Ultramarines Omnibus

'Kill us?' snapped Vaanes. 'If you're just going to kill us, then why the hell did you bother to bring us here, you damn freak?'

'Weak of Tribe need meat,' rasped the monster, staring at Ellard with undisguised appetite. The sergeant had surprised them all by surviving the journey, though Uriel saw that he surely could not live much longer. Blood soaked the makeshift bandage of his tattered uniform jacket and his face was deathly pale. 'They cannot hunt, so we bring meat to them.'

'You had to ask,' growled Pasanius.

Vaanes shrugged and slumped to the ground with his back to the Ultramarines.

The Lord of the Unfleshed had then departed, making his way down to the floor of the manufactory to rejoin his tribe, leaving them in the company of a dozen gigantic monsters, each larger than a dreadnought and equipped with a fearsome array of gnashing fangs and long, dripping talons.

Since then, they had waited for hours in the stinking twilight as their captors - or brethren - debated whether to kill them or not. The creature Uriel had fought in the outflow pool was one of their guards, though it still appeared not to care about the weapon lodged in its flesh.

'Damn it, but I wish I knew what they were doing,' said Uriel, turning from the creatures that surrounded them.

'Do you?' said Pasanius. 'I'm not so sure.'

'We can't stay here. We have to get back to that fortress.'

'Back to the fortress?' laughed Ardaric Vaanes. 'Are you serious?'

'Deadly serious,' nodded Uriel. We have a death oath to fulfil, to destroy the daemonculaba or die in the attempt.'

'You'll die then,' promised Vaanes.

'Then we die,' said Uriel. 'Have you heard nothing I have said to you, Vaanes?'

'Don't you dare lecture me about honour and duty, Ventris,' warned Vaanes. 'I have seen enough of what your honour has to offer. Most of us are already dead, and for what?'

'No warrior ever died in vain who died for honour in the service of the Emperor.'

'Spare me your borrowed wisdom, Ventris,' sneered Vaanes. 'I have had my fill of it. If we survive this, there's no way I'm going anywhere near that fortress again. I am done with your heroics and will leave you to die.'

'Then I was wrong about you, Vaanes,' said Uriel. 'I thought you had honour left within you, but I see now that you do not.'

Vaanes ignored Uriel and stared sullenly at the lumpen, misshapen beasts that watched over them.

Uriel turned to Pasanius and said, 'Then we are on our own, my friend.'

'So it would seem,' agreed Pasanius, slowly, and Uriel could see that his friend was struggling to speak - burdened by the terrible weight of guilt.

An awkward silence fell between the two friends, neither knowing the right way to break it or how to begin to say what needed to be said.

'Why didn't you tell me?' said Uriel at last.

'How could I?' sobbed Pasanius. 'I was tainted. Touched by evil and corrupted!'

'How? When?' asked Uriel.

'On Pavonis, I think,' said Pasanius, the words, now undammed, pouring from him in a rush of confession. 'You remember that I hated the augmetic arm the moment the artificers of the Shonai cartel grafted it to me?'

'Aye,' nodded Uriel, remembering how Pasanius had complained that the arm could never be as good as one grown strong through a lifetime of war.

'I didn't know the half of it,' continued Pasanius. 'After a while I got used to it, even began to appreciate the strength in the arm, but it was when we fought the orks on the Death of Virtue that I first realised something was wrong.'

Uriel well remembered the desperate fighting to destroy the ork and tyranid infested space hulk that had drifted into the Tarsis Ultra system and heralded the great battle against a splinter fleet of bio-ships from Hive Fleet Leviathan.

'What happened?'

'We were fighting the orks, just before you killed their leader, you remember? One of the greenskins got behind me, nearly took my damn head off with his chainsaw.'

'Yes, you took the blow on your arm.'

'Aye, I did, and you saw the size of that blade. My arm should have been hacked in two, but it wasn't. It wasn't even scratched.'

'But that is impossible,' said Uriel.

'That's what I thought, but by the time we got away and were back at the Thunderhawk, it was as good as new, not a scratch on it.'

'I remember…' whispered Uriel, picturing Pasanius's arm reaching down to haul him to safety when their demolition charges had begun to tear the space hulk apart. 'It shone like silver.'

'I know,' agreed Pasanius, 'but it didn't register on me until we were back aboard the Vae Victus that my arm should have been pulverised. I thought maybe I'd imagined how hard I'd been hit, but now I know I didn't.'

'How is it possible? Do you think the adepts of Pavonis had access to some form of xeno tech?'

'No,' said Pasanius, shaking his head. 'The silver-skinned devils we fought beneath Pavonis, the servants of the Bringer of Darkness, they could do the same thing. No matter how hard you cut, stabbed or shot them, they could get back up again, their bodies putting themselves back together right before your eyes.'

'The necrontyr,' spat Uriel.

Pasanius nodded. 'Aye, necrontyr. I think maybe part of the Bringer of Darkness went into me when it cut off my arm, something corrupt that waited and then found a home in the metal of my new arm.'

'Why did you say nothing?' said Uriel. 'It was your duty to report such a thing.'

'I know,' said Pasanius, dejectedly. 'But I was ashamed. You know me, it's always been my way to deal with things myself. I've been that way since I was a boy on Calth.'

'I know, but you should still have reported it to Clausel. I will have to report it when we get back to Macragge.'

'You mean if we get back,' reminded Pasanius.

'No,' said Uriel, emphatically. 'When.'

Uriel turned as he heard footfalls approaching. Colonel Leonid, his face gaunt and worn stood behind him and said, 'Sergeant Ellard is dead.'

Uriel looked over to where the big man lay, and stood, placing his hand on Leonid's shoulder. 'I am sorry, my friend. He was a fine man and a good soldier.'

'He shouldn't have had to die like this, alone in the darkness.'

'He wasn't alone,' said Uriel. 'You were with him at the end.'

'It's not right though,' whispered Leonid. 'To have survived so much and then to die like this.'

'A man seldom has the choice in the manner of his death,' said Uriel, 'It is the manner in which he lives that is the mark of a warrior. I did not know Ellard well, but I believe he will find a place at the Emperor's side.'

'I hope so,' agreed Leonid. 'Oh, and you're wrong, by the way.'

'About what?'

'About having to get back into Khalan-Ghol on your own. I will come with you.'

Uriel felt his admiration for Leonid soar and said, 'You are an exceptional man, colonel, and I accept your pledge of courage. Though you should know that Vaanes is almost certainly right, this will, in all likelihood, be the death of us.'

Leonid shrugged. 'I don't care any more. I have been living on borrowed time ever since the 383rd was ordered to Hydra Cordatus, so I plan to spit in death's eye before he takes me.'

A slow clapping sounded and Uriel's anger flared as he saw Vaanes sneering at them. The renegade Raven Guard shook his head.

'You are all fools,' he said. 'I will say a prayer for you if we don't get killed by these monsters.'

'Be silent!' hissed Uriel. 'I will not have any prayers from the likes of you, Vaanes. You are not a Space Marine any more, you are not even a man. You are a coward and a traitor!'

Vaanes surged to his feet, hate flaring in his violet eyes and his lightning claws snapped from his gauntlet. 'I told you that people never called me that twice!'