‘What was that?’ he heard Leodrakk hiss, and caught the sound of the Pyre Guard’s bolter slide being racked.

‘Came from in there,’ murmured Numeon, maintaining his aggressive posture. ‘Who’s here, besides Leo?’ he asked. He had taken off his battle-helm; it was sitting by the side of the pyre dappled with soot. Without it, he had no visibility of his comrades’ positions relative to his own.

‘Domadus,’ uttered the Iron Hand.

‘K’gosi,’ said the Salamander, just above the quiet rumble of his flame-igniter.

‘Shen?’ asked Numeon, aware of fourlegionaries in total, and swearing he could make out the growling undertone of the Tech-marine’s cybernetics.

‘He was dead,’ said Shen’ra, announcing his presence with his answer. ‘No man could survive those wounds. No man.’

‘Then how?’ said Leodrakk.

‘Because he isn’t a man at all,’ muttered K’gosi, raising his flame gauntlet.

‘Hold,’ Numeon told them all. ‘Approach no closer. Out here, at a distance, we have the advantage over whatever is in that room. Domadus,’ he added, ‘get Hriak. No one else enters. Leodrakk, guard the door.’

Both legionaries did as ordered, leaving Numeon to maintain watch.

‘We wait for the Librarian, find out what we’re dealing with.’

‘And then, brother-captain?’ asked K’gosi.

‘Then,’ Numeon replied, ‘we kill it, if we have to.’

All of them had heard rumours. War stories. Every soldier had them. They were an oral tradition, a comradely means of passing on knowledge and experience. What lent these tales credence was that veteran officers of the Legiones Astartes had attested to factsand given them, in detail, in their reports. To falsify an account of a battle or mission-action was no minor infraction in either Legion or Army. All military bodies took such things incredibly seriously. But facts, explainable through scientific means or not, could not accurately and convincingly reference ‘abominations’ or even ‘physical possession’ without coming across as suspect. These were the words of vaunted, trusted men. Captains, battalion commanders, even Chapter Masters. Such testimony should have guaranteed veracity and credence.

And yet…

Creatures of Old Night and evil sorcery had been confined to myth. It was written, in ancient books, that they could reshape men and assume their forms. Towards the end of the Great Crusade, evidence that was concealed at the time – but later brought to light – gave claim that such creatures could even turn a legionary’s humours against his brothers.

In Numeon’s darkest nightmares, the name Samusresonated with eerie familiarity. Here, on Ranos, it had visited him more frequently. It had been the same on Viralis. They were not xenos, and he had seen and exterminated enough aliens to know this was the truth. Numeon knew an old word for them, one that if spoken a few years ago would have earned derision, but that now carried a ring of bitter and forbidding truth.

And, if further rumours were to be believed, the patronage of such beings was sought out and courted by the Word Bearers. They had found a different faith, the followers of Lorgar. In his gut, Numeon knew that was why they were here. He feltit.

‘Something comes!’ hissed K’gosi.

The Salamanders aimed weapons as a man-shaped figure staggered through the infirmary to reach the door to the manufactorum. It was dark inside and only a silhouette was visible through the window.

‘If it is allowed to speak, it might be the end of us,’ said Shen’ra.

‘Agreed,’ said K’gosi.

‘Wait…’ said Numeon. For despite those misgivings and the threat of something unknown gnawing at the resolve of every legionary in this war, this felt different.

With a low creak, the door opened and the man they knew as John Grammaticus stepped through its open frame. His hands were raised, and when he was no more than a metre beyond the doorway he stopped.

‘Who are you?’ Numeon demanded in a belligerent tone.

‘John Grammaticus, as I told you.’ He seemed calm, almost resigned, despite the fact he faced off against four battle-ready Space Marines.

‘You could not have lived,’ Shen’ra accused. ‘Your wounds… I saw you die on that slab in there. You could not have lived.’

‘And yet, here I am.’

‘Precisely our problem, Grammaticus,’ Numeon told him. ‘You live when you should be dead.’

‘I am not the only one.’

The slightest pause betrayed Numeon’s doubt before he answered. ‘Speak plainly,’ he warned. ‘No more games.’

‘I haven’t been entirely honest with you,’ Grammaticus confessed.

‘We should kill him now,’ said K’gosi.

Grammaticus sighed. ‘It would do no good. It never does. May I put my arms down yet?’

‘No,’ said Numeon. ‘You may talk. If I deem what I hear to be the truth, you may put your arms down. If not, we’ll bring you down a different way. Now, how is it you are still alive?’

‘I am perpetual. That is to say, immortal. Your primarch is, too.’

Numeon frowned. ‘What?’

‘Kill him, Numeon,’ K’gosi urged, ‘or I’ll burn him to ash where he stands.’

Numeon put out his hand to ward the Pyroclast off. ‘Wait!’

‘He’s lying, brother,’ murmured Leodrakk, edging up beside Numeon.

‘I’m not,’ Grammaticus told them calmly. ‘This is the truth. I cannot die… Vulkancannot die. He lives still, but he needs your help. Ineed your help.’

Shaking his head, Leodrakk said darkly, ‘Vulkan is dead. He died on Isstvan with Ska and the others. The dead don’t come back. Not unchanged, anyway. Just shells, like on Viralis.’

K’gosi was nodding. ‘Fire cleanses this filth, though…’ He advanced a step, close to touching Numeon’s outstretched hand with his breastplate.

‘Stand down.’ Numeon saw the Pyroclast in his peripheral vision, the chain mask and scale long-coat lending him the appearance of an executioner. It might yet be his role.

‘I want to believe him as much as you do,’ said Leodrakk, switching to Nocturnean, ‘but how can we? Vulkan alive? How would he even know? We’ve already lost enough to treachery.’

‘We all wish the primarch were still with us,’ added K’gosi, ‘but he’s gone, captain. He fell just like Ferrus Manus. Let this go.’

‘And you, Shen?’ asked Numeon. ‘You have said little. Am I deceived, a fool to believe our lord primarch yet lives?’ He risked a side glance and saw the Techmarine’s face was pensive.

‘I can’t say what Vulkan’s fate is. I only know we fought hard and bled greatly on Isstvan. If anyone could have survived, it would have been him.’

‘Brother…’ snarled Leodrakk, unhappy at what he saw as Shen’ra’s capitulation.

‘It’s true,’ the Techmarine replied. ‘Vulkan could be alive. I don’t know. But this man was dead. He was dead, Numeon, and dead men do not speak. You are our captain and we will follow your orders, all of us. But don’t trust him.’

Before Numeon could answer, Leodrakk made one last plea. ‘It’s likely we’ll die here. But I won’t have us killed because we were too credulous to act against the danger in our midst.’

‘ I am not the one who is in danger,’ said Grammaticus, in perfect Nocturnean.

The shock around the legionaries was masked but noticeable.

‘How do you know our language?’ asked Numeon.

‘It’s a gift.’

‘Like coming back from the dead?’

‘Not one of mine, per se, but yes.’

Hriak entered the room. Behind his retinal lenses, lightning streaked the pale sclera of his eyes and formed into a dark tempest.

‘Lower your weapons,’ he rasped, stepping into Numeon’s eye line and in front of him.

No one questioned him. They lowered their weapons.

Domadus came in just after, taking up position at the door. His bolter wasn’t aimed at the human but it was in his hand and ready.

‘Are you going to try and prise my head open again?’ asked Grammaticus, warily eyeing the approaching Librarian.