Mad Donna came to herself sitting, weeping, with her weapons dangling in her hands. The dismembered bodies of the holesteaders lay nearby in a pathetic heap. They had barely even had a chance to move from the spot where she had confronted them. Donna drew a shaky hand over her face to wipe away hot tears and stood abruptly. She would check herself for wounds later; right now she had to get out of this place. The least she could do was return the holesteaders the favour of her use of their power outlet and sleeping niche. Sheathing her other weapons and pulling out the Pig, she lavished the power she had looted from them on their funeral pyre.
“Among the noble houses of the hive spires of Necromunda the bond of blood is everything. Powerful, avaricious men have schemed and fought quiet but vicious battles on Necromunda for a hundred centuries and more to gain ascension to noble status. They know no bond of deed or word will pass the test of generations among themselves—naked ambition will always prevail. They know no riches can secure men’s loyalty either—for what has been bought once can always be bought again. And most of all they know that nothing can supplant the power of the family, the age-old genetic bond of blood. The responsibility of an offspring to house and to family is taught from the cradle, even from the womb. Maintaining the bloodline means careful breeding, so the ever-spiralling politics of necessity weave a delicate dance through balls, banquets and engagements to the lofty bedchambers of the noble houses.
“The myriad social niceties of the Spire serve to disguise a sharp-toothed survival instinct.”
Excerpt from: Xonariarius the Younger’s Nobilite Pax Imperator—The Triumph of Aristocracy over Democracy.
* * * * *
She remembered her mother best of all: breathtakingly beautiful despite two centuries of anti-agathics and restorative surgery, willowy and graceful despite bearing over two-dozen noble offspring of House Ulanti. She had been a proud and distant goddess, seen only occasionally by D’onne and her sisters when they were young, but beloved by all. Each of them aspired to have her stunning looks and queenly presence when they grew up. They all vied for her attention with the pictures, songs, acrobatics, dancing and recitals they worked feverishly to perfect as her visiting day came closer. As the youngest and the prettiest, D’onne had always known that her mother liked her the best.
She remembered her and her eleven sisters having their portrait painted by a famed artist with a strange, off-world accent—Bruphoros? Burfis? She couldn’t recall the name now, and had been too young to pronounce it properly then. They had spent interminable hours sitting primly in elegant chairs in the great gallery, chafing in their formal gowns while the artist moved them fractionally back and forth and fussed endlessly over ambient light or composition. It was an especially good memory because it was the last time she remembered all of her sisters being together at the same time.
She had complained precociously to the artist that spending hours painting was stupid if you could take a pict in an instant. Instead of being angry, he had stopped fussing for a while to explain to her that the true value of something was in direct proportion to the effort put into it. A pict might have sufficed for any normal hiver, but the Noble House of Ulanti deserved better than that. Indeed, it deserved only the best even if it took a little longer. The artist had made her feel very special and from then on she had made an effort not to fidget and to give him her prettiest smile.
Then there was the time an Ulanti hunt had returned in triumph from Hive Bottom. At the time, the Underhive was a home to the worst bogeymen and monsters for D’onne. Its name was invoked only in spooky stories and dreadful admonishments from harried nursemaids. The very idea that someone would descend from the Spire to fight the hideous mutants and outlaws below seemed fantastic to her. The hunters had come up from The Wall in procession, showered with blossoms and heralded by clarions every step of the way. D’onne had squeezed herself to the front of the crowd of well-wishers that met them on the steps of the grand manse to get a good look at the conquering heroes.
There were three men and a woman, all lesser cousins but now lionised by the household for their bravery in the face of the semi-mythical perils of Underhive. Their off-world hunting rigs were darkly magnificent suits of baroque armour, each one entirely different to the others. The hulking silvered form of an Orrus-rig contrasted completely with the spindly obsidian insect-limbs of a Malcadon. Another wore a Yeld-rig with its glittering bladed wings proudly swept back like a cloak of knives.
