12 Miles Below

Book 3. Chapter 5: Long live the clan lord

The underground reaches of clan colonies are typically closed off by bulkheads, cave-in's, purity seals, and all kinds of religious barriers. Generally, it's tradition for each clan to carve out their own warnings.

This wasn't always accurate of course, many clans followed different traditions. Anywhere from having their own unique markings to copying the previous occupants.

One thing that remained the same no matter the culture - always seal the lower reaches first thing upon arriving at a new colony. The underground led to the machines, and machines led to death. So settling too close to their realm is obviously a bad idea.

But once bulkheads and seals were put into place and people knew where they could mark their land and where they shouldn't tinkle on the walls, life would settle down and people would forget about the lower reaches.

None of us ever really thought or considered these tunnels since everything was locked tight years ago by the first settling generation. Only kids would be stupid enough to go poking around, and by the time they had the skills and tools to possibly break open the bulkheads, they wouldn't be stupid kids anymore.

Which is why it became a blind spot to the clan. So one of the first things Shadowsong had done was mobilize a full investigation into the underground and post a defense at every entrance into the heated sections of the clan. One thing was sure - they wouldn't catch us with this trick again.

Ironreach and I walked through these old tunnels, headlights illuminating the warning sigils and old history laid down by long dead ancestors. "You know, I was never good at drawing." He said, one armored glove trailing on the side of the wall over the chiseled art. "When the clan moved into this colony, I had a friend of mine picked to go down here and draw things. She told me all about it. Massive project. While all the Reachers were busy fixing up the colony integrity, her job was to make something that would spook any kid trying to come down here. They had an army of artists from different houses and even castes to do the job."

"I'd say they did a pretty good." I said, my own headlights illuminating the different murals. They were outright terrifying. Skulls and bones were too easy. The artists here made things that seemed both alive and dead at the same time. Something that truly felt alien and unnatural. I don't know how they figured out the perfect designs to send a chill down my spine, but leave it to artists to do it anyhow.

"A friend of hers was tasked to write warnings down. The art scares off the kids. The writing's what keeps the adults away. So far, I've counted twelve normally worded warning, three omens, and seven curses. Writers went with the shotgun approach."

"Noise ahead." Cathida said into my helmet. "Eyes sharp deary."

Further ahead in the dark tunnels, lights were moving around. Both Ironreach and I straightened up, hands on our rifle.

We didn't need to keep cautious for long however.

Captain Sagrius marched up along with the rest of the Winterscar guard, meeting up halfway through the tunnel. His new relic armor had been polished up and cleared of all the skulls and bones the slavers like to carry. Now, the armor looked like it belonged to House Winterscar proper. The rest of the guards also sported similar armors, equally looted from the dead Slavers. They didn't walk very comfortably in them, none of them had enough time to really acclimate to the armors yet.

There’d been too many events happening for the rest of the Houses to pull a fit about the Winterscars claiming this many relic armors under our banner, but we had killed their owners so those armors were ours by right.

Now, we owned more armors than any other house in the entire clan. Gods above, we owned more armor as a House than some of the smaller clans out there. Not even touching on the amount of Occult swords we'd be having pretty soon.

If the captain planned on taking it easy now that he and his men had armor, that clearly wasn’t anywhere in his to-do list. He’d gone right into training with his armor in order to catch up as fast as possible with all the other clan knights, despite it being not even a day. And I was only going to add more to his plate. With the heavy possibility of the Chosen knights sulking about down here, I needed every advantage I could get. I was planning on teaching him and the rest of my knights the full Winterblossom technique as quickly as I could, but time hasn’t been too kind. And of course, writing the instructions to that technique down anywhere was a recipe for disaster. It had to be taught face to face, too dangerous to do it any other way.

The captain gave a curt salute along with the rest of the men when he spotted Ironreach and I making our way.

"Sagrius! Report?" I called out.

“Sir.” He gave a quick bow and salute. “We’ve investigated parts of the lower structure. There’s hundreds of possible entry points, our initial conclusion is that we can’t monitor all of it.”

“Was afraid of that.” Ironreach muttered. “This is going to be a pain in the ass. Nothing's ever easy.”

I elbowed him on the side. “We might not have the manpower to keep an eye on all the possible entries, but that’s why the gods invented traps for. It’ll take some effort, but we can put some kind of deterrent. Or at least an early signal. Anything's better than getting caught blindsided again.”

Which was going to be a bit hard. Regular traps wouldn’t do much against relic armor. We’d need the Occult cutting tech to be a threat. And I was already knee deep in work when it came to working on those. Making traps on top of all my other responsibilities? Not going to happen. Plus, traps could be dismantled by the enemy, and then I'd be giving them free Occult weapons.

