The higher they climbed, the more Honsou felt his appreciation for the design of this fortress shift from grudging admiration to awe. It was constructed with all the cunning of the most devious military architect, yet eschewed the brutal functionality common to the Iron Warriors for a malicious spite in some of the more deadly traps.
At last, they emerged within an enclosed esplanade lined with pillars and crowned with what could only be the outer hull plates of a spaceship. The metal was buckled and scored from multiple impacts, the sheeting blackened and curved where the intense heat of laser batteries had pounded the armour to destruction.
A great, thorn-patterned gate stood open at the end of the esplanade and a hundred warriors in power armour lined the route they must take through it. Each of the warriors was armoured differently, a multitude of colours and designs, some so old they were the image of that worn by Honsou. Only one thing unified these warriors, a jagged red cross painted through the Chapter insignia worn on their left shoulder guard.
The emissary led them down this gauntlet of warriors, and Honsou saw Salamanders, Night Lords, Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Flesh Tearers, Iron Hands and a dozen other Chapters. He noted with grim amusement that no Ultramarines made up these warriors’ numbers and doubted that any of Macragge’s finest would be found in this garrison.
Beyond the gateway, the fortress became a gaudy palace, a golden wonder of fabulous, soaring design that was completely at odds with the external solemnity of its design. Honsou found the interior garish and vulgar, its ostentation the antithesis of his tastes, such as they were. This was not the palace of a warlord; it was the domain of a decadent egotist. Then again, he should not have been surprised, after all, wasn’t it his monstrous ego and megalomania that had brought the citadel’s builder low in the first place? At last they came to a set of gilded doors, taller than a warlord titan, which swung open in a smooth arc to reveal a grand throne room of milky white marble and gold. The sounds of voices and armoured bodies came from beyond and, as Honsou and his retinue followed the emissary through, they saw the towering form of a daemonic Battle Titan serving as the backdrop to a tall throne that sat on a raised dais at the far end of the chamber.
A hundred captured battle flags hung from the vaulted ceiling and the chamber was thick with warriors of all sizes and descriptions.
‘I thought this summons was just for us,’ said Honsou.
‘What made you think that?’ replied Vaanes. ‘Did you think you were a special case?’
Honsou ignored the venomous relish in Vaanes’s words and didn’t reply. He had thought the summons was for him and him alone, but saw how foolish that belief had been. This was the Skull Harvest and every warrior gathered here would be thinking that he alone would be the victor.
He saw a profusion of horns, crimson helms, glittering axes and swords, alien creatures in segmented armour and a riotous profusion of standards, many depicting one of the glorious sigils of the Dark Gods.
‘Should we have brought a standard?’ hissed Honsou, leaning close to Ardaric Vaanes.
‘We could have, but it wouldn’t have impressed him.’
‘There is fear in this room,’ said the Newborn. ‘I can sense it flowing through this place like the currents of the warp.’
Honsou nodded. Even he could sense the lurking undercurrent of unease that permeated the throne room. The throne itself was empty, a carved block of thorn-wrapped onyx that would surely dwarf any man who sat upon it, even a Space Marine.
He turned as his instincts for danger warned him of threat and his hand snatched to his sword hilt as a looming shadow enveloped him.
‘You are Honsou?’ said a booming voice like the sound of tombstones colliding.
‘I am,’ he said, looking up into the furnace eyes of a warrior clad in vivid red battle plate that was scarred and burned with the fires of battle and which resembled the lined texture of exposed muscle. His shoulder guards were formed from an agglomerated mass of bones, upon which was carved the icon of a planet being devoured between a set of fanged jaws.
Upon a heavily scored breastplate of fused ribs, Honsou saw a red skull branded over the insignia of an eight-pointed star and knew who stood before him. The warrior’s blazing eyes were set deep within a helmet fashioned from a skull surely taken from the largest greenskin imaginable, and they were fixed on Honsou in an expression of controlled rage.
‘Pashtoq Uluvent, I presume,’ said Honsou.
‘I am the Butcher of Formund, the bloodstorm of the night that takes the skulls of the blessed ones for the Master of the Brazen Throne,’ said the giant and Honsou smelled the odour of spoiled blood upon Uluvent’s armour.
