Waterfall was not a large town by any measure, perhaps two thousand people dwelled within its walls, but to the residents of the Underhive it was the largest settlement any of them had ever seen. Food was scarce this far down, water doubly so. Waterfall was an oasis in this desert. Its lakes, rivers and streams drew life of all sorts from across the hive. Strains of algae or moss grew on every surface and in every pool, harvested by the denizens of the shantytown, whilst innumerable beasts were drawn to the pools to be hunted by the cunning or the strong. From Waterfall these rivers flowed outwards through cracks and tunnels to fuel innumerable smaller hamlets across a great part of the Underhive. To that end it was fiercely protected and the strongest warlords within fifty miles had sworn to defend Waterfall should it ever be threatened.

Consequently, Waterfall grew even larger as it became neutral ground for people to trade and disputes to be resolved. Society evolved from a purely agrarian character into something altogether more civilised, and the streets teemed with traders, clansmen and mercenaries all seeking to carve out their own stretch of the Underhive. As such, mercenaries brought down from the lower city were an uncommon but not unheard of sight. Even so, the presence of ten Stormtroopers in full Carapace armour would have been a little hard to explain and so the squad was left in disguised shelter two miles out of town whilst Prime Agent Lafayette, Corporal Al’Said and Adjutant Brazier, disguised with tattered rags and improvised weapons, followed their diminutive guide into the settlement itself.

The paths to the settlement were well trodden, with primitive bridges built over rivers or swamps and a clear-cut footpath running along the most accessible routes. Far ahead of her Amelia could see a kind of cart, made from the flatbed of a utility vehicle being pulled by a lumbering lizard. A small cluster of traders and guards surrounded the vehicle, which was piled high with generators, panes of glass and other salvage. On other paths similar groups occasionally moved in and out of the settlement. This was the largest single concentration of people in the Underhive and Luka looked back at her captors expecting to see awe and wonder on their faces. To her surprise and disappointment, the masked people offered no reaction whatsoever to the town.

Amelia made note of the armed enforcers that wandered the streets, burly men armed with primitive weapons, a mixture of humans and mutants. The settlement had no walls, protected as it was by ancient oaths, and these thugs kept order inside the city as well as hunting beyond its walls to keep the larger predators under control. The smells of rust, waste and unidentifiable cooking forced their way through the filters on Amelia’s gas mask, a smell only slightly worse than that of a lower-hive slum. To her surprise strings of electric lightbulbs ran on wires between the buildings like a kind of bunting and artificial light shone through the cracks of some of the better made shacks.

Water was everywhere. It was caught on rooftops by corrugated iron gutters and the streets rested on walkways built atop winding canals. Beneath her feat she would often hear the sound of oars striking water as fishermen moved to and fro, dodging between barges laden with heavier goods. The people of this strange place were a mix of human and mutant, an oddity even in the undercity, and almost everyone was armed, even if all they had was an improvised knife tied to their belt. Luka served as their guide through the winding crowds, moving with such a natural grace that Amelia feared she would slip away from them in the crowds, ducking and weaving through the masses just as she had moved through the tunnels in the Wall. Amelia sent a small probe of psychic energy into the girl’s mind, not enough to harm or cause excessive distress but of sufficient strength to remind the child that she was being watched even if she was out of sight.

Waterfall was a commercial city, and every street was lined with street hawkers of varying shapes and sizes. At dozens of little stands food was fried, baked, boiled and stewed, filling the air with chaotic scents. Most of the stores sold some variety of lizard, small rat-like lizards roasted in their entirety and served on a stick or unidentifiable slabs of meat served in rolls of what seemed to be bread, while others seemingly cultivated insects for sale as caramelised snacks or a staple food. One of the sturdier buildings radiated heat from great clay ovens and a dozen labourers worked in the heat, kneading a mixture of moss and water into some semblance of dough before placing their brown loaf into the oven. Neither Amelia nor her followers had the inclination to try any of these unique foods, and even if they did then they had nothing to barter for them.

