25 For 25

by Various

‘Trust me,’ said the warrior next to Grendel, ‘the Skull Harvest weeds out the chaff early on. Only the strongest and most vicious will survive to the end.’

  Honsou nodded and said, ‘You should know, Vaanes. You’ve been here before.’

  Clad in the midnight-black armour of the Raven Guard, Ardaric Vaanes was the polar opposite of Cadaras Grendel; lithe, elegant and handsome. His long dark hair was bound in a tight scalp-lock and his hooded eyes were set in a face that was aquiline and which bore ritual scars on each cheek.

  The former Raven Guard had changed since Honsou had first recruited him to train the Newborn. Honsou had never fully believed that a warrior once loyal to the False Emperor could completely throw off the shackles of his former master, but from what Cadaras Grendel had told him of Vaanes’s actions on the orbital battery above Tarsis Ultra, it seemed such concerns were groundless.

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed Vaanes. ‘And I can’t say I’m happy to be back. This isn’t a place to come to unless you’re prepared for the worst. Especially during the Skull Harvest.’

  ‘We’re prepared for the worst,’ said Honsou, leaning over and lifting the severed head from the floor and depositing it on their table. The dead man’s expression was frozen in surprise, and Honsou wondered if he’d lived long enough to see the bar spinning around as his head rolled across the floor. The skin was waxy and moist, the iconic mark of a red skull branded into its forehead over a tattoo of an eight-pointed star. ‘After all, that’s why we’re here and why I had the Newborn kill this one.’

  Like his warriors, Honsou had changed a great deal since his rise to prominence had begun on Hydra Cordatus. His unique silver arm was new and a bolt-round had pulverised the left side of his face, leaving it a burned and bloody ruin and making a glutinous, fused mess of his eye. That eye had been replaced with an augmetic implant and as much as he had changed physically, Honsou knew that it was nothing compared to the changes wrought within him.

  Vaanes reached over and lifted the head, turning it over and allowing the blood to drip down his gauntlets. Honsou saw Vaanes’s eyes widen as he touched the head, his nostrils flaring as he took in the scents of the dead man, while running his fingers over the cold flesh.

  ‘This was one of Pashtoq Uluvent’s fighters,’ said Vaanes.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A follower of the Blood God,’ said Vaanes, turning the head around and tapping the sigil branded on its forehead. ‘That’s his mark.’

  ‘Is he powerful?’ asked Grendel.

  ‘Very powerful,’ said Vaanes. ‘He has come to the Skull Harvest many times to recruit fighters for his warband.’

  ‘And he’s won?’

  ‘Champions that don’t win the Skull Harvest end up dead,’ said Vaanes.

  ‘Killing one of his men ought to get his attention,’ said Honsou.

  ‘I think it just did,’ said Grendel, nodding towards the bar’s door with a wide grin of anticipation.

  A towering warrior in armour that had once been black and yellow, but which was now so stained with blood that it resembled a deep, rusted burgundy, marched towards their table.

  Grendel reached for his weapon, but Honsou shook his head.

  The warrior’s helm was horned and two long tusks sprouted from beneath the visor of his helmet. Honsou couldn’t tell whether they were part of his armour or his flesh. The same symbol branded into the head was cut into the warrior’s breastplate, and his breath was a rasping growl, like that of a ravenous beast. He carried an axe with a bronze blade that dripped blood and shone with the dull fire of a smouldering forge.

  The warrior planted his axe, blade down, on the floor and banged his fist against his breastplate. ‘I am Vosok Dall, servant of the Skull Throne, and I have come to take your life.’

  Honsou took the measure of the warrior in a heartbeat.

  Vosok Dall was former Astartes, Scythes of the Emperor by the crossed-scythe heraldry on his shoulder guard, but a warrior who now killed in the name of a blood-drenched god that revelled in murder and battle. He would be strong and capable, with a hunger for glory and martial honour unmatched even by those who still fought for the Imperium.

  ‘I thought your Chapter was dead,’ said Honsou, pushing himself to his feet. ‘Didn’t the swarm fleets turn your world into an airless rock?’

  ‘You speak of events that do not concern you, maggot,’ barked Dall. ‘I am here to kill you, so ready your weapon.’

