The webway spat them out without ceremony.
Nolan's magnetic boots hit the ground hard and sank slightly into soil that had been soaked through so many times it no longer held its original color. Dark, heavy, wet with things that had long since dried and been soaked again. He steadied himself and looked up.
The arena was enormous.
It rose around them on all sides: tiered galleries packed with Dark Eldar spectators, thousands of them, their voices crashing down like a physical weight. Cheering, screaming, the rhythmic stamping of feet against the stone galleries sending vibrations through the blood-soaked earth beneath his boots. They had arrived at the center of it.
Nolan drew a slow breath through his helmet's filters and took stock of where they stood.
"Welcome, Astartes of the Imperium of Man."
The voice cut through the crowd noise with the ease of someone who had never needed to raise it to be heard. In the luxurious stand at the arena's edge, a figure in dark green ghost plate armor rose from his seat and spread both arms forward in a gesture of theatrical hospitality. Archon Ilu Limnu of the Pierced Rose Kabal, unhurried, almost amused.
"I am Ilu Limnu, Archon of the Pierced Rose." He let the title settle. "First, my gratitude: to every Kabal that sent envoys to witness this event, and to every Dark Eldar who came to watch. The support is genuinely appreciated." A thin smile. "Killing without an audience is meaningless. That has always been my view."
The crowd noise surged and then quieted again, waiting.
"You came seeking an artifact in my possession. I respect that kind of initiative." He clasped his hands together. "So here is my offer, and I give it in good faith. Complete this performance. Survive what I have prepared for you. Do that, and I will hand you the artifact myself, with both hands, and guarantee your safe passage out of Commorragh in the name of the Pierced Rose."
He paused, and when he continued, the warmth left his voice entirely.
"However." His gaze moved. "There is one among you who will not be leaving under any circumstances." His arm extended, one finger leveled precisely at the figure standing in the middle of the hunting team. "Utak. You treacherous, pointy-eared creature. Tell them. Tell them how we deal with traitors in Commorragh."
The galleries answered before Utak could open his mouth.
A sound that built from scattered voices into something unanimous, rhythmic, almost ecstatic.
"Death by a thousand cuts."
"Death by a thousand cuts."
"Death by a thousand cuts."
The chant rolled through the arena like a tide and the stone walls seemed to press inward with it.
Then ten rings exploded upward from Nolan's side in a burst of purple light, spinning outward with a screech of displaced air, and the sound of metal moving at speed tore through the chanting and killed it. The rings hung overhead, turning slowly, and the galleries went quiet in the way that crowds go quiet when something unexpected changes the terms of what they are watching.
Nolan tilted his head back slightly, just enough to face the Archon's stand at distance.
Beside him, Utak was shaking badly. Nolan did not look at him.
"You Dark Eldar talk a great deal," Nolan said. His voice came out low and flat, and the helmet carried it clearly across the open ground between them. "If you have tricks prepared, use them. Stop explaining them to me first." He held the Archon's gaze through the eyepiece. "The Dark Eldar are not known for keeping their word. I am not convinced today will be different."
Ilu Limnu tilted his head very slightly, a smile that did not reach his eyes.
"I appreciate the courage. I hope you are still able to say things like that a little later." He raised one palm slowly.
At the arena's edge, something moved. Stone ground against stone as a thick pillar rose from the floor, climbing steadily until it stood at full height. At its top, catching the black light of Commorragh's sun, was a crystal object roughly the size of a human head, its surface riddled with small dark apertures that seemed to pull at the eye.
"That is the Void Stone." Chaplain Manu's voice came from behind Nolan's shoulder, tight and immediate. "The artifact the Carcharodons lost."
He stepped forward without permission, closing the distance to Nolan's back, and kept his voice low.
"Lord Primarch. The failure of this operation belongs to me, and I will answer for it. If you get an opening, take the Void Stone and find a way out. I will deal with whatever comes in front of us." He hesitated for one beat. "I hope Tyberos notices something is wrong soon and moves to support."
Nolan did not respond to Manu directly. He turned his helmet a few degrees toward Kahurangi, who stood slightly behind his left shoulder.
Kahurangi's expression was composed. Almost serene, in the way that came from having already made a calculation and accepted what it produced.
"Lord Primarch." His voice was quiet and even. "We are Carcharodons. The Tyranid swarm did not break us. These are pointed-eared creatures who have spent their entire existence hiding from Chaos." The pale Librarian's lips curved slightly at the corner. "When the moment requires it, I will open a portal for you. Give the Dark Eldar a surprise they won't see coming." A brief pause. "The only thing I regret is that my soul may not find its way back to the Father of the Void afterward. But that is a small price."
He said it without drama. As a man states a fact he has already accepted.
Nolan said nothing. He faced forward.
Metal screamed against metal as the gate at the arena's far edge began to rise.
Dark Eldar gladiators came through it with weapons already drawn. Their expressions were the particular kind of ferocious that came from years of killing in spaces exactly like this one. They spread out across the blood-dark ground as they entered, reading the arena's terrain with practiced eyes.
Nolan pulled in a slow breath and stepped forward to meet them, Warscythe in hand.
"The death match begins."
Ilu Limnu's voice was almost an afterthought.
What followed was brief. The Warscythe moved and the gladiators died, each arc of the blade carrying green light through the air in a short bright line before the sound caught up. None of them got close enough to make use of their weapons. The blood-soaked earth received them one after another, and the galleries above watched in silence for a moment before erupting into noise again.
They did not care who won. The stimulation was the point. The volume of it rose as the blood count rose, feeding something in the Dark Eldar physiology that ordinary hours could not satisfy.
Nolan barely registered them. He was already turning to face the next gate.
It rose with the same harsh grinding sound, and four figures stepped out this time. Incubi, in their distinctive warsuit armor, klaives held at carry. Elite blade-warriors, trained in nothing but combat since before most living humans were born. They moved with the unhurried precision of fighters who had never needed to hurry.
Nolan closed the distance before they finished spreading out.
His power armor took the first exchange of impacts without yielding and the Warscythe answered in return. The Incubi were extraordinary. They lasted longer than the gladiators had. They did not last long enough.
When the last one fell, the galleries had grown louder again.
"I see." Ilu Limnu's voice came across the arena with something that might have been genuine interest under the indifference. "You are not a common Astartes. Company champion of some regiment, perhaps?"
He let the question float without expecting an answer.
"No matter. The Death Arena has no shortage of exceptional gladiators." His tone brightened slightly. "Allow me to introduce one of them. From the Imperium of Man itself, a rising star in the arenas of Commorragh."
The largest gate in the arena wall rose.
The figure that walked through it was unhurried. He was built heavily, arms bare to the shoulder with no armor covering them, the skin beneath mapped with old scarring. What he did wear was a suit of black power armor, broken in several places, bearing so many marks of past engagements that the original surface was almost entirely obscured. The armor's power pack still functioned, a single servo-arm mounted above it. And from the chassis of that power pack, mounted on short metal spikes in a row, was a collection.
Succubus heads from the Wych Cults. The massive, still-snarling skull of an Ork Warboss. And, displayed at the end of the row, a cracked Chaos Space Marine helmet with the eye-lenses still faintly lit.
The galleries did not merely cheer. They became something beyond organized sound.
Nolan's grip tightened on the Warscythe.
His eyes moved over the figure slowly, reading it, the way his eyes always moved when something required his full attention.
His brow drew together beneath the helmet.
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