'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 feel 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.
He pushed into the stygian darkness of the cave, dropping to his knees as he fought to stabilise his internal organs and willed himself not to slip into a sleep he knew he would not wake from.
Pasanius backed into the cave, his flamer billowing out a cone of blazing fuel.
The delirium spectres flapped noisily around the entrance to the cave, screaming in anger at being denied their prey. Several darted in to attack, but only succeeded in skewering themselves on the sharp spikes protecting the entrance. Their thrashing bodies ripped apart, their torn skins and iron frames tumbling down the cliff as they died.
Uriel let out a juddering breath, knowing how close they had come to death.
'Pasanius, are you all right?' he gasped.
'Barely,' wheezed Pasanius. 'By the Throne, I never want to have to do that again. It felt like I was dying.'
Uriel nodded, pulling himself upright using the walls of the cave. His returning vision easily penetrated the gloom of the cave and he saw that they were in a long, arched tunnel carved into the rockface, but by who or what he could not tell.
'Well, at least we are safe for the moment,' said Uriel.
'Don't be too sure about that,' replied Pasanius, kicking over a cracked human skull that lay on the floor.
The two Space Marines made their way carefully along the tunnel, the screeching wails of the delirium spectres fading the further they penetrated into the mountain. Their enhanced eyesight magnified the glow from the hissing nozzle of Pasanius's flamer such that they walked through the utter darkness as though their steps were illuminated by glow-globes.
'Who do you think made these tunnels?' asked Pasanius, staring at the marks of picks and drills cut into the rock.
'I have no idea,' said Uriel. 'Perhaps slaves or the populace of this world before it was taken by Chaos?'
'I still can't believe we have travelled so far,' said Pasanius. 'Do you really think this is Medrengard? Can we really be in the Eye of Terror?'
'You saw the dark city beyond the mountains. Can you doubt that one of the fallen primarchs dwells there?'
Pasanius made the sign of the aquila over his chest to ward off the evil that went with even thinking about such things. 'I suppose not. I felt the evil as a poison in my bones, but to come so far… it is impossible, surely.'
'If this is truly the Eye, then nothing is impossible,' said Uriel.
'I had always believed that the stories of worlds taken by daemons and the Ruinous Powers were nothing more man dark legends, exaggerated tales to scare the unwary into obedience.'
'Would that they were,' replied Uriel. 'But as well as destroying these daemonculaba that Librarian Tigurius saw in his vision, I believe that we have been brought to this place to test the strength of our faith as well.'