Ajax of the Carnage Stitchers, Son of Angron, did not wear a helmet like many of his brothers. One such reason being that he deemed it only right to display the imitation of his father's curse for all to see; to show that he stood in solidarity with his gene sire and was a true son of the XIIth Legion who knew no fear of pain or rage. Another was that he believed every creature deserved the honor of seeing the face of the being that was to end their lives and spill their blood in the Great God's name.

The first time he'd ever found himself regretting this decision was when he came aboard the vessel of the Night Lords.

Ajax blindly thundered down the cruiser's corridors in pursuit of his quarry, slamming a serf out of his way. The small creature's bones cracked and organs ruptured as ceramite hit flesh. The World Eater felt a flicker of joy at the blood that was spilt, the feeling accentuated by a cocktail of different flavors of pain that blossomed within his skull. Like all Astartes, Ajax could see in near-darkness like it was the light of day, but that did not make it pleasant or preferred, though. Nor was it home to him like it was to the rats he was forced to share a vessel with. Ajax frequently found himself stumbling into some unseen obstacles or wall, which only further built upon his irritation.

"Show yourself!" Ajax bellowed after his quarry. Only silence greeted him. The nails bit and Ajax clenched his teeth and sprinted on.

No sooner had he turned the corner did he find another serf trembling in the middle of the corridor. The ripe smell of waste filled the air and pooled on the metal beneath the human's feet. Ajax's disgust became pain which became hatred. He swung his chain flail and watched as the first head ripped the pitiful thing's jaw off, the second tore free their arm, and the third caved the skull in and dropped the human to the floor. Ajax reveled at the generous pool of crimson nectar the little thing left behind.

Blood…

He panted, putting a hand to his side where his armor had been punctured earlier. He told himself that he couldn't feel it. Pain of the body was not real.

Blood for the Blood God.

"Skulls for the Skull Throne," he rasped. He spoke a prayer, asking for the Great God to accept his offering. All he wanted in exchange was the power to kill one measly pest.

"I do not think gods accept prayers from animals." A voice said from above. Ajax didn't have time to react as a figure in dark blue ceramite descended upon him from his perch on the ceiling and struck out with a spear stolen from a son of the Wolf King.

The strike sank into Ajax's thigh and emerged out of the side before being pulled free. Ajax roared, not in pain but in rage at the spineless tactic. He gave a desperate swing of his chain flail as his quarry turned to flee yet again, sheering away more of the Night Lord's armor.

"Fight me!" Ajax screamed. He moved to pursue after his prey but found his injured leg dragging. He gritted his teeth as he waited for Zasharr's combat drugs to flood his system and return it to working order. "You scum!" He sneered. "You are nothing but a coward! Your skull would be a disgrace upon the Blood God's throne!"

The Night Lord turned to look back at him from the end of the corridor. Ajax could swear he heard chuckling coming from the blasted creature's voxgrill.

"You flatter me, cousin."

The dance continued. It was not elegant, coordinated, or even pleasant to watch—but it was a dance all the same. And, oh, how Gyrthemar led.

When the bout that initiated after the Dung Eater's insults had started, it was not in Gyrthemar's favor. It had left him wounded more than he cared to admit and his armor in a state that would not please the artificer serfs after they'd just finished repairing it from Exodus Station. That changed, however, once he stopped fighting like a warrior and started fighting like a Night Lord. He chuckled to himself, remembering how the other berzerkers gathered in the sparring chambers roared in outrage as he turned and fled, as well as how his brothers snickered and joked at both the petulant reactions and at Gyrthemar's own misfortune. He hadn't missed how they all seemed to have their hands readied on their weapons, but didn't bother to draw them as they watched Gyrthemar struggle. Even Taresh simply shook his head in exasperation.

No one was fond of the fact that the World Eater's had found their way onto the Savory Wound—with the exception of maybe Pyotr. Having their sort around was just asking for trouble. As a result, that's why you never went sniffing for it. His brother's couldn't intervene until Gyrthemar either prevailed or was killed. If the latter, that's a grievous slight against the warband that had to be repaid. If the former? Well, accidents always happened in good sport, of course. How could their innocent brother possibly be blamed for such a mistake?

