Waking Dogs, Part 3: War Hounds

(The first two parts of this story, Waking Dogs and Broken Chains can also be found on Vocal.)

The Cage rang with the bellows of battle, the clash of steel, and the howls of those lost to frenzy. The space was lit by pyres of bodies stacked at either end of the arena, the burning dead filling the air with the smell of charred flesh and bubbling blood. Men and women fought and died, wielding bloody axes and spears, swords, mauls, and other brutal weapons. Some sparked with power fields, and others roared with ripping chain teeth, but others were older, cruder things. It didn’t matter in the end, for they all broke bones and rent flesh, letting out the rushing, spurting fluids that ran in rivers along the deck plates, dripping through rotting drains that seemed to greedily drink the offerings given to them.

Those who fought and died in the Cage were not the only ones in the bowels of the battle cruiser Fangs of Blood. The Cage was ringed by giants in red armor, all of them watching the slaughter. Like the weapons wielded by the combatants, the onlookers were all different, but they had all been shaped for a singular, violent purpose. Some roared wordlessly, their helmets doffed and their scarred faces bared as they added their voices to the cacophony of murder. Others stood silently, the red eye lenses of their helmets betraying nothing as they drank in the sight before them. Some of the huge figures paced, as if the very presence of such carnage propelled them to some kind of action. Others stood still as statues, devouring the spectacle, not moving a muscle even when blood spattered their armor through the steel grating that enclosed the gladiatorial circle.

A booming filled the chamber. Like the hand of some terrible god pounding on the door to hell, the sound drowned out both screams and shouts alike. Silence fell among the onlookers, and combatants lowered their weapons. All of them looked toward the figure who sat on a raised dais above a pile of severed heads, and glistening, skinned skulls. A figure whose fearsome war plate seemed to shift and move like a living thing, with spines and spikes erupting from its surface like the marks of some terrible blessing. That figure stood, and surveyed all those before him. He raised his right fist in salute to those who yet stood in the arena.

“Blood for the Blood God!” Decimus intoned.

“Skulls for the Skull Throne!” the gathered World Eaters returned.

A sound rolled from Decimus’s vox grill. The bastard child of a chuckle and a snarl, it was a sound soaked in blood, and tainted with madness. He breathed deeply of the smells of sweat and pain, drinking in the unfiltered musk of havoc and strife. He lowered his hand, and gripped the steel railing, leaning forward as he addressed those gathered before him.

“You have culled the weak from your ranks. You have cut away all cowardice, and proved yourselves true warriors,” Decimus said. Several of the remaining combatants raised their weapons, or their fists, but the astartes gathered around the outside of the Cage did not join this time. The World Eaters simply stared, as if waiting for something. Decimus straightened once more, and spread his arms wide. “A final opponent awaits you. The Hunter of Souls is watching… do him honor!”

Decimus pressed a button on the control bank. Chains rattled and clanked, and heavy hydraulics whined as a deck plate drew away. A lift rose from beneath the Cage, bearing a figure into the arena. He was huge, dressed only in the tattered remnants of a body glove that did nothing to hide the fresh scars along his body, or the gleaming interface ports that dotted his limbs and torso. Tattered, matted hair hung in his face, and his wrists were manacled in front of him. Despite the dirt and the blood spattered across his form, and the chains binding his arms, he stood at ease. The mag locks on the lift snapped into place, and gas hissed. The bloodied champions of the arena all turned to regard the newcomer, shifting their stances and their grips. A low, animal growl went through the ranks of the watching astartes. Like called to like, and they knew one of their own when they smelled him.

For a moment, nothing happened. Time seemed to slow, and an eternity passed in the flicker of a single flame. Then one of the champions, a savage-looking woman with a shaved head and wild eyes, raised an inhaler to her mouth. She squeezed the trigger, and her eyes went wide as the chemical concoction rushed down her throat and into her lungs, slamming into her bloodstream. She loosed a guttural roar, and lifted her chainsword, revving it in the air. The others followed suit, muscles flexing and rage stoking once again as they dosed themselves with a mixed cocktail of murderous substances.

The fanatics rushed their new foe as one, each of them intent on being the first to spill more blood for the Lord of Skulls. The massive man didn’t so much as flex a muscle, though. He simply stood, his arms loose in front of him, and his head lowered. The air around him was almost serene. It was as if he wasn’t aware of the screaming tide of death bearing down on him… or he simply didn’t care. The cultists closed the distance, one step, then another step.

Then they entered his circle of blood, and the marine moved.

