Killing Ground

SIXTEEN

Uriel's arms burned with pain and his wrists were chafed bloody by the silver manacles that held him suspended above the cold, hard floor of the darkened chamber. Its exact dimensions were unknown to him, but he had formed a mental map of the chamber from the echoes of his shouts for answers.

It had been days since the battle with the Unfleshed, but how many he could not say with any certainty, for the darkness was unchanging and his captors had given him no clue as to the passage of time.

His captors… The Grey Knights…

These warriors of legend were spoken of in hushed whispers, for the foes they faced in battle were the most terrifying of all: daemons and unclean creatures from beyond the gates of the Empyrean. Of all the Emperor's servants, they were the most honoured, the most revered, and the most deadly.

Now, their attentions were turned upon Uriel.

It seemed inconceivable to Uriel that he should suffer like this; that fellow warriors of the Adeptus Astartes should inflict such punishments upon him. Yet he could not find it in his heart to blame them, for had he and Pasanius not returned from the most dreaded place in the galaxy, a lair of abominations and monsters?

As much as he railed against what was happening to him, he knew he could have expected no less. From here on out, Uriel was at the mercy of those who knew the threat of the daemonic better than he.

In the time since the Grey Knights had taken him, he had known only darkness. No sooner had Leodegarius hauled him from the rubble of the collapsed bar than a host of powerfully muscled servitors had closed in, carrying extendable poles that terminated in thick metal collars with inward pointing blades.

The restraint collars had fastened on his neck and Uriel knew that to resist would open his throat on the razor-sharp spikes. A robed acolyte had lifted a hood, fashioned from what appeared to be coarse sackcloth weave. Just before it had been fastened over his head, Uriel saw another Grey Knight with Pasanius similarly restrained before the open ramp of a silver Thunderhawk gunship.

The hood had been more than simply fabric, for it had utterly blocked Uriel's perception of the world around him. His five senses were rendered useless and he felt a curious deadness to everything, as though suddenly and completely cut off from the realm of perception.

He had been guided to the interior of the Thunderhawk and flown to the gaol that currently confined him. Uriel had no idea where he was, and what was to happen next was similarly a mystery.

Unkind hands had manacled him and then removed the perception-deadening hood before his skull had been shaved and he had been hauled from the ground and left suspended in the darkness.

A murmur of chanting drifted on the incense-scented air, a maddeningly constant refrain that lurked just beyond the range of comprehension. Uriel could see no source for the voices, but he could sense figures moving through the darkness, darkness so impenetrable that not even his genhanced sight could penetrate its depths.

He knew he was being observed and he had spoken aloud of his innocence and his loyalty to the Emperor, but they would have heard such things a hundred times or more, most often from the mouths of heretics and those who consorted with daemons. After a while, he gave up and concentrated on blocking out the pain in his shoulders.

His weight was pulling his arms from their sockets and the sinews were straining and twisting as he hung in the darkness. The metal of the silver manacles bit into the meat of his wrists and congealed blood clotted on his forearms.

Uriel heard heavy footsteps coming towards him through the darkness. A flaming torch sprang to life and the silver giant that had pulled him from the wreckage of the bar approached.

Firelight reflected from the burnished plates of his incredible armour, the vast plates indestructible and magnificent.

Terminators were warriors capable of awesome destruction, trained to be masters of the killing art and unstoppable human tanks. Astartes in Mk VII plate were well-armoured and retained their lethal speed, whereas a warrior clad in Terminator armour sacrificed that mobility for almost complete invulnerability.

As the Terminators of the Veteran company were above Uriel in skill and lethality, so too was this warrior above even them. To be in such a warrior's presence, even as a prisoner, was an honour.

Leodegarius had removed his helmet and Uriel saw that his face was finely sculpted and almost angelic in its symmetry. Silver eyebrows framed clear blue eyes and his white hair was pulled back in a short scalp lock. The warrior's physical perfection matched his assuredly perfect soul, and Uriel was put in mind of warriors from the Blood Angels Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, such, was his beauty.

A group of hooded acolytes followed Leodegarius, one reading from a heavy book supported on the back of a hunched dwarf with a golden lectern fused to its exposed spine, and another carrying a silver aquila, from which issued puffs of scented smoke. Others carried a variety of items on plush velvet cushions, some of which were clearly items of excruciation, while others were devices beyond Uriel's understanding.

Another Grey Knight, clad in gleaming silver power armour, stood at Leodegarius's shoulder and carried the awesome warrior's helmet. Behind him, a pair of sweating servitors dragged a smoking brazier, from which protruded a number of glowing irons.

Uriel felt the chains supporting him go slack and he descended to the floor. The loosening of the chains continued until he was able to lower his arms to his sides.

He rolled his shoulders to flex the muscles there and work the balls of his joints back into their sockets. None of his captors made any move to remove or loosen the manacles that still bound his wrists.

'Tell me why I should not kill you,' said the Grey Knight.

For a moment, Uriel was dumbfounded. The bluntness of the question was such that he had no immediate answer.

'I am a loyal servant of the Emperor,' he said at last.

'I have heard that before,' replied Leodegarius, his disbelief plain, 'so I am going to open you up and examine the farthest reaches of your soul. I will know everything about you, Uriel Ventris, and if I find you to be pure you may yet earn the Emperor's forgiveness, but if I find any hint of corruption or filthy secrets, your body will be purged with fire.'

'I understand,' said Uriel. 'I have nothing to hide.'

'A common declaration of the corrupted,' said Leodegarius. 'You would be surprised how many times I hear it from the mouths of those with a great deal to hide.'

'I am a servant of the Emperor,' repeated Uriel. 'I am not corrupt.'

'That is for me to decide,' said Leodegarius. 'Now be silent.'

Uriel nodded, fully aware that his life was in the hands of the warrior. With a gesture he could end him and erase him from the Imperium. All that he had ever done, all the heroic deeds he had accomplished in his life, would be expunged as surely as if he had never existed.

'State your name and rank,' said Leodegarius, 'for the record.'

'I am Uriel Ventris, former captain of the Fourth Company of the Ultramarines Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes.'

As Uriel spoke, a clattering stenolyte behind Leodegarius scrawled his words on a leaf of parchment, each of his fingers ending in an inky quill-tip. This would either be his vindication or his valediction.

Leodegarius nodded and reached out to twist Uriel's shoulder towards him. Uriel gritted his teeth, the bones of his shoulder twisting painfully in the socket.

'Your Chapter and company tattoos have been burned from your body.'

'Yes,' said Uriel. 'Our Chapter and company markings were removed before we left Macragge on a Death Oath. For all intents and purposes, we were exiled. It would not have been fitting to continue to bear our Chapter's heraldry.'

'Why were you sent on this Death Oath?' asked Leodegarius, and Uriel saw a servitor remove one of the irons in the fire with thick, insulated gloves. The brand was held out towards Leodegarius, but the Grey Knight ignored it for the time being.

'For breaking with the Codex Astartes.'

Leodegarius nodded, as though he was aware of this. Had Pasanius already been interrogated for this information?

Thinking of his friend, Uriel decided to risk a question of his own. 'Where is Pasanius?'

A silver gauntlet seized Uriel's throat and Leodegarius reached back to take hold of the glowing branding iron, its head in the shape of a haloed skull. With a fluid economy of motion he reversed the brand and stamped it down over the place where an Imperial aquila had once been tattooed on Uriel's shoulder.

Agonising pain coursed through Uriel's body as the red-hot iron seared his flesh. His knees buckled and he bit back a cry as Leodegarius kept the burning metal pressed against his skin. Smoke and the horrific smell of blackened, charred flesh filled the air. The pain was intense, but Uriel closed his eyes and focused his mind on blocking it out.

At last the brand was removed and Uriel gasped. The pain was still there, raw, hot and intense, but compared to the agony of the continued burning, it was as though his upper arm were bathed in cool water.

A pair of robed chirurgeons stepped from the darkness behind him and the pain was replaced by a cool, clear sensation of relief as counterseptic was applied to the wound and burn gauze bound to his shoulder.

'That is the first lesson,' said Leodegarius, handing the brand back to the servitor. 'When we begin, you are to speak only when I permit you to speak. Do you understand?'

'Yes,' said Uriel, nodding, 'I understand.'

'Then you are ready for the first ordeal,' said Leodegarius, 'the Ordeal of Inquisition.'

'What are you going to ask me?'

'Ask?' said the Grey Knight. 'I am not going to ask you anything.'

Concentric circles were inscribed on the floor around Uriel and Leodegarius, cut by hooded servitors with acetylene torches for arms, and the grooves filled with bubbling lines of molten silver dispensed from golden urns upon their backs. Strange sigils that were incomprehensible to Uriel were cut in the space between the two circles, which were likewise filled with silver.

Steam billowed from the design as the servitors finished the last of the silver sigils.

'The Ordeal of Inquisition,' said Leodegarius, 'is as old as my order. My mind's eye will see into every darkened corner of your soul. I will know your every thought. You will be able to hide nothing from me. Understand that and you may save yourself a great deal of pain. If you have evil within you, confess it and your death will be swift. Deny it, and if I find any trace of corruption, your death will be agonising and long.'

'I have nothing to confess,' said Uriel. 'I am not corrupt.'

Leodegarius nodded, as though playing out a familiar drama. 'We shall see.'

At last the design on the floor was complete, and the servitors vanished into the darkness, leaving Uriel and Leodegarius alone. As the servitors withdrew, seven other acolytes approached, each carrying a torch, their hoods drawn back. The firelight danced on their faces,, and the withered horror of their hairless heads made Uriel long for the darkness again.

Their faces were those of corpses found in the desert, drawn and desiccated as though drained of all vitality and animation. Their eyes had been burned from their sockets, although whether by deliberate artifice or by nightmarish sights, Uriel could not say.

As a Space Marine in the service of the Emperor, Uriel had seen his share of terrors: ancient star gods, the face of the Great Devourer and the abode of daemons, but to see these pitiful beings was to know that there were more terrible things still in the galaxy.

The dreadful acolytes took up positions around them, forming a protective circle, and began to chant with a barely audible, static-like screech. Their low voices set up an atonal wall of sound without rhythm and Uriel felt the same deadening of the senses that he had felt when hooded.

'The Null-Servitors create a barrier of psychic feedback,' explained Leodegarius. 'Together with the lines of power inscribed in the floor, it will prevent any corruption from leaving this circle should I falter in my inquisition of your body and soul.'

'I understand the precaution,' said Uriel, 'but I keep telling you it is unnecessary.'

'Be silent,' instructed Leodegarius, stepping forward and placing his hands on either side of Uriel's face. 'The Ordeal of Inquisition has begun.'

The metal of the gauntlets was cold and Uriel felt their chill spread down through his skin, into the muscles of his face and past the bone of his skull. Cold, questing fingers prised open the lid of his mind and delved inside.

Uriel's immediate inclination was to resist and the mental barriers of his will began to erect in response to the invasion. He looked into Leodegarius's icy blue eyes and the world seemed to contract until all he could see were those glacial orbs, as though crackling lines of power that could never be broken connected them.

Uriel felt his entire body grow numb as the Grey Knight's psychic essence forced its way through his defences and into his thoughts.

'Why do you resist?' asked Leodegarius, the implacable force of his mind pressing on Uriel's thoughts. 'Do you have something to hide after all?'

Uriel tried to reply, but his tongue would not obey him. He tried to lower his defences and allow his interrogator access to his thoughts, but the natural reaction of a human mind is to protect its secrets and internal workings.

