Deathfire Read online

  ‘It is you who lacks conviction, traitor, entirely loyal to no one.’

  Narek snapped, ‘Do not doubt my conviction! It is absolute!’

  As the Word Bearer strained against the chains anchoring his neck, wrists and ankles to the floor, Prayto slammed a blow into Narek’s solar plexus, returning him to his seat.

  ‘Did I strike a nerve?’ Prayto asked, resuming his slow circling of the prisoner.

  Narek spat blood.

  ‘Yours are on edge, I think,’ he said.

  Prayto paused at the accusation, but did not stop. Narek followed the Librarian’s repeating orbit when the shackles allowed. He met his gaze now with narrowed eyes.

  ‘Why did you have me moved from my original cell?’ asked Narek, looking around to gesture to his current surroundings. ‘This dungeon looks no more secure than the last.’

  Again, Prayto did not answer. The prisoner was speaking freely. He wanted to see where this was going.

  ‘Would you like to know my theory?’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Prayto.

  ‘I think your city is not as safe as you lead others to believe. I think you know my Legion or one of its allies is coming for me and might already be abroad in your streets. I smell the blood on them still,’ Narek sneered, ‘as I am ferried from place to place. And I can taste the fear of its populace, growing cancerously in sympathy with their doubt in you, their protectors.’

  He leaned forwards again, much less aggressively this time.

  ‘So, tell me, Titus Prayto, how safe do you really feel?’

  Prayto stopped circling, and descended to his haunches so he could stare at the prisoner eye to eye.

  ‘Safer than you, I’d warrant. Are they coming to try and save you or kill you, I wonder?’

  Narek eased back, unmoved by the Librarian’s implied threat.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that they’re coming. You’d best be ready when they do.’

  ‘Ready for whom?’ asked Prayto.

  Narek didn’t answer. His gaze went to the floor.

  Prayto doused the light with a thought. The interrogation was over. Nothing further would be learned.

  ‘Titus…’ said Narek as the Ultramarine reached the cell door.

  Prayto paused, but did not turn.

  ‘You asked me what Word…’

  Still Prayto waited and did not turn.

  ‘When I touched the fulgurite, I was given a glimpse of its power, of the Emperor’s power. The Word I serve is that He on Earth is a divine being, a god who claims to be mortal. That is the truth I serve.’

  Prayto’s gauntleted hand hovered over the door. He was about to reply when he thought better of it.

  The cell door clanged shut in the Librarian’s wake, leaving the prisoner alone.

  Sergeant Valentius was waiting outside.

  He scowled. ‘I will be glad of the day Lord Guilliman finally sanctions the execution of that creature.’

  ‘Many incarcerated within these halls are worthy of similar judgement, yet they live.’

  ‘Thiel brings back many stray dogs that require euthanising,’ Valentius muttered. ‘But this one slew a primarch, or had some part in his murder. Surely, there can be little of value left to learn.’

  Since the war, a period of fractious peace had settled across Macragge, and while the primus worlds remained largely unmolested, those at the fringes of the Ultramarian empire were still preyed upon by traitors. Aeonid Thiel had taken it upon himself to seek out these small warbands and exterminate them. Occasionally, when he could, he returned with prisoners to be broken by the Legion Librarius, in the hope the interrogated would reveal the location of further bandits.

  ‘It might not be his decision, brother,’ said Prayto.

  Now Valentius frowned. Prayto paid little heed, nodding to the helmeted guards as he and the sergeant walked down the long corridor of the Eastern Keep in brisk lockstep. They passed several other cells on their way to the Glorian Gate, which would lead them through the Aegis Wall.

  ‘If not Guilliman’s, then whose?’ asked Valentius, nonplussed.

  Prayto faced him with an incredulous, amused expression.

  ‘Who do you think? Sanguinius, our emperor on Macragge.’

  Valentius was no dullard, but the sergeant looked genuinely taken aback at Prayto’s frankness.

  ‘But this is Ultramar.’

  ‘No, brother,’ Prayto answered sagely. ‘It’s Imperium Secundus now.’

