The Killing Ground

by Graham McNeill

  Leodegarius turned to face Serj Casuaban. 'You will lead us to Sylvanus Thayer, medicae. Identify him and then keep out of our way, understand?' he said, his voice easily cutting through the howling gale of the psychic storm.

  Casuaban nodded, Uriel gripped his bolter tightly as Leodegarius said, 'Let's get inside.'

  OUTSIDE THE HOUSE of Providence, all was storm-tossed madness, while inside was frozen stillness. No sooner had Uriel entered the towering structure than the noise and light vanished.

  Sputtering glow-globes strung from the iron mesh of the ceiling bobbed overhead and steam vented from the backpacks of their armour like breath. The walls were cold iron, streaked with lines of frost, and pools of ice cracked underfoot. Uriel and Pasanius made their way along the narrow entrance corridor, the shoulders of Leodegarius's armour brushing the walls with his every step.

  Shadows grew and receded on the glistening walls and Uriel could hear a maddening buzz just below the threshold of hearing. The Grey Knights spread throughout the structures, moving off in teams of five, securing as tight a perimeter as they could around their leaders.

  As well as four Grey Knights in power armour, Uriel's group was made up of Leodegarius, Pasanius and Serj Casuaban. The man was shivering, his face pale and his eyes wide. He scratched at the side of his face, shaking his head as though seeking to dislodge something in his ear.

  'So many voices,' he whispered, the sound echoing in the cold corridor.

  'You can hear them?' asked Uriel.

  Casuaban nodded, tears glistening on his cheeks. 'All of them. They're frightened of him. The Mourner, that's what they used to call him.'

  'Who?'

  'Sylvanus Thayer,' said Casuaban, 'after the massacre.'

  'They're frightened of him?'

  'Yes... They want to leave, to go to their rest, but he won't let them, not until he's had his vengeance.'

  Uriel filed that fact away and set off after Leodegarius.

  Their path took them along corridors, through wards filled with terrified people and along open hallways. Wisps of light gathered in the ceiling spaces and the howls of the wounded echoed strangely in the confusing internal architecture of the place.

  Desperately injured men, women and children stared at them, some with terror, some with hope, but the Space Marines could not stop to help them. This was a truly wretched place, Uriel thought, the wounded of the decades old conflict left to rot with only the skill and dedication of one man to help them rebuild their lives.

  No matter what happened, Uriel vowed that he would do what he could for Serj Casuaban. The man might be guilty, but it was clear that he at least felt some remorse for what he had allowed to happen.

  At each junction of corridors, the medicae would point and then set off once more, alert for any sign of the Unfleshed or any other enemy.

  Though he saw no threats, Uriel could sense a fearsome potential building, as though a great power was even now gathering its strength. He cursed his vivid imagination and shook off such morbid thoughts as Leodegarius halted.

  They had come to a junction with two passages stretching off into the darkness, left and right, while a wide set of iron stairs led up into sputtering, fitful light. Frozen stalactites of ice hung from the brass balustrade.

  'Which way, medicae?' demanded Leodegarius.

  'Up, we need to go up.'

  WHEN THE ATTACK came, it was with a precision that caught everyone by surprise.

  The warriors on the right flank came under attack first; a beast with a hunched spine and long arms wrapped in muscles like steel hawsers tore the head from the warrior on point and hurled it back at his comrades.

  A creature with a fused exoskeleton like armour barrelled into the warriors on the left, scattering them and crushing two warriors to death with the sheer force and mass of its charge.

  As they reached a ramp that led further upwards, Uriel saw a great shadow detach itself from an alcove in the wall ahead, its body pulsing with light as it came at them. This creature was a hybrid of two forms fused into one, a union of flesh that could not possibly be alive, yet had somehow found a way to exist.

  Uriel saw the creature's internal twin oozing beneath its newly formed skin, a howling face pressed against its pallid sheath of flesh. Its muscles seethed with light and its fist caved in the helmet of the Grey Knight nearest Uriel in one quick motion.

  Blood squirted from the headless corpse and the silence of the House of Providence was brutally ended.

  The Grey Knights reacted with all the speed and ferocity that Uriel expected. No sooner had the beast appeared in their midst than every halberd was swinging for it. Storm bolters opened up in a coordinated volley of fire. Blazing light and deafening noise filled the space and sprays of light and flesh flew from the Unfleshed as it shuddered under the impacts.

