Pasanius wept at its horrible, crushing weight and Uriel was not surprised to find that he too shed tears at the sight of such an abomination against nature.
'Emperor protect us.' he whispered. 'This is...'
'Aye.' said the Omphalos Daemonium. 'This is the place you call the Eye of Terror.'
'Why...?' gasped Uriel, tearing his gaze from the morbid sun. 'Why here?'
'This is the end of your journey. The place where you will fulfil your oath.'
'I do not understand.'
'That matters not. The things you seek to destroy, the daemonculaba, are on this world, shuttered away in the darkness, far from the sight of man in a great fastness fashioned from madness and despair.'
'Why would you bring us here?' demanded Uriel, a measure of his self-control returning. 'Why would a creature of Chaos seek to aid us?'
The Omphalos Daemonium laughed its booming, discordant laugh and said, 'Because you are to do my bidding, Uriel Ventris.'
'Never!' snapped Uriel. 'We would die before aiding a beast such as you.'
'Perhaps.' agreed the giant warrior. 'But are you willing to sacrifice all that you have fought to protect by defying me? Everything you have sacrificed and everyone you have bled to save will be washed away in an ocean of blood if you do.'
'You lie.' growled Pasanius.
'Foolish morsels. What need have I of lies? The Architect of Fate has lies enough for this universe: the Lord of Skulls demands no such pretences. I know what you saw as we travelled the bloodtracks, your world afire and your people dead, ashes on the wind as it burned to death.'
The Omphalos Daemonium took a ponderous step towards them, its billhook lowered to aim at Uriel's chest.
'I can make that happen.' it promised. 'All the splintered futures you saw can be shaped and I can ensure that your precious home dies screaming in the flames. Do you believe that?'
Uriel stared into the leprous yellow eyes of the daemon and knew with utter certainty that it could do the things it spoke of - Macragge destroyed, Ultramar gone...
'Yes, I believe you.' he said at last. 'What would you have us do?'
'Uriel!' cried Pasanius.
'I do not believe we have a choice, my friend.' said Uriel slowly.
'Think of what you are saying.' said Pasanius in disbelief. 'Whatever this bastard thing wants us to do can only be for evil. Who knows what we might unleash if we agree to do what it wants?'
'I know that, Pasanius, but what else can we do? Would you see Ultramar destroyed? The Fortress of Hera brought to ruin?'
'No, of course not, but-'
'No, Pasanius.' said Uriel evenly. 'Trust me. You have to trust me. Do you trust me?'
'You know I do.' protested Pasanius. 'I trust you with my life, but this is madness!'
'Then trust me now.' pressed Uriel.
Pasanius opened his mouth to speak once more, but saw the look in Uriel's eyes and simply nodded curtly.
'Very well.' he said sadly.
'Good.' hissed the Omphalos Daemonium, revelling in their defeat. 'There is a fortress many leagues from here, high in the southern mountains, and its master has something deep in his most secret vault that belongs to me. You will retrieve it for me.'
'What is it?' asked Uriel.
'It is the Heart of Blood, and that it is precious to me is all you need know.'
'What does it look like? How will we recognise it?'
The Omphalos Daemonium chuckled. 'You will know it when you see it.'
'Why do you need us for this?' demanded Pasanius. 'If it's so damned important, why the hell don't you just get it yourself?'
The Omphalos Daemonium was silent for a beat, then said, 'I have seen you with it and it is your destiny to do this. That is enough.'
Uriel nodded, hearing a distant, shrill cry on the air.
The Omphalos Daemonium heard the noise too and cocked its head, turning and marching back to the rectangle of red light that led back into the daemon engine and the hissing Sarcomata.
As it reached the shimmering doorway, it said, 'The delirium spectres come. They hear the beat of your hearts and their hunger tears at them. It would be wise not to be found by them.'
'Wait!' said Uriel, but the Omphalos Daemonium stepped through the doorway and he watched helplessly as it faded and vanished from the mountainside, taking their daemonic captor from sight.
