by Nick Kyme
Ky’dak shook his head, wrenching his blade free. It was damaged, some of the teeth were broken and the motor had given out.
‘Machine-spirit be damned,’ he hissed.
Va’lin peered into the shadows from where the attack had first come but could see nothing of significance. When he was certain nothing else was coming out of the dark at them, he looked up.
‘Are you injured?’ he asked.
‘Just wrathful.’
Ky’dak’s eyes blazed without his battle-helm, but it was something cold and hollow that burned behind them.
Craning their necks towards where Naeb and Dersius had forced a path through the ceiling, both Salamanders got into position then simultaneously engaged their jump engines. They burst up through the roof, trailing fire into a murky night clouded with smoke. They found their comrades quickly. Naeb and Dersius were already amongst the Havocs, having joined up with Iaptus and the others.
A second squad of renegades had moved into position after Va’lin’s battle-brothers, intending to bracket them in, but were surprised when two further Salamanders emerged amongst them.
Ky’dak was first to react. He impaled one legionnaire in the neck, ramming his dulled chainsword through the warrior’s gorget like a pike. Va’lin torched the other two with a short burst of fiery promethium, letting his partner finish them as they cooked in their armour.
‘Fire and blood, they’re everywhere,’ snarled Ky’dak, searching for the next fight.
From his vantage on the rooftop, Va’lin’s gaze was drawn downward.
An armoured column was moving in from the west. Five vehicles. He recognised the tank commander riding up in the cupola, Akadin Zantho. Two more, heavy-armoured Vindicators, rolled in from the north as well as a pair of massive Redeemers. In the streets below, what Va’lin could see of them, the cultists panicked. The legionnaires held on grimly, the other Havocs turning their autocannons and heavy bolters on the Salamanders tanks.
One of the Predators ground to a halt, its turret rising as solid shot ricocheted ineffectually off its hull. Twin-linked side sponson mounts angled in unison to meet the same target. The hum of power generators grew to a shriek as the capacitors reached a critical mass and unleashed laser death on the Havocs. Power armour shredded apart like flakboard as three more equally potent salvoes lanced from the other Predators.
In a few violent, energy-charged seconds, the Havocs were gone with only a faint crackle of corposant to mark their destruction. The cannons swung around on their turrets, tracking fresh targets and vaporising cultists with every energy discharge.
With a command Va’lin couldn’t hear over the battle, Zantho unleashed the Redeemers. Avenues and tunnels, all the clandestine crawl spaces the heretics had used to effect their ambush were filled with flame. He’d seen enough.
Va’lin urged Ky’dak onwards and as the burning below commenced, the Assault Marines leapt into one of the heretic gun nests and cut down its crew. Most were already running anyway, and the Salamanders snarled at the backs of their foes as they fled. It didn’t stop either one shooting them down. An enemy unwilling to fight face to face and eye to eye was worthy only of contempt and so would be put down thusly. The deaths of the crew were scarcely footnotes in an ongoing saga of the war on Heletine. After that, heretical resistance crumbled as the will to fight bled from them.
It bled all over the streets in runnels.
Scraps of the fleeing cultists survived, as vermin always did even when faced with a cleansing fire. Some reached tunnels, hidden culverts and side streets. Their escape would afford them a little more life. It would be measured in minutes or days only. Salamanders were patient. They could wait until the fire became a conflagration for all these thrice-damned souls to burn in.
Zantho rode down the rest, watching impassively from his Land Raider’s cupola as cultists fell screaming beneath the tracks. It was not music to his ears, as some warriors might claim; it was merely war. But that did not make it any less satisfying. He had a vengeful streak, the tank commander. He found it amply slaked in those final moments of the battle.
Va’lin watched as Ky’dak wrecked the autocannon that had been strafing the road. With the battle over, there seemed little else to occupy his fading need for violence. Below, the remnants of Kessoth’s and Kadoran’s squads had moved into the open and were laying down fire on the other towers and weapon emplacements. One tower collapsed, seemingly capitulating against the onslaught. Another simply fell silent, an empty shell haunted by terrified ghosts who had looked true fury in the eye and blinked. Salamanders had that effect.
