‘He is false,’ Kass rasped, as though every word he uttered were an agony. ‘Do not listen to him, captain…’
‘I applaud your broad thinking, Jonah Kerne,’ Gull Khan went on. ‘There are not many of our kind who would have indulged the machinations of the eldar to the degree you have. Did you know that it was they who were jamming all your vox transmissions? We tried also of course, but they are so much better at it. And I take it they exacted a price for relaying your messages back to Phobian… how very clever of them – and how obtuse of you.’
Kerne said nothing. He did not know if this thing uttered truth or falsehood or a blend of the two, but something in him flared up in outrage all the same.
‘You were fooled twice, captain,’ Gull Khan went on. ‘Once by us, and once by the eldar witch who is now safe in the fortress at your back.’ He looked up at the smoking ruins of the colossus cannons, their barrels bent back like the petals of shattered flowers.
‘But you are certainly enterprising, all the same. I did not expect this move.’ Something in his face flickered just for a moment – it was a kind of doubt. Once again, he looked at the bright morning sky, as though he expected something to appear in it.
‘I give you a choice, now, brother.’ He came closer, and the Dark Hunters raised their weapons.
‘Join us,’ he said simply. ‘Just you, Jonah Kerne – join us now – walk across that line, and I will spare your remaining brethren, and whosoever else you wish to save. They can walk out of Askai with their weapons and their lives, and go whither they wish. I have no use for them, and no need to kill any more of your prized Mortai Company.
‘Take my hand now, and I swear by the Ruinous Gods that you shall have the highest of ranks in my armies, and you shall be treated with honour and respect.’
Jonah Kerne laughed, a genuine laugh of surprise. ‘Do you take me for a fool?’
Gull Khan’s eyes narrowed. ‘You must know that you have no hope. Even if by some miracle you were to prevail on this world, do you think that your Imperium would then forgive and forget? You allowed the eldar to spirit away a priceless relic of their race, one which, if delivered to your Administratum, might have held the key to their eradication. In fact, you handed it over to them freely, when it was in your actual possession. You will not be forgiven for that, captain. They will break you for it.’
‘Then let them break me when I’m dead,’ Kerne told him with contempt. ‘You mean to kill us all – get on with it. I have had enough of this pantomime.’ And he meant it. He was ready. Gull Khan had not told him anything he did not already suspect in his hearts. It was why he had led this forlorn hope. Brother Malchai had known that.
Gull Khan shook his head sadly.
‘You refuse my offer then.’
‘I do.’
‘Such a waste, captain.’ The tall, pale-armoured warlord drew a sword, a bright, wicked blade that sprang into crackling life as it rose in his hand.
‘I will indulge you with death at my own hands then, Dark Hunter. My children will hold back, if yours will. We shall engage blade to blade with honour.’
‘Very well.’ Kerne raised his battered chainsword and thumbed the power so that the engine coughed into life.
‘He is lying to you, captain,’ Elijah Kass said. ‘There is something else he is concealing from us – he is parrying every attempt I make to reach out.’
‘Do not fight him alone, Jonah,’ Fornix urged. ‘Let us all go into the dark together.’
‘Not this time, brother,’ Kerne said. He set a hand on the arm of his first sergeant, his brother, his friend.
‘Today, Fornix, I must go into the dark alone.’
They walked towards one another, two Space Marines: one in beautifully made damascened armour which was marked by hard combat and painted crudely with cameleoline, the other in perfect white purity, unmarked by blade or bolter, armour as unsullied as the day it was made.
As they drew closer, so their pace quickened, until they both broke into a run. A massive roar went up from the Punisher host which surrounded them as Jonah Kerne and Gull Khan came together in a ringing crash.
Elijah Kass shut his darkening eyes and bent his head. His hood glowed with sapphire light. Fornix took a step forward, his power fist cocked as though he meant to punch something in the very air before him. But he stopped as the Punisher warriors around them levelled their weapons, a hundred bolters aimed at his chest.
‘Emperor, bright Lord of battle, help him now,’ he muttered, and stood stock-still, watching.
The blades swung, Gull Khan’s power sword describing an arc of blinding light. It clinked off Kerne’s shoulder as he ducked, and left a smoking scar on the ancient pauldron.
The Dark Hunter wheeled, his chainsword licking out to bite on empty air as his adversary jerked back.
They circled each other.
‘I know you, Dark Hunter,’ Gull Khan said. ‘I know your kind better than they know themselves.’
He parried a blow, side-stepped and kicked Kerne in the back of the knee. Jonah staggered, then threw himself backwards to avoid the bright blade which swept through the air inches from his head. For a second the chainsword churned through the muck of the ground, throwing it up in a brown spray that speckled Gull Khan’s pristine armour. The Punisher warlord stepped back, and let his opponent rise.
‘The Dark Hunters thought they knew better than their parent Legion – they evolved new tactics, found new ways to fight–’ Gull Khan lunged in close. His blade caught Jonah Kerne on the hip, sank into the ceramite and smoked there a half-second before he jerked it free. Kerne knocked it aside, the chainsword teeth scrabbling on the smooth supercharged metal. Smoke rose from the engine at his weapon’s hilt.
‘They sought to perfect the art of war as they saw it. They sought to survive, above all else.’ Gull Khan grunted as he leapt forward again. He feinted with the sword, and then punched Kerne on the side of his helm, a heavy blow that knocked the Dark Hunters captain sideways. Kerne rolled in the mud while the bellowing triumph of the Punisher hordes rose around him. With preternatural speed he found his feet in time to parry another blow, but it knocked him backwards. The Chaos warriors who ringed the struggling duo stepped back, raising their weapons above their heads and cheering madly, as though this were sport laid on for their amusement.
Kerne rolled again as the power sword stabbed into the earth where he had been. Never had he moved so fast, and yet Gull Khan was faster still. He kicked Kerne in the back, so hard that a cable from his powerpack was dislodged. Red sigils sparked up on Kerne’s helmet-display. He rose to his feet, and charged forward again, launching a flurry of blows which drove his opponent back. The chainsword laboured and sparked – it scored a dark line in Gull Khan’s armour and carved off one of the shining studs which adorned it.
‘Your brothers sought to do no more than my children do,’ Gull Khan went on, backing away slowly, the power sword in front of him, mud sizzling off it, burning.
‘They sought to perfect themselves and their calling, to live and thrive in a terrible place–’ He dived in, his thrust parried, and he brought up the hilt of his sword to smash into Kerne’s helm, full in the pointed snout. The Corvus helm was smashed clear off Jonah’s head, the neck-joint cracked and broken. Kerne staggered, lashed out blindly with the chainsword, his head swimming.
‘To perfect one’s own abilities, to follow one’s calling with all the skill one can muster – that is a beautiful thing,’ Khan said. He watched as Kerne found his footing and shook his head clear.
‘It is the way of Slaanesh, who is my lord, and guardian. My god.’ Gull Khan advanced again. ‘Look what he has made of me, captain, and see what your Emperor has made of you.’
He charged in close again, knocked the chainsword aside with his armoured forearm, and sliced down with the power blade. The long shining length of it came down with shattering violence upon Jonah Kerne’s shoulder, burning through the ancient armour that Lukullus had once worn, slicing through ceramite and adamantium layers, finding the flesh within, carving the Dark Hunter’s arm from his body.