Killing Ground w4u-4

by Graham McNeill

  Cheiron leapt in, ramming his Nemesis weapon into the Lord of the Unfleshed's back. The creature spun quickly, wrenching the weapon from Cheiron's hands, and smashed the warrior from his feet. The Grey Knight flew across the ward and slammed into the steel wall, falling in an ungainly heap and leaving a huge dent in the metalwork.

  Pasanius swept up Leodegarius's fallen Nemesis weapon. Together, he and Uriel circled in opposite directions around the Lord of the Unfleshed. The creature's body was a mass of cuts and bolt impacts, its back horrifically cratered and running with blood and light.

  Uriel could only imagine the pain the Lord of the Unfleshed was feeling, but he knew that he had to suppress any notions of humanity in his opponent.

  Pasanius feinted with his polearm, but using such a long, heavy weapon with only one arm was difficult and the Lord of the Unfleshed batted the blade aside. Uriel darted in and hacked his blade down at the Lord of the Unfleshed's knee, hoping to at least slow him down.

  Before the blade connected, the Lord of the Unfleshed twisted and clubbed Uriel savagely with an arm like a tree trunk. He flew though the air to land beside the twisted bed frames, the plates of his armour buckled, but unbroken.

  He rolled to his feet in time to see Pasanius smashed from his feet. His friend crashed down beside Serj Casuaban's corpse as Leodegarius struggled to pull himself to his feet and Cheiron began to rouse himself from where the Lord of the Unfleshed had hurled him.

  * * *

  Uriel looked over at Sylvanus Thayer. The swirling ghosts howled around the man's bed and Uriel could hear the indescribable pain in their agonised utterances. A core of light, white, yet without any purity, was building around his bed. Screams and monstrous shrieks issued from the light and Uriel knew that he was looking at a tear in the very meat of reality, a wound through which all manner of horrors might pour.

  He tore his gaze from the burning light, as the Lord of the Unfleshed's roars echoed from the walls, the sound a heartbreaking mix of agony, triumph and regret.

  Uriel leapt torn and scattered beds. It went against his every instinct to leave his comrades in battle, but he knew that this fight could not be won through strength of arms as he scrambled over the debris of the chamber towards the bed where Sylvanus Thayer lay.

  'I'm with you!' shouted Pasanius, rushing over to join him.

  Uriel heard the roar of the Lord of the Unfleshed as Thayer felt his approach, and the howling of the ghosts grew ever louder. A din of battle sounded behind him and Uriel heard the unmistakable sound of something huge coming towards him.

  Thayer's bed was just in front of him and Uriel saw the man's body beneath the filmy surgical gauze was as wrecked as Serj Casuaban had said.

  His skin was raw and red, wet and horrific. Both legs ended in cauterised stumps in mid-thigh and one arm was missing from the shoulder down. What was left of Thayer's face was a molten ruin of dead flesh. Both eyes were unseeing and useless, artificial lids sutured over the sockets to keep them closed.

  Uriel lifted his sword, the blade poised to split Thayer's skull open and end this horror.

  There was no glory in this killing, no honour and no reward, only duty.

  'Do it!' shouted Pasanius. 'Kill him!'

  Then Sylvanus Thayer's eyelids flew open, a fierce light burning within the ravaged sockets, as though every ounce of his hatred of the living had ignited within them.

  'Know what I know,' hissed the voice of Sylvanus Thayer in his skull, 'and then judge me.' Then the world vanished in a searing wall of flames.

  Uriel threw up his hand as the flames roared over him, expecting his armour's cooling systems to activate in response to the attack, but as he lowered his arms he was amazed to see that he was no longer within the House of Providence. The ruined ward had vanished.

  Instead of the grey, metal walls, he and Pasanius stood in a busy city street beneath a warm, spring sun. Hundreds of people thronged the streets, their eyes worried and their movements agitated.

  Fear was on the move and the people moved in time with its dance.

  Pasanius turned with his borrowed Nemesis weapon at the ready.

  'What in the name of the Emperor?' he hissed. 'What just happened? Where are we?'

  Uriel had been wondering the same thing, but as his gaze alighted upon a familiar temple with a bronze eagle hanging above the arched entrance, and he suddenly knew.

