by Nick Kyme
Like a ghost materialising corporeally in the fog, the boy-child appeared from nowhere. His naked torso was drenched in sweat and someone else’s blood, and he wailed blindly as he fled. As if sensing the sudden danger, the boy-child froze abruptly in the shadow of the falling column and could only watch his impending death approaching. He raised his arms feebly over his eyes.
Don’t look, child…
Vulkan was running, leaving his praetorians behind him. It would not be enough. Without intervention, the column would crush the boy-child. He cried out, knowing that to even witness the death of such an innocent would forever stain his immortal soul.
Arrested from his battle frenzy by his brother’s anguish, Ferrus turned and saw the danger.
“First-Captain!” he bellowed, and Gabriel Santar was there.
At his urging, the Morlocks drove on ahead of him to meet the carnodons with bolters flaring. Santar lagged behind and threw himself against the collapsing column. Using both hands, he caught the chunk of broken stone and held it. Servos in his bionic arm and legs whined in protest at the sudden strain they were put under.
He had enough strength spare to turn his head towards the terrified infant. His grey eyes churned with the turmoil of a captured storm as he glowered down at him. “Flee now!”
Screaming, the boy-child ran.
And as if heralding a flood, there were suddenly hundreds of the fleeing humans. Like leaves blown about on an eddying breeze, the frightened flock scurried in all directions and from everywhere at once.
“Terra and the Emperor,” breathed Ferrus Manus, unable to comprehend the insane exodus.
“My lord…”
In spite of his cybernetics, Gabriel Santar’s legs buckled to the knee and his elbows bent with the sheer immense weight of the column. The Gorgon was quick to relieve him, stowing Forgebreaker and hoisting the broken chunk of rock from his equerry as though it were little more than a bolter.
He roared to the Morlocks, who were seconds from hand-to-hand combat, “down!” and hurled the shattered pillar like a spear. The front carnodon took the brunt of the improvised missile, howling in agony as its forelegs were broken. It hit the ground muzzle first, trammelling the other beasts that tripped and blundered, losing the impetus of their attack. The Morlocks were quickly amongst them, Santar having rejoined their ranks.
Ferrus Manus glowered at Vulkan, his gimlet gaze singling out the other primarch easily in the throng.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me to try not to kill them?” he declared through the feed.
It was easier said than done. Though the boy-child had reached relative safety, Vulkan saw hundreds fleeing in his wake. The natives were running loose all over the killing fields, heedless of the danger. Emerging from their nests and hidden places in a panicked mass, it was as if the humans had been displaced from a major settlement by the eldar war host. Either that or it was some desperate gambit on the aliens’ part to try to disrupt the Imperium’s inevitable victory.
Vulkan felt his wrath for the eldar renewed. Painful reminders of Nocturne during the Time of Trial, when fire rained from the sky and the earth cracked, flickered in his mind. He remembered their fear and the grim resignation that all they had striven for, when everything they had created was about to end. Perhaps the tribes of Ibsen were not so different after all.
Ibsen again. He saw this world through a fresh lens, but why?
Ferrus was right: flesh was weak but because he was strong, Vulkan was duty bound to protect them.
Whatever the cause of the frantic flight, the humans were at terrible risk. Entire families raced madly through the fading fog, screaming and wailing as a pervasive hysteria overtook them. Some even attacked the Army divisions in their desperation to escape, throwing rocks or beating them with their fists. None dared approach the Legionaries for fear of the consequences.
And if they’d carried carbines and rifles instead of sticks and rocks?
The tribal tattoos, the apparent ease with which they’d been conquered, coupled with the eldar’s total infiltration—in spite of his empathy, Vulkan began to wonder just how far from the Emperor’s light the natives had fallen.
Through the smoky bloom of a grenade detonation, a mother and daughter emerged unscathed. Vulkan saw them running; they were just a few metres from the primarch’s position, then he noticed the unexploded shell in their path. The girl-child was already screaming when a second grenade, fallen from a dead troopers grasp, rolled up to the shell.
“Pyre Guard,” Vulkan roared. “Shield them!”
