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The Feast of Saint Luthera – Victoria Hayward

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Assassinorum: Kingmaker’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

THE FEAST OF SAINT LUTHERA

Victoria Hayward

Asrien tasted blood through the blizzard.

When the other combatant had fallen, her lance had flown from her hand, striking Asrien hard in the chest and face. Asrien’s own mount had staggered at the impact but rallied, great muscles bunching under the horse’s shoulders as she struggled for footing on the frozen ground. Asrien shook their head, spitting a tooth into the snow and levelling their las-lance at the enemy.

The adversary turned from across the field of combat. It was an ancient machine three times the height of a human. Its metal torso swung around to face Asrien, glinting eye-lenses flaring through the falling snow, regarding Asrien with its low-slung head. Its weapon flared. Asrien swore, and wheeled Tempest around, dodging the shot. They would have to get much, much closer if they were to hit their target, but the old war engine was canny. Its range was greater than Asrien’s, and it knew it simply had to stay out of shot on the other side of the field of battle until it had struck out the last combatant. It stepped away on its backward-jointed legs, autocannon barrel tracking its target.

Asrien whispered to the horse, the animal’s dark ears pricking as she heard her master’s voice. They would have to be fast to make it in range before the next shot came. Tempest reared, mane billowing, then her hooves hit the ground, ice shards howling skyward as she galloped. Asrien bent over the destrier’s neck, holding the las-lance close, watching for the enemy targeter’s tell-tale flicker.

It came, and Asrien swerved the horse to one side, dodging the shot, then steered the mount back full tilt towards the enemy. Adrenaline flooded Asrien’s body as they urged the horse forward. Tempest tossed her head, foam spraying from her mouth. Many yards of frozen ground still yawned between them and their attacker. It was too far to make it before the next shot. Through the fall of dirty snow Asrien saw the targeter flicker. At this range they stood no chance.

Gripping the lance tightly, Asrien kicked free from the stirrups and vaulted from the saddle. As they braced for impact, they saw Tempest veer away, eyes rolling as the enemy’s shot screamed overhead, narrowly missing the spot where she and Asrien had been mere seconds before.

Asrien’s hand smashed into a rock as they landed, knocking their lance free. They rolled, gasping in freezing air at the pain, and levered themself onto shaking elbows. The frozen soil had knocked their breath away, and despite their padded gambeson, they’d badly jarred their shoulder. The enemy was striding towards them, foot plates cracking the ice under tons of metal and weaponry with a hiss of hydraulics and the whine of weapons recharge. Asrien scrabbled in the snow with the numb fingers of their uninjured hand for the las-lance, and with teeth gritted, lurched to their feet. The enemy was nearly on top of them, and as Asrien started to run, they saw its targeter flicker. This was it. The war machine fired even as Asrien dived in mid-air, holding their aim at the target on the war engine’s plated right thigh.

The engine’s las-shot cracked out above them, hissing as it evaporated the snow and singeing Asrien’s left ear. There was barely time for Asrien to register the pain, or the muffled explosion in the snow close by before their lance slammed into the enemy, jolting their arm as it made contact and throwing them to the ground.

A horn blast blared out, and the machine immediately stopped moving. Asrien sat up slowly, resting their back against one of its mighty metal legs, and panted, staring in shock at the blast mark in the ground in front of them. The explosion had ruptured the snow, churning up a ring of filthy soil around it. It should have been a dummy shell, filled only with dye. But the blast had been real. Asrien touched the arm of their jacket, feeling the tear the shrapnel had made, their fingers coming away bloody.

Asrien became conscious of the spectators for the first time since the bout had started. Even through the muffle of the snow, the murmur of concerned voices from the staged wooden seating carried down to the arena. People were standing and trying to see. Asrien saw the king sitting in the royal box, apparently entirely unbothered by the accidental use of a live round.

‘Lord!’ a voice shouted. A hatch had opened on the top of the adversary Armiger, and a burly woman was climbing out. ‘Oh, Throne. Lord Asrien!’ she called again. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Bronn. I’m fine.’

Bronn swung out of the cabin and thudded down onto the ground. Her pale hair was spiked with sweat and she wore a padded bodyglove, lightly armoured in the same livery as the Armiger. ‘Throne,’ she swore, pulling off her combat gauntlets and throwing them in the snow as she strode to Asrien. ‘Medicae!’ she yelled. Then she knelt and touched Asrien’s cheek. ‘Your poor bloody face.’

‘The court is watching,’ Asrien said, looking up into Bronn’s eyes.

‘Screw the court. Anyway, it would be stranger if a knight wasn’t screwing their squire.’

Asrien raised an eyebrow. ‘It is just as well that my fortune was never to be made by my looks.’

‘Unlike your famously charming personality.’ Bronn half-laughed, half-sobbed.

‘You’re shaking,’ Asrien said, feeling Bronn’s hand tremble.

‘Of course I am. I just nearly killed you. Why in the hels was that round live?’

‘Accidents happen.’

‘Move aside, squire,’ a chirurgeon called gruffly.

Bronn stepped away, hands clasped anxiously behind her back.

‘It’s just bruises,’ Asrien said.

‘Apart from the broken hand, lord,’ the medicae said, unrolling a length of bandage.

The horn sounded again.

Asrien grunted. ‘Bronn, fetch my horse. The king wishes to address the combatants.’

‘Lord, you must rest,’ the chirurgeon said.

‘The king won’t wait,’ Asrien said, reaching for Tempest’s reins as Bronn led her over.

Every jolt as Asrien trotted over to the stands was agony.

The courtiers stood and applauded as they approached, and Asrien managed a half-smile, half-grimace. Which was probably as much as any of them expected from Asrien anyway.

The king remained seated, one silk-stockinged leg resting dashingly on the arm of her heavy wooden throne, chin on her fist. Braziers burned, illuminating her handsome face with flickering light. To her left stood the tournament’s host, Baron DeFroy. Vayoud’s court had descended on his demesne this past week for the royal winter progress – an expensive honour for a baron to bear. To Vayoud’s right stood her latest amour, the Marquess Valice, a beautiful young ingénue from the southlands.

‘King Vayoud,’ Asrien said, pulling Tempest to a halt in front of the royal stalls. ‘This humble warrior comes before you to present their lance. May I offer this bout for the honour of the Founder and for your judgement.’

Vayoud rose, resting her hands lightly on the barrier of the stalls, surveying the crowd and allowing them to view her in turn. Her doublet was embroidered gold, with a white-fur-trimmed, one-shouldered cape slung over, and riding boots that shone like mirrors. Nobility and authority were etched into the lines of her refined face.

Even apart from the blood and filth of the fight, Asrien was aware of how they themself must look in comparison. Sombre and dark-haired, their curls damp with sweat. They were too muscular to be comely, too feral to be courtly, too dour to be likeable. A century out of fashion, as the king liked to say.

‘My lords,’ Vayoud said. ‘You call upon your king to judge this bout, yet I see no victor here.’

A murmur rose up around the stalls.

Asrien felt a knot in their stomach – the dull, familiar ache of disappointment. Of course Vayoud wouldn’t allow them any victory, or dignity. Asrien regarded the king steadily, gripping Tempest’s reins with numb fingers.

‘The Lord Asrien was unseated, were they not?’ Vayoud looked around. ‘And do the rules not state that this constitutes a disqualification? My lords, I do not see how it would be possible to declare a winner without being unjust. Regretfully, honour has tied my hands.’ Only Asrien could see the ghost of a smirk. The rest of the court was falling for Vayoud’s performance.

‘But my liege…’ The Marquess Valice stepped forward, appealing to Vayoud with dark doe eyes. ‘Lord Asrien was terribly brave.’

Vayoud laughed indulgently. ‘Bless your sweet heart, marquess. Your goodness is such that you’d thank a hog for its service to your supper. But as lovely as you are, I’m afraid your qualities don’t extend to a competent knowledge of the noble sports.’

The marquess stood his ground even as the court tittered. ‘Still, it seems unkind.’

Vayoud took Valice’s hand. ‘My poor angel. You see the burden of the king? To be just and to be kind are not the same thing,’ she explained. ‘Although it’s unfortunate indeed that Lord Asrien puts me in such a position, on this festive day.’

