Текст книги "Vulkan Lives"

Автор книги: Ник Кайм

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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 askance 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 specificallyto 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 dobelieve 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 an 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 Unburdenedin 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.

Narek meant to extricate himself from that as soon as he was done with this mission. Never once, not even when his leg was in bloody tatters, had he reneged on an oath. That was not about to change now.

As he hung on to the guide rail inside the hold, leaning out a little farther and allowing the wind whipping past to buffet him and howl around his battle-helm, he found that he missed the presence of the fulgurite and wondered just how the Dark Apostle would subvert its power.

Where once there was warmth at his side, a reminder of the existence of the divine, now there was only cold. Narek could feel it creeping further into his body, attaching its talons around his soul. And yet, so far he had resisted damnation.

Something on the darkened skyline got his attention and he quickly went back to the scopes for a better look.

‘There,’ he said, pointing.

Vogel got up and went to stand beside him. ‘I don’t see it.’

‘Look closer.’

Vogel’s eyes narrowed. One was not like the other. It was a fiery slit in an otherwise black retina, blind to one world but not the other.

‘A plume of smoke? There are fires burning everywhere in this city.’

‘It’s them,’ Narek assured him, opening up the vox again to converse with their pilot. ‘Saarsk,’ he said, ‘find us a place to land nearby.’

‘Why don’t we simply strafe their new stronghold,’ suggested Narlech, ‘then rake through the rubble to finish them?’

Narek shook his head. ‘No. I want to be sure they’re all present. Besides, ramping up our engines to attack speed would alert them to our presence. They have a weapon mount that took out two buildings. It would have no difficulty shooting us down, and then we would be the ones being searched for amongst the wreckage. We set down near here,’ he decided. ‘Go in slow and quiet on foot.’

Narlech muttered his agreement. Vogel sat back down.

‘It matters not to me,’ uttered Amaresh, who had not ceased sharpening his ritual blade since they had taken off. ‘So long as we get to cut them open and spill their fears at their feet, a feast for the Pantheon.’

Dagon snarled in pleasure at the thought. The others, too, all revelled in this idea.

Only Narek looked away, out into the dark, and wondered what would await them when they arrived.

Numeon sat in silence next to the slowly dying embers of the pyre. Tendrils of smoke were coiling from inside the armoured husks of his former brothers. He wondered how long it would be before it was him lying amongst the flames, burning and ending.

He was alone and the manufactorum floor was dark, barring the glow that remained in the ashes and charred pieces of wood. Only pausing to lay their dead to rest, the others were getting ready to move.

News of the human’s death had done little to affect the company. Most were in private agreement with Leodrakk. Now, this man, this John Grammaticus, would be left behind like the rest. And his secrets would die with him.

Numeon clasped an icon of a small hammer in his fist. It was partly fire-blackened, and the piece of chain that had once attached it to a suit of armour was broken.

‘I still have hope. I still believe you live…’ he said to the shadows. His eyes then strayed to the fire that filled the air around him with its crackling, reminding him of the day they had been wrested apart.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Misgivings

‘I can scarcely imagine what inspired Horus to this madness. In truth, the very fact of it frightens me. For if even the best of us can falter, what does that mean for the rest? Lord Manus will lead us in. Seven Legions against his four. Horus will regret this rebellion.’

– Vulkan,

Primarch of the Salamanders

Isstvan V

No one had seen Vulkan since he had returned from the meeting with his brothers aboard the Ferrum. Upon re-docking with the Fireforge, the primarch of the Salamanders had removed himself to his private chambers without a word of explanation.

Artellus Numeon had expected a briefing, even an address. Something. The ways of his primarch were as inscrutable as the very earth he was bound to. Numeon dearly wished that he could read Vulkan now, and wondered what had transpired aboard the Ferrumthat had vexed the primarch to such a degree. Less than an hour from planetfall, a veritable armada of Legion drop-ships berthed aboard the flagship vessel preparing to pierce Isstvan V’s upper atmosphere, it perturbed the Pyre captain greatly that his liege lord had absented himself.

Walking hurriedly down the shadowed corridors of the Fireforge, Numeon had yet to encounter a single soul. Vulkan had dismissed his chamber guards, all serfs and even his brander. So when the doors to Vulkan’s solitorium appeared through the soot-choked darkness of the ship’s lowest hold, barring the enginarium decks, Numeon did not know what to expect.

