The answer came reluctantly. “Mortarion has levelled the node, though I question what is left for humanity to colonise. I fear he has turned the ice fields into a tainted waste and damaged much of the continent’s geology into the bargain.”
A crackle of interference marred the image for a moment. Distant explosions rippled behind Ferrus, but he paid them no heed.
“The jungle region borders the edge of the desert. I can divert some of my divisions to provide reinforcement, brother,” offered Vulkan when the hololith was restored again.
Ferrus’ crag-like coldness expressed exactly what he thought of that suggestion.
“Unnecessary.”
“Then your victory will be close at hand.” Vulkan tried not to make his tone consoling. That would only enrage his brother.
“The desert continent is vast, but it willyield to me.” Behind him, bolter fire chorused amongst the low crumpof explosions that were growing increasingly less distant. Ferrus turned his ear a fraction. “We are engaging again. Consolidate your forces in the jungle and await further orders.”
The hololith blanked out with the severance of connection.
“Pride, not flesh, is weak,” returned Numeon with a resigned shake of the head.
Vulkan’s eyes were downcast, and he muttered, “You wouldn’t understand.”
Their father had sought to make them perfect, much more than human in every sense. Vulkan and his brothers eclipsed their Legionary sons with their greater strength, skill and intellect, but they also possessed very human flaws. To be one amongst so many sons made it difficult to attain a father’s love and validation. Pride, in one form or another, drove them all in its way. It created fraternal rivalry, too, and Vulkan wondered if it would ever become more than that.
“Lord?”
Numeon’s voice brought him back.
Across the battlefield, a Salamander was approaching. A sheathed chainsword sat on his back, and his gait betrayed some injuries. He bowed before his primarch, having already removed his battle-helm.
Salamanders meet eye-to-eye.
“Rise, Salamander.”
The warrior obeyed, standing and saluting against his plastron.
“Captain Heka’tan,” Vulkan asserted, looking down at the warrior, “of the 14th Fire-born. You are tempered, my son.”
Heka’tan’s armour was scorched and battered from battle. He’d also lost his sidearm and was favouring his left leg. His left eye was swollen and there were several deep gashes upon his forehead. The suggestion of an honour scar on his thick neck was visible just above the upper rim of his gorget.
“The anvil was indeed testing, my lord.” He bowed his head again.
“You’ve no need to be so humble. You are a captain and have shed blood for your Legion this day. We are victorious.”
Heka’tan didn’t look so sure.
Vulkan’s eyes narrowed. “You have something to tell me, Captain Heka’tan?”
“I do, my lord. We have found the Army scouts that located the node.”
Since the coordinates had been broadcast to the rest of the Imperial forces all contact had been lost with the advance reconnaissance sections.
Sensing the captain’s fatalism, Vulkan became solemn. “And they are dead.”
“Not all of them, primarch.” Heka’tan’s fiery gaze could not hide his apprehension. “There was a sole survivor, a non-combatant.”
“A remembrancer?”
“So I understand, my lord.”
“And is he unharmed?” It was almost as if Vulkan already knew the answer by the expression on Heka’tan’s face.
“Miraculously so.”
Vulkan broke eye contact to look into the distance where the pursuing Imperial forces were harrying the enemy deeper into the jungle. He purposely averted his gaze from the growing piles of dead natives. “Where is this survivor now?”
Heka’tan paused. “There is more.”
Looking back down, Vulkan’s blazing eyes were questioning.
“He says there is another node, much bigger and more powerful than the one you destroyed.”
A muscle spasm in Vulkan’s cheek gave the only hint of his displeasure.
“Take me to him at once.”
THE REMEMBRANCER CUT an unassuming figure. Dressed in plain robes of an obscure Terran style, the survivor sat on the ground with his eyes open and alert. It was only the fact he was surrounded by the bodies of the Army scout division sent to locate the node that made his presence in the jungle incongruous.
“You are the primarch of the Salamanders Legion?” he asked.
“I am.” Vulkan approached slowly, bidding his Pyre Guard to wait outside the circle of the dead Army scouts.
It was an order that displeased Numeon and the others, but they obeyed nonetheless.
Vulkan looked around at the massacre. From the position of the bodies and how they’d fallen, it appeared the scouts had made a last stand. His shifted his gaze to peer deeper into the jungle.
“You were followed?”
“From the site of the fourth obelisk, yes.”
“And you got as far as this point before the eldar caught you.”
“Precisely.”
When Vulkan looked back at the man, who seemed wise but somehow youthful at the same time, his eyes were penetrating.
“How is it they all died and you alone lived?”
“I hid.”
Vulkan stared at him, trying to ascertain if what the remembrancer was saying was the truth.
The man seemed content to sit amongst the dead and hadn’t yet moved.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I am still deciding,” Vulkan answered honestly. He stepped towards him.
Numeon’s armour shifted before he warned, “Primarch…”
Vulkan held up his hand to cool his equerry’s anxiety. The remembrancer’s gaze flicked over to the Pyre Guard and back again.
“I don’t think your bodyguards like me.”
Vulkan was standing before him and looked down on the man. “They just don’t trust you.”
“That’s a pity.”
“What is your name, remembrancer?”
“Verace.”
“Then come with me, Verace, and tell me all you know about this obelisk.”
Vulkan turned and as he was leaving the site of the massacre he passed by Numeon.
The primarch kept his voice low. “Watch him closely.”
Verace got to his feet and smoothed down his robes.
Numeon glared at him, and nodded.
There was something… strangeabout this Verace, but Vulkan wasn’t threatened by him. After all, what threat could a flesh and blood human pose to a primarch? But as he was walking back to the Stormbird, Vulkan was reminded of a time when he’d met another stranger, one he’d known as the Outlander…
VULKAN KNEW HIS grip was failing. Even with his prodigious strength, he knew he couldn’t hold on to the edge of the cliff with one hand and still cling to the drake hide with the other indefinitely.
It had been a magnificent beast of vermillion scale, thick and gnarled like overlapping shields. The firedrake’s ribbed belly was taut with muscle, its jaws wide and powerful. The grumbling mountain had summoned it and the drake had answered, emerging from its lowest deeps.
The spear Vulkan had forged to kill it was lost to the lava chasm below him. Hours of crafting had been undone in an instant when the mountain’s blood reclaimed the weapon; just as his life would be undone should he slip.
The sun baked his naked back but the heat of it was ebbing. Steam and smoke clouded Vulkan’s eyes, filled his nose with sulphur and ash. Hours had passed since the volcano had erupted and tossed him over the edge. Only his superlative reflexes and strength had saved him, or forestalled his death at least.
Even Vulkan, champion of Hesiod and slayer of dusk-wraiths, could be destroyed by lava.