Warhammer

The dagger levelled in her direction should probably scare a normal courier, but Robyn wasn’t prepared to act like a true civilian quite like this. Thankfully Shatterstar was more prepared than she was, stepping between them, hammer and shield in hand.
 
Then Shatterstar winked at her, and Robyn was speechless for a moment.
 
“...I knew I’d be able to get you alone at this time,” she stammered a little, playing along as best she could.
 
“What's your intel, Absyn?”
 
“Classified, sir,” the Armourmaster replied, and Robyn had to focus on her face to stop her incredulity shining through. Classified from the Commander? Poor excuse.
 
Still, she wasn’t prepared to engage Absyn here, and she hadn’t had the chance to explain anything to Shatterstar, who couldn’t be compromised. Just when Robyn was thinking of how best to get out while maintaining the integrity of the Skirmishers, Shatterstar took a much more straightforward decision.
 
“Is that so, you treacherous bastard?!” he growled, turning and swinging his hammer right at Absyn.
 
Did he already know?!
 
It didn’t matter now; the direction was clear and Robyn knew what she needed to do, and just had to hope a boot dagger was enough. Unfortunately it was clear that it wasn’t; there wasn’t enough space to get a good angle, and Absyn and his shades were faster than Robyn could have anticipated, their blades stinging with precision and venom. Short of trying to wrest an extra sword from their well-trained grip, there were no other weapons in reach, and this floor was the tidiest to her memory, clear of any extra weaponry that wasn’t on a person.
 
Except one…
 
It was insane to even think of it. Sacrilege, almost. She was sure there was a special punishment for even thinking about the Protector’s weapon, let alone touching it as not one of her descendents. But better to live and face that consequence than risk losing Shatterstar to anyone.
 
Robyn skidded into the corner, hoping one of the agents would take the bait, dancing away as soon as the opportunity opened, hissing in pain as Absyn lashed at her when she passed, but not slowing down a moment, not even to look too long at Atherton and wonder how long he had been hiding that strength.
 
“It’ll be easier to pin this on you when I’ve killed the old man!” she heard Absyn taunt behind her. Robyn grit her teeth, turning her boiling blood to white hot focus, giving Absyn nothing: exactly what he deserved. She stepped up to the Protector’s Hammer on the wall, bracing her feet to wrench it from the wall when a sharp sting of a thrown dagger in her shoulder distracted her for a moment.
 
She looked over her shoulder at the Shade agent, tugging the weapon out of her muscle with a wry smirk, saluting the agent with it cheekily before tucking it in her belt for later. Robyn turned back to her goal, taking a fortifying breath, closing her hand around the handle of the fabled hammer and pulling.
 
Hammers were only something she had used in training, something Madoc had insisted on to be ready for anything, to use anything. It was only recently where Robyn would have said she felt she had the strength to have any reasonable confidence wielding one, much preferring the finesse and precision of narrower blades. As she took the weapon in her hands, she felt… something. This was a weapon of a quality beyond anything she had ever touched before.
 
And Stoneshield keeps it on the wall.
 
Admiration would have to wait: there were enemies abound. Robyn ran towards the Shade that had followed her, weapon in both hands, swinging fiercely and winding the agent, but not enough to stop him. He lunged with expert precision, and just as Robyn was about to try and get out of the way, the hammer moved in her grip, knocking the dagger off course just enough to turn a deep strike into a scratch.
 
What…?!
 
There was no time. Robyn danced around the agent and kept running back towards Shatterstar. She stepped around Atherton, suggesting he get into a different position, but the secretary apparently heard nothing, his eyes fixed on his enemy, his fists a blur.
 
Robyn nearly stepped towards Absyn, intending to take some of the traitor’s focus, but the hammer tugged towards the bloodied and dazed agent who was just shaking her eyes back into focus.
 
Protector, if this is your guidance, please be true.
 
She shifted her grip on the hammer and swung it with both hands, the face of the hammer connecting with a resounding crack against the agent’s head, skull caving in.
 
Atherton looked unfazed, sprinting away to corner the second agent, leaving Robyn and Shatterstar with Absyn. Shatterstar was bleeding, far too much even as he continued to engage Absyn. Robyn grit her teeth, taking the hammer in one hand and a dagger in the other, ducking around Shatterstar’s shield and stepping behind the Umbral Lord.
 
The Armourmaster - the traitor - said something else, but Robyn’s fury, still white hot from her head down to her knuckles, drowned out anything else he had to say. She twisted the hammer in her grip and brought it down on the top of the man’s head, bringing her dagger around in an arc to follow through, but there was nothing there, Absyn crumpling at her feet,
 
Robyn lowered her weapons, tucking the dagger back into her belt and reverently cradling the hammer in both her hands, the adrenaline leaving her in a rush, leaving only stinging pain from multiple hidden cuts, and the weight of what she had just done sinking into her stomach.
 
