The Killing Ground

by Graham McNeill

  Scarlet-clad soldiers patrolled the lower skirts of the palace, their falcatas unsheathed at their sides. Their red plate gleamed in the sun and the bronze of their helmets shone like gold, but even these men were not permitted to bear firearms as a matter of course.

  Unlike many soldiers who looked ceremonial, the Achaman Falcatas were men he had once been proud to fight alongside. There was no give in these soldiers and they fought with a fire in their bellies that other regiments could only envy. That fire had died since Restoration Day, but its embers still smouldered.

  A trio of Chimera transports emblazoned with the insignia of the Screaming Eagles were parked up before the palace, an unusual enough occurrence that it made Nisato wonder who had travelled in them to be afforded such a rare honour.

  Once again, Togandis dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief.

  'So, did your summons furnish you with any clue as to the nature of this audience?' he asked.

  Nisato shook his head, slowing his normally long stride to allow the waddling cardinal to keep up. 'No, it didn't, but then Leto always was a man of few words, wasn't he?'

  'Indeed he was,' agreed Togandis. 'Indeed he was. No inspiring speeches before a battle, just orders, precise, never to be meddled with, orders.'

  That was certainly true, remembered Nisato. As a cadet commissar when Leto Barbaden had taken command of the Achaman Falcatas, Nisato had summarily executed a number of junior officers who had seen fit to exercise their own initiative in their interpretation of Barbaden's orders.

  Leto Barbaden did not like to be second-guessed and nor did he expect his orders to be carried out with anything less than total obedience. As far as Nisato knew, the years since Barbaden's relinquishing of command had not mellowed him and thus he had put aside his current investigations into Sons of Salinas activity and headed straight for the palace upon receiving his summons.

  Until he had met Togandis, Nisato had assumed that it had something to do with this morning's attack on Colonel Kain's convoy as it had made its way back into the city. Seeing the Chimeras supported that, but the cardinal's presence suggested that some other business was afoot.

  'Such a terrible business with Governor Barbaden's former adjutant, eh?'

  'I'm sorry?' said Nisato, surprised at this sudden, unexpected, question.

  'Hanno Merbal?' said Togandis. 'He shot himself right in front of you, I hear?'

  'Yes,' replied Nisato, his interest piqued, 'he did.'

  'He was a friend of yours, was he not?' asked Togandis and Nisato wanted to laugh at the cardinal's attempt at nonchalance.

  'He was,' confirmed Nisato. Keep the answers short, he thought. Let Togandis do the talking.

  'Hmmm, yes,' said Togandis. 'Have you any idea why he would do such a thing?'

  'You tell me, Shavo,' said Nisato. 'You were his confessor, weren't you?'

  'I was indeed, Daron,' replied Togandis, scorn dripping from the use of his first name, 'but the fact of which I am sure you are cognisant remains that the seal of the confessional is a sacred trust that cannot be broken.'

  'Even in death?'

  'Especially in death,' said Togandis. 'The sins of the confessed are in the hands of the Emperor. I can tell you he was having some issues with, shall we say, guilt, though.'

  'Over this?' asked Nisato, pulling out the golden eagle medal that Hanno Merbal had shown him right before blowing his brains out all over the bar.

  Togandis looked away from the medal and Nisato was enough of an enforcer to know guilt when he saw it. Once again Togandis dabbed at his moist forehead.

  'I... I haven't thought of Khaturian in a long time,' said Togandis, and Nisato smelled a lie.

  'You were there?' asked Nisato and Togandis flinched.

  Nisato already knew the answer; Togandis wore an identical medal on the front of his chasuble.

  'I was, yes,' agreed Togandis hurriedly, 'but I took no part in the fighting.'

  'From what I gather there wasn't much fighting.'

  Togandis did not reply at first and Nisato thought the cardinal was going to ignore the question, but the man whispered. 'No, there wasn't, but...'

  'But?' pressed Nisato, eager to learn what he could of this most unspoken of battles.

  Before Togandis had a chance to answer, a formal voice said, 'Enforcer Nisato, Cardinal Togandis, Governor Barbaden is ready to see you now. If you will follow me please.'

