The Hunt for Vulkan Read online

  The walker began to fall towards its mate.

  Titanic metal walls closed together over Thane’s head. A war mountain fell upon another. The monsters collided. Their limbs entangled. With grinding blasts aloft, Titan fused with Titan.

  Thane and Aloysian passed from beneath their shadow, racing over the bucking, groaning earth for the waiting Rhino. The transport ground forward as the hatch slammed shut. Thane climbed through the roof turret to look back. He saw the final act of desperation, anger and madness. He saw the great cannons fire again.

  The guns had no valid targets. They were aimed downward and too close to each other. The walker to the west blew up the lower reaches of the other’s armour. The eastern one created a new crater before both colossi. It turned into a widening chasm. The walkers fell forward, lodging in the gap, riven by blasts. The guns, their barrels now aiming beneath the surface, boomed again, but this time Thane knew he was hearing the start of a chain reaction, the weaponry of the monsters consuming itself in uncontrolled detonations. The walkers turned into metal volcanoes, a blazing wall of ruin across the southern access to the Ascia Rift, containing orks and humans alike inside the doomed installation.

  The Thunderhawks kept pace with the convoy of Predators and Rhinos overhead. Their guns were silent. Their role now was to rescue battle-brothers from any vehicles that fell into the multiplying fissures.

  The tremors shook the Rhino. Thane held tight to the turret to avoid being thrown free. On either side, the mountains raged. Rockslides roared down the faces. Lava followed, blood drawn from the night. Behind, in the pass, he watched the ork structures waver and fall, collapsing in a growing sea of flame.

  And then came the immense crack of terminal rending. It was a sharp retort, but so deep and vast it drowned all other sound of war and destruction. It was the sound of the Ascia Rift opening wide its maw.

  A terrible dawn broke, incandescent red, the sun rising from the centre of the canyon.

  The rift parted. The great wound began in the centre. Metres wide, then tens of metres, then hundreds. It swallowed the ruins of the command nexus. It stretched its reach, longer and longer, expanding to half the length of the canyon. From it came the lava in a tide, a flood, a wall. A sea of molten rock rose to fill the rift.

  It rose to swallow armies.

  Imren saw it, and she smiled. She stood on her Chimera, bleeding out from a gut shot. Nissen was dead, burned when an ork rocket took out the treads and front of the hull. She was dying, but she was standing, and she was firing her plasma pistol at the enemy, and she had lived to see the victory. And so she smiled.

  The victory was staggering to behold. She and her troops would become part of a legend, and that was glorious. Her soul was staggered by the sight. A lava wall thirty metres high swept toward her, and the sight was greater in her perception than the devouring heat that came before it. The orks in their tens of thousands, their tanks and their transports, their weapons and all their works disappeared in the wall. They were silhouettes of defeat, of fleeing despair, and then they were gone.

  The wave was almost upon her. It took her troops. The heat set her hair alight. The light of the world’s anger blinded her. And there was pain. Inconceivable pain.

  But greater than everything was the victory. Her troops celebrated as they died, and her final thoughts were of exultation.

  A worthy end.

  Honour is restored.

  Koorland brought up the rear in the tunnel. He supported Eternity. He fired, killing the fleeing orks, denying them the last of a faint hope. The sides of the tunnel glowed with the heat. The joints of Koorland’s armour kept locking. He was dragging it almost as much as he was Eternity. But behind came the searing light of Caldera’s vengeance, spurring him on.

  The wall was endless. The heat was swift and merciless. The lava flowed up the slope, devouring the horde, and then Koorland turned away. There was nothing but the killing brilliance behind him.

  He staggered into the night, seconds ahead of the deluge. The Honour’s Spear was on the ground, rear hatch down, engines rumbling and eager for flight.

  ‘A good night’s work,’ Eternity slurred, barely conscious.

  ‘A great dawn,’ Koorland answered. He lurched up the ramp with his burden and collapsed onto a bench with his brother. The hatch closed and the Thunderhawk leapt for the skies.

