Salamander

I Doomed

'Bring him out.'

The Chaplain's severed arm was swathed in a bloody sling, and he hugged it close to his body subconsciously as he issued the curt order.

The chirurgeon-interrogators responded dutifully. The excrutiator frame and its incarcerated Iron Warrior Warsmith were dragged into the eldritch day.

The prisoner had been secured within the hold of one of the company's Rhinos. The idea was to keep him away from the Salamanders on the walls and prevent him spewing any Chaotic dogma in an effort to dissuade them from their purpose.

A small group looked on in the courtyard of the iron fortress as the traitor was wheeled into view. Dak'ir was amongst the party that also included N'keln, Praetor and Pyriel. True to recent form, the Librarian was never far away from him now and glanced at the brother-sergeant studiously from time to time. Dak'ir did not know what was happening to him, nor what Pyriel made of it. If Scoria was to prove the 3rd Company's final battlefield, he might never find out. He knew it was getting stronger however, and despite all of his experience, training and hypno-conditioning, he was afraid of it.

Elysius was leading the interrogation, refusing any further medical assistance besides the bandaged layer of gauze beneath the sling used to bind his grievous wound.

Fugis had expected nothing less. There was little love lost between them, operating as they did at opposite ends of the war spectrum. Dak'ir assumed the Apothecary was busied elsewhere, tending to the injured, extracting the geneseed of the dead. The brother-sergeant guessed that Fugis did so in the troop compartment of Fire Anvil. N'keln had declared that the keep of the iron fortress remain sealed. True, the intensity of the ill-feeling and baleful emanations coming from the very stone and metal it was forged of, had, in the absence of the orks' natural psychic effusion, ebbed, but whatever lurked in the bowels of that place, corporeal or not, needed to stay there, locked away.

The Land Raider was a good enough substitute in lieu of a more expansive makeshift Apothecarion. Many injured Salamanders, even human settlers, gathered around the periphery of the assault tank awaiting an Apothecary's ministrations.

Dak'ir had seen Tsu'gan enter a half hour ago, annoyed that he would not bear witness to the interrogation but ordered by N'keln to be assessed and made ready for battle again as soon as possible. In the light of his apparent reneging over contesting the captaincy of 3rd Company, Dak'ir resolved to meet with him and settle a few things before the orks came.

The rest of the Salamanders, those whose wounds were not severe or requiring Fugis's attention, were arrayed around the battlements in front of the gate.

Together, they watched the skies and dunes. Overhead, the black rock loomed like a curse. A few hours were all that remained before the greenskins made landfall, the sky blotted with the orks' raking ships.

'Speak, traitor, and your death will be swift,' declared Elysius, summoning up his hatred despite his pain and discomfort.

The Iron Warrior failed to speak out loud, but there was a muttered sound emanating from his covered mouth.

'Louder, craven worshipper of the false gods,' spat Elysius. 'True servants of the Emperor do not cower behind whispers.'

Dak'ir caught the susurrus of words as the Iron Warrior turned to face the Chaplain and raised his voice.

'Iron Within. Iron Without,' he chanted, like a mantra.

A lightning flash pre-empted Elysius's cudgelling of the traitor across the chest with his crozius. The weapon was at low power, so it didn't kill the prisoner. The scar of scorched flesh was visible on his body, though, and infected the breeze with its noisome odour.

Dak'ir noticed that the Chaplain wasn't using his chirurgeon-interrogators to question the Iron Warrior, preferring, uncharacteristically, to do the work himself. He was obviously angry at the ork's mauling of him and levelled that anger at the traitor.

'No riddles,' he snarled, stowing his crozius to draw out his bolt pistol. He pressed the cold muzzle against the Iron Warrior's forehead. 'Speak.'

'Iron Within. Iron Without,' replied the prisoner, continuing to be uncooperative.

'I will not ask a third time,' Elysius promised, pressing the bolt pistol hard against the Iron Warrior's head. 'Tell me now how you defeated the greenskins. How were you able to survive? Is the cannon in the bowels of your foetid bastion something to do with it? What is its purpose? Speak quickly!'

'Iron Wi—' the traitor began, before stopping abruptly. The shadow of the falling splinters from the black rock had shrouded the courtyard. 'Doomed,' he rasped.

Elysius followed his gaze, along with Dak'ir and the others. They all knew what was coming.

Earlier, on the return journey from the killing fields beyond the fortress, Dak'ir had described to N'keln the nature of the black rock as told to him by the human settler, Illiad. It was akin to a planetoid, rotating on a horseshoe orbit around Scoria; a planetoid inhabited solely by orks. Every few years it would come close enough to Scoria for the orks to launch their crude atmospheric craft to make war on those that inhabited the planet - for orks love war. Prior to the Salamanders' arrival that war had been waged against the Iron Warriors, constructing their fortress and seismic cannon for some unknown purpose. Dak'ir suspected he knew part of the reason, but the rest of it was shrouded from him.

'Doomed,' the Warsmith repeated. 'Our numbers were vastly in excess of yours, Emperor's lapdogs, and still the greenskin fought us to near oblivion. You cannot prevail.'

'Is that why you were building the weapon?' Elysius asked, pressing his bolt pistol harder against the Iron Warrior's temple. 'Youwere planning to use it against the orks, tip the balance back into your favour.'

An amused, metallic rasp issued from behind the closed helm of the traitor.

'You cannot see,' he snorted. 'It will save you. It is your destruction that we wrought here. The doom of the sons of Vulkan is at hand! Your doo—'

The wash of blood and matter against Elysius's black armour was an epilogue to the barking retort of his bolt pistol as he shot the Iron Warrior through the head.

