The Killing Ground by Graham McNeill

  'He killed the entire city?'

  'Yes,' nodded Urbican, 'seventeen thousand people in six hours.'

  'What happened after the attack?' asked Uriel. The sheer scale of the dead was staggering.

  'The Sons of Salinas, what was left of them, came down from the mountains,' said Urbican, shaking his head. 'Supposedly Sylvanus Thayer and many of his followers' families lived in Khaturian and, mad with grief and rage, he led them in one last glorious charge.'

  'And they were destroyed,' said Uriel, guessing the outcome of that charge.

  'They were, but what a magnificent, if futile, way to die: fighting the enemy with the green and gold of their cloaks flying out behind them as they charged,' said Urbican. 'But what chance did they have? They were guerrillas, not an army. Thayer and his men were pounded to ruin by artillery and then shot to pieces before noon. And that was the end of the resistance of Salinas. By the end of the week, we'd had Restoration Day over on the esplanade and that was that.'

  'Except that wasn't the end of the resistance, was it?' asked Uriel, remembering the graffiti he had seen that said the Sons of Salinas would rise again.

  'No, would that it had been,' said Urbican. 'The brutality of the Falcatas subjugation of Salinas is a matter of great shame to many of its former soldiers and the scars of that war are far from healed, Uriel. Thayer's second-in-command, a man named Pascal Blaise, took up where his friend had left off, although he doesn't have the weapons or training to be anything like as dangerous as Sylvanus Thayer.'

  'Pascal Blaise?' asked Uriel. 'What does he look like?'

  Urbican shrugged. 'I don't know, I've never seen him, but I'm told he's a shaven-headed man with a forked beard. Why do you ask?'

  'I think I saw him during the attack on Colonel Kain's force when we arrived.'

  'That wouldn't surprise me. The Sons of Salinas have an especial hatred for Verena Kain.'

  'Why?'

  'Well, she led the Falcatas into Khaturian,' said Urbican. 'Barbaden gave the order, but I believe it was her that went into the flames and carried it out.'

  TWELVE

  THE BAR WAS busy tonight. Cawlen Hurq had made sure of it. The buzz of conversation filled it and the smell of sweat and stale alcohol was powerful. Almost a hundred people filled the bar with noise, their conversations blurred into a raucous babble. Cawlen had six men with guns among the patrons and, as far as any place in Barbadus could be called safe, this place was safe. Pascal Blaise sat in a booth at the back, nursing a glass of raquir and wondering what had made him think this was a good idea.

  'He won't come,' said Cawlen, 'not if he's got an ounce of sense.'

  'He'll come,' replied Pascal. 'We have something he wants.'

  'What makes you think he has any interest in her?'

  'He was at her house,' said Pascal, taking a drink. 'He was looking for her.'

  'So? That doesn't mean anything.'

  Pascal knew Cawlen was right. There was no reason to think that Daron Nisato would come to the bar, except Pascal knew that he would. Daron Nisato, out all the men and women who had mustered out of the Falcatas, was the one person he credited with a shred of honour. He knew for a fact that Nisato had not been present at the Killing Ground massacre and had done all he could to learn the truth behind it.

  Pascal scanned the faces that filled the bar, remembering the last time he had come here and the soldier of the Achaman Falcatas who had eaten the barrel of his pistol. The bloodstains had been cleaned from the roof, but Pascal could still see the impact the bullet had made on the roof beam.

  'Guilt can be a great motivator,' he whispered.

  'What?' asked Cawlen. 'Did you say something?'

  'No, just thinking aloud,' replied Pascal.

  Cawlen looked around the bar, his nerves jangling on the surface of his skin. 'I don't like it. What if Nisato comes here with a dozen enforcers? Everything we've done over the last ten years would be for nothing.'

  'He won't.'

  'You don't know that,' said Cawlen. 'It's too much of a risk.'

  Cawlen was right, this was risky. He was exposed here. There was an undercurrent of fear and resentment in the bar; he could hear it in the too boisterous conversation and ever so slightly forced laughter. He could feel the peoples' fear and knew that part of that fear was thanks to him.

  They were afraid of what might happen because of him being there.

