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“Well?”

Dak’ir felt his jaw tighten.

“I shall tell you,” Tsu’gan whispered. “We would turn on one another.”

Silence followed, charged with the threat of something violent and ugly.

Tsu’gan’s smile was mirthless and goading.

Dak’ir’s hand went almost of its own volition to the combat blade sheathed at his hip.

The smile turned into a malicious grin.

“Perhaps you have some warrior’s blood in you after all, Ignean…”

“Come now, brothers.” Iagon’s voice dispelled the red haze that had settled over Dak’ir’s vision. He spread

his arms in an expansive gesture, ever the ostensible conciliator. “We are all kin here. The Vault of

Remembrance is no place for recusation or rancour. The temple is a haven, somewhere to absolve one’s self

of guilt or self-recrimination, isn’t that so, Brother-Sergeant Dak’ir?” He added the barb with a viper’s smile.

Ba’ken bristled, poised to act, when Dak’ir extended a steadying hand to placate him. He had already

released his grip on the combat blade, seeing the act for what it was — a simple taunt. Emek, uncertain what

to do, merely watched impotently.

“It is more than that, Iagon,” Dak’ir replied, side-stepping the snare Iagon had laid for him. He turned his

attention back to Tsu’gan, making it clear that the lapdog was beneath his concern.

Dak’ir drew close, but Tsu’gan held his gaze and didn’t flinch.

“I know what you are doing,” he said. “N’keln is a worthy captain for this company. I warn you, do not

besmirch Kadai’s memory by opposing him.”

“I’ll do what is best for the company and the Chapter, as is my right and duty,” Tsu’gan returned

vehemently. Stepping closer still, he snarled through clenched teeth, “I told you once I would not forget your

complicity in my brother-captain’s death. Nothing has changed. But question my loyalty and devotion to

Kadai again, and I will cut you down where you stand.”

Dak’ir knew he’d gone too far with that last remark, so capitulated at once. Not out of fear, but shame. To

challenge Tsu’gan was one thing; to call his fealty and respect for their old captain into doubt was

unfounded.

Satisfied he’d made his point Tsu’gan backed down too and went to move around his brother.

“How long has he been here, like that?” he asked, looking beyond the memorial flame. There was the

faintest trace of sadness in his voice.

The Vault of Remembrance was laid bare to the elements at its north-facing wall. An archway of white

dacite engraved with the effigies of firedrakes led out onto a long basalt promontory that overlooked the sunbleached

sands of the Pyre Desert. Silhouetted in the evening glow was Apothecary Fugis, as motionless as a

sentinel.

“Since we arrived,” said Dak’ir, and felt the spark of belligerence between them ebbing, if only for a few

moments. “I haven’t seen him stir even once.”

“His grief consumes him.” Emek had turned to watch the Apothecary too.

Tsu’gan’s face creased into a disdainful scowl and he looked away. “What use is grief? It affords us nothing.

Can grief smite our enemies or protect the borders of our galaxy? Will it resist the predations of the warp? I

think not.” With barely concealed contempt, he nonchalantly cast the votive scroll he had clutched in his fist

into the memorial fire. It slipped and fell out of the flame’s caldera where the rest of the ash gathered, only

half-burnt. For a moment, Tsu’gan almost went to retrieve it but then stopped himself. “I have no use for

grief,” he muttered quietly. Then he turned and left the Vault of Remembrance, Iagon following in his wake.

When Tsu’gan’s back was turned Dak’ir did it for him, mouthing a silent oath of remembrance as the

parchment was consumed.

Fugis stared out across the vastness of the Pyre Desert. He was standing upon an overhang of dark rock that

was often used as a natural landing pad for the Salamanders’ gun-ships and other light vessels. The strip was

empty today, apart from the Apothecary, and Fugis welcomed the solace.

To the north beyond the arid desert region was the Acerbian Sea. Fugis saw it as a dim black line where the

tall spire of Epimethus, Nocturne’s only ocean-bound Sanctuary City, jutted like a dull blade. It was

surrounded by other, much smaller satellites, the numerous drilling rigs and mineral harvesting platforms

that raked the ocean floor or mined its deepest trenches for ore.