Asrien watched, expressionless. They knew by now that you should never give Vayoud a reaction.

‘Sire!’ came a cry, and a brightly clad figure scampered along the balustrade with a tinkle of bells. Laughter followed the jester’s progress as he tumbled along the narrow strip of wood, teetering theatrically with each step of his curled slippers, but righting himself with the skill of an acrobat at each moment before he took a fatal tumble. Applause rose up as he halted in front of the king, curling himself into an exaggerated pose of supplication.

Vayoud applauded, then waved a hand for silence. ‘What does my fool want? Speak, Potemkin, for you have the ear of the court.’

Asrien remained still, breath misting in the air, their hand in crushing agony.

Potemkin contorted his face, creasing the white powder and pursing his red-stained lips.

‘My liege, foolish as I am, I fathom the king may settle this matter according to the ancient laws of House Bataleur.’

‘Oh?’ Vayoud leant back. ‘My fool is a scholar now.’

‘Verily!’ Potemkin cried, springing up and contorting his body. Snorts of laughter broke out as the fool shuffled along the balustrade in a perfect imitation of his target, using his marotte as a mock staff to drag his body along. This wasn’t any old man he impersonated, but the ancient seneschal of the royal house, perfectly imitated down to the clawed hands and perpetual scowl.

Vayoud smirked. ‘I see Lord Hyst made it out to the games after all.’

‘Indeed, sire,’ Potemkin replied, in a hoarse impression.

Asrien themself almost smiled. Hyst had been a scourge of their childhood and they were not above enjoying seeing him mocked so.

‘There is precedent for just such an outcome,’ Potemkin continued in the seneschal’s voice. ‘The king need not be torn between justness and kindness on this Luthera’s Day!’

‘You have a solution for me, wise seneschal?’ the king said, folding her arms.

She was enjoying playing along, Asrien thought. For now, anyway. The founder’s day was a time to appear generous, exchange gifts, upturn the normal order of things.

‘No.’ The fool raised a finger. ‘The king very cleverly has the solution herself!’

Vayoud tilted her head to one side expectantly.

‘My liege may recall,’ Potemkin said, proceeding to hobble theatrically up and down the balustrade, ‘that in her youth she fought a bout against the baron Popolo. A noble fight, this old historitor recollects! During the course of which the king jumped from her horse to dismount her adversary.’

Vayoud grunted. ‘I switched horses. I was not myself dismounted.’

‘A stratagem most wise, sire. And yet thus the royal seat did leave its seat!’ Potemkin waved his marotte. ‘And if the king’s royal seat has unseated itself, is it not a just and perfect act, just as all of the king’s acts are just and perfect?’

Vayoud made as if to speak, but at that moment the fool turned around. ‘And your seneschal hears it’s the king’s perfect seat which keeps her courtiers loyally kissing the ring!’ The fool dropped his breeches, exposing his behind to the crowd. A boggling eye was scrawled on each buttock.

Screams of mirth erupted from the stands as the jester waggled his arse, and Vayoud herself bellowed with laughter.

Tempest shifted beneath Asrien. The destrier’s warmth felt like the only thing keeping them conscious as the effects of blood loss kicked in.

Vayoud called for silence, still smiling. ‘Very well, Potemkin. Your wisdom allows the king to be both just and kind on this day. Lord Asrien wins the bout!’

Asrien glanced around as the crowd applauded. The jester was a wily one. He’d allowed Vayoud to look magnanimous while doing the one thing she’d wanted to avoid, which was conceding anything to Asrien.

Vayoud surveyed the crowd. ‘Now applaud our brave combatants and our gracious host, then make your way to the feast. I declare the founder’s day celebrations underway!’

The other scions who had fought that day lined up beside Asrien. Those too badly injured had been carried to the infirmary. More care was taken with scions on other worlds, but Bayoux had a surfeit of them waiting for Knight suits and had found that frustrated, purposeless young people needed a way of letting off steam. And not-so-young people, Asrien thought, as Lord Pryan pulled his horse up alongside, and gave Asrien a nod. He was a grey-bearded man in his seventies whose father still lived. Even if his father died tomorrow, Lord Pryan would never survive the rite of Becoming at his age, could therefore never become a full person united with his family’s Knight suit. It wasn’t like this on other Knight worlds, Asrien thought, looking away. But Bayoux had so few Knights left after the Battle of Taymar. Already in their early thirties, Asrien themself was already positively geriatric to be undergoing the rite. Poor Lord Pryan was a ghoulish reminder of Asrien’s own likely fate.

‘And I thought it was tough having a baron for a parent,’ a voice said to Asrien’s left. ‘Your mother is something else.’

Asrien turned in the saddle, stiff from the fight.

A young man had ridden alongside on a white destrier, which frisked and pawed at the ground. He had high, arched eyebrows and a generous mouth that quirked into a smirk.

‘Lord DeFroy,’ Asrien said. They could still taste blood where their lip had split. Asrien had only met their hosts briefly on arrival at the castle, but the younger DeFroy had a distinctive appearance. There was something contrived about it, something slightly overengineered. Unfashionably so at court, given Vayoud’s unaugmented visage. It gave Asrien the sense that DeFroy was trying to craft something different of himself.

‘Please, call me Gelder,’ he said. He tilted his head to one side, a dark kiss-curl falling across his forehead. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Does the king trample her scion as easily as my father?’

Asrien raised an eyebrow. ‘You make very bold.’

Gelder flashed Asrien a grin. ‘One of us in my family has to have a backbone.’ His horse whickered and stamped, tossing its pale mane. ‘My father’s too gentle for this world. You are not gentle, Lord Asrien.’

‘No.’

‘I admire that,’ Gelder said, smiling. ‘You fought like a beast today. And I see you have fought before.’ He indicated the slashes of duelling scars on Asrien’s cheeks.

‘A misspent youth.’ Asrien forced a polite smile. The cold was biting into them now. Vayoud had disappeared from the platform clutching a goblet of wine and accompanied by the inner court.

Bronn had walked across the arena, stationing herself by Tempest’s head, quietly taking the reins and placing a hand on the great beast’s cheek.

‘Forgive me,’ Gelder said. ‘I’ve forgotten my manners. I’ll direct you to the only good thing about this rotten estate the crown’s been unable to tax away from us. There’s a bath that way,’ he gestured. ‘I advise you head there now before the rest of the combatants.’

‘Thank you,’ Asrien said. ‘Your hospitality is most gracious.’

‘And mandated by the crown.’ Gelder flashed a dark grin and looked down. ‘And you’re the Armiger pilot?’

‘Yes, lord. Bronn Raiker.’

‘Spectacular. Remind me never to get on your bad side.’

Asrien smiled softly at Bronn’s evident pride.

‘You’ll excuse me now,’ Gelder said with a nod. ‘I must see to our other guests.’ He turned his horse away, and Bronn led Tempest in the direction of the baths.

On the other side of the arena, Mephilon 12-pi strode to inspect the now dormant Armigers, red robes fluttering behind his skeletal metal form, a shoal of sacristans accompanying him. He’d made planetfall like a star a hundred years ago, burning through the atmosphere in a small sphere of hot metal that had ploughed into the southern continent, his mission to carry the message of his Omnissiah by tending to Bayoux’s remaining Knights. Asrien smiled to themself. The Martian would have been watching the fight through gritted teeth, watching hawklike for the slightest scratch to the paintwork.

‘I still think you should see a medic,’ Bronn said, looking up at Asrien.

‘No. I want a bath.’

Bronn sighed.

‘I’ll go later,’ Asrien said. ‘Right now, I just need to get these clothes off.’

Bronn glanced over her shoulder and raised her eyebrows suggestively.

‘Throne, Bronn. I’m drenched in blood and sweat.’

‘That’s never stopped us before.’

Asrien smiled, despite themself. Bronn always lightened their mood. Asrien’s ribs ached where they’d hit the ground. But a glow of happiness, cautious though it was, blossomed in their belly. They’d won today. A small victory, but a victory that Vayoud had not been able to take. Those were few and far between.

‘I think this is it,’ Bronn said. They’d come to a large boulder set into the earth, with a narrow doorway cut into it. Candles burnt outside, sizzling in the falling snow.

