The Killing Ground

by Graham McNeill

  Nisato looked from Mesira to Pascal. Her words were like a cool stream that washed him from his decaying suit of skin to the very core of his marrow. Was this some psyker magic? Had whatever madness possessed her to wander naked from her home unlocked yet more powers within her?

  Whatever flowed from Mesira, he could feel no evil within it and let its healing light bathe him with its restorative powers.

  'I understand,' he said, seeing the same illumination within Pascal Blaise. Without knowing how, he knew that they would both be changed forever by this contact.

  Mesira released their hands and Nisato felt a sting of disappointment at the withdrawal of her touch.

  The door opened behind her and Cawlen Hurq reentered the room, a rifle slung over his shoulder, and the pistol, which Nisato had returned to him before he'd left, clutched in his fist. Nisato felt nothing for Hurq; not hate, not fear, nothing. It was as if all the rancour and posturing that had passed between them had been erased.

  'Cawlen,' said Pascal, taking a moment to recover from the contact with Mesira. 'How many men have we got here?'

  'Including us, eight,' said Hurq, 'but I've sent the word out and there'll be others arriving soon. What are we expecting? Falcatas?' The man's tone was eager and Nisato felt pity for him, so caught up in his hatred was he.

  'No, I don't think so,' said Pascal. 'I'm not sure exactly, but stay alert.'

  Nisato took Mesira's hand and followed Pascal Blaise as he made his way towards the door. She took his hand willingly and together they descended the stairs he had climbed earlier that evening.

  Cawlen Hurq pushed open the door to the bar and they entered the smoky, sweat-pit of the common area. The heat and stench of the place took Nisato's breath away, despite him only having left it recently.

  Heads rose from drinks as they entered the room, and Nisato felt acutely vulnerable, more than he had when he'd first arrived. Then he only had his own safety to worry about, but now he had to keep Mesira safe from whatever force she believed was coming to claim her. Beyond that, he now felt responsible for Pascal Blaise's safety, which was stupid, for he had armed men in the bar and, if Hurq was to be believed, there were more on the way.

  The armed men he had spotted on his arrival made their way through the bar towards them, and the crowded drinkers made way for them without complaint. Nisato caught snatches of conversation as they made their way through the throng.

  News of the attack on the Screaming Eagles' compound had reached the bar and Nisato was surprised to see fearful looks being cast towards Pascal Blaise.

  'What's going on?' he said, drawing level with Blaise. 'Why do I get the feeling these people would as soon lynch you as look at you?'

  'They're afraid,' said Pascal over his shoulder.

  'Of what?'

  'Reprisals,' replied Pascal. 'They think we hit the Screaming Eagles and they're afraid of what Barbaden will do in response. I told you I was tired of the killing. Well, I'm not the only one.'

  Nisato saw it now, the fear and tiredness in every face. It was a tiredness he could understand. He looked back into Mesira's face and smiled. She moved gracefully through the crowded bar and all who looked upon her seemed touched by the same balm that had eased their troubled souls upstairs.

  She was a calming ripple in a pond, the soothing wind that cools the day.

  Nisato reluctantly tore his gaze from her as Pascal Blaise placed a hand on his shoulder.

  'Wait. Let Cawlen's men check outside first.'

  Nisato nodded and pulled Mesira close. Over the hushed babble of conversation, he could hear strange sounds from beyond the steel door of the bar, a mingled din of distant rumbling engines and heavy thuds.

  He started as he heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire and an awful, blood-chilling roar of animal hunger. The sound echoed inside the bar and every head turned towards them.

  'What the hell was that?' said Cawlen Hurq. More gunfire sounded, followed by shrieks: horrible, agonising shrieks and bellowing roars, and wet sounds like tearing cloth and snapping wood.

  Hurq backed away from the door, his face fearful. That fear was contagious. People began to shout and, as yet another monstrous roar echoed within the bar, panic took hold. Men and women pushed one another aside in their haste to escape the bar, heading for back doors or windows that led away from the source of the terrible roars.

  Nisato drew his pistol as another roar sounded, this time from right on the other side of the door. The noise was deafening and a sickening, rotten meat smell was forced inside the bar by a heaving, noxious breath.

