by Nick Kyme
'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 six-wheeled 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.'
Pyriel's jaw hardened - the dark tendrils binding him were weakening. 'Traitors are undeserving of trust.'
Pyriel shook off the sorcerous bonds with a feral shout. Force sword held high, the Librarian launched himself at Nihilan, who merely stepped back into the hold before the ramp was pulled up. Mocking laugher echoed down to Pyriel as the Stormbird lifted and the hold hatch closed with a resounding clang. The burst from the gunship's rapidly vented thrusters sent the Librarian sprawling and the Stormbird soaring up the shrinking mouth of the rock chimney, up into the fractious air of Scoria.
Shrugging off the effects of Nihilan's sorcerous attack and mouthing a muttered curse, Pyriel picked himself up and went back down the tunnel to find Dak'ir.
He returned in time only to see the Salamander sergeant and his foe pitching over the edge of a fiery crevice, plummeting down, occluded by smoke and rising ash.
Pyriel gave voice to his pain again. 'Dak'ir!'
The black rock exploded with all the finality and grandeur of a shattered star. At once the blood-red sky flooded with brilliance, a pure white flare that bathed all in its eldritch glow. The flare died but the sun returned with it, weak and yellow but brighter than the forbidding gloom of the eclipse.
Abruptly and violently sundered, the black rock was spread across the firmament. The fragments of its passing became new stars burning in the light of day. Drawn by the gravitational pull of the planet, the stars became larger and larger until they resolved into vast meteorites, swathed in fire and billowing smoke.
The effect of the black rock's destruction on the orks was almost palpable. The horde faltered, its impetus flagging like a ship with its sails abruptly cut. When the jagged balls of fire arcing from the heavens struck, it only compounded the greenskins' despair.
Simultaneous meteor strikes punished the rear of the ork lines stretching back across the dunes. The celestial storm wreaked utter havoc, slaying hundreds beneath the fury of the fallen rocks, and cooking hundreds more in the resultant radiation wave.
Tsu'gan watched this all happen between the ever growing gaps in the fighting. As soon as the beam from the seismic cannon rang out, piercing the sky like a radiant lance, N'keln ordered the Salamanders to stand fast and consolidate. Though stretched and scattered, the Astartes became like green-armoured islands in the orkish sea, turning their bolters outward and brooking no interloper beyond their individual walls of ceramite.
Shoulder-to-shoulder with Praetor and three of his Firedrakes, Tsu'gan couldn't help but stare in awe at the phenomenal display unfolding above. The earth chimed with it, trembling and cracking. Crevices and chasms split open, swallowing orks in their thousands. Those not falling to their doom in the abyssal darkness were consumed by rushing lava torrenting into the air.
Booming thunder pealed from the volcanoes, louder and somehow final as they erupted with hellish force.
Praetor's laughter rivalled their bellow. The skies were darkening with smoke and ash. Soon artificial night would resume once more.
'When fire rains from the sky and ash smothers the sun, it is the end of days,' he shouted.
Tsu'gan's gaze was still fixed upon the turbulent heavens. 'That is not all the heavens bring, brother.'
Praetor followed Tsu'gan's outstretched finger.
The belly of a ship emerged slowly through the billowing smoke clouds. Tsu'gan was put in mind of a giant predator of the deep emerging from a mist-wreathed ocean. Tiny meteorites arced past it on fiery contrails as it hovered a thousand metres above the surface. The backwash of massive ventral engines pressed down upon Tsu'gan despite its altitude. It was an Astartes strike cruiser.
Argos raised his body up out of the ventral thruster conduit in the enginarium. He stretched the stiffness out of h
is back, eased the knots from his tired muscles and rolled his shoulders beneath his pauldrons to coax back some mobility. He had done all he could.
The fourth, still non-functional, ventral thruster bank was prepped as exhaustively as possible. The machine-rites had been observed, the correct unguents applied and offerings dedicated. His throat was hoarse from the litanies of function and ignition he had performed in concert with his Techmarines. The Master of Forge was a part of this ship; he felt its malady and he knew its moods. If they could replace the parts they'd lost and needed, it would achieve loft. Once free of the dunes, the Vulkan's Wrath's main engines would do the rest.
The comm-feed in his battle-helm hissed and spat with static before Argos heard Brother Uclides, one of Sergeant Agatone's squad tasked with escorting the human civilians aboard the ship.
After undertaking a cursory geological analysis, Argos had determined that the planet's tectonic integrity was nearing imminent disintegration. Prudently, he had given the order for the auxiliary and all still living casualties to be secured aboard the ship for safety. Those injured who could not be moved were given the Emperor's Peace and enclosed in medi-caskets for later interment into the pyreum.
'All of the Scorian settlers are aboard, Master Argos. What are your orders?'
Argos was about to respond when he noticed the radiation spike in the atmosphere detected by the ship's still functioning sensors, relayed to him through his direct interface.
'Go to the fighter hangar and help prepare the gun-ships,' he answered, changing his mind when he assumed the black rock had been destroyed. Apart from the servitors, the Salamander was alone, having already despatched the other Techmarines to the Thunderhawks still locked in their transit rigs. 'Our brothers will be in need of immediate extraction and conveyance back to the Vulkan's Wrath! Uclides communicated his obedience and cut the feed.
Argos was about to climb out of the sunken thruster access conduit when the ship's vox-unit crackled into life alongside him. Uclides would have used the helmet comm-feed