The screaming woman brought her chainsword down in a two-handed grip, but instead of biting into her target’s chest, the teeth struck sparks against the chain between his manacles. The astartes rotated his shoulders, looping the chain around the weapon before pulling it taut. The weapon exploded in a cloud of steel teeth and snapped links, and while they dug gouges across the marine’s skin, the shrapnel pulped the woman’s eyes and tongue, and a spike of hot metal slashed her throat, ending her scream in a bloody gurgle. He drove a powerful kick into her sternum, sending her body flying into a second screaming assailant with enough force to take him off his feet.

As soon as the astartes brought his foot down he pivoted and brought up his manacled hands again. An ax swept through the space where he’d been standing. Before the frothing wielder could finish the arc and bring the weapon back into play, the marine snapped both hands outward, pulping the man’s skull in a single blow. Stepping forward, he caught the ax before it could hit the ground, spinning with the movement and flinging it overhand. One of the Khornates ducked beneath the spinning blade, but another wasn’t fast enough, catching the weapon full in the chest.

The blur of movement continued, with blood spraying and bone fragments clattering wetly across the floor. In less than half a minute, the marine had slain every one of the berserkers who had sought his death. The marine stood, surrounded by his bloody handiwork, surveying the garden of corpses he’d planted. Lusty cheers rose from the astartes gathered round the Cage, approval roaring from the World Eaters. As they cheered, the lone marine stalked from corpse to corpse, bringing his heel down on their heads, pulping them to pieces. The cheers grew quieter and quieter as he went about his grisly work, until all the astartes had fallen silent once more. The marine brought his foot down one more time, and the sickening crack of bone echoed across the arena.

“Defiant until the end, Crixus,” Decimus said, a note of dark amusement in his voice.

“I see no end before me,” Crixus growled, hefting a sparking power weapon from the deck. It had been large in the hands of its mortal wielder, but in his grip it seemed barely bigger than his combat knife. He reversed the grip, and triggered the power field, slicing through the thick chains he’d been bound with in a single, sharp motion. “Just barking dogs, and dead men.”

Fists hammered on the Cage, and challenges were hurled, along with wordless shouts and empty taunts. Crixus merely put his foot on the body of another man he’d slain, and ripped the hurled ax from his destroyed chest cavity. It was a crude weapon, but sharp, and deadly… just like him. Decimus brought his hand down again, and the boom of the blow drew attention back toward the warband’s leader.

“Bold words,” Decimus declared, the amusement gone from his voice. “We have done you a kindness, brother. Now that the Nails have been fed, you are fit for a true battle.”

“Am I to endure your threats until I end myself, then?” Crixus asked, his sharp, barking laughter rolling off his tongue along with the insult.

“As you wish,” Decimus said, pressing another switch on the command panel. “Strength and honor, brother.”

Crixus frowned as mechanisms whirred and clanked, a deck panel on the other side of the Cage lowering, then drawing aside. A second figure emerged from beneath the deck. He was nearly as large as Crixus, though his short brush of hair was a white-blonde, and he bore several service studs along one side of his forehead. He bore no weapon, and he wore only dirt and blood, along with simple twist of cloth around his waist and nethers. Despite that there was no fear in his green eyes. They flicked left, then right, evaluating the battlefield before him. By the time the lift locked into place, he was moving, snatching up a heavy, eviscerator chainsword. The weapon wasn’t quite large enough for a comfortable grip, and the chain was clogged with bone and gore, but when he touched the throttle, it roared to life in his hands.

“My name is Tigris Varenus, battle brother of the Ultramarines 2nd Company, a Son of Macragge and of Roboute Guilliman,” the astartes shouted, ensuring he was heard over the snarl of his weapon. Crixus watched as the Ultramarine’s gaze took him in, eyes flickering to the remains of his body glove, to the cut chains dangling from his manacles, and to the steel glinting through his dark mane. Tigris frowned. “Who stands before me?”

Crixus did not intend to answer, but something about the Cage, about the ancient ship, even as corrupted and twisted as it was, called to him. The Nails hummed quietly in his mind, and in that near silence the old rituals rose unbidden to his lips. He snarled, and swallowed them.

“My name is Crixus, and that is all you need to know.”

The World Eaters bayed from the other side of the Cage; a wordless, mocking cry. Crixus ignored it, focusing instead on his gene cousin. Tigris Varenus gave him a smile, and raised his chainsword in acknowledgement. Crixus returned the smile with a wolfish grin of his own, and shifted his feet. For a long moment the two of them regarded one another. Then they leaped forward, coming to grips in a storm of sparking steel and screaming iron.

