Chapter Text
It had been too long since Anarhad Starsinger had been home.
Unusual for the League’s leadership to acquiesce to meeting outside the grand Spakeronde of Hespiris - and Ancestors, but she missed its rolling bounty of orchards and slow rivers - but times were changing. A breach of tradition and decorum, certainly, but she was beyond pleased to see the familiar faces. Some were older than she remembered, but familiar nonetheless. The sweet smell of locuswood panelling. The rich nectar of Hesperian cider.
Too long away. Far too long.
So Anarhad sipped her drink, staring over the goblet’s rim at Grimnyr Forgebane. She savoured the taste and texture of the elder’s frustration as much as the cider. Another rare taste of home.
‘You jest,’ Forgebane growled. ‘This is another of your jokes. I thought I would endure them no more upon ascending to the Council. I see I was mistaken.’
‘No joke, Lord Grimnyr. I’ve already spoken to the Greater Thurian League. The funding is secure.’
Forgebane’s beardless jaw dropped open. ‘You envoyed to the Thurians without leave?’ He looked about for support, and did not find it. The Council did not share the Grimnyr’s long-standing exasperation with his crucible-twin. In fact, they were nodding along, as though the crackpot proposal had merit.
‘It’s a fair play.’ Guildmaster Ectoom’s eyes twinkled beneath heavy brows pierced with golden rings. His eye for risk was almost as sharp as his eye for profit - though a recent Orkish misadventure had cost his consortium in recent days. ‘The Thurians want a buffer for their own farspace holdings, and we could secure lines of credit elsewhere so long as we assume the risk and don’t advertise their involvement. The Cthonian Guilds won’t be happy to be cut out, but they’ve got no appetite to start a war over it.’
‘It’s not the Cthonians we should be worried about,’ countered the Grimnyr. He waved a hand through the table’s holographic display, a Kin worried he was seeing things that nobody else could. ‘This system doesn’t border Imperial space. It is Imperial space! Their machine priests have a station there, and a primitive early-space society on one of the rocks you want to plunder!’
Anarhad set her goblet down, unconcerned by Forgebane’s dirty look. ‘My Prospect fleet say there hasn’t been any movement there for decades. It’s a research station, and the Imperium collects no tithe and asserts no claim on the system, much less the planet.’
‘Really?’ Forgebane’s tone was acid. ‘Did you ask them?’
‘Yes, I did.’
A deep, discontented rumble cut off the Grimnyr’s wild-eyed sputtering. It was rare for the Forge-Master to speak at Council: she lived in a world of stone and steel, and her lidded eyes oft danced with dreams of devices and designs. Now they were focused down the long locuswood table, and they froze the argument dead.
A League was, by nature, an association of Kindred. Each Hold was a collection of close genetic templates born from the same crucible, and even they could be fractious. Without those close ties to temper disagreements, things could - and did - turn violent on occasion.
Myrr Steelbinder could bend iron with her bare hands and heat the forge with a glare. Her contributions were always considered with utmost respect.
‘To deal with the Thurians is one thing, but the Imperial Mechanicus will steal and strip anything we bring into this system. They must be removed before any expansion will be authorised by this Council.’
Anarhad blinked. ‘You’re familiar with them?’ To her knowledge, Myrr hadn’t left the Core, and had shown no interest in farspace species or society. Even pillage from the Necron tomb-worlds couldn’t turn Stonebinder’s eyes from her Forge. As far as she was concerned, only technology founded in light of the Four Pillars had true worth, and all else was a curiosity at best.
‘Yes.’
‘Then you know their dogma prevents their use or examination of ‘alien’ technology.’
A snort like a blown piston. ‘They care less for their dogma than I do.’
‘And if I had assurances?’
Long, slow silence like steam building for an explosion. Ectoom leaned back in his chair, the hithero-silent Kahl Farflyt flinched and Forgebane - whose vast capability with the mysterious barrier technology was eclipsed only by his inability to work anything but the simplest machinery - all but vanished into his Grimnyr robes.
At last, a smile cracked Myrr’s heat-scarred features. ‘Assurances.’
‘They’ll keep their hands to themselves.’
‘What did you promise them?’
It was sometimes difficult to remember that behind the brutal countenance ran a mind fast as quicksilver. Anarhad bowed her head in respect. ‘A share of the profits.’
