Scorched Earth Read online

  The appearance of the sky-hunters was therefore problematic.

  The Ironwrought asked, 'Did you get what you needed?'

  'Yes. A map of sorts,' I said, tapping my battle-helm with my finger.

  Ruuman stared, waiting for more.

  So I gave him it. 'I know,' I said, 'I know where they took Vulkan.'

  Deciphering a clear image from the painful mental assault Lorimarr had inflicted on me was not easy. Through the fire, and the agony and the light, I saw a cave. On the surface, it was a fairly nondescript - even ubiquitous - landmark on the Isstvan plains where there were many crevices and chasms. However, this one carried a mark. It was a star with eight points and to see it, even in my mind's eye, made my stomach tighten and my tongue itch. The sensation was akin to that which we had felt in the valley of bones, so I knew it must be significant.

  The suggestion of a craven altar, a ritual knife with the infernal power to cut through reality itself forced its way into my consciousness and I suddenly dreaded what had become of my father. It had been prepared for him this place, this cave; that much I knew.

  And from our vantage point, standing as we had in Tarkan's eyrie on the Purgatory, I had seen it. Then it had just been a shape, another lumpen blister in a black desert studded with gibbets, pyres and death-pits. Now it was a beacon, calling me to him.

  From the details of the hololithic map I studied during Sulnar's briefing, I remembered the relative position of the cave to the Purgatory and by extrapolation the position of Vulkan's crashed drop-ship.

  I found the cave and led us to it, that part was easy. Getting to it across an encampment thronged with Iron Warriors was not.

  Ruuman lowered the scopes and scowled. The bionics in his face growled with the effort.

  'I can see no route through them.'

  A hot wind was blowing in from the north, disturbing squalls of ash that painted our armour in murky grey. I imagined the heat was coming off the Purgatory and the bones of the poor souls we had left there to burn. Ruuman had not said much about why he had left. Apparently, Sulnar had sent him. Perhaps Tarkan had seen what was coming and the imminent threat had made the lieutenant commander send reinforcements? Perhaps the Ironwrought had simply decided it was time to leave? Either way, he had reached us somehow and now here we were, contemplating another desperate act.

  We had taken up a position sheltering behind a cluster of rocks, slightly elevated above the desert floor on a shelf of obsidian and surveying the majority of the encampment.

  Warriors encircled small fires, talking, cleaning their weapons, sharpening knives. Some sat alone, staring catatonically into the darkness. Others sat on the hulls of their battle tanks, hunched over with their weapons held casually at ease. The vehicles formed a loose laager within which the Iron Warriors had pitched tents and made their fires. I suspected they did so to keep whatever dogs were also prowling the night at bay. Of all the murderous thugs left behind to cleanse Isstvan V, only the sons of Perturabo acted as if they were not also part of the Warmaster's chaff. Primarchs had left behind the very worst and most volatile of their warriors, mad dogs in every sense, for this dirty job. The IV Legion had never done anything but the dirty jobs and so there was no distinction to make. It also meant they were more ordered and less unpredictable than their wilder brethren. If they had dug in, it was likely they would not strike camp until ordered to by Perturabo, and that would only happen when we were all dead.

  Some of the sand had been restored to the hourglass, but it was dwindling perilously close to expiry again.

  'Must be over fifty warriors,' breathed Usabius.

  'I count almost a hundred,' I replied.

  Ruuman nodded. 'We must thin their ranks,' he said, 'stretch them so we can slip through their pickets without detection.'

  I took a long hard look at the encampment, the relative position of the warriors, the scouts, watch points, concentrations of armour and men. And then I looked at the cave and how it was almost surrounded, although the troops there did not act like guards or as if they were even aware of its significance. We had just been unlucky.

  'Impossible,' I said, and sank back down behind cover.

  Ruuman followed me.

  'Chances of operational success are slim,' he admitted. 'I might be able to punch a hole through their armour with this.' He patted the conversion beamer that was slung over his shoulder.

  I shook my head. 'They would strafe this ridge with every heavy cannon they had. We would be dust within seconds, another violent memory just like the rest of our kin.'

