The Killing Ground

by Graham McNeill

  The words were spoken with a human mind, but a monster's mouth, and they came out sopping and malformed, cruel and bitter. Uriel heard the ache of loss in every mangled syllable and felt the pain behind the words, but whoever he spoke to was not the being whose flesh he addressed. Whatever intelligence-dwelled behind those burning eyes was not the creature that had set foot on Salinas with him.

  'Enough,' said Uriel, turning and nodding to Pasanius, who aimed his bolter towards the Lord of the Unfleshed. 'You have to stop this, now!'

  Seeing the weapon raised, the Lord of the Unfleshed lifted the weeping soldier high and plunged him, head first, into his enormous maw.

  'Imperator, no!' cried Uriel. 'Pasanius, shoot!'

  The air was filled with the distinctive bangs of bolter fire and mass-reactive shells stitched a path across the Lord of the Unfleshed, each one detonating within his body. New skin and old meat erupted from him, but not before the soldier was bitten in two. Uriel leapt forward, but the lower half of the dead man was hurled into him and he crashed to the ground.

  More bolter shots ripped out, but the Lord of the Unfleshed was on the move once again. Uriel rolled to his feet as he saw the Lord of the Unfleshed crash through the outer wall of the barracks, smashing the cinderblock walls to powder as he went Pasanius was already outside, following the creature with barks of bolter fire, and Uriel clambered over the rubble to reach the inner compound.

  Uriel saw that Pasanius was as accurate as ever, but that his bolts were having little effect on the Lord of the Unfleshed beyond the cosmetic. Blood and light streamed from the Lord of the Unfleshed, but what, if any, harm these wounds were causing was hard to tell.

  Soldiers fought in tight groups, overlapping fields of fire spraying the Unfleshed with controlled volleys. Heavy weapon teams were setting up their guns to support their quicker comrades. As she had when the Sons of Salinas had ambushed her forces, Verena Kain was rallying her soldiers quickly and effectively.

  It wasn't nearly enough.

  Against other men, even other soldiers, her masterful leadership and the courage of the Screaming Eagles would easily have won the day, but they were fighting a foe beyond any they had fought before. Explosions burst among the Unfleshed, but neither fire nor shrapnel nor bullets could bring them low.

  They shrugged off wounds that would have killed even the largest tyrannic beast thrice over, smashing through entire platoons and killing every soldier in the time it took to scream. Wounded light flowed from them as they were hit, the glow knitting solid over the wound like a bandage.

  The monsters were unstoppable, killing with a demented frenzy of rage.

  Uriel's heart turned to ice as he saw the savage joy in the faces of the Unfleshed.

  Whatever hopes he had held of their redemption, or for a new life, were being dashed before his eyes. There could be no atonement or forgiveness for relish taken in wanton slaughter.

  Even as he ran to join the battle, a missile skewed in flight as its firer was disembowelled by a hooking punch from a clawed fist. It slashed through the air in a wild, spiral pattern before impacting on the compound's main generator building.

  Uriel dived forward as the warhead punched through the lightly armoured door of the building and exploded, destroying the generator in a mighty blast that lifted the roof hundreds of feet into the air on a column of fire and demolished a portion of the outer wall.

  The compound was plunged into darkness.

  'WHAT DO YOU mean, Sylvanus Thayer's still alive?' demanded Cawlen Hurq.

  'Just what I said, Cawlen,' said Pascal. 'Although he might as well be dead.'

  Daron Nisato was as shocked as Hurq at the revelation that the old leader of the Sons of Salinas was alive, but the anger in Pascal's bodyguard was raw and in need of venting.

  'You told us he was dead!' said Hurq, and Mesira put her hands over her ears at the noise. Nisato put an arm around her, but she flinched at his touch, moaning in anguish.

  'And he was, to all intents and purposes,' said Pascal, trying to defuse Cawlen's anger. 'I found him on the battlefield the day after the fighting. There was almost nothing left of him, Cawlen, just scraps of flesh and blood. I don't know how he was still alive, but he was. I couldn't help him, so I took him to Serj Casuaban at the House of Providence.'

  'To Casuaban?' said Cawlen. 'He's a Falcata!'

  Pascal shook his head. 'No, he's been helping us since the Killing Ground Massacre.'

  'He's been helping us? How?'

