Chapter Text
The stone floor of her cell was numbingly cold in the early morning dark. Gideon had been going to bed hours early for the past week in order to ensure she woke before the Secundarius bell.
She pulled on her horribly scratchy socks and pried open the clasp of her ankle monitor. The darkness was thick and nigh on impenetrable but she had been dressing in the dark for almost twenty years.
She shook out her great black church robe and rummaged through the pockets in a final check. There were two pieces of flimsy, one stiffer than the other. The thinner piece would be her proof of identity. It had her name, house affiliation, approximate birth date, and health history. It was all of Gideon's life condensed into a few short paragraphs.
The thicker paper was small, only a little larger than the palm of her hand, but it was far more important. This was her release to join the cohort. It was signed in the blood of the Reverend Mother which was a massive pain but worth it to ensure her enlistment. Unless the dread queen of the Ninth felt like admitting to her little necromantic indiscretion, it meant that Gideon was home free.
She would be joining as a cavalier if she could get away with it. If they were smart they would place her with the foot soldiers rather than with the necromancer corps but she would really take what she could get. If some general wanted her to explode people rather than actually fight then she would at least be thankful to be on the front lines and away from the Ninth.
Her footsteps were almost silent as she stalked through the empty halls of the drillshaft. She dragged the tips of her fingers carefully over the rough stone walls to orient herself. Creeping down almost nineteen flights of stairs, she entered the freezing catacombs.
For some reason, the rows and rows of dead never seemed to stink with decomposition. When she was young she had assisted the nuns (who were almost dead themselves) in lighting thick, choking incense in the niches of the newly deceased. The smoke hung in the air like a resinous cloud.
There was an empty niche a few rows down that Gideon knew by heart. It sat empty now, though it hadn’t always. This was where her mother had been interred after dropping nearly a mile to the bottom of the shaft with a baby in tow. If Gideon was a stronger necromancer she might be able to feel the trace residue of thanergy that had soaked into the stones.
“I’m off,” she whispered, only a little self consciously. She then turned on her heel and trekked all the way back up the stairs.
The landing field was dark, though this was the kind of lighlessness that came from lack of sun rather than being in a horrible bone cave. Gideon stalked around the perimeter and felt for any irregularities in the carved-out rock. She had to do this several times before she was sure there were no stray bone chips stuck in the cracks. Once she felt she had secured the perimeter she dropped to her knees and ran her hands over the packed earth.
The air was dusty and still and Gideon felt inordinately antsy. There was a lot of ground to cover and she had to be sure that no one had stashed a tooth in an unassuming dirt pile. Her trouser legs were caked in dirt and her knees protested being pressed to the hard ground for nearly an hour.
Once the flood lights came on and the skeletons came rattling out of their niches to begin the day's labor she checked the perimeter once more by sight. The sound of steel picks hitting stone accompanied her as she shimmied up the pole to check behind the lights. She made her way down to the ground with bruise-colored blind spots dancing in her eyes.
She paced up and down the field, paused, fiddled with the papers in her pocket, and resumed pacing. She was so close to escape and the anticipation felt like little bugs scuttling around her insides. She checked her clockwork. One hour to go.
Gideon settled herself on a larger rock at the edge of the field and looked out at the rows of identical white figures. They moved in almost complete concert with each other, blind and unthinking. She knew a few of them sported thick pads of yellow fat on the palms of their hands where a young Gideon had attempted to keep the bones from wearing down so quickly. This had been back when the Reverend Parents were alive and before the nuns had given up on making Gideon a half decent necromancer.
She bounced her leg as she sat and pulled her sword out of its sheath. The smooth leather grip was cool to the touch and fit perfectly in her hand. She pulled a rag from her back pocket and poured out a few drops of mineral oil. She gently buffed the surface of the blade until it shone luminous in the dark. Forty five minutes to go.
The daytime generator rumbled to life below her. The skeletons rattled as they worked. These were the sounds of Drearburh coming to life- or at least twitching in its death throes. The stale air around her was still like a perpetually held breath. In this semi-silence there came the urgent tolling of a muster call. Cute.