Asrien dismounted with Bronn’s help, slowly and awkwardly avoiding their broken hand. Inside was a large chamber edged with a stone shelf, and a stream of water trickling down from the ceiling. Steam coiled through from another doorway, leading deeper into the earth.

‘Togs off,’ said Bronn, grinning.

‘I’ll need assistance,’ Asrien said.

Bronn carefully unfastened Asrien’s pauldrons and gambeson and helped them step out of their breeches.

Bronn swore. ‘There’s barely an inch of you that isn’t bruised.’

‘It feels that way,’ Asrien said, rolling their shoulders and stepping naked under the stream of water. It stung but felt good, pummelling their muscles and washing away the grime. They turned to step into the hot bath. ‘Are you not coming in?’

‘There’s a squire’s bath behind this one. It’s not as nice,’ Bronn added.

‘Use this one then.’

Bronn grinned, and pulled her shirt off, velvet skin glowing in the candlelight, pale hair lit like a halo. She was stocky and well-made, like the statues of the founder, carved with coiled power that seemed so ready to leap or dance or run. Bronn was vital with playful elegance, like a living thing of molten gold. ‘You first,’ she said.

The steam pool bubbled like a cauldron. It was a little too hot for comfort, but Asrien lowered themself down, wading across to one of the submerged stone benches and sitting stiffly, the water bubbling up to their ribs. The air was heavy with steam, scented with off-world aromatics. Asrien leaned their head back on the pumice wall and exhaled heavily. ‘Gelder was right about–’

There was a loud splash. Bronn had jumped in and was swimming submerged towards Asrien, only her eyes above water, snorting bubbles through her nose.

‘Emperor’s teeth, you oaf!’ Asrien laughed despite themself, the pain catching in their ribs. They reached out with their good hand, catching Bronn around the waist and pulling her close through the water. Bronn propelled herself onto Asrien’s lap, wrapping her legs around Asrien’s hips and burying her face in their neck. ‘Do you feel better yet?’ Bronn asked, her breath warm against Asrien’s ear.

Asrien nuzzled their head against Bronn’s, brushing their lips against the soft prickle of her hair, shorn to a burr at her temples. ‘Significantly.’ The heat and the steam, and the reassuring weight of Bronn pushed away the anxieties that plagued Asrien’s days – Vayoud, the Becoming, court duties, the state of the kingdom. This was the small place, between two warm bodies, where Asrien could be themself. It was a recent and unspoken development between them. Asrien suspected it was not especially significant to Bronn, and so had resolved to treat it with similar indifference themself.

Suddenly, Bronn pulled away, clambering awkwardly off of Asrien’s knee. ‘Lord DeFroy,’ she said, standing and inclining her head towards the door.

‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ Gelder said from the shadowed doorway.

‘I was just leaving for the squire’s bath,’ Bronn said, quickly stepping past him and out of the bath.

Gelder lowered himself into the water and slid onto the bench opposite Asrien. ‘Sorry to have disturbed your fun.’

Asrien leaned back wordlessly.

‘I spoke a little in jest, earlier,’ Gelder said. ‘About being trampled by our betters. But I suspect we both know more of that than we’d like.’

Asrien grunted. They could see Gelder wanted to talk at them, and they had little interest in listening.

Gelder leaned forward, animated. ‘Lord Asrien, I know you see our world fading along with our own futures. My family lands are extensive, and yet my father relies entirely on aid your mother will not give. Our people go hungry. You and I are entering our fourth decades, with no immediate hope that we shall undergo the Becoming anytime soon.’ Gelder paused, and glanced at the doorway. He lowered his voice. ‘Our parents are hale and hearty. And entirely unsuited to govern.’

Asrien raised an eyebrow. Gelder was taking a risk speaking to them this way. ‘Unsuited?’

‘Yes,’ he said emphatically. ‘They do not have the correct will because of what they have been made to be. My father has great vision, but the king denies him the autonomy he needs to make any difference, because that is her function.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘I’ll give you an example.’ Gelder gestured, becoming more confident. ‘You embody the living will of the Throne. Your words are law to the people, to your servants. Such as your squire, Bronn, for example. Her will is entirely subject to yours. She can refuse you nothing. Whatever decisions she makes, whether she realises it or not, are informed by the nature of your position over her. The relationship can never be equal.’

Asrien stared at Gelder. Anger and self-loathing flared through their guts. What he was implying about them and Bronn was so appalling that they could barely think of it.

Gelder seemed unaware of Asrien’s distress. ‘Just as the king and my father can never be equal,’ he continued. ‘But you and I are simply equals in waiting – we can challenge the king.’

Asrien was barely listening, their mind roiling with worry and guilt. They had not reflected on the precise nature of their relationship with Bronn. Was Gelder right that it was tainted? It was not something they had ever considered. Should they have?

‘It is hard to imagine, is it not?’ Gelder was saying. ‘When you and I face such humiliation daily, when even our squires are already joined to their Armigers, and we go on foot, like peasants.’

Asrien stood abruptly. ‘I’m uncertain as to what you wish me to do about your perceived inadequacies, Lord DeFroy. You will excuse me.’

‘It’s a lot to consider, I know,’ Gelder said. ‘But please, think about what I’ve said. We have more to discuss.’

Bronn was waiting for them outside, holding Tempest’s reins. The destrier’s breath misted in the cold air. ‘So? Did you speak?’

‘A little,’ Asrien said, grimacing as they swung themself stiffly onto the saddle.

‘I like him,’ Bronn said.

‘You like everyone,’ Asrien said. Away from the warmth of the baths, wind blew through their gambeson as if it were parchment.

‘That’s not true.’

‘It is. You have no discernment.’

Bronn made a face. ‘I like you.’

‘So you prove my point.’

Bronn rolled her eyes.

They walked towards the castle in silence for a few moments. Asrien felt their teeth chatter in the cold.

Bronn rested her head on Asrien’s leg as they walked. Her touch felt strange to Asrien, for the first time.

Baron DeFroy had not skimped with the Luthera’s Day feast. Admirable, or foolish considering the precarious state of his demesne’s harvest and his continued petitions to the king for assistance. Asrien regarded the traditional festive dishes – fine slivers of preserved pork fat and candied offal and great glistening heaps of head-size eggs, poached and carved by white-gloved attendants. The worst of the mildew had been scraped from the great hall’s banners, and fires burned in every niche. Vayoud was garrulous and charming, and courtiers clustered around her, hanging on every word. She was enjoying playing the generous host at DeFroy’s expense.

Asrien sat beside Baron DeFroy. Gelder was seated with other scions, distant enough that Asrien could ignore him. The baron was a gentle man, and spoke with intensity and enthusiasm of the vagaries of the fungal harvest that year. A medic with a roll of bandage and a shot of counterseptic stimms had waylaid Asrien on the way to the hall, and they drowsily half-listened to the baron’s insights on spawn crusting and boletus deformation, cradling their hand in their lap.

The wheezing traditional music that had accompanied the dinner came to a pause. The baron stood and addressed Vayoud. ‘If it pleases the king, I have a small trifle to present.’

‘Oh?’ Vayoud said, raising an eyebrow.

‘I must beg your forgiveness, sire,’ DeFroy said, spreading his hands. ‘For it is a nothing, the humblest diversion.’

‘And yet you make it sound so thrilling,’ Vayoud said, looking around and winking.

DeFroy smiled as titters erupted from the assembled courtiers at the king’s jibe. ‘I assure you, liege, it is barely worth the walk to the drowned halls. But if your majesty and the fine nobles might indulge their host, perhaps they will see something they have not seen before.’

Vayoud laughed, raising her goblet to be filled. ‘You’ve piqued my interest, DeFroy. Lead us to this nothing!’

The court uprooted itself in a hush of silks and taffeta in the crimson of the season, a hundred barons and lords and their consorts flowing like blood down the stone stairs to the drowned halls. Jewellery chinked and glinted in the candlelight. They giggled and whispered at the intrigue and slipped on the steps, sloshing mead and amasec as they walked. Asrien wore a stiff red brocade so dark as to be nearly black, trimmed with dulled frogging. They walked behind Vayoud with Marquess Valice. He had masses of beautiful dark hair, tied back with velvet, that matched his wide doe eyes. He’d tried to befriend Asrien at the start of the court season, apparently certain that Vayoud would crown him her consort.

