Salamander

I Those Who Lived…

There was something strangely familiar about the human settlement under the earth. It was based on a series of honeycombed chambers of varying height and depth, resembling a shantytown in part, replete with hab-shacks, corrugated work sheds and lived-in tubular pipes appended to some of the larger chambers, the makeshift structures layered upon each other like the strata of some half-developed world. Exposed metal and plastek peeked out from beneath calcified layers of rock and decades, perhaps centuries, of ingrained grit. This melding was incongruous, much like the attire of the humans that led Dak'ir and his brothers through the settlement's main thoroughfare.

Staring at the green-armoured giants from the shadows of humble dwellings, behind the corners of bucket-carts and atop sturdy-looking towers were men, woman and children. Like Sonnar Illiad's ambushers, they were dressed in coarse grey fatigues, patched and shabby from the rigours of daily use. Some, the bold or stupid, stood in open defiance of the newcomers, challenging with their upright postures. Dak'ir noticed they stood in large groups, these men, and that the boldness did not extend to their eyes where fear dwelt instead; and that they took an involuntary half-step back as the Salamanders passed them.

Flanked by Illiad's troops, Dak'ir wondered again at how easy it would be to subdue these humans and take the settlement in a single attack. Lesser Chapters, those with a bloodletting bent and a shallow disregard for innocent life, might have slaughtered them. Salamanders were forged from different stock. Vulkan had taught them to be stern and unyielding in the face of the enemy, but he had also encouraged compassion and the duty in all Fire-born to protect those weaker than themselves.

Only now, watching the scared faces flit by as he considered that calling, did Dak'ir start to understand Pyriel's rationale in surrendering. By capitulation, the Salamanders had showed they were not a threat, or at least that they did not intend to pose one. Proud and possibly noble, Illiad's people might hold the key to the fate of Vulkan and the significance of Scoria to the primarch. The Salamanders would not discover that through intimidation and duress, they would only learn of it if given willingly.

Sadly, not all his brothers shared in Dak'ir's epiphany.

'To give up without a shot fired, it is not the way of Promethean lore,' Ba'ken growled. He kept his voice low over the comm-feed, now coming to Dak'ir through his gorget since he had removed his battle-helm, but made his discontent obvious by his body language.

'This isn't Nocturne, brother.' As he gave voice to the rebuke, Dak'ir paused to acknowledge the truth of his remark, conceding that Scoria was actually extremely cognate with their home world. Even the settlement, bunker-like and rendered in stone and metal, contained an almost atavistic resonance. 'Nor will we learn what we need to from these people with fiery retribution.' He looked to Pyriel for support, but the Librarian appeared oblivious, locked in some half-trance as he trod automatically through the numerous dwellings and holdings.

'But to be cowed like this…' muttered Ba'ken.

'I believe our brother's warrior spirit is offended, sir,' offered Emek, who seemed intrigued by the presence of the humans, scrutinising every structure as the Salamanders passed it, and analysing the subterranean populous that lived in them.

Dak'ir smiled thinly to himself. Ba'ken was wise, but was warrior-born, a native of Themis, whose tribes valued strength and battle prowess above all else. For all his great wisdom, once Ba'ken was affronted his view became myopic and intractable. It was a useful trait in combat, one Dak'ir likened to attempting to shift a mountain with one's hands, but at peace it bordered on cantankerous.

Romulus and Apion held their tongues. Their silence suggested an accord with Ba'ken.

'Show humility, brothers. This is not the time to act,' Dak'ir warned. He turned to Emek, then gestured to the Salamanders' human escort. 'What do you make of them?'

'Brave,' he said. 'And afraid.'

'Of us?'

'Of something like us,' Emek replied. 'These people fled into the darkness for a reason and have stayed here for many years.' His eyes narrowed, as the tone of his voice changed to become more speculative. 'When we removed our battle-helms, they didn't seem shocked or even perturbed by our appearance.'

The domestic dwellings, the pseudo-caves of rock and metal, started to thin and fade away as Illiad then led them to another structure that loomed large ahead. A pair of grand blast doors, at least they might once have been grand, framed by ornate designs but buried under caked dirt and encrusted grime, stood before them like weary bronze sentinels.

'They may have seen Salamanders before,' Dak'ir ventured, unable to suppress a tremor of anticipation. If they had, it could mean…

Pyriel's voice intruded on his thoughts.

'I suspect the answers lie within.' He was indicating the bronze blast doors.

A few metres from the entrance, Illiad stopped the column with a gesture and went the rest of the way alone. All the while, the one called Akuma watched the Salamanders vigilantly, readjusting his grip on his lasgun every few seconds.

Rapping on the blast doors three times with his gun stock, Illiad then stepped back. Grinding gears broke the silence moments later as an ancient mechanism was engaged. Dust poured from the inner workings, dislodged with their sudden activation. The blast doors parted shudderingly and within yawned a barren chamber, more metal and calcified rock, but with thick buttressed walls and no exits.

'Youmean to incarcerate us, Sonnar Illiad?' asked Dak'ir as he was confronted by the hangar-like dungeon.

'Until I can decide whether you are friend or foe, yes.'

Ba'ken stepped forward upon hearing this, the muscles in his neck bunched, fists clenched.

'This, I cannot abide.' His tone was threateningly level.

