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the battlefield. The throaty rumble of revving chain-blades could be heard through it, anonymous and

forbidding.

The orks converged on the gate and the brother-sergeant was powerless to stop it. He cursed his position on

the wall, wanting desperately to be where the fighting was fiercest. A bright plume of fire, its roar so loud it

eclipsed the chugging chorus of mechanised blades, tore through the smoke and murk below, devouring the

assaulting horde with voracious hunger.

Fire Anvil had unleashed its flamestorm cannons and the orks tasted the Land Raider Redeemer’s fury.

Howling in rage and pain, the greenskins fell back. Enflamed bodies stumbled from the ruined gate, before

sinking to their knees and collapsing in charred heaps upon the ground. No Salamander put them down; they

just let them burn.

Three consecutive bursts and the conflagration ebbed, leaving scorched earth, edged by fire, in its wake.

“In Vulkan’s name and for the glory of the Chapter!”

Praetor’s stentorian timbre thundered across the comm-feed like a rallying bow wave. The Firedrakes had

filled the breach.

“In Vulkan’s name!” echoed N’keln, standing tall amidst the dying flames wreathing the battlements before

him. Brother Malicant was down, but the captain held aloft the company banner in his stead. The coiling

drake depicted on the sacred cloth snapped and snarled in the wind as if alive within the fabric. The edges of

it were burned and blackened, but that only added to its belligerent allure. N’keln became a beacon, forged

as steel upon the anvil of war at last.

“None shall pass,” he roared, and the firedrake upon the banner seemed to roar with him.

Tsu’gan found a smile was curling his lip.

The orks were doomed.

In desperation, the last of the tribal chieftains had assaulted the wall up one of the wrecked wagon towers. It

gained the battlements, bloodied but unbowed.

Elysius, just finished dispensing with one of its lessers at the end of his bolt pistol, rammed his crozius

through the foul beast’s chest as it appeared. It snarled, only for the Chaplain to head-butt it with his battlehelm,

shattering a tusk and then snapping off the other with a savage pistol-whip from his still-smoking

sidearm. He tossed the weapon aside, seizing the dying chieftain in his gauntlet, the other hand gripped

tightly around the haft of the crackling crozius, and lifted the ork into the air.

In a stunning feat of strength, or faith, Elysius raised the flailing ork above his head and flung it, screaming,

onto the ground far below.

“I cast thee out, abomination!”

Coupled with the Fire Anvil’s fury and the wrath of Praetor’s Terminators, it proved a decisive blow.

The orks fled en masse, back across the killing field and up to the ridge.

Their warboss took their capitulation badly. Every one of the fleeing greenskins was slaughtered by the

hordes that still remained.

A strange lull descended. It was punctuated by a deep throbbing in the back of Tsu’gan’s skull, like the

Salamander could feel the ork warboss’ rage. So potent was the beast’s fury that it had manifested

physically, a distinctive pulse in the greenskins’ natural psychic overspill.

In the absence of battle, the sense of despair from earlier returned. Tsu’gan lurched forward to grip the lip of

the battlement for support.

“Sire?” hissed Iagon, leaning conspiratorially towards his sergeant.

Tsu’gan held up his hand to show he was all right. He gripped his bolter for reassurance. Guilt flooded his

body pervasively like a cancer, and he longed for the brander-priest’s rod and the pain that dulled the ache

inside him.

“There is evil here…” he heard himself slurring, as low as a whisper.

It was eking out of the stones. In his delirium, Tsu’gan almost imagined he could see it: a thin, trailing mist

of utter black.

“Hold together, brothers,” Elysius girded him, “and we shall smite the alien.”

The baleful effects of the iron fortress ebbed. It was not yet strong enough to overcome the Chaplain’s

fervour. Tsu’gan straightened again, gritting his teeth.

“Let’s finish this.”

The warboss bellowed, reasserting his dominance. The orks charged again.

Dak’ir emerged from the chasm to a different world than the one which he’d left previously. An eldritch

darkness blanketed the ash dunes now. A black shape, like a moon or planetoid, smothered whatever

celestial body of Scoria should have held prominence in the night sky. This then was the black rock of which

Illiad had spoken; the carrier for the orks. Its orbit had brought it close enough to the ashen world for the

greenskins to launch an assault. As time passed, Dak’ir knew it would only bring them closer.

