Salamander

I Into the Dragon's Mouth

Dak'ir cradled the bolter in his gauntleted hands, feeling its heft and running his fingers down its stock. He muttered litanies of accuracy under his breath as he familiarised himself with the holy weapon.

The Vulkan's Wrath carried several additional Astartes armoriums aboard. It was well stocked with surplus bolters, ammunition and other materiel in the event that the company should require it. During his scout training, when he was just a neophyte and not part of the 7th Company, Dak'ir had been instructed in the use of the bolter by the stern-faced Master of Recruits. Old Zen'de was dead now but the lessons he had imparted upon Dak'ir lived on.

All of the Salamanders crouched in the shallow depression, the rocky outcrop to their fore, advancing orks glimpsed over the jagged tips of these crags, had a bolter slung to their sides. Bursts of sporadic fire, at range, were intended to attract the attention of the onrushing greenskin vanguard. The squad would then stay visible but hunkered down so as not to present an easy target. Only Ba'ken and Emek, bearing their flamers, wouldn't be so armed.

Dak'ir's five had also become six with the addition of Pyriel. He too hefted a bolter, his force sword and pistol remaining sheathed for now. The Librarian had not been swayed by Sergeant Agatone's arguments when he had insisted he stay with the main force. His talents, he surmised with a tone that brooked no further discussion, would be best served aiding Dak'ir.

Illiad was another matter, of course. With no time to explain what had occurred beneath the surface right now, Dak'ir had merely expressed how important the human was to them and that if they survived the fight with the greenskins, Illiad would need to be brought before N'keln immediately. As it was, the leader of the settlers was determined he would stand with his distant Nocturnean kin and so joined one of the battalions. The human could fight and had his own lasgun, so Agatone saw no reason to oppose him. Dak'ir would see him protected, of course, but supposed that standing shoulder-to-shoulder with fifty other armed men was about as safe as it got right now.

'A thousand metres,' Apion reported, keeping sentry on the orks' approach with a pair of magnoculars.

'Weapons ready,' snapped Dak'ir. His tone was clipped and precise as he brought up his bolter. Each Salamander occupied a section of the outcrop, snug in makeshift firing lips rendered by the natural permutations in the rocks. A staccato of arming sounds disturbed the heavy silence before the air was still again.

'Eight hundred…'

Dak'ir sighted down the bolter's targeter.

'Seven hundred…'

Dull percussions from the Thunderfire cannon salvo were rippling across the dunes. Clustered explosions plumed in fiery grey, slowly pushing the greenskin vanguard together. 'Six hundred…'

'In Vulkan's name!' Dak'ir roared and the bolters roared with him.

Muzzle flares ripped into the darkness followed by the flash of explosive rounds tearing up the leaders of the motorised ork vanguard. Bikes spun front over end, chewed up by the brutal fusillade coming from the Space Marines. Trucks flipped as their fuel tanks ignited, turning them into rolling fireballs. Spitting shrapnel shredded those outside the heart of the bolter storm, forcing bikes to slew into others and trucks to veer widely and crash as their drivers were cut to pieces.

The frenzied ork advance slowed momentarily as the ones that followed on picked their way through flaming wreckage, and as the greenskins at the periphery were forced into a cordon by the distant bombardment of the Thunderfire cannons.

Bellowing curses like wielded blades, the orks regrouped and found a focus for their anger - the six Salamanders blazing away at them from an outcrop of rocks. Like a hot spear-tip the orks came together. In truth, the bolter fire had barely scratched them, but the bloody nose they'd received was stinging.

Errant bullets from the greenskins' chainguns and solid-shot cannons chipped at the rock wall. A shard spanged against Dak'ir's pauldron but he barely felt it. The spatial display on his right helmet lens told him the orks were just three hundred and sixty-five point three metres away.

In less than a minute they'd be hitting the grenade line. Then there would be two hundred metres between them and the horde.

'Reloading,' shouted Dak'ir, ducking back behind the rocks to expel the partially spent magazine and ram home another one. The process took less than three seconds. As he returned to the firing lip to resume the fusillade, Brother Apion ducked back in his sergeant's stead, cycling through the ammo replenishment strategy Dak'ir had devised. This way, the Salamanders could maintain a barrage of uninterrupted bolter fire with little deterioration in intensity between reloads.