Out on the barren sands of the Pyre, he witnessed a sa’hrk, one of the desert’s predator beasts, stalking a

herd of sauroch. The lithe, saurian creature slithered low across the desolate plain, scurrying from the

scattered rock clusters to draw close enough to its prey to strike. Oblivious to the danger, the sauroch herd

ploughed on, their bulky, gristle-thick bodies swaying as they marched in file. The sa’hrk waited for the end

of the cattle trail to reach it, then pounced. A bull-like sauroch was wrestled bodily to the ground, hooting

plaintively as the predator levered aside the bone-plates encasing its neck to reach the soft flesh beneath. It

gorged itself quickly, tearing strands of bloody meat with its iron-hard jaws and chugging them down its

bloated gullet. The rest of the herd mewled and snorted in panic. Some of the cattle-beasts stampeded; others

merely stood petrified. To the sa’hrk, it mattered not. It took its fill and merely sloped away, leaving the

carcass to rot in the sun.

“The weak will always be preyed upon by the strong,” uttered Fugis. “Is that not correct, brother?”

Dak’ir stepped into the Apothecary’s eye line. Carrion creatures were already flocking to the dead sauroch,

stripping it of whatever sustenance the sa’hrk had left them.

“Unless those with strength intercede on behalf of the weak, and protect them,” he countered, turning to

regard his fellow Salamander directly. “I didn’t realise you were aware of my presence.”

“You’ve been standing there for the last fifteen minutes, Dak’ir. I was aware. I merely chose not to

acknowledge you.”

An uncomfortable silence followed, filled only by the low, insistent thrum of Hesiod’s void shield

generators. Those of Epimethus to the north and Themis to the east added to the dull cacophony, audible

even across the expanse of the desert and the shelter of the mountains.

“On Stratos, we were weak.” Fugis couldn’t keep the spite out of his voice, as he said it. “And the strong

punished us for it.”

“The renegades were not strong, brother,” insisted Dak’ir. “They were cowards, striking from the shadows

whilst our backs were turned, and cutting him down—”

“Without honour,” snapped Fugis, turning on Dak’ir before he could finish, a mask of rage drawn over his

thin countenance. “They slew him, as that sa’hrk slew the sauroch, like swine, like cattle.”

The Apothecary nodded slowly, his anger usurped by bitterness and fatalism.

“We were weak on Stratos… but it began on Moribar,” he rasped. “I curse Kadai for that. For his weakness

then, that he did not see and end the threat Ushorak presented, the loyalty he had instilled in Nihilan, when

he had the chance.”

Dak’ir was taken aback by Fugis’ reaction. He had never seen him like this before. The Apothecary was

calm, clinical even. It kept him sharp. To hear him speak like this was unsettling. Something had died inside

him, burned along with Kadai’s remains on the pyre-slab. Dak’ir thought it might be hope.

Fugis closed on him. It was the second time that one of his battle-brothers had approached him like this

today. The brother-sergeant didn’t care for it.

“You saw it, brother. You dreamed of this danger for almost four decades.” Fugis gripped Dak’ir’s

pauldrons intensely. The Apothecary’s eyes were wide, almost maddened. “I only wish we had known then

what we know now…” Fugis’ voice trailed away. Whatever grief-fuelled vigour had seized his body ebbed

with it, as he let his arms fall back to his sides and faced the setting sun.

“Perhaps you should visit Chaplain Elysius. There is…” Dak’ir stopped talking. Fugis wasn’t listening to

him anyway. His eyes were glassy like rubies as he stared across the desert.

“Brother-sergeant.”

Dak’ir exhaled his relief at Ba’ken’s voice. He turned to see the burly Salamander standing a few metres

away as if he had been there a while, not approaching out of respect.

“Brother-Captain N’keln is here in Hesiod,” Ba’ken continued. “He wishes to speak with you.”

“Stay with him until you are called,” Dak’ir husked beneath his breath on his way back into the Vault of

Remembrance, with a half-glance in the Apothecary’s direction.

“Of course, brother,” Ba’ken replied and waited on the Thunderhawk platform for his sergeant’s return.

Surrounded by darkness, Tsu’gan bowed his head and beckoned the brander-priest with an outstretched

hand.

“Come,” he uttered, voice echoing inside the close confines of the solitorium. The reverberation faded,

swallowed by the stygian black and the shifting of fire-wrapped coals beneath Tsu’gan’s bare feet.

Iagon had already removed his power armour, securing it in an antechamber where he awaited his sergeant’s

return.

Tsu’gan stood bare-chested, wearing only a pair of training fatigues borrowed from the Chapter Bastion

gymnasia. Steam cascaded off his body in waves, diffusing the blood-red gleam from his eyes. Fresh

scarification throbbed against his seared skin where his brander-priest had already applied the rod. Still,

Tsu’gan beckoned for more.

“Zo’kar!” he snapped, gesturing agitatedly with his hand. His voice came out in a harsh whisper. “Burn me

again.”

“My lord, I…” the brander-priest quailed hesitantly.

