Vulkan Lord of Drakes Read online

  Backlist

  The Primarchs

  JAGHATAI KHAN: WARHAWK OF CHOGORIS

  FERRUS MANUS: GORGON OF MEDUSA

  FULGRIM: THE PALATINE PHOENIX

  LORGAR: BEARER OF THE WORD

  PERTURABO: THE HAMMER OF OLYMPIA

  MAGNUS THE RED: MASTER OF PROSPERO

  LEMAN RUSS: THE GREAT WOLF

  ROBOUTE GUILLIMAN: LORD OF ULTRAMAR

  More Salamanders from Black Library

  VULKAN LIVES

  Nick Kyme

  DEATHFIRE

  Nick Kyme

  OLD EARTH

  Nick Kyme

  BORN OF FLAME

  Nick Kyme

  THE DAMNATION OF PYTHOS

  David Annandale

  The Horus Heresy series

  Book 1 – HORUS RISING

  Book 2 – FALSE GODS

  Book 3 – GALAXY IN FLAMES

  Book 4 – THE FLIGHT OF THE EISENSTEIN

  Book 5 – FULGRIM

  Book 6 – DESCENT OF ANGELS

  Book 7 – LEGION

  Book 8 – BATTLE FOR THE ABYSS

  Book 9 – MECHANICUM

  Book 10 – TALES OF HERESY

  Book 11 – FALLEN ANGELS

  Book 12 – A THOUSAND SONS

  Book 13 – NEMESIS

  Book 14 – THE FIRST HERETIC

  Book 15 – PROSPERO BURNS

  Book 16 – AGE OF DARKNESS

  Book 17 – THE OUTCAST DEAD

  Book 18 – DELIVERANCE LOST

  Book 19 – KNOW NO FEAR

  Book 20 – THE PRIMARCHS

  Book 21 – FEAR TO TREAD

  Book 22 – SHADOWS OF TREACHERY

  Book 23 – ANGEL EXTERMINATUS

  Book 24 – BETRAYER

  Book 25 – MARK OF CALTH

  Book 26 – VULKAN LIVES

  Book 27 – THE UNREMEMBERED EMPIRE

  Book 28 – SCARS

  Book 29 – VENGEFUL SPIRIT

  Book 30 – THE DAMNATION OF PYTHOS

  Book 31 – LEGACIES OF BETRAYAL

  Book 32 – DEATHFIRE

  Book 33 – WAR WITHOUT END

  Book 34 – PHAROS

  Book 35 – EYE OF TERRA

  Book 36 – THE PATH OF HEAVEN

  Book 37 – THE SILENT WAR

  Book 38 – ANGELS OF CALIBAN

  Book 39 – PRAETORIAN OF DORN

  Book 40 – CORAX

  Book 41 – THE MASTER OF MANKIND

  Book 42 – GARRO

  Book 43 – SHATTERED LEGIONS

  Book 44 – THE CRIMSON KING

  Book 45 – TALLARN

  Book 46 – RUINSTORM

  Book 47 – OLD EARTH

  Book 48 – BURDEN OF LOYALTY

  Book 49 – WOLFSBANE

  Book 50 – BORN OF FLAME

  Book 51 – SLAVES TO DARKNESS

  Contents

  Cover

  Backlist

  Title Page

  The Horus Heresy

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  About the Author

  An Extract from ‘Jaghatai Khan: Warhawk of Chogoris’

  A Black Library Publication

  eBook license

  The Horus Heresy

  It is a time of legend.

  Mighty heroes battle for the right to rule the galaxy. The vast armies of the Emperor of Mankind conquer the stars in a Great Crusade – the myriad alien races are to be smashed by his elite warriors and wiped from the face of history.

  The dawn of a new age of supremacy for humanity beckons. Gleaming citadels of marble and gold celebrate the many victories of the Emperor, as system after system is brought back under his control. Triumphs are raised on a million worlds to record the epic deeds of his most powerful champions.

  First and foremost amongst these are the primarchs, superhuman beings who have led the Space Marine Legions in campaign after campaign. They are unstoppable and magnificent, the pinnacle of the Emperor’s genetic experimentation, while the Space Marines themselves are the mightiest human warriors the galaxy has ever known, each capable of besting a hundred normal men or more in combat.

