Vulkan Lord of Drakes Page 6

  ‘We can hold them a long time from this position,’ said Numeon, placing shell bursts with devastating accuracy.

  ‘We cannot do so indefinitely,’ Vaughn said.

  ‘That was never a possibility anywhere, was it?’

  ‘No.’ The image of the last of the Legion standing fast on a monu­ment of tanks had the romance of glory, but no. The end was not yet. If there was still any way of carrying out his duty, he must take it. ‘Legionary Orasus,’ he voxed, ‘attempt to make contact with the Cauldron. Our walls are strong enough to have withstood what felled us out here.’

  Large movements in the ash called Vaughn’s attention. There was something big out there, and moving fast. ‘South-west quadrant,’ he warned.

  The enemy came into view. It was an ork chieftain, and it was a colossus. The crude armour it wore was thick enough to be the plating of a Land Raider, yet seemed an unnecessary ornamentation on the monster’s pillar-like limbs. It smashed through its underlings, trampling them underfoot, even as they howled in celebration. A great leader had come to destroy their foe.

  The chieftain advanced in a fast, loping run. It was more than twice Vaughn’s size. One hand held a huge, crude gun. Its barrel was wide as a cannon. The other hand was encased in a power claw that looked as if it could tear through the hull of a battleship. The ork roared, the sound coming from deep in its chest, as loud as a new eruption.

  The lava crust gave way under its right foot. It sank up to its thigh and leapt out without pause, the burning lava on its leg doing no more than goading it forwards. It was as if Antaeum had spat out a monster forged from fire and rock and animalistic rage.

  The other orks surged forwards with new energy as they sought to cover the wreckage in the ocean of their flesh. The Legion’s fire held them back, but barely. The arrival of the chieftain was galvanising their frenzy.

  While the rest of the guns pounded the advancing tide, Vaughn and Numeon fired at the chieftain. Their bolter shells punched rents into its armour. The greenskin laughed and ran faster, its jaws wide in greeting, welcoming the fight.

  To the rear, there was another blast from the volcano, another shattering of rock and the hissing grind of approaching destruction.

  The chieftain lunged forwards and landed on the hill. Legionary Dexius slashed his chainaxe at the beast, but the greenskin snapped his head off with its power claw. The monster did not even look at the dead warrior. Its attention was focused on the peak, on Vaughn.

  ‘Come on then!’ Vaughn shouted.

  Numeon hurled a frag grenade, but the ork batted it aside, the blast insignificant against its claw, and came on up, crushing the legionaries in its path. The air was growing hotter and turning red again. Another lava flow was near.

  ‘I have the Cauldron!’ Orasus voxed. ‘It still stands. The walls are not breached.’

  The chieftain reached the peak.

  ‘Pull back to the Cauldron,’ Vaughn ordered. A fighting withdrawal would give them the chance to regroup, get off the defensive and strike again. And if they stopped the chieftain here, that would be a grievous wound to the orks’ morale.

  Vaughn stabbed his power sword forwards as the chieftain closed with him. He cut through the metal of the monster’s jagged helmet. The beast snarled and heaved itself to one side. The powerblade sliced its ear off.

  Numeon flanked right, sending bolter shells into its side, while below, the legionaries began to pull away from the hill of ruined tanks, cutting through the surrounding orks and starting the long march upslope through cooling lava to the Cauldron.

  The ork ignored the shots striking it and fired its gun. Vaughn saw the barrel go up in time, and he ducked around a projecting cannon. The greenskin’s shell exploded against the cannon, and shrapnel blew back in its face. It blinked and took a step back, and Vaughn came round at it, firing a full burst with his combi-bolter, the double stream of shells marching up the ork’s chest. The beast threw itself down so quickly, it took only a grazing shot against its forehead. Numeon hit it again, strafing its left flank, breaking through the massive plates. The ork swept its power claw out. The movement was as sudden as it was powerful. The claw struck Numeon in the chest and sent him flying. He dropped to the base of the wreckage, and the chieftain propelled itself at Vaughn with blinding speed. Vaughn recoiled and ran out of room on the peak. The smashed hulls fell away behind him. He threw himself back, letting himself fall, seizing the thought of luring the monster down to where Numeon could rejoin the fight. As he dropped, he raised his combi-bolter to fire at the ork as it came for him. The shells hit, blowing apart the beast’s chest-plate, but the monster was so fast. It leapt after him, plunging partway down the slope of the hill. It snatched at Vaughn with the power claw, seizing him around the waist as it landed on an upturned Typhon. It pinned his arms to his sides, squeezed and suddenly a mountain chain was crushing his torso. Ceramite splintered, his right arm snapped and the combi-bolter fell from his paralysed fingers.

