The Killing Ground

  Agonising pain coursed through Uriel's body as the red-hot iron seared his flesh. His knees buckled and he bit back a cry as Leodegarius kept the burning metal pressed against his skin. Smoke and the horrific smell of blackened, charred flesh filled the air. The pain was intense, but Uriel closed his eyes and focused his mind on blocking it out.

  At last the brand was removed and Uriel gasped. The pain was still there, raw, hot and intense, but compared to the agony of the continued burning, it was as though his upper arm were bathed in cool water.

  A pair of robed chirurgeons stepped from the darkness behind him and the pain was replaced by a cool, clear sensation of relief as counterseptic was applied to the wound and burn gauze bound to his shoulder.

  'That is the first lesson,' said Leodegarius, handing the brand back to the servitor. 'When we begin, you are to speak only when I permit you to speak. Do you understand?'

  'Yes,' said Uriel, nodding, 'I understand.'

  'Then you are ready for the first ordeal,' said Leodegarius, 'the Ordeal of Inquisition.'

  'What are you going to ask me?'

  'Ask?' said the Grey Knight. 'I am not going to ask you anything.'

  CONCENTRIC CIRCLES WERE inscribed on the floor around Uriel and Leodegarius, cut by hooded servitors with acetylene torches for arms, and the grooves filled with bubbling lines of molten silver dispensed from golden urns upon their backs. Strange sigils that were incomprehensible to Uriel were cut in the space between the two circles, which were likewise filled with silver.

  Steam billowed from the design as the servitors finished the last of the silver sigils.

  'The Ordeal of Inquisition,' said Leodegarius, 'is as old as my order. My mind's eye will see into every darkened corner of your soul. I will know your every thought. You will be able to hide nothing from me. Understand that and you may save yourself a great deal of pain. If you have evil within you, confess it and your death will be swift. Deny it, and if I find any trace of corruption, your death will be agonising and long.'

  'I have nothing to confess,' said Uriel. 'I am not corrupt.'

  Leodegarius nodded, as though playing out a familiar drama. 'We shall see.'

  At last the design on the floor was complete, and the servitors vanished into the darkness, leaving Uriel and Leodegarius alone. As the servitors withdrew, seven other acolytes approached, each carrying a torch, their hoods drawn back. The firelight danced on their faces,, and the withered horror of their hairless heads made Uriel long for the darkness again.

  Their faces were those of corpses found in the desert, drawn and desiccated as though drained of all vitality and animation. Their eyes had been burned from their sockets, although whether by deliberate artifice or by nightmarish sights, Uriel could not say.

  As a Space Marine in the service of the Emperor, Uriel had seen his share of terrors: ancient star gods, the face of the Great Devourer and the abode of daemons, but to see these pitiful beings was to know that there were more terrible things still in the galaxy.

  The dreadful acolytes took up positions around them, forming a protective circle, and began to chant with a barely audible, static-like screech. Their low voices set up an atonal wall of sound without rhythm and Uriel felt the same deadening of the senses that he had felt when hooded.

  'The Null-Servitors create a barrier of psychic feedback,' explained Leodegarius. 'Together with the lines of power inscribed in the floor, it will prevent any corruption from leaving this circle should I falter in my inquisition of your body and soul.'

  'I understand the precaution,' said Uriel, 'but I keep telling you it is unnecessary.'

  'Be silent,' instructed Leodegarius, stepping forward and placing his hands on either side of Uriel's face. 'The Ordeal of Inquisition has begun.'

  The metal of the gauntlets was cold and Uriel felt their chill spread down through his skin, into the muscles of his face and past the bone of his skull. Cold, questing fingers prised open the lid of his mind and delved inside.

  Uriel's immediate inclination was to resist and the mental barriers of his will began to erect in response to the invasion. He looked into Leodegarius's icy blue eyes and the world seemed to contract until all he could see were those glacial orbs, as though crackling lines of power that could never be broken connected them.

  Uriel felt his entire body grow numb as the Grey Knight's psychic essence forced its way through his defences and into his thoughts.

  'Why do you resist?' asked Leodegarius, the implacable force of his mind pressing on Uriel's thoughts. 'Do you have something to hide after all?'

