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purpose to gain the upper hand.

“Murdering dog!” Dak’ir raged, about to spit acid from his betcher’s gland into the renegade’s face when

Ghor’gan stopped him by shoving his forearm under the Salamander’s chin and forcing his mouth shut. The

caustic bile bubbled over Dak’ir’s bottom lip harmlessly.

“Fight with honour,” countered the Dragon Warrior, his voice like crackling magma. In the frantic struggle,

Dak’ir noticed a ragged wound, only half-healed, across his neck and assumed this was the reason for

Ghor’gan’s throaty cadence.

“You possess none,” Dak’ir accused when he’d pushed back the renegade’s grip on his neck. “I know you

are the assassin that shot my captain when his back was turned.”

Ghor’gan’s face darkened in what might have been regret.

“I am a warhound, like you,” he rasped, then granted as he tried to seize a hand around Dak’ir’s throat. The

Dragon Warrior was big, easily the size and heft of Ba’ken, and Dak’ir was finding his strength a severe test.

“I follow orders, even those I disagree with. It is the way of war,” he concluded.

“Pleading for mercy already, renegade?”

“No.” Ghor’gan’s answer was flat, his tone almost weary. “I just wanted you to know before you die.” The

Dragon Warrior exerted his full strength, pressing Dak’ir into a crouch, and slipping his claws around his

neck.

Dak’ir felt his throat constricting from the external pressure. He raked gauntleted fingers over Ghor’gan’s

face, trying to leaven his grip, but came away with a fistful of shed skin instead. Ghor’gan snarled at the

ragged wound in his cheek but kept the pressure up, extending his arms to force Dak’ir away. The

Salamander went for his holstered pistol but the renegade saw the move and smashed him into the cavern

wall. White fire flared behind Dak’ir’s eyes as hot knives stabbed his side where he’d struck the rock.

“Don’t resist,” growled Ghor’gan, almost fatherly, “Your pain is almost at an end…”

Dak’ir’s lungs felt like withered sacks in his chest, as his throat was slowly being crashed. Darkness

impinged at the edge of his sight and he felt himself slipping…

He reached out, trying to deny the inevitable. Pyriel was far away, behind the wall of fire. Dak’ir was alone

with Ghor’gan, his old captain’s killer about to add to his murder tally.

Ba’ken reached the edge of the growing lava pool slowly encircling Va’lin on his island of metal. The boy

was choking on the sulphurous fumes and smoke wreathed his tiny refuge. Ba’ken would have to jump. He

couldn’t make it and return with the boy as well if he kept on his heavy flamer rig. Without a second

thought, he disengaged the locking straps and shrugged the bulky canisters off his back, laying them

carefully on the ground with the weapon itself.

Muttering a painful litany as he traced his hand lightly across the barrel of the gun he had forged and crafted,

Ba’ken rose to his feet and leapt to Va’lin.

“Climb on, boy,” he said, once on the other side. The skeletal frame of the excavator was already buckling

under the Salamander’s weight, whilst around them the lava crept ever closer.

Va’lin clambered onto Ba’ken’s shoulders, clinging desperately to the Fire-born’s neck and pauldron.

“Don’t let go,” the Salamander told the boy and launched himself back across, just as the lava flow began

eating away at the excavator, until in a few seconds it had consumed it.

The molten stream raging through the cavern, bisecting it with a ribbon of viscous heat, had spilled over t he

rock span. There was no way back to Pyriel and Dak’ir. Ba’ken could scarcely see them through the smoke

and falling debris.

He cried out. “Brothers!”

A spurt of flame erupted from the earth near where he was standing and Ba’ken stepped away, grimacing.

“Brothers!” he bellowed again, his voice swallowed by the cracking of earth, the roar of fire answering.

The end of Scoria was at hand. There was nothing left for this world now. Maybe there was nothing left for

Dak’ir or Pyriel either. Beseeching the Emperor and Vulkan for their safe return, Ba’ken fell back

reluctantly.

Va’lin was suffocating; the Salamander heard it in the boy’s wheezing breaths, his shuddering chest.

Ba’ken turned and made for the exit.

“Hang on,” he said grimly, racing for the tunnel back to the surface.

In the midst of the fighting, Tsu’gan had thought he’d seen Romulus and Apion return from the emergence

hole, a wounded Brother Te’kulcar draped across their shoulders. He couldn’t see the fyron ore, but then his

view was fleeting in the press of combat.

A full assault was ordered and the Salamanders were pressing the orks with all the flame and fury they could

muster. The line was no more; it had given way to probing attacks launched at strategic points throughout

the greenskin horde. Witnessed from above, the assaults would have looked bullet trajectories, forcing their

way slowly through the dark green flesh of the beast.

