[Tome of Fire 02] - Firedrake

by Nick Kyme - (ebook by Undead)

  She tensed her hand and long needles unsheathed themselves from her fingertips. With a snarl she rammed the needles into Iagon’s chest, easily penetrating the ceramite of his power amour. Electrical shocks wracked his body, cutting right to the bone. He jolted, once, twice then again. His racing hearts conveyed the trauma he was experiencing. Iagon’s nerve endings felt as if they were on fire.

  Helspereth leaned in close to sample his agony. Licking the blood streaming from his ruptured cheek, she cooed, “Delicious…”

  “Take me… to Nihilan,” Iagon demanded, spitting blood. “I am his ally.”

  Helspereth wasn’t done. “Oh you’re mine, now. Your little priest can wait. I’ll whet my appetite with you.” Her perfumed breath was oddly soporific. She dug around in Iagon’s chest again. He could feel his guts churning. The Larraman cells in his blood attempted to clot the multiple wounds Helspereth was opening in his chest, but even a Space Marine’s enhanced physiology had its limits. She’d eviscerate him there and then. Only Iagon’s rage at being denied his revenge kept him going.

  “Hell-bitch…” he snarled, half-gasping, half-gurgling, “…take me to Nihilan.”

  “Such resilient little men,” Helspereth said, slowly becoming lost to rapture. Around her the wyches crowded as close as they dared, taking up the psychic scraps from her butcher’s table.

  “I sabotaged the sentry points…” Iagon confessed, “I… let you in…”

  Helspereth ignored him. She was enjoying herself far too much, her desire threatening to overcome her malice. “I can see why that corpse, Kravex, finds such entertainment with you. Is your priest as hardy? I bet he is. I cannot wait to sample his pain. I might even let him hurt me a little first.” One of her swords wavered into view. Iagon found his vision fogging. Kor’be’s blood still shimmered dully on the blade. “This dance is over for you, now, mon-keigh.” She smiled, a serpent’s smile, a presage to death. “It has been fun, though.” Her eyes were empty pits of ennui as she raised the blade to Iagon’s neck.

  “Nihilan…” he rasped.

  A voice from out of the ether stayed Helspereth’s hand. It spoke in a language Iagon didn’t understand. He was blacking out, but clung on to consciousness. After all, his life depended on it.

  Helspereth answered the disembodied voice in the same sharp dialect. Her words were clipped and angry.

  Iagon was to be granted a reprieve. She was angered because her kill had been denied to her. Another, one who held sway over the wych queen, perhaps the lord and potentate Zartath had spoken of, had decreed Iagon’s survival.

  He knew the Dragon Warriors had a hand in this. He could detect Nihilan’s treachery from leagues away; it was not so dissimilar from Iagon’s own.

  After a few more words of debate, Helspereth withdrew the electro-talons from Iagon’s chest and lowered her sword.

  “You have friends in high places,” she spat at him in Low Gothic, before turning her back.

  “Not my… friends,” Iagon rasped before darkness claimed him and he passed out.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I

  Blind Horizon

  The Caldera’s troop hold shook violently, buffeted by the ash storm.

  The gunship’s pilot, Loc’tar, was engaged in a battle of wills with the vessel, straggling to keep it steady in the tumult rising from Moribar’s surface. As the gun-ship was being tossed about, Dak’ir could hear his brother-pilot’s litanies through the internal vox. All efforts to appease the Thunderhawk’s machine-spirits appeared to be in vain, however—they were going down, unable to breach even the upper atmosphere of the planet.

  The shuddering Chamber Sanctuarine jolted Pyriel awake where he lay prone on the deck. Dak’ir was still recovering from his leap onto the embarkation ramp and hadn’t had time to secure him. Pyriel was sliding back and forth, the back-mounted generator he wore grinding loudly against the metal floor as he moved.

  The Epistolary was still groggy. In his delirium, he’d been muttering.

  “Tempus… infernus… tempus… infernus… tempus… infernus…”

  “Time of Fire,” Dak’ir translated into Gothic-Latinum, a reassuring hand on his master’s shoulder guard. “I don’t know what precisely it portends.”

