Vulkan Lives

by Nick Kyme

  He didn’t have an accurate count, but Narek estimated several hundred mortals awaiting slaughter in the pens. Hemmed in by sharp stakes and spools of razor-wire, they reminded the huntsman of wide-eyed swine fearful of the culling to come.

  ‘Pure, it must be pure, Narek,’ Elias muttered, his back to the huntsman. ‘Now,’ he added, fastidiously cleaning his fingertips, fingers, palms and knuckles, ‘I would see the weapon.’

  Shaking off his hands, drying them on a cloth, Elias turned with hands open and ready to receive.

  Narek gave a second’s pause, not so much to make the Dark Apostle concerned but enough to realise he resented giving up the spear. Fluidly, he drew it from his scabbard and watched Elias’s eyes widen at the sight of it.

  ‘Godlike,’ he breathed – that word again – ‘you were not exaggerating.’

  Narek placed it reverently in Elias’s hands, where he could examine it more closely.

  ‘So this is what they withdrew from the ruins?’ He exhaled, his craving for the power contained within this shard self-evident. ‘I can sense its strength.’

  ‘It is divine…’ murmured Narek, briefly forgetting where he was and who he was with.

  Elias looked up sharply. ‘The Pantheon is divine – this is but a means through which to manifest their beneficence. I must profane it, curb its strength to my own ends.’

  ‘Your ends?’ asked Narek when Elias had returned his gaze to the spear again.

  ‘Indeed.’

  So, that was it. The Dark Apostle meant to try and yoke the spear’s captured power for himself, either as a way to enhance his standing with Lord Erebus or perhaps even to usurp him. Elias was certainly ambitious, but that was bold even for him.

  ‘Are you intending to harness it then?’ Narek asked, choosing to leave his suspicions unspoken.

  Elias regarded him sternly again.

  ‘You are… overcurious, Narek.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Is something amiss?’

  ‘I…’ Narek began. ‘It is divine, this thing.’ He gestured to the spear, eyes drawn to its fulgurant glow which even now threw back the shadows inside the tent. ‘Does it not make you…’

  Elias had not lowered his gaze, and listened intently to his huntsman.

  ‘Make me what, Narek?’

  ‘Question.’ He barely whispered it, for fear that to speak it aloud was part of some blasphemy.

  ‘You have doubts?’

  ‘I am merely seeing what is in front of my eyes. Here, in your hands, lies a piece of the Emperor’s will. It is lightning, cast from His fingertips and forged into a weapon.’

  Elias was nodding. ‘Indeed it is a weapon, one I mean to wield. I see now that was Lord Erebus’s plan for us all along.’

  ‘When we raised those cathedrals to His honour and glory, all the years we spent extolling His holy church and divine right to rule mankind, did you think we served the needs of a false prophet?’ Narek asked. ‘I am talking about faith, Elias.’

  ‘He has denied it, denied our worship and faith. He spits on us, and in so doing are the true gods of the universe revealed unto us. And your words border dangerously close to sedition, not revelation.’

  ‘The revelation is before us, brother. The Gal Vorbak, they are men no longer–’

  ‘They ascend!’

  ‘No! They merely harbour sustenance for the monsters dwelling within and wearing their flesh.’

  ‘I would welcome such a union, to be so blessed. This here,’ he brandished the spear like he was considering stabbing it into Narek’s heart, ‘is my path to that glory.’

  ‘I see only damnation, but I am bound to it, as are you. And don’t threaten me with sedition. Your words smack more thickly of betrayal than mine.’

  Elias, realising he had revealed too much of his ambition, backed down.

  ‘It is… a suggestion, nothing more than that.’

  ‘To do what, exactly?’

  ‘Elevate us, you and I, Narek,’ he said, his voice low enough to be mistaken for a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Erebus spoke of it. Weapons to win the war. This is clearly what he meant, and it obviously has power. I merely need to harness it.’

  ‘You can do that?’

  Elias mistook Narek’s incredulity for eagerness.

  ‘Yes, brother,’ he hissed. ‘You will be restored, better than you were before. I…’ He smiled a viper’s smile. ‘I will have what I’ve always sought, a patron in the Pantheon.’

