Deathfire

by Nick Kyme

  ‘What?’

  The primarch looked back at the drake.

  ‘Compassion. Cruelty. I am torn between them in this bitter shell,’ he uttered, as his rancour returned. ‘And so I gave you strings and watched you flail upon them. No miracles, only my power. My will.’

  Numeon shook his head.

  ‘That cannot be…’

  It was a ruse, another cruel trick.

  He backed away again, almost touching one of the frozen daemon forms still held in stasis by the Crimson King’s chronomancy.

  ‘It was Vulkan’s will,’ Numeon said, but sounded unconvinced.

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘I felt his strength within me. I am his vessel.’

  ‘Are you?’ Magnus’s eye narrowed, as he closed the distance between them. ‘Are you, really?’

  ‘We only came to your attention because you are trapped inside the storm like us.’

  ‘Did you? Am I?’

  ‘This is a trial, of my resolve, my worthiness.’

  ‘If that is what you believe…’

  ‘You haven’t been guiding us, or watching over me.’

  ‘Have I not?’

  Numeon’s fists clenched, but he let go almost immediately. Something told him this was what Magnus wanted, for him to fall to anger. ‘Either cease taunting me or kill me, but know that nothing you can say will convince me of any of this. I believe in Vulkan. He lives.’

  ‘If he could be made to live again, what are you willing to sacrifice to bring about his return?’

  ‘I would give up everything to reach Nocturne.’

  ‘That isn’t what I asked.’

  Numeon was done bandying words. He sensed there were few left to trade anyway. He needed to end this, one way or another. ‘Can you breach the storm and take us there or not?’

  ‘No,’ said Magnus, ‘but I can give you a choice.’

  ‘What choice?’

  ‘The only one you have left. Look into the fire and find your path…’

  Light flared, brighter and hotter than any sun. It burned, stripping away armour and flesh, rendering bone to ash until there was nothing left but dust on the wind. Numeon screamed as the agony took hold, his mind in turmoil, awash with fire. Endless fire.

  ‘Behold!’ boomed the voice of Magnus, filled with prophecy and arrogant bombast. ‘It is your destiny, son of Earth!’

  The fire roared, becoming more ferocious with every passing moment until it eclipsed all sound and there was silence again.

  Numeon breathed, and in a single beat of his heart, everything changed.

  Magnus had gone and in his absence came anarchy.

  Forty-Nine

  Fragile alliance

  Cruiser Monarchia, the Altar

  Degat blinked and realised he was aboard the Monarchia.

  He and several others, those who had survived the attack on the Salamanders vessel, stood dumbfounded within the arcane circle of the largest Altar.

  One amongst them was crouched, head bowed.

  Quor Gallek shook, and for a few moments Degat thought the Preacher convulsed in some warp palsy. Then he realised Quor Gallek was actually laughing.

  ‘The Crimson King,’ he hissed. ‘He has come amongst them.’

  Degat grabbed him roughly, hauling the Preacher to his feet.

  ‘What of it? Why did you send us back?’

  The battle anger was slow to fade, and he clenched and unclenched his open hand. The other clung to the still-turning chainblade, growling in irritation at being deprived of its feast.

  He shut it down, releasing Quor Gallek at the same time.

  ‘I had no choice, Degat. If we had stayed, he would have destroyed us.’

  Degat knew little of Magnus the Red. Few had heard of the primarch since Prospero. Some believed he was dead.

  ‘And what of our prey? Do we accede it to the Crimson King, after all we have pledged and suffered?’

  He failed to mention that the escape was timely given the drake had him cold with a plasma weapon. Degat felt it in his wounded leg.

  Quor Gallek had noticed the limp, looking down at the wound, but said nothing of it.

  ‘There is more,’ said Quor Gallek, and now he met Degat’s gaze. ‘Barthusa Narek is with them.’

  ‘Aboard the ship?’

  ‘He does not seem as he once did. But it was him, I am sure of it.’

  Degat took a step back, as if readying for some ritual.

  ‘Send me back.’

