Deathfire

by Nick Kyme

  Xathen’s expression darkening told Numeon he couldn’t.

  ‘I have seen the dead, slain without glory, without a fighting chance, Numeon! How can you ask us to submit to that again? I am sick of being at the mercy of my enemy’s blade. For once, I want to be the one who decides my own fate, on a battlefield of my choosing with my enemy in front of me. No more deceit, no more treachery.’

  Murmurings of approval met Xathen’s words. The Legion had skirted self-destruction once, they had no desire to do so again.

  But Xathen wasn’t finished.

  ‘Should we do this, and return to the storm. Even if we survive…’ He glanced to the Chaplain. ‘Var’kir is no Navigator. Even if he can see a way through the veil to Nocturne, how will he guide the ship?’

  ‘He won’t,’ Ushamann replied. ‘I will. And Circe, if she lives.’

  ‘No Navigator can breach this storm, Xathen,’ said Var’kir. ‘It has been tried, and our endeavours found wanting. We must embrace the old ways, those which Vulkan taught us. In doing so we step back from enlightenment, abandoning the principles of the Imperial Truth. Know I do not say this lightly, but I am certain it is the only way to reach Nocturne.’

  ‘You realise, this is insane,’ said Xathen.

  ‘You named the dead, brother,’ Numeon replied. ‘What meaning has their sacrifice if we are to abandon our oaths to each other and to Vulkan? Since when have Salamanders ever taken the easy course?’

  ‘This is certain death, Numeon.’

  ‘Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Hope, our belief in one another and in Vulkan is all we have to gird ourselves from these terrors,’ Numeon told them, and brandished the sigil. ‘This hammer brought me back to my Legion. It has saved my life on more than one occasion. But it is just a hammer, a simple fuller, a piece of our primarch’s armour. I stand before you not as your captain, or a prophet. I am a Salamander, a son of Vulkan, and I can hear the fires of the mountain calling me home. Through all of this, every trial we have endured, every brother and ally we have lost, I have believed it was for a greater purpose. This is the purpose. Deathfire is calling its adopted son back. It alone has the power to restore him to us. Tell me… brothers… what trial cannot be overcome, what risk is not worth taking for that?’

  Silence fell, interrupted only by the crackling of the flame.

  Gargo was the first to kneel. He did so to reach the ash gathering at their feet. Slowly, and with careful deliberation, he daubed the sigil of resurrection across his face. When he was finished, he stood with the fire of belief in his eyes. Not a religious fervour, but rather a form of conviction and profound sense of brotherhood. Igen Gargo, the black-smiter who had lost his gift of craft, he who stood mauled before his fellow Salamanders… If he could still have hope, then what right did any of the others have to doubt?

  Var’kir came next, then Abidemi and Dakar.

  Then Zytos, until every Salamander barring two had anointed their skin with the ash of belief.

  Numeon’s gaze had not left Xathen’s throughout the ritual.

  ‘You declaimed me your captain once. You hailed my name. You trusted me then, Xathen. Trust me again now. This is not ritual suicide, it is hope. The last that remains. But it must be all of us, brother. What say you?’

  Xathen took the coal, and threw it into the flames. He scribed the ash as the others had.

  Then he left, breaking the circle and pausing only when Gargo clapped his bionic hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Release me, Igen,’ Xathen murmured.

  ‘Let him go,’ said Numeon, though his expression was severe as he too daubed the ash.

  Gargo stepped aside and Xathen left the Igneum to the lonely sound of his booted feet striking the floor beneath.

  ‘His wounds are too deep,’ said Gargo, trying to explain on his brother’s behalf.

  ‘We are all wounded, Gargo,’ Numeon told him. ‘Xathen will come around. He must.’ He looked to the others, nodding with slight belligerence. ‘So, we return to the storm and stare ruin in the eye.’

  No one cheered, no one shouted Vulkan’s name. But there was resolve and determination.

  Here then, the Salamanders had decided their path.

  Only one thing was certain. It led to fire and death.

  Fifty-Four

  The need for sacrifice

  Battle-barge Charybdis, apothecarion

  Adyssian was kneeling by Circe’s side as she slept fitfully on one of the apothecarion medi-slabs.

