‘Retreat to?’ he said, handing the wineskin back. ‘I don’t understand. Retreat from what?’
‘The pain.’
‘What pain? I don’t feel any pain,’ said Uriel.
‘You don’t?’ snapped Idaeus. ‘You can’t feel the pain? The pain of failure?’
‘No,’ said Uriel, glancing up as the dark shadows of clouds began to gather in the topmost reaches of the cave and evil thoughts began intruding on this pastoral scene.
Dead skies, the taste of iron. Horrors unnamed and abominations too terrible to bear…
A distant rumble of thunder sent a tremor through the clouds and Uriel looked up in confusion. This wasn’t part of his memory. The underground caverns of Calth did not suffer such storms. More clouds began forming above him and he felt a suffocating fear rise up within him as they gathered with greater speed and ferocity.
Idaeus stepped in close to Uriel and said, ‘You’re dying Uriel. They’re stealing the very things that make you who you are… can’t you feel it?’
‘I can’t feel anything.’
‘Try!’ urged Idaeus. ‘You have to go back to the pain.’
‘No,’ cried Uriel, as a heavy, dark rain began to fall, hard and thick droplets sending up tail spumes of mud.
Suffocating, cloying, questing hands within his flesh, a horrific sense of violation…
‘I do not want to go back!’ shouted Uriel.
‘You have to, it’s the only way you can save yourself.’
‘I don’t understand!’
‘Think! Did my death teach you nothing?’ said Idaeus as the rain beat down harder, melting the skin on his bones. ‘A Space Marine never accepts defeat, never stops fighting and he never turns his back on his battle-brothers.’
The rain pounded the fields flat, the workers running in fear towards the farm. Uriel felt an almost uncontrollable desire to join them, but Idaeus placed a palm on his chest and struggled to speak in the face of his dissolution. ‘No. The warrior I passed my sword to would not retreat. He would turn and face the pain.’
Uriel looked down, feeling the weight of a perfectly balanced sword settle in his hand, the blade a gleaming silver and its golden hilt shining like the sun. Its weight felt good, natural, and he closed his eyes as he fondly remembered forging its blade in the balmy heat of the Macragge night.
‘What awaits me if I go back?’ he asked.
‘Suffering and death,’ admitted Idaeus. ‘Pain and anguish.’
Uriel nodded. ‘I cannot abandon my friends…’
‘That’s my boy,’ smiled Idaeus, his voice fading and his form almost totally washed away by the hard rain. ‘But before you go… I have one last gift for you.’
‘What?’ said Uriel, feeling his grip on this fantasy slipping and his perceptions growing dimmer. As the vision of his captain diminished, Uriel thought he heard him say one last thing, a whispered warning that vanished like morning mist… beware your black… sun? But the words faded before he could hold onto the sense of them.
Uriel opened his eyes, feeling the sting of amniotic fluids on his skin and hearing the heartbeat of the daemonculaba above him as reality rushed in once again. He roared in anger, feeling questing, umbilical tendrils invading his flesh. They burrowed in through the sockets cored into his body where the monitoring systems of his armour interfaced directly with his internal organs.
Suckling, feeding parasites wormed inside him, feeding and sampling his flesh.
CHAINS CLANKED AS a pair of dangling hooks connected by a horizontal iron bar were lowered from the framework that encompassed the anatomist’s arena. Connected to sturdy block and tackle, the heavy hooks were dragged onto the metal gurney upon which Seraphys lay. As one Savage Mortician prepared the hooks, the other cut his armour from his body with practiced ease. Lastly, it removed the helmet from the Space Marine and produced a heavy iron mallet from the whirring mechanisms of its arm.
Before Seraphys could do more than shout a denial, it smashed the mallet repeatedly against his skull.
Seraphys grunted in pain, but after the sixth blow, his eyes glazed over and his head rolled slack. The Mortician nodded to its compatriot, who lifted the unconscious Space Marine’s legs and sliced a heavy blade across his Achilles tendons then thrust a hook into each ankle for hanging support. Seraphys’s legs were spread so that his feet hung outside the shoulders, and, satisfied his body was secure, the Savage Mortician hauled on the rattling pulley and dragged the body into the air.
‘What are you doing?’ shouted Vaanes. ‘For the love of the Emperor just kill him and be done with it!’