  'Let's find another way out of here,' hissed Pascal.

  'Yes,' agreed Nisato, pulling Mesira with him.

  Cawlen Hurq followed them and as Nisato risked a glance over his shoulder, the front of the bar was ripped upwards. Corrugated sheets of metal flew off into the night and the door crumpled inwards under a terrifyingly powerful impact. Metal screamed and buckled, and the iron girder that served as a lintel was ripped upward and tossed away as easily as a dog would discard a chewed bone.

  Hot air blasted into the bar and the animal reek of spoiled meat became unbearable.

  Nisato looked up into the face of a nightmare.

  It was a monster, a bloodied, burnt and fanged nightmare with sick coals for eyes. Its monstrous proportions were beyond any measure of sanity or belief, its appearance that of a malformed giant that had suffered unimaginable torments.

  'Emperor save us!' cried Pascal Blaise, his face slack with horror as he saw that the beast had not come alone, but with a pack of equally horrific monsters at its heels. The panic that had seized the crowds exploded in a stampede of utter terror. Bodies slammed into Nisato and he fought to hold onto Mesira as the tide of screaming people sought to part them.

  Cawlen Hurq raised his rifle and Nisato wanted to laugh at the absurdity of fighting beasts of such terrible appearance with so paltry a weapon. The man screamed an oath as he opened fire, bright bolts of energy spitting from the barrel to explode harmlessly on the creature's chest.

  Casually, as though swatting an irritant, the beast batted Cawlen Hurq across the room. The man slammed head first into the beaten iron bar top and even over the sound of tearing metal and screaming crowds, Daron Nisato heard his neck snap with an awful, brittle crack.

  Nisato tried to drag Mesira away from the ripped open entrance to the bar, but she released his hand and he was carried away from her, watching helplessly as the monsters tore their way inside the bar.

  'It is time,' she said, her voice sounding like a clear bell in his head, 'time to die.'

  FIFTEEN

  URIEL HEARD THE screams and the sound of tearing metal. The rumble of the trio of Chimeras echoed from the ramshackle walls of the street and curious onlookers were beginning to spill from their homes to see what drama was being played out on their doorstep.

  From his vantage point in the commander's hatch, Uriel could see light spilling into the sky and could hear screams that were issued in terror of the monstrous. Whatever bloody task the Unfleshed were about was in full swing by the sounds of it.

  A smashed building on the corner of the street provided another sign as to the passing of the Unfleshed and the Chimera's driver expertly guided the heavy vehicle around the cascaded tumble of timber, stone and steel.

  Beyond the corner, the street widened out into a stone-paved square, and the few onlookers that had been driven into the street by the noise, sensibly retreated into their homes at the sight that greeted them.

  'Guilliman's oath!' swore Uriel as he saw the spectacle before him.

  It looked like a brightly lit pyramid of wrecked tanks, their innards hollowed out and reshaped by hammer and welding torch to form a structure with internal spaces, rooms, corridors and low-ceilinged chambers. Light and people spilled from the shuddering building, its structure and fabric under siege by the Unfleshed.

  The Lord of the Unfleshed led the attack, his massively muscled arms peeling back steel as he
forced his way into the structure. Myriad neon lights spat fat sparks and bathed the square before the building, surely some kind of drinking den, as well as the monsters in lurid greens, shocking pinks and deathly blues. They capered and howled as the leader of their tribe smashed a path through steel and timber like an animal breaking open a nest to devour the prey within. If the Lord of the Unfleshed was aware of their arrival, he gave no sign, but continued with his destruction of the building's frontage.

  Fleeing people were snatched up by the Unfleshed and snapped and twisted until they broke, and their agonised screams ceased. Uriel heard gunfire from inside the building and wondered what the Lord of the Unfleshed could want in a place like this.

  The Chimeras slowed as they entered the square, but Uriel yelled down to the driver. 'No! More speed. Use the vehicle!'

  Understanding Uriel's order, the driver opened up the throttle and the Chimera roared as its speed increased. Uriel braced himself as one of the Unfleshed turned at the sound of the madly revving engine, its face seeming to split in two, such was the width of its fanged jaws.