Mob leaders, totem carriers, psykers — these were the Salamanders’ targets. Cripple the orks’ leadership.

Show them their mightiest could all fall beneath a Fire-born’s flame and blade. Here the Assault squads

excelled, Vargo and Gannon conducting raiding attacks on vulnerable positions or leaders exposed by the

sudden death or retreat of their brethren.

Thousands of greenskins lay dead for little reply. That said, every Salamander casualty was felt keenly.

Fugis had returned to the fight with Brother-Sergeant Agatone. The two fought shoulder-to-shoulder, their

courage worthy of even Vulkan’s praise. But the Apothecary, as heroic as he was, couldn’t minister to all of

his fallen brothers. If they survived this fight, there would be much work for Fugis to do in the aftermath.

Tsu’gan had lost sight of them after N’keln’s full assault order and he wondered if they fought still.

It was stretched and the ash dunes were like a copper desert now, so stained were they with blood. Tremors

wracked the undulating landscape almost constantly and dark lightning ripped strips into the sky as the

volcanoes vented. Their voices were a doom-laden refrain to the heavy thunder overhead.

“The world is ending, brother,” roared Tsu’gan. He had not left Praetor’s side, although the sergeant’s squad

had fragmented in the dense melee. Iagon, for instance, was elsewhere on the field of war. Tsu’gan hoped he

was still alive.

“A fitting end for us then,” Praetor replied, crashing an ork with a crackling blow from his thunder hammer,

“consumed by smoke and fire. All is ash at the end of days, brother.”

Tsu’gan smiled to himself — it sounded like something Brother Emek would say.

“All is ash,” Tsu’gan agreed and fought on.

Above the rising tumult of Scoria’s last storm, just audible over the raging battle, the churning report of

metal could be heard echoing from the innards of the iron fortress.

Peaking above the lip of the wall, the stub-nose of the long cannon forged by the Iron Warriors but purified

by the Salamanders emerged. Dust and rock was cascading from its metal casing in huge drifts, its

pneumatic platform raising it from the depths of the keep to glower imperiously over the surface of Scoria

like the metal finger of a dark and vengeful god.

For a moment, a fleeting second only, the fighting slowed as all who beheld the cannon’s emergence gaped

in awe. Its eye was fixed heavenward as it sought to destroy a black sun.

Fyron-fuelled capacitors charged the air, their throb and pulse emitted as a wave of force as the cannon was

empowered and a second later, unleashed.

II

Retribution

Dak’ir’s world was darkening. His arms grew heavy as his vision faded to black and his struggles against

Ghor’gan ebbed.

“That’s it,” he heard the crackling magma voice say. “That’s it, find peace…”

A trembling in the earth below prevented the Salamander’s fall into oblivion. When it shook the very

ground, its violent insistence threw the grappling Space Marines apart.

Clutching his neck, Dak’ir coughed and spluttered hot, smoky air back into his lungs. The sensation

reminded him of Nocturne and the caves of Ignea — it was like breathing in a panacea.

Ghor’gan was getting to his feet as Dak’ir’s vision cleared. The Dragon Warrior braced himself against the

rock wall as the entire cavern shook. A huge crack ran up the side of it as geysers of scalding steam and fire

roared through the slowly fragmenting ground. In places small chasms and crag-walled pitfalls opened up

like yawning mouths, their liquid tongues hot and glowing below. The renegade moved around them,

stalking towards Dak’ir, determined to finish what he had begun.

“Relent, little Salamander,” he said, his voice low and weary.

Ghor’gan didn’t see the combat blade in Dak’ir’s hand until it was too late. The blade was only half a metre

long but the Salamander sank it to the hilt in the renegade’s chest. The precise blow exploited a gap in the

ceramite plates and penetrated armour, bone and flesh.

“A life for a life,” snarled Dak’ir. “My captain must be avenged.”

Ghor’gan’s mouth curled in pain; his eyes narrow slits of agony. Even as Dak’ir twisted the blade, searching

out vital organs and soft tissue, the renegade fought on and dug his claws into the Salamander’s neck.

Dak’ir cried out, aiming a savage punch to the Dragon Warrior’s ear even as he shoved the combat blade

harder with his other hand. Ghor’gan shifted his head, and took the blow on his much harder jaw instead, but

it jarred enough to force him to release his claw.

Blood was dripping off Ghor’gan’s extracted talon when a ball of fire rolled through the wall of heat nearby,

wreathed in flames and trailing smoke. From it emerged Pyriel, furled within the protective confines of his

drakescale mantle.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dak’ir saw Pyriel move to assist him but the sergeant urged the Librarian on as

he kept the bulky Dragon Warrior pinned.

