"You must…kill me…."
The words escape Daragg in a wet, pain-choked cough, causing more congealing blood to pour from his mouth along with the plea. Garaz leers down at him, leaning on the shaft of his huge poweraxe in the shadow of the broken gates while his squad-brothers look on. "Ah, so Angron's dogs can speak," the renegade sneers contemptuously as he regards the prone berserker, "and this one can beg, too – how gratifying; so, dog, did you fail to claim enough skulls for the Blood God before that howitzer shell blew you in half? Did you crawl like a worm all the way to the walls hoping to slaughter a few surviving militia to make up for the lack of battlefield offerings?"
Behind his helmet Daragg's hideously scarred face contorts as the Butcher's Nails embedded in his skull send another punitive jolt through the hyper-stimulated pain-centers in his brain; he had been hit in the opening stages of the assault and been abandoned by his brother berserkers as they continued their charge towards the Imperial guns. The Nails had relentlessly tortured Daragg in an attempt to goad the crippled legionary into some form of violent action; driven by pain and rage he had slowly dragged himself one-handed across the corpse-carpeted battlefield to the breached gates of the city before trauma and blood loss had conspired to overwhelm him. Unable to kill, the World Eater's own life is now the sole offering he is capable of making to the Skull Throne.
"I cannot fight…" the excruciation wracking his flesh is so intense Daragg is reduced to speaking in guttural gasps, "I am useless to your warband…kill me, brother…take my head…commend my soul to Khorne…"
"I am not your brother, dog," Garaz spits, unmoved by the legionary's plight, "You and your lunatic warriors were bartered like chattel by your own captain to Lord Curath in exchange for armor and artificer slaves – an poor trade in the eyes of many; after all only thing berserkers are good for is line-breaking, and even that proved too complex a challenge for you in the end."
Daragg tries to laugh and fails. "I have slain thousands…my Legion has ended entire civilizations…devoured countless worlds in the name of the Blood God…I proved myself worthy of Khorne's favor millennia before your Chapter was ever founded, you pathetic, thin-blooded bastard…"
Garaz straightens and raises his poweraxe, his sallow features twisting in outrage. "You Long War veterans are all the same," he snarls, planting a boot upon Daragg's riven chestplate, "you think the rest of us should grovel and worship at your feet just because your Legions were the first to rebel and cast off the Corpse Emperor's yoke –"
"But of course," Daragg sneers, grinning viciously through his torment, knowing his final, ultimate offering to the Lord of Skulls is about to be made, "For the World Eaters were there at the beginning…when the primarchs walked as gods amongst men and the galaxy itself trembled before the might of their armies…can Lord Curath make such a boast? Can you?"
Garaz's axe falls like lightning. Daragg's eager eyes are tracking the weapon's descent when a lone storm bolter roars and he cries out as the oncoming blade is shattered into a dozen silvered fragments.
"He is not yours to kill, Garaz – not when I traded valued men and material for his services," says Lord Curath as he marches from the sundered gates, flanked by his Terminator bodyguard and followed by his personal Rhino whose chassis was now decorated with the crucified bodies of the city's PDF commanders. Behind come the rest of the warband's armored vehicles, along with cultist troops leading hundreds of mortal captives chained together in long lines. The raid is complete and the renegades are preparing to move on to the next city.
"This deranged dog is of no more use to us," Garaz says, seeking to justify his actions even as he cringes away from his master. Curath ignores him; he stands above Daragg in silent appraisal while a gore-encrusted Astartes clad in the desecrated armor of an Apothecary comes forward and runs a bio-scanner over the World Eater's ruined body. "Kill me…" Daragg implores the man his former captain had sold him to like an unwanted weapon. "My life must be…Khorne's final offering…"
"It will be, brother," Curath promises; there is no animosity or scorn in his voice, only patient, dispassionate calculation. "Your prognoses, Zamnur?"
"His chances of surviving the internment process currently stand at seventy-three percent; the sooner I get him stabilized the better the odds will be." The Apothecary kneels down beside Daragg, a large injector filled with a translucent fluid extruding from the narthecium mounted on his right vambrace.
"No…" Daragg begs as sudden understanding crashes over him. "No…not internment…" he reaches up to grab Zamnur's arm with his remaining hand but all strength has left him; the Nails ravage his brain again and he spasms wretchedly, grinding the steel pegs that serve as his teeth in exhausted agony.
"You possess great quantities of fortitude and willpower, Daragg of the World Eaters, despite all the abuses that have been heaped upon your flesh," Curath informs him, "Be comforted, brother – Khorne's offering shall be the rivers of blood you will spill for the warband's cause in the many centuries to come."
"No!" Daragg bellows as Zamnur removes his helmet and inserts the needle into his neck. A chilling numbness immediately spreads throughout his body and for the first time since their implantation the bite of the Nails is blunted – yet Daragg knows the respite will not last, and when he reawakens in the cold isolation of his Dreadnought sarcophagus the Nails will still be there, waiting to punish him forever.