The first shadow skittered along the edge of the deck, heading for the raised helm where Venalitor stood. It wanted to sneak up behind him. No doubt it had his scent, and had tracked him all the way from the warp. It was probably aeons old, congealed from a nightmare in the warp, and finally let loose in real s.p.a.ce to hunt. It was strange that it should die here after all that.
More shadows gathered. They formed fanged maws and keen silver eyes. They thought that Venalitor could not see them.
Venalitor"s sword was in his hand even as the first daemon slunk towards him. He had drawn it so quickly that not even a daemon"s eyes could have followed the movement.
The toad daemon will not have his fill of blood from me tonight,"
he snarled.
He spun, and sliced the daemon behind him in two. The shadow-stuff of its body sprayed like black blood. The other hunter daemons howled and bounded towards him. They were up in the rigging, charging across the deck. Venalitor met them head-on, slicing through the first and spearing the next through the eye.
It was a display of swordsmanship so precise and flowing that it was not combat at all, but the carving of a work of art into the flesh of the hunter daemons. Venalitor bayed them into charging, and then cut them apart as they ran at him. One dived down from the rigging, maw distended to swallow him whole. Venalitor let its substance flow over him, and then slit it open and stepped out of its body like a man free of a straitjacket. He flicked the black gore off his blade and finished killing the hunter daemons. It was not even a contest, just a matter of course, a final flourish.
Venalitor returned to the helm for a while, as the blood of the hunter daemons soaked into the planks of the deck.
Eventually, his slave master shambled from inside the ship. "It has come to pa.s.s?" the scaephylyd asked.
"Of course it has," said Venalitor. "Arguthrax is a creature of habit.
He felt he was insulted at Ghaal and he wanted me dead, so he sent his hunters after me. No doubt their trail will lead back to Arguthrax"s court in the warp."
"A war with Arguthrax is something we can well do without."
Those are the words of an animal of real s.p.a.ce, not a creature of the warp," replied Venalitor sternly. War is war. It comes upon us not as a plague to be feared, but as an opportunity to be grasped.
Arguthrax has decided to make war upon me. Every lord of Drakaasi must war with his peers, it is as sure a law as any on this planet. I shall make war upon him in return and I shall win, and his share of Drakaasi shall be mine." "And Ebondrake?"
The dragon will not know. He focuses too much on his crusade to bother with us. Arguthrax will fall before Ebondrake knows of any feud. Make ready my briefing chambers, I wish to review the disposition of our followers. This war must have a general."
"Very well."
"What of the slaves?"
They plot, as they might. The religious ones pray and the killers plan to murder us all."
"Good, good. And the Grey Knight?"
"He is quiet. He spoke with the eldar, but otherwise he has done little to elicit suspicion."
The s.p.a.ce Marine and the eldar? The universe brings something new with every moment. You may be about your duties, slave master."
The slave master bowed to the bloodstained deck and scuttled back inside the ship.
Dawn was breaking over Gorgath. It broke, as it always did, over war.
Venalitor watched the sun rise and vowed, as he did every morning, that it would set on a world where Duke Venalitor held a little more of Drakaasi in his fist.
GORGATH!.
A city only in name, for none would claim to dwell there. A battlefield in form and function, into which endless columns of d.a.m.ned men are fed to oil the war machine!
None can say when the battle began, and many are those that say it had no beginning. It is an echo of a battle yet to come, or the shadow of a war fought out of time, or a reflection of all the bloodshed in the galaxy sprung up in all its hideous forms to blood the plains of Drakaasi.
The battlefield of Gorgath is ever-changing, filled with the ruins of fortresses and of cities raised only so they can fall again to siege. Here is a weapon of fiendish design, brought low by spears and flint arrowheads!
There are cavalry in their finery, cut apart by bullets, and scorched by mechanical flame. There can be no tactic for victory, for Gorgath despises victory, and its battlefields deform to deny any ruse, no matter how brilliant. Only blood l.u.s.t and hatred can win the day at Gorgath, and then only until the next day, when a new war blooms among the corpse strewn plains.
What can Gorgath be? A creature with a sentience of its own, with violence for lifeblood and warfare for breath? A machine for the blooding of Drakaasi"s armies, whose lords feed their underlings through Gorgath to take command of the b.l.o.o.d.y veterans that emerge? Or some conglomeration of Chaos, some function of the ever-changing warp, bled through into flesh and blood?
