Salamander

I Malevolence

'Brother-Sergeant Dak'ir, of the Salamanders 3rd Company,' replied Dak'ir, who found he was facing Sergeant Lorkar. After a moment's hesitation, he gripped the other Space Marine's forearm in a warrior greeting and nodded his respect.

'Salamanders?' said Lorkar, as if seeing them for the first time, 'Of the First Founding? We are deeply honoured.' The Marine Malevolent bowed, then stepped back to remove his battle-helm as his battle-brothers looked on.

There was a strange manner about them, Dak'ir thought. The Marines Malevolent appeared edgy. All of Lorkar's ostensible bonhomie, his deference, seemed faked, as if they had not expected company and now they had it, resented its presence.

With the gorget clasps disengaged, Lorkar lifted off his battle-helm and cradled it under one arm. Like the rest of his armour, it was chipped and scratched. Much of the yellow staining had worn away, revealing bare ceramite beneath. Black hazard markings striped the metal, which Dak'ir assumed indicated veteran status. Lorkar's grizzled visage clinched that suspicion.

Two platinum service studs were drilled into the Marine Malevolent sergeant's skull. His skin was dark and rugged as if the centuries of battlefield dirt and enemy blood were ingrained in it. Scars crosshatched his chin, jaw and cheekbones, a veritable map of old pain and remembered wars. His hair was shorn short, but done so crudely as if by shears and without care or the assistance of a serf. But it was his eyes that struck the most - they were cold and empty, as if inured to killing and bereft of compassion or regard. Dak'ir had seen flint with more warmth.

Not wishing to cause offence, Dak'ir removed his own battle-helm, mag-locking it to his weapons belt. A tremor of surprise ran across Sergeant Lorkar's face, which then spread to his cohorts, as he regarded the Salamander's visage for the first time.

'Your eyes and skin…' he began. For a moment, Dak'ir thought he saw Lorkar's hand straying to his bolter, hanging on its strap by his side. The gesture was instinctive. Clearly the Marines Malevolent had never seen an Astartes with a melanochromatic defect before.

'As our primarch made us,' Dak'ir responded evenly, aware of his own brothers' restiveness around him, and meeting Lorkar's gaze brazenly with his burning red eyes.

'Of course…' The look of thinly-veiled suspicion in Lorkar's face suggested anything but placation.

Tsu'gan's voice broke the uncomfortable silence.

'Marines Malevolent, eh? Do you find malice to be a useful tool on campaign, brother?'

Lorkar turned on the Salamander sergeant, who was obviously goading him.

Tsu'gan decided he didn't like the way their new found ''allies'' looked at Dak'ir. Their manner smacked of disgust and repellence. His intervention was not for the Ignean's benefit, Tsu'gan's contempt for him went deeper than the flesh, it was because the Marine Malevolent's slight tarred all of Vulkan's sons and that was something he could not abide.

'Hate is the surest weapon,' Lorkar replied with all seriousness. So vehement was his stress on the first word that if the sergeant had had the power to kill with it then Tsu'gan would have keeled over in his power armour there and then. 'You are the commanding officer here, Salamander?'

'No,' Tsu'gan answered flatly, taunting having now turned to outright belligerence.

'That honour is mine.' Pyriel stepped forward from the throng of Salamanders, authority and certainty never more evident in his voice and manner.

'A warp dabbler!' Dak'ir heard one of other Marines Malevolent hiss. He carried a twin-linked combi-bolter and wore a beak-shaped battle-helm made to look like a shark's mouth with painted fangs either side.

Lorkar interceded before Tsu'gan's promised violence was enacted.

'Excuse Brother Nemiok,' he said addressing Pyriel, who exhibited no reaction. 'We are unaccustomed to Librarians in ranking positions,' Lorkar explained somewhat thinly. 'The Marines Malevolent still adhere to some of the tenets laid down at Nikea.'

'An outmoded set of edicts some ten thousand years old, fashioned by a council arraigned before your Chapter was even formed,' countered Tsu'gan, his mood still truculent.

'Communion with the warp is perilous,' Pyriel intervened. 'I can understand your Chapter's caution, Sergeant Lorkar. But I can assure you that I am master of my abilities,' he declared, to defuse the situation and suspend the trading of insults before they devolved into threats and then violence. 'Perhaps we have lingered here long enough?'

'I agree,' replied Lorkar, with a dark glance at Tsu'gan before he replaced his battle-helm. He paused a moment, bowing his head slightly, and seemed to be listening intently to some private instruction. 'We should continue on together,' he said at last, surfacing from whatever discreet confabulation he had been engaged in. 'The servitors in this section of the ship are dormant now, but we can't know how long that will last and what other defences we might face.' Lorkar then turned on his heel, his warriors parting like a yellow sea to allow him through.

'Worse than Templars,' muttered Ba'ken to Emek, who was grateful that his battle-helm masked his amusement.

Dak'ir saw nothing humorous in it. The encounter with the Marines Malevolent had put him on edge. There was an air of frustrated superiority about them, suggesting they thought themselves uniquely worthy of the appellation ''Space Marine''. Yet here they were faced with a progenitor Chapter. Such evidence was difficult to refute, for even the most zealous-minded. They had an agenda, of that Dak'ir was certain. And if that conflicted with the Salamanders' mission, violence would surely follow.

The route deeper into the Archimedes Rex was conducted largely in silence. Before they had headed out after the Marines Malevolent, Brother Emek had examined the wounded Salamanders using what rudimentary medical craft he possessed and declared all injuries minor, and the recipients fit for combat. Mercifully, there had been no further encounters with the forge-ship's guardians.

For now, it appeared that Lorkar was right - the servitors had returned to slumber.

Dak'ir sat beside an iron bulkhead in some kind of expansive storage room. The room contained numerous metal crates, caskets and munitions cylinders - all of which had already been ransacked. Dak'ir was sitting on one of the empty crates, methodically engaged in weapons maintenance rituals. He glanced up sporadically at the Marines Malevolent's Techmarine, who was using breaching tools and a promethium torch from his servo-harness to prise open a sealed blast door impeding their further progress into the forge-ship. It was the first barrier of its kind they had discovered which wouldn't open through a console or operational slate, suggesting the heart of the ship lay beyond it.

The other Salamanders were locked in similar routines to the sergeant. Once the room had been made secure, many had removed their battle-helms, taking the opportunity to be free of their stifling confines if only for a few minutes - for the Marines Malevolent's part, any reaction to the Salamanders' facial appearance was kept hidden. Pyriel was silently meditative, eyes shut whilst he channelled the reserves of his psychic energy and shored up his mental bulwarks to guard against daemonic possession. Tsu'gan paced impatiently, waiting for the Techmarine to complete his task. Dak'ir had learned the Astartes's name was Harkane, though that was all the taciturn Techmarine had disclosed.