  Smile widening into a feral grin, he waited for Narek to see this vision as he did.

  He was to be disappointed.

  ‘You invite destruction upon yourself, Elias.’

  And like the viper that is suddenly threatened and prepares to fight back, Elias recoiled. ‘Remember the debt you owe to me, Narek,’ he warned, appealing to the huntsman’s sense of honour.

  ‘Like I say, I am bound to this fate as I am bound to you. Do not worry, I have no urge to enhance my own standing. I merely wish to fight and die in this war. But by turning a blind eye, my debt is paid in full. Are we in agreement?’ Narek held out his hand for Elias to take it.

  Instead, the Dark Apostle merely nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Narek. ‘Once this is done, you and I will part company, our alliance ended.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Elias, ‘which leaves from now until then.’

  ‘The shattered legionaries have amassed to disrupt our plans here. The human with them is very likely dead, shot by Dagon’s deflected bullet, so they’ll be coming, one way or another.’

  ‘You need men?’ asked Elias.

  ‘All hand-picked by me. No hoods.’ He referred to the cultists. ‘Legion only. Seven will suffice.’

  ‘Including yourself, an auspicious number.’

  ‘Not really. I need twenty others, two more squads. Whoever you can spare from the rituals. That’s how many I will need to stop them. And by stop them, I mean kill every one of our enemies.’

  Elias smirked at him, as if amused by his soldier’s rhetoric, and turned away dismissively.

  ‘Take what you need from the ranks, including your seven. Get it done.’

  ‘This is my last hunt, Elias,’ Narek warned.

  ‘I really think it might be, brother,’ Elias replied, but when he turned around he was alone.

  Narek had gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ritual

  The white-tiled floor was steadily turning to grey with the accreted grime of neglect. It was also covered in blood. They had moved him from the factory to an infirmary. Presumably, it had been used to tend the injuries of machine workers sustained through accident or misadventure. It was a modest size, and modestly stocked. A work bench served as an operating table. The drug cabinet had been raided, but there were bandages and gauze left behind.

  Shen’ra was using them to try and staunch the bleeding.

  The man, Grammaticus, if that identity was to be believed, had fared poorly during the rapid relocation to this secondary hideout. Despite Leodrakk’s protestations and even Domadus’s murmured counsel that to put him out of his misery was not only the logical thing to do but also the most humane, Numeon had insisted Grammaticus be taken with them.

  Helon, Uzak and Shaka had come as well. Their bodies, anyway.

  Leodrakk would not leave them, nor would Avus, who had shouldered the burden of his Legion brother all the way from the printing house. The Raven Guard had refused all offers of help, even from Hriak, who was a distant figure to Avus, anyway. Helon and Uzak had many volunteers to bear them and were dragged hurriedly between two of the fire-born.

  Numeon had carried the human, allowing Pergellen to lead the company in his stead.

  ‘I am not Helon, I am no Apothecary,’ Shen’ra griped, up to his vambraces in gore.

  ‘Nor was Helon, brother,’ said Numeon, looking as
kance at the pyre his brothers had erected outside on the factory floor. ‘He adapted, as we all must.’

  ‘Life signs are beyond faint. He barely draws breath,’ said the Techmarine. ‘If he were a servitor, I would see his parts rendered down for scrap. That is what remains now.’

  ‘But he is flesh,’ insisted Numeon. ‘And I would see him restored if it is within your considerable abilities, brother.’

  ‘Faint praise will not alter the course of events here,’ Shen’ra reminded the captain.

  ‘Just do your best,’ said Numeon and left the Techmarine to grumble in peace.

  Leodrakk was waiting outside.

  ‘He fades?’ he asked.

  ‘Was it etched upon my face?’

  ‘Actually, yes. Coupled with the fact that when he went in there, the human was almost cut in half by that deflected shell.’

  ‘Prognosis is bleak,’ muttered Numeon, starting to walk. ‘Even if Helon had lived…’ His eyes strayed to the pyre. ‘I doubt we would have had any better chance of saving the human.’

  ‘Is it wise?’ asked Leodrakk, following his captain’s gaze. ‘The smoke may signal to our enemies.’