Crixus flicked his ax forward, but the chainsword deflected the blow. He followed up with the power blade, but Tigris dipped his weapon out of its path, and then tried to bring it up in a slash that would have disemboweled his opponent. Crixus deflected the slash with one of his manacles, a deep groove chewed into the steel by the weapon’s whirling teeth. He circled the Ultramarine, looking for an opening, feinting, and lunging. Tigris nearly fell for it, but shifted and spun at the last second, pivoting before he whirled his great weapon around in an arc. Crixus ducked, then realized it was a counter-feint, throwing himself to the side even as he felt the teeth nip at his shoulder. He tucked, rolled, and came up smoothly.

“You fight well, cousin,” Tigris said, lowering his stance as he circled Crixus.

“I never learned the skill of dying,” Crixus growled, mirroring the Ultramarine’s movements.

“Then perhaps I can teach you,” Tigris retorted.

The two astartes came together and separated, blows raining at one another. Every time they parted, blood spattered the floor, but they closed again, and again. The teeth of the eviscerator tore Crixus’s ax from his hand, sending the weapon flying. A hammering blow from Crixus’s manacle snapped Tigris’s wrist, leaving his attack unbalanced. The Ultramarine swung wildly with one hand, attempting to bring his weapon around, and Crixus pounced on him like a wolf on wounded prey. Moving faster than even the eyes of his brothers could follow, he hooked the Ultramarine’s leg, and bore down on him. They crashed to the floor, and as Tigris opened his mouth, Crixus jammed his manacle between the other astartes’ jaws. Tigris was about to raise the chainsword one last time, but Crixus held the point of the power blade just above the younger marine’s eye. Tigris relaxed his grip, and let the chain weapon go silent.

“It seems strength and honor alone were not enough to carry the day,” Decimus said, his words followed by a cruel chuckle. “Now, Crixus! Finish him, and claim his skull!”

“Or what?” Crixus demanded. He shoved himself to his feet in a single, fluid motion. His veins throbbed and his muscles bulged. The Nails ground in his mind, revving all his organs to full capacity, and he fought to maintain control of himself. To simply breathe. He stepped away from Tigris, turning his gaze on the other World Eaters before looking back up at Decimus. “Will you come down into the pit yourself to face me? Or will you ask one of these others to die in your place?”

Decimus’s hand streaked to his side, and he drew a plasma pistol. The weapon whined ominously, the blue power coils glowing like a tiny sun in the World Eater’s hand. His finger tightened on the trigger, and he stared down at Crixus. Crixus stared back, his teeth bared, and his weapon in hand. The astartes in red armor all around the Cage shouted, but this time the wave of disapproval was turned toward Decimus. For a moment it seemed he would pull the trigger anyway, consequences be damned. Then a lone voice rose above the others, shouting a single word. Another joined the cry, then another, and another. Soon the warband was hammering their fists on the Cage, their blows ringing a manic counterpoint to their chant. A shiver went up Crixus’s back as he listened, and his eyes widened. He stared up at Decimus. The warband leader lowered his weapon, and raised his other hand.

“Very well,” he said to his brethren. “Daxos! Arise and claim your spoils one more time!”

Decimus pressed half a dozen switches, and a deeper grinding rumbled from the bowels of the ship. Winches cranked, engines whirred, and a sound echoed from beneath them. A muffled roar, it was a sound full of rage and hatred. It was answered by the warband, whose cries only grew louder.

“Are we to be allies, then?” Tigris asked, pushing himself to his feet. He was still favoring his injured arm, but despite the tight smile on his face, the Ultramarine was scanning the arena, looking for any advantage to be had. There were few enough of them.

“If you die here, it won’t be by my hand,” Crixus said. He reversed his grip on the power sword he’d taken, offering it to Tigris. The Ultramaine only hesitated for a moment before offering Crixus the eviscerator in exchange. Each of them checked over their weapons, ensuring they were in functioning order.

“What are we facing?” Tigris asked as he tested the power weapon’s weight.

“His name is Daxos,” Crixus said.

“I gathered that,” the Ultramarine said, raising his voice to be heard over the rising tide of sound all around them. He gritted his teeth, and plucked a shield from the hand of a corpse, forcing his wounded arm through the strap and gripping the anchoring handle. “What else do you know about him?”

“He died on Terra,” Crixus said, just as a dozen more floor panels slid away. “The stupid bastard couldn’t even do that right.”