They had already deviated from Emek's route. Sergeant Lorkar insisted that he and his combat squad had already tried that way and it was blocked. Harkane had mapped another course, and it was this which they now followed. Tsu'gan had been the most reluctant to accede. Pyriel's order had made it impossible for him not to.

'We are heading away from the bridge,' Emek whispered to Dak'ir, one eye on their battle-brothers in yellow. Brother Emek was the only one not engaged in weapons maintenance, instead using his time to conduct brief examinations of his wounded brothers. He had lingered by Dak'ir on his rounds in order to converse without drawing too much suspicion. 'Whatever they are here for, it is not to find out what happened to this ship, or to search it for survivors, either. I thought you should know, brother-sergeant,' he added, before moving on his way to check on the wounded.

Battlefield surgery was one of the Salamander's many skills, useful in the absence of Fugis. Seeing Emek work reminded Dak'ir of the Apothecary and their last exchange before departing for the Hadron Belt and his assignment to reconnaissance aboard the Fire-wyvern. Fugis had remained with the rest of 3rd Company on the Vulkan's Wrath. Though his place was with N'keln, it was unlike him to eschew frontline duties. Dak'ir wondered if Fugis had lost more than just his captain when Kadai had been killed; he wondered if the Apothecary had lost a part of himself too.

The hot glare from Brother Harkane's plasma-cutter spat suddenly, arresting Dak'ir's reverie. The Techmarine made a slight adjustment and the intense beam returned to normal, the light it cast flickering over Dak'ir as he checked and reloaded his pistol's last energy cell. Despite the Salamanders' obvious paucity of ammunition, the Marines Malevolent had neglected to supplement them. The fact that their guns were so antiquated that neither the drum-mags nor the individual shells would have been suitable for their bolters made the point moot.

'Their weapons are practically relics,' whispered Ba'ken.

Dak'ir masked his sudden start - he hadn't even heard the bulky Space Marine approach. Ba'ken eyed the Marines Malevolent warily as he set his multi-melta rig down, enabling him to sit with his brother-sergeant. The Marines Malevolent showed equal distrust, swapping furtive glances and watching the Salamanders through the corners of their helmet lenses.

'The old drum-feeds are prone to jamming,' Ba'ken continued. 'I'm surprised one hasn't misfired in their faces before now.'

'They are certainly not wasteful,' agreed Dak'ir, 'But aren't all our weapons relics to one degree or another?'

Ba'ken was one of those who had removed his battle-helm during the brief abeyance and his lip curled up in distaste.

'Aye, but there are relics and there are relics,' he said, obliquely. 'These guns should have been stripped down for parts and re-appropriated years ago. A warrior is only as good as his weapon, and these dogs with their patchwork armour and archaic ideas are ragged at best.' He paused, turning to look his brother-sergeant in the eye. 'I don't trust them, Dak'ir.'

Dak'ir agreed, reminded of Emek's suspicions, but was not about to voice the fact aloud. Whether they liked it or not, the Marines Malevolent were their allies for now - tenuous ones at that. Any comment that supported Ba'ken's views would only foster greater dissension between them.

'I wonder what their purpose aboard this ship is.' Ba'ken concluded his line of thinking during his brother-sergeant's silence. Again, he echoed Emek's unspoken thoughts.

'I suspect they would ask us the same thing,' said Dak'ir.

Bak'en was about to reply when he noticed Sergeant Lorkar approaching and kept quiet.

Lorkar waited, battle-helm clasped beneath one arm, until invited by Dak'ir to sit down with them. He nodded gratefully before setting his helmet on an adjacent crate.

'The earlier hostility,' he began, 'was regrettable. We acted with suspicion and without honour. Such behaviour is beneath fellow Astartes. Allow me to make amends.' It was an unexpected move. Certainly not one that Dak'ir had foreseen.

'Unnecessary, brother. A misunderstanding is all.'

'Even still. Our blood was up and things were said not befitting one Astartes to another.'

'Apology accepted, then.' Dak'ir nodded. 'But we were as culpable as you.'

'I appreciate your magnanimity, Brother…' Lorkar leaned forward and tilted his head slightly as he searched for the name, '…Dak'ir?'

The Salamander nodded again, this time to indicate that Lorkar was correct. The Marines Malevolent sergeant eased back, perpetuating a mood of camaraderie, but it was strained and false.

'Tell me, brother,' he said, his tone leading, and now Dak'ir knew he would get to the motivation behind Lorkar's sudden contrition. 'There is no campaign in the Hadron Belt, what brings you here?'

Lorkar was cunning. Dak'ir couldn't tell for certain if the sergeant's enquiry was merely to idle away time and build confidence or if something deeper lurked behind his words. He wanted to say that his timing was uncanny, but kept it to himself.

'Retribution,' returned Tsu'gan, his voice like a blade as he approached them. Evidently tired of his pacing, the Salamander sergeant had fixed upon the conversation between Lorkar and Dak'ir. 'We seek assassins, those who slew our captain in cold blood - renegades who call themselves the Dragon Warriors.'

'A matter of legacy. I see.' Lorkar rapped his plastron. 'This section of plate came from my dead sergeant's armour. I wear it to honour his sacrifice. Two of my slain brothers once wore this vambrace and pauldron—' He held up the pieces in turn '—before my own were shattered beyond repair.'

Tsu'gan stiffened at some unseen slight, but allowed Lorkar to continue.

'Do you bear your dead captain's armour still?' he asked.

Dak'ir weighed in on his fellow sergeant's behalf. 'No. It was incinerated, rendered to ash in keeping with our native customs.'

Lorkar looked nonplussed. 'You destroyed it?' His tone suggested consternation. 'Was the battle-plate entirely beyond repair?'

'Some could have been salvaged,' Dak'ir admitted. 'But instead it was offered to the mountain of fire on Nocturne, our home world, so that Kadai could return to the earth.'

Lorkar shook his head. 'My apologies, brother, but we of the Marines Malevolent are unused to such profligacy.'

Tsu'gan could restrain himself no longer. 'Would you have us bastardise our captain's armour instead, as you do?'

The Marine Malevolent glared back at him sternly. 'We only mean to honour our fallen brethren.'

Tsu'gan straightened as if stung. 'And we do not? We pay homage to our slain heroes, our lamented dead.'

The churning report of the blast door finally prising open prevented any caustic reply from Lorkar. Instead, the sergeant merely got to his feet and went to his Techmarine.

'And what is your business here, Sergeant Lorkar? You haven't told us that,' said Dak'ir as the Marine Malevolent was leaving.

'My orders stay within the Chapter,' he replied tersely, ramming on his battle-helm and rejoining his battle-brothers.

'It is more than protocol that stays his tongue. They are hiding something,' muttered Tsu'gan, before turning away himself, a dark look directed first at Lorkar and then Dak'ir.

