Deathfire

by Nick Kyme

  A pity he was dead.

  Fortunate he did not expire in vain.

  Laestygon smiled, turning his gaze from the hololith for the first time in a while.

  ‘Summon the Preacher.’

  The shipmaster gave a curt bow, and was about to instruct one of his crew when Laestygon interrupted.

  ‘And speak my rank to me in that manner again, Rack, and I shall force-feed you my blade.’

  The shipmaster paled, and his hands began to tremble before he got them under control.

  ‘Yes, my lord. It won’t happen again.’

  Laestygon turned away, a wet sigh escaping his rad-burnt lips.

  ‘Yes.’

  Ever since birth, pain had been a constant companion to Malig Laestygon.

  As an infant, he contracted a wasting pox and would have succumbed had his endurance and desire to live not sustained him. As a neophyte, he had lost several fingers during an exercise and very nearly his arm, but had overcome this minor setback. In the armies of Mortarion, he had suffered. Against the hordes of Galaspar, an incendiary had taken out a chunk of his abdomen, nearly severing his left leg, yet he had limped away from that battle. On the killing fields on Isstvan V, a volkite had cooked off half of his face and left a melted wax ruin of flesh behind. Radiation burns, phosphex, crippling void exposure, Laestygon had weathered it all. And lived.

  If anyone was unkillable, it was he.

  Despite many injuries, Malig Laestygon had refused augmetics, trusting in his Barbaran constitution to keep him breathing. He did so now in a wheezing rasp, having badly burned his larynx by unintentionally inhaling promethium vapour during the sanitisation on Isstvan III.

  Every battle, another scar. He knew it was this way for most warriors. His star had never been ascendant. Climbing the ranks through stolid soldiering and by assuming the mantles of dead men, Laestygon attributed all of his modest success to one thing.

  He was a survivor.

  But here, now, he had a chance to be something greater. To be remembered.

  I shall be the first legionary to kill a primarch.

  Ever since Fulgrim beheaded Ferrus Manus, it had seemed possible to slay one of the Emperor’s sons. Prior to that pivotal moment on Isstvan, it would have been easy to think of the primarchs as immortal. After Fulgrim had taken the Gorgon’s head, the butchery did not end. Like jackals, the maddened warriors of Horus’s rebellion fell upon Ferrus Manus. Some tried to take trophies, others hacked at his body out of some strange primal instinct, as close to fear as a legionary might ever get. It was Fulgrim who landed the killing blow, though.

  Rumour had it that Horus himself now possessed the skull of Ferrus Manus, and that he praised the Phoenician as the righteous slayer of a primarch.

  Here was Laestygon’s opportunity to claim such a singular accolade for himself.

  He had quickly warmed to the notion. Now it was almost within reach, he practically salivated. Even if Vulkan was really a corpse, he would simply take his head and claim the deed had been done to a living, breathing scion of the Emperor.

  Far from proud, Laestygon merely wanted a little glory with which to anoint his banner instead of just the agglomerated filth of war.

  His dirty white-and-green armour, adorned with patched-up blade gouges, blackened by las-fire, dented by bolter shells, was hardly the raiment of the glorious.

  I am a warhorse, he thought, sitting on his throne above Rack and the rest of the ship’s crew. His battered helm with the partially wrenched mouth-grille sat by Laestygon’s side, watching the mortals busy themselves with their petty labours. As commander, Laestygon was entitled to a crest but eschewed his officer’s crown, deeming it unnecessary and likely to be shot off by his enemies at the first opportunity. He did wear a cloak, but it was ragged and brown with the ingrained dirt of more than a hundred battlefields.

  His kukra blade was chipped, but he kept the edge sharp. A double-­barrelled bolt pistol sat in a rough-looking holster but it had never jammed, and despite its worn appearance was well maintained.

  I am nothing striving to become something.

  The architect of that goal had just materialised within the ship’s hololithic array.

  Quor Gallek flickered in and out of phase, until the ship’s augur master adjusted the gain and the robed Word Bearer came starkly into view.

  ‘Preacher, are you ever clad in war-plate, or do you prefer the softness of your priestly vestments?’

