Sons of the Forge Page 2

  Heat prickled his skin, even through the armourglass.

  ‘I preside over a massacre…’ he murmured, gripping the haft of his thunder hammer for reassurance. ‘Such glory and beauty rendered moot by my unmaking of it.’

  T’kell had little poetry in his soul – logic made no room for it – but felt it seize him roughly in that moment of abject annihilation.

  Few warlords could claim such a feat of desolation, and yet he, a Forgemaster, a servant of craft and restoration, had done this.

  T’kell smiled bitterly at the irony.

  Forgefather, he reminded himself.

  ‘This grief…’ he uttered to the shadows, ‘it is as if you have died again.’

  Though he had not borne witness to the primarch’s passing, T’kell knew in his heart that his father was gone.

  It was said that their voice, the voice of the recently deceased, was the first thing to fade from memory. For T’kell it would never fade, even at the end. His father’s last words to him were ingrained as indelibly as the honour scars carved into his onyx-black flesh.

  The unthinkable had come to pass. Ash was all that remained.

  ‘Is nothing to be spared, brother?’

  He recognised the voice as belonging to Rahz Obek.

  In his reverie, T’kell had almost forgotten the Firebearer was also present at the burning of Vulkan’s artefacts, both of them standing in what amounted to little more than a corridor from which to witness the destruction.

  His armour was scalloped green ceramite, furnished with a cloak of red, leathery drake hide. A helmet hung from his belt by a strap, a dark fin of metal cutting it into two equal hemispheres. A shorter version, also deep ocean green, divided his scalp, but was made of shorn hair, not metal. As ever, he appeared stern. Rahz Obek was stoic as granite, a trait that extended to his emotions as well as his deeds. His question was asked not as a plea, nor affected by grief, but as an enquiry of fact.

  ‘This ship in which we stand, the weapon it carries on its hull,’ said T’kell, looking to the upper vaults and the flickering shadows that haunted them. His bionic eye auto-focused as it chased details in the darkness above. ‘And five other artefacts. Seven in all, one for each of the realms.’

  Obek took a step towards the armourglass; it was all that stood between them and the furnace. His red eyes narrowed as he sought the shapes of the things T’kell had been charged to destroy. He had never seen the wonders of Vulkan’s creation – even the ship was new to him – and T’kell assumed curiosity drove his brother-captain.

  An inferno raged inside the great heart-forge of the Chalice of Fire, as red as the Forgemaster’s armour. Nothing ever made could withstand its heat. And there was nothing but blackened metal and a growing field of ash for Obek to see.

  ‘A pity to see father’s work undone, but better that it should not fall into a traitor’s hands.’

  ‘He said much the same to me,’ uttered T’kell. ‘No wonder he chose you to lead the garrison.’

  Captain Obek stiffened at the remark, confirming what T’kell had always suspected – Obek thought he was being punished. Prometheus, the moon of Nocturne, its space port and barracks, was not a noble fortress to protect with his life; it was his prison to be incarcerated in until his death.

  ‘Though,’ said T’kell when no reply was forthcoming, ‘I understand you have a different name for yourselves.’

  Obek half turned, and his draconic war-plate caught the firelight in such a way as to give an even more feral aspect.

  ‘There is only one name that matters,’ he said at last.

  At this, T’kell nodded. ‘Yes.’

  The inferno had died to a flickering flame, the roar becoming a dulcet crackling. Smoke had blackened the armourglass as if hiding the shame of what had been done. Or rather undone.

  ‘You said you needed my help, Forgefather?’ asked Obek.

  ‘It was his last order to me before he went to Isstvan Five.’

  Again, Obek reacted, this time a hardening of the jaw.

  ‘And what would you have me do?’

  ‘What you have never done,’ said T’kell. ‘Leave Prometheus.’

  Zandu saw the burning man in his dreams. The figure had no face, no markings on his armour from which to discern his Legion or rank, but he burned. Eternally.

  He could not remember how long he had been seeing the burning man, or even the triggering event for the vision manifesting in the first place, only that it was ever-present, gnawing at the edge of his conscious mind and waiting for Zandu to let down his guard so that the apparition could be born again as a nightmare rendered in flame.