Once Tsu'gan had gone, Dak'ir whispered, 'Keep your eyes open.'

Ba'ken's gaze was fixed on the departing yellow-armoured sergeant. He nodded, releasing his grip from the piston-hammer.

A thin mist drifted over the deck of the cryogenic vault like the slow passage of a tired apparition. A gaseous amalgam of nitrogen and helium combined to produce the chemical compound that would catalyse the cryogenic process, it rolled languidly off a series of semi-transparent tanks situated at one end of a large metal room. A high ceiling still carried the ubiquitous censers and there were small Mechanicus shrines set into alcoves in the walls. Exposed hosing, cables and other machinery were also prevalent. It was as if they were the excised innards of some mechanical behemoth, and this room was part of its mech-biology. The dense agglomeration of pipes and wires extruded from the room's perimeter and fed to a series of cryo-caskets that dominated a pair of raised, arc-shaped platforms in the centre. Both platforms were approximately two metres off deck level and reachable via a grilled metal stairway on two sides. A deactivated lifter plate was also evident, delineated by a rectangle of warning chevrons. The natural passageway between the two platforms led to the vault's only exit, a huge blast door sealed shut by three adamantium locking bars.

Brother Emek wiped his gauntleted hand across the thick plexi-glass of one of the cryo-caskets, breaking up a veneer of hoarfrost.

'No outward vital signs,' he muttered after a few moments. 'This one is dead, too.'

The liquid nitrogen run-off pooled around the Astartes's armoured boots, curling around his greaves. It spilled off the edge of the platform where Emek was standing to hang a few centimetres above the lower deck of the vault like a ghostly veil.

At the aft-facing end of the room Harkane worked at releasing the blast door, the low hiss of his plasma-cutter a dulcet chorus to the machine-hum of the stasis tanks. Half his Marines Malevolent battle-brothers were clustered around him - Lorkar's combat squad - intent on the Techmarine's endeavours as if whatever lay beyond the door was of profound interest to them. The brother-sergeant was locked in almost constant conference with his battle-helm's comm-feed now. Whoever he was getting his orders from was issuing regular instruction and demanding progress reports. The rest of Lorkar's troops were silently guarding the forced entry point and, unless Dak'ir's instincts were off, watching him and his battle-brothers.

The Salamanders' first concern was the possibility of survivors. The Marines Malevolent's disregard in this had not gone unnoticed, but was left unchallenged. Whatever the other Astartes' mission, the Salamanders were not privy to it and it was not the place of one Chapter to question another for such flimsy reasons when all the facts were not known. Pyriel was determined it would not affect their own rescue efforts, however.

Two groups of five Salamanders, chosen from each of the two squads by their respective sergeants, were tasked with investigating the forty cryogenic chambers. Emek led one group; Iagon the other. Two ranks of twenty dominated the raised deck space, situated opposite the blast doors against either wall. Within were human adepts. Some had amputated limbs, fused stumps trailing insulated cables and wiring; others had hollow eye sockets, ringed with pink scar-tissue and tiny puncture marks where the installation pins had gone in and then been retracted. The crew's constituent mechanical components - bionic eyes, arms, mechadendrite clusters and even a half-track for a double leg amputee - were locked away in transparent armour-plas receptacles, stamped with the Mechanicus cog and fastened to their individual cryo-caskets. So far, eighteen of the forty were dead.

For one the freezing process had malfunctioned, atrophying his body, ice crystals infecting his lifeless skin like a contagion; another had simply drowned in the solution that had failed to catalyse when the casket was activated, the adept's eyes wide with frozen panic, a forlornly beating fist held for eternity stuck to the inner-glass. The others had succumbed to cardiac infarction - possibly brought on through shock during the cryogenic process or at the separation of their mechanised limbs and augmentation - hypothermia or other, unidentifiable, mortalities.

One thing was clear. The steps taken to preserve the crew, what few still lived, had been conducted in haste.

'Brother-Sergeant Dak'ir,' Emek's voice came over the comm-feed in his battle-helm.

'Go ahead, brother,' Dak'ir returned. He was standing on the lower deck alongside Brother Apion who was trying to raise the Vulkan's Wrath through a ship-to-ship comm-device set up in the room. Thus far he'd had no success - the strike-cruiser was obviously still out of range.

'I need you to see this, sir,' Emek replied.

Dak'ir instructed Apion to continue. A self-conscious glance at Tsu'gan revealed his brother-sergeant to be intent on Lorkar and his warriors at the blast door. A cursory examination of the Salamanders' other forces showed that Pyriel was similarly engrossed, though Dak'ir suspected the Librarian's awareness went far beyond that of his fellow brother-sergeant. Those battle-brothers not engaged with checking the cryo-caskets were keeping sentry. The Salamanders mixed with the Marines Malevolent directly and the tension between them was almost palpable. Ba'ken, in particular, caught Dak'ir's attention positioned next to a Space Marine who was almost his match in sheer bulk. The Marine Malevolent bore a skull-faced battle-helm, the beak nose sheared off and sealed in order to promote the cranial analogue. Not like a Chaplain's, masterfully wrought to resemble bone, the battle-helm's decoration was painted on. He also carried a plasma gun, and held it with the sureness of a warrior born. The two massive Space Marines were very alike, but stoically refused to acknowledge one another. Dak'ir hoped it would stay that way as he reached the top of the stairway and the cryo-caskets.

Emek was a third of the way down the sub-group of four he was analysing when he saw his sergeant approach. Evidently, it was slow going.

Most of the associated instrumentation of the cryo-caskets was damaged, so there was no way to tell how long the stasis-sleep had lasted. It also retarded the assessment of vital signs, but the Salamanders engaged in that duty did so exhaustively and methodically. The majority of the bio-monitors situated beneath the caskets were no longer operating, either, or were simply too encrusted with ice to be readable. From the corner of his helmet lens, Dak'ir noted Iagon using his auspex to ascertain life signs in certain cases. The battle-brother acknowledged him from across the small gulf between the platforms, and Dak'ir felt his guard go up instinctively.

'Sir,' said Emek with a slight nod, once his sergeant had reached him.

'Show me, brother.'

Emek stepped back to allow Dak'ir to move in and get a better look. 'See for yourself, sergeant.'

Emek had smeared away the rime of ice crystals obscuring the view through the casket's plexi-glass frontis. Dak'ir peered through the ragged gap in the frost and saw the remains of the adept inside. It was difficult to discern at first: the nitro-helium solution was tainted with blood, lots of blood. Other things floated in the tank too, held fast in the stagnant liquid.

'Flesh,' Emek said from behind him. 'Bone chips too, if I'm not mistaken.'

'Mercy of Vulkan…' Dak'ir breathed. His voice was made even hollower through his battle-helm.

