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Vengeful Honour – Nick Kyme

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VENGEFUL HONOUR

Nick Kyme

Orks still rampaged over Armageddon Secundus, far off in the wastes or embedded deep in the bowels of the hives they had taken. The guttural shouts and challenges of Thraka’s hordes carried on a hot breeze, reeking of ash and ripe with the stench of burning meat.

The distant ruckus soon faded into obscurity, though, as ubiquitous as the wind.

In the shadow of the Diablo Mountains and the Camp Fortis, the dull scrape of a whetstone broke the stillness. Ballack knew a combat blade’s monomolecular edge needed little sharpening but considered it a ritual.

A Space Marine seldom slept, ate or drank, his every thought and deed bent towards being a better warrior. Stronger, tougher, deadlier.

Of late, Ballack had felt his transhuman prowess ebbing. A deep wound inflicted during an honourless duel had healed poorly. Perhaps it was karmic. His was the dirty blow, ending the duel but earning an injury in return. It had left his skin knotted and scarred. The flesh was tight and the muscle stiff. It had diminished him.

His brothers knew it, and they would not tolerate his weakness. Not for long. Not in the Marines Malevolent as part of the elite Vilifiers.

Ballack thought he heard Kastor training nearby. He wondered if his captain had Narlec or Vathed in ‘the ring’ with him, or perhaps he had found a warrior from another Chapter to hone his skills against. There were many Adeptus Astartes on this dirty world, not all considered allies by the Malevolents.

There was no sparring cage as such, only the ruins of the billet tents, basically all that was left of Armageddon in the regions still held by Imperial forces.

From Hades, more a burning crater than a hive city now, the Vilifiers had moved on, seeking further battles. Orders to advance further east to secure Eumendies Bridge had stalled whilst secondary and tertiary battle companies could be mustered. Kastor reckoned on the Black Templars being a part of those forces.

That should be interesting… Ballack had thought at the time. The crusading sons of Dorn were one of those Chapters who might be considered antagonistic to the Malevolents.

His ritual not limited to his combat blade, Ballack had unsheathed and broken down a veritable arsenal.

It sat on a rough blanket in front of him.

Chainsword, several teeth detached from the belt feed awaiting reintroduction; bolt pistol, clip and shells exposed, firing mechanism pulled out and in need of oiling; bolter, same as pistol, but with iron sights also removed and underslung grenade launcher separated from the main stock; grenade belt and all frags loose from the bandolier.

Cleaning, lapping, oiling, efficacy check, reassembly and then recheck, followed by live-fire with the exception of grenades.

A warrior was only as effective as the weapons he wielded. For Ballack, he needed each and every one to be at its optimum efficiency. His tools of war might be well-worn, like the patchwork armour that was lying next to the weapons, might but they were always combat ready.

The last blade was his by dint of theft, as was part of the war-plate now repainted in the yellow and black livery of the Malevolents. A huge double-handed sword with a concomitant power core that could energise the blade sat apart from the rest of his trappings. The hilt and quillons betrayed its provenance. Black Templars. Despite its obvious superiority to every other weapon Ballack possessed, it had remained in its sheath.

‘Are you ever going to draw that?’

Ballack looked up from honing the combat blade.

‘I assumed it was you I heard sparring, brother-captain.’

Kastor stepped into the half-shelled ruins that had recently been regaled with an Imperial flag and aquila standard. It had been a municipal hall or a temple, or something that had ceased to have any meaning or usefulness since the war.

‘Vathed.’

‘Pity. I hoped he’d be up against your sword, perhaps have a half length of it jutting from his abdomen.’

Kastor smiled coldly. He knew of the enmity between the Vilifiers’ rawest recruit and its oldest veteran.

‘What are you doing, Ballack? Trying to compensate for the fact you’ve lost your edge?’

Ballack felt his jaw tense, and had to fight to unclench his teeth and fists. He straightened up, despising himself for grimacing with the pain and the weakness it betrayed.

‘An old dog can still bite.’

‘Even one without all its teeth?’