A leaden weight of despair settled on Uriel's soul as the Omphalos Daemonium disappeared, and he dropped to his knees as he heard the cries of what sounded like a skirling chorus of air raid sirens.
He looked into the dead sky and saw a flock of hybrid, winged... things, flapping rhythmically on fleshy pinions towards them from the high peaks of the mountains.
'What the hell...?' said Pasanius, squinting into the sky.
'The delirium spectres.' said Uriel, scrambling over the ashen ground to retrieve his weapons.
'What do we do?' said Pasanius, belting on his pistol and slinging his flamer over his shoulder.
'We run.' said Uriel, as the madly screeching flock drew closer.
CHAPTER FOUR
Black shapes against the white sky screeched as they descended from the heights of the mountains and streaked towards the two Space Marines. The delirium spectres filled the air with the wails of murder victims and Uriel could hear their agony in every shriek torn from their bodies.
He scanned the plateau for obvious hiding places, hating the idea of flight, but knowing that the Omphalos Daemonium had not lied when it had told them that it would be wise not to be found by these creatures.
'Uriel.' said Pasanius, pointing further up the steep slopes of the mountain to a narrow defile in the rock-face. 'There! I don't think they will be able to get in there.'
'Can we make it?'
'Only one way to find out.' said Pasanius, setting off for the scree slope.
Uriel buckled on his sword and ran after Pasanius, his breath ragged and strained in the toxic atmosphere. His back felt as if it was on fire, but he pushed aside the pain as he reached the slope and began climbing after Pasanius. The slope was rough, composed of dusty iron filings, craggy lumps of coal and twisted scoria. Pasanius's prodigious strength enabled him to scale the slope, albeit with great difficulty, but the loose incline gave Uriel no purchase and the harder he struggled, the further he slid back.
Screeching wails of obscene hunger echoed from behind and he risked a glance over his shoulder as the first of the delirium spectres dived from above.
'Uriel!' shouted Pasanius from a ledge above. 'Go left!'
He rolled to the left as the creature dropped from the sky, welded iron claws on its wings gouging the ground where his head had been.
He kicked out and the creature skidded down the slope, its fleshy wings beating the air in fury as it righted itself. Its shape was like that of some great, ocean-dwelling manta ray, an external skeleton formed of iron struts with its flesh a billowing sheet of patchwork human skin stitched to the metal. Screaming faces bulged across its leathery hide, a vicious 'o' of a mouth edged in hundreds of needle-like teeth.
Another three creatures swooped from above, their jaws stretching across the entire surface of their skin and billowing wings flaring out to arrest their dives as they smashed into Uriel. The creature Uriel had knocked aside leapt into the air with a discordant howl as he struggled with the beasts that enfolded him, their teeth gnashing against his armour.
Pasanius shot the airborn delirium spectre, but his bolt passed clean through its flesh before detonating and it altered its course to swoop further up the slope to attack him with a deafening screech.
Uriel gripped the greasy flesh of the monsters attacking him and wrenched it from his armour, seeing anguished faces bulge from the surface of the skin and reach out to him. He punched through a thrashing jaw, his fist ripping through the taut skin as a flare of heat washed over him from above and he heard Pasanius shout, 'Get back!'
The beast thrashed in his grip as the others sna
pped and bit at him. He forced his other hand through the wound he had punched, rolling down the slope and dislodging the others. He gripped the flapping skin to either side and tore it from the iron frame, feeling the souls trapped within scream of their release.
Flickering lights and joyous cries erupted from the dying beast, and as the last soul departed, Uriel was left with an inanimate pile of torn flesh and metal in his hands. He hurled its remains aside as yet more of the creatures circled lower. Uriel drew his sword, slashing the energised blade through the flesh of the nearest delirium spectre, drawing a hysterical shriek of freedom from its jaws before it collapsed.
The last beast leapt towards him and he dived forwards, rolling and slashing high with his blade and hacking it into two halves as it passed overhead.
He heard another cry of release and saw a lifeless pile of iron struts and burning skin lying further upslope. Pasanius had his flamer out, spraying burning gouts of promethium into the air to discourage the other creatures from approaching too closely.