'Self-mutilation, sir.' The explanation was hardly necessary. Deep lacerations ran down the adept's torso, arms and legs, four-pronged as if dug by fingernails. The stark evidence of the adept's hands supported that theory - they were stained with blood. Three of the nails had been ripped off, revealing the soft red membrane beneath; the rest were clogged with shreds of flensed skin.

'This one had ocular implants?' Dak'ir asked.

'No, sir.'

The eyes, then, had been torn out. Gore streaked from the ruined sockets that were deep and red and visceral. Dak'ir regarded the abomination sternly.

'Assessment?'

Emek paused, weighing up his words, until his sergeant faced him to demand an answer. 'I believe the ship turned on itself, though I don't know how or why,' he said.

Dak'ir remembered the view of the Archimedes Rex through the Fire-wyvern's occuliport; in retrospect, the weapons damage was strange. It was possible that the ship's crippling had been self-inflicted. It might also explain why they had encountered one single magos - he was the last standing, having killed the rest. The cryo-vault was sealed, not against foreign invaders, but to keep the rest of the ship's inhabitants out.

'What about the servitors?' Dak'ir followed his line of reasoning out loud.

'They aren't sentient like the magos and the other adepts. Perhaps they weren't affected in the same way.'

Dak'ir took one last look at the mutilated adept in the tank. His salvation had come too late. Sealed in the cryo-casket, and with nothing to attack, he had evidently turned on himself.

'Keep looking for survivors,' he said, turning, glad to avert his gaze from the gruesome spectacle.

As he walked back down the access stairway, Dak'ir's comm-feed crackled to life. It was on a closed channel with himself and Tsu'gan.

'Brother-sergeants.'

Dak'ir looked over at the sound of Pyriel's voice. The Librarian maintained his vigil over their dubious allies. The cause for his words was obvious. The Marines Malevolent had opened up the blast doors. When he reached the Librarian, Dak'ir saw inside the chamber the other Astartes had been so fixated on. It was a massive storage room, akin to the one they'd discovered earlier only much larger. Also unlike the smaller munitions store, this one had a vast cache of manufactured arms and armour: Mk VII battle-plate hung in suits from overhead armatures; bolters sat in racks like parade soldiers, pristine and unfired; ammo crates brimming with sickle mags for the guns were piled in pallets of a hundred, a thousand clips per crate. Materiel spanned the hangar-like room in an unending slew of grey-black.

The Marines Malevolent were already emptying it, positioning guns, ammunition and power armour directly outside the chamber within an invisibly delineated area.

Dak'ir then realised what Lorkar and his battle-brothers were doing on the Archimedes Rex. The fledgling weapons were the perfect replacements for their arcane militaria. The Marines Malevolent were re-supplying; appropriating the materiel cache from the forge-ship for their own purposes.

One of the yellow-armoured warriors, the shark-helmeted Brother Nemiok, had been in brief concert with his sergeant and afterwards removed something from a large belt pouch. It was a bulky device, hoisted into position atop the centre of the small arms cache by a thick handle, and consisted of a narrow-necked tube with a lozenge-shaped tip that contained a beacon, appended with small pistons that powered a ribbed compression cylinder.

Though crude and out-dated, Dak'ir recognised it at once. It was a teleport homer. En route to the Archimedes Rex, the Salamanders had neither seen nor detected another vessel. Dak'ir could only assume the Fire-wyvern's sensor arrays lacked the range to discover it, for he was sure now that the Marines Malevolent had a cruiser nearby, its teleportarium primed for the stolen Mechanicus haul.

Tsu'gan stormed towards the ring of yellow-armoured Astartes that had formed just in front of the teleportation zone.

'What do you think you're doing, brother!' he growled, ignoring the others and addressing Lorkar directly.

The sergeant was directing two of his battle-brothers hefting the equipment out of the storage room and didn't look at Tsu'gan when he answered.

'What it looks like, Salamander. I am re-supplying my Chapter.'

'You steal that which is not meant for you,' he countered, clenching his fists. 'I did not realise the Marines Malevolent were honourless pirates.'

Now Lorkar turned, and his previous nonchalance crumbled away.

'We are true servants of the Emperor. Our integrity is beyond reproach. We seek only the means to prosecute His wars.'

'Then honour the pact made between He and the Mechanicus. We Astartes have no call to pillage and ransack the stricken ships of Mars. You are no better than carrion snapping at the flesh of a corpse.'

'What concern is it of yours, anyway?' Lorkar returned, a slight tilt of his head suggested a glance at something behind the Salamander. 'Stay out of it.'

Tsu'gan felt the lightest pressure on his pauldron when he turned swiftly, seizing the wrist of the Space Marine attempting to surprise him and twisting until the bones snapped and he forced his assailant to one knee.

'Attempt to rise and I shall shatter your kneecap,' Tsu'gan promised, addressing the skull-faced Marine Malevolent with the plasma gun. Despite the obvious pain he was in, the yellow-armoured Astartes looked to his sergeant before he would relent.

Ba'ken stirred from his sentry position, as did the other Salamanders on overwatch, together with those manning the cryo-caskets.

'Remain where you are.' Pyriel's curt command arrested any further escalation.

Ba'ken seemed about to press anyway, when a glance from Dak'ir warned him off and he merely watched instead. Of the Marines Malevolent, only Brother Rennard had broken ranks, doubtless in response to an earlier directive from his sergeant.

Lorkar's fists were clenched as he considered what to do next. It was as if time had frozen. The tension in the room was strained; a little more pressure and it would break out in bloody violence. Dak'ir noticed that Harkane had switched the gun platform from dormant to active, the red targeting matrix hazing in the cryo-gas.

He thought about disabling the Techmarine. He still had enough charge in his plasma pistol for a wounding shot. It took less than a second for Dak'ir to decide against it. So delicately poised as the situation was, any unexpected move could be disastrous. Tsu'gan had the lead for now and he had to be content with that. A degree of insurance would be prudent, though, and it was with this in mind that Dak'ir issued the sub-vocal command into a closed channel of the comm-feed.

'Do you really want to do this?' Tsu'gan still had his back to Lorkar, glaring down intently at the Marine Malevolent under his control.

Lorkar exhaled slowly and released his clenched fists. 'Brother Rennard, stand down,' he ordered reluctantly, and the skull-faced Astartes relaxed. Tsu'gan let him go, facing Lorkar again, an awkward stand-off in prospect.

'These weapons can either gather dust on this wreck or be put to use destroying the enemies of mankind. We will not abandon them.'

Pyriel's voice invaded the deadlock. 'You are wrong. They will be returned to the Mechanicus for proper allocation,' he said. 'You are outnumbered by a superior force. Neither of us wants a conflict here. Relent at once or face the consequences.'

Harkane shifted, about to do something he would later regret, when he staggered a little as if stunned.

Iwould collapse your mind before your finger squeezed the trigger!

Dak'ir heard the psychic impel that was meant only for Harkane, and it chilled him.

