It speared the clouds above, a swirling mass of bruised vaporous energies circling its tallest peak. Thousands of arched firing slits pierced the tower, its base out of sight behind the belching forges clustered before it. Uriel knew that the master of this horrible place must dwell within that awful tower and understood with utter certainty that this was their ultimate destination.
Flocks of the delirium spectres wheeled above the dread tower, their raucous cries echoing weirdly from its tall spires and nameless garrets. Tall peaks of the black mountains swooped high above them, and though it had seemed they walked for many kilometres through the rock of the mountain, the noise of the battle was close, as though they had travelled only a little way.
'How can that be?' said Vaanes, guessing Uriel's thoughts.
'I don't know,' replied Uriel. 'We cannot trust that our senses are not deceived at every turn in this dark place.'
'Uriel, listen, about that tunnel and the things that were said…'
'It doesn't matter. It was the voices, they got inside us and made us say these things.'
Vaanes shook his head. 'What were they? Daemons? Ghosts?'
'I do not know, but we defeated them, Vaanes.'
'You defeated them. You saw through what they were trying to do to us. I almost gave in… I wanted to.'
'But you had the strength to defeat them,' said Uriel. 'That came from inside you, I just reminded you of it.'
'Maybe,' said Vaanes, in a rare moment of confession. 'But I am weak, Ventris. I have not been a Space Marine of the Emperor for many decades now and I do not think I have the strength to be one again.'
'I believe you are wrong,' said Uriel, placing his hand in the centre of Vaanes's breastplate. 'You have heart, and I see courage and honour within you, Vaanes. You have just forgotten who you really are.'
Vaanes nodded curtly, pulling away from his touch without replying, and Uriel just hoped he had been able to convince the former Raven Guard of his own worth. This hellish place would test them all to the very limits of their courage and would seek out any chink in their armour and destroy them if they let it.
He caught Pasanius's eye, but his friend broke the contact just as quickly, turning his back upon Uriel.
'Pasanius,' said Uriel. 'Are you ready to move on?'
The sergeant nodded. 'Aye, there's no telling what might follow us through those tunnels. The sooner we're gone the better.'
Uriel reached up to stop Pasanius as he moved off. 'Are you all right, my friend?'
'Of course,' snapped Pasanius, pushing past Uriel and marching to the top of the winding, uneven stairs. Smooth, black and glassy, they would require careful negotiation if they were to avoid slipping and breaking their necks.
Pasanius led the way down, the Space Marines and the two Guardsmen following gingerly in single file. The clanking workshops of the fortress spat flames and smoke: the pounding of hammers the size of tanks echoing from the blackened walls of the windowless buildings. But over everything hung the leaden weight of the spirit of the iron tower, its dead-windowed stare crushing the soul by its very existence.
As they descended into the fortress, Uriel saw strange creatures of light moving between the vast structures, tall, elegant beings walking on golden stilts that trailed streamers of lambent amber fire. Bizarre carriages were suspended between them, filled with glowing ripples of light and a swirling latticework of cogs and pistons. A procession of these creatures passed through the fortress, but they were soon lost to sight in the illogical maze of the streets.
Huge bulldozers, similar to the bulk-hauler they had commandeered, rumbled through the wider thoroughfares, red and hateful, with tall banner poles hung with eight-pointed stars and iron tenders hitched behind them. Blood sloshed from the tenders, leaving a filthy stream of red in their wake as they made their way from the fighting on the walls to the tower at the centre of the fortress. Twisted limbs jutted from the blood-filled tenders, the corpses in each one jostling against one another as the bulldozers ploughed onwards. As the bodies moved, it was clear from their size and muscle mass, that they were those of Iron Warriors.
'Where are they taking them?' said Leonid.
'For burial perhaps,' suggested Uriel.
'I didn't think the Iron Warriors cared too much about honouring the dead.'
'Nor did I, but why else bring the fallen back inside the walls?'
'Who knows, but I have a feeling we'll be finding out soon,' said Vaanes, gloomily.
