The Knight and the Dragon
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AraelDranoth
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965.M30
Vuraktos Prime, Kyros-Zar System
Fourteenth Day Since the Distress Signal Was Sent
The world itself screamed.
Molten rivers pulsed through vast volcanic chasms like arteries of fire, lighting the smoke-clogged skies in sickly hues of orange and blood-red. Plumes of ash drifted endlessly across the blackened highlands, choking the light from Vuraktos' sun. Sulphur storms howled across cracked obsidian ridges, flaying the dead and dying alike.
And from the sky, the enemy came—again and again—on wings of iron and madness.
Vulkan stood alone atop a jagged escarpment, armour scorched and cratered from a dozen near-fatal strikes. His enormous frame was wreathed in rising smoke, the wind tugging at the dragon-scale cloak fastened across his broad shoulders. Black blood—not his own—steamed from the warplate, running down green ceramite like ink over emerald.
Above, ork ships broke the atmosphere in a thunderous cascade, streaking fire as they fell—rusted, jagged things, shaped like blades hurled by a deranged hand. Some slammed into the earth with shattering impact; others exploded in mid-air, scattering wreckage and greenskins across the basin like burning carrion.
The thunder of their landings was endless.
The WAAAGH had come in full.
And still, Vulkan remained.
He turned slightly as his sons pulled back beneath him, forming up into coordinated retreat lines. Discipline under fire. Even now, after two gruelling weeks of unrelenting warfare, the Salamanders fought like the warriors of myth they were—unyielding, brotherly, utterly without fear.
But they were exhausted.
Their eyes, hidden behind helm lenses betrayed their pain. He could see it in the sag of their shoulders. In the tilt of their necks.
Vulkan raised his plasma pistol, Furnace's Heart—massive in any other's hands but an extension of himself—and squeezed the trigger. A howling blast of incandescent blue seared through the haze, vaporizing a charging nob mid-roar, leaving only charred bone and crackling ruin. The mob hesitated.
Thunderhead came down a moment later.
The ornate warhammer, forged on Nocturne by Vulkan's own hands, screamed through the air and shattered an ork into ruin—bone, flesh, and armour collapsing beneath the blow like paper beneath a rockslide. The impact cracked the ground beneath them and hurled nearby enemies off their feet.
And then he was among them.
The orks came in droves, filthy and shrieking, reeking of blood and engine oil. Their crude cleavers slammed against his armour, some sparking, others biting in—but Vulkan didn't slow. His pistol roared again, flash-cooking another brute's head to slag, and then Thunderhead spun in a wide arc, breaking bodies and rupturing torsos.
A massive ork with a serrated axe lunged at him with surprising speed, bellowing in broken Low Gothic.
"DEAD YEW FER GORK, YA BIG METAL GROANER—"
Vulkan's hammer took the creature mid-charge, crushing its chest in with a wet thunderclap, the force caving in the ground beneath them. He crushed a booted foot onto the broken greenskin's neck as it twitched and stepped forward into the next line.
He fought like an elemental force, a being of fire and wrath incarnate. His movements were clean, efficient, merciless—but never savage. He fought to end suffering, not to glory in it.
"Fall back to the cave mouths!" he bellowed over the din, his voice booming like a volcano erupting. "Now!"
The order rang out across the Salamanders vox network. Squad leaders barked affirmatives. Flamer teams stepped forward, igniting choke points in waves of holy fire to buy seconds, then fell back, weapons glowing red-hot. Heavy bolters chattered behind natural barricades, carving gory swaths into the encroaching tide, and still the greenskins surged forward.
Vulkan waited.
He was always the last.
A thunderous impact cracked the rocks behind him as an ork drop-pod slammed into the cliffside like a thrown boulder. It burst open, and from within came a towering greenskin clad in scavenged heavy armour, hydraulic pistons hissing and a massive hammer of its own in hand.
The beast roared.
Vulkan stared at it for a heartbeat—two apex predators meeting across a gulf of blood and fire.
Then they collided.
The ork's hammer struck first, slamming into Vulkan's side and throwing him back a step. Alarms blinked across his pauldron readout, but the Primarch ignored them. He responded with a brutal strike to the creature's gut that doubled the monster over, and then a second that caved in its helm entirely, splitting it down the middle with a crack like shattering granite.
The ork's body dropped in twitching pieces. Its warcry died on molten air.
Vulkan turned and jogged down the slope.
The Salamanders were almost all inside now. The last line had pulled back through the lava tunnels. Combat servitors and Legion tech-marines were sealing traps—melta charges, void mines, collapsing spires of rock waiting to be triggered.
The sky was now dark with descending meteors. There had to be hundreds more landers. Thousands of orks.
Too many.
Just inside the cavern threshold, Vulkan turned back for one last look. A tide of green surged over the obsidian ridge. Their war cries—so many different dialects, so many guttural screams—all melted into one chorus of violence. As they came into view, firing wildly, clambering over wrecks and corpses, Vulkan raised Thunderhead once more and shouted:
"INTO THE FIRES OF BATTLE, UNTO THE ANVIL OF WAR!"
The mouth of the cavern swallowed him, and the world outside burned.
The tunnels hissed with geothermal heat, the air heavy with steam and soot. Ancient caverns twisted and split into defensible galleries. The Salamanders had made this place a fortress of necessity—kill-boxes, crossfire traps, thermal barriers.
Inside one of the larger chambers, one they'd come to call simply the Crucible, his captains had gathered once more.
They were tired. Burned. But unbowed.
Captain Iaeus spoke first. "We've thinned them Forgefather, but not enough."
"Thinning was never the goal," Vulkan said. "Survival was. We hold until reinforcements arrive."
"Do you believe they'll come, my lord?" asked Lieutenant Harak, his voice low, cautious.
Vulkan looked at him.
"I do not know," he said quietly. "But we will hold regardless."
There was silence. Not disappointment—respect.
It had always been this way with Vulkan. He made no promises he couldn't keep. No hollow speeches. But he was always at their side, first into battle and last to leave. That alone gave his sons strength.
From deeper in the tunnels came the sound.
At first, just a rumble. Like distant rockfall.
Then—echoing footfalls. Slapping feet. Metal scraping on stone. And then the roar.
A hundred voices screaming for blood.
The orks had found a way into the tunnel mouths.
Vulkan turned slowly and gestured for his captains to prepare. The Salamanders moved with grim solemnity. Some checked their flamer canisters. Others performed last rites, murmured prayers, or pressed tokens of Nocturne and Terra to their breastplates.
Vulkan knelt beside one wounded warrior propped against the wall.
"Do you fear death, my son?" he asked.
The young Legionary, a Terran, stared up, eyes wide.
"No, Forgefather," he whispered. "Only failing you."
"You never could," Vulkan said, rising.
Thunderhead hummed in his gauntlet.
The Salamanders arrayed themselves in formation at the edge of the chamber, weapons ready, armor glowing from internal heat. Their eyes were on him. Always on him.
The noise grew louder.
Closer.
And then—the orks came.
Vulkan raised his hammer, eyes glowing like twin orbs of molten lava.
"Hold the line," he said, voice low and calm. "Make them earn every drop of ground."
And then, as the greenskin tide poured through the tunnels with howls and crude war banners, the Salamanders of the XVIIIth met them with fire and fury.
The cave became a forge of war once more.
And Vulkan, Primarch of Fire, stood in its heart.
The Ceithir rolled low across the polished flagstones of the training yard, softening the edges of the distant stone archways, curling like ghostly tendrils around the booted feet of the running youths. Above them, slate-grey skies pressed close to the high walls of the Sanctum, the fortress-monastery standing timeless, eternal.
From a raised terrace of ferrocrete and iron, the Watch-Lord stood like a statue carved from old war and older memory. His armour, weather-beaten and chipped, bore the silver laurels of age and command. The markings on his pauldron—Terran in origin, faded beneath newer symbols of Caerdyn—spoke of years of service beyond counting. His features were grim and craggy, carved by hardship, his hair long since gone to grey then white, though he kept his beard neatly trimmed.
Below, the new initiates ran. Barefoot on cold stone, stripped to their tunics, skin slick with sweat. Dozens of boys between twelve and fifteen winters, every last one handpicked from the recent culling of candidates.
Among them ran Mohrdrehd—called Mord by the others. The boy moved with the quiet confidence of someone used to leading, not by command but by presence. The other boys watched him without watching, timed their pace to his, followed his choices without words.
The Watch-Lord grunted to himself.
There was always one.
Boots echoed behind him—measured, clipped. Another figure stepped up beside him, armoured in the pale blue of the Legion, trimmed with pale silver. His pauldron bore the mist-tree of Caerdyn Vallis. His skin bore its mark, too—pale as riverstone and traced with mist-scars from exposure to the Ceithir as a child.
The younger Astartes came to a halt and folded his arms across his chest. "Brother Alric. You've already begun?"
The Watch-Lord didn't turn. "They were idle, Thameus. Idleness breeds weakness."
Thameus frowned, watching the training yard. "The King gave strict orders. The Trials were to wait until his return."
Alric barked a low, humorless laugh. "And do you see a Trial before you, brother? Do you see the Chamber of Suffering? Hypno-bays? Apothecarion rites? No. You see exercise."
"You are skirting his will."
"I am honouring it," the Terran snapped, turning finally. His voice was gravel and steel, forged by campaign after campaign. "I was given this post by the Primarch's own hand. When I accepted the charge of the Legion's recruits, I asked one thing: that the training of them, until they proved worthy to bear the mark of the Tree, was mine alone to shape. He agreed."
The Caerdyn-born marine narrowed his eyes. "Even so—"
"No surgeries. No implants. No catechisms. Not until he says otherwise." The Watch-Lord jabbed a finger down toward the yard. "But if they're going to stand before him one day and beg for the chance to wear his sigil on their breastplate, they'll do it with lungs of iron and backs like stone. Or they'll fall behind and return home."
The argument simmered, and then slowly, the younger marine exhaled through his nose. His eyes turned back toward the boys.
"The child of the Windmere," Thameus said quietly. "He's a born leader. The others already orbit him like stars around a sun."
Alric gave a thoughtful grunt. "The Ceithir clings to him," the other added. "Like a mother to her favourite child."
"That it does," Thameus murmured, watching the boy. "The Ceithir whispers to him. I've seen it. He walks the mists as though they part for him. But that same confidence could make him reckless. There's fire in him. A flame of ambition."
Alric chuckled. "You're aware of who his mother is, aren't you?"
"I've met them both," Thameus replied. "Elyria's will. Brynhar's strength. The boy was born to join us."
The silence returned for a time, broken only by the sharp calls of training serfs and the rhythmic slaps of bare feet on wet stone. One of the boys stumbled. Mord stopped, turned, pulled him to his feet, and kept pace beside him until the weak link found strength again.
"I received word this morning," the Watch-Lord said absently. "The boy's parents will be coming to visit."
That got a reaction. The Caerdyn-born Astartes turned, Thameus's face tight with surprise. "To the Sanctum?"
The older warrior grunted again. "I gave permission."
"You what?"
"They are no strangers to this place. They've earned the right. And don't look at me like that." He gave Thameus a pointed look. "The Twice-Born would have done the same."
A long moment passed before the younger Astartes nodded. He looked away, to the far banners on the monastery's towers. "I suppose he would."
Alaric turned back to the boys—no, not boys. Not yet warriors, but no longer merely children either. Something in between. In that liminal place where pain and discipline would forge them into sons of the Mist.
His thoughts turned to the gene-seed—Artorias's legacy. It was this genetic gift that allowed them to walk as one with the Ceithir. Some recruits still came from Terra, though fewer now. Most were born of Caerdyn Vallis, shaped by mists and myths. But in the eyes of the Watch-Lord, they were one and the same.
Both bore the King's genes. Both would walk his path.
He folded his arms, voice low. "He'll make his choice, this one. Mord. Whether to serve, or to lead. Or both. That is the point of this exercise. We are not shaping weapons. We are shaping Wardens."
Thameus nodded again, more respectfully this time.
Below, Mord surged ahead, drawing the others behind him like a tide.
The mists deepened, and the future marched within them.
Mord's lungs burned.
Each breath he dragged in tasted of iron and mist, thick with the scent of wet stone and old blood. His muscles screamed under the relentless weight strapped to his back—seventy kilograms of lead and steel fashioned into a training pack. Sweat soaked through his tunic, dripping onto the flagstones as he forced his legs forward again and again, round after brutal round of the perimeter circuit.
They had run for hours without pause. The Sanctum's lower yard was no simple oval—each circuit wound through inclines and stairways, switchbacks that tested balance, short walls that required vaulting. Behind him, others staggered, fell, groaned. He heard every one. Felt them.
And he turned.
"Up!" he barked, dropping beside one boy who had collapsed on a narrow incline, blood streaming from a split lip. The boy—Karn—tried to protest. Mord hauled him up by the strap across his chest, half-lifting, half-dragging him.
"I can't—" Karn wheezed.
"Yes, you can. We finish this together."
Others slowed at the sight of Mord pulling Karn forward. For a moment, the rhythm wavered.
A voice from behind, bitter and sharp, cut through the air like a blade.
"Why do you waste your strength on the weak?" spat Jerrun, a boy from the northern mists. He ran like a knife, lean and quick and full of pride. "The Wardens do not want those who fall behind. They cull the weak."
Mord turned his head, his eyes blazing emerald beneath dark, mist-dampened hair. "And do they desire cruelty, too? Or is it only cowardice you offer in place of compassion?"
The others fell silent. Jerrun scowled, but said nothing more. Mord pushed Karn forward. "Run."
And they did.
By the time the Watch-Lord signalled the end of the drill, the sky had darkened to a deep charcoal and the light had shifted from cold silver to a faint violet hue—the sun above Caerdyn Vallis veiled as ever by the Ceithir. Mord collapsed to his knees, arms trembling. Around him, boys dropped one by one, some weeping quietly, others gasping for air as if they had surfaced from drowning.
Pain hummed in his bones, but Mord didn't care. He looked up at the mists coiling around the edge of the courtyard—how they thickened in the shadows, shifting with strange intelligence. Almost protective. Almost alive.
He had always felt them. Felt it. The Ceithir. Not just as vapor, but as presence. As breath. As being.
He sat back against a low stone wall, breathing deep, feeling it stir inside his chest like a second heart.
He had never not wanted this.
Since the moment he could form a thought, he had dreamed of being a Warden. His father, Brynhar, had smiled at the declaration when he was still just a child barely tall enough to lift a wooden sword. His mother, Elyria… less so. She had warned him. Cautioned him. Urged him to wait, to grow, to think.
But he had already thought. And he had decided.
The moment came when he was only eight winters old, during one of the great festivals beneath the mist-banners. The Twice-Born King had come to walk among the people. His first return to Caerdyn Vallis since going to the stars. Artorias. Wreathed in pale silver and shrouded in the Ceithir, a titan of serene power.
Mord had watched him from the crowd, having had escaped his minders. Artorias had looked at him, seen him, and stopped.
You are of the mist, child, he had said.
And Mord had stared in awe and whispered: I want to be a Warden.
The Primarch had smiled, small and sad. Then knelt, lowering his helm, his great voice gentle as thunder muffled by snow.
Then the Ceithir shall guide you, as it did me. It watches you. It cares for all of us. Never forget that.
From that day, Mord had known. He had not chosen to be a Warden. He had always been one. The training, the hardship—it was not a burden. It was a refinement. The pain was proof.
And he bore another burden, too. Like his mother, he was a blank—a pariah. Anathema to the warp. A null. He had always felt the difference. Even among other children, there was a distance. They never knew why, only that something about him was wrong. Alien. Cold.
But the mists veiled him. Softened him. The Ceithir cradled his nature in its arms and cloaked what others could not bear. It let him live among them.
Let him dream.
He watched the others now as they began to recover. Karn nodded at him, shame in his eyes but gratitude too. Jerrun avoided his gaze. Mord ignored him.
He would be the greatest Warden to ever live. Not for glory. Not for praise. But because he had to be. Because he was meant to be.
This wasn't pride. It was faith.
Not in the Emperor. Not in Terra. Not even in victory.
But in the Ceithir.
In the Unbroken King.
In the dream.
He was coming, someday soon. Mord knew it. Artorias would return, and he would see Mord again—not as a child lost in awe, but as a warrior standing beside him.
As a son worthy of the mist.
And when that day came…
He would not fall behind.
The tunnels stank of ash, blood, and burned meat.
Heat pressed in from all sides like a fist. Fumaroles hissed above, spewing acidic vapours that licked along the basalt walls, and the only light came from flickering torches and the guttering glow of scorched ceramite.
A roar of brutal laughter echoed in the dark.
Vulkan crushed a greenskin into the stone floor. Its skull imploded with the force of Thunderhead, the sound reverberating down the tunnel like a thunderclap. Steam hissed from the corpse. Gore clung to the blunt head of the hammer like molten pitch.
They kept coming.
Wave after wave of greenskins, clad in scrap armour and warpaint, roared into the breach like a green tide. The corridor was too narrow for finesse—just pure, crushing violence. Bolters thundered in response. Blades met cleavers. Screams filled the air like a choir of the damned.
To his left, one of his Pyre Guard was dragged to the floor under three orks. He fought savagely, but one cleaver struck deep. Blood hissed on hot stone.
Vulkan moved.
His plasma pistol barked once. One ork vaporized, leaving only scorched boots and a shadow on the wall. Thunderhead snapped out, crunching into the next, hurling its ruined form into the tunnel wall with a wet, crackling thud. The last was crushed beneath Vulkan's armoured boot.
The Lord of Drakes didn't slow.