Gyrthemar continued to smirk as he wedged himself into an alcove and dimmed the lights on his eye lenses. He listened for the sound of erratic and mindlessly stomping, as well as the sound of screaming slaves as they died simply for being in the beast's warpath. Once the berzerker burst into the chamber, Gyrthemar allowed him a moment to sputter and snort at the air, as if trying to sniff him out. His eyes had grown more wild and the veins in his forehead throbbed just as violently as the cables that protruded from his scalp like thick cords of hair. As the World Eater turned away, Gyrthemar allowed his lenses to reignite and he emerged from his hiding place. His new friend only had enough time to turn and recognize him before the point of Vindkaldr found its way into his gut. Gyrthemar pulled it free after only a breath and fled the room once again, enjoying the sound of the berzerker's spiteful screams and indignant fists slamming into the floor.

A part of Gyrthemar mused how much more the brute could take, or if his guttural roars were tinged with the knowledge that this back-and-forth would simply continue until his body could no longer operate and he died, spiteful and humiliated.

Mmm. Perhaps it is a beautiful dance, after all, Gyrthemar thought.

All he could see were shades of red that vaguely outlined the world like an oil painting. Each spineless strike, each sniveling goad, each self-indulgent boast only sharpened the hues and narrowed his vision further.

The timeline of his rampage began to blur. More slaves died at his hand—each one an offering to the Great God—though he'd lost count of how many that was exactly. The berzerker breathed heavily, his armor feeling like a restrictive shell more than a second skin now. He looked down at the bisected human at his feet as it left a trail of blood and entrails in its desperate attempt to crawl away, weeping for its mother. The sorry little thing got no more than half a meter before its strength gave out and it permanently fell still. The berzerker paid it no mind, lumbering forward and crushing its skull underfoot.

He sniffed the air with a growl. He could smell the rat now. There was no escape, his prey could scurry along the shadows as much as it wished, but it was only a matter of time now.

As he pursued his quarry down the winding corridors, something tore and twisted within the predator's body—an organ ripping itself apart at his strain, perhaps. He barely noticed it. Pain no longer existed in any capability anymore. He was no longer mortal—Nails of his father, he was not even an Astartes anymore. Ajax of the Carnage Stitchers was now nothing but a being possessed by a single, holy mandate.

Kill the Coward.

Ajax did not realize he had been stabbed again until he looked down and saw the spearhead emerging from his torso. A voxgrill nestled beside his ear.

"Apologize and this game can end," a voice said. The sound of it filled Ajax's mouth with ruddy bile and saliva. He slammed his elbow into the faceplate of his prey. The figure grunted, but then chuckled. He pulled the spear free from Ajax with little grace, further goring him in the process. The berzerker fell to his knees. He recognized such a wound should have left him incapacitated and dying, the battle over for him. Instead, he found himself rising to his feet after only four breaths that he couldn't feel enter his lungs.

Blood rushed in his ears, warping and morphing into what could have been words.

Kill. Kill. KILL HIM.

Ajax turned and followed the cowardly stench-trail that his quarry left. The hunt continued for a stretch of time that the blessed warrior no longer had the mental acuity to parse—nor did he care to. More wounds marred his flesh, but each one seemed to mean less and less than the one that came before. Each one hindered him for a shorter time than the previous one. Eventually, when the spear pierced him yet again, he only looked down at it in the barest form of acknowledgement before turning his attention back towards his prey and lacerating him with another round of strikes of his chain flail.

The Night Lord stumbled back, looked the warrior up and down, and turned to flee yet again. Only this time, he did so without his air of confidence. The warrior smiled.

The tides had shifted, and Ajax roared in the triumph that would come.

Gyrthemar wasn't sure at what point things had erred from his favor, only that he was unsatisfied with the fact that they had.

The damn beast should have died by now, Gyrthemar thought. Only the berzerker hadn't, leaving Gyrthemar at nearly the end of his circuit and back at the sparring chambers. He hoped that those gathered within had dispersed after his ingenious departure.

He was not so lucky.

