a side passage, rushing, no doubt, to find treatment for her companion.

Eshairr watched Munesha abandon the race through sensors, her heart sinking. She could have ordered her not to, but Munesha was not beholden to her commands, and the headstrong woman would likely dismiss them out of hand. She was their best jetbike pilot, but now she was gone, and Eshairr was alone.

The girl looked ahead to Knows-No-Name, who maintained the lead despite her every effort to bridge the gap. That mysterious champion was always twice as deft, twice as confident, twice as steady. Every turn, every swerve, even the smallest maneuvers were more precise and perfect than Eshairr had ever seen, and she had watched the Shining Spears of Khaine ride into battle in all their fearsome glory. Despite the advantage of thought itself being her means of steering, Knows-No-Name was far superior even using the crudeness of manual controls.

What could be done against such skill?

What hope was there for Morrigan?

The end of the race lied just ahead, at the pinnacle of the great, miles-long shaft they ascended. The Feeding Trough, this grey city was called, for between the tool-etched habs surrounding the vast vertical channel, thousands of slaves were hurled down to the ravenous Ruins below every single day. The gravitational currents of the area and powerful air vents slowed the descent of anything as small and light as a human to relatively safe speeds, granting them a vestige of hope till they realized what they were falling into, turning into all the greater despair. For those Hellions and Reavers who often ascended through it to quickly reach the upper Valley, those updrafts hastened them, allowing ever more speed to be built up.

The denizens of the Feeding Trough stood on their balconies, yelling at the survivors all bolting for the top, many praising the champions they had gambled upon, many more seething that their fortunes had gone to waste on an unworthy name. But though they were easy prey, the fools were fortunate. If any one of the racers bothered to waste even the modicum of effort and focus necessary to take a few weak lives, they would be throwing away everything.

This was the final leg. There was no other chance to prove oneself.

And—though it seemed like there was little hope of winning at this point—every last one of them grinned like madmen, laughing aloud, activating every last booster and impulsor upon their vehicles to hurl themselves up into the skies at speeds that could strip the flesh from their bones and melt their vehicles into slag.

Knows-No-Name glanced over her shoulder at Eshairr. She said nothing, but Eshairr felt the meaning behind that glance. She pulled a small lever beneath her handlebars, and her elegant engines transmogrified from quietly humming to roaring with unspeakable power, completely unlike before, pulling ahead even further as she steered into every single gravitic updraft for every last burst of speed.

Despair crashed upon her heart. She had pushed the Windrider to its limits, and it simply was not enough. She never had a chance of winning this race.

“Why fold your lovely wings here, now?” his voice asked, amused, through her communicator.

Eshairr turned to Ravan, who had caught up to her in a flash, now matching speed, staring at her.

“It’s over,” Eshairr said, sorrow choking her voice. “My home burns, and I can find no water to quench it. My companions die for a lost cause.”

“You race for a cause?” he asked, chuckling. “How foolish. A Hawk cannot fly with her wings chained by Duty.”

The laughing rockets of the rest of the racers screamed past them, fireballs burning up into the sky like shooting stars.

“They’re all going to die, and for nothing,” Eshairr observed.

“No. In this moment, in all the universe, they alone are truly alive,” Ravan replied curtly. He reached into his coat pocket, withdrawing an injector of some sort, and jammed it into his neck with a hiss of pressurized, crimson fluid pumping into his veins. He activated his antepulsors, synchronizing their rolling, crushing output with that of his engines. In the blink of an eye, his speed doubled, then tripled, pulling far, far ahead in a blur, a stream of wondrous golden fire left in his wake.

Eshairr watched him go. A second later, she saw his arm stretch out. Something fell to her in an instant, snatched out of the air. His chem injector. There was still a full dose left of whatever accursed concoction bubbled within.

Chains. Chains of Duty.

The Path of the Mariner.

Morrigan’s fate. The Yearning. The life and death of the Howl and her crew.

Druzna. Azraenn. Tulushi’ina.

Lynekai.

She looked above at the shooting stars, seeing flaming parts explode from their vehicles, scattering like embers on the wind.

Where did their joy come from? What thrills could be so wondrous in their suicidal ascensions?

How could in all of Commorragh, from High to Low, these wretched and hopeless scum be the only ones to laugh so genuinely, to smile, to be truly happy?

Even in Morrigan, she was not sure she ever beheld such bliss, free and true.

Eshairr ripped off her helmet, for the first time feeling the wind in her hair, washing over her skin. It slipped from her fingers, falling down, down, down. She grabbed the injector with both hands, and she jammed it into her own neck.

Chhhssssshh.

The invasion of chems shot through her blood like wildfire, and, with eyelids twitching in pain, she ripped the device free and discarded it. Though it increased the resistance of the wind, Eshairr allowed her hand to hang out in the air, beyond the invisible wind screen field, simply feeling the full wind rush between her fingers as she closed her eyes. It was soft, heavy against her palm, like cupping the breast of a lover—so small a thing, so insignificant, so absurd. And yet it was terrific, a small wonder as great as all the colossus statues of the Lady’s Way.

The mesh of her suit crinkling over her body. The wind deafening around her ears. Her steed vibrating between her legs, power coursing through it, engines taxed to the limit already. Yet she could feel that it was not done yet. It had more to give. A sleeping strength, leashed and trapped within. This was to safeguard her—safeguard all who would ride it. Some forces were too great to be controlled and too dangerous even for an Aeldari’s skill.

Here, now, that power was needed. The psychic imprint in its Wraithbone heart left by Lynekai’s hand balked at the command, fearing for her safety. But she was a captain of Morrigan. No ship could deny her word. Nor could a Windrider.

“By the sword of my will, hear this heart of mine!” growled Eshairr.

Eshairr dreamed of flight, and her engines threw off their shackles. The very air twisted into lethal, lightning-bound gusts by the gravitic sheer produced in their wake. Even the inertial reductors were not enough to prevent her vessel from nearly leaping out from under her.

She clenched the handles with all her strength, legs squeezed around the seat, feet hooked on the pedals. Gritted teeth and straining muscles alone kept her glued to the unleashed Windrider, her hair whipping like shining red flame behind her as she hurtled upwards.

===

“Impossible! Look, the Morrigan is soaring! The acceleration could break her very bones! The speed will shatter her jetbike!” shouted the announcer. “She’s beginning to overtake them! Garaga! Nainoth! Vyenn, all passed!”

Lynekai watched the feed with a contented smile on her lips, pride glowing in her wise eyes.

But Nolaei paced left and right, a vein of ugly anger popping on her brow. She almost turned and went for the Many-Faced Mirror again, but stopped herself at the last second.

“Where are they?!” Nolaei shouted.

“It need not be this way,” Lynekai said.

“What?” Nolaei hissed, whirling on the Bonesinger.

Lynekai breathed deeply. “There is a better ending. Let it go. Call off your attack dogs. Interference will only lead to the deepest regret.”

“Never!” Nolaei shrieked, grabbing and hurling a vase from her desk into the wall with a resounding crash. “I will have the heads of every last soul aboard your ship!”

“You cannot,” Lynekai said. “You can kill its officers. That is not beyond your reach at the moment. You may certainly end me at any time. But the Howl is crewed by a thousand strong, and they are each and all worthy. Leaders can be replaced.”

“Only weak ones!” Nolaei cackled, grinning, rage turned to amusement. “You know nothing of our ways. I am immortal! Not like these common Helliarchs who die on the wind every day. Though I am Lhamean no longer, my pact with the Prosperous Tumor was never broken. Why else do you think the Razorjacks have become so powerful under my mastery? Even the finest assassins cannot take my life. The truly strong cannot be replaced, and every single man and woman under my banner can only seethe in fury that they are mortal and replaceable, while I am beyond the reach of their daggers.”

“There is no such thing as immortality. Even the Coven-Lords, for all their dark, awesome, fabulous brilliance, have not escaped the Reaper’s scythe forever,” Lynekai warned. “Their time will come.”

“Lies, lies, lies!” Nolaei hissed, leaning over her desk, nails scratching the wood, eyes wide, mouth clenched in a twisted scowl.

“Nolaei,” Lynekai said at last. “I have not told you of your future. There are many futures open to the Hunter’s Howl and its wandering sisters. But for you, destiny dwindled long ago, and your arrogant Path has come to an end. You feel it too, don’t you?”

Her response was low, growling, anger more like that of a beast than Eldar.

“Speak again, and I will gouge out your eyes and force feed you your own bloody womb!” said the Widow-Baroness.

“You gravely overestimate the sharpness of your tongue to think you can cow a Seer of the Asuryani,” Lynekai answered swiftly and coldly.

“You are powerless!”

“So are we all,” said Lynekai, sagely, sadly. “Against the cruel currents of Fate.”

===

The moment became eternity.

Every inch taken by the sparking tip of her steed became a league.

The Feeding Trough extended upwards into the edge of the cosmos, and she crawled up its blurring walls on a bucking, screaming beast that shook her to the soul.

No matter how ferociously it fought her grasp, she did not release its horns.

There were others around her—she scarcely noticed leaving them behind.

She did not think of Morrigan. She did not think of the Howl. She did not even think of her friends.

Her heart fluttered amongst the stars, and her loyal steed struggled to follow.

Nothing mattered. Nothing but the sickly green skies above.

It took so long to reach him again, but her eyes never left his wings like shadows on the wind.

When she rose beside him, they looked into each other’s eyes.

“Welcome,” he said, smiling. Evil though he was, he was truly pleased to see her. How intoxicating that so wicked a man could flash so innocent and boyish a grin, his serpentine eyes twinkling with such open delight that no trace of malevolence remained, and she could fall for his corvine beauty without guarding herself. It was as if he had outrun his own Thirst.

Of course. Just as she had outrun her own Path.

She said nothing.

She needed no one here, too fast for thought, too quick for anything, even her own fear, to catch her. But she was glad to see him there beside her as they climbed the miles, the aeons, into the heights.

Even so, she had higher to rise.

Every maneuver risked her life at these speeds, but they felt almost slow somehow as she pulled her cracking crystal steed into each and every gravitic updraft around the shaft—corkscrewing left and right and back, the world spinning around her in ways that could drive even an Eldar to madness. Every time she swerved, he was there with her, their engines straining to the absolute edge of destruction.

He was better than her. She would likely lose, she knew that. Yet she had no interest in victory, not anymore. She just wanted to stay in this place beyond speed and blood, fate and obligation.

Here, Morrigan could not hold her back and tie her up and spit on her for rejecting their ways.

Here, none could judge her.

Here, she was free.

“The Fallen Hawk and the Morrigan are neck and neck, but neither can claim the advantage! Knows-No-Name is losing distance to them—a three-way battle may ensue!”

Eshairr saw the masked rider ahead, slowly drifting closer. She glanced aside, and saw herself inching just barely ahead of Ravan, purely on the power of her engines alone.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Strange clarity flooded her senses. She realized that she was, despite it all, going to win.

Something thudded into her Windrider. Many more followed.

Instantly the strength of her steed failed. She watched inexplicable fissures spread light lightning across the crystal hull, felt the warning alarms of damage growing within its core.

The right handlebar snapped cleanly off, and without that brace, the strength of the turbulence flung her away.

She felt nothing as she fell, as she watched her crumbling steed veer off and detonate against a wall. Death was so distant in her mind that there was only a hollow despair, knowing that she might never feel such glorious joy again.

Chapter Text

Chapter X: The Funeral

Aurumite nails relaxed their cutting grip of priceless wood, and the beautiful Widow-Baroness sighed with open relief, unfolding her twisted posture.

“And all is well,” Nolaei said primly, composing herself, adjusting her priceless dress, dragging her hair left and right with her hands to restore the styling it once had.

“So it is Knows-No-Name! The Gouge Sanguine is finished!” bellowed the announcer. “Our victor is chosen by skill and fortune, and a great contest comes to an end.”

Lynekai, sorrow on her beautiful features, closed her eyes and hung her head.

“Of course, as not one of your kin reached the end, that means you are mine,” giggled Nolaei, terribly pleased with herself as she strutted proudly to the door of her cabin. “I wonder, whom shall I sell you to? The Coven of the Extolled Malignancy has some lucrative uses for one like yourself…”

“I have but one final warning. Do not go out there,” Lynekai said. “Invent an excuse and have a lieutenant present the prize.”

Nolaei rolled her eyes. “Enough of your prattling. It is time that the champion received her reward.”

She strolled out onto the deck of her barge, seeing Knows-No-Name gracefully dismounting her jetbike and disabling its cooling engines with a few flicks of concealed switches under the steering bar. Razorjacks and wealthy sponsors gathered around, eager to rub shoulders with the new champion. Some seemed considerably less pleased—especially those who had lost a fortune or two on D’alarnix or Ravan. But even they at least attempted a measure of respectful admiration in their movements, even if their tongues whispered foulnesses and curses upon her soul.

“Why did Ravan not finish the race?” grumbled one of the wealthy guildmasters.

Nolaei, for a brief instant, wondered the same. But then she discarded the concern and proudly approached the victor with swaggering steps, gesturing for the stasis-phial containing the prize, which her servants quickly delivered to her hand.

Knows-No-Name bowed with the utmost politeness to the Helliarch, who smirked, giggled, and held out the phial as though she were presenting her hand to be kissed.

“A marvelous flight! I am pleased by your skill,” Nolaei said. “Take your prize. Understand this: the Obsidian Rose will pay handsomely for that. But don’t take their first offer. They always have more to give.”

The helmed rider did as commanded, opening the phial, pouring the tooth out on her palm, turning it over carefully, and then returning it to its vessel. She stowed it on her hip, then rose to her full height, half a head taller. Suddenly, her body-voice dropped its formality, no less elegant, but entirely unbowed. Before anyone could tally the oddity, she reached up.

And removed her helmet.

Her long blue hair, tied up in a braided bun, framed the face of the Obsidian Rose’s most famed and dreaded champion.

Scattered gasps echoed across the barge’s deck, the cordial, venomous conversations of the self-styled elite dying away into choked silence at the glimpse of one who was truly mighty.

Lady Syndratta kei-Sovranaikh. The Mistress of Blades.

Nolaei sucked in air as though she had been stabbed through the lung, recoiling only a single step.

“Greetings,” Syndratta said simply. “Please allow me to introduce myself. I am a woman of strength and blood. I have lived many long cycles, taken a million men’s heads and hearts.”

“Cut the transmission!” Nolaei shouted, throwing out an arm.

“Hm. No,” Syndratta countermanded, her gaze turning to Nolaei’s lieutenants, who all froze in abject terror, for now their faces were known by the Kabals. No spoken threat was as profound as the mere sight of an Archon, which conveyed the highest consequences for defiance.

“You do not rule my Razorjacks!” Nolaei hissed, eyes wide.

“Is this not the jubilant hour? Shall my victory go uncelebrated, then? Are the good people of the Valley unworthy of my beauty? Here I hoped to finally meet you, that I might enjoy the pleasure of your company, Mistress Nolaei,” Syndratta said, reaching up to undo her bun, unraveling her braids, freeing her luxurious, thick azure mane to flow down over her shoulders and behind her. With a satisfying chuckle, she brought her hands up her midriff to her ample and full round breasts, lifting them up within the skin-tight grip of her bodyglove, then releasing them to bounce sumptuously for all eyes near and far.

“Kill her! Kill her now!” Nolaei shouted.

One Razorjack dared, unleashing a blood-curdling screech and leaping at Syndratta, twirling his hellglaive in a blinding cyclone left, right, up, down, the double-blade slashing furiously at her vital arteries and joints with admirable skill. Were his foe anyone else, he very well might have taken an arm or leg with his wild ferocity born from single-minded hatred and the desire to end his enemy, whatever the cost he must pay for it.

But the Merchant of Death did not bargain fairly for her own blood. Against the weight of his very life, she simply pressed the trading scales down to favor her with but two gentle fingers, and his offering proved unworthy of even a single scratch. Syndratta turned aside from a killing thrust, her beautiful eyes watching the long, serrated blade pass less than an inch from her lips and flowing azure hair. In that very instant, her hand shot out in a lightning caress tracing along his outstretched arm, and the marauder crumpled to the ground, twitching, fresh crimson pooling at her feet.

It was so frighteningly quick that none saw what had happened. But when Syndratta flicked up a small, bloody razorblade between her fingers, and their eyes sluggishly spotted the small, red, bleeding gap on his shoulder, one and all were forced to understand by the cruel arithmetic of deduction. She had simply plucked the blade from his skin and slit his throat with it.

Syndratta could have said much, then. Instead she allowed her body to speak for her, the small edge falling from her fingertips and tinking on the deck below so softly that only in the silence of mass terror could it be heard. In just that motion, she expressed gratefulness: that you have made your servants don a coat of blades, all the easier to end them with. No other stepped forward to oppose her as she walked gracefully over the cadaver at her feet and approached the Helliarch with imminent intent.

Seeing that she was alone in the silence, animal fear in her eyes, Nolaei swiped at the Archoness with her deadly nails. But striking Syndratta with so clumsy a blow was as hopeless as seeking the bottom of the Charnel Chasm. It was avoided by a cursory lean just out of reach, and then Syndratta advanced upon Nolaei with slow, invading steps that struck terror into the heart of her prey. Nolaei froze with creeping dread, watching the Archon come for her, tracking the blood of her bravest fighter on the deck below. Perhaps she was morbidly curious to see what terrible weapon, what deadly technique would be used to end her.

But Syndratta drew no blades, threw no hands. Rather, the Archon leaned in as if to kiss, a hand pressing on Nolaei’s shoulder, whispering in her ear.

“The girl would have been so much more gracious in victory than I. How shameful, shooting her down with cheap Scourges. She deserved better,” Syndratta hissed through blue-painted lips, curling upwards in satisfying glee.

This shattered the poignant ecstasy of her own deathly imagination.

“Unhand me!” Nolaei yelled, retreating several steps. “Stay back!” she screamed.

She drew the venom sword from the ornate scabbard on her hip, slashing at Syndratta’s neck.

It was wasted breath.

Syndratta ducked beneath it, and then, with a resounding thud, her hand struck around Nolaei’s throat too quickly for anyone to witness.

“Ack,” Nolaei squeaked, her voice throttled, the strength draining from her limbs. The sword clattered to the deck, and Syndratta turned to the crowd, walking to the center of the barge with Nolaei dragging in her hand with all the airs of an Aeldari Dragon carrying its dying prey to its nest, kicking and struggling helplessly, eyes wide with terror.

Syndratta looked out at the audience, quietly turning her head left and right. And then, as if presenting a prize, she released Nolaei at their feet, letting them watch her sputter and scramble away from the Archon, gasping for air, coughing, an utter mess.

Was there any need for Syndratta to speak? To explain herself? To prove anything?

No.

With a satisfied smirk, Syndratta returned to her jetbike.

And from the floor, the Helliarch glared up at her as she walked away, tears burning in her eyes, makeup streaking down her cheeks, hands clenching in abject fury.

“This is not over!” screeched Nolaei from the floor. “How dare you walk away!”

Syndratta paused, turned around, shot the woman a look of the utmost disdain, and then went to her vehicle and began to rouse its engines.

“No, no. No, you can’t do this to me!” Nolaei shrieked, flipping forward and rising on unsteady legs, a hand wrapped around her own bruised neck, the other dangling at her knees. “You are not the first Archon I have killed. You are nothing to me!”

Syndratta, who had almost hooked a leg over the seat, let out a long, annoyed scoff. She descended from her steed again, turning and walking briskly over to Nolaei, staring down at the hunched, weak Helliarch with cold eyes.

“Do you relish squirming like a maggot?” Syndratta asked, crossing her arms together beneath her immense breasts, bound up and beautifully displayed in her glossy bodyglove.

“I will nail your skull to my skyboard!” Nolaei hissed through her teeth.

The blue-clad beauty rolled her eyes. “Threats from beaten mongrels are always so painfully trite. Surely you can do better?”

“Fuck you!” Nolaei screamed, spitting in the face of her better.

Or so she thought. Her lips had not even parted to launch the spittle before the back of Syndratta’s gloved hand smashed across her cheek with the force of a hammer, and all her spit drooled onto the deck as she collapsed to her knees. Blood from her broken lips mixed with the clear saliva dripping out, the world spinning around her in a daze.

“Profanity, my dear? Even for as far as you have fallen, I had thought you above it. How disappointing,” Syndratta sighed. “Tell me. Your husband was many things, but a weakling was not one of them. I have always wondered idly, but now I think I must know. Why throw such a superb man away?”

“He… he insulted me,” Nolaei whimpered, too lost in the pain throbbing through her cheek and throat, disbelieving the world around her, not to answer honestly.

Syndratta blinked, slowly. Then, she chuckled. Then she laughed.

Heaving with laughter, she went to her jetbike and mounted it.

“Hahahaha. Terribly amusing, woman,” said Syndratta. “I may have a place for you in my court as jester, if ever you tire of dabbling at queen of the garbage heap. Ahahahahaha!”

“The Iron Thorn will never let you leave the Valley alive with that tooth!” Nolaei growled.

“Darling, the Iron Thorn would have exterminated you and your silly little gang in a heartbeat if they had the slightest suspicion that my spymaster had escaped with any useful secrets,” Syndratta said flatly.

“But why, why go so far then, why race for the tooth yourself?” Nolaei asked.

“Well, it was something to pass the time,” Syndratta mused frivolously. “But more importantly, it was because you refused my first and only offer for it, a rather generous one I might add. You aren’t worth haggling with. Your gaudy little dancers certainly are not the least worthy of our weapons, either. They would wield our esteemed product like children with toys: simply an embarrassment we could not permit. With no better means at hand, I wanted my spy back. And now I have him, and you have nothing.”

The insult was one that even the crumbling Nolaei could not allow, her heart throbbing with hateful spite.

“You are no better than us!” Nolaei shouted through the tears. “You lie and pretend that you are so much greater than us of the Necropolis? And yet you had to stoop to such a low to rescue your pathetic dead spy!”

Syndratta chuckled. “Tell me, if you were a spy, how deeply into the ranks of a rival Kabal could you slither? Oh, of course. You could not even secure membership to the least of them once the Sisterhood of Lhilitu disowned you. And that is why you are here, subsisting like a skittering insect under these squalid ruins left by mighty folk who laughed at their own demises.”

Dead silence spilled across the barge, cold and brutal like the wind.

“Lustwrai has certainly earned due censure, to be determined once he draws breath renewed. Still, so long as he is of the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose, the Kabal will see him regenerated. You wish to know what separates us from you? Quite unlike the spineless sycophants you have surrounded yourself with, the Kabal tends to its own.”

“Your army of arrogant armsmiths has no power over us! This is the Valley of Fallen Lords! We kneel to no Archons here!” Nolaei shrieked, a fiendish sneer coming to her lips as she realized that there was one final munition she could fire to get a rise out of Syndratta. She lifted an arm, pointing her shining aurumite nail at Syndratta with the fullest air of accusation, so self-assured in her ignorant words that she could be mistaken for a mon’keigh.

“You were frightened by the tortures I inflicted upon your beloved daughter, weren’t you?! That’s why you came here, to try to destroy me! Vengeance, then, for your blood upon my name! Hah! I will see far worse done to you before my last breath!”

Syndratta simply sighed out all her exasperation. But, subtly, a smile that Nolaei should have feared crept across her peerless beauty. A smirk of joy that her foe was so foolish as to repeat her mistakes and demand a firmer hand. She reached back into a storage compartment—stasis-shielded, judging by the blurry green glow that shined out from within—and picked out its contents between her fingers.

“What’s that, then? Some new contraption of war to destroy me with? A bomb? Gun? Blade?” Nolaei cackled madly, all reason gone from her wild eyes. “And now you’ll try to finish me off, won’t you? But it’s pointless, you fool! I am immortal! I will return no matter how many times you end me, a dark avenger upon your arrogance! Go on, shoot me! Prove how mighty you are, O foolish Archoness, you who have been forced to resort to violence against the lowly Widow-Baroness! Kill me! Do it now, you coward!”

But it was no weapon which Syndratta withdrew.

A black rose.

Following a long, satisfying breath of its seductive, intoxicating fragrance at her nose, Syndratta held it out towards the others aboard the barge. It was said that only only an Archon of the Obsidian Rose could freely walk Lady Khromys’s gardens, and suchsame, only an Archon could pluck the flower they desired most.

“Why? For what foul purpose have you that?” Nolaei asked, her hysterical energy collapsing into a twice-miserable despair, suspicion creeping into her voice.

Syndratta smirked. “This is the icon of myriad meanings. Beautiful and magnificent, the bloom. Subtle and sinister its fangs. Young Lileath despised and cursed it with fleeting life, for its thorns drew her blood, and old Morai-Heg could not behold its beauty and cared not. Yet the Evermother Isha adored and tended the black rose, for she was the Mourner, alone amongst the gods that knew that its beauty and bite were one and the same. The pain of life, the sorrow of love, the darkness of despair. May there be an ebon rose for every birth, for every wedding, and for every funeral.”

The eyes of all gathered locked upon the lovely blossom, its rich, ebony petals waving gently in the breeze. It was not merely the most beautiful flower they had ever laid eyes on. To be granted a rose bloom from the gardens of the Queen of Splinters herself was widely dreamed of, the soul of fables throughout the slums of Low Commorragh: an invitation to the Kabal’s ranks that none could dispute.

“For Isha.”

With a flick of the wrist, the rose flew, all eyes save for Syndratta’s upon it. She alone closed them, uncaring, for her point was now proven.

Amid silent fear and awe, the flower landed with soft grace upon the railing at the edge of the barge, balanced precariously. There was a brief moment of astonished tension, and then the first fist flew into the face of a neighboring patron. Like a dark reflection of the Gouge Sanguine, only a thousand times cruder, guildmasters, slavers, Hellions, mercenaries, and servants alike all raced after it, elbowing and clawing each other like rabid animals in their haste. Swords and daggers were drawn and thrust, pistols firing wildly into the crowd, dying screams and howls of fury echoing together throughout the high Valley.

When the last blood-soaked hand groped after the rose, clutching its thorny stem that cut into his flesh, the Hellion slumped over the railing, the strength leaving him as his blood poured out through the many wounds in his gut. He only managed to watch the dark petals wave in the breeze for a few moments before the coldness of death stole him away, and the rose slipped from his digits, tumbling down, down, down into the hungry Feeding Trough.

And so Nolaei knelt in a pool of blood, eyes wide, tears streaking down her face. Her most powerful supporters and most ardent lieutenants all dead, all gone, leaving only the immortal Widow-Baroness to live in the pond of corpses, alone.

“Why?” Nolaei whispered, choked sobs spilling from her throat.

“A lesson, of course,” Syndratta said, smiling. “For you and for all the rabble of this pathetic rat-nest. Remember this, will you? I shall not teach it twice.”

Shaking Nolaei slowly slouched, what little fight was left leaving her body, staring into the corpses of her former allies without breath.

“Oh, and one last thing. That hostage in your lounge. She is in my service, so I would have her returned,” Syndratta said.

Nolaei said and did nothing in response. No one else was left to carry out such a request. Syndratta smiled venomously, all too proud of that fact. Instead, she simply whistled.

The door to the Helliarch’s cabin opened, and Lynekai stepped out. With all the grace and elegance that could be displayed whilest stepping over mangled and mauled remains and puddles of dead blood, she quietly joined the Archon, mounting side-saddle behind the rider as was proper of a Seer passenger. With that, Syndratta twisted the accelerator, and they bolted off into a narrow and crooked alley.

“My goodness, your agony is sweet. Just what has she been tormenting you with?” Syndratta asked.

“Shattergift,” Lynekai managed to whisper.

“Mm. Yes, that must be miserable,” Syndratta grinned. “Not to fear. My healers know the secrets of purging even that manner of poison.”

“What of my companions?” Lynekai asked wearily.

“What of them?”

“You have once again made use of them to further your ends. Their participation in the race distracted all eyes that watched, drew to them all the hostility and violence of the other racers—none suspected that you could be present. They have proven their worth once again, and you could save them all with a snap of your fingers,” Lynekai observed.

“Yes. They have. And I could,” Syndratta answered.

“Yet you will not?”

Syndratta smiled. “Let them survive by their own merits. Or let them die. That is the way of Commorragh. Struggles will strengthen them, if they do not break. And you know that well, don’t you, Seer?”

Lynekai fell silent, unwilling to answer.

“Or are you afraid of them finding freedom and power beyond what your broken Craftworld can offer?”

“Freedom…?” Lynekai asked, lapsing into open, caustic sarcasm. “Indeed, I am certain the dark chains of obedience shackling this city, working to ensnare them forever, will free them.”

Syndratta turned her head, amusement kindled in her eyes. “Why, my dear, a collar that is chosen by the wearer will always cut less into the skin than one that is forced upon them.”

===

Voices below. She could only barely hear them, each akin to rusted cogs fighting to turn, squealing against their own grisly decay.

“These Razorjacks make such boring dolls. All screams, no stamina.”

“In my experience, it is far more amusing to pluck out their razorblades one by one. For peons so quick to avoid a few uncomfortable slices in their quaint little dances, they certainly have draped their own flesh in hundreds of torture devices, have they not? So silly. Adorable, even. Heeehehehehee.”

“Hmmm. An Aspect Warrior? Here? Fascinating.”

“She hangs too high. Cannot be bothered.”

“No wounds. No use for our loving touch. Leave her. Better toys ahead.”

She tried to grasp at those sounds, cling to them, but they vanished, and she fell back into the comforting darkness.

So soothing. If she could only sleep for a few more days…

Someone whispered to her.

The ghostly voice was so distant that she could scarcely hear it. It was faint, soft, an echo on the wind.

Yet somehow, it was familiar. A voice she had always known, perhaps.

Her sister? No, impossible. Eallari was dead, her soul imprisoned in Morrigan’s Infinity Circuit.

Could it be Lady Lynekai? Gentle and kind, unlike the cold and wretched woman that called herself Mother?

No. It was not her voice, either. It was different from anyone she had ever met, and yet more familiar than all.

Who, then?

How could she recognize such love for her in those soft words, love so immense and infinite that could not be contained or expressed by the voice of a mere mortal?

“Arise, young warrior. Arise.”

It was only a whisper, as beautiful as a symphony. And yet it carried such vast power that it could not go unheard by her ears.

Azraenn flinched, and at the urging of that quiet voice, she opened her eyes.

How strange. There was a sky below and a street above, and red flames rumbled all around in the hab-block the Vyper had crashed into.

Ah. She was inverted, tangled in the upended turret, arms hanging out past her head high above the ground.

Yet she lived.

The Dire Avenger slowly, weakly pulled herself out of the seat and freed her leg from the rail it had been caught on, tumbling to the ground, managing to twist and land on her feet, rocking unsteadily where she crouched. It seemed her Aspect armor had absorbed the brunt of the crash, and while her mind was disoriented, her limbs felt shaky, and her core lightly ached, a brief examination of her own body revealed no bleeding wounds, no broken bones. Her helmet had fallen off at some point in her unconscious state, and she took it up now, rising to her feet even as her senses protested, demanding rest.

There were corpses here, the bodies of Razorjacks splayed around. They had been hacked and diced up by blades, it seemed, or shot with strange weapons that did not appear to resemble the typical weaponry of Commorragh. One such victim sprouted horrific spikes of bone that seemed to have grown from the inside out all over their body. Several more were half-dissolved into disgusting, fleshy puddles. One seemed to be an adjutant of the Helliarch, an ornate ivory power glaive clutched in her arms. On her grizzled features, an expression of absolute terror was frozen from her final moments before she had been, apparently, severed in half across the waist and her intestines neatly arranged around her into a makeshift art piece.

Outside, parked over the street, a large, black sky-hospice floated ominously, its jagged and uneven contours draped with pulsing, living organ systems. Azraenn hoped these were merely decorations. She suspected they were much more. Perhaps the barge was literally alive on the inside. She had little desire to find out how deeply the dark and twisted science had entwined flesh and metal.

There were no signs of the Covenmen who would have flown it. During the race, the Wracks chasing after the contest happily bellowed to all the racers their most generous prices for care and service. Just an hour of light experimentation for tending to a crippling injury. Only a few lives—anyone would do, slaves, enemies, even innocents off the street—to remove a mortal wound. And for a second chance, they asked merely for the devil’s bargain, a piece of the soul, and of course whatever other consequences might result from their experimental revival surgeries were on the customer to live with.

Azraenn turned, seeing that the armored canopy of the Vyper had been shattered by the explosion that led to the crash, and blood on the jagged crystal shards indicated someone had been flung through it on impact. The blood trailed further into the hab, into other chambers lit with flickering fires.

She donned her helmet. She climbed up and reached into the cockpit of the Vyper, into the storage compartments. With a growl of frustration, she was forced to dig through a scrambled assortment of daggers, pistols, lasblasters, and even a disposable missile-rifle—a Corsair’s idea of a heavy weapon—before she finally found what she was looking for.

Her weapon. Sung from purest Wraithbone for her hands. There were no others like it.

It was only with her trusty catapult in hand that the shakes left her limbs and strength awoke once more. Its familiar lightness in her hands, the feeling of its fierce and noble psychic matrix at the edge of her thoughts, reminded her of who she was.

An Avenger.

Scowling beneath her helmet, Azraenn trotted deeper into the hab-chamber, freezing and becoming one with the shadows when she heard dark voices echo.

“Well, now. This one is in a terrible state, isn’t she? Managed to crawl all the way here. Yet no further.”

“Bloodpumper has stopped. Too much juice drained, and the plasma burns reaching to her pretty little skeleton are of no help. My, quite the pelvis on this one. I want to dig my tongue under that skin and have a taste! Mmmmh, slrrrrp, ooohh. Such deliciously strong bones, surely we could grow them out, just a little? I could make such glorious sculpture of her!”

“Be quiet. The body is still warm and relatively intact. Lifesoul won’t depart for two, perhaps three minutes yet. A triviality to cure. You, operate. Piece her back together. Use the other corpses as raw materials, they’re worthless to save.”

“Yes, at once, instructor.”

There was the sound of flesh being cut into by cleavers and knives, deep, wet, and sickening.

“Oh, she’ll owe us dearly for this, won’t she! A piece of her soul, a piece of her soul, it’s ours, ours! And then a fine test subject for the master’s new cancer-game. Heeheheeheeee.”

Her fingers twitched around her weapon.

“Here, this leg should suit her, don’t you agree, instructor?”

“Hm. Yes, it is an acceptable substitute. Go on, then.”

“She will need a new… oh! Beautiful artwork, on such a daring canvas! Nevermind, I shall repair what she has. Would be shameful to lose such beauty.”

“What’s this? Ahh, so she was harboring a mote of new life. Adorable.”

Her eyes widened in the shadows.

“Such good fortune! Let us pluck that out and take it to the birthing vats. Then we’ll have two new subjects for the master!”

Her rage, her hatred, her disgust.

No more. She would hear no more of their sawblade tones.

Her hands tightened into fists around her weapon, and her feet threw away their soft steps for a storm as she dove through the doorway, Avenger catapult raised high.

“Yield or die!” she hissed with the deepest revulsion.

There were four of the Wracks, all gathered around a body on the floor.

Ugly creatures. Twisted beyond imagination. No two were alike, but certain themes and similarities revealed themselves in all belonging to the same Coven. Though usually willing apprentices, they were as much victims of their masters’ evil experiments as anyone else dragged screaming to the lairs of the Haemonculi.

These Wracks in particular sported what seemed to be exposed hearts, their ribcages torn open permanently by a vice of steel claws strapped around their shoulders that kept their ribs separated and their skin retracted. The organs visibly throbbed in the air—not hearts at all, they were red, toothy, hairy tumors that had been shaped into functional organs, Azraenn realized in a moment of horror. Their faces were concealed by featureless copper masks nailed to their skulls with no openings save for a slit for a mouth and shadowy visors to peer through, while tangled messes of wires were embedded in their scalps, pulsing with chemical contents, almost resembling long dark manes. Their hunchbacked torsos were thicker, wider than any Aeldari ought to be, necessary to support their massive tumor-hearts. But their limbs were unnaturally thin, almost withered, resembling the legs of a spider, covered in shiny metal plates and strengthening chem-pumps needed to reinforce them.

“Oh, the sleeper awakened,” said one of the Wracks idly as they approached. He had four arms instead of just two or three, and his additional arms cradled a stout weapon chained by numerous tubes to a backpack of bubbling pink fluids that radiated danger. A Liquifier. “A third toy for the master?”

“She is not hurt,” said one of the Wracks operating on Druzna, who sported cables on his scalp constantly pumping an ivory-white chem into his brain. “We have nothing to offer in exchange for her body. Leave the Warrior be.”

“But she could be hurt,” giggled one, seemingly a woman judging by her shrill tone and the one remaining breast on her chest, lumpy with tumors. A long and prehensile tongue dangled through the oral gap of her mask down to her belly, tiny meat-tearing fangs grinding together on the end, constantly licking her immense and heavy Ossefactor.

Through the opening now created by the Wracks spreading out, Azraenn looked to Druzna, seeing her in an unspeakable state. Burned, cut, broken. Skin from other bodies had been grafted to her face, her arms, all over, and her torso had been cut open from collar to navel and hands rooted around in her organs, shattered or scorched ribs yanked out to be replaced by bone segments from the nearby dead. A dozen plastic tubes stuck in arteries all around her pumped fresh blood from neighboring remains to restore life to her. A new leg had been stitched on where her own had been dissolved away by liquefier fluids into raw organic plasm, which was sucked up by a small pump and reformulated into a healing cocktail injected straight into her veins. And in the chirurgeon’s hands, a large, red, tattooed organ was held up, still connected by veins and muscles to Druzna’s insides. It was midway through repair with strange needles and tendon-silk and mending flesh-weld rays from tiny devices embedded in the arm.

Her womb. Adorned with inks of fertile Isha and virile Kurnous locked together in consummation of their love, inscribed in white and black and blue. A breathtakingly beautiful thing, carved upon something so sordid that it beggared belief.

They were holding her womb.

Pssshnk-shnk-shnk, pshh-shnk-shnk.

Though using the manual action was unnecessary when it could be operated by her thoughts alone, out of sheer hatred she pulled the trigger regardless with every single mental impulse that fired another sliver of lethal crystal.

They did not even have the chance to move. Three shurikens were put through Long-Tongue and Four-Arms, shredding their pulsing, gnawing tumor-hearts into bloody chunks.

Both of them simply glanced down, then back up at Azraenn. “How annoying,” Long-Tongue grumbled. “The master will be furious with us for losing his Children!”

Azraenn flinched, stepping back. They should be dead. But that presupposed many things: that the throbbing heart-tumors were their only hearts, not parasitic ‘Children’ meant to nurse upon their blood supply.

One with a long coat of Aeldari leather draped over his shoulders stepped forward, bowing as gracefully as his hunched back would permit. He was clearly their leader, in a manner of speaking. An Acothyst, a favored disciple granted the power and responsibility to teach their lessers the flesh-crafting arts.

“Welcome, Warrior of the Asuryani. Your comrade will make a full recovery,” Leather-Coat purred, an oversized, curved blade clutched in his right hand, glistening with foul brown poison. “For slaying the beloved Children of my master, I am afraid you will not.”

Azraenn shot Leather-Coat through the skull, ripping his copper mask in half, revealing his face. And when she saw it, she retreated a step. No Warrior could look upon it and feel no frozen chill climb their spine. Even an Exarch would be briefly stunned in revulsion at the sight of so foul a thing.

His every feature—eyes, nose, ears, even teeth—had been replaced with churning growths of glistening red flesh, and his lips parted to show the countless gyrating tumors lining his gums. Eyes glinted at the back of his throat, insidious and hateful.
And despite his grey matter splattering on the far wall behind him amid shards of broken crystal, it did not even stagger him.

“Hehm. You think to kill a Coven’s chosen, yet you do not even bring a mild poison? Laughable,” he growled, advancing upon her, twirling his blade. “Even the lowliest gunhand of these slums is more a threat to us than you. Dire Avengers, your kind are called. Masters of the crystal discus, a toy for children. Hah.”

Azraenn’s eyes narrowed.

She shot him half a dozen more times, punching hole after hole through him, but he simply shrugged off every wound which should have destroyed a vital organ as though it were a mild annoyance. Neither pain nor blood loss seemed to affect him, and soon the seeping lacerations began to knit back together, replaced by cancerous flesh. He came for her, lifting his blade up high.

She glanced to his sword arm.

Psshnk.

It splatted to the floor, severed clean from his shoulder by a single shuriken. Still twitching as if to strike Azraenn, its broken chem tubes waved around, spraying potent acids which only a Wrack’s veins could endure all over the floor.
Leather-Coat, or rather, Tumor-Teeth looked down at it. “Hmm. Shall we discuss terms of surrender?”

Long-Tongue hissed through her mask, annoyance in her voice. “Come now, she is just one, surely we could simply kill her—”

The sound of flesh being shredded filled the air, wet and disgusting. She glanced down at her Ossefactor, fingers flicking the switches and adjusting the dials of the medical tool-cum-weapon, or so she thought. Her fingers did indeed obey her impulses and rigged it for battle, but they did so on the ground along with her arms and the device. Blood squirted out from her shoulder stumps, and Long-Tongue sighed as though a fine and pleasant day had been ruined.

“Fix Druzna. Now!” Azraenn snapped, jerking her carbine at them menacingly.

“We have been doing so, if you would be patient for just a moment,” said White-Mane flatly, fresh chems constantly pumping into his brain. During all the havoc, he had continued his operation unflinchingly, and now Druzna looked almost as though she had never been through a horrific bout with plasma fire and high velocity impacts. Having repaired what he could and replaced the organs that he could not, he continued his stitching work, sewing her belly back together with a strange kind of tendon-silk that bubbled and dissolved into new flesh and skin, leaving no trace of any wound or surgical scars whatsoever. As Azraenn stared, she saw Druzna’s chest rise and fall ever-so-subtly, breathing by her own strength.

By the evil medicines of the Covens, she was alive.

Azraenn lowered her catapult, but not her guard. Rather than lingering, the Wracks quickly gathered their limbs and tools and scurried out of the hab through the crashed wall. Azraenn watched them go with an ache in her hands, which sang to her of their desire to break those wretched monsters such that they could never practice their profane arts again.

“We cannot just let her go, with all that she has done to us! Two of Master’s Children are dead!” grumbled Four-Arms as they scrambled to their vehicle.

“We will only lose more of Master’s things if we challenge her again,” replied White-Mane coldly. He was always the more reasonable-minded of their group—the voices of the Children did not overwhelm his thoughts and seize control of his body as easily as many others, thanks to his personal chem cocktail that softened their screams in his mind.

“It is no matter. There will be far more lost souls in need of our services than these Craftworlders. Easier ones, too. The race continues, eheheh, and so too does our eternal work,” Long-Tongue cackled, her warped, vestigial third arm stroking Four-Arms’ mask to soothe her friend’s anger. “Now, someone sew my arms back on. Please?”

Tumor-Teeth remained silent as he shoved his remaining arm into the nexus-maw at the fore of the hover barge, its groaning fangs sinking into his flesh, lips swallowing around him to interface with his thoughts via his nerves. The agony of the invasion was unspeakable, enough to drive the uninitiated mad in mere seconds, but one which any Wrack of the Extolled Malignancy was comfortable with.

“The Master’s anger will subside to much greater curiosity, I suspect, once we explain who it was that murdered his cancer-kin,” Tumor-Teeth muttered as he steered the living barge away from the streets. “A question that even now must burn in so many minds throughout this Valley: why are Craftworlders here?”

===

Alleys filled end to end with cobbled habs, garages, and slum-clubs. Small Reaver gangs darted to and fro, constantly harassing each other, searching for weaknesses. Hellions watched the turf skirmishes from above, cackling with laughter as they feasted on thighs and shoulders of slow-roasted, honey-glazed human flesh, tender enough to fall off the bone. If the Gouge Sanguine had passed through this district of the Deep Burg, none would have been able to find the way forward.

None save for Munesha, that is. She could chart a path through ten thousand miles of urban labyrinth, steel prison. She could even foresense the threats on the roads before laying eyes on them, and that coupled with the protection of the Running Shadow permitted her to slip right past the many gangs watching for weakness. Those who abandoned the race abandoned their own flimsy protection guaranteed by the Razorjacks, all but guaranteed to be chased by opportunist outlaws looking for easy prey. But Munesha and Tulushi’ina blended into their surroundings like a blur, hugging the walls at dangerous speeds, or darting in and around in the constant streams of high-speed traffic.

Wayseer and Ranger alike watched the unreckonable millions of citizens going about their lives, suffering distinct and personal miseries in the bone-shattering, brain-boiling toil of their labor. They were all beaten and tormented into dutiful obedience of their dark masters, but even the most devout sycophants prayed not to be noticed by the monstrous syndicates that reigned over this block and singled out as an example. For anyone and everyone was disposable, and the street lords were all-too-glad to indulge in random, pointless tortures solely to puff up their own egos.

Even so, the lives of these Halfborn craftsmen, servants, and scroll-scratchers were a thousand times better than those of the slave caste which did not even have such small freedoms. Though incapable of fighting back and unworthy of membership within even a petty gang of thieves, at least they were Eldar, and they performed a manner of skilled service, and some meager respect was afforded by that alone. When one was reduced to mere property, one was Eldar no longer.

“M… Munesha,” whispered Tulushi’ina in the Wayseer’s arms, her head sagging down weakly. She spent much of the time drifting in and out of wakefulness, the weaving and swerving too intense for her to bear in her state.

“Be calm,” Munesha answered. “Once we escape, the Healers on the Howl will restore you to full health.”

“I fear I won’t survive that far,” Tulushi’ina breathed, clutching her ruined shoulder.

Munesha cocked her head, surprised. It had been difficult to stop the bleeding inflicted by the rending hook, impossible to remove safely. However, using their crystal weave bandages, it had at least been staunched for the most part. By her reckoning, they should have had several hours more before Tulushi’ina’s life was endangered.

Munesha reached out with her instincts, searching Tulushi’ina’s wound with her fingers as gently as she could.

Invasion.

She recoiled, crimson eyes widening.

A poison? No. She could feel hollow signs of life in the microscopic army now churning through Tulushi’ina’s feverish body. They carried with them sensations of malice—proof that this was no ordinary infection of the wound, but a deliberate one. Though used as a poison, this was a weaponized disease released by the hook.

A kill-virus.

Rip out the hook, kill her friend by blood loss. Keep it in, let it release its secret contents and kill her regardless. A cruel paradox. Munesha almost wondered at how terrible and dreadful Commorragh’s technology could be, but then caught herself. This was not a Commorite’s craft. This was the dark work of Ulnea, an Outcast just like Tulushi’ina—a Craftworlder.

Though a Healer could surely cure the illness, there was no time to reach the Howl. Munesha broke off of the skyway, weaving narrowly between two heavy shipping skiffs that exchanged shouted insults and hurled trash as they passed each other. Ducking into an alley so narrow that even the smallest Raider skiff could not fit through it, Munesha took the jagged path with such effortless confidence that Tulushi’ina was left breathless at each and every near-death twist. The fear of the moment dwindled as she once more felt her strength fade, slipping into a fleeting sleep.

When Tulushi’ina opened her eyes again, the Shroudrunner was parked in a quiet alcove above two crumbling stone statues that once portrayed great heroes of the Empire, but time had weathered their features so terribly that no one remembered who they were. Worse, graffiti and carvings by the knives of gangers had reduced them to nothing more than canvases for sneering insults upon their foolish ancestors. Here, overlooking the narrow alley, there was a small waterfall from above of relatively clean water spilling from a fractured pipe, pooling into a modest pond surrounded by ivy and weeds which had grown out of broken stone that had worn away into fertile sediment over thousands of years.

Munesha knelt by the pond, sniffing some of the wildflowers and herbs that had, somehow, managed to prosper here in this forgotten nook, like a placid oasis in a wasteland of iron and blood. Distantly, the sound of crude splinter guns belching death echoed. As she turned over leafy herbs and worked to yank them out of the ground, the cold kiss of steel pressed across her ebon neck.

“Don’t you know that is poison you are plucking?” whispered a voice as sharp as the dagger held to her throat. “Can you not taste the scent of death in the air?”

There was an instant of alarm, the Wayseer’s body tense, prepared to fight. Not for centuries had anyone ever crept upon her so successfully. Physical senses could be defeated by skill, but only greater powers could deceive her psychic awareness. Then she realized why. Munesha felt no immediate threat or intent of harm, despite the blade that would otherwise indicate as such. Her instincts would not warn her against one who had no true hostile intentions.

Munesha’s crimson eyes swiveled, seeing black armor marked with a rose emblem on the pauldrons, a blue silk ribbon tied around the neck, an ashen grey face, short and pretty white hair, and the dark eyes of a familiar dog of war.

Kanbani.

“You followed us?” asked the Wayseer. “Your recovery was swifter than expected.”

“You are so proud of that cloaked steed of yours,” whispered the Kabalite. “Yet you presume that Commorragh does not have stealth technology of equal potency? Our eyes are not so easily deceived.”

Munesha glanced over and saw the faint shimmering of a cloaked vehicle parked just beside the alcove.

“Regardless, you chose poorly in stopping here. There are no sanctuaries in this wretched place, only lies. These plants may seem helpful to you, Walker of the Maiden Worlds. Alas, they were fed toxins harmless to them, but lethal to our kind. If you use them, your friend will die in agony, and her screams will draw in the keepers of this territory.”

“Why warn us?” Munesha asked.

“I owe you a debt, and I despise debts. Moreover, it would be a shame for such a… talented woman…” Kanbani purred, leaning in, licking her tongue up along Munesha’s exposed shoulder, over to her collarbone, a hand creeping up to caress one of her latex-bound breasts and squeeze its supple, dark softness up with appreciative fingers, “to die in so pathetic a way.”

“You desire me?” Munesha asked pointedly.

Kanbani giggled, pinching Munesha’s nipple through her elastic bra. “I have always wanted to tame an Exodite.”

Munesha reached up and grabbed the mischievous hand fondling her breast, prying it off.

“Another time,” Munesha answered flatly.

The armor-clad woman smirked, withdrawing her dagger and sheathing it on her narrow hip. She rose up and went to Tulushi’ina, her fingers gently caressing the hook locked into her shoulder, inspecting the wound. She tugged on it experimentally, forcing a stifled cry of pain out of the Ranger. There was no need for that. It was obviously stuck.

“Toy with her again, and I will rip off your jaw and shove my fist down your throat,” Munesha growled.

“Please, such sweet words might make me blush,” purred the lethal beauty, smirking darkly. Though she resembled Syndratta quite closely, her smiles did not shine like an astral inferno in the void. In Kanbani’s lips, in her eyes, there was only shadowy resentment, though Munesha sensed it was not towards her.

“Fine, then. A life for a life. My debt shall be paid. Do you agree?” Kanbani asked, drawing her splinter pistol.

Munesha rose to her full height, muscles tensing ominously.

“Be still,” Kanbani said, quickly sliding a venom core into the handgun. “Remember this: poison is naught but medicine wielded for harm, and medicine is only poison wielded for health. They are two edges of the same blade.”

With that, she shot the hook, not Tulushi’ina, and as the crystal splinter dissolved, it seemed to decay and melt the alloyed metals. The anchor, which would have only wounded Tulushi’ina all the worse if it had been extracted manually, simply dripped out of the Ranger’s shoulder, puddling on the ground.

“Ironbane,” explained Kanbani. “Useful for more than simply gutting a mon’keigh’s vehicle.”

Wonderful as it was, the dissolved metal oozing out was soon replaced by a flood of crimson into Tulushi’ina’s sleeve, for now there were many deep holes in her flesh and nothing to impede the escape of her lifeblood.

She quickly drew a black syringe from her belt.

“Lifewarder serum,” said the Kabalite, twirling her handgun with deft ease back into its holster and popping the cap off the injector. “Ideal for friend and foe alike, if you want to take them alive.”

“Wait,” Munesha said, walking over. “I must cure her first.”

Kanbani pulled the fang of the injector away, spinning it between her fingers idly, the strong plates of her Kabalite armor shifting seamlessly along with her motions.

Munesha stood beside the Ranger, holding her blood-dripping shoulder tightly, whispering a kenning on her lips. A few of the totems hanging from her necklace began to glow a faint white, channeling her power. Tulushi’ina, who had slumped in feverish sleep, suddenly jerked upright and screamed, shaking and quivering in pain.

“And you snapped at me for playing around a little,” Kanbani muttered indignantly.

Suddenly, the girl flopped back into a sudden slumber, as though the pain was too great to bear. Munesha immediately bit down into the largest puncture in her flesh.

“And now the Exodite consumes the weakest of her number, as in the tales,” Kanbani remarked savagely.

Munesha said nothing. With eyes closed in concentration, she suckled on the wound quietly, intensely focused.

What she tasted was not merely blood. The viral invasion itself was forced back to the site of the wound by her powers which coursed through Tulushi’ina’s veins like bolts of lightning, understandably agonizing. With every gulp of tainted blood thick with countless doses of lethal disease, the kill-virus was swallowed up into the Wayseer, and the burden on Tulushi’ina was reduced.

After no more than a minute, Munesha pulled away from the sanguine drink and spat out the last mouthful onto the ground with disgust. The blood that fell onto the stone had turned a concerning shade of black, bubbling and boiling itself as the virus fought to destroy all cells still living within. As Kanbani stared at the chilling sight in a moment of shock, Munesha wiped the rest of the blackened blood smeared on her mouth off with the back of an arm, leaving dried streaks of it behind.

“Do it,” Munesha growled.

Kanbani stuck the injector directly into the wound, and as the potent chems poured into her, the blood loss slowed to a crawl as she was healed from the inside out. Tulushi’ina’s breathing almost instantly grew more stable in her unconscious state, no doubt being bolstered in many ways by the medicine.

The Kabalite paused as she discarded the syringe, once again looking at the blood that had been spat out. “If that is what was in her, how are you not in the same state? Some Seer’s trick?”

Munesha said nothing, going to wash her hands and face and mouth out in the waterfall, allowing the rain to douse her in cool, soothing water, washing the exhaustion and pain of the race from her body. Kanbani watched the water glisten on her beautiful obsidian curves surreptitiously, dreaming of ripping what little clothing she wore off and… well.

Something clanked off in the distance, echoing for what seemed like miles in all directions. The Kabalite’s head snapped around to search for the source, a hand on her pistol. “Don’t linger. Her screams will have reached every dark corner of this place. They’ll find you.”

Saying nothing more, Kanbani leapt onto her sleek and blurry Venom chariot waiting just below the alcove and engaged the engines, speeding away.

Munesha glanced in her direction, watching her go as she ran her hands up through her hair and down over her body, lingering on her belly for just a moment before she walked out of the downpour and mounted her Shroudrunner again. She could sense the danger building around them instinctually. She needed no more impetus than that to bolt off, once more vanishing beneath the jetbike’s cloak.

It would not be far till they could slip out of the Valley’s interior and reunite with the Hunter’s Howl.

Yet, Munesha felt a distant dread at the back of her mind, one which even the Kabalite’s nervous passions could not dispel. A reading was required. Plucking them from her necklace one by one, she turned over the fingerbones of her ancestors in her palm, scanning the inscribed runes that revealed themselves to her.

The omens which weighed upon the others were grimmer than she imagined. Druzna and Azraenn seemed to still draw breath, though a clear reading of their destiny refused to reveal itself.

As for Eshairr…

No matter how many times she shook the bones in her fist and opened her fingers, the same rune revealed itself again and again.

Lileath’s Yearning. That which the virgin goddess would never be granted. Once this was a pure rune meaning the search for a worthy mate, which Lileath endured patiently and proudly since the Ages of Myth. Now it was a dark and terrible thing, for Lileath’s wish was granted, but not through noble marriage and loving touch. At the Fall of the Eldar, in the foulest of ways, she was given what she so dearly desired… at the hands of She-Who-Thirsts.

The Maiden’s First Blood.

===

Druzna drifted in and out of consciousness, but by sheer dogged determination, she managed to make her legs march forward even in her sleep, and that was enough. The streets of the Valley were long, and it would take weeks to walk from one end to the other. If Druzna could not continue, they had no hope of escape. But there was a greater problem, one which willing legs alone could not solve. Nestled in the heart of the Deep Burg, in unfamiliar territory, they could not even be sure which road would take them away from this stinking place.

There were no signposts. No worthwhile landmarks. The streets varied from paved stone left by ancient generations of the Aeldari Empire, now cracked and warped, to little more than rusted catwalks crossing leviathan chasms reaching far, far down to the very foundations of the Valley. A thousand architectural patterns unveiled themselves as they advanced, each the product of entire generations of engineers who made their mark upon the City Eternal long, long ago. The fact that they somehow still stood unbroken and unbowed proved the forgotten genius of their forebears, but the ages and the constant street wars were not kind to their craftsmanship, and each aged spire was built over and patched with so many crudenesses of modern necessity that they had somehow all begun to resemble each other.

It was a maze, and they were lost in it.

Azraenn watched Druzna stumble and collapse to her knees again. Though mended enough to live, her recovery from the Reaper’s grasp was incomplete, and she suspected the Wracks could have left her in a much better state but chose not to out of spite. That was a sin she would have gladly turned back to punish, but the First Spear needed her.

The Avenger walked up and offered a hand for the third time. Druzna lifted her head and gazed up at the fierce expression carved into the helm of the Warrior, and at last, she found the humility to accept the aid, weakly lifting her arm as high as she could.

Azraenn grabbed her and heaved her up with effortless strength, giving her a shoulder to lean on, tugging her arm around her back to anchor Druzna beside her. With that support, Druzna found dragging her feet forward far less difficult. Yet that did not make it easy.

“You must rest,” Azraenn observed. It was not a plea. It was a statement of fact.

“If we stop, we die,” Druzna replied through weary lips, every breath she took heavier than the last. “The scum of this place hides now, but once they realize the race has gone on and left them alone, they will scurry out of their holes and resume their monstrous ways. We look weak. Easy. They will take us both. Rape us. Gut us. Eat us. Then they’ll shatter our spiritstones and feast upon our suffering.”

“They may try,” Azraenn growled in response.

“And they will succeed in the end, for they are many, and you stand alone,” Druzna hissed. “I cannot fight, else I would gladly share a fool’s bravery.”

Azraenn fell silent, navigating them both around the bisected remains of an old, wrinkled man, who bled out alone on the street, his arm outstretched as if in a final, desperate attempt to reach his destination. “What has driven our own kin to this? They do not even resemble Eldar. Mere bones with bags of skin draped off.”

Druzna needed much time to answer, pausing often in her explanation just to catch her breath. “Their Thirst, which has withered them into empty shells of Eldar. The Thirst rarely kills outright. It simply… reduces us. Regresses us. Through it, we become soulless and damned.”

“In what way is that meant?”

Druzna smiled miserably, for she had seen it in many during her life in the slums. “One might forget how to drive a blade into another. Another cannot find the words to speak, and so falls silent forever. For some, the most wonderful food tastes only of ash and suffering, and eating at all becomes a foreign, painful thing. Eventually, as the curse decays our minds and bodies, even that need is forgotten. Soon, all we can feel is the barbed tongue of She-Who-Thirsts wrapped around us, dragging us in to be consumed like so many others. Death comes as inevitability—murder, or starvation, or suicide. It matters not, in the end. Once the final fall has begun, it cannot be stopped.”

Azraenn listened quietly. “And so, even those in the heights are cast down to the deep city to suffer these final days in solitude?”

“Yes,” Druzna answered. “If they should fail to rise in power enough to sustain the nourishing suffering they must feast upon as they age and the Thirst’s demands deepen.”

There was a brief silence as they marched together, split mainly by pants of exhaustion, before Druzna thought of another answer. “Or perhaps they lose themselves and forget the price in blood that we all must pay.”

“Laughable,” Azraenn spat. “How could any denizen of this black city ever do that?”

Druzna found the strength to turn her head, looking at Azraenn with open sadness in her eyes, one of which had been replaced, its hazel gleam clashing with the blue one that remained. “You truly think us all monsters, don’t you?”

The Avenger paused, seeing a patrol of some Hellions skimming lazily above on their skyboards, lumen-rods mounted to their hellglaives casting great white lights down over the crumbling streets as they searched for anything out of the ordinary. She quickly dragged the First Spear underneath an outcropped balcony, into the solace of shadow, stepping into a freezing puddle of noxious sludge.

“Not you. You are not like them,” Azraenn stated simply.

Druzna was forced to giggle, though her terrible state made it clearly painful. Despite the mirthful sound, there was no joy in her face.

“Are you so sure of that?” Druzna asked, no louder than a whisper.

Azraenn stared into Druzna.

The patrol had already passed, the sound of buzzing skyboards fading into the distance, but neither of them moved.

“We should go,” Azraenn said, turning her head back to her comrade to see her head drooping as strength fled her again.

An explosion roared nearby, and half of a broken hellglaive tumbled to a stop on the street in front of them.

Azraenn dragged her weapon off of her back, aiming it one handed as something drew near above. Much deeper and more powerful engines than the common skiffs of Commorragh boomed, and she watched the Ghostlance lander set down in front of them.

The rune of Morrigan inscribed upon its wings.

Instantly its rear ramp and side panels slid open, and every Aspect Warrior that served aboard the Howl rushed out with their weapons at the ready, Striking Scorpions and Dire Avengers sweeping out with flawless coordination to secure the perimeter, meeting no resistance. It seemed any skulking creatures hoping to prey upon the duo in their weakness knew better than to challenge a squad of Aspect Warriors.

Azraenn stowed her catapult and grabbed Druzna up, swinging her over her shoulder, silently walking past Ynnatta and Loreyi, who had taken up leadership roles of their respective pseudo-Shrines in Azraenn’s absence. Ynnatta, strutting beside the Bladebearer, held out a shard of green Wraithbone, a piece of the broken Vyper. That was enough to show that they had traced the path of the race, no doubt making use of some creative detours to skirt around the areas too narrow for their vessel, and found the site of the crash. From there, they must have detected Azraenn’s Aspect armor, which had powerful tactical uplinks that would be easy to pick out amid the endless cacophony of Commorite transmissions with Asuryani scanners.

No words needed be said. It was a waste of time; they were Warriors, and thanks were unnecessary for simply carrying out their purpose. They all swiftly loaded aboard the lander, and it lit from the ground as gracefully as an eagle, soaring high to escape the depths, their route charted carefully to fit through the narrow passages of the Valley.

They laid Druzna down to rest between them, quickly swaddling her with a thick blanket to warm her shivering body. With little to do but wait, the Warriors sat crosslegged on the ground of the passenger compartment, some turning to meditation to pass the time, others inspecting their weapons purely out of habit. Azraenn, however, raised a hand and gestured her fingers in and out in a number of signals resembling runes.

Hand signs were always used in the Aeldari language as a companion of deeper meaning and context to the spoken word, but Aspect Shrines taught a condensed form of the gestured language that allowed for entire conversations to be carried out in complete silence and in the minimum amount of gestures necessary. Some would look down upon such revisions as a barbarity, discarding millions of years of culture. In turn, the Aspect Warriors scorned those who preferred eloquence and poetry to swift and clear meaning.

Our victory? Azraenn asked.

Loreyi returned the gesture with one of her own. Our defeat.

Azraenn bristled, furiously curling her fingers inwards and beating her fist against her ample chest. Comrades?

Two returned. Wayseer and Ranger, answered Ynnatta.

Bonesinger?

Loreyi raised a closed fist facing Azraenn. Held safe. Then she opened it and cupped her fingers to cast a shadow over the back of her other hand.

With Dark Kin.

The Bladebearer paused, looking at all the faces of her Warrior kin.

She gestured. Captain?

None could answer her. That was answer enough.

===

For how long did she fall?

Six Scourges followed her, circling upon the thermals. A number of grim omen to the Eldar. In Commorragh especially, the count of Scourges in a tiding was often held to be a portent of prosperity or disaster. Often, this was no mere superstition. The more wonderful or dire the message they carried, the more Scourges would escort and safekeep it. What was the strange rhyme that Druzna once told her over glasses of wine in the arboretum?

One for sweet mirth.

Two for despair.

Three for Truebirth.

Four for dead heir.

Five for war’s worth.

Six to prepare.

“Prepare for what?” Eshairr asked her, then.

“The rhymes are paired. Good fortune and ill, then birth and death. Next is battle’s bounty—a successful raid. And then…?”

“Defeat.”

“Quite. The only thing which one has left to prepare for, when one has prepared for all else, is to meet She-Who-Thirsts.”

The memory felt as real as though she were there in the flesh. Druzna’s voice almost rang in her ears. The influence of the chems, she hoped. Or perhaps she was going mad. Mad with grief at her failure? Or at having her wings clipped on the cusp of ecstasy?

“Am I prepared?” Eshairr asked the wind, her thoughts twisting and roiling.

The Feeding Trough was a thousand miles of steel rising up to the peak of the Valley, exiting through the shattered spine of the ruined Spire of Leashed Malice.

Now, like so many slaves and prisoners who had been thrown down to the Extolled Malignancy with almost religious fervor, she fell too. How strange it was to have flown so high, so have felt such freedom, and now be denied that final joy of reaching the true skies above the Valley.

Why?

Was she not worthy of such glory?

She blinked, and into her vision came dark, flitting shadows. They were winged harpies, pointing at her, laughing at her, clad in suits of mighty resin trimmed with silver. In the blinding speed of the fall down the Trough, they took on incredible shapes, resembling unholy warriors of great myth more than Scourges.

So these were the guardians of the sky. The cruel judges who punished the arrogance of an Eldar who thought to transcend herself, transcend her people. Had she truly sinned so severely?

Her hand reached back underneath her wind cloak. Ah, in the haze of the chems and the thrills of the race, she had forgotten.

She was not in a song of legend. This was not her moral comeuppance for allowing the Path of the Mariner to slip away from her for a moment or two. They were assassins. They had destroyed her vehicle, most likely using toxin blends which caused psychoplastics to rot and shatter. She had been taught from an early age that the Drukhari often made use of such accursed tonics when battling her people. And now they were coming for her as well.

But she was far from defenseless.

One of the Scourges began equipping his Shardcarbine with more suitable poison load for murder, taking his time detaching the first venom core and tickling his fingers along his belt. Making her watch him decide which of his assortment of deadly ammunitions to use upon her, he relished the look of fear in her eyes.

Was she fast enough?

The Lasblaster slung behind her back drew forth at the summons of her grasp—she gripped it in both hands, aiming as best she could, holding the barrel tight as he rushed to finish loading his own weapon. Turning as she fell, left with no other option, she sprayed wildly.

In the havoc of their speeding descent, she only narrowly clipped his wings with one of the ghostly white rays. He screeched in agony, breaking away for safety, slamming into a balcony reaching out over the chasm. The grizzled hab-dwellers took offense at the indignity of his blood staining their balcony, leaping upon him with knives and clubs, and his laughing screams echoed far above and far below until coming to a sudden end.

The amused mockery of the other flying beasts went nowhere. As she swept the rapid-fire torrent of lasers across towards them, the rest broke formation and scattered in every direction, cackling at her desperate resistance.

“What can you even do, flailing about?” asked one of the sweeping shadows, a lady Scourge coming up beside her, bolting away into the wind before Eshairr could swivel her blaster in that direction.

“The soft little Craftworlder thinks she can fight! Us! Ahahahaha!” laughed another of the Scourges, swooping down, kicking her in the gut with his clawed boot before vanishing into the rushing air around her. If not for her mesh suit hardening just before impact, those bladed talons would have disemboweled her. Even so, however, the pain of the blow only disoriented her further, sending her spiraling out of any control over her own descent.

“Do you even know how long you’ll be falling, girl? Do you have any idea where you’re going? It’s not heaven that awaits you at the bottom, keeehehehehehehh!”

He was right, more than he knew.

From out of nowhere, a swooping shadow kicked the Lasblaster out of her hands, and she clutched her aching fingers tightly. Another Scourge then swung down over her, pressing his beaked white helmet into her face, forcing her to endure his presence as he tickled his sharp, clawed fingers across her throat. His armor was marked with crudely painted runes of superiority, by which she realized what he really was. The Solarite of this tiding of Scourges.

She drew her longknife into a desperate slash, but he caught her arm, mutant strength pinning her shaking limb in place as he laughed in her face. Completely trapped. Hope collapsed.

“Scream, girl. We will not leave even a scrap of you to reach the maw of the Flesh-Made-Ruins,” growled the Solarite as his powerful wings beat the air around her. “Which part of yourself do you value most? So that I may cut it out first!”

“We need her head at least!” screeched one of his lieutenants. “Proof for the Widow-Baroness’s coin!”

“No. Her spirit stone will suffice,” answered the Solarite with a murderous chuckle.

Paling, Eshairr swung her fist at his helmet, but for all the pain that shot through her arm at the impact, she did not even budge him. Light as silk and nearly strong as adamantine—Ghostplate resin turned aside bolter shells, shurikens, even missiles with ease. And the Scourges proudly kept a majority of the secrets of its production.

“She seems to enjoy fighting, ehhh? So there’s your answer! Shoot off her hands and burn the stumps!” cackled the lady Scourge, aiming her Shardcarbine at the captain. “Won’t bleed out that way! Keeehahahaa—urk—”

The feathery woman broke in spurting halves as burgundy lightning struck her, streaking down past them all, her blood trailing off his bladevanes.

“The Fallen Hawk!” screeched the other Scourges in fury, swiveling their weapons and reloading to a different blend of toxins, spraying a rain of splinters down at him as he quickly maneuvered into a flip and corkscrew to return.

Eshairr’s head turned to watch him pass. Their eyes met, again, even in the midst of battle. Her heart pounded against her ribs, soaring valiantly even as she fell.

He came back for her.

“How dare he interfere?!” yelled the Solarite. “End him! We will not be denied our prize by a cast down fool!”

He turned his gaze to the others to bark his commands, and Eshairr felt the slimmest chance open up as her spirits took flight. She planted her boot into his gut and kicked him off of her with a cry of terror, struggling just to breathe in the thin, polluted air. Instantly he swerved back down at her, his hands extended to seize her again.

There was no time to think. She grabbed her windcape by the collar and sliced the cords keeping it tied together with her knife. When she let go, the whipping wind threw it into the Solarite’s face, completely blinding him as he came close. She thrust her knife through the cape, scraping hopelessly into his near-impenetrable armor as he clawed at the frustrating fabric. He tore it apart in his fury, and as soon as her eyes beheld the tiny seam of reactive mesh between the layered plates he wore around his neck, she traced that narrow line with the tip of her monomolecular blade, as much strength in it as she could muster.

The Solarite clutched onto her for a few moments, his desperate strength enough to nearly crush her bones before he crumpled and went limp in the wind, blood spraying from his neck, rising behind him in a trail of crimson.

Eshairr glanced left and right, seeing the remaining Scourges circling her quietly, no longer so smug after the death of their leader. Mirth and merry-making were finished with. They would just kill her and be done with it.

If they were not too busy with the man on the jetbike.

Ravan shot up towards them, firing his darklight Blaster, but the alacrity of Scourges on the wind could defy the firepower of entire armies directed their way. He only managed to wing one, the strength of the collapsed starmatter causing his prey to viscerally implode in a shower of gore, resin, and feathers.

“Bastaarrrd!” screamed the remaining two, spraying their weapons in his direction.

A Reaver jetbike was far swifter than the wings of any Scourge, but it could not maneuver half as gracefully. With his trajectory direct so that he could fire on them, their aim was true. Eshairr could only watch with sharp despair stabbing into her chest as crystal shards peppered Ravan and his steed, and in a matter of seconds it crumbled between his legs, the hardened resin cracking and withering as the poison pulsed through it.

Moments before its engines collapsed in a blinding explosion, he leapt from it, his golden gaze locked upon his foes as he fired a drawn pistol ferociously at them. With a snarl of pain, he charged at the closest one, his splinter-ridden left wing only half-functional, seizing to his foe and driving his gun’s smoking barrel up underneath the narrow plates on his enemy’s side to blast spines of poison straight into his guts.

“Arrrrrgh!” screeched the mercenary Scourge, throwing his Shardcarbine away and beating Ravan, punching and clawing him, ripping the pistol out of his hands and hurling it into the depths with howls of monstrous vigor. The two Scourges warred brutally between each other, fists and claws and knees and elbows swinging to shatter each other’s bodies like wild beasts, constantly spinning and twisting as they fell down together. “Get the girl! Kill her now!” he shrieked, grabbing Ravan and dragging him down into the abyss below.

The last Scourge whirled his head an unnatural span to leer at Eshairr, a demented grin crossing his lips beneath his leathery cowl. Chills rose through her spine, seeing in him not a man but an executioner.

She gasped as he lifted up his carbine, and she flicked the knife in her hand up to grip it by the blade, hurling it—striking into the barrel of his weapon, gouging a terrible gash through it, rendering it useless. But this failed to take the smirk off his face, as he grabbed the knife and ripped it free, discarding his ruined weapon in favor of hers.

He swept across the Trough with the speed of death, tackling her and dragging her by the leg into a gravitic updraft. The sudden inversion of gravity reversed her speed and flung her back up into a narrow, neon-lit alleyway filled with trash and skittering vermin-beasts that fled at the approach of a living Eldar, for though they gleefully feasted upon carrion, even these savage animals knew never to challenge one who still drew breath.

The world spun around her, gasping for air, weakly crawling away on her back by every kick of her boots into the damp floor of the alley, hands clawing over bags of refuse and rusted crates of meaningless junk that even the clever denizens of the Trough could not find a use for. The shadow on the wind slipped between the walls into the alley with effortless grace, dropping down to land delicately just in front of her, holding her own weapon and licking the white crystal blade from hilt to tip as if to taste, and test, the edge for himself.

“Squeal for me, like a mon’keigh,” he growled, advancing toward her step by step.

She might have, if she had the breath to muster for such a noise. Flopping in the sea of garbage, she could hardly even drag herself away from him. Her strength had fled her, and terror arose supreme in her breast.

She did not want to die.

Not now. Not here. Goddesses, not when she had only just learned what it meant to live.

Her hand clutched wildly at things around her, and she flung a chipped vase at him, shattering harmlessly on his armored chest. She hurled a spanner next, bouncing off his knee with a clank. He laughed, a shrill and almost joyless cackle, stomping to her and striking down.

Pain shot up through her arm—she shielded herself instinctively, and the mesh armor stopped the blade from shearing straight through her limb, bone and all. But it could not stop it completely, stabbing into her flesh and bringing a screech of agony to her lips as she clutched her limb and rolled over, whimpering weakly.

He enjoyed this. Her pain. Her fear. Her suffering in all forms. The determination to end her seemed to leave his dark, murderous gaze, replaced by the Thirst’s temptation. He hesitated, pleased just to tower over her and drink in all her sweet agony, like a drug that all Commorites were hopelessly addicted to. Slowly, as if remembering his mission through a haze of the deepest excitement, his arm raised the dagger again.

And for his moment of weakness, he paid the ultimate price.

A loud thud of impact knocked him over, onto Eshairr. Before the Scourge could even flinch, mighty hands seized around his right wing, yanking it out to its fullest span as a boot planted itself on his back. Eshairr squirmed underneath the weight, looking up beyond the man atop her to see Ravan, blood running down his cheek, fresh wounds glistening all over his body, his black mane wildly unkempt from the fury of battle.

“Wait! No, wait! Don’t do it!” screamed the Scourge trapped by his most precious limb.

In a storm of feathers ripped out by his grip, flesh tearing audibly amid incoherent screams, joints popping and cracking apart from the sheer monstrous strength plied upon them, Ravan tore his wing straight off. He tossed the limp, bloody, feathery limb aside into the mounds of trash, where it belonged, as the Scourge howled and sobbed in unspeakable agony and despair.

Astonished, breathless, Eshairr could only watch as Ravan grabbed the Scourge up and silenced him with a decisive twist of his neck, having to turn his head nearly a full circle for the joints to finally pop and shatter. He swung the corpse aside, freeing her with little ceremony. Immediately, their gazes met, and she stared into his slit pupils surrounded in a halo of gold. But then his stare turned to her body, scanning it, searching her beautiful and fertile curves for—injuries, she hoped.

“Th-thank you! Are… are you alright?” she asked, seeing the freshness of his many wounds, spines of venom still embedded between the feathers of his wing and stuck in his arm.

“Spread your legs,” Ravan hissed, wiping the red from his face and only smearing it across his jaw, a wild light in his eyes.

Silence.

Confusion.

What did he just say?

Never before had she felt so vulnerable, never had any words struck such a deep and primal anxiety into her heart. She could not even think clearly, as though he had spoken to her in a foreign language, reason escaping her thoughts. Instinctively, she did the opposite, the white mesh of her pilot suit crinkling around her lush thighs as they sealed together in a small pyramid.

“Obey me,” he growled, louder, more forcefully. Sounding more animal than man, an image unaided by the sight of his wings stretching out around him, licking his own blood from his fingers.

Her heart quivered unnaturally, and her hands slid out into the dross piles around her, searching for something hard and heavy with which to defend herself. But her eyes never left him—drifting to his crotch. With a jolt of shock, Eshairr realized that the hardest, heaviest thing in the alley was fighting against his armored belt.

His hand moved down, sneaking underneath the grey cloth tabard dangling between his legs. With only a bit of struggle, he freed something—and it swung up and tented the tabard high above his belt.

Her eyes widened, and her breath quickened, her full, ample breasts rising and falling with every nervous pant of air.

His penis.

A faint ember lit in her belly. The Yearning. Trying to whisper in her ears, lie to her that this was what she wanted. Disgust at the curse and at her own self rose in her throat. She reached up and bit her own hand, attempting to quell the dark invasion of her nerves with pain as she had been taught, but it did nothing.

Wide-eyed, pupils dilated under the painful, searing neon lights flickering above, she could only watch him tug the cloth aside and bare his member without a shred of shame.

Long, thick, this beastly thing throbbed with an aura so masculine that it was twice as obscene to her eyes, for on Morrigan all images glorifying manhood were forbidden to display. White ooze crested it, dripping down to the filthy ground below, trailing as he stepped over her with bestial savagery in his motions—moving not like an Eldar, but a mon’keigh, with no grace in his form. More of the thick juices dribbled from his tip, running down the swollen length of pale skin crowned with a scarlet spear-tip. Bulging veins tainted the pleasing purity of his Aeldari shaft with dense streaks of pulsing purple, and beneath it lied his round, thick testicles, which only completed the impression of raw virility blazing into her mind.

Mesmerized, she scarcely noticed his fingers grasping the elastic material of her mesh—sharp black nails, like a hawk’s talons, tearing it apart with brutal strength. The sound of the mesh ripping from her bony collar down to her skinny, ribby belly echoed through the alley. Eshairr glanced down at herself in renewed shock, seeing her huge, round, fair breasts exposed to his gaze, wobbling softly as they settled from the explosive mangling of her armored suit. Both her pink peaks stood stiff and sensitive to the cool air of the Trough, like glaring weaknesses prominently on display.

The shame of it. The humiliation!

Her face flushed as red as blood, yet her hands found no strength to resist.

He seized both of her tits at once, sinking his fingers into her soft flesh, and Eshairr watched in hypnotized terror to see her own body played with by another. Glaring down as if infuriated by the doughy softness between his fingers, he drank of her beauty as much as he drank of her nerves, her pain, her fear, her crumbling defiance. His palms pressing against her nipples felt like lightning bolts striking into her chest, and the kneading of his fingers only worsened it, forcing small sounds of anxious sensation from her lips. There was no gentleness, no precision in it—he just molested her as if to claim that part of her for himself, his sharp nails dragging along the curvature of her Ishaine endowments, sharp enough to draw pinpricks of blood like a beast’s claws.

Every little bead of red, another gasp from her lips.

That pain blended with the jolts of pleasure that her sensitive body felt every time his fingertips brushed over her bare skin. Every time he rubbed across one of her small, delicate pink nubs, her heart skipped beats. In a cruel paradox, all the discomfort of what he did served only as the guarantor of pleasure, cleansing her mind of more rational dread, reducing her to such raw nerves that she could almost enjoy his roughness. For an Eldar was a being of sensation and emotion, and though her heart was sealed by the Path she walked, her body was not. What she felt now was the same tempestuous intermix of sensations that had corrupted an Empire, and it scalded her with shame to fall so far at just the touch of a man’s hands.

The rumbling cinders within her core grew hotter, brighter as he groped and played with her full bosoms. She felt slimy within, itchy, hollow with desire, and the oozing moisture seeped out of her. She could feel it sticking to the mesh clad to her hips, outlining her fertile crease in skin-tight white. It was as wrong as the foul alleyway she was trapped in, surrounded by rubbish, a mutilated Scourge rotting mere feet away from them.

Wrong as it was, there was a light and a power in his eyes, driven by a malediction of his own beyond mere lust. It was as if he could smell it in her, her weakness. As if he knew precisely how to pounce upon it to derive the greatest suffering. For her, it was the Yearning. In him, it was the Thirst.

They were both cursed. Cursed beyond all hope. She-Who-Thirsts was dragging them both down into Her Palace, along different nail-gouged roads. And yet they were drawn together by it, an intercourse of accursed paths. Now, they would become one through it.

His hands ripped her mesh apart further to the very bottom, baring her pale hips to the polluted air, smooth and slender. Feeling the air tickle between her legs, she squeezed her thighs together as tightly as she could, whimpering, but with the strength of the Thirst in his limbs and a grunt of impatience, they served as no obstacle at all. Her heart shivered in her chest to watch her own legs part by the mighty power of his hands as he leaned in closer. No longer could she pretend that this would not happen to her. Her nubile slit was unveiled and undefended, soft as cream, red as a rose, and weeping with infernal arousal.

To lay eyes upon it at last sent a thrill sweeping out through his dark, feathery wings, spreading out around him, though the wounded one could only reach to half its span, twitching painfully at his side. Even so, it was as if sweet darkness itself surrounded her, embracing her as he sank down, piercing into her cunt with the loudest hiss of satisfaction spilling from his lips.

Desecration.

No. No. NO.

She pushed him back, desperate power awoken in her limbs, only now realizing the sharp and shaking horror of what rape truly was. How it felt to be invaded by the appendage of another. The tempest of fear and pain, knowing that this could never be undone to her, that she would forever be broken in ways none but her would ever understand.

Growling.

Anger searing through his blazing eyes.

The beast atop her seized her throat, crushing it between his fingers, and she felt the air flee her lips, convulsing helplessly.

Refusal was not her right.

Long after her hands left his chest, her resistance broken, he choked her still, everything blurring around her, sounds becoming distant to her ears. Pain echoed through her neck until he slowly, grudgingly released it, allowing her to breathe but only for a moment.

For next, he stole her breath with his cock.

She felt him penetrate, slowly at first, fighting the strength of her thighs that tried to force him back, but they were made to fail. She could only whine in despair to feel his red crown press into her wet labia, finding no resistance from her traitorous folds but rather a longing kiss of her pink blossom around him as he forced himself in. Weight, heat, the length of her violator invaded her body, forcing into a place that was not prepared to receive him.

Alien. Foreign. The part of another now joined with her. It was wrong. All wrong. Like a burning spear cutting into her flesh, it wounded her as it stretched her wide. She felt every single inch of it with keen sensitivity, no matter how deeply he pushed. Even the veins pulsing along his length were so perfectly felt that they seemed to grind over her silken passage as he sank inside of her to the very hilt.

Isha, it hurt. Or so it did at first.

Even as her mind screamed with the realization that he was inside her, the Yearning continued its subtle work. Her strength was meaningless against him, it told her. Such a mighty, beastly man was worthy of her, it whispered into her ear. Why fight? Better to embrace such a beautiful mate… after all, she had dreamed of this deep in her heart, since the moment they first met. Since she felt his kiss upon her hand. Since she saw his raptorine eyes, saw him smile.

“No,” Eshairr protested, both to Ravan and to her curse. But this could not stop either. She squirmed, desperate for freedom.

Desperate for release, the curse purred, twisting her thoughts and cutting her with them. Desperate for him.

Eshairr gasped. Yes, she could feel him. As though his cock throbbed against her stomach when she breathed, her inner folds squeezing around the invasion with traitorous adoration at all the places inside of her that his hot length pressed so barbarously. He lingered there, inside of her, as though pleased to watch her endure all that he was as a man while they were locked together, enjoying her foolish, virginal weakness as she did all she could not to look into his eyes.

Though, her body could not escape him.

The heat, the weight inside of her faded slightly, enough that she almost hoped it was over. And then it redoubled itself as she realized he was moving, thrusting straight back into her. A squeak escaped her lips. So potent, so powerful, even such a small motion could tear away her thoughts from her mind and shatter her self-control.

Remember the Howl, she told herself, trying to fight pleasure with despair. Lynekai could be sold to monsters wearing the skin of Eldar. Druzna and Azraenn could be dead, their spirit stones irrecoverable. How could she fall to this, here, now when they suffered?

But the rise and fall of his hips stole away her defiance yet again. Air flooded her lungs for the sharp, almost painful excitement that rocked through her every time he gave a fresh buck into her moist quim.

“Stop,” Eshairr begged him. She had no other option.

He chuckled in response, humping her with loud, giddy pants of air that spilled over her face like waves of heat, smelling, tasting the smoky scent of his lips.

“Please, shadow of my heart!” Eshairr squealed.

His only answer was a brooding glance into her eyes, a hand sliding down to prop up one of her thighs against his side, adjusting the angle at which he plunged his meat into her pussy to one that was all the more personal, passionate, intense, and cruel.

“No…” Eshairr whined, twice as bitter to feel him control her limbs as though she were nothing more than merely his toy, even as she clenched her leg to him tighter just to try to hold his endless thrusts back.

But the only part of her that Ravan listened to was her body, sinful and carnal as it was, welcoming the one who had hunted her down to this dark and dank place to claim her underneath the light of brothel signs flickering as acid rain dripped down their shining pink runes. He fucked her into the wet street, cramped between decaying walls and mounds of refuse, pinning her underneath his surprising lightness, as even the very bones of a Scourge were hollowed out. Surrounded in obsidian, cold, suffocating in feathers no matter how she tossed and turned, it nearly felt as though the void between stars itself was her mate, dark and grim, infinite and primordial.

Nails cut into her flesh wherever he held her, sharp tinges of pain rushing through her as his length struck into her deepest depths on every slam down of his mighty hips. He rutted her ferociously, like she were just some mon’keigh slave claimed in war. His power shook through her as he grew faster, unsatisfied, seeking ever-more stimulation even as she drowned in it.

The harder he bred her, the more the steel of the alley hurt her to lie upon. This was not the bridal bed on which she belonged. Her hands gripped a torn up scroll on one side, a heavy crate filled with scrap on the other, trying to cling to anything at all. These sodden items only reminded her of how evil this all was. He was despoiling her in a wretched walkway where anyone and anything could watch, when the bodies of Eldar women were made to be mated upon grass and silk beneath golden canopies of autumn glory.

The savage grunting atop her only grew louder as he continued. The force behind his thrusts sent her massive, round breasts bouncing underneath him, sliding her backward on the wet alley floor only to clutch onto her and slam straight back in, her hot juices spilling all over his length. She felt so slimy, disgusting, filthy, feeling her own folds swallow and embrace around his burning cock as it grinded in deep, her thighs closing around his narrow and beautiful waist that pumped up and down so rapidly that her toes curled in her boots. As she rocked backward under his insatiable rutting, she gasped out desperately for relief, arching her back, pressing her fat tits into his chest as he reamed her all the harder.

