by Andy Smillie
A single figure emerged onto the platform. Thorolf recognised him by the blood-soaked flesh cloak that hung across his shoulders. The Orator, the grotesque narrator of Damorragh’s arenas, was clad in crimson armour that dripped with thick blood pumped over its surface by hidden nozzles. With the skin of his bald scalp scraped back in a taut flesh-lock, his eyelids pinned back to reveal pallid, weeping eyes, and his mouth sewn shut by barbed wire, he was as frightening a spectacle as anything the arena could muster.
‘Citizens of Damorragh, warriors of the Bladed Lotus, raise your blades and kneel,’ the Orator’s lips stayed sewn shut as he spoke. Instead, the hundreds of ghoulish faces impaled around the arena gave voice to his words, their lifeless jaws moving in unnatural unison.
A hundred thousand barbed weapons glinted in the sun as the assembled masses obeyed.
‘Archon K’shaic,’ the Orator made a sweeping gesture with his arms, flicking blood from his armour into the air. The droplets hung suspended for a fraction too long, a morbid collage painted with the blood of the archon’s enemies. To Thorolf they formed a crimson serpent, and he felt his insides bunch at the unnatural liquid.
K’shaic stepped through the doors to deafening applause; the interlocking plates of his midnight black armour shifting like scuttle beetles. The blood-master of the depraved arena world raised a gauntleted hand and took his seat at the front of the balcony.
Once more, the Orator spoke through the mouths of the dead. ‘Here in Xelaic Prime, most blood-spattered of our inglorious amphitheatres, the tournament of the Razor Vein dawns. Let us greet it with the blood of a lab-grown man-thing and the entrails of a barbarous ork.’
Thorolf tried to block out the voices, but they washed over him in a nauseous wave that flooded his mind. He looked around for some way of silencing them but saw no cables or antenna linking the heads to the Orator. Thorolf dared not think of the debased technology the aliens used to accomplish such a bonding with the dead.
‘Emperor protects,’ he said, turning his thoughts away from the macabre.
From across the arena, the ork bellowed a thunderous roar, its mouth opening wide enough to swallow Thorolf’s head whole. He remained kneeling and closed his eyes. Enraged by its prey’s insensate reaction, the greenskin beat its chest and charged towards the Space Marine. Thorolf felt the ground tremble under the ork’s quickening footsteps. It rushed onward, and his nose picked up the beast’s foul breath. Thorolf shifted his weight to the front of his feet. The Ork’s sweat filled his senses. He heard the crunch of gravel as the beast turned on its foot, swinging a mace at his face. Thorolf sprang up and backwards in a tight arc, his blade flashing out to slice up the ork’s midsection and rip though its eye. The beast howled and stumbled backwards.
Thorolf landed and rolled sideways, away from the ork’s enraged thrashing. On his feet, he darted inside the beast’s reach, chopping its right hand off at the wrist with a downward stroke. Turning in place he brought it back up to block the mace held in the ork’s left, though the force of the blow threw him flat on his back. Thorolf rolled sideways as the ork brought a foot down to trample him, reaching up to cut the tendons behind the beast’s knees. Unable to stand, the ork fell forward, catching itself on its remaining hand. Thorolf leapt to his feet and dragged his blade two-handed through the ork’s neck. Showered in blood, Thorolf tore his blade free, locking eyes with the archon as the ork’s head flopped backwards onto its shoulders.
‘Our stances are not as dissimilar as I would have expected Space Wolf; you fight with more grace than I credited you with.’
Thorolf had no idea how Ecanus had observed his fight with the ork, and he was too weary to investigate further, ‘Ramiel. I fought many bouts alongside him.’ Thorolf eased his body onto the ground, ‘A true warrior must learn from his allies and adapt to his enemy.’
Ecanus said nothing.
He was awake when they came for Ecanus. Though his eyes were shut, Thorolf had allowed his Catalepsean Node to keep part of his brain alert, forgoing a measure of rest to keep a mind on his new cell mate. Judging by the stench, a pair of hunchbacks had entered the cell, though Thorolf didn’t detect the female. He picked up a new scent as a harsh male voice ordered Ecanus to stand. It reminded Thorolf of the deep rumble the deceleration thrusters on a drop-pod made seconds before impact. He felt pressure build in his ears until he was sure they would burst. Fighting the urge to vomit, Thorolf continued to listen as the hunchbacks shackled the Dark Angel, chains rattling as they led him off into the corridor. Thorolf waited for three breaths but the door didn’t close.