At the head of the greenskin pack, a howling ork biker was suddenly kicked up into the air, riding a blossoming fireball. It tore out the vehicle's undercarriage, blasting off its rugged wheels, as well as shredding the ork's legs and abdomen. The beast was still raging until it struck the ground with a wet crunch. Others followed it, shooting up into the air in a macabre, pseudo-pyrotechnic display. Explosions from the grenade line churned up ash in a dense cloud, causing further carnage and confusion. Riderless bikes trundled through the fog aflame, slowly succumbing to inertia without their throttles opened up. A truck barrel rolled out of the murk, its hapless passengers battered to death as they thrashed continuously against the ground. It settled into a mangled heap, a pair of ork bikers blinded by their ash-smeared goggles, colliding into it and exploding after the impact.

The damage was horrendous, the densely-packed greenskins, precisely corralled by the Thunderfire cannons and impelled by Dak'ir's ''bait'' squad, suffering badly in the grenade field. Momentum carried the greenskins behind into deadly debris and the remnants of the sunken grenades yet to be disturbed. They couldn't stop; their maddened fervour, coupled with the undeniable instinct to go faster, wouldn't let them. The orks piled on through and kept on dying.

Two hundred metres became a hundred and fifty in Dak'ir's helmet lens. With so many orks in the vanguard, it was inevitable that some would make it through. But the brother-sergeant had made contingency for that too.

Raking a slide of his bolter, he switched the gun to rapid fire. They'd burn through ammunition much faster this way, but the punishing effects of such a salvo would be irresistible. Loosing his fury, Dak'ir saw the muzzle flare at the end of the bolter expand into a knife-edged star of fire. The oncoming orks became a haze before it, rendered into steaming flesh and bent metal.

The orks, more tenacious than a plague, rolled on into the firing line, scarcely fifty left in the vanguard from the five hundred who had broken off from the slower element of the splinter horde.

Solid shot struck his elbow, finding a spot between the plates, and bit. Dak'ir grimaced, another deflecting off his left pauldron as the orks got close enough to be partially accurate with their return fire.

Ignoring the bullets skimming off his power armour, some punching small holes but stopping at the layered ceramite, Dak'ir rose to his feet. His brothers followed him.

'Purify!' roared the sergeant and the flamers opened up at last.

A curtain of fire swept over the last of the orks. Superheated promethium cooked engines and melted tyres to rubberised slag. The greenskins bayed as they burned, crumpling down as they were engulfed by the intense wave.

Caught between the twin storms of bolters and flamers, barely a score of orks remained. Roughly half staggered, bereft of their vehicles, dazed and enraged to within a few metres of the outcrop when Dak'ir let his bolter hang lose on its strap and unsheathed his chainsword. His voice buzzed like the sound of the blades churning with their sudden activation.

'Charge!'

Dak'ir led, bounding over the rocks with his brothers on his heels. A flash of cerulean blue in his limited peripheral vision told him that Pyriel had drawn his force sword.

The Salamanders descended on the battered remnants of the ork vanguard. And tore them apart.

It was over in seconds, and as the dust finally cleared the greenskin dead were revealed, littering the ground. Orks possessed strong constitutions; they were hard beasts to kill. Amongst the carnage there'd be those that still lived, but none posed a threat to the Salamanders at this point. Beyond the dissipating smoke and ash, the rest of the splinter horde was closing. It was a sobering sight that dispelled the heady battle-euphoria of their recent victory.

Over a thousand orks: more heavily armed, more resolute, more wrathful.

Whatever Argos was planning, Dak'ir hoped it would be ready soon and powerful enough to level a small army.

'Fall back,' he ordered, 'and recover any partially spent clips. We're going to need every single round.'

They arrived at the main Salamander deployment almost at the same time as the Thunderfire cannons and Dreadnoughts.

Agatone had ordered the withdrawal of the heavy guns as soon as the ork vanguard was in the ''dragon's mouth'', as he would later refer to it. Dak'ir's troops had fallen back a short time after that, but the better foot speed of the battle-brothers had averaged out the head start fairly equally.

The brother-sergeant seemed distracted. As Dak'ir approached him, he realised it was because Agatone was listening intently to the comm-feed in his ear. He nodded curtly, his face grim.

'A much larger horde of greenskins has amassed against the iron fortress. Captain N'keln is currently under siege,' he announced.

'How large a force are we talking about, here?' asked Dak'ir, aware that the main horde they would soon face numbered in the thousands.

'Estimations are hazy,' Agatone replied. 'They reckon tens of thousands.'

Dak'ir shook his head ruefully, before pointing to the lunar eclipse. 'The black rock up there orbits this planet, and when it closes the orks will increase in number again.'

Agatone looked up to the ghastly planetoid, like a baleful black orb, and frowned darkly.

'We must reunite our forces,' he decided. 'Find a way to get to Captain N'keln and our brothers before they're worn down by the siege.'