‘They don’t take our coin,’ Ectoom was quick to interject. ‘And my support for this venture comes with the understanding that we need a profitable operation.’ He winced. ‘I take responsibility for the state of the League’s finances, of course. I haven’t been able to compete with the larger Leagues in this scramble out of the Core, and newcomers like Kronus are far too aggressive - we don’t have the capital or the military to stand up to them. I can’t commit to an expansion to a new system when those ones we have are already under a mounting economic burden.’
Surprisingly, it was Forgebane who spoke before Anarhad. ‘You’re certain we can’t reduce expenditures?’
Ectoom shook his head, piercings glittering in the soft light. ‘We’re down to ashes in the treasury as it is, and the Hegemony is prowling. We don’t want to share the fate of the Askanics.’
A shiver around the table. Even Steelbinder closed her eyes a moment in respect. ‘May the Ancestors keep them.’
‘They’re not after our coin,’ Anarhad continued after a moment. ‘And they’re not even after the same things we are, not really. This system - they call it Prestor - has a wealth of resources useful in their own manufacturing, and we all know how their armament program has accelerated of late. What we want, silverlite, ochrestone and the like, has no practical use to the Imperium. We pass them a few processing cycles, that’s all.’
Ectoom still frowned. ‘That’s all? That they’re willing to agree to such small thrift with an alien species doesn’t align with what I know of the Imperium. They’d send a fleet just for the pleasure of killing a few aliens.’ He looked around the table and shrugged. ‘It’s an existential thing for them.’
‘They won’t risk it,’ Anarhad pressed. ‘Their xenophobia works to our benefit. What they know of the Leagues are myth and rumour. Their ignorance of the Core and the Ancestor’s strength gives us an advantage. Will they attack, believing that will earn the ire of an unknown empire?’
Forgebane scratched at his jaw again, perhaps willing the hair that had eluded him for many years to spontaneously grow. ‘You’re making a logical argument against an empire of religious zealots. The Guildmaster is not entirely correct, however.’ He looked disturbed to have made a point in his crucible-twin’s favour, but went on regardless. ‘We share a common ancestry, a home in Terra. They do not consider us true aliens, but a strain of abhuman. That, along with the threat of provoking another front in their endless wars, may stay their hand in this matter.’
‘We cannot count on the assistance of any other League,’ Ectoom protested, but the possibilities were swiftly outweighing the negatives. ‘But… perhaps that’s a boon, too. A show of strength, of solidity, will make the Hegemony look elsewhere for their conquest quota. The Hesperian League isn’t ailing yet.’
All of the attendants looked across at Kahl Farflyt. The stocky, well-armoured warrior had yet to venture any opinion at the Council, and as leader of the League’s military forces, this was their area of expertise. Nothing less than a unanimous decision would see the matter decided in Anarhad’s favour, and she she silently willed the Kahl to speak.
‘We need to expand.’ The well-waxed bundle about Farflyt’s mouth twitched. It could have been a smile or a snarl. ‘The void is in our veins. I approve.’
Anarhad sat back with a sigh. Ectoom grinned openly, and clapped Forgebane on the back. The Grimnyr scowled, but nodded his assent, outnumbered and outplayed. There would be concessions for the Grimnyr later, of course, the greasing of the political cogs. But for now: success.
‘I thank you for your attention,’ Anarhad said, standing. ‘I’ll have the working plans ready for transmission to the Kindred by tomorrow. If the Ancestors are with us, I can return to Prestor to lay foundations within the week.’
Before the Imperium can react to us being there, and before they get word of what their own pocket empire is trying to do beneath their nose, she thought. She’d told Steelbinder she had assurances, and the Forge-Master was intelligent enough not to ask what Anarhad had bargained for access to the mineral wealth of Prestor - and why the Imperium hadn’t claimed it for themselves.
The Hesperian League was not ailing, but it was desperate enough to be wilfully blind to the greater dangers.
For that reason, greater than any other, Anarhad could not go home. Not while Hespiris laboured under the shadow of Kronus, where a future of strip-mining and planet-cracking awaited those who fell into the acquisitive grasp of the Hegemony.
If that meant blameless humans suffered, it was a price she would pay, and pay gladly.
They were not Kin, after all.