by Nick Kyme
‘You are the only one of us, the only Fireborn, ever to be chosen from Ignea,’ Fugis told him, eyes penetrating as he looked at Dak’ir.
‘What does that matter?’
Fugis ignored him and went back to his analysis.
‘You said, “We were only meant to bring them back”. Who did you mean?’ he asked after a moment.
‘You were there on Moribar,’ Dak’ir uttered and stepped off the brazier-cauldron, hot skin steaming as it touched the cold metal floor of his isolation cell. ‘You know.’
Fugis looked up from his instruments and his data. His eyes softened fleetingly with regret. They quickly narrowed, however, sheathed behind cold indifference.
He laughed mirthlessly, his lip curling in more of a sneer than a smile.
‘You are fit for combat, brother-sergeant,’ he said. ‘Planetfall on Stratos is in less than two hours. I’ll see you on assembly deck six before then.’
Fugis then saluted, more by rote than meaning, and turned his back on his fellow Salamander.
Dak’ir felt relief as the Apothecary departed.
‘And Brother Dak’ir… Not all of us want to be brought back. Not all of us can be brought back,’ said Fugis, swallowed by the dark.
THE SURFACE OF Stratos writhed with perpetual storms. Lightning streaked the boiling tumult and thunderheads collided in violent flashes, only to break apart moments later. Through these ephemeral gaps in the clouds tiny nubs of chlorine-bleached rock and bare earth were revealed, surrounded by a swirling maelstrom sea.
The Thunderhawk gunships Firewyvern and Spear of Prometheus tore above the storm’s fury, turbofans screaming. They were headed for the conglomeration of floating cities in Stratos’s upper atmosphere. Named “loft-cities” by the Stratosan natives, these great domed metropolises of chrome and plascrete were home to some four point three million souls and linked together by a series of massive sky-bridges. Due to the concentrated chlorine emissions from their oceans the Stratosans had been forced to elevate their cities with massive plasma-fuelled gravitic engines; so high, in fact, that each required its own atmosphere in order for the inhabitants to breathe.
The words of Fugis were still on Dak’ir’s mind and he willed the furore inside the Chamber Sanctuarine of the Firewyvern to smother his thoughts. The gunship’s troop hold was almost at capacity – twenty-five Astartes secured in standing grav-harness as the Thunderhawk made its final descent.
Brother-Captain Kadai was closest to the exit ramp, his gaze burning with courage and conviction. He was clad in saurian-styled artificer armour and, like his charges, had yet to don his helmet. Instead, he had it clasped to his armour belt, a simulacrum of a snarling fire drake fashioned in metal. His close-cropped hair was white and shaven into a strip that bisected his head down the middle. Alongside him was his command squad, the Inferno Guard: N’keln, Kadai’s second in command, a steady if uncharismatic officer; Company Champion Vek’shen, who had bested countless foes in the Chapter’s name, and gripped his fire-glaive; Honoured Brother Malicant who bore the company’s banner into battle, and Honoured Brother Shen’kar clasping a flamer to his chest. Fugis was the last of them. The Apothecary nodded discreetly in Dak’ir’s direction when he saw him.
It was dark in the chamber. Tiny ovals of light came from the Salamanders, their red eyes aglow. As Dak’ir’s gaze left Fugis it settled on another’s, one that burned coldly.
Brother-Sergeant Tsu’gan glared from across the hold. Dak’ir felt his fists clench.
Tsu’gan was the epitome of Promethean ideal. Strong, tenacious, self-sacrificing – he was everything a Salamander should aspire to be. But there was a vein of arrogance and superiority hidden deep within him. He was born in Hesiod, one of the seven Sanctuary Cities of Nocturne, and the principal recruiting grounds for the Chapter. Unlike most on the volcanic death world, Tsu’gan was raised into relative affluence. His family were nobles, tribal kings at the tenuous apex of Nocturnean wealth and influence.
Dak’ir, as an itinerant cave-dwelling Ignean, was at its nadir. The fact that he became Astartes at all was unprecedented. So few from the nomadic tribes ever reached the sacred places where initiates underwent the trials, let alone competed and succeeded in them. Dak’ir was, in many ways, unique. To Tsu’gan, he was an aberration. Both should have left their human pasts behind when they were elevated to Astartes, but centuries of ingrained prejudice were impossible to suppress.