Lorkar, who had not been privy to the mental threat, continued undeterred, nodding with assertion. 'The weapons and armour are leaving this ship—' he paused mid flow, slightly bowing his head again as instructions were relayed through his comm-feed.

'Let us all hear your orders, Malevolent,' Tsu'gan growled contemptuously. 'Or is the voice on the other end of that comm-feed too craven?'

Rennard had got to his feet and was supporting his broken wrist, when he spoke up. 'You disrespect a captain of the Astartes!'

Tsu'gan turned on him next.

'Show me this captain,' he demanded. 'I hear only a whispering coward hiding behind the pauldrons of his sergeant.'

Ba'ken loomed suddenly behind the belligerent Rennard, who was slightly crouched with his injury and wise enough to make no further move, merely seething behind his macabre battle-helm.

Dak'ir nodded to the bulky Salamander, who returned the gesture.

'Well then?' Tsu'gan pressed, focused on the Marine Malevolent sergeant. 'Where is he?'

Lorkar stalked forwards, the ring of armour parting to let him through as he unhitched an item from his belt and came face-to-face with Tsu'gan. Going to his fellow brother-sergeant's side at once, Dak'ir noticed Pyriel making a similar move as Lorkar whispered:

'As you wish…'

Brace yourselves!

II Purgatory

It was the last thing Dak'ir heard as the cryo-vault disappeared in a brilliant magnesium flash. Then came pain, so raw and invasive it was as if his organs were twisting inside out, as if the very molecular structure of his being was breaking down in a nanosecond, atom by atom, reforming and disintegrating again a moment later. Sulphur and cordite wreathed his nostrils, so overwhelming he couldn't breathe. The acrid taste of copper filled his mouth as all notions of time and existence bled away into a soup of primal instinct, like being born. The tangible gave way to the ethereal as all meaning fled from his senses.

The light subsided as an image slowly resolved around Dak'ir. The actinic stench remained, as did the blood lining his teeth and in his mouth. He saw metal, felt it concretely beneath his booted feet. A sensation of nausea followed, supplemented by a bout of sudden vertigo making Dak'ir stagger as the corporeal world reestablished itself.

He was on a ship. The device in Lorkar's hand had been a homing beacon, through which he'd teleported them aboard.

'The nausea will pass,' a grating voice Dak'ir recognised as Sergeant Lorkar's assured them.

Dak'ir was standing in a large circular room. It had a vaulted ceiling that led away into unfathomable darkness, and was poorly lit by sodium simulacra-lamps. Around its vast circumference, the room was papered with cloth banners describing numerous victories with rubrics daubed in High Gothic script, yellow-and-black armoured Astartes holding skulls and other grisly talismans aloft to the adulation of a horde. A hundred campaigns or more were arrayed across the chamber's ambit, each devoted to the Marines Malevolent Chapter's 2nd Company. The Marines Malevolent were not a First Founding Chapter, they had not fought in the Great Crusade, bringing thousands of worlds into compliance, but on the evidence of their laurels, one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

Accenting the self-aggrandising banners were other trophies - the actual macabre totems depicted on the cloth. Dak'ir saw the flayed skulls of xenos: orks, their jutting jaws and sloped brows unmistakable; the tyranid bio-form he recognised from the Chamber of Remembrance on Prometheus and the wing devoted to 2nd Company recounting their exploits on Ymgarl, when they cleansed the moon of a genestealer infestation. The bleached cranium of a hated eldar also sneered down at him, its countenance as haughty and disdainful in death as it was in life. The graven battle-helms of the Traitor Legions were also present, hollowed out and staring balefully. Disturbingly, he caught sight of a battle-helm that did not bear any Chaotic hallmarks he could discern, though it sparked a pang of remembrance in him. It was difficult to tell in the gloom and he was still fighting off the unpleasant lingering sensation of the recent teleport, but it appeared to be stygian black with a bony protrusion punching through the apex of the helmet like a crest.

'Idiot - you could have killed us all with that stunt.' Tsu'gan's voice arrested Dak'ir's attention. His fists were bunched as he directed his wrath at Lorkar. The Salamander sergeant was shaking, though Dak'ir couldn't tell if it was with anger or if he too was still acclimatising to their sudden transition from the Archimedes Rex.

Tsu'gan was right, though. Teleportation was a dangerous and inexact science. Even with the benefit of a homing beacon, the chances of becoming lost in the warp or translating back as a gibbering morass of fleshy blubber as your insides became your outsides were still uncomfortably high. To engage in teleportation when those translating had not been primed or were not wearing Terminator armour to protect them from the physical rigours of the process was even more hazardous.

'I did it to make a point.' The voice was hard like iron, full of power and self-confidence. It echoed from the edge of the room where the gloom gathered, and the Salamanders followed it to its source.

Bisecting the circle of glory was a steel dais holding up a black throne upon which sat a figure in the manner of a recumbent king. Only the tips of the figure's boots were visible, together with the suggestion of a yellow greave cast in the corona of light issuing from a nearby simulacra-lamp. His identity was swathed in shadow for now.

He was evidently a student of war history. Above the throne were numerous maps of ancient conquests and crusades. There were weapons, too: esoteric firearms, blades of unknown origin and other strange devices. The throne room was a proud boast, designed to promote the captain's obvious sense of vainglory.

'I am Captain Vinyar and this is my ship, the Purgatory. Whatever control you think you have here, you are wrong. The Mechanicus vessel is mine, I lay claim to all its contents.'

'Lay claim? You may lay claim to nothing, and will release the Archimedes Rex to our charge in the name of the Emperor,' said Tsu'gan.

'Cool your temper, brother-sergeant,' Pyriel warned in a low voice, a spectator until now. 'You are addressing a captain of the Astartes.' Dak'ir noted that unlike him and his brother-sergeant, the Librarian showed no outward signs of discomfort from their enforced journey.

'You are wise to rein your sergeant in, Librarian,' said Vinyar and leaned forward into the light in order to show his face.

The captain's countenance was as adamantine as his voice. Callous eyes glared out from an almost square head sat on broad Astartes shoulders. Bald, apart from the sporadic tufts of closely-shaven hair infecting his scalp like hirsute lesions, Vinyar had a stubbled chin with a jaw like a hammer-head. Three platinum service studs punctuated a line across his brow above a bloodshot left eye.

Vinyar wore the yellow and black battle-plate of his brothers. Both pauldrons carried chevrons, the veteran ''hazard'' markings of the Marines Malevolent, and a ragged cloak of black ermine unfurled from his shoulders like old sackcloth. His left arm ended in a power glove, though the fingers looked to be fused, indicating they could no longer be opened. Dak'ir sensed that Vinyar had no use for gripping with it anyway, and needed it only as a hammer with which to brutalise his enemies.

