Born of Flame

by Nick Kyme

  Unleashed in a matter of seconds, the bolt would easily outstrip him for pace. It hurt like hellfire but still Heka’tan ran with all the fading strength in his body.

  Engines screaming, the Stormbird drew closer to the lightning storm. A flash lit the darkened interior of the hold, revealing the forbidding form of Vulkan standing by the open side-hatch. It was drawn as wide as it would go and the wind whipped within the gunship, buffeting the oaths of moment pinned to the warriors’ armour. Vulkan was stooped, eyes narrowed as he focused on the node. Its pointed tip was the focal point for the storm and the runes along its surface glowed in sympathetic union with the lightning. Even from above and at distance, it was monolithic. Destroying it would not be easy. The grip Vulkan had around his hammer’s haft tightened.

  Behind him, the Pyre Guard waited with barely fettered aggression.

  Unleash us…

  The primarch could sense what they desired as surely as he felt it in his own blood.

  A crack of lightning surged past the side of the ship, clipping one of its wings, and the hold shuddered and pitched. Smoke trailed from the wound in the armour plate. It wasn’t serious enough for the Stormbird to withdraw but they’d come about as far as they could without risking a crash.

  Vulkan didn’t even reach for a handhold. His body was utterly still, his intensity unbroken.

  Slowly, the pilot brought them back on course and the node loomed again, several metres below and wreathed with crackling power. The witch coven at its foundation was ready to siphon its energy into another bolt. The devastation wrought by the first must have been egregious to witness on the ground and from above its destructive trail was all too plain to see.

  It seemed strange for the eldar to protect the edifice with such vehemence when their tactics suggested an entirely different method of warfare. Here, by holding onto the obelisk, they exposed all of their weakness and mitigated their strengths. The suspicion of something unseen and unknown entered the primarch’s mind, but for now he could not affect it, whatever it was. Instead, he concentrated on the thing he could do something about.

  Vulkan crouched a little lower and waited until the Stormbird banked so the hatch was angled down towards the node. The hammer he bore was a weapon of his own creation. Thunderhead was its name. He’d fashioned it on Nocturne in honour of N’bel and his heritage. Captured storms thrashed within its ornate head, beaten into the metal through many long hours of toil in the forge. There was no other like it. No legionary could wield it. No man could even lift it. Vulkan alone possessed the strength and mastery to bend it to his will.

  He donned his drake-helm and it mag-locked to his gorget.

  ‘Do you know what comes after lightning, brothers?’

  The Pyre Guard did not answer. Instead, they readied their weapons.

  Vulkan’s eyes flashed with inner fire.

  ‘Thunder…’

  He leapt from the hold.

  Shrieking air whipped past Vulkan as he plummeted through the storm-wracked sky. He descended like a hammer-wielding comet, a roar of the firedrakes of Mount Deathfire on his lips. His salamander cloak flapped wildly behind him, as if the spirit of the beast it once belonged to had returned and approved of its master’s exultation.

  A grimace formed on his face behind his helmet as the primarch reached terminal velocity. The wind became an ear-piercing whine as he descended through it. Surrounded by the tempest, he had never felt more alive than in that moment. He wondered briefly if Corax and Sanguinius felt the same elation as they soared through the heavens.

  As he closed on the obelisk, Vulkan clenched his hammer in both hands and lifted it above his head. At the moment of impact, he smashed the arrowed summit of the obelisk like he was hitting the head of a nail. With a tremor of energy, the psychic node ruptured and shattered. Vulkan didn’t slow but kept driving through the ancient stone, following an almighty crack that spread through the obelisk’s core. Shockwaves throbbed outwards from the breaking stone, chunks of it pummelling the eldar who looked up at the falling rock and wailed from below before being crushed. Each successive energy pulse emitted from the destroyed obelisk jolted the now transfixed coven with greater and greater violence. The eldar witches had made themselves conduits for the psychic power in the node and now they were being fed every last residual trace of it. No mortal creature could withstand such a backlash of energy. Vulkan landed and the earth blasted outwards from his craterous impact. In synchrony with it, the witches died one by one. Their eyes burned and flesh melted until at last their skulls exploded and they collapsed, headless, to the ground.

