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and infected the breeze with its noisome odour.

Dak’ir noticed that the Chaplain wasn’t using his chirurgeon-interrogators to question the Iron Warrior,

preferring, uncharacteristically, to do the work himself. He was obviously angry at the ork’s mauling of him

and levelled that anger at the traitor.

“No riddles,” he snarled, stowing his crozius to draw out his bolt pistol. He pressed the cold muzzle against

the Iron Warrior’s forehead. “Speak.”

“Iron Within. Iron Without,” replied the prisoner, continuing to be uncooperative.

“I will not ask a third time,” Elysius promised, pressing the bolt pistol hard against the Iron Warrior’s head.

“Tell me now how you defeated the greenskins. How were you able to survive? Is the cannon in the bowels

of your foetid bastion something to do with it? What is its purpose? Speak quickly!”

“Iron Wi—” the traitor began, before stopping abruptly. The shadow of the falling splinters from the black

rock had shrouded the courtyard. “Doomed,” he rasped.

Elysius followed his gaze, along with Dak’ir and the others. They all knew what was coming.

Earlier, on the return journey from the killing fields beyond the fortress, Dak’ir had described to N’keln the

nature of the black rock as told to him by the human settler, Illiad. It was akin to a planetoid, rotating on a

horseshoe orbit around Scoria; a planetoid inhabited solely by orks. Every few years it would come close

enough to Scoria for the orks to launch their crude atmospheric craft to make war on those that inhabited the

planet — for orks love war. Prior to the Salamanders’ arrival that war had been waged against the Iron

Warriors, constructing their fortress and seismic cannon for some unknown purpose. Dak’ir suspected he

knew part of the reason, but the rest of it was shrouded from him.

“Doomed,” the Warsmith repeated. “Our numbers were vastly in excess of yours, Emperor’s lapdogs, and

still the greenskin fought us to near oblivion. You cannot prevail.”

“Is that why you were building the weapon?” Elysius asked, pressing his bolt pistol harder against the Iron

Warrior’s temple. “You were planning to use it against the orks, tip the balance back into your favour.”

An amused, metallic rasp issued from behind the closed helm of the traitor.

“You cannot see,” he snorted. “It will save you. It is your destruction that we wrought here. The doom of the

sons of Vulkan is at hand! Your doo—”

The wash of blood and matter against Elysius’ black armour was an epilogue to the barking retort of his bolt

pistol as he shot the Iron Warrior through the head.

A slight tremor registered on Captain N’keln’s face, the only clue to his shock or displeasure at the

suddenness of the execution.

“He was an empty vessel, devoid of further use,” explained the Chaplain. “Let him rot in the fires of the

warp. The pit will claim him.”

“The traitor was right, though,” said Pyriel.

Elysius whirled to confront him. The body language of the Chaplain suggested he had just cast aspersions on

his loyalty and faith, such was the fervour in it.

“We cannot prevail against the orks,” Pyriel affirmed. Elysius backed down before his cerulean glare. The

Librarian turned his attentions to N’keln. “The black rock draws closer. Soon it will be at its optimum range.

The skies are already thronged with greenskins. A planetoid of orks, my lord,” he said, “possibly in their

millions. Even with the greatest strategy, perhaps even with the entire Chapter and Lord Tu’Shan at our side,

we would likely lose such a fight.”

“I’m not sure I like where this line of reasoning leads us, Brother-Librarian,” said N’keln.

“I have spoken to Techmarine Draedius—” this Dak’ir was surprised to learn, he had been with Pyriel

almost all of the time prior to and before the battle “—and he believes the weapon forged by our traitorous

brothers is functional.”

Elysius exploded at this remark.

“You cannot suggest we employ the tools of the enemy!” he raged. “Heresy lurks down that path, Librarian.

I would gladly choose death before compromising my purity with the taint of Perturabo’s spawn.”

“You may get your wish, yet,” Pyriel returned, his voice measured. “But I would not willingly offer my life,

or the lives of my brothers or the people of this world, upon the anvil of war for futile pride. Trust in faith

and the fortitude of Nocturne bred into us from our very birth and rebirth,” he implored. “We can activate

the cannon, use it to destroy the black rock and the greenskin hordes upon it.”

“And to what end?” the Chaplain countered. “We risk compromising our purity in the eyes of the Immortal

Emperor, and suppose we do so untainted and our enemies are vanquished. What then? Our ship is still

mired in the ash, bereft of the engine power to free itself, as this planet is disintegrating from within.”