  Uriel tried to reply, but his tongue would not obey him. He tried to lower his defences and allow his interrogator access to his thoughts, but the natural reaction of a human mind is to protect its secrets and internal workings.

  Yet even as the defensive architecture of his brain buckled under the strain of resistance, Uriel knew that such a struggle would be futile in the face of the Grey Knight's power. With that realisation came the will to allow another being access to the hidden fortress of his mind: the guarded place where he kept his doubts, his fears, his hopes and his ambitions.

  Everything that made him Uriel Ventris would be laid bare for Leodegarius to see, to know and to understand. Every virtue and every vice was open to scrutiny and if Uriel were found wanting in any regard, his life would be forfeit. Curiously, he felt no fear, now that the last barrier between him and Leodegarius was removed.

  He felt the Grey Knight's colossal presence within his skull, the warrior's essence blending with Uriel's and learning in a moment what had forged him into a warrior of the Ultramarines. Everything from the blue-lit caverns of Calth of his earliest childhood memories to the fight with the Lord of the Unfleshed became part of the Grey Knight's understanding and in the space of a breath, it was as though they had become one soul.

  As Leodegarius learned of Uriel, so too did Uriel learn of Leodegarius, or at least as much as the Grey Knight wanted him to know. He saw the decades of battle, the years of study and solitude, and the complete and utter devotion to his sacred duty.

  Leodegarius was a hero in the truest sense of the word, a warrior who fought for no reward, no acclaim and no reason other than that he knew he was one of a select brotherhood that was all that stood between humanity and destruction. Uriel saw unnumbered and unknown battles where the fate of worlds hung in the balance.

  He saw triumphs and he saw losses. He saw victories and unimaginable sacrifice.

  This was what it took to be a defender of the Imperium and Uriel's own achievements paled in comparison to what this great hero had accomplished.

  Their lives intertwined in the space of a moment and the connection was so profound that Uriel began to panic as his sense of self was swallowed by the overwhelming presence of the Grey Knight's mind.

  Then it was gone.

  Like a sword pulled from a wound, the Grey Knight's power withdrew from Uriel's mind and he sagged against the chains that supported him. He dropped to his knees, suddenly feeling alone, so very alone, within his skull, as if a vital piece of him had been torn out.

  In the face of the horrors Leodegarius had defeated, what did the life of a pair of Ultramarines matter? In the grand tapestry of the galaxy, Uriel's life was meaningless and he would welcome Leodegarius ending him now.

  'Be at peace, Uriel Ventris,' said Leodegarius. 'A mind will always quail before its insignificance following union with a power greater than itself. Your warrior's pride will restore your sense of self-worth soon enough.'

  Uriel looked up into Leodegarius's face, his handsome, perfect and magnificent face. The look of a great hero of mankind was etched into every shimmering line and curve of his skull.

  'You saw inside me,' gasped Uriel, every word an effort. 'You know I am not corrupt.'

  'You are not knowingly corrupt,' agreed Leodegarius. 'I sense no evil in you, but there are many forms of corruption. You may yet be a herald of wickedness and know it not.'

  'I don
't understand,' said Uriel, painfully lifting himself to his feet.

  'The strands destiny weaves around you are soaked in blood, Uriel Ventris, and times of great danger will forever shadow your life. Your arrival on Salinas is but the latest in a chain of events that may doom this world to exterminatus. Where you walk, it is dangerous to follow.'

  'Dangerous for my enemies,' snarled Uriel.

  Leodegarius smiled. 'Your spirit is returning, I see. That is good.'

  'It is?' said Uriel.

  'Of course,' said Leodegarius. 'It means you are ready for the second ordeal.'

  ACRID FUMES BILLOWED upwards from the iron cauldron, its contents bubbling and popping as Uriel was led before it. The sides were embossed with a ring of linked eagles and the smell of the boiling oils made. Uriel's gorge rise as he suspected what might be asked of him.

  The manacles had been removed and he had been permitted to clean the blood from his arms before being marched through the darkness of the chamber to the cauldron. By the light of the burning torch, Uriel was able to make out more of his surroundings: a great open space of soaring arches and thick pillars. The air was thick and cold, leading him to believe that he was below a great building, possibly the palace or the cathedral.

