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N’keln, I want only what is right for this company.”

Agatone looked around the room, evidently undecided.

“What of Dak’ir and Omkar, Lok and Ul’shan? Why are they not at this meeting to relay their grievances?”

Tsu’gan maintained his imperious air, despite his fellow sergeant’s pertinent questioning.

“I did not summon them,” he admitted.

Naveem leapt on the confession.

“Why, because you knew they would never agree to this, that they could not be trusted to keep their

silence?” He waved away Tsu’gan’s imminent protest. “Save your answers, brother. I am not interested.

Out of loyalty to my fellow sergeants I will keep my silence, but I cannot be a party to this. I know you think

you act out of genuine concern for the company, but you are misguided, Tsu’gan,” Naveem added sadly and

left the room.

“Nor can I, brother,” said Agatone. “Don’t speak to me of this again, or I will have no choice but to go to

Chaplain Elysius.”

In the end, Sergeants Clovius and Ek’Bar went the way of Naveem and Agatone. The others pledged their

allegiance to Tsu’gan’s cause but without a majority, it stood little chance of succeeding. They left soon

after their disgruntled counterparts, leaving Tsu’gan alone with Iagon.

“Why can’t they see it, Iagon? Why can’t they acknowledge N’keln’s weakness?” He slumped down on one

of the austere pallet beds that hadn’t been used in decades.

Iagon moved slowly from behind Tsu’gan and into his sergeant’s eye line.

“I do not think we have failed, sergeant.”

Tsu’gan looked up. His gaze was questioning. “True, we have only three brother-sergeants allied to our

cause, but that is all we really need.”

“Explain yourself.”

Iagon smiled, a thin empty curling of his down-turned mouth bereft of warmth or mirth. Here, in the

shadows of the empty dormitory, his true nature could express itself. “Take your grievance to Elysius.

Ensure that N’keln is within earshot when you do, or at least hears of it soon after.” Iagon paused

deliberately, inwardly applauding his own cunning. “N’keln is a warrior of profound conscience. Once he

knows about such a vote of no confidence amongst his own sergeants—” his narrow eyes flashed “—he will

stand down of his own volition.”

Tsu’gan was suddenly torn. He sighed deeply, trying to exhale his doubts.

“Is this right, Iagon? Am I doing what is best for the company and the Chapter?”

“You are taking the hard road, my lord. The one you must travel if we are ever to be whole again.”

“Even still—”

Iagon stepped forward to emphasise his point.

“If N’keln were worthy, would he not have taken up Kadai’s thunder hammer? It gathers dust even now in

the Hall of Relics, forgotten and dishonoured by one who is wary of the mantle he assumes by claiming it.”

Tsu’gan shook his head uncertainly. “No. N’keln rejected it out of respect.” He didn’t sound convinced.

Iagon adopted a look of absolute innocent neutrality. “Did he?”

Tsu’gan had left the dormitory in silence, a slave to his own thoughts. Pain would settle his troubled mind.

He had made for the solitoriums at once. And there in the darkness, with the eyes of his secret voyeur

looking on, he had indulged in his addiction again and again, hoping, in vain, that with the next strike of the

rod his conscience would be eased. It had not, and the guilt gnawed at him still as he trod the long

passageways of the Hall of Relics, dressed only in a simple green robe.

Honours and memories of heroes long-past filled the austere gallery of black marble. The hue of the rock, its

smoothness and density, promoted a sombre mood, one entirely apt given the reverence felt for this hallowed

place. There were shrines to Xavier, Kesare, and even ancient Tkell, chambered in anterooms or deep

alcoves regressed into the rock. Artefacts, too precious to be burned, too venerated to be bequeathed, rested

within them along with purity seals, medals and other tributes to their legacies. Reliquaries were made of the

leg bones Brother Amadeus had lost in the Siege of Cluth’nir. If the mighty warrior should ever fall, they

would be burned to ash with what was left animated with his sarcophagus and offered to Mount Deathfire.

Tsu’gan passed them all, every step a painful reminder of the damage he had self-inflicted. It paled to the

anguish in his mind and failed utterly, despite his sternest efforts, to assuage it. He wondered briefly whether

he had urged the brander-priest too far this time. Tsu’gan crushed the thought.

Bowing his head, he stepped into one of the hall’s anterooms and was swallowed by darkness. The stygian

surroundings lasted only seconds as a votive flame erupted into incandescent life on one of the walls and

threw a warm, orange glare across a sombre altar. It was shaped like an anvil, a pall of salamander hide

draped across the flat head. Resting on the hide were the shattered remains of an ornate thunder hammer.