The thing that emerged from the bowels of the ship was like a nightmare given form. It was bound in massive chains, but even so it towered over even the astartes; a malformed creature of twisted steel and pulsing, rusting flesh. Horns erupted across its shoulders, each of them inscribed with the names of those who had fallen before its monstrous tread. Jagged rents in its war plate leaked with pulsing fluids that stank of corruption, and the Warp, and twin maws snapped and snarled like metal hounds where its vox grills had once been. One arm was twisted into a sinuous coil, ending in the barrels of a heavy flamer that dripped something far more noxious than prometheum, and the other arm ended in the sparking, flensing blades of a great power claw. The worst part of the creature, though, was what lurked in the center of its chest. The layers of ceramite had been peeled away, revealing a man’s face. He was wasted, his bones showing through his skin like a skull wrapped in flesh. Scars crisscrossed his cheeks, nose, and forehead. A coarse beard covered his chin, and a tattered mane of hair hung from his scalp. That mane was laced with the steel cables of the Butcher’s Nails. They had mutated from the daemonic influence, though, grown long and ragged, covered in barbs, and swaying like a lash with every slight movement. His head was held in place by an iron halo that had twisted into the shape of a gauntleted hand, the fingertips pierced into his skull, trickles of blood running from each wound.

It was Daxos. Even changed as he was, Crixus knew his battle brother’s face. Before Crixus could loose a word, or even move a muscle, Daxos raised his gaze. There was no recognition in his eyes. There was none of the life that Crixus remembered. Those white, staring orbs just trembled in his sockets, unblinking. He began panting, drool running from the corners of his mouth. His lips pulled back over blackened gums, and breath began tearing in and out of his lungs like a great engine. Daxos howled, spittle flying, and the helbrute joined in chorus, adding its roar to his own. It twisted, snapping great steel links with a sound of rending metal as the thing’s clawed feet dug into the deck for purchase. The helbrute charged.

“Tactical retreat,” Tigris said, slapping Crixus’s arm before he turned and ran toward the far end of the arena.

Crixus snarled, and felt the muscles of his arm twitch. The Nails wanted to let the chainsword roar, and meet the abomination head-on. They were singing, and a chorus of pain was starting to take hold at the base of Crixus’s skull, demanding a toll of blood before they would be silenced once more. He shook his head like a dog, then turned and followed Tigris, his bare feet slapping the steel deck as the mechanized terror gave chase.

“Wall’s coming up fast,” Tigris said as Crixus drew apace. “Plan?”

Crixus heard the sharp clicking behind them, and reacted on instinct. He turned hard, slamming into Tigris and driving both of them to one side. A ball of hellfire devoured the air where they’d been a moment ago, the blast from the heavy flamer enough to redden their backs and singe their hair even as they rolled behind one of the burning corpse mounds. They both knew the reprieve was temporary; Daxos wouldn’t stop until he’d added their names to his tally.

“Dual assault,” Crixus said as he shoved himself back to his feet. “Take the claw. I’ll handle the flamer.”

Tigris nodded once, and was off almost before Crixus had finished speaking. The Ultramarine sprinted around the pile of bodies, roaring as he tried to take Daxos in the rear. The helbrute wheeled, the torso snapping around, its lightning claws spread like a cat hoping to disembowel a mouse. Tigris reversed his direction, leaping back and using the power sword to fend off the dreadnought’s attack, trusting in his weapon’s field to protect him. Crixus came around the other side of the corpse heap, teeth gritted. Daxos was wheeling, pursuing Tigris. The flamer was coughing, preparing to burst back into life, but before it could Crixus squeezed the chainsword’s trigger. The teeth sputtered, then snarled as they spun. Daxos tried to turn back, realizing something was wrong even in the depths of his rage, but he couldn’t turn fast enough. The chainsword dug into the glistening meat holding the fuel line in place, ripping and tearing through mutated flesh and steel alike. The helbrute bellowed, flinging Crixus away. He tried to hold onto his weapon, but his hands slid off the chainsword as he flew back into the wall of the Cage hard enough to dent it before falling to the ground.

Time slowed down. The world swam. Blood dribbled out of Crixus’s mouth, and when he tried to breathe something stabbed him in his side. The crowd’s baying was a dull roar, and there was a ringing in his ears. Even the pain in his skull was far away as he tried to get his numb hands under him. He raised his head to look back toward the battle, but all he saw were shadows and dust lit by coruscating arcs of power. Something exploded, and a wave of heat washed over him as the world came back into sharp focus.

Daxos was roaring, this time with pain as much as rage. The flamer had exploded when he’d tried to trigger it, the caustic mixture detonating and spreading up one side of the helbrute. The fire burned with unnatural colors, and twisted faces seemed to dance in the flames as they licked toward Daxos. He was screaming, twisting as if trying to get away from it, but the fire was always right there, spreading closer and closer to his face. Power surged and sparked, the protection of the iron halo the only thing keeping the conflagration from reaching his half-broken sarcophagus. In desperation, Daxos twisted, raking at the flames with his power claw, flaying away the layers of scorched meat and blackened ceramite. Finally the heavy flamer came free, a last fuel line snapping as burning fluids fountained into the air.