  A fist with the mass and force of a lump hammer swung out and smashed the breastplate of a Grey Knight, exiting from the warrior's back in an explosion of blood and ceramite. Uriel ducked the return stroke and opened fire, the bark of his weapon adding to the din.

  Serj Casuaban dropped to his knees, his arms pulled in tight as Pasanius stood over him.

  Too close to use his psycannon, Leodegarius thrust with his polearm, the glowing blade hammering into the back of the creature. It roared in pain, the shimmering, fiery tip of the blade erupting from its swollen chest. The creature tried to spin around to face its attacker, but Leodegarius's strength and mass was too great and he held it fast.

  'Hurry!' shouted Leodegarius. 'Kill it!'

  The two surviving Grey Knights moved in, firing as they went, and Uriel was struck by their utter fearlessness in facing this terrifying creature. More bloody craters were gouged in its flesh by a host of mass-reactive shells, yet it appeared not to feel them.

  Leodegarius dragged the beast to its knees with a heaving twist of his polearm and Uriel ran to join the Grey Knights, his sword leaping to his hand. Their blades stabbed the creature and its roars of pain echoed from the walls, shaking icicles from the ceiling.

  The creature's oozing twin erupted from the Unfleshed's chest in a monstrous parody of birth, its vile, putrescent form slathered in blood and its grasping claws reaching for the nearest warrior. Its claws were sheathed in light and they parted the Grey Knight's armour and flesh as if they were wet paper. The parasitic twin tore through the muscle and bone of the warrior's chest, sundering his heart and ripping the mass of his internal organs to bloody ruin.

  The Grey Knight dropped to the ground, breaking the neck of his killer as he fell.

  The Unfleshed was weakening and Leodegarius was finally able to bring his psycannon to bear, unleashing a hail of psychically impregnated bolts into the beast.

  The effect was instantaneous, and the creature toppled over, a ruined mass of shredded flesh that could not have endured such horrible damage without the power of the dead to sustain it.

  Uriel felt no glory at the kill, only regret, but he did not have time to wallow in it.

  Fresh foes were upon them.

  They came in scads of light from the wards all around them, their shrieking howls of pain screeching along Uriel's nerves. Looking deeper into the light, he saw a host of horrific figures sweeping towards them as though driven by some powerful wind.

  They were diseased figures, crippled figures, gaunt, emaciated and burnt forms in billowing surgical gowns: amputees, men with no eyes and women with hideous scars all over their bodies. Every hand was extended as though pleading for alms, and those with eyes were haunted with the angry memory of pain and suffering. A bow wave of frost cracked the walls before them, crazed patterns spreading in waves of white.

  'What in the name of the Emperor are they?' screamed Casuaban when he looked up.

  'Phantoms,' said Leodegarius, 'the tormented nightmares of the wounded you care for. The power of the warp is getting stronger and they are becoming real.'

  'I take it they are dangerous?' said Uriel, raising his sword.


  'Lethal,' said Leodegarius. 'Do not let them touch you. They will feed on your life to ease their suffering. Medicae! Which way?'

  Casuaban looked around, as though his surroundings were suddenly unfamiliar to him.

  'Quickly, man!' shouted Leodegarius.

  'Up! Up another level!'

  Leodegarius turned away from them and stood in the centre of the corridor directly in the path of the seething horde of nightmares. 'Cheiron, with me! Uriel, get behind us!' he cried. 'Onto the ramp!'

  'What are you going to do?' cried Uriel.

  'We're going to stop them,' said Leodegarius.

  Uriel backed away from the Grey Knights as he tasted the actinic tang of psychic energy and his sword sparked and fizzed in the presence of such power. Hurriedly, he gathered Pasanius and Casuaban and backed onto the ramp that led up to who knew what.

  Gunfire roared from the Grey Knights' weapons, Cheiron's bolts appearing to have little effect, but those of Leodegarius tearing through the figures like fire through cloth. As the ghostly nightmares drew ever closer, however, Uriel saw it wouldn't be enough.

  'I have to help them!' cried Uriel.

  'Wait!' shouted Pasanius, pointing towards the two Grey Knights.