  At first, Zandu thought he might be the burning man, and that he was looking into a dream-mirror that portended his own death. The sense of imminent mortality remained whenever the burning man came to visit, but after several such meetings Zandu came to realise that the apparition was someone else, something else, an anachronism or a future echo.

  When asked, Chaplain Zau’ull had suggested it could be a metaphor for penance, that the burning man might represent one of the fiery dooms that awaited the wicked and the cruel.

  Not since Nikaea had Librarians walked amongst their number, and Zandu did not believe he was such an individual, latent or otherwise. He only knew that every time he closed his eyes, the burning man would come to him, his body coursing in perpetual flame. A legionary forever damned.

  As he woke, Zandu became aware of a feverish sweat lathering his body. A spume of breath ghosted in the air despite the stultifying heat of the chamber. It, like his dream, was a phantom, inexplicable, impossible to grasp.

  ‘Merciful Vulkan,’ he gasped, the burden of the memory still heavy. His hearts raced and he willed them to slow down.

  Breathe, breathe…

  Naked, he stepped from a dais through a ring of shimmering haze and padded across a carpet of burning coals. The chamber was dark, but Zandu saw well enough without the light. He had missed something though and, as he reached for his armour and the sheathed blade upon the nearby rack, a voice intruded on the quietude.

  ‘Dark dreams, Brother Zandu?’

  Zandu turned. ‘Obek.’

  ‘They haven’t addled your reflexes, Firefist.’ The brother-captain nodded at the blade in Zandu’s hand, which he had drawn on instinct.

  ‘They do little for my peace of mind,’ he admitted, lowering the short sword. Zandu smiled, and wasn’t surprised to see it go unreciprocated.

  ‘Perhaps a change of scenery will help.’

  Zandu’s brow furrowed, but Obek had already turned. ‘Don your armour and then come and find me.’

  The blade slid through the servitor’s guard, piercing its power core and abruptly ending the duel inside the battle cage. Blood and oil stained the floor.

  Ak’nun Xen left the sword impaled, still trembling from the strength of his blow, as he went to the weapons rack and took up a spear. Admiring the sharpness of the tip in the sodium half-light, he banged the ferrule hard on the floor of the battle cage to begin the next bout.

  A lumbering hulk of a servitor came for him on reverse-jointed limbs. From its left appendage an electro-flail rapidly unspooled and then crackled as it activated. A studded glove encased its right arm, exuding an energy hum.

  Xen tossed the spear up, caught it in a reverse grip and threw it. The servitor advanced two more steps before the spear took out its vital organs, again ending the duel. Next came a hammer and a fresh opponent, then a glaive and after that three variations of chain weapon. Xen had reached his ninth bout when he felt a presence behind him that made him stop. He was wearing loose-fitting training fatigues and sat down crossed-legged easily, his back away from the door to the battle cage as he addressed the newcomer.

  ‘Have you come to fight me, brother-captain?’ he asked. ‘Am I to be instructed, or have I already lear
ned all I must?’

  Xen thought he heard of snort of derision, but saw it for what it was. Caution.

  As he waited for an answer, Xen felt the scars on his back itch as he flexed his shoulder blades and stretched to keep stiffness at bay whilst he rested.

  A litany of honours cut curves and whorls into his skin in the sigil-dialect of Nocturne. Symbolism mattered to the people of the volcanic world and so it mattered to its transhuman sons too. Xen had won almost every honour possible for him to obtain. Few warriors in the Legion, alive or dead, were so decorated. But a mark had eluded him and now would forever do so: the rising flame, sigil of Vulkan’s Pyre Guard.

  Memory of it, or rather lack of it, caused a mote of anger to rise in Xen’s heart. He knew it was unworthy but had no means of shackling the emotion. Rahz’s voice brought him back round.

  ‘How many more of those things do you intend to kill, Flamesmote?’

  Cybernetic bodies and parts littered the battle cage. Oil painted it in arterial sprays like a pugilist’s canvas. Eighteen more servitor drones stood in their ready stations, inert, eyes dull and absent of motility.

  ‘All of them.’