  Its skeleton was visible through the sickly, pallid skin that draped it, yet this new covering could only hope to cover a portion of its malformed anatomy. Long limbs, spidery and clawed, dragged on the ground and short, muscular legs drove it forwards with an ape-like gait.

  Beast and machine charged towards one another until they met in a howl of flesh and machinery. The Chimera ploughed into the creature, its understanding of the power and momentum of the tank existing only for the fraction of a second before it was crushed beneath the tracks. Liquid light spurted from its pulverised carcass, blood, meat and bone ground to a paste on the paved square.

  The vehicle skidded on the square as the driver instinctively feathered the throttle and applied the brakes. The engine revved one last time and died, mushrooming clouds of stinking, acrid smoke belching from the exhausts as the driver fought to restart the engine.

  'Pasanius! With me!' shouted Uriel, pulling himself up from the commander's hatch. He vaulted to the hard ground as the assault door on the back of the vehicle opened and Pasanius led the warriors out onto the strangely lit battlefield.

  Uriel's other two Chimeras screamed to a halt on either side of his and the warriors disembarked with practiced efficiency. No matter the losses they had taken and no matter what they may have done in the past, these men and women were soldiers first and foremost, and had learned their lessons well.

  They formed up in squads and Uriel felt a forgotten sense of pride at the idea of leading men into battle once more. No matter that these soldiers were not Ultramarines of the Fourth Company, they were warriors of the Emperor and that made them mighty.

  'Together! We finish this together! Are you with me?' yelled Uriel, holding his golden-hilted sword up for all to see.

  The soldiers unsheathed their falcatas and roared their affirmation as Uriel turned and charged towards the devastated bar.

  THE MONSTER'S THICK, veined arm reached into the bar, questing for Mesira. She seemed to welcome the creature's attentions, for she ignored Daron Nisato's shouted pleas to flee from it and make her way through the mob towards him.

  Blinded by panic, many of the bar's patrons stumbled into the path of the enormous creature. The lucky ones blundered past it into the night and safety, the less fortunate were torn to fleshy rags or bitten in two.

  The press of the crowd was preventing Mesira from approaching the monster any closer, for it seemed that such was her goal. The terrifying creature was utterly fixated upon her, only prevented from reaching her by what strength remained in the collapsed frontage of the bar. For once, Nisato had cause to be thankful that this part of Junktown was comprised of the debris of his old regiment, for it was all that was preventing the creature from gaining access.

  Had the bar been constructed from traditional building materials, the beast would even now be feasting on Mesira's bones and wrapping her entrails around its neck. Only the steel girders and beams looted from abandoned tanks had thus far prevented it from simply bludgeoning its way inside and devouring her and everyone else inside.

  The structure of the bar groaned and heaved as load bearing members were smashed asunder. Metal ground on metal as lintels were compressed and weight was redistributed to portions of the structure never meant to carry such loads.

  The gunmen that the late Cawlen Hurq had placed in the bar fired on the monster with their pistols, emptying magazines' worth of rounds to little or no effect. Where punctured by a bullet, the beast dribbled light and a syrupy ichor, but such wounds troubled it not at all.

  The monster howled in frustration, a searing, hungry light roasting in the gouges of its eye sockets. Daron Nisato was paralysed by his fear of it, seeing a primal hunger and anger such as he could barely contemplate existing in any sane universe.

  'What in the name of the warp is it?' cried Pascal Blaise, shouting to be heard over the din of the creature's assault on the building.

  'I have no idea,' said Nisato. 'We have to reach Mesira and get out of here!'

  'You think?' snapped Pascal Blaise, looking in every direction for a means of escape. The press of bodies was too tight and the settling of the structure had wedged many of the doors fast in their frames. Grunting men heaved their shoulders against them, but no amount of human force could overcome the incredible weight keeping the doors shut.

  Nisato saw the girder trapping the beast's shoulder twist and buckle until the weld holding it fixed to the upturned chassis of a Chimera finally gave in to the pressure and snapped. The monster roared in triumph and hauled a portion of its vast bulk into the bar.

