"Ave dominus nox!" Telid Zvakka roared as he closed at last with his hated foe, Captain Tyrassius' broadsword blazing like a purifying firebrand in his left hand, as if the weapon's machine-spirit was just as eager to spill the Chaos Marine's tainted blood as he was. Haraan Zarr responded in kind, his inhuman eyes alight with the promise of victory, the daemonsword Soulreaver wreathed in an insidious miasma of hunger and death. The courtyard lit up as the two blades clashed in an outpouring of conflicting energies. Battle-simulants and combat-hormones burned through the Night Lord's bloodstream as he gave himself wholly over to destruction of his nemesis. His ennui vanished and a terrible all-devouring joy arose to take its place, a joy he had briefly reveled in during his duel with the Howling Griffon: the joy of a being created solely for war finding an opponent worthy of his prowess.

The two gene-forged demigods whirled about the funeral pyre, trading blows that would have broken the bodies of any human, their swords and claws a blur – yet there was a profound difference in their objectives: Zarr strove to cripple and subdue; Zvakka fought exclusively to kill. The sorcerer's force-talons tore great rents in the Night Lord's armor, steadily sapping his strength with each fresh wound, while Zvakka struggled to breach Zarr's defenses and land a decisive mortal blow. The Night Lord paid no heed to his injuries and instead devoted the whole of his focus to exploiting any lapse in the Chaos Marine's judgment. He began to decrease the vigor of his attacks, allowing Zarr to believe he had the upper hand even as his own blood continued to flow. Sensing his prey weakening Zarr pressed his advantage, forcing Zvakka to go on the defensive and driving him up against the base of the pyre in a shower of sparks. Their swords locked and once more Zarr's slavering jaws hovered mere inches from the Night Lord's sweat-streaked face, the glistening flesh of his exposed musculature pulsating with unholy vitality.

+Blade-to-blade, eye-to-eye – just as you desired,+ the Chaos Marine taunted as Zvakka managed to block the sorcerer's questing talons with his own lightening claws at the last second to keep from being disemboweled. +if battle remains the only action left that brings you joy then why not kill for the eternal glory of Khorne? The Blood God might yet endow you with the power to triumph over me this night – if you are worthy enough to call upon him for strength.+

"What the gods give with their right hand, they take with their left," Zvakka snarled as he marshaled his strength and thrust the Librarian back several paces. "You're just a slave, Zarr – a mere plaything to the abominations you so ardently worship. You style yourself as Thalac's invaluable advisor when you're not even worthy to clean the gore from his armor – though perhaps if you'd been born a dog you could have earned a place at his side by licking the blood from his boots."

Zarr howled in outrage and lunged at him, his eyes aflame with utter hatred. The numbing cold speared into Zvakka's body and enveloped his limbs once more, retarding his reflexes. This time he was not quick enough to parry the sorcerer's blows – blinding agony ripped though his arm as Soulreaver severed his left hand at the wrist. Tyrassius' broadsword struck the ground with a fateful clatter of steel on stone. Streaks of white flashed across Zvakka's vision and he gasped aloud as Zarr drove his force-talons into his stomach and twisted them.

+Now you will suffer the torments of the damned, Telid – now the gods shall have their due!+

The Chaos Marine wrenched the talons free and the Night Lord fell to his knees as a cascade of blood drenched his groin and thighs. Zarr sheathed the daemonsword and gripped him by the rim of his gorget. Zvakka tried to bring his lightening claws to bear but his arm was leaden and he no longer possessed the strength to wield the blades. The psyker loomed over him, now seemingly grown massive and monstrous as he channeled the raw energies of the immaterium into his corporeal form. Zvakka was dragged to his feet as if he weighed nothing. The runes adorning the sorcerer's horns flared to golden life, the ruinous symbols and sigils pulsing with infernal power. Haraan Zarr lowered his head. He opened his dripping jaws – and kept on opening them. Wider and wider they yawned until they gaped wide enough to swallow the Night Lord whole. Hell awaited within. Zvakka beheld an endless roiling landscape of elemental insanity: a churning writhing sea of unspeakable colors, impossible geometries, screaming souls and ravenous ever-shifting Neverborn. Eternal and unconquerable, the warp seethed in anticipation. A million eyes gazed hungrily upon Zvakka and a million mouths whispered his name in welcome. It hardly mattered if what he was witnessing was 'real' or a psychic projection conjured within his mind. Madness beckoned. Damnation loomed. Clawed fingers and barbed tentacles seized his limbs as a host of daemons swarmed about him and dragged him to a high altar formed of fused bones and melted flesh. Resistance was futile – the sacrifice would be carried out; the Ruinous Powers would be appeased; Thalac would ascend, becoming something unrecognizable to his brethren. It was inevitable – he had failed, and the price of failure was –