  Many are the tales told of these legendary beings. From the halls of the Imperial Palace on Terra to the outermost reaches of Ultima Segmentum, their deeds are known to be shaping the very future of the galaxy. But can such souls remain free of doubt and corruption forever? Or will the temptation of greater power prove too much for even the most loyal sons of the Emperor?

  The seeds of heresy have already been sown, and the start of the greatest war in the history of mankind is but a few years away...

  One

  forge / retreat / swarm

  War cannot be waged in isolation. Every battle has consequences. Every battle has victims beyond the combatants.

  Consequences are responsibilities. This is a fact of life on Nocturne. It is one that this Legion must never forget. It is not enough merely to know when to strike and when to hold ground. We of Nocturne know well what it means never to give way. The ground that we hold might as well be in our blood, for to yield it is to condemn those we would defend.

  But when to strike? This is a more fraught question. To strike when the enemy is most vulnerable may also mean causing the most harm to the innocent. What is the purpose of any battle? Victory alone is insufficient. What are the consequences of that victory? More fully, what are the responsibilities of that victory? It may be more honour­able – indeed it may be morally necessary – to strike not when the enemy is weakest but when the greatest number of innocents may be protected, even if that means taking further losses as warriors.

  Knowing when that moment comes requires judgement as fine as observation. Once the moment is there, then reso­lution is called upon, and that is something this Legion has never lacked.

  – Vulkan, Meditations

  The air rippled with heat. Flames jetted from the exhaust pipes of immense forges. Tremors shook the walls of the cavern. The space was vast, but the work it contained was bigger yet. The underbelly of the machine’s hull extended along the entire length of the cavern. Fore and aft passed through openings that had been blasted through the rock, reaching into other caves just as huge, just as hot, where the echoes of the great labour were just as loud. The upper portions of the machine occupied other regions of the honeycomb of caverns beneath the surface of Nocturne. It was surrounded by a cluster of forges, each one worthy of legend, all of them labouring without cease.

  Igniax Nomus Rhy’tan walked down the cavern, running his hand against the side of the machine’s hull. The shielding was the thickest he had ever seen on anything that was not a void ship. It was rich in monumental engravings. They celebrated the XVIII Legion and the history of the device. They were also representations of the forges that were bringing renewal to the huge body.

  The old and the new, Rhy’tan thought, and wished the words did not trouble him.

  A dozen metres away, Forgemaster T’kell had stepped away from a gantry crane and was looking up at the hull with the evaluating, proprietary eye of the true artisan. T’kell’s features looked as if they had been carved from a massive ingot of the same adamantine alloy as the hull. He had been tempered on the anvil of Nocturne long and hard before he had undergone the most honourable reforging of them all, the one that had made him a legionary of the XVIII
and a true son of Vulkan.

  ‘This is fine work, Master T’kell,’ Rhy’tan said as he drew near. ‘A construction of rare strength.’

  ‘As it should be,’ T’kell muttered, speaking more to himself than to Rhy’tan. Then he turned his head to look at the Igniax. ‘My thanks, brother.’ He smiled, as if grudgingly allowing himself a flicker of pride. Then the smile faded, replaced by a frown. ‘I do still wonder about the weapon’s purpose. It has no conceivable use on Nocturne.’

  ‘Why would you have imagined it would?’

  T’kell shook his head. ‘A momentary foolishness,’ he said. ‘I forget sometimes that we will, and must, leave.’

  ‘Our destiny lies in the Emperor’s Great Crusade.’

  ‘It does, it does. I know this. But, Nomus, when will we leave? Where will we go? And what will we use this for?’

  ‘When it is time, where we are needed and in the proper campaign.’ Rhy’tan spoke with more confidence than he felt.

  T’kell looked around the booming cavern. ‘And so we will leave Nocturne,’ he said softly.

  ‘Leave, but not abandon.’

  ‘I do understand that. I do.’

  ‘But…?’

  ‘But do you really understand your purpose? Do you? I do not. Any more than I understand our work here.’ He slapped a palm against the hull. ‘I know what this can do. But I do not know its true purpose.’

