Vashante stood in silence beside the hulking form of Lady Bhaeryn’s crawler, her mechanical limbs settled after their long climb from the spire down into the rubble. The day star sank beyond the colossal fissure carved in Acetyn’s artificial sky, its final rays painting the City’s wreckage in copper twilight. Then, almost mercifully, darkness swept back into the world below, an enveloping cloak that reclaimed its dominion among the ruined halls.

  The day-star’s oppressive glare faded, retreating from the shattered expanse of Acetyn’s false heavens, and darkness seeped back into the City’s devastated interior. Familiar shadows stretched and deepened, returning the comforting gloom that had once concealed them all.

  Yet darkness brought little solace now. Inside the carriage, hidden amidst silken sheets and pillows, Bee lay ravaged by the infestation that consumed her body and mind. The parasites had all but claimed her completely. Vashante found it harder each day to look upon her Lady, and now she never permitted herself more than a glance to spare Bee the indignity of her gaze. There was so much that she wanted to say. There was so much she could not bear to say.

  Beneath the Lady’s skin, the worms writhed visibly, coils and loops of alien musculature sliding grotesquely. Bee’s eyes, once sharp with defiance, now dulled with agony and exhaustion, her features strained with a torment she could no longer mask.

  The Eidolon felt something tighten within her chest—anguish perhaps, or guilt—but her face remained impassive, her thoughts a tempest beneath the careful neutrality of her plated visage. The Lady’s torment was Vashante’s failure. She had vowed to protect her, to shield her from the endless horrors of this war, yet now she stood helpless, watching as the infestation took its final, merciless hold.

  In the dark that reclaimed the ruined cityscape, the war-host stirred. Commanders shouted orders, banners unfurled, and soldiers gathered their battered armaments once more. Months of conflict had left them weary, broken, and spent, yet their resolve held firm. Around them, great elevators rose from the rubble. Makeshift things—rusty platforms reinforced with fibrous cables and powered by borrowed bioengines—had been erected at strategic points. Their purpose: to lift the warbands to Acetyn’s upper surface.

  Preparations were meticulous; they would ascend this night while darkness shielded their fragile flesh from the punishing heat of the day-star.

  Around them, the City’s gloom stirred with renewed purpose. From the deep depths, the battered armies of both Lady Bhaeryn and Lady Hash had mustered fresh supplies, drawing upon hidden stockpiles and salvage to forge new strength.

  Night fell in earnest, and the chaotic hush of the City gave way to urgent voices. Commanders convened around flickering biolights; watchers stood poised at half-toppled towers, waiting for the signal to ascend.

  Vashante watched stoically as the ranks formed, the zeal and weariness intermingling among soldiers clad in black and gold, azure and sable. Exhaustion clung to every soldier. This was their final gambit. Whatever awaited them above, at the threshold of the Pate Gardens, would determine the course of their shared future—or doom them entirely. She felt the familiar cold resolve settle within her. There was no turning back.

  The hours of departure stretched on, a weary drumbeat of caution and coordination as the combined armies of the Lady Hash and the Lady Bhaeryn ascended to Acetyn’s ash-blasted surface. First came Lady Hash’s personal entourage, their azure and sable banners glinting in the dim half-light, then the forward elements of Bee’s black-and-gold warbands. Long lines of biocrawlers, supply rigs, and uneasy infantry piled onto the creaking elevators that groaned with the weight of flesh and repurposed star metal.

  Vashante stood apart, an unmoving sentinel, as she oversaw the movement. When it came time for Bee’s carriage to rise, it was ‘Sir’ Sar-ek—one of the Knights Consort, a former member of Jhedothar’s entourage who she recognised as overly brash and proud but ultimately inexperienced—who arrived to join the escort. Together, they took their places on the crawler’s exterior plating, perched upon the worn armour that shielded Bee within from the violence without. Neither spoke. The unspoken tension of their old resentments left them to regard only the churn of machinery and the weary murmur of soldiers awaiting their turn to rise.

