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again and deliver them to salvation.

Fugis and Agatone, leaving the combat squad to protect the settlers and escort them to the ship, would head

back and support their battle-brothers if they could. For the moment, the orks had not attacked the crash-site,

nor showed any signs of interest in it. That was just was well — there were only auxiliaries to defend it now.

“Sensors indicate the greenskins have already made landfall, brother. You will arrive too late to reach the

battle lines, unless you plan on killing your way through a sea of orks,” Argos replied. Remarkably, there

was no sarcasm in his tone.

“We’ll take the tunnels, track our route through them to emerge next to the fortress walls.”

“Then you had best be going,” said Argos, before returning to the gloom of the conduit. “Time is short for

all of us now, brother.”

Fugis turned his back on him as he left the enginarium. The Apothecary wondered if it would be the last

time.

The sounds of the battle above drifted down to the catacombs of the inner keep like muffled thunder. The

orks had brought their war host and were now fighting the Salamanders tooth and claw across the bloodstrewn

ash dunes.

Chaplain Elysius had dismissed the flamer bearers, though the acrid reek of spent promethium still remained.

The troopers would be better employed above against the greenskin horde than here amongst the dark and

the whispers.

An itch was developing at the back of the Chaplain’s skull. He felt it lightly at first, muttering litanies under

his breath as he watched Draedius go to work on the seismic cannon, trying to cleanse and purify its

machine-spirits — the Techmarine would need to visit the reclusium after this duty, so that Elysius could

appraise his sprit and ensure it wasn’t tainted. The itch had grown to a nagging insistence, a raft of sibilant

whispers, drifting in and out of focus, pitched just at the edge of his mind. The Chaplain was steeled against

it. The dark forces slaved to the iron fortress’ walls, were trying to breach his defences but the purifying fire

had weakened them for now and his sermons were keeping them in check.

Draedius, standing before the cannon, performed his own rituals. Restoration of the weapon’s machine-spirit

would not be easy, though it was a necessary task. Without it the cannon would not fire; it might even

malfunction with dire consequences. The only small mercy was that the weapon was not already daemonpossessed..

It rankled with Elysius that they had been forced into employing the weapons of the enemy. It smacked of

compromise and deviancy. Though devout, the Chaplain was no fool either. The cannon was the only means

of destroying the black rock and halting the near-endless orkish tide. The rational part of his brain did

wonder why the Iron Warriors would construct such a weapon. Its purpose here on Scoria seemed narrow

and limited. He felt as if he were looking at it through a muddied lens, the edges caked in grime. His view

was myopic, but instinct had taught Elysius to perceive with more than just his eyes. There was something

lurking within that grimy frame, just beyond sight; only by seeing that would the full truth of the Iron

Warriors’ machinations be revealed. It bothered him that he could not.

“Vulkan’s fire beats in my breast,” he intoned as the presence in the catacombs detected his doubts and

sought to feed upon them, using them to widen the tiny cracks in the armour of his faith, “with it I shall

smite the foes of the Emperor,” the Chaplain concluded, gripping the haft of Vulkan’s Sigil and drawing

strength from the hammer-icon’s proximity.

No matter how hard he stared at the cannon, the obscurity around the “lens” remained.

The din of clunking machinery filtered up to them in the tunnel. The sounds were coming from a glowing

opening below. Lava stench and the prickle of heat came with it. The mines were just ahead.

“Stay back, Val’in,” Dak’ir warned, stepping ahead of the boy and shielding him with the bulk of his

armoured form.

The boy did as he was told, but gasped as he spied a shadow looming ahead of them at the base of the tunnel.

Brother Apion saw it too, having moved to take point, and aimed his bolter, about to fire.

“It’s already dead,” Pyriel informed him, his eyes fading from cerulean blue.

“An Iron Warrior husk,” noted Dak’ir, his vision adjusting to discern the bare metal ceramite and the

distinctive black and yellow chevrons marking the armour. The same as the redoubts. “Advance with

caution, brothers.”

Apion lowered his bolter a fraction and led them on.

At the base of the tunnel, the Salamanders found a natural gallery of rock. The machine noise — the

whirring of drills and the chugging report of excavators — became louder. Long shadows cast from moving

forms in a larger chamber beyond streaked the walls at the end of the gallery.

There were more “sentries” here — iron-armoured deterrents staged in ready positions abutting the walls.

