by Nick Kyme
Flames of burned orange and vermillion flowed over a silhouette of scorched black plate. The last of their number, late of the corporeal realm dominated the gathering. Here was Sor’ad’s final rest, his armoured corpse in repose upon the pyre with its progenoids since excised by Sepelius to preserve the dead warrior’s legacy. Dark smoke rose in a great column from the smouldering body, driven upwards by the heat of the blaze and blighting the sky, as the mood of all present was blighted by their loss.
‘We gather to remember…’ said Iaptus, his face framed by firelight which heightened every noble groove and peak. Honour scars branded in linked chains of Nocturnean sigil were etched upon his cheeks and forehead. An arrowhead of short wiry hair that was the colour of black volcanic ash covered his chin and jaw. His scalp likewise. In the old language, the sigil-dialect of the first Nocturnean earth-shamans, Iaptus meant ‘Piercer’. On first impression it was an ill-fitting honorific for one who carried a thunder hammer and fairly bludgeoned his opponents, but as leader of Squad Iaptus he was every shred the lance Dac’tyr used to core his enemies, heart and all.
Like the others, Iaptus had removed his battle-helm out of respect and his ornate jump pack was unclasped and leant against the remains of the walled enclosure that surrounded the squad. In the middle of the ruin, encircled by a ring of stones, the pyre had grown into a conflagration and reached up into the night.
The other three took their places by the fire, Va’lin sparing only the briefest glance for Naeb who had the audacity to wink at his battle-brother.
‘We gather to set a flame…’ Iaptus continued once the rest of his squad was gathered and crouched.
Through the fire, Va’lin noticed two others attending the rite. Zantho and Sepelius, without squads of their own, stood at the fringes and looked on. Though he was not Sor’ad’s brother-in-arms or from Squad Iaptus, Zantho still mouthed the other sergeant’s ritual benediction. He inclined his head to Va’lin when he saw him watching and the younger warrior looked away.
‘And let it burn,’ the squad uttered as one, each removing a gauntlet.
‘Let us remember So’kan Sor’ad,’ said Iaptus.
Together, they thrust their bare hands into Sor’ad’s flames. During the ritual burning, Dersius cried out as he sang a Themian war-lament. Va’lin did not know the words, but he knew their meaning for Dersius had explained it to him the first time it was sung. It recounted the tale of a hunter of the old tribes who stalked a great leo’nid across the Arridian Plain. The beast had slain his wife and child, taken them down to the hot earth where it had devoured their flesh. Only by finding and killing the beast in turn could the hunter give his loved ones peace and also lay his own grief to rest.
It was a melancholy tale, made all the more so because it had no ending. The hunt went on after Dersius had finished and would do forever. Through the verse, Va’lin noticed Ky’dak’s usually severe expression darken further. Ky’dak was Themian just like Dersius and Va’lin wondered what it meant, if anything, beyond the fraternal grief they were all experiencing.
The lament concluded and Squad Iaptus removed their hands from the flame. The blaze would burn long into the night, rendering metal and bone to ash and returning Sor’ad to the earth.
‘Vulkan’s fire beats in my breast…’ Iaptus intoned, striking his burned fist against his breastplate.
‘With it, I shall smite the foes of the Emperor,’ uttered the rest, saluting as their sergeant had done.
‘A few words, brother,’ said Iaptus to the figure behind him.
Zantho stepped into the light. The tank commander had a broad, expressive face forked and sculpted by rendered sauroch fat. It was framed by a red beard that extended into a mane of rugged hair and jutted from his scalp in spikes. Made room for in the circle by Arrok and Vo’sha, he knelt down to give them all his wisdom.
