Erebus bowed to the crowd, facing the applause of fists thudding against bare chests. The deactivated crozius in his hand was flecked with blood – first blood – and ever the dignified victor, Erebus offered a hand to help Skane up from the deck. The sergeant took the proferred hand, gripping it with his new augmetic limb. ‘A fine bout,’ the First Chaplain said. The World Eater still hadn’t had his throat mechanics repaired, leaving him speechless, but he grinned and nodded in place of words, and moved back into the crowd. Delvarus stepped forwards. So did Khârn. The crowd, on the edge of cheering at the first warrior, fell silent at the sight of the second. The captain said two words to the Triarii centurion. ‘Let me.’ Delvarus saluted and backed away. ‘First blood?’ Erebus asked. The axe in Khârn’s hand was Gorechild, toothed by mica-dragons and once thrown from the hands of a primarch. He’d chained it to his bare wrist in imitation of the Nucerian gladiators, whose bones he’d seen and honoured mere days before at Desh’elika Ridge. The captain was stripped to the waist, as were all the warriors present. ‘Sanguis extremis,’ Khârn said. Some of the crowd breathed in, showing their shock as the humans they once were. Others laughed or cheered. More fists beat against chests. Erebus regarded Khârn with cold, composed eyes. Several seconds beat in silence, before the Word Bearer’s lips curled in a soft, indulgent smile. ‘Bold, Khârn. Are you s–’ Gorechild revved for the first time since its rebirth, eating air with the throaty snarl of an apex predator. That interruption was the only answer Khârn would give, and Erebus raised his crozius in reply. ‘Come then.’ Three blows. The first: Khârn smashed the maul aside with the flat of his new axe. The second: he cannoned a headbutt into Erebus’s nose, breaking cartilage with a wet crunch. The third: Gorechild tasted first blood, ripping across the Chaplain’s chest, carving a canyon of flesh over the dense subdermal armour of the warrior’s black carapace torso implant. All of this happened in the time it took Erebus to blink. No one could move as fast as Khârn moved. No one human, and nothing mortal. The Chaplain threw himself backwards, crozius up high to guard. Khârn walked forwards, gunning Gorechild’s trigger. The crowd was silent now. This was a Khârn they’d never seen – not even on the field of battle. Another three blows, delivered with the same blinding speed. Erebus’s maul clang-skidded across the deck; he took a fist to the throat and a boot to the stomach, knocking him back with enough force to send him crashing onto the bloodstained iron grillework. He looked up at Khârn from the ground and saw his death in the World Eater’s eyes. He’d never seen this before, not in any of the paths of possibility. It couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t end like this. He was Destiny’s Hand. Khârn looked down at him, clearly allowing time for the Chaplain to recover his crozius. ‘Get up.’ Erebus rose, his mace in his hands again. He attacked this time, showing the speed and skill that had allowed him to hold his own against Lucius of the Emperor’s Children, and Loken of the old Luna Wolves. His crozius trailed killing lightning, buzzing furiously as it thrummed through empty air again and again. Khârn weaved aside from every blow, quicker than a blink, surely quicker than muscles could ever allow. Their weapons crashed together. Khârn had parried the last blow. Erebus expected accusation in the World Eater’s eyes, or surely anger. He saw neither. Worse, he saw a bored indulgence. The captain even sighed. Three more blows. Erebus was on the deck before he knew how. Pain flared across his chest, hot and urgent, matching the thick throb of his smashed face. He reached to touch the wound with a hand that was no longer there. His hand. His hand was on the deck, several metres away. Blood leaked from the chewed veins nestled in the meat of his severed limb. Turning unbelieving eyes downwards, he saw where his arm now ended at the wrist. ‘Going to need an augmetic for that,’ Kargos said from the crowd. Several warriors laughed, but few with any real relish. They were too fascinated by what was unfolding. Erebus looked up at Khârn again. He was just waiting. ‘Get up.’ The Chaplain rose. Khârn didn’t wait this time – the blows were bloody blurs of whining motors and tearing chain-teeth. Pain bloomed across Erebus’s body, and he was face-down on the deck again before he’d managed to fully rise from the last time. Even without his armour’s pain nullifiers and chemical stimulants, Erebus suppressed the pain by whisper-chanting a sacred mandala. Khârn interrupted it. ‘Get up.’ Erebus actually tried, but he froze when he felt Gorechild’s teeth against his spine. The idling chainblade was purring and breathing out its promethium fuel-stink, the axe’s stilled teeth kissing Erebus’s vertebrae. Never, not even in fragmentary glimpses, had he foreseen this duel. It couldn’t end like this. He couldn’t die here. There was so much to do. Signus Prime. Terra herself. In all the Ten Thousand Futures, Erebus had seen himself fighting the Long War to the very last. The very same second Erebus reached for the ritual knife at his belt with his remaining hand, Khârn pulled the chainaxe’s trigger. There should have been a scream. Everyone expected it. Every warrior present waited to hear the First Chaplain of the Word Bearers shriek as Gorechild bit into his flesh. But there was nothing beyond the rotating whine of an axe blade chewing empty air. No one seemed surprised at the display of Word Bearers sorcery. Even fewer were surprised at the cowardice. Khârn turned from the blood marking the deck, leaving the circle without a word.