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.’
&nb
sp; ‘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 enveloped 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!’
‘I beg to differ,’ said Onyx. ‘I can see his soul burning with the light of purpose.’
‘Vaanes, shoot him!’ shouted Uriel, twisting in Onyx’s grip and closing his eyes as bolter shells filled the air around him with a deafening roar. He felt Onyx shudder as the bolts struck him. Amid the gunfire, he heard the warrior laugh, and cried out in pain as he felt Onyx’s middle talon stab forwards to punch through his throat and embed itself the wall.
The talon was ripped free and he slid down the wall, blood pouring from his neck and armour in a scarlet wash before the Larraman cells were able to clot his blood and stem the wound. Uriel gasped, the breath rasping in his throat, and he realised his trachea had been completely severed. Uriel closed his eyes as his vision greyed and his body fought for oxygen, his chest hiking convulsively. He fought to stay focused, knowing that to slip into unconsciousness was to die, and shifted his breathing to the third lung grafted to his pulmonary system. His altered breathing pattern shut off the sphincter muscle that normally took in air and he gulped down a great breath as his enhanced physiology took over.
Onyx spun beyond the hail of shells, landing behind the Space Marines with an atavistic howl of bloodlust. His claws swelled to become monstrous golden swords and three Space Marines were hacked apart in as many blows. His face swelled and rippled, black horns curling from his temples and gleaming lines of augmetic body parts becoming visible within his form as the daemonic entity within Onyx took complete command of his body.
His eyes blazed and Uriel could see the beast he had become was eager to do them more harm, but before he could enact it, his entire body shuddered and the daemon-thing Onyx had become retreated back into his flesh, the golden swords writhing and sliding back into his hands.
Even as Uriel watched, Onyx’s original form was restored before his eyes.
Onyx let out a long breath and dropped to one knee, but before any of the warrior band could take advantage of his momentary vulnerability, the undulating forms of the Exuviae roared like black tidal waves and bore down upon them. Uriel struggled to rise, but the bubbling, animated pollutants swept over him, pinning his arms and holding him fast within their grip.
Dull, mindless eyes ruptured from the toxin-flecked matter, blinking idiotically at him and he heard the repulsed cries of the surviving Space Marines as the Exuviae swallowed them in their stinking, foetid embrace.
WITH ONYX LEADING the way through the interior of Khalan-Ghol, the delirious architecture seemed to resolve itself in response to his very presence. Where the chaotic nature of its plan had led Uriel and his battle-brothers a merry dance through its shadow-haunted streets, it eased the path of the daemonic creature and his shambling, slithering following. The Exuv
iae roiled along the cobbled streets with a grotesque, rippling motion, bearing their immobile charges within their odious, fluid bodies.
Only Uriel, Pasanius, Vaanes, Seraphys, Leonid, Ellard and nine other Space Marines had survived to reach this far within the fortress, but Uriel knew that so long as he drew breath he could not forgo his death oath. The soot-stained thoroughfares of the fortress soon fell away to reveal their ultimate destination: the centre of the fortress and the great tower of iron.
Whether it had been a trick of perspective or the illusory power of Chaos, Uriel did not know, but he was shocked speechless by its sheer immensity. Its summit was lost to sight beyond the writhing purple clouds above and it was impossible to see the entirety of its width. Twisting, crooked towers sprouted from its sides, overhanging forges spewed thick toxins into the air, swooping winged things clustered around dark rookeries and evil lightning crackled from slitted windows. A high wall surrounded the base of the tower, its ramparts thick with Iron Warriors and gun turrets.
A huge gate of black iron with a tall, armoured barbican to either side defended the entrance to the tower and as Onyx led them towards it, the dread portal swung open with a scream of deathly anguish. The
Exuviae carried them through the dark gate, and as they were borne along the passageway, Uriel saw scalding steam gusting from the spiked murder holes in the roof.
Emerging from the oppression of the gateway, Uriel gaped in dark wonderment as he saw that the tower did not sit upon the rock of the mountain at all, but was impossibly suspended over a giant void that mirrored the dead sky above on hundreds of immense chains. Each link was as thick as the columns that supported the great portico before the Temple of Correction and as they were carried towards a bridge, Uriel saw that the tower also plunged deep into the void for thousands of metres.