Outside of the throne room, Leman and company found the Queen's seneschal, Walder, waiting for them. An aged, bald man with a thin, grey beard, the seneschal relayed to them what he knew - which proved to be very little. At the very least, it would be enough for them to begin their investigation. He told them that as the city of Icenholm itself was already subject to martial law and crawling with palace guards, there was likely not much to gain from skulking about the streets. Moreover, the Queen had requested they keep a low profile so as to not disturb the fragile peace among the nobles. Each of the noble houses had armed guards of their own, and the last thing she wanted was a bloodbath in the capital.
Instead, the Seneschal suggested they look elsewhere… down, to be specific. He informed them of a startling rise in gruesome murders and mysterious disappearances among the serfs in the Commons, in addition to rumors of "shadowmen" stalking the mines of the Gorgon Pit just below Icenholm.
"What do these subterranean rumors have to do with the conspiracy against the Queen?" Leman said.
"The depths of Sepheris Secundus's mines have sheltered many vile secrets over the centuries. Genestealers, Chaos, mutants, and yet unnamable horrors have emerged from the abyssal chasms beneath the capital in ages past. A cult seeking to overthrow the Queen would no doubt find refuge in the darkness. Furthermore, the edges of the Gorgon Pit, the ring of settlement just outside of Icenholm called the Commons, hosts many of the lesser noble houses. They rule over the workers and laborers in the mines, and profit from its production. While their prestige and monetary wealth may be lesser than the nobles in the palace district, they wield significant martial strength and influence over the world's economy. They are many and divided, not much of a threat individually, but if they were to collaborate against the Queen… moreover, many of the noble houses in the common have ties to the central district, meaning that a conspiracy need not be restricted to either. The commons and the depths of the mines have long been… obscured from the Queen's supervision. The barons of the mines operate with great autonomy, an independence which could be abused." Walder said.
"Hmmm… rumors of cult-like activity, and a streak of insubordination among the local elites… I can understand where your suspicions come from." Leman said. "What of the other lead?"
"This one is… a bit of a longshot, really." Walder said. "Beyond the mountains surrounding the Commons and Palace District lies an icy waste, a desert of blistering, cold winds and ice storms. Beyond that, are the highlands - vast, ancient woodlands, too inhospitable for human habitation… but not abhumans." Dori seemed to shift his footing slightly upon hearing the word, but his expression did not change. Admu's eyes widened slightly, and she began to pay closer attention to the conversation. "The tribes of the 'beast-men' as they are called have lived on Sepheris Secundus longer than anyone else. They are hardier than normal men and can endure the harsh conditions of the highlands without much issue. We believe they may have access to the caverns below the ice through some undiscovered access point, and some of the workers in the deeper mines are rumored to have familial ties with them to the point of being part beastmen themselves. The highland tribes have come to blows with civilized folk in times past either in sporadic raids on merchant outposts or an occasional skirmish within the mines for inscrutable reasons. It's… possible they have a hand in the plot, or at the very least if anything is out of the ordinary on Sepheris Secundus they may know it before we do."
"You're right, that is a longshot. Doesn't sound particularly worth our time." Leman said.
"Y-you don't know that!" Admu said. Her outburst drew Leman and Walder's attention, causing her to draw back with a sheepish expression.
"There is another reason you may want to contact the beastmen." Walder said. "Recently a powerful house by the name of Rosenvald mustered an army to attack one of their strongholds in the highlands. The Rosenvalds enjoy a great deal of martial independence due to their title of Castellans and are entrusted with defending the city. While within their authority, the reasons behind such an attack are… unknown. There have been no reported beastmen attacks in decades, and no indication they planned on doing so anytime soon. Moreover, there have been reports of… strange activity in the Castellan's tower. Nothing actionable, but, well…"
"You're afraid of actively investigating a house with a large military on the suspicion of treason?" Leman said.
"To put it bluntly, yes." Walder said. "If the Castellan is plotting against the Queen, the attack on the Beastmen would no doubt have been a part of it. It will be difficult to reach them, but there should still be some courier services near the city gates which brave the icy wastes to trade with the beastmen for lumber and furs. I will leave the rest to you; I must direct the guard's efforts in keeping the Queen safe from here in the city. Should you find anything, contact me with this secure vox-line." He said, handing Leman a small but bulky box-shaped receiver.
"Very well. we will return with the fruits of our effort soon." Leman said.
"By the Emperor's Grace, I truly hope that you do."
Leman, Dori, Admu, and Fen walked past the perimeter outside of the palace and into the city, the crowds of enraged merchants and travelers outside still demanding an audience with the queen.
"In the interest of time," Leman said, "we should split up and investigate the two leads simultaneously. I'll-"
"I'll go speak with the beastmen!" Admu said before Leman could finish speaking. He cast a stern glance in her direction and was about to say something before Fen interjected as well.
"I'll go with her. I've been dormant for 10 millennia, I'm not spending my time here in some cramped cave." Fen said.
"Well, if we're gonna split up, I think my talents would be most useful underground. They say a Kin is only in his element when he's surrounded by solid rock or voidspace." Dori said.