‘What do you want?’ said Honsou. ‘Didn’t you lose enough men attacking my compound?’
‘Simple blood sacrifices,’ said Uluvent. ‘A statement of challenge.’
‘You let your men die just to issue a challenge?’ said Honsou, impressed despite himself.
‘They were nothing, fodder to show my displeasure. But Vosok Dall was a chosen warrior of my warband and his death must be avenged with yours.’
‘Many have tried to kill me,’ said Honsou, squaring his shoulders before the champion of the Blood God, ‘but none have succeeded, and they were a lot tougher than you.’
Uluvent chuckled, the mirthless noise sounding as though it issued from a benighted cavern at the end of the world, and reached up to tap Honsou’s forehead. ‘When the Harvest begins, you and I shall meet on the field of battle and your mongrel skull will be mounted on my armour.’
Before Honsou could reply, Pashtoq Uluvent turned and marched away. Honsou felt his anger threaten to get the better of him, and only quelled the urge to shoot Uluvent in the back with conscious effort.
‘It’ll be a cold day in the warp before that happens,’ he hissed as the Battle Titan’s warhorn let out a discordant bray of noise; part fanfare, part roar of belligerence. The harsh wall of noise echoed around the chamber, reverberating from the pillars and reaching into every warrior’s bones with its static-laced scrapcode.
Honsou blinked as he saw that the throne at the foot of the Battle Titan was now occupied. Had it been occupied a moment ago? He would have sworn that it had been empty, but sat like a great king of old upon the onyx throne was a towering warrior in crimson armour edged in gold. A halo of blades wreathed his pallid, ashen face and his right arm was a monstrous claw with unsheathed blades that shimmered with dark energies.
A great axe was clasped in this mighty king’s other hand and his merciless eyes swept the warriors assembled before him with a searching gaze that left no secret unknown to him. At his shoulder squatted a chittering, reptilian beast that wrapped its slimy flesh around the vents of the warrior’s backpack.
The howl of the titan’s warhorn ceased abruptly and all eyes turned to the warrior king upon the onyx throne. Every champion in the room dropped to one knee at the sight of so mighty a warlord.
Huron Blackheart.
The Tyrant of Badab.
AT LENGTH THE Tyrant spoke, his voice booming and powerful. A voice used to command. A voice that had convinced three Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes to side with him against their brothers. A voice belonging to a warrior who had survived the death of half his body and not only lived, but returned stronger and more deadly than ever.
Though he tried not to be, Honsou couldn’t help but be impressed.
‘I see many hungry faces before me,’ said the Tyrant. ‘I see warlords and corsairs, mercenaries and outcasts, renegades and traitors. What you were before you came here does not interest me, all that matters in the Skull Harvest is who is the strongest.’
Huron Blackheart rose to his feet and stepped from the dais to move amongst those who came before him. The loathsome creature at his shoulder hissed and spat, the pigments of its mottled hide running from spotted to scaled and back again in a heartbeat. Its eyes were black gems, devoid of expression, yet Honsou sensed malignant intelligence behind them.
A warrior in the armour of the Astral Claws, the Tyrant’s former Chapter, followed behind Huron Blackheart and Honsou sensed a darkly radiant power within him, as though what lurked beneath the ceramite plates was something no longer wholly human. Accompanying this warrior was a tall woman of startling appearance, with features so thin as to be emaciated. Her dark hair was pulled severely back from her face and cascaded to her ankles. Golden flecks danced in her eyes and her emerald robes hung from her thin frame as though intended for someone more generously proportioned. She carried a heavy ebony staff topped with a horned skull. Honsou recognised a sorceress when he saw one.
As Huron Blackheart made his way through the crowds of warriors, Honsou saw that the size of the man’s throne was not simply an exercise in vanity; he dwarfed even the mightiest of his supplicants.
No wonder the piratical fleets that raided the shipping lanes around New Badab were the terror of the Imperium’s shipmasters. Blackheart’s reavers plagued the worlds of the Corpse-Emperor from the Tyrant’s bases scattered around the Maelstrom, bringing him plunder, slaves, weapons and, most importantly, ships.