  Laestygon made no attempt to mask his scorn.

  Quor Gallek made no attempt to answer it.

  ‘They will try again,’ he uttered, voice slightly garbled through the link. ‘It is their only choice, to brave the Ruinstorm and take Vulkan into the warp.’

  ‘You told me the turmoil you stirred up would scupper their ship and send it broken into my reach. But here we are presiding over a wreck of one of my own vessels instead.’

  Quor Gallek did his best to hide his irritation at being spoken to like he was another of Laestygon’s underlings.

  ‘It should have done, but I underestimated their resilience.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I allow them deeper into the storm, so deep that when the Neverborn lay waste to their ship, they will be cut adrift.’

  Laestygon relaxed in the command throne. His gauntleted fingers clawed the surface of his war-helm, adding to the many scars in the metal.

  ‘You zealots place too much stock in these daemons. How sure are you they are slaves to your will?’

  ‘Pacts have been made. Unbreakable pacts.’

  ‘I warrant the Ravens and the Drakes and the Iron Tenth claimed something similar as the first bombs rained down, before the knives slid into their backs. Pacts are always breakable. But you and I have an understanding, preacher.’ Laestygon smiled without an iota of sincerity. ‘I trust you. Which is why you must see it done yourself.’

  Quor Gallek suddenly faltered, Laestygon’s words having put him on the back foot. He recovered quickly, a genuine expression of satisfaction creeping over his face.

  ‘It shall be done.’

  ‘And the storm, when we come upon it – we have nothing to concern us there, do we, preacher?’ Laestygon leaned towards the hololithic version of Quor Gallek, as if trying to intimidate him into being truthful.

  ‘I can guide us.’

  ‘And the primarch, if indeed he is aboard–’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘If he is,’ Laestygon resumed, ‘his head is mine.’

  ‘I have no use for a corpse, cousin. I merely want the shaft of stone that will be jutting from his cold body.’

  Laestygon smiled. He had heard the spearhead referenced more than once. Quor Gallek had called it a fulgurite, a lightning stone. Whatever power it harboured had been enough to kill Vulkan if the Word Bearer’s claims were to be believed. Laestygon had considered betraying Quor Gallek to acquire both trophies – once committed, treachery was an easy habit to fall into, he had discovered – but he needed the Dark Apostle and his affinity with the warp to guarantee passage back out of the storm.

  A bargain had been struck. A pact.

  ‘You’ll get your stone and when I’ve cast the carcass of that ship burning into the ether, you and I can part ways.’

  ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure,’ replied the Preacher, bowing before the hololithic connection was severed.

  Yes, Laestygon mused to himself, treachery had become easy.

  Aboard the Monarchia, the light from the doused hololith faded, leaving Quor Gallek in darkness.

  He heard Degat’s heavy, agitated breathing nearby.

  ‘He will try to betray us,’ said the master sergeant.

  ‘Almost certainly,’ hissed Quor Gallek. ‘Which is why, when you have killed Narek, you will end the life of Malig Laestygon also.’ He turned. Degat’s
muscular silhouette was the only visible sign of the warrior. ‘Does that appeal to you, brother?’

  ‘It does,’ said Degat, sucking in a satisfying breath.

  ‘How many devoted souls do we have aboard this ship, Degat?’

  ‘Over two hundred.’

  ‘They are hardened warriors, yes?’

  ‘I trained them, so yes.’

  ‘Laestygon acted too soon. His hand slipped on the leash of his men, and the Drakes burned them for it. But we are wise and will choose our time. Did you know that when a daemon passes through the warp, it leaves a spoor, a hook that can be seized then followed? Think of it as a path through the Sea of Souls, ephemeral but possible to traverse with the right kind of imprecations.’

  Degat grunted. ‘Fewer riddles, preacher. How will you use my men?’

  ‘I mean to lead them on a path,’ said Quor Gallek as he drew something from within the folds of his robes. It was a blade, slightly more than finger’s length, but extremely sharp. Not one of the fabled Shards of Erebus – this knife did not part the materium. It had a different purpose.

  ‘If a witch uses an athame to conjure and curse, what is the tool of a chirurgeon?’