  ‘I cannot.’

  He advanced on Quor Gallek, his hand clenched around the Preacher’s throat.

  ‘I will have his head, preacher,’ he snarled. ‘Send me back.’

  Quor Gallek repeated himself. ‘I cannot.’

  Degat held on a little longer, debating whether or not to snap Quor Gallek’s neck. The ritual to span him and his warriors across the warp to the Charybdis had weakened the Preacher. It was the only reason Quor Gallek was being so pliant. He had no other choice.

  ‘You have led us to nothing.’

  ‘Not nothing…’ Quor Gallek croaked, holding up a tiny sliver of rock.

  It was a piece of the fulgurite; it could be nothing other.

  Degat let him go.

  ‘Did you kill him? The Lord of Drakes?’

  Quor Gallek rubbed his neck, but then shook his head.

  ‘You can’t kill what is already dead.’

  He held up the sliver to the light, which seemed to intensify around it.

  ‘With this fragment, we may be able to achieve something greater.’

  ‘What power can an insignificant piece of rock possibly hold?’ asked Degat, though he did reach for the fragment.

  ‘It turned Narek to a different purpose,’ Quor Gallek replied, and Degat snatched his hand away as if scalded.

  He turned his back to the Preacher, nodding to his men to depart but be ready for immediate deployment. ‘Who is he then?’

  ‘A legionary in grey. A lost soul. He said the fulgurite showed him truth.’

  ‘Lorgar’s truth is all I care about,’ said Degat. ‘What is his purpose aboard that ship? Has he joined with them?’

  ‘It isn’t over, Degat. Not yet. Narek shall be yours and then answers will come. They will flow, as blood flows.’

  The knuckles of Degat’s gauntlets cracked as he made two fists. ‘I will make him choke on it.’

  ‘Hold that truth close, brother, and everything we have just discussed,’ said Quor Gallek, turning to face the servo-skull that had just hovered into the chamber. ‘We have guests…’

  A hololith projected from the skull’s mouth, describing the war-like form of Laestygon.

  ‘Another failure, preacher.’

  The Reaper’s Shroud must be close for hololithic communication to be possible. It had caught up to the Monarchia and no doubt had firing solutions prepared for immediate execution.

  ‘The only reason your ship is not atoms right now is I need you, Quor Gallek.’

  Quor Gallek had the good sense to bow. Degat did nothing, but at least faced the Death Guard commander.

  ‘We will bring them to heel,’ he tried to assure Laestygon. ‘Their ship is on the brink of dissolution, their crew ravaged and warriors bloodied almost to the point of extinction. Now you are here, we can–’

  Laestygon raised his gauntleted hand to stop Quor Gallek from talking.

  ‘No more promises, no more lies, preacher. The ship is gone.’

  ‘Gone? How? They are in the clutches of the storm. A ship cannot simply–’

  ‘And yet the Charybdis shows on no augurs or sensorium I possess. They are gone. I need you to tell me where.’ He leaned forwards, until his armoured face filled the image capture. ‘But let me be clear. I hold no truck with your kind, you
dabblers and daemon whisperers. You are a means to an end for me, Quor Gallek. When this is done, you and I shall part ways. Then you would be wise to flee. Run far.’

  Fifty

  Wrenched from the storm

  Battle-barge Charybdis, cargo hold

  Time had resumed without Numeon, who was suddenly thrust into darkness. Remembrances of what the Crimson King had showed him were swift to deteriorate. He grasped at them, trying to anchor whatever fragments he could to his waking mind, but it had all the effectiveness of holding on to smoke.

  Rising storm.

  Tides of fire.

  Thunder on the air.

  A burning path.

  The mountain.

  Klaxons wailed as the present reasserted itself, the screams of the Neverborn slow to fade from their warning echoes, and the deck ran red with the light of emergency lumens.

  He was still in the cargo hold, not far from the sanctum when the Charybdis lurched hard to port. Flung off his feet, Numeon coll­ided with the wall and hung on to the deck-grille with his fingers as the ship turned again.

