Vulkan Lives

by Nick Kyme

  Elias felt the distant touch of the Pantheon on this place and knew that whatever secret it held was worth discovering for himself.

  ‘Come,’ he told the other two. As he ascended the ramp back to the surface, Elias looked up at the light coming down through the opening and the raindrops caught in its shaft, sparkling like stars. It reminded him of the constellations in the night sky, and how they were changing.

  ‘Brothers,’ Elias said, ‘I sense there is more to do here than taint the False Emperor’s sacred earth.’ He smiled. ‘A revelation is near.’

  Above the pit into the catacombs, Deriok was waiting. He had four other legionaries with him. The rest of the landing party were at large in the city; two were hunting with Narek, the others were silencing comm-stations, killing any resistance and otherwise keeping the Word Bearers’ presence in Ranos concealed. There were seven more cities, and in addition to Ranos, their populations might be needed too. For most important of all Elias’s acolytes’ duties here was the procurement of sacrifices.

  ‘Eight disciples, one for each of the eight points,’ said Elias, emerging into the light.

  Like the statue in Cardinal Square, these ruins were a monument to the Emperor’s dominance and former presence on this world. The potency of the effigy that the natives had erected was nothing compared to this place, however. That had been easy to taint. The Emperor had unleashed his power upon the old temple that had once stood here, and reduced it to rubble. He had broken the strength trapped in its walls and overthrown it. He had literally touched it with his godhood, and like a fingerprint it remained still. Indelible, enduring.

  Here, in Ranos, did the Emperor’s power manifest and here, in Ranos, at the very site of Imperial victory, would Elias taint that power and corrupt it to the will of the Pantheon. It would take time and patience. Most of all it would take blood. As the first stage of the ritual began, he tried not to be distracted with thoughts of what had been hidden in the catacombs, forcing his mind to the matter in hand, but the mystery of it intrigued him.

  ‘Gather,’ he said to the other seven, the acolytes forming a circle of eight with their master. Ritual daggers glistened in fists of red ceramite. Seized in each zealot’s other hand was a mortal.

  ‘Blood begets blood,’ Elias uttered. He barely saw them as people any more. The men and women at his brothers’ mercy were just a simple means to an end. ‘Let the galaxy drown in it,’ he concluded and slashed the throat of the woman he was holding, spilling her blood to profane the earth.

  They would need more. Much more. But the harvest of Ranos had yielded a plentiful crop. And as he listened to the plaintive cries of the cattle his warriors had herded, Elias smiled and said to Amaresh, ‘Bring forth the others.’

  Varteh’s sense of direction was good, but even the ex-Lucifer Black was struggling to keep his bearings in the warren of Ranos City.

  ‘Are we lost, Varteh?’ Sebaton glanced over his shoulder and saw his worried expression mirrored by the thin-looking man behind him.

  Gollach, the tech-adept, had railed against leaving the servitors behind but Sebaton knew the predators that were hunting them – he suspected Varteh did too – and ended Gollach’s argument at the muzzle of his pistol. The cyborgs would only slow them down. Deployed this way, they might actually prove useful, obfuscating the trail and thus gaining the others vital time on their pursuers.

  ‘Not yet,’ Varteh replied. He battle-signed to the man alongside him. A mercenary – not ex-Army, but as he peeled off into the shadows in response to the ex-Lucifer’s command, he was obviously well versed in a soldier’s argot.

  The other hired gun stayed at the back, behind Gollach. Sebaton knew the mercenaries’ names, but they were as inconsequential as the mud under his feet, now that he had what he’d come for. Even wrapped up in cloth, centuries beneath the earth, it felt warm under his arm and emitted a very faint resonance that slightly pained him. As soon as Sebaton realised that they had been compromised, they had fled. His masters would have to wait to learn of his discovery. So far away, in all respects not merely space, there was nothing they could do to aid him anyway. Besides, he knew what he had to do.

  Duugan, one of Varteh’s men, a lean-muscled pugilist with a handle-bar moustache and neck tattoos, had spotted the hunters. He was good, a sniper by trade, but caught only the barest glimpse of the warriors converging on their position. They moved after that. Quick and fast.

