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Chosen of Khorne - Anthony Reynolds

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Khârn: Eater of Worlds’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Darkness closed in around Maven as he continued his descent into the claustrophobic labyrinth of the hypogeum. Hot air gusted along the crumbling stone tunnels, rippling his tattered robe. The wind was corpse-dry and rasping. It rose from the depths of the earth, as though it were the very breath of the daemon world itself, and it carried with it the scent of things long dead and forgotten.

The only light came from an archaic lumen brazier that hovered at the seneschal's shoulder, grav-motors buzzing gratingly as they kept the device aloft, vibrating the still air. The darkness beyond the brazier's illumination was utterly impenetrable.

Maven's face appeared bloodless and devoid of colour in the insipid, pale glow. He was, by human standards, an ancient creature. Bitterness and resentment were carved deeply upon his age-worn flesh, and his eyes gleamed like shards of obsidian in their sunken, cadaverous sockets.

His body was emaciated and frail, yet even so, he wore a short blade strapped at his side — even the oldest servants of the World Eaters were warriors, and expected to fight and kill when called upon.

With each step, his bronze staff of office thudded against the sand underfoot as he advanced into the gloom. The tunnel was only two arm-spans wide, yet the ceiling was high and lost in shadow. The darkness seemed to press in on him, as if resentful of his presence.

He could see recent footprints in the dusty red sand of the tunnel, and he followed their direction. Nine envoys had been sent down here over the course of the day. None had returned.

Other than these marks of recent passage, Maven doubted that anyone had set foot here in countless millennia. But then, time flowed strangely in the Eye: a thousand years on the daemon world may have been just a matter of hours in realspace.

The buzzing brazier began to flicker and dim, and Maven increased his pace, hurrying on along the tunnel. It was one of thousands carved into the rock beneath what had once been a great city. He passed side passages and narrow defiles, many of which were choked with fallen rubble and debris, and countless carven doorways leading to hollowed-out cells and oubliettes. All of these were cramped and claustrophobic, with low ceilings and close walls.

Movement clawed at the edge of the seneschal's vision as he swept past the ancient holding cells; they were haunted by the fractured memories of the past. Given life by the immaterium, these tortured death-echoes lingered on at the edge of perception — they were screaming, bloody and insane, and their forms were insubstantial and fractured, like distorted pict-feeds. He paid the hateful manifestations no mind, and continued on. He was long accustomed to the howling madness of the warp, and had more pressing concerns than something as inconsequential a distraction as the disturbed echoes of the past.

The day had been a disaster, and he felt uneasy that his counsel — which his master had chosen to disregard — had proven somewhat prophetic.

He was old enough to recall a time when the now fractured Legion had borne its first name with pride. The galaxy had been a vastly different place back then, and his master had been a captain of the Legiones Astartes, not the warlord leading a bloodthirsty rabble that he had become.

He remembered the electric thrill of hope and excitement that had infused the Legion's ranks when the fleet was informed their beloved primarch had been found, in spite of the horror that had followed...

Only one son of Angron had ever truly held the primarch's favour, and he had gone on to bring the Legion low after the grand failure of the Horus Heresy. Maven had counselled his master against calling upon 'the Betrayer' now, but Argus Brond's desire to see his rivals crushed had overridden any doubts and misgivings that he might have harboured. Brond had been convinced that with the Betrayer fighting at his side, Tarugar and his Devourers would be swept aside. He would be declared the chosen of Khorne, and the honour of leading the bloody crusade would fall to him.

However, the Betrayer had lived up to his epithet. When the time had come, he had refused to fight for Brond, and instead disappeared into the darkness below.

Still following the footprints of the envoys that had come before him, Maven turned down a side passage that was wider than the others. As he rounded the corner, his stride faltered.

An inadvertent shiver ran down his calcified spine, despite the stifling, dry heat pervading the tunnels of the hypogeum. The quality of the air had changed. Threat hung heavy, like a storm waiting to break. The promise of violence was palpable.

It seemed darker here, too, and every sense he possessed was set on a razor's edge. He could taste a metallic tang in the air: the unmistakable scent of blood.

The Betrayer was near.

The footprints in the sand led into the brooding darkness. None came back out.

Swallowing his fear, Maven forced himself to inch forwards.

The tracks led some thirty paces down the tunnel corridor and then slowed, becoming faltering and cautious. The others had not possessed the same augmetically enhanced senses as Maven — doubtless the stench of blood had only just reached them at this point. To him, the stink emanating from the blackness of the cell beyond was almost overpowering. He saw darker patches on the red sand underfoot.

Though he felt malevolent eyes watching him from the darkness, the seneschal steeled himself and stepped forwards. The glow of the lumen brazier did not fully illuminate the cell. Shadows clung to the corners of the room like oil. He could see no one, but he knew that he was not alone.

'My lord?' Maven said, his voice sounding weak and faint.

Crumbling pillars bore the weight of the low ceiling, making the cell feel like a crypt. Rusted chains hung from iron fittings on the roughly hewn walls, which were awash with arterial spray. Body parts were scattered across the floor like the discarded toys of a demented child — most were completely unrcognisable as ever having been human, so violently and so completely had they been abused. It was the work of a rabid beast. Entrails squelched beneath the soles of Maven's sandals.

He picked his way through the cairnage, covering his mouth and nose against the stink with a fold of his robe. It was an abattoir stench of blood, ruptured viscera and butchered flesh.

Leaning close to one of the pillars, Maven turned slowly on the spot, his eyes straining to penetrate the shadows beyond.

'My lord,' he said, addressing the darkness. 'I am Maven Bitterspear, seneschal of Argus Brond, former captain of the Seventeenth Company.'

The light of the lumen brazier cast an irregular shadow on the far wall, and Maven moved hesitantly towards it, squinting in the gloom.

'I come to beg your presence on the surface,' he continued, peering into the darkness. 'A blood-challenge has been issued. Will you not fight, as you pledged?'

The shape that had caught Maven's attention resolved itself as the brazier's light advanced with him. It was a weapon, leaning against a low stone dais jutting from the wall.

Gorechild.

The chainaxe seemed larger than he remembered. How many had fallen beneath that savage weapon? Forged by Angron himself, it stood almost as tall as he, and its teeth were thick with ragged flesh and congealed blood.

Six skulls were arrayed alongside Gorechild: four to the right, two to the left. Maven tried to—

Then he saw him.

Statue-still, slouched upon the dais like an arrogant warrior king upon his throne. His arms were bare, as ever, and his wrists wrapped in chains in imitation of his gladiator primarch. He wore heavy, battle-worn plate of an early design. His crested helmet lay on the sand at his feet.

The Betrayer's face was hidden in shadow, but his eyes were like burning embers, radiating the promise of violence and uncontrolled fury.

'Khârn,' Maven breathed, and the giant reached for his axe.

The weakling wretch comes forwards, his movements faltering. He doesn't yet understand his folly, but he will, and he will die just like the others. The thrill of anticipation flutters, through me. There is no sound but the thunder in my veins.

He is old and feeble. Death hangs upon him like a shroud. You are not worthy of the primarch's axe, paperskin.

I release my grip on Gorechild. It is always difficult to set him down, for he is a part of me now. I do not know where I end and the axe begins.

I rise slowly so as not to put the old fool to flight. Not yet. I hold his gaze, and he is unable to move. I taste your fear. It sickens me.

He is as a child before me, some repulsive infant aged centuries beyond its years. I ache to rip him apart, but I let the hate build. My flesh shivers.

I stalk him, moving in shadow. His eyes are watery, and they plead silently with me. I keep him transfixed.

You are pathetic. You are weakness personified. You disgust me.

I glance pointedly towards the doorway. It is the only exit. I blink, and he is released.

A sharp, sudden spike of adrenaline. It telegraphs his intent. Rationally, the old fool must have known he had no chance, but terror — true terror — is anything but rational.

The craven wretch turns to run. It is an invitation that I cannot resist.

The veil is ripped away, and I lose myself to the rage. Everything is red. Such sweet relief it is, to let it wash over me, let it fill me, become one with me.

This is life. This is all that is true.

I am upon him in an instant. His bony shoulder dislocates under my grip. I fling him.

He falls hard, carving a furrow through the red sand, and hits a pillar.

Crack.

It sounds like the snap of dry twigs. Marrow leaks and more blood stains the sand.

He mewls like an infant. The sound infuriates me. I am upon him before he knows it.

I want him to stand and fight. He says he cannot.

I lift him to his feet, but he falls in a crumpled heap as soon as I release his neck.

You are no warrior.

I kick him, and he flies, briefly. Another crack. He slides down the wall, wet and broken.

I kneel beside him as he quivers and gasps in the dust. Your death will bring me no glory.

My hands completely encircle his head. Your skull is fragile and brittle.

He says something, but all I hear is the blood, pounding like the drums of hell.

Your skull is not one of those that I seek. Khorne does not want it.

I tighten my grip, and his head collapses inwards like a rotten fruit. The smell is foul.

I roar.

Gorechild is in my hand once again, and he roars too. My earlier decision not to sully the weapon with this paperskin's blood is cast aside.

I hack into the headless body. Blood sprays from Gorechild's singing teeth. I pull him free and strike again, and again, and—

'My lord?' said Maven.

Khârn sat unmoving upon the dais, one hand still clasped around the haft of Gorechild. Immense shackles, such as might have restrained a mighty beast or a being of great strength, hung from the wall behind him.

A deep, all-consuming fury dwelt within Khârn's unblinking, burning eyes.

Maven had been a servant of the sundered Legion since childhood. He lived only to serve, and throughout his life he'd been surrounded by death and those who walked in its shadow. Yet never in all those long years had he seen such intense violence and madness as was writ in Khârn's gaze. His utter physical stillness merely emphasised the fury raging within. The gods alone knew what went on behind those eyes; Maven certainly had no wish to learn.