A slight tremor registered on Captain N'keln's face, the only clue to his shock or displeasure at the suddenness of the execution.

'He was an empty vessel, devoid of further use,' explained the Chaplain. 'Let him rot in the fires of the warp. The pit will claim him.'

'The traitor was right, though,' said Pyriel.

Elysius whirled to confront him. The body language of the Chaplain suggested he had just cast aspersions on his loyalty and faith, such was the fervour in it.

'We cannot prevail against the orks,' Pyriel affirmed. Elysius backed down before his cerulean glare. The Librarian turned his attentions to N'keln. 'The black rock draws closer. Soon it will be at its optimum range. The skies are already thronged with greenskins. A planetoid of orks, my lord,' he said, 'possibly in their millions. Even with the greatest strategy, perhaps even with the entire Chapter and Lord Tu'Shan at our side, we would likely lose such a fight.'

'I'm not sure I like where this line of reasoning leads us, Brother-Librarian,' said N'keln.

'I have spoken to Techmarine Draedius—' this Dak'ir was surprised to learn, he had been with Pyriel almost all of the time prior to and before the battle '—and he believes the weapon forged by our traitorous brothers is functional.'

Elysius exploded at this remark.

'Youcannot suggest we employ the tools of the enemy!' he raged. 'Heresy lurks down that path, Librarian. I would gladly choose death before compromising my purity with the taint of Perturabo's spawn.'

'You may get your wish, yet,' Pyriel returned, his voice measured. 'But I would not willingly offer my life, or the lives of my brothers or the people of this world, upon the anvil of war for futile pride. Trust in faith and the fortitude of Nocturne bred into us from our very birth and rebirth,' he implored. 'We can activate the cannon, use it to destroy the black rock and the greenskin hordes upon it.'

'And to what end?' the Chaplain countered. 'We risk compromising our purity in the eyes of the Immortal Emperor, and suppose we do so untainted and our enemies are vanquished. What then? Our ship is still mired in the ash, bereft of the engine power to free itself, as this planet is disintegrating from within.'

As if on cue, a tremor rumbled deeply below the earth and fire from the raging volcanoes turned the darkling sky red.

'To abandon a chance for victory here is to abandon hope,' said Pyriel. 'I refuse to believe that Vulkan, through the Tome of Fire, would have sent us to Scoria without reason and to our inevitable destruction. You said yourself, brother, that it was our destiny to be struck from the sky, our eyes opened to the truth.'

Elysius heard his words replayed back to him and found he had no answer. Instead, he looked to N'keln. It was for the captain to decide.

N'keln stood in silence for what seemed a long time before he eventually spoke.

'Though it offends me to my core to dirty my hands with the weapons of traitors, I see no other choice. We cannot use the Vulkan's Wrath to destroy the black rock, nor is any weapon we possess here capable of such a feat - the Iron Warriors' seismic cannon is our choice. Practicality must outweigh false glory. My decision is made.'

Pyriel nodded. Elysius echoed him a few moments later, reluctant but relenting to his captain's will and counsel.

'What would you have me do, my lord?' asked the Chaplain.

'After unsealing the keep, Brother Draedius will accompany you to the catacombs where the weapon is kept. Take flamers, take whatever you need and cleanse it, sanctify the cannon and allow our Techmarine to marshal its tainted machine-spirits. Then we bring it into the light of day and remove the dark stain that has so blighted this world's sky.'

'The weapon still requires an amount of fyron, the ore mined by the settlers here, for it to fire,' cautioned Pyriel.

N'keln turned his hard gaze upon the Librarian. To Dak'ir, it seemed the captain was growing in stature with every passing moment.

'You know where this mine is to be found, brother?'

'A guide can be seconded from the human survivors,' he said flatly. Dak'ir thought at once of Illiad, only to realise that he hadn't seen the leader of the settlers since they'd returned to the iron fortress. He also now noticed the fact that a Rhino APC was missing, too.

'Then do so,' N'keln's stern reply interrupted Dak'ir's thoughts. 'Brother-sergeant,' he added, catching Dak'ir's direct attention. 'Gather a combat squad to accompany you and Brother Pyriel. It is paramount you return with enough fyron ore to power at least one blast of the cannon.'

'Yes, my lord.' Dak'ir saluted.

'To your tasks then, brothers,' said N'keln. Brother Shen'kar was waiting patiently at the periphery with schematics and potential combat scenarios for the captain to assess. Even if they were successful in destroying the black rock, a great many orks were already on their way and would soon land upon Scorian soil. Battle with them was inevitable and the rest of the Salamanders would need to be ready.

There was little else to be done for Master Argos and the Vulkan's Wrath. N'keln had denied all requests to go and reinforce the ship. Their position was strong at the fortress and the orks would come to them again. If any did find their way to the crash site, the auxiliaries would have to handle them. But N'keln did not think that likely. The Salamanders would not seek shelter behind tainted walls this time. Its effects were too dangerous and unpredictable with the psychic backwash from the greenskins. No, they would face the hordes out in the open and meet them at close arms where the sons of Vulkan excelled. If defeated, then N'keln deemed they were unworthy of the primarch's love anyway and deserved no better a fate. He chose to trust in faith and that salvation for the company would present itself through the fires of war.

Dak'ir wanted to speak with N'keln personally, to discuss the fate of Gravius and the armour suits of the old Legion in more detail, but by now the captain was intent on his battle plans. So far, all he had delivered was a succinct appraisal of the facts: of his and Pyriel's discovery of the ancient Salamander and that the power armour suits were being secured aboard the Vulkan's Wrath, in one of the ship's many armoriums.

