Born of Flame

by Nick Kyme

  ‘Hold,’ he warned, aware that he held his crozius in one hand and staunched the wound in his abdomen with the other.

  Zandu drew his gladius. It was almost mechanistic, the way he moved, with a coldness that looked alien in a son of Vulkan.

  Zau’ull fed a surge of energy through the crozius that crackled along its length. ‘You forget yourself, brother. But I will kill you if you step any further.’

  Zandu kept going.

  A few feet away from him and Zau’ull saw the bionics. Part of Zandu’s wrist, one side of his neck. The armour hid the rest.

  ‘You should be dead, brother,’ he murmured, and saw Varr in the background, alone and reaching for the ruin of his flamer. Zandu lunged, carving a furrow in Zau’ull’s shoulder and tearing up the joint between it and the torso. Blood gushed from the wound, slicking Zandu’s sword but the blow left him exposed to Zau’ull’s counter, which struck his plastron and cracked it open.

  Zandu staggered, not in pain, if his face was any way to judge, but simply from impact. His chestplate had split, exposing burned and ragged mesh. The flesh beneath had been replaced with metal.

  Zau’ull struck again, a laboured and half-parried swing that caved Zandu’s left pauldron before he threw the Chaplain aside.

  Bones cracked as Zau’ull hit the wall, dropping his crozius. He slumped, his body failing him as he realised he had been stabbed again. He reached for his fallen crozius but his fingers touched the casket mag-locked to his leg instead as Zandu’s shadow fell across him.

  His hand closing around the casket, Zau’ull knew it would be too late, but before the death blow fell an explosion lit up the dock, erupting into conflagration. The blast threw Zandu against the vault.

  Heat prickled the side of Zau’ull’s face and a tremor ran through his armour that sent daggers of agony into his raw wounds. He turned, staring into the haze.

  Varr lay on his back, burning. The Raven Guard burned too, his armour blasted by Varr’s improvised incendiary but holding.

  He was laughing, the Drake, and as he died in flames, declared, ‘Behold! Behold the burning man!’

  Zandu stopped. He had recovered his feet and his gladius scraped the edge of Zau’ull’s gorget… Zandu saw the flame. He saw the burning man. The fire had not reached as far as the Armarium but as the flames flickered in his glassy eyes, Zau’ull saw a brief moment of recognition.

  Giving a tortured shout, Zandu flung himself at Morikan. Still ablaze, the Silent turned and thrust his sword all the way through Zandu’s body until it came out of his back. Thick smoke enveloped them as the fire took hold of both, as two darkened silhouettes of legionaries grappled for supremacy.

  Zau’ull broke apart the casket and took out the artefact that had been within.

  It resembled a highly ornate stave with a clawed draconic ferule and a drake-skull head, which hid a small emitter in its maw. Energy discharge akin to a disruption field thrummed through its haft from some concomitant power source. It looked ancient, though the design was unmistakably Vulkan’s.

  Zau’ull grasped it in both hands, for it was a little longer than a gladius and his strength was failing. Zandu had his hands around the Raven Guard’s throat, slowing crushing it, but had sunk to his knees, his armour burning down to bare metal, his blood hissing wildly in the flames. Morikan fought frenziedly, having let go of his sword and now stabbing into Zandu’s flank with a shorter blade.

  As the horrendous wounding took its toll, Zandu’s grip loosened, enabling the Raven Guard to free himself. He staggered to his feet, burning brightly and dropping the short blade so he could yank out the falchion from Zandu’s chest and end the fight.

  When his eyes met Zau’ull’s and he saw the weapon the Chaplain wielded, Morikan knew it was over.

  ‘Nothing more…’ he rasped, the first words he had uttered since Isstvan and the last words he would ever speak.

  A beam of crimson energy shrieked from the maw of the stave, a song of deep drakes mourning the sundering of the world. Morikan’s already misshapen armour buckled and fragmented before it, cracking and breaking away, first into slivers, then flakes and finally dust. Then came flesh and bone, as centuries of entropy were visited upon him in seconds. The maw widened and so too the beam. It had cored through Morikan’s chest and now it bled across his entire body. Zau’ull clung on, the stave shaking in his grasp as he fought its volatile spirit.