Yet even as the defensive architecture of his brain buckled under the strain of resistance, Uriel knew that such a struggle would be futile in the face of the Grey Knight's power. With that realisation came the will to allow another being access to the hidden fortress of his mind: the guarded place where he kept his doubts, his fears, his hopes and his ambitions.

Everything that made him Uriel Ventris would be laid bare for Leodegarius to see, to know and to understand. Every virtue and every vice was open to scrutiny and if Uriel were found wanting in any regard, his life would be forfeit. Curiously, he felt no fear, now that the last barrier between him and Leodegarius was removed.

He felt the Grey Knight's colossal presence within his skull, the warrior's essence blending with Uriel's and learning in a moment what had forged him into a warrior of the Ultramarines. Everything from the blue-lit caverns of Calth of his earliest childhood memories to the fight with the Lord of the Unfleshed became part of the Grey Knight's understanding and in the space of a breath, it was as though they had become one soul.

As Leodegarius learned of Uriel, so too did Uriel learn of Leodegarius, or at least as much as the Grey Knight wanted him to know. He saw the decades of battle, the years of study and solitude, and the complete and utter devotion to his sacred duty.

Leodegarius was a hero in the truest sense of the word, a warrior who fought for no reward, no acclaim and no reason other than that he knew he was one of a select brotherhood that was all that stood between humanity and destruction. Uriel saw unnumbered and unknown battles where the fate of worlds hung in the balance.

He saw triumphs and he saw losses. He saw victories and unimaginable sacrifice.

This was what it took to be a defender of the Imperium and Uriel's own achievements paled in comparison to what this great hero had accomplished.

Their lives intertwined in the space of a moment and the connection was so profound that Uriel began to panic as his sense of self was swallowed by the overwhelming presence of the Grey Knight's mind.

Then it was gone.

Like a sword pulled from a wound, the Grey Knight's power withdrew from Uriel's mind and he sagged against the chains that supported him. He dropped to his knees, suddenly feeling alone, so very alone, within his skull, as if a vital piece of him had been torn out.

In the face of the horrors Leodegarius had defeated, what did the life of a pair of Ultramarines matter? In the grand tapestry of the galaxy, Uriel's life was meaningless and he would welcome Leodegarius ending him now.

'Be at peace, Uriel Ventris,' said Leodegarius. 'A mind will always quail before its insignificance following union with a power greater than itself. Your warrior's pride will restore your sense of self-worth soon enough.'

Uriel looked up into Leodegarius's face, his handsome, perfect and magnificent face. The look of a great hero of mankind was etched into every shimmering line and curve of his skull.

'You saw inside me,' gasped Uriel, every word an effort. 'You know I am not corrupt.'

'You are not knowingly corrupt,' agreed Leodegarius. 'I sense no evil in you, but there are many forms of corruption. You may yet be a herald of wickedness and know it not.'

'I don't understand,' said Uriel, painfully lifting himself to his feet.

'The strands destiny weaves around you are soaked in blood, Uriel Ventris, and times of great danger will forever shadow your life. Your arrival on Salinas is but the latest in a chain of events that may doom this world to exterminatus. Where you walk, it is dangerous to follow.'

'Dangerous for my enemies,' snarled Uriel.

Leodegarius smiled. 'Your spirit is returning, I see. That is good.'

'It is?' said Uriel.

'Of course,' said Leodegarius. 'It means you are ready for the second ordeal.'

Acrid fumes billowed upwards from the iron cauldron, its contents bubbling and popping as Uriel was led before it. The sides were embossed with a ring of linked eagles and the smell of the boiling oils made. Uriel's gorge rise as he suspected what might be asked of him.

The manacles had been removed and he had been permitted to clean the blood from his arms before being marched through the darkness of the chamber to the cauldron. By the light of the burning torch, Uriel was able to make out more of his surroundings: a great open space of soaring arches and thick pillars. The air was thick and cold, leading him to believe that he was below a great building, possibly the palace or the cathedral.

Leodegarius turned to Uriel and said, 'Since earliest times we have used the Ordeal of the Holy Oils to test the flesh of those brought before us. Too often the question of guilt is unnecessary, for actions speak louder than words, but you are a curiosity to me, Uriel Ventris. This ordeal will be painful, but if you have the light of the Emperor within your body you will not falter and you will be borne up by His glory.'

Leodegarius moved to stand opposite Uriel, with the cauldron between them. 'Should your flesh prove true and you pass through this ordeal, you will stand before me at the end and face the Judicium Imperator. Only then will your soul be deemed pure.'

'But the Ordeal of Inquisition?' said Uriel. 'I thought you sensed no evil in me?'

'Nor do I,' said Leodegarius, 'but you have travelled to a realm where nothing that is good or pure can live, and your soul has been exposed to corruption that would burn the flesh from your bones were you to know but a fragment of its true horror. You have walked in that world and it falls to me to determine whether any of its corruption has returned with you, hidden within the meat and bones of your flesh. Do you have anything to say before this ordeal?'

Uriel considered his words carefully. 'I ask the same question I asked before. Where is Pasanius?'

'He undergoes ordeals as you do. His fate is his own and he will stand or fall as you will stand or fall: alone.'

'Then I am ready,' said Uriel. 'Yes, we have walked in the realm of the damned, but we faced its temptations and resisted them.'

'Do you think that is enough?'

'I do not know whether it is enough,' admitted Uriel, 'but it must count for something, for only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. You measure the strength of an enemy by fighting against him, not by giving in. You find out the strength of the wind by walking against it, not by lying down.'

Leodegarius nodded. 'There is truth in that. A man will never discover the strength of the evil impulse inside him until he tries to fight it. The Emperor is the only being who never yielded to temptation, and thus he is also the only man who knows to the full what giving in to that temptation means.'

'Then by any measure of reckoning, Pasanius and I have matched our strength against the foulest beings imaginable.'

'Then this ordeal should be no ordeal at all,' said Leodegarius, pointing to the bubbling cauldron. 'Have you heard of Saint De Haan of the Donorian sector?'

Uriel shook his head. 'No. Who was he?'

'He was an inquisitor who served the Emperor for over two centuries,' explained Leodegarius, 'a man who rooted out heresy and corruption on over a thousand worlds. Tens of thousands of heretics and evildoers perished before him, and his shining vision of a pure Imperium was a beacon to all whose loyalty to the Golden Throne was unwavering.'

'What happened to him?' asked Uriel.

'He was martyred at the battle of Kostiashak,' said Leodegarius. 'Warriors of the Ruinous Powers captured him and portions of his anatomy were nailed to the defiled cathedral of Trebian. De Haan's loyal acolytes recovered their master's remains and many of the relics are stored in scented rosewood boxes on the worlds he cleansed.'

'Many, but not all?' asked Uriel.

'Correct.'

Uriel looked into the bubbling, viscous liquid. At the bottom of the hissing, spitting oil he could make out the wavering outline of what looked like a dagger.

'You will reach in and lift out the dagger,' said Leodegarius.

'What will that prove apart from the fact that my flesh will burn?'

'Shards of the armour belonging to Saint De Haan are worked into the metal of its handle and only those whose flesh is unsullied by the taint of the great enemy may grip it.'

Uriel took a deep breath and nodded. 'Then I have nothing to fear.'

'I hope that is true,' said Leodegarius, and Uriel was surprised to hear sincerity in the Grey Knight's voice. 'Now, take the dagger.'

Before he could picture images of seared flesh and the skin boiled from his bones, Uriel closed his eyes and plunged his left hand into the cauldron. White-hot agony engulfed his forearm. He gritted his teeth against the pain, an all-consuming fire that sent bolts of screaming white light bursting behind his eyelids.

His legs buckled and he reached out to steady himself with his free hand. His other palm hissed as it came into contact with the cauldron's side and Uriel bit back a scream of agony. He could feel his skin blistering and melting in the oil as his fingers sought out the hilt of the dagger. The pain was unbelievable, almost too much for him to stand. It felt as though his arm was dipped into the heart of a volcano and he almost wished for the oblivion of unconsciousness to spare him from enduring it for a second longer.

But then, wasn't that as much part of the ordeal as being able to grasp the weapon?

Wasn't his ability to overcome such pain further proof of his innocence?

Uriel fought through the pain, embracing it, welcoming it, and he opened his eyes to see Leodegarius staring at him. He felt the Grey Knight's approval and knew with utter certainty that Leodegarius wanted him to succeed in this ordeal. He wanted to find a reason not to kill him.

His fingers brushed metal and Uriel closed his grip on the wire wound hilt of the dagger. Though he could barely feel the apparatus of his hand any longer, the tendons and muscles of his wrist obeyed him enough to hold the weapon firm.

With his grip secure, Uriel lifted the dagger from the oil and held it before him, his breath coming in hot spurts from the heart of his chest. His hand was a raw, red thing, the meat boiled and layers of oily skin dripping from him in glistening, jellied strings. The pain was like nothing he had known before and the sight of his ruined flesh made it even worse.

Though every nerve in his body told him to release the burning weapon, Uriel held it out towards Leodegarius.

'There,' hissed Uriel. 'Is this what you wanted?'

Leodegarius nodded and took the weapon, his armoured gauntlets protecting him from the blazing heat of the dagger.

'It is indeed,' said Leodegarius, sheathing the weapon at his side and taking Uriel's wrist.

Leodegarius examined the wound and Uriel flinched, gritting his teeth against the pain, but willing himself to remain standing.

'So?' asked Uriel. 'Is my flesh pure?'

'Maybe,' said Leodegarius, releasing Uriel's hand. 'In three days I shall return and we will examine your wound. A warrior whose flesh is pure will have begun to heal, whereas one whose flesh is unclean will have begun to fester. We will know then whether you are ready to face the final ordeal.'

'The final ordeal?' asked Uriel, wondering what could be worse than the ordeals he had already endured.

'Your mind is free of taint and I believe your flesh to be pure,' said Leodegarius, 'but ordeals devised by Man can tell us only so much, so we must now allow the Emperor to judge the strength of your soul.'

'How do we do that?'

'In the Judicium Imperator,' said Leodegarius. 'In three days you will fight me, and on the outcome of that shall final judgement be made upon you.'

SEVENTEEN

Over the next three days, the pain in Uriel's hand pulsed steadily at the edge of endurance. With the Ordeal of the Holy Oils complete, he had been returned to the darkness and isolation of the cold, underground space.

Except, it wasn't really isolation, not when the maddening chants and low level buzzing that kept him from sleep were his continual companions. He had been left alone, as far as he could tell, though he knew there must be weapons trained upon him and armed gaolers standing ready to obliterate him should he make any attempt to escape.

Escape was not on Uriel's mind, however, not when his loyalty and faith were in question.

Time passed slowly in the darkness, and Uriel's thoughts turned from his own predicament to that of Pasanius and events in the world at large. What had become of his friend? Had he suffered through the two previous ordeals as Uriel had?

Uriel had no reason to suspect that Pasanius would fail the ordeals. He only hoped that when the dark surgeons of Medrengard had taken the xeno-infected arm from his body, they had taken the full extent of its taint.

If any lingering trace of the Nightbringer's essence remained within him, would that be enough to condemn Pasanius in the eyes of the Grey Knights?

He tried to put such doubts and worries from his mind, wondering what was happening on the streets of Barbadus. His chronology of events from the bar's collapse onwards was piecemeal and he could not say for certain what had occurred. Had the Grey Knights killed the Unfleshed or were they still at large?

