Deathfire

by Nick Kyme

  ‘Sergeant,’ said Numeon, as they were leaving.

  The Sergeant turned.

  ‘My gratitude,’ Numeon told him. ‘I thought…’ He let the admission fade, deeming it unworthy, and instead asked, ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Thiel,’ the sergeant replied, as he put his helmet back on, ‘Aeonid Thiel.’

  Six

  Defiance

  Strike cruiser Defiance of Calth, Ultramar

  Since his rescue, Numeon had stayed in quiet seclusion.

  For the first few days aboard the Defiance of Calth, he had been confined to the apothecarion. During his ministrations, he learned of Thiel’s mission to cleanse the outer worlds of Ultramar of the traitors who still lingered there, caustic and cancerous to his primarch’s grand ideals.

  Much had been achieved since Guilliman’s hard-fought victory, which had seen not one but two rebel primarchs waging war against him on Ultramarian soil. According to Thiel, there was still much to be done. Much soldiering. Politics and governance were of less interest. By his own candid admission, Thiel was ill-suited to them. It was a large part of the reason he had left Calth, less a war of reconquest and more a transparent act of propaganda.

  Such concerns were strange to Numeon. On the death world of Nocturne, survival not politics dominated the minds of its leaders. But then, Ultramar had lost so much during its war, its needs and the needs of its peoples were more complex and less obvious. For that, Numeon did not envy them, or their liege lord. He preferred the isolation and self-sufficiency inherent in the Promethean creed.

  That cultural mentality extended to Numeon’s stay on the ship.

  As soon as he had returned to some measure of health, he discharged himself from the Apothecary’s care and sought solitude in the lower decks where he now made his quarters.

  Sergeant Thiel had visited him once during his convalescence to deliver a small cache of weapons, requested by Numeon. He had also been outfitted with a suit of light carapace. No legionary battle­plate could be spared. Numeon had accepted all gratefully and was quick to employ his forgesmith’s craft on the armour. Where before there was dull and blank metal, Numeon had engraved Nocturnean sigils and ornamentation. From functional carapace, it had become an artisan’s creation of pure beauty.

  ‘I can’t imagine what you must think of our prosaic trappings, son of Nocturne,’ said a familiar voice from the entrance to Numeon’s chambers.

  The scent of embers prickled the air with heat and the aroma of ash. It was heady in the small room, part of which Numeon had turned into a modest training arena, a fighting circle delineated by charcoal markings. His bed was a rough pallet, little more than a hard slab, tucked away in one corner. Both his weapons and finely wrought armour were laid out in front of it.

  Numeon froze in mid-stance at the sound of Thiel’s voice, gladius in hand.

  ‘I asked to remain undisturbed, sergeant,’ he said, curtly.

  Thiel stepped into the lambent firelight. Numeon had set several makeshift braziers burning throughout the room.

  ‘Are you trying to burn down my ship, Artellus?’

  ‘I am engaging in Promethean ritual combat. It’s a training routine.’

  Thiel smiled. ‘I know what you’re doing, Salamander. I came to ask if you would show it to the rest of us.’

  Numeon continued moving through his patterns, executing each one precisely and methodically.

  ‘Do Ultramarines not have their own doctrines to observe?’

  ‘We used to call them practicals and theoreticals. I am student of many doctrines, though. I like to keep an open mind.’

  ‘You trained the legionaries aboard this ship?’ asked Numeon, unceasing in his physical regimen as he moved increasingly quickly around the circle.

  Thiel was standing at the very edge, close to the Salamander’s arcing blade on several occasions, but he did not move or flinch.

  ‘I did. They are the Red-marked.’

  ‘That sounds like pride, son of Guilliman.’

  Thiel shrugged. ‘It is merely a fact.’

  ‘I saw the crimson slash on their helms and faces,’ said Numeon. ‘What does it denote?’

  Now Thiel laughed. ‘Censure.’

  Numeon paused to regard the Ultramarine. Despite the fact they hailed from different Legions, the Salamander was still a captain and Thiel a sergeant. Numeon outranked him.

  ‘You fashioned a unit based on insubordination?’