The captain had taken all of this in with silent inscrutability and not indicated to Dak'ir what his plan might be concerning it.

Destroy the black rock, salvage what they could from the world and hope for a means of escape - those were the Salamanders' priorities now, and in that order. Everything the else was of secondary concern.

'Gather your warriors back here,' said Pyriel once both N'keln and Elysius, gone to find Draedius and his flamers, had departed. 'I will find us some guides.'

Dak'ir nodded, his mind suddenly on other things as he regarded the open embarkation hatch of the Fire Anvil. Ba'ken was waiting for him as he approached the Land Raider.

Clutching the hulking warrior's pauldron, Dak'ir leaned in and said: 'We are bound for the mines. I need four battle-brothers, yourself included.'

Ba'ken nodded and went off to gather the troops.

Dak'ir continued on his way and soon found himself at the Fire Anvil's embarkation ramp. The internal lighting was kept low but he still made out injured battle-brothers hunched upon the assault bunks, awaiting treatment. Dak'ir also noticed two medi-caskets where comatose Salamanders reclined, preserved by the action of their sus-an membranes, in response to the grievous harm they'd suffered in battle against the orks.

He'd seen other caskets too: these contained the bodies of slain heroes, destined for the pyreum, their progenoids removed to cultivate later generations of Salamanders. The dead amongst the settlers, almost half of those who had gone bravely into battle with the Astartes, would join them as a mark of honour and respect for their sacrifice.

Dak'ir entered and he saw what at first he thought was Fugis tending to a wounded Salamander at the rear of the hold, his back to him. When he saw the green, not white, battle-helm resting on a medi-slab alongside him, Dak'ir realised it was not the Apothecary at all.

'Where is Fugis?' he asked curtly, annoyed at the perceived deception.

Brother Emek turned to face him, but his patient spoke for him.

'N'keln sent him on another mission, as soon as we returned to the iron fortress,' Tsu'gan told him, his spike of beard jutting out like a static, red flame. The sergeant's plastron and a detachable portion of his torso under-mesh had been removed. Emek had just finished bandaging Tsu'gan's chest. The bindings were tight and muddied dark pink with his diffuse blood beneath them. Salves and unguents had been applied to his body to speed up the recovery process. They smelled of ash and burning rock. Dak'ir also saw the many branding scars visited upon the sergeant's skin. They were deep and wide, and he wondered how Tsu'gan's brander-priest could've been so crude in his honour marking.

'I'll leave you, brothers,' said Emek, ever the diplomat, and moved to the other side of the hold where another patient awaited him. Dak'ir nodded as he passed, but his attention was upon Tsu'gan who had got up and was replacing his plastron.

'What about his duties here?' Dak'ir asked. 'And what mission?'

'There was little for him to do, save the removal of the progenoids from our fallen brothers. That was done upon the field of battle, the rest are patch-ups that your trooper, Emek, seems more than capable of performing.' Tsu'gan fitted the armour in place and clasped the front and back, betraying a wince of pain for his efforts. 'Perhaps Fugis is grooming him for a role in the Apothecarion.'

Dak'ir clenched a fist at the brother-sergeant's deliberate goading.

'Where is Fugis?' he asked again.

'Gone,' Tsu'gan answered simply, flexing his left arm and rotating his shoulder blade within his pauldron. 'Stiff,' he said, partly to himself.

'Tsu'gan…' Dak'ir warned. In their time apart, he'd almost forgotten how much he despised the other sergeant.

'Calm yourself, Ignean. N'keln sent him to the chamber where you found the ancient. He's going to extract his geneseed.'

'And Illiad would be leading him there,' Dak'ir muttered, but not so quietly that Tsu'gan couldn't hear him. It also explained the missing Rhino APC.

'The human you arrived with, yes.'

Dak'ir felt a pang of regret. It was only right that Gravius's geneseed be preserved, but there was so much that the ancient Salamander knew that given time they could have unearthed. Instead, now, it would be forever condemned to oblivion, the same fate as Gravius's body.

Dak'ir had hoped they could restore him somehow, at least return him to Prometheus and the Chapter. It saddened him to think that this was the old hero's end. It didn't seem fitting.

'Is that why you came, to speak to Fugis?' asked Tsu'gan, interrupting Dak'ir's reverie. 'He is unlikely to return here and we'll be neck-deep in orks before you have another chance.' A mirthless grin passed over his features, and Dak'ir was reminded of a sa'hrk, one of the predator lizards of the Scorian Plain back on Nocturne.

Dak'ir moved a step closer, so the two of them were just under a metre apart, and lowered his voice.

'I came to speak with you,' he admitted. 'I saw the way you looked at N'keln after he slew the beast. Am I to believe your opinion has changed?'

'The fires of war have made their judgement,' was Tsu'gan's only reply, before he double-checked the pressure seals on his power armour.

'An end to clandestine meetings then and your ambition to lead the company?' Dak'ir's tone was leading.

Tsu'gan looked up sharply. There was anger, even violence, in his fiery gaze.

'Petty threats are beneath even you, Ignean,' he said, misunderstanding. 'Don't test me,' he warned.

Dak'ir matched his defiance with steel of his own.

'Nor you me,' he said. 'And I make no threats. I merely seek to know where we stand on this.'

'On even ground,' Tsu'gan snarled through clenched teeth. 'Do not think this accord has anything to do with you, Ignean. It does not. We still have unfinished business, you and I.'

