I fought to stay calm, to rein in the madness threatening to turn me raving.
Corax hadn’t moved yet, though only a few short seconds had lapsed.
‘Survivor goes free, as do his men,’ Curze gave his last edict to us out loud. ‘For let me say now, I have several more drakes and ravens in my rookery. Now, fight.’
Curze had yet to lie to me. If the game was to have meaning, he would tell the truth here too. But I could not kill Corax. I would sacrifice Nemetor for that, though it would hurt me to do so. I would not bow down to barbarism and become like him. Insanity clawed at the edges of my consciousness but I refused to submit to it. Curze would not win. I would not let him.
Corax would defeat me, Nemetor would die, but at least Corvus would live. I could make that sacrifice, I could do that for my brother.
I reached for the sword.
‘ And, Vulkan…’ Curze whispered through the vox-link, a final instruction just for me, ‘ I lied. Beat Corax, render him unconscious or I kill him and his Ravens, letting you watch as I do it.’
I tried to shout out, but a wedge of steel slammed into my open mouth from a device wrought into the helm, muting me.
Corax had yet to move. I wondered if Curze had told him the same thing as me, only the reverse of the scenario I had been presented with.
‘Still reluctant to fight?’ asked Curze. ‘I don’t blame you. It’s a heavy thing to have to kill your brother to survive. But trust me when I tell you that hungry dogs have no loyalty when the prize is survival. I remember a family on Nostramo. Their bonds were tight and they fought tooth and nail for one another, gutting entire gangs that dared raise a hand against them.
‘One winter, one particularlybitter and frigid winter, they went to war with a rival gang. Territory and status were the prize. It became about honour, if you can believe that? Such a lofty and costly ideal. It took them far from what they called home. It was war, only much grubbier than you have ever experienced.
‘Towards the end, food ran short, when the rats were gone and the litter in the streets bereft of sustenance. Desperation breeds desperate men. The loyal gang, the one whose blood ties were so strong… they fell upon each other. Murdered each other. One side wanted to keep fighting, the other just wanted the war to end. You see, brothers, sometimes the enemy is just the person preventing you from getting home.’ Curze stepped forwards, put his hands on the rail in front of him. ‘No more delays. Only one of you is getting out of this. Only one gets to go home.’
Corax picked up the trident.
‘I am sorry, Vulkan.’
I could give him no answer.
Curze retreated into the shadows again.
‘ Remember what I said, brother,’ he whispered to me.
I had barely wrapped my hand around the sword’s hilt when Corax lunged. His feet left the ground, his leap taking him halfway across the small arena. Dragging the blade free, I rolled and felt the trident punch the earth where I had been standing. A second blow darted past my cheek, tearing it open and flecking the sand with blood. I parried, smashing a third trident thrust aside and landing a heavy punch to Corax’s midriff, staggering him back. I had a second’s rest but he came at me again, crafting a series of small but piercing jabs against my improvised defence.
I had never fought Corax before, but had seen him in battle often enough. His fighting style was not unlike the avian creature from which he took his honorific. Deft, probing attacks like the snapping of a beak assailed me. He was swift, with an ever-shifting combat posture, attacking my blind side and often moving into peripheral assault patterns.
I turned and blocked, took small cuts on my arms, torso and legs. He was relentless, and had not spent the last few months or years of his life trapped in a cell. Furthermore, he was willing to kill me. There was a fury to his attacks, something I had not yet embraced for the duel. Since picking up his trident, a change had come over my brother – one that I was unprepared for.
The abyss returned in my mind, beckoning as the hot nails pushed deeper into my skull, stimulating my anger and need for violence.
Was I the monster that Curze had described all those years ago on Kharaatan? When I had burned that eldar child to ash for her part in killing Seriph, was it retribution or had I just used that to justify an act of sadistic self-satisfaction?
I reeled, feeling my sanity unpicking at its already frayed seams.
Corax landed a telling blow, the trident lodged in my left pectoral, digging into muscle and below. I would have screamed were it not for the wedge in my mouth gagging me.
Rage.
I cut a savage wound across Corax’s torso as he found his guard compromised with the trident still impaled in my body.
Rage.
I snapped the trident’s haft in two, leaving the fork still embedded in my flesh.
Rage.
I threw down my sword and hurled myself at Corax.
I am strong, perhaps the physically strongest of all my father’s sons. Corax had claimed as much once. Now he felt it first-hand. With a single blow of my clenched fist I smashed apart his helmet’s grille, revealing his anguished mouth beneath, spitting blood. I landed a second punch around his left ear, snapping his head to the side and denting the helm inwards. Corax shrieked like a bird. I wanted to break his wings, fracture that weakling skull. Despite his attempts to fend me off – a knee into my chest, a heavy jab to my exposed kidneys, a throat strike – I overwhelmed him. With sheer bulk, I bore him down to the earth. He grunted as his back hit the ground hard, and I punched the air from his lungs. Like a vice, my hands were around his throat. Straddling him, Corax’s arms pinned by my knees, he couldn’t move. All he could do now was die.
During the savage assault, his helmet had come apart. I saw his dark eyes staring at me, that quiet wisdom turned to terror.
I squeezed harder, feeling his toughened larynx giving way to my fury as I slowly crushed it. His eyes bulged in their sockets and through blood-rimed teeth he choked two words.
‘ Do it…’
At my side, I felt the presence of Ferrus, his skeletal form hovering in my peripheral vision.
‘ Do it…’ he rasped.
Above me in the amphitheatre, held fast but still struggling, I heard Nemetor whisper.
‘ Do it…’
It would be so easy. I had but to tighten my grip a fraction and…
I stopped. Fingertips still clinging to the edge of the abyss, I hauled myself up and rolled away from its burning depths. In that moment, I knew that I would not be granted my freedom. I wantedto kill Corax to sate my rage.
‘Kill him, Vulkan!’ Curze snarled, rushing up to the rail. ‘He’s finished. Claim your freedom.’
‘Return to your Legion,’ urged Ferrus. ‘It is the only way…’
I released my grip around Corax’s throat and let him go. Exhausted, physically and mentally, I rolled off my brother and onto my back.
‘No. I won’t do it,’ I gasped, breathing hard. ‘Not like this.’
‘Then you have damned yourself,’ hissed Ferrus.
Not knowing what had happened, Corax got to his feet, picked up my fallen sword and stabbed me through the heart.
I came round screaming. I had returned to my cell, but still lay on my back. The door was intact and there was no evidence of my recent escape. I was strapped down to a metal slab, arms, legs and neck. I couldn’t move and there was a metal wedge in my mouth, gagging me. Surrounding me was a coven of human psykers, feral-looking with strange sigils daubed on their bodies and robes.
‘Davinites,’ Curze explained as he walked into my eye line, before killing every one of the witches in a sudden and violent blur. ‘They have served and failed their purpose,’ he said when he was done butchering them.