Ebondrake pondered this. The daemons roosting in the eyrie around him were starting to stir as night fell. They were nocturnal creatures, and soon they would be out hunting, plucking the unwary from Vel'Skan's rooftops.

'Gather an army,' said Ebondrake, 'and bring in as many lords as you can. Spread the word. Traitors have defiled the games and spat upon my crusade. For this, they will be given battle, defeated and punished. Make it fast, for the traitors cannot keep their forces in check for long.'

Yes, my lord,' said Scathach, and headed for the sky chariot stationed beside the eyrie. It was a relic of an earlier age, a piece of grav-technology that the Imperium, in its bloated weakness, could no longer replicate.

Scathach piloted the craft down towards the sprawl of Vel'Skan.

He gunned the engines, for it would not do to be late reporting his findings back to Arguthrax.

THE HAMMER OF DAEMONS was old. It was concealed within a sheath of corrosion so deep it was a wonder there had ever been a s.p.a.ceship beneath there at all. Now that Alaric knew the truth he could see the flare of its engine cowling, the blunted underside of the prow, the ridges of sensor towers and the indentations of torpedo tubes. It just needed a litde imagination.

This is it?' asked Corporal Dorvas.

'Of course,' replied Erkhar, 'can you not see it?'

Alaric had led the slaves up into the cranium of the palace's giant skull. The great dome of the skull was divided into audience halls and ritual chambers, along with many rooms that defied explanation. This chamber was one of them. Alaric guessed that it was some kind of interrogation room, what with the resttaints hanging from every surface and the indentations in the floor just the right shape for a human to be stopped down. However, that did not explain the richness of the decoration: torture implements inlaid with gold, and gorgeous tapestries of battle mined with dried blood.

The dagger that impaled the skull through the eye socket pa.s.sed through this chamber, dominating the room with a ma.s.sive shaft of corrupted metal, from which hung the remnants of dozens of mutant skeletons. It was not, however, a dagger.

'Lieutenant, if you will?' said Alaric.

Erkhar stepped forward and took out the captain's log of the Hammer of Daemons. He opened the book and began to read from it.

'Will this thing still work?' asked Haggard, standing beside Alaric, since that was probably the safest place to be.

'It's an old ship,' said Alaric. 'All the best ones are old.'

'My brothers and sisters,' Erkhar was reading, 'this is not just a journey. This creation will not deliver us to the Promised Land on its own. It is just steel and gla.s.s. The truth is harder for you to hear, but it is the Emperor's own word as brought to us by the prophet.

We, as pilgrims, make our journey not to arrive, but to undergo. '

The faithful were speaking along with him, the murmuring voices like a prayer underlining Erkhar's words. It was the speech read out by the captain of the pilgrim ship before the Hammer of Daemons set sail for the Promised Land. The religion of Erkhar's faithful had been based on those words, not as a statement by a captain, but as a metaphor for everything they had suffered. The ship was Drakaasi, and the pilgrims were the slaves, their journey the ordeal of slavery under the planet's lords, but the truth was more mundane.

'It is not enough to trust the Emperor to fend off all the perils of the void for us. On this journey we must change, we must become one with the Emperor's truth. We must abandon the lies that bind us, cast out the vices and doubts that rule us, and throw aside the despairs of this dark millennium. Survival is not enough. The Hammer of Daemons must change us into something more than we are. Only then will we deserve our places in the Promised Land.'

Something rumbled within the body of the dagger. Slabs of corrosion cracked and fell from the shaft, smashing to reddish dust on the chamber floor. The faithful took a step back.

'Emperor's teeth,' whispered Haggard.

'It's real,' said Gearth.

A door opened in the body of the dagger, swinging downwards. A shaft of light bled from it. The whirr of life support systems and plasma conduits thrummed through the palace. The Hammer of Daemons, responding to the code woven into the captain's speech, came to life.

Every eye was on the door and the glimpse of bright pearlescence inside, except for Alaric's. A s.p.a.ce Marine's peripheral vision was razor sharp, and he recognised the shift in the shadows, the shape that budded off from the gloom at the back of the room to flit through an archway. It was heading towards the front of the skull.

Alaric knew it well. It surprised him that it had taken this long for it to show up.

'Stand guard,' said Alaric to Gearth. 'Keep any enemy off us until Erkhar's men can get this thing started.'

'And you?'

'I need to secure this place.' Then I'll send-' 'Just me.'

'You know, glory boy, if you're not back by the time we take off, we're leaving without you.'

'If it comes to that, good luck up there,' said Alaric as he left the chamber. Few of the slaves watched him go. They were fascinated by the light bleeding from the Hammer of Daemons, or clambering up onto the entrance ramp that had folded down from the corroded body. Chunks of rust were still falling from the body of the ship and revealing the ancient surface of the hull, painted deep blue with the remnants of stencilled designs in gold.

Erkhar was still reading prayers from the book as Alaric pa.s.sed through the archway.