  Quor Gallek turned the blade to examine it, and the minuscule teeth along its silver edge gleamed in the light, so fine they were almost invisible to the naked eye.

  ‘A scalpel,’ growled Degat, his humour hard to discern from his belligerence.

  ‘A scalpel,’ Quor Gallek agreed, remembering how he had stolen upon the battlefield to remove one of the Gorgon’s fingers with which to forge it.

  No bone, no blood, just an unearthly metal that yielded as soon as life had left its host. Asirnoth had passed its gift on to the Iron Hands. That power had come to Quor Gallek. The scales of one drake to cut the flesh of another and take what was embedded within.

  ‘They fell upon him like jackals, Degat,’ Quor Gallek said in a shallow voice, remembering. His distaste for the deed was obvious, despite what it had offered up to him. ‘It was far from a glorious death. I think it might have been fear that made them do it, that made them tear at him like that, as if by reducing the Gorgon to nothing but bone and blood his anima would no longer pose a threat.’

  ‘I care not, preacher. Just tell me what you plan.’

  Quor Gallek eyed him viciously for a moment, as if the madness he had just recalled somehow lingered past the deed whenever he spoke of it, but swiftly regained his composure.

  ‘We will do as Laestygon asks. But we will take what is ours also and cut the fulgurite from Vulkan’s own flesh. Then, when the Death Guard are closing in for their kill, I will trap them in the storm and leave them to rot.’

  Thirty-Four

  Miracles

  Battle-barge Charybdis, strategium

  Zytos met the gaze of Kolo Adyssian with hard resolve. In his mind, there was no other choice.

  ‘She has to try again, shipmaster.’

  ‘It’ll kill her.’

  Adyssian looked haggard, his youthful verve drained by seeing Circe after the aborted warp translation. Zytos had heard from Arikk Gullero that Adyssian practically had to break open the door to the sanctum so he could stop Circe’s screaming.

  ‘Hecht believes there is a way.’

  Adyssian frowned and glanced at the shadowed figure of the grey legionary standing in the corner of his strategium. The low-lit room abutted the bridge and was filled with star charts and cartographs, those the shipmaster had used to plot the Charybdis’s staggered route through the Ruinstorm. To have any hope of getting through it, each warp translation needed to be small and meticulously plotted across known routes. They had barely begun the journey and already there was talk of abandonment.

  ‘With the greatest respect, what way is there that won’t kill my Navigator and likely your Librarian into the bargain?’

  Ushamann had suffered too. Not as badly as Circe but he looked drawn, standing in the background. Zytos hadn’t seen it during the conclave, but now he did, the slow fraying of resolve.

  Hecht stepped into the light of a single overhead lumen.

  ‘You must want to enter the storm,’ he said simply.

  ‘That’s it?’ Adyssian looked unimpressed. ‘That’s your insight?’

  ‘You forget yourself, shipmaster,’ warned Zytos.

  Adyssian held up his hand.

  ‘Apologies, my nerves are a little on edge. You have to understand, when I dragged Circe from her novatum, she was raving.’ He licked his lips. ‘To put her back so soon… I fear for her.’

  ‘Don’t let her see that,’ said Hecht. ‘In the warp, will is everything. Every weakness you have, every frailty will be exposed and exploited by what lurks in the Sea of Souls.’

  Adyssian shook his head. ‘I have travelled the warp. I’ve even seen men driven mad because of it, but what happened to Circe was something else. Endless night, she said. That there was no light. What does that even mean?’

  ‘That a veil has been drawn across the galaxy, cutting out all light, all voices save those trapped within the storm. Those voices are souls, and they scream in torment.’

  Adyssian gave a humourless laugh. ‘And you wish for me to fly into that?’

  ‘It isn’t our desire, shipmaster,’ said Zytos. ‘They are your orders, and you will follow them.’

  Adyssian held his tongue for a moment, wisely considering his words. When he spoke again, it was to Hecht.

  ‘Tell me then, how is it to be done?’