'If it is connected to our mission, then yes, you're right,' said Uriel continuing down the stairs to the interior of the fortress. The stone steps reflected the light from the purple clouds above the iron tower and Uriel wondered what dark practices and plans had been hatched within its cold depths. The stairs curled down the diffside of the mountain, widening until they formed a long processional that opened into a bone-flagged esplanade with iron execution poles spaced at regular intervals.
Corpses hung from three of the poles, dry and desiccated, their skin sagging and blotchy. Uriel ignored them, staring into the dark mass of hammering buildings and winding, haunted streets that led towards the tower.
The same emerald glow that suffused the mountain's interior from above was stronger now that they had reached the bottom of the stairs though, the source of its sickly glow was invisible. The manufactories towered above them, the noise of grinding pistons, hissing valves and clanging hammers echoing from all around them and Uriel tasted ash and hot metal on the air.
'Let's go,' said Uriel, as much to galvanise himself into action as to issue an order.
He set off with his bolter at the ready, the Space Marines of the warrior band following close behind him, instinctively falling into a defensive formation with Leonid and Ellard at their centre and all their guns pointing outwards.
A chill of the soul pierced every warrior as they entered the evil shadows of Khalan-Ghol, the chill of plunging into the black waters of an underground lake that has never known the warming touch of a sun. Uriel shivered, feeling a thousand eyes upon him, but seeing nothing and no one moving around them.
'Where are all the people we saw from above?' asked Vaanes.
'I was wondering the same thing,' said Pasanius. 'This place looked well occupied.'
'Perhaps they are hiding from us,' replied Ellard.
'Or perhaps it just seemed occupied,' suggested Uriel, casting wary glances all around him, catching fleeting snatches of movement from in the shadows. 'This place will confound our senses and try to mislead us with illusions and falsehoods. Remember what happened in the tunnel.'
The streets and narrow alleys of Khalan-Ghol twisted at random, zigzagging and twisting around until Uriel could not say for sure which way they were even heading any more. He wished he still had his helmet, but wasn't sure that even its direction finding auspex would be any use here. He couldn't see the iron tower in the cramped streets and had to trust that his instincts were leading them towards it.
Tall shadows danced on the walls, capering along the sides of the black brick buildings, as though racing them through the interior of the fortress. The darkness pressed in around them, and Uriel found himself absurdly grateful for fleeting snatches of the white sky above them. He could feel the power of the black sun above him, but kept his eyes averted for fear of the madness it promised in its fuliginous depths.
Tinny laughter, like a child's, seeped from the walls and shadows and Uriel could see the Space Marines were greatly unsettled by such a plaintive sound. He was reminded of the joyous cries the delirium spectres emitted on their death and wondered if there were similar creatures lurking somewhere nearby.
It seemed that for hours they wandered, lost and misdirected by the insanities of the daemon city. Uriel could find no landmarks upon which to base his choice of direction, the iron tower obscured by the looming sides of the windowless forges and the impenetrable shadows cast by the black sun.
Eventually, he called a halt to their march and ran a hand
across his sweat-streaked scalp. There was no rhyme or reason to the layout of the fortress, if even such a thing truly existed. Travelling down the same street was no guarantee of arriving at the same place and doubling back did not return them to whence they had begun.
Impossible physics misdirected them at every turn and Uriel was at a loss as to how to proceed. He squatted on his haunches and placed his gun across his thighs, resting his head against the crumbling brickwork of the building behind him.
He could feel the pounding of heavy industry through the building's fabric, but of all the weirdly angled structures they had passed, they had seen neither window nor entrance to them, simply smoking chimneys and steaming vents.
'What now?' asked Vaanes. 'We're lost aren't we?'
Uriel nodded, too weary and soul sick to even reply.
Vaanes, slung his bolter across his shoulder, as though he had expected no other answer. He looked towards either end of the narrow, enclosing street, its surface black and oily, with the rainbow sheen of spilt promethium to it.
'Is it just me or is it getting darker here?' he asked.
'How can it be getting darker, Vaanes?' snapped Uriel. 'That damned black sun never sets, never even so much as moves in the sky. So I ask you, how can it be getting darker?'
