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glow slowly fading. Gouts of steam rushed off the artefact when it breached the water’s surface in the deep

vat alongside the anvil. When Dak’ir withdrew it, pinched between the iron fingers of the tongs, it

shimmered like molten silver. Captured light from the lava flows blazed over its contours like a fiery sea.

It was a mask — the simulacrum of a human face; his face, or at least half of it. Dak’ir took the newly forged

item in his hands. The metal had cooled but it still seared his fingers. He barely felt it as he trod silently to a

plane of hammered silver, around a metre wide and three metres high, resting against the wall of the forge.

Dak’ir’s image was reflected in it. Burning red eyes set into an ebon countenance stared back at him. Only

the face was actually half black; the other half was bleached near-white. Its normally black pigmentation, the

melanin defect that marked all Salamanders, had been burned away. Apothecary Fugis had told him the scar

would not heal, that Dak’ir’s defacement was damage caused at the cellular level.

Dak’ir touched the burnt skin and the memory of the melta-flare on Stratos rekindled in his mind’s eye.

Kadai’s death pulled at his gut. As he raised the mask to his face, flashes of remembrance like slivers of ice

on calm water floated to the surface of his mind: rock harvesting in the depths of Ignea, hunting sauroch

over the Scorian Plain, dredging on the Acerbian Sea — all deadly pursuits, but the formative memories of

Dak’ir’s pre-adolescence. The images faded like smoke before a cool wind, leaving a pang of regret. Some

part of Dak’ir felt sorrow the loss of his old life, the death of his former existence before he was battlebrother,

when he was just Hazon and his father’s son.

As the years passed, filled with war and glory in the Emperor’s name, with cities burned and enemies slain,

the vestiges held by Dak’ir of those old memories eroded replaced by battles, a baptism in blood.

The pull towards his old life — one, in truth, that had scarcely begun — confused him. Was it disloyal, even

heretical to have such thoughts? Dak’ir couldn’t help wonder why the memories plagued him.

“I am no longer human,” he admitted to his reflection.

“I am more. I am evolved. I am Astartes.”

The mask covered his ebon visage, leaving the burned side of his face, the flesh-pink tissue, exposed. For a

moment he tried to imagine himself as human again. The attempt was a failure.

“But if I am not human, am I still capable of humanity?”

The bass retort of the blast doors opening intruded on Dak’ir’s reverie. He hastily pulled the mask away and

threw it into the open grate of a nearby furnace, immolating it in fire. The silver ran like tears down the halfface

of the mask, which held its form only briefly before sagging against the intense heat and becoming little

more than molten metal.

“A rejected blade, sergeant?” said Emek, from behind him.

Dak’ir shut the furnace grate and faced his battle-brother. “No, it was just scrap.”

Emek seemed content to leave it at that. He was fully armoured, the green battle-plate turned a lurid violet in

the reflected lustre of the lava ponds. He held his battle-helm in the crook of his arm and his eyes flashed

suddenly with zeal and vigour.

“We’ve been summoned to Prometheus,” Emek said after a few moments. “Our lords have consulted the

Tome of Fire and have divined an answer regarding Vulkan’s chest. Your armour is waiting for you in the

next chamber, sir.”

Dak’ir wiped his sooty body down with a length of already blackened cloth and began putting away the tools

he had been using.

“Where are we to meet?” he asked.

“The Cindara Plateau. Brother Ba’ken will join us there.”

Emek lingered in silence as Dak’ir finished securing his forging equipment.

“There is something else on your mind, brother?” asked the sergeant.

“Yes, but I do not wish to appear insubordinate.”

Dak’ir’s tone suggested his impatience. “Speak, brother.”

Emek waited while he marshalled his thoughts, as if choosing his next words with great care. “Before we

departed for the Hadron Belt, back in the Vault of Remembrance, I overheard Brother-Sergeant Tsu’gan say

something about your complicity in Captain Kadai’s death.” Emek paused to gauge the reaction of Dak’ir’s,

who gave none, before continuing. “Most of us were not present when Kadai was slain. There are…

unanswered questions.”

Dak’ir thought about admonishing his battle-brother — to question your superior officer, however delicately

couched, was grounds for punishment. But he had asked for honesty from Emek, and that was what he had

given. He could hardly take him to task over that.

“The truth is, brother, that we were all culpable when it came to the tragedy of Kadai’s death. I, Tsu’gan, all

who set foot in Aura Hieron had our parts to play, even the captain himself. There is no mystery, no dark

secret. We were outmanoeuvred by a cunning and deadly foe.”

