4. A GAUNTLET OF DEEPEST BLACK
Five soldiers, hardened, battle-worn men in tattered armor, walked the six story-high walls of the Duskhelm Priory on the southeastern perimeter of the ruins of Shi'draith-Hakaba. They were armed with sonic maces and laser-cutlasses. They were members of the Ashen Brood, a little known special unit of clerics and scholars trained as assassins, who protected the Duskhelm Priory. They were grim, lethal men who'd been cursed through the application of illegal gerontological genomic tech-enhancements, with lifespans four to six times that of normal Teshiwahurians. The Ashen Brood had walked the walls of the Priory for a dozen decades, sentinels against the incursion of the armies of the Emperium. A single, vast trapezoidal building, four-sided where two lateral sides are not parallel, but with the final pair of opposing base sides running parallel, and built around a wide central courtyard atop a flat mesa of unyielding granite-like stone, the Priory had a round tower built into the center of its southernmost wall. A pair of dull-colored flags atop cracked, wind-abraded triangular parapets at opposite corners of the Priory walls drooped from their poles, only occasionally fluttering in the late afternoon's lazy breezes. The flags were diamond-shaped expanses of threadbare cloth emblazoned with the design of a spiked coronet atop the surface of an escutcheon against a background silhouette of a large scarab-like insect. Under that design was a curled banner that read "Keth'samalar-Weejhen Wraull", a phrase written in pre-Emperium Teshiwahurian that meant "Kneel before the Wrath of the Faithful".
"Agents of The Warhound are still in chambers with the Council," one Ashen Brood guardsman said to another as their paths crossed atop the stony wall. The man shook his head as he spoke, indicating his dissatisfaction with that state of affairs.
"Of course they are," said the other, sneering, "There are still more lies to be told."
The men chuckled humorlessly at one another and winked as they passed each other. Without further conversation, they continued their solemn vigil and walked into the glare from the slowly setting suns above.
The situation to which they referred was a violent, ongoing territorial dispute between the local provincial warlord, a greed-driven brute of a man named Kaustille, who had once been a territorial Sheriff, and a caravan-leader from the ruling collective of the nomadic Freq'maneshii tribes, named Grazinh. Kaustille had been gifted with the caustic nickname of "The Warhound" by local politicians in the region. Normally, such affairs were not sufficiently important to require the involvement of the Magisterial Council of the Brood, but Kaustille had petitioned the Territorial Governor's office demanding the formal inclusion of the Emperium's Outposter Diplomatic Corps in the legal resolution of the dispute.
Because, obviously, on a world in a solar system that was bleeding away into alien Nothingness, essentially a dying cosmos, and where Time itself was a fractured and broken thing, the battle for control of land and merchandising rights by an untitled non-royal who had usurped most his power by right-of-arms was of undeniably paramount importance.
As ever, most the general populace had no true idea what was really going on in their world.
For the most part, the governing membership of the Ashen Brood did not much care about border disputes or land claims or crimes of trespass between differing peoples in the region. They were not policemen. And they did not act as an enforcement arm of the Emperium's military governance division. No, the Ashen Brood were an armed vigilante militia who had given themselves the task of protecting the territorial region from the unwanted incursion of invading extrahuman, non-human and mutant lifeforms. They were an apolitical collection of dangerous militant xenophobes... and as such, they were enemies of the Emperium's far-ranging Star Legion.
"The Regional Ambassadorial Envoy from Koombari City are ready to attend the Negotiations," a gaunt, taciturn man in the amber robes of a Territorial Magisterial Advocate announced to a trio of heavily-muscled older men. The bearded, long-haired men were standing together next to an arched window looking out on the Priory's central courtyard. A pair of military guardsmen in dull olive-green tactical armor bracketed the trio, providing protective security that the fierce and barbarous group of sullen-eyed, saturnine men did not appear to need.
"Agents of the Warhound, you mean. 'Ambassadorial Envoy'. Phahfg! Either way, it's about time," one of the men said in a gravel-rough voice. "They've kept us waiting for more than half a sunsweep."
"What do you expect from scholarly diplomats from a spaceport city?", another man, shorter and thicker than the first man who spoke, remarked past a snarl. "They actually imagine themselves to be important."
