As the three Tributean Crusaders approached, eyeing the chapter sigil on Angar’s breastplate, the horizon blurred into a rusty haze, a perpetual twilight where the sun cowered, casting Abyssalhome's warped expanse in hues of blood.

  Ash sifted down, and streamers of gold and white emblazoned with the Trey snapped in the thin wind that clawed its way through the fort's revetments, carrying scents of feast and fray, and of the Hellworld's unrest.

  Leading the trio was a slab of a man of the Grim Martyrs, his first-Realm Armiger plate scored from battles fought, a solid midnight-black save for the Trey at its the center, and the emboss of his chapter's sigil etched deep into the alloy, adorning the upper right breastplate.

  His fully modded blaster, a heavier variant with a drum magazine, included a bizarre muzzle and an even stranger optical sight.

  His young face was a dour mask of scars, with eyes like chipped onyx beneath brows heavy as iron lintels.

  But he didn't look as Angar considered a true Tributean, more of a northern monkey.

  Flanking him to his rear left strode another Grim Martyr, his suit a near-twin of the other, but newer, the black plates whole and mostly unabraded, though the gunmetal sheen already dulled.

  His blaster was a shorter-barreled disruptor rifle, the grips wrapped in frayed prayer-strips, no obvious mods visible.

  His shaved dome was etched with tattoos of Holy verses, his jaw normal, but his young features were those of a filthy Kondunean.

  The third, to his rear right, was of the Wistful Litany, his suit sleeker than his companions', though still a medium Armiger set.

  The plates contoured with subtle baffles and heat-sink vents that drank the light rather than reflecting it, the black-blue alloy shimmering with a slickness that suggested cloakers woven into the joints, and the whole suit was quieted with suppressed servos, built for silence.

  That chapter had unique doctrine. They fought like ghosts in a slaughterhouse, shadows that struck and slipped away, herding the enemy, retreating in a relentless storm of fire that ground foes to paste.

  Stealth was their creed, a veil drawn tight over every tactic, but it was the kill that truly unbound them.

  The core Ability of a Class they all shared granted a short span of invisibility upon each death dealt.

  A few moments of vanishment, and the Knight would melt from the fray, treading back from the line, attacking from some fresh angle of ambush.

  The company performed the same in that dance, phasing in from the murk to loose their volleys, then fading back in a relentless, backward creep, leapfrogging through the carnage like rats chewing at heels, until their enemies were pulped and spent beneath the ceaseless weight of it all.

  His breastplate's sigil, a cloaked figure dissolving into smoke, a curved dagger gleaming in its grasp, seemed to shift when not looking straight at it.

  The emblem rode higher on his chest than usual, the Trey less remarkable amid the subtlety.

  His blaster, a micro-fusion gun with an integral suppressor blooming like a blackened flower from the barrel, had an energy-blade mod as well.

  His face, though young too, was also less brutish than what Angar considered true-blooded Tributean, his eyes hooded and watchful, a scar tracing his smaller jaw.

  Another northern monkey. Or Iramvatian, if being technical.

  The three Crusaders closed the distance with the unhurried certainty of men who knew the ground they trod was consecrated by their own sweat and blood, their suits' whirring almost lost under the carnival's distant commotion.

  He hoped they came to fight, as the power of Mechanosis thrummed in his veins, and the upgraded Lightning Strike longed to be put to the test, as did his great increase in speed.

  But he doubted it. If they planned on ambushing Angar, they’d be helmed, and they wouldn’t have approached, instead initiating battle from afar, with as much of a ranged advantage as sightlines allowed.

  Still, his hand gripped his hammer’s haft tighter, held low at his side like a faithful dog, ready for violence to erupt.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  If it came to it, he’d crush these fools with little effort, grouped up as they were. A poor tithe of blood and battle, but a tithe nonetheless.

  They halted a respectful two and a half meters off. As nearly one, the three dropped to a knee, the blighted earth grinding under their weight like teeth on gristle, buttstocks thudding into the cursed dirt as heads bowed.

  “Hail, Baron,” the lead Knight roared, easily cutting through the surrounding clamor and the fort's revels.

  Angar exhaled, the little tension he held bleeding away.

  Through a painful jaw, he mumbled out as best he could, “On your feet. No need for that. Call me Angar. Or brother. Titles mean little to me, and noble ones less than dirt.”

  The Crusaders rose, their armor churning with the soft grind of servos re-engaging.

  “Names?” asked Angar as he removed his helm, a basic courtesy when greeting allies.

  “Seban,” the leader supplied, his monkey accent grating as he held Angar’s gaze and jerked his chin leftward. “That’s Nguri. We’re both of Iramvati City.” Then a rightward jerk. “Harion of Kondune.”