  His bowed head touched his fingers, his hands clasped to hers as he murmured passages from the Lectitio Divinitatus.

  The air was cool and sanitised. A low hum emanated off the atmosphere recyclers and the dim halogen strip lights glowing overhead. Circe had looked troubled, but at least her eyes were now closed after a period of catatonia had seized her. Ushamann had calmed her mind, and she had slipped into dreams.

  Adyssian hoped she would never wake, that her pain would ease and she would be embraced at the Emperor’s side. At least here, like this, she could have some measure of peace.

  The ship and its crew had seen enough, endured enough. What fate awaited them all, including the refugees from Rampart, if they followed the Salamanders into fire? Oblivion, most likely.

  The telltale pressure hiss of the apothecarion door opening roused Adyssian from his prayers. Wiping his face on his uniform sleeve, he turned to see Ushamann, Zytos and Numeon.

  ‘No,’ he said, standing up and vigorously shaking his head. ‘No, damn you!’ Adyssian put his body between Circe and the Salamanders.

  Ushamann raised his hand to urge the shipmaster aside, but Numeon stopped him.

  ‘We need her, Kolo,’ he said simply. ‘Ushamann can bring her around, but then we need her.’

  ‘I have heard,’ said Adyssian. ‘You want to go back into the Ruinstorm.’

  ‘And we need her,’ Numeon insisted gently.

  Adyssian scowled, angry, prematurely grieving. ‘It will kill her.’

  Numeon nodded. ‘I know, but her life was given over to the service of the Legion the moment she was born, shipmaster. As was yours.’

  Cold, thin fingers touched Adyssian’s hand and he turned sharply.

  Circe, enfeebled, dying but awake, looked back at him. There was compassion and love in her eyes for the man with whom she had brought life into the world. A life not destined to last, but which had touched them both nonetheless.

  ‘Did you do this?’ he asked of Ushamann, his eyes bright with fury.

  ‘No,’ replied the Librarian. ‘I swear I did not enter her mind. She has risen by herself.’

  Adyssian looked back at Circe, fear, hope and confusion warring on his face. ‘You do not have to do this.’

  Though she wasn’t strong, she had never been strong, Circe clenched Adyssian’s hand as tightly as she could. Her voice was not much more than a whisper.

  ‘But I choose to, Kolo. My love.’

  And her gaze slipped beyond Adyssian for a moment to Numeon, who gave a single, shallow nod of thanks.

  She put her hands on Adyssian’s face, using her thumbs to wipe at the fresh tears that trickled down it.

  ‘I would not have reached Terra, anyway. There was nothing for us there.’

  And Adyssian replied in a small, wounded voice. ‘I know…’

  ‘It will be soon, shipmaster,’ said Numeon, his tone brooking no argument. ‘You have an hour and then we must be ready. Your place is upon the bridge, Circe’s in the novatum.’

  Adyssian nodded. His bearing was that of a condemned man going to the gallows.

  Outside, the three Salamanders gathered for a moment, having left Adyssian and Circe alone.

  ‘Is there a chance she could survive this?’ Numeon asked, looking through the glass at the two mortals sharing their last moments with one another.

 
; ‘No, captain. She will die,’ said Ushamann, his mien as cold as ever. ‘It is the only thing I am certain of with this entire endeavour. The only question that remains is whether she will live long enough for us to reach Nocturne.’

  ‘So be it,’ said Numeon, knowing they had no choice now and turning away so he could focus his mind on what was needed next.

  ‘Ensure Var’kir is prepared,’ he told Ushamann.

  ‘I shall mark a place for him upon the bridge.’

  He left, leaving Zytos and Numeon alone.

  ‘Have you seen Hecht?’

  Zytos shook his head. ‘Not since we escaped the storm. Do you want me to find him?’

  ‘No, he could be anywhere. It is strange though.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Allegedly, he is an agent of Malcador, the Emperor’s own regent. Here we are, in the vicinity of Terra, about to abandon our duty to Rogal Dorn himself and Hecht is absent.’