  Odious as it was to admit, Narek had been right. There was upheaval in the Civitas, minor and alloyed to civilian and political rather than military concerns, but unrest all the same.

  There had been… incidents and now warriors wearing cobalt-blue battleplate bearing the XIII Legion’s ultima regularly patrolled the streets. Curfews had been enforced after dark, and not just because of the murderous primarch who had yet to be accounted for. A dark mood pervaded, and did so beyond the common populace. It lingered in the council chambers too, tainting the words of the ambassadors from other Legions with compromise.

  Dark Angels, White Scars, Iron Hands, Blood Angels… August and honourable Legions all, but not meant to be arrayed together, impotent of purpose. Discord and restiveness were inevitable.

  With his gifts, Prayto felt the irritation being suppressed by the other Legions more than most.

  A storm was gathering strength. Either it would blow itself out, or it would break upon the city. It was worse farther out, away from the seats of power on Macragge.

  Ultramar was no longer the empire of a half-millennium of worlds. At its distant edges, some of those worlds still burned. Even though the war was over within the primus regions, the fringes were lawless places. Everyone who had read the reports and seen the refugee chains knew it. But in this era of hard-fought freedom and prosperity, few were willing to acknowledge it.

  But of all the unrest that had manifested in the capital, none stirred more so than the XVIII.

  At last their errant lord had been found, but the truth of his arrival had been kept from them. Vulkan’s presence had only been revealed after his death, the primarch slain by the very weapon a traitor had brought to Macragge. That fact too was concealed, and remained so. To do anything else would have been to invite furth­er discord, possibly even violent recrimination. And yet, Titus Prayto could not swear to himself that the obfuscation surrounding Barthusa Narek was just.

  Did the sons of Vulkan not deserve vengeance, or at least to know one of those complicit in their father’s death was being held on Macragge?

  Titus felt weary, and tried to ease the tension from his mind by massaging his forehead with his fingers. Nothing could ease his guilt.

  The fulgurite had yet to be removed from Vulkan’s corpse, if it even could be.

  A greater thorn was that his murderer still lived.

  Eight

  Return to the Pyre

  Magna Macragge Civitas, the landing fields

  The sky over Magna Macragge Civitas was thronged with ships. Military and civilian vessels, gunships and freighters, all vied for dominance in the steadily crowding airspace over the city.

  ‘So many of them,’ remarked Numeon, peering through the port-side vision slit of a Thunderhawk as it angled down through scads of cloud.

  A belt of turbulence shook the diminutive gunship – part tempestuous air current, part engine wash from the larger vessels – making Numeon curse as he reached for the troop hold’s overhead guide rail.

  ‘We’ve taken to mag-locking ourselves to the deck,’ said Inviglio, gesturing to his armoured boots.

  Numeon’s light carapace unfortunately did not possess the same adhesive facility as the Ultramarine’s battleplate. Finding the fragility of his armour perturbing, the Salamander yearned to don ceramite and adamantium again.

 
‘I will miss the Warhawk,’ he replied, gently bemoaning their current mode of transport too. ‘Stormbirds are both reliable and robust.’ He rapped his knuckles against the inner hull, creating an echoing return of thick but still arguably fragile metal. ‘I cannot see these lighter gunships suiting the Legions.’

  Inviglio kept his own counsel on the matter, and instead turned his attention to the glut of vessels all trying to dock at the landing fields.

  ‘Refugees,’ he explained, apropos of nothing, ‘from the fringes. Every time we come back their numbers increase.’ He directed Numeon’s attention to a bulky, slab-nosed freighter. ‘Labour serfs from Iax, Konor and Throne knows where else.’

  ‘This Imperium Secundus you mentioned,’ said Numeon, recalling an earlier conversation, ‘it still needs much in the way of building.’

  ‘More like rebuilding,’ Inviglio replied without thinking. He clamped his mouth shut. Too late.

  Numeon met his gaze.

  Both legionaries went without helmets, the Salamander because he did not have one and the Ultramarine because he held his in the crook of his arm.