But the one that had caught her attention the most had been the woman in Jakara armour with her mirror shield and molecular blade. She was small and lithe, stepping lightly with the easy grace of a predatory cat. She had caught little D’onne’s wide-eyed gaze as she mounted the steps and winked at her, and it seemed as if she was saying, “See, noble daughters can be just as strong as noble sons! They had played spyrers and scavvies for weeks after the hunt returned, and D’onne had always held out to be the Jakara.
Her most favourite place in the Spire had always been the arboretum. It was a marvel of a much earlier time, beyond the skill of anyone to recreate in this day and age. The first time she had been taken there it felt like she was stepping into another world. All her life had been spent among the sterile, high-arched halls of the Ulanti district where living things were confined in beds and borders, planters and terrace gardens. Many of the plants she had seen were cunning artifices of metal spun to take their form, some so finely made that they grew, blossomed brazen flowers, and then withered away again to rust.
The arboretum was different. Everything there was organic and the very air itself seemed vibrant because of it. There were towering trees and meadows of long grass, and bushes and thickets of heady-scented blossoms with colourful insects and birds fluttering between them. Semi-wild animals had grazed shyly among the shadowed trunks, and bright-eyed simians leapt joyously between the overhanging boughs.
Better than that, the arboretum formed a great torus over multiple levels of the Inner Spire. By some great cunning artifice, each quadrant of the torus was at a different point of growth. In one quadrant the trees had bare, leafless branches, and the ground was covered in white powder like ash, but made up (so she was told) of frozen water vapour. In another, the growth was fresh and green with new shoots unfolding and baby animals everywhere. In the next all was ripened and fulsome, lazily dreaming beneath warm sunlight from the skylights above. In the last the leaves were withering in a fantastic display of reds, oranges and browns, the fallen ones forming a scrunching carpet everywhere. This changing landscape slowly rotated through the year; each part of the arboretum undergoing the cycle of death and rebirth.
Her tutors had told her that this incredible ecosystem was the way of it on many worlds. There were often seasons which changed the environment completely through the year. Not so in the great hives of Mankind, they had said. Here man had brought nature to heel entirely and was troubled by the seasons not at all. It seemed a great shame to her at the time, and as she was to find out later, it was not entirely true.
3: DUST FALLS
In ages past a trickle of waste seeped down from Hive City into an abandoned dome. In time the trickle grew to become a torrent and collapsed the roof, burying the floor below in sediment. Eventually, further erosion of the dome’s floor caused it to collapse as well, and the accumulated debris plunged into another, older dome beneath.
Year after year the flow of effluent grew, carrying detritus further down and wearing away a whole series of domes. At its height there were roaring falls of multi-hued effluent that disappeared down a gaping chasm into the deepest levels of the hive.
By Donna’s day the flow had dried up but for a thin trickle of dust cascading from above. In its place, there was the shaft itself, plunging through the Underhive to the darkness of the Hive Bottom. This was the Abyss; a mile-deep hole that pierces dome after dome in the path of the old effluent falls.
Perched on the edge of the Abyss was Dust Falls, a large settlement from wh
ich ambitious gangs took the steep path down into the depths of the hive. The trail led to the Hive Bottom itself, and to the lake of pollutants and chemical slime at its base. And at the bottom, Down Town, the furthest reach of what could be called civilization. The toxic crush zones of the Abyss held great riches for those strong and brave enough to win them: spider mares, stinger mould, veins of precious alloy, archeotech, spook, the rare pelts of elusive mutant breeds. They held death too—death in abundance.
Donna watched Dust Falls for a long time before even thinking about making her move. She wanted to know which gangs were in town, whether any guilder caravans were passing through, whether any Redemptionists were haranguing the locals; anything that might make a difference to her plans. She had hoisted herself into the crumbling upper floors of a half-ruined hab that slouched at the edge of the dome. She had felt no onset of fever from the plague, nor found any injuries caused in the fight with the plague zombies. Still, every twinge or ache seemed like a death spasm when viewed through the lens of a potential onset of plague.