  Nisato cursed inwardly and mustered a smile as he looked away from Togandis to the blandly smiling face of Mersk Eversham.

  Eversham's face was thin and angular, but his body, beneath the elegantly cut frock coat, was solid and unbreakable. Nisato had seen Eversham in combat enough times to know that the man was a ferocious killer and he wondered how Barbaden had persuaded him to muster out of the regiment. He was an anomaly within the Falcatas, a man of culture and breeding who could have easily become an officer, but had chosen to enlist in the rank and file.

  Now he served as Leto Barbaden's aide, attendant, personal secretary and bodyguard, having long ago replaced the now-deceased Hanno Merbal. Nisato had no doubt that Eversham was armed with a number of concealed firearms and blades.

  'Mersk,' said Nisato, nodding. 'You're keeping well?'

  'Well enough,' said Eversham. 'Now if you please.'

  'Of course, of course,' fussed Togandis. 'Come on, Daron. We mustn't keep the good governor waiting, must we?'

  'No,' said Nisato, 'we wouldn't want that.'

  He saw the faint suggestion of a smug grin on Eversham's face and resisted the urge to wipe it off. Instead, he followed Barbaden's killer and the cardinal as a detachment of red-jacketed soldiers formed up around them, falcatas bright in the sunlight.

  The symbolism was obvious and heavy handed, but Nisato paid it no mind as they were led into the palace, down twisting corridors, up cramped screw stairs and through echoing, cold chambers bereft of warming fires or laughter.

  Eversham offered no more in the way of conversation and Togandis's normal extravagant garrulousness vanished in the face of the palace's austerity. They marched in silence until the soldiers halted at the end of a long, portrait-lined hallway. At the end of the corridor, Nisato saw the slight, stooped form of Mesira Bardhyl and felt a familiar protective urge towards the woman.

  She had always been a nervous creature and had been treated foully when she had served as Barbaden's pet psyker.

  The years since Restoration Day had been no kinder to her as far as Nisato could tell.

  'This way,' said Eversham, though the route was familiar to both Nisato and Togandis.

  They followed Eversham along the hallway, Togandis making a show of admiring the portraits of previous colonels of the Falcatas, and Nisato wondering what the cardinal had been about to say before Eversham had interrupted.

  Mesira greeted them with a shy smile and a nod, and Nisato saw dark hollows beneath her eyes and noted how the skin seemed to sag on her sparse frame. Togandis studiously ignored Mesira as Eversham knocked tersely on the wide wooden doors at the end of the hallway. Barbaden's equerry paused just long enough to hear an imperious command to enter before sweeping into the room.

  Nisato, Togandis and Mesira followed Eversham into the room, a spacious and extensive library furnished with long tables and floor to ceiling bookcases.

  Governor Leto Barbaden sat, perched on the room's central table.

  Tall, lean and dark-haired, Leto Barbaden's ascetic frame was dressed in an immaculately cut suit that echoed the pomp of a military uniform in its brass buttons, lined trousers and gleaming boots, but which was undeniably civilian. A line of medal ribbons decorated his left breast, but they were understated and dignified.

  Barbaden's face was handsome, his dark hair and neatly trimmed beard sprinkled liberally with silver, but his eyes were those of a predator.

  As commanding a presence as Barbaden was, it was the two figures standing before him that completely captured Daron Nisato's attention. It was left to Shavo Togandis'
s surprise to give them name.

  'Astartes,' breathed the cardinal.

  Both were clad in pale robes with the hoods pulled back, the clothes looking absurdly small on their enhanced physiques. Both stood head and shoulders above Verena Kain and the armed soldiers who lined the walls of the library. One of the Space Marines was lean, if such a description could be applied to a two and a half metre-tall giant, while the other was a brute of a man whose arm was missing below the elbow.

  To say Daron Nisato was astonished by this strange tableau was an understatement of colossal proportions.

  'Ah, Daron, Shavo,' said Barbaden, his voice mellifluous, 'so glad you could join us.'

  As if there was a choice, thought Nisato.