'We are in no position to lift it, Sergeant Agatone,' Pyriel interceded, displaying a cold pragmatism normally associated with their Chaplain. 'Our brothers will be measured against the anvil, as will we all.'

Agatone nodded at the Librarian's wisdom, but said in a low voice:

'Let us hope it doesn't break them.'

After that he summarised the troop dispositions one final time and went to rejoin his squad, leaving Dak'ir to do the same. With Zo'tan leading the human auxiliaries a few hundred metres back from the line of Salamanders, Dak'ir would have been a trooper down if not for Pyriel appending himself to his squad.

The Librarian had taken a keen interest in Dak'ir; for good or ill, the brother-sergeant did not know. The only certainty was that Pyriel would not let him out of his sight.

A rugged defensive line of metal storage crates, partially broken down prefab bunkers and empty ammo drums was strung out for the Salamanders to take cover behind. Battle-Brother G'heb raised his fist to indicate to his sergeant where they would be stationed. Dak'ir could feel the questions in his burning gaze, reflected in the eyes of all the Salamanders, of what happened below the earth and who this human was in their midst. Discipline let them compartmentalise the desire for veracity; survival and the protection of innocent human life overrode it for now.

Answers would come if they lived out this next battle.

Dak'ir was reticent to leave the armour suits, the settlers and especially ancient Brother Gravius behind, but was afforded little other choice. He reasoned that they had survived this long without intervention, and so they were as safe as anywhere could be on Scoria. At least while the orks' attention was fixed on their foes on the surface, they would not decide to probe any deeper.

A rhythmic chant pervaded on the breeze, interrupting Dak'ir's thoughts. The orks were marching in time to beaten drums. They saw an outnumbered foe, out of tricks, who had shown their hand and was now in the open. It galvanised them. Dak'ir felt their belligerent confidence as an intense pressure at the front of his skull. He put a hand to his forehead in a vain effort to ward off the discomfort. The others seemed affected to, but not nearly as badly.

Stand straight, sergeant, Pyriel's voice was little more than a whisper in Dak'ir's mind. It is the subconscious psychic emanation of the greenskins that you can feel.

It was crippling. Dak'ir felt like his head was about to explode with it. He gritted his teeth, unaware that he'd stooped, and straightened up.

'Dak'ir…' Ba'ken, on the other side of his sergeant to Pyriel, reached out to him.

'I'm all right, brother,' he lied. The noise in his head was deafening and blood tanged his mouth.

Ba'ken edged closer to his sergeant; the Salamander lines were packed so tightly they were almost shoulder-to-shoulder anyway.

'Lean on me until the fighting begins,' he breathed, lowering his heavy flamer slightly and using his free hand to support Dak'ir surreptitiously beneath the elbow.

Dak'ir found he had no voice to respond. Was this another vision, but manifesting in some physically debilitating way? The approaching ork horde blended into a single note of raucous white noise that eclipsed everything else. Hot, angry green light burned like sunspots before Dak'ir's eyes and he lost focus. Rage: gratuitous, boiling rage filled his mind, and he felt his fists clench in defiance of it. Something primal within him was waking, and Dak'ir fought the urge to cry out and hurl himself at the orks. He wanted to tear into them with his bare hands, to rip their flesh apart with his teeth, to beat upon their bodies until there was nothing left but bone splinters and viscera.

Through the haze of mindless anger that descended, the world was tinted an ugly green.

Listen to my voice, Dak'ir. It was Pyriel again. Remember what you are.

He clenched his fists tighter. Blood flowed into his mouth as Dak'ir bit into his lip. Fire-born, said Pyriel.

Fury like chained lightning wracked his body and it began to tremble against the strain. Synaptic warning icons behind his helmet lens that were slaved to his body's biorhythms started spiking. Heart rate was nearing cardio infarction levels, Dak'ir felt it like a frag grenade going off continuously in his chest; breathing intensified; red, flashing icons warned of imminent anaphylactic circulatory collapse; blood pressure was rising, bordering on extreme hypertension.

Fire-born, Pyriel repeated.

Dak'ir felt again the heat of Mount Deathfire. He recalled ranging through the caves of Ignea, plying the Acerbian Sea and the long climb to the summit of the Cindara Plateau.

The green haze filtered away until his vision was red-rimed once more.

'Fire-born,' uttered Dak'ir. His voice was in unison with the Librarian's psychic casting inside his head.

Dak'ir moved away from Ba'ken to show he no longer needed his brother's support. The unspoken exchange between them said more than any words of gratitude ever could. The bulky Salamander merely nodded his understanding and reaffirmed his grip on the heavy flamer.