Barbadus was such a warren of twisted paths and darkened hiding places that it was entirely likely that the Lord of the Unfleshed and his tribe could have evaded capture or destruction. If that were the case what would their next move be? To hide and lie low? To kill again?

In the space of a single night, the Unfleshed had butchered most of the Screaming Eagles, Colonel Verena Kain and Mesira Bardhyl. Who would be next to die?

It all came back to the Killing Ground.

Those who had taken part in the massacre of the people of Khaturian were being killed and a chain of events had been set in motion that might see Salinas engulfed in flames of battle. Worse, Leodegarius obviously thought that whatever had possessed the Unfleshed might be serious enough to warrant the destruction of Salinas.

Uriel had watched one world burn at the hands of the Inquisition and was in no mood to see another die. Whatever the truth of what was happening on Salinas, he would fight alongside the Grey Knights to prevent further death, assuming he passed the Judicium Imperator.

His very soul rebelled at the idea of fighting Leodegarius, but what choice did he have? To refuse to fight would condemn him, but to take arms against a fellow warrior of the Imperium was anathema to him.

To even fight such a sublime warrior was galling, but the idea of besting him seemed inconceivable, ludicrous even. Uriel was wounded, battered and drained, where Leodegarius was in peak condition. It would not be a fight; it would be a shaming defeat.

Uriel Ventris, however, was not a warrior who gave up easily.

On Pavonis, when faced with the awesome, star-destroying, power of the Nightbringer, he had stood against it and denied it a vessel that would have magnified its powers a hundredfold. He had faced the might of a Norn Queen in the depths of a hive ship and defeated her. He had marched into battle on the blasted surface of a daemon world and defeated the daemons and devils that populated its blasted hinterlands.

He would face this challenge and meet it head on.

It was the only way he knew.

Questions of the outside world were irrelevant, for he could do nothing to alter the outcome of what was happening beyond these walls. He could do little enough to alter his own circumstances, but he settled himself upon the cold stone floor and began to prepare for the coming fight.

Uriel closed his eyes and controlled his breathing, directing his body's energies into healing and restoration. Time slowed to a crawl and Uriel felt every muscle, bone and hair on his body as his awareness turned inwards.

He could not actually heal his wounded flesh in the manner of some psykers, but the mental energies of a Space Marine were such that with carefully directed thought patterns, learned over decades of study and application, he was able to focus his energies in replenishment.

Uriel's throat ached where a blade had pierced it on Medrengard, the wound long since healed, but the scar and memory of it remaining. The burning ache in his hand where the holy oils had scalded him terribly faded to a dull ache. His chest tightened where a vengeful spine of the Norn Queen had pierced his flat, ribless torso, and amongst all these hurts, he recalled the memory of a hundred others.

Each would have killed a mortal, but his Astartes frame was proof against such injuries and he had survived them all, coming back stronger from each one. He would come back stronger from this as well.

Uriel knew in his heart that he was no traitor and that his flesh was not corrupt. This was not hubris or overweening pride; it was something he just knew, deep in his soul. The very idea that he could be corrupt was intolerable and even had Leodegarius not required this final test, Uriel would have demanded it, for how else could all others know for certain that he had returned from the Eye of Terror with his soul still his own?

Only approbation by a body as august and respected as the Grey Knights would erase any doubt as to his fidelity in the minds of his battle-brothers.

To return to Macragge without such a seal of approval would be unthinkable, and Uriel suddenly saw how naive he had been to think he could just walk through the gates of the Fortress of Hera without it. While his fellow battle-brothers would accept his word as true, (for what Ultramarine would ever countenance lying to his fellows?) Uriel knew that he would be forever suspect in the eyes of others without the Grey Knights' acceptance of his purity.

Yet, how could he hope to prevail against the might of Leodegarius?

Uriel allowed himself a moment of martial pride as he saw again the mighty foes he had bested in combat, the enemies who were dust in the wind while he was still alive and able to fight.

So long as there was life, there was hope, and while there was hope, Uriel Ventris would fight.

Time passed, the darkness flowing around Uriel like a living thing. When he judged that his mind and body were as ready as they could be for the coming fight, he stood and allowed the blood to flow around his body at an accelerated rate.

Though he could see nothing around him, Uriel moved through the basic martial exercises of the Adeptus Astartes, working each of the muscle groups to empower them for combat. Uriel stretched and tensed in long, slow moves, gearing his physique for the stresses and demands of killing.

If anything, the darkness enhanced his exercises, forcing him to rely on his other senses as he spun and advanced, his hands and feet, knees and elbows killing weapons. The pain of his hand was forgotten, the rotten stink of the burned meat a distant memory.

His lungs burned and his heart beat a furious tattoo against his ribs as his body changed from its meditative state to that of a deadly fighting machine. With the basic exercises complete, Uriel moved into more exotic manoeuvres, leaping and twisting in the air as he fought imaginary foes from memory.

At last he dropped to one knee, his fist a millimetre from the ground and released a pent up breath. Uriel stood and ran his hands across his skull, the feel of the brisdes unfamiliar, but welcome.

'Light,' said a voice in the darkness and Uriel shielded his eyes as blue fire sprang to life around him. His eyes quickly adjusted to the light and he saw that he was surrounded by a host of silver-armoured warriors. Each warrior carried a tall polearm, the blades sheathed in a haze of energies that were the source of the blue fire.

Twenty-five Grey Knights stood to attention in a circle around him, the plates of their gleaming armour flickering with a shimmering blue-steel glow. Leode-. garius marched from the circle of warriors. The leader of the Grey Knights had stripped from his armour and wore a loose-fitting chiton of white, a training uniform similar to that worn by the Ultramarines when not in armour.

'You have put your time to good use, Uriel Ventris,' he said.

'Time spent not honing my skills is wasted time,' replied Uriel.

'Just so,' agreed Leodegarius. 'It has been three days. Let me see your hand.'

Uriel had all but forgotten the pain of his wounded hand, but nodded and lifted it towards Leodegarius without breaking eye contact. A chirurgeon followed the Grey Knight, hissing pipes and gurgling tubes looping from beneath his robes. A brass armature emerged from the chirurgeon's sleeve, bearing a clicking device similar to an Apothecary's narthecium. The device extended towards Uriel's hand, bathing it in a golden glow that felt like warm honey was being poured over his skin.

The light vanished and the chirurgeon nodded to Leodegarius before backing away.

Uriel looked down at his hand and was amazed to see that virtually all trace of the horrific wounding was gone. The flesh was pink and new, raw and tender to be sure, but unmistakably whole once more.

Leodegarius reached out and turned over Uriel's hand, carefully inspecting the flesh. Uriel could tell that the Grey Knight was pleased by what he saw.

'The flesh heals well,' said Leodegarius. 'I do not believe I have ever seen anyone recover from the Ordeal of the Oils as quickly as this.'

'Then, we are ready to fight?' asked Uriel, stepping back.

'You sound eager,' said Leodegarius.

'I am,' replied Uriel, 'not to fight you, but to prove myself.'

Leodegarius nodded. 'I understand,' he said, turning away, 'but we will not be fighting here.'

'Where will we be fighting?'

'Where all can see the Emperor's judgement upon you,' said leodegarius. 'Follow me.'

Uriel set off after Leodegarius as the Grey Knight led him from his place of confinement. An arched tunnel of dressed ashlar led through what Uriel guessed was the bedrock of the palace. Their route twisted through ancient tunnels, cut in ages past, and adapted by the later builders of the palace.

Rough-hewn tunnels became iron-framed corridors before blending into ceramic-walled chambers with high domes and glaring lights. There appeared to be no sense of order to the subterranean architecture, with passages meandering off at odd angles and the same tunnels returning after too short a time to have led to anything useful.

The Grey Knights marched in perfect step, their pace unhurried, but covering the distance with a kilometre-eating stride. A detachment of warriors went before Uriel, nine behind him and the remainder at his sides. Leodegarius led them and a host of censer bearing acolytes created a living fogbank that moved ahead of their procession.

Storerooms, forgotten chambers, armouries and barracks passed and as they entered a low corridor, Uriel heard a number of voices raised in agitation coming from somewhere ahead.

The tunnel opened up into a wide, circular space with a high ceiling and a grey drum tower in the centre of the chamber. The walls were lined with cells that all faced the circular building and Uriel instinctively recognised this place as a kind of prison.

'It is a Panopticon,' said Leodegarius, guessing Uriel's thoughts. 'Guards are positioned in the building at the centre and the prisoners have no way of knowing when they are being watched, because they cannot see inside. They have no way to avoid being seen, so must control their baser impulses lest they suffer punishment.'

'So fear of retribution, not devotion to the Emperor ensures obedience?'

'Just so,' agreed Leodegarius with distaste. 'Something that might very well be said for this entire planet.'

'Why are we here?' asked Uriel.

'To gather your companion.'

'Pasanius?'

'Yes, he has been kept here since he too passed through the ordeals.'

'He's going to fight you too?'

'He will fight alongside you,' nodded Leodegarius, crossing the chamber to stand before a cell where the welcome sight of Pasanius greeted Uriel.

His friend was unbowed and Uriel saw that his remaining hand was as raw and pink as his own, but clearly healed from its immersion in the boiling oils.

'Uriel!' cried Pasanius, his relief obvious. 'Your hand?'

'Almost as good as yours,' said Uriel as the door slid open and Pasanius stepped from the cell. The two warriors embraced, relieved beyond words to find each other alive, and Uriel released his friend from a crushing bear hug.

'Are you ready for this?' asked Uriel.

'You're damn right I'm ready for this,' said Pasanius, angling his head towards Leodegarius. 'No disrespect intended, but these bastards questioned our loyalty. I'm ready for whatever it takes to prove we're not traitors.'

'Your sergeant has been fiercely loyal to you, Captain Ventris,' said Leodegarius, and Uriel couldn't help but notice that his name had now been prefixed by his rank. That had to be a good sign.

'He is my friend,' said Uriel, 'and that is what friends do.'

Leodegarius turned towards the chamber's exit, a tall arch of black stone that led upwards.

'Then let us hope that is enough.'

Flanked by the Grey Knights, Uriel and Pasanius followed them through another series of winding tunnels that eventually opened up to a fortified gateway lined with gunports and which ended at a tall bronze gate.

The gate was open, daylight streaming inside, and Uriel remembered his joy at seeing true light when they had arrived on Salinas. The feeling of being outside again after so long, although it had only been for a few days at most, was sublime and as he marched down a sloping causeway, he was filled with a sense of hope.

That hope was snatched away as soon as he set foot outside and felt the crushing weight of gloom that filled his lungs with each breath. The air was leaden and heavy, the sky pressing down like a monstrous weight upon the day. Threatening clouds scudded above and Uriel was filled with a dreadful sense of melancholy that put him in mind of the ruins of Khaturian.

Once again, he and Pasanius were in the vast flat space where Restoration Day had been declared. The inhospitable parade ground was filled with at least two hundred soldiers and a tight knot of the planet's dignitaries.

A gleaming silver Thunderhawk gunship sat with its assault ramp open behind the dignitaries and Uriel smiled at the sight of such a reassuringly familiar object. Even though the gunship was not in the colours of the Ultramarines, the potent symbol of the power of the Adeptus Astartes lifted Uriel's spirits from the ugly atmosphere saturating the day.

Uriel saw the tower of the Janiceps at the far end of the space and on his right was the decrepit, yet wondrous, Gallery of Antiquities. Craning his neck over his shoulder, he saw the high towers and bleak spires of the Imperial palace.