Thorolf opened his eyes, and rose to a crouch. Awake, he tensed and relaxed his muscles, bringing his body to combat readiness. Yet he still found himself caught by surprise when the female appeared in the doorway. She fixed Thorolf with her oval eyes, each a single black jewel promising infinite pleasure, and leaned into the cell. Unable to do otherwise, he held her gaze.
The female ran her palm over the wall sending a snaking current across its surface. The metal of the wall shifted like water, rippling away from the current’s touch. Thorolf watched as the energy settled in a pool above his head height. The grey of the wall dissolved and fell away in droplets to reveal a dark, fathomless rectangle. A moment later and a fighting pit swam into view. Through the eldritch lens Thorolf felt the heat of the suns and tasted the outside air. Somehow, the female had opened a portal onto the arena itself.
‘Watch.’
The word drifted from her face-grille like thoughts and seeped into Thorolf’s mind. Despite himself, he took comfort in the warm embrace of her voice. The female retracted her arm, the door springing closed behind her.
‘Emperor forgive me,’ Thorolf bowed his head, ashamed of his weakness. He let a drop of his acid-saliva fall onto his forearm, keeping his lips sealed as it bubbled away his flesh.
Through the portal, Thorolf watched a blue humanoid enter the arena. He had his back to him, a long blade held by his side. Beyond the tau, Thorolf could just make out Ecanus clutching a trident-like spear in both hands. Thorolf had encountered the tau twice in his lifetime; they were exceptional marksmen and employed powerful ranged weaponry, but he doubted they could match Ecanus in combat. The tau stepped forward and Thorolf caught sight of four more of its kin, all similarly armed and pacing towards Ecanus. That evened things up.
Thorolf could see the crowd cheering, willing blood to be spilt, and the Orator floating above the arena his arms outstretched in pantomime. Yet he could hear nothing. Watch, the female voice surfaced in Thorolf’s mind; she was being literal. He stared at the portal as it bobbed within the wall of his cell, and shuddered at the erroneousness of the alien technology.
Thorolf’s captors had never allowed him to watch a match before. Perhaps they wanted him to see what nightmares awaited him, so that they may revel in his fear; or they wanted him to watch his brother Space Marine die, and gorge themselves on his anguish. Even in the darkest corners of his heart, Thorolf knew no fear, and the Dark Angel’s death would be an inconvenience at best – his would-be tormentors would fail on both accounts.
Ecanus’s spear struck the lead tau in the chest and pitched him backwards. Thorolf flinched as a spatter of blood shot through the portal to land on his face.
Thorolf wiped his brow, rubbing the sticky tau blood between his forefinger and thumb, ‘Emperor protects.’
The fallen tau’s body was blocking his view of part of the arena, but Thorolf could make out Ecanus surrounded by the remaining tau. Ecanus sprang into motion, and in a blur of tangled limbs fought his way through the circle of tau, to emerge on the side closest to Thorolf. The Dark Angel was bleeding from several slashes on his arms and back but seemed untroubled. Two more of the tau lay dead in his wake, each missing an arm and a leg. Ecanus now gripped their blades in his hands. The last of the tau approached him cautiously. The Dark Angel strode forward, blocking the tau to his left
’s downward stroke with a rising sweep of his own blade. Reversing the motion, he severed the tau’s arm at the elbow, before taking a half step forward and pushing the blade through the alien’s throat. Ecanus left the blade in place and spun on the spot, kicking the final tau in the head as it rushed in to attack. The Dark Angel caught the dazed tau’s weapon hand and muttered something before bending the weaker creatures arm back until it pierced its chest with its own blade.
Blood dripping from him like a macabre sweat, his muscular frame fighting for breath, Ecanus looked more feral than any Space Wolf Thorolf had ever encountered.
Abruptly, the portal closed and the limits of Thorolf’s world reasserted themselves.
‘The lion and the wolf, together,’ Ecanus held out his hand, ‘what would our ancestors make of this?’
Thorolf ignored Ecanus’s jibe and clasped the Dark Angel’s hand.
Surprised that his mention of the rivalry between their two Chapters hadn’t promoted as much as a growl or toothed grin from his opposite, Ecanus clasped the Space Wolves hand for a second too long.
Thorolf was about to speak when a tremor rocked the ground beneath his feat, forcing him to steady himself. The arena floor continued to rumble, giving birth to four obsidian columns that pushed up through the ground like the stems of some infernal plant, dislodged rock tumbling from them as they rose. The pillars stood equidistant from one another, creating a smaller arena within the confines of the larger fighting pit. Each was covered in bronzed spikes and etched with burning runes that spat blood into the air.