  ‘You expected him to stand in our way?’ asked Zytos.

  Numeon nodded.

  ‘Are you sure he still won’t?’

  ‘This is our business, not Malcador’s. The Emperor would want His son restored. He needs Vulkan, just as we do. Besides, there is something about Hecht. It’s as if I am seeing it for the first time.’

  ‘He has bled with us.’

  ‘But is that any guarantee of loyalty, especially to a cause not his own?’

  Zytos had to admit the answer to that was no.

  ‘Can we trust him?’

  ‘As far as anything we have encountered in the storm.’

  Numeon paused to consider his next course of action. There was no time to look for the grey legionary. Perhaps he had his own rituals to observe.

  Zytos saw his captain’s dilemma. ‘What would you ask of me? Name it, and it shall be done. I can take a squad, track Hecht down.’

  ‘No, let him be. He has been an ally to us so far. I’ll need you on the bridge. Every legionary must be placed in the defence of it and the generatorium. And since we are now so few…’

  Numeon briefly looked away, his thoughts on the dead. In his heart, he knew the need for sacrifice wasn’t satisfied. Not yet.

  Zytos lifted his spirits. ‘For what it’s worth, brother, I would follow you into helfyre. I already have done once, and I would do so again, if you asked it of me.’

  ‘I ask, brother,’ said Numeon, smiling as he clapped Zytos on the shoulder. ‘I ask all of you. I only wish it were helfyre we were stepping into. This is much worse.’

  Fifty-Five

  Our path through the flame

  Battle-barge Charybdis, bridge

  Darkness prevailed across the bridge, alleviated slightly by the low red light of lumens.

  With most of the bridge crew dead, it was sparsely occupied.

  Lieutenant Esenzi stood at the helm, waiting for Adyssian’s order. The shipmaster had returned to his throne, but was a brooding presence behind her on the command dais. Circe had taken her place in the novatum in the cloistered vaults above the bridge, and all knew what that meant. This was to be her last journey.

  Petty officers and scavenged servitors attended the Charybdis’s other essential systems. They would not need to do much. As soon as they had translated back into the warp and the storm, faith would have to do the rest.

  Var’kir was the focus of that faith. He cut a lonely figure, even amongst his Salamanders brothers. Several armoured silhouettes stood at readiness around the bridge. Two held the entranceway, the blast door firmly sealed behind Dakar and Abidemi, and the rest were stationed in the deck that sat below the command throne.

  There was not a warrior amongst them who did not have a hand on the pommel of his sword, or hold his bolter braced across his chest.

  ‘Approaching Mandeville point,’ said Esenzi, the sound of her voice breaking up the monotonous refrain of the ship’s active consoles.

  ‘Gargo,’ Numeon uttered through the Legion vox-feed to summon the black-smiter. ‘Brace for warp translation.’

  ‘Generatorium is secure. All is in readiness,’ the black-smiter replied. He had taken what remained of Zonn’s combat servitors and enginseers, and raised a defensive cordon in the lower decks. He did so to honour the Techmarine and in some way atone for his death.

  Both Mu’garna and Baduk joined him, but there had been no sign of their sergeant. Since he had absented himself from the Igneum, Rek’or Xathen’s movements were unknown.

  Numeon relayed that he understood and turned to Var’kir.

  ‘Brother Chaplain,’ he said, ‘we are in your hands now.’

  Var’kir nodded. He clasped his crozius in both hands, holding it before his skull mask like an icon. A flare of energy rippled down the haft and across the head. He used it to ignite the brazier that had been set before him.

  Flames surged violently into life, their crackling embers lighting up the bridge. Shadows crept along the walls and the scent of burning filled the air.

  On the deck, where Var’kir was kneeling, Ushamann had placed a circle of warding and communion.

  The Librarian was also kneeling, also surrounded by sigils of the arcane, his circle entwined with that of Var’kir but behind the Chaplain.

  ‘Circe,’ said Ushamann, his voice already resonant with power and an eldritch, cerulean glow emanating from his eyes.

  ‘I am here.’

  ‘Steel yourself. Find my mind and follow it to Var’kir’s. There will be pain, sister.’