The Tyrant and his bodyguards moved through his throne room and the warriors gathered before him bowed and scraped. Honsou felt his lip curl in distaste.
‘They worship him like he was a god,’ he said.
‘On New Badab he might as well be,’ said Vaanes. ‘He has the power of life and death over everyone here.’
‘Not me, he doesn’t.’
‘Even you,’ promised Vaanes.
‘Then I’ll be sure to keep my thoughts to myself.’
Vaanes chuckled. ‘That’ll be a first, but it doesn’t matter. That creature on his shoulder, the Hamadrya, is said to be able to see into the hearts of men and whisper their darkest thoughts in the Tyrant’s ear. Imperial assassins have tried to slay Blackheart for decades, but none have ever come close, the Hamadrya senses their thoughts long before they get near.’
Honsou nodded at Vaanes’s words, watching the unseemly displays of fealty and obeisance made by the various warlords and corsair chieftains. He looked across the throne room and saw that Pashtoq Uluvent also kept himself aloof from such toadying, and his respect for the warrior went up a notch.
Then the Tyrant turned his gaze on Honsou and he felt the blood drain from his face and a chill touch of fear run the length of his spine. It was a sensation new to Honsou and he liked it not at all. The Tyrant of Badab’s thin, lipless mouth smiled, exposing teeth sharpened to razor points, and Honsou found himself helpless before the warrior’s gimlet gaze.
The warriors parted before the Tyrant as he strode towards Honsou, the claws of his huge gauntlet alive with baleful energies and the Hamadrya hissing in animal rage.
Huron Blackheart was a giant of a warrior, his already formidable physique boosted by cybernetic augmentation and the blessings of the Dark Gods. Honsou’s head came to the centre of the Tyrant’s chest plate and though it galled him to do so, he was forced to look up to the lord of New Badab.
He felt as though he were a morsel held helpless before some enormous predator or a particularly rare specimen about to be pinned to the board of a collector. The Tyrant stared at him until Honsou felt he could stand no more, then transferred his gaze to the Newborn and Ardaric Vaanes.
‘This one is touched by the raw power of the warp,’ said the Tyrant, lifting the Newborn’s head with the tips of his claws. ‘Powerful and unpredictable, but very dangerous. And you…’
This last comment was addressed to Ardaric Vaanes and with the Newborn forgotten, the Tyrant turned Vaanes’s shoulder guard with the blade of his axe, nodding as he saw the red cross of the Red Corsairs.
‘I know you,’ said the Tyrant. ‘Vaanes. Late of the Raven Guard. You fight for another now?’
‘I do, my lord,’ said Vaanes, bowing before his former master.
‘This half-breed?’
‘The last person who called me that ended up dead,’ snarled Honsou.
Without seeming to move, the Tyrant’s claw shot out and punched into Honsou’s breastplate, lifting him from his feet. Honsou could feel the cold, dark metal of the claws digging at the flesh of his chest, the force of the Tyrant’s blow precisely measured. ‘And the last person who failed to show me respect in my own throne room suffers now at the hands of my most skilled daemonic torturers. They tear his soul apart each day then reclaim its soiled fragments from the warp and the process begins anew. He has suffered this agony for eight decades and I have no inclination to end his torments. You wish a similar fate?’
Honsou’s life hung by a thread, yet he still managed defiance in his tone. ‘No, my lord, I do not, but I am no longer the half-breed. I am a Warsmith of the Iron Warriors.’
‘I know who you are, warrior,’ said the Tyrant. ‘The immaterium gibbers with your slaughters and the corruption you have wrought. I know why you are here and have seen the path of your fate. You will wreak havoc in the realm of the Corpse-Emperor’s worshippers, but those you have wronged will shake the heavens to see you dead. Yet for all your arrogance and bitterness, you have something most others lack.’
‘And what’s that?’ spat Honsou.
‘You have a grand vision of revenge and the chance that you might succeed is all that stays my hand.’
Huron Blackheart then turned his attention back to Vaanes and said, ‘You wear my marking upon your armour, Ardaric Vaanes, but I sense that you serve a power greater than this half-breed. Just remember that the Dark Prince is a jealous lord and suffers no other masters but he.’