In front of him was the room, triangular in cross-section, formed by the skull's nasal cavity. It was a room for divinations or strategic planning, judging by the orrery that stood on one side of the room and the table inscribed with astrological designs taking up the other side. Plans of the stars above Drakaasi were etched on the walls.

Alaric paused and held his breath. The hum of the engines warming up behind him reverberated through the palace, but he was searching for something else: footsteps, or breathing.

A shadow was sliding along one wall, barely perceptible as it moved across the ill.u.s.tration of a star system.

'Kelhedros,' said Alaric, 'you can't hide any more.'

The shape stopped, but Alaric had it now, a faint wrongness in die way the light slid off the silver web of the star chart.

'I know what you are, Kelhedros. I've known for a while, and you have served your purpose well enough, but it's over now.'

The shape of the eldar solidified from the caul of shadow.

'Alaric. I am glad I found you. I became separated on the arena floor. I knew this was your objective so...'

You came to stow away'

'Stow away, Justicar? Why would I need to stow-'

'Because I would have killed you before we left. The lies end now, alien, if you can even speak the truth any more.'

'Have you evidence of treachery, human? I would like to hear it before I submit to any threats.' Kelhedros's voice was thick with his customary arrogance. Alaric wondered if any eldar had ever paused to wonder if a human being had a soul, or the capacity to suffer. It was more likely not one of them had ever given a human any more thought than a human might give to a virus beneath a lens.

Thorganel Quintus,' said Alaric. Kelhedros let his sneer fall, just a fraction. 'I was never there. It was an Imperial Guard action I read about. I never claimed to be there, either, except to you.'

Kelhedros would not have seemed to move to an unaugmented human eye, but to Alaric it was clear that his muscles were bunching up ready for action. Kelhedros's way of fighting relied on being the first in with the swiftest strike. Alaric would not give him that.

Venalitor had heard of it too,' continued Alaric. 'He thought I had been there. The only person who had heard me tell that lie was you, Kelhedros.'

Kelhedros licked his lips. You cling to the truth as if it means something here, human.'

'Did you betray the last slave revolt, too? The one they were celebrating when my friend died. Were those games possible because you handed Venalitor and Ebondrake their victory?'

'One does what one must,' said Kelhedros, 'to survive.'

'For a human,' replied Alaric smoothly, 'survival is not enough.'

'What does your kind know?' hissed Kelhedros, drawing his chainblade. The weapon's teeth were clotted with blood. The eldar's cultured exterior was gone, and he looked almost feral, like something born to kill. 'Why do you think I did not tell Venalitor of the Hammer of Daemons? Because I believe, Justicar! I believe in escaping this d.a.m.ned world. Nothing on this planet desires escape as much as I do. You can never understand what can happen to a naked soul that dies in a place like this! You will never look upon the face of She Who Thirsts!'

'I understand everything, alien!' said Alaric. 'I know what you are.

You never walked this Scorpion path. I have faced your kind before.

You are things of darkness, with skin made of shadow, wrapped in silence. Mandrakes, the Guardsmen called you, a.s.sa.s.sins and spies.

How else could you have free run of the Hecatomb, and leave it at will? Did you think I would believe this was some trick of the Scorpion path? You are much worse than an alien, and I will not let one such as you escape this world.'

'I will be gone from Drakaasi!' shrieked Kelhedros. His face was b.e.s.t.i.a.l, his eyes pure black, weeping tears as thick and dark as oil.

He had given up on his disguise. His skin swam with shadows, shifting in and out of reality. 'I will return to the embrace of Commorragh! She will never take me!' Kelhedros was circling around, trying to get closer to the archway leading upwards towards the skull's remaining eye.

You will die here,' said Alaric, 'and she will most definitely take you.'

Alaric had his spear in his hand. It felt like the thousandth weapon he had picked up since he had come to Drakaasi. He very much wished he had his Nemesis halberd, or one of the smith's marvellous weapons, but the spear would do.

Kelhedros was quick, but he wasn't quite good enough. If there was one thing Alaric could do better than any sentient creature on Drakaasi, it was perform an execution. Alaric drew back his arm to strike.

A sudden sliver of light blazed from the archway behind Kelhedros. It reached from the shadows and sliced through Kelhedros, biting down through his shoulder, and carving down through his back. A good third of his torso flopped to the floor, sliced organs tumbling out of the ma.s.sive wound.

Kelhedros tried to step away from Alaric, but his body wouldn't obey, and his eyes widened as he realised that he was dead. He stumbled and fell onto his back. Blood had just caught up with the wound and was pumping from his sundered body.

'You have an inflated opinion of your own importance, alien,' said a deep voice dripping with arrogance and authority. The flaw of all your race. Do you think that I would ever honour our agreement?

Freedom, safety, for a few words of treachery? And now you dare to seek escape from here, so that you can bring what you know of our world to the rest of your breed. You were nothing more than a pet, and you are to be put down.'

'She...' gasped Kelhedros, writhing on the floor like a landed fish.

'She... who... thirsts...' His eyes went dull, and he died as Alaric watched. Alaric thought he could hear Kelhedros screaming in the far distance, howling as his soul was devoured, but the sound was carried away by the wind blowing through the skull.

