Fresh foes were upon them.
They came in scads of light from the wards all around them, their shrieking howls of pain screeching along Uriel's nerves. Looking deeper into the light, he saw a host of horrific figures sweeping towards them as though driven by some powerful wind.
They were diseased figures, crippled figures, gaunt, emaciated and burnt forms in billowing surgical gowns: amputees, men with no eyes and women with hideous scars all over their bodies. Every hand was extended as though pleading for alms, and those with eyes were haunted with the angry memory of pain and suffering. A bow wave of frost cracked the walls before them, crazed patterns spreading in waves of white.
'What in the name of the Emperor are they?' screamed Casuaban when he looked up.
'Phantoms,' said Leodegarius, 'the tormented nightmares of the wounded you care for. The power of the warp is getting stronger and they are becoming real.'
'I take it they are dangerous?' said Uriel, raising his sword.
'Lethal,' said Leodegarius. 'Do not let them touch you. They will feed on your life to ease their suffering. Medicae! Which way?'
Casuaban looked around, as though his surroundings were suddenly unfamiliar to him.
'Quickly, man!' shouted Leodegarius.
'Up! Up another level!'
Leodegarius turned away from them and stood in the centre of the corridor directly in the path of the seething horde of nightmares. 'Cheiron, with me! Uriel, get behind us!' he cried. 'Onto the ramp!'
'What are you going to do?' cried Uriel.
'We're going to stop them,' said Leodegarius.
Uriel backed away from the Grey Knights as he tasted the actinic tang of psychic energy and his sword sparked and fizzed in the presence of such power. Hurriedly, he gathered Pasanius and Casuaban and backed onto the ramp that led up to who knew what.
Gunfire roared from the Grey Knights' weapons, Cheiron's bolts appearing to have little effect, but those of Leodegarius tearing through the figures like fire through cloth. As the ghostly nightmares drew ever closer, however, Uriel saw it wouldn't be enough.
'I have to help them!' cried Uriel.
'Wait!' shouted Pasanius, pointing towards the two Grey Knights.
Uriel looked over his shoulder and watched the silver-armoured warriors seem to swell as crackling arcs of lightning flared from the leading edges of their armour.
Both warriors held their polearms upright and their free hands were extended as they chanted the same mantra. 'Foul conjurations of the warp, we know thee. Unclean power from beyond the veil we abhor thee. Fell daemons of the Empyrean we defy thee.'
Leodegarius slammed his polearm onto the metal deck. 'Thrice cursed you are and thrice damned be thee.'
Serj Casuaban cried out and Uriel felt the rush of power as an enormous white fireball exploded into life around the Grey Knights. Wreathed in the flames, Leodegarius and Cheiron shone like angels of the Emperor, the roaring power contained around them by sheer force of will.
'Spawn of evil I cast you from this place!' cried Leodegarius and the blazing white fireball filled the corridor. Billowing flames exploded outwards from the Grey Knights, and the screams of the ghostly figures were swallowed in the seething roar of the fire.
Uriel shielded Serj Casuaban from the flames as their power swirled around them. Metal groaned and hissed under the assault of Leodegarius's purity, the very essence of his soul poured out in the cleansing fire of the Emperor.
In little over a few seconds it was ended, the nightmare howls silenced, and the terrifying roar of the fiery holocaust the two Grey Knights had unleashed at an end.
Uriel looked up to see Leodegarius and Cheiron still standing in the middle of the corridor, their silver armour streaming with scraps of light that faded even as he watched. Leodegarius turned to face him and even though he was clad head to foot in Terminator armour, Uriel could see that he was exhausted.
'Come,' he hissed. 'They will be back. We must move on.'
Uriel nodded as Pasanius dragged Serj Casuaban to his feet. 'Up you said?'
'Yes, Emperor protect me,' said Casuaban, making the sign of the aquila.
Uriel led the way up the ramp, with Pasanius dragging the reluctant medicae behind him. Leodegarius and Cheiron brought up the rear and Uriel could already hear the building screams and howls of more enemies closing on them.
He switched to an internal vox-channel within his helmet, hearing shouted commands and the bark of gunfire. Shots sounded in his helmet, throughout the House of Providence, their source impossible to pinpoint as they echoed from the maze-like corridors.
How the other Grey Knights fared, Uriel could not tell, for their commands were spoken in a battle cant unknown to him, but every order was delivered clearly and calmly. To hear warriors in battle communicating with such cool determination under fire was inspiring and Uriel felt a renewed sense of honour to be fighting alongside them.
'This way,' said Serj Casuaban, leading them through a series of low doors that led deeper into the heart of the House of Providence. Some of the doorways proved too small for Leodegarius, but quick, efficient strokes of his Nemesis weapon soon opened a hole large enough for him to squeeze his enormous, armoured bulk through.
At last their route took them into the highest ward in the converted Capitol Imperialis, a long, metal-walled chamber crammed with iron beds arranged along the walls and a wide central nave. Each of the beds was home to a writhing figure, their mouths twisted in rictus grins of pain.
The air was filled with screams and scraps of light, ghostly forms of howling figures that orbited a bed near the centre of the right-hand wall.
There could be no doubt that this was Sylvanus Thayer.
The Lord of the Unfleshed towered over his bed, his mighty form awesome and unbearable to look upon.
TWENTY
Uriel, Leodegarius and Cheiron slowly made their way down through the ward between the rows of beds. Pasanius left Serj Casuaban beside a medical station by the door and followed them. The Lord of the Unfleshed watched them approach, his eyes glowing with fiery light that burned like dead stars.
'So what are we going to do?' asked Uriel over the vox.
'First we fight the beast,' said Leodegarius, 'and then we get to Thayer.'
'Then what?'
'We kill him.'
Uriel nodded. He didn't like the idea of killing a man lying on his deathbed, but Sylvanus Thayer was no innocent, and his unchecked power would kill millions more if they did not stop him. He had kept the dead from their rest and bound them to his hatred, and that was unforgivable.
The Lord of the Unfleshed lowered his head, the jaw working in unfamiliar ways, strings of bloody drool leaking from the corners of his mouth.
'You come here to stop me?' said the Lord of the Unfleshed, in a voice not his own.
'Do I speak with Sylvanus Thayer?' demanded Leodegarius.
'Aye, warrior, you do.'
'Then yes, we come to stop you,' said Leodegarius, taking another step towards the Lord of the Unfleshed. 'Your hatred will doom this world if we do not.'
The creature laughed, the sound barren and repulsive. 'Why would that be a bad thing? Salinas has nothing good left. Barbaden and the Falcatas saw to that.'
'Barbaden is under arrest,' said Uriel at Leodegarius's side. 'Those you haven't already killed will pay for their crimes, I promise you.'
'Pay?' sneered Sylvanus Thayer with the Lord of the Unfleshed's body. 'To languish in a jail cell and live out their lives? That is not nearly enough pain for what they did.'
'Maybe not,' agreed Uriel, 'but it is justice.'
'Justice!' roared Thayer. 'Where was justice when Barbaden's tanks burned my family to death? Where was justice when his soldiers shot fleeing women and children? Where was the justice when he shelled my men to oblivion when we fought to avenge their deaths? Answer me that, warrior!'