The silence quickly became uncomfortable, but Maven dared not speak again, for fear of provoking the World Eater.

Khârn released Gorechild, reluctantly it seemed, and stood. The sudden movement almost made Maven flinch. Almost.

Show a beast any fear and you will be devoured. It was a lesson that the other envoys evidently had not learned in their lifetimes.

Khârn stepped into the wan light of the brazier, and his face was revealed. It was slender and noble, and utterly without expression — again, only his eyes gave any hint of the violence that dwelt within. That and the stinking evidence of the savage butchery that had been enacted within the cave.

The World Eater moved with a warrior's grace, circling him slowly, as if to cut off his one route of escape. Even were he in his prime, Maven knew that he would never get as far as a single step before he was caught.

When Khârn spoke, his words were calm and measured, betraying nothing of his intentions.

'Can you feel them?' he said, 'The souls of those who died in the arena Above? They linger, confused and tortured. I pity them.'

Maven said nothing, rooted to the spot, as Khârn circled around behind him like a blood-wolf stalking its prey.

'If I kill you, will you join them here, do you think?' said Khârn in a soft voice devoid of any passion.

Maven's mouth had gone bone dry, but he refused to be cowed.

'I do not know, my lord.'

'Why is it that I do not sense any fear in you, seneschal?' Khârn said, behind him. 'The others reeked of it.'

'My life has been extended far beyond its natural span already, my lord,' said Maven. 'I do not fear death.'

Khârn moved in front of him, looking down at him with those insane, burning eyes. He studied Maven like he would an insect, peering into his soul, and the seneschal felt himself shrinking beneath the piercing gaze.

'You yearn for death, don't you,' said Khârn. It was not a question. 'You want to die.'

Maven opened his mouth to disagree, then closed it.

'I live to serve,' he said at last. Even to his own ears, it sounded weak, and Khârn stared at him without expression. Maven dropped his gaze, unable to maintain eye contact. 'I... I have long made peace with my soul,' he murmured.

'Peace,' hissed Khârn, allowing a trace of emotion to slip through his careful veneer of calm. 'I hate the word.' Before Maven could respond, the stoic mask was back in place. 'The battle is over, then?'

'It is,' replied Maven.

'Tell me how it happened.'

'When you did not take to the field, most of the warbands that had gathered under our banner turned on us, joining with Tarugar and his Devourers. Outnumbered as we were, five to one, the outcome was never truly in doubt. Those that held to their blood-oaths fought well, but it was a massacre. The right flank folded, and the Devourers rolled up our line.'

'Tarugar names his warband the Devourers?' said Khârn, his noble face drawn into a disdainful sneer.

Maven nodded.

'Such arrogance,' said Khârn, shaking his head. 'Tarugar was always the weakest of them. He hated them, you know.'

'Tarugar?'

'No. The primarch.'

Maven frowned. 'But the Devourers were—'

Kharn interrupted him. 'A blood-challenge has been invoked, you say?'

'That is so, my lord. Tarugar and his host are marching to meet it as we speak.'

'Who fights on Tarugar's behalf? I take it that he would not face Brond himself.'

'He has named a champion to fight in his stead,' Maven sighed. 'One of his Devourers — the one they call the Flesh Tearer.'

Khârn leant close to Maven's ear, his words almost a whisper. 'And Brond?'

'He refuses to name a champion, my lord. He will fight Tarugar's slave himself.'

Khârn nodded, as if he had expected the answer.

'He was always a proud one, was Argus,' he said. 'As stubborn as any, but proud. A warrior of principles. To his detriment.'

'My master has always done what he believed was best for the Legion,' said Maven.

'You are a loyal servant to him, seneschal,' said Khârn, 'but the Legion is dead.'

Maven bit his tongue. He dared not speak aloud his thoughts on that particular matter.

'Tell me of this Flesh Tearer, then,' said Khârn.

'A devolved and degenerate descendant of Sanguinius,' said Maven. 'I know not how he came to fight for Tarugar, but he is a dangerous foe. He slew many World Eaters this day, along with a host of lesser rabble. Drained them of their blood, so I'm told.'

Khârn grunted, unimpressed. 'Can Brond beat him?' he asked, plainly.

'I am not certain,' said Maven at length, ashamed to give the very idea voice. It felt disloyal. 'Even if he does, I do not believe that Tarugar will relinquish anything to him.'

'Nor do I,' said Khârn. 'He always lusted for power beyond his worth...'

Maven saw that Khârn appeared to ponder this for a moment. His utter lack of emotion was unsettling, but he suddenly gestured to the skulls arrayed at the foot of the stone dais.

'Gather them.'

Maven had presumed they belonged to the envoys sent to Khârn throughout the day, but he saw now that they were too big. They were human, but oversized — Legiones Astartes skulls, Maven realised. They were arrayed a ritualistic manner.

Khârn tossed him a net made from thick strands of twisted fibre, and Maven knelt, ignoring the protestations of his aged knees and the blood that soaked into his robe from the unclean floor. He laid the net out flat, and with cautious reverence began piling the skulls upon it, one by one. They were heavy, as if cast from iron: the bones of Space Marines were far denser than those of lesser men.

Several showed signs of violence that hinted at the cause of death. One bore telltale gouges across its brow that could only have been caused by a chain weapon, and another had fire-blackened shards of shrapnel still embedded in its cheekbone. Maven did not dwell upon these unsettling details.

He drew the corners of the net together and tied it fast. He had no hope of lifting all six skulls, but Khârn hefted it over his shoulder as though it weighed nothing at all. He lifted Gorechild in his other hand, and his helmet hung at his belt alongside an ornate plasma pistol wrought of black iron.

'It surprises me that Brond would send you here,' said Khârn. 'I thought he would have had more pride than that.'

'He did not send me,' admitted Maven. 'In truth, he forbade me to seek you out.'

'Yet you are here.'

'I am here,' agreed Maven.

'You are a curious creature, seneschal.'

'I have been called far worse in my time,' said Maven.

Khârn stared at him without blinking.

'Tell me where this challenge will take place,' he said, finally.

'You are going to fight, then, my lord?' said Maven.

'We shall see.'

Maven and Khârn stepped from the darkness of the hypogeum into the searing red light, and the blood-drunk roar of the crowd struck them like a physical blow in response.

The deafening sound merged with the rumble of thunder as jagged arcs of crimson lightning tore across the burning sky. The heat on the surface of the daemon world was incredible, and Maven's lungs burned with every stifled breath. He shielded his eyes from the glare, and gasped inwardly.

Hell, in all its terrible glory, was spread out above him.

The living warp roiled and writhed overhead, filling his vision. It was an overload of the senses and frayed the sanity of all who gazed upon it. A maddening swirl of purples and reds were splashed across the heavens, a maelstrom of liquid flames that bubbled with fears, hatred and passions. These manifest emotions blended together like coloured oils in a pool of disturbed water, serpentine and coiling.

An unblinking eye of flickering hellfire and undeniable sentience blazed at the centre of the madness, like a rift in unreality. It stared down upon the blasted wasteland of the daemon world, radiating a malign and unfathomable rage that made Maven want to kill. His hand closed around the hilt of the blade at his side, and it took all of his willpower not to draw it and succumb to the violent urge.

Warriors caked in dry blood surrounded the sloping exit from the hypogeum. At the sight of Khârn emerging from the darkness, they clashed their weapons together and stamped their feet as they roared to the heavens. Many of them were not so strong of will as Maven, and more cheers rose as fresh blood fountained from mortal wounds and sprayed out over the tightly packed warriors. Brazen drums pounded, and banners hung with the heads of slain champions were lifted high, held aloft for the Blood Father to see.

Once, many of these creatures had been mortal men, while others had been abhumans or something else entirely, but all had been twisted and reshaped by their time in the warp. Some needed to carry no armament at all, for their bodies had become living weapons; others were so corrupted that it was impossible to fathom what their original mortal forms may have been.

They were pushing and shoving against each other, jostling for position. Those that fell were trampled mercilessly underfoot, their screams drowned out by the roar of their comrades. Their reek was foul and potent: a hot, animal stink of acrid sweat, stale blood, festering wounds and worse.

Khârn walked in front of Maven. He did not slow his pace as he approached the teeming crowd, nor did he make a threatening move, or raise a weapon. Nevertheless, the crowd fell back away from him, primal fear and self-preservation instinct pushing the fog of their brutal frenzy. Blood flowed as they fought each other to get out of his way.

'Stay close,' Khârn said.

Maven needed no prompting. He would be crushed todeath within moments if left alone in this crowd. Khârn may have towered over all but the largest of the heaving mass, but Maven was dwarfed by them. He hurried to keep pace with the World Eater.

They climbed a series of crumbling stone steps — Khârn taking them four at a time, and Maven struggling to clamber up behind him — and suddenly they were above the cloying mass of inhumanity. The vantage point allowed the seneschal a clear view.

They stood upon the steps of the ancient and cyclopean stone arena, a relic of a civilisation dead and forgotten even before it had been subsumed by the Eye of Terror. It was practically in ruins, yet it was still an imposing and grandiose structure. It occupied a position high above the burning plains, the remains of a city whose name was lost in time spread out around it. In its prime, that city would have dominated the landscape.

The steep tiers of the arena were heaving with the screaming followers of the Blood God. Their number was beyond counting, yet rendered into insignificance by the sheer size of the horde stretched out across the wasteland beyond the arena's boundaries.

This was the combined warhost that had sworn allegiance either to Maven's master, Argus Brond, or to his rival Tarugar, and its total number was the prize that the victor of the coming challenge would claim.

