Yes, this place had a name but I won’t speak it. Not here, not to you.

‘Something happened here,’ said Sebaton instead, ‘something important, and a part of it was left behind.’

‘This “weapon” you mentioned?’

‘No, not that,’ said Sebaton, momentarily distracted, regretting even saying that much. He paused. ‘Does it seem overly quiet to you?’

Deep in the heart of Ranos, the tiny lights were going out.

Overhead the thrum of heavy turbine engines invaded the silence. They were distant enough that neither man reached for his sidearm, but close enough that Sebaton went to grab a scope from inside the tent.

‘Landers,’ said Varteh, not needing the benefit of the scope to realise what the engines belonged to.

‘I count three, cutting through the cloud layer,’ Sebaton replied, scope pressed against his right eye. ‘Definitely a landing party.’

‘Of what?’

‘No idea,’ he lied again, shutting the telescopic lens and putting it in his pocket.

They were bulky, heavily armed gunships. The kind used by deadly warriors. He’d met them before, and not enjoyed the experience.

‘I’d like to know what they’re doing here,’ said Varteh.

‘No, you wouldn’t.’

Varteh laughed mirthlessly.

‘Perhaps you’re right. I’ll go and kick our adept up the arse. See if we can move things up a notch.’

‘Good idea.’

Varteh jogged back down the slope, one hand on his holster to keep it steady.

Sebaton lost the gunships a few seconds later as they disappeared below benighted rows of smoke stacks and silos. He swore under his breath.

‘I suppose it was too much to ask that theydidn’t show up.’

The cup in his hands grew hot, much hotter than the tepid caffeine within. As he looked down into its brownish depths, he frowned.

‘Oh,’ said Sebaton, ‘it’s you.’

CHAPTER FOUR

Sons of our fathers

‘Of all men else I have avoided thee.

But get thee back. My soul is too much charged

With blood of thine already.’

– From ‘Masbeth’ by the dramaturge

Kristof Mylowe.

‘Do you remember how I found you, alone on the ash plains? I thought you were a miracle, or some devil cast back from the earth to plague us. But you were just a child, an infant. Something so small, so vulnerable, surrounded by so much death. I thought you were dead, burned black from the crash. The sand inside the crater you made had turned to glass… But the fire never touched you, didn’t even leave a mark. You barely cried, and it wasn’t from pain or discomfort. You just didn’t want to be alone, Vulkan.’

‘I remember.’

I smelled smoke and leather, metal and sweat.

‘Wake up, son,’ said a man, and in my half-conscious state I thought I recognised him.

I was back in the forge. I was home.

‘Father?’

Smoke cleared, darkness parted, I blinked and there he was before me. Like it was yesterday.

N’bel.

Face tanned by the Nocturnean sun, hands calloused from metal working, skin that felt rough in my grasp, N’bel was every inch the craftsman. He had the broad shoulders of a blacksmiter, the fuller tucked in his belt providing further unneeded proof of his profession. A coarse overall of dark, heavy fabric was overlaid by a smock of leather. His arms were bare, scarred and tanned like his face, bound with torcs, thick with brawn and ropes of sinew. This was a man who made a living out of honest toil and muscle. He had taught me everything I knew, or at least, everything I cared to remember.

‘You are alive…’

He nodded.

Longing ached in my chest, my eyes tearful. Around me was the workshop, smelling of ash, warmed by fire. Somewhere close by, an anvil chimed out a steady rhythm, the beat of a blacksmiter’s drum, one whose tune I knew very well. It was pure and good, this place. A stone hearth sat in one corner of the room, where a pot of broth bubbled dulcetly above a quietly crackling fire. Here was the earth. Here, I was in my element.

‘I have missed you, father.’

Tears stained my cheeks. I tasted salt and cinder when they touched my lips as I embraced N’bel, a lost son returning home. Despite his brawn and bulk, he was like a child in my arms. We parted as a frown crept upon my face at our sudden reunion.

‘How? What about the war? Is it…?’

Something was clouding my mind, preventing me from seeing clearly. I shook my head but the fog was not here, it was within.

‘All that matters is you are back, my son.’

He clapped me on the arm and I felt the warmth of a father’s respect and admiration spread through me like a balm, washing away all the guilt and the blood.

For so long, I had wanted to come back. After the Crusade was over, and the war was done; in my heart, I knew I would return to Nocturne and live in peace. A hammer can sunder – in my hands it was an incredibly effective weapon – but it was also a tool to craft. I had destroyed populations, razed entire cities in the name of conquest; now I wanted permanence, to fulfil a desire to build, not break.

I helped build this place; not only this forge, but also this city in which I knew it resided, and the other six sanctuary cities besides. Nocturne had ever been a tribal society, the earth upon which it sat, but its trade and lifeblood was also its doom, as the hot and volatile world demonstrated during every Trial of Fire.

N’bel’s eyes were staring, not with paternal joy at being reunited with his son, but in fear.

I held him by the shoulders, firmly, but not so hard that I would hurt him.

‘Father, what is it? What’s wrong?’

‘All that matters is you are back…’ he repeated, and nodded behind me.

I followed his gaze to the door of the forge. It was ajar and the night-time sounds of Nocturne drifted inside on a warm breeze. I could smell the heat of the desert, taste the acid-tang of the Acerbian Sea and also something else.

I released N’bel, turning to the door. ‘What has happened?’

Nearby was the rack of tools my father used on the anvil. I picked up a branding iron shaped like a spear. It was an odd choice; there were several hammers, but for some reason I chose the iron.

‘You weren’t alone,’ breathed my father, his strong blacksmiter’s voice fading to a whimper, ‘when you came back.’

I snarled, advancing on the door, the haft of the branding iron gripped tight in my hand.

‘Father, what has happened?’

N’bel was lost to fear, and a sudden coldness swept through the forge, turning my blood to ice.

In the days before the Outlander, we Nocturneans had fought warbands of dusk-wraiths for our freedom and safety. They were raiders, pirates and slavers. I later came to know them as the eldar, an alien species that had particularly blighted my world, but also countless others.

I had wanted peace, a chance to build, but now I saw that fate would not release me – the galaxy wanted a warrior. My other father was calling and he would not be denied.

‘Stay in the forge,’ I told N’bel and went outside.

The night was coal-black, and a vast pall of pyroclastic cloud moved slowly across the horizon like a dark phantom. All the lights were out. Every home, every forge and furnace was dead.

I had stepped out onto a platform of iron and steel. Gone were the tribal dwellings of my formative years, gone were the simple forges of my forebears. With the coming of the Outlander, and the arrival of the nascent Imperium, Nocturne had changed. Vast mining engines, furnaces and manufactorums replaced the old forges now. Where once there had been humble dwellings, now there were great conurbations of habitation domes, relay stations and vox-towers. The earth-shaman and metal-shapers, even the blacksmiters had given way to seismologists, geologists and manufactorum masters. Our trade had not changed, but our culture had. It needed to. For Nocturne was a capricious world, ever on the brink of destruction.