Gideon rose and began a simple drill. Where the bare skin of her arms met the air it erupted in goosebumps. She was horrifically keyed-up and the only way she knew how to deal with that feeling was by bashing an imaginary foe’s head in.
A cloaked figure emerged from the darkness behind her and very nearly caused her to jump. When coming across the Marshal in the dark halls of Drearburh one could not be blamed for thinking him a poorly reanimated construct. In the harsh light of the landing field, though, he was perhaps even more terrible.
Crux was tall, rail-thin, and had the appearance of a perpetually pissed off mummy. His scowl might as well have been carved into his face for it seemed that it was the only expression he was capable of. When Gideon was younger he used to whip her bare back with a slender switch until she bled and then a little bit more for good measure.
“You wrong this house, you misuse its goods, you steal its stock.”
“Oh, good morning, Marshal,” Gideon replied cheerily.
“You wrong this house, you misuse its goods, you steal its stock,” Crux repeated with the severity of some kind of evil ghost.
“Yes, I know,” Gideon put her hands up placatingly, for a moment forgetting she had a very sharp sword in hand, “I’ll be out of your hair in just… thirty seven minutes.”
“The Lady has called you to muster and you will obey.”
“I really won’t, though. I’ve got a ride to catch.”
“You are an insolent leech, a parasite. God only knows why no one smothered you in your cradle,” Crux said with no small amount of wistfulness.
“You’re welcome to try. Maybe your Lady will grow you new arms when I snap them off for you.”
Crux stalked over to her and swing one of his gnarled, arthritis ridden fists right at her face and- Fuck he hit hard for a man held together mostly by spite. Gideon’s face was knocked to the side and she wobbled slightly on impact.
“Go tell the Lady to come get me herself if she wants me so bad,” Gideon rubbed at her injured cheek with the heel of her hand.
The Marshal surprised her by simply spitting at her feet and walking away.
Twenty five minutes to go. She shifted her weight from one foot to another and tried very hard not to totally freak out. This was it, she was so close to freedom she swore she could taste it. She was less than a half hour away from leaving the Ninth and never stepping foot on the frigid, lightless planet again.
The snow leek fields below were empty now. All of the skeletons had dropped their tools to the ground and gone to attend the muster. She might be the only person, alive or otherwise, who wasn’t in the chapel.
She walked the perimeter once more, this time mostly for something to do. She did a few dozen push ups before getting bored and moving on to crunches. There was something threatening to burst from behind her sternum. Thirteen minutes to go.
Anticipation might kill her before her shuttle even landed, she thought. For the past few months she had been so sure that something would go wrong. Someone would catch her digging around in the Reverend Mothers mouth to find a working blood vessel, someone would find the communication records between her and the shuttle, the little nunlet would somehow be able to smell that she was planning something and put her on half rations for a year. Just seven minutes to go.
It was almost a relief when- with only five minutes until her shuttle was set to arrive- the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus swept in like a particularly evil bat. She was followed by Crux and Aiglamene, along with a few wrinkled cloisterwomen who immediately sank to their knees in prayer.
“So this was your great master plan, just calling a shuttle and walking out the door.”
“Don’t be embarrassed for not figuring it out, I know it’s hard to match my genius,” Gideon smirked.
“Let’s not fool ourselves, Griddle dear, I’ve known for weeks,” Harrow smiled pityingly, like she was speaking to a child. A little bit of wind got taken out of Gideon’s sails at that. She immediately turned up to the entrance of the drillshaft and scanned the sky for a shuttle, “Oh don’t worry, the shuttle’s still coming. I just wanted to have a little chat with you first.”
“I would rather eat a hundred poisonous snakes.”
“Don’t be dramatic. I have a proposition for you.”
“Fuck you,” Gideon spat. Behind Harrow’s shoulder, Aiglamene was glaring hard at her.
“You don’t even know what I have to offer. I can make this very worth your while.”
“You have nothing I want.”
