‘I already was,’ said Loken, turning his back on Horus. ‘It was called the Great Crusade.’
Rubio nodded and Bror Tyrfingr vaulted across the deck, his hand a hard axe blade. He rammed into Ger Gerradon and barrelled him from his feet. Voitek moved with him. The leader of the Luperci went over backwards, sprawling on the deck in surprise.
Gunfire exploded and the harsh blurt of binaric pain told Bror that Ares Voitek was hit. He smelled lubricant and hot oils.
Qruze and Severian were moving, turning on the Mournival.
Bror hadn’t time to spare for them.
More gunfire. Shouts. He’d taken in the positions of the Luperci, but that was seconds ago, and his situational awareness was now hopelessly outdated.
‘Kill him, Bror!’ shouted Rubio. ‘He’s blocking my powers!’
‘Trying,’ grunted Bror. ‘He’s stronger than he looks.’
Gerradon’s face twisted in rage. For a moment Bror saw the dark flame twisting within him. He slammed his forehead against Gerradon’s face. His cheekbone caved in and foul-smelling blood burst across his split skin.
Even as they struggled, the blood flow stopped and the cut in Gerradon’s cheek sealed itself.
He laughed. ‘You think you can hurt me? You Wolves really are stupid.’
Voitek’s servo-arms pinned one of Gerradon’s, and Bror scrambled to drag the man’s blade from its sheath. Gerradon’s fist thundered into Bror’s belly, cracking the plate and driving the air from him.
Gerradon kicked him away and he lost his grip on the handle.
He staggered as a bolter shell punched him in the back. Another blew out the meat of his thigh. Pain swamped him, but he hurled himself at his enemy again.
Gerradon caught him around the throat with his free hand and slammed him against Ares Voitek. The impact was ferocious. Plate cracked.
Bror saw something glitter at Gerradon’s back. A gleam of moonlight on an ivory Ultima. A stolen weapon jutting from a shoulder scabbard. He reached for it. Too far away. Gerradon’s grip tightened, crushing the life from him. He tensed every muscle in his shoulders and neck, his face purpling with the effort.
Then he saw it.
Proximo Tarchon’s gladius held aloft like a gift from the ancient gods of Asaheim.
Grasped in the manipulator claw of Ares Voitek.
The servo-arm stabbed the blade into Gerradon’s back.
The daemon within Gerradon howled as its hold on the dead man’s mortal flesh slipped. The iron grip on Bror loosened.
Not much, but just enough.
Bror pulled Gerradon’s arm from his neck. He pounced and fastened his sharpened fangs on the Luperci’s flesh.
Their eyes met and Bror relished the sudden fear he saw.
He wrenched his jaw back and ripped out Ger Gerradon’s throat.
Lupercal’s Court was in uproar. The Luperci filled the space with sporadic bolter fire, their outlines wavering as though something bestial sought to escape their flesh. Muzzle flare split the cold glow of moonlight. An arcing sheet of blue lightning from Rubio’s gauntlets hurled six of them back in a coruscating blast.
Their armour clattered to the deck, the monsters within burned to ash. Loken ran towards Aximand, scooping up a fallen chainsword that still smoked with Rubio’s witchfire.
He knew he couldn’t hope to kill Aximand, but was past caring.
He’d faced the Warmaster and rejected him.
None of them were going to leave the Vengeful Spirit alive.
Severian was right. Getting in had been the easy part.
Iacton Qruze had come back to the flagship with one aim in mind and one alone. As gunfire filled the chamber, he dived towards where Ger Gerradon fought to stem the tide of blood from his mauled throat.
The sinews and skin were trying to knit, but the wound was too awful, the blood loss too catastrophic for the daemon’s host to survive. He dragged Gerradon’s sword from its sheath as bolt shells cratered the deck beside him.
A ricochet sliced the skin of his cheek. If he lived he would have a neat scar from jawline to temple.
Loken and Bror were struggling with Little Horus Aximand and Falkus Kibre, a brutal, gouging, bloody brawl they were losing. Kibre was all strength and ferocity, but Bror Tyrfingr was giving as good as he got.
Loken had a chainsword, Aximand a blade with a powered edge. That wasn’t going to end well. Rubio fought Abaddon with a sword wrought from blue lightning and bolts of witchfire. The First Captain was a monster now, a giant with cadaverous features and black, gem-like eyes.
Rubio bled from where Abaddon’s tearing fists had ripped open his armour, its steeldust plates sheeted with red.
The Librarian had ploughed all his powers into attack, sparing nothing for defence. Varren lent what aid he could, but the wounds bound by Altan Nohai were bleeding freely again.
Qruze couldn’t see Severian. Armed once again with his altered gladius, Proximo Tarchon stood sentinel over Ares Voitek, who spilled litres of sticky red-black fluid from half a dozen sword cuts and bolter craters.
An impact smashed into Qruze’s hip, a searing bloom of pain that almost drove him to his knees. He turned as four of the Luperci raced towards him. They carried axes, swords and weapons that looked like they’d been looted from the Museum of Conquest.
‘Come on!’ roared Qruze, mashing the sword’s activation trigger. ‘Let this old dog show you he still has some bite.’
The first swung his axe for Qruze’s neck.
‘Too risky for a first attack,’ he said, ducking low and hacking his chainblade through his opponent’s gut. ‘The beheading cut leaves you far too exposed against a low blow.’
He swayed aside from a sword thrust, bending to snatch the bolt pistol from the downed warrior’s holster. Fully loaded, safety off. Sloppy.
‘Too much weight on your forward foot,’ he grunted. ‘No control to evade a counterstrike.’
He drove the tip of his sword through the Luperci’s spine. He spun and wrenched the sword blade out through its chest.
The last of the Luperci had at least learned from the deaths of their fellows. They split up and circled Qruze warily, swords in the guard position, their footwork cautious.
Qruze shot them both in the face, a classic double-tap. Their helmets exploded as the mass-reactives registered threshold densities for detonation.
‘And if your opponent has a gun when all you have is a sword,’ he said, turning towards the Warmaster upon his basalt throne. ‘You’re going to die.’
With every meeting of their swords, Loken lost teeth – whickering triangular shards flew from his chainsword as Aximand’s shimmer-edged blade bit the unshielded metal.
‘Mourn-it-all is going to kill you,’ said Aximand.
Loken didn’t reply. He’d come to slay Aximand, not waste unnecessary words on him.
‘No words of hate for the life I took on Isstvan?’ said Aximand.
‘Just deeds,’ said Loken, fighting to keep his temper.
An angry swordsman was a dead swordsman.
He cursed as Aximand used his momentary inattention to launch a lightning fast thrust to the groin. Loken swept the blade aside with the flat of his sword, trying to keep the disruptive edge from further damaging his weapon.
‘Tarik always said you were so straight up and down,’ said Aximand, using small wrist movements to move the tip of his sword in tight circles. ‘I never really knew what he meant until now. It’s only when you try to kill a man that you see through to his true character.’