Though sealed, the entrance to Vulkan’s private chamber was not locked. Flickering lumen-torches cast a reddish haze over the doors, which parted at Numeon’s approach, revealing a deeper shadow within.

Crossing the threshold into the room, Numeon tried to still his thundering heartbeat as the reek of cinder and ash enshrouded him. Like the corridors outside, the solitorium was dark, but abjectly so. Numeon felt Vulkan’s presence before he saw him, as a man feels the presence of a monster when he is let into its cage.

The door sealed shut behind, and the dark became absolute.

‘Come…’ uttered a deep, abyssal voice.

It came from the centre of the room, a circular vault made from obsidian. Around the edges, Numeon heard the crackle of coals, the embers within their brazier-troughs casting off a faint glow. In this wan light he discerned the shape of a large kneeling figure, its head bowed so that its chin was leaning on its fist.

Even in the utter darkness of the branding chamber, Vulkan was resplendent. Clad in his full panoply of war, a sublime suit of power armour forged by his own hand, the Lord of the Drakes was immense. Studded with quartz, rubies and gems of every hue that had been dredged from the Nocturnean earth, the primarch’s battle gear flashed with captured fire. On one shoulder guard he wore a massive drake skull, whereas the other was affixed with the jade-coloured hide of a second beast. Without his helmet, Vulkan’s glabrous scalp shimmered in the lambent forge-light.

As he stepped farther into the chamber, Numeon caught his reflection in the obsidian’s black surface, wreathed in mirrored flame. Like his lord, he was wearing his full battle-plate. A long drake-hide mantle cascaded from his shoulders and a snarling war-helm sat in the crook of his arm. In his other hand, he clasped the haft of his glaive. The volkite weapon attached just below the blade was chromed and ready-charged.

‘You seem anxious, Pyre captain,’ Vulkan breathed, intensifying the fuliginous pall around him.

‘Orbital bombardment is due to commence in less than an hour, my lord.’

‘And you request my presence on the muster deck.’

Breathing slowly and deeply, Vulkan released another heavy exhalation, renewing the volcanic stench cloying the air. Such strength and savagery clothed in armour and flesh, Numeon could almost believe that beneath the onyx-black skin Vulkan wasa drake, a beast of primordial myth trapped in a man-shaped vessel of bone and blood.

‘I have prepared the Legion. They are oathed to the moment and await your order,’ Numeon said, unable to hide his agitation.

Vulkan sensed it at once.

‘Speak freely, Artellus. I won’t have secrets between us.’

Numeon cleared his throat, and came a step closer into the light.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Ah.’ Vulkan smiled. Numeon caught it in the change in his voice, ‘That’s better.’

The hide of Kesare hanging from Vulkan’s armoured shoulder unfurled as he stood, giving it the illusion of reanimation. Kesare had been a monstrous beast, one of the deep drakes. Vulkan had slain him as part of a contest against another warrior, a stranger to Nocturne, one who had called himself the Outlander. It was only later revealed that this strange visitor was in fact the Emperor of Mankind, a being of such immense power and wisdom as to defy definition.

Everything had changed that day. Truths kept from Vulkan had been revealed; his destiny and purpose. His father had come, his creator in the truest sense, and Vulkan had been cast unto the stars where he was reunited with his intended Legion.

Numeon had rejoiced at the primarch’s return. Lost on such a remote and volatile world, Vulkan had nonetheless been amongst the first of the Emperor’s sons to be found. Even so, the Salamanders had suffered in the Great Crusade before that, as a desire to prove their worth almost resulted in their extinction.

‘You think this is a poor time for self-reflection,’ said Vulkan.

It wasn’t a question, but Numeon gave the only answer he could.

‘Yes. You are needed. We are on the brink of war, about to engage warriors in battle that we have fought beside – warriors we once considered allies.’

‘And this troubles you, Artellus?’

‘Greatly.’

‘It should, but do not let that rush you into ill-considered action.’

‘No, of course,’ Numeon answered, himself now bowing in response to Vulkan’s chastening remarks.

‘Raise your head, captain. Did I not teach you to meet me eye to eye?’

Numeon lifted his chin.

‘I remember, my lord. You remade us, alloyed us even as we looked into the very abyss of self-annihilation. Without you, we would not have survived.’