The Thunderfire cannons were booming at either end of the defensive line. Unseen, they pummelled patches of advancing greenskins with clusters of surface detonations. It was like dropping a bullet into an ocean. The orks parted briefly before the explosions then closed up again, the ripples short-lived and ineffectual, the slain crushed underfoot and forgotten.

'Merciful Vulkan…'

Dak'ir heard Emek over the comm-feed.

'Never despair,' said Dak'ir to bolster his troops. The blood caked against his teeth tasted like copper. 'Never give in. Salamanders only go forward.'

Bolter fire erupted down the line as the orks came into range. The greenskins weathered it as before, but no longer marched; they had broken into a run.

'This is it. For Tu'Shan and the Emperor,' declared Dak'ir. 'For Vulkan and the glory of Prometheus!'

Forty against three thousand.

Dak'ir had looked into the primitive psyche of the orks. He knew, on an almost cellular level, their fury and aggression. Unless something changed to even the balance, many Fire-born would not live out this fight. Dak'ir vowed that he would not submit to the pyreum easily.

A dense throb built at the back of his skull. For a moment, Dak'ir thought it was the ork rage returned, but as the sound started to resonate across the ash plain he realised it was from a different source.

The massive capacitors in the Vulkan's Wrath's guns were charging. Huge upper-deck turrets swivelled into position with the churning retort of metal. The air crackled with slow actinic discharge, magnetising the metallic elements in the ash and grit particles, statically adhering them to the Salamanders' boots and leg greaves. The throb built to a high-pitched whine and Dak'ir saw a nimbus of electrical energy spark and fork around the mouth of the guns.

An instant later and they were unleashed.

A blast wave, so heavy and powerful it put the Salamanders on their knees, rippled across the ash plain. Concave slashes of grey scudded in the wake of the turret guns' lethal discharge, swirling mini-vortices of displaced ash and dirt.

The barrage lasted a few seconds but the greenskin horde was left devastated by it. Strike cruiser guns were intended to be fired at extreme ranges in the depths of space against massive, heavily-armoured and void-shielded targets. The firepower they could bring to bear was insanely destructive. Argos, in his genius, had only activated a small portion of the guns. The laser battery was enough to atomise vast chunks of the greenskin army, slaying hundreds in a deadly las-duster. Several thousand super-powerful blasts had emitted from the guns, but at such frequency and velocity that they appeared as one continuous beam. Those not caught directly in the beam were burned by it. Several hundred greenskins were already ablaze; some wandered about aimlessly amongst the scorched earth, others were just charred husks. The rest were crippled by shock and disorientation, blinded and deafened by the terrible assault.

Dak'ir was getting to his feet when Agatone, his voice cold and menacing, came over the comm-feed.

'The greenskins are down. Close in and finish them. Salamanders attack!'

A roar of thrusters ripped into the air as Acting-Sergeant Gannon and his Assault squad surged upwards on contrails of smoke and fire. Their blades were drawn, eager to taste ork blood.

The foot troops barged over the makeshift barricade together, bolters flaring. Flamers tramped alongside them, whilst the heavy static guns stayed behind and pummelled the decimated greenskin horde from distance.

From the flanks, the Dreadnoughts closed the deadly trap and in the resulting carnage the ork splinter force was destroyed utterly.

Greenskin blood swathed Dak'ir's faceplate and he removed his battle-helm so he could better see. Execution teams roamed through the smoke coiling across the dunes. Anonymous bursts, sharp and sporadic, occasionally broke the eerie quiet of post-battle as greenskin wounded were finished off.

Looking above the carnage, Dak'ir saw the horizon and imagined the greater horde still out there laying siege to the iron fortress. He also wondered how they could hope to break such a massive force with the troops at their disposal. Defenders would have to remain with the Vulkan's Wrath. It was their only way off a planet that was slowly breaking apart. The tremors were almost constant now, the distant volcanoes erupting with ominous regularity. Even without the eclipse, Dak'ir reckoned the skies would still be grey with falling ash.

'Like Moribar,' he muttered to himself, unaware that he'd just echoed the earlier words of his rival, Tsu'gan. At the back of his mind, Dak'ir felt that the dark legacy of the Dragon Warriors was interwoven with the fate of 3rd Company somehow, particularly that of him and Tsu'gan. He even sensed their clawed caress on this distant world.

Agatone emerged through the murk into Dak'ir's eye line. He was wiping greenskin blood from his power sword as he approached.

'The orks are slain,' he said with finality.