  Time was, these people would have done anything for him: helped his freedom fighters, provided them with food, shelter and information, but times had changed and ten years of misery and hardship had hardened a lot of hearts and eroded a lot of the goodwill he'd inherited from Sylvanus Thayer.

  People were tired of war and he didn't blame them.

  He was tired of it too.

  The ironic thing was that he didn't hate the Imperium. For most of his adult life he had faithfully served the Golden Throne, making his own small contribution to the welfare of mankind. Then the Falcatas had come with anger in their hearts and blood on their blades and cut themselves into the flesh of the world.

  A decade later, Pascal Blaise had lost the best years of his life fighting soldiers of an Emperor he had sworn to serve, but he was fighting them, not what they represented.

  Pascal was not naive enough to think he could win, but he had come to realise that his fight had nothing to do with winning, and everything to do with justice. The guilty had to pay. It was as simple as that. The guilty had to pay and the natural order of justice had to be restored. He realised that none of the killing had been about anything other than that.

  Yes, Cawlen was right, this was risky, but he was tired of killing and if this gesture could be the beginnings of an end to it, then it was worth a little risk.

  'There he is,' said Cawlen, stiffening in his seat, his hand sliding to the pistol concealed beneath his storm cape.

  'Ease up, soldier,' warned Pascal. 'We're not here for violence, and by the looks of it, neither is he.'

  Daron Nisato had just entered the bar, his expression guarded and wary. The conversation dipped in volume as he ducked under the iron girder that served as a lintel and approached the bar. Pascal watched as the enforcer's eyes scanned the patrons with a lawman's gaze, sorting the threats from the chaff.

  The enforcer could not know for sure what Pascal looked like, but his eyes settled on him and stayed there.

  'He's good,' said Pascal as Nisato began to thread his way through the bar towards the booth. 'You've got to give him that.'

  Cawlen grunted and rose from the booth as Nisato approached. The enforcer stopped at the table and said, 'I'm presuming it was you that sent the message to me.'

  'It was,' confirmed Pascal. 'Sit down.'

  Nisato glanced at Cawlen. 'Maybe I will, if you send your goon away. He's making me itchy and if his hand moves any closer to the weapon he's got under his cloak, I'll break it off.'

  'You can try,' growled Cawlen.

  'Just give me a reason,' responded Nisato, squaring off against the big man.

  Pascal clinked his glass against the bottle on the table. 'Can we just assume that we've passed through the pointless threats stage of this conversation please? Cawlen, back off. Mister Nisato, sit.'

  Reluctantly, Cawlen Hurq backed away from the booth and Nisato slid onto the bench seat opposite Pascal. The enforcer stared at him and Pascal couldn't decide which emotion was uppermost in the man's features. Nisato was a handsome man, dark-skinned and with a prominent nose. His eyes were old, decided Pascal, but who on Salinas could say otherwise?

  'Finished your inspection?' asked Nisato and Pascal smiled.

  'My apologies,' said Pascal. 'It's not often I sit this close to a man who'd like nothing better than to put a bullet in me.'

  'Is that what you think?'

  'Don't you?'

  'Not at the moment, but the night is young.' Pascal poured a glass of raquir for Nisato and slid it across the beaten metal table. 'I wasn't sure if you'd come,' said Pascal. 'I didn'
t think I would.'

  'So why did you?'

  'Because...' began Nisato and Pascal saw that he was struggling to rationalise to himself why he had come. 'Because someone had to. Mesira's got no one else.'

  'Mesira? Is that her name?'

  'Yes. You didn't know?'

  'No,' said Pascal. 'She hasn't said much that's made sense since we found her.'

  'Found her? You didn't take her from her house?'

  'No, she was wandering the streets of Junktown, screaming and tearing at her body.'

  Nisato frowned, clearly not having considered the possibility that the woman had wandered off by herself. His first thoughts had been of kidnap.

  'Her mind's gone if you ask me,' offered Pascal.

  'If you've hurt her...'

  Pascal waved a placatory hand. 'Of course we didn't hurt her. Any hurt that's been done, she did to herself.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Just what I say,' replied Pascal. 'She was in a pretty bad way when we found her.'