At the centre of the arena, almost maddeningly small in comparison to the rest of the structure, yet still more than a hundred metres across, was an open patch of red sand. A lone figure stood in the middle, receiving the adulation of the crowd, while a score of red-armoured Chaos Space Marines — the only examples of their kind in view — were arrayed in an arc around him. Globs of liquid fire rained down from the heavens, striking the red sand of the arena with small hisses of steam and foul vapour.

'Thank the true gods,' breathed Maven, recognising his master, Argus Brond. As he and Khârn had marched through the passages of the hypogeum, Maven's greatest fear had been that the duel had already begun. Had it been so, then it could not have been interrupted.

Brond stood motionless, arms folded across his chest. Even from this distance, Maven could read the mood of his master. He was impatient, and angry. He would be hating the pomp and grandiosity of this whole enterprise.

The former World Eaters captain had hoped to meet Tarugar in the field, but Maven knew that it would never have been allowed to happen. The enemy host had outnumbered his master's even before the Betrayer had refused to take part and the defections had begun. With everything to lose and nothing to gain, Tarugar had no reason to give Brond a fair fight.

Maven's suspicions had been affirmed — Tarugar had watched the battle unfold from the safety of his warship, hanging in low orbit above the daemon world. Only now that he believed his victory was assured would he journey to the surface himself.

Hulking cyber-ogryn guards, bearing brutal-looking halberds the height of three grown men, moved aside to let Khârn and Maven pass, and they stepped out onto the red sand of the arena floor. The seneschal saw his master looking their way, sharing a joke with one of his legionaries — a sure sign that he was pleased and contemplating this new development.

Brond's features were broad and square; strong but not brutish. His rad-scarred face was smeared with blood and blackened by fire, and his gore-spattered armour bore several new gouges and blast marks. Maven reminded himself to contact the armourer-peon once this matter was concluded; then he caught himself wondering if there would be any need...

Over his red armour, Maven's master wore a cape of burnished chainmail, and a pair of powerblades sheathed at his waist. The axe he had borne through all the dark years since the Siege of Terra was strapped across his back.

As they approached, Brond flashed a glance at Maven, one eyebrow fractionally raised. The seneschal bowed his head and shuffled to his position at his master's right hand.

Khârn stopped in front of the warlord. He did not bow, or incline his head in greeting, but merely stared into Brond's eyes without blinking.

He was not quite as tall the warlord and slighetr of stature, yet the strength and confidence that he radiated made them appear equal. His expression was unreadable.

Brond matched his stare, and Maven licked his lips, unsure how this confrontation would play out. He was pleased when Khârn broke the silence, speaking in his strangely subdued tones.

'Is Tarugar on his way?' said Khârn, not bothering with even any pretence of explanation for his absence during the earlier battle.

Maven could tell that his master was furious, yet he knew him well enough to know he would not allow his anger to jeopardise this opportunity.

'He is,' Brond replied flatly.

'Then I wish to fight in your stead,' said Khârn, 'if you will allow it.'

Brond forced a smile. 'It would be an honour, my brother.'

'It is not for your honour that I fight,' said Khârn. 'There are skulls I have pleged to Khorne that I would not have others claim, that is all.'

Brond, Maven noted, was struggling to control his anger.

'And I am not your brother,' continued Khârn, his voice suddenly cold. 'I have no brothers.'

'Well, you have my gratitude anyway,' said Brond after a moment's awkward silence. He inclined his head towards Maven. 'As do you, seneschal, despite your disobedience.'

Maven bowed. As he lifted his head again, he caught a glimpse of movement in the heavens. A drop-ship was descending towards the arena floor.

'Master...' he whispered, pointing into the hellish sky.

'Finally,' said Brond. 'Tarugar comes.'

The assault ramp of the heavily ornamented Stormbird crashed to the sand, and a broad-shouldered warrior emerged. The accompanying roar of the gathered warbands drowned out the engines of the drop-ship.

Tarugar was a hulking behemoth of a legionary — a brutal, blood-soaked killer. Before Skalathrax he had been a leading figure within Angron's Devourer bodyguard, and he wore the hulking Terminator warplate of the broken Legion's elite. Spikes adorned with the skulls and helms of notable foes fanned out above his massive shoulders. Flayed and tanned human flesh was stretched like mottled parchment across his cuirass; the grotesquely distorted face at its centre was that of an Imperial Fists captain, a foe Tarugar had butchered upon the walls of the Imperial Palace.

Along with a small hand of World Eaters Berzerkers, he was accompanied by an entourage of senior chieftains. These were the most favoured and powerful of those who had sworn their blood-oaths to him. The size of the vast armies they had brought outnumbered the World Eaters by a factor of many thousands to one, and the vast majority of those filling the ancient arena and the surrounding plains were theirs to command.

There were seven of them in all, and they were a motley and disparate group, perfectly encapsulating the varied nature of the host that mustered behind the banner of the World Eaters: a robed and hooded outcast of the Cult Mechanicum, with eye clusters glowing red and his in mechadendrites poised, stood alongside a barbarous xenos humanoid with a distinctly avian aspect to its features, and a necklace of human fingers around is throat; a cherubic blond child with sinister, jet-black eyes who levitated several metres off the ground and cast his daemonic gaze over the scene; a grim-faced traitor general of the Imperial Guard skulking behind a completely skinless woman who wore a mask of sewn human flesh and carried a daemonblade wreathed in blue flames; a vat-grown gladiator-king with a mane of dreadlocks and cyber-implant nodes studding his neck and shoulders.

Last of all, standing slightly apart from the others, was an anonymous Chaos Space Marine bedecked in blue-green armour and bearing the contorting serpentine heraldry of the Alpha Legion.

Some were motivated by promises of worlds and systems yet to be conquered, others by vengeance against an Imperium that they felt had failed and betrayed them. Some were driven by little more than the prospect of slaughter, others by the terms of daemonic pacts and soul-oaths sworn in blood. All had come together to be part of a new assault against the Imperium of Man, and they would swear ultimate allegiance to whosoever claimed victory that day.

But within this parade of freaks, one inspired fear like no other — the one known simply as the Flesh Tearer. In his massive spike-knuckled gauntlet, Tarugar held a heavy chain of dark iron, the looping length of which was fixed to the bronze collar of his named champion.

This beast was more animal than man, and it strained against the chain that bound it, spitting and snarling. It was another Astartes warrior, yet it was a devolved and base creature with red-rimmed eyes and drawn flesh. Its flaxen hair was long and unkempt, and it drew its pallid lips back into a snarl of blood-tinged fangs, the elongated canines curiously pronounced.

It wore heavily battle-scarred black power armour that was caked in blood and gore. Its left pauldron was a mangled ruin where a Chapter symbol had been crudely hacked off. Nevertheless, Maven knew that it was a gene-descendant of the dead primarch Sanguinius.

The sons of the Blood Angel had once looked down upon the World Eaters, seeing them as little more than rabid, savage beasts. The irony of that misplaced scorn made Maven smile now.

The warlord and his bizarre entourage came to a halt.

'Tarugar,' said Brond, acknowledging his rival with a nod.

'Why is the Betrayer here?' snarled Tarugar, his expression thunderous. 'This is treachery'

'Treachery brother?' said Brond, a hint of amusement gleaming in his eyes.

'It was meant to be you, Argus Brond,' growled Tarugar. 'You cannot name another to fight after the challenge has been accepted.'

'I care not which one of them I fight,' said the Flesh Tearer. His voice was refined and noble, completely at odds with his appearance.

'Silence, dog,' Tarugar spat.

Maven stepped forward, surprised by his own boldness. 'It is my master's right to name a champion in his stead, just as you have, Lord Tarugar. He has named Khârn.'

Tarugar glanced briefly at Maven, his disdain written on his face for all to see.

'You let your conniving worm speak for you now, Brond?' he said. 'You are not fit to lead.'

'And you sully the honour of the Legion by allowing a creature such as this to fight your battles,' said Brond, gesturing towards the snarling Flesh Tearer. 'It is a disgrace.'

'The Legion is dead,' snapped Tarugar. 'The Betrayer there killed it.'

Silence fell across the group.

Maven's heart skipped a beat. He risked a sidelong glance at Khârn.

'You would have died that day, "Devourer", had you not fled like a coward,' said Khârn, his voice amiable and unemotional. 'Draw a weapon and we can address that injustice.'

Tarugar's face flushed, but he did not respond. He tugged on the iron chain.

'The Blood God does not care of the Flesh Tearer's heritage, and nor do I. He kills in the name of Khorne. Nothing else matters.'

'So let us stand back, my brother, and let our champions decide his will,' said Brond.

'No! I did not agree to this blood-duel knowing that the Betrayer would fight on your behalf.'

'It matters not, Lord Tarugar,' Maven cut in, his voice icy. 'A challenge has been issued. You accepted.'

Tarugar pointed at Maven with one heavy power gauntlet, 'Be silent, worm! I do not wish to hear another word from you, or I shall cut out your venomous tongue.'

'You will not,' said Brond. 'My seneschal speaks truthfully.'

Tarugar gritted his teeth. 'Your warhost is gone, Brond. You are beaten. You are in no position to challenge me.' He gestured around the arena. 'Every one of these warriors is mine. I have no need to go through with this foolishnes. At my command, you die!'

'You would break your word?' said Brond. 'The Blood Father watches, as do those you would lead to war in his name. You think they will follow you if you shrink front this challenge now?'

Tarugar's fists clenched. He knew that he was caught, Maven saw. His desire to see Brond cut down by his champion-beast had overridden his caution. indeed, had Maven been advising him, he would have counselled Tarugar to ignore the challenge, and finish his rival in battle rather than risk the duel. Thankfully, the brutish warlord had received poor counsel, or had chosen to ignore it altogether.