  ‘We aren’t staying for long,’ said Numeon, ‘and, besides, there are fires burning throughout the city. How could they tell one from another?’

  Leodrakk agreed, before his expression darkened.

  ‘May I speak my mind?’ he asked, walking in lockstep with his captain.

  ‘I suspect you would anyway.’

  Leodrakk didn’t bite, his thoughts were elsewhere. At a belated nod from Numeon, he gave voice to them.

  ‘Is he really that important? The human – this Grammaticus, or so he claims.’

  ‘I would dearly like the answer to that question, but unless he pulls through I fear we will never have it.’

  ‘I don’t understand, why does this mortal possess such meaning to you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I feel something…’ Numeon pressed his hand to his stomach, ‘in my gut. An instinct.’

  ‘A belief?’ Leodrakk assumed.

  Numeon met his questioning look with one of determination. ‘Yes. The same belief. That Vulkan lives and this man, however insignificant, seems to know something of that.’

  Leodrakk scowled. ‘What?’

  ‘He told me Vulkan is alive.’

  ‘Where? On Isstvan?’ Something as dangerous as hope affected Leodrakk’s tone.

  ‘He didn’t say. Or at least, I have not had a chance to ask him yet.’

  The other Salamander’s mood rapidly soured. ‘And when did he say this?’

  ‘During interrogation, after you left.’

  ‘You cannot believe this,’ he scoffed, disbelief obvious on his face.

  Numeon remained sincere. ‘I do,’ he said, with certainty.

  Leodrakk was unconvinced. ‘An act of desperation, brother.’

  ‘I thought so too, at first, and dismissed it, but I went over his saying it again and again. I can tell a lie from truth, Leo. Humans in the presence of legionaries tend not to be very good at it.’

  ‘Then he is a rare breed, this Grammaticus. He’s probably had training. It doesn’t make what he said true.’

  ‘Then why say it? Why that, specifically? I went over it in my head and could find no legitimate reason for the nature of this lie. A dozen other stories would have been more effective for any other legionary, but he chose specifically to tell me this, as if he knew it was what I, and only I, would want to hear.’

  ‘Then there is your answer. He’s a psyker. Even we can be read by telepaths. Evidently he’s a powerful one.’

  ‘Hriak was there throughout. If my thoughts were being read, he would have known. So I ask, how?’

  ‘I don’t know. But does it matter? I know you haven’t forgotten what happened at the dropsite – our brothers were lost. The only survivors are those warriors who boarded ships. I saw Vulkan engulfed in conflagration. It killed Ska, and it most likely killed the rest of our kin too. This mortal knows he is in trouble. Likely he is from one of the cults, a defector or a supplicant. He wanted to spare his life. He would’ve said anything to keep us from silencing him.’

  ‘Is that what we are now? Murderers?’

  ‘We’re warriors, Artellus. You and I, peerless amongst them. But we are not a Legion, not any more, and we do what we must to survive, for our own protection.’

  ‘But to what end,’ Numeon urged him, ‘if there is no hope?’

  ‘To the only end left to us, brother. Vengeance.’

  ‘No. I have to believe there is more than that. I do believe it.’

  Leodrakk smiled, but his mood was melancholy.

  ‘You always were the most devoted of us. I think that’s why he made you captain, Artellus. It’s your spirit. It never falters.’

  Further debate would have to wait for another time. They had reached the edge of the pyre where the rest of the company, barring Hriak, Pergellen and Shen’ra, had gathered in a broken circle.

  Numeon was left alone to ponder Leodrakk’s parting words as the other Salamander took his place in another part of the circle. But he was unconvinced by any of the arguments he had heard, and hoped the human would survive, so he could understand the full truth of what Grammaticus knew. With K’gosi igniting a torch with the dulled fire of his flame gauntlet, thoughts turned to the imminent cremation.

  Not only Uzak and Helon, but Shaka also lay in silent repose at the summit of the pyre. All would burn, die the warrior’s death. For the sons of Corax, tradition demanded they be divested of all trappings and left for the birds to pick clean, but tradition was in short supply and fire was readily available. An even compromise was reached, so all three would become ash together.

