by Nick Kyme
‘Do you see mine?’ said the Newborn eagerly.
The sorceress laughed, a shrill bite on the air that caused the loxatl to halt their martial display and screech in rage. Shimmering patterns danced over their glistening hides and they vanished in a blur of motion, slithering and skittering across the mountainside to boltholes carved in the rocks.
‘The destiny of the Lost Child cleaves into the future like a fiery speartip,’ said the sorceress. ‘His destiny is woven into the tapestry of a great hero’s death, the fall of a star and the rise of an evil thought long dead.’
‘You speak in meaningless riddles,’ said Vaanes, dragging the Newborn away.
‘Wait!’ cried the Newborn. ‘I want more.’
‘Trust me, you don’t,’ warned Vaanes, seeing Cadaras Grendel marching towards them, his armour splashed with blood. ‘Nothing good can come of it.’
‘The Lost Child wishes to hear what I have to say,’ screeched the sorceress, barring their way with her skull-topped staff. Vaanes unsheathed the caged lightning of his gauntlet-mounted claws and rammed the foot-long blades up into the sorceress’s chest, tearing up through her heart and lungs. She died without a sound, the breath ghosting from her lips in a sparkling, iridescent cloud and the golden light fading from her eyes. Vaanes sucked in her dying breath, revelling in the sensations of fear, horror and pain it contained. His entire body shook with the deliciousness of her soul and all thought of consequence fled from his thoughts at the ecstasy of the kill.
Vaanes lowered his arm and let her skeletal frame slide from the blades of his gauntlet. Her corpse flopped to the ground and he set off towards Cadaras Grendel with the Newborn in tow.
‘What was that about?’ said Grendel, looking over at the shrivelled body of the sorceress. Whatever force had animated her wasted frame had fled her body, leaving a desiccated husk of shrivelled flesh and dried bone.
‘Nothing,’ replied Vaanes, drawing a deep breath. ‘Forget it.’
‘Fine,’ said Grendel, gesturing towards the sky. ‘Honsou wants you back at the compound. The Skull Harvest is about to begin.’ Vaanes looked up, seeing the swirling colours gathering around a toxic swirl of amber, like a cancerous epicentre of a diseased whirlpool.
‘The Great Eye… it’s opening,’ he whispered as Grendel made his way past him in the opposite direction. ‘Are you coming back too?’
Grendel nodded, grinning with feral anticipation. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you in the arena.’
Vaanes didn’t like the sound of that, but let it go, wondering whose blood stained Grendel’s breastplate. The Iron Warrior looked down at the withered remains of the sorceress.
‘Did she try and tell your fortune?’ said Grendel, kneeling beside the sagging cloth of the sorceress’s robes.
‘Something like that,’ agreed Vaanes.
‘And you killed her for it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Too bad for her she didn’t see that coming.’
THE SKULL HARVEST got underway, as all such gatherings do, with sacrifice. Framed by the towering majesty of a growling Battle Titan, the Tyrant of Badab tore the heart from a captured warrior of the Howling Griffons and hurled it into the arena, where it pulsed bright arterial blood onto the gritty sand until it was emptied.
The first day was taken up with the various champions’ warbands announcing themselves to the Tyrant, who sat upon a grand throne of bronze and amber, and the allocation of challenges. Blood feuds would be settled first and a number of champions bellowed the names of those they wished to fight in the name of avenging an insult to their honour.
Honsou expected Pashtoq Uluvent to issue such a challenge, but the red-armoured warrior had yet to appear.
‘I expected Uluvent to be here,’ noted Vaanes, as though reading his mind. ‘Champions of the Blood God are usually the first to arrive and begin the killing.’
‘No, Uluvent’s smarter than that,’ said Honsou.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think he wants to wait until further into the Harvest before trying to kill me. It’ll be more of a triumph for him if he slays me after we’ve taken other warbands with our own killings. He’ll have his blood feud resolved and he’ll take all my warriors.’
‘Then he’s more cunning than most champions of the Blood God.’
‘Maybe,’ agreed Honsou with a smile. ‘We’ll see how that works out for him.’