The Thunderhawk banked sharply as it made for the landing zone adjacent to the loft-city of Nimbaros, breaking the tension between the two sergeants. The exterior armour plate shrieked in protest with the sudden exertion, the sound transmitting internally as a dull metal moan.
‘A portent of the storm to come?’ offered Ba’ken in a bellow.
The bald-headed Astartes was Dak’ir’s heavy weapons trooper, his broad shoulders and thick neck making him ideally equipped for the task. Ba’ken, like many of his Chapter, was also a gifted artisan and craftsman. The heavy flamer he had slung on his back was unique amongst Tactical squads, and he had manufactured the weapon himself in the blazing forges of Nocturne.
‘According to the Stratosan’s reports, the traitors are dug in and have numbers. It will not be—’
‘We are the storm, brother,’ Tsu’gan interjected, shouting loudly above the engine din before Dak’ir could finish. ‘We’ll cleanse this place with fire and flame,’ he snarled zealously, ‘and purge the impure.’
Ba’ken nodded solemnly to the other sergeant, but Dak’ir felt his skin flush with anger at such blatant disrespect for his command. An amber warning light winked into existence above them and Brother-Captain Kadai’s voice rang out, preventing any reprisal. ‘Helmets on, brothers!’
There was a collective clank of metal on metal as the Astartes donned battle-helms.
Dak’ir and Tsu’gan fitted theirs last of all, unwilling to break eye contact for even a moment. In the end Tsu’gan relented, smiling darkly as he mouthed a phrase.
‘Purge the impure!’
‘CUMULON IN THE east and Nimbaros in the south are still contested, but my troops are taking more ground by the hour and have managed to secure the sky-bridges that link the three cities,’ explained a sweating Colonel Tonnhauser over the crackling pict-link of Kadai’s Land Raider Redeemer, Fire Anvil. ‘We’re using them to siphon out civilian survivors. There are still thousands trapped behind enemy lines though, my men amongst them.’
‘You have done the Emperor’s work here, and have my oath as a Salamander of Vulkan that if those men can be saved, I will save them,’ Kadai replied, standing inside the hold of his war machine as it shuddered over the sky-bridge to Cirrion. Four armoured Rhinos rumbled behind it in convoy, transporting the rest of the battle-group.
Once the Salamanders had made planetfall outside Nimbaros, Kadai had ordered Brother Argos, Master of the Forge, to make a structural assessment of the approach road to Cirrion. Using building schematics from the Stratosan cities inloaded to the Vulkan’s Wrath’s cogitators and then exloaded back to a display screen on the Firewyvern, the Techmarine had determined the sky-bridges were unfeasible locations for the gunships to land and redeploy the Astartes.
Less than twenty minutes later, three Thunderhawk transporters had descended from orbit and deployed the Salamanders’ dedicated transport vehicles.
Kadai had held his Salamanders at the landing zone in squad formation, ready for the arrival of the transports. There had been no time for a tactical appraisal with the Stratosan natives. That would have to be conducted en route to Cirrion.
‘I pray to the Emperor that some yet live,’ Tonnhauser continued over the pict-link, network-fed to all of the Astartes transports. ‘But I fear Cirrion is lost to us, lord Astartes,’ he added, lighting up a fresh cigar with shaking fingers. ‘There’s nothing left there but death and terror, now.’ He seemed to be avoiding eye contact with the screen. Kadai had taken off his helmet during the ride over the sky-bridge and the human clearly fou
nd his appearance unsettling.
‘Wars have been won on the strength of that alone,’ he remembered the old Master of Recruits telling him almost three hundred years ago when he had first been given the black carapace.
‘Tell me of the enemy,’ Kadai said, face hardening at the thought of such suffering.
‘They call themselves the Cult of Truth,’ said Tonnhauser, the pict-link breaking up for a moment with the static interference. ‘Until roughly three months ago, they were merely a small group of disaffected Imperial citizens adept at dodging the mauls of the city proctors. Now they are at least fifty thousand strong, and dug in all throughout Cirrion. They’re heavily-armed. Most of the Stratosan war-smiths are based in the capital, as are our dirigible fleets, our airships. They carry a mark on their bodies, usually hidden, like a tattoo in the shape of a screaming mouth. And their mouths…’ he said, taking a shuddering breath, ‘their mouths are sewn shut with wire. We think they might remove their tongues, too.’