'You should have taken the knee when I offered you clemency, Argus Brond,' said Tarugar. 'I might have given you a position of honour. There is nothing for you now.'

Brond merely smiled in response.

'Enough,' said Khârn, dropping his sack of skulls to the ground. 'The Blood God grows impatient, as do I.'

He lifted his broad-crested helm from where it hung at his belt and slid it over his head. Pneumatic seals hissed as it locked into place, and its emerald-green lenses began tow' with an inner fire.

With the helmet in place, his whole demeanour was altered. His muscles tensed, and his breathing hastened. When he spoke, his voice was an angry, bestial growl through the vox-emitters.

'It is time,' he said.

'Fine,' said Tarugar. 'Once the Flesh Tearer is done with your Betrayer, I'll set him on you, Brond.'

'You know as well as I that it will not come to that,' said Brond.

Maven did not share his master's confidence. Oh, he knew of the Betrayer's reputation, but he had seen the Flesh Tearer in battle earlier in the day — he was a degenerate horror of blade and claw, a fanged whirlwind of carnage with glittering, savage eyes. The outcome was far from certain.

At a gesture from Tarugar, the Flesh Tear's weapon was brought forward. It was a massive thing, a chainglaive over six feet in length. Its hooked teeth were still gummed with gore trom the day's battle.

'Dog,' said Tarugar, addressing the renegade Flesh Tearer. 'Take up your weapon. Go. Kill.'

'As you will it,' hissed the Flesh Tearer.

Those gathered on the sands of the arena formed a circle, and the roar of the crowd rose.

The Flesh Tearer took the proffered weapon and stepped into the circle. He began pacing back and forth, dragging the tip of the chainglaive across the ground. His unblinking, bloodshot gaze never left Khârn.

Without ceremony, Khârn stepped into the fighting circle. The Flesh Tearer dropped into a low stance, lips drawing back in another hiss, and his chainglaive roared into life.

Khârn's chainaxe responded in kind. Its was a deeper, throatier growl. It spoke of the mastery of its creator's hand when he had forged it, for this legendary weapon had been crafted by the primarch Angron himself.

The rage crashes over me like an avalanche. I welcome it. The rumble that rises from my chest joins the din of enraged chainblades.

I attack. I know nothing else.

The enemy is strong and fast, but so am I. Our blades meet.

I will rip you apart, fiend.

Gorechild fights against his glaive, tooth to tooth, just as I fight he who wields it. Gorechild roars. I roar as well.

Our weapons kick us apart, but we come at each other again, his frenzy matching mine. He is a vicious and brutal creature. I feel the touch of Khorne upon him.

Gorechild tastes his blood, teeth tearing through muscle. It is not a mortal injury. He catches me in return, cutting into the meat of my arm. I cast off my helm.

I am a flesh tearer too. I will tear your flesh, pretender.

We trade wounds. Blood splatters upon the red sand like rain. Neither of us has any thought of defence. It will not be a long contest. Each strike brutalises, ripping and shredding. The rain becomes a deluge.

We are closely matched,you and I.

I willingly take yet another blow to land my own. Mine is the more telling. His chainglaive pierces my armour and grinds at my fused ribs. In return, I take one of his arms.

He is upon me before the limb hits the sand. No backward steps here. Fangs at my throat.

I hurl him away, and he takes with him a chunk of flesh. He has my taste now, but it matters not. His weapon needs two hands to wield it effectively.

A final, frenzied clash and the killing blow is struck. Gorechild bites deep, and his face disappears under the ancient teeth, churned unrecognisably. He falls.

Not done yet.

The rage has not been sated. I whirl in amongst those who were once my brothers, cutting and hacking. The blood flows freely now. This is the very essence of existence. This is everything.

I am the Eightfold Path!

Tarugar dies beneath my axe. Brond too. I cut his seneschal down as well, leaving him to bleed out on the sand, clutching his innards. I would have spared him had the fool not placed his hands upon Gorechild, trying to save his beloved master.

The others back away. That merely fuels my fury. Everything is red.

I will end them all.

Khârn stood, unspeaking. He appeared to be sizing up the Flesh Tearer in return.

'If the Betrayer is to fight,' Tarugar shouted over the din, 'then let it be an even contest. Have him put aside Gorechild.'

A desperate ploy, thought Maven, scoffing.

'Agreed,' Khârn replied, before Maven could give voice to his derision. 'Give me a weapon you deem a suitable replacement.'

Tarugar gestured to one of his World Eaters, a scarred veteran with a double-headed power axe across his back.

'Droghan,' he said. 'Give the Betrayer your blade.'

The named Berzerker made to reach for his axe, but the warlord halted him.

'Your sword, Droghan' Tarugar said, a savage smile on his lips. 'Give him your sword.'

The World Eater, Droghan, unhooked the short blade strapped at his waist and tossed it into the circle.

Khârn retrieved it, and drew it from the simple leather scabbard. It was forged from unadorned dark steel, with a wide blade and a plain hilt.

Tarugar's booming laughter was taken up by several of his retinue. The fool thinks he has already won, thought Maven.

'This is an insult,' said Brond, He made to unhook his own axe, but to Maven's surprise, Khârn shook his head.

'No,' he said. He spun the short sword in his hand, testing the weight of the blade. 'This will suffice.'

Maven threw an alarmed look towards his master. The warlord shrugged.

Khârn moved to the edge of the circle and laid Gorechild on the hot sands at Maven's feet.

'Touch it and you die,' he said, before stalking back to the centre of the fighting circle.

The Flesh Tearer still watched him closely, eyes narrowed to points, talking in every nuance of his movement and stride. Khârn drew up on the sand, flexing his great muscular arms and neck.

'Come,' he said, beckoning to the beast. 'It is time to draw blood.'

'Blood,' echoed his opponent.

With a scream of bestial rage, the Flesh Tearer lunged forwards.

The beast was fast — supernaturally fast — and barely seemed to touch the ground as it charged. The mighty chainglaive keened deafeningly, as eager for blood as its master, and the Flesh Tearer brought it down overhead in a deadly killing arc.

Khârn made no attempt to dodge the blow or feint to the side, nor to bring his blade up to block the powerful strike. As the Flesh Tearer screamed its horrifying war cry, he flipped the sword around into a reverse grip in his left hand.

At the very last moment, he dropped down to one knee.

The churning barbed teeth of the chainglaive tore through the air only inches from his forehead as he slid under the blow. Before the Flesh Tearer could turn for a second strike, Khârn rose and, still using his forward momentum, plunged his blade into the side of the Flesh Tearer's head. With the flat of his right palm pressed against the pommel, he guided the sword as he rammed it home with the full weight of his body behind it.

Khârn roared, and twisted the hilt so sharply that the blade broke off inside his opponent's skull. The Flesh Tearer was dead before his body hit the ground, a look of bewilderment in his dead eyes.

Silence descended over the entire arena.

It had all happened in the space of a few heartbeats, and Maven was stunned at the shocking ease and violence with which the Flesh Tearer had been dispatched. It was at once both terrifying and exhilarating, and he let out a breath he did not know he had heen holding as he realised that Brond had won.

Tarugar's retinue edged away from their master. The colour had drained from his face, and his eyes were wide as he stared down at the corpse; blood was soaking into the sand from the broken blade embedded in the Flesh Tearer's skull. Tarugar lilted his gaze, looking towards Brond, and the shock written on his face turned to livid anger.

The crowd began to make itself known, their initial murmuring giving way to chanting and exultation at the sight of blood spilled in the name of Khorne. Brond stepped into the circle, a savage smile on his face.

'You should have taken the knee, Tarugar,' he shouted over the din, his tone mocking, as he moved to Khârn's side. 'I might have given you a position of honour.'

The World Eaters loyal to Tarugar were tense, and even the chieftains were uneasy. Several — the avian xenos and the gladiator among them seemed — seemed eager to fight, but others, including the renegade Guard commander, looked like they would rather be anywhere else at that precise moment. The Alpha Legionnaire appeared utterly unconcerned.

The veins in Tarugar's temples and neck bulged, and his pupils dilated sharply. His face reddened, and the corner of his mouth was flecked with white foam as he bared his teeth. Maven recognised all of the signs, and cursed under his breath.

'Don't do this, Lord Tarugar,' Maven warned him. 'Your champion lies dead. The host is Argus Brond's by rights.'

But he could see that Tarugar was already too far gone. Even now, his cerebral implants were overloading his system with pure, unadulterated rage. The Butcher's Nails were Angron's legacy within his shattered Legion, corrupted by ten thousand years of unending warfare.

'Kill them!' roared Tarugar. 'Kill them both!'

All of the assembled World Eaters — those loyal to Brond as well as those in Tarugar's retinue — instantly had their weapons in hand, targeting each other with pistols and combi-bolters. Chainaxes growled and roared, and the crowd in the arena bayed for blood.

Maven's heart was beating hard in his chest, and his vision seemed to flicker red — his own system was urging him to kill, for even he, an ageing counsellor, shared a portion of the World Eaters' bloodlust.

It would not have been the first time World Eater had slain World Eater, yet neither side appeared willing to be the first to initiate the bloodletting, in spite of Tarugar's urging. Maven knew that all it would take was one spark for the firestorm to be unleashed.

'Hold,' Maven said, stepping forward between the two groups, holding his hands up placatingly. 'There are few enough of the old Legion left as it is. Do not throw away your lives so recklessly.'

The warp churned overhead, agitated by — or perhaps eager for? — the prospect of further bloodshed. Maven suspected it was the latter; Khorne cared not if the Legion that had dedicated itself to him was destroyed, of that Maven was sure. The savage god would only welcome more slaughter.

'Save your hatred for the real enemy,' Maven said, though he could feel that he was losing them.

'Craven wretches,' Tarugar roared at his own warriors, kicking up a shower of sand and dust in their direction. 'You shame the Blood Father with your cowardice!'