  “God and Empire, brothers," Angar replied, trying to infuse warmth into his voice. “It’s nice to finally meet Holy Knights hailing from Tribute. This is the full tally, us four, here on Abyssalhome?”

  Seban’s scarred mouth twisted, not quite a smile. “No, Sir. There’s seven more by your woman Fella’s reckoning. I’ve crossed paths with maybe half. Here, scheduled for today’s Mass, just us and one other, the rest out warring. Nguri here’s a cherry, shipped into my company about three weeks shy, so we’re usually together.”

  “Fella?” The name landed like a misfired mortar, Angar’s brows furrowing into a ravine, unbalancing him enough he didn’t correct the ‘your woman’ comment.

  “Aye, Sir.” Seban shifted his blaster’s weight, the drum magazine clinking against his pauldron. “She’s been communicating with all Crusaders of Tribute, keeping us informed of goings-on back home, like its new name and your cult and such. She tasked me with tracking you down today, getting you to the Budget Post to retrieve your missives, possibly a package she sent in early October that may have arrived."

  There were hundreds of Crusaders from Tribute. She was communicating with them all?

  Angar had no idea how to attain chapter rosters, never mind rosters fractured by company. And deployments too?

  How?

  A curt comcap gouged deep from any purse, and a student’s should be the lightest.

  The furrow in Angar’s brows deepened to a chasm. “How? Where’s she drawing this info from? And the credits for so many comcaps?”

  Fella’s free hours were chained to the care of her infant. Or should be.

  Even if Sundays found her employed with her child slung across her back, the credits from that? A pittance. Nowhere near enough to span the stars to one man, let alone a web of them.

  Seban shrugged, the motion causing his power armor to sigh like a weary confessor. “No reckoning on that score, Sir. But she wouldn’t need to know what world a recipient is on. Once you’re etched into one of the systems, they all share info and posts, routing missives where they need to get for a fee.

  “Physical packages are a different story. Extremely expensive too. Seeing as Fort Acre’s the only Terran hold on this world, she registered you and this location on your behalf, and paid for the routing. I've got your account number. Swing by the Budget Post here, and you’ll get all that’s waiting on you.”

  Simo would have to wait.

  Angar donned his helm, the seals engaging with a pneumatic hiss. “Lead on, brothers.”

  The three Knights followed suit, their helms locking into place with a series of muted clicks and hisses.

  But Seban tensed, his armored shoulders shifting as he added, "One moment, Sir. The other Tributean not with us? He's from Amaravati, named Chagan. His grandfather was an Elder Shura, and he didn't take the news of you killing his kin lightly. He's out for blood and planned to assassinate you during Mass. I talked him down, but the matter needs settling."

  Angar pieced the clues together quickly, sensing the reason behind Seban's tensing.

  Fella, for all her sharp mind, was still a woman, ignorant in the ways of honor. She likely urged these men to step into affairs beyond her ken, into a blood feud, to kill Chagan before he could strike.

  How she commanded such obedience from so many baffled him. She was just a Lay student at Cloisteranage, with no authority to wield at all. It was madness.

  Regardless of why these men did her bidding, ordering the death of a fellow Crusader to shield Angar? A bridge too far, crossing a line no honorable Knight would tread.

  The earliest transports ferrying Tribute's children to the Cloisteranages had started in Kondune, but later waves drew from the far denser sprawls of Iramvati City. All the boys ended up mixed in the same three academies, forging bonds of kinship.

  The Grim Martyrs, having saved Tribute from Hellspawn intrusion, had risen to near-mythic status in the south, the chapter everyone wanted to be a member of.

  And with the intermixing, the Iramvatians clamored just as fiercely to join their ranks.

  Angar hadn't gotten fresh info on Tributean Knights since plotting his cult with Hidetada months back, but the old figures showed over sixty-five percent funneling into the Martyrs' ranks.

  No chapter tolerated outsiders slaying their own without consequence, but the odds favored Chagan being a Grim Martyr himself.

  Grand Marshal Thakur was infamous for his zeal in vengeance, his ongoing blood feud with Grand Marshal Gunah of the Hellfire Sentinels having sparked a rare open war between chapters.

  'Duty, Honor, Vengeance,' was the chapter's motto, though its members mainly stuck to an unofficial one, screaming out, "Grim Martyrs!"

  Revenge was baked into their doctrine, even if the killing stemmed from a fair and sanctioned duel.

  Because of Captain Vernost and her Dragon Company, Angar also held the chapter in the utmost regard. He had no wish to make enemies of them.

  He also sympathized with Chagan's desire. In his boots, Angar would feel the same pull to avenge kin murdered so brutally and unfairly.

  Monkey or not, Chagan was a subject as well as a brother Knight. Angar didn’t want to kill the man.

  But life never bent to wants. It ground on, indifferent.

  "Well," Angar replied, "lead me to him first then, and let’s get this settled."