'A poor spy,' said Duke Venalitor. 'He really thought he was buying some kind of victory with his lies.'

Alaric couldn't speak. Venalitor had found them. Everything would end here.

'It seems that I have stolen your thunder,' said Venalitor, advancing into the room. The segments of his crimson armour gleamed in the dying daylight glinting over Vel'Skan's weaponscape. The sword in his hands shone as it drank the drops of Kelhedros's blood running down its blade. When one of my slaves is to be executed, it is I who serve as executioner.'

What now?' breathed Alaric.

What do you think, Grey Knight?'

'One of us kills the other.'

'I think you could be more specific,' said Venalitor with an ice-cold smile. 'I have to admit that you are one of those rare breeds of enemies who are more dangerous the closer you get.'

Venalitor was circling Alaric, and Alaric tried to weigh up Venalitor's avenues of attack: a slice low to take out Alaric's legs, a high cut to his head or throat, any one of a million thrusts or slices that would take Alaric's life with a single blow.

'It would amuse me to keep you alive and use you to further the work of Khorne,' said Venalitor dryly, 'but I have grown tired of being amused.'

Venalitor lunged. Alaric was ready. He brought up the spear to block the blow, and the blade cut clean through the haft. The blade was deflected enough to keep it from slicing through Alaric, but the spear was useless. Alaric threw the haft of the spear aside and held the tip away from his body, ready to parry or stab.

'I have learned a lot here,' said Alaric, forcing calmness into his voice. 'I am not the man you defeated on Sarthis Majoris.'

'No, Justicar, you are something less.'

Alaric could have stabbed and blocked and thrust until he died, but that was not the way to win this fight. A Grey Knight might not have seen that. Alaric was not a Grey Knight any more.

Alaric dropped the spear and charged.

TWENTY-FOUR.

'I KNEW,' ROARED Lord Ebondrake, 'that it would come to this.'

His voice carried down the Antediluvian Valley. Its slopes were built from stone axe heads and rough hewn spear shafts, the most ancient and primal weapons of Vel'Skan. The valley was a rift through the heart of the city, its depth cutting through aeons of war.

The enemy army was strong across the valley, formed from the private forces of several of Drakaasi's lords. Arguthrax's slaves were tethered to posts driven into the ground, and painted with runes of summoning. Tiresia had called forth whole tribes. Scathach's contingent was the largest, with rank after rank of solemn warriors, from uniformed men with guns, to armoured cavalry. These forces had been called forth quickly, their plan to march on Ebondrake, and kill him before he could respond.

Ebondrake lived on a permanent war footing. He was ready.

'Perhaps it would take a million years,' he boomed, his words punctuated by plumes of black fire, 'perhaps a few moments, but you would turn on me. This is the way it has always been. I am as old as these mountains and the stars above us, and I have seen it so many times that I remember only an endless circle of betrayal. I told myself that when my time came, I would defy it. Nothing you have done has been anything but inevitable, and every move you make is one I have foreseen.'

A great host of beetle-black bodies came scuttling from the cracks between the weapons of the Antediluvian Valley. Thousands of scaephylyds scuttled into formation behind Lord Ebondrake, carrying the banners of their tribes. The ancient general, his carapace dulled by centuries, lumbered to the fore.

'You are our master's master,' slurred the general through his mandibles.

Then you are my servant's servant,' said Ebondrake.

The general waved a forelimb in a signal to the scaephylyds. They all drew their weapons. They were still forming up down the throat of the valley, and there must have been a hundred thousand of them.

The will of Khorne is with us!' yelled Arguthrax in reply. "You have created this revolt in the heart of our city, in the midst of Khorne's celebrations, all to force us to unite under your rule! This is no longer a struggle for power, black lizard! This is an excommunication! Khorne despises you, and his wrath turns upon you!

We true lords of Drakaasi are the instruments of that wrath!'

*You accuse me of treachery?' Ebondrake rose up off his haunches and spat black sparks in anger. The blasphemy in the arena was naught but a distraction created to force my attention away from your betrayal! What fools, what infants, to think such a ruse would tear victory from me!'

Thurgull, an ancient from Drakaasi's deeps, oozed through the valley wall, all gelatinous flesh and tentacles. Others of his kind were with him, smaller and less foul, but still deadly, snapping hooked beaks set into the ma.s.s of their mollusclike flesh. Corpses began writhing up from the ground, and the Charnel Lord, who had against the odds thrown his lot in with Ebondrake, shambled through their midst allowing them to lick the corpse liquor from his funereal robes.

Ebondrake's army was huge. It was the equal of the conspirators', even as Golgur the Packmaster's hounds bounded in to join them.

Arguthrax gave the signal, and the slaves pinned to the ground began to writhe, shafts of red light bleeding from their eyes and mouths as his allies from the warp sent their foot soldiers to possess the slaves.

'Enough words!' shouted Tireseia, nocking a flaming arrow to her bow.

'On that alone we can agree,' said Ebondrake. With a mighty blast of flame, he signalled the charge.