Above, Kersh saw that the gallery was crowded with superhuman silhouettes. The sons of Dorn had gathered to witness the final of the Feast; to discover which Chapter would demonstrate themselves worthy of their brothers’ esteem and be granted centennial custodianship of the primarch’s blade. History was about to be made. The eight hundred and sixteenth Feast of Blades was to end and a champion be immortalised in memory.
Alighieri was a devout killer. Zealot. Fanatic. A devotee of victory. He knew no fear. Doubt had never known a home in his pious hearts and his belief was absolute – in his primarch, his Emperor and his Imperium. The Black Templar was already on his knees in the arena grit, indulging in a warrior’s blessing. The dim light of the Cage shone off his bald crown and the bleak line of a mouth ran beneath the lustrous length of his crusader’s moustache. Alighieri was all about the moment. He lived his penitence and existed in a perpetual state of judgement – both on his enemies and himself.
Montalbán, by contrast, radiated presence. He was huge, second only in size to the savage Crimson Fist Kersh had fought in the earlier round. Unlike Alighieri, Montalbán’s belief grew from a place deep within his colossal chest. His faith was that of an Angel, long accustomed to the supreme capabilities of his superhuman body. He already thought of himself as a champion of champions. A symbol in flesh, sculpted in Dorn’s own image, whose eyes were not the pinpoints of grim determination that belonged to his Black Templar opponent, but gleaming, grey discs of adamantium assurance. A warrior who had played through the engagement in his mind a hundred times and had won every time. The Imperial Fist went through rudimentary flexes and stretches. His throbbing arms and shoulders were like rolling foothills to the tabletop mountain of his blond hair and graven brow, and beneath these hung a stoic visage of immortal calm.
Both Adeptus Astartes looked virtually untouched by the trials of the Feast so far, a testament to their skill and the ease with which they had despatched their opponents. Kersh looked like hell in comparison and decidedly ugly in his display of stitches and scarring both old and new. With his remaining eye the Excoriator caught a glint of light off the mirrored blade of a gladius. Montalbán strode over to the weapon and picked it up in one meaty gauntlet. Looking over at Alighieri he found that the Black Templar had ascended the wall of a mock-battlement. Stepping lightly across the merlon-tops, the Castellan found the second gladius and picked it up nimbly.
Kersh felt suddenly vulnerable.
‘Scourge!’
Kersh heard Montalbán call him and turned back. The mighty Imperial Fist was stood over the third sword. Kersh died a little inside. The blades had been randomly placed. It was not the kind of fortune he’d been hoping for. Hooking the tip of his gladius under one of the sword’s cross guards, Montalbán scooped the weapon up into the air. It spun the distance between them before being snatched out of its flight by the Scourge. With the gladius firmly in his grip, Kersh nodded his appreciation.
‘For all the good it will do you,’ Montalbán announced across the animated arena. He flashed his eyes at the Excoriator in mock surprise. ‘Here comes Alighieri. It begins…’
Alighieri was there. Like some feudal knight in an ogre’s cave, the Black Templar launched himself at Montalbán from the battlement, gladius clutched in both hands. Kersh admired the Castellan’s courage. It had been a brave opening gambit. The Imperial Fist turned on his heel and smacked the blade aside with his own, although the weapon looked comparatively short in the giant Montalbán’s fist. Alighieri hit the dark stone floor of the cage, tumbled and rolled, landing back on his feet like a cat. He came straight back at the Imperial Fist with immaculate bladework, each swipe and slash a manoeuvre of cold conviction.
It became immediately apparent to Kersh that although undeniably skilled, Montalbán’s fearsome reputation as Chapter Master Pugh’s champion was not built upon swordplay. He was fast for one so tall, however, and the power of each strike was irresistible. For every stabbing riposte the Templar offered in the wake of the champion’s broad sweeps, Alighieri suffered the reply of a hammerfall of cleaving cuts and smashes.
As blades sparked and the Black Templar was pounded back, Kersh found his grip tighten around his own gladius and his hesitant steps pick up speed. It was not fear that had slowed his advance, although the Excoriator feared it might be interpreted as such if he dallied much longer. It was opportunity. He had been unfortunate with the positioning of the gladius, but the opportunity to witness even a few seconds of his opponents at each other’s throats was a welcome gift. Kersh took in the Imperial Fist’s reach and his preference for scything sweeps and rapid downcutting. The Space Marine treated his blade like an extension of his arm, driving the razored edge at his opponent with brute proficiency.
Alighieri, the Scourge observed, guided his gladius. His technique betrayed a crusader’s bluntness, but the Castellan had a clear respect for the weapon’s balance. His wrists did much of the work, working within the counter-arcs of both pommel and fulcrum. He favoured the tip of the leaf-shaped blade, relying on its length for the demands of a hasty defence, and worked the weapon with an even speed and rhythm. Strike for strike, the Templar was the better swordsman, but round after round Montalbán had smashed the skill senseless from his opponents’ hands and it appeared that Alighieri would be little different.
Within moments Kersh was among them. The Scourge was a killer rather than a fighter. He lacked both the Black Templar’s deftness with the blade and the centrifugal power of Montalbán’s swordarm. The Excoriator’s gladius came at them both with murderous intent, however. His first few swings spoke of a squat ferocity, the first almost taking out the giant Montalbán’s throat and the second flashing narrowly before Alighieri’s face. The pair instantly sensed the threat and responded with a double-dealing of punishing bladework. Kersh could barely get his gladius between the Black Templar’s stabbing weapon and Montalbán’s bludgeoning, overhead barrage. He wouldn’t have achieved that if it hadn’t been for the pair’s own exchanged blows.
With the impact of the Imperial Fist’s weapon still ringing through his own and up through his arm and shoulder, Kersh rolled beneath a low, opportunistic swipe from Alighieri. Out from between his brothers, Kersh assumed a defensive posture at the apex of the revolving triangle the three Space Marines had created. If the sons of Dorn formed the points, the clash of blades gave the shape its scalenic sides.
As the battle roamed the Cage, the architecture of the arena transformed about the three warriors, adding the simple danger of disappearing footholds and floorspace to the evolving deathtrap of blades slicing up the air between them. The movement of the blocks in symbolic representation of the Iron Cage fortress was more than disorientating. Preoccupations with footing, falling and hazards sapped the only seconds the Space Marines had to spare between the furious onslaught of their opponents’ blades. Serrated discs spun like circular saws along the gaps between floor blocks, forcing the Adeptus Astartes to sidestep and jump in their carapace.
Pummelled into the ground by Montalbán’s unremitting overhead assault, Kersh was forced to roll across a quad of blocks set with vents that were flush to the stone. As the Excoriator tumbled, the vents emitted a volatile gas that was sparked and ignited about him. Burying his head in his arms, Kersh rolled shoulder over shoulder until he emerged, hair singed and armour smoking from the shallow field of flame. A pit had unexpectedly opened up beneath Montalbán and the giant had dropped down into a darkness into which Alighieri and the Scourge were forced to follow.