Before Vulkan, like all the Legions, the Salamanders had hailed from Terra. The very fact that there were so few Terran Salamanders left alive was testament to how close the XVIII had come to destruction. Being reunited with their primarch had saved them, and with the hardy people of Nocturne already students of Vulkan’s teachings, it was not long before the Salamanders saw their numbers swell again.

Numeon was a Terran by birth, like all the Pyre Guard. They were the few, the chosen, and they remembered well the disaster that had very nearly befallen them. How easily their legacy could have ended short like the others of whom no one now spoke.

‘I saved you because in you I saw a great potential. My father knew I was the perfect son to temper this Legion and forge it strong again. So then, be assured that there is no better time to reflect than when we strike our oaths and brand them into flesh before battle, Artellus. Temperance in the face of war is not only prudent, it also saves lives. To my mind, it is a practice my brother Ferrus would benefit from greatly.’

Vulkan’s gaze was suddenly far away, as if remembering.

Numeon frowned. ‘Did all not go well aboard the Ferrum? I understand a plan of attack was being devised.’

‘It was.’ Vulkan returned his gaze to the Pyre captain. To Numeon, he looked almost regretful.

Vulkan went on. ‘The Gorgon has always been volatile, but the words he spoke against Fulgrim aboard the Ferrumwere embittered and wrathful. Like the magma which churns below the surface of both our worlds, Ferrus is on the brink of violent eruption.’

‘His anger is justified,’ Numeon asserted. ‘Former allies or not, this rebellion must be stopped.’

‘Yes, it must. But I fear Ferrus’s choler bodes ill for what is to come,’ said Vulkan. ‘He isn’t thinking clearly and acts rashly, out of anger. Corvus felt it too, I am certain, but the Ravenlord conceals his emotions as carefully as his presence. He said nothing of his own misgivings during our brother’s impassioned briefing.’ Vulkan sighed, a weariness affecting him. ‘To rush in against a foe like Horus… It smacks of madness and rage.’

Numeon’s brow furrowed, ‘Madness?’

Vulkan slowly shook his head. ‘To even think of Horus as an enemy seems like insanity. Rebellion, it is said. And not the Sons of Horus alone, but three other formerly loyal Legions as well. I apologise for my candour, Artellus – you should not have to shoulder these burdens. They are mine to bear alone, but what other word is there for it, except madness?’

Numeon was at a loss to answer at first. It would not be long before the bombardment began and the Legion embarked on drop-craft for an immediate, aggressive ground deployment. If it was madness they had come too far to turn back from it now.

‘I can think of no other word. Yet what else can we do but follow Lord Ferrus into battle? Here is where we will end it. Seven Legions against his four. Horus will be brought to heel and made to answer for his sedition.’

Vulkan laughed, but it was a sad sound, bereft of humour.

‘You remind me of Ferrus. Such belligerence.’

‘How else do we meet our enemies but thusly?’ Numeon asked.

Vulkan considered that, before lowering his gaze again.

‘Do you see this?’ he said, gesturing to a hammer cradled in his gauntleted grasp. The primarch did not grip the weapon, rather he allowed it to rest, his fingers barely wrapped around the haft and neck.

‘Magnificent,’ said Numeon, confused as to his lord’s meaning.

The warhammer had an immense double-head. Each head was based on three square wedges, rotated at angles to produce an almost flanged finish. Bisected by a long metal haft, crosshatched at the handle and ending in a gem-studded pommel, the weapon’s killing end looked weighty, but Vulkan held it like it was nothing. Ostensibly it was a master-crafted and much upgraded thunder hammer, possessing both a power generator at the top of the haft and another device Numeon did not recognise just below it.

‘It rivals Thunderhead,’ Vulkan told him, gently turning the hammer around in his loose grip. ‘It wasn’t intended as a replacement. It was meant as a gift. And even now, as we follow in the wake of my brother’s tempest, I am struck by the import of the decision in holding on to it.’

‘A gift,’ said Numeon, fighting the sense of unease growing within him, ‘for whom?’

‘You have always served loyally and faithfully as my equerry, Artellus. I trust your counsel. I would have it now.’

Numeon thumped his fist against his breastplate in crisp salute. ‘You honour me, my lord. I am yours to command.’

Vulkan’s eyes narrowed, the fire burning inside them reduced to hot, red slits as if measuring his equerry and deeming him worthy of what he was about to say next.