  He looked young, Numeon decided. According to Sergeant Thiel, the XIII Legion had suffered heavy losses during the invasion. Practically it made sense to replenish any shortfall quickly. Inviglio was fresh-blooded, but he had earned some battle experience under the sergeant of the Red-marked.

  ‘Explain,’ said Numeon, his tone neutral.

  Inviglio relayed what he knew about Vulkan’s arrival on Macragge. It wasn’t much but Numeon absorbed every morsel with quiet detachment.

  ‘So, he fought here,’ the Salamander murmured, casting his gaze across the sprawling vista of the city.

  ‘Aye, it’s what I have heard.’

  Numeon said nothing further. Instead, he regarded the Civitas. At first, all he saw were the peaks of mountains, a rugged coastline, the tallest spires jutting through cloud. But as they descended, he caught a glimpse of grand archways too, then soaring towers and minarets, then smaller structures like barrack houses and depots. Grey bands winding between the buildings became streets and roads. A ribbon of silver became a river. Lower still, he watched the troops as they patrolled, some clad in Legionary plate. He saw the citizens attending to their business. Some huddled in small groups, talking, bustling, smoking tabac or giving the hulking Ultramarines a wide berth; others hurried quietly and alone, giving furtive glances to any perceivable threat.

  This was not a city at peace; it was one not entirely comfortable with itself.

  From the plebeian masses and their august protectors, Numeon’s eye strayed back to the horizon. There, tall towers rose up like gun barrels from hard Macraggian bedrock that had once been the seat of its ancient warrior kings. Amongst the banners and flags of the Ultramarines, he saw the heraldry of Blood Angels and Dark Angels. There were lesser pennants too, and he recognised the iconography of White Scars, Iron Hands, Raven Guard and even Space Wolves.

  The last banner upon which his gaze alighted was painfully familiar – a drake’s head, the symbol of Lord Vulkan, fluttering morbidly at half-mast.

  Inviglio saw it too – Numeon could tell by the sudden cessation of the Ultramarine’s breathing, as if he had made a second error in judgement and hoped his stalled respiration would halt time and thus allow him the opportunity for redress.

  This time, Numeon kept his own counsel. He looked away, neither legionary acknowledging what they had seen and what it meant.

  Firing stabiliser jets filled the uncomfortable silence, followed a few seconds later by the Thunderhawk’s landing stanchions unfolding and touching the ground. Raucous turbofans were still down-cycling when a second figure entered the troop hold from the cockpit. Barring the gunship’s crew, two Ultramarines had come with Numeon from aboard the Defiance of Calth.

  There was a fourth passenger too, but he remained shackled and entombed within an incarceration casket, strapped and locked down at the back of the hold.

  Aeonid Thiel barely glanced at it before nodding curtly to Inviglio as he entered the hold from the cockpit. His gaze then came to rest on Numeon.

  ‘Your kin have gathered to receive you, Artellus,’ said Thiel as he approached. ‘The Lords of Macragge will want an audience with you soon as well.’

  ‘I hope they are patient,’ Numeon replied.

  Thiel looked down at the Salamander’s proffered hand.

  ‘Both my deeds and words towards you were unworthy, brother-sergeant. I meant no dishonour.’

  Surprised at such humility, Thiel looked up and the two legionaries gripped each other’s forearms in the manner of warriors.

  ‘Apology accepted, Artellus.’

  Satisfied, Numeon nodded.

  ‘You return to the outer worlds again?’ he asked.

  ‘Once the prisoner is delivered to Titus Prayto… yes, I’ll return.’

  ‘I get the impression Macragge is not really where you want to be,’ suggested Numeon, a furtive glance at Inviglio revealing to the Salamander the feelings of the Red-marked. Why else would they have joined Thiel if they did not agree with his philosophy?

  ‘Politics are for a different breed of legionary,’ Thiel answered honestly. ‘My role is…’ he reached for the right word, ‘…simpler,’ he said.

  A wry smile pulled at the corner of Numeon’s lips as he said, ‘Perhaps you are a better politician than you think.’

  Thiel laughed, briefly and dismissively, but took no offence, for none was meant.

  Behind Numeon the embarkation ramp had begun to open with the dull drone of machinery.