A trace of amusement curled up his top lip in the approximation of a smile, but there was no mirth in it. If Lorkar was grizzled, then Vinyar was positively leaden by comparison.

Dak'ir noted that the hard-faced captain did not bother to ask Pyriel's or, indeed, any of their names. The fact was evidently unimportant to him.

'He makes a valid point, though, Brother-Captain Vinyar,' Pyriel asserted, stepping forward as Lorkar was dismissed by his superior.

'Oh yes…' invited Vinyar.

Dak'ir noticed armoured figures lumbering in the penumbral shadows at the edge of the throne room, just beyond the walls of victory banners. He recognised the forms as Terminators, but wearing an ersatz variant of the modern Tactical Dreadnought Armour. It was bulky with raised pauldrons surmounting a sunken, box-shaped battle-helm that had a rudimentary mouth-grille. The armour was much less refined with restricted dexterity, though it carried a fairly standard weapons array consisting of a power glove, but with a twin-linked combi-bolter in lieu of the more usual storm bolter. Despite their archaism, the Astartes wearing those suits were still deadly. Pyriel went on undaunted.

'That you will leave the Archimedes Rex at once and render the forge-ship to us.'

'You are welcome to it, brother.' Vinyar grinned. Dak'ir likened it to the expression a shark might make if ever amused. 'I only desire its contents.'

'Which you will also yield to us,' Pyriel replied, not rising to Vinyar's facetiousness.

Vinyar leaned back and was lost to shadow again, evidently tiring of the game he was playing.

'Bring it up on the screen,' he said into the ship's vox-link, situated on the arm of his throne.

A small antenna poked its way up insidiously from between the cracks in the deck plate a short distance from Vinyar's throne. Once it had reached two metres in height it stopped and expanded into three metre-length prongs at its apex, between which a holographic image was revealed. It showed the Archimedes Rex, or rather a close up view of a section of its generatoria unseen from the Fire-wyvern's angle of approach. The pict threw off grainy blue light, and cast Vinyar macabrely in the half-dark.

'The generatoria you see in the holo-cast provides power to the forge-ship's life support systems, amongst some others.'

The image panned out swiftly, showing the end of a scorched cannon turret. 'One of the Purgatory's many,' Vinyar revealed. 'Master Vorkan, do you have a firing solution?'

A disembodied voice replied from the vox-link. 'Yes, my lord.'

Vinyar turned his attention back to the Salamanders.

'A single lance salvo will critically damage that generatoria, destroying the life support systems and with it any chance of rescuing any survivors aboard.'

Tsu'gan bristled with barely contained rage. Dak'ir felt his knuckles crack as he subconsciously made fists. Such an act was unconscionable. To treat human life with such flagrant disregard; it made him sick to the stomach, so much so that his objections came out in a grating rasp.

'You cannot mean to do this. To appropriate arms, to steal from a crippled ship is one thing, but murder?'

'I am no murderer, brother-sergeant.' Vinyar's eyes were dark hollows pinpricked by tiny spots of malice as he regarded Dak'ir. 'Murder is an assassin's bullet or a hiver's blade in the back. I am a soldier, as are you. And in battle, sacrifices must be made. I act out of necessity, in order that my Chapter should prevail. It is your hand that forces mine, not the other way around.'

'Do that and I will have no other recourse but to order my Astartes aboard the Archimedes Rex to take custody of yours, the outcome of which would not end favourably for you,' said Pyriel, re-entering the fray. 'Would you condemn your warriors to that fate?'

The holo-pict shut off, killing the light as the broadcast antenna retracted.

Vinyar leaned forwards again, scoffing. 'Of course not, they would be extracted before the attack even took place.'

'How?' Tsu'gan's tone was scornful. 'Even the Raven Guard couldn't perform such a manoeuvre.'

Vinyar turned his attention to the brother-sergeant. 'In the same way we extracted you. Teleportation is much easier going out than coming in, hence the reason I favoured boarding torpedoes for our initial breach.'

The arrogant captain allowed a pause. In it, his mood of vainglory seemed to gloss over for a moment, replaced by a veneer of sincerity.

'We Astartes are brothers. We should not come to blows over this. There is no malice here; it is only war. I have fought in over a hundred campaigns, over hundreds of worlds and hundreds of systems. Xenos, traitors and heretics, witches and daemons of all forms - they have died by my righteous hand. Humanity owes a debt of gratitude to my Chapter, as it does all the Chapters of the Astartes. It is by our will and strength of arms that they are kept safe, ignorant of the terrors of Old Night.' He made an expansive gesture with his arm as if to suggest the universe was contained in his very throne room. 'What are the fates of a few balanced against a galaxy of trillions?'

'Bad deeds are bad deeds,' countered Dak'ir. 'There is no scale upon which they can be weighed against your victories, brother-captain, no measure that can account for monstrous acts.'

Vinyar held up his hand, his voice never more serious.

'I am no monster. I do what I must to serve the Emperor's light. But make no mistake…' And like a harsh wind blowing away the ash from a smothered fire, his plaintive demeanour came away. 'I am the master here. And it is I who shall dictate what—'

The crackling of the vox-link on the arm of his throne interrupted him.

'Yes.' Vinyar hissed with impatience.

'My lord,' the disembodied voice issued from some other unknown part of the ship, 'a vessel is hailing us.' There was a short pause before the voice continued. 'It is an Astartes strike cruiser.'

Vinyar raised an eyebrow as he turned to regard the Salamanders. The exchange between them remained unspoken, and as he suddenly felt his dominance slipping away like earth from a sundered hill, he issued a reluctant command.

'Broadcast it into my throne room.'

The link was cut and a new rain of static began as the ship's communications patched in from another source.

'Yours, I presume,' Vinyar muttered with bitter disdain.

Pyriel didn't even have time to nod as Captain N'keln's voice rang powerfully throughout the room from concealed vox speakers in the walls.

'This is Brother-Captain N'keln of the Salamanders 3rd Company, aboard strike cruiser Vulkan's Wrath. Release my men at once or face the consequences.'

Dak'ir smiled behind his battle-helm. Evidently Brother Apion had managed to establish contact with their ship.

'You address Captain Vinyar of the Marines Malevolent, and we do not respond to demands.' Vinyar was bullish, despite the precarious position he was in.

'Youwill respond to mine,' N'keln replied curtly. 'Escort my men back to the Archimedes Rex. I will not ask a third time.'

'Your men are free to go when they choose. It was they that requested an audience.'

'You will also hand over the forge-ship to our authority.' N'keln pressed, ignoring what the other captain had just said.

Vinyar scowled, clearly not liking where this was going.

'The ship is ours,' he hissed, his expression dark as he surveyed the three Salamanders before him, foisting all of his anger upon them in lieu of their absent captain. 'I will not relinquish it.'

There was another pause before the vox-link crackled again and the disembodied voice from before issued out.