Valice steadied himself by gripping Asrien’s arm. ‘Gosh, isn’t this exciting,’ he said, clearing his throat and stepping gingerly over a flooded step.

‘Extremely.’

Valice smiled brightly and nodded towards Vayoud, who strode ahead. ‘The king looks well tonight.’

Vayoud had changed outfits since the tourney. Of the entire court, only she wore white, glowing in the dim, lantern-lit corridor as she walked ahead, engaged in gracious conversation with Baron DeFroy. She was dressed in a slash-sleeved tunic that accentuated her slender torso, and kidskin breeches cut to flatter her shapely calves.

‘The king always looks well,’ Asrien said. Vayoud had styled herself the athlete king, fashionably figured, and excelling at any sport she played. Unlike Asrien, who, to the amusement of the court, Vayoud smirkingly referred to as being built like a pit fighter.

Valice gripped Asrien’s arm a little tighter. ‘I know it must be difficult. The relationship between your mother and I, I mean. But I wish to reassure you that I love her most dearly, and I would never harm her or wish to come between you.’ He glanced up at Asrien, dark eyes wide.

The bitter laugh congealed in Asrien’s throat. There was no amusement in the dance Vayoud was leading the marquess on, nor any comfort that Asrien could offer him.

‘I assure you, Lord Valice, I wish you only happiness. Truly.’

A smile lit up Valice’s face. He really was very beautiful. Asrien could see why he’d caught the king’s eye.

‘You know, I had always wanted children. I should be most proud to call you mine.’

The surprise caused Asrien to pause for a moment on the stair, causing a minor pile-up of inebriated gentry behind them. Asrien cleared their throat, finding themself unexpectedly touched. ‘Thank you. May I infer from this sentiment that the king has made a proposal to you?’

‘Not in as many words, but…’ Valice bit his lip, and flashed the fingers of his golden left hand.

‘Ah,’ Asrien said, seeing the blue jewel on his finger. ‘She’s given you the Ring of Tides. Very auspicious.’ It was. Vayoud had only given that particular token to two sweethearts before.

‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Valice said. ‘Her majesty is so generous.’

Asrien gritted their teeth. ‘Astonishingly so.’

They descended the final staircase into the first of the drowned halls. This had been the Cathedral of the Lady of the Blood before it had sunk so far into the marshes as to be unusable. Its soaring roof had long collapsed and been stripped for lead, and the cold, stark solstice moon above etched harsh shadows. The chancel stood underwater at the opposite end of the long nave, the ornate marbled walkway tilting downward into gradual submergence. Half-drowned statues emerged gloomy from the opaque water that lapped their navels amidst the floating debris of last season’s abandoned steel vulture nests. Lanterns had been set around, lighting up colonnades and buttresses. And in the centre of the cavernous space stood something twice the height of a person, swathed in white gauze.

The nobles emerged from the stairway into the nave, crowding around the mysterious object, too inebriated to notice their finery trailing in the filth.

Rivulets of water ran like tears down the walls, staining the stones rheumy with red lichen.

‘So, is this your mystery, DeFroy?’ Vayoud asked jovially, arm on hip, one leg resting upon a piece of broken masonry. She snapped her fingers at Valice, who meekly moved away from Asrien to stand at the king’s side. ‘I’m ready to be overwhelmed.’

DeFroy smiled. ‘Dear guests,’ he said. ‘I promised to present you with a trifle tonight, and that is all I have for you. But I hope that it may grow to be more than that.’ He surveyed the assembled crowd. ‘On this midwinter night, we honour Bayoux’s founder, Luthera Bataleur, and her bravery on settling our world five hundred generations ago. But our world is much changed from the one at which she and her consort, Vega, arrived. Our seas have not yielded a fish for generations, our soil can grow naught but moulder. We tell our children stories of Luthera and Vega swimming in our blue oceans and hunting in the green forests, yet we cannot imagine such bounty for ourselves. On this founder’s day night, at the darkest hour,’ DeFroy continued, ‘I gift our king, and our world, with something small from which greater miracles may come.’

A prickle ran down Asrien’s neck. They glanced at Vayoud. She was still smiling, although DeFroy was skirting close to the wind.

DeFroy gestured, and his son strode across to the shrouded object, in one movement pulling away the gauze and revealing what was beneath. There was a moment of silence before gasps and applause broke out as the nobles understood what they were looking at.

Emotion choked in Asrien’s chest. They had only seen prints of things like this in crumbling books. Before them was something stranger and more beautiful and more miraculous than any of the castles and jewels on all of Bayoux. Asrien stepped through the ring of watching nobles towards it, entranced.

‘Please, it is very fragile,’ DeFroy said to the assembled nobles. ‘It needs time to grow strong. Although of course the scion may come closer.’ He gestured to Asrien.

Asrien stood beneath it, looking up into its branches. The starlight shone down through the pale, heart-shaped leaves, filtering green light onto their face. They touched the trunk gently, then raised their hand to their face, inhaling the living spice of bright earth. It smelled like nothing else on Bayoux.

‘What a lovely thing,’ Vayoud said, stepping forward, still smiling.

Applause rippled around the assembled nobles at the king’s sentiment.

Asrien saw that behind the king’s smile, her eyes were flat. Asrien felt a cold prickle at the back of their neck.

The king ran her finger over the surface of a leaf. A small muscle twitched on her cheek. It was a tiny movement, beyond registration unless you were intimately acquainted with the king’s fury. And the court hadn’t noticed, because they weren’t, and because the king was still smiling.

Asrien felt panic rising. Vayoud was angry. Very, very angry.

Vayoud very gently pinched a leaf and pulled it off, holding it up to her eyes, twirling it to and fro.

‘Is the king pleased?’ DeFroy asked.

‘What a lovely thing,’ Vayoud repeated quietly, then again, more loudly, ‘What a lovely thing.’ She smiled broadly, looking around at the court. ‘Baron DeFroy has gone to great trouble on this Luthera’s Day. We must do things properly. Where is the seneschal?’

Lord Hyst shuffled into the centre of the ring. He was history personified. He had served a dozen kings of Bayoux, the furled parchment of his mind occupied only with knowing the things that should and should not be done.

‘Seneschal,’ Vayoud said, ‘is it not correct that the founder and her people would celebrate the light of the Emperor at the solstice with a sacred ritual requiring a tree?’

‘Indeed, sire.’ Hyst squinted. ‘The Roud vellum documents this in some detail. The king would go into the forest and select a tree which would be felled and burnt to keep the people warm through the long winter.’

An urgent stab of panic clenched Asrien’s guts.

‘And this was an important symbolic rite?’

‘Extremely.’

‘And how long since we last performed it?’

Hyst scrunched his face. ‘A thousand years, lord. Since the last tree was felled.’

‘No,’ Gelder said.

Vayoud ignored him. ‘A thousand years in which we have been unable to offer our proper gratitude to Him on Terra.’

Asrien felt an agonised sickness in their stomach, the familiar, crushing weight of knowing they were unable to stop whatever cruelty was about to happen.

Gelder stepped forward, his face flushing angry red. ‘You can’t do this.’

‘Gelder,’ Baron DeFroy said, placing a hand on his son’s arm.

Vayoud’s smile was ghastly. ‘Thank you, baron, for restoring this rite to your king. I will burn this tree tonight.’

‘Are you going to let her do this?’ Gelder said, his voice strangled. His whole body was stiff, fists balled.

DeFroy’s face was grim. ‘Of course I wish that the king might reconsider. But it is her prerogative…’

‘You’re a coward,’ Gelder spat. ‘This is my future. Don’t you see she’s humiliating us? She starves our people, she takes our dignity. And you won’t act?’

The baron said nothing.

Gelder stared around at the court, wild-eyed. ‘None of you will act?’ His voice rose, echoing tremulous in the silence.

None of the nobles moved, or made eye contact with him, or made any gesture of support.

‘Baron, I have graciously ignored the outburst from your son so far,’ Vayoud said silkily. ‘But my patience is limited.’

‘Gelder, you should leave,’ Baron DeFroy said.