Behind him, his Pyre Guard followed—towering, elite Terran-born Salamanders clad in dark burnished green, their faces marked by Nocturne's legacy: obsidian skin, glowing red eyes, and a deathless fire behind their stoic visors. At their front strode First Captain Artellus Numeon, his power halberd humming as he cleaved through a pair of orks with savage, fiery strokes. A volkite emitter mounted in the haft spat burning beams, melting flesh with each strike.
The enemy surged again. Howls echoed through the cramped tunnel—no order, only madness.
Then something new. A deeper growl. A challenge.
A massive silhouette filled the far end of the corridor, pushing through the mob like a wrecking ball.
The ork that emerged was a giant even among its kind—at least four meters tall, its bulk covered in rusted plates and cracked pauldrons stolen from dead Astartes. One of its tusks had been replaced with a hooked chainblade. A half-shattered Terminator helm was welded into its armour as a grotesque trophy.
Its eyes found Vulkan.
"ZOGGIN' BIG ONE!" it bellowed. "YOU'S MINE!"
Vulkan's eyes narrowed. Behind the cracked lenses of his helm, his gaze burned brighter.
He handed his plasma pistol to Numeon. "Cover me."
Then, unarmed but for Thunderhead, Vulkan surged forward.
The warboss charged.
They collided like twin meteors in a storm of sparks, smoke, and screeching metal. The ork's cleaver screamed as it raked down Vulkan's side—ceramite sparking. Thunderhead arced wide, slamming into the beast's side with a seismic crack, sending it staggering—but not falling.
The warboss lunged again, and this time its blade found Vulkan's helm. The jagged edge shattered the left side with a shriek of steel. Vulkan's face was revealed—bloodied, but unbroken. His red eyes flared like coals in a forge.
He smiled.
The next swing crushed the warboss's knee. Bone split. The ork howled and stumbled—and Vulkan surged in, grabbed its jaw with one gauntleted hand and brought Thunderhead down in a single, devastating strike.
Skull, neck, and chest folded inward. The body collapsed with an audible wetness.
The greenskins screamed.
They fled—trampling over each other in panic. The tunnel reeked of blood and fear. Bolters picked off stragglers. Several Salamanders slumped against the walls, wounded or dying. Numeon was at Vulkan's side in an instant.
"Your helm," he said, grimacing at the blood running down the Primarch's temple.
"It'll do," Vulkan replied. He bent to lift one of his wounded sons—an Astartes missing an arm and bleeding from his flank. Vulkan carried him like a child. "Fall back. Regroup."
Numeon nodded and motioned for the others. The Pyre Guard took point, sweeping for signs of ambush. Their flames lit the way—short, disciplined bursts to flush out any lurking enemy.
As they trudged deeper into the black, the heat closing around them once more, Numeon fell into step beside his gene-sire.
"We've received a report," he said, voice low. "From our last scout team before the surface link failed. There's movement in orbit. Large-scale. Not xenos."
Vulkan stopped.
The tunnel was silent save for the creak of armour and the distant drip of condensed sulphur. He set the wounded down gently, his crimson eyes flaring in the dark.
"Then someone answered our call."
"We don't know who, my Lord" Numeon said. "But it's Imperial. They're fighting in the void."
Vulkan let out a breath—steam ghosting from his lips.
"One of my brothers heard," he said at last, voice low and heavy. "They have come."
Around him, the battered Salamanders stood straighter. Flame-etched armour gleamed in the torchlight. They said nothing—but the silence became resolve.
Vulkan looked upward, as if seeing through the rock and ash, through the vast and blazing weight of Vuraktos Prime.
He did not know who it was. But someone had come.
And that was enough.
He turned back to the dark. Behind him, his sons followed, bloodied, bruised—but burning.
They would hold.
The Warp peeled away from reality like a shroud torn from flesh.
With an unholy screech that shook the bones of the void, the Avalon and her fleet emerged from the Immaterium. Her massive form, a cathedral of adamantine and wrath, tore into realspace surrounded by burning contrails, auramantic residue and tendrils of the Ceithir, already retreating back into the hulls of the ships. The stars snapped into being all at once—and with them, war.
The Orks were already waiting.
Hundreds of contact blips bloomed across the tactical sphere, a green-glowing cancer that surrounded the warden fleet. The moment of emergence was answered with fire: lance strikes, crude plasma bursts, and waves of scrap-metal torpedoes.
But the Wardens had come ready.
Void shields were already aglow, shimmering with refracted starlight as the first fusillades slammed into the fleet. The Mist Wardens had entered the fray with weapons hot and engines roaring. Turrets barked. Lance arrays flashed. Macro-cannon fire lit the abyss with a storm of vengeance.
On the bridge of the Avalon, Althea DeLorean stood at the fore, hand gripping the command lectern like a war priest at her altar.
Her eyes gleamed with battle-fury.
"Shields holding. Minor bleed on the port arrays," one of her void officers called.
"Fire at will!" she barked. "All ships—Joust!"
Across the bridge, command crew and cogitator adepts relayed her orders, vox relays stammering with encoded data. Below them, the Avalon's vast decks roared to life. Her mighty engines thundered. The entire Warden fleet accelerated into a full-charge thrust.
Like knights of old lowering their lances, each Warden ship angled their reinforced prows and ploughed into the nearest Ork vessel.
The Avalon herself slammed head-on into a lumbering scrap-fortress shaped like a severed asteroid. The impact sheared through the crude hull, splitting it apart in a hail of fire and spinning wreckage. The Gloriana's reinforced prow shuddered but did not buckle.
Althea gritted her teeth against the G-forces and shouted over the comm-line. "Use the debris! Dive through the bones of their wreckage!"
The Wardens obeyed.
One by one, strike cruisers and destroyers plunged into their targets like hammer-blows. The void was filled with burning hulks. Wreckage twisted in spirals through space, lit by distant suns and explosions. Using the debris clouds as cover, Boarding Torpedoes were launched by the dozens—sleek black coffins bearing Astartes payloads toward more distant Ork cruisers.
Not all made it.
Two destroyers were caught broadside by Ork killkroozers. One was speared clean through by a ramshackle harpoon cannon, its midsection torn out in a gout of burning plasma. Another Warden ship spun, venting crew and atmosphere into the cold. Still, dozens of torpedoes punched through, embedding in the flanks of Ork hulks.
And from within them, the sons of the Ceithir came roaring.
But there was no time to glory in it.
"Captain!" cried one of the helmsmen. "Three Ork ships approaching starboard at speed—they're forming a pincer!"
On the tactical display, three jagged blips surged toward them—scrap-metal raiders bristling with crude plasma launchers and flak guns, coming in close and fast, already loosing salvoes.
The Avalon's void shields flared, taking the first few hits—but they wouldn't last long.
"Brace for impact!" Althea roared. "Prepare for emergency dive!"
Warning klaxons blared. Grav-cushioning fields flickered to maximum. Crew were slammed into their thrones as the Avalon's massive bulk twisted to port and dropped suddenly on a steep vector, plummeting through the broken remains of the previous rammed cruiser.
The ship groaned, ancient systems screaming under the strain. Statues of knightly heroes rattled on their plinths. Dust fell from the vaulted ceiling. Several cogitators sparked and exploded in a puff of incense and flame.
Althea didn't flinch.
"Initiate the Falcon's Gambit. Full roll on the dive. All gun decks, fire as we spin!"
The manoeuvre was madness.
The Avalon, thirty kilometres of superstructure, rotated on her axis during the dive, spinning like a falling blade. Her gun decks—already warmed—unleashed a full broadside during the roll.
Lance arrays sliced the void.
Macro-cannon shells the size of landers roared through space.
Caught mid-manoeuvre, the Ork ships couldn't adjust. One was blown apart entirely—spinning off into a cascade of explosions. Another fired wildly and struck its own kin. The third was clipped by the rolling Gloriana's broadside, its prow torn off and left tumbling into the dark.
"Direct hits!" came the shout from the gunnery master.
"Give me a damage report!" Althea snapped.
"Starboard shielding reduced by thirty percent! Deck 17 suffered minor decompression!"
"And the ork ships?"
"Two confirmed kills. One crippled. Debris field forming."
Althea grinned, savage and bright.
Void war was death. But to her, it was also art. In that, in the sheer savage joy that came with it, Althea DeLorean and Lotara Sarrin understood each other like no one else could.
And yet, the situation was far from in hand.
Across the field, dozens more Ork ships surged forward. Great Roks drifted into position, disgorging clouds of attack craft. The Wardens were still heavily outnumbered. Even with their precision and discipline, every second meant more casualties.
"Target the largest cruiser on vector six," Althea ordered. "Synchronize with Vigilum Caeli and The Green's Lament. We'll strike together."
"Yes, Captain!"
As the order was relayed, Althea placed one gloved hand against the side of her throne, fingers twitching over the runes. Her eyes were alight.
"This is just the beginning," she murmured, mostly to herself. "Let them come."
Captain Razzgul Skragga-Fang squatted on his throne of rusted iron and flayed mechadendrites, a two-meter crown of scavenged vox-antennae crowning his lumpy green head. His voice—guttural, wet, and thunderous—shook the walls as he screamed into his deck's squawk boxes.
"Shoot dem zoggin' humies! SHOOT FASTER!" he bellowed, spraying spittle and oil onto the levers he yanked back and forth. "Wot's da point o' all dis dakka if yer ain't usin' it, ya lazy grots!"
His crew—a chaos of bellowing greenskins, shrieking gretchin, and sparking consoles—scrambled to obey. Dozens of gunners and mechanics stomped about the bridge, hammering buttons with clubs and chewing on wires. One ork fired his shoota at a malfunctioning cogitator until it sparked to life again. Another fell into an exposed plasma conduit and burst into blue flame. Razzgul didn't even glance at him.
The battle through the view-slit was glorious—chaos and fire. Ork ships churned through the void like rusted sharks, blasting crude plasma bolts and volleying entire squadrons of torpedoes in all directions.
But the humans weren't dying fast enough.
Razzgul squinted through the armourglass, yellowed tusks gnashing. "We outnumber dem. We got more shoota. We got BIGGA ships. So WHY—"
Then he saw it. The big one.
The great beast of a human ship—the one the other greenskin captains were scared of—was rolling. Not turning. Rolling. Like it was dancing through space. The manoeuvre was impossible. Beautiful. Mad.
Razzgul leaned forward, dumbfounded. "Wot da zog is dat?"
The human ship, Avalon, twisted in its dive, and fire vomited from every gunport along its hull. Its salvo bisected a nearby killkroozer like a cleaver through groxmeat. Another ork ship panicked and turned to evade—only to be hit by its own brother's fire. Explosions rippled through the void.
A strange, involuntary sensation crept over Razzgul.
Dread.
He shook it off with a roar. "DEY FINK DEY'S CLEVAH, EH? GET ME MORE DAKKA! MORE ROCKETZ! KILL DA GITS!"
One of his lieutenants—a lopsided ork with a skull stuck over one eye—called out from a side terminal. "Cap'n! Boardin' torpedoes hit decks three, five, an' eight! Loadsa humies inside!"
"Yeh? So?" Razzgul snorted and spat a tooth. "Let da lads stomp 'em. More fightin' fer us! More FUN!"
Below them, deck feeds lit up with the shapes of bulky, power-armoured invaders—dark, mist-cloaked, fast. The Mist Wardens were swarming the ship like hornets. Bolters barked. Explosions thumped through the hull.
"GET DEM TO DA KILLIN', YER STINKY GITZ!" Razzgul shouted into the squawk again, voice raw with bloodlust. "NO RUNNIN', NO THINKIN'. JUST CHOPPAZ AND GUTZ!"
Even now, the greenskin horde surged to meet the invaders in brutal melee. From his throne, Razzgul watched with glee and fury, torn between bloodlust and rising confusion.
His ships were going down.
One after another, the human vessels rammed through the smaller ork ships like angry titans. And when one ork dreadnought finally charged one of the big ones—head-on, with all guns blazing—the humans didn't dodge.
They split it in half.
Razzgul barked laughter. "Dey's MAD! MAD AN' BRILLIANT!"
Then, finally, a rare moment of joy: One of the nearby escort cutters—small, fast, humie-shaped—was blown apart by a lucky plasma barrage. It spun into pieces. Razzgul whooped.
"WAAAGH! Got one! GOT ONE!"
And then the bridge door exploded.
It was not subtle. No warning klaxon. No hiss of pressure loss. Just a sudden, bone-deep WHUMP—and then the blast door glowed white-hot, curled inward like wax—then detonated in a cloud of slag and shrieking metal.
Through the firestorm, they came.
Astartes. Mist Wardens.
Half-shrouded in flickering steam emitted from their armour's powerpack vents. Bolters roared. Frag grenades flew like falling stars. The first wave of bridge crew was torn apart in an instant. Orks were pulped. Gretchin vaporized. A control panel exploded. Two of Razzgul's lieutenants were shredded into green mist.
The sound was deafening.
The room filled with smoke and screaming and mist. One Warden knelt behind a column, laid down suppressing fire with a heavy bolter, chewing through a line of charging boyz. Another hurled a combat knife that pinned a Nob to the far wall. The orks rallied and fought back—roaring and swinging, choppas flashing in the firelight.
And then the mist parted—
—and he came through.
Artorias.
The Primarch of the Mist Wardens was not a man. Not even a demigod. He was a storm given form. Silver-etched blue plate. A cloak like night woven from the darkest thread and cloaked in the Ceithir itself. His face was a mask of calm purpose, but his eyes—his golden eyes—burned with cold fury.
He moved like a streak of death. Too fast.
Ceithraig sang as it cut, a shrieking note that split the air. One ork tried to raise a choppa—only for his torso to vanish in a streak of red. Another, twice the size of a Legio Astartes, was carved in half before his brain knew he'd died.
Razzgul watched in horror.
"Zog me," he muttered. "WOT IN GORK'S NAME IS THAT?!"
He raised his shoota, spraying wildly as he stumbled back toward his throne. Rounds hammered into Artorias's armour—and did nothing. The Primarch didn't even slow down. He tore through ten more orks. The rest of the Legionaries supported the Primarch in the only way they could. Grenade. Bolter burst. Slash.
Razzgul turned to run.
He never got far.
He pulled the trigger again—but his arm was gone.
The ork looked down, puzzled. Where once there was a gun, there was only a gout of arterial green mist and a stump.
A second later, his vision twisted—his body lurched—and he realized he was looking up at his own torso.
Then came the final realization:
His head had been removed.
His last sight was Artorias standing over his body, blade dripping, face cold. The Ceithir swirled around him like smoke from a divine pyre.
The ork bridge stank of blood, oil, and smoke. Corpses—green, gnarled, still twitching—littered the shattered deck like leaves after a storm. The Ceithir mist drifted low and strange through the chamber, wreathing black-armored giants in a spectral haze.
Artorias stood in the silence, Ceithraig hummin softly in his grip. The Primarch's eyes—hard gold reflecting red emergency strobes—swept over the destruction with cold satisfaction.
Then he turned, and his voice came low, controlled, and certain.
"Charges on the bridge. Breach every weak point. Vox to all squads—plant demolition packs at reactors, munition stores, and structural choke-points. Three minutes. Then we exfiltrate."
"Understood, my King," crackled a voice over the vox. Other affirmations followed—gravel-throated, loyal, urgent.
Artorias moved with sudden purpose, kneeling beside a dead greenskin, and set a shaped melta charge beneath a sparking generator coil. Around him, his sons followed suit—silent and efficient, armoured gauntlets working with the calm of ritual. These were Legionnaires forged in the shadow of Caerdyn Vallis, tempered in ceaseless drills, and now blooded in the forge of void war.
He straightened and glanced toward the viewport—half shattered, webbed with cracks—and caught a glimpse beyond.
The void glowed.
In the distance, through the churning chaos of debris and fire, Avalon danced through space like a blade. Althea's manoeuvre had shattered three ork escorts in one blistering volley. A massive ork rok, ugly and asymmetrical, came apart in a cataclysm of internal detonation as the Avalon's broadsides found its fuel core.
Artorias smiled.
Not the tight, grim line he wore before battle. Not the symbolic curve offered for morale. A true smile—of pride, of trust.
"Good work, my Lady" he murmured.
Then he turned to move.
The halls of the Skrapboila were pulsing with red light and howls. Through gutted corridors and rusted catwalks, the Mist Wardens moved—fast and fluid. They passed broken orks, split in half or crushed against bulkheads, the aftermath of squads cutting forward with bolter and blade. Artorias led from the centre of the formation, flanked by his sons—newbloods, most of them.
The vox clicked again.
"My lord." The voice was flat, measured. "You boarded without your honour guard. Again."
Artorias chuckled, warm and low. "Helion. You're always so mothering."
There was a pause. Then: "The Bladeguard wear Cataphractii plate for a reason, Lord. So we might better protect you."
"I needed to move quickly. If I had waited for you, we'd still be clearing the hangar," Artorias replied, sidestepping a fallen girder. "You'll have your chance, my son. We shall fight together on the surface."
"That's a promise, Lord?"
"It is."
"Then don't die before we get there. And don't forget your helmet this time, Lord."
Artorias chuckled again. "Such mothering, Helion. I'll try."
A clatter echoed ahead. Gunfire. Bolters.
The Primarch moved to join the line, slowing to fall beside one of his sons—a tall, broad-chested Warden with the unmistakable stiffness of someone still adjusting to power armour. The newblood held a bolter tight to his chest, every motion measured and sharp.
Artorias turned to him as they jogged down the corridor, ceramite boots crashing over grated flooring.
"What's your name, son?"
The Astartes nearly stumbled.
