Born of Flame

by Nick Kyme

  He firmly clasped the Iron Father’s arm in the warrior’s grip. Ulok reciprocated and the bond was made.

  ‘We’ll help you take the ship and capture the adept. Then I shall hold you to your word about escorting us. I will not agree to the attack on Horus. I cannot. I am still Eighteenth Legion and after my mission is done I plan to return to Nocturne and Prometheus. We can agree on what you need from the Wrought later.’

  Ulok nodded agreement. His grip was firm, unyielding, and as he released Obek again, his lips parted in a thin smile.

  ‘Your wounded.’

  Obek started, about to pull away, but Ulok held firm for a moment longer.

  ‘I will have a servo-skull direct you to the apothecarion,’ said Ulok. ‘You still wish to see them, I take it? I won’t deny you.’

  Ulok released him, and Obek nodded.

  He thought of T’kell and of the mission, his brothers aboard the Chalice of Fire. Refusing Ulok’s request had felt unwise. Honour bound him to the Shattered Legions now, regardless of where it might lead.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and sensed his grip loosening on his own fate and those of his brothers.

  Since their meeting in the workshop, Obek had not seen Ahrem Gallikus again. In fact, as he followed a servo-skull to the apothecarion, he did not see another Medusan Immortal or any Iron Hands legionary at all. Regardless, he felt eyes upon him and not from the mechanised drone.

  Morikan.

  He wants me to know he sees me, thought Obek, but his mind swiftly wandered to Gallikus’ cryptic behaviour.

  No rest. None at all.

  Obek could not discern its meaning and the Medusan had not elaborated further as he affixed the bionic the Salamanders captain now wore in place of his severed arm.

  He reached the apothecarion, the servo-skull hovering noisily above the entrance, and he consigned his thoughts on the matter to later consideration. The apothecarion door slid open with a faint hiss of pressure. Several Drakes awaited him. Not all were alive.

  One of the living Drakes stood before him now, his white armour bearing a single shoulder guard but unmistakably draconic in aspect.

  ‘You are Saurian.’

  The apothecary gave the slightest incline of his head.

  ‘Brother-captain. It is my honour,’ he said. ‘It has been a long time since I met another of my Legion, before…’ he gestured sadly to the fallen Salamanders.

  Fai’sho lay beneath a veil, his blood staining the gossamer-like material. He had been stripped of his armour, as had all of the Salamanders legionaries. He was not the only fatality, either. Obek murmured oaths for them all. The rest were unconscious, deep in suspended animation comas and would not soon be roused, but it appeared they would live.

  T’kell’s fate was much more uncertain and Obek came to his side last of all.

  ‘Forgefather…’ he murmured, his gauntleted fingers poised above the wound in the Techmarine’s skull. Now he saw it, Obek realised what T’kell had done, what he had to do. ‘You were purging the infection, ridding yourself of the adept’s influence.’ He gently closed his hand and withdrew it. ‘At such cost…’

  Saurian spoke up, intruding on Obek’s reverie.

  ‘After Isstvan, I had begun to lose hope that I would ever see my Legion again.’

  ‘None?’ asked Obek, fighting down the pang of regret at the mention of the Dropsite Massacre. ‘Not amongst your Shattered Legions?’

  ‘We were scattered after the attack. I fled aboard the Obstinate, some of my brothers also, but none survived,’ he said, his mood darkening. ‘Since then, we have remained isolated, fighting against the rebels where we can. To gather together… it would only ensure our swift destruction.’

  ‘I have met others like you, Saurian. Those who had joined the Shattered Legions. A few returned to Nocturne, their tidings grave, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Of Vulkan?’ Saurian asked, though his tone suggested he knew the answer.

  Obek nodded. ‘His body. It has since been returned to Deathfire.’

  Saurian looked grave, but he swiftly marshalled his grief.

  ‘Is that how you also came back to Nocturne? Were you amongst the Isstvan survivors?’

  Obek found he could not meet the Apothecary’s gaze. ‘No, that was not our fate. We have been garrisoned at Prometheus, standing watch.’

  ‘And the burden of that has lain heavy upon you.’

  ‘It has.’ Obek regarded the prone form of T’kell. ‘It still does.’