  'Khaturian,' whispered Uriel.

  'The Killing Ground,' said Pasanius. 'How is that possible?'

  No one appeared to notice them and Uriel said, 'This is not real. It's a memory.'

  'A memory? But Thayer wasn't at Khaturian when it was destroyed,' said Pasanius.

  'No,' agreed Uriel, indicating the fearful people that filled the streets, 'but they all were.'

  A panicked cry went up from somewhere nearby and Uriel looked to the sky as he heard a droning rumble from the direction of the mountains. A trio of cruciform shapes emerged from the clouds, flying low and slowly towards the city.

  Uriel's enhanced sight quickly resolved the shapes into flights of Marauder bombers, each cruciform shape comprising of six aircraft.

  The people of Khaturian began screaming, even before the first bombs were dropped and Uriel could feel their terror at the sight of the aircraft. Here in the mountains, they had thought themselves safe from the fighting and death that was engulfing the rest of their world.

  This day would show them how naive that belief had been.

  'Should we be worried?' asked Pasanius, looking up at the approaching bombers.

  Uriel shook his head. 'I do not think so, my friend. Thayer wants us to see what happened here.'

  Pasanius looked doubtful, but shrugged. 'Fine. Not a lot we can do anyway.'

  Although Uriel knew that what he was seeing was not real and had already happened, the emotions filling the air, panic, terror, disbelief and anger were very real indeed. People ran screaming to their homes, gathering up children and loved ones as they took shelter.

  Uriel knew that it would do them no good, as he watched the first clusters of bombs detach from the bellies of the Marauders. Tiny black dots, it seemed inconceivable that they could be the cause of so much misery and death, but as they grew larger their warlike shape became apparent, the snub-nosed warhead and guidance fins spinning them to deliver their payload with greater accuracy.

  The first bombs hit in the north of the city, and the ground trembled at the impact. Whooshing shoots of fire erupted skyward and a dark-edged mushroom cloud of smoke billowed upwards. More bombs hit within seconds of the first and a rolling thunderstorm of detonations marched through Khaturian.

  Flames and hurricane winds swept over the city, the sound of the explosions merging into one enormous roar of destruction. Buildings collapsed and searing walls of flame roared along the streets. Burning tornadoes seethed like angry elementals, the power of the winds sweeping up those who had not yet found shelter and sucking them back into the burning buildings.

  The bombs continued to fall, the destruction wrought around Uriel and Pasanius leaving them untouched. The ground heaved and bucked like a living thing, the pounding of the earth seeming to go on forever as the bombs continued to fall.

  The entire city was an inferno, ablaze from its centre to its outskirts. Howling winds carried the flames in every direction, the destruction total and unforgiving. Uriel felt somehow dirty to be immersed in this carnage while immune to it.

  For thirty minutes the bombs continued to fall and the city's death scream of collapsing buildings and burning humans seemed never-ending. Uriel felt utterly drained and wished this vision of the apocalypse would end.

  'I've seen enough, Thayer!' Uriel shouted into the burning skies.

  Everywhere was flames. The sky was ablaze and everything flammable in Khaturian was on fire. Nothing could live in the inferno.

  'Emperor's blood,' whispered Pasanius, watching people on fire run screaming from their devastated homes. Burning bodies filled every stree
t and the shriek of the firestorm began to fade as the bombardment finally ended.

  'Madness,' hissed Uriel. 'All this for one man.'

  Pasanius said nothing, too choked with emotion to speak. Mutilated bodies lay in the wreckage: entire families twisted into grotesque shapes by the heat of the fires.

  Though it was surely impossible that people could have lived through such a raging hellstorm, there were, it seemed, survivors. From basements and shelters beneath the city, shell-shocked groups emerged, weeping, into what was left of their city.

  Uriel saw that they were bloodied and battered, the skin raw and heat-burned. None had escaped injury and with the noise of the bombardment over, the screams of the citizens of Khaturian began.

  'There must be something we can do for them,' said Pasanius, as a man with his arm missing wandered past them in a daze.

  'No,' said Uriel. 'They are long dead. The only thing we can do is remember them.'