  Koorland looked through the viewing block. Lava shot out of the tunnel, a glowing finger emerging from the wall. Moments later the barrier failed. It had been strong enough to keep its builders trapped inside. Now it melted in the embrace of the lava flow. The mountainous landscape filled with incinerating light.

  ‘And the primarch?’ Eternity asked. ‘What of Vulkan?’

  ‘I have faith,’ Koorland answered.

  They had returned to Torrens, as the Protector of Caldera had commanded. There was little of the mining settlement that remained. It was a location with a name, and some ruins, in which could be traced the fractured memories of a wall, of habitations, an echo of streets. But Lord Vulkan had commanded that they return, and so they had. The mere handful who had survived.

  And now, standing where their rampart had been, they looked north, and saw the wrathful birth of day.

  The glare of the lava flow spilled out from between the silhouettes of the twin volcanoes.

  ‘Will it reach this far?’ Karla asked.

  The question had been on Becker’s lips too. He didn’t know.

  ‘If it does,’ said a voice deep as stone, ‘you will depart ahead of it, and begin anew. You know this danger. To be tempered on its anvil is your blessing as Calderans.’

  Mesmerised by the flood, they had not seen Vulkan approach. He was before them now, a giant in the growing light.

  ‘I once brought a deluge of flame to this planet,’ he said. ‘It was a necessary destruction, and from the ashes of what had been before, Caldera was born. I then made a covenant with this world. I made no promise that I would not bring a burning flood again, but I swore to fight for Caldera.’ He raised his arm, and pointed with his hammer towards the lava. ‘Thus have I kept my oath. So will I ever.’ He gazed down on the people of Torrens. His eyes were as fierce as the lava flow, Becker thought. But they were also kind. ‘You have made me proud,’ Vulkan said. ‘You have fought well. Keep faith with Caldera as I do.’

  ‘We shall,’ Becker said.

  ‘We swear it,’ said Karla.

  ‘We swear it!’ One voice. All the voices.

  Vulkan nodded. ‘Then I am satisfied.’

  Epilogue

  Terra – The Imperial Palace

  The Monitus was a large, semi-circular hall at the top of the Stilicho Tower. Its huge, arcing balcony looked out towards the dome of the Great Chamber. Standing sentry on massive plinths every five metres along the balcony were monolithic, granite statues representing each of the original Loyalist Legions of the Space Marines. Each plinth held two statues, one facing towards the Great Chamber, the other casting a cold gaze down to the floor of the hall. The Monitus was the promise and reminder of vigilance. It was an unforgiving space.

  The High Lords rarely set foot in it.

  Valefor of the Blood Angels, Macrinus of the Ultramarines, Asger of the Space Wolves and Adnachiel of the Dark Angels were already there when Koorland arrived. The statues were three times larger than life, but the presence of the living Adeptus Astartes filled the hall. If the four commanders had been speaking before, they were silent now, and standing with some distance between them. Their faces were cold when they saw Koorland, and he knew the struggle he would have faced had he attempted to lead the expedition to Ullanor.

  Koorland walked to the centre of the Monitus. ‘Brothers,’ he said. ‘I thank you for answering Terra’s call.’ Then he waited.

  Behind came heavy footsteps. Vulkan entered the chamber.

  The change
came over the faces of the other Space Marines. Koorland saw in them the disbelieving awe he had experienced on Caldera. As one, they dropped to a knee and bowed their heads before the primarch.

  ‘Rise, brothers,’ Vulkan said. He strode between them to the edge of the balcony. He looked at the Great Chamber. He was silent for a full minute. Then, his voice redolent with judgement, he said, ‘I will meet the High Lords here.’

  ‘This is a coup,’ Tobris Ekharth complained.

  Vangorich listened to the Master of the Administratum’s whine as the Council made its way up the long spiral staircase leading to the Monitus. No one else spoke. They let Ekharth bluster.