As if on cue, a tremor rumbled deeply below the earth and fire from the raging volcanoes turned the darkling

sky red.

“To abandon a chance for victory here is to abandon hope,” said Pyriel. “I refuse to believe that Vulkan,

through the Tome of Fire, would have sent us to Scoria without reason and to our inevitable destruction. You

said yourself, brother, that it was our destiny to be struck from the sky, our eyes opened to the truth.”

Elysius heard his words replayed back to him and found he had no answer. Instead, he looked to N’keln. It

was for the captain to decide.

N’keln stood in silence for what seemed a long time before he eventually spoke.

“Though it offends me to my core to dirty my hands with the weapons of traitors, I see no other choice. We

cannot use the Vulkan’s Wrath to destroy the black rock, nor is any weapon we possess here capable of such

a feat — the Iron Warriors’ seismic cannon is our choice. Practicality must outweigh false glory. My

decision is made.”

Pyriel nodded. Elysius echoed him a few moments later, reluctant but relenting to his captain’s will and

counsel.

“What would you have me do, my lord?” asked the Chaplain.

“After unsealing the keep, Brother Draedius will accompany you to the catacombs where the weapon is kept.

Take flamers, take whatever you need and cleanse it, sanctify the cannon and allow our Techmarine to

marshal its tainted machine-spirits. Then we bring it into the light of day and remove the dark stain that has

so blighted this world’s sky.”

“The weapon still requires an amount of fyron, the ore mined by the settlers here, for it to fire,” cautioned

Pyriel.

N’keln turned his hard gaze upon the Librarian. To Dak’ir, it seemed the captain was growing in stature with

every passing moment.

“You know where this mine is to be found, brother?”

“A guide can be seconded from the human survivors,” he said flatly. Dak’ir thought at once of Illiad, only to

realise that he hadn’t seen the leader of the settlers since they’d returned to the iron fortress. He also now

noticed the fact that a Rhino APC was missing, too.

“Then do so,” N’keln’s stern reply interrupted Dak’ir’s thoughts. “Brother-sergeant,” he added, catching

Dak’ir’s direct attention. “Gather a combat squad to accompany you and Brother Pyriel. It is paramount you

return with enough fyron ore to power at least one blast of the cannon.”

“Yes, my lord.” Dak’ir saluted.

“To your tasks then, brothers,” said N’keln. Brother Shen’kar was waiting patiently at the periphery with

schematics and potential combat scenarios for the captain to assess. Even if they were successful in

destroying the black rock, a great many orks were already on their way and would soon land upon Scorian

soil. Battle with them was inevitable and the rest of the Salamanders would need to be ready.

There was little else to be done for Master Argos and the Vulkan’s Wrath. N’keln had denied all requests to

go and reinforce the ship. Their position was strong at the fortress and the orks would come to them again. If

any did find their way to the crash site, the auxiliaries would have to handle them. But N’keln did not think

that likely. The Salamanders would not seek shelter behind tainted walls this time. Its effects were too

dangerous and unpredictable with the psychic backwash from the greenskins. No, they would face the hordes

out in the open and meet them at close arms where the sons of Vulkan excelled. If defeated, then N’keln

deemed they were unworthy of the primarch’s love anyway and deserved no better a fate. He chose to trust

in faith and that salvation for the company would present itself through the fires of war.

Dak’ir wanted to speak with N’keln personally, to discuss the fate of Gravius and the armour suits of the old

Legion in more detail, but by now the captain was intent on his battle plans. So far, all he had delivered was

a succinct appraisal of the facts: of his and Pyriel’s discovery of the ancient Salamander and that the power

armour suits were being secured aboard the Vulkan’s Wrath, in one of the ship’s many armoriums.

The captain had taken all of this in with silent inscrutability and not indicated to Dak’ir what his plan might

be concerning it.

Destroy the black rock, salvage what they could from the world and hope for a means of escape — those

were the Salamanders’ priorities now, and in that order. Everything the else was of secondary concern.

“Gather your warriors back here,” said Pyriel once both N’keln and Elysius, gone to find Draedius and his

flamers, had departed. “I will find us some guides.”

Dak’ir nodded, his mind suddenly on other things as he regarded the open embarkation hatch of the Fire

Anvil. Ba’ken was waiting for him as he approached the Land Raider.

Clutching the hulking warrior’s pauldron, Dak’ir leaned in and said: “We are bound for the mines. I need

four battle-brothers, yourself included.”

Ba’ken nodded and went off to gather the troops.