Ballack realised he still had the combat blade in his hand, and made a conscious effort to lower it so he would look less confrontational.

‘I have teeth.’

‘And the sword? Is that why it remains undrawn, because you want to show your teeth?’

‘I don’t need a crutch, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I keep it sheathed because it’s a trophy and I have no need for a krutting sword almost as tall as I am. Doesn’t suit me.’

Ballack was lean and wiry for a Space Marine. In the light of the buzzing sodium lamp he was working by, his face appeared gaunt and pale. Unarmoured, exposing the neural ports in the mesh that sat beneath his battleplate, he was almost a head shorter than Kastor.

His grip tightened around the combat blade.

‘Have you come to thin the herd, Kastor? Are you making way for my replacement?’

Kastor was about to leave but shook his head before stepping back into the shadows.

‘Just seeing if you still had teeth, brother. The orks beckon us again soon, and I want to know all the Vilifiers can pull their weight. If you’re not going to use the sword, though, get rid of it. We have enough enemies here without further goading the Black Templars. The armour is one thing, that’s just repurposing, but keeping trophies as if they are a foe we’ve vanquished. Not wise.’

Ballack watched him go, and felt a few more grains trickle through the neck of the hourglass. Three decades he had been a Vilifier, and a Malevolent longer than that. He supposed war ground everyone down eventually, even transhuman Space Marines.

He wouldn’t sleep. None of them would. Let the Guard slumber; the mortals needed their rest. Ballack felt like doing anything but sleeping. He was restive. Angry.

After he finished stripping down and reassembling his weapons, he decided to walk to the edge of the camp. Despite what the flag and standard boasted, the ruins were not really Imperial territory. In war, ownership was ephemeral. It could shift as suddenly as a riptide, and drown the complacent and the ill-prepared in blood.

Ballack wore his armour, even the dented shoulder guard where a greenskin had tried to take a bite out of it. The teeth marks extended as high as his gorget. Any harder or longer in the vice of the ork’s jaw and it would have been his neck. Too close.

He’d left most of his weapons behind, taking the combat blade and pistol because they were light. They made room for the heavy Templar sword.

Kastor had been right. Parading trophies from supposed allies attracted undue attention. Such concerns had never been his to worry about. Perhaps his morbid thoughts about his own mortality had caused them to stir?

A makeshift graveyard lay not far from the camp’s border. Too grim and demoralising to be within sight of the conscripts and not so far that the orks could defile it without reprisal. It wasn’t much – a scrap of earth decorated with broken swords or the stock of a lasgun rammed barrel first into the ground as a marker, chains of ident-tags wrapped around them.

Ballack felt nothing as he walked amongst the memorials. Grief was for the weak. He would bury the sword amongst the anonymity of the graves, just another hollow monument.

He had half unsheathed the blade, exposing some of the ornate filigree, when a grim voice called for his attention.

‘Malevolent.’

Flat, declarative, but with that mote of arrogance they all carried.

Ballack turned, one hand on the grip of his bolt pistol, but let go when he saw the two warriors had already drawn down on him.

Inwardly, Ballack cursed.

Black Templars. Even worse was that he knew them.

‘Vorda, Mageln…’ He nodded cordially to the pair of Sword Brethren. The title was misleading. They didn’t just use swords. Vorda had an axe, Mageln a mace. It was their old sergeant, Tiamed, who had carried the sword. The same one that Ballack had been about to ram into the ground and then forget.

Vorda levelled his axe blade in challenge.

So posturing and needlessly demonstrative. Ballack wondered if every verbal exchange between Templars was conducted in so formal a manner.

‘Do you remember what I said to you when we last met, Malevolent?’ Vorda asked, snarling.

‘Your exact words?’

Vorda scowled. ‘Don’t make me gut you were you stand, whoreson. I have a debt, a levy against my honour.’

The markings on Vorda’s war-plate suggested he had been promoted in Tiamed’s stead. Ballack could not imagine how excruciating that must be for him. The guilt, allied to a deep sense of martial pride. So ambivalent.

He would have laughed out loud had he not believed the two Sword Brethren would have cut him down for his impudence.