Leman sighed. I miss my legion, He thought. "Fine. Dori and I will investigate the mines. I am reluctant, however, to let you two go off on your own again after what happened last time."
"Worry not. I will supervise the girl more closely this time." Fen said.
"Hey! I'm not a child, you know." Admu said, pouting. "I'm probably older than you are…"
"Both of you, listen." Leman said sternly. "Fen, stay in contact this time. I don't want to be left in the dark again. Admu, stick close to Fen. You are capable enough to survive on your own, but it's still best if we keep in touch- and a psychic link is more reliable than a voxcaster." Leman said, holding up the voxcaster Walder gave him.
Admu nodded and Fen bowed his head in agreement.
"Oh, and one more thing." Leman said. "Try not to start a war."
At the far edge of Icenholm's central district, a great stone tower rose above the surrounding rooftops. It was a watchtower built to house the Castellans of Icenholm, a dynastic title signifying their duty to protect the city from harm. The Castellans were an ancient title, dating back to the times when Icenholm was still a small mining settlement in danger of sporadic raids by beastmen tribes and when such a role was far less symbolic. At present, it was occupied by the House of Rosenvald, a previously obscure and minor family which had risen to prominence suddenly under the leadership of its current head, Lord Edgar.
The huge doors of the tower, carved from red-tinged wood, swung open as Lord Edgar stormed into the tower. He walked down the main hall, intended to display the relics and trophies of the Castellan's house. The torches lining the wall flickered, and their light shining upon the bare walls created a gnawing feeling of inadequacy in the young Castellan's mind. He'd hoped to have mounted a few beastmen's heads after his expedition to the highlands, but the captives they'd taken had yet to be returned…
As the Castellan ascended the steps into the heart of the tower, shadows cast by torchlight danced on the smooth stone. They twisted and wavered as if alive, forming shapes that appeared like figures from the corner of one's eye. The Castellan walked into the center of the tower's atrium, and one of the shadows followed behind him.
"Hello? Have you finished interrogating the prisoners?" Edgar said. He attempted to project authority with his words, but fear crept into his voice: the fear of a man who was no longer the master of his own home. As he looked around the empty room, the shadow behind him approached imperceptibly, placing a thorned hand upon his shoulder.
The Castellan cried out, the sharp and sudden sensation sending his mind into a panic. He spun around and beheld a spindly and abnormally tall figure, a ghastly creature with pale skin and dark, alien eyes. Her build was vaguely humanlike, and evidently female - her sparse covering of black, waxy armor leaving little to the imagination. Her exposed skin was covered in long chains of inscrutable tattoos, so intricately woven together that it could distract the eye of even the sharpest warrior. Her face could have been counted among the most hauntingly beautiful in all the Imperium, were it not uncannily twisted with alien and inhuman proportions that created an instinctive fear and revulsion within the simple, mammalian brains of mankind.
"Oh… it's just you, L-lady Ninurva." The Castellan said, attempting to control his panicked breathing. "Have th-the prisoners been interrogated? Did you find the location of the relic?"
"The… interrogation was successful, yes." Ninurva said, the soft hum of her translator just barely masking the haunting melody of her native tongue. The Drukhari caressed her lip with her thorned gloves, relishing the psychic residue left by the Castellan's panic and anguish. Mere dewdrops compared to what they had extracted from the beastman prisoners, but an addict such as Ninurva would never turn down a dose. "You've done your part little princeling, for now." Her voice was effortlessly entrancing, even masked by translation into the crude human tongue - and dripping with smug condescension. "We are pleased with your… contributions."
"At least someone appreciates them." Edgar said. "The Queen seems to treat me with half the respect I deserve. I'm Castellan for the Emperor's sake! When I offered to aid her investigation, she dismissed me like a house servant. It's as if she doesn't trust me at all!"
"I couldn't imagine why." The Drukhari said, her alluring smile not wavering.
"It's not my fault my agents were too incompetent to properly assassinate the old hag. At least they escaped without being caught… I've half a mind to hand them over to you just to teach them a lesson." Edgar said.
"I would be delighted… but I cannot promise they would come back." Ninurva said, her inhuman eyes thinning even further. Her piercing gaze unsettled the Castellan to his core, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. "We can establish a formal tithe in the future… once you have succeeded in claiming the throne. We would not want to… unduly burden the… citizenry." Her alien tongue purred the final word with the cadence of a lion relishing a gazelle.
"Ah… r-returning to other matters… the artifact's location is secured? You do not need my help in procuring it?" Edgar said.
"There will be no need for that." Ninurva said. When we have need of more lemmings to draw out the foxes to hunt, we will surely call upon you and your men, oh glorious Castellan. She mused to herself.
"G-good. Good." Edgar said. "And when the artifact is in your hands…"
"We will assist you in claiming the throne from the 'hag' as you called her… whereupon you and your newly acquired fiefdom will enjoy our services… for a price, in addition to your pre-existing debts to us." The Xenos said, her bewitching voice coating the serrated words with honey.
"Then our agreement stands. I will… continue my efforts in the meanwhile." He said.
"I wish you good fortune in those efforts, Castellan." Ninurva said. Her voice was so choked with sarcasm that it threatened to spill out into outright disdain, not that the Castellan had the perception necessary to notice it.