The strange milieu brought other sensations with it, too — the sounds and smells of battle. The bulk of the

Vulkan’s Wrath, still high as an Imperial bastion’s defence tower even though it was partly sunken into the

desert, obscured Dak’ir’s view but he could still see a warm orange glow tinting the darkling sky. There was

something serene and beautiful about it, despite the distant crump of explosions and the whiff of smoke and

promethium wafted on a hot breeze.

The comm-feed in his battle-helm crackled, like life breathed back into a corpse, and he heard the voice of

Brother-Sergeant Agatone.

“Marshal your forces, brother,” he snapped, clearly perturbed that they’d been out of vox contact for so long.

The inquest would come later. “We are about to be under attack.”

Dak’ir didn’t question it. Instead, he ran around the half-submerged prow of the Vulkan’s Wrath and climbed

up to the summit of a small dune. What he saw there quickened his heart to a state of combat readiness.

“Pyriel,” said Dak’ir. The Librarian had been right behind the sergeant and followed him up the shallow

dune. “When you said there were no oceans on Scoria…”

Before their eyes, still distant but closing, there boiled a belligerent green sea.

“I was wrong,” Pyriel replied simply.

The voice of Illiad intruded.

“Swine-tusks…” he uttered, hoarsely.

The rest of the combat squad had positioned themselves around him in battle formation. They’d all heard

Agatone over the comm-feed.

“The swine-tusks have returned,” rasped Illiad, gaping in terrified awe at the grotesque spectacle swarming

the dunes. “The slayers of your brothers are back to kill us all.” Dak’ir hadn’t heard fear in the human

before… until now.

The main swell of the greenskin horde was far off at the iron fortress, yet still their masses could be seen by

the defenders of the Vulkan’s Wrath, spreading across the land like a dark stain. A tributary had peeled off

from the major force and was surging towards the stricken strike cruiser.

Do you feel them, Dak’ir? Pyriel asked psychically.

Dak’ir nodded slowly. Yes, he felt it.

“Such rage…” he muttered.

The orks were not that far away now. Dak’ir could make out the crude and jagged forms of their vehicles

and see their brutish weapons as they discharged them into the air. He discerned the snarled visage of the

barbarous greenskin and his fist clenched. These were the spore of those beasts that virtually wiped out his

ancient brothers. Here, upon the same ashen fields, the battle would be refought — Salamander versus

greenskins. Dak’ir was adamant that this time, the orks would not be back.

The comm-feed spat static for a few seconds and then cleared again.

“Sergeant,” growled the voice of Agatone. “I need your forces now.”

“On our way,” Dak’ir returned and cut the feed. He ordered his combat squad to move out. They left the

dune swiftly, Illiad in tow, and went to liaise with Agatone and the others.

Rounding the vast bulk of the Vulkan’s Wrath, Dak’ir saw that the medical tents were already emptying. The

injured that could walk or be moved safely were trailing out in ragged groups.

Battle-Brother Zo’tan — from the other half of Dak’ir’s squad — had taken charge of the armsmen and ablebodied

human crew, forming them into auxiliaries. A quick head count revealed almost three hundred

troops, divided into six fifty-man battalions, assigned squad leaders and commanders. The auxiliary had

started to assume strategic positions around the medical tents.

They were the last line of defence, there to protect those still festering in their pallet-beds. Even though the

badly wounded probably wouldn’t survive, the Salamanders would not leave them to be butchered.

Brother-Sergeant Agatone was stalking towards them. Sergeant Ek’Bar remained behind where they had

been discussing a holo-chart, and waited patiently.

Agatone dispensed with any preamble.

“We have three Tactical and one depleted Assault squad,” he began. “Venerable Brothers Ashamon and

Amadeus have also been roused from slumber by Master Argos.” The doughty forms of the Dreadnoughts

loomed in the distance, prowling the extremity of the defensive cordon designated by Agatone.

As he looked, Dak’ir noticed acting Sergeant Gannon also up ahead. He was kneeling upon a high dune, his

Assault squad gathered around him, surveying the orks through a pair of magnoculars.

Agatone was interrupted abruptly by the comm-feed. The sergeant pressed a gauntleted finger to his gorget,

as his battle-helm was mag-locked to his belt.

“Go ahead,” he instructed.

Gannon’s voice came through.

“I estimate four thousand enemy,” reported the acting sergeant, “with assorted vehicles and bikes. Armament

is mainly automatic chain-gun and solid shot rifles and pistols.”

“Good work, sergeant. To your positions. In Vulkan’s name.”

“In Vulkan’s name.”