  Rhy’tan took a breath, searching for an answer he already knew was out of his reach. In the same instant, he felt a new rhythm in the vibrations shaking the floor. Steady, firm, ­powerful. He knew what it was even before he saw the look of chagrin in T’kell’s eyes.

  I have failed, Rhy’tan thought. I have let my own uncertainty defeat me. His face burning with shame, he turned and bowed his head as the primarch strode towards them.

  Vulkan wore the simple, hardened leathers of a smith. He had been labouring at the side of his sons, for the work being done on the machine was as much a produce of his hands as it was the design of his genius. Simple though his attire was, he walked in majesty. Its aura, invisible yet blinding, shone like the glow of a furnace. T’kell’s features were hard, but Vulkan’s were carved of something stronger than stone, invulnerable to erosion yet tempered by wisdom. Vulkan’s face was that of a veteran warrior, one who knew war and could not be broken by it. But it was also the face of one who knew the cost of war, who would never turn away from that cost and who would seek to be the shield against which the waves of conflict would shatter.

  ‘I’m sorry, lord,’ said T’kell.

  ‘For what?’ Vulkan asked. ‘For having perfectly understand­able questions? For wondering what we are about and when we will be about it? We have always been honest with each other, since before we were a Legion. Will we stop now?’

  ‘No,’ T’kell said.

  ‘No,’ Vulkan repeated. ‘If you have questions, you must ask them. If I have answers, I must give them to you. If I don’t, I must tell you that too, and the simple fact is that I do not. Not yet. When we shall depart and where our duty will take us, I do not know. But I do know this – the Emperor has a task for us. Our role will be one for which we are eminently suited. As for this,’ he touched the side of the hull with a craftsman’s care, ‘it is a storied vehicle. It took part in one of the proudest moments of the Eighteenth Legion on Terra, long before my father found me again. The machine’s history is legend. And I believe its legend is unfinished. That is why I had it brought here from where it rested on Mars.’

  Rhy’tan said, ‘When it sees action again, I have no doubt its legend will grow. Things could hardly be otherwise.’

  Vulkan smiled at T’kell. ‘You do not have the answers you seek, but do the ones I have given suffice?’

  ‘They do, lord,’ T’kell said.

  ‘Then I will interrupt your work no further,’ said Vulkan. He looked at Rhy’tan. ‘Nomus, will you come with me?’

  As Rhy’tan followed his primarch out of the forge chamber, he felt his hearts clench with renewed shame. Vulkan’s words with T’kell had not comforted him. His uncertainty was as strong as ever. And another thought had begun to trouble him. There was a possibility that would explain the new Legion being held back from joining the old one. He did not want to articulate it, especially not to Vulkan. Yet he could not put it from his mind.

  The stone gallery ran along the northern end of the highest cavern in the complex. This region was more of a staging ground than a forge. In the centre of the gallery, Vulkan and Rhy’tan looked down upon the expanse of the rockcrete floor. Row upon row of tanks stood waiting to rumble up the ramp that passed beneath the gallery and led to the space port on the surface. Legion­aries and Mechanicum tech-priests inspected individual vehicles, teams veri­fying and adjusting the weapons in preparation for an off-world assault that still hovered in the indefinite future.

  The great forces of Vulkan’s Nocturnean Legion were ready for deployment. They had been for some time. The years spent training the legionaries were done. The warriors were ready, and their weapons were forged. Their transport and assault vehicles waited to be launched. The work on the huge machine in the caverns below was the last important task unfinished. When he saw it completed, he would at last lead his sons into battle in the Emperor’s name. In the time he had been absent from Nocturne, fighting and learning at the Emperor’s side, he had led contingents seconded from other Legions. He had been ­honoured to do so, and he had found true kinship with the Iron Hands of Ferrus Manus. But all of that had been mere prologue. These were his sons, shaped by the fires of Nocturne, and it was at their head that he belonged.

  The legionaries of the XVIII would march as soon as he gave the order.

  Only he had no order to give.

  ‘Does it trouble you,’ he asked Rhy’tan, ‘that I could not tell Forgemaster T’kell when we would depart Nocturne?’