  Rahz came forwards, encroaching into Xen’s peripheral vision. The brother-captain had his armour on. He was also armed, a bolter-flamer strapped to his back. Kneeling down, he picked up the hammer Xen had used to stave in a servitor’s metal skull.

  ‘Is there something you need, brother-captain?’ Xen asked, unable to keep the impatience out of his voice, after a brief silence.

  Rahz set down the hammer and stood up.

  ‘I may have a better use for your sword arm.’

  Far from instilling him with a sense of righteous purpose, the Vow had left Zau’ull enervated. Even in the Reclusiam, he could find no succour. As the serfs bathed and cleansed his armour with unguents, he reflected on the bitterness he felt and how it had come to pass.

  Even gripping his rosarius and reciting the canticles of faith and endurance brought him no comfort. He called to mind the lectures of Nomus Rhy’tan on self-sacrifice and the garnering of strength through suffering, but still clarity would not come and the heady fug of despair weighing him down refused to lift.

  ‘Vulkan is dead,’ he murmured, causing the serfs to stir and glance, afraid, at the Chaplain’s dark mood. His war-plate felt heavy as if the power feeding it had bled dry, and his limbs ached. A stifling air seemed to fill his war-helm and he reached for the skeletal faceplate with a trembling, gauntleted hand.

  Is this grief? he wondered. Or the absence of faith? How can I minister to these warriors if my own spirit is broken?

  Zau’ull stared until his eyes met the tattooed face of Gor’og Krask.

  ‘Brother-Chaplain…?’

  It took Zau’ull a few seconds to realise Krask had addressed him. Krask awaited an answer, except Zau’ull had no memory of the question, only that he had been asked. The reveries were happening all too often.

  ‘I came here, to the Reclusium,’ offered Krask, his drake-scaled plate a thing of terrible beauty and palpable violence, ‘for sanctification. You said you would perform the rites over my armour.’

  Zau’ull nodded, still weary but remembering. ‘Yes… yes, of course. Step forwards, brother.’

  Seemingly at ease again, Krask obeyed and bowed his head before the Chaplain. Krask cut a huge figure in his armour and Zau’ull had to look up at the Firedrake.

  Banishing the serfs, glad to be rid of their cloying presence, Zau’ull uttered the rites, but the benediction felt hollow.

  It was.

  He spoke of Vulkan, of his return to the mountain and presence beyond death.

  ‘Is he with us, Brother-Chaplain?’ asked Krask, his tone hopeful and devout.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are of the Igniax?’

  ‘I am, brother.’

  ‘And can you see the primarch still?’

  Zau’ull paused, recognising that the sons who remained needed hope, something to shore up their spiritual wounds. Zau’ull had heard talk of resurrection. One of the legionaries who had brought Vulkan back, one of the Pyre Guard no less. It had been a miracle, having crossed the storm and returned home. Rhy’tan had told him right before the attack – ‘Artellus Numeon claims that Vulkan isn’t dead’. The miraculous was not fated to last. Vulkan had stayed dead, his body now ash and all hope of his revivification ash along with it.

  A bitter blow, the latest in many that had led to this moment and Zau’ull’s crisis.

  He said none of this to Krask, and answered him instead, saying, ‘I can still see the primarch. He is with us always.’

  Krask raised his head as the rites concluded. Nodding to Zau’ull, he noticed the Chaplain staring into a shadowy alcove.

  ‘Is he here now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Vulkan lives,’ Krask murmured. Since Isstvan, this phrase had become a defiant battle cry and statement of belief that had reached as far as Nocturne. Over the last few days – or for some, months – it had become an acknowledgement of the opposite and a wilting reassurance that the primarch lived on in his sons of the forge.

  ‘Yes,’ Zau’ull replied softly, ‘Vulkan lives,’ but as Krask left the Reclusiam and the Chaplain to his thoughts, Zau’ull saw nothing in the alcove but darkness.

  Alone, finally, he removed his helm to take a shuddering breath, then snarled as one of the serfs returned. The lowly female recoiled and shrank before the Chaplain, who felt immediately contrite. Zau’ull reached out to apologise, but stopped when he saw the proffered scroll in the serf’s tiny hands.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘L-Lord Obek sent it.’

  The brother-captain did not approve of formality.