'If they return, we'll have Master Argos engage the Vulkan's Wrath's guns again.'

Agatone shook his head.

'No we won't. Argos has told me he can only fire them once. The recoil might collapse the bedrock holding up the ship and bury it for good. He won't risk it.'

'Then our reprieve is short-lived,' said Dak'ir.

'Precisely.'

'Any word from Captain N'keln?'

'We're trying to raise him now, but there are other matters I wish to attend to first.' Agatone's cadence was leading.

'The human settler?' Dak'ir asked, already knowing the answer.

'Precisely,' Agatone repeated. 'What did you find below the earth?'

Dak'ir kept his tone level, so his brother-sergeant would be sure of his sincerity.

'We found Nocturne.'

Agatone's face betrayed his incredulity.

'Let me introduce you to Sonnar Illiad,' said Dak'ir. 'There is much you should know, brother.'

II Death by Guilt

The dull report of explosions rumbled through the walls of the keep, manifesting physically as dust motes spilling from the ceiling. The siege was in its second phase as the greenskin warboss threw his seemingly inexhaustible forces against the Salamander-held wall. Thus far, the casualties had been few. Brother Catus had needed his neck patching up before he could return to battle and Shen'kar had received several broken bones from his fall, but those had been swiftly righted and the Inferno Guard was back at his captain's side.

There were more severe cases. Two Salamanders were currently laid out, supine, their sus-an membranes having shut their bodies down in response to the grievous wounds they'd received during the first ork assault.

Other more minor injuries - severed hands, gouged eyes, punctured lungs - appeared more frequently. Gauntlets drenched in blood, Fugis was glad of the work, but he was also glad of the solitude of the keep. Ever since Naveem and his much-maligned pact with Iagon, the Apothecary had begun to doubt himself. An excuse to stay behind the lines, away from the thunder of battle, was ready-made with the need for him to monitor the two comatose Astartes.

It was anathema for a Salamander, for any Space Marine, to shirk away from combat like this. Fugis knew it, and it preyed upon his thoughts destructively.

He allowed his gaze to wander out of the open-doored cell, one of many in the keep - this one had been cleansed by Chaplain Elysius and a flamer team, and reappropriated for use as an Apothecarion, though Fugis doubted the Iron Warriors had used it for such a curative purpose - and alight upon the shadowed confines of the torture chamber. It was close by, and the doorway to the cell was concealed by a black curtain of plastek. The traitor prisoner was inside, secured upon'one of the Chaplain's devices, his chirurgeon-interrogators acting as dutiful but deadly lapdogs outside.

It felt odd to Fugis; a place of torture and a place of healing in such close proximity. On reflection, though, perhaps the two were not so disparate.

An internal chrono-icon flashed up on the Apothecary's medi-gauntlet display, reminding him that the monitoring cycle for the stricken warriors in his care was due. Fugis gripped the edges of a mortuary slab and bowed his head.

'Vulkan's fire beats in my breast…' he began, in an effort to steel himself.

Footsteps approaching before him arrested what was next in the catechism. Fugis started to look up slowly and saw first the green of a Salamander's battle-plate.

'Brother…' he started to say, when he noticed the ragged hole in the Salamander's plastron and found the dead eyes of Naveem glaring back at him.

'Brother.' Naveem's words were slurred, but as if there were a second voice laid over the first. His breath was rank with decay and a strong stench of old blood wafted from his wound, as stinging as the irony in Naveem's tone.

His face was set in a rictus sneer.

'You're dead,' Fugis asserted ludicrously. He reached for his bolt pistol, recognising an emanation of the warp. It seemed the Chaplain's blessing had not been stringent enough and the flamers had failed to purify completely.

'Thanks to you,' replied Naveem, in that same dual voice. He didn't move, but just stood there, radiating malice and accusation. 'You killed my legacy and me, brother.'

Fugis's anger swelled at the apparition's mockery. He felt the reassuring solidity of the bolt pistol in his grasp.

'You cannot kill me twice, brother,'said Naveem.

'You are not my brother, denizen of the warp,' Fugis countered and levelled the pistol.

'I am your guilt and your doubt, Fugis,' it said.

The Apothecary faltered. What good would a bolt pistol do against a figment of his mind? The weapon wavered in his grasp.

'Now,' it said. 'Put the gun to your forehead.'

Fugis's face creased defiantly, but he found himself slowly turning the pistol around. He did feel guilty for what had happened to Naveem. It gnawed at his soul, and weighed down his spirit. Fugis wanted to succumb to it, to be drawn down into the darkness there and to never resurface.