“A signal would be jammed by the armors.” Ironreach said. “Their armors are going to do everything in their power to keep their users alive, and if an alert is sent out, it’s going to be taken as a threat.”

I shook my head. “You forget, I have a writ signed by the clan lord that I can request anything I want. And if I want a few miles of copper wiring, by the gods I’ll get my wiring. No matter how scrapshit golden age tech is, there’s no way to block a physical wire signal being sent out unless the knights spot them first. And we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Sagrius remained at attention while Ironreach and I bickered, clearly with more to report. I nodded to him, giving an unworded go-ahead. “We found something else while exploring the sealed sections, lor- master Keith.” He said. “There’s a fully cut bulkhead a few hundred meters northwest of here. It seems to lead further underground, since we’re not detecting any major heat leakage, but we haven’t yet gone further. The entryway shows evidence of occult blades being used to slice through.”

"Think we found one of the ways these cockroaches used to get in?" Ironreach asked. "Probably more of them all over the place."

“We could bring knightbreakers and other equipment with us and explore those tunnels.” I said, thinking out loud. “Even if we run into machines, we should have the proper gear to handle them now. Especially if we have this many knights in our house for the expeditions.”

Ironreach hummed. "Not a great idea."

"What? Why?"

“What if we find them?” He said. “What if they’re all huddled up in some smaller camp under us having a few drinks over a campfire, and we stumble on all twenty three Chosen relic knights? Besides the awkward silence at the start, all we’d have is a few dozen men and some extremely dangerous technology. Sure, we’d give them a black eye with all that gear and make them pay for it, but it’ll end with them having their mitts all over our stuff, and hand back all the armors you won. Plus, you know, all of us dead.”

“What if we send relic knight pairs from our… elite? Have them sneak around the lower reaches until we find sounds of life?”

“The.. ahh, 'elites'” Ironreach hummed again. “Suppose if it’s a small group, they’ll probably be able to slip through anything. They can sprint faster than anyone else could, so they'd be able to get away from any engagement. Can't think of a reason to veto that.”

I waved at my captain, looking for an answer.

Sagrius shook his head. “It’s an uncharted maze the further down we go. In order to find anything, we will need manpower. My men and I are prepared to fight machines, even without our Occult gear or armor, master Keith. Say the word and I’ll organize a deep search.”

“No, that’s an easy way to lose men. We can’t just send out anyone into the tunnels without the gear to survive a possible machine or Chosen ambush.” I said. "The days when manpower was cheaper than gear is gone now. And even if gear was more valuable, I still don't want to waste lives like this." The tunnels under clans were a glaring blindspot come to realize it. After centuries of simply closing them off first thing and writing off the underground as knight only territory, we'd grown accustomed to repelling invasions over the surface. No one faction is going to send their few knights underground, to appear surrounded in the center of the enemy stronghold.

I suppose exceptions can be made if you're not a single faction but multiple factions of slavers all pooling resources together to make a force large enough to survive the underground passage.

Or have a deal with the machines.

Either way, the tunnels under here weren't explored and the mites probably changed the layout every few decades so even if we did have maps they'd be outdated. A search down here would have to be done the old fashioned way. Ironreach was clearly in agreement with that. “We’ll have to rely on the clan knights to slowly map the area under us." He said. "The boys are good for it, they can be sneaky when they want to be. I think. It'll take them more time, but we'll get the job done.”

“The real quest we’ve got is to get down to the bottom of who betrayed our confidence.” I said. “When the slavers attacked, they came specifically for me. Which means someone who’d been given either an Occult blade, or the winterblossom technique must have betrayed us.”

“Not the Winterblossom technique. That one we can put down, if we had been betrayed by that, the technique would have been leaked to the slavers. But none of them were using it. And they were slaughtered because they hadn’t been.”

“So someone who knew I was making Occult weapons?”

“Much more likely. Lot more people involved in what you were crafting. It’s possible the mole we have in our ranks is from one of the Reacher houses that worked on your project.”

A beep on my heads up display showed we had an incoming message. All around, I could see the other soldiers had also gotten the same message on their own gear. A single text message from Clan command - A new clan lord had been elected by the council.

A second text arrived, this time for me. A request to meet.

“Well, they aren’t wasting any time.” Ironreach said at my side, patting my shoulder. “Make a good first impression for us, yeah? I can continue from here.”

"Are you throwing me to the wolves?"

"Oh absolutely. I'm good at fighting." Ironreach said. "I'll pick being tossed to certain death with a knife and blade any day over having to deal with politics. Good luck kiddo, and thank the gods it's not me."