Instead, he held up his hands.

‘Will you beg for your life, dog?’ snapped Mageln.

It speaks! thought Ballack, but again chose wisely not to voice his inner monologue.

‘You are the second person this night to compare me to a dog.’

‘An apt description,’ Mageln growled.

Ballack addressed Vorda. ‘You said, “when we meet again – and we will – there will be no duel, no quarter given.” Does slaying a fellow warrior, unarmed, in cold blood satisfy that pledge, Sword Brethren?’

Vorda smiled. Neither Templar wore his helm, presumably so Ballack could see the cold fury in their eyes or the righteous indignation. A black crusader cross marked their noble faces, a demonstration of their ardent fealty.

‘I won’t kill you here, amongst the honoured dead.’

He gestured to the blade.

‘Keep that. You might need it.’

Ballack raised one eyebrow.

‘For what, exactly?’

‘Our duel, and Tiamed’s sword the prize.’

‘And if I refuse?’

Mageln racked the slide of his bolt pistol.

Ballack nodded, approving of the strong-arm tactics.

‘I see.’

Vorda’s eyes narrowed.

He can see I’m wounded, thought Ballack. He must have known Tiamed’s blade cut deep.

‘And if I triumph,’ asked Ballack, ‘what is to stop you sending another one of your vengeful brothers after me?’

‘You won’t.’

Ballack frowned. ‘You mean, we won’t?’

‘Triumph,’ declared Vorda with cold finality. ‘But should some miracle take place, you have our word that this will be the end to it.’

Ballack jerked his head at Mageln. ‘That goes for him too, does it?’

Mageln took a forward step but a glare from Vorda stopped him going any further.

‘You will be unmourned when Vorda’s blade strikes you dead,’ he snarled, but then relented. ‘But I’ll abide by my brother’s word.’

‘See that rise,’ said Vorda, gesturing to a distant hill with his axe, ‘you have an hour. Come alone or my brethren will erase you and your kind from existence.’

‘No seconds?’ Ballack was looking at Mageln, who, despite what he had just said, didn’t seem wholly on board with the plan.

Vorda was adamant, however. ‘Just you and I. To the death.’

Ballack shrugged, trying to hide his annoyance.

‘To the death.’

The Templars departed, the armour clanking loudly in their wake, and Ballack watched them go until they were lost to shadow.

He turned to regard the site Vorda had chosen. The hill had been a landing pad. Some of the augur towers and comms-stations were still intact around it, but it had been bombed to the Eye and back. A dense crater field surrounded and invaded by ruins had no use as a landing zone anymore. It would be just fine as an arena. Far enough away that no prying eyes would intrude, close enough that it wasn’t in the heart of ork territory.

Ballack considered returning to camp for reinforcements, but that would only further imperil his standing with the Vilifiers. Take another Templar’s head and that might garner some respect. But in truth, he went alone because he had something to prove to himself.

That he still had teeth.

By the time Ballack had gone back for his chainblade and reached the ruined hillside, it was deep into the night hours. Dawn was still far off and the darkling silhouettes of distant ork warbands plagued the horizon, set against a hazy shroud of flickering umber. The greenskins were burning again. They liked fire, or rather what it did to wood, metal and flesh.

Cresting the craggy rise meant picking his way through rubble, but Ballack soon found himself in the crater-strewn landing field.

Any bodies had since been removed, or eaten, but the wreckage laid dormant. Glyphs had been cut into a skirt of rock delineating the largest of the craters. Orks had been here, but there was no further spoor as far as Ballack could see.

He began to pace the large crater, getting a feel for it, how to stand, the slight incline to the north, the density of gravel underfoot. Ballack was about to look at his helm’s internal chrono when Vorda’s voice from the darkness answered his unspoken question.

‘I am surprised,’ he said.

Ballack noted the Sword Brethren’s axe already in his gauntleted grip.

‘And alone also…’ Vorda stepped forward in the meagre light of a halogen strip array that flickered intermittently but still had power.

‘You had me watched?’ asked Ballack. ‘Not very noble.’

