The Killing Ground

by Graham McNeill

  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.

  Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.

  THE THUNDERHAWK BANKED as it followed the flight-path the ground controllers had indicated. Uriel looked out of the vision port on the side of the roaring gunship, watching as the dazzling white mountains sped by, their soaring, jagged tops wreathed in clouds.

  It had been weeks since the battle in the House of Providence and his body and spirit still ached from the time spent on Salinas. Though Uriel's wounds had healed, he could not shake off the melancholy that had settled on him since he had pulled the trigger of the psycannon.

  He knew it had been the only option open to him, and if the Lord of the Unfleshed was going to end his days on Salinas, then it was only right that it be at the hands of the man who had led him there.

  With the passing of Sylvanus Thayer, the pressure of the dead upon the minds of the living vanished and a strange sense of calm descended upon Barbadus (though that name was sure to change). With the announcement of Leto Barbaden's death, that mood of calm had been replaced with one of celebration.

  As things turned out, the day after the battle was to be a day of announcements.

  Under the supervision of the Grey Knights, an interim governorship was to be formed with Daron Nisato as the new Imperial Commander. While this announcement was greeted with rather less enthusiasm than Leto Barbaden's passing, word that Pascal Blaise supported the former enforcer in his leadership generated a quiet acceptance from the populace.

  The days of trouble were far from over for Salinas, but Uriel knew that the planet's course had been turned from disaster, and that its people had a chance to cast off the old hatreds that had almost destroyed them.

  It was more than most people got.

  Upon the restoration of Imperial control, Leodegarius had walked them to a waiting gunship as it growled on the esplanade before the palace and bid them farewell.

  'Remember the Tower,' the Grey Knight said. 'It reminds us that if we use our knowledge and strength for evil purposes, then destruction will be wrought upon us.'

  They had said their goodbyes to Lukas Urbican and Daron Nisato and marched aboard the gunship, never to see Salinas again.

  Uriel leaned back against the Thunderhawk's fuselage, feeling the power of the engines in the thrumming beat in the metal. He had not dared believe that he would ever make this journey and he kept his eyes shut, as though the reality of it might be snatched away at any moment.

  He shared the troop compartment of the gunship with nineteen suits of armour, those belonging to the Sons of Guilliman. Uriel wore a chiton of pale blue and carried his sword across his lap. He had not worn his borrowed armour since the battle in the Ho
use of Providence, for he had known that it was not his to wear beyond that immediate need.

  Like ghosts, the suits of armour had been strapped into the bench seats in the Thunderhawk as carefully as if they had each contained a living, breathing Space Marine. A message had already been sent to the Sons of Guilliman and the suits of armour would return to their Chapter to protect their battle-brothers once more.

  The door to the gunship's cockpit opened and Pasanius emerged. Unlike Uriel, Pasanius was fully clad in armour and his face was alight with pleasure.

  'You'll want to come up front,' said Pasanius.

  Uriel smiled as he rose from his seat and made his way along the troop compartment. He ducked beneath the door to the cockpit, the interior filled with bright sunlight and shadows that moved as the pilots began the gunship's descent into a steep-sided valley of glittering, quartz-rich rocks.

  'Look,' said Pasanius, pointing through the armoured glass of the cockpit.

  There it was, shimmering atop the mountain like a castle of gold and silver on a cloud.

  Uriel found he could barely control his breathing and tears ran unchecked down his face at the sight of the marble towers, mosaic domes and high walls of luminescent stone.

  'The Fortress of Hera,' said Pasanius, also in tears.

  'Home,' said Uriel.

  About the Author

  Hailing from Scotland, Graham McNeill worked for over six years as a Games Developer in Games Workshop’s Design Studio before taking the plunge to become a full-time writer. In addition to many previous novels, including bestsellers False Gods, Fulgrim and A Thousand Sons, Graham has written a host of SF and Fantasy stories and comics. Graham lives and works in Nottingham and you can keep up to date with where he’ll be and what he’s working on by visiting his website.

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  http://www.graham-mcneill.com/

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