‘With Zantho here,’ said Ky’dak, stepping up to the edge of the cavernous hole they had used to breach the tower, ‘that means he has either secured the northern district of the city in much shorter order than any of us could have hoped or…’
Va’lin absorbed the scene below too and guessed at the other warrior’s inference. ‘He has surrendered it on Captain Drakgaard’s orders, to pull our souls from hellfire.’
‘Takes the edge off, doesn’t it.’
Va’lin did not answer. Sigils daubed in what he assumed was blood on the walls had caught his eye.
As a Space Marine, he was largely immune to such debased iconography, but it sent a twinge of unease running through him.
He doused the sigils in fire, before muttering, ‘Strange…’
‘What is?’ asked Ky’dak, turning around to face him.
Even Chaos sigils had a pattern. They were each fashioned in such a way as to show and garner allegiance from some daemonic patron. The blood-graffiti in the nest conflicted, as if more than one potentate of Ruin were being called upon. It led Va’lin to speculate how many enemies were on Heletine and which of those had yet to reveal themselves. Ever was it the way with Chaos in his experience. Nothing was ever as it seemed, a fact that extended to an incident during his Scout training back on Nocturne. The memory grew sharp in his mind. Distant gunfire, the last echoes of a battle fought and won, brought him back. No sense in lingering on that now.
‘Nothing,’ he lied, letting his suspicions rest. Master of Recruits Ba’ken had always remonstrated Va’lin for his over inquisitive mind, and here he was again. Part of him wished Ba’ken were here now – his wisdom would be greatly appreciated – but Va’lin had left him behind on Nocturne. That door was closed to him. It wasn’t even his home world. That too was gone, and how he missed it.
He rejoined Ky’dak as he looked out of the sundered gun nest.
The battle was over, the tanks had seen to that and Salamanders infantry was quickly mopping up what little resistance did remain.
‘What happened in the stairwell, brother?’ he asked.
Ky’dak looked confused.
‘We fought and killed an enemy combatant. I don’t follow.’
‘There was a death wish in your eyes,’ said Va’lin. ‘I’ve seen rage like that before and his path was far from glorious.’
‘Speak plainly, Va’lin. We have been battle-brothers for only a short time but you’ve never been cryptic with me. Don’t start now. Who do I remind you of?’
‘Very well. He was a Firedrake, a sergeant before that. Zek Tsu’gan.’
Ky’dak recognised the name. ‘The defector?’
‘No one has said he defected.’
‘But they’re hunting him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re likening me to him?’
‘You are as reckless as he was. You fought as one, not a squad. You defied every combat doctrine.’
Ky’dak scowled, abruptly disinterested.
‘We are alive, he is not. You’re a pragmatist, Va’lin. I’ve heard you don’t always follow orders directly. I thought you would understand.’
‘Improvisation and adaption, not a reckless desire to kill or die in the attempt no matter the cost.’
&n
bsp; ‘When Iaptus takes issue with my tactics, then I shall listen. Until then…’ Ky’dak shouldered Va’lin out of the way, and put one foot on the lip of the ragged window crater. ‘I follow my own doctrine, brother. It’s simple,’ he said, half turning so Va’lin could see the coldness of his eyes again. ‘Do whatever it takes to win.’
Iaptus was below with the others.
‘Time to regroup,’ said Ky’dak and leapt from the window.
Va’lin followed, descending from the seven-storey tower on heat hazing jets of thrust from his jump pack.
Rockcrete split underfoot as he landed hard, sending out a web of impact cracks across the roadway.
He saw Ky’dak nod to their comrades, who returned similarly restrained responses. Taciturn, perceived as maudlin, even distant, Ky’dak had few he would consider friends. Va’lin, however, was welcomed back warmly. Dersius clapped him on the shoulder. Even Naeb, who was suffering with an injury from where the Terminator had struck him, managed a half-embrace.
‘In Vulkan’s name, brother.’
With the battle effectively over, Naeb had clamped his war-helm to his thigh. His breathing was a little laboured but he smiled broadly at his friend.