  ‘You see,’ said Honsou, shaking his head. ‘That’s what you followers of the Blood God always get wrong. You always talk too much.’

  ‘No more talk then,’ said Dall. ‘Fight.’

  Honsou didn’t answer, simply sweeping his axe from beside the table. The blade of the weapon was glossy and black, its sheened surface featureless and seeming to swallow any light unfortunate enough to touch it.

  Honsou was fast, but Dall was faster and brought his own axe up to block the strike. The warrior spun the axe and slashed it around in a bifurcating sweep. Honsou ducked and rammed the haft of his weapon into Dall’s gut, spinning away from his opponent’s reverse stroke. The blade passed millimetres from his head and he felt the angry heat that burned within the warp-forged weapon.

  He took a double-handed grip on his axe and widened his stance as Dall came at him. The warrior of the Blood God was fast and his roar of hatred shook the very walls, but Honsou had faced down more terrifying foes than Vosok Dall and lived.

  Honsou stepped to meet the attack, throwing his arm up to block the blow. The axe slashed down and bit deeply, the blade stuck fast into Honsou’s forearm. Like the Newborn and Cadaras Grendel, Honsou wore the naked metal colours of the Iron Warriors, but the arm struck by Vosok Dall’s axe appeared to be incongruously fashioned from the purest, gleaming silver.

  Dall grunted in shock, and Honsou knew this warrior would expect anything he hit with his axe to go down and stay down.

  That shock cost him his life.

  The warrior tugged at his weapon, but the blade was stuck fast and Honsou swung his axe in a mighty downward arc, hammering the glossy black blade through the top of his foe’s skull. The axe smashed through Dall’s helmet, skull and neck before finally lodging in the centre of his sternum.

  Vosok Dall dropped to his knees and toppled onto his side, his dead weight dragging Honsou with him. Dall’s entire body convulsed as the malevolent warp beast bound to Honsou’s axe ripped his soul apart for sport.

  Blood fanned from the cloven skull in a flood of crimson, and even as Dall’s soul was devoured, his grip remained strong on his weapon.

  A bright orange line, like that of a welder’s acetylene torch hissed around the edge of where Dall’s axe was buried in Honsou’s arm and the weapon fell free with a crescent-shaped bite taken from it. Even as Honsou watched, the fiery lustre of the blade faded as its power passed into Honsou’s weapon.

  Where Dall’s blade had penetrated Honsou’s arm was unblemished and smooth, as though it had come straight from the silversmith’s workbench. Honsou neither knew nor cared about the source of the arm’s power to heal itself, it was enough that it had saved him once again.

  He rose to his full height, standing triumphant over the dead body of Vosok Dall as the patrons of the bar stared in amazement at him.

  ‘I am Honsou of the Iron Warriors!’ he bellowed, lifting his axe high over his head. ‘I am here for the Skull Harvest and I am afraid of no man. Any warrior who thinks he is worthy of joining me should make himself known at my camp. Look for the banner of the Iron Skull on the northern promontory.’

  A man in a battered flak vest with a long rifle slung over his shoulder and a battered Guardsman’s helmet jammed onto his rugged features stood up as Honsou made his way to the door.

  ‘Every warlord that comes in here thinks he’s got a big plan,’ said the man. ‘What’s so special about yours? Most of them never come back, so why should I fight for you?’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Pettar. Hain Pettar.
’

  ‘Because I’m going to win, Hain Pettar.’

  ‘They all say that,’ said Pettar.

  Honsou shouldered his axe and said, ‘The difference is I mean it.’

  ‘So, who you planning to fight if you live through the Skull Harvest?’

  Honsou grinned. ‘The worlds of Ultramar are going to burn in the fires of my crusade.’

  ‘Ultramar?’ said Pettar. ‘Now I know you’re crazy; that fight’s suicide.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Honsou. ‘But maybe not, and if it’s not a fight worth making, then this galaxy has run out of things to live for.’

  The mountain city simmered with tension and threat. Warriors of all size and description thronged the paths, squares and narrow alleys that twisted between the city’s ramshackle structures of brick and junk. This close to the Skull Harvest, the city’s inhabitants were on edge, hands hovering near the contoured handles of pistols and skin-wrapped sword grips. Honsou could read the currents of threat as clearly as the transformed magos, Adept Cycerin, could read the currents of the empyrean and knew violence was ready to erupt at any second.