‘No,’ hissed Sabatier. ‘Not kill him. Not when he has such succulent meat on him. See how they keep arms parallel to legs? This provides access to the pelvis, and keeps his arms out of the way in a position for easy removal.’
Sabatier chuckled as it continued its gruesome narration. ‘Observing anatomy and skeleton, you can see that you humans not built or bred for meat. Your large central pelvis and broad shoulder blades interfere with achieving perfect cuts too much. You are too lean as well, no fat. You see, some fat, though not too much, is desirable as “marbling” to add a juicy, flavourful quality to meat.’
‘Damn you,’ cursed Vaanes as he watched the Savage Mortician bend to the insensible Blood Raven. Red streams caked his face where it ran from the portions caved-in by the iron mallet. A long-bladed knife cut a deep, ear-to-ear slice through the hanging Space Marine’s neck and larynx, severing his internal and external carotid arteries.
Blood sprayed from the cut before Seraphys’s enhanced metabolism began clotting the flow. But Sabatier limped over and prevented the wound from closing completely by jamming the fused meat of his fists in the cut and allowing the bright, arterial blood to splash into a stained iron barrel.
Unable to bear the sight of the savage glee his captors took from his comrade being butchered like an animal, Vaanes turned his head away from the sickening surgery as a Savage Mortician prepared to remove his victim’s head.
Vaanes heard the grotesque sound of muscle and ligaments being sliced and the ripping of tendon and skin as the Savage Mortician gripped Seraphys’s head on either side and twisted it off where the spinal cord met the skull.
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, straining at the thick fetters that held him immobile on the table. His face purpled and veins bulged taut against his skin as he fought.
‘No use fighting, so do not,’ called Sabatier, seeing his struggles. ‘Just make meat tougher. Damage skin too, but no one cares about that, we get enough of that from flesh camps in mountains, despite what you destroy and burn.’
Despite the horror, Vaanes felt a sudden rush of interest. ‘What do you need the skins for anyway?’
‘To clothe the newborns!’ said Sabatier proudly. ‘The brood of the daemonculaba are expelled from the womb as mewling, skinless things. Those that survive have new skin to bind their flesh and make them whole, ready to become one of the iron masters!’
Vaanes felt his own skin crawl at this latest vileness. That the camps in the mountains were used to produce masses of skin to flesh newborn soldiers of the Iron Warriors was an abomination too far. He opened his eyes in time to see Pasanius rolling his eyes at him, desperately indicating that Vaanes should continue talking. For a second he was at a loss as to why, then saw that, without the length of his forearm, Pasanius had almost worked his cauterised stump from the iron clamp securing the limb to the table.
He forced himself to return his gaze to the horrific gutting. ‘You said that the ones who survive have the skin bound to their flesh. What happens to the ones who don’t survive?’
Sabatier rasped in laughter, fixing its attention squarely on Vaanes. ‘Newborns too badly deformed or mutated are flushed away with rest of filth of Khalan-Ghol into mountains. Your bones and torn skin will join them soon.’
‘The Unfleshed…’ said Vaanes, recognising the terrible, red monsters that roamed the mountains from Sabatier’s bri
ef description. ‘They are the failed births…’
‘Yes,’ hissed Sabatier. ‘Most die in minutes, but some survive.’
‘You will pay for this,’ promised Vaanes, seeing Pasanius finally slide his arm from the restraint as the Savage Morticians continued their noisy work on the hanging carcass.
URIEL TRIED TO scream, but stinging birth fluids filled his mouth and his body spasmed as his weakened respiratory system fought to sift as much oxygen as it could from the liquid that filled his lung. He floated in the loathsome amniotic jelly of the daemonculaba’s womb, his skin burning from leaking gastric fluids and the virulence of the flesh magicks used to warp and mutate the woman’s body.
He struggled against the sutures that held him fast, feeling his strength grow with each one he felt rip from the blubbery flesh. His determination to free himself burned with a white heat in his breast and he thrashed like a mindless beast, tearing his bindings loose and leaving him floating and unbound in the womb.
Uriel clawed and bit at rippling folds of flesh, tasting blood and fatty tissue in his mouth as he tore his way upward, each breath a spike of fire in his lung. His vision was greying and his heartbeats sounded like thunder in his ears, thudding booms that echoed strangely, as though it was more than just his own heart he was hearing within this prison of flesh.