'Never liked this place,' said Pasanius. 'Now I like it even less.'

'We are to fight here?' Uriel asked Leodegarius. 'What has happened to this place? It feels… dead.'

'The fight will be held before the proper planetary authorities, both secular and holy,' said Leodegarius. 'In order for the Judicium Imperator to mean anything, it must be witnessed. As to what has happened since your incarceration… We will speak of it if you survive.'

On that grim pronouncement, they followed Leodegarius into the centre of the parade ground and Uriel saw many familiar faces gathered to witness the fight. Cardinal Togandis sweated beneath his ceremonial robes of office and Daron Nisato was resplendent in his gleaming black enforcer's armour.

Leto Barbaden was seated on a tall podium, looking simultaneously bored and angered by the proceedings, despite the fact that the fate of two of humanity's greatest protectors was to be decided before his very eyes.

Leodegarius halted before the podium and gave a curt nod of acknowledgement to Leto Barbaden before turning to Uriel and Pasanius.

'Governor Barbaden, these two warriors have passed through the trials of purity as determined by my order and I present them before you that you might bear witness to the Emperor's judgement upon them. No higher authority than the Emperor exists and thus He will have the final say in their fate.'

Uriel blinked in surprise at the Grey Knight's choice of words, recognising in them an implicit threat that Uriel's fate was not Barbaden's to decide. Had the governor demanded their execution in the last few days? Given their previous dealings, it was not beyond the realms of possibility, but Leodegarius's words suggested that such a decision was not Barbaden's to make, not when the Grey Knights were involved.

The Adeptus Astartes stood apart from the rigid hierarchy of the Imperium in a way that some found distasteful, but the Grey Knights were an authority beyond even the autonomy of most Chapters. Their authority was absolute and no one who valued their life would dare to go against their dictates.

It seemed that Leto Barbaden was no exception to this, and Uriel could see that it sat ill with the governor to have to bow before the authority of what he no doubt saw as interlopers.

Barbaden nodded and said, 'These two have brought nothing but trouble to my world, but if your order decrees this combat to be a just and proper trial then I will bear witness to it.'

Uriel hid his amusement at Barbaden's transparent ill-grace, meeting his hostile gaze and returning it with one of his own. His dislike for the governor of Salinas had intensified the more he learned about him. Barbaden's disregard for human life and his actions during the conquest of Salinas were unconscionable and Uriel knew that his crimes must be addressed in the fullness of time.

Leodegarius turned to him and said, 'Follow me to the place of battle.'

Uriel nodded and both he and Pasanius followed the Grey Knight to the centre of a circle that had been etched in silver, like the protective one carved in the stone chamber where he had undergone the ordeals, albeit this was considerably larger. Grey Knights in power armour took up positions around the circle, the shimmering blades of their tall polearms crackling in the sunlight.

'We fight hand-to-hand, no weapons,' said Leodegarius, 'the two of you against me.'

'That's it?' asked Pasanius.

'What more did you expect?'

'I don't know,' admitted Pasanius. 'I just thought there would be a lot more… ritual.'

'Rituals are for heathen corpse-whisperers and sorcerers,' said Leodegarius, assuming a fighting pose. 'I prefer more direct action.'

Uriel let his mind and body slip into the rhythm of combat, allowing his metabolism to speed up and heighten his senses and reaction times.

'So what are the rules?' he asked.

'You are such an Ultramarine,' grinned Leodegarius, launching a thunderous jab at Uriel's face. The Grey Knight's fist was like a steel piston, bludgeoning Uriel backwards as though struck by a dreadnought.

Blood arced from his split cheek and stars exploded behind his eyes at the force, but Uriel had been hit before and he knew how to ride with the pain of impact. He lowered his shoulder and rolled his neck, twisting his head out of the way of Leodegarius's follow-up hook.

His arm came up of its own accord, blocking a right cross and he launched an uppercut into his attacker's torso. His other fist slammed into the Grey Knight's side and he heard a satisfying whoosh of breath. His burned hand was bathed in fiery heat, the flesh split where it had not fully healed, but Uriel pushed the pain to the back of his mind.

Pasanius swung with his left, but Leodegarius easily dodged the off-balance blow. Leodegarius's elbow hammered into Pasanius's side and his fist slammed like a club into his midriff, driving the sergeant to his knees.

Uriel surged forwards, his fist arcing towards Leodegarius's head, but the Grey Knight had been expecting his attack. With a speed that seemed impossible for such a huge warrior, Leodegarius swayed aside and seized Uriel's wrist. He pivoted smoothly and slammed his hip into Uriel, using the momentum of the charge to hurl him from his feet.

The ground came up hard and Uriel slammed into it with pile-driving force. The breath exploded from his lungs and he looked up in time to see a slashing foot descending on him. Uriel rolled aside as the heel smashed down and split the stone. He twisted to his feet as Pasanius took another punishing blow to the head.

Uriel shook his head clear of the ringing impact with the ground and spat a mouthful of blood. He knew he had underestimated his opponent's resolve. Leodegarius might have wanted to show that they were innocent, but he wasn't about to compromise the integrity of the Judicium Imperator to get his way.

Leodegarius turned from Pasanius as Uriel circled around to his left and the cheering soldiers looked on. The officials of Salinas watched the fight with studied interest, but the soldiers of the Falcatas were showing no such restraint. Uriel risked a quick glance down at Pasanius, who reeled on the ground, as though still dazed from the blow to the head.

Uriel caught a glimmer of guile from his friend and reversed his circling, bringing Leodegarius back closer to Pasanius. The Grey Knight glanced down, unconcerned, at the groggy, struggling form of Pasanius as Uriel feinted left and punched right.

The blow caught Leodegarius on the shoulder, not hurting him, but putting him off balance for the briefest of seconds. Uriel quickly followed with a series of high jabs, one of which penetrated Leodegarius's defences to open a cut above his right eye.

A slashing riposte thundered into Uriel's jaw, but he had seen it coming. He let his guard drop a fraction and Leodegarius stepped off lightly to deliver a crushing blow.

Before the blow landed, Pasanius pushed himself onto his side and delivered a slashing, scissor kick to Leodegarius's leg, just above the knee. Pasanius's foot was like a steel club, hammering the Grey Knight's peroneal nerve and chopping the leg out from under him.

Leodegarius collapsed and Uriel surged in, pounding his fists against the warrior's face, hating the fact that he was drawing the blood of an Imperial hero, but knowing that he had no choice but to fight with all his strength.

He drew back his fist to strike again, when Leodegarius surged to his feet and slammed the heel of his left hand into Uriel's solar plexus. Almost in the same motion, his right chopped down on Pasanius's neck.

Pasanius gave a strangled cry of pain and his eyes rolled back in their sockets.

Uriel staggered back, struggling for breath as his diaphragm went into spasm and pain from the strike to his solar plexus almost blinded him. He could not draw air into his lungs.

Leodegarius rose to his feet, like a colossus from the depths, and Uriel was amazed that he had recovered so quickly from Pasanius's strike. A blow of such power would have shattered the leg of a mortal warrior and rendered even a Space Marine immobile for several minutes.

Leodegarius fought as if the blow had never landed and Uriel knew that they were fighting one of the mightiest warriors of the Imperium. Uriel raised his fists, but he was too hurt and too slow to avoid the hammer-blows that rang from his skull as Leodegarius closed on him. He desperately circled in an attempt to put some distance between him and his opponent.

Uriel could not resist the fury of the attack and he saw the blow that would finish him a split second before it landed. The Grey Knight's fist arced around his guard and smashed into his face with the power of a thunderbolt.

Uriel was hurled backwards and landed in a heap next to Pasanius, his face a bloody ruin and his torso a mass of ugly bruises that were already swelling and purpling.

He knew he had to get to his feet, but the strength had been battered from him and he slumped back, unable to rise or fight or do anything other than lie bleeding. His breath came in short, painful gasps and he tasted blood and defeat in his mouth.

Was this how his life was to end? Beaten to a bloody pulp by a warrior he should be fighting shoulder to shoulder with? The indignity and horror of it was unbearable.

Uriel looked up through a mist of blood and swellings to see Leodegarius standing over him. 'Kill us and be done with it,' he snapped, 'but you are only helping the Emperor's enemies by doing so.'

Leodegarius shook his head and offered Uriel his hand. 'No,' he said, 'I am not going to kill you. The Judicium Imperator is over and you have proved to me that you are loyal servants of the Imperium.'

Uriel took the proffered hand and drew himself unsteadily to his feet. 'But we lost.'

'The Judicium Imperator is not about winning or losing,' said Leodegarius, 'it is about the struggle. I am a warrior of the Grey Knights and I carry the Emperor's fire into the dark corners of the galaxy. Only a servant of the Ruinous Powers can defeat me. Had you bested me, it would have shown that you were an enemy of the Emperor and my warriors would have gunned you down.'

'Then we were meant to lose?' asked Uriel, horrified at the implication.

'Meant to?' shrugged Leodegarius. 'No, but the Emperor was with me and I was confident I could defeat the pair of you, thus proving that you were not servants of evil.'

Pasanius pushed himself up onto his elbow. 'What happened?' he asked groggily. 'Did we win?'

'I think we did,' said Uriel.

'Good,' said Pasanius, sliding back down into unconsciousness. 'I knew we could take him.'

The feel of the fresh bodyglove against his skin was sublime and the sense of anticipation was almost unbearable. Uriel felt his heartbeat quicken as the Grey Knights' artificers lifted the blue breastplate of the power armour from the battle flag and manoeuvred it towards his chest.

The movement was accompanied with solemn chants from the hooded acolytes, who, since Uriel and Pasanius's vindication, had taken on an altogether less threatening aspect.

Uriel and Pasanius stood on a raised dais before the assembled warriors of the Grey Knights and Curator Lukas Urbican in one of the grand halls of the Gallery of Antiquities. The Grey Knights were clad in their battle gear, each plate and vambrace garlanded with purity seals.

With Uriel and Pasanius's loyalty to the Golden Throne established by the Judicium Imperator, the Grey Knights had borne them into the Thunderhawk, where chirurgeons and Apothecaries had treated their wounds. No words were spoken and Leodegarius refused to answer any questions until they were fit to stand before him as fellow Astartes.

The already healing burns on their hands were cleaned with sterile jellies and repaired with synth-skin bandages, the swelling bruises and lumps earned in the Judicium Imperator with ice and pain medication.

Where Uriel had been branded on the shoulder, the clicking mechanisms of a reconstruction servitor implanted in the wall of the Thunderhawk's medicae bay rapidly removed the burn scars and rebuilt the underlying tissue and epidermis.

Within the space of an hour, both Uriel and Pasanius were declared fit for service and had been issued with fresh under-suits for power armour. Leodegarius had marched them from the Thunderhawk and, together with an escort of Grey Knights, crossed the empty parade ground towards the Gallery of Antiquities.

Curator Urbican had been waiting for them, a broad smile plastered across his open features as he welcomed them back into the gallery. Once again they made their way through the shadowed halls until they found themselves before the suits of power armour belonging to the Sons of Guilliman.

Eighteen of the suits were arranged in battle formation behind a dais. The nineteenth, the armour Uriel had chosen, or which had chosen him, was broken down into its component parts and arranged on one of the great battle flags of Salinas taken down from the walls. The armour was exactly as Uriel remembered it, freshly painted in the colours of the Ultramarines, with only the helmet remaining in the blue and white of the Sons of Guilliman.

