by Nick Kyme
A crackling voice answered immediately.
‘Summon Lord Vulkan,’ said Numeon. ‘The Army and Titan legio are ready to march.’
He cut the link, knowing the order was given, so would be carried out.
Below in the desert basin, the Legion waited. A sea of emerald-green, six thousand warriors stood ready to bring a city to its knees. Beyond them, four full regiments of tanks, including super-heavies, a squadron of Infernus-pattern Predators and enough Mastodons to transport every legionary on the ground. Behind the infantry loomed a trio of Warhound Titans from Legio Ignis, nicknamed the ‘Fire Kings’. Traditionally, Warhounds fought alone, but this particular pack was seldom parted.
Khar-tann City was formidable, its armed forces devoted, but it could not outlast this. There was something unsettling about the silence and the way the Khar-tans had given in wholly to alien subjugation.
Numeon snarled, feeling the old familiar call to war. It filled his vox-grille with the reek of ash and cinder from his heavy exhalations. In the end, their resistance mattered not.
‘It’s time to make them burn.’
Vulkan kneeled, head down, inside a cell of obsidian and black metal. What little light penetrated the darkness was from the forge-heat of irons and brands, the warm glow of embers surrounding a pit of coals.
The air was hot, stifling. Seriph was wearing a rebreather, and put questions to the primarch through a vox-coder attached to her belt. It made her otherwise mellifluous voice tinny and marred with static.
‘And so you were raised a blacksmith’s son?’ she asked, wiping away another bead of sweat from her brow, dark patches showing under the arms of her robes and down her back. The remembrancer took a moment to sip from a flask she wore at her hip. Without it, dehydration and acute heatstroke would have occurred in minutes. She wanted longer with the Lord of the Drakes, and if this was the only way then so be it.
‘Is that so hard to believe?’ Vulkan answered as the sound and smell of burning flesh – his flesh – filled the chamber. ‘And he was a blacksmiter and a metal-shaper, a craftsman of consummate skill that I greatly admired.’
A human, augmented to be able to perform his duty and live to do so again, withdrew a burning brand from the primarch’s skin.
‘Noted,’ said Seriph, scratching with her stylus on the data-slate in her other hand. ‘It just seems like a humble origin for a lord of Space Marines.’
The remembrancer was sweltering now, having endured a full twenty-one minutes in the primarch’s chambers, a feat none before her had matched without expiring from the heat.
‘Should I have had a more regal upbringing then?’
The brander picked up a fresh iron, examining the hooked end and imagining the shape of the mark it would make.
‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ said Seriph, wincing as Vulkan’s flesh burned anew, sizzling like meat in a cook-pan. ‘I just assumed all the primarchs came from warlike, vaunted beginnings. Either that or born as orphans on death worlds.’
‘Nocturne is a death world and hardly civilised. But our origins were all very different. I wonder sometimes how we all came back to our father’s service as warriors and generals, but here we stand at the forefront of the Great Crusade doing just that.’
Seriph frowned, then wiped her brow with the sleeve of her robe.
‘What else could you have been?’
‘Tyrants, murderers… architects. It was only fate that made us leaders, and I am still unsure as to how our genetic heritage predisposed us to that calling.’
‘And which would you have been, then?’
Vulkan smiled, though it did little to warm his diabolic voice.
‘A farmer, I think.’
‘You would take your blacksmiter’s anvil and turn a sword into a ploughshare, is that it?’
‘Overly poetic, but yes that’s it.’
Seriph paused. Either she was gasping in the heat or drawing some conclusions.
‘You don’t seem like the others.’
‘And you know my brothers, do you, Remembrancer Seriph?’ There was mild reproach in Vulkan’s tone, just enough to intimidate.
It flustered the remembrancer and she looked on the verge of collapse. ‘No, of course not. I have just heard–’
‘A wise chronicler does not believe all she hears, Seriph.’ For the first time since the interview began, Vulkan raised his head. ‘Tell me,’ he said, his voice deepening, ‘what do you see in my eyes?’
They blazed like the calderas of a volcano.
‘F… fire…’
At last she wilted. Vulkan rushed forwards and caught her so that she didn’t fall.