He twisted and kicked, always pushing up and stabbing forward with his hands.
Suddenly, his right hand burst into dryness, tearing through the drum-taut skin of the daemonculaba’s belly. Galvanised by the prospect of near freedom, Uriel doubled his efforts, pressing his other hand into the tear and pulling it wider. The skin tore along the line of the stitches and frothing fluids drained from the beast’s belly as it poured out onto the grilled walkway. Uriel pushed his head clear of the daemonculaba, vomiting up the foul birth juices and gasping in a great lungful of air. Stagnant and blood-soaked though the atmosphere in the chamber was, it still felt like the clearest mountain air of Macragge compared to the inside of the womb.
Twisting and turning, Uriel extricated his wide shoulders, using the additional leverage that granted to pull his bruised torso from the daemonculaba. And in a stinking wash of birth fluids, blood and viscera, Uriel fell from the creature’s belly to the iron floor.
He lay coughing and gasping for breath, hearing cries of alarm nearby and looked up to see a pair of the hunched mutants in black rubber bodysuits racing towards him. They carried long halberds with curved blades and Uriel’s fury surged around his body at the sight of them.
He pushed himself wearily to his feet as they came at him, stabbing their weapons towards his belly. Uriel dodged the first blade, swaying aside as the second jabbed for his groin.
Uriel gripped the haft of the first mutant’s halberd, slamming his fist into its glass faceplate and pulverising its skull. He quickly reversed the weapon, easily blocking a clumsy swipe at his head, and stabbed his own blade through the second mutant’s midriff, driving the haft clean through its body. The mutant shrieked in agony and Uriel kicked it from the weapon without pity.
He dropped to his knees beside the mutants, weeping and howling in blind rage, curling into a ball as anger and horror threatened to overwhelm him. He spat a mouthful of greasy fluid from his mouth, hearing a cursing, shouting voice.
Uriel forced himself to take a tight hold on the emotions surging within him as he recognised the voice as belonging to Ardaric Vaanes. He couldn’t make out the renegade’s words, but he could easily read the bitterness and fury in his tone.
His heart hardened with righteous anger, Uriel pulled himself unsteadily to his feet with the aid of the long halberd and set off in the direction of the shouting.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘EMPEROR DAMN YOU all to the depths of hell!’ shouted Vaanes as Seraphys’s dismembered corpse was taken down from the hooks on the block and tackle. Those hunks of meat not harvested for consumption were disposed of in the same barrels that overflowed with blood, and the clattering assembly was moved around the circumference of the theatre to the next Space Marine.
The Savage Morticians ignored his ravings and Sabatier just laughed, but their attention was fixed either on him or their next victim. And that was all that mattered.
He risked a glance towards Pasanius, and fought to keep a vengeful smile from his face as he watched the sergeant lean across the mortuary table. Using the ragged stump, he pushed the bolt from the restraint holding his other arm and the clanking of chains,
Vaanes’s shouting and the great booming of the Heart of Blood easily swallowed the squeal of rusty metal as the bolt slid through the clamp.
With his good arm free, he easily loosed the bolts holding his midsection and legs.
Vaanes shouted, ‘Sabatier! The Unfleshed, what becomes of them?’
Sabatier looked up from dragging away the remains of Seraphys, his drooling features twisted in irritation. ‘You ask too many questions! Cut out your tongue first!’
Vaanes saw Pasanius climb to his feet on the mortuary table and he shouted, ‘Come here and do it then, Chaos filth!’ as he saw the disgusting mutant corpse finally realise that Pasanius was free. It screeched a warning to the Savage Morticians, who spun to face him, surprisingly agile for such ungainly looking creatures. They shrieked in apoplectic fury, sounding more outraged than anything else.
Sabatier cowered behind the barrel of blood, but the Savage Morticians sped across the arena, bladed arms and pistoning legs carrying them with fearsome speed.
‘Pasanius, watch out!’ shouted Vaanes, but the sergeant had no intention of avoiding the incoming monsters. Instead, he leapt, feet first towards the nearest, and Vaanes heard metal and bone snap beneath his boot heels. It flailed for Pasanius, whirring drills and slashing blades cutting its own dead flesh as it struck at him.