Some bouts of sparring had resumed when Gyrthemar burst back into the chamber, but the quarters themselves had largely the exact same personnel as the last time Gyrthemar was in there. The only notable difference was that Taresh was no longer present, which, if anything, made things fare worse for him.

"Come to regale us with your successful duel, brother?" Korasus of Second Claw chortled. He'd said it loud enough for the World Eaters at the other side of the chamber to hear, drawing their attention.

Damn him, Gyrthemar thought while still trying to look proud in his shredded and battered armor.

"Not exactly," he said.

A roar echoed through the corridors behind them and the berzerker crashed into the room before the doors had even fully opened. Gyrthemar whirled around and readied Vindkaldr—the bone-white spear stark in the dim lighting of the ship.

"YOU!" the berzerker boomed. "I WILL HAVE YOUR SPINE AND WEAR IT AS A TROPHY AROUND MY WAIST! YOU DIE TODAY, MASTER OF RATS!" His brothers revved their chain weapons, waiving them overhead as they stomped their feet and roared their support.

"Master of Rats?" Gyrthemar smirked, glancing over his shoulder at his brothers. "I quite like that name." The Night Lords chuckled their response.

The sound of bestial growls and rapidly approaching boots brought Gyrthemar's attention back to his opponent. Unfortunately, by the time he'd returned his gaze, a fist had already seized hold of his throat and the weight of a rage-fueled Astartes slammed into him, sending them both to the floor.

The impact sent Vindkaldr sprawling out of reach. Gyrthemar desperately pawed for the spear as the grip tightened and the berzerker fixed him with a wide-eyed, bloodshot stare. The beast's jaw was clenched and his lips were drawn back in a mad grimace. Blood leaked from between his teeth, dripping and sizzling onto Gyrthemar's faceplate. The mad Astartes made several guttural noises that Gyrthemar took as attempts at speech, but the World Eater was too consumed by his rage to actually have the cognitive clarity to actualize them.

"S-S… SKW RRRR… MMM…"

Gyrthemar found himself gasping as he writhed, finally giving up on reaching for his spear and instead attempting to grab hold of the gladius tucked away at his calf. His fingers continuously brushed the hilt, but with the full bulk of his opponent atop of him, he couldn't get the right vantage to grab it completely.

"SKW… RRR… SKWRRRMMM."

The Night Lord slammed his fist into his opponent's vambrace in an effort to break the grip, but found the thing to be preternaturally strong. He croaked and forced himself to not look around the chamber for help that he knew he would not be there..

"SKW… SQUIRM…"

Gyrthemar settled for punching the berzerker in the face instead. Each fist slammed into the World Eater's bare face, crushing the nose, fracturing the skull, and tearing the flesh. It meant nothing. Gyrthemar watched as the grimace above him morphed into a demented smile.

"SQUIRM, LITTLE MOUSE."

If Gyrthemar was not wearing his own helm, he would have spat into the World Eater's face for good measure. Instead, his eyes fell on his opponent's waist and the chain flail that rested there. Quickly, Gyrthemar released his grip on the World Eater's wrist and grabbed for it while preparing his other hand.

As expected, the brute above him ceased his strangulation with one hand for a moment to batter Gyrthemar's away, giving him just enough slack to twist himself to grab his gladius, wrenching his arm in the process. Before his opponent could react, he drove the blade into the beast's unprotected armpit and drove it deep until he felt the unmistakable sensation of a heart being punctured.

You, Gyrthemar thought through clenched teeth and a darkening vision, are not worth this much effort.

The World Eater shuddered, but still stubbornly refused to die. The two found themselves almost in an isolated point of time, a frozen scene that could adorn a mural for either one of their coffins—Two marines grappling in a prone struggle, one with his hands wrapped around a throat like a vice, the other with a blade dug deep into one of the former's hearts.

The moment was shattered by four Astartes abruptly grabbing hold of the berzerker and tearing him away from his quarry. Gyrthemar noticed that only three of them were in midnight clad—the fourth was adorned in crimson.

Gyrthemar sighed and let his head clang back against the floor as he breathed freely. A figure appeared in his vision immediately after, wearing a bizarre cluster of deep-blue and iron-gray armor pieces. He recognized the newly-minted signifier on his chest piece and the Nostraman name inscribed upon it, however.

