Ultramarines Omnibus [books 1-3]

'Aye,' nodded Uriel, remembering how Pasanius had complained that the arm could never be as good as one grown strong through a lifetime of war.

'I didn't know the half of it,' continued Pasanius. 'After a while I got used to it, even began to appreciate the strength in the arm, but it was when we fought the orks on the Death of Virtue that I first realised something was wrong.'

Uriel well remembered the desperate fighting to destroy the ork and tyranid infested space hulk that had drifted into the Tarsis Ultra system and heralded the great battle against a splinter fleet of bio-ships from Hive Fleet Leviathan.

'What happened?'

'We were fighting the orks, just before you killed their leader, you remember? One of the greenskins got behind me, nearly took my damn head off with his chainsaw.'

'Yes, you took the blow on your arm.'

'Aye, I did, and you saw the size of that blade. My arm should have been hacked in two, but it wasn't. It wasn't even scratched.'

'But that is impossible,' said Uriel.

'That's what I thought, but by the time we got away and were back at the Thunderhawk, it was as good as new, not a scratch on it.'

'I remember…' whispered Uriel, picturing Pasanius's arm reaching down to haul him to safety when their demolition charges had begun to tear the space hulk apart. 'It shone like silver.'

'I know,' agreed Pasanius, 'but it didn't register on me until we were back aboard the Vae Victus that my arm should have been pulverised. I thought maybe I'd imagined how hard I'd been hit, but now I know I didn't.'

'How is it possible? Do you think the adepts of Pavonis had access to some form of xeno tech?'

'No,' said Pasanius, shaking his head. 'The silver-skinned devils we fought beneath Pavonis, the servants of the Bringer of Darkness, they could do the same thing. No matter how hard you cut, stabbed or shot them, they could get back up again, their bodies putting themselves back together right before your eyes.'

'The necrontyr,' spat Uriel.

Pasanius nodded. 'Aye, necrontyr. I think maybe part of the Bringer of Darkness went into me when it cut off my arm, something corrupt that waited and then found a home in the metal of my new arm.'

'Why did you say nothing?' said Uriel. 'It was your duty to report such a thing.'

'I know,' said Pasanius, dejectedly. 'But I was ashamed. You know me, it's always been my way to deal with things myself. I've been that way since I was a boy on Calth.'

'I know, but you should still have reported it to Clausel. I will have to report it when we get back to Macragge.'

'You mean if we get back,' reminded Pasanius.

'No,' said Uriel, emphatically. 'When.'

Uriel turned as he heard footfalls approaching. Colonel Leonid, his face gaunt and worn stood behind him and said, 'Sergeant Ellard is dead.'

Uriel looked over to where the big man lay, and stood, placing his hand on Leonid's shoulder. 'I am sorry, my friend. He was a fine man and a good soldier.'

'He shouldn't have had to die like this, alone in the darkness.'

'He wasn't alone,' said Uriel. 'You were with him at the end.'

'It's not right though,' whispered Leonid. 'To have survived so much and then to die like this.'

'A man seldom has the choice in the manner of his death,' said Uriel, 'It is the manner in which he lives that is the mark of a warrior. I did not know Ellard well, but I believe he will find a place at the Emperor's side.'

'I hope so,' agreed Leonid. 'Oh, and you're wrong, by the way.'

'About what?'

'About having to get back into Khalan-Ghol on your own. I will come with you.'

Uriel felt his admiration for Leonid soar and said, 'You are an exceptional man, colonel, and I accept your pledge of courage. Though you should know that Vaanes is almost certainly right, this will, in all likelihood, be the death of us.'

Leonid shrugged. 'I don't care any more. I have been living on borrowed time ever since the 383rd was ordered to Hydra Cordatus, so I plan to spit in death's eye before he takes me.'

A slow clapping sounded and Uriel's anger flared as he saw Vaanes sneering at them. The renegade Raven Guard shook his head.

'You are all fools,' he said. 'I will say a prayer for you if we don't get killed by these monsters.'

'Be silent!' hissed Uriel. 'I will not have any prayers from the likes of you, Vaanes. You are not a Space Marine any more, you are not even a man. You are a coward and a traitor!'

Vaanes surged to his feet, hate flaring in his violet eyes and his lightning claws snapped from his gauntlet. 'I told you that people never called me that twice!'

Before blood could be spilled, a great shadow fell across the company and the mighty form of the Lord of the Unfleshed blotted out the light. A coterie of hideously deformed creatures accompanied him, and a hunchbacked monster with its head fused into its spine limped towards Ellard's corpse.

It dipped a long talon into the sergeant's torn belly and raised its bloody digit to its slit of a mouth.

'Deadflesh,' it said. 'Still warm.'

The Lord of the Unfleshed nodded its thick head. 'Take it. Meat for Tribe.'

'No!' shouted Leonid, as the hunchback effortlessly lifted the sergeant's body.

Pasanius reached out with his remaining arm and held Leonid back, hissing, 'No, don't. That's not your friend any more, it's just the flesh he wore. He's with the Emperor and there's nothing these monsters can do to him now. You will only get yourself killed needlessly.'

'But they are going to eat him!'

'I know,' said Uriel, standing before the struggling man. 'But you have pledged yourself to our death oath and if you break it, you break it for all of us.'

'What?' spluttered Leonid.

'Aye,' nodded Uriel. 'We are all bound to this quest now. Pasanius, me and now you.'

Leonid looked set to argue, but Uriel could see that the fight had gone out of the man as he realised the pact he had made with the Ultramarines. He nodded numbly and his struggles ceased as the Lord of the Unfleshed loomed above them.

'You come now,' said the monster.

'Where?' said Uriel.

'To the Emperor. He decide whether you die or not.'

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Emperor's armour was filthy, stained with the residue of uncounted millennia of industry, the eagle on his breastplate a series of rusted bronze strips. Beaten metal shoulder guards hung from his mighty shoulders and a pair of beatific wings of stained metal flared from his back. Over twenty metres tall and suspended by thick, iron chains within the great pit at the centre of the manufactory, it was a creation of supreme devotion.

Uriel felt like a child against its immensity, remembering the first time he had seen a statue of the Emperor in the Basilica Konor on Calm. Though the statue there had been masterfully carved from beautifully veined marble quarried from the deep wells of Calth, this one - for all its crudity - was no less impressive.

The Unfleshed's Emperor hung over the blackness of the pit, its armour and limbs fashioned from whatever scrap and machinery had been left behind when the manufactory had been abandoned.

Whereas some zealous preachers of the Ministorum might find it blasphemous that such hideous creatures had created such a crude idol of the Emperor, Uriel found it curiously touching that they had done so.

'May the Emperor preserve us!' hissed Pasanius as he laid eyes upon the suspended statue.

'Well we're about to find out,' replied Uriel as he realised his first impression had been correct when he had felt like a child before this idol.