‘What makes you say that?’
Tonnhauser met the captain’s burning gaze in spite of his fear.
‘Because no one has ever heard them speak.’ Tonnhauser paled further. ‘To fight an enemy that does not cry out, that does not shout orders. It’s not natural.’
‘Do they have a leader, this cult?’ said Kadai, showing his distaste at such depravity.
Tonnhauser took a long drag on his cigar, before crushing it in an ash tray and lighting another.
‘Our gathered intelligence is limited,’ he admitted. ‘But we believe there is a hierophant of sorts. Again, this is unconfirmed, but we think he’s in the temple district. What we do know is that they call him the Speaker.’
‘An ironic appellation,’ Kadai muttered. ‘How many troops do you have left, colonel?’
Tonnhauser licked his lips.
‘Enough to hold the two satellite cities. The rest of my men in Cirrion are being pulled out as we speak. Civilians too. I’ve lost so many…’ Tonnhauser’s face fell. He looked like a man with nothing more to give.
‘Hold those cities, colonel,’ Kadai told him. ‘The Salamanders will deal with Cirrion, now. You’ve done your duty as a servant of the Imperium and will be honoured for it.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’
The pict-link crackled into static as Kadai severed the connection.
The captain turned from the blank display screen to find Apothecary Fugis at his shoulder.
‘Their courage hangs by a thread,’ he muttered. ‘I have never seen such despair.’
‘Our intervention is timely then.’ Kadai glanced over Fugis’s shoulder and saw the rest of his command squad. N’keln was readying them for battle, leading them in the rites of the Promethean Cult.
‘Upon the anvil are we tempered, into warriors forged…’ he intoned, the others solemnly following his lead. They surrounded a small brazier set into the floor of the troop hold. Offerings to Vulkan and the Emperor burned within the crucible, scraps of banners or powdered bone, and one by one the Inferno Guard took a fistful of the ash and marked their armour with it.
‘Guerrilla warfare is one thing, but to defeat an entire Imperial Guard regiment… Do you think we face more than a cult uprising here?’ asked Fugis, averting his gaze from the ritual and resolving to make his own observances later.
Kadai brought his gaze inward as he considered the Apothecary’s question.
‘I don’t know yet. But something plagues this place. This so-called Cult of Truth certainly has many followers.’ ‘Its spread is endemic, suggesting its root is psychological, rather than ideological,’ said the Apothecary.
Kadai left the implication unspoken.
‘I can’t base a strategy on supposition, brother. Once we breach the city, then we’ll find out what we’re facing.’ The captain paused a moment before asking, ‘What of Dak’ir?’
Fugis lowered his voice, so the others could not hear him.
‘Physically, our brother is fine. But he is still troubled. Remembrances of his human childhood on Nocturne and his first mission…’
Kadai scowled, ‘Moribar… Over four decades of battles, yet still this one clings to us like a dark shroud.’
‘His memory retention is… unusual. And I think he feels guilt for what happened to Nihilan,’ offered Fugis. Kadai’s expression darkened further.
‘He is not alone in that,’ he muttered.
‘Ushorak, too.’
‘Vai’tan Ushorak was a traitor. He deserved his fate,’ Kadai answered flatly, before changing the subject, ‘Dak’ir’s spirit will be cleansed in the crucible of battle; that is the Salamander way. Failing that I will submit him to the Reclusiam and Chaplain Elysius for conditioning.’
Kadai re-activated the open vox-channel, indicating that the conversation was over.
It was time to address the troops.
‘BROTHERS…’ DAK’IR HEARD the voice of his captain over the vox. ‘Our task here is simple. Liberate the city, protect its citizens and destroy the heretics. Three assault groups will enter Cirrion on a sector by sector cleanse and burn – Hammer, Anvil and Flame. Sergeants Tsu’gan and Dak’ir will lead Anvil and Flame, into the east and west sectors of the city respectively. Devastator heavy support is Sergeant Ul’shan’s Hellfire Squad for Anvil and Sergeant Lok’s Incinerators for Flame. I lead Hammer to the north with Sergeant Omkar. Flamers with all units. Let nothing stay your wrath. This is the kind of fight we were born for. In the name of Vulkan. Kadai out.’