'My lord, we are detecting weapons priming on the Vulkan's Wrath.'

Vinyar whirled to confront the vox-link as if it were an enemy that could be threatened or intimidated to change its report.

'What?' he snapped, flashing daggers at Pyriel. 'Confirm: the Salamander ship is bringing weapons to bear?'

'A full broadside of laser batteries, yes my lord.'

Vinyar hammered the arm of his throne with his power fist and crushed it. With the remnants of shattered circuitry and other detritus dripping to the ground from his fist, he glared at the invaders in front of him.

'You would fire upon a fellow Astartes vessel, but rail at me for threatening to execute a gaggle of human serfs?'

The Salamanders remained stoic in their silence. The confrontation was all but over now; they only needed to wait it out.

Vinyar slumped back heavily in his half-demolished throne, all arrogance and superiority having bled away from his expression and his body language - in its place was seething annoyance. The air was charged, and for a moment it seemed as if the Marine Malevolent captain was debating whether or not to engage the Vulkan's Wrath anyway and slay the interlopers aboard his ship. In the end, he relented.

'Take the vessel, if you must. But mark me: this misdeed will be remembered, Salamanders. None who raise arms against the Marines Malevolent do so without consequence or reply.' Vinyar turned away from them then to quietly brood in the shadows. When he did speak again a few seconds later, his voice was little more than a hate-filled whisper.

'Now, get off my ship.'

Not wishing to risk the capriciousness of the Purgatory's teleportarium or its captain's spite, Pyriel transported the errant Salamanders back aboard the Archimedes Rex by psychically opening a gate of infinity into the immaterium. Invoking such power was not without risk, but Pyriel as an Epistolary-level Librarian was accomplished in his craft. The three Astartes arrived back in the cryo-vault aboard the forge-ship without mishap.

Though still uncomfortable, Dak'ir found the experience much less disconcerting as the metal walls of the room slowly resolved around him. An eldritch storm heralded their arrival as the veil over the material realm was peeled back to allow the Salamanders through. Re-emerging into reality, they found themselves encircled by their battle-brothers, weapons ready in the event of something unnatural coming across with them, seeking access via the breach in the fabric of reality that Pyriel had torn in order to effect their crossing.

Upon transition back aboard the Archimedes Rex, and after the dispersal of their vigilant battle-brothers, Dak'ir noticed that the Marines Malevolent were gone. Vinyar had evidently made good on his promise to haul his warriors out of the ship. But that wasn't all that was missing. The modest cache of arms the Marines Malevolent had piled up ready for teleport was absent too.

'When did this happen?' Tsu'gan demanded to know as soon as he'd realised the weapons and armour were missing.

'Upon extraction, no more than a minute before your arrival,' offered Brother S'tang, 'Men and materiel fled as one.'

S'tang was one of those keeping sentry and who had reacted upon his errant sergeant's return.

Tsu'gan shook his head in disgust and turned to Brother Apion, who was stationed farther away by the ship's vox-link. It was he who had re-established contact with the Vulkan's Wrath.

'This cannot stand. Raise Captain N'keln at once. We must chase these curs down and take back what they've stolen.'

'With respect, brother-sergeant, Captain N'keln has already been informed.' Tsu'gan's wrath was stayed a moment. 'And what is to be done?'

'Nothing, sir. The captain is content that we have the ship and the bulk of its arms. He does not wish to press the issue with the Marines Malevolent any further.'

'For what reason?' Tsu'gan asked, his anger abruptly returned. 'They are pirates, tantamount to renegades in my eyes. Vinyar and his whoresons must be brought to account for this.'

Brother Apion, to his great credit, was unflinching in the face of the sergeant's ire. 'Those are the captain's orders, sir.'

'Given without explanation?'

'Yes, sir.' Iagon's voice insinuated its way into the debate.

'I am certain the captain would have had his reasons, brother-sergeant. It is likely he did not wish to risk the lives of any potential Mechanicus survivors.' He had not been amongst the sentry party, and was standing just below the raised platform having recently descended following his duties and cast his gaze over the cryo-caskets. Few as that may be. The company is also sore from its previous campaign. We are still licking our wounds. He may not have favoured conflict with another strike cruiser bereft of the element of surprise.'

'You should hold your tongue, Iagon, forked as it is.' Ba'ken loomed over the other Salamander. 'The captain's orders are not for you to discuss.'

Iagon tried not to balk in the face of the massive warrior's presence. He merely made a plaintive gesture and backed away a step, before feigning interest in cryo-casket readings patched in to his auspex.

Dak'ir took up the baton for his heavy weapons trooper.

'Captain N'keln is wise enough to know any fight with a fellow battle-brother, albeit from a Chapter as arbitrary as the Marines Malevolent, is a foolish and futile one.'

'Your opinion is neither warranted nor asked for, Ignean,' Tsu'gan replied darkly. The mood around the gathered Salamanders was becoming strained. It was as if the Marines Malevolent had never gone.

'Let it rest, brother-sergeant,' Pyriel's voice was as stern and uncompromising as an anvil. A faint aura of power was dying in his helmet lenses, and Dak'ir assumed the Librarian had been telepathically communicating with their distant brothers. 'The Vulkan's Wrath is already en route to us. We are to regroup in the fighter bay where we'll be met by a Thunderhawk. The survivors and their cryo-caskets are to be made ready for transport.'

Tsu'gan was ready to object, clearly incensed at what he saw as capitulation in the face of an enemy. Pyriel steered him back on target.

'Youhave your orders, brother-sergeant.'

Tsu'gan's body relaxed as he found his composure.

'As you wish, my lord,' he returned and went to organise his squad.

Dak'ir watched him go, seeing the anger linger upon him like a dark stain. Tsu'gan was poor at hiding his feelings, even behind the ceramite mask of his battle-helm. But Dak'ir sensed his displeasure was not directed at the Librarian, but at N'keln instead. Suddenly the ugly spectre of dissension with 3rd Company loomed once more.

Trying to put it out of his mind, he focused on the other Salamanders who were now busy securing the cryo-caskets for immediate evacuation and transit, disengaging them from the ship's onboard systems and allowing the internal power source of each to maintain it. A risky procedure for sure, and one not without casualties, but it was the only way any of the still living adepts were going to make it off the Archimedes Rex. Much like the initial assessment of the cryo-inhabitants' condition, careful extraction from the forge-ship was a slow process. Gradually though, Emek and Iagon - who had subsequently returned to his original duties - led their teams to work through each and every casket. The report at the end of it was bleak: only seven survivors.

