Fragment: House Rules

[rekindledtitan]

She is Pelsor, Baroness of Winter, and her House lies in tatters.

It’s been six of this planet’s years since their Kell was slain: murdered in his throne room by one of the humans’ risen dead. For six years she and the other great nobles of their house have warred and contended for his place, scrambling to reassert the bonds that hold their people together, and every time one of them came close to asserting themselves above the rest, the ghouls returned to quell his victory and plunge them all into chaos once again. Sometimes one of her House would beg another noble to join them, as lord or as high priest; these too were murdered before they could set foot aboard Winter’s flagship. The Wolf lord Skolas rose up, naming himself Kell of Kells, and many - far too many - of her kin abandoned House Winter to join him. All slaughtered, hunted, scattered when the Mad Wolf fell to the humans in turn.

Their Prime Servitor, the revered machine god, the safeguard of their House’s future, has been lost for years. Their warring has left them without an Archon to interpret the machines’ will, to counsel their Kell or oversee their rituals. They should have a scribe of House Judgment, to sit at the Kell’s left hand and uphold Eliksni law, but the last survivor of that House skulks on the Reef licking the feet of an alien queen. The remaining Barons fight on, as they must. They fight the machines that infect this planet and the undead who raid their lairs and the newest threat, the shadow creatures born of stolen aliens and stolen Eliksni alike. They fight one another, with what little strength they have to spare.

Pelsor has ceased to contend with the others. Not because she cannot best her rivals. Because she has seen what they do not. The weakness lies not in the nobles who would be Kell but in the House over which they fight. She can conquer her strongest rivals, but she could not also defend herself when the humans’ undead warriors came for her. She could name a new Archon, but she cannot give him a Prime Servitor to tend. Without a Prime, there can be no new servitors to feed her followers or new hatchlings. Without numbers, they cannot defend their servitors. She can hold their territory secure, but rival Barons and ghouls and abominable machines alike will eat at them until they are nothing. Pelsor has a stronger force than any Winter noble still standing, but she has only the resources to prolong their end.

She has conserved her strength. She has chosen her raids carefully. She has gathered the needed spoils. She has even gathered a pack of Wolf assassins, orphaned by the collapse of their House. And among the broken rubbish and lies and errant hints she has found something bright and cold and gleaming.

Pelsor has a plan. But she cannot only pursue that which she’d like.

She sits presiding over a trial of strength, veiled by the blue shimmer of a force-field. In the pit beneath her feet, vandals challenge captains for their rank and dregs challenge vandals for glory, scuffle and knife and claw with other dregs for revenge, for shiny trinkets, for any chance of proving their valor and earning the precious right to reclaim their limbs. One ritual combat after another, rank is settled and the House is satisfied. And all of them hope to win their lord’s notice. Yet the Baroness broods over it all with clenched mandibles. She is no Archon, to hold sway over this. She is not even truly Kell. The lowliest dreg gutted in this empty rite is a waste she cannot afford. Yet she is here, because her Eliksni grow restive without action. They demand to test themselves against something, anything, be it even their own brothers and sisters. The laws that have kept them alive through their exile howl louder than the laws that keep them Eliksni.

She takes interest at last when a Captain leaps into the ring, swords drawn in his upper hands and cape flying. He spreads his second pair of hands and roars a name she knows already. A former Wolf. The one they all know. The one she needs. He’s not even captain of his pack, a mere vandal. But he’s notorious now, and they have noticed Pelsor summoning him. Conferring with him. Even former Wolves are not liked here.

There’s a stirring among the watching Eliksni before this one jumps down with blades drawn. His blue Winter cape is short, his stature delicate alongside his higher-ranking opponent. Only his helmet sets him apart, the visor a thin sliver of white light. His voice is quieter, but she hears him accept the challenge. Beneath her mask Pelsor is seething fury: silent, contained hate. All her plans to save her people rest on this once-Wolf. If he dies, she may as well steal the Kell’s flagship and fly all her house into the wretched little sun above. But she cannot forbid this. She is no Archon, no Kell yet. Her Wolf must fight for himself. So says the law.

Her guard rap the butts of their spears against the stone. Silence falls among the Eliksni. The force-fields are raised again. And Pelsor snarls, “Begin.”

Their duel is a whirling, vicious thing. The Captain is bigger, stronger, older, his blades a hand longer and twice as thick. The Wolf is fast and cunning: an assassin still, deprived of his explosives. Pelsor wonders why he does not cloak himself. Blades flash and spark: one parrying a sweep while the other slices out, lower arms grabbing out to try and disarm one another. The captain gives no ground. But he lands no blow on the Wolf, either.

Pelsor has seen a thousand duels. She begins to see this one. How every swing and lunge and grab on the captain’s part is countered, evaded, repulsed effortlessly. Every feint ignored. As if the Wolf already knows.

It’s a duel measured in moments before a tangling swirl of the Captain’s cloak slows his steps a second. A mere heartbeat. Time enough. The Wolf’s blade is slicing a sword from his hands, the Wolf’s hands are on his wrists, the Wolf’s blade is at his throat, and then it’s done. It’s over too fast for the onlookers to understand what just happened. For a moment silence lingers. Then the victor lifts his head and howls his victory to the roof, and the House roars with him.

No-one could have seen that opening, Pelsor thinks. No-one could have taken that sliver of an opportunity. But it’s done.

And now she has proof…

A snarl from the nearest rows: another Captain shoving her way to the front in a fury. She’s grabbing pistols from her side, ready to drag the unwanted Wolf into a new challenge here and now. And Pelsor rises. Her guard move smoothly around her as she plows a course to the disputant. Lesser Eliksni leap from her path - or to a better vantage. She looms over the Captain, all four eyes burning into her vassal. This one wishes to defy her, too. She can smell it beneath the cowed hunch of the Captain’s shoulders. She would not dare challenge the Baroness directly. Pelsor rules here for good reason, and standing this close she towers more than a head above the lower-ranking officer. Better to take one’s chances attacking her loyal vassals.

“One trial,” Pelsor says, her voice lifted for all to hear. A lower hand gestures at the Wolf, still waiting in the pit below. “One challenge. This is the law.” So a scribe of Judgment would remind them. A law made long ago: one cannot simply throw challenge after challenge at an exhausted rival until they fall. Not in this place of honor. If it must be then she will be Kell and Archon and Judgment here. She will dock the limbs from this frothing upstart herself.

The Captain is not so stupid. She replaces her weapons and drops into a bow. Accepts her liege lord’s rule. Pelsor lifts her cold blue stare and rakes it over the gathered Eliksni. Turns to stare at the once-Wolf below. He too bows to her. They will obey, all of them, and they will survive.

She is Kell here, and this is the law of her House.