‘And Grendel, where’s he?’ asked Vaanes. ‘I haven’t seen him since yesterday. He said he’d be here. The other champions will know that one of our inner circle hasn’t appeared for the beginning of the death games.’
‘Forget Grendel,’ said Honsou. ‘We don’t need him.’
‘I see him,’ said the Newborn, gesturing with a nod of his helmet to the opposite side of the arena. ‘Over there.’
Honsou looked over and saw the ranks of gathered champions part as Pashtoq Uluvent took his place on the circumference of the arena. The red-armoured warrior with the ork-skull helmet raised his red-bladed sword and a raucous cheer was torn from thousands of throats as his skull rune banner was unfurled.
Standing beside Uluvent was Cadaras Grendel, his armour streaked with fresh blood and his chainsword unsheathed. The Iron Warrior shrugged and raised his sword to lick wet blood from the blade.
‘Grendel’s betrayed us?’ said Vaanes, his voice thick with anger.
‘It was only a matter of time,’ said Honsou. ‘To be honest I expected it sooner.’
‘I’ll kill him,’ snarled Vaanes.
‘No,’ said Honsou. ‘Grendel and I will have a reckoning, but it won’t be here. Do you understand me?’
Vaanes said nothing, but Honsou could see the anger in the warrior’s eyes and just hoped the former Raven Guard would be able to restrain the urge to strike down Grendel for now.
‘I don’t understand you, Honsou,’ said Vaanes eventually.
‘Not many people do,’ replied Honsou. ‘And that’s the way I like it.’
A WARRIOR IN bronze armour emblazoned with the skull rune of the Blood God made the first kill of the day, disembowelling a champion in spiked armour who Honsou saw was hopelessly outmatched in the first moments of the duel. The slain warrior’s head was mounted upon a spike of black iron beneath the Tyrant’s throne.
The warband of the defeated warrior now belonged to his killer, their loyalty won through the display of greater strength and skill. Such loyalty could be a fragile thing, but few gathered here cared for whom they fought, simply that they fought for the strongest, most powerful champion of the Skull Harvest.
Ranebra Corr’s sword-champion slew the hearthguard of Yeruel Mzax, a clan warrior of the Cothax stars. The clan-laws forbade Mzax to fight under the leadership of another and he hacked his own head off with an energised claw attached to the upper edge of his gauntlet.
Votheer Tark’s battle engine was a hulking monster that had once been a Dreadnought, but which had been altered by Tark’s Dark Mechanicum adepts into the housing for a shrieking entity brought forth from the warp. It tore through the warbands of three champions before finally being brought low by one of Pashtoq Uluvent’s berserk warriors who fought through the loss of an arm to detonate a melta bomb against its sarcophagus.
The daemon was torn screaming back to the warp and the lower half of the berserker was immolated in the blast. Even with his legs vaporised, the berserker crawled towards Huron Blackheart’s throne to deposit the defeated engine’s skull-mount.
The Newborn won two duels on the first day of killing; crushing the skull of Kaarja Salombar’s corsair pistolier before he could loose a single shot, and eventually defeating the loxatl kin-champion of Xaneant’s brood group. This last battle was fought for nearly an hour, with the loxatl unable to put the Newborn down, despite exhausting its supply of flechettes into its opponent.
A daemonic creation of Khalan-Ghol’s birth chambers, the Newborn’s powers of regeneration were stronger in the warp-saturated Maelstro
m and each wound, though agonising, was healed within moments of its infliction.
Exhausted and without ammunition, the loxatl eventually pounced on the Newborn, using its dewclaws to tear at its armour, but even its speed was no match for the Newborn’s resilience. At last, the hissing, panting beast was defeated, drained and unable to defend itself when the Newborn crushed its neck and tore its head from its shoulders.
As the fighting and killing went on, warbands began to agglomerate as their champions were slain and armies formed as the most powerful warlords drew more and more fighters to their banner.
Cadaras Grendel fought with his customary brutal remorselessness, winning several bouts for Pashtoq Uluvent, and Honsou could see Ardaric Vaanes’s fury at this betrayal simmering ever closer to the surface. To dilute that anger, Honsou sent the former Raven Guard into the arena while the Newborn healed and Vaanes eagerly slaughtered warriors from three warbands, one after the other, bringing yet more blood-bonded fighters into Honsou’s growing army.