‘Neither are you.’

Ballack conceded the point with a curt nod.

Both warriors were under fifty paces apart. As they circled one another like stalking wolves, the distance shrank.

‘Is this about honour for you, or something else, Vorda?’ Ballack asked, keenly appraising the Templar’s movement, the way he held his blade, his stance as he shifted.

Ballack went on, the circle ever tightening between them. ‘If you wanted revenge, you could have just shot me dead at the graveyard.’

‘I want you dead,’ Vorda told him, ‘but I want to beat you first.’

‘Ah,’ said Ballack, understanding. ‘It’s pride.’

Tiamed had been an exceptional swordsman. Ballack was just some wretch who had cut him down ingloriously, through a twist of fate rather than skill. Vorda needed to prove the truth he felt in his heart, and not the lie believed in his head, that Tiamed had been bested by a superior fighter.

A snarl came from behind Vorda’s faceplate before he spat a reply.

‘Draw my brother’s sword, so I can wrest it from your dead grasp…’

Ballack unsheathed the templar blade, admiring the craft before jamming it into the earth.

‘I am a more brutal creature.’

Vorda’s sneer came through in his tone.

‘You are unworthy of it.’

‘I cannot deny that,’ Ballack said, reaching over his shoulder to pull the chainsword from its mag-lock on his back. ‘Shall we begin?’

Vorda nodded, lowering his axe blade so it jutted at the Malevolent like an accusation or a challenge.

Thumbing the ignition stud, Ballack felt the satisfying churn of blades. About to engage, he stopped at Vorda’s upraised hand.

Ballack frowned behind his blunt faceplate. ‘Is this supposed to be guile, Templar?’

Vorda half-turned towards something he had seen in the shadows.

A shot rang out, dense, loud and rippling the air. Vorda staggered, struck in the chest. He roared, but the answering gunfire eclipsed his fury. Muzzle flash lit up the dark, kicking out solid slugs that took the Templar in the thigh, chest and shoulder.

He grunted, ‘Orks…’ and fell, wounded.

Ballack was moving, forgetting Vorda to engage the beasts emerging from the gloom. Hulking, tusked, porcine brutes, their leathern flesh was almost black not green.

Heavy shellfire detonated against Ballack’s right knee, shattering armour plate and cracking bone. He sank down to one knee, just a few strides from where Vorda had collapsed.

Three more shots hit the Templar, the blood spatter reaching Ballack’s war-plate and staining it.

The axe hitting the ground rang out like a death-knell.

Ballack had only just struggled to his feet, spitting and cursing profusely, as a second fat shell ripped up his shoulder guard and tore off a piece of breastplate.

His stunned fingers released the chainsword, which chewed and growled in empathy with its former wielder as it lay prone in the crater’s blood-flecked earth.

His retinal feed told him he was wounded. Ballack’s bio-signs turned amber just before his helmet got wrenched off.

The orks had done the same to Vorda too.

Without the impediment of the helm, or perhaps because they were close enough for Ballack to smell their fetid breath, he realised their skin wasn’t dark on its own – the orks wore camouflage.

He reached for his knife…

A cold ring of metal pressed hard against his right temple stopped him.

‘No… sudden… move.’

It spoke, haltingly, but not in its own guttural dialect. It used Gothic. The greenskins could understand and converse in the Imperial tongue. It was an aberration that stoked the fires of Ballack’s hatred but since this war, little surprised him about the ork and what it was capable of.

Up close, Ballack noticed they wore something approximating uniforms and had rank insignia. It had been planned, all of it. His preconditioned reflexes told him to fight, but his gut warned against it.

Vorda was out cold and of little use.

Ballack estimated ten orks from the stench, subtle variation in grunts and their orientation around him. All were armed, wearing heavy flak coats and well organised. They had been watching the landing field, seen the two warriors enter and had waited until their attention was on each other to ambush them.

The old wound flared, and evinced a grimace. Ballack had never felt so old.