  A crackle indicating damage to his battle-helm’s internal systems came from Pyriel’s mouth-grille. “I saw… destruction.” He was still weak, even the effort of speaking was hard for him. “A spear of light…”

  Before Dak’ir could answer the Thunderhawk bucked violently, slamming them both against an interior wall. Pyriel cried out, his head rebounding off a metal bulkhead. The noise inside the hold was incredible, protesting engine sounds mangled with those of the howling storm. Hard ash flakes, compacted into solid grains of matter, struck the outer hull. Through the protective armour of the gunship, they sounded like flak.

  “I’ve seen it before,” Dak’ir told him, “On Scoria. It’s a weapon.”

  Pyriel hadn’t fought on the barren world, though he had heard of the massive defence cannon being wrought in a workshop-bastion by the Iron Warriors.

  “The seismic cannon,” he breathed.

  Dak’ir nodded, and the Caldera pitched hard against the rising squall outside. They were thrown towards the ship’s stern. Warning icons flashed amber on Dak’ir’s retinal display as a detailed schematic of his power armour relayed a damage report.

  “A relic of the Dark Age of Technology,” said Dak’ir. “Kelock discovered its existence, found a way to construct it.”

  “A weapon capable of annihilating a small moon…” The implication in Pyriel’s words trailed off.

  “The one on Scoria was just a test. They wanted to see if it would work.”

  “They?”

  “The Dragon Warriors, who else? The beam I saw in the vision was much greater, mounted on a starship. Nihilan means to destroy us, master.”

  “His bitterness runs deep, poisoning him.” Pyriel looked like he might say more, but another abrupt turn thrust them across the opposite side of the hold again.

  “What’s happening?” Pyriel attempted to stand but collapsed almost as soon as he tried. “My mind… Like pieces of a shattered kaleidoscope.” Everything was broken, out of place. Pyriel’s lucidity was coming and going, his focus divided.

  “It’s just the psychic aftermath. It’ll fade. Be steady, master,” said Dak’ir, clinging to a handrail overhead as Loc’tar’s frantic reports came through the vox riddled with static. “We left it too late. We’re caught in the storm.”

  Pyriel gripped Dak’ir’s arm. “Master Vel’cona,” he said. “He told me to kill you if your power became too great.”

  “I know, master.”

  A tremor of movement up Pyriel’s arm hinted at his surprise. “How?”

  Dak’ir’s reply was reluctant. “I read your thoughts.”

  “Not possible, I…”

  “They appeared in my mind, unbidden. I’m sorry, master.”

  Pyriel veiled his shock with a mirthless laugh. It sounded like there was blood in it.

  “Even if I wanted to I couldn’t stop you, Dak’ir. I’m not sure even Vel’cona could do that now.”

  “Ever since Aura Hieron I have resisted it. Even below Moribar, I couldn’t let go. Something burns within, almost sentient. I’m afraid if I unleash it, I won’t be able to call it back. What am I, Pyriel? What does it mean?”

  “Choose for yourself, Dak’ir. Salvation or destruction, what do you think?”

  The hold lurched again, the Caldera’s armour plating protesting loudly against the strain.

  “I think it won’t matter if we ditch and burn in the Moribar sand.” Dak’ir went to the vox. “Loc’tar! Can you bring us out of this?”

  A long pause followed while the brother-pilot wrestled the gunship’s controls.

  “The Caldera is one of Captain Dac’tyr’s best vessels but its spirit is in turmoil. I expect the worst, Librarian.”

  Dak’ir’s voice was grim. “
Vulkan preserve us.”

  Pyriel locked his gaze. “You can save us.”

  “I can what?”

  “Use your power, Dak’ir. Lift the ship, burn away the storm.”

  “In the chamber, you said—”

  “I know what I said, but your abilities are growing stronger with every moment that passes. Burn away the storm, take control of your power.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “A Salamander does not forgo action because of doubt. If you fail, we are all dead anyway.”

  “But to unleash it…”

  “Is our only chance.” The Caldera was shaking incessantly now. Much longer and the gunship would tear itself apart, scattering them all to the funerary winds. “I only regret not having more time to train you properly. But that doesn’t matter now. Learn by doing, Dak’ir. This is Vulkan’s way—it is the anvil against which all we Fire-born are tested with bolter, blade or psychic fire. Do it now!” he urged.

