by Rob Sanders
Kersh hit the stud that opened the bulkhead and found Old Enoch, Oren and Bethesda waiting obediently outside. Gideon had dismissed them but no one had given them permission to re-enter the penitorium.
‘Did anyone enter after the corpus-captain left?’ he put to them. They looked to each other and began to shake their heads.
‘Are you all right, my lord?’ Bethesda ventured.
His eyes narrowed, then he turned back to the penitorium chamber. The pool of Tiberias’s blood still decorated the floor, but the footprints were gone. The Excoriator scanned the vistaport, but all trace of the words had vanished. He approached and looked back out along the Scarifica’s hull for any sign of the figure, but there was none.
‘My lord?’ the absterge asked, stepping into the chamber.
Kersh turned and placed his scarred back and shoulders against the cool plas. He looked up at the blood-speckled ceiling of the penitorium. ‘I need the Apothecary,’ Kersh told her.
‘He is not here, my liege.’
‘Where is he?’
‘On the planet surface.’
‘Then that is where we will go. Prepare a transport.’
CHAPTER THREE
THE FEAST OF BLADES
‘Listen, Ezrachi…’
Kersh followed the Apothecary down the crowded stone corridor towards the arena. In turn the Scourge was trailed by his three serfs. Ezrachi limped through a throng of mortals and dead-eyed servitors. Each was pushing its way past, fetching, carrying and attending to urgent if minor duties. A sea of different Chapter colours, they parted as the Excoriators Apothecary marched to the rhythm of his leg’s hydraulic sighing.
‘I tell you, I am not well. I am not myself.’
‘Well, whoever you are,’ Ezrachi told him, ‘you’re entering the Cage in about three minutes, so I suggest you get yourself ready.’
‘I am suffering a spuriousness of the mind.’
‘Existential anxiety is an understandable side effect of such an unusually long time spent in the Darkness.’
‘Perhaps there was an error with the procedure…’
‘Gideon said that you would try something like this.’
‘I see the impossible.’
‘Seeing is believing, Kersh. Make the impossible happen here and we might just have a chance.’
‘I am still afflicted, Apothecary!’
Serfs, who usually had their eyes directed to the floor in the presence of an Adeptus Astartes, looked up at the tormented Excoriator.
Ezrachi ground to a halt and turned. ‘I’ve reviewed the procedure and already made a thorough medical examination of your person. The procedure was a success.’
‘An occulobular defect?’
‘Impossible.’
‘Suprahormonal imbalance.’
‘Would have other symptoms.’
‘Cerebral damage.’
‘I was wrong, Kersh.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Back on the Scarifica, I ordered rest and recuperation. I was wrong. All of your wounds, those sustained at the hands of the Alpha Legion and the catalepseal procedure that followed, are all but healed. We are the Emperor’s Angels and we are made in his image, but we are not the same. I underestimated your powers of recovery. You are gifted, Scourge, and I need you to use that gift now. Your brothers expect this of you. It is a matter of honour and you must answer your Chapter’s call. This above all other considerations. Do you hear me, Kersh? The time is now. Two minutes – or the Excoriators forfeit the contest and their honour.’
The Scourge’s shoulders sagged. ‘Then I am simply losing my sanity.’
‘A mortal condition – I assure you. Follow me,’ Ezrachi instructed and ducked through an archway. Inside, Kersh found a small chamber. Each Chapter had been set aside a small area close to the arena known as the Cage to use for their preparations martial, medical and spiritual. ‘Assist Brother Hadrach,’ Ezrachi ordered Kersh’s serfs as the Scourge came to stand on a central stone bearing the Excoriators’ seal. The young Techmarine Hadrach had forgone his ceremonial plate and had settled instead for forge-robes. He worked feverishly over an adamantium anvil with an assortment of calibrated hammers, but paused long enough to give Kersh a stare of positive dislike.
‘As you were, brother,’ Ezrachi said, and the Techmarine returned to his work. Old Enoch and Oren started walking pieces of armour from Hadrach’s workspace to their Excoriator lord. Bethesda disrobed the Scourge. As her two compatriots began decorating their master’s muscular form she got to work on the belts, clips and seals that held the ceramite plates together.
‘What is this?’ Kersh asked looking down at the deep yellow of the battered breastplate the absterge was harnessing to his chest.