“Don’t I?” Harrow pulled a sheet of paper out of one of her numerous pockets, “This officially purchases your commission to the rank of second lieutenant with full officer training.”
Gideon began to sweat. Logically, she knew that she should tell the Reverend Daughter exactly where she could stuff it, but God, it was a tempting offer, “What's the catch?”
“I want you downstairs for the muster call,” Harrow said primly.
“That's it?”
“That's it.”
This was very, very bad. The shuttle was already descending into the drillshaft and blowing her cloak around. She needed to get on that thing and give the whole house the middle finger.
“No.”
“Excuse me?” Harrowhark had clearly not been expecting this.
“I’m not doing it. There is quite literally nothing you could do to get me down in the chapel.”
“Are you- This is the perfect deal! This is everything you have been whining for for years!”
“And I don’t want it. I don’t need anything from you.”
The muscles in Harrow’s jaw bulged as she grit her teeth. Without warning she began yanking the pale white bone studs out of her ears and throwing them to the ground. She pulled off her robe and stood before her in just her shirt and trousers.
“Fight me then,” Harrow’s nostrils flared.
“What are you even saying right now,” The shuttle made contact with the landing field behind her.
“You win, you leave with the commission. I win, you go down to the chapel and then leave. With the commission.”
“Fucking- Fine,” Gideon pulled out her sword and settled into a fighting stance.
“For God’s sake, Nav, give your Lady a weapon!” Aiglamene shouted from the edge of the field.
“I’ve given her my whole goddamned life,” Gideon said, and charged at the dread Lady of the Ninth.
In retrospect, Gideon should have realized that Harrow was far too confident about the whole situation. It was only when the dust in the air started to come together that she realized Harrow nearly never put herself in a position where she didn’t have a nasty trick up her sleeve.
Several dozen constructs came into being out of almost nothing. It occurred to her, almost belatedly, that the reason she had been so antsy for the past hour was because the entire landing field was literally caked in bone dust.
–
Gideon wiped the dust and sweat from her forehead and let out a long sigh when she accidentally smeared alabaster paint across her hand. For the past month she had been forced to paint her face like a doddering nun- something she had refused to do since she was twelve.
She had been training with Aiglamene since the early morning and it was now nearly midday. The fluorescent lamps glowed just a little brighter, though the illumination was watery and the bulbs buzzed like fat flies. The soldier stood at her side and stared into the middle distance as Gideon took a long drink from her canteen, “You cannot be a necromancer on the First.”
“What?” Gideon had to tilt her head up slightly to look at her. Her face was as scared and beat-up as the rest of her and one eye was starting to fog with cataracts.
“You’re lucky for your weak aptitude. On the first you may only be a swordswoman. A cavalier must be strong where her necromancer is weak, weak where her necromancer is strong. There's no room for failure.”
“They let necros be swordswomen in the Cohort,” Gideon said petulantly. This was an old argument, rehashed so many times that it had grown scar tissue. Gideon was not a necromancer, she was a fighter born with the unfortunate condition of necromancy. It didn’t matter to her that the rotting, brittle-bones acolytes used to make her raise skeletons until blood came from her ears, she was a swordswoman. This was one of the few things Gideon knew Aiglamene would never understand.
“There are a million miles of difference between a foot soldier and a cavalier primary.”
“I’m not actually a cavalier, that's kind of the whole problem.”
“You are as good as the Ninth can get,” Aiglamene said. It might be the closest thing she could manage to a real compliment. Gideon found that she could not respond. Aiglamene’s expression abruptly shuttered and she gestured with her sword, “Up!”
Gideon scrambled into position guard and faced the Captain. The loose grip that the rapier demanded was unfamiliar and still a little uncomfortable. She still had to consciously hold herself with her weight farther back than she was used to.
“Use your offhand for balance, don’t let it hang about like a dead fish,” Aiglamene barked.
Gideon readjusted and began her approach once again. The Captain held her sword in a light grip, protecting her outside line. In an instant her blade flashed as she went for Gideon’s side. Gideon jolted back and caught the weak end of Aiglamene’s blade with the blunt base of her own.