  ‘Koorland ousts Lord Udo,’ Ekharth continued. ‘He reforms a coherent Legion. He summons reinforcements to Terra. Then a figurehead. Then we are summoned to attend on the Astartes as though we were serfs. The primarch will not even deign to set foot in the Grand Chamber. And he makes us wait a full day before seeing us. A day! Don’t you see the pattern? Don’t you see what is happening? Koorland has returned a conqueror, and we are the conquered.’

  Vangorich thought the man was on the verge of sobbing. He was desperate for an ally, for even one other High Lord to confirm his thinking. At the top of the stairs, in the antechamber to the Monitus, Ekharth jerked his head back and forth like a bird, pleading with his eyes. He found silence. He paled.

  You’re more and less alone than you think, Vangorich was tempted to tell him. No one is contradicting you. They agree with you. But they won’t take the risk of saying so.

  They entered the Monitus. When he saw the towering figure who awaited them, Vangorich had to stifle a gasp of awe and hope.

  The silence of the rest of the Council took on a different cast. They were struck dumb. And they were terrified.

  Vulkan was flanked by Koorland and the representatives of the four Chapters. The primarch had his arms folded. His eyes were stony.

  Far below, in the streets and the squares and the chapels of the Imperial Palace, the people were celebrating the triumph of Caldera. The first true victory of the war. The first real sign of hope. But the sounds of rejoicing did not reach this high. There was only more and more and more silence. And something worse: judgement.

  Ecclesiarch Mesring cleared his throat. He tried to speak. ‘Lord Vulkan,’ he croaked, ‘we honour your–’

  ‘I have spoken with Chapter Master Koorland,’ the primarch said.

  Mesring froze, jaw hanging open.

  ‘I have spent a day and a night in contemplation of the words and deeds of the High Lords,’ Vulkan continued. ‘You should give thanks for the orks and for the threat they represent.’ He spoke calmly, and with infinite disgust. ‘If not for the need for unity, I would kill you all myself.’

  Strike, Vangorich wanted to say. Strike now. Purge the rot and make something new. That is something a legend can do.

  He said nothing.

  Vulkan spoke again. ‘We make ready for Ullanor. You will do your duty in the preparations.’

  And Vangorich sighed. The moment had passed. The High Lords were terrified, but they were calculating again. Each faction had tried to use Koorland to its ends. Now an even greater power had arrived, and the game resumed.

  Even with the stakes higher than ever, the game went on. Petty beasts snapped at each other.

  While on Ullanor, the Great Beast awaited.

  About the Author

  David Annandale is the author of the Horus Heresy novel The Damnation of Pythos. He also writes the Yarrick series, consisting of the novella Chains of Golgotha and the novels Imperial Creed and The Pyres of Armageddon. For Space Marine Battles he has written The Death of Antagonis and Overfiend. He is a prolific writer of short fiction, including the novella Mephiston: Lord of Death and numerous short stories set in The Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 universes. He has also written several short stories set in the Age of Sigmar. David lectures at a Canadian university, on subjects ranging from English literature to horror films and video games.

  An extract from Vulkan Lives.

  ‘Vulkan lives.’

  Two words. Two grating words. They closed around me like a rusty trap, snaring me with their savage teeth. So many dead… No, slain. And yet…

  Vulkan.

  Lives.

  I felt each one reverberate inside my skull like a triphammer striking a tuning fork, pressing at my temples, every syllable pulsing headache-red. They were little more than a mocking whisper, these two simple words, mocking me because I survived when I should have died. Because I lived, they did not.

  Surprise, awe, or perhaps it was the simple desire not to be heard that made the speaker craft his words so quietly. In any case, the voice that gave utterance to them was confident and full of undeniable charisma.

  I knew its cadence, its timbre, as familiarly as I knew my own. I recognised the voice of my gaoler. And I, too, rasped as I declared it to him.

  ‘Horus…’

  For all my brother’s obvious and demonstrative puissance, even in his voice, I could barely speak. It was as if I’d been buried for a long time and my throat was hoarse from swallowing too much dirt. I had yet to open my eyes, for the lids were leaden and stung as if they’d been washed out with neat promethium.