  ‘Rest assured, brother,’ said Saurian softly. ‘They will be well tended to.’

  ‘I can attest to that.’ Xen emerged into the apothecarion from a meditation cell, still fatigued but greatly recovered. He stood without his armour and his skin glistened like oil, his wounds like tears in the black. But Obek was not looking at his battle wounds.

  ‘Your honour brands, brother… They are removed.’

  Xen bowed his head, but Obek looked to Saurian.

  ‘At his request.’

  ‘Unscarred at last,’ said Obek, returning his attention to his vexillary.

  ‘I am unworthy of them.’

  ‘You are worthy of my respect,’ Obek replied, clapping Xen on the shoulder. He drew a sword from his scabbard, a green spatha with a serrated blade. ‘And worthier of this than I.’

  Xen took the proffered hilt reverently.

  ‘I am eager to rejoin my brothers, captain, as Drakos is to rejoin his.’

  ‘And you shall, vexillary. They have need of you. Saurian…’ He turned to the Apothecary.

  ‘The servo-skull that brought you here will take you to an arming chamber. The vexillary’s weapons and repaired war-plate will be there.’

  Obek nodded in gratitude. He had judged these legionaries falsely. They were a beaten blade, battered, hard to trust but still true for all of that. He could not explain the shield-bearer’s behaviour, but then there was much about the warriors of the Obstinate that was more unconventional than Ahrem Gallikus.

  ‘We have a… saying,’ he said to the Apothecary. ‘You will not have heard it.’ Obek hoped the words would bring him solace. ‘Vulkan lives.’

  Ahrem Gallikus sat alone in the darkness of the reliquary.

  It had been a long time since any legionary had been inducted here and those interred had been reduced to wasted flesh on bone, their augmetics removed and repurposed. Amongst the honoured dead, Gallikus found a measure of peace and used the solitude to meditate.

  He had almost been too rash in trusting the Drake. He barely knew him, or his warriors, but a faint hope still burned within. He counselled himself caution, knowing the Silent was ever watchful.

  His shield stood before him like an unwelcome guest, a symbol of his shame and failure.

  Gallikus remembered the Retiarius and the World Eaters. He remembered Azoth as he was, a Frater Ferrum who had been reduced to a shield-bearer like him.

  Neither of them could have known there was greater dishonour to come.

  ‘I will end this,’ he whispered to the darkness and to Azoth, his cold bones and those of his brother Revenants by now held in cryostasis until the call to war sounded again.

  Ulok had created the chamber aboard the ship. He had unlocked an avenue of proscribed research and turned the Keys of Hel. Few knew the inner workings of the ‘mausoleum’, but Ulok had been forced to confide in a small cadre of iron-brothers to perpetuate its continued function.

  It could not simply be deactivated. Numerous safeguards had been put in place to prevent this. Similarly, it had its own power source separate from that of the ship. Gallikus knew of only two ways to effectively sabotage the cryo-vault – destroy the ship or find a servant of the Omnissiah greater than Ulok.

  A betrayal. Did its end justify its means, he wondered? Had Horus faced a similar dilemma?

  Rising to his feet, Gallikus gripped the breacher shield and slung it onto his arm.

  He knew he had no choice.

  ‘I will end this.’

 
; TWENTY-ONE

  The returned

  Zandu saw the burning man, and knew it was a portent of his doom. It had come to him invisibly through a broken seal in his armour, not via some spectre or apparition. He had taken to wearing his helm as much as possible, not wishing to alert his brothers to his condition, but as he stood mag-locked to the deck of the Thunderhawk, its presence became stifling.

  They were still on the embarkation deck of the Obstinate, awaiting sanction to depart. The engines burred hungrily, eager to be unleashed, and sent vibrations through the fuselage that made Zandu’s bones ache. They had taken the dead with them to burn in the pyreums of the Chalice of Fire and the caskets lay in rows in the hold, a potent reminder of Zandu’s fate.

  Through the fog of his weakening senses, he had heard Obek speak to Phokan about the Sons of Horus. Zandu knew some of the renegades had escaped the Wrought during the assault by the Iron Hands and assumed they had been found.