Has this hammer ever killed a human before? When was the last time it killed anything?
 
She looked to Shatterstar, panicked - panic that subsided when the dwarf just sighed, nonplussed. “Give it here,” he instructed.
 
“But…” The face of the hammer was smeared with more than just blood. “Should I…?”
 
“Atherton will deal with it.”
 
“Shit! There was…” Robyn ran out into the hall, but she needn’t have - Atherton was practically folding the agent in half with his hands. “Never mind.”
 
Shatterstar set the Hammer of the Protector back on its wall hook before adjusting the hold on his own hammer, swiftly clocking the agent around the head, knocking him out cold. “What was it you were going to say?” he asked, leading Robyn back to his office.
 
“It was about him actually,” Robyn answered, pointing to Absyn on the ground. “Did you know already? When did you know?” That would be just Robyn’s luck to just be repeating already known information.
 
“Only within the last five minutes,” Shatterstar admitted, ignoring Robyn’s shock, shifting a bookcase to reveal a ladder, and heaving himself up it. “Come with me.”
 
Robyn didn’t argue, scrambling up the ladder, surprised to see Major Alora sat in an attic room with chairs and bookshelves and tables, more of her worries ebbing away knowing how close she was.
 
“What in the Hells is happening?” Alora asked, taking in Shatterstar’s dishevelled appearance and fresh wounds, turning her eyes to Robyn in her disguise. “Robyn? What are you doing here?”
 
Robyn turned off the magical effect, taking a moment to look down at herself, her wounds revealed, the borrowed clothes ruined as blood and venom seeped through torn fabric. She would have to make it up to Liv later, firmly patting the worst wounds to slow the bleeding.
 
“Oh, your father would bloody kill me,” Shatterstar groaned.
 
“He is not here,” Robyn assured him as kindly as she could, though with a tinge of frustration. It made no sense sometimes, that Shatterstar seemed comfortable enough to send Robyn out into the Wastes, but anything else was met with ‘your father would kill me.’ “It’s fine.”
 
“It isn’t,” he countered, and let out a weary sigh. “Right. What do you know about our history? Bastion’s history.”
 
Robyn hesitated, thinking of what Rel had said mere hours ago. You should ask them for help. They would protect you if they knew. You need to trust people. She took a steadying breath. “Official or unofficial?”
 
Shatterstar’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s go unofficial, shall we?”
 
Shelving any worry and switching to just report what she had learned, like any other report, Robyn went through what she had learned: the Crook, her uncle, the uprising, the Shadows and Ascendent. Shatterstar and Alora shared a look, that infuriating look that Robyn was all too used to by now, when much older and wiser races just seemed to know things. Shatterstar sighed wearily again, before gesturing to Alora.
 
“Then let me introduce you to the current Marshall of the Crook.”
 
Robyn took a step back and sat down heavily in one of the chairs in the circle. “Shepherd’s fucking arse.”
 
“Language,” Alora and Shatterstar said reflexively at the same time. “But also, a fair sentiment,” Alora added with a wry chuckle. “You’ve been busy.”
 
“There’s more,” Robyn added, scrubbing her eyes in some disbelief but also feeling relieved and the safest she had been for a long time. She continued her report, from how they got involved to begin with via the Watchmaster, the hunt for Aether, the disaster at the Brewery, and then all the way through to the latest intelligence: the Umbral Lords and their positions, the Shadow Captain - her aunt - and the danger they had been in since returning, the threats against Rell. “My… cousin,” Robyn clarified.
 
There was a beat of silence. “No,” Alora breathed. “We thought… we thought she was dead.”
 
“There’s another group underground that took her in,” Robyn explained, enough to explain why she had been undetected for so long, but without any specifics.
 
“But also her?” Alora repeated, incredulous. “She’s not like Thomas at all. He was so calm, and she’s like… like throwing dirt into the wind!”
 
Robyn winced. Rell’s brand of bravado and chaos did take some getting used to, and, based on the last time that they met - and the first meeting at that - she could understand Alora’s frustration. “I was surprised too,” she admitted.
 
“Fucking hells,” Shatterstar swore. “Your father would murder me if he was alive. He promised we wouldn’t get you involved; he was adamant you be kept out of this.”
 
“This isn’t on you,” Robyn repeated. “You did all you could. If I hadn’t left, it might have been easier to ignore it, but… I think it would have caught up with me eventually.”
 
When Robyn left some time later, revealing as much as she felt necessary, she headed back to Haven, bruised, sore, yet lighter than she had felt in a long time. She was foolish to have ever thought that Shatterstar and Alora needed any kind of protection from her entanglements and what she knew. While the people she cared about most were still scattered in so many places, and she wished she could still be in three places at once, at least now it felt like she didn’t have three entire lives to choose from. The overlap wasn’t perfect - it probably never would be - but it was certainly more than before, and that alone was comforting.