Hammer Of Daemons Part 20

'I'll see what I can do.'

Haggard had chosen his weapons already, a sword and a s.h.i.+eld, laid out on the slab he usually used for operating.

'I'm not going to be sewing anyone back together on this slab again,' he said. 'It's as if I've been chained to the d.a.m.n thing. It's hard to imagine no one ever bleeding on it again.'

The Hammer of Daemons had a medical suite,' said Alaric, recalling the images of the s.h.i.+p from Raezazel's memories, 'autosurgeons, synthi-flesh weavers, maybe even medical servitors.'

Haggard smiled. 'Don't tempt me, Justicar. We have to get there first.'

'And we will. I just have one thing to ask of you. The blade you pulled out of me, do you still have it?'

'The sword? Yes, I have it.' 'I need it.'

'It won't be much of a weapon for you, Justicar. It's no bigger than a dagger.' 'I don't need it for that.'

Very well.' Haggard reached into one of the pouches in his stained ap.r.o.n, and took out a bundle, carefully wrapped in strips of cloth that Haggard used as bandages. He handed it to Alaric.

'I think it's poisoned,' said Haggard. 'I guess you can filter that out. I don't have that luxury, though.'

Alaric unwrapped the bundle. Inside was the shard that Haggard had pulled out of his chest. He thought about the wound it had inflicted. It still hadn't healed completely, and when it did he would stilt have a scar to remind him. The shard was an ugly green-black colour, and its dark metal sweated beads of venom. Haggard was right, without a s.p.a.ce Marine's enhanced metabolism, the poison would have killed him. Alaric had died a dozen times over on Drakaasi, but being a s.p.a.ce Marine meant that none of them had quite counted yet.

What do you plan to use it for?' asked Haggard.

'I'll keep that to myself,' said Alaric, 'if it's all the same to you.'

Then it's your business.' Haggard tested the weight of the sword he had chosen. It was a good choice for a relatively unskilled fighter, short with a broad blade, made for thrusting. It wouldn't save him if he faced someone competent one-on-one, but it was perfect for stabbing into a surprised opponent's stomach. When it happens, Alaric, will you look out for me?'

'I don't know,' replied Alaric simply. 'I will if I can, but it will be too chaotic in the arena to make any promises.'

Then at least, don't leave without me.'

'Everyone's going, Haggard. If anyone thinks you're not among them then they answer to me.'

'I know, it's just... I got left behind once on Agrippina. If it happens again, that's the end. Salvation be d.a.m.ned, I'll just fall on this sword and get it over with.'

'It will not come to that. I can promise that, at least. Now, I need to find a weapon, too. I left my axe buried in an Ophidian Guard at Gorgath.'

'Choose well, Alaric. They'll make you fight the best. You're famous and they want a show.'

We'll give them a show,' said Alaric, 'just not the one they came here to see.'

WITH THEIR BURNING eyes and smouldering skin, the possessed guards were the terror of the prison. They were not so much cruel as calculating, treating the prisoners as subjects to be moulded into suitable arena fodder through fear and brutalisation. Their leader, a hulking thing named Kruulskan, who had a face crushed into a grunting pig-like snout, gave the order for the slaves to be herded from their cells into the preparation chambers.

Above them, the sound of the audience echoed down. Hundreds of thousands of voices were raised in a hymn to blood and violence.

Blood began to seep down the walls as it soaked through the arena sands, freshly let from the throats of the first sacrifices. The cries of the priests cut through the crowd's roar. They were reading Khorne's words from the patterns of blood on the sand, and crying the resulting praises into the stands. It was a familiar sound to Vel'Skan's arena fodder, but never had it rumbled so loudly above them, never had the blood run so thickly down the prison's bra.s.s walls and steel blades.

The preparation chambers held the prison's collection of weapons.

Whips and cruel hooked blades were preferred. The Hathran Guardsmen took the swords that most resembled the cavalry blades with which their forefathers had fought, the horse tribes of their home world that had never seemed so far away. Other slaves, many of them Imperial citizens taken in raids throughout the embattled Eye of Terror, armed themselves with whatever looked like it would keep them alive the longest.

A few of them knew they would never be herded through those preparation chambers again, never suffer again under Kruulskan's whip. They were getting out, or they were dying. They would have to trust a s.p.a.ce Marine, and many of the Hathrans blamed the s.p.a.ce Marines for the disaster at Sarthis Majoris. However, Alaric was as good an ally as they could expect to find on Drakaasi. This was their only chance.

'Now you die!' bellowed Kruulskan, cracking his whip. 'Now you die, you lucky ones! Rejoice! Death is your servant! Welcome him!

Welcome Khorne!

Khorne is your lord! Die for him!' Kruulskan snorted jubilantly. To see the doomed men and women huddled beneath him, arming themselves ready to entertain the great and powerful of Drakaasi, seemed to give the possessed creature great pleasure.

A few of them, those who knew what was to come, simply waited for the real spectacle to begin.

