Born of Flame

by Nick Kyme

  Ak’nun Xen spoke first, to a figure standing apart from the others. The one who was clad in red.

  ‘Forgefather, why have you summoned us here?’ he asked, his voice echoing for a few seconds before fading into silence. Xen favoured blades over the traditional concussion weapons of his Legion and had a habit of holding the pommel of each of his two swords whenever they were sheathed. It gave him a predatory air, of one who is always eager for battle. He was also one of the garrison’s standard bearers and as such was expected to carry the company’s banner into war. Xen could not remember a time when he had unfurled it.

  Waiting patiently at the head of the cadre, Rahz Obek scowled. Several others gave disapproving glances too, especially Krask and his warriors.

  ‘Do you know what we are standing in, Ak’nun Xen?’ asked T’kell.

  ‘Ash, brother. An ocean of it.’

  ‘Fool!’ hissed Zau’ull. ‘It is more than that.’

  Xen gave him a sideways look, but did nothing more.

  All of the Salamanders legionaries carried their helmets – either mag-locked to their armour or simply held in their arms – out of respect for their surroundings and the Forgefather. Zau’ull did not deign to look back at Xen. Instead, he met the fervent gaze of Zeb’du Varr. Since their apotheosis to legionaries, they had adopted different names, but a biological bond existed between them that went deeper than mere sword brother.

  Zeb’du bowed his head to his brother, eyes alive with vigour as if he saw something in the vault beyond the ken of the others.

  You know, don’t you? You see.

  ‘It is the legacy of our primarch,’ T’kell explained to Xen. His voice coaxed Zau’ull from his thoughts. ‘It is the ashes of his great works. This vault used to be full, a cache of wonders like no other in the known galaxy, all wrought by our father’s hammer. Upon his death, he charged me with ensuring none of it fell into the wrong hands.’

  Some shook their heads, appalled at what their Forgefather had been ordered to do. Others, like Krask, kneeled, actually kneeled down, in spite of the difficulty of doing it wearing Terminator armour, to touch and hold what remained.

  Even Xen appeared disquieted, though he did his best to mask it.

  ‘How did we not know of this?’ Zandu asked.

  ‘Father kept much to himself, it would seem. I only know what little he saw fit to tell me.’ T’kell spread his hands, one of which ended in five digit-sized mechadendrites, ‘Such as this vault, its contents and its purpose.’

  Zandu shook his head; the primarch’s wisdom eluded him. ‘We could have used these weapons to kill Horus and end the war.’

  ‘I think that’s what he was worried about. He didn’t want to kill his brothers, least of all Horus.’

  ‘They had no such qualms,’ Xen chimed in.

  ‘Traitors are ever quick to resort to murder,’ Zau’ull said sadly.

  Silence fell as Zandu’s question remained unresolved, and they all stared at the wreckage of Vulkan’s legacy as if they’d had to endure his death a second time.

  T’kell observed them all keenly.

  Only Rahz Obek remained unmoved. His eyes narrowed though, as he watched T’kell, knowing the Forgemaster must have had the ash removed from the Chalice of Fire and brought here.

  You thought they might refuse, didn’t you?

  ‘We have suffered,’ said T’kell. ‘You have suffered. Much about these times makes little sense. I am a creature of reason and logic, but I find nothing reasonable or logical about the situation in which we find ourselves, or the decisions we must make for the sake of duty. But make them we must, for to do anything other would be to cast in our lot with those we profess to despise and pit ourselves against.’ He looked around at the fifty legionaries standing before him, as if measuring the honour and duty that he had just spoken of in each of them. ‘Bound to Prometheus, standing as its garrison, it is no place for such warriors. When the world burned below, what did you do?’

  ‘We watched,’ said Krask, the bitterness in his voice resonating with every other Salamanders legionary in the Igneous Vault. He rose to his feet with a churn of agitated servos.

  ‘Aye,’ uttered Zandu, ‘we watched whilst the Death Guard rained hell upon our earth.’

  ‘Held fast by duty,’ added Obek, and clasped forearms with the hulking Zandu.

  ‘You are not the garrison,’ said T’kell, slowly shaking his head. ‘That is not what you call yourselves.’