  The Raven was no more; only a shadow lingered where once there had been a legionary and so he returned from whence he came.

  With great effort, Zau’ull deactivated the stave, understanding now the burden it represented and the reason it must be kept safe. As he sagged back against the wall, the edges of his vision crowded with blackness and he saw Zandu bloodied but at peace and Varr, a rictus grin forever seared upon his dead face.

  Before oblivion took him, Zau’ull’s gorget vox crackled to life.

  ‘Firefather…’

  It was Obek. His words were urgent, warning about Morikan and filled with determination. Zau’ull let him speak for he had not the strength to interrupt. Instead, when Obek was done and had made his oaths to return with all haste to the Chalice of Fire, Zau’ull gave a shuddering breath and just before he passed out, he uttered, ‘Our legacy is safe…’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Immortals

  T’kell looked upon the frozen legionaries and despaired.

  ‘This is an abomination,’ he said, both to himself and to Gallikus, his breath pluming in the chilling expanse of the cryostasis chamber.

  After he had woken, and once Gallikus had told him all that had happened during his suspended animation, T’kell had learned of the vault and the reign of Kastigan Ulok. He knew the Iron Fathers, and had trusted comrades within their ranks. He respected their skill and dedication to the Omnissiah, but what he saw in the so-called ‘mausoleum’ was aberrant in the extreme and a dangerous deviation from the machine creed of Mars.

  ‘I have seen first hand what lies in the abyss of proscribed mechanistic endeavour.’ He touched his ragged scalp and the metallic part of his cranium blackened by plasma burn. ‘I turned a weapon on myself when I felt my free will slip from my grasp. I purged the ills of malicious code in my system, but this… how can this be purged? How is this any different to what became of me?’

  ‘It cannot be allowed to endure,’ said Gallikus, his voice solemn.

  T’kell turned on him sharply. ‘And yet you have let it.’

  The Iron Hands legionary’s gaze fell upon one cryo-casket in particular. ‘To my shame.’

  Saurian had stayed behind to minister to the wounded in the apothecarion and prepare them for transport back to the Chalice of Fire. Ulok would soon return, his cohorts with him and possibly even the Raven. The madness had to end, and it would cease only one way.

  ‘You could have destroyed it,’ said T’kell, once again gazing upon the ranks of slumbering warriors.

  ‘You think I did not consider it,’ answered Gallikus, chagrined, ‘but to breach the armourglass, to even crack it… An incendiary that powerful,’ he shook his head, ‘it would endanger the ship, and I will not raise arms against Ulok. He is wrong but he is still my Iron Father. I won’t betray him further than I must. It has to be done from within by one of your kind.’

  ‘A Drake?’

  ‘A Techmarine. I have not the skill,’ admitted Gallikus. He took a knee, head bowed as he leaned upon his shield like a knight of old Terra. ‘Allow my brothers this final dignity, Forgefather. They have served the Throne well beyond their due.’

  T’kell nodded, for he could do nothing else but accede to the Iron Hands legionary’s request, and Gallikus arose again.

  The ship vox crackled overhead. It was the Apothecary, Saurian.

  His words were brief, but fell heavy upon Gallikus as he listened in silence.

  ‘Iron-brother… he is back.’

  Gallikus’ face was grim as he cut the vox-feed.

  ‘Stay here, Forgefather,
’ he said, hefting his breacher shield, ‘and bring my brothers peace at last.’ He looked as if he were headed for the gallows, but T’kell now realised he faced a darker fate than even that. Now the Iron Father had returned, Gallikus would have to face him.

  ‘I need time to deactivate the machine,’ he told the Iron Hands legionary.

  ‘I shall give you every second my will can afford you.’

  He saluted T’kell and donned his war-helm.

  ‘Immortals no more,’ he muttered softly, casting a final glance at the same cryo-casket before he left the chamber behind.

  An infernal heart lay somewhere amidst this place; T’kell could feel the steady pulse of its machine anima and like a Thunder Warrior of old about to raze a temple to forbidden gods, he strode purposefully towards it.

  Gallikus met Saurian on his way back from the launch bay.

  ‘Is it done?’ he asked.

  The Salamanders legionary nodded. ‘Released via saviour pod. Every one of them.’ He was armed, a chainaxe and a hand flamer.

