'In the name of the Throne,' said Haulvarn.

Another roar went up from the crowd. Gates of bone had opened on the opposite side of the arena, across the expanse of bloodstained sand. A huge shape emerged from the darkness beyond it. It had the upper torso of a ma.s.sive humanoid and the lower body of a snake. It had four arms, and in two of them it held a pair of enormous meat cleavers. The crowd bayed and screamed as it slithered out into the sunlight. Alaric's augmented eyesight picked out its roughly human-like face and forked tongue tasting the blood on the air, the garland of severed hands around its neck, and the kill tallies branded into its leathery skin.

'Throne of Skulls,' cursed the prison slave. 'Skarhaddoth.'

Alaric looked at him.

The champion,' continued the slave. 'Ebon-drake's own.' 'What's your name?' asked Alaric. 'Gearth.'

'Gearth, stay close. We'll surround it. Haulvarn and I will keep it at bay, the rest of you get behind it and...'

Gearth smiled. 'It doesn't work that way.'

Rows of spikes twice as tall as Alaric sprung up from the sand, dividing the arena into pens and corridors. Alaric was separated from the other slaves, including Haulvarn.

'Brother!' shouted Haulvarn as the din from the crowd grew. 'It is bloodshed they want. If we kill anything, it will be for the glory of Chaos.'

True, but whatever we do, we must survive first. Fight as if the Emperor willed it. As if-'

A row of spears snickered back into the arena floor. There was now no obstacle between Haulvarn and Skarhaddoth, the champion of Lord Ebondrake.

Skarhaddoth's eyes fixed on Haulvarn. Haulvarn held up his sword in a guard. It wasn't anything like as potent as the nemesis weapon he had carried as a Grey Knight, but anything could be lethal in a s.p.a.ce Marine's hand.

The crowd was chanting Skarhaddoth's name.

Skarhaddoth slithered towards Haulvarn. Skarhaddoth was huge, much taller than Haulvarn, and its two empty hands pulled a pair of shields from its back. The shields were black with the device of a white serpent, presumably the crest of Lord Ebondrake. It was fitting that Venalitor should give one of the prized Grey Knights in combat to Ebondrake's champion.

'Brother!' shouted Alaric. 'We stand together!' Alaric leapt up and tried to haul himself over the dense barrier of spears. They were slick with the blood of previous combatants, and the gnarled metal bit into his hands.

A great eruption of b.l.o.o.d.y sand fell over Alaric. He dropped to the ground and turned to see a cage erupting from the arena floor.

Inside was a hulking mutant, doubled over in the confines of the cage. The cage door sprang open, and to another roar the mutant stomped out, bellowing in rage.

Alaric's opponent was an abnormal construction of overlong, multi-jointed limbs that writhed like snakes, with a long equine head and a single yellow eye that bled pus as it glared at Alaric. In its hands was a weapon that resembled an industrial circular saw.

The crowd screeched their approval as the saw tore into life, flicking shavings of steel and flecks of dried blood everywhere.

Alaric dropped to one knee as the mutant charged and the saw rang off the line of spears behind him. Alaric rolled away as the saw came down and gouged a choking spray of sand from the arena floor. He risked a glance behind him, Haulvarn and Skarhaddoth were fighting, Skarhaddoth rearing up and striking down like a cobra, Haulvarn fending off everything the champion threw at him with desperate swings of his sword.

Alaric turned back to the mutant. It ripped its saw out of the ground and swung it. Alaric turned it aside with his sword, snapping the blade in the process. The crowd loved that, and the mutant did too, its deformed face splitting into a grin as it charged.

Alaric dropped to one knee, the saw pa.s.sing just over the top of his head, and stabbed the broken sword up into the mutant's ribs.

The shattered stump of the blade tore through muscle and bone, and lodged there, torn from Alaric's grip as the mutant reared up in pain. It whipped its unnaturally long arms around and nearly cut Alaric in two with the saw.

Alaric couldn't stay on the back foot. He was unarmed, and the mutant's reach was huge. It would kill him if he let it. He ducked under its arms and leapt onto it, hands reaching up to gouge at its eye and force its head around to snap its neck.