‘Citizens of Damorragh,’ the Orator appeared in the air between the four pillars, his arms outstretched like the master of a blasphemous orchestra. ‘Archon K’shaic welcomes you all to the final stages of the Razor Vein.’ The crowd answered the Orator with a screaming roar, several of them cutting their own flesh in honour of the tournament. ‘Two of mankind’s superhumans,’ the Orator swept his arm out to encompass Ecanus and Thorolf, blood flowing from his armour to form a toothed serpent in the air. ‘Those considered the height of human evolution...’ the ghoulish vox-faces conveyed every nuance of the Orator’s mocking tone, ‘...against this monster.’ the Orator pointed a blood-slicked arm at the ogryn.
Thorolf stared past the bleeding columns towards their opponent and sighed. The ogryn’s bulk was greater than even his and Ecanus’s muscular frames combined. A particularly resilient species of abhuman, Thorolf had once watched an ogryn stagger from a burning Chimera armoured transport, its skin running from its skeleton like melted rubber as it charged into the fray, bent on exacting vengeance from its would be killers. The abhuman had barrelled into a group of cultists who tried in vain to scrabble away. Using its weapon like a meat-hammer, the ogryn beat them to death with blunt, callous strikes. Concentrated lasfire and small-arms munitions had blasted chunks off the abhuman’s flesh as the cultists rallied, yet still it had fought on, cracking their treacherous bones until a barking heavy weapon round exploded its head in a shower of teeth and bone.
Thorolf studied the ogryn’s confident gait as it began pacing towards him, a massive halberd clutched in one over-sized fist, a flail of chain wrapped around the other like an improvised knuckle-duster. He took one look at the saw-blade in his own hand and found himself longing for the arcing power of the weapon of his office, the peerless relic his captors had taken from him.
‘An abhuman, a bastard flaw of their species.’ the Orator continued, turning in the air to include more of the crowd. ‘Today, we shall see who evolution truly favours – the genetic misfit or this pair of lab-grown dolls.’
‘You do not fight like a wolf.’ As the Orator brought the fight to a start, Thorolf remembered the words Ecanus had spoken three fights ago, after watching him kill a vicious, bird-like xenos. ‘I have fought alongside Space Wolves before and you lack their ferocity. You attack with poise and intent, never with instinct.’
‘You brother, are not the only warrior with a keen eye.’ Thorolf had replied. ‘The eldar are well versed in how we of the Fang wage battle. I would have been slain like a youngling whelp had I not adapted my approach.’ Thorolf hadn’t been sure if Ecanus had believed him. He still wasn’t.
‘Vlka Fenryka!’ Thorolf beat his chest and advanced to the orgyn’s right. He motioned for Ecanus to circle left, knowing full well their best chance lay in attacking from both sides at once. But the ogryn moved with them, side-stepping and turning so that Thorolf always blocked Ecanus’s line of attack and vice versa. Clever, thought Thorolf, what the abhuman lacked in intelligence his genetic disposition for fighting seemed more than capable of compensating for.
‘You are an oddity of creation, a stain on the Emperor’s divine canvas...’ Thorolf spat as he continued to circle the ogryn. The abhuman’s face folded in rage but it didn’t break from the stand-off as Thorolf had hoped. It wasn’t inconceivable that the abhuman had undergone some form of neural enhancement at the hands of the eldar. ‘I will take your life in penance for the sin of your birth.’ Thorolf stepped in to attack but the ogryn was ready, striking out with the halberd. Wrong footed, Thorolf pivoted out the way, the halberd’s blade slicing through the air where his throat had been a moment before, and dropped into a roll.
Thorolf got to his feet as Ecanus’s impaler speared past him and into the ogryn’s shoulder, stopping the abhuman’s advance and giving the Space Wolf time to recover. Untroubled, the ogryn grunted in annoyance, pulling the spear out and tossing it away.
‘We must attack together.’ Ecanus pointed towards the ogryn, ‘From this side.’
Thorolf followed Ecanus’s gaze – behind the abhuman a glistening spike jutted out from the nearest of the columns. ‘I understand, brother.’