The praetorians were catching up to the primarch but had reacted to the danger. Hot frag pierced the shell’s casing and it erupted in a firestorm. Numeon and Varrun put their bodies between it and the cowering humans, crouching over them and wrapping their drake cloaks around them. The rain of fire and shrapnel vented to nothing without causing harm.
Numeon was shaking the dust from his helmet lenses when a tiny infant hand pressed against his plastron. He met the girl-child’s curious gaze and was abruptly stunned.
Then they were gone, lost to the madness. The mother wasn’t about to wait for another stray bullet or lurking shell to claim them. For Numeon, the moment of connection passed as swiftly as it had materialised.
Vulkan reached them quickly. “Thank you, my sons.”
Both nodded, but Numeon’s eyes went briefly to the fog the girl-child had vanished into.
“Protect them,” said Vulkan softly, following his equerry’s gaze.
“With our breath and blood, my primarch,” Numeon replied. “With our breath and blood.”
Vulkan opened the comm-feed. “Ferrus, despite their agitation, these are innocents. Be mindful.”
“Concern yourself with killing the enemy, not saving the natives, Vulkan.” The Gorgon scowled, but his face softened before engaging the carnodons. “I’ll do what I can.”
A band of iron was tightening around the eldar’s defensive strongpoint. Vulkan knew if he continued to advance through the centre and Ferrus maintained his pace into the flank, their paths would meet. Together they would destroy the arch and end the eldar’s occupation of Ibsen. He only hoped it would not take an unconscionable loss of human life to achieve it.
As of yet, nothing had penetrated the psychic shield emanating from the coven of eldar witches surrounding the arch. Vulkan had also yet to see the female seer who’d almost defeated his Legion back in the jungle. She was the one the eldar looked to for leadership. Despatch her and the aliens would be all but defeated. Victory was near. But something still gave the primarch pause. Above him, the jungle canopy was vast, dark and labyrinthine. Like his brothers, Vulkan had good instincts and harboured the sense that something watched him from those lofty arbours; something predatory. But his hesitation was not merely on account of that. Monsters he could kill easily enough. He’d been unsettled ever since speaking to Verace. The feeling was not one he was accustomed to, nor was the way the human had spoken to him, and yet the primarch had allowed it unchallenged. Verace was hiding something. It was only now, his thoughts purified by the anvil of war, that he realised it. Stern of face, Vulkan resolved to get answers from the remembrancer.
For now, such truths would have to wait.
Through the haze, a small band of eldar emerged to attack the primarch. Their armour was different to the others, azure plated and more martial in aspect. Crested helms, more ornate in design than those of their ranger brethren, concealed their faces and from within the folds of vermillion capes they drew long angular swords. A low hum presaged a crackle of energy fed down the blades.
Vulkan signalled to his praetorians.
Several eldar kindreds had been drawn to the primarch to try and slow or even stop the obvious threat, but his retinue were killing everything around them.
“Pyre Guard… make it swift.”
Despatching the last of their enemies, they rushed ahead of Vulkan and into the eldar blademasters.
They wer
en’t alone. An ululating war cry announced a vast herd of raptors, powering through the dissipating fog. Energy lances dipping, they thundered towards Vulkan from the side. The blademasters, trading flashing blows with the Pyre Guard, had deliberately drawn off the praetorians.
“Cunning,” Vulkan muttered.
Facing off against the raptors, he hefted Thunderhead. “Those tiny spears cannot scratch me!” he roared, and smashed the weapon into the ground.
The earth… splintered under the incredible hammer blow, cracking and fragmenting outwards in an ever-widening crater. Through sheer strength, Vulkan projected the bone-shattering force into a massive earth tremor that radiated lethally towards the charging raptors. Chunks of dispersing rock spewed up from the ground in a brittle spume of grit and shards. The raptors screeched and faltered, rearing madly as the quake hit. Riders toppled or were swept from their saddles by the earthy deluge. Staggered, all but annihilated, the front rankers disappeared in the mud storm and were crushed by the momentum of the stampede behind them.
Hindered by the dead and dying, the survivors could only cry out as Vulkan rose to his haunches and sprang into them.