‘All combatants wear the old Legion’s colours in the Cage,’ Ezrachi told him. He peered out of the chamber and down the corridor before turning back to the Scourge. ‘A sign of symbolic unity.’
Hadrach handed Old Enoch and Oren a shoulder plate each. The first was the allegiant yellow of the Imperial Fists. The second bore the Chapter marking of the Excoriators. It had been this plate that the Techmarine had been working on. It was crumpled and badly damaged.
‘That will have to do. Usachar took a real beating.’
‘Ezrachi…’
‘The contest had already begun when you were awoken. You therefore did not attend the opening rites.’ The Apothecary peered into the corridor once more, anxious about the time. ‘What do you know about the Feast of Blades?’
‘I know that it’s a diplomatic waste of time to have brothers fight one another when we have a galaxy of enemies more worthy of our blades.’
‘The Feast of Blades commemorates our Lord Primarch’s decision to break up his Legion as the Codex Astartes instructed. Dorn chose the Iron Warriors fortress known as the Eternal Fortress on Sebastus IV as the instrument upon which to break us.’
‘And make us,’ Kersh acknowledged. ‘I know the saga of the Iron Cage.’
‘We entered the Eternal Fortress as a Legion,’ Ezrachi said. ‘We left as a multitude of Chapters. It pained the primarch to do this, but he knew it was necessary. Dorn himself presided over the first of the centenary Feasts. He wished successor Chapters to maintain good relations and a cult brotherhood. This commitment was re-honoured following the Daedalus Crusade. Our brothers from participating progenitor Chapters were invited to attend, and many of the Feast’s present rites and rituals were established. We know that Rogal Dorn broke the blade he’d used on Horus’s barge, after it had failed to protect his Emperor. His second sword, the weapon to which we refer as the “Sword of Sebastus” or the Dornsblade, emerged with the primarch from the Iron Cage. It is one of our most revered artefacts, a weapon carried and used by mighty Dorn himself. The Chapter that wins the Feast has the honour of retaining the blade and the solemn duty of presenting it at the next Feast – the contest they will host, at most, one hundred years later.’
‘Thanks for the history lesson. You sound like Santiarch Balshazar.’
‘You should know what you are fighting for.’
Kersh watched Bethesda fasten his shoulder plates in place. ‘I haven’t worn carapace since I served in the Tenth Company.’ Kersh wore a simple sparring arrangement. Upon a tunic and plated skirt sat an aquila-adorned chestplate, codpiece and ceramite shoulder-guards. Plated gauntlets and boots completed the armour. He wore no helmet and both his forearms and muscular thighs were exposed.
Ezrachi led Kersh from the chamber. ‘The rules are simple. Each round consists of a knock-out. Two champions enter. The one that walks from the Cage is declared the winner. Contestations last as long as they have to. The Cage is a ceremonial arena but is no dusty amphitheatre. It is an architectural interpretation of the Iron Cage as far as accounts allow, but the layout is changed between and within each round.’
‘Within?’
‘Within.’
Ezrachi took the Scourge through a sequence of gates and drome-barbi
ca. The iron portcullis and stone of each entrance was decorated with sculpted scenes depicting Imperial Fists at their primarch’s side – a reminder to all who came to fight at the Feast that the Fists above all were Dorn’s chosen. The first among equals. Those deemed worthy to wear the primarch’s plate and colours. It sent a powerful message of martial and cultural superiority to other Chapter champions.
The Apothecary directed the serfs up to the tiered gallery. Old Enoch mumbled a blessing and Oren gave a moody nod of subservience.
‘Fight well, my lord,’ Bethesda said and lingered before disappearing after her father.
‘Talk to me about weapons,’ Kersh said. Ezrachi nodded. Kersh – ever the pragmatist and warrior.
‘You are only permitted two weapons within the Cage,’ the Apothecary told him. ‘This,’ he said, slapping the Scourge across the back. ‘Use it as you will. The second is a gladius secreted about the Cage. There are two: one for you and one for your opponent. The tips and edges of both blades have been smeared with a powerful paralytic toxin, engineered by the Adeptus Mechanicus especially for the Feast. The more you are cut, the more likely that you will go down. Your opponent will, of course, walk away victorious.’
The pair of Excoriators stood at the gate to the Cage. A single bell chimed, indicating the beginning of the contest.