‘You led us from that death trap, Va’lin, and Iaptus knows it.’
Iaptus, his ornate weapons now sheathed to his armour, approached. His face was as stern as always but he allowed a tiny crack in his stony facade.
‘Well met, Va’lin.’
Unlike the others, Iaptus wore a veteran’s battleplate. His Mark III, so-called ‘iron armour’ had scales worked into the cuirass and greaves. Even his jump pack was ornate, each of the exhaust vents crafted to resemble a drake’s snarling mouth.
Every time he saw him, Va’lin was reminded of everything he wanted to be and how he wished to serve.
‘Brother-sergeant.’ Va’lin’s tone bordered on reverent, and he bowed his head before meeting Iaptus’s gaze again.
‘You have my gratitude and the gratitude of this squad, brother. I shall see to it Captain Drakgaard hears of your bravery and ingenuity.’
‘I was not alone. My brothers,’ Va’lin gestured to Dersius, Naeb and Ky’dak, ‘were alongside me.’
‘Shoulder to shoulder,’ said Naeb proudly.
Dersius nodded.
Ky’dak gave a faint sniff of what might have been contempt. Va’lin bristled but let it go.
‘I was merely doing my duty, sergeant,’ he said instead.
‘Aye, and well,’ Iaptus replied.
‘As my masters have instructed.’
‘Not well enough for Sor’ad,’ said Ky’dak, somewhat acerbically. ‘He lies dead, his duty ended.’
Iaptus turned to the other Salamander.
‘And he will be missed. Sepelius will be here soon.’ Iaptus gestured to Naeb. ‘Get him to the Apothecary as soon as Sepelius has harvested the fallen. I don’t want us to be further under strength for whatever our captain would have us do next. I must convene with Sergeant Zantho. Va’lin… The squad is yours until I return.’
Iaptus turned to go to speak with Zantho, leaving Va’lin with the others.
Dersius pointed towards the edge of the city district where a host of Rhinos was making its way along the crater-strewn road.
‘There,’ he said. ‘Sepelius will be amongst them.’
‘Then carry me, brother,’ Naeb replied, staggering, ‘for I think my Larraman’s cells have been overly taxed already.’ Blood was still leaking freely from his damaged plastron, but he managed to smile thinly.
‘You will need a Techmarine to look at that armour too, brother,’ added Dersius, supporting Naeb under the shoulder. Together, the two began limping towards the oncoming entourage of support vehicles.
‘Does your stoic pragmatism ever meet with empathy or sympathy, brother?’ Naeb gibed with good humour. ‘Or are you simply absent those parts of your personality?’
Dersius was a broad-shouldered warrior, easily the stockiest in the squad. He was a methodical thinker, dogged and determined but not predisposed towards command. For a few seconds he stared blankly at Naeb until he realised he was gently being made fun of.
Va’lin was certain his booming laughter would be heard all the way back at camp.
Ky’dak was about to follow, when Va’lin grabbed his arm to stop him.
‘You and I will speak again, Ky’dak.’
‘Oh yes? Have you not already said your piece, brother?’ He didn’t look remotely concerned about being physically restrained. Privately, Va’lin wondered how far he could push this before Ky’dak reacted.
‘Whatever your issue towards me, I won’t have it mar the efficacy of this squad.’
‘Mar the efficacy?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Do you hear yourself, Va’lin? Iaptus’s backslap has gone to your head, brother. This squad is ninety per cent efficacious. It has been thus since we lost Sor’ad. I have no “distemper” towards you. I am angry for reasons you could not understand, but I assure you, brother,’ he leaned in close and slowly removed Va’lin’s hand from his arm, ‘they have absolutely nothing to do with you.’
A little on the back foot, Va’lin let him go.
Questions could wait. Some had waited years, ever since the fire canyons on Nocturne and what he had seen amidst the smoke. Ky’dak and the Terminator they had killed, and the conflicting sigils in the gun nest were the latest but also the most pressing. As he followed after Ky’dak, a thought went through his head.