Panting man.

Gasping woman.

Thrusting and writhing together.

A dance of flesh, the steps known to all Eldar from birth. Even one taken against her will knew the melody to sing out her in desperate cries. The instinct of aeons was impossible to defy. His weight crashed down into her, plunging into her flower, and she swallowed him with hot winks around his hilt.

Before she even realized, the pain had gone. Her cunt embraced him as part of her, and now it was only his withdrawals that she could not bear, for her itches were many, and his cock scratched every last one, soothing the emptiness of her loins. Gliding in and out of her wetness with perfect smoothness, he dragged along her warring folds in ways that wracked her with pleasure she never imagined was hers to feel. Now there was only a storm in her gut, a tempest that raged harder every time he pounded into her.

Moans. Quiet, whimpering, desperate at first. Feeling him bounce into her stole them from her mouth, shame burning in her cheeks as she realized he could hear her. He could hear her falling prey to his barbaric malice. To his strong body. To his disgusting lusts. For all that she thought she hated this—he felt good, too good to deny any longer.

The curse had won. And she enjoyed it, granting it this victory over her, giving Ravan all he desired.

“Y-yes!” squeaked Eshairr, high and mighty Mariner-Captain of the Hunter’s Howl. The word escaped her before she could swallow it back, and once it reached his pointed ears, she had sealed her own fate: to be raped to the very end, used, and bred in this seedy pit. She spread herself out under him, holding the wretched refuse that surrounded her as she might clutch the sheets of her own bed, leaning back and basking in the pleasure that she should have refused. She made it as easy as she could for him to slide into her, to use her as he pleased, and she felt him take full advantage of it without hesitation, reaming her into the street.

Between ravenous pants, he chuckled derisively. Without a word, he mocked her weakness. He mocked her for surrendering, and then he punished her for it—with everything she desired.

As though hearing her voice of shameful acceptance triggered the most ancient instincts within him that no man could resist, something changed inside of him. Lightning shot through his limbs around her, his wings beating the air around her, arms clutching to her back and her leg, his hips pistoning into her with sudden violence that made every clash of his tip into her inner depths painful again. His deprecating mirth was interrupted by heavy groans as more and more of him seized up in spasmic intensity, answering her pathetic mewling of ecstasy with the inferno churning through his balls.

“Rrrrgh, arrrgh!” Ravan hissed, his final thrust murderously hard.

Fire erupted within her core. Hot lava flowed into her. His seed washed into her fertile garden, kissed sloppily by the pulsing crown of his scepter.

Her eyes widened for a moment of shock, then rolled back. Too much. Too wonderful.

Someone was moaning—her. All of the shame and pain only twisted into greater ecstasy. The stink of the trash. The wetness of the ground. The heat of sticky ooze flowing into her. Burning in her womb. The hardness of his body, pinning her down, despite the softness of his feathers against her. Twin eyes of blazing satisfaction glared into her, and on his lips, a boyish smirk curled.

The filthy brutality of an animal. The cruel amusement of a child. With both, the fallen angel carried her to heaven.

Savagely, his heavy testicles leapt against her soft rump, filling her up, up, up.

She did not realize she had been holding her breath until at last she felt his shaft soften within her, no longer pulsing with that ethereal vigor and heat that made her so very, very weak. Gradually, she realized that her legs had tightened around him so much that she had nearly locked ankles behind him, and only now did she weakly pry them apart, spreading herself out as she melted underneath him.

With the passing of ephemeral, irrational, meaningless bliss, the humiliation reared in her heart.

“W… why?” Eshairr asked, barely a whisper in the shadows. She was not angry, though she knew she should have been. Instead, all she truly felt was despair. A need to understand him, this man who had broken her. Surely he knew that she would have been his without the blood and the shame.

In the bitter quietude of rape’s aftermath, she wanted him to tell her that he loved her. She knew it was wrong. She felt burning disgust at her own weakness, and yet, she wanted him to kiss her.

But his answer, blithely honest, was a thousand times worse.

“It was fun,” Ravan answered, grinning down at her.

And then he pulled out.

Immediately she flushed across the cheeks, covering her eyes with the back of her arm in shame. The exposure to the chill air of the alley was the last thing she wanted, she realized. Even if it meant being tied together with a foul man who violated her as deeply as any ever could.

She could still feel him inside of her, as though he never left. Her momentous breasts heaved up and down as she panted for air, her entire body twitching in the aftershocks of her first orgasm with a man, forced against her will. She wondered if she could ever forget this feeling, the weight of his manhood buried inside of her, his copious semen slowly trickling out of her joyously clenching slit. Her thighs ached, trying to close around her despoiled, aching flower, but her legs lacked any strength at all to move.

How could the goddesses do this to her? Why did she deserve this?

But of course, the goddesses were dead.

He paused, glancing back down, seeing the shining Wraithbone amulet bearing the rune of Rebirth hanging from her neck, between her round bosoms. She felt his fingers clasp around it, tearing it from her neck, and then he was gone.

As his boots clicked into the alley floor, marching off with a battle-sore limp in his step, she stared up at the pollution-green sky, only a sliver visible between the two crumbling spires around her.

From high above, petals of an obsidian rose slowly drifted down to her, coming to rest all around and over across her sweat-sodden body, bare and glistening in the neon glow of brothel signs.

===

When the lander returned to the Howl’s hangars, Druzna had rested enough in transit to be able to disembark by her own strength. As soon as she set foot on the crystal floors of the deck, Druzna breathed in the pure air of the ship’s interior as if she did so for the first time.

Azraenn descended the ramp beside her. “I will send for a Healer,” she offered.

Druzna shot a look at Azraenn, then shook her head. “Not yet. Would you kindly escort me to my quarters first?”

Surprised, Azraenn gave a silent nod.

The walk through the long hallways of the ship was quiet. Azraenn was not talkative on the best of days, as appropriate for a Warrior. Druzna, who normally would fill such gaps herself, did not seem to be in quite the mood or condition for it.

When they arrived at Druzna’s door, it opened at her approach. Azraenn nearly turned to leave, but Druzna grabbed her arm at the last second.

“Would you like a drink, Azraenn?” Druzna asked.

“A Warrior has no use for such things,” Azraenn answered flatly.

Druzna smirked. “Your Exarchs would disagree. They accepted my offers quite often, before they passed into crystal dream at the Tower of Veneloc.”

“What?” Azraenn asked.

“Is it really so surprising? I am sure to you they were like demigods, or monsters of myth… but they were still people, Azraenn,” Druzna said. “Even an Old Warrior appreciates a bit of fire in the belly from time to time. And a talk with someone who has much in common.”

Azraenn cocked her head at Druzna. “In common?”

“You do realize who I am, don’t you? Where I have come from?” asked Druzna quietly. “I was a Corsair. One of Aydona’s finest. I lived a life of war. I believe they recognized in me a veteran spirit, alike their own. An old killer now tame under the Paths.”

Azraenn, stunned into silence, stared at the First Spear for a moment. Then, hesitantly, she removed her helm, cradling it under an arm at her side. Gone was the cold and angry face of Wraithbone, the mask of war. Now, her true face, pale and pretty, her thick golden locks hanging down behind her, looked to Druzna with open curiosity.

“What… did you speak of with them?”

Druzna smiled, gesturing with a hand toward the open doorway. “Come in, sit, and I will tell you.”

Azraenn obeyed, her brow furrowed in deep contemplation. She went to one of the floor mats in the center of the spacious and luxurious room, slinking down to sit with crossed legs, eyes wandering the valuable artworks, artifacts, and weapons hanging from the walls. Druzna had amassed quite a collection from across all aspects of Aeldari society, as expected of such a well-traveled woman. If she were not so exhausted, the Dire Avenger might have wandered and explored it all.

Druzna was quick to go to the cabinet of bottles tucked into the corner, taking an ancient bottle of wine and two glasses and coming over to sit on the embroidered mat across from Azraenn. She quickly unstopped and decanted the rich golden liquid into both glasses, and then pushed one towards the Warrior.

Azraenn looked at it for a moment. Then, reluctantly, she took it up and sipped at it. Recoiling, she lowered it and stared at what was in the glass.

“Wonderful, isn’t it? Alaitoc’s vineyards know no peer in all the universe,” Druzna said, taking a small draft of her own. “Trust the harshest of ways to raise the most vibrant grapes.”

“It… is good,” Azraenn admitted. She drank more, albeit only a few gulps, and then set it aside.

Druzna, far less hurried, leisurely relaxed and sipped, content just to savor it. Only after a few minutes of silence, stewing in her own thoughts, did the First Spear notice Azraenn’s anxiety.

“Oh, forgive me. You wanted to hear more about your Exarchs?”

“Yes.”

Druzna looked up at the ceiling, at the softly glowing lamps that radiated the very same starlight which the Howl soaked up through its sails.

“We discussed many things. War, of course, was the most common subject. Countless stories were told under these lights. Some very glorious. Some very disastrous. They were rapt listeners to the ones I had to offer. I’ll admit, I did not pay all my attention to theirs, and now I regret it. I would have liked to be able to give to you some of those gifts they bestowed upon me.”

Azraenn shook her head. “Their stories are not forgotten. Their spirits remain. They will be told again by the next to don their armor.”

Druzna smiled. “Yes, I suppose they will. But it is not old war stories that you might wish to hear, Young Vindicator.”

Azraenn stiffed where she sat, as though her posture could even grow any more intensely upright. Only her Exarch ever called her that, a stern reminder of why she had been driven to the Aspect Shrines in the first place.

“They had much to say of all of you. Their students. To call you beloved might, perhaps, be unfitting. I do not know if they could feel such things. But they were proud, that I do know.”

“Of me?” Azraenn asked, lacking the tact to be as subtle in her inquiries as she likely wished to.

“Yes. You especially. Exarch Axorai had nothing but words of criticism for the rest—picking at their flaws and weaknesses, hoping they would overcome them. But she complimented you,” Druzna said. “Quietly, of course. Grudgingly. She said, ‘In all my time watching over the Shrine, I have never seen such envious talent so wasted upon stubborn pride.’ I think she may have even dreaded what you were capable of becoming, should you overcome yourself. You were nearly as good as her already, she all but admitted.”

Azraenn frowned, confusion apparent. “I was never half the Warrior that great Axorai was.”

Druzna smirked, sipping more wine. “You fought alongside Axorai many times, even before you were stationed upon the Howl. The tales Axorai told featured you often at her side, keeping up with the mighty Exarch when no other among your Shrine could. And at the Tower, you faced the Dark Apostle and his fiercest warriors together. Survival was yours, yet it was beyond Axorai. Even with the skill and experience of every spirit with whom she communed, she could not stand against so many Possessed at once, and she was broken.”

Azraenn lowered her head, shame radiant in her movements. “She should have lived. It is due to my weakness that she fell. She held them so that we, the unworthy, could retreat.”

“Absurd,” Druzna spat. “Be silent. You could have done nothing more. You fought like ten Warriors as it was. There was never any question among your peers who would take the place of the Exarchs. You were the only one who believed it necessary to prove your worthiness by challenging the soul of Deivalaga for supremacy.”

“It was the armament of an Exarch! Only by demonstrating mastery over it could I claim to fill such a role!” Azraenn protested.

Druzna sighed. “Great Axorai did not have to risk her body and soul to win the loyalty of a dead legend, slumbering within a blade. It was assured to her by her own broken mind—lost upon the Path—and the armor she wore, inhabited by a dozen mighty and fierce champions, some as old as Deivalaga herself. I hope you understand that even Lady Lynekai was utterly shocked that you would go so far. I have never seen her so distraught. And not only her. Do you know that Eshairr held vigil outside your quarters throughout your foolish struggle, ready to burst in and shatter Deivalaga’s spiritstone at the instant that your strength failed?”

Azraenn flinched. “What?”

“Yes. The captain had no reservations about sacrificing one of the greatest heroines of our homeland if it meant preserving a living life,” Druzna said. “She would have done so simply because it was the right thing to do. Despite your constant belligerence.”

“She has no honor!” Azraenn hissed, rising to her feet. “This is why she infuriates me! She does not respect the Path of the Warrior!”

“Indeed. Never has she respected a Path. The only respect that Eshairr has to offer is to people, not what they call themselves or their vocation,” Druzna growled. “Sit down.”

After a tense pause, Azraenn obeyed.

“Drink the wine,” Druzna ordered.

Azraenn did so, swallowing down the entire glass. Somewhat petulantly.

“Good.”

Druzna rose up and went to one of her shelves, taking a splinter pistol down from it. It was an ornate thing plated with patterned silver, old and tarnished and weathered by many decades of use. Most likely it was made by her hand, long ago, back when she was a reaver of the Sky Slicers. The weapons she wielded now were far more utilitarian, sleeker, and less unnecessarily decorated—no doubt the result of age and wisdom tempering her early ambitions as an armsmith.

“I wanted to tell you this because of what happened in Blackspear Hollow. You still do not realize how much Eshairr values you and your life, even if you are prepared to throw it away over the most petty dishonor,” Druzna said, stroking soft fingertips over the old gun, as if remembering fond and bitter memories. “Of course, it would not have been prudent to burden you with such things before the race. I wanted you at your best, your mind clear. Now I hope that you will find the time to think on what I have told you. You could be truly great, Azraenn. Axorai believed that. Lynekai believes it. Eshairr believes, too. But you have to let go. Let go of all… this, whatever darkness is driving you into madness.”

Azraenn paused, looked down to her own lap, and then nodded quietly. “I understand. I will meditate on this.”

“I value your mind just as much as your skills. Your opinions are always useful in guiding the Howl, even if we rarely choose your methods because there are safer ways of achieving our ends. If you were not here to speak with the sobering clarity of simple violence, we would suffer for it.”

Azraenn arose, saying nothing to such compliments. “Thank you for the drink.”

As her legs lifted her up, however, the floor fell out from under her.

Thud.

Azraenn watched the room spin around her, looking up at Druzna as best she could manage. She continued to polish her weapon for a moment longer before sparing a glance at her fellow officer, twitching on the floor.

“Oh, yes. One more thing,” Druzna said, returning her pistol to its rightful place on her shelf. She turned, walking over and kneeling down beside Azraenn, grabbing her head to steady it and help her focus on Druzna’s pretty face.

“Darling, heed me now if never again. We are comrades, and I am ultimately grateful for what you did to save me from those Covenites. But as the First Spear, I am duty-bound to ensure Eshairr’s safety. Further, she is my friend. If you harm her again, even if it is for some sort of ceremonial war-dance, I will be forced to enact… extreme punishment,” Druzna whispered, her voice as gentle as daggers gliding across the Warrior’s throat.

“Y… you are not… on the Path of the Mariner,” Azraenn struggled to say, alarm in her eyes, convulsing on the ground as she fought to regain control of her rebellious limbs.

“No. A Mariner would disdain poison of all forms, of course. Yet recent events have, shall we say, given me cause to reconsider my Path,” answered Druzna quietly. “Dying and being pieced back together twice in a matter of days is not terribly pleasant, and I pray you never have to endure it yourself. But this is advantageous to us both, hmm? As I am no longer limited by the trappings of a Path, I can do what Eshairr has struggled and, to her great regret, failed to do for you since this journey began.”

Azraenn stared up at Druzna, clearly confused. Druzna sighed, running a hand up through her greasy black locks to slick them back, just one lick refusing to obey, dangling down between her mismatched eyes.

“Eshairr is a Mariner. You have begged her for violence, to show a strength preferable to the adherents of Khaine. In your Path, honorable shedding of blood is your entire reason for being, and Warriors are comfortable dealing each other wounds as lessons. But unprovoked harm to an ally would violate the way of life that she is sworn to uphold. It is no surprise that you have both continuously clashed. It is a flaw of the Paths!”

Druzna gave a small gesture of the hand that expressed dismissal of the entire issue, in essence calling it a hopeless conundrum beyond her concern.

“Without the rightful mediators available, with the loss of Morrigan and the Exarchs dead, there is no way to properly resolve your differences. Lady Lynekai has tried, bless her, but she is also not on an appropriate Path for it. Alas that we do not have an Autarch with us, the common bridge between the Warrior and Peaceful Paths…”

“Might… is everything… in this city,” Azraenn gasped weakly.

Druzna smiled, nodding quite in agreement. “So it is. And I have watched Eshairr struggle with that cruel precept, so I would never call her blameless. But she has not yet led us astray. So long as she remains the captain of this vessel, I will guard her with my life. If you think to harm her ever again, then let this serve as a warning to reconsider. We can understand each other well enough, can we not?”

Azraenn, after a moment’s pause, finally nodded in agreement.

Satisfied, Druzna lifted an injector and stuck it in Azraenn’s neck, and almost instantly the chemical load within dissipated the paralysis. With infinitely more control, Azraenn rolled several feet away as if to escape Druzna’s reach. After a moment more, demonstrating impressive recovery even with the antidote, she slowly rose to her feet, still somewhat shaky, making her way to the door.

“Eshairr… is a good woman,” Azraenn managed to say over her shoulder, before stepping out into the hall.

“Aye. Better than any of us deserve,” Druzna whispered under her breath, after the door shut.

Chapter Text

==Chapter XI: The Banshee’s Howl==

Could it even be called rest? She was not even certain that it was sleep that closed her senses to the world around. Perhaps it was meditation, induced by instinct more than anything. Time must have passed, she knew that, but she could not be sure how much.

A great and terrible storm rumbled distantly, but she did not notice.

All that Eshairr knew was that one moment she was cold and still, and the next, fuzzy warmth tickled up her body. It was so pleasant compared to the chill breeze that, without even thinking, she wrapped her arms around it, then her legs, trying to welcome that living heat into her. Padded feet and dull claws clutched to her arms in response, and something long and thin poked deep inside of her, a discomfort that was all-too-familiar now, sliding in until it struck a place within her belly that made her whimper in annoyance. Immediately, the warm thing on top began to buck into her. The slight pain faded into much greater heat boiling in her belly, a bead of her warm lubricant squeezing out of her plump vulva as its red, warty length pumped in and out.

It felt good, being filled, having that hollowness scratched within. Deep as it went, and then deeper, it pried into her depths as she bit her lip at the momentary tinge of pain, followed by her body adjusting and welcoming the foreign presence. Then, with a growl, it began to slam into her till its hindlegs smacked into her thighs. She bounced under the gyrations of the scratchy thing, its tangled, grimy, knotty fur itching across her bare skin.

In this lurid dream, she lifted her ass off the ground, arching herself so that its alien length could sink much more smoothly into her as it grunted and hissed into her lush breasts. Hot, stinking breaths spilled from its jaws, but as it grinded against her, the heat of their bodies was worth all the disgusting scents in the Eternal City, bringing life back to her frozen bones.

She did not even think of the shame. She simply wished to survive, and enduring this creature’s lusts was merely an inconvenience. Of course, it was only a dream in the end.

Much sooner than she would have liked, something hot splashed inside of her, and Eshairr whimpered at the intense sensations rippling through her from her smooth belly. She knew the feeling well, now. It was thick, heavy, dense, forming a pool within her as it flowed out with quiet little glurps which only her sharp ears could catch.

The essence of an animal. Spilled into her womb.

Isha, even though this was merely a dark dream, she was starting to feel truly ashamed.

They stayed together like that, locked limb on limb, fur against flesh, cock within quim.

Eventually, Eshairr realized—the dream was not ending.

Groaning, she opened her eyes, seeing the green skies above, heart sinking in her chest.

Oh, goddesses.

Slowly, terrified, she lifted her head, looking forward into the glittering green eyes of an overgrown vermin, long whiskers scratching along her breasts as it wheezed its noxious breath at her. It was no species she was familiar with, but what point was there in hoping to catalogue the infinite pests of Commorragh? It was a disgusting, skittering thing with a furry body, and that was all that she cared to know of it.

As it began to hump her again, Eshairr’s head rolled left to right, catching the presence of another.

“Had yerself a nasty crash?” giggled a short, hunchbacked man leaning on a cane just behind her. He wore a tide of wrinkles that sagged his skin as though it were loose on his bones, his hollow and sunken eyes staring down at her with such open Thirst. Slung on his shoulder was her Lasblaster, which he tapped with his cane.

“I see yer eyes. This’s yers, aye. The others was off huntin’ for the dead Scourges, priceless Ghostplate to be had off ‘em. The fools, heeehehee. You can’t loot the deathless like that. They’ll be regenerated soon enough, and they’ll be back for what is theirs. But I found this dropped down below, then had me tracker-beast follow yer scent off it to ye here. ‘Course, he usually prefers cold, dead cunts…”

Eshairr looked down at the xenos-rat again, watching it pant and shake as it thrust eagerly into her moist womanhood, spines on its back flexing up sharply between her fingers as its fleshy tail whipped around behind it, wrapping around her leg.

“Get it off,” she whispered.

“No, no, not unless ye have something worth the effort,” the old scavenger grinned through rotten teeth.

Her hips twisted on the ground as its animal prick plunged into her squeezing slit, trying to pull herself free of its latched limbs, but the creature hissed at her furiously, baring its sharp fangs in the dim light. A warning not to defy it. After all, its master did mention it preferred corpses for mates…

“I… I am the captain of a Wraithship. You can have anything you want. Just get it off me!” Eshairr babbled, horrified at herself as much as this lowly, stinking beast that bred her.

“And I’m Lady Malys,” the withered scab chortled. “No, no. I mean yer stash. Tell me where it is. I’ll go dig it up. And if you told the truth, I’ll come back and get my boy off ye.”

“I do not have such a—a thing!” Eshairr exclaimed, writhing and struggling under the weight of the creature bouncing between her legs, feeling its prick stiffen up so hard that it was likely to ejaculate again, imminently.

The old Eldar grimaced, kneeling down beside her, with stiff knees making that very complicated. Of course their race should never suffer such a malady even from age, but the Thirst could do even this to anyone who refused its demands. He drew a long, curved knife from his belt, razor-sharp despite seeming nearly as old as him.

“Don’t spit that bile at me, girl. You might have fooled most of the gamblers, but I’m old enough to know that true Craftworlders are not stupid enough to descend to such dreary depths as these. Now… the stash. Even the Outcasts build little nests for themselves here. I’ll bet that’s what ye are—an Outcast. Aye?”

Rape again. Death soon.

Could she not even rest for a moment in this hellscape?

She had no ill will towards anyone here. She asked of them nothing. All she wanted was to be left alone. Why could they not see that?

Eshairr shut her eyes, hoping only that she would awaken from this nightmare. That someone else would come and save her. That Ravan would return and carry her away.

“I’ll vein ye, wench! Tell me where it is!”

But she was alone. She was weak. She was only a civilian, walking a Peaceful Path, unsuited to the cruelties of this land.

She slid her fingers up along the mongrel rat’s body, resting her hands around its skull, feeling it pound her harder and harder as her sensual motion drove it into a frenzy of lust. She tightened her legs around its midsection, exhaling slowly, anchoring its lower half in place and allowing it to fuck her even more bestially. Her fingers sank into its neck scruff, finding a tight grasp.

No more. No longer. To Hell with all this place. They had their chance for peace.

Snap.

The vermin froze, its head twisted to an angle that was entirely wrong by her hands, heaving only one final snort across her tits, its last breath expelled.

The bag of bones behind her gasped, falling backward as he scrambled to pull the Lasblaster carbine forward, dropping his blade in the chaos. Not for him the grace of the Aeldari—that had long since been shorn from his soul by the Thirst, and only clumsy, crude movements were left.

Eshairr pushed the dead creature off of herself, ascending, grabbing hold of the wall to steady herself as she rose and turned her cold, cold eyes to the cowering husk of a man crawling amidst the piles of refuse. He managed to ready the black rifle at last, training sights upon her as she walked towards him sluggishly. She had to place her feet carefully so as to not lose her precarious balance, and he had her.

He pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. Of course it did not. This was no cheap death-lantern peddled on the streets of the Valley of Fallen Lords. It was an Asuryani Lasblaster, and its control matrix knew the hands of the unworthy. It would not so much as light his path, no matter how forcefully he handled it. But this old slumdog knew little of the Craftworlds, indeed. All he thought was that it was broken.

A hand wrapped around the barrel, and he blanched, gibbering in terror as she ripped it out of his grip.

“Forgive me!” the old scavenger babbled. “I only do this to survive! You can have all I own!”

The butt of the Lasblaster smashed him across the skull, drawing blood from his torn skin that ran down his face. He stammered, voice caught in his throat. Dizzily, he slowly turned his eyes up to her face, seeing not the eyes of a Mariner that would pity and perhaps even spare him. No, all that there was in her violet eyes was indifferent hate.

“Please,” he rasped, begging all that was left to him. He was too dazed and weak to lie or fight. He was no threat to her.

She raised the weapon and dropped it again, more forcefully. This time, the Lasblaster’s strong frame smashed into his brains, which splattered out in small pink chunks along with squirts of blood, his eyes popping free of their sockets and dangling as his body twitched. As she wrenched the weapon free, he let out a dying rattle that would come to haunt Eshairr to the end of her days.

But for now, all she felt was satisfaction. Hatred, anger, and bloodthirst. She breathed in slowly, gathering herself, wiping the viscera from her rifle with a rag from his belt and tossing the filthy thing away.

Only then did she pause to look at herself. Semen—of a disgusting rat-beast—dripped from between her legs. Her mesh armor was torn from collar to cunt, no longer adequate protection save for the limbs and her back. She was in a poor state, with numerous wounds and injuries sustained since the beginning of the Gouge and not likely to heal quickly. Though having slept for assumedly hours, she felt all the more exhausted. She was cold. She was starving. She would likely die if nothing was done.

Worst of all, the weight of her amulet was missing from her neck. Her blood boiled recalling that Ravan had taken it, the only thing she ever owned of her father. It was the only gift he could bestow to his unborn daughter before the ships of Biel-Tan had carried him away at the end of the mating cycle, never to return. Eshairr had faced no shortage of subtle mockery on Morrigan for wearing her father’s adornment ever since she was but a child. To have lost it now, after all that torment, was a wound to her soul as deep as any rape.

Her weary hands clenched into fists around her carbine, a wave of rage washing through her. Good. She would need this strength.

With bandages scrounged from the scavenger’s bags, Eshairr wound the strong fabric around her stabbed arm to seal the bleed, biting and tearing from the bundle. She bound her exposed breasts tightly with the rest of the wrappings, warming and securing them. Next, she turned to the dead Scourge, untouched in the garbage where Ravan left him.

She tore his Ghostplate armor off strap by strap, donning every piece that would fit upon her body and leaving the rest. Bracers, pauldrons, breastplate, shin-plates, thigh-braces. Though the coverage was imperfect, every plate was another slim chance at survival. What else of his did she desire?

Her eyes drifted to his long, long wings, lined with rows of beautiful raven feathers. One, of course, had already been parted from him.

The chill wind, the distant crackle of thunder, warned her that the cold would only worsen once the rains came.

She thought of the warmth of Ravan’s wings, and she drew her knife. With a spool of thread and a needle from the scavenger’s satchels, she could take that comfort from this fallen foe and grant it to herself.

Her knife fell like a guillotine. The sound of chopping meat filled the air.

How nostalgic, a part of her thought. How tonic that her old skills in mending the Fleetmistress’s worn and torn clothing and dresses would prove so useful here, now.

As she worked quickly to sew herself a garment of his blood and his feathers, the hollow in her gut only grew more agonizing. Her body screamed for nutrition, and she had no rations.

Why? She should not have been so hungry so soon.

Then she felt it. A shock of weakness.

She dropped her half-finished work.

Eshairr rose to her feet, only to stumble where she stood, reaching out to hold the slimy wall beside her just so she would not fall down.

No. No. Goddesses have mercy.

She felt it, now that it was quiet and still. The Yearning’s constant torment had been absent for some time… since before she awoke.

She did not have to guess. Like any other Asuryani, she could passively feel the emotions of others if she lowered her guard and stopped closing her mind to those around her. But this spark she felt was not from the soul of another being around her.

It echoed within her.

Life. Isha had blessed her. Isha had cursed her.

She giggled. Not with joy. At the absurdity of it. Her face twisted in anguish.

Ravan’s child. Her child.

The strength left her, and Eshairr fell to her knees.

Why?

She almost wept, if not for the anger drying up her tears. There were no words which could carry her feelings. So she screamed, shouting into the city around her. She screamed to the heavens above, the hells below, to the dead gods, to She-Who-Thirsts. To the people of the Feeding Trough, attempting to eke out their miserable existences, this screech froze them in their step, halted their hands upon their tools, ended their little gambles and games in smoky dens. The Drukhari had proudly abandoned much of the legacy of their ancestors… but ancient memory engraved into their very souls warned them of the horrors of the man-eating Banshee.

===

The doors of the bridge slid open at her approach, and Druzna walked into the ornate chamber so beautifully decorated with fleur-etched columns, crystal statues, and the hanging banners woven by master hands that commemorated the Howl’s many campaigns of exploration, commerce, diplomacy, and war. In these effigies of fallen and retired captains, the beauty of generations of brilliant guidance could be seen in their pensive faces, their wise eyes, their eloquent mouths frozen mid-speech. There was history in every inch of the bridge, speaking of all the endeavors the ship had undertaken in the millenia of its service to Craftworld Morrigan.

Druzna nodded to the women quietly seated at their stations, Mariners one and all, as well as to those on the Path of Service that tended to the needs of the sailors. She held the rail surrounding the raised platform on which the captain’s white throne rested, hopping up the steps and taking her place standing beside it to watch over the crew’s operations.

For a moment, she glanced down at the empty seat.

“Eshairr?” Druzna asked aloud.

“The Warriors returned an hour ago. They scanned the Feeding Trough from the top to the beastly mouth at the bottom with the Ghostlance, but there were no traces of the captain. We have received no signals, either.”

Druzna frowned. She had watched the race records in the librarium arcanum to find out how it ended, and the last glimpse the Howl had of Eshairr during the race was the moment her jetbike suddenly broke apart. Careful inspection of the transmissions revealed what looked like splintergun shards impacting the Windrider’s chassis shortly before the crash, and a flock of Scourges was caught swooping down immediately afterward from another drone’s angle. These events were unlikely to be coincidence. It was an assassination. As soon as Eshairr fell, the race drones stopped following her. No doubt Nolaei did not want to make her interference so blatantly obvious to the audience—the gamblers who had wagered so much upon Eshairr would have gone to war with her over it, and some would have been formidable indeed.

Druzna had no desire to be the voice of reason. Eshairr was a capable woman, but there was no credible way in which she could have survived that. Scourges were some of the most elite mercenaries in Commorragh. If the Scourges did not kill her, landing in the Flesh-Made-Ruins would have resulted in a grisly fate by what Kuron said. Even if she still drew breath by some dark mercy, then she would be wishing she did not.

Perhaps it would be better to leave that fate unknown, then. The last thing the crew needed was to learn just how cruel Scourges or Haemonculi could be to their prey. That was a twisted lore which could scar even the most jaded of Commorites. She herself could not quell the intrusive thoughts of Eshairr’s head impaled on a spike, taken with crawling maggots, a breeding ground for flies. Or far worse, whatever dark sciences the Wracks would have done…

There was only a dim comfort in the knowledge that Syndratta had so savagely destroyed Nolaei and her supporters that the Widow-Baroness had to be curled up into a wretched, weepy little ball in her fortress at this very moment. It was an old amusement to her how quickly a ruler of the slums, seemingly invincible to the masses, could be brought so low. Such a shame it happened far more rarely to those of High Commorragh.

“Milady First Spear, it has been day and night since the captain disappeared. Does hope at all remain that she returns to us unharmed?” asked Loebeni, the captain’s Scribe, holding her crystalline bionic arm as though she could still feel the old wound that took the flesh from her.

Druzna paused. An impulse unsuited to her rank and duties shook through her jaws, but she kept her mouth shut.

She would have snapped, “Of course not, fool.”

Like a true Commorite. Or a Corsair. She was not entirely certain which she was, now. She knew she should be more reassuring to the women of the Howl—the First Spear was meant to be the foundation of the ship’s morale, the unflinching bedrock that followed the captain to the ends of the void. Hers was the purpose of shoring up the crew’s doubts, even on the eve of war.

“Of course not, fool.”

Druzna’s eyes snapped open, turning to see the armored Kabalite wearing the blue ribbon around her neck who had just stepped onto the bridge and said what should have been said already.

“How dare you?” Druzna growled, turning to the intruder.

Kanbani pulled off her dark, carmine-red helmet, resting it under an arm. “Don’t lie to the soft little girls playing sailors of the stars. You know well enough yourself what chances she has out there, in the wilderness of the Necropolis. She is either dead or she wishes to be. If she is extremely fortunate, she will become like you—a whore for a syndicate powerful enough to hold its own territory.”

Druzna reached up and touched the slave-rune that had always graced her cheek since before her escape from Commorragh, the mark of the Roofrunner clan.

“I should have this removed. My ears tire of hearing the empty opinions of you arrogant dogs,” Druzna retorted.

Kanbani grinned coldly. “You think yourself above us? My, my, you truly do. To think a miserable maggot who could not even thrive in the pits of this city, let alone rise out of them, would grow so proud of her failures as to carry the mark of her whoredom with her as she fled to a pure and pretty Craftworld. And yet when one actually recognizes it, you quail and lash out as though you were stabbed by my tongue. How typical.”

“I should have you hurled from an airlock!” Druzna yelled. “What right have you?”

Kanbani sneered, showing a glimpse of her sharpened teeth. “Do as you please. I hardly enjoy working with such soft children. But I suppose you have no interest in my knowledge, then.”

“Knowledge?” Druzna asked, suddenly reconsidering her anger. There were few things as irresistible to a Commorite as that, and Kanbani seemed exceptionally well-informed. If the Kabalite could provide something of use, she was prepared to bite her tongue and endure her mockeries.

Kanbani shrugged, lifting her arm and tapping into a control panel built into her bracer, checking on the status of a few score active devices. “I bugged your race vehicles as a precaution, but of course hers was destroyed. Instead, my spy drones have been sweeping the darker corners of the Feeding Trough. The shadows whisper of a fire-haired Banshee dressed in a cloak of Scourge feathers—they say that, like the legends, she consumed his flesh and now wears his skin. They say she shot a cook for his food. They say she killed the taxmasters attempting to extort street tolls from her. It is even said a firefight broke out, and she executed all who challenged her and any passerby as well, even those who begged for mercy. But before the gangs could come down on this chaotic force on their turf, she vanished away.”

“Consumed… his flesh?” Loebeni asked aloud, aghast. “That could not be the captain. She would never do such a thing!”

Druzna, for all her jaded outlook, found herself agreeing. “Eshairr is not a woman who would sacrifice every value of justice she has on a whim and just kill streetgoers who keep to themselves. Rampaging murderers are synonymous with Low Commorragh, driven into a corner and seeking a glorious end, or simply intoxicated on a bad batch of the Swiftness of Kurnous. This is nothing of interest to us.”

The Kabalite Warrior blinked at Druzna incredulously. “Are you certain?”

“Why should we believe you?” Druzna growled. “You just admitted to spying on us during the race! Shall we now have to fear your devices watching us aboard the Howl, as well? For all we know, you could be trying to mislead us, draw us away from where she really is. A rescue would take the better part of a day to arrive there—and by the time we find out her true location, they could be unable to reach her in time to help. Hah. Yes, now that I think on it, you are the last person who should be trusted to aid us in recovering Eshairr.”

At that, Kanbani’s cold smile vanished.

“How did it feel, having your skin sliced off by those Hellions in the Hollow?” Druzna asked, striking while the momentum was with her. “Were you cursing Eshairr the entire time as you suffered, blaming her for the torment your mother put you through as penance? Of course you were. The mighty Kabalite, soldier, spy, assassin, tradebaroness—reduced to the toy of some street knivers. Hahahaha!”

Kanbani looked to the bridge’s staff, who now gaped at Druzna in shock at her open hostility and vicious mockery, so improper of her supposed Path. But this was not noticed by the First Spear herself, who continued to laugh cruelly at Kanbani’s former suffering.

The Kabalite, after making this observation, simply shook her head, too baffled to be angry. “What possible benefit would there be in such a betrayal? You serve my mother at her discretion, instruments of her will. As such, you and the other officers are effectively one of her Hands. Do you think she would approve of working to undo the leader of that force when it is still useful to her?”

“Eshairr killed you,” Druzna hissed.

“I have been killed several times. Once or twice by mon’keigh, even. What advantage is there in seeking revenge over every such matter? Shall I hunt down the Ork who snapped my spine and ripped out my teeth to use as currency in his next race wager? Shall I send one of my valuable drones to poison the water supply of a backwater town populated by thousands of Humans, solely because one of them was blessed with the good fortune of his crude death-lantern striking between the plates of my armor?”

“Because your ego will never permit their continued existence,” Druzna smirked. “I know how you think. How you operate. Your kind are all the same.”

“No. Yours is the mind of a petty prostitute, and so you selfishly accuse me of your own failings,” Kanbani retorted disinterestedly. “Tell me, why bother? So much effort, such a ridiculous expense to kill one or two of an endless mass of inferior beings when they’re doomed to short, meaningless lives regardless. I may care more about one of my own kind slaying me, but even then, your captain is not of the Eladrith Ynneas. She is not my competitor. She is my ally. Her success is my success. As it is… she did apologize,” Kanbani said, gesturing a handsign of dismissal of the entire matter.

“And what worth is that to a black-hearted monster like you?” Druzna snapped furiously.

At that, Kanbani could not help but grin widely with her file-sharpened fangs, as if happy to play into the compliment she had just been paid. “Have you any idea how wonderful a heartfelt apology is to hear, hatred and dismay grating through the voice? You speak of our pride, yet you do not know the weight of pride surrendered? It seems, even now, you carry the sickening crudeness of the streets in your heart. And elsewhere, too. After all, you are so eager to fellate that mutant you have brought aboard at every chance you get.”

Gasps spilled out across the bridge, for the accusation—even if it was merely a lie—was so foul and disgusting that the gentle hearts of Mariners and Servants could not hear it without feeling ghastly disgust. Fellation was a sinful deed on Morrigan, for it was nothing less than an act of worship to a man and a debasement of a woman. Mentioning the idea in public, even innocently, could see one briefly shunned for the filth of the concept. To be accused of actually carrying such a thing out, with so foul and disgusting a being, no less…

Druzna’s mismatched eyes widened, grabbing the crystal rail tightly, half-ready to leap over it and brutalize their Drukhari attache. But the confidence in Kanbani’s posture warned her that, even unarmed, she was not to be challenged lightly. After a pregnant pause to reconsider her chances, Druzna relented with a scoff, throwing up a hand in a crude gesture. Instead, she used her other, more diplomatic resort. “You are banished from this ship. Begone.”

Kanbani shook her head disinterestedly, stiffly walking out of her own accord before the Guardians could grab her. As she left, she called out over her shoulder. “So be it. I will track down your captain myself. And when I do, I trust that will serve as an adequate proof of your stupidity.”

===

Syndratta’s palace, at the pinnacle of the Pike of Vaul.

Opulent as ever, and unlike the ball before, drenched in silence.

The Archon’s best Elixicants had quickly neutralized the dangers of the psychoreactive toxin in her bloodstream with a rare counter-agent, and ever since, Lynekai had been left here, almost utterly alone in one of countless lounge areas within the vast temple to Syndratta’s glory.

Of course, all attempts to leave and return to the Howl had come to an early end. Effortlessly cordial Kabalites dressed like princes and princesses would emerge from seemingly nowhere and escort her to a different room to dazzle her with the endless delights and treasures Syndratta had on display. They were fine company—astonishingly so, in fact. Their graceful, keenly knowledgeable conversation could lull an Aspect Warrior into a placid calm, or captivate and enthuse an old Seer to childlike wonder with such interesting topics. In a Kabal, idle chit-chat was itself a weapon as deadly as a world-shattering torpedo, and so even the lowest of their ranks honed their charisma to an enchanting edge.

In some chambers there were caged xenos beasts, rare and priceless, the last of their race. In others it was some marvel of sculpture or music preserved for nearly a million years, either the product of Aeldari hands or excavated from the ruins of one of their countless foes throughout the span of time. She was offered wonderful delicacies of food and drink cultivated from the most rare and precious of ingredients, arranged to suit her tastes as a Craftworlder by Syndratta’s elite chefs. Lynekai feigned amazement and fleeting interest in each such distraction, or sampled these victuals very modestly, until the Kabalites were convinced she would be occupied for some time further and slipped away.

But she was no fool. She understood well enough that she was being kept for a purpose, and attempting to force the matter of her departure would end the polite circus of entertainment and pleasure. The best she could hope to do was make herself a nuisance enough to draw the mistress out to deal with her sooner rather than later. So she continued to probe the palace itself, wandering about and playing the game with each Kabalite that came out to greet and socialize with her.

“Lady Lurien Lynekai Amagnis, Master Bonesinger of Morrigan. Deepest of pleasures to make your acquaintance.”

Lynekai, inspecting the aged ink and vellum of an ancient Aeldari tome preserved in a potent stasis field, looked up at the one who had just entered the study behind her. Another Kabalite here to dance with her, she assumed.

It was a tall and handsome man this time, his hair as white as snow, skin the color and sheen of polished copper. Glittering rings of precious stones lined his gloved fingers, one hand perpetually tucked in his pocket, and his very stiffly formal suit and jacket seemed to be sewn from black xenos leather underlayed with vibrant yellow Aeldari silks. Other than a diamond stud piercing his sharp ear, his lean, feline beauty underscored the predatory aura he exuded through his shining silver eyes.

Her initial impression was clearly wrong. This was no common Kabalite. He walked in this place as though it were his own domain, and that spoke enough of his identity.

“You are Syndratta’s husband,” Lynekai observed with a note of surprise in her voice.

“The latest of them, yes. Well-deduced. You may call me Shailuth, Dracon and Forgemaster,” he said, bowing elegantly to such wisdom. As he rose back up to his full height, he hooked his cane of Tyranid exobone over his arm and strolled up beside her, glancing at the pages of ancient legend she had been pretending to inspect. “Ah. ‘The Song of Balanei’s First Lament.’ Ascendant in its themes, but the composition is lacklustre. A dry read.”

“Such was the style of the time. The Twenty-Seventh False Romance period held the concept of mighty ideas and flowing passions ruined by flawed expression as one of its central pillars,” Lynekai explained idly.

“Yes. A millenia-long rebuke to Marduke Liethin’s Mastery of the Absolute and the largely embellished damage it did to the poetry of the Empire,” Shailuth agreed, reaching out to close the tome, the Aeldari stasis field tingling against his hand as it rapidly slowed down the normal flow of time within his fingers to a near standstill. He quickly withdrew before it fully set in, which was wise given the potential dangers of having only a single part of the body frozen in time but not the rest. “Still, I often find that poetry written out of an intellectual grudge becomes debased and soulless, even if the purpose was to make it so.”

“Nevertheless, a significant age of our culture, which ought to be preserved and remembered,” Lynekai commented.

“Indeed. But for the moment, I believe there may be far more interesting things to waste your time with. Would you not agree, my lady?”

Lynekai looked to him, seeing his polite smile. It seemed he had seen through her efforts to conceal her boredom and worry.

“Then am I right in assuming I do not have the Archon’s permission to depart?”

He nodded. “I am sure she would apologize for the delay. It is just that she has become engaged in a lengthy council with her mistress, among other obligations and necessities that must be dealt with.”

“Her mistress. You refer to the Overlord of the Obsidian Rose, the Queen of Splinters, then?” Lynekai asked.

He gestured to signify truth. “When Aestra Khromys asks for a meeting, one does not refuse. There are no matters more important within the affairs of the Obsidian Rose.”

Lynekai nodded. “Should we of Morrigan be concerned?”

Shailuth chuckled. “Normally, I should lie and insist that she is quite secure. But you are a Seer. There is little point in bothering. So here is the truth: If you worry that my wife’s power may seem tenuous at times, then concern is entirely rightful. Her rank is a perpetual walk along the edge of the mountain peak. She has many allies, who all might become enemies in the span of a single spoken word. She has even more rivals—one does not rise to her position without them.”

“Certainly,” Lynekai mused. “Such is the way of this city.”

“Ah, indeed. Nothing beyond the ordinary in what I speak. In particular and worst of all, however, is the irony of our Kabal’s mercantile traditions. Many times, our most valued customers may very well be our most reviled foes, which introduces no end of messy politics.”

Lynekai raised an eyebrow at that. She did not need to read the Skein to understand. He had just tossed her a breadcrumb of the truth out of pity for her quiet captivity.

“But for all that, if you should fear that Lady Khromys disapproves of her, then your doubt is that of a fool,” Shailuth added, offering his arm to the Bonesinger. “Now, come. There are better diversions in this palace than poetry older than Urien Rakarth.”

Lynekai hesitated for only a moment, then accepted his offer by daintily placing her hand upon the outstretched limb. With a pleased nod, he escorted her out of the study and led her down the extravagant halls, past several curtains that served as courteous barriers to kitchens and servant quarters, then beyond several heavily reinforced defensive gates that opened at his approach. No longer were they in the palatial outskirts meant to occupy guests with wonders beyond words. Here was the heart of Syndratta’s estate, in many ways a reflection of her very soul. The hallways grew spartan, lacking even modest ornamentation, simply black steel lit by the uncompromising and efficient red light of Eternal Torches.

Like blood, running down the walls. Dripping from the ceiling. Pooling upon the floor. Washing over Shailuth’s face, his perfectly tailored suit. Drowning the Bonesinger as she passed with him into the darkest sanctum of the Mistress of Blades.

It was fortified beyond words. Lynekai’s runes vibrated at meaningful frequencies in her sleeves as she subtly scanned the inner keep, finding it to be forged from an element that even she, in all her knowledge, did not recognize. The subtle tones of psychic analysis whispering into her bones indicated that they were all but indestructible. Further lined and insulated with thick sheets of precious Wraithbone (grown to her exacting specifications by Morrigan, of course), blackstone, and other highly durable and psychically insular materials, her attempts to study the sanctum with her powers floundered as she crept into this redoubt meant to last an eternity against invasion of all forms.

A noise—a long, lilting scream, faint and muffled—caressed Lynekai’s sharp ear, and she turned her head down the opposite hallway.

“What was that?” Lynekai asked.

“Nothing of concern,” Shailuth whispered. “Come along. I have such sights to show you.”

She ignored him, briskly parting and advancing down the hallway the sound came from. It was not that the sound itself was strange to her. It was the one who made it that was her curiosity.

Many tunnels stretched on throughout this inner keep, full of doors and chambers. But every time she nearly became lost in the crimson labyrinth, the echoing noises reached her and guided her onward. When she arrived at a set of double doors guarded by two armed Kabalites at the end of the hallway, the door wardens held up their rifles to bar entry. Without even pausing in her approach, Lynekai lifted her arm and circled her fingers in the air, her runes faintly buzzing in her sleeves, and both the guards suddenly relaxed—their minds confused by the illusion she had conjured. In fact, so convinced they were that they immediately unsealed and opened the doors to clear her path as though she were one of their highest leaders.

Within lay Syndratta’s bedchambers, or at least one of them. Shaped from grey marble, draped in curtains of blue and black patterns that waved in the constant breeze of the air recyclers, water fountains sculpted from the taxidermied flesh of conquered foes—Eldar, Astartes, Ork, Kroot, Hrud, Enslaver—perpetually poured their contents out of their preserved wounds into small pools, creating a constant melody of flowing water colored like the blood of each species. In the sanctity of deepest privacy, both business and pleasure were conducted here. And it was the sounds of the latter which had drawn the Seer to this place, harboring suspicions of a frustrating truth.

The truth was, Syndratta was not meeting with Lady Khromys. She was being bred.

By a filthy mon’keigh.

Lynekai was not surprised. She was merely disappointed.

The creature she knew as a Sslyth. A species of giant, serpentine alien, humanoid enough to hold a conversation as much as it could hold a gun, their impressive intelligence had long ago been swayed by the siren embrace of sensual excess offered by Commorragh’s masters, large numbers willingly immigrating to become another caste of servile xenos commonly inhabiting its lower reaches. Thus addicted to the decadence of the Eternal City, these beastly creatures were all-too-glad to live as they always had lived, even before the Drukhari discovered and seduced them: serving in the blood-drenched duties of a mercenary. With no aspirations to overthrow or replace their lords, they were ideal bodyguards—for rarely did the aliens desire to harm the hand which funded their lives of sinful indulgence.

Strong as a Tyranid Warrior, ferocious as grox, swift like the wind upon their coiling, snake-like lower halves, bearing four mighty arms often put to use wielding an assortment of deadly weaponry, and not to mention tougher than an Ork. The Sslyth could endure the firepower of an entire squad of assassins, slaughter them all in an instant, and secure the escape of their master without fail in the face of overwhelming odds. There were few Archons who did not employ at least one of these xenos warriors in their Court, for even the Living Muse himself approved of their fearsome skills and dark loyalty.

Though inevitably, with all the deviancy in the highest circles of Commorragh, there was likely no shortage of Archons who had enjoyed the other… talents of these creatures as well. Twin, big, hard, spiny pink talents, Lynekai noted, a dark flush creeping across her ashen face.

This particularly huge and vicious specimen of his kind held her up in his four sleek arms, two scaly hands clasped around her thighs to suspend her, two more wrapped up around her beautiful, pale breasts, constantly kneading and squeezing them powerfully, too huge and soft to fully contain in his massive grasp. With the strength of a bestial alien, Syndratta seemed as light as a feather, effortlessly lifting her and tugging her back down on the incredibly long and thick and solid pillars of alien cock rising from where his humanoid torso joined with his snakelike bottom, her tight Eldar slit and powerful, round, shapely rear struggling to contain his twin girths even as he forced her down lower and lower and made her stuffed passages beg for mercy he would never grant.

Oh, the depth-stretching agony of his endless lusts must have been both awesome and terrible, but Syndratta did not whine and cry like a dying maiden. No, innately radiant with the bountiful beauty of Isha and hardened, sculpted by millenia of glorious murder, her magnificent form glistened with the burning sweat of satisfaction, bouncing against his muscle-bound torso. As he pounded her in the air, she moaned and clutched to his steely arms with her hands, her feet braced around his slithery hips like the limbs of a pale spider climbing the serpentine coils of his lower half, her lips kissing his iron-hard, scaly chest and moaning sweetly as he made use of her irresistible body to pleasure himself.

It was ugly and intense. It was messy and… beautiful.

Lynekai dispelled those thoughts—she knew the Yearning’s thought-twisting tricks well. What she looked at could be called nothing but obscene and shameful. Even so, Lynekai felt the curse of her people scream between her legs with an envy of the Archon. She quieted that jealousy with the observation that Syndratta was going to find herself expressly sore after this, which was nothing to admire.

Syndratta leaned back to simply enjoy being pumped up and down the mighty alien shafts that suddenly began to pulse and throb with visible power. Her xenos mate was driven past his limits after what was surely hours of brutal sex as his sensitive pink thorns scratched in and out of her crushingly tight holes over and over, faster and faster—hissing through his fangs, his long, wet tongue lashing out into the air. He erupted with hot white seed that poured into his mistress so hard that she let out a shuddering gasp, a hand clutching to her own belly, as if she could feel every drop that he fired into her with the force of superior alien muscles clenching inside of his gut. The excess volume of his strong essence exploded out of her, running down his thick cocks, spilling onto the fur rug beneath his twitching serpent tail.

“Ohhh, yesss, lovely,” Syndratta breathed, eyes shut in the most blissful pleasure as he seeded her, two hands wrapping around her throat and denying her any further words or gasps for air. She seemed to squirm at his crushing grasp, but not… unfavorably. The smile on her black-painted lips, the glee in her ecstatic expression, the way she clutched onto him, all revealed the truth: that she loved it when he was rough and claimed her down to her very life, threatening to be the one to finally end her once and for all.

“Ahem,” Lynekai cleared her throat, so much disapproval in just that sound that it ruined the fun of being throttled and inseminated in an instant.

Syndratta’s eyes snapped open, turning her head to peer at the entrance of her bedchamber with an immediate glare of anger. Not so much directed at the Bonesinger, of course, as it was aimed at the mischievous Dracon creeping up behind her.

Lynekai turned to Shailuth, noticing his presence by the reflection of fury in the Archon’s eyes.

Of course, he could have stopped her from reaching this place with ease, or simply called any of hundreds of guards in the area to intercept her. But he did not. She scanned his posture, his subtle movements, seeing the signs of the player of a game. A game in which she was but a piece. She did not need to read the emotional currents drifting out of his soul or his thoughts to understand that. He made no effort to conceal it.

His handsome face turned with the strength of her bare hand across it, a resounding clap that echoed through the barren fortress.

“Oh dear, it seems that our guest has discovered the truth of the delay,” he giggled sarcastically, grinning.

“Do not use me as a tool to fix your broken marriage,” Lynekai hissed at him.

“Broken?” Shailuth asked, glancing from the Seer to the seething Syndratta, glaring daggers at him as she covered her breasts with an arm just to spite him, as though he had not already seen all she had to offer. “No, no. My dear Lady Lynekai, all is as it should be.”

The Archon attempted to speak what would have no doubt been particularly vicious rebukes, but the grip of her alien lover around her neck made that somewhat difficult. She looked at the Sslyth who was completely adrift in animal pleasure, still filling her with his boundless load of spunk, and she kicked him in his serpentine snout. Of course, that hardly bothered such a rugged creature, who could shrug off a chainsword to his scales. Rather, he simply slithered his tongue around her foot, embracing it as just another deviant delight offered by his mistress, eager to please her in his orgasmic reverie.

She almost relented, her own twisted lusts stimulated by his slippery kisses. But then she seized his fingers and pried at angles that the joints of a Sslyth were not meant to endure, and he let out a cry and released her, nursing the pain in his knuckles, displeased and slithering off to a distant corner of the bedchamber to sulk.

Now freed, Syndratta slowly, with some effort, managed to rise into a kneeling stance by leaning against her bed, in rather a state with his semen streaking her belly and pouring down her thighs.

“How, huff, dare you!” Syndratta snapped, still catching her breath. “Look what you made me do! Perhaps I should order Kali’ssn to enjoy you as his supper, hmm? The taste of Eldar roast might raise his spirits!”

Shailuth smirked all-too-smugly. “Not now, dear. The Seer is watching.”

Syndratta reached under the frame of her bed, drawing a splinter pistol from a concealed nook and aiming it at her beloved husband. “Let her watch. It will be a good lesson!”

Psssh-ink.

A splinter of deadly venom sailed just beside Shailuth’s face, and, undisturbed, he reached up and dusted that shoulder with casual indifference. “Take a bath, love. You stink of alien.”

Lynekai was swift to make her exit from the bedchamber, sensing that warning shots were not the end of the argument. She was wise enough to recognize when a married couple needed privacy and space.

“Wait!” Syndratta yelled after her. “Accursed husband—look what you’ve done!”

Lynekai did no such thing. Enough with these games. She refused to simply stand around and feign politeness when her host would rather mate with a disgusting alien than bother explaining why she was being kept. Even a hostage in High Commorragh deserved more respect than this. She left the squabbling spouses behind, shaking her head.

===

On the streets of the Feeding Trough, all went about their lives far more peacefully than one might expect in Commorragh. Much wealthier than lower districts like the Deep Burg, this usually only brought with it far more powerful gangs and syndicates. But the ones which reigned here were not half as independent and ferocious as they feigned. For despite the Valley of Fallen Lords proudly proclaiming itself free from the dangerous influences and games of High Commorragh, this was—as any reputation or rumor in the City Eternal—only a shard of the truth. The Coven of the Extolled Malignancy had worked its craft in the deepest depths of this place since long before the Fall of the Five Kabals, its blood-soaked laboratories and hidden sub-realms only ever mildly inconvenienced by the mass destruction of that war and its hideous end.

Yes, those of the Valley could say they knew no masters, defiant and arrogant to the last, but even the lowest Kabalite knew of the cancerous influence of the Extolled Malignancy and its silent harvests of the populace of so-called freemen in the night. So it was anywhere else in Commorragh. One could defy the iron and lawful grip of the Kabals, one could ignore the desperately needed fonts of pain provided by the Wych Cults, but none could turn their backs upon the Covens and their twisted arts.

Still, the days were rarely as violent as elsewhere in the Valley. With the Extolled Malignancy’s presence ever-felt by the numerous pseudo-religious cults they fostered among the populace that sarcastically pretended to worship the Flesh-Made-Ruins as a sort of dark god, there was an eerie stability provided that other parts of the Lordless Valley never enjoyed. Slaves and pain were plentiful here. Sacrifices to the Hungering Flesh below were a daily celebration gleefully funded by the dark artisans lurking amongst the foundations. Even the servant caste enjoyed a strangely sanguine lifestyle bouncing from toil to club to gambling den and back, resulting in what might even be called a blissful cycle of torment and ecstasy.

Just so long as they did not look beyond the hollow façade.

She wiped the rain’s bounty from her helmet’s dark lenses as the storm softened, the drizzle now only trickling down the spires around her. Her carmine-red armor, nearly as dark as obsidian, molded sleekly to her body such that its weight was as natural as a second skin, drew no shortage of wary glances from the people here as she passed by. Though more tame than the anarchic ilk that lurked in the other districts of the Lordless Valley, even these dregs fingered their weapons to see a lone Kabalite among them. Inevitably, whatever passed for a street gang discovered her presence, skulking out from their hovels and stalking her as she walked towards the coordinates of the first reported sighting of the fire-haired murderess.

A food stall. One of an uncountable many strewn throughout the streets of the Trough. It once prepared and sold roast Razorwings, grilled Haemovores, vermin meat, a variety of cooked insects, and anything else its master could scrounge up or hunt, according to the runes scratched into the stall’s metal signage. Its owner was hours dead, and without his protection, all its ingredients had been pilfered by starving onlookers long ago already.

Kanbani knelt by the rain-sodden corpse first, pressing at the holes shot through his chest with her fingers. They had burned themselves shut—the kiss of a death-lantern. Some might assume that a weapon which cauterized the same wounds it gouged in its foes was an inefficient one. Nothing could be further from the truth. The burns reached far deeper than simply sealing the obvious blood loss, huge chunks of flesh fried and ruined in the area surrounding the wound, leading to heavy internal bleeding as well. The deadliness could not be understated.

Despite such proven effectiveness, lasweapons were relatively uncommon in Commorragh compared to the far more ubiquitous splinter tech. A lasgun could roast and burst an organ it penetrated, but a splintergun could melt every bone at once, or turn someone’s blood to acid, or cause a swelling of muscles and tissues that rapidly became outright explosive. Most importantly, one could opt to dose the target with a poison that would make their death as slow and painful as possible, relishing it, feeding the curse much-needed torment.

Kanbani patted his pockets. He had already been ransacked, and it was impossible to tell if it was the killer or anyone else who did so.

Motive?

Robbery was as common as wealth was scarce in Low Commorragh. Debts could not be avoided, only carefully managed and warily navigated. Many were forced to violent extremes to escape the impending danger of a slave collar.

Defense. Perhaps he tried to poison her. Cause enough to be ventilated. Perhaps he even succeeded, partially. Many toxins could change one’s perceptions, induce hallucinations, drive one into a berserker fury. It could even be an unexpected reaction to an aphrodisiac, if he hoped to coerce her by inducing a state of desperation.

But in her experience, barring the most impoverished and desperate districts, where any food at all was a blessing, these little enterprises would never dare sell a bad meal—there was a limit to the casual malice of the city, and any cook who actually did use dangerous ingredients or poison their product at leisure would face immediate retaliation for it. Better to build a name of quality and trust… then few would look their way if a particularly despised customer dropped dead every now and then. After all, anyone could have poisoned that meat. Anyone.

The stall was old. Its owner, too. Both had survived an impressive length of time trapped in a dead-end occupation. That was indication enough that he was unlikely to risk his hard-earned reputation and his life on randomly poisoning a customer for the thrill of it.

The gang was approaching her, now, seeing her as distracted and weak as she studied the scene of the crime. They did not know she had eyes behind her, hidden high above. Winged Eyes.

She rose slowly, keeping her back to them as they drew their pistols, scattershots, daggers, sickles, and whatever other trash weapons they had managed to acquire.

“Skulking rats. Always watching furtively, thinking this your territory, even as you cower from your true masters. What did you see here?” Kanbani asked, turning her head to speak over her spiked pauldron.

The would-be headhunters flinched, paled, and two of them bolted right away without the advantage of ambush on their side.

Pt-chang pt-chang.

Like a blur of darkest red, she whirled, drew, and put a splinter in each of their spines with her handgun. Their blood boiled, dribbling out of every orifice, screaming in agony far worse than what the cheap venoms of the depths could ever accomplish.

The remaining recidivists wisely dropped their weapons when confronted with a gun pointed their way by a Kabalite. They were forced to listen to the dying suffering of their comrades as Kanbani slowly, patiently walked up to them, boots splashing through puddles left by the rain, staring into their eyes through the dark irises of her helmet.

“I should thank you for coming to meet me. Saves me the trouble of dragging you out into the light, one by one,” Kanbani said to them, holstering her pistol. “Tell me what you know. Now.”

The first one shivered, then spat on her armored greaves.

A mailed fist crushed the heavily tattooed woman’s windpipe, and the recalcitrant ganger collapsed, unable to breathe. Suffocation brought a swift and miserable demise as the others looked on, wide eyed. They were able to see the weeping regret in the eyes of their struggling companion, and there was no better way to learn that harsh lesson.

With that example set, Kanbani rested her arms together behind her back and paced around the two left. “Spare us the insipid defiance. It is a simple question. What happened here?”

“Woman shot him,” said one of the gangers, quicker than his fellow to realize the only chance they had of surviving this encounter.

“Why?” Kanbani asked.

“Don’t know. She just walked up to him. He turned to greet her… it was like she took it as an insult, seeing his eyes on her. Shot him down for it,” came the answer swiftly. “Then she took some food, uhh, a bag of it, and left.”

“What was her appearance?”

“Hair like fire. Cold eyes. Fierce expression. Cloak of black feathers. White armor beneath, with black plates strapped over. She had a rifle and a knife.”

“Where did she go?”

The men trembled, despite their best efforts to appear tough.

“We did not see, milady,” answered the quiet one next. “There was the rain. And she was fast.”

Kanbani sighed disappointedly, reaching out to hold this one by the shoulder as if about to say something important. As he stared into the darkness of her carmine helmet, he gasped at the blade that sank into his gut. She yanked her dagger free and wiped it clean on his shirt, then let go of his shoulder. Without her support, he crumpled, clutching to his wound with a groan of agony. He would live, most likely, if he reached aid in time.

“We saw where she came from!” babbled the other criminal, pointing to a stormwater gully down the road.

Kanbani glanced that way. “Very well. Go. I will find you if I have further questions.”

The only unharmed ganger bolted, leaving his comrade to bleed out and crawl, desperately, begging his so-called friend to help him, then begging anyone to help him. Of course, both were terribly misfortunate regardless. Anyone who bowed to the questions of a Kabalite in the Valley was a dead man walking. Even in this toothless district.

The alley, lit mostly by the crackling neon signs of brothels advertising their services, was one of many places that most Troughites avoided, for many who wandered into the quiet cracks between civilized areas did not return. But she was not like the feckless bugs that infested these low spires, advancing into the forlorn place resolutely.

A Winged Eye dropped down to her shoulder, latching onto her pauldron with its mechanical limbs as its micro-skimmer deactivated. The small, mostly ornamental wings attached to its orb-like chassis folded together as its scanner-scope narrowed and gazed deeply into the alley’s shadows. What it saw was projected directly into the visor of her helmet.

There were figures in the darkness, four of them. Kanbani was not the first interested party to arrive, it seemed. She took the Shardcarbine strapped on her shoulder and pulled it forward with one hand, barrel at the ready, but not aimed directly at any of the dark beings she approached.

She already knew without even activating the multi-spectra scanners in her drone. Their warped silhouettes in the dark said enough of who they were. The true lords of this domain: Wracks.

The Extolled Malignancy.

They stood over a number of corpses, hardly even noticing Kanbani as she neared, stepping over piles of dross. There was a large vermin-beast, its neck twisted to a deadly angle. There was an old Troughite, his skull collapsed and brains dribbling down into his lap. And upon a pile of garbage, there was a butchered cadaver, which seemed to have once been a Scourge by the handful of dark feathers and discarded Ghostplate still scattered around it.

“Were you lot hungry?” Kanbani joked dryly, moving her finger to the trigger of her carbine.

“Not at the moment. It is the Morrigan who appears to have developed a taste for Scourge flesh,” said what had to be the Acothyst, turning to her, shrugging to adjust the way his long coat of Aeldari leather hung from his hunched back. His copper mask seemed to be damaged recently, but had been welded back together to cover up his undoubtedly disturbing face. Kanbani had met many Wracks in her life. These were among the ugliest, with their overgrown chests ripped open by steel claw-braces to permit throbbing tumors to feast on their blood supply.

“You are certain that it is her?” Kanbani asked.

“The Feeding Trough is ours. We watched the finale of the Gouge Sanguine with many eyes. We saw it all,” answered Leather-Coat, dark fluids pulsing through the translucent wires embedded in his scalp. “The Scourges of Nolaei sought her life. They failed, for the Fallen Hawk had his own designs upon her. She fell to this place, surviving narrowly. Then her savior became her tormentor, such as it always is in Commorragh.”

Kanbani peered at him and the others. Wracks rarely cared to bother with vapid lies. More often they enjoyed the subtle art of half-truths, twisting their words as much as they twisted their bodies. But this seemed to be actual, genuine honesty, as far as she could tell by the unspoken gestures passing between them.

Tension flowed into her frame, her limbs tightening with primed power.

“Where is she?”

“We do not know. She has gone far,” said Leather-Coat flatly.

Kanbani moved her free hand to the grip of the pistol on her belt. “You want her.” It was not a question. It was simply an observation.

Leather-Coat shrugged, spinning around on his thin and atrophied legs like a dancer’s twirl. “Ahh. Yes. We have made an incredible discovery from samples of the Craftworlder we mended. Within quick experiments to determine the progression of the Thirst, the mark of a another curse altogether revealed itself! A malediction of lust rather than pain. A new cancer of the soul, heretofore unstudied by all the great fleshcrafters! An opportunity which cannot be ignored.”

Kanbani turned her head, seeing a Wrack with white chem-tubes in his scalp drawing a long, jagged blade from his belt. It was ostensibly an oversized surgical implement, but in the hands of Covenites, it was just as deadly as any weapon.

“Now we search for a proper living specimen, as mere pieces of tissue cannot bear such a curse, only show the signs of its effects. The Master has much he wishes to study from it. Sadly, the only one within our reach is the Morrigan. But we have ways of making a single subject last through all the experiments we have for her.”

The Winged Eye on her shoulder scanned the other two Wracks, the four-armed one lifting a Liquifier up and spraying the deceased dreg to dissolve him into raw organic compounds, useful for fleshcrafting as much as medicine. As Four-Arms quickly vacuumed up the oozing life-essence into a large, fleshy sac on his back, he rigged his device ready to fire again shortly. A long-tongued Wrack likewise ran her wet muscle over the contours of her Ossefactor as if in a gruesome imitation of a kiss, slowly turning it towards Kanbani.

“We have watched you, as well. We know what you are, Dronemaster Assassin. An agent of espionage suits our needs. If you find her for us, we will reward you handsomely,” said Leather-Coat, crossing his thin arms together.

Of course. They were honest because they were making her an offer. An offer that she could not refuse.

“My allegiances do not belong to you,” Kanbani said sternly.

“Disregard them.” Or die, he failed to mention.

“Killing a Kabalite means war.”

“Only if they find the corpse!” hissed Long-Tongue. Bold of her. But not worth pressing the matter, for the moment.

Kanbani stepped back, turning halfway around. “Though I am obligated to refuse, let us part on amicable terms. Anything else would be a waste of energy better spent on our respective pursuits. Do you not agree?”

“If we both seek the same soul for our own causes, then we are competitors. Thus, we have no incentive to remain cordial,” said Leather-Coat.

“You speak as though we are equals here. But this is our domain. We do not fear the Obsidian Rose, yet your forces have much to fear,” White-Mane added. “Any attack on our holdings means facing the entire Valley coming down upon you. A nightmare not even Aestra Khromys would dare face.”

Though he was often the more level-headed of their little cadre, he had not considered his words as carefully as he should have.

Kanbani exhaled, slowly, like the mighty breath of a Dragon. “Oh. You speak of what Lady Khromys dares.”

The groan of steel dragged against leather. Clicks of triggers. Flashes of light, constant, stuttering. The buzz and hum of her weapons firing, pouring toxic rain.

A beam of bone-twisting light sweeping through the alley, narrowly dodged with a dive to the ground. A sword-like scalpel swinging down at her from the other side, caught on her armored bracer, her Shardcarbine swiveling over to cut him in half with hypersonic shards of poison.

She leapt from her back onto her boots, splashing runoff around the alley. Then more shooting. More. More. More. Blood spraying from Wrack torsos punched full of a hundred holes, hyperpressurized blood flows gushing like red mist.

One or two splinters would rarely be enough to kill a Wrack, so innured to pain and injury, so tolerant of so many poisons. So she riddled them all with enough spines of crystal venom to slay a Void Whale, and when they slumped against the alley walls, she kept firing until both pistol and carbine clicked dry, thousands of slivers emptied in under a minute, barrels smoking toxic fumes.

She paused then, only for a moment.

Long-Tongue twitched.

Kanbani leapt on her, chopping her head from her shoulders with her dagger and hurling it down the alleyway, panting like a wild animal.

“Well,” Leather-Coat grumbled, his bleeding body limp in the corner, a wheezing pincushion of poison. “Most inconvenient. But we will find her nonetheless. You only delay the inevitable. Beware, Assassin. I have never seen the Master so… curious. So excited. His boundless obsessions have turned to your quarry. Yes, I fear he is willing to overturn the entire Valley and burn it all to the foundations if he must. If you are wise, you will leave and wash your hands of the matter before the fire rises. Let him have what he desires, and many annoyances will be forgiven in the ecstasy of his research.”

Kanbani ejected the smoking, emptied venom cartridge in her pistol, which flipped up into the air and clattered on the ground as she slammed a fresh one in its place and racked the firing rail, walking up to him. “Tell your Master: Come and get her.”

“As you wish. But beware, young Kabalite,” said Leather-Coat, chuckling darkly. “For he may just do as you suggest.”

She lifted her boot and dropped it like a sledgehammer down on his skull.

Crunch.

===

Exploring the inner keep proved significantly more interesting than wandering the outer palace.

Oddly, no one came to divert her back to the guest areas, nor did the patrols passing in the halls stop her. Shailuth had likely extended his personal permission to her, and if he had not revoked it, then it seemed she would be allowed to continue her roving. If nothing else, it was a better salve for boredom than ultimately vapid conversations with endless socialites.

The rooms here were mostly of a practical nature, more akin to what would be found throughout the rest of the spire. Storage. Armories. Barracks. Lounges. Gymnasiums and training ranges. Syndratta’s personal army of Kabalites drilled to no less exacting standards than the ones that Lady Khromys set down for all of her order to exceed, at pain of a gruesome and torturous death to serve as an example to the rest. All Kabals were at heart a union of paramilitary force, and only the most exceptional Commorites were welcome to their ranks. That the Obsidian Rose trained themselves even more obsessively than their peers produced what were among the deadliest soldiers in the galaxy.

Of course, for her palatial guard who served as one of her favorite raid contingents, Syndratta hand-picked only the most disciplined and trustworthy of her men and women. In exchange, she granted them an elevation of prestige over the rest of her Warriors that dwelled, trained, and labored in the sprawling, spiraling fortress-city of forges beneath her palace. As with most Kabals, special duties gradually evolved into just another tool of social snobbery, with such groups often adorning themselves with titles that, while not a formal rank, served as a distinction of higher power and purpose.

As such, this elite guard had taken to calling themselves, with sneering arrogance, the Smoke Wardens, in reference to that which rose above and beyond the ever-burning fires of the Forge-Warrens. As a token of the mistress’s favor, and a nod to their self-chosen title, the Wardens were allowed to adopt the true void-ebon shade of Syndratta’s armor for their own. This set them apart from the common rank and file of the Obsidian Rose, who donned carmine-red that was still dark enough to be mistaken for black by the untrained eye.

But there existed an even higher place in Syndratta’s personal hierarchy, occupied by a gathering of those among her servants who had thrust themselves nigh-totally into the dark thrills of blows that shook bone, strikes that spilt blood, clashing with their foes in the noble, joyous, and harrowing havoc of close quarters combat.

Lynekai glanced through an automated door that opened as she passed, seeing them for the second time since their initial meeting at Syndratta’s ball.

The Squires Obsidian.

She saw them training, awed by their dazzling displays of grace and skill with a variety of weapons. Each individual Squire faintly resembled an Exarch of the Aspect Shrines—the mindset and lifestyle of fearsome Old Warriors, devoted entirely to war—as they clashed with each other in their practice matches. Each was clearly driven by single-minded thirst to surpass their peers and become one of the dreaded Sword Sybarites that commanded the Squires into battle, their influence and authority equivalent to any Archsybarite of the Obsidian Rose.

The fine arms and armor of the Obsidian Rose were so greedily sought throughout Commorragh that even the simplest Splinter rifle produced by their forges was a glorious prize to a lesser Kabal. Wars were fought over the right to an Obsidian Rose weapons contract. Even more wars began in the desperate effort to offer up enough booty to cover the treasury-shattering prices it demanded all-too-rightfully. The wargear of the Squires, then, could only be called the envy of the Obsidian Rose.

Lynekai glanced down the hall, seeing many more doors marked with the same blade-rose symbol that marked their powered armor. They had an entire wing of the palace devoted to their most extravagant needs and desires. They lived like champions, waited upon hand and foot by the finest slaves, training day in and day out to perfect their skills in personal combat and torture. There were other strange and exotic specialists among them, of course, like adepts of the Lhamean Cult founded by Yaelindra long ago, but all who joined the Squires were required to demonstrate their worth in a challenge to the first blood with Syndratta herself. Few among them could boast to have won. None dared claim to be able to repeat that victory.

Or so the Seer had been told, during one of the many conversations she had held with who, she suspected, may very well have been Squires themselves in the guest wing of the palace.

Lynekai moved on. At this point, she was no longer certain why she wandered further. Perhaps it was an effort to escape the merry feelings fluttering in her heart when she thought of… the man now stalking her at the far end of halls, slinking from shadow to shadow, thinking that she could not sense him at the edge of her psychic awareness. Or perhaps he knew full well the range of her empathic touch, and he teased her purposefully.

Soon enough, she came to a vault door that was sealed nine times over, with hexagrammic wards carved into its interlaced blackstone-and-Wraithbone mass. The door itself was impressive enough, formidable like to endure a fusillade of fusion rifles, its locks sophisticated as if to baffle a daemon of Tzeentch, and its psychic insulation sufficient that it could repel the Warp powers of nearly anything, even a Farseer, for a time.

As she admired the craftsmanship, footsteps finally approached from behind, familiarly feline.

“Ah, Syndratta’s personal forge. Are you curious to behold what lies within?” Shailuth asked.

When she turned to see him, he was, to her surprise, glowing with the same youthful vigor as before. Perhaps Syndratta found it difficult to harm her beloved husband after all.
“She let you live?” Lynekai asked.

He smiled warmly. “She said her piece. Now she sulks in the baths. As often she does when she loses an argument. For that, I have you to thank.”

Lynekai frowned. “I wish I had never seen the degeneracies she took part in. I wish you had not used me as you did.”

Shailuth bowed his head slightly, a polite and respectful nod. “I know. It was shameful and uncouth of me. However, I believe it is to both our benefit that she finished her engagement early.”

Early, he said. It was clear enough that they had gone at it for hours, and yet he suggested that they were still only beginning their depraved mating.

Lynekai suppressed a shiver that rose through her spine, the striking images and wet sounds of what she saw lingering at the back of her mind. Even now, the Yearning worked its dark influence upon her, and its power seemed to wax ever greater with each passing moment. The torment was almost enough to wish she had seen more of Syndratta’s perversions with that Sslyth called Kali’ssn.

It truly had been too long since Morrigan’s last breeding cycle.

“Allow me to apologize, then, by showing you what I originally promised. A glimpse of awesome splendor,” said Shailuth after silence passed for a moment.

He withdrew a small wand-key from his suit jacket, waving it in front of the door. Instantly, the many seals responded by twisting until they locked open, the door’s face now a perfect relief of a bouquet of ebony and ivory roses, blackstone and Wraithbone all in alignment. The vault door hissed as hermetic seals opened and atmosphere normalized within the chamber, and then it slid aside.

As if eager to escape her own labyrinth of lurid thoughts, Lynekai entered.

It was a vast interior indeed, larger than even the bedchamber before. But unlike her place of rest, there was no décor here. It was a palace of sweat and toil, spartan and orderly, where Syndratta and Syndratta alone employed her mastery of the forgecraft that had lifted the Obsidian Rose to the very pinnacle of power and influence.

Rows and rows of devices, arranged in a key format by the one who used them in her work. The machinery within was so arcane and advanced that Lynekai could only glean the most obvious functions from their appearance. But among them, there were of course furnaces, anvils, hammers, tongs, protective garb, and other tools, but it was difficult to be certain how these more mundane implements played into her work. It would require the Seer, for all her knowledge, months just to learn how to operate everything in the chamber, let alone begin to craft something with it.

“Goddesses,” Lynekai exclaimed. “So this is the means by which my kin produce their armaments.”

“Oh, do not be mistaken. The mass forges burning day and night beneath this palace are not so beautiful and refined,” Shailuth said. “But I daresay only the Queen of Splinters herself may own a more extravagant smithy.”

Lynekai walked to a half-completed power glaive seated upon a workbench, running her hands over the polished silver shaft, caressing the black blade forged from almost mystical alloys she did not recognize. The power field generator at the base, elegant and sleek, was only partially assembled as of yet, faintly resembling the same ones built by the Asuryani. But its inner workings were entirely different, of course, for where Wraithbone could be manipulated and grown by Craftworlders to generate such fields, the Drukhari were forced to use an entirely different technology, in many ways far more complex, to achieve similar effect.

Though her interest at first was in the differences between their respective technologies, it was the quality of the weapon that truly dazzled her. Morrigan would frown upon anyone who called on the name of a male god, but Lynekai could only think of the many myths of Vaul as she beheld and analyzed the craftsmanship. So precise. So careful. Not an atom out of place. All parts aligned to the pattern of death, and though fashioned so crudely by fire and steel, it was as beautiful as any weapon that had ever been sung by the voice of a Bonesinger. Yet it was not even complete yet.

“Magnificent,” she whispered, eyes wide.

His breath caught in his throat. “Ah. I should have mentioned. My wife will slaughter anyone who lays hand upon her work before it is done,” Shailuth warned gravely. And by the tone of his voice and the tense posture of his body, it was no jest. He genuinely feared for her life.

Lynekai waved a hand over the glaive, and all traces of her touch vanished at a brief hum of her runes. “Yes, yes,” she sighed. “My apprentices know better than to disturb my work, as well.”

Only then did Shailuth relax. “I am glad that you understand,” he purred. “My dear, rather than examining her unfinished projects, why not lay eyes upon her greatest masterpieces?”

He gestured to an adjoining chamber, separated from the workplace by a translucent metal barrier. Curious, she indeed followed him.

“Her collection. When we dub a thing ‘priceless,’ it is often by the understanding that it is well beyond the reach of a common Kabalite’s riches. There are many examples of that in the outer palace, as you have come to know. However, when I now call each and every treasure here priceless, I hope that you understand the gravity of my words. Even for an Archon, master of armies, lord of fleets, dread and mighty, all his fortune and holdings may amount to dust in the merchant’s scales compared to the weight of just one of these items.”

He gestured across the shelves, the desks, the chests packed from end to end with the most wondrous artifacts and armaments, some her very own making.

Faced with such a trove, she was lost for choice. What to examine first?

Ornate suits of light powered armor, akin to those worn by the Incubi, but an entirely different design and secret technology developed by Syndratta herself. A variety of rare force field devices, some Syndratta’s craftsmanship as well. Potent blends of venoms that could banish Daemons with a single prick, available both as ammunition and to coat any number of blades with. Vast arrays of swords and daggers, axes and maces and polearms, concealable and overt firearms, and more besides. A lone Huskblade, which could swallow up every single drop of moisture within anyone they so much as nicked. Strapped down as if to prevent their escape, there were even strange, arcane, soul-drinking blades that exuded auras of death and malevolence, repellent to all but the Drukhari who relished the ability to devour the life force of their enemies as directly as possible.

Beside them, there were power weapons so sharp and fell that they could cut through inferior weapons of the same class as easily as they sliced through bare matter. Engraved Hexrifles—with Glass Plague cartridges purchased directly from the Hex itself. Darklight Blasters and Heat Lances of an entirely higher grade of lethality. Gravity Blasters, a barbarism upon gravitational technology which only mon’keigh would normally stoop to, yet all-the-more effective on their mightiest, heaviest war vehicles.

Then, resting upon the softest silk pillows, no less than three nishariel crystals, set into jewelry forged from gold and silver. These fabulously beautiful black gemstones, long ago harvested from the deepest, darkest depths of Aelindrach, drew Lynekai to them. They were a legacy of the Empire, though before the Fall their uncanny properties were relegated more to party tricks and fleeting amusements. Few realized what these bizarre crystals were truly capable of until the darkest of hearts came to hold them in their hands. For only the Drukhari, the lost and the damned, did these precious stones reveal their true nature.

“Ah, yes,” Shailuth mused, walking up to browse them as well. “Shadowfields. Taken from the corpses of her rivals, of course. Even if they were simply regenerated, such a loss cannot be so easily replaced. A delicious blow to their pride, as well.”

An Archon was fortunate to possess just one. Even then, few had the skill and the strength of will necessary to wield these relics—revered almost religiously by all in Commorragh for their power as much as what they truly represented.

“She does not bring hers with her?” Lynekai asked, surprised.

“Not always, no. She finds that they tend to distract from the conversation, draw eyes glinting with greed, and, of course, are not always the most convenient in an assassination,” Shailuth explained. “To say nothing of the dangers of relying on the same defense for too long and growing predictable. That is why many Archons vary their usage with other force fields as well. But at appropriate times, yes, she wears hers proudly. The other two she keeps, for now. One day she might sell them for something of equal preciousness, or she will gift one to an ally or successor. If they prove worthy of it, that is.”

“Do you have one, then?”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “Little need for one. I rarely leave the Pike of Vaul. I find raids unpleasantly disordered and unmannerly affairs, to be avoided whenever possible. I have tasks of equal importance that I must see to—for how will the factories of the spire function without a Forgemaster at their head? Of course, my love does so often beg, lie, and in the end drag me from my workshops to join her. She finds it marvelously romantic, you see, for us to bathe in the gore of lesser races side by side.”

“Ah. How very… saccharine,” Lynekai remarked dryly.

“Indeed,” said Shailuth, as he leaned in closer to her and gently wrapped an arm around her back, his hand clasping over her hip. She felt the warmth of his body beside her, flowing through her robes, seeping to her bones. His touch was… comfortable. Secure.

Pleasant.

“But there is an even greater treasure in dear Supinia’s armory than these,” he said, using the gentlemanly embrace to direct her past the pedestal of Shadowfields.

Seated centrally in the collection of arms and armor, kept within a small and pretty shrine, there was an ordinary Splinter pistol, at rest upon a display. Though certainly of a master’s make at a glance, it did not appear to be formed of rare or precious materials, nor was it especially ancient to suggest a legendary history. Guided to it, Shailuth waited silently for Lynekai to take it in hand. When she did, she tested its weight and balance, turning it over, examining the bolt accelerator, the gauss throat, the hail-fire mechanism, even withdrawing the dummy magazine from the grip that would normally hold a venom core and returning it to its place with a click. All components worked in flawless unison, so elegantly designed and perfectly machined that it felt as comfortable and deadly as a Shuriken pistol in her hand. No, even most Shuriken pistols were not this lovely.

And yet, none of this justified its presence.

“Strange, isn’t it? To see such a thing here, given such reverence among these incredible sights?” Shailuth asked, leaning in and running one of his gloved fingers along the smooth exterior of the barrel. As it slid down towards the grip, his digit brushed gently over Lynekai’s hand. It lasted only a moment, and then, when she did not flinch or retreat, he politely withdrew his stroke.

“Is it one of Syndratta’s make, then? The first handgun she forged to the exacting specifications of the Obsidian Rose? Or the first one sold away, later purchased back for sentimental reasons?” she asked, showing no emotion.

“No. This is among the first of Lady Khromys’s creations, after she was enslaved at the cruelty of Lord Vhloriac, master of the Black Myriad, one of the greatest forces in the City Eternal,” Shailuth explained.

“The Black Myriad? I have never heard of such a Kabal before,” Lynekai said, confused.

He grinned with delight. “Indeed. They exist now only in obscurity, all for the arrogance of Vhloriac, who demanded that just one particular Kabalite in his service bow down and kiss his hand. For her refusal, he banished her to eternal labor in the munitions manufactories in the bowels of his spire.”

“So, the most terrible and dangerous conditions,” Lynekai observed.

“For most who dwell there, it is not the conditions that are to be feared. We are a hardy sort. We can tolerate the lash of a master, the crushing labor of days and nights without rest, and dangerous toil on machines that care not for our safety. We can even endure the… beautiful indignities of passion that come with the collar of a slave, mere property in the embrace of our lords and ladies.”

His innuendo quickened her heart, drawing undesired thoughts into her mind, but nonetheless, she found herself… leaning against him more tightly. Shailuth showed no reaction to it.

“No, the true danger of such a sentence is the unbearable mundanity of it. For nearly all of us, it would lead to gibbering madness in short order.”

Lynekai thought of the Path of Service, a Path wholly devoted to the mundane. A Path of low labor, no great aspirations to be sought, no arts to be mastered. For many of the Asuryani, it was a comfortable and soothing Path to walk, bringing great peace to their hearts. How strange that the people of Commorragh found it so onerous that it drove them to lunacy.

“And yet Khromys survived?”

“And yet, Khromys survived,” Shailuth nodded. “Thrived, even. She threw herself into her toils. Honed her craft. She found ways to innovate with the lowest quality of tools. Soon, even the rich and fat Forgemasters of the Black Myriad watched her weapons sell for twice, thrice, then tens of times what their own creations fetched on the market. More and more of the Black Myriad adopted her armaments as their own. She grew famed throughout Commorragh for nothing more than the sheer artistry of her craft. A mere slave, better known than every man and woman that marched in the armies of the Black Myriad. Truly, shameful.”

Lynekai cocked her head. “Then, how did she escape such torment?”

“Why, of course, a small Kabal by the name of the Obsidian Rose lowered itself, bowed and begged, and endured every humiliation it had to in order to purchase and employ the most pathetic of things from the Black Myriad. Not weapons, not ships, not chems. A slave. A single slave, at that. Young Aestra Khromys. As soon as she was delivered to their holds, they freed her and granted her an entire workshop of her own. An unfathomable concept at the time. But hindsight proves that this was, in fact, among the most brilliant maneuvers the Obsidian Rose has ever executed.”

“The Black Myriad would just agree to sell so valuable an individual?” Lynekai asked, surprised.