  'I won't forget this,' swore Pasanius.

  'Nor I,' agreed Uriel.

  'They're getting off easy,' said Pasanius, 'Barbaden and Togandis. You don't have a part in slaughter like this and get to live.'

  'They won't,' promised Uriel, his heart hardening to the fate of those who had seen this murder enacted and had either done nothing to stop it or had done nothing to make amends for it.

  As they made their way through the devastation, Uriel looked along a rubble-strewn street as he heard the sound of iron treads crushing stone to powder. A dull grey tank in the livery of the Achaman Falcatas rounded the corner. From the burning nozzle protruding from the turret, Uriel recognised it as a Hellhound.

  Sheets of flame spouted from the tank, setting ablaze those few parts of the city that had somehow escaped the incendiary bombs dropped by the Marauders. Battle tanks followed in the wake of the Hellhound, spraying bullets indiscriminately along both sides of the street.

  Soldiers followed the battle tanks, warriors in red plate armour, who marched beneath a bright banner depicting a screaming, golden eagle against a crimson field. Their guns barked and spat, driving the few survivors into the flames or against the walls where they were executed without mercy.

  Uriel could see Leto Barbaden atop the first Leman Russ, his helmet's visor pulled up as he shouted orders to his soldiers. Uriel could see the relish in Barbaden's face, the righteous notion that he was doing the Emperor's work butchering these people. Verena Kain and Sergeant Tremain marched before Barbaden's tank, and Uriel saw the same zealous gleam in their eyes. Uriel wished that Kain's death had been more painful.

  He hated himself for such a visceral reaction, but the emotions stirred within him by the knowledge that Barbaden had not only ordered the killings, but had taken such pleasure from them was too powerful to be ignored.

  'How do we end this?' asked Pasanius.

  'I don't know,' replied Uriel, 'when Thayer thinks we've seen enough.'

  'Then I've seen enough,' said Pasanius, 'enough to know that a bullet in the head's too quick a death for Barbaden.'

  'Agreed,' said Uriel, 'and I know how this has to end now.'

  With those words, the sight before them blurred and shifted, transforming from the burning heart of Khaturian to the devastated House of Providence.

  Uriel blinked as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he saw the Lord of the Unfleshed towering over him. The killing light in his eyes was undimmed, yet there was no hatred in them, only a sense of profound sadness. Behind the mighty creature, Uriel saw Leodegarius climb to his feet, the entire right-hand side of his armour drenched in blood.

  'You know how this has to end?' asked the Lord of the Unfleshed.

  Uriel looked down at the ruined, mutilated body of Sylvanus Thayer and nodded. 'I do.'

  'How?'

  Uriel looked past the mighty creature towards Leodegarius.

  'Brother Leodegarius, are you still maintaining your aegis sanctuary over Barbaden and Togandis?'

  'I am,' said Leodegarius, and Uriel could hear the exhaustion in the warrior's voice. This hero of the Imperium was wounded nigh unto death and yet still he stood tall. 'What of it?'

  'End it,' said Uriel.

  The prison was in uproar.

  Prisoners screamed and shouted for guards, but if any heard their pleas, none dared show their faces in the prison complex. For now, the spirits of the dead ruled the Panopticon.

  Shavo Togandis stood before the bars of his cell, mouthing prayers and confessing every base, petty thing he had done in his life. He spoke in words barely above a whisper, knowing that the Emperor would hear them, but unwilling to share them with Leto Barbaden.

  The ghostly figures heard his confession in silence and he hoped they understood his regret and pain. They had made no attempt to come closer since the spirit of the young girl had been hurled back by the psychic barrier erected by Leodegarius, but had simply watched, and waited.

  His confession done, he said, 'I tread the path of righteousness. Though it be paved with broken glass, I will walk it barefoot. Though it crosses rivers of fire, I will pass over them. Though it wanders wide, the light of the Emperor guides my step.'

  'Can't think of words of your own, Shavo?' sneered Barbaden. 'Whose are those? And don't try to tell me they're yours, I know you better than that.'

  'They were said by Dolan of Chiros, the man who helped bring down Cardinal Bucharis.'