Vulkan ward us from whatever is to come.
An ill feeling was growing within him. Ever since they had set foot on Heletine, it had been there, almost like a premonition.
CHAPTER THREE
Elsewhere
Xarko smelled the burning. It surrounded him, emanating from a sea of fire.
A spur of dark rock like an unfurled tongue stretched out from the safety of the bank over endless magma. Xarko was standing upon its precipice, looking down into grey palls of pyroclastic smoke.
Above, there was no sky, no earth. Only darkness reigned – eternal, amorphous and unnatural.
No armour, no protection of any kind covered Xarko’s body, yet the flames spitting up at him did not burn. Not even when they touched his naked skin and sizzled against flesh before dissipating into formless smoke did they cause him harm.
This raiment of fire had become his mantle. He embraced it, and the sheer destructive power of the mountain. Her name was Deathfire. The ancient tribes had called it so, and thus it ever was and would be. Surrounded by its heartblood, Xarko stood at Deathfire’s subterranean epicentre and exulted. He closed his eyes. With the shimmering heat haze and the smoke he was almost blind anyway. The fire became a sudden omnipresence, a sentient and blazing ocean. In many ways, more than Xarko realised in that moment, it was.
Senses now fully engaged, he drank in the heady atmosphere and used it to marshal his thoughts. Waves churned and roared. Ash and earth were redolent on the hot breeze and borne aloft on eddies of steam. Xarko wished to rise with them but knew his destination was below, deep within the merciless currents.
With the rock sharp and gritty underfoot, his bare skin prickling at its touch, Xarko committed his mind and soul… and leapt from the spur.
For a fleeting moment, he felt peace. Suspended in midair, as if held in aspic, a strange transcendence overcame Xarko. Then the fire sea opened its maw wide and swallowed him. There was no pain, only reluctance as if admittance into these lower depths was uncertain. But after overcoming this brief inertia, Xarko began to descend.
In spite of the preparations he had made, the experience was disconcerting at first. Eventually, he allowed the currents to take him. As he sank into endless flame, he recalled the myths of old Nocturne, like Ullyus dragged down to the hell maelstrom by his anvil, or Kar’dra, who failed to outswim the drake Bhaargal on the Acerbian Sea,
or Gheliah, who sank to his doom in the Gey’sarr Ocean wrestling the serpents of Okesh.
Xarko was no mythic hero of Nocturne, though he relished recalling their deeds. Yet, here he was on the fire sea, cut adrift just like in those sagas of old. The memories armoured him, more potent than any suit of ceramite and adamantium ever could in this place. With a final push, he reached the bottom of the ocean and almost simultaneously breached the surface, emerging into a twilit world.
Hard iron chains wrapped around his ankles, the weight of their small anvils dragging at him but also anchoring him. The stronger his mental state, the more inviolate the chains became, the tougher each link would be. By anchoring his body in this place, they were also anchoring his mind. Seeing and feeling the mental tethers, however illusory it all was, made it easier to believe they were actually there. In this place, belief was reality. Without the anvils… well, he did not want to consider what kind of fate that could lead to.
Alone, he beheld a night-black ocean, one that reached to the edge of sight and beyond. A storm was rising, driving the sea into turbulent waves with their crests ablaze. Firelight dappled the water like frenzied flecks of pigment. Images resolved, painted on this dark canvas by an unseen hand.
To Xarko they resembled faces. Some, he knew, were old; others, yet to be. Boundless, formless chronology unfolded before him. He had but to swim in it to learn its secrets.
The storm was perturbing, though. He had not expected it. Turmoil was common in this other realm but not like this. Something was wrong; something external was trying to exert its influence.
Xarko swam, braving whatever tumult had seized the ocean. Fear was an enemy he could ill afford. His training and conditioning had rendered the concept alien. Here, both would be tested. Despite the tempestuous waters, he knew these straits and their perils. Predators did not take long to come. Drawn by Xarko’s soul-flame they appeared as shadows at first, a darker sliver on an already black background. Three shapes resolved soon after, spear-tips of coal knifing through an ocean limned in red.