'Oh yes?' Dak'ir invited.

Tsu'gan leaned in close. The scent of acerbic oils on his skin was pungent and put Dak'ir in mind of sulphur.

'Your dreams and portents, Ignean - they are not natural.'

Dak'ir's expression gave away his inner fear that this could be true. Tsu'gan continued unabated.

'I see how the Librarian watches you. I don't know what it is you are hiding, but I will discover it…' Tsu'gan moved so close he was eye-to-eye with the other sergeant, '…and know this: I will not hesitate to strike you down should it mean you veer from the righteous path.'

Dak'ir took a step back, but his posture was defiant.

'You sound like Elysius,' he snarled. 'This is not about me, Tsu'gan. It is about Kadai and Stratos.'

The certainty in Tsu'gan's face flickered for a moment.

You fear everything…

Nihilan's words had a habit of returning when he least wanted them to.

'I fear nothing,' he muttered, too quiet for Dak'ir to hear.

The other sergeant went on.

'Let your guilt go, brother,' he said, shaking his head sadly. 'It will only destroy you in the end.'

Tsu'gan's knuckles cracked and for a moment Dak'ir thought he would strike him, but he reined in his anger at the last moment and bit it back.

'I have nothing to be guilty for.' It sounded hollow, Dak'ir suspected, even to Tsu'gan's ears. 'Are we done here?' he added after a charged pause.

'I go to the mines,' said Dak'ir, not certain why he was telling Tsu'gan. Perhaps it was because of what he suspected he might find down there and that it connected them both somehow.

Tsu'gan merely nodded.

'They intend to fire the cannon to destroy the black rock,' he guessed.

Now it was Dak'ir's turn to nod.

With nothing else to say, unsure why he had really come to speak with Tsu'gan, Dak'ir turned away. He was approaching the ramp when he heard the other sergeant's voice after him. 'Dak'ir…'

He seldom called him that; usually it was ''Ignean''. Dak'ir stopped and looked back. Tsu'gan's face was grave.

'In the chamber where we discovered the cannon,' he said. 'I found burned metal and cinder.'

Dak'ir knew what that meant. Tsu'gan's gaze would have clinched it for him, even had he not understood the import of his words. For Dak'ir had sensed them too. In the few days since they had crashed upon Scoria, the feeling had been there. It was merely bubbling under the surface like the magma lifeblood of the world, readying to burst forth and change Scoria forever.

'In Vulkan's name,' uttered Dak'ir. His tone was solemn.

'Aye,' Tsu'gan answered, before turning away to pick up his bolter.

When he looked back to embarkation ramp, Dak'ir was already gone.

II Old Foes

Experience is but a series of moments strung together across the web of time. Most go by unheeded, barely noticeable tremors through the lattice of personal chronology, but some, the truly momentous, are felt as wracking shudders that threaten all other moments. Such things can often be felt before they occur, a low tremble in the spine, a shift in the wind, a feeling. They are presaged, these moments; their coming is palpable.

As Dak'ir travelled through the darkened hollows of the subterranean world beneath Scoria, he felt such a moment was in the making.

'All clear ahead,' Apion's voice returned through the comm-feed. A half minute later, the Salamander reappeared in the gloom of the tunnel having finished his initial recon.

There were seven of them in their party - a combat squad of five Astartes, and a guide as selected by Pyriel. The Librarian kept to the shadows, a silent, brooding figure as he reached out with his psychic senses to try and touch what might lurk ahead of them in the mines.

The boy Va'lin had brought the Salamanders this far. Dak'ir had at first objected to the use of such a young adolescent but Pyriel had reasoned Val'in knew the tunnels better than any other settler, and was likely to be far safer below the surface with them than above against the greenskin onslaught.

It had been almost an hour since they'd entered the emergence hole left by the chitin just outside the fortress confines, and found the trail that would lead them to the mines. Their pace was slow and cautious. Dak'ir thought it prudent.

Burned metal and cinder.

It could mean only one thing. Dak'ir's thoughts went to his brothers above him, drawn in battle lines upon the surface of a dying world. By now, the first of the ork ships would have made landfall and the hordes would be converging on N'keln's last stand.

Dak'ir resisted the feeling of despair that gnawed at him. Even if they managed to secure the fyron needed to fire the cannon and used it to destroy the black rock, there was still no guarantee they would be able to overcome the orks that had already landed. If such a victory should prove possible, the Salamanders still had no means of leaving Scoria, a planet that was slowly tearing itself apart with steadily greater vigour. They might defeat their foes only to be consumed by a rising ocean of lava or swallowed down into the deep pits of the earth as the world's crust cracked open. Dak'ir supposed it would be a fitting epitaph for a company of Fire-born.

'Your orders, brother-sergeant,' whispered Ba'ken, who was standing alongside Dak'ir with his heavy flamer readied.

Dak'ir suddenly became aware that Apion was awaiting instruction. Brothers Romulus and Te'kulcar, too, taking up rearguard positions, appeared anticipatory.

The sergeant swung his attention around to Va'lin. Dak'ir recalled the bravery the boy had shown during the chitin attack on his settlement. He seemed equally stalwart now, watching the shadows, listening and assessing the sounds emanating from the rock.

'How far, Va'lin?' Dak'ir asked, crouching slightly so as not to intimidate him.

The boy kept his gaze on the tunnel darkness ahead, regarding the curvature of the earth, the shapes - though largely indistinct to Dak'ir and the other Salamanders - that were as clear as a road sign to him. After a moment's cogitation, he spoke.

'Another kilometre, maybe a half more.'