He heard the orks arguing, somewhere out of sight, falling back into their crude native language. Ballack’s eyes were on Vorda. If the orks wanted them dead, they would already be dead. That meant one thing. They wanted captives. And that meant they were going to move them.

‘Well,’ Ballack said, scowling, ‘let’s get on with-’

A savage blow shook his skull like a drum.

White heat flared, blinding, deafening, cutting him off. Agony then unconsciousness stunted Ballack’s tongue. Darkness came swift on its heels, filled with dreams of greenskins murmuring plans and uttering Thraka’s name…

As soon as Ballack awoke, he knew he was no longer in the crater. He was still kneeling, but now a thick iron chain shackled his ankles and wrists. Dank air assailed his nostrils. He could taste heat and warm metal on his tongue. The latter was blood; the former, he assumed, must be machinery of some kind.

It was dark wherever they had been taken, and closely confined. Quiet too – the almost sub-aural drone of the ongoing war had receded to nothing.

We are underground, he realised.

Before opening his eyes, scarcely even breathing, Ballack listened.

The snorting, grunting echoes coming back at him from further down what he assumed was a tunnel suggested the orks were close. Their stench was far away enough, though, so he opened his eyes.

Vorda was watching him. Blood had caked around his left eye where it had pooled from the gash in his forehead. It made a mess of his crusader cross, but that was the least of his worries.

Careful not to raise a clamour with his own chains, Vorda lifted a gauntleted finger to his lips.

About ten strides separated them. The distant glow emanating from ork-lit fires softened the gloom and gave it an orange cast.

Ballack waited, his eyes on Vorda who was now looking past the Malevolent to something behind him.

After a few more moments, Vorda met his gaze again. He held up a splayed hand, then quickly clenched and unclenched it.

Ten greenskins, as Ballack had suspected.

He tapped two fingers to his lips, and Vorda nodded slowly.

‘So they took us,’ Ballack whispered, careful to keep his voice low.

Vorda nodded a second time.

‘They’re overseers, and not alone,’ he hissed. ‘I’ve seen and heard dozens of diminutive greenskins scurrying around. They were digging.’

‘Not now, though,’ Ballack replied, hearing only the muted conversation of their captors.

‘Whatever tunnel they have made is being filled… Smell that?’

Over the ork stench, Ballack couldn’t at first but then he got a faint waft of something. Fuels. Oil, fyceline, promethium, all combustible.

‘Where are we?’ he asked Vorda, carefully shifting around so he could look behind him.

From the dead end section they were chained in, the tunnel bent around at a sharp angle. Ballack saw bulky silhouettes, the errant flicker of fire.

‘West, I think,’ said Vorda.

‘Of the landing strip?’

That would bring them closer to Camp Fortis.

The orks were undermining, digging tunnels and lacing them with explosive. They meant to turn Camp Fortis into a sink hole.

Saboteurs… That explained why these greenskins were so organised. Orks were beasts, but they retained some form of structure. Ballack had fallen foul of their forward scouts, the vanguard. A larger horde was coming, headed for Fortis. Bring down the camp, attack whilst it was in disarray.

Ballack shuffled back around. ‘Our weapons–’ he was about to ask when he heard the tramp of booted feet behind him. The guttural laughter he heard as the orks got close told him that whatever they had planned wasn’t good.

‘Hsst!’

Vorda was glaring when Ballack turned back.

‘You and I are not done, Malevolent,’ he said, and drew his thumb across his gorget. ‘I made an oath to Tiamed.’

Ballack nodded, uncaring at that moment.

‘Something tells me you’re going to get your chance.’

A kick in his back sent Ballack sprawling onto his chest. They did the same to Vorda too. Ballack watched sideways as his face was pressed into the ground under an ork’s boot.

Rough hands grabbed his shoulders and arms. He felt a savage tug on the chain linking his wrists and ankles as he was yanked to his feet.

‘Eyes… down…’

Ballack obeyed, but had seen everything he needed to already.

Six orks, three apiece. Two minders on each shoulder for both him and Vorda. Another one on each of their chains, a pistol in the other hand. Closest to the tunnel mouth, Ballack was being led out in front.