  ‘We are the Unscarred,’ answered Zau’ull, and saw his brother nod again.

  ‘Denied glory,’ said Xen.

  ‘Denied death,’ Zandu corrected him with stern disapproval. ‘And I note you still wear your honour markings, brother.’

  Xen scowled as the fires of his anger were stoked. ‘They are mine by right of deed.’

  ‘You are entirely too vainglorious, Ak’nun Xen.’ All turned to Zeb’du Varr. For a moment, it was as if the primarch had returned and this legionary was his avatar. Varr smiled then, dispelling the illusion as he revealed the mania in his eyes, but Xen made no riposte. T’kell continued.

  ‘Vulkan gave me a sacred duty,’ he said, regaining the attention of those present. ‘It was to be his last before he went to Isstvan V. He foresaw this war and he feared it. Not for his soul or his body, or even his sons, but for the harm it would cause mankind. And he feared the evil that could be done with the wonders he had made, a legacy meant to ensure the success of the Great Crusade, not weapons of destruction to be used against fellow legionaries in an internecine war.

  ‘He bade me destroy them, but I am not the primarch and I do not have his resolve or strength of will. I pleaded with him not to unmake everything. Our father heeded me.’

  ‘So, this is not all of it, then?’ asked Zau’ull, gesturing to the sea of ash underfoot. ‘Some of his works still endure?’

  T’kell nodded solemnly, as if the existence of these artefacts were a great burden to him.

  Xen gave a curt laugh. It was mirthless and derisory. ‘This theatre,’ he said, ‘what was it meant to achieve, to have us stand here in this tomb of ash whilst you tell us of your duty?’

  ‘I needed to convince you.’

  ‘Convince us of what?’

  Obek had seen and heard enough. He stepped forwards.

  ‘Enough, Forgefather. Tell them what it is you wish of us.’

  T’kell smiled thinly. ‘I need your help, to fulfill Vulkan’s last command to me.’

  ‘Then ask it,’ said Zandu, his mind apparently already made up.

  ‘Seven artefacts are left, but they must be taken far from Prometheus and hidden so that no one will ever find them.’

  ‘If they are so dangerous, Forgefather, then why not destroy them too?’ asked Xen.

  ‘Because when this war is over, the galaxy and our Legion, should it survive, shall have need of them. And because I could not destroy them all, and begged for the primarch to allow me to spare these few.

  ‘I need brothers in arms,’ T’kell told him. ‘And you need a different purpose, to be unscarred no more and once again feel worthy of your warrior names. This is all the honour that remains.’

  None argued.

  ‘I could speak for the company,’ said Obek, ‘and say we do this, for Vulkan and the Legion, although I admit I’m reticent to leave Prometheus’ defences weakened, but it has to be each warrior’s right to choose.’

  ‘Justly spoken, brother,’ said Zandu.

  T’kell nodded to Obek, he who but for a quirk of fate would have served the Legion on Isstvan V and met his doom and glory there.

  ‘Well then,’ T’kell said, ‘by an unsheathing of blades, who will take up this trial with me?’

  It took but a moment as the vault resounded to the din of scraping metal, and fifty hammers, swords and chainblades were held aloft as one.

  THREE

  These deeds we have wrought

  The Chalice of Fire rode the empyrean tides like a behemoth of the deep pitted
against a turbulent sea. Mercifully, the cadre of the Unscarred and the several thousand crew and servitors it took to get the forge ship under way had sailed away from the Ruinstorm, following a route known only to T’kell and the ship’s Navigator.

  After several months of warp-transit, they neared a Mandeville point of a small star system called Boron XIII that had no recorded life and whose contact with the Imperium had ceased over a century ago. It possessed four planets, orbiting around a star whose solar mass could support human habitation on one of the worlds without burning out or evaporating its natural water supplies.

  As the Chalice of Fire emerged into real space, trailing ethereal corposant in its wake, the frigidity that came with deep warp-space travel began to recede and the various ship systems hummed back into activation. The bridge became alive with industry as the captain hustled his crew and began to make preparations for approach according to T’kell’s instructions.

  ‘So then,’ said Rahz Obek, standing alongside his Forgefather and looking out from a large observation blister, ‘what awaits us down there?’