  'We have guests,' continued Barbaden, 'and they claim to have a most fantastical tale.'

  WITH EVERY PASSING moment, the sun had crept further and further into the cave, pressing the Unfleshed back into its darkened depths. Bellowing roars and threatening demonstrations of their physical power had not halted its progress and neither had begging, pleading or wails of fear.

  The Lord of the Unfleshed felt the anger that had been growing in him turn to rage as the hateful light encroached on their last refuge. There was nowhere to go, no last hiding place that would protect the tribe from the killing light.

  Their betrayal was complete.

  They huddled behind him, pathetic and afraid, their monstrous forms and mighty strength no defence against the sunlight that would kill their skinless bodies. Even with their limited exposure to it, their bodies were changing, the lesions across their limbs spreading and turning paler as they went.

  As the light grew brighter, the Lord of the Unfleshed narrowed his eyes, feeling a tightness to his body, as though his limbs were wrapped in some invisible film.

  His body itched all over and he raised his arm to his face, seeing a strange milky sheen where the sunlight had touched it. His arm had changed from the mottled red and grey of exposed musculature to a shimmering, oily white.

  Though the terms were unknown to him, his metabolism had reacted to the sudden and shocking presence of ultraviolet radiation by activating the gene-memory of the biological hardware pressed into the service of his construction. In Space Marines the organ was known as the melanochrome, a biological device designed to darken the warrior's skin and protect him from harmful radiation.

  Accelerated and altered beyond reason by the horrific nature of his gestation within the daemon wombs of Medrengard, the disparate fragments of the melanochrome were in overdrive, crafting the only defence its mindless biological imperatives knew: skin.

  The Lord of the Unfleshed watched as the milky sheen spread still further, flowing like a rippling liquid as it oozed down the length of his arm, covering his fingers and tightening across the meat and bone of his body.

  Amazed, the Lord of the Unfleshed took a step forward, easing his newly sheathed arm into the light that crept like an invader into the cave. His arm tingled, the skin darkening from a soft white to a fleshy pink. He withdrew his arm as he saw the same substance crawling over the bodies of his tribe.

  Were they to be whole again?

  The nature of this miracle was unknown to the Lord of the Unfleshed, but he dropped to his knees to give thanks to the Emperor for it, for what else could the source of this wonder be?

  Emboldened by their leader's change, the rest of the tribe edged forward, their glistening bodies following the example of the Lord of the Unfleshed.

  They whooped and howled as the light touched them, for their bodies were more degenerate than their leader's and the light still burned them. They looked to him for guidance, but he had none to give them.

  His body was changing, adapting, mutating. He did not know how or why, but the Emperor was giving him a chance to better himself, to become more than simply a monster. His anger, a fiery, volatile thing retreated within him, not gone, but kept in check.

  The Lord of the Unfleshed turned his gaze upon his tribe. 'Wait. Changes coming. What happens to me will happen to you, not now, but soon.'

  As if to prove his point, the Lord of the Unfleshed stepped into the sunlight to howls of fear and anguish. Step after step, he marched through the light until he stood at the cave mouth on the slopes of the mountain.

  He felt the sunlight burning his skin, but it was a sensation to be rejoiced in, not feared. The forgotten memory of skin returned to him in all its glory: to be clad in flesh, to stand beneath the heat of a sun and know the feeling of it on his face!

  Far below, he could see the ruins of the dead place, shadows criss-crossing its empty streets.

  Except, now that he looked, they weren't empty were they?

  URIEL STOOD BEFORE the governor of Salinas and knew he was in the presence of one of the most dangerous individuals he had ever met: Leto Barbaden, a man of whom he had heard only fragmentary pieces of information, a man who, until now, had been a cipher.

  As a commander of a regiment and now a world, he had clearly not been a man to underestimate, but Uriel saw the truth of the matter as he looked into Barbaden's cold, pitiless eyes.

  In his time as a warrior, Uriel had met all kinds of commanders, some good, some bad, but mostly just men and women trying to do their duty and keep their soldiers alive. Barbaden might be concerned with the former, but it was clear that he had no real interest in the latter.