"Pyotr?" Gyrthemar croaked. "Your timing is–"

Air was denied from Gyrthemar once again as his brother kneeled down on his throat and glared at him in disgust.

"Fool," Pyotr spat.

"Brother, you don't understand," Gyrthemar croaked out from underneath Pyotr's knee. "If you had only heard the things he–"

Pyotr cut his moronic brother off by applying further pressure onto his throat. He could hear the other members of Sixth Claw struggling to restrain the crazed marine while Zasharr injected with an anesthetic potent enough to work in his current state.

"I do not care what the damn creature said,'' Pyotr hissed, forging a private link over the vox amongst his claw. "I do not even care if he was singing the praises of the False Emperor. What you did was beyond thoughtless. How can you not see that?"

Gyrthemar glared up at him and Pyotr eased off his brother slightly so that he could speak. "I had to defend the honor of our legion."

"Honor?" Pyotr said. "What honor is there within the VIIIth Legion? No, Gyrthemar, what you wanted was to show off. Just as you always do."

"And how is it any different than your crusade against that chapter master, brother?"

Pyotr snarled and grabbed at the object hanging at his waist. Once pulled free from its chain, he slammed the freshly decapitated skull down next to Gyrthemar's face.

"It is different because I never jeopardize the entire warband in my personal matters, brother. We passed over two dozen of these corpses on the way to clean up your mess."

"Slave corpses."

"Upper deck slaves," Pyotr corrected. "That is skilled, specialized labor that we have lost and cannot replace until we're out of our current mess, something made even more difficult by your actions."

Gyrthemar finally had the sense not to whine and retort.

"Our emotional cousins don't look happy. Especially after doing the favor of saving us back on the station," Retrigan added once the struggling berzerker finally slipped into unconsciousness. Zasharr left the body unattended after applying additional narcotics to speak with the World Eaters in question.

Pyotr did not often like to admit it, but Retrigan was right. It seemed the only thing that kept the berzerkers from breaking out into a frenzy against the Night Lords was their own warband captain's presence and stoicism in the matter.

"I agree," Taresh stated. "We are being pursued by an external threat. All you have done is create tensions that could lead to an internal one as well."

"What does it matter?" Gyrthemar grumbled. "Either we die to the Ferric Sentries or the World Eaters now. The end result remains the same."

"Would you rather die to the void's kiss or a berzerker's chain axe?"

Gyrthemar chewed on that for a moment. "Fair point."

"We are on a knife's edge as it is, brother." Pyotr sighed. "I don't need you adding to the problem."

Retrigan grunted. "We'll already have to deal with Gargahl and Anras arguing over what we should do next. And we all know how that is bound to go."

"The point has been made," Gyrthemar said, sounding more frustrated than guilty. Pyotr expected as much. "Do you intend to lecture me to death or can we move on from this? I'm getting tired of the sensation of being strangled."

Pyotr moved to rise and release his brother, but paused as he saw his retinal display flash with a request for Zasharr to join their voxlink. He accepted it without conferring with the rest of his claw and waited as the master of the Carnage Stitcher stepped away from his men to join them.

"We have an issue," Zasharr drawled.

"When don't we?" Retrigan asked without humor.

"My men are not pleased by the conduct of the loud one. I have attempted to soothe their grievances but they are demanding… justice."

The irony was not lost on Pyotr.

"When's my trial?" Gyrthemar chuckled. Pyotr quieted him with a glare.

"I take it that their cost for reparations is steep," Pyotr said.

Zasharr nodded. "They wish to string him up and dismember him to appease Kharneth. The death would be quick, I can at least guarantee that."

"What are our other options?"

The surgeon's throat rumbled. "I may be able to convince them that since he is of your warband, it is your right to punish him as you see fit, so long as you admit he is in the wrong."

"We have little issue admitting when Gyrthemar has done wrong. It happens too frequently for us not to," Retrigan stated.

Zasharr did not respond. His glyph on Pyotr's display went dull for several moments instead.