‘Ours is a violent calling, but as adherents of the Promethean Creed we believe in the Circle of Fire.’ Zantho put the tips of his fingers together to make an ‘O’ shape and held it out in front of him. The others did the same as he went on. ‘None can come back as they once were, but in death we are returned to the ash from whence we came to be born anew, our blood and bone bonded with the earth. Through fire are our remains made protean, through fire and the reunion with earth do we experience rebirth. After death, after our duty is ended, we give ourselves to these elements and in so doing become a part of them. This is the nature of the Circle of Fire.’
Many amongst the gathering were nodding. Xerus even reached over to clap Zantho on the shoulder. Va’lin knew the words, he knew the teachings. They had been Vulkan’s and thus did every Salamander learn them, but he wondered about the first part, about not coming back. One amongst the gathering had an even more sceptical reaction.
‘Death is death,’ uttered Sepelius, cowled by a drake-skin hood, his face akin to a cadaverous rendering of the fabled reaper itself in the firelight.
‘Don’t you believe in rebirth, Kratus?’ Zantho asked without turning around. ‘Are you so morbid that your beliefs don’t allow for the possibility?’
‘I am a realist, brother, that is all. I don’t have the luxury of indulging such existential notions.’
‘You are a cynic,’ Zantho challenged.
‘Yes, that too,’ Kratus Sepelius agreed, utterly unfazed.
‘Then why attend the ritual at all, Apothecary?’ asked Arrok, a little too wounded, a little too headstrong. Xerus laid a hand on the younger warrior’s shoulder to remind him where he was and who he was addressing.
‘To see it was properly observed. I might not believe in rebirth but that doesn’t mean I want our traditions to be mishandled.’ He smiled, though it might as well have been a scowl at Arrok. ‘My duty is to the living, and keeping them that way. Legacy is maintained by science,’ he tapped the progenoid flask of his reductor with a gauntleted finger, ‘not through fire and ash. Such archaic concepts are anachronisms of the “old ways”, but none here have ears for my thoughts, so I shall bid you all a good burning and be on my way.’
Sepelius gave an ironic bow before stepping back into the shadows. A few seconds later he was gone.
‘Are they all like that?’ asked Arrok.
‘All?’ Iaptus queried, his gaze on the void left in the darkness by Sepelius’s exit.
‘Apothecaries.’
Iaptus frowned as if the question was a facile one.
‘Indeed, Brother Arrok. How did you think they were chosen for the apothecarion in the first place?’
A moment of stunned silence followed before Xerus glanced at Zantho who both then erupted into laughter.
Arrok looked appalled at first, that such experienced veterans would dishonour the solemnity of the ritual, until he realised this was the ritual.
‘Aye,’ said Naeb to Va’lin, as Arrok found his humour at last, ‘I think Sor’ad would have approved.’
But Va’lin’s gaze was on the pyre, and he barely heard Naeb. He watched transfixed as the body burned and recalled again what he had witnessed in the fire canyons, occluded by smoke.
Rest, the figure had said.
None can come back. Those were Zantho’s words, echoing the Promethean belief in the Circle of Fire. None can come back.
But someone had.
A winged figure watched from its perch on the rock, an angel armour-clad in black. Her pinions were fluted steel, her aspect that of a preying rook.
Sister Stephina could be sure she went unobserved by those below, hidden as she was by shadow. Lurking like this offended her martial spirit but Stephina reminded herself she was not in combat. Not yet. She had seen everything from her lofty vantage, the ritual of fire in its entirety. She witnessed them burning their flesh, and heard their savage plainsong cried out across the ruins.
Eyes of tempered fire. Coal-black skin. Diabolic in every aspect. There could be no denyin
g the physical aberrations, but her secret vigil had revealed something of the Salamanders’ spirit. It was tribal, almost shamanistic.