Together, Thorolf and Ecanus strode towards the ogryn. Thorolf relaxed his body and lowered his weapon, baiting the abhuman. The ogryn didn’t waste the opportunity, striking out with the halberd in a long-reaching slash that would have been impossible if it weren’t for the abhuman’s weaponised biceps. Thorolf’s blade was raised in an instant. Blocking the halberd, Thorolf rolled along its length, inside the orgyn’s reach. At the same time Ecanus rushed in and pinned the abhuman’s other arm.
‘All-Father, grant me strength!’ Thorolf hammered his shoulder in under the ogryn’s arm and tried to drive him back. The abhuman resisted, his feet fixed in place.
‘He’s too strong,’ Ecanus snarled.
‘Wound it!’ Thorolf swung the ridge of his hand up and into the soft meat of the monster’s throat, bruising its windpipe.
Ecanus followed suit, delivering three swift punches to the ogryn’s body, the punch-dagger clutched in his fist digging deep into the abhuman’s flesh.
Thorolf felt the resistance lessen, the muscles in his legs flexing as they edged the ogryn backwards.
‘Now!’ Ecanus yelled.
Thorolf pushed with every ounce of the holy strength the Emperor had gifted him, the screaming pain in his muscles drowned out by the roar of defiance in his throat.
Together, the Space Marines powered the ogryn backwards, driving him onto the spike. Thorolf felt the abhuman go slack as the serrated metal punched through its abdomen, shredding its organs as it drove through them. Thorolf kept pushing, tearing the ogryn along the length of the spike until its back was against the pillar. Exhausted, Thorolf let go and staggered away from the eviscerated ogryn.
The abhuman glanced down at the spike protruding from his chest. It was sticking out from his midriff like the misplaced tusk of a metal beast.
Thorolf looked round as a guttural sound rumbled from the ogryn’s damaged throat, blood spilling over its lips with every tortured syllable. He watched as the abhuman reached up with its hands and gripped the spike, and strained to hear a rasping curse, as the ogryn pulled its ruined body, hand-over-hand to the end of the spike.
‘Emperor’s mercy,’ Thorolf stared in disbelief as the ogryn inched
its way off the spine of metal. ‘Will this abomination not find peace?’ Breathing hard, he turned his blade over and readied himself for another attack.
For the briefest of moments, Ecanus took his eyes off of the ogryn to glance at Thorolf. The elegant piousness of the Space Wolf continued to unsettle him. It was not the way of the Fenrisians. A rising roar from the crowd drew Ecanus’s attention back to the abhuman, his doubts pushed aside by decades of conditioning as he readied his weapon.
The attack never came. Free from the skewer, the ogryn fell to its knees, its midriff torn apart, its shredded entrails spilling to the ground. Twice it tried to rise, gurgling bloodied chunks as it sought to voice its frustration, until even its enduring constitution gave way to the inevitable, the last of its innards escaping through the grievous wound in its torso. With a final grimace, the ogryn fell forward onto its face and lay still, the earth beneath its body stained dark by an expanding pool of blood.
‘His will,’ Thorolf lowered his blade and walked to Ecanus, ‘You fought well, brother.’
‘As did you. Though it seems as well that you don’t give into your more impulsive nature too often, that clumsy abhuman would have had your head had I not intervened.’
Thorolf grinned, ‘Aye, it is as you say, brother.’ He fought to keep the smile from his face. Thorolf had hoped that the Dark Angel would interpret his carelessness as the act of an enraged, impetuous Space Wolf. Thorolf clamped his fist against his chest, ‘You have my thanks.’
Ecanus’s reply was lost in the maelstrom of directional air as a platfrom shot down from the upper reaches of the amphitheatre and threw the two Space Marines flat with a decelerating burst from its engines.
Thorolf was aware of the crowd going berserk, chanting words of hate as he suffered for their amusement. Even with his enhanced hearing, he was unable to tell where the roar of the thrusters ended and their bloodthirsty shrieking began. Pinned to the ground, Thorolf managed to crane his neck round far enough to catch a glimpse of the platform. A discus of sublime metal that was at the same time transparent and pitch black, the platform seemed to blink in and out of focus. Holding it aloft were three monstrous faces that spewed flame downward, each a tortured sculpture of the terrible beasts that stalked the arena. Though Thorolf suspected their purpose was more decorative than functional, the platform likely calling upon the same esoteric anti-grav technology that the rest of the eldar vehicles used to stay aloft. Thorolf felt the pressure on him wane as the thrusters died, the platform drifting to the ground to his left. Able to move, Thorolf sprang to his feet and took up a guard position next to Ecanus.