Apion backed him up.

'Nor I, sir.'

Dak'ir turned to regard Romulus.

'Are you of the same opinion?'

The Salamander nodded, slow and evenly.

Glaring down at Illiad, Dak'ir knew the time for indulging the humans was at an end. To his credit, the old man didn't flinch. He kept his warm, dark eyes on Dak'ir, staring up to him as a child might an adult. Yet, he did not appear diminutive. Rather, it only enhanced his stature.

'I am in agreement with my battle-brothers,' Dak'ir concurred.

Illiad matched his gaze, perhaps uncertain what to do next.

'How many are in your colony, Illiad?' the brother-sergeant asked him.

Akuma came forwards quickly, his mood agitated.

'Don't tell them, Sonnar,' he warned. 'They seek to gauge our strength and return with numbers. We should seal them in the vault now.'

Illiad looked at his second-in-command, as if considering his advice.

Ba'ken turned on Akuma, who retreated before the Salamander's bulk.

'How though, little man, will you do that?' he growled.

Akuma raised his lasgun protectively, but Ba'ken snatched it from his grasp. It was met by a frantic bout of lasguns priming as the human guards prepared for a fight. None of the Salamanders reacted, not without word from their sergeant.

Illiad raised his hand for calm, though Dak'ir could detect the increase in his heart rate and see the lines of perspiration beading the side of his head.

'Just over a thousand,' Illiad replied. 'Men, women and children.'

'This settlement you have fashioned for yourselves, it was once a ship, wasn't it?' said Dak'ir, the pieces falling into place as he spoke.

A Space Marine's memory was eidetic. It was a useful trait when reviewing battle plans or on long-range reconnoitre to ascertain the lay of the land or an enemy's strategic positions. Dak'ir used that flawless recall now to form accurate pictographic memories of some of the human dwellings they had passed, those where the extruding rock had crept over metal to obscure it. Examining details in his mind, cycling through images in milliseconds, interpreting and cross-analysing, Dak'ir stripped away the calcified rock. Clods of dust fell away in his mind's eye to reveal metal corridors, barrack rooms, minor strategiums, deck plating, defunct lifters, extinct consoles and other structures. Broken apart, forcibly disassembled, it was a ship nonetheless.

'One that crashed long ago,' said Illiad. 'Its reactor still functions and we use its power to generate heat, purify the air and water. The sodium light rigs are kept burning through the conversion of fusion energy.'

'And this, a sparring hall?' Dak'ir had stepped out of the column to approach the frame around the blast door. It had sunk into the rock; or rather the cave had grown around it. He tore at a section of it, gauntleted fingers prising off a layer. Grit and dust came with it and an origin stamp became visible beneath, fusion-pressed in blocky Imperial script.

154^TH EXPEDITIONARY

Dak'ir shared a meaningful glance with Pyriel. The shattered remnants in which the human colony had made its home had once been a vessel of the Great Crusade fleet. He tried not to consider the ramifications of that discovery.

'I cannot say, for certain,' Illiad replied. 'All we really know are legends, passed down by our ancestors.'

'Sonnar, don't—' Akuma began, but Illiad scowled and cut him off with a sharp gesture.

'They could have killed us in the tunnel, or at any point from there to here,' he snapped, ire fading into resignation as he turned back to Dak'ir.

The sound of a commotion echoing from the tunnels behind them interrupted Illiad. A young boy, Dak'ir recognised him as the one who had fled from Ba'ken earlier, ran into view. He balked a little at the sight of the armoured giants again - Ba'ken's posture seemed to relax upon seeing him - and was panting for breath.

'Chitin,' he rasped, forcing out the words between gulps for air, hands pushed down on his thighs as he fought to compose himself.

'Where, Val'in?' asked Illiad, concern creasing his features.

The boy, Val'in, looked back nervously.

'In the settlement.' Va'lin's eyes were wide with terror and filling with tears. 'My papa…'

Las-fire echoed down the corridor in sharp cracks of noise.

Screaming followed it.

'They don't stand a chance,' said Emek, his voice low. Dak'ir's expression hardened as he looked behind them into the half-light. 'Then by Vulkan, we'll even the odds.'

'We have fought the chitin-beasts for generations,' growled Akuma, with a half-glance at the green-armoured warriors running alongside them. 'What do we need them for?'

'I doubt we could stop them even if we wanted to, Akuma,' answered Illiad.

Dak'ir saw that the old man's face was grave at the sounds of carnage just ahead of them. The Salamander felt the human's pain, and his anger boiled at the thought of the settlers' suffering.

The weak will always be preyed upon by the strong. He remembered the words of Fugis many months before, outside the Vault of Remembrance at Hesiod. The words of his reply then came swiftly to his lips now, like a catechism.

'Unless those with strength intercede on behalf of the weak, and protect them.'

Emek turned to the sergeant as they were nearing the invisible boundary line of the settlement. The crack of las-fire and the flat bangs of solid-shot rifles were like a discordant chorus to the shrill of terror, ever rising in pitch and urgency.

'What did you say, sir?'

Dak'ir kept his gaze ahead as he answered.

'We must save these people, brother. We must save them.'

Akuma's voice intruded suddenly as they ate up the last few metres. He was addressing his men.