To refuse the Blood God's desire, did that make them unworthy of his favour, Maven wondered? Did Tarugar have the right of it?

Brond drew his pistol, and the seneschal knew that the urge to kill would be rising within his master now, too. In that moment, he saw that any attempt to hold these killers back from further bloodshed was futile. Brother would kill brother here today, he realised, and he was powerless to forestall it. Perhaps he had no right to forestall it.

With a violent motion Tarugar swept his arms wide, and curved blades slid from their sheaths within his gauntlets. The sharp snap of ionisation was all it took to shatter the tenuous stand-off between the World Eaters, as electricity crackled along the lengths of the warlord's lightning claws, and battle erupted in the arena to the unholy joy of the crowd.

The lean avian xenos made the first kill. With an inhuman, keening shriek, it leapt forward and buried the hooked blade of its long-barrelled firearm in the chest of one of Brond's warriors.

With lightning reflexes, Khârn's pistol was in his hand, and he dissolved the creature's head in a superheated blast of plasma. He whirled and scooped up Gorechild from the sand in front of Maven, causing the old man to flinch slightly, in spite of the relief he felt in seeing the champion join the melee.

But then another of Brond's World Eaters died as Khârn struck out with the chainaxe. It tore through power armour, flesh and bone, splitting the warrior from gorget to sternum in a shower of shredded meat and dark red blood.

Betrayer.

For a moment Maven was transfixed with horror, but he supposed he should not have been quite so surprised. It had been a desperate gambit to involve Khârn in this matter, yet for a moment he had truly believe that it had worked.

Maven lost sight of the savage Berzerker as the air was suddenly filled with the guttural bark of bolt pistols, dropping several World Eaters. A shot took Argus Brond in the shoulder, knocking him back a step, but the curve of his pauldron had saved him. The mass-reactive shell had not managed to penetrate the armour, glancing off before detonating harmlessly.

The World Eaters surged around Maven, thirsting for blood, chainblades roaring. His staff was torn from his grip and quickly disappeared underfoot.

'Back, Maven!' shouted Brond, shoving the old man behind him. As the enemy warriors closed in, he emptied his pistol clip at point-blank range before laying into them with his twin blades.

Several of Tarugar's chieftains were falling back towards the safety of the Stormbird, but others joined the fray. A World Eater was torn limb from limb at a mere gesture from the black-eyed daemonhost, the child smiling with a malignant cruelty beyond its apparent years as it sought another victim.

Tarugar ploughed through the centre of the maelstrom, claws carving bloody ruin as he thundered towards Argus Brond. He charged through the press of bodies like a blood-crazed juggernaut, smashing warriors out of his path with his Terminator-armoured bulk, and it seemed that none could stand before him.

Brond opened the throat of a roaring Berzerker, while simultaneously turning aside a heavy disembowelling blow from another foe with his second jagged-toothed powerblade. He unleashed his rage with a return strike, hacking down into his enemy's bare head. The blade bit deep, forcing through ceramite, skull, brain matter and teeth. Maven cried out weakly as he was splattered with the legionary's hot blood, before falling to his knees and pitching onto the crimson sand.

His master stood over him, protecting him. Brond dropped underneath a vicious, scything blow, and swept out with his twin swords to amputate the legs from his would-be killer. A pair of downward thrusts finished the howling Berzerker, and he rolled the body away with his armoured boot.

Brond lifted Maven from the ground as easily as a child, and pushed him free of the melee before rounding on another enemy warrior.

Maven tried to run, but staggered and fell to one knee. Looking back, he saw the hulking form of Tarugar emerging from the press of bodies to bear down upon his master.

'No!' he screamed.

Brond threw himself to the side as Tarugar's claw lashed out. Even so, it struck four gashes across his breastplate, and he snarled as they carved deep, slicing across his fused ribcage. Tarugar came after him, blood spitting and hissing as it boiled upon his lightning-wreathed talons.

Unable to tear his eyes from the confrontation, Maven sat in a crumpled heap on the sand, shivering in spite of the heat.

Brond swayed and back-pedalled, his swords parrying and deflecting Tarugar's blows, but another feinting claw strike ripped away his left pauldron and slashed a bloody track through the meat of his shoulder. Refusing to be cowed, he let out a cry of pain and fought back furiously, his blades moving faster than Tarugar's heavier armour could respond. He carved a dozen rents in the Terminator plate, drawing blood in several places, yet it protected Tarugar from any more serious harm.

He aimed a slash at the hulking warlord's face, but Tarugar caught the blow between the blades of his left claw, twisting his wrist to hold the sword fast. There was a blinding discharge as the two power cores reacted against each other, and then Tarugar shattered Brond's blade with his free hand.

Brond staggered, but his opponent allowed him no time to recover. He stepped in close and slammed his fist into Brond's chest, crumpling the breastplate and driving all four of his claws clean through the World Eater's body.

Maven cried out in anguish at the sight.

The wounded warlord slid from the lightning claw and fell to the ground, blood bubbling to his lips. The blow was not necessarily fatal; evidently his secondary heart still beat, and given the chance, the hyper-coagulants in his veins would quickly seal his wounds.

He glared up at his rival, and managed a sickly, bloody smile.

Tarugar frowned in confusion.

With a roar, Khârn barrelled into Tarugar from behind, and Gorechild bit deeply into the back of the warlord's right leg, its shrieking teeth spraying blood and shards of ceramite onto the arena floor. The blow did not fell him, but he staggered and swung around, lightning claws slashing through empty air. Khârn avoided their touch, sidestepping neatly around his heavier foe, and aimed another blow into the same leg, striking hard into the wreak armour at the back of the knee.

Tarugar howled in agony — the leg was almost completely severed, and the giant crashed to the ground.

Khârn was upon him instantly. He pinned the hulking warrior, his knee pressing one clawed arm down into the hot sand, and brought Gorechild in close to aim his final decapitating strike.

With his free hand, Tarugar caught the mighty chainaxe by its haft as Khârn swung it down towards his throat, also enveloping the warrior's bare fist in his huge powered gauntlet. The servos in his heavier armour whined in protest, but his grip held the axe a safe distance away from his face.

'You lose, little man,' growled Tarugar through his gritted teeth, and he began to squeeze Khârn's fist. Bare knuckles began to creak and crack under the terrible pressure.

Khârn snarled wordlessly, but smoothly drew his plasma pistol and aimed it into the joint at Tarugar's elbow. 'No, "Devourer",' he whispered. 'You lose.'

There was a flare like a miniature blue sun, and Maven was forced to cover his eyes.

The pinned warlord had turned away from the shot, but he now shrieked in pain and impotent rage. Armour, flesh and bone ran together, dripping onto the ground, and small flickers of flame danced in the charred joint where his arm now ended.

Khârn tossed away the severed gauntlet, and gripped Gorechild in both hands like a bone saw. It was hard work to get at his enemy's thick, bull-like neck, protected as it was by the broad gorget of his Terminator armour, but he was not to be dissuaded. As Tarugar cursed and spat, Khârn worked the keening chainblade back and forth like a demented surgeon, sending razored shards of ceramite flying.

With a sickening wet soundd as the teeth bit home, Tarugar was silenced, and bright red blood sprayed over Khârn's armour plate and exposed flesh. With a savage roar of triumph, he hacked the warlord's head from his body, and arterial pulses gushed from the ragged stump of his neck.

Khârn lifted the severed head up high, holding it by its matted spikes of hair, and bellowed again at the heavens. The sound was bestial, almost primal, and the heavens responded in kind — a stentorian roar booming out across the surface of the daemon world.

A blast of furnace heat beat down upon the World Eaters, making Maven's eyes water. Through the blur of bloody tears, he saw a monstrous spectral face emerge through the churning inferno of the warp, its wide maw blazing like a supernova.

The fighting ceased instantly, and every Berzerker stood gazing up at this flame-wreathed vision of their god that filled the sky. It remained for only a few moments before losing its form, blending back into the swirling, shapeless inferno.

The eyes were last to disappear.

They lingered, burning like the inside of a forge, before they too were gone.

Using his remaining sword as a prop, Argus Brond regained his feet and spat a mouthful of blood upon Tarugar's mutilated corpse. Sixteen more World Eaters lay motionless nearby, butchered by their kin. Sixteen fewer warriors to fight the Long War.

Hardly any of the survivors were unscathed. Khârn too was covered in blood, though none of it appeared to be his own. He flexed the bones of his injured hand, looking down at it with seeming curiosity. The others gave him a wide berth, but it seemed — for now at least — that his fury was sated.

Dripping blood, he carried Tarugar's head to where he had set down the net of skulls, and tossed in the newest addition to his collection.

Argus Brond looked over to where Maven lay sprawled on the sand. 'Are you dead, seneschal?' he murmured.

'Not yet,' Maven replied, pushing himself to his feet.

'Glad to hear it,' said Brond. 'I will need your counsel in the days to come.'

Maven saw his master limp over to Khârn and place a hand upon his shoulder.

'It's over,' he heard Brond say. 'I knew you'd win me this war.'

I glance down at the hand on my shoulder, and the blood haze descends upon me.

Rage and fury scream in my veins. If Brond registers the sudden change in my demeanour, he is too slow to react. I grab his wrist and pull him close.

Khorne favours those who win their own battles, brother.

I spin, wrenching and overextending his arm. He snarls in pain and anger, but he is powerless to react.

Time for you to have a taste of Gorechild. For him to have a taste of you.

The blood thunders again. I bring Gorechild around in a screaming arc. Brond's head flies clear of his shoulders and lands in the blood-soaked sand.

My kill-counter clicks over.

Brond's weakling seneschal bleats like a stuck bovid.

'What have you done?' breathed Maven in horror.