“The point of a stringer is to lead your opponent’s blade away from yours, not to bash it to the side like an ape!”
Aiglamene disengaged in a single quick movement. Her feet barely stirred up the dust on the floor. For a woman with only one living leg, she was damned fast. Gideon shifted her weight forwards and lunged to strike at the older woman’s guard.
To her credit, Gideon did manage to land a hit on the swordmaster, though Aiglamene twisted away at the last moment and was only nicked on her upper arm. A brief almost-smile found itself on the edge of the Captain's hard mouth.
A parry, a strike, a lunge with her rapier quickly followed by a swing with her knuckle knives. Gideon had Aiglamene on the defensive for the first time in ages and it was incredible. She ducked below what would have been a terrible blow to the head and lunged to swipe at the Captain’s bad leg.
There was a great reverberation up her arm as her blade made contact with the bleached bone. The force bent her wrist painfully and caused her to overextend her elbow. The greatest shock came when she found that she could not pull her sword away and continue to fight.
She glanced up at Aiglamene and yanked once more at her immobile sword. The old soldier lifted a graying eyebrow, unimpressed. Gideon huffed a nervous laugh.
Aiglamene knocked Gideon’s hand away with her sword and pushed her right on her ass with a boot to the sternum. She gripped the rapier lodged in her leg and wrenched it loose, letting it clatter to the stone floor.
“It would have been a good move had you not forgotten your opponent,” Aiglamene observed, “Fix up that cut properly. I won't have your training hobbled over a scrape.”
Aiglamene hobbled over to the sword wall and hung her rapier in its proper place. She did not look back at Gideon before sweeping out of the room.
Gideon cradled her hand and held her sliced-up knuckles against her mouth. It wasn’t because she wanted to lick her blood or some other creepy necro shit, she simply did it on a childlike instinct. The metallic taste coated her tongue and teeth.
She didn’t particularly like the feeling of using necromancy, at least not the way Harrowhark seemed to. The Reverend Daughter used her necromancy like an extension of her body the same way Gideon used a sword. She had not properly practiced since she was eleven, not after what Harrow did.
Letting her wound bleed sluggishly, Gideon rose to her feet and brushed the dirt from her trousers. She gently cleaned her sword and replaced it on the rack before going off to find some bandages.
For the past several weeks she had spent more time with the Reverend Daughter than she had since they were in diapers. Aiglamene had set her the pointless exercise of following the Lady around like an enthusiastic dog. She followed her to the library and sat with her in silence, she sat by her at meals and was gifted with even more silence. Harrowhark had become a veritable well of silence.
This was all incredibly suspicious, at least to Gideon who could smell a Nonagesimus plot from a mile away. She was planning something. When Harrow was being less horribly secretive, Gideon managed to catch a glimpse of the nasty old tomes she had been flipping though. The paper was soft, supple human leather and was stuffed to the metaphorical teeth with cramped maginalia. Most of the writing was recognizable as Harrowharks spidery scrawl, though much of her notes were in a kind of ancient shorthand that Gideon couldn’t begin to parse.
When Harrow wasn’t busy skulking around the library and muttering to herself, she made Gideon follow her to mass. It. Sucked. The chapel was cold as hell and Gideon had honestly forgotten how to pray the knucklebones, something Harrowhark found both abhorrent and hilarious.
The whole thing was terribly bad and Gideon had gotten well and truly sick of it by the third day. She was sick of the paint, sick of sitting in a dusty library for hours while Harrow pored over her wicked little spells, sick of the knucklebones drowning out the sound of her chattering teeth, sick to fucking death of going to bed bruised and sore and waking up with a faceful of zits. Aiglamene was not sympathetic.
–
The shuttle door snapped closed with a gentle sort of finality. It was a little cramped on the inside and the seats were upholstered in a rough gray fabric. Gideon shoved her trunk behind her seat and flopped down onto it with a sigh.
The walls and floor were made of the same cool gray steel as the outer shell, though the floor was interrupted with thick yellow and black lines. The seats were comfortable enough for a journey that was only supposed to take an hour or so. Apparently being the Emperor’s chosen meant you got access to the fastest shuttles.