"D-Donan, my King. Initiate Donan Alric. Squad Korran."
"You're Caerdyn-born," Artorias said, smiling. "Fenmarch. Your accent slips a little when you're nervous."
Donan's eyes widened. "Y-yes, my King."
"Relax. You're doing well."
"I—thank you. It is an honour—truly—I never imagined I would stand beside you like this."
Artorias reached out, casually brushing the younger warrior's pauldron.
"Let me tell you a secret, Donan," he said, voice warm and low. "I know the name of every son in my Legion. Terran-born or Caerdyn-raised. Everyone. You are not faceless to me."
The squad glanced at him in disbelief—one of the others, a lean, quiet marine named Aeryn, looked as if he might speak, but bit his tongue. Donan blinked once, stunned.
Artorias inclined his head to each in turn. "Aeryn. Korran. Hyss. Calvor. I welcomed you to the Legion personally. Gifted you your plate. Did you think I would forget?"
Hyss, who had always been quiet in drills, gave a small nod. "We didn't think you'd remember us, my King."
"I remember all my sons," Artorias said simply.
Ahead, a guttural roar echoed through the corridor.
Orks.
A wave of the creatures—hulking, screaming, stupid with bloodlust—poured from a side corridor into the path of the retreating squad.
Artorias stopped.
He stepped aside, placing a hand gently on Donan's back to usher him forwards.
"Show me, my sons," the primarch said softly. "Show me the skill of Caerdyn Vallis."
Korran, the squad's sergeant—a Terran-born Warden with a long, scarred face—nodded and gave a silent hand signal. The squad fanned out, bolters roaring. The newbloods moved like they'd trained a thousand times. Bolts tore into orkish flesh. One ork tried to leap over cover and was blown apart midair. Calvor ran forward with a short blade and plunged it into a Nob's throat.
Korran moved through the line with efficiency and quiet command.
Artorias nodded to him.
"You," he said as another ork fell, "originally requested the Luna Wolves, did you not?"
Korran looked over, startled. "Yes, my Liege. How—?"
"I make it my business to know my sons. I believe your instructors on Terra had other ideas."
"Yes. They... reassigned me."
"You're a good fit here," Artorias said. "You fight not for glory, but to protect. That's why I'm proud of you."
Korran blinked. "Thank you, my lord."
Suddenly, a trio of orks broke through a side vent—low, flanking, brutish.
Artorias moved without thought.
Ceithraig flickered once.
Three bodies hit the floor in pieces.
The Primarch didn't slow. He fell back into the column, murmured, "Watch your flanks, boys," and clapped Korran on the back so hard the man nearly stumbled.
"Next time, I let them bite you," Artorias added with mock sternness.
Korran, despite himself, grinned beneath his helm.
Ahead, the hull groaned. Through a shattered porthole, the flickering red beacon of their boarding torpedo was visible, partially embedded into the interior structure of the ship.
Donan exhaled. "We made it."
Artorias nodded.
"And now," he said calmly, "let's leave them a gift."
Behind them, deep in the bones of the ork vessel, shaped charges ticked down to zero.
The interior of the torpedo was dimly lit and humming with tension. The red lights pulsed in rhythm with the countdown. Each warrior, clad in matte-black ceramite chased with gold, was fastened tightly into restraint harnesses bolted to the armoured wall. Power packs buzzed. Hearts pounded.
Except for one.
Artorias did not sit.
He stood at the heart of the torpedo chamber, unmoving, his form vast even among giants. Ceithraig was braced against the deck, its point resting beside his armoured boots. His other hand held a mag-locked grip bar with casual ease. In the half-light, he looked like a carved statue of a knight—watching, waiting, unmoved by gravity, time, or fate.
The ship lurched.
BOOM.
The torpedo disengaged from its anchor point in the collapsing ork ship. G-forces screamed as retro-thrusters burned. The boarding pod rocketed away, the impact of its escape shaking the harnesses and rattling weapons in their locks. Legionnaires grimaced, bracing against the force.
Artorias didn't flinch.
He simply watched.
The vidscreen came to life.
The ork kroozer behind them—a monstrous construct of scavenged metal and madness, spiked with towers and festooned with guns—shuddered violently. Explosions rippled down its spine like a spinal rupture in a dying beast. Gouts of flame burst from gun decks. Hull plating split like meat beneath a cleaver.
Then, with a soundless flash across the void, the entire vessel detonated.
Debris scattered. Entire decks broke off and tumbled end over end into the void. A geyser of flame bloomed in the black like a star dying.
The Mist Wardens in the torpedo cheered.
Artorias merely narrowed his eyes.
Beyond the wreckage, ork vessels—scores of them—began to shift. Some of the smaller ones began to veer off-course. Their fire patterns broke. Others began to list, their movement sluggish. Many still fought on, but a crack had formed in the ork line.
The Skrapboila had been the biggest of the greenskin ships—their flagship, their "boss boat." Its destruction had sent a ripple of fear through the feral xenos. Even now, Artorias could see the beginnings of retreat, that unmistakable stutter in their formation. The ork instinct to flee when the biggest and loudest died had taken hold.
Their ships were still numerous. Still dangerous.
But they were no longer unified.
"Status, Lady Althea." Artorias voxed into the fleetwide channel.
Her voice came back sharp, tense, and grimly elated.
"Confirmed kill on the ork flagship. Several ork vessels breaking formation. Others are disoriented. Some turning tail. We've taken losses but the fleet still stands."
"You have your window. Clear us a corridor to the surface. Cut down anything in our way."
"Gladly, my Liege."
Artorias keyed the vox across Legion-wide channels. His voice rang with iron certainty.
"My sons. Sisters. We move to the surface."
He watched the tactical display unfold across the screen as he spoke.
"We strike not at the fringes, but the heart. The thickest concentration of ork forces is where we will land. Let them feel the hammer blow of the Imperium where they are strongest—and watch them break like rotted stone. The Emperor's light shall burn even beneath blackened skies."
His voice cut across battle-wracked decks, warships, loading bays, and torpedo tubes. Across destroyer-class hulls and swift escort vessels, into the minds and hearts of Mist Wardens, mortal crew, and the hundred Sisters of Silence that marched beside them in silence.
Artorias turned his head, regarding the squad nearest him.
"We are the Wardens. Today, the stars bear witness for the Knights of Humanity go to war once more."
In the distance, the ork fleet twisted in panic.
Behind the pale blue helms and red visors of the Mist Wardens, lips moved in silent oaths. Weapons were checked. Chainswords buzzed. Bolters thumped into hands. The Sisters, faceless behind their masked helms, began to march into their designated drop pods.
War.
The battlefield roared to life with unholy ferocity.
The Wardens charged out of their pods straight into maelstrom.
Greenskin hordes surged across the hellish plains, their crude vehicles trundling through rivers of lava and ash. Trukks, battlewagons, and stompas belched black smoke into the air. Ork mechs fired wildly, filling the volcanic air with trails of glowing projectiles. The ground itself shook as tectonic plates shifted, the atmosphere stinking of sulphur and charred flesh.
Artorias led the charge, his helm's silver laurels shining, his voice like a storm given shape.
"Mist Wardens! To me! Cut them down—leave none standing!"
Ceithraig lit up the battlefield with every swing—burning arcs of light and mist severing limbs, torsos, heads. The legendary greatsword moved too fast for the eye, singing with unearthly energy, and every time it struck, dozens of orks were reduced to butchered gore. He carved through xenos ranks with grace and savagery, a dance of death amid blood and fire.
At his back, the Bladeguard advanced like the walls of a fortress come to life. Cataphractii-clad and immovable, they carved orks apart with their own master-crafted greatblades and bursts of their wrist mounted combi-bolters. Helion, stone-faced and severe beneath his white helm, fought like a blade of judgment incarnate—every swing a sentence, every thrust an execution.
All across the blackened wastes, Mist Wardens poured forth.
Stormbirds swooped low, tearing entire columns of greenskins apart with lascannons and strafing runs. Thunderhawks opened their bays mid-flight, dropping squads of Astartes into combat like divine meteors. Sisters of Silence, grim and voiceless, fought in disciplined phalanxes, their presence burning into the souls of the few ork weirdboyz that remained—melting their minds before a bolt even struck.
But it cost them.
The orks were legion.
Their numbers flooded out of cave mouths, tunnel openings, blasted scrap fortresses, and shattered rock.
Everywhere.
Mist Warden lines faltered in places—dozens of sisters fell to massed fire, their bodies cast down like broken dolls. Astartes were dragged under by sheer weight, torn apart by crude chainswords and power claws. Vehicles exploded. Lava bursts immolated squads caught in the open. Hundreds of Wardens died. And still, they held the line.
Then the earth split.
From a massive series of tunnel entrances clawed into the mountain's side, fire and smoke burst.
And out of it came giants.
Salamanders.
Green armour scorched black with soot. Chainblades roaring. Flamer units burning wide arcs through ork lines. The Pyre Guard led the way, their crimson eye lenses glowing like coals.
And at their front, like a mountain given breath, came Vulkan.
The Living Flame waded into the fray, Thunderhead in one hand, a massive ork in the other. The greenskin roared and kicked, but Vulkan swung it like a living club, smashing ork bodies into red mist. With a roar, he hurled the broken ork through the air—and into the cockpit of a walker, shattering its front and killing the pilot inside.
A trio of killa kans tried to flank him.
One came from his left.
One from the right.
The third loomed, screeching, behind—
—until Ceithraig slammed into its core, splitting its crude engine down the middle. The walker burst into flame and staggered back. The other two froze just long enough for Vulkan to destroy them—Thunderhead reducing them to scrap with two blows.
The two Primarchs stood amid carnage.
Greenskins fled from them like rats from a firestorm.
Vulkan turned, red eyes narrowing as he took in the form of his brother. "So," he rumbled, voice like stone grinding in flame. "You're my little brother. The one they call the Warden."
Artorias bowed his head once, formal and precise.
"You called for aid, brother. I was honoured to answer."
Vulkan's lips curved into a slow, grim smile.
Artorias turned, Ceithraig rising.
"There will be time to speak when the battlefield is quiet. For now…"
He raised his voice to a roar.
"TO WAR!"
The Wardens answered. The Salamanders joined in.
And together, the sons of two Primarchs surged forward, flame and mist united—breaking the ork tide in a storm of fire and steel.
The battlefield steamed with blood and fire.
Smoke hung in the volcanic air like a shroud, curling in sinuous tendrils from the wreckage of greenskin machines and the still-burning husks of Warden vehicles. The lava veins across the mountains had cooled to a dull crimson in places, crusting over with thin, fragile plates of glassy stone. Other vents hissed and roared, throwing occasional jets of molten fire into the charred sky.
Greenskin corpses lay in obscene heaps. Twisted bodies, torn by bolter and blade, burned by flamer and plasma, crushed under ceramite treads or vaporized by graviton bursts. Cleanup squads of Astartes moved with grim precision across the battlefield, gathering the fallen, setting charges in unstable wrecks, dispatching the wounded enemies with cold finality. No quarter. No prisoners.
Among the carnage stood Vulkan.
The Primarch of the XVIIIth sat with the weary weight of a mountain upon a destroyed killa kan, one massive gauntlet resting on his Thunder Hammer, the other smeared with blood and oil. His armour was scorched, torn, scarred by countless impacts. One half of his drake helm was shattered, revealing the black sheen of his skin beneath. Red eyes, glowing faintly, regarded the burning horizon with a distant calm.
Across the ruined ground, Artorias approached.
Ceithraig was sheathed across his back, and his silver-laureled helm—dented but gleaming—was tucked under one arm. His blue and silver armour was streaked with soot and ichor. A dozen Mist Wardens trailed him at a respectful distance. Bladeguard, Sisters of Silence, and line Legionnaires—all watching in silence.
Artorias slowed as he neared, his gaze taking in the towering frame of Vulkan with quiet scrutiny. He was large. Far larger than Artorias had expected the Lord of Drakes to be. Then, to be fair, he had only scattered reports and old battle recordings taken by terrified Remembrancers to work with.
Vulkan was a giant. Taller even than Horus. His onyx-black skin shimmered with residual heat, like the surface of a volcano not yet cooled. The red of his eyes was not light but burning coal, embers flickering deep within. Scars crossed his armour like etchings into basalt. His presence was... overwhelming.
Yet he said nothing for a long moment.
Then, Vulkan looked up.
"You came." His voice was rough stone over embers, quiet but immense. "You answered my call for aid."
Artorias nodded once, expression unreadable. "I did."
The silence that followed stretched taut—dozens of Astartes holding breath they didn't need.
Then Vulkan stood.
And Artorias—tall by any standard—realized just how much the Lord of Nocturne dwarfed him.
There was a pause. A tension. As if the mountain might move.
Then Vulkan grinned—broad, warm, almost boyish.
"Hah! Drake's teeth, you're smaller than I thought!"
Before Artorias could respond, the Primarch of the Salamanders moved with shocking speed, closed the gap, and pulled his brother into an embrace that might have cracked a dreadnought's frame.
"Little Brother!" Vulkan laughed.
Artorias gasped—actually gasped—as his ribs were momentarily compressed like a collapsing drop pod. His helm clattered to the volcanic stone, and his boots left the ground by at least a full foot.
The Mist Wardens collectively tensed. A few reached for weapons.
But then Vulkan set Artorias down, still grinning.
"I owe you a debt, little brother. You and your sons saved mine."
Artorias caught his breath, re-centering himself with a half-chuckle and recovering his helm. "You are… not what I expected, Vulkan."
"Most say that," Vulkan said, clapping him on the shoulder hard enough to stagger a Contemptor. "They look at me and see flame, fury, and ash. They forget the forge must also temper. I am my people's fire—but I am also their hearth."
Vulkan looked around the battlefield, then back to him. "What of my fleet? The ones I sent away when the skies began to darken?"
"We sent them coordinates for Caerdyn Vallis," Artorias replied. "There, they can repair and resupply.
Vulkan gave a slow nod, visibly pleased. "That… is a gift I will not forget. I thank you again."
A silence passed.
Then Vulkan gestured out across the plains. "Now, if you and your sons are headed anywhere with a functioning hangar, I'd be grateful for a lift. I think I've earned one."
Artorias blinked. Then laughed softly. "You are full of surprises, Vulkan."
"And full of bruises," the Forgefather said with a grin. "This world hits harder than I care to admit."
The void above Vuraktos Prime burned.
One after another, columns of fire lanced down from orbit, drawn from the collective batteries of a dozen battle barges, heavy cruisers, and massed destroyer screens. The auric light of solar flares reflected in the armored hides of Imperial warships as they loomed over the world like gods passing judgment.
The bombardment was not quick. It was not merciful.
It was complete.
Each volcanic plain, each smoke-wreathed canyon, each impact hollow and lava tunnel was scoured by saturating barrages—torpedoes, plasma lances, mass drivers, and incendiary warheads. The Sisters of Silence, grim and wordless, had given their readings. The Orks had left behind spore traces in vast quantities. If left unchecked, they would seed and breed again. It would not be allowed.
From orbit, the surface of Vuraktos Prime became a cauldron of fire, split open by man-made fury. Ash clouds rose so high they broke into the upper thermosphere. The world wept magma and death, and in its death, it was cleansed.
Above, the Warden fleet moved in careful, sombre synchrony.
Massive Stormbirds, Thunderhawks, and drop shuttles rose from the scorched world, ferrying battered but victorious Astartes, sisters, and support staff to the decks of their ships. Some shuttles limped from damage taken in descent. Others arrived empty, their passenger lists already sealed into the vaults of the dead.
The last firestorms fell.
And Vuraktos Prime, once contested and teeming with greenskin corruption, was rendered into a world of glass, smoke, and silence.
The fleet formed ranks once more, bleeding away from the world like the tide pulling back from a black shore. Engines flared, void shields hummed, and the last of the warp calculations were finalized. The Wardens had taken losses. The Salamanders had lost more. Yet both remained unbroken. Hardened.
Within the command decks, Captains barked final confirmations, crews secured systems, and Techmarines murmured prayers to the machine-spirits. Sisters of Silence stood at the edges of each bridge, their silence an anchor in the gathering pressure of the Immaterium.
Then, as the fleets approached the Mandeville Point, the Ceithir came.
It began as a whispering light, then a welling fog—soft and silver-white, forming in the vacuum like mist forming from cold air over a still lake. It moved not as gas but with purpose. Tendrils of glowing vapor curled out from the prows of the Warden ships, from hidden vents and exhausts.
It gathered in silence.
And then it formed—a great curtain of light and mist encircling the fleet. Warp storms flinched from it. Empyreal turbulence buckled and peeled away. The Ceithir, that ancient, unnamed phenomenon that none, not even the Emperor fully understood, embraced the ships of Artorias' sons.
A barrier. A blessing. A veil.
Each vessel in the fleet, from the colossal Avalon to the smallest Warden escort, plunged into the Immaterium—folding light and reason around themselves as the Ceithir formed a shell within the Warp itself. The mist moved with them, parting the tides of madness like a blade through water.
From a distance, it was a beautiful thing to see.
A fleet disappearing into nothing, not screaming or tearing apart like most warp entries—but simply fading, sheathed in luminous mist, until there was nothing left but starlight and silence.
Warp travel within the mist made everything quiet in a way that no realspace journey ever could.
The Avalon moved within the protective veil of the Ceithir, shielded from the nightmares of the Immaterium by that ancient and inscrutable phenomenon. Inside the ship's reinforced hull, the humming of its reactors was dulled, the usual bustle subdued. Even the voices of the crew, and the steps of post-battle operations, were softer—as if speaking too loudly might wake the things sleeping just beyond the hull.