  His fingers clenched reflexively at the thought of potential vengeance, and for a brief moment the dull throb in his skull ebbed. He shut his eyes, trying to ward off the pain and fatigue but saw the burning man appear from his subconscious. Emitting a shallow gasp, he opened his eyes again and hoped none had heard him. Weakness would prevent him from joining whatever mission Obek had committed them to and end any chance Zandu might still have of a meaningful death.

  Zandu looked up from his thoughts and saw Xen looking back.

  He and the vexillary had seldom seen an accord, their philosophies of war too divergent. But the proud swordsman seemed different and nodded to Zandu from across the hold.

  He laughed to himself. Even my mind betrays me…

  ‘You cannot fight this,’ uttered a low voice beside him, the sound of it deadened as if submerged.

  ‘What?’ he slurred, and saw Zeb’du Varr.

  He too wore his helm, but to hide the scars of his own fiery obsession. It was blackened by fire like the rest of his armour.

  ‘Your fate. You cannot fight it.’

  Zandu’s skull felt like it was under orbital bombardment. His mind swam and he struggled to focus on what Varr was saying.

  ‘You are mistaken, brother.’ Even his voice sounded different now, filtered through the fog of agony. Zandu fumbled at his helmet clasp in an attempt to remove it and alleviate the heat prickling his face.

  ‘It won’t help,’ said Varr, the thrumming engine noise masking their conversation from the other Salamanders legionaries in the hold.

  ‘I am not dying.’

  ‘All of us are dying, Firefist. Only you have seen the manner of yours.’

  Zandu turned, his eyes glowing fiercely as they fell upon Varr. He felt his body tremble, but not from anger.

  ‘Do not concern yourself,’ Zandu rasped, flecking the inside of his helm with spittle and filling it with the scent of copper.

  ‘Remember him,’ answered Varr, ‘the burning man.’

  Zandu shook his head. It would pass, the pain, the fatigue. It came and went. He tried to fool himself that it was fading now. It wasn’t.

  ‘No more riddles…’

  Varr had lost his mind. He had seen too much, endured too much. Even without being part of the Isstvan massacre, it had stained them all the same.

  Unscarred.

  Zandu found that wryly amusing.

  Nothing could be further from the truth.

  And then darkness took him.

  Zau’ull stood on the secondary embarkation deck of the Chalice of Fire with Krask and his entire squad of Terminators in two ranks behind him. They had been waiting for some time before the klaxons began to sound, signalling the arrival of the ship he had sent for his errant brothers.

  Menials and servitors from amongst the reduced deck crews made ready, their vacuum suits proof against the cold void as the embarkation gate levered open to admit the long dark and expose this part of the deck.

  Zau’ull looked on through the retinal lenses of his helm, feeling neither the chill of the void nor the drag of venting pressure, as the gunship alighted on a docking station and the embarkation gate slowly closed behind it.

  Once the repressurisation indicators turned from crimson to green, the deck crews unhitched the harnesses that had kept them from being swept into the void and rushed to the ship to attend to it.

  The rear landing ramp opened amidst this sudden flurry of activity and a solemn procession of Salamanders legionaries filed out, flanking the caskets of the dead.

  Zau’ull had his arms crossed over his chest and his crozius mace clutched in his right hand. When he saw Obek, he nodded and the captain’s voice crackled over his private vox-feed.

  ‘Firefather, it is good to see you again but we have urgent matters to discuss. My quarters.’

  The Iron Hands had done little to soften Obek’s demeanour, it seemed. It was only as he noticed the absence of T’kell and Zandu that he realised why.

  Zau’ull blink-clicked a vox acknowledgement and dismissed the Terminators.

  ‘Is he dead?’ asked the Chaplain.

  ‘He lives,’ uttered Obek, his back to Zau’ull as he regarded the gilded drake icon carved into the facing wall of his quarters. The chamber was sparse, with little to distinguish it save for a meditation dais, armoury and the crackle of embers from the firepits delineating the back half of the room.

  ‘Barely,’ added the captain, turning to face his Chaplain, who had removed his skull-helm and held it in the crook of his left arm. ‘Zandu too. That’s why we were late. Rad-poisoning. They are aboard the Obstinate.’

  ‘The Iron Hands ship?’

  Obek nodded.