Not one of these questions troubles the mind of Gor-gath"s killers, for they are truly its children, devoted to it and yet despising it, trapped in the war machine, the age of slaughter, the one true battlefield that is Gorgath! - "Mind Journeys of a Heretic Saint," by Inquisitor Helmandar Oswain (Suppressed by order of the Ordo Hereticus) * * *
THE STRONGEST SLAVES were up on the deck, forcing the Hecatomb along with poles, as gangs of scaephylyds slogged their way along the sh.o.r.e hauling ropes tied to the ship"s prow. Alaric, the strongest of all the slaves, was up near the stern. It was the first time he had got a good look at the Hecatomb from outside. By the Emperor, it was ugly.
"Justicar," said a voice behind Alaric.
Alaric turned to see Hoygens, the member of Erkhar"s faithful who had spoken to him at the prayer meeting. "I heard you speak with Erkhar."
"Before Ghaal?" asked Alaric.
"Yes, though it was not for my ears."
"I merely seek to understand what is happening on this world. I intend to survive it."
The lieutenant does not think my faith is strong enough to be indoctrinated in the truth he sees," continued Hoygens. "He would not have told me about the Hammer of Daemons. I am just the kind of weak-willed man who would lose his faith if he understood it."
"But your faith is not gone?"
Hoygens shrugged. "I don"t have that much else. I lose my faith and what am I?"
"Not much."
"Less than that. I"d be one of Gearth"s men. I"d have given up being human. Listen, Justicar. I know more than Erkhar thinks I do. I was there on the Pax, and I know where this religion comes from. Erkhar gives us readings from a religious text he has. I have been unable to follow their meaning many times. I don"t see this place in the same colours as Erkhar does." "Have you seen this text?"
"I haven"t read it, but it exists. I don"t think Erkhar wrote it, either, and I don"t believe he had it before we were brought to Drakaasi."
"He found it here?"
"Perhaps, I don"t know, but Justicar, if the Hammer of Daemons is more than just an idea, maybe it"s here, and we can grasp and use it."
"Perhaps it can get us off this planet."
"If it can, if there"s even a chance, then you have to find it. Emperor knows a sinner like me can"t do much, but you"re a s.p.a.ce Marine, you can do anything."
"Not quite, Brother Hoygens," said Alaric. "Can you get this book?"
"Not without killing Erkhar," said Hoygens, "and I won"t do that. I believe in him, Justicar. Whether he"s right about the Hammer or anything else, he"s the only thing that"s kept any of the crew of the Pax alive."
The Hammer is real," said Alaric, "and if it can be found, I will find it."
"If it"s a weapon, Justicar, you"re the one who"s going to have to wield it."
"I would look forward to it," said Alaric, "if it can help us fight back."
One of the scaephylyds lashed a whip at Hoygens. Hoygens scowled at it and went back to his post.
Only Chaos could create a place like Gorgath, thought Alaric, and only the followers of Khorne would do it with such blunt, literal brutality. Columns of robed cultists and wild mutants marched on either sh.o.r.e of the blood river, following armoured champions towards Gorgath"s endless battle. Alaric could hear the sound of its devastation, and could even make out the outline of a feral t.i.tan as it lumbered around firing indiscriminately. Everywhere were the scars of war: bones poking from the barren soil, the foundations of long-fallen fortresses, monuments and ma.s.s graves. This was where the army that had taken Sarthis Majoris was first blooded. It was a factory for war, a machine for churning out armies, where the dregs of Drakaasi were fed into the battlefield and transformed into instruments of Chaos.
Alaric could see hundreds of thousands of them. Gorgath was an obscenity. It was a celebration of war for its own sake, death without purpose, a dreadful hollow slaughter that offended Alaric to the core The Hecatomb ground its way through the ruins of a barricade still draped with the blackened skeletons of those who had fought over it decades before. The great dark stain of the battle emerged on the horizon, shot through with plumes of fire, the feral t.i.tans stalking through the carnage, and ragged banners streaming everywhere. At the heart of it stood Gorgath"s arena.
CENTURIES BEFORE, ONE of Gorgath"s most creative and brutal warlords had decided to create slaughter on such a scale that it would forever be remembered by Drakaasi. He enslaved an army and put it to work mining deep beneath Gorgath"s tortured earth, tunnelling around charnel pits and buried war machines until they reached the site of some of the fiercest fighting.
Then the warlord"s slaves carted huge amounts of explosives into the tunnels and laid them there, waiting for the battle above to reach a peak. They prayed for destruction, and wound the explosive caches with prayers of fire and horror. When the time came they detonated them and let Khorne"s holy fire wipe them off the surface of Drakaasi.
The explosion was heard all across Drakaasi. The towers of Aelazadne shook, and Ghaal"s shanties collapsed. Hundreds of thousands died in moments. Ash and shattered stone rained down over Gorgath for a week afterwards. The debris and the dead formed a dark cloud that some said had never fully cleared away.