'Once we reach the settlement, break into squads. Surround them and aim for the eyes, between the plates. No chitin will ever…' The words died on Akuma's lips as they emerged into the open and saw their home.

Chitin swarmed from emergence holes, dragging screaming settlers to their deaths. Bloodied bodies, mangled by bone-claws or rent with razor-sharp mandibles, were strung out over the ground, or slumped in the archways of once peaceful dwellings like butcher's meat. There were women and children amongst the dead, as well as armed men. Some were so badly mutilated that it was impossible to tell either way.

A sudden tremor wracked the ground, pitching a man sniping off the roof of a hab-shack. He screamed as a chitin scuttled over his prone form with surprising speed. It severed his torso with a snip of its claws and the screams were abruptly silenced. In his wake came a woman carrying a shotgun who'd managed to hold on. Scurrying into his place, she started firing.

Two men and a lean-faced youth fended off a chitin with long, spiked poles. Screeching, the xenos creature rolled back onto its hind legs as its soft belly was pierced and its blood spilled out in a grey morass. The victory for the humans was short-lived as two more chitin took its place, one smothering a pole-wielder with its bulk, before the second gouged another with a snapping bone-claw. The youth fled in terror only to be lost from view in the desperate battle.

A woman brandished a flare like a spear, thrusting it towards the eye of a chitin intent on devouring her and the two children she protected. The flare, like the life of her and her children, was slowly fading.

Everywhere, the humans fought. Some only had spears or crude ineffectual rifles, and they were badly outnumbered, but these were their homes and families, so they battled on regardless.

'I have never seen so many…' breathed Illiad. He staggered as another tremor rippled through the cavern, sending chunks of rock and dust spiralling from the roof. 'Each time, the chitin hordes increased, pouring from their emergence holes like vermin. The quakes must have disturbed them.'

'That or they were driven here,' Dak'ir muttered darkly. 'I'll take my weapons back now, Illiad.'

The old man gestured to Akuma who had the chainsword and pistol in a heavy pack on his back. He unveiled them swiftly and returned them begrudgingly.

Dak'ir nodded grimly to him, testing his grip on pistol and blade before turning to his brothers.

'The preservation of human life is priority. Do all that you must to protect the colonists. In Vulkan's name.'

Dak'ir raised his chainsword, the dim light reflected off its ancient teeth as if relishing the blooding to come.

'Into the fires of battle!' he roared, leading the charge.

'Unto the anvil of war!' his brothers replied as one.

'This place reeks of death,' snarled Tiberon, sifting through the wreckage of the Warsmith's tools.

The captive Iron Warrior was gone. The ghoul-drones had been removed too, and burned upon the same smouldering pyres as the slain Iron Warrior garrison.

Chaplain Elysius had already left, going to his duties. Tsu'gan and his squad had remained behind.

Another flamer burst lit up the outer corridor as Honorious and his brothers continued to purge the walls and alcoves where Tsu'gan and his warriors had almost met their demise. Cleansing by fire had quietened the voices, but not engulfed them completely. The brother-sergeant was grateful this would be a short stay. Their mission was to search amongst the wreckage for anything that might shed light on the Iron Warriors' presence on Scoria and stand guard over Techmarine Draedius.

The Mechanicus adept had been sent from the Vulkan's Wrath, at N'keln's behest and Master Argos's concession, to examine the device the Warsmith had laboured over so manically. It was a cannon: forged of dark metal with a long, telescopic barrel and angled towards a blast door mounted in the ceiling. Though hidden in the metal floor plating, the weapon was obviously elevated into position via a pneumatic lifter. Its intended target, however, remained a mystery.

Tsu'gan knew artillery and he likened this one to the Earthshaker cannon most commonly employed by regiments of the Imperial Guard. Few Astartes Chapters had need for such a static bombardment weapon. Strike cruisers and Thunderhawk gunships provided all the long-range support a Space Marine army needed. Surgical strikes, swift and deadly, that was the Astartes' way of war. Patient, grinding shelling went against the Codex, but then the Iron Warriors followed no such tome. Tsu'gan knew enough of the Traitor Legion to be acquainted with their use of long-range artillery. Siege-specialists as they were, the sons of Perturabo preferred to employ such weapons to crush their foes from distance, before closing in to apply the killing stroke.

Only cowards feared to attack and finish an enemy before it was already beaten. Tsu'gan felt his rancour for the Iron Warriors deepen further.

'It is more than just death that pervades the air in here,' replied Brother Lazarus with obvious distaste.

Tsu'gan scowled.

'I smell cordite and sulphur.' It was more than that. The stench was redolent of a memory, an old place just beyond reach that Tsu'gan would rather not revisit.

'Here, my lord,' called Iagon from across the chamber. 'I may have something.'

Tsu'gan went over to him and knelt down next to the crouching trooper who gestured to a dark stain seared onto the floor.

'The metal is fused,' said Iagon as his brother-sergeant traced the edge of the stain with his finger. 'It would take a great amount of heat to do that.'

'Looks old,' Tsu'gan wondered aloud, 'and shaped like a boot print. What's this?' he added, smearing a fleck of something with his finger. He tasted it and grimaced. 'Cinder.'

The grimace became a scowl.

'The Iron Warriors are not the only traitors on Scoria.'

The voice of Techmarine Draedius intruded on Tsu'gan's thoughts.