  'There must be a gap in their patrols, a weakness in the net we can exploit. Perhaps if we just wait…' said Usabius.

  'We cannot wait.' I gestured to the night skyline as it purpled and reddened on the distant horizon. 'Dawn is not far off and in the open as we are, we will be seen.'

  As if to emphasise the danger, the low drone of a sky-hunter cut into our discussion, zipping by our position at speed.

  'How long do you think it will be before one of those jetbikers catches us in these rocks?' I asked.

  'Doing nothing is certain death,' Ruuman answered.

  'Stepping out now yields the same results, Ironwrought,' said Usabius.

  Ruuman seemed not to hear him; his gaze was on the enemy.

  After a few seconds when he still did not speak, I asked, 'What is it?'

  'They are striking camp.'

  I rushed to peek over the edge of the rocks. Even without the scopes, I could tell that the Ironwrought was right.

  Fires were being doused, tents collapsed and packed away. Officers barked orders and tank crews leapt off the hulls of their vehicles and began making ready. The Iron Warriors were preparing to mobilise again.

  'Orders?'

  'Perhaps,' said Ruuman, 'something has come down the chain of command. Reacting to another threat?' he wondered out loud.

  'Does it matter?'

  He turned to face me. 'Only if we are that threat.'

  But it did not appear that way.

  On the horizon a red line flashed across the landscape, heralding another fiery sunrise. As I watched, the shadows began to creep away from the encroaching light, the darkness releasing us from its grasp and thrusting us screaming into the day.

  'How long before the dawn?' I asked, my gaze alternating between the rising sun and the dissipating encampment of our enemies.

  'Minutes,' Ruuman calculated.

  'And the camp?' I already knew the answer - minutes, just the same.

  It was at least four hundred metres from our position to the threshold of the cave. There was some natural cover, scattered rocks, minor defiles, the remnants of whatever the Iron Warriors left behind.

  The dawn was coming… Too fast.

  'We have to go now,' I said urgently.

  Usabius was up on his feet, head above the rocks, ready to move too.

  Ruuman clutched my shoulder, forced me down.

  'You'll be seen. Wait a little longer.'

  Through the blood pounding in my ears, I heard the low drone of the circling sky-hunter again, whipping by us, still ignorant of our presence.

  The dawn faded, the harsh light dissolving back into blackness and leaving an eldritch gloaming in its wake.

  I turned, confused, heart drumming.

  'Not the dawn…' gasped Usabius, sinking down again, mercifully unseen by the scouts and sentries.

  The Iron Warriors were still rolling out, slow and methodically, easing into column with heavy tanks to the front and rear, bracketing the march.

  I realised why they had been ordered to move and what I had seen in place of a true dawn.

  'Nuclear sunrise,' said Ruuman, echoing my thoughts. 'The traitors have deployed atomics of some minor magnitude. The wind will bring the fallout this way.'

  'They're moving because of the radiation?'

  'Yes.'

  'Which means…'

  'It will be flooding this region, with us still in it.'

&
nbsp; I shook my head, unwilling to be dissuaded by such a minor threat.

  'It won't kill us,' I said.

  'Not immediately, no.'

  Below us, the Iron Warriors were shackling heavy gun carriages to their Rhinos and Spartans. I saw Rapiers, mole-mortars, several autocannons. It would take time to move all of that arms and armour. The laager was breaking apart slowly. Mounted, they could ride ahead of the storm of fallout. We could not.

  'If Vulkan is down there, we must rescue him,' I said adamantly.

  'If?' Ruuman posited. 'So you admit he might not be in that cave?'

  'I…' I looked to Usabius, but his attention was fixated on the encampment. 'Nothing is certain, Ruuman. But if there is even a chance that—'

  'Have you considered not going down there?'

  I glared at the Ironwrought, suppressing an instinctive violent urge to do him harm for what he was suggesting.

  'Abandon him? Forswear everything we have pledged?'

  'We have pledged?' Ruuman challenged. 'Do you speak for your Legion now, Ra'stan of the Salamanders?'

  'Us,' I snapped, gesturing to Usabius.

  Ruuman looked over to him and then looked back.