Gelder stared around, shaking his head. ‘You’re all cowards. Every last one of you. And you’re a damn bastard,’ he shot at Vayoud. Then he turned and stormed out.

The courtiers were frozen, staring at the king.

Baron DeFroy swallowed. ‘My deepest apologies, sire,’ he said flatly. Asrien didn’t know how he maintained control.

‘Well,’ Vayoud said brightly, clapping her hands. ‘After that unpleasantness, let us celebrate. Someone, cut down this tree.’

There was a jingle. ‘My lord!’ said the jester, twirling into the circle. ‘Mayhap while tempers are hot, we should fell this tree not?’

Vayoud turned her head slowly to look at him.

Asrien felt sick. Vayoud’s movement was controlled, but they knew that she was on the verge of snapping.

‘You are fond of stories, fool?’ Vayoud said, voice low, face expressionless. ‘Do you remember the story of the king who burned her fool alive?’

‘No, lord.’

‘Then I suggest you get the hel out of my sight before I write it.’

The jester bowed, shuffling wordlessly back into the shadows.

‘Well?’ Vayoud stared around, eyes bright. ‘Does this not please the court?’

A fragmentary clatter of applause rose up into a crescendo.

‘Now, burn this,’ Vayoud gestured. ‘In the courtyard, where everyone can watch.’

Asrien turned and left.

Asrien walked numbly back up the steps and out into the moonlit courtyard. Their legs felt as if they would fail them. They paused, staring up into the murky sky. Only the barest glimmer of the moon was visible through the shroud of Bayoux’s polluted skies. Snow fell, mingling with Asrien’s emotionless tears. They walked to the engine yard, where the Knight suits were stabled. Most of the sacristans had left for the festivities, but Mephilon 12-pi remained. The tall adept sat at the far end of the hangar, working on some piece of machinery. He nodded at Asrien, eye sockets glowing. He had known them since they were a child, could read their moods, and knew why they were here.

At the front of the hangar, lit by braziers was the single Knight suit remaining to House Bataleur. She stood five times the height of a human. Her carapace was brightly enamelled in the blue that Bayoux’s skies had once been, when the war engine had first walked across this world. Reflected in the lenses behind the faceplate, Asrien imagined the flicker-flash of its pilots’ souls over millennia, guttering candles in the long darkness of the machine’s life. Asrien had whispered her name since they were young, curled at the feet of the beautiful machine for long hours. She was called Aurora in Tenebris, the dawn in the darkness. They were, and always had been, destined for one another. Asrien rested a hand on the metal of Aurora’s greave. The power and stillness of the machine was always calming, but bittersweet. It was only when the king died that Asrien and Aurora would be joined. Until then, she was Vayoud’s.

Once back in their chamber, Asrien stared out of the slit window at the murky night sky. Somewhere up there the remains of Bayoux’s weather grid drifted in orbit. Most of it had been ravaged for parts a millennium ago to maintain the world’s decrepit Knights. Knights that had been destroyed in battle, leaving Bayoux only with the memory of their faded glory, and a dark, inhospitable climate. With trees and forests again, perhaps it could have been different. Perhaps the world could have lived once more. But no, Asrien scolded themself. Nothing could ever be different here. It was to inflict injury on oneself to hope otherwise.

They lay, curled on their bed, staring at nothing and listening to the raucous solstice festivities outside.

Much later, Bronn slipped in with a smell of smoke. ‘I have something,’ she said, kneeling beside the bed.

Asrien looked at her.

Bronn extended a fist. ‘I took this for you. Here.’ She placed something small and green and crumpled in Asrien’s hand. ‘I think you can grow more from this.’

Asrien stared down at the sad, single leaf in their palm. They felt their breath catch in their throat. It was so sweet and so futile that it hurt. ‘Thank you,’ Asrien said after a moment. ‘Thank you. I can’t tell you what this means to me, Bronn.’

After she left, Asrien wept.

The next morning Asrien was awoken by the sound of bells. They rolled over blearily and pushed their face into the pillow. The insistent clanging continued, and eventually they sat up just as Bronn burst into the chamber, breathless and wide-eyed.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Vindica Corvus is missing!’

‘Baron Maedoc’s Knight?’ Asrien said.

‘Yes. And everyone’s blaming Baron DeFroy. He’s gone too.’

Asrien frowned. ‘Why’d he have anything to do with it?’

‘Oh, of course. You don’t know. Last night after the burning, Vayoud made her endowment.’

‘To DeFroy?’

‘No! To Baron Maedoc!’

Asrien raised their eyebrows. Everyone expected the crown to reimburse whichever baron hosted the yearly progress with a significant favour. That, along with DeFroy’s lands having suffered, made this a terrible snub.

‘How did Gelder react?’

‘He had to be removed. Even Baron DeFroy shouted at the king.’

‘And what did she do?’

Bronn looked as if she’d tasted something unpleasant. ‘She looked like she was enjoying it.’

Asrien grunted. Naturally. Vayoud fed on humiliating others.

‘What nobody knows is how the Knight disappeared,’ Bronn said, sitting on the bed. ‘That many tons of metal can’t walk off by themselves, and DeFroy couldn’t pilot it.’

Asrien nodded. Each Knight’s throne was locked to its pilot through the ritual of Becoming. ‘And they haven’t found a trace of it yet?’

‘Nobody’s looking. Not really.’

‘What?’

‘Gelder has gone out. But the king says it’s DeFroy’s business. She won’t pledge the other barons to help.’

‘Won’t pledge them? You mean won’t let them?’

Bronn nodded. ‘The barons want to see you.’

Asrien sighed and pulled on their boots.

Out in the courtyard a gaggle of barons in combat dress waited. Asrien descended the staircase. The marble banister was cold and smooth under their hand.

‘Lord Asrien,’ Baron Cator said, turning. She was a nimble woman with bright, hard eyes and cropped grey hair. ‘Are you aware of the situation?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what is the king going to do about it?’ Baron Murano asked. They were the youngest of the Knight pilots, a petite person crowned with a mass of red curls, ferocious and unafraid of their elders.

Asrien was painfully aware of their own dour appearance, looming over the colourfully attired nobles. ‘Have you asked the king?’

‘Of course not,’ Murano shot back, scornful. ‘She’s still drunk.’

The venerable Baron Rothenburg inhaled sharply, white moustaches quivering. ‘Have a care, Baron Murano.’

‘The care we need to take is with Vindica Corvus,’ Cator said. ‘Lord Asrien, please. One day this will be your kingdom.’ She held Asrien with a flinty gaze. ‘There is too little of our legacy left to lose any more.’

Asrien turned and left, feeling the barons’ eyes burning onto their back.

The winter garden at the DeFroy castle had once been one of the most beautiful on Bayoux. Etchings of it remained in the castle. The rare plants and flowers that had once garlanded it had long since died, but the snaking trail of boulders remained, along with a fountain, which hung frozen in the frigid air. From the viewing court, you could see across the estate, endless miles of porcine-churned mud under the dreary dawn.

Vayoud stood, vermilion shirt billowing in the wind, a heavy, tasselled gauntlet on one arm. She didn’t even glance around as Asrien approached. Her handsome face was puffy and eyes bloodshot, and Asrien could smell alcohol on her breath.

‘Don’t disturb me. I’m hawking,’ she said, frowning out at the barren landscape. She raised her arm, and a huge vulture swung down from where it circled, landing on her glove and devouring the scrap of flesh she held. The bird glowered at Asrien with red-ringed eyes, riffling its dark feathers.

‘Why are you still here? Vayoud said, not turning.

‘Vindica Corvus is missing. The barons wish to search for it.’

‘I’ve told them not to.’

‘We have to look. We don’t have enough Knights left to risk losing another.’

Vayoud sighed. ‘What you don’t understand, Asrien, because you are unsuited to lead, is the effective enaction of power. DeFroy tried to humiliate me last night. For me to clean up his mess would be to give him power.’

Asrien frowned. ‘This is not a personal grievance. This is about the realm.’

‘I am the realm,’ Vayoud said, tossing her arm and sending the vulture flying again.

Asrien felt a prickle of anger and anxiety. ‘We cannot leave the Knight lost.’