Before the helbrute could refocus, Tigris was upon him, his weapon flashing. The ultramarine had discarded his shield, and he clung to Daxos’s back with his empty hand, slamming his power sword into the helbrute’s exposed shoulder joint beneath the curve of its pauldron. Daxos snarled, trying to reach for his assailant, but Tigris was always just quick enough to dodge the claws. Finally Daxos turned, flinging himself against the Cage in an attempt to crush the Ultramarine. Tigris leaped free at the last second, tucking his shoulder and rolling across the arena as Daxos wrenched himself out of the smashed hole in the wall. The helbrute stumbled, unsteady on his feet. He tried to raise his power claw, but the limb sparked and juddered, the power field dying as oil and hydraulic fluid ran down the arm, pooling on the floor.

Crixus didn’t waste time or breath. He sprinted toward Daxos, snatching up the ax he’d lost in his earlier duel. The scrape of steel drew the helbrute’s attention, and Daxos wheeled around. One leg shot out, meaning to drive straight into Crixus’s chest. Crixus folded, his knees and shins scraping along the deck as he sailed beneath the blow. As he went, he flexed his throat, and spat, emptying his Betcher’s gland into the helbrute’s hip joint. The helbrute shifted, trying to stomp down, but Crixus was already up and moving again, wheeling around as the shredded skin on his legs clotted and scarred over in moments. Daxos’s foot crashed down onto the deck plates, and the helbrute shifted, twisting all its weight as it lashed out at Crixus again. Once again Crixus tucked and dodged, this time lashing out with his ax, slamming into the sizzling, caustic mess his spittle had left behind.

The two of them danced. Daxos, spinning, wrenching, attempting to catch Crixus with a knee, a foot, or his remaining, unresponsive arm. Invectives and rage spilled from the vox grills, and Daxos barked along with them like a rabid creature. Crixus ducked, twisted, and dodged, utterly focused on every creak and every movement of the helbrute. He brought his ax around again, and again, hammering on the same spot, hacking at the joint. He brought his weapon down one last time, and Daxos shifted, tensing, and crushing the ax as he flexed the hip joint. The helbrute shifted, yanking the weapon away.

Crixus backpedaled. Daxos made to follow, lifting his leg and stamping down onto the grating. Metal shrieked and flesh tore as the joint finally buckled. Daxos stumbled, falling to one knee. Before the helbrute could find his momentum and readjust, Tigris rushed in, driving his power blade deep into the thing’s remaining functional knee joint. Boiling fluid spurted like arterial blood, and Daxos roared. He struggled, his shoulders pulling at the restraints of his sarcophagus, and his eyes rolling like a trapped animal. Black smoke belched from the exhausts on the helbrute’s back, and the engines whined loudly enough to drown out the crowd. The helbrute’s frame shifted, then went still. The engines slowed, but didn’t die. It was once more nothing but a living tomb.

“No,” Daxos rasped, his nostrils flaring as he tried to pull his head away from the ruined halo that held him immobile. “No, no, no, no, no…”

“Now what?” Tigris asked, panting, his muscles bunching as he ripped the power blade free of the helbrute’s leg.

Before Crixus could answer, Daxos went silent. When Crixus raised his head, he found Daxos was looking at him. Looking at him, and seeing him. The crippled World Eater touched his tongue to his ruined lips, and coughed through his ravaged throat.

“Crixus,” Daxos managed, blood running from the corners of his mouth. “Is… is that you?”

“It’s me, brother,” Crixus said. Tigris held out the hilt of the power blade, and Crixus took it as he warily approached Daxos.

“It hurts, Crixus,” Daxos moaned. The barbed tendrils rooted in his skull began to sway like agitated cat tails. Tears welled in Daxos’s eyes, and he stared into Crixus’s soul. “The Nails… they’ve eaten so much of me… I don’t know how much is left.”

“You should have died on Terra,” Crixus said as he grabbed hold of the helbrute’s pauldron and hauled himself higher. “We all should have.”

“I tried,” Daxos said through gritted teeth. Blood began leaking from one eye, and veins pulsed along his skull. His breathing intensified again, and there was a grinding, whining sound from deep within the sarcophagus. “No… not again. Please, brother. End this… let me die an astartes and not… not that thing!”

