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The Ash of Souls

Nick Kyme

Out on the Arridian Plain, life is hard. The weak do not last long. Generations ago, Themians, above all other Nocturneans, learned this lesson. Themians value strength. They breed only the hardiest fighters. Hunting is in their blood, and no quarry is ever too deadly for their guile and their spears.

Like all landscapes, deserts evolve over time. Hunters must adapt or the distance between predator and prey will narrow, and their roles reverse. Such change is like the shifting of sand, often unseen and unheard until it is too late and its trap is already sprung…

Zen’de, from Souls of the Earth

There was blood in Ba’ken’s mouth, blood and the hot tang of cinder. Around him, bones were stirring, barely clad in scraps of flesh, their rictus faces glaring. Black. Everything was scorched black and he was sinking in it, down into a mire of ash.

He had lost count of how many he had killed, drowning in a sea of bodies.

Lesser men might have cursed the lack of preparedness that had brought about this end. Lesser men might have capitulated.

Sol Ba’ken was Themian, as pragmatic as any fire-born son. He did not believe in what could be, only in what was. Forged in the City of Warrior-Kings, as a blade is upon the anvil, yielding was simply not in his nature.

He had gone into the desert looking for an answer, but had found something else, something… tainted.

Rising, despite his many injuries, Ba’ken clenched the hilt of his hunting knife and bellowed, ‘Come, death! Come and let’s see if you are worthy to claim my scalp!’

Death answered in the dry, rasping voice of the damned.

Sanctuary City of Hesiod, nineteen hours earlier

‘Are you sure this is wise?’ asked Fugis.

He addressed Ba’ken’s muscular, brawny shoulders and the cloak of drake hide hanging down over them. A thick-hafted hammer was strapped, crosswise, to his neck.

Fugis affected a mood of disapproval. He barely outmatched his brother’s height and width, despite being clad in power armour. His battleplate was the scale green of the Salamanders apart from his helmet and right arm, which were both white to denote his role as Apothecary. Unlike his bald companion, his hair was closely cropped, and he had a thin face not at all similar to the crag-like features that regarded him.

Sol Ba’ken was crouching down as he strapped a long Themian hunting knife to his calf. Unlike Fugis, he wore a light padded jerkin and tan fatigues. His arms were bare aside from a pair of torcs, and showed off the many branding scars from his years of service to the Chapter. They also hinted at the many grievous injuries sustained in that same cause.

‘I have to know, brother.’ His voice was deep, its cadence reminiscent of speaking into a chasm. He stood to adjust his belt where he had holstered his bolt pistol. ‘It’s that simple.’

Spare clips were tucked into pouches on his jerkin, and a hand flamer hung from a strap attached to the belt. Its spare promethium canister rattled as the large warrior moved. Upright, he almost stood eye-to-eye with Fugis but was the least diminished of both figures, even without armour.

Fugis scowled. ‘You even eschew your battleplate.’

Ba’ken smirked, the slabs of his cheeks and forehead realigning to shape the expression. ‘For a stroll across the Pyre? I was doing that with nothing but a loincloth and spear when I was still mortal and no more than a child. Did you forget that I’m Themian, brother?’

‘You have made the same pilgrimage every year since…’ Fugis trailed off, remembering the war on Nocturne and everything… everyone they had lost. ‘Why do you do it, Sol?’

‘I dreamed of him, Fugis. I could smell the fire that was burning him to the core. Over and over again.’

The Apothecary knew the danger of dreams, but a lecture wouldn’t change Ba’ken’s mind. They fell into brief, companionable silence.

The immense Sanctuary City gates, two towering slabs of finely wrought metal from the Hesiod forges, dwarfed both warriors. Ba’ken stood framed by the sun streaming through their open archway. The actinic reek of the void shields gave the air an acerbic bite, only recently powered down from the previous night. The carcasses of predators slowly putrefied at the periphery of Hesiod’s walls. The flesh-skinners would rise soon to remove the stinking corpses, but for now the two Space Marines were alone.

‘I doubt it will be simple, Sol.’ Fugis looked out into the Pyre Desert. Shimmering heat haze was already rising from the dunes. It was early, the sun only just cresting the horizon, filling the sky with blood-red vapour clouds from the dormant calderas to the east.

‘Do you even know where you are going?’ Fugis asked. ‘Five years and you have yet to find it.’

Ba’ken’s gaze joined the Apothecary’s, alighting on the horizon and the slow rising sun. At its zenith it would burn like a great, fiery eye. Hundreds died every day under its malevolent glare, those who forsook the protection of the Sanctuary Cities. The Igneans. Trust did not come easy to these nomads, especially where the seven great tribes were concerned. They were regarded as an underclass by the Thermians and treated as such. Rancour between these two Nocturnean factions, therefore, was inevitable.

‘I know where he fell.’ Ba’ken’s reply bordered on melancholic.

He wanted to believe Dak’ir was still alive, but even after five years, or perhaps because of it, he had yet to convince himself.

‘Rumours come from the desert that the Igneans have erected shrines to honour his sacrifice,’ said Ba’ken. ‘Some believe they still stand.’

‘Lord Tsu’gan would have had them destroyed.’

‘None save the Igneans can find them.’

‘How then will you know where to look, brother?’

Ba’ken turned and rested a burly hand upon the Apothecary’s shoulder. Fugis was several decades his senior – it showed in his world-weary cynicism and the skeletal cast to his weathered face – but the gesture was like a father placating a recalcitrant son.

The Themian smiled sadly. ‘Emek is dead, and we three were once bonded like Nocturnean steel. I have to know if there is something left of him, and if it can be found out there in the desert. Vulkan will guide me.’

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