No one remembered the name of the warlord, but the crater remained, and on Lord Ebondrake"s orders it had been cleared out and made ready as Gorgath"s grand arena.
IT WAS THE smell of Gorgath, and the taste of it on the air, that really got to Alaric. It hit him as Venalitor"s slaves were driven between two huge blocks of ruined fortifications towards the arena. It tasted like fear, blood and voided bowels, gun smoke and fragments of steel. It smelt of smouldering bodies and dust from collapsed buildings. The engine smoke from the feral t.i.tans completed it.
Alaric had been at a thousand batdes, and Gorgath felt like every one of them distilled and mixed into one experience.
The fortifications crawled with spectators. They had been taken off the front lines to celebrate Lord Ebondrake"s impending crusade.
They threw rocks and filth down at the slaves as they marched, heads bowed, under the eyes of Venalitor"s slavers.
"What are we facing?" asked Gearth. The man had sought out Alaric and made sure he marched alongside the Grey Knight.
"I don"t know," said Alaric.
"Come on," said Gearth. You"ve got your plan. You think no one saw what you pulled at Ghaal? You know enough, s.p.a.ce Marine, and some of us would like to be in on it."
"What did you do?" asked Alaric.
"Do? When?"
"Those are prison tattoos. You asked me a question, now I"m asking you. What did you do to get thrown in prison before Venalitor captured you?"
"Rule one," said Gearth, "you never ask that, not of any man."
Then you don"t need to be a part of whatever plan I might have in mind." "Hey, I didn"t say that."
A huge pair of doors stood in front of the slaves, made of sheets of salvaged metal welded together.
Two smoke-belching tanks stood ready to pull them apart on lengths of chain. Alaric recognised the tanks as Leman Russ battle tank variants, no doubt captured and brought to Drakaasi in one of the lords" slave raids.
"Murder," said Gearth. "Alright? Happy?"
Who did you kill?"
Gearth swallowed. Alaric had never seen him anything less than completely confident, but that was a question Gearth obviously feared.
"Women," he said.
"Why?"
"What do you mean "why"? Why does anyone do anything?"
Gearth scowled. "I don"t have to give you a reason."
"So you don"t know why," said Alaric. "I will call on you when the time comes." Gearth stepped out of line, dropping back through the slaves to get away from Alaric.
A slave that Alaric did not recognise shuffled through the rain of filth. "Astartes," it hissed through a harelip.
Alaric peered beneath the slave"s hooded rags. Its face was disfigured with some skin disease, so the only recognisable features were two watery eyes. You know me?"
"Your fame grows."
"Who are you?"
"I saw you at Ghaal. I fled from there to follow you." Alaric sneered.
On every Imperial world there was some diversion for the citizens, and adoring followers accompanied the most famous fighters or sportsmen everywhere. Drakaasi"s arenas held the same position on Drakaasi, on a far larger scale. The idea that Alaric could have devotees seemed as pathetic as the slave looked. "Go home to Ghaal."
There is no home there now. I bring you a gift." The slave produced an axe from beneath his robes. It was clearly made for a fighter of a s.p.a.ce Marine"s size, the haft far too broad and weighty to fit in a normal man"s hand. It was bright and gleaming with a head the shape of a crescent moon, so sharp that the edge was transparent and glowing.
"From the forge," said the slave.
Alaric took the axe. It was weighted perfectly. Alaric had rarely held a weapon of such craftsmanship, even in the artificer"s halls on t.i.tan.
"Who made this?" demanded Alaric.
The city"s forge lies at the crossroads," said the slave, "two fortresses and the siege works between them. That is all he told me to say"
"Who? Who told you?"
A whip lashed around the throat of the slave, yanking him back.
The slave was dragged back into a knot of Gorgath"s soldiers, and Alaric knew that in a few moments the man would be dead beneath their boots and blades. The slaves around Alaric surged on beneath the soldiers" whips, and Alaric lost sight of the slave.
He looked down at his axe. It was perhaps the first beautiful thing he had seen on Drakaasi.
In front of him, the tanks gunned their engines and the doors were pulled apart.
Two ma.s.sive armies were revealed on the arena floor, lined up in ranks, banners streaming. The ground between them was patrolled by bloodlet-ters, snarling at the front ranks to keep them back. A pack of the daemons stomped up to Venalitor"s slaves and began directing the gladiators into the ranks, splitting them between the two sides.
A battle, of course. It was the only way that Khorne could be celebrated in Gorgath.