The mutant was forced back onto its haunches. It wrapped an arm around Alaric's torso to lever him off, and its other hand tried to drive the saw through Alaric's back. Alaric's hand was round its throat while his other arm held off the saw. The mutant's eye bulged and turned red with frustration. Its long tongue spooled out, and lashed at Alaric's face and neck like a tiny whip. Alaric held on and tried to crush the bones of its neck in his fist. Whatever strange mutations it had on the inside, it probably still needed to breathe.

The mutant howled and threw Alaric off it with unnatural strength. Alaric tried to scrabble to his feet, but the mutant was on him too quickly. The saw was over his face, the blade shrieking at him, and the mutant was trying to force it down to cut his head in two. For a long, awful moment the two wrestled, the mutant's unnatural strength against the enhanced muscle of a s.p.a.ce Marine, and Alaric did not know which of them would win.

Alaric forced everything into pushing the saw to one side. The mutant's weight drove it past his head into the arena floor, and the circular blade bit deep into the ground. The mutant tried to tear it out, but it was stuck too deep, and the saw's motor screeched, and belched a plume of smoke and flame. The saw exploded in the mutant's hands, and the blade skipped away, ringing off the wall of spears and ricocheting away to bury itself in the meat of Alaric's shoulder.

Alaric forced a knee under the mutant's chest and kicked it off him. The mutant scurried back across the b.l.o.o.d.y sand, one ruined hand spraying black-green gore. Alaric got up onto his knees, back arched against the pain of the blade lodged in his shoulder. It was the same shoulder he had dislocated in the cage, and the pain was bad enough to grey out his vision.

The crowd loved to see such gore. The other fights were similarly horrible. The ork had defeated its opponent, a crimson-skinned b.e.s.t.i.a.l thing, and was waving its enemy's severed leg in victory.

Gearth was kneeling over his opponent, a s.h.a.ggy beast-man with a goat's head, and was in the process of sawing its head off with a jagged knife.

Alaric was on his feet. The mutant was struggling to get up, blood flowing out of the stump of its missing hand. Alaric reached agonisingly around and pulled the saw blade out of his shoulder.

The mutant would still kill him. It had one good hand and a foul temper, and that was all it would need, but now, Alaric had a weapon.

The mutant charged. Alaric wound his arm back and threw the saw blade like a discus as hard as he could, ignoring the pain screaming from his shoulder.

The blade sheared the mutant's head clean off. Alaric sidestepped its headless body as it slammed into the spears behind it. The crowd jeered the dead mutant that had been despatched at the hand of a newcomer.

Alaric turned and looked for Haulvarn. The Grey Knight's fight with Skarhaddoth had moved all the way back across the expanse of the arena floor leaving a trail of b.l.o.o.d.y footprints. Haulvarn was covered in blood from dozens of cuts. One side of his face was cut open from brow to chin. He was losing.

Skarhaddoth loomed over Haulvarn. Haulvarn was striking at it with blurring speed, but Skarhaddoth was just as quick, and he batted each sword blow aside with his shields. The distraction of Alaric's battle was over, and every eye in the arena was fixed on Lord Ebondrake's champion as he forced the Grey Knight back step by step.

Alaric tried to climb the spears again. Many hands had tried to do the same, and clumps of ragged flesh still clung to the spears. Alaric reached the top and tried to haul himself over the rusted points.

Skarhaddoth backhanded Haulvarn with one of his shields.

Haulvarn sprawled onto his back. Skarhaddoth dropped one of his cleavers and picked Haulvarn up, kicking the sword out of the Grey Knight's hand.

'Brother!' yelled Alaric. 'I am with you! You are not alone!' He pulled himself over the spear fence and dropped down the other side, the spear tips gouging long lines out of his chest. He kicked to his feet and ran towards Skarhaddoth and Haulvarn.

Skarhaddoth held Haulvarn over his head like a trophy. The crowd screamed. They wanted gore. They wanted cruelty. Alaric had whetted their appet.i.te, and Skarhaddoth knew how to give them what they wanted.

Skarhaddoth had one hand around Haulvarn's throat and another around his leg. He pushed Haulvarn up above his head and pulled.

Haulvarn screamed.

Alaric yelled in wordless desperation. His hearts felt like they had stopped in his chest. He watched Haulvarn's body come apart, torn in two by Skarhaddoth.