  Vaughn roared in anger and defiance. He couldn’t move. The ork stood on the peak and raised him high, bellowing in triumph, the jaws of the claw closing and closing. Vaughn’s bones broke, his power pack crumpled and his armour became a coffin. His black carapace cracked and his lungs filled with fluid. The pain made a mockery of the heat that had burned him before, and it made a still more terrible mockery of his pride. There was no glory in this defeat. There was no glory in this ending.

  ‘I will kill you yet!’ he spat at the beast. He struggled but could not move.

  The claw closed more tightly yet. It was going to cut him in half. The ork roared with laughter.

  Vaughn’s vision turned red, he thought from his own agony. Then he realised it was the air that was red, and the rumble he heard was not the blood in his ears. The ork chieftain snarled in anger as another lava wave struck the hill. Then Vaughn was falling as the beast was swept up by the molten rock. The chieftain struggled to reach him but was carried back by the surge. The ork howled, not in pain but in frustration.

  And then the red and the black took him again.

  Vaughn drifted in and out of consciousness. Sudden bursts of pain jolted him awake, and the same pain overwhelmed his senses and dropped him into oblivion again. He had the vague sensation of being dragged. There was heat and destruction, and somehow he was moving towards the volcano.

  Once more, he was in the prophetic painting he had seen on the Pride of the Emperor, only now the violent movement of grey had turned into a lightning storm of black and red. He could see and know nothing except that he was in the worst chaos of war.

  Not like this, he thought. Sometimes his lips moved. ‘Not like this.’ The ending too-long sought had come, and it was all wrong. Everything was wrong.

  On the southern rampart of the Cauldron’s roof, where they stood guard, waiting for the orks to regroup, Legionary Saluran asked, ‘Does the lord commander live?’

  ‘He does,’ Orasus told him and the other three surviving members of his squad. ‘I heard him snarl when they moved him onto the medicae slab.’

  Saluran, Caelius and Blasius greeted the news silently. Blasius was never talkative, and Saluran always took in whatever was hurled his way with calm, but it took a lot to make Caelius go quiet.

  It was, in fact, Blasius who broke the silence. ‘Do you think he will fight again?’

  ‘He will want to,’ Saluran put in.

  ‘Of course he will want to,’ said Orasus. He hesitated. ‘I don’t know if he will be able to. His wounds…’

  ‘That bad?’ said Caelius.

  ‘So they seemed, from what I could see.’

  Saluran grunted. He looked out down the slope of the cone, towards the plain, which still glowed here and there with molten rock. ‘At least he hurt the enemy badly too,’ he said. ‘And we will fight on for him.’

  ‘We will,’ Orasus agreed.

 
None of them asked for how long that would be possible.

  Dark, then. A long period of dark. When Vaughn opened his eyes again, he was motionless. The light was dim, but it was not angry. It was steady, artificial. Lumen strips.

  He was on a medicae table in the Cauldron, and his armour had been removed. Apothecary Fimbrus was working on him.

  ‘What…?’ Vaughn managed.

  ‘The withdrawal is complete.’

  The voice was Numeon’s. With an effort that almost made him black out again, Vaughn turned his eyes to the right and saw the first captain.

  ‘All those who could, have reached the Cauldron,’ Numeon said.

  Vaughn croaked, trying to speak.

  ‘The attempt to speak may be fatal, lord commander,’ said the Apothecary.

  Vaughn ignored him. ‘How many?’ he asked.

  Numeon grimaced. ‘Not enough,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘Briefing…’ Vaughn managed.

  ‘The surviving officers are gathered,’ Numeon said.

  ‘Take me there.’

  ‘Lord commander,’ Fimbrus protested.