Honsou himself took to the field of battle twice; once to slay a pirate chieftain armed with two razor-edged tulwars, and once to break a kroot warrior leader who fought with a long, twin-bladed stave he wielded with preternatural speed and precision.
As the Newborn strangled a towering ogre creature with its own energy whip, winning a hundred of the brutish monsters to Honsou’s banner, the fourth day of killing drew to an end.
The armies of three champions were all that remained.
Pashtoq Uluvent’s force of blood-hungry skull-takers, Notha Etassay’s blade-dancers. And Honsou’s Iron Warriors.
WITH THE VICTORIES he and his champions had won, Honsou’s force had grown exponentially in size, numbering somewhere in the region of five thousand soldiers. Scores of armoured units and fighting machines, as well as all manner of xenos and corsair warbands were now his to command. The swords of seventeen warbands now belonged to Honsou and, by any measure of reckoning, he had a fearsome force with which to wreak havoc on his enemies.
Pashtoq Uluvent had amassed a force in the region of six thousand fighters, while Notha Etassay had procured five thousand through his exquisite slaughters. Any one of these forces was powerful enough to carve itself a fearsome slice of Imperial space and enjoy a period of slaughter unmatched in its previous history.
But the Skull Harvest was not yet over and the Tyrant’s rule decreed that there could be only one champion left standing at its end. Darkness closed in as the three warriors stepped into the arena, clad in their armour and each armed with their weapon of choice. Honsou’s arm glittered in the torchlight that surrounded the arena as baying crowds of warriors cheered for their respective champions.
The three warriors marched to stand facing one another in the centre of the arena and Honsou took the opportunity to study his opponents, knowing his life would depend on knowing them better than they knew themselves.
Notha Etassay wore a light, form-fitting bodyglove of rippling black leather with buckled straps holding strategically situated elements of flexible plate. The androgynous champion sashayed into the arena and performed a scintillating pre-battle ritual of acrobatic twists and leaps while spinning twin swords of velvety darkness through the air. Etassay’s face was concealed by a studded leather mask with scar-like zippers and tinted glass orbs that glittered with wry amusement, as though this were a meeting of comrades instead of a duel to the death.
Pashtoq Uluvent planted his sword in the bloody earth of the arena and roared a wordless, inchoate bellow of ferocity to the heavens. His armour dripped with the blood of sacrifices and the flesh-texture of his armour seemed to swell and pulse with the beat of his heart. His eyes were like smouldering pools of blood within his helmet and he reached up with a serrated dagger to cut into the meat of his neck.
The champion of the brazen god of battle hurled the dagger away as blood began leaking from the open wound. Honsou narrowed his eyes. ‘Giving up already, Uluvent?’
‘If I cannot kill you before my life bleeds out, then I am not worthy of victory and my death will honour the Skull Throne,’ said Uluvent.
‘Don’t expect me to do anything like that,’ said Honsou.
‘I don’t,’ replied Uluvent. ‘You are the mongrel by-blow of melded genes wrought in desperate times. You are a creature without honour that should never have been brought into existence.’
Honsou controlled his anger as Uluvent continued. ‘One of your champions has already sworn himself to me, but I will kill you quickly if you submit to my dominance.’
‘I don’t submit to anyone,’ Honsou warned his enemy.
Notha Etassay laughed, a high, musical sound of rich amusement. ‘Whereas it’s something I do rather well, though I prefer to be the dominant one in any intercourse.’
‘You both disgust me,’ snarled Uluvent. ‘It insults my honour that I must fight you.’
The howl of the Battle Titan’s warhorn echoed across the arena and the cheering warriors fell silent as the Tyrant of Badab rose from his throne to address the gathered champions, the Hamadrya curled around his thigh like a vile leech.
‘Tonight the Skull Harvest ends!’ said Huron Blackheart, his voice carried around the arena to the furthest reaches of the mountain. ‘One champion will be victorious and his enemies will be broken upon the sands of this arena. Fight well and you will go forth to bring terror and death to those who betrayed our trust in them.’
