The Eightfold Path
Anthony Reynolds


I stand waiting, a duelling axe held loosely in my hand. It is not Gorechild – that roaring monster is purely for killing. The bout is not sanguis extremis.

 	The weapon is bound to my wrist with chain, in honour of the Desh’ean gladiators. I have seen their bones. I have walked the site of their death. I helped enact Angron’s vengeance upon their killers.

 	I never met them, yet their deaths have made known who we are becoming. We are slaves to their memory. 

 	‘Third blood, Kharn?’

 	Borok is stripped to the waist, as am I. His slab-muscled torso is criss-crossed with old wounds. Scars upon scars. All of them are on his front; he has never shown an enemy his back. He is no coward.

 	‘First blood,’ I respond.

 	I can see in his eyes that he is disappointed, but he nods in agreement anyway. The Legion has bled enough. There have been too many deaths in the pits since Angron’s change, his… ascension. That was the word that his brother Lorgar used to describe it, at least.

 	And as ever, Angron has changed, but so too have his sons.

 	The circling spectators are noisy. They bray like animals. They hunger for the sight of blood. The Butcher’s Nails demand it of us all.

 	They press into the soft flesh of my mind, grinding and wrenching at my pain receptors. They are getting worse. Even at their most dormant they make themselves known, corkscrewing into my brain. The screws turn and the nails hammer.

 	The camaraderie of my fellow World Eaters cannot raise a smile from me. Food tastes like ashes. There is no joy to be had but that found in killing. Opening arteries, cleaving flesh, taking skulls – this is what the Nails want from me.

 	I have shunned my brothers these last weeks. Dark thoughts haunt me. I have taken to walking the decks of the Conqueror alone; stalking her corridors compulsively, as though the mere act of walking kilometres upon kilometres will give me some sudden insight. Some direction. Some… hope?

 	I had not intended to come here tonight. Perhaps the Nails brought me to the pits, but once I heard the sirens’ call of clashing blades and weapons hacking into flesh, I was unable to turn away. The promise of even a moment’s relief from the incessant grind on my cortex was an offer that was, tonight, irresistible.

 	The Nails want me to fight again. I have not been here since I humbled Erebus. The wretch’s cowardice denied me the kill, and the Nails punished me for it.

 	But I am here now, and already the pressure has eased.

 	Borok takes his place opposite me in the circle. He will fight with his usual armament – a pair of long, curved blades.

 	Swords against axe. Such a fight never lasts long.

 	I attack. It is the only way I know. My speed takes him by surprise, almost ending the fight in the first breath. He recovers well, though. We are both dancing to the tune of the Nails, and it is an ugly turn. Few within the Legion fight with grace anymore.

 	I block a blade that flashes for my throat, forcing me to sway aside from its twin coming in low for a disembowelling strike. I kick Borok away, slamming my foot squarely into his solar plexus. He staggers back. I wait for him, rolling my wrist, spinning the duelling axe as I adjust my grip. 

 	He snarls as he throws himself at me. I meet him head-on.

 	Borok is one of the Devourers, one of Angron’s ‘bodyguards’. The primarch never needed a bodyguard, of course – not before. And now? Chained and bound below deck, the notion that he needs protecting is laughable. The Devourers are little more than his gaolers. An ignoble task for what should have been the Legion’s elite.

 	Block. Sweep. Side-step, strike. 

 	This is not real. These fights are nothing but distractions to ease the pain until the real battle is joined once again, and then the Legion can be unleashed.

 	The thought of releasing Angron from his prison is not a comforting one.

 	And what of us, his sons – are we doomed to a similar fate? Will the last of our humanity be bled out as well, leaving us as nothing more than chained lunatics?

 	The Nails punish me as they feel my aggression falter. They stab into my brain, blinding me with a white burst of agony. Borok almost takes me then. In my distraction, I only avoid his slashing blades by a hair’s breadth.

 	I can see the frustration in him. He wanted to test himself against the warrior that had bested the Dark Apostle, but that was different. That was true. This is merely a charade.

 	One of his blades scrapes along the haft of my axe, almost grazing my knuckles – that would have been first blood, though a result like that would have made Argel Tal laugh.

 	Perhaps it is the memory of my old friend that adds some fuel to what comes next.

 	A backhand blow sends me stumbling to the deck. Something drips onto the back of my hand.

 	Blood. Did he graze me, without me feeling it? No.

 	We both glance up, the fight forgotten.

 	The ceiling is bleeding.

 	Another drop hits me, then another. It is trickling down the walls.

 	Then I hear Angron’s roar.

 	He has been raging for weeks, but this is different. It silences the crowd.

 	The sound wells up through the grilled deck, vibrating through the steel. It makes the walls shudder and groan. It crackles out through the unpowered vox-horns. It is enough to warp reality itself.

 	My heart begins to thunder in time with the pounding in my head. It blurs with Angron’s din, rising in intensity, a building crescendo. My fingers tighten around the haft of my axe. A growl escapes my lips. The pounding obliterates everything.

 	I know what is coming but I am powerless to prevent it. It comes on faster than it ever has before. I barely have time to take a breath.

 	It hits me like a tidal wave, and in an instant I’m drowning. Taking the axe in both hands, I surge to my feet. Everything goes red.

 	The stink of blood and raw flesh is the first thing I notice. The second is the roar.

 	Not Angron. The daemon-primarch has fallen silent, but the roar of the crowd is just as deafening.

 	My vision returns slowly, the red haze lifting to reveal the aftermath of butchery. Blood coats my hands and arms to the elbow. It drips off my axe. There’s blood in my mouth, too, caking my lips and chin. It is not my own.

 	I look at the carnage I have wrought. Borok is no more. What is left is a ruin – the work of a psychopath. The crowd roars its approval. It is sickening.

 	I want to be away from here, away from the screams and the charnel stink. 

 	A figure steps forward. My eyes are unfocused, yet the urge to bury my axe in his blurry face makes my fingers twitch. 

 	‘Borok was of the Devourers, Kharn,’ he says. ‘By rights, his place is now yours.’

 	That actually makes me laugh. It comes out as a bloody cough, spraying spittle and gobbets of congealed gore.

 	I drop my axe, and it falls with a dull clang. I wipe my hands down my arms. Blood sloughs away, dripping from my fingertips.

 	I look around like a dreamer waking from a deep slumber. The fury of the crowd, their anger and bloodlust, batters against me. These are my sworn battle-brothers. This is my Legion.

 	We will no longer walk the Crimson Path. I see that clearly now. We are walking another path entirely – a road far more damning.

 	I had thought it superstitious nonsense, nothing more than the religious ranting of the XVII Legion. It is not. Sadly, it is not.

 	We are walking the Eightfold Path, and there can be no turning back.