'There are no shells, no ammunition of any kind for this cannon,' he said, almost to himself. 'It is powered by a small fusion reactor.'

'Nuclear?' asked Tiberon, who was closest.

Draedius shook his head. 'No. More like energy conversion. I've found several receptacles containing trace elements of a fine powder I have no records of.'

Tsu'gan looked up. The sense of unease that permeated the lower deep of the fortress had still not abated.

'Retain a sample but hurry with your work, brother.' A blast of fire from the purging that continued outside threw haunting shadows over the side of the sergeant's face. 'I don't wish to linger here any longer than is necessary.'

Coruscating fire ripped from Pyriel's fingertips in blazing arcs. It lit the cavern in smoky shadows and burned a ragged hole through an advancing chitin. The xenos swarming the human settlement reacted to the sudden threat in their midst. They faltered, losing purpose in the face of such fury. In contrast, the settlers were galvanised, redoubling their efforts as the spark of hope became a flame.

Dak'ir took the blow from a chitin's bone-claw on his pauldron, where it dug a jagged groove in the ceramite. He lunged with his chainsword, forcing it into the creature's abyssal-black eye up to the hilt. As he wrenched the weapon free, the chitin-beast screeched. Fluid spurted from its ruined eye socket, painting Dak'ir's armour in watery grey. The Salamander moved inside its death arc, weaving around retaliatory strikes, before severing a champing mandible and burying his blood-slick chainblade into the chitin's tiny brain. Shuddering, the creature shrank back and died. Dak'ir sprang off its hardened carapace as he vaulted over the chitin, its insectile limbs spasming still, and flung himself towards another enemy.

The boy, Val'in, was running again.

He'd followed Illiad and his warriors after the Salamanders had charged, and now found himself in the midst of the fighting. Clutching a shovel in trembling hands, he came face-to-face with a chitin. The creature's blood-slick mandibles chattered expectantly as it scuttled towards him. Val'in backed away but with a hab-shack suddenly at his back, could retreat no further. Tears were streaming down the boy's face but he held his shovel up defiantly. Rearing back, the chitin chittered in what might have been pleasure before an armoured hulk intervened between the creature and its kill.

'Stay behind me!' Ba'ken yelled, grunting as he held back the chitin's bone-claws that it had thrashed down upon him. He couldn't risk the heavy flamer - the blast would have torched the boy too. Instead, he had stowed the weapon in its harness on his back and went hand-to-hand instead. Back braced, his legs arched in a weight lifter's stance, the Salamander heaved. Furrows appeared in the dirt as the creature was forced back, scrabbling ineffectually with its hind legs as it tried to regain balance.

Hot saliva dripped from the creature's mandibles as they snapped for Ba'ken's face. Finding purchase, the chitin dug in and pushed. Its body closed with the Salamander. Ba'ken scowled as the stench of dank and old earth washed over him in a fetid wave. The chitin was about to bite again, aiming to take off the Salamander's face, before Ba'ken spat a stream of acid and seared the creature. Squealing, the chitin's mandibles folded in on each other and retracted into its scalded maw.

The beast was tough, with the bulk and heft of a tank. Ba'ken felt his strength yielding to it and roared to draw on his inner reserves. His secondary heart pumped blood frantically, his body adopting a heightened battle-state, impelling a sudden surge from the Astartes's muscles.

'Xenos scum,' he spat, using hate to fuel his efforts.

A second chitin, just finished gnawing on a settler, emerged on Ba'ken's left flank. The Salamander saw it scuttle into his eye line.

Unarmed, there was no way he could fight them both.

The ragged corpse of the half-devoured settler slumped from the second chitin's maw. Stepping over it, bones crunching under the chitin's weight, the creature advanced upon Ba'ken.

Rushing into its path was Val'in. He swung his shovel madly from left to right in a vain effort to slow the beast.

Ba'ken's face contorted with horror. 'Flee!' he urged. 'Hide, boy!'

Val'in wasn't listening. He stood before the massive chitin bravely, trying to defend his saviour as he had defended him.

'No!' cried Ba'ken, distraught as the chitin loomed.

Explosive impacts rippled down the creature's flank, tearing up chips of carapace and punching holes through flesh. The chitin was spun about from the force of the bolter fire thundering against it. Screeching, grey sludge drooling from its shattered maw, it slumped and was still.

Apion drew close and fired an execution burst into the creature's shrivelled head.

Emek appeared alongside him, smoke drooling from his flamer. 'Cleanse and burn!' he bellowed, then, 'Down, brother!'

With a supreme effort, Ba'ken shoved the creature he was wrestling with. It rolled back onto its haunches as the Salamander dropped into a crouch and fiery promethium spewed overhead. Ba'ken felt its heat against his neck, and couldn't resist looking up into the flames that consumed the chitin. His eyes blazed vengefully as the creature was incinerated, its death screams smothered by the weapon's roar.

Ba'ken scowled at the beast, unhitching his heavy flamer before turning and unleashing a torrent of fire into a shambling chitin. Stomping over to a hab-shack, he checked inside and saw several settlers cowering within. They shrank back at the Salamander's sudden appearance.

Ba'ken showed them his palm, his deep voice resonating around the metal dwelling.