Val’in cowered, the natural fear emanating from the long dead corpses still very much alive for him.

Ba’ken brought him close, leaning down as far as his bulk allowed and whispering, “Stay close to me, child.

The Fire Angels will allow no harm to come to you.”

Va’lin nodded and his mood eased a little as he crept closer to the pillar of ceramite that was Brother Ba’ken.

Dak’ir failed to notice the exchange. His attention was on Apion, who had reached the end of the gallery and

was poised at the threshold to the chamber. Dak’ir joined him seconds later and stared out into a wide

expanse of rock. Here and there, struts of metal supported the cavern roof above. The empty shells of mining

equipment lay strewn about the cavern like a machine graveyard, burned out and discarded once their

usefulness had ended. Dak’ir saw boring-engines, bucket-bladed diggers, excavators and tracked drillplatforms.

Servitors, slumped over their vehicles or piled up in corpse heaps, were a testament to the

incessant overmining.

In addition to the machines, there were three stages, made of metal and lofted a metre off the ground on stout

legs. Two of the three were flat and empty. The third was stacked with rotund metal barrels. Dak’ir didn’t

need to look inside of them to know they were brimming with fyron ore. The third stage was nearest to the

source of the machine noise: a short but gaping tunnel shrouded in gloom. The Salamanders had entered t he

cavern at a slight angle, and through his enhanced eye-sight Dak’ir made out two servitor-driven drilling

engines, like the ones the settlers had used in their ambush, and a bulky excavator rig on thick tracks,

dragging away the useless rock and earth expelled by the drilling engines’ labours. This too was worked by a

servitor, hunch-backed and cable-slaved to the machine as if it were an integral part of its being. All three

automatons were akin to the ghoul-drones encountered in the cannon’s arming chamber.

The low lighting cast by sodium lamp packs suspended on cables steam-bolted to the cavern roof framed t he

grotesque faces of the ghoul-drones evilly. Their masters were not far away.

Three Iron Warriors stood at the drilling tunnel’s threshold, overseeing the work. They carried combi-bolt ers

with barrel-mounted sarissa-blades, low slung on straps around their spiked pauldrons. Chips of rock

scudded off their armour, such was the Iron Warriors’ proximity to the mine face, and they were veneered in

grey dust.

In the distance, a six-wheeled loader transported a cache of fyron ore barrels on its burgeoning flatbed. The

vehicle rumbled on fat treads towards an opening at the back of the mine that led into unknown darkness..

A second six-wheeler was on its return journey and approaching the partially laden stage where another load

of barrels awaited it. A pair of cargo-servitors — their arms replaced by twin-pronged lifter claws —

shambled into view as the loader closed on them.

In the loader’s wake, a group of figures was revealed.

Dak’ir’s jaw clenched and he felt a ripple of anger pass through his body.

Kadai’s slayers, the Dragon Warriors, were here.

There were three of them, armoured in blood-red ceramite that was scaled in places as if the suits themselves

had somehow mutated. Their gauntlets ended in gore-tipped claws and a strong reek of copper exuded from

their bodies. They were once Space Marines, these creatures; now they were renegades in service to the

Ruinous Powers. Slaves to darkness and damnation.

One wore a helmet fashioned into the image of an ancient saurian beast. Two horns curled like dark red

blades from both temples of his battle-helm. A cloud of fiery embers gusted from a snarling, fang-fringed

mouth grille in time with the renegade’s rapid breathing. Heat haze emanated from the Dragon Warrior,

giving his form a sense of unreality.

Another cradled an archaic multi-melta, scarred with kill-markings. His battle-helm was bare but came to a

stub-nosed snout that was rendered in bone. Skulls attached to bloody chains hung from his scaled pauldrons

and he wore what looked like deep-red lizard hide over his abdominal armour. Dust particles spilled from his

armour joints with every movement. To Dak’ir’s enhanced sight they appeared like tiny flakes of epidermis

and the Salamander was instantly put in mind of a serpent shedding its skin.

The last of them Dak’ir knew well. Flanked by his two warriors, this one’s burning red eyes were ablaze as

if he were constantly enraged. The smouldering anger was emulated by the scarification on his face, which

was a horrific patchwork of burned skin and lacerations. Old welts and tracts of melted flesh ravaged his

onyx-black visage. A horn curved from each of his pauldrons and he seized a crackling force staff in a

clawed gauntlet.

This was Nihilan, sorcerer and architect of Kadai’s destruction.