The medicae deck was lit in warm whites and soft golds.
Here, wounded Astartes and mortal crew alike lay in rows or sat on benches, their wounds being dressed by a disciplined cohort of physikars, mortal medicae, and wardmatrons. Salamanders and Mist Wardens rested side by side. A pair of mortals were tending to a Warden missing half an arm, while another applied cauterant to the fused armour plating of a groaning Salamander sergeant.
Artorias stepped through the archway into the heart of it, ducking slightly beneath a brass aquila set into the frame. His armour had been stripped of its more elaborate ornamentation—his silver laurels and battle-tabard now stored away—and he walked in his under-armoured greys, pale blue vambraces still bearing dents and streaks of Ork blood.
He paused as he took in the scene. And then, across the room, he saw him.
Vulkan.
The Lord of Drakes sat on an industrial slab meant to support weight far greater than most mortals could comprehend. His colossal frame was draped in a reinforced medicae robe cut specially for the Primarch's massive anatomy. Much of his armour had been peeled away to reveal the charred obsidian texture of his skin beneath. Dozens of small burns, fractures, and micro-lacerations crisscrossed his frame, though many were already healing.
A mortal medicae hovered at his side, a scanner trembling slightly in his grip. Vulkan offered him a warm smile and a wave of dismissal. "It's nothing. Truly. Save your efforts for those in need."
Then he noticed Artorias approaching.
Vulkan tilted his head. "You look like someone's third attempt at a cathedral statue."
Artorias gave a faint smile, walking slowly to a slab across from him and settling onto it. As he did, three Physikars and two mortal medicae immediately swarmed him, checking vitals, lifting his arm to apply field-salve to a bruised shoulder, and one even gently running a scanner across his temple where dried blood lingered.
"Your physiology continues to remain absurd, my King," one of the mortal medicae muttered in admiration, perhaps not realizing it had been aloud.
"Thank you." Artorias replied dryly.
Vulkan watched it all in amusement. Then, sighing, he gestured one of the Physikars back over. "Fine, fine. If my little brother submits to indignities, I suppose I can as well."
The Physikars, though still clearly aware they were in the presence of demigods, moved among the Primarchs without panic or worship, unlike their mortal counterparts. Their hands were sure. Their eyes professional. No one grovelled. No one dared to pretend they were equals either, but respect, not fear, defined the room.
Vulkan noticed it. And he liked it.
"They're comfortable," he said, nodding at the mortals. "Even with us here."
Artorias nodded, not opening his eyes as a salve soaked into his skin. "They are. My sons know our duty—to mankind. We were made to guard, not to rule. We're not kings. We are shields."
Vulkan's expression shifted—approving, thoughtful. "A sentiment my sons would share. It is good to see it elsewhere in the Imperium."
A pause followed. Comfortable, this time.
The low murmuring of medicae voices and machine chirps filled the background. At one point, a wardmatron passed silently between the two Primarchs, bowed wordlessly, and continued on.
Then Vulkan tilted his head, his red eyes narrowing with amusement. "You've been holding back, brother."
Artorias opened his eyes slowly. "…What?"
"You've been sitting there, quiet as a Librarian at his first Council, and it's clear as sunlight you're trying to figure out how to say something without offending me." Vulkan chuckled. "Just say it."
Artorias paused.
Then: "There are many questions I would ask. But they seem better suited to… a more formal setting."
"Oh, don't be such a Remembrancer, little brother," Vulkan laughed, swatting the air. "You're worse than Roboute. All those staged talks and rehearsed lines. I'm your brother, Artorias. Not a war council."
Little brother.
The word from Vulkan carried warmth. And something heavier—an echo of another voice. A memory.
Artorias glanced away. He remembered how Ferrus had once called him that. Mocking. Affectionate. Almost cruel. Yet not unkind.
As if sensing it, Vulkan's tone gentled. "I know what you want to ask. I would too, in your place."
Artorias said nothing.
"Why I never reached out."
The words hung between them.
Vulkan leaned forward, massive elbows resting on his knees, voice quiet. "I heard Ferrus joked about your… chip. On the shoulder."
Artorias gave a faint sound that might have been a laugh. Or a breath through his nose.
"I did try, Artorias," Vulkan said softly. "A dozen or so times. Vox messages. Data-slate recordings. Courier ships routed through your territories. Something always went wrong. Scrubbed during transit. Wrong coordinates. Tech-trouble. Even interference from… elements I won't name here."
He looked down. "I even asked Sanguinius to reach out to you on my behalf. He swore he would the next time he saw you."
The next time he saw me?
Artorias sat upright at that. "…He never did."
"No," Vulkan said, and his expression darkened with a rare furrow. "No, he didn't. That troubles me."
The silence that followed was no longer comfortable. It had weight.
"The galaxy's a vast thing, Artorias," Vulkan continued at last. "I fought half a crusade on the other side of it. My path never crossed yours. I would have needed to abandon my campaign, to leave worlds and people behind, to find you. And I… I could not do that. Not then."
Artorias sat back, conflicted. "I don't know what to say."
"You don't need to." Vulkan offered a small smile. "We have time. We're not at war every hour of every day. Not yet."
A long pause.
Then Artorias offered, quietly, "…Perhaps we could talk more. Over dinner."
There was a beat.
Then Vulkan laughed—a great, chest-shaking laugh that made two nearby mortals jump in surprise.
"Now you're talking!" he roared, slapping a massive palm on his knee. "Real food. Real talk. I'd be delighted, little brother. Provided you're not one of those weird Terran traditionalists who serve soup out of porcelain skulls."
Artorias smirked. "No. Nothing like that."
"Good. Then let's eat."
The great dining hall of the Avalon was swathed in silver mist.
It rolled in gentle waves across the obsidian floor, curling like smoke around the feet of serfs and slicing past the columns that lined the vaulted chamber. The architecture was echoingly vast and high, carved in a style long lost to any current Imperial gothic — something older, nobler. Arches like the ribs of giants bent toward the heavens, hung with pendants and braziers. Brazen chimerae and lions stared from their watchful places along the upper gallery. The air carried the scent of spices and wine, a sharp contrast to the ever-present tang of steel and oil that haunted the rest of the ship.
At the head of the long table sat Althea DeLorean, her high collar pressed and medals subtle, understated. She held herself with poise and calm dignity, despite the impossible company arrayed to either side of her.
To her right sat Artorias, clad in a robe of deep blue, high-collared and trimmed in pale white.
To her left sat Vulkan.
His massive frame, draped in robes the colour of scorched bronze and obsidian glass, made even the Primarch opposite him seem modest in build. His skin shimmered like volcanic stone in firelight, and his eyes, deep and aglow like twin forge-hearts, swept the table with quiet warmth and ceaseless awareness.
Down either side of the table sat the upper echelons of both Legions. Numeon, solemn and statuesque, reclined slightly beside his master, his usual fire softened by good wine and good company. Helion sat beside Artorias, arms folded, and mouth set in the rigid line of a man unused to feasting.
And yet even Helion, dour sentinel of the Warden elite, could not fully conceal the faint upturn of his lips.
The air was warm with conversation, the deep timbre of Astartes voices echoing faintly across the vaulted ceiling. Dishes were brought forward one after another—lavish, gleaming, steaming.
There were moss-pigs from Caerdyn Vallis, fattened on hollowroot and marshgrain, their skin crisped and basted with firefruit glaze. When the knife touched them, they fell open like butter, steam rising in a fragrant swirl of peppered herbs and sweet brine.
There were grox shanks braised in marrow-spice, served with blistered vine-vegetables and blackened roots from the surface growfields of the Vallis heartlands. The meat, dyed a dark crimson by its long steeping in spicewine, fell in soft flakes onto polished iron plates.
Kedagree, that ancient Terran dish, arrived next. Smoked eel-meat and eggs tossed with soft groat grains, seasoned with ghost-salt and sun-dried turmeric. Vulkan devoured it in vast spoonfuls, pausing only to exhale deeply and let the warmth spread behind his ribcage.
"You're certain this is authentic?" he asked, turning to Artorias with a look of playful suspicion.
Artorias gestured across the table. "Ask Lady Althea. She prepared it herself."
Vulkan blinked. Then turned.
"You, Captain?"
Althea shifted under the sudden weight of the Primarch's molten gaze. "I did, my lord. It was… my grandmother's. A family recipe from Terra, passed down the line."
Vulkan laughed, a sound that filled the hall with the joy of stone breaking. "Then I have never owed more to a stranger I've never met. You honour Terra's lost hearths, Captain."
Althea bowed her head, colour blooming in her cheeks despite herself.
Conversation wound onward. Wine from Vallis, pale green and faintly sparkling, mingled with heavy blackberry port from the stock cellars of Sol. Mortals, both naval officers and kitchen stewards, dined at smaller tables near the walls, part of the hall yet respectfully apart.
Even the Sisters of Silence, seated in shadowed alcoves, partook in the meal. Silent and serene, their presence felt more like flame than form — seen and not heard, yet warm in the periphery.
Vulkan and Artorias sat close, their arms brushing as they drank and passed each other dishes like common men.
"I'll admit," Vulkan said, chewing thoughtfully on a thick cut of grox flank, "I hadn't expected you to come."
Artorias tilted his head. "Because the Wardens were too far-flung?"
"Because you are a dutiful man," Vulkan replied. "The last I'd heard, the XIth were in Calixis and Meraxys Sectors. I'd have thought you'd be with one of those fleets."
Artorias nodded once, lowering his goblet. "I was on Caerdyn Vallis when the call came. My hands are not the only ones that hold the line now. My First and Second Captains command those fleets. I could not ask for better."
Vulkan looked sideways at him, catching the faintest flicker behind his brother's eyes — a shadow behind the gold. It was hidden well, but not perfectly. Not from a brother who knew the face of pain buried beneath a duty-bound brow.
"I understand," Vulkan said softly. "I go back to Nocturne when I can. The galaxy forgets we are men as well as warriors. The Emperor may have made us nigh immortal, but not insensible."
He frowned, staring down into his wine, the flicker of doubt crossing his face for just a moment.
Then Vulkan shook his head. "Enough of that. We are here now. That is what matters. And I am glad."
He turned then to Numeon, raising a brow. "I hear my brother charged onto an ork bridge like it was a practice hall. If only you would let me do something so reckless, hey Nuemon?"
Helion grunted. "We advised against it, Lord. He ignored us."
Artorias leaned toward Vulkan. "They take it all far too seriously."
"And yet they only have one life to live," Vulkan said, voice playful but laced with steel. "They must be forgiven for caring about how we use ours."
Helion and Numeon exchanged a long-suffering glance across the table.
That brought laughter from both Primarchs.
As the feast wore on, Artorias watched how easily their Legions mingled — Salamanders and Wardens trading stories, toasting fallen comrades, bickering about weapon loadouts and tactical formation. There was something natural about it. Something right.
"I like your sons," Vulkan said quietly, watching them. "They remind me of mine."
Artorias nodded. "And I yours."
Their eyes met — the Knight and the Forgemaster — and the quiet between them was no longer tense.
Artorias poured another glass, and lifted it in toast.
"To reunion."
Vulkan clinked his goblet to his brother's. "And to the road ahead."
But even as they drank, and the hall filled with laughter and mist, Vulkan did not forget the shadow that had passed across Artorias's face.
Not a wound. Not quite.
But a scar. And every scar has a story.
One he would wait to hear.
The private chambers of Artorias were deep in the heart of the Avalon, a place few had ever seen and fewer still were permitted to linger. Though it was grand in scale — as befitted a Primarch — it bore little ostentation. The stonework was finely carved but worn smooth with time, shaped more by function than vanity. Drapes of starlight-coloured cloth hung in slow folds from the curved ceiling. The ever-present mist drifted even here, trailing low along the black stone like a memory that refused to settle.
In the centre of the room, a great hearth glowed with living flame, fed by scented oils and resinous wood hauled from the forests of Caerdyn Vallis. It filled the space with the scent of pine, ironbark, and warm cinder.
Artorias sat before it in silence, one arm draped across the back of the stone-carved seat, the other holding a simple goblet of dark wine. Across from him, Vulkan reclined in a massive chair of similar make, booted feet resting on a low bench, his own cup cradled loosely in one hand. The flickering firelight danced across his obsidian skin and gave the impression of something ancient and elemental.
They had sat like this for some time, content in a rare moment of peace.
Then Vulkan's voice broke the quiet.
"You wear your grief like armour, little brother," he said, eyes fixed on the flames. "But I can still see the wound in your heart."
Artorias stiffened.
"You are… remarkably forward," he muttered.
Vulkan chuckled, low and rumbling. "So say far too many of our brothers. I've never been good with decorum."
He turned his head, watching Artorias without judgment. "But I can listen. If you need someone to do so."
Artorias stared into the fire. The shadows of its glow flickered across the high ceiling above.
"…Has the news spread?" he asked finally. "Of Monarchia."
Vulkan's jaw tightened slightly, but he nodded. "It has. I heard of what happened. Of what Father did. Of Lorgar's humiliation."
Artorias closed his eyes. "We were there."
He didn't elaborate. Vulkan waited.
"The Wardens took part in the Burning," Artorias said at last, his voice quiet and distant. "We laid waste to Monarchia alongside the XIIIth Legion. We were made to tear a city apart. A city that worshipped us — worshipped him — without question or fail. We burned it to ash."
He paused. The fire snapped softly. Somewhere beyond the walls, the ship hummed with the whispering sound of the Warp.
"I left before the Emperor arrived to confront Lorgar. Guilliman stayed. I did not."
Vulkan shifted forward in his seat, setting his goblet down with slow care.
"It sounds like it still weighs on you."
"I argued," Artorias said, a tremor in his voice now. "Fiercely. I pleaded for any other way. But the Emperor wouldn't listen. He was set on his path. Guilliman went along with it, even agreed with it. And the Wardens… we obeyed. We did our duty."
The flamelight caught on the silver threads in his robe, the shimmer of his still-healing scars.
"That day broke my hearts," he said, voice hoarse. "The burning of Monarchia broke them. But the thought of Lorgar's public shaming shattered what was left. I believed in the Emperor, Vulkan. I saw him as stern, yes — unrelenting, yes — but also wise. Caring. A force of unity, not domination."
He looked at Vulkan now, truly looked at him, and there was pain behind his eyes that no battle could explain.
"That day, he was not a saviour. He was not my Father. He was a tyrant. And I have not known peace since."
Vulkan didn't speak for a long while. He simply stared into the hearth, as though seeking meaning in the dance of sparks.
"…That is why you went home," he said at last. "To Caerdyn Vallis."
Artorias nodded slowly. "I lost faith. In him. In this crusade. I thought… perhaps the Emperor had forgotten what it meant to be a man. And perhaps I had, too."
Vulkan exhaled slowly. "I understand now."
He picked up his cup again, drank deeply, and said, "You are not alone in this."
Artorias turned sharply. "I thought I was."
Vulkan shook his head. "No. When word of Monarchia reached us, it caused ripples. Deep ones. Sanguinius and I thought it cruel. Corax called it short-sighted. Mortarion wouldn't speak of it, though his silence spoke volumes. Russ was furious — though he masked it in grunts and dismissals. Even Ferrus… he believed it was wrong."
He paused. "Horus supported it. Fulgrim too. Guilliman, you know already. Magnus called it a 'logical outcome,' and the Lion merely nodded as if he had known it all along."
"The rest did not care on way or the other."
Artorias frowned. "That… that's nearly a complete divide."
"It is," Vulkan said grimly. "And it shook more than you. We all have our own image of the Emperor in our heads. To some, he is a loving father. To others, a wise mentor. To some, a cold autocrat. Monarchia reminded us that he is capable of being all of them at once."
There was silence again.
But this time it was warmer. More open.
"…Thank you," Artorias said, voice low.
"For what?" Vulkan asked.
"For saving me."
The Lord of Nocturne blinked.
Artorias smiled faintly. "Your call for aid lit something in me. A spark I thought long buried. I'd resigned myself to exile on Caerdyn Vallis. Told myself it was noble. That I could do more good holding one world than ranging through a galaxy gone mad. But… it was self-pity. Dressed in duty."
He looked up at Vulkan, eyes clear now.
"You reminded me that I was made for more than sorrow. I was made to face the dark. To protect mankind."
Vulkan said nothing for a long time. His throat moved once. Then again. But no words came.
So, Artorias changed the subject. To something that had nagged at him since their first meeting.
"You mentioned earlier," he said, "that you once tried to reach out to me. Through Sanguinius."
Vulkan nodded. "Yes. It was eight years ago. Our fleets passed near each other in the Segmentum Pacificus. Sanguinius said he would carry my words to you personally the next time he saw you."
Artorias tilted his head. "I never heard from him."
Vulkan frowned. "That's strange. He said he would speak with you. I assumed he did."
Artorias looked genuinely confused. "We've never met."
Now it was Vulkan's turn to blink. Slowly. "…Never?"
"No."
A heavy silence fell.
"I thought… Our Father usually takes one or more of us with him when he finds a Primarch," Vulkan said slowly. "So that you wouldn't be alone. So that there would be… kin, when you joined the Imperium."
Artorias looked unsettled. "The Emperor came alone."
"That makes no sense," Vulkan said, voice tightening. "I saw the orders. Fleet movements for both Konrad and Sanguinius. They were to rendezvous with the Emperor en route to your world. I remember. It was thirty-nine years ago. I'd volunteered to join but was told that the two of them would be enough."
Artorias stared at him, stunned.
Sanguinius and Konrad?
"I've never met either of them."
Now the fire seemed colder. The mist in the room had grown thicker, clutching the floor like a phantom tide.