'Come on!' shouted Pasanius. 'I don't know how much longer this will hold them!'
Uriel sheathed his sword and stopped to grab two shorn lengths of iron from the corpse of the nearest monster before heading once more for the treacherous slope.
Driving the lengths of iron bar deep into the powdery shale like crude pitons, Uriel was able to climb the slope without too much difficulty while Pasanius kept the delirium spectres at bay with his flamer.
At last he reached the ledge and rolled onto his back as the delirium spectres closed in again. He drew his sword once more and slashed the first apart, feeling a grim satisfaction as it screamed in gratitude before its dissolution. Others burned in the fire, child-like laughter rippling from their blazing flesh as they died.
The two Space Marines edged backwards to the sanctuary of the defile, killing the shrieking, swooping beasts every time they came near. Though they killed dozens of them, Uriel could see hundreds more gathering around the mountaintops and knew that unless they found cover soon, they were as good as dead. They could not hope to hold off that many forever.
The defile was behind them and Uriel glanced along its length as it wound further and deeper into the mountain. Flocks of the delirium spectres circled lower and Uriel prayed they would not be able to follow them.
'I can't tell where it leads!' he said.
'It doesn't matter, does it?' replied Pasanius, bleeding from a patchwork of shallow cuts across the side of his head. 'We don't have much choice.'
'Give them one more blast, then follow me in!'
Pasanius nodded and shouted, 'Go!' and sent another stream of blazing liquid towards the shrieking monsters. Uriel darted into the defile, the narrow basalt walls glassy, black and reflective. It scraped against his shoulder guards, cutting grooves through the paint, and Uriel offered a whispered prayer of forgiveness to the armour's battle-spirit at such careless treatment.
Pasanius backed into the narrow defile, having to force his way sidelong through its narrow length and Uriel had a sickening vision of the pair of them trapped here and waiting to be picked off by these vile creatures.
'Damn, but it's tight.' grunted Pasanius stoically.
Frustrated screeches rang from above and Uriel saw scores of the monstrous beasts flashing overhead across the narrow strip of sky at the top of the defile. He pushed further along its twisting length, the ground sloping upwards and the distance between them and the open sky diminishing with every step.
'We' running out of room!' he called back, as a desperate scrabbling of claws and clanging of metal on stone sounded from above. Hissing beasts, fleshy wings thrashing, forced themselves down into the defile, their screeches echoing deafeningly in the enclosed space. Wails of frantic hunger and longing spat from their bodies and Uriel stabbed upwards, skewering the first of the delirium spectres on his blade.
More forced themselves into the defile, clanging and beating against one another as they struggled to reach their prey.
Unable to fire his flamer in such a confined space, Pasanius ripped them apart with his bare hands, tearing the skin from the desecrated frames with angry bellows. Uriel stabbed and cut blindly, dead flesh enfolding him and sharp teeth snapping at his face. The sound of tearing skin mingled with their grunts of pain and the incongruous noise of joyful souls escaping their hideous torment as each beast died.
'Keep going!' shouted Pasanius in a lull between the ferocious attacks.
'I don't know what's ahead.' answered Uriel.
'It can't be any worse than this!'
Uriel couldn't disagree and forged onwards, wiping clotted blood from his forehead and desperately seeking somewhere that would offer better shelter. The delirium spectres resumed their circling above the defile, patiently waiting for another chance to attack.
The defile twisted and turned, each step winding further into the mountain until at last it turned downwards and led out onto a narrow path that ran along the side of a sheer cliff.
The rockface fell away for hundreds of metres on one side of the path and at its end Uriel could see a narrow cave, its entrance surrounded with a forest of long iron spikes hammered into the rock.
'There's a cave ahead.' said Uriel. 'Looks like someone has used it to hide from these things already.'
'How can you tell?'
'There are spikes around the cave mouth. I doubt these beasts could get near the entrance without fouling their wings.'
'That just begs the question-'
'Who put them there?' finished Uriel.