Tsu’gan was gripped by a profound sense of loss as he approached the altar and knelt before it in

supplication.

“My captain…” The words were barely whispered, but conveyed his longing. He went to speak again, but

found he could not, and closed his half-open mouth without further sound. Silence followed, deafening and

final. Tsu’gan remembered anew the sight of Kadai’s destruction. He recalled gathering up the remains of

the beloved captain with N’keln. Warring with a sense of sudden grief and impotent rage, Tsu’gan had

looked into the veteran sergeant’s eyes and seen clearly what was held there.

What now? Who will lead us? I cannot assume his mantle. Not yet. I’m not ready.

Even then, through a fog of despair, Tsu’gan had witnessed the truth in N’keln’s heart. Duty would not allow

the veteran sergeant to refuse; prudence should have made him refuse. But it had not, and the lingering

memory stung like a barb.

The brother-sergeant could bear it no longer and, averting his gaze from the solemn tribute to Ko’tan Kadai,

he hurried from the shrine-chamber.

So consumed was Tsu’gan with his own troubled thoughts that he didn’t notice Fugis coming the opposite

way, and collided with him.

“Apologies, brother,” Tsu’gan rasped, wincing beneath the cowl of his robe as he made to move on.

Fugis held out an arm to stall him. Like the brother-sergeant, the Apothecary wore robes.

“Are you all right, Brother Tsu’gan? You seem… troubled.” Fugis’ hood was down and his eyes were

penetrating as he regarded the sergeant, some of his old sagacity returned.

“It’s nothing. I only seek to honour the dead.” Tsu’gan couldn’t keep his voice steady enough as the jabs of

pain from the branding wracked him. He went to move on again, and this time Fugis stood in his path.

“And yet you sound as if you’ve recently been in battle.” His thin face accentuated a stern and probing

expression.

“Step aside, Apothecary,” Tsu’gan snapped, gasping through his sudden anger. “You have no cause to detain

me.”

Fugis’ cold eyes helped formed a scowl.

“I have every cause.” The Apothecary’s hand lashed out. Debilitated as he was, Tsu’gan was too slow to

stop it. Fugis pulled back the sergeant’s robes and cowl to expose the hot, angry scars upon the lower part of

his chest.

“Those are fresh,” he said, accusingly. “You have been having yourself rebranded.”

Tsu’gan was about to protest, but denial by this point was beneath him.

“And what of it?” he snarled, teeth gritted both in anger and to ward off his slowly ebbing agony.

The Apothecary’s expression hardened.

“What are you doing, brother?”

“What I must to function!” Tsu’gan’s rancour swiftly waned, replaced by resignation. “He was slain, Fugis.

Slain in cold blood, no better than the wretches that lured us to Aura Hieron.”

“We all feel his loss, Tsu’gan.” Now it was Fugis’ turn to change, though rather than soften, his eyes seemed

to grow cold and faraway as if reliving his own bereavement.

“But you were not there at his end, brother. You did not gather the remains of his body and armour, wasted

away and beyond even your skill to revivify in another,” Tsu’gan referred to the destruction of Kadai’s

progenoid glands. These elements of a Space Marine’s physiology existed in the neck and chest. Harvested

through the skill only an Apothecary was schooled in, they could be used to create another Salamander. But

in the case of Kadai’s tragic demise, even that small consolation was denied.

Fugis paused, deciding what to do.

“You must come to the Apothecarion. There I will tend your wounds,” he said. “I can mend the superficial,

brother, but the depth of the hurt you feel is beyond my skill to heal.” For a moment, the Apothecary’s eyes

softened. “Your spirit is in turmoil, Tsu’gan. That cannot be allowed to continue.”

Tsu’gan tugged his robe back across his body and exhaled raggedly. A tic of discomfort registered below his

left eye as he did it.

“What should I do, brother?” he asked.

Fugis’ answer was simple.

“I should go to Chaplain Elysius, make you confess to him what you have been doing, and leave you to

await his judgement.”

“I…” began the sergeant then relented. “Yes, you are right. But let me do it, let me go to him myself.”

The Apothecary seemed uncertain. His searching gaze was back, as his eyes narrowed. “Very well,” he said

at last. “But do it soon, or you’ll give me no choice but to act in your stead.”

“I will, brother.”

Fugis lingered a moment longer, before turning his back and heading towards the anteroom where Kadai

awaited him.

Tsu’gan went the other way, unaware of another figure tracking him in the darkened corridors of the Hall of

Relics, the very same that had watched him break down at the foot of the anvil shrine and followed him from

the isolation chamber.