  'Sulnar did not send me to reinforce you,' he said. 'I was meant to dissuade you, to bring you back. It never sat well with the lieutenant commander that you and Haukspeer left on this foolhardy mission.'

  'A fool's hope is better than no hope,' I hissed, keeping my voice down though the Iron Warriors could not have heard us above the growl of their tanks manoeuvring and grinding into position. 'Vulkan lives! He lives, and we have a chance to help him.' I breathed deep, marshalling my anger and my resolve, until I found a measure of calm. 'Help us,' I pleaded. 'There is nothing left to go back to now. If you could have spared Lord Manus his fate, you would have. If you were gifted a chance to save his life—'

  'I would have taken it,' said Ruuman with cold, iron-hard pragmatism. 'But my primarch is dead, and you have the means now of knowing the fate of yours.' He nodded to the battle-helm mag-locked to my belt. Vulkan's helm, its empty retinal lenses staring blankly.

  The primarch was physically larger than any of his legionaries but not so massive that I could not interface with whatever systems still functioned in this piece of armour I bore like a sacred relic.

  Our battle-helms contained a visual feed. It recorded what we saw, allowing us to utilise the data strategically for later debrief, or immediately for tactical adaptation and deployment. The feed could be relayed to other battle-brothers, between company officers or even battalions. It was useful, and provided a shared visual experience, crucial for training or the dissemination of vital military intelligence.

  I had never considered what a primarch's visual feed might reveal. I almost dared not look through Vulkan's eyes for fear of what I might see. For what was seen could never be unseen.

  'I wish this burden had not fallen to me,' I said to Usabius, but knew deep down that I had to be the one to do this.

  A shameful part of me willed the battle-helm to be broken, for the link to malfunction and an empty glassy vista to greet me.

  Disengaging the locking clamps, I removed my own helm and set it down on a nearby rock. My fingers were trembling. I looked to Usabius, to try and gauge his mood, but he had not moved from staring at the tanks.

  Vulkan's battle-helm came free with a low hum of magnetism and the light chink of metal touching metal. I raised it up, like it was a crown and I its unworthy incumbent. It was heavy, heavier than I realised, heavier than it had been when I had first retrieved it from the sand. I knew it was the weight of imminent revelation, the gravity of a hard and uncomfortable truth that encumbered me.

  'Will this even work?' I breathed. It was significantly larger than my own battle-helm, and I could only rest it over my head whilst holding it aloft and in place. 'Feels like a trespass…'

  'I can help make the interface,' Ruuman replied, 'strip some of the cabling out, hard-wire the connections. If it still functions, you'll be able to access the visual feed.'

  'This is a relic, I shouldn't be doing this.'

  'It's only a relic if Vulkan is already dead and this the last physical part of him.'

  I tried not to countenance that possibility and donned the primarch's battle-helm, bracing myself for his last sights before he and it were separated.

  Ruuman was working with his tools. It was hard not to think of his modifications as sacrilegious, but we lived in an age of enlightenment, where faith and religion were deemed heretical. I tried not to dwell too long on the irony of that. Much of my established worldview had been shaken through the ordeal of Isstvan. Lesser men would have crumbled in the face of such utter horror, as their concept of reality was brutally unpinned and wrenched cruelly apart.

  But we were not lesser men; we were legionaries. So we endured.

  'Nothing, I can see nothing,' I said, ashamed at the sound of relief in my voice. 'It's just darkness in here. The systems are not working.'

  'A moment,' muttered Ruuman. I could hear the sky-hunter whir past us again and the rumble of armour farther away as the encampment dissembled.

  Why did I need proof of Vulkan's fate? Why could I not just trust in belief, the faith that he lived and was waiting for our aid?

  I wanted to throw off the battle-helm, to defy Ruuman's logic, to storm into the encampment and rescue my father. In my dreams, this was how it played out. All the doubt, all the madness and uncertainty burned away in his refulgent presence. Vulkan was glorious, and he would smite these traitors from the face of this black world before returning to the stars, and with his brothers by his side smash the Warmaster from his usurper's throne and—

  A dull glow suffused the interior of the battle-helm, revealing small details of its inner surface in crimson monochrome. In my peripheral vision I could see where Ruuman had snaked wires and hard connection points to the interfaces of my own armour's gorget. Aligning my eyes as best I could with the retinal lenses, I blink-clicked to activate the visual feed.