This far down the only people who would appreciate an Imperial Throne would be the lower hive mercenaries who came down here to make easy money from the local warlords, or those warlords powerful enough to reach into the upper city. Waterfall ran largely on a barter system; Amelia spotted the cart from earlier outside a glassmakers workshop, a young man accepted the shards of broken glass in exchange for rounds of ammunition before bringing them to his father who would melt them down in his kiln before blowing and carving ornate bowls with a chitinous hand that seemed immune to the heat.

There was the occasional sign of the world above this one; Amelia occasionally received nods from tattooed gangsters, one up-hiver recognising another. They wandered the streets in small pairs, most sporting some manner of rebreather to protect them from the polluted air. No two were alike; some wore tank tops or went bare chested to expose a web of tattoos that covered their torso and face whilst others hid themselves beneath thick leathers and long stormcoats. What unified them was their incongruity. Everything from their height to their gait was subtly out of place in their surroundings, and if it was obvious to Amelia then the difference must have been even more apparent for the locals. There were some more grizzly reminders of the hive above; occasionally Amelia would spot gibbets hanging over the streets from which the corpses of Death Cultists stood crucified. These displays were few and far between, a testament to the skill of these cultists, but they served as a bloody reminder that this was a wild and savage place.

The main road of Waterfall, if it could be called such, ringed the lake into which the endless waters that had given the town its name fell in a mesmerising cascade. The light of innumerable bulbs played across this torrent of water creating a kaleidoscope of colour that was reflected back onto the surrounding buildings. To the people of Waterfall this lake was something approaching sacred, and the road ran all the way around the lake without being interrupted by buildings. The message was clear, this water belonged to everyone. The most important buildings in town fronted onto this road, most notably the tall tower of the Guardhouse, where a permanent vigil was kept over the town’s surroundings, and the squat hall where the governing council of Waterfall held court.

Luka led them around the lake, at one point passing through a great square filled with cages. This was a marketplace of a different kind, and Amelia found her questioning gaze met by dejected humans and mutants, or half-starved beasts of prey and burden. This square was the domain of the flesh-merchants, men and women who saw to the sale of trained beasts and people alike. Amelia watched as a tribe of mutants led a coffle of their kin up to one merchant, who offered them a crate of fine scaled pelts in exchange. Most of the slaves were in a sorry state and were bought in bulk to serve as expendable labourers for high-risk salvage crews but the occasional strong male or attractive female were brought onto a metal auction block to be sold off individually. Amelia could feel Luka quicken her pace as they crossed the square. Had her tribe overcome Amelia’s team, a laughable notion, then Amelia might have found herself on that auction block. Amelia sensed Luka’s fears as if she had been shouting them; she had been taken by Amelia and was terrified that her new captors meant to sell her off once they no longer needed a guide.

In truth, she wasn’t sure what to make of the girl. She was in desperate need of some kind of guide in this unfamiliar territory, but could she trust the child not to betray her? She watched as Luka guided them through the crowds with a kind of dancer’s grace, the result of a lifetime clambering through the ruins she called ‘the Wall’. The child was unnaturally pale, even for the Underhive, and her hair was the same bone white as the spines that covered her body. She was dressed in rags, and the spines tore her clothing even as she moved. They were small, but razor sharp, and looked to be an extension of her skeleton rather than a surface growth. For now, she seemed too terrified of Amelia to attempt escape but time would tell if she would prove useful in the long run.

The Inquisitor’s operative in the Underhive had asked Amelia to meet him at the Overhang in Waterfall, and Luka had identified that as one of the city’s more organised taverns. Indeed, Amelia could see the Overhang up ahead, so named because its top floor hung over the path that ringed the lake. Its name was spelled out in miscellaneous neon lettering that must have been worth a fortune as salvage. Golden light spilled from windows formed of reclaimed glass in small panes held together by bands of gilded metal. The gilt finery and obvious care that went into the maintenance of the building sat at odds with the miscellaneous scraps of metal and concrete that formed the walls, but it was clear to all that this building was a point of pride amongst the dismal town.