Khârn stared down at the headless body of Argus Brond. Blood dripped from the now silent, motionless teeth of Gorechild. The Betrayer removed his helmet and hung it at his belt. His face was flushed and covered in a sheen of sweat.

Maven took an involuntary step backwards as Khârn glanced towards him.

'I have done what I set out to do,' he replied, finally. He kicked Argus Brond's head towards the others. 'Eight skulls in all, each pledged to the Blood Father in fire and oath. They were unworthy of his patronage. How long has it taken me to claim them all? A hundred years? A thousand...?' His voice trailed away as his eyes flickered to the roiling sky.

Maven finally understood.

Eight former captains of the fractured Legion, all slain by Khârn's hand. Of the captains who led the Legion before Skalathrax, only Khârn himself now remained — no leader of the World Eaters, now pledged to Khorne, could claim authority on the basis of his former status.

Khârn had ensured that the disciples of the Blood God would be led by one who had proved his worth in combat. The heavens roared their appreciation, as did the crowd in the arena.

'What now?' asked Maven, weakly. 'What of the blood crusade?'

'The Lord of Skulls cares not from whence the blood flows,' said Khârn, his voice measured and calm once more. 'Why make him wait?'

He raised his massive, muscular arms in exultation, and blood began to rain from the heavens — first as a light shower, then as a torrential deluge. Lightning flashed, and the fury of Khorne descended upon the daemon world, infusing and overpowering all rational thought.

Brother turned upon brother, killing and maiming, tearing at throats with red-stained teeth and hacking each other limb from limb with chainaxe and iron blade.

Through it all strode the Betrayer, dealing death with every stroke. He arched his back and roared to the heavens, revelling in the manic chanting of the horde.

'Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!'

Maven sat beside the body of his master. Tears ran down his cheeks, washing thin runnels in the caked, dry blood-rain which covered his face. He could not gauge how long had passed since Argus Brond had been killed. An hour? A day?

A shadow fell over him, and he looked up. Khârn stood there, coated from head to toe in fresh blood and viscera.

There was no cheering crowd now. The warbands had torn each other apart in a gore-soaked frenzy, infected by the same killing rage that had descended upon the World Eaters. Bodies and body parts covered every flat surface. The stench of blood and death transcended natural definition and had become elevated to another plane entirely. Doubtless the wasteland beyond the arena was the same.

Alone, Khârn had walked clear of the slaughter. He had made the last kill.

'Why is it that I still live?' said Maven, as the Betrayer stared down at him, his helm in one hand and Gorechild in the other.

'You long for death,' said Khârn. 'The Blood Father would take no satisfaction in your demise. And you may prove useful yet.'

'And what of you?' asked the seneschal.

Khârn gave a twisted smile.

'My task is not yet finished,' he said, the hint of uncontrollable fury still burning in his eyes. 'Not by a long way.'

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anthony Reynolds is the author of the Horus Heresy novella The Purge, audio drama Khârn: The Eightfold Path and short stories ‘Scions of the Storm’ and ‘Dark Heart’. In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, he has written the novel Khârn: Eater of Worlds, alongside the audio drama Chosen of Khorne, also featuring Khârn. He has also penned the Word Bearers trilogy and many short stories. Hailing from Australia, he is currently settled on the west coast of the United States.

An extract from Khârn: Eater of Worlds.

Prologue

The pain engine embedded in his brain grew silent. Slowly, his awareness returned.

A counter blinked in the upper right of his vision.

Two hours, thirty-seven minutes and twenty-three seconds. That’s how much time he had lost to the cortical implants.

For now, the beast was sated. For now, it slumbered, retracting its claws from the meat of his mind.

His body ached from injuries he didn’t remember receiving. His arms were leaden from kills that he didn’t remember making.

He reached up and removed his helmet. The stink of blood filled his nostrils.

Two hours, thirty-seven minutes and twenty-three seconds ago this had been a living, breathing world. Now it was a wasteland of death.

He stood in the middle of a sea of corpses, a vast ocean that spread out as far as the eye could see. In the distance were the ruins of a once-great city. Smoke rose from its sundered walls.

Other World Eaters picked their way through the sea of the dead, stripping weapons and armour from fallen brothers, claiming skulls and cutting the threads of those that still lived. All of them were liberally coated with gore.

Overhead, the warships of the Legion hung in low orbit, like carrion-eaters awaiting their turn to feed.

For a few moments he was able to think clearly, without the Butcher’s Nails screaming in his head, stabbing into his brain, urging him to do their bidding.

‘We cannot continue like this,’ he said.

‘Like what?’ growled a voice from behind.

Dreagher glanced around. A legionary garbed in rad-scarred black armour was down on one knee nearby, cutting at dead flesh. Chunks of meat and hair clung to the razor wire wrapped around the Destroyer’s pauldrons and shoulder plates. Ruokh.

Blood of the primarch. Had he been so lost in the Nails that he’d been fighting alongside that berserker?

‘Killing every world we come upon,’ Dreagher said. ‘We’re bleeding the Legion dry.’

Ruokh stood, having finished his grisly task. He held a human head by its hair, blood leaking slowly from the ragged stump of its neck. He regarded Dreagher with the hostile lenses of his Sarum-pattern helmet. The Destroyer said nothing.

‘Angron is gone. Horus is dead,’ said Dreagher. ‘Is this all there is for us now? Endless butchery, our numbers slowly whittling away, until we are all lost to the Nails, or dead? Is that to be our fate?’

‘You think too much,’ said Ruokh. ‘This is what we do. This is what we are.’

‘There has to be something more.’

Ruokh turned away, shaking his head.

‘Khârn,’ said Dreagher. ‘We need Khârn.’

Ruokh laughed. It was an ugly sound. Bitter and harsh.

‘The Legion would follow Khârn,’ he said, ‘But he is lost to us. He is not coming back.’

‘He has to,’ said Dreagher. ‘Or else the Legion is already dead.’

Khârn; even then it was a name that evoked fear, awe and respect, even amongst his own genhanced, hyper-augmented brethren, the fraternity of killers, psychotics and berserkers that made up the XII Legion.

Perhaps fear is the wrong word. ‘They shall know no fear’, as the rhetoric goes. Caution. Unease. Discomfort. Wariness. These words are perhaps more fitting, certainly less likely to incur a killing rage.

His was not a name that evoked hatred, though, at least not among his own Legion. Not yet. Nor was distrust a word that the legionaries of the XII would have associated with him, or at least any more distrust than any of the Legion had for another.

He had, of course, already been called traitor – they all had – but only by those now being dubbed ‘loyalists’. He’d not yet been called that by his own, not then.

No, that would come later.

He was a figure of contradiction, of course, both before and after Terra, as were all the best of them. He was broken, as were they all.

Too long the Nails had been grinding into their minds. They’d been caught in the death-grip of those hateful implants too long. They’d been dragged too far down the crimson spiral. There was no coming back.

What they were before had been largely obliterated, and what remained was but a shadow; fragments and splintered glimpses of who they could have been before they willingly destroyed themselves in emulation of the primarch. They didn’t know it, though. Not back then.

But even if they did, would they have made another choice? Perhaps. Some of them.

The best of them – and Khârn was, at least for a time, counted as the very best – were the most confounding. They were the most torn, the most tragic. The most contradictory. Khârn epitomised that more than any.

Khârn the Equerry, the most rational of the Legion. The cool head to balance Angron’s rage. The diplomat. The wise.

Khârn the Bloody, the most berserk of them all when the Nails took hold, which they did with increased regularity after Angron’s… change. All of the Legion were devolving before then, but after Nuceria their inexorable descent spiralled into a plummeting free fall.

Now, after the fact, it is easy to regard Khârn as the worst of them all, the chief sinner, but it is certainly true, then if not now, that he was also the chief sufferer.

Perhaps he was the wisest, even then, even in the grip of his blackest madness. Perhaps he foresaw what the Legion would become and sought to end it.

But then… perhaps not. It’s possible that I read too much into the actions of a madman. Perhaps I construct a façade of rationality as something to cling to, a buoy in a raging storm, unwilling to accept the alternative – that he truly had no reason for what he did.

Before Skalathrax he was Khârn, captain of the Eighth Assault Company, equerry of the daemon-primarch Angron. Afterwards, he was the Betrayer, most hated of the World Eaters, even among his own.

First onto the walls of the Emperor’s Palace, he was, and last to leave – or at least so it is now being said.

I do not know the truth of that. I was not there to see it.

What I did see was the aftermath.

– Hhal Maven, Seneschal Senioris, 17th Company

Chapter 1

So this, then, is Khârn, enthroned like a warrior king of a bygone age, the gifts and offerings of lesser beings piled before him.

The helms of noted enemies. Weapons pried from the grasp of bested foes. Ornate standards taken from worlds left in ruin by the fury of the Legion. The acid-cleaned skulls of the mightiest enemy champions. Offerings to appease, to honour, and, perhaps, to beg favour.

His massive arms are bare, as ever, criss-crossed with the scars of the past. His wounds – or at least the wounds of his flesh – have healed, though they have left their mark. His chest too is bare. Every scar has a story. Without exception, every being that inflicted those injuries is dead, killed by his own hands.

Those murderous hands, thick-knuckled, deadly and dripping with blood – metaphorically if not literally – are, for now, at rest, palm down upon the throne’s armrests.

The immense war-axe, Gorechild, is before him. It takes pride of place. The Legion’s artificers have restored it, doing their best to replace its missing and blunted mica-dragon teeth. It is as much a touchstone to the Legion as Khârn himself. Many covet it, though none yet dare to claim it while Khârn breathes, despite his condition.

His frame: immense, heavily muscled yet lean. He is a giant to unaugmented mortals. Among his own, he is no taller nor heavier than any other. It was never his physical presence that made him stand out among his brothers. His fire came from within.