"My lord!" Zvakka's eyes snapped open. He gasped for breath. The reality of the courtyard reasserted itself in a bedlam of noise and violence. Bolters barked; chainblades screamed. He was on his knees again, his lower extremities bathed in blood. Shaza was at his side, hammering the butt of her laspistol against his pauldron in an attempt to rouse him. Before him a scene of chaos unfolded – an alternate vision of madness. Haraan Zarr roared and raged as he lashed out with both sword and sorcery as the Night Lords of Vath's Talon attacked him on all sides, dark gouts of his blood spraying across his assailants' midnight-blue armor as their revved chainblades tore into his body. One of Zarr's horns had been sheared off and a portion of his lower jaw had been blasted clean away. A Night Lord had already perished, brutally bisected from collarbone to hip. Fell lighting arced from the tines of the sorcerer's force-talons, enveloping two more legionaries in multicolored witch-fire as Soulreaver parried the blows of Vath's enormous Eviscerater. The Talonmaster was fighting with all the fury of a World Eater berserker, ancient Nostraman death-curses blaring from his vox-amplifiers at maximum volume, his jackal-jawed helm appearing to grin as the psyker's blood spattered across his visor.

"Stay low and find cover," Zvakka said to Shaza as she backed away from him. Free of the crippling cold he leapt to his feet and hurled himself into the fray, heedless of his wounds. One of the Night Lords engulfed by Zarr's witch-fire convulsed and collapsed as his blood was transmuted into pure promethium; the second fell screaming, ebony spikes erupting from his spine and skull as his skeletal system underwent catastrophic mutation. Zvakka sprang over his stricken brother even as Zarr turned his full attention upon Vath, Soulreaver glowing with an ethereal otherworldly warp-light. The Talonmaster struck again and as the two swords met the light coalesced around the Eviscerater and it exploded like a krak-grenade, the force of its destruction blowing Vath backwards into the pyre and sending dislodged chain-teeth whickering through the air like shards of deadly shrapnel. One projectile took out Zvakka's right eye before he hit Zarr with all the force of a charging Ambull, the crackling blades of his lightning claw punching through ceramite and carapace to pierce the sorcerer's twin hearts.

"Die!" Zvakka screamed, putting all his remaining strength into the strike. "Die and be damned! Thalac will never belong to your gods! Ave nominus nox!" Yet even as his life was extinguished the psyker assailed Zvakka's mind again and this time it was not visions of the warp that caused the Night Lord to stagger – it was the memories: memories of another world, of another life. Zvakka fell, dragging the dying Chaos Marine down with him, no longer aware of where he was or why he was fighting – for he was no longer a legionary, no longer a Night Lord. He was –

– He is mortal once more – weak; helpless; pathetic; a pale skinny nine-year-old boy clothed in filthy rags, running as fast as his legs can carry him, his single human heart pounding in his ears, his lungs burning with exertion as he flees from the vicious pack of savage gangers, the stolen half-roasted dog-leg clutched tightly in his hand. Hunger gnaws like a sump-rat at his empty stomach even as terror blinds him, reducing him to the mental state of a panicked prey-animal. His pursuers shout and whoop as they swiftly close behind him. Zvakka runs on, splashing through stagnate puddles before he slips and falls with a cry amongst the piles of trash choking the dark dingy alleyway, the leg-bone flying from his grasp. The gangers swiftly surround him, laughing and jeering. Their teeth are filed into points and their red-painted knives are drawn for the kill. Zvakka kicks and thrashes uselessly as two of them drag him to his feet and slam him up against a rockcrete wall. The older boys smirk and jostle each other as they debate on what they should do to him.

"Slit open his belly and tear out his guts!" cries one ganger whose right eye is encircled by a starburst tattoo.

