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orks parted briefly before the explosions then closed up again, the ripples short-lived and ineffectual, the

slain crushed underfoot and forgotten.

“Merciful Vulkan…”

Dak’ir heard Emek over the comm-feed.

“Never despair,” said Dak’ir to bolster his troops. The blood caked against his teeth tasted like copper.

“Never give in. Salamanders only go forward.”

Bolter fire erupted down the line as the orks came into range. The greenskins weathered it as before, but no

longer marched; they had broken into a run.

“This is it. For Tu’Shan and the Emperor,” declared Dak’ir. “For Vulkan and the glory of Prometheus!”

Forty against three thousand.

Dak’ir had looked into the primitive psyche of the orks. He knew, on an almost cellular level, their fury and

aggression. Unless something changed to even the balance, many Fire-born would not live out this fight.

Dak’ir vowed that he would not submit to the pyreum easily.

A dense throb built at the back of his skull. For a moment, Dak’ir thought it was the ork rage returned, but as

the sound started to resonate across the ash plain he realised it was from a different source.

The massive capacitors in the Vulkan’s Wrath’s guns were charging. Huge upper-deck turrets swivelled into

position with the churning retort of metal. The air crackled with slow actinic discharge, magnetising the

metallic elements in the ash and grit particles, statically adhering them to the Salamanders’ boots and leg

greaves. The throb built to a high-pitched whine and Dak’ir saw a nimbus of electrical energy spark and fork

around the mouth of the guns.

An instant later and they were unleashed.

A blast wave, so heavy and powerful it put the Salamanders on their knees, rippled across the ash plain.

Concave slashes of grey scudded in the wake of the turret guns’ lethal discharge, swirling mini-vortices of

displaced ash and dirt.

The barrage lasted a few seconds but the greenskin horde was left devastated by it. Strike cruiser guns were

intended to be fired at extreme ranges in the depths of space against massive, heavily-armoured and voidshielded

targets. The firepower they could bring to bear was insanely destructive. Argos, in his genius, had

only activated a small portion of the guns. The laser battery was enough to atomise vast chunks of the

greenskin army, slaying hundreds in a deadly las-duster. Several thousand super-powerful blasts had emitted

from the guns, but at such frequency and velocity that they appeared as one continuous beam. Those not

caught directly in the beam were burned by it. Several hundred greenskins were already ablaze; some

wandered about aimlessly amongst the scorched earth, others were just charred husks. The rest were crippled

by shock and disorientation, blinded and deafened by the terrible assault.

Dak’ir was getting to his feet when Agatone, his voice cold and menacing, came over the comm-feed.

“The greenskins are down. Close in and finish them. Salamanders attack!”

A roar of thrusters ripped into the air as Acting-Sergeant Gannon and his Assault squad surged upwards on

contrails of smoke and fire. Their blades were drawn, eager to taste ork blood.

The foot troops barged over the makeshift barricade together, bolters flaring. Flamers tramped alongside

them, whilst the heavy static guns stayed behind and pummelled the decimated greenskin horde from

distance.

From the flanks, the Dreadnoughts closed the deadly trap and in the resulting carnage the ork splinter force

was destroyed utterly.

Greenskin blood swathed Dak’ir’s faceplate and he removed his battle-helm so he could better see.

Execution teams roamed through the smoke coiling across the dunes. Anonymous bursts, sharp and sporadic,

occasionally broke the eerie quiet of post-battle as greenskin wounded were finished off.

Looking above the carnage, Dak’ir saw the horizon and imagined the greater horde still out there laying

siege to the iron fortress. He also wondered how they could hope to break such a massive force with the

troops at their disposal. Defenders would have to remain with the Vulkan’s Wrath. It was their only way off

a planet that was slowly breaking apart. The tremors were almost constant now, the distant volcanoes

erupting with ominous regularity. Even without the eclipse, Dak’ir reckoned the skies would still be grey

with falling ash.

“Like Moribar,” he muttered to himself, unaware that he’d just echoed the earlier words of his rival,

Tsu’gan. At the back of his mind, Dak’ir felt that the dark legacy of the Dragon Warriors was interwoven

with the fate of 3rd Company somehow, particularly that of him and Tsu’gan. He even sensed their clawed

caress on this distant world.

Agatone emerged through the murk into Dak’ir’s eye line. He was wiping greenskin blood from his power

sword as he approached.

“The orks are slain,” he said with finality.

