Her Chimera bounced over the uneven ground and she raised battered magnoculars to her face, scanning the outline of the city as the Sentinels drew near the razor wire fence that surrounded the ruins.
Tumbled buildings filled her view, rendered green and milky by the mechanics of the viewfinder, but there was precious little else to see. Their route was becoming rockier and cut through some wooded hills, so Kain pulled her arms in tight and slid back down inside the Chimera.
It paid to be cautious. The Sons of Salinas had stepped up their campaign of guerrilla attacks and, while it was unlikely they would attack such a well-armed force, it was possible that a number of snipers could be lying in wait within such terrain. This whole endeavour could simply be a ruse to lure out and kill an Imperial officer.
Inside the Chimera, it was noisy and dim. Engine noise roared from the back and the stink of oil and sacred unguents was thick in the air. Cramped and filled with solid iron and dangerous moving parts, it paid to be slightly built as she manoeuvred her body into the commander's seat.
'Anything, ma'am?' asked Bascome, her aide-de-camp, from his position by the vox-gear.
'There's nothing there,' she said, shouting to be heard over the rattling noise of the engine.
'Any idea what we should expect?' asked Bascome.
Kain didn't know what to expect after the frustrating vagueness of Bardhyl's warning, but it did not become a colonel to admit ignorance in front of her junior officers.
'Possibly some Sons of Salinas activity,' she said. 'Or else more fools coming to place their trinkets on a pile of stones.'
Bascome shook his head. 'You'd think they'd learn not to come here, especially after the last lot we shot.'
Kain did not reply, remembering the sight of the three men put before the firing squad against the palace wall for breaking the cordon around Khaturian. Entry to the city was strictly forbidden and punishable by death, something that appeared not to deter the many numbskulls that regularly risked their lives to place memorials.
If Barbaden had listened to her, the ruins would have been obliterated by massed Basilisk fire the hour after Restoration Day, but the newly installed Governor had decided that such a move would only re-ignite flames of rebellion so recently extinguished.
Well, the last ten years had shown how well that had worked out: a decade of bombings, riots and discontent from a populace too stupid to realise that it was beaten. Imperial rule held sway over this world and the Sons of Salinas were a spent force, no matter how charismatic and cunning Pascal Blaise was said to be.
All sorts of wild rumours had grown up around the leader of the Sons of Salinas: that he had once served in the Guard, that he had once been Barbadus's chief enforcer before Daron Nisato had taken over or even that he was a rogue inquisitor. Whatever the truth of his former life, Kain had killed enough of his soldiers to know that he clearly wasn't that good a leader.
'I hope it is the Sons of Salinas,' said Bascome. 'It's been too long since we had a proper stand up fight.'
Kain echoed her aide's sentiment. Since Restoration Day, there had been precious little proper soldiering for the Falcatas. No intense firefights against xenos or the warriors of the Ruinous Powers, but plenty of civilian rioters and thankless patrols through districts of their own derelict war machines where improvised explosives waited to blow off limbs and snipers lurked to take pot shots at the patrolling Imperial soldiers.
The entire situation made no sense to Kain. Hadn't they liberated this system from the Ruinous Powers? True, there had been no overt outbreak of rebellion on Salinas, but with three other worlds in the system already fallen prey to heresy, it had surely been only a matter of time before Salinas came under the sway of the Great Enemy. Didn't these people realise how lucky they had in fact been?
The Falcatas had arrived in a flurry of pomp and ceremony, an occasion demanded by the Master of the Crusade, General Shermi Vigo (a man who loathed Leto Barbaden and who was, in return, despised), but it had only served to inflame the people, leading to three years of grubby, inglorious warfare.
The result of the pacification had never really been in doubt, for the Achaman Falcatas had fought through the treacherous hells of two of the system's worlds already and were in no mood to offer mercy. As brutal and necessary as the fighting had been, there had been little glory in shooting civilians who thought that holding guns made them soldiers.
'Don't get your hopes up, Bascome,' warned Kain. 'This isn't likely to be anything out of the ordinary.'
'What do you think?' asked Pasanius.
'It sounds like Chimera engines, and Sentinels.'
'That's what I thought,' agreed Pasanius. 'Guard?'
'I think so.'
'Let's hope they're friendly.'
Uriel nodded and ran a hand across his scalp as the noise of the engines drew nearer. Uriel's superior hearing filtered out the distortions caused by the ruggedness of the landscape, allowing him to pick out the different engine noises and pinpoint their location.
The vehicles were perhaps two kilometres away and would be here in moments.
Uriel had raced back through the streets of the city, feeling its character change once more, the wind whipping through the streets as though bearing word of the approaching men with every gust. The Lord of the Unfleshed had long outpaced him, his lumbering gait and long, elastic limbs propelling him through the rubble-strewn streets with uncanny speed and grace.
Pasanius was waiting for him and the two gathered their meagre possessions before heading towards the southern edge of the city. Whoever these men on machines were, Uriel and Pasanius would meet them with their heads held high.
As they prepared to leave, Uriel turned to the Lord of the Unfleshed. He reached up to place his hand on the creature's arm, but remembered how such a gesture had hurt it before and pulled his hand back.
'You understand what you have to do?' asked Uriel.
The mighty creature nodded, his brood of twisted followers echoing the gesture. 'Hide.'
'Yes,' said Uriel, 'you need to hide, but it won't be for long, I swear to you. Let us deal with these men and find out more about this world.'
'Then you come and get us? Tell men not fear us?'
Uriel hesitated before answering, unsure of what to say and loath to promise something he could not deliver. 'I'll come and get you as soon as it is safe, but until then you have to stay hidden. Move higher into the mountains. It looks like there's food and water there and you should be safe as long as you stay away from any settlements.'
The Lord of the Unfleshed took a moment to process all that Uriel had said, his massive form suddenly seeming to be much smaller than before. Uriel realised that the creature was feeling fear and as ridiculous as that thought was, it was completely understandable. Since their last days on Medrengard, the Lord of the Unfleshed had looked to Uriel as a child looks towards its father for guidance.
Now, that guidance was going away and Uriel saw the fear of abandonment in the creature's milky, bloodshot eyes.
'You will be safe,' said Uriel. 'I give you my word. I will not let anything happen to you. Now you have to go, quickly.'
The Lord of the Unfleshed turned and led his followers into the depths of the ruined city and as Uriel watched them go, he hoped they might have a chance of life on this world.
Now, as he stood before a long line of razor wire that appeared to encircle the city, he wasn't so sure. Their explorations of the previous night had not carried them this far south and to find that this dead city was cordoned off was a cause for some concern.