ONE OF THE scaephylyds had come to Alaric and ordered him below decks. Alaric had gone with the creature, knowing that now was not the time to bring suspicion on himself by disobeying. He was herded into an arming chamber beneath the prison decks and told to make ready.

Alaric was famous. It was fitting for someone of his notoriety to look the part. He lad lost his previous war gear at Gorgath, but he would not be replacing it with the piecemeal armour of a slave.

Instead, he would be wearing the armour of the Betrayed.

'I have a great many questions,' said Alaric.

'And so little time,' replied the smith.

Just as when Alaric had encountered him at Karnikhal, the smith was working at an anvil, pinching the last few chainmail links into place with a pair of glowing red tongs. His forge had been set up in one of the many chambers hidden in the Hecatomb's hull, and the smith was silhouetted against its ruddy glow. A stand of armour stood beside him, magnificent and intricate, with hundreds of interlocking plates like the sh.e.l.l of a ma.s.sive insect. It was obvious from its sheer size that it could only have been made for Alaric.

'Who are you?'

'I am you,' said the smith, 'if you ever give up.'

The smith turned around. Alaric instantly recognised the surgical scars and the black carapace just beneath the skin of his chest.

'You are Astartes.'

'No,' said the smith, and his teeth gleamed as he smiled. 'I have not been a s.p.a.ce Marine for so long that time does not mean anything to me. I am like you, captured a long time ago by a lord of this world. That lord is dead, but I still serve.' He looked down at his hands, scarred from a lifetime at the anvil. These hands forged the weapons that killed your comrades on Sarthis Majoris. I am your enemy. I am kept alive and sane because of the skills I still recall, so I serve Chaos as surely as Khorne's own priests. I am not Astartes.'

'What was your Chapter?'

The smith looked up at Alaric. He had room for compa.s.sion in his old scorched face, but it had not seen anything but desperation for a very long time. Its humanity had been eroded away until only the eyes were left.

'I don't remember,' he said, 'but the Hammer, is it real?'

'Yes, the message you sent me at Gorgath was correct, the Hammer is where you said it was. It is a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p.'

The smith's face cracked, as if it was unused to showing genuine relief. 'A s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p! Of course! Not some magical trinket, but a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p! Of all the weapons that might be hidden on Drakaasi, that is the most valuable. That could do them the most harm.' The smith's eyes were alight. 'I had heard only legends, but this is so much more. Do you still have the weapon I left for you at Gorgath?'

'No. I was recaptured and it was taken from me.'

'A shame. I was proud of it.'

'I killed a few men with it.'

Then at least its forging was not wasted.' The smith turned to the armour set up beside him. 'I am to fit you for this.'

'A lot of people will be wagering on whether I live or die, so I suppose I have to be easy to pick out from the crowd.'

'My finest work,' said the smith. 'I have waited a very long time for a warrior like you. It is not merely a matter of protecting the wearer from harm, any piece of rusting iron will do that. The true craft is in bringing the soldier out of the form, to give him a metal skin like a projection of himself, a face to show to the world. It becomes an art, Grey Knight. It is all that stands between me and oblivion, this art.'

Venalitor ordered you to make this?' asked Alaric, examining the intricate plates of the armour and the way they slid over one another like scales on a snake.

'No,' said the smith. 'He ordered me to make you a suit of armour.

This is not merely armour.' 'You can come with us.'

'No, Grey Knight, I cannot. I am compelled to serve. I do not even remember what it must be like to resist. It is only by serving that I have been able to help you, by forging weapons and armour for you as my lords decree.'

You understand what may happen to this world once I have the Hammer!

'Oh yes,' said the smith. 'I am rather looking forward to it.'

Alaric began to put on the armour. It fitted him as perfectly as one of the many enhanced organs of a s.p.a.ce Marine, as if the armour was a part of him that he was being reunited with.

Then this is the last time I shall see you,' said Alaric as he buckled the armour's flexible breastplate around his chest.

'It is.'

You have helped me a great deal.'

'I have done nothing, Grey Knight. You are the Hammer after all, not I.'

Alaric finished fastening die armour around him. It felt as light as his own skin. When he looked up from fixing die greaves around his legs, he saw Venalitor's scaephylyds waiting in the chamber's doorway to escort him back to the prisoner decks.

'Will it suffice?' gurgled one of the creatures.

'It will,' said Alaric.

Then it is time.'

Alaric glanced back once, but the smith was already bent back over his anvil hammering at a half-finished sword.

Then the scaephylyds took Alaric away, and he was gone.

'IT'S STARTED,' SAID Alaric. Venalitor's slaves were in a staging area beneath the main stands, watched over by scaephylyds and warriors of the Ophidian Guard, presumably sent to make sure that Alaric did not start another riot.

'It has,' said Kelhedros. The eldar was in his familiar green armour, and had a couple of swords scabbarded on his back to supplement his chainsword.

Then it is time for you to go.'