The entrance to the Overhang was guarded by a man whose exaggerated musculature could only have come about through mutation. At the sight of this guardian, Luka wilted and turned back to Amelia with a pained expression. Amelia simply walked past the child and, with a little psychic manipulation, the muscle too. Behind her she could hear the patter of tiny feet as Luka followed her in, ducking behind Helena and Al’Said. The inside of the tavern would be best described as homely. There was no ornately polished wood, for no trees grew in beneath the hive, but metal, plastic, concrete and carpets woven from some unknown fibres all combined to create a warm, cosy effect only amplified by the electric heater placed in an imitation fireplace. The room rang with a dozen conversations and the occasional chink of glasses whist a group of troubadours serenaded the room with strings and a hurdy-gurdy from atop a small raised platform and a fool jingled miserably about the place.

The customers were mostly lower-hive mercenaries or the distinguished servants of local warlords come to Waterfall on business. It was as much a place of commerce as the rest of the town, and the tables played host to hushed conspirators plotting their next venture. Psychic trickery kept Amelia’s group from being noticed until they had moved to the upper floor and taken a seat at a remote table that looked out a great bay window onto the tumbling waterfall.

Corporal Al’Said was sent to the bar for a round of drinks, fortunately the Overhang was upmarket enough to accept Thrones, and he returned bearing four-pint glasses of a liquid that was the same basic colour as beer. The trio sat by the windows and attempted to drink enough of their ‘beer’ to make it seem like they’d been there a while. Poor Helena managed a few sips before she began heaving, so Amelia discretely poured part of her glass out the window. Luka stood off to one side, pressed against the wall, and tried to make herself unnoticeable. To her credit, she was doing a tolerable job of blending into the background and had Amelia not been psychic she may well have forgotten the girl was there. With the illusion complete, Amelia gradually dropped her psychic veil until they changed from an invisible presence to simply part of the scenery.

After they had waited for an hour without results Al’Said was sent to the bar again and, within another half hour, a waitress, whose youthful good looks were marred by a withered third arm bound against her chest, brought them three plates of lizard steak and mashed potato in a gravy that was assuredly also made of lizard. The food was surprisingly nice, though Helena was again reluctant and her leftovers were given to Luka. The food was somewhat rich from the girl, who was used to a diet of moss, insects and condensation, but she wolfed it down with childlike eagerness. It was as they had cleared their plates that Amelia saw a man descending down the stairs from the third floor.

His ragged, rust coloured, stormcoat and scrap metal armour made him seem like a well-off mutant warrior and his insectoid eyes and hair that more closely resembled a cluster of chitinous tendrils further completed the image. The rest of the patrons would occasionally glance his way before dismissing him as just another mutant merc in a city of mutant mercs. What the patrons would not see, but was as clear to Amelia as an open book, was the way he used his insectoid eyes to constantly scan the room like a man on the run, and how his mind was far sharper than any denizen of Waterfall she had seen so far. His eyes passed over Amelia twice, gliding off the subtle psychic wards she had been emitting before she dropped them just long enough for him to make eye contact.

Without saying a word, he pulled out the fourth chair at their table and sat himself down. As he did, Amelia noticed that his legs, as much as could be inferred from under the coat, seemed to have an extra joint in them like the hind legs of some animals. Without acknowledging his hosts, he flagged down a passing waitress and ordered some local drink with an unpronounceable name that arrived in a pint glass a few moments later. The drink was an unnaturally green colour, and the man gazed into his drink with morbid fascination, running his finger through the condensation that rested on the side of the glass. Only when the drink had passed his obscure standards did he look up to acknowledge Amelia.

‘A beautiful sight, isn’t it,’ he said, gesturing out the window to the cascading waterfall ‘more beautiful than the Governor’s flower garden.’

‘I hear the Governor’s flowers have wilted, and his garden is now uglier than the Undercity.’

This was no idle chatter, but the sign and countersign by which they were supposed to identify each other.

‘What would you have looked at if I hadn’t picked the window seat?’ Amelia mused.

‘The fool and her multicoloured suit. All things considered; it feels much more honest this way. Donovan Jeapes, our employer’s man in the Underhive’

‘Amelia Lafayette, chief dogsbody. I don’t think we’ve met.’

