Graham McNeill: Killing Ground

Like the main room, this chamber was blackened by fire damage, the walls peeling and bubbled where the heat had not quite reached to scorch. The room was empty and dark, a bedroom by the look of the rusted iron bed frame collapsed in one corner.

Uriel made a circuit of the room, looking for something that the autogun in the outer room might have been pointing at. Feeling slightly foolish, he was about to leave when he saw the words written on the wall.

Partially obscured by dust, the words were nevertheless clearly visible to his genhanced eyesight, hidden, but visible to someone who was looking for something.

The Sons of Salinas will rise again!

Uriel frowned as he read the words, wondering what they meant.

Who were the Sons of Salinas?

A cult? A resistance movement? A pro-Imperial faction?

Whoever they were, they had been careful to hide their imprecation to rebellion and that alone made Uriel suspicious of their allegiance.

Was Salinas a person or the name of this world?

Uriel turned as a shadow was thrown out on the wall before him. Crunching, heavy footsteps and a wet animal smell told him who had followed him and he lowered his sword.

He edged into the main room of the house, and as he cleared the doorway, he saw the Lord of the Unfleshed crouching beside the wall where the two silhouettes were emblazoned. The creature's enormous head lowered to sniff at the wall and his eyes widened as he took in the scent.

'These people…?' said the Lord of the Unfleshed.

'What about them?'

'This place… Many families?'

'Yes,' agreed Uriel. 'This was a city.'

'And these people?' asked the Lord of the Unfleshed.

'They lived here,' said Uriel.

'They died here.'

Uriel nodded, sheathing his sword. 'They did, but I don't know why.'

'This world feels wrong, sick. I not think that we be happy here,' whispered the enormous beast. 'Men that killed these people… They are bad men, like Iron Men.'

'How do you know that?' asked Uriel.

The enormous creature shrugged, as though the answer should have been obvious, and turned away from the wall, to where a collection of children's toys lay scattered in the corner of the room. The Lord of the Unfleshed crouched beside the toys, a melted doll with a scorched dress and a pile of blocks with the letters burned from them.

The beginnings of what might have been a smile creased the creature's face and Uriel felt his heart go out to the Lord of the Unfleshed, wondering what the future might have held for the child he had once been had the Iron Warriors not cruelly abducted him.

'Bad men will want to kill us,' said the Lord of the Unfleshed without looking up.

'Why do you say that?' asked Uriel, though he suspected the sentiment was accurate.

'I know we are monsters,' said the creature. 'A bad man that kills families will fear us.'

'No,' said Uriel, 'I won't let that happen.'

'Why?'

'Because you deserve a chance to live.'

'You think the Unfleshed can live here?'

'I don't know,' admitted Uriel, 'but what chance did you have on Medrengard? I don't know anything about this world, where it is or even what it's called, but I promise you I will do everything I can to make sure you have a better life here. What happened to you… It was monstrous, but you don't deserve to be condemned for it. You just have to be patient for a little longer and stay hidden until I can find the right time to tell people of you. Can you do that?'

'Unfleshed good at staying hidden. Not be found unless we want to be. Learned that on world of Iron Men.'

'Then stay here, stay hidden and when the time is right, Pasanius and I will come and get you. Then you will feel the sun on your face and not have to worry about Iron Men.'

'A better life,' said the Lord of the Unfleshed. 'You promise?'

'A better life,' agreed Uriel.

'And the Emperor will love us?'

'He will,' said Uriel. 'He loves all his subjects.'

The Lord of the Unfleshed nodded and turned his massive head towards Uriel. Such a terrible, twisted face was incapable of guile and Uriel felt the responsibility of the creature's simple faith in him. He had promised them a better future and he had to make good on that promise.

The Lord of the Unfleshed's head snapped up and the folds of flesh above his jaws pulsed.

'Men are coming,' said the creature, 'men on machines.'

Colonel Verena Kain stifled a yawn and rubbed a gloved hand across her eyes, her body naturally rolling with the motion of the Chimera armoured fighting vehicle she travelled in. Sitting high in the commander's hatch, she had a clear field of view across the rugged predawn landscape that followed the course of the river towards the ruined city of Khaturian.

She could see the jagged outline of the city ahead, stark against the bleak ruggedness of the mountains and a grim sight for this Emperor-forsaken hour of the morning. Moving with a unique, striding gait, six scout Sentinels darted ahead through the gloom, the bipedal machines ensuring that this fool's errand Mesira Bardhyl's warning had sent them on wasn't a Sons of Salinas ambush.

The scrawny psyker woman had arrived at the palace in the dead of night and demanded to see Governor Barbaden, which only served to prove her idiocy. Bardhyl had claimed she had something of great import to tell him, and once ushered into the governor's presence, she had sobbed out some nonsense about monsters and oceans of blood spilling out from the Killing Ground.

A slap to the face from Kain had halted her ramblings and she smiled as she remembered the look of shock on the woman's pinched face. Mesira Bardhyl had once been the sanctioned psyker attached to the Screaming Eagles, but was one of the cowards who had chosen to muster out of the regiment following the partial demobilisation of the Falcatas after Restoration Day. Kain had little time for such cravens and the chance to put Bardhyl in her place could not be passed up.

As a psyker, Bardhyl should have been handed over to the Commissariat following demobilisation, but, for reasons known only to himself, Barbaden had allowed her to quit the regiment without a fuss. Why he allowed Bardhyl to do so was beyond Kain, but she took great pains not to press him too hard on the subject, for Leto Barbaden's cold, diamond-sharp mind was an icy thing that could end her career as surely as his patronage had advanced it to the position he had once held.

When Bardhyl had calmed enough to speak without gratuitous hyperbole, she spoke of a great surge in warp energy that had appeared in the ruined city of Khaturian. Consultation with the Janiceps had confirmed that, and Barbaden had ordered her to take a detachment of troops out to the Killing Ground and investigate.

Behind Kain's vehicle, a further eleven Chimeras spread out in a staggered arrowhead formation, filled with over a hundred of her Screaming Eagles. Veterans of a score of campaigns and the most feared and disciplined soldiers of the Achaman Falcatas, the Eagles were her favoured warriors when order had to be restored with maximum efficiency and speed.

As the outline of the dead city drew closer, Kain felt a shiver of apprehension, but shook it off. The last time she had seen this place it had been completely ablaze and the sights and sounds of that night returned with the force of a recently unlocked memory.

She realised she had not thought of that night in many years, but the recollection did not trouble her as it did some members of her regiment. They had done what needed to be done and the planet had been brought to heel. She had no regrets and unconsciously reached up to touch the eagle medal that hung from the left breast of her uniform jacket.

Her Chimera bounced over the uneven ground and she raised battered magnoculars to her face, scanning the outline of the city as the Sentinels drew near the razor wire fence that surrounded the ruins.