The heat was intense, but protected by power armour, the Space Marines were immune to the lethal temperatures. The Space Marines sheltered the two Guardsmen as best they could from the killing heat, but Uriel could see that both Leonid and Ellard were on the verge of collapse. The fires killed the worst of the stench and Uriel pulled himself to his feet using the wall.

'Why don't they die?' cursed Vaanes. He held his bolter at the ready and Uriel could see he desperately wanted to fire, but kept his finger clear of the trigger guard, having seen how little effect their initial volley had had. Space Marines picked themselves up, forming a defensive cordon between the walls of flame at either end of the street.

'And why aren't they attacking?' wondered Pasanius. 'Until they went up in flames, it looked like they were ready to overrun us.'

'I'm not sure,' answered Uriel, as an unsettling suspicion began to settle in his gut. 'I think that maybe they never intended to kill us, that maybe they intended something else.'

'What?' asked Vaanes.

'Maybe they just intended to trap us here,' said Uriel, watching as a warrior in glossy black power armour and glowing silver traceries for veins marched through the leaping flames, the oozing matter of the beasts parting before him.

Bronze claws unsheathed from both his grey-fleshed hands and his eyes burned with a soulless silver light.

'Found you,' said the warrior.

CHAPTER TWELVE

'You survived the bedlam portals,' said the warrior, sounding faintly impressed as he walked towards the Space Marines. His armour was utterly black, not even the bright flames reflecting on its mirror-smooth surfaces. Uriel saw that the warrior did not carry a gun, but that did not put him any more at ease. After all, how supremely confident must a warrior be to come before more than two-dozen Space Marines unarmed?

Though to call this warrior unarmed was a misnomer, thought Uriel, seeing his long, glittering bronze claws.

'Who are you?' called Uriel.

The warrior smiled, dull silver light spilling from his mouth as he spoke. 'You have not the aural or vocal configurations to hear or speak my name, so you will know me as Onyx.'

The Space Marines turned their guns on Onyx, the crackling flames beginning to die as more ripples of shadow slithered into the street and quenched them in darkness.

'Are these your creatures?' asked Uriel, raising his own weapon.

'The Exuviae? No, they are nothing more than the polluted filth of Khalan-Ghol, waste matter shed by its industry that mutated to idiot life. They infest this place, but they have their uses.'

'You would do well to let us pass,' snarled Vaanes. . Onyx shook his head. 'No, my master has commanded me to bring you to him.'

'Your master?' said Uriel. 'Honsou?'

'Indeed,' said Onyx.

Uriel could see that there was no they were going to get past Onyx without violence. He had no idea how fearsome the enemy warrior Onyx was in blade-to-blade combat and had no desire to find out.

Calmly, he said, 'Kill him.'

Bolter fire ripped along the street, but Onyx moved like quicksilver, a darting shadow that slipped between the shells and pirouetted above the hail of gunfire. Bronze claws slashed for Uriel's belly and he threw himself back against the wall, only just avoiding being disembowelled by Onyx's stroke.

Pasanius stepped in and hammered his boot towards Onyx, but the black warrior spun away and cracked his elbow into Pasanius's face before leaping over him and delivering a spinning kick to Ardaric Vaanes. Kyama Shae fired his bolter at point blank range, the shells ricocheting from the gleaming black armour of his target.

Onyx lunged close and hammered his fist into Shae's gut, the bronze claws tearing through the Crimson Fist's armour and ripping upwards. Onyx spun away from his victim with a tortured crack of bone, Shae's spinal column clenched in his fist. The Space Marine collapsed to his knees, blood flooding from the great wound torn in his body. His eyes stared in horrid fascination at his spinal column in another's hands for the briefest second before he pitched face first to the ground.

Uriel's jaw dropped open in horror at the sight, as the dripping, bloody spinal column was enveloped within the glassy darkness of Onyx's armour, and the silver-eyed killer leapt upwards as more bolter fire raked the wall behind him. He pushed off from the wall, twisting in midair to lash out with his claws and feet, crushing windpipes and decapitating Space Marines with every blow.

As he landed, he plunged his bloodstained blades into each victim, ripping their spines out with the awful sound of splintering bone. Five Space Marines were down and they hadn't managed to shed a drop of this thing's blood. Uriel sprayed bolts towards Onyx, but no matter how he anticipated the killer's movements, he was always just that little bit too slow to hit him.

'Emperor save us, he's too fast!' shouted Vaanes.

Another Space Marine fell, ripped open from groin to sternum and Uriel could see that Onyx was not going to be too particular in how he carried out his master's wishes. The black-armoured warrior spun through the air, his blazing silver veins and eyes leaving molten trails as he moved with preternatural speed.

Uriel raised his bolter as Onyx leapt for him, but knew that he wouldn't be quick enough. Onyx's fist hammered into his throat, the claws on the furthest extremities of his fists pinning him to the wall behind. Uriel's head cracked painfully against the brickwork and he felt blood matt his hair. He saw that Onyx's middle claw was partially retracted into his flesh, the point pricking the skin of Uriel's throat.

'Anyone else moves and your leader dies!' shouted Onyx, bathing Uriel in silver light as he spoke. The flames from the burning Exuviae had died and the renewed oily, shadow beasts slithered forward, rearing up on amorphous bodies that now achieved a semblance of solidity. The survivors of the warrior band surrounded Onyx and Uriel, their weapons aimed squarely at the symbiote's back.

'I thought you said your master wanted you to bring us to him,' gasped Uriel.

'He did,' nodded Onyx. 'But he didn't say if you were to be alive.'

'He's not our leader,' said Vaanes. 'So go ahead and kill him, but you will follow him into death!'

'I beg to differ,' said Onyx. 'I can see his soul burning with the light of purpose.'

'Vaanes, shoot him!' shouted Uriel, twisting in Onyx's grip and closing his eyes as bolter shells filled the air around him with a deafening roar. He felt Onyx shudder as the bolts struck him. Amid the gunfire, he heard the warrior laugh, and cried out in pain as he felt Onyx's middle talon stab forwards to punch through his throat and embed itself the wall.

The talon was ripped free and he slid down the wall, blood pouring from his neck and armour in a scarlet wash before the Larraman cells were able to clot his blood and stem the wound. Uriel gasped, the breath rasping in his throat, and he realised his trachea had been completely severed. Uriel closed his eyes as his vision greyed and his body fought for oxygen, his chest hiking convulsively. He fought to stay focused, knowing that to slip into unconsciousness was to die, and shifted his breathing to the third lung grafted to his pulmonary system. His altered breathing pattern shut off the sphincter muscle that normally took in air and he gulped down a great breath as his enhanced physiology took over.

Onyx spun beyond the hail of shells, landing behind the Space Marines with an atavistic howl of bloodlust. His claws swelled to become monstrous golden swords and three Space Marines were hacked apart in as many blows. His face swelled and rippled, black horns curling from his temples and gleaming lines of augmetic body parts becoming visible within his form as the daemonic entity within Onyx took complete command of his body.