"Cut off his fingers one-by-one and stuff 'em down his throat!" yells another boy with steel studs protruding from his lips and cheeks.

"Flay him alive, just like the Night Haunter used to do," snarls a third, his sharpened teeth capped in tarnished silver. Then the leader steps forward. Zvakka struggles helplessly against his captors, his fear all but choking him. The gangboss of the Redknives is well-muscled and his shaved scalp is inked with intricate Nostraman script. He wears a black synthleather longcoat and a ruby gemstone is set into the pommel of his dagger. Blinking languidly, he looks Zvakka up and down, assessing him like fresh meat upon the butcher's block. "You're a bold little gutter-rat, to be stealing food from the mouths of my mates," he says at length, sounding more amused then angry. Zvakka is too terrified to respond. "And you run fast, too, for such a scrawny brat," the gangboss continues, looking thoughtful. Then he turns to his followers. "What do you say, Redknives? Should we repaint our blades with his blood or should we find some other use for him?"

"He's just some whore's nimble-fingered bastard, Hassik – less then dirt. Let's kill him now and then we'll have something better then dog to eat." The boy with the starburst tattoo licks his lips as he speaks, his own hunger evident in his eyes.

"Nah, we'd do good to sell him to Krusk; everyone knows Krusk's clients pay top coin for kids his age – then we can buy up a few of those nice new needle-rifles Vessar's got stashed away in the southern warehouse district." The silver-toothed ganger grins at the thought of acquiring the weapons at Zvakka's expense and winks at him.

"No. We should let him join us," a clear youthful voice calls out from the back of the crowd. The gangers murmur in surprise and shift aside as a boy pushes his way past them – a boy only a few years older then Zvakka himself. The young ganger's face, though scarred, is bereft of tattoos and his lank black hair looks as if it has never once been cut. The butcher's blade he holds in his right hand is unpainted. He is obviously a newblood, an aspiring Redknife who hasn't yet been properly bloodied in a turf-war to earn the right to be marked with the signature gang-tattoos displayed by his comrades. Still, he radiates a quiet lethality and his eyes are devoid of fear as he comes to stand before his leader.

"What, are you tired of being the runt of the pack, Thalac?" Hassik asks condescendingly, tapping the flat of his dagger against the boy's pallid cheek. "Are you lonely? Or are you just sick of doing all the low jobs by yourself?"

"The Redknives need new members," Thalac informs him simply, ignoring the threatening blade. "Both Hespir and Zyte were killed three days ago and Fallaz is dying of that gut-wound. The Shadowskulls and the Gorefeeders claim more of our territory each month – soon we'll be scattered and hunted down like crippled dogs. The street-brat is fast and clever; we could use him. We could teach him how to cut and kill, too. I could teach him, if no-one else wants to; then we could at least pretend we have a future. And yes – I am tired of being the runt of the pack."

Hassik throws back his head and barks a laugh. "By Terra, you've got quite a pair on you, Thalac – I'll give you that much." He motions to the two gangers pinning Zvakka to the wall and they throw him to the ground at Thalac's feet. "Did you hear that, gutter-rat? Your life has taken a new turn. You're going to become a Redknife and put those nifty fingers of yours to good use – otherwise I'll personally skin you alive for daring to steal our prey. Understand, newblood?"

Zvakka stares up at Thalac in astonishment, feeling something that might be hope flare up in his heart. The long-haired boy smiles down at him; it is not a smile of arrogance or cruelty or even of triumph. It is an open guileless smile that hints at a future bond that will exist solely between the two of them – a bond that, unbeknownst to either boy, is destined to last for millennia, long after the Redknives' murder-gang and the night-world of Nostramo have both ceased to exist.

"Yes," Zvakka says, his voice barely above a whisper. Thalac extends his free hand, his smile widening. He grips Zvakka's bony wrist firmly, helping him to stand. Yes, his abyssal eyes affirm –

# # #

Telid Zvakka came to himself in agonizing increments as his disjointed thoughts slowly coalesced and his mind dragged itself free of the entangling shadows of his half-remembered past life. The Night Lord opened his good eye; Shaza's concerned face immediately swam into view. The old thrall was crouched by his head, carefully cleaning the dried blood from his face with a strip of cloth torn from her cloak and dampened with water from her canteen. She grinned tentatively as he focused on her, pulling back her scarified lips to reveal the few yellowed teeth she still possessed. "Another good fight, lord," she whispered gently, as if trying to comfort him. "Better then the first one, I think."

