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Vulkan's Shield (Audio Book)

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Vulkan's Shield
VulkansShield.jpg
Author Nick Kyme
Performer Gareth Armstrong, Martyn Ellis, Jonathan Keeble
Publisher Black Library
Series Tome of Fire
Released August 2011
Length 10 Minutes
Editions Audio e-short (2011)
ISBN 9780857873194

Vulkan's Shield is a short audio drama in the Tome of Fire novel series by Nick Kyme. It was released in August 2011, and re-published in print in Salamanders: The Omnibus.

Cover Description

Above a war torn battlefield on a distant world, Ko'tan Kadai and his Salamanders are on a mission of mercy. As the city burns, the Fireborn rescue a band of beleaguered civilians and learns what it means to be Vulkan's Shield.[1]

Synopsis

Captain Ko'tan Kadai and a select squad from his Third Company are riding a Thunderhawk above a battlefield, where a Chaos uprising has been beaten back. Though the Imperial Guard has already withdrawn from the battlezone, and they have only minutes until the Navy bombards the Chaos forces from orbit, Kadai and his men do not flinch from their duty of rescuing a small group of Imperial civilians trapped inside a besieged schola.

They are accompanied by three Raven Guards, led by Kadai's old comrade, Sergeant Adrak Vraver, who comments on the Salamanders' savage appearance and equally savage battle doctrines. Amused, Kadai recalls a brief encounter with a precocious neophyte on Nocturne only a few months before, who pleaded for Kadai's help in reconciling a fundamental contradiction: the Promethean Code teaches all sons of Vulkan to devote themselves wholly to protecting the innocent and preserving human life - yet their transformation into Space Marines makes them into fearsome monsters, unsuitable for this noble, heroic role. Kadai repeats his answer for Vraver's benefit: that their forbidding appearance and trans-human abilities give them the tools to express the pureness of their intentions - "By being less human on the outside, we are made more human inside."

As they prepare to assault the besieged schola, an intrigued Vraver asks Kadai the name of this precocious neophyte. Kadai responds, Hazon Dak'ir.

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