  With a lurch, the elevator bore them upward. The breath from the City’s depths howled through the fracture, carrying with it the scents of dust, scorched metal, and dread. Far below, endless corridors and dim caverns fell away. Vashante felt a quiet apprehension coil within her. She scanned the gloom for any sign of treachery, mindful of Sar-ek’s sullen presence at her side. If he resented her, it mattered little now—they had a duty to see Bee safely forward.

  At last, the crawler crested onto the high ledge of Acetyn’s top crust, its plating grinding on the half-melted stone that passed for solid ground. The black and gold standards fluttered in the dusty gale as soldiers scrambled around the edges, guiding the great machine off the platform with the slow churn of working hydraulics.

  Then chaos.

  Below, from the fractured maw that gave access to the City’s interior, came an explosion. Then the unmistakable cacophony of battle. Sar-ek cursed, straining to hear beyond the swirl of wind and the clang of machinery. Out of the gloom erupted flashes of lance fire, the roars of a skirmish, a sporadic volley of attack that made no sense. Where was the disciplined retort of gunfire, the structured lines of opposition?

  Instead, bestial howls echoed from the chasm and they spoke of something worse than any clash they faced to date. Sar-ek’s lips twisted at the sound, half-anger, half-trepidation.

  “The Pale,” he muttered. “It doesn’t sound like their usual tactics. An planned assault, maybe, but…” He trailed off, fists clenching on the crawler’s plating. “Whatever it is, they’re not content to let us unify. They’ll cut our forces in two.”

  Vashante tensed, her mechanical joints humming faintly. The old fury stirred, but so did her sense of responsibility. “I’ll deal with it,” she told Sar-ek, her voice a low vow. “Keep the Lady safe. She still rests.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Sar-ek shot her a dark look, cynicism flickering in his eyes. “Yes,” he said, in all bitterness. “Go. Do what you do best.”

  Her jaw tightened, a sting of old guilt threatening to break her composure. But she did not reply; she merely drew her gleaming blade and leapt from the crawler’s side, stamping back into the dust and gloom with purpose. She would protect Bee, no matter whose blood she spilt. And if Sar-ek’s words cut her pride, well, she had sacrificed such things a lifetime ago.

  Behind her, the crawler rumbled onward, guided by Sar-ek’s command. The City surface stretched before them, their forces hesitating and becoming disorganised at the sounds of battle. The tableau was precarious and ash-choked while the unseen horrors beneath roared.

  Vashante considered the descent, with its shattered edge. Those cameras that passed as her eyes whirred as they adjusted to the shifting shades of darkness.

  And then she stepped over.

  Over the fissure’s edge, plunging into the darkness below.

  The sudden drop stole the breath from her throat, her body slicing through the half-lit gulf with terrifying speed. Her mechanical limbs splayed out, seeking any surface to anchor upon in the drop. There was nothing but wind and vertigo and the faint glimmer of the elevator scaffolding far below.

  Turning to land on her feet, she then smashed into the ground, her impact resonating through the shell of bone lattice and gritty flesh beneath her feet. Cracks spider-webbed around the crater she created, chunks of marrow and composite raining down in a wet hail. The dust settled for but a moment—and then the screams reached her.

  A wave of slaughter crashed against her senses. Soldiers, her own rear guard, scrambled in a frantic retreat, only to be torn back into the gloom by monstrous appendages. Weapons flashed, lance fire casting coruscating energy out into the haze. Vashante stepped forward, letting her vision adjust, searching the dim labyrinth of twisted bone pillars and laden cargo crawlers for the source of this madness.

  Then she saw it.

  Something huge, a churning mass of limbs and sagging flesh, lurched forward in the darkness—Blachaeus Tem Etal. Aug-mad beyond reason, he crawled on a tide of stolen bodies, his many grafted limbs and faces moaning in unholy chorus. His sanguine robes draped over much of the grotesque shape, but beneath them, Vashante glimpsed the writhing torsos of soldiers he had already consumed, forever embedded in his monstrous body.

  In a single, unstoppable motion, Blachaeus seized a screaming figure—one of Lady Hash’s troopers—and dragged them into the fold of his roiling mass. A sickening sound told Vashante he’d devoured or fused the poor soul in mere moments. Another volley of lancefire pricked uselessly across his hide.