  Which was just as it should be.

  The sky was the colour of a smeared borealis, swirling with unnatural hues known only to the insane. Lightning flashed in aerial whirlpools and Honsou tore his gaze from the pleasing spectacle. Only the unwary dared stare into the abyss of such skies and he grinned as he remembered his flesh playing host to one of the creatures that dwelled beyond the lurid colours.

  The streets were sloping thoroughfares of hard-packed earth, and Honsou scanned the crowds around them for an old enemy, a new rival or simply a warrior looking to make a name for himself by killing someone like him.

  Hawkers and charlatans lined the streets, filling the air with strange aromas, chants and promises, each offering pleasures and wares that could only be found in a place this deep in the Maelstrom; nightmare-flects, blades of daemon-forged steel, carnal delights with warp-altered courtesans, opiates concocted from the immaterial substance of void-creatures and promises of eternal youth.

  In addition to the swaggering pirate bands, mercenary kin-broods and random outcasts, lone warriors stood at street corners, boasting of their prowess while demonstrating their skills. A grey-skinned loxatl climbed the brickwork of a dark tower, its armature weapons flexing and aiming without apparent need for hands. A robed Scythian distilled venom before a gathered audience, while a band of men and women in heavy armour demonstrated sword and axe skills. Others spun firearms, took shots at hurled targets and displayed yet more impressive feats of exceptional marksmanship.

  ‘Any of them taking your fancy?’ asked Cadaras Grendel, nodding towards the martial displays.

  Honsou shook his head. ‘No, these are the chaff. The real warriors of skill won’t show their hand so early.’

  ‘Like we just did?’ said Vaanes.

  ‘We’re new here,’ explained Honsou. ‘I needed to get my name into circulation, but I’ll let Pashtoq Uluvent build it for me when he comes against us.’

  ‘You had me kill that man to provoke an attack on us?’ queried the Newborn.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Honsou. ‘I need the warriors gathered here to know me and respect me, but I can’t go around like these fools telling people how powerful I am. I’ll get others to do that for me.’

  ‘Assuming we survive Uluvent’s retaliation.’

  ‘There’s always that,’ agreed Honsou. ‘But I never said this venture wouldn’t be without some risk.’

  They made their way through the streets of the city, following a path that took them through areas of bleak night, searing sunlight and voids of deadened sound where every step seemed to take a lifetime. Coming from Medrengard, a world deep in the Eye of Terror, Honsou was no stranger to the chaotic flux of worlds touched by the warp, but the capricious nature of the environment around the mountain was unsettling.

  He looked towards the mountain’s summit, where the mighty citadel of this world’s ruler squatted like a vast crown of black stone. Hewn from the rock of the mountain, the entire peak had been hollowed out and reshaped into a colossal fortress from which its master plotted his sector-wide carnage.

  Curved redoubts and precisely angled bastions cut into the rock dominated the upper reaches of the mountain and coils of razor wire, like an endless field of thorns, carpeted every approach to its great, iron-spiked barbican.

  Honsou’s Iron Warrior soul swelled with pleasure at the sight of so formidable a fortress.

  Mighty defensive turrets protected the fortress, armed with guns capable of bringing down the heaviest spaceship and smashing any armada that dared come against this place.

  Even in its prime, Khalan-Ghol could not have boasted so fearsome an array of weapons.

  Ardaric Vaanes leaned in close and pointed to a nearby gun emplacement aimed at the heavens. ‘Big guns never tire, isn’t that what he always says?’

  ‘So it’s said,’ agreed Honsou, ‘but if what happened on Medrengard taught me anything, it’s that fortresses are static and it’s only a matter of time until someone attacks you. This place is impressive, right enough, but my days of fortress building are over.’

  ‘I never thought I’d hear an Iron Warrior say he was tired of fortresses.’

  ‘I’m not tired of fortresses, Vaanes,’ said Honsou with a grin. ‘I’m just directing my energies in bringing them to ruin.’