  ‘Are you going to war, drake-brother?’

  ‘Yes, iron-brother. Alongside you.’

  ‘Ulok won’t be alone. The Revenants will protect him.’

  ‘Yes, I expect they will.’

  ‘And we will likely die.’

  ‘Then at least I shall die alongside my brother.’

  Gallikus nodded, and the two clasped forearms in the warrior’s way before breaking apart again.

  ‘I will meet him outside the embarkation deck conduit. It’s narrow. I can hold him there a while.’

  Saurian donned his helm, a savage piece he seldom wore any more which had a draconic aspect. ‘It felt right once,’ he said, through the fanged respirator grille. ‘A purpose to cling to.’

  ‘It has run its course, brother. Now you and I must end it.’

  ‘To see my Legion again, if not whole, but surviving. I am glad of that.’

  Gallikus gave no reply. He could claim no such closure. He hefted his shield, turned and headed for the embarkation deck conduit.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A final reckoning

  Obek ran all the way from the Chalice of Fire’s teleportarium to the secure dock where he knew Zau’ull would be. Only a matter of two decks, it still felt like an age.

  He found the Chaplain amidst smoke and still-burning bodies, slumped against the wall. A battle had been fought around the Armarium, a costly one. The dead lay strewn about, all of them Salamanders. Krask and his warriors waited at the entrance, their guard still up.

  ‘Firefather…’ uttered Obek.

  As he rushed over to Zau’ull, Obek could discern no life signs from him and began to fear the worst. Blood caked the Chaplain’s black armour and half of his face had been seared by the heat of the now dying flames.

  Obek had seen Zandu, Varr and the last of Varr’s squad on the way in, and knew they were all dead. He could not find their killer, though, the Silent Morikan.

  Zau’ull’s eyes opened a crack and Obek exhaled his relief.

  ‘The Raven, is he here?’ Obek had one hand on his sidearm, but Zau’ull shook his head.

  It was only then that Obek noticed the drake-head stave still clutched in the Chaplain’s grasp.

  ‘Is that…?’ he asked, crouching over the Chaplain to check his vitals.

  ‘I am sorry… brother-captain,’ said Zau’ull, his voice ragged and failing, ‘but I found my faith again. I see Vulkan… not in the flames…’ he reached up and held the side of Obek’s face, ‘but in you.’ His eyes, now flickering open and shut, went to Krask who stood solemnly nearby and then to Xen, who looked on stoically. ‘In all of us.’

  ‘Don’t speak,’ Obek told him. ‘The Apothecary, he may yet help us.’

  Struggling to breathe as his lungs collapsed, Zau’ull shook his head sadly and smiled.

  ‘Our fate was never… to survive.’

  His hand fell from Obek’s face, and then he was still.

  Head bowed, Obek reached up and shut the Chaplain’s eyes. Such a cost, he could never have imagined how severe when they had all sworn their allegiance to the mission in the Igneous Vault back on Prometheus.

  ‘Firebearer,’ ventured Krask after a few moments of silence. His warriors stood behind him, respectfully observant. ‘What now?’

  Obek secured the drake-stave to his own armour; he would return the artefact to the Armarium later, but for now… ‘T’kell is still aboard that ship. We damn well get him back.’

  ‘The embarkation decks are in ruins, and I doubt the Obstinate’s teleportarium will receive us.’

  Krask was right, but Obek had another method of incursion in mind. He raised the shipmaster on his vox.

  ‘Master Reyne.’

  ‘Aye, my lord,’ came the voice of the old wayfarer across the feed. Renye was of Nocturne and all his years in the Navy could not drum his thick tribal accent from him. ‘What is your bidding?’

  ‘Bring the Chalice in close to the Obstinate, within direct boarding action distance.’

  Reyne cleared his throat, suddenly anxious. ‘That close. Their weapons, they will tear us open, lord.’

  Obek smiled grimly. ‘Ulok won’t fire on us. He still believes he has the upper hand and wants what’s on this ship. Bring us close, just short of ramming them.’

  Reyne gave a wary affirmative but went about his duty. In moments the boosted plasma engines of the Chalice of Fire could be felt thrumming through the lower decks.