"Don't be act the dullard. They already believe they're dealing with paranoid, backwards-thinking medieval fanatics. We do not need to re-inforce that impression. And as ambassadors from the spaceport metropolis, they are important," the third man, taller and more lean than his two comrades, said in a voice that held the slightest of reptilian hisses behind the words. "You can best believe they have diligently researched our own backgrounds and credentials and committed the facts therein to memory before they left Koombari City to travel here. We'll need to keep our wits about us and not let our cultural prejudices blind us to that which these men may be capable --- or to what it is they may be able to offer us."
"They're liars and merchants without any real concepts of history or of honor," the first speaker, a man with a hooked nose over his bushy white mustache, groused belligerently. "Their so-called authority over the affairs of the region is a joke. They don't belong anywhere near the Brotherhood of the Duskhelm."
"They have the sharper swords and the bigger guns," the tall man said. "On occasions such as this, we need to remember that."
"So you say, brother," the shorter, broader member of the trio said shrugging, "so you say."
Qeskan Wa'entrud, the thoughtful tall man, smiled crookedly at Rentro Bacsille's deadpan dourness while the third man, Gaddezos Hu'riem, harrumphed irritably.
Qeskan, Rentro and Gaddezos were the Court-Lords and Storm-Captains of the Duskhelm Priory's Army of the Ashen Brood. Qeskan Wa'entrud was the foremost of the leaders, bearing the title of Primehunde of the First-Named, while Rentro Bacsille and Gaddezos Hu'riem were Brethren-Equals Among The First-Named. Though the men were not in any way related by blood genetics, they were truly family, battle-bred brothers who'd served and fought in the regional militia under conscription in the Emperium for nearly forty orbital sun-cycles, called 'heliars'. Rentro and Gaddezos were originally descended from the aggressive and regimented Qa'Sarkoon peoples of Tehsiwahur while Qeskan was a descendant of the wealthy and aristocratic Cid'Ammar bloodlines. Generally in Teshiwahurian culture, the tribal groups did not willingly, nor easily, mix, but within the subculture of the Ashen Brood, all previous tribal heritages and regional allegiances were foresworn as members became crusader-soldiers of the ancient clan that had protected the city of Shi'draith-Hakaba.
The robed Territorial Magisterial Advocate reluctantly held his piece until the men had finished their exchange and then said, "There is much to be done to rebuild and restructure what remains of the outland territories of the Emperium since the arrival of The Wound in our skies. The inarguable fact is that all our past differences, political or spiritual or racial or species-driven, matter as little against the knowledge that this entire sector of space has begun to decompose and devolve due to the unstoppable influence of cosmic forces we scarce understand and cannot hope to stop. No one said we need to all become friends. However, you DO represent the leading political and military authority of the nomadic outpost peoples who live at the fringe of The Wastes. If you do not take the responsibility, then who will? I imagine the diplomats from Koomari City bear little love for either you or your territory, but at least they acknowledge we DO have to work together if any of us want to survive this descent into decay and slow death. So, gentleman, if I may, I would urge you to control your tempers and open your minds and see what it is you can do to help the Ambassadorial Envoy to regain control over this mutated and corrupted, dying part of the planet. And meeting with Ambassador Jhonwin Czuek is a good first step..."
Qeskan Wa'entrud regarded the Magisterial Advocate anew, with a raised eyebrow and an appreciation for the man's sense of priorities.
"Well said," Qeskan allowed. A sidelong look at his comrades, however, revealed to Qeskan that Rentro and Gaddezos had reacted more predictably to the man's words. Their fists were clasped firmly around the pommels of their razor sharp daggers. They didn't take sharp criticism from officious non-Brood, non-warriors well.
"Let us venture into chambers, brothers. It would seem we have some grim and difficult work ahead of us," Qeskan said. He summarily began a stroll down the tapestry-lined, arched stone corridor towards the conference chamber.
As Gaddezos Hu'riem stiffly strode past the Magistrate, obviously struggling to keep himself in check, he stopped only a hearts beat long enough to say to the robed man, "Ever speak that way to me again and I'll gut you and feed you your own entrails."
The Magistrate only sighed in response and followed the trio down the corridor. It wasn't the first time he'd been threatened and, as being threatened went, this one was more palatable than those he'd experienced from Ambassador Czuek.
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