He did, however, see plenty of evidence of a lost, desperate soul in need of a friend. Rumpled, dirty sheets covered a threadbare mattress in the corner of one room. Empty bottles of raquir lay scattered everywhere and the air reeked of khat leaves. Food wrappers lay where they had been thrown and Daron Nisato felt a terrible regret at not reaching out to Mesira.
Something told him that, as was often the case, regret only came when it was too late to do something about it. The place was empty and he lowered his pistol, saddened at the waste of a life that was laid out before him.
Nisato moved into the main room and walked over to the grimy window that looked out over the city of Barbadus. Sprawling and ugly, it simmered in the heat of the day, fumes and smudges of smoke staining the sky from the distant manufactories. Enforcing Imperial Law in a place like this wasn't how Daron Nisato had imagined ending his career with the Achaman Falcatas, but then life very rarely took you down the paths you imagined when you were young.
He remembered leaving the Schola Progenium on Ophelia VII, thinking of the plum assignments that would be his and the great things he would achieve in the service of the Emperor. For a time, it had been as he'd imagined. His service in the Falcatas had been honourable and he was, if not liked, (what commissar was ever really liked?) respected.
Then Colonel Landon, Old Serenity the men called him, had been killed at Koreda Gorge along with his senior officers and Leto Barbaden had assumed command. Nisato had met Barbaden only once before then and had not been impressed. The man was a quartermaster and regimental logistician, a man who dealt with absolutes and to whom men were simply numbers in a ledger.
Nisato shook off such thoughts, not liking where they were leading, and turned to face the room, seeing scattered papers on a leaning desk, a dark pile of clothing and a rumpled greatcoat.
Even as he took in the details, his attention snapped towards the wall opposite the window, where five words had been daubed in what he knew instantly was blood.
Help me… I was there.
Below that was a gleaming medal depicting a screaming eagle.
They were beautiful.
Uriel had scarce seen anything that had filled him with such a welcome sense of return. Hidden at the back of the Gallery of Antiquities, they stood in serried ranks and gleamed in the dim light. The blue and white paint of their elongated helmet muzzles was scraped and every breastplate was dented or cracked from long ago impacts.
Under normal circumstances, they would be considered horrifically damaged or, at the very least, grossly neglected, but to Uriel's eyes, these suits of armour were the most perfect things he had ever seen.
There were nineteen of them, each painted in quartered blue and white, the left shoulder guard a studded auto-reactive plate, the right stamped with a golden ''U'' over a pair of white wings. In each fist was clutched a bolter, some damaged, some gleaming as though fresh from the armoury.
'You recognise the Chapter symbol?' asked Uriel.
Pasanius nodded. 'The Sons of Guilliman,' he whispered, 'a founding of the thirty-third millennium. Unbelievable.'
'I know,' said Uriel, reaching to run a hand over the eagle emblazoned upon the nearest suit's breastplate. 'Mk VI, Corvus-pattern power armour.'
Uriel turned to Lukas Urbican, and the curator took a step back as he saw the anger in his face. 'How did this armour come to be here? How did the Falcatas come to be in possession of Astartes power armour? These should have been returned to their Chapter!'
'Oh no!' said Urbican quickly. 'These aren't battle trophies or spoils of war. These suits of armour were here in the gallery when I took on its upkeep, I assure you.'
Uriel saw the truth in the curator's fear and raised his hands in apology. 'I am sorry, I should have thought before I spoke, but to see Astartes armour paraded by mortals like this is… unusual. No Chapter would willingly leave such a precious legacy of their history behind.'
'I understand,' said Urbican, but Uriel saw that he did not and the curator was still shaken by his earlier anger. Uriel took a deep breath and said, 'Allow me to explain, Lukas. To a Space Marine, his armour is more than just plates of ceramite and fibre-bundle muscles, more than simply what shields him from the bullets and blades of his enemies. The armour becomes part of the warrior who dons it. Heroes have fought the enemies of mankind wearing this armour and upon their death, it is repaired and given to another warrior to fight in the name of the Emperor. Each warrior strives to be worthy of the hero before him and earn his own legend to pass on.'
'I think I understand, Uriel,' said Urbican, moving forward to place his hand on the scarred vambrace. 'You're saying that it is more than just a functional piece of battle gear, that there's living history in every plate. Legends are carved in every scar upon its surface and a life of battle encapsulated in its very existence. Yes, I see that now.'
'So how did they come to be here?' asked Uriel again.
'Well, as I said, you are not the first Astartes to come to this world,' said Urbican, 'although I believe it was many centuries before the Falcatas arrived that these warriors fought here.'
'Who were they fighting?'
'Ah, well, there things tend to get a bit hazy. The record keepers of Salinas were somewhat vague on that account, although there are veiled references to great beasts without skin, red-fleshed hounds that could swallow a man whole, and armoured warriors who could bend the very nature of reality. All lurid stuff, to be sure, and no doubt magnified by the writer, but whatever they were they were serious enough to warrant the attentions of Space Marines.'
Uriel recognised warriors of the Ruinous Powers from Urbican's description and shared an uneasy glance with Pasanius at the mention of great beasts without skin as the curator continued with his tale. Uriel had not forgotten that the Unfleshed still roamed the hills around Khaturian and knew he could not afford to leave them alone for much longer.
'There was talk of a great battle near an abandoned city in the foothills of the northern mountains.'
'I think we know that city,' said Pasanius. 'Khaturian isn't it?'
'Ah, yes, I believe that was its name,' said Urbican. 'Anyway, these Sons of Guilliman, as you call them, fought the enemy, but were, unfortunately, wiped out.'
'So where are the rest of the suits of armour?' asked Uriel.
'These are the only ones we have. The texts of the time talk of other Astartes coming to Salinas in the aftermath of the battle, warriors who were able to defeat these beasts.'
'Do your texts say who these warriors were?'
'No, although they were described as ''giants in silver armour who smote the vile foe with lightning and faith''. Apparently, they defeated the enemy and left immediately after the victory was won. I have always presumed they took whatever armour the Sons of Guilliman left behind.'
'Then why did they not take these?'
'According to the archive labels, they were discovered buried in the ruins of a collapsed building in Khaturian many decades later, by servitors hauling stone to build the new temple by all accounts. I suppose these silver giants must have missed them when they left.'
'What of the bones?' asked Pasanius. 'The warriors who wore this armour.'
'I'm sorry, I don't know. There was no mention of bones, just the armour.'
Uriel turned back to the silent warriors and walked along the line of Mk VI plate, now knowing that brother Space Marines had died fighting the great enemy of mankind on this world in ages past. The dim light of the gallery seemed to shine in the depths of the eye lenses of the helmets, as though some flickering ember of the warriors who had worn this armour remained within.
'They were waiting,' said Uriel, and no sooner had he spoken the words than he felt the Tightness of them on a deep, instinctual level.