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captain’s second-in-command for now — so the Inferno Guard numbered only three, the last position filled

by Banner Bearer Malicant. The Assault squads of Vargo and Naveem assembled on the flanks, strapped up

with their bulky jump packs. It could have been Dak’ir’s imagination, but he thought he detected some

tension between them. Likely, it was just anticipation of whatever was about to be imparted from the

Pantheon council. Brother-Sergeants Agatone and Clovius were also present, together with the Devastators

of Lok and Omkar.

Watching his fellow sergeants reminded Dak’ir of something he had asked Ba’ken to do before he returned

to Nocturne.

“Have you spoken to Agatone and Lok?” Ba’ken nodded darkly, as if reminded of a bad memory.

Tsu’gan has approached the sergeants, “those of Tactical and Assault at least.”

Dak’ir slowly shook his head in disbelief.

“His arrogance is boundless. I can’t believe he still persists with this.”

“Agatone says several of the other sergeants will support him.”

“So, he moves against N’keln blatantly.”

“There is nothing blatant about it, far from it. Iagon’s ways are subtle and oblique. There is no actual proof

that Tsu’gan wants the captaincy.”

“No, but he is pressing for N’keln’s dismissal. At best it smacks of misconduct, at worst it is treason.” Dak’ir

paused, marshalling his anger. “However couched, this cannot stand. Something must be done.”

“But what?” Ba’ken asked a fair question. “Bringing it to the attention of the Chaplain is not an option at this

point. Agatone made an oath of silence.”

Dak’ir faced his heavy weapons trooper. His expression was severe.

“I am not Agatone, Ba’ken. Nor am I bound to his oath,” he said sternly. “This dissension must stop.”

“There is no choice,” Emek decided, entering the exchange for the first time since it had begun. “Brother

Elysius must be told.”

Dak’ir shook his head.

“Discord and division are rife as it is. An investigation by the Chaplain and his interrogators will only

exacerbate that. N’keln wants to heal the wounds in this company. He will need our backing, and the

backing of others, to do it. Forcing the sergeants to comply, making examples of the disaffected, will only

deepen any resentment that already exists. Only by earning the sergeants’ respect will N’keln gain their

confidence and establish his authority,” reasoned Dak’ir, feeling his desire to act ebbing. “Though it pains

me to admit it, Tsu’gan is not a discontent for the sake of it. I’m not even certain he wants to replace Kadai

at all. He wants someone he feels is worthy of Ko’tan’s mantle. Once he believes N’keln is that person, he

will capitulate.”

“Are you certain of that, brother?” asked Ba’ken.

Dak’ir’s answer was frank.

“No. The fires of battle will temper the captain. He will burn or be reborn, that is the Promethean way.”

“Spoken like a true philosopher, brother,” said Emek wryly.

Dak’ir turned to him — a massive gate set into the far end of the docking bay was opening. It led to the inner

heart of the fortress-monastery and the Pantheon. Tu’Shan and the council were coming, so Dak’ir kept it

brief.

“Spoken like your sergeant,” he corrected. What came next included Ba’ken, too, “Whose order will be

followed.”

Both Salamanders nodded their understanding. The rest of Dak’ir’s squad had joined them. The time for

talking was at an end. The gate ground open. The Chapter Master entered.

Tu’Shan strode at the head of the Pantheon council, arrayed in his full panoply of war. His voluminous

drakescale cloak writhed like a living thing as he walked and his deep eyes burned with all the inner strength

of Deathfire’s core. 3rd Company was fully assembled. Even Veteran Brothers Amadeus and Ashamon were

present amongst their fellow Salamanders. The pair of Dreadnoughts stood stern and unmoving alongside

the foremost Tactical squad led by Agatone. Brother Ashamon was an Ironclad. His seismic hammer rippled

with electrical discharge, a meltagun appended to its haft, and the igniter flame from the flamer affixed to his

claw-like power fist flickered dormantly.

Flanked by a squad of Firedrakes, clanking loudly in Terminator armour, Tu’Shan led the council down a

wide aisle. It divided the squads in the company into two equal hemispheres, and was afforded for the ten 1st

Company veterans, who were accompanied by Praetor himself. Behind the Chapter Master was Vel’cona,

Chief Librarian and Pyriel’s direct superior. The Epistolary walked alongside Elysius and N’keln, falling

into lock-step with the Firedrakes on either side of them. The other Masters were either occupied on

Nocturne’s surface or prosecuting missions in distant systems.

Dak’ir’s attention was fixed on Elysius in particular as the retinue of warriors past him to alight in front of

3rd Company.