  The Igniax was silent for a short while, thinking through his answer. ‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘that does not trouble me.’

  ‘But something does.’

  Rhy’tan was quiet again. Vulkan waited, patient. Rhy’tan always spoke carefully. Vulkan had never heard an outburst from him. That was one of the reasons he valued Rhy’tan. As Igniax, Rhy’tan taught the wisdom of Nocturne’s myths and traditions. The deep, vertical furrows of his cheeks were the marks of many years of experience, earned long before he had become a legionary. He did not act without careful thought. His deliberation also made him a sounding board. Vulkan trusted Rhy’tan to listen, to take to heart the new lessons Vulkan sought to impart and then to convey the lessons to others. Just as importantly, he knew he could trust Rhy’tan to speak with him honestly.

  ‘Are you troubled, lord?’ Rhy’tan asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you troubled by not knowing when our march will begin? Do you not wonder why the Emperor has not told you where and how we are to rejoin the rest of the Eighteenth?’

  Yes, Vulkan thought. It has troubled me since I first asked Him when that time would come, and He responded by keeping me near Him and away from my sons. He did not say all this to Rhy’tan. He said, ‘Yes.’ That was enough to begin with.

  ‘Do you know how it will become apparent that our time has come?’

  ‘I do not. But I have faith that I will know. Does this disturb you?’

  Vulkan waited once more. Rhy’tan was staring, unseeing, at the floor beneath the gallery. Vulkan watched the Igniax wrestle with himself. It was clear that he would have preferred to keep these particular thoughts locked away, but Vulkan had asked him, and he would have to respond.

  The silence stretched on. Vulkan murmured, ‘Remember that we must be honest between ourselves.’

  Rhy’tan nodded. ‘I am disturbed by a theory that would explain why we are still not called to join our brothers.’

  Vulkan caught Rhy’
tan’s very slight hesitation before he used the words ‘our brothers’.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  Rhy’tan sighed. ‘I have been wondering if the reason we have not joined our brothers yet is because we are not meant to.’

  Vulkan consciously held his fists open and relaxed his fingers. Rhy’tan had hit close to the mark in a number of ways. ‘Go on,’ he said, though he could guess what Rhy’tan was about to say.

  ‘How does the rest of the Eighteenth fare at present?’ Rhy’tan asked.

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘The reputation of our brothers…’ Rhy’tan hesitated again. ‘It is a point of concern,’ he finished, clearly dismayed with his own euphemism.

  Vulkan grimaced. In the years of his service to the Emperor, when he had left Nocturne and fought by his father’s side, his face hidden by his helm, he had heard the muttered judgements about the XVIII. No one questioned the Legion’s valour. No one sought to diminish its victories. But it had thrown itself into so many desperate stands that self-sacrifice had begun, in the eyes of some, to look suicidal.

  Vulkan had not ignored the whispers. He had studied the records of the XVIII’s engagements. All of them. He saw the strength and the bravery of the Legion, and its commitment to shield the innocent. He also saw the tally of losses, a tally that seemed to be growing exponentially over time. He had spoken to Rhy’tan of this. The Igniax needed to understand the vision Vulkan had for the Legion. If Rhy’tan was to help spread this vision, it could not be a matter simply of repeating Vulkan’s words. He had to see what the primarch saw.

  And they had to speak honestly.

  ‘There are thoughts and words that oppress you,’ Vulkan said, ‘because you are reluctant to express them. You must speak them. And I must hear them.’

  Rhy’tan took a breath, then said, ‘Perhaps we of Nocturne are fated to be the totality of the Eighteenth Legion.’

  ‘I know, by the hesitation in your voice, that arrogance has not brought you to this conclusion.’ Hear him out, Vulkan thought. This cannot and must not be true, but hear him out. This idea had come to him too, and it had never been welcome.

  ‘I hope it has not, lord,’ Rhy’tan said. ‘You were taken from Terra and destiny brought you to Nocturne. Your Legion, created without you, dwindles as if its warriors sense, somewhere in their being, its… its incompleteness. Perhaps the old Legion must vanish. Perhaps this is what the Emperor awaits.’