The Rhino rocked gently as it crunched over a mound of rubble. Zvakka lifted his head and looked about him, struggling to stay conscious through a haze of pain and fatigue. He had been stripped of his armor and was lying on his back on the floor of the transport. Vath was seated on his left along with the four surviving members of his squad, one of whom flexed his spiked gauntlets warningly to discourage Zvakka from rising. The Talonmaster's war-plate was scorched and his gorget and chestplate had been split open by the explosive destruction of his Eviscerater; blood was pooled at his feet and both of his eye-lenzes were cracked, their crimson malevolence dulled. Still, he grinned his jackal-skull grin, indifferent to the seriousness of his injuries. Tyrassius' broadsword was planted upright before him and the Night Lord's armored fingers gripped the hilt with a fierce possessiveness.

Zvakka raised his left arm and examined the stump of his severed hand; a thick dark scab of clotted Larraman cells now encrusted the end of his wrist. He then risked a glance at his stomach and immediately regretted it. The Rhino's interior lighting, dim as it was, served only to accentuate the gruesome sight of his exposed entrails.

"That sword is still mine, Vath," he gasped, his voice thick and garbled with congealed blood.

Vath emitted a harsh pain-filled noise that might have been a chuckle. "Don't fret now – if Thalac lets you live I promise I'll give it right back."

"You will?"

"No, of course not – you'll have to fight me for it."

Zvakka smiled as his eye flickered shut again. "Good – now I have something to look forward to..."

Vath's voice grew somber. "You know how this is going to end, Telid. Thalac is not going to take the loss of his pet sorcerer lightly. Death will be slow in coming, and you may yet beg for it before he is satisfied."

Zvakka coughed violently and tasted fresh blood on his tongue. "That doesn't matter; Haraan Zarr would have seen us all reduced to fanatical midnight-clad Word Bearers had I not acted. Besides, Captain Thalac is free, now – even if he doesn't realize or accept it. We freed him, Vath – together. We freed the entire warband. And I thought…I thought I was the only legionary…who cared…"

"We are Night Lords, brother," Vath sounded resigned, almost remorseful. "You know we cannot afford to care. Caring is a weakness, and weakness is the only true sin in this cruel uncaring galaxy."

The ancient memory resurfaced in Zvakka's mind again: Thalac as a boy, smiling with genuine warmth as he extends his hand to help a thieving gutter-rat who had earned nothing but death for his weakness…"I should have died a long time ago…" the Night Lord whispered raggedly as Shaza began to weep once more. "We all should have died…a long time ago…"

Vath did not answer. The Rhino rumbled onwards. Around them the capital city of Sychanthis III burned. Night had come – a night that would never truly end, a night that held no promise of a dawn. Ravaged in mind and body, Telid Zvakka sank unresistingly back into its black embrace, his final act of service to the Eighth Legion completed. The soothing darkness cradled Konrad Curze's faithful son, drawing him deeper and deeper into its fathomless depths, and –

– He stands next to Thalac on the crumbling terrace of a dilapidated hab-spire within sight of Nostramo Quintus' vast space-port, watching as ships, shuttles and lifters of every description travel in an endless brilliantly-lit procession from the surface to the orbital dockyards high above and back again. The sight is breathtaking and for a few minutes the two boys forget the incessant hunger gnawing at their bellies. Then Thalac turns to Zvakka, his dark eyes bright with some inner fire, his smile as open and guileless as it had been on the night he'd saved Zvakka and changed his fate. He gestures eagerly at the space-port with his freshly-painted red butcher-knife and speaks the words that will see them both damned in ways they cannot even begin to comprehend.

"I'm going to join the Legion, Telid. Come with me. We'll escape this hell-hole together, forever. Let's go to the stars – let's fight in the Great Crusade and become mighty heroes of the Emperor."

A choice is set before him. Zvakka does not hesitate, nor does he question Thalac's decision; he does not consider the risks or the consequences or even the possibility of failure. Instead, he simply smiles back at his friend – his only friend – and nods his head.

"Yes," he says, his soft voice barely above a whisper –

– and the thirsting gods laughed…