  It was Duugan who had peeled off from the main group, running point and scouting ahead to make sure they weren’t being encircled.

  Trio, so named for the bionics that replaced three of the fingers on his right hand, brought up the rear. He was clean-shaven, and thinner-faced than Duugan, previous profession unknown. He was also the group’s pilot, but then Sebaton had that covered if needed.

  ‘How close, Trio?’ Varteh said into the vox. They’d ditched the rebreathers, Varteh and his men switching them for throat mics and comm-beads. Up here on the surface, they didn’t need the masks. They’d only hamper their senses and ability to communicate. Sebaton had removed his too, but kept it in case it proved useful later.

  ‘Haven’t seen anything in the last eleven minutes, sir. Must’ve slipped them.’

  ‘We haven’t,’ said Sebaton. ‘They are closing on us.’

  Varteh’s grim expression hardly inspired confidence. ‘I know.’

  It wasn’t a sprint, the streets were too crowded and labyrinthine for that, but the sense of urgency made their flight seem faster. Every shadow held the promise of danger, every doorway or tunnel a freshly imagined terror. Even swaying cables and hanging strips of plastek became potential enemies, transformed by fear and the dark.

  Though Sebaton did not necessarily consider himself a brave man, certainly not in the same way as a soldier, he was also not so suspicious that he jumped at shadows, but the quiet, rising tension was testing his fortitude.

  It had nearly broken Gollach.

  The thin, hunchbacked man was fading, unable to keep the pace. He was used to his workshop, comfortable with his machines and the isolation of that existence. In this life, physical exercise had been confined to scripting doctrine-wafers or light mechanical maintenance. A crook in his spine had developed as a result of constantly stooping over some engine or device. A bad decision – or decisions – along the line had thrust him into Varteh’s employ and turned him into a man so desperate that he had no choice but to step beyond the wreckage of his old life to try and build a new one. Clearly he hadn’t envisaged that part of that would involve running for his life in a strange city, on a world he did not know, from an enemy he could not see.

  He kept grabbing his chest, so much so that Sebaton slowed down in case he suddenly expired.

  Don’t be stupid. Just let him fall back, maybe buy some more time… Throne! When did I become this callous?

  All of his life, or rather lives, Sebaton had done what was necessary to survive. He took what he needed from people and discarded the rest. There was remorse at first, some nightmares even, but that all faded in time and he had become aware of a void developing within him, a slow hollowing-out of his soul. Not literally his soul, of course – as such things were real and could happen – but rather a moral degradation which he didn’t know how to reverse. He had become nothing more than a tool, used at someone else’s bidding. No different to a hammer or a wrench, except more subtle and less obvious. Some would describe him as a weapon.

  It was a little late for redemption now, but Sebaton slowed down anyway and urged Gollach to move faster.

  ‘Why are we running?’ Gollach asked, trying to keep his voice from trembling. ‘I thought this was an archaeological dig. Only of interest to scholars, you said. Who could be after us?’

  Sebaton tried to be reassuring. ‘It would not help if I told you. But you have to keep running.’ He looked over to Varteh, who was getting farther ahead and
seemed distracted by his vox.

  ‘How much farther to the ship?’ Sebaton asked, though he knew the answer to that.

  Varteh didn’t answer straight away. Something was distracting him.

  Sebaton grew insistent. ‘Varteh, the ship?’ He was close to abandoning these men and this pretence to strike for the vessel on his own when Varteh answered.

  ‘Can’t reach Duugan on the vox,’ he said.

  ‘Meaning?’ Although Sebaton already knew the answer to that as well.

  ‘Either something is baffling the signal, or he’s dead.’

  ‘Oh fugging hell…’ Gollach murmured, stumbling. Sebaton caught his elbow, and righted him so he didn’t fall.

  Varteh dropped back, less sure of pushing ahead so aggressively now Duugan was off-vox. ‘Those landers you saw in the sky,’ he asked Sebaton. ‘Is this them? Are they looking for that thing too?’ He nodded to the cloth-wrapped bundle under Sebaton’s left arm.

  ‘Not sure.’

