‘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.
Hriak regarded the human silently for a beat. ‘For a man, you are… unusual. And not just for your ability to cling tenaciously to life.’
‘Interesting way of putting it. But you’re not the first legionary to remark on that,’ Grammaticus replied.
Ignoring the attempted wit, Hriak went on. ‘I have heard of biomancy that can knit skin, mend bones,’ he reached out to touch Grammaticus’s healed body, ‘but nothing like this. It could not bring men back from the dead.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ answered Grammaticus. ‘I serve a higher power who call themselves the Cabal.’
‘A higher power?’ said K’gosi. ‘Do you believe in gods then, human?’
Grammaticus raised his eyebrow. ‘Do you not, even after all you’ve seen?’ He continued, ‘They gave me eternal life. It’s them whom I serve.’
Numeon detected the bitterness in his reply and, coming up alongside Hriak, asked, ‘To what end, John Grammaticus? Evidently you are no creature of Old Night, else my brother here would have urged us to destroy you at once. Nor do I think you’re an alien. So, if not malfeasance, what is your purpose?’
Grammaticus met the Salamander’s gaze. ‘To save Vulkan.’
The tension in the manufactorum suddenly went up several notches.
‘So you’ve said,’ Numeon replied. ‘But I thought he was supposed to be immortal, like you? What need of saving would our primarch have?’
‘I said save him, not save his life.’
Leodrakk sneered, his displeasure at this exchange obvious, ‘And what makes you think you can succeed where we, his Legion, failed?’
Numeon bit back the urge to tell his brother they had not ‘failed’, and let Grammaticus continue.
‘Because of the spear. I need it, the artefact your enemy took from me. They are my enemy, too. With it I can save him.’ Grammaticus turned to the Librarian. ‘Take a look if you don’t believe me. You’ll find I’m speaking the truth.’
Hriak gave Numeon an almost imperceptible nod.
Grammaticus saw it too. ‘So, help me. We have a common foe in this, as well as a common goal.’
‘An alliance?’
‘I’ve been proposing one ever since you captured me.’
‘Where is he then?’ asked Numeon. ‘Where is our primarch that we might save him? And how can a mere human, albeit an immortal one, hope to achieve such a feat? You say you need the spear to do it, but how? What power does it possess?’
‘He’s far from here, that’s all I know. The rest is still a mystery, even to me.’
‘Have Hriak tear his skull open,’ snapped Leodrakk. ‘He’ll unlock what he knows.’
‘Please… Help me to the spear and off Ranos. I can reach him.’
Numeon considered it but then gestured to Hriak.
‘Tells us what he knows,’ he said darkly.
The Librarian took a step forwards so he could press the palm of his right hand against the man’s forehead.
‘Don’t do it…’ murmured Grammaticus. ‘You don’t know what–’
He convulsed as the pain of mental intrusion hit him. Then Hriak jerked, and a grunt of agony escaped through his vox-grille.
Numeon reached out to him. ‘Brother…?’ The Raven Guard warded him off with an outstretched hand.
He couldn’t speak. Hriak was breathing hard, the throaty sound affected by exertion as his powers were tested. He fell down to one knee, but maintained eye contact and kept his hand up to show the others he was all right. He let it drop to his gorget, then detached his helmet clamps, releasing a small plume of pressurised gas into the air. Then he lifted the helmet free. Underneath, his skin was pale, almost bone-white. Ravaged by injury, one half of the Raven Guard’s face was pulled up in a permanent grimace. His neck bore the scar of a grievous throat wound. It was deep, and looked grey and ugly now that it had healed. Grammaticus balked at the grim apparition. Since Hriak’s discomfort had begun, his own pain had visibly eased.
Hriak let him go, relieved no longer to be in contact.
‘Do you see now?’ said Numeon. ‘We have suffered much and have little left to lose, save for our honour,’ he told Grammaticus. ‘I would have no compunction killing you now or later if you lie to us or obfuscate the truth again.’
‘I am not lying. Vulkan lives,’ Grammaticus said simply.
‘He doesn’t know anything else,’ rasped Hriak, taking Numeon’s arm as it was offered and getting back to his feet. He had yet to put his helmet back on, even though he was clearly uncomfortable with his comrades seeing his damaged face. Breathing was obviously easier without it, though. ‘Or at least, not yet. His instructions have been imparted psychically. Some are locked. I cannot reach them.’
‘He’s preventing you?’
‘Someone is.’
‘This Cabal, his masters?’
Grammaticus interrupted, ‘They guard their knowledge well. No amount of digging around in my skull is going to unearth what you’re after.’
‘I have to concur,’ Hriak conceded, reaching for his helmet.