  Uriel looked over his shoulder and watched the silver-armoured warriors seem to swell as crackling arcs of lightning flared from the leading edges of their armour.

  Both warriors held their polearms upright and their free hands were extended as they chanted the same mantra. 'Foul conjurations of the warp, we know thee. Unclean power from beyond the veil we abhor thee. Fell daemons of the Empyrean we defy thee.'

  Leodegarius slammed his polearm onto the metal deck. 'Thrice cursed you are and thrice damned be thee.'

  Serj Casuaban cried out and Uriel felt the rush of power as an enormous white fireball exploded into life around the Grey Knights. Wreathed in the flames, Leodegarius and Cheiron shone like angels of the Emperor, the roaring power contained around them by sheer force of will.

  'Spawn of evil I cast you from this place!' cried Leodegarius and the blazing white fireball filled the corridor. Billowing flames exploded outwards from the Grey Knights, and the screams of the ghostly figures were swallowed in the seething roar of the fire.

  Uriel shielded Serj Casuaban from the flames as their power swirled around them. Metal groaned and hissed under the assault of Leodegarius's purity, the very essence of his soul poured out in the cleansing fire of the Emperor.

  In little over a few seconds it was ended, the nightmare howls silenced, and the terrifying roar of the fiery holocaust the two Grey Knights had unleashed at an end.

  Uriel looked up to see Leodegarius and Cheiron still standing in the middle of the corridor, their silver armour streaming with scraps of light that faded even as he watched. Leodegarius turned to face him and even though he was clad head to foot in Terminator armour, Uriel could see that he was exhausted.

  'Come,' he hissed. 'They will be back. We must move on.'

  Uriel nodded as Pasanius dragged Serj Casuaban to his feet. 'Up you said?'

  'Yes, Emperor protect me,' said Casuaban, making the sign of the aquila.

  Uriel led the way up the ramp, with Pasanius dragging the reluctant medicae behind him. Leodegarius and Cheiron brought up the rear and Uriel could already hear the building screams and howls of more enemies closing on them.

  He switched to an internal vox-channel within his helmet, hearing shouted commands and the bark of gunfire. Shots sounded in his helmet, throughout the House of Providence, their source impossible to pinpoint as they echoed from the maze-like corridors.

  How the other Grey Knights fared, Uriel could not tell, for their commands were spoken in a battle cant unknown to him, but every order was delivered clearly and calmly. To hear warriors in battle communicating with such cool determination under fire was inspiring and Uriel felt a renewed sense of honour to be fighting alongside them.

  'This way,' said Serj Casuaban, leading them through a series of low doors that led deeper into the heart of the House of Providence. Some of the doorways proved too small for Leodegarius, but quick, efficient strokes of his Nemesis weapon soon opened a hole large enough for him to squeeze his enormous, armoured bulk through.

  At last their route took them into the highest ward in the converted Capitol Imperialis, a long, metal-walled chamber crammed with iron beds arranged along the walls and a wide central nave. Each of the beds was home to a writhing figure, their mouths twisted in rictus grins of pain.

  The air was filled with screams and scraps of light, ghostly forms of howling figures that orbited a bed near the centre of the right-hand wall.

  There could be no doubt that this was Sylvanus Thayer.

  The Lord of the Unfleshed towered over his bed, his mighty form awesome and unbearable to look upon.

  TWENTY

  URIEL, LEODEGARIUS AND Cheiron slowly made their way down through the ward between the rows of beds. Pasanius left Serj Casuaban beside a medical station by the door and followed them. The Lord of the Unfleshed watched them approach, his eyes glowing with fiery light that burned like dead stars.

  'So what are we going to do?' asked Uriel over the vox.

  'First we fight the beast,' said Leodegarius, 'and then we get to Thayer.'

  'Then what?'

  'We kill him.'

  Uriel nodded. He didn't like the idea of killing a man lying on his deathbed, but Sylvanus Thayer was no innocent, and his unchecked power would kill millions more if they did not stop him. He had kept the dead from their rest and bound them to his hatred, and that was unforgivable.

  The Lord of the Unfleshed lowered his head, the jaw working in unfamiliar ways, strings of bloody drool leaking from the corners of his mouth.

  'You come here to stop me?' said the Lord of the Unfleshed, in a voice not his own.