  Dak’ir reduced the nulling effect of his psychic hood and the dull insistent throb he had felt since activating it became a roar. He staggered at first, acclimatising to the rash but found his composure.

  Just before he began, Pyriel seized Dak’ir’s wrist.

  “I cannot rein you in this time. I might not even be able to get through to you. Lexicanum, you’re alone in this.”

  Dak’ir nodded. His eyes flared cerulean blue and the fire came.

  “Mass… heat signature… outside… ship!” Loc’tar’s anxious report came through the vox in fragments.

  Flames were bleeding off Dak’ir’s body. They fed through the rivets and the micro-fissures between the deckplates, through the smallest gaps in the embarkation ramp and out in the storm. The Caldera became a beacon in his mind’s eye, wreathed in fire. Waves of heat peeled off the hull in a pulse. The ash became as nothing, the air devoured by the hungry conflagration surrounding the gunship until the wind was reduced to a vacuum.

  A roiling fire-ocean stretched out in front of Dak’ir, his self-awareness a skiff tossed about on its psychic waves. He needed an anchor, a place to tether his mind or he risked it unravelling. Inside the hold of a gun-ship, the effects of that happening would be catastrophic. Philosophies of Zen’de, the earthy wisdom of Master Prebian, Dak’ir recalled their words to his mind in an effort to find equilibrium. When that failed, he thought of Ba’ken, his closest friend in the Chapter—how long it had been since he’d seen the giant warrior. Pyriel’s teachings, the stony voice of Amadeus, Ko’tan Kadai’s temperate demeanour—nothing calmed the fiery waters where Dak’ir was adrift. He felt himself slipping, lost to the flames until something eased his consciousness to a place of innocence. He was below the surface of Nocturne, in the caves of Ignea. The cavern walls felt cool to his touch, shielded from the oppressive sun by layers of rock. Glacial meltwaters ran in rivulets down the stone, creating strange patternation. Penetrating further, Dak’ir found where the rivulets became a cataract. He allowed it to wash over his hand and then his body, soothing the prickling heat on his skin. The seas calmed, the fire ebbed. Anchored to the memory, Dak’ir found his equilibrium and opened his eyes.

  The Caldera slowly stopped bucking and steadied into a smooth rise.

  “Controls returning…” Loc’tar announced, “We are gaining altitude, praise Vulkan,” he added, not bothering to mask the relief in his voice.

  “Praise Vulkan,” echoed Pyriel, watching the fiery aura around Dak’ir dwindle into a haze and finally nothing.

  The Lexicanum sagged where he was kneeling. He had to prise his grip from Draugen’s hilt. Dak’ir yanked off his battle-helm, gasping. He smiled at his master, but Pyriel had fallen unconscious again from the strain. Despite what he’d said, Pyriel had urged Dak’ir towards his psychic anchor.

  He believed in him, perhaps. Dak’ir was not even sure he believed in himself. Pyriel had sanctioned his use of psychics to rescue the Caldera from certain destruction. It was a pragmatic decision but, if what the Epistolary said was true and none, not even Lord Vel’cona, could stop him, then it might have been one out of Pyriel’s hands.

  All those years ago, back on the Cindara Plateau, had Tsu’gan been right? Was Dak’ir an aberration? Or was he something more, something transcendent sent by the primarch to deliver the Salamanders and Nocturne from annihilation? During the Librarian trials, there had been solace under the earth. It was easy to know what must be done, survival and the execution of the next trial Dak’ir’s only concern.

  Now, he didn’t know what fate held for him, or if his destiny was even his to shape. He rode upon a storm, a symbolic one, towards a blind horizon. The doom-laden prophecies weighed heavy around Dak’ir’s neck. It was an unhappy burden but only he could bear it. If that made him aberrant then so be it, he would carry that too.

  Resolved, Dak’ir raised Loc’tar on the vox. “Soon as we’re clear of Moribar’s gravity well, take us to Nocturne, brother,” he said. “Take us home.”