'Have no fear,' he told the settlers, before turning to address Val'in. 'In here. Come now,' he said and the boy obeyed, clutching the shovel to his chest as he scampered inside. Ba'ken closed the tin door after him, hoping it would be enough to keep them safe.

In the distance, war was calling. Ba'ken's warrior spirit answered and he hurled himself, flamer blazing, into the fight.

All across the settlement, the Salamanders were gaining the upper hand. The heavy thunk-thud of bolters filled the air. The chitin were blasted apart in the storm, chased down by rampant settlers descending murderously on their stricken and wounded attackers.

Illiad was fearless as he led a group of men, Akuma at his side, driving back the creatures with determined las-salvos. Though not as deadly or decisive as the Astartes, they accounted an impressive tally.

Against the combined might of the Astartes and Illiad's well-drilled troops, the chitin did not last long. Unprepared to face such an implacable foe as the Salamanders, what was left of the horde fled into their emergence holes bloodied and battered.

Dak'ir was wiping grey chitin blood from his powered-down chainsword when he saw Akuma spit down one of the emergence holes. Anger was written indelibly on the overseer's face. It turned to despair when he surveyed the destruction around him.

Blood soaked the thoroughfare now and hab-stacks lay crushed or torn open. As Illiad gathered teams to begin collapsing the emergence holes using explosives, a mournful dirge was struck up by the wounded and the grievers for the dead. Wailing infants, some of them now orphans, added their own sorrowful chorus.

One hundred and fifty-four had died in the chitin attack; not all men, not all armed. Another thirty-eight would not live out their injuries. Almost a fifth of the entire human population killed in a single blow.

Silently, the Salamanders helped retrieve the dead.

At one point, Dak'ir saw Brother Apion looking down emptily at a woman clinging to her slain husband. She was unwilling to let go of him as the Salamander tried to take the body and set it upon the growing pyres. In the end she had relinquished him, sobbing deeply.

Illiad lit a flare and ignited the pyres as the last of the dead were accounted for and set to rest. Dak'ir found the custom familiar as he watched the bodies burning and the smoke curling away forlornly through a natural chimney in the cavern roof. The cremation chamber was already blackened and soot gathered in the corners.

Val'in was at the ceremony too, and approached Ba'ken who watched solemnly alongside his brothers.

'Are you a Fire Angel?' asked Val'in, reaching out towards the massive warrior.

Ba'ken, almost three times the boy's height and towering over him, was surprised at the sudden upswell of emotion as Val'in's hand pressed against his greave. Perhaps the boy wanted to make sure he was real.

A part of Ba'ken was deeply saddened at the thought of this innocent knowing something of the terrors of the galaxy, but he was also moved. Val'in was not Astartes: he did not wear power armour or wield a holy bolter; he didn't even carry a lasgun or rifle. He'd had a shovel, and yet he was brave enough to stand in the path of the chitin and not run.

Ba'ken found an answer hard to come by.

Dak'ir spoke for him, but to Illiad and not the boy. 'What does the boy mean when he says ''Fire Angel''?' he asked.

Illiad's face was set in a look of resignation. The flames from the pyres seemed to deepen the lines on his brow and throw haunting shadows into his eyes. He looked suddenly older.

'I must show you something, Hazon Dak'ir,' he said. 'Will you follow me?'

After a moment, Dak'ir nodded. Perhaps it was at last time for the truth of why the Salamanders had been sent here.

Pyriel stepped forwards, indicating that he would accompany them.

'Ba'ken,' said Dak'ir, facing the massive warrior who still found himself daunted before the boy but managed to look up.

'Brother-sergeant?'

'You have command in my absence. Try to establish contact with the Vulkan's Wrath and Sergeant Agatone if you can, though I doubt you'll get a signal through all of this rock.'

'Don't think we need your protection,' snapped Akuma, having overheard the conversation. Ba'ken turned on him.

'You are stubborn, human,' he growled, though his eyes betrayed his admiration for Akuma's pride and diehard spirit. 'But the choice isn't yours to make.'

Akuma grumbled something and backed off.

After he'd checked the load of his plasma pistol and secured his chainsword, Dak'ir rested his hand on Ba'ken's pauldron and leaned in to speak into his ear.

'Guard them for me,' he said in a low voice.

'Yes, sergeant,' Bak'en answered, eyes locked with the recalcitrant overseer. 'In Vulkan's name.'

'In Vulkan's name,' Dak'ir echoed, before departing with Pyriel and following Illiad as he led them away from fire and grief.

II Angels and Monsters

Illiad took them back down the winding tunnel road to the blast doors of the massive chamber they'd visited before. The bronzed portal was closed again now, its ancient mechanism engaged as soon as they'd left to join the battle.

Dak'ir recalled Pyriel's words as he stared silently at the gate again. The Librarian, standing alongside him, was characteristically inscrutable.

Answers lie within.

Illiad opened the gates once more and this time stepped inside, without waiting to see if the Salamanders followed.