"Whatever it is," Gyrthemar said, "make sure I don't end up in the apothecarion. I don't trust that surgeon."

None of them gave comfort or response to Gyrthemar's wish, opting to stand in silence as an appropriate alternative.

The glyph became active once again and Zasharr's rough voice filled their comms. "The terms are acceptable under the condition that my men get to watch to ensure the punishment is satisfactory."

"Hmph," Retrigan snorted. "And what, short of death, would qualify as 'satisfactory' to your… men?" He glanced over at the Carnage Stitchers with a wary eye, then directed his attention back to the berzerker lying unmoving on the floor. Pyotr knew that Retrigan was wondering if he was truly unconscious, or if dark forces would cause him to rise and continue his onslaught at any given moment.

"Only death would properly sate their ire. As that is not an option however…" Zasharr looked to Pyotr to ensure that was the case. He shook his head slightly in reply, "some amount of blood must be spilt as an acceptable armistice."

"So, what? I just sit here and let you all beat me until I can no longer move?" Gyrthemar chuckled.

He stopped once he noticed all of them staring at him in silence.

"Oh."

"We'll try to make it quick," Taresh said without any real commitment to the sentiment.

Gyrthemar gave a grumbling sigh, then moved to sit up. Pyotr didn't stop him.

"At least let me begin the damn thing on my feet."

The Night Lord stood and retrieved his spear, tucking it away on his back. He turned to face his brothers again and made to say something, but before the words had even left his lips Pyotr's fist met his crushed and shredded helm, jostling his head backwards. It was soon followed by a strike to the groin from Retrigan, then a headbutt from Taresh. Zasharr stepped back and let the ritual commence as promised, keeping his berzerkers in line as they hungrily watched the display. The other Night Lords in the chamber were visibly confused, but none intervened. They all likely assumed Gyrthemar had this coming for centuries now.

To the marine's credit, it took three minutes of pummeling and physical humiliation for Gyrthemar to finally drop to his knees, breathing heavily. Once it was clear he no longer had the strength to stand on his own, Pyotr motioned for his brothers to halt their ministrations.

"Will this suffice?" Pyotr voxed to Zasharr.

"No," came the reply, his tone cold and unreadable. Despite that, Pyotr knew what he meant. Gyrthemar was beaten and bruised, but it wasn't enough—for what the terms were and what would maintain an alliance between the two legions were two separate items entirely. If the Night Lords wished to keep the World Eaters from turning against them, more would have to be done. More than they could afford.

Pyotr frowned. "Get his helmet off."

The other members of Sixth Claw complied as Pyotr stepped away and crouched by the body of the wounded berzerker. Pyotr was no apothecary, but looking at the injuries sustained, he was genuinely surprised the marine still breathed. He doubted it would remain that way for much longer.

Reaching down, Pyotr slid the gladius from the unconscious warrior's flesh. He glanced at Zasharr who gave him a near-imperceptible nod of understanding. The berzerkers around him continued to howl their bloodlust and demands for recompense.

Pyotr stood and returned to his brothers. Gyrthemar, now helmless, sagged in the grip of Taresh and Retrigan who stood on either side of him. He looked up at Pyotr and smiled, his teeth stained pink with his own blood.

"I was… looking for that…" he coughed, nodding towards the blade in Pyotr's hand.

The lord discordant did not hesitate. He brought the tip of the gladius directly beneath Gyrthemar's eye and stabbed upwards before wrenching the gushing orb from its socket. His brother clenched his teeth and gave a long, low growl. But he did not scream.

Gyrthemar never screamed.

Pyotr pulled his brother's eyeball from the gladius, dropping the weapon, then tossing the organ at an arc so that it landed at Zasharr's feet. The World Eaters fell silent.

"The price has been paid," Pyotr said. He did not wait for a response as he grabbed Gyrthemar by the collar and began to drag his brother out of the sparring chamber.

"I said… to make sure… I didn't end up in the apothecarion," Gyrthemar complained, holding one of his hands up to his newly-emptied socket.

"You would have ended up there either way," Pyotr said. "In this case you get to continue breathing."

"Understood, brother."

No, Pyotr thought. You don't.