At the same moment a crack opened in the darkness and Skatar’var stepped through it into the branding chamber.
‘My lord,’ said the Pyre Guard.
Skatar’var was one of two brothers that were now part of the primarch’s inner circle. Like his sibling, he was haughty and proud. A warrior-king of Hesiod, he had learned nobility from his biological father and honed it in the Legion.
The warrior bowed his head a fraction, before realising what he was seeing. ‘Another one unequal to the task?’
A large draconian horn arched from his back, attached to the power generator of his armour. He had ‘won’ the trophy when he had slain Loktaral, one of the deep drakes, and joined his brother at Vulkan’s side. Leodrakk, his hot-tempered younger sibling, bore the other horn. They had killed the beast together.
‘She was strong, and lasted longer than the others. I will speak with her again,’ said Vulkan, cradling the woman and passing her over to Skatar’var like he would an infant to its parent. ‘I assume you come to tell me the Army is ready.’
Skatar’var looked down at the woman like she was a piece of unfamiliar equipment, before answering his primarch. ‘Aye, the Legio Ignis too.’
Vulkan nodded.
‘Very well. Remove her from here and make sure she stays with the medicaes. I have one more oath to take before we can make war on Khar-tann City.’
‘Yes, lord.’
Skatar’var took the woman and his leave.
In the darkness, Vulkan turned back to his brander. The primarch’s onyx-black body was like a muscled slab of granite. Almost every part of his exposed skin was marked. They represented deeds, battles, lives taken and spared. Some even went as far back as Nocturne, before he was reunited with the Outlander. Without exception, Vulkan remembered each and every one in precise detail.
It was ritual, a part of the Promethean creed which was born upon Nocturne many years ago. Method and tradition were important to Vulkan; his teachings to his sons were predicated on these very tenets.
‘So comes the moment, so the brand is burned,’ he said, kneeling as he lowered his head again. ‘Prepare me for war.’
In the shuddering confines of the Mastodon, the hololithic image of Commander Arvek phased in and out of resolution.
‘Once the core wall is breached, we can roll right into Khar-tann and demolish it,’ the Army officer declared, smacking a fist against his open palm for emphasis. Even through the built-in vox-unit, he sounded imperious. He hailed from Vodis, a world of austere military households that could trace their lineage back to the first ancient kings of Terra.
The audio was as bad as the visual, but the commander’s meaning was clear enough.
‘Negative,’ said Vulkan firmly. ‘Breach the wall, then withdraw.’
Arvek tried to mask his surprise. ‘With respect, lord primarch, we can crush them with minimal casualties. I was led to believe–’
Vulkan cut him off. ‘To our ranks, commander, not theirs. There are over fifteen thousand civilians in Khar-tann. I’ve read your collateral damage estimates – they are conservative at best and even that forecast is unacceptable. Make a hole for the Legion, and we will subdue the native soldiery with the minimum
loss of civilian life. Consider that an order.’
Arvek saluted sharply, the medals and laurels on his crisp blue uniform jangling as he moved.
Vulkan nodded to him, and switched the link.
The grainy, semi-monochrome image of the tank commander hazed out and was replaced with that of Princeps Lokja. The Titan officer was festooned with mind impulse cables, linking his cerebral cortex to the violent anima of his war machine. Already deep into the mind-link, his brow was furrowed, his curled black moustaches raised in a snarl of concentration.
‘Lord Vulkan,’ Lokja acknowledged in the cultured accent of Attila.
‘Commander Arvek is going to make a hole in the core wall for the Legion. I need the Fire Kings to shepherd them in. Threat response only, do not engage the city’s soldiery.’
‘Understood,’ said Lokja, a blink relaying the orders to his moderati sitting below him in the Warhound’s cockpit.
The princeps cut the feed and the interior of the rumbling Mastodon went dark.
Their eyes ablaze in the hold, seven Pyre Guard awaited their lord and master’s next words.
‘Soon as the gate is down and Arvek has withdrawn, Fifteenth go in as first recon,’ said Vulkan. ‘We follow swiftly, supported by the rest of the Firedrakes.’
Numeon nodded curtly, turning as he opened up a channel to Nemetor.
