[hider=Short story]
NECROMECHANIC

The procession came through the darkened corridors of Astraxum Subcontinental Plate II, a mass of muddy saffron yellow. The devotees were swathed in their robes, thick and concealing by design, letting no hint of their deviant bodies show through to the unsullied masses who watched their advance. Though they could conceal the surfaces of their unnatural forms they could not conceal their shapes - while the crowds that watched their advance came in every colour of earth and sky, their diversity was nothing to the bizarre morphology of the devotees. Some stood three meters high, spindly tall, having to bow their hooded heads to avoid impact with the rusting ceiling, tripod legs visible in sharp edges with each step. Some were clanking behemoths, engines cast over with fabric like clothed locomotives, the sound of grinding tank treads clattering out from beneath their veils. Some were childlike, tiny things that seemed to roll or scuttle or crawl. The masses of humanity all stood within narrow bands of height, weight, with regulation numbers of limbs. Not so the cast of the procession, who strode in all the shapes and sizes of the animal kingdom's foul coupling with a construction yard.

Many held or wore candles - not an unusual characteristic, for never had the vast mechanical world of Tellus ever seen the spark of an electric light. The corridor itself was lit with burning braziers as a matter of ordinary operation. Some held flags or banners - all dyed black. The Empress may have begrudgingly deigned to allow these strange creatures to march through the vaults of her perfect world, but she would not permit them to bear colours other than hazard stripe yellow and black. Colours of danger. Colours of warning. Colours to remind the population that these creatures were subhuman and to be shunned. So the devotees had dipped their holy flags and banners in black dye, to be returned to their original glory once they were safely returned to their own realm. A few held relics. Strange wooden boxes - wood! Inconceivable here on this world of metal and rust - rested in arms, tendrils, or stranger appendages, the arcane miracles within hidden from the sight of the unworthy. 

These were the Priests of Hermes. God of Travel. God of Trade. God of Technology. 

They were not loved.

The crowds standing by the sides of the bestial processional was not there to cheer or celebrate the work of heroes. Parents had brought their children not as reward, but as punishment and threat. Be good or you'll be sent to join the Hermetics. Be good or they'll turn you into a monster. Be good or it'll be you shuffling underneath a saffron cage. Others were here as militia. Weapons were forbidden by order of the Empress, but every spare spanner, rolling pin, or kitchen knife happened to be conveniently in the hands or bags of every man or woman of fighting age as they watched the procession rumble past. Gangs stood in close proximity. Here and there could be seen the intimidating, black-armoured shapes of the Invigilators, the mailed fist of the Empress, but even they kept their distance from the procession. They did not want to be seen defending the freaks. 

The path was blocked. 

The procession ground to a halt.

The Red Titans gang had placed themselves in the centre of the causeway, standing just before the bridge that crossed a heat spire channel. They had gone further than the casual armaments of the others - bricks, bats, bottles with oily rags crammed down the necks, and improvised armour made out of the wreckage of a train. Their leader, the one-eyed meat-faced woman named Gavid stepped forwards, holding up a hand. "Back, freaks. No further."

Tension flowed through the crowd. Concealed weapons made their way to hands. Invigilators shifted nervously, sensing danger and shying from putting themselves at the centre of it. But the Hermetics of the procession remained still and silent - for as chaotic as they were in form, each exhibited an unnatural stillness now that they had come to a halt.

Finally, one spoke. Its voice was not the monstrous sound one expected from the beasts - it was soft, feminine, almost kind - but with an accent none of the humans would ever share. "We have dispensation from the Empress. We are here under her protection."

"You aren't," snarled Gavid, "taking our children."

There was a silence for a moment, as though contemplating this, and then the Hermetic resumed smoothly. "The Empress has forbidden us from all acts of recruitment and propaganda. We are to collect the sick, the mad, the marked, and the irredeemable. This will purify the world of Tellus of those like us."

"You're fucking baby snatchers, don't deny it!" shouted the ganger. "How else are there so damn many of you!?"

A ripple ran through the crowd, a wave of shared anger. The Hermetics hadn't been allowed to recruit for twenty years - and their numbers seemed the same. A great many small ills and inexplicable disasters had been attributed to an increasingly desperate priesthood determined to snatch bodies at any cost.

There was another long silence from the Hermetics.

"We have dispensation from the Empress -"

A brick smashed against its face. It staggered and fell.

It was like a dam breaking. The Red Titans charged, and other gangs followed one after another. The Hermetics closed ranks, lowering their staffs and flags in a half-hearted parody of a phalanx, but already the humans were upon them. 

Humans. A loaded phrase. It was humans who grew eviscerating talons. It was humans who had their fists harden like stone when they struck. It was humans who could match the shoving strength of the giants. Even the least human being among the hundreds of billions of Tellus was a superman, genetic code brimming with exotic strengths that rendered even these emaciated, impoverished specimens deadly combatants. When flesh and bone met the augmentic steel of the Hermetics it was no unfair contest. 

Chaos surged in the flickering candlelight. Shouts and screams and the sound of breaking bones and metal. The Hermetics did not, as they might have in the stories, reveal themselves to be bearing exotic weaponry beneath their robes - no heat rays, no slipphase beams, no flux sprays. If those things were here they were locked within those ornate wooden boxes that the Hermetics were passing towards the centre of their formation as though they were more precious than their very lives. Instead they fought as they were, with whatever advantages their alien physiques granted them. They pushed back but their blows were pulled, defensive, restrained even as they were being assaulted by people who did not give them anything like the same courtesy. They knew the consequences for their Order if they took human life here on the Empress' throneworld.

There was a boom like thunder. The corridor was briefly lit by light - cold, blue-white, bright light, nothing like the crackling dimness of the fire. Electrical arcs poured into the air, raking up and down the body of one of the Hermeticians and it emitted the only sound any of them had made during this battle - a high-pitched, far too natural scream. This finally broke the reverie of the Invigilators. Weapon! The Empress' soldiers finally intervened, firing their weapons indiscriminately into the swirling melee. These were not bullets, for the skin of an unarmoured human was proof against such things in this age. These were glass beads that ruptured upon impact into great gouts of toxic, choking smoke that could overwhelm even the most advanced biologies. War cries turned to panicked shouts, screaming turned to coughing, people broke and fled in all directions as the Invigilators closed in, grabbing whoever they could in a futile attempt to catch whoever had smuggled the illicit Electromagnetic Flux weapon into the dark of Tellus. Even the Hermeticians could not endure the fog of the Imperial guns and they withdrew as best they could, keeping in a mass defensive circle.

In the centre of the abandoned battlefield, wreathed by smoke and toxic gases, a young woman stood and looked down at the abandoned body of a Hermetic. It was the first time she'd ever seen what was underneath the robes of one of the mysterious creatures. This was a secret that, to her, was worth enduring the agonizing haze. She stared down at it, eyes wide despite the poison and the tears, heart pounding for reasons other than the adrenaline and the terror. She saw the secrets of the Priests of Hermes written in flesh and fur and steel, and she felt...

She was grabbed and dragged away back into the candle-lit darkness. She dragged the memory with her.
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