  That was a lie, but as he didn’t know who the ones in the landers were or what they wanted, there seemed no point in saying anything further.

  ‘Who are they, Sebaton? Duugan said they were massive, armoured to the gunwales. Are we running from what I think we’re running from?’

  Sebaton didn’t see the point in lying further. These men in his service had earned some truth.

  ‘They’re Legiones Astartes.’

  Varteh ruefully shook his head. ‘Fugging Space Marines? You whoreson. How long have you known?’

  ‘Ever since we arrived, it was a possibility they would follow after us.’

  ‘A possibility? What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  Sebaton was genuinely contrite. ‘I am sorry, Varteh. You don’t deserve this.’

  ‘I should shoot you in the leg right now, leave you and that–’ he gestured to the cloth bundle again, ‘–and make my getaway with Trio and Gollach.’

  ‘It won’t help.’

  ‘It’ll make me feel better, you fugging twist!’ He calmed down, compartmentalising his fear to a place where it couldn’t inhibit his ability to survive. ‘That thing you’re carrying, it’s important isn’t it?’

  Sebaton nodded. ‘More than you know, and more than I could ever tell you.’

  ‘Who are you, Sebaton? I mean really?’

  Sebaton shook his head, his rueful expression saying more about his troubled mind that any words ever could.

  ‘Truthfully, Varteh, I don’t know any more.’

  The ex-Lucifer sucked his teeth, having reached an important decision. He stopped running. Sebaton slowed in turn and the others caught up.

  ‘Time to catch a breath, Gollach,’ he told the man, who seemed both glad and alarmed that they didn’t have to run any more. He sat down.

  ‘Are we safe?’ he asked in a breathless wheeze, glancing nervously over his shoulder.

  ‘We’ve lost them,’ Varteh lied, the truth of what he was really doing showing in his eyes and the slight, almost imperceptible shake of the head to Trio that Gollach would never see. He turned to Sebaton. ‘You go on ahead, switch with Duugan.’

  Sebaton nodded, and felt his admiration and respect for the ex-Lucifer grow, while his own self-loathing redoubled.

  ‘I think the Army misses you greatly.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt that. Just another pair of boots.’

  They didn’t shake hands, nothing so trite as that, but a look passed between them and in it Sebaton found some hope that he could be a better man than he was. Perhaps he could be more than a weapon.

  ‘He’s going?’ asked Gollach, getting agitated again. ‘Where? He’s no soldier. Why is he going? I want to go with him.’ He got to his feet.

  Gollach was exhausted, and would only slow Sebaton down. Like an airship struggling for loft, Sebaton needed to drop some ballast. Only in this case, it was the men he had hired.

  Holding Gollach by the shoulders, Sebaton spoke clearly and calmly.

  ‘Stay here with Varteh. He’ll keep you safe.’

  A sort of blankness came over Gollach’s face and he nodded once before sitting back down.

  Varteh didn’t look surprised. Sebaton knew the ex-Lucifer had suspected that he was a psyker for a while.

  ‘You need to go,’ he said. Trio was already breaking out a pair of heavy calibre cannons from a case he’d been hauling all the way from the dig site. With the exception of the servitors that they had since abandoned, it was about all they did take with them. Sebaton counted three weapons in total. Duugan wouldn’t need his.

  ‘You want one?’ Varteh asked. ‘Might come in handy.’

  It wouldn’t, not against them.

  ‘Keep it. It’ll only slow me down.’

  ‘Is it worth it?’ Varteh asked. ‘What we took from the hole.’

  ‘Worth all of mankind.’

  Sebaton ran.

  Though it was hard to tell from his dour demeanour, Narek relished the hunt. He used to be reconnaissance, a Vigilator, until an injury impeded his scouting abilities and saw him fall behind the others in his unit. He’d given up the squad soon after that, and rejoined the Legion proper as part of Elias’s Chapter.

  It was on Isstvan V that he had been wounded. In command of a stealth unit, sent to sabotage Legion forces loyal to the Emperor before the attack began and their betrayal was revealed, his unit met some enemy Scouts who saw at once what they were doing. They killed the fledgeling Raven Guard, but at the cost of Narek’s entire squad and his left leg. A bolt shell had shattered it. He’d finished placing the charges, crawling over the bodies of his dead comrades to do so, and found his way back from the dropsite before the firestorm began.