The slaves were being loaded directly off the top deck of the Hecatomb into the belly of the arena. The arena structure, embedded in Vel'Skan's forest of blades and spear shafts, was like a ma.s.sive, gnarled sphere festooned with blades. A pa.s.sageway into the arena's underside was lined with armed scaephylyds herding the prisoners along.

'I shall still be alone?'

You have a talent for getting into places you're not supposed to be,' said Alaric. You're the only one who can do it.'

Very well, said Kelhedros. 'I can offer you no promises, human.' 'I expect none, eldar. There's one other thing.' 'Make it quick.'

'Use this.' Alaric handed Kelhedros the shard of the sword that had nearly killed him.

'This?' asked Kelhedros, looking with some disdain at the dagger-sized shard. 'I think my chainsword would make sure enough work.'

'This is poisoned,' said Alaric. 'Believe me, you'll need it, and leave it in the wound to make sure it stays dead.'

Kelhedros didn't answer. He glanced around, gauging the movements of the mult.i.tude of scaephylyd eyes. With a grace that no human could match, the eldar picked his monument and vaulted over the side of the s.h.i.+p. None of the scaephylyds saw him go. The eldar had chosen the precise moment when their primary eyes were elsewhere. Whatever they taught the eldar on the path of the Scorpion, they told them how to go unseen. Alaric didn't hear Kelhedros. .h.i.t the blood below. As far as Alaric knew, the eldar had become completely silent and invisible.

Alaric went with the flow of the slaves as they were forced through the dark pa.s.sages below the arena. The sound of the crowd grew louder. They were chanting, striking up hymns to Khorne or bellowing insults at opposing factions, cheering in salute to their planet's lords and keening their bloodl.u.s.t impatiently. Alaric gripped the haft of the broadsword he had chosen to fight with. He didn't know what was waiting for him on the arena floor, but he knew that if any of the slaves were to get off Drakaasi, he would have to survive it.

There was light ahead. After the darkness of the Hecatomb it seemed impossibly bright. Slaves ahead were stumbling, blinking, onto the arena floor.

Alaric followed them. He heard the voices rise as he emerged into the light of Vel'Skan's arena.

The crowd cheered insanely. This was what they had been waiting for. They had come to see Alaric the Betrayed, and now, at last, they could watch him die.

TWENTY-ONE.

LORD EBONDRAKE'S PALACE was connected directly to the arena by a magnificent gallery of marble and frozen blood. Enormous chandeliers, hung with skulls, cast their light on statues and portraits of Drakaasi's past champions. General Sarcathoth glowered down, a slab of muscle and hatred, who had once ruled half of Drakaasi, rendered in marble, inlaid with red and black. A huge portrait of Lady Malice, the master torturess who had served the planet's lords for centuries, was barely large enough to contain her merciless beauty and the gallery of torture implements hanging behind her. Kerberian the Three-Headed, the Daemon Rajah of Aelazadne, and Morken Kruul, Khorne's own herald, all of them were a reminder of what any lord of Drakaasi had to live up to.

There was a plinth ready for Lord Ebondrake's statue, and when his crusade hit the wounded Imperium he would finally have earned the right to place his own image there.

'I believe,' said Ebondrake as he padded regally along the gallery, 'in keeping you close.'

'It is an honour,' said Venalitor, walking beside him. For once there were no Ophidian Guard or scaephylyds around.

'It also makes it easier for me to recognise betrayal,' continued Ebondrake, 'and to eat you at the first sign of it.'

'Eat me? I had heard you had consumed your enemies in the past, but I did not know if the stories were true.'

'Oh yes, I have eaten many enemies. It hardly does to possess a form like this and not indulge its appet.i.tes. Spies and enemies, and a few sycophants, go straight down this royal gullet. The inconse-quential, I chew before I swallow. Those who truly anger me I force down in one go. I can feel them wriggle as they dissolve, most pleasing.'

'As threats go, Lord Ebondrake, that was one of the more civilly delivered.'

'And necessary. You have potential, Venalitor. Nothing more, but a great deal of it. You are ambitious. No doubt it would suit you to see me dead in my crusade, and then divide my world up with a few other conspirators.' Ebondrake looked up at the portraits and statues marching by. 'All of these rose to power during such a period of stasis, and each of them ended his reign in the same way.

It is the way of Chaos, and the way of Drakaasi. It is my duty to ensure that I stave that fate off for as long as possible. Perhaps the Chamel Lord has approached you, or Scathach, proposing an alliance during the crusade to see me fall and take my world. I would urge you not to listen, Duke Venalitor. I did not reach my position without foiling conspirators more cunning and powerful than you.' .

Venalitor thought about this for a moment. 'It has crossed my mind, my lord. I covet your power, certainly, no sane follower of Khorne would not, but I go where the power is, which means I am by your side. I am more likely to take your place with your blessing than with your opposition. I am young, and there are ways I can outlive you. I am ambitious, yes, but I can be patient.'