The eldar and their saurians didn’t last long. By the time Vulkan was done with the grisly work, the Pyre Guard had slain the last of the blademasters. Ganne had a savage dent in his battle-plate and Igataron had lost his helmet during the fight but otherwise the praetorians were intact.
“We are losing ground,” said Vulkan, seeing that Ferrus had killed the last of the giant carnodons.
Numeon gestured with his bloody halberd blade. “Scattered remnants are all that stand in our way, primarch.”
The equerry was right. The eldar were almost done. They’d fought tooth and nail against the Imperium, but with the destruction of the carnodons their resistance was at an end.
Only one feat remained before total victory was assured.
The monolithic arch stood unharmed behind the psychic shield, the coven of witches in place around it, their chanting uninterrupted since the battle began. Vulkan scoured their ranks, peering through the psychic energy veil, but he could find no sign of the female seer. Yet, the sensation of being watched from overhead persisted.
“She is here somewhere,” he muttered, turning his gaze from the enshrouding jungle canopy to the battlefield. “The aliens have one last card to play before this is over.”
By now the other Salamanders were close at hand. Even the Army divisions were nearing the outer boundaries of the arch. Ferrus Manus wasn’t about to wait for reinforcement. He was advancing on the coven. Vulkan turned to his retinue. “Come on.”
Though spirited, the last of the eldar defenders broke against the brutal determination of Vulkan and his praetorians. Maimed and mangled aliens lay cold behind them. Memories of Breughar’s death at the cruel blades of the eldar witch surfaced inexplicably in the primarch’s mind, stoking the flames of his violence further. He barely saw his enemies anymore. Their identities were lost to him, subsumed collectively into the face of the female slaver.
“Primarch.” It was Numeon who brought him back again, loyal, steadfast Numeon.
Vulkan gripped his armoured shoulder. “I’m sorry, my son, the fires of battle overcame me for a time.”
Numeon needed no explanation. “We are here.”
Luminous blossoms of energy flashed along the shield as the Iron Hands tried to crack it open. Bolter shells exploded impotently against the inviolable surface, whilst flamer bursts and heavier fire had similar effect.
Ferrus Manus swung Forgebreaker and the weapon rebounded harmlessly. Seeing Vulkan in his peripheral vision, he turned.
“Any idea how we bring this thing down?”
Vulkan looked through the transparent psychic membrane. Despite the continuous chanting, the eldar witches were beginning to show signs of fatigue. Sweat veined their pale, eldritch faces and they grimaced with extreme concentration. Their strength was fading.
He hefted Thunderhead, enjoying the feel of the grip and the sense of its power. “I was going to try hitting it over and over again until it cracks.”
Ferrus grinned, a rare sight on one so serious and taciturn. “It’ll be like breaking in a new anvil.”
He was about to swing again when a deafening screech radiated from above, shaking the entire jungle canopy for kilometres around. The earth trembled as the screech became a throaty, bestial roar. In that moment, the light died like a cloud obscuring the sun. At the threshold to the arch, a dappled light had fallen on the shield, lending it a brilliant sheen. It disappeared in an instant as something vast and terrible eclipsed it.
A noisome stench had filled the air, making it heavy and thick. Looking up into the benighted sky, Vulkan wrinkled his nose. It emanated from a monster. The massive shadow descending towards them was shaped like a pterosaur only much, much bigger. Though it barely moved its membranous wings, the downdraft pushed the advancing Phaerians to their knees. Some stayed like that or sank further, huddling in foetal terror. The Legionaries stood their ground with the primarchs, appraising the beast coldly through their helmet lenses. A bleat of reptilian voices snapped at the air as a flock of smaller pterosaurs appeared from behind the pteradon’s incredible wingspan.
Ferrus Manus levelled his hammer at them.
“Scything rain!”
The Morlocks released a bolter storm. Whirling and shrieking, the pterosaurs were torn apart. Several stray bursts exploded against the thorny hide of the giant pteradon, which only maddened the beast further. It was gnarled and old, like some monster of myth made flesh. Myriad scars stitched its leathery torso and a vast horn, dark with age and blood stain, jutted from its bony snout. Talons, as long as the primarch was tall, curved from rough-hided toes. Umber-coloured scales, thicker than any battle-plate ever forged, scalloped its back and limbs, while a long prehensile tail ended in an axe-headed barb.