Another kilometre deeper into the earth, where the air grew hotter by the metre and the glow of lava could be seen flickering against the black walls of rock. Descending into the dark was like crossing the gateway to another world, one of fire and ash. For the Salamanders it felt more than ever like home.

Dak'ir remembered the scent of smoke and cinder that he had experienced in the tunnels just before they'd clashed with the orks and been reunited with their battle-brothers. It came again to him now, only this wasn't just a sense memory, it was real. A draft was stirred up from somewhere, channelled up to them as an acrid breeze that held the reek of burning and the faintest trace of sulphur.

Dak'ir thought of red scales, of a serpentine body uncurling amidst a pall of cloying smoke. It was as if the thing in his mind's eye had emerged from a fell pit of fire, hell-spawned and terrible.

'They are close,' the voice of Pyriel intruded upon the gloom. His eyes were blazing cerulean orbs when Dak'ir turned towards him.

'Who are close?' asked Te'kulcar. He was not with the squad when they had fought on Stratos. Brother Te'kulcar had been a replacement for the slain Ak'sor, recruited from a different company altogether.

Dak'ir's voice was grim.

'The Dragon Warriors.'

Raking the slide of his combi-bolter, Tsu'gan felt a slight twinge in his chest. The explosion from the dead ork warboss's wartrike had cracked his ribplate and punctured a lung. Enhanced Astartes biology was healing him quickly, but the ache still remained. Tsu'gan ignored it. Pain of the body was easily mastered. He thought again of Dak'ir's words about guilt and its consumptive nature. How many deeds of heroism would it take to wipe away the stain of conscience he felt at Kadai's death? He hated to admit, but the Ignean was right. It wasn't the presence in the walls of the iron fortress speaking this time, either.

The Salamanders had quit the confines of the traitor bastion. Tsu'gan was glad of it - the protection it offered was no sanctuary and they were better off without. The Fire-born were arrayed in front of the wall in stout, green-armoured battle lines, the stone and metal of its construction several metres behind them, bulwarking their backs. They were so advanced in order to cover and protect the emergence hole that Pyriel and the Ignean had taken to the mines. Should they prove successful and retrieve the fyron ore, they would need a clear run to the fortress and the catacombs of the inner keep where Elysius and Draedius awaited them.

Casting his eye across the army, Tsu'gan saw Captain N'keln in a position of prominence at the front, the Inferno Guard arrayed around him. The banner of Mal-icant hung low but stalwart on a weak breeze.

Fire Anvil and the other vehicles, barring the Rhino APC Fugis had taken to the Vulkan's Wrath, punctuated the line at strategic anchor points. The transport tanks had little in the way of meaningful firepower but the mobile protection they provided was useful.

Venerable Brothers Ashamon and Amadeus stood stoic but ready. The unyielding forms of the Dreadnoughts were like armoured pillars amidst the field of Salamander green. As their weapon mounts cycled through preparation routines, the occasional flicker of electricity across their close combat armaments was the only betrayal of impatience for battle.

A churning ash cloud, building on the horizon, grasped Tsu'gan's attention. The orks were making their approach, as they'd done before. More were coming this time. Their ships hung like a shroud overhead, blighting the sky in a swarm.

The primary enginarium deck of the Vulkan's Wrath was hot like a steaming caldera. Haze made the air throb and flicker as if only partially real, as if it were overlaid by a mirage. Gouts of expelled gas plumed the air, thick and white, whilst dulled hazard lighting illuminated sections of machinery, hard-edged bulkheads and sweating deck serfs.

Fugis found Master Argos amongst the throng, a pair of Techmarines assisting him as he toiled at the ventral engines. Lume-lamps attached to his servo-rig bored lances into the gloom of the sunken chamber where he worked, large enough to accommodate twenty Astartes shoulder-to-shoulder. The Apothecary discerned the reek of unguents and oils designed to placate the out-of-kilter machine-spirits. Doleful chanting emanated from the attendant Techmarines on a recycled breeze, thick with carbon dioxide. There was the hint of engine parts, of blackened metal and disparate components revealed in the half-light.

'You've come from the Apothecarion, brother,' the voice of Argos echoed metallically from the darkened recess where he was working. The whirring action of unseen mechadendrites and servo-tools provided a high-pitched refrain to the Master of the Forge's automated diction.

Fugis noted it was not framed as a question. Even if Argos hadn't known the Apothecary was returning to the Vulkan's Wrath, he knew every square metre of his ship intimately. He felt its every move subconsciously, as certain as if it were one made by his own body.

The Master of the Forge continued, 'The power armour suits have been secured in the aft armorium of deck twenty. You've come to ask if our efforts in retrieving them and the geneseed of the ancient are in vain.'

Fugis gave a small, mirthless laugh.

'You demonstrate as much prescience as Brother-Librarian Pyriel, Master Argos.'

The Master of the Forge's head appeared out of the gloom for the first time. He went unhooded and Fugis saw the bionic eye he wore retracting as it readjusted to observe him from whatever detailed work it had been analysing.

'It is merely logic, brother.' He went on. 'The Vulkan's Wrath is repaired as best as I am able without a Mechanicus workyard at my disposal. Nothing has changed - we still require four functional banks of ventral engines. Three are primed and ready, the fourth - the access conduit to which you see me in here - is not. Crucial parts, damaged in the crash, and not salvageable from other areas of the ship, are needed for its operation. It is a relatively quick and rudimentary procedure to effect, the correct rituals are short and simple to perform but the machine-spirit will not be coaxed into life half-formed, Brother Apothecary.'

