She ran into a corridor and saw a cluster of figures coming towards her from the opposite direction. Shots started flying in both directions as the ones behind caught up to her again. Donna was soon pinned down in the crossfire and forced to duck into a hatchway for cover.
It was a trap. The room beyond was for storage and had a hatch in the roof as the only other exit. The roof hatch started cranking open, its two halves folding back to allow light to spill in from the deck above. It wasn’t a promising sight. Armed figures stood silhouetted in the lights and one of the deck guns, a quad heavy stubber, was pointing menacingly into the hold. If they let fly with that thing every square inch of it would be filled with flying lead in an instant.
“Well, well. Mad Donna.” A familiar whisper floated down mockingly from above. It was Shallej.
Donna leapt towards the hatchway through which she had entered, but it was slammed shut in her face. Derisive laughter came from above.
“Our guest at last.”
Donna tried to see Shallej, but he was staying well hidden.
“That’s correct, Shallej, well done, very well done indeed.” This was from a new voice, one high and obsequious but full of faux culture and superiority. Relli.
“What the hell do you want, Relli?” Donna shouted. “You wanted my attention, well you’ve got it now! You’ve got three seconds to explain before I blast my way out of this tub of yours and send you all to the bottom of the sump.”
Shallej snickered.
He could snicker all he liked but it wasn’t false bravado this time. Donna reckoned the Pig could eat its way through the deck and down far enough to sink this damn thing before they could finish killing her. Under the circumstances she felt quite prepared to try her theory out.
“No! Nobledam, wait!” Relli squawked.
Well, that was gratifying.
“One!” Donna called with devilment in her heart.
“Nobledam, I was engaged by one who sought to find you, who wishes you well, a friend whom you know from the Spire!”
“I have no friends in the Spire. Two.”
“He said you would be recalcitrant but he bade me… he bade me speak his final words to you from the last time you met. They were: ‘Remember this moment always, D’onne, for you stand at a threshold few would ever dare pass.’ And that would tell you all you needed to know!”
The word “three” died on her lips. Lars was behind this, and with that her last hopes of any good news from the Spire shattered into a million pieces. The fool had followed her down. She felt suddenly very tired and alone.
“Is he here?” she asked quietly.
“In my quarters, nobledam, awaiting your pleasure.”
It was quickly evident that Relli’s personal domain was a very different realm to what Donna had seen in the rest of the boat-thing. It lay at the top of sweeping stairways up a central atrium that accessed the upper decks. Here the carpets were clean and the smell was chemically fresh. White painted walls showed artfully chosen paintings (not picts) and no hint of rust, bright lumen bulbs casting a cheery glow over it all through crystal chandeliers high above. Only the occasional creak of the boat’s hull or whiff of the sump broke the illusion of quietly palatial splendour.
Shallej and his posse had disappeared below deck again with a sardonic parting bow. The four surviving Goliaths were Relli’s personal retinue and had remained. They disarmed Donna (or so they thought), and then marched around, boxing her in at all times. Donna felt creepy knowing that snake Shallej was around and not in plain sight but right now she had more immediate concerns. Judging by their scars, Donna guessed the Goliaths had been working with Relli for a long time. They were certainly pissed at Donna for killing two of their number. They kept jostling her whenever they thought Relli wasn’t looking, or drawing their fingers from ear to ear in silent threat of what they would do as soon as they got the chance.
Donna noticed they all had tattoos on their necks that depicted crude, gnashing canine teeth. They were Dog Soldiers. The Grand Dog had been kicked out of the settlement of Filth Pond a long time ago, but his Dog Soldiers still showed up in the most unsavoury parts of the Underhive as guns for hire. These had sunk pretty low if they were working for a guilder, the Grand Dog had always taken a dim view of The Merchant Guild, seeing it as more of a resource to be harvested than a force to be reckoned with.
“Sorry about your two brothers,” she whispered to them as Relli fussed over a door lock. No pit slaves were permitted inside Relli’s sanctum, just the Goliaths and a few chosen lickspittles. Obviously Relli was scared that his pit slaves might take it into their heads to kill him and go outlaw.