“The Dragon Warriors,” Emek asserted in the following silence.

“Yes,” Dak’ir replied. “The renegades knew we were coming. They were ready for us, and laid their trap for

us to fall into. Theirs is an old creed, Emek— an eye for an eye; a captain for a captain.”

“To plan such a snare… it borders on obsession.”

“Obsessive, paranoid, vindictive — Nihilan is all of these things and worse.”

“Did you know him?”

“No. I met him only at Moribar during my first mission as a scout in 7th Company. Nor did I know his

captain, Ushorak, though he schooled his protégé well in the arts of deception and malice.”

“And it was he who died on the sepulchre world.”

“In the crematoria forge at Moribar’s heart, yes. Kadai thought Nihilan was dead also, but unless a shade

confronted us on Stratos he survived well enough, driven on by hate and the prospect of revenge.”

“And he was once…”

“One of us, yes,” Dak’ir finished for him. “Even the sons of Vulkan are not without stain. The capacity for

betrayal exists in us all, Emek. It is why we must constantly test ourselves and our faith, so that we are

girded against temptation and selfish ideals.”

“And Ushorak?”

Dak’ir’s face darkened and he lowered his gaze as if in remembrance, though in truth he only knew of the

deeds that had led to Ushorak’s bloody defection; the act itself was many years old, he had not witnessed it

first hand. “No. He was of another Chapter, though the shame of it is no less galling.”

“Nihilan did all of this just to avenge his lord… He must be very embittered. Is there no way to rehabilitate

him and the renegades in his charge? It’s not unheard of for forgiveness to be given and penance granted.

What about the Executioners?”

Dak’ir shook his head, sadly. “This is not Badab, Emek. Nihilan and his followers have entered the Eye of

Terror, there is no way back from that. His last chance, Ushorak’s last chance, was on Moribar. They didn’t

take it, and now they are our enemies, no different to the nameless horrors of the warp. But I do not think

there was only vengeance on Nihilan’s mind when he ambushed us on Stratos. There was something more to

his plan.”

“What makes you say that?”

Dak’ir looked his brother in the eye.

“It’s just a feeling.”

II

Crossroads

Tsu’gan staggered as a spike of pain seared up his side, forcing him to reach out with a shaking hand. The

black marble of the wall felt cool to the touch as he steadied himself. After a few moments he was able to

continue. Through a haze of barely checked agony, Tsu’gan failed to notice the steaming handprint he left in

his wake as he toured the Hall of Relics.

Like many of the sergeants, he had stayed on Prometheus to await news from the Pantheon. Speculation was

rife as to what the chest discovered on the Archimedes Rex might mean. There was a thread of belief that,

given the inauspicious times, it might pertain to the location where the primarch had sought solitude

following the cessation of the Heresy. Tsu’gan doubted that greatly. He was a pragmatist, certainly too levelheaded

to indulge in such remote theories. He believed in what he could see, what he could touch. Tsu’gan

knew of only one way to resolve a crisis: meet it head on with determination and resolve. With that in mind,

while he awaited the Pantheon’s findings, he had convened a meeting of his own. Several sergeants had been

present, colluded by Iagon, impelled by Tsu’gan’s shining Promethean example and the respect afforded to

him by his contemporaries. They were there at his request, after all, to address a “serious concern” within the

company. The subject of the secret assembly, conducted in one of the fortress monastery’s few, and barely

used, dormitories, was N’keln. Tsu’gan recalled it now, the guilt of the union merging with that he

associated with Kadai’s death, as he walked down the black marble corridors of the gallery.

Tsu’gan awaited them in the half-dark of the chamber, its halogen lanterns dulled, with just the ambient

light to illuminate the bare room. One by one, they entered: Agatone and Ek’Bar were the first, dour and

long-serving; quiet and pensive respectively. Both were Tactical squad sergeants like Tsu’gan. Then there

came Vargo from one of the Assault squads, a campaign veteran. De’mas, Clovius and Typhos followed a

short time after. Last of all was Naveem, who seemed the most reluctant to have been summoned. These

Astartes, great Salamanders all, encompassed five Tactical squads and both Assault squads of 3rd

Company. Only the sergeants of the Devastators were not present, those that had fought alongside N’keln on

Stratos. Of course, Dak’ir was also absent. He had made his feelings very clear on the subject of the

captain’s recent ascension.