She had a pretty good view of Dust Falls half a kilometre away with the yawning pit of the Abyss seemingly poised to swallow it beyond. Buildings tumbled by the floods centuries ago dotted the edge of the dome, getting lower and finally petering out to rounded-off heaps around the Abyss. The settlement was surrounded by a high stockade with narrow, twisting streets between shanty buildings visible inside. There was only one building that stood out among the others: a three-storey, worn-looking oblong of plasteel that stood at the centre. That was Donna’s target.
Everything seemed quiet enough. If anything, it was too quiet. There was hardly anyone on the streets but many up on the gates and stamping along the stockades in between. Lots of lights too, everything from fuel-drum fires to halogen floods. Donna waited and watched, and eventually she saw what she was looking for; a flicker of movement in the rubble beyond the light. Donna didn’t try to look for the source, she just watched the area and waited for her eye to pick up movement again. There, two more shapes moving. They looked like tumbling scraps of cloth but the distance was deceptive. Donna upped the magnification in her bionic eye a notch and the blurs sprang into sharp focus.
Donna’s full lip curled unconsciously. Scavvies—the very dregs of humanity. No, scratch that; scavvies were so devolved and twisted that they didn’t even qualify as human any more. Their sallow flesh and ugly appearance showed all too clearly despite the filth-encrusted rags swathed around them. The ones she could see were armed with a crude assortment of flintlocks, hooks and rusty axes. Now that she was looking in the right area, Donna could see at least a dozen of them crawling like grey lice towards one of the settlement’s gates. She watched events unfold with interest.
They were spotted maybe fifty metres out, las-shots suddenly spurting around them like bright rain. Some of the scavvies raised their long muskets and started firing back, but most jumped up and ran (or limped, or hobbled in many cases) towards the gate. Donna was taken aback to see there were more than twenty rushing to attack, they popped up so suddenly it seemed like a magician’s trick.
She saw them windmilling their arms and it took her a second to realise they were throwing bombs at the gate. A couple exploded but most burst into clouds of noxious-looking vapour. Several scavvies were down and writhing by this time, or deathly still, but the gate defenders were driven back by the vapour and their firing slackened appreciably.
The fiery stab of autoguns among the scattered flintlock volleys momentarily distracted Donna. When she focused back on the gate, the scavvies were smashing at it with hammers and axes. A heavy stub gun fired from the parapet off to one side of the gate, its angry stutter ripping a bloody tear through the packed mass. It was followed by the vicious crump of a frag grenade going off. Rags and bits of scav flew in all directions. The survivors broke away before the smoke cleared. Las-rounds plugged a few more scavvies as they limped for cover, leaving perhaps a dozen torn bodies strewn around the gate in mute testimony to the ferocity of the brief skirmish.
Checking carefully around the other gates and parts of the stockade, Donna spotted at least a dozen more scavvy bodies alone or in clusters. For scavvies that showed almost unthinkable determination, or else they were present in disturbingly large numbers. Scavvies ambushed, raided holesteads, set toll-blocks or, if they felt especially brave and numerous, camped outside a settlement and demanded a “tax” of anything going in and out until they were driven off or left of their own accord. There was a standing bounty on scavvies, although it was so paltry only the most hard luck cases went out looking for them. If scavvies had got it into their heads to start rushing a well-armed settlement like Dust Falls, something was seriously awry.
The situation posed a completely different set of problems to those Donna had anticipated. It was going to be ten times harder to get past the stockade while it was so heavily manned, so she decided that slipping through the streets without being recognised would be a lot easier. Also, bright lights were all well and good, but men with their eyes adjusted to watching lit areas often missed what was in the shadows. The scavvies were a double-edged sword: they might catch her outside the settlement, then cook and eat her, or they might provide the ideal distraction for getting inside.