It seemed small recompense for such an arduous journey. Dak'ir was reminded again of the doubt expressed in N'keln's judgement in insisting on this mission. The fallow results aboard the forge-ship could only serve to justify that doubt. He wondered briefly how many more of these cryo-vaults were situated around the ship and if it was even possible for the Salamanders to reach them and secure additional survivors. Those seven that still lived, when brought aboard the Vulkan's Wrath when it eventually reached them, would need to be taken to a nearby Imperial medical facility until the Mechanicus could recover them. That was assuming the Martians were even interested in collecting them. Whatever the case, upon revival and restoration, they would be pressed back into the service of the glorious Imperium.

'Glad to see you've returned to us in one piece, with your entrails inside your armour and all limbs attached,' said Ba'ken in a low voice, intruding unknowingly on Dak'ir's thoughts.

'Your relief is second only to my own, brother. Vinyar, their captain, was like no Astartes I have ever met. He was utterly ruthless - the antithesis of a Salamander. It is good to be back amongst my Chapter. It set me thinking, though. Whether or not we are too compassionate and if it is the very fact we value human life, perhaps more so than any of our brothers, that hampers our effectiveness as warriors.'

Ba'ken laughed quietly and without mirth. 'Chaplain Elysius would tell us that Astartes do not experience doubt, that they are sure in all things, especially war. But there is a difference between dogma and reality, I think. Only by questioning and then knowing the answers are right can we truly obtain certainty. As for compassion being a weakness… I don't think so, sir. Compassion is our greatest asset. It is what bonds us as brothers, and unites us towards a righteous and noble purpose,' Ba'ken replied, as sure and steady as the rock of Mount Death-fire itself.

'Our bond feels strained of late.' The implication at the discord in 3rd Company was obvious by Dak'ir's tone.

'Aye, and this latest mission will have done nothing to alleviate it.'

As those dark thoughts were churning through Dak'ir's mind, some unknown imperative at the edge of his subconscious made him turn towards the gaping blast doors that led into the storage room. The Marines Malevolent had escaped with only a meagre percentage of the materiel within, but Dak'ir felt compelled to see what they had left behind anyway.

'Brother-sergeant?' Ba'ken's voice invaded the sudden introspection.

Dak'ir looked back at him.

'Is something amiss?' Ba'ken asked.

Dak'ir hadn't even realised he'd started walking away from him. As if drawn by a siren's song, he had drifted towards the storage room and was almost at its threshold when Ba'ken had hailed him.

'No, brother.' Though truthfully, Dak'ir did not even know. 'The remaining arms cache must be inspected before transit; that is all.'

'Then let the serfs do that upon our return to the Vulkan's Wrath. It is no task for an Astartes, let alone a brother-sergeant.'

'A cursory examination only, Ba'ken.' Even to Dak'ir, his explanation sounded weak. He felt oddly detached, like when the teleportarium had wrenched them from the material realm and returned them aboard the Purgatory. Only this was somehow different, almost ethereal as if a layer of fog had manifested over the world around him, giving some sensations clarity whilst dampening others, and heightening his awareness.

'Do you require assistance? I can assign G'heb and Zo'tan.'

'No, Ba'ken, that won't be necessary. I can do this alone.' Just before he turned back, Dak'ir added as an afterthought, 'You are wise, Ba'ken, and would make an excellent sergeant.'

'Ah, but some are meant to lead and some are just meant to fight, brother,' he replied. 'I know I am of the latter.'

If he could have seen his face behind his battle-helm, Dak'ir felt sure that the heavy weapons trooper would be smiling. And then, unable to resist the pull any longer, Dak'ir entered the storage room as Ba'ken and the rest of his battle-brothers were lost from sight.

The vast chamber of materiel seemed larger within than it had without. A small army could be outfitted from the ranks of guns, armour and ammunition inside it. As Dak'ir paced slowly down its length, at least a hundred metres from end to end, he noticed racks of heavy weapons stored amongst the bolters: missile launchers sat together in foam-padded crates, their incendiaries snug alongside them in clusters of three; heavy bolters arranged on separate weapons racks looked bulky and full of violent potential, belt-feeds coiled up in drums next to them; rows of flamers, igniter nozzles pristine, rested beside cylinders of volatile promethium. Dak'ir noticed the suits of power armour, too - all dark metal, waiting to be baptised in the colours of the Chapter for whom they were intended, for the artisans and Techmarines to add insignia and the sigils of honour.

All were as shadows as Dak'ir passed them. They seemed dull and monochrome like a room washed in low light. The keening call, his siren's song, was a buzzing in his ears now, an insistent throb at the base of his skull like a slow-beating heart. Nearing the back of the long chamber, the throb became faster and faster, the noise in his ears more high-pitched. Just when Dak'ir thought he might cry out, the sound stopped. He saw a simple metal chest nestled at the very back of the room, incongruous amongst all the munitions. It was a small thing; Dak'ir could have held it in one hand. Rectangular in shape, it had hard edges that reminded him of the head of an anvil, and something was inscribed on the flat lid.

It was only a chest, an innocuous vessel for some unknown item, yet Dak'ir hesitated as he reached for it. Fear wasn't the emotion that stayed his hand, such things were beneath Astartes; rather it felt like awe.

'Dak'ir…'

Dak'ir reacted to the voice behind him, turning quickly then relaxing when he saw Pyriel, but only a fraction. The Librarian was looking at something at waist height on the brother-sergeant.

Dak'ir followed his eye line and saw the chest was cradled in his gauntlets. He hadn't even realised he'd picked it up.

'I found something, Brother-Librarian,' he offered thinly.

'I see that, brother. Though I am amazed you even discovered it.' Pyriel gestured over the other Salamander's shoulder at something behind him.

Dak'ir looked behind him and saw upturned crates, piles of munitions strewn across the floor, weapons racks cast aside in his unremembered fervour to locate the chest.

'You were not quiet in your search,' Pyriel told him.

Dak'ir faced him again, something like disbelief affecting the sergeant's demeanour.

'The ruckus was what alerted me to your presence, brother,' the Librarian continued, and Dak'ir felt that same burning gaze - assessing, gauging, deliberating.

'I…' was all the Salamander sergeant could respond with.

'Let me see it.' Pyriel reached out with an open palm and took up the chest reverently as Dak'ir handed it over.

Now he turned that omniscient scrutiny upon the artefact held in his hand.

'This is Vulkan's mark,' he uttered after a few moments. 'It is his icon, a unique brand borne only by the primarch and his forgefathers.' Pyriel's fingers traced subtle grooves and engravings now suddenly visible on the chest's surface, touching it delicately as if it was fragile porcelain, despite the fact of the chest's hardy metal construction. 'It is sealed,' he went on, although now it appeared he was speaking to himself. 'No skill I possess can open it.' The Librarian paused, as if unlocking some clandestine facet of the chest. 'There is an origin stamp…'

Pyriel looked up, as if struck dumb.

'What is it, brother? Where does it come from?'

Pyriel uttered a single word, as if it were the only sound that could pass his lips at that moment. It was one that Dak'ir knew well, and held the heavy weight of prophecy.

'Isstvan.'