‘You will regret this, filth!’ he heard Vorda spit, for which he got another beating.

As the cudgels and fists rained heavy on the Templar, the ork clutching Ballack’s chain decided to shove the business end of its pistol under the Malevolent’s chin. It forced Ballack’s chin up, but he still kept his eyes on the beast.

It was a little shorter than the Malevolent, and almost as broad without armour. Tough, but not monstrous.

‘You ’ates ’im, eh? Want kill ’im?’

The ork paused to twist the muzzle of the pistol into Ballack’s gullet. He could hear Vorda’s grunts of pain and the hard smack of the clubs hitting his body.

‘Eh?’

Ballack met the greenskin’s squinty porcine eyes and gave a slight nod.

Not as much as I want to kill you, you stinking swine.

The ork held Ballack’s gaze a little longer, as if gauging the truth of his response, and then laughed. Half grunt, half squeal, it made Ballack want to wrench the cleaver hanging from the ork’s belt and bury it in the beast’s ugly skull.

Instead, he smiled.

‘And he really wants to kill me,’ he said, struggling to eke out the words with a pistol jammed in his throat.

The ork’s humour quickly faded at the same time as the others stopped beating Vorda. Its sharp eyes betrayed a savage intelligence.

‘You gonna get chance, warrior,’ it promised. ‘Both of you.’

They were dragged in a shallow basin of rockcrete, overlooked on three sides by deep ledges filled with cackling, rowdy greenskins. They awaited a spectacle. Ballack had a good idea what that would be.

He was led into the rockcrete sink to the guttural jeers of orks and the whiny hooting of lesser greenskins, known as gretchin. All work on the tunnel had ceased as the labourers were afforded a little sport. It fed off from the dry sink, only partially dug but still jammed with explosives. The damp would foul some of the fuses, but there was so much from what Ballack could see through a grated porthole in the sink wall that it wouldn’t matter.

Once the ork minders had him in position, he was beaten as the chains were removed from all but one wrist and then attached to an iron ring bolted into the rockcrete floor. They did the same to Vorda, who looked weary after a second battering from the ork cudgels.

The Templar glared contemptuously, first at Ballack then the greenskins around the sink until coming back to Ballack again.

‘They’ll have us fight to the death, Vorda. You and me. Then they’ll kill who survives. Probably eat us both.’

Each chain was held taut, so neither gladiator could attack until the appointed moment. Ballack thought that just as well, given the Templar’s mood.

‘So long as you die first by my hand. I can live with that.’

‘Vengeance makes you short-sighted, brother.’

Vorda sneered. ‘You are not my brother.’

‘Oi, runts!’ a deep, guttural voice bellowed above the clamouring greenskins. ‘And ’eed Arghuk…’ The rowdy mob quietened down, responding to the ork obviously in charge.

Arghuk sat on a slab of rock, a savage king on his throne, his subjects arrayed before him.

Ballack had to turn to see the ork, but both he and Vorda watched the beast as he spoke. Arghuk was bigger than the rest, but this was usual for greenskins who valued strength above all else. He had one hobnail boot perched on a crate, using it like a footstool. Ballack saw the glint of blades and a bolter stock – this was where the greenskins had put their weapons.

‘These scum are gonna fight to the def!’

Arghuk’s declaration was met with roars of approval from the mob.

‘’and to ’and!’

The roaring intensified.

‘He has us under his boot, Templar,’ said Ballack, having seen enough of the ork ‘king’. ‘Under his boot…’

Vorda’s anger blinded him to what Ballack was trying to tell him. He only saw as far as his desire for vengeance.

‘Enough words, Malevolent.’ His fists were already clenched.

He’ll come at me like a freight-hauler, thought Ballack.

‘Hur, hur, hur,’ Arghuk’s deep belly laugh mocked every shred of honour. ‘Yeah, you are givin’ us a good fight…. To the def!’

‘DEF!’

The greenskins bellowed in unison.

Both chains were slackened off. Vorda charged.