Crixus pressed his sword forward. He expected resistance, but too much damage had been done. The iron halo sputtered, barely slowing his thrust. The blade took Daxos through the eye, cleaving out the back of his head. Blood sizzled into steam as it made contact with the power field, and the psychosurgical implants that had wracked the World Eater with agony for millennia sparked, and went silent as they were cleaved apart. The life support systems whined and snarled, forcing breath in and out of Daxos’s lungs, but it was a lost cause. Even though his meat was still breathing, the light had left Daxos’s remaining eye, and his mouth hung open, the muscles finally relaxed. Crixus withdrew the blade, reversed his grip, and drove the sword through Daxos’s skull, and into his body cavity. His bones cracked and shattered, his organs ruptured, and what was left of him was unmade so thoroughly that nothing, no matter how determined, could make him serve its will any longer.

The sword was heavier to pull out of Daxos than it had been to put in, and blood was pounding so hard in Crixus’s ears that for a time all he heard was the sound of his twin hearts beating. As he leaped down from the destroyed helbrute, though, he saw the gathered World Eaters hammering on the walls of the Cage, their fists and voices raised as one. Out of that din, he heard another sound. Another word, belted out with a zeal of true believers.

They were calling his name.

For a moment, Crixus could only stand there. The fervor of the crowd’s call washed over him, filling his ears, and making his brain thrum in time with their ringing fists. The cheers of the crowd, the respect of his brothers, the taste of breath in his lungs, and the silence of the Nails produced a euphoria that filled him nearly to the brim. Part of him wanted to embrace that. To raise his weapon in the air and add his voice to the tumult. As Crixus ran his eyes over the gathered World Eaters, though, his rage began to bubble once more. His gaze fell upon the shattered sarcophagus, and Daxos’s remains. He watched as blood dripped from the ruined corpse, pooling onto the floor in a steaming, cooling puddle. He remembered the way Daxos had called out advice from the side of the arena, laughing at his brothers’ stumbles and cheering at their triumphs. He remembered how he would painstakingly carve the names of the fallen inside his armor so they were never forgotten. He remembered how Daxos had painted over the rampant hound on his pauldron, rather than carve it away, as his own, small way of remembering who he had been. Crixus felt his rage boil over into fury, and he howled.

“Shut your mouths you barking curs!”

Some of them did, as shocked as if Crixus had struck them. One or two stood as unmoving as statues, their fists still raised as they stared at him. Others tried to shout him down, but Crixus didn’t let them.

“You stand there baying for blood like beasts when you should bow your heads!” Crixus roared. He pointed his sword at the wreckage of the helbrute. “A brother has fallen, and you would lick the hand that held the blade!”

The assembled World Eaters snarled, and their pounding resumed. Their anger rose, and challenges were issued. Decimus shouted, but even with the enhanced vox grills his voice was lost to the sound and fury. Crixus stood before it all, unbent and unbowed, his blue eyes meeting every glare he saw through the walls of the Cage. Some managed to hold his gaze. Many did not. Some, though, merely nodded, and crossed their fists over their hearts.

“We would have offered you a warrior’s death,” Decimus snarled, once the wave of warband’s wrath had crashed.

“I’ll offer you the same!” Crixus shot back, his lip curling back from his teeth like a half-feral mongrel. He pointed his sparking sword at the gathered astartes, turning a slow circle. “My name is Crixus, son to none, of a place that was dust ten thousand years before you were ever born. I am a battle brother of the War Hounds, and I will be your doom!”

The storm broke, and a thousand things happened at once. Decimus snatched his plasma pistol from his side, but before he could bring it level, Tigris flung the shield he’d discarded during the fight at the warband leader. Decimus rotated his hand, protecting his weapon, but the bolt of plasma blasted through the Cage, and into the breastplate of a World Eater on the other side. The armored figures forced their way through the doors, as well as the break left by Daxos, each of them eager to take the field first. Battle cries echoed, and then Crixus saw nothing but red. Blades were parried or dodged, the berserk fury of his opponents making them sloppy even as their power armor gave them a strength Crixus could not hope to match. He slashed and stabbed, his blade seeking the gaps in the joints, or weaknesses in repairs. For every wound he dealt, he received one of his own, barely managing to stay ahead of the tide of roaring blades and flashing steel that sought him.

The Nails sang their song, and Crixus smiled as they danced.

Time lost all meaning. Pain was a mere moment’s distraction, and it vanished as soon as he struck another blow. Crixus’s sword broke, the blade splintering as he rammed it under a gorget. He snatched a chain ax from a dying astartes, and revved it as he dipped and ducked, trying to keep his footing in the pools of blood. At some point he acquired a combat knife, holding it in his off-hand hand, gore streaked to his elbow. His arms and legs trembled as his geneforged anatomy dumped dozens of stimulants into his bloodstream, and they flooded his body and his brain. Every breath was fire, but he laughed that harsh, barking laugh as he did what he had been made to do all those centuries ago.