‘If anyone tries anything, I will take their lands.’ Vayoud turned away. ‘You will now leave. It weighs heavily on me how much I’ve invested in you, and how little I’ve received back. I consider the crown to be heavy, but you? You are my real burden,’ she said matter-of-factly.

Asrien walked away, face burning. Shame and hurt filled them. But as they walked, a small, smooth patch emerged in the roiling mess of their thoughts. What could Vayoud do to Asrien that she’d not already done? A strange, wild feeling of freedom crept over them. They ascended the steps back to the courtyard.

‘Well?’ Cator said, brow creased.

‘Anyone who goes out to search will have their lands seized.’

Murano swore. ‘She’s made it impossible.’

‘No,’ Asrien said. ‘As a scion, I have no lands to lose. I can go.’

Cator nodded in approval. ‘What do you need from us, lord?’

‘Cover me.’

Bronn and Asrien walked into the courtyard an hour later, Asrien’s damaged hand bound up against their chest. Servants and attendants rushed around, frantic in the absence of Baron DeFroy. There was a frisson of excitement amongst the nobles over the disappearances and gaggles of courtiers whispered in towers or searched the castle, depending on their inclinations and the speed at which they’d recovered from the previous night’s drinking.

‘Come on,’ Bronn said, steering Asrien away from the bonfire where the blackened remains of the tree still smouldered. ‘Fidelis Aquilae is in the workshop. We can get her and Tempest from the stables at the same time.

Asrien glanced around. Nobody was watching. The king’s orders had been issued; who would dare violate them?

They were about to pass through the gatehouse when Asrien heard someone whistling. The jester was perched up on an outcrop of masonry by a window, with a lute propped beside him. He took a drag on a grubby lho-stick, exhaling a plume of smoke into the cold air. ‘Morning, lord,’ he said.

‘Potemkin,’ Asrien said, looking up at him. He was half-dressed, his pale chest exposed to the air, wearing only red breeches and bells round his ankles. It was strange to see him without his cap, his masses of dark, curled hair loosed. His face was expressionless, lined with caked powder. He regarded Asrien with dark, unreadable eyes.

Suddenly a gaggle of people in a state of undress burst out of the gatehouse door wrapped in sheets, giggling and jostling in an ouroboros embrace.

‘Potemkin!’ one flushed, buxom young woman called, bare toes squelching in the courtyard mud. ‘Where are you?’ The smile dropped from her face when she saw Asrien. ‘Lord Bataleur,’ she said, bowing her head, curls coiling around her naked shoulders.

‘Lord Tigris,’ Asrien said. ‘I hope the morning finds you well?’

‘Quite well,’ she said, clutching the bedsheet tighter, and stepping back into the doorway. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’

She barged the rest of the group back behind her and slammed the door shut.

There was a moment of silence.

‘So why does everyone always want to screw the jester?’ Asrien asked.

Potemkin shrugged. ‘I can’t fully account for it, lord, but I’d probably put it down to the liminality of my social status in the court.’ He took a long drag on his lho-stick. ‘People know I’m shagging them, not their title.’

Asrien’s mouth twisted into a smile. ‘We’re leaving now, Potemkin.’

‘Yes. I’ll have to tell the king about that.’

Asrien felt a flare of adrenaline.

‘Not yet, though,’ the fool said, stubbing out his smoke and picking up the lute.

‘When?’ Asrien asked.

He shrugged, and gently plucked the instrument’s strings. ‘Soon enough. Emperor speed.’

Asrien nodded, and as they walked through the gatehouse with Bronn, the jester began to sing in a sweet voice.

‘An ode to the lord with the sad, sad eyes,

Who rides alone beneath decaying skies,

Whose heart is sad though love’s by their side.’

Dawn was still breaking as Asrien and Bronn rode out. Asrien’s charger was a destrier of the royal line, ebony black and heavily muscled with alert red eyes. She’d been trained to fight in armour, so the gallop across the plains was as nothing to her, her hoofbeats eating up the miles. Bronn’s Armiger, Fidelis Aquilae, strode alongside. She was brightly enamelled in the colours of Asrien’s house, Bataleur, to which Bronn’s family was a client family. A family subservient was the word that appeared, unwelcome, in Asrien’s head, and which they quickly banished.

The pair had set out towards the mountains. A broad, sluggish river moved from under the castle and out this way. The popular theory was that Vindica Corvus had been taken from the castle by water. Out in the endless, unchanging fields, the wooden river markers were the only thing delineating the ankle-deep mud of the fields from the plunge into the water, so filthy was its flow.

The DeFroy land was largely porcine grazing, and the vast, bloated animals moved across the landscape like pallid clouds, rooting for fungus in endless swamps of liquid filth. It was rutting season and the pigs would be aggressive until they spilled their great cargo of eggs like gelatinous jewels next summer. A few lumbered into dummy charges, but broke off before they got too close. If Fidelis Aquilae hadn’t been there, Asrien had no doubt the beasts would have attacked. Tempest cantered onward without a sideways glance, despite the threat to her from an animal the size of a small house. She was a warhorse, and it would take a bomb to unsettle her.

After an hour, they came to a small settlement comprising a few dozen shacks and a scattering of fungus hangars. Peasants toiled on stilts in the fields, impregnating the substrate with spores that choked the air.

Asrien covered their nose and mouth to keep the living dust from entering their lungs, and signalled for Bronn to stop. The Armiger halted, engine idling and Bronn opened the front hatch, spluttering as she inhaled the spores.

‘We’ve run out of river,’ Asrien said, indicating where the marker posts disappeared. ‘It must go underground here.’

Bronn grunted. ‘They can’t have brought the Knight further this way, then.’

‘Wait here.’ Asrien dismounted, thudding down into the half-frozen mud. They walked over to the largest hangar building. ‘Excuse me,’ Asrien shouted to the peasants assembled there. None of them looked up. ‘Where’s the village head?’ they tried.

A slight, elderly person emerged from one of the hangars and regarded Asrien with arms folded. ‘I am they. You’re a lord?’

‘Yes.’

‘We don’t often see the lords here,’ the aged farmer said. Their face was creased like crumpled parchment, and they regarded Asrien with bright wariness. ‘Only the bailiffs, come harvest time.’

Asrien nodded. ‘We’re looking for someone. They’d’ve had a Knight suit, but it wouldn’t have been walking. Perhaps they took it by cart. Have you seen anything?’

‘Which answer would the lord wish to hear?’

‘There’ll be no trouble either way. You have my word as Lord Bataleur.’

‘We might have seen someone. Someone who reckoned us to be mud, and reckoned that mud can’t see.’

Asrien waited.

‘Might have seen someone dressed fine, like you. Taking a big walking engine that way,’ they gestured. ‘Towards the bones.’

‘The bones?’

The peasant explained patiently, as if to a child. ‘The bones that fell from the sky. The broken work of the cunning giants. Them who wrought the walking engines.’

‘Ah.’ Asrien nodded. The farmer was talking about the scattered remnants of Bayoux’s weather grid.

‘When did you see them?’

‘Dawn.’

Asrien nodded. ‘Thank you.’

The farmer didn’t reply, but watched Asrien as they returned to Bronn.

‘Well?’ Bronn said.

‘We’re on the right track. They came this way.’

Porcines ate anything that moved more slowly than they did, including the dead. There were only any remains of the corpse left because the hog eating it was distracted by chasing off the other pigs trying to muscle in for a bite. As Bronn walked her Armiger close, the vast thing roared, bloodied spittle drooling pendulously from its jaws. Bronn fired a warning shot over the pig’s shoulder and it backed off, bulbous jowls quivering angrily.

Asrien dismounted, and ran towards the remains. Tangled viscera lay steaming in the snow. ‘Throne,’ they swore, approaching gingerly.

Most of the meat had been pulled from the skull, which was badly crushed and lay several feet from the remains of the torso.

‘Him on Terra,’ Bronn said. She’d opened the Armiger’s top hatch and was leaning out. ‘Who the hels was that?’

Asrien shook their head. ‘I don’t know how we’d tell.’

Bronn made a sound.

‘What?’

‘Well, if it was Baron DeFroy, he’d have the house seal. It might be somewhere… in there.’