Static reigned once more. Dak’ir cut the link completely as the convoy rumbled on slowly past sandbagged outposts crested with razor wire. Weary troops with hollow eyes manned those stations, too tired or inured by weeks of fighting to react to the sight of the Astartes.
‘This is a broken force,’ muttered Ba’ken, breaking the silence as he peered out of one of the Rhino’s vision slits.
Dak’ir followed his trooper’s gaze. ‘They are not like the natives of Nocturne, Ba’ken. They are unused to hardship like this.’
A lone file of Stratosan Aircorps passed the convoy, marching in the opposite direction. They trudged like automatons, nursing wounds, hobbling on sticks, las-guns slung loose over their shoulders. Every man wore a respirator, and a tan storm-coat to ward off the chill of the open atmosphere. Only the cities were domed, the sky-bridges lay open to the elements, though they had high walls and were suspended from rugged-looking towers by thick cables.
The gate of Cirrion loomed at the end of the blasted road. The way into the capital city was huge, all bare black metal, and hermetically sealed to maintain its atmospheric integrity.
‘I heard a group of corpsmen talking before we mustered out,’ offered Ba’ken as they approached the gate. ‘He said that Cirrion was how he imagined hell.’
Dak’ir was checking the power load of his plasma pistol before slamming it back into its holster. ‘We were born in hell, Ba’ken… What do we have to fear from a little fire?’
Ba’ken’s booming laughter thundered in the Rhino all the way up to the gate.
DEEP WITHIN THE bowels of Cirrion the shadows were alive with monsters.
Sergeant Rucka fled through shattered streets, his pursuers at his heels. His heart was pounding. Cirrion’s principal power grid had collapsed, leaving failing backup generators to provide intermittent illumination for the city via its lume-lamps. With every sporadic blackout, the shadows seemed to fill with new threats and fresh enemies. It didn’t help matters.
Rucka had been at the front of the second push in the capital city. The attack had failed utterly. Something else was stalking the darkened corridors of Cirrion, and it had fallen upon his battalion with furious wrath. It was totally unexpected. In strategising his battalion’s assault Rucka had deliberately taken an oblique route, circumventing the main battle zones, to come through the northern sector of the city.
All Stratosan gathered intelligence had suggested that insurgent resistance would be light. It wasn’t insurgents that had wi
ped out five hundred men.
Rucka was the last of them, having somehow escaped the carnage, but now the cultists had found him. They were gaining too. His once proud city was in ruins. He didn’t know this dystopian version of it. Where there should have been avenues there were rubble blockades. Where there should be plazas of chrome there were charred pits falling away into stygian darkness. Hell had come here. There was no other word to describe it.
Rounding another corner, Rucka came to abrupt halt. He was standing at the mouth to a mag-tram station; on one side a stack of industrial warehouses, on the other a high wall and an overpass. The trams themselves littered the way ahead, just burnt out wrecks, daubed in crude slogans. But it was the tunnel itself that caught the sergeant’s attention. Something skittered there in the abject darkness.
Behind him, Rucka heard the pack. They’d slowed. He realised then he’d been steered to this place.
Slowly the skittering from the tunnel became louder and the pack from behind him closer. The cultists scuttled into view. Rucka counted at least fifty men and women, their mouths sewn shut, blue veins threading from their puckered lips. They carried picks and shards of metal and glass.
It wasn’t the end that Rucka had envisaged for himself.
The sergeant had picked out his first opponent and was about to take aim with his lasgun when a piece of rockcrete clattered down onto the street. Rucka traced its trajectory back to the overpass and saw the silhouettes of three armoured giants in the ambient light.
The brief spark of salvation given life in Rucka’s mind was quickly crushed when he realised that these creatures were not here to save him.
Thunder roared and muzzle flares tore away the darkness a second later.
Rucka read what was about to happen and went to ground just before the onslaught. The deadly salvo lasted heartbeats, but it was enough. The cultists were utterly annihilated – their broken, blasted bodies littered the street like visceral trash.
Rucka was on his back, still dazed from the sudden attack. When he couldn’t feel his legs, he realised he’d been hit. Heat blazed down his side like an angry knife ripping at his skin. His fatigues were wet, probably with his own blood. A sudden earth tremor shook the rockcrete where Rucka lay prone, sending fresh daggers of pain through his body, as something large and dense smashed into the ground. More impacts followed, landing swift and heavy like mortar strikes.