  Honsou had based his warriors on a northern promontory of the mountain, a site that offered natural protection in the form of sheer cliffs on three sides that dropped thousands of metres to the valley floor. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a poor site for a fortress, as it could easily be blockaded, but Honsou had no intention of staying for any length of time and his warband had cleared the promontory of its former occupants in a brutal firefight that had seen them hurling their captives to their doom as an offering to the gods.

  The Iron Skull flew over Honsou’s temporary fortress, a graceless collection of gabions fashioned from linked sections of thick wire mesh lined with heavy-duty fabric and filled with sand, earth, rocks and gravel. A line of these blocky gabions stretched across the width of the promontory, and yet more had been stacked to form towers where heavy weapons could be mounted.

  In truth, it was more of a defensive wall than a fortress and wasn’t a patch on even the lowliest Warsmith’s citadel on Medrengard, but it was as strong as he could make it and should suffice for the length of the Skull Harvest.

  An adamantine gate swung outwards as Honsou and the others approached, the guns mounted on the blocky towers either side of it tracking them until they passed inside. Two dozen Iron Warriors manned the walls, their armour dusty and scored by the planet’s harshly unpredictable climate. The remainder of Honsou’s force was spread throughout the camp or aboard the Warbreed, the venerable ship that had brought them here and which now moored uneasily among the fleets in orbit around this world.

  Honsou marched directly to an iron-sheeted pavilion at the centre of his camp, itself protected by more of the blocky, earth-filled gabions. His banner snapped and fluttered in the wind, the Iron Skull seeming to grin with a mocking sneer, as though daring the world to attack. Grendel, Vaanes and the Newborn followed him past the two hulking warriors in Terminator armour guarding the entrance to the pavilion. Each of the giant praetorians was armed with a long, hook-bladed pike and looked like graven metal statues, their bodies as inflexible as their hearts.

  Inside the pavilion, the walls were hung with maps depicting arcs of the galaxy, planetary orbits, system diagrams and a variety of mystical sigils scrawled on pale sheets of skin, both human and alien. An iron-framed bed sat in the centre of the space, surrounded by bare metal footlockers filled with books and scrolls. A trio of smoking braziers filled the pavilion with the heady scent of burning oils said to draw the eyes of the gods.

  Honsou set his axe upon a rack of weapons and poured himself a goblet of water from a copper ewer. He didn’t of
fer any to his champions and took a long draught before turning to face them.

  ‘So,’ he began, ‘What do you make of our first foray?’

  Grendel helped himself to a goblet of water and said, ‘Not bad, though I didn’t get to kill anything. If this Pashtoq Uluvent is as mad as all the other followers of the Blood God I’ve met, then we shouldn’t have to wait too long for his response.’

  ‘Vaanes? What do you think? You’ve fought in one of these before, what happens next?’

  ‘First you’ll be summoned to the citadel to pay homage,’ said Vaanes, idly lifting a book from the footlocker nearest the bed. ‘Then there will be a day of sacrifices before the contests begin.’

  ‘Homage,’ spat Honsou. ‘I detest the word. I give homage to no man.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ said Vaanes. ‘But you’re not so powerful you can break the rules.’

  Honsou nodded, though it sat ill with him to bow and scrape before another, even one as infamous as the master of this world. He snatched the book Vaanes held and set it down on the bed.

  ‘And after all this homage and sacrifice, what happens after that?’

  ‘Then the killings begin,’ said Vaanes, looking in puzzlement at him. ‘The leaders of the various warbands challenge one another for the right to take their warriors. Mostly their champions answer these challenges, for only when the stakes are highest do the leaders enter the fray.’

  ‘These challenges, are they straight up fights?’ asked Honsou.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Vaanes. ‘The last one usually is, but they can take any form before that. You almost never know until you set foot in the arena what you’ll be up against. I’ve seen clashes of tanks, bare-knuckle fighting to the death, battles with xenos monsters and psychic duels. You never know.’

  ‘That mean I’ll maybe get to kill something?’ said Grendel with undisguised relish.

  ‘I can as good as guarantee it,’ replied Vaanes.

  ‘Then we need to know what we’re up against,’ said Honsou. ‘If we’re going to get ourselves an army, we need to know who we’re taking it from.’