Hammer and Bolter 14 Read online

  ‘The shaman will find their trail, though,’ he added sternly. ‘The earth never lies.’

  On Nocturne, the earth and its people were one. She was a cruel mother, the world of fire, capable of terrible destruction and death uncountable. During the Time of Trial, she would crack and tear, spill her blood and weep tears of lava that threatened to consume the land and the very people scratching an existence on her rocky flesh. The earth gave as it took, however. It was part of the great cycle of birth, death and rebirth. She would take you back, the fire-mother, volatile Nocturne, take you back into her heart and her bosom. Life ended in fire; so too was it begun.

  Resurrection was merely an aspect of tribal culture, of Promethean Creed. Nothing that ever came to live and die on Nocturne was ever truly gone. It was simply changed, reborn into something else.

  Am I ‘else’, am I reborn into this unfamiliar flesh? My bones were like iron, my skin as strong as steel. I was invulnerable. And now… now… just the burning.

  The shaman’s bond with the earth was great, certainly stronger than any in the modest war party. Ash flakes, smouldering craters, the very grains of the earth spoke to him in a voice only he could understand.

  Dak’ir had ridden with them, a long file of tribal warriors mounted on the backs of sauroch.

  Scaled, bull-like creatures, the sauroch were known neither for speed nor ferocity. But they were strong and tenacious, their hides thick and capable of bearing great burdens over long distances. Ash nomads, the transient tribes who shunned the Sanctuaries, travelled the Scorian Desert on their broad backs.

  I have soared through the skies on wings of thunder…

  In the blood red of Helldawn, dactylids circled. The winged lizards, combined with the whispers of the earth, had brought the shaman to a rust-red ridge veined with iron-grey. Slowly, the saurochs had followed him and there at a rocky summit the hue of old blood, they found the rest of the dusk-wraiths. Shrieking, screaming, laughing that hollow sound from throats of dust; it was a cacophony. A heavy and oppressive shroud laid upon them all, the sauroch riders.

  Dak’ir could not remember the journey, though he did recall the drygnirr watching from the darkness of caves or the peaks of volcanic hills. It shadowed him, neither guide nor predator, merely an observer only he could see. It was as if the creature’s eyes could burn right into his soul and strip away the innermost secrets of his mind.

  A scryer, psyker… I know you, brother. Your gaze… it burns. I burn.

  ‘We attack from three sides,’ N’bel was outlining his plan to the others. He’d dismounted and carved a crude map of the camp with a stick in the dirt, less than twenty warriors gathered around him. He beckoned Dak’ir closer into the circle.

  ‘Brother?’ The concern etched N’bel’s face as clearly as his honour scars.

  I wear them too, burned into my flesh. They are a record of my deeds.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Dak’ir nodded for him to continue.

  N’bel gave him one last look, before he went on. ‘Three prongs,’ – he made a trident from his fingers – ‘two from the east and west as a diversion. A third, much smaller, party will enter from the north where we are now.’

  Dak’ir’s gaze strayed to the deep valley below the ridge as he imagined the route N’bel had inscribed with his stick. The path was strewn with crags and sulphur pits. The cinder and ash blown from the nearby caldera of slumbering volcanoes would render the ground red-hot underfoot.

  I have walked across fire. I have felt it beat inside my breast. With it I shall… The rest of the litany is lost to me. The burning… it clouds my mind and thoughts.

  At the nadir of the valley was a camp of wire and blades. Sharp structures, little more than metal pavilion tents like spikes, carried markings in a strange script. Even the alien letters were edged, as if merely speaking them could cleave your tongue. More skimmer-machines, like the one lying broken on the ash plains, hovered languidly nearby. Some were tethered to bloodied staves of iron; others roamed the perimeter for the entertainment of their riders. Distant figures fled before those machines, pursued by a savage pack.

  One, a dark-skinned Nocturnean limping badly, was skewered by a dusk-wraith’s spear and Dak’ir averted his gaze. The riders screamed mockingly in tune with their victims, parodying their agony.

  It was a slave camp this place and, judging by the sheer number of metal tents dotting the ground below, the flesh-tally was high. Dak’ir counted fifteen of the ‘tents’. No telling how many were clustered in those metal cages. A larger one at the centre of the camp drew his eye.