Arranged beside this suit of armour was another, this one in the familiar livery and iconography of the Ultramarines. Uriel had seen Pasanius's pride at the restoration of their Chapter symbols earlier, but his joy at seeing them again was no less dimmed.

'Prepare to receive your armour, warriors of the Emperor,' said Leodegarius.

Uriel and Pasanius had mounted the dais, and the artificers lifted the first plates of the armour towards their bodies with great reverence. First came the greaves, cuisse and knee guards, followed by the power coils of the midsection.

Piece by piece, the armour was layered upon them and as each segment was fastened into place, Uriel felt as though his soul was being rebuilt. Segments of his armour were fixed in place over his upper arms and then came the vambrace and gauntlets.

The damaged section of Pasanius's armour had been repaired with an end cap to seal his armour at the elbow. His friend had declined the Grey Knight's offer of a temporary augmetic, sheepishly saying that he would rather have one fitted by the Techmarines of Macragge.

Adjustments were made, pieces added and each facet of the armour polished and anointed with sacred oils and unguents until all that remained was the final piece. The artificers slotted the breastplate into position and Uriel felt the familiar hiss and whir of the armour coming to life around him.

Fur-lined cloaks of purest white were fastened around their shoulders and secured with golden eagle clips to their breastplates as the gorget clamped around his neck, tight, but not restricting. As the pressure seals engaged, Uriel could feel the internal workings of the armour revitalise his physique, thrumming with incredible potential energy.

Questing bio-implants unwound from inside the armour and connected with the sockets in his body, meshing his organic structure with that of the ceramite plates and indescribably complex workings of Space Marine armour.

Uriel felt the power of wearing such a magnificent suit of armour, his strength boosted, his endurance enhanced and his ability to smite the enemies of the Imperium increased exponentially.

With Uriel and Pasanius's armour in place, Leodegarius stepped forward and handed them gleaming bolters. The flat plates of the weapons were etched in gold and their length was worked with incredibly detailed lettering. The weapons were freshly oiled, each with a magazine of bolter shells fitted snugly into the space before the trigger.

Uriel nodded as he hefted the bolter, the weapon feeling as though it weighed nothing at all. Strength coursed through the armour and he could feel the channels of energy running through it as surely as though it was a second skin.

A Space Marine was more than any one thing, however, more than his armour, his weapons or his training and dedication. Each of these things combined to create something greater than the sum of its parts.

A warrior without a weapon or armour could be killed by his enemies and a warrior without faith and training would fall to petty vices that led to gross treachery.

Uriel had seen, first hand, what a warrior who was not fully equipped, physically and spiritually, could become, and he had walked perilously close to the precipice that others had fallen from. Images of the Warsmith Honsou and Ardaric Vaanes drifted across his mind, but they were fleeting, ghost images, reminders of a dark time that was now passed.

Uriel turned his head to look at the armour, seeing a thick wad of crimson wax attached to the edge of his shoulder guard. A fluttering length of parchment hung from the wax seal, and written upon it in a fine, cursive script was a line from a sermon familiar to Uriel:

He must put a white cloak upon his soul, that he might climb down into the filth, yet may he die a saint.

Leodegarius stepped back and bowed to them both.

'Welcome back, warriors of Ultramar,' he said.

EIGHTEEN

Fury blazed in Leto Barbaden's eyes as Uriel and Pasanius marched into his private library alongside Leodegarius and a robed acolyte bearing a scented rosewood box. The Grey Knight was clad in a pale cream tunic, over which he wore a shirt of silver mail trimmed in ermine, yet he was no less impressive for lack of his armour.

At the heels of the Space Marines came four others, hastily assembled by the orders of Leodegarius. Cardinal Shavo Togandis came first, sweating beneath his robes of office, which hung loosely on him where they had been fastened incorrectly in his haste to obey the immediate summons to the palace.

Serj Casuaban walked alongside the cardinal, his expression betraying a mix of irritation and curiosity at having been dragged from his works at the House of Providence. The medicae wore a long, dark coat over his functional clothes and his grey hair was combed neatly for perhaps the first time in years.

Daron Nisato and Pascal Blaise walked behind Casuaban, the latter looking deeply uncomfortable in a set of iron restraint cuffs and the former uncomfortable at the idea of them being there, while knowing that they had to be for now.

The governor of Salinas sat in his chair nursing a large glass of port as this procession invaded his inner sanctum, and Uriel felt a flutter of satisfaction at the man's annoyance. He could see the effort of will it was taking the governor to keep a civil tongue in his head, but not even Leto Barbaden would openly risk the wrath of the Grey Knights by refusing an audience.

There was no denying the sense of renewed purpose that filled Uriel. Now that he was once again armoured as a Space Marine, he was ready to stand alongside such heroic warriors as Leodegarius and Pasanius in defence of the Imperium. Though he had no idea what Leodegarius was to say to the assembly, Uriel could feel the tension in the air and the unbearable sense of expectation.

In the wake of the Unfleshed's rampage through Barbadus, the citizens had taken to the streets to variously demand action, recompense or retaliation. Quite who any such action was to be taken against wasn't clear, but the need for something to be done was reaching critical mass. Several buildings had been burned to the ground and widespread looting had gripped the entire northeast quarter of the city.

Daron Nisato's enforcers had taken to the streets in whatever armoured vehicles remained to them, supported by the few soldiers who were willing to patrol the streets after the massacre at the Screaming Eagle's barracks.

The mood on the streets of the city was ugly and all it would take to ignite a city-wide epidemic of bloodshed was a single spark.

Events of great import were in motion and Uriel knew that many of the players in this drama would not live to see its end were they to misstep but a little. The acolyte with the box placed it on the table in the centre of the room and Barbaden spared it the briefest glance before saying, 'Brother Leodegarius, are you sure that this gathering is absolutely necessary? There is chaos on the streets of my city!'

'You are more right than you know, governor,' said Leodegarius darkly, 'and yes, I am sure that this is necessary. Believe me, things are likely to get worse before they get better.'

'Very well,' muttered Barbaden, taking a sip of his port and sending a poisonous glance towards Pascal Blaise. 'Since this… motley band has assembled, might I enquire why you required the presence of a known terrorist, Brother Leodegarius?'

'I'm no terrorist!' snapped Pascal Blaise. 'You're the terrorist, Barbaden.'

'Whatever,' said Barbaden. 'I'll have you executed before the day is out.'

'No, you won't,' said Daron Nisato, resting his hand on the butt of his pistol. 'If we are ever to have peace on Salinas, we will need this man alive.'

Barbaden ignored Nisato, as though he were not even worth bothering with, although Uriel saw his face darken at the unaccustomed sight of a weapon in his presence.

'I will get to that in good time, Governor Barbaden,' answered Leodegarius, looking into the face of every man present, and Uriel had the distinct impression that the Grey Knight was seeing beyond their physical appearance to some hidden quality that only he could discern.

'This motley band, as you call it, is a very singular body, and you are all here because I have seen that you all have a part to play in this planet's future, or rather, whether it has one at all.'

'That sounds like a threat,' observed Barbaden.

'Perhaps it is, governor,' admitted Leodegarius, lifting the rosewood box from the table. 'I am well aware of the unrest in your city, but it can wait, for a potentially far greater threat to your world builds unseen in the darkness.'

'What threat?' demanded Barbaden.

'In time,' said Leodegarius, and Uriel heard the unmistakable tone of one who is growing weary of answering questions. Barbaden heard it too and wisely kept his mouth shut as the Grey Knight opened the box and removed what looked like a pack of cards.

'The art of cartomancy is ancient,' began Leodegarius. 'It predates the Imperium and has been used as a tool of divination by the earliest tribes to crawl across the surface of Old Earth.'

'Are we to receive a history lesson while my city burns?' sneered Barbaden and Uriel was again struck by the man's bravery or stupidity in the face of so mighty a warrior as Leodegarius.

Leodegarius displayed no irritation at the interruption and said, 'Everything comes back to history, governor. What is happening now is a direct result of mistakes made in the past. Only by studying the past can we learn from it.'

Barbaden appeared far from convinced, but nodded as Leodegarius continued. 'I have gathered this group together because you are all intimately linked with what is happening on Salinas. I know this because the cards tell me it is so. Gather round.'

Uriel and Pasanius stood at either shoulder of the Grey Knight as the others approached the table. Predictably, Barbaden was last to arrive, casting a hostile stare at Uriel as he did so.

'Observe,' said Leodegarius, selecting cards at random from the deck and setting it before Daron Nisato. The card was that of a robed man sitting upon a throne. In one hand he carried a sword and in the other a set of golden scales. On the base of the card was written, ''Justice''.

'This is you, Enforcer Nisato,' said Leodegarius. 'Whatever your past has been, the time has come to reflect on the choices you have made along the way. There are wrongs you plan to make amends for and there are people who have brought you distress, but you are wise enough to deal with them in an intelligent way. Your only thought is of making things better and this card shows that those wrongs will be put right.'

'You can get all that from a card?' asked Daron Nisato.

'From the card and from you,' answered Leodegarius, drawing another card and laying it before the man standing next to Nisato. This card depicted a man hung by his ankles from a gibbet attached to an Imperial temple.

'That doesn't look very encouraging,' said Pascal Blaise. 'Is this going to be some kind of justification for executing me?'

'We need no justification for that,' hissed Barbaden. 'The lives you took in your pointless, silly resistance are all the justification I need.'

Leodegarius spoke again before Blaise could reply. 'Things have not reached fruition in your life and you must be patient. Keep your own counsel, let go of your hate, and trust your instincts in the days ahead. They will serve you well.'

Another card was turned up: a robed man sitting between two pillars with a pair of keys lying crossed at his feet.

'Cardinal Togandis, this is you, the Hierophant,' said Leodegarius. 'He symbolises the ruling power of religion and faith, the teachings that are palatable to the masses. This represents your love of ritual and ceremony, but also your need for approval from others. The Hierophant indicates the importance of conformity.'

The sweating cardinal did not answer, and Leodegarius went on.

The next card showed an old, grey-haired man on the edge of a snow-capped cliff, looking out upon the world. In one hand he carried a lantern and in the other, a winged, snake-wrapped staff.

'The Hermit,' said Leodegarius, looking at Serj Casuaban. 'On the long dark nights of the soul, the Hermit is there to guide us towards wisdom and knowledge. From the Hermit we can receive wisdom from the Emperor. The Hermit can guide us in our upcoming endeavours. He reminds us that our goals can be attained, but that the journey will not be smooth or easy.'

'I suppose I have a card?' asked Barbaden, affecting an air of studied boredom, but Uriel could see that he was intrigued to see which card would represent him.

'Indeed you do, governor,' said Leodegarius, slapping another card on the table.

The man on the card wore a long robe and stood before a table, upon which lay a cup, a wand, a sword and a pentacle. Flowers surrounded him, and above his head was a symbol that Uriel recognised as that representing Infinity.

'The Sorcerer,' said Leodegarius.

'A sorcerer?' snorted Barbaden, although there was a hint of unease in his tone. 'I may be many things, Brother Leodegarius, but I am no sorcerer. I can assure you of that.'

Leodegarius shook his head. 'You misread the card, Governor Barbaden. The Sorcerer is not literally a wielder of magic. He represents a man always in control of the choices that surround him. He holds his wand up to the heavens, and yet the opposite hand points to the earth. The Sorcerer is a warning of opportunity and, reversed like this, it indicates a person who is a perfectionist, a man who handles every situation calmly and coolly, but who uses power for destructive and negative purposes.'