  Nisato leaned back and took a drink of his raquir. 'How did you know I was looking for her? Your message was pretty specific.'

  'Come on, this was my city before it was yours. People tell me things. The head of the enforcers going to visit the witch woman doesn't go unnoticed. Why were you looking for her?'

  'None of your business.'

  'Is she your woman?' asked Pascal. 'Does the chief enforcer like getting his ya-yas from dangerous women?'

  Nisato sneered. 'I told you, it's none of your business.'

  'Fair enough,' said Pascal, holding up his hands.

  The enforcer was visibly struggling to hold onto his cool and Pascal decided it was time to end this period of baiting. He took a deep breath and said, 'You want the truth? The woman means nothing to me. On any other day, I'd have left her in the street to die, but I knew she meant something to you.'

  'So you want a favour, is that it? Blackmail?'

  'No, nothing like that,' said Pascal.

  'Then what?'

  Pascal leaned over the table and placed his hand on Nisato's arm. The enforcer looked down at his hand as though it was a poisonous viper.

  'I want the killing to end,' Pascal said. 'I want to end this grubby, dirty war with honour and if helping you out buys me a little goodwill, then it's a trade I'm willing to make.'

  Nisato tried and failed to hide his surprise. 'This is a gesture of goodwill?'

  'Exactly,' said Pascal, leaning back.

  Nisato took a moment to consider what he had heard and Pascal could see that the idea was appealing to him. He remained silent, sensing that to intrude on the enforcer's thought processes would be a mistake.

  At last Nisato leaned forward and said, 'Take me to her.'

  'I DON'T LIKE this,' said Verena Kain. 'Not one bit.'

  'Governor Barbaden does not share your misgivings,' said Uriel.

  'Governor Barbaden,' she said, placing undue emphasis on his tide, 'no longer commands the Achaman Falcatas. The regiment is mine to command and it is my right to decide what is acceptable and what is not.'

  'It was my understanding that the Achaman Falcatas were no longer a serving regiment, that they were now designated a Planetary Defence Force,' said Uriel, unable to resist the barbed comment. 'As such, they are Governor Barbaden's to command.'

  Kain glared at him and Uriel felt a guilty satisfaction at her anger. Beside him, he could feel Pasanius's grim amusement at Colonel Kain's discomfort.

  'It is my understanding that you were exiled from your Chapter.'

  'Ah, but we are going home,' said Pasanius. 'The Falcatas will always be PDF.'

  Uriel tried, unsuccessfully, to hide a smile as Kain angrily turned on her heel and stalked away to join her adjutant, a put-upon looking man named Bascome. Ever since Uriel had met Verena Kain, she had been bitter and spiteful, as though he somehow wronged her by his very existence. Since hearing of the slaughter that had taken place at Khaturian, the Killing Ground as it was known, he had little time for Kain or her ill-temper.

  Uriel put Kain from his mind as he watched a number of servitors and the few remaining enginseers of the Falcatas prepare the coupling heads of the generators.

  The air in the Screaming Eagles' vehicle hangar was cool and stank of metal and electricity. A pair of parked Leman Russ battle tanks sweated oil and fumes, with coiled and ribbed cables snaking from beneath their hulls to a coughing generator.

  Uriel paid no heed to the powerful war machines, his attention firmly fixed on the suit of armour that stood in the centre of the hangar. Its surfaces had been cleansed and returned to their former glory by Leto Barbaden's craftsmen and, like the last warrior standing after a battle, the armour stood immobile, its joints locked and its strength existing only as potential.

  The armour's backpack was bereft of power and no solution the palace adepts could devise would restore it. Pasanius had suggested that perhaps the military grade generators and couplings might have a better chance, and, after a petition to Governor Barbaden, a convoy of vehicles had traversed the city to the Screaming Eagles' barrack compound.

  The enginseers there had jumped at the chance to work on the problem and their solution had been elegantly ingenious. The chargers for the onboard electrics of a Leman Russ had been adapted to run a powerful generator's output through a manually calibrated transformer, which would allow an enginseer to adjust the power supply to a level that the armour's backpack could use.

  At least that was the theory. Whether or not it would work, was another matter entirely.