  'Where did you think our medical supplies were coming from?'

  Daron Nisato tried to concentrate on what the two men were saying, but Mesira was rocking back and forth with ever greater urgency.

  'Why didn't you tell us?' asked Cawlen. 'We could have let the people know?'

  'What good would it have done? Sylvanus was already a martyr. He had done more for us by dying than he ever could again,' said Pascal. 'Besides... He's... He's not the same man he was before.'

  Nisato caught the strangeness of Pascal's tone and looked up from the weeping Mesira Bardhyl. 'What do you mean? How is he different?'

  Cawlen Hurq glanced around at him and said, 'Stay out of this, enforcer. This doesn't concern you.'

  Nisato stood and spun Hurq around. The big man looked set to go for his gun, but Nisato deftly plucked the weapon from the man's holster. He jammed the barrel in Hurq's belly and said, 'Sit down and shut up.'

  Reluctantly, Hurq did as he was ordered and Nisato turned to Pascal Blaise. 'What did you mean he's not the same man? I've had to shoot men who woke from comas or serious injuries with latent abilities that they did not possess before. Is that what you mean?'

  'Something like that,' agreed Pascal. 'He couldn't speak or move. There wasn't enough left of him to do either, but... you could feel it when you were around him.'

  'Feel what?'

  'His anger,' said Pascal, 'his unquenchable anger.'

  A scream made both men flinch and Nisato turned to see Mesira Bardhyl standing by the window, looking out into the night's darkness with her arm extended. Her face was lit by the soft glow of the city beyond, but as they watched a brighter glow from beyond the glass illuminated her face with hot, orange light.

  Nisato rushed to her side. 'What is it?' he asked.

  'The Mourner,' hissed Mesira.

  Daron Nisato and Pascal Blaise watched as a blooming pillar of fire lifted from beyond the edges of the city. Seconds later, the rumble of the explosion rolled over them, accompanied by the popping crack of small-arms fire.

  'That's the Screaming Eagles' compound,' said Nisato. 'Your handiwork, Blaise?'

  'No,' said Pascal, and Nisato believed him, 'not mine, I swear.'

  'It's the Mourner,' said Mesira Bardhyl. 'He's found one. He's killing them all to get to her.'

  She turned to face him and Nisato saw that she was smiling with calm serenity.

  'He's coming for me next.'

  URIEL HAD NO weapon but his sword, and this he put to good use as he fought his way into the mass of struggling bodies. The Unfleshed were stronger than ever, their bodies filled with a power they had not possessed before, and they had been horrifically powerful then.

  A towering shape rose up before him, a monster with lumpy stumps for legs and a frill of flesh that hung from its chest and rippled with life. Unnatural bone structures beneath the skin lashed out at Uriel, but he parried desperately as taloned hooks sought the soft meat of his throat.

  He rolled beneath a lashing bone hook and slashed his sword through the beast's flesh. The blade cleaved through its body, but no sooner had it torn clear than the strange light that filled the beast restored the flesh whole.

  The creature howled, despite the healing effect of the light, and it backed away from him, seeking easier prey among the Screaming Eagles. Uriel let it go as he sought out Colonel Kain in the confusion of the battle.

  With the generator destroyed, the conflict was being fought in the strobing darkness of muzzle flashes, las-bo
lts and the diffuse glow of reflected starlight. Struggling knots of soldiers ran from cover to cover as the Unfleshed tore through the compound, demolishing barricades, gun emplacements and buildings as they went.

  The fuel store erupted in a great mushroom-cloud of fire as a stray round punctured its skin and the reek of promethium filled the air. Burning clouds billowed upwards and burning streams of promethium spilled through the compound.

  Uriel ran through the chaos of the battle to join Pasanius, his friend firing the last of his bolt rounds at a monster with swollen arms that pounded its way through the medicae building and butchered the wounded with great, clubbing sweeps of its iron-hard fists.

  'How many rounds do you have?' shouted Uriel over the din of battle.

  'One magazine left,' said Pasanius, 'but it's tricky to reload.'

  Uriel swapped his sword for the bolter, ducking behind the cover of an avalanche of sandbags as he quickly and expertly reloaded the weapon.

  'Thanks,' said Pasanius, as Uriel returned the weapon and took his sword back. 'Now what? What in the name of the Emperor is going on? Why are they doing this?'