'That is absurd,' said Barbaden, although from the look of those around him it was clear that they agreed with the Grey Knight's reading of the card.

'There is one final card to be dealt,' said Leodegarius, 'and that it yours, Captain Ventris.'

Uriel nodded. He had expected this, but he didn't know whether to anticipate or dread the card that Leodegarius would draw.

The card placed before Uriel displayed a tower standing high on a mountain, its structure blown apart by a lightning bolt from the heavens. A pair of figures fell from the tower.

'What does it mean?' asked Uriel.

'The fall of the tower reminds us that if we use our knowledge and strength for evil purposes, then destruction will be wrought upon us,' explained Leodegarius. 'When the Tower appears, it indicates changes, conflict and catastrophe. Not only that, but there will be an overthrow of existing ways of life.'

'Sounds just like you,' observed Pasanius dryly.

Uriel scowled as Leodegarius continued his reading. 'However, with destruction comes enlightenment. The Tower shows us that selfish ambition and greed will ultimately bring us nothing of value.'

Uriel released the breath he was holding and looked at the faces around the table. He knew them all, with the exception of Serj Casuaban, and he could see that the cartomancy had unsettled them all, even Governor Barbaden.

'So you see that you are all necessary to the coming conflict,' said Leodegarius. 'How, I do not yet know, but your destinies are linked to the fate of this world.'

'What did you mean that there was a greater threat to Salinas?' asked Uriel. 'It sounds like you are saying that what's happening now is a symptom of something more serious.'

'It is indeed, Captain Ventris, but to answer that I will need to instruct you in the history of Salinas.'

'We already know the history of Salinas,' said Leto Barbaden. 'We have a Gallery of Antiquities devoted to it should anyone feel the need to be bored rigid.'

'I meant the history of Salinas as it is known by my order,' said Leodegarius.

Before Leodegarius began his tale, he spoke into a wrist-mounted vox-unit and would say nothing until the seven Null-Servitors entered and took up positions around the edges of the room. They began their droning chant and Uriel saw that their dreadful appearance was a shock to everyone in the room. Even Barbaden recoiled in loathing at the sight of them.

'There are truths that must be spoken here,' said Leodegarius. 'And truth is powerful, it can reach beyond the realms of Men. I must speak words that should not escape into the world beyond this chamber.'

Uriel felt his skin crawl at the sight of the blank, empty-faced servitors, feeling the familiar dullness blunt his senses as their chant continued and Leodegarius began to speak.

'To understand what is happening on Salinas, you must understand a measure of the foe ranged against us. In this region of space, the walls between the material realm and the heaving madness of the Warp are thin. The currents within the Sea of Souls are felt in this world and stir the dreams and nightmares of mortals, goading their fractious hearts to discord. Voracious predator creatures lurk in the depths of the warp, and in most places, such creatures cannot force themselves from their abode of the damned to our world without willing conduits or debased followers to ease their passage. But here… here daemonic beings of great power can force themselves through on their own.'

Leodegarius paused and Uriel felt the skin beneath his armour crawl at the thought of the denizens of the warp. He had faced such creatures and knew well the havoc they could wreak. One such being was able to manifest on Salinas just over four thousand years ago, a fell Daemon Prince of Chaos named Ustaroth; a thousand curses upon its damned name. This prince of mayhem was a creature of almost limitless power and incalculable malice, and the stress of its passage from the warp allowed others of its kind to follow in the froth of its immaterial wake. Great was the slaughter unleashed, and hundreds died in the first hours of their arrival, thousands in the days following. In desperation, the Imperial Commander called for aid and a detachment of warriors from the Sons of Guilliman heard his plea. Though they knew there was little hope of victory, they diverted to provide what aid they could, for what warrior of honour could stand idly by while the forces of the Archenemy made sport with loyal servants of the Emperor?'

Uriel's heart filled with pride at the heroism of his brothers of the blood and he made a solemn vow that he would do honour to this armour, which had belonged to one of those heroes of long ago.

'The Sons of Guilliman fought alongside the planetary armies, but they were no match for the host of the Daemon Prince, who swept them aside and slew them in a great battle fought within a city in the shadow of the mountains.'

Uriel and Pasanius shared a glance with one another, and they could see that everyone in the room knew, without knowing how they knew, that the Sons of Guilliman had died in Khaturian.

The Killing Ground was, it seemed, a magnet for death.

'Death, unimaginable bloodshed and slavery followed for a decade before warriors from the Grey Knights arrived at the head of a crusade force. My order met the Prince of Chaos in battle and the great Ignatius defeated it, hurling its unclean flesh back to the hell from whence it had come. Salinas was cleansed of taint and displaced peoples from across the sector were brought in to repopulate the planet. Within three generations, what little evidence remained of the invasion had been eradicated and the planet was on its way to becoming a world of the Emperor once more.'

Leodegarius paused, his eyes closed as though remembering and doing honour to the brave hero who had defeated the mighty daemon prince. The Grey Knight opened his eyes and took up the tale once more.

'Salinas was freed from the grip of the daemonic, but great was the damage done beyond the merely physical. Though no trace of the warp remained, the very presence of so powerful a creature is anathema to the fabric of reality, and the invisible walls that separate our realm of existence from that of the immaterium were worn dangerously thin. And the daemonic will always seek to return to the places they once trod.'

'So you've been watching Salinas ever since?' asked Pasanius suddenly. 'That's why you're here now, isn't it?'

'Indeed,' said Leodegarius. 'Since that great victory, we have maintained a secret outpost, hidden from all, that we might stand vigil on Salinas and watch for the return of the daemon prince banished by the great Ignatius.'

'You intercepted our astropathic message,' said Uriel, understanding how the Grey Knights could have known of their whereabouts. 'You heard the call of the Janiceps.'

Leodegarius nodded. 'We did and our warp-seers felt the surge in the warp caused by your arrival. Vast quantities of dangerous energies were released by the machine that brought you here and they have been seized upon by a dark presence lurking on this world.'

'Dark presence?' asked Cardinal Togandis, his voice trembling. 'The daemon prince?'

'Thankfully not,' said Leodegarius, and Togandis visibly sagged against the table, 'but there are powers at work on Salinas that are drawing on that energy and that is further weakening the barriers between us and the warp.'

'What are these powers?' asked Daron Nisato. 'And how do we stop them?'

'We all know what it is,' blurted Togandis, his eyes filling with tears. 'Don't we? Come on, admit it, we've all seen them, haven't we? Daron? Leto? Serj… I know you have!'

'What are you babbling about, Shavo?' snapped Barbaden.

'The dead!' shrieked Togandis. 'The dead of Khaturian! They won't let go of their anger! They want to punish us for what we did… for what we allowed to happen.'

Togandis fell to his knees, and Uriel reached out to grab him. The cardinal held onto Uriel's arm for support, fat tears streaming down his glossy cheeks.

'We were there,' whispered the cardinal. 'We were there.'

'Shavo, shut up,' said Barbaden.

Shavo Togandis looked up at the governor, and Uriel was surprised at the steel he saw in the cardinal's eyes. 'No, Leto,' said Togandis, 'not any more. You did it. You doomed us all that day. I must confess. I have to speak!'

Before Togandis could say more, Eversham moved from behind Barbaden with his pistol drawn. Uriel was too far away to react, but there was a flash of silver mail followed by a heavy crunch and Eversham dropped to the floor.

'Emperor's blood!' swore Uriel as he saw Barbaden's equerry lying crumpled on the carpet, blood leaking from the enormous crater that Leodegarius had punched in the side of his head. The man's legs twitched and his eyes fluttered as though he couldn't quite comprehend that he had been killed.

Everyone backed away from the corpse and Leodegarius loomed over Leto Barbaden.

'What has to be said here will be said,' commanded the Grey Knight.

'Of course,' replied Barbaden, looking down at the corpse and for once appearing to be cowed by the warrior.

Leodegarius turned back to the shaking cardinal and took hold of his shoulder, lifting him to his feet as though he weighed no more than a child. He marched the unresisting Togandis towards the room's only chair, and the sweating cardinal gratefully sank into the plush leather.

'Was… Was he going to kill me?' asked Togandis, his gaze switching between the corpse and the warrior who had spilled its blood and brains over the floor.

'He was,' nodded Leodegarius, 'to protect his master.'

All eyes turned on Leto Barbaden and the governor drew himself up to his full height, pulling his coat tightly around him and folding his arms.

'I apologise for nothing,' he stated. 'I did what I had to do. Any commander would have done likewise.'

'No,' said Uriel, rounding on the governor, 'they would not. You murdered the population of Khaturian just because it was the quickest and easier solution. A whole city, tens of thousands dead just to get to one man.'

'Khaturian was a legitimate military target,' said Barbaden.

'Military target?' exclaimed Pascal Blaise, his face purpling with rage and only prevented from launching himself at Barbaden by Daron Nisato's restraining hand. 'There were never any weapons or supplies in Khaturian! We deliberately kept it out of the troubles so there would be somewhere safe for our families to live. You murdered them all!'

'The city was harbouring wanted terrorists and its people shot at my soldiers, so I don't know why you're throwing words like murder around.'

'No!' cried Togandis, rising to his feet. 'You knew, Leto. You knew that many of the Sons of Salinas had families in Khaturian. That was why you picked it. You knew before the first tank rolled that you were going to raze the city to the ground. You sent in Verena Kain and she killed them all. Just to drive Sylvanus Thayer mad with grief and rage and draw him into battle.'

'It worked, didn't it?' snarled Barbaden. 'Why don't any of you see that? We destroyed him and the Sons of Salinas. We brought peace!'

'Brought peace?' laughed Serj Casuaban bitterly. 'You are a fool if you think that, Leto. Spend a day in the House of Providence and you will see what your ''peace'' has brought to Salinas.'

'So that's it,' laughed Barbaden. 'This is all some grand charade to condemn me, is that it? Gather up all the weaklings who didn't have the spine or will to do what needed to be done and have them all point their grubby little fingers at me?'

Leto Barbaden moved to his drinks cabinet and poured a fresh glass of port. 'We were at war with these people,' he said, carefully enunciating every word, as though speaking to a roomful of simpletons, 'and people die in wars.'

'That's your excuse for mass murder?' asked Uriel.

'Mass murder, military necessity, genocide,' said Barbaden, shrugging, 'it's all the same thing, isn't it? The great Solar Macharius did not shy away from tough decisions that needed to be made, Captain Ventris. He left worlds burning in his wake and entire planets were destroyed in his campaigns, and he is a hero. His name is lauded throughout the Imperium and his generals are revered as saints. Would you have levelled the same accusations at him? Wars are won by the side that is willing to go the furthest, to take the decisions their foes are too squeamish to take. Or have you been so long away from your Chapter that you have forgotten that elementary fact?'

'You are wrong, governor,' said Uriel. 'I have seen my share of death, both honourable and despicable, and yes, I know that war is a brutal, bloody business capable of bringing out the best and worst in men. This is a harsh, dangerous galaxy, with untold terrors lurking in the dark to devour us, but the minute we turn on our own kind and murder them, we might as well take a blade to our throats.'

'I never thought to hear one of the Adeptus Astartes say something so naive,' spat Barbaden. 'We were at war with an enemy that fought in the shadows with the tactics of terror. How were we to win the war if not by using their own methods against them?'

'You were once a man, Leto, but you are a monster now,' said Shavo Togandis. 'I was once proud to serve you, but what we did that day was wrong, and we have to pay for it.'

