The fire from the tower was punishing the attackers and as its fiery gaze swept across the plateau, Uriel had a sickening sensation that it saw him, saw him and recognised him…
Even as he watched, he saw a warrior in midnight black power armour leap from a spire of rock to one side of the camp. A searing fire erupted from his back and Uriel saw the warrior was wearing a jump pack. Smoke and flames fired from its vents, propelling the warrior through the air to land on the head of the daemon tower. Flames burst from its eyes and the tower shook violently, but whether that was in response to the Space Marine landing on it or the daemon's own fury, it was impossible to tell.
The warrior slashed at the daemonic head with lightning sheathed claws, crackling arcs of blue energy flaring where he struck, before swinging one-handed from the side of the head and clamping something to its side. The tower shook violently, as though seeking to dislodge its attacker, but the dark armoured warrior drove his lightning claws into the daemon head and hung on. He swung around the tower, slashing at the thick cables that held it in place before bracing his feet against its cheek and pushing off. His jump jets fired as the melta charge he had placed on the daemon head detonated and he flew clear on the bow wave of an explosion that vaporised the top of the tower in a pluming mushroom cloud of incandescent energy.
With a shrieking roar, the tower swayed drunkenly, the few remaining cable stays twanging loudly as they pulled taut before snapping with the crack of a gunshot. The tower toppled majestically, crashing through the corrugated tin roof of the nearest warehouse and sending up plumes of dust and smoke.
Gunfire sounded sporadically from the camp as the last of the mutant labourers were rounded up and killed, and Uriel let out a deep breath as he saw that the battle was over.
He dragged his sword from the chest of the body before him, looking around to see an Iron Warrior on his knees, blood flooding down his breastplate as Pasanius slashed at him with his own chainblade. Both his arms had been hacked off and his belly had spilled its contents across the dark earth.
The fight was gone from the Iron Warrior, but still Pasanius took his measure of vengeance from him. A mob of Space Marines had the last Iron Warrior surrounded and shot him to death without mercy, their bolts penetrating his torn armour and exploding wetly within his flesh.
Only now, with the battle over, did Uriel really pay close attention to the armour of the Space Marines he had fought alongside. No more than two or three were alike in colour or design, and each bore testament to many hard fights, with ancient battle scars hastily and imperfectly repaired with crude grafts and filler. Almost all bore a different Chapter symbol on their shoulder guards and many had painted over them with jagged red saltires.
Wailing slaves squatted in their folds of flesh or cradled each other in their misery. Uriel ran over to Pasanius as he continued to hack the fallen Iron Warrior into pieces.
'Pasanius!' shouted Uriel.
He grabbed Pasanius's arm as he drew back for another blow. 'Pasanius, he is dead!'
Pasanius's head snapped round, his eyes ablaze with fury. For the briefest second, Uriel feared that something terrible had possessed his friend, then the killing light went out of him and he dropped the Iron Warrior's weapon and let out a deep, shuddering breath. The sergeant dropped to his knees, his face ashen at the fury he had unleashed.
'Your comrade's anger does him credit,' said a voice behind Uriel and he turned to see the warrior in black who had destroyed the tower. His armour was a far cry from the usual gleaming brilliance of a Space Marine's power armour, being ravaged with dents, scars and patches. Hot vapours vented at his shoulders from the nozzles of his jump pack, and a white symbol - a bird of prey of some kind - had been painted over with a jagged red cross. His helmet bore a similar symbol across his visor.
'You kill Iron Warriors well, both of you,' he said.
Uriel took the measure of this Space Marine before answering, seeing a confident, almost arrogant swagger to his posture.
'I am Uriel Ventris of the Ultramarines, and this is Pasanius Lysane. Who are you?'
The warrior sheathed the lightning claws on his gauntlets and reached up to release the vacuum seals on his gorget. He removed his helmet and took a lungful of the stale air of Medrengard before answering.
'My name is Ardaric Vaanes, formerly of the Raven Guard,' he said, running a hand over his scalp. Vaanes's hair was long and dark, bound in a tight scalp lock: his features angular and pale, with deep-set hooded eyes of violet. His cheeks were scarred and he bore a trio of round scars on his forehead above his left eye, where it looked as though long service studs had been removed.
'Formerly?' asked Uriel warily.
'Aye, formerly,' said Vaanes, stepping forward and offering his hand to Uriel.
Uriel eyed the proffered hand and said, 'You are renegade.'
Vaanes held his hand out for a second longer before accepting that Uriel was not going to take it and dropped it to his side. He nodded. 'Some call us that, yes.'
Pasanius stood next to Uriel and said, 'Others call you traitor.'
Vaanes's eyes narrowed. 'Perhaps they do, but only once.'
The three Space Marines stared at one another in silence for long seconds before Vaanes shrugged and walked past them towards the wrecked camp.
'Wait,' said Uriel, turning and following the renegade. 'I don't understand. How is it you come to be here?'
'That, Uriel Ventris, is a long story,' replied Vaanes, as they passed through the gate into the blazing camp. 'But we should destroy this place and be gone from here soon. The Unfleshed are close and the scent of death will draw them here quickly.'
'What about all these people?' asked Pasanius, sweeping his arm around to encompass the weeping prisoners outside the camp.
'What about them?'
'How are we going to get them out of here?'
'We're not,' said Vaanes.
'You're not?' snapped Uriel. 'Then why did you come to rescue them?'
'Rescue them?' said Vaanes, gesturing to his warriors, who began methodically working their way around the warehouse buildings and placing explosive charges. 'We didn't come to rescue them, we came to destroy this camp and that is all. These people are nothing to me.'
'How can you say that? Look at them!'
'If you want to rescue them, then good luck to you, Uriel Ventris. You will need it.'
'Damn you, Vaanes, have you no honour?'
'None to speak of, no,' snapped Vaanes. 'Look at them, these precious people you want to save. They are worthless. Most do not survive to reach the skinning chasm anyway and the ones that do soon wish they had not.'
'But you can't just abandon them,' pressed Uriel.
'I can and I will.'
'What is this camp anyway?' asked Pasanius. 'A prison? A death camp?'
Vaanes shook his head. 'No, nothing so mundane. It is much worse than that.'
'Then what?'
Vaanes grabbed the handles of the roller shutter door of the nearest warehouse and hauled it open, saying, 'Why don't you find out?'
Uriel shared a wary glance with Pasanius as Ardaric Vaanes gestured that they should enter the building. A powerful reek of human waste gusted from within, mixed with the stench of rotted flesh and the stink of desperation. Flickering lights sputtered within and a low sobbing drifted on the stinking air.