  N’bel meant to free his people. The skimmer-machine ambushed on the ash plain had been drawn into a trap so they could follow its trail along the earth and find this graven place. He and Dak’ir had been the bait, the wound upon his face…

  The burning.

  …was the price of such bravery.

  Dak’ir knew this, despite his fragmented memory, the sense of otherness, not just about this place, but also this time.

  ‘Dak’ir…’

  He turned and caught a flash of lightning on the sun. It was a sword, its blade serrated and gleaming.

  I know this blade… No. I know of one much like it. Its chained teeth sing a symphony of death.

  ‘You lost it on the ash plain. A warrior is only as good as his weapon, brother.’

  You sound like someone I knew, someone I fought with a long time ago… or will a long time from now.

  Dak’ir nodded and looked down into the valley. The slavers’ depraved revels were painting the earth a deep, visceral red. The heavy scent of fresh copper tainted the sulphur breeze.

  ‘With whom do I ride, N’bel?’

  That was better. I sound something like myself, the old strength returning…

  N’bel brought his sauroch up alongside Dak’ir’s. They were both so close to the edge. Another step and they’d be charging down the scree.

  ‘You are with the northern party.’ He smiled, but there was no mirth to it. ‘You ride with me, brother.’

  They abandoned the saurochs a hundred metres from the camp, going the rest of the way on foot. The valley was littered with rocks and deep crevices thick with sulphurous smoke. There were plenty of places to hide from the dusk-wraith sentries. The earth and Nocturne’s people were one. They could blend together as fire blends with rock.

  Dak’ir sent a whickering metal shaft through the creature’s neck. It crumpled, clutching its punctured throat. By the time he and N’bel had reached it, the dusk-wraith was already an emaciated husk.

  ‘Why do they wither to ash like this?’ he hissed.

  Because they aren’t really here… ‘Focus on the burning. Use it.’ These are not my words inside my mind…

  N’bel shook his head. ‘No matter how many we kill, there is always the same remaining at the camp. If I believed in it, I would say they cannot die because they are not truly alive.’

  And neither are you, my brother…

  A second sentry fell to a hurled spear. Another Nocturnean pairing appeared briefly before becoming lost again in the rocks and smoke.

  The heart of the slaver camp was close. They’d penetrated the outer ring and were moving into the vicinity of the metal tents. The sun was still low, low enough to cast long, red shadows across the desert.

  Dak’ir was about to advance when he saw the drygnirr again. It crouched atop the shell of a dusk-wraith’s corpse, blinking with eyes of flame.

  ‘Why do you watch me?’

  He sees into your mind… my mind. I feel it… the burning… Vulkan, give me strength.

  The drygnirr was occluded by a sudden stream of smoke. Once it had cleared, the creature was gone again.

  Another shaft nocked to his bow, Dak’ir moved on.

  Six of them crept silently into the dusk-wraiths’ camp, slaying sentries invisibly as they went. The rest of the slavers were swollen on carnage, in a drug-induced soporific slumber brought on by the brazier pans blazing lambently aro
und the camp.

  Upon reaching the first of the tents, a warning cry rang out.

  The others had launched their attack. East and west, sauroch riders drove at the slavers to steal their attention.

  ‘Swiftly now,’ whispered N’bel, up off his haunches and running low to the first of the tents.

  Dak’ir was right behind him.

  N’bel ushered him on to the next tent, but gripped Dak’ir’s arm before he could go.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s where you’ll find what you seek.’ N’bel was pointing to the larger structure, the one at the heart of the camp. ‘He awaits.’

  ‘Who, brother? Who awaits?’

  I can smell his decaying breath, feel it against my cheek, despite the burning…

  ‘Your enemy is there.’

  ‘My enemy? But what about the people?’ Dak’ir was struggling but N’bel would not let him go. Dusk-wraiths had noticed the commotion. Their forces were moving through the camp.

  N’bel smiled. ‘We are already dead, Dak’ir. We’ve been dead for aeons, brother. Now, go!’ He pushed Dak’ir off, who stumbled and almost fell.