  His gaze travelled through the darkness of space to the world slowly turning below them. The ship was still several hours out and Obek could discern nothing beyond the blue-grey hue of the planet and heavy banks of yellowish cloud that wreathed it.

  ‘Honestly, brother,’ T’kell said, ‘I do not know. Beyond this point, I am as in the dark as you.’

  ‘Did Vulkan tell you nothing else?’

  ‘He gave me its location and a name. The Wrought. A weapons cache to contain the artefacts.’

  ‘Which must be huge if it is to house this ship.’

  T’kell nodded.

  ‘I searched some of the ship’s archives concerning the Great Crusade,’ Obek went on. ‘They were surprisingly comprehensive. This system was mentioned but all detail of what transpired was redacted, if it ever existed in the first instance.’

  ‘I know Vulkan came here alone, that of the entire Legion only he actually stepped onto the earth of this world.’

  ‘And yet he did not name it. That surprises me. Remember Caldera?’

  ‘Not personally, but I know of it.’

  ‘When you said Vulkan had another cache, a second vault,’ Obek said, ‘I admit, I expected it to be there.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why it isn’t,’ suggested T’kell. ‘Perhaps Vulkan had other plans for Caldera.’

  ‘We will never know…’

  Obek trailed off into silence and they were faced with their inevitable grief once more. It had a habit of finding them when least expected, a knife of shadow that cut all the way to the bone.

  Neither Salamanders legionary spoke for a while after that. They remained in each other’s company, standing in companionable silence and deep in thought.

  ‘The artefacts must stay aboard the Chalice of Fire when we make landfall,’ T’kell said.

  Obek nodded, the thought having already occurred to him. ‘Krask and his men will stand guard. Zau’ull will want to remain behind too.’

  ‘You have spoken with him recently?’

  ‘No, but Krask has. Our Brother-Chaplain claims Vulkan is with us, in spirit if nothing else.’

  ‘And your thoughts?’

  Reflected in the armourglass, Obek’s face darkened. ‘I know when he is lying.’

  ‘He suffers.’

  ‘As do we all, brother.’

  ‘Him more than most.’

  ‘You know, Forgefather, you are remarkably empathic for a Techmarine.’

  T’kell smiled, though given the cybernetics on his face it turned into more of a grimace. ‘I am my father’s son.’

  Obek replied with the equivalent of a facial shrug, as they lapsed back into silence.

  Through the viewing portal, the clouded world edged closer and their answers with it.

  A pair of Thunderhawks speared through the void, engine burn flaring coldly in the darkness. They flew in formation, staying close as they hit the upper atmosphere and took the brunt of re-entry. The gunships bucked but held their line even as their prows glowed hot and red.

  Then they were through, leaving the chill of the void behind and the gargantuan presence of the Chalice of Fire now anchored in low orbit above, with its precious cargo still aboard. As they entered a bank of cloud, the pilots of both Thunderhawks eased back and let the turbines take up the slack.

  As they levelled off into a horizontal approach vector, a request from both ships crackled across the vox.

  ‘Destination coordinates, Forgemaster?’

  ‘What do you see, pilot?’

  ‘We have entered a fog bank. I’ll need to descend.’

  ‘Do so.’

  A few seconds lapsed, and a brief roar of engine noise interrupted the dulcet reverberation of the ship’s hull as the Thunderhawk dipped sharply to clear the fog bank.

  ‘Picking up residuals on the sensors,’ the pilot said as he returned on the vox.

  T’kell maintained the dialogue as the others sat silently in their launch cages. Two squads, Varr and Zandu. ‘Clarify.’

  ‘Low levels of radiation, but rising.’

  ‘Any structures?’

  ‘Only ruins.’

  T’kell exchanged a glance with Obek. Was this what Vulkan had intended? Were they even in the right place?

  ‘Wait… Something on the horizon. Moving fast…’

  A blurt of static broke off the feed for a few seconds.

  ‘Contact!’

  ‘Identify, pilot,’ said Obek, taking over as military commander of the mission.

  ‘Sixteenth Legion, brother-captain.’ He sounded strained. A second later, the passengers in the hold knew why, as the gunship banked sharply and an alert siren began to howl.