“Heh. Lord Vhloriac was quick to agree once he saw how much these lowly knaves were willing to offer him. After all, every popular design Khromys had invented was already his by rights—the forges would be able to reproduce her work forever, even if not to the same degree of quality. But most importantly, he truly did not think her a threat to him. He was convinced he had broken her, tamed her. She would never be free of the stain of slavery upon her soul.”

“Arrogance,” Lynekai said simply, staring into the strong collar of her guide, breathing in his delicate, yet masculine scent as she turned very subtly toward him, her immense breast beginning to press into his strong, lean chest.

Shailuth nodded, showing no reaction to the weight of her softness against him. “Indeed. Arrogance much alike the very same that Vect once corrected among the ancient masters of this city. Like Vect, Khromys did have her vengeance. But where he won it through schemes and plots, she claimed hers personally, a rise to power annointed by the blood of the mighty upon her hands. She arranged a meeting with him, feigning a desire to reconcile, preparing a wide assortment of concealed weapons. When she sprung her assassination, the weapons he had armed himself and his retinue with all mysteriously failed.”

Lynekai nodded knowingly. “The very weapons she forged as his slave.”

Shailuth chuckled. “Yes. Precisely. She butchered Vhloriac and his entire Court single-handedly, ensured his True Death, and made her escape. War might have resulted, of course, if not for the sheer, crushing humiliation of so great a lord being struck down by so lowly a woman. The Black Myriad never recovered from the loss of face, collapsing to internal strife before it could determine a successor to the throne and retaliate, and the Obsidian Rose soon swelled up to seize its place among the Great Kabals. With such a legend behind her and her skills choking its coffers with new wealth, it was not long before Khromys rose to assume Overlordship, with the approval of all in its ranks.”

Lynekai fell silent for a while, examining the pistol again. She could almost imagine the glory of such a moment, one lone woman standing against any number of Sslyth, Lhamean consorts, and other retainers and wicked creatures that might have stood between her and her cowering quarry. Even if their firearms malfunctioned, they were still deadly foes. One would think insurmountable, even, for a single Eldar. All slain with digital splinterguns disguised as glittering rings, mono-edged daggers smuggled in as hair ornaments, a jeweled necklace as a garrote wire, and cold, brutal artistry of fists and feet.

Risking apocalyptic war, risking her newfound freedom, even risking her own undying immortality upon a single chance to destroy the man who ruined her for refusing to bow.

The stuff of whispered fables.

Grisly as it was, such a tale was one that Morrigan would inevitably admire. Perhaps it was one that the High Council had already been informed of, before they struck a bargain with Khromys’s Kabal. Fleetmistress Aydona was likely the one who told it. Maerai and Eshana would have respected it, most likely. The Ranger-Captain and High Farseer might have found it less pleasant.

“And so, the weapons she crafted as a slave, scattered throughout Commorragh by millenia of trade and death, have become a part of that legend.”

“Quite,” Shailuth said, taking it from her grasp and setting it back in place.

“And what of Syndratta? What legends follow her name?” Lynekai asked, curiously.

He smiled. “Her fondness for regaling guests with the tales of her own glories is too precious to me to deny by revealing days gone. If you truly wish to know, my dear, I bid you ask her. Come, let us dine together tonight. Won’t you join me?”

===

The more she searched, the more she grew to despise the Feeding Trough.

It was the lack of blood in the air that most disgusted Kanbani as she swept down in her stealth chariot. Nor were there screams of the weak. Only an occasional crack of a firearm rumbled through the streets, more likely to be target practice or a warning shot than an actual murder taking place.

These people were like sheep. Even the so-called Hellions and Reavers played nice and civil with each other, careful not to trespass upon the territory of another gang, for trouble-stirrers were among the first to be harvested by the Extolled Malignancy in the night. The almost peerless technology of the Aeldari allowed for a utopian existence, but only the Craftworlds actually sought such a thing. The ethos of the Eternal City, as laid down by Vect himself, denied and rejected this. For it bred weakness and complacency, the very same thing which had led to the Fall. And so, theft, bloodshed, and betrayal were not merely a necessity for survival—it was an obligation, for without it, the people would foolishly return to the disgusting peace that had destroyed the Eldar once already.

Of course, the Covens hardly cared. Some in their membership were old enough to be directly responsible for the Fall in the first place, and they had not learned any lessons from it. Whatever made their projects easier would be how their domains were run. In the imbalance created by the lack of the cruel rule of Kabals and the blood-soaked spectacle of the Wych Cults, the inevitable result was this.

A city of cattle, their minds dulled by pleasure, sliding into the Thirst’s debt of pain, waiting for the slaughter. And if what Leather-Coat said was no exaggeration, soon the rest of the Lordless Valley would face the same somber fate.

Kanbani leapt out of the pilot seat of her Venom, her darkest of red armored boots crunching onto shattered glass and crystal scattered across the street below, racking the venom rail of her custom Shardcarbine with a satisfying metallic clack. She looked at the shattered gates of the hab-block ahead—someone had blasted the sealed chains apart with a lasweapon, the metal still faintly smoking.

Her drone network had traced the bloody trail of the murderer rampaging through the Feeding Trough, mainly following the dead men and the commotion of citizenry fleeing to their hideouts. She had only just arrived to investigate personally, and with a single command issued by voice, her Winged Eyes scattered around the area, hovering in nooks and crannies to cover all angles by which others could enter the hab-block. It would not do to be caught unawares from behind, not even in this pathetic realm. Especially not if the Covens were following the same tracks.

She darted into the shadows of the abandoned hab, carbine raised, sweeping every corner. A lesser species would have needed visual aids such as glow globes or auspexes to push into the darkness, but the eyes of the Eldar needed no support. There were corpses here, fresh, lifeblood still wet upon the broken floors. Surrounded by crates of cheap, hand-brewed intoxicants. Chem dealers, small time. A personal enterprise, crude and amateurish. Still, a pleasant surprise. Kanbani almost feared there were no scum with any guts left in this place.

The cheap, mass-produced toxsnappers in their hands proved they had at least attempted to fight back. She counted the splinters embedded in the walls, compared with the amount left in each venom core in each weapon, finding nearly all the poison accounted for. The remaining slivers must have struck the intruder, but clearly did not penetrate her armor. As for the attacker’s weapon, the rare scoring of a stray laser, every corpse riddled with bore-holes, indicated excellent training.

In contrast, the wild sprays of damage gouged into the building spoke of shameful marksmanship, even for street scum. Conveniently, the flow of the splinters stuck in walls and floors formed a set of footprints for what happened. The attacker had rushed from support column to support column, room to room, darting with the tactical acumen of a professional to force her enemies to keep guessing at her location. That the criminals had stayed rooted and not moved to flank or corner their enemy proved that they were soft, unhardened by constant strife, caught unawares by someone who did not hesitate to exploit their lack of initiative and deliver death to them all. A dozen of the cowards died here, most of them in trying to run and exposing themselves to the rifle of their killer.

Kanbani kicked a particular corpse over, seeing the face of a woman frozen in the terror of death, jaws hanging open. She did not seem to be armed.

A footfall.

She whirled, carbine aimed directly at the source of the clumsy step. He was far too slow to react and escape—or rather, Kanbani realized, he could not even see her clearly in the darkness.

It was a human slave boy, crusted with filth, famished and skinny. He stank of unrefined chemicals. So they were using him to mix their narcotics. Reasonable. Such crude chems could be crafted by even a mon’keigh, and a child of that apelike race was a far faster learner than an adult. Easier to manipulate into undying loyalty, as well. Better than risking betrayal from one’s own brewers by using Eldar, who would be eager to ply their secret knowledge to secure better accommodations in a larger, more powerful syndicate.

“Is… is the screaming over? Lady Norvana?” whimpered the pale boy in the darkness. “Is that you?”

His ugly language, one of the thousands of dialects of Low Gothic, disturbed the comforting silence of the ruined hab. Kanbani almost fingered the trigger by reflex alone. But killing him would accomplish little, other than the thrill of it.

“Lady Norvana is dead, and so is everyone else,” Kanbani said to him, allowing the translation module built into her suit to convert it into words the boy would understand. It was not that she did not understand his language—it was trivial to learn. She, like so many other Drukhari, simply found it beneath her to speak it.

The boy shivered, standing there, confused, stupid, seemingly unable to understand such a simple concept as death. An Eldar his age would already be doing the only intelligent thing: bolting while they had the slightest chance at freedom.

“My parents are dead, too.” His voice was cold, dry. The pain of his losses and his servitude had numbed him. She barely felt any suffering at all from his soul. These incompetent fools had ruined a potential source of delightful sustenance. He was not even worth killing, then.

“Yes. I would presume so,” Kanbani answered coldly, taking a fusion lantern from her belt and activating it so that the boy could see the room, further the dead, in hopes that he might fall to tears for her pleasure. But when he saw the ruined bodies of his former masters, not even a quiver of agony rippled through him. He simply stared at them with hollow dismay.

No matter. Perhaps he would be useful in other ways. “Who did this? Tell me what you saw.”

“Red hair,” he mumbled, at least used to answering promptly when his Aeldari lords asked. “She wore a feathered cloak.”

“Did she say anything?” Kanbani asked, though she was already quite certain who it was.

“No…”

That, at least, was certainly unlike Eshairr from what she knew. The Mariner did enjoy her talking.

The boy coughed, his throat as dry as sand, interrupting her quiet analysis. She grabbed the canteen from her belt and threw it at him, striking him in the forehead. He winced, but the resultant trickle of pain that she sensed was only pain alone. No anger at her cruelty. No sorrow at being abused. His youthful heart, which should have been such easy fun, was scarred and dulled to it. They truly had broken him. The wastefulness was abhorrent.

As soon as his dim mind realized what it was, he took her canteen from the floor and, after a moment’s trouble in removing the cap, drank from it deeply. They had denied him even regular meals and drinks, the idiots. No wonder he was so innured to suffering. Her mother would be beyond livid to see such a thing. Yes, if Lady Syndratta saw this, she might even drag these corpses to the Covens and have them resurrected, just to torture them all dead again for their infuriating incompetence.

Kanbani threw something else at him, smacking into his leg. The boy took it and held it up to the light, seeing a sealed ration bar. Eldar were loathe to make use of such things, their sense of taste all the more offended by such artless flavors of packed nutrition, but Kabalites did not always have the luxury of sitting down to a fine meal in the field. He opened it and bit into the crunchy bar without a word of thanks, simply too starved to think. He ate it as if it were delicious. To the unrefined tongue of mon’keigh, perhaps it was.

“There is a chariot outside. Seat yourself in the rear and fasten yourself by the straps,” she commanded. “Obedience is your only salvation. Do as I tell you, and I will delay your demise… for now.”

Not even a hint of fear from her threats. Just an empty heart. The boy, canteen in one hand, rations in the other, stumbled in the direction she pointed.

“Wait,” Kanbani said, opening a pouch on her belt. She strolled over to him, withdrawing and unfolding a personal cloak crafted from warm, layered storm-mesh, useful for concealing her loyalties as much as dealing with inclement weather. As he stood there, watching her with wide eyes, she draped the cloak across his shoulders, reaching well past his feet and dragging on the floor. She tugged the hood up over his scruffy, dark hair and fastened the silver chain at the collar to secure it to him.

Almost completely covered in dark red mesh, the freezing rain beginning to pick up outside would do him no harm, nor would prying eyes recognize that he was even Human. She slapped him on the back to shove him onwards.

Ruined or not, a slave was a slave. She did not know what she would do with him yet. But even clumsy hands could be put to any manner of use, or at least, sold to someone who had a use in mind. If nothing else, her bedchambers had need of a new attendant after the last one, a two-faced Eldar girl from the slums, tried quite unsuccessfully to murder her in the bath… if he learned how to fold her garments correctly, and how to wash her back properly, she might even keep him for a cycle or two.

Kanbani turned, in the light now spotting even more bodies at the far end of the hab interior. The killer would have likely attacked from the first spoken word, if she were still present. Everything else she had done was even more deliberate provocation—the lantern’s light especially. The lack of an assault indicated that her quarry had already departed, unfortunate as it was.

She trotted down to the other side of the building, seeing the doors there stuck open against yet another recidivist body that had been robbed of life by a spray of lasers. Beyond that, in the small clearing at the center of the hab-block, a human child lay on the ground, lifeless. Kanbani approached it, seeing a nasty puncture in the girl’s spine that looked quite like the kiss of a knife. She quickly glanced left and right, imagining how it happened.

Yes, the murderer ran into the hab looking for safety, no doubt dodging gang patrols. Found the chem dealers. Either in panic or in fury, she executed the inhabitants, rushing out here, missing the boy who had likely hidden when the fighting began. But the girl here, no doubt another brewer for the enterprise, was not so fortunate. The clumsy little ape ran for the far end of the atrium, hoping to climb into some storage containers. But her legs were too small to carry her to safety in time.

Strange, though. Craftworlders were among the few in the galaxy who might hesitate to take such a life. It was not as if the child was a threat. She had heard of the Asuryani engaging in the slaughter of so-called innocents, but only when given due cause—such as repaying atrocities visited upon their own people or defending territory from invasion. None that she knew of applied here.

Even then, what Craftworlder in her right mind would see a child across a field and charge at her? She had a perfectly functional rifle. The only reason to bother with a knife would be to be able to feel the life flee her little frame. To hear her final choking breath, to see her limbs lose all strength with her spine severed. Cruel. Sadistic. Appropriate only of a Drukhari. A mon’keigh deserved nothing better in the minds of many Eldar, but the Asuryani did not make a game of bloodshed, not even when they marshaled to avenge themselves upon the Humans.

Kanbani thought of Eshairr’s face during their duel. Cold. Detached. Prepared for battle. More relieved than delighted when her cunning little ploy to win succeeded. A strong and solemn face presented to the Archon in victory, but guilty beneath it. Guilty enough to apologize to her, later, and actually mean it.

It was difficult to compare that with the aftermath now before her.

And where did the killer go after this frenzied assault?

Kanbani glanced over. What used to be jetbikes was now a pile of burnt scrap in the corner of the atrium. The explosion was likely recent, as with all the other destruction left in the wake of this rampage. She walked to the site of the blast, kneeling down and examining the ground. The detonating vehicles had left little craters in the steel, which had also been blackened. In all the mess, she almost missed the faint creases left in the ground, as though the metal had been contorted into little waves by some force.

The telltale ‘tracks’ of grav-engines. Fired at full blast from a passive hover. Most likely the result of one who had never known the manual controls of a Commorrite jetbike accidentally engaging the engines at max power as she tried to teach herself. Then, once she had learned to control it, she came back and threw a plasma grenade at the parked vehicles to ensure that potential survivors could not give chase. A sign of paranoia—these chem dogs were cowards and weaklings, not hard enough for reciprocation to be a concern.

Still, she had gleaned what she needed to. Her target was long gone, now mounted on a vehicle. Kanbani had no way of giving chase without a direct lead on their destination.

However, she could narrow down the possibilities. If it was not Eshairr, she could not guess where this killer would be headed, but it also would not matter. If it was the captain, she would either be headed back to the Howl, in which case her tracking services would no longer be required, or… the slaughter would continue, now aimed directly at an object of vengeance.

Of course.

Kanbani raced back to her Venom, only pausing long enough to be sure the slave boy had properly secured himself in the rider compartment before leaping into the pilot seat and engaging the engines, signaling for her spy drones to dock with the vehicle on her way up. If her guess was correct, and if she could avoid becoming entangled in the local affairs of Reaver gangs trying to prove a point, she might even reach that place before her quarry did. She did not spend her entire share of the bounty of a Realspace raid on the highest caliber of sky chariot, artisanally crafted by the mighty Lords of the Iron Thorn, to lose to a novice on a cheap jetbike with several minutes’ lead on her.

Chapter Text

==Chapter XII: Perdition==

The wet wind whipped around her, but the cloak of feathers kept her warm enough and mostly dry in the skies. She grabbed the last piece of food from the bag tied to her belt—a long, disgusting crustacean thing, its shell cooked brittle, its boiled innards rubbery and slimy against her gauntlets. She only stared at it for a moment, then she lifted its beady-eyed head to her mouth and bit into it, crunching through its crumbling shell.

Tasted as disgusting as it looked. Like swallowing cold, raw flesh. She bit into its legs, then its body, tearing it apart bite by bite. It was miserable, but she ate it all. Because there was a hunger in her stomach that roots, fruit, and bread, the only foodstuffs that the Howl could produce for itself over long voyages, could not salve. Meat had become a rare delight for them, if it could be hunted on planets they visited for resupply or traded for from merchant vessels in the Webway. And now, with a primal hunger that had grown for years, she yearned for it enough to devour even this wretched meal. With the last bite of the roasted creature swallowed, not a speck left uneaten, she wiped the slime from her face with the edge of her cloak, and the acid rain cleansed that.

It was not difficult to find the place. The gigantic signs, blinding even through all the haze of smog from hundreds of miles away, advertised the countless services and lurid delights to be found within the club. That high tower, the former weapon emplacement protruding from the remains of a great spire, could be seen from any corner of the Lordless Valley, so long as one was not lost in the depths far below the surface of the hive of anarchy.

It felt like the blink of an eye before she reached it, riding the storm’s winds, ignoring the freezing rain. Though the vehicle between her legs was crude, it was simple enough to master. By now, she was used to having no direct psychic link to her steed, no means of issuing commands mentally. In a way, it was more comfortable. Quieter. It allowed her to stew in her own thoughts. Daydreams of blood and bone and rent flesh.

When she saw the entrance that they had used once, days ago—the dock for visiting skiffs and barges from High Commorragh, so that they would not have to share a gate with the masses entering from below—she twisted the accelerator in her hand, eyes wide, teeth gritted.

Revenge.

The guards standing nervously at the dock gate were busy lighting up with chems, just trying to keep calm as they watched the Razorjack syndicate collapse around them. They did not spot the jetbike screaming towards them, its thrusters and engines at full burn. They did not even hear her bone-chilling screech, for she traveled faster than her own voice.

===

It had been a long, difficult day, and the strong chemical-laced herbs they smoked out of their rolled cigarettes were maddeningly ineffective in soothing the stress.

After the broadcast of how the Sanguine Gouge ended, after a bloody Archon showed up and destroyed Nolaei’s entire bloody officer corps and all her sponsors without lifting so much as a bloody finger, and after the Widow-Baroness fled back to this worthless fortress, weeping openly as she raced up to her personal quarters at the peak, most of the Razorjacks simply left. They were wise enough to know when to go to ground and become scarce. Their gang had no shortage of enemies, and as soon as they were certain that this sudden collapse was genuine and not some sort of scheme trying to lure them out for an ambush, they would show up in force to bring down whatever remained of the former mightiest Hellions in the Valley.

Not all of Nolaei’s razor-bladed dancers had abandoned their posts, however. There were those who remembered that Nolaei herself was immortal, a rare gift to hold for anyone dwelling in Low Commorragh. That made her a threat—betraying her could mean that at some point in the distant future, if she managed to claw her way back to power again, she would seek vengeance upon them. She had sworn as much before, and not all were so quick to forget it.

In other words, they had to ensure her True and Final Death before they left. That required more than simply killing her and burning the body. In most cases, the pact of regeneration meant that a small piece of her would be kept by the Covens, and if she died, they would use it to regenerate her entire body. It was far faster to regenerate someone from a more complete corpse or at least a larger chunk of flesh, of course, but this ensured that there was always a contingency unless someone stole or purchased that final scrap of skin, finger, or phial of blood from the Coven in question. But there were means of bypassing such protections, though these were rare, prohibitively expensive, and especially forbidden.

One such method was the Glass Plague.

Even mentioning it could strike fear into a Commorite’s heart, for that dark disease once threatened all the City Eternal as it spread like wildfire. Those infected would transmute from flesh to glass in the blink of an eye, becoming statues frozen in a state of death. Worse, this terrifying, highly virulent plague would actually render those who were fully devoured by it impossible to regenerate, by means that were still mysterious to all but the Hex. They were the Coven that had discovered the cure for it, mastered it, and now sold the disease in a more tame form as a weapon to those willing to pay their price.

One of the surviving lieutenants of the gang had come into possession of such a sample of the plague while preparing for a day like this, and he had hatched this plan. As a means of ensuring the loyalty of his co-conspirators, he promised that all would claim a share of the treasury for themselves, which he could only access if he acquired Nolaei’s key. Each and everyone who joined him, then, would become rich as barons and free from consequence. But all this would be difficult until they broke into her chambers, which were of course reinforced enough to hold back a small army for hours.

So until their scrapmasters could cut through the armored doors, they were stuck doing as they always had. Guard duty, presenting an unconvincing front that the Razorjacks were still at least capable of holding their territory still. But time was running out. Sooner or later, someone would come for them.

They just did not realize how soon that was.

Someone’s head disappeared. A hail of blood spurted out from the stump of his neck, coming back down like a grim reflection of the acid raid roaring outside the covered docks.

Then the sonic boom hit them, knocking the corpse over and stunning the rest by the pain of the roar in their ears. Some even went deaf—bleeding from their pointed ears as they stumbled like drunken men towards the heavy guns mounted to the edges of the dock.

Too late. If they had seen her coming, they could have shot her down. They could have lived, and instead she would die. But the cruelty of fate was of no interest to her now.

Her blade vanes carved the bodies of the ones racing towards the guns into sickening halves of bleeding flesh. She flipped her bike in a short loop, corkscrewing back around in an instant, and those few that remained were already bolting for the gate. She slowed and leapt from the vehicle onto the dock as it careened off by its own power, crashing into crumpled, sparking steel against the side of Blackspear Hollow. Rolling against the cold steel floor, she swiveled her carbine towards the last fleeing guards and blasted them down mercilessly. Bracing herself with both hands, she slowly rose up to her full height, staring up at the great fortress of the Razorjacks, her long red hair whipping like wildfire in the storm gusts behind her.

Blackspear Hollow. In all its grim glory, rising high above, looming with ominous presence as the storm pelted it with crackling plasma and roaring rain.

As she lowered her gaze, pausing to dream of the murder that lied ahead, she noticed a power blade, this one a short sword, lying on the ground. It was once held by the guard she decapitated on the first pass, no ornate masterpiece yet certainly functional. But now she took it up in hand, glancing over at her carbine, sensing through its psychic matrix that it was nearly depowered at this point, and she had no spare charge packs remaining.

She let it clatter down beside her. She gripped the sword in both hands, testing its weight with a few strikes, activating and deactivating its power field that crackled when the wind blew over it.

It felt good. It felt right.

Eshairr raised it high and vertical beside her face, the stance of the Roaring Dragon.

And she charged into Blackspear Hollow, screaming with fury, swift as a draft of flame.

===

Only moments later, a shadowseeker Venom swept down onto the docks, hovering passively as its pilot stepped up, a boot on the side, and then hopped down. She quickly swept the area with her shardcarbine, then glanced at the corpses either eviscerated by blade vanes or still smoking out of laser-cut holes. The foreign lasblaster on the ground, next to her, was immediately suspect. She snatched it up and inspected it. The control matrix rejected her mental attempts to probe its lorebanks for knowledge, but there was a small rune of Morrigan engraved on the frame, very subtle.

So there was no longer any doubt.

She tossed the weapon into the pilot seat behind her, and Kanbani almost went straight into the Hollow.

But then she heard booms rumble from far, far below. She whirled around and darted to the edge of the docks to peer off into the districts of the Valley stretching to the horizon.

All had been peaceful before she set down. And in the blink of an eye, now flames so vast that the heavy rain could not douse them were beginning to spread throughout the city below. Explosions echoed all the way up here, bursting like little flares of light and hatred, constant as the crackle of lightning.

Only a facsimile of war. In truth, a massacre. Hellions and Reavers, no matter how vicious, actually wanted the territory and most of its people intact.

But Covens would have different ideas of what to do with new turf. These districts teeming with millions were nothing but trash to them, trash that ought to be cleared. More room for new laboratories and slave pens.

She could feel the nourishing pain of the masses rising. It was like a field of the most exquisite, artisanal agony that surrounded her, even though it was all so distantly beneath Blackspear Hollow. There were no words to describe the enormity of the monstrous slaughter, if it could thrill her from so far away.

The fighting down there, the desperate last stands of thousands of street gangs and crime syndicates fighting for their very lives and, in pitched irony, the safety of the citizenry they normally abused, was rapidly approaching the base of the spire. Without the Razorjacks, without Nolaei, there was no figure or force for the Valley to rally around to push back this invasion. Scattered and uncoordinated, there was no hope for any but the most powerful organizations, who would be quick to bargain for peace as their lessers were simply exterminated around them. Soon, as they had already begun to climb the ruins of the other four great spires, the implacable, merciless armies of the Extolled Malignancy would come for them.

Like demons erupting from the Underworld.

Kanbani glanced up, and her heart stopped in her chest. She drew a magnocular scope from her belt, extending it and scanning through the downpour. This storm was near-blinding, but she could just barely make out the shapes of enormous, spiked monoliths suspended over the Valley.

Ships. Many.

The Extolled Malignancy had deployed its entire fleet. Organically augmented Raiders and Ravagers criss-crossed through the stormwinds, blasting any skiffs or jetbikes that attempted to flee the Valley. Why? Out of pure malice, it seemed.

But that was no surprise. When the leashes of their masters came off, Wracks proved to the universe time and time again the true maleficence that lurked beneath their masks, quietly contained in their twisted minds. When they took to the field, they doled out a thousand times more cruelty and spite than all the torments that their lieges had put them through. Such was the design, the grand idealization of the Covens! Apprenticed to Nightmare Incarnate, and in turn becoming the very matter of dreamlike anguish, shadows and echoes of tortures unimagined. They bore such gifts for friend and foe alike, blessings of agony granted by the tools and implements held in three or four gnarled hands, granting immortality to these wretched mortals in the form of living, weeping furniture and artworks forever displayed within their laboratories, their halls, their bedrooms.

As she stared into the carnage, the rain stopped around her.

Yet the storm continued to rage.

Brief confusion turned to shock. Her heart quivered in her chest, as she realized what had come.

Slowly, she lifted her gaze straight up. She beheld, with a gasp, the blood-wrought behemoth descending from high above, eviscerating the clouds of the tempest with sheer size and power.

Battleship. Flagship of the Malignancy. The Cancer of Stars.

The scope slipped from her hand. She tried to catch it, but her limbs were too shaky. It bounced off of the deck all the way down into the abyss below, which soon radiated with the inferno of destruction and slaughter.

With a shiver in her body as she arose, Kanbani limped back to her chariot, looking to the entrance of the Hollow for only a moment.

Eshairr was in there. If she went in swift like the wind… an easy run, cover to cover, shadow to shadow, in and out, her quarry in tow.

It could be profitable, she knew. If she succeeded, she would become the Kabalite who snatched the prize of a Coven out from under its very nose. It could earn her fame enough to finally rise into one of the more esteemed cadres within Syndratta’s camp, like the Shard Smiths, the Firekeepers, perhaps even the Smoke Wardens. Greater connections meant more respect and more influence on the arms trade, which would bolster the value of her painstakingly crafted forge-product on the market. And she needed it. After getting killed by Eshairr, she was deep in debt for the cost of her own regeneration. The fast ride to power—security, stability, and safety—could ever so terribly tempt those like her.

Or maybe it was her mother’s noble blood pumping through her heart that yearned for the chance of glorious battle, to hone herself against it. The Great House of Sovranaikh bred generals, scholars, and champions without equal for millions of years prior to the Fall, and though Halfborn, she was still an inheritor of that ancient legacy, for what little it was worth in the New Order ruled by Vect.

No. No risks. Not this time. Gunning down Wracks that picked a fight in a deserted alley was one thing. Quiet little skirmishes over insults, testing each other for weakness, even venting a bit of tension between powers—commonplace affairs, rarely consequential. Trying to stand in a Coven’s way while they were on the warpath? The lone Kabalite between them and their prey? Idiocy. The apex of stupidity. Their vanguard would simply roll over her.

Deep within her heart, another, more sagely voice whispered a dark truth that she would never admit. But your mother could fight them. Your mother would win. Coward. This is why she will never acknowledge you.

“Is this where you live?” asked the slave boy seated in the back of the sleek, long chariot.

His voice startled her. She might have punished such a frivolous query otherwise. Part of her wondered if she could adequately express the degree of danger they were in to such a small mind. Perhaps a knife into his eye would serve? No, no. She reminded herself of his vacant heart, how unsatisfying and wasteful it would be, as she gazed into his hazelwood eyes that stared up at her so innocently.

“No,” Kanbani answered, swiftly typing commands into the controller built into her bracer, a drone detaching from her Venom and floating high above to watch the entrance from afar. “We are leaving.”

“Oh.”

She leapt into the pilot seat, flicking every needed switch and turning every relevant dial to awaken the engines from their slumber. As she shot away from the docks, Kanbani activated the cloaking field, the body of her steed disappearing with a crackle of power to become a blur so faint amidst the dark deluge of the storm that there was not even the barest chance of the Covenite swarms catching her. Or so she hoped.

As she glanced at the feed of the Winged Eye she left behind, she saw several Raiders emerge like ghastly wraiths from the misty rain, slowly drifting in to set down at the docks. As soon as they engaged a passive hover, scores of Wracks poured out, leaping over the rails and swarming the gate. If she had hesitated for even a second longer, they would have found her and it would have been over. But that was not what terrified her. They were led by… a skittering, crawling thing which climbed down the side of a Raider.

Her heart stopped for a moment, her blood turning cold in her veins as she watched what she could only describe as a monster of the darkest myths, come to life.

He looked straight at her drone, his countless eyes piercing straight through its stealth field. The living horror ran his tongue along his crooked lips, as if delighted. With a silent gesture from a long, inaeldari leg, one of many such limbs, one of his Wracks ran forward and fired his stinger pistol at the screen, and the transmission was severed forever.

Panting, sweating within her armor that should have kept her in perfect comfort, Kanbani turned around in her seat. It almost hurt her to look. But she had to know.

Yes. He watched her now, as she flew away. He saw her with his uncountable eyes gleaming in the glow of thunderbolts raging. Grinning across his monstrous mouth, large enough to swallow an Eldar whole.

The sole Haemonculus of the Extolled Malignancy. Lord of Tumors. Qa Vanada, the Parasite.

“Don’t look, boy,” she said to the child staring at her from the rear of the Venom. “If you treasure what little is left of your sanity.” At least he knew enough to listen to the orders of his betters.

===

“I have already chanced upon glimpses of dark destinies such as the massacre of nearly every living soul here by the blade of a single swordswoman.”

“A… single swordswoman?”

The disbelief hung in the air long after her words were spoken.

Screams. Not only her own, boiling with fury, but also the fear-stricken howls of the weak. The weak whom she hunted. The weak whom she fed to the blade in her hands, slaking its bottomless thirst for blood.

The fools did not hear her boots drumming the floors as she ascended, circle by circle. They did not realize why the outer guard had fallen silent over the vox. All too busy drowning their fears and doubts in chems left scattered around the entirety of the club, its patrons long departed, now nothing more than a vast, silent tomb. Someone had executed the caged Lightmaster in all the chaos, and so most of the lighting arrays were left off, only scattered and colored lamps casting the occasional neon glare. Now, it was truly Hollow. Their eyes did not catch her until she was already upon them, a blur in the shadows—violet eyes glinting in the light—and in their final blink, she darted past them. When next they opened their eyes, they watched their own heads slide from their necks, tumbling to the floor.

One by one, she gutted and decapitated them. She almost wanted to watch them die, to see the life leave their eyes. But her body would not stop. She raced on and on, cleaving the vaunted Razorjacks in twain as they wandered the abandoned tiers of their own fortress like lost children. Every time her sword cut through another body of her own race, she felt the rush of satisfaction wash over her as their blood squirted onto her face and her cloak of feathers. She enjoyed the heat on her skin, the filth crusting upon her armor. Only her sword remained clean, pure, all that touched its power field simply vaporized in a hiss and a crackle. How fitting, she mused in the twilight between murders. A weapon could never be corrupted or made unclean, even were it to be inhabited by a daemon, for in the end it only served its purpose.

When had she begun to grin?

She reached up and touched her own face, feeling her thick lips, her bare white teeth stuck in the most malevolent smile she had ever created.

It felt good. It was too satisfying. After all this time, at last she could just kill her wicked kin. No longer was she shackled as a mere lamb for them to torture and heap their insults upon. How long had she yearned for this? If only she could continue this forever, slaying and slaughtering every last Commorite. Purging them all. She would gladly do so, even if it cost her life.

Pt-cha-an-ann-an-an-ang!

The rapid stutter of a toxsnapper filled the quiet club, vomiting its venom in hundreds of splinters.

“Oh, Muses!” the scum holding the gun squealed as he watched every last shard miss, the only one left to hold the fifteenth circle of Blackspear Hollow. His legs could not carry him fast enough. There was nowhere to hide. There was no one to save him.

She caught up to him, smelling his chem-drunk stink, her eyes cold with murder. Her blade plunged into his back—the human child crumpled at the bite of her knife—and he screamed like hell. But she howled twice as loud in his sharp ear—the girl cried as she gasped for air, her voice choking with blood, begging for mercy, wailing for her mother—a fatal shriek that might have stopped his heart before the blood loss did.

“Mama! Ma-aama-aaaa! Aaahnnnnn! Nnhnnnhnnn! Hnnnnnhh!”

Her voice trailed into gurgling silence, interrupted by whimpers of fear at the cold darkness which enveloped her little body and mind.

Eshairr staggered briefly as the Razorjack slid off of her sword, stepping aside to clutch at her head, wearied and weak.

A line of splinters traced rain-scattering thuds across her wet cloak, shattering against ghostplate.

The painful memory departed, and she snarled as she turned to face the four Hellions hovering high above on their skyboards, staring in horror at the gruesome sight of their comrades scattered around in bloody chunks. Only one of them, a leader by the rich black cloth painted with Nolaei’s name-rune tied to his armor, had aimed his splinter pod and tried to destroy her right away.

“Monster! Daemon!” babbled one of the Razorjacks, tweaking out on too many chems to hold himself together.

Hearing that brought the smile back. Even if he was clearly drunk on hallucinogens, he was absolutely right about her. And if they thought they were safe suspended so high above, then they were fools.

The only thrill she ever truly loved was that of flight. She flew upon the Hunter’s Howl. She flew upon her jetbike. And now, she would fly by her own limbs.

It was as natural to her as walking. She simply pushed with her legs, and the world descended beneath her. No, she arose. She carried herself into a dazzling salto, twisting half a dozen times as she flipped through the air, green splinters whizzing past her thin frame. The universe turned upside down as she peered into the the man who could have succeeded Nolaei and built a new empire of decadence in her place, if he had survived and escaped with her wealth.

His eyes were a lovely shade of silver, she noticed. Grimacing, he was just barely able to follow the blur of her speed with his gaze. He must have had just the thinnest sliver of time to realize what was about to happen to him, but not enough to change his expression of hatred to terror.

That was fine, she thought. The look suited him in death.

Hisssshhh.

The faint sound of the power field ripping between the molecules of the lieutenant’s throat was almost inaudible amid the shouts of the Hellions and the roar of splinter pods blasting at a thousand shards per minute. She grabbed his shoulder while his head tumbled off, throwing his body off the skyboard as she landed upon the vehicle. The others had not even turned to see the splurting fountain of blood that had become of their master before she was already leaping towards the next of her prey.

It was over in an instant, and one by one each of the dead flopped to the ground, followed by their skyboards drifting back down to hover passively without input from their owners.

Eshairr was not even sure when she had landed, herself. It had all become a haze of blood after the lieutenant died. She simply did what felt natural, and that had brought her back down into a crouched stance, sword held downwards beside her, ready for the next foe to reveal themselves. But none more arrived.

She looked up at the stairs leading to the final tier of the Hollow, and she ascended them step after step, ripping spines of green crystal out of her cloak and out of her armor, letting them tink to the floor and crunch underneath her boots.

There were a couple more Hellions on the sixteenth, and final, tier. They were nearly done cutting through the reinforced doors, the final barrier to her goal, with their crude fusion cutters. The sheering noise of their tools, deafening while both were active, had no doubt prevented them from noticing the violence below.

She waited, feeling the fresh blood dry on her face, in her hair. It was only a few more minutes before they finished their labor, and the huge rectangle they had cut out of the door slid inwards, slamming heavily on the ground with a deafening echo. She raised her power blade, but both men crumpled as splinters slammed through their protective masks into their skulls.

She lowered her sword and stepped through the gap, ignoring the couple more shards of poison that struck her chest and then her arm. It did not take long for the mistress of the Hollow to recognize her face, once she saw through the layers of blood and gore that had painted her from head to toe.

Nolaei was as beautiful as ever, even with her hair fraying and her priceless dress torn. Little surprise as to how she had risen to such an esteemed place in Commorragh. Such allure would see Archons brawling over the right to warm her bed. For her hand in marriage… duels to the death, no doubt.

“Craftworlder? How are you alive? I thought… surely, they should have… no, I don’t care anymore. Why are you here?” Nolaei asked, setting her pistol down on a desk beside the most lavish artwork, a statue of Khaine, burning with constant fire, that was ultimately merely an imitation of his true terrible glory. With such awesome accommodations and decorations, her personal parlor was truly worthy of High Commorragh.

An exquisite ring clattered on the floor, rolling to a stop at Nolaei’s heel. She bent down and picked it up, admiring the dark matter caught within Wraithbone that served as its brilliant gemstone.

“Of course…” Nolaei murmured, returning the beauteous jewel to its place on her finger. “Our bargain. I… I did not even think of it. You… remembered. But your Seer, though she was mine by right, she is gone. Syndratta took her from me. Our deal is negated. You may go.”

“Shall I rape you, then?” Eshairr asked, more to herself, as she idly stared at the former consort of immortals. “It seems only just.”

Nolaei froze for a moment, blinking rapidly. “W-what?”

“Your winged assassins failed,” Eshairr declared, extending her arms wide to display her cloak of Scourge plume. “Did you think it worthwhile, you insipid whore?”

Nolaei grabbed her pistol, but it was nailed to the steel of her desk by a crystal knife, flung straight into it. Disarmed, the Widow-Baroness recoiled with a gasp of terror, backpedaling deeper into the parlor. “Leave me!”

Eshairr walked over, wrenching her blade free from the sparking handgun and the groaning metal of the desk and returning it to the sheath on her hip. This gave Nolaei ample time to trot away on her high heels, escaping into another chamber. But the door that stood in her way was thin, flimsy, effortlessly cut down with the power sword in her hand. Beyond it was a small garden with a few rivers of flowing water, clear as the most beautiful diamonds, running between trees and flowers.

She never understood why Renemarai’s corsairs destroyed the Howl’s arboretum. What wicked impulses could have consumed them in so wonderful a place? But now, as she walked, dragging her power blade along the wall, the power field sparking hotly as it gouged a long scar in the ornate wood and fire caught, she came to see the beauty in such wanton destruction. She kicked precious flowers that bloomed only once a century, stomping them into the dirt. She chopped right through an ancient asp tree which would be considered sacred on Morrigan, letting it crash to the ground, feeling a small jolt of satisfaction from each little profane deed.

Then the momentary distraction passed, and she strolled briskly after her whimpering quarry into the bedchamber ahead.

“Stay back!” Nolaei screamed, having found and drawn her most precious weapon, normally locked away in a display case, to defend herself. A Shaimeshi blade, Eshairr realized, noting the pseudo-religious runes carved into the ornate metal that praised the first and most despised Dark Muse, the Father of Poisons. Unlike far more common venom blades with crude dispensers attached, the dagger itself bled the purest poison the way a flayed body would, seeping from within by the mystical properties of its tainted neoferric alloys.

Like the fang of a serpent, eternally drenched in venom, it lent an unnatural appearance so disturbing that it would only make such weapons all the more prized in a wretched city like this. Every drop of arcane toxin that ran down its length and dripped to the floor below melted through the fur rug, then even poisoned the steel beneath, twisting and distorting it into a brittled state before it crumbled to dust. It was no surprise that legend claimed that there was no being in the universe that could survive the kiss of such a murderous armament.

Eshairr stepped closer. Nolaei retreated an equal distance, holding her beautiful dirk out as far as it could reach. Anyone who had ascended to the Sisterhood of Lhilitu was no one to trifle with, trained extensively in the arts of poisoning, including both subtle and more direct means. With so much as merely a poison needle in hand, Lhamean consorts were considered as dangerous a member of an Archon’s court as any Sslyth or other bodyguard.

But Nolaei stood at the side of none, now. And the extravagant wallflower, once a prize worth warring over, had crumbled into a desperate, wilted weakling in the years since her prime. The Widow-Baroness looked over at a silver bangle shaped like a coiling adder hanging from the wall, leaping over her own bed and seizing it from the hook to tug it up her arm. Eshairr gradually realized what it was by the fabulous shade of darkness within the beautiful gem, cut into the shape of one of the silver serpent’s eyes—nishariel. A black star. A shadowfield.

“Obey me!” Nolaei hissed at the jewel as she grabbed hold of it and attempted to concentrate upon it. “Worthless bauble!”

“That was your husband’s, was it not?” Eshairr asked. She expected no answer, but the question must have cut deep into Nolaei’s pride, reminding her of what she had thrown away by her own two hands. Any attempt at the focus necessary to awaken the powerful properties of the crystal was cut short, and the Helliarch screamed in frustration.

“Yes! Yes, it was his!” Nolaei shrieked. “Damn you, Nureloth! Curse you for all that you said! For all that I stole from you! I can feel your laughter from Hell!”

Her emotional collapse was only briefly amusing. Eshairr drew and flung her knife, and Nolaei flinched—catching it in her arm as she tried to block it with her dagger. The crystal edge bit deep, cutting right through her bone and sinew, stopped only by its crossguard slamming into her flesh and locking the whole thing in place. Screams of ancient rage turned to wails of agony and horror, her eyes locked upon the thing stuck in her arm, a violation of her beautiful body that nearly drove her mad to behold.

“No! No, no more! Please!” Nolaei begged, tears rushing down her face, sinking down the wall, letting the dagger fall from her hands and poison the floor at her feet. “Forgive me!”

Eshairr lifted up her power blade, paused for a moment, and—deactivated the power field.

Nolaei, shocked, looked up at the captain with wide eyes. Mercy was not the way of Commorragh. That now she would be afforded it by this Craftworlder, whom she had nearly murdered, was astonishing to her.

Of course, that, too, was merely desperate hope. She did not realize the dark meaning of the act.

“Thank you!” Nolaei squeaked. “I-I will not forget this kindness!”

Stammering was all too fitting for her lies. Such foreign words did not belong on the lips of the Drukhari. Not even in deceit.

Nolaei held out her good arm, as if begging to be lifted up from the corner.

Eshairr slashed out.

Nolaei looked to her fingers, half of them chopped off, one hanging only tenuously by a single shred of skin. Her precious aurumite nails—worthless.

She giggled in terror. The pain was horrific, but all she felt was absurdity. Only now did she understand the true evil that was upon her.

The power field would have been too clean. A duller blade would make it last.

Eshairr swung the sword up, then dropped it down like the executioner’s axe.

Gash.

She heaved up, and slammed down.

Torn flesh.

Up, and down.

Broken bone.

Cutting, hacking, not an ounce of grace in her hefts.

Blood squirting on the wall.

She tried to lift her broken arms to stop the blade, whimpering, sobbing.

Her nose was shorn off, lip gouged to the chin, broken teeth clattering to the ground, jaw shattered and unhinged as she babbled and wept.

Hissing, panting, snarling, Eshairr broke her. She beat her. She destroyed her.

Her blade embedded in Nolaei’s skull after one final strike deep into her brains.

The Widow-Baroness was no more.

And her eviscerated flesh was in crimson-drowned pieces.

Eshairr stepped back at last, releasing the sword to leave it stuck in her prey, admiring her savage handiwork with frosty eyes.

As she stared at the mutilation she had created, a stinking draft blew through the bedchamber, unnatural and moist.

No, not wind. Breath.

“Hmm! Quite vulgar, but an amusing effort for one’s first vengeance. Such… pure, untainted hatred. Delicious.”

She drifted where she stood, as though lost at sea. Slowly, dizzy with exhaustion, Eshairr turned to see the monsters that had come to her through the flames of the burning garden, as though hell itself could not scald them. They must have crept like twisted shadows, stalking her from one tier to the next, careful not to disturb her obsessed pursuit of bloodshed. Observing her like an animal in the wild.

Wracks. At the center of them, a Nightmare.

An enormous, bulbous tumor the sickening color of melanoma, far larger than any Eldar could ever become naturally. Suspended by dozens of long, thin legs empowered by steel braces and strengthening chems, it was could only be called the bile-raising visage of an arachnoid daemon, hundreds of stolen eyes peering at her from within veiny, pulsating cancer-flesh.

She stepped back, bending down to pick up the Shaimeshi dagger from the ground and holding it out before her. But none of the twisted abominations standing before her withdrew, not even when faced with such a fatal thing.

The Nightmare inched closer on his countless legs, licking his tumorous lips with an enormous, wet tongue. “You are the Morrigan,” he accused. “You have the curse.”

“I am accursed,” Eshairr agreed, bitterly.

“You poor, poor thing,” whispered the monster, giggling in his deep, booming voice. “I have come all the way here for you, you see. I wish only to study your gift. The gift that I know all your people have been given. You struggle with it every moment of every day, I expect? Seeing it as a burden, of all things?”

Eshairr stared at him blankly. Then she lifted the dagger to her own throat.

“Ahh, you are wise to flee my grasp, little bird. I have nothing to offer you but suffering of the most exquisite form in my cages,” the Haemonculus purred, baring his enormous, sharp fangs in some twisted attempt at a smile. “But stay thy blade. In exchange for your singular torment, I can give unto your home something that only one of my inimitable genius could provide them now.”

She paused, sweat rolling down her face as the edge of the dirk hovered the slimmest inch from her own artery, staring into the image of the deepest damnation before her.

He skittered up to her in the blink of an eye, terrifyingly quick, his mouth parting as if to swallow her whole—only to utter but a couple words that shook her to the very depths of her being.

“A cure,” he growled, a thousand eyes and a dozen mouths flaring wide with delight.

===

Kanbani’s cheeky little spilled secret had ruined that night for Druzna.

Rumors did not take long to spread throughout a wraithship. Even quicker when they transmitted by the speed of thought. After learning of Kanbani’s accusation, someone had decided to station Guardians at Kuron’s door. Or maybe the Guardians opted to patrol it themselves. Regardless, Druzna had gotten used to throwing on a sheer, sexy robe and sneaking from her quarters to the bedchamber he had been placed in as little more than a prisoner. Now, that would be impossible.

What truly incensed her was not that Kanbani had accused her of it. As shameful as it was in Morrigan’s culture, her words were true. Sooner or later someone would grow suspicious about her nightly visits so thinly veiled as “interrogation.” Kuron’s first-hand knowledge was useful mainly for the Gouge Sanguine, and it would not be half as helpful if he were prodded for lores of other realms of Commorragh. Outside the Valley, the best he would ever be able to offer them would be hearsay. Inevitably, someone would realize this and ask why Druzna was still visiting him in private. She knew that well enough already.

But Kanbani had spread a twisted narrative. That was what frustrated her—she was prepared to defend herself to the doubts of the crew, but not against a half-truth. The whispers in the halls feared that she had submitted to him, become his toy. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was the one who worshiped her. He had no power over her whatsoever. She was his dark mistress, his dominatrix, and that would never change.

The gutter-walker was too weak to defy her due to the flesh-twisting arts long ago carved into his body. It was unclear what parts of his patchwork corpus were even his own now, the scars all long healed. Only faded marks of surgical instruments, slightly lighter than his already pallid complexion, showed where his tormentors had toyed with the very fabric of his being. His anxiety at her every entrance into his room was fresh and primal, the ingrained instincts of a sad mutant who had learned long ago never to hope for kindness or mercy from any of his own kin, to always hide from sharp eyes and keen ears. Someone so much as walking through the door was like a re-enactment of his worst nightmares, a reminder of his dreadful captivity in the cells of the Extolled Malignancy. That fear was like a musk that tickled her Thirst, even as the virile stink of his sweat and his oversized genitals summoned her Yearning in equal measure.

She loved to pin him down on his own bed by his scrawny arms, feeling him squirm beneath her. Hearing his wheezy whimpers. Able to taste his arousal growing in the air, his body already trained to react with crude honesty to her merest presence, eager for the delights she had shared with him for hours upon hours. It was almost adorable, seeing him slowly open up to her, remembering who she was by her scent and the beauty of her eyes staring with fae delight into his ugly face, recalling the dark pleasures she had given him by all the Thousand Arts of Gea, which had survived in Commorragh in a much-twisted and depraved form, commonly taught to all its prostitutes.

If his unclean cock which was questionably even Aeldari in origin smelled terrible before, the odor only grew twice as foul as it swelled to its fullest length against her belly, the turgid red flesh contrasting heavily with his pale skin everywhere else. But though his body was tortured with the mutations and surgeries of apprentice Wracks, there was impressive power in his manhood if nothing else. Every throb against her bare midriff brought another squirt of translucent precome upon her smooth, fair skin, feeling like fire against her womb. It was even better when she rode him, feeling every inch buried inside of her, stretching her deeply enough to steal the breath from her lungs, like so few of her mates ever had.

Deep like that Daemonette, in that lovely nightmare.

It was strange, she thought. Though pregnant already, despite brief periods of profound relief, the Yearning had only grown more intense in the days since her first lurid sojourn at Blackspear Hollow, as if trying to drag her back to Kuron every chance she had to rest. Was this how it always was with a natural pregnancy for those with the curse?

Druzna had never bothered with the breeding cycles of Morrigan, however few there had been since she joined the Craftworld under Aydona’s leadership. No more than two, if she recalled correctly, but even then they had been quite minimal affairs due to the Council’s desire to maintain near-full battle strength. The second of which was the same one that had brought Eshairr into the universe, and… now she fended off the predictable proliferation of doubts and worries about age, though she had yet to see the end of her first millennium.

The endless seasons of mating required to bring an Aeldari conception to fruition were an annoyance she cared little for—she had become with child many times before, of course, but that was as a slum courtesan or corsair, in both cases able to simply give away the embryo to the Covens like any other Commorite woman, destined to be grown to maturity in their hive-like birthing vats and then thrown out onto the streets to fend for themselves.

Briefly, as she paced back and forth irritably in her quarters, she wondered how all her Halfborn brats fared. She would have had nearly a hundred of them. Most were probably dead by now. Or worse. That was just a fact of life in the City Eternal. One of them, though, might have reached an impressive place in the dark echelons of power. A Kabalite or a Wych, perhaps.

No. It was just a hollow dream, she knew. Seeking for meaning in her own failures by fantasizing about the successes of her children, a terrible habit that had destroyed more than a few families in Commorragh. Even if she had remained a whore to this day and mothered thousands of Halfborn, the chances of even a single one rising into High Commorragh were nearly nil.

That was why she did not indulge her own quiet curiosity and begin a trace of her lineage to find her children. It was entirely possible to track down all of one’s descendants, despite the sheer vastness of the city. The Covens kept detailed track of pedigree for every child born in their care—unraveling their very genetics to determine every generation of parents back millions of years. As such, a Halfborn was always a Halfborn. No matter how proficiently one lied or pretended otherwise, the Covens would know. And the Covens would happily share their records for a small bribe, well aware of how destructive the truth they offered could be, yet caring not.

She shook her head, circling around the edges of her room, fingers tracing over trinkets and tools on her shelves. The longer she dwelled on it, the more her inability to go and see her slave would remind her of—no, she should not call him that. It would make the more naïve women of the Howl deeply uncomfortable, only feeding the embers of suspicion. Somehow, Kuron’s captivity had become her own captivity. Trapped, forced to endure this damn curse pounding in her ovaries, whispering in her womb.

Isha, she wanted him. She could almost taste his stinking meat in her throat, feel his thick, syrupy seed pouring into her belly.

No, she warned herself. It was a delicate time. The rumors would need to die down and grow cold, first, before she could resume their lurid partnership. In the meantime, she should be trying to find Eshairr. But what could even be done? Send out Ghostlances to dive down into the Valley aimlessly, destined to be harassed and eventually destroyed by gangs and raiders looking for easy prey? The only reason they had been able to recover anyone at all was thanks to the Gouge Sanguine providing a lull in the never-ending violence of the locals.

If they had a full squad of Rangers, perhaps, then dispatching them on a search and rescue mission to the city below would have been perfectly reasonable. It would be far from the first time Outcasts had been asked to brave Commorragh’s evils. If any Craftworlders could be trusted to survive in such a brutal place, it would be them. But Tulushi’ina on her own would be in far too much danger.

The Seers, then. Munesha could track Eshairr down with her powers, given enough time, but the Wayseer was in no condition to leave the Howl. Apparently, Munesha had contracted some sort of deadly virus after using a mystical means of saving the Ranger from the very same. The Healers never left her side through the illness, but the word was grim. They said that it was a miracle Munesha was alive at all, and that they, for all their wisdom, may not be able to cure what ailed her. Not without a more experienced mistress of such arts to guide them, like Lynekai.

Lynekai. Yes. Another nagging oddity. Why had Syndratta not released her back to the Howl yet? All attempts to contact the Pike of Vaul to arrange for her transport had ended with the most politely phrased response telling them to mind their own business and that the Bonesinger would return when the mistress was through with her company. Normally Druzna would consider it an immediate cause for alarm, but it did not make sense that Syndratta would do something like take a hostage now, after all this time; she could have done so from the day they first met. In fact, she could effectively hold the entirety of Morrigan itself hostage. She could, at any point, delay or deny the promised counterattack to force the Howl to obey whatever dark whims that arose within her ancient and malevolent heart.

So why was Lynekai’s presence so important?

Druzna crossed her arms together, shaking her head, struggling to outwit the dark genius of the Archoness. What was she planning? Did the Howl need to prepare to flee for one of the Dark City’s countless ports to escape into the Greater Webway? Was it a devilish game of some sort, to see how far the Howl would go to recover its missing Seer? But why now?

As she raced through possibilities, all of them annoyingly unlikely but difficult to entirely discount, Druzna felt a headache building within her skull. Thinking in the twisting skein of schemer’s logic was exhausting, but such was the duty of a commanding officer. How did Eshairr endure this, day in and day out? Druzna was satisfied just to arrange a simple wine poisoning.

Thinking of which…

She went to her cabinet of spirits gathered from across the galaxy, throwing the doors open and browsing idly.

Muses, she needed more than a stiff drink. She would kill to feel a cock inside of her.

And with that invasive thought, she just shut the cabinet again, sighing.

Just then, the door rang with a melodic tone, and Druzna flinched. After a moment’s hesitation, she went to entranceway and bade it to open with a finger caressing the control node.

Tulushi’ina was there in the dim light of the halls, dressed in her loose evening robes. For once, she was not carrying her longrifle. How long had it been since Druzna had seen her go unarmed? It was a heartening sight, if nothing else.

“Greetings,” Druzna said. “Is there… something wrong? A signal from Eshairr?”

“Is it true?” Tulushi’ina asked, her eyes big and curious as she stood there.

Ah.

She paused, uncertain and hesitant.

“Yes,” Druzna admitted. No sense bothering to maintain the facade with the infinitely perceptive Ranger.

She was braced for judgment, but what Tulushi’ina said next stunned her.

“Is he… good?” the petite girl asked, a hand drifting to hold her own belly.

Druzna’s eyes widened. After a moment to gather herself, a dark smirk of delight crossed her lips, grabbing and pulling her into the room. She spun around to swiftly seal the door, granting them the privacy they both desired.

“My, my, my. I might have expected such a question from Munesha, but you? Delicate and gentle as you are?” Druzna purred, guiding her guest over to the standing mirror in the corner of her room, crafted beautifully by a silversmith of Yme-Loc. Facing her own reflection, Tulushi’ina watched as Druzna placed her hand a fair distance above her belly button. At first the unfamiliar gesture was lost on her, but it did not take long for a heavy blush to fill her cheeks as she understood at last: a show of length.

“He would rip you in twain,” Druzna giggled.

Tulushi’ina broke into a light pant, her body shaking against Druzna behind her as the idea rumbled through her.

“I… I can’t bear this curse another moment,” Tulushi’ina admitted. “I have tried so hard… to remain pure. But meditation has become a poor salve for my suffering.”

“Meditation? My dear, in my experience there is only one path open to us for relief,” Druzna whispered in her ear from behind, her hands beginning to travel up the slender girl’s body, pressing into her hips.

Tulushi’ina shivered to feel Druzna’s soft fingers tickling her through her dress, her hot breath washing over her sensitive ear.

“When did you start to feel this way?” Druzna asked in a salacious whisper.

“Before I took the Path of Outcast,” Tulushi’ina whispered, staring at her own graceful beauty in the mirror as Druzna’s hands wandered up to caress her small and perky mounds, her nipples poking through the light fabric of her dress like hints of pink. Every touch made the girl whimper and moan sweetly, so sensitive that it took almost no effort to stimulate her. “I was… a Hand of the Maiden.”

“Oh? That little honor guard worshiping Lileath?”

“Yes. Only maidens, the truly pure, could join. We… we swore to the most extreme oaths of chastity. All of us, for a term of service. Mine… was for half a century. I thought that it could help me master our curse, overcome it like the Stewardesses Everchaste that led us. But…”

“Oh, no. You poor thing!” Druzna exclaimed in a musical tone, groping the girl more viciously as her voice dipped into a huskier, lewder low. “No surprise you wanted off the Craftworld so badly, hmm? And yet you’ve been conscripted as Ranger for all that time, no chance to search yourself properly. How tragic. I see, so that is why you have come here...”

“I… I need help,” Tulushi’ina whimpered.

“Be honest, my sweet dear. What do you truly need?” Druzna asked, sliding a hand down to her belly, forcing her to feel her fingers teasing down between her legs. Just a single, gentle touch through her dress.

She was already soaking wet. Just that smooth stroke over her delicate flower must have sent lightning striking through her spine, because she stiffened against Druzna like she were about to convulse at the sensation.

The girl let out a loud gasp, shutting her eyes, her face flushing as red as sin.

“I need a man!” she admitted. “Any man. Every man. Please… I can’t bear it any longer!”

Druzna flashed her teeth to the mirror in a lurid grin. “Sadly, Kuron is forbidden tonight. Else I would gladly introduce you. But since you are here, I am pleased. Have you ever known the sapphic techniques? I am master of over three hundred of them.”

Tulushi’ina’s face lit up with surprise, turning to look at Druzna over her shoulder, only then seeming to realize how close they were, how the First Spear had been toying with her for deeper purpose than just testing her arousal.

Her lips were so close, she saw with a renewed flush on her cheeks. Painted black, thick and sensual, hanging just barely open as Druzna panted lightly over her shoulder, staring into the girl with obvious desire.

First Spear!

The thought, almost a mental yell, pierced through their boiling tension.

Druzna immediately released Tulushi’ina and walked to the other side of the room, touching the psychic node to answer. She tried not to let her frustration into the emotions of her reply, but it was difficult.

What? she hissed.

The Kabalite has returned! She is requesting to board. Do we grant her that right? Loebeni asked. As the captain’s Scribe, she was one of the ship’s best communications officers.

Druzna was out of patience. Of all the people to deny her relief, it was Syndratta’s spawn once again. Her thoughts must have felt like the edge of a dagger to the officer contacting her, but she was beyond the point of bothering to restrain her feelings.

Does she have Eshairr? Druzna asked.

There is someone in her vehicle… scanners indicate it is a Human child.

Then tell her to… Druzna began, about to hiss out a curse so foul that it would have driven the entirety of the Howl’s spirit core into horrified panic. …begone and stay gone.

She says the captain still draws breath! answered Loebeni. That she knows her whereabouts!

Druzna leaned back, shutting her eyes with a deep, hissing breath of anger. There was no reason to believe Kanbani was telling the truth. But if there was the remotest possibility of it, then she would see it through. No one wanted Eshairr back more than she did.

===

A meeting of the Howl’s high officers was called. She would have preferred to do it in the privacy of the strategium, but only the captain could call for an assembly there—to gather in the strategium was essentially to declare war, a highly ritualized affair which would cause the spirits of the Howl to awaken with hatred and bloodthirst. The gardens were her next thought, but they remained ravaged and unsuitable. Thus, their only remaining choice was the bridge.

Druzna realized that the only ones to arrive were herself, Tulushi’ina, and Azraenn. The rest were either absent or too weak to answer the summons. There was a pang of dismay and loneliness in her heart. Where was Munesha to be the bedrock, the unbending pillar? Lynekai to be the gentle seas rocking beneath them, the voice of wisdom? Eshairr to be their brilliant star, the light which led them onward?

Instead, there was only Kanbani, the spy.

“Do you understand what you have done? Bringing a Human aboard this venerable vessel, and a male no less? You have tainted the very air and the deck on which he walks now!” Druzna growled.

“Your Craftworld’s regressive and idiotic culture is of no interest to me,” Kanbani said flatly. “He is not Human. He is an object, my possession. His presence is irrelevant; just hose the hangar down once he is gone, whiny wench.”

“How dare you!?” Druzna shouted.

“Silence,” Kanbani spat. “I did not wade through the muck of the Necropolis at risk to my own hide just to be berated with the most demented hypocrisy as my reward. Do you want to hear where your captain is, or shall I leave with that knowledge and sell it elsewhere?”

Azraenn stepped forward. “I would hear of what has happened to her.”

Kanbani turned to the Dire Avenger. “She survived the crash, fought off her assassins, and the Fallen Hawk violated her.”

The bridge fell silent. Every woman of Morrigan within froze, abhorrence rushing through their hearts. Rape was a dreaded monstrosity on any Craftworld, but on Morrigan, it had taken on an even greater weight. The disgusting fate of forced submission was one which offended all the women of Morrigan, for ever did it serve as a reminder of the wicked ravages of Seminoth the Virile. When such horrible things did occur, it was often suppressed and instead represented symbolically when the story was retold. To speak of it in a literal sense could do more than just disturb the peace of the public: it might even serve as a dark gateway into more lurid thoughts, summoned forth by the Yearning.

“No…” Loebeni uttered, hanging her head. There was dismayed sorrow, quiet and withdrawn, for a long moment. It was a moment of silence shared by all, out of respect to Eshairr. But this was only the first of the heavy emotions to arise within her, and that which followed was far more intense. Her bionic crystal hand squeezed tightly, slamming into her station, and she lifted her gaze, burning with abject fury for the suffering of her kinswoman, her captain, her friend.

“First Spear, I ask that we seek revenge upon the Fallen Hawk!” Loebeni declared. “Let us take his head and his wings, and nail them to the hull of the Howl, that all who look upon us shall know of our wrath!”

“Calm yourself, Loebeni. We do not even know where he is. Nor do we have the resources to spare,” Druzna said. “If the opportunity arises, then it will be done. Otherwise, we should be careful not to assume that this dronemaster tells us is wholly true.”
Loebeni was not the only Morriganite there to require a moment to calm their anger and compose themselves. Nearly all the bridge crew seemed ready to don their warmasks, arm themselves, and drop into the Valley for swift and bloody retribution. Druzna herself might have indulged in the outrage more, were she not in such a vital role of leadership.

Instead, dwelling on it with detached calm, she felt bile rise in her throat as she allowed the crew time to settle back into their duties. The harsh ethics of a Commorite ruling over her at the moment did not make it any easier to imagine so close a friend suffering so grisly a fate. Despite the apparent indifference to such torments born from having to face them every day, that did not necessarily make her people innured to the idea. When stiff pride was often the only force that kept the denizens of the City Eternal sane in the face of infinite bleakness, any blow to that pride—especially one so extreme—became a horrible thing to imagine. It would only ever be wished upon enemies, and quietly resented when it occurred to an ally.

But Azraenn did not react with any emotion at all. A Dire Avenger was already full of rage every day of their lives; to those like her, this sort of thing was simply another injustice in need of correction, another reason to slaughter her foes. “What happened after this?”

“She slaughtered her way through the Valley. Upon reaching Blackspear Hollow, the captain invaded it,” Kanbani explained.

“Then she is clearly blood-drunk. She fell from the Path, now risking damnation. She must be sequestered to an Aspect Shrine,” Azraenn declared. She turned to the First Spear. “Druzna, it is time to prepare a strike. Eshairr will be retrieved.”

Druzna leaned upon a railing, holding her aching head. “No. I want proof of what Kanbani is saying.”

“Is this really the time?” Tulushi’ina squeaked.

“Of course it is! We are dealing with a Kabalite spy. Only a fool would take them at their word,” said Druzna.

Kanbani exhaled with clear exhaustion, pointing to the lasblaster that one of the Guardians had brought in and set upon a stand. “As I said before, I found that at the entrance to Blackspear Hollow.”

“That only proves that you did find her weapon. It does not prove that she is where you say she is, or that anything else in your story is accurate,” Druzna pointed out, crossing her arms together. “Do you not even have an image of her?”

Kanbani dragged a hand of frustration down her helmet. “I have no time or patience for this. Your captain is worse than dead if you do not act immediately. The Extolled Malignancy has her.”

“That Coven? What? Why? Nothing in this story makes even a modicum of sense!” Druzna laughed. “You must think me a larva fresh from the birthing vats.”

Kanbani walked up to her, staring her down through the dark lenses of her helm.

“You can’t intimidate me, bootlicker,” Druzna grinned, a hand going to the pistol on her hip. “One more word and I’ll have you thrown out, this time for good.”

“Have you ever killed a Wrack before, Druzna ai-Anarandhe?” Kanbani asked.

To hear her own name in the mouth of the Kabalite struck a strange unease into her. It was not as if her name was any sort of secret, but even so, it was… eerie.

“No. Of course not. That would be the pinnacle of folly,” Druzna answered.

“I killed four of them today. By now, they have likely been regenerated. Have you ever met a Haemonculus, Druzna?”

Druzna’s grimace at the idea was the only answer necessary for the bridge. She turned her head, as if in pale disgust.

The Kabalite advanced upon her again, leaning over her, looming with dreadful intensity as she stepped an armored leg between Druzna’s thighs to unbalance and disrespect her. There was no turning away from her now.

“I have. Once to sign my pact of immortality. Once more for every time that I have been regenerated, awakened from Hell to the grinning face of Nightmares and a long kiss with Horror. And now, I met one as I fled Blackspear Hollow, minutes ago. For the Lord Malignant Qa, of the House of Vanada, laid claim to your captain for his experiments,” Kanbani said, pulling her helmet off so that Druzna could see her ashen face, stare into her sapphire eyes, and know that that the Kabalite spoke no lies.

Cornered, overwhelmed, and rightfully afraid, Druzna drew her pistol, pressing it to Kanbani’s belly, between the plates. “Back off.”

“No,” Kanbani growled, a wild gleam in her eyes. “After all that I have done for you, I am owed your gratitude. If I cannot have that, I shall take your discomfort. If even that is denied to me, I will have your life and your blood, and every splinter of venom in your shoddy toxsnapper could not stop me, slum whore.”

The insult to her precious gunsmithing cut deeper than the reminder of her past, coming from one of the Obsidian Rose.

Druzna looked to Azraenn, but the Warrior did not lift a finger to intervene.

“Mistress of the Watch!” Kanbani barked with a twist of her neck. “Look to the Lordless Valley. Show these fools what indolent complacency has blinded them to.”

The anxious Mariner watching from the watch station hesitantly obeyed. She turned where she stood and accessed the ship’s scopes by laying her hand upon the control nexus, only to let out a squealing cry of horror.

“What? What is it?” Druzna asked.

“T-the Valley burns,” she babbled. “Ships… so many ships. Oh, Crone preserve us!”

As she spoke, the domed ceiling projected an image of the destruction so distant beneath the Howl circling in the airspace of High Commorragh, so vast and unspeakable that it was difficult even for the infinitely expressive Aeldari tongue to put it to words.

The great hive of anarchy was engulfed in smoke and plasma fire, raging with hateful suffering from one edge to the other. The living had become artworks of agony, eviscerated to bleeding shreds and yet forced to live through those wounds by dark science. Limbless, skinless torsos were impaled upon long stakes and crosses, crying out in guttering voices not for relief, not to be freed and healed, but to die. Entire families were ripped apart, chopped up, and pieced back together into sickening Grotesques as a twisted mockery of mercy, mother, father, and children all screaming in united anguish as they were immediately put to work gathering the corpses that piled up by the thousands in the streets. Entire hab-spires had been leveled by lance strikes from above, none of their occupants able to flee in time from the power of dark matter crushing their entire home like a tin can.

There were choked screams from the crew, and Druzna and Tulushi’ina quailed and averted their gaze from the endless glimpses of the most foul destruction that they had ever seen. Only one on the bridge stood tall in the face of such horror, her mailed hands closing into fists of profound, righteous fury: Azraenn.

“Look at it. This is on you,” Kanbani growled, staring down into Druzna’s mismatched eyes. “All of this. The captain being taken. Starfire raining from above, razing the Valley to its very foundations. Armies of Covenites and their demented war-abominations slaughtering untold millions for the thrill of it. The blood of every single man, woman, and child that they torture and slay drips from your hands, which shall never be clean again. If ever they were.”

“What madness are you speaking? How could this possibly be my fau—”

She froze mid-sentence. Her body still felt half-alien. Her leg was a stranger to her, still occasionally aching as though the limb that belonged there had been taken from her. Patches of skin itched and stung, her organs felt hollow and mis-arranged, some larger and heavier than they used to be. Even her bones felt wrong in places.

The Extolled Malignancy saved her life. They would naturally take leftover pieces of her for study.

Oh, Crone.

Druzna’s legs gave out from under her, slumping against the rail. What a fool she was, not to realize. The Covens were different from all other Eldar. They, and only they, would find the Yearning a fascinating thing, not something to dread and avoid. This went far beyond simply putting Eshairr in danger. The Hunter’s Howl would be a ripe target to them. No, all of Morrigan could now have the threat of the Extolled Malignancy watching, waiting for a chance to harvest more specimens.

Kanbani withdrew then, giving the First Spear space to ruminate on the consequences of her failures, strutting over to the other end of the bridge and pulling her helmet back on with a click. She leaned over the sensor officer. “Look for the battleship. The Cancer of Stars. That is the one that took Eshairr. There is still time to intercept it before it returns to the territory of the Malignancy.”

Azraenn came to Druzna, then. Once again, the Dire Avenger held out her hand to help her up, just as she had so many times in the Deep Burg. Druzna, fighting back tears, rejected that offer, banging her head against the bars of the railing beside her and curling into a miserable ball.

At the center of the bridge, above everyone’s heads, the domed ceiling flickered from bare Wraithbone into a projection of the space they were scanning. A perfect holo-image of the Cancer of Stars and its escorts hazed into clarity, vibrant and gnarled with thorns of neoferric spires extending from its hull.

Kanbani walked over and pointed up at it. “It is heavily modified from others of its class.”

“Organic enhancements?” Azraenn asked, remembering what she saw of the Raider in the depths, coming up beside her to examine it more closely.

“Correct. According to my contacts, the Malignancy usually strips out the standard control systems and replaces them with organic substitutes that allow for direct interface with the ship itself. A messy imitation of how your pretty Craftworlder ships function,” Kanbani explained.

“Where are they holding her?” Azraenn asked.

“With how extensively they’ve refit it, it is impossible to be certain, but it seems unlikely that they would totally restructure its inner decks. As such, there are two probable locations that Eshairr would be held. Here, in the brig wing, and there, in the cargo holds. There is a high chance that the cargo holds have been transformed into expansive laboratories; to my knowledge, most Covens prefer such a ship to serve as a mobile base. If they are actively experimenting on her, it will be there.”

Azraenn followed her gestures, the systems of the sky-projection adding highlighted points to the image of the ship. “Both are located deep within the vessel. A tactical ingress would face heavy resistance to reach them.”

Kanbani nodded. “There is one fortunate prospect. If the Malignancy converted the crew quarters to smaller laboratories as well, you will be able to search them while fighting to the cargo holds.”

“What of the defenses?” Azraenn asked.

“Disintegrator arrays for point defense, phantom lance batteries mounted on the spine, and twin torpedo launchers slung under the prow. As typical of the class, all anti-ship armaments are configured forwards,” explained the Kabalite.

“Crushing firepower, all directed to whatever crosses their path,” Azraenn observed.

“Enough to crack your vessel in half as soon as they obtain a firing solution,” Kanbani agreed. “Their weapons may be nothing special compared to what some Kabals and Covens incorporate, but with the deftness of their parasitic controls, they will not be easy to outmaneuver. Any battle will quickly become a direct contest of skill between your helmswoman and theirs. Assuming you can avoid being cornered by its escorts, which are heavy destroyers.”

“What of a lone boarding shuttle?” Tulushi’ina suggested, thinking carefully. “Quick, quiet, and unseen until the moment of the strike.”

“How skilled are your pilots?” Kanbani retorted sarcastically. “They have been deploying wings of Ravager gunships to destroy small craft. And it is questionable that stealth fields alone would permit us to slip past all of them. If you were to organize a distraction using sky-fighters, perhaps…”

“We do not have a full complement of fighter craft, as most of them were deployed in the Craftworld itself for the defense against the Great Dragon,” Azraenn explained.

“Then forget a stealth boarding maneuver. Suffice to say, this does not even take into account the rest of their fleet,” Kanbani said.

“It’s hopeless.”

Azraenn, Kanbani, and Tulushi’ina all turned to the First Spear, who had managed to pull herself up to stand by leaning against the railing.

“You can’t fight the Covens,” Druzna said, her voice a low growl. “No one can. You are discussing engaging an entire fleet just to bring back one person. Eshairr is gone. We cannot reach her anymore. If we try, we will only be throwing our lives and our freedom away.”

“We will not just leave her to be tortured for eternity,” Azraenn shot back.

“Yes, we will! Morrigan has made greater sacrifices than a single woman!” Druzna hissed. “Eshairr would want us to protect ourselves, not risk everything for her! The best way of doing so is retreating back to the Pike of Vaul; Syndratta’s protection is extended to all guests in her domain. Not even the Malignancy could touch us there.”

Silence set in over the bridge. No matter how much the others hated hearing it, Druzna was brutally right.

“Could Syndratta fight the Coven?” Azraenn asked of Kanbani.

“She would not attack them unless given due cause, and a single servant being taken by them is not ample enough to be worth the consideration,” Kanbani answered. “More, Mother would rather see us succeed by our own merits or not at all.”

“We have no chance!” Druzna yelled at them, seeing that they refused to listen. “Stop trying to find a way when there is none! That path is closed to us! Not even if we had Morrigan’s entire fleet behind us would I authorize an assault upon the Malignancy!”

“There is no need for so much fighting strength,” Azraenn countered swiftly, pondering it with the cold wisdom of a Dire Avenger—reading the entire tactical situation with detached calculation. “Our goal is not the complete eradication of our foe. We need only retrieve the captain. If we had another cruiser, and an Autarch to command us… no, a single Farseer would suffice.”

“A Farseer?! Are you even hearing me? It does not matter if we had the entire Seer Council aboard! The Covens are implacable and unstoppable!” Druzna shouted, growing furious at the Warrior’s obstinacy which would endanger the entire ship.

“We… we do have one,” Tulushi’ina remarked quietly, as if afraid to make herself heard. “A Farseer. Or a fallen one. Our prisoner.”

Azraenn, Kanbani, and Druzna whipped around to gaze piercingly at the shrinking Ranger. Then, as the suggestion set in, all in the room turned to the First Spear.

“No. I refuse!” Druzna hissed. “My duty is to the women of the crew first and foremost. I will not risk them all upon this madness. Not even with an exiled Farseer to guide us.”

Loebeni stood up from her station, staring Druzna in the eye. “I will fight for Captain Eshairr,” she said.

She was not the only one. Every Mariner and Servant on the bridge soon joined her in standing tall, facing the First Spear. It was a silent proclamation of loyalty, and Druzna felt her strength to defy such a union of courage dwindle away as she looked from one pair of eyes to the next.

At last, Druzna broke. Though she was one of the few there that truly understood the nightmare they faced, she was also a Morriganite. She could not erase the fear in her heart, the terror of challenging the one force in Commorragh that none could defy. But no one wished to see Eshairr returned more than her.

She smiled, half in bitterness, half in warmth. “I see. So this is the will of my crew. If I were to deny it, many of you might just mutiny and run off to stage some foolish plan that would be doomed to fail. Then it seems I have no choice. If I wish to protect my kin, I must lead the charge into battle. Is that not so?”

Druzna closed her eyes, forcing herself to focus. “Very well. We shall begin preparations at once. There is much to do, and the Cancer of Stars will not linger to bask in the burning ruins of the Valley forever.”

===

When the door of her cell opened, the fallen Farseer did not so much as stir. Her gaze remained upon the wall, undisturbed by the intrusion.

“Eltaena,” said Druzna, arms crossed, flanked by Guardians.

The frail, withered woman turned at last, looking at the First Spear with lifeless eyes from beneath long, nappy black hair. They had only ever met her while she was dosed with powerful mind-altering chems that allowed her to make use of her sealed powers. Now, however, without those chems and therefore her psychic gifts, she could be described as a hollow person, devoid of purpose and direction. Nevertheless, her body’s motions spoke not of surprise at their coming, but of resignation.

“You are late,” she said.

A chill rose through Druzna’s spine. “What?”

“There is no need for words. I accept your offer,” Eltaena said. “Collect Renemarai and Leraxi and inform them of the bargain. Renemarai will ask for nothing more than her freedom. Leraxi will ask for that as well, but also the right to duel one of your Aspect Warriors upon the completion of the battle. You may pretend not to know when you speak to them, if you wish.”

Druzna withdrew, a hand going to her holster. This was why she despised psykers. “How can you know this? Do you have an implanted chem-gland?”

“Do you truly believe I could not see at least this far when I allowed Renemarai to march into the undoing of her coterie?” Eltaena asked, sounding sullen and bitter. “I was a Farseer.”

What response could possibly matter to her? Would any words that Druzna might say go unforeseen? Her mind spinning, she chose silence as her answer.

“Druzna,” Eltaena said, still staring off into the wall. “That was your name, yes. I will search for what you desire in the Skein—plans and strategems, destinations and objectives. I promise to show you what must happen for there to be any hope of success, if only a faint one. And to prove that I am trustworthy, I will stake my life and the lives of my only friends upon the attack.”

Druzna nodded. She was about to suggest that herself. She could only hope that, too, was not something she had foreseen.

At last, after all this time, Eltaena finally turned to look at Druzna. “Give me the chems. Please. I cannot advise you properly without the gift of second sight.”

Druzna hesitated. Giving the witch her powers back was cause for some concern, given her loyalties were suspect at best, but the Howl had desperate need of them, and there was little time to think twice. Acquiescing, she held out a hand to the Guardian beside her, who tugged three syringes from her belt and laid them in Druzna’s grasp.

The long, cylindrical injectors contained double doses of Splintermind, a highly prized combat chem that quite literally divided the mind into separate, cohesive wholes, allowing for emotions such as fear and pain to be shunted to lesser shards of consciousness while the primary facet could focus entirely upon tasks such as marksmanship or tactical planning. In other words, it allowed for an unnatural degree of concentration that could turn cheap gunmen into awesomely fearless and deadly infantry. For more elite soldiers, it would induce eerie perfection in both thought and motion, becoming devastating winds of destruction on the battlefield. Beyond that, it was naturally quite valued for improving tradecraft and artwork. But even those seeking nothing more than a mind-bending thrill could enjoy the euphoria of each piece of the mind pursuing a different line of thought—pleasurable and delightful, dancing between a hundred incredible visions and ideas.

“I know that this is not what you were using under Ren, but it is the best I have,” Druzna admitted. “Do you understand the risks?”

Long-term abuse would inevitably lead to the development of split personalities, which would continue to multiply as time went on. Eventually, one would simply become incapacitated by the sheer cacophony of inner voices screaming to be heard. The Covens charged reasonably hefty fees for any surgeries to remove the excess personalities; as to what dark uses they made of the excised mind-shards severed by the brutality of neural tourniquets and the searing agony of crackling ego saws, captured and imprisoned in crystalline dream webs, it was better not to know.

“To one such as I, there is no such thing as risk. I know of no such thing as chance or fortune. There is only action and consequence. And I accepted the consequences long ago,” Eltaena explained, taking the injectors and pulling up the ragged sleeve of her frayed robes to expose her pale arm. Without the barest instant of hesitation, she jammed the first injector into her vein, accepting the rainbow ichor that flowed into her bloodstream, leaning back and breathing deeply like the first gasp of Spring’s splendor.

Druzna was so used to seeing junkies on the streets that she almost assumed it was the chemical delight that brought her such satisfaction. But then she remembered what the true purpose of it was. To restore that which had been broken. To make a Farseer able to reach out with her soul once more, to feel the universe around herself as only Eldar could. As she breathed, she must have felt the legacy of her ancestors flow back into her mind. Compared to that, what were all the strongest drugs of Commorragh worth? For as long as the dose lasted, Eltaena would no longer be crippled and half-alive.

“This will not be enough to provide me with the full scope of my gifts, but it will have to suffice, yes it will,” Eltaena said, her mouth whispering out several other, nonsensical things uttered by other shards of her consciousness, even briefly dabbling with poetry. “Ah, I am so hungry. So tired. Behold! The Eye of Iybraesil is upon us, Seers watching, always watching. Another watches us as well, but they dance upon the Skein with mirthless grace only they could possess… then what destinies do the dark jesters dread? What do they hide from? Below us, I see it all! Gunfire, gunfire, a thousand barks of death! Burning, laughing, lost souls draw their final breath… but we knows they will rise at the sight of the white spear, yes they will!”

Druzna frowned. “To think that I thought the riddles of Farseers ceaselessly confounding when they were sober.”

Eltaena’s eyes snapped wide open, wild like a beast, whirling to her feet and staring into Druzna as though she had seen something horrific. She cast out a single finger, pointing to the First Spear with a grim severity that shook Druzna to the core. “You! You are damned by your own words! An invitation to the darkness shall be answered by the darkness! No, there is a glimpse of salvation left. But you must know: even should my visions come to pass with perfect clarity, not all who join this assault will return from it. Fate is not so convenient a thing that all threads of destiny may be guarded from every jagged edge that threatens to sever them.”

“The warriors that I now send into battle are brave as they are wise. They know the perils that unfold before them, and they fear not the kiss of the Reaper’s blade,” Druzna said as soon as she identified a speck of reasonable discourse amongst the babble.

“Then they are fools,” the core of Eltaena stated flatly, before giving voice to the rest of the scattered shards of her mind once more.

===

Supper.

The three of them, seated at opposite corners of the triangular table.

Shailuth was like a dancer of tongues, for as long as he spoke, all were enraptured by the charms of the Dracon. So eloquent and charismatic he was that Lynekai almost forgot her worries when he spoke to her. How long had it been since she so enjoyed the company of another?

A servant trotted up behind him, an Altansari slave. He leaned over Shailuth’s shoulder, whispering, and the Dracon stiffened with subdued distaste.

“What is it, dear?” Syndratta asked. “Another envious insult disguised as a gift, again?”

Lynekai cocked her head at that, and Syndratta leaned forward, her bountiful bosoms hanging freely in the shimmering ruby evening gown draped from just one of her shoulders. “Several of Khromys’s Dracons had hoped to win my hand in marriage, you see. I used to be counted among their ranks myself. But where they delighted in their little games, trying to vie for her favor by disrespecting their peers, I found them quite tiresome. When I inevitably proved my worth and ascended beyond them, though, they suddenly became among my most ardent suitors.”

The Bonesinger frowned. “They would forget old grudges so easily?”

Syndratta smiled darkly. “Of course they would. Anything for an extra scrap of power. Such beautiful, proud, fierce men and women, apologizing at my heels, visiting my bedchambers night after night, lapping between my thighs like the dogs they are… mm, the sweet satisfaction of victory. They’ve been seething at my dear husband for decades, for he secured what none of them could, not even with all their most humiliating efforts, fufu.”

Shailuth smiled for a moment, the effort clearly forced as he folded his napkin and placed it on the table. With a push, he rose from his seat. “Deepest apologies, dears. Urgent business has arisen.”

“Hm. Another revolt?” asked Syndratta, unleashing a long sigh of disgust. “When will they learn? Bah, mon’keigh. Which workshop is it, then?”

“The Altar of the Machine Zealots. Your cog-man slaves have been busy, it would seem. They secretly crafted a stockpile of makeshift weapons to arm themselves,” Shailuth explained. “And they’ve managed to raise a rebellion. A larger one than we prepared for.”

“Prepared for?” Lynekai asked uncomfortably.

“Certainly. There is always the risk, when one must watch and govern millions of slaves every single day. Normally such uprisings flare out in a transient and violent end, but the instigators have planned carefully this time. They even managed to swell their numbers above the norm by pushing all the slaves too tame, too cowardly, or too weak to fight into the battle. All by reformulating industrial chemicals into crude combat chems. In other words, forcing the ones who might betray them or who would be merely dead weight to fight at the front as berserk sacrifices for the cause, and regardless ensuring they shall not live much longer after those vile chemicals are finished wracking mind and body… clever, indeed.”

“Why?” Lynekai asked, aghast. “Why would they do such a thing? Destroying the freedom of others in the pursuit of their own? Harming their own kin, even those who simply could not join the fight by their own strength?”

Shailuth and Syndratta shared a glance and a light chuckle. These Craftworlders could be ever so naïve.

“The Humans do far worse to their own people, for far less reasonable causes, every single day. Their engineer caste may be idiots who blindly worship technology, furthermore callous in their disposal of those they consider lesser in value, but there is at least some logic dictating their actions. The same cannot always be said of other institutions of that rotting carcass of a stillborn empire,” Shailuth said simply. “Now, I must go and personally oversee the crushing of this small matter. There is little time in the schedule for one of my forges to go unexpectedly dormant.”

“Heh. One must assume they have been gathering every scrap of resources they could steal for centuries, then, to execute so ambitious a plan,” Syndratta noted with idle amusement. “Has it really been so long since I raided that dusty little world of manufactories and metal-men? Ahh, what I would not give to once more see the look on their ugly steel physiognomies when I used their own forgotten technology against them. Say, might any of these machine shamans be a worthy champion?” Syndratta asked, leaning back in her chair, picking at her food with obvious boredom.

Shailuth turned to his Craftworlder slave, who shook his head sadly.

“It seems not. If they were, they likely would not have been captured in the first place, after all,” Shailuth said. “A small detachment will suffice for dealing with them.”

Syndratta sighed, propping her chin on her hand. “Oh, very well. Go on then.”

Shailuth bowed to them both and departed briskly.

With his absence, silence set in, heavy and oppressive.

“Is there something wrong with your meal, Lady Lynekai?” asked the Archoness, her lovely voice carrying to every corner of the silent hall.

Lynekai looked down at her plate of the most sumptuous victuals and sauces, prepared perfectly to her tastes. And yet, she had barely touched it. It was delicious, yes, far preferable to more of the same things always grown in the Howl’s gardens. But even the most delightful meal could grow bland, if one’s heart was elsewhere.

“You will be allowed to rejoin your kin in due time,” Syndratta said, from across the granite dining hall. Lounging diagonally across her chair, a beautiful pale leg hooked over one of the armrests and her cheek propped upon the knuckles of her fist, she cut a chunk of meat from her magnificently prepared carnosaur steak, piercing it with her knife and biting down into it with casual indifference to good manners. But then, this was her spire, this was her dining hall, it was her chair, her table, her food. Short of an Overlord coming to visit, no one could possibly raise their voice over such a thing.