Vuraktos Prime, Kyros-Zar System
Fourteenth Day Since the Distress Signal Was Sent
The world itself screamed.
Molten rivers pulsed through vast volcanic chasms like arteries of fire, lighting the smoke-clogged skies in sickly hues of orange and blood-red. Plumes of ash drifted endlessly across the blackened highlands, choking the light from Vuraktos' sun. Sulphur storms howled across cracked obsidian ridges, flaying the dead and dying alike.
And from the sky, the enemy came—again and again—on wings of iron and madness.
Vulkan stood alone atop a jagged escarpment, armour scorched and cratered from a dozen near-fatal strikes. His enormous frame was wreathed in rising smoke, the wind tugging at the dragon-scale cloak fastened across his broad shoulders. Black blood—not his own—steamed from the warplate, running down green ceramite like ink over emerald.
Above, ork ships broke the atmosphere in a thunderous cascade, streaking fire as they fell—rusted, jagged things, shaped like blades hurled by a deranged hand. Some slammed into the earth with shattering impact; others exploded in mid-air, scattering wreckage and greenskins across the basin like burning carrion.
The thunder of their landings was endless.
The WAAAGH had come in full.
And still, Vulkan remained.
He turned slightly as his sons pulled back beneath him, forming up into coordinated retreat lines. Discipline under fire. Even now, after two gruelling weeks of unrelenting warfare, the Salamanders fought like the warriors of myth they were—unyielding, brotherly, utterly without fear.
But they were exhausted.
Their eyes, hidden behind helm lenses betrayed their pain. He could see it in the sag of their shoulders. In the tilt of their necks.
Vulkan raised his plasma pistol, Furnace's Heart—massive in any other's hands but an extension of himself—and squeezed the trigger. A howling blast of incandescent blue seared through the haze, vaporizing a charging nob mid-roar, leaving only charred bone and crackling ruin. The mob hesitated.
Thunderhead came down a moment later.
The ornate warhammer, forged on Nocturne by Vulkan's own hands, screamed through the air and shattered an ork into ruin—bone, flesh, and armour collapsing beneath the blow like paper beneath a rockslide. The impact cracked the ground beneath them and hurled nearby enemies off their feet.
And then he was among them.
The orks came in droves, filthy and shrieking, reeking of blood and engine oil. Their crude cleavers slammed against his armour, some sparking, others biting in—but Vulkan didn't slow. His pistol roared again, flash-cooking another brute's head to slag, and then Thunderhead spun in a wide arc, breaking bodies and rupturing torsos.
A massive ork with a serrated axe lunged at him with surprising speed, bellowing in broken Low Gothic.
"DEAD YEW FER GORK, YA BIG METAL GROANER—"
Vulkan's hammer took the creature mid-charge, crushing its chest in with a wet thunderclap, the force caving in the ground beneath them. He crushed a booted foot onto the broken greenskin's neck as it twitched and stepped forward into the next line.
He fought like an elemental force, a being of fire and wrath incarnate. His movements were clean, efficient, merciless—but never savage. He fought to end suffering, not to glory in it.
"Fall back to the cave mouths!" he bellowed over the din, his voice booming like a volcano erupting. "Now!"
The order rang out across the Salamanders vox network. Squad leaders barked affirmatives. Flamer teams stepped forward, igniting choke points in waves of holy fire to buy seconds, then fell back, weapons glowing red-hot. Heavy bolters chattered behind natural barricades, carving gory swaths into the encroaching tide, and still the greenskins surged forward.
Vulkan waited.
He was always the last.
A thunderous impact cracked the rocks behind him as an ork drop-pod slammed into the cliffside like a thrown boulder. It burst open, and from within came a towering greenskin clad in scavenged heavy armour, hydraulic pistons hissing and a massive hammer of its own in hand.
The beast roared.
Vulkan stared at it for a heartbeat—two apex predators meeting across a gulf of blood and fire.
Then they collided.
The ork's hammer struck first, slamming into Vulkan's side and throwing him back a step. Alarms blinked across his pauldron readout, but the Primarch ignored them. He responded with a brutal strike to the creature's gut that doubled the monster over, and then a second that caved in its helm entirely, splitting it down the middle with a crack like shattering granite.
The ork's body dropped in twitching pieces. Its warcry died on molten air.
Vulkan turned and jogged down the slope.
The Salamanders were almost all inside now. The last line had pulled back through the lava tunnels. Combat servitors and Legion tech-marines were sealing traps—melta charges, void mines, collapsing spires of rock waiting to be triggered.
The sky was now dark with descending meteors. There had to be hundreds more landers. Thousands of orks.
Too many.
Just inside the cavern threshold, Vulkan turned back for one last look. A tide of green surged over the obsidian ridge. Their war cries—so many different dialects, so many guttural screams—all melted into one chorus of violence. As they came into view, firing wildly, clambering over wrecks and corpses, Vulkan raised Thunderhead once more and shouted:
"INTO THE FIRES OF BATTLE, UNTO THE ANVIL OF WAR!"
The mouth of the cavern swallowed him, and the world outside burned.
The tunnels hissed with geothermal heat, the air heavy with steam and soot. Ancient caverns twisted and split into defensible galleries. The Salamanders had made this place a fortress of necessity—kill-boxes, crossfire traps, thermal barriers.
Inside one of the larger chambers, one they'd come to call simply the Crucible, his captains had gathered once more.
They were tired. Burned. But unbowed.
Captain Iaeus spoke first. "We've thinned them Forgefather, but not enough."
"Thinning was never the goal," Vulkan said. "Survival was. We hold until reinforcements arrive."
"Do you believe they'll come, my lord?" asked Lieutenant Harak, his voice low, cautious.
Vulkan looked at him.
"I do not know," he said quietly. "But we will hold regardless."
There was silence. Not disappointment—respect.
It had always been this way with Vulkan. He made no promises he couldn't keep. No hollow speeches. But he was always at their side, first into battle and last to leave. That alone gave his sons strength.
From deeper in the tunnels came the sound.
At first, just a rumble. Like distant rockfall.
Then—echoing footfalls. Slapping feet. Metal scraping on stone. And then the roar.
A hundred voices screaming for blood.
The orks had found a way into the tunnel mouths.
Vulkan turned slowly and gestured for his captains to prepare. The Salamanders moved with grim solemnity. Some checked their flamer canisters. Others performed last rites, murmured prayers, or pressed tokens of Nocturne and Terra to their breastplates.
Vulkan knelt beside one wounded warrior propped against the wall.
"Do you fear death, my son?" he asked.
The young Legionary, a Terran, stared up, eyes wide.
"No, Forgefather," he whispered. "Only failing you."
"You never could," Vulkan said, rising.
Thunderhead hummed in his gauntlet.
The Salamanders arrayed themselves in formation at the edge of the chamber, weapons ready, armor glowing from internal heat. Their eyes were on him. Always on him.
The noise grew louder.
Closer.
And then—the orks came.
Vulkan raised his hammer, eyes glowing like twin orbs of molten lava.
"Hold the line," he said, voice low and calm. "Make them earn every drop of ground."
And then, as the greenskin tide poured through the tunnels with howls and crude war banners, the Salamanders of the XVIIIth met them with fire and fury.
The cave became a forge of war once more.
And Vulkan, Primarch of Fire, stood in its heart.
The Ceithir rolled low across the polished flagstones of the training yard, softening the edges of the distant stone archways, curling like ghostly tendrils around the booted feet of the running youths. Above them, slate-grey skies pressed close to the high walls of the Sanctum, the fortress-monastery standing timeless, eternal.
From a raised terrace of ferrocrete and iron, the Watch-Lord stood like a statue carved from old war and older memory. His armour, weather-beaten and chipped, bore the silver laurels of age and command. The markings on his pauldron—Terran in origin, faded beneath newer symbols of Caerdyn—spoke of years of service beyond counting. His features were grim and craggy, carved by hardship, his hair long since gone to grey then white, though he kept his beard neatly trimmed.
Below, the new initiates ran. Barefoot on cold stone, stripped to their tunics, skin slick with sweat. Dozens of boys between twelve and fifteen winters, every last one handpicked from the recent culling of candidates.
Among them ran Mohrdrehd—called Mord by the others. The boy moved with the quiet confidence of someone used to leading, not by command but by presence. The other boys watched him without watching, timed their pace to his, followed his choices without words.
The Watch-Lord grunted to himself.
There was always one.
Boots echoed behind him—measured, clipped. Another figure stepped up beside him, armoured in the pale blue of the Legion, trimmed with pale silver. His pauldron bore the mist-tree of Caerdyn Vallis. His skin bore its mark, too—pale as riverstone and traced with mist-scars from exposure to the Ceithir as a child.
The younger Astartes came to a halt and folded his arms across his chest. "Brother Alric. You've already begun?"
The Watch-Lord didn't turn. "They were idle, Thameus. Idleness breeds weakness."
Thameus frowned, watching the training yard. "The King gave strict orders. The Trials were to wait until his return."
Alric barked a low, humorless laugh. "And do you see a Trial before you, brother? Do you see the Chamber of Suffering? Hypno-bays? Apothecarion rites? No. You see exercise."
"You are skirting his will."
"I am honouring it," the Terran snapped, turning finally. His voice was gravel and steel, forged by campaign after campaign. "I was given this post by the Primarch's own hand. When I accepted the charge of the Legion's recruits, I asked one thing: that the training of them, until they proved worthy to bear the mark of the Tree, was mine alone to shape. He agreed."
The Caerdyn-born marine narrowed his eyes. "Even so—"
"No surgeries. No implants. No catechisms. Not until he says otherwise." The Watch-Lord jabbed a finger down toward the yard. "But if they're going to stand before him one day and beg for the chance to wear his sigil on their breastplate, they'll do it with lungs of iron and backs like stone. Or they'll fall behind and return home."
The argument simmered, and then slowly, the younger marine exhaled through his nose. His eyes turned back toward the boys.
"The child of the Windmere," Thameus said quietly. "He's a born leader. The others already orbit him like stars around a sun."
Alric gave a thoughtful grunt. "The Ceithir clings to him," the other added. "Like a mother to her favourite child."
"That it does," Thameus murmured, watching the boy. "The Ceithir whispers to him. I've seen it. He walks the mists as though they part for him. But that same confidence could make him reckless. There's fire in him. A flame of ambition."
Alric chuckled. "You're aware of who his mother is, aren't you?"
"I've met them both," Thameus replied. "Elyria's will. Brynhar's strength. The boy was born to join us."
The silence returned for a time, broken only by the sharp calls of training serfs and the rhythmic slaps of bare feet on wet stone. One of the boys stumbled. Mord stopped, turned, pulled him to his feet, and kept pace beside him until the weak link found strength again.
"I received word this morning," the Watch-Lord said absently. "The boy's parents will be coming to visit."
That got a reaction. The Caerdyn-born Astartes turned, Thameus's face tight with surprise. "To the Sanctum?"
The older warrior grunted again. "I gave permission."
"You what?"
"They are no strangers to this place. They've earned the right. And don't look at me like that." He gave Thameus a pointed look. "The Twice-Born would have done the same."
A long moment passed before the younger Astartes nodded. He looked away, to the far banners on the monastery's towers. "I suppose he would."
Alaric turned back to the boys—no, not boys. Not yet warriors, but no longer merely children either. Something in between. In that liminal place where pain and discipline would forge them into sons of the Mist.
His thoughts turned to the gene-seed—Artorias's legacy. It was this genetic gift that allowed them to walk as one with the Ceithir. Some recruits still came from Terra, though fewer now. Most were born of Caerdyn Vallis, shaped by mists and myths. But in the eyes of the Watch-Lord, they were one and the same.
Both bore the King's genes. Both would walk his path.
He folded his arms, voice low. "He'll make his choice, this one. Mord. Whether to serve, or to lead. Or both. That is the point of this exercise. We are not shaping weapons. We are shaping Wardens."
Thameus nodded again, more respectfully this time.
Below, Mord surged ahead, drawing the others behind him like a tide.
The mists deepened, and the future marched within them.
Mord's lungs burned.
Each breath he dragged in tasted of iron and mist, thick with the scent of wet stone and old blood. His muscles screamed under the relentless weight strapped to his back—seventy kilograms of lead and steel fashioned into a training pack. Sweat soaked through his tunic, dripping onto the flagstones as he forced his legs forward again and again, round after brutal round of the perimeter circuit.
They had run for hours without pause. The Sanctum's lower yard was no simple oval—each circuit wound through inclines and stairways, switchbacks that tested balance, short walls that required vaulting. Behind him, others staggered, fell, groaned. He heard every one. Felt them.
And he turned.
"Up!" he barked, dropping beside one boy who had collapsed on a narrow incline, blood streaming from a split lip. The boy—Karn—tried to protest. Mord hauled him up by the strap across his chest, half-lifting, half-dragging him.
"I can't—" Karn wheezed.
"Yes, you can. We finish this together."
Others slowed at the sight of Mord pulling Karn forward. For a moment, the rhythm wavered.
A voice from behind, bitter and sharp, cut through the air like a blade.
"Why do you waste your strength on the weak?" spat Jerrun, a boy from the northern mists. He ran like a knife, lean and quick and full of pride. "The Wardens do not want those who fall behind. They cull the weak."
Mord turned his head, his eyes blazing emerald beneath dark, mist-dampened hair. "And do they desire cruelty, too? Or is it only cowardice you offer in place of compassion?"
The others fell silent. Jerrun scowled, but said nothing more. Mord pushed Karn forward. "Run."
And they did.
By the time the Watch-Lord signalled the end of the drill, the sky had darkened to a deep charcoal and the light had shifted from cold silver to a faint violet hue—the sun above Caerdyn Vallis veiled as ever by the Ceithir. Mord collapsed to his knees, arms trembling. Around him, boys dropped one by one, some weeping quietly, others gasping for air as if they had surfaced from drowning.
Pain hummed in his bones, but Mord didn't care. He looked up at the mists coiling around the edge of the courtyard—how they thickened in the shadows, shifting with strange intelligence. Almost protective. Almost alive.
He had always felt them. Felt it. The Ceithir. Not just as vapor, but as presence. As breath. As being.
He sat back against a low stone wall, breathing deep, feeling it stir inside his chest like a second heart.
He had never not wanted this.
Since the moment he could form a thought, he had dreamed of being a Warden. His father, Brynhar, had smiled at the declaration when he was still just a child barely tall enough to lift a wooden sword. His mother, Elyria… less so. She had warned him. Cautioned him. Urged him to wait, to grow, to think.
But he had already thought. And he had decided.
The moment came when he was only eight winters old, during one of the great festivals beneath the mist-banners. The Twice-Born King had come to walk among the people. His first return to Caerdyn Vallis since going to the stars. Artorias. Wreathed in pale silver and shrouded in the Ceithir, a titan of serene power.
Mord had watched him from the crowd, having had escaped his minders. Artorias had looked at him, seen him, and stopped.
You are of the mist, child, he had said.
And Mord had stared in awe and whispered: I want to be a Warden.
The Primarch had smiled, small and sad. Then knelt, lowering his helm, his great voice gentle as thunder muffled by snow.
Then the Ceithir shall guide you, as it did me. It watches you. It cares for all of us. Never forget that.
From that day, Mord had known. He had not chosen to be a Warden. He had always been one. The training, the hardship—it was not a burden. It was a refinement. The pain was proof.
And he bore another burden, too. Like his mother, he was a blank—a pariah. Anathema to the warp. A null. He had always felt the difference. Even among other children, there was a distance. They never knew why, only that something about him was wrong. Alien. Cold.
But the mists veiled him. Softened him. The Ceithir cradled his nature in its arms and cloaked what others could not bear. It let him live among them.
Let him dream.
He watched the others now as they began to recover. Karn nodded at him, shame in his eyes but gratitude too. Jerrun avoided his gaze. Mord ignored him.
He would be the greatest Warden to ever live. Not for glory. Not for praise. But because he had to be. Because he was meant to be.
This wasn't pride. It was faith.
Not in the Emperor. Not in Terra. Not even in victory.
But in the Ceithir.
In the Unbroken King.
In the dream.
He was coming, someday soon. Mord knew it. Artorias would return, and he would see Mord again—not as a child lost in awe, but as a warrior standing beside him.
As a son worthy of the mist.
And when that day came…
He would not fall behind.
The tunnels stank of ash, blood, and burned meat.
Heat pressed in from all sides like a fist. Fumaroles hissed above, spewing acidic vapours that licked along the basalt walls, and the only light came from flickering torches and the guttering glow of scorched ceramite.
A roar of brutal laughter echoed in the dark.
Vulkan crushed a greenskin into the stone floor. Its skull imploded with the force of Thunderhead, the sound reverberating down the tunnel like a thunderclap. Steam hissed from the corpse. Gore clung to the blunt head of the hammer like molten pitch.
They kept coming.
Wave after wave of greenskins, clad in scrap armour and warpaint, roared into the breach like a green tide. The corridor was too narrow for finesse—just pure, crushing violence. Bolters thundered in response. Blades met cleavers. Screams filled the air like a choir of the damned.
To his left, one of his Pyre Guard was dragged to the floor under three orks. He fought savagely, but one cleaver struck deep. Blood hissed on hot stone.
Vulkan moved.
His plasma pistol barked once. One ork vaporized, leaving only scorched boots and a shadow on the wall. Thunderhead snapped out, crunching into the next, hurling its ruined form into the tunnel wall with a wet, crackling thud. The last was crushed beneath Vulkan's armoured boot.
The Lord of Drakes didn't slow.