Vaanes struggled uselessly once more as he watched the unequal battle, Pasanius gripping the black robes of the Savage Mortician with one hand as it tried to prise him from its body. The sergeant transferred his grip to the mesh scaffolding that supported its skull and slammed his forehead into its face. Even over the screaming Morticians, Vaanes heard the crunch of bone.
The Savage Mortician collapsed, its spider-like legs folding under it as it reeled from the impact. As it dropped, Pasanius released his grip on its body and dropped lightly to his feet beside it. The second creature tried to snap at him, but Pasanius kept the stunned creature between him and its slashing blades.
It backed away, unfolding longer, more deadly blades from the sheaths of its arms and Pasanius took the opportunity to step in and deliver a thunderous punch to the creature before him as it struggled to push itself to its feet. It howled in pain and Pasanius took hold of its quivering, beweaponed armature, alive with shrieking cutting implements, and rammed it into the monster’s face.
Dead fluids and long-decayed skin flew as its own fist ripped its head to rotten shards. Desiccated flesh and bone sprayed, and its howls were silenced as it slumped forward with a long death rasp.
‘Pasanius!’ shouted Vaanes. ‘Release me! Hurry!’
Pasanius looked as though he were about to take on the second Mortician alone, but nodded, backing away towards Vaanes as it leapt forwards on its long legs. He dodged the first slash of its blades, ducking below a high sweep of a second. Its leg hammered out and slammed into his stomach, doubling him up with a whooshing intake of breath.
Pasanius rolled aside as its blades stabbed the bloody ground and Vaanes saw that the sergeant would not be able to avoid its attacks for much longer. Sabatier ran from the dissection theatre as fast as his mutated gait allowed him. It screamed for aid and Vaanes knew that unless Pasanius could free him quickly, they were as good as dead.
Pasanius surged to his feet, leaping for the restraints holding Vaanes to the mortuary table. He lunged for the bolt at Vaanes’s arm, his fingers connecting with the bolt and closing on the metal as another thumping blow sent him flying through the air. Pasanius landed with a steel cr
ash on the table of saws, scalpels and their weapons, scattering bolters and Uriel’s golden-hilted sword to the floor.
But Vaanes saw that the sergeant’s effort had been enough. The bolt had been hauled clear as Pasanius had been kicked away and, with a feral roar of hate, Vaanes ripped his arm free and unsheathed his crackling lightning claws. With a few quick blows, the remainder of his restraints were hacked clear and he dropped from the mortuary table, bellowing a challenge to the Savage Mortician as it towered over Pasanius’s battered form.
But before he could do more than take a single step towards the looming monster, a bloody, reeking figure vaulted onto an empty mortuary table and leapt for its terrible form. The figure held a long halberd above its head, with the wickedly hooked blade aimed towards the Savage Mortician’s torso. He landed on the creature’s back, driving the halberd deep into the monster’s spine, the blade erupting in a flood of stinking, yellow fluids and gasses from its chest.
As terrible a wound as it was, the creature made no sound, but twisted on some internal axis to dislodge its gore-smeared attacker, while leaving the halberd embedded in its body.
‘Uriel!’ shouted Pasanius, hurling the golden-bladed sword towards him, and Vaanes was shocked to see that this wild, animalistic figure was none other than the former Ultramarines captain.
Ventris caught the sword on its downward arc, the blade flaring to life as he thumbed the activation rune. Without words, Uriel and Vaanes moved left and right, the Savage Mortician ripping the halberd from its body and tossing it aside, a blaring shriek of warning blasting from the vox-units on its throat.
‘We have to finish this thing!’ shouted Vaanes.
Ventris did not reply, darting in to slash at the Mortician’s legs. It dodged back, stabbing for him with a roaring saw blade, longer than the largest eviscerator. Ventris rolled beneath its screaming arc and hacked his sword upwards through the arm, severing it in a wash of blue sparks.
Vaanes also leapt to attack, jumping onto the creature’s arched back as it reared away from Uriel’s blow. He hammered one clawed fist through its neck and held on with the other as the thrashing monster attempted to dislodge him. Hooks hanging from the structure surrounding the arena slammed into him, but he grimly held on, stabbing his claws through the Savage Mortician’s body again and again.