  Dust and fire surrounded the primarch in a churning pall. He was crouched on one knee, his hammer embedded in the earth. He stayed like that for several moments. His armour rose and fell as he breathed. The remains of the node collapsed around him. Great clefts of stone sheared away and broke into fragments. By the time it was done, Vulkan was encircled by a belt of shattered rock. The engraved runes had all been broken and their captured light bled away.

  Already battered by the resurgent Salamanders, the eldar capitulated and fell back.

  Victory cries extolling the Legion, the Fifth and the 14th Fireborn, appealed to Vulkan’s pride as he heard them on the breeze. Beneath the snarling visage of his drake-helm, he smiled and was aware of someone approaching.

  Numeon regarded his primarch from the edge of the devastation.

  The rest of the Pyre Guard were just stepping from the Stormbird and cutting down the enemy stragglers.

  ‘I didn’t think you would jump,’ Numeon confessed.

  Vulkan lifted his head and stood.

  ‘It was an impulse.’

  The equerry appraised the circle of broken node stone.

  ‘I also thought it would be more difficult.’

  Vulkan raised an eyebrow. ‘You think that was easy?’ When he removed his drake-helm he was still smiling. Rolling his shoulders and then stowing Thunderhead, he turned his attention to the dead psykers. ‘Dabbling with sorcery has its own rewards.’

  Numeon followed him as he walked beyond the circle and out into the emptying battlefield. ‘So it would seem, my lord.’ He regarded the burned and headless eldar corpses impassively. ‘Hard to tell now, but I didn’t see their seer amongst the coven.’

  Vulkan didn’t need to look, he knew. ‘The female was not amongst them, which is… perplexing.’

  ‘She has likely already fled. They must realise this is a war they cannot win.’

  ‘Perhaps, but then why fight it at all?’

  The eldar were on the run again now, all attempts at a tactical withdrawal abandoned in favour of individual survival. They had nothing left to protect and so no reason to linger in a fight for which they were unsuited.

  As with the previous battle in the jungle, the natives began surfacing with the cessation of hostility. They appeared moribund, even terrified by their liberators, and clung to each other for support. Some of the children amongst them were sobbing. A girl-child leaned down to touch a dead eldar’s finger until her mother chastened her and she shrank back into the gloom. Army units with attached remembrancers were already gathering the refugees together.

  ‘Do they seem less than pleased to see us, Numeon?’ Vulkan asked.

  ‘I find it hard to differentiate their reactions from that of any human I encounter, my lord.’

  Vulkan sighed, unable to be completely dispassionate. ‘They are scared, but of us, not of the aliens. I wonder if–’ He stopped when he saw the bodies of the tribespeople amongst the dead. Vulkan’s brow creased with consternation. ‘I didn’t realise that civilians were at risk inside the battle zone.’

  Army medics and field surgeons were dragging away dead natives along with the Phaerians. Most were men and women, but Vulkan saw children too amongst the slain. The cold face of a girl-child, clutching a wooden effigy, haunted the primarch for a moment. Were it not for the dark stain colouring her hemp smock, she might have been asleep. In repose, the gi
rl-child’s face looked particularly innocent. Vulkan had seen horror like this before, after the raids and when Nocturne’s surface split with anger. He had witnessed bodies dragged from the rubble, choked by ash or burned black by fire.

  ‘A warrior chooses his path. It is violent and the threat of death ever present, but these people…’ He shook his head slowly, as if only just comprehending. ‘This was not supposed to happen.’

  Numeon was lost for an answer. When Varrun approached with a hololithic wand, the equerry’s frown turned into an expression of relief. ‘Word from the Legions, my lord.’

  Still distracted, gaze lingering on the humans, Vulkan took his time to respond. ‘Set it down,’ he said at length, and Varrun impaled the wand into the ground and activated it.

  Spilling out from a triangular apex of hazy light, an image of Ferrus Manus resolved itself.

  Both Pyre Guard sank to one knee immediately in deference to the other primarch.