Seeing everything she needed to, Stephina unfurled her ebon wings and took to the sky.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Heletine, on the border between Escadan and Canticus
After the ritual had ended, Squad Iaptus broke up and went their separate ways. The time of battle was drawing near and with it the need for the swearing of oaths and the marking of brands in flesh. Most of the Salamanders were returning to the barracks houses in central Escadan except, notably, half of Sixth Company’s Devastators led by Venerable Kor’ad. The Dreadnought had maintained heavy bombardment throughout the night in conjunction with armoured elements from the Cadian 81st under Colonel Redgage. Military intelligence could not ascertain whether the punitive barrage was achieving much beyond the slow depletion of ammunition but Kor’ad had assured Captain Drakgaard it was the only way to safeguard the sections of the city they still held and so such attrition had been deemed worthwhile.
Va’lin had not gone back with the others, despite Naeb’s vocal protests. He craved solitude, wanting to return to his reverie begun in the eaves of the shattered scriptorium before Sor’ad’s ritual cremation. So he took to patrolling the Escadan/Canticus border in an effort to still his racing mind. He went armed and armoured, flamer in hand but with the igniter for its promethium reserve still cold. Canticus was still contested and designated ‘safe’ regions could change quickly in such a fluid theatre of war. Several enemy spies and would-be saboteurs had already been discovered and neutralised since nightfall. They added to the clutches of deserters who also presented a problem to Drakgaard’s officially sanctioned patrols but who had lessened in number since the Ecclesiarchy’s arrival. Despite the ostensible distrust between the other Imperials and the Battle Sisters, Va’lin considered that their presence on Heletine might be of some benefit.
Not long after leaving the others, Va’lin felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck. This was despite the heat and heft of his hulking armour with its low humming generator a constant presence. He reached out with his auto-senses. Someone was following him, but not bothering to hide the fact. Their identity did not remain mysterious for long. Va’lin knew of only one candidate.
‘Why are you following me, Sepelius?’
Va’lin heard the Apothecary step out into the open as the weight of his armoured form crushed rubble underfoot.
‘What gave me away?’ Sepelius asked sardonically, gesturing to his bone-white battleplate.
Va’lin turned his back on him. ‘I came out here for solitude, not further cross-examination.’
‘Through the fire,’ said Sepelius just as Va’lin started walking. ‘I saw it.’
Va’lin stopped, but did not turn around. ‘Saw what?’
‘That look in your eyes. You have been dreaming again.’
Va’lin stayed rigid, but felt his irritation giving way to curiosity. He longed to understand everything he had seen in the fire canyons and what it portended, if anything.
‘He dreamed, you know,’ said Sepelius.
‘Who did?’
‘Dak’ir.’
Now Va’lin turned, his eyes burning with anger. ‘Don’t insinuate, brother. I am tired of hearing your lips do it.’
Sepelius held up his hands plaintively. ‘I merely point out the correlation. Curious, how history can echo through the ages. How prophecies can align more than once in a given generation.’ He paused for a beat. ‘Rebirth.’
Va’lin said nothing. His eyes spoke for him, making the Apothecary’s narrow in turn.
Sepelius smiled incredulously. ‘You think he’s alive.’
A sudden tightening in Va’lin’s jaw cascaded across his features until his entire face had hardened. He did not bother to veil the threat – the warning in his tone was obvious.
‘Leave me alone.’
Sepelius bowed, then backed away obeisantly.
‘Dak’ir almost destroyed Nocturne. Are you worried you might be like him, Va’lin? A vessel through which he might return?’
‘He was our saviour…’ Va’lin wanted to put more conviction into his reply but it came out half-hearted.
‘He was both and none, or so the prophecy of the ferro ignis portended.’
‘You don’t believe in prophecy. Empirical truth is all you care about.’ Even to Va’lin, it sounded weak as a retort.
Sepelius saw it at once. He gently shook his head.
‘Now you’re just reaching, brother. Think on what I’ve said, Va’lin. We can talk again, you and I,’ he said, and disappeared off into the ruins.
Va’lin let him go. He had moved off again when he heard the faint crunch of stone once more.
‘Sepelius, I told you to–’
Another stood before him, clad in deep green. It looked almost black in the darkness as if a shadow lay across the figure.