Behind him, his Pyre Guard followed—towering, elite Terran-born Salamanders clad in dark burnished green, their faces marked by Nocturne's legacy: obsidian skin, glowing red eyes, and a deathless fire behind their stoic visors. At their front strode First Captain Artellus Numeon, his power halberd humming as he cleaved through a pair of orks with savage, fiery strokes. A volkite emitter mounted in the haft spat burning beams, melting flesh with each strike.
The enemy surged again. Howls echoed through the cramped tunnel—no order, only madness.
Then something new. A deeper growl. A challenge.
A massive silhouette filled the far end of the corridor, pushing through the mob like a wrecking ball.
The ork that emerged was a giant even among its kind—at least four meters tall, its bulk covered in rusted plates and cracked pauldrons stolen from dead Astartes. One of its tusks had been replaced with a hooked chainblade. A half-shattered Terminator helm was welded into its armour as a grotesque trophy.
Its eyes found Vulkan.
"ZOGGIN' BIG ONE!" it bellowed. "YOU'S MINE!"
Vulkan's eyes narrowed. Behind the cracked lenses of his helm, his gaze burned brighter.
He handed his plasma pistol to Numeon. "Cover me."
Then, unarmed but for Thunderhead, Vulkan surged forward.
The warboss charged.
They collided like twin meteors in a storm of sparks, smoke, and screeching metal. The ork's cleaver screamed as it raked down Vulkan's side—ceramite sparking. Thunderhead arced wide, slamming into the beast's side with a seismic crack, sending it staggering—but not falling.
The warboss lunged again, and this time its blade found Vulkan's helm. The jagged edge shattered the left side with a shriek of steel. Vulkan's face was revealed—bloodied, but unbroken. His red eyes flared like coals in a forge.
He smiled.
The next swing crushed the warboss's knee. Bone split. The ork howled and stumbled—and Vulkan surged in, grabbed its jaw with one gauntleted hand and brought Thunderhead down in a single, devastating strike.
Skull, neck, and chest folded inward. The body collapsed with an audible wetness.
The greenskins screamed.
They fled—trampling over each other in panic. The tunnel reeked of blood and fear. Bolters picked off stragglers. Several Salamanders slumped against the walls, wounded or dying. Numeon was at Vulkan's side in an instant.
"Your helm," he said, grimacing at the blood running down the Primarch's temple.
"It'll do," Vulkan replied. He bent to lift one of his wounded sons—an Astartes missing an arm and bleeding from his flank. Vulkan carried him like a child. "Fall back. Regroup."
Numeon nodded and motioned for the others. The Pyre Guard took point, sweeping for signs of ambush. Their flames lit the way—short, disciplined bursts to flush out any lurking enemy.
As they trudged deeper into the black, the heat closing around them once more, Numeon fell into step beside his gene-sire.
"We've received a report," he said, voice low. "From our last scout team before the surface link failed. There's movement in orbit. Large-scale. Not xenos."
Vulkan stopped.
The tunnel was silent save for the creak of armour and the distant drip of condensed sulphur. He set the wounded down gently, his crimson eyes flaring in the dark.
"Then someone answered our call."
"We don't know who, my Lord" Numeon said. "But it's Imperial. They're fighting in the void."
Vulkan let out a breath—steam ghosting from his lips.
"One of my brothers heard," he said at last, voice low and heavy. "They have come."
Around him, the battered Salamanders stood straighter. Flame-etched armour gleamed in the torchlight. They said nothing—but the silence became resolve.
Vulkan looked upward, as if seeing through the rock and ash, through the vast and blazing weight of Vuraktos Prime.
He did not know who it was. But someone had come.
And that was enough.
He turned back to the dark. Behind him, his sons followed, bloodied, bruised—but burning.
They would hold.
The Warp peeled away from reality like a shroud torn from flesh.
With an unholy screech that shook the bones of the void, the Avalon and her fleet emerged from the Immaterium. Her massive form, a cathedral of adamantine and wrath, tore into realspace surrounded by burning contrails, auramantic residue and tendrils of the Ceithir, already retreating back into the hulls of the ships. The stars snapped into being all at once—and with them, war.
The Orks were already waiting.
Hundreds of contact blips bloomed across the tactical sphere, a green-glowing cancer that surrounded the warden fleet. The moment of emergence was answered with fire: lance strikes, crude plasma bursts, and waves of scrap-metal torpedoes.
But the Wardens had come ready.
Void shields were already aglow, shimmering with refracted starlight as the first fusillades slammed into the fleet. The Mist Wardens had entered the fray with weapons hot and engines roaring. Turrets barked. Lance arrays flashed. Macro-cannon fire lit the abyss with a storm of vengeance.
On the bridge of the Avalon, Althea DeLorean stood at the fore, hand gripping the command lectern like a war priest at her altar.
Her eyes gleamed with battle-fury.
"Shields holding. Minor bleed on the port arrays," one of her void officers called.
"Fire at will!" she barked. "All ships—Joust!"
Across the bridge, command crew and cogitator adepts relayed her orders, vox relays stammering with encoded data. Below them, the Avalon's vast decks roared to life. Her mighty engines thundered. The entire Warden fleet accelerated into a full-charge thrust.
Like knights of old lowering their lances, each Warden ship angled their reinforced prows and ploughed into the nearest Ork vessel.
The Avalon herself slammed head-on into a lumbering scrap-fortress shaped like a severed asteroid. The impact sheared through the crude hull, splitting it apart in a hail of fire and spinning wreckage. The Gloriana's reinforced prow shuddered but did not buckle.
Althea gritted her teeth against the G-forces and shouted over the comm-line. "Use the debris! Dive through the bones of their wreckage!"
The Wardens obeyed.
One by one, strike cruisers and destroyers plunged into their targets like hammer-blows. The void was filled with burning hulks. Wreckage twisted in spirals through space, lit by distant suns and explosions. Using the debris clouds as cover, Boarding Torpedoes were launched by the dozens—sleek black coffins bearing Astartes payloads toward more distant Ork cruisers.
Not all made it.
Two destroyers were caught broadside by Ork killkroozers. One was speared clean through by a ramshackle harpoon cannon, its midsection torn out in a gout of burning plasma. Another Warden ship spun, venting crew and atmosphere into the cold. Still, dozens of torpedoes punched through, embedding in the flanks of Ork hulks.
And from within them, the sons of the Ceithir came roaring.
But there was no time to glory in it.
"Captain!" cried one of the helmsmen. "Three Ork ships approaching starboard at speed—they're forming a pincer!"
On the tactical display, three jagged blips surged toward them—scrap-metal raiders bristling with crude plasma launchers and flak guns, coming in close and fast, already loosing salvoes.
The Avalon's void shields flared, taking the first few hits—but they wouldn't last long.
"Brace for impact!" Althea roared. "Prepare for emergency dive!"
Warning klaxons blared. Grav-cushioning fields flickered to maximum. Crew were slammed into their thrones as the Avalon's massive bulk twisted to port and dropped suddenly on a steep vector, plummeting through the broken remains of the previous rammed cruiser.
The ship groaned, ancient systems screaming under the strain. Statues of knightly heroes rattled on their plinths. Dust fell from the vaulted ceiling. Several cogitators sparked and exploded in a puff of incense and flame.
Althea didn't flinch.
"Initiate the Falcon's Gambit. Full roll on the dive. All gun decks, fire as we spin!"
The manoeuvre was madness.
The Avalon, thirty kilometres of superstructure, rotated on her axis during the dive, spinning like a falling blade. Her gun decks—already warmed—unleashed a full broadside during the roll.
Lance arrays sliced the void.
Macro-cannon shells the size of landers roared through space.
Caught mid-manoeuvre, the Ork ships couldn't adjust. One was blown apart entirely—spinning off into a cascade of explosions. Another fired wildly and struck its own kin. The third was clipped by the rolling Gloriana's broadside, its prow torn off and left tumbling into the dark.
"Direct hits!" came the shout from the gunnery master.
"Give me a damage report!" Althea snapped.
"Starboard shielding reduced by thirty percent! Deck 17 suffered minor decompression!"
"And the ork ships?"
"Two confirmed kills. One crippled. Debris field forming."
Althea grinned, savage and bright.
Void war was death. But to her, it was also art. In that, in the sheer savage joy that came with it, Althea DeLorean and Lotara Sarrin understood each other like no one else could.
And yet, the situation was far from in hand.
Across the field, dozens more Ork ships surged forward. Great Roks drifted into position, disgorging clouds of attack craft. The Wardens were still heavily outnumbered. Even with their precision and discipline, every second meant more casualties.
"Target the largest cruiser on vector six," Althea ordered. "Synchronize with Vigilum Caeli and The Green's Lament. We'll strike together."
"Yes, Captain!"
As the order was relayed, Althea placed one gloved hand against the side of her throne, fingers twitching over the runes. Her eyes were alight.
"This is just the beginning," she murmured, mostly to herself. "Let them come."
Captain Razzgul Skragga-Fang squatted on his throne of rusted iron and flayed mechadendrites, a two-meter crown of scavenged vox-antennae crowning his lumpy green head. His voice—guttural, wet, and thunderous—shook the walls as he screamed into his deck's squawk boxes.
"Shoot dem zoggin' humies! SHOOT FASTER!" he bellowed, spraying spittle and oil onto the levers he yanked back and forth. "Wot's da point o' all dis dakka if yer ain't usin' it, ya lazy grots!"
His crew—a chaos of bellowing greenskins, shrieking gretchin, and sparking consoles—scrambled to obey. Dozens of gunners and mechanics stomped about the bridge, hammering buttons with clubs and chewing on wires. One ork fired his shoota at a malfunctioning cogitator until it sparked to life again. Another fell into an exposed plasma conduit and burst into blue flame. Razzgul didn't even glance at him.
The battle through the view-slit was glorious—chaos and fire. Ork ships churned through the void like rusted sharks, blasting crude plasma bolts and volleying entire squadrons of torpedoes in all directions.
But the humans weren't dying fast enough.
Razzgul squinted through the armourglass, yellowed tusks gnashing. "We outnumber dem. We got more shoota. We got BIGGA ships. So WHY—"
Then he saw it. The big one.
The great beast of a human ship—the one the other greenskin captains were scared of—was rolling. Not turning. Rolling. Like it was dancing through space. The manoeuvre was impossible. Beautiful. Mad.
Razzgul leaned forward, dumbfounded. "Wot da zog is dat?"
The human ship, Avalon, twisted in its dive, and fire vomited from every gunport along its hull. Its salvo bisected a nearby killkroozer like a cleaver through groxmeat. Another ork ship panicked and turned to evade—only to be hit by its own brother's fire. Explosions rippled through the void.
A strange, involuntary sensation crept over Razzgul.
Dread.
He shook it off with a roar. "DEY FINK DEY'S CLEVAH, EH? GET ME MORE DAKKA! MORE ROCKETZ! KILL DA GITS!"
One of his lieutenants—a lopsided ork with a skull stuck over one eye—called out from a side terminal. "Cap'n! Boardin' torpedoes hit decks three, five, an' eight! Loadsa humies inside!"
"Yeh? So?" Razzgul snorted and spat a tooth. "Let da lads stomp 'em. More fightin' fer us! More FUN!"
Below them, deck feeds lit up with the shapes of bulky, power-armoured invaders—dark, mist-cloaked, fast. The Mist Wardens were swarming the ship like hornets. Bolters barked. Explosions thumped through the hull.
"GET DEM TO DA KILLIN', YER STINKY GITZ!" Razzgul shouted into the squawk again, voice raw with bloodlust. "NO RUNNIN', NO THINKIN'. JUST CHOPPAZ AND GUTZ!"
Even now, the greenskin horde surged to meet the invaders in brutal melee. From his throne, Razzgul watched with glee and fury, torn between bloodlust and rising confusion.
His ships were going down.
One after another, the human vessels rammed through the smaller ork ships like angry titans. And when one ork dreadnought finally charged one of the big ones—head-on, with all guns blazing—the humans didn't dodge.
They split it in half.
Razzgul barked laughter. "Dey's MAD! MAD AN' BRILLIANT!"
Then, finally, a rare moment of joy: One of the nearby escort cutters—small, fast, humie-shaped—was blown apart by a lucky plasma barrage. It spun into pieces. Razzgul whooped.
"WAAAGH! Got one! GOT ONE!"
And then the bridge door exploded.
It was not subtle. No warning klaxon. No hiss of pressure loss. Just a sudden, bone-deep WHUMP—and then the blast door glowed white-hot, curled inward like wax—then detonated in a cloud of slag and shrieking metal.
Through the firestorm, they came.
Astartes. Mist Wardens.
Half-shrouded in flickering steam emitted from their armour's powerpack vents. Bolters roared. Frag grenades flew like falling stars. The first wave of bridge crew was torn apart in an instant. Orks were pulped. Gretchin vaporized. A control panel exploded. Two of Razzgul's lieutenants were shredded into green mist.
The sound was deafening.
The room filled with smoke and screaming and mist. One Warden knelt behind a column, laid down suppressing fire with a heavy bolter, chewing through a line of charging boyz. Another hurled a combat knife that pinned a Nob to the far wall. The orks rallied and fought back—roaring and swinging, choppas flashing in the firelight.
And then the mist parted—
—and he came through.
Artorias.
The Primarch of the Mist Wardens was not a man. Not even a demigod. He was a storm given form. Silver-etched blue plate. A cloak like night woven from the darkest thread and cloaked in the Ceithir itself. His face was a mask of calm purpose, but his eyes—his golden eyes—burned with cold fury.
He moved like a streak of death. Too fast.
Ceithraig sang as it cut, a shrieking note that split the air. One ork tried to raise a choppa—only for his torso to vanish in a streak of red. Another, twice the size of a Legio Astartes, was carved in half before his brain knew he'd died.
Razzgul watched in horror.
"Zog me," he muttered. "WOT IN GORK'S NAME IS THAT?!"
He raised his shoota, spraying wildly as he stumbled back toward his throne. Rounds hammered into Artorias's armour—and did nothing. The Primarch didn't even slow down. He tore through ten more orks. The rest of the Legionaries supported the Primarch in the only way they could. Grenade. Bolter burst. Slash.
Razzgul turned to run.
He never got far.
He pulled the trigger again—but his arm was gone.
The ork looked down, puzzled. Where once there was a gun, there was only a gout of arterial green mist and a stump.
A second later, his vision twisted—his body lurched—and he realized he was looking up at his own torso.
Then came the final realization:
His head had been removed.
His last sight was Artorias standing over his body, blade dripping, face cold. The Ceithir swirled around him like smoke from a divine pyre.
The ork bridge stank of blood, oil, and smoke. Corpses—green, gnarled, still twitching—littered the shattered deck like leaves after a storm. The Ceithir mist drifted low and strange through the chamber, wreathing black-armored giants in a spectral haze.
Artorias stood in the silence, Ceithraig hummin softly in his grip. The Primarch's eyes—hard gold reflecting red emergency strobes—swept over the destruction with cold satisfaction.
Then he turned, and his voice came low, controlled, and certain.
"Charges on the bridge. Breach every weak point. Vox to all squads—plant demolition packs at reactors, munition stores, and structural choke-points. Three minutes. Then we exfiltrate."
"Understood, my King," crackled a voice over the vox. Other affirmations followed—gravel-throated, loyal, urgent.
Artorias moved with sudden purpose, kneeling beside a dead greenskin, and set a shaped melta charge beneath a sparking generator coil. Around him, his sons followed suit—silent and efficient, armoured gauntlets working with the calm of ritual. These were Legionnaires forged in the shadow of Caerdyn Vallis, tempered in ceaseless drills, and now blooded in the forge of void war.
He straightened and glanced toward the viewport—half shattered, webbed with cracks—and caught a glimpse beyond.
The void glowed.
In the distance, through the churning chaos of debris and fire, Avalon danced through space like a blade. Althea's manoeuvre had shattered three ork escorts in one blistering volley. A massive ork rok, ugly and asymmetrical, came apart in a cataclysm of internal detonation as the Avalon's broadsides found its fuel core.
Artorias smiled.
Not the tight, grim line he wore before battle. Not the symbolic curve offered for morale. A true smile—of pride, of trust.
"Good work, my Lady" he murmured.
Then he turned to move.
The halls of the Skrapboila were pulsing with red light and howls. Through gutted corridors and rusted catwalks, the Mist Wardens moved—fast and fluid. They passed broken orks, split in half or crushed against bulkheads, the aftermath of squads cutting forward with bolter and blade. Artorias led from the centre of the formation, flanked by his sons—newbloods, most of them.
The vox clicked again.
"My lord." The voice was flat, measured. "You boarded without your honour guard. Again."
Artorias chuckled, warm and low. "Helion. You're always so mothering."
There was a pause. Then: "The Bladeguard wear Cataphractii plate for a reason, Lord. So we might better protect you."
"I needed to move quickly. If I had waited for you, we'd still be clearing the hangar," Artorias replied, sidestepping a fallen girder. "You'll have your chance, my son. We shall fight together on the surface."
"That's a promise, Lord?"
"It is."
"Then don't die before we get there. And don't forget your helmet this time, Lord."
Artorias chuckled again. "Such mothering, Helion. I'll try."
A clatter echoed ahead. Gunfire. Bolters.
The Primarch moved to join the line, slowing to fall beside one of his sons—a tall, broad-chested Warden with the unmistakable stiffness of someone still adjusting to power armour. The newblood held a bolter tight to his chest, every motion measured and sharp.
Artorias turned to him as they jogged down the corridor, ceramite boots crashing over grated flooring.
"What's your name, son?"
The Astartes nearly stumbled.
"D-Donan, my King. Initiate Donan Alric. Squad Korran."