  With the wounded dealt with at the Screaming Eagles barracks, Uriel and Pasanius had once again embarked on a Chimera and been driven at speed through the city. A number of decoy Chimeras had also been despatched, but such precautions had, this time, proven unnecessary.

  They had seen little of the city on the journey, simply flashes of brick and metal through the vision blocks. Uriel had tried to follow the sense of the route, but had quickly given up after yet another confusing turn. Then there had been a series of stops and starts, no doubt checkpoints of some description, before they had disembarked within a large courtyard at the foot of the Imperial palace.

  Seen up close, the building was even more impressive than it had first appeared, its defences and armaments the equal of many of the outlying fortresses in Ultramar. Colonel Kain had led them into a barracks unit at the base of the palace, accompanied as always by a detachment of her red-jacketed soldiers.

  A man in a long black coat had met them, a man in whom Uriel saw the fluid movements and casual grace of a natural killer. This man was introduced as Eversham, personal equerry to Governor Barbaden. Uriel had shared a glance with Pasanius and was relieved ta see that his friend had also seen through the man's facade of bland functionary.

  Clean clothes were provided and Uriel had gratefully stripped out of the remainder of his broken armour. Pasanius had been less keen, and made no secret of his reluctance to be parted from it. Uriel had displayed a similar reticence when a soldier had come forward to relieve him of his golden-hilted sword.

  'This was an honour gift from a captain of the Ultramarines,' warned Uriel.

  'Have no fear for your battle gear,' promised Eversham. 'It will be taken to the Gallery of Antiquities. Curator Urbican is no stranger to armour and weapons such as yours.'

  It was clear that the matter was not up for debate and their equipment had been taken from them and carried away by a squad of sweating soldiers. Still under armed guard, the two of them had used the ablutions block to wash the accumulated filth of their travels on Medrengard from their bodies, though Uriel doubted that a simple cascade of heated water could ever achieve such a thing.

  Their bodies cleaned, fresh robes were presented to them, simple things, hastily altered to fit their overlarge frames. Now considered presentable to the good governor, Eversham and Colonel Kain (also in a fresh uniform) had escorted them through the palace, a gloomy, spartanly furnished abode of wood panelled corridors with little in the way of personal decoration or anything approaching a stamp of the incumbent owner's personality.

  That in itself was revealing, for it was a trait co
mmon to most people, Uriel had come to realise, that they wished to leave their mark on the world to show that they had existed and to prove that they mattered.

  Uriel saw none of that in the cheerless chambers of the palace and he wondered what that said about the mindset of the man who called this building home.

  At last they had been led through a portrait-lined gallery and into a large, well-stocked library with a score of soldiers standing to attention around the perimeter of the room. Seated before a roaring, crackling fire was a tall man with dark hair lined with silver. His bearing was stiff and unpretentious and he drank a tawny liquid from a curved snifter.

  Eversham had departed, to fetch other arrivals, he claimed, and Uriel and Pasanius had been left in the company of Leto Barbaden and Verena Kain.

  Kain had wordlessly taken up position with the soldiers at the walls and Barbaden regarded them coolly for several moments before rising from his chair and depositing his glass on the table next to it.

  'I am Leto Barbaden, Imperial Commander of Salinas,' he said. 'Now who are you?'

  'I am Captain Uriel Ventris and this is Sergeant Pasanius Lysane,' said Uriel.

  'The man does not speak for himself?' asked Barbaden. 'Has he lost the power of speech?'

  'I can speak well enough,' said Pasanius.

  'Then do so,' suggested Barbaden. 'Never let others speak for you, sergeant.'

  Uriel was surprised, and not a little angered, at the governor's tone, for, like Kain, the governor displayed none of the awe or reverence that usually accompanied the presence of warriors of the Adeptus Astartes. In fact, his bearing and body language suggested downright hostility.

  'You said you are a captain, Uriel Ventris,' continued Barbaden, perching on the edge of the table, 'a captain of which Chapter?'

  'We are proud warriors of the Ultramarines,' said Uriel, 'the Fourth Company: the Defenders of Ultramar.'