  He was about to turn, to demand the truth, when a burst of rifle fire sliced overhead. Shard ammunition tore up the earth and shredded the flank of a tent. Dak’ir was about to loose when he saw another dusk-wraith, then a third and a fourth, heading towards them.

  The large tent was near. He dropped his bow and ran.

  The whine of automatic fire from the dusk-wraiths’ weapons hurt his ears. They merged with the baying of the saurochs as they were slaughtered. Somewhere a skimmer-machine exploded.

  ‘We are dead, Dak’ir, but you still live. Go!’ N’bel’s final words were a shout.

  Dak’ir didn’t look back.

  Crashing bolter fire rings my ears. I am within my gunmetal cocoon, surging to the planet below.

  His path to the large tent was suddenly blocked by one of the dusk-wraiths. She was masked, the face long and elongated to tapered spikes at chin and forehead, and grinned evilly. The sun glinting off her wicked blades, held in either hand, turned the metal to the colour of blood. She was lithe and deadly, with the body of an athlete and a torturer’s confidence.

  She rushed Dak’ir, a murderer’s snarl pulling at ruby lips visible through a slit in the mask.

  He scraped his sword along the ground, kicking up a line of cinder-flecked dust into her face. She hissed as the hot flakes stung her, but drove on.

  Dak’ir felt a cut to his ribs, then the warm splash of blood down his side. They’d crossed each other, like duelling riders, blade to blade.

  I must control my breathing, remember the routines learned in the solitorium. My hearts beat with the thrill of battle.

  She came again, the dusk-wraith witch, slashing down with her blades as a pair. Dak’ir parried, sparks spitting off the metal of his sword. A kick to his stomach sent him sprawling across the hot sand and into the tent.

  Pain lanced his body. It was like he was on fire.

  Must… fight… it… The burning… will consume me if I don’t.

  Dak’ir waited several moments in the dark, watching the slivered entrance, waiting for his assailant. But she never came. He was alone.

  The air smelled strange, like being underground, and the scent of soot and ash was redolent. As his eyes slowly adjusted, Dak’ir reached out a hand to touch the walls of the tent. Half expecting a barb or spike, he was cautious, but instead of a cut, all he felt was stone. The walls were rough and craggy, and hot against his tentative fingers.

  The sensation was momentary. As he felt his way ahead in the dark, the walls changed again, smooth and cold as metal should be.

  There were no captives, nor any dusk-wraiths. Yet, N’bel had mentioned an enemy.

  The tent was larger within than it appeared on the outside. At the end of its gloomy length, Dak’ir saw a figure seated upon a throne. It was a silhouette, a veritable giant, and armoured unless he was mistaken.

  ‘Come forth!’ Dak’ir challenged, brandishing his sword.

  The figure did not answer, did not even flinch.

  ‘If you are my enemy then face me.’

  Still nothing.

  Dak’ir crept closer.

  From the corner of his eye he thought he saw movement… a flash of reptilian eyes, a streak of blue on black. But when he looked, the drygnirr wasn’t there.

  He watches, even now… even as I burn.

  The figure on the throne was mocking him, Dak’ir was certain. He would cut the–

  A thrown spear tore into the side of the tent and a shaft of light spilled in. It lit the figure, a silhouette no longer. His armour was pitted and broken, as if it had been corroded by time or–

  The melta’s beam cutting across the temple. There is nothing I can do, even when it touches my face…

  Though badly damaged, much of the paint chipped away, Dak’ir saw the armour had once been green. A pair of wings with a flame in the centre emblazoned the warrior’s shattered breastplate. Fingers of bone poked out from his ruined gauntlets. A chest cavity of dust-choked ribs yawned through the ragged gaps in his plastron. A skull, locked in a rictus-grin, regarded Dak’ir where a battle-helm had long ceased to be.

  A word, a name, trembled on Dak’ir’s lips as he approached the armoured cadaver.

  ‘Ka… Ka…’

  He was my captain. My guilt gives him form in this place.

  Dak’ir was less than half a metre away – ‘Ka… Ka…’ – when the corpse-warrior reached out with his deathless hands and seized Dak’ir by the neck.

  ‘Diiiiieeeee…’ it hissed, naming itself and damning Dak’ir in one word, though its rictus jaw never moved.

