Moving towards the House of Providence was proving difficult, as though every step was taken through sucking mud. Even Leodegarius's pace was slowed and Uriel did not want to think of the power that could slow a Terminator.
'How do we get in?' shouted Uriel, looking along the length of the structure for an opening.
'Over there,' said Leodegarius, pointing towards the shadowed form of an arched entrance, partially hidden by mists and unnatural blackness. Uriel peered into the gloom, barely able to discern its outline.
Leodegarius turned to face Serj Casuaban. 'You will lead us to Sylvanus Thayer, medicae. Identify him and then keep out of our way, understand?' he said, his voice easily cutting through the howling gale of the psychic storm.
Casuaban nodded, Uriel gripped his bolter tightly as Leodegarius said, 'Let's get inside.'
Outside the House of Providence, all was storm-tossed madness, while inside was frozen stillness. No sooner had Uriel entered the towering structure than the noise and light vanished.
Sputtering glow-globes strung from the iron mesh of the ceiling bobbed overhead and steam vented from the backpacks of their armour like breath. The walls were cold iron, streaked with lines of frost, and pools of ice cracked underfoot. Uriel and Pasanius made their way along the narrow entrance corridor, the shoulders of Leodegarius's armour brushing the walls with his every step.
Shadows grew and receded on the glistening walls and Uriel could hear a maddening buzz just below the threshold of hearing. The Grey Knights spread throughout the structures, moving off in teams of five, securing as tight a perimeter as they could around their leaders.
As well as four Grey Knights in power armour, Uriel's group was made up of Leodegarius, Pasanius and Serj Casuaban. The man was shivering, his face pale and his eyes wide. He scratched at the side of his face, shaking his head as though seeking to dislodge something in his ear.
'So many voices,' he whispered, the sound echoing in the cold corridor.
'You can hear them?' asked Uriel.
Casuaban nodded, tears glistening on his cheeks. 'All of them. They're frightened of him. The Mourner, that's what they used to call him.'
'Who?'
'Sylvanus Thayer,' said Casuaban, 'after the massacre.'
'They're frightened of him?'
'Yes… They want to leave, to go to their rest, but he won't let them, not until he's had his vengeance.'
Uriel filed that fact away and set off after Leodegarius.
Their path took them along corridors, through wards filled with terrified people and along open hallways. Wisps of light gathered in the ceiling spaces and the howls of the wounded echoed strangely in the confusing internal architecture of the place.
Desperately injured men, women and children stared at them, some with terror, some with hope, but the Space Marines could not stop to help them. This was a truly wretched place, Uriel thought, the wounded of the decades old conflict left to rot with only the skill and dedication of one man to help them rebuild their lives.
No matter what happened, Uriel vowed that he would do what he could for Serj Casuaban. The man might be guilty, but it was clear that he at least felt some remorse for what he had allowed to happen.
At each junction of corridors, the medicae would point and then set off once more, alert for any sign of the Unfleshed or any other enemy.
Though he saw no threats, Uriel could sense a fearsome potential building, as though a great power was even now gathering its strength. He cursed his vivid imagination and shook off such morbid thoughts as Leodegarius halted.
They had come to a junction with two passages stretching off into the darkness, left and right, while a wide set of iron stairs led up into sputtering, fitful light. Frozen stalactites of ice hung from the brass balustrade.
'Which way, medicae?' demanded Leodegarius.
'Up, we need to go up.'
When the attack came, it was with a precision that caught everyone by surprise.
The warriors on the right flank came under attack first; a beast with a hunched spine and long arms wrapped in muscles like steel hawsers tore the head from the warrior on point and hurled it back at his comrades.
A creature with a fused exoskeleton like armour barrelled into the warriors on the left, scattering them and crushing two warriors to death with the sheer force and mass of its charge.
As they reached a ramp that led further upwards, Uriel saw a great shadow detach itself from an alcove in the wall ahead, its body pulsing with light as it came at them. This creature was a hybrid of two forms fused into one, a union of flesh that could not possibly be alive, yet had somehow found a way to exist.
Uriel saw the creature's internal twin oozing beneath its newly formed skin, a howling face pressed against its pallid sheath of flesh. Its muscles seethed with light and its fist caved in the helmet of the Grey Knight nearest Uriel in one quick motion.
Blood squirted from the headless corpse and the silence of the House of Providence was brutally ended.
The Grey Knights reacted with all the speed and ferocity that Uriel expected. No sooner had the beast appeared in their midst than every halberd was swinging for it. Storm bolters opened up in a coordinated volley of fire. Blazing light and deafening noise filled the space and sprays of light and flesh flew from the Unfleshed as it shuddered under the impacts.
A fist with the mass and force of a lump hammer swung out and smashed the breastplate of a Grey Knight, exiting from the warrior's back in an explosion of blood and ceramite. Uriel ducked the return stroke and opened fire, the bark of his weapon adding to the din.
Serj Casuaban dropped to his knees, his arms pulled in tight as Pasanius stood over him.
Too close to use his psycannon, Leodegarius thrust with his polearm, the glowing blade hammering into the back of the creature. It roared in pain, the shimmering, fiery tip of the blade erupting from its swollen chest. The creature tried to spin around to face its attacker, but Leodegarius's strength and mass was too great and he held it fast.
'Hurry!' shouted Leodegarius. 'Kill it!'
The two surviving Grey Knights moved in, firing as they went, and Uriel was struck by their utter fearlessness in facing this terrifying creature. More bloody craters were gouged in its flesh by a host of mass-reactive shells, yet it appeared not to feel them.
Leodegarius dragged the beast to its knees with a heaving twist of his polearm and Uriel ran to join the Grey Knights, his sword leaping to his hand. Their blades stabbed the creature and its roars of pain echoed from the walls, shaking icicles from the ceiling.
The creature's oozing twin erupted from the Unfleshed's chest in a monstrous parody of birth, its vile, putrescent form slathered in blood and its grasping claws reaching for the nearest warrior. Its claws were sheathed in light and they parted the Grey Knight's armour and flesh as if they were wet paper. The parasitic twin tore through the muscle and bone of the warrior's chest, sundering his heart and ripping the mass of his internal organs to bloody ruin.
The Grey Knight dropped to the ground, breaking the neck of his killer as he fell.
The Unfleshed was weakening and Leodegarius was finally able to bring his psycannon to bear, unleashing a hail of psychically impregnated bolts into the beast.
The effect was instantaneous, and the creature toppled over, a ruined mass of shredded flesh that could not have endured such horrible damage without the power of the dead to sustain it.
Uriel felt no glory at the kill, only regret, but he did not have time to wallow in it.