XII
HE WAS GETTING farther ahead, weaving through a forest of stone columns and rockcrete walls, far enough for Alajos to warn him, ‘Caution, brother. We’re being hunted.’
‘Why haven’t you summoned the Ninth Order?’
Alajos grunted in response. ‘I already have. A drop-pod assault will still take seven minutes to reach us.’
Corswain moved to another pillar, his eyes gleaming red and his tabard turned cream in the gloom. ‘I’m going to help the Lion.’
‘Corswain…’ Alajos warned again. ‘He needs none of our help to slay that ghoul.’
‘I saw him go down into the dust.’ Corswain risked another glance. The fortress’s foundations were a forest of stone columns and walls, and the wind whipping through the crater stole any hope of hearing the Night Lords’ armour thrumming.
‘What did you see?’ Alajos’s voice came more hesitantly now, ripe with doubt.
‘The revenant leapt at the Lion. They went down into the dust.’ Corswain listened to the wind clawing at his helm, muffled to dull buffeting. ‘I think I see them. Cover me.’
‘Wait!’
He didn’t wait. He sprinted through the construction site, falling under fire almost immediately. Sheng.It had to be. Corswain weaved through fire from his left, ignoring Alajos’s warning cries. Several shells struck home, ripping chunks from his war plate and sending black armour shards cracking against the stone walls. Each detonating shell kicked like a warhorse, knocking him off-balance, but he could focus on nothing but the Lion lying in the dirt, his slack neck in a heretic’s grip.
The enemy fire ceased. Alajos was breathless over the vox, ‘I’ll… kill Sheng.’ The audible clashing of blades served as percussion to the words. The captain already battled the Night Lord. ‘Behind you!’ he threw another warning over the vox.
As Corswain tore closer to the prone figure of his liege lord, the snarl of a chainblade throttling up came from behind. He didn’t turn as Sevatar finally made himself known, never breaking the headlong sprint.
‘I can outrun him,’ he whispered into the vox. The chainspear’s growl was already fading. His hearts thudded as hard as a warhorse’s hooves on the snowy ground. Around pillars, over low walls, he sprinted and weaved, doing all he could in case Sevatar opened fire.
Behind him, only silence. Over the vox, the crash of blade on blade.
‘Brother,’ Alajos voxed, ‘keep running.’ The tone of his voice was enough to make Corswain turn, though he didn’t slow down. After vaulting another wall, he looked over his cloaked shoulder just in time to see his captain die.
XIII
ALAJOS WAS MANY things beside his rank of Ninth Captain: a loyal son; a dutiful knight; a gifted tactician; and a warrior with a head for the detailed logistics of planning and organising a crusade force. He was also one of the finest swordsmen in the First Legion, and had once lasted almost a full minute in a spar with his primarch.
He suspected the number of Legiones Astartes warriors capable of besting him numbered fewer than twenty across all the Legions. Ezekyle Abaddon of the traitorous Sons was one; Jubal Khan of the Scars another; and Templar Sigismund of the Fists definitely another.
As was Sevatar. His name joined the others, coursing through both sides of the Imperial Civil War, cheered by some, cursed by others.
Sheng was Nostraman gutter trash – he offered almost no threat at all despite being his primarch’s huscarl. When Alajos assured Corswain he would kill the Night Lord, it hadn’t been false bravado. He could, and would, do just that. The first clashes of blade on blade told Alajos all he needed to know about the other warrior’s form: Sheng was an aggressive killer, seeking to stab rather than chop, dodging rather than blocking. But the tells betrayed him, as they always did to those who knew what to seek. Sheng was slower than Alajos. Weaker. Less experienced. He overbalanced when he dodged. He missed the perfect angle of his blade each time he parried.
Appallingly inelegant swordwork. He’d be dead in minutes. Alajos engaged him and held nothing back, utterly convinced of victory.
When Sevatar finally broke cover behind Corswain, Alajos had whispered his warning. Corswain chose to run on. Sevatar, curse his eyes, chose not to pursue. Alajos had watched Corswain’s pounding boots breed more distance between them, while Sevatar stalked back to aid his foul brother, Sheng.
Alajos backed away from them both now, his blade up to guard against Sheng’s stabbing sword and Sevatar’s grinding halberd. The Night Lords stalked closer, stolen skulls and Dark Angel helms clacking against their ceramite war plate as they dangled on chains.
On a whim, Alajos tore the helm from his head. If this was the end, then by the Emperor’s blood, it would be done properly. He raised his blade in salute to them both, ceremonially kissing the hilt as he watched them come closer.
The blade lowered, at the ready.
‘I am Alajos,’ he told them. ‘Captain of the Ninth Order of the First Legion. Brother to all knights, son to one world, sworn to one lord.’
Sevatar lowered his halberd with a lance’s intent. The whirring teeth chewed air with a petulant whine. ‘I am Sevatar the Condemned,’ he growled, ‘and I will wear your skin as a cloak before dawn ruins the sky.’
‘Come then,’ Alajos chuckled, though never in life had he felt less like laughing. They charged as one, a short blade and cutting spear descending in the same moment. The Angel parried, barely, his long sword catching both strikes with awkward grace. All the while he surrendered ground, backing away, drawing the Night Lords with him.
In his own Legion, only two knights had managed to beat him in the sparring circles. One was Astelan, absent these past years from the Great Crusade. The other was Corswain, Paladin of the Ninth Order, bearer of the Mantle of the Champion.
With Alajos’s death, he would buy his brother’s life.
‘Brother,’ he voxed, ‘keep running.’
XIV
CORSWAIN’S RETINAL DISPLAY blurred as it refocused. The autosenses obeyed his impulse, tracking the distant movement and zooming to capture Alajos backing away from his attackers. It ended with humiliating speed, despite the captain parrying several strikes in a matter of heartbeats. Even at this distance, Sevatar was a blur of movement in grainy night-vision, his long halberd cutting and chopping, coming closer to digging into the Angel’s armour with each strike.
The end came when Sheng’s blade plunged into Alajos’s thigh, driving the knight down to one knee. The Angel’s return cut cleaved through the Night Lord’s forearm, chopping the hand – and the sword it held – free. Even as Sheng was staggering back, Sevatar let his blade fall.
Corswain saw his brother’s head roll clear of the armoured shoulders, the murder that failed all those months ago finally finished.
He turned and ran again, rounding the final pillar. Alajos’s sacrifice bought him precious seconds. He used them to hurl himself onto the primarch’s back, driving his sword through the spine of one of the Emperor’s sons.
XV
CURZE SCREAMED, his ghastly face raised to the sky. More blood drizzled from his pale lips as the insane pressure in his back and chest increased, until his breastplate gave way with a brittle crackthat split the night. The wounded demigod clutched at the sword tip poking from below his collarbone, screaming like a man doused in chemical fire. More than a shriek of pain, it was an aural assault in itself, sending Corswain staggering back. The knight’s grip slipped from his blade – in desperation he clutched at whatever he could reach. One hand fisted in the primarch’s lank black hair, the other snagged a thick chain hanging from Curze’s pauldron.
The Night Lord primarch staggered to his feet, hauling the struggling warrior up with him. Corswain yanked the primarch’s head back, pulling out a fistful of tangled hair, while ripping the bronze chain from the shoulder guard gave him a weapon. Instead of lashing it against the primarch’s skull as a whip, he slapped it around Curze’s throat, holding tight to both ends. The cold metal garrotte tightened as the Night Lord stumbled and thrashed. Corswain tugged harder, hearing the soft, wet clicks of vertebrae giving way beneath Curze’s ragged gasps.