The brother-sergeants present had each removed their battle-helms — in fact Clovius and Typhos generally

did not wear one — and the lustre of their eyes glowed deeply in the gloom. Tsu’gan waited until they were

all settled, until the mutual greetings and respectful acknowledgements were done, before he began.

“Do not think me disloyal,” Tsu’gan said, “for I am not.” He regarded each of the assembled sergeants

intently as he panned his gaze around the room.

“Why are we here then, if not to speak of disloyalty, to renege on the vows we all made before the Chapter

Master himself?” Naveem’s anger was evident in his tone, but he kept his voice down all the same.

Tsu’gan raised a placatory hand, both to mollify Naveem and arrest any reprisals from Brother Iagon, who

watched from behind his sergeant in the darkness.

“I seek only what is best for the company and the Chapter, brothers,” he assured them.

“If that is true, Tsu’gan, then why have us skulk in the shadows like conspirators?” asked Agatone, his hard

face wrinkled with discontent. “I came to this meeting to discuss the discord in our ranks, and the way we

might mend it. All the talk I have heard prior to this gathering has been of dissension and of N’keln’s

unsuitability for the role of captain. Tell me now why I shouldn’t just turn on my heel and go to Tu’Shan?”

Tsu’gan met his fellow sergeant’s intense glare with honest contrition. “Because you know as well as I that

N’keln is not fit for this post.”

Agatone opened his mouth to respond, but clamped it shut in the face of indisputable fact.

Turning his attention back to the assembly as a whole, Tsu’gan spread his arms in a conciliatory gesture.

“N’keln is a fine warrior, one of the best amongst the Inferno Guard, but he is not Kadai and—”

“No one is,” scoffed Sergeant Clovius, shaking his head. His squat body, thick-shouldered and broad of

back, made him seem as intractable as an armoured rock. The sergeant continued, “You cannot hold a man

to account by another’s memory.”

“I speak only of his legacy,” Tsu’gan returned, “and of his ability to lead us. N’keln needs a steadying hand,

the support of a captain himself. He is like one component of an alloy; strong when bonded with another, but

left alone—” Tsu’gan shook his head. “He will surely break.”

Muttering from around the room intimated his audience was less than convinced. Tsu’gan merely pushed

harder.

“N’keln inherits a fractured company, one requiring strength to rebuild. It is strength he does not possess.

How else would you describe the folly of returning to the Hadron Belt?”

“Had we not, we would never had discovered the chest,” countered Vargo, his deep voice reluctant.

Tsu’gan faced him, his own voice an impassioned rasp.

“A fluke: one that very nearly added to the tally of ignominious dead and indebted us to mercenaries.” He

spat the last word as the memory of the Marines Malevolent loomed in his mind. To deal with such

honourless curs left a bitter canker in Tsu’gan’s mouth.

“Another of N’keln’s failings,” Tsu’gan went on, “allowing Vinyar and his dogs to steal weapons and

armour destined for another Chapter. No better than thieves, these Astartes in name only. Yet N’keln lets

them go without pursuit or so much as a harsh word.” He paused, letting his damning rhetoric sink in.

“Do not think me disloyal,” he repeated, experiencing no small measure of satisfaction from the realisation

dawning on the sergeants faces. Even Naveem seemed to thaw. “For I am not. I serve only the will of the

Chapter. I always have. I am proud to be Fire-born and I will follow my brothers unto death. But what I will

not do is stand idle as a company is brought into ruination. Nor will I participate in baseless missions where

a reckless death is the only reward. I cannot do that.”

Agatone articulated what the rest were already thinking.

“So what would you have us do?”

Tsu’gan nodded as if in approval of the decision he had garnered here.

“Ally with me,” he said simply, “Ally with me in going to the Chapter Master and suing for the removal of

N’keln as captain.”

After a few moments, Naveem spoke up.

“This is madness. None of these acts you’ve mentioned are charges enough for the captain’s dismissal.

Tu’Shan will punish us all for this conspiracy. We’ll be up before Elysius and his chirurgeon-interrogators,

our purity in question.”

“It is not conspiracy!” Tsu’gan snapped, then, composing his frustration, lowered his voice. “I will bring

our concerns to the Chapter Master, as is our right. He is wise. He will see the rifts in this company and

have no choice but to act for its betterment.”

“And who will he install as N’keln’s successor?” asked Agatone, meeting Tsu’gan’s gaze. “You?”

“If the Chapter Masters sees fit to appoint me, I will not reject the responsibility. But I don’t seek to usurp