'Pay for it?' said Barbaden. 'And who is there to make me?'

'I told you, the dead seek their vengeance.'

Barbaden laughed. 'The dead? Frankly I don't think I need fear them. I think I'm somewhat beyond their jurisdiction.'

'You're wrong,' said Togandis. 'I've seen them. I've felt their cold breath and the touch of their dead hands. They want us all to pay for what we did. Hanno Merbal couldn't take it any more and took his own life right in front of Daron, and I wish I had his courage. For the love of the Emperor, the dead have already killed Mesira and Verena and the Screaming Eagles! And we're next, you, me and Serj. We're all that's left.'

Leodegarius lifted a hand, stopping Barbaden's reply. 'The cardinal is correct, the dead are here. I have felt them and one does not need to be a psychic to feel the dread presence of their spirits. This planet is rank with them.'

'How is that possible?' asked Uriel. 'How can the dead remain after they are gone?'

'Each of us has a spark inside us, a spirit or soul, call it what you will, and when we die it is released from our bodies to dissipate into the warp,' said Leodegarius, 'but when so large a number of people die, gripped by such rage and terror as must have been felt by the people of Khaturian, their spirits can remain coherent.'

'What happens to them?' asked Pascal Blaise.

'Normally nothing, for such spirits are as swirling embers in a hurricane, but when there is a focus for them, something to direct their energies, they can influence the realm of the living. Even then, it is usually no more than phantasms and does not last for long, but something or someone is directing the power of these spirits and they are growing stronger with every passing moment.'

'Is that what those monsters were that killed Mesira?' asked Daron Nisato. 'The dead?'

'No, they are creatures of flesh and blood,' said Uriel. 'We encountered them in our travels and were bringing them home. Once they were human children, but they were twisted by the Ruinous Powers into…' Uriel struggled for the right word.

'Into monsters,' said Nisato.

'No, not monsters,' said Uriel. 'They are innocents. The spirits of the dead have taken their bodies for their own. What is happening is not their doing.'

Leto Barbaden laughed. 'So am I to understand that these creatures came to Salinas with you, Captain Ventris? Oh, this is too rich. Then the deaths of the Screaming Eagles, Colonel Kain and Mesira Bardhyl are your fault.'

'No, governor,' said Uriel icily. 'Their deaths are on your head. The Unfleshed could have lived their lives out in peace somewhere safe, if it hadn't been for the horror you unleashed on Khaturian. Now they are pawns in the bloody revenge of your victims.'

'Worse, they may see this world destroyed,' said Leodegarius.

All recriminations stopped.

'Destroyed?' asked Casuaban. 'In the name of all that's holy, why?'

The stronger the dead become, the more they draw the power of the warp to themselves, further weakening the walls that keep the immaterium from engulfing this world. If we do not stop this soon, the walls will collapse and the entire sector will become a gateway to the realm of Chaos. I will destroy this world before I allow that to happen.'

A heavy silence descended as all gathered suddenly realised the scale of the danger.

'So how do we stop it?' asked Uriel.

'We find what is holding the ghosts here and destroy it,' said Leodegarius.

'What is holding them here?' asked Togandis.

When Leodegarius didn't answer immediately, Barbaden said, 'You don't know, do you?'

'No, I do not, but one of you does.'

'One of us?' asked Uriel. 'Who?'

'Again, I do not know, but the cards have gathered you here for a reason,' said Leodegarius. 'The energy of these spirits must have a focus that binds them here, someone with psychic ability, who is so consumed by rage that he has the power to wield such monstrous energies.'

Again, silence fell, until Pascal Blaise said, 'I know who it is.'

'Who?' demanded Leodegarius. 'Tell us.'

'It's Sylvanus Thayer.'

'Nonsense,' snapped Barbaden. 'That stupid bastard is dead. The Falcatas destroyed him and his traitorous band after Khaturian.'

Serj Casuaban shook his head. 'No, Leto,' he said, 'he's alive. What's left of him is hooked up to machines in the House of Providence, though to call what he has ''life'' is stretching the term somewhat.'

'You knew Thayer was alive and you kept this from me?' stormed Barbaden.

'I did,' admitted Casuaban. 'It was my penance for what we did. He was one man I would not let die through my cowardice.'

Leodegarius interrupted, turning Serj Casuaban around and saying, 'This Sylvanus Thayer? Tell me of him.'

'What do you want to know?'

'You said, ''What's left of him'', what did you mean by that?'

'I meant that the Falcatas were thorough; they thought they'd killed him and they very nearly did. When Pascal Blaise brought him to me, I thought he was already dead, but he held on to life and just wouldn't let go of it. He'd sustained burns to almost ninety percent of his body and had lost both his legs and one of his arms. His eyes had burned away and he'd lost the power of speech. I think he can hear, but it's hard to tell. A machine breathes for him and another feeds him, while a third takes away his waste. Like I said, it's not much of a life.'

'Imperator, you'd be better off letting him die!' said Pasanius.

'I know,' said Casuaban, his voice close to breaking, 'but I couldn't. After the Killing Ground Massacre, I stayed sane by telling myself that I hadn't killed anyone, hadn't even fired a shot, but if I killed Sylvanus Thayer or just let him die, I'd be as bad as those who had burned Khaturian.'

'If anyone would have enough rage within him it would be the man whose family was killed in Khaturian,' nodded Leodegarius. 'Being trapped in the flesh of his destroyed body… that could have been the catalyst that allowed latent psychic powers to develop.'

Leodegarius gripped Casuaban's shoulders tightly.

'You say this Sylvanus Thayer is in the House of Providence?'

'Yes,' said Casuaban.

'Take us there,' said Leodegarius, 'before it's too late.'

NINETEEN

The Land Raider's engine was loud and the stink of its fuel was an acrid, yet amazingly welcome smell to Uriel. Clad in his borrowed armour and riding to battle in one of the most powerful vehicles in the Space Marine inventory was a tangible sign that their enforced exile was at an end.

Pasanius sat next to him, his attention fixed on a pict-slate displaying a grainy image of the Land Raider's exterior, while five other Grey Knights in burnished silver-steel power armour sat opposite him.

Standing at the frontal assault ramp was Leodegarius, who was once again clad in his colossal Terminator armour. The Grey Knight stood with his long polearm clutched tightly in his enormous fist. In place of his wrist-mounted storm bolter, he bore a weapon that he had informed Uriel was a psycannon. Instead of bolt shells, this weapon fired consecrated bolts of purest silver that were the bane of the daemonic and unnatural.

Uriel held the bolter that Leodegarius had given him tightly, the fine lines and exquisite workmanship far exceeding anything he had ever seen. It was a gift of incalculable worth and Uriel hoped he would prove an honourable bearer of such a fine weapon in the coming fight.

He was under no illusions - blood would be spilled tonight.

No sooner had Uriel stepped from the palace and into the dusk of evening than he had felt the smothering gloom of the looming threat. The presence of the vengeful dead saturated the air and scraped along the nerves like a discordant vibration.

With no time to waste, Leodegarius had mustered his warriors and, together with Uriel and Pasanius and Serj Casuaban, they had set off through the streets of Barbadus towards the House of Providence. Two Rhinos followed behind the Land Raider and despite the sheer bulk and terror a Land Raider inspired, it was slow going, for the streets of Barbadus were thronged with people: shouting, agitated and scared people.

'It's a mess out there,' said Pasanius, looking at the pict-slate.

'No one knows what's happening, but they know that something is terribly wrong,' said Uriel.

'Aye, you're right, you don't need to be psychic to know that,' agreed Pasanius, looking towards Leodegarius's vast bulk. The warrior's blade gleamed red in the light of the troop compartment and Uriel shivered as he felt its potency as a shrill prickling along the length of his spine.

'It is a Nemesis weapon,' said Leodegarius, as if sensing Uriel's scrutiny, 'a blade forged by the finest artificers of Titan and quenched in the blood of a daemon.'

'The Unfleshed?' asked Uriel. 'Will it kill them?'

'It killed two of them in the plaza before the building I pulled you out of.'

'Two,' said Uriel sadly, 'that leaves maybe five or six left.'

'You feel sympathy for them?' asked Leodegarius.

'I do,' agreed Uriel. 'They didn't deserve this.'

'Perhaps not, but few people in this galaxy get what they deserve.'

'He will,' said Pasanius, jerking his thumb at Serj Casuaban, looking wretched and miserable in the far corner of the compartment.

Pasanius turned away from the dejected medicae and addressed Leodegarius. 'I still say we should bomb this place from orbit. You've got a ship up there, haven't you?'

'I have,' said Leodegarius without turning, 'and if we cannot stop Thayer then I will order a lance strike from orbit.'

'No, you can't!' cried Serj Casuaban. 'There are innocents in the House of Providence, not to mention all the people you'd kill and maim in the city with a strike like that! Give that order and you're no better than Barbaden.'

'Or you,' said Pasanius. 'You were at Khaturian as well.'

'I killed no one,' said Casuaban defensively.

'You let Barbaden give the order,' said Pasanius. 'Did you even try to stop him?'

'You don't know him. Once Leto has his mind made up, there's not a thing in the world can make him change it.'

'Fine,' said Pasanius, turning to Uriel, 'then why don't we give these dead folk what they want? Barbaden and Togandis are locked up in the cells and we have this one here, so why not just put a bullet in the backs of their heads? Wouldn't that solve the problem?'

'You'd kill me in cold blood?' demanded Casuaban.

'If it would save the planet, aye,' nodded Pasanius, 'in a heartbeat.'

'Pasanius, enough,' snapped Uriel. 'We're not shooting anyone. This is about justice, not revenge. We stop Sylvanus Thayer and then the three of them will face a court martial for war crimes.'

Uriel paused as a sudden thought came to him and turned to face Leodegarius. 'Is it safe to keep Barbaden and Togandis in the palace cells? Won't the dead be able to get to them there?'

'No, I am maintaining an aegis sanctuary over them,' said Leodegarius. 'No power of the warp will be able to touch them.'

Uriel wanted to ask more, but the Grey Knight held up his hand. 'We are here,' he said.

'How does it look?'

'Bad.'

Despite the fact that he was languishing in a cell beneath the rock of the Imperial Palace, Shavo Togandis was more at peace than he had been in the last ten years. All the guilt was, if not gone, at least less of a burden now that the truth of the Killing Ground was known.

The air in the circular prison complex was cold, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, Togandis was not sweating. Stripped of his ceremonial robes, he had been permitted to retain the undergarments of his vestments, as none of the prison issue tunics were large enough for him.

He knelt before the bars of his cell, facing the featureless guard building in the centre of the chamber, his hands clasped before him, reciting prayers that rushed to fill the void in his mind that had been left by the fear of discovery.

'You think praying will do any good?' asked Leto Barbaden from the cell next to his.

Togandis finished his prayer and turned his head to face the man who had lived in his nightmares for the past decade. Looking at him now, he wondered what he had found so terrifying. Leto Barbaden might be a monster on the inside, but to look at him he was just an ordinary man. Not too strong and not too clever, just an ordinary man.

Just as he was an ordinary man.

Which only made the scale of their crimes all the more horrifying.

How could anyone believe that such evil could come from such unremarkable specimens?

Surely the slaughter of so many innocent lives could only have been at the behest of some winged, fire-breathing daemon or undertaken by a host of bloodthirsty orks.

No, it had been done by men and women.

They had done it, and the nearness of the punishment was a blessed relief to the former cardinal.