Gannon secured the magnoculars and stood up. A second later he and his squad took to the air, jump pack

engines screaming as they ignited, and trailing smoke and fire.

Agatone gestured to the middle distance, where the Thunderfire cannons had patrolled earlier. There was no

sign of the tracked heavy guns now, or their Techmarine operators.

“The grenade line is still untouched,” he told them, “and we’ve added additional explosive payloads. Our

stratagem is to funnel the orks into it, launching a full assault into their vanguard when they’re scattered,

hurting and confused.”

Dak’ir regarded the greenskin splinter force as Agatone relayed his plan. The xenos had forged some

distance between themselves and the parent horde; the latter was just a dense black line cresting a far-off

high dune now. He also noticed that the splinter force had become stretched in its eagerness for a fight. A

vanguard of bikers, trucks and the faster orkoid elements ranged ahead of a much larger body of greenskins

comprising foot soldiers and rumbling half-tracks.

“See how they are spread?” said Agatone. It was wide, widening all the time as the speed-obsessed orks

raced and tried to out do each other. Dak’ir was put in mind of a giant maw slowly opening as it prepared for

its first bite. “We need them to become a dense column.”

“Corral them,” said Dak’ir, seeing the potential at once to manoeuvre the fast, but brittle greenskin advance

forces.

Agatone nodded, a slight hint of irritation in his manner. “It is already in place.” He pointed to distant flanks,

just beyond the Dreadnoughts. Dak’ir saw something moving there, obscured by the eerie half-darkness.

“Thunderfire cannons,” he thought aloud.

“Just so,” Agatone replied. “Subterranean blast shelling will commence as soon as we’ve got the orks’

attention. The tremors will force them into line. Any that don’t will be dealt with by the Dreadnoughts.”

Dak’ir’s eyes narrowed as he pictured abstractly the full realisation of Agatone’s plan.

“We need bait to draw them in.”

The other sergeant nodded.

Dak’ir checked the load of his plasma pistol, then secured it in its holster again.

“I’ll take a combat squad only,” he said. “Where should we deploy?”

“Five Astartes is all I can spare, Dak’ir,” Agatone replied. He gestured to a patch of rocky ground about two

hundred metres shy of the grenade line. “That’s your squad’s position.”

It was as good a staging point as any. The rocks provided some cover and the ground was set into a small

depression the Salamanders could use like a crater to hunker down in if necessary.

“Five Fire-born to engage a horde of about five hundred,” said Ba’ken, his tone sardonic. “Good odds.”

“And the rest of the force — what will you do about the ork reserves?” asked Dak’ir.

“Argos is working on something,” Agatone replied looking slightly uncomfortable for the first time during

the impromptu briefing, “We just need to give him some time. Stall the greenskins.”

“How much time?” Dak’ir asked levelly.

Agatone’s expression was stony.

“As much as we can.”

It didn’t take an anthro-linguistic servitor to realise that Agatone’s obvious misgivings were grave. The

sergeant went on.

“Once the vanguard is eliminated, fall back to the second line. You’ll see it because I’ll be stood at it with

the rest of our forces.”

“And after that, if the orks get through?”

Agatone snorted in mock derision. There was a sense of pathos to the gesture.

“After that it won’t matter.”

CHAPTER TEN

I

Into the Dragon’s Mouth

Dak’ir cradled the bolter in his gauntleted hands, feeling its heft and running his fingers down its stock. He

muttered litanies of accuracy under his breath as he familiarised himself with the holy weapon.

The Vulkan’s Wrath carried several additional Astartes armoriums aboard. It was well stocked with surplus

bolters, ammunition and other materiel in the event that the company should require it. During his scout

training, when he was just a neophyte and not part of the 7th Company, Dak’ir had been instructed in the use

of the bolter by the stern-faced Master of Recruits. Old Zen’de was dead now but the lessons he had

imparted upon Dak’ir lived on.

All of the Salamanders crouched in the shallow depression, the rocky outcrop to their fore, advancing orks

glimpsed over the jagged tips of these crags, had a bolter slung to their sides. Bursts of sporadic fire, at

range, were intended to attract the attention of the onrushing greenskin vanguard. The squad would then stay

visible but hunkered down so as not to present an easy target. Only Ba’ken and Emek, bearing their flamers,

wouldn’t be so armed.

Dak’ir’s five had also become six with the addition of Pyriel. He too hefted a bolter, his force sword and

pistol remaining sheathed for now. The Librarian had not been swayed by Sergeant Agatone’s arguments