  Yes, that was his name. I cannot forget.

  Dak’ir was choking. He scrabbled at the bony fingers but they wouldn’t relent. Blood pulsed in his ears and he felt his eyes bulging as his brain was starved of oxygen.

  The burning… Use it!

  He had to drag some breath into his lungs or be strangled by the terrible undead thing before him. That was when he noticed the air bleeding out of the room, devoured hungrily by the flames wreathing his body. It burned, a flame so invasive it went to the nerves and threatened to overwhelm Dak’ir.

  The skeleton’s grip loosened.

  Dak’ir choked through fire-cracked lips.

  ‘What is happening?’

  Let it burn us. Embrace the flame. It is yours to mould…

  The fire became an inferno. It roared outwards in a wave, cascading from Dak’ir’s body, exploding the skeleton to ash with its fury, yet he was untouched.

  Pain wracked him, bringing him to his knees as the fire rolled out, devouring the tent, sloughing the metal. It boiled outwards in a white-hot tempest. Blinking against the rising sun, Dak’ir watched the rest of the camp as it was consumed. His brothers fled before the flame but none could outrun it. N’bel fell last of all, screaming as the burning stripped flesh from bone and turned a man into a dark shadow upon the scorched earth.

  It was out of his control now, a fiery maelstrom engulfing all upon the plain, consuming all of Nocturne in a relentless wave.

  Dak’ir threw his head back, as the fire turned on him at last, and screamed.

  Pyriel staggered as the blast wave struck him. He was standing in the pyre-chamber below Mount Deathfire. Crushing the totem creature of the drygnirr in his fist, now little more than a simulacra wrought of flame, he hastily erected a psychic shield against which the waves of conflagration broke eagerly. He could barely see the figure crouched at the eye of the flame storm, but heard Dak’ir’s screaming clearly.

  White fire lit the Librarian starkly, flickering across the blue of his power armour and the many arcane artefacts chained about his person. The drakescale cloak Pyriel wore on his back snapped and curled with the tangible heat.

  Sweat beaded the Librarian’s forehead. He felt it running down to the nape of his neck. Never before had he been so tested, never bef
ore seen such a potent reaction to the burning. To his horror, the edges of his psychic barrier were cracking against the fire tide. He tried to reinforce them but found he had neared his limits.

  ‘Vulkan’s strength…’ he gasped, beseeching his primarch and was answered.

  Master Vel’cona emerged from a cascade of flame into the room, his eyes ablaze with cerulean power. His armour, only a suggestion through the heat haze, was more ancient than Pyriel’s. Akin in some ways to the earth shamans of old Nocturne, it was festooned with reptilian bones and dripped in scale.

  Together, the two Librarians pushed the fire tide back until it was nought but wisps of smoke. A blackened crater outlined Dak’ir’s crouched position. He was naked, steam and fire exuding from his scarred flesh. The searing legacy of the melta beam he’d suffered on Stratos flared angrily on the side of his face, a physical reminder of how he was different to his fire-born brothers. The burning had destroyed his armour, rendering it an ashen patina shrouding his body.

  Though he remained still and upright, his head tucked into his chest, arms drawn up around his legs protectively, Dak’ir was unconscious.

  The entire pyre-chamber was a charred, soot-stained ruin. It was little more than bare rock, its entrance sealed by a pair of reinforced blast doors, but fire-blackened wall to wall. The only void was where Pyriel had been standing. The air was so hot it hazed, and reeked heavily of sulphur.

  The ash cocoon encasing Dak’ir cracked and he slumped to the earth.

  Vel’cona regarded the would-be Lexicanum impassively. ‘He has survived the burning.’

  It wasn’t a question, but Pyriel answered it anyway.

  ‘Yes.’ He was still breathless from his exertions but recovering.

  ‘And?’ Vel’cona turned his penetrating gaze onto the other Librarian. The fuliginous darkness of the room seemed to coalesce around him, rendering him indistinct and shadowed.

  ‘Incredible power, like nothing I’ve ever seen.’

  Vel’cona’s eyes flared like blazing blue sapphires in the gloom. ‘Can it be controlled?’