“Renegades,” snarled Apion, and Dak’ir heard the Salamander’s fists crack.

“Ba’ken,” said the sergeant, his gaze never leaving his nemesis. They should have scoured these tunnels

days ago. Dak’ir had sensed something here. His visions all pointed to it. Even Tsu’gan had suspected, and

still they’d done nothing. Well, now the time for inaction was at an end.

An icon appeared in the visual display of Ba’ken’s battle-helm, sent over from Dak’ir’s with a single eye

blink.

“Target acquired…” rumbled the hulking trooper, moving forward to level his heavy flamer.

The loader had almost reached the stage and the ghoul-drones were approaching it when a gout of

superheated promethium streaked across the chamber and ignited. The spear of flame burst through the pair

of drones, setting them ablaze, but that was merely a glancing blow. Its intended target, the loader itself,

exploded a few seconds later as its fuel cells were cooked and the volatile liquid within went up

spectacularly. The loader was cast into the air and flipped over, the flaming wreckage crushing the still

burning ghoul-drones and destroying them in a raging conflagration as it landed hard.

“Salamanders, attack!” roared Dak’ir as they charged into the cavern, bolters screaming.

The Iron Warriors were closest and reacted quickly. One was not quick enough however, as Dak’ir’s plasma

bolt took him in the chest and punched a hole the size of a clenched Astartes fist. Explosive rounds bursting

from the traitor’s combi-bolter raked the roof and shot out a lighting rig, as his fingers grasped at the trigger

with the last of his nerve tremors.

The other two Iron Warriors reached cover and began to return fire, even as the Dragon Warriors started to

move into battle positions. Through the gunfire, Dak’ir thought he saw Nihilan laughing.

The Salamanders panned out: Dak’ir, Pyriel and Ba’ken heading right, whilst Apion, Romulus and Te’kulcar

went left. Val’in, not wishing to remain in the corridor with the Iron Warrior corpses alone, ran behind the

skeleton of a disused loader, bastardised for spare parts, and hid.

“Anvil, gain the stage and secure the fyron ore,” ordered Dak’ir over the comm-feed, using the call signs

they’d established before entering the emergence hole. Out of the corner of his eye, past the barking reports

of bolters, he saw Apion and Romulus rushing between machine husks as they tried to reach the ore

platform, whilst Te’kulcar advanced offering covering fire.

“Hammer, we advance now!” Dak’ir led the others forward, streaks of flames keeping the Iron Warriors

down as they sought to move to fresh cover. Through darted glimpses at the enemy, Dak’ir saw that Nihilan

was letting his minions do the work. An incandescent beam seared through a vehicle shell where Pyriel had

crouched. The Librarian moved out of its path just in time. Sustained bolter fire came from the other

renegade, who seemed to revel in the act of loosing his weapon. He was like a mad dog, straining at the

leash.

All the while, the ghoul-drones maintained their incessant mining.

A low rumble struck the chamber, arresting the Salamanders’ shock assault. Fragments of rock were

cascading from the roof and the metal struts groaned forbiddingly in protest.

Dak’ir fell to one knee as he lost his balance. So did one of the Iron Warriors, lurching out of cover for a

moment. Long enough for Ba’ken, who stood steady with his legs braced, to burn him down. A metallic

screech issued from the traitor’s battle-helm before he collapsed in a smoking heap of charred metal. The

violent tremors grew in intensity so that even Ba’ken couldn’t maintain his footing. The tongue of fire from

his flamer receded.

The Dragon Warriors had gone to ground too. Dak’ir had lost sight of Nihilan, but he could sense his

presence. He judged they were just over sixty metres away, about half the width of the cavern. A determined

attack once the tremors had subsided would catch them off guard — they could reach the renegades before

the multi-melta fired again. As a psyker, Nihilan was unpredictable, but Dak’ir was willing to take the

chance. Strategy icons flashed up on the Salamanders’ battle-helm displays, conveying the sergeant’s plan.

Romulus and Apion were almost at the platform, the lone Iron Warrior protecting it finding his attention

diverted by two groups of simultaneous attackers and giving neither the attention it needed. Short bursts of

bolter fire from Te’kulcar, lying on his chest and shooting from a prone position for stability, kept the Iron

Warrior down so the other Salamanders could claim their objective.

They were stumbling on to the platform when a deep, cracking sound resonated throughout the cavern like