  Leodegarius turned to Uriel and said, 'Since earliest times we have used the Ordeal of the Holy Oils to test the flesh of those brought before us. Too often the question of guilt is unnecessary, for actions speak louder than words, but you are a curiosity to me, Uriel Ventris. This ordeal will be painful, but if you have the light of the Emperor within your body you will not falter and you will be borne up by His glory.'

  Leodegarius moved to stand opposite Uriel, with the cauldron between them. 'Should your flesh prove true and you pass through this ordeal, you will stand before me at the end and face the Judicium Imperator. Only then will your soul be deemed pure.'

  'But the Ordeal of Inquisition?' said Uriel. 'I thought you sensed no evil in me?'

  'Nor do I,' said Leodegarius, 'but you have travelled to a realm where nothing that is good or pure can live, and your soul has been exposed to corruption that would burn the flesh from your bones were you to know but a fragment of its true horror. You have walked in that world and it falls to me to determine whether any of its corruption has returned with you, hidden within the meat and bones of your flesh. Do you have anything to say before this ordeal?'

  Uriel considered his words carefully. 'I ask the same question I asked before. Where is Pasanius?'

  'He undergoes ordeals as you do. His fate is his own and he will stand or fall as you will stand or fall: alone.'

  'Then I am ready,' said Uriel. 'Yes, we have walked in the realm of the damned, but we faced its temptations and resisted them.'

  'Do you think that is enough?'

  'I do not know whether it is enough,' admitted Uriel, 'but it must count for something, for only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. You measure the strength of an enemy by fighting against him, not by giving in. You find out the strength of the wind by walking against it, not by lying down.'

  Leodegarius nodded. 'There is truth in that. A man will never discover the strength of the evil impulse inside him until he tries to fight it. The Emperor is the only being who never yielded to temptation, and thus he is also the only man who knows to the full what giving in to that temptation means.'

  'Then by any measure of reckoning, Pasanius and I have matched our strength against the foulest beings imaginable.'

  'Then this ordeal should be no ordeal at all,' said Leodegarius, pointing to the bubbling cauldron. 'Have you heard of Saint De Haan of the Donorian sector?'

  Uriel shook his head. 'No. Who was he?'

  'He was an inquisitor who served the Emperor for over two centuries,' explained Leodegarius, 'a man who rooted out heresy and corruption on over a thousand worlds. Tens of thousands of heretics and evildoers perished before him, and his shining vision of a pure Imperium was a beacon to all whose loyalty to the Golden Throne was unwavering.'

  'What happened to him?' asked Uriel.

  'He was martyred at the battle of Kostiashak,' said Leodegarius. 'Warriors of the Ruinous Powers captured him and portions of his anatomy were nailed to the defiled cathedral of Trebian. De Haan's loyal acolytes recovered their master's remains and many of the relics are stored in scented rosewood boxes on the worlds he cleansed.'

  'Many, but not all?' asked Uriel.

  'Correct.'

  Uriel looked into the bubbling, viscous liquid. At the bottom of the hissing, spitting oil he could make out the wavering outline of what looked like a dagger.

  'You will reach in and lift out the dagger,' said Leodegarius.

  'What will that prove apart from the fact that my flesh will burn?'

  'Shards of the armour belonging to Saint De Haan are worked into the metal of its handle and only those whose flesh is unsullied by the taint of the great enemy may grip it.'

  Uriel took a deep breath and nodded. 'Then I have nothing to fear.'

  'I hope that is true,' said Leodegarius, and Uriel was surprised to hear sincerity in the Grey Knight's voice. 'Now, take the dagger.'

  Before he could picture images of seared flesh and the skin boiled from his bones, Uriel closed his eyes and plunged his left hand into the cauldron. White-hot agony engulfed his forearm. He gritted his teeth against the pain, an all-consuming fire that sent bolts of screaming white light bursting behind his eyelids.