And yet despite her apparent disinterest, seeming to pay no heed to anything around her as she ate, Syndratta had read Lynekai’s subtlest gestures like a book and cut straight to the heart of her worries. It was surprising to the Bonesinger, certainly, but one did not rise to a rank like Syndratta’s without the most carefully honed perceptions. One stray word, one mistaken motion was all it took to destroy a Kabalite; to become an Archon required the sharpest of instincts.

“I do not doubt your words, Mistress Archon. However, it would serve to quiet my most irrational concerns to have an explanation for my extended stay as a… guest in your care,” Lynekai replied quietly.

“What, is my company so unsatisfying?” Syndratta asked venomously.

“It is,” Lynekai retorted immediately. “Hollow pleasures and empty talk. How do you endure this way of life? Is it by turning to the degenerate love of filthy mon’keigh?”

The Archoness smirked through lips of glossy blue. “My dear, S’slyth are all too commonplace in the harems of Kabalites and Wyches. They are useful for so much more than mere murder.”

Lynekai’s eyes narrowed. “I wonder, will the High Council of Morrigan share your nonchalance? Perhaps they will have to reconsider our treaty with the Obsidian Rose, if such scandal were to be brought to light.”

At that, Syndratta scoffed, mustering a lazy gesture of acquiescence to Lynekai’s queries.

“So be it. The truth, then. I require one possessing skills like yours for an important task,” Syndratta answered reluctantly. “And when the time is right, all shall be revealed in full to you.”

Lynekai stared across the long length of the table. “Am I to expect payment for my services?”

“Of course,” Syndratta smiled, chopping another hunk of meat and sticking it in her mouth to chew. “This, too, can be dealt with at a later time.”

“And what of the Howl?” Lynekai asked.

“What of it?”

The Seer rose from her seat just slightly too quickly, the barest hint of displeasure, and as soon as she moved, two armored Kabalites were suddenly at her side, daggers drawn and pressed to her neck, ready to end her at the slightest gesture from Syndratta. She had not seen or heard their approach. She was not even certain where they had been hiding—but she had at least foreseen this, and thus remained undisturbed in her firm glare at the Archon.

Syndratta sighed and waved a hand, dismissing the duo of Smoke Wardens. They returned their weapons to their sheaths and vanished as quickly as they had arrived.

“With all the time that I have been given to myself, I have read the runes of Fate. I have walked the Skein. Though I cannot gaze with much clarity through the empyreanic defenses of this palace, I have been able to determine that they face immense threat at this very moment, threat that you have permitted to develop around them,” Lynekai said with flat disrespect in her tone.

Syndratta’s playful airs dropped from her like a stone in water. “Do you think me omniscient? I am no Seer. In fact, I can only wonder who here is truly to blame, Bonesinger. Need I really remind you? If anyone could have prophecized this disaster, it would be you.”

Lynekai winced, shamed into silence.

Pleased by the telling blow she had struck, Syndratta continued. “Nonetheless, had I known that your kinswomen were going to somehow stir the indolent and reticent Malignancy to action, I might have found someone else to achieve my needs in the race. I have invested a great deal into the Howl’s well-being at this point. If this little debacle swells up into open battle and the Howl is lost, I will be every bit as aggrieved as you.”

“Debacle?”

“The Coven took the good captain prisoner. This is strange to me, but I’ve never known Haemonculi to ever be aught but unpredictable,” Syndratta explained. “All I can guess is that she offended them somehow while passing through their territory.”

Lynekai frowned. “Lies do not suit your tongue, Scion of the House of Sovranaikh.”

At that, Syndratta smirked. “Very well. Then I admit that I do have an inkling of what this may be about: The Yearning.”

Lynekai’s eyes widened. She had known that this might be said to her, but to witness it in reality and not within a vision was twice as disturbing.

“You’ve known of our curse all this time,” the Seer observed.

“Oh, please! It was never some grand secret!” Syndratta exclaimed, throwing a hand out with open disdain. “An entire Craftworld solely of women, all men forbidden from setting foot upon it save for rare seasons of reproduction? What sort of Archon would I be if I did not investigate such an oddity before agreeing to deal with your homerealm? I did not have to look far for answers. Aydona’s very own corsairs were warned of this curse before they made their decision to immigrate or not. A few bribes to those who had chosen to continue their life of violent freedom confirmed all my suspicions.”

This, however, was not something that Lynekai had glimpsed in her wanderings of the Skein.

“Renemarai sold you that knowledge?” she gasped.

“Indeed. She was quite comfortable under my banner at the time, so why would she not? Even if she had refused, I would have simply gone to her underlings. If they had rejected such easy riches, I could have made the same offer to any of the corsair bands that serve the will of Morrigan on occasion. One of them would have broken,” Syndratta explained. “Yes, I knew who I was dealing with when I signed that bargain. Curses do not frighten me; all who dwell in this city are intimately familiar with them.”

“Then should you not stop the Coven that seeks to study our malediction?” Lynekai asked, hopeful now. “It would endanger Morrigan in many ways to have such an enemy. If Morrigan suffers for this, it means we cannot continue our profitable agreement.”

The Archon leaned back in her seat, rubbing a forefinger and thumb together, pondering the matter deeply. After a time, she exhaled heavily and spoke. “No. My interference would solve nothing. It is more likely to undermine my own power than it is to actually convince the Malignancy to cease its course of research. They may be small, for a Coven, but that does not make them weak. All Covens have the implicit authority to call upon the Kabals and Wych Cults that they service… for what good is a pact of immortality if the ones who enforce it are all dead?”

Syndratta paused, taking a sip of wine from a Wraithbone cup.

“That is why few dare challenge their ilk, and most regret it. Qa Vanada holds contracts with a lesser clique of the Flayed Skull and a few prominent bands of the Red Grief, but neither are an enemy one wishes to make.”

“You could do something at this very moment,” Lynekai said, stubbornly insistent. “You are not as powerless as you pretend, and the Covens are not so ‘supreme’ as they might seem. You know that quite well, do you not? Covenslayer.”

Syndratta glanced at Lynekai, her eyes narrowing like those of a predator.

“I do not appreciate hearing my own titles bandied about by one who has gone to great lengths to avoid dirtying herself with matters of politics and bloodshed,” Syndratta hissed. “Tell me, you seemed to enjoy visiting my forge at my husband’s side, touching my projects as though I would not notice, browsing all that I have crafted and collected so painstakingly. Would you be willing to show me yours? I am sure you must have such wondrous inventions to display! Vehicles that reduce the toil and suffering of the Eldar, machines that detect and cure the most difficult of diseases… oh, but what delightful and blessed things do you really have, hidden in your darkest chambers? I simply must know.”

Lynekai flinched, her expressive hand drooping down to her side, voice caught in her throat.

“Oh, was that another thing you did not expect to hear tonight, O wise and mighty Seer?” Syndratta grinned. She lifted her head high, as if looking down on the Seer despite reclining in her throne. “Then let us agree not to speak of the matter further.”

Chapter Text

==Chapter XIII: The Spider’s Web==

Where was she? When was she?

At some point, perhaps even before she was exiled and her gifts taken from her, such questions had ceased to matter.

She could no longer remember the future, nor could she predict the past. No, no, that was not what the sane should say. But in the end, it was all the same regardless.

Before her, lying upon an endless horizon of fog, a floor of broken glass and silver. The mirror was shattered. To know its reflection, its truth, was never an easy task. Now, as she had for centuries before, she knelt down, her frail fingers plucking a single tiny shard up to gaze into it.

“I am the Fury, slayer of the weak,” the young warriors whispered as one. “I feel the Bloody Handed anoint me with the lifeblood of heroes, gods, and monsters. I am the Hunter, lord of the wilds. I hear the song of the divine bow, drawn and nocked with moonlit arrow. I am the Storm, risen from its kingly throne. I walk, now, with bone as my crown and lightning as my spear.”

She was in the Ghostlance, surrounded by Guardians and Aspect Warriors. There was a Warlock beside her, watching her warily for the slightest sign of betrayal. Though, such caution was needless. Without her runes or her staff at hand, she could not summon the powers of the Empyrean without great caution and obvious signs. Even the least of the Striking Scorpions could end her long before she could manifest an effect to resist them, for their pistols remained at the ready in their laps for a swift ambush.

“I cast my heart away. I shed my living burdens. I swallow my tears. I kneel before the Reaper, the Bringer of Ruin. I draw my throat across his vorpal scythe. Now, I am dead. Now, I am naught. In death, I carry but one final gift, promised to my foes who yet draw breath. Woe! Woe be upon thee! May Isha mourn thy soul. For mourn thee we shall not.”

The war chant concluded with silence. The Guardians needed no further preparation; the ritual to don their warmasks was complete. No longer were they Mariners of Morrigan. Now, all that which made them joyous and kind had left them, and that which remained was cold, dark, and vicious. Girded with such a mental barrier, all the evils of war would wash over them and leave their hearts unstained when the fighting was done.

How many times had she watched over such a ceremony? Too many. Though the customs of her homerealm were infinitely different from Morrigan’s rites, the underlying core was much the same. It was almost nostalgic, if not for the most terrible curse of the Seer: staring into the Skein, knowing that it would not be enough to save them. This, too, was an old wound.

The Dreamer lowered the shard of silverine glass from her vision, and then she was once more swallowed by the mists. Resting it in her palm, she shrank down to take up another piece of the broken mirror.

Swords clashing, sparks flying. Captain and Bladebearer. Eyes wide with murderous fury as they fought to end each other.

Good. This was part of the reflection she sought. But it did not fit the other piece—more fragments were needed to stitch it to the rest. It was not yet time to see. She gently laid that shard down, and seized another in its place.

The Great Dragon. A lost fragment of the whole, twisted and deranged, desperate to survive. Conquerers of Morrigan, bristling and hissing, insurmountable and cunning. Chitinous champions, aliens of distant stars. The final foe that the Howl would ever face.

The swarm. The Many-as-One. The Maiden-Master. Eros.

No.

The fallen soothsayer set that vision aside, for that foe was not hers to face. Her power was not what it once was. And this enemy lurked far in the future, beyond the reach of the broken lenses she peered through.

She grasped up one more.

Faintly within this long, jagged fragment, she beheld the Violation of Gea by the Nagrol’Ashuré, the Abyssal Giants. A lesser myth, rarely told. It was said that by trickery, they stole the Consort from Asuryan’s palace, intending her to bear for them children with which they could overthrow the gods. They sought to bring her to heel in bondage, and she repaid their savagery with the Arts of Pleasure. Her ravishment from one Giant to the next lasted a hundred years before they tired, or so the stories say. Once their stamina was arrested in utter exhaustion, she stole their rusted sickles and beheaded them one by one in their sleep. Their evil seed had taken root, indeed—and she bore into the universe the Dark Will, the Vengeful Void, the Hateful Hollow, the very strength by which she had defeated her captors.

The meaning of such a tale unfolding before her was clear. This was the path they chose. The future that they Yearned for. Regardless of what she told them or her efforts to avert this, it was their destiny. But it need not be the end of their journey.

It fit with the first piece she had taken, forming a larger echo of light, just barely more of the image that she sought…

===

She was in the Valley of Fallen Lords, surrounded by filth, decay, fire, and pain.

Like a black moon of bitter ecstasy, the Cancer of Stars reigned high above, its long, jagged mass tearing through the acidic cyclone that still raged amid the ravages of apocalyptic war below. The Malignant fleet was spread wide over the Valley, obelisks of terror. Every now and then, a lance would split the storm in a single eye-searing flash of annihilation, a heartless judgment issued upon thousands of lives below for the inexcusable sin of standing in the way of what ought to be a new lab-spire.

But though such horrific atrocities carried on, they were little more than a tiny spark against the whole of Low Commorragh’s fires of violence. An inconsequential blip, hardly worthy of notice—a hundred wars of such infinitesimal scale were in progress throughout the City Eternal at any given time. What was one more?

Even the elements cared not.

All those screams, all the murder, weapons blasting from one corner to the next, and yet there was still the subtle pitter-patter of acid rain dripping from the highest slum-spires down to the countless buildings below, flooding the streets above and washing tides of corpses and gore down to the Deep Burg below. Rivers of blood and acid and poison rushed as though eager to answer the howling call of the cold Chasm far, far below, carrying the dead onwards to an eternal abyss to be their grave.

So it was, so it was.

Deep in the depths of war’s horrors was a Hellion, his arm flayed of all its skin by the blade of a Wrack. He stumbled through a rain-pooling alleyway, seeing the collapse of an entire slaughtermanse through the bars of a grate, clutching to his skinless limb with dark resolution. He had, along with his entire gang, squared off against a wing of wracks that were gathering surrendered citizenry into their hover barges like little more than cattle. After repeated assaults, they had almost managed to force the Covenites back and disable those slave skiffs—until the arrival of a Talos engine, a horrific perfection of the fleshsculpting arts. They lacked the heavy weaponry needed to take down such a monstrous weapon, and in the resulting rout, he had only narrowly escaped.

His brotherhood was nothing more than raw materials for fleshcrafting now. He, the sole survivor, limped onwards, knowing full well that the Wracks could track his blood trail with ease. Soon enough, once they were finished rounding up fresh specimens, they would come to finish the job.

He coughed. The Pain Engine had fired some sort of toxic black gas from its armored carapace during the battle, and he had only narrowly avoided a lungful of it. But even just a gasp of the diffused fumes, invisible to the eye, had ruined his lungs worse than a lifetime of smoked chems ever could, and every breath felt more difficult than the last.

“Cursed day,” the Hellion grumbled. He grabbed a barbed inhaler from his belt and tipped it to his lips, leaning back, depressing the release to force a hiss of pressurized chems into his lungs. He closed his eyes, feeling the mind-bending thrills rush through his blood, bringing an inappropriate peace to his soul for the Hell he was trapped in.

When he opened his eyes, he gazed up into the skies above. Through the crack between the twisted spires towering above, he was just able to see the tempest whirling and cracking with thunder, and just beneath the black ceiling of clouds, there was the ship called the Cancer of Stars and its twin escorts beside it.

Of course the capital ship of his foes would come to mock him in his final moments. Dropping the empty inhaler, he swung up a gesture so crass that it would have seen him shunned from ever ascending to High Commorragh… but that hardly mattered now, did it? With the sensors on that ship, he knew the Wracks could see this. Perhaps even the Haemonculus could. Good.

Even from so far away, he could see the weapons of all three ships suddenly power to life with enormous glows building around the barrels of their lances.

Oh, dear. Were they truly so petty as to end him like this?

“Heheheheh…” the Hellion cackled. It was hilarious. If it did not hurt so much to laugh, he would have been howling.

Thunder roared from high above.

Light like the glory of Heaven bathed the entirety of the Valley in blinding effervescence.

He lifted his arm to shield his eyes, expecting death.

Several explosions echoed to him from high above.

When he lowered his arm, and the twinkling pain in his vision faded, what he saw was a firestorm.

One of the two gnarly destroyers that was supposed to be guarding the battleship had snapped in half by a perfect strike to its power core, each piece exploding with awesome force as its reactors burned out from within. It was no simple feat to somehow see through the sensor-confounding cloak of a shadowfield and target the most vulnerable point of such a vessel with flawless aim. The wreckage of that craft, its hundreds of crew quite fully massacred without an ounce of mercy, seemed to slowly sink from the vast skies, though that was only an illusion born from the sheer distances involved. There were still huge holes in the storm above, left by the lance strikes that had cut through the clouds like the wrath of Asuryan. And through that sunlit gap—

—swept a white javelin, swift as the wind, its vibrant violet solar sails bearing the name-rune of the Hunter’s Howl in glorious white.

A clash of gods in the skies of Commorragh. He could almost feel the Webway quake at the deafening roar of majestic war.

The Cancer of Stars whirled as swiftly as its engines could propel it, which was shocking indeed to those unfamiliar with the adroitness of Drukhari voidcraft. But it had been caught utterly outflanked by the Howl’s swooping charge; as swiftly as the Cancer could maneuver, the smaller and defter Howl could dance with it step for step. Blurring with the speed of its murderous descent and the active holofield distorting its image, the wraithship lined up its weapons without hesitation. The ferocity of the assault meant its pulsar lances needed recharge, but the Howl had fangs yet. Twin cannons mounted beneath its prow flared with propulsive force—and explosions ripped through the flagship’s exposed side as both torpedoes smashed into its hull and detonated with the power to shatter the crust of a planet.

What manner of lunatics would dare wound a Coven’s flagship?

Bloody Craftworlders!

He laughed, then, though it hurt him. He almost wondered if all this was just some hallucination brought upon him by his cheap chems or the pain of his injuries. But he looked again, and again, and he knew that it was true.

The Cancer remained intact—the new gash in its side flared with lingering star-flame, and blood from its organic systems leaked out like a carmine waterfall that slowly stretched down towards the Valley. Glorious as it was, this attack had not managed to find a lethal placement, only ripping through its outer hull. How disappointing. He almost felt a sliver of hope before this.

As the Howl accelerated closer, it suddenly disengaged its engines and began an immediate swivel, its drifting momentum bringing it just to the very edge of collision before it fired its engines again and pulled away, less than a hundred meters from scraping its Wraithbone against barbed neoferric armor. Facing the exact opposite directions, the Cancer and the Howl passed each other by, their weapons batteries exchanging a torrential clash of plasma blasts and fusion beams between them that would leave only superficial scars upon such formidable hulls.

What was the meaning of such a risky maneuver? By coming so close, the Coven flagship had a very real chance to align its primary weapons or simply use its superior bulk like a sledgehammer, propelling itself into the wraithship as it swept in close enough to kiss. But it was as though the Howl had somehow been able to perfectly predict every maneuver the Cancer would take, synchronized perfectly to match its turns, keep just enough distance to avoid a crash, deny it any chance to fight back, and coordinate the firing of its engines so that they could pass by unharmed. Uncanny. To see so dangerous a stratagem executed with fearless puissance was both awesome and eerie, sending a shiver through his body.

“No…” he growled, realizing that there was only one reason for such a close exchange to occur. It defied belief, it violated every form of logic by which Commorites lived, and it exposed a terminal lack of self-preservation instinct. “Those fools! Mad fools! Hahahahaha!”

He roared with laughter, heedless of the pain, for it truly was ridiculous and incredible.

The deranged Craftworlders had boarded them.

===

She looked to another shard, discarding that moment to the growing circle of fragments she had fitted together at her feet. She was in the Cancer of Stars, now, standing at the very edge of broken and scorched floor plating, staring out of the vast breach in its side. She watched the Hunter’s Howl speed away, chased and harried by the Cancer’s remaining destroyer escort that darted to intercept it and now nipped at the cruiser’s heels.

The interior of the battleship echoed with silence. Uneasy and unnatural. Any other crew would be screaming at its injuries, yelling to rally and repel boarders.

Yet not the Covens.

Eltaena watched the dark city below spin as the Cancer whirled in the air to begin its own pursuit of the fleeing wraithship.

She turned away from the edge of the hull breach, drawn by the thrum of grav engines suspending a small squadron of skimmers within a large, open great hall adorned with drapes of painted Aeldari leather. Though currently abandoned due to its usual occupants having endured the brunt of the torpedo blasts and either lying deceased in scorched pieces or retreated elsewhere, this vast chamber was likely used for entertaining guests as well as lectures and demonstrations by Acothysts to their students. Blood from scorched and severed veins that lined the walls and ceiling poured out, leaving the room carmine from the floor to the walls.

The only reason such a daring boarding assault had succeeded without a single casualty was thanks to the careful targeting of the torpedoes to wipe out all the closest weapons batteries on the side of the battleship. The remaining threats had been quashed by a few words of careful warning passed on to the pilots from the lips of Eltaena Lightseeker.

None of this could have happened without her wise foresight. Every single thing to happen in the battle up to this moment had been foretold down to the exact timing of each maneuver that the enemy would take. Such an advantage made the improbable certain, and the impossible fully realizable.

The ramps of the Ghostlances and Falcons and Wave Serpents all dropped in perfect unison, hovering just off the bubbling red fluids. The brave descended in shining violet armor, and the fearless emerged in the panoply of Aspect Shrines. Boots splashing in the pond of chimeric essence, coordinated with such precision as to become an extension of their leader’s thoughts, they swept out from the holds of these vehicles to secure the area, armed to the teeth and fully prepared. There was no need for them to speak; the strategy was burned into their minds, and their every thought would be shared by their tactical uplinks.

The Dreamer watched herself descend the ramp, and she came up alongside, splashing through the ship’s crimson bleed that soaked into her dragging robes, bathing her bare feet. She turned and they locked eyes for a moment, and then the Eltaena of the shard continued on her path.

Azraenn, ducking around one of the streams of blood flowing from the ceiling, turned to the assembled warriors, raising a hand with a single signal.

Commence.

The infantry scattered into three detachments, and their boots stomped through the pooling blood at their feet.

Most of the Guardian Defenders took up defensive positions around the gravtanks and landers serving as their mobile cover and heavy support, bringing their heavy weapons platforms out with which to overwatch the many passageways by which the enemy could come for them. Kanbani had agreed to support them as an extra gun, but refused to join the more dangerous strike forces. Eltaena knew by her thoughts, so effortlessly scanned, that she dreaded the political consequences of taking part in sabotaging their ship or assaulting their labs. Tulushi’ina stationed herself with them, kneeling atop a Ghostlance, for her marksmanship would be best wielded in such a defense.

Warlock Melafaré, her Singing Spear raised high like a beacon against the darkness, went to the armored core of the boarders, directing them with silent gestures of her hand and visual thoughts conveyed to their visors as she read the currents of impending danger. The enemy was laggard, but they would come for blood, soon, once they had finished licking their wounds. Their landers must be protected, or else there would be no escape. Unfortunately for the defenders, the Covens were far too clever not to realize that.

The majority of the Storm Guardians united behind Warlock Prushala, who readied her flame-wreathed witchblade that hummed with lethal empyric strength. With her sword flaring like a torch that lit the way forward, she charged into the darkness without a word. Her kinswomen followed her into that gateway leading into deeper parts of the vessel, too narrow for vehicles to fit, with the swiftness of hawks and the silence of scorpions.

Among them was noble Munesha, who still ailed, but had refused any further rest—having gone so far as threatening the Healers if they tried to confine her any longer. The Dreamer saw in her mind a great and vast guilt, for she blamed Eshairr’s disappearance upon herself. Driven by irrational shame that she had abandoned the race and the captain with it, though she had good cause to have done so, her condition was somehow stabilized by her eerie and primal powers. And so she went to war, determined to be the one that wrenched her good friend free of the grasp of these dark imps that called themselves Aeldari.

The last contingent was Azraenn’s. With a score of mixed Guardians as the core of her strength, all the Aspect Warriors were hers to command. Eltaena joined them as shepherd, along with Leraxi in her Incubus warsuit and an unarmed, silent Renemarai. The fallen Corsair had volunteered to join the force, claiming that she would not stand idly by as the last of the Sky Slicers ventured to battle. However, she was closely minded by Warlock Aulephe, who now shoved a shuriken pistol into her hand, the only armament that their erstwhile enemy would be trusted with. Suitably, theirs was the most dangerous duty of all, and every hand needed be armed.

Another sliver of time crept into her clutches, which when laid alongside the other formed a more coherent image. This seemed to be located upon the Howl, much earlier.

“Your tactical schema is wise, Bladebearer. The core, the beachhead, will weather the worst of the counterattack,” Eltaena explained before the battle began. “It is the assault force you propose to strike into the depths of its holds to reclaim Eshairr, however, that will face overwhelming resistance when they reach the laboratories. Yes, the Kabalite is correct. That is indeed where your captain is being… kept.”

“If committing all our forces to that assault is doomed, then what do you suggest instead, Dreamer?” Druzna had asked.

“Where you propose two prongs, I call for three: a trident thrust into the flesh of the Cancer of Stars. It is the best chance you have of success.” Eltaena gestured for attention. Not theirs. She was silencing the scattered parts of her own mind, including the Dreamer that watched. “The Covens may not be a military. Many of their number were once of the Kabals or the Cults, but they have been reshaped into adepts of the darkest lores, and those pasts are all but forgotten now. Yet only a fool would challenge them where they perform their wicked studies. Not only will the majority of the crew be there, they will also have access to all the resources they could ever want. You cannot overcome their malevolent genius. Not unless they are depleted first.”

“Thus, the third spearhead,” Azraenn observed astutely.

“Indeed, the third. The Cancer of Stars is alive, and its heart is as vital as any of ours,” Eltaena explained. “Hold a blade to that organ, and the entire corpus shall flinch to defend it.”

“A diversion,” Kanbani nodded approvingly as she inspected the wicked shredder she had retrieved from her chariot, affixing a barbed bayonet to the side of it. “They cannot continue their experiments if their ship is dead and crashing to the slums. Force them out of their blood-soaked labs and clear the path for retrieval. The main reactor, then?”

“No. Our goal must be the actual Heart, through which the lifeblood of the vessel beats,” Eltaena explained then. “I shall guide you to it myself. However… from there my second sight blurs. My powers are not what they once were. I can offer only the omens: there will be blood shed. Not all who embark upon this great crusade shall return…”

Then she found a new fragment, a very small and precious one. Standing upon the decks of the Cancer of Stars, Azraenn looked over to the exiled Farseer one final time, approaching to speak to her in private. She knew that the Void Dreamer could hear her thoughts without even exerting an effort, unlike lesser psykers who might struggle just to reach out and hear the surface of a nearby mind.

Does a day of victory come? Azraenn asked in her thoughts, watching the famished girl stick the last dose of splintermind into her arm.

Yes. The dawn rises. But not for you.

Within her helm, Azraenn’s mouth opened, words escaping her tongue.

Does it frighten you to know the truth of this plan, Avenger? asked Eltaena in her mind as she tossed the injector away to clatter and roll along the ground. It is not too late to withdraw.

Her lips closed resolutely. I am no coward, Azraenn growled. This battle is one which must be fought, regardless of the outcome. We will not abandon the captain. I will not flee from death.

Eltaena turned and stared at the Dire Avenger sadly, as though she could see so easily through her fierce helm into her heart of hearts. May it be so, my dear.

Dear. A term of endearment, as though all Asuryani were her children to be cared for and guarded from the evils of the universe. She spoke like a true Farseer. It must have been so easy to slip back into such nostalgic ways.

“Is it time?” Azraenn asked aloud, so that the others could hear it. Eltaena had warned them of a particular danger for the route they would take—stating that if they moved too soon, despite what logic would suggest, then the Haemonculus would cross their path by chance on his way elsewhere, and their efforts would then come to an abrupt and inescapable end.

“Hold…” Eltaena whispered, turning to look upon the Dreamer who watched in silence.

The sounds of battle spilled out from afar like the thunder of a distant tempest; Prushala’s detachment had already met the foe upon their course. If they were to have any hope of success, the diversionary strike needed begin immediately.

Then the Dreamer nodded, and Eltaena of this shard followed that motion with her own, and at just that smallest of signals, they bolted into the narrow corridor that would deposit them deep in the passages of the underhull—from whence they would rise to the Heart, if they could just navigate the labyrinth of shadows.

But that journey lied beyond the edge of this shard.

===

A new piece of the mirror snatched up in hand.

Everything lurched, nearly flinging her out of the captain’s chair, and she wondered if they were doomed already.

No, it seemed. They still breathed, which meant it was far from over.

The bridge was uncannily silent, or so an outsider might believe were they to observe. But the truth of it was that the spirit circuit of the Howl was almost a cacophony of voices—both the thoughts of its living crew and the wisdom of its war-roused ancestral spirits poured forth into Druzna’s mind, and only the supreme intellect of an Eldar could possibly comprehend and bring order to such chaos.

We have been hit! exclaimed one of the mental voices on the bridge, that of the Mistress of the Watch. But Druzna did not think in terms of names and duties, not now. A glancing strike, no penetration! No casualties reported!

Druzna heaved a sigh of relief, even if it was a small consolation. Even an askance lance exchanged between voidships could mean several deaths by boiling the interior of a room or two, even without compromising the hull. Their holofield was serving its purpose admirably in confusing the enemy’s sensors and targeters. That, coupled with careful evasive maneuvers, could draw out these sorts of battles for days before a decisive blow ever landed.

But they had one more advantage on their side: the guidance that the Dreamer had left for them, which had seen them avoid many dangerous routes they could have chosen to escape. The one that Druzna felt most instinctually drawn to, trying to lose the battleship by weaving dangerously between the diminuitive spires of the Lordless Valley, would have just run them straight into a waiting flotilla of Malignancy vessels. They were dealing with more than just a battleship and its escorts, after all, and for a single craft to evade the entire fleet required more than just brilliant tactics. One needed to know the very future.

The Dreamer attempted to play with Druzna’s slicked back hair as she thought such amusing things, but her wraithlike fingers could not truly touch anything within her visions.

Fortunately for them, the rest of the fleet could not just uproot itself and move to intercept. The war continued, and their looming support was necessary to shore up their massively outnumbered ground forces and gunship squadrons. Not to mention, crowding their pens with fresh slaves and subjects was an irresistible temptation regardless of whether one claimed to be Covenite, Kabalite, or Wych. Even if the Howl was a priority target of the Malignancy, they could not dismiss the more fundamental necessities so easily.

Unfortunately, all of that working to their benefit did not make dodging a heavy destroyer that had them in its sights tenable for long.

The Neoplasm’s Fang, the flagship’s sole remaining escort, was not so simple to shake off. Being smaller, lighter, and steered by thoughts just like the wraithship, it could easily follow every single astonishing maneuver enacted by the Asuryani. The blasted thing was hounding them with single-minded focus as they ascended into the pollution-storms of Middle Darkness, even though they had managed to give the Cancer of Stars the slip minutes ago. It was like fleeing a Khymerae on the battlefield—it was too fast, its senses too sharp. A fearsome beast like that could smell the terror of its prey, and once it caught the trail, it would never let go of it.

If only they had just one more ship on their side… then this would be an entirely different battle. But no such conveniences could exist, she ruminated bitterly. That was why they had come to Commorragh in the first place. And in typical irony suitable of a Harlequin’s jest, they found nothing but more enemies, denied a single ally.

“Poor girl. Fear not. You are not so alone as you believe,” Eltaena whispered, though her voice could not reach her.

Through the scopes of the Howl, like a second set of eyes, Druzna turned her head at the alert of an incoming attack, seemingly staring through the Dreamer. Seconds later, she watched a lance streak just barely beside the Howl, far too close to feel any comfort in the miss. This was unbearable; she wanted nothing more than to go on the offensive, but they would not be able to outmaneuver the Fang just by wishing for it.

Patience. Patience was the key to victory, she told herself. But at heart, she wished Eshairr were here to endure this anxious dread in her place, so that she could throw herself into executing commands and tuning the crew as a First Spear ought to.

Just a little further. The Dreamer’s words had proven trustworthy so far, so there was no reason to doubt the rest of the strategy. If Eltaena wanted to get off that ship alive with her comrades, she would need the Howl intact and able to return for them.

===

More pieces, twinkling in the misty darkness.

Shurikens rend Wrack bodies into quivering chunks. But the Wracks barely complain. Compared to the artisan tortures of their master, the pain of such mundane death is small, and they will be revived soon enough.

They advance upon the Morriganites one by one, distracted from their duties tending to shelves of tumors harvested from thousands of so-called civilized races around the cosmos. Or sometimes they are found leaning over arcane machines that analyze the genetics of cancer samples, inducing controlled mutations to study the results. It is only when these intruders stomp into view, interrupting their studies so very rudely, that they set aside their tasks with grumbling vexation and take up weapons to remove the disruption to their work.

A Guardian fires her catapult at a Wrack racing down a side passage at her, his enormous scalpel blade dragging, sparking along the floor. The projectiles cut into his body, but barely slow him down. The blood runs down his distended torso, lending him the false airs of a corpse.

A second Guardian steps beside the first, lowering her carbine and joining the hailstorm of blades. Hypersonic crystal discs shatter into his meat, tearing him apart with force even deadlier than boltguns. But the lethal penetration of these shurikens does not matter. He refuses to die. Driven by hatred or by seething curiosity of what their innards look like, he reaches them.

The heads of both Guardians are lopped off in one smooth motion, their screams silenced just as they began.

The blood of Morrigan is spilt.

Leraxi cleaves him into clean halves by her klaive, then twirls her curved greatsword with effortless grace and cuts down two more Wracks charging at her by the same narrow corridor. Even to a failed Incubus, these Covenites make a poor challenge. But her intervention is not in time to stop the long, inaeldari hands from reaching out, dragging the slaughtered women and their severed heads away, leaving trails of blood that stretch far into the shadows.

Azraenn arrives too late to stop this, and too late to recover their spirit stones. She glares at Leraxi, who is unrepentant and uncaring. It is not her fault. She and all the Aspect Warriors are stretched thin, for the ship is a labyrinth, and traps and ambushes surge at them from every corner.

The only one deserving of blame is Eltaena, a Guardian thinks. And she is correct. Eltaena had warned them of many threats as they advanced, but she could neither foresee all dangers nor prevent them. Her incompetency is shameful. Even when she was a Farseer, she had let far too many perish. What good was the great power of prophecy when wielded by the blind and the foolish? She was a failure in every respect, and each death here, now, merely added to the tally of the sins for which she must be made to suffer.

The Dreamer looked at the tiny shards in her hands, closing her eyes and whispering a silent prayer as she grieved her great and eternal regret. Then, she tipped her hands down, allowing these fragments to scatter at her feet. She was not interested in watching her own failures. She was searching for her chance.

Renemarai is pushed along by Warlock Aulephe, who has warded her well to this point. Renemarai holds Aulephe’s pistol even now, though yet is she to fire it, awed by the prowess of her guardian. In this moment, Aulephe is the greatest warrior on the Hunter’s Howl. Aulephe slew a dozen traitor Astartes with her witch glaive in the battle at the Tower of Veneloc, as well as two warp talons that came for her head and a host of cultists and slaves and daemons. Aulephe is one of the great bulwarks that held back Renemarai’s boarding action long enough for their officers to escape and return. Aulephe is a font of strength and knowledge, master of her psychic gifts. She is everything an Eldar should be. That is why she is Eltaena’s living leash, the Howl’s insurance against possible betrayal by the Void Dreamer.

She is a wise choice for that role, but pointless in the end.

A Grotesque, a living abomination of fleshcrafting forged for the demands of the Covens, forces its flexible bulk into one of these narrow passages. It is reinforced with armored plates that were drilled onto its gnarled hide in response to this assault, now nearly unstoppable. Shurikens catch in the armor or pass through its flesh without meaningful harm. More and more catapults prove insufficient to halt it.

Azraenn calls for the fusion guns.

Three Guardians step forward and fire. For a split second, the Grotesque nearly reaches them with its scything tentacles lined with guillotine blades. Then its atomic makeup is annihilated by the roaring beams blasting it, and it explodes in a shower of viscera that paints the Guardians in blood and cancerous flesh.

One of them sees a chunk of tumor with many eyes peering up at her from her pauldron, its veins squirming around like living roots as it tries helplessly to meld with her flesh. She throws it off, stomps on it, and then nearly vomits, forced to remove her helmet so that she can catch her breath. Her sisters are quick to aid her with soothing hands pressed to her back, joining her in re-chanting the war-mantras to renew her shaken battle trance.

Azraenn is not oblivious to it. She shares a thought with Aulephe, who agrees with her. This place, this den of nightmares is wearing down even the indomitable courage of Morrigan’s warrior people. Every little shock and fright they encounter should be suppressed by their trances, yet the totality has begun to wear at the seams of their mental defenses, like the roots of evil trees worming into fissures in stone, weakening it bit by bit. The Aspect Shrines are trained and prepared to face endless terrors. Guardians, for all their bravery, are not.

As the recovering Guardian kneels by the wall of flesh in her whispering chant, it reacts. Hidden tentacles slither out and grab the disoriented woman, dragging her into the innards of the vessel. Azraenn is too slow to save her; a wall of slimy tendrils shoots out to claim more victims. They must be shot down before the wall can claim anyone else. But the woman sinking into the maw of moaning flesh finds the strength to arm a grenade as she whimpers into the darkness of its gullet, until she is heard no more.

The Bladebearer shoves her sisters-in-arms back. The wall detonates. The trap is disabled before its groping tendrils can seize anyone else, annihilated by star-fire from within. Azraenn dives forward to tear her way through the ruined flesh with hand and fist, blood raining down upon her armor as she rips skin and tissue out of her way, finding only charred pieces of what was once her kinswoman’s armor.

Only her spirit stone survived. It is retrieved in solemn silence, slipped into a pouch upon her belt.

Eltaena calls out to warn them. There are four more Grotesques coming, all from different directions. Two are amorphous blobs of skin and fat crawling through narrow vents to ambush them from above, but the Dreamer has seen them coming—by emerging into the heart of their force, they would have slaughtered half the troops, far too obvious in the Skein. The other hulks are ridden by so many tumors growing from within that they can only stumble forwards down halls they barely fit into, each cancerous mouth in those tumors belching sprays of acidic toxins to expel the constant reflux of agonizing bile building up inside each half-formed Child of the Malignancy.

Renemarai alerts those around her to the acid-spewing Grotesque stumbling at them from the rear, raising her pistol in dumbfounded terror, yet unable to bring herself to fire. Aulephe steps away to face it as the Guardians around her verge upon panic. Raising a hand, the Warlock shatters its bones from the inside out, reducing it to helpless meat that whimpers from every mouthed tumor on its disgusting hide. It can no longer spew its juices except onto itself, boiling in its own unnatural bile melting it alive. It is as much a victim of the Covens as anyone, deserving no hatred but only pity. Aulephe does not allow it to slow her blade, but she feels some sympathy as she thrusts her glaive into its skull and channels her power through the weapon. A storm of crackling energies from another dimension courses through its entire body, annihilating its organs, rending its soul to pieces, and ending its suffering forever.

The Warlock turns back, and as the rest of the assault team fights back the other Grotesques with fusion beams and spouts of flame and deafening blasts of grenades and missiles, Renemarai is gone. So is Leraxi. So is Eltaena.

The Dreamer lowered the fragment of the mirror, setting it down with the others she had carefully collected.

Yes, this was the path she sought. This was the image she needed.

This was the future that Eltaena Lightseeker chose.

===

Distantly, the sounds of battle echoed through the halls of the Cancer of Stars.

But these deafening booms, keen-edged crackles, and harrowing screams did not disturb its crew much. Rarely a day went by without such noises filling the air around them, be it on this ship or deep in the Flesh-Made-Ruins. Quite like fine music to the Covens, comfortable and relaxing.

“They are coming for the Heart!” sung a Wrack with a long, long tongue wiggling around in the air through her copper mask. She waddled around in mindless circles on her long and spindly limbs, the Child embedded within her chest throbbing viciously as it nursed upon her blood supply and filled her mind with incoherent screams. “We must defend it! Else the Master will be furiousss-sss!”

“And we have already been regenerated once today,” White-Mane observed coolly from where he leaned in the corner, fresh white chems pumping through the tubes embedded directly into his brain. “If the Master finds us squirming from the pits yet again so soon, with nothing to show for it, he may be driven to rescind our right of rebirth.”

“But battle is so dull,” Four-Arms sighed, ambling along on all four of his misshapen arms to drag a sled full of crates into the chamber, his short and stubby legs waving around above him. “Must we bother?”

“Yes, we must,” growled Tumor-Teeth, donning his Aeldari-leather coat and tugging it taut around his hunched back. He stomped forwards at his usual uneven stride, grabbing the lids of those crates and throwing them off. Within were stacks upon stacks of ampoule rifles and magazines of chem-packed darts which had gathered dust in the cargo holds of the ship for decades.

“Are you sure we need these old things?” Four-Arms grumbled.

Tumor-Teeth grabbed the topmost rifle, slammed a magazine into it, racked the action, and shoved it into his whining companion’s extra arms. “Yes. Check the chem-loads. Make certain they are still potent.”

Without hesitation, Four-Arms immediately turned the rifle around on himself and yanked the trigger, firing a glass dart into his own chest that punched into his flesh and shattered, releasing its contents into his tissues. After a few moments of idle silence, he shook his limbs out as the wound scabbed over.

“Must have gone inert,” he slurred, before promptly flopping over unconscious.

Satisfied, Tumor-Teeth tossed the next one to White-Mane, then began handing them out to the other Wracks slowly filing into the great chamber that throbbed around them with every beat of the gigantic red organ overhead. They had been called here by a thought-impulse fired through the screaming nerves of the ship, demanding that all unoccupied hands come to stand in defense of the battleship’s Heart.

“Rifles?” one of the younger Wracks complained as she took what was offered to her. “And here I thought I had left the monotony of the Kabals behind.”

Though she alone spoke this among the amassed Extollers, she had given voice to a sentiment that the Acothyst could only consider disturbing to witness exuding from so many of his students. It was an attitude that demanded correction.
“Boredom in battle? When we are surrounded by opportunity? You betray your lack of imagination,” Tumor-Teeth warned the young Wrack, in so doing warning them all. “Remember what the Master will do to us if we allow our guests to run rampant in such a place as this and deny him his fun. Now think of the sweet joys that lie ahead with these fresh subjects charging at us. How many of you have dissected Asuryani before?”

Though the appeal to duty and the threat of punishment only stirred some of the young Extollers, few present could brag about having experienced such an exciting prospect as Craftworld livestock in their pens. As soon as the idea took root in these bratty, lazy learners, there was a sudden and immense transformation in the energy of their movements—from hollow lethargy to shaking haste, quivering with imagined delight. They did not even wait for direction before they scattered with a fey thrill, chattering bloodthirsty nonsense to themselves and their peers.

“Watch them wander! Ah, to be young again! Now we ponder! A plan, to cut up a wo-man!” giggled Long-Tongue.

“First, we guard the Heart,” White-Mane suggested. “But how? We have no force field generators on hand.”

Before any of the veteran fleshshapers could think of a specific strategem, many of the younger Wracks were already climbing the walls with the sinister strength of their spindly limbs. They dug gnarled tools into the seams between the armored plates shielding the chamber, prying them off to clank hard upon the floor. At first this seemed to be no more than simple lunacy, as so many neophytes of their order were often driven to fits of madness by the Children’s screams in their minds. But then the junior students began to drag these freed plates together, stacking them up, welding them into crude and clumsy buttresses around the throbbing Heart.

“Hmm… imperfection, their handiwork. Yet I behold sparks of inspired wit,” the Acothyst muttered approvingly as he hobbled around, watching their astonishingly swift work. They were no experts at these matters, nor was there time for precision craftsmanship, but they each proved themselves worthy of their tutelage by cobbling together sturdy defenses out of literal scraps dug out from the walls.

As they worked to expand the barricades, others among the young learners showed their own initiative by dragging in a variety of arcane devices ripped out from nearby laboratories and surgical centers. Wasting no time with the sounds of battle closing in on the Heart, they bolted these fearsome improvised weapons to the new battlements and rigged them with power sources like portable generators or wired them directly into the innards of the vessel. As the Extollers finished securing the last few details they had time to and gathered behind the neoferric ramparts, dozens more of their number scaled the walls to cling to the throbbing ceiling above with coy little giggles bubbling out of their throats.

Then the bulkhead doors shook, sooner even than they had predicted. They resisted the immense firepower coursing into them with groaning squeals, but they could not last for long.

As they waited in silence, hearing only the beating of the great Heart behind them, the ship began to rumble ominously beneath their feet, the exposed glistening flesh behind the walls and beneath the floors pulsating with unmistakable hate and agony.

“Feel her wrath! We do not fight alone. Our lovely Mother awakens, and her fangs shall soon close around her prey…”

===

“Where have they gone?!” Ynnatta shouted, pulling a trapped Guardian out from the mouth of one of the deceased blob-Grotesques, who was quite terrified but blessedly fine.

“Let it be,” Azraenn said. “The Dreamer guided us this far. The Heart is not much further. If they wish to risk themselves escaping this hell on their own, let them. Freedom was to be their prize regardless.”

The others thought it strange that the fiery Bladebearer was so calm after such a grave betrayal. But she knew, even if her comrades did not, that now was not the time for anger.

Azraenn darted ahead of the rest, taking the lead. Those Grotesques had been sent as a desperate measure by the flesh sculptors lurking in the shadows, hastily modified for battle from other tasks. Their goal would soon be in sight.

With twin catapults in hand, she eviscerated every foe that stood in her way without slowing for a moment. She did not bother aiming for vitals; she showed the rest that a Wrack could not harm them if one severed their limbs at the root. Those few that were left to try to stop them were reduced to sighing torsos and stomped by a dozen boots as the Guardians passed them by.

Immense bulkhead gates barred their entry, but the fusion guns reduced them quickly to slag.

The Heart of the Cancer of Stars was fittingly immense. A gigantic organ that beat with rivers of blood, pumping it all to every corner of the battleship. The sound of its heartbeat was deafening, a low, booming roar at a perfect rhythm, thrice a minute sufficient to propel the oxygenated fluids at a hundred meters per second.

And it was guarded by scores of dug-in Wracks.

Facing a foe so well-armed and warded, Azraenn immediately regretted ordering the bulkheads destroyed when that left the whole contingent trapped in a narrow hallway with no protection save for a couple of serpent’s scales pushed ahead of them, and no escape.

A perfect killing aisle.

“No need to take them alive. We will simply piece them back together in chains,” declared the tumor-tortured Acothyst standing at the fore, lifting his rifle and taking aim.

So this was the fate the Dreamer had warned of.

Withdraw! Azraenn commanded through the mental uplink.

Monsters from behind! exclaimed one of the Guardians at the rear. Where did they come from?!

They crawled from the walls, Aulephe observed coldly. Or rather, they were the walls. And now the way is sealed.

Clear a path, now! Azraenn ordered.

So it was a perfect ambush. They were cornered. How could the enemy have possibly organized such a thing in the havoc of the assault?

The rifles and dark implements fired all as one, funneling their combined firepower down the clear lane. The serpent’s scales were powerful mobile defense field projectors, and it was only thanks to them that it did not devolve into an immediate slaughter. But they could not withstand such fell force forever.

Fore ranks, advance! she ordered. With no path out, their only chance was to hurl themselves madly into the enemy and hope for a rout.

Azraenn pushed out into the vast chamber as far as she could while staying within the flickering defense fields, firing both catapults wildly. But with the cover the Covenites had created for themselves, she could not target most of their joints to disable them, and firing at their vitals proved useless as ever when such organs had been made redundant, replaced with auto-regenerative tissues, or simply removed entirely. Every Wrack she shot down rose again in short order like the living dead. Even those dealt mortal or debilitating wounds were swiftly mended by their comrades, returning to the fray as though they had never been harmed at all. Only near-total annihilation by missiles or fusion beams was enough to put any of them down for long.

Madness. This was madness.

Even so, some among them were forged to face the madness of war and conquer it.

Azraenn assessed the situation with a glance. The Wracks were hardened targets, but in their haste to reinforce this place, they had left key equipment exposed. Using the mental interface of her armor, she visually indicated to the troops bulky power cables and generator devices she noticed scattered across the floor, and with the brilliant marksmanship drilled into each and every one of them, they destroyed every vulnerability. The Covenites shouted in immediate dismay as their heavier weapons sparked out and failed, and without that firepower, the serpent’s scales were able to stabilize against the rest of the oncoming fusillade.

Needing no command, the Striking Scorpions knew their purpose then. Seizing advantage of the lack of deadlier force, they pushed out ahead, using their heavy armor to wade into the streaking rifle fire without doubt in their trot. Dozens of glass darts shattered against their panoply, glittering like icy stardust washing across their verdant green armor, yet none of the ampoules found a weakness to pierce, nor could they slow the fearsome warriors’ charge.

Then Azraenn’s auto-senses flared with an alert that echoed across all her troops, and she glanced up to see that there were many more Wracks crawling on the ceiling of the chamber. They dropped down with hissing shrieks, trying to crush the Scorpions beneath their numbers, keen tools and whirring drills swinging wildly.

But though this was another unpredictable maneuver by their foes which defied the very logic of battle, in choosing to challenge the masters of ambushes in their own specialty, they had sealed their own fates.

These crafty young Wracks met with revving chainswords swung up at them in blinding blurs, their momentum and their mass severed in half, drenching the Scorpions in their entrails as they splattered on the ground around them. More continued to drop around them, but they could accomplish nothing of worth. The Scorpions stood back to back in a diamond of death, firing and striking down every single foe that dared face them.

As her sisters massacred the falling Extollers, Ynnatta whirled to face a Wrack that charged at her with an oversized pair of bone shears, simply disintegrating this bold young Covenite’s entire head with a single bolt of her mandiblasters. Then she thrust her sword into the dense bulk of her slain foe, the teeth of her chainblade tearing through her torso deep and tangling her flesh tightly into the armament. Without hesitation, she swung the limp corpse around to shield herself from the hailstorm of chem-darts, a cunning maneuver soon imitated by her fellow Scorpions to create their own morbid shields for themselves, firing their pistols around their new cover to take out the outer line of rifles as they continued their advance step by step.

Azraenn covered them, fearlessly blasting every Wrack that fell behind them into groaning chunks, her fellow Avengers turning their catapults upwards to eviscerate the remainder of the Wracks still positioning for a drop above. By the heroism of the Aspect Shrines and swift tactical adjustment, the scales of battle had begun to favor them though outnumbered six to one in this vicious ambush. More and more of the Guardians pushed out into the Heart chamber now, taking cover behind the serpent’s scales and heavy weapons platforms and cutting into the assembled defenses with every gun they had.

Now the Extollers simply laughed aloud with psychotic glee, realizing that even as the occasional Guardian fell whenever a glass dart slipped through the small gaps in the serpent’s scale fields opened by other shots, their sly tactics had been twisted against them into impending defeat. As the Scorpions shoved past the outer ramparts, blasting the confused, mumbling Wracks with shurikens and plasma-bolts, it seemed that the battle was decided.

Yet once again the Covenites proved that their wicked genius could not be predicted nor prepared for. Their ranks embattled in the rear, ignoring the occasional stray shuriken ripping through their chests, picked up and stabbed the severed cords of their heavy weapons into their own spines and organs with giggles of suicidal amusement to charge the capacitors with their very life force. Wired to their weapons, laughing off the agony of becoming the fuel for such dread implements, they aimed and fired with insane determination.

The Scorpions saw the strange pressure cannons swivel toward them, energized by sickly green lightning crackling through their cords. They spun their corpse shields around, but it was too late. The terrible armaments vomited on them, and the meat of a single body was not enough to protect them from the toxic smog washing around them.

Once the flowing streams of corrosive red fumes ceased a second later, there was nothing left of the Striking Scorpions but naked corpses, armor and weapons dissolved in an instant, their lungs melted from the inside out, crimson dribbling from their lips as they lied motionless and still.

Abject horror reverberated through their psychic uplinks, like the tolling of a dark bell.

As the other heavy weapons kicked back to life and exploded their fury outwards, the first serpent’s scale failed against the withering rain of renewed firepower, the platform itself split into superheated halves by a high powered laser cutter meant for severing limbs from monstrous creatures and cutting into their armored abdomens. The other would soon join it.

Aulephe? Azraenn asked as she tracked her twin catapults across the enemy lines, but received no answer.

The second serpent’s scale failed.

Like being pushed through a meatgrinder, the feinting force was crushed, ripped up, and melted into bloody, crying, broken corpses or soon-to-be ones.

Azraenn felt the torrent of darts slam into her armor as she dodged and weaved, firing fiercely even as she listened to the cries of terror and agony echoing from behind. She leapt over the beast-cutting beam as it swerved to rip her into pieces, swinging her catapult around and firing at the far wall. Her hypersonic shurikens ricocheted with impossible accuracy, skirting around their scrap steel bastions to take the head of the Wrack wielding that fearsome device, which sailed up into the air along with a rain of blood and the twinkle of crystal fragments.

An incredible feat, indeed. But too little, too late.

A beam of pulsing white slammed into her from the side, and she felt her very skeleton rip out through her flesh, barbed branches of blood-streaked ivory tearing free from underneath her armor. What good was her impervious panoply when the foe’s weapons simply altered the body beneath?

She collapsed.

Silence set in, save for the gurgling and whimpering of the defeated.

Azraenn crawled forwards, her blood pooling beneath her, spikes of bone grown out from her ribcage that had pierced her skin, breasts, and many of her organs. Her shuriken catapults were destroyed. She drew the honor blade hanging from her belt and gripped it in her weak fingers, wiggling herself onwards like a slug, only the slimy trail she left was crimson rather than clear.

The master of these defenses walked up and peered down at her. Only now did she recognize him, in the haze of death.

“Young Warrior. So we meet again. My, such grisly torment you endure, yet it is your heart that aches worse, does it not? Let me help you,” said Tumor-Teeth. He knelt down by her, ignoring the desperate and rapid stabs into his chest with her short ritual sword, merely an annoyance to one of his twisted physique. Chortling at her pathetic efforts, he grabbed her and slowly flipped her onto her back as she cried out in agony, the twisted and gnarled bone-growths in her chest only cutting deeper into her innards. She coughed blood from her pierced lungs, completely painting over the inside of her visor in crimson.

“Oh dear, oh dear, you poor thing,” Tumor-Teeth chuckled venomously, helping her to see by removing her helm with his third arm and throwing it aside, clattering on the floor. He propped her up against him so that she could see, and metal-clad fingers came to prise her eyelids open as blood dribbled from her mouth. Her consciousness was already fading, but even this could not save her from the living nightmare. He injected something into her neck, and Azraenn’s mind wrenched back to total awareness as potent stimms coursed through her veins, the pain growing a thousand times sharper as all her senses multiplied in intensity.

“Fu—ghk!” Azraenn spat desperately, vomiting blood onto her own chest halfway through mustering the curse. She was awake, she was aware, and she was forced to behold the fruits of her own folly.

Azraenn gazed upon the devastation of the force she had led, too weak to weep. Ynnatta and the other Scorpions were truly gone, only incoherent chunks of flesh left to float in the protoplasmic ooze they had been reduced to. Loreyi, her most trusted warrior, twitched helplessly as lethal chems stuck into her by elegant glass darts flowed through her bloodstream and put her into deathly torpor of the deepest terrors. Even old Loebeni, the captain’s Scribe, once so valiant and proud, was being devoured by worm-like tumors fired from one of those bizarre weapons, and they had left nothing but bone from the waist down. With her bionic arm, the only part of her body that still worked, the Guardian was numbly trying to push the fanged tumors away, yet they burrowed underneath her armor, underneath her skin, and began to consume her from the inside out.

“Look at what your hubris has wrought. You came into the den of vipers, believing that victory was assured by the foresight of your Seers,” asked the teacher of murderers, his hoarse voice bubbling with malice. “Like so many before you, you will savor the great delights of the Covens for your impudence.”

Boom.

He paused his gloating speech, glancing up to see the blinding explosion rip out from the passageway as a great and inhuman cry of pain rippled through the Cancer of Stars around them. Hurtling out from the smoke and the blood spewing from the very walls, Aulephe curled into a somersault and caught herself on the ground with a hand, springing back onto her feet into the midst of the Wracks that were collecting the wounded and dead Morriganites, applying first aid to preserve their lives or quickly working to restore that which had been lost.

“Oh, so there was one left,” Tumor-Teeth chortled. “Watch, girl. Watch and see what becomes of those who dare to resist us.”

There was a pause as all her enemies turned to stare at her through the dark holes of their copper masks.

“You hurt Mother,” wheezed one of them amongst the many, a low and fearsome growl that resembled the voice of a feral beast more than Eldar.

In the tension that followed, as though they awaited an answer to the accusation, there was only the sound of the Heart thumping deafeningly behind them all. The Warlock stuck her boot underneath her glaive, shoving it up with a kick of her foot, twirling it over her head, then swung it down into the stance of the Spearman’s Challenge, hooked in an arm behind her while she extended her other hand to beckon with cold indifference to the weight of their numbers surrounding her, the power of the Warp wreathing her robes and weapon in the lightning of death.

For a moment, Aulephe looked to Azraenn where she suffered in the arms of the Acothyst. There was no need for words. Any hope of victory was long lost; the assault force lay in pieces. Her purpose for standing against them now was as simple as the edge of a blade. Vengeance for the fallen.

In eerie silence, with a terrible calm as though calculating her demise, they lifted their tools and came at her.

The first one to trespass into the reach of her blade was split from collar to hip, dead without so much as a cry of agony, the fell energy coursing through his corpus annihilating his body and shredding his soul with it. Yet the others showed no dread of the risk of Final Death, and they advanced with quiet determination, like machines more than men. Four more entered her domain, two bisected across the waist, the third executed by a flick of her fingers, electrocuted to a crisp. The fourth smashed the Warlock from behind, but even his blood-stained bonesaw could not so much as fray a single strand of her ornate robes, her runic armor, against which his crude weapon shattered.

Without pausing even a moment, she spun into a beautiful and vicious kick of his gut, shattering his spine and whatever passed for ribs in his twisted torso, popping the Child attached to his open chest like a cyst that sprayed its disgusting fluids all over the floor. Then even more rushed at her, and she whirled with an arm thrown out, a great tempest of telekinetic strength hurling the fools away like a tide of flesh-twisted freaks crashing into each other. Those closest were pulped into a paste as the circle of Wracks was shattered by the sheer hurricane force of her psychic impulse, yet still they simply arose and brandished their weapons with grim confidence, such wounds that ought to be mortal merely mundane to them.

With the chance to focus as they gathered themselves for the next assault, Aulephe reached up high, closing her fingers into a tight fist as power surged through her runes, and a dozen bolts of cursed lightning tore through the veil of reality itself, arcing from one Wrack to the next. Nothing was left of them but distorted bones as the evil electricity burned their flesh away.

Yet even still, not one of them made a sound.

The masses arose again, far less of them put down by her efforts than she had hoped. Even her deadliest maledictions were like dull blades and lukewarm fires against these horrific abominations. The curse of the Thirst was in full bloom, slaked as it was by the agonies of the Craftworlders, so pure, so unsullied, so sensitive, so gifted with the legacy of their people that even a small pain echoed through the Skein like a great and terrible storm. Like all Drukhari, the anguish infused them with strength beyond what was natural, made mortalities into small annoyances, restored youth and vigor, cleared their minds of weakness. It made the Dark Kin into apex predators, the most dangerous murderers in all the galaxy.

No. No, it was not merely the Thirst. Nor was it their twisted enhancements. Beneath it all, there was the hatred glowering through their eyes, many of their masks dented and destroyed now to reveal their true disfigurements. It was so pure, so single-minded, that this seething resentment alone could sustain them even against the terrifying powers of a Warlock.

BOOM.

There was a sharp crack of a weapon—something whizzed—and impacted her helmet, shattering it despite the adamantine strength of her warded garb. Aulephe stumbled back, a hand rising to hold her head, bleeding through the shimmering white braids hanging down around her pale blue eyes. The crimson stained her lovely white locks, tinting her fair beauty with the essence of war.

She had not even noticed the arrival of reinforcements. But of course.

War-Grotesques, six of them, bristling with terrifying arrays of weaponry and armor. But they were not the ones who had shot her. They were commanded by an entourage of Wracks that were… different. Though all Wracks were unique variations of the obsessions of their masters, those that now entered the Chamber of the Heart stood with such a ghastly and superior aura that none could mistake them for common learners. Their bodies were not so crudely warped like the rest; where the lower Extollers were hunchbacked things with withered limbs, these were walking perfections of flesh-shaping, pale skin glistening in the dim light, rippling with pristine strength, each having taken their own anatomy into hand long ago and reshaped themselves as they desired, becoming the living proof of their own talents.

Even more, it was as if some small measure of the sinister horror that all Haemonculi inspired had somehow been imparted upon them by proxy. Their uneven movements blurred in her vision, their baleful whispers echoed in her ears. They radiated all that was unnatural and wrong from their very pores, and the bizarre neoplasms growing out of their flesh seemed different from the feral Children latched to the other Wracks. These were not forced upon them, gouged into their bodies surgically. No, they had grown naturally within these dark figures, an evolution of evil that created something far more insidious than parasitism: symbiosis. The dark eyes sprouting from those tumors watched Aulephe, and their fanged mouths whispered pernicious verses that were spontaneous, flowing artworks worthy of one walking the Path of the Poet. More elite even than Acothysts, ancient and brilliant, masters of countless dark arts, these were the favored apprentices of the Haemonculi, so near to ascension: the Haemoxcytes.

They had strange weapons, nearly all hand-crafted to suit their personal needs. One of them was an ornate anti-materiel rifle bolted into the shoulder of the largest and strongest of the Haemoxcytes that still smoked, the very weapon that had penetrated her psychic wards. When Aulephe reached out with her senses, she instantly felt the cold and the pure malevolence of the ammunition trapped within—poisoned Wraithbone shards, filled till it shattered with the pain of an unspeakable number of flayed souls. He stepped forward then, taking a long and gruesome sickle from his hip, polished to a mirror sheen for surgery and slaughter.

Aulephe stared into them, a resigned, yet proud smirk crossing her slender lips. She twirled her glaive, throwing out a hand to fling these newcomers back into the walls. Power coursed through her body, summoned by her runes, and in a blink, all the Wracks in her way were cut in half. She was already upon the dark masters like a flash of light—

Glaive met sickle, and sparks showered the floor as inaeldari strength shoved Aulephe back at the first clash between them. Unbalanced, staggering, she caught herself with one boot firmly stomped upon the blood-streaked floor, twisting her blade around just in time to halt his second strike. This one was not only mighty, but swift as well, his movements lacking the crudeness of lesser Covenites. Thrice more their weapons parred, and thrice more the Warlock retreated at his advance.

He, and most other Haemoxcytes, had long ago left behind the limitations of the Aeldari. Incorporating organs, tissues, and even genetic sequences harvested from other species, they piled augmentations upon themselves that rendered them less and less Eldar and yet all the more dangerous. Master-crafted abominations one and all, to challenge them in battle was to face the full weight of centuries of enhancements and skill.

He swung his free arm out, which was a disgusting thing entirely consumed by tumors. From within the mouths of those slimy growths, long, barbed tongues lashed out, almost seizing Aulephe where she stood if not for having sensed his cunning weapon moments earlier. Though they whipped with supersonic cracks, they caught nothing but air as she cartwheeled out of the way, glaive whirling like a white glint, slicing all those fanged tendrils to bloody pieces that writhed on the floor.

But he simply grunted at that, stomping after her with mild annoyance at the failure of his cancerous weaponry. A setback that he would have to rectify with his sickle.

As he pushed her back further and further, Aulephe, short on breath, saw the other Haemoxcytes casually moving to collect the Craftworlder cadavers scattered around the chamber, piling them into the arms of their Grotesque servants, no doubt to be taken for revivification. There was no time to duel this bastard—she would not let them desecrate the sanctity of her kin’s rest. With a hiss through gritted teeth, she leapt back over a pile of corpses to open some distance, smashed straight through the skull of a Wrack that foolishly charged her from behind with the butt of her glaive, then raised a fist, calling forth the wicked energies of the Empyrean through her runes even as she watched the flechette cannon bolted into his shoulder tracking her movements.

Yet for all his grafted strength and vitality, he could not dodge lightning.

Thunder tore through the air.

Krrrzzzzzz-zzz-zz-zzzztch!

BOOM.

Azraenn’s eyes blurred for a moment at the blinding flash, only slowly able to make out what had happened. The Haemoxcyte stood scarred, his flesh singed red by the touch of the dark powers which had struck him. Were such mild burns all that he had suffered against the storm that ought to have liquified his organs and destroyed his soul? He reached up to brush some warp-ash from his shoulder. By what horrible sciences could one resist so fell a power? What in the name of the Crone was he made of?

Azraenn, weakly, turned her eyes to the last standing warrior of Morrigan. Her heart sank to see venerable Aulephe crumple to her knees, a pain-poisoned Wraithbone fragment embedded straight through her very heart.

The stimms failed to sustain her waking agony any longer. Quickly, Azraenn began to fade into the darkness of the void, joining the Warlock in oblivion. Azraenn heard Tumor-Teeth’s words hiss into her ear, as though he were whispering a lullaby to a child.

“Worry not, little girl. Death is no salvation. You and all your kin shall be made alive once more.”

===

The Dreamer laid that shard down. Sorrow filled her hollow heart deep. But this was not something which she could change. The attack on the Extolled Malignancy was doomed from the beginning. The Covens were too unpredictable, too clever, and too hard to kill. With such limited Aspect Shrine support, they could never defeat these monsters in their own territory.

Qa Vanada was no fool, nor did he suffer fools among his students. He had played a gambit. He left his battleship exposed as a lure, not informing his subordinates of his scheme to guarantee a true show of weakness, daring the other great powers of Commorragh to challenge him for control of his new territory. He knew quite well that anyone who did attack would face crushing retaliation from his allies. But in secret, this net was laid to ensnare an even greater target—Lady Syndratta, a known ally of Craftworld Morrigan, who might just be pressed to assault his flagship once she learned who it was that he had sunk his fangs into.

His reasons for wanting the Archoness to suffer such disgrace required some searching in the Skein… but there was a faint glimmer of a future where he replaced the Knightess Obsidian as Morrigan’s closest ally in Commorragh. Once his research into the Yearning was complete, his services could potentially be valuable enough to warrant such a compact, so long as he could ensure that Syndratta would lack the influence to block that alliance to protect her own interests.

That the Howl had charged blindly into that trap first was only a welcome coincidence. Despite being taken entirely by surprise, Qa’s learners proved themselves worthy of his teachings by defeating these warriors through brilliance and swift adaptation, and if they had failed to, he would not have bothered regenerating them. After all, no Coven could ever be so pathetic as to be incapable of defending itself from the detestable Asuryani, else the rest would come down upon it as a terrible infraction upon their shared reputation of terror and genius. On the contrary, Qa would be all-too-delighted to have more than a hundred new specimens for his research, and many among the Extollers would soon reap the rewards of his overbearing joy.

To weave so beautiful and deadly a web that it could catch any number of different prey was the mark of a true mastermind.

If she were to explain this to them, they would dismiss it as the babbling of a chem-deranged Outcast. They truly adored Eshairr, so they would not accept the obvious conclusion: one needed not the Skein to realize that the ultimate choice was simply to let her go. The best Eltaena could do for the Howl was ensure that defeat would not be as brutal as it could—that as many would be taken alive as possible, or otherwise revived. To that end, she had lied to them.

She had advised them of a three-prong invasion, which would divide their strength enough that the Malignancy would not have to resort to any more extreme options for defending themselves. Of all the remaining sects of the Aeldari, the Covens clutched to the greatest number of the forbidden secrets of the lost Empire. Theirs could unmake worlds and civilizations as though they had never existed at all, steal away stars and planets like cosmic jewels to feed Commorragh’s avarice, construct entire new subrealms within the Webway, even operate upon the very souls of their victims. If the Morriganites were slain through simple means, they could be resurrected through simple means. If they were ended by the dark artifacts of the Empire… it was questionable whether even a Haemonculus could save them.

She had told Druzna of the correct route to take to escape the fleet, leaving out the inconvenient truth that the opportunity to loop around and pick up the boarding party would never present itself. Such an omission was necessary for their own sake. Though the assault force was destined to fail, there was no reason that the rest of the Howl should suffer the same fate. So long as they obeyed Eltaena’s instructions, they would escape and reach safe territory.

She had told Azraenn to wait before pushing in deeper with the diversion force, not to avoid the coming of the Haemonculus, but to ensure the Wracks had time enough to fortify their position and arrange the defense of the Heart. This was especially vital, for if Azraenn’s contingent had taken it successfully, they would choose to destroy the organ and ensure a cataclysmic crash once they realized the rest of the attack had inevitably failed. Mutual annihilation would be an honorable end, a warrior’s death, one that Morriganites would find acceptable, if regrettable.

The fact that nearly all the Covenites aboard would simply be regenerated was beside the point. The loss of such an important vessel and the resources aboard presented an unspeakable cost. With glorious spite, they would go down in infamy as Craftworlders not to be trifled with, and their sacrifice would serve to benefit Morrigan in the end.

Yet that would also doom her friends. Such an end was unacceptable.

Thus, she had arranged events to her liking. Or rather, to Qa Vanada’s liking. Soon these poor women would be put to use in his wicked experiments. And much as she would have wished to avoid it, her companions as well would suffer the same fate.
Of course, for all his cunning, Qa Vanada could not truly see the future.

He did not understand what poison he had welcomed into his house. Nor did he know of the greatest threat to his existence in a thousand years, looming afar.

How much longer would it take for that dread warrior to accept her blood-stained role in this grim production? And what devastation would result? Eltaena was almost morbidly curious. Still, she would much rather observe the inferno from a safe distance with Renemarai and Leraxi at her side.

But before she could look for more shards of destiny, something wrapped around her throat. She was strangled, throttled, her voice crushed in her throat when she tried to scream. In that thrashing agony, at last the Dreamer awoke.

===

“What are you doing?” Leraxi asked over her shoulder, stopping her trot to turn back and see.

Eltaena felt her famished body, far lighter than any Eldar ever ought to be, flung into the wall with a resounding clang. Her head slammed into a metal strut, and her limbs went limp beneath her, slumping down dizzily. Gradually, as her vision cleared from twisting fog and her thoughts grew more coherent, the fallen Farseer glanced up at the one who had thrown her so brutally, fresh blood running down her face and stinging her left eye shut.

It was Renemarai standing over her, glaring wildly down.

“You knew,” Ren said. It was not a question. It was a statement of fact.

Once again, as she had so many times before, Renemarai had upended everything Eltaena witnessed in the Skein. She knew this confrontation would happen eventually, but not now, not while aboard the Cancer of Stars. Before she could analyze how such a subtle yet surprising change in the reflection of the ethereal mirror would alter her prophecies, a boot slammed into the wall beside her face, demanding answer.

“Yes,” Eltaena admitted.

“You let me fail? You let them violate me?” Renemarai hissed through a tone that was as vicious as it was hurt. She was desperate for answers. She had waited for this chance for so long, and she could not wait any longer.

“Only to save you,” said the Outcast.

“From whom?! Syndratta?! She tortured me! She raped me! She would have killed me! From Eshairr? She kept me in her pens like a blasted pet!”

“No. From yourself.”

Renemarai’s face turned aside, shadows falling across her beautiful features. She knew this already. But hearing it from her most trusted servant wounded her more deeply than any Human’s cock ever could.

“I could not protect both you and your empire. Your coterie was in open collapse,” Eltaena explained. “The Craftworlders were your last chance to escape the Sky Slicers before your mother’s loathsome legacy became your downfall. Soon as I glimpsed their arrival in the Skein, I worked to confirm the sole result that would be your salvation.”

“Everything that happened was according to your plans, then?” Renemarai whispered. It was not a question. It was a threat, and the tension in her body proved that.

“Yes,” Eltaena said. “The Craftworlders had to lose to you. The cowardice of the captain would spur the rage of the warrior. Conflict, in turn, would allow them to grow stronger. Soon those seeds will bear fruit, and now is when it is most needed. And it was further necessary that Syndratta defeat you, so that the Sky Slicers would finally come to an end. So that you would no longer be Princess. So that you could fly free from the burden of your inheritance, which had become the anchor that would drag you down to Hell.”

Renemarai’s eyes went wide with horror and fury. Horror that her life could be so carefully aligned to the plots of another, and yet fury that it would be Eltaena who would undo all her accomplishments. Horror that her own freedom of choice seemed so hollow in the end, and yet fury that Eltaena could have prevented it all with a few words of warning before it ever began. Horror that Eltaena was precisely right that she had begun to despise her own coterie, and yet fury at herself, fury that she had languished in her own indolent depravity, fury to have forced Eltaena’s gentle and blood-weary hands.

“Enough,” Leraxi growled gruffly, brandishing her klaive as much to guard herself from anything that might lurk in the shadows of these writhing halls as to threaten both her companions not to waste any more time. “We move. Now.”

Eltaena reached out a hand, silently asking to be helped to her feet. The concussion and her wrung throat made it even harder to walk than her malnourished frame did.

Renemarai glared down at her again, then turned and followed Leraxi.

Eltaena lowered her hand, watching her former friend go away and leave her to rot.

It was like the mirror image of how they first met on the streets of Low Commorragh. Ren was a younger, more exuberant Princess then, swaggering like the rightful ruler of the universe. And with that same intolerable arrogance, she drew her sword to stop the Wyches who were tormenting a famished chem-addict wearing the robes of an exiled Farseer. Eltaena had been convinced that her destiny was to perish at the heels of those monsters. But there, in those slimy slums, took place a ferocious battle born not of compassion, but of grandiose vanity. And then there was a hand held out to her, in defiance of the Skein, in opposition to self-owed hatred for unforgivable crimes.

Such sweet memory reflected inverse, she watched the one who had saved her from damnation leave her behind, cast away to the darkness that she deserved. The sole purpose for her existence abandoned her then, and now she knew that it was truly the end.

Her lips worked to whisper, “So it should be,” but no more voice existed within the husk that was Eltaena Lightseeker.

How surprising, she thought. She never imagined that she could still weep, even now, when she had cried out all the tears she was born to shed long ago, or so the Skein lied to her. But the tears that now ran from her eyes proved that once again, her foresight could be so precise in ways beyond count, only to miss the most important detail.

She did not think it would hurt so terribly.

Chapter Text

==Chapter XIV: Truth in Blood and Flesh==

Pain.

Throbbing through the very walls. Skittering beneath the floor. Seeping from above.

Not her pain. The pain of others. Hundreds. Thousands. Woven into the ship’s innards. A part of the cancer. Still alive. Still aware. No mouths left to scream.

She was naked, and warm. Every room on this ship was warm. Unnervingly so.

She flinched, feeling the metal length shift inside her vein.

The hunch-backed Wrack tugged the long, foreign needle from her arm with a derisive snort through her copper mask, squirting the stolen blood onto a strange fleshy tongue sewn into the wall. The tongue tasted the red that fell upon it, and the lips around it whispered an answer:

“Mmm. The flavor of Damnation is faint, as of yet. Rich, young blood. Nubile. Prime. Untainted by disease and poison and fear. Recent wounds of superficial nature. Near pristine, an acceptable specimen of the Asuryani.”

The meaning of those words, that analysis by an unspeakable abomination sewn into the very walls, nonetheless a tool of unparalleled precision, baffled Eshairr, at first. There were many damnations available to lesser races, such as Humans, but there was only one true Damnation which an Aeldari could ever succumb to. Then it occurred to her that the curse of her people might be seen as a metaphysical measure of that corruption much like the Craftworlds viewed the Thirst in their Dark Kin, a soul-debt which must be paid eventually.

“Bloodline?” barked the Wrack impatiently as the thing ran its tongue over its freakish, distorted lips, savoring the taste.

“Bland. No legends in her ancestry. Not even a distant and tenuous link of the noble houses, only the mixed blood of commoners runs through her. May we taste more? Perhaps a finger, or an eye? A stretch of entrails?” asked the chemystery nest wriggling in place. After a moment, it stretched out with that disgusting tongue, attempting to seize hold of the attendant, but she withdrew just in time—clearly quite experienced in handling such bizarre flesh-apparatuses. “Come now, we are so hungry! Perhaps… perhaps we might be allowed to taste that precious spark within you? Delicate and delicious. Let us feast upon it!”

Pain in the walls. Pain redoubled, and renewed, with throbs of fresh agony writhing through the flesh. Death followed, swift and murderous, for the crime of speech that could not be forgiven.

The nurse-Wrack turned, seeing the long, poison-bleeding dirk thrust through the tongue, watching the mouth sputter and thrash in the confines of the flesh-wall that imprisoned it. It was said that nothing could survive the kiss of such an evil edge, and this was proven to hold true for the parasite, if nothing else.

“How rude,” she admonished the guest. “It will take days to grow another. I shall have to bring my samples to the next surgery chamber in the meantime.”

Eshairr, with a tug of effort, managed to wrench the Shaimeshi blade loose from the deceased flesh-machine, turning to the Wrack with wild eyes, yet a calm voice. “You want more blood?” asked the fire-haired woman.

“No. Master will have sufficient data already,” answered the Wrack, cleaning her syringe with a damp cloth between her many hands. “However, for the experiment to have any value, the impediment within you must be…” she paused, eyeing the red-streaked dagger in her patient’s hand. When next she spoke, it was with only the most careful diction. “…provided a new home.”

Even such delicate phrasing was a risk, but fortunately for the nurse, Eshairr understood to what she referred.

Birthing vats. Womb-hives, more poetically named on the streets. The Covens provided such service for all undesired children.

Which are most, in this dire city.

Eshairr turned, her eyes vacant, going to the examination chair and taking her place there, feeling the cold metal shackles seal themselves around her automatically with grim acceptance.

She had already agreed to this. It was for the best.

Is it?

Though, she could not actually explain how it would benefit anyone, least of all the child.

You are abandoning it to Commorragh’s streets.

For the best.

For all that you scorn her, in one singular, immaculate stroke, you have rent apart any pretense of superiority to your own wretched mother.

The darkness within her heart, free and seething like a rabid mongrel now that she had left the Path, echoed every single hollow platitude with cold truths she could not refute, only flee from.

Eshairr looked up at the attendant preparing the tool for this procedure—a strange, dark, fleshy proboscis attached to some sort of green amniotic sac for transport. She had been told that this would be free, nigh painless, quick, and efficient, for if it were anything else, mothers in Commorragh would never bother with such services and the birth rate would never be able to sustain the perpetual conflict that defined the City Eternal.

But deep down, what she hoped was that she would suffer for it.

For this, she deserved worse.

There is no punishment nor penance profound enough for this sin.

The nurse approached her with slow, purposeful steps, the transfer device writhing to life in her vestigial third hand.

Eshairr closed her eyes. She could not bear to watch. Or listen. Or feel.

Sllrrrsch.

Though she dared not watch, she had no power to ignore the sensation of its invasion. She could feel it plunging into places that no foreign thing belonged, deeper than any manhood could ever reach. The thing twisted, contorted, slithered, searching for the mote of life within.

For a moment, she dared peek at it, wondering—almost hoping—that it might fail.

Then it froze within her, and her heart stopped with it.

Something pinched inside, wrong in all the ways that it could be. The tubular length pulsated, a faint bulge traveling from its delving tip down into the amnion sac with a disgusting gulp. Its prize could not be seen with the naked eye. But she knew at once that it was gone from her.

And then it was done, and the elongated flesh shrank and withdrew, and the nurse-Wrack immediately heaved out a retching, gooey cough, as if spiting the idea that this was anything ceremonious. No, the hunch-backed attendant simply turned and hobbled right out the door, on her way to deliver her embryo to the machine wombs. A chore, all this was.

Eshairr looked to the dagger still clutched in her hand, and all at once a great and terrible impulse to plunge it into her own heart nearly overtook her senses.

===

She only looked straight ahead as she walked through the vast halls of deepest crimson light.

Yet the sound of soft footsteps on either side of her betrayed the presence of the professional killers who were her escort now. These odd and unusual Kabalites said nothing, for they had sworn oaths of absolute silence to the Obsidian Rose. And these oaths were held devoutly indeed, for should either of them so much as utter the smallest whisper, the logotoxin that had seeped into even the deepest tissues of their organs would react to the multifaceted tones of their Aeldari voice. In the brief moments of existence left to them, both elite bodyguards would experience devastation which only they would ever understand. Only their mistress possessed the antidote for this deadly venom, and her beautiful fingers would clutch to it for as long as they remained in her service.

Of course, the Aeldari tongue was not limited to the spoken word. But even sealing just that was enough of a burden when the wars of Kabals were fought as often with speech as with swords. Even were they to betray Syndratta’s confidence through writing or the complex gestural component of the language, they would never have their speech again without her cure, and their traitorous aspirations would rapidly crumble by the inability to so much as hold a proper conversation with their peers.

But Lynekai did not think much on that now. No, for at last the call had rung out by the lips of servants rushing to her quarters, rousing her from meditative rest upon a lounge seat. She need not trace the Skein’s threads to realize the importance of the task soon asked of her. Merely the presence of Syndratta’s most trusted and irreproachable guards was enough for that.

She was led to a chamber seated deep in the heart of the fortress, its door almost as fortified as that of Syndratta’s personal workshop. When the locks released and it slid open, the Silent took their place guarding it, and she stepped in through the potent force field that did not block passage, but blinded all eyes and deafened all ears that might seek to know what transpired within. The interior was nothing especially noteworthy. No artifacts of wealth hanging from the walls, no precious machines or devices that would indicate the purpose of the room. Indeed, the room was largely empty and undefined, which was no doubt the purpose in itself.

The only object of note was lying on a gurney, a skinless body, wheezing weakly, staring up at the ceiling without meaning in his eyes.

“Apologies for the delay. The Black Descent does not rush its work, no matter how many times one bribes them in vain hope that they might accelerate the regeneration of an important subordinate,” Syndratta said, lounging with legs crossed upon a stool by the wall, a sleeveless robe hanging from her shoulders, arms folded together, her blue nails tapping against the steel of the pistol she clutched to her side. The very picture of bored beauty and impatient displeasure.

Lynekai looked to the weapon. “The spy, then. Bonrei Lustwrai.”

Syndratta nodded disinterestedly.

“Odd. As I understand, the Covens are exacting in their work. To leave a pactbearer only barely alive… an imperfection of their craft.”

Syndratta shot Lynekai a look that signaled her annoyance as plainly as one could. “No, no. This is not their doing. I skinned him myself, testing his reaction. Nothing. If there is anything left of my spymaster, it is not his mind.”

Lynekai approached the body, waving a hand over it. The runes in her robes hummed at particular tones which only her ears were trained to understand, and then she sighed. “Look what your recalcitrant mistress has done to you.”

“Sympathy? No, my Seer,” Syndratta chuckled. “Of all the men in Commorragh to pity, he is not one of them, regardless of what has been stolen from him. I want what he promised me years ago when I sent him off. The secrets of the Lords of the Iron Thorn.”
At that, the Bonesinger halted and turned to the Archoness, a brow raised.

“Oh, don’t feign stupidity with me,” Syndratta grumbled. “We both know you are far too keen of mind not to have pieced it together already. You remember, do you not? The Iron Thorn caught him and tortured him till his mind shattered and his memories were lost along with it. Such is the fate of most infiltrators, alas. And thanks to that, even the Covens would not be able to harvest anything useful from him.”

After saying that, she paused, reconsidering her choice of words and quickly amending them.

“Ah, perhaps I exaggerate. One should never doubt that the Covens are capable of anything, lest they take offense and endeavor to prove such presentiments wrong. Regardless, the price of such a difficult service could, without question, bankrupt a Kabal.”
Again, Lynekai chose silence, staring at her. This only worked to irritate the Archon even further.

“Woman,” Syndratta growled. “You are no fool. And if you continue to act like one, I will treat you as one. Fools belong on the streets, not in my palace.”

“If I do what it is you expect of me, what is to be my prize?” Lynekai asked flatly.

“We are allies, are we not? Friends of blood and commerce. You would truly ask recompense for aiding me? It should be simple for one of your venerable skill to do such a small thing,” Syndratta smirked.

A bold move, on her part. She had promised reward, and now she pretended otherwise at the hour of service. A common tactic in the courts of the Archonry. And who would hold her to her word?

Yet at that, Lynekai appeared to swell with vigor, as though she had somehow concealed much of her height, much of her dignity, no longer quite the shrinking flower she had seemed for her stay in the palace. Now, she was a Seer. And Syndratta straightened up as well, both feet placed firmly on the ground, seeing this shift in attitude and following suit.

“The beneficence of an earnest alliance, indeed,” Lynekai observed with dry spite, marching for the door.

“You would turn your back on a wounded soul?” Syndratta asked, sneering. “To think you Craftworlders preach so highly of compassion, yet discard it when it suits you.”

“You would speak of friendship, while leaving my kin to die and suffer at the hands of monsters garbed in the flesh of Eldar?” answered the wise sage, venom flowing freely in her voice.

“And what of it?” Syndratta asked, standing now, hostility building in her posture. “Even your High Council would not be so foolish as to spark a war they cannot afford. Spare me the aggrandized indignation. I merely ask you to aid a subordinate, something well within your power, at no risk to you or your Craftworld.”

“No risk, hm,” she whispered, now rounding upon the Archoness with a fae ferocity in her eyes. “And upsetting the balance of power in the City Eternal shall bring no consequences down upon Morrigan, then? You think that the Lords of the Iron Thorn shall not realize by what means you recovered these secrets when I stand as an honored guest in your domain?”

Syndratta ran her hand through her long, beautiful blue locks, flourishing dismissively. “Of course not. There are a thousand arts of subterfuge by which I might have come by that knowledge, and Lustwrai was never my only agent seeded in their ranks. They may guess at the truth, but without proof, they could never muster the support to bring war to a Craftworld over such a matter.”

“You spew assumptions as easily as you breathe the essence of men, yet these platitudes are as empty as your cold bed.”

Those words struck the air in the chamber like a thunderclap, leaving only bitter silence between them. Moments passed, both remaining still, as though the slightest shift could give the last impetus for the Archoness to make use of her weapon. Only the sound of the broken and half-regenerated body coughing weakly, wetly, interrupted the tense stalemate.

Syndratta squared her pistol upon the Bonesinger’s brow. “You have said enough, have you not?”

Lynekai stared at her, unflinching. “Merely a fraction of what you deserve to hear.”

The body on the gurney sputtered and gasped. Mindless though it might have been, even so it radiated pain.

“Consider it thusly, then,” Syndratta said, lowering her weapon and shrugging her shoulders, casting the insult and its power over her off as though it were a mantle. “For a Seer, you only seem to see risk, yet you foretell no reward. You wanted a prize? Forget favors and baubles. I offer you this: Should I obtain these secrets, I will have leverage I can use against the Lords of the Iron Thorn. How are they to retaliate against you then? Yes, power shall come unto me, and influence besides. As we are allies, Morrigan shall in turn harvest the fruits of my swollen prestige. Is that not a worthy bargain?”

Lynekai paused. It was doubtful that she was surprised by what Syndratta said. Nonetheless, she seemed to give the moment weight, deep and heavy, and the Archoness felt a great foreboding that sent a hidden shiver up her spine.

And then the answer: “You commanded me to be no fool, Lady Sovranaikh, and so I shall not. I know why these secrets are so invaluable to you.”

The Knightess Obsidian stared upon the Seer’s beauty blankly.

“The Lords of the Iron Thorn swindled you.”

At that, Syndratta’s dark lips pursed, showing the barest hint of displeasure.

Lynekai turned, strolling as though through a meadow of the most beautiful flowers, circling the ravishing mistress of slaughter. She, for her part, continued to stare directly ahead, as if refusing to dignify it by turning her head to follow.

“A loophole in a contract that you signed in your own blood. You, who shall suffer no fools in your palace, must suffer yourself.”

“Who told you?” Syndratta hissed.

“No one. And everyone. The clothed remark cuts deeper than the naked query. They were all too careful not to let slip their own paranoia as to your standing with the Iron Thorn. None knew the full extent, so even peering into their thoughts was insufficient to grasp the whole of it. But given time, and time was as ample as the delicacies and delights you attempted to distract me with, the truth revealed itself.”

Syndratta shook, though with fury or with dread, it was unclear. Lynekai’s walk took on the aspect not of a Dreamer ruminating upon the beauty of nature, but a Reaper, sharpening her scythe as she eyed the neck of her prey.