'I don't know,' hissed Vaanes. 'But it is. Look!'
Uriel rolled his head around and saw that Vaanes was right. Creeping liquid shadows were slithering up the walls, swallowing the light and obscuring the surfaces of the buildings they climbed. Inky black, the shadows rippled from the walls, spreading like slicks across the ground and rearing up at the ends of the cobbled street to enclose them.
'What the hell is going on?' gasped Uriel as the sinister, impossible shadows began to coalesce before them, nightmare pools of foetid black iridescence that crept across the walls and street towards them from both front and back.
They drove stinking clouds of vapours straight from the abyss itself before them, vile toxic fumes and indescribable pollutants. Shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles erupted across their amorphous forms, and Uriel now saw the source of the pallid, emerald glow that suffused the city as myriad temporary eyes formed and unformed in the hideous depths, glowing with their own luminescence.
'What are they?' he cried as the slithering mass of filthy, stinking creatures - or creature - oozed forwards.
'What does it matter?' shouted Vaanes. 'Kill them!'
Bolters fired explosive bolts into the heaving mass of corruption, exploding within the jelly-like mass of the things' bodies and the overpowering stench of chemical and biological pollutants gusted from the wounds.
Uriel caught a breath of the fumes and immediately dropped to his knees and vomited copiously across the ground. Even the formidable biological enhancements of a Space Marine were unable to overcome the sickening, horrific stench their bolters had unleashed.
More and more Space Marines dropped to the ground, retching and convulsing at the foulness of the creatures.
'Pasanius!' gasped Uriel. 'Use your flamer!'
He could not tell whether his battle-brother had heard his exclamation, but seconds later Pasanius bathed the advancing beasts in sheets of flame from his hissing weapon. The fires engulfed the beasts, leaping high and burning with terrifying force, as though they contained every flammable substance known to man.
Crackling ooze burned with a white flame and Pasanius switched his aim to the approaching shadow creatures behind them. More liquid flame sprayed and the deafening cries of the burning creatures reached new heights as they burned. Insensate eyes immolated and new ones formed in the fluid flesh of the beasts as the flames burned them. Eye-watering fumes were released from the conflagration, but even though it seemed the beasts were in pain, they did not retreat, holding them trapped within the narrow street.
The heat was intense, but protected by power armour, the Space Marines were immune to the lethal temperatures. The Space Marines sheltered the two Guardsmen as best they could from the killing heat, but Uriel could see that both Leonid and Ellard were on the verge of collapse. The fires killed the worst of the stench and Uriel pulled himself to his feet using the wall.
'Why don't they die?' cursed Vaanes. He held his bolter at the ready and Uriel could see he desperately wanted to fire, but kept his finger clear of the trigger guard, having seen how little effect their initial volley had had. Space Marines picked themselves up, forming a defensive cordon between the walls of flame at either end of the street.
'And why aren't they attacking?' wondered Pasanius. 'Until they went up in flames, it looked like they were ready to overrun us.'
'I'm not sure,' answered Uriel, as an unsettling suspicion began to settle in his gut. 'I think that maybe they never intended to kill us, that maybe they intended something else.'
'What?' asked Vaanes.
'Maybe they just intended to trap us here,' said Uriel, watching as a warrior in glossy black power armour and glowing silver traceries for veins marched through the leaping flames, the oozing matter of the beasts parting before him.
Bronze claws unsheathed from both his grey-fleshed hands and his eyes burned with a soulless silver light.
'Found you,' said the warrior.
CHAPTER TWELVE
'You survived the bedlam portals,' said the warrior, sounding faintly impressed as he walked towards the Space Marines. His armour was utterly black, not even the bright flames reflecting on its mirror-smooth surfaces. Uriel saw that the warrior did not carry a gun, but that did not put him any more at ease. After all, how supremely confident must a warrior be to come before more than two-dozen Space Marines unarmed?
Though to call this warrior unarmed was a misnomer, thought Uriel, seeing his long, glittering bronze claws.