“If they return, we’ll have Master Argos engage the Vulkan’s Wrath’s guns again.”

Agatone shook his head.

“No we won’t. Argos has told me he can only fire them once. The recoil might collapse the bedrock holding

up the ship and bury it for good. He won’t risk it.”

“Then our reprieve is short-lived,” said Dak’ir.

“Precisely.”

“Any word from Captain N’keln?”

“We’re trying to raise him now, but there are other matters I wish to attend to first.” Agatone’s cadence was

leading.

“The human settler?” Dak’ir asked, already knowing the answer.

“Precisely,” Agatone repeated. “What did you find below the earth?”

Dak’ir kept his tone level, so his brother-sergeant would be sure of his sincerity.

“We found Nocturne.”

Agatone’s face betrayed his incredulity.

“Let me introduce you to Sonnar Illiad,” said Dak’ir. “There is much you should know, brother.”

II

Death by Guilt

The dull report of explosions rumbled through the walls of the keep, manifesting physically as dust motes

spilling from the ceiling. The siege was in its second phase as the greenskin warboss threw his seemingly

inexhaustible forces against the Salamander-held wall. Thus far, the casualties had been few. Brother Catus

had needed his neck patching up before he could return to battle and Shen’kar had received several broken

bones from his fall, but those had been swiftly righted and the Inferno Guard was back at his captain’s side.

There were more severe cases. Two Salamanders were currently laid out, supine, their sus-an membranes

having shut their bodies down in response to the grievous wounds they’d received during the first ork

assault.

Other more minor injuries — severed hands, gouged eyes, punctured lungs — appeared more frequently.

Gauntlets drenched in blood, Fugis was glad of the work, but he was also glad of the solitude of the keep.

Ever since Naveem and his much-maligned pact with Iagon, the Apothecary had begun to doubt himself. An

excuse to stay behind the lines, away from the thunder of battle, was ready-made with the need for him to

monitor the two comatose Astartes.

It was anathema for a Salamander, for any Space Marine, to shirk away from combat like this. Fugis knew it,

and it preyed upon his thoughts destructively.

He allowed his gaze to wander out of the open-doored cell, one of many in the keep — this one had been

cleansed by Chaplain Elysius and a flamer team, and reappropriated for use as an Apothecarion, though

Fugis doubted the Iron Warriors had used it for such a curative purpose — and alight upon the shadowed

confines of the torture chamber. It was close by, and the doorway to the cell was concealed by a black

curtain of plastek. The traitor prisoner was inside, secured upon one of the Chaplain’s devices, his

chirurgeon-interrogators acting as dutiful but deadly lapdogs outside.

It felt odd to Fugis; a place of torture and a place of healing in such close proximity. On reflection, though,

perhaps the two were not so disparate.

An internal chrono-icon flashed up on the Apothecary’s medi-gauntlet display, reminding him that the

monitoring cycle for the stricken warriors in his care was due. Fugis gripped the edges of a mortuary slab

and bowed his head.

“Vulkan’s fire beats in my breast…” he began, in an effort to steel himself.

Footsteps approaching before him arrested what was next in the catechism. Fugis started to look up slowly

and saw first the green of a Salamander’s battle-plate.

“Brother…” he started to say, when he noticed the ragged hole in the Salamander’s plastron and found the

dead eyes of Naveem glaring back at him.

“Brother.” Naveem’s words were slurred, but as if there were a second voice laid over the first. His breath

was rank with decay and a strong stench of old blood wafted from his wound, as stinging as the irony in

Naveem’s tone.

His face was set in a rictus sneer.

“You’re dead,” Fugis asserted ludicrously. He reached for his bolt pistol, recognising an emanation of the

warp. It seemed the Chaplain’s blessing had not been stringent enough and the flamers had failed to purify

completely.

“Thanks to you,” replied Naveem, in that same dual voice. He didn’t move, but just stood there, radiating

malice and accusation. “You killed my legacy and me, brother.”

Fugis’ anger swelled at the apparition’s mockery. He felt the reassuring solidity of the bolt pistol in his

grasp.

“You cannot kill me twice, brother,” said Naveem.

“You are not my brother, denizen of the warp,” Fugis countered and levelled the pistol.

“I am your guilt and your doubt, Fugis,” it said.

The Apothecary faltered. What good would a bolt pistol do against a figment of his mind? The weapon

wavered in his grasp.

“Now,” it said. “Put the gun to your forehead.”