Dak'ir passed through the threshold first, slightly tentative. But all he saw on the other side was a vast, barren room. He watched Illiad approach one of the walls and wipe away the layers of dust and grit that swathed it. Slowly, images were revealed, not unlike cave paintings but inscribed upon bare metal. The renderings were crude, but as Dak'ir approached, drawn inexorably to them, he discerned familiar shapes. He saw stars and metal giants, clad in green armour. Humans were depicted too, emerging from a crashed ship the size of a city. Flames were captured in vivid oranges and reds. In each subsequent interpretation, the ship was slowly being swallowed up by the earth as ash and rock buried it. Beasts came next, the visual history of the colony spreading down the massive walls. First were the chitin, easy to discern with their bulky carapace bodies and claws; then came something else - brutish, broad-backed figures, with dark skins and tusks. The humans were depicted fleeing from them as the metal giants protected them.

'How did you survive down here for so long, Illiad?' Dak'ir's voice echoed, breaking the silence.

Illiad paused in his unearthing of the colony's ancient lore.

'Scoria has deep veins of ore. Fyron, it is called.' He wiped the sweat of his labours from his brow. 'We are miners, generations old. Our ancestors, in their wisdom, realised the ore was combustible. It could be used to keep the reactor running, to charge our weapons and maintain our way of life, such as it is.' His face darkened. 'It was this way for many centuries, so our legends tell us.'

Dak'ir indicated the wall paintings. 'And these are your legends?'

'At first,' Illiad conceded, changing tack. 'Scoria is a hostile place. Our colony is few. One in a generation has the duty to record that generation's history in a log, though much of its formative years are drawn upon these walls. Long ago that task fell to my grandfather, who then passed it on to me after his son, my father, was killed in a cave-in.'

Illiad paused, as if weighing up what to say next.

'Millennia ago, my ancestors came to Scoria, crash landed in a ship that had come from the stars,' he said. 'We were not alone. Giants, armoured in green plate, came with us. Most who now live don't remember who they were. They call them the Fire Angels, for it was said that they were born from the heart of the mountain. This is why Val'in addressed your warrior in this way.'

Dak'ir exchanged a look with Pyriel and the Librarian responded with a slight widening of his eyes.

Fire-born, he thought.

Illiad went on.

'After my ancestors crashed, the Fire Angels tried to return to the stars. Our history does not say why. But their ship was destroyed and terrible storms engulfed the planet. Those that ventured into it, taking the ship's smaller vessels, did not return. The rest remained with us.'

'What happened to these other Fire Angels?' asked Dak'ir.

Illiad's face became grave.

'They were our protectors,' he began simply. 'Until the black rock came, and everything changed. It was thousands of years before I was born. Brutish creatures, like tusked swine and who revelled in war, descended upon Scoria in ramshackle vessels, expelled from the black rock. It eclipsed our sun and in the darkness that followed, the swine made landfall. The stories hold that the Fire Angels fought them off, but at a cost. Every few years, the swine would come back but with greater and greater hordes. Each time the Fire Angels would march out to meet them, and each time they were victorious but less and less of them returned. Inevitably, they dwindled, falling one by one until the last of them retreated underground with my ancestors and sealed themselves in. The last Fire Angel took an oath, to protect my ancestors and pass on the tale of him and his warriors if others like them ever returned to Scoria.

The years passed and the fate of that last Fire Angel was lost to history, the warriors from beyond the stars committed to mere memory… until now. We didn't venture above the earth after that, and the surface of Scoria became lifeless, inhabited only by ghosts. The swine did not return. Some reckon it was because there was no further sport to be had.'

Dak'ir's brow furrowed as he listened intently to Illiad's story.

'You stayed like this… for millennia then?'

'Until several years ago, yes,' Illiad replied. 'The storms that blighted our planet lifted for no reason other than they had run their course. Soon after, the Iron Men came.' Illiad's expression darkened at this memory.

'''Iron Men'?' asked Dak'ir, though he thought he already knew to whom Illiad referred.

'They came from the stars, like you. Thinking they were akin to the Fire Angels, I led a delegation to meet them.' Illiad paused to take a steadying breath and marshal his thoughts. 'Sadly, I was wrong. They laughed at our entreaties, turning their guns upon us. Akuma's wife and son were slain in the massacre. That is why he is so distrustful of you. He cannot see the difference.'

'You say you led the delegation, Illiad. How did you escape from the Iron Men?' asked Dak'ir, keen to learn all that Illiad knew of the Iron Warriors and their forces, for there could be no doubt that it was the sons of Per-turabo who had perpetrated the massacre.

Illiad bowed his head. 'I am shamed to say that I fled, just like the rest. They didn't give chase and those who eluded their guns stayed alive. We watched them after that from hidden scopes bored deep beneath the earth.'

Dak'ir remembered the sense of being watched he'd felt outside the wreck of the Vulkan's Wrath, and assumed this must have been Illiad or one of his men.

'They built a fortress,' Illiad continued.

'Our brothers have seen it,' Dak'ir told him, 'out in the ash dunes.'

Illiad licked his lips, as if slicking them so the words wouldn't stick in his throat.

'We kept a vigil on it at first, as the walls and towers went up,' he said. 'But the men keeping watch began to act erratically. Two of them committed suicide, so I put a stop to it after that.'

'Your men succumbed to the taint of Chaos,' said Pyriel sternly.

Illiad seemed nonplussed.

'Do you know what the Iron Men are doing in the fortress?' Dak'ir asked in the lull.

'No,' Illiad answered flatly. 'But we encountered them again, this time at the mine where we used to extract the fyron ore. We never got further than their sentries and though they must have known we were there, they seemed disinterested in slaying us.'