The acrid smell of stomach acid and faeces rose up from the corpse, and Asrien gagged. ‘There’s no ring on the left hand, but the other one…’ They paused.

‘What?’

The corpse’s right arm had been partially defleshed, the skin broken at the elbow and pulled down over its hand like a glove. ‘I’m going to have to pull it back.’

‘Do you need help?’ Bronn gestured at Asrien’s sling.

‘I can do it one-handed. You keep watch on that hog.’

Bronn turned away gratefully as Asrien knelt.

Asrien looked at the yellow fat of the inverted flesh. Just think of it as meat, they thought. We’re all made of meat. Don’t be squeamish. Asrien exhaled heavily and touched the raw flesh of the arm, tugging the skin back up. Their fingers touched something hard, and with a tug, they pulled off a ring.

Grimacing, Asrien rubbed it in the snow to clear away the blood. They sat back on their haunches, examining the sigil. Their heart sank as they recognised it. ‘It’s the DeFroy seal. This was the baron.’

Bronn put a hand over her face. ‘What should we do?’

Asrien stood, wiping their fingers on their breeches. ‘I think we should continue.’

Bronn nodded. ‘You’re in charge, my lord.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Asrien snapped.

‘What do you mean?’

Asrien shook their head, taken aback by their own anger. ‘Sorry, nothing. Let’s go.’

Asrien had only seen the bones of the weather grid up close once before, as a small child. It was when their father had been alive. He had carried the young scion around the strange ruins and sung them a sweet song about the builders who lived in the stars. Asrien remembered he’d sung quietly, whispering into their hair. Vayoud didn’t like singing. She considered it a common habit of the southlands, where Asrien’s father was from. Even before they could read, Asrien had learned that Vayoud’s anger was something you must quietly fit yourself around in order to remain safe.

This segment of the grid on the DeFroy estate was one of the most intact remaining on Bayoux. The snapped ribs arched up a hundred feet high, curving above Bronn and Asrien as they walked down the central trackway. The debris field went on for half a mile, great chunks of ancient machinery half-sinking into the bog, jutting masts and struts sometimes the only sign of what lay beneath. Effluence leaked from the wreckage, leaving the land barren around it – one of the reasons the DeFroy estate yielded so little for its size. Ancient hack-marks remained in walls eaten by lichen and time from where components had been removed to repair the world’s Knights. Little did the ancestors know that the Knights would almost all be destroyed at the Battle of Taymar. Bayoux had sacrificed its ability to produce sunshine, rain and clouds to remain a mighty Knight world, then three hundred years ago had lost everything in one fight. A terrible, comical tragedy.

Asrien looked around at the walls rising around them. This place had once hung in orbit, and their ancestors had walked in these corridors, looking down on the green, bright planet below. How must it have felt? To have had dominion over such a pure and beautiful world? To have had oceans and fish and birds and summers and things that Asrien had only seen described in ancient books? Asrien had a sudden, discomfiting image of being here, inside the ring, when it fell to earth. Tumbling, vast, the impact inevitable. The clouds closing in with it, darkening the land beneath forever.

Asrien started from their reverie as Tempest jerked her head and snorted. The destrier walked on, but her nostrils flared. ‘What’s the matter, girl?’ Asrien asked.

There was a roar ahead, an unholy sound that shook the air. Tempest skittered, pawing at the ground. Asrien regained control of the panicked horse. They heard the whine of Bronn spinning up Fidelis Aquilae’s weapons beside them.

‘Steady,’ Asrien said, walking Tempest forward, weapon raised. The horse’s ears lay flat to her head. There was the sudden snap of las-fire, and from in between one of the great ribs of shattered plasteel roared an enormous hog. It was furred and stood twice as high as a normal porcine, with great flanges around its pendulous jowl sacs. It landed in the centre of the trackway.

‘Look out!’ came a shout from up ahead. Asrien saw that Gelder DeFroy was crouched up in one of the pylons, taking aim with a laspistol. He cracked off a few shots at the hog as Fidelis Aquilae fired her autocannons with a thump, thump.

The monster appeared impervious to fire. Despite the fist-size holes bursting in its fleshy hide, it kept charging, thunderous. It was the height of Fidelis Aquilae, and Asrien saw Bronn lock the war machine’s actuators, ready for impact. The squire fired the autocannon again and it flayed the animal’s back, exposing its spine. But it didn’t stop moving. Asrien could see it was going to knock Fidelis Aquilae down. Not only would Bronn be vulnerable, but they’d be left without heavy weapons.

‘Come on!’ Asrien shouted, squeezing Tempest’s flank. The horse charged forward alongside the hog, rolling her eyes in terror. Asrien swung a leg to one side of the saddle, then leapt onto the monster’s back. They cried in pain as they landed, their broken hand smashing into the stinking creature’s side. But they gripped on, and plunged a fist into the open wound of the monster’s back, wrenching the thick, purple spinal cord. The beast seemed unperturbed, so Asrien drew their laspistol and burst off a series of shots into its exposed meat. The monster spasmed. Asrien fired again and it lurched to one side as if pulled by a rope. It skidded as it fell, slamming into Fidelis Aquilae and sending her staggering, but she remained upright. Asrien jumped and rolled as the pig smashed into a wall, writhing and foaming at the mouth. Fidelis Aquilae let loose a barrage of shots at the thing’s skull. Only when its head was obliterated into wet pulp did it stop moving entirely.

Asrien stared in shock at the mess of steaming brain matter sliding down an ancient window.

They turned at the sound of applause. Gelder DeFroy was walking towards them, shaking his head and clapping.

‘Bravo,’ he said. ‘You nailed the bastard.’

‘Are you all right?’ Asrien asked. Blood was streaming down Gelder’s shoulder, and his face was badly bruised.

‘Oh, splendid, now that that monster isn’t trying to eat me.’

‘What in the hels was it?’ Asrien said.

Gelder mopped his face. ‘It apparently happens sometimes up here in the mountains. A pig escapes slaughter, and becomes very large. I’ll admit, this one seemed unnecessarily so.’

Asrien nodded. ‘Lord DeFroy, I’m afraid I need to break some bad news.’

Asrien and Gelder sat on a piece of wreckage.

‘And where did you say you found him?’

‘About an hour back. Just outside of a settlement.’

Gelder shook his head and looked at the ring that Asrien had given him. ‘A terrible business.’ He stared ahead. ‘I must have just missed him. We should search the mountains. Whoever killed my father, I feel certain they’re there.’

‘We can go back to the castle together, get you a horse, come back out.’

‘If you’re willing, I think you and your squire should go on. Otherwise it may be too late. And the king may stop us.’

Asrien nodded. They’d not thought of Vayoud’s reaction to their disobedience since setting out, and it sent a rush of horror through them.

Gelder tossed the ring into the air and caught it. ‘It’s not the way I’d imagined inheriting my Knight, that’s for sure. But the trial of Becoming seems rather less daunting after this.’

Asrien felt a twinge of jealousy. ‘Of course.’

‘And I was damned lucky you found me,’ DeFroy said. He frowned. ‘In fact, how did you?’

‘We asked in the settlement.’

‘You asked the peasants?’

‘Yes.’

‘Hah,’ Gelder said. ‘I’d never have thought of it. Well, just as well it was you rather than me.’

Visibility was poor as Bronn and Asrien approached the mountains, freezing rain sheeting down on them. Asrien’s hair was plastered to their forehead, and they had to constantly blink water out of their eyes. Half an hour after they’d left DeFroy, they had picked up a blood trail. Asrien concentrated their gaze on the ground ahead. Something had been badly wounded, but was still moving.

Asrien pulled Tempest up short. They’d spotted something behind a boulder, the trace of a shape that didn’t quite fit the landscape.

The horse tossed her head nervously, scenting the iron tang of blood in the air. Asrien dismounted. ‘You’d best wait here,’ they called to Bronn.

‘What is it?’ Bronn frowned, craning to see from the open hatch of the Armiger.

‘Something unpleasant, I think.’

Asrien stepped carefully through the frozen slush. Blood bloomed dirty in a smear, leading to a pile of boulders. Asrien clambered over the rocks and found the corpse of a porcine – but that wasn’t all. A small canyon dropped away below. In it, two-dozen porcines lay slaughtered, carcasses still steaming in the frigid air. They’d been midsize, ten feet long and eight tons each, Asrien reckoned. Although it was hard to tell exactly, because each had been violently torn apart.