Fugis’ face creased defiantly, but he found himself slowly turning the pistol around. He did feel guilty for

what had happened to Naveem. It gnawed at his soul, and weighed down his spirit. Fugis wanted to succumb

to it, to be drawn down into the darkness there and to never resurface.

He closed his eyes.

The bolt pistol’s muzzle was hard pressed against his skull. He hadn’t even realised it had got that far.

“Do it now,” the apparition’s voice insisted. “Pull the trigger and sink down, down to where the darkness

calls, down to silence and peace.”

Fugis’ grip was tightening. He thought of Naveem and the ignominious end he’d condemned him to, and

Kadai — he had failed him, too.

A sudden pressure exerted itself on the bolt pistol’s barrel, slowly but firmly easing it away from the

Apothecary’s forehead.

…with it I shall smite the foes of the Emperor… a familiar voice echoed in Fugis’ mind.

“Ko’tan…” he rasped, opening his eyes again.

Naveem, or the thing that wore his image like a ragged cloak, was gone. The sense of something at the very

edge of Fugis’ vision was dissipating too. He didn’t try to find it, for he knew it could not be seen. The

remnant of green gauntlets, of a thunder hammer reforged and a captain reborn, stayed with him, though. It

was there just long enough for Fugis to activate the comm-feed.

“Brother Praetor,” he said, knowing the 1st Company sergeant was held in reserve at the broken gate. “I am

evacuating the keep at once. All injuries will be treated at the battle front from this point.”

“They’re evacuating the keep,” stated Tiberon.

Iagon nodded absently as he saw Apothecary Fugis emerge through the doors. A pack of servitors followed

with a pair of collapsible medi-sleds for the two unconscious battle-brothers.

The chirurgeon-interrogators of Elysius came a few moments later, the captive Iron Warrior in tow. The

Chaplain was on hand in the courtyard to survey proceedings keenly. The prisoner would be moved and

secured within one of the Rhinos until such a time as Elysius was done with him. Judging by the Chaplain’s

demeanour, Iagon thought that might be soon.

Techmarine Draedius sealed the doors behind them with his plasma-torch.

Iagon cared little for the others. His attention was on Fugis alone. Though some fire had been undeniably

restored in him, the Apothecary was still an ersatz version of his former self. Iagon saw these things; he saw

weakness as clearly as a clenched fist or a drawn blade. His compact, the one he had sworn to protect

Tsu’gan, was still intact.

A lull had fallen over the almost constant fighting with the Salamanders’ defeat of the ork warboss’ second

assault. The Fire-born were tenacious, it was just their nature; Nocturneans had to be in order to survive a

death world. Though perhaps ill-suited to a static defence, much preferring to engage the foe at close

quarters and burn them aggressively from the face of the earth, they gritted their teeth, dug in and made

every ork assault a suicidal charge into death and fire. Yes, they were winning the war of attrition it seemed.

Though the orks spread out into the distance, the lapping green tide was slowly being dragged in and

smashed against the Astartes’ breakers. The warboss had even pulled his forces back, out of the range of the

Salamanders’ long guns. Orks were stubborn creatures, but even they would stop smashing their skulls

against a wall if it showed no sign of capitulation. At least those with rudimentary intellect would.

Iagon imagined the beasts on the summit of the ridge conversing in low cunning, trying to devise a strategy

to open up the fortress. Or perhaps they were simply waiting, waiting for the black rock to weep its dark

splinters again and replenish the orks’ dwindling hordes. Too many to engage in the open, not enough to

force a breach in the fortress and exploit it — the two old foes found themselves at an impasse.

The recently risen sun was a shallow ring of broken yellow behind the ominous black rock. In the few hours

since the last assault, it had grown larger. Whatever this thing was that had brought the greenskins to Scoria,

it was closing.

“It’ll be the walls next,” grumbled Sergeant Tsu’gan, appearing alongside them. He’d removed his battlehelm

again and his face was grim. It was like he wore a perpetual grimace, as if a heavy weight dragged

down on his features invisibly.

“Sergeant?” asked Tiberon.

Tsu’gan’s attention was caught for a moment as he saw the keep being shut up for good, when he turned and

peered out idly into the orks amassed at the ridgeline.

“Can’t you feel it, Tiberon?” he asked. Ever since the break in the fighting, Tsu’gan had slumped gradually

into a miserable stupor. They all felt it, and he guarded it keenly, but Iagon saw the effects of it in his wouldbe