  'Ah, the confessor who stood before the tyrant during the Plague of Unbelief. Is that it? Do you think men will remember you in the same breath as Dolan? You may have been a confessor, Shavo, but you're not a tenth of the man Dolan was,' said Barbaden, lounging unconcerned on his bunk. 'You were always too much of a worm to be granted a place at the Emperor's side.'

  'And you think there's a place for you? A murderer?'

  Barbaden laughed. 'I'm no murderer, and as soon as this farce of an incarceration is over, I'll be back in the palace. I have the right of appeal to the Sector Governor, and do you think he's going to let me swing for killing a few terrorists?'

  'If there is an iota of justice in this galaxy, then yes,' said Togandis, closing his eyes and wishing Leto Barbaden would shut up.

  'There is no justice, Shavo. Don't be so foolish. There's no room for justice in this galaxy,' said Barbaden, 'and if you'll permit me to quote back to you, I think you'll find this one illuminating: ''When the people forget their duty they are no longer human and become something less than beasts. They have no place in the bosom of humanity nor in the heart of the Emperor. Let them die and be forgotten''.'

  Then it shall be so.

  The voice had sounded right in his ear.

  Togandis opened his eyes and he cried out as he saw that their cells were filled with the ghostly figures who had stood, silent and unmoving, beyond the bars, waiting.

  Fear clutched at his heart, but it was instantly replaced by a wash of relief. It was over, the waiting, the fear of humiliation and the dread that they would somehow escape retribution.

  'Get away from me, damn you!' shouted Barbaden. 'Get away from me, I said!'

  Togandis watched as the dead crowded in around the former governor of Salinas, eager to be part of his unmaking. Though they had been called ghosts, they were no phantom apparitions of mist; their nails could tear skin and their teeth could rip flesh from bones.

  Barbaden screamed as they plucked at the soft meat of his face, bearing him to the ground and clawing his flesh. His eyes went first, torn from their sockets with a swift jerk of cold, dead hands.

  They tore the skin from his face, ripping the muscles from his skull and peeling him back to the frame of bone beneath. His limbs bent and snapped and his screams filled the cells as the dead fought to bloody their hands in his entrails.

  Togandis watched in horrified fascination as Leto Barbaden was torn apart before his very eyes, the meat and bone of his existence ripped asunder in a frenzy of vengeance.

  In moments it was over and there was nothing left in the cell that even remotely resembled wha
t had once been a human being. All that remained was a jumble of torn offal and a vast lake of blood and snapped bone.

  The dead turned their faces to Shavo Togandis. 'Do what must be done,' he said. The dead came at him and as he felt their hands reach for his eyes, he said, 'I forgive you.'

  Uriel knew it was over.

  The dead light in the eyes of the Lord of the Unfleshed faded and sudden silence fell upon the House of Providence. The howling of the ghosts ceased and the filmy scraps of light began to fade. Uriel felt a tremendous wave of relief pass through him as the dead began their final journey, their spirits finally allowed to disperse into the warp.

  The gloom that had settled upon Salinas was gone in an instant, and Uriel had not fully realised how oppressive it had been until it was removed.

  Uriel heard a rasping sigh from the bed next to him and looked down at Sylvanus Thayer as the machine maintaining his life hiked and stuttered. The rhythmic machine noise of his life slowed until it became a single, shrill note that could mean only one thing.

  Sylvanus Thayer was dead, and with him the threat to Salinas.

  The wound in reality was gone, sealed up without the link between worlds that the former leader of the Sons of Salinas had provided.

  Uriel took a deep, cleansing breath, looking around to make sure that he was not imagining things: that it was truly over. Pasanius stood next to him and the injured Leodegarius held himself upright with his one remaining arm.

  Cheiron staggered over to his commander and Uriel turned his attention to the Lord of the Unfleshed. The last of the Unfleshed swayed on his feet, unsteady and uncertain, his head turning this way and that as though awakening from a deep slumber.

  His eyes, milky and rheumy, focused on Uriel and he dropped to his knees, his massive clawed hands coming up to his face as a heartrending moan of self-loathing issued from deep inside him. Great, wracking sobs burst from the Lord of the Unfleshed's chest and Uriel felt deep sorrow that it had come to this.