The raw, metallic stench of shit and guts was overwhelming and caught in Asrien’s throat. This close, they could see that the pigs were in berry. The immature eggs had only grown to the size of a human head, and lay clustered in translucent, globular clumps around their slaughtered parents. The blood had mingled with the frozen filth, and pallid gore-geese picked amidst the dark, intestinal slush.

Asrien swore. What in hel’s name had done this? Down in the little gully, the snow was churned beyond any use, but a shambling set of prints ran away towards the mountains.

Asrien knelt, trying to interpret the marks around them. It looked as if the wounded porcine whose trail they’d followed had led something predatory back to the rest of the herd. Something big. Asrien placed a hand into the centre of a print. This had been it. Something double the size of a normal animal, and far heavier. Was it the same beast that had attacked them, or were there more?

‘My liege,’ came a call from Bronn.

Asrien frowned at the formal address, and turned. ‘Yes?’

Bronn appeared at the crest of the hill with a frantic-looking page beside her, his cap clenched in his hand.

‘Sire,’ the page gasped. ‘I’ve been trying to find you for hours.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘There was an accident. King Vayoud is dead.’

Asrien stared. ‘What?’

‘Your mother is dead. You are the king-regent.’ He bowed low, and Bronn did the same.

Asrien felt a yawning chasm of shock open up in their heart. Vayoud was dead. She could never harm Asrien again. The thought of her absence felt like an unreality. The missing Knight, the discontent barons, the failing harvest – all of Vayoud’s problems had become theirs in a second.

Asrien stared down at the crown of Bronn’s head as she knelt, supplicant before her king. Asrien had become something else, something other. Something outside of their own control. Asrien wanted to shake Bronn, to tell her to stand up.

But that was not what a king would do.

Asrien swallowed. The fate of the world was in their grasp.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Victoria Hayward is a trained historitor who spent her youth serving as an acolyte in a Games Workshop store. She writes about black holes and the palaces of despots in her day job as a science communicator and her favourite corners of the 40K universe are those occupied by the Inquisition – which is all of it. Her work for Black Library includes the Warhammer 40,000 novel Deathworlder, and the short stories ‘The Siege of Ismyr’ and ‘The Carbis Incident’. She resides in Nottingham, where she keeps birds and practises printmaking.

An extract from Assassinorum: Kingmaker.

Tessenna Starne figured she had about twenty minutes to live. Thirty, if she’d lost them on the moor.

The headlumen on her dirtcycle, hooded with a cap and its lens red to avoid detection at range, cast a thin crescent of light ahead.

Curved and crimson, like a slashed throat.

She leaned forward over the handlebars to counterbalance the bucking hydraulics as her cycle clawed up the dirt road, cresting the last rise before her target.

Road. What a jest. It was nothing better than a shepherd’s track, a weaving line of pounded earth that climbed into the fog-bound moorland hills, used by none except the sure-footed curlhorns that picked their way up the foothills.

Once they’d been livestock, overseen for generations by the region’s herd-serfs. Then the reorganisation came and the displacement shortly thereafter. House footmen had moved in with lasguns to escort the herdsmen to their new home, two duchies over.

She’d been just a girl, then, but she remembered. Remembered how the footman who’d come into her home had looked apologetic as he did it. Uncomfortable. Said he was a servant, just like them. Empathised, even as he forced them from their home at gunpoint. Nothing lived here but the proud curlhorns now. It’s why Starne had picked it.

She stopped at the crest of the hill, raised her visor and spared a glance behind, picking out the weaving line of lanterns emerging from the trees at the bottom of the hill. Canine barks echoed up from the valley floor.

Then she slapped the visor down and gunned her dirtcycle’s engine, took the plunge down the other side of the slope – curlhorn track forgotten, feeling her machine buck beneath her as she jarred and wheeled over the humps, briefly catching air halfway down as she leapt a rise.

She’d done this once every season for the last seven years. Stealing out of her quarters at Gathering Palace with forged errand-orders that bought her a full day. Making it to the shed where she’d stashed the bike, heading into the hills. Always on the new moon. Transmitting her check-in codes and short reports. Dominion Station / Status Rep. Alpha, Rift+742dys / NTR.

NTR – Nothing to Report.

Tonight’s message would be significantly longer. She could feel the codebook heavy in the pocket of her leather jerkin.

A las-bolt streaked above her, stabbing blind in the deep shadows of the valley, briefly splashing her with an arc of passing colour as it sizzled overhead. Lighting the fog that gathered like poison gas in the bowl of the valley floor.

Starne jagged the handlebars, slewing the bike right, spewing gravel, to change her position and angle.

Two more spears of red lashed behind her, close to her old position, searing away the night vision in her left eye and leaving purple streaks she blinked away as she hit the valley floor, fully enveloped in the fog. Doused her light.

She could see the crumbling village emerging from the fog ahead. Thick rock walls and moss-colonised roofs. What doors and window shutters remained hung by single hinges, precarious.

Though she could no longer see the lanterns, she knew they were close. Shouts carried down from the hill behind.

Revise the timeline. Ten minutes to live. Make them good minutes.

It was right, somehow, that it would end here.

Starne left the bike at a fence in front of the first dwelling, hoping it might misdirect her pursuers. Give her another sixty seconds as they searched the wrong house. She snapped down the kickstand to activate the trigger and gingerly leaned it upright, then slipped into the tangle of houses.

Perhaps her sense of poetic justice had betrayed her. Her home village, after all, was a matter of house records. Any Gatekeeper or Kingsward would ken the pattern immediately. Displaced herder girl, promoted through house magnanimity to an important communications role, privately nurses her grief and resentment until it curdles and she turns traitor to her oaths.

A simple story, easy to understand – and true enough.

The Imperial spymaster had come to her during the Tallaxian Campaign, when the house Knights were crushing a subterranean tyranid infestation, and asked her if she wanted to do a service for the Emperor.

With compensation, of course.

Dominion had no currency, or at least none serfs could use. But life-saving pharms – blister packs that could be easily hidden in belongings and protect both her and what remained of her family from the plagues that regularly swept through the labouring classes – those were welcome.

Starne weaved through the buildings, found the tumbledown shack with the tree sprouting from one corner, roots worming through the foundation and big trunk forcing its way through the roof like a chimney.

A perfect frame for the long wire aerial that she’d coiled around it.

Starne could hear dogs barking in the fog-shrouded streets. Stablights glowing on the weed-choked common. Shouts of discovery.

Despite the tension, she smiled.

A whump of detonation on the far side of the village. Orange-lit fog boiling into the sky, rolling away in a visible shockwave.

They’d found the dirtcycle, moved it enough to trigger the plastek charge she’d planted behind the promethium tank.

The stablights in the common swung towards the explosion, bounced as the footmen began to run.

She reached the door to the hovel and gingerly stepped over the tripwire stretched taut across the threshold, its trigger keyed to the frag mine that sat above the door, pointing down from behind a false stone. She slipped in, closed the door and barred it.

In the night of mist, darkness and red lights, the blinking green and amber of the vox-caster comforted her.

She put her dirtcycle helmet on the table, pulled the autopistol from the back of her waistband and checked it. Set it down by the transmission unit so it would be within easy reach.

She dropped her codebook next to it and opened it to the message she’d just finished composing when that meddling arsehole Calthius – head serf-master of Gathering Palace, messenger wing – had walked into her chamber.

He’d taken an interest in her the month before. Made advances. Invited her to private training. She had said no, but Calthius was obsessed. He kept trying.

Starne didn’t know what Calthius intended when he’d slipped his master key in her room’s lock and walked inside. Perhaps he’d wanted to search it, find something that would give him leverage over her. Or to get her alone.

He’d definitely not expected to find her leaning over her personal trunk – the secret compartment in the lid dropped open to display a row of gold coins, message wafers, a codebook and a well-oiled autopistol all nestled in purpose-fit foam.

Starne killed the leering bastard, of course. But he was a big man and didn’t go quiet. The footmen came. Swordsmen, naturally. Nothing the autopistol couldn’t handle.

And now she had only minutes.

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