His downcast face: narrow, stern, serious. It is, for the moment, mercifully free of the pain, suppressed rage and facial tics that personify the Legion now courtesy of their neural aggressor-implants.

That peace is an anomaly.

Even at rest, the warriors of the Legion were tortured. Pain stabbed into their cortices like vile knives whenever they were not doing the bidding of those cruel devices, driving in deep, grinding and twisting, eroding any joy to be had beyond the act of killing. Only bloodshed relieved the merciless assault, and even then, never for long.

Only in death do the devices relent.

That then, Apothecary Khurgan surmised, was why Khârn’s face was not twisted by pain like his brethren.

He’d died on Terra, after all.

Dreagher stalked back and forth like a beast driven to madness by enforced confinement.

His breath was rapid and shallow, and the servos of his gauntlets whined as he clenched and unclenched his hands. His scarred, short-shaven head was bare, and his mouth was twisted into a scowl. His teeth were grinding. His brow was creased, and the eyes below narrow, their irises contracted to pin-points. The muscles around his left eye twitched, lifting his lip to expose file-sharpened teeth.

The Nails were torturing him today.

Over the years he’d come to regard them as a living entity, a parasite nestled in the back of his skull. It enhanced and fed off his hate, gorging itself on the aggression it encouraged and the thrill of the kills it shared with him. Its segmented arachnid legs pressed deep into his brain, and when angered, it would clench them, punishing him. When sated it would slumber, the pressure in his mind easing, giving him a moment of blessed respite. Right now, it was ravenous.

Still pacing, Dreagher ground his knuckles into his temples, screwing his eyes tightly shut. An animal growl rumbled from deep in his chest. The headache was a corkscrew pain in his cortex, a throbbing agony that made him nauseous and his vision contract.

Kill, the Nails said to him with each painful pulse.

Kill.

Kill.

Kill.

He slammed one of his fists into a wall, buckling the sheet metal plating.

Once, all the ills of the warriors of the XII – the blood-letting, the uncontrollable, psychotic rages, the butchering of innocents and the utter lack of conscience that followed – could perhaps have been blamed on the aggressor engines. No, warriors was the wrong word – its fighters. Once, the Nails could have been blamed for all of it.

But now? No. Now, something far darker and more powerful held the Legion in its death-grip. And that grip was tightening with every turn of the universe.

Focus, he told himself, ceasing his relentless pacing, and attempting to forcibly slow his breathing. It did little good. The beat of his primary heart continued to race, like the pounding of war drums.

‘Enough,’ he snarled, eyes flicking open. They were bloodshot, and his gaze flitted around the round room without taking anything in, seeking… what? An escape? An enemy?

Where was he? How had he come to be here?

The last thing he could recall was sharpening his falax blades in his arming chamber, then… nothing.

Worse than not knowing how he came to be here was the niggling unease; what had he done in the time that he had lost?

He looked at his hands. His gauntlets were free of blood. That was good. That was something.

There was an antiseptic smell in his nostrils.

His vision stabilised and he began to discern his surroundings. Life-support systems and cogitator units wheezed and chimed. Vitae-sacs dripped their life-giving fluids. Data screens scrolled with information. Cells lit with bright fluorescent glow-globes, each hermetically sealed by armourglass.

He was within the apothecarion secundus, one of the medicae-wards on the rear decks of the Defiant. The area was a sealed, secure environment. Gene-code locked. He didn’t remember coming here.

Medicae support servitors shuffled to and fro, checking the blinking machines and scanning the streams of data-tape being spat out at intervals from the mouths of other servitors hard-wired into the cogitators’ processor-banks. They all appeared ignorant, oblivious or uncaring of his presence.

How long had he been here? He had no way of knowing.

Surgical mech-apparatus with articulated, multi-jointed arms replete with hooked blades, digi-lasers, suture-staplers and scalpels were folded in upon themselves on the ceiling.

Set into two of the walls were nutrient-rich restoration tanks with plexglas fronts. An unconscious legionary floated in suspension within one of the tanks. Kholak of the Second Battalion. His veins were pierced with tubes and a respirator was strapped across his face like a grotesque xenos parasite. He twitched and jerked in his induced healing coma. His wounds were recovering well.

A lone servo-skull swung in near Dreagher, probes and needles jutting from below its upper jaw. Its grav-suspensor buzzed loudly, making him twitch. He swatted it away.

While the apothecarion secundus did, when needed, still serve as an overflow for the ship’s primary medicae hall, and it remained the chief recovery ward for the echelon, the room no longer felt like a medicae ward.

No. It felt like a shrine.

Dreagher glared at the comatose figure seated within the central isolation cell, bright fluorescence shining down on him.

‘Wake up,’ he snarled. ‘Come back to us. Your Legion needs you.’

With a final glare, he turned and strode from the room.

The crowd roared at the muffled smack of fists striking flesh and the sharp twig-like crack of breaking ribs.

The faces of the onlookers were twisted and bestial as they watched the pair of combatants circle one another. They stamped their feet and beat their fists against the metal sheeting of the barricade separating them from the combatants, making the underdeck vault, deep within the bowels of the Defiant, shudder and boom.

Alone amongst the savage, braying crowd, Maven was silent, a slight smile playing upon his lean, hard face. He could see in the dance on the sand below that Skoral would win.

He breathed deeply the hot animal stink of human sweat. It was not a pleasant smell, but nor was it overtly repellent. It was the smell of brotherhood, of shared adversity. It was a warrior smell.

He stood with his arms folded. His muscles were raw and beginning to ache, but that was nothing to what he’d feel tomorrow. His knuckles were grazed and bloody, and he could already feel them swelling. He’d taken a beating tonight.

His eyes, granite grey and intense, stared unblinking at the two adversaries bleeding in the pit below.

The first, Skoral; a broad-shouldered woman with tattooed arms as thick as Maven’s thighs and a heart as big as an oroxen’s.

Thick ropes of blood dripped from her lower lip, and ugly welts marred her flesh. Her hair was shaved to the scalp on the left side of her head. One eye was swollen shut, the skin around it bulging and purple. She was still smiling, though. She was loving this. Her teeth were tinged red with her own blood and there were several gaps in her grin where five minutes ago there had been none.

The second, some low-deck munitions loader; a brute of a man, middling in years with the body of an ogryn and a face that few mothers would love. He was breathing hard and blood was running freely down the side of his face from a gash above his left eye. His hands were like rockcrete mitts. His eyes were glassy and his neck muscles wound as taut as springs; he was spiking, Maven realised. Sump-cooked aggressor-stimms most likely. He stalked around the confines of the pit, contemptuously turning his back on Skoral, and lifted his arms into the air, revving up the crowd.

The fool, thought Maven. That’s only going to piss her off.

Both the fighters were big. Not legionary big, of course, but certainly big for mortal humans. They’d both undergone gene-therapy, enhancing their bulk, strength and reflexes beyond what was normal. There was nothing unusual in that.

Skoral went for him as his back was turned, but that had been anticipated. He turned swiftly – he was surprisingly quick – and swung a murderous hook at her head. She ducked under it and hit him with an uppercut to the chin that snapped his head back, hard.

He wasn’t done, though, not by a long shot. There was a flurry of blows, a scuffling grapple as each fighter tried and failed to get a dominant grip. They separated, and as they did, Skoral’s opponent landed a meaty fist square in the side of her head.

Maven winced and the crowd roared with renewed intensity. Skoral staggered, lurching drunkenly, and the big loader went after her. It wouldn’t be long now. He’d seen this routine before.

The massive loader cannoned a blow at Skoral’s face, putting all his strength and weight behind it, looking to end the fight in one blow. Too late he realised he’d been suckered.

Stepping outside the big fighter’s swinging arm, she grabbed him by the wrist, twisting it painfully, and pulled him forward, simultaneously slamming her open hand into his shoulder. The joint popped, dislocating. She drove him down, continuing to use his own momentum against him, and slammed him face-first into the sheet metal pit wall behind her.

There was a collective intake of breath at the force of the impact, which tore the sheet panel loose, wrenching it violently out of shape. The big fighter was on his knees, supporting himself with his good arm. The other hung limp at his side.

Skoral stepped back away from him, her chest rising and falling heavily. Sweat and splatters of blood marred her grey singlet top.

To the loader’s credit, he managed to push himself to his feet, turning unsteadily towards Skoral once more. He was tough, Maven had to give him that. His face was a mess of blood and snot. His nose, already broken from an earlier strike, was now smeared across his face. He spat out a handful of teeth. Skoral shook her head.

‘Should’ve stayed down,’ Maven heard her grunt, still grinning.

‘M’not gettin’ shamed by some medicae whore,’ spat the big man. Skoral’s smile disappeared and Maven shuddered. That was not clever.

The big man went for her then, swinging wildly, but the end was a foregone conclusion. By the time Skoral stepped away from him her knuckles were dripping and the hulking loader was unconscious, lying in a pool of his own blood.

Finished, her demolition of her opponent complete, Skoral walked from the pit.

New combatants were entering even as the still-unconscious fighter was being dragged away. Maven pushed his way through the press of bodies.

He found her in a side-chamber. The burly loader was conscious now, though the blood on the ground showed where he’d been roughly dragged from the pit and unceremoniously dumped on the floor. Skoral had set his dislocated shoulder – which must have been agonising – and was stitching up the cut to his head. She wasn’t being overly gentle either, stabbing in with the hooked needle and yanking the thick thread through.

Her skin was liberally covered in angular, totemic tattoos. Maven’s gaze lingered for a moment on the Gothic numerals inked on the meat of Skoral’s shoulder, in the midst of those tribalistic markings. Ninth Company. He bore a similar brand upon his left pectoral, though his declared him as bonded to the 17th – his master Argus Brond’s company.