  Ferrus Manus was still wearing his battle-helm and his armour bore evidence that he’d been in the thick of the fighting for the desert region. The gleaming plate was sand scoured and reflected the light of the sun behind him. He removed his helm and his silver eyes glittered like chips of ice.

  Ferrus was typically taciturn. ‘Are the jungles won, brother?’

  Vulkan nodded. ‘The eldar node has been neutralised. An easier fight than we first believed but with its share of blood spent to the cause. How fare my brother Legions?’

  The primarch of the Iron Hands growled, ‘Still contested, but I shall not be denied. We encountered difficulty with our mechanised elements. Much of my force is on foot and the Army divisions are coping poorly.’

  The Iron Hands mantra, Flesh is Weak, was almost written indelibly into Ferrus’s scowl. He respected humans but was also frustrated by their frailty.

  Vulkan decided to change tack. ‘And what of the Death Guard? Has our brother lived up to his dogged nature?’

  The answer came reluctantly. ‘Mortarion has levelled the node, though I question what is left for humanity to colonise. I fear he has turned the ice fields into a tainted waste and damaged much of the continent’s geology into the bargain.’

  A crackle of interference marred the image for a moment. Distant explosions rippled behind Ferrus, but he paid them no heed.

  ‘The jungle region borders the edge of the desert. I can divert some of my divisions to provide reinforcement, brother,’ offered Vulkan when the hololith was restored again.

  Ferrus’s crag-like coldness expressed exactly what he thought of that suggestion.

  ‘Unnecessary.’

  ‘Then your victory will be close at hand.’ Vulkan tried not to make his tone consoling. That would only enrage his brother.

  ‘The desert continent is vast, but it will yield to me.’ Behind him, bolter fire chorused amongst the low crump of explosions that were growing increasingly less distant. Ferrus turned his ear a fraction. ‘We are engaging again. Consolidate your forces in the jungle and await further orders.’

  The hololith blanked out with the severance of connection.

  ‘Pride, not flesh, is weak,’ returned Numeon with a resigned shake of the head.

  Vulkan’s eyes were downcast, and he muttered, ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  Their father had sought to make them perfect, much more than human in every sense. Vulkan and his brothers eclipsed their legionary sons with their greater strength, skill and intellect, but they also possessed very human flaws. To be one amongst so many sons made it difficult to attain a father’s love and validation. Pride, in one form or another, drove them all in its way. It created fraternal rivalry, too, and Vulkan wondered if it would ever become more than that.

  ‘Lord?’

  Numeon’s voice brought him back.

  Across the battlefield, a Salamander was approaching. A sheathed chainsword sat on his back, and his gait betrayed some injuries. He bowed before his primarch, having already removed his battle-helm.

  Salamanders meet eye-to-eye.

  ‘Rise, Salamander.’

  The warrior obeyed, standing and saluting against his plastron.

  ‘Captain Heka’tan,’ Vulkan asserted, looking down at the warrior, ‘of the Fourteenth Fireborn. You are tempered, my son.’

  Heka’tan’s armour was scorched and battered from battle. He’d also lost his sidearm and was favouring his left leg. His left eye was swollen and there were several deep gashes upon his forehead. The suggestion of an honour scar on his thick neck was visible just above the upper rim of his gorget.

  ‘The anvil was indeed testing, my lord.’ He bowed his head again.

  ‘You’ve no need to be so humble. You are a captain and have shed blood for your Legion this day. We are victorious.’

  Heka’tan didn’t look so sure.

  Vulkan’s eyes narrowed. ‘You have something to tell me, Captain Heka’tan?’

  ‘I do, my lord. We have found the Army scouts that located the node.’

  Since the coordinates had been broadcast to the rest of the Imperial forces, all contact had been lost with the advance reconnaissance sections.

  Sensing the captain’s fatalism, Vulkan became solemn. ‘And they are dead.’

  ‘Not all of them, primarch.’ Heka’tan’s fiery gaze could not hide his apprehension. ‘There was a sole survivor, a non-combatant.’

  ‘A remembrancer?’

  ‘So I understand, my lord.’

  ‘And is he unharmed?’ It was almost as if Vulkan already knew the answer by the expression on Heka’tan’s face.