  Its roar galvanised Nisato, and his limbs found strength.

  'I've got to get Mesira!' he shouted.

  Blaise nodded and said, 'I'm right behind you. Go!'

  Nisato lowered his shoulder and began pushing his way through the trapped, terrified crowd, using skills honed in a dozen riots to force himself a path with fist, foot and gun butt.

  His progress was slow, but steady, and he could distinguish Mesira easily enough from the grimy, unwashed faces of the factory workers. Her face was serene amongst a sea of panic, beatific and calming those nearest her.

  Nisato finally reached Mesira, his powerful grip closing on her thin upper arm.

  'Mesira!' he yelled. 'We have to get out of here!'

  She turned to face him at his touch.

  'No, Daron,' she cried in alarm, 'you have to get out of here.'

  Then the frontage of the bar finally gave way with a tortured scream of metal.

  URIEL HEARD THE bar front collapse and thumbed the activation stud on the hilt of his sword. The blade leapt to life with crackling energies and he felt the power of the weapon travel up his arm. The Unfleshed had turned to face them and six of the enormous creatures stood between him and the bar.

  Pasanius stood next to him, his bolter held at his side.

  'So what's the plan?' asked Pasanius.

  'I need you to lead the soldiers,' said Uriel. 'Protect the innocent.'

  'What are you going to do?'

  'I'm going inside,' said Uriel. 'I've got a feeling there are answers within.'

  'There you go again,' groaned Pasanius as a beast with elongated jaws and a distended belly that glistened with writhing motion broke from the pack of beasts towards them. 'You and your damn feelings.'

  A volley of las-fire peppered the creature and it screeched in pain. Hissing, steaming light erupted from its swollen limbs and gut.

  'Go,' said Uriel, slapping a palm on Pasanius's shoulder guard. 'Lead them.'

  Pasanius nodded and marched to join the red-jacketed soldiers, who advanced with their rifles blazing. Individually, lasguns were a poor man's weapon, but gathered en masse, they were formidable and only a fool would underestimate the effect of a massed volley of fire.

  The Unfleshed roused themselves from the wanton slaughter of the bar's patrons at these attacks, their howls of anguish at odds
with the purposeful light that surrounded them. The creatures writhed in the glow that spilled from their wounds, as though their own ambitions were at odds with the purpose to which they were being driven.

  The Lord of the Unfleshed pushed his way inside the bar and Uriel ran towards him, leaving Pasanius to lead the Falcatas in battle. His friend could inspire warriors of the Astartes to undreamed of valour and these soldiers had the honour of being commanded by one of the Ultramarines' finest.

  If they survived this night, they would be feted for the rest of their lives.

  Uriel quickly made his way around the fighting, heading for the frenzied fury of the Lord of the Unfleshed. The creature had torn its way into the bar. Screams and the bark of pistols sounded from within.

  Portions of the structure were beginning to buckle and groan, and it wouldn't take much for the whole thing to come crashing down. Whatever he could do here, he would have to do fast.

  The Lord of the Unfleshed pushed his way fully into the bar and Uriel vaulted a fallen piece of masonry as he found an open section of wall where iron panelling had come away from the structure.

  Even without his armour, his physique was almost too broad to fit and he felt the metal tear at his tunic. He ducked his head and the smell of the bar hit him. It stank of sweat, raw meat and strong liquor, but most of all it stank of fear.

  The Lord of the Unfleshed towered at one end of the bar, his form monstrous and swollen. Whatever had happened to him in the mountains had seen him become more terrible than Uriel could ever have imagined, for mixed with the terrifying power that surged through him, Uriel saw the humanity of him, the skin, the anger and the fear.

  All the things that made a person human were distilled and magnified within his breast, but whatever daemons drove the Lord of the Unfleshed to this killing rage were of an order of magnitude greater than any human could ever aspire to.

  A woman in a pale robe stood before the Lord of the Unfleshed, her expression serene, in complete contrast to the horror on every other face in the bar. Uriel's memory quickly cast up her name: Mesira Bardhyl, Governor Barbaden's psychic truth-seeker.