  As K’gosi knelt down to light the base of the pyre, he began to incant words of Promethean ritual as described by Vulkan in the earliest days and adopted from the first tribal kings of Nocturne. This recitation spoke of ending and the return to the earth, of the circle of fire and the belief of all Nocturne-born Salamanders in resurrection and reincarnation.

  The mood was sombre, heads were bowed throughout, helmets clasped under arms, the eyes of the sons of Vulkan burning with sober intensity.

  As the fire grew, quickly burning through pallet stacks, wooden beams and broken furniture the company had scavenged for the rite, so too did K’gosi’s voice grow louder and more vehement. The final verses were spoken by the throng and interspersed with words spoken by Avus alone, of the raven taking flight and the great sky death that was the sacred right of all Corax’s sons.

  The blaze swallowed the warriors swiftly, burning hungrily through the gaps in their armour, made all the more intense by the measure of promethium dousing the pyre before it was lit. This was a sacrifice – it would mean K’gosi and the other Pyroclasts would have to share the remaining ammunition, but all deemed it a worthy cause.

  Until the moment when the ritual was ended, Domadus stood apart from the circle and looked on stoically. When there began talk of bonds deeper than blood, forged through mutual suffering and the shared desire for retribution, then he rejoined them.

  The pyre shifted and cracked, fell apart under the weight of the armour at its summit and the wood slowly disintegrating beneath. A few seconds later it collapsed in a flurry of scattered sparks, the flames flickering dulcetly as a narrow pall of smoke rose into the air above. Ash was falling, and it covered all the legionaries on the factory floor in a fine, grey veneer like a funerary shroud.

  ‘And so it is done,’ intoned K’gosi and a moment of silent reflection prevailed.

  It was broken by Shen’ra emerging from the infirmary. The Techmarine looked less like he had been operating and more like he had been in battle. Both, in fact, were true.

  From his place in the circle, Numeon turned, his eyes intense and pressing for a
n answer.

  Shen’ra gave him one, solemnly.

  ‘He’s dead. The human didn’t make it.’

  The low thwomp of turbine engines on minimum rotation provided a balm to Narek’s troubled thoughts. He was crouching in the troop hold of a Thunderhawk, leaning from one of its open side hatches and surveying Ranos through a pair of magnoculars. Two other gunships followed behind, similarly quietened.

  ‘Any sign?’ grated Amaresh. The Word Bearer sat with his long flensing blade in his lap, sharpening the edge.

  He was a beast, Amaresh, literally, with those horns sprouting from his skull and through his battle-helm. One of the touched. An Unburdened in the making.

  ‘Many,’ Narek replied, lowering the scopes to signal to Dagon, who was leaning out the opposite side of the transport, looking through his rifle’s targeter.

  The other hunter slowly shook his head.

  ‘Any of our quarry?’ Amaresh pressed, annoyed at Narek’s little games.

  ‘I have their trail. It won’t be long now.’ He voxed fresh coordinates to their pilot and there was a slight change in engine pitch as the Thunderhawk shifted course.

  Narek had taken the gunship along with the men.

  Amaresh, Narlech, Vogel and Saarsk were all brutal warriors, bladesmen every one of them. Some had fought in the pits with the XII, locked swords with the likes of Kargos and Delvarus. That left Dagon, Melach and Infrik as snipers, along with himself. Infrik had cut out his own tongue, convinced it was babbling dark secrets to him in the night hours and during battle; whereas Melach found speech difficult with the growth of skin colonising his neck, slowly hardening to a brownish carapace, so said little.

  The rest, those following in the other two gunships, were less significant to Narek’s plans.

  He knew that they were unbalanced individuals, the seven he had chosen, but mental stability wasn’t amongst his criteria for selecting them. He wanted killers, specifically warriors who had slain other legionaries. The tally between this particular group was in the hundreds. That made them uniquely suitable for this mission.

  With the exception of Dagon, whom he could tolerate, Narek hated every one of these bastards. Elias had cultivated a crop of dishonourable, wretched legionaries. Gone were days of righteous purpose and holy service. This slow mutation into devilry and aberration was all that was left now.