“It was impressive. The façade of strength, when in truth you teetered on the edge of desolation and ruin every moment that you wasted toying with us. The image of boredom, even as you suppressed panic. The paltry tasks you sent us upon. Yet they were not as they seemed, were they? I can scarcely imagine why an Archoness would waste her precious time on a race of all things. And risking her own skin just to recover a single spy on grounds of some ill-conceived notion of honor? Ridiculous. You have no shortage of capable underlings with the skill to conquer that challenge. You were convincing, though, I must admit. Almost all eyes upon that contest were deceived.”

Syndratta sighed. “You think those of my station have no pastimes? I am far from the only one to visit the Necropolis below for personal amusement. Your theory is entertaining, but utterly unfounded.”

Lynekai stopped in her tracks, glaring into the back of her host’s skull and all her long, azure curls. “Then why send the Howl to join that race as well? You acted as though this was simply another test of our worthiness and a punishment for Kanbani, your own daughter. Why, indeed.”

“Indeed! It was an appraisal of usefulness, and upon further reflection, I now consider it a success despite the lack of a victorious champion in your midst. I will be pleased to discuss substantial compensation and a truly worthy quest for your ship, once it returns to us,” said Syndratta quickly, as if hoping to end the conversation.

But the avalanche had already begun, and it could not be halted by bribes and praise.

“No. It could only be a gamble to conceal the importance of the matter from your rivals and your allies alike, albeit a brilliant one, and credit is due for that. You rightly suspected spies in your midst serving the Lords of the Iron Thorn, so you refused to make use of your best men. A cunning maneuver, so I cannot call you entirely foolish. This was adequate to satisfy your own court’s suspicions, and it kept my kin content to risk their lives upon such a dangerous matter for no promise of reward,” Lynekai observed, rounding the Archoness once more.

“An amusing preconception,” said Syndratta dismissively.

“If you continue to lie to me, I may have to rethink my belief in your competence. Was there ever a true assessment of our worthiness in the first place? Doubt upon doubt unfurls. Renemarai seemed a small annoyance in the affairs of High Commorragh. Certainly, it was a matter of debt and honor, which is necessary to one’s respect and fear… but can be dealt with swiftly by simply lancing the offending vessel through.”

Again, Syndratta chose silence, fingers clenching around her pistol.

“And so, why turn to the Asuryani for such a matter? We are not cutthroats by trade. We would always hesitate to harm the vessel that was once the flagship of one of our greatest living heroines, captained by her very daughter. Yet is that not precisely why we were selected for it? Your own subordinates would consider capture by the enemy an unacceptable risk to their reputation. They would prefer mutual destruction, for regeneration is better than humiliation. The chances of them successfully bringing you that ship intact were… slim. And as you yourself explained, defeat for us would likely end in Renemarai stumbling over her own arrogance and handing her ship to you. Not so for Kabalites and mercenaries.”

“What does any of this shallow speculation prove?” Syndratta snapped impatiently.

Lynekai lifted her chin, as if looking down upon the Archon. “Curious, indeed, what happened to Renemarai’s flagship after the affair was settled. To think that the Tempestuous Chariot should be made a gift to Lord Kanlatos! Who is, I understand, a prominent leader of the Iron Thorn, and a man you have had dealings and romances with many times in the past.”

“That ugly thing? It was of no use to the Obsidian Rose in its aged condition,” Syndratta scoffed. “Better to make a rival seethe as he accepts a worthless present. It is a game, a game we all must play.”

“No use, indeed. None at all would ever seek the secrets of the Kabal of the Sliced Sky’s highly vaunted shipwrights, now preserved solely in the artifice of the Tempestuous Chariot after their complete annihilation,” said Lynekai, her sarcasm biting enough to take the hide off a carnosaur.

Once again, Syndratta closed her lips, jaw clenching tightly.

“Such a prize could even buy the ephemeral silence and mercy of a rival lord who has you chained at the foot of his bed. A lord who could do anything to you, violate you, even kill you if he wished, at no consequence. A lord who has claim upon a secret so terrible that you are reduced to nothing better than his slave in all but name.”

Syndratta chuckled darkly. “T’would be a great honor to be enchained and ravaged by Venerath Kanlatos. His blood runs thick with ancient nobility. So, too, does his seed. That is a pleasure, in fact, I have enjoyed more than once. He promised that I would thank him for it. And I have. I am proud to admit, every time that we have crossed blades, I have submitted to his passions in the hour of darkest delight, while the shadows danced around us and the blood of the weak washed over our flesh.”

Lynekai scowled, twisting her head briefly as though recoiling at the slimy visions that flowed into her mind from Syndratta’s thoughts. A kiss of the Yearning flushed through her core, louder than it had been in centuries—it only continued to grow in potency every hour that she spent in Commorragh, surrounded by this incessant degeneracy. It was no accident that the Archoness conjured such salacious dreams, as though brandishing a weapon against her. For that, she would strike back with equal viciousness.

And so she did, with a sweeping arm whipping her long, baggy violet sleeve through the air. “Enough! Kanlatos could ruin you on a whim. He need only announce to the city how you threw away nearly all your fortune on a new fleet of warships constructed by his finest wrights. But while loans from dangerous masters can fill the void in your coffers long enough for your bargain with Morrigan to once again save you from threat of destitution, naught could salvage your repute from a few vicious words:

‘Lady Syndratta gave everything to the Iron Thorn, and received only gratitude for her idiocy!’”

Each and every word Lynekai said was like a hammer blow to the Archoness’s heart, each pang of agonized shame washing through the room like tidal waves of twisted emotion. Were there any Drukhari there to appreciate it, they might orgasm for the delight.

“Everything you have built, everything you have sacrificed to claw your way up the mountain of rotting corpse and congealed blood that is this city, would be gone in an instant. Laughter would be your only companion as you watch your armies and servants desert you. You would be destroyed not by violence, which you have made your greatest passion, but by mockery. Khromys would not even have to formally disown you. She could simply ignore your existence, and you would disappear soon enough—whether dead or gone to hiding, it would not matter in the end.”

The Bonesinger completed her final circuit, her feet trodding to a halt in front of Syndratta.

“And so,” Lynekai finished, staring Syndratta in the eye, “You have need of the secret knowledge of the spy to balance the scales with Ironlord Kanlatos. It is only by bearing such a weapon against him that you can bind him to the terms of your pact, and ensure the delivery of the ships that were promised. Your place in High Commorragh shall be secure once more… for a time. Tell me now. Have I spoken falsely?”

The Merchant of Death closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and then shook her head.

“So the Howl is no longer of any value to you, for it has already accomplished what you needed of it, and the only obstacle to your salvation is my reluctance to do your filthy work. So be it that I hold the power of Death upon your neck. In this moment, I alone may decide whether you are a worthy ally of Morrigan, or whether we should seek out a new partnership.”

“If you do not aid me, I will kill you.”

An empty threat. Muttered by the lips of a bitter mistress. She knew that she was cornered by her own pawn, ensnared in the fraying web of her own schemes.

“And thusly slay yourself?” Lynekai asked with the utmost disinterest. “I think not, Lady Syndratta.”

In the silence that followed, she looked to the skinless body writhing in agony.

“Understand this, woman. It is because I am Asuryani. It is because I abhor bloodshed. It is because I feel the suffering around me as though it were my own. It is because I have walked all the Paths of the Eldar, and for as long as I follow the way of the Bonesinger, I am sworn to mercy. You shall know that I have chosen this because it is not my place to decide the fate of another soul, which is only my privilege because of the glory and goodness of the Craftworlds. Know that you are spared now solely for the righteousness of the true Eldar, which you and your mongrel kind have turned away from in favor of selfish decadence.”

At last, Lynekai walked to the corpus of bleeding sinew, touching a pair of fingers to his brow. Syndratta relaxed, giggling to herself, smirking across her pretty lips.

“I feared your jaw would never stop wagging. All that to give me what I wanted from the start. You could have spared me the sermon, old hag,” Syndratta taunted, a hand on her hip. “Get on with it.”

===

Eshairr departed the surgery chamber, feeling Nothing.

A void in her core. There had been life there, life she could feel faintly with her empathic senses, a spark of the purest and most unsullied potential.

And now it was gone.

She was not certain where her feet carried her, but the sprawling labyrinth of the Cancer of Stars unfolded before her, drowning in screams of the damned. Blood hung on the air like a mist, sweet and coppery on her lips, flowing into her lungs with every breath. The corridors pulsated with lusty life around her and beneath her bare feet.

She was still naked. She felt clumsy, crude, filthy. She was as a newborn, surrounded by carnosaurs that watched her pass with dark gleams in the gaps of their copper masks. She hoped they would not accost her anyways; she was a guest here. She had agreed to the demands of the Covenlord for the sake of Morrigan. Thus, by Qa Vanada’s order, she was entitled to small freedoms such as to wander the halls until the master was ready.

The passages opened up into a large antechamber, one doused in crimson and decorated with twitching furniture sewn from flesh and gore—faintly identifiable as amalgam abominations of Astartes, Sororitas, and Crone knows what else by the tattoos, shards of weathered ceramite, and groaning faces babbling broken verses of half-remembered litanies in a discordant choir.

Yes, they were shaped into a mockery of a great throne, painted gold but built of flesh and rust and blood. The lowest parts, perhaps crafted from common Humanity by the tattered rags woven into them, cried out at the weight crushing them from above. But the ears of the interwoven Astartes and Sororitas standing mightily up high could not hear them, so occupied as they were by their dogmas and hatred. Upon this grisly chair a decaying skeleton rested, adorned with a golden halo, collecting dust, staring with the mad and deathly grin of a pitiful fool whose ambitions had crumbled to dust between his fingers, yet still he was elevated and uplifted by his suffering adherents.

Eshairr tore her eyes away from the Broken Throne, seeing now that above there was a chandelier of severed heads that projected sickly light through their empty eyesockets, each impaled and sustained in eternal agony upon a beautiful corona of bone. Yet they were not more Humans, for though Humans demanded the greatest ridicule for their folly, there were other races whose naivete proved just as comedic. These stolen heads were blue-skinned Tau leaders and heroes, one of all five Castes united forever in a more perfect way than their crude and duplicitious government ever could. The carefully woven xenos-skeleton frame of the chandelier was constructed into the form of a singular rune whose broad and endless meaning could be reduced so tragically to such a small, treacherous idea that lesser tongues needed several words to convey and lesser minds would be blinded so easily by: the Greater Good.

And yet, these mantlepieces were not meant as insults. Not really. There were faint notes of sympathy, a venerable kenning of the suffering of lesser beings—And just when had she begun to think of these monstrous crafts as art? No, these were not jeers upon the lesser races, for such low humor was the domain of the young and the proud, a thing which Craftworlders and Commorites shared quite in common, as it happened.

But the Haemonculi? Wise and ancient? To them such petty insults upon the weak and the stupid were entirely vacuous and bovine, and any such childish amusements were long beneath them. These artworks forged from the living were mirrors, conveyances of the cold and bitter truth in such a way that could not be ignored or dismissed as the lies of an alien. These horrors would engrave themselves upon the hearts and minds of the mon’keigh who looked upon them forever, and the harrowing meaning would one day be understood even by the dimmest of intellects.

There were several more of these symbolic fleshsculpts. One for every race she had heard of, and many for civilizations she had never known. Each was horrific. Each was… almost interesting to study, to marvel at the artisanship on display, to wonder at each strike of the knife, each stitch of the needle that had crafted these masterpieces. Before Ravan had raped her, she would only have detested these monstrous creations. Each was an act of unspeakable evil to create.

But now you begin to admit the thrill you feel in the forbidden. At last you acknowledge that which you denied for so long. Your eyes only now start to glimpse the genius behind the art, and you confess in silent reverie how you admire the brutality, the darkness within her mused. How else have you begun to change?

She wanted to argue with that side of herself. She could not. Driven as much to flee these feelings as she was by the hollow in her belly, her legs carried her into a different passageway, for there was something else that she sought.

It was no coincidence that she came across it then. Inevitable, really. She simply followed the echo of that lonely star that was once her flesh, ignoring the orderlies and menials tending to their business all around her.

Eshairr stood before the birthing vats. Honeycombed wombs forged from metal, fueled by the arcane mysteries of the Covens. No mere surrogate vessels. The fetuses gathered in this hive of cold and unloving birth were grown to maturity in a matter of days, and to adulthood in mere months. The science that permitted such a complete and utter overthrowing of the natural cycle of Aeldari life was beyond evil, forbidden to all but the Drukhari. She could not even begin to guess at how such a thing was possible. Yet, a part of her began to wonder.

She reached out to the transparent seal of one vat—feeling the slimy surface of the organic web that would trap the amniotic fluid within until the day of eviction. Her daughter was in there. Still far too small to be seen.

“It is a rare mother who bothers to check on her spawn in this realm,” breathed the voice of Nightmares over her shoulder. “Most often I expect it of Wracks, you see. They alone show much interest in the products of their whoredom, and only then of a studious kind.”

“I was violated,” Eshairr said to the Haemonculus looming behind her, without ever tearing her gaze away from the thick, bubbling yellow sludge that would be the only motherly comfort her child would ever know in this wicked metropolis.

“Oh yes, we watched. You enjoyed becoming one with that man just as much as you detested him for forcing it. Save the indignation, that was no insult. It makes you far more interesting than the common whelp of the Craftworlds,” corrected Qa Vanada with cold disinterest, two hands far too long to be that of Eldar wrapping around her shoulders, fingers stretching down to hang upon her prominent and supple breasts, bony and thin and red like murderous scalpels.

“Now that the consequences are our concern, you need not think on it any longer. Rejoice, my dear. As I have for so many other women, I have spared you such considerations. Banish them from your mind. In this matter, I take my responsibilities very seriously.”

Dear. The word was wrong coming from a man like him. If he could even be called such a thing any longer.

She could see, just barely, a shimmering reflection in the elastic skin of the nurturing basin.

There was no name in the Aeldari tongue that was suitably contemptible. Abominable. Detestable. Diabolical. There were no terms in all the languages she had ever learned that could express the true horror and hatred that she had been raised to harbor towards those like him.

He was a walking lump of accursed cancer and sewn flesh, rictus faces and spindle limbs that had grown from within him as if even his very tumors nursed dreams of bursting free of the lumbering prison that his entire corpus had become. He was a mastermind of torments beyond ken, and his very appearance proved he had visited the worst of them all upon himself as though it were a fleeting amusement lost amidst a vast plain of curiosities. She knew just by standing in his presence that his soul was ancient enough to have watched the Fall with his own eyes, to have brought it about with his own blood-stained hands, and to have savored the taste of his grand atrocity like a stew of calamitous despair to delight his vile tongue as the greatest empire in all the universe fell to its own sins.

And yet, he spoke more pleasantly and softly than any she had met in all of Commorragh.

Eshairr stared into the nest of her own progeny for but a moment longer, and then she turned to him.

Qa Vanada.

“I have done what you asked,” Eshairr said, staring into the most prominent face amongst the many upon the bloated beast. It most resembled what might have been his original features as an Eldar, but now with veiny flesh pulsating all around it, even that was difficult to know for certain.

She gazed upon Nightmare, watching his many thin legs and arms tap upon the floor beneath his bulk. She knew him, yet it did nothing to blunt the revulsion that shivered through her, body and soul, at the merest glance. All he was, all that he did, was hideous. It was not that his body had long been consumed by a patchwork of agonizing tumors, nor his many skittering limbs. It was not his unnatural gestures, nor the countless eyes and mouths, some of which gibbered secrets of the arcane that seemed madness. Those were merely physical disfigurations, superficial, frightening only to those not already innured.

The true horror of a Haemonculus lied deeper, a flaw in their essence that veered beyond reality itself, to which no one could ever truly grow accustomed to. Indeed, there were some of their peerage who preferred conventional beauty to the more common grotesqueries they made of themselves. Yet even so, even at their most beautiful and ravishing, to so much as gaze upon any of their kind could stop the heart of the weak-willed as easily as a blade.

Her heart, too, quivered, tempted to halt altogether.

Lord Qa Vanada reached out with one of his long, arachnidian limbs terminating in command of fingers as long as daggers, caressing her chin gently. “Yes, and I am eager to commence experiments at once. Soon. But now that I inspect you, I must admit. It has been many, many lifetimes since I have felt such… euphoria. My, such a young, beautiful thing you are,” he hissed through more mouths than one, surveying her delicate cheeks, her full, red lips, her beautiful violet eyes. Soon his many scanning orbs turned from her physiognomy to her physique, with all the airs of an artist examining a fine canvas upon which he would paint the most gravure of masterworks.

He leaned in, a long arm caressing up the back of her thigh to clutch at her ample buttocks without a shred of shame, pinching her. Twinge. She felt the call of the curse sharp in her womb, as though it were punishing her all the harsher for the void she had chosen over motherhood, empowered by her weakness and guilt. Discomfiting, stimulating heat rippled through her belly at his touch, and Eshairr’s lips pursed as she stared into his freakish gaze, looking from one eye to the next, seeing none that were not upon her. Even so, one of his eyes swiveled to notice the blade held out between them. With surprising grace to his movements and a strange cordiality, he released her and gently leaned back.

“Ahh, yes, the Lhamean Cult and their baleful baubles,” Qa commented quietly from one of the mouthed tumors on his bulk. “Though some in Commorragh would be quick to slay an outsider for laying hand upon the legacy of Shaimesh, it is good that you have kept it close. My students can be rather unpredictable at times.”

Understatement. It seemed a favored tact of his. What he meant, yet did not bother to say, was that any of his Wracks might have turned her inside out on the smallest scrap of curiosity.

“However… I must scold you,” he added, reaching one long arm deep inside one of his many giant mouths, a low choking sound resonating as he fought his own throat for something. Soon, however, there was a sickening, sucking noise of release, and his long, long arm slipped free, a glittering thing clutched within his freakish fingers. “For leaving this where it lay, that is.”

Gradually, as the green bile dripped from the silverine coil of a serpent, she recognized it as Nolaei’s shadowfield.

“I have no use for it,” she stated flatly. “It cannot be wielded by my kind.”

“Your kind?” he asked, one of his several voices lowering to an amused chortle. “There is no such boundary, my dear.”

She thought of all that she had known to call her such a thing, and the thought of him speaking to her in the same manner as Aydona overwhelmed her dread for just a moment of bristling anger.

“Do not call me that,” she hissed, poking the instrument of murder closer to him, which he gently brushed aside with the back of his disgusting, blood-stained hand.

“My most heartfelt apologies,” he whispered to her, crawling on hands and warped feet around to the other side of her, quicker than she expected such bulk could ever accomplish. The words he spoke were flawlessly polite, yet his presence radiated such foreign will that she doubted he truly meant such a thing: there were clear moments where she, and she alone, was entirely the focus of his every thought, intense and overwhelming and stirring strange feelings in her core, tingling not unpleasantly. But that concentration upon her floundered every time she interrupted him, scattering his wits.

As though terribly bored by such outbursts, she could feel that his mind drifted elsewhere in that exact moment. Invariably he uttered one of these hollow bromides while he dreamed of darknesses which even the Drukhari could not comprehend. Gradually, as she watched him, she began to understand that he was not lying to her in the same way that someone like Syndratta or Nolaei would, not quite. There was no intention to deceive or mislead. There was no calculated façade of falsehood. Every empty platitude he spoke was merely instinct, long-ingrained responses to outrage, a surgical reflex to salve the wounded egos of those he conversed with so that he could return to the topic of interest.

“You should take it,” he said then, once more extending it to her, opening his hand.

“Is it not of more use to you?” she asked, turning half-aside from him.

“To me? Or to my students? No. A tool of concentration and will is far from desirable to those of the Covens, for our minds shall ever be focused solely upon our work,” he explained. “We make use of alternatives that are… shall we say, more convenient to our needs. But you, yes, you may well find purpose for it.”

Realizing he would continue to insist if she did not, Eshairr plucked the bangle from his palm, though the grease of his guts smearing over her fingers inspired an immediate regret.

“You see,” he growled soothingly, “some say the crystal nishariel, born of the deepest shadows of Aelindrach, bears a malevolent will of its own. They believe the nishariel choose their owners, and thus all who possess such treasures are destined lords of Commorragh. But these are naught but superstitions peddled by the Archonry, who are ever too happy to sow lies as seeds of prestige. The truth is simple. If there is a mind within this crystal, it is not one that desires a master. Quite the opposite. It is one that hates, and the only true master of a nishariel is one who has slaved it to their will.”

He leaned in closer to her again, his eyes wild with excitement. “Do you see? Feed it. Tame it. And its power shall be yours.”

“Feed?” Eshairr wondered aloud, looking at the serpent’s eye, glittering darkness in a gemstone.

“It is a mirror,” he whispered. “Awaken it with thine reflection.”

“I do not understand,” she insisted.

“On the contrary, Shipmistress,” he purred, wrapping an arm around her waist, his long fingers pressing to her midriff, smearing a sickening, cancerous ooze upon her bare flesh. “You understand perfectly what I am telling you. Memory shards. Waystones. The Infinity Circuit itself. Such technology is entirely familiar to you. Yet you think that you fear the darkness within this crystal, do you not? And well many should, for the true shadows of Aelindrach are not to be faced lightly, nor will they suffer a whimpering coward to claim them.”

Eshairr looked at him again as he brushed a frightening digit across her brow, pushing a wayward strand of her crimson locks away.

“I tell you now, young one,” he said, a long and thick tongue slithering out of his largest mouth to coil around one of her breasts, squeezing it taut within a strong wrap of slimy purple muscle. He tasted her, kneading her springy, soft mound, grinding over her sensitive cushion with a strange fascination for its shape and feel, and she let out the smallest, slightest gasp of air from her beautiful lips.

“You are not like them. I can see it in your eyes. I knew it when I watched you spill the blood of your enemies, ending all who stood in your path till you won your sweetest vengeance. Such relish in the slaughter awoke and ignited the long-slumbering memories of my youth. It has been a long time since I ever felt such a base flame nigh overtake my will, but you were ravishing with the brains of that arrogant wench smeared across your face, her entrails piled at your feet.”

For that, Eshairr did not plunge her blade into him. Instead, with distance and coldness, she observed his explorations of her body, feeling the fire rise within.

“It is not what lives within this gemstone that ought give you pause. As I said, it is a mirror. When you reach out into the darkness, it shall show only what you bring into it,” answered Lord Vanada.

“And what does it matter?” she asked, fingers clenching around the grip of her blade. “How does any of this nonsense this cure the Yearning?”

“Is that what your blessing is called from whence you hail?” he asked idly through a crooked mouth, still molesting her with hands, arms, tongues wrapping around her body.

“Blessing?” she hissed. “It is a curse!”

“Entirely a matter of perspective,” Qa replied dismissively. “Still, I am surprised. You claim your people despise it, yet you grant it such a sweet name, worthy of poesy. Are you sure that you did not enjoy its touch upon your lives? One must truly wonder.”
She scoffed at the insulting notion. “Because it is poetry! Some Eldar still care for the old arts. Don’t tell me you would call the mon’keigh races by their own disgusting tongues?”

“My dear, the high art which I practice stands older than the quaint verse your Poets write. They can only dream of reinventing all the culture which was lost in the fires of the Fall. They seek to undo the past! But they know not the folly for which they strive. I do. I browsed the great archives of the Empire, and I wept, for there was nothing more to discover, naught to be found or innovated. Your Poets do not see: we are blessed with freedom! Who ever wanted millions of years of scrolls and tomes brimming with blithering sophistry?” Qa asked, slithering a tongue up her collar to her slender throat.

Her voice caught, her insulting retort drowned by a pang of disgust washing through her as his muscle tasted her bare skin.

“It—it is our legacy! The gift of our ancestors! They left us the wisdom of who we are! What we are! Our place in this universe! Our great purpose!” Eshairr exclaimed, wrenching herself away from his slimy embrace out of protest.

Qa Vanada paused at that, grave displeasure crossing his many maws.

“My dear…” he began from one mouth, continuing with another. “Are those the words of your sad little Craftworld? I can only marvel at the miserable state of cultivation your people are provided. Your intellect is wasted upon slander, your brilliant mind enthralled to the lies of cowards desperate to ignore the great truths of our people. Morrigan has imparted nothing but the most despicable of illusions upon you, wasting potential untold. This, I cannot forgive.”

He lifted a gnarly hand and snapped his fingers. “Bring me a slave cadaver. Fresh.”

The students around him dropped everything they were doing and raced to fulfill his demand. In stunningly swift fashion, a live slave, a beautiful woman who seemed fresh from the vats—though one could never truly tell with the youth-preserving effects of the Thirst—was flung down before them, staring up at the assembly of Covenites and Eshairr with wide, weepy eyes.

“Get it over with, bastards,” the halfborn girl hissed through her teeth.

“Wait,” Eshairr said, but her voice carried no authority here.

Qa crawled to her, grabbed her by the skull, and simply twisted her head until there was a loud pop, and something very vital gave way within her flesh. The girl fell limp, her head hanging down at an angle that was simply wrong.

She should have felt outrage to see so callous a murder. She should have felt disgust, despair, revulsion. But she did not. There was a pang of regret from the side of herself that had once been a Mariner, but it was muted, dull. The new side of her felt… satisfaction. As though the life that had just been taken was a blemish upon the universe, and now, with it extinguished, something wrong had been righted.

“There. Fresh as death. Perfect. My dear, you shall not find the answers you pursue in the songs of our ancestors. These verses were the first place I checked when I was your age, long before the Fall. Though I regret the effort, I did commit many of them to memory, and I could tell you nigh every last sonnet of love, hate, and joy,” declared Qa. “You think our venerated forebears knew the high truths? No. They knew nothing of worth, and so they bestowed to us nothing of worth. If you wish to know who we are, it is best to begin with what we are…”

Qa took a scalpel offered by one of his Acothysts, but he did not use it himself. He grabbed the corpse of the deceased and dragged it over to Eshairr, presenting her with the long, jagged blade.

“…thus the answer lies in blood and flesh, not in poems and runesongs.”

For a moment, she did nothing. Then she slowly reached out to take the surgical knife, gazing down at bare skin, still warm like life though nothing beat in the chest of the halfborn sacrifice.

“You want to know, don’t you? You have always wondered. You have never truly felt at peace. You are a Mariner. You are an explorer. A seeker. Curiosity is your greatest love. There are many horizons that you may wander. Even the sea of stars grows dull after centuries of sailing. But this runs deeper. This is not a high truth—it is the lowest truth. The foundation of transcendence. This is the great riddle which has delighted and enchanted me, and my peers, for millenia even before birth of She-Who-Thirsts. There is no end to its mysteries. Yet, solve it. Go on. The first slice is the beginning of knowledge. Drink now of true wisdom!”

Eshairr stared at the softness, the grace, the beauty of the body held before her. Then she lowered the edge to the collar of the dead girl, and for a moment, she almost thought she was looking in a mirror. But then the eerie sensation passed, and she pressed down, the scalpel sinking into her with slow, methodical wonder.

===

Red flowed from flayed flesh.

“Healing a broken body is no small task,” said Lady Lynekai. “No less to repair a shattered mind.”

Crimson ran from the scalpel’s incision.

Dissection is the first step on the path, chuckled Lord Vanada. Creation can only rise from destruction.

The Seer’s fingers caressed the skinless tissues and muscles of Bonrei Lustwrai.

She reached out into the mind and corpus of the broken spymaster, sensing the distant haze of the tortures which had undone him.

The fallen Mariner’s blade carved into the deceased gutter wench.

She reached into the open abdomen of the dead slave girl, feeling the warm, slimy organs around her fingers.

“Forget his wounds. I need only his mind,” Syndratta said.

“One cannot be mended without the other,” Lynekai explained grimly. “They are not divided, but the same.”

These organs are filth, Eshairr complained.

No, my dear. They are the pillars of life itself. Each fulfills a purpose, and none can exist without the rest, said Qa sagely. So be the Great Patterns of Flesh. Only in comprehension can they be rewritten as one wills.

“I have been told that the Healers of your Craftworlds take upon themselves the agony of others, bringing both relief and a potent restoration,” Syndratta noted idly, taking a glass of a distilled wine from the table beside her and sipping. “Mm. But we both know that the whispers of corsairs can be ever so unreliable, don’t we?”

But everywhere that her fingers touched, Syndratta could feel the pain of her agent flow into the Seer in equal intensity and weight. Her dark lips parted in astonishment. “Khaine’s rage. It’s true, isn’t it?” she asked. “You would share the suffering of your lessers? For their own sake? Unspeakable lunacy.”

At that comment, Lynekai spared a single quiet glance over her shoulder at her audience, only cold indifference to the opinions of her distant kin shown.

Her patient’s epidermis began to heal at a measured pace, beginning as scattered patches of scar tissue. When next her digits passed over that spot, those scars dissolved into healthy, pale skin, completing the cycle. Gradually, as her soothing strokes flowed over Lustwrai’s tormented form, Syndratta could feel more and more of his anguish fade. It was as if the Seer were somehow tearing the wounds out of him through sheer force of will, urging his body to restore itself, and it obeyed.

And what was the point to carving the body into so many pieces? Ripping out entrails and arteries? Shattering bones and scattering brains?

She was uncertain.

But as before, when she gutted that Scourge and flayed him for his beautiful raven feathers, she enjoyed every second of it this time as well. Even the mess. Especially the mess.

There was only a small pang of disappointment in the end. Not that there was nothing left to slice, but that for all her work, the woman had not expressed even a single feather of pain.

Fear not, said Qa Vanada, for when I grant your creation resurrection, you will be able to enjoy all that you desire and more. Your Gift remains. Therefore I ask you not to close your mind to her, so that you shall feel all that she feels, the ecstatic torment of complete vivisection into mere scraps of tendon and bone and organ. It may be difficult to bear. Your voice will scream in her stead, certainly. But it is through pain that we learn. Through pain that we are spurred to innovate. Through pain that the greatest art is inspired!

Isn’t that a splendid truth?

“Though, I must wonder… restoring his epidermis with such ease is impressive, but how will you repair his ego?” asked the Archoness. “The mind is glass. You cannot weld it back together once it has been fractured and ground down to nothing. All that is left is sand. Would it not be easier to simply sift that sand for the memories and the secrets I require? Or perhaps you could use your Gift to read his past instead?”

Lynekai cast a glance back at the lounging woman. “Yes. I could,” answered the Seer. “But then this poor soul would simply be disposed of. I am one who preaches compassion, as you said.”

“Ah, so you mean to annoy me,” chuckled Syndratta. “Very well. I will permit your little inconvenience upon my time. But you did not answer my question. How do you intend to accomplish this impossible task?”

“The psyche seeks to heal itself as much as the body does. Unburden the mind, and it shall find its own way. As you say, Lustwrai is naught but sand now. Thus, all he needs is a flame to melt him back together, burning away the scars of his torture.”
“Wait. You’re saying you plan to unburden his mind of trauma?”

“Yes.”

Syndratta’s eyes shot open. “You mean to take it unto yourself.”

Lynekai smiled, though there was no warmth to be found in her eyes. “Such is the way of the Healer.”

“By the very empathy that you use to mend others, you will experience everything he did,” Syndratta clarified. “As though you were in his place. And what am I to do when your mind is as broken as his under the weight of the most exquisite agonies of the Iron Thorn’s dungeons?”

“Do you truly think so little of me?”

“I know not what to think of you,” admitted the Merchant of Death. “But I know torture. I have witnessed what it does to even the greatest of us. And you are hurling yourself into it. If you should fail…”

“I will not.”

She felt it all.

Every single nerve was displaced and severed.

The vile mysteries plied in the hands of Qa Vanada returned life to the dead, and the corpse she had eviscerated was reverted from an object to a person. Her knifework reverted from scientific study to torture. The thousand pieces of the slave girl all felt, all burned in anguish beyond the reach of all the poetry she had ever admired.

And that ocean of pain crashed into her, smashing past the abandoned levees of her mind in a wave that reached to the three moons of the Eldar.

Screaming was no help. But she did so regardless. Her vocal chords tore themselves asunder. Her voice gave out, replaced by the quietest howl, little more than a hoarse breath. She writhed upon the ground, rolling amidst the bleeding gore of the woman she had annihilated, vomiting the burning bile in her gut.

They watched her. The students laughed, amused by the weakness of this woman. New pupils were always such a joy. Watching their preconceptions of strength flee them as quickly as their sanity.

She snatched the Shaimeshi blade she had dropped in the initial spasms of the agony, leaping upon one of the laughing Wracks and eviscerating him with steel and poison that slew him to the very essence of his being, turning his blood to acid and his bones to putty. The rest of the apprentices laughed even louder.

But Qa Vanada did not laugh. Instead, he watched with a hundred eyes, fascinated.

Beautiful, said Qa.

She did not hear him. She was lashing out all around herself with her dirk and her scalpel, desperately trying to murder the monsters enjoying her suffering. She had been reduced to the very heart of instinct, to the absolute primeval. This was her truest self beneath the falsehood of the Mariner Path, beneath even the savage arrogance of the scorned and scornful maiden that slew Nolaei. There was nothing guiding her but the true soul of the Eldar, instilled upon them sixty million years ago.

The Gift of Khaine.

In the secret sanctum, there was only silence, Lynekai’s fingers pressed to Lustwrai’s brow.

And then, his newly regrown eyelids snapped open, and the spymaster rose from the gurney stained crimson with his plasma. He gently tugged the Bonesinger’s fingers from his forehead with the utmost courtesy, though perhaps somewhat confused as to where he was, why he was nude, and what she was doing to him. Still, that was no excuse for a lack of manners.

“My lady Archon, it is a distinct pleasure,” Lustwrai said, hopping off the bloody bed and kneeling down for her. “I suspect I must have been caught.”

“Yes. But at least you managed to leave a scrap of yourself where I could find it,” Syndratta answered in pitched amusement. “A shame you failed to take your own life before the Lords of the Iron Thorn took you to their pain chambers.”

“Ah. Yes, my recollection is gradually returning,” the handsome, grey-skinned man purred. “They intercepted the auto-destructive toxin I had imbibed with some odd manner of elixir—preserving my life long enough to torture me senseless. It is my failure. I am sorry to have inconvenienced you.”

It was an empty apology spoken by the tongue of an eternal viper who would betray her as swiftly as he possibly could, should the opportunity arise. But he said what he was obligated to say, so his future in her camp remained secure.

“I can find it in my heart to overlook this, so long as you provide what we agreed upon,” Syndratta smirked.

“Of course,” he said, pausing just long enough to glance back at the Seer standing beside him, her eyes watching him curiously. There was an odd moment of tension, and then he rose and stepped away from her, as though some deeply-buried reflex of fear overcame him just then. “Ahem. Once we are alone, that is.”

“The information means nothing to her. You will tell me everything, now,” Syndratta snapped impatiently.

“Ah, but before that, shall we discuss payment?”

“Our deal remains in place,” said Syndratta. “You will be one of the wealthiest men in the Obsidian Rose.”

Lustwrai grinned. “I know what this knowledge is worth to you. I know why you need it. And you know that I want more. Let us discuss additional compensation. I died for you, after all.”

The Archoness’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Lady Lynekai.”

“Yes?” Lynekai answered innocently.

“You know his memories, correct?”

“Indeed.”

Syndratta leveled her pistol on her spymaster and shot him square through the brow. As he collapsed into immediate death, she rose from her seat, finished off her wine, and set the glass back down.

“Was that truly necessary?”

“Ambition is respectable, but he chose the wrong hour for it. Let him learn to be much more careful when he tries to reverse a contract. Once he’s been regenerated for the second time, I suspect he’ll have so little left of his holdings with the vultures circling his corpse that he will regret his poor decisions. Immensely.”

“Why do you keep men like him in your ranks?” asked the Seer. “I have seen enough of his mind to know he has no loyalty to your banner, only to wealth and power.”

Syndratta laughed loudly, throwing her head back and indulging in the good mirth. “Hahahaha! Then he is a good Kabalite. Is it not obvious? The only useful spy is one loyal solely to himself. That makes him predictable. And now, since he saw fit to challenge our agreement after all the trouble I went through saving him, he will not be seeing a single fleck of my Wraithbone stores enter his treasury. What a shame.”

Lynekai nodded at the unscrupulous wisdom, albeit hesitantly. It was difficult to agree in the worthiness of snakes as agents, but in this matter, she deferred to the Archon.

“Then I shall tell you what he uncovered in the schemes of the Iron Thorn. And perhaps now you will consider, undeniably instrumental as we have been to your ambitions—”

“—No. I will not agree to save your kin,” Syndratta interjected, sensing the inevitable direction of the conversation. “Must we retread the same miserable swamp water yet again? Show some glee, Bonesinger! I now have leverage to press on my greatest enemy, an annoying loose end is dealt with, Vect is in his palace, and all is right with Commorragh.”

Lynekai’s features darkened, and her shadow lengthened ominously behind her, swollen with fresh secrets.

A web of flesh stretched, contorted, fought by the teeth of the prisoner within. It burst.

Amniotic slime flowing upon the ground, a mature Eldar writhing free of his mechanical womb in twisted mockery of birth.

Or that is what it should have been.

Ah, Qa Vanada chuckled. Unfortunate. Another failure.

The feral beast whipped her head, pounding with the agony of the slave she had sliced into living meat.

It was not an Eldar that tore free. It was a giant, squirming tumor. Writhing upon the cold and unloving iron, it squealed in the anguish of its putrid existence. It had eyes, and a mouth, and organs enough to live. But it had no limbs, no strength of its own.

Qa spoke with the disinterested tone of recounting ancient history. A defect in my birthing hives. Initially frustrating, when I first uncovered it ages ago. One in every thousand spawned from the vats is simply… this. Cancerous to the very bone, deformed into the barest facsimile of life, every last part of them a tumor. Terribly tragic, what becomes of the Child. But… the result is nevertheless fascinating, don’t you agree?

Eshairr’s mind sweltered with torture, and she hissed, leaping with her blades at the Haemonculus responsible.

A long arm seized her by the throat, dangling helplessly in his grasp.

A moment of sympathy, he muttered as he scooped up the dying little newborn in his other palm, that is all it was. I took the first of the spoiled crop in my arms, observing its suffering. Such a pitiful thing. A child that could only wheeze and worm, trying to find in my face the comfort of a mother. How could I turn away from such awesome misery? I had no choice. I set aside all my projects, and I bound it to me. I gave the Child life by sharing my own with it. In the millenia that passed, it grew and grew and… consumed me utterly. I scarcely noticed.

Such inspiration. The thrill of it. Pure. Raw. Exhilarating. Wonderful designs sprouted from my grave. Wildflowers of artisanry. These ships, the Flesh-Made-Ruins, so many delightful new inventions by harnessing the true power of cancer: to grow without borders, to swell unto infinity, and to subsume the weak as it devours all in its path. I am sure I need not explain to you the obvious reflection of that truth.

Microbes. Animals. Species. Tribes. Empires. Life itself, and the grand schemas that it has mantled, is cancer. It is the Primal Sin which we are all born with. We see it growing in our flesh, nursing upon our essence, and we fear it. We birth new life, and we reject it because we see it as ugly, disturbing, deathly. Is it any surprise that we were rightfully destroyed by our own greatest Warp-tumor in the Fall?

Before I knew it, my pupils were doing the same. Imitating my sacrifice. Becoming hosts of the forlorn spawn. Hah! None of the imbeciles understand. They’re all the same. They do it because they think I expect it of them. Because they think it is fashionable, or a mark of horror. The Art is wasted upon them. So few, so few of them indeed have learned…

Look at you, gnawing my hand. A killer, to the very soul. So precious. I need not ask to know how the Asuryani treated you. Your Craftworld, terrified of the Great Cancer spreading through your souls. Twits. They see opportunity, and they cower from it. I should like to speak with your leaders, gently explain to them how misguided they have been, all this time. Ah, but that must come later.

I see it in your eyes. I feel it in your teeth. Hatred, pure, inspiring. You fear for your child—but she will not face this fate. Her future is, boringly, so very Drukhari. Yes, you see, I already found the flaw in my designs. No, I did not correct it. Why destroy such a beautiful wellspring of epiphany? I simply know the secret to foretelling which of the halfborn shall survive the maturation, and which shall become the beautiful little empires of tomorrow’s flesh.

Qa Vanada fell silent then, observing the ferocious Banshee struggling to slay him.

The heartbeat of the Cancer of Stars rocked through the chamber, and he lifted the squirming, slimy, failed Eldar. The latest Child of the Extolled Malignancy.

I have no gift worthy of these poor things save for the token of knowledge, and so I grant it to them as they twist and contort into neoplasmic despair. Those who take mercy upon my Children shall receive the endless lores I have cultivated in my sacred garden…

Take it, he whispered. Taste deeply of the Fruit of Knowledge. We are all damned already; the gods cannot curse us yet again!

She fought his grasp, but that was struggling with the might of empires. A thousand empires of baleful life woven together in his corpus. Unnatural in form and in strength.

The pain. All around her. The pain in her neck, mighty digits throttling her. The pain of the writhing, misshapen Eldar crying out for succor as it was lifted to her mouth.

Weakness. Confronted with it, staring her in the face. She wanted to tear it apart between her fangs. Because she was not a woman. She was an apex predator, the pinnacle of evolution, and weakness was a sickening blight which she was forged to detest.

You desire power, he whispered into her long, pointed ear. Knowledge. Wealth. Infamy. Glory. They will all be yours.

She heard him, even in her madness.

I demand no price, save that you show to me the beauty and ferocity of a maiden of Morrigan. Reveal unto me your deepest desires. Show me your great curse, and share it with me.

Her curse. Yes, that was a simple matter.

She parted her lips. Her mouth watered. Her tongue ran across her lips. She hungered. The agony of the slave’s renewed death made her so ravenous. Feast. Feast. Feast.

The Child realized, through beady eyes, the fanged cavern that awaited it.

It cried out in terror, for only an instant, before it was forced into her.

The pain of swallowing it, her throat bulging. Inch by inch, fought past her jaws, her teeth cutting into the crying thing to taste its tainted blood as it slithered into her. Until its long, sinewy tail floundered and swished along her red lips as it slowly sank past, and then it was gone.

But the pain remained. And it doubled within her. Tripled, and then left any such sane comparisons behind as agony clawed through her very veins.

Deeper. Deeper still. Into her heart. Into her skull. Changing her.

Pain. She convulsed. Pain. She screamed. Pain. She wept. Pain. She fell silent. Pain.

Pain.

Pain, in the name of her lord.

===

“Lady Lynekai, the Hunter’s Howl has docked with the Pike of Vaul. Shipmistress Druzna is here to speak with you,” announced the slave known as Adhevanat.

He was none other than one of the very same manservants that they had all seen standing at the hangar lift when they first entered Syndratta’s spire, that day of omen and dread when they arrived in Commorragh. Dark hair hung in a long braid upon his shoulder. His handsome cheekbones were grown prominent, a clear sign of Aeldari age. Upon his gaunt cheek was his slave-rune, denoting his origin as Ulthwé, still red and ugly as though he had been burned with that very brand every day since his capture. For all Lynekai knew, that very well may have been the case to ensure the slaves would never forget their place.

It seemed Syndratta had assigned him to be her personal servant after the services rendered. How magnanimous of her to also order him to remove his luxurious, tailored dark rose suit and visit her in the nude, his… ample endowments on display.

The Archoness’s games were growing into a prickly frustration that tested even the patience of a Seer.

“Adhevanat, dress yourself,” Lynekai commanded.

“But the mistress—”

“I will deal with her. You will not return to this room without your proper and correct attire,” Lynekai snapped, drowning her displeasure and the reverberating pangs of the Yearning in her belly with a long draught of wine.

With a swift bow, and after delivering a fresh carafe of Syndratta’s favorite vintage, he departed as swiftly as he had arrived, but he did pause, gazing back at the fertile, shapely woman staring at his body for a single tense moment before he silently departed.

Lynekai reclined in her seat, staring into the glass of scarlet wine resting gently in her fingers. Druzna soon stepped into the room, dark eyes flicking left and right.

“So these are the quarters provided a guest?” Druzna asked with informal disinterest, spinning around a few times just to take in the absurd opulence of it all. “A lowly halfborn like myself can only dread to imagine what the mistress of this spire has selected for her own accommodations.”

“I am confident to say there is nothing you wish to see in that place,” Lynekai remarked idly between sips out of her Wraithbone glass.

“Oh? Invited there, were you?” Druzna chuckled, crossing her arms. “It seems you are in need of a good chiding!”

“Uninvited, and unfortunately, a poorly timed entrance that showed me more than I ever wished to see of our… gracious host.”

Druzna smirked. “Yes, I can imagine so.”

She drew a small metallic disc from her coat and set it on the dining table beside the Bonesinger, which chirped alive with a damping field.

“We can speak privately, thanks to this,” Druzna declared, gesturing at the tiny gadget.

“I doubt it,” Lynekai replied, without ever looking at the First Spear.

“Perhaps it will not serve as flawless protection, but it will make Syndratta’s efforts to spy on us significantly more of an annoyance,” Druzna replied, beginning to smile. “Lady Lynekai, I am pleased that you are well. And that you are not being held captive. Oh, that we did not reunite on terms such as these…”

“You were announced as shipmistress. Then Eshairr has passed to the embrace of the ancestors?” Lynekai asked, swirling the wine in hand.

Druzna’s smile wilted, replaced with bitter melancholy. “I wish I knew, my lady. No, that is false. What I truly wish that I could swagger before you now with swollen pride. But the tidings of war are not always glorious.”

“War,” Lynekai repeated, her eyes growing even sadder. “With the Extolled Malignancy.”

“So you know.”

“I know,” Lynekai confessed. “Tell me what happened.”

The saga was brief. Druzna’s words were curt and efficient, but her heart bled in the air as she explained it all. And when she finished the tale, she explained that they had lost all contact with the boarding force soon after they managed to evade the Neoplasm’s Fang by ascending to Middle Darkness, then to High Commorragh. Their pursuer would have been in grave danger if it left the controlled region of the Extolled Malignancy, where rival Covens might harass and harry it as easy game. The safe flight of the Howl was undoubtedly a great relief, but…

“Then one can safely assume the boarders were overrun and crushed,” Lynekai observed, lifting her glass and drinking deeply.

“They… they may still fight on. Pockets of resistance,” Druzna suggested.

“No. Not against the Covens.”

Druzna could not argue. “Perhaps not, then.”

Lynekai set her wine aside, rising to stand with Druzna, an eerie knowingness in her movements as she approached the girl before her. The First Spear looked the Seer in the eyes, and, after a tense moment, her lips began to quiver with escaping pain, repressed and concealed from her own crew. There were already tears falling before she collapsed into Lynekai’s embrace.

“Weep softly,” Lynekai whispered, stroking her companion’s hair gently as the woman sobbed into her shoulder. “For this is no place to show weakness.”

“Our sisters, they gave their lives for naught!” Druzna whimpered. “If they yet live, it is only as slaves to Nightmare.”

“Such is war.”

“I should never have let them fight!”

“Correct.”

“It is because of my failure that Eshairr was taken! And it is my second sin that they fell in vain!”

“Yes.”

“I beg you, forgive me!”

“That must be earned,” Lynekai answered, her voice as soft as silk, but firm as iron beneath.

“What can be done?!”

“You have done enough,” came the whisper of the Bonesinger. “Defeat should not be repeated. For now, you will return to the Howl and be its captain. You will show our kin the face of bravery, and from you they will take the heart they will need to endure this trial. That is your duty now.”

Druzna broke away from the comfort of her elder’s touch, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “I know I must do that. But how can I redeem myself?”

“Druzna… my dear, redemption is the concern of a Craftworlder.”

The dark-haired girl’s eyes snapped open against Lynekai’s collar, revelation rocking through her violently.

“If that is verily what you desire, then you shall have it by walking the Path of the Mariner, for the Path is no mere vocation nor a lifestyle. It is the road to absolution,” Lynekai replied softly, reaching out to help dry her face with the soft cloth of her white silk gloves.

“I already left the Path! You were right!” Druzna protested weakly, fighting her own feelings as much as her sagely friend’s words. “I did not hear your warning! I was too proud, too thrilled by the taste of blood! I should have known that it was a sign of weakness, not strength! And look at what I have done, the lives I allowed them to hurl into the abyss! All because I could not bear a moment’s chastity and humility! All because I lost sight of the Mariner’s way!”

“And you will find it again.”

There was such certainty, such conviction in those words. Enough that even Druzna flinched when Lynekai cupped her beautiful face in a hand, forcing her to meet her old, gentle gaze.

“Druzna. Do you not see it? You are wondrous twilight. You are the dawn at the end of a long night. You could have chosen the wicked ways of this city. You could have chosen the prosperous decadence of a vagabond reaver. But neither was your destiny. You saw in Morrigan a beauty that you could not deny, and you found in the Path of the Mariner a salvation that few of this miserable place have the means or the courage to seize,” Lynekai smiled warmly. “Your presence, your vivacious wit is a reminder to all aboard the Howl—to all of Morrigan—that we are not solely what we are born to be. That there can always be a second chance, even for those of us who are driven, or forced, to bathe in blood. It is soothing, more than you know.”

Fresh tears amassed on Druzna’s beautiful eyes, blinding her to the truth of what she had been told. “Lynekai, my second chance cost me more than I can ever atone for. And now I am free and alive, when so many of our crewmates lie dead, or worse? I never deserved the compassion of Morrigan.”

“Of course you did. Think you so little of our home? Morrigan’s mercy is no less than Isha’s. And there is not one of her children that Isha does not adore and prize,” Lynekai whispered, and the unyielding love in her eyes melted what little was left of Druzna’s strength. She collapsed utterly into the arms of the Bonesinger, who knelt down with her. She wept in choked silence at the comfort of her breast, and for that moment, neither Thirst nor Yearning held power over her. Those curses simply dissolved away, and she found mercy that no poem could ever tell of.

“Cry now. Rest. Remember the Path; you have not strayed far. You need no guidance to return to it. Trace your footsteps back, and then march proudly upon it as an equal of all Morriganites. Then you will know what must be done. Then… we shall find a way to save them together.”

“And-and you? Will you return with me to the Hunter’s Howl?”

Lynekai smiled into Druzna’s soft hair. The girl seemed such a child now. “I would love to. And I will. But not yet. I must remain here and continue my efforts to persuade Lady Syndratta for support. Her smug obstinance is exhausting, but I know that she can do more than simply engage the Coven in war. Even political pressure is better than nothing. And if that is all I can demand of her, then I will demand it until her ears bleed.”

Her solace could not last an eternity, but it did not need to. Druzna broke the embrace with a heavy sigh. She had never cried in the arms of another before. And now she saw how much a fool she was for that arrogance. Her heart was a feather now, light on the wind, though the heartbreak still throbbed through her every extremity in slow, cyclical pulses. But it was balanced, now, against the love of Lynekai, and in that she found peace she had never known before.

“He loved you,” Lynekai said as Druzna stepped away to dry her face. She could not have known of him, save that she had read Druzna’s heart. “He loved you, and he was joyous to surrender all he had for you. Do you truly think yourself irredeemable if a Kabalite could find in you something so precious that it merited the sacrifice of his eternal life? You were a whore. He should have used and discarded you like any of his kind do, hundreds of gutter-consorts a cycle. But he did not. He could have simply purchased you with his wealth, if he truly desired you to be his. He did not because he looked into your eyes when you made love, and though he had no Gift, he saw the sorrow in your heart to be caged and shackled. And it hurt him so deeply that all the luxuries of his privileged rank and all his grand ambitions turned to ashes in his hands.”

“That is love, Druzna. You are not forlorn, but blessed beyond measure,” said Lynekai, a wistful smile upon her lips. “My husband—my true husband, the one who chose me long before the Sundering of our home, not the strangers I have taken as mates in the breeding cycles—he taught me of this when I thought myself above romance. He took the proud, notorious virago, wrestled with her indomitable will, and broke her spirit with a thousand songs as her sharpest fangs and claws slashed fruitlessly at an adamantine heart.”

Druzna turned back to Lynekai with wide eyes, then, listening closely. “Is he… gone to the dreams of the ancestors?”

The Seer smiled sadly, casting her eyes to the ground. “Every day I suffer the scars of his departure. I remind myself of our last embrace before he stepped upon that ship with our infant son in hand, the clasp of the strongest and warmest arms in all the universe. The boy reached out for me as the ship departed. Even at such an age, he knew the moment by our grief. And I wonder if the man who conquered my heart still draws breath, and where he may have gone, and most unbearably of all, if his passion for me yet burns, or if it has waned into cold ash. I wonder about my son, too. But I know that man kept him safe, saw him grow into the mighty and brilliant scion he was destined to become. The boy had his own destiny to forge, not for me to ken.”

Morrigan had, over the ages, made contact with many of the Outcast men, learning they had been taken in by Exodite tribes, Corsairs, or Craftworlds across the galaxy, soon assimilated into their new cultures. Some women of riven homes like Lynekai even maintained correspondence with their scattered husbands and sons to that day, though this was true only of a few remaining elders in this era. But if Lynekai’s family had yet to be rediscovered or contacted, it bode poorly. Exile was a dangerous path to walk. Though there was some small chance they had been adopted by a distant and highly insular Craftworld, or had perhaps even migrated to Commorragh and made a bloody life for themselves, after all this time both husband and son were likely dead, their graves unmarked, their passing forgotten and unmourned.

Lynekai knew that. Of course she did. Yet she chose to believe in the better fate, for that was the only weapon she could wield against the dread and the despair. To believe. To hope.

Druzna looked over at the door then, thinking of Kuron, her pet. The man who wore his suffering on his flesh. The man she felt addicted to, impassioned by, even though he was a disgusting mutant, filth beyond filth. She always could feel his agony. His loneliness. His sorrows. She thought she enjoyed teasing him. Perhaps what she enjoyed was soothing him, with body and heart.

No. She was using him to soothe herself. To quieten the Yearning and the Thirst, yes, but also so that she could act like the Kabalite who loved her, to walk in his boots, to understand the love he must have felt for her, a slave-whore as low as Kuron. Only, unlike him, she never meant to release Kuron, to grant him any freedom or security; she only wanted him to please herself. And when she realized that, Druzna had to fight the urge to upend her stomach, a cold and terrible sweat rising upon her skin as she lost her balance and leaned against the door of the bedroom.

“Druzna?”

“I’ve… I’ve made a terrible mistake,” Druzna said. “Maiden be merciful. Lynekai, I am pregnant.”

===

Once fantasy is stolen from the eyes, it can never be restored. Truth is cold and terrible, absolute and inevitable. What is left when all illusions like justice and hope are quelled, save for the basest of pleasures?

She did not remember much, after devouring the Child. Only that it was so strangely sweet and delicious. Consumed was the Seed of Malignancy, which Lord Vanada must have prepared carefully for that very moment. Just for her. Else it would not have dissolved into her, but likely torn its way out of her gut in a desperate struggle to survive. She giggled at the thought. No doubt such a betrayal befell many who displeased him. A beautiful way to perish.

Bored of her own thoughts, she arose from the mound of death. Her own handiwork. Her own bed of sin, her wicked baptism in pain and blood. The slave girl had finally expired for the second time, and now her skin and bones were Eshairr’s chrysalis, that from which she tore herself free at the end of transfiguration.

She had felt it all. Even the exact moment of second death. Even the fangs of She-Who-Thirsts, biting down and devouring the soul as it departed. As though it were all her own.

In the annihilation of another, she was reborn.

How had her sanity endured?

Had it endured?

The red had run from her hair, or so it seemed, becoming the streaks of blood still fresh upon her breasts, her abdomen, her legs, her hands. Her face. No longer was there fire in her hair or her heart. Now, it was white as Ash. As Mourning. As Death.

Nothing from before the day spent dying with the woman she had dissected mattered. Her memory of Morrigan’s grandeur was hollow and dull, and now the beauty of the warm scarlet wreathing her body was the most intense and wonderful thing she had ever seen, ever known, that she would ever want to know.

She was Eldar. Not Asuryani. Not Drukhari. Such distinctions were meaningless. Biologically, they were all the same beneath the names and customs. All that mattered to her was blood. All that ever mattered to any of her kind was blood. Some were just better at confusing the matter with pretty words and oaths sworn upon dead gods. A dead race, living in their own grave, worshiping lost deities, languishing for dreams long departed.

How strange. How frightening. Not the primal truth of what she was, but the great lie of the Craftworlds.

Is it so wrong to lie? asked her darkness. If it betters us? If it saves us?

Only now did she fully comprehend what they had done to themselves to flee the Fall, the rightful fate that all her people deserved. The Asuryani tribe were madmen and fools clinging to a fraudulent, beatific vision of their lost society. But the Eldar Empire was an empire. It played the same great game as all the rest. Lord Qa was right. It was a cancer. Spreading. Destroying. Corrupting. No, even an individual Aeldari was no different. Killing, consuming, reproducing, just like any cell within a tumor, no matter how advanced and superior they might seem to be.

How many wars had the mighty Aeldari fought, in the millions of years of their ascendance? Only Qa Vanada and a handful of others could even begin to guess at the true tally. They had ruled more than ten thousand worlds in their golden era. No matter how enlightened they were as a culture, not all of them could be colonized from lifeless rocks. How many of those worlds were prizes wrested from the deathly grip of annihilated races?

Even the fragmentary surviving records spoke of more than one war that had ended in the total eradication of the enemy species, such as the war against the primordial and belligerent mon’keigh, the source of the very same slur against lesser peoples. Some, certainly, had been righteous wars prosecuted for survival or justice against Chaos-worshipers or irredeemable aggressors like Orks, but how many wicked calamities against species with every right to live were excused under the very same pretenses? How many billions of souls had they erased for the sole crime of being repellant and lesser, or an obstacle to their own growth and progress? How deep did the oceans of blood run that painted their very genes in the proof of their crimes? Deep enough, perhaps, to drown the very stars. Even as far back as the War in Heaven, her people had sinned. The Dark Muses, legends of unsurpassed evil from beyond history itself, were proof of that.

It was only at the very end of the Empire’s reign that it became so glutted with prosperity and peace that the pleasure cults, like a cancer within a cancer, rose to power. Sixty million years of strife stretched out before those decadent days, a span of time beyond unthinkable even to the insurmountable minds of the Aeldari.

We only ever acted as we were forged to act—weapons that outlived their creators and their purpose, whispered the darkness. And we think ourselves any better than the mon’keigh? Better, only, in our capacity for violence. Yet perhaps that alone is the only merit any race truly possesses…

Thus we are superior, her shadow replied to itself. If a cancer we must be, then let us be the greatest of cancers indeed.

Yet we are fallen, prisoners of a galaxy ruled by a weaker cancer that can only boast superiority in sheer scale, and it is owed to a tumor embodied in the existence of Qa Vanada.

He must die.

Darkness? No. This was her insidious light, now subjugated to be the seething shadow of her conscious thoughts. She quelled the traitorous voice, seeing that it was unable to pay her lord the respect he deserved.

It was not as though the Eternal City was any better than the Craftworlds. Commorragh did not truly understand, not most of it. The city itself was a gothic neoplasm growing deeper into the Webway and its countless subrealms. Billions of squirming idiots who only pretended to embrace bloodshed to grow their power and luxury were to be condemned for staring the truth in the face and ignoring it, excusing it. They did not yet understand that violence was not a means, but the answer itself to existence. Only its highest echelons achieved this realization and embraced it. And of those ranks, only the Haemonculi could be said to embody this great law in its entirety, their very makeup staring into all living beings with the indisputable proof of the lowest and darkest gospel.

That was what was so horrifying about the Haemonculi. Not their warped visages. Not their evil sciences. Not the intrigue of the unknown that they seemed to represent.

Mirrors.

Reflections.

Truth.

That was their great art. Their own morbid existence was the ultimate canvas.

And all who stared upon them would see, at last, the Eldar for what they truly were.

Not people.

Monsters.

“We are but blades, and to shed blood is our only purpose. Our only Thirst. Our only Path,” she whispered in quiet reverie.

She took her first step forward into the darkness of the birthing chamber, crushing an eyeball underfoot into slimy mush. Her body was heavy, but her mind was clear.

“Lord Vanada. How do you bear it? The madness of all these fools?” asked Eshairr in a shaky, hoarse tone. Her voice still needed to recover.

“Pity for those who cannot see, and scorn for those who refuse to see,” answered the many voices in the shadows. “But ever shall I impart my arts upon those who wish to see, those desperate hands thrust out from the wailing throngs shall I seize and uplift, that they may perceive as I do and stand where I stand, above it all. Else… I would grow rather lonely, I fear.”

“I desire your knowledge,” she said, stepping forward again. “To rise beyond this… this wretched ignorance thrust upon me by the High Council. Even as a girl, I knew that they were wrong. Even as they imprisoned me and threatened me. Even as they sent their Seers and Healers to rape my mind. In the end, I allowed my eyes to be veiled by their lies, for I only ever sought belonging. Now, I care not for their false companionship. I wish to see. To know as none on Morrigan do.”

“Then you shall,” he replied. His dark silhouette was surrounded by crimson-soaked surgical drapes, blood pooling out from beneath them, filth-crusted tools discarded all around him, their purpose already complete. His enormous bulk was supine, or so it seemed, cushioned by the flesh of the flagship itself beneath, the flooring removed so that long, sinuous roots could burrow into his tumorous flesh to unite him with his ship. His many limbs reached up high and slowly drifted in the air, like a spider on its back, fingers and claws dangling ominously over the curtains that concealed him.

Like a lover lounging upon his bed, awaiting the grace of her flesh.

Heat sparked in two points within her abdomen, sharp, distracting. Even now, reborn as she was, the Yearning remained an extravagant challenge to her senses. Even now it confused her with nonsensical images and associations, trying to trick her into seeing her teacher as a creature capable of love, for that appealed to the disgusting weakness in her heart that she called the light. Pleasure, yes, certainly, he was undoubtedly master of ten thousand delights she could not even dream of, but love? Even she was not so foolish as to fall for that.

No, she preferred him as he was. In every way a fiend. A reminder of what she truly was, beneath these burdensome so-called gifts of the gods—wisdom, love, sorrow, joy, all flaws that plagued their kind every day. With every step she took toward her veiled master, she cast a curse upon the name of each god that had twisted her and her people away from the purity of their true purpose. Asuryan. Gea. Vaul. Morai-Heg. Hoec. Cegorach. Lileath. The father, Kurnous. A pause. Her foot claimed the space in front of her, but her lips struggled to speak the foulest curse. A gasp against herself, and then, she condemned even her only true mother, Isha.

A wave of dark delight swelled up within her core, the curse seizing upon the slightest chink in her spiritual aegis to roil and bubble and kiss up along her bare, blood-soaked skin, like a cohort of invisible daemonettes dancing against her.

An explosion rumbled through the Cancer of Stars, shaking the entire battleship to its bones. But it went unnoticed, or uncared for. The affairs of Commorragh were irrelevant to her, with her womb blistering in unholy fire. Why fight it? Why repress it with more lies spouted by the ignorant demagogy of Morrigan? Where was the High Council to judge her? Mistress Eshana and her egotistical cruelty? Lady Auriel and her sanctimonious condescension? Captain Yllia and her worthless cowardice? Princess Aydona and her… her shallow affection, her self-serving compassion, when in truth she never truly cared for Eshairr?

And as for Old Warrior Maerai—she, at least, never pretended to be anything she was not. Cold, furious, viciously earnest. Killing her enemies simply because it was her sole passion, her only joy. Selfish, but honest. A true Eldar. And Eshairr had to admit, murder was rather satisfying.

Selfish satisfaction. Yes. That was what she wanted. What miserable Morrigan could not stop her from claiming. No longer would she mourn it. Now she was pleased of the Great Ruin brought down by Eros.

For now she could indulge in the Yearning which was her birthright as much as she always longed to.

By all the earthly curses of Gea, it was melting her from the inside out, musky fluids running down her thighs from her flushed, parted, aching pink honeypot, and she could wait no longer.

“My lord, I desire you,” she admitted, surprising herself with her honesty as she advanced into the misty dim, towards the shadow of her master behind the blood-drenched curtains. He was an engine of horror, an abomination of art, and she wanted him. To mock the folly of Morrigan. To prove to them all how fruitless their Paths were. To show Aydona how little she cared about saving her, anymore.

And she, free of their damned shackles, would savor these supple delights within the embrace of Nightmare.

His voice rang out like a tolling bell as the ship shook around them.

“I am pleased. Preparations are complete. The experiment is yours.”

===

Druzna stepped out of Kuron’s quarters, her lips red with poisoned paint. Behind her, Kuron wheezed quietly upon the bed, where they had consummated their relationship one last time in thrashing ecstasy. It had been better than ever before; she had made sure of it. Never had she given him such love, and never would she again. Smears of lipstick showed bright and red all over his body, his face, even his manhood. Even as he twitched in post-coital warmth, he slowly drifted into a final rest in a fantasy of sweet wonder, guided there by extract of the skull-lotus. He would expire peacefully in his dreams. Her dreams, though, would not grant her such peace. Not now.

“It is done,” she announced coldly. The dozen lesser officers gathered around nodded, muttered small prayers to the Maiden, and departed for their stations.

Strength was what the crew needed, and it was what she would show them. It arose from truth and action. That they would whisper of her openly bedding such a creature no longer mattered to her. For now, she was their captain. It was her duty to engage in diplomatic relations with others, even to such a depth she might sink. He had provided critical knowledge, and she had paid for it with her flesh, which was her right. Such was Gea’s work, serving the balance of righteousness through seduction. There was precedent, in fact: Morrigan employed certain Speakers, religious emissaries of the Consort Goddess who might, in the necessary prosecution of vital diplomacy, give themselves to mon’keigh of any species, with the Craftworld’s reluctant sanction. It was regardless taboo, yes, and certainly disgusting, but it was not for them to judge her.

Only Fleetmistress Aydona could do that, and Druzna knew the woman was party to far more controversial conquests in her own day. At least Druzna had mated with an Eldar, no matter how twisted. And now she had ended him, proving to her sisters that she was no slave to the Yearning. A venomous and dangerous woman, yes, a liar, an oathbreaker, and a harlot, no doubt, but these were not sins impossible to forgive, so long as she remained uncorrupt. Their trust in her was once more cemented, and she could lead them.

“You have done what you know is right,” Lynekai soothed, coming over to place a gentle hand upon her shoulder. “There was no better fate he could have hoped for. Not even I could untangle and mend his flesh after what the Covens had done to him. There would be no salvation for him in the Craftworlds, but you gave him a precious gift for all this time that you spent together. And a gentle end.”

“I let it go this far. I made this happen with my own two hands,” Druzna smiled bitterly. “And now I must live with it. But the crew shall not know that I feel any guilt for breaking my word to him. Nor will they know when I mourn him. As it should be.”

“And the child?” Lynekai asked.

“You said it was pure. Blessedly untainted by his disfigurements. Then I shall take it to the Covens,” Druzna said, a hollowness coming over her eyes. “Just another son to be abandoned. Better that I am not there to fail him as well; verily, I hope he learns to despise me. Lest he repeat my mistakes.”

The Bonesinger looked into Druzna’s eyes with a comforting smile. She felt all that Druzna felt. That was the Seer’s curse, to share the pain of all around her. To feel that for herself, and yet to stand tall and smile for her kin, because only that could help to heal them.

“There is another way,” Lynekai whispered, now that they were in private. “If a boy is born in a breeding cycle, he is given to his father to take back to his home. However, we, the Seers, have… quiet avenues. It is a secret we keep to ensure that those who have need of it shall go unharassed for their mistakes. But should a boy be born to a mother of Morrigan, and his father cannot take him, or worse, the boy is born from forbidden romance outside of a breeding cycle, he will be given to one of our allies. A Craftworld, or perhaps a Corsair band. They raise him as one of their own.”

Druzna blinked in surprise. “Is this something that happens often?”

“More often than most realize. It is not uncommon for Outcasts to return to us pregnant and seeking safe refuge, only to discover that their child cannot be welcomed into our home. Our warriors who are stranded in alien battlefields, fighting alongside male Aeldari, are sometimes found with the gift of holy life in their wombs once we are able to send a relief force. And of course, there are those times that one of our own is captured by other Eldar, and… made against her will to conceive. We take the spawn that are female, as always, and we cast away those that are not.”

Druzna nodded.

“However, we have seen these forlorn sons of Morrigan appear to us later. In no less than the ranks of the very Corsairs with whom we have close alliances. We look upon them, proud, brave young men, who though avaricious and decadent are every bit as worthy as their mothers. Yet they are heedless that the Asuryani warriors whom they fight alongside are their very kin, their mothers and sisters. That in itself is a great solace, that some few of us may know our sons as brothers-in-arms and take comfort in it. That is an opportunity I now extend to you, Druzna.”

She looked to her belly, reaching down to touch the life growing within her.

“Take your son to the Covens, if you wish. But I urge you not to abandon him once he is born. Claim him as his mother, and we will give him to our allies; you will be able to watch his life from a distance. Or don’t, if you prefer that. But life as a Corsair is a shining one, compared to the suffering this evil city would inflict upon him.”

Druzna, despite it all, smiled bittersweetly. Lynekai was far too kind, and her love was truly unbearable. To force Lynekai to shoulder this pain was a shame. So she hid her sorrow, invoking instead her anger. “Perhaps I will. But now is not the time to think of children, Lady Bonesinger. The goddesses call for vengeance. The spirits of our sisters shall be laid to rest upon a pyre piled with Wrack corpses. If any yet live, we will tear them from the grasp of Qa Vanada and bring them home.”

“Forget not that when we battle the Extolled Malignancy, we do so for more than just kinswomen, but for those like Kuron, against those that stole his future and his happiness. We stand now for the freedom of the wretched and the weak that inhabit the Lordless Valley, who face rule by Nightmares,” Lynekai added gently. “Even in this dark city, there is justice of a kind. You know that even better than I do. Let us be the instruments of that justice.”

Might surged through her, inspired. The First Spear let her hands curl into fists. “I am going to give the Extolled Malignancy a scar that can never mend.”

“No, Druzna. We all will,” Lynekai corrected her, turning halfway aside to leave. “But first, we must prepare—for we are weak and the foe is mighty. And I must contend with Syndratta once more. In the morrow, I will return. With welcome tidings, I hope.”

Druzna nodded her assent, and with that, Lynekai departed down the crystal corridor, briefly glancing at one of the ruined tapestries still yet to be repaired after Renemarai’s raid. It was one sewn with an old runesong of hers, no less. In that pause, her shadow shifted in the barest flicker of an instant behind her, the glimmer of steel there and gone in the blink of an eye. Sighing at the state of such a work of art, muttering a quiet apology to the Artisan whose needles wove it, who very likely still suffered in Eros’s clutches on the Craftworld, Lynekai continued on her path back to the spire.

===

There was another explosion afar, but it went unnoticed in the haze of breeding heat.

Panting like a beast, hot sweat and cold blood mixing upon her beautiful body, Eshairr seized the surgical curtains and tore them open, gazing upon her lord with wild eyes that twinkled in the eerie green glow of the birthing hives.

His was the warring mass of tumors that she desired, amorphous, impossible to know what was him. Connected by hundreds of pulsating veins to the very arteries of the ship, he had become a feasting tick upon the Cancer of Stars.

Only, perhaps by drawing upon the venerable warship’s agony and lifeblood, like a twisted version of regeneration, a great and terrible change came over his flesh. From beneath squirming folds of skin and muscle erected a head—pale, his skin an unhealthy ashen grey bulging with raw purple veins, yet beautiful and statuesque, crowned with long, dark, wavy locks that spilled down around him like streams of oil, slick with slime. His torso next emerged, huge and mighty, lined with the most extravagant coils of savage muscle gleaming in a coat of the carcinogenic ooze of his innards. At his hips, just as the tumor-tump was linked to the flagship, he himself was physically joined to the cancer-mound, their existences intertwined with pulsating flesh.

His eyes, though, for all his masculine and unsettling beauty, his eyes were the most irresistible sight—the purest darkness, only glows of red where his pupils ought be, glaring through gaps in his dark shroud of hair. Handsome evil, malevolence in excess and in excellence, rippling with physical strength even though he subsisted upon tumors as one himself. A living bastion of decadence and monstrosity, whose bloodlust and sins knew no equal in all the universe. Every breath he took was a stain upon all that was good and sacred, and his very visage, though wonderful and sensuous, bled the horrors of his nature that even still drew forth the most delightful thrills of fear in her heart, even knowing all that she knew now.

The true form of the Haemonculus. He had been destroyed by the Child he took pity upon, and yet, like a cancer, he somehow grew back within its very core. Not quite as he once was—similar, yet freshly reborn and reinvigorated by his experience. Perhaps the original Qa Vanada was truly gone to Hell, then. But did it even matter?

The Cancer of Cancers. Qa Vanada, the Parasite. Were there any worthy gods left, his like would be smote in divine judgment on the spot.

But the gods were dead. And he killed them.

Freed from the prison of his own warped being, breathing the agony upon the air with his own two lungs, he gazed upon her bare flesh, a grin splitting his lips at the lusty curves of her immense bosoms, painted as they were in the blood of her victim, glistening red mounds of fertile softness. The trails of life-essence flowed from her collarbones to the midriff, smooth and delicate, her bony ribs spreading beneath her skin with every husky breath spilling from her lips, down to her bare slit that dripped with the intensity of her accursed desires. Pleased at her offering, he gestured with all three of his powerful, muscle-bulging arms at the cancerous throne, the seat prepared for this wanton experiment.

His underbelly, presented upward for her, had been cut into at a dozen places, strange flesh wiggling parasitically in each wound. She could only imagine what he had done to himself—no. Somehow, she knew, once she recognized the precision and depth of the incision marks. A dozen organ grafts, none of them of the Aeldari race. Once that might have horrified her, to know that this Haemonculus had through dark science melded parts of lesser species to himself, ordinary as it was for the Covens.

Now that was only the past. She was no longer the ignorant girl she was when she first set foot upon this ship. She had been blessed with a great gift by her master, and now many secrets of the universe were hers, though it would take countless cycles, no doubt, for it to be fully absorbed and comprehended. Yet more, she hungered for more, insatiable even as her brain soaked in the scraps of his great knowledge, his abominable, delectable intellect that had forgotten more than all the greatest minds of Craftworld Morrigan combined had ever learned.

No. She knew all that she needed to know. This great experiment was not a trial of ineffable science, but of the lustful soul-cancer which afflicted her and her people, and primal instinct alone was enough to make a study of it.

This was an animal time, a bestial time, and she would answer the call of the Yearning at last.

She climbed upon him, brushing between his countless arachnidian legs and arms that groped at her curves from all angles, smearing the blood over her bare skin, adorning her from thigh to cheek in the spoils of her dissection as though a bridal veil; moaning at the intensity of the tangle of his enormous hands waving and writhing around her, she straddled his tumorous bulk on her knees, level with his true form, staring into the eyes of her Haemonculus with a small, pleased smile. Nested within the cradle of his dozen limbs, insulated from the distant rumbles of war by blood-soaked drapes that a courteous Wrack sealed behind her, they were together, alone, man and woman.

Temptation dwelled within, the urge to say something, anything as their gazes meshed together. Not a word came to her tongue, for the silence was sacred—better to simply exist as one than to spoil it with the crudeness of language. Instead, she spoke with action, leaning in against his aeldari torso, full, shapely breasts pressing with delicate softness into reams of solid, vein-bulging muscle. Their hearts grew close, and she felt the beating of his great organ echoed in long, sensual pulses through the cancer-ridden flesh below her.

He said nothing, as though content to simply let her squirm as she tried to please him with all that she was. Pouting, Eshairr forced her lips upon his, the first kiss she had ever shared in the heat of passion, and tasted the mouth of ancient evil. He cooperated then, at least: His devilish lips were gentle against hers, moving in rehearsed, efficient patterns mastered in long forgotten ages of iniquity that sent thrills down her spine. But he had no passion to offer her, even as she fought his skills with the enthusiasm of Spring’s fervor, kissing, wrestling his tongue away as if to force him to notice her efforts and reciprocate.

There was a chuckle, amused by the arrogance of youth, and a hand grasped her long, white hair and yanked her off of his mouth with eyes of cold regard.

“I see I have yet another cause to disdain your home. Don’t they teach maidens how to seduce a man properly?” he asked, trailing a hand up along her side that left her squirming and dripping on his abhorrent core. Of course he tore the intimacy apart with cutting insult, like an innocent soul carved to pieces with a scalpel. She should have expected nothing less.

But her feelings would not stay hurt for long. He had so, so many presents to show her…

Something wrenched loose from the hill of tumors she straddled on her knees, a long schlorp followed by a rising fire along her belly. Eshairr stole a glance down, feeling the slithering touch of something long and prehensile and wet crawling up her leg, winding around her thigh, twisting around her waist and rising till it vanished into the valley of her breasts. After a moment, it popped out from between them with a sudden surge of throbbing excitement, clearly delighted by the wondrous, suffocating comfort of her Isha-blessed bosoms around it.

Now, she looked upon it as it appeared just beneath her chin, thick, pulsing, alien and wrong. It was at least recognizably the cock of a Human, veiny, fleshy, skin the rich color of copper, gleaming with moisture, yet elongated and swollen beyond its natural size. Capped with a purple crown that squirted a thick and stinking precome over her chest, it was, under the sweet caress of her Yearning, rather a perfume of the sweetest scent. She glanced down to see the slimy pouch it had risen out of, noting the twin, swollen gonads mounted at the base, far, far larger than they ought to have been on the mon’keigh they once belonged to. How sinful, that she thirsted to taste what churned within those testicles, to feel it on and inside her. Some speck of her tattered pride fought to the fore, seething at feeling so weak to such a disgusting thing.

“Do you mean to insult me with this?” Eshairr hissed, unable to totally quell the revulsion. Even so, as though hypnotized, she watched the elongated, writhing cock twist and coil around her, against her, thrusting in the vice of her tits as she gently pressed them together between her hands. Munesha, sweetly licentious, had once whispered to her of this art of pleasure after many drinks, of how the men of neighboring Human tribes of her homeworld so eagerly fell into her embrace for promise of such delights, and how quickly they surrendered to her ample, glossy ebony hills strangling their pricks. Even in the heat of her leaking arousal, the motions felt so clumsy to her, mechanical, simply dragging her fair hills up and down the wriggling cock as it waved in front of her face and squirted more and more of the filthy precome all over her neck, running down to warm her bare chest with sticky slime.

Yet, there was a certain… detached amusement in it. This long, long member could have brought her low, lower than Ravan’s cock, had it attacked her where she was vulnerable. But now she could watch it shiver and crawl with desperate thrusts, whipping up against her lips, smearing its juices across them, demanding entry. The power was hers, the power to make it feel what she wished it to, and it was her captive victim wrestling between her heaving breasts in search of soft, oily gratification she could provide or deny by simply changing how tightly she pressed her them together with her grasp.

Power. She flicked her tongue over that aching crown, winning shudders from the bulk of the tumor-core beneath her, as though the Human it belonged to fought to burst free of the cage. For all she knew, there actually was a man sewn in there, reduced to scraps of organs, screaming in an eternal hell for some unforgivable disrespect he had paid to Qa Vanada. The thought was both disturbing and yet surprisingly delightful, knowing she could torture something so vile as a Human even as she serviced her lord.

How generous he was, presenting her with this opportunity!

She needed to kiss the ape cock before her, to show her aching gratitude; gently at first, then with the mischief of a maiden, she looked Lord Vanada in the eye as she ran her lips against the thrashing meat, pressing down into squirting glans that painted her face in translucent juices. She lapped at the fluids as they flowed fresh from the source, wrestling with the prehensile, squirming length with breasts and lips alike, thrills rising up her spine to feel its heat tingling against her leg, her belly, between her bosoms, against her mouth.

Then into.

She sank her head down, swallowing it up as she stared into the eyes of foulest malignance. Bitter, noxious musk on her tongue, filling up her senses and stirring the curse in her ovaries. The impression of pregnancy came over her, the thought of being inseminated by this thing briefly chief in her mind. How sweet the paradoxical hate and lust, intermingling in her very blood.

“Nhhk!”

It plunged into her throat, and she choked on it. Everything blurred in her vision—tears she blinked back stubbornly, her body fighting it, almost retching.

Slithering in her neck. So thick. So hot. So good. It stole from her every inch it could fit into, tasting delicious. Couldn’t breathe, and couldn’t care to.

It hurt deep, violating her neck, fucking where it was never meant to.

And to hell with nature, then. Morrigan’s morals, too. This degeneracy was her heritage.

It pumped in and out in long, smooth strokes as her hands fruitlessly grasped at the slimy cock rising and falling between her momentous tits. She shuddered for air, only barely catching a gasp before it sank back into her, plugging her throat anew. The sound was wet, every time it thrust through her saliva and made her choke on it, low, filthy slrrrsches.

He taught her. Rhythm, tempo, counting the heartbeats—when to breathe, when to let it in, never to fight him, but to embrace him. He drilled the pattern of irrumatio into her with cruel force. Goddesses, she choked. She choked and she moaned and her hands dropped away, back arching in feeble protest, fingers tensing into claws, staring at the ceiling in frustrated desperation, stuck completely stiff from top to bottom in raw war of will, fighting her own instincts, fighting her tears, because she would not be denied this meal.

Panic in her voice, stifled by cock.

Qa giggled devilishly, pleased. “Interesting. Your enthusiasm may serve adequately.”

A couple somethings by her leg burned hot, swelling, hopping against her.

And then it came. A tremble, first felt along her leg, then along her storming womb, betwixt her huge mounds and past her lips.

Seed.

Tasting like mud.

At that, everything grew smooth, simple. Time accelerated, and she tasted it all in her throat, pumping down faster, faster, even as she struggled to swallow. Gulp after gulp, nothing changed—the river flowed, a rapid of foamy white crashing through her, and it overflowed and it spilled out around her lips. Goddesses above, she could not breathe. She could not think. There was only semen, and her thinning mind wavered, losing herself utterly as walls of sensation crashed through her shaking form. She could feel him ejaculating from her thigh to her throat, as though his pulsations were hugging her, embracing her in sweet suffocating torment.

He was fertile. So virile she could taste it on her tongue and feel it in her womb. This Human member was merely an instrument of his overflowing vitality, of this entire cancerous abomination she had mounted, now her mate, the essence of a thousand tumors flowing into her throat to be wasted as a meal to feed her.

She felt herself quiver, moan, and peak as she drowned in his endless ejaculate. For a moment, Eshairr could swear she felt her swooning body ovulate—a jolt of heat in her womb. But the illusion passed, for such a thing was surely a jittery phantom of the Yearning’s influence.

Qa had slipped free from her mouth at some point, though she did not recall when. She felt drenched, not just because she had coughed out a torrent of his excess semen all over her own tits and thighs, but for the waterfall between her legs.

Human cum. Or whatever it was now, modified as it was.

Eshairr looked down at herself, bathing in it, even on her arms, her hands. Still so much in her stomach, like thick broth of birthing batter, disgusting and wrong, and so right, drowning away her swimming doubts in the ocean of sick pleasure. She licked her lips clean, wiped her face of it, shivering, shaking as she faintly realized she had orgasmed.

Oh, she certainly had.

And she needed more.

Boom. The noise startled her.

In that evanescent clarity, she noticed more explosions rumbling through the Cancer of Stars. Rapid now, coming closer, it was akin to the furious and booming drums of Khaine’s warsongs, the cutting staccato of vicious battle bristling deeper into the great flagship. Outside the curtains, however, pupils took up blade and tool, racing out of the labs to join the defense with silent detachment from the threat to their own lives. For they were the students of Nightmare, each selected and chosen to become his living shadows, and he would relish tearing them from the very grasp of She-Who-Thirsts as many times as he needed, until the day they transcended his tutelage or became unworthy of the effort.

But that awareness drained from her, forgotten in demanding heat and disgusting filth dripping over her. There was another mouth on her, and it drooled greedily even now, jealous of the philters of semen wasted everywhere but where it belonged.

“An amusing overture,” Qa noted. “I can see that your Yearning swells, and desire consumes you from within. How shall this experiment progress?”

“I must have… relief,” Eshairr answered, blushing softly.

“Relief. Yes, let us study how the malediction responds to indulgence,” said Qa, reaching out to cup her chin in one of his powerful hands and gaze into her eyes afresh. “If it demands reproduction, you shall have it. All that you desire and more.”

Her eyes glazed over, his words a symphony of all that she craved, lulling her into wondrous euphoria. She, who knew now she was the most ravishing woman of Morrigan, now reclined in the throne of tumors, surrounded by viscera and swerving limbs. She felt his violet, veiny hands grasp her by her hips, trapping her in place as more and more of his disgusting members burst free from the hill of cancer she crested. The one already wrapped around her body and nestled between her enormous, fertile breasts was joined by another, and another, slithering about her every limb, worming against and over each other, entwining in knots of abominable phalluses.

She felt adrift in virility incarnate, flotsam upon waves of pulsating flesh. Her fingers closed around manhoods, feeling the surgically-enhanced meat react with undulating thrill at her barest touch. One coiled around her throat, squeezing tight enough to make breathing just barely more difficult, the gentle throttle of a lord. Her heavy breasts, her twin bastions of feminine endowment, were wrapped up in slithering cocks that supported them, squeezed them taut, massaging them with slow, arrhythmic slides back and forth that forced out a sigh drenched in vulnerable need.

Breathing, wet hair sticking to her face, a strand of moonlight caught sensually between her thick red lips, she opened her eyes to gaze upon him, swooning in the nest of degeneracy—wondering if her beauty captured and trapped in his web of leaking shafts and arachnidian limbs pleased him—and she saw that, as he spoke, his enormous and twisted outer limbs reached out around them: in but two of these countless tumor-infested hands, he conjured injectors pregnant with a golden, bubbling fluid. His true self lifted his own hands, veins pulsing beneath his skin, and his mouth twisted into a devious grin as he presented to her the most wonderful and vile gift.

“Behold, my delight. This is my most anticipated preparation. You may well recognize what it is that your eyes witness—and its inestimable worth.”

Fertility itself. Pure, distilled. Not a chem. The very substance, captured in physical form by arcane, sinister science. Who had been sacrificed, processed, harvested to produce such a forbidden thing? A dozen Eldar maidens on the path of the Mother? A hundred human priestesses and saints, gravure icons of a fertility cult? An entire species of hyperfertile aliens, condensed together?

“With this gift, I bring my Art into a new domain. And you shall be my Isha, the Mother of Cancer!”

Eshairr giggled nervously, watching the fangs of the stingers descend into the flesh of her supple bosoms. The rapacious kisses of cold steel into her body stole a flinch against them, twisting her head in grimacing recoil.

Hsssss.

It was wrong, and yet so right in ways she could not begin to describe. She shivered, like the Webway quaked under the gaze of malevolent gods. She moaned, lungs crushed under the weight of celestial sensation into a whining, desperate squeal.

“Ah—nnn—Lord Qa! I feel it! I feel everything! Yes! Yesss!”

There were no words for it. She had felt the wondrous touch of chems before. But this was no chemical bliss. The very grace of Isha flowed into her body. This primordial and elemental force, impossibly stolen from the realm of high concepts and crystallized into liquid form, became a part of her. It was a godly thing, a holy thing which no sin could taint, paradoxically crafted through the greatest of evils. She consumed it, this essence of life-giving and joy, and felt the very Yearning itself drowned by her own power flaring into absolute abandon.