  Thiel shook his head, his humour fading. ‘Mine, not theirs.’ He caught the look of incredulity in Numeon’s eyes and said, ‘I ran scenarios pitting legionaries against one another, trying to determine how to defeat them. It was before the rebellion was known.’

  ‘And your men must share in your shame?’

  Thiel clenched and unclenched his teeth, using the few seconds to master his emotions.

  ‘In Ultramar, beyond the primus worlds,’ he said, ‘whole systems are still burning. I could not allow that fire to rage unchecked. On Macragge, on Calth and Iax and Konor, our enemy was bold. Once revealed, our fight for survival was obvious. Simple.’ He shrugged, a gesture part resignation, part acceptance. ‘Out on the fringes…’ Thiel shook his head. ‘Not so straightforward. The first few ships we tracked down already had Ultramarines aboard.’ His eyes darkened at the memory. ‘Some were of our Legion. Some weren’t. Some wore our slain brothers’ armour in an effort to confuse us. Some wore their actual flesh. In those first few weeks, we lost a lot of men. I came close to shutting it all down, but I knew we couldn’t, not while the worlds still burned. We formed a new practical.’

  ‘The red stripe,’ guessed Numeon, to which Thiel nodded.

  ‘A mark to differentiate friend from foe, something our enemy would never learn and so could never exploit.’

  ‘Not an easy task.’ Numeon’s mind briefly went back to Isstvan. He doubted he would ever cleanse the horror of that battle from his thoughts.

  Thiel looked thoughtful too. ‘No, it most assuredly isn’t. Even for the best of us.’

  Numeon raised an eyebrow. ‘The voice of further experience?’ he asked.

  ‘Not mine, my primarch’s. I tried to kill him, you see.’

  ‘You did what?’ Numeon still had his blade unsheathed. His hand now tensed around the grip. Another ploy?

  Thiel raised a hand in apology. ‘Bad habit, my humour,’ he said. ‘Another legionary bearing my name and a facsimile of my armour infiltrated my lord’s residency with nine others and attempted to murder him.’

  ‘Vulkan’s blood! How?’

  ‘Their subterfuge was very good.’

  Numeon relaxed, but was appalled at the implications of Thiel’s story. ‘Nothing is what it seems any more.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. Let us say also that after that the reunion between father and son was a little more fraught than I had anticipated.’

  ‘Perhaps we should all mark our battleplate with a secret sign to differentiate friend from foe.’

  ‘I had considered it,’ admitted Thiel. ‘At any rate my unit maintains the red mark even though the renegades have stopped wearing the armour of dead heroes now, a fact for which I am profoundly grateful.’

  ‘So now you train others how to kill legionaries?’

  ‘Seemed prudent. Having recently gained Lord Guilliman’s sanction made any reprisals defunct.’

  ‘Secured after he’d let you through the front gate, I assume?’

  Thiel smiled at a memory. ‘Port Hera played stage to one of the tenser engagements I’ve seen in Magna Macragge Civitas.’

  ‘Yes, I expect it did.’

  Satisfied with Thiel’s explanation, Numeon resumed his circuit of the arena. His onyx-black body was shining with exertion, his sweat like steam condensing on the surface of a rock. It gathered in the scars engraved into his flesh, sigils honouring
his many deeds. Artellus Numeon was one of the few whose brands extended across almost his entire body, such was his legacy of heroism – one he felt he had not upheld. His flesh also carried the remembered wounds of his torture and these were grim to look upon.

  Thiel did him the service of appearing not to notice.

  ‘Gets heavy, doesn’t it.’

  Numeon paused, wondering at first if the Ultramarine had somehow read his thoughts, but realised he had meant a different burden.

  Thiel gestured to the gladius Numeon was wielding.

  The Salamander spared him a quick glance.

  ‘A forge hammer is heavy, sergeant,’ he replied. ‘This Ultramarian blade is merely unfamiliar.’

  Numeon had progressed halfway through the next sword drill when he stopped short. Lowering the blade, he turned to Thiel.

  ‘You haven’t come to discuss the finer points of hand-to-hand combat or your tactical doctrine, have you, sergeant?’

  ‘I am surprised you haven’t asked about the prisoner.’