  ‘We’ll cross the void in our power armour, through the tear in the hull,’ Obek declared to the others.

  No one gainsaid him.

  Krask grinned ferally. ‘Eye to eye,’ he said.

  ‘As near as Reyne dares,’ Obek confirmed, and was heading from the secure dock, intent on the mission, when he found Xen in his path.

  ‘You are wounded, brother-captain. I can see it in the way you move… or don’t move.’

  ‘So are you, Vexillary.’

  Xen sharply drew both swords. Ignus and Drakos were either side of Obek’s neck before he had a hand on his blade’s hilt.

  ‘Not as badly as you. Besides,’ he said, politely sheathing his swords, ‘someone must remain behind if this fails. If T’kell does not return, you are custodian of the artefacts.’ And he looked down reverently at the drake-headed stave, a sense of wonderment in his eyes. ‘We should not abandon our mission.’

  ‘And here I was believing you in search of glory again,’ Obek replied, wryly.

  Xen smiled, ‘Who says I am not?’

  ‘I for one,’ said Obek, and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Bring back our Forgefather,’ he told him.

  ‘Vulkan lives,’ said Xen, as he, Krask and the Terminators moved out.

  ‘Vulkan lives,’ Obek replied as he watched them go.

  The blast doors parted, emitting clouds of white gas and the flashing spectrum of the Obstinate’s embarkation deck’s warning lamps. Through them stepped Ulok, who looked incredulously at the Immortal standing fifty feet away at the end of the access conduit. The lumens were dimmed and the Iron Father’s bionic eye shone almost malevolently in the darkness.

  Only when Ahrem Gallikus raised his power maul in salute did Ulok realise what was actually happening.

  Ulok’s face fell, as stern and cold as the metal that had colonised his body.

  ‘Flesh is weak,’ he said, disappointed, and ordered the Revenants to attack.

  The engine at the heart of the cryostasis vault was beyond byzantine. Constructed around a hexagonal core as large as a Contemptor, its cables and pipes extended throughout the hectare-sized chamber to feed every casket. Embedded deep and shrouded in cryogenic mist, it could not be seen from the threshold. Up close it took on a sinister aspect, like a metallic leviathan, its tentacles stretching off into the gloom.

  The sheer ranks of frozen legionaries standing in rows was staggering. Though the mist from the cryo-freezing process obscured much, it was obvious to T’kell that there must be hu
ndreds, possibly more. An army, linked by tubes and pipes, their faces locked behind panes of ice. It was cold, and it was metal throughout, a laboratory and not a barracks. A keen mind, but one afflicted by hubris and driven by obsession had created this place. In its raising, T’kell saw everything his Martian masters had warned him about. He saw madness.

  Vulkan had taught his sons many things: metal forging, self-sacrifice and nobility. He had wrenched himself from the very brink of self-annihilation. He had also espoused his theology of the Circle of Fire, and though the primarch was now gone, it was this belief that brought hope to many and which T’kell now saw had been thoughtlessly subverted by Iron Father Ulok.

  ‘That which ends, ends, and so returns to the earth,’ he intoned, using his plasma cutter to shear open the outer housing of the engine. It took a few minutes, for its carapace was thick, but once through T’kell found the inload ports where he would gain access to the leviathan’s core.

  ‘To be born again in the Circle of Fire,’ he said, releasing his haptic mechadendrites. ‘To be renewed.’

  This was not renewal or rebirth; it was stagnation, a cruel and slow decay to oblivion. He could think of no worse fate.

  Bracing himself, T’kell used his mechadendrites to interface with the machine. Lancing pain filled his body at the moment of connection, demonstrating how weak he still was. Ulok had prepared defences to his beloved, horrific creation. Paranoid as he obviously was, he had considered another Techmarine or even an adept of the Mechanicum might attempt to destroy the leviathan from within.

  Ostensibly it was servos, circuits, processors, but what lay beyond those cold engineered components was something darker. As T’kell engaged with the machine, he encountered complex neuromorphic subroutines embedded within the leviathan’s standard operating protocols, placed there to resist his efforts to incite a catastrophic shutdown. An almost abominable intelligence possessed the machine, intent on the foreign invader’s expulsion and destruction.