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Dreams of Unity – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Dreams of Unity

Nick Kyme

We are the thunder,
we are the lightning,
We were His first,
but now amongst the last,
We lived too long,
and now we wish to die,
The only death that matters,
the Honoured Death.

– Dahren Heruk, hymn of the Honoured Death

As I looked down onto the fight below, I knew Kabe was going to die. And I was powerless to do anything about it.

He would not yield. He roared, a broken jaw distorting his shout of defiance. The man trying to kill him remained undaunted. Even when Kabe spat blood onto his war-plate, the gold-clad warrior would not be goaded.

Instead, he levelled his spear and Kabe readied his falchion in kind. The sword’s blade had become a ragged saw, notched by repeated ineffectual blows against the other warrior’s armour. Kabe did not know how to lose. He had never retreated in his life. Even when the oligarchs of Kievan Rus had rained atomics from their black citadel and bathed the Sibir ice plain in radioactive fire, Kabe had advanced. He had fought without rest during the siege of Abyssna, and marched the length of Albia to bring the warlord clans of Hoth Grendal to heel.

‘For Unity!’ Kabe roared, his broken sword aloft in salute.

He charged, but his left leg failed him and he slipped, his body not as stubborn as his mind.

Kabe stopped when the spear impaled him, his armour easily pierced. The spear haft lodged in his guts, the leaf-bladed edge having punched right through and out of his back on the other side. He dangled there for a moment, blinking dumbly, before the gold-clad warrior kicked his body loose. Silence hung in the air, suspended by shock and disbelief.

Then the crowd roared. Light flooded the arena, a cold and harsh sodium glow that threw grim shadows over a shallow pit of sand and half-crushed bones.

Blood pooled under Kabe’s body. He trembled, still alive, mouth agape and trying to catch air like a landed fish.

‘Damn it,’ Tarrigata murmured. ‘It’s over then.’ The old man standing next to me suddenly looked frail. Perhaps it was the thought of the money he had lost betting on Kabe, or perhaps it was because his ludus had just lost another fighter. His once fine garments had begun to look a little threadbare of late.

I spared him a half-glance as I leaned in to the arena barrier, ignoring the jostling crowd around us. I saw enough grief in his face to suggest his apparent fragility stemmed from something deeper than a blow to his ever-diminishing revenue stream. Fewer and fewer patrons turned up to the fights these days. They had other concerns on their minds, about war, about the killings and the riots. For the rest, this was how they forgot.

The gold-clad warrior advanced, whirling around the spear as he poised to stab down at Kabe.

The crowd roared louder in anticipation of the kill.

‘Heruk, is it over?’ Tarrigata asked, and I felt his thin fingers brush against my naked arm. ‘I can still hear them baying. Is it over? Has that chrono-gladiator not killed him yet?’

‘Stay here,’ I said, and felt Tarrigata’s fingers fall away as I leapt the plate barrier and jumped into the arena. The sand underfoot scattered as I landed.

A few onlookers noticed me and began to chant. I heard my name and felt the chill of hollow glory that came with it. Battle was glorious, Mount Ararat when Arik Taranis raised the Lightning Banner and declared Unity, that was glorious. This was gutter glory. There was no honour is this.

The gold-clad warrior’s spear stabbed down before he realised there was another fighter in the ring. Kabe screamed, the leaf-blade stuck in his thigh. A second thrust pierced his shoulder and brought another scream.

‘If you’re going to kill him, kill him,’ I growled, glowering at the hulking warrior’s back.

We had all suffered enough already. This was needless.

The crowd roared louder, their faces hidden by the darkness now, and I was half-blinded by the glare of sodium lights anyway.

My eyes were better than Tarrigata’s, but they were not what they once had been. I blinked twice, trying to banish the blind spots as the warrior turned. A chrono-gladiator, over-muscled on stimms and sheathed in gold armour plate. I saw a parody of His Adeptus Custodes in the grossly swollen fighter before me and could not resist a smile. Down here beneath the Maw, we were far from the Throne’s light, but we still found humour despite our misery.

The death clock in the fighter’s forehead turned. His owner, Radik Clev, would be close and waiting with a key. Victory for the chrono would see another key turn in the death clock. More life for more life. That’s how it worked with a chrono. I only had meagre honour to fight for. What was that against trying to perpetuate one’s existence?

The spear turned, the change in grip unnecessarily elaborate, and it pointed at me. The chrono’s eyes were bloodshot, the veins threading the sclera describing madness. As the death clock ticked down, its strikes grew louder. Like a heartbeat. He bayed at me, more beast than man. The challenge was deep and vox-modulated enough to make it sound inhuman. But then again, I was not really human either.

I bared my teeth in a feral snarl, the rekindling of some old instinct, and drew a broad-bladed sword. My thumb activated the disruptor field, which flickered dangerously, once, twice, before snapping to consistency. Heat and ozone filled my nostrils. There was oil and blood, too, but that was coming off the chrono. And Kabe as he bled out. I could see him, reaching impotently for his broken falchion.

‘Should’ve just killed him,’ I said.

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A Black Library Publication

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