Pyriel's silken voice interrupted.

'They come for the ore, and are drilling deep to get it,' he said. The Librarian turned his cold gaze onto the human. Illiad, despite his obvious presence and courage, shrank back before it.

'Where is this mine?' Pyriel asked. 'Our brothers must be told.'

'I can take you there,' Illiad answered, 'but that is not why I brought you here. The legends of the Fire Angels are just tales to protect our young and placate the ignorant. I alone, know the truth.' Illiad turned to Dak'ir. 'You are not the first Fire Angel I have seen. There is another living among us.'

That got the Salamanders' attention. All thoughts of the mine and the Iron Warriors faded into sudden insignificance.

'The duty of recording our history was not the only thing my grandfather passed on to me,' Illiad told them. He moved to the back of the chamber. Dak'ir glanced over at Pyriel but the Librarian's gaze was fixed on the human. 'Wait there,' Illiad called back to them, working at a dust-dogged panel in the far wall.

Dak'ir saw the faint glow of illuminated icons as Illiad pushed them in sequence. A deep rumbling gripped the chamber, and for a moment the Salamander sergeant thought it was another tremor. It was, but not one caused by Scoria's fragile core; instead, it came from the flanking wall.

Stepping back, the Salamanders saw a recessed line emerge in the encrusted metal, spilling out tracts of dirt as a portal formed within it and opened with a hiss of pressure. Old, stale air gusted out from a darkened chamber beyond.

'Until my grandfather showed me this place, I thought the Fire Angels were just a myth. I know now they are very real and lived by a different name,' said Illiad upon reaching them. 'Now, I am the old man and I'm passing on the legacy of my ancestors to you, Salamanders of Vulkan.'

Chaplain Elysius never got his gauntlets dirty during an interrogation. He was fastidious about this, to the point of obsession. This was an Astartes who knew how to inflict pain; agony so invasive and consuming so as to leave no mark, save the one in the victim's psyche.

Watching the partly dismanded Warsmith in the flickering half-light of the cell, Tsu'gan fancied that Elysius could even wrest a confession from one of the tainted.

After the brief battle in the torture chamber-cum-workshop - for Tsu'gan was convinced it was a union of both - the half-conscious Warsmith had been dragged above ground and taken to an abandoned cell in the upper level. There he lay now, as Tsu'gan watched, chained to an iron bench and bleeding from the wounds the Salamander sergeant had given him.

The tools the Chaplain had requested induded a pair of chirurgeon-interrogators that he'd had stored in the Fire Anvil's equipment lockers. The creatures, servitor-torturers, had unfolded from their metal slumber like the jagged blades of knives extending. Wiry and grotesque, the interrogators' mechadendrites were fashioned into an array of unpleasant devices, excrutiators, designed to inflict maximum pain. Elysius had constructed the servitors in part himself - at least, he had taken the Mechanicus stock and modified them for his own purposes.

'Is this butchery strictly necessary?' asked N'keln, looking on from the shadows.

Since the battle to take the fortress and Tsu'gan's squad's near miss in the catacombs, the brother-captain's stock had depleted further. Though no one spoke of it openly, his disastrous command at the gates of the iron fortress was viewed with ever more critical eyes. Tsu'gan could feel the discontent building like a wave, whilst his own standing had been greatly increased, especially in the eyes of Veteran Sergeant Praetor. The Firedrake had commended the brother-sergeant several times for his valour and strategy. Undoubtedly, it was Tsu'gan that had prevented further deaths and restored parity in the battle.

'I can break him, brother-captain,' Elysius replied. The Chaplain stood back, directing his chirurgeon-interrogators expertly.

'Have you even asked him anything yet, Brother-Chaplain?' said N'keln.

The Warsmith's bionic arm had been removed and dismantled, bloodily. His right arm had been severed and the wound cauterised so that he wouldn't fall unconscious from blood loss. Nor would he be able to morph a weapon from his flesh. Stripped of his body armour, the injuries Tsu'gan had dealt him were visible as a dense patch of welts and purple bruises. Elysius had allowed the Iron Warrior to keep his battle-helm on, for it was his belief that none should look upon the face of a traitor. Let him hide it in shame.

'I am about to,' the Chaplain hissed, a little strained under his captain's scrutiny. After Elysius had issued a sub-vocal command, the chirurgeon-interrogators retreated, taking their blades, their wires and their torches with them. The stench of burned flesh and old copper wafted over to Tsu'gan and the other onlookers, which included Captain N'keln and Brother Iagon.

Tsu'gan's second had requested he be allowed to observe the Chaplain's techniques. Most within the company, like N'keln for instance, found Elysius's methods distasteful, at the same time acknowledging their necessity. Iagon, it seemed, did not, and since Tsu'gan saw no reason to prevent him, he allowed the battle-brother to bear audience with him.

The shadow of Chaplain Elysius fell across the traitor like a deathly veil.

'What precisely were you constructing in the vault?' he asked simply.

Burned copiously, the vault had been resealed again following Techmarine Draedius's analysis. He had yet to ascertain the exact nature of the weapon.

Something fell and evil lurked in the darkness below their feet. Tsu'gan had felt it all the while he was down there and had no desire to reacquaint himself with it. More than once, he had fought the urge to take out his combat knife and press it against his flesh. He knew whatever malign presence lurked in the fortress's lower levels was just preying on his inner guilt and the manifestation of that guilt in his addictive masochism.