Her momentous mountains heaved and jiggled in the grasp of slithering cocks that squeezed and ran along underneath and over, leaving serpentine trails of slime and precome, her silken flesh bulging around the iron vices like the softest dough kneaded in greedy hands. They ached and washed with pleasure as he toyed with them, burning as though overfull with fresh milk, every single caress thrilling her sacred womanhood into a desperate, pink grin, beckoning to her master as it wept hot nectar in solitude.

Her womb became a screeching heaven lacking its god, a great song of lonely sorrow playing throughout her silken passage, poetry performed by the rippling and clenching of pink flesh. Even now, she could feel the illusion of Ravan kei-Narakai’s hard length within her, a memory she feared she would never leave behind. Her body clamored for him to return, begging to be claimed once more. But the new master of her flesh was coming now, drawn in by the siren symphony of her honeyed slit.

She glanced down, noticing the hand-sculpted shaft grinding against her tender labia, inflamed and delicate as they were. Every stroke of the long stiffness against her threw a jerk through her wide hips, a jolt up her spine, an urge of damning submission crying out in her soul. Her eyes widened with delight to see the thick ridges sprouting along the sides of it, flexing against her puffy lips, spreading them apart just by pressing against them.

Oh, the dark ecstasy, knowing that this strange and alien manhood would soon be hers, watching the bulging red helmet at the tip push against her entrance with tantalizing gentleness till it slipped under her, defeated briefly by her strong blossom, yet winding back to try again and again.

The hunting pillar struggled, fought against her tightness, too large to gain purchase, but with each struggling joust it wormed just the barest bit deeper before slipping loose, and she chewed her lip with shivering thirst for it to defeat her at last.

Slimy green lubricant poured from the tip of this wicked member at every kiss against her pinkness, smearing all over, hot like the fires of Khaine upon her skin and her folds. She twisted her head, feeling the tentacle throbbing around her neck like a hound’s collar, reminding her of her place as she gazed down at the seven enormous, bulging testicles at the base of the ridged shaft warring with her womanhood.

Just the sight of it twisted her lips into a savage grin, sticking her tongue out playfully with half-lidded eyes: “Ohh, yes,” she moaned, able almost to feel the nest of testes burning with the seed of life itself, no matter how wicked or vile or alien it might be.

And she wanted all of it. It was only right. Only a small part of her cared enough to wonder what sort of horrors she might be mother of, should she accept this unnatural seed.

She seized the cock between her spread thighs with the strength of a mother-goddess, and heard—in a rare, fleeting moment, which she would forever remember as one of her few victories over the Covenlord—Qa hiss in pleasure and surprise as she forced it into herself at last, inch by ridged inch massaging along her rippling folds. Perhaps the liquid fertility coursing through her very being was potent enough that he felt it raging within her passage, for she could think of little else that could cause such an ancient and terrible being to stumble.

The fullness of his girth was the only salve for the crawling insanity of itching moisture within her. As she sunk down, it hardened with enormous swells of the flesh of the throne of cancer beneath her, as though all the wretched beings imprisoned within were fighting each other and the very walls they had been fused with to fuck her, to feel her, to claim her as their own in mad desire. Density and thickness spread her within as it grew larger, burning like a rod of fire, and she bit her lip at the pulsing relief.

But she needed more.

A thousand tumors were her mate; she was sure she could feel each and every one of them donating their semen to the awful stew boiling inside the balls she admired all around her. Dizziness overtook her senses, as though half-drowned in sweet sin, as she kissed one freakish manhood deeply as it waved in her face insistently, only to wrap her lips around another to gently suckle it with swishing tongue.

Like this, she bounced on the unholy length that slid within her, twisting and bending to stretch her deeper and deeper, fighting its way in as though possessed by the spirit of Slaanesh Herself to claim her most sacred place. It rammed into her, and she popped off the tapered penis she was fellating to groan and gasp for air, feeling it push, worm, battle against her final barrier with frantic thrusts and throbs and squirts of its disgusting green precome that leaked into her very womb like magma burning in her gut.

“Uhn, ahn, uhn!” Eshairr grunted at the discordant sensation, rising and rolling her hips in rhythm with each thrust, bucking on the ridged serpent forcing up into her, riding it, sweating, panting. She heard him growl, fighting, it seemed, his own war against these overwhelming feelings inside of her, and she could feel the entire mountain of cancer beneath her surrender without his consent as it began to bulge and swell arrhythmically beneath her thighs. The tentacular, tapered member collared around her neck suddenly began to pulse in rebellion against its master, and she felt the hot load course through it from the root to its shivering tip, flowing against her body from foot to throat—bursting upon her face with a spout of sperm, bathing her afresh in a rain of steaming, sticky white.

The buxom beauty bounced harder on the one pumping into her passage, delighted and dismayed equally. Such a waste. She opened her mouth to catch as many of the ropes as she could, swallowing and slobbering for every drop that landed on her tongue or squirted past her lips. Far, far more spilled around her, down her voluptuous curves and narrow waist, bathing her again in alien essence that tasted of sour berries.

As she licked endless strands of spunk out of the defeated length, tormenting its crown with her soft tongue, another penis that looked eerily similar to the bumpy, thin member of the vermin that raped her appeared in front of her eyes then, as if to taunt her with it. After a moment, she realized—it was indeed the very same one, cultivated from its corpse. As a gift, or as a jeer upon her? Hers to decide. And her shameless vulva chose gift, embracing the moment and rejecting what little respect she still had for herself. She felt her nether lips tingle and quiver around the meat thrusting up inside her, thrilled at the thought of something that disgusting claiming her twice, stirring an amused giggle from her lips as her eyes grew wide and wild.

Before she could spit out enough semen to mutter something desperate and wicked, she watched it disappear over her shoulder and wind down, around her torso till it cupped one of her bare, round, soft cheeks. But it did not stop there. She did not even realize its purpose—until she felt it prod. Narrow, thin, and slick with ooze, not even her tightness could fight back the crawling vermin-shaft. It was sudden, swift, and merciless, and the fullness in her belly grew twice as vast as it wound up inside her ass like lightning with a soft squelch.

“Oohhhh! Oh, Isha have m-mercy, not th-there!” she whined. “I’ve never…!”

The strength left her then, stunned as much by the mere idea of sodomy as by the overwhelming pleasure rocking through her gut. Her hips gave out, her body now rising solely by the sheer force of the manhoods slamming inside her depths in a constant, rapid bounce. All she could do was wiggle and struggle against the binding lengths of throbbing manhood holding her in place, desperate to find a position of her body where the two invaders could not make her womb spasm with need and her mind go blank at their slightest motion. The deep pressure assaulted her weaknesses from both sides, sending shudders through her that just would not end.

She tried to fight the growing storm of feelings, knowing this twisted euphoria throbbing through her chest like thunderbolts crashing up from her sinful womb. The end of her sanity approached, and she dreaded to meet it, indulging as she was in new depths of depravity that she might never stop longing to taste again. Her eyes flickered in hot ecstasy, jaw dropping in a sensuous moan. Not even simple words could be formed by her weary mouth without a stutter every time one of the dense, powerful lengths inside of her plunged in again.

They were writhing so deep within her, she could almost taste them.

He grabbed her chin then, making her look into his glowing red eyes as she bounced in the embrace of his cancerous flesh. Loud schlorps and lewd moans out of her throat were all that split the silence between them, rhythmic like heartbeat. It was a constant that faded from her awareness, not even realizing how noisy and pathetic she sounded, for all that existed to her was his cold and vicious gaze, observing her like a lab specimen.

“You are at your limit,” he chuckled, running his thumb over her lips as every part of his great bulk under her knees churned and rumbled as if with building, bubbling seed.

“Fill me,” she begged. “Please, my lord!”

“My Isha, embrace my love!” Qa hissed, and then the world around her flipped.

His countless limbs snatched out as he rose beneath her, the surgical curtains torn down all around them, shattered rings of metal clattering and bouncing across the floor of the birthing chamber. He rolled over, tearing his way free of the parasitic connections to the battleship’s flesh, blood spewing all over them both in the havoc, bathing them in gallons as the severed arteries danced around under the power of their currents of crimson life-essence. He bowled her over onto her hands and knees, sinking into the pooling blood, almost crushing her under his mountainous bulk. Still caught in his winding members, she could only gasp and shudder to feel him on top: he her master, and she his dog, his bitch, both now in their rightful places.

“Yes! Yes, ohhh, yes!” Eshairr cried, jaw dropping to feel his awesome girths suddenly pound into her as his spiderlike body rose and fell, humping her beneath him as though she were just some common whore. Her hair bounced along with her enormous tits at every slam of his underbelly into her thick rump, forcing her forwards, her hands clutching desperately at the wet drapes for any sort of anchor to reality at all.

“Harder!” she shrieked, back arching in ecstasy that began as inferno and only transcended that into euphoric hell, ants crawling in her belly—ovulating—as she felt his lengths plunge in and out smoothly, brutally with the bestial gyrations of his abdomen above her.

He must have felt her surrender, for he laughed as he destroyed her, smashing her buxom body without so much as an ounce of gentle mercy, crushing her under the full strength of his arachnidian arms and legs and all his shafts tying her down. Every smack of their wet bodies into the pool of blood was a new echelon of pleasure yet to be achieved by any other in all her race, she was sure of it. She was covered in his slime and seed, and the blood of the ship, and her own sweat, all stirring together as more and more of his endowments began to blow upon her body, her face, her rolling hips, her tongue dragging between her pursing lips.

The fertility within her churned just like his cancerous body did, golden light blessing her beyond what any Eldar had ever known. It flowed and pulsed in her breasts, in her hips, in her womb, beckoning to the enormous cock that accepted the invitation with one final, triumphant push—

And her voice cut out, sweat rolling down her body as hot thickness, throbbing like a hammer, finally filled the void in her belly to the absolute limit.

Everything froze. The world ended. She felt the countless testicles above her twitch against her back, leaping like grapefruit upon her skin. She could hear the rivers run, rushing into her and around her. She felt the dark seed of her lord pumping down along his shafts, flowing around her body in the tangled web of his manhoods all around and inside of her body.

“Yes,” she squeaked, hoarse and weak, quivering in bliss, eyes rolling back as the Yearning suddenly erupted back into life like quasars within her ovaries, the curse at last triumphant over her crumbling spirit, overpowering all else as she indulged in damnation itself. “Breed me…!”

The Haemonculus chortled above her, and that was the last thing she heard before his vile green semen exploded into her womb.

All the torture of her life was at once reversed, and the hateful burden of malediction contorted into blossoming orgasm at the exact instant that his evil sperm crashed into her deepest depths. It was not the temptation of the Yearning which was most dangerous, for it was only a gateway to weaken them. It was the release of submission that would ruin them all, the sweet hellfire of conception that boiled within her delicate cauldron.

Ravan had given this to her once, but the true depth of the euphoria had escaped her then, too consumed by emotion to simply drift in the reward of the Yearning sated. Now, now at last Eshairr was brought low before the gods, and made to suffer cloying completion of all that she was. The world fell away, and she soared above the wretched galaxy, dancing among stars of a thousand colors she had never glimpsed before.

It was like the free thrill of the Gouge Sanguine’s final ascent, and the pleasured terror of the Scourge’s violation, and the sinister satisfaction of Nolaei’s death at her hands—and greater still than all of them, just to feel his potent seed wash into her belly through two throbbing, swelling shafts at once. Impregnating her, sparks and bolts of lightning crackling inside her core. Thick, oozing slop spilled out of her clenching slit that worked desperately to swallow every last drop, a hopeless cause.

They stayed together like that for minute after minute, not a word shared between them. His ejaculation seemed unceasing, as she had hoped, and for as long as fresh cum flowed into her and upon her, she clung to her own dark heaven. But even this grand bliss had to fade.

Shaking with exhaustion, her head fell limp, hair drooping down into blood and semen stirred together around her body. Mindless pleasure faded now, replaced by a serenity brought about by freedom from the Yearning. For the first time in her entire life, she finally knew what it was to be free of the curse’s burden, even if it was ephemeral and soon to pass. Giggles cut through her throat, light and delirious. They became laughter, roaring and mad.

“Hahahahaha!” Eshairr bellowed, tears forming in her eyes.

At last, she had her vengeance upon Morrigan. At last, she had escaped their idiotic edicts. At last…

At last the battle arrived, the very gates of the breeding lab torn open by immaterial force.

===

No quarter. No surrender.

Enemies in every corner, hiding for ambush. Foes skittering in the walls. No, the walls too were adversaries, living traps for the unwary Craftworlders.

Swordswomen collapsing amid yells of agony, oversized scalpels embedded in their guts.

Fusion guns roaring, only to be sheared in half by cybernetic scissors-for-hands, those articulated blades soon turned upon the arteries of the disarmed Storm Guardians to turn them into vivisected art.

Flamers hissing creeks of flame that lick into the narrow nooks, roasting Wracks into charred meat. Until darts of tranquilizing chems puncture the warriors’ armor, leaving them collapsed.

The enemy was too many. The diversion had failed. And as one prong failed, the other points of the trident were dulled in turn.

Defeat was not a question. It was the end of this. All that remained was how they faced it.

Their purpose was to rescue Captain Eshairr. They had reaped a great harvest of the lives of the damned in their assault, until the serpent’s scale platforms were destroyed by lunatic suicide bombings. Now they struggled to gain even an inch further into the vast lab-halls of this murderous vessel, a Guardian falling for every Wrack slain. Shock assault was reduced to grinding attrition, and they were undone.

Warlock Prushala’s rune armor threw back uncountable blows that would have ended her, but even so the wounds had begun to mount upon her strong form, gouges and holes torn in her mystical robes through which decaying blood poured. Not one but two poisons used for flesh-sculpting had tainted her body, and only her potent powers of healing directed into neutralizing those venoms kept her flesh from sloughing off her very bones. Even so, her strength to fight diminished with each passing second, and all her skill as a Warrior could not keep up with the waves of Covenites rushing their crumbling position every minute.

“Aulephe has fallen. Melafaré warns that the anchor crumbles; the Pain Engines have them overrun,” Prushala announced, knowing by her ethereal senses. “We are doomed. Retreat, those of you who can. Pick yourselves off the ground. Retreat, and signal the Howl for recovery!”

It was already too late. There would be no return; the way back was sealed by countless folds of the living ship’s flesh and the rest of the horde now circling around to crush them, the last holdout. Prushala was delirious with wound and poison, and those few left that did not share that malady were either dead or desperately trying to staunch the blood of their sisters.

Save for one.

She wielded no weapon, for she herself was the blade.

She wore no armor, for she herself was the shield.

The illness afflicting her should have left her bedridden, but she had lulled it to slumber by her esoteric gifts. There was a price to be paid for this subversion of nature, later. But in this moment, she was almighty against the darkness, her daemonic tattoo glaring bright scarlet on her obsidian back.

They came for her, and Munesha broke them all.

Those few knives and drills that managed to find her flesh rebounded off of iron skin. The glass ampoule-darts meant to neutralize her instead shattered harmlessly upon her chest, her face, her arms. She grabbed the rifles from their hands and beat them into crumpled piles of fractured bone and oozing blood. She snapped their guns and blades in her fierce grip, letting warped pieces clatter to the ground. Then she stepped into the stance of the Talon of the Carnosaur, and she ripped the bronze masks from their faces with claw-grasp and punched through their tumor-ridden skulls with biting fist, viscera and bone splattering upon her like a baptism in cancer.

She was the wild and untame might of the primordial Eldar manifest. Against her fury, none could stand.

“Go, daughter of the Maiden Worlds,” Prushala hissed, slashing her broken sword through the neck of an advancing warrior Wrack, stumbling as she tried to fling one of the massive chemical canisters out like a missile, but her psychic strength waned as much as the physical.

Munesha spared her comrade a mournful glance through crimson eyes. Her presence as an indomitable bastion was the sole reason why they had managed to pull together into this small enclosure between specimen containers and supply chests and hold for as long as they had. Prushala tugged off her dented witch helm, now more burden than armor, her long red curls spilling out over her violet robes, and she offered a tired smile to the Exodite.

“Go now, and claim their scalps for Morrigan and Gráinn-Maeve. For all of us.”

Munesha nodded. Elegant words were not hers to speak. But she would sing the song of her vengeance with the fluting whistle of her fists and the drum of impacts crushing bones and steel. She would shed no tears, for it was her foes that would weep in her stead.

She howled the howl of Kurnous, bounding over the piled crates with savage alacrity quite unlike the acrobatic grace of Aspect Warriors or Wyches. Her feet smashed the storage trunks beneath her as she catapulted into the nearest Acothyst with a snarl, biting into her throat and tearing out her arteries like a beast. Acid-blood splashed upon her, but it only scalded her lightly, and she spat the gristle out to seize her skull and wrench it totally from her shoulders.

Covenites wrapped around her, surgical weapons clanging pointlessly off of her body. Her powers flowed through her very flesh like an aegis, and it served equally as a hammer. She crushed their bodies in so hard they snapped like twigs around her fists, her feet denting the armored steel of the floor with every stomping step forward to shatter the next fool who dared approach her. Many of her foes did not perish, no—but nor could they resist any longer, paralyzed and broken by the sheer trauma of brute, blunt force.

Had they the deadly armaments of the Kabals, she would be long dead. Had they the fearsome prowess of the Cults, she would be shreds strung up along with all the other trophies. They had neither, and their more dangerous tools and talented leaders had been dragged away to defend the Heart, so they were but prey to her.

Or so it seemed.

An order rang out, and suddenly they clung to her like suicidal fools. Yet this was no blind desperation. This rampaging beast could not be stopped by blade or dart, but perhaps by weight instead. Hand after hand seized hold of her legs, then her arms, and she thrashed her limbs about like wrecking balls, crunching her assailants into piles of groaning meat. But even still they came for her without number, without fear, without pain, piling onto her as she yelled and struggled. Slowly, as though sinking into a mire, her dusky strength vanished beneath pale, spindly limbs and tumorous torsos.

No. She would not fall like this.

For Eshairr.

She embraced the forbidden. She cast open the gates of her mind and let the immaterium surge through her at her fullest potential, the true strength of an Eldar’s soul, red lightning crackling over her form, lashing out from her psychoactive inks. With a heaving roar, she rose, toppling the pile of flesh-sculptors off of her and beating them into bloody pulps all around her, infused with might and speed beyond imagining, yet her powers teetered dangerously on the brink, the entire chamber suddenly freezing cold, the blood of the vanquished turning to ice on the floor, her breath panting out as steam.

She felt the dark forces dancing at the edge of her mind, smelling weakness in the shining beacon of her soul, hunting for entry. The tribal fetishes carved from bone on her necklace and her hips began to glow with evil energies, their concealing wards against the insidious Neverborn beginning to fail. Gasping in pain as ethereal claws scratched at her defenses, she had no choice but to quell the power, the crimson light fading from her onyx flesh.

And then she was merely physical again, merely a woman, not the demigod she was born to be. She stumbled over the pile of twitching corpses all around her, clutching her skull wearily. Closing herself completely off from the Undersea had been necessary to rebalance her mind and fight off the dangers of the Warp.

But there was a debt to be paid, and it would be paid in blood.

She coughed crimson into her hand, the weaponized disease she had halted in psychic stasis suddenly wrenching back to life in her organs and striking her with all its fury, as though speeding to regain the time she had stolen from it. At this stage, it would no longer be possible to rein it in with her powers, for her knowledge of such arts was at its limit. Her father could mend this… but it was beyond her.

If only she had listened to his lessons more carefully.

Munesha managed a few more halting steps, thudding clumsily into the doorway, which opened at her approach. Eshairr should be close, now. If she could just reach her, undo her bindings, free her, the captain had a chance of escape in the havoc.

But what awaited her beyond the bulkhead was not Eshairr. It was a hulking, throbbing lump of cancer with four arms and four legs, strong enough to tear an Astartes limb from limb and driven entirely by the screaming instincts of those poor souls that had been distorted and sewn together into this abomination. It had no face to speak of, only eyes scattered around its chest, and it thumped on the floor plating with titanic weight behind it.

Munesha summoned her powers again, keeping them balanced, a cowl of supernatural strength and armor flowing through her frame, comfortable and calming. She did not know if she could face such a foe, even in prime health, even if she could draw upon her peak of potential again so soon. But she would not give—

The world spun. She barely noticed it seize her by the hair and hurl her through a thin wall, metal exploding around her. She bounced across the deck, somehow not broken in half, she noted in detached agony. She tried to rise to her feet, but only managed to kneel, struck by another coughing fit, retching out her own diseased blood.

The beastly Grotesque advanced on her again, growling through several throats, determined to destroy her utterly. It stopped, then, only when its beady eyes noticed something, a gesture, perhaps, from a master.

A moan split the eerie silence behind her. A moan from a gravelly, worn out voice. Her instincts flared with alarm, her supernatural sense for the hunt warning her: her goal was near. The Exodite turned, crawling around on her side, weak, desperate.

And she saw her closest friend glowing in ecstasy, pinned beneath Nightmare incarnate, gasping and writhing pleasantly in the clutches of a dozen cocks, bathing in his seed as she bounced under him like a shameless bitch.

“Welcome, my love!” Eshairr moaned, true joy in her eyes to see her beautiful friend arrive, chewing her lip and throwing her head back in utter bliss.

Welcome, she said, to a wedding of Asuryan and Gea, master and whore.

Chapter Text

==Chapter XV Prelude: Flame Extinguished==

The song of the woods was soft that day, the wind shaking through the trees as a constant beat against the calls of birds and insects. The warm rays of the distant twin blue suns shined down fondly upon their bare skin, and no weapon nor garment tainted the purity of their earthly beauty.

“How many seasons has it been since the Hunter’s Howl last anchored above these old forests?” asked the wise shipmistress walking at the head of the procession of pilgrims.

“Not enough,” smiled Bearer Yanralya, as proud of her sarcastic wit as ever. She was taller than even the captain, her tone as swarthy as the rich and beautiful bark of the sacred trees, eyes dyed the deepest crimson as was the custom marking adulthood. She was possessed of a physique so mighty and fierce that even the stone feared her touch. In her tribe, she bore no special rank or status. She was not a Worldsinger nor a Wayseer, not a Warrior nor a Wildfoot. She was simply Bearer, at times a hunter, at times a gatherer, at times a wife or a weaver, or firekeeper, teacher, or mother, but always Bearer.

Though the unsettling meaning of that title remained unknown to their guests, they did recognize that it was one of great awe and reverence, and that was why she was chosen to share the Way of Wood on that day with the starfarers of Morrigan, guiding them along the ritual road for the cleansing of the mind and soul.

“Truly? Then I fear I must grovel in shame for invading the solitude of your people,” retorted the shipmistress beside her dryly. She was Mariner-Captain Sita-Gadha, tall, thin and spindly, dark hair shaved along the sides and hanging down in a long braid behind her. She walked with pale beauty unconcealed by any dress or armor, save that her long and beautiful ears were adorned with twinkling jewels that were a mark of prestige on Morrigan, for they were the Gems of Gea, treasures shaped like fragments of stars, cut by the Artisans of their order from jewels of balance and harmony. These were conferred to the Starspoken by tradition, otherwise known as the Voices of the Consort, and kept even after one’s destiny drew away from such an honored order.

Together they walked along the stone path laid by the hands of ancients, in a time of peace before the Fall. Before the end of their civilization. More than ten thousand passes had come and gone since such a halcyon hour, the calm before the nightmare. But in the memory of the Eldar, this was but a breath. Sita-Gadha and all the rest of the Mariners could nearly feel the warmth of the hands of bygone craftsmen upon every cool, smooth, rounded rock they stepped foot on.

Did they know, when they fled the Empire and laid the foundations of this mighty tribe, that every cycle to come would bring only war and death?

“I must apologize that this has been delayed so long. The day has grown dark of late,” Sita-Gadha admitted, her eyes narrowing with weariness. “The ceremonies of joy and fellowship stray far from thought as the galaxy burns. Old Morrigan grows loathe to spare even a single ship upon what some of the High Council would deem frivolities, for our survival is balanced ever more precariously with each coming cycle.”

“Yes, I gather it must be, for never before has Morrigan delayed the Ghost Dance for so many years,” Yanralya answered primly.

Sita-Gadha sighed. “I must beg forgiveness, Bearer. I lied when we arrived; in truth we do not come to you with weightless shoulders and glad spirits to share your company, for we have arrived fresh from war. The crew has rinsed the blood from their bodies and scrubbed the soot from the decks, but few of us can so easily wash our hearts in so small a time. Warmasks can grow too comfortable upon the face.”

Yanralya nodded and smiled, clasping the bare captain to herself, kissing her in the gentle gesture of friendship of her tribe. “Here, there are no masks! Those that we wear and those that we carry deep within, all melt away in Isha’s domain. Even that taciturn First Exarch laid down her arms and divested her pretty regalia, which to one like her must be as good as going bare. That is why we share with you this sacred walkway, sister of the stars, that you may reside in the comfort of nature and find peace, just as our people do.”

Sita-Gadha was greatly relieved, for to come to their ally burdened by battle’s fatigue could be taken as a grave insult, but it seemed the humble Exodites had known before they even landed. She took their guide’s hand, allowing the mighty Bearer to lead them onward fearlessly into the shadows of the forest.

Her First Spear, Druzna, kept her silence, thinking better of detailing all the ways in which this tribal ritual was a silly waste of their time. She cared little for primal nature, save for the more earthly delights she might find in it, but otherwise would have been glad to remain aboard the Hunter’s Howl and stay clean and comfortable. Her supple, thick, round rump and wide, fertile hips swayed as the curse of her people tantalized hotly in her belly, wondering if she might be able to steal away from the Ghost Dance and find some of those elusive Hoel’eyr men so prized for the breeding cycles.

The procession of more than a thousand Mariners, Servants, Seers, and all variety of citizen paths to be found on an Aeldari starship followed—as the Howl drifted gently in orbit, a star of white Wraithbone, guided entirely by the wise spirits housed in its heart while its mortal crew rested on the planet.

Some of them were joyous to visit Gráinn-Maeve, for it was their first time to tread upon the hallowed soil of a Maiden World. Some were frustrated and spited this sanctuary in silence, their hearts raging with kindled flame, hungering for vengeance upon the lesser race that called itself Human. Some were distant and detached, adrift in their own sorrows, or worse, battling the compulsions of their curse, for just the knowledge that there were strong and beautiful men among the Exodites of this world was a temptation too great to simply go ignored.

But one among them, a fire-haired maiden, felt none of these things. Trailing a long way behind the march, she thought only of the woman leaning against her.

Her short blonde hair barely reached down to her eyes—regularly cropped for the attunement helm she wore. She was thin and delicate, almost malnourished, save that she was begged by her kin to eat enough to remain healthy. Her eyes were as white as Gráinn-Maeve’s vast and lively tundras, a beauty that could have taken the heart of any man she desired. But they were as wilted flowers, full of bitter sorrow and regret, as though twin images of death and despair had burned into them, stained over the wonders of the Maiden World’s wilds.

So detached was she that she did not glimpse what terrain lied below. Her only remaining foot rose and fell awkwardly on a stray stone, and she collapsed against Eshairr. The stump of her right arm reached futilely towards her companion as if to hold on, in futile forgetfulness of her wounds.

“I am sorry,” she whispered. “We lag ever further.”

Eshairr, however, stood unbowed by such low spirits, smiling instead as her snow-white skin was warmed by the distant glow of white-hot flares in the sky. “Come, Asha. We must not be late for the Ghost Dance. Let the path wash your woes away.”

“Yes. I must smile for our kin of the forests,” Asha said, forcing one onto her face, but it would fool no one. They could sense each other’s true feelings quite plainly. A lie was a difficult thing between friends. But Eshairr allowed the falsehood to go unchallenged, for she understood that Asha’s grief ran deep, likely deeper than even the glory of a Maiden World could heal.

The arm and the leg that the war on Volamursa had taken from her were merely physical, and already she had bionics forged by the ship’s Bonesingers to replace them—but she had chosen to leave them behind in obeisance of the beliefs of the Hoel’eyr, that the Way of Wood could only be truly walked without the burdens of clothing or tools. Her decision was deeply respected by the Exodites, and Eshairr had volunteered without hesitation to support her.

Nevertheless, it was astonishing to see a woman who had brought ruin to endless foes of Morrigan from within a Titan’s wraithbone helm, a heroine among heroines, so weak and weary now.

===

Volamursa.

That was what the Aeldari called it. Its meaning was vast, far greater than the single rune that expressed the name. The Citadel of Shattered Glass, or the Weary-Eyed Throne, or the Stone of Restless Sorrow. Such poetry was beyond the grasp of the steel-minded invaders, who with artless practicality designated it NRN-898201 Apsilon as they came upon it, salivating like heathen dogs.

A standing tomb, a barren moon of craters and crystal domes as ancient as the War in Heaven. In this dark hour, it was populated only by the spectral phantasms of deceased warriors who found no rest in eternity, said to roam the dusty halls of the outpost-city destroyed by their most bitter of enemies long, long ago.

So it should have remained, forgotten by the galaxy, save for the folly of mon’keigh.

Their priests of iron and lightning discovered the moon hidden deep in wilderness space. Ignoring the one and only warning sent to their primitive communicators to leave the past where it lay, they descended upon the wrecked fortress-city like iron locusts, eager to seize the knowledge of their betters by plundering the graves of heroes. And for their transgressions, only mortality could pay their debt to the Asuryani.

The battle began not with a roar, but a whisper. As the explorator fleet poured down its vast legions to secure all the relics it could from the ruins, wisely forecasting danger with the threat they had received, the Webway portals in the city that had lain dormant for millions of years suddenly awoke with the quietest crackle and eerie glows. Simultaneously, the fleet which had swept out across the system noticed many of its sentry probes were suddenly hushed, all contact lost, and an immense gap in their auspex coverage had permitted a rapid ingress deep within the perimeter of the system.

Yet before the noosphere could carry the alarm-chants to the Ark that was its flagship, a small, silent, invisible dropship flitted between the sensor nets of the fleet with unnatural precision, as though guided by incredible foreknowledge of every tiny, imperceptible flaw in their defenses. As soon as it slipped through the Ark’s void shields, the howling maw of the Warp itself tore open upon its majestic bridge, and Archmagos Ezekael watched from his mechanical throne in transfixed analysis as violet Spiders wove their webs of whipping death all around him, butchering his honor guard and his finest adepts. Melded with his iron throne, powerless to resist, he could only growl binharic curses upon the souls of the xenos as the Exarch approached with power blades at the ready to claim the first ducat of Morrigan’s price in blood and oil.

The Crone-Witch Zul’Aoma, Morrigan’s vilest and most dreaded Farseer, had truly outdone herself with engineering this vicious strike. It is said that upon learning of the Spiders’ bloody harvest, she cackled endlessly as if mad with delight. So foul and cruel was her mirth that even Fleetmistress Aydona was disturbed, banishing her from the bridge of the Crone’s Breath.

Then, with the head of the Omnissiah’s chosen delivered and deposited reverently at the feet of the Fleetmistress, she rose from her command throne, raised her sword high, and swung it down. The signal was given, and Morrigan marched to war, kindling with fires of hatred for their wretched enemy. The tempest of vengeance disgorged from the portals below to crush the disoriented skitarii and titan legions, even as Aydona commenced the ambush in orbit, leaving only blazing hulks in the wake of her fleet’s wrath.

Yet for the perfection of their ambuscade and the gruesome devastation of the initial assault, the warriors of the Adeptus Mechanicus were not the common fodder deployed to die by the Imperium of Man. The head of the expedition had been severed, and the many limbs of the vast explorator fleet above and below had been thrown into disarray, but each had its own master, and they adapted with the swiftness of predictive paradigms even without the unifying guidance of an Archmagos on his throne.

Warships crackled with arcane weaponry, skitarii marched with fearless, tireless efficiency, and god-engines walked the shattered moon with apocalyptic armaments bristling to repay death with death. The war had begun with subtlety, but it would end with thunder and rage.

===

The procession had left them long behind as the hours of walking passed. There was only one other woman with them, one who offered no words but hung back at a distance. Unlike all the rest, she alone had refused to remove her ornate and ancient panoply. To her, it was her skin, and her mask trapped in eternal expression of Banshee’s wrath was her true face. First Exarch Maerai seemed either content to follow the slowest pace set by her kinswomen, or perhaps she had decided to ward them as a guardian of the weakest of the pack, in case one of Gráinn-Maeve’s infamous predator species came hunting for easy meat. Eshairr could not begin to guess at the alien thoughts beneath that vicious helm, for those lost upon their Path lived in another realm that was beyond her imagination.

Unsettling as it was to have Bloody-Handed Maerai as their escort, it was not long before the twin suns set on the horizon, and Eshairr sat Asha upon a large rock beside the road. The night would be warm, and their eyes could see flawlessly in the light of the moons above, so there was no need of a fire. Even so, for nothing more than the comfort of having ever-shifting licks of flame to stare into, the Mariner went into the woods, returning with a pile of kindling and drywood. She arranged stones around the firewood in a small circle, dabbing upon them runes of prosperity and protection using a thumb smeared in spit and dust.

As she took a thin stick she had found in hand and prepared to drill into the prepared kindling for a spark, a shadow stepped out from the bush, and both Asuryani flinched in surprise before they realized that it was no predator of the wilds—or at least, not one which preferred Aeldari flesh for its meal.

She was tall, strong like all her clan, her hair as white as snow, glowing in the light of the three moons overhead, skin as black and shiny as obsidian. Her muscles were toned, but nevertheless she was gifted with wide hips, a fit and narrow waist, and supple, shapely round bosoms, bare to the air. Only a necklace of fangs hanging down to her breasts, a tight thighband clasped by an ivory rune, and a narrow belt of thin leather adorned with countless bone-whittled totems interrupted her lovely nudity. She was an absolute beauty of strength and fertility, and her deep crimson eyes stared down at the starfarers with feline amusement, a hand propping against her leaning hip.

“Did y’ think the Hoel’eyr would not gift you with fire if you wish for it, daughter of stars?” asked the strange Exodite, her accent of the language thick, gruff, diluted from the ideal tones and lofty concepts carefully preserved by the Craftworlds.

“T’would be crass of a guest to presume such,” answered Eshairr, lost for a moment in the ravishing appearance of their host. “And I am well-trained in the survival of distant worlds, as are all on my Path.”

There was the barest suggestion of annoyance in her words, as though finding such aid an indignity that implied her as incapable. Perhaps it was too subtle for an Exodite to notice, or perhaps their host simply cared not about wounded pride on the part of such a young and brash woman. Regardless, she wasted no time leaning down and crushing the kindling under her dark hand, closing her eyes and exhaling smoke as her tribal icons began to glow a pale blue against her skin. A fire flared to life in an instant of focus, and it quickly spread to the drywood, stabilizing with dense fuel to feast upon.

“Y’ hair is lovely,” said the Exodite beauty, squatting down across from them on the balls of her feet. “The very color of this young flame, imprisoned in strands of silk.”

Her poesy was clumsy, by Eldar standards. A rarely practiced skill for those of this tribe, which was to be expected. Yet, such a compliment felt all the more pleasing, to Eshairr’s surprise. Roughness was a charm of its own, perhaps.

Her initial offense at the intervention had already begun to fade. Then the stranger continued, rather proud of her good sense for compliments.

“And y’ figure is the envy of the Mother-Goddess.”

At such a sudden, artlessly blunt comment, the Mariner squirmed where she sat, wrestling with her own shock. Her fingers drifted over her delicate, red nipples, examining herself with idle distaste for the weighty mass of her womanly mounds. Still, as a guest, she had little choice but to accept the praise, but the Exodite was in dire need of a lesson in tact and veiled compliments.

“Flesh spun from polished onyx,” Eshairr replied, eyes drifting slowly over gleaming, oiled skin, a sumptuous chest rising and falling with silent breath, a bare black slit delicately plush and fruitfully ripe and faintly moist.

Rather more lurid runesongs occurred to her, the sapphic verses of her people often found sewn into tapestries in certain temples. She had only visited such dimly-lit locales a few times much earlier in her life, when invited by Aydona to join her there. Inevitably, nerves got the best of her and she retreated before any of the gentle Consorts could pacify her, amid Aydona’s laughter. It was just too much—there women climbed atop women, oils and incense filled the air with a strange fog of cloying sensuality, crystal idols of Aeldari manhood lined the shelves of the lush chambers in sizes from mortal to divine just waiting to be used, and the song of staggered moans, flowing juices, and skin brushing over skin spilled through the halls without end.

Then she tore her gaze and thoughts away to meet with the Exodite’s dazzling eyes, only the faintest impression of pupils left in the seas of red, glimpsed between wild white bangs. Here was a thing of beauty that summoned far more polite verse to mind. “Stars of passion cut by the hands of Asuryan, gifts to his magnificent Gea, thy sanguine and sacred rubies be. The Maiden Moon wears itself, silver locks upon thy skull.”

Asha, surprised out of her misery, looked to her companion. This gave the stranger pause as well, her lips parting slowly, sensuously, before sealing back together in quiet reverie.

“Never have I been gifted such grace by the tongue of another. My name is Munesha, daughter of Balmosh.”

“I am Eshairr, daughter of none,” came the answer. “And this is my season-sister, who was born from the same breeding cycle as I. We have been friends ever since that blessed day of our first breath. She is Asha, Heart of the Revenant. Huntress of God-Engines.”

“Titles which are of worth no longer,” Asha corrected bitterly. “Now, I am only Asha.”

“Y’ heart weighs upon the forest like the foot of a mourning god, so heavy that the beasts flee your presence and even the hawks fall silent in sorrow,” Munesha observed to the crippled girl. “What has been taken that could drive all the joys of this sacred air from you? A friend? Lover?”

“My other half,” Asha whispered numbly. “A Revenant never hunts alone.”

Twin titans flowed with grace that did not belong in such a scale of existence, fearlessly leaping with crackling jump-jets over the Reavers that sought to corner them against twisting hab-spires. The colossal cannons and missile launchers of their foes fired, but their twirling dives slipped past the misguided fusillade that had aimed for illusions conjured by their flickering, scattering, shrouding holo-fields.

The Serpents Coiled and Around Prey were paired war-engines whose names were part of a single whole, just as much as their Steerswomen were, and as one they turned to punch with their pulsars until the cannons crashed into the vulnerable sides of the Reavers still desperately trying to turn around. With cold animus, they fired their weapons inside the flickering void shields, ravaging the indomitable with enormous, scything beams of solar wrath gouging into their prey. For the crudeness of their vehicles and sluggishness of their metal-and-flesh bonds to their so-called god-engines, the Imperial dogs paid the price with one collapsing in exploding hellfire, the other’s right arm shorn clean off and staggered to its knees.

They were always outnumbered by the Imperial maniples, or the Ork Gargants rampaging wildly, or the ancient Chaos titans seething with the Warp’s accursed gifts. But the Serpents Coiled Around Prey were twice as quick and twice as deadly as any of their foes, and thus they feared not to face any number of lumbering fortresses, so long as they stood as one. In this urban ruin, the narrow streets and immense spires were the ideal battlefield for their sleek, deft war-vessels, and their dance of doom continued even now as they whirled to break away from the engagement and prepare their next strike.

But they would not have that chance.

Then came a flash of light that was too bright to be just another volley of radium carbines desecrating the hallowed crystal streets and halls of Volamursa with suicidal rad-blight—the deafening thunder of a titan’s wrathful armaments cutting through the air. The Revenant dancing beside her crumpled, its helm smoldering with plasma fire. She had only enough time to register the severance of her mental bond with her sister before the following blast took Asha and the Serpents Coiled.

Munesha’s eyes went wide and red, and then narrowed with sympathy. “I am sorry.”

“There is no use for pity,” Asha snapped after ruminating on Munesha’s words, her frustration sudden and uncalled for. “The matter is settled. I was weak, and another avenged Ularuna when I could not.”

The fire between them rose higher—stirred by the fury in her heart, yet only a bare shadow of her wrath.

The enemy’s champion god-engine, the Tantamount Olympus, too massive and too slow to navigate the city and join the battle, had in seething fury thrust its weapons halfway through a crystal spire to ambush them as they wrecked its Reaver companions. Using the constricting width of the street to narrow down the possible positions of the enemy, not even their holo-fields could have saved them. With the Revenants in smoldering ruins, the cyber-trumpets of the Warlord erupted in cheering, discordant symphonies of victory as if to shatter the morale of the Morriganite warhost.

But above that hideous din of blaring organs and buzzing binharic catechisms rang out the howl of a fierce goddess, the Mistress of Banshees, amplified a thousand times over by her murderous mask. It was then that the mon’keigh priests of steel, scorners of emotion as weakness, were reminded of that most primal of feelings: fear.

Through concealing walls of smoke left by Mechanicus incendiary warheads tore a Ghostlance, swooping like white lightning down for the Warlord where it was trapped. The Seers of Morrigan had foreseen this grim future, taking what steps they could in hopes that it would not come to pass, but nevertheless they prepared for it, and that came in the form of the Howling Banshees hanging out from the landing ramp on ropes braced to swing onto the titan as the craft passed just over it.

Realizing it had been flanked, the Tantamount Olympus struggled desperately to free its trapped arms at the oncoming boarders dropping and flipping down onto its shoulders with inhuman grace. But it was a slow, lumbering beast of metal and masonry, unable to extricate itself from the ruins before the Eldar had already landed, fusion charges set on its sealed bulkheads, blasting through. Maerai herself dove into the inner chambers of the titan’s heart, and her warriors followed like razor-wind, power swords cutting down the desperate secutarii within before they could ready their weapons in the chaos.

In mere seconds, all defenses lay broken and burning, its guardians butchered, and the First Exarch claimed the head of the Tantamount’s Princeps for Morrigan. Another token of vengeance. Klaxons erupted from its vox-trumpets as its sacred pennants burned on the Warlord’s shoulders, its machine-spirit activating its own ultimate sanction in fury at the violation of its interior. Mere moments were left before detonation, but that was all the time the Banshees needed to bolt out and somersault from its ramparts. Reeling with hatred, the mighty god-engine stomped desperately against the building as it knew its end was at hand, its reactors auto-breaching. The goliath was torn apart by the leashed stars in its heart, rent into naught but smoking chunks of adamantine and shattering the entire spire, burying whatever was left in innumerable tons of white crystal.

Eshairr took up a stick and poked at the fire to adjust the alignment of the firewood, a swell of delight rippling through the hungry flames.

“It is not your fault. It was war,” the Mariner explained.

Asha shook her head. “Since we were children, we were groomed to march as Revenants together, to face any foe, conquer any threat to our home. Above all, we could never allow ourselves to fall, so few and precious were Morrigan’s twins, as should even one of them be born male, they must be separated and the forbidden one sent away. Our Paths were chosen for us, but we accepted this grand and perilous duty, for we knew that it was an honor and glory beyond measure.”

“And through countless victories, you have proven your valor, as much as any living sisters of Morrigan could dream of!” Eshairr said, smiling proudly and touching her friend on the shoulder.

Asha scoffed, shrugging her hand off. “Hollow words. Poison ideas. Twin illusions we indulge in to flee the bitter truth of war. It all amounts to naught, and I am left with only the phantasms of praise, taunting, torturing me in memory and soul. I am barely born, as are you, and we are hurled into war without end. For all our victories, we yet endure losses we cannot abide. Woe that I should live now, only to suffer. Woe.”

“Asha, Ularuna would not be fain to see you mourn for the rest of your life,” Eshairr expressed softly. “I grieve her as well, I truly do, for she was also my friend. But you are not bound to the same fate. You are free to choose your next Path!”

Asha raised her eyes from the fire, glaring at her friend with unwarranted hostility. “Were it not for you, Eshairr, I would rest side by side with my sister in the tranquility of death’s dream now. We would still be one, not broken between life and death!”

“Enough!” Eshairr shouted. It was clear this was an old argument between them. “I implore you, do not be so hasty. There is always another option! Once the sorrow fades, you will find your way.”

Asha chuckled darkly. “I know my way. Ularuna knew it as well. When one of us fell, the survivor would have only one choice left to her. Nothing else could fill the emptiness.”

Silence filled the air, save for the crackling of the fire. Munesha glanced from one to the other, understandably confused.

“You plan to perish by your own hand?” she asked Asha.

“Hah! Not yet. If I should fail to bond with the Wraithknight, then perhaps.”

“Wraithknight?” Munesha asked, surprised. “Is that not a permanent fate? I have never heard of such a union being undone.”

“Indeed. When one takes the Mourning Throne, one does not rise from it ever again,” Asha smirked, as though amused by the miserable idea. Perhaps, to her, it was better than any alternative.

“That is not true. Sometimes, the need for repairs necessitates removing the Steerswoman…” Eshairr pointed out, though it was a desperate straw she grasped at.

“Yes. Rarely. And once they are complete, she is placed back where she belongs, the only place she can bear to live anymore,” said Asha. “The Mourning Throne is no mere chair. It is a state of mind, a way of life. I will still lie upon it even when the red day dawns that I am ripped from my sister’s embrace by my enemies.”

“Which is all the more reason to deny it!” Eshairr said. “You once told me that you wished to be a Dancer, and a Mother, and a Warrior. I know you have been drawn to many Paths, yet that freedom was denied to you. And while Morrigan had need of your twinned might, it is wrong that you were bound to such a destiny. But now you can live as you have always yearned to live! I beg you, do not throw this chance away!”

“Yes. I wished to be many things,” Asha said, sadly. “But only with my other half there, at my side. Without her, I am made unwhole. Without purpose. I envy you, and all our kind born without that flaw.”

“Y’ would insult such a blessing?” Munesha asked indignantly. “The Hoel’eyr have given y’, our allies, infant female twins and triplets born to us, when your need was dire. It was not a choice made lightly, for it meant they would never know their blood family. Even that they would be raised in the embrace of a noble Craftworld, given utopia and a shining future, it was a difficult thing for our tribe to accept. Yet they had each other. No matter where they were taken, or what life of war awaited them, they were together, and they were one. There’s solace in that.”

Asha’s face twisted in sorrow refreshed.

“Those of us born alone shall never know such joy, such peace, such love,” Munesha added after a pause. “Not even in the arms of a mate.”

“I know,” Asha whispered in reply, barely a sound at all. “Do you see now, Eshairr? That is why I must do this. It is not for my sister. It is for my own sake.”

“Please, even if you only delay your reunion with Ularuna, seek joy first!” Eshairr said. “Consign yourself not to eternity in woe and anger!”

“I wish that I was strong, like you,” Asha said. “I wish I believed that I could ever enjoy anything again without her.”

Something exploded above, and seething chemical flame poured down like rain. The world around her screamed, white fires seeping inside the cockpit. She could not see nor breathe. Yet the spirits of the Revenant wailed for her, not for themselves—stirring her from the darkness of unconsciousness, throwing all their strength into her body through their connection. Even without air, their touch woke her from coma.

“Rise! Rise and flee, Asha!” they sang to her as a chorus, holding back the lethal phosphor flames scorching the contours of the pilot chamber black, threatening to pile up onto her war-throne, with pure psychic might when even the suppression systems failed. Goddesses, they were like her mother.

She could feel only daggers where her right arm and left leg had been, severed in the Warlord’s vengeful blast and now swallowed up in phosphor-flame that dripped inside the cockpit. Her armored pilot suit had already sealed itself around the stumps and cauterized the wounds, but the bleeding continued regardless. Yet these were small pains compared to the gaping chasm where her heart was, torn asunder by a loss more terrible than any other part of her.

For Asha knew that her sister was gone.

Despite it all, she did not want to die. But the cockpit refused her commands to open, damaged as it was. The shattered gash in the helm of the Revenant was engulfed in the invading tide of chemical flame, and she could not possibly escape.

As hope dwindled to ash, as the psychic barriers protecting her began to falter and fail, then something quelled the blaze—a pulse of gravitic force, tearing the air out of the cockpit. In that fleeting void, the unending chem-fires heartlessly unleashed by the Mechanicus were at last suffocated, and then the oxygen flooded back in. Through the open fracture, Asha saw a violet assault walker atop the fallen titan, and through the transparent canopy she could see the face of an old friend. She watched the canopy slide open, and fearlessly the pilot leapt down upon a descending cable, her arm outstretched, hair shining like the fires of Khaine in the light of the sun.

“No!” Eshairr yelled. “The strength required just to walk in the war-vessel you have reigned over is unspeakable. You are not weak. You choose to surrender!”

“Yes!” Asha answered in equal rage. “I am tired! Empty, save for sorrow and this—this unending pain in my limbs, and in my heart! No longer do I wish to think or feel!”

That, at last, quietened the Mariner, struck dumb by the admission of total defeat from the friend she admired and adored.

Munesha looked from one to the other, and she knew that the Way of Wood could not soothe them. And if their suffering remained, then how few indeed of Morrigan’s crew could it salve? Had the wars of the galaxy truly grown so dire and fell, as the Hoel’eyr continued merely eking out their existence here, heedless of the threats that might one day find them?

Someone approached the fire then, adorned in the panoply of the Banshee. It was magnificent with the master craftsmanship of ages past, dozens of spiritstones engraved into her armor plates and helm like shining cerulean jewels, though in truth she had removed as many of the decorative accessories of honor and renown as she could and this was only the armor at its barest. And yet it remained resplendant. Each of those glittering stones housed the spirit of a past Exarch to wear her ornate panoply, now united with her as a greater entity that transcended mortal skill and wisdom.

First Exarch Maerai crossed her legs as she sat across from them, the light of the fire flickering across her tan plates.

“It is too late,” Maerai said to Eshairr, quiet but intense. “You know, as well as she does, that she is lost.”

“But she has not taken the oaths yet—nor has she entered the final trance—she has not been enshrined within the Throne yet!” Eshairr protested weakly.

“It is too late,” Maerai repeated, more firmly. “She does not stand at the precipice. She fell from it in battle. Thus, ever to battle shall she return. All that remains of the woman you treasure is what you have drawn out of her former self, which thrashes and perishes as her heart slowly settles.”

“But—”

“You cannot change her fate. It is already written. By her own hand.”

“I—”

“You listen, but you do not hear. You are not her master.”

Eshairr looked to Asha, aghast. “But surely if someone—someone wiser than I, more beloved than I, were to speak with you?”

Asha smiled sadly for her friend, who only now began to understand. This was but a hollow glimmer of the self which had laughed and played with Eshairr as a child. A thin vestige of the haughty, teasing girl who had, along with her twin, completely humiliated Eshairr during their Guardian training in youth. A dying gasp of the light of her soul, which had drawn the lonely Mariner to it even as her Revenant lay defeated in the ruined streets of Volamursa.

Asha lay limp in Eshairr’s lap as the canopy sealed shut around them. Her wounds bled over the Mariner’s mesh armor and the psychosensitive controls, but Eshairr cared not. The Wasp assault walker she had been assigned for the battle awakened with a faint whirr of its wraithbone engines, and just in time—for radium bullets crashed into its reactivating defense field.

Eshairr leapt away with a blast of its gravitic jump jets, winding through the air as the skitarii vanguard advanced on her, too slow to claim the defeated Steerswoman for study and dissection but nonetheless implacable as they settled their sights on the walker as new prey. She turned the vessel’s scatter laser upon them, tearing half a dozen bionic warriors into smoking scrap and burnt gore. Yet the rest continued their advance, fearless, calculating her shifting trajectory as they continued firing their rad-blighted munitions in hopes of overwhelming the force field and disabling her craft. With implacable resolve and pinpoint accuracy guided by their ballistic implants, it was not a question of if, but when.

+You are not alone. Cross the lake of fire, and you shall find salvation,+ spoke a calm, almost serene voice through the walker’s psychic uplink. Eshairr fired the jets to twist the Wasp around and bounced its taloned feet off of a burning tank hull, weaving as best she could around the predictive aim of her foes, panting with anxious intensity even through her battle trance. Perhaps it was the woman swooning against her, in dire need of care.

She saw a field of white flame lurking ahead, sure to burn for days more before the toxic chemicals consumed themselves. With no better choice, she trotted atop the smoldering wreckage of Around Prey’s titanic thigh to burst high into the air with the power of her jets, soaring over the deadly rivers of phosphor. By only the blessings of the Crone, its rising tongues failed to catch them. But as soon as she had landed on the other side and cleared through the blinding smoke, she found herself face to face with a detachment of Kastelan war robots advancing towards a retreating force of Howling Banshees, cutting down the warriors with flamers that burned them alive and phosphor blasts that tracked them and burned through every scrap of cover they tried to shield behind.

And then, at the shouted behest of the lady datasmith governing them, two of the robots turned to target her.

Asha squirmed weakly against her, delirious in agony, dying every second. She knew that it was over, that they were doomed, even as she sank into and roused out of dream and nightmare. She was prepared to face her end. Part of her was even glad for it.
But the woman who saved her roared with mad resolve, resolve to fight, to struggle, to defy Fate itself.

Trying to flit away was hopeless—and the Steerswoman could afford no further delays to healing—so she charged straight ahead, launching a cluster of starshot missiles that detonated against its repulsor field, the cluster of plasma blasts gutting its entire midsection into crackling junk. Her scatter laser volleyed furiously at the other, but its repulsor fields were too strong for light fire to pierce—and when it flared reflexively, her own lasers crashed back into her force field and overloaded it as she cursed and the walker flew back from the impact, stumbling to right itself. The robot’s return fire cut into her wraithbone chassis with phosphor flares that melted into the reinforced crystal and ignited into deadly blaze, cracking the Wasp’s armored canopy, ripping the scatter laser from its shoulder, and gouging deep wounds in its reinforced limbs as it began to feast upon the sweet delicacy of wraithbone.

Seeing the Reaper’s blade swinging for her neck, Eshairr howled with scathing rage, firing her jump jets directly forward, weaving left, then right, and then—kicking—smashing the phosphor-lit talons of her walker’s feet into its steel skull, using the foe-flame against it, igniting within its critical circuitry and slaying the machine spirit that sought her life.

And, with cold, cold eyes, as the Wasp crashed into the street and a hundred blaring alerts shot into her mind, Eshairr frantically turned the walker’s missile launcher upon the rest of the robots, only to see the datasmith dive. Not to escape. To protect the nearest robot with her own bionic frame.

Only that made her hesitate. Not the fear of death, not the dread of dishonor and defeat, but the sight of true bonds, transcending the base instincts and evil desires of mankind. These were not soulless machines they fought. They had wills, thoughts, dreams of their own. She had not realized.

They could even sacrifice for each other.

Pinned under phosphoric flame eating into it, jump jets failing, Eshairr watched the other Kastelans train their guns upon her.

And then they were gone. Cut into sparking chunks by a hurricane of lasers and lances. A single strafe upon them from above, by a red blur that even Eshairr could not follow with her eyes, only hear the hypersonic screech of its engines pass by seconds afterward.

+Maiden shield you.+

The Crimson Hunter had guided them here, preparing this attack run to clear the street. They were not alone. No matter how desperate the moment seemed, Morrigan stood as one.

If only Asha had been awake to see it. To see the warriors of their home unite as she dragged her comrade out of the flaming wreckage of her war walker. To see the warhosts of Morrigan beat back the unstoppable tide of invaders, push them back to their burning landers and rout them, and blast half their fleeing starships out of the void. To see the weary Warlock leap like an angel from a hovering Wave Serpent, pass her hands over the body of her friend, and save her life.

“Asha, there is always another way!” Eshairr insisted. “The Healers—perhaps they can bring you peace!”

“Still you refuse the truth before your eyes,” Maerai said, her tone growing severe. “One day you shall see: Not all wounds can be mended.”

And with those final few words, Maerai rose, walking into the night.

===

The Ghost Dance was a festival at the Northern Shrine of the Worldspirit, where the souls of ancient Exodites stirred at the ceremonial dances of the Hoel’eyr, the smiling faces of their lost forebears reflecting in the psychic crystals that had grown in the walls of the Cave of Restless Mirth. Those present could feel the spirits of the dead dancing alongside them, feasting alongside them upon bowls of fruit and meat and broth set out for their departed kin. It was not a funeral, but a celebration of those who had gone to rest.

Though her prosthetics were returned to her at the completion of the Way of Wood, Asha did not join the dances or the feasts. Instead, she looked to the spiritstone of Ularuna in her hands, smiling, stroking it, whispering to it. The soul slumbering within would only very faintly hear her and sense her presence, but that was enough to satisfy her loneliness and longing, at least until they returned to Morrigan and it could be set into the Infinity Circuit—or a Wraithknight. Only once did she spare a glance back at her former friend, mourning not her sister, but the bond she left behind.

The First Exarch fulfilled her duty to participate in numerous ritual duels with the tribe’s greatest warriors, more dances than combats, meant to impress the ancestral spirits. Staring in awe at her peerless prowess, Maerai’s words echoed in Eshairr’s thoughts, a constant battle waged between her own naïve hopes for her friend’s future and the cold, harsh truth which the First Exarch had spoken. But she could not dwell on it for long. Captain Sita-Gadha stepped away from a slightly inebriated Druzna and approached Eshairr, speaking quietly of her impressive feats on Volamursa. She suggested subtly that such bravery and valor might augur growing importance within Aydona’s navy, and that they would speak more of it later.

It was Munesha, however, who had the most to ponder in the Ghost Dance. Instinct warned her that her tribe had grown complacent. They had not traveled beyond the borders of their world for war since the birth of the Great Rift, and only did so now at the rare request of an ally for aid. How could they be prepared to face the galaxy’s horrors when they barely knew of the suffering of their comrades?

She realized that she could not remain on Gráinn-Maeve, a quiet revelation that brought with it the determination to follow these proud warriors, wounded as they were, to the stars. She looked to Eshairr across the cavern, and the stares of the deceased followed her crimson gaze, knowing that the time had come for the brilliant young Wayseer to leave them. Munesha had been chosen to become the next Bearer, but another would have to take her place.

Her father would be more difficult to convince—but a ferocious brawl and then a soothing bath between them severed their mutual obligations amicably, and when the dawn came, Munesha stepped aboard the landers that soared into the skies, wondering what wonders and nightmares the stars might hold for her. War and sorrow, that she knew beyond a doubt. But perhaps there would be adventure, glory, and friendship? She glanced to Eshairr. Or even…

Chapter Text

==Chapter XV: The Darkness of the Heart==

Only a plebian assumed the strong had any right to survive; the enlightened knew that strength could be harvested just like any other organ.

The bloody blade arose from obsidian flesh parted.

The disease killing her was not so difficult to cure; in the span of an hour, a thousand tumors had been grown from a slave’s flesh using the Extolled Malignancy’s wicked technology. Each tumor, once fully formed, was injected with a sample of the virus, allowed to suffer unspeakable anguish by its blind, idiot consciousness, and the one that survived was plucked from the dying, deformed slave. This wriggling neoplasm produced antibodies that would defeat the war-plague afflicting Munesha. It need only be injected with a chem to ensure it would dissolve away once its task was complete, in shrieking agony and despair at its pathetic excuse for an existence. Only Drukhari would notice its passing, a faint tingle of delicious pain in the proximity of the Wayseer.

All too easy. The Healers of Morrigan could not even imagine such horrific remedies, which is why they failed.

What have I become?

She quelled the intruding thought.

There was something else she had noticed while inserting the tumor. A sense of intuition bestowed upon her by her master’s gifts, tickling at her memories. A suspicion—Qa Vanada’s suspicion. She had commenced this exploration in response, and now she was glad to have done so.

Eshairr set the scalpel aside, taking up a small set of tongs, prying the tiny fleshy device from her friend’s innards. She held the object up to the light, wiping the blood from it. It was no gadget, despite how it first appeared. It was a Wrack. A living, breathing Wrack, reduced to a literal insect which had parasitized Munesha ever since the day they first arrived in Commorragh. The Wrack-sect stared up at Eshairr with beady eyes, its many limbs producing a tiny shrug at her looming face. What else ought he do?

Classical work by the Coven of the Black Descent. Genius, but impermissible.

It was their chirurgeons that had mended Munesha’s wound at Syndratta’s hands, and they had planted this little many-limbed spy with such careful precision that even Munesha’s psychic perception could not discover it. Its genetic structures must have been altered to be virtually indistinguishable from her own, else it would have been detected instantly. After all, most would obviously search for the evil tools of the Kabals being left inside her after such a surgery. But few indeed would have thought to search for her own flesh inside her flesh.

Only, this twisted little pawn was more than just there to observe them and bring their secrets back to his masters. The Covenbug was armed with a stinger at the base of its abdomen, which would be more than sufficient to inject the Wayseer with lethal poison when the time was right.

Why kill her? That was obvious, of course. Purely because they could. There was no real malice in it, no greater scheme driving it. To the Covens, murder was as casual and ordinary as breathing.

How fortunate for Munesha that the Black Descent exerted itself solely in plans that spanned decades and centuries and millenia. Simply thrusting a knife in the back of your rival was far too terribly blasé. The true art, in their minds, was in arranging circumstances to bring about the most poetic downfall for one’s enemies, all without ever lifting a finger save to set into motion the cascading sequences of eventual doom. Their work bordered on the prophecy of Farseers.

Their preparations were not easily subverted. Their foresight was long, their genius insidious beyond belief. But they had made one miscalculation, in this little game of theirs. They did not predict Eshairr to enter the tutelage of another Haemonculus. They did not foresee Munesha being saved by the scalpel of her friend.

A friend who has become a monster.

Is it so monstrous to save a life? she asked.

It is not Munesha who need fear you, answered the weary light.

True.

Eshairr’s cold, cold eyes stared into the tiny Wrack squirming against the tweezers, a feline smile crossing her lips. Malice was a new thing, still very foreign to her thoughts, but as it settled into her heart, horizons of horrors untold began to unveil in her imagination.

“And what am I to do with you?”

The little thing, rightfully terrified, squeaked at her, his voice so small it could scarcely be heard even by Aeldari ears.

“Hmm. What did you say? Ah. Yes, an arrangement may be acceptable. Lend me your services, then. I suspect some of my comrades escaped that battle. I will need someone to help me search for them…”

===

There was no point thinking of how Melafaré fell.

How the central prong was assaulted from all sides by a horde of monsters defying description. How the grav-tanks and the landers were destroyed, one by one, leaving them stranded in the heart of darkness.

There was no point remembering the sight of Guardians screaming in horror, trying to flee the enormous, cleaving, chain-revving surgical instruments of Pain Engines to no avail, for their blood painted the walls in great spurting fountains once the instruments carved them into chunks. It would only hurt her more to recall the sight of Moramei impaled on a giant surgical drill mounted to the arm of a massive hulk, her body twirling like a windmill of spraying blood and shattered bones as the drill spun and spun and spun.

And there was no point thinking of how Melafaré fell, long, arcane hooks plunging through her rune armor and sucking out her very life force, a storm of life harvested in a crackle of unnatural energy and a blood-freezing shriek of agony, leaving only a desiccated cadaver in its place.

As the bulwark collapsed, the carmine-armored Kabalite dragged her out of that hell, detonating mine charges she had laid beforehand to cover their escape into one of the severed arteries of the ship’s flesh. Crawling through a tide of blood and chems that sprayed into her eyes every time she tried to look ahead was a fresh hell, drenching the both of them in a disgusting stew of crimson. It seeped through their armor into their undergarments, into their skin, somehow making it through the seal of her respirator into her mouth, drowning them all little by little. She could only cling to the armored leg of her savior as they crawled forwards, praying that the Kabalite somehow knew where they were.

A detonation ahead suddenly freed them to spill out into the underhull like a wretched facsimile of birth, emerging into an even more desolate and haunted place. But at least they were no longer swimming through a soup of blood and Crone-knows-what-else.

Tulushi’ina was mute with terror, eyes wide, glancing every way by which the enemy could have pursued them, frozen with indecision. Her battle-trance had dissolved in all the havoc, and her best attempts to restore it crumbled into mumbled, half-hearted mantras. It was Kanbani who slapped her and insulted her, threatening to gut her like mon’keigh if she did not move. Together, they fled that massacre through the ship’s eerily silent corridors, finding its lowest chambers depopulated. No doubt every spare hand had been called to defend against the assault, and Morrigan had reaped a vicious toll in the crew’s numbers besides.

They spent hours traveling the maze-like ship, avoiding patrols, fleshy traps, and wandering abominations through the use of Kanbani’s drones scouting ahead and their own carefully honed senses. Neither of them said much. What little needed to be communicated was shared through wordless gestures as they trotted ahead. Their initial hopes of discovering a life pod were dashed in short order as the stealth drones mapped the ship’s bowels for miles from aft to port and found nothing.

The Extolled Malignancy had stripped out any such convenient escape craft. Those who would simply be resurrected by stored samples of their flesh had nothing to fear from the ship’s destruction. Trying to slip into the hangars to steal a skiff was suicide, as they would be crawling with fleshwarped crew tending to the squadrons.

Powerless and trapped, they watched in gut-wrenching silence through a viewport in a remote storage chamber as the Cancer of Stars descended the Feeding Trough, entering the Flesh-Made-Ruins with its unexpected prize of scores and scores of fresh samples for study and experimentation. The two survivors watched their last embers of hope extinguish into bitter coals, for now the flagship returned to the heart of the Coven, latching into the colossal tumor that was their fortress.

And now, a day after the defeat of the entire assault force, Tulushi’ina bit her thumb till it bled, for the pain distracted her from the nightmare.

Kanbani, standing guard at the door for hours, stopped. The banality of it was starting to drive her insane. She walked around, scanning the room. A pile of crates full of useless organic matter, and the Ranger. All they had left. Tulushi’ina was shaking, jumping in place at every sound that echoed down into the bowels of the ship. Horrified, driven by panic, she was in no state for battle. But she was at least cognizant of her surroundings.

Kanbani knew a few tricks of torture to get Tulushi’ina back into a fighting mood with her knife, slow and painful, drinking her pain to empower herself. But the ambient agony just in the air of this ship, one of the benefits of building it from enslaved flesh, was enough to more than slake her Thirst. It was like standing in a raging battlefield. Adding to it at this point would accomplish nothing of worth.

The Kabalite paced back and forth. Her drones were latched to ceilings and inside narrow crannies all throughout the underbowels, monitoring the passageways. It seemed what was left of the crew had already disembarked to return to their work in the fortress. All that remained were the ship’s Grotesque custodians, who were idly sweeping the hallways dragging corpses and debris off to some unknown location. But that was little comfort. Just one such warden discovering them meant the rest would converge on them, and it might even alert the rest of the Coven to the intruders.

Escaping the Cancer of Stars now was a false hope regardless. It would just leave them in the heart of the Coven itself, with no idea which way is up or down, left or right. They knew nothing of the Flesh-Made-Ruins, only that it was a horrorscape that hungered for fresh flesh.

She was briefly tempted to just find an incinerator and crawl into it. A sample of her tissues was stored by the Black Descent, so she would be regenerated by her pact elsewhere, safe from the dark fate of capture. Her assets would be all the more reduced and her debts piled all the higher in her absence, but better that than the alternative.

Kanbani looked back.

Tulushi’ina looked up at her. As if she could somehow see her thoughts, her eyes pleaded with the Kabalite. It reminded her of the slave boy. It reminded her of herself, a halfborn fresh from the vats, calling out to Lady Syndratta as she descended upon her yacht. It was a parade of the Obsidian Rose’s military might, all to remind the scum of the underspires why they paid their dues to the Kabals.

She remembered her mother catch her voice, against all odds, and turn to look at her. She remembered the clear recognition of who she was dawn in her mother’s eyes, her daughter, a filthy laborer, bonded to work in a helliarch’s munitions workshop. And then, a smirk. No sympathy for the child she had left in some Coven’s birthing hives and never thought twice about. Just catlike amusement, enjoying the sight of her own flesh and blood suffering in the gutter.

The rage had fueled her from that day on. The hatred. The yearning for vengeance. It was as if Khaine himself lent her his fire to blaze in her heart.

From that day on, Kanbani trained in the sense-numbing darkness of her tiny cell every night until she knew its dimensions as well as her own body by the scars on her knuckles and knees. She taught herself from a cracked holo-crys recording of Kabalite combat techniques that she swiped from a brute thug hoping to study them for his own initiation—which the worthless fool did not survive. She became one with the ancient artforms of murder, passed down by soldiers of fortune for generations untold. Then she pretended to seduce the helliarch, tore off his testicles and shattered his ribcage in just two lethal strikes. Before she stomped his throat in, she looked down into his terrified eyes, and she relished his dying agony as much as she planned to savor that of her own dear mother. His honor guard took one look at her, saw the wild look in her eyes daring them to try it, and they fled.

In less than a single pass after that, she succeeded the trials of initiation and was welcomed to the Obsidian Rose.

Kanbani looked up, closing her eyes, breathing. Trying not to let the Ranger see her tremble. How absurd that she felt braver as a slave with nothing to lose than she did now.

She jammed a crate against the door. It would accomplish little if a Grotesque decided to force its way in. Nevertheless, she sunk down with her back to it, letting out a weary sigh and staring at the floor. The both of them were still completely plastered crimson, even if it had dried and begun to crack. They were a mess.

A grim smile cut across her lips as she took off her carmine helm, laying it by her side.

“If my mother were here, we would have a chance.”

Tulushi’ina glanced over at the sudden words, the first to be shared between them. “I don’t believe she could make any difference.”

Kanbani’s smirk grew a little wider. “Then you would be a fool. She is the Obsidian Rose’s finest model. Since she was a mere Sybarite, she’s been demonstrating the deadliest weaponry on the battlefield, proving products against the harshest judgments of the most formidable minds in Commorragh. Lady Khromys plucked her out for this purpose from amongst thousands of her finest warriors. And not once has she been found wanting in the estimations of the Queen of Splinters or her esteemed customers. To Syndratta, war is a marketplace; her weapons are her wares; her skill the only advertisement she needs. She has such extravagant titles for herself. Yet her greatest epithet, which she thinks too wonderful to speak of, was bestowed by Vect himself: Peddler of Death. And that is no insult, but highest praise.”

Tulushi’ina looked down at her red-stained gloves. “Yes. I understand how you feel. Our High Autarch is our most honored of heroes, our brightest star. Even when all seems lost, she is there, indomitable. She took the fight to our most ancient foe awoken, led us to victory, forced the revenants of our past to flee in disgrace from our domain. She has overturned the darkest of fates for our home again and again through strength of will and brilliance combined. Even the Neverborn are said to fear her gaze, such is her ferocity and courage; she has driven them back to the empyrean every time they crawl into Morrigan’s reach. Eshana is our love, our joy. I know that she still fights Eros even now, leading a resistance that strikes from the shadows, such is her indomitable spirit. If she were here, she would lead us to safety. Oh, to see that glorious light once more… now, of all times…”

Kanbani snorted. “Hah. My mother led her army to drive the unending hordes of Chaos back, faced their mightiest and crushed them. She plunged deep into daemon-conquered quarters of Commorragh to recover the Kabal’s secrets from lost workshops, wresting every ounce of precious resources from the foe’s grasp as was possible, withdrawing just before the collapse of the sub-realms. It was Vect who won the Battle of Khaine’s Gate, but she played her part in the great plan perfectly.”

Tulushi’ina looked at the Kabalite, her hands balling into fists against her knees. “High Farseer Auriel is a font of wisdom unstoppered, blessing our realm endlessly. She has outwitted masterminds of the daemonic and the alien countless times. Once she even stood against the Cackling Tomelord of Tzeentch, catching him like a fish wound up in his own strand of destiny in the Skein. Plucking out a single thread of his sprawling tapestry of schemes, she unraveled his grand machinations a thousand years in the making. The dark future he had sought was inverted, and, weakened by this failure, his banishment at the hands of the warhost was swift and merciless. A score of worlds might have fallen to his insidious plans otherwise.”

Kanbani laughed. “And so what? My mother has faced the unforgivable gold-clad Custodes of the corpse-Emperor upon the battlefield of her most ambitious raid. Like no foe before, he matched her every stratagem, foresaw and countered her most brilliant feints, wielding an army of the Imperium’s fiercest as though they were an extension of his very will. The Shield-Captain rendered her carefully laid plans to ash, forced her into a war of survival. Even in ruthlessness he surprised her, sacrificing millions of civilians without hesitation to wrongfoot her. It pushed her intellect to its limits to engineer an assault upon his orbital battle-station to rescue her outmaneuvered fleet, and amidst the flames of his grand fortress dying like an ancient star, they danced as black and gold gods clashing with prowess beyond mortal ken. That now she keeps his skull as one of her most prized trophies, and his priceless armor of ten thousand names is displayed in her parlors, has won her no end of respect and fear in Commorragh.”

The Ranger was briefly taken aback, stunned beyond words. Such dreadful enemies were not challenged lightly—it was not for no reason that the Imperium vaunted them so highly, for defeat was virtually unknown to the greatest generals of the dying human order.

But Morrigan was not to be outdone so easily. “Custodian man-gods? Yes, and what of god-engines, walking bastions transcendant? First Exarch Maerai once dropped upon and slew a mighty Titan from within its adamantine heart, in the ruins of the ancient fortress-city called—”

“So what? You merely describe our favored tactic when we are forced to battle such unsightly war-machines built by the clumsy hand of our lessers,” Kanbani chuckled.

Tulushi’ina frowned bitterly at the interruptions. “We have our heroes, too.”

“You call these insignificant champions, who wouldn’t last a day in Commorragh, heroes?” Kanbani scoffed.

“Fleetmistress Aydona built an empire of her own here, and she could again!”

“Your Aydona, even with her little fleet at its mightiest, avoided the attentions of the Covens at all costs,” Kanbani retorted with a smug grin. “She would hear of our turmoil here and laugh at the idea of rescue. She alone would be wise enough to warn your people not to bother, for in attempting to steal the prize of a Coven lies far greater loss.”

“Enough! There is no glory in surviving in a wretched place like this, where you need fear a dagger in the back from even your own mate!” Tulushi’ina hissed. “Why have you turned this into a contest of feats? Must you ever belittle everyone around you, even your allies?!”

“I spoke of the only one who could save us,” Kanbani replied coldly. “You answered with coddled princesses who reside in paradise, fools who know nothing of the hell we now are submerged in. While you are at it, why not tell me of the last member of your precious Council? The Ranger-Captain?”

Tulushi’ina considered her answer for a while before she next spoke. “Yllia is not a great champion. She is the leader of the lost. Her duty is to wear the shadows and guide us far beyond the safety of Morrigan, not into danger but away from it.”

“Then of all your Council, she is the only one that ought be trusted here,” Kanbani said snidely. “Heroism and prowess amount to nothing before the Covens.”

The Ranger’s brow furrowed. “And why, then, did you call for your brute of a mother?”

Kanbani’s grin fell off her face. Idly, she sat back against the crate and glanced at her bracer, which gave an alert about detected motion. Some strange, exotic sort of fleshy insect was buzzing around and crawling on one of her drones. How odd—she assumed the Covens would kill all pests like that to ensure a perfect environment for their surgeries and experiments.

===

Devastation.

“The Craftworlders fought like animals,” Leraxi observed, stepping delicately between the piled corpses of Wracks gathered for regeneration. It seemed the Morriganite bodies had already been taken off the ship to the reanimation chambers deeper in the fortress—priority test subjects. Pieces of Asuryani armor and shattered weapons were everywhere in the auditorium, the ruined hulls of Falcons and Ghostlances still smoking lightly, and the enormous breach in the hull opened out to the vast sub-realm of screaming flesh and eternally spreading and warring cancers that was the Extolled Malignancy’s sole domain.

Here, the war for the Valley was a distant dream. There was only silence.

“Valor meant nothing, in the end,” said Renemarai, slicking her raven locks back and kneeling down to extricate a blood-soaked greatcoat from a fallen Wrack that fit around her shoulders nicely. “These fools charged into their own demise.”

“They will not remain dead for long,” Leraxi whispered ominously. “And we should hasten not to join them.”

“And go where?” Ren asked. “Neither mind of ours knows the way out of this hell.”

“There was one who knew that answer,” Leraxi hissed. “And you—”

Renemarai snapped her head around with a glare so fierce that the Incubus was struck silent.

“I did what was necessary,” answered the fallen Princess.

“You indulged yourself in childish spite, and doomed us both,” Leraxi replied quietly.

“She did this to us,” Renemarai replied coldly. “She cannot be trusted. She might very well lead us into yet another defeat!”

“Yes. That is true. She betrayed us,” Leraxi agreed. “And if you were a true Commorite, you would know that does not mean the end of her usefulness to our cause. We need only… bend her to serve our aims once more. When the time is right, when freedom is ours, then our vengeance shall be gouged upon her soul.”

“How dare you?! I was born in Commorragh, forged in its shadows, tempered by its flames!” Renemarai shouted, driven into a fury so irrational that spittle flew from her lips. “I am no different from you or anyone else here! Do not preach to me of what the True Kin would do! I am one!”

“You are a pretender humming to a song you yourself have never heard, dancing to the beat of the city’s heart which you do not feel,” Leraxi said, coldly.

“Be silent. Or I will end you,” Renemarai growled, raising the shuriken pistol in her hand with wild eyes. “Do you think me an outsider now?”

“Once more, like countless times before, you confuse brutality and self-serving violence for the true anima of the Eladrith Ynneas. And that is how I know what you are, Renemarai. I know that you feel no Thirst scratching at the edges of your mind, draining you, unmaking you moment by moment. For you are many things, and born here you may have been, but Drukhari you will never be.”

Pssshink.

Lightning fast death.

But she was faster.

Leraxi swatted the sparkling missile out of the air with her klaive as though it were a gentle toss, crystal dust hanging in the air, circling the perfected power fields wreathing the sinister blade.

“Eltaena was the only one who truly cared about you,” Leraxi said, advancing a step closer and smashing another shuriken away. “She and she alone loved you for who you were, a selfish, arrogant brat capable only of self-destruction. She did not covet your wealth like those cowards you called a crew, nor did she join your bloodshed for the thrill, like Deadheart. She did not come to you for safety from the Shrine that condemned her to death for her failures, as I did.”

“Enough!” Renemarai hissed, shooting more, more, more, some shots slipping past Leraxi’s inhuman agility and skill and embedding into the plates of her warsuit. But it did not stagger or slow her advance, not even as blood began to slowly drip from her shoulder, her thigh, her arm. She spoke and she swung and she stepped closer, defiant.

“Eltaena chose to serve you, even though it destroyed her body and mind a little more every time she injected those vile chems. Even though using her powers meant struggling against the dark forces of the empyrean, engaging in a battle of wills with She-Who-Thirsts herself. Never did she complain. Never did she ask for even the smallest of boons.”

Pssshnk!

Mere steps away, even Leraxi could not parry the shot, which punched through her breastplate. Yet she did not flinch, she did not weaken. The pain in the air, the ambient pain of the Flesh-Made-Ruins, infused her with strength unnatural. Such lesser wounds were not even worth her regard.

This was the Thirst. This was a true Drukhari.

“She endured that for you.”

Renemarai, awestruck, watched the mailed fist collide with her cheek, sending her tumbling to the ground, dazed, defeated.

And Leraxi drank in the turmoil of Renemarai’s heart like a fine wine, slowly circling her, brandishing and flourishing her klaive.

“You have doomed us both. I spit upon my oaths to your name; I am your Bladesworn no longer. And I will relish taking the head of the one who wielded me as a blade for slaying weakness and filth, rather than worthy foes.”

Leraxi seized her maleficent greatsword by both handles, lifting it high like an executioner’s guillotine as Renemarai stared up at her in stunned terror.

The blade fell.

It struck the steel floor, gouging deep into it. But it had passed through no flesh.

Renemarai opened her eyes.

Leraxi removed her helmet with one hand, revealing her scarred face, grinning through sharpened teeth to have savored Renemarai’s horror.

“On second thought, your swordsmanship is too glorious to waste on murder; it is your sole talent of worth. That is a pinnacle that I aim to surpass. Only then I will take your head and mount it upon my mantle, where it belongs.”

She turned away, chuckling to herself as if at a joke she did not care to share, and pried out the shurikens stuck in her armor, letting them fall to the floor beside her.

Renemarai arose to her feet, cursing the twisted sense of honor of the Incubi, only half as warped as their humor. As she gradually recovered her wits, she glanced at the shuriken pistol in her hand, noticing something odd about what had transpired. She could feel the wraithbone within it infused with the touch of Bonesingers, imprints of ancient minds.

Minds that had accepted her. Allowed her to operate the weapon. As one of them.

The realization flowed gently through her body as much as her mind, a strange sensation rising in her heart.

“I don’t belong here,” Renemarai whispered to herself.

“At last the Dreamer awakens,” Leraxi spat over her shoulder, pulling her helmet back on.

“You are right. We need Eltaena to escape,” Renemarai said, louder. She looked around, finding a wraithbone sword trapped beneath a dead Wrack, kicking the body over, and wrenching the blade free of the corpse.

“Rather too late for that,” Leraxi growled, resting the blunt end of the klaive on her shoulder as she walked to the edge of the hull breach.

“We shall see.”

“Ren,” Leraxi said to get her attention, pointing out through the enormous gash in the side of the flagship. “It’s too late.”

Renemarai walked over, and her Aeldari eyes instantly caught what Leraxi meant.

Far in the distance, upon a high deck surrounding the ship, Eltaena hung from the shoulder of a Grotesque dragging a cart full of corpses, her body limp. Horror set in as it stomped towards a large, glowing portal into a deeper spar of the Malignancy’s sub-realm, as though it meant to plunge into a Nightmare within Nightmare.

Before Leraxi could so much as blink, the fallen Princess leapt out of the flagship through the gouge in its side. She lunged forwards, far too late to grab her, and peered over the edge to see Ren land dozens of meters below upon an enormous chain hooked into the side of the ship to anchor it in place. Renemarai burst forward without even a brief pause to gather her balance, darting like a raging gust across each link in the titanic chain with flawless grace.

“Are you insane?!” yelled Leraxi from high above. There were Wracks everywhere outside, repair teams working on mending the damaged metal hull like a shell around the delicate organs. Unamused shouts rang out through the vast dockyard, the Covenites understandably unhappy to see an armed warrior loose in their master’s domain. If they did not capture or kill her, the Haemonculus would have their hides. And the existence of one intruder meant there were likely to be more; fleeing and hiding would not save her from the eventual sweep of the Wracks through every nook and cranny of the ship.

It was suicide whether she followed or not.

Leraxi took the leap, cursing voraciously into her helmet.

===

Kanbani flicked and spun a dagger between her red-armored fingers in maddened boredom. The aether of agony suffusing this place was thrilling, but it also demanded action; the longer they stayed in hiding here with her Thirst constantly slaked, the more it irritated her, compelling her to shed more blood. She was considering now how she would kill the other one. Purely academically, of course.

The Ranger was mostly responsive now and quick of wit, a fair threat. She was far more wary of her surroundings than she seemed. She listened to every shifting noise of the Kabalite’s armor, and her hand drifted to the sidearm hidden under her blood-soiled cameleoline cloak every now and then, naturally suspicious. Kanbani believed herself faster on the draw, especially with the Thirst amping her reflexes to a degree that made the universe move in slow motion to her perceptions, as though time itself degenerated into molasses, her vision tinting red like blood.

But instincts honed by the two centuries of her brutal lifetime warned her against it. The girl was more formidable than she seemed. Even in her terror, she had struck a verbal blow that left Kanbani reeling by simply observing her rhetoric and turning it back against her. There was a sense of regimented skill about her as well, something akin to the muscle-ingrained lethality of Aspect Warriors or those arrogant Squires Obsidian. She tried to conceal that, of course, but one did not survive for long in Commorragh if one could not assess a threat and peer through feigned weakness.

The more she turned the deadly scenario over in her mind, the more appealing it seemed, despite how foolish she knew it to be. She needed the Ranger, if not to have another gun then to have another shield. Every body between her and the Covens was at least one more bag of meat she could slink behind when the inevitable confrontation arrived. The fact that she had not managed to secure more for a comfortable cushion against disaster nagged at her, an irritant that soured her mood worse than the Thirst could.

“Why did they charge?” Kanbani asked, breaking the silence.

“What?”

“Your sisters. I tried to show them my escape vector,” Kanbani explained. “You were the only one who listened to me. They just hesitated, turned back to the battle, and charged to their deaths. I could see the fear in their eyes, how their trances had shattered in the face of the nightmares overrunning our position, with the death of the Warlock leaving them leaderless. If they had lost their nerve, their reaction was unnatural. Are they not civilians? I would expect shellshock, withdrawing into their own worlds or fleeing for their lives.”

“That may be true of many Craftworlds, ones less martially devoted than Morrigan, yes,” Tulushi’ina explained. “But war is engraved into our hearts, our very way of life. Our psyche is changed. Failing morale manifests differently in turn. We are again and again taught the teachings of Nobledrake Kalinel until it becomes a part of us, never to lie down and accept death, to fight to the end, all in the name of honor. It does not mean we are fearless, no. It means when we lose control of our emotions and our war-masks are broken, when we feel the terror gnawing at our thoughts, we lash out in aggression, even if it is foolhardy, wild, and insane. Cowardice is one of the only sins that can truly see one hated on our home.”

“Then what does that make you?” Kanbani asked, grinning at the scent of a new topic she could torment the Ranger with. “The one who lived. The one who ran.”

“Rangers are not meant to face danger head-on. We are scouts and wayfarers. If we perish, we have failed at our duty,” Tulushi’ina pointed out.

“My friend. May I call you Tulu?” Kanbani asked, sinisterly.

The nickname was unwelcome, but the Ranger lacked the strength to argue, simply nodding in hopes that silence would follow.

“Tulu, I suspect this is more than just your training.”

“What do you care?” Tulushi’ina asked wearily.

“I am a spy and an assassin. I watch people. I listen to them. I decipher the minds of my enemies as surely as I cut them open with my knives. I know my prey better than they know themselves,” Kanbani said, tapping at her grey-skinned temple with a grin on her lips. “I have come to learn closely of the high officers of the Hunter’s Howl. Some of them seem quite valiant. But not you.”

Tulu frowned. She was uneasy, the line of questioning disturbing her. Precisely what the Kabalite wanted.

“I am not interested in your assessments,” Tulushi’ina snapped.

“Oh, I think you are,” Kanbani smirked. “There is only one other that comes to mind among your officers. That First Bonesinger of yours is arrogant with age, a complete weakling convinced of her powers of persuasion sufficing for all threats. I doubt she would ever raise a hand in her own defense, from what the crew has said of her disdain for bloodshed. These are cowardly tendencies cloaked in propriety and pacifism. But at least she has the bravery to hold a conversation. It seems you are so terrified of the gaze of others, you cannot even do that. Am I wrong?”

“She is a true Eldar,” Tulushi’ina whispered, so low that none could hear. Kanbani was not sure whatever she mumbled, and so just moved on from such a boring subject.

“I admit, you have long been misty and opaque to my eyes,” Kanbani said, gesturing her direction. “The Ranger who avoids her sisters as though they were a plague, known only by whispers.”

“…Druzna once said I was a Clawed Fiend,” Tulushi’ina offered.

“Indeed?” asked the Kabalite. “Because you certainly did not fight like one back there.”

Tulushi’ina gave no answer, withdrawing her limbs under her cloak and tugging the hood down over her eyes.

That was when Kanbani realized she had found the weakness she was looking for. “As it is, I’ve heard the hushed words of the other women. I felt it in the psychic links of the hull. I saw it in their movements, their distrust towards you. You, the one who lived. It seems you have a pattern of survival when all your comrades perish, don’t you?”

Tulu shook her head in solemn silence.