‘What I tell you now, I have told no one before this moment.’

‘I understand.’

‘No,’ said Vulkan sadly, ‘you don’t. Not yet. After Ullanor, I began forging a weapon to honour Horus’s achievement and our father making him Warmaster. This,’ he said, now holding the hammer in a firm grip and raising it aloft in one hand, ‘is Dawnbringer. It was meant as my gift to my brother.’

‘But you chose not to give it to him. Why, my lord?’

Vulkan lowered the weapon, regarding the exquisite craftsmanship of his labours before going on.

‘That is what vexes me, Artellus. Horus and I spoke privately only twice after he replaced our father at the head of the Crusade.’

‘I remember, my lord. After Kharaatan, you consulted both Lord Dorn and Lord Horus.’

‘Yes. Konrad’s… behaviourconcerned me greatly and I was in need of guidance. At the time, the forging of Dawnbringerwas unfinished. I wanted the gift to be a surprise, a token of our brotherhood and my respect, so I said nothing of it.’

‘I am still unclear as to why this is on your mind now, my lord.’

‘Because when the hammer was finished, I spoke to Horus for the second time. His advancement to Warmaster had placed a great strain on his time and attentions, so I wanted to arrange a meeting when I could present my gift to him.’ Vulkan paused, his expression darkening as he recalled the exchange.

‘My lord?’ said Numeon, as the same cloud cast its shadow over him too.

Vulkan kept his eyes down as he remembered, and did not raise them as he concluded his account.

‘Horus was much changed from the brother I knew, and had looked up to. Even across our hololithic link, I felt it… A presence that had not been there before.’

‘What kind of presence?’

‘It is difficult to describe. He seemed… distracted, and at first I thought it was merely matters of the Great Crusade that preoccupied him, but as our conversation went on, I realised it was something else.’

‘Do you think he was planning this rebellion even then?’

‘Perhaps. Now, I wonder if it was always in my brother’s heart and simply had to be teased out of him for it to flourish and bloom. Either way, I knew there was a canker within Horus that had not been there before, a shadow upon his soul like a cancer. And it was growing, Numeon, the host embracing this parasite in front of my eyes. I do not possess the prescience of Sanguinius, nor the mental acumen of Guilliman or the psychic gifts of Magnus, but I know my instincts, and they were screaming at me in that moment. Horus has fallen, they were saying to me. In some way, he had slipped and the pit had taken him. Even though I could not put meaning or evidence to any of this, it unsettled me. So I decided not to tell him of the gift I had fashioned, instead keeping it for myself. And it concerns me still,’ he said to Numeon, looking up again. ‘Because the same misgivings I had that day, I feel now. They warn me to be cautious, to heed the disquiet in my soul.’

‘I will be ever vigilant,’ said Numeon, though he didn’t yet know for what.

Vulkan nodded. ‘Be mindful, Artellus. On the dark sands of Isstvan far below, we face a foe unlike any other. But it isan enemy, and one we can afford to give no quarter. Whatever bonds of loyalty you may once have felt to these warriors, forget them. They are traitors now, led by a warrior I no longer recognise as my brother. Do you believe we are right in this, and that our cause is a just one?’

Despite the bitter taste that the other Legions’ treachery had left in his mouth, Numeon had never been more certain of anything.

‘I am sure of it. Whatever sickness has come upon our old allies, we will burn it to ash.’

‘Then we are as one. Thank you, Artellus.’

‘I did nothing, my lord.’

‘You heeded me when my mind was troubled. You did more than you realised.’ Vulkan gave a feral smile, his misgivings transformed and reforged into purpose. ‘Eye-to-eye, Pyre captain.’

‘Tooth-to-tooth, my lord.’

‘The bombardment is soon?’ Vulkan asked.

‘Imminent,’ said Numeon, reassured and galvanised by Vulkan’s revivified demeanour. He realised, as Vulkan attached Dawnbringerto his belt, that it wasn’t weakness he had seen in his primarch, but humanity. It was the genuine concern that his brothers had fallen to darkness, and the emergence of the resolve he would need to fight them. He shoulddoubt the justness of this fight, and he shouldstop to consider the consequences of it. Only by doing so could a warrior be sure that he drew bolter and blade in good cause and against a true enemy.

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