Vulkan then added, ‘We will lead the spearhead, fighting in pairs, dispersed formation. Suggestions?’
Varrun stroked his chin, smoothing his ash-grey beard. As the oldest amongst the order, he was often allowed to speak first. ‘One point of ingress, we’ll be attracting a lot of fire.’
‘We’ve taken worse,’ said Leodrakk. His eyes flared with fierce pride. ‘The honour of securing the breach should fall to us, and with the primarch leading us they don’t have nearly enough guns on that wall.’
A chorus of nods and muttered agreement went round the warriors.
‘I’d recommend storm shields in the first breach team,’ said Ganne, nodding to Igataron, who sat unmoving at the edge of the group. Both were assault specialists: the former outwardly pugnacious, the latter silent, but ferociously aggressive.
Varrun chuckled. ‘I thought the objective was to minimise civilian casualties.’
Ganne’s slab jaw tightened as he sent a crackle of energy down the haft of his thunder hammer, but he didn’t bite.
‘Skatar’var and I will go in as second wave,’ suggested Leodrakk, ignoring his bantering brothers.
‘Side by side, brother,’ said Skatar’var and the two locked gauntlets, hand to forearm.
‘That leaves you and I,’ Atanarius said to Varrun.
‘Hold the breach, leave it clear for the Legion,’ said Varrun. ‘We’ll keep the gate open for the Drakes.’
Ganne bared his teeth, ‘Rearguard obviously plays to your strengths, Varrun.’
Varrun bared his teeth back.
Inwardly, Vulkan smiled. They were hungry, ready for war. Pyre Guard were not like other Salamanders; they had more fire, more fury. Like the volcanoes of ancient Nocturne, the great jagged chains of the Dragonspike and Mount Deathfire, they were perpetually on the brink of eruption. Even the Pyroclasts weren’t as volatile.
Pyre Guard were chosen warriors, those that displayed a level of self-sacrifice and self-sufficiency that exceeded all others. Like the saburai of old Nihon, they were fighters foremost, who could ally as a unit or function expertly on their own. They were also leaders, and each of the Pyre Guard commanded a Chapter of the Legion in addition to their duties as the primarch’s inner circle warriors. All were Terran-born but still displayed the physical traits of onyx-black skin and red eyes, an irreversible reaction to the unique radiation of Nocturne combined with the genetic heritage of their primarch, which every Salamander, regardless of origin, possessed.
‘Skatar’var,’ said Vulkan. ‘How is Seriph?’
‘The remembrancer?’ he asked, initially wrong-footed by the request. ‘She lives.’
‘Good,’ said Vulkan. He addressed them all. ‘You are my finest drakes, my most trusted advisors. Our father fashioned us as crusaders, to bring fire and light to the darkest reaches of the galaxy. Our task is to protect mankind, shield humanity. It’s important that the Remembrancer Order sees this. Our appearance is…’
‘Monstrous, my lord,’ ventured Leodrakk, eyes blazing through his helm lenses.
Vulkan nodded. ‘We come to Kharaatan as liberators, not conquerors. We cannot forge civilisations out of rubble, out of sundered flesh and bone.’
‘And our cousins, will they hold to that also?’ a voice asked from the shadows.
All eyes turned to Igataron, whose gaze was fixed on the primarch.
‘If they do not,’ Vulkan promised, ‘my brother and I will have words.’
Numeon ended his vox exchange with Captain Nemetor. ‘Fifteenth are advancing,’ he announced, as he turned back to face his brothers.
Vulkan nodded. ‘Commander Arvek will be making contact in less than a minute. Helms on, prepare for immediate embarkation. When the ramp opens we will be ready to advance.’
In clanking unison the Pyre Guard obeyed.
Igataron and Ganne moved to the front, shields up, as Leodrakk and Skatar’var unhitched their power mauls and went in just behind them. Vulkan was next, Numeon at his side clutching the staff of his halberd. Varrun and Atanarius were last; the former holding his power axe high up the short haft near its double-edged blade, the latter unsheathing a power sword to kiss the naked blade.
All seven warriors carried bolters. Save for Varrun, who was an exceptional marksman, they seldom used them. Every one of their weapons was forged by its bearer, every one could spit fire like the drakes of old.