Dak’ir continued on his way and soon found himself at the Fire Anvil’s embarkation ramp. The internal

lighting was kept low but he still made out injured battle-brothers hunched upon the assault bunks, awaiting

treatment. Dak’ir also noticed two medi-caskets where comatose Salamanders reclined, preserved by the

action of their sus-an membranes, in response to the grievous harm they’d suffered in battle against the orks.

He’d seen other caskets too: these contained the bodies of slain heroes, destined for the pyreum, their

progenoids removed to cultivate later generations of Salamanders. The dead amongst the settlers, almost half

of those who had gone bravely into battle with the Astartes, would join them as a mark of honour and respect

for their sacrifice.

Dak’ir entered and he saw what at first he thought was Fugis tending to a wounded Salamander at the rear of

the hold, his back to him. When he saw the green, not white, battle-helm resting on a medi-slab alongside

him, Dak’ir realised it was not the Apothecary at all.

“Where is Fugis?” he asked curtly, annoyed at the perceived deception.

Brother Emek turned to face him, but his patient spoke for him.

“N’keln sent him on another mission, as soon as we returned to the iron fortress,” Tsu’gan told him, his

spike of beard jutting out like a static, red flame. The sergeant’s plastron and a detachable portion of his

torso under-mesh had been removed. Emek had just finished bandaging Tsu’gan’s chest. The bindings were

tight and muddied dark pink with his diffuse blood beneath them. Salves and unguents had been applied to

his body to speed up the recovery process. They smelled of ash and burning rock. Dak’ir also saw the many

branding scars visited upon the sergeant’s skin. They were deep and wide, and he wondered how Tsu’gan’s

brander-priest could’ve been so crude in his honour marking.

“I’ll leave you, brothers,” said Emek, ever the diplomat, and moved to the other side of the hold where

another patient awaited him. Dak’ir nodded as he passed, but his attention was upon Tsu’gan who had got up

and was replacing his plastron.

“What about his duties here?” Dak’ir asked. “And what mission?”

“There was little for him to do, save the removal of the progenoids from our fallen brothers. That was done

upon the field of battle, the rest are patch-ups that your trooper, Emek, seems more than capable of

performing.” Tsu’gan fitted the armour in place and clasped the front and back, betraying a wince of pain for

his efforts. “Perhaps Fugis is grooming him for a role in the Apothecarion.”

Dak’ir clenched a fist at the brother-sergeant’s deliberate goading.

“Where is Fugis?” he asked again.

“Gone,” Tsu’gan answered simply, flexing his left arm and rotating his shoulder blade within his pauldron.

“Stiff,” he said, partly to himself.

“Tsu’gan…” Dak’ir warned. In their time apart, he’d almost forgotten how much he despised the other

sergeant.

“Calm yourself, Ignean. N’keln sent him to the chamber where you found the ancient. He’s going to extract

his geneseed.”

“And Illiad would be leading him there,” Dak’ir muttered, but not so quietly that Tsu’gan couldn’t hear him.

It also explained the missing Rhino APC.

“The human you arrived with, yes.”

Dak’ir felt a pang of regret. It was only right that Gravius’ geneseed be preserved, but there was so much

that the ancient Salamander knew that given time they could have unearthed. Instead, now, it would be

forever condemned to oblivion, the same fate as Gravius’ body.

Dak’ir had hoped they could restore him somehow, at least return him to Prometheus and the Chapter. It

saddened him to think that this was the old hero’s end. It didn’t seem fitting.

“Is that why you came, to speak to Fugis?” asked Tsu’gan, interrupting Dak’ir’s reverie. “He is unlikely to

return here and we’ll be neck-deep in orks before you have another chance.” A mirthless grin passed over his

features, and Dak’ir was reminded of a sa’hrk, one of the predator lizards of the Scorian Plain back on

Nocturne.

Dak’ir moved a step closer, so the two of them were just under a metre apart, and lowered his voice.

“I came to speak with you,” he admitted. “I saw the way you looked at N’keln after he slew the beast. Am I

to believe your opinion has changed?”

“The fires of war have made their judgement,” was Tsu’gan’s only reply, before he double-checked the

pressure seals on his power armour.

“An end to clandestine meetings then and your ambition to lead the company?” Dak’ir’s tone was leading.

Tsu’gan looked up sharply. There was anger, even violence, in his fiery gaze.

“Petty threats are beneath even you, Ignean,” he said, misunderstanding. “Don’t test me,” he warned.