Impressive as the monster was, Vulkan’s attention was drawn by its rider.
“There you are…”
The female seer had bound this creature to her will and saddled it. Incredibly, she needed no hands to ride the monster and carried an eldritch staff in one and a glittering rune-blade in the other. Garbed for war, her intent was obvious as she glared at the two primarchs.
Vulkan removed his drake-helm, wanting to meet the monster eye to eye, and his face curled into a snarl. “We must kill this thing, you and I.”
A primordial roar drowned out the Gorgon’s reply, showering its enemies with hot saliva and reptile stink. Men quailed. Some soiled themselves and fled. The Legionaries opened fire. Brass bolter shells erupted like fiery blooms across its ribbed belly. The beast rose to its haunches, wings splayed like some saurian angel, and then slammed the membranous tissue together in a thunderous collision. A deep throb raked the air, carried by the dull boom resonating from the point of impact. A tempest was unleashed upon the Imperial forces. Phaerians and officers alike were flung back screaming, their innards pulped by the massive shock wave. They spun, doll-like, limbs flailing brokenly in the hurricane. Trees bowed, bent and ripped apart. Severed trunks and clumps of scattered foliage impaled tanks and flattened entire cohorts in the savage welter of debris. They resisted determinedly, but even the Legionaries were sent sprawling, a thick and dirty cloud spilling after them.
Ferrus grit his teeth, standing his ground with Vulkan. His rage was written loudly upon his face.
“I have no quarrel with that, brother.”
An arena lay before them, of ragged tree stumps and flattened jungle flora.
A gritty patina washed over their armour and surrounded the beast like a low-lying, earthy fog. It glared at them, expressing its ancient hate and malice, dwarfing the primarchs utterly.
“Try again, monster,” said Vulkan, dropping his voice to a predatory rumble.
He heard a low whomp of displaced air and registered a blur of sudden movement in time to slam into Ferrus Manus and bear him down. A scaled, gnarled mass whipped overhead as
the pteradon’s axe-bladed tail narrowly missed the Gorgon’s exposed neck.
Vulkan was quickly up on his feet and moving. “Don’t lose your head, brother.”
Ferrus scowled. “Worry about your own. It’ll take more than that to cut my flesh.” He was moving too, making for the pteradon’s blindside to flank it.
Its monstrous size and strength were formidable advantages, but with its enemies splitting up it couldn’t bring them to bear against both. Emitting a reverberant screech, it went after Vulkan.
Hunting monsters was second nature to the primarch of the Salamanders. Nocturne was lair to many scaled and chitinous horrors. As a boy, Vulkan had slain them all. Even the drake he wore as his mantle was huge, but this… this was a behemoth.
He lost sight of Ferrus behind the pteradon’s bulk, but stayed near to the beast to deny it its greater reach. The brackish reptile stench was potent close up. Mortal men would have gagged on its foul aroma but Vulkan had ranged the steppes of Mount Deathfire and endured its sulphurous vapours. This was nothing to him.
A hot chain of sparks flew off the primarch’s armour as the monster caught him with its talons, before he turned and smashed Thunderhead into its flank. Its scales buckled and snapped. The cracks in the monster’s natural armour filled with blood, and a shriek of pain tore from its throat. A heady coppery scent dirtied the air further, and Vulkan knew he’d hurt it.
Keep moving. It was a mantra in the primarch’s head as he chased along the pteradon’s flank. Stop and we die.
No man could hope to face such a monster, let alone fight it. Primarchs were more than men, more than Space Marines.
They were like unto gods but even gods could fall.
As if hearing his thoughts, the monster came again. It lunged, and Vulkan narrowly avoided the razor teeth. He came up for a retaliatory strike, but the beast snapped at him again and he dropped his shoulder to dodge. It used its bulk to slam into him and Vulkan staggered before edging back.
Teeth as long as chainblades and drooling with saliva loomed in the primarch’s eye line.