  ‘Now. Keep me awake.’

  Fimbrus obeyed. Even with a sudden influx of stimms, Vaughn kept greying out. He was not aware of being transferred from the apothecarion to the command module. He forced his eyes open, and he was looking at a mere handful of Praetors. He fought unconsciousness back, struggling to hold on to his grasp of his Legion’s situation. Fimbrus hovered over him, adjusting the stimms and monitoring his vital signs. He still could not move his limbs. Tubes ran from him to the medicae consoles, keeping him breathing.

  ‘The ork chieftain is still on the field,’ Numeon was saying. ‘It was wounded, but not badly. It has lost many of its underlings, however, too many for the greenskins to mount an attack on the Cauldron.’

  ‘So our strategy was successful to that extent,’ said Manius Silva, first captain of the decimated Fourth Company. He had lost an eye in the battle, and the left side of his face was an angry map of burns.

  ‘If that ship hadn’t struck the peak of the cone, we would have crushed them,’ growled Arion Vestus of the Fifth. His heavy-set features were streaked with ash. A deep gouge ran from forehead to chin.

  ‘Temporarily…’ Vaughn whispered. Even if the volcano had not caught the Legion too in its holocaust, the largest portion of the ork force was still in orbit and descending out of reach on the far side of the southern chain.

  ‘Temporarily,’ Numeon agreed. ‘And the eruptions are easing to the south. The ork reinforcements will come.’

  ‘What of the fleet?’ Silva asked.

  ‘The eruptions have destroyed our long-range vox capacity, but all signals have been lost on the auspex. There was a bombardment, and that may have bought us some time. But the landings have resumed.’

  The darkness encroached on Vaughn again. With an effort, he hurled it back and forced words from his throat. ‘Damage to the Cauldron?’

  ‘Badly damaged,’ said Numeon. ‘The walls are holding for now. Another eruption like the last may be too much. We can hold an attack off, but not for long. We are hardly better off than we were on the remains of the tanks.’

  ‘Then we fight,’ said Vaughn. Pain seized him, as if the claw were around him once more, and his limbs rattled against the medicae table.

  Fimbrus brought his narthecium close to Vaughn’s neck.

  ‘No coma,’ Vaughn rasped.

  ‘But my lord commander…’

  ‘I will be awake. When the time comes, I will be awake.’

  Fimbrus nodded. ‘As you will, lord commander.’ He spoke with less reluctance than respect.

  ‘First Captain Numeon,’ said Vaughn. ‘You have command of the battlefield. Direct the fight against the greenskins as you deem fit.’

  Numeon lowered his head in acceptance. ‘I will not fail you, lord commander.’

  A tacticarium screen flashed to life. Auspex readings scrolled down its length. Numeon turned and stared.

  ‘What is it?’ Vestus asked.

  ‘Someone has come,’ said Numeon. ‘A fleet has translated into the system.’

  ‘What fleet?’ said Vaughn, poised between hope and despair.

  Numeon shook his head. ’Unknown.’

  Four

  brotherhood / the voice / flight of the termite

  The Emperor created us for a specific purpose. When the events of the universe unfold in such a manner that we may fulfil that purpose, it is not a coincidence, nor is it predestination. It is the logical conclusion of our existence. We must know that purpose and, in the full understanding of who we are, embrace the duty that comes with that understanding.

  – Vulkan, Prometheus Reconsidered

  In the strategium of the Flamewrought, Vulkan looked at his assembled Praetors. There were seven of them, a division that honoured the great sanctuary cities of Nocturne. Rhy’tan was present too. Vulkan wanted the Igniax to bear witness to every important phase of this mission. Of all his sons, it was most important that Rhy’tan see and understand the truth of what he was seeking to accomplish.

  A hololithic representation of Antaeum and the ork vessels dominated the tacticarium table. At its corners, pict screens were updating with new auspex readings as the Nocturnean force drew closer to its target.

  ‘This is the entirety of the ork fleet?’ said Reth Sho’mar. The Lord Protector of Hesiod’s sharp features were accentuated by his shorn scalp and jagged spike of a beard.

  ‘It is,’ Vulkan answered. ‘Your brothers have achieved the extra­ordinary. They have held the orks at Antaeum, all of them, and so spared the inhabited worlds of Taras.’