“Do we know who it is?” I asked Shadowsong, who stalked at my side. We we're making our way to the council chambers where both of us had been summoned.

“Her name is Lady Dras. Or rather, Clan Lord Dras now.” Shadowsong said. “She’s from the Logi castes, of House Magnatite. I do not keep up with politics outside of our caste, reports from my own men paint her as someone pragmatic and above nonsense. A good choice, all things considered.”

A message on the comms lit up. Ellie. Odd of her to send a direct message like this, usually it’s important. I accepted the comms request. Her voice cut through, loud and clear. “Keith! You need to get your butt to the council chambers as fast as you can!”

“Why, what’s going on?”

“The new clan lord’s not wasting a single moment, she’s already summoned a few dozen Logi, Reachers and Retainers to get up to speed.”

“That… sounds like what a clan lord should be doing? What’s the emergency about?”

“Look, you didn’t hear this from me, but among the people she’s summoned up to the council is Lejis. He’s being escorted up as we speak to present his case to the council in full. Admittedly, I don’t know much about the whole situation you’re dealing with, but I do know this - Lejis has a silver tongue, and he’s being allowed to use it in front of a bunch of scared men and women. This isn’t good.”

Ahh ratshit. I turned to Shadowsong, “We’ve got a situation. Lejis is being brought before the council. And we’re not there as opposition.”

The man didn’t say anything, instead, turned and ran to the direction of the council. I followed behind, relic armor making it easy to keep pace while the rest of the soldiers were left behind.

It wasn’t long before we reached the open council. A small line had formed outside, people of different statue and rank milling about, waiting for their moment to go before the new clan lord and deliver their updates. Shadowsong didn’t pay any of them any mind, instead going right up to the closed gates.

“Halt.” Guards at the entrance said, stepping forward in the way. They wore no armor, instead carried the insignia of the clan as a whole. Despite their lack of gear, they clearly had no fear of getting right in the way of two relic knights.

“Out of the way.” Shadowsong snarled. “I am the first blade of the clan lord. You will allow me entrance.”

The guard gulped, turned to his fellow who returned a small shrug. “We’ll radio operations and ask them permission for an audience.” He said.

“I am not here to petition anything. I am here to stand by the clan lord’s side while snakes speak, as is my duty. You will allow me entrance, and I will not ask again.”

The group of guards grew far more nervous. They weren’t stupid, their role was to keep order in the line and bring people in one at a time. Handling two relic knights was outside their abilities. Especially when the man before them was well known as the single greatest duelist in the entire clan.josei

Shadowsong took a step forward.

The guards broke, and stepped to the side, allowing him to pass through to the gates. They stared at us with a mix of shame and contempt as we strode past. The rest of the petitioners made no mention, nor gave any racket at getting skipped in line. They likely knew the stakes here.

The council chambers were filled with all the usual suspects we’d seen the first time around. At the head of the council sat an older woman, likely in her late fourties. The new Clan Lord that had been elected by the council.

Before her, was Lejis. Two guards stood at his side, keeping his chains in hand. The Chosen priest himself was still stripped of armor of course, with only a linen shirt and pants as his attire. He’d been speaking, but had clearly gone silent to turn and see what the disturbance happening behind him was about.

That would be us. We’re very dramatic after all. Well, I am. I’m not so sure about Shadowsong.

“What is the meaning of this?” One of the Retainers to Lady Dras’s side said. “You aren’t scheduled to come before the council. The clan lord’s instructions were to meet her in person after the council has completed it’s ramp up-”

Lady Dras raised a hand, silencing the man next to her. “First blade.” She said, inclining her head slightly in respect to Shadowsong. Then she turned to me, and gave a lighter version of that. “Winterscar. I’ll allow you to join the proceedings, however you are not to interrupt. I am here to hear the Chosen priest present his argument in full, without color from others. If I had wanted your interjections, I would have summoned you earlier.”

“Forgive me, Clan Lord.” Shadowsong said. “But the Chosen are not to be trusted for any reason, and we are still investigating their connection to the slavers. I recommend he be returned to his cage and left alone until we’ve resolved the investigation.”

Another man stood up on the side in the stands, “See? Even the first blade agrees with this. It’s clear to me and others here that the Chosen are behind all this.”