  'Do I speak with Sylvanus Thayer?' demanded Leodegarius.

  'Aye, warrior, you do.'

  'Then yes, we come to stop you,' said Leodegarius, taking another step towards the Lord of the Unfleshed. 'Your hatred will doom this world if we do not.'

  The creature laughed, the sound barren and repulsive. 'Why would that be a bad thing? Salinas has nothing good left. Barbaden and the Falcatas saw to that.'

  'Barbaden is under arrest,' said Uriel at Leodegarius's side. 'Those you haven't already killed will pay for their crimes, I promise you.'

  'Pay?' sneered Sylvanus Thayer with the Lord of the Unfleshed's body. 'To languish in a jail cell and live out their lives? That is not nearly enough pain for what they did.'

  'Maybe not,' agreed Uriel, 'but it is justice.'

  'Justice!' roared Thayer. 'Where was justice when Barbaden's tanks burned my family to death? Where was justice when his soldiers shot fleeing women and children? Where was the justice when he shelled my men to oblivion when we fought to avenge their deaths? Answer me that, warrior!'

  'I have no answer to give you,' said Uriel. 'What happened to you and this planet was wrong, but more death is not the answer. Hatred breeds hatred and your actions have only made things worse.'

  Serj Casuaban spoke up from behind them, and Uriel turned at the sound of his voice.

  'He's right, Captain Ventris, that's not justice,' said the medicae. 'Only our blood will be payment enough. We all know that.'

  'Be silent,' ordered Leodegarius. 'I told you to stay out of the way.'

  Serj Casuaban lifted his hand and Uriel saw something shining there.

  'I did that once before and look where it got me,' said Casuaban, placing a long-bladed scalpel at his throat. 'It's time to pay for what we did, and for what it's worth, I'm sorry.'

  'No!' cried Uriel, but it was too late.

  Casuaban slashed the blade across his throat, digging deep to sever the jugular. Blood spurted in a crimson fountain and Serj Casuaban dropped to the decking.

  Uriel ran over to where he lay, but the medicae had been precise in his cutting and a vast pool of blood already gathered around h
im. Uriel placed his hands on the wound, but it had been cut too wide and thoroughly to staunch. Blood squirted from between Uriel's fingers and spattered his armour.

  Casuaban's eyes were glassy with death and Uriel knew that the man's life was gone. There was no saving him now.

  Uriel stood and saw that Leodegarius was within five metres of the enormous form of the Lord of the Unfleshed. The creature stood tall and Uriel was amazed at how powerful his physique had become. The Lord of the Unfleshed had suffered terribly in the fighting of the last few days, but there could be no underestimating the power that still resided in his frame.

  Searing lines of light rippled beneath his ashen skin and his mutated flesh was redolent with warp-born power. The Lord of the Unfleshed roared and the ward echoed to the sound of his pain and Thayer's anger.

  'Enough blood has been shed,' said Leodegarius, raising his psycannon. 'This ends now.'

  'Aye!' bellowed the Lord of the Unfleshed. 'One way or another.'

  Before Leodegarius could fire, the Lord of the Unfleshed reached down and heaved, hurling a pair of heavy, iron beds towards them. Consecrated bolts blasted the beds apart and tore their unfortunate occupants to shreds, but were deflected away from their intended target.

  The beds crashed down in a heap of twisted iron. A mist of bloodied feathers from the ruptured mattresses filled the air. Uriel ran forward as the Lord of the Unfleshed leapt, his enormous fist smashing into the ward's floor and buckling the metal plates.

  Leodegarius took aim once more, but the Lord of the Unfleshed was upon him, towering over the Grey Knight and bathing him in the light that shone beneath his flesh. A backhand blow sent Leodegarius spinning and a hail of bolts from Cheiron's weapon stitched their way up the Lord of the Unfleshed's back.

  Pasanius and Cheiron circled behind the towering monster, which battered clubbing fists against the plates of Leodegarius's armour.

  Leodegarius fought to keep his attacker at bay, but Terminator armour was designed for protection, not speed, and he could not avoid the Lord of the Unfleshed's savage blows. One shoulder guard was already hanging from sparking cables and torn fibre-bundle muscles, and his breastplate was cracked and leaking fluid.