  ‘I see no sign of the Terran fleet,’ said Tukeren Na’shor of Epithemus. His eyes were deep shadows under his heavy brow, and they glinted red, reflecting the light from the screen.

  ‘There is none,’ Rhy’tan confirmed. He pointed to a cluster of readings a relatively short distance from the orks. ‘That looks like a debris cloud, does it not?’

  ‘It does,’ Saral Kal’ma of Clymenne said. ‘So the Terrans must be at their limit. If they survive at all.’ His voice was harsh as the rasp of a saw blade.

  ‘The orks continue to attack a death world,’ Vulkan said. ‘Therefore someone is fighting them.’ He spoke evenly, without directly chiding Kal’ma. The lord protector was being honest in his appraisal of the situation, and Vulkan did not want that vital exchange between officers to suffer. At the same time, he would make it clear that the mission was the rescue of the XVIII as much as it was the defeat of the orks. Now he pointed at the attack moon. ‘That is the centre of the ork force. It is their greatest strength, and it is their greatest weakness. If they lose this base, they lose everything. So we shall take it from them.’

  As Vulkan spoke, the data stream to the hololith updated again, and the detail of the ork structure increased in resolution. Scars appeared on the uneven surface of the agglomeration. Sho’mar leaned forwards, frowning. ‘What is that?’ he said, pointing to a particularly large wound on the attack moon.

  ‘A ship?’ Rhy’tan wondered.

  Vulkan eyed the close-up of the scan on the pict screen to his left. The data stream updated again, and the details became clear. There was wreckage, enough intact to be recognisable. ‘An Imperial battleship,’ Vulkan said. While on Terra, he had made a study of the records of the XVIII. He knew its vessels. At the time of its departure for the Taras Division the XVIII had only one battleship. ‘That is the Klostzatz,’ he said.

  The solemn silence around the tacticarium table lasted several seconds.

  ‘They rammed it,’ said Na’shor.

  Vulkan nodded. ‘They must have tried, at the end, to break the crust of the attack moon.’

  ‘If they failed,’ Rhy’tan said, ‘if even a battleship could not crack that defence, then how a
re we to…’ He trailed off, and Vulkan watched his face change as he realised how the XVIII Nocturne would succeed. He stared back at Vulkan in astonishment.

  Vulkan smiled. ‘We knew we would be fighting orks,’ he said. ‘Orks that have held a Legion at bay. For such work, one must prepare the correct tools.’ He looked at the rest of his commanders. ‘We have the weapons we need to annihilate the xenos fleet. And we have arrived in the Taras System at precisely the moment your Terran brothers have the greatest need of us.’

  Suddenly, the Praetors all seemed to have trouble meeting each other’s eyes.

  ‘You still have your doubts,’ Vulkan said. There was a noticeable difference between the Praetors’ readiness for battle and the way they mentioned the Terran XVIII. None of them questioned the mission, but they could not disguise the fact that they did not think the Terrans would still be alive by the time the Nocturneans made planetfall. He met Rhy’tan’s pained eyes and, with a nod, reminded him to speak freely.

  ‘Your doubts are universal,’ Vulkan said.

  ‘That is not what I would have wished.’

  ‘Never be ashamed of reality.’ Then he addressed the Praetors. ‘You do not believe we will rescue the Eighteenth.’

  ‘My lord primarch,’ said Sho’mar, ‘the auspex readings are clear. The orks have landed in overwhelming numbers. Even if no more arrived…’

  Vulkan held up a hand. ‘I see the scans too, Reth. My conclusions differ. I know your brothers will hold, and you will reach them. I understand too, that you do not believe we will get there in time. You do me, then, a great honour by being no less willing to fight.’

  ‘We believe in our victory, my lord primarch. We believe in you.’

  ‘Our forging will be complete in this battle,’ said Kal’ma.

  ‘Yes,’ Vulkan said, slowly and deliberately. ‘Yes, it will be. Lord Protectors Sho’mar and Kal’ma, I want you and eight companies to join me in the attack on the ork base. With one thousand legionaries, we will pierce that structure to its core. Once we are at sufficient depth, we will place seismic charges.’