“Just a case of mistaken identity,” continued Donna. That seemed to mollify them slightly and some of the bunched up tendons around their jaws relaxed slightly. Relli opened the door.
“If I’d known you were Dog Soldiers I would have killed them more slowly,” Donna stage-whispered to them. The Dog Soldiers’ eyes glared psychotically and their thick fingers spasmed into hammer fists. Donna stepped through the doorway, laughing at their impotent fury.
The doors opened to reveal a vast hall with arched windows along one side. Donna’s mind skipped for a moment as she gazed at the view outside. Streams of high liners and shuttles snaked about the flank of the Spire, etching the skies with their contrails. Thunderheads roiled out from below their feet to the horizon, carpeting the perfect blue vault of the heavens with coarse, black wool. She was back in the Spire.
“Impressive, is it not?” Relli’s unctuous gloating was obscene. “This ekranoplan was outfitted with luxuries fit for the Spire in its time.”
A trick. Holo shutters showing a Pict recording. It made Donna realise how long it had been since she’d seen such a trick. It also made Donna want to kill Relli there and then. She didn’t need her blade, she would do it with her bare hands and take pleasure in snapping his fat neck. A warning rumble came from behind her. The largest and ugliest Dog Soldier had entered the hall too. Ironically enough, he was the one carrying her weapons. Even if Relli didn’t realise that he stood at death’s door the Goliath certainly did, and his truculent gaze challenged her to just try it. Donna smiled sweetly at him instead.
“An ekranoplan? What’s that?” she asked Relli smoothly. The Goliath’s eyes rolled fractionally upward at the query.
“It is a hybrid of ship and aircraft, nobledam, one which is able to skate across flat surfaces at fantastic speeds. The skill of building them was sadly lost many centuries ago. Now this may be the last example of that wondrous art on all of Necromunda!” Relli’s words tumbled out bloated with excitement and immodesty. It was obvious the boat-thing was the guilder’s pride and joy. Donna made a mental note to sink it before she left.
“You’ve been restoring it, I see,” she said. “It’s very impressive.” How easily the lies came, Donna thought. The sight of the Spire-view had obviously brought back old habits.
Relli’s face dropped. “Well, I have had to suspend work for the present, nobledam, which rather neatly brings me to the subject of our current venture.” They were approaching an ormolu door at the end of the hall. “I have in fact not one, but two noblesires anxious to make your acquaintance…”
Donna had sudden misgivings as Relli reached for the door handle. “What the hell do you mean, Relli?” she snarled. “Who else is in there?”
“Ah, he felt it would be best to make his own introductions.”
The door swung open.
Donna wanted to run when she saw who was inside.
An oval table made of crystal that was the colour of oily smoke dominated the centre of the chamber. Four ornate chairs stood around it, two of which were occupied. Donna’s eye was instantly drawn to the figure seated on her right. His white armour seemed incongruous in the opulent setting, but his bearing was eminently suitable. He sprawled indolently in the chair as if it were a throne. A cloaked figure stood at his shoulder and was bending as if to whisper in his ear as Donn
a entered. She could only see the man’s face in profile but the sight struck a chill in her heart. It was Count Ko’iron, the man she had murdered in the Spire, back from the dead.
“So the bitch-queen finally showed up! Well done, Relli.”
The voice was wrong, younger and less assured. As the face turned towards her Donna saw that was wrong too, a crease here and an angle there—similar for sure but not the same. She saw that the cloaked figure wasn’t whispering at all, in fact it had skeletal metal fingers like hypodermics inserted in the man’s neck. He seemed oblivious to their presence as he addressed her.
“You’ve caused an intolerable amount of harm, D’onne Ge’Sylvanus, but your little jaunt is over now.”
“Ah,” Relli said. “Forgive me, noblesir, but please recall our agreement.”
“Quite right, Relli, say your piece and get on with it then.”
The figure slumped back in his seat, the skeletal hand at his neck faithfully following the movement. Donna’s scattered thoughts realised that it was a medicae unit, a dedicated nurse, doctor and surgeon rolled into one. The count was being treated for something—an injury or poisoning perhaps? She suddenly remembered the other person at the table.