  'They're not,' said Uriel, finally catching sight of Colonel Kain.

  The bark of heavy weapons joined the fight as soldiers clambered up to the hatches of parked Chimeras and unleashed torrents of las-fire from muld-lasers or hails of shells from heavy bolters.

  'What do you mean?' demanded Pasanius, firing over the sandbags into the monster attacking the medicae building. 'I'd say they are.'

  'This isn't them,' persisted Uriel. 'I don't know what, but there's something controlling them, I'm sure of it.'

  Pasanius shrugged, and Uriel realised that, at this moment, it didn't matter why the Unfleshed were attacking the Screaming Eagles, just that they were. The Lord of the Unfleshed was killing men by the dozen with every roar and swing of his massive fists, his flesh an impregnable fortress and proof against all weapons.

  'Then I hope you have a plan,' said Pasanius. 'Otherwise they're going to kill everyone here, including us.'

  Uriel had no answer for Pasanius, but then the roar of engines sounded from the hangars as a trio of Leman Russ battle tanks rumbled from within. The main guns would be useless within the compound, but each vehicle carried a host of support weapons and their bulk alone could turn the tide of the battle.

  A great cheer went up from the Screaming Eagles as the tanks emerged, and Colonel Kain lifted her sword high for all to see. A soldier unfurled a banner and the sight of the crimson emblem of the Achaman Falcatas gave the soldiers heart.

  Uriel watched the lead tank, the vehicle that had begun to power his armour, split the night with an incandescent spear of light from the lascannon mounted on its hull. A beast with scything limbs fell, sheared in two by the beam, its entrails cooked and its blood boiled to steam. The other tanks sawed the bullets of their sponson weapons across the Unfleshed, the creatures driven back from the fight by the sheer weight of fire.

  The great metal beasts did not cow the Lord of the Unfleshed, however. He cast aside the body of the soldier he had just killed and charged the tank with his head lowered and his fists balled at his side.

  Just as it seemed he would run headlong into the vehicle, the Lord of the Unfleshed leapt into the air and landed on the tank's frontal section. Bullets ripped across his body, but slowed him not at all. Monstrously powerful hands closed on the foreshortened barrel of the tank's main gun and inhumanly strong arms ripped upwards.

  With a screech of tortured metal and a fountain of sparks the entire turret was wrenched clear. The turret gunner fell from the ruin of the main gun's housing, only to be crushed by the treads of his tank. The Lord of the Unfleshed slammed the twisted wreckage into the side of the tank, crushing the side guns and buckling the hull inwards with tremendous booms of metal.

  The tank's engine howled in protest, jetting filthy blue oil-smoke as it seized and died. Flames erupted across its rear quarter and with his foe defeated, the Lord of the Unfleshed hurled the buckled and twisted mass of the turret across the compound and vaulted to the ground.

  With a rousing battle cry, Colonel Kain led the charge of the Screaming Eagles.

  Uriel rose from cover as they charged, admiring their courage while cursing the futility of the gesture. These men could not triumph against the Unfleshed, not while some dark power worked their bodies like marionettes and healed killing wounds.

  'Come on!' he shouted, and Pasanius rose with him.

  He charged through the blazing compound, the reek of burning promethium filling his senses and the thick pall of black smoke making his eyes water and his throat burn. The heat was incredible, leaping flames devouring the compound with a furious appetite.

  The Unfleshed and the Screaming Eagles clashed in the centre of the compound, a battle fought in the bright heat of the fires. It was a battle that could only end one way, but the Screaming Eagles fought with a fatalistic fervour that spoke volumes of their involvement in the Killing Ground Massacre.

  Uriel swept his sword out as a beast with arms like pistons and a hunched spine loped towards him through the smoke and flames. Its mouth was a lopsided horror of broken teeth and rotted gums, its eyes a gelatinous mess of run-together pupils and milky irises. Its flesh was glistening and new, but rotten and slick, as though grown from diseased cultures.

  It spat a mouthful of obscenities, its fist thundering towards him as it screamed. Uriel turned the blow aside and spun around the creature, driving his sword down into its back. The blade grated on a malformed spine and Uriel twisted the sword as he thrust it deep into the monster's body.