Ballack let him, bringing up his knee into the Templar’s stomach as he tried to tackle him around the waist. Vorda put such ferocity into the charge that Ballack was heaved off his feet anyway.

He threw a punch and felt it strike cheekbone.

A second blow got hooked by Vorda’s forearm and Ballack had a flash of white-hot pain as the Templar’s forehead connected with his chin.

Stunned, he scrambled back, getting to his feet and spitting out blood.

He eyed the Templar, trying to shut out the crushing noise coming from the greenskins above. One of the beasts threw a gretchin onto Vorda’s back. It stalled the Templar’s next attack, but only as long as it took him to grab the shrieking little wrench and snap its neck.

That drew a welter of cruel and raucous laughter. The din increased.

Vorda came at him again, Ballack letting him take the initiative. He ducked a heavy punch, then blocked an overhand but took one in the gut. Like a pugilist, Ballack went in close and pinned Vorda’s arms, trapping him in a bear hug.

‘Afraid to die?’ the Templar hissed, his spittle hitting Ballack’s cheek as they were so close. He struggled, but Ballack held him. The pain in his wounded side was immense, but he held him.

‘There’s no honour in this,’ he said, gritting his teeth with the effort of containing the Templar.

Above, the greenskins were getting restless for more blood.

‘If it’s all I have left, I’ll take it.’

‘As entertainment for this filth…? I know I’m better than that, so you must be.’

For a brief moment, Vorda stopped struggling.

‘How?’

Ballack grinned through a barricade of teeth.

‘Make them angry, get our guns from under the chieftain’s boot.’

‘If you betray me…’ Vorda warned.

‘Then we’re dead anyway.’

They broke apart, Ballack making a show of thrusting the Templar back.

Arghuk had got to his feet. His voice rose above the clamour.

‘My lads ain’t ’appy. They want spleen and so do I!’ The ork turned to one of the minders. ‘Give ’em each a blade.’

Two rough-looking blades were tossed into the pit, ringing as they hit the ground: a crude axe and a rusty meat cleaver. The orks wanted them to literally butcher each other.

Ballack took the axe, as it was closest. The fight had shifted so they were side on to Arghuk’s throne. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the big ork was still on his feet, trying to rabble-rouse the others and prevent a riot. Some of the orks carried pistols, but none of them were currently armed. They were too engrossed in the fight, forgetting the nature of their prey.

Vorda had the cleaver. He gave it a few practise swings. Ballack saw some of greenskins emulating him with imagined blades of their own. Their mocking laughter boiled his blood.

‘Come on then,’ he whispered, and hoped the Templar upheld his side of the bargain.

Vorda ran at him, blade held high. The Templar was a better swordsman than that. It left him exposed to a counter, or it could have been a feint. Ballack had three short breaths to decide.

The axe felt heavy in his grip. Despite its crudity, it could cause some serious damage.

…They’ll kill who survives. Probably eat us both.

Ballack remembered his own words. Time to find out if he believed them.

Vorda came in hard and swinging. Ballack crouched down onto his knees with the axe held flat on the ground. He felt the pressure on his back as Vorda used it to vault.

Rising, Ballack heard Arghuk’s roar of anger merge into a desperate pained scream. The ork had a cleaver jutting from his neck, rammed there by a vengeful Templar.

It took a few seconds for the orks to realise what had happened, slow-witted despite their ostensible intelligence.

One of the minders dropped into the pit, reaching for a club instead of a gun.

Foolish…

Ballack seized its arms, halting the cudgel in mid-swing, and turned the ork into ablative armour as the solid shot sawed down into the pit. The minder jerked and shuddered as its back was threaded with slugs. Blood coughed up over Ballack’s chest and he dropped the beast, which was all but shredded anyway.

Vorda had his blade and pistol, another dead ork at his feet. Arghuk was a cold corpse, near decapitated and slumped against his throne.

About to engage another greenskin, he shouted, ‘Take up your arms, Malevolent!’

A bolt pistol landed in the pit and Ballack swept it up. He took aim through the grate porthole, sighting the farthest barrel of fuel in the half dug tunnel… and fired.