‘Ezrachi?’
‘Yes?’
‘What if it’s not the procedure? What if it’s not my mind? What if it’s a further manifestation of the Darkness?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What if these things I’m witnessing are… real?’
The Apothecary paused. ‘That would be a spiritual matter. Why don’t you discuss it with a Chaplain? As fortune would have it, you’re about to meet one.’
As the portcullis gate began to climb, a second bell sounded. Ezrachi brought his clenched right gauntlet to his lips and kissed it reverentially.
‘Dextera Dornami, Zachariah Kersh,’ the Apothecary said before climbing a set of steps up to the gallery. Kersh nodded and knelt before the opening gate. He formed a fist with his own gauntlet before touching his forehead with one knuckle, then his lips and then his breastplate – one heart then the other. Getting to his feet, the Excoriator entered the Cage.
It was like no amphitheatre or training dome he had experienced. The arena was large, perhaps the length of two gunships arranged nose to tail in diameter, Kersh estimated. The pit floor was uneven, an angular landscape of blocks, crafted from dark Samarquandian stone. There were square pits and perpendicular rises, steps and crenellated bulwarking. High above, through a caged dome, Kersh could make out the tiered gallery. This was no feral world gladiator pit. There were no howling onlookers or the frenzy of battle wagers that usually accompanied such contests. Rows of dark, armoured figures stood in silence, like impassive statues. The audience had the composure and still interest of those visiting a museum, with Chapter serfs, invited guests and gaunt servitors standing about the Emperor’s Angels, as the demigods looked on in expectation and judgement. Kersh swiftly picked out Oren and Old Enoch gathered about the dull white sheen of Ezrachi’s armour. Bethesda was at the bars, her knuckles blanched and her face a mask of fear and forced fortitude.
Kersh slowed to a standstill, looking up through the cage roof. There it was. Behind Bethesda was the horrid figure from his unending nightmare. His recent haunting. The phantasm in plate and bone. It stood amongst his brother Adeptus Astartes, watching him. As Kersh walked into the pit the sombre glow of its helm-optics followed him across the arena with dark interest.
The gate closed behind him. Kersh scanned the angularity of the Cage for any sign of a gladius. Breaking into a run, the Excoriator set off for higher ground and a better vantage point to spot a weapon. The soles of his boots scuffed the stone as he leapt lightly from block to block. His kept his shoulders low. His gaze was everywhere. His movements were athletic and economical. A predator’s approach.
Kersh heard a sudden roar of exertion as his waiting enemy revealed himself. The Space Marine slammed into him from the side with the force of a freight-monitor. Slabs of muscle and shoulder plates clashed as Kersh was knocked clean off his feet and down a steep flight of steps. The Excoriator’s kaleidoscopic tumble was punctuated by the harsh stone edges of the steps until finally Kersh met the grit and stone of the mezzanine level below.
Prone and vulnerable, Kersh turned. His attacker had cannonballed him off one floor of the busy, vertiginous arena and down onto another. His objective became immediately clear. The Space Marine clambered swiftly up an angular column. Kersh heard the scrape of metal on stone. Turning to face him, his opponent held in his gauntlet one of the two gladius blades left about the chamber.
Ezrachi had been right. Kersh had been drawn against a Chaplain. A heavy amulet dangled down by his opponent’s waist on a necklace of precious prayer-beads. The amulet itself was a stylised, adamantium aquila, which Kersh recognised as the Chaplain’s rosarius, deactivated for the competition, as honour dictated. His shoulder plate identified him as a member of the Fire Lords Chapter, but Kersh would have known this from the Space Marine’s tattoos. The Chaplain was a walking illustration – every part of his body inked to represent the swirling inferno he wished to bring to his foes. His canvas-flesh curled with flame and fury, while the blackened dome of his skull was spiky and soot-smeared, like the burned stubble of agri-world fields.
With another roar, the Fire Lords Chaplain launched himself from the top of the steps. He hungered for a swift end to the contest and closed with the distracted Excoriator. The gladius cut through the air. Kersh rolled to one side, allowing the blade to fall where he had lain, chipping the stone. Rolling back, the tip of Kersh’s boot made contact with the Fire Lord’s jaw, sending the Chaplain off balance. By the time Kersh was back on his feet, the Fire Lords Space Marine was coming at him with the envenomed blade, flicking it this way and that, exploring the Excoriator’s defences. Kersh danced away on the toes of his boots. He arched and angled his body, retracting his limbs and skipping back out of the blade’s path.