  Voices across the vox came alive in his ear, filtered through a comm-bead. Shouted orders and desperate announcements plagued the feed.

  Every stanchion and rebar, every bulkhead and scrap of the Charybdis’s abused structure shrieked in torment.

  Wrenched loose by the violent turbulence, a heavy packing crate slammed into Numeon’s body and tore him off the deck. Gravity felt wrong. He was falling backwards along the corridor and away from the sanctum, as if he were plummeting down a shaft. He reached out for something to arrest his descent, grimacing as more cargo came loose from its moorings and struck his shoulder. His grip on a section of racking came loose as a casket of munitions hit him in the chest.

  Barrelling, in freefall, he fought to retain his bearings. Smashing against a jutting bulkhead, Numeon felt the air driven from his lungs. He clung on, his vision shaking with the vibratory throes of agony rippling through the ship.

  He heard a wrenching of steel, metal tearing and splitting, and saw a girder hurling towards him like a flung spear. Having only just caught his breath, he rolled and felt gravity seize him.

  Spinning, flailing, Numeon tried again to grasp something but he was caught in the swell of a tempest fashioned of crates and rebar, rushing down at him from the cargo hold. The girder had impaled itself in the bulkhead, splitting it and jutting out the other side menacingly.

  More girders followed in its wake, ripped from their housings, the harbingers of a debris storm. Driven by the force of their momentum, the sharpened ends of the ragged girders would pierce Numeon’s armour with ease.

  He roared, in anger, in pain, railing at the ignominy of it. To die like this, after everything he had survived…

  A sudden painful jerk arrested his descent, his shoulder flaring as it dislocated. The sudden halt hurled Numeon back against the wall, the girders arcing past a hand span from his face. He craned his neck to identify his saviour.

  Kaspian Hecht looked as pained as Numeon felt, clinging to the Salamander’s outstretched wrist.

  ‘Are you just going to hang there? Come on!’

  He heaved, and Numeon scrabbled with his other hand and feet, scrambling to reach the alcove where Hecht had taken refuge.

  Hecht dragged Numeon inside. The grey legionary had his back against the inner wall, his feet braced against the opposite side, effectively wedging himself in.

  It was tight, barely enough room for them both.

  ‘Thank you,’ Numeon said, gasping for breath. Blood ran down his face and shoulder. Some of his bones were fractured.

  Hecht nodded, similarly ragged. He had his arm held across his chest, suggesting he had torn something, ligament or muscle, in the act of hauling Numeon to relative safety.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Numeon.

  ‘I do not think… the storm wants to let us go.’

  They had left the warp. Fallen or flung, Numeon didn’t know yet. For a few seconds he had trouble determining if what he had seen was real or whether he had imagined the presence of the Crimson King.

  Adopting the same posture as Hecht, Numeon pushed his dislocated shoulder back into its socket. The pain was momentary, and he could feel his transhuman biology already reknitting his wounded flesh.

  Slowly, the trembling stopped as the Charybdis began to right itself, and the downward pressure against Numeon’s chest ebbed. The cascade of dislodged cargo lessened in its ferocity. At first, the crates slid and tumbled until finally they stopped and came to rest.

  The shrieking of the hull became a dull groan as battered armour plate settled and the taut inner skeleton of the ship relaxed.

  As his feet came slowly back to the floor, Numeon felt no engine thrum through the deck or walls. They were adrift like before.

  He exhaled a long, calming breath. ‘I owe you my life, Hecht. What were you doing down here so close to the sanctum?’ he asked, looking at the other legionary.

  Hecht winced, evidently still feeling his injuries. He had lost his helm during the chaos and carried an ugly bruise on the side of his head.

  ‘Must have got turned around,’ he said. ‘I was headed for the generatorium when everything… changed. It happened so suddenly. I confess, I’m having some trouble remembering exactly what took place.’

  He turned to look Numeon in the eye.

  ‘Unless you can enlighten me?’

  Something about Hecht’s expression gave Numeon pause, as if he already knew or had a strong inkling of what had transpired.