And suddenly the tide of bodies retreated, and Crixus found himself standing alone. Breath tore in and out of his throat, and his head was full of bright, white light. He shook his head slowly, as if he were trying to clear the ringing in his ears. When the world rolled back in, he faced a half circle of marines in red power armor, weapons in their hands. Between them and him, the deck was covered in the dead. Crixus swept his gaze over them, and noticed that while some had their wounds in front, most of them had been cut down from behind. When he raised his head, the World Eaters lowered their weapons.

“Hail Crixus!” the one in the center shouted as he stepped forward. Crixus frowned, noting the battle worn narthecium on the marine’s forearm.

“Is this it, then?” Crixus asked, gritting his teeth. “The warrior’s death your leader promised me?”

“Decimus is gone,” the World Eater said. Crixus shifted, his fingers on the chain ax’s trigger, and risked a glance over his shoulder. The war band’s leader had, it seemed, fled the field. The platform was splattered with gore, shards of shattered armor, and the telltale blast marks of an overheated plasma weapon. In that glance Crixus knew Decimus was wounded, but not dead.

“So what is this, then?” Crixus growled, turning his attention back to the others.

“My sword and my life,” the World Eater said. As he spoke he disconnected his helmet, and removed it.

The face beneath that helm was blunt as a hammer, and nearly as handsome. Burn scars crawled up one side of the marine’s face, and one of his ears was gone. Service studs were bolted into his forehead, and a deep scar crossed his nose, and dug down to his cheek. He had a mouth made for frowning, and eyes like black holes that sucked in light, but gave nothing back. Crixus lowered his weapons, and stared at him. Then he laughed that mad, barking laugh once more.

“Nasir,” Crixus said, his voice a raw and bloody thing. “Is this whole damned ship full of ghosts?”

“Only thee, and me,” Nasir said.

“Very well,” Crixus said, forcing his shoulders back as he stood to his full height. “All of you who would follow me, raise your sword arms.”

Crixus watched as each of them did as he bade. He watched for hesitation, or resistance, but there was none.

“Break your chains.”

Every astartes arrayed before Crixus grasped the chain wound round their fighting arm. The chain that bound their weapons to their hands. The chain that had been Angron’s leash on his legion since the time of his return; the precursor to the Butcher’s Nails being forced upon all of them. Crixus watched as those chains snapped, the twisted, mangled links falling to the deck with a sound that was somehow loud in the broken battlefield of the Cage.

Crixus nodded, and raised his voice. “The Twelfth Legion is no more. It died in the apothecarium, and what was unleashed in its place were beasts. Monsters who sought to cover themselves in blood to hide their shame. As long as I draw breath, I will ensure more and more of them no longer do. And if I reach the end of that journey, I will pull the grave closed behind me.”

Crixus ran his gaze over the astartes. None of them moved. They held themselves at attention, their eyes on him. Even Nasir stood silent, though he clenched his jaw as the Nails tightened their hold on him, sending pulses of agony across his face. Crixus gritted his teeth, and looked over the half dozen space marines arrayed before him.

“Tell me, would you rather die like dogs, or live your last days as rampant hounds?”

Crixus’s words hung in the air for a long moment. Then one of the World Eaters removed his helm. Another followed suit. Then another. The faces that stared at Crixus were fierce, scarred, and dangerous… but more than that, they were young. Several of them still had the deep, raw, red scars across their heads from where the Nails had been driven in. Each of them crossed their fists over their hearts, and bared their teeth in a feral smile. Crixus cut his eyes to Nasir, who raised his chin in defiance.

“Don’t let their years fool you,” Nasir said. “The pups have sharp teeth, and they’re ready and willing to use them.”

Crixus opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a wheeze of air. His chain ax slipped from his fingers, and he stumbled. Before he could fall, he felt a strong arm catch him. He looked up, and saw Tigris. A deep gash cut through one of the Ultramarine’s eyes, the scorch marks of a power field leaving a blackened furrow through his flesh. He was also missing part of an arm, the bloody stump ending just below his elbow. Despite all that, he had a sharp grin on his face.

“Don’t fall now, cousin,” Tigris said, chuckling slightly. “Our duel is not yet decided.”