The Chaplain’s style demonstrated flair and expert choreography. The movement of the gladius flowed, stabbing and slashing with a razored poetry. It reminded Kersh of flames dancing in the darkness and was no less entrancing. The Scourge brought up his plated gauntlets, allowing the tip of the blade to glance rhythmically off the back of his fists. Kersh envied the warrior’s grace. The Excoriators were attrition fighters. Fluidity, timing and technique were all subservient in Kersh’s Chapter to the simple, primordial desire to be the last man standing. Survival was everything. Magnificence with a blade was worth little to the dead.
Kersh allowed the gladius to snake its way through his defences. As the Fire Lord sensed an opening, he extended his reach, allowing the Scourge to lay one of his gauntlets on his opponent’s wrist and the other around his throat. The Fire Lord’s blade danced no more as the two Space Marines fought for the right to direct it. For a moment the Adeptus Astartes stood in a stone embrace – immovable – faces taut in a contest of strength and will. The Chaplain grasped Kersh’s own wrist, attempting to break the lock the Excoriator had on his throat. He swiftly exchanged this for a desperate grip on the Scourge’s chestplate and the two Space Marines spun around. The Chaplain ran Kersh back into the brute architecture of a block obelisk. The surface of the Samarquandian stone shattered and fell in pulverised fragments. Kersh pushed back, slamming the Chaplain into the thick iron wall of the Cage. The Fire Lord’s shoulder plate screeched against the metal as Kersh pinned his shuffling opponent against the wall. The metal surface boomed with the repeated impact of the Chaplain’s gauntlet as Kersh smashed the Fire Lord’s fist and weapon into the wall. The Chaplain released his hold on the Excoriator’s carapace and began slugging him in the side.
The Fire Lord’s hand opened and the gladius fell to the floor of the Cage. This surprised Kersh, who hadn’t expected his efforts to be rewarded so swiftly. His immed
iate desire to lay his own hand on the tumbled blade slackened his grip, and before he knew quite what was happening, the Chaplain had hammered the Excoriator with a skull-bouncing blow. Kersh went down with the sword. Skidding around on the grit of the Cage floor, he slapped a hand out, feeling for the gladius’s hilt. The heel of the Fire Lord’s boot found his grasping gauntlet first. With his hand pinned, Kersh braced himself for impact. The sole of the Chaplain’s other boot hovered above him and then came crashing down again and again on the fallen Excoriator’s face.
Opening one bruised and bloodied eye, Kersh realised that the abuse was over. The Fire Lord was no longer above him and he heard the scrape of the gladius being reclaimed. There were other disturbing movements. The architecture of the Cage, mirroring the nightmare of the Iron Warriors’ Eternal Fortress on Sebastus IV, was moving. The section of stone upon which he lay was either rising or the floor around him falling away. Rolling off the moving block, Kersh landed messily on the Fire Lord below. The Adeptus Astartes both went down, and once again the gladius became a prize wrestled between them. Grasped with gauntlets at both hilt and blade tip, the Fire Lord and Excoriator battled for supremacy of the weapon. The Chaplain found his grimacing way on top, the inked globes of each bicep thumping with might as he attempted to force the blade down across Kersh’s throat.
The Scourge gagged as the Chaplain leant in closer. The Fire Lord’s breath was a chemicular wheeze. It was as though the Space Marine had been swilling promethium. The blade fell a little further and Kersh’s eyes widened. Raw effort had drawn the Fire Lord’s lips back in an ugly snarl. Instead of the perfect teeth of an Angel, the Scourge found himself staring at a maw of flint. The teeth had been replaced with shards of razor-sharp stone, each with the appearance of a primitive arrowhead or spear tip. Biting down, the Fire Lord’s clenched jaws sparked. The Chaplain hissed through his teeth, sending a gout of flame at the Excoriator’s face.
Kersh threw his head to one side, allowing the gladius to fall even further towards his throat. He felt the flesh on the side of his bulging neck roast and blister. Jerking his head in the opposite direction, Kersh felt the flames of a second searing breath burn his ear and the side of his face.