He closed his eyes.

The bolt pistol's muzzle was hard pressed against his skull. He hadn't even realised it had got that far.

'Do it now,' the apparition's voice insisted. 'Pull the trigger and sink down, down to where the darkness calls, down to silence and peace.'

Fugis's grip was tightening. He thought of Naveem and the ignominious end he'd condemned him to, and Kadai - he had failed him, too.

A sudden pressure exerted itself on the bolt pistol's barrel, slowly but firmly easing it away from the Apothecary's forehead.

…with it I shall smite the foes of the Emperor… a familiar voice echoed in Fugis's mind.

'Ko'tan…' he rasped, opening his eyes again.

Naveem, or the thing that wore his image like a ragged cloak, was gone. The sense of something at the very edge of Fugis's vision was dissipating too. He didn't try to find it, for he knew it could not be seen. The remnant of green gauntlets, of a thunder hammer reforged and a captain reborn, stayed with him, though. It was there just long enough for Fugis to activate the comm-feed.

'Brother Praetor,' he said, knowing the 1st Company sergeant was held in reserve at the broken gate. 'I am evacuating the keep at once. All injuries will be treated at the battle front from this point.'

'They're evacuating the keep,' stated Tiberon.

Iagon nodded absently as he saw Apothecary Fugis emerge through the doors. A pack of servitors followed with a pair of collapsible medi-sleds for the two unconscious battle-brothers.

The chirurgeon-interrogators of Elysius came a few moments later, the captive Iron Warrior in tow. The Chaplain was on hand in the courtyard to survey proceedings keenly. The prisoner would be moved and secured within one of the Rhinos until such a time as Elysius was done with him. Judging by the Chaplain's demeanour, Iagon thought that might be soon.

Techmarine Draedius sealed the doors behind them with his plasma-torch.

Iagon cared little for the others. His attention was on Fugis alone. Though some fire had been undeniably restored in him, the Apothecary was still an ersatz version of his former self. Iagon saw these things; he saw weakness as clearly as a clenched fist or a drawn blade. His compact, the one he had sworn to protect Tsu'gan, was still intact.

A lull had fallen over the almost constant fighting with the Salamanders' defeat of the ork warboss's second assault. The Fire-born were tenacious, it was just their nature; Nocturneans had to be in order to survive a death world. Though perhaps ill-suited to a static defence, much preferring to engage the foe at close quarters and burn them aggressively from the face of the earth, they gritted their teeth, dug in and made every ork assault a suicidal charge into death and fire. Yes, they were winning the war of attrition it seemed. Though the orks spread out into the distance, the lapping green tide was slowly being dragged in and smashed against the Astartes' breakers. The warboss had even pulled his forces back, out of the range of the Salamanders' long guns. Orks were stubborn creatures, but even they would stop smashing their skulls against a wall if it showed no sign of capitulation. At least those with rudimentary intellect would.

Iagon imagined the beasts on the summit of the ridge conversing in low cunning, trying to devise a strategy to open up the fortress. Or perhaps they were simply waiting, waiting for the black rock to weep its dark splinters again and replenish the orks' dwindling hordes. Too many to engage in the open, not enough to force a breach in the fortress and exploit it - the two old foes found themselves at an impasse.

The recently risen sun was a shallow ring of broken yellow behind the ominous black rock. In the few hours since the last assault, it had grown larger. Whatever this thing was that had brought the greenskins to Scoria, it was closing.

'It'll be the walls next,' grumbled Sergeant Tsu'gan, appearing alongside them. He'd removed his battle-helm again and his face was grim. It was like he wore a perpetual grimace, as if a heavy weight dragged down on his features invisibly.

'Sergeant?' asked Tiberon.

Tsu'gan's attention was caught for a moment as he saw the keep being shut up for good, when he turned and peered out idly into the orks amassed at the ridgeline.

'Can't you feel it, Tiberon?' he asked. Ever since the break in the fighting, Tsu'gan had slumped gradually into a miserable stupor. They all felt it, and he guarded it keenly, but Iagon saw the effects of it in his would-be patron more severely than anyone else.

'We all do, sire,' Iagon responded. The Salamander's tone was carefully measured as he recognised the hint of mania that had entered the sergeant's voice. Tsu'gan was Iagon's route to power and influence. He must not falter, not now. A glance over to the gatehouse revealed N'keln deep in concert with Shen'kar as they sought to stymie potential breaches and reinforce. Eventually, it would not matter. Iagon knew they couldn't stay here. They all felt the baleful effects exuding from the Chaos-tainted stone and metal of the iron fortress. No fire could burn that away, no voice of faith, however ardent, could quash it. No, sooner or later they would have to abandon this strange haven, or be consumed by it.