Lars was looking not a day older than when she had seen him that day in the arboretum. He at least was dressed for dinner in an immaculate chequer coat and cravat. He smiled at Donna uncertainly and she suddenly realised how different she must look to him. He probably barely recognised her at all.
D’onne had seemed petite and demure; Donna had grown tall and imposing like some barbarian queen. D’onne had been a broken, frightened girl; Donna was a fearless gang fighter grown used to life on the knife’s edge. Shock was written all over his face, but he looked her resolutely in the face (no doubt with his guts squirming at the sight of her bionic eye) and said, “I told you I would find you again one day, D’onne.”
“You were a fool to come down here, Lars,” Donna snarled. She turned. “And just who the hell do you think you are? Because you sure as crap aren’t Count Ko’iron.”
“Ah, nobledam, in that respect you are mistaken,” Relli tried to sound conciliatory. “Please, ah, please be seated so we can talk properly.”
Donna treated him to a contemptuous look and took a seat as far from the alleged count as possible. She noted that Relli’s biggest Goliath was now standing in front of the door, blocking the only way out.
She almost laughed when she saw the food laid on the table, high-class fare by Underhive standards—a king’s banquet. To nobles from the Spire it was little better than raw sewage, and lay completely untouched. Donna’s guts were churning with tension but she grabbed up a roasted haunch of rat to gnaw on in the hopes it would upset the two nobles further. Relli seated himself between Donna and the count.
“Ah, it’s a great honour, of course, to have such esteemed persons as yourselves as my guests,” Relli began. Donna glared at him.
“Ah, well, there is a delicate balance at work here, nobledam. I should perhaps explain what has brought us together. I was first approached some time ago by noblesir Polema with an exciting proposition,” he gestured to Lars with fat, ring-encrusted fingers, “to organise an expedition to a locale known colloquially as ‘Dead Man’s Hole’.”
Donna was suddenly back with Hanno again at Dust Falls, peering over his shoulder at the little cogitator screen and trying to understand what DMH stood for in the guilder records. Now she knew. Dead Man’s Hole meant two expeditions that had failed to return, twenty-one people lost. There was no need to let Relli know she had uncovered that little tidbit of information just yet, so Donna kept her mouth shut and waited to see what the guilder would admit to.
“There have been some… difficulties in mounting a successful expedition to the area, as it lies deep within the Badzones and a considerable distance from the nearest settlement. However, the noblesir had convinced me that the rewards of such an undertaking would stand to repay our efforts a thousandfold, and so we turned to thoughts of how to secure our future success.”
Lars was looking from Relli to Donna and back again as if he desperately wanted to say something. Relli ignored him and continued.
“The noblesir had confided in me that the nobledam Ulanti had been known to him through… prior association in the Spire. Knowing of the fearsome reputation you have gained in the Underhive, nobledam, I had thought to locate you in relation to our difficulties and contract your services to assist.”
Donna eyed Relli critically. It sounded plausible enough except for two things.
“Then why the bounty hunters and why him,” she gestured at Ko’iron.
“I had contracted Shallej Bak on a number of previous occasions and he had been assisting me with the expeditions. He told me that he knew how to find you and bring you here—a simple letter in the right language, he said. I apologise for his methods, nobledam, I had no idea they would turn out to be so… direct. This noblesir arrived here barely two shifts ago, nobledam. He has his own reasons for being here as is best explained by his good self.”
Lars was almost bouncing up and down in his chair for attention by now but the count and Relli were ignoring him.
“What’s eating at you, Lars?” Donna asked.
“D’onne, I wanted to say I was never in favour of all this scheming,” he said in a rush, “I told Relli at the outset I should come and find you, that you would listen to me—”
“I would have slapped you silly and sent you back to the Spire. In fact, I may well still do that.” Donna took a bite out the rat haunch. Lars looked crestfallen.
“Alright, that’s enough!” The count surged to his feet, and the medicae unit hissed as it struggled to keep up with him.