Having grown bored of subtly toying with the Castellan - like a cat toying with a mouse - Ninurva returned to her actual objective. She ascended the tower, past the areas designated off-limits to the Castellan and his servants - a part of their deal in exchange for aiding his meager cause. Passing by three Sybarite guards adorned in ghostplate armor and monomolecular blades sheathed upon their hips, Ninurva entered the beating heart of the Children of Thorns' burgeoning presence upon Sepheris Secundus. It may have seemed unthinkable for a Drukhari Kabal to operate from within the heart of a human city, let alone the planetary capital, but it was precisely this seeming impossibility which provided them the most secrecy. Besides, it was not as though they were using the front entrance…
To Ninurva's right, a small, bone-like archway the size of a doorway lit up with a pale blue shimmer. A black-clad Drukhari emerged seemingly from nowhere, honoring Ninurva's presence with an almost excessively elaborate bow - Drukhari were often just as good at flattery as they were at betrayal. Seeing through the gesture, Ninurva bid him to report plainly.
"Is the honored Homunculus Sakunir finding his… workspace down below to his liking?" Ninurva said.
"He has nary taken his attention away from his work since he arrived. I would say he is quite comfortable." The Drukhari said.
"Well, we extracted the information we needed from those beastmen prisoners. You can hand them over to Sakunir as payment." Ninurva said. The Homunculus had almost exclusively agreed to help them with their takeover of the planet for this very reason. Beastmen were a rare commodity in the galaxy, especially stable, "pure-blooded" ones. However that term could apply to such lowly creatures. She thought. As such, they were a prized resource for artisanal flesh-crafters and connoisseurs of genetic modification such as Sakunir.
"Understood." The Drukhari said, leaving back through the small Webway door. They were exceedingly lucky to unearth these structures from the depths of this planet, where the local miners seemed to have treated them as useless junk. She should have expected nothing less from the ignorant Mon'keigh. These were relics of the height of the Aeldari's empire, when their control over the Webway was absolute. While portable, the gates only worked on this planet exclusively; from what they could tell, all Webway routes to this world had been closed off millennia ago, long before the Fall. The extent her ancestors went to sealing off this world seemingly did not deter Ninurva and her Kabal from attempting to seize this power for themselves.
Walking up to a large, twisted array of complex machinery, Ninurva let her fingers glide along a slate of runes and symbols. A wall of light projected into the air before her, displaying the visage of a visibly aged yet hauntingly beautiful Aeldari woman adorned in black. It was none other than the Mother of Shadows, Archon of the Children of Thorns. Her cold, enigmatic gaze pierced even through the virtual barrier of the transmitter, and Ninurva lowered herself to one knee.
"Mother, the relic's location has been found. We will soon have the horn of Zulim'hannin our possession." Ninurva said.
"Excellent work, my child." The Archon said. "And the Mon'keigh? They are under control?"
"Their future ruler will be dependent on us for everything… he has taken our baited hooks like a starved beast. Mon'keigh men are so easily manipulated, sometimes I wonder why we even bother at all." Ninurva said, tracing her clawed fingertip across her cheek.
"We do what we must." The Archon said. "Do not forget the slave pits you were once pulled from. Undue pride is a luxury not afforded to us as outcasts from the Dark City." Ninurva's face twisted with a mix of emotions, most of them she wished she were inflicting on someone else. "We have spent centuries scraping, digging, and crawling through the mud of the Materium for one purpose - to enact our vengeance upon the whole of them. The Archons, the Kabals, and that vile serpent, Vect."
"Of course, Mother." Ninurva said. "How goes your dealings with the Severan Dominate? Studying your past manipulations of the Mon'keigh has been… illuminating."
"The duke's requests for weapons and protection have grown substantially… our hunting grounds have expanded accordingly following the Dathedian, whereupon we aided the duke in taking advantage of the Mon'keigh Imperium's disarray, but recent incursions from far afield become increasingly troublesome." The Archon said.
"Incursions? Does the Mon'keigh Imperium seek to take back their holdings?" Ninurva said.
"The Imperium have their own problems to deal with on the other side of the Dathedian. These appear to be thralls to the Neverborn of Sha'eil. Chaos raiders and corrupted Astartes, though I have never seen them in such numbers, even in my time as an Asuryani." The Archon said. Though neither Drukhari noticed, one of the three Sybarite guards behind them subtly took notice of their conversation upon hearing those words. "With the power of the Horn of Zulim'hannin, however, these raiders will be no more than a nuisance to be swatted away like flies. It is key to unlock power greater than anything Asdrubael Vect has at his disposal… with it we will be able to wage war upon the entirety of Commorragh, tearing it up from the roots to build our paradise." The former Asuryani said, her dark eyes glittering with equal parts malice and hope. Ninurva mirrored her expression, the thought of torturing those responsible for her enslavement and exile filling her with an indescribable anticipation.
"I will not disappoint you, Mother. Soon, Commorragh will be yours." She said, terminating the broadcast. All she had to do now was what all Drukhari were practically born to do: assemble a raiding party.