For now, Iagon needed to bolster his sergeant. Support for Captain N'keln was growing by the hour. He had endured the fires of war and so far emerged unscathed, even re-forged.

The troops were spread thinly across the walls, and large gaps had to be tolerated by virtue of the fact that there simply weren't enough Salamanders to defend every inch of it. Iagon carefully manoeuvred Tsu'gan away from Tiberon, so that they might gain a modicum of privacy. If the other Salamander thought anything of the clandestine exchange, he didn't show it. Instead, he peered through the magnoculars at the massing ork horde readying to attack again.

'Sire, you must stand firm,' Iagon hissed.

Tsu'gan had a feral look in his eyes as he stared down at the ruddy plated-iron of the parapet. The metal looked darker, as if stained with blood. He shut his eyes to block it out and thought again of the knife and the need to use pain as a way to escape his feelings.

'This fell place is affecting us all,' Iagon pressed, desperate for some acknowledgement from his sergeant. He gripped Tsu'gan's pauldron tightly. 'But we cannot let it deter us from securing the future of the company, brother.'

Tsu'gan looked up at that. His gaze was hard. 'What are you insinuating, Iagon?'

Iagon was taken aback by Tsu'gan's sudden harshness and couldn't hide the fact.

'Why, your leadership and petition to be captain,' he answered, easing back a little as if stung.

Tsu'gan's face formed an incredulous frown.

'It is over, Iagon,' he said flatly. 'N'keln has been judged in the fires of war and found worthy. I have found him worthy.'

For a moment, Iagon was lost for words.

'Sire? I don't understand. You still have supporters in the squads. We can rally them round. If enough dissenting voices speak out—'

'No.' Tsu'gan shook his head. 'I was wrong, Iagon. My loyalty was always to the company and my battle-brothers. I will not contest N'keln, and nor should you. Now to your post,' he added, his resolve and purpose returning. 'In Vulkan's name.'

Tsu'gan turned away, and Iagon's hand fell from his pauldron. A great void had opened up within him, and all of Iagon's desires and machinations were plunging into it.

'Yes, sire…' he answered, almost without knowing he had spoken. His gaze went to N'keln at the gatehouse, the captain reborn who had somehow torn Iagon's plans from beneath him. 'In Vulkan's name.'

Brother-Sergeant Agatone listened to Sonnar Illiad's story, his expression impassive. Dak'ir and Pyriel flanked the diminutive human in the gloomy confines of a prefabricated command bunker.

Following the victory over the ork splinter force, the Salamanders had returned to their previous duties: searching the ship for survivors, excavating the worst buried areas of the hull and defending the perimeter from further attack. In the wake of the battle, the medi-tents were re-established and surgeons told to put down their borrowed lasguns and get back to work. Several of the critically wounded were found dead in their cots upon the return of the medical staff. Either shock or simply inevitable death had claimed them in the absence of continued care. They would be burned with the rest and interred later.

Though the Salamanders went to their duties earnestly, each and every one was ready to muster out at Agatone's order. They all knew he intended to lead an assault to liberate their embattled brothers at the iron fortress and lift the siege; they merely needed to means and the stratagem to do it. Reports had filtered in sporadically over the last few minutes of urgent need for the besieged Salamanders to quit the fortress. It seemed there was something unholy about it, a malicious presence that had already tried to claim some of the Astartes, a presence that was growing in strength with every moment. This imperative was part of the reason Dak'ir had insisted Agatone have an audience with Illiad, so that he could learn what the leader of the human settlers knew.

Agatone took it all in, processing the information without emotion. Immediately afterwards, Dak'ir had divulged what he and Pyriel had seen on the former bridge of the old Expeditionary ship that the settlers were partly living in. He spoke of the antique power armour suits, the pict recording and of the ancient Salamander, Gravius.

Agatone nodded as he listened, but it was as if Dak'ir had told him he was about to conduct a weapons drill, rather than the fact that possibly the oldest living Salamander in the Chapter resided beneath their feet, a potential link to Isstvan and their lost primarch.

'I'll send word to Argos, have him requisition servitors and a Techmarine to secure the armour,' Agatone replied with almost tangible pragmatism. He didn't need to see the chamber and the stony-seated Brother Gravius. He had other matters to attend to, like the rescue of Captain N'keln, and took his brothers at their word. 'We'll need Apothecary Fugis to move our ancient brother, and we cannot have him until the siege has been broken at the iron fortress,' he added, moving the conversation swiftly on to matters of strategy.

