‘Yes, the fulgurite is in my possession.’

‘And you know what you must do?’

‘You still doubt my conviction?’

‘Just answer the question.’

Grammaticus sighed, deep and world-weary. ‘Yes, I know what must be done. Although killing a primarch won’t be easy.’

‘This has ever been your mission.’

‘I know, but even so…’

‘His grace is bound to the earth. Separated from it, he will be weak and can be slain like any of the others.’

‘Why him? Why not the Lion or that bastard Curze? Why does it have to be him?’

‘Because he is important and because he must not live to become the keeper of the gate. Do this and your pact with the Cabal is ended.’

‘I somehow doubt that.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you believe, mon-keigh. All that matters is what you do next.’

‘Don’t worry, I know my mission and will carry it out as ordered.’

‘When you reach Macragge,’ said the autarch, threatening even though he was only flecting, ‘find him. He has been there some time already.’

‘Shouldn’t be too difficult.’

‘It will be harder than you think. He is not himself any more. You’ll need help.’

‘Another primarch, yes, I know. I suspect few will be lining up to be his executioner, however.’

‘You would be surprised.’

‘Your kind are full of them.’

Slau Dha ignored the slight, deeming it beneath his concern.

‘And then,’ he asked instead, ‘when the fulgurite is delivered?’

A sudden star flare forced Grammaticus to dim the glacis, effectively ending the flect, but he answered anyway.

‘Then, Vulkan dies.’

Falling from grace…

Burning. Endlessly burning.

I awoke to heat and the stench of my own scorched flesh. My body was wreathed in flame. I didn’t need to look to know it, my every nerve ending screamed it.

Falling.

I thought I had succumbed to another of my brother’s death traps, some pit or chasm of fire.

But I had descended for too long and too weightlessly for it to be that.

I opened my eyes and in the few seconds I had before their vitreous humours boiled and then evaporated in their sockets, I saw a vast orb below me through the blazing heat haze.

It was a grey – almost pallid world – wreathed with white cloud. I was far above it, breaching its upper atmosphere without a ship or even the protection of my armour.

Skin burned away. Flesh too, then muscle.

My head wrenched back, my mouth agape in a silent scream as I experienced agony on a scale without measure.

Stars and nebulae flashed before me but I had not the facility to see them.

As my brain rebelled against what my body was telling it, I witnessed my own destruction through my mind’s eye.

Vulkan, his body an inferno…

…skin shrivelling like parchment, his meat-fat spitting…

…his flesh sloughing away and disintegrating.

Vulkan, rendered down to blackened bone.

His withered skeleton breaches the upper atmosphere until finally…

Vulkan dies.

AFTERWORD

I’ve had this story in my head for a long time. A verylong time. Ever since I started researching the Salamanders and their tragic past, there has been this desire to fill in that most glaring of gaps in the Horus Heresy timeline: what was the fate of Vulkan?

Opinions at the time varied widely on the subject from stating out and out that he was dead, killed in a blast of nucleonic fire never to be seen again, to that he had somehow miraculously survived and was present at the breaking of the Legions.

It was a mystery, in many ways themystery. It’s the one piece of Heresy lore, other than the identity and fate of the lost Legions (and don’t hold your breath on that one, folks – no, really, you’ll only asphyxiate yourselves…) that has never truly been answered.

I thought it never could, or never would.

Turns out I was wrong about that.

Years ago when the sum total that we, the readers, knew about the Horus Heresy was the contents of the collectible card game (later transferred and translated into the various Horus Heresy ‘Visions of…’ art books), Vulkan’s storyline ended at Isstvan V, the primarch engulfed in a massive explosion. Believe it or not, there was more to that story. It just never got told. That’s not to say that it existed; it didn’t, but it was always meant to. But, the CCG ended prematurely, and so many tales that were begun never got the ending they deserved.

Vulkan was one of them. A big one.

Fast forward several years and here I am writing the afterword to part one of the answer to that mystery. I say ‘part one’ because I see Vulkan’s journey as a saga that won’t truly meet its resolution, and therefore have closure or an answer, until we’re standing at the Gates of Terra in defiance of tyranny and Chaos.

There will be more. You must have figured that out on account of the open-ended finale. In the manner of a relay race, I have merely held the baton for my lap and now pass it on to the next runner. Fully recovered from my heroics on this novel, I’m hoping I’ll get it back for the last leg.

So then, this novel provides an answer to one of the greatest mysteries of the Horus Heresy – what happened to Vulkan on Isstvan V? Does he live, did he die? What did he have to go through? If you’ve skipped to the end and are reading this before the novel, you might think there’s a pretty big clue in the title. Well, you’d be wrong about that. And if you’ve read the novel and think you know the answer then I challenge you to read on beyond my own first, modest volume in this saga of sagas and see where it takes the Lord of Drakes.

Nick Kyme,

Nottingham,

April 2013

Acknowledgements

A few thanks need sharing around to some dedicated and very special folks without whom this novel would not have been possible, my editors Christian Dunn, Lindsey Priestley, Laurie Goulding and Graeme Lyon. Also, the legendary Neil Roberts for the fantastic cover. To Dan Abnett, whose advice and support has been utterly invaluable. Last, but not least, my wonderful other half, Stef, whose patience, understanding and encouragement got me through the tough times.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nick Kyme is the author of the Tome of Fire trilogy featuring the Salamanders. He has also written for the Space Marine Battles and Time of Legends series with the novels The Fall of Damnosand The Great Betrayal. In addition, he has penned a host of short stories and several novellas, including ‘Feat of Iron’ which was a New York Timesbestseller in the Horus Heresy collection The Primarchs.He lives and works in Nottingham.

To Edward Nisbett, my granddad. Your dignity, grace and courage were an inspiration to me. Rest in peace, and know that you are greatly missed.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Neil Roberts

Internal illustrations by Karl Richardson

© Games Workshop Limited, 2013. All rights reserved.

Black Library, the Black Library logo, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy logo, The Horus Heresy eye device, Space Marine Battles, the Space Marine Battles logo, Warhammer 40,000, the Warhammer 40,000 logo, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated brands, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer 40,000 universe are either ®, ™ and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2013, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world.