"You're Caerdyn-born," Artorias said, smiling. "Fenmarch. Your accent slips a little when you're nervous."
Donan's eyes widened. "Y-yes, my King."
"Relax. You're doing well."
"I—thank you. It is an honour—truly—I never imagined I would stand beside you like this."
Artorias reached out, casually brushing the younger warrior's pauldron.
"Let me tell you a secret, Donan," he said, voice warm and low. "I know the name of every son in my Legion. Terran-born or Caerdyn-raised. Everyone. You are not faceless to me."
The squad glanced at him in disbelief—one of the others, a lean, quiet marine named Aeryn, looked as if he might speak, but bit his tongue. Donan blinked once, stunned.
Artorias inclined his head to each in turn. "Aeryn. Korran. Hyss. Calvor. I welcomed you to the Legion personally. Gifted you your plate. Did you think I would forget?"
Hyss, who had always been quiet in drills, gave a small nod. "We didn't think you'd remember us, my King."
"I remember all my sons," Artorias said simply.
Ahead, a guttural roar echoed through the corridor.
Orks.
A wave of the creatures—hulking, screaming, stupid with bloodlust—poured from a side corridor into the path of the retreating squad.
Artorias stopped.
He stepped aside, placing a hand gently on Donan's back to usher him forwards.
"Show me, my sons," the primarch said softly. "Show me the skill of Caerdyn Vallis."
Korran, the squad's sergeant—a Terran-born Warden with a long, scarred face—nodded and gave a silent hand signal. The squad fanned out, bolters roaring. The newbloods moved like they'd trained a thousand times. Bolts tore into orkish flesh. One ork tried to leap over cover and was blown apart midair. Calvor ran forward with a short blade and plunged it into a Nob's throat.
Korran moved through the line with efficiency and quiet command.
Artorias nodded to him.
"You," he said as another ork fell, "originally requested the Luna Wolves, did you not?"
Korran looked over, startled. "Yes, my Liege. How—?"
"I make it my business to know my sons. I believe your instructors on Terra had other ideas."
"Yes. They... reassigned me."
"You're a good fit here," Artorias said. "You fight not for glory, but to protect. That's why I'm proud of you."
Korran blinked. "Thank you, my lord."
Suddenly, a trio of orks broke through a side vent—low, flanking, brutish.
Artorias moved without thought.
Ceithraig flickered once.
Three bodies hit the floor in pieces.
The Primarch didn't slow. He fell back into the column, murmured, "Watch your flanks, boys," and clapped Korran on the back so hard the man nearly stumbled.
"Next time, I let them bite you," Artorias added with mock sternness.
Korran, despite himself, grinned beneath his helm.
Ahead, the hull groaned. Through a shattered porthole, the flickering red beacon of their boarding torpedo was visible, partially embedded into the interior structure of the ship.
Donan exhaled. "We made it."
Artorias nodded.
"And now," he said calmly, "let's leave them a gift."
Behind them, deep in the bones of the ork vessel, shaped charges ticked down to zero.
The interior of the torpedo was dimly lit and humming with tension. The red lights pulsed in rhythm with the countdown. Each warrior, clad in matte-black ceramite chased with gold, was fastened tightly into restraint harnesses bolted to the armoured wall. Power packs buzzed. Hearts pounded.
Except for one.
Artorias did not sit.
He stood at the heart of the torpedo chamber, unmoving, his form vast even among giants. Ceithraig was braced against the deck, its point resting beside his armoured boots. His other hand held a mag-locked grip bar with casual ease. In the half-light, he looked like a carved statue of a knight—watching, waiting, unmoved by gravity, time, or fate.
The ship lurched.
BOOM.
The torpedo disengaged from its anchor point in the collapsing ork ship. G-forces screamed as retro-thrusters burned. The boarding pod rocketed away, the impact of its escape shaking the harnesses and rattling weapons in their locks. Legionnaires grimaced, bracing against the force.
Artorias didn't flinch.
He simply watched.
The vidscreen came to life.
The ork kroozer behind them—a monstrous construct of scavenged metal and madness, spiked with towers and festooned with guns—shuddered violently. Explosions rippled down its spine like a spinal rupture in a dying beast. Gouts of flame burst from gun decks. Hull plating split like meat beneath a cleaver.
Then, with a soundless flash across the void, the entire vessel detonated.
Debris scattered. Entire decks broke off and tumbled end over end into the void. A geyser of flame bloomed in the black like a star dying.
The Mist Wardens in the torpedo cheered.
Artorias merely narrowed his eyes.
Beyond the wreckage, ork vessels—scores of them—began to shift. Some of the smaller ones began to veer off-course. Their fire patterns broke. Others began to list, their movement sluggish. Many still fought on, but a crack had formed in the ork line.
The Skrapboila had been the biggest of the greenskin ships—their flagship, their "boss boat." Its destruction had sent a ripple of fear through the feral xenos. Even now, Artorias could see the beginnings of retreat, that unmistakable stutter in their formation. The ork instinct to flee when the biggest and loudest died had taken hold.
Their ships were still numerous. Still dangerous.
But they were no longer unified.
"Status, Lady Althea." Artorias voxed into the fleetwide channel.
Her voice came back sharp, tense, and grimly elated.
"Confirmed kill on the ork flagship. Several ork vessels breaking formation. Others are disoriented. Some turning tail. We've taken losses but the fleet still stands."
"You have your window. Clear us a corridor to the surface. Cut down anything in our way."
"Gladly, my Liege."
Artorias keyed the vox across Legion-wide channels. His voice rang with iron certainty.
"My sons. Sisters. We move to the surface."
He watched the tactical display unfold across the screen as he spoke.
"We strike not at the fringes, but the heart. The thickest concentration of ork forces is where we will land. Let them feel the hammer blow of the Imperium where they are strongest—and watch them break like rotted stone. The Emperor's light shall burn even beneath blackened skies."
His voice cut across battle-wracked decks, warships, loading bays, and torpedo tubes. Across destroyer-class hulls and swift escort vessels, into the minds and hearts of Mist Wardens, mortal crew, and the hundred Sisters of Silence that marched beside them in silence.
Artorias turned his head, regarding the squad nearest him.
"We are the Wardens. Today, the stars bear witness for the Knights of Humanity go to war once more."
In the distance, the ork fleet twisted in panic.
Behind the pale blue helms and red visors of the Mist Wardens, lips moved in silent oaths. Weapons were checked. Chainswords buzzed. Bolters thumped into hands. The Sisters, faceless behind their masked helms, began to march into their designated drop pods.
War.
The battlefield roared to life with unholy ferocity.
The Wardens charged out of their pods straight into maelstrom.
Greenskin hordes surged across the hellish plains, their crude vehicles trundling through rivers of lava and ash. Trukks, battlewagons, and stompas belched black smoke into the air. Ork mechs fired wildly, filling the volcanic air with trails of glowing projectiles. The ground itself shook as tectonic plates shifted, the atmosphere stinking of sulphur and charred flesh.
Artorias led the charge, his helm's silver laurels shining, his voice like a storm given shape.
"Mist Wardens! To me! Cut them down—leave none standing!"
Ceithraig lit up the battlefield with every swing—burning arcs of light and mist severing limbs, torsos, heads. The legendary greatsword moved too fast for the eye, singing with unearthly energy, and every time it struck, dozens of orks were reduced to butchered gore. He carved through xenos ranks with grace and savagery, a dance of death amid blood and fire.
At his back, the Bladeguard advanced like the walls of a fortress come to life. Cataphractii-clad and immovable, they carved orks apart with their own master-crafted greatblades and bursts of their wrist mounted combi-bolters. Helion, stone-faced and severe beneath his white helm, fought like a blade of judgment incarnate—every swing a sentence, every thrust an execution.
All across the blackened wastes, Mist Wardens poured forth.
Stormbirds swooped low, tearing entire columns of greenskins apart with lascannons and strafing runs. Thunderhawks opened their bays mid-flight, dropping squads of Astartes into combat like divine meteors. Sisters of Silence, grim and voiceless, fought in disciplined phalanxes, their presence burning into the souls of the few ork weirdboyz that remained—melting their minds before a bolt even struck.
But it cost them.
The orks were legion.
Their numbers flooded out of cave mouths, tunnel openings, blasted scrap fortresses, and shattered rock.
Everywhere.
Mist Warden lines faltered in places—dozens of sisters fell to massed fire, their bodies cast down like broken dolls. Astartes were dragged under by sheer weight, torn apart by crude chainswords and power claws. Vehicles exploded. Lava bursts immolated squads caught in the open. Hundreds of Wardens died. And still, they held the line.
Then the earth split.
From a massive series of tunnel entrances clawed into the mountain's side, fire and smoke burst.
And out of it came giants.
Salamanders.
Green armour scorched black with soot. Chainblades roaring. Flamer units burning wide arcs through ork lines. The Pyre Guard led the way, their crimson eye lenses glowing like coals.
And at their front, like a mountain given breath, came Vulkan.
The Living Flame waded into the fray, Thunderhead in one hand, a massive ork in the other. The greenskin roared and kicked, but Vulkan swung it like a living club, smashing ork bodies into red mist. With a roar, he hurled the broken ork through the air—and into the cockpit of a walker, shattering its front and killing the pilot inside.
A trio of killa kans tried to flank him.
One came from his left.
One from the right.
The third loomed, screeching, behind—
—until Ceithraig slammed into its core, splitting its crude engine down the middle. The walker burst into flame and staggered back. The other two froze just long enough for Vulkan to destroy them—Thunderhead reducing them to scrap with two blows.
The two Primarchs stood amid carnage.
Greenskins fled from them like rats from a firestorm.
Vulkan turned, red eyes narrowing as he took in the form of his brother. "So," he rumbled, voice like stone grinding in flame. "You're my little brother. The one they call the Warden."
Artorias bowed his head once, formal and precise.
"You called for aid, brother. I was honoured to answer."
Vulkan's lips curved into a slow, grim smile.
Artorias turned, Ceithraig rising.
"There will be time to speak when the battlefield is quiet. For now…"
He raised his voice to a roar.
"TO WAR!"
The Wardens answered. The Salamanders joined in.
And together, the sons of two Primarchs surged forward, flame and mist united—breaking the ork tide in a storm of fire and steel.
The battlefield steamed with blood and fire.
Smoke hung in the volcanic air like a shroud, curling in sinuous tendrils from the wreckage of greenskin machines and the still-burning husks of Warden vehicles. The lava veins across the mountains had cooled to a dull crimson in places, crusting over with thin, fragile plates of glassy stone. Other vents hissed and roared, throwing occasional jets of molten fire into the charred sky.
Greenskin corpses lay in obscene heaps. Twisted bodies, torn by bolter and blade, burned by flamer and plasma, crushed under ceramite treads or vaporized by graviton bursts. Cleanup squads of Astartes moved with grim precision across the battlefield, gathering the fallen, setting charges in unstable wrecks, dispatching the wounded enemies with cold finality. No quarter. No prisoners.
Among the carnage stood Vulkan.
The Primarch of the XVIIIth sat with the weary weight of a mountain upon a destroyed killa kan, one massive gauntlet resting on his Thunder Hammer, the other smeared with blood and oil. His armour was scorched, torn, scarred by countless impacts. One half of his drake helm was shattered, revealing the black sheen of his skin beneath. Red eyes, glowing faintly, regarded the burning horizon with a distant calm.
Across the ruined ground, Artorias approached.
Ceithraig was sheathed across his back, and his silver-laureled helm—dented but gleaming—was tucked under one arm. His blue and silver armour was streaked with soot and ichor. A dozen Mist Wardens trailed him at a respectful distance. Bladeguard, Sisters of Silence, and line Legionnaires—all watching in silence.
Artorias slowed as he neared, his gaze taking in the towering frame of Vulkan with quiet scrutiny. He was large. Far larger than Artorias had expected the Lord of Drakes to be. Then, to be fair, he had only scattered reports and old battle recordings taken by terrified Remembrancers to work with.
Vulkan was a giant. Taller even than Horus. His onyx-black skin shimmered with residual heat, like the surface of a volcano not yet cooled. The red of his eyes was not light but burning coal, embers flickering deep within. Scars crossed his armour like etchings into basalt. His presence was... overwhelming.
Yet he said nothing for a long moment.
Then, Vulkan looked up.
"You came." His voice was rough stone over embers, quiet but immense. "You answered my call for aid."
Artorias nodded once, expression unreadable. "I did."
The silence that followed stretched taut—dozens of Astartes holding breath they didn't need.
Then Vulkan stood.
And Artorias—tall by any standard—realized just how much the Lord of Nocturne dwarfed him.
There was a pause. A tension. As if the mountain might move.
Then Vulkan grinned—broad, warm, almost boyish.
"Hah! Drake's teeth, you're smaller than I thought!"
Before Artorias could respond, the Primarch of the Salamanders moved with shocking speed, closed the gap, and pulled his brother into an embrace that might have cracked a dreadnought's frame.
"Little Brother!" Vulkan laughed.
Artorias gasped—actually gasped—as his ribs were momentarily compressed like a collapsing drop pod. His helm clattered to the volcanic stone, and his boots left the ground by at least a full foot.
The Mist Wardens collectively tensed. A few reached for weapons.
But then Vulkan set Artorias down, still grinning.
"I owe you a debt, little brother. You and your sons saved mine."
Artorias caught his breath, re-centering himself with a half-chuckle and recovering his helm. "You are… not what I expected, Vulkan."
"Most say that," Vulkan said, clapping him on the shoulder hard enough to stagger a Contemptor. "They look at me and see flame, fury, and ash. They forget the forge must also temper. I am my people's fire—but I am also their hearth."
Vulkan looked around the battlefield, then back to him. "What of my fleet? The ones I sent away when the skies began to darken?"
"We sent them coordinates for Caerdyn Vallis," Artorias replied. "There, they can repair and resupply.
Vulkan gave a slow nod, visibly pleased. "That… is a gift I will not forget. I thank you again."
A silence passed.
Then Vulkan gestured out across the plains. "Now, if you and your sons are headed anywhere with a functioning hangar, I'd be grateful for a lift. I think I've earned one."
Artorias blinked. Then laughed softly. "You are full of surprises, Vulkan."
"And full of bruises," the Forgefather said with a grin. "This world hits harder than I care to admit."
The void above Vuraktos Prime burned.
One after another, columns of fire lanced down from orbit, drawn from the collective batteries of a dozen battle barges, heavy cruisers, and massed destroyer screens. The auric light of solar flares reflected in the armored hides of Imperial warships as they loomed over the world like gods passing judgment.
The bombardment was not quick. It was not merciful.
It was complete.
Each volcanic plain, each smoke-wreathed canyon, each impact hollow and lava tunnel was scoured by saturating barrages—torpedoes, plasma lances, mass drivers, and incendiary warheads. The Sisters of Silence, grim and wordless, had given their readings. The Orks had left behind spore traces in vast quantities. If left unchecked, they would seed and breed again. It would not be allowed.
From orbit, the surface of Vuraktos Prime became a cauldron of fire, split open by man-made fury. Ash clouds rose so high they broke into the upper thermosphere. The world wept magma and death, and in its death, it was cleansed.
Above, the Warden fleet moved in careful, sombre synchrony.
Massive Stormbirds, Thunderhawks, and drop shuttles rose from the scorched world, ferrying battered but victorious Astartes, sisters, and support staff to the decks of their ships. Some shuttles limped from damage taken in descent. Others arrived empty, their passenger lists already sealed into the vaults of the dead.
The last firestorms fell.
And Vuraktos Prime, once contested and teeming with greenskin corruption, was rendered into a world of glass, smoke, and silence.
The fleet formed ranks once more, bleeding away from the world like the tide pulling back from a black shore. Engines flared, void shields hummed, and the last of the warp calculations were finalized. The Wardens had taken losses. The Salamanders had lost more. Yet both remained unbroken. Hardened.
Within the command decks, Captains barked final confirmations, crews secured systems, and Techmarines murmured prayers to the machine-spirits. Sisters of Silence stood at the edges of each bridge, their silence an anchor in the gathering pressure of the Immaterium.
Then, as the fleets approached the Mandeville Point, the Ceithir came.
It began as a whispering light, then a welling fog—soft and silver-white, forming in the vacuum like mist forming from cold air over a still lake. It moved not as gas but with purpose. Tendrils of glowing vapor curled out from the prows of the Warden ships, from hidden vents and exhausts.
It gathered in silence.
And then it formed—a great curtain of light and mist encircling the fleet. Warp storms flinched from it. Empyreal turbulence buckled and peeled away. The Ceithir, that ancient, unnamed phenomenon that none, not even the Emperor fully understood, embraced the ships of Artorias' sons.
A barrier. A blessing. A veil.
Each vessel in the fleet, from the colossal Avalon to the smallest Warden escort, plunged into the Immaterium—folding light and reason around themselves as the Ceithir formed a shell within the Warp itself. The mist moved with them, parting the tides of madness like a blade through water.
From a distance, it was a beautiful thing to see.
A fleet disappearing into nothing, not screaming or tearing apart like most warp entries—but simply fading, sheathed in luminous mist, until there was nothing left but starlight and silence.
Warp travel within the mist made everything quiet in a way that no realspace journey ever could.
The Avalon moved within the protective veil of the Ceithir, shielded from the nightmares of the Immaterium by that ancient and inscrutable phenomenon. Inside the ship's reinforced hull, the humming of its reactors was dulled, the usual bustle subdued. Even the voices of the crew, and the steps of post-battle operations, were softer—as if speaking too loudly might wake the things sleeping just beyond the hull.
