Graham McNeill: Killing Ground

He was under no illusions - blood would be spilled tonight.

No sooner had Uriel stepped from the palace and into the dusk of evening than he had felt the smothering gloom of the looming threat. The presence of the vengeful dead saturated the air and scraped along the nerves like a discordant vibration.

With no time to waste, Leodegarius had mustered his warriors and, together with Uriel and Pasanius and Serj Casuaban, they had set off through the streets of Barbadus towards the House of Providence. Two Rhinos followed behind the Land Raider and despite the sheer bulk and terror a Land Raider inspired, it was slow going, for the streets of Barbadus were thronged with people: shouting, agitated and scared people.

'It's a mess out there,' said Pasanius, looking at the pict-slate.

'No one knows what's happening, but they know that something is terribly wrong,' said Uriel.

'Aye, you're right, you don't need to be psychic to know that,' agreed Pasanius, looking towards Leodegarius's vast bulk. The warrior's blade gleamed red in the light of the troop compartment and Uriel shivered as he felt its potency as a shrill prickling along the length of his spine.

'It is a Nemesis weapon,' said Leodegarius, as if sensing Uriel's scrutiny, 'a blade forged by the finest artificers of Titan and quenched in the blood of a daemon.'

'The Unfleshed?' asked Uriel. 'Will it kill them?'

'It killed two of them in the plaza before the building I pulled you out of.'

'Two,' said Uriel sadly, 'that leaves maybe five or six left.'

' You feel sympathy for them?' asked Leodegarius.

'I do,' agreed Uriel. 'They didn't deserve this.'

'Perhaps not, but few people in this galaxy get what they deserve.'

'He will,' said Pasanius, jerking his thumb at Serj Casuaban, looking wretched and miserable in the far corner of the compartment.

Pasanius turned away from the dejected medicae and addressed Leodegarius. 'I still say we should bomb this place from orbit. You've got a ship up there, haven't you?'

'I have,' said Leodegarius without turning, 'and if we cannot stop Thayer then I will order a lance strike from orbit.'

'No, you can't!' cried Serj Casuaban. 'There are innocents in the House of Providence, not to mention all the people you'd kill and maim in the city with a strike like that! Give that order and you're no better than Barbaden.'

'Or you,' said Pasanius. ' You were at Khaturian as well.'

'I killed no one,' said Casuaban defensively.

'You let Barbaden give the order,' said Pasanius. 'Did you even try to stop him?'

'You don't know him. Once Leto has his mind made up, there's not a thing in the world can make him change it.'

'Fine,' said Pasanius, turning to Uriel, 'then why don't we give these dead folk what they want? Barbaden and Togandis are locked up in the cells and we have this one here, so why not just put a bullet in the backs of their heads? Wouldn't that solve the problem?'

'You'd kill me in cold blood?' demanded Casuaban.

'If it would save the planet, aye,' nodded Pasanius, 'in a heartbeat.'

'Pasanius, enough,' snapped Uriel. 'We're not shooting anyone. This is about justice, not revenge. We stop Sylvanus Thayer and then the three of them will face a court martial for war crimes.'

Uriel paused as a sudden thought came to him and turned to face Leodegarius. 'Is it safe to keep Barbaden and Togandis in the palace cells? Won't the dead be able to get to them there?'

'No, I am maintaining an aegis sanctuary over them,' said Leodegarius. 'No power of the warp will be able to touch them.'

Uriel wanted to ask more, but the Grey Knight held up his hand. 'We are here,' he said.

'How does it look?'

'Bad.'

Despite the fact that he was languishing in a cell beneath the rock of the Imperial Palace, Shavo Togandis was more at peace than he had been in the last ten years. All the guilt was, if not gone, at least less of a burden now that the truth of the Killing Ground was known.

The air in the circular prison complex was cold, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, Togandis was not sweating. Stripped of his ceremonial robes, he had been permitted to retain the undergarments of his vestments, as none of the prison issue tunics were large enough for him.

He knelt before the bars of his cell, facing the featureless guard building in the centre of the chamber, his hands clasped before him, reciting prayers that rushed to fill the void in his mind that had been left by the fear of discovery.

' You think praying will do any good?' asked Leto Barbaden from the cell next to his.

Togandis finished his prayer and turned his head to face the man who had lived in his nightmares for the past decade. Looking at him now, he wondered what he had found so terrifying. Leto Barbaden might be a monster on the inside, but to look at him he was just an ordinary man. Not too strong and not too clever, just an ordinary man.

Just as he was an ordinary man.

Which only made the scale of their crimes all the more horrifying.

How could anyone believe that such evil could come from such unremarkable specimens?

Surely the slaughter of so many innocent lives could only have been at the behest of some winged, fire-breathing daemon or undertaken by a host of bloodthirsty orks.

No, it had been done by men and women.

They had done it, and the nearness of the punishment was a blessed relief to the former cardinal.

'I think prayer can't hurt, Leto,' he answered. 'We are going to pay for what we did and I need to get right with the Emperor before then.'

'They can cook up a farce of a trial, but I won't apologise. They'll get nothing from me.'

'Even now, with everything in the open, you still don't think we did anything wrong?'

'Of course not,' snapped Barbaden.

'Then you are truly lost, Leto,' said Togandis with a shake of his head. 'I always knew you were a very dangerous man, but I don't think I realised why until now.'

'What are you babbling about?'

'You are the dark heart of man, Leto,' answered Togandis. 'You are the evil that can lurk in any of us, the potential to commit the most heinous acts and do it with a smile on our faces. There is a wall of conscience between acts of good and evil inside most of us, but that's missing in you. I don't know why, but for you there is no concept of evil, just results.'

The words flowed from Togandis and he felt the catharsis of them as he spoke.

He closed his eyes and smiled as he smelled the faint, but distinct aroma of burning flesh.

'They're coming, Leto.'

Togandis turned his head and looked out beyond the bars as he heard shouts and cries of alarm from the other prisoners.

A mist of shimmering light was forming in the chamber, as though some ductwork had split open and was pouring hot steam into the gaol. Togandis knew it was no such thing and smiled as he saw a host of jostling, ghostly forms in the mist.

First to emerge from the acrid smoke was a small girl, her dress blackened and smouldering. Her flesh was burned and hung from her body in melted strips.

Other forms joined the girl: men, women and more children. On they came until it seemed as though the chamber was filled with the dead.

They moved as though blown by a gentle breeze, drawing near to the cells. Togandis welcomed them, knowing that neither he nor Leto Barbaden would ever stand before a court martial.

Togandis looked over at Leto Barbaden and didn't know whether to be impressed or revolted at his lack of emotion. The former governor of Salinas appeared as unmoved by these apparitions of death as he did by everything else in life.

How grey life must be to him, thought Togandis.

The young girl turned her face to Barbaden and said, 'You were there.'