  Zau’ull barely noticed the serf retreat back into the shadows as he read what was inked upon the scroll. His eyes narrowed as he reached the end.

  ‘What are you up to, Obek?’

  Zeb’du Varr watched as Nocturne burned.

  He liked it.

  On the moon of Prometheus, the Vigil Hall offered an unparalleled vista of the world below. Hewn from obsidian armourglass, it could withstand a broadside from a cruiser or even a star fort. Resilient though it certainly was, it made for a much better watchtower than a battlement. From this vantage in the bastion orbiting high above Nocturne, Varr saw everything in wondrous slowness.

  It was the Time of Trial, when the world voiced its anger and its people suffered or died, and yet survived…

  Swathes of pyroclastic cloud rolled like tsunamis across the surface, and the gouts of fire spewing from its volcanoes were distant blooms of flaring light. Each fresh eruption expelled a huge trunk of smoke, billowing upwards into a pearlescent white dome framed by a ragged grey crown of smoke and cinder.

  As he keenly observed the detonating caldera, Varr had to imagine the thunder because the almost balletic display played out in silence. He imagined the fire too, the endless swathes of it… the scent of smoke, the acrid taste in his mouth, the near-suffocating heat. Varr had to resist the urge to ignite a fire of his own as he watched the trauma of the pyroclasm unfold. Others in the Legion shared his love of fire, but none possessed a mania quite as pronounced as Varr.

  ‘Beautiful…’ he whispered, edging closer, and caught sight of his reflection in the glass.

  Eyes the colour of hot coals glared hungrily from a face ravaged by knots of scar tissue. His skin looked leathern and cratered from countless burns. His lips had almost fused to his flesh, and were nearly indiscernible from the rest of his face. Nearly hairless, his scalp had sprouted wiry tufts between canyons of self-inflicted burn wounds.

  Varr knew he appeared monstrous, but accepted it as a burden of his calling. His only regret in that moment was the absence of his flamers, and he clenched and unclenched his gauntleted fists as if enacting a kinetic memory.r />
  ‘I see you,’ he uttered to the fiery hell below. ‘I see you, father.’

  Brother-Captain Obek was waiting, but Varr had needed to experience this first, to watch Nocturne burn as he always did during the Time of Trial, even though it never left him sated.

  Two

  All the honour that remains

  Fifty-one legionaries had gathered in the vault.

  All Firedrakes bar one, though only Krask and his warriors wore Tartaros-pattern Terminator armour. The others wore Mark IV and V power armour, painted green as befitted their Legion and each with a mantle of salamander hide. Zau’ull had black armour to signify his position amongst the Chaplaincy, and one other amongst the throng wore the red associated with Mars. The Terminators had attached their salamander hides to their shoulder guards, whilst the rest had cloaks of scale hanging down their backs. In spite of the apparent differences between the two grades of armour, all had a draconic aspect in common. Edges of individual plates were scalloped, echoing the scaled texture of their cloaks or shoulder mantles; and the legionaries’ war-helms, although different in form, all had toothed mouth-grilles or in some instances had been fashioned to resemble a drake head. Again, Zau’ull was the exception. His war-helm resembled an avatar of death, a fleshless skull.

  Even made diminutive by the sheer size of the vault, the Salamanders looked formidable and ready for war. Many ached for it and felt that the need for the garrison had robbed them of deserved glory. Certainly, their surroundings were glorious enough.

  Prometheus had several artefact chambers, but this was the largest. The Igneous Vault. It had also once belonged to Vulkan. The footfalls of the warriors who congregated there echoed loudly from its ornate walls despite the ash underfoot. Craft and artistry were evident in the vault’s aesthetic. Statuary had been carved into long metal ribs that arced all the way to a filigreed ceiling, where the wingless serpents of ancient Nocturne swam and fought in a sea of fire. An obsidian veneer gave the scene lustre and caught snatches of reflected light from a thousand guttering auto-sconces.

  The sculpted deep drakes cavorting in the heart-blood of the world had once looked down upon a sprawling portrait of tribesmen abroad on the Scorian Plain, wrought into the metal of the vault. Both were stirring examples of the primarch’s peerless gift of creation.