Donna picked out a route to a hollow in the rubble midway between two of the gates and about sixty metres from the stockade on a section covered by floodlights. Fixing it in her mind’s eye, she slid down from her aerie and set off quickly through the ruins feeling unaccountably optimistic. As the cover got lower she had to crouch and then slither on her belly through gravel and rounded-off pebbles that lay thick on the floor of the dome. She kept a sharp lookout for scavvies, using her nose as well as her eyes and ears. The rank stench of scavvies was unmistakable, and there was a stiff breeze swirling up from the Abyss.
After crawling for a while she came across a slight depression scooped out just deep enough so that a prone body inside it would be invisible from the stockade. The shallow trench wound away through the rubble in the direction of the settlement. She wriggled along the little rat run and found it branched and then branched again. She was grateful for the cover from the stockade but the thought of crawling into some pack of scavvies lying in wait made her nape hairs rise. She reckoned it was still five or six metres to the hollow when she almost tumbled into it, kicking free a scatter of gravel as she swung herself precipitously over its lip and into shelter. She quickly discovered she was not alone.
A rag-wrapped form was turning towards her, close enough to touch and possessed of a stench that made Donna’s eye water. She caught sight of its lumpen face, one eye closed by sprouting tumours, the other comically bulging in surprise as it saw she wasn’t a fellow scavvy. Its slack-lipped mouth dropped open to show black, rotted teeth as it drew breath to yell for help.
Donna rammed her fist into the wet orifice, muffling its cry with some extra broken teeth and slamming its head against the rubble for good measure. It made a grab for a knife but she pinned its arms with her knees before smashing it in the head with a handy rock. The scrawny form bucked violently and almost threw her off. An adrenalin surge made her muscles bunch furiously as she silently smashed the rock into its head again and again. It cracked open with a wet splotching sound and the scavvy spasmed feebly once more before lying still.
Donna looked up and listened intently, trying to determine if the struggle had been overheard. Gravel scraped nearby—something was crawling closer! She rolled the hot, foetid corpse of the scavvy on top of her, pulling its rags over the crushed head that was now leaking a slow ooze of blood and brains across her cheek and shoulder. She saw the dim blur of a face poking over the edge of the hollow.
“Shh’t K’pidahn stooped,” a hoarse voice whispered. “U gedersal’ kilt.”
The voice stopped in mid-whine and Donna heard it snuffle a couple of times— the sound of mucus rattling in its nostrils. “Thass blut,” it muttered incredulously. She was equally amazed it
could smell anything over the foul stench, but apparently it could. She clutched for a throwing blade at her waist but the dead weight of the corpse impeded her. The scavvy must have seen movement because it raised itself up at the lip for a better look and was momentarily silhouetted by the floodlights on the stockade. It was a stockier creature than the last one and it had a crude but functional-looking autopistol clutched in its fist.
Donna froze and watched in fascination as a bright little bead of red light suddenly appeared on the scavvie’s head. The red bead wobbled there for a moment steadied. There was a flash and the head exploded sideways in a crimson spray. A split-second later the hiss-crack sound of a long las-shot came from the direction of the stockade. The overly inquisitive mutant throwback dropped as if it had been pole-axed. Donna muttered a little prayer of thanks to her unknown and unknowing guardian. She carefully moved as far as possible down the hollow from the two stinking carcasses and settled to wait, keeping her head down out of respect for the unseen sharpshooter.
Donna came alert to the sound of the first shot. How long had it been? An hour maybe? She had rested and now listened to the rattles and scrapes of the scavvies creeping towards the gates again. It sounded like they were mostly massing to her right, between her and the Abyss. Evidently the sight of a sniper-shot body lying in the open had persuaded the others to try different routes. At any rate she was undisturbed in her hiding place. Hoarse shouts and more shots sounded out but she waited until she heard the returning hiss-crack of las-fire before poking her head up.
Necromunda - Survival Instinct Page 5