He looked around to see who else had survived the horror of Khalan-Ghol, feeling a cold hate suffuse him as he saw that the escape from the dungeons of the Iron Warriors had cost them clear. Ardaric Vaanes had survived, as had two other Space Marines, a Wolf Brother named Svoljard and a White Consul, whose name Uriel did not know. He let out a great sigh of relief as he saw Pasanius sitting on the wet rocks at the side of the pool. Such was his joy that it took him a moment to realise that his sergeant's arm ended just above the elbow, that his forearm had been removed. A crusted mass of knotted scar tissue graced the stump of his arm, and though the wound must surely have been painful, Pasanius gave no sign of it.
'What happened to you?' he asked.
'Those monsters cut it off,' said Pasanius. 'Hurt like a bastard.'
Despite himself, Uriel laughed at such masterful understatement.
Leonid and Ellard were also amongst the living, but Uriel could see that Sergeant Ellard was grievously wounded, a terrible gash running across his stomach. Uriel was no Apothecary, but even he could see the wound would soon be mortal.
'You are a survivor, colonel.'
'I would be dead were it not for Pasanius,' said Leonid, cradling Ellard's head and staring at his friend's terrible wound. 'But I don't think…'
Uriel nodded in understanding and said, 'No… but I am glad you are alive.'
Putting the wounded sergeant from his mind for now, Uriel turned to face Ardaric Vaanes. 'Where are we? Do you know this place?'
'Aye,' said Vaanes, 'and we should be away quickly.'
'Why?'
'Because this is the hunting ground of the Unfleshed,' said Vaanes, looking to the ridges surrounding the pool.
Uriel felt a thrill of fear as he remembered the malformed, red-skinned monsters that had devoured the wretched inhabitants of the Iron Warriors' flesh camp.
'You're right,' he said, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet and gripping the filmy hilt of his golden sword. 'We need to get out of here.'
'Too late,' said Leonid, pointing towards the ridge that ran along the circumference of the basin. 'They're already here…'
Uriel followed Leonid's pointing finger to the top of the ridge and the breath caught in his throat as he saw the silhouetted forms of perhaps a hundred of the Unfleshed surrounding them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Uriel watched the silhouetted shapes resolve into clarity as they descended the high slopes of the ridge above. They came quickly, scrambling their way over the jagged rocks with great speed despite their horrifically malformed limbs. Great intakes of breath heaved from wide chests as they scented their prey on the air and drooling jaws parted to reveal huge, yellowed fangs. Blackened claws slid from meaty fingers.
As hideously deformed as the beasts they had seen attack the flesh camp, these monsters were a similar horror of insane anatomies. Limbs turned inside out, pulsing organs grown and mutated through warped external skeletons, heads and chests fused with metastasised bone sinews, Siamese twins wrapped together with fleshy streamers and some with grossly swollen bellies that resembled the daemonic mothers that had brought them into being.
'From one death sentence to another,' observed Ardaric Vaanes sourly, unsheathing his lightning claws.
'Shut up, Vaanes!' snapped Uriel as he drew his sword and the blade leapt to fiery life. The members of the warrior band who had retained hold of their weapons drew them and readied themselves for battle. It would be an uneven fight, but it was a fight they would make nonetheless. Leonid left the wounded Ellard and picked up a jagged rock.
The Unfleshed closed the noose about them, grotesquely muscled and swollen limbs propelling them rapidly across the rocky floor of the basin, hungry for the taste of warm, bloody meat in their mouths. The nearest beast splashed into the foetid water of the pool, the noise of the waterfall from the outflow not enough to cover its bestial grunts of monstrous appetite. Its muscled forelimbs formed powerful fists as it prepared to attack. Uriel and the others formed a circle as the creatures loped forwards, ready to die on their feet, facing their deaths like warriors.
'You meat…' hissed the Unfleshed as it waded through the water towards them.
Uriel started in surprise, amazed the creature could speak. Vaanes had told him that these beasts were the by-blows of the Iron Warriors and until now he had believed them to be nothing more than failed experiments carried out by the Savage Morticians, similar to the creature, Sabatier.
But seeing them up close and having been fed to the wombs of the daemonculaba himself, he now knew better. He pictured the children being sutured into the daemon wombs alongside him and knew that such an imperfect method of hot-housing Chaos Space Marines must result in more failures than successes…
'Emperor's blood,' whispered Uriel as the realisation of his shared kinship with the Unfleshed sank in. He glanced up at the outflow pipe high on the rockface above them, understanding how these beasts came to be in the mountains.
He returned his attention to the Unfleshed as the beast reared up to its full height and bellowed its challenge. Uriel felt a burst of adrenaline dump into his system at the size of the thing. Its barrel chest was crisscrossed with imperfectly grafted folds of skin, pinned to its muscular frame by shards of bone and its head was a vast, hydrocephalic nightmare with multiple, yellowed eyes and a distended jaw filled with blunt fangs. Perfect for grinding his bones to digestible mush.
'Blood,' said the monster, nodding its elephantine head and licking its lips.
The remaining creatures held back as the lead beast approached, and Uriel sensed a tribal, pack mentality at work.
Uriel stepped towards the beast and held his sword, two-handed, before him.
'What are you doing?' said Pasanius.
'I think this is the alpha male of the group,' said Uriel. 'Perhaps if I can kill it, the others won't attack.'
'Or they'll tear us to pieces all the quicker,' said Leonid.
'True,' allowed Uriel, 'but I don't think we have much choice.'
'Give it your best shot,' said Vaanes, sheathing his claws.
The beast watched Uriel approach, flexing the huge muscles of its upper body. He tried to read its expression, but its blunted features gave him no clue as to its thoughts.
'Come on then. Come and get me if you want to eat me!' he roared.
The monster sprang forward and Uriel barely avoided a swinging blow that would have taken his head off had it connected. He ducked beneath the punch and dodged around the side of the Unfleshed, swinging his sword for its back. The blade sliced barely a centimetre into its flesh and Uriel felt the shock of the blow up his arms, horrified that the lethal energies of his weapon had failed to cut the monster in two. Before he recovered from his surprise, the beast was upon him, its meaty fists clubbing him down. Uriel collapsed into the water, rolling from a thunderous stamp that sent up a geyser of brackish water.
'Uriel!' shouted Pasanius, stepping forward to help.
'No!' shouted Uriel, scrambling away from the monster on his backside and into the downpour of rushing water driving down from the Halls of the Savage Morticians. 'If you help me, they will all attack!'