  ‘Xenut Sul? He is a traitor. He was my captor. Now he is not. What else is there to say?’

  Thiel frowned. ‘Have you considered why they didn’t just kill you?’

  ‘For the same reason you allow Xenut Sul to live – answers.’

  ‘What are the questions, though, Artellus?’

  ‘Of no consequence,’ Numeon replied flatly. ‘At least not to Xenut Sul. He serves another.’

  Here, Thiel nodded. ‘A preacher. Have you seen him?’

  ‘Only via hololith.’

  ‘The Red-marked have been hunting this traitor ever since I came back from Calth.’

  ‘You hope Xenut Sul will betray his master?’

  Thiel shook his head.

  ‘I just need a man called Titus Prayto to pry open Xenut Sul’s mind for me.’

  Numeon’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘You are not adept at this,’ he said.

  Thiel’s surprise looked feigned. ‘At what?’

  ‘Lying. A Librarian awaits Xenut Sul. Your fervent hope is that he will be able to extract the answers you seek that will lead you to your quarry. You need no insight I can provide, Aeonid Thiel. So, I ask again, why are you here? I doubt it is to swap stories about our fathers.’

  Thiel’s gaze drifted from the severe countenance of the Salamander to a point behind him in his chambers.

  ‘Ah…’

  Numeon followed the Ultramarine’s line of sight to where he had laid down Vulkan’s sigil.

  ‘A memorial?’ asked Thiel, without accusation.

  ‘Memorials are for the dead. Vulkan lives. I think of it as a shrine to honour him, before which I can reassert my oaths – those I swore when the Legion was reunited with its father.’

  Numeon slowly walked over to the sigil and took hold of it reverently.

  ‘You said it guided you?’

  Thiel nodded. ‘Without its transmitter signal, we would not have found you.’

  ‘I thought it was a beacon, but I have no knowledge of how to activate it.’ He regarded the hammer gently resting in the palms of his hands. ‘I clung to it so vehemently,’ he muttered to himself, ‘perhaps I could have…’

  Numeon looked up at Thiel, leaving the rest of his remembrance unspoken.

  ‘Say what you have come to say,’ he said, latent anger flaring in the embers of his eyes.

  To his credit, Thiel forewent any preamble.

  ‘Vulkan is dead. He died on Macragge. That’s why I’m taking you back there.’

  The hard slab where Numeon meditated and slept possessed more emotion in that moment than the Salamander.

  Despite the heat, an icy chill entered the chamber.

  ‘You saw his body?’

  ‘I was given the news,’ Thiel admitted. ‘I have no reason to doubt its veracity. He is dead, brother.’ Thiel approached, about to put a conciliatory hand on the Salamander’s shoulder, but Numeon recoiled.

  ‘Do not try to console me, sergeant,’ he said coldly. ‘Do not mistake my Promethean creed for grief. I believe Vulkan is alive. Every time I see his sigil and feel the warmth of its captured forge heat in my hands, I know this to be true.’

  ‘Cousin, please.’

  Numeon held up his hand in a gesture for silence.

  ‘We Salamanders are taught to be masters of our emotions. As such, we are not given to sudden bouts of apoplexy, but you risk the failure of that resolve if you try to convince me of my father’s death.’

  ‘He lies in state, a cold corpse in Macragge’s deepest mausoleum. His sons maintain a vigil over his body.’ Exasperated, Thiel shook his head. ‘Artellus–’

  But Numeon would not hear it. He scowled, disgusted.

  ‘The preacher was a more gifted dissembler. He spoke of the fulgurite, a weapon of immense power, capable of slaying an immortal primarch… My primarch. I reject you both. I deny these falsehoods, though I cannot fathom why a loyal son of Guilliman would manufacture such an obvious and heinous lie.’

  Anger and pity warred in Thiel’s eyes as he met Numeon’s gaze.

  ‘You are not yourself, brother-captain, so I shall overlook your insults. I speak truthfully, to the very best of my knowledge.’

  ‘Then it is your knowledge that is flawed, sergeant,’ countered Numeon, ending the conversation with a simple declaration. ‘Vulkan lives.’