The explosion was immense. The earth shook, thick chunks of rubble and cataracts of dust spilling from the tunnel roof. A heartbeat lapsed after the initial incendiary roar before giving birth to a firestorm that surged out of the excavated tunnel and into the area.

Vorda leapt off the ledge and thrust his body against the wall that faced the blast.

Ballack was already hunkered down, and gave him a knowing wink as their eyes met.

Most of the greenskins were too slow. Ballack saw several caught in the blast, hanging in the air as they tried too late to jump to safety, their bodies instantly aflame and seared black.

Flung corpses soared over Ballack’s head, furiously catapulted aloft as a tongue of fire speared through the porthole like a heavy flamer.

Crisp, burning greenskin meat turned the air inside the pit rancid.

Smoke choked everything.

An ork staggered through the grey cloud, lunging wildly.

Vorda left the wall and cut it down, two-handed, shoulder to hip. He impaled a second, piercing its sternum.

A deafening pistol burst killed another, flooding the smoke haze with muzzle flare as Ballack did his part.

Between them, they accounted for the twelve greenskins who had survived the explosion.

After Ballack finished the last, snapping a gretchin’s neck with a savage twist of his boot, Malevolent and Templar faced one another across a killing field.

‘You fought well,’ said Vorda, as the smoke began to dissipate. ‘That was an honourable deed, for us to join swords instead of lock them. I don’t know if I would have had enough temperance to do that.’

Ballack gave a hollow laugh. ‘Heh. Does this mean you don’t want to kill me anymore?’

He felt raw, and hardly in the mood for another fight, certainly not one against a Black Templar. If he had to, he would. Vorda had kicked the crate into the pit, scattering their weapons. Ballack’s chainsword was close.

He walked over to it slowly, grasped the hilt and felt some of his strength return.

Vorda hadn’t answered, and when Ballack looked up to find out why he saw the Templar bent over Tiamed’s blade.

It would be so easy. Thumb the ignition, stab him through his back. He was wounded. He’d be slow too.

Ballack raised the chainsword, his thumb over the stud.

He let it fall.

Enough treachery for one day, he thought.

Arghuk’s corpse was roasting somewhere above. He’d take the ork tusks and give them to Kastor, show he still had teeth.

Ballack smiled at that, turning his back on Vorda to go and claim his trophy.

‘In the crucible of battle, all grievances forgotten. Until we meet again, broth–’

The word stuck in Ballack’s throat at the same time Vorda drove Tiamed’s blade into his back. It pierced Ballack’s chest, tearing through the Malevolent’s heart.

‘No, brother,’ Vorda hissed in his ear, turning the hilt so it churned Ballack’s organs. ‘Now…’

‘You stabbed me… in the… back.’ Ballack could barely breathe, let alone speak.

‘Sacrificing honour, but avenging Tiamed,’ said Vorda, pushing the blade deeper.

‘Was it… worth it?’ Ballack croaked, spitting up flecks of blood.

‘Never, but at least you’ll be dead.’

The grains had almost run out for Ballack, but he smiled through his red-rimmed teeth as he uttered his final words.

‘Shame… Think I am beginning… to like you, Templar.’

Ballack laughed, spewing up more blood, and then hung there on Tiamed’s sword until Vorda wrenched it loose and left him amongst the other mouldering dead.

About the Author

Nick Kyme is the author of the Horus Heresy novel Vulkan Lives, the novellas Promethean Sun and Scorched Earth, and the audio drama Censure. His novella ‘Feat of Iron’ was a New York Times bestseller in the Horus Heresy collection, The Primarchs. For the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Nick is well known for his popular Salamanders novels, including Rebirth, the Space Marine Battles novel Damnos, and numerous short stories. He has also written fiction set in the world of Warhammer, most notably the Time of Legends novel The Great Betrayal for the War of Vengeance series. He lives and works in Nottingham, and has a rabbit.

While searching for supplies aboard an ancient space hulk, the Marines Malevolent encounter a savage alien foe.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2014 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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ISBN: 978-1-78251-837-2

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