Pasanius looked towards the sky, hearing the delirium spectres clanging from the rock and their shrill cries drawing closer as they circled down to attack once again.
'We will have to make a break for it.' said Uriel.
'We'll never make it.' pointed out Pasanius. 'They'd be on us before we got halfway.'
'You think I don't know that?' snapped Uriel. 'But we have to try.'
Uriel bit his lip as he wondered how far they could get before the creatures caught them. They might be able to fight some of them off, but not all of them, and even if the monsters didn't kill them, it would be only too easy for them to hurl them from the path.
And to fall such a distance would be fatal, even to one as mighty as a Space Marine.
One of the monsters flew overhead, its blind hunger loathsome and utterly alien.
'Wait...' said Uriel as a memory struggled to the surface of his mind.
'What?'
'When the Omphalos Daemonium spoke of these creatures it said something about how they hunted, something about our hearts and how we wouldn't go unnoticed for long.'
'And?'
'And that's how they are hunting us, they can hear our heartbeats.' said Uriel.
Pasanius was silent for a moment before saying, 'Then we take away what they need to hunt us.'
'You still remember the mantras that trigger the sus-an membrane?'
'Aye, though it's been decades since I've needed to recite them.'
'I know, but we damn well better get them right.' said Uriel. 'I don't want to fall into a coma halfway along that path.'
Pasanius nodded in understanding as Uriel slowly crept to the edge of the defile. The delirium spectres were high above them, but still too close for them to have any hope of reaching the cave entrance unmolested.
Uriel turned to Pasanius and said, 'Go when I go. Slowly, but not too slowly, I don't want you dying on the way.'
'I'll try not to.' replied Pasanius dryly.
Uriel closed his eyes and recited the verses taught to him by Apothecary Selenus that began the hormonal activation of the sus-an membrane, an organ implanted within his brain tissue during his transformation into a Space Marine. He took deep breaths, regulating his breathing and forcing his heart rate to slow. What he was doing was extremely dangerous, normally requiring many hours of meditation and the correct prayers, but Uriel knew they didn't have time for such preparations.
Uriel could fe
el his hearts pounding in his chest, their rhythmic beats slowing.
Forty beats a minute, thirty, twenty, ten...
He could hear Pasanius repeating the same mantras, knowing that they had to move and reach the cave before the organ activated fully and plunged them into a state, of complete suspended animation and their hearts stopped beating completely.
Three beats a minute... two...
Uriel stood, his vision greying at the edges and his limbs feeling leaden.
He nodded to Pasanius and walked from the transient cover of the defile, moving as quickly as he dared along the path towards the cave mouth. Pasanius followed, the piercing shrieks of the daemonic furies above him almost breaking his concentration and icy sweat streaking his pale face. Both Space Marines hugged the cliff face as they inched their way along the path.
The winged beasts swooped towards them, their shrieks ringing from the cliff-face as they circled and climbed in confusion, unable to pinpoint them.
They were almost at the cave as the flocks above wheeled aimlessly in the air.
Two of the delirium spectres flapped noisily past Uriel, their wings flaring as they landed with a scrape of claws on the path before him. Their cries were low and hideous as they turned slowly their rippling, fleshy skins trying to discern their quarry.
Uriel slowed as he inched his way past the monsters, fighting to hold his body in the limbo between life and a self-induced coma.
He stumbled, his boot scraping against the nearest beast's claws...
He froze.
But whatever other senses it may have possessed, the creature did not register the touch and ignored him.
Uriel edged past the oblivious monster.
The second beast took to the air as he drew near the end of the path and-
One beat...
The delirium spectre twisted in midair, giving voice to an ear-splitting shriek as it heard the thudding beat of his heart. The flocks above ceased their confused wheeling and turned as one towards them, screeching in triumph.
'Move!' shouted Uriel, abandoning all subterfuge and running for the cave mouth, ducking below the first spike and threading his way between the others to reach the entrance. He staggered inside, gasping a great lungful of air. His chest was a raging inferno as his hearts suddenly leapt from a virtual standstill to their normal rhythm in a matter of moments.