  His legs buckled and he reached out to steady himself with his free hand. His other palm hissed as it came into contact with the cauldron's side and Uriel bit back a scream of agony. He could feel his skin blistering and melting in the oil as his fingers sought out the hilt of the dagger. The pain was unbelievable, almost too much for him to stand. It felt as though his arm was dipped into the heart of a volcano and he almost wished for the oblivion of unconsciousness to spare him from enduring it for a second longer.

  But then, wasn't that as much part of the ordeal as being able to grasp the weapon?

  Wasn't his ability to overcome such pain further proof of his innocence?

  Uriel fought through the pain, embracing it, welcoming it, and he opened his eyes to see Leodegarius staring at him. He felt the Grey Knight's approval and knew with utter certainty that Leodegarius wanted him to succeed in this ordeal. He wanted to find a reason not to kill him.

  His fingers brushed metal and Uriel closed his grip on the wire wound hilt of the dagger. Though he could barely feel the apparatus of his hand any longer, the tendons and muscles of his wrist obeyed him enough to hold the weapon firm.

  With his grip secure, Uriel lifted the dagger from the oil and held it before him, his breath coming in hot spurts from the heart of his chest. His hand was a raw, red thing, the meat boiled and layers of oily skin dripping from him in glistening, jellied strings. The pain was like nothing he had known before and the sight of his ruined flesh made it even worse.

  Though every nerve in his body told him to release the burning weapon, Uriel held it out towards Leodegarius.

  'There,' hissed Uriel. 'Is this what you wanted?'

  Leodegarius nodded and took the weapon, his armoured gauntlets protecting him from the blazing heat of the dagger.

  'It is indeed,' said Leodegarius, sheathing the weapon at his side and taking Uriel's wrist.

  Leodegarius examined the wound and Uriel flinched, gritting his teeth against the pain, but willing himself to remain standing.

  'So?' asked Uriel. 'Is my flesh pure?'

  'Maybe,' said Leodegarius, releasing Uriel's hand. 'In three days I shall return and we will examine your wound. A warrior whose flesh is pure will have begun to heal, whereas one whose flesh is unclean will have begun to fester. We will know then whether you are ready to face the final ordeal.'

  'The final ordeal?' asked Uriel, wondering what could be worse than the ordeals he had already endured.

  'Your mind is free of taint and I believe your flesh to be pure,' said Leo
degarius, 'but ordeals devised by Man can tell us only so much, so we must now allow the Emperor to judge the strength of your soul.'

  'How do we do that?'

  'In the Judicium Imperator,' said Leodegarius. 'In three days you will fight me, and on the outcome of that shall final judgement be made upon you.'

  SEVENTEEN

  OVER THE NEXT three days, the pain in Uriel's hand pulsed steadily at the edge of endurance. With the Ordeal of the Holy Oils complete, he had been returned to the darkness and isolation of the cold, underground space.

  Except, it wasn't really isolation, not when the maddening chants and low level buzzing that kept him from sleep were his continual companions. He had been left alone, as far as he could tell, though he knew there must be weapons trained upon him and armed gaolers standing ready to obliterate him should he make any attempt to escape.

  Escape was not on Uriel's mind, however, not when his loyalty and faith were in question.

  Time passed slowly in the darkness, and Uriel's thoughts turned from his own predicament to that of Pasanius and events in the world at large. What had become of his friend? Had he suffered through the two previous ordeals as Uriel had?

  Uriel had no reason to suspect that Pasanius would fail the ordeals. He only hoped that when the dark surgeons of Medrengard had taken the xeno-infected arm from his body, they had taken the full extent of its taint.

  If any lingering trace of the Nightbringer's essence remained within him, would that be enough to condemn Pasanius in the eyes of the Grey Knights?

  He tried to put such doubts and worries from his mind, wondering what was happening on the streets of Barbadus. His chronology of events from the bar's collapse onwards was piecemeal and he could not say for certain what had occurred. Had the Grey Knights killed the Unfleshed or were they still at large?

  Barbadus was such a warren of twisted paths and darkened hiding places that it was entirely likely that the Lord of the Unfleshed and his tribe could have evaded capture or destruction. If that were the case what would their next move be? To hide and lie low? To kill again?