'No,' agreed Uriel, indicating the fearful people that filled the streets, 'but they all were.'
A panicked cry went up from somewhere nearby and Uriel looked to the sky as he heard a droning rumble from the direction of the mountains. A trio of cruciform shapes emerged from the clouds, flying low and slowly towards the city.
Uriel's enhanced sight quickly resolved the shapes into flights of Marauder bombers, each cruciform shape comprising of six aircraft.
The people of Khaturian began screaming, even before the first bombs were dropped and Uriel could feel their terror at the sight of the aircraft. Here in the mountains, they had thought themselves safe from the fighting and death that was engulfing the rest of their world.
This day would show them how naive that belief had been.
'Should we be worried?' asked Pasanius, looking up at the approaching bombers.
Uriel shook his head. 'I do not think so, my friend. Thayer wants us to see what happened here.'
Pasanius looked doubtful, but shrugged. 'Fine. Not a lot we can do anyway.'
Although Uriel knew that what he was seeing was not real and had already happened, the emotions filling the air, panic, terror, disbelief and anger were very real indeed. People ran screaming to their homes, gathering up children and loved ones as they took shelter.
Uriel knew that it would do them no good, as he watched the first clusters of bombs detach from the bellies of the Marauders. Tiny black dots, it seemed inconceivable that they could be the cause of so much misery and death, but as they grew larger their warlike shape became apparent, the snub-nosed warhead and guidance fins spinning them to deliver their payload with greater accuracy.
The first bombs hit in the north of the city, and the ground trembled at the impact. Whooshing shoots of fire erupted skyward and a dark-edged mushroom cloud of smoke billowed upwards. More bombs hit within seconds of the first and a rolling thunderstorm of detonations marched through Khaturian.
Flames and hurricane winds swept over the city, the sound of the explosions merging into one enormous roar of destruction. Buildings collapsed and searing walls of flame roared along the streets. Burning tornadoes seethed like angry elementals, the power of the winds sweeping up those who had not yet found shelter and sucking them back into the burning buildings.
The bombs continued to fall, the destruction wrought around Uriel and Pasanius leaving them untouched. The ground heaved and bucked like a living thing, the pounding of the earth seeming to go on forever as the bombs continued to fall.
The entire city was an inferno, ablaze from its centre to its outskirts. Howling winds carried the flames in every direction, the destruction total and unforgiving. Uriel felt somehow dirty to be immersed in this carnage while immune to it.
For thirty minutes the bombs continued to fall and the city's death scream of collapsing buildings and burning humans seemed never-ending. Uriel felt utterly drained and wished this vision of the apocalypse would end.
'I've seen enough, Thayer!' Uriel shouted into the burning skies.
Everywhere was flames. The sky was ablaze and everything flammable in Khaturian was on fire. Nothing could live in the inferno.
'Emperor's blood,' whispered Pasanius, watching people on fire run screaming from their devastated homes. Burning bodies filled every street and the shriek of the firestorm began to fade as the bombardment finally ended.
'Madness,' hissed Uriel. 'All this for one man.'
Pasanius said nothing, too choked with emotion to speak. Mutilated bodies lay in the wreckage: entire families twisted into grotesque shapes by the heat of the fires.
Though it was surely impossible that people could have lived through such a raging hellstorm, there were, it seemed, survivors. From basements and shelters beneath the city, shell-shocked groups emerged, weeping, into what was left of their city.
Uriel saw that they were bloodied and battered, the skin raw and heat-burned. None had escaped injury and with the noise of the bombardment over, the screams of the citizens of Khaturian began.
'There must be something we can do for them,' said Pasanius, as a man with his arm missing wandered past them in a daze.
'No,' said Uriel. 'They are long dead. The only thing we can do is remember them.'
'I won't forget this,' swore Pasanius.
'Nor I,' agreed Uriel.
'They're getting off easy,' said Pasanius, 'Barbaden and Togandis. You don't have a part in slaughter like this and get to live.'
'They won't,' promised Uriel, his heart hardening to the fate of those who had seen this murder enacted and had either done nothing to stop it or had done nothing to make amends for it.
As they made their way through the devastation, Uriel looked along a rubble-strewn street as he heard the sound of iron treads crushing stone to powder. A dull grey tank in the livery of the Achaman Falcatas rounded the corner. From the burning nozzle protruding from the turret, Uriel recognised it as a Hellhound.
Sheets of flame spouted from the tank, setting ablaze those few parts of the city that had somehow escaped the incendiary bombs dropped by the Marauders. Battle tanks followed in the wake of the Hellhound, spraying bullets indiscriminately along both sides of the street.
Soldiers followed the battle tanks, warriors in red plate armour, who marched beneath a bright banner depicting a screaming, golden eagle against a crimson field. Their guns barked and spat, driving the few survivors into the flames or against the walls where they were executed without mercy.
Uriel could see Leto Barbaden atop the first Leman Russ, his helmet's visor pulled up as he shouted orders to his soldiers. Uriel could see the relish in Barbaden's face, the righteous notion that he was doing the Emperor's work butchering these people. Verena Kain and Sergeant Tremain marched before Barbaden's tank, and Uriel saw the same zealous gleam in their eyes. Uriel wished that Kain's death had been more painful.
He hated himself for such a visceral reaction, but the emotions stirred within him by the knowledge that Barbaden had not only ordered the killings, but had taken such pleasure from them was too powerful to be ignored.
'How do we end this?' asked Pasanius.
'I don't know,' replied Uriel, 'when Thayer thinks we've seen enough.'
'Then I've seen enough,' said Pasanius, 'enough to know that a bullet in the head's too quick a death for Barbaden.'
'Agreed,' said Uriel, 'and I know how this has to end now.'
With those words, the sight before them blurred and shifted, transforming from the burning heart of Khaturian to the devastated House of Providence.
Uriel blinked as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he saw the Lord of the Unfleshed towering over him. The killing light in his eyes was undimmed, yet there was no hatred in them, only a sense of profound sadness. Behind the mighty creature, Uriel saw Leodegarius climb to his feet, the entire right-hand side of his armour drenched in blood.
'You know how this has to end?' asked the Lord of the Unfleshed.
Uriel looked down at the ruined, mutilated body of Sylvanus Thayer and nodded. 'I do.'
'How?'
Uriel looked past the mighty creature towards Leodegarius.
'Brother Leodegarius, are you still maintaining your aegis sanctuary over Barbaden and Togandis?'
'I am,' said Leodegarius, and Uriel could hear the exhaustion in the warrior's voice. This hero of the Imperium was wounded nigh unto death and yet still he stood tall. 'What of it?'
'End it,' said Uriel.
The prison was in uproar.
Prisoners screamed and shouted for guards, but if any heard their pleas, none dared show their faces in the prison complex. For now, the spirits of the dead ruled the Panopticon.
Shavo Togandis stood before the bars of his cell, mouthing prayers and confessing every base, petty thing he had done in his life. He spoke in words barely above a whisper, knowing that the Emperor would hear them, but unwilling to share them with Leto Barbaden.