Nasir turned to the others, barking orders. They donned their helmets, quickly scouring the dead as they inventoried weapons, and sought functional pieces of power armor. As the pack of them worked, Nasir ran his diagnostic scanner over Crixus. He injected Crixus with something, and he felt strength flooding back into his veins. Crixus’s teeth clacked closed, and every muscle seemed to flex at once.

“Don’t bite your tongue off,” Nasir said as he pulled a shard of steel out of Crixus’s back, sealing up the wound with a bio-epoxy compound. He moved from one injury to another, assessing the damage, and letting his whirring tool put Crixus back together one piece at a time. “You might need to give another stirring speech.”

“How many are left?” Crixus asked.

“Three dozen more astartes scattered throughout the ship,” Nasir said. As he spoke, alarms began blaring, and the ship started to rumble and groan as gates rolled down, and blast doors sealed. “A few thousand additional crew. All of them on alert.”

“My squad’s ship should still be in the hangar, if they haven’t scrapped it for parts yet,” Tigris said. The knuckles of his remaining hand went white as he clenched them into a fist, but he didn’t react as Nasir cauterized his wounded arm, and began sealing his more serious hurts. “If we move fast, we could beat them to it and make a run for the black.”

“No,” Crixus said. “They’ll expect that. The hangar will be under a security cordon.”

“So what do you suggest?” Tigris asked.

Crixus pulled his lips back from his teeth as he met the Ultramarine’s eyes. “We take this entire gods forsaken ship.”

Tigris blinked, then swore as Nasir jabbed him in the muscle of his shoulder with his narthecium. The Ultramarine shook his head slowly, back and forth. “I’d heard stories from the chapter ancients about how mad you were. I thought they were exaggerating.”

Crixus turned his head, and caught the eye of one of the younger marines. He pointed at him, then gestured at the remains of the helbrute. “You! Get Daxos’s body out of there. Do not damage anything more than it already is.”

“Are you getting sentimental in your old age?” Nasir asked, cupping Crixus’s chin and turning his head to administer a final injection.

“No,” Crixus said as he rolled out his neck. His pain was mostly gone, and every breath seemed to fill the entirety of his lungs. He watched as what was left of a friend he’d lost so long ago was disconnected, and dragged out of the tomb he’d been forced to suffer in for millennia. A tomb that had driven him mad in darkness and silence where he couldn’t even escape into sleep. “Once we’ve taken this ship I’m going to rip Decimus out of his armor, put him in that sarcophagus, and leave him there until the Nails have eaten him down to the bone.”

More Stories From Neal Litherland

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But if you're in the mood for more of my stories, check out some of the following examples!

- Old Soldiers: The Hyperion Conflict devastated the planet, but humanity survived. So, too, did the Myrmidon; genetically-engineered shock troopers who stood on the front lines of the war. Pollux has been trying to escape the horrors of that war for a decade, now, and he may be able to do so... until a shadowy conspiracy makes a move on him. Reassembling the remains of his old squad, he prepares to do what he was made to do, but there is a question in the back of his mind. Is this really happening, or is it all in his head?

- Where The Red Flowers Bloom: When Japanese forces sent a small garrison to an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, none of them expected to so much as see the enemy before the end of the war. But there is something on the island... something more dangerous than an entire fleet of American warships. Something that bullets simply will not kill.

- Broken Heroes: Rann was sent out to retrieve a lost weapon, but now he and the squad who came with him are surrounded by the colossal, insectoid creatures that claimed the forest. When a brave act crashes him through the ground and into an ancient bunker, he finds something far more potent than he could ever have hoped for... something that wants to finish the fight it started so long ago.

- Field Test: When Inquisitor Hargrave came to the world of New Canaan a few days ahead of an ork rok, she promised them a weapon that would destroy the greenskins. When that weapon was unleashed, though, none could have predicted just how powerful, or how dangerous, he truly was.

- Beyond The Black: The Emperor's Hand: Gav Smythe has fought daemons and traitors in the Emperor's name all his life... but this may be the greatest challenge the ogryn has yet faced!

- Gav and Bob Part V: Faith and Martyrs: The Imperium's bravest ogryn sits down to talk with a canoness confessor of the Adeptus Sororitas. She will weigh his sanity, and his soul, and Gav may just find some of the peace he didn't know he was seeking.

- Waking Dogs- A World Eaters Tale: For my fans of Warhammer 40K, this is a story I felt compelled to tell about one of the infamous World Eaters remembering who he once was.

- Broken Chains- A World Eaters Tale: The sequel to Waking Dogs, we see that Crixus is taking his personal crusade seriously. Word is beginning to spread of his deeds, and his old sergeant Atillus realizes that the time may have come for him to pay for the decisions he made so very long ago.