Blackheart sheathed his blades and Honsou dropped to the floor of the throne room, breathless and chilled to the bone from the touch of the Tyrant’s claws. The breath heaved in his chest and he felt the nearness of death as a cold shroud upon his heart. He looked up, but the Tyrant had already moved away.
As Honsou picked himself up, he saw the Tyrant’s sorceress stare with naked interest at the Newborn, her eyes lingering long over the stitched nightmare of its dead fleshmask. Blackheart climbed the dais to his throne and turned to address the gathered champions with his axe and claw raised above his head.
‘Any warrior who dares to bare his neck in the Skull Harvest should present his blade upon the Arena of Thorns when the Great Eye opens. Blood will be spilled, the weak will die and the victor shall benefit greatly from my patronage.’
The Tyrant lowered his voice, yet its power was still palpable and Honsou felt as though the words were spoken just for him. ‘But know this: the gods are watching and they will rend the souls of the unworthy for all eternity.’
IN DAYS THAT followed, Honsou’s warriors explored the city on the flanks of the Tyrant’s mountain, learning all they could in preparation for the violence to come. Warbands were identified and their warriors observed, for each warlord was keen to display the prowess of his fighters and champions.
Ardaric Vaanes watched the sensual slaughters of Notha Etassay’s blade dancers, a troupe of decadent warrior priests to whom no sensation of the blade was unknown and whose every kill was performed with the utmost grace and enjoyment. Notha Etassay, an androgynous beauty of uncertain sex, bade Vaanes spar with them and, upon tasting his blood, immediately offered him a place within the troupe.
With every battle he fought, Vaanes felt the vicarious thrill of the kill as every sensation of the graceful ballet of blades was channelled through every warrior priest. It was only with great regret that Vaanes declined Etassay’s offer of a bond ritual with the troupe.
Unimpressed with the delicate bladework of Notha Etassay, Cadaras Grendel left Vaanes and the Newborn to their sport and spent his days watching the blood games of Pashtoq Uluvent’s warriors as they hacked their way through naked slave gangs. Their victims were armed with little more than knives and raw terror, and such brutal murders were more to Grendel’s liking. Soon he found himself wetting his blades with blood in Uluvent’s arena. Such was his bloodlust that within the hour he was granted an audience upo
n the killing floor by Pashtoq Uluvent himself.
Those battle machines of Votheer Tark that could be brought up the mountain roared and rampaged, their engines howling like trapped souls as they crushed prisoners beneath their tracks or tore them limb from limb with clawed pincer arms. Kaarja Salombar’s corsairs staged flamboyant displays of marksmanship and sword mastery, but Vaanes was unimpressed, having seen the exquisite bladework of Notha Etassay’s devotees.
Honsou himself ventured little from behind his walls, his every waking moment spent in contemplation of the ancient tomes he had brought from Khalan-Ghol. What he sought within their damned pages he would not reveal, but as the days passed, his obsession with the secrets contained in the mad ravings committed to the page grew ever deeper.
The Newborn stayed close to Ardaric Vaanes, watching the killings and displays of martial ability with a dispassionate eye. It was stronger and more skilful than the majority of the warriors here, yet only recently had it begun to take pleasure in the infliction of pain and death. Differing angels warred within its mind; the teachings of its creator and the buried instincts and memories of the gene-heritage bequeathed to it by Uriel Ventris.
Of all the warrior bands gathered for the Skull Harvest, the Newborn was most fascinated by the loxatl, a band of alien mercenaries that laired in burrows hollowed from the sides of the mountain. Vaanes and the Newborn watched the fighting drills of the loxatl on a patch of open ground before these caves.
The leader of this brood-group was a kin leader who went by the name of Xaneant. Whether this was the creature’s true name or one foisted upon it by human tongues was unclear, but the Newborn was impressed by the alien mercenaries, liking their fluid, sinuous movements and utter devotion to the members of their brood.
Something in that kin-bond was achingly familiar and the Newborn wondered where the sense of belonging it felt came from. Was it responding to a memory buried deep within its altered brain or was this a fragment of the psyche the Daemonculaba had stamped upon it?
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