  ‘I see. Their Iron Father said they had taken you prisoner?’

  ‘They did, convinced we might be traitors.’ Obek shook his head at the thought. ‘I swear to you, Zau’ull, I have never seen such desperation and mistrust.’

  ‘These grim, dark times are ripe with it.’

  Obek nodded, his thoughts distant for a moment as he looked away.

  Zau’ull asked, ‘The Wrought. What happened?’

  ‘It is overrun, brother. We cannot use it now. That door is closed to us.’

  ‘And the artefacts?’

  ‘Without T’kell, I am without guidance. Vulkan’s bidding was to take them to the Wrought and secure them there, but he could not have foreseen this.’

  ‘Perhaps he did,’ Zau’ull replied softly. ‘Another trial, a means of testing our faith and endurance.’ He still had the relic he had taken from the vault clasped to his belt but he had moved it so the case was hidden by his drake mantle.

  ‘Then we are failing it,’ Obek replied, looking back to the Chaplain. ‘I have considered Geryon Deep.’

  ‘At Taras?’ Although he tried, Zau’ull could not keep the look of incredulity off his face.

  ‘I know, it’s far and the empyrean tides are turbulent.’

  ‘I would say worse than that, brother-captain.’

  Obek pursed his lips, knowing to try for Geryon was a risk.

  ‘The Iron Father has vouched for our safe passage.’

  ‘And you trust him?’

  ‘No, but I am between hammer and anvil, and I would rather have his allegiance than his wrath.’

  Zau’ull frowned. ‘Do you believe his intentions to be potentially hostile?’

  ‘I think he has seen too much war, Firefather. His ship, his warriors… The one who did this,’ Obek brandished the bionic in place of his arm, ‘he said something to me, or it felt like he wanted to say something. He said Ulok would not release our wounded, but his final words were the most cryptic. He said “No rest. None at all.” I think he was referring to the legionaries aboard the ship.’

  ‘What of them? I don’t understand, Firebearer.’

  ‘Cold, Zau’ull, as cold as the metal clad around their bodies. The sons of the Gorgon are stoic, but they have passion. These warriors were like… automata.’

  ‘This one who confided in you…’

  ‘Ahrem
Gallikus.’

  ‘Yes, he was not this way?’

  Obek shook his head. ‘No, he seemed different. Human. Alive.’

  ‘Nothing you have said is particularly reassuring, brother,’ Zau’ull admitted.

  ‘I know. I think he wanted my help.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘I think he intends to betray his Iron Father.’

  ‘He’s a traitor?’ said Zau’ull, alarmed.

  ‘No, I believe him to be loyal. Something is wrong on the Obstinate and he wants an end to it.’

  Zau’ull’s brow furrowed as he weighed everything Obek had just told him.

  ‘I cannot see the right path in this, Firebearer.’

  ‘I have forged one anyway.’

  Zau’ull’s eyes narrowed. ‘And before I have heard what it is, I am already thinking it is less than favourable.’

  ‘It is. I have made an alliance and oathed myself to the Iron Father.’

  Zau’ull’s silence bade him continue.

  Obek told him everything.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The Son of Victory

  Although he had been his legionary brother, Vosto Kurnan did not mourn for Rayko Solomus. He hated the torturer, as he hated almost all things, and found himself grinning at the memory of Solomus’ demise.

  The dead eyes of the servitor reminded him of it, of the Raven slitting Solomus apart, all his arrogance and impudence spilling out red onto the ground at Kurnan’s feet. Some of the blood still stained Kurnan’s armour and he found the sight of it pleasing.

  Let it remind me of the peril of hubris, he thought, and raised his eyes to the figure skulking in darkness at the back of the room. The Mechanicum emissary shrugged on a robe of sable, but before the material slid over his body and gathered like folds of skin upon the floor of the sanctum, something of his true form was revealed, something metal and arachnoid.

  Kurnan felt his hatred rekindled. The servitor lying on the ground had been the only one to escape the wrath of the Gorgon’s sons. As the remnants of Kurnan’s legionaries had taken to the irradiated plains of the nameless world aboard Rhinos and Land Speeders, he had been faced with the ignominy of defeat and considered death in battle preferable to a fighting withdrawal.