Fugis looked impassive at the Techmarine's clipped and precise reply.

'Then let us hope something does change so we might avert our fate,' he said.

Fugis was not certain he believed in fate or destiny. As an Apothecary he was practical, putting his faith in his hands and what he saw with his eyes. These few days upon the doomed world of Scoria had changed that. He had felt it most strongly in the ruined bridge of the old Expeditionary ship, where Gravius had sat like a recumbent corpse. By the laws of nature, the ancient Salamander should not still be alive. As Fugis had approached him, a sense of awe and reverence slowing his steps, Gravius was nearing the end of his endurance. It seemed he had held on for millennia, waiting for the return of his brothers.

Fugis didn't know what the significance of this discovery was. He was following the orders of his captain, but experienced a peculiar sense of woe and gravitas as he'd administered the Emperor's Peace through a nerve-serum injection. It was almost like defilement as he cracked open the ancient armour and retrieved the ancient's progenoids. In them was the genetic coding of the Legion, undistilled by time or generations of forebears. The experience was genuinely humbling and called to his fractured spirit.

'Brother Agatone and I are returning to the iron fortress,' he told Argos. The sergeant and his combat squad had accompanied Illiad in the Rhino APC. Agatone had waited outside the bridge when Fugis had gone to meet Gravius. Right now, he and his troopers were directing the evacuation of the settlers, those who had fought against the orks included - N'keln had decided no more human life would be lost to the greenskins if it could be avoided. All would return to the Vulkan's Wrath in the hope that the ship be made void-worthy again and deliver them to salvation.

Fugis and Agatone, leaving the combat squad to protect the settlers and escort them to the ship, would head back and support their battle-brothers if they could. For the moment, the orks had not attacked the crash-site, nor showed any signs of interest in it. That was just was well - there were only auxiliaries to defend it now.

'Sensors indicate the greenskins have already made landfall, brother. You will arrive too late to reach the battle lines, unless you plan on killing your way through a sea of orks,' Argos replied. Remarkably, there was no sarcasm in his tone.

'We'll take the tunnels, track our route through them to emerge next to the fortress walls.'

'Then you had best be going,' said Argos, before returning to the gloom of the conduit. 'Time is short for all of us now, brother.'

Fugis turned his back on him as he left the enginarium. The Apothecary wondered if it would be the last time.

The sounds of the battle above drifted down to the catacombs of the inner keep like muffled thunder. The orks had brought their war host and were now fighting the Salamanders tooth and claw across the blood-strewn ash dunes.

Chaplain Elysius had dismissed the flamer bearers, though the acrid reek of spent promethium still remained. The troopers would be better employed above against the greenskin horde than here amongst the dark and the whispers.

An itch was developing at the back of the Chaplain's skull. He felt it lightly at first, muttering litanies under his breath as he watched Draedius go to work on the seismic cannon, trying to cleanse and purify its machine-spirits - the Techmarine would need to visit the reclusium after this duty, so that Elysius could appraise his sprit and ensure it wasn't tainted. The itch had grown to a nagging insistence, a raft of sibilant whispers, drifting in and out of focus, pitched just at the edge of his mind. The Chaplain was steeled against it. The dark forces slaved to the iron fortress's walls, were trying to breach his defences but the purifying fire had weakened them for now and his sermons were keeping them in check.

Draedius, standing before the cannon, performed his own rituals. Restoration of the weapon's machine-spirit would not be easy, though it was a necessary task. Without it the cannon would not fire; it might even malfunction with dire consequences. The only small mercy was that the weapon was not already daemon-possessed.

It rankled with Elysius that they had been forced into employing the weapons of the enemy. It smacked of compromise and deviancy. Though devout, the Chaplain was no fool either. The cannon was the only means of destroying the black rock and halting the near-endless orkish tide. The rational part of his brain did wonder why the Iron Warriors would construct such a weapon. Its purpose here on Scoria seemed narrow and limited. He felt as if he were looking at it through a muddied lens, the edges caked in grime. His view was myopic, but instinct had taught Elysius to perceive with more than just his eyes. There was something lurking within that grimy frame, just beyond sight; only by seeing that would the full truth of the Iron Warriors' machinations be revealed. It bothered him that he could not.

'Vulkan's fire beats in my breast,' he intoned as the presence in the catacombs detected his doubts and sought to feed upon them, using them to widen the tiny cracks in the armour of his faith, 'with it I shall smite the foes of the Emperor,' the Chaplain concluded, gripping the haft of Vulkan's Sigil and drawing strength from the hammer-icon's proximity.

No matter how hard he stared at the cannon, the obscurity around the ''lens'' remained.

The din of clunking machinery filtered up to them in the tunnel. The sounds were coming from a glowing opening below. Lava stench and the prickle of heat came with it. The mines were just ahead.

'Stay back, Val'in,' Dak'ir warned, stepping ahead of the boy and shielding him with the bulk of his armoured form.

The boy did as he was told, but gasped as he spied a shadow looming ahead of them at the base of the tunnel.

Brother Apion saw it too, having moved to take point, and aimed his bolter, about to fire.

'It's already dead,' Pyriel informed him, his eyes fading from cerulean blue.

'An Iron Warrior husk,' noted Dak'ir, his vision adjusting to discern the bare metal ceramite and the distinctive black and yellow chevrons marking the armour. The same as the redoubts. 'Advance with caution, brothers.'

Apion lowered his bolter a fraction and led them on.

At the base of the tunnel, the Salamanders found a natural gallery of rock. The machine noise - the whirring of drills and the chugging report of excavators - became louder. Long shadows cast from moving forms in a larger chamber beyond streaked the walls at the end of the gallery.