The medicae deck was lit in warm whites and soft golds.
Here, wounded Astartes and mortal crew alike lay in rows or sat on benches, their wounds being dressed by a disciplined cohort of physikars, mortal medicae, and wardmatrons. Salamanders and Mist Wardens rested side by side. A pair of mortals were tending to a Warden missing half an arm, while another applied cauterant to the fused armour plating of a groaning Salamander sergeant.
Artorias stepped through the archway into the heart of it, ducking slightly beneath a brass aquila set into the frame. His armour had been stripped of its more elaborate ornamentation—his silver laurels and battle-tabard now stored away—and he walked in his under-armoured greys, pale blue vambraces still bearing dents and streaks of Ork blood.
He paused as he took in the scene. And then, across the room, he saw him.
Vulkan.
The Lord of Drakes sat on an industrial slab meant to support weight far greater than most mortals could comprehend. His colossal frame was draped in a reinforced medicae robe cut specially for the Primarch's massive anatomy. Much of his armour had been peeled away to reveal the charred obsidian texture of his skin beneath. Dozens of small burns, fractures, and micro-lacerations crisscrossed his frame, though many were already healing.
A mortal medicae hovered at his side, a scanner trembling slightly in his grip. Vulkan offered him a warm smile and a wave of dismissal. "It's nothing. Truly. Save your efforts for those in need."
Then he noticed Artorias approaching.
Vulkan tilted his head. "You look like someone's third attempt at a cathedral statue."
Artorias gave a faint smile, walking slowly to a slab across from him and settling onto it. As he did, three Physikars and two mortal medicae immediately swarmed him, checking vitals, lifting his arm to apply field-salve to a bruised shoulder, and one even gently running a scanner across his temple where dried blood lingered.
"Your physiology continues to remain absurd, my King," one of the mortal medicae muttered in admiration, perhaps not realizing it had been aloud.
"Thank you." Artorias replied dryly.
Vulkan watched it all in amusement. Then, sighing, he gestured one of the Physikars back over. "Fine, fine. If my little brother submits to indignities, I suppose I can as well."
The Physikars, though still clearly aware they were in the presence of demigods, moved among the Primarchs without panic or worship, unlike their mortal counterparts. Their hands were sure. Their eyes professional. No one grovelled. No one dared to pretend they were equals either, but respect, not fear, defined the room.
Vulkan noticed it. And he liked it.
"They're comfortable," he said, nodding at the mortals. "Even with us here."
Artorias nodded, not opening his eyes as a salve soaked into his skin. "They are. My sons know our duty—to mankind. We were made to guard, not to rule. We're not kings. We are shields."
Vulkan's expression shifted—approving, thoughtful. "A sentiment my sons would share. It is good to see it elsewhere in the Imperium."
A pause followed. Comfortable, this time.
The low murmuring of medicae voices and machine chirps filled the background. At one point, a wardmatron passed silently between the two Primarchs, bowed wordlessly, and continued on.
Then Vulkan tilted his head, his red eyes narrowing with amusement. "You've been holding back, brother."
Artorias opened his eyes slowly. "…What?"
"You've been sitting there, quiet as a Librarian at his first Council, and it's clear as sunlight you're trying to figure out how to say something without offending me." Vulkan chuckled. "Just say it."
Artorias paused.
Then: "There are many questions I would ask. But they seem better suited to… a more formal setting."
"Oh, don't be such a Remembrancer, little brother," Vulkan laughed, swatting the air. "You're worse than Roboute. All those staged talks and rehearsed lines. I'm your brother, Artorias. Not a war council."
Little brother.
The word from Vulkan carried warmth. And something heavier—an echo of another voice. A memory.
Artorias glanced away. He remembered how Ferrus had once called him that. Mocking. Affectionate. Almost cruel. Yet not unkind.
As if sensing it, Vulkan's tone gentled. "I know what you want to ask. I would too, in your place."
Artorias said nothing.
"Why I never reached out."
The words hung between them.
Vulkan leaned forward, massive elbows resting on his knees, voice quiet. "I heard Ferrus joked about your… chip. On the shoulder."
Artorias gave a faint sound that might have been a laugh. Or a breath through his nose.
"I did try, Artorias," Vulkan said softly. "A dozen or so times. Vox messages. Data-slate recordings. Courier ships routed through your territories. Something always went wrong. Scrubbed during transit. Wrong coordinates. Tech-trouble. Even interference from… elements I won't name here."
He looked down. "I even asked Sanguinius to reach out to you on my behalf. He swore he would the next time he saw you."
The next time he saw me?
Artorias sat upright at that. "…He never did."
"No," Vulkan said, and his expression darkened with a rare furrow. "No, he didn't. That troubles me."
The silence that followed was no longer comfortable. It had weight.
"The galaxy's a vast thing, Artorias," Vulkan continued at last. "I fought half a crusade on the other side of it. My path never crossed yours. I would have needed to abandon my campaign, to leave worlds and people behind, to find you. And I… I could not do that. Not then."
Artorias sat back, conflicted. "I don't know what to say."
"You don't need to." Vulkan offered a small smile. "We have time. We're not at war every hour of every day. Not yet."
A long pause.
Then Artorias offered, quietly, "…Perhaps we could talk more. Over dinner."
There was a beat.
Then Vulkan laughed—a great, chest-shaking laugh that made two nearby mortals jump in surprise.
"Now you're talking!" he roared, slapping a massive palm on his knee. "Real food. Real talk. I'd be delighted, little brother. Provided you're not one of those weird Terran traditionalists who serve soup out of porcelain skulls."
Artorias smirked. "No. Nothing like that."
"Good. Then let's eat."
The great dining hall of the Avalon was swathed in silver mist.
It rolled in gentle waves across the obsidian floor, curling like smoke around the feet of serfs and slicing past the columns that lined the vaulted chamber. The architecture was echoingly vast and high, carved in a style long lost to any current Imperial gothic — something older, nobler. Arches like the ribs of giants bent toward the heavens, hung with pendants and braziers. Brazen chimerae and lions stared from their watchful places along the upper gallery. The air carried the scent of spices and wine, a sharp contrast to the ever-present tang of steel and oil that haunted the rest of the ship.
At the head of the long table sat Althea DeLorean, her high collar pressed and medals subtle, understated. She held herself with poise and calm dignity, despite the impossible company arrayed to either side of her.
To her right sat Artorias, clad in a robe of deep blue, high-collared and trimmed in pale white.
To her left sat Vulkan.
His massive frame, draped in robes the colour of scorched bronze and obsidian glass, made even the Primarch opposite him seem modest in build. His skin shimmered like volcanic stone in firelight, and his eyes, deep and aglow like twin forge-hearts, swept the table with quiet warmth and ceaseless awareness.
Down either side of the table sat the upper echelons of both Legions. Numeon, solemn and statuesque, reclined slightly beside his master, his usual fire softened by good wine and good company. Helion sat beside Artorias, arms folded, and mouth set in the rigid line of a man unused to feasting.
And yet even Helion, dour sentinel of the Warden elite, could not fully conceal the faint upturn of his lips.
The air was warm with conversation, the deep timbre of Astartes voices echoing faintly across the vaulted ceiling. Dishes were brought forward one after another—lavish, gleaming, steaming.
There were moss-pigs from Caerdyn Vallis, fattened on hollowroot and marshgrain, their skin crisped and basted with firefruit glaze. When the knife touched them, they fell open like butter, steam rising in a fragrant swirl of peppered herbs and sweet brine.
There were grox shanks braised in marrow-spice, served with blistered vine-vegetables and blackened roots from the surface growfields of the Vallis heartlands. The meat, dyed a dark crimson by its long steeping in spicewine, fell in soft flakes onto polished iron plates.
Kedagree, that ancient Terran dish, arrived next. Smoked eel-meat and eggs tossed with soft groat grains, seasoned with ghost-salt and sun-dried turmeric. Vulkan devoured it in vast spoonfuls, pausing only to exhale deeply and let the warmth spread behind his ribcage.
"You're certain this is authentic?" he asked, turning to Artorias with a look of playful suspicion.
Artorias gestured across the table. "Ask Lady Althea. She prepared it herself."
Vulkan blinked. Then turned.
"You, Captain?"
Althea shifted under the sudden weight of the Primarch's molten gaze. "I did, my lord. It was… my grandmother's. A family recipe from Terra, passed down the line."
Vulkan laughed, a sound that filled the hall with the joy of stone breaking. "Then I have never owed more to a stranger I've never met. You honour Terra's lost hearths, Captain."
Althea bowed her head, colour blooming in her cheeks despite herself.
Conversation wound onward. Wine from Vallis, pale green and faintly sparkling, mingled with heavy blackberry port from the stock cellars of Sol. Mortals, both naval officers and kitchen stewards, dined at smaller tables near the walls, part of the hall yet respectfully apart.
Even the Sisters of Silence, seated in shadowed alcoves, partook in the meal. Silent and serene, their presence felt more like flame than form — seen and not heard, yet warm in the periphery.
Vulkan and Artorias sat close, their arms brushing as they drank and passed each other dishes like common men.
"I'll admit," Vulkan said, chewing thoughtfully on a thick cut of grox flank, "I hadn't expected you to come."
Artorias tilted his head. "Because the Wardens were too far-flung?"
"Because you are a dutiful man," Vulkan replied. "The last I'd heard, the XIth were in Calixis and Meraxys Sectors. I'd have thought you'd be with one of those fleets."
Artorias nodded once, lowering his goblet. "I was on Caerdyn Vallis when the call came. My hands are not the only ones that hold the line now. My First and Second Captains command those fleets. I could not ask for better."
Vulkan looked sideways at him, catching the faintest flicker behind his brother's eyes — a shadow behind the gold. It was hidden well, but not perfectly. Not from a brother who knew the face of pain buried beneath a duty-bound brow.
"I understand," Vulkan said softly. "I go back to Nocturne when I can. The galaxy forgets we are men as well as warriors. The Emperor may have made us nigh immortal, but not insensible."
He frowned, staring down into his wine, the flicker of doubt crossing his face for just a moment.
Then Vulkan shook his head. "Enough of that. We are here now. That is what matters. And I am glad."
He turned then to Numeon, raising a brow. "I hear my brother charged onto an ork bridge like it was a practice hall. If only you would let me do something so reckless, hey Nuemon?"
Helion grunted. "We advised against it, Lord. He ignored us."
Artorias leaned toward Vulkan. "They take it all far too seriously."
"And yet they only have one life to live," Vulkan said, voice playful but laced with steel. "They must be forgiven for caring about how we use ours."
Helion and Numeon exchanged a long-suffering glance across the table.
That brought laughter from both Primarchs.
As the feast wore on, Artorias watched how easily their Legions mingled — Salamanders and Wardens trading stories, toasting fallen comrades, bickering about weapon loadouts and tactical formation. There was something natural about it. Something right.
"I like your sons," Vulkan said quietly, watching them. "They remind me of mine."
Artorias nodded. "And I yours."
Their eyes met — the Knight and the Forgemaster — and the quiet between them was no longer tense.
Artorias poured another glass, and lifted it in toast.
"To reunion."
Vulkan clinked his goblet to his brother's. "And to the road ahead."
But even as they drank, and the hall filled with laughter and mist, Vulkan did not forget the shadow that had passed across Artorias's face.
Not a wound. Not quite.
But a scar. And every scar has a story.
One he would wait to hear.
The private chambers of Artorias were deep in the heart of the Avalon, a place few had ever seen and fewer still were permitted to linger. Though it was grand in scale — as befitted a Primarch — it bore little ostentation. The stonework was finely carved but worn smooth with time, shaped more by function than vanity. Drapes of starlight-coloured cloth hung in slow folds from the curved ceiling. The ever-present mist drifted even here, trailing low along the black stone like a memory that refused to settle.
In the centre of the room, a great hearth glowed with living flame, fed by scented oils and resinous wood hauled from the forests of Caerdyn Vallis. It filled the space with the scent of pine, ironbark, and warm cinder.
Artorias sat before it in silence, one arm draped across the back of the stone-carved seat, the other holding a simple goblet of dark wine. Across from him, Vulkan reclined in a massive chair of similar make, booted feet resting on a low bench, his own cup cradled loosely in one hand. The flickering firelight danced across his obsidian skin and gave the impression of something ancient and elemental.
They had sat like this for some time, content in a rare moment of peace.
Then Vulkan's voice broke the quiet.
"You wear your grief like armour, little brother," he said, eyes fixed on the flames. "But I can still see the wound in your heart."
Artorias stiffened.
"You are… remarkably forward," he muttered.
Vulkan chuckled, low and rumbling. "So say far too many of our brothers. I've never been good with decorum."
He turned his head, watching Artorias without judgment. "But I can listen. If you need someone to do so."
Artorias stared into the fire. The shadows of its glow flickered across the high ceiling above.
"…Has the news spread?" he asked finally. "Of Monarchia."
Vulkan's jaw tightened slightly, but he nodded. "It has. I heard of what happened. Of what Father did. Of Lorgar's humiliation."
Artorias closed his eyes. "We were there."
He didn't elaborate. Vulkan waited.
"The Wardens took part in the Burning," Artorias said at last, his voice quiet and distant. "We laid waste to Monarchia alongside the XIIIth Legion. We were made to tear a city apart. A city that worshipped us — worshipped him — without question or fail. We burned it to ash."
He paused. The fire snapped softly. Somewhere beyond the walls, the ship hummed with the whispering sound of the Warp.
"I left before the Emperor arrived to confront Lorgar. Guilliman stayed. I did not."
Vulkan shifted forward in his seat, setting his goblet down with slow care.
"It sounds like it still weighs on you."
"I argued," Artorias said, a tremor in his voice now. "Fiercely. I pleaded for any other way. But the Emperor wouldn't listen. He was set on his path. Guilliman went along with it, even agreed with it. And the Wardens… we obeyed. We did our duty."
The flamelight caught on the silver threads in his robe, the shimmer of his still-healing scars.
"That day broke my hearts," he said, voice hoarse. "The burning of Monarchia broke them. But the thought of Lorgar's public shaming shattered what was left. I believed in the Emperor, Vulkan. I saw him as stern, yes — unrelenting, yes — but also wise. Caring. A force of unity, not domination."
He looked at Vulkan now, truly looked at him, and there was pain behind his eyes that no battle could explain.
"That day, he was not a saviour. He was not my Father. He was a tyrant. And I have not known peace since."
Vulkan didn't speak for a long while. He simply stared into the hearth, as though seeking meaning in the dance of sparks.
"…That is why you went home," he said at last. "To Caerdyn Vallis."
Artorias nodded slowly. "I lost faith. In him. In this crusade. I thought… perhaps the Emperor had forgotten what it meant to be a man. And perhaps I had, too."
Vulkan exhaled slowly. "I understand now."
He picked up his cup again, drank deeply, and said, "You are not alone in this."
Artorias turned sharply. "I thought I was."
Vulkan shook his head. "No. When word of Monarchia reached us, it caused ripples. Deep ones. Sanguinius and I thought it cruel. Corax called it short-sighted. Mortarion wouldn't speak of it, though his silence spoke volumes. Russ was furious — though he masked it in grunts and dismissals. Even Ferrus… he believed it was wrong."
He paused. "Horus supported it. Fulgrim too. Guilliman, you know already. Magnus called it a 'logical outcome,' and the Lion merely nodded as if he had known it all along."
"The rest did not care on way or the other."
Artorias frowned. "That… that's nearly a complete divide."
"It is," Vulkan said grimly. "And it shook more than you. We all have our own image of the Emperor in our heads. To some, he is a loving father. To others, a wise mentor. To some, a cold autocrat. Monarchia reminded us that he is capable of being all of them at once."
There was silence again.
But this time it was warmer. More open.
"…Thank you," Artorias said, voice low.
"For what?" Vulkan asked.
"For saving me."
The Lord of Nocturne blinked.
Artorias smiled faintly. "Your call for aid lit something in me. A spark I thought long buried. I'd resigned myself to exile on Caerdyn Vallis. Told myself it was noble. That I could do more good holding one world than ranging through a galaxy gone mad. But… it was self-pity. Dressed in duty."
He looked up at Vulkan, eyes clear now.
"You reminded me that I was made for more than sorrow. I was made to face the dark. To protect mankind."
Vulkan said nothing for a long time. His throat moved once. Then again. But no words came.
So, Artorias changed the subject. To something that had nagged at him since their first meeting.
"You mentioned earlier," he said, "that you once tried to reach out to me. Through Sanguinius."
Vulkan nodded. "Yes. It was eight years ago. Our fleets passed near each other in the Segmentum Pacificus. Sanguinius said he would carry my words to you personally the next time he saw you."
Artorias tilted his head. "I never heard from him."
Vulkan frowned. "That's strange. He said he would speak with you. I assumed he did."
Artorias looked genuinely confused. "We've never met."
Now it was Vulkan's turn to blink. Slowly. "…Never?"
"No."
A heavy silence fell.
"I thought… Our Father usually takes one or more of us with him when he finds a Primarch," Vulkan said slowly. "So that you wouldn't be alone. So that there would be… kin, when you joined the Imperium."
Artorias looked unsettled. "The Emperor came alone."
"That makes no sense," Vulkan said, voice tightening. "I saw the orders. Fleet movements for both Konrad and Sanguinius. They were to rendezvous with the Emperor en route to your world. I remember. It was thirty-nine years ago. I'd volunteered to join but was told that the two of them would be enough."
Artorias stared at him, stunned.
Sanguinius and Konrad?
"I've never met either of them."
Now the fire seemed colder. The mist in the room had grown thicker, clutching the floor like a phantom tide.