  It shrieked and dropped to its knees as Pasanius ran up and hammered his armoured boot into its face. Fangs snapped and bloody phlegm sprayed the air.

  Uriel wrenched his sword free in a wash of light and frothing blood. Pasanius jammed his bolter into the beast's mouth and pulled the trigger. Light exploded in its skull and the back of its head mushroomed outwards.

  The monster collapsed, steaming brain matter leaking from the opened lid of its skull, and Uriel saw a mist of light follow it into the air. He cried out as he felt the enraged frustration within the light and dropped to his knees as the force of it threatened to overwhelm him.

  Uriel dropped his sword as his vision blurred and he saw the compound and the walls surrounding it thronged with observers, spectral figures who watched the carnage enacted in their name dispassionately. Hundreds of figures jostled for position on the walls and Uriel shook his head as he fought to free his thoughts from their desire for vengeance.

  'Uriel!' cried Pasanius, and the spell was broken.

  The creature they had fought was dead, the healing light having fled at its demise, but Uriel saw that this was the only triumph in the battle so far.

  Flames had claimed those the Unfleshed had not. Men of fire screamed as they were consumed and Uriel felt a horrible sense of vindication from the invisible voyeurs who had set this slaughter in motion.

  'We have to get out of here,' said Pasanius. 'We can't win this.'

  Uriel nodded, sweeping up his sword. 'I'll try to reach Kain.'

  He rose to his feet and sought the banner of the Screaming Eagles, catching sight of it through the flames as Colonel Kain fought a losing battle against the monsters butchering her soldiers.

  'Over there!' said Uriel. 'Come on.'

  They set off through the flames towards the beleaguered warriors, and Uriel could feel his skin blistering from the heat. He could only imagine the pain the mortal soldiers must be feeling.

  Uriel saw Verena Kain fall, bleeding from a deep wound to her shoulder. The creature closed on her for the kill, but her men valiantly formed a line before her, guns rippling with fire and curved swords ready to defend their colonel.

  In the face of their firepower, the beast fell back and Uriel skidded to a halt beside Kain.

  The woman was tough, Uriel had to give her that. Her left arm hung uselessly at her side and her face was a fire-
lit mask of blood. She looked up at Uriel and her face was wretched with anger.

  'My men are dying because of you!' she shouted over the gunfire and roar of flames. 'I don't know how, but I know this has something to do with you.'

  'Colonel Kain,' began Uriel, 'you're right, but deal with it later. We have to get out of here, now. This isn't a fight we can win.'

  'Never!' said Kain. 'The Screaming Eagles never sound the retreat.'

  'I know,' snapped Uriel. 'I heard Old Serenity's saying, but he died, and so will you if we stay here.'

  He thought she was going to refuse, but saw the spark of anger fade from her eyes to be replaced by the weary resignation of acceptance. Uriel nodded and turned to Pasanius as an enormous shadow blotted out the light of the fires. The bearer of the Screaming Eagles' banner was killed as his head was ripped from his shoulders and a steaming pillar of blood erupted from his shorn neck.

  Uriel spun around as the banner fell. The Lord of the Unfleshed towered over him, his form impossibly massive and swollen since Uriel had last laid eyes upon him. Light shone beneath his skin, too bright to look upon where it oozed from his wounds, and his muscles were aflame with borrowed power.

  A fist like a boulder slammed into Uriel, hurling him through the air to land in an ungainly heap against the hull of the wrecked Leman Russ. Bright lights danced before his eyes and he fought for breath, hearing the bark of bolter fire as Pasanius opened fire.

  The Lord of the Unfleshed smote Pasanius with a terrible blow that crushed him to the ground, and then reached for Verena Kain. The colonel of the Screaming Eagles had lifted her regiment's banner from the earth and the rippling silk of the flag was on fire. Uriel cried out and pushed himself to his feet, swaying as he lurched towards the Lord of the Unfleshed.

  Colonel Kain hacked at the Lord of the Unfleshed with her falcata as she was lifted from the ground in his enormous fist. Blood and light seeped from the wounds, but she could not break the hold the enormous creature had on her.

  Uriel saw the anger on the Lord of the Unfleshed's face, an anger that was so distilled and overwhelming that it halted him in its tracks, so singular was it. This was no anger the Unfleshed possessed, this was the anger of those without voice, the anger of those who had only this last revenge left to them.