“You deny it? How else would you be the only survivor of your secret mission in the Watchtower of Veneloc, when all your fellows perished?” Kanbani grinned. “Always a hand on your gun. That is a sign of anxious fear, constantly plaguing your thoughts. I can see it in your muscles; so can all your sisters, but they keep their concerns to themselves.”

“No!” Tulushi’ina exclaimed, shocked by the accusation. “I… I am not a coward.”

“Then why have you said nothing of what happened?” Kanbani chuckled. “You realize that is why your own comrades doubt you? You haven’t even let the spirits of the ship into your thoughts, not even to silence their concerns. You live aboard a communal spirit-barge, and you deny all efforts to connect with your heart.”

“Because it is not for them to know!” Tulushi’ina shouted, shattering the calm of their conversation. “Not the ancestors, not the crew, it is an Outcast’s business alone! It is my secret to keep!”

Kanbani smirked now, enjoying the outpouring of despair. Almost as good as cutting her open.

“We both know you don’t fondle that death-lantern out of ferocity. It’s cowardice, terror of everyone around you. Not fear of being attacked, but fear of being judged! At the Tower, you hid, didn’t you? You didn’t kill your comrades. Nearly as terrible: you watched all your precious friends die, listened to their screeching souls claimed by Chaos, and you could have saved them if you had but the courage to lift your rifle. But you didn’t.”

Tulushi’ina’s silence drowned the room. But her radiant suffering, the wound in her heart, was all the confession that a Drukhari needed.

“Ahh, there it is, the truth at last. It’s no different from this very moment we find ourselves in. Hiding from your enemies while your comrades perish. How long have you done this, I wonder? Well. I’ve heard of far worse,” Kanbani chuckled, delighted with her deductions, taking out a ration bar from a pouch on her belt and peeling it open. “One does what one must. It is the law of this city. But I wonder how forgiving Craftworlders will be of such cowardice.”

“I-it’s not what it seems!” Tulu stammered. But her resistance was far too late and far too feeble.

The game was won.

And the Kabalite smiled the smile of a devil at the distraught and despairing Ranger.

The thrill of that moment did not last much longer, though.

The door slid open.

Kanbani’s smug grin fell off her face, for not one of her sentry drones had alerted to the approach of another.

Both scrambled, flat-footed, to train their weapons on the hooded shadow that simply shoved over the stack of crates and strolled in, snatching a buzzing insect out of the air.

===

Everything was so simple, now. None of the headaches of ruling a warband of ragged pirates. No concerns of betrayal, no wondering where they would find their next haul.

Just kill or die. This was her home. This was where the complexities of life bled away into the purest emotion, conveyed through the strikes of her blade like a brush, painting her soul upon the flesh of her foes. All Covenites were warriors of a strange kind, but they were no champions. Every single one that came before her was dead in a single strike. Their crude and clumsy swordplay was unable to even give her crimson brushstrokes pause.

The sword in her hand felt right, as though it belonged in her fingers from the moment she was born. It was the wraithbone, she guessed, channeling her spirit, turning the honor blade into an extension of her existence without even a moment’s practice with it. She could feel the imprint of its former wielders in the psychoplastic, but no skill honed like hers. It was like a soul in the sword, bowing to her, begging to be wielded, to shed the blood of these practitioners of the evil arts in the name of Morrigan. It wanted war, it yearned for slaughter, and it exulted in the grip of a true master.

The void sabre that was her pride and joy, it was sung from wraithbone as well. Why had she never felt this connection with it? Had she been totally blind to its ancestral spirit?

The truth was obvious. She need not wonder.

It had gazed into her heart and disdained what it saw.

A Wrack stepped to her and she drew her blade along her waist, severing the daughter of devils across the abdomen. With a twirl as graceful as a dancer, she sank down on her knees and drove the Asuryani sword down into the gasping she-Wrack’s skull beside her, gazing forwards at the oncoming defenders stomping along the catwalk, next in her path of slaughter. She felt nothing in this kill but boredom.

She leapt upon the railing and ran along it, sword hanging low, swinging out in strikes of white lightning at her side. Like a river jig, she danced over their coiling slashes at her ankles, not even a twinge of concern at the thought of such wounds or slipping off. At the end of her delicate dance on narrow steel, every corpse she had passed collapsed headless to the ground, and she turned around to cut the support cables holding that side of the gantry up. She dove off as it collapsed and dangled from the few remaining steel cords, every single body—whether dead or still somehow alive—tumbling down into the fleshy abyss beneath the docks.

Upon the main loading deck, Renemarai rose up from her landing and flicked her blade down at her side, every last drop of blood flying off to paint the deck beside her in a red spray.

Darts crashed into the ground and the walls around her. She paid them no thought. Her most modest acrobatics were twice as swift as these stumbling weaklings could track with eye or predict with thought. She was not a target. She was the wind, blurred and intangible to their clumsy aim. Crystal discs from her pistol sliced the eyes from their heads, or what she guessed to be their eyes, splattered their brains, or simply left them staring at shattered weapons.

She scarcely noticed the distance crossed beneath her feet, somersaulting over a stack of half-loaded crates. Her eyes narrowed upon the musclebound abomination carrying Eltaena—her friend—and fell upon it as a storm against a mountain. Her sword thrust deep into its bulk, cutting into its organs, and she kicked off of its shoulder to free herself, green blood spurting from the deep, brutal wound.

It reacted, but it was not crafted for speed, only strength and durability. By the time its enormous arms had swung out to smash her, she had already hopped out of its reach, watching the massive bludgeons pass an inch from her nose, close enough to kiss or kill. And as they passed her by, she lunged in and thrust into its guts, twirling the blade to tangle up its entrails and yanking it free, dragging a pile of stinking bowels out through its armor of dense muscle and reinforced bone. It lashed at her again, but she was already standing on its head, mounting the mountain, her legs slowly bending to gather strength for her final leap.

It reared back—her boots left its melanoma-ridden scalp—and she landed behind it, flicking the blood from her sword, twirling it twice, and standing it in the steel floor with a final stab as she walked over to turn Eltaena over and cradle the Dreamer in her arms.

“Eltaena,” Ren said softly, brushing the tangled locks of raven hair out of her face so she could feel the weak breaths spilling from her delicate lips. Slowly, the broken farseer opened her eyes, weariness apparent. She was sober, the chems all worn off.

“How bizarre,” Eltaena whispered. “I did not dream of this.”

The head of the Grotesque finally slid from its severed neck, a fountain of its hyperpressurized, chem-tainted blood raining out as it collapsed upon the deck.

“What was your dream, then?” Renemarai asked. “Something lovely and tranquil, I hope. Not this bloodbath.”

Eltaena smiled, a melancholy, bittersweet love radiant in her eyes. “No. I dreamed a dream of She-Who-Thirsts. This is far more wonderful, my friend.”

“Not for long, I fear,” Ren answered dryly, glancing up to see the Wracks approaching cautiously, surrounding them with reaching slave-hooks and long carving daggers. Skiffs soared overhead, training their searchlights and heavy weapons upon them. “Syndratta’s sadistic games will seem mild soon enough.”

“We are not alone,” Eltaena said.

“Leraxi was already caught,” Renemarai said, glancing the direction of her former Bladesworn, pinned under the mass of a Grotesque that was tearing the armor plates of her warsuit off of her, one by one. “I doubt she’ll forgive me this time.”

“It is not the way of an Incubus to forgive,” Eltaena giggled. “But there you are fortunate. She never did become one.”

“Hah. No, I suppose she did not.”

“But,” Eltaena added, “it was not her to whom I referred.”

Renemarai cocked her head in confusion.

“What is this? You would mistreat the master’s subjects?” announced a voice above the grudging murmurs of the Wracks.

The crowd of foes parted, and a familiar face marched towards them, wreathed in ashen-white hair. She was dressed in the blood-stained robes and apron of a chirurgeon, a long hood keeping her wild white hair contained save for a few stray locks that spilled out over her exposed cleavage, with leathery black gloves reaching to her elbows and leather boots up to her thighs. With the necklace bearing her faintly glowing waystone in open view, it served almost as an equivalent of the Children latched into the chest cavities of all the Malignantmen there.

Flanking her was a Ranger and a Kabalite, who both shrank behind her as though terrified of the horde surrounding them. Renemarai recognized the Ranger as one of her former prisoners, and the Kabalite as a foe from a fruitless duel that felt a lifetime ago now. Their names escaped her memory, but not the name of the woman with ashen-white hair. Eshairr—Eshairr—must have found them on the ship and brought them here.

Renemarai blinked, then once again. Even still, she could scarcely believe what she saw.

“What are you fools doing?” Eshairr asked severely. “Are you blind? Can you not see that these are clearly the master’s fodder, the Morriganites he desires for his experiments? These are his guests.”

“These ones do not wear the mark of Morrigan. These are outsiders! They have spilled Coven blood! They will suffer,” replied an acothyst stiffly, marching up to Eshairr.

“I wonder if Master Vanada will agree,” Eshairr suggested venomously. “What would he think, walking in and seeing the piled corpses of his students? Do you truly believe he would feel the slightest outrage for your sake? Or would it be fury at your incompetence and folly, that so many of you would fall to a couple swordswomen? If you had not attacked them, perhaps they would not have run amok. The blame is squarely yours.”

The acothyst snorted through her bronze mask, her tone taking on a far more insidious lean. “You bear him a litter of tumors, and you think that you are his favorite? You know nothing of the master.”

“Oh? How many times have you lain with him? How many of his Children have you birthed, then?” Eshairr snapped back, a rhetorical question: the last lover he had taken had been millenia ago. She drew a scalpel closer to a long, curved dagger from the hooks on her apron, pressing the serrated edge to the exposed tumor throbbing on the instructor’s chest. “Look at this poor Child, suffering in misery, nursing upon the life-milk of a cold and bitter mother. You have never even tried to offer it succor; you use it like a battery of agony to sustain yourself.”

“It is a wise use of such a creature,” replied the lady acothyst firmly.

“Indeed, until it begins to grow and consume you. I am curious; how many times have you executed the thing you pretended to care for when you realized how it was devouring you? Did you replace it with a weaker subject each time, hoping your master would not notice? And you wonder why he has yet to recognize your shallow intellect and elevate you to one of his chosen pupils.”

Unsettled, the lady acothyst stepped back from the blade, reaching up with her third arm to hold the squirmy tumor as it pulsed with her heartbeat.

Eshairr smirked at that, spinning the blade in her hand a full circle and then hurling it into the acothyst’s Child, popping it like an overripe grape.

“Ah, my apologies,” she giggled, ripping the knife back out of the tumor.

“You are not one of us,” growled the acothyst, standing as though aghast at horrid behavior. “You do not belong here.”

For good measure, Eshairr stabbed her in the throat, leaving the scalpel buried there as the acothyst sighed through a neck bubbling with blood.

“Here, you will need this to graft a fresh Child. Do not use one of mine; I treasure my daughters, and you are a terrible nursehost,” Eshairr said, placing a hand on her hip. “Clean up this mess, you lot. Regenerate the fallen and wash the blood off the deck. The master is busy with great experiments. Do as he would expect you to, and he will never know of this humiliation. Unless you choose to stand in my way…”

“Enough,” grumbled the lady acothyst, holding up a hand. “I have no desire of the master’s anger. We will do as you say. This time. But do not mistake this for subservience. If it is a feud you desire, outsider, you will soon find that the master’s favor can shift faster than you blink.”

With that, the gathered students dispersed, directed by the acothyst to the task of repairing and cleaning the mess.

Renemarai, cradling Eltaena, gazed warily at the bold woman who approached them.

“This makes twice over that you owe me your lives,” Eshairr giggled, glancing to Leraxi limping over clutching the broken pieces of her warsuit.

“You were not one to keep such debts before,” Renemarai hissed, pulling Eltaena away defensively. “What have they done to you?”

Eshairr shrugged. “Everything. And nothing at all. But you are not safe here. Come along. I shall secure for you accommodations. If the others ask, you are my pets.”

Renemarai laughed at that, but Eshairr’s cold glare silenced any further mirth.

“That was no joke,” Eshairr warned. “You will not be spared unless there is already claim upon your bodies.”

Numbly, they moved to follow as she walked towards the sub-realm portal.

===

Even walking through the corridors of the Malignancy, which seemed to be the name of this fleshy sub-realm within the Ruins-Made-Flesh, there were no words for the horrors that they passed and tried to ignore. Much of the furniture was sewn together out of living people of any number of species, but most common was, of course, human. It became difficult to see the difference between this place and a Slaaneshi pleasure palace, such was the sheer depths of agony that had become the casual décor of this Coven. Except, of course, that there was no pleasure or decadence to be found in this place, only pain in its ultimate form.

Eshairr seemed unbothered by it, or at times even fascinated by what they saw, but she kept walking ahead of them, leading them deeper into the belly of the beast. Every Wrack they passed gazed at them through inscrutable masks, filling them with the sense of being prized meat. Yet so long as Eshairr was their escort, all the Covenites were perfectly civil, even outright courteous—one even held the door for the group and bowed as they passed. Nevertheless, his neck twisted with inhuman flexibility as they passed him, staring longingly as they went.

A pen. They were given a pen to be their accommodations. It adjoined Eshairr’s new quarters—apparently, Covenites often preferred to rest close to their personal experiments, and keep them sequestered away from the eyes of their peers lest their precious discoveries be stolen. It was spacious, at least, and all essential needs were provided with its spartan facilities. But though it was reinforced and secured thrice over with arcane alloys to withstand rampaging Grotesques and nightmarish weapon tests, as well as keep out the prying fingers of rivals, there could be no sense of safety in this hell.

Renemarai laid Eltaena down on the only bedding to be found in the containment chamber, more a pile of rags than any form of cushion. Leraxi, Tulushi’ina, and Kanbani spread out within the metal enclosure, each claiming a corner or a bench, trying not to stare at the opaque armacrys window through which Eshairr could very well have been observing them.

“Your captain,” said Kanbani to Tulushi’ina with a caustic edge to her words, “joined the Coven.”

Tulushi’ina shook her head. “It is not as it seems. I am sure of it.”

It was a hollow refutation. They had all seen it: Eshairr had freely walked the halls of this den of monstrosity as something approaching an equal.

“We have our armaments. That is all we need,” Leraxi grumbled, leaning her klaive against the wall and slowly taking off her warsuit piece by piece. “Fretting over the future is meaningless.”

“I fail to see the use in having our armor if one is so eager to remove it,” Kanbani retorted.

“I must repair it,” Leraxi replied coldly, removing a small pouch from her belt and opening it, laying out her tools.

“Oh, I’m sure the Wracks eager to gouge your organs out will happily wait for you to finish tinkering before they come in!” Kanbani hissed.

“Are you so eager for bloodshed you do not care if it is yours that flows?” Leraxi growled, taking up her klaive.

Kanbani drew a pair of daggers, twirling them effortlessly. “How amusing, your false confidence. Do you think me a fool? There is something missing from your armor, woman. Something which all true Incubi must possess.”

A tormentor. The shattered spiritstone of an Aspect Warrior, fashioned into a psychic weapon worn upon the breastplate of a warsuit. Indeed, there was no such device adorning Leraxi’s cold steel panoply.

Leraxi tensed, raising her blade high into a battle stance, the goad prodding quite successfully at her aching scars.

Renemarai, who had been holding the Dreamer’s hand, turned around to face them with eyes glowing murderously. “You two set foot in a room together and are ready to end each other before ten heartbeats have passed? Then your lives are now forfeit by my hand. Silence is the only price you need pay to have them returned. That is all I ask, for Eltaena needs rest.”

“It is the Thirst,” Eltaena whispered weakly.

“I do not care what it is. If they wish to live as cretins, then they shall die as cretins,” Ren answered flatly.

Leraxi set her weapon aside and returned to maintenance. Seeing that, Kanbani likewise sheathed her blades and sat down, fiddling with the control pad on her bracer.

A long time passed like that, in total silence. Lacking anything better to do, Tulushi’ina came over and quietly tended Eltaena’s injuries with her medical kit. Fortunately, none of them were severe enough to require more than her healing lore. That was bittersweet, for Ren. To see Eltaena mended was warming, but the knowledge that she had given her those wounds in a fit of selfish outrage was difficult to salve, unlike Eltaena’s cuts and bruises.

“The… the chem-burn, that is beyond my powers to heal,” Tulu whispered quietly to the fallen Princess. “If we had a proper Healer, I believe they could do something.”

“I don’t expect your miraculous Healers could navigate this labyrinth of misery, battle its armies, and carry us out of here?” Kanbani stabbed from across the room.

Renemarai shot her a glare, but this time it seemed the Kabalite would not be intimidated so easily. Before it could evolve into an argument, they were interrupted by the world outside.

The door opened with a pneumatic hiss, and Eshairr stepped down the iron stairs and set a large canister and a box down. “Food and water,” she said, smiling awkwardly, as though she had forgotten how to do so, “the cleanest I could find.”

“Eshairr?” Tulushi’ina asked, slowly approaching. She looked at her companion, seeing the distance in her expression, the way her eyes stared through everything and everyone as though always seeing something else. She looked sleepless, twitchy, both weary and wired all at the same time. She was not herself. “Are you alright?”

“I’ve never felt better,” Eshairr lied. “I am simply busy,” she lied again, finally managing to remember her best smile, perfecting her guise of normalcy.

Tulu took Eshairr’s hand, gently squeezing it. “Captain?”

“Munesha is nearby, in another cell. I will go to her soon, once she has recovered from her surgery. Bring her back here. Be with you all. I cured her, you know.”

“Yes, the war-plague she took into herself to save me…” Tulushi’ina nodded, only to tilt her head in surprise. “You were able to heal her? How?”

“I know so many things, now, things I could not even begin to…” Eshairr murmured, looking around the cage, nervous, almost anxious. The concerned stares of the occupants seemed to afflict her, unsettling her. “I… I should go. The others are still being resurrected; it is my responsibility to oversee it. But there are so many…” she whispered, her voice dropping low, filling with bestial despair. “So many dead. Why? I cannot be in every surgery theater at once. The master gave our sisters all to other students, which I must remedy… I have to save them.”

“Eshairr, wait,” Tulu said, yanking her back by the hand. She wanted to cling to her, hold her, wrap her legs around her. Submit to her. Beg for her. She shook the bizarre urges from her mind, cursing the curse that had started to agonize her into seeing even her own friends as mates. “There is so much to say! So much to ask!”

“You bloody fools threw your lives away,” Eshairr mumbled, distraught. “I never asked you to die for me. Don’t you see? I was invited here, not imprisoned. I only wanted a cure for the Yearning, and you idiots died to stop that. So much destruction, for one woman? It is not as if I belonged on Morrigan. Such a waste, such a damned waste. I… I must go, there are experiments I have to carry out, and experiments that I must prevent. But I am only one, and there are so many monsters…”

She wrenched her hand free. “Munesha needs me.”

And Tulushi’ina watched her go, the armored door shutting behind her.

“She’s lost her mind. We’re at the mercy of a madwoman,” Kanbani groused.

“In times when sanity is scarce, madness is power. We are burdened by notions of reason; she has shed enough of them to grow strong in Hell itself. But she is still Eshairr. Not even Qa Vanada can take that from her. As dark as it may seem, the fading ember of hope refuses to extinguish so long as she is here,” Eltaena said, quietly. “We must trust her. No matter what they have done to her.”

“Is that a prophecy?” Leraxi growled.

“It is the truth,” answered the former Farseer, before closing her eyes to rest.

Tulushi’ina listened in one ear, but her hand drifted down to her belly, aflame with longing at the dark, tempting thoughts of what her sisters might be going through.

===

Eshairr walked through the hallways, pulling on her cloak of Scourge plume over her adept robes. She was weary, so very weary. Her head burned, her mind bloated and tearing at the seams with vast libraries of knowledge that did not belong to her. She looked to her right and saw a flesh sculpture that should have been horrifying, or fascinating, but somehow the human spine dressed with the flesh of Orks was only pedestrian, the work of a novice who barely understood the arts he was being introduced to, and knew not any true inspiration yet.

She destroyed it, swinging a hand out and tearing the bland display apart piece by piece.

“What have you done?” asked a fellow who came out from his room at the commotion, standing with his three arms and freshly grafted Child on his chest in a dim horror at the havoc she had wrought of his art piece. At once she realized how cruel she had been to do this, yet she found it difficult to lie.

“It brought offense beneath my gaze,” Eshairr said.

“I am sorry,” he whimpered, falling to his knees. “I am but a learner.”

It meant so much to him? Was it the damage to his hard work that had wounded his heart, or her brutal opinion?

Something throbbed in Eshairr’s skull. She spoke without thinking. “Forget the Ork flesh. Begin with humans alone; they are at once the most dull of subjects, for they are so ubiquitous, yet in truth they remain the most interesting canvas in the galaxy for their bleak lives of paradox and suffering. Your message was garbled and jumbled by unnecessary complication. Remember that simplicity is its own beauty, which we call elegance when it pleases us.”

“I see. I see, yes, of course; I attempted too much when I have yet to master the fundaments of the art,” said the young apprentice, nodding, so earnest that he received her criticism without second thought. “Thank you.”

What did I just do? she asked herself as she moved on.

Eshairr moved on, shaking her head. A sense of dread crept across the nape of her neck. An insect buzzed onto her shoulder, and she crooked her neck to glance at her new servant.

The Wrack-fly spoke to her in his tiny voice, warning of danger ahead. Danger outside the holding cell for the Wayseer.

Eshairr reached under her robes and withdrew a heavy alloyed cleaver, its handle long and curved, its nasty edge jagged and serrated. Almost more of a bonesaw than a hacking blade, but it could serve both uses, she supposed. She did not remember tucking that there, but here it was in her hand. It should have been the Shaimeshi blade. Where did she leave that?

“Fear,” warned the locust of the Black Descent. “Vengeance comes upon thee. And if not upon thee, then it shall fall on thy comrade who slumbers.”

“Munesha,” Eshairr growled from underneath her dark hood, her fingers squeezing around the hilt of her cleaver.

The acothyst from before and her pupils, of course it was. Obvious, really. One did not just walk into a Coven and begin doing as one pleased. If she were just any other student, Eshairr would surely face decades of punishment from her peers for acting out. However, she was not.

She pulled up the sleeve on her arm, finding the serpent bangle still there. Nolaei’s greatest memento of her husband. She concentrated upon the dark jewel that formed the silver snake’s eye, feeling her thoughts dragged into the darkness within its facets. As she tried to contact the power hidden within, she could feel her consciousness scatter in a thousand different directions, torn into shadows that threatened to consume her mind.

Recoiling, she withdrew from it, shaking her head. She was too distracted. Lord Vanada had been abundantly clear what was needed to master the nishariel, and a reeling, wandering mind would never suffice.

Focus, a voice within her asserted. He gave this to you for a purpose. He knew you were worthy of it.

She forced out the thoughts of flesh sculpting and soul alchemy invading her. She silenced the doubts, the clashing voices, the madness. Strangely, she fell back upon the mantras of Morrigan without even thinking, whispering poems of hatred and burning worlds to herself.

Feed the darkness, she reminded herself. And conquer it.

It was the anger that flowed into the crystal smoothly, that cleared her mind into purest shadow that could touch the crystal and tame its writhing dusk. It had always been there, since the moment she realized what had happened, that her sisters had assaulted the Malignancy and thrown their lives away. Her hands shook already, her teeth grinding together as if to shatter. Her bones shook with the roar of Khaine, her blood ablaze in her pounding drum-organ, beating to the tempo of murder. She had repressed this for the sake of her sanity, for the sake of blending into this den of devils, but no longer.

The shadowfield flickered, for a moment stealing away the light around her.

She thought of her friends dying. She remembered the gruesome carnage she witnessed, seeing so many bodies of women she loved as a family hauled off of the battleship as she herself was carried out on a hovering palanquin, her gut swollen with squirming, infant tumors yet to be birthed. The delivery of the small, slimy things had been swift and painless, but the fury never left her no matter how deeply she buried it. She imagined the smug smiles of these dark creatures as they butchered her loved ones, and something snapped.

The light died.

Shadow consumed her, then the corridor, blossoming into a misty, flowing void that even the luminous glory of a star could not pierce. Only she could see in this warped space, she knew, which grew and solidified with her frenzied dreams of slaughter and revenge. It was like swimming in wicked power, sweet, lovely, thrilling might. Her own dark heart was reflected within the jewel, distorting reality itself around her.

She marched onwards, several baffled students who were tending to their own duties watching incarnate shadow pass over them and then leave them behind.

I will slaughter all who laid a hand upon my sisters, she said to herself, realizing then that she truly meant it. All parts of her shattered mind agreed, united by dark purpose. Starting with these bastards.

Eshairr scarcely realized when she set her cleaver to the task of gouging the pieces of her would-be ambushers out. They tried to speak to her, when they realized who was at the center of the cloud of darkness which approached them. They thought to gloat, to mock her viciously for “gauche” barbarism, to shame and shun her. They bragged how they planned to torture Munesha, the test subject that Qa Vanada had promised her, in ways that would break the Exodite into sobbing tears, then total catatonic despair, and then heal her that they could do it again, and again, and again. Eshairr did not listen much to the details, grinning madly.

The undying fury they summoned with their snide bragging was excellent fuel for the umbral shroud.

The acothyst, haughty and arrogant, perished first. She had given herself over to a new Child, and Eshairr ripped it out of her with one thrust hand, a torrent of diseased wrackblood raining down in utter darkness to paint the walls and floors. She took her head off with a single swipe of the cleaver. The shrieking, gurgling old witch could not even lift a weapon to defend herself, blinded and helpless within the shadow-haze, as Eshairr ripped into her flesh with a gloved hand and simply tore out every vital organ and tumor that sustained her along with her spine.

The rest were swift to retaliate, firing pistols and hacking at Eshairr with their weapons, but all were stopped by the mist of shadows as though they were but stones hurled into a mountain, the very idea of harm negated within the bubble of warped reality. The clever ones bolted as soon as they realized that there was not even the slightest chance of victory with such a formidable aura swathing her; the slower ones were grabbed and dragged into the shadowy depths one by one, their cries for aid silenced amid the wet sounds of a blade chopping them into gory chunks, and their bones shattering under her boots.

When the bloodshed was done and the passageway had grown silent and still, Eshairr wiped the blood from her face on the back of her sleeve, stopping to admire her handiwork. It was a crude slaughter she had wrought, but effective nonetheless. She had taught her first band of potential rivals a lesson. Perhaps this was always Qa Vanada’s plan; it was inevitable that conflict arise between her, an outsider, and the rest of his pupils, humbling those who had grown proud and inspiring innovation as a result. And he had been very careful to equip her for all such eventualities, had he not?

Eshairr looked to the door of the containment cell, still blessedly sealed, for her enemies had not managed to crack its security systems before she arrived. In that moment of stillness and peace, her thoughts turning to anything other than evil, the swirling darkness dissipated around her, leaving only a woman. Fatigued in both body and mind, she slumped down, resting her arms on her knees.

But rest would not be hers. From further down the hallway came a sound, a moan. The Wrack-fly buzzed off towards it, driven by curiosity no doubt. They very same urge fell upon her, though she knew it could only be something wretched and hateful. Even so, perhaps driven by the evil thoughts that formerly sustained the shadowfield, she advanced towards the source.

It was not far from Munesha’s operation room that she found it, a blood-smeared door that hung ajar. She pushed it open, moving down the stairs and stepping into an observation deck overlooking an expansive chamber. A handful of Wracks stared from seats, watching with academic interest as more and more moans arose, growing into an orgasmic crescendo. When she approached the one-way windows, she gazed down into the pit below, and a gasp escaped her beautiful lips.

Walls of flesh, throbbing. Her master was there, in all his enormous, cancerous glory, more and more prehensile penises grafted onto his rotund, pulsating body. But there were dozens of Wracks as well, a horde of neoplasmic scholars pinning down equally many Morriganites under spindly limbs and hunchbacked muscle as Qa Vanada’s long, colorful, winding members whipped and coiled around the entire chamber, worming into whatever holes could be claimed with degenerate abandon, stirring maidens into back-arching bliss as they found more and more slithering things filling them up or feeding them down their throats.

Pale beauties moaning, clutched by their pretty hair, whining faces buried in writhing flesh-floor, desiccated men thrusting viciously into them with veiny girths that looked as twisted and deformed as the master’s. Every woman a new scene of despairing and shameful pleasure, and at the center of it all, mounted atop Qa Vanada himself, was Aulephe, her rich, coppery flesh glistening with sweat and oil, licking one of his countless appendages as two more pumped up into her from below, worming together into a doubly thick, twinned column into her strong, soft slit.

She was the fiercest and most powerful of all aboard the Hunter’s Howl, a mistress of war and wisdom, and despite it all she was lost to the urge to breed.

Aulephe raved aloud, begging for more in complete and utter submission, “Yes, yes, yes! Ohhh, by Isha, more! Deeper!” His appendages could not have gone much deeper, save into her very womb, and Eshairr saw, nay, sensed that sudden invasion with an immediate moan, the memories vivid in her own body. Now completely taken to the deepest, most precious limits, Aulephe’s muscles tensed, bouncing all the more ferociously on the Haemonculus with a cry of absolute ecstasy, drifting in the currents of bliss as sickly green semen exploded from within her, pulsing members swelling larger as they wormed into her womb and shot like hoses, filling her sacred chalice with the genetics of a thousand tumors. And she moaned at it, clutching to the throne of tumors beneath her and shaking her hips like a bitch in heat.

Eshairr felt it. She sensed every tiny sensation and the overwhelming tide of ecstasy radiating through the beautiful Warlock, because Aulephe’s immense psychic potential broadcast everything. She was like a beacon of pleasure as she bounced and rolled her hips on the winding cocks disgorging into her, her overwhelming desire washing through the bodies of all her kinswomen and the Wracks as well in pulsing waves of life and fertility. She was pregnant, and to the Warlock that was heaven itself, an ecstasy she had known only once before.

Goddesses, it doubled Eshairr over against the transparent crystal pane, a hand snaking between her thighs where the Yearning awoke for the first time since she bore the master his Children. It was far too soon for the curse to blaze so brightly in her body, but Aulephe’s passions were that intense, such that all the Wracks began to buck and pound their chosen mates, all the tentacles writhing and ejaculating into everything they could plunge into, driving every single soul, bright or dark, into shuddering, convulsing, inseminated orgasms.

Once-mighty Guardians gasping as they were humped like common whores by the spindly Wracks, feeling disgusting white, thick semen squirt into their womanhoods, pent up for years—for they did not regularly indulge in these pleasures, but that did not prevent them from thrilling in it when such opportunities arose. And these proud Morriganites embraced them, legs wrapped around slender and bony waists, kissing the cold and unloving taste of bronze masks, through which drool dripped onto their faces and pink, pursing lips.

A wet heat grew between her legs, and Eshairr slumped against the window, watching the degeneracy unfold with gritted teeth. The light in her heart screamed in outrage, demanding she do something to save her sisters, but the darkness grinned, knowing that they were being saved.

She realized then that it was not camaraderie that drove them into their suicidal, insane attack on the Malignancy. It was one of the causes, perhaps, or only a mask worn by their true impulse: the Yearning. They must have known on some level what Eshairr being taken by the Coven meant, the study of the curse. And that could only entail one thing, the only way to interact with and affect the curse at all: reproduction.

It was as if they were jealous of Eshairr’s doom, each secretly dreaming to take her place, to face and endure these “tortures” for themselves. All just to be free of the Yearning’s touch for a moment. And now, hours of that desperately sought treatment later, they all showed their true colors, moaning and begging their captors for more.

All aspirations of rescuing her sisters bled to death with that realization. She could drag them out of this palace of pain, but salvation of their souls was beyond her powers to grant. Like the Thirst, it was only through indulgence of the Yearning that its worst effects could be staved off. It might not destroy them in body and soul as the curse of Commorragh did, but it would worm into their thoughts beneath thoughts, twist even the most noble of ideals into weapons against rationality to push her people into madness and damnation. Better that Seminoth was given his due, the debt paid with an hour’s pleasure and a day’s birthing. With the insidious technologies of the Covens to accelerate this process, they could return to cold clarity of reason in such remarkably short time, bypassing the biological barriers of Aeldari reproduction as effortlessly as their dark science transcended the cold abyss of death.

This was not the cure she sought, but it was regardless the treatment Morrigan needed most. How could she take her sisters away from this? How could she deny them this blessed respite from the hell of their eternal struggle with the curse? Even as slaves, they were granted something irreplacably precious. To be free and tormented, or caged but at peace? Which was truly worse?

Eshairr thought of Munesha and Tulushi’ina, the two she had managed to shelter from the Malignancy. Was their safety to their benefit?

No, she thought, the broken pieces of her mind coming together in unanimous agreement. They needed this salve upon their suffering as much as Aulephe did, shuddering, gasping, clutching her own beautiful bronzed breasts tight as she was impregnated by the Haemonculus himself.

Chapter Text

==Chapter XVI: Hand-Sewn Dolls==

From hell, she awoke to quiet and calm. It was a massive chamber filled with beds, many women chained and strapped down in them. They were her comrades, who she remembered watching die. All the Aspect Warriors were here, as well as around half the Guardians who took part in the assault. The Warlocks were absent, and there was no sign of the rest of the assault force. But it seemed obvious enough that they were in containment of their own.

She sat up in the bed, confused, looking at her own hands to be sure they were tangible. She could almost not recall her own name. Azraenn. Yes, that was it. Azraenn Yhunu Valarien. She glanced out at the room, seeing the walls of steel and flesh spliced together, a chandelier of bones and candles casting an eerie glow over her and her fellow warriors. A dim understanding came to her that they were prisoners of the Extolled Malignancy, but it seemed surreal.

To think she could live again after her horrific wounds. To think that they all could be revived. How potent the sciences of the Covens, yet how wasted their miracles were upon murder and torture. If there were even a single sane Haemonculus, how many Eldar could be saved? Was there anything they could not accomplish, once their warped minds were set to it? The power clutched in their hands could restore the entire race, the same way they allowed Commorragh to somehow prosper and swell in numbers despite its endless wars. Or, failing that, they could at least doom all their enemies.

With their technology, they could create a virus that would put an end to the entire genetic legacy of the Emperor, every single loathsome Astartes, who were also the most dangerous champions of Chaos. They could craft a curse that would spread through empyreal synapse, blighting an entire Hive Fleet of Tyranids through their own psychic bonds, though perhaps it would devolve into a race of biological engineering in the end. Perhaps they could even manufacture a species of bacteria that devoured necrodermis, rusting and consuming the awoken Necrons to arrest their nefarious plots for the galaxy. Each annihilation would surely not require more than a few years of research given their astonishing intellects, a trifling effort from any single Haemonculus that lived. Most amazing of all, once their weapons were released, no further work would be needed. They could simply watch their creations burn the galaxy to cinders and lounge in total depravity.

Yet they found the plight of the Aeldari a boring matter, and turned instead to their own ridiculous, selfish, meaningless pursuits.

Her hands balled into fists, gritting her teeth together in hatred and anger. The Haemonculi were, more than anyone else, the ones truly responsible for the Fall. It was their disgusting flesh cults spreading throughout the Empire that pushed their great civilization over the edge of degeneracy, causing the birth of She-Who-Thirsts. It was they who had struck the blow that left the Eldar a dying race. And even as the universe crumbled around them, they cared not, so long as they could practice their insular arts in peace.

She could not even put her outrage to words. Calling upon all her knowledge as a Poet meant nothing, not a single verse could ever contain the true indignity, the ultimate fury that even thinking of these monsters awoke in her heart.

The ankle chain trapping her to the bed rattled as she stood up, assessing her strength. Now she was their captive, destined to be a subject of their vile experiments until they tired of reanimating her. She could think of no greater humiliation, no fate more foul, than to be reduced to the pet of the Covens.

All her rage was pointless. If merely thinking righteously could kill evil, then the Covens would have been exterminated long ago. The fact was that the Covens had survived because no one, not even the Harlequins, had the power to root them out, and all who ever tried suffered the same fate that Azraenn and her kinswomen now faced.

The initial shock of her death, which felt as though it had been moments ago, faded. The novelty of her revival wore off as well. Gradually, as she stood, stretched, and found herself instinctively entering the weaponless stances of combat taught to her by the Shrine of Crone’s Needle, Azraenn noticed a difference in her body. Her balance was off, her natural weight distributed differently than before. This slow, meditative training, as she slowly flowed from one pose to the next, helped her gradually realize what had been done to her. It was more than just having her body pieced back together and soul yanked back from the underworld.

They did something to her. Added to her.

Struck by a deep, skin-crawling discomfort, Azraenn looked down at her patient gown. The synthetic fabric was white as snow and soft as silk upon her skin, reaching down to her knees, but her bust stretched it high, leaving the hem halfway up her thighs. She unbuttoned the tubelike garment, freeing her bosoms—which, beneath her wide eyes, showed to be far larger, yet weightless. Before they were more than ample enough for her tastes, given she was a warrior who had no use for such endowments. But now, her nerves aflame and guts churning with disgust at the violation of her body, she saw how they now nearly surpassed Lady Lynekai, truly burdensome and immense in their pale, rounded shape, mountains of softness that desecrated her fierce beauty with weakness.

The Wracks had taken liberties in the reconstruction of her torso. Perhaps they did this to insult her. If so, they had succeeded. But it was more than just that. Her entire abdomen felt strange, alien and foreign. Something had been altered beneath her skin. She ran a hand down over her belly, still toned and solid with muscle, but beneath that muscle there was presence which did not belong. She hoped it was merely paranoia, as she could not possibly be sure merely using her feelings.

She scowled, turning her eyes away. She could not bear to look at herself, not like this. Prayer came to her lips that what had been done was merely cosmetic, like many of the surgeries the Covens provided to the masses. But a voice in the shadow of her thoughts warned her not to be so naïve. They did not go to the trouble of resurrecting her, and all her sisters, just to use them to practice beautifying operations.

“Azraenn?” Ynnatta asked, rising from her own bunk, looking down at herself awkwardly. It was clear that the short, dark-haired woman was going through a similar sensation of her body not being entirely her own anymore, though nothing obvious seemed to have changed for her. She was fortunate.

The Bladebearer closed her gown and buttoned it again, hoping not to draw the attention of her rousing sisters. She performed a quick scan around the ward, noting many of the others had received similar alterations, mainly focused around feminine parts such as hips and breasts. Disturbed, she realized that it was unlikely they would all stir awake simultaneously unless the Covenites had engineered it that way with controlled doses of soporific chems.

The Guardians were in rather worse shape than the Aspect Warriors. When the initial dreaminess of their awakening passed, they quickly turned to hysterical panic, thrashing and trying to physically break their restraints despite the clear impossibility of that. They grabbed anything in reach and hurled it at the observation lounge overhead, or at the doors at the front of the chamber. Their directionless aggression accomplished nothing but exhausting themselves, but it was difficult to judge them for it. Perhaps it was the Aspect Warriors who were crazy not to react with total horror at this nightmare. It was easier for them to remain calm; their war-masks were permanent and stable, easily donned when needed, unlike the civilians who needed special preparations to put them in place.

Azraenn considered trying to becalm her kinswomen. Then she decided against it. Better to let them confront the futility of their situation on their own terms. Once they realized how fruitless it was, it would be much easier to reason with them and lead them.

Then the door opened, and a familiar face walked in, his leathery coat hanging off his hunchback.

Tumor-Teeth.

“Welcome to the heart of the Malignancy,” he growled, spreading his three arms wide in feigned hospitality. “You all have been chosen for a great purpose. Rejoice! Your participation shall serve to grow our knowledge of your curse.”

Azraenn grit her teeth, wishing only spite and destruction upon him.

Tumor-Teeth strolled between the many beds, ignoring empty jars and tubes flung at him by the maddened civilians. “Yes, you may not understand the importance of what we are doing here. But the master has taken an interest in your Yearning, as you call it. Like our Thirst, its properties must be studied, analyzed,” he paused ominously, “dissected. We shall find its strengths, its weaknesses. We shall comprehend it in sum, and then make use of it for our own ends.”

He stopped in his walk by Azraenn, just barely out of reach, staring at her through his mask of bronze. “Of course, some of you will suffer. Some will break, of that I am certain. We will sew you back together when your seams wear out, fret not. But unlike most of our work, I am pleased to say some of you will delight in our tests. You may even come to prefer our gentle touch over freedom.”

Azraenn spit on his feet. Tumor-Teeth cocked his head at her. His expression was concealed, but she could imagine the tumor-lined grin he was showing her.

“We are not your enemies. We are no one’s enemies. That is often the most difficult thing for our subjects to accept, but once you do, you will find joy in our kindness, a welcoming hand offered to become one of us. And if you do not choose to transcend your own weakness, be careful. For if you grow unpleasant to our eyes, you will be disposed of.”

“Torture me if you wish. I am going to kill you,” snapped Azraenn.

“Torture?” he asked, radiating smugness in his movements. “No, no. Not for you. Before the day is done, you will taste the ethereal delights we offer. And we shall see, indeed, how long that defiance lasts.”

===

There was a sensation in her core that itched, each throb of sensation echoed in her breasts, and it was beyond her meditative powers to silence.

Azraenn, blonde locks hanging wild like a lion’s mane, sat cross-legged on her bed, concentrating to shut out the strange and uncomfortable feelings. She knew the Yearning well, but this was different. Somehow, it was more intense than she had ever known. Tumor-Teeth’s warnings rang in her ears, promising study of the curse and pleasures beyond imagination, which could only mean…

She refused to think on it, for even just considering such concepts would only spur the curse into greater influence over her thoughts. High Autarch Eshana’s teachings were clear. The Yearning could not twist the purity of battle, the honesty of rage and hatred. The best—and only—cure was to swathe oneself in true scorn, and the curse would be forgotten.

Azraenn thought of her enemies, picturing them in the eye of her mind with perfect clarity. She began with the humans, soldiers of the Revenant Emperor or of the Ruinous Powers—some Avengers strictly divided them in their estimations, but Azraenn drew little distinction between whatever false gods they worshiped—recalling even the smudges of dirt caked upon their armor, the razor wire lining their crude fortifications. She had killed three hundred and forty-seven of their kind in her passes of service as a Dire Avenger. They had landed shots on her twenty-six times, but only six such instances resulted in injury, usually minor and treatable mid-battle. Aeldari armor was far more advanced than theirs, not easily pierced by their primitive firearms. Only once had her life been truly endangered, when a bolt shell from one of their defensive emplacements struck her side. The wound was severe. Only the Healers were able to save her.

She played through the memory of each battle in her mind, hyper-real visions known as memedreams. She had learned to do this on the Path of the Dreamer, her second Path, feeling the curse’s sway over her womb fade from her awareness as she immersed herself in past glories.

It should have worked. It always worked, before. But as she danced from one battle to the next in her memories, she felt the slimy tingle of her excitement drift back into her body, flowing and churning painfully.

With no recourse, she thought of a moment of shame. An Imperial sergeant she tried to pursue into trenches had presented unexpected threat, armed with a power blade and unusually skilled. He cornered her and nearly executed her as she tried to weave and dodge his deadly strikes. Exarch Axorai was forced to intervene. The guilt of her failure drove Azraenn to study swordsmanship, even though it was not part of the lessons Axorai was teaching them. Through the anger of failure, she had grown stronger, just as Eshana willed of her people. And the curse could not twist that martial drive into corruption.

Or so she had been told. Yet now as she imagined charging into human settlements and gutting their warriors with hailstorms of shurikens from the howling catapult in her hands, her dreams changed. She imagined shoving the most handsome of those men down, pinning his arms into the mud, mounting him. She dreamed of feeling his ugly and stinking meat slide up inside as she sank her hips down upon him, watching him struggle and fight as she conquered him. She humiliated him with hot glee, bouncing while he groaned, begging her for mercy. She broke her enemy with her own ecstasy, a weapon wielded in absolute scorn of the weaklings that dared intrude on Morrigan’s territory. She felt his strength give out, his hips thrust up in animal lust, his thick seed burst into her belly like a mushroom cloud that shot straight into her uterus, painting her superior shrine of fertility in his disgusting, fetid essence, impregnating her with his disgusting ape spawn—

Azraenn burst out of her memedream with a gasp, warm sweat dripping down her body, and a different kind of fluid leaking between her legs, the scent of her arousal strong in the air. The others were staring at her in confusion and concern. But none were more worried than her. It did not make sense, it defied everything she had ever been taught. How could something so pure and perfect as bloodshed be tainted by Seminoth’s touch?

Azraenn looked to Ynnatta, fear obvious in her eyes. Once again, she wondered what the Covens had done. If they had changed her body, perhaps in so doing they had changed the way the curse afflicted her as well?

Ynnatta returned the look with a solemn nod. No words needed be said. She must have been feeling similarly, despite the lack of obvious alterations. Perhaps not a single one of the women in this room had escaped some kind of experimentation as they were pieced back together. That could very well have been why they were grouped together, separated from the rest of their kinswomen. The nature of those experiments remained uncertain, and the more they pondered it, the more that a deep, chilling trepidation began to set in among them all, anxious and helpless, forced to await what dark fate the Coven intended for them.

===

When the Wracks came for her, they put an agonizer collar around her neck before releasing her from the bed-chain. They warned her that if she tried to resist, they would activate it, and even if she survived the experience, her mind would never recover. Much as Azraenn would have liked to attempt an escape, the control for the collar was kept in the observation booth above, and the staff there were ready to activate it at the first sign of defiance. For a moment, Azraenn thought she saw a white-haired maiden watching them up there from the corner of her eye, but when she looked, that glimmer was gone. Even if she were armed, she found zero tactical advantage in the situation.

They collared the rest of the Dire Avengers and Striking Scorpions as well. Why the Aspect Warriors had been singled out was uncertain, but they were goaded onwards by long, sword-like surgical instruments prodding at their backs, marched into another chamber where they were stripped nude and then scrubbed down in blistering-hot showers. They emerged through a hissing airlock into a flesh-scarred vestibule supplied with fresh surgical gowns, which for lack of a better alternative they chose to don.

Azraenn glanced at Loreyi, whose hips had been widened enough to leave a significant gap between her thighs, her buttocks extra plush and thick. The sight of what they had done to her inspired a deep, sympathetic sorrow for her comrade’s obvious shame as she dressed. It was a violation deeper than any manhood could inflict upon a woman. Wearing this attire at least allowed them to conceal the worst of the modifications that had been inflicted upon their bodies from their kinswomen, granting them some tiny measure of solace.

Azraenn looked to herself, down at her swollen mountains. During their captivity, they had discussed theories as to why the Coven had done this to them. The alterations to their body brought them closer to the figure of mon’keigh, breasts and buttocks more pronounced, if not hips and lips as well. Cosmetic surgeries were so common as to be ubiquitous in Commorragh, and these modifications might have come into fashion several times throughout the ages of its degenerate existence. But what purpose did inflicting such ugly, excessive, exaggerated curves upon the slender elegance of the Aeldari form serve for these Craftworlder slaves?

For practice? Whimsical cruelty? Was there a mistake in the surgical theaters, the wrong body parts brought in for sewing them back together? Or was it entirely intentional, the revenge of the acothyst she had attacked? The reason she dreaded most was that this was their way of humiliating them and harvesting their shame, turning the iron bodies of these proud warrior-women into soft, voluptuous, alluring, disgusting advertisements of sexual fertility.

She began to wonder what good it did to pretend as though everything was normal, to feign stoic resilience when they were completely doomed. Whatever twisted experiment they were about to take part in could very likely kill them or leave them wishing for the mercy of death, and she was not certain which one she dreaded more. Should they not at least embrace each other now, while they could, share the love of comrades before that small compassion would be forever lost to them?

She turned to Ynnatta, who faced her with cold resolve in her eyes. Any thought of comforting her or anyone else vanished. Azraenn watched the warmasks come back on over every last one of them without need of any ritual mantras or blood dabbed on their brows. Whatever horrors awaited them, they would not beg. They would not give their captors the satisfaction.

But of course, all bravery amounted to naught before the insidious genius of the Covens.

When the doors opened into the adjoining chamber, there were twice as many Wracks as their own number waiting within the dimly lit atrium. Here, the cylindrical, crimson walls stretched like the veins of a goliath beast far beyond even Aeldari sight, criss-crossing like a web of tunnels, and a constant trickle of blood at their feet flowing one direction or another indicated it was no mere metaphor: these were indeed vessels for carrying the life-essence of the Malignancy from one distant corner to another, leagues and leagues away. It seemed the Wracks would use them as hallways, sealing the blood flow with artificial clots of slimy ooze to permit passage before opening them back up once they had reached their destinations. Trying to cross through without that oversight would mean being flung by rivers of blood into some godforsaken corner of the gigantic tumor that had consumed this entire sub-realm, most likely drowning in the process.

Tumor-Teeth was here, looking over the Craftworlders with an assessing eye. He may have been no grand warrior, but here in the domain of his Coven he was nothing short of a demigod, immortal and wise in unthinkable darknesses. His every gesture summoned students to do as he told like extensions of his very will, all relishing the opportunity to claim new knowledge of the dark arts. Here, none could defy him, for he was acothyst, instructor and mentor of the truest evils in all the universe.

And his attentions were upon her. The woman who had cut off his arms and humiliated him. The woman who tried to kill the Cancer of Stars, and failed. And now, she knew, he had chosen her as his first and most glorious victim.

“Greetings,” said Tumor-Teeth with a small bow, the countless chem-cables dangling out from his scalp hanging low across his bronze mask. “We have not yet been properly introduced, have we? I am Pholog, Master of Leather. And what is your name?”

Azraenn spat on his mask, which did not so much as bother him. He simply continued staring at her, her saliva slowly dripping down his mask.

“No matter,” he shrugged after it became apparent she would not cooperate. “I will ask Eshairr later.”

“Let her be!” Azraenn hissed. “She deserves better than to be the plaything of your ilk. You have me, the one you wanted vengeance upon. Release her back to the Howl!”

“Plaything?” Pholog asked, cocking his head curiously. “Ah. No one told you. She is learning from the master himself, you see. Quite a gift! Though I hesitate to call her one of us… a dabbler, perhaps, yet to truly devote herself to the art. Still, I hear she shows much promise. Should she truly embrace our ways, we will warmly welcome her into the fold.”

“That is a lie,” Azraenn said flatly. She did not need to consider it even for a moment. It was simply false.

“Well, believe what you wish,” Pholog shrugged. “Business, then. Has the Yearning been troubling you more than usual, warrior?”

Azraenn bit her lip to silence herself. Else she would have spat out a series of curses upon his soul.

Pholog nodded, pleased by her silent outrage. “So it seems. That is good. It means the first step of the experiment is a success.”

“What have you done to us?!” Ynnatta yelled, unable to contain her horror and hatred any longer.

“We have endowed you with a gift!” Pholog explained, while Long-Tongue hopped and cackled excitedly beside him, eager to see their reactions to their playful experimentations. “Of course, the Covens have long taken a vested interest in solving the matter of our slow replenishment. The gods crafted us for quality, not quantity. Early experiments after the Fall resulted in a number of improvements to our reproductive systems, but sadly these fell out of favor when the womb-hives were invented and perfected, far more convenient and desirable for all parties than carefully reshaping every single living Eldar.”

Pholog paused when Loreyi tried to fight her way free of the grip of the Wracks holding her, and in that silence he gestured. Heeding his command, White-Mane walked across the gathered warriors, eyeing them closely as if watching for attempted rebellion, the Child latched to his chest pulsating vigorously as he held his wrack blade tight in hand, gently dragging the scalpel-sharp edge across thighs and shoulders to leave lightly bleeding cuts on each woman, reminding them of the precarious nature of their captivity. Satisfied that they would behave, Pholog continued with a chuckle.

“But the technology remains, and I have applied it to you and the rest of the women granted to me for study. Simply, I have enhanced your fertility far beyond what the gods ever intended.”

“And so what? We need only moons to breed, rather than passes?” asked Ynnatta fiercely.

“Day-cycles, rather,” White-Mane commented off-handedly. “Or potentially even less, depending on the complexity of the creature that sires the spawn.”

They all shuddered, then, upon the realization of the implication of his words.

“That is why we have brought you here. To test the effectiveness of these improvements,” Pholog said. “Do not pout. Do you not understand? This is not a torture. This is a cure. Perhaps even a blessing.”

“You have violated the sanctity of our holy temples,” Azraenn growled. “You expect us to embrace the sick abominations you have visited upon us?”

“Yes,” Pholog replied simply, his tone pleased. “Or rather, I know you will. And when your resistance gives way to ecstasy…”

The word he paused on sent a jolt of heat up through her core, and Azraenn squirmed against the grasp of the servants around her.

“…you shall learn to truly appreciate our work, little warrior.”

===

“No!” Azraenn yelled, the Wracks dragging her to her knees through the pooling blood of the arterial halls. Pinned between two of them, she was helpless as a third ripped the surgical gown off of her body, unveiling her strong, proud body tainted by the twin hills prominent upon her chest, disgusting mounds of fat suitable only for a mon’keigh. The shame of bearing the mark of their scalpels, shaped into a doll for them to toy with, to be brought so low before her fellow warriors, made her eyes burn wet.

“The more you struggle, the longer it will take before you are blessed with relief,” Pholog explained calmly. “Surely you have noticed? The curse is growing ever more intense.”

“No matter what you do to empower it, I will never give in to the Yearning!” Azraenn shouted.

“Empower? We have not done such a thing, nor could we until we learn more of its properties,” replied the Master of Leather curiously. “Ah. I see. You must have known on some level what awaited you in coming here. Your body has been sensitive, your thoughts turning to degeneracies you never thought would hold sway over you?”

Azraenn refused to answer, but it was clear he had deduced the truth.

“That is the curse in its natural form. You have blindly deprived yourself of the only treatment for its symptoms, which is indulgence,” Pholog explained.

“No! Through battle, we seize salvation and escape temptation!”

“Do you feel saved?” Pholog asked coyly, cupping her chin in his gnarled fingers and staring down into her eyes. “You have fought to the death, and now you are reborn by my hand. Yet you seem no freer from the chains of daemonic lust. Where is this salvation? Who promised you that there was any such thing?”

He grabbed one of her breasts, hefting it up, testing its firm weight, its doughy softness in his grasp. He kneaded it gently, feeling and massaging it, a maidenly blush coming to her face despite her defiant silence. But stoicism could not save her from what she felt. Just his touch playing with her substantial bosoms was enough to force a sharp breath from her lungs, her nerves aflame with undesired waves of tickling pleasure.

“Ah, at last you will resemble a woman no matter what armor you don. Or is your culture so backwards that it prefers its women to look like men in battle? The Wych Cults would mock you to no end, rejecting your own femininity for the masculine ugliness of Khaine’s aspects.”

Azraenn panted, struggling not to make a sound, a bead of sweat rolling down her chin. His fingers were so precise in how they stroked over her hardening pink nub, which was far more sensitive than it ever was before. It was like a bolt of lightning shooting through her belly every time he pinched it, lifting the mound of fat and squeezing it against her cruelly.

“Look at you, squirming desperately at such a small thing as this. How long have you endured this misery? Did killing ever really salve the Yearning, or did it just make you wet?” he asked, his raspy voice like venom in her ears.

“Damn what you’ve done to me!” Azraenn hissed, feeling strange and vulnerable between her thighs. Something deep inside her core oozed, and the slimy, crawling urge in her belly made her want to vomit at her own arousal.

“Enough!” Ynnatta cried out. “Let her be!”

Pholog, amused, grabbed Azraenn by the face, his fingers clutching from ear to ear, completely muzzling her. “You are barbarians, the lot of you. Worse than Incubi. At least they understand the beauty of our work, and appreciate the gifts we bestow. I could have removed every part of you unnecessary to these experiments, leaving only brain and womb, but then you would lack the lungs and lips to apologize to me for your small-minded ignorance. That is what I shall hear before the hour is out, you who call yourself Avenger. Every moan you make will be your apology, every gasp of weakness your gratitude for what I have given unto you.”

Shuddering in terror, unable to see or speak or breath, Azraenn bit the palm in front of her till it bled, but such a miniscule pain could not make a Wrack so much as flinch.

“And so the wild mongrel of Khaine bites the hand that feeds, ungrateful to the last!” Pholog laughed aloud. “Fear not. I have selected for you only the most suitable of mates.”

He released her, allowing her to see again, to gasp for air, licking the disgusting Wrack-blood from her lips, only to find herself breathless in horror.

She almost could not believe what she was seeing. A Wrack brought out a canid, huge for its species, tall and lean. The dog, as humans called it, was swathed in short, dark fur, its snout long, ears short and cropped cruelly into points that resembled horns. Despite its physical superiority for one of its race, it was a sickly beast, coughing and snorting and drooling. Absolute disgust filled her gut, realizing that this was meant to be her mate, leaving her stunned in disbelief. But his awful musk awoke something deep inside of her as well, an ache of her changed physiology that began to itch as though it recognized a fertile partner, the same annoying, troubling sensation as when she met Eldar men, allies of Morrigan, on the battlefield now and then.

“I took him from a household of humans after I made his owners into art,” Pholog explained, petting the dog fondly. “They hardly provided for him, the poor thing. His cancer is a most peculiar kind, a growth in the brain I had never seen before. How could I not take him into my care to nurse that fledgling tumor to its fullest potential? And yet, he is such a loving creature to those who show him even a modicum of kindness that I can almost understand the human obsession with his species. Far more pleasant than you, proud little warrior.”

“Then it is an idiotic beast, incapable of understanding the nature of evil!” Ynnatta shouted. Pholog simply ignored her insult; no words she spat could change the future that awaited her and the rest. It would only make her taming all the more bitter and humiliating.

Azraenn, distraught and powerless, looked back to the mongrel standing in front of her, panting in the warm air of the arterial passageway. She watched it slobber idly, licking its chops with its long red tongue, and deep revulsion almost forced a curse out of her mouth at the thought of what awaited her.

Why was that dog suddenly so pleasant to her eyes?

“Let the experiment commence,” he announced primly, and even the manic Long-Tongue calmed down and suddenly focused on observing what was to come.

Pholog took a syringe full of a strange white fluid from under his coat and stuck it in the dog’s side, causing it to yelp and trot away from him for a second. But then its behavior changed, panting more heavily, shaking in place. It had been content to simply sit and observe before, sensing no purpose for itself but to share space with its master, yet now, it sniffed at the air with interest. Its paws stepped through the puddles of blood, eyes wild, on the hunt like a proper hound. It approached Azraenn, and the stench of its natural odor was twice as repugnant up close.

She struggled fleetingly against the long, slender Wrack limbs trapping her in place, but it was fruitless. Wet dog tongue lapped at her cheek, stinking saliva from yellowed teeth oozing down her skin. Azraenn grimaced, trying to pull her head away, but the beast simply stepped forward to continue its grotesque kiss all the more enthusiastically, heedless of all her subtle Aeldari gestures of utter revulsion at its proximity and its touch.

The roof of her mouth turned coppery, uneasy tingles rushing down her goosebumped skin as his wagging tongue slipped over her lips, becoming a foul, unforgivable mockery of a kiss. Never had she kissed a man or woman before, and this disgusting creature stole that act for itself without a second thought in its cancer-addled mind. Fleas buzzed over its unclean fur, fleas that disturbed Azraenn’s flawless flesh with their tickling limbs as they danced over her skin searching for sustenance. The only thing that stopped her biting the creature’s tongue off to spare herself the indignity of its crude affection was the fire inside her, the curse convincing her it was pointless—such a small wound was easily repaired by these insidious fleshwardens.

She opened an eye, staring at it warily, only to notice movement between its legs, at the sheath. Something pink aroused, inching loose, swelling and sliding free of the pouch. Red veins cris-crossed over the surface of what she realized, to her shock, was its long and stiff penis. Fully engorged and twitching greedily, it was an ugly, bulbous thing with a flat, angular tip, nothing like the pure nobility of an Eldar manhood that she had seen in medical illustrations.

And yet the unsettling heat between her legs did not dim at such a disturbing view, but instead intensified thrice over as she watched it slowly circle around her, sniffing at her body, searching for—her womanhood, she understood in a moment’s analysis. There was no denying what it was doing as it approached her taut, firm, shapely rump, suddenly rearing up onto her back. Even so, Azraenn remained in disbelief. This could not be happening. This was not her quim dribbling hungrily as it stepped up to mount her. This was not a lowly mutt aiming its large and heavy endowment for her plush, tight slit, glistening pink at his approach despite her turning stomach.

She could feel it. Him. He was a male, aroused and virile, drawn to her, and the alien presence inside her belly seemed to recognize his virility, because suddenly all the strength to fight left her body because too much of her wanted this—traitorous, her true feelings, slipping away into the same depravity that had claimed her fallen sister, Eallari. And all that it took was the mere presence of this diseased mongrel? She choked out a wheezing gasp for air, almost suffocating upon her own churning self-derision crawling up from her gut into the back of her throat.

The Yearning, no, her Yearning flared brightly as she felt him clumsily thrust at her entrance, only to miss and rub his slick meat against her hard abs instead. Her massive womanly breasts, ample beyond ample, wobbled and jiggled as she whined and shifted and squirmed, gritting her teeth as she felt his crude, furry hips draw his engorged flesh back. Impatient, Long-Tongue’s pink muscle descended to wrap around his length, teasing him into several rapid thrusts and a bolt of precome spraying onto Azraenn’s belly, transparent magma melting her ravenous core into lustful slag. The lady Wrack mischievously guided his dog-cock with her tongue, long, lewd slurps filling the air as she gently pleased the beast, levering his huge red length into the flushed lips of her sacred flower.

Azraenn gasped, eyes going wide.

She felt his tip brush upon her vulva with another splash of warm, sticky juices from his pent-up prostate. Goddesses, she was adrift upon earthquakes, rocking as though riding the sea tide when it was her hands and knees that shook at the live cock pressed into her leaking folds where only psychoplastic devices had ever delved. And for all the incredible wonders of living crystal simulating organic functions, the curse-fueled psychology of a true manhood’s touch dwarfed all the fleeting pleasures of her self-satisfaction.

The first moan. Faint, audible only to the long ears of the Aeldari. So slight, an irrepressible noise from the lips of the Bladebearer, and the beginning of the end.

“Azraenn!” Ynnatta exclaimed, horrified for her friend.

To feel him enter, to know the true scale of his meat that sank into her twitching lips that parted for him so sweetly, tore a shudder from her body and a low, guttural hiss from her lungs. It was wrong in all the ways that it could be. They were not even similar species; this was a degeneracy that transcended even coupling with a human or a Tau. It was a disgrace, she thought, which she could never be free of, for even if she somehow escaped to Morrigan, her own kinswomen would never look upon her with respect again, only pity. Her own warriors, the women she was supposed to lead into battle, watched this dark defilement in pitched silence, as though judging her every desperate noise and the weakness in her muscles. The flames of her arousal, tickling deeper with his probing slides into her, cut into her pride beyond what words could carry.

“You may release her. The curse is restraint enough, now,” said Pholog coldly, and his students let go of her. Yet while her arms were free, and the strength to slay such a pathetic beast was entirely at her disposal, she could do nothing. All that martial prowess was as good as useless, her legs shaking at the slimy length driving into her, able only to summon the strength to hold herself up, at least to avoid collapsing into complete surrender.

The beast’s paws scraped down her back, wet with the blood of the fleshy floor, leaving streaks of crimson on her skin as he locked his forelimbs around her strong hips and thrust, thrust, thrust. He humped her swiftly without even a chance to grow used to his invasion, and her fingers clawed at the ground as she cried out in discomfort and dismay. But where a man might have taken notice and adjusted to her pace, he could not. He was not fucking her for her pleasure, only to indulge his own instincts, rapid and thumping fur grinding over her as she felt his stiffness slide in deeper and deeper.

To her horror, she realized her reflexive attempts to struggle and escape the worst twinges of discomfort beneath him resulted in her own hips shifting and rising in rhythm with his frantic claps into her soft rear. All she accomplished was aiding him in sinking ever deeper into her all-too-vulnerable folds, making every unbearable, slick friction of his length rush through her core all the more sweetly. And it was her own precious and pure quim, the sacred grail of Morrigan’s future, untainted by a man’s seed—yet swift to betray her will—which grasped the strange, exotic contours of his length tightly and encouraged him to only ram into her harder.

She giggled humorlessly, at a loss to even begin to express her shock and her disgust. She tried to crawl forward, but she was weak, so weak, and she felt him slam into her rump over and over and over before she could so much as muster an ounce of resistance. His cock was twitching endlessly inside of her, and though she knew naught of men’s ways, womanly instincts told her all she needed to know.

The end was coming.

It would change her forever, and never could she return from it.

“Help me,” her voice cracked, eyes wide with terror. “D-don’t let it do this to me!”

The Wracks stared down at her through cold, unfeeling masks, and when she twisted her neck to gaze at her comrades, she saw the same detachment in their eyes—be it a warmask or scholarly observation, it was like being surrounded by disdainful statues, the shadows hanging upon their faces distorting their beautiful physiognomies into gargoyle sneers. By begging, she had brought dishonor upon herself in the codes of the Aspect Shrines, and even Ynnatta no longer showed an ounce of sympathy. All that noble and powerful Scorpion felt now was disdain for the mental weakling that dared call herself Bladebearer.

Azraenn’s heart sank into her bowels as she bounced forwards under the growling mutt, his fur unbearably warm upon her back, drool leaking down from his jaws like boiling water dripping down her skin. His thrusts degraded into wilder and wilder slaps into her firm cheeks, striking deep enough to numb her desperately itchy honeypot, turning everything between her legs into squirming, swallowing jelly as he hammered at her very cervix with all his rigid inches, ounce after ounce of mongrelseed gathering in his plump, fuzzy gonads. She could almost taste it on her tongue. Almost feel it in her womb.

Only when her suffering was at its peak, when the warm, electric numbness in her belly spread up her spine to her chest, to even the very tip of her tongue as she gasped out in shuddering hysteria, only then did he give into her body. She reached out a hand at the air, her pretty voice rising in shrill desperation to be saved.

Grrrush, glursh, glurp.

Azraenn could hear what she feared most flowing like a torrent. Into her warm, rosy walls, she felt his sticky, running juices splatter, venerated fertility assailed by bestial life-seed. A hunter, a creature of the forests and a lonely maiden, Kurnous and Isha, becoming one, twisted and distorted into this wicked mockery of hallowed myth. The bulb at his hilt swelled swiftly with the ecstatic throbs rushing through his length, sealing him inside her as Azraenn released an orgasmic breath of rumbling, cracking defeat. She barely felt the lock of flesh form, lost in worlds of twisting despair and euphoria warring together for supremacy. She could not think, only feel, and whatever primal sensations of glee that might have served as a bitter consolation were spoiled with rotten shame and anguish.

She felt the moment when new life erupted into her womb, disturbingly sudden and soon after insemination. She felt the foreign weight of her modified organs eagerly welcome the beast’s sperm and wed it with ovum like a crashing bolt of lightning through her core, though whether it was even her own egg anymore remained questionable. As waves of crashing ecstasy shook through her at the long-needed satisfaction of the Yearning, as she was force-fed the cloying reward of serving Seminoth’s will, she nearly vomited at the horror of being not merely mated, but bred by a pet of mankind.

Instead, she giggled. She snarled, and wailed. She hissed, and wept.

“The experiment is a success,” purred Pholog proudly, petting the dog as it turned its back to Azraenn and panted proudly in the heat of its conquest, still tied, and certain to remain so for many minutes more as she suffered its ejaculation.

“You irredeemable scum!” Ynnatta yelled.

Slowly, the acothyst turned his dark gaze to her. “Oh, you must feel envious of your mistress, who now enjoys such release. Fear not. We have many more delightful subjects eagerly awaiting the chance to test your enhancements in their pens, animal and alien alike. Who will volunteer next?”

Azraenn’s low, broken moans filled the harsh silence, and none among the other women stepped forward, all turning their gazes away.

“Ah, such prudes,” said Pholog disdainfully. “You have been the loudest until your own safety was in question,” he pointed to Ynnatta, “and so I grant you the grand honor of entering our pit of half-tame Ur-Ghuls to put the principles of shared fatherhood to practice. Worry not; though they would gladly consume you to the bone normally, they have been riled up with a far more pressing urge by a potent gaseous agent which will be just as overwhelming on your senses as theirs. As we have separated them from their females, well… the first woman who sets foot in their enclosure is going to be very, very well worn by the time they are satisfied.”

Ynnatta’s eyes widened in unspeakable dread as she slowly processed the nightmare that awaited her.

“No! Stop it!” Ynnatta cried out, but her pleas fell upon deaf ears. The Wracks dragged her away from the others without mercy.

“If any of you thought that the harshest experiment would be the first, then you have been very painfully delusional,” Pholog announced to the others while their sister was carried off into the darkness. “You wasted your pity on your leader, when you should have saved it for your own selves. I merely humbled her, for she is strong, which makes her useful to me. She will bear many superior pups infused with Aeldari blood—a fascinating prospect. I cannot wait to see what results! But none of you will be there to see it, sadly. You all have your own courtships to survive… if you can.”

===

Azraenn awoke in a bar-lined cell, lying on her side against corroded metal plating. The lights flickered above as the fleshy, tumor-lined ceiling pulsated with life. There was something warm curled against her back, furry and dense—the dog. She was too tired to kill it now. She glanced down at her belly, touching it gingerly, feeling no spark of life within.

She guessed that the Coven had already harvested the fetuses of the pups that she was to bear into the world, no doubt accelerating them to maturity in their amniotic nests. If what they told her was true, though, then even had they allowed the pregnancy to run its course, she would still have given birth in a matter of hours. The thought of such an unnatural rate of gestation enabled by her modified womb should have terrorized her, but now it only spurred a small, deleterious ache in her chest. It was too late to mourn the twisted changes they had wrought upon her flesh. Now she knew the truth of it first-hand.

She could have risen at least, taken her place on the cot. But instead she stayed where she was. She deserved the freezing plating to be her only bed. She deserved worse, in fact. She wanted to die. How long had she wished for death? Too long to go without it.

Ever since coming here to the City Eternal, she had only known shame and dishonor that piled upon itself again and again. She thought of Syndratta, a mighty warrior indeed, and regretted that the Peddler of Death had not granted her the peace of termination. That woman was beautiful and extravagant, flawlessly evil, but pure—a pure killer dressed in the rightful raiment of a princess. To have died at her hands would have been the only salvation from disgrace that Azraenn could have been blessed with.

She felt the dog rest his chin on her side. Even afflicted with cancer of the brain, it knew the instincts of companionship. She lifted her arm to look at its dark muzzle, noting its hazelnut eyes sleepily gazing at her face. She wondered if she should kill it. Would that redeem her at all in the eyes of Morrigan?

Should she be seeking Morrigan’s approval?

It was they who killed Eallari.

A bitter smile crossed Azraenn’s lips. What good would bloodshed do now? Even free from the curse’s impulses that had weakened her so pathetically into a mewling bitch for the mongrel, she found no reason to kill the beast. There was no logic in it; it was not the dog that had devised this torture. It had not even been interested in her prior to his master’s strange injection, and why would it be? They were separate species. She had been able to feel the creature’s sensations at the edge of her thoughts the entire time they copulated; she knew whatever had coursed through his veins and seared his nervous system was torturous, a cruelty far worse than anything they had done to her.

Much as she disliked the drooly thing, they were both victims of the Coven. It would be the exact opposite of justice to kill what was only a pawn of lower, darker powers. The poor thing needed a physician to cure him and a wide meadow to hunt through for his meals. And a pack to be his companions. Gingerly, she reached out and petted him on the scalp, rubbing through his messy fur gently. The mongrel’s ears shifted pleasantly as she scratched around them, appreciative of even this tiny gesture. Such a simple thing, so small and meaningless, pleased it to no end. It was almost charming.

A shadow darkened over her eyes, and Azraenn glanced up blearily.

It was Eshairr, standing at the bars, wearing the robes and apron of a student of the Coven. Her hair was the purest white, and her face looked more gaunt, more tired, more hollowed than she had ever seen save for the day they watched Morrigan burn. She was still beautiful, but not in the youthful way of before: the ardor of Spring had bled from her, replaced with Winter’s grim truth. She looked less like an innocent maiden and more like…

A true Eldar.

Eshairr gripped one of the steel bars. “Azraenn. I am sorry.”

Azraenn gave no answer. She did not feel the strength.

“I cannot oppose Pholog; he is too powerful. The Haemonculus’s favor is with him for discovering the existence of the Yearning,” Eshairr said. “But… you see it now, don’t you?”

Azraenn knew immediately what she meant.

“Yes. I see it now,” she replied quietly.

The truth of the Yearning. What Eallari had tried to tell them all, and died for. Breeding was no grim necessity. At least, it should not have been treated as such. It was supposed to be a sweet and lovely thing, but in the millenia since the arrival of Seminoth and the induction of his malediction in the souls of Morrigan’s women, a backwards, twisted mentality had gripped their home, depriving them all of the only actual source of relief they could ever have.

“If it can be treated, it can be cured,” Eshairr said, her lips parting into a desperate, almost hysterical smile.

“Can it?” Azraenn asked, eyes lowering to the floor, too empty to sit up and speak.

“Of course!” Eshairr exclaimed. “Master Qa needs time, and study, but I am certain he can fix us. All of us.”

“He is a Haemonculus, Eshairr,” Azraenn pointed out at a whisper. “I know he must have promised you many things, but he is no benevolent lord. His every thought is a cancer even more evil than any of his students and servants. This may be an entire city woven from tumors, but he is the true Malignancy.”

Eshairr gripped the bars, clinging to them with an even more manic grin, and a wild spark in her eyes. “Then I will cure it. With his guidance.”

“And what if the remedy you create, crafted upon a mountain of corpses and captured women impregnated by monsters, is worse than the curse?” Azraenn asked exhaustedly.

“Then I just have to create an even better one!” Eshairr giggled.

Azraenn frowned at the ground, watching her own fingers twitch. She lacked the strength to argue, now.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m not insane. I see your suffering. The panacea I seek doesn’t need to be made using all of you, my precious sisters, as test subjects! I am subject enough for these experiments. I swear, I’ll free you all. I’ll make sure they can’t hurt you anymore!” Eshairr said. “I just need more time, time to prepare!”

“Don’t try to save us. You’ll only doom yourself. Use your freedom as a student to escape while you can,” Azraenn said. “Return to Morrigan and tell them of our fate. They need to know, so that they can mourn us properly.”

“No!” Eshairr yelled, loud enough for the Wracks tending to the inhabitants of the other cells to turn, worried something might be wrong. She gave them a dismissive wave, and they shrugged and returned to their studies.

“No,” repeated the fallen captain more quietly, breathing shakily, a mad gleam in her violet eyes. She ran her fingers up to brush her beautiful, wild white locks out of her eyes. “No… I will not leave you here. Not one of you. You are my sisters. You belong on Morrigan, not here.”

Eshairr reached in through the bars, extending a hand, as if trying to touch Azraenn where she rested. “I promise. I do. I am so sorry that you have suffered like this for me, and I am so angry that they did this to you. But vengeance cannot be had now. Not yet. More time. More planning. The viper must not strike…”

“…until the mortal vein appears in its gaze,” Azraenn finished the aphorism.

“Yes!” Eshairr hissed. “Be not afraid. I will save you all.”

She seemed to linger, hoping that Azraenn would rise and take her hand. Hoping to inspire her. To comfort her. But it was pointless.

As silence set in, and she realized her folly, Eshairr slowly, mournfully withdrew her arm, laying her head against the bars sadly.

“I promise it.”

And then the white-haired beauty was gone, only the receding footsteps of her boots clicking on the floor left as Azraenn stared into nothing.

“My hope, Eshairr, is that you can at least save yourself,” Azraenn whispered.

Chapter Text

==Chapter XVII Prelude: Oaths Forgotten==

She clutched the beautiful glaive in her hand, squeezing her digits around the wraithbone haft. It was the only thing she could do to stop the shaking.

“Tulushi’ina,” said the girl next to her, Phanirae, her senior. She bumped the dark-haired, fragile-looking girl on the boot with the bottom of her ornate spear. “Remember Lileath.”

Tulushi’ina turned and nodded to her friend. In their sisterhood, that phrase carried great meaning. It was both a battlecry and a reassurance of their duty, of their purity, and just hearing it brought to mind all the myths of noble Lileath and her struggles. The swelling pride calmed her nerves, and she was able to relax somewhat as she counted the passing seconds until the delegation arrived.

They were Hands of the Maiden, citizens of Morrigan sworn to celibacy and honorable service as part of a select elite. Only the purest souls who knew not the touch of a man nor the weakness of lust could join such an esteemed institution. In exchange for their devotion, they were taught self-control, combat techniques, and the ways of righteousness. Their duties were myriad; at times they served as guards for venerated institutions and monuments, or as guides to more mysterious and sometimes forbidden regions of the Craftworld. Sometimes they were detached as advisors for Autarchs or Seers who ventured into war, those who sought a different perspective than those of the Aspects of Khaine at least. Occasionally a Voice of the Consort might summon them as bodyguards on an important diplomatic visit, and even the Eyes of the Crone relied upon them in at least one way: to cast out the naïve and the foolish who thought to stray into their dangerous domain unbidden.

Their highest and greatest duty, though, was as Morrigan’s honor guard. Trusted more than any other to handle the nuanced difficulties of diplomacy with men, when such things were deemed unfortunately necessary, they would be called upon to oversee and guard such affairs. Here, now, in this atrium decorated with grim and feral statues of mythical banshees overlooking the circular conference table, they prepared to parley with potential allies who might serve Morrigan well on distant battlefields.

This was deemed a matter of sufficient importance, it seemed, that not only High Autarch Eshana but Fleetmistress Aydona both had come to this chamber and stood by, idly discussing the readiness of the fleets after their most recent deployments against a series of Hrud migrations that threatened to destabilize the subsector. They were flanked by several more autarchs of fame, not to mention the score of Handmaidens standing at the edges of the room garbed in heavy violet armor trimmed with silver. Conical, plumed helmets concealed their features with cold and unwelcoming scowls engraved in reinforced psychoplastic. It was an excessively well-armed diplomatic retinue, such that an overwhelming sense of intimidation filled the diplomatic chamber, rather unwelcoming. Tulushi’ina could not help but wonder if that was precisely what Eshana intended.

They did not have to wait long. The gateway chimed at the approach of a personal yacht sent from the allied flagship, the gantryway sealing into place. As soon as the airlock opened, twin doors sliding away, the air of another ship washed into the atrium. It was pure and perfect like the atmosphere of any Craftworld, only it carried the subtle scent of something entirely foreign: men.

The room changed before they even set foot within. A storm brewed in the hearts of those present, distrust and desire comingling tumultuously. No one shifted even an inch, save for Eshana turning to greet the delegation.

Their leader was tall and lean, like a stag. He carried himself with arrogant purpose bleeding through his every pore. But the resplendent regalia of the green crystal plate that was his armor, a golden sash and belt lending him the aspect of royalty, indicated that some pride must have been appropriate to his station and his successes. Beside him, half a dozen bodyguards followed, far less decoratively dressed, but twice as armed with gorgeous swords or custom-crafted shuriken or splinter pistols. Compared to the amount of firepower that Morrigan had brought for this meeting, however, this was nothing.

Even so, no sign of intimidation showed on the Prince’s gallant and handsome face, his short blonde locks slicked back smoothly, a crystal bionic eye glowing blue as it studied Eshana closely. Tulushi’ina tensed just to gaze upon him, feeling the barest inklings of the loathsome curse itch between her legs. It was every bit the challenge to her senses that she had been warned it would be, a constant, creeping twist upon instinct at the back of her thoughts. So distracting, so insidious. Suddenly the extreme measure of banishing all men from their home no longer seemed an overreaction, as she had sometimes wondered.

“Lord Illarian,” Eshana said. She did not bow. Morrigan bowed to no one.

Tulushi’ina could not help but wonder if Eshana felt the same. Did the High Autarch also feel the curse aching between her legs just to look at this dashing warlord? Did she feel the moisture building between her thighs, the lust beating in her heart, the Yearning arousing her just by his strong, masculine scent intruding upon Morrigan? Was her lush flower aching at his mere presence, twitching hungrily, vulnerably even as she stoically greeted him? Did she also see the dreams of lying beneath him, feeling his hands wandering her body, his manhood plunging into her wet grove, filling her, claiming her as his forever?

Tulushi’ina stopped herself. She was used to blocking out her traitorous imagination when it placed her in such compromising daydreams, but not for others. This was a new, disturbing development of the Yearning for her, a sick, voyeuristic thrill. Disgusted, she cursed whatever filthy part of her heart desired to see the leader of their people beneath this stranger, prey to his lusts. It proved to her how much further training she needed to control her wayward thoughts and carry herself proudly like a true daughter of Morrigan.

“Lady Eshana,” Illarian said primly, nodding his head in a polite half-bow, idly glancing around at the grim décor and the guards standing at attention. “Such a… welcoming reception.”

“This is a meeting place of business, not fellowship,” Aydona explained, leaning on the table casually, sipping at a glass of frostberry wine. She, at least, seemed comfortable in the presence of men. Perhaps a little too comfortable.

“Ah, the great Aydona, formerly of the Sky Slicers,” Illarian said, granting her another nod of respect. “Of course, I understand. We are not bound by any formal accord, not yet. Thus it is better not to present an illusion of friendship.”

“Friendship must be earned. However, I must say, your fleet is substantial for an independent warlord,” Eshana said, sounding almost pleased by the prospect of adding such force to Morrigan’s banner.

“And it can be yours, my lady, for but a few small privileges granted to my flag,” Illarian said, smiling at her. Such a small thing sent pangs of desire through Tulushi’ina’s core. She had never imagined such base pride shown in the lips of a man could be so alluring.

However, Eshana showed no apparent reaction to the charming gesture. “What is your price?”

Illarian gestured flamboyantly with his hand, as if grasping at air. It was the right of seizure, to lay claim to what plunder might be found on the battlefield.

Eshana replied with a small flick of her index finger, an agreement. This was a common term in the alliances between corsairs and Craftworlds, almost ubiquitous. Craftworlds had little interest in anything but accomplishing objectives and retrieving their dead when it came to war, so their independent allies were almost always given such privileges. Where these negotiations could grow more difficult was in whatever else was demanded.

“Marvelous,” Illarian nodded, pleased. “I have another request. War can be difficult for those of us who do not possess a homeland to return to. My crews need somewhere that they can recuperate from the trials of battle, safe from rivals and enemies that might prey upon us.”

“So long as it proves useful and loyal, Morrigan is willing to provide sanctuary for your fleet,” Aydona stated. It must have been odd to her, Tulushi’ina thought, to be standing on the other side of a discussion like this when not long ago she was the corsair discussing terms of alliance with the Craftworld.

“This is acceptable. We will endeavor to prove our worth to your beautiful home,” Illarian said, stroking his sash with a finger of approval. This was another common feature of such alliances; corsair fleets rarely had access to safe shelter, which made a Craftworld’s patronage extremely enticing.

“Have you any further demands?” Eshana asked, glancing to her subordinate Autarchs to see if any had comment. They seemed content.

“No. Safety and plunder is all that my free company requests. However, I would like to know my new comrades better,” Illarian said, a bold gesture of welcome in his fingers, and the breath fled Tulushi’ina’s lungs when she heard his next audacious offer. “Would you join me on a tour of my flagship, my lady?”

Eshana paused, turning back to face him without showing the slightest emotion in her face or her gestures. “Your offer is noted and archived, Illarian.”

Aydona rolled her eyes, sipping at more wine. It was clear from her body language that he had chosen the wrong woman to invite. She might have been more receptive.

“Then let me at least ask to know Morrigan, if I cannot know her queen,” Illarian insisted.

“I am no queen. Merely her war-leader,” replied Eshana gracefully.

“Whatever you wish to call it, then,” he shrugged, not even bothering to disguise his doubt in such a noble sentiment.

“If you wish to see Morrigan herself, the Dome of Shrouded Respite stands prepared to receive you. It is among our most comfortable estates. Your crews as well are welcome to visit it for rest and revitalization, but only your women may travel outside those walls. It is our way.”

This seemed sufficient to satisfy Illarian. “Very well. Then let me seal our pact.”

He stepped around the table and approached them, drawing a short, bejeweled knife from his belt. Tulushi’ina flinched, her training awakening. She charged forward, leveling her glaive at him before he could near the councilwomen. He calmly glanced at her, turning her weapon aside with a gauntleted digit.

“Have no fear. I carry no ill-will,” Illarian said to her, looking into her helmeted face without the slightest trepidation in his gaze.

Tulushi’ina remained silent, re-aiming her weapon at his chest, his heart. Illarian smirked, amused by her enthusiasm.

“She is following her orders,” Eshana explained. “It is custom here to ask permission before crossing the threshold.”

“Ah. Of course,” he said, understanding. “May I approach?”

Eshana gestured affirmatively to Tulushi’ina, who, feeling embarrassed for what seemed an excessive reaction in hindsight, withdrew back to her place at the edge of the room, taking up her guard stance once more.

The butt of Phanirae’s spear thumped into her leg, and Tulushi’ina winced at the rebuke.

Illarian went to Eshana and Aydona with great gravitas in his movements, removing his mesh gauntlet. He knelt before them, raising his pale hand so that they could see him draw his knife across the skin, slicing his palm open. He closed it into a fist, letting droplets of his crimson lifeblood fall upon the crystal floor, which glowed faintly at the warmth of his essence.

“My blood for spoils. My blade for hearth. My honor binds me, and your justice keeps me.”

It was no extravagant or lengthy ceremony. Corsairs seemed to have little patience for formalities; that he bothered to go so far, however, showed eagerness to prove himself. With those few pretty words spoken, he arose, offering the dagger still wet with his blood to Eshana. She accepted it, and he returned to his place opposite her.

“Should our bond grow cumbersome, merely return that dagger to me, and I shall know that it is severed,” Illarian explained. “Now, as you offered so generously, I shall avail myself of your estates and invite my sailors to join me.”

“You are welcome here when the star-winds grow bitter in your sails,” Aydona answered, smiling. “And may Isha keep you at her bosom.”

He bowed, much more formally this time, to them both. “I await only a name for the prey my Azure Reavers are to hunt. Perhaps also a chance to bargain for supplies, weapons, and ships? I would also be interested in browsing the creations of your Artists to replace the gauche and dated artworks of my former patrons, if that is permissible.”

“Many opportunities for glory and gold will soon come. Win our regard, and we will discuss a fair trade then,” Eshana reassured him, turning and departing.

===

This was Tulushi’ina’s first time visiting the forbidden grounds of the Dome of Shrouded Respite. Once it had been called Spring’s Bliss, but after the Banishing of Impurity, its name and purpose had changed. At that time, it had been one of the most beautiful realms of Morrigan, a thousand extravagant mansions hidden amongst sweeping meadows of psycho-sensitive flowers that changed their colors with the emotions of those who danced through them. It was a sacred place that newlyweds would go to cohabitate in complete isolation and savor the sweetest joys of life-as-one.

But the great forests had been razed to ash by cursed warp-fire, the hallowed flower groves trampled to death by the hooves of daemonettes. Even the artificial sky was gloomy and severe now, as though even the spirits that oversaw the operation of such ancient machinery mourned Seminoth’s crimes. Despite their best attempts to revive its former beauty, its ancient purpose was all but forgotten, and the splendor of its fields and palaces was replaced only with sterile duty radiating from every statue and weary tree. It was still a princely domain, but a certain spark was gone from it, and now the beauty of its wooded hills was more like a mournful, sorrowful reflection of lost wonders.