The Tyrant of Badab locked eyes with each of the three champions in turn and raised his mighty clawed gauntlet. ‘Now fight!’
Honsou sprang back from a decapitating sweep of Pashtoq Uluvent’s axe, swaying aside as Etassay’s black sword licked out and sliced into his shoulder guard. Honsou’s black-bladed axe lashed out in a wide arc, forcing both opponents back and the three champions broke from the centre of the arena.
Etassay danced away from Honsou, swords twirling and face unreadable behind the leather mask, while Uluvent hefted his sword in a tight grip, watching warily for any movement from his opponents. Honsou knew Uluvent was the stronger of his foes, but Etassay’s speed was ferocious, and who knew what power rested in his dark blades.
Honsou’s axe was hungry for killing and he felt its insatiable lust to wreak harm running along the length of its haft and into his limbs. Or at least one of them. The power residing in the silver arm he had taken from the Ultramarines sergeant was anathema to the creature bound to his weapon.
This stage of a battle would be where each warrior sought to gauge the measure of the other, searching for signs of weakness or fear to be exploited. Honsou knew he would find neither in these two opponents, warriors hardened by decades of war and devotion to their gods.
Every fibre of Uluvent’s being would be dedicated to killing in the Blood God’s name, while Etassay would seek to wring every sensation from this bout. Winning would be secondary to the desire to experience the furthest excesses of violence, pain and pleasure.
Honsou cared nothing for the thrill of the fight, nor the honour of the kill. This entire endeavour was a means to an end. He cared nothing for the piratical schemes of the Tyrant, nor honouring any one of the ancient gods of the warp.
Etassay made the first move, leaping in close to Uluvent, his dark swords singing for the red-armoured champion. Uluvent moved swiftly, swinging his own sword up to block the blows and spinning on his heel to slash at Etassay’s back. But the champion of the Dark Prince was no longer there, vaulting up and over the blade in a looping backwards somersault.
Honsou charged in, swinging his axe for Etassay, but the warrior dropped beneath the blow and smoothly pivoted onto his elbow, swinging his body out like a blade to take Honsou’s legs out from under him.
Uluvent leapt towards Honsou as he fell, the red-bladed sword thrust downwards at his chest, but Honsou scrambled aside and the weapon plunged into the earth. Etassay’s boot thundered against Uluvent’s helmet and the roaring champion of the Blood God fell back, leaving his sword jammed in the grou
nd.
Honsou pushed himself to his feet and furiously blocked and parried as Etassay spun away from his attack on Uluvent and came at him with a dizzying series of sword strikes. The champion of the Dark Prince was unimaginably fast and it was all Honsou could do to keep himself from being sliced into ribbons. His armour was scored and sliced numerous times and he realised that Etassay was playing with him, prolonging the battle to better enjoy the sense of superiority.
Honsou’s bitterness flared, but he fought against it, knowing that Etassay would punish him for even the smallest lapse in concentration. Instead he forced himself to concentrate on exploiting the warrior’s arrogance. Etassay thought he was better than Honsou and that would be his downfall.
Out of the corner of his eye, Honsou saw Uluvent circling them, waiting on a chance to reclaim his sword with a patience the Blood God’s warriors were not known for. Honsou kept himself close to the weapon, forcing Uluvent to keep his distance. One opponent he could handle. Two? Probably not.
At last Etassay seemed to tire of Honsou and said, ‘Let the other one have his blade. This contest is tiresome without his colourful rages.’
Honsou did not reply, instead turning towards the sword embedded in the sand and hacking his daemon axe through the blade. Uluvent’s sword shattered into a thousand fragments and Honsou sensed Etassay’s petulant displeasure through the studded mask.
Etassay leapt towards him, but Honsou had banked on such a manoeuvre and was ready for it. He hammered the pommel of his axe into Etassay’s sternum and the champion dropped to the ground with a strangled, breathless cry.
Honsou heard Uluvent make his move and turned as he stamped down hard on Etassay’s chest, hearing a brittle crack of bone. Uluvent slammed into Honsou and they tumbled to the sand. Honsou lost his grip on his axe as Uluvent’s gauntlets fastened on his throat. The two warriors grappled in the bloody sand, pummelling one another with iron-hard fists.
