"Blood for the Blood God"
It was the sound of an axe biting steel.
"For the glory of Macragge"
A blade entered flesh, then something heavy hit the ground.
Splat.
Blood sprayed out. As the headless heretic sank to its knees and toppled forward, the surrounding roar grew even more frenzied.
"Blood for the Blood God Blood for the Blood God"
The blasphemous chant beat at his ears. Shifris watched in silence as another heretic leapt into the dueling pit.
He did not strike first.
He was waiting to hear the stake of this duel.
"No more. You have won everything, warrior."
The Khorne champion, nearly three meters tall, drew twin axes. Their chain teeth spun and threw sparks.
Eight skulls, eight pairs of offerings, and a warrior proven by eight trials. The Blood God's realm had opened its gate to him.
He could feel eight lakes of blood on the endless crimson plain boiling for him. Khorne had already prepared eight wars as his steps upward.
The desire to reap this warrior's skull and let his blood run over his own body echoed in his heart.
"Now I will take it all, and your life with it"
The traitor's voice crashed like thunder, like the power pack fused to his back that hurled fire outward, the sign of a warrior's boundless might.
He stood in the posture of a man who had never lost.
Shifris remembered clearly the axes that came from behind and tore apart a brother who had still been holding back the orks.
On the Cataphractii Terminator's chest plate, blood and meat clung, and there was the gap his brother had carved.
And the brother's head, the one who had left the wound, now rode a spike that jutted from the traitor's back.
Shifris did not howl at the injustice. He knew a traitor had no honor to begin with.
Dragging his heavy iron plate, he lifted his nicked and notched sword once more.
"For the glory of Macragge"
It was a blood-soaked arena, and a brave man's roar shook it end to end.
Severed limbs lay everywhere. Rabid void rats dragged scraps into the ducts. Deathwatch corpses were spiked from belly to crown and set upright on tall struts as railings. A viscous mix of blood and what might have been brain matter filmed the steel around them like jungle webs.
The reek of blood hit like a wall. Scarlet warp miasma dyed the whole generator pit red.
At the center, a white-helmed Apothecary struggled to stay upright.
Eight Chaos Space Marines lay dead around him.
He was badly hurt. His power pack had been ripped away, and a huge split ran across his chest. Both hearts were shattered.
His opponent was a fully armed Khorne warrior, nearly as tall as Arthur.
Arthur's first glance caught it all. A Cataphractii Terminator with a live energy shield dueling a battered Mark VII Astartes.
The Sisters, who had caught up to the column, took in the sight. Fire flared in their eyes.
"Hold. Form the ring"
The Canoness' low command sent the twenty six Battle Sisters fanning out to take ambush points.
"Does Khorne not prize honorable duels"
Arthur tossed out the question and flashed into the pit in a blur, eyes already aching from the desecration.
Anger could not solve problems, but killing could.
He would kill every cultist who dared profane his worldview with vile ritual. No mercy.
"Khorne does not care where the blood comes from."
Romulus took in the wrecked arena and shook his head. He set his Ultramarines to pour fire and switched on the vox.
"Seal the approaches. Kill them all. Let none escape."
The blue giants around the pit moved as one. One hand snapped safeties and locked down triggers. The other hand clamped the upper housing to tame recoil to almost nothing. The Sisters swapped to meltas and used blasts to close every possible exit below.
Gunfire and detonations drowned the cultists' chants in a heartbeat. The Chaos Marines still ringed around the corpse heap were riddled before they had fully raised their profane weapons.
Their struggle meant as little as the ruined ritual at the pit's heart.
Thump.
Arthur dropped from above, braced his shield to the Terminator's brow, and delivered a loyal burst of plasma.
Khorne's blessing let the traitor weather even that. He rocked back to bleed off the force, shoved aside the thrust at his head with his thick vambrace, and scissored twin axes at Arthur.
A worthy fighter.
The first who had lasted a full exchange with Arthur.
Arthur's eyes narrowed. His focus tightened.
He caught the right hand chop on his blade, shouldered the shield to knock off what looked like a feint but was in truth a thrown axe aimed to finish the Apothecary. He drove forward and staggered the Terminator.
"Lackey of the False Emperor, you—"
Arthur ignored the roar. With the traitor off balance and his sword still bound against a blessed axe, Arthur stepped in and punched. Ceramite knuckles smashed into the already twisted skull.
Crack.
The warped head flew. Blood surged from the stump. The body, not yet realizing the brain was gone, kept its hacking posture.
Arthur stepped back, caught his falling power sword, and let the axe screech across his chest plate.
By then, fire from Romulus' line had shredded every remaining fighter.
Even Astartes could not resist the shock of a sudden, saturated barrage.
The red mist thinned.
Rage. Rage.
In the realm where blood ran forever, limitless wrath swelled in the heart of the God of Slaughter.
A duel had been ruined. A glorious, bloody duel.
Right under His gaze.
No skull for His throne. No servant who might bring Him more skulls. The power He had projected faded with the servants' deaths. A loss upon a loss.
Who.
Khorne glared into that corner of reality. He saw the cursed worshipers. He saw the corpses of His servants. He could not see the hand that had stolen His skulls.
Cursed scheming, enough to vex even a god.
"Tzeentch"
A streak of cold blue crossed His mind. Seated upon the Brass Throne, the Blood God loosed a roar that froze the spirit.
If He could not find the culprit, then the Deceiver who loved to hide the truth would pay the price.
Only slaughter solves problems.
The brass great bell tolled across the crimson waste. Molten metal surged like a flood, crushed skulls, and poured into the eternal furnaces of butchery.
Iron bulls and blood shrines, machines of Chaos and constructs born from spirits of slaughter burst from the Tower of Skulls and charged out.
The thick red rivers, made viscous by eternal war and killing, thinned as the hordes assembled. Across the waste, numberless butchers stilled their blades and looked to the Lord of Slaughter on His brass throne with hungry eyes.
"Blood for the Blood God"
The Blood God's wrath is eternal. His weapons never sleep.
Only one thing can halt the endless duel.
A greater war.
"Skulls for the Skull Throne"
Beneath a layered sky of blood, the armed legions roared their frenzy.
At the eighth toll, brazen horns blared across Khorne's realm.
Eight hundred eighty eight greater daemons of Khorne, with their legions, marched on the endless blue labyrinth.
""
When burning iron hooves smashed the gaudy maze walls, the shifting thing seated above a dry and bottomless well finally opened His thousand eyes.
"Change."
The word was a whisper. Countless lips and teeth clicked with boundless joy.
As if the Khorne legions ravaging His realm were in truth a host sent to liberate Him.
"Hee hee, a war never foreseen."
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