'Who are you?' called Uriel.
The warrior smiled, dull silver light spilling from his mouth as he spoke. 'You have not the aural or vocal configurations to hear or speak my name, so you will know me as Onyx.'
The Space Marines turned their guns on Onyx, the crackling flames beginning to die as more ripples of shadow slithered into the street and quenched them in darkness.
'Are these your creatures?' asked Uriel, raising his own weapon.
'The Exuviae? No, they are nothing more than the polluted filth of Khalan-Ghol, waste matter shed by its industry that mutated to idiot life. They infest this place, but they have their uses.'
'You would do well to let us pass,' snarled Vaanes. . Onyx shook his head. 'No, my master has commanded me to bring you to him.'
'Your master?' said Uriel. 'Honsou?'
'Indeed,' said Onyx.
Uriel could see that there was no they were going to get past Onyx without violence. He had no idea how fearsome the enemy warrior Onyx was in blade-to-blade combat and had no desire to find out.
Calmly, he said, 'Kill him.'
Bolter fire ripped along the street, but Onyx moved like quicksilver, a darting shadow that slipped between the shells and pirouetted above the hail of gunfire. Bronze claws slashed for Uriel's belly and he threw himself back against the wall, only just avoiding being disembowelled by Onyx's stroke.
Pasanius stepped in and hammered his boot towards Onyx, but the black warrior spun away and cracked his elbow into Pasanius's face before leaping over him and delivering a spinning kick to Ardaric Vaanes. Kyama Shae fired his bolter at point blank range, the shells ricocheting from the gleaming black armour of his target.
Onyx lunged close and hammered his fist into Shae's gut, the bronze claws tearing through the Crimson Fist's armour and ripping upwards. Onyx spun away from his victim with a tortured crack of bone, Shae's spinal column clenched in his fist. The Space Marine collapsed to his knees, blood flooding from the great wound torn in his body. His eyes stared in horrid fascination at his spinal column in another's hands for the briefest second before he pitched face first to the ground.
Uriel's jaw dropped open in horror at the sight, as the dripping, bloody spinal column was enve
loped within the glassy darkness of Onyx's armour, and the silver-eyed killer leapt upwards as more bolter fire raked the wall behind him. He pushed off from the wall, twisting in midair to lash out with his claws and feet, crushing windpipes and decapitating Space Marines with every blow.
As he landed, he plunged his bloodstained blades into each victim, ripping their spines out with the awful sound of splintering bone. Five Space Marines were down and they hadn't managed to shed a drop of this thing's blood. Uriel sprayed bolts towards Onyx, but no matter how he anticipated the killer's movements, he was always just that little bit too slow to hit him.
'Emperor save us, he's too fast!' shouted Vaanes.
Another Space Marine fell, ripped open from groin to sternum and Uriel could see that Onyx was not going to be too particular in how he carried out his master's wishes. The black-armoured warrior spun through the air, his blazing silver veins and eyes leaving molten trails as he moved with preternatural speed.
Uriel raised his bolter as Onyx leapt for him, but knew that he wouldn't be quick enough. Onyx's fist hammered into his throat, the claws on the furthest extremities of his fists pinning him to the wall behind. Uriel's head cracked painfully against the brickwork and he felt blood matt his hair. He saw that Onyx's middle claw was partially retracted into his flesh, the point pricking the skin of Uriel's throat.
'Anyone else moves and your leader dies!' shouted Onyx, bathing Uriel in silver light as he spoke. The flames from the burning Exuviae had died and the renewed oily, shadow beasts slithered forward, rearing up on amorphous bodies that now achieved a semblance of solidity. The survivors of the warrior band surrounded Onyx and Uriel, their weapons aimed squarely at the symbiote's back.
'I thought you said your master wanted you to bring us to him,' gasped Uriel.
'He did,' nodded Onyx. 'But he didn't say if you were to be alive.'
'He's not our leader,' said Vaanes. 'So go ahead and kill him, but you will follow him into death!'
Ultramarines Omnibus (warhammer 40000: ultramarines) Page 85