Pain, grief, shame — they all dulled the brother-sergeant’s senses as he came to a fork in the corridor. The

light of the brazier-lamps seemed to cast it in an eldritch glow that Tsu’gan failed to notice. East led

eventually to the Reclusium, where he would await the Chaplain and purge his heavy soul; west took him

back to a small armoury where his battle-plate rested. He was about to turn east when he felt a light touch on

his shoulder.

“Where are you going, my lord?” asked the voice of Iagon, “Your armour is the other way.”

Tsu’gan faced him. Iagon was enrobed too. The hood was pulled far over his face so that only his sharp,

angular nose and down-turned mouth were visible. The Salamander’s slight form was exaggerated without

his armour. It made him look small in comparison to his sergeant.

“I cannot, Iagon,” Tsu’gan told him. “I must seek Elysius’ counsel.” He tried to continue on his way, but

Iagon reasserted his grip, stronger this time.

Tsu’gan winced with the pain of his earlier injuries.

“Release me, trooper. I am your sergeant.”

Iagon’s face was a dispassionate mask.

“I cannot, my lord,” he said, and increased his grip.

Tsu’gan scowled and seized the trooper’s wrist. Despite his wounds, he was still incredibly strong and now it

was Iagon’s turn to betray his discomfort.

“I am not strong enough to hold you, sergeant, but let me appeal to your better judgement…” Iagon pleaded,

letting his brother go.

Tsu’gan released him, the scowl reduced to a displeased frown. It bade Iagon continue.

“Go to Elysius if you must,” he whispered quickly, “but know that if you do, you will be stripped of rank

and made to suffer penitence for what you’ve done. The chirurgeon-interrogators will probe and incise until

they lay you bare. Our Brother-Chaplain will learn of your deceit—”

“I have deceived no one, save myself,” Tsu’gan snapped, about to turn away again, before Iagon stopped

him.

“He will learn of your deceit,” he pressed, “and act against all of your brothers who were in that room. Any

chance of replacing N’keln will be gone, and the prospect of healing our divided company with it.”

“I don’t want to replace him, Iagon,” Tsu’gan insisted. “That is not my purpose.”

“If not you, then who else will do it?” Iagon implored. “It is your destiny, brother.”

Tsu’gan was shaking his head. “I am broken. When battle calls, it is easier. The cry of my bolter, the thunder

of war in my heart, it smothers the pain. But when the enemy are dead and the battlefield is silent, it returns

to me, Iagon.”

“It is just grief,” the trooper replied, leaning forward. “It will pass. And what better way to expedite that

process than in the crucible of battle, at the head of your company?”

Tsu’gan’s mind wondered at that. The recently slumbering coals of ambition in his heart started to rekindle.

He would heal the rift between his brothers, and in so doing make himself whole again.

The words of Nihilan, spoken to him on Stratos before he had leapt down into the temple to witness Kadai’s

death, came back to him unbidden.

A great destiny awaits you, but another overshadows it.

A traitor’s testimony was not to be trusted, but there was a germ of recognition in that statement for Tsu’gan.

He told himself that this was his own conclusion, that reasoning would have brought him to a similar

epiphany given time. The image of Dak’ir arose in his mind, going to his captain’s aid just before the end.

The Ignean was something of an outcast, but a strange destiny surrounded him too. Tsu’gan could feel it

whenever he was in his presence. The sensation was dulled by his loathing, but it was there. If he did not

assume the mantle of captain, then Dak’ir would surely do it. No Ignean was fit to lead an Astartes battle

company. Tsu’gan could not allow that to stand.

His eyes and posture hardened as he returned Iagon’s attendant gaze.

“Very well,” Tsu’gan growled. “But what of Fugis? The Apothecary has sworn me to go to Elysius.”

“Forestall him,” Iagon answered simply. “Our brother is so caught up in his own grief that he will not press

this at first. By the time he does, N’keln will step down with respect and you will ascend.” Iagon’s eyes

flashed with unbridled ambition. At Tsu’gan’s right hand, as he was, he would cling to the trappings of his

lord, a beneficiary of his newfound power and influence, and ascend with him. “By then, Fugis will not

speak out. He will see you are master of your feelings once again.”

Tsu’gan stared at something in the distance: a glorious vision conjured in his mind’s eye.

“Yes,” he breathed, though the words did not sound like his own. “That is what I will do.”

He looked again at Iagon, fresh fire burning in his blood-red eyes. “Come,” he said, “I must don my