There were more ''sentries'' here - iron-armoured deterrents staged in ready positions abutting the walls. Val'in cowered, the natural fear emanating from the long dead corpses still very much alive for him.

Ba'ken brought him close, leaning down as far as his bulk allowed and whispering, 'Stay close to me, child. The Fire Angels will allow no harm to come to you.'

Va'lin nodded and his mood eased a little as he crept closer to the pillar of ceramite that was Brother Ba'ken.

Dak'ir failed to notice the exchange. His attention was on Apion, who had reached the end of the gallery and was poised at the threshold to the chamber. Dak'ir joined him seconds later and stared out into a wide expanse of rock. Here and there, struts of metal supported the cavern roof above. The empty shells of mining equipment lay strewn about the cavern like a machine graveyard, burned out and discarded once their usefulness had ended. Dak'ir saw boring-engines, bucket-bladed diggers, excavators and tracked drill-platforms. Servitors, slumped over their vehicles or piled up in corpse heaps, were a testament to the incessant overmining.

In addition to the machines, there were three stages, made of metal and lofted a metre off the ground on stout legs. Two of the three were flat and empty. The third was stacked with rotund metal barrels. Dak'ir didn't need to look inside of them to know they were brimming with fyron ore. The third stage was nearest to the source of the machine noise: a short but gaping tunnel shrouded in gloom. The Salamanders had entered the cavern at a slight angle, and through his enhanced eye-sight Dak'ir made out two servitor-driven drilling engines, like the ones the settlers had used in their ambush, and a bulky excavator rig on thick tracks, dragging away the useless rock and earth expelled by the drilling engines' labours. This too was worked by a servitor, hunch-backed and cable-slaved to the machine as if it were an integral part of its being. All three automatons were akin to the ghoul-drones encountered in the cannon's arming chamber.

The low lighting cast by sodium lamp packs suspended on cables steam-bolted to the cavern roof framed the grotesque faces of the ghoul-drones evilly. Their masters were not far away.

Three Iron Warriors stood at the drilling tunnel's threshold, overseeing the work. They carried combi-bolters with barrel-mounted sarissa-blades, low slung on straps around their spiked pauldrons. Chips of rock scudded off their armour, such was the Iron Warriors' proximity to the mine face, and they were veneered in grey dust.

In the distance, a six-wheeled loader transported a cache of fyron ore barrels on its burgeoning flatbed. The vehicle rumbled on fat treads towards an opening at the back of the mine that led into unknown darkness.

A second six-wheeler was on its return journey and approaching the partially laden stage where another load of barrels awaited it. A pair of cargo-servitors - their arms replaced by twin-pronged lifter claws - shambled into view as the loader closed on them.

In the loader's wake, a group of figures was revealed.

Dak'ir's jaw clenched and he felt a ripple of anger pass through his body.

Kadai's slayers, the Dragon Warriors, were here.

There were three of them, armoured in blood-red ceramite that was scaled in places as if the suits themselves had somehow mutated. Their gauntlets ended in gore-tipped claws and a strong reek of copper exuded from their bodies. They were once Space Marines, these creatures; now they were renegades in service to the Ruinous Powers. Slaves to darkness and damnation.

One wore a helmet fashioned into the image of an ancient saurian beast. Two horns curled like dark red blades from both temples of his battle-helm. A cloud of fiery embers gusted from a snarling, fang-fringed mouth grille in time with the renegade's rapid breathing. Heat haze emanated from the Dragon Warrior, giving his form a sense of unreality.

Another cradled an archaic multi-melta, scarred with kill-markings. His battle-helm was bare but came to a stub-nosed snout that was rendered in bone. Skulls attached to bloody chains hung from his scaled pauldrons and he wore what looked like deep-red lizard hide over his abdominal armour. Dust particles spilled from his armour joints with every movement. To Dak'ir's enhanced sight they appeared like tiny flakes of epidermis and the Salamander was instantly put in mind of a serpent shedding its skin.

The last of them Dak'ir knew well. Flanked by his two warriors, this one's burning red eyes were ablaze as if he were constantly enraged. The smouldering anger was emulated by the scarification on his face, which was a horrific patchwork of burned skin and lacerations. Old welts and tracts of melted flesh ravaged his onyx-black visage. A horn curved from each of his pauldrons and he seized a crackling force staff in a clawed gauntlet.

This was Nihilan, sorcerer and architect of Kadai's destruction.

'Renegades,' snarled Apion, and Dak'ir heard the Salamander's fists crack.

'Ba'ken,' said the sergeant, his gaze never leaving his nemesis. They should have scoured these tunnels days ago. Dak'ir had sensed something here. His visions all pointed to it. Even Tsu'gan had suspected, and still they'd done nothing. Well, now the time for inaction was at an end.

An icon appeared in the visual display of Ba'ken's battle-helm, sent over from Dak'ir's with a single eye blink.

'Target acquired…' rumbled the hulking trooper, moving forward to level his heavy flamer.

The loader had almost reached the stage and the ghoul-drones were approaching it when a gout of superheated promethium streaked across the chamber and ignited. The spear of flame burst through the pair of drones, setting them ablaze, but that was merely a glancing blow. Its intended target, the loader itself, exploded a few seconds later as its fuel cells were cooked and the volatile liquid within went up spectacularly. The loader was cast into the air and flipped over, the flaming wreckage crushing the still burning ghoul-drones and destroying them in a raging conflagration as it landed hard.