  ‘I am not afraid of pain.’

  Ushamann smiled.

  ‘You are as fearless as any legionary I have known.’

  The blaze took hold and rose into a pillar of flame. Numeon looked into it, but could not see what Var’kir beheld. Within somewhere was Nocturne, a path through the fire. A beacon. They had but to burn through the darkness and reach it.

  If asked, he could not explain it. He had no answer to Xathen’s declamations of madness. It was the will of Vulkan, a tempering of body, mind and spirit that Numeon alone had to endure in order to inspire others. In the few seconds that remained before translation, he remembered the dead and vowed that their sacrifices would have meaning. From the very beginning of the war, after the bombs had begun to fall and the bonds of brotherhood were forever shattered, their father had been lost to them. They were a much diminished Legion, if not in pride then in number. Vulkan would give them purpose again, not as the political tools of the Avenging Son or the willing partners of the Iron Tenth in grief-stricken self-annihilation, but as the Drakes. As they were meant to be.

  If the Salamanders were to survive, then so must Vulkan.

  Numeon pulled Draukoros from its scabbard with a low scrape of metal against drake hide, feeling the weight of the moment. His path had never been clearer. Terra was gone, behind them now.

  He held his blade aloft for all to see, and the red light caught viscerally on the fanged blade.

  ‘Know this, sons and daughters of Nocturne. Vulkan is with us. All our suffering, our loss and pain have been about this moment. Hold firm to the mast, lash your courage to it with bonds of brotherhood and belief, and we shall see our faith rewarded. No darkness can smother all light. A flame, however small, shall always endure. Let it not be extinguished. Believe… and we shall prevail.’

  Across from him, Zytos swung his hammer from off his back and planted it pommel first in front of him, holding on two-handed.

  ‘Brothers,’ he intoned.

  Every Salamander on deck unsheathed his sword if he had one. Racked bolter slides sounded in a cacophony of clacking metal.

  ‘Rendezvous with Mandeville point imminent, shipmaster,’ said Esenzi.

  Adyssian did not reply. He sat hunched upon his throne, chin rested on a clenched fist. His eyes were on Var’kir as he stared into the flame.

  ‘At your order, Lor
d Chaplain,’ he said, as hollow as any man about to lose everything. ‘And may the Emperor protect all our souls.’

  ‘Vulkan lives…’ said Numeon, and heard his words echoed solemnly by each of his brothers in unison.

  ‘Vulkan lives.’

  The fire roared, so loud it almost drowned out Var’kir’s command.

  ‘Now,’ he said.

  And the Charybdis plunged back into the Ruinstorm.

  It happened so suddenly that Quor Gallek almost missed it.

  The Preacher was kneeling at one of the Altars, enrobed and no longer wearing his battleplate. He had come here to gather his strength but also to search. The sliver of fulgurite in his hand burned, and as he allowed it to lie flat upon his searing flesh, he saw it turn like a compass needle.

  He spoke in an awestruck whisper. ‘Miraculous…’

  Quor Gallek knew much of the empyrean tides, but the warp was still an ocean, one that two ships might sail forever and never find one another. But his lodestone had shown him what he needed, better than any humble augur or sensorium.

  He activated the vox.

  ‘Degat, summon your warriors. I believe I have what we seek. A thread that will lead us to them.’

  The Word Bearer’s locator rune placed him in the Monarchia’s apothecarion, but he signalled an affirmative.

  Quor Gallek smiled thinly as he eyed the floating servo-skull that had not left him since their return to the ship several hours ago. All that time he had plied the warp tides, aimlessly seeking. But for the sliver he might have missed the Charybdis.

  He blinked once to engage the hololith. Light coursed from the servo-skull’s eye sockets, bathing Quor Gallek’s genuflecting form and hailing the Reaper’s Shroud at the same time.

  After a few moments, the mouth of the skull clacked open and Laestygon’s image was projected in grainy monochrome.

  ‘Speak, preacher.’

  ‘I have found them.’

  An ugly smile split the Death Guard’s rad-scarred lips, vile even across the hololith.