Gideon fiddled with the control panel on her armrest. One dial allowed her to control the flow of cool air from the vent above her head. She also made the wonderful discovery that if she flipped a small switch in the corner, the back of her seat would fall back into a bed.
The only thing that could ruin Gideon’s mood would be a horrid little bone witch, who coincidentally was sitting directly across from her. Harrowhark glared at her with her dark beetle eyes and a twisted up mouth as the shuttle rumbled and took off.
They were silent for almost the entire journey, save for a moment where Harrow coughed into a tattered black handkerchief. The Reverend Daughter had not stooped to bring any grave dirt with them and so they both had to suffer.
Harrowhark took the loss of her aptitude worse, though she was fighting hard not to show it; her hands shook, her face paint bled a little around the crisp edges, and she kept swallowing like she was not to lose her breakfast of porridge and protein sludge.
Gideon took it a little better, though she still felt like a steaming pile of shit. Her muscles ached like she had spent the last twenty four hours doing burpees until she threw up. Her thoughts were fuzzy and it felt like her cranial cavity had been filled with steel wool. Her mouth and sinuses were dry as a nuns ass.
She at least didn’t feel like she was in danger of swooning into the arms of the nearest babe, though that could have been because the closest thing to a girl nearby might as well have been a hundred roaches in creepy robes. She actually might have been some kind of beetle masquerading as a human, Gideon made a mental note to check Harrowhark for signs of wanting to burrow into wood.
Stars blurred past Gideons window in a milky haze of light. She had been hoping to see them unobstructed by artificial atmosphere and was sort of disappointed. Harrowharks viewscreen was kept closed for the entirety of their flight.
The shuttle shuddered as it came to an abrupt stop. The stars outside stabilized into pinpricks of light. Harrow muttered something to herself and pressed the call button by her seat.
“Why are we being held?” she demanded.
“I apologize, Reverend Daughter, the craft hasn’t been given clearance to enter the atmosphere,” the tinny voice of the remote pilot came through the speakers, “It should only be a few moments.”
Harrow made a dissatisfied noise and crossed her arms. Gideon had only heard the word ‘atmosphere’ and immediately jumped up from her seat. She crossed the isle quickly and lifted the shade on Harrowhark’s viewscreen. Harrow yelped and swatted at her arm, obviously dismayed to have Gideon leaning right over her and basically pressing her nose against the glass.
The first thing Gideon thought was that she had never seen so much blue in her entire life. The entire planet glowed with blue light. It was dotted lightly with hazy white clouds which flowed over the lower atmosphere. Here and there she could make out smudges of green, brown, and gray making themselves known in the sea of unending blue. The light of Dominicus made it almost glow. It hurt a little bit to look at.
“You’re acting like a child,” Harrow said primly as she attempted to shove Gideons arm out of her personal bubble.
“You look like a sick mummy.”
“At least I’m not about to go blind from ogling the sun.”
Gideon stuck her tongue out at her and pulled away, returning to her own seat and feeling a little bit proud that her facepaint had gotten smudged on Harrow’s window. Harrowhark attempted to scrub it off with one of her infinite lacy handkerchiefs but gave up and yanked the shutter down over the plex.
“Fix your paint before you land. You are to stay silent from the moment the shuttle touches the ground. You are to follow my orders to the letter. If this is to work you must act as if you’ve been a cavalier from the cradle,” Harrowhark had been saying the same thing for the past two weeks which gave Gideon the opportunity to mouth along while making mocking faces. Harrowhark ignored her. Bitch.
Gideon spent the next few minutes smearing cold white paint over her forehead and the bridge of her nose, inspecting it carefully in a little hand mirror Harrow had made her carry. The black had settled deep into the thin skin around her eyes and made itself at home in the cracks of her mouth. It tasted awful when she forgot she was wearing it and absentmindedly licked her lips.
Though the planet itself was blocked from view, she could feel the distant hum of thanergy pulsing through the void of space to meet her.