  ‘Go well, Artellus.’

  A look of sudden urgency crossed Numeon’s face as he remembered something just before he was about to leave. He began to unclasp the gladius attached to his weapons belt.

  ‘Your blade…’

  Thiel put up his hand in a stopping gesture.

  ‘Keep it. The way you were slogging that gladius around, you need the practice.’

  Numeon graciously accepted, smiling at the Ultramarine’s mild gibe. He reached up to his breastplate and unclasped an engraved besagew. It was exquisitely fashioned and unique.

  ‘Now we are allies,’ he said, handing the small, round plate to Thiel.

  Humbled, the Ultramarine bowed his head.

  With a heavy and resounding clang, the ramp touched the ground. It was time to leave.

  ‘I didn’t see it before,’ said Thiel. ‘But I see it now. I’ll hope as you hope, Salamander. For a miracle… Vulkan lives.’

  Inviglio echoed his sergeant and the two Ultramarines stepped back so Numeon could be reunited with his brothers.

  The walk down the ramp was slow, and every footfall upon it echoed dolefully. Near silence greeted Artellus Numeon on the landing fields. An area had been cordoned off for his arrival, where several legionaries had gathered.

  He saw the by now familiar pairings of Iron Hands and Raven Guard, recognising similar cells to the one he had been part of. Memories of Traoris, the brothers he had lost, both Salamander and not, returned and it was hard not to relive the grief of their passing again.

  A lone Fenrisian prowled the edge of the throng, watching and scowling. More prominent than the Space Wolf but equally inscrutable was a White Scars legionary. Sitting upon a weapons crate, the Chogorian smoothed his moustaches and deigned to nod in Numeon’s direction although the two had never met.

  The last legionary who drew the Salamander’s eye appeared and disappeared quickly. A casual observer it seemed, Numeon was left with the impression of grey, nondescript armour, but it was hard to tell in fading daylight. In any case, his attention was quickly arrested by someone he knew approaching from the gathering with open arms.

  ‘Brother!’

  Zytos clasped Numeon in a firm embrace, which he returned belatedly and awkwardly before being let go.


  Var’kir, coming forwards as the overjoyed Zytos reluctantly retreated, was more restrained and merely bowed, but the gladness in his eyes at Numeon’s survival was obvious.

  Other fire-born stood at the fringes, a woefully small cadre, nodding and smiling at their returning captain. It was a brief shaft of light in an otherwise dark reunion, Numeon’s humour quick to fade as he looked Var’kir in the eye.

  ‘Where is our father?’ he asked.

  After escorting Numeon to the landing field, Thiel and Inviglio got airborne and headed for the Eastern Keep.

  A small docking pad jutted from the summit of the formidable bastion, its walls grey and unyielding. With the onset of night, a clarion rang out from one of the buttressed towers signalling curfew. Engine drone from the approaching gunship hummed loudly on the air, drawing the attention of mounted search lamps. Strafing the encroaching darkness, two grainy beams alighted on the Ultramarines craft, edging it in pearlescent white.

  From the guardhouse that shared the docking pad, two fully armoured legionaries tramped out with bolters locked across their chests.

  Automated gun nests, situated at the four cardinal points around the tower that housed the docking pad, swivelled as they achieved target alignment on the slowly descending gunship.

  Thiel kept the side hatch open throughout their descent, watching the tower defences keenly. He knew Inviglio was standing ready at the embarkation ramp, having eased Xenut Sul’s casket to the troop compartment’s threshold. Gravitic impellers lightened the heavy casket, and it needed only a gentle nudge from the Ultramarine to get it into position.

  Its prisoner, and the potential knowledge Titus Prayto could extract from him, was far weightier.

  Just before the gunship’s clawed stanchions met the landing pad, Thiel leapt out of the open side hatch to jog around to the lowering embarkation ramp.

  Inviglio waited on the other side and eased out the incarceration casket in front of him once the Thunderhawk had landed.

  Flanking the prisoner either side, Thiel and Inviglio escorted the casket to the waiting guards, who signalled for them to halt whilst they voxed in and confirmed their arrival.