‘Eye-to-eye,’ snarled Numeon, reciting the Pyre Guard’s war mantra.
‘Tooth-to-tooth,’ the rest replied, including Vulkan.
Now they were forged and ready.
The hololith transmitter crackled into life, displaying a head and torso rendering of Commander Arvek.
‘You have your breach, my Lord Primarch. Withdrawing now.’
Through his retinal lenses, Vulkan saw Arvek’s tank formations pushing away from Khar-tann’s core wall. Each engine was rendered as an icon – the display was awash with their signatures. Behind them came the Rhino armoured transports of the 15th and behind that were the Mastodons.
‘Any losses?’ asked Vulkan.
‘None. We met zero resistance. Even when we closed to fifty metres they did not fire on us.’
A tremor of unease entered Vulkan’s mind, but he concealed it at once.
‘Relay to Captain Nemetor,’ he said to Numeon through the vox-feed as he cut the link to Arvek.
‘Something wrong, my lord?’ asked Numeon.
‘I expected some form of counter-attack.’
‘Perhaps they’ve decided to capitulate after all,’ suggested Atanarius.
‘Then why not open the gates?’ countered Varrun.
‘A trap?’ growled Leodrakk, prompting a nod of agreement from his sibling Skatar’var.
Vulkan’s mood darkened, his unease evident in his silence.
Either way, once Nemetor was inside the core wall they would find out.
Captain Nemetor had already removed his war-helm as he met Vulkan at the breach point in the core wall. The broad-shouldered warrior looked uneasy, and a fine sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead.
All lights inside the city were doused; roads, battlements and interior buildings snuffed out by darkness. The only source of illumination came from scattered fires left by the earlier bombardment, but even in this gloom evidence of Commander Arvek’s armoured assault could be seen everywhere.
Bodies of the Khar-tann soldiery were twisted amidst the rubble of the shattered core wall, which had collapsed in on itse
lf from the severe shelling. Several watch towers had fallen into the city itself, lying broken in heaps of rockcrete and plasteel. Corpses lingered here too, already polluting the air around them with the stench of putrefaction. The entire city was rank with it, and stank of death.
Beyond the core wall and the flattened gate, burst inwards by a demolisher shell, there was a long esplanade. From the positions of exploded sandbags and mangled tank traps, Vulkan imagined the Khar-tans might have been staging a second defence line here. In several places he noticed the burned-out shells of pillboxes designed to create choke points and funnel an invading enemy into a kill zone. Punctuating the line of pillboxes were much larger bunkers, solid-form and permanent additions to the city’s defences. Smoke still drooled from the vision slits of some of the bunkers, telltale evidence of a rapid and aggressive clearance.
Of the inhabitants of Khar-tann, there was no sign.
‘Do you see that?’ asked Numeon, nodding to where the primarch had been looking.
‘Yes.’ Vulkan’s earlier sense of unease grew further.
‘A tank bombardment doesn’t do that. It flattens bunkers, it doesn’t cleanse and burn them. A strike team has already been here.’
Vulkan took in the scene of carnage, tried to look beyond the obvious wreckage and mortal destruction. Past the esplanade, the concentration of buildings thickened from initially military to civilian. He saw warehouses, manufactorums, vendors, commercia… homes. Through a gap in the narrow city streets he caught a glimpse of something swinging gently in the breeze.
Nemetor saluted as Vulkan reached him, the sharp clank of his fist striking his left breast enough to get the primarch’s attention. Behind him, the Pyre Guard were spreading out. Strict orders had been given that the rest of the Legion should stand down and wait outside.
‘Captain,’ said Vulkan.
Nemetor was shaken, though it was hard to tell from what. ‘You need to see this, my lord.’
Vulkan spoke over his shoulder to Numeon. The Pyre Guard were to secure the area immediately beyond the breach but advance no farther. Then he nodded to Nemetor, and the captain led them both on.
At the heart of Khar-tann City they found the bulk of the dead. Soldiers in barrack houses, gutted and flensed; pyres of still-burning bodies, impossible to identify from their charred remains, filling the air with greasy smoke; city officials impaled on spikes; civilians hanging by their necks, swinging to and fro in the breeze.
