‘It rivals Thunderhead,’ Vulkan told him, gently turning the hammer around in his loose grip. ‘It wasn’t intended as a replacement. It was meant as a gift. And even now, as we follow in the wake of my brother’s tempest, I am struck by the import of the decision in holding on to it.’
‘A gift,’ said Numeon, fighting the sense of unease growing within him, ‘for whom?’
‘You have always served loyally and faithfully as my equerry, Artellus. I trust your counsel. I would have it now.’
Numeon thumped his fist against his breastplate in crisp salute. ‘You honour me, my lord. I am yours to command.’
Vulkan’s eyes narrowed, the fire burning inside them reduced to hot, red slits as if measuring his equerry and deeming him worthy of what he was about to say next.
‘What I tell you now, I have told no one before this moment.’
‘I understand.’
‘No,’ said Vulkan sadly, ‘you don’t. Not yet. After Ullanor, I began forging a weapon to honour Horus’s achievement and our father making him Warmaster. This,’ he said, now holding the hammer in a firm grip and raising it aloft in one hand, ‘is Dawnbringer. It was meant as my gift to my brother.’
‘But you chose not to give it to him. Why, my lord?’
Vulkan lowered the weapon, regarding the exquisite craftsmanship of his labours before going on.
‘That is what vexes me, Artellus. Horus and I spoke privately only twice after he replaced our father at the head of the Crusade.’
‘I remember, my lord. After Kharaatan, you consulted both Lord Dorn and Lord Horus.’
‘Yes. Konrad’s… behaviourconcerned me greatly and I was in need of guidance. At the time, the forging of Dawnbringerwas unfinished. I wanted the gift to be a surprise, a token of our brotherhood and my respect, so I said nothing of it.’
‘I am still unclear as to why this is on your mind now, my lord.’
‘Because when the hammer was finished, I spoke to Horus for the second time. His advancement to Warmaster had placed a great strain on his time and attentions, so I wanted to arrange a meeting when I could present my gift to him.’ Vulkan paused, his expression darkening as he recalled the exchange.
‘My lord?’ said Numeon, as the same cloud cast its shadow over him too.
Vulkan kept his eyes down as he remembered, and did not raise them as he concluded his account.
‘Horus was much changed from the brother I knew, and had looked up to. Even across our hololithic link, I felt it… A presence that had not been there before.’
‘What kind of presence?’
‘It is difficult to describe. He seemed… distracted, and at first I thought it was merely matters of the Great Crusade that preoccupied him, but as our conversation went on, I realised it was something else.’
‘Do you think he was planning this rebellion even then?’
‘Perhaps. Now, I wonder if it was always in my brother’s heart and simply had to be teased out of him for it to flourish and bloom. Either way, I knew there was a canker within Horus that had not been there before, a shadow upon his soul like a cancer. And it was growing, Numeon, the host embracing this parasite in front of my eyes. I do not possess the prescience of Sanguinius, nor the mental acumen of Guilliman or the psychic gifts of Magnus, but I know my instincts, and they were screaming at me in that moment. Horus has fallen, they were saying to me. In some way, he had slipped and the pit had taken him. Even though I could not put meaning or evidence to any of this, it unsettled me. So I decided not to tell him of the gift I had fashioned, instead keeping it for myself. And it concerns me still,’ he said to Numeon, looking up again. ‘Because the same misgivings I had that day, I feel now. They warn me to be cautious, to heed the disquiet in my soul.’
‘I will be ever vigilant,’ said Numeon, though he didn’t yet know for what.
Vulkan nodded. ‘Be mindful, Artellus. On the dark sands of Isstvan far below, we face a foe unlike any other. But it isan enemy, and one we can afford to give no quarter. Whatever bonds of loyalty you may once have felt to these warriors, forget them. They are traitors now, led by a warrior I no longer recognise as my brother. Do you believe we are right in this, and that our cause is a just one?’
Despite the bitter taste that the other Legions’ treachery had left in his mouth, Numeon had never been more certain of anything.
‘I am sure of it. Whatever sickness has come upon our old allies, we will burn it to ash.’
‘Then we are as one. Thank you, Artellus.’
‘I did nothing, my lord.’
‘You heeded me when my mind was troubled. You did more than you realised.’ Vulkan gave a feral smile, his misgivings transformed and reforged into purpose. ‘Eye-to-eye, Pyre captain.’
‘Tooth-to-tooth, my lord.’
‘The bombardment is soon?’ Vulkan asked.
‘Imminent,’ said Numeon, reassured and galvanised by Vulkan’s revivified demeanour. He realised, as Vulkan attached Dawnbringerto his belt, that it wasn’t weakness he had seen in his primarch, but humanity. It was the genuine concern that his brothers had fallen to darkness, and the emergence of the resolve he would need to fight them. He shoulddoubt the justness of this fight, and he shouldstop to consider the consequences of it. Only by doing so could a warrior be sure that he drew bolter and blade in good cause and against a true enemy.
This, Numeon realised, was Vulkan’s teaching.
Morality, conscience, humanity, these were not flaws; they were strengths.
‘Take me to the muster deck,’ said Vulkan, donning his war-helm. ‘When we make planetfall, I would look my brother in the eye and ask him why he did this, before he’s taken to Terra in chains.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The dread feast
‘If music is nourishment for the soul, what then of screaming?’
– Konrad Curze,
the ‘Night Haunter’
After the shame of my defeat, I became lost for a time. Curze did not visit me, Ferrus’s malignant presence was conspicuous by its absence, and I even started to miss the shade of my dead brother. There was only the stench of the dead, rising over the hours and days to a noisome fume that filled my senses with the stink of failure.
Ferrus had been right; I wasweak. I could not save the mortals from their fate, I could not beat Perturabo’s death trap. Curze had changed tactics. I had no idea why. Instead of trying to punish my body, he had decided to punish my conscience.
The effects were enervating.
Cut adrift amongst my fractured thoughts, I sat unmoving in the darkness of my cell and in that moment I am not too proud to admit that, for the first time, I truly knew what it was to despair.
Suns rose and fell, stars were born and died again. The cosmos shifted around me, and after a while time ceased to have meaning. I was as a statue of onyx, my arms hanging by my sides, my forehead touching the ground. Arch-backed, too wounded to do anything but breathe, I felt the slow atrophy of my limbs and the hunger in my chest. Vigour was leaving me, as steam flees cooling metal, and I welcomed it.
To die would be a mercy.
A legionary can live for many days without sustenance. His physiology is enhanced to such a degree that he can be practically starved and still march, fight and kill. Our father made His sons even stronger still, but I knew, as a man who knows he is dying of cancer, that I was not myself. My humours were out of balance; the many woundings Curze had subjected me to, the mental tortures, were beginning to take their toll. At my lowest ebb, when even my will was fading, I slipped into blessed oblivion and let it take me in.
My peace was not to last.
A sound like a distant stream trickling next to my ear brought me to my senses. I realised as I opened my eyes that I was still in the deathly chamber, but that now it was filling with water. It chilled my face, lapping up against my cheek. Lips parched, tongue leathern, I tried to drink but found the water brackish and metallic tasting. My guts churned, hunger gnawing, threatening to devour me from within. Too weak to stand, to even lift my body, I could only watch, and see the open sluices at the base of the walls admitting this languid torrent.