  ‘Imagine the veil as a thin ream of black cloth,’ said Hecht. ‘From a distance, anything that touches it, any light – be that the Astronomican or the psychic impression cast out by an astropath – is absorbed. Nullified. But a narrow sliver of light can penetrate what a shaft cannot, eking through the minute imperfections in the cloth, shining on what lies ahead and, eventually, beyond the veil. If we can see the way ahead, we can see our path. Travel far enough and our destination will become visible also.’

  ‘In a dark night, the mariners of old would use lanterns to light their way,’ said Adyssian. ‘But what light do we have that will breach this tempest?’

  ‘On Sotha there was a beacon that illuminated Macragge,’ said Zytos. ‘It was how we reached Ultramar through the storm.’

  ‘A safe haven,’ said Hecht, ‘a fixed port.’

  ‘We have neither,’ said Adyssian.

  ‘Your mariner, if he came across a reef, what would he do?’ asked Hecht.

  ‘Trim the sails to slow down the ship and use his lantern to find the rocks.’

  ‘Except in the Ruinstorm, the rocks are the discordant cries of damned souls and the fell creatures spawned by them. It is raw emotion made manifest.’

  Zytos exchanged a glance with Ushamann but the Librarian was listening intently and had no further insight. He did, however, ask the question that was on Zytos’s mind.

  ‘How can you know this? Such knowledge is… dangerous.’

  Hecht met Ushamann’s questioning gaze.

  ‘All knowledge, if improperly applied, is dangerous,’ he said, as if that were sufficient answer. ‘Whatever emotional turmoil you bring with you when you enter the storm, fear, hate, jealousy… it is echoed a thousandfold… ten thousandfold once inside.’

  Though he tried not to, Adyssian could not help but summon the memory of Maelyssa. How he thought he had buried it, but when he saw the refugee girl…

  ‘You must master your emotions or they will consume you. They will consume us all,’ Hecht said. ‘Have you ever seen or fought a daemon? I don’t mean one that has burrowed into a living host and slowly hollowed it, I mean an actual Neverborn.’

  Zytos remembered the creature he had fought alongside his brothers and the Ultramarines on Macragge. He remembered how the monster within Xenut Sul’s body had yearned for release, how it had stretched his skin and mu
tated him.

  ‘Unburdened…’ He spoke the word without realising he had said it at first.

  All eyes turned. Hecht’s narrowed.

  ‘Possessed flesh is a pale shadow of what we may face in the Ruinstorm. Your rage, your fear and hate, every envious thought, every scheme, each and every part of you will return embodied, twisted, and seek to devour its creator.

  ‘Only hope will guide us through the storm,’ said Hecht, echoing Ushamann’s words from earlier, ‘and a willingness to embrace our fate.’

  ‘You cannot expect the mortal crew not to have fear,’ said Zytos.

  ‘Then keep them close, or keep them shackled. Weakness will undo us. But do not think any of us are immune. Can you tell me you have never acted in dishonour, out of wrath or a desire for unjust vengeance?’

  Zytos still bore the bruises of his fight with Numeon. He had wanted to kill him, at least some small part of him had. And his wounded pride at standing down as leader of the Pyre…

  ‘Vulkan taught us temperance, and gave us the Promethean creed,’ said Zytos. ‘It will gird us in the dark days ahead.’

  Hecht spread his hands.

  ‘Then there is nothing else I can teach you.’

  Ushamann bowed his head to leave.

  ‘I will ensure the Navigator and I are well prepared.’

  Adyssian watched him go, but still looked unconvinced.

  ‘Hope?’ he asked. ‘What hope is there?’

  ‘Numeon,’ said Zytos, as if that explained everything. ‘Numeon has given us hope. Try again, shipmaster,’ he said. ‘Circe must enter the storm and hold to her course.’

  ‘And if she dies because of it?’

  Zytos’s face darkened, but showed resolve. ‘Then we are truly without hope.’

  The legionaries departed the strategium, leaving Adyssian to his thoughts. He stared at the charts for a few minutes, trying to imagine a scenario that did not end in failure and death. Then he activated a private vox-channel to the novatum.

  ‘They want me to go back, don’t they?’ said Circe, without the need for Adyssian to ask.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you seen her again?’