'What was this place used for?' asked Pasanius.

Vaanes shrugged. 'An old ammunition store, a barracks, a construction exercise? Who knows? All I know is that when we found this place it was abandoned and no one ever came near it. That's good enough for me.'

Uriel nodded as they crossed a trench via a series of iron sheets and Vaanes moved ahead of them towards the blockhouse beyond the bunkers.

Pasanius leaned close to Uriel and whispered, 'What are we doing? These Space Marines are renegades! Are we to damn ourselves even more in the sight of the Emperor?'

'I know,' said Uriel bitterly, 'but what choice do we have?'

'We can strike out on our own.'

'Aye, and maybe we will, but they have been here longer than us and we may learn something of this world and its dangers.'

Pasanius looked unconvinced, but said nothing more as they reached the armoured doors to the blockhouse. Whatever mechanism had once opened and closed them obviously no longer operated and Vaanes hauled them open with brute strength before disappearing within and indicating that they should follow.

Uriel ducked inside the blockhouse, the interior surprisingly well-lit by numerous holes pierced in the roof. Shafts of dead white light pooled on the rockcrete floor and reflected from the peeling, flakboard walls.

'I realise that this might be a little more luxury than you're used to as Ultramarines, but it's the nearest thing we have to a home just now,' grinned Vaanes as he walked ahead of them into the blockhouse's main chamber.

Light streamed in through the firing slits and Uriel could see that the chamber was full of the same Space Marines who had attacked the camp earlier. Most were engaged in cleaning their weapons or repairing their armour and Uriel was shocked at the sheer number of different Chapter symbols he saw on display.

Howling Griffons, White Consuls, Wolf Brothers, Crimson Fists and many others he did not recognise.

But most surprising of all were two figures crouched in the corner of the main chamber cleaning lasrifles. Dressed in the battered fatigues and torn uniform jackets of the Imperial Guard, they looked up as Uriel and Pasanius entered. Both men were so filthy and dishevelled that it was impossible to tell what regiment they had belonged to, but both wore expressions of tired, proud courage.

'Two new warriors for our band!' called Vaanes before slumping against one wall and removing his helmet.

Uriel refrained from qualifying that statement as the leaner of the two Guardsmen rose to his feet and limped towards Uriel. His skin was pale and wasted looking blotchy and unhealthy, his eyes bloodshot.

The man extended a palsied hand and said, 'Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Leonid of the 383rd Jouran Dragoons.'

'Uriel Ventris, and this is Pasanius Lysane.'

'What kind of Space Marines are you?' asked Leonid, stifling a cough. 'I don't see any markings.'

'We are Ultramarines,' replied Uriel. 'Sent from our Chapter to fulfill a death oath.'

Leonid shrugged. 'A better reason than most for being here.'

'Perhaps,' nodded Uriel. 'And how is it that a colonel of the Imperial Guard comes to be here?'

'That,' said Leonid, 'is a long story…'

CHAPTER EIGHT

Leonid and Sergeant Ellard, the softly spoken companion of the colonel, spent the next hour and a half regaling Uriel and Pasanius of how they had ended up in slavery on the bleak daemon world of Medrengard, beginning with the devastating assault of the Iron Warriors on the world of Hydra Cordatus just prior to the Despoiler's invasion through the Cadian Gate.

He spoke of weeks of constant shelling, of tanks and Titans and of the lethal cancers that base treachery had infected the men and women of his regiment with. But more than this, he spoke of noble courage. He spoke of a warrior named Eshara, a Space Marine of the Imperial Fists, and the sacrifice he and his men had made before the Valedictor Gate. Uriel felt a fierce pride well within him at the thought of such a noble warrior standing before impossible odds, and wished he could have met such a brave hero.

But ultimately, the story did not end well. The Iron Warriors finally took the citadel before Imperial reinforcements could arrive and Leonid wept as he spoke of the brutal slaughter that took place upon its final fall.

'It was a nightmare,' said Leonid. 'They showed no mercy.'

'The Iron Warriors serve the Ruinous Powers,' said Uriel. 'They do not know the meaning of the word.'

'Captain Eshara bought us some time, but it wasn't enough. The cavern below was too large and there was too much gene-seed to destroy. We—'

'Wait,' interrupted Uriel. 'Gene-seed? There was Space Marine gene-seed beneath your citadel?'

'Yes,' nodded Leonid. 'An Adeptus Mechanicus magos told me that it was one of the few places in the galaxy where it could be stored. The Warsmith Honsou stole it and brought it to this world along with the slaves he took for his forges at the battle's end.'

'Who is Honsou?' asked Pasanius.

'He is the warlord who dwells in the fortress you saw as we came into this valley,' said Ardaric Vaanes.

'It is this Honsou's fortress that is besieged?' said Uriel, unable to mask his interest.

'It is,' confirmed Vaanes, wandering over to join the conversation and squatting down on his haunches. 'Why are you so interested in Honsou?'

'We have to get to that fortress.'

Vaanes laughed. 'Then you truly are here on a death oath. Why do you need to get to Honsou's fortress?'

Uriel paused, unsure as to how much he could trust Vaanes, but realised he had no choice and said, 'Our Chief Librarian was granted a vision from the Emperor, a vision of Medrengard and bloated, daemonic womb creatures called daemonculaba giving birth to corrupt, debased Space Marines. We are here to destroy them and I think that more than mere happenstance has brought us to this place.'

'How so?' asked Vaanes.

'Can it be coincidence that this Honsou has returned here with quantities of gene-seed for these daemonculaba and that we should learn of it from a man who was there to see him take it?'

Vaanes looked Ellard and Leonid up and down. 'I wondered why I hadn't left you to die with the other slaves on the Omphalos Daemonium. Perhaps something other than curiosity stayed my hand.'

Uriel started. 'You know of the Omphalos Daemonium?'

'Of course,' said Vaanes. 'There are few on Medrengard who do not. How is it you know of it?'

'It brought us here,' said Pasanius. 'It appeared within our ship when we made the translation to the immaterium. It killed everyone on board and then brought us here.'

'You willingly travelled within the Omphalos Daemonium?' said Vaanes, aghast.

'Of course not,' snapped Uriel. 'Its daemon creatures overcame us.'

'The Sarcomata…' nodded Vaanes.

'Aye, then the iron giant within the daemon engine brought us here.'

'The iron giant?' asked Leonid. 'The Slaughterman?'

'Slaughterman? No, it said that it only wore the flesh of the Slaughterman, that it was the will of the Omphalos Daemonium that commanded.'

'Then the daemon is free!' breathed Vaanes.

'What is it anyway?' asked Uriel.

'No one knows for sure,' began a sallow-skinned Space Marine of great age wearing armour of deep red and bone, with a raven's head on his shoulder guard. 'But there are tales aplenty, oh yes, tales aplenty.'

'And would you care to share any of them?' asked Vaanes, impatiently.

'I was just about to,' growled the Space Marine, 'if you'd given me half a chance.'

The Space Marine turned to Uriel and said, 'I am Seraphys of the Blood Ravens, and I served in my Chapter's Librarium in the years before my disgrace. One of the greatest driving forces of my Chapter is the seeking out of dark knowledge and forbidden lore, and over the millennia of our existence we have discovered much, and all of it gathered it aboard our Chapter fortress.'