  ‘Miraculously so.’

  Vulkan broke eye contact to look into the distance where the pursuing Imperial forces were harrying the enemy deeper into the jungle. He purposely averted his gaze from the growing piles of dead natives. ‘Where is this survivor now?’

  Heka’tan paused. ‘There is more.’

  Looking back down, Vulkan’s blazing eyes were questioning.

  ‘He says there is another node, much bigger and more powerful than the one you destroyed.’

  A muscle spasm in Vulkan’s cheek gave the only hint of his displeasure.

  ‘Take me to him at once.’

  The remembrancer cut an unassuming figure. Dressed in plain robes of an obscure Terran style, the survivor sat on the ground with his eyes open and alert. It was only the fact he was surrounded by the bodies of the Army scout division sent to locate the node that made his presence in the jungle incongruous.

  ‘You are the primarch of the Salamanders Legion?’ he asked.

  ‘I am.’ Vulkan approached slowly, bidding his Pyre Guard to wait outside the circle of the dead Army scouts.

  It was an order that displeased Numeon and the others, but they obeyed nonetheless.

  Vulkan looked around at the massacre. From the position of the bodies and how they’d fallen, it appeared the scouts had made a last stand. His shifted his gaze to peer deeper into the jungle.

  ‘You were followed?’

  ‘From the site of the fourth obelisk, yes.’

  ‘And you got as far as this point before the eldar caught you.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  When Vulkan looked back at the man, who seemed wise but somehow youthful at the same time, his eyes were penetrating.

  ‘How is it they all died and you alone lived?’

  ‘I hid.’

  Vulkan stared at him, trying to ascertain if what the remembrancer was saying was the truth.

  The man seemed content to sit amongst the dead and hadn’t yet moved.

  ‘You don’t believe me?’

  ‘I am still deciding,’ Vulkan answered honestly. He stepped towards him.

  Numeon’s armour shifted before he warned, ‘Primarch…’

  Vulkan held up his hand to cool his equerry’s anxiety. The remembrancer’s gaze flicked over to the Pyre Guard and back again.

  ‘I don’t think your bodyguards like me.’

  Vulkan was standing before him and
looked down on the man. ‘They just don’t trust you.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  ‘What is your name, remembrancer?’

  ‘Verace.’

  ‘Then come with me, Verace, and tell me all you know about this obelisk.’

  Vulkan turned and as he was leaving the site of the massacre he passed by Numeon.

  The primarch kept his voice low. ‘Watch him closely.’

  Verace got to his feet and smoothed down his robes.

  Numeon glared at him, and nodded.

  There was something… strange about this Verace, but Vulkan wasn’t threatened by him. After all, what threat could a flesh and blood human pose to a primarch? But as he was walking back to the Stormbird, Vulkan was reminded of a time when he’d met another stranger, one he’d known as the Outlander…

  Vulkan knew his grip was failing. Even with his prodigious strength, he knew he couldn’t hold on to the edge of the cliff with one hand and still cling to the drake hide with the other indefinitely.

  It had been a magnificent beast of vermillion scale, thick and gnarled like overlapping shields. The firedrake’s ribbed belly was taut with muscle, its jaws wide and powerful. The grumbling mountain had summoned it and the drake had answered, emerging from its lowest deeps.

  The spear Vulkan had forged to kill it was lost to the lava chasm below him. Hours of crafting had been undone in an instant when the mountain’s blood reclaimed the weapon; just as his life would be undone should he slip.

  The sun baked his naked back but the heat of it was ebbing. Steam and smoke clouded Vulkan’s eyes, filling his nose with sulphur and ash. Hours had passed since the volcano had erupted and tossed him over the edge. Only his superlative reflexes and strength had saved him, or forestalled his death at least.

  Even Vulkan, champion of Hesiod and slayer of dusk-wraiths, could be destroyed by lava.

  After the defeat of the slavers, word had spread quickly around the major townships of Nocturne. Within weeks, the tribal kings of the other six settlements and their emissaries had greeted the leaders of Hesiod and asked to meet the blacksmiter’s son who was rapidly becoming a legend.