  Promethium.

  The word brought back a sense memory, the image of a battlefield swathed in smog and redolent of death. Blood saturated the air. It soaked the black sand underfoot. Smoke clung to banners edged in fire. In fragments, I recalled a battle unlike any other that I or my Legion had ever fought. Such vast forces, such strength of arms, almost elemental in their fury. Brothers killed brothers, a death toll in the tens of thousands. Maybe more.

  I saw Ferrus die, even though I wasn’t present at his murder, but in my mind I saw it. We had a bond, he and I, forged in more than fraternal blood. We were too alike not to.

  This was Isstvan V that I saw. A black, benighted world swarmed by a sea of legionaries bent on mutual destruction. Battle tanks by the hundreds, Titans roaming the horizon in murderous packs, drop-ships flooding the sky and choking it with their death-smoke and their engine fumes.

  Chaos. Utter, unimaginable chaos.

  That word had a different meaning now.

  Further snatches of the massacre returned to me. I saw a hillside, a company of battle tanks at the summit. Their cannons were aimed low, firing off ordnance into our ranks and punishing us against the anvil.

  Armour cracked. Fire rained. Bodies broke.

  I charged with the Pyre Guard, but they soon lost pace with me as my anger overtook my capacity for reason. I hit the tanks on my own at first, like a hammer. With my hands I tore into the line of armour, battered it, roaring my defiance at a sky drenched crimson.

  As my sons caught up to my wrath, light and fire arrived in the wake of my assault. It tore open the sky in a great strip of blinding magnesium white. Those nearby shut their eyes to it, but I saw the missiles hit. I watched the detonation and beheld the fire as it spread across the world like a boiling ocean.

  Then there was darkness… for a time, until I remembered waking, but dazed. My war-plate was burned. I had been thrown from the battle. Alone, I staggered to my feet and saw a fallen son.

  It was Nemetor.

  Like an infant I cradled him, raising Dawnbringer aloft and crying out my anguish for all the good it would do. Because no matter how much you wish for it, the dead do not come back. Not really. And if they do, if by some fell craft you can restore them, they are forever changed. Revenants. Only a god can bring back the dead and return them to the living, and we had all been told that gods did not exist. I would come to understand the great folly and undeniable truth of that in the time that followed.

  My enemies reached me in a flood, stabbing with knives and bludgeoning with clubs. Some were midnight-clad, others wrapped in iron. I killed almost three score bef
ore they took Nemetor from my arms. And as I knelt there, bruised and bleeding, a shadow fell across me.

  I asked, ‘Why, brother?’

  And these next words were freshest in my memory, because of what Curze said as he loomed over me.

  ‘Because you’re the one who’s here.’

  It wasn’t the answer I was expecting. My question had a much wider meaning than what Curze took it to be. Perhaps there was no answer, for isn’t it inevitable that one day a son will rebel against his father and desire to succeed him, even if that succession meant committing patricide?

  Though my eyes were gummed with blood, my helmet gone, I swore I saw Curze smiling as he looked down on me as at one of his slaves. The bastard. Even now, I believe he found it amusing. All the horror, the dirty shame of treachery and how it stuck to all of our skins. We primarchs, we who were supposed to be the best of all men, turned out to be the very worst.

  Konrad had always enjoyed irony like that. It brought us all down to his level.

  ‘You are full of surprises.’

  At first I thought it was Curze again – my sense of time and space was colliding but not connecting, making it hard to focus properly – but he never said that to me at Isstvan; he never said anything else after that moment.

  No, it was Horus speaking. That cultured tonality, that deep basso which had made this treachery possible. Only he could have done it. I just didn’t know why. Not yet.

  I opened my eyes at last and saw before me the patrician countenance of a once noble man. Some would call him a demigod, I suppose. Perhaps we all were in our different ways, but then gods were supposed to be superstition honoured by lesser, credulous men.