  ‘A primarch intervened on our behalf. The Crimson King.’

  Hecht could not disguise his shock or trepidation.

  ‘Magnus the Red?’

  ‘Or some part of him. I’m not sure. He was cryptic.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He imparted a vision, of a possible future, perhaps. I don’t know. But he said we had a choice. I don’t know what that meant, either.’

  ‘There was nothing else? No bargain or pact?’

  ‘Should there have been?’

  He held Hecht’s gaze a moment longer, trying to discern the grey legionary’s meaning. All this time and still they had no inkling of the nature of his mission.

  ‘A gift given by any primarch usually comes with a price,’ he said. ‘The allegiance of the Thousand Sons is unknown.’

  ‘I do not think this was an act of declaration. I think he did it for Vulkan, a last gesture of fraternity in a time of common fratricide. Perhaps he just wanted to show that he could. How can I know the motives of the Crimson King? I am just relieved he didn’t kill all of us.’

  Numeon shook his head, irritated at Hecht’s questioning, and activated the vox, trying to find a voice amongst the scraps of feed and squalling static.

  He found Zytos.

  ‘I am glad to hear your voice again, brother-captain,’ said Zytos, warmly.

  ‘I am not so easy to kill, Zytos.’

  ‘That you are not. Do you know what happened? The last thing I remember was heading back to the generatorium. We were surrounded by sirens, and then… this. Is Vulkan safe?’

  Numeon was already on the move. Whatever reprieve had been granted by Magnus the Red could not be counted upon. He also had no idea where they had emerged from the storm.

  ‘He is safe, and the sanctum remains undisturbed. I am with Hecht. We are coming to you. I’ll tell you everything then.’

  ‘We are at the bridge. Numeon…’

  Whatever news Zytos was about to impart, it was important enough to give him pause. Numeon gestured for Hecht to stop.

  ‘Speak, Zytos. What is it?’

  ‘Zonn is dead, and Gargo…’ Numeon could hear the other Salamander shake his head. ‘We are badly wounded, but that’s not all.’

  Numeon clenched a fi
st at word of the Techmarine’s death. So much loss. It had to mean something. The words of the Crimson King resounded in his mind. The falsehood of the miracles. The lie that Vulkan was guiding the Salamanders through him. The vision of fire. His fingers gently touched the sigil, but Numeon could feel no warmth coming off the fuller and drew no reassurance from its presence. Had Magnus been telling the truth?

  His voice was weary with self-doubt. ‘What else, Zytos?’

  ‘Head for the bridge,’ he told him. ‘We have left the storm, but you have to see this with your own eyes to believe it.’

  ‘Believe what?’ he asked, unable to mask a flush of irritation. ‘Are we back within the borders of Ultramar?’

  ‘Far from it, brother-captain. We have come through the other side of the storm.’ Emotion choked Zytos’s next words, as if he were scarcely able to believe them himself. ‘Terra still stands, Artellus. The war is not yet over. The Emperor lives.’

  Numeon staggered. Whether it was his injuries, fatigue catching up with him or the sheer import of what he had just heard, he needed to brace himself against the wall to stop from falling. He waved off Hecht’s offer of help as he tried to understand what Zytos had just told him.

  ‘How? How can you know this?’

  ‘We have intercepted a message, repeated over and over,’ said Zytos. ‘It is from Lord Dorn. He orders all loyal sons of the Emperor to return to the Imperial Palace.’

  A choice, Magnus had said. Numeon had no inkling it would be this. He cut the link and let dead air reign for a few seconds before regarding Hecht.

  ‘We have returned.’

  Hecht frowned. ‘Nocturne?’

  ‘No,’ said Numeon, his words as heavy as his heart. ‘Terra.’

  Fifty-One

  Terra stands

  Battle-barge Charybdis, bridge

  Even with the ship’s augurs set to maximum magnification, the edge of Terra’s realm border was still a distant blur.

  But they were here, through the storm and within touching distance of the Throneworld.