  Uriel forced himself to be calm as he watched the enginseers work, taking solace in their apparent relish for the task. He could only hope that their competence matched their enthusiasm.

  Pasanius stood beside him, resplendent and towering in his cleaned and polished armour, a bolter held tightly in his gauntlets like a talisman. The palace artificers had done a magnificent job in undoing the damage that had been done on Medrengard and Uriel felt a surge of pride as he looked at the gleaming plates of his friend's armour.

  His left shoulder guard had been repainted with the symbol of the Ultramarines and a laurel wreath. He looked every inch the Ultramarines hero he was.

  The armour in the centre of the hangar had also been repainted in the colours of the Ultramarines, although Uriel had been careful to leave the helmet in the original colours of the Sons of Guilliman. To do otherwise would insult the heritage of the warriors who had worn it before him and Uriel had no wish for the armour to fail him in battle through any lack of respect done to it.

  'You think this will work?' asked Pasanius.

  Uriel considered the question before answering. 'It will,' he said.

  'You sound awfully sure.'

  'I know, but I can't believe the armour would have drawn us to it if this wasn't going to work.'

  Pasanius simply nodded and Uriel could tell that his friend had felt a similar pull towards the armour in the Gallery of Antiquities. Some things were just felt in the bones and although it went against Uriel's training to believe in things he could not see and touch and know were real, he felt sure that he was meant to wear this armour.

  'We are ready to begin,' called Imerian, one of the enginseers, a hybrid being of flesh and metal who was swathed in red robes and whose arms were partially augmetic. Uriel felt his muscles tense and walked over to the armour, placing his hand in the centre of the golden eagle upon the breastplate.

  'You will live again,' he said.

  'Captain Ventris,' said Imerian, 'you might want to step away from the armour. If we are unable to calibrate the energy flows correctly then it would be advisable to be some distance from the backpack. Ceramite makes for deadly shrapnel.'

  Uriel nodded and stepped away from the armour, moving to join the rest of the personnel within the vehicle hangar behind a hastily erected bulwark of sandbags. Imerian unspooled a length of cable from a heavy, brass-rimmed wooden box carried by a serious-faced servitor and made a number of
complex, last minute adjustments to the dials on the front of the box.

  At last he appeared to be satisfied with the arrangements and his finger hovered over a chunky black dial in the centre of the transformer.

  'Colonel Kain?' asked Imerian. 'We are ready.'

  Kain shot Uriel a bitter look of resignation and nodded curtly, saying, 'Proceed.'

  The enginseer waved his hand at a crewman who sat upon the upper hull of one of the Leman Russ tanks and its engine roared to life with a thumping bass note that shook the dust from the roof of the hangar.

  A crackling, electric sensation danced on the air and a rising hum, like the throbbing beat that filled the heart of a starship built from the box carried by the servitor.

  Imerian furiously worked the dials as needles jumped, snapping into the red sections on the far right of the displays.

  Arcs of lightning sparked from the transformer and Imerian flinched. The hum from the box became a whine and Uriel felt a moment's fear as he wondered if something had gone horribly wrong with the process.

  He looked around the edge of the sandbag barrier, seeing the red lenses of the helmet glowing brightly with power.

  'It's working!' he cried.

  A subtle vibration was passing through the armour, a miraculous sense of reawakening that made Uriel's heart sing. He stepped from behind the sandbags and marched across the hangar over the warning shouts of Imerian.

  Uriel knew he had nothing to fear from this armour's rebirth, for it mirrored his own.

  In the time he had spent away from the Ultramarines, he had been less than whole, a shadow of his former self, but as the armour was reborn to its sacred purpose, so too was he.

  Uriel smiled, and the glow in the helmet's lenses was mirrored in his own.

  DARON NISATO FOLLOWED Pascal Blaise up a set of metal stairs towards the bar's upper rooms. His footsteps echoed loudly on the metal and he found himself wondering at the strangeness of fate that found him breathing the same air as Pascal Blaise and not hauling him back to the enforcer's precinct house.

  If Blaise was serious about opening a dialogue between the Sons of Salinas and the Imperial authorities, it could signal an end to the bloodshed that plagued the streets of Barbadus and a new beginning for Salinas.