‘Somehow I think you’d remember.’ He smiled, exposing teeth that seemed far too black to be bone. ‘In truth, I stay away from the rest of you lot. Especially the Sisters, they really don’t like me, which I suppose is fair enough.’ He sighed.

‘But enough about me, you’re here about the Ragged Duke. From what I learned; he’s been rather busy since he settled here twenty years ago. He first made his mark when he defeated the Sons of Dis, an old and violent mutant clan, and made a gift of four great generators to Waterfall. That got him a reputation as a feared warlord, though no one knew where exactly his base was.’

‘What everyone does know is that he takes in promising mutants and sends them into the Upper Hive to strike back against the Ghost Women, the twist name for Death Cultists.’

‘Twist?’ Amelia interrupted.

‘Mutant word for mutant. Poor bastards think it gives them some point of pride.’

‘You don’t think that way? Amelia mused.’

‘I got no illusions ‘bout what I am. I’m a seven-foot-tall bug man, a freak of nature. I’ll never be able to walk up there and I know no amount of prayer is going to make me into something I aint, but I once heard about the Emperor at the top of the hive and I figure that if I work for him, he might not turn me away when I die.’

He turned his head to the ceiling with an almost reverent air as if he could will away the miles of steel that lie between him and the sky.

‘The Emperor’s on Terra,’ Amelia countered, ‘not the top of the hive.’

‘I know that now, obviously. This aint the hive I was born in. But if you’re going to survive down here then you need to understand that for these people there is nowhere else, the hive is all there is and it’s the same for most of the Lower City. The Imperium is too big for most of us to understand, and that’s why I fight for it.’

Silence met his words.

‘Anyway,’ he continued, a little embarrassed by his outburst, ‘I’ve been down here for a year now, went down with the covert squads, just in case one of you types needed a bit of info on what’s going on down here. A couple months ago I hear you’ve landed and I’m to send everything I have on the Death Cults, easy enough, then two days ago I get another message you need to meet the Ragged King within a couple of days.’

‘I’m sure it’s been difficult,’ Amelia continued, not really caring, ‘but did you get what I need?’

‘Course, I’m no slacker. See, no one knows where he hides out and how he can move his guys about so quickly. Turns out he’s in the Old City. Y’see, when they put this hive here some two-thousand years ago they built it on top of the old capital. Most of the good stuff got pulled out, but the Duke must have got the old metro running again. He’s holed up in the old Ministry of Defence, specifically the tunnels beneath the building. Easiest access route is only twenty miles from here, you’ll need these coordinates.’

He slipped a scrap of paper across the table, and Amelia entered the ten-figure grid reference into her data-slate.

‘There’s no way you’d make it twenty miles as you are, not after travelling all the way from the other side of the wall. I’ve took the liberty of booking you a couple of rooms here for the night.’

‘You’re not coming with us?’ Amelia was shocked, she had hoped her contact would tag along, someone with local knowledge would be invaluable.

‘Not a chance.’ Donovan laughed as he said it.

‘My time down here’s done, I’ve been ordered to make my way back. I’m the only covert asset still in the field, and I’m long overdue for a debriefing. Nothing can be done about it, even if I wanted to. Still, you’ll be alright.’

‘Well, thanks anyway.’ Amelia said, though she didn’t mean it

Donovan nodded, downed his green drink in one long gulp, and staggered out of the tavern after handing two iron keys to Amelia. The keys were for two rooms on the third floor that overlooked the waterfall. By Underhive standards the rooms were luxurious, both featuring beds with actual matrasses. Long windows let in the kaleidoscopic light of the waterfall and each room had a small bathroom with fittings salvaged from some hotel. Al’Said and Helena took one room whilst Amelia helped herself to a large double bed. Amelia had forgotten Luka, who followed her sheepishly into her room, and offered the girl a blanked only to have it turned away, for fear of her spines damaging the cloth. Instead she simply curled herself up at the foot of Amelia’s bed and fell almost instantly into a deep sleep.