  Vashante felt a jolt of horror, cold and sharp, pricking at her mechanical heart. She had expected many things—an assault from the Knights Celebrant, perhaps, or a final intervention by the Pilgrim himself. But this was different. This was unbridled horror, a brutality unleashed seemingly without strategy or restraint.

  Then she glimpsed the trailing edge of his cloth, sanguine with the colours of the Xenozygote. The shape of it, the cut and colour tugged at her memory. With a jarring finality, she realised this wasn’t just a random hound from the depths. This was a herald of the Vat-Mother of Acetyn—a twisted, unstoppable creation sent to do her bidding. Sent to destroy. Sent to consume.

  A soldier stumbled before Vashante, eyes wild with terror. Behind him, Blachaeus shrieked—an overlapping chorus of mismatched throats echoing each other in horrifying disharmony. The Eidolon’s metal fingers flexed around the hilt of her sword, a surge of savage purpose shooting through her. She would not let this abomination go any further.

  Vashante lunged into the darkness, the cold gleam of her star-metal blade casting pale arcs of light with every step. It was the only illumination against the shifting gloom—the blade’s edge reflecting off fleshy walls and dripping composite, a glint of defiance in the belly of a nightmare. The soldier at her flank reeled back, half-broken and disoriented, leaving her alone to face the monstrous abomination that was Blachaeus Tem Etal.

  She drove forward, every aug-driven sinew in her mechanical arms braced for impact. The moment her blade connected with pulsing flesh, the creature howled—a shriek of combined throats echoing through the contorted chaos. Vashante felt her weapon sink through stolen limbs, severing a handful of flailing appendages with a wet, sickening crunch.

  Then, a massive swell of flesh slammed into her side. She had underestimated Blachaeus’ sheer bulk as he dwelled in the dark. The abomination ploughed into her with unstoppable momentum. Though Vashante was no stranger to brute force, the impact jarred through her frame, staggering her back. She stumbled, star-metal sword still in hand, flailing to keep her footing amid the slick ground and the crush of panic.

  Before she could fully recover, the Grafter’s multi-limbed body surged again. In a single, sprawling motion, Blachaeus slammed her to the ground, a wave of engorged torsos and stolen extremities smothering her in a revolting embrace. Vashante tore her sword free in a single, desperate slash, hacking at half-fused limbs that clawed and raked at her armoured form. Shrieks—dozens of voices—rose in violent disharmony.

  Then a single word, spoken by a dozen throats.

  “Delicious.”

  She broke through layers of meaty ruin, cracking bones and snapping fused cartilage as she fought. Her mechatronic limbs delivered hammer blows that dented the abomination’s thick plating and sprayed gore from the soft meat beneath. But for every chunk of flesh and aug-limb she tore away, more swarmed forward. It was as though Blachaeus simply replaced what she destroyed with the next wave of grafted bodies.

  Her breath came in ragged gasps. Then, in one swift, monstrous grip, a tangle of arms latched onto her waist. Another seized her right leg, hoisting her bodily off the ground. The Eidolon roared, blade flailing, but countless jaws and surgeon’s tools raked her plating. The clamp of parted flesh and mechanical pincers snatched at her, searching for a weak spot.

  She hissed, twisting and slashing at the writhing wall of muscle. Yet with each blow, a tide of shrieking torsos and sinew-lashed arms prevented her from landing a killing stroke. Her star-metal sword gleamed in swift arcs—an echo of hope in roiling darkness—only to be stifled by the unstoppable tide of flesh.

  Finally, she felt the wave of limbs locking tight, closing about her arms and torso, immobilising her in midair. The horrifying mosaic of mutant skulls, all fused into Blachaeus’ monstrous bulk, turned toward her in a lull of wet, slurping noise. Surgical implements and butchers’ cleavers glinted menacingly in the flickering half-light, pressing against her battered armour and scratching for purchase.

  No matter how her augmented limbs strained, she could not tear free. The immensity of Blachaeus was too great, and the contortion of his twisted form was inexorable. As the last of her leverage slipped away, Vashante realised with a surge of cold dread that she was trapped. The shrieking deafened her, and her desperate thrashes grew impotent, overcome by the unrelenting tide of all-devouring flesh.