The chest of Vulkan was in the Chaplain’s hands.

CHAPTER FIVE

I

Solar Storm

“Welcome, brothers.” Tu’Shan’s voice echoed powerfully around the expansive docking bay, reaching every

corner and commanding absolute attention. Even surrounded by the Pantheon council, some of the Chapter’s

finest warriors, he looked immense and forbidding. The strength and passion of Vulkan blazed in the

Chapter Master’s eyes, together with the primarch’s wisdom and presence.

“The council has consulted the Tome of Fire, and there are tidings from its hallowed pages,” he concluded

sombrely. There was no further preamble. Tu’Shan was inclined towards action, not rhetoric, and bade

Elysius forward.

The Chaplain bowed curtly and advanced in front of his Chapter Master, so he would be visible to the throng

of Salamanders before him.

Elysius appraised them all in silence, allowing the gravitas of the occasion to build, letting his brothers know

that he was ever watchful. To show impurity of spirit before the Chaplain was dire folly. He was fond of

branding and excoriation to establish a warrior’s piety. Chirurgeon-interrogators, servitor drones he had

modified himself, assisted him in his work. Not all who entered his Reclusium came back. But to endure at

the hands of Elysius meant you were above reproach… at least for a time.

He was but one Salamander. Yet without exception, every battle-brother that beheld the Chaplain then felt

his presence like a brand of cold steel, just waiting to be ignited.

“When the sky runs red with blood and the Mountain of the Forge gives up its sons, Vulkan will show us the

way,” Elysius quoted. His voice carried a hard edge like the hot barbs of his confessional tools.

He scoured the faces before him intently.

Purity seals festooned the Chaplain’s cobalt-black power armour. Votive chains hung from his pauldrons,

plastron and gorget. They were even pinioned to his battle-helm; effigies of hammers, drakes and the

Imperial eagle.

“The sky is bloody,” he went on, “Deathfire has given up its sons.” He clenched a fist to emphasise his zeal.

“These are the scriptures of the Tome of Fire, as left to us by our primarch. And in this,” he brandished the

chest found on the Archimedes Rex in the other hand like a holy icon, “he has shown us his way.”

Elysius lowered the chest and unclenched his fist.

“Galactic coordinates, buried within encrypted symbols found in the casket, speak of a stretch of space,” the

Chaplain explained, his zeal traded for pragmatism. “There, at the cusp of the Veiled Region in Segmentum

Tempestus, is a system benighted by warp storms, closed off from the Emperor’s light for millennia.” His

eyes flashed behind his skull-faced visage. “We shall shine the torch of enlightenment upon it, brothers. The

storms have cleared and the way is open once again. Look to the skies of Nocturne!” The mercurial Chaplain

sprang into animation again without warning, thrusting his hands down to indicate the planet below. “A

blood-red haze blots out our baleful sun. It matches a constellation of stars in this very system. At the heart

of this celestial arrangement is a single planet, one lost to Imperial record for over ten thousand years—

Scoria. I need not explain the import of that.”

Murmurs of disbelief rippled around the room. Elysius did nothing to dissuade them. Rather, he seemed to

revel in the growing fervour.

Dak’ir was as shocked as his battle-brothers. Had they somehow discovered the fate of Vulkan himself? T hat

was what the Chaplain had implied. It was only supposition, but even still. Tu’Shan’s face was unreadable at

the potentially monumental revelation. Dak’ir had later learned that the beam of light emitted from the

mountain had refracted with the dust particles from the recent eruption, creating the pseudo-celestial

representation that Elysius spoke of. Certainly, the phenomenon was unprecedented. It was taken as a sign.

Of a great discovery, or an imminent doom, Dak’ir was uncertain. He did know, however, that if there was

even the remotest chance of finding Vulkan, or ascertaining his fate, then the Salamanders would take it.

The rest of Elysius’ words were brief, and spoke of endurance and the cleansing fire of war. Zealously

delivered, Dak’ir knew them all by rote. His mind was reeling with what had transpired and what was to

come. When the Chaplain was done and N’keln stepped forward to address them, the brother-sergeant knew

exactly what that would be.

The captain’s face was stern as rock. “3rd Company, we are going to Scoria to reclaim the progenitor of our

Chapter, should that be his whereabouts.” There was intensity in the brother-captain’s eyes, as if he realised

the import of this undertaking and the opportunity it presented to reunite the company. Dak’ir suspected

Tu’Shan knew it too.