'We cannot breach the orks' lines with the forces we have,' said Dak'ir.

Immediately after the battle, Agatone had sent out scouting forces beyond the perimeter of the encampment to spy on the greenskins, to ascertain numerical strength and forewarn of any further incursions. For now, the orks were focused on N'keln only but their forces were vast. The reports that came back from the reconnoitring troops were bleak.

Agatone considered a hololith projector that showed as accurately as the Salamanders knew the greenskins' dispositions and numbers. It looked like a grainy, dark sea lapping against a tiny bulwark on the strategic imager.

'A lightning attack would be our best option,' he said. 'If we could get amongst the orks before they knew of our presence, kill their leaders and power base, it might be enough to overcome them.'

'The dunes are mainly flat on our approach,' returned Pyriel, 'and offer a clear vantage point to the ork sentries and pickets. I doubt we would get close enough to launch a surprise attack before even the dull-witted greenskins spotted us.'

Agatone scowled, continuing to scrutinise the hololith as if an answer might present itself miraculously.

It did, but not through the means the brother-sergeant had expected.

'Use the tunnels,' a voice said behind them.

The three Salamanders turned to see Illiad, who had yet to take his leave.

'Go on,' coaxed Agatone.

Illiad cleared his throat and took a step forward.

'Throughout this region, there are subterranean tunnels. Some are manmade. We dug them to expand our settlement or seek new veins of ore. It's perilous on account of the chitin and the fact that the Iron Men took up residence in our mine. Some are hewn by the chitin themselves, often deep and wide for their burrows or whilst hunting for food. All the tunnels are linked and they go as far as the iron fortress.'

'To the surface?' asked Dak'ir, pointing upwards as he said it. 'Have you mapped them, Illiad?'

Illiad licked his lips. 'Some do breach the surface, but they are not mapped. Please understand, we have lived in these tunnels for many years, generations even, and all the cartography we will need is up here.' He put a finger to his forehead. 'And not just me,' Illiad added. 'Akuma and several others know the routes intimately too.'

Agatone nodded, his mood improving.

'We can utilise the tunnels to attack the orks directly, even in their midst.' His approving gaze fell upon Illiad. 'Your men can lead us?'

The human nodded. 'I ask only one thing,' he said.

Agatone's silence bade him to continue.

'That you let us fight.'

Dak'ir was about to protest, when Illiad raised his hand.

'Please hear me out,' he said. 'I know this world faces its last days. I have seen it in your faces and heard it in the tone of your voices. Even without that evidence, I have known it for some time. The tremors worsen, and they are not because of the chitin or the overmining. It is because Scoria is slowly breaking apart. Its end nears and I would have my people die fighting for it, rather than huddled in the darkness, waiting for the lava or the earth to claim them.'

Agatone came forwards - his shadow engulfed the human before him - and laid his massive hand on Illiad's shoulder.

'You are noble, Sonnar Illiad, and you will have your wish.' Agatone held out his other hand, offering it to the human settler. 'The Salamanders would be proud to have you at our side.'

Illiad took Agatone's hand, though it almost swallowed his, and sealed the pact of honour that was offered.

'If we can save your people and leave this planet, we will,' said Agatone. 'You shall not be abandoned, left to an ignominious death. We, human and Salamander both, will live or die together. On that you have my word.'

The moment passed and Agatone released the human from his grasp and was all business again.

'How many flamers do we have in the armorium?' he asked Dak'ir.

'Enough for two per squad.'

'Take them all, arm those who are trained to use them,' said Agatone. 'All static heavy weapons are to be stowed. We will burn these greenskin down,' he asserted. 'Then gather the squads together. We'll need every one, even the sentries.'

'Are we leaving the Vulkan's Wrath undefended?' asked Dak'ir.

Agatone's face had never been more serious.

'Every one, brother-sergeant. If we fail here, there'll be nothing for the Vulkan's Wrath anyway. We'll set up the auxiliaries again and have Argos command them. Our Master of the Forge will not leave his ship, so he can watch over it instead.'

'We will still need a distraction,' suggested Pyriel. 'Something to occupy the greenskins before we launch our assault.'

'Vox Captain N'keln,' Agatone told Dak'ir. 'Tell him of our plan and ensure that he is ready for it. Our brothers in the iron fortress will have to be our distraction.'

Illiad's voice invaded the war council for a second time.

'There may be another way.' Agatone looked down at him.

'You are full of surprises, Sonnar Illiad,' he said, hinted humour breaking his stoic resolve. 'We are listening…'