But however deep we went, however many the turns we took, the Night Lords stuck to us like our shadows. They knew this ship, its every inch. I felt the trap again, its rusty teeth closing around my neck. Escape or capture, there was no other way for this to end for me. I feared for Corax, though. Curze would not be kind to him for this affront.
After an hour of scurrying through the service tunnels like rats, Corax found another access hatch. Kicking it through, the grate landing with a clatter below, my brother dropped from sight for a moment before calling up to me to follow. I went after him and plunged from the lightless warren into a barren chamber. It was dimly lit, fashioned of dark iron like so much of this desolate place, and I discerned blade marks in the floor. There were bloodstains too, but it was empty. It was strangely familiar, though I had never been here before.
A single archway led further, though it was beyond the weak corona of light cast by the lumen orbs ensconced in the walls, and therefore heavily shadowed.
‘See, the way is unobstructed,’ Corax hissed, gesturing to the archway and the darkness beyond it. ‘I’ll make sure we were not followed. Here.’ He tossed me his gladius, the last of his secondary weapons. I caught it and nodded, hastening to the archway, but could see and hear no danger.
‘There are steps leading down,’ I called. ‘And I can feel a breeze.’
It was artificial of course, and the air was musty, but it could indicate that we were close to a deck with atmospheric recycling, which almost certainly meant a human presence.
Corax waited under the gaping hatch for a few more seconds before joining me.
‘What of your helm sensors?’ I asked, knowing that my brother was already cycling through the visual spectra of his retinal lenses.
‘Shadows…’ he hissed, his tone leaving me slightly unnerved.
If I didn’t know my brother better, I would swear he sounded concerned about that.
‘Only way is down,’ I muttered, levelling my gladius at the darkness as though it were a foe I could engage.
Corax agreed, unsheathing his talons, and together we descended the steps.
At the bottom, the darkness was just as thick and abject. It was like trying to see through pitch. I knew it wasn’t an ordinary absence of light. Our eyes would have penetrated that easily and left us in no doubt as to our surroundings. This was different. Viscous and congealing, here the shadows clung to us like tar. As I stared into the oily depths, I saw the vague adumbration of what appeared to be a coliseum. We were standing back to back in its arena. Beneath our feet were sand and earth.
‘It’s a trap!’ I cried, but too late.
Corax was halfway up the steps when a sliding blast door sealed us in. A step behind him, I turned to face the arena as the unnatural darkness bled away through vents in the floor and a chill I hadn’t realised was affecting me melted from my body. Flaming torches delineated an eight-sided battleground where the skeletal remains of gladiators and their shattered trappings still lingered like unquiet spirits. I recalled where I had seen the antechamber before. It was in Themis, a city of Nocturnian warrior kings who engaged in gladiatorial contest to prove their prowess and choose their next tribal leader. Before each fight, the combatants would wait in barrack rooms to sharpen their blades or their minds before the upcoming contest. Corax and I had done neither. I suddenly wondered what our gaoler had in mind for us.
‘It’s a little archaic, I admit,’ said Curze, our attention drawn to him. He was standing above us, looking down from the pulpit of an amphitheatre. ‘But I think Angron would have appreciated it. A pity he isn’t here to see it. Your paths almost crossed on Isstvan, didn’t they, brother?’
I arched my neck, meeting Curze’s gaze in the highest echelons of the amphitheatre. He was not alone. Thirty of his Atramentar Terminators encircled the arena, the threat of their reaper cannons obvious.
‘A pity oursdid not,’ I replied.
‘You had your chance on Kharaatan and didn’t take it.’
‘You will wish I did when this is over.’
Curze smiled thinly. The two Atramentar flanking him proffered arms, a sword and trident.
‘On Nostramo, we had no grand theatres like this. Our gutters and hives were our arenas, but offerings of bloodsport were plentiful.’
He tossed the sword down to us. It impaled itself in the ground, up to a third of its blade deep.
‘Gang culture ruled our streets and everyone wanted to be a part of the strongest gang.’
The trident followed, striking the earth with enough force to send vibrations all the way down its haft.
‘Even murderers and rapists have ritual,’ Curze went on. ‘Even to scum like them it’s important. Opportunities were always limited, often only enough for one. First thing,’ he said, looking down at Corax, ‘the fight must be fair. Remove your armour, brother. Vulkan stands unequal to it.’
‘I didn’t think you approved of holding court, Konrad,’ I replied, stepping forwards as I challenged him. ‘Isn’t that why you butchered your world’s overlords and spire nobles?’
‘They did not lord over me, nor were they noble,’ Curze uttered darkly. ‘Now, Corax will remove his armour or condemn your own sons to death.’
From the back ranks of the Atramentar, two warriors were brought forwards on opposite sides of the amphitheatre. On one side there was Kravex, my brother’s errant son that he had believed dead; on the other was Nemetor.
Both warriors struggled vainly against their captors, not to escape but rather to make clear their defiance.
‘Nemetor…’ How one wounded son had come to mean so much… Curze had not told me what had become of the rest of my Legion, and I had not the heart to ask him. I believed they still lived, though in what numbers I could not say. Had they perished completely on Isstvan, Curze would not have passed up the opportunity to twist that particular knife. And for all the deception of his trials, Curze had not yet lied to me in anything he had said. The Salamanders yet lived. I yet lived. I had to save Nemetor.
Evidently, Corax had reached the same conclusion and quietly removed his armour until he was standing alongside me in the arena with only the lower mesh of his leggings, greaves and boots. His magnificent war-plate lay discarded on the sand like worthless chaff.
Curze had brought us low, and I felt the gnawing guilt of bringing my brother into this crude pantomime.
‘I am sorry, Corvus. For all of this.’
‘Put it from your mind, Vulkan. I made my decision free of will, as I know you would have done also.’
‘But there is something you don’t understand, brother…’
Two gladiatorial helms thrown in our midst interrupted my confession. One was black, fashioned into the likeness of a bird of prey; the other was dark green and draconian. It was obvious what Curze wanted us to do.
‘Are we to dance next?’ I said, stooping to retrieve the helmet intended for me.
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Curze replied. ‘Put them on.’
The inside of the helmet was rough. It felt heavy.
‘ One lives, one dies,’ said Curze, his voice channelled to me through a reedy vox-link inside my armour. ‘ Gang culture is brutal, brothers. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand that yet. You will.’
I looked up at Nemetor, my son seeming oblivious to his surroundings, then back to Corax, seeing him do the same with Kravex.
I felt the presence of the abyss again, my bare feet teetering on its edge, looking down into hell and darkness. Pain seared my skull from everywhere at once and I realised the helmet was rough because its interior was studded with a host of tiny nails. Curze had just embedded their points in my skull. The abyss throbbed in my mind’s eye, urging me to act, to step off and be lost to its heat.