  ‘Cling to what hope you must, Salamander,’ said Thiel, as he left the chamber. ‘For none here wishes it were true more than I. But cast aspersions on my honour again, even in grief, and I will give you a salutary lesson with that gladius you labour over.’

  The door slammed in his wake, leaving Numeon alone in silence.

  And denial.

  Seven

  Servant of the Word

  Magna Macragge Civitas, Eastern Keep

  They had moved the prisoner.

  His defiance baffling – not because of the reason behind it but rather the physical and mental endurance it demonstrated – it had been determined a deeper pit was necessary to extract the answers desired.

  Yet, every time the questions were asked, the prisoner responded exactly as he had before.

  Even when physical duress led to invasive psychic interrogation, the words did not change.

  Nothing moved him. He demonstrated no fear or outward sign of regret at his circumstances.

  Bloody, battered, the prisoner looked up at his interrogator with a wary but amused expression as he spat out a tooth.

  ‘That was a solid hit. I actually felt that one,’ he said. ‘You should be proud.’

  Watching from the shadows, Titus Prayto was not.

  Throughout the beating, he had dug furrows into the prisoner’s psyche with as sharp a mental scalpel as he possessed, but yielded nothing.

  The warrior armoured in cobalt-blue facing the prisoner rotated his shoulder, preparing to strike again.

  ‘Enough,’ Prayto uttered calmly.

  The other Ultramarine seemed reluctant to stand down and remained in place, clenching and unclenching his bloody gauntlet.

  ‘Enough, sergeant,’ Prayto repeated more firmly.

  Sergeant Valentius turned and nodded, breathless with exertion. He looked almost as tired as the prisoner.

  Prayto met the sergeant’s weary gaze. ‘Leave us.’

  Valentius bowed curtly and exited the cell.

  As the door clanged loudly behind the sergeant, Prayto stepped out of the gloom. Lingering at the edge of the corona of light cast by a single hanging phosphor globe, he drew back his hood. A scholar’s face was revealed behind its folds, overly pale from time spent in the Library of Ptolemy within the Fortress of Hera, and perpetually troubled.

  Titus Prayto had dark, close-cropped hair like so many of his legionary brothers. Unlike his fellow Ultramarine
s, his grey eyes were soft, but possessed of a hunger for knowledge. This, and his recently reinstated psychic abilities, made him an excellent interrogator.

  Prayto turned to his charge now.

  The prisoner had been afforded a moment of respite and hung his head, but as soon as Prayto came closer, he looked up at the Librarian.

  ‘What now, more scrying?’ he asked in a grating voice.

  Never taking his eyes off the prisoner, Prayto gently shook his head.

  ‘We are beyond that.’

  Barthusa Narek’s eyes brightened. He looked tired, and not just on account of enforced sleep deprivation. ‘Death then.’

  ‘Nothing so merciful. We shall talk.’

  Narek sagged, suddenly wearier.

  ‘Do you know the definition of madness?’ he asked, then answered, ‘It is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.’

  ‘Whom do you serve, Narek?’ asked Prayto regardless, as he began to walk the circle of light.

  ‘Come now, Titus, are we not on first-name terms after all this time?’

  Prayto repeated firmly. ‘Whom do you serve?’

  Narek sighed, his pugilist’s features softening momentarily.

  ‘So we return to this again.’

  Narek was unlike any Word Bearer that Prayto had ever met. He had a soldier’s gait, and the stolid tread of a footslogger, though he was also reputedly an expert marksman. His manner and appearance would be better suited to Inwit rather than Colchis, but there was a sort of fervour in his eyes. Not the raw, manic sort of fanaticism Prayto had seen before in the Bearers of the Word but purpose and determination.

  ‘I serve the Word,’ said Narek, ‘as you already know. Whom do you serve, your primarch or your Emperor?’

  Prayto knew he should not answer but hoped a change of tack might yield some as yet hidden truth from the warrior.

  ‘One does not exclude the other. I serve both. And what “Word” is that?’

  Narek smiled; it was an altogether ugly gesture in a face not well accustomed to levity.

  ‘An empire here, an empire there,’ he said, ‘and you a loyal son to both.’