Haulvarn's blood poured down over Skarhaddoth, who basked in it, open-mouthed. Skarhaddoth slithered over to the arena wall and threw the two halves of Haulvarn's body into the crowd. Spectators fought to tear chunks of flesh from the body. Skarhaddoth brandished his bloodied hands to every corner of the arena, a grin across his blood slicked face. His eyes fixed on Alaric, and he smiled through the blood of Alaric's friend.

Alaric ran. Skarhaddoth was more than halfway across the arena, and Alaric sprinted to close the gap-Haulvarn was dead. The Enemy had claimed a Grey Knight, and Alaric had lost a friend. The hollow opening up in him could only be filled with revenge. It was not a choice he made. It was a simple, unbreakable rule that had to be obeyed. Haulvarn had to be avenged.

A wall of spears burst up from the arena floor right in front of Alaric. Alaric slammed into it, bending the spears. He grabbed them and shook them, trying to tear them out or bend them, but they held fast. Skarhaddoth flourished his bloodied hands one last time to the crowd and headed out through the arena doors. Slave creatures hauled them shut behind the champion.

Slavers and armoured warriors were entering the arena, hauling away bodies and manacling the surviving slaves. Several of them converged on Alaric. Alaric wanted to tear them apart, rip out the spears and kick his way through the doors. He wanted to hunt down Skarhaddoth and tear him apart, just as Skarhaddoth had torn apart Haulvarn, but the sight of the closing doors had drained all the strength out of him. His rage was like a great weight on him, like a curse laid on him for failing to avenge his friend.

Lashes cut down into the flesh of his back. He fell to his knees. He wanted all of this to be gone. He wanted oblivion, so he didn't have to remember seeing Haulvarn die. He had never felt so broken.

The pain reached a crescendo, and then Alaric didn't feel anything at all.

'ARE YOU SUPPOSED to have two hearts in mere?' What?'

You've got two hearts, and three lungs, but one of them's a bionic'

Alaric's eyes opened. He was staring at a rusted ceiling, filthy with years of dirt. He ached all over, the pain accented by the faint swaying that told Alaric he was back on the Hecatomb. The light was poor, but it still pounded against Alaric's eyes.

'I'm a s.p.a.ce Marine,' said Alaric.

What,' said the voice, 'on Drakaasi? Throne be praised or d.a.m.ned, I don't know which. How did your kind get here?'

Venalitor,' said Alaric. He sat up, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. He had suffered worse injuries before. He could live with it.

He was at one end of a huge chamber inside the Hecatomb. Banks of cells rose on either side, connected by walkways. The floor was filthy, scattered with straw or piles of rags that might have been p.r.o.ne bodies. Prisoners were everywhere, arguing over gambling games, s.n.a.t.c.hing sleep in comers, whispering conspiratorially. Most of them were human, with a few xenos mixed in. Alaric recognised Gearth idly sharpening a knife in a corner. At the far end was a heap of filth and trash that was evidently home to a group of orks, separated from the other slaves by bars hung with gory orkish trophies. One of the greenskins was the same one-eared ork that Alaric had seen in the arena. About half a dozen more of the creatures squabbled and fought in the shadows. Alaric realised that the isolation cells were probably below this deck. The majority of the slaves lived here, kept isolated by fear of one another more effectively than by the bars of individual cells.

Alaric was sitting on a large, stained iron slab. Standing over him was a pudgy middle-aged man with a beard, wearing an old ap.r.o.n stained almost black with blood. A few blunt medical implements were laid out beside Alaric.

'Haggard,' said the surgeon, 'medical officer second cla.s.s.'

'Justicar Alaric,' replied Alaric. "You were Imperial Guard?'

Haggard shook his head. 'Agrippina Planetary Defence Forces, the Ancient and Honourable Fifty-First Governor's Own Rifles. A whole lot of us surrendered at Mount Dagger. Turns out we should have fought to the death, but the Eye had only just opened. We didn't know what we were facing.'

Alaric tested his shoulder. It would hold, he decided.

'I pulled a handful of metal out of you,' continued Haggard. 'You weren't supposed to survive out there, you know. You were sacrifices to celebrate the last slave revolt.'

There was a revolt?'