Here was where the breeding cycles were held, men and women paired off according to the Seers’ cold matchmaking of the most promising future children to join the Craftworld’s ranks of soldiers and warriors. They even took steps to prevent the misfortune of male children as often as possible by adjusting circumstances and intruding in the affairs of mating couples to change which sperm would achieve conception, though such complicated matters could never be truly guaranteed.
And when an ally of Morrigan desired a place of rest, it was also this dome which was provided. Its utopian facilities could care for all needs without the requirement of a single citizen’s input or presence, and during such visitations the Handmaidens maintained a strict vigil at the gates of the dome to ensure that no men left and no Morriganites entered until their guests had departed.

Standing watch at one of the lesser gateways, leaning on the ramparts of a small outpost adjoining the gate, Tulushi’ina gazed off into the night cycle. It was mesmerizing to behold the ring of fires blazing in the courtyard of a distant villa, around which tiny silhouettes danced and sang.

She could hear the distant wisps of choruses of male voices harmonizing to simple, honest melodies, sailor songs, retelling great voyages of yore in rhythmic tones that inspired a good work pace. Now they served as a form of bond-building, camaraderie swelling as they danced and somersaulted around the bonfires, playing drunken games, and choosing for themselves mates for the evening from amongst the women of their crew. Or trying to, at least. She used the magnifying functions of her helm’s scanners to detect more than a few slaps paid to unwelcome hands trying their luck, or daggers drawn and insults paid curtly, shortly before it all turned to laughter and the festivities continued.

In the end, they were savages, celebrating nothing at all. There was no reason for their joy and excitement, no victory to be paraded, no great work of art unveiled. It was disgusting to indulge in one’s whimsy so wantonly—every Craftworld cautioned against it for the dangers it represented to the soul, and only certain Paths were meant to engage such soaring emotions and only under controlled circumstances.

Tulushi’ina herself was a Trader, her eighth Path, one who took up the products of other Paths and brought them from dome to dome, maintaining a stable flow of culture and products between the cities and townships of Morrigan. Despite the name, Craftworlds rarely made use of such a thing as currencies; on Morrigan in particular, Traders only took what others desired to be rid of in exchange for their wares, fostering a constant exchange and preventing stagnancy. They also served as appraisers of individuals and their tastes, developing a sense for who others were and what wares best suited them even at a mere glance. Tulushi’ina enjoyed her labors, finding it fulfilling to find a home for every artist’s creations, a body for every tailor’s garments, and a hand for every tool or weapon that was forged, taking her cart of goods from village to village.

As a Hand of the Maiden, though, she bore additional duties beyond the usual trappings of the Trader path. She could be called upon for duties like this at any moment. Even when it meant standing at a checkpoint for hours, left only with her own thoughts.

A haft bumped into her leg, and she jolted out of her daydreams. “Phanirae, please!”

Phanirae removed her helmet, her thick red hair immediately expanding out around her. She was lovely, gaunt, thin-lipped and graceful, a veteran of the Maidenguard who was second only to the Stewardesses Everchaste in the respect she had earned for her faith in Lileath and her loyalty to the hallowed traditions of their order. Ever since Tulushi’ina spoke the Oath of Chastity, Phanirae had taken her under her wing, teaching her all that she needed to know.

“Would you have truly run that Prince through, had he not cooperated?” Phanirae asked, smirking devilishly at her junior.

Tulushi’ina’s silver pauldrons sagged with the shame on her shoulders. “Enough. I know it was uncalled for. I should have simply reprimanded him verbally.”

“I am merely joking,” Phanirae giggled, slapping her on the pauldron. “You did not notice Eshana’s silent satisfaction when you challenged him, but I did. She approved, though she preferred not to mention as much publically.”

“Verily?” asked the young Maidenguard.

“Verily,” Phanirae nodded enthusiastically. “Why do you assume that for doing precisely as you were taught, you would incur her ire?”

“You reprimanded me!” Tulushi’ina protested, mildly miffed.

“Reprimanded? T’was a bump of approval,” Phanirae declared with a matter-of-fact sniff, turning up her nose with lofty airs of superiority.

Tulushi’ina leaned her glaive against her shoulder, shooting her friend an annoyed stare.

Phanirae giggled, unable to maintain the façade for long. “You are too much fun to tease, my friend.”

“It seems you and Illarian would agree on that, given how little threat I presented to him,” Tulushi’ina admitted. “He spoke to me as though I were a child.”

“You are always too quick to doubt yourself,” Phanirae smiled, leaning on her friend. “I am sure he simply possesses great skill in masking his fear in bravado.”

“I do not agree. I have always been lesser,” Tulushi’ina signaled with hand gestures. She had never admitted this to anyone, but with Phanirae she felt secure enough to trust her with such feelings.

“Why?”

“Because I have no mother,” answered the junior. “No heraldry. No heritage. This is a world full of meaning, even in the smallest baubles which I trade. And yet though I know the history of all wares that pass through my cart, maker and intent and symbolism all intermingling into a great tapestry, and I relate this knowledge to those seeking ownership so that they can pride themselves in their new possessions, there is no meaning in my life. I have been a Trader for a decade, witnessing all the wonders of this world and sharing them with others, for I can find no inspiration to craft my own wonders, as my bloodline is empty.”

“Ah. Then this is why you sought to become a servant of Lileath?” asked Phanirae.

Tulushi’ina gestured affirmatively, finding the admission mildly shameful. It was not the sole reason she had joined, but she was sure that most others who joined the esteemed ranks of the Maidenguard had far more compelling, honorable, and righteous cause for it.

“So just because you do not know your mother, you believe that you are lesser than the rest of us. Did you know that Eshana, too, does not know her blood mother?”

Tulushi’ina perked up in surprise. “Truly? How do you know that?”

Phanirae smiled. “Yes, truly, Tulu. I have had the good fortune to enjoy several of her public lectures, so that I may learn from her example—I aspire to follow in her footsteps one day, if I prove worthy. In one such discourse, one of her students on the Path of Command asked if her upbringing is what instilled her with such fervor for supremacy in battle. Her magnificent answer was that Morrigan itself is her mother, which is why she is so driven to defend it against all threats.”

“I see. I am surprised, but I can hardly compare such noble aspirations to my own,” Tulushi’ina explained. “I have been told by my foster mother, may she rest in peaceful dreams, that I was left here by a corsair ship. I was abandoned by both mother and father, who did not desire me. If even those who gave me life have so little love for me, how can I love myself?”

“Are you certain you were told the truth, Tulu? If your blood parents did not desire you, why would they endure all the labors to bring you alive?” Phanirae observed sympathetically. “I suppose it may be possible they changed their minds about raising a child, given how volatile the hearts of those without the Path can be. Perchance they clashed and their relationship crumbled? Then you would have become a burdensome obligation snaring them together rather than a precious gift, I reckon.”

Tulushi’ina nodded slowly, unable to suppress the feelings of loneliness and loss welling up in her heart at the idea.

“But far more likely is that they did adore you. Think on it: if you were a reaver of the void, could you bear to bring your child into such a dangerous life? Some families might be content with that—these privateer fleets always have some children amongst them, raised into the ways of plunder and pleasure. But to your kin, leaving you here meant you were safe. Inference follows: Your foster mother told you a well-meaning falsehood to discourage you from chasing off into the wilderness of the wider galaxy seeking your origins. In fact, you may very well not have originated from corsairs at all. Even she may not have known who brought you here.”

Tulushi’ina’s heart pulsed in her chest, unsure what to say. It was not a vast and impossible revelation, but rather a subtle change in her perception. Beneath her racing thoughts, though, there was a gentle warmth in her chest, soothing a long-harbored pain that had never truly healed.

Phanirae smiled, sensing the relief her companion felt. “Really, regardless of why you were left here, it is nothing to be ashamed of. We receive many children the very same way. It is not often spoken of, but there are also infants brought to us by Harlequin troupes or by stranger avenues, and all the same we take them in as our own. I know that the youths may be wont to tease and harass over what they find to be oddities in another’s past, but that is the nature of adolescence. You shall find that age beats such pettiness out of our kinswomen… well, eventually.”

Tulushi’ina felt rather less certain of that, given her own experiences with such impolite mockery.

Phanirae patted her on the shoulder. “As for Lord Illarian, one day, you shall realize that no one is formidable—a spear stuck through their heart ends them much as it would end you. No matter how skilled or gifted they might seem, one mistake and the Reaper will come for them. Even great Eshana could be slain by a single rifle in the right place at the right time.”

“That is of course true, but to believe that I hold that rifle—hubris and folly,” Tulushi’ina pointed out.

“No, Tulu. That rifle has always been yours, and it is only the trigger that you have yet to pull. One day, when you are called to war, you will see how frighteningly easy it is to give out Death, and that no living soul has a monopoly upon it. Not our exarchs, not our warlocks, not even the Phoenix Lords or Khaine himself. Rather, it is knowing when to set aside such violence that is the true trial of one’s worth.”

Tulushi’ina was unsure of what to say in answer. She was spared the difficulty by spotting a couple of clearly inebriated fellows stumbling down the road towards them, laughing and cajoling each other in slurred poetry.

Men.

She tensed up, immediately feeling the curse’s pull on her nerves.

Phanirae straightened up and donned her helmet. “Tsk. Looks like they are intent to spoil our pleasant evening. Let us step down and greet them.”

“Is that necessary? The gates will not open for them, and if they are experiencing some sort of trouble, they can request aid through the infinity circuit,” Tulushi’ina pointed out. “We are really just here to ensure they don’t set fire to the Knolls of Clovers by accident…”

“True, but I certainly have no interest in listening to them shouting up at us until they grow bored and depart,” Phanirae pointed out. “Better to deal with them, send them away, and be done with it.”

===

Intoxication sullied the air of Morrigan, carried on the breath of the two men that approached the checkpoint with all the balance of mon’keigh in their strides. They were tall, like all Eldar, and possessed of a sharp handsomeness like that of wild beasts. The Handmaidens emerged from the gatehouse, and Phanirae took an assertive step forward, slamming the base of her spear into the ground to halt them in their steps.

“Hark. Come no closer,” Phanirae commanded.

“What’s the matter?” asked one of them. He was an obvious proponent of body modification like that practiced by some ex-Commorites in free ports—rather than hair, what sprouted from his scalp was dazzling azure feathers that turned to gold at the tips of each plume. These feathers extended down his neck to his back, down his arms, terminating in razor-like talons on each fingertip. It lent him an outright bestial appearance, not helped much by the secondary eyeflaps blinking horizontally beneath his natural eyelids. The fact that he wore no shirt seemed intended to display the beauty of his alterations, like a bird would parade its plumage for a mate. The opulent sword hanging from his waist indicated a preference for dueling, and that he was left-handed.
Phanirae was silent for a moment, staring at him. “You have all been told that the regions of this world beyond this border are sealed to men,” Phanirae explained flatly. “Turn back and return to your festival.”

“I never said I wished to pass through this portal, did I?” asked the feathery sailor, hooking a finger through his ornate jeweled belt and grinning, showing his teeth which had been filed to sharp points. “We’ve come to meet the mysterious maidens who have been staring at us from their little tower. My name is Hisanze, and my friend is Nis’varil.”

Tulushi’ina looked to his companion, who was far more conventional in his appearance, adorned in a beautiful jade bodysuit that perfectly outlined his slender strength. Sleekly bald, pale, his ears particularly long and sharp, Nis’varil was quiet, but his stare was intense and focused, examining the architecture of the outpost with keen eyes. A tattoo of the rune which meant Death was apparent on the back of his right hand, which, given his holstered pistol, indicated a certain reputation for the swiftness and accuracy of that hand.

A gunslinger, then. As much as she found his handsomeness pleasant to gaze upon, that knowledge left her tense, and the curse did not feel quite so potent because of it. She was rather more concerned that they might cause trouble, and a diplomatic incident was the last thing she wished to be responsible for. Now she began to realize how Eshana and Aydona must have felt in that meeting—when pressured, the sensual aspects of the curse seemed to fade into the background, becoming more of a distant echo or buzzing of loneliness. It was only because she had been assigned to that chamber as a mere guard that her mind was so free to wander along the curse’s myriad, sinister temptations.

“We are not interested in your companionship,” Tulu expressed as bluntly as good manners would allow without venturing into crassness.

“But you do not even know us,” Nis’varil pointed out with a gesture of dismay. “We are allies, are we not? To gaze upon our celebrations as you do expresses longing, and worse, loneliness.”

Hisanze nodded, leaping onto that topic himself. “And we find it terribly rude of us not to offer our hosts the same pleasures that we have enjoyed in their home. Surely at least a cup of spiced extract would not go amiss?”

Phanirae’s response was short and frank. “We have duties to attend.”

Hisanze glanced up at the gateway. “I believe this gate will attend itself well enough, will it not?”

“We prefer not to take such a chance,” Tulushi’ina explained.

“Then let us call our comrades over to guard it for you,” Nis’varil suggested. “We can all take turns to spare you this drudgery.”

Though their ulterior motives were obvious, Tulushi’ina sensed from their emotions that they were not speaking entirely out of manipulative desire. To them, in their drink-distorted perspective, it must have been all the more confusing that anyone would prefer duty over liberty. They had chosen their wandering lifestyle for a reason. In their own clumsy way, they were trying to help those that seemed to be suffering from the shackles of responsibility. That calmed her dread of a potential altercation, but even still she could not quite shake the sense of unease she felt just to be near them.

“No, that will not be necessary,” Phanirae said.

Defeated, Hisanze shrugged at Nis’varil, who returned the gesture. It seemed patience was as rare a quality in a corsair as Tulushi’ina had been told. “Well, we tried. Off to the… the…”

Hisanze stumbled, collapsing on the cobblestone road, his eyes spinning. Inebriation, and most likely a few other chems as well, had taken their toll at last.

“Oh dear,” Nis’varil mumbled, bending down to try and pick up his companion. But it seemed the bald gunman was in little better form himself, with the way his head was swaying.

Phanirae sighed loudly. “Tulu, stay here. I’ll take them back to their comrades.”

“Is that wise?” Tulushi’ina asked, immediately nervous at the thought of being left alone to guard the gate. “We could put them in the cells in the gatehouse until they have sobered up.”

“Do you wish to be cleaning vomitus off the floors?” Phanirae asked.

“Well… no. But perhaps I should come with you, then?”

“Have a little faith in yourself,” she said, thwacking her in the leg with the base of her spear chidingly. “At least one of us must hold the vigil.”

Tulushi’ina deflated, forced to agree. Phanirae’s wisdom once again prevailed over her anxiety to be left on guard alone. She was a formidable woman, in every way a potential successor to Eshana’s seat on the High Council one day. All Tulu could do was stand in her shadow.

Phanirae grabbed the unconscious one and lifted him up against her shoulder. “Right. Come along, Nis’varil. We shall let your comrades deal with the consequences of your poor decisions tonight.”

===

Much to Tulushi’ina’s relief, it had not turned out to be some kind of diversion so that other sailors could try to sneak through the gate. She watched from the tower over the gatehouse, beginning to admit she felt somewhat… bored. Perhaps the corsairs were right about that after all. The sensation of dullness was only further exacerbated by Phanirae’s absence.

To pass the time, she turned to practice with her glaive. She stepped through a few of the minor Handmaiden forms, twirling and leaping, slashing the blade of her polearm through the air like she was cutting through invisible foes. Phanirae always talked about envisioning humans as her phantom enemies, as they were the only foe she had faced as a Guardian. That was natural, given humanity was among the most common species in the galaxy, and both the Imperium of Man and the Ruinous Powers provided ample reason to be faced in war.

Tulu, however, had yet to give true shape to her ghostly enemies during training. The blows she evaded and parried were weightless and vague, the bodies she stabbed and sliced as formless as mist. Despite her service in such an elite sisterhood, Tulushi’ina had yet to be deployed to any warzone. The first and most important duty of the Hands of the Maiden was to defend the Craftworld, secondly their ceremonial importance, so ironically they saw less involvement in most conflicts despite being a standing force akin to the Aspect Shrines. Because of this, she felt hollow and unproven compared to her fellow Handmaidens, despite being part of the order for several orbital passes already.

Her oath of service was set to last for half a century, an ambitious duration to agree to. But that was precisely why she had joined this order, to seek relief from the Yearning by giving herself greater purpose to strive for. Purpose that might wash away the stain of her lack of heritage. Purpose that might convince her not to judge herself so harshly.

Idly, she withdrew from her training, growing bored even with this. The question that weighed upon her most heavily was what Phanirae felt in that conference room, when they were left staring at Illarian as he negotiated with the High Autarch. Did Phanirae suffer the Yearning as severely as her junior did? Surely not. After all, Phanirae had been a Handmaiden for nearly two decades. That was ten orbital cycles, or passes. If she were so easily tempted, she would never have lasted this long.

Slowly, the notion that something was wrong crept into her thoughts. It had been some time since Phanirae left with the sailors.

“Phanirae?” Tulushi’ina asked through her psychic comm-bead, which took the form of a jeweled earring in the armory of the Maidenguard.

No answer came.

Her heart palpitated in her chest, and Tulushi’ina felt her hand shiver along the haft of her glaive.

No, Tulu thought to herself, her inner voice taking on the authoritative tone of Phanirae herself. There was no reason to believe anything was amiss. She was a powerful woman, more than capable of defending herself. It was plausible that some kind of psychic interference was responsible. Perhaps one of Illarian’s Wayseekers was using his psychic talents for the entertainment of the crews, conjuring illusions and disturbing the empyric calm of the region. Such an abuse of their sacred gifts, risking eternal damnation for momentary pleasure, would be unsurprising, given how shallow and base these corsairs all seemed to be.

Even so, now that her paranoia had taken hold of such an idea, she could not quite quell it. She paced along the ramparts with increasingly frantic energy, counting every second that Phanirae did not return. Despite everything she knew and her unshakeable faith in her senior, this was beginning to merit more serious concern.

“Faenolosha?” Tulushi’ina asked on her comm-bead.

“Yes, Tulushi’ina? Is there something to report?” asked the Stewardess Everchaste Faenolosha, one of the permanently-sworn leaders of the Handmaidens, from her post at the main gateway a hundred leagues coreward.

She paused, goosebumps rolling up her back in instant alarm. If there were no disruptions to their communications, then there was no reason why Phanirae should not have answered her hails. She could have explained the situation and a search party would no doubt be dispatched immediately to find Phanirae, but her thoughts had already skipped ahead to two possible outcomes. What she hoped was that it was nothing to be worried over, just an ordinary delay, in which case such a search would disrupt the festivities of their guests and cause undue tension. The other possibility was one she did not dare entertain in her mind, for it was truly unbelievable. Even so, if there was the remotest chance for it to be true, then…

“No, Stewardess. Nothing of interest to report. I was merely wondering if you knew how much longer our guests would be remaining.”

Faenolosha let out a barking laugh through the psychic link. “Hah! I, too, am eager to see these drunken louts gone. Unfortunately for us, Lord Illarian requested a week of shore leave. But fear not. Your shift is due for rotation out in a few hours—try not to grow too irritated with our guests until then.”

“I shall do my utmost to maintain the grace of Lileath herself,” Tulushi’ina replied, allowing a small amount of grudging reluctance into her feelings for the Stewardess to sense. It was a true feeling—she would have been glad to see the backs of all these barbarians and return to her humble cart of wares—but it was not her only emotion. The other doubts and concerns she buried deep in her heart, too distant for the comms to pick up on.

“Spoken like a true Hand of the Maiden, my dear.”

The link severed then, leaving Tulushi’ina alone with a plague of her fears. Before she called for support, sparking an incident, she decided to investigate on her own. She stepped out of the gatehouse, leaving an impulse for it to seal itself and allow none through in the psychic control node, and then stepped out onto the road, long and winding through the high hills and the woods up to the estate in the distance.

===

The distant music of the party faded as she found the solitude between the trees, muffling and deafening her to all that lied beyond the forest. Thus, silence was her only companion on the road awash with red dead leaves.

She glanced left and right as she walked, listening, watching for any signs of her comrade. For several minutes of her venture, there was truly nothing to be found, not even the smallest indication of a struggle, and she began to feel more confident that Phanirae was most likely fine.

But then she found broken leaves, destroyed by boots. No Eldar would walk so crudely and heavily as to destroy grass or even crack a dead leaf, not unless there was need for it. A struggle.

There were faint tracks left, a trail leading into the woods. As soon as she walked to the edge of the road and leaned into the trees, she heard it.

A moan.

Her eyes went wide, and with a thought, the visor of her helm shifted to heat-sense. Not far ahead, there was a spear on the grass, surrounded by pieces of armor torn off forcefully. She stepped forwards between the trees, advancing warily, gripping her glaive tightly, ready to gut the bastards that had done this with the utmost prejudice. But then she saw them. Three slender bodies behind the bushes, red with heat in their veins, pinned together sideways upon the grass, grinding and humping. All three were silent as the night, as though… as though Phanirae did not wish to be found.

She could hear them breathing. The men breathed slowly, passionately, while she was slightly louder, slightly faster between them, more aroused, more desperate. Nis’varil kissed at her neck from behind, and Hisanze forced his mouth over her lips as her long, pale legs shifted against their strong thighs. Glued together in the cool night air, blades of grass tickling against their skin, both men slowly, powerfully swung up into her from front and behind.

“Ah,” Phanirae gasped as the corsairs matched their rhythms. Tulushi’ina, frozen where she stood, could feel the sensations of pleasure her friend felt by psychic empathy. It was an unbelievable wave of heat between her legs every time their lengths slid in to the hilt, twin pressures scraping deep into her from both ends and stealing the air from her lungs.

Tulushi’ina clutched a gauntlet to her armored skirt, immediately awash with a hurricane of emotions, most of them cloyingly pleasant, drowning out her bloodlust with just lust. She panted into her helmet, glad that it was sealed and the sound would not spill out into the night, and yet… a sinful part of her wished that it did, that the corsairs would notice her, too.

She shook her head, refusing to look directly at the degenerate twinned mating for her own sake. She reminded herself how disgusting it was—they had forced themselves upon her! They had feigned intoxication, luring her to solitude, and pounced on her like wild beasts! She could imagine Phanirae pinned between both men, whose hands greedily tore every wraithbone plate from her armor and groped at her exposed flesh, making her endure their rough and savage ministrations. She could imagine hands caressing Phanirae’s exposed perky breasts, rubbing up between her strong thighs under her skirt, tugging the beautiful silk of her undergarments down as her senior fought against their strong grasps, completely powerless between these two hungry wolves.

She could imagine the moment that Phanirae was dragged down behind the foliage, unable to trot to safety, punching and kicking with whatever vestiges of resistance she could muster. But the privateers were dosed on strong chems—pains would be dulled and distorted into pleasures to them. She could imagine her last feeble attempts to break free, only to be violated by them both, one penetration after the other, and then…

And then this. Phanirae panting, sweating as she was fucked savagely by these monstrous men, who cared so little about the sanctity of another person that they simply stole what was denied to them even when it meant violation, an unforgivable crime. Yet she was enjoying it, clearly, because if she so much as raised her voice high, the infinity circuit might detect her distress and alert the authorities. Then a more disturbing thought rushed through her mind.

Could they really have overpowered her so easily?

She was wearing heavy armor. They were not. She was armed with a power spear and a shuriken catapult mounted on her wrist, and they had only a sword and pistol between them. Even if they sprung themselves on her from complete surprise, it would have been the work of a single thought projected through her comm-bead to signal for aid.

Even before this, Phanirae had insisted on escorting them back to the villa personally. Without Tulushi’ina. She had persuaded her fellow guard to stay behind, when all protocols were that they were meant to stick together as a pair. Phanirae had even chosen to go down to meet these men from the beginning, when it was never necessary.

And before all of this, in the audience chamber, Phanirae bumped her on the leg after threatening Illarian. Chastising her for what? Doing as she was supposed to do? Was it jealousy? Jealousy for talking to him?

Tulushi’ina felt the ground give out beneath her, but she managed to hold herself up by grabbing a hand around a nearby tree branch. The Yearning ceased to exist for her. All she felt watching this was ill. She did not know what was happening, and she did not want to know. She bolted without a sound, racing down the road back to the gatehouse, and swung through the door into the interior and collapsed into the nearest chair. She pulled her helmet off and let out a scream of anger and disgust, burying her face in her hands.

===

Phanirae did not come back.

Faenolosha arrived by the end of her watch shift to explain, with strained sympathy in her tone, that Phanirae had been found in the debauched company of the corsairs at a nearby villa. When confronted, Phanirae behaved quite similar to the corsairs around her, evading responsibility for her own actions, rambling nonsensically in her own defense, and when pressed, she lashed out by denouncing Morrigan, denigrating the Handmaidens, forsaking her vows, and swearing herself to the Azure Reavers. It was the wild and unpredictable behavior of an Exile, one who had lost the Path. She would not be publically shamed for this, to avoid besmirching the reputation of the Handmaiden sisterhood, but Morrigan’s leaders would remember this dishonor. Her involvement with the Hands of the Maiden was to be quietly erased from the annals.

The question of what would be done about the risk of the Yearning spreading through the women of the Azure Reavers now was one that Faenolosha was able to address calmly, for it seemed Morrigan had always been careful to observe such matters.

“It is a concern. However, the self-serving, wandering nature of that life means it is almost unheard of for those bearing our malediction to remain in the ranks of any one corsair fleet long enough for spread to occur—it seems to require one to put down roots, forge permanent bonds. Without the grounding of the Paths, one’s loyalties shift swifter than whimsy. Friendships grow in a day and shatter overnight. Romances flare hotly, but end just as soon. There is nothing to keep them in a given fleet before long, only grudges, and they are abandoned at the first opportunity.”

“But would that not leave Phanirae at risk of damnation?” Tulushi’ina asked. “How will she return to us if she is thrown out from one ship to the next, one port to the next? Eventually, she will be completely lost to us all, unable to even secure passage home.”

“That is for her to deal with,” Faenolosha explained gently. It was clear that she had some personal disdain for those who broke their vows to their sacred order, but she was doing an admirable job of containing it and presenting a softer tone, more sympathetic, to soothe Tulushi’ina’s concerns. “She chose to leave us, and we do not have the time to worry about her, nor the reach to coddle her from the consequences of her own actions.”

“What about Ranger-Captain Yllia? Would she be able to find and rescue our sister?” Tulushi’ina worried.

Faenolosha sighed. “Yllia is not some grand heroine. How is she meant to hunt after every woman that runs off into the galaxy? It is not her way, nor her purpose. She belongs to a group of Exiles who have turned insular and begun to avoid all other Eldar in the fear that their curse might be discovered and exploited, enslaving them through lust. They keep to themselves as Rangers in hidden villages and small ships, withdrawn and quiet. I call them cowards, for they have no courage in the lot of them.”

Tulushi’ina paused to consider this fairly harsh assessment. It seemed strange to her that the Exiles more wary of their own weaknesses would be so disrespected, but inevitably, Morrigan was a warrior culture, she supposed. Her kinswomen only respected power, or so it seemed to her. Slowly, a creeping sense of dreadful understanding began to flow into her thoughts, as though she was glimpsing a greater, darker truth beneath it all, but before she could cement it into a clear picture, Faenolosha interrupted her with more explanation.

“But even if spread did occur, do you believe those already on the road to damnation would even notice it?” asked the Stewardess. “They breed like animals, copulating for the thrill of it, even if they have no waystones to protect their inevitable children. I doubt Seminoth’s touch would even be felt. She-Who-Thirsts already has claim upon their souls.”

“Then… Phanirae is doomed to suffer alone?”

“And learn from it, we hope. If she has any semblance of sanity left in the end, she will heap her blame and her curses upon the only one responsible for her suffering: herself. If she returns to us then, she will find sympathy and welcome.”

===

Tulushi’ina completed her first decade of sworn service like a blur. Phanirae never returned to Morrigan in all that time, though she had waited patiently, hopeful that her friend might realize her error and seek atonement. But now, after all this time, Tulushi’ina was no longer certain that they were ever truly friends, or that she had been much of a mentor at all. At the first chance to fulfill her own desires, Phanirae abandoned her without so much as a farewell.

Perhaps this was the true nature of the Yearning. Not mere physical lust, but a deeper rot of the soul. What did Phanirae truly teach her in all their friendship? Only that it was impossible for a pathetic girl like her to live up to the grand ideals and glories of these war-nuns. She was unworthy of Lileath’s favor, because she could not quell the memories of Phanirae’s violation. Every time she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw someone who would have done the same if she could, and it reduced her in ways she could not bear.

She did not deserve to remain in this order, not any longer.

The Stewardesses told her it was still a significant achievement to complete even a small fraction of her oath-span, and as she had requested to be released from her vows through formal ceremony, they found no fault in her actions. Service was always meant to be voluntary, and there were a number of Paths civilian and otherwise that inherently conflicted with the duties of a Hand of the Maiden. Mariners, for instance, could not truly serve in such a sisterhood due to their absence from the Craftworld proper. So there was always the choice of departing early if it was necessary to one’s future on the Path.

All she told them was that it was necessary to hers. It was no lie, only a half-truth.

Yet if they understood the true feelings behind her departure, they would not have been so kind and understanding. She was breaking her oath out of weakness, not greater aspiration or duty. She was no different than Phanirae, in the end. She was a small woman, pathetic and gormless. Every congratulations paid to her was a slap across the face, every praise laid at her feet for enduring a decade of frigid service an insult. She did not deserve their love. She deserved only their spite. She wished that they knew her secret and that they would spurn and scorn her, expel her with the harshest hatred.

Tulushi’ina tried not to cry as she walked into the sacred armory, laying her raiment of ornate wraithbone plate down to be returned to its stores. She prayed that it would find a better bearer than her.

She turned to depart. Amidst warm smiles and proud nods of her sisters-in-arms for what she had accomplished, Tulushi’ina was surrounded by hammers crushing her heart into smaller and smaller fragments. Someone even exclaimed that they hoped to serve even half as long as her, with half as much distinction, shaking her hand vigorously. Would that bright-eyed maiden ever realize how miserably Tulushi’ina had failed to uphold her oath?

At the entrance, a nobly-dressed Stewardess Everchaste handed her the same glaive she had wielded all those years, now an extension of herself, bowing respectfully and wishing her well in her future endeavors. The glaive’s haft collapsed as though the wraithbone was somehow alive, changing its shape and length into a knife-handle. Fitting the nature of civilian service, it was a personal armament suited to daily life and many Paths, and it would be hers forever now.

“And should you hear the call to honor again, Maiden of Lileath, you will be welcome to return and finish your oath-span. Let chastity be your guide in the Paths you walk beyond these walls.”

Tulushi’ina tried not to wince at the idea. If only this noble mistress knew. Before her façade of strength crumbled, she hurried out with what they all must have thought was enthusiasm to enter a new Path of her life now that she had finally set aside the way of the Trader. But she was not headed anywhere save for the Port of Novel Horizons, to seek the first starship off of this paradise, to hurl herself into the hell that she deserved.

Chapter Text

==Chapter XVII: Damnation’s Descent==

Tulushi’ina sat against the wall, eating some of the bread Eshairr had left for them. She had not returned for hours, and a sense of dread grew by the second. The others were growing increasingly unnerved, she could see it in their bodies. But they were not suffering from what she suffered. They did not know how badly she ached for pleasure and release. It was already unbearable before, but now, in this horrific place, her inner thoughts were only screams of desperate frustration. Was it because she feared death, or because the curvatures of the scarred tissue grown over the walls were becoming sensual to her eyes?

Flesh. Throbbing. Beating. Pulsing. Soft and wet. It was everywhere she looked, burned into her mind even when she closed her eyes.

“Can you lead us out of here?” Renemarai asked Eltaena.

“I saw the way, in my divinations. But I do not know the dangers that await us,” admitted the fallen farseer. “I do not believe we can make it on our own.”

Ren frowned, nodding, accepting this information quietly.

“We’ll need to steal a barge if we want to escape,” Kanbani said. “But most of the Coven’s fleet is absent fighting the war. What few skimmers are left are well-guarded.”

“And you know this how?” Ren asked.

Kanbani tapped her control bracer. “You think I’ve been doing nothing all this time? Banish such thoughts; I am not useless like the rest of you. My winged eyes have been scouting the sub-realm.”

“Is that so?” Ren asked, incredulous. “And the Malignantmen have not destroyed them?”

“A couple, yes, but they are well-shrouded and swift. Our captors rarely show the interest to hunt down such passing annoyances.”

“Can you engineer a distraction?” asked Leraxi, sharpening her the edge of her klaive in the corner with a monomolecular whetting rod.

“Perhaps. Can you hold off the Wracks that come spilling after us when we leave this cell?” Kanbani asked.

Leraxi nodded with grim confidence.

“Wait!” Tulushi’ina exclaimed. “We must not leave! What about Eshairr?”

Save for Eltaena, the others looked to her like she was insane.

“Do you truly believe we’re better off waiting for her? This place is only half-empty thanks to the war. If more of the Malignancy returns, it will only grow increasingly futile to attempt an escape,” Renemarai pointed out calmly.

“She is my friend! And… and what of the rest of my kinswomen?” Tulushi’ina hissed.

“They are lost,” Leraxi said coldly. “Staying here will not save them. We can only save ourselves.”

“No! You are cowards, racing to your dooms because you are terrified of Eshairr as much as you are of this Coven!” Tulushi’ina yelled.

“You want to stay? Then stay,” Kanbani shrugged. “You want to trust her? Your captain is now the pawn of a Haemonculus. She is not your friend any longer.”

“The name which was chosen for her is truer than blood,” Eltaena corrected. “If she is not our ally, she is no ally of the Coven either. That is an eshairr’s way. Disloyalty itself can be trusted, even if she dabbles in the service of Nightmares.”

“Do you truly believe she can, and will, liberate us?” Renemarai asked.

“I cannot say for certain,” said Eltaena. “Her thread of destiny has always been dark and dreadful, even from the first moment I observed it in the skein. The reason for this is beyond my vision’s reach, but I do know of what she is right now. Her potential is entwined serpents woven together, mating as one, the ideal to do great good, yet ever the urge for sweet damnation. Right now, it is the ebon viper that is ascendant in her fate, climactic and ecstatic.”

“Then we will leave her to that struggle,” Renemarai said calmly. “Our place is not here.”

“She saved your life,” Eltaena reminded her. “That was not the work of the white snake, but the black. Justice and truth, the white serpent, is cruel and unfeeling, uncaring for the hearts of others. It is fierce and brutal and hateful, and it would have gladly watched you die for your sins. No, you were saved by the black viper: the dark daughter of Fleetmistress Aydona, abandoned and cold, who envied your blood ties that granted you true heritage. She watched you hate and despise the woman she so dearly adored, flouting the affection you were granted by birth and which she was cursed without. She suffered in false love, heir only to void and emptiness. Her dismal hope, irrational as it was, was that by reuniting you with your mother, she would win a fraction of the love you had discarded.”

Renemarai looked to her companion with confusion, slowly trying to understand the strange truth being shared with her.

“In our ways, light and dark are not what they might seem,” Eltaena whispered. “A Seer learns to fear the blazing light of Khaine’s judging flames, yet we bask in the cool comfort of the Infinity Circuit’s twilit embrace. Both are necessary for balance, but it is not the light that is most kind to us, for it is not loving and gentle. Eshairr, now, is driven almost wholly by her darkness. Do you understand what that means?”

“That we should expect to be rescued?” Kanbani asked sarcastically, earning a reproachful glare from Ren.

“You lash out in anger, for you know better than any of us how dangerous she can be when she indulges in selfish desire,” Eltaena retorted. “Do you not?”

That struck Kanbani dumb, who sat back down and brooded inwardly.

“Light or dark, good or evil, only power matters; what can she possibly do to deliver us?” Leraxi growled, frustrated by the Dreamer’s overly poetic explanation.

“More than any of us can do for ourselves,” Eltaena said flatly. “Unless one of you would like to fetch me chems?”

===

The door of the experiment pen opened, and Kanbani signaled for the drone that had broken through the control panel’s security on the other side to land on her rose-colored pauldron like a metallic raven with a cyclopean eye. “You owe me a hundred flecks of plague glass, swordswoman.”

“So it seems,” Leraxi shrugged, grabbing her klaive and motioning to the others as she strolled right out into Eshairr’s quarters. It was a sparse place, lacking the typical flesh-sculpted ornamentation of a Wrack’s home. In theory, she would decorate it as she advanced in her lessons, making it her own, but…

“Did your spying eye find any chems in here?” Leraxi asked as she quickly swept the room for any threats, finding nothing as expected.

“No,” Kanbani said, stepping in and immediately setting to turning over every drawer and cabinet with adroit efficiency. “It appears our host has yet to build a stockpile of her own. This complicates matters.”

Tulushi’ina tread out of the subject cage with a nervous energy flowing from her womb, an itch that only grew more powerful at the hint of freedom. Forcing herself to focus, she became a shadow against the wall using her chameleoline cloak, which she had washed clean of all the blood using the hygiene facilities in the pen. “Then… we shall have to venture out?”

“There should be supply stashes everywhere in a place like this, enormous and plentiful—that is how it is in the Black Descent’s fortresses,” Kanbani noted, operating her control bracer to direct more of her winged eyes around the area. “We will not have to go far. I am scanning for caches already. However, we are guests, not to be wandering about without the supervision of our host. If we are caught…”

“Then it should be me that goes,” Tulushi’ina said.

Kanbani and Leraxi both turned to the Ranger with immediate doubt on their faces.

“A gentle little Craftworlder like yourself should not go prancing about the nightmares of this place,” Kanbani said. “If you were an Aspect Warrior, then perhaps…”

“It is true; as an Outcast I have no warmask to call upon,” Tulushi’ina admitted. “And this does weaken my heart to battle and terror. However, the fear, it… it is not a weakness. It sharpens our instincts, improves us as scouts. We are wasted if we perish—there is no glory in death, not for us—for our duty is knowledge, bringing vital truths gleaned by our eyes and ears to our leaders. That is what Yllia taught us. Kanbani said she would be the most potent of our heroines here. I have thought on it, and realized she is right. Valor is no use. It is only survival that matters. I shall go.”

At that, Kanbani nodded, agreeing as much with the logic as with the desire not to risk her own hide out there in hell. But another was less inclined to agree with the merits of fear.

“You?” Leraxi asked, chuckling with immense disdain, walking up to her, grabbing her arm and lifting it to test her reactions and her strength.

“Let go!” Tulushi’ina protested, trying to wrench herself free. But the strength of a warsuit-clad Eldar was a match for an Ork, and Leraxi’s grip did not slacken.

Leraxi, of course, laughed at her feeble struggles. “Hahahaha! Look at you. Tiny and weak. Half to tears. You would break at the first flesh sculpture you witness—”

Something long and white smashed into Leraxi’s bare chin, and she stumbled back, dazed enough to collapse into the wall. It was an ornate glaive, its staff collapsible and concealable to become what seemed a long knife. Its extending body had served as Tulushi’ina’s weapon, catapulting into the former Bladesworn’s jaw with the power of swelling wraithbone empowered by the wrathful aura of her soul, forceful enough to concuss the mighty warrior who had yet to repair and don her helmet. Perhaps, were it not for the Thirst, it would have killed her outright.

“Don’t you dare… touch me again!” Tulushi’ina hissed, eyes wild as she twirled the weapon in her hands and leveled the beautiful, leaf-like blade at Leraxi’s face.

Lost for words, Leraxi simply stared at her from the wreckage of the smashed desk beneath her, evaluating her bold stance, her positioning—inching away from the walls where her polearm’s length might become a hindrance—and her ferocious eyes glaring, reading the prowess of the young girl with the keen senses of one trained as an Incubus. Any warrior of such caliber learned to estimate their foes by simply reading the minutiae, judging even the very placement of every single finger upon their weapon’s shaft.

And Tulushi’ina did not disappoint in her reckoning.

Kanbani leveled her shardcarbine on the Ranger, sensing instability that endangered them all. “Relax now, Tulu. Ease your hands. You are among friends.”

“Friends?” Tulushi’ina hissed, jerking her glaive from Leraxi to Kanbani and back again. “Friends?! I watched my friends die! Again! Again, I did nothing!”

“You are a Ranger. You said so yourself: you were taught to survive and report what you have seen, not waste your life meaninglessly,” Kanbani said with one hand raised in a calming gesture. The other kept her finger on the trigger, able to keenly feel the threat growing along with the girl’s anger. She cursed herself not to have noticed how close she was to snapping.

“It is cowardice!” Tulushi’ina yelled. “I was a Hand of the Maiden, a warrior of Lileath! That is what I should be! My duty was to protect Morrigan’s people, be the shield of justice! And look what I’ve done! Look how I have warded them! And you touch me, you laugh at me, you mock me and toy with me as though I am just some doll, and I will brook it no further!”

She darted, and Kanbani yanked the trigger—but the cloak hurled into her eyes blinded her, and her spray went wide as she thrashed to tear the long, color-swimming cloth down. White crystal haft smashed her across her helmet, and the Kabalite fell, limp as a carcass. If not for her armor, the blow would have staved her skull in. Tulushi’ina whirled on Leraxi, walking closer with glowering hatred.

“Incubus. Klaive-clutcher,” said the Ranger, hissing every word through her teeth. “Honorless dog. Cruel savage. You are the living truth of the Bloody-Handed God, that he cannot be tamed; he will always thirst for more blood, even when it is ignoble to spill it. You are the proof of the true nature of the Aspect Shrines, the darkness they harbor, the corruption they represent, which your order has embraced and unleashed in full. I yearn for the day of peace when we can unmake them all and cast out their followers, or slay them if they resist. For Khaine is evil incarnate, an evil that he tainted all of us with in the days of creation, lurking forever in our souls. Until that day, I should content myself by bathing in your tainted blood!”

Leraxi, stunned, stared up at the dark-haired warrior lifting her glaive high. She managed to swing her klaive up in time to halt the falling blade once, but the impact tore the greatsword out of her hand and sent it clattering across the floor. She watched the weapon raise up again and swing down, the razor-sharp point halting only an inch from her eye.

“You do not deserve to live,” said the Ranger coldly. “But killing in anger is not the way of a Handmaiden. Death should only be dealt in frigid detachment, lest we awaken Khaine’s gift in our beautiful hearts and welcome his evil into ourselves. It is not only the touch of men that a Handmaiden avoids, but even the touch of the masculine gods.”

“How incredibly idiotic,” Leraxi retorted, sneering snidely now that she knew no death awaited her.

Then the blade cut into her sight. She screamed in blinded, red agony, clutching to her punctured eye.

“I did not say I would leave you unharmed,” Tulushi’ina said, her tone bitter, almost regretful that she could not plunge the edge deeper into death. “Never touch me or speak of me again, bitch of Khaine.”

Renemarai stepped out, holding her sword at the ready, and Tulushi’ina whirled, training her glaive on the fallen Princess. But Renemarai said and did nothing, simply looking at Tulushi’ina with an expression that conveyed no malice. Instead, she calmly regarded the blood pouring down Leraxi’s face.

“Were you my Bladesworn, I would have avenged your honor,” Ren explained. “But then, you are not. I suggest you listen to the girl and hold that Thirst of yours in check.”

Leraxi’s only reply was a bitter snort. She dealt with the pain and humiliation with surprising grace. Doubtful any Incubus neophyte survived for long if they could not, given the harsh lessons of those Shrines.

Tulushi’ina took up her cloak from the floor and tied it around her shoulders, lightly panting from the rush of her feelings unleashed.

“A Clawed Fiend, indeed,” Kanbani groaned, sitting up, removing her helmet, and rubbing her aching head through her wavy white locks.

“To you, I apologize,” Tulu said, though the manner of her voice made the truthfulness of those words somewhat circumspect.

“For what reason? I approve,” Kanbani chuckled, amused. “That failure over there was in need of a good humbling. But why hide this ferocity? We could have used it much sooner.”

“I… cannot be a Handmaiden any longer,” Tulushi’ina admitted, guilt weighing upon her shoulders. “That oath was broken. A fool girl I am, feigning valor. Damn this curse!”

“If they would be ashamed of this, then you are clearly too good for them! Hahaha!” Kanbani laughed, genuinely. “You Craftworlders and your honor and your feelings. Dark Muses preserve us that we are to rely on someone so concerned with miserable oaths!”

===

Tulushi’ina stepped out into the halls of blood and flesh, the door closing behind her. Immediately her senses expanded out to the far corners of the maze, sensing figures shifting and shambling around with her hearing, eyes noting the subtle shifting of blood-red shadows against the floors and walls. She was afraid, yes, of course. But as her vision swam with wet, coiling muscles and pumping veins bulging above, she could not silence the fire in her belly.

She pulled the hood over her head, allowing her cloak to conceal her entire presence with its muffling camouflage as she began to make use of the long-practiced breathing techniques and shadowstep arts of a Ranger. Clutching her longrifle tightly in her arms, she trotted from nook to nook, wall to wall, silent as the night, a faint blur, a soft click that escaped all senses.

Her sharp eyes caught a hazy blur hanging in the air, realizing it was one of Kanbani’s drones. She followed it as they had planned, trusting Kanbani to navigate the maze for her and keep her out of the way of any patrols that might be equipped to detect her. With that support, she felt immensely more comfortable than traversing alone.

She watched Wracks pass her by, consumed in their own studies and surprisingly cordial conversations with each other. She began to wonder if they would even care if she walked in plain sight, or if they simply could not be bothered to set aside their subjects of interest long enough to deal with a single stray Eldar. But she was in no hurry to find out.

There were other oddities, of course. The flesh sculpts all around were immediately disturbing, horrifying, still-living remains of years and years of torture. Most writhed in silent agony that she had to close her mind to, but some still possessed vocal chords and cried out in whatever alien language they knew, begging for the kindness of death. Her heart beat faster and faster, nerves on edge, ignoring them as best she could. The reminder of what might befall a thief in a Coven’s territory did not soothe her death-sense, but then Yllia’s teachings had shown them that to fear death was no weakness at all; it was the survivor’s instinct which was vital to an Outcast.

Survival. Tulushi’ina paused, thinking back to the Guardians she watched hurl themselves into the maw of the Coven’s Pain-Engines. Women that she could do nothing to save. Or was that merely an excuse to justify her flight? Her thoughts turned to the Tower of Veneloc, remembering her fellow Rangers. The blood of death spilled all around her, a nightmarish warp-twisted beast hunting them one by one and tearing them to pieces as they all tried to hide.

The memories forced a shudder through her body that disturbed the stillness of the corridor. She suddenly felt something breathing on her, and she whirled, drawing her knife in terror, only to halt at the last second.

It was not a Wrack, but some immense tumor-slug, possessed of two large nostrils that sniffed at the air where she was. It was no common Grotesque, unarmed and lacking any clear limbs, but it did have one cyclopean silver eye that tried to search for her there, to no avail. It slithered with remarkable silence through the hall, leaving a long trail of oozing slime behind, pushing itself with long tentacles extending from its belly that looked like vestigial limbs. On its back, several crates were tied down, and an empty metal saddle revealed its true purpose.

It was a pack mule. Whatever species it might have originated as was no longer apparent, so warped by cancer and experimentation. It could have begun as a xenos animal from any world, or, more disturbingly, she wondered if it might have been a human or an Eldar once. But it was clearly quite tame, sniffing at the floor as it crawled onwards at a modest pace towards some kind of set destination. Was it following a trail of pheromones scattered by the vents built into the ceiling? It almost resembled a worker cell for the Great Malignancy, bearing resources from one location to the next. In a way, its smooth, slippery, soft body, pulsating with bulging veins all over its tan flesh, had a strange quality of alien beauty, like an ugly kind of xenos-horse.

She spotted the distortion of the drone following closely after the creature, and realized after a moment’s consideration that its cargo may very well have been chems which would be useful to Eltaena. She was quick to catch up, but she did not see a good opportunity to assault it for its load—too many workers around. After a few more corners, it turned and a fleshy gate opened at its approach, as though the enormous tumor they lived in recognized it as part of itself. Tulushi’ina was too slow to follow, trying to avoid being seen by a few Wracks conversing near the portal, and it slipped in before the fleshy valve sealed itself.

The drone hovered there, staring judgmentally at Tulushi’ina, and she could imagine the annoyance on Kanbani’s face. But while she was distracted, a hand seized the winged eye and smashed it against the wall, stomping on the sparking chassis until it was reduced to twitching pieces. The Wrack responsible turned to Tulushi’ina, and, as her breath caught in her throat, he bowed low.

“Apologies. I have been tasked by my betters with hunting these annoyances,” he said, voice surprisingly smooth for such a twisted being. “You are one of Eshairr’s guests, are you not? I see by your attire that you are an Exile. Do you suffer from the same curse, or are you of a different Craftworld?”

She shivered, realizing why he was able to find her. There was a third eye-hole in his mask, beneath which some sort of alien ocular organ of surpassing clarity must have been implanted. Either he had possessed it for a long while, or, she supposed, his masters had implanted it just for this duty. Such on-the-spot modifications were so common in these fleshcults that it was impossible to know for sure.

“I do not carry the Yearning,” she managed to squeak with some façade of calm, clutching her knife close.

“Is that so?” he asked, and for a moment she felt his mutant eyes travel up her body with obvious interest, tracing up her long, slender legs to the slight gap between her thighs, feminine and fertile. He was staring at her womanhood, beneath the skintight bodyglove of her mesh, as if he could gaze through her clothes—seeing the moisture glistening between the pale lips of her quim. Explosions of desire erupted in her ovaries, like twin stars lit in the void that craved men. It was not the Yearning’s doing. Over time, she had come to understand the thin line between the curse and her own feelings, her own perversions. The lustful filth in her heart, unbound as an Exile, wanted him to see it.

“Well,” he said, a knowing tone in his voice. “If you did suffer from that malediction, we would be all too happy to treat it for you.”

Her thin lips pursed with a choked attempt to admit her lie. But she quelled the urge, at some difficulty.

The hunch-backed abomination bowed to her again. “I am Viresh, apprentice. I apologize on Eshairr’s behalf for her absence: she is currently guiding a number of her people through their first copulation. However, I would gladly entertain you in her stead. Our domain is glorious and magnificent. I can show you such wonders, friend, that will leave you astonished and humbled.”

Tulushi’ina almost rejected the offer on instinct, but the urges sweltering between her thighs made her think twice. She thought of Eshairr, deep in a pit, guiding girls through the loss of their virginities. Like hers. A wild thrill shot through her core, excitement trembling in her fingers, feeling slimy and sticky on the inside.

“Will you take me to her?” Tulushi’ina asked.

Viresh smiled. Or at least, she assumed as much. “Of course. Follow.”

===

If she had believed that she had seen all the terrors of the Extolled Malignancy in just a few hallways, Tulushi’ina was soon to regret such innocence.

Half-alive human slaves dangled from the walls, severed at the waist, exposed entrails woven into the great tumor of the sub-realm like a tangled cord of wires. They moaned and held out their arms, bony fingers clutching at air, begging in their crude tongues for the mercy of death as Tulushi’ina passed them. The Ranger stepped closer to Viresh as they passed, who seemed entirely comfortable with such décor.

Soon the tunnel of agony opened out into a large atrium, pillars of solid gold holding up a huge flap of tumorous tissue like a circus tent. This rounded chamber was not a laboratory, but a parlor of fellowship. Wracks lounged upon grisly furniture carved from living beings, discussing the secrets of the art of pain from the lap of luxury. Their every word was a nightmare invented by butchering the language of the Eldar the same way they butchered the innocent, forever tainting their regal and ancient culture with sultry gore.

Tulushi’ina giggled, eyes wide, as she quietly took in terms that she would never be free from, feeling sanity wear thin. In the tongues of lesser races, no true approximation of their evil dialect could be accomplished. Nervekissed organstab thrust-in-eye, venomblood boiling, tumorswell cancerblooming heart. It was poetry of life-in-murder, dark verse that crawled into the brain through the ears and raped one’s thoughts. Just to be around these vassals of agony was a violation of one’s mind, and an Exile had no safeguards against it. Such a mind was open and free, or rather, unguarded and drowning down the river of damnation.

Horror was a fleeting thing. What she felt was dread, long and cruel, wrapping its bony fingers around her heart and never letting go. It was the same dread she had always felt, a deep and bitter anxiousness that had always tormented her for as long as she remembered, but reborn in bleeding walls and itching parasites burrowing under the leathery floors. It was sensual, the great Malignancy throbbing all around them, wrapped up in the womb of life unbound, growing, swelling, spreading out through the portal into the Valley of Fallen Lords.

One day, she realized, in a thousand years, the tumor would swallow all of Commorragh, then the entire Webway. In a million years, it would spread out into realspace through gateways, then into the Warp through rifts, daemons burrowing into the flesh of untold trillions of life forms melded together and finding it a cornucopia of souls sewn together to rape and feast upon as they pleased. The orgy of flesh and damnation would consume and be consumed, destroying every universe it swelled into, becoming the ultimate expression of Life itself, until there is nothing but flesh and agony in every possible inch of existence.

Tulushi’ina’s eye twitched. She realized she was venturing down a dark corridor and Viresh was gone, though at what point he left her was a mystery to her confused senses. The world swam around her, and it was not an effect of some kind of chem in her blood. It was literally pulsating and twisting and slithering, organs shifting back and forth, an eye the size of a man opening and spinning around to gaze at her as she passed it by. She was completely sober and at least passingly sane, but the universe had become a nightmare around her. Distantly, she heard Viresh groaning in pain and despair, as though he had been consumed by the deep tumor, struggling to free himself from the very walls that crushed and swallowed him.

She continued to walk forwards, deeper into the crimson hell. Until at last she heard the voices of her kinswomen. It was a song of desire that danced upon her sharp ears, moans that harmonized into a choir of ecstasy. It was muffled, but surprisingly near—no doors seemed to exist here, in this wild and untamed deep cancer, so she drew her knife and stabbed into the wall, dragging it down and bathing herself in a fountain of tainted blood. With the wall severed, Tulushi’ina gripped the gash with both hands to pull it open, tearing through it with strength alone. Successful, she stumbled through, and did not notice it rapidly heal behind her.

For her eyes were on Munesha, ascendant in the many arms of Wracks, warped and twisted manhoods drilling into her from all sides as she bounced in ebony extravagance. Her strong, toned beauty glistened with oil and slime, her beautiful white locks waving as she laughed and held onto the shoulders of the ravenous horde raping her, spitting low curses at them as they tried to shove yet another long, thick length into one of her holes.

A long, arachnoid hand grabbed Munesha’s left breast, hefting the supple and rounded weight of the doughy dark flesh tightly, while another grasping limb seized her mouth, sliding fingers past her juicy lips to make her suck on the disgusting digits of her captors. The Wayseer obliged, her radiant scarlet eyes narrow with the heat of lust, loudly and wetly suckling on the spindly fingers rubbing over her tongue.

One of the largest cocks rising up into her dark quim throbbed with sudden energy under her, and Munesha’s voice caught in her throat as a disgusting fountain of yellowish semen exploded out from her stretched, plush slit. The other girths grinding against the ejaculating member inside of her began to spasm with sympathetic vigor, joining the carnal impregnation of the Exodite in an orgy of semen exploding into and back out of her, puddling below.

The Wracks stayed locked side by side, shoulder to shoulder, surrounding her as they shared a long, grunting orgasm inside her holes. And then, dancing to the same beat, they all withdrew, depositing Munesha on the ground and letting the rest of their loads spill out onto her hair, her face, her breasts, her belly beneath them. Rope after rope coated her beauty, leaving her splayed wide on the fleshy floor, digging a finger into her stuffed slit and licking up whatever seed her tongue could catch on it.

“Is that all?” Munesha laughed, giddy with breeding fire. “I’ve had mon’keigh better than this!”

The wracks beheld her with silence and throbbing lengths, and for a moment Tulushi’ina wondered if they might continue at her taunt—whatever stimulant chems coursed through them must have made them virtually insatiable. But then they stepped back, for Munesha’s boasts had stirred a giant of muscle and tumors that now stomped towards her from the edge of the flesh laboratory.

Whatever passed for a mind within the creature gazed down at the filth-stained Exodite, as if regarding her beauty with almost fawning delight. But the four-armed, musclebound abomination masked in bronze, its back bristling with a bush of chem-pumps that sustained its warped existence with gallons of injections directly into its organs, was not driven by such an innocent thing as fascination.

Between its enormous legs, a freshly grafted manhood that looked handmade began to swell and harden. A cluster of testes the size and weight of great fruits visibly pulsed beneath the growing pillar of crimson flesh, ugly bumps along its surface. Munesha stared up at the beast, stroking her slit with immediate apprehension, but also interest. Its length was the size and width of her own thigh, and—

Munesha wanted it.

Tulushi’ina tore her eyes away, because she also found it bizarrely exciting just to look at such a thing. But there was no relief from the onslaught of sensuality to be found.

The other women in the room were Guardians that had been in the assault, each pinned under strangely tall, lean, elegant canines, their fur peculiarly the exact shade of Azraenn’s golden hair. Moaning, holding onto the thrusting animals, their hips bucking up against the downwards slams of fuzzy hips, it was a dozen mating presses lined up side by side, and every single one of those women were the same as Tulushi’ina—women that had never joined a breeding cycle or known a man. And yet they exulted in the passions of the beasts rutting them, large, thick dog cocks plunging into the slippery caress of their pale lips that swallowed around the swelling bulbs at the base, just before the hounds squealed and sank down all the way, their gold furred balls visibly leaping as they filled these women with the ejaculate of disgusting animals, worse than humans, the servants of humans.

And every single one of them adored it, wrapping their legs around the slender bodies of their canid mates as the flesh-tie locked them all together. Goddesses, they cried out in pleasure so intense that they could scarcely breathe between the strained moans, their light and perky bosoms rising and falling with every husky pant of joy. Tulushi’ina felt, through her empathic senses that she dared open up for just a moment, the sudden flush of new life rock through each of them, and she giggled incredulously at the phantom sensations of unbelievable pleasure that washed through her own body. It was insane—how could mere animals impregnate Eldar? But then, that was a simple challenge to the Covens.

Tulushi’ina barely noticed the filth of the blood dripping down her body and sticking to her hair, because her womanhood felt twice as filthy as it oozed lubricant. She removed her rebreather, finally able to breathe what they breathed. The very air was wet, both with the weight of semen and the aura of womanly arousal, so thick she could taste them mingling upon her tongue with every heavy pant she swallowed into her lungs. This was all that anyone needed to drown in the unctuous stench of absolute degeneracy.

She looked back to Munesha, who had taken her rightful place kneeling beneath the goliath of a Grotesque, running her tongue over the disgusting vermillion manhood throbbing against her face. It was far too large to tend to every part of it with her mouth, so she latched her lips to its tip, where endless precome leaked out to be sampled and tasted by her lascivious tongue. Her hands jerked along the bumpy length with long, rough pumps, and she moaned into the meat she was kissing like a lover’s lips, worshiping the abundant fertility pulsating before her as though she were used to coupling with large beasts in the woods.

“She wears the passion of Gea, does she not?”

Tulushi’ina, startled, glanced over to the woman who approached with wet squelches of boots on fleshy, greasy floor. Though she had already witnessed the preternatural changes that had come over her friend, it still took her eyes a moment to adjust and recognize white-haired, matured Eshairr, a dulled gleam in her beautiful violet eyes where once there was the fire of youth.

“Y-yes, it is quite… extravagant,” Tulushi’ina whispered. “I thought you said you were going to protect her.”

“Yes, but protect her from what? Relief from our curse?” Eshairr asked, cocking her head. “My rivals would have seized her sooner or later if I left her in that cell. But if I am making use of her for the master’s experiments, they can do nothing to pry her out of my fingers. Fortunately, Munesha did not require goading to join the orgy of her own free will.”

Tulushi’ina giggled nervously, tempted to immediately ask for the same privilege. Before the words manifested on her tongue, however, Eshairr wrapped an arm around her shoulders and dragged her out of the room, passing through an adjoining vein into an empty and quiet void within the tumor. Here they were alone, free to speak as they wished.

“Shi’ina,” she said, choosing a different sobriquet for her comrade than anyone else ever had. Taken on its own, this part of her name meant ‘weaver of song.’ It was strange to her, as she had never felt the draw to walk the Path of the Songstress, yet her foster mother had been adamant that it was a necessary part of her given name. It was why nearly all her companions called her Tulu, as it was a simple and pretty name meaning ‘moonstone.’ But to call her Shi’ina was to say that she was something she was not.

“That you ventured here of your own accord is proof that you, too, have felt the call of the Yearning,” Eshairr explained. “You were safe, your identity unknown to this league of fleshcrafters. Yet you gave up that safety. You sought me out. You desire this, don’t you?”

Eshairr had put words to the deep urges driving Tulushi’ina mad.

The ranger looked down at her feet, seeing the disgusting slime beneath her boots. She had invited this upon herself. She had practically begged for it, all while convincing herself she was searching for chems for Eltaena. Was she any better than Phanirae, who abandoned her all those years ago? Was she any different than the warriors that charged into the Cancer of Stars claiming they wished to save Eshairr, only to get themselves defeated and captured and subjected to the same fate?

Gradually, as she contemplated, she began to recall the strange impression she once felt as she thought about her friend Phanirae’s actions. Back then, it had only been a vague sensation of unease, lacking wider perspective to understand the true pattern. Now she saw it at last, the dark tapestry of what the Yearning did to them all. A weave of self-defeat, stitched into the heart of every Morriganite by a daemon’s hand. The more they tried to fight the curse, the more easily it could trick them and ensure their downfall.

Was that why Eros had defeated them?

“Shi’ina,” Eshairr said, shaking her out of her thoughts. “I know you must be eager to escape. I am sure my other guests are terrified as well. I will deal with them later. But it is unwise to risk your lives on a wild and haphazard venture like that. I will free you all, but I need time. In that time, you will suffer the curse unless you join us. If you join my experiments, I can ensure you will come to no harm. I cannot say the same for those dragged into Pholog’s games… but I will work to requisition the women he experiments with as quietly as I can. I will save them. I will save you.”

It was a devil’s offer, for it would mean giving up her freedom, her safety, and becoming just another captive of the Coven. But she would be choosing the one who would hold her leash. She would be choosing Eshairr’s collar.

And none of the women in the other room seemed to chafe at it.

Underneath her mesh armor was a flood, sticky and sweet. She had almost forgotten how aroused she was, feeling her own juices run down her legs, trapped in her skintight suit like rivers of lava upon her pale, delicate skin. The touch of another woman’s fingers between her legs sent a thrill up Tulushi’ina’s spine, a stroke up along the luscious outline of her quim through her mesh.

“Shi’ina,” Eshairr purred, her cold, strong fingers massaging her friend’s neck possessively even as she groped the girl with the other hand. “Discard this ugly armor, which blinds us all to your beauty. Set aside your rifle, which you have clung to all this time. I shall prepare for you delight, and rain upon you pleasure. I have learned such interesting games…”

With a breath of desire, Tulushi’ina allowed Eshairr’s hands to wander her and detach her armor, standing as tall as she could. The white mesh glued to every inch of her body below her chin wrinkled as she commanded it to release her, slackening, growing loose and simply falling away as Eshairr pried the armored vest and belt off of her with gentle caresses.

At last, Tulushi’ina stood bare to the air in the depths of damnation. Though it was not the debauchery she had sought from the beginning, this was the hell she had yearned for ever since she left the Hands of the Maiden. She clutched only to the cameleoline cloak still on her shoulders, wrapped around her like a blanket, but a kiss from Eshairr’s lips to the nape of her neck shattered her last anxiety. With a surge of relief, Tulushi’ina spread her arms wide, holding the color-shifting fabric off of herself, and finally released it from her fingers, fluttering to crumple around her feet.

She would stand in shadow no longer.

Like a star in the great void, the whitest flesh, pure as snow, gleamed in the darkness of the deep tumor. She was small for an Eldar, but nonetheless taller than a human woman, slender and tender as Lileath herself. Her long dark locks flowed around her like dyed silk, spilling down to her gentle, perky bosoms, capped with small pink nubs. She clutched her arms around her bare chest, hugging herself as Eshairr’s digits played across her pert, soft rear, gooseflesh crawling up every inch of her skin. Tulushi’ina hung her head back, lips pursing into a kiss at the sultry air, and then Eshairr seized her and threw her down where she belonged.

===

Why had she bent over for the beast? The curse was blessedly absent, for now. It was not as if she could blame it this time.

Why had she watched his disgusting, slimy cock slide out halfway from his full, fuzzy sheath as she presented her delectable rump to him, showing him the glistening slit that itched to feel him again? Why did it awaken a strange thrill, knowing that his manhood remembered the warmth and softness of her inner folds?

Why had she enjoyed feeling his warm fur crawl up her back as he mounted her and locked his forelegs around her hips?

Azraenn was not being compelled, nor was the dog. There was no purpose in any of this.

But the hours were long, and they were trapped together in the same cell, and…

They might as well.

It should not have been so surprising this time, but even so feeling his length slide in all the way shook her, a shiver rising up to her wild, luxurious golden hair. Her ample breasts, Pholog’s gifts, wobbled lightly as she sought the best place to grip the cold, hard floor to hold herself up. Each position of her arms and legs was more uncomfortable than the last. Or perhaps it was just that there was no true way to feel comfortable with the difference between their species, no angle that perfectly balanced the weight between them, no pose she could adopt that would smooth his thrusts into what her body sought from a mate.

His pace, though, was far more comfortable this time. Not crazed like before, not driven into mad rutting by the chems in his bloodstream. He took his time sampling the sweet sanctuary of an Eldar woman, panting heavily and licking his chops loudly as his pink girth slid in and out of her flushed, pale lips that swallowed around him more greedily than she meant for them to. He was still an animal, though, and so spared her no consideration for the pleasure she was seeking. Long before the rising urges in her belly brought her to anything resembling a peak, she felt the spray of his seed down her moist passage, like acid burning at the entrance of her womb.

“Agn,” Azraenn sighed disappointedly, tensing briefly, but forcing herself to relax. Though the Yearning’s temptations were gone, the rush of impregnation was as intense as ever. Whatever abomination had been made of her uterus, it was astonishingly quick to bring semen to root. She gasped at the bulge of his knot spreading her wider, locking his heavy meat inside her as its load continued to spurt into her, and was sealed within. He turned his back to her, swinging his leg over to adopt the strange, defensive pose these canids preferred when mating.

The second time was both better and worse, she thought idly. It was less harmful, but a part of her missed the savagery of the initial violation, the fury of the animal’s thrusts, the invasive weight of the dense nectar he had filled her with, her own terror at being used in such a foul experiment, degraded to the mate of a beast like this. This time he had simply done his duty, answered her call, and seemed to think little of the deed. The dog was too tame, too broken by the civilization of the humans. He had few instincts of true wilderness left in his small mind. It was impossible to respect such a lowly, simple-minded creature.

Then why had she spread her legs for him?

Curiosity, she guessed. She had to know if this was the salvation Eallari had preached of. Though physically pleasurable, however, she was now certain it was far from the star-shaking revelation that must have come to her sister. Something was missing.
Eventually, the hound’s knot slackened and he slipped free from her, leaving a drizzle of cloudy semen leaking from her pulsing, sore lips. Azraenn rose to her feet, turning around to regard with disdain the creature she had allowed to give her child. Briefly she was tempted again to end him; it would have been effortless. But then she would be alone.

Azraenn looked at her hands, weapons as deadly as any blade. Should an Aspect Warrior hesitate to kill?

Dishonored as she was, she was left only with questions, feeling detached from her own disgust. She turned to the gothic steel bars and wrapped her hands around them, leaning against them, staring out at the wracks observing the other test subjects under close scrutiny.

“Hey,” she said, surprised by her own irritation. “You expect me to be satisfied with a a trifling, inferior mate like this?”

===

The maiden in the depths of hell awoke to a dream. It would have been a nightmare to anyone else, but to her, it was a heaven of pulsing veins and crimson walls and watching eyes.

Her pale, slender body was trapped inside some manner of fleshy vice, sealing her arms against her back. Only her head and hips were exposed, on opposite sides of the wall of flesh that had wrapped her up in its rippling muscles, massaging her body, suckling at her small, delicate breasts in ways that made her breathing quicken and her slit drool ever more salaciously. Her legs shivered, knees turning inwards as the deep tumor slurped around her nipples with what felt like tongues and lips, and other mouths within the wall kissed at her back, at her collar, her fingers. She realized that if any of these wretched tumors trying to molest her still possessed teeth, she would have been torn into pieces in moments. As best she guessed, someone—Eshairr, probably—must have crawled in with pliers and ripped the fangs out of this arcane torture instrument, transforming it to a device of pleasure.

She giggled. How absurd. Everything in this place was absurd. Nothing made sense. That was why it was a dream. A dream she allowed herself to sink into, her beautiful, luxurious black locks spilling out around her as she lifted her head to see the source of the strange snorting noises she kept hearing.

Women, not far away, were bouncing between huge, grey-fleshed xenos. Ur-Ghuls. They were thin like skeletons, malnourished, limbs long and regardless swollen with lean muscle, and their heads lacked eyes—instead possessed only of five large nostrils, huge and dark like eyeless sockets, which flared and huffed up the potent, scintillating fumes being pumped into the chamber. It smelled like the lovely scent of Gea’s arousal, an irresistible temptation for any creature in the universe, and Tulushi’ina, too, could already feel it taking effect, making her squirm against the flesh-stockade that was her torturous binding.

Ynnatta was there, her pretty, dark hair caught in the long, powerful fingers of one Ur-Ghul while it rutted her sore, exhausted slit already oozing like a cornucopia of alien seed. Her voice fluttered in the air every time the alien slammed into her depths, long lost to any semblance of sanity. Her eyes were rolled back in half-conscious madness, drooling on her hands and knees, the pleasure of the endless breeding by countless mates simply too much for any Eldar to bear.

Azraenn was beside her, but unlike Ynnatta who was truly broken, the golden-haired beauty bounced atop her own Ur-Ghul that huffed loudly through his quintet of nostrils. The sheer length of the alien she was riding was astonishing, nearly a forearm’s length of cock sliding smoothly up into her toned core of glistening, wet abs every time she sank down on the wicked creature without the slightest sign of discomfort. Her glorious, bodacious bosoms capped with fresh pink nubs bounced and jiggled hard with every slide down until her bottom impacted its scratchy thighs.

And she sighed pleasantly with her sweat-slick locks waving over her like a lion’s mane in the wind. She was enjoying herself, claiming this foul beast, this man-eating monster as a mate. But it was no prey of hers. Its clawed fingers found her hips, locking around her, long, gnarled fingers reaching around. Sudden with greed, it dragged the fertile warrior up and down on its swollen, veiny girth, spearing her deep with building growls of bestial thrill rumbling through its sharp teeth. She clutched to its strong chest, moaning outwardly, eyes shut as she struggled to gather her strength while it made use of her like a toy for its pleasure.

“By Lileath,” Tulushi’ina whispered, shocked and awed. She squirmed against the wet confines trapping her, trying to free herself, but motion only spurred the mouths into gnawing over her body twice as fervently, mashing over her skin, squeezing her small, dainty bosoms tightly until the breath fled her lungs and her legs shook scandalously where they dangled.

And the pursing of her delicate vulva did not go unseen.

===

Behind the wall, a tall, white-haired glory stepped close, licking her lips at the beauty of the taut, callipygian rump sticking out, those long, snow-white legs turning inwards at the urges of desire washing through the poor girl. Eshairr was naked as well, her sumptuous femininity on full display. But her own arousal was not shown through just moisture dripping down her legs.

Like a snarling monster, a crimson facsimile of a penis arose from between her juicy thighs, a flesh-wrought member attached at her clitoris, melded with her body. This twisted endowment reflected a generous measure of an Aeldari’s length. Immense, throbbing, covered in a web of pulsating veins and roughshod bumps, it was akin to the psychoplastic manhoods that lined the walls of Morrigan’s sapphic temples, thick as bone all the way to transcendant crowns. This dark implement grafted to the student of pain was fantasy forged from flesh, and the girl it was meant for would be aghast with morbid curiosity if she knew what would soon claim her.

Completely vulnerable, exposed and powerless, Tulushi’ina was but prey awaiting the fangs of the predator to sink into her.

Munesha’s moaning nearby distracted Eshairr briefly, who paused, gently stroking her organic attachment. She enjoyed the anticipatory tingles tickling down into her body, its hand-woven nerves fused to her own. The Exodite was wrapped up in the arms of the grotesque she had paid worship to, and red lightning arced along her body as the great beast bounced her up and down his gargantuan girth. Her powers were surging with the strength to endure the sheer scale plunging into her deepest depths. Even so, empowered to the utmost, the Wayseer gasped and screamed with electric ecstasy as the flesh-machine reamed her and squeezed her tightly in his muscles, her bronzed, toned body the very picture of demigodly might and yet utterly crushed inside and out by this dark drudge.

“More, more, moremoremore!” Munesha howled aloud, and the tormented monster slammed her into the wall, pinning her face first against it as her long, dark legs wrapped around its waist backwards, heels almost meeting. She grasped to the scarred eaves weakly, tongue wagging out of her mouth with every delirious pant of animal lust. Wide as a swollen bicep, its leviathan length drilled into her tight, wet, swallowing quim with the speed and power of an industrial pneumatic, stretching her to the absolute limits of her body and psychic gifts, bulging visibly under her skin at the apex of every thrust.

Eshairr could not help but smile to see her friend so pleased, her powers so unleashed upon carnal rampage. Munesha was a simple woman indeed. Tulushi’ina was not. The poor girl was in dire need of her attentions, so regrettably she tore away from such a delectable sight and returned to her own experiment.

It was hard not to do so. She reached out, touching the fair, sweet rump before her with just a single finger. A message—that she was not alone. Tulu’s hips jerked immediately at the sensation, her red, flushed slit oozing all the more eagerly. She had no way of knowing who or what was behind her, lining up with her, preparing to give her what she wanted so badly. And that only seemed to stimulate the girl twice as much.

Eshairr grabbed both of her pale cheeks then, squeezing them, rubbing them like firm dough. The more she massaged, the more often her hips hitched and wiggled in protest, more resembling an invitation. She was dying for it, begging, though her voice was impossible to hear. But Eshairr could imagine the jittery, stammering squeaks of her companion on the other side of the wall, calling out for mercy. The Yearning could not be allowed to torment her any longer.

Swelling with the pride of dominance, Eshairr took her fantastic length in hand and pumped it gently as she lined up with the trapped hips of her friend. She allowed it to touch Tulushi’ina’s flower for just a moment, letting her feel the pulsing thirst of the manhood that would violate her. A rolling shiver shot through Tulu’s back and her legs, tense, restless, desperate for it and yet so very, very anxious. One heartbeat passed, and then Eshairr pushed forwards, feeding the ravenous lips that stretched wide around her, enjoying how they squeezed with biological protest at the first invasion they had ever known.

===

Someone was behind her.

That thought alone terrified her beyond all reason.

She was pinned here, utterly helpless to stop anything being done to her.

And yet, as hands made a game of touching her, toying with her rump, warm fingers squeezing and kneading her, exploring and wandering her skin, Tulushi’ina felt a strange sense of inevitability fall over her heart.

It felt good. She could do nothing to stop it; she could apply none of her skills or prowess to defend herself. She was now finally, utterly imprisoned in a fate that could not be avoided, and the curse boiled joyously in her core at that dark revelation. Goddesses, how long had she denied herself this? The folly of all her years weighed upon her.

She was not allowed to dwell on it for long. Something—not a finger this time—brushed against her womanhood, staying there, throbbing. It felt thick and dense like stone, but it burned with fire. She felt some kind of fluid squeeze out of it, joining the sticky mess of her own natural lubricant, and her heart stopped.

Pregnant. She was going to get pregnant. She had no idea what was even doing this to her, and yet she knew Eshairr’s experiments from observation. Was it one of those dogs which had mated those women? Would she soon feel a swelling bulge of flesh at her entrance, locking inside of her? Was it another wrack, summoned to be her first partner? Was it a flesh-menial, like that grotesque? Or one of those strange pack mule slugs? Could it be an alien, like an Ur-Ghul?

None of these thoughts disturbed her as much as she expected them to. She found herself to enjoy the wandering of her mind from one fantasy to the next.

She looked to Azraenn, beaming in pleasure atop the long, long steely inches sliding up into her foamy slit. It was as captiving to watch their sinful copulation as ever, and a sympathetic thrill of desire to feel the very same delight rolled through her. A second Ur-Ghul suddenly scampered up behind the warrior and pushed her down, searching greedily with its meat for something to slide into, and Azraenn’s gasp of surprise proved it found exactly what it wanted, right alongside the other grey pillar. She did not seem overly upset at having her tight rear invaded, and soon both Ur-Ghuls were plowing the amazonian beauty between them, grey muscles rippling with strength as one cock drew out while the other plunged in straight to the hilt. The aliens seemed to enjoy the competition just as much as she did, rapidly becoming far more frenzied in their thrusts until Azraenn was completely sandwiched between two pistoning aliens, her enormous bosoms flattened into the one beneath her while the tongue of the one on top her back slithered out to taste her face.

And while she was distracted watching that, Tulushi’ina suddenly felt the girth at her entrance strike forwards with masculine assertiveness.

The air fled her lungs in a wild gasp, eyes wide, throwing her head back, her long, silken locks lifting and falling back down around her. She had no knowledge of its true size, and bereft of that knowledge, she could only reckon by how it felt within, tasting the breadth of the cock with her tightening folds. To her it was massive, so big it almost hurt, the sheer, crushing pressure inside of her sliding in deeper before she could even grow used to it. Her partner did not have any sense of how she felt, how slowly she wished to take it. She turned her knees inwards, bow-legged, feet rising on her tip-toes, back thrashing against the flesh-stocks trapping her in place, all trying to find some kind of comfort. But no angle she found soothed the red-hot sensations rocking through her, with this invader claiming her inner grail for the first time in her life. And as the moments went on, with it sinking deeper into her core, she began to realize she did not want comfort. Sex was not a comfortable thing, but an invasion, an assault upon her femininity which was to be dreaded and longed for in equal measure.

It was a strange and primal game with no winner and no loser, a war in which victory was defeat. It was a chase, where hunter and the hunted danced together until a grand and intoxicating glow raised them both into the stars. It was a dream when desired and a nightmare when fled from, and for her it became like both, feeling the throbs of the stranger’s length summoning its strength as it plunged into her, drew out, and plunged back in, searching for rhythm and tempo in their sweet song of life.

“Yes, more,” Tulushi’ina whined, echoing the words of Phanirae that had stung in her mind for all these years, when that great woman was seized and thrown down and raped and embraced it.

Hers was not the only voice raised in supplication of the violation visited vociferously upon her. Azraenn exulted in the toe-curling ferocity of her mates, how they seemed determined to conquer her into complete submission. The warrior took blow after blow from their powerful hips, wrenching her face away from the alien tongue trying to taste it in a gruesome mockery of a kiss. Her body bounced between them, tightening, writhing, clawing at the bulk of the beast sodomizing her as much as she tried to bite the shoulder of the monster buried deep inside her reworked pussy. Shamefully, she paused just long enough to let the tongue of her mate slither into her mouth, grasping her own monumental breast in hand and squeezing it, kneading the foul gift of the Coven in all its full, rounded perfection. She was dosing herself with the tonic thrill of the sensitivity of the mountain in her hand, embraced as a device for her own satisfaction.

“Mmmph!” Azraenn moaned deliriously into the tongue worming down her throat, eyes distant and unfocused, face flushed as red as lust. It was so hot between her alien partners that sweat rolled down every inch of her toned, womanly physique like glistening oil, and they built up towards a furious finale that would bring the warrior to heaven in the depths of hell.

“No more,” Ynnatta gasped dazedly, her tight body completely beleaguered with alien spawn. Her protests only spurred the xenos raping her into twice the force, enthralled by her needy mewls. The beast rutting her needed little more incentive to let her feel his potent essence, and it grabbed her by the arms and suspended her off of the ground, bucking a few more times into her sweltering honeypot. Then it added its own load to the disgusting mix of alien semen inside her womb with deep, sickening sloshes of fluids pumping into her, audible to the sharp ears of Eldar. Ynnatta sagged where she hung face down, completely beaten and mind swimming in an ocean of half-awake bliss, drooling as the curse rewarded her with one more shivering lightning bolt of ecstasy she could barely feel anymore.

Almost simultaneously, the two Ur-Ghuls breeding Azraenn tensed to steel around her, and Tulushi’ina gasped to see them both slam in to the absolute limits, completely impaling the beautiful adherent of Khaine from both sides. There was silence, only tongue-muffled groans of protest escaping the golden-haired reveler. And then she arched her back between them, seizing up both her breasts and rubbing them ravenously, pinching her own nipples as she shivered, eyes rolling back in building ecstasy of absolute, endless overstimulation, and—huge grey lengths pulsating and swelling with erupting loads—an ocean of white seed exploded out into a dense puddle under them.

“P-please, I want to join them!” Tulushi’ina pined, her desperate tone echoing through the Ur-Ghul den as she felt the huge length plunging into her grow more confident and controlled in its thrusts. She could feel her mysterious paramour’s hands grip her narrow and strong hips, pinning her bottom completely in place to more easily thrust into her sweet, wet, welcoming folds. Every swing of that immense pillar scraped deeper into her body than the last, and it only seemed to grow thicker with arousal, making her so weak in the knees. Her heart fluttered in her chest, watching complete degeneracy with eyes glazed in pleasure.

Again she wondered, who was making use of her body so casually? It seemed Eldar at this point, but was it a Wrack? A kabalite? Could it be a hellion, or worse, a petty servant or chained slave? Or just some unwashed, diseased chem addict off the streets? It was terrifying not to know who was making use of her body so casually, and yet all the more exciting, because the Yearning blazed in her ovaries with even giddier excitement the more her thoughts wandered to lower, more disgusting mates to bear a child for. She deserved this, Tulushi’ina thought, to be reduced and degraded by all the most awful men of Commorragh, or even lowlier beasts like those Ur-Ghuls.

Rhythm came slowly to her unseen mate. Was he feeling half as wonderful as she did? Was indulgence in her completely captive flower, throwing himself into her vulnerable body with such wild abandon, something so irresistibly potent? But he never faltered, no, he took her with twice as much ferocity even as those hands gripped onto her and molested her greedily.

The pace could not possibly last. Tulushi’ina was bouncing forwards at every slap of her unknown lover’s hips into her round bottom, panting for air, tingles rising up through her chest like roots of pure euphoria burrowing out from her belly, her womb. Complete animal joy, the basest of pleasures, was now her sole thought, her only focus. She slid away from the mental control that Morrigan had instilled into every last one of its daughters, trapped on an endless slope down to damnation. Slowly she learned to release the primal lust that she had always felt. This was the urge to love, to mate, to breed.

And her partner was losing himself, too. She felt the grip of those fingers clench into her skin, nails digging painfully into her, and she moaned at the warring sensations of pain and pleasure. He filled her up, smashed her slit, speared her with his enormous length and left her whining and squealing where she was trapped. Closing her eyes, she did nothing but gasp for air, hyperventilating, realizing the hot, firey abyss she was falling into was now completely unavoidable.

At the edge of her thoughts, as the jackhammering suddenly froze halfway into the next hump, she empathically sensed the sudden jolt of ecstasy from behind her, a roaring storm of mind-numbing release. Godly pleasure rocked into her very womb, radiating from her fertile mate, sharing the heat of orgasm with her. An instant after it began, she felt the last faltering thrust of that fat length, and then arrived the torrent of hot seed that splashed in half-pint ropes straight into her deepest temple.

Tulushi’ina moaned out to the hell around her, thunderstruck, convulsing with primal electricity. Her maidenhood was given up as a grand sacrifice to lascivious satisfaction, hurling herself gleefully into her first grand tempest of heat and numbness. The winds of her own feelings drew into a tight-knit stone, becoming naught but molten ore melting in the fires of the great furnace of life within herself. She perished and was born again, her nerves singing a symphony of bliss plucked on them by the cock of a stranger, impregnated by the seed of the unknown.

===

Eshairr could scarcely believe how incredible breeding a woman could feel. Her experiment already proved countless hypotheses, but the fleeting joy of intellectual discovery was quick to be lost amidst the simple delights of sex. She could not stop smashing her own friend’s tight, tight red labia with every inch of her attached tool, realizing what skill and experience Ravan must have possessed to be able to violate her so thoroughly without losing himself like a whimpering boy. That the exiled Scourge had defeated her so utterly was no coincidence; he must have enjoyed countless women against their will, and Eshairr herself was merely one more trophy to be claimed, a rare, innocent heart to carve himself into forever.

Twistedly, the thought aroused her now, dreaming of her time spent underneath the fallen messenger, buried in the muck and the refuse of the alleyway. And now she was doing something almost as severe to her sweetest friend, the delicate and gentle ranger. The sight of her lusty ass twitching in reflexive protest as she pounded it stirred a thrill of dominance, a dark joy of conquering her own comrade without her understanding. The fact that she was, in some ways, repeating what Ravan had done to her only stirred her higher on earthly euphoria. She fucked the slender girl ravenously but before she realized, all the mounting urges and twinges of pleasure collided into a hot wall of bliss, sinking into a woman’s vulva and feeling her hand-crafted phallus spasm in utter completion.

She shut her eyes, swung in, and held there, panting, her bountiful body glistening with sweat, savoring the wicked glory of release into a fertile mate.

Amid the climax, only half-aware, Eshairr groaned and looked down at the twitching bottom of her comrade, observing with a gleam in her eyes. It worked. Her experiment worked. The artificial cock buried inside Tulushi’ina’s suckling quim pulsed and poured its reserves of potent semen straight into the quivering honeypot rippling with orgasmic joy. She sensed the sudden ecstasy that struck like lightning through the ranger, knowing exactly how intense one’s first impregnation could be, and Tulushi’ina had nowhere to run from it, forced to endure feeling every single drop of hot white seed fired off into her clenching folds.

At last, after what seemed an eternity, Eshairr slowly, weakly pulled herself free. Doing so spelled the end of her experiment, as before she could catch it, the false member simply drooped and fell off of her, its fleeting life spent. Still, it had served its purpose, she mused, kicking the lifeless organ elsewhere and already imagining improvements to be made for the next attempt.

She took one last look at Tulushi’ina’s sweaty rear, the fresh essence dripping from her stretched lips, and swatted her pert cheeks with one large, hard slap. “Good girl,” Eshairr purred.

The sounds of Munesha’s gasping, incoherent ecstasy in the arms of the grotesque played out from the other side of the room, catching her attention for a moment. The bronzed beauty was crying out, eyes shut, completely lost in heavenly sensations washing through her strong, supple body. Still pinned against the wall in the creature’s arms, a gushing tide of the abomination’s stinking loads flowed into her and splashed back out, completely flooding her to the brim with enough of its modified swimmers to ensure that if the Wracks before had somehow failed to give her child, the Grotesque now would.

Eshairr smirked approvingly. It was a fitting friend to last the Exodite a while, just as Azraenn had the dog-father and the Ur-Ghuls now. The Guardians in her care had taken to Azraenn’s hounds just as lovingly, too, swapping tongues with the big, clever half-Eldar canines that seemed to enjoy kisses and affection as much as any of their animal forefathers. But Tulushi’ina would need playmates of her own, and Eshairr would not have endless free time to play with her or any of the other Morriganites as she pleased, sadly.