Over the tops of the mountains before them, Uriel could see what looked like bloated dirigibles, drifting above somewhere ahead in the mountains. Long cables drooped from their bellies, but whether these were simply anchoring them to the ground or acting as some form of barrage balloon, Uriel could not tell. Perhaps they were designed to keep the delirium spectres at bay from some facility as yet unseen?
As their weary trudge through the reeking air of the mountains continued, the two Space Marines passed a shorn quarry of shattered stone, where the side of one of these Cyclopean smoke stacks was exposed. Reddish-brown stains spilled from the joints between the massive, curved blocks making up the stack and a monstrous heat radiated from the stonework in pulsing waves.
'Where do you think it goes?' said Uriel.
'I don't know. Perhaps there is some manufactory below the mountains.'
Uriel nodded, wondering what diabolical production line was at work beneath their very feet. Were men and women dying even now to forge weapons, armour and materiel for the dread legions of Chaos? It galled him that he could do nothing to prevent such abomination, but what choice did they have? The sacred task of the death oath placed upon them by Marneus Cal-gar took precedence over all other concerns. The daemonic womb creatures… these daemonculaba were in the besieged fortress they had seen as they climbed from the darkness of the tunnels beneath the mountains and nothing would stand in Uriel's way of reaching that damned place.
Pressing on, Uriel and Pasanius climbed a jagged, saw-toothed ridge, its sides sheer and corrugated, as though gouged by some gargantuan bulldozer blade. A blackened depression of splintered stone and iron, thousands of metres in diameter, fell away from them on the other side, crags of iron columns and twisted girders protruding from the mountain like clawed fingers. The depression appeared to be perfectly circular, though it was difficult to tell, whipping particles of sand and iron filings filling the air and lashing round the circular valley in spiteful, howling vortices. A narrow sliver of white sky was just visible on the far side of the depression, but all Uriel's attention was fixed on the sight that filled the centre of the depression.
'In the name of the Emperor…' breathed Uriel in disgust.
A huge grilled platform filled the centre of the depression. Agglomerated layers of dust coated its every surface and its perforated floor dripped and dogged with jelly-like runnels of fat and viscera. Tall poles jutted from the platform, held in place by quivering steel guys that sang as the unnatural wind whistled through them. Hooked between the poles were billowing sails of flesh, stretched across timber frames that the scouring, wind-borne particles might strip them of the leavings of their former owners.
Monstrous, debased creatures in vulcanised rubber masks with rounded glass eye sockets and ribbed piping running into tanks carried on their backs scraped at the stretched skins with long, bladed polearms. They lurched across the platform with a twisted, mutated gait and gurgled monotone commands to one another.
'What are they doing?' said Pasanius, horrified at the sight before him.
'It looks like they're curing the hides, scraping them clean,' said Uriel.
'But the hides of what?' said Pasanius. 'They can't be human, they're too large.'
'I don't care what they are,' snarled Uriel, setting off down the treacherous slope towards the platform and drawing his golden-hilted sword. 'This ends now.'
Pasanius set off after Uriel, unlimbering his flamer and checking its fuel load.
If the mutant creatures were aware of them they gave no sign, the howling wind and rumble of distant artillery masking the sounds of their approach. But whatever they lacked for in awareness, they made up for in thorough diligence, dragging their bladed polearms up and down the length of the billowing skins to clear them of whatever the lashing winds left behind. Uriel saw a carven set of stone stairs leading to the platform and took them two at a time as his anger continued to build.
The first of the mutants died with a strangled screech on the point of Uriel's sword, the second fell without a sound as Uriel hacked its head from its body with one blow. Now aware of the killers in their midst, the remainder scattered in terror. A sheet of flame incinerated more of the mutants, their screams ululating as their rubber bodysuits melted on their corrupted flesh.
The slaughter was over in a matter of moments, the twisted mutants no match for the power and fury of the Adeptus Astartes. Most turned to flee, but there was nowhere to hide from Uriel's wrath. As the last mutated creature fell beneath his blade, Uriel took a deep breath, taking profound pleasure in the butchery of such worthless wretches. Whatever deviant beasts they had been in life, they were only so much dead flesh now.
He turned as Pasanius said, 'Uriel, look…' and pointed at the nearest of the skins.
Uriel felt his heart tighten in his chest as he saw the dead features of a man atop the huge expanse of skin. Stretched almost beyond recognition, but a man's nonetheless.
'Holy blood. But how could a man become so vast?' said Pasanius.
Uriel shook his head. 'Not by any natural means.'
'But why?'
'The ways of the Enemy are unknown,' said Uriel. 'Better that some remain so.'
'What shall we do?'
Uriel turned in a circle, seeing row upon row of faces in the skins circling the platform - dead, slack features of men and women staring down at him as though he were the subject in an anatomist's theatre.
'Burn it,' he said. 'Burn it all.'
CHAPTER SIX
With the scorched reek of burning flesh still in their nostrils, Uriel and Pasanius left the depression in the rock, leaving the smouldering remains to the scouring wind and whatever passed for carrion on Medrengard. Invigorated and filled with purpose from the slaying of the mutant things, their step was quick and energised, but by the time they passed through the narrow slice in the rock face and began climbing worn steps carved into the rock, the leaden weight of the daemon world had settled upon them once more.
Uriel glanced back down at the blazing sheets of skin, feeling his hate at what had been done to these people burn as brightly. He knew that the image of the skinned man's features would haunt him forever, and was reminded of the horror of the disassembled flesh sculpture created by the loathsome xeno surgeon beneath the estate of Kasimir de Valtos on Pavonis.
Just by being here he felt polluted, as though his very soul was becoming hardened or being drained from his body to nourish the dead rock underfoot, and he was becoming less himself. The emptiness of Medren-gard was leaving him hollowed out, a shell of his former self.
'What will be left,' he whispered, 'when this world takes the last of me?'
He could tell Pasanius was feeling the same way, his cheeks hollow and his eyes glazed as he trudged up the winding stairs. Even as he watched, Pasanius stumbled, his silver arm reaching out to arrest his fall, but at the last minute his friend snatched his arm back and he fell to his knees instead.
'Are you all right?' asked Uriel.
'Aye,' nodded Pasanius. 'Just hard to keep focussed without an enemy to fight.'
'Fear not, my friend,' said Uriel. 'Once we reach this fortress, I am sure we will have enemies aplenty. If what the Omphalos Daemonium has told us is true, then we will have a surfeit of them.'
'Do you think a daemon of the Skull Lord is capable of telling the truth?'
'I do not know for sure,' said Uriel honestly, 'but I believe daemons only cloak what they need to in lies, wrapping kernels of truth in shrouds of deceit. Part of what it told us is true, I am sure, but which part… well, who knows?'
'So what do we do?' asked Pasanius, trudging after Uriel.
'Whatever we can, my friend,' said Uriel. 'We will act with courage and honour and hope that that is enough.'
'It will need to be,' said Pasanius. 'It is all we have left.'