Lady Dras waved a hand in dismissal. “Alfred. We’ve already put these arguments to rest earlier. This was their one, singular chance to strike in full against an unaware opponent. We’re now on alert and the first blade has seen to our defenses such that this doesn't happen again. It’s clear the slavers mobilized to cripple as much of the clan as they could knowing they wouldn't have a second option. If they had been allied with the Chosen, they would have delayed the attack until those knights had returned and taken a better position inside the clan. Whoever planned the attack did so with a meticulous eye - twenty three relic knights gone unused is a logistical misstep of such magnitude no fool could be incompetent enough to squander.”

“Communications between both could have broken down." Another man said to the side, with markings of an agrifarmer. "Happens all the time to us, the enemy is not free from making mistakes of their own too."

Alfred nodded at his ally, jumping in to throw another point out. "The slavers could have gotten greedy and thought they could have all the spoils to themselves for all we know. There are many other possibilities for the lack of their involvement, perhaps the Chosen supplied a different advantage and couldn’t commit their knights!”

“The only other advantage the Chosen offer is safe passage underground. A fighting force of knights with soldiers of that size clearly had no need of such protections. They weren't even be burdened by traders to escort. It's very rare to see an attack from the underground, but it is not without precedent. Only costly in ways few clans and Othersiders could afford. A group aiming to take on a Deathless would be on a different level of preparation."

"That's besides the po-"

"Enough of this Alfred." She cut through. "We have already ruled their alliance as low probability given the evidence we have at hand, and within the margin of my decision. I will not allow fear and paranoia to cloud our judgment. The Chosen are indeed strange, but do not let fear of outsiders turn our people into a bloodthirsty mob.”

There were more rumblings in the room. Some people clearly agreeing and others on the opposite side. Alfred sat down slowly, "Perhaps in our attempt to remain... unclouded by fear and paranoia, as you so put it, we may have overcorrected, clan lord."

The agrifarmer next to him spoke up again, clearly not done yet. “What about that sword that killed Lord Atius? A weapon that kills deathless is something only machines would care to make! The chosen could have supplied the slavers with such a relic. I know it might be a stretch, but the possibility is there.”

Lejis took to the stand at that, raising a hand up and turning his eye to the man on the stands. He waited a moment until the room looked at him, and the clan lord waved a hand to offer permission. “We have no ties to warlock guilds that could supply us with Occult weapons, as I've said before. The machines are not hostile to us, but neither do they assist us. They are simply neutral to us now. What we have are our stockpile that we took with us on our exodus from the city. A stockpile we are willing to share with the clan, I remind you all.”

"Are we to believe the enemy? This man lies with every breath he takes." Alfred said, pointing and frowning from his seat.

Lady Dras sighed, “There is no faith, only calculation. The slavers attacked with precision and planning. It would be a terrible oversight to not have any plan on handling a Deathless. Given the massive scale and logistics of this coming attack, it’s well within their means to purchase relics from the Warlock guilds. Especially weapons of legend, if their opponent is a Deathless. It's more likely the availability of such a weapon was the seed that made them think they had a chance at attacking the clan in the beginning.”

All right, that's a potentially fair point. Warlocks aren't exactly great friends of the Deathless, given that they both use Occult arts, or so I hear.

Shadowsong shook his head, interjecting. “What if our accusations are true and the Chosen have conspired against us? Can you afford the chance of being wrong?”

“First blade, we are talking about twenty three relic knights. An entire clan’s worth of power, or several smaller clans pooled together. The slavers are ruthless, but they are not stupid enough to leave such a massive advantage to waste.”

The Agrifarmer in the side of the council seats hadn’t yet sat down. “Then if they didn’t join the slavers, where exactly are they? As you said, that’s an entire clan’s worth of soldiers and we don’t know their full allegiance. Shadowsong makes a point, we can't afford the chance of being wrong, we should purge the Chosen from our ranks just in case.”

Lady Dras shot the man a glare. “It is my profession to weigh odds and plan contingencies, I will remind everyone here that I was elected specifically for this skill. My ruling stands. Do remember I have to take into account both the immediate outcomes of all decisions as well as the future impact to relationships the clan has with other clans. Reputation is not something that can be ignored. To attack people we have offered sanctuary to will require hard evidence. The chosen knights are well within the margin of delay as we speak, and upon reaching clan communication they will be ordered to stand down and remain separate from the clan. As per our last discussion, we will use their priest and people as hostages to balance out, hence purging them actively removes a card from our hand. Should they have been traitors, a handful of civilians and a disarmored priest is hardly a threat. Our rail cannons can easily deal with their airspeeder. All possible outcomes - including them being traitors - has been accounted for with the current verdict.”

“Their objectives might be more nuanced than we believe.” Shadowsong said, taking a glance at me. “I have evidence that might change the balance.”

“Actual hard evidence, or simply possible points of unfounded data that you’ve strung together to fit your theories?”