  A muted explosion peppered the hull with shrapnel, then came the denser impacts of shells, most likely from a heavy bolter. The hold shuddered. A savage jerk felt like a hammer blow. Smoke began to issue through the internal vision slits.

  ‘Taking fire…’

  In the circumstances, the pilot’s report was superfluous.

  Preceded by a high-pitched whine that went from distant to acute in an eye-blink, a second hit ripped open part of the fuselage. Zandu carried the brunt of it, the sudden fire and intensifying noise all but smothering his pained shout.

  Varr had him, but other than some scorching of his armour, Zandu looked none the worse for wear.

  The pilot was oblivious, but knew they had been hit. He snarled, angry, ‘Engaging.’

  A blurt of muffled but staccato heavy bolter fire sounded through the hull. Most of the Salamanders legionaries made ready for combat, but there was nothing they could do whilst the Thunderhawk rocketed through the sky. They were in the hands of the pilots now.

  Another jerk buffeted the hull, harder than wind shear, which had become a nerve-shredding screech, but not as punishing as the first or second blow.

  A glancing hit, T’kell realised as he got back on the vox.

  ‘What are they flying, pilot?’

  There was a short pause as another evasive manoeuvre sent them banking in the opposite direction. Judging by the ambient sound, T’kell imagined the paired Thunderhawks weaving around each other’s slipstreams as they sought to outwit their attackers.

  ‘Land Speeders, heavily armed,’ the pilot replied at last. ‘One is down and on fire. Two have disengaged. Should we pursue?’

  ‘Immediately, and jam their comms,’ T’kell said. ‘It’s possible we were unlucky and this is a patrol. No one else must know we’re here or why.’

  The pilot relayed an affirmative and the gunships gave chase.

  ‘Sons of Horus,’ Obek had to shout, and the speaking of that name caused every pair of coal-red eyes in the hold to fall upon him. ‘What are they doing here?’

  T’kell shook his head almost without realising he had done it.

  ‘Hunt them down, pilot,’ he said into the vox, and then to Obek, ‘Let’s find out.’

  A short
-lived chase followed, but the Land Speeders were no match for the faster and more heavily armed Thunderhawks. As the engine roar diminished and the gunship gently circled around, T’kell knew the threat was neutralised.

  Obek was already on the vox.

  ‘Conduct an aerial sweep. Make sure they’re alone, and then take us in for a closer look.’

  It took a few minutes to sweep and secure the area, during which no further Speeders or reinforcements could be found, suggesting the ones that came across the Salamanders had done so by chance and were a single patrol.

  As one of the Thunderhawks flew skywards, monitoring with sensors and concealed by the cloud layer, the second briefly touched down to disgorge six legionaries in power armour. The ramp was already closing and the gunship rising as T’kell led the small squad in the direction of a downed Land Speeder. They kept low and dispersed, using the ruins to cover their approach.

  An electrical storm cracked the sky with jolts of violet lightning and a heavy gale rolled off the dirt plain, kicking up squalls of dust and small pieces of debris. Zandu felt them rattle against his armour, but kept his eyes on the unmoving forms slung across the Speeder as he approached it.

  Sons of Horus. The rank markings and colour of their armour were clear. Zandu didn’t believe in chance or providence or coincidence. He believed in what he saw and experienced. Nothing more. This encounter warned him to be wary.

  ‘Brother-sergeant,’ T’kell said, ‘are your injuries not severe?’

  Zandu had felt it at the time, but shook his head. He gestured for the four legionaries of his squad to advance ahead. They did so as one, bolters held up to their shoulders, right retinal lenses aimed down the stocks. Zandu had a bolter too, Phobos-pattern with a drake-toothed bayonet attached to the stock and an underslung volkite.

  ‘Armour took the worst of it,’ said Zandu, slapping the side of his helm as the integrity read-out flashed red for a moment before turning back to green. ‘Just needed to stretch my legs, Forgefather.’

  T’kell nodded, his attention only half on Zandu as he scrolled through his internal data-feed. Zandu could hear it processing and saw the blank-eyed expression of the Techmarine as he interfaced with it.