‘Ky’dak?’
‘Follow me,’ said Ky’dak and went off into the ruins.
Va’lin saw he was heading deeper into Canticus, and followed.
In the darkness of the night, the ruin resembled even more of a hollowed-out shell, shrouded in abject black. Sor’ad had died here, his duty ended by the teeth of a Chaos warrior’s chainblade. His blood still painted the wall from where it had jetted free of his body in a crimson arterial spray. A pall of death and regret lay heavy on the site of their skirmish with the Black Legion Terminator. The warrior’s blood also tainted the place but in a different way. Both bodies had been removed, the traitor’s dragged out with chains and then incinerated without ceremony, so only the echoes of their passing remained.
Working their way silently through Canticus’s shattered streets and buildings, the two Salamanders got as far as the breach Va’lin and Naeb had made in the outer wall when Ky’dak raised his gauntleted hand for caution.
‘Why are we here, Ky’dak?’ Va’lin hissed.
Ky’dak gestured into the gloomy hollow of the building.
With his enhanced vision Va’lin could see in the darkness, but when he followed Ky’dak’s pointing finger the meaning of what he saw was still unclear.
They retreated to either side of the breach. Va’lin called across it, careful to keep his voice quiet.
‘Who is she?’
One of the Adepta Sororitas was inside the ruin, her back to them and currently unaware of the Salamanders’ presence.
‘I tracked her after the ritual. Thought she was the enemy,’ Ky’dak hissed back.
Va’lin was considering whether they should just announce their presence and call the Sister out then and there, but when he looked inside again she was gone.
He mouthed to Ky’dak, ‘Where?’
Ky’dak gave him the facial equivalent of a shrug, but then nodded as the Sister reappeared. She had emerged as if from the shadows, seemingly out of nowhere. Her route took her deeper into the ruins and away from the breach in the wall, so she remained ignorant of being watched.
Va’lin waited with Ky’dak until she was gone before moving inside. Donning his helmet, he cycled through the visual spectrum afforded by his retinal lenses until he found what he was seeking. A small sub-chamber existed below the floor, hard to see in the rubble and half hidden by the dark. Exchanging a glance with Ky’dak that prompted both to ready their weapons, Va’lin descended a set of shallow steps and went inside.
More darkness within, but Va’lin saw everything in variegated hues of night-vision green. Bones lay smashed all over the floor, disturbed from within alcoves. Some had been snapped, others crushed underfoot. Were he seeing it in daylight, Va’lin believed he would have found scorch marks too, for the faded stench of burning smothered everything.
They were standing in a reliquary chamber, one of the holy sites the canoness had described during her v
olatile first meeting with the Chapter.
‘Place looks ransacked,’ said Ky’dak.
‘Doesn’t look like a search,’ Va’lin replied.
Ky’dak knelt down to run his hand through the shattered bone fragments.
‘He was here,’ he muttered, ‘the traitor that killed Sor’ad.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Va’lin.
‘His taint is pervasive. There is blood mixed in with this grave dust. He didn’t just want to destroy,’ said Ky’dak, standing.
‘He wanted to profane,’ Va’lin concluded. ‘Why?’
‘To weaken it.’
Va’lin turned his head.
‘The spiritual hold of the Throne on this city,’ Ky’dak explained.
‘To what end?’
‘To let whichever master he served do whatever it is he cannot do while that hold is still strong.’
‘And the Sister?’
Ky’dak slowly shook his head.
‘I don’t know yet.’
More questions lurked in the shadows of Heletine before any answers would be forthcoming. Va’lin had one he could ask immediately.
‘You could’ve done this alone. Why involve me?’
‘I couldn’t be sure what I would be facing. Two stand a better chance of someone making it back. As it is, I don’t know what to make of any of this.’
Va’lin nodded, deeming it reasonable justification.
‘We do nothing for now,’ he said. ‘Not until we know more.’
‘Agreed.’