'I think prayer can't hurt, Leto,' he answered. 'We are going to pay for what we did and I need to get right with the Emperor before then.'

'They can cook up a farce of a trial, but I won't apologise. They'll get nothing from me.'

'Even now, with everything in the open, you still don't think we did anything wrong?'

'Of course not,' snapped Barbaden.

'Then you are truly lost, Leto,' said Togandis with a shake of his head. 'I always knew you were a very dangerous man, but I don't think I realised why until now.'

'What are you babbling about?'

'You are the dark heart of man, Leto,' answered Togandis. 'You are the evil that can lurk in any of us, the potential to commit the most heinous acts and do it with a smile on our faces. There is a wall of conscience between acts of good and evil inside most of us, but that's missing in you. I don't know why, but for you there is no concept of evil, just results.'

The words flowed from Togandis and he felt the catharsis of them as he spoke.

He closed his eyes and smiled as he smelled the faint, but distinct aroma of burning flesh.

'They're coming, Leto.'

Togandis turned his head and looked out beyond the bars as he heard shouts and cries of alarm from the other prisoners.

A mist of shimmering light was forming in the chamber, as though some ductwork had split open and was pouring hot steam into the gaol. Togandis knew it was no such thing and smiled as he saw a host of jostling, ghostly forms in the mist.

First to emerge from the acrid smoke was a small girl, her dress blackened and smouldering. Her flesh was burned and hung from her body in melted strips.

Other forms joined the girl: men, women and more children. On they came until it seemed as though the chamber was filled with the dead.

They moved as though blown by a gentle breeze, drawing near to the cells. Togandis welcomed them, knowing that neither he nor Leto Barbaden would ever stand before a court martial.

Togandis looked over at Leto Barbaden and didn't know whether to be impressed or revolted at his lack of emotion. The former governor of Salinas appeared as unmoved by these apparitions of death as he did by everything else in life.

How grey life must be to him, thought Togandis.

The young girl turned her face to Barbaden and said, 'You were there.'

'Damn right I was,' snarled Barbaden. 'I killed you and I am not sorry.'

The girl's face twisted, the flesh of her face rippling with light and undulant motion as she launched herself towards Leto Barbaden.

Searing blue lightning flashed from the bars of the cell and Togandis blinked in surprise as the girl was hurled back. Her substance faded and vanished into the mist as though she had never existed.

Barbaden laughed. 'It seems these phantoms of Thayer's are not so powerful after all.'

'What do you mean?' gasped Togandis, willing the spirits of the dead to come for him and end his miserable existence.

'I think Leodegarius really wants us alive to stand trial.'

Then Togandis understood.

Bad didn't even begin to cover it.

The House of Providence was aflame, streamers of cold fire billowing like blazing shrouds from every opening and around every rivet, as though the interiors of the three mighty vehicles were full to bursting with light.

Howling winds, like the shrieking cries of the damned, swirled around their destination carrying tormented screams of anguish so intense that it seemed impossible that they could be wrung from a human throat. Arcs of pellucid lighting crackled and rippled over the metal surfaces of the colossal war engines and a creeping sickness oozed down the hill.

'Still think we shouldn't bomb this place from orbit?' asked Pasanius.

Serj Casuaban looked at what had become of the House of Providence with sick horror, and Uriel could only begin to imagine what he must be feeling. A place of healing had become a place of death and vengeance, and the physician in him rebelled at such a perversion.

Uriel and Leodegarius led the way uphill on foot, the Land Raider's passage onwards blocked by a multitude of burnt out tank chassis dragged onto the road. The Grey Knights followed in five-man combat teams, and Pasanius helped Serj Casuaban to keep up.

'How did these tanks get here?' asked Casuaban. 'They weren't here before.'

'The Unfleshed,' said Uriel, pointing upwards to where five hulking shapes were silhouetted at the ridge of the plateau. No more than midnight-black outlines, their veins ran with light and Uriel saw that the Lord of the Unfleshed had grown more powerful since their last encounter, his flesh monstrously swollen and seething with angry souls.

The creatures vanished from sight behind the ridge and a wave of black despair engulfed Uriel as he knew he would have no choice but to aid the Grey Knights in their destruction. Whatever he had hoped for the Unfleshed was lost. The brutal reality of the galaxy was that there was no place for them, no happy ending, only death.

The winds howling around the House of Providence were getting stronger and the screaming was growing louder. Lightning arced from the middle Capitol Imperialis with a deafening thunderclap, exploding against the hull of a hollowed out Chimera.

'Something's definitely trying to keep us out!' shouted Uriel.

Serj Casuaban clamped his hands over his ears and a hard rain pounded the ground.

Their path wound up the hill, the pace slowed by the need to thread through the maze of burnt and abandoned tanks. Leodegarius hauled those that couldn't be got round out of the way, the incredible power of his Terminator armour able to push tanks from their path as though they weighed nothing at all.

The ridge was approaching and Uriel racked the slide on his bolter, the very notion of going into battle as a Space Marine of the Emperor once more filling him with pride. The Grey Knights spread out, their halberds thrust forward into the storm of light and rain.

Uriel's bolter snapped left and right as he caught fleeting glimpses of darting, ghostly figures at the edge of his vision. A thousand whispering voices rustled like a forest of fallen leaves, the words unintelligible, but all filled with anger.

'You hear them?' asked Leodegarius over the vox.

'I do,' said Uriel, 'but I'm more worried about the Unfleshed.'

'They will be inside,' said Leodegarius, 'waiting for us.'

With that thought uppermost in his mind, Uriel jogged over the ridge, his neck craning upwards as he stood in the enormous shadow of the House of Providence.

Seen from a distance, the three Capitol Imperialis had been hugely impressive symbols of the Imperium, but up close, they were incredible, towering visions of the power to destroy. Their rusted metal flanks soared into the battered sky, the lightning that surrounded them flaring into the heavens as though it was a reactor on the verge of meltdown.

The image was not a comforting one.

As they approached the House of Providence, Uriel's every instinct told him that he was surrounded by foes, yet he could see nothing, nothing solid anyway, for the shrieking winds carried hints of floating phantoms, wisps of bodies as insubstantial as smoke, yet with the presence of a living, breathing being.

Moving towards the House of Providence was proving difficult, as though every step was taken through sucking mud. Even Leodegarius's pace was slowed and Uriel did not want to think of the power that could slow a Terminator.

'How do we get in?' shouted Uriel, looking along the length of the structure for an opening.

'Over there,' said Leodegarius, pointing towards the shadowed form of an arched entrance, partially hidden by mists and unnatural blackness. Uriel peered into the gloom, barely able to discern its outline.

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 him. 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.

Uriel vaulted the remains of the shredded beds, offering a silent prayer for the souls who had died upon them. His sword shimmered in the swirling light of the ward and he gripped it two-handed as he joined the fight.

Pasanius fired and Uriel swung his weapon at the Lord of the Unfleshed, the sword a shimmering arc of silver as it struck. The blade scored across the creature's hard body, but no sooner had the blade parted its flesh than the light raced to mend it.

The Lord of the Unfleshed spun and swung his fist at Uriel.

He ducked and rolled beneath the great beast, stabbing his sword up into its groin. The fiery blade bit into the Lord of the Unfleshed's body, and a strike that should have cut the leg from any normal opponent slid clear.

Pasanius and Cheiron kept up a steady barrage, but their weapons were having little effect. The roar of the bolters mingled with the howls of the ghosts and the bellowing of the Lord of the Unfleshed to form one, savage cacophony of battle.

It seemed inconceivable that one opponent could stand before four Space Marines and live, but the Lord of the Unfleshed was not just surviving, he was winning.

Leodegarius fell beneath a crushing blow that tore the Nemesis weapon from his hands. The Grey Knight lifted his other arm, but the Lord of the Unfleshed took hold of it and ripped it from his body with a ghastly tearing sound. Blood jetted from the wound and Uriel heard Leodegarius's bellow of pain over his armour's vox.

Uriel was amazed to see Terminator armour ruptured with such apparent ease, for such revered protection was said to be virtually indestructible. Leodegarius fell back, the pain of his wounding and the exhaustion of his psychic assault below draining him of almost the last of his strength.

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 street 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 what 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.

Cheiron made his way across the chamber towards the Lord of the Unfleshed with his storm bolter raised, but Uriel shook his head.

'No,' he said, 'you don't need that anymore.'

Cheiron looked down at the hunched, sobbing form of the Lord of the Unfleshed and then back at Uriel. He nodded and returned to Leodegarius.

Uriel knelt beside the Lord of the Unfleshed, whose body had diminished to its former proportions. His flesh was torn with bolter craters and slashes from blades and Uriel was amazed that he was still alive. The creature was still massive, but without the enormous power of the dead, he seemed somehow smaller, more vulnerable, and infinitely sad.

'What do we do now?' asked Pasanius.

Uriel looked up at Pasanius. 'Go with Leodegarius and Cheiron,' he said. 'I have something to do here first.'

'Are you sure?'

Uriel nodded. 'I'm sure, yes.'

Pasanius looked set to argue, but he heard the firmness in Uriel's tone and turned away.

Uriel reached out and placed his hand on the Lord of the Unfleshed's arm. Too late, he remembered that the Unfleshed did not like to be touched, but there was no reaction.

Uriel knelt beside the Lord of the Unfleshed and let him weep.

'Captain Ventris,' said a voice behind him, and he turned to see Leodegarius. The Grey Knight had removed his helmet and his face was pale and wan, drained by the fury of battle and the pain of losing a limb.

Leodegarius said, 'Come to the palace when you are done. Then we shall see about getting you back to Macragge.'

'I will,' promised Uriel.

The Grey Knight held out his hand and Uriel looked down at what he held.

'I think you will be needing this,' said Leodegarius and Uriel nodded.

'Thank you, Brother Leodegarius,' said Uriel. 'It was an honour to fight alongside you.'

'No,' said the Grey Knight, 'the honour was mine.'

Leodegarius, Pasanius and Cheiron left, leaving Uriel and the Lord of the Unfleshed alone in the ward. The creature he had attempted to rescue from a hideous life of death and misery knelt before the bed of the man who had enslaved him and his tribe and wept.

Uriel could not begin to imagine the horror the memory of what it had been forced to do would be like, and did not intrude on the Lord of the Unfleshed's grief with mere words.

At last, the creature looked up and his gaze fastened on Uriel.

'Unfleshed did very bad things,' he said.

'No,' said Uriel. 'All that hatred arid killing, it was not you.'

'Yes, it was. We did it. My hand bloody. Tribe's hands bloody. I saw blood and I tasted blood. Unfleshed bad.'

'No,' repeated Uriel. 'Unfleshed not bad. You were used. It wasn't your fault.'

'Emperor must hate us even more now.'

'He does not hate you,' said Uriel. 'The Emperor loves you. Look.'

Uriel pointed to an aquila fashioned from beaten steel hanging on the wall, the earliest dawn light from a window opposite shining upon it and making it gleam like silver.

The Lord of the Unfleshed looked up at the gleaming eagle, his reflection thrown back at him. As Uriel looked at the distorted image, it appeared to ripple like the surface of a lake, and he found himself looking at the reflection of a handsome young boy, his face alight with youthful mischief.

The Lord of the Unfleshed gave a cry as he too saw the image. 'Emperor loves me!'

Uriel moved to stand behind the Lord of the Unfleshed and raised the psycannon Leodegarius had given him.

'Yes, the Emperor loves you,' said Uriel, and pulled the trigger.