Shadowsong pointedly didn’t answer that, “These matters are too sensitive to discuss in the open, with respect, Clan Lord.”

She turned to level a glare at Shadowsong. “Respect is the last thing you’ve shown thus far. This is not how a first blade should act. I expect you to enforce my decisions, not openly question them. We will speak later in private, as planned, on time following the schedule.”

Shadowsong’s hands clenched and unclenched a few times before he nodded and made his way to a nearby seat. I sent him a message through direct comms. “How the gods did Lejis convince them ice isn't cold?”

Shadowsong scoffed. “She’s a Logi. Their kind only think in numbers, probabilities and costs. She’s weighed the potential cost of being wrong and decided it’s worth the attempt. A Retainer would have made a decision and committed fully to it, damn the lost benefits. But not a Logi. They want a solution to every possibility rather than taking a conservative and rational stand of purging the Chosen completely. ” Shadowsong took a look as the last of the council members was refuted and forced to sit. "It seems the faction that strongly believe the Chosen to be tied to all this are a minority. This does not bode well."

Lejis looked back at us with an impassive face, before turning back to the clan lord. “As I was saying, the raiders are not going to stop. They’ve spent too much resources and time into this attack and there is no aborting it for any reason. Now that they’ve begun preliminary strikes, they will continue to do so again and again. You need allies, and the Chosen are available to help. We wish only to assist.”

The new clan lord waved a hand in dismissal. “You’ve spoken in length that the Chosen can assist. Give me specifics. Nebulous promises and gilded words are nothing to me. I need tangible requisitions that can be organized and put to use.”

The priest nodded. “My knights can remain outside the clan, and intercept possible attacks. As I've mentioned, we can offer Occult weapons sourced from the underground that we’ve collected. Additionally, we can make use of the mite forges that even Undersiders are hard pressed to take and hold against the machines. With these forges, organic matter can be generated - food, medicine, even healing grafts. And mite forges can create power cells wholesale, which can then be powered on the surface easily. But the greatest asset we have is not in materials.”

The clan lord quirked an eyebrow. “Get to your point, priest. I have taken quite a leap of faith in allowing you to present your arguments first as to avoid bias. Do not make me regret this kindness.”

“Understandable, clan lord. I'll be to the point - what we offer is a way out. I have confidence your clan is prepared enough to stop the raiders, or at least heavily stall their war effort. However, are you confident enough to gamble without any hedge? This is what the Chosen can bring that noone else can - an escape should the worse come to happen. The slavers were able to come from the underground due to size of force letting them fight off the machines. As we know, they had an army of knights and each of their soldiers was armed and combat trained. Traversing through the underground would present them with little difficulty. But your entire clan does not have enough knights to protect them on an exodus underground. Thousands of civilians, guarded by only a handful of knights? Impossible. The Chosen, however, do not need protection. We can broker a peaceful passage. Underground, a new city could be created, where the raiders won’t dare to follow behind. Even if the clan were to fall, there would be a safer home outside their reach. The Chosen can lead your people to safety.”

“The clan military is more than capable of dealing with the coming threats. Failure is not an op-” Shadowsong said, but was immediately rebuked by the clan lord herself.

“First blade, I warned you about interrupting.” She gave a curt signal to some of the nearby relic knight guards who straightened up. “Interrupt again, and I will be forced to have you expelled from the premise. Do not put me in that position this early into the tenure.”

“The Shadowsong prime makes a point.” Lejis said, looking at us. “As I said, I am certain that your clan is prepared. But so will the enemy. They knew Lord Atius would be a problem, despite him being a Deathless. Any amount of preparation can be thwarted if the enemy knows what’s to come. They’ll have assumed your defenses are far more rigorous, and planned for that. If they could break through from the underground, then there might be spies and moles in your midst that are revealing the full breadth and scope of your defenses.” He turned to view the whole room. “So I implore you, for the sake of your people, consider all possible plans. Do not let pride be your downfall. Take every advantage offered. The gods reward those who save themselves. Both the gods on the surface, and those under it.”

The man in the stands scoffed. “Your kind can hardly survive on the surface, and you plan to build a city?”

Lejis smiled, “If you judge an engineer by his ability to fight, you will certainly believe him to be a fool. Do you judge the Chosen’s ability to construct buildings Underground, by metrics those buildings would need on the surface?”

The room began to fill with murmurs. Lady Dras’s features were a mask however, I couldn’t tell anything from her impassive gaze. But one thing was for sure - she hadn’t dismissed the priest outright.

“Explain to me in more detail, this contingency plan you’ve been considering.” She asked.