"Tell me, sellsword, what do mercenaries and whores have in common?"

I risk raising my head. Lord Urlathane is not looking at me. He is still hunched over the table, cramming pieces of raw flesh into his slavering steel-fanged mouth, his appetite far from sated. Cracked bones lie strewn across the deckplate of his audience-chamber – if it can be called such – in congealed blood-pools. Hairless pale-skinned vermin scurry about searching for scraps; emaciated thralls shift fearfully in the shadows. The air is redolent with an abattoir stench the ship's over-taxed scrubber systems cannot filter out. Still, I've been in filthier places and have had far more demeaning questions put to me. This is a test and nothing more.

"I do not know, lord." I answer truthfully enough, striving to keep my voice impassive and unaffected. "Enlighten me."

Urlathane licks his dripping lips with a dark tongue. "A whore provides sexual services – for a price, while a mercenary provides martial ones – also for a price. Yet at heart they are the same: both sell themselves to be used by others in hope of some monetary gain. What do you desire, sellsword, in return for your blade-skills?"

"A berth aboard your vessel and, once the repairs are completed, a place amongst your warriors when you sail to war – that is all."

Urlathane stands abruptly, sending his ebon iron-wrought chair crashing over backwards. Vermin scatter; thralls cower in terror. He looms over me, clad in a mismatched suit of rust-red power-armour adorned with gruesome trophies, a bedraggled carnodon pelt draped over his pauldrons. His yellow-hued eyes are narrowed in suspicion and mistrust.

"That is all? Indeed? So you have no intention of stabbing me in the back and wresting the command of my men from me through deception and guile?"

I remain kneeling, keenly aware of the two Terminators flanking me on either side, their chainglaives poised to spill my blood at a moment's notice. "No, lord; I am not that ambitious. I want to kill at your side, not usurp your throne."

Urlathane sneers, still doubtful. "Then why not satisfy your slaughter-lust in Vrexor's fighting arenas? Gladiators are always in high demand, especially Astartes."

"I did." I shrug my pauldrons, feigning indifference. "Then I grew bored. I wish to raid and reave once more. I know your warband is in need of fresh blood. Hearsay has it the Iron Warriors ground your forces into the dust during the Siege of Hallenfrax; you barely escaped with your life. This ship – and the surviving Space Marines aboard it – is all that remains of the Sons of Perdition. Do you not wish to recover your strength and strike back that those who have humiliated and disgraced you? I would aid you in such an endeavor, lord – if you will have me."

"We shall see." Urlathane motions with a blood-slick gauntlet. A Son of Perdition steps forward and hands him a massive double-bladed power-axe. The Terminators retreat and I rise, careful to keep my face free of the anticipation surging within my hearts. Urlathane smiles, his own eagerness blatant.

"You have guts, sellsword, to come a-begging aboard my vessel and offering yourself to me like a whore in exchange for the privilege of killing my enemies. But I am not as desperate for men as rumour has it. I will put your blade-skills to the test. We duel to first blood. Best me, and you win a place in my warband – if you are found wanting you will be made a captive and the Sons of Perdition shall amuse themselves with you as they see fit. Are these terms acceptable?"

The last question is merely a formality. I nod and draw my treasured power-sword, Argentum Mortis, raising it in a traditional duelist's salute. Urlathane attacks without preamble and comes within inches of taking my head. We fight. Our differing combat styles make for an interesting engagement. Yet dueling is my former Chapter's forte and I was accounted among the best. First blood goes to me when I slice open Urlathane's cheek, and as loathsome as he is he remains a man of his word.

"Kneel, sellsword," he growls. Warily I obey. Urlathane brings forth a portion of meat from one of the many platters littering his table and holds it out to me. "Eat," he commands. The still-warm flesh is human. Without hesitation I take and eat. Urlathane grins. "Is it good?"

"Yes," I lie. "It is very good."

# # #

"You traitor!" Urlathane gasps, his voice nearly drowned out by the screaming of mortar shells and the cries of the dying. The Second Siege of Hallenfrax is proceeding as abysmally as the first; our allies amongst the Crimson Slaughter and the Magma Hounds warbands are already in full retreat. Only the Sons of Perdition press on, desperate not to fail a second time. The Iron Warriors punish them mercilessly, piling their bodies in heaps before the breach in their stronghold's outer wall. Behind my helm I rejoice to see Urlathane's men die like the dogs they are. Urlathane vomits blood as I withdraw my sword from his chest, falling to his knees among the corpses of his followers.

"Gods damn you, mercenary filth!" he spits. I backhand him across the face.

"I damned myself long ago to avenge my fallen battle-brothers." I snarl bitterly. "After your warband slaughtered half my company I sought permission to depart from my Chapter and embark on a Warrior's Pilgrimage in order to seek you out and destroy you. My request was denied. So I bided my time and when the opportunity came I forsook my brotherhood to roam the Eye hunting for you. Now I bear witness to the extinction of the Sons of Perdition and gladly die with your life's blood on my blade."

I remove Urlathane's head with an executioner's stroke. Two Iron Warriors charge at me through the breach, their chainswords shrieking. I smile and raise Argentum Mortis in a duelist's salute one final time.