  Static reigned at first, a red, crackling haze that made me think the lenses were damaged and any image capture unreadable. It only lasted for a few moments before an all too familiar scene resolved…

  Walking up a dark ridge of black, volcanic sand. The air is blistered by bolter fire, a vast crescendo of unending muzzle flares. Larger explosions flash in the distance, pluming smoke and fire. A wash of earth and blood sprays across his eye line.

  There was no audio. Evidently, that facility had been damaged. But I could see well enough… and imagine the noise.

  Through the smoke, the snow that has begun inexplicably to fall, a phalanx of iron-armoured legionaries is revealed. Their blank and faceless war-helms show no pity, no sign of reluctance. They are ranked up in a firing line, intent on killing us. Behind them loom the larger forms of tanks…

  Vulkan raises his gauntlet and a spit of flame drives the traitors back up the hill. They collide with the advancing armour, crushed under the relentless tracks of their own tanks. Those that stand their ground are engulfed in a conflagration so intense that their power armour is no defence against it. Slowly collapsing silhouettes, brown and hazed in the heat, wither before his drake fire. Flesh and bone become ash, blown from scorched armour by the wind.

  Any lingering bond of fraternity he might feel does not show. He is running, the Pyre Guard just behind him, eating up the metres of the hillside until he crests the summit. Hard shells ricochet off his armour, gnat-bites trying to breach a fortress wall. A rocket tube's explosive payload throws off light and kinetic force but he is unbowed and stalwart.

  A clutch of desperate warriors hurl themselves at him, chain-glaives burring. Dawnbringer slips into his grasp and he swings. Once. Four Iron Warriors are launched skywards, their bodies broken. Insanely courageous or blatantly stupid, three more wade in despite the ruin they had just seen made of their comrades.

  Like the hammer of a god, Vulkan smites them. A breastplate is split in
two, the chest caved, ribs and innards exposed. A shoulder is battered, the guard giving way with the same resistance as parchment. A battle-helm is crushed, the head within pulped by a giant, gauntleted fist.

  Undaunted, the Iron Warriors maintain their dogged but failing defence. It is as if they don't know the meaning of surrender or defeat.

  Neither does Vulkan, and the killing continues until the Pyre Guard catch up and vanquish the rest, clearing a path to the armour…

  Vulkan reaches the first of the battle tanks, a Demolisher that the primarch lifts with his bare hands and turns over. Dawnbringer is back in his mailed fist a moment later and he uses it to punch a hole through the hull of a second vehicle. Tearing open the front armour with his fingers he wrenches out the crew within as they pepper him with ineffectual pistol fire.

  He tosses them out like they are refuse, limbs flailing, and lets his inner circle warriors put them to the blade before they fill the tank with grenades.

  Vulkan is already moving, the back of the Demolisher he's just left behind blowing out in a plume of fire, smoke and shrapnel. Green-armoured Salamanders advance with him on either side of the primarch. The battle is a mess of close-quarters combat and snap-fire.

  A figure becomes visible in the distance, across a battle line of Earth-shakers. Vulkan is fixated on him, his gaze unwavering like a homing missile. His iron brother is laughing, beckoning him on. A tank rolls into Vulkan's path and he heaves it aside with his shoulder. Another he seizes by its crude dozer blade, upends it in his rage. He shakes, roaring an accusation at the Lord of Iron who is still too far away to strike…

  …then looks up at a stream of missiles bursting from their batteries on contrails of nova-bright fire. It takes a few seconds for the barrage to hit. Vulkan doesn't stop shouting until the flash of magnesium-white fills his vision and his world goes dark.

  Crackling white noise returned, the end of the feed. I stared into it, dumbstruck, unable to process the fact I had very probably just witnessed my primarch's demise.

  'Brother…?' Barely louder than a whisper, Usabius's voice brought me around. 'What did you see?'