Glancing up at him, Skoral inclined her head in greeting before turning back to her work.

‘You hit hard, woman,’ said the loader, grimacing as Skoral drew the thread through his skin. ‘You’d be a good breeder.’

Skoral snorted, and glanced up at Maven, who was leaning back against the wall, a wry smile on his face. She winked at him.

‘Is that a proposition?’ she grunted.

‘Might be,’ said the man. ‘You’re ugly as sin itself but you’re strong. I could do worse.’

‘You really know how to make a woman feel special,’ said Skoral. She yanked hard on the thread, making the man flinch. ‘And while the notion of pumping out your idiot spawn is oh-so-appealing, I’ll have to decline your proposal. But good luck to you. I’m sure you’ll make some sump-swine a fine husband.’

‘I’ll take that as a no, then,’ said the thickset loader.

‘Not if you were the last seed-bearing specimen of manhood in the void,’ said Skoral, with a grin.

Her former adversary grunted and shrugged.

‘Fair enough,’ he said. He saw Maven standing in the doorway and nodded his thick jaw in his direction. ‘You lie with that? Is that it? I could break him over my knee.’

Maven grinned, folding his arms across his chest.

‘Pfff,’ scoffed Skoral. She bit the thread, cutting it, and tied it off. ‘Him? He’s nothing but skin and bone. I can’t see him satisfying me.’

‘With the creds I won on your fight tonight, I might just marry her, though,’ Maven said to the man.

‘You bet on her against me?’ said the loader, sounding a little hurt.

‘You would’ve done so yourself if you had any sense,’ said Maven. ‘You’ll know for next time.’

Skoral punched the loader in his bad shoulder, making him grimace. ‘Go. Get out of here before I beat you senseless for the second time today.’

‘Well, if you change your mind…’ he said as he rose.

‘Go,’ said Skoral, pointing the way out, a hint of a smile on her lips.

The big man rose and shuffled from the room, looking sheepish.

‘A charming individual,’ said Maven.

Skoral winced as she sank onto a bench, nursing her bruised and bloodied hands in a chilled gel-pack.

‘He’s harmless,’ she said. ‘He’s honest at least. There’re worse men on this ship.’

‘That there are,’ said Maven, taking a seat opposite her.

While she was a big woman – easily a head taller than most unaugmented men – she was effortlessly comfortable in her own skin, and had a constant string of admirers. She would never be described as a beauty, not by any means, but there was an earthy appeal about her, a proud vitality that was certainly attractive. She was no demure high-born lady – she was crude, rough and could out-drink any man – but in the hard, short and brutal lives of those on the ship, her manner was deeply life-affirming.

‘Why do I feel you’re here to lecture me?’ said Skoral, giving him a glare.

‘You know what I’m going to say?’

‘You could just congratulate me on the win,’ she said. ‘You could thank me for earning you a fat wad of credits.’

‘Yes, you won,’ said Maven. ‘But you could have done so without letting him hit you like that. You’re better than that.’

‘You can talk,’ said Skoral. ‘What the hell happened to you out there tonight? You bet against yourself, didn’t you?’

Maven’s handsome features split in a crooked grin, though he instantly regretted it, groaning slightly. He was going to have some serious bruises come the morning.

‘You could get yourself killed doing that,’ said Skoral. ‘If anyone found out you bet against yourself and took a dive…’

‘No one will find out,’ said Maven. ‘I had intermediaries place the bets.’

‘How much did you win?’

‘A lot,’ said Maven. ‘There’s a game tonight. Knights and Knaves. I play it right, I could make the same again tenfold.’

‘Or you could be found hanging from a sub-deck rafter, your face purple and your britches filled.’

‘Only if I’m stupid,’ said Maven. ‘And I’m not.’

Skoral grunted in frustration. ‘What is it that you want, nursemaid? You came here for something. Spit it out.’

Maven’s face darkened. ‘We need to talk,’ he said, lowering his voice.

‘We’re not talking now?’

‘We need to talk somewhere quiet. Somewhere… not here.’

Skoral looked at him frankly, trying to read him. It never worked.

‘Don’t tell me you are going to proposition me as well?’ she said, giving him a salacious wink.

Maven looked irritated.

‘No,’ he said, unamused.

‘What is it? Tell me.’

‘Not here. Not now,’ he hissed.

A shape appeared in the doorway, blotting out the light. Maven rose hastily to his feet, stepping back and lowering his head in deference. Skoral turned.

One of the Legion stood there, silhouetted against the light behind him. He was truly massive – even the hulking munitions loader would have looked like a child beside him.

The warrior was forced to turn sideways and duck his head to fit through the door frame as he entered the room. He was built to a different scale from the denizens of the ship’s sub-levels – they were made for menials and servants, not legionaries. His armour’s servos whined with each movement. Each step he took made the floor plates shudder.

His shaved scalp was heavily scarred, and cables and plugs jutted from the back of his head. A thick, dark beard covered his huge, square jaw. His skin was the colour of deep mahogany, and by human standards his features were too broad, too thick, and too heavy, as if affected by a form of gigantism. Nevertheless, his head looked perhaps too small for his oversized body.

It was counterintuitive, but Maven always felt the legionaries seemed even less human when they were not wearing their helmets. At least with their helmets on you could imagine something human within.

The World Eater’s armour was a bastard hybrid of different marks, though he clearly favoured the earlier, heavier designs. His armour plates were a mix of the alabaster white and cerulean blue of the old Legion. Those colours were becoming ever more of a rarity.

His heavy armour was in good order, but showed signs of extensive repair. It was austere; the XII Legion was not known for its flamboyance, though various plates – poleyns, pauldrons, greaves – were emblazoned with kill-markings and campaign honours. The Legion’s heraldry – a stylised gaping red maw engulfing a planet – was emblazoned upon his left shoulder plate. On his right: echelon and rank markings.

If Maven hadn’t recognised him by face, those markings would have made the centurion’s identity plain: Dreagher, captain of the Ninth. Or at least what was left of it after Terra.

He glanced down at Maven. His eyes were like the clouded grey moons of Bodt set against the darkness of the void. Madness and unpredictability lurked there.

‘Go away,’ he said, his voice a deep subdural bass rumble.

Maven needed no encouragement.

‘My lord,’ said Skoral, dropping painfully to one knee and lowering her head once Maven had gone.

‘I saw you fight,’ said Dreagher.

Skoral rose to her feet, suppressing a wince. She glanced up at the huge World Eaters captain, attempting to read his demeanour, before looking aside. It was never wise to let your gaze linger for long on one of the Legion. It tended to make them agitated. Things usually died when a World Eater became agitated.

‘You saw?’ she said. The presence of one of the Legion was unusual at the fights, though not unheard of.

‘You fought well.’

Skoral glanced up at him. He wasn’t looking at her. He was scanning the room, his brow creased, taking in its details, or perhaps seeking any potential threat.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Skoral said, unsure quite how to respond to the uncharacteristic praise.

‘It is a shame you were born female,’ added Dreagher. ‘You would have made a fine legionary.’

That could have been taken a number of ways. Skoral decided to take it as a compliment.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ she said.

Dreagher began pacing. He was uncomfortable here, Skoral realised. The chamber was too close. Too stifling. Normally when she spoke with him it was in his arming chamber, where he seemed more at ease. She saw the World Eater’s breath hasten – a clear danger sign.

Unwilling to risk inciting Dreagher’s anger by speaking, she stood stock-still, waiting for the captain of the Ninth to make his intention known. Why had he come here?

He stopped directly in front of her. Her head was on a level with the middle of his chest. Up close she could see all the repaired scrapes, cuts and nicks in the armour, like battle scars. The throaty purr of his armour made her skin tingle.

Standing close to one of the Legion was to stand in the shadow of death. Her life was a slender thread that he could cut at a whim. There would be no questions. There would be no inquiry. No one would mourn her, except perhaps–

‘That was Brond’s man,’ Dreagher said. This close, the deep bass of his voice seemed to pass through her, making her bones shudder.

‘Yes, lord,’ she said.

‘Do not get sentimentally attached,’ Dreagher said. ‘The 17th are only stationed aboard the Defiant temporarily.’

‘I understand, lord,’ said Skoral.

‘Good,’ he said.

He stood there unmoving. The silence became uncomfortable. Slowly, biting her lip, Skoral lifted her gaze, looking up at the captain of the Ninth.

He appeared lost in thought, looking off into the mid-distance.

‘My lord?’ she ventured, finally.

His gaze settled on her and his brow furrowed.

‘Tend to your wounds. Meet me in my arming chamber once you have done so. I want a condition report on our patient,’ he said.

‘My lord? Has his condition changed since this morning?’

Dreagher looked at her, his expression inscrutable.

‘Why?’ he said.

‘I have already given you today’s condition report, my lord.’

‘I see,’ said Dreagher. ‘Of course.’

Skoral tongued the new gap in her teeth, troubled.

There was no denying it. He was getting worse.

‘I can recheck the patient to see if his condition has changed?’ she said.

Dreagher did not answer. Skoral heard the distinctive click of vox-comm traffic. The World Eater turned away, speaking in a low voice.

She stood and opened the locker where she’d stashed her belongings before her fight. She retrieved her heavy combat jacket, and pulled it on over her sweat and bloodstained singlet. There was a red handprint on the front of the jacket, over her heart – a mark of considerable honour among the Legion’s servants, one that Dreagher himself had allowed her to wear. It had been her proudest moment.

She slipped a heavy bracelet onto her wrist. One of its links pulsed with pale light almost immediately, lighting up from within. She clicked it off, and looked up at Dreagher, her brow furrowed.

‘My lord?’ she said. ‘What is it?’

‘Blood,’ he said.

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