'For about half a day: the arena slaves in Aelazadne got organised and broke out. The Ophidian Guard were waiting for them, Lord Ebondrake's personal army. You've seen him?'

The lizard?'

The lizard. The games are celebrating the revolt being crushed.

That's why Ebondrake's champion was there. You were sent there to die.'

'My battle-brother did,' said Alaric. 'Skarhaddoth killed him.'

'I heard, and I know you'll want revenge. It's what I wanted, too.

When Venalitor's army hit Agrippina I lost everyone and everything. But this is Drakaasi, Justicar. Khorne owns this world.

Surviving here is victory enough. You either fight, which is exactly what Venalitor wants you to do, or you die: simple as that. I'm only alive because I'm more useful patching up gladiators than acting as one more piece of arena fodder.'

Then that's what we are,' said Alaric bleakly. *We are tools of the Blood G.o.d.'

'A lot of us chose death instead,' said Haggard. The rest think they'll be saved, or think they can break out on their own. Some of us, like me, are too cowardly to do anything else, and some enjoy the bloodshed, of course.'

'Like Gearth.'

Haggard smiled. 'Gearth's pure psychopath, and he's not the only one. The first thing that happens when Chaos takes a world is that the prisons get emptied. For men like Gearth, Drakaasi's not that different to their old life. There are a few who have plans, of course.

See up there, on the third deck?'

Haggard pointed up to a bank of cells suspended high above.

Alaric followed his gaze and picked out a pale figure in one of the cells, patiently polishing a suit of dark green armour. A sword was propped up against the wall beside him.

'Eldar,' said Alaric, 'more xenos,'

That's Kelhedros,' said Haggard. 'Believe me, my mother taught me to hate the alien just like the preachers said, but Kelhedros is one of the best fighters in Venalitor's stable, and I'll be d.a.m.ned if he doesn't have a plan to get himself out of here.'

'How long do we last?' asked Alaric.

'Depends. A few were here long before me. Most don't make it through their first fight. If you're here at all it means you're tougher than most. Venalitor keeps the best slaves, and carts them around Drakaasi on the Hecatomb to send them out against the other lords'

gladiators. This d.a.m.n planet is one giant temple to blood, and the arenas are the altars. It's a sacred business, you know, all this death.'

Alaric slid off the slab and got to his feet. He was still wearing the piecemeal armour he had been given by the alien slave prior to the arena fight. He would have dearly loved to have his own war gear back.

'In here, you do as you will,' said Haggard. The weak are weeded out quick enough. But try to get anywhere else on the ship and the scaephylyds will know. Venalitor will have you hung from the prow or fed to the greenskins.

Haulvarn, the best soldier Alaric had ever fought alongside.

Haulvarn would have been appointed a justicar with his own squad, and sooner rather than later. He could have risen higher than Alaric, to the ranks of the brother-captains, perhaps even a Grand Master in charge of whole armies and privy to the highest circles of the Ordo Malleus. Haulvarn was gone, and Khorne had taken his share of the death.

'Make sure you stake your claim soon,' said Haggard. 'Plenty of slaves didn't come back today, and there'll be a rush for their cells.

Good ones are rare.'

'I'll do that,' said Alaric. He a saw a group of slaves cl.u.s.tered around one cell. They were on their knees. They were praying.

Alaric went to join them.

SEVEN.

LIEUTENANT ERKHAR RAISED his hands slowly, his eyes turned towards the cell floor. The horrors of this world would be matched by the splendours they would one day witness. They had to remember that, no matter how hard it got.

Erkhar placed his hands palms down on the altar. It was a huge stone head, which had originally belonged to a statue of an idealised human, its face n.o.ble, with a long aristocratic nose and its hair in dense marble curls. It was presumably of some Champion of Chaos or aspect of Khorne, but it had long ceased to serve that purpose. It was beautiful, while so much on Drakaasi was ugly, and forgotten by the planet's overlords. The believers had placed their faith in it. It was the face of the Emperor on Drakaasi, an icon of sin transformed by their faith into something beautiful.

That we must be tested,' began Erkhar, 'is a measure of our faith.

For such faith would mean nothing if we lived lives free of suffering. For every moment of pain, our Emperor, we thank you.