  II

  Tender Mercy

  Iagon awoke to find himself suspended several metres off the ground. Awareness came slowly but he realised he was attached to some kind of machine. Its design was hard to fathom, much of the device beyond his field of vision behind him. His arms were above him, each shackled by three rings whose inner surfaces protruded with needles that were embedded into his deep tissue. Iagon’s fists were clenched, not in anger, not yet, but because they were encased in a lozenge of gleaming metal. His legs and feet were similarly restrained. He no longer wore his armour. A cold breeze coming from above cooled his feverish skin. It was dark, but not completely. As the pain-blur behind his eyes faded, he looked down as far as his neck would allow and saw the terrible wounds Helspereth had inflicted. He saw also the honour-scars drawn by his brander-priest. How hollow and inconsequential those deeds seemed now.

  A deep voice, sharp and edged like a blade, made Iagon look up.

  Cold, alien eyes regarded him from the gloom. Their owner wore a surplice of black and violet over lamellar armour plates, vaguely insectoid in nature. It carried a long, barbed helm in the crook of its arm. There was a falchion-like blade attached to its slender hip in a jet-black scabbard. Iagon also thought he saw the silhouette of a long rifle strapped to the creature’s back.

  As it came further into the light—the source of which the Salamander couldn’t pinpoint—Iagon saw it was dark eldar and male. The face was rigid, almost like porcelain. The cheekbones cut outwards, like blades carved out of the skull bone. A long mane of white hair unfurled down his back—it matched the hue of his marblesque skin. He was old, if such a thing was possible to discern with this race, his eyes telling the wisdom of millennia. There was malice too, just an undercurrent, well hidden beneath an impassive veil. A long black cloak of some shimmering material Iagon couldn’t place trailed behind this lord, its undulating fluidity giving it the appearance of oil. This then was An’scur, the one Zartath had been trying to kill, lord and master of the Volgorrah Reef.

  A cadre of warriors waited patiently behind the archon, heavier-armoured and taller than the others the Fire-born had encountered so far. Iagon assumed they were the lord’s bodyguards and retainers. There was no sign of Helspereth. He was also no longer in the Razored Vale. His surroundings resolving slowly, Iagon realised he was aboard a ship. He could hear the low thrum of its engines, either impelling it through space or anchoring it to one spot. Another figure lingered in the background, bulkier than the rest, but its identity was lost to shadow. For now, it seemed content to watch.

  An’scur smiled in a sickle shape, exposing teeth that ended in sharp metal-tipped points, and a surge of pain raced up Iagon’s spine. The Salamander convulsed, his chest wanting to thrust him forwards away from the source of the agony but his body bound hand and foot to the machine. He cried out, despite trying to stifle it.

  More strange words from An’scur cut the air. Unlike his henchwoman, he was unwilling to sully his tongue with the language of lesser races.
<
br />   Another jolt from the machine sent fresh agonies through Iagon and the sheen of sweat veneering his body came off him in a spray of bloody perspiration. His head sagged for a moment, chest heaving against the lingering pain, before Iagon raised it again and glared.

  “That all you’ve got?” He caught An’scur’s surplice with a thin line of crimson-veined spittle.

  Iagon blinked and the dark eldar’s falchion was at his neck, a bead of blood running down the flat of its blade where the edge had bitten into flesh.

  “Stop.” The command came from the shadows, at the back of the chamber.

  Iagon recognised the voice and at once knew who was watching his torture.

  “Nihilan…”

  There was the acrid stench of cinder in the air, too, though Nihilan’s lapdog, Ramlek, was nowhere to be seen.

  The figure didn’t respond to his name, though An’scur acquiesced and withdrew his blade.

  Exhausted to the point of near-death, Iagon sagged again. The pain-engine wouldn’t let him rest, though. A cocktail of agony-inducing chemicals was pumped into his system ensuring his lucidity. Iagon snapped to with a muted yelp, drawing a sliver of pleasure from An’scur, though the archon hid it well.

  Nihilan spoke again, this time in the scything dark eldar tongue. An’scur’s pleasure turned to annoyance.

  Again, Iagon couldn’t understand the response but caught the word “mon-keigh” and several others that had the ring of caustic invective.

  An’scur debated a while longer before he was eventually browbeaten into obeisance. Incredible that Nihilan had power over these pirates and raiders. Iagon had always believed the dark eldar served only themselves. Even the tenure of their own lords and masters was fleeting, governed by the politics of murder and assassination.

  “You are fortunate,” he said, the words spat from his tongue like a bitter tonic, “that my chief torturer is in regeneration. Kravex would have performed such wonders on you, spawn. The machine you’re strapped to is his design.”