“Regardless, we go there with open minds and cautious eyes,” N’keln continued. “All of us,” he added,

nodding sagely. “Scoria has been out of contact with the Imperium since the 31st millennium. A death

world, like our own, it should provide no impediment to our mission. Deep space augurs have revealed the

small system it inhabits is a volatile area, wracked by solar storms. This too,” he told them, “we will

overcome. There is no way to tell what we will find when we reach the surface. But enemies or no, we will

discover why our primarch sent us there. Nor will we be alone.” N’keln gestured graciously behind him.

“Brother Praetor and his Firedrakes will accompany us.”

The veteran sergeant of 1st Company barely moved as the eyes of 3rd Company alighted upon him. He was

an imperious warrior and a peerless tactician, save for the Chapter Master. Like all of the Firedrakes, he was

aloof, living and training on Prometheus in the fortress-monastery. A long cape of salamander hide hung

from the back of his Terminator armour, his shaven head like a hard, black bolt between the immense

pauldrons. Laurels wreathed his doughty form, and a long-hafted thunder hammer was clasped in a

gauntleted fist, a circular storm-shield attached to his back.

Praetor’s inclusion in the mission raised certain questions. It was a great honour to serve alongside

Tu’Shan’s company: each one was a warrior-king, an inspiration to their battle-brothers around them. But it

also threw N’keln’s authority into doubt. Dak’ir was certain it would only add fuel to Tsu’gan’s argument.

He had lost sight of his fellow sergeant in the muster. It mattered not; Dak’ir would see him soon enough as

N’keln brought the assembly to a close.

“No more words then; words will avail us nothing. Fire-born! To your gunships! The Vulkan’s Wrath waits

to take us to Scoria.”

3rd Company donned battle-helms and disbanded at once, sergeants barking orders as they broke up into

their squads and marched quickly towards the embarkation ramps of their Thunderhawks. Dak’ir rallied his

Salamanders together and made for the Fire-wyvern. From the corner of his helmet lens, he noticed the

Firedrakes stomping towards Implacable, their own gunship. They were travelling with Brother-Captain

N’keln and the Inferno Guard. Chaplain Elysius accompanied them. The docking bay was quickly

evacuated, leaving Tu’Shan and Vel’cona alone.

To Dak’ir’s dismay, Pyriel joined them aboard the Fire-wyvern. The Librarian levelled his piercing gaze at

the brother-sergeant briefly before assuming his position in a grav-harness in the Chamber Sanctuarine.

Tsu’gan acknowledged no one as he led his squad in, consumed with introspection. It seemed many of the

Salamanders were lost in thought. The prospect of discovering their primarch, or some clue as to his fate,

had silenced them all.

Whining turbofans drowned out the exterior noise as the servitor deck crews retreated. As the Fire-wyvern

achieved loft, second behind Implacable, its landing stanchions retracted. A roar of flame erupted from its

fully-ignited engines, and the gunship sped upwards. Spear of Prometheus tore right behind it. The gunships

Inferno and Hellstorm followed in the aerial convoy. A trio of Thunderhawk transporters brought up the

rear, bearing four Rhino APCs and the Land. Raider Redeemer, Fire Anvil.

The blast doors in the hangar roof churned open, revealing the gulf of realspace above. Attached to one of

the space port’s docking claws was the strike cruiser, waiting to take 3rd Company to its destiny.

The Vulkan’s Wrath was plying its final passage through the empyrean, on its last jump until they translated

into the Scorian system. Many of the Salamanders were engaged in battle rituals, in preparation for the

coming trials. Some Were training fastidiously in the strike cruiser’s gymnasia; others spent their time in

solitude, reciting the catechisms of Promethean Lore. Tsu’gan, descending into a subdued malaise, had

chosen the solitoriums again in a vain attempt to burn away his inner guilt.

Iagon watched Tsu’gan stagger out of the isolation chamber from the shadows.

Steam came off the sergeant’s self-tortured body in swathes, ghosting the cooler air around him. Smothering

it with a robe, Tsu’gan made for the antechamber where Iagon had left the sergeant’s power armour just as

commanded.

“Astartes,” a voice emanated from the darkness.

It took Iagon a moment to realise it was directed at him.

The wiry form of Zo’kar, Tsu’gan’s brander-priest, shuffled into view. His priest’s apparel was limned in the

deep red light of fettered lume-lamps as he approached the Salamander.

Iagon’s primary heart pulsed like a war drum in his chest. In his sadistic desire to witness Tsu’gan’s selfflagellation,

albeit via the branding rod of Zo’kar, he hadn’t realised he’d leaned forward and revealed his