'Salamanders, attack!' roared Dak'ir as they charged into the cavern, bolters screaming.

The Iron Warriors were closest and reacted quickly. One was not quick enough however, as Dak'ir's plasma bolt took him in the chest and punched a hole the size of a clenched Astartes fist. Explosive rounds bursting from the traitor's combi-bolter raked the roof and shot out a lighting rig, as his fingers grasped at the trigger with the last of his nerve tremors.

The other two Iron Warriors reached cover and began to return fire, even as the Dragon Warriors started to move into battle positions. Through the gunfire, Dak'ir thought he saw Nihilan laughing.

The Salamanders panned out: Dak'ir, Pyriel and Ba'ken heading right, whilst Apion, Romulus and Te'kulcar went left. Val'in, not wishing to remain in the corridor with the Iron Warrior corpses alone, ran behind the skeleton of a disused loader, bastardised for spare parts, and hid.

'Anvil, gain the stage and secure the fyron ore,' ordered Dak'ir over the comm-feed, using the call signs they'd established before entering the emergence hole. Out of the corner of his eye, past the barking reports of bolters, he saw Apion and Romulus rushing between machine husks as they tried to reach the ore platform, whilst Te'kulcar advanced offering covering fire.

'Hammer, we advance now!' Dak'ir led the others forward, streaks of flames keeping the Iron Warriors down as they sought to move to fresh cover. Through darted glimpses at the enemy, Dak'ir saw that Nihilan was letting his minions do the work. An incandescent beam seared through a vehicle shell where Pyriel had crouched. The Librarian moved out of its path just in time. Sustained bolter fire came from the other renegade, who seemed to revel in the act of loosing his weapon. He was like a mad dog, straining at the leash.

All the while, the ghoul-drones maintained their incessant mining.

A low rumble struck the chamber, arresting the Salamanders' shock assault. Fragments of rock were cascading from the roof and the metal struts groaned forbiddingly in protest.

Dak'ir fell to one knee as he lost his balance. So did one of the Iron Warriors, lurching out of cover for a moment. Long enough for Ba'ken, who stood steady with his legs braced, to burn him down. A metallic screech issued from the traitor's battle-helm before he collapsed in a smoking heap of charred metal. The violent tremors grew in intensity so that even Ba'ken couldn't maintain his footing. The tongue of fire from his flamer receded.

The Dragon Warriors had gone to ground too. Dak'ir had lost sight of Nihilan, but he could sense his presence. He judged they were just over sixty metres away, about half the width of the cavern. A determined attack once the tremors had subsided would catch them off guard - they could reach the renegades before the multi-melta fired again. As a psyker, Nihilan was unpredictable, but Dak'ir was willing to take the chance. Strategy icons flashed up on the Salamanders' battle-helm displays, conveying the sergeant's plan.

Romulus and Apion were almost at the platform, the lone Iron Warrior protecting it finding his attention diverted by two groups of simultaneous attackers and giving neither the attention it needed. Short bursts of bolter fire from Te'kulcar, lying on his chest and shooting from a prone position for stability, kept the Iron Warrior down so the other Salamanders could claim their objective.

They were stumbling on to the platform when a deep, cracking sound resonated throughout the cavern like the breaking of a world. A flare of light bathed the drilling tunnel in an angry glow, before shuddering cracks split out from it in a jagged line. The cracks widened to a fissure and then a chasm, filled with bubbling lava. The hellish glow from inside the tunnel spread outwards rapidly. It preceded a wave of lava expelled from where the mine face had broken apart and Scoria's lifeblood was flowing.

Buoyed by the force of the wave, the mining machines were thrust from the tunnel. Languishing in the deadly lava stream, they did not last long. Like short-lived metal islands they sank beneath the glutinous morass in moments, their slack-faced drones engulfed with them.

A yawning chasm of lava now stood between the Salamanders and their prey. A thin line of jagged rock spanned it, floating on the surface, wide enough for two Astartes to cross at a time. The violence of the tremors subsided but more cracks were cobwebbing the ground and streams of dust and rock spilled from the roof continuously. This needed to end quickly, before the entire cavern collapsed on top of them.

Romulus and Apion had reached the fyron ore and were securing it to their power armour. Two barrels each was the most they could carry without compromising their ability to fight.

As he bolted for the rocky channel that led across the lava chasm, Dak'ir hoped four barrels would be enough. Just before he'd reached the edge of the lava stream, a flash of hot light burned past him and Te'kulcar's icon in the sergeant's helm display flickered and went out. A glance back showed him the battle-brother was on the ground a few metres from his previous position, part of his torso melted away.

'Get him out!' Dak'ir cried, recognising the brutal effects of the multi-melta. Knowing Apion and Romulus were retreating with Te'kulcar and the fyron ore, Dak'ir raced heedlessly onto the rock channel. Intense heat from the lava flow either side of him prickled at his armour and warning icons flashed up on his display.

Grimly ignoring the discomfort, he was halfway across when the Iron Warrior on the other side emerged from cover. A bark of fire from Pyriel's bolt pistol, the Librarian a few steps behind the sergeant, clipped the traitor's pauldron and gorget, pinning him back.

But then another foe stepped into Dak'ir's eye line.

Nihilan was grinning, a grotesque and bizarre expression given his facial scarring, as his force staff crackled with power. He levelled it at Dak'ir, who could not avoid the shadowy arc lightning that ripped from its tip and struck him full on in the chest. This was the raw energy of the warp, channelled by Nihilan's sorcery. No one could survive such a blast.

Dak'ir cried out, his voice an agonised scream.