“Stop Nihilan,” he roared, his voice hoarse from being half-choked to death. “Don’t let the bastard escape

again.”

Pyriel didn’t even pause. The Librarian knew his duty and sped on after Nihilan and his brood.

“Just you and I again,” sneered Dak’ir, scenting the sulphur gas streaming from a craterous hole behind the

Dragon Warrior. A sudden idea occurred to him. “You’re not Fire-born, are you renegade…”

The idling of powerful engines throbbed ahead of him as Pyriel thundered down the tunnel after Nihilan and

the other Dragon Warrior.

Dak’ir was right — they could not be allowed to escape again. If it had to end here on Scoria then the

renegades would die with them. The Librarian could feel peace if he knew that was so.

Too late, Pyriel arrived at the tunnel’s terminus. In the expansive cavern before him, a Stormbird was

waiting. Its engines were burning with a dull, red glow. The embarkation ramp in the gunship’s hold was

slammed down. The fang-mouthed Dragon Warrior was ferrying the last of the fyron ore aboard via the sixwheeled

loader, his master looking on.

Just before Nihilan turned to see the foe in his midst, Pyriel looked up and realised the roof to the cavern was

vaulted. In fact, it tapered several hundred metres up into a narrow chimney that led directly to the surface.

Narrow, yes, but wide enough to accommodate the span of a Stormbird if piloted correctly.

A psychic cry ripped from Pyriel’s throat as he recognised his chance to stop the Dragon Warriors was

already beyond his grasp. He fashioned a bolt of flame from the essence of the warp, channelling it down his

force sword to lash at Nihilan. At least he would sear him.

Some fifty metres away, the sorcerer turned and threw up a hasty force barrier against which the fire bolt

crashed and dissipated. Behind trailing smoke and eddies of flame, Nihilan emerged unscathed.

The Dragon Warrior then unleashed a psychic riposte. Black smoke boiled across the ground, resolving into

tendrils upon reaching the Salamander. The tendrils coiled insidiously around Pyriel’s arms and legs,

invading the protective aegis of his armour and bypassing the safeguards of his psychic hood. Powerless to

prevent it, in a matter of seconds the Librarian was utterly paralysed. Thunderous rage burned in Pyriel’s

eyes as he regarded his nemesis.

“It’s been a long time, Pyriel,” said Nihilan with a voice reminiscent of cracking parchment. “I missed you

on Stratos, brother.”

“A shame,” Pyriel forced a sarcastic reply. He grimaced against the sorcerous hold, trying to unravel it with

his mind.

Nihilan walked off the loading ramp almost casually. Despite the raucous engine noise venting around him,

his words were strangely clear. “How long has it been, then? Over four decades for you? I see you have

advanced in Master Vel’cona’s eyes since then. A mere Codicier, if memory serves, and now a vaunted

Epistolary.” Nihilan’s burning red gaze swept over the arcane rank sigils emblazoned on Pyriel’s armour

contemptuously. The sorcerer’s mood darkened.

“Still you deny the raw power of the warp,” he breathed, lingering on the flame icon on the Librarian’s right

pauldron. Enmity, perhaps even jealousy, flared briefly then died like the mirthless smile curling Nihilan’s

top lip. “I eclipse your meagre abilities now.”

“Spoken like a true pawn of Chaos,” bit Pyriel, working as much vitriol as he could into the retort. “You are

naught but a plaything for the Ruinous Powers. Once your usefulness has ended they will discard you.”

The amused expression returned.

“I thought it was just the armour of my former brothers that was green. Not so for you of course, Librarian,

but then the shade of your eyes make up for it, don’t they.”

Pyriel’s eyes burned an angry red. He wished dearly he could look upon Nihilan and engulf him within the

fire of his wrath.

“If you’re going to destroy me, then do it and spare the rhetoric before I expire of boredom.”

That struck a nerve. Nihilan seemed like he was going to give Pyriel his wish. Static blurted from the

external vox feed in the hold of the Stormbird, arresting any retaliation.

“Cargo secured, my lord,” came a rasping voice. “Brother Ekrine is ready to take off.”

Annoyed at the sudden interruption, Nihilan managed to keep his irritation from his voice when he replied.

“Understood, Ramlek. I will be with you momentarily.” He turned his attention back to Pyriel.

“I could smite you where you stand, but that wouldn’t be fitting. I want you to suffer before you die, Pyriel.

Just like Vel’cona made me suffer when you betrayed my trust.”