“I didn’t come down this dung hole to listen to all this rubbish.”
He turned on Donna.
“I am Julius Ko’iron, rightful heir of the House Ko’iron and you are D’onne Ulanti who was betrothed to the heir of Ko’iron. I demand you return with me to the Spire and fulfil your family duties.”
Donna laughed in his face.
“So, it’s Julius is it? Piss off back to the Spire, Julius, before I kill you like I did your big brother, Marneus.”
“You didn’t kill Marneus, you bitch! That would’ve been kinder!” The count’s face was bright red, and the skeletal fingers were rapidly massaging his neck with their needle tips.
“Oh no, eight years fighting before insanity completely overtook him! Even now he hides from the light, locked away in his apartments day and night.” The new Count Ko’iron tottered and slumped back into his chair heavily.
Donna was shocked, her world broken in two. All this time she had been with the murderous scum of the Underhive because she was convinced she belonged there. Hiding and fighting and scraping an existence, all the time convinced she had murdered a noble and so was worse than all the gun-scum and the bounty hunters around her. That’s what she had told herself, time and again, that she had joined the other dysfunctional killers in Necromunda down at the bottom, in the Underhive, because there was nowhere else to go.
But was she any better than that really? Julius had said his brother had gone mad, doubtless tormented by the memory of how she had unmanned him—her, a mere woman after all. Somehow she felt now she was better than a murderer. What she had done to Marneus was one thing, what he had done to himself afterwards was another. She realised Relli was speaking again and probably had been for a while as she was lost in her thoughts.
“…the count has graciously agreed that given his condition, it may be some while before he returns to the Spire.”
“What condition? What’s wrong with him?” Donna snapped.
“The count suffered poisoning from a milliasaur bite as he came down the Abyss, hence the treatment from his chirurgeon. So, as I was saying, nobledam,” Relli seemed a little peeved, like he felt he was losing control of the situation, “the count has agreed that his claim to your hand can wait sufficiently long for Dead Ma
n’s Hole to be investigated with your help, in return for a share of the proceeds. I might add that the count himself has some very talented individuals in his entourage who will vastly improve our chances.”
Relli beamed. Everything obviously made perfect sense to him now they were all sitting down together. To him it was all a simple matter of negotiation. Time to introduce him to a few finer points of negotiation.
“So let me summarise what you’re saying, Relli. You want me to go help find Dead Man’s Hole and then go back to the Spire and wedded bliss with the good Count Ko’iron here.”
“There’d be no gallivanting around the sewers at all if we weren’t still out of pocket from your damn bride-price, Ulanti,” the count muttered bitterly.
“Well I…” Relli could sense the trap waiting for him: he didn’t want any of those things, he just wanted bottomless wealth to spend on his ekranoplan. To him the nobles were a way of getting it and their personal entanglements hadn’t entered his balance sheets.
“And pray tell what would be in this for me?” Donna swallowed another bite of rat meat.
“Ah, the chance to return to the Spire, nobledam, wealthy enough to repair any old harms.”
Donna arched her brows at Lars. “Lars, what have you been telling him?”
Lars suddenly found himself at the centre of attention and squirmed visibly. “I believe that what lies in Dead Man’s Hole would significantly alter the market in Hive City,” he said quietly.
“What part of the market, Lars?” Donna asked incredulously. Market forces on Necromunda had been ruthlessly monopolised and jealously protected by the Houses for centuries. Even a slight fluctuation had huge implications for Hive Primus. Proles could find themselves in or out of work by the millions and whole sectors of the city could open up or close down as the finances shifted.
“Energy generation.”
After thousands of years energy had become the most desperately sought-after resource in all of Necromunda. For millennia, engineers had tried unsuccessfully to balance out the massive requirements of the teeming populace and industry of the hive world with the concerns of availability and cost. Their demands had reduced the surface of the planet to a poisoned ash waste and necessitated the building of the first hives so that people could shelter from the cataclysm they had created around their remaining energy reserves. Energy consumption still remained the most significant limiting factor in the growth of any House.
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