The Iron Warrior laughed, breaking Tsu'gan's reverie. It was a hollow, metallic sound that echoed around the small cell like a discordant bell chime.

'What did it look like to you, lapdog of the False Emperor?'

It was a small gesture - like the twitch of one of Elysius's fingers - that brought one of the chirurgeon-interrogators forward. Something happened, hidden by the servitor's body, and the Iron Warrior shuddered and grunted.

'Again,' ordered the Chaplain in a low voice. There was a pause and the Iron Warrior shuddered for a second time. Smoke issued from his flesh, though Tsu'gan couldn't see its source. The Iron Warrior laughed again.

But it was pained laughter this time and when he spoke, his voice was cracked and hissing.

'A weapon…' The breath wheezed in and out of his lungs.

'We know that.' Elysius went to order the chirurgeon-interrogator for a third time.

'A seismic cannon…' gasped the Iron Warrior.

Tsu'gan knew of no such weapon. Had this warband somehow acquired knowledge of an undiscovered standard template construct? It seemed impossible. Still thinking on it, the brother-sergeant detected the faintest tremor of movement in the Chaplain. The chirurgeon-interrogator retreated.

'How long have you been on this world?' Elysius asked, deliberately altering the course of his questioning to try and disorientate the prisoner.

'Almost a decade,' the Iron Warrior rasped, as if his breath were raking against his throat.

'Why are your brothers dead?'

'Killed in battle, of course!' Sudden rage gave the Iron Warrior strength and for the first time he struggled against his chains.

Bonds of loyalty and brotherhood were still strong, Tsu'gan considered, even in traitors.

Elysius struck the Iron Warrior's ruined chest with the flat of his palm. It was a hard blow that pushed the air from the traitor's lungs and smashed him against the bench.

'By what or whom?' demanded the Chaplain, patience thinning.

The Iron Warrior took a few seconds to catch a ragged breath.

'They will come again, the ones that bested my brothers,' he said, his yellow lenses flashing maliciously. 'Very soon, much too soon for you to save yourselves…' A clicking sound scraped from his mouth, growing steadily faster and louder. The Iron Warrior was laughing again.

Elysius was about to send the chirurgeon-interrogators forwards when Sergeant Lok interrupted them. The veteran was in command of the outer defences and the wall, and had rushed in from outside.

'Captain,' he uttered sternly, his face grave.

N'keln gestured for him to give his report.

'It is the sun, my lord,' Lok began.

'What of it, sergeant?'

'It has been partially eclipsed.'

N'keln was taken aback.

'By what?' he asked.

Tsu'gan felt fresh tension suddenly enter the cell. Lok's tone suggested he had seen something that troubled him. For a veteran of Ymgarl, such a reaction was not to be treated lightly.

'A black rock, as large as the sun,' he said. 'Parts of it are breaking off. Many parts.'

'Explain yourself, Lok,' demanded N'keln. 'Are they meteors?'

'They are moving erratically, and at different speeds. More and more fragment each minute.'

N'keln scowled, reaching for his bolter instinctively. They all knew what was coming next.

'Whatever they are,' said Lok, 'they're headed for Scoria.'

'And with the dark comes a swarm of war, and beneath it the sun shall die,' Elysius intoned, now facing Lok.

Grating laughter issued from behind him.

'You're too late,' croaked the Iron Warrior. 'Your doom has come…'

Illiad stepped away from the recently opened portal, bowing his head in reverence.

It was difficult to see within; the gloom was thick and a pall of disturbed dust hung in the air like a grey veil. Dak'ir was aware of his primary heart thundering in his chest. It was not because he was about to go into battle; it was excitement and something approaching fear that gripped him as he stood before the threshold to the room. He turned to look at Pyriel.

'Your lead, brother-sergeant,' he said, a faint cerulean glow limning his eyes as he used his witch-sight to better penetrate the half-dark.

Dak'ir muttered a litany to Vulkan and stepped forwards. A few metres into the chamber and he saw musty-looking consoles, veneered by dirt. Cables hung down from the ceiling like the tendrils of some unseen sea plant. Brushing them aside with careful sweeps of his hand, Dak'ir half expected to be stung. His entire body seemed numb, yet electrified at the same time. The pounding cadence of his heart smothered the echoing report of his boot steps against the metal floor. He was only dimly aware of the presence of Pyriel behind him. The Librarian kept at around a metre's distance, surveying the murky surroundings slowly and cautiously.

It was like descending into a dream.

At last, the hanging cables gave way to a metal esplanade Dak'ir recognised the symbol embossed in its cenue Though weathered and evidently damaged during the crash, the icon of the Firedrakes was discernible.

A set of stairs led off from the esplanade Dak'ir followed their trajectory with his gaze. There at the summit, his eye alighted on a command throne and the figure sitting in it.

Half-shrouded in shadows, details were hard to see, but the armour the figure wore looked old and massive.

Dak'ir reached out a hand without realising. His heart had actually stopped beating for a second of time that felt like minutes. When he spoke, his voice was little more than an awe-struck whisper and he felt an overwhelming compulsion to sink to knees.

'Primarch…'