  Bionics replaced his bones and his burned-up muscle and flesh, but he wasn’t the same. That battle had left a mark on Narek that went beyond mere injury. It made him morose, prone to angry self-recrimination, even self-doubt, but he served because he was a soldier and that’s what soldiers did – they followed orders.

  Elias needed a huntsman, so Narek took up the post, but never divulged how he really felt about what happened on Isstvan. It sat poorly with him, but he understood its necessity and believed in their cause, perhaps less blindly than some of his brothers.

  Catching prey was the only time when his mind felt occupied enough that none of his other concerns mattered. Everything else faded back to grey when Narek was on the hunt.

  Using the servitors as decoys was smart. The cyborgs went down quickly, without much fight, but the distraction absorbed precious minutes. Narek had let Dagon do it, content to look on before scouring the area for further signs. He sent Haruk on ahead to close the trap he had so artfully set for his prey.

  Narek was looking down on them now as he crouched on a rooftop, obscured by steam venting from ceiling ducts and the shadows of the night. All lights were out in Ranos; the rest of the brothers had seen to that. Only this small act was left to carry out now.

  A three-man hunting party. Were he younger, and without the bionic, Narek would have done it alone. As he was, he needed the others.

  ‘A last stand.’ Dagon was on the opposite rooftop, about twenty metres away. Ranos was heavily industrialised, providing an abundance of hiding places from which the Word Bearers could observe their prey.

  Below them were two armed men, hunkered down in cover, nervously eyeing the dark. A third man sat apart from the others, unarmed, not a fighter.

  ‘Another distraction,’ Narek answered Dagon through the vox. ‘One is missing.’

  ‘Haruk will gut him like the other one he found.’

  Such a bloodthirsty warrior was Dagon, perhaps better suited to the VIII than the XVII. But he killed clean and didn’t linger over his prey like some in the XVII were prone to do. Still, Narek knew he wasn’t wrong. Haruk would have silenced the scout. That left these three sca
lps to him and Dagon.

  ‘Elias wants that one alive. He has something of value to us.’

  ‘Does Haruk know that?’

  ‘He will if he kills him, Elias will make certain of it.’

  ‘Then let’s make this quick and not keep the Dark Apostle waiting.’

  Narek cut the vox-link. He unhitched the sniper rifle slung across his back and brought it up into position. This was a singular weapon. A Brontos-pattern rifle was heavy and difficult to wield, but its heft was backed up with sheer stopping power. It took specially crafted bolt-rounds, with an added impeller in the rifle stock to offset the reduced range with a boost of pneumatic propulsion. A racking handle allowed for manual reload, but that was only useful in an emergency. Narek liked to keep his targets at distance and make use of the weapon’s automatic chambering function.

  Pressing his right eye to the scope, he adjusted the targeter until its crosshairs lined up squarely over the head of the man on the right. The rifle stock was cold against his cheek, and he felt the roughness of the grooves he’d made in it to celebrate each of his long-range kills. There were many.

  Narek muttered an oath, then, waiting three seconds to control his breathing, he fired.

  Sebaton paused when he heard the shot. His breath caught in his chest and he had to make a concerted effort to exhale. He was no stranger to gunfire, but the quietude in the city was so absolute, the avenues and buildings so deserted, that the sudden presence of violent noise alarmed him.

  He’d taken a similar route to the one Varteh had been leading them down, only more circuitous. Deliberate detours had taken him farther off the main streets, embedded him deeper into the warren. Arriving on Traoris from off-world with Varteh and the others, there had been no time to reconnoitre properly. Besides, the mission was supposed to have been relatively simple. Find the relic, leave and catch an atmospheric craft from the nearest space port, heading corewards. This side of the rift it wouldn’t be easy, but it was straightforward. The other ‘task’ made it slightly more complex, but Sebaton was a pragmatist, so first things first. He had studied maps of his location, but it was no substitute for seeing, getting a feel.