“Obey me, serf,” Tsu’gan hissed through clenched teeth. “Apply the rod. Do it, now.” His tone was almost

imploring.

The Space Marine’s mind was in turmoil. He regretted not going back, on seeing to the offering he had so

casually discarded into the memorial flame. Kadai was worthy of his reverence, not his scorn, however it

might be directed. He recalled the moment in the temple on Stratos when he had confronted Nihilan.

You fear everything…

The remembered words were like cold steel rammed into his flesh. For in some hollow of his heart, some

hidden vault the Dragon Warrior had uncovered and cruelly opened, Tsu’gan knew them to be true. He hated

himself for it. He had failed his lord and thereby realised his greatest fear. Purgation was the only answer to

frailty. Kadai was dead because…

Pain filled his senses, together with the stench of his own tortured skin. It was clean and pure — Tsu’gan

revelled in it, sought solace in flagellation by fire.

“Scour it away, Zo’kar,” he husked. “Scour it all away…”

The brander-priest obeyed, afraid of his master’s wrath, searing again the lines of the Salamander’s old

victories and past achievements. It had gone beyond ceremony. There was no honour in what Tsu’gan was

deliberately subjecting himself to. This was masochism; a shameful art brought about by his guilt.

By the time Zo’kar was finished and the rod had almost cooled, Tsu’gan was breathing hard. His body was

alive with agony, the heat of the brand’s attentions coming off him in a haze. The entire chamber was

redolent of burning, and scorched flesh.

Masochism was becoming addiction.

Tsu’gan saw again the moment of his captain’s demise. Watched his body immolated by the multi-melta’s

bright beam. His eyes hurt at the remembered sight of it.

Dragging air into his chest, Tsu’gan could only rasp. “Again…”

In his half-delirium, he didn’t notice the other figure in the room watching him from the secrecy of shadows.

Dak’ir found his captain in one of the Chapter Bastion’s minor strategium chambers. It was an austere room,

bereft of banners, triumphal plaques or trophies. It was hard-edged, practical and bleak, much like N’keln

himself.

Leaning over a simple metal altar-table, the captain scrutinised galactic maps and star-charts with Brother-

Sergeant Lok.

Lok commanded one of 3rd Company’s three Devastator squads, the Incinerators. A Badab War veteran, he

carried black and yellow slashes on his left kneepad to commemorate the armour he had worn during the

conflict. Lok was hard-faced and grim, two centuries of war calcifying his resolve. A long scar ran down the

left side of his face from forehead to chin bisecting the sergeant’s two platinum service studs. This he had

received fighting a boarding action on an Executioner’s battle barge, Blade of Perdition, during Badab. The

bionic eye on the opposite side of his grizzled visage was implanted much earlier after the scouring of

Ymgarl when he was only just a full-fledged battle-brother. Lok had been 3rd Company then, too, assigned

as part of a small task force to assist 2nd Company who were mustered for the campaign in their entirety.

Lok reminded Dak’ir of an old drake, its skin chewed by the ravages of age, and as tough as cured leather.

To see his dour expression, one might think he felt like one too.

The veteran sergeant’s left arm was encased in a power fist. Lok rested the cumbersome but brutal looking

weapon on the altar-table as he attended to matters of tactics with his captain. What campaign or mission

they might be masterminding, Dak’ir didn’t know. Many in the Chapter believed Lok should have been

promoted to the 1st Company by now, but Tu’Shan was wise and knew that he was more valuable to 3rd

Company as an experienced sergeant. To Dak’ir’s mind, that decision had proven an astute one.

Lok looked up at Dak’ir as he entered and gave a near imperceptible nod of his head.

“Sir, you summoned me,” the sergeant said to his captain, after bowing.

Disturbed from his planning, N’keln appeared distracted at first. As he straightened, the captain’s full

panoply of war was revealed. Close up, the artificer armour he wore was rarefied indeed. Encrusted with the

sigils of drakes and wrought with super-dense bands of adamantium that bound its reinforced ceramite

plates, it was a masterpiece. A gorget lay discarded on the altar-table, evidently a portion of the suit N’keln

had removed for improved dexterity in his neck. The battle-helm rested next to it, traditional Mk VII in style

but sleeker with the mouth grille replaced by a fanged drake snout. A mantle of salamander hide, the

armour’s last concomitant element, was hanging reverently in one corner upon a nondescript mannequin.

“Thank you, Sergeant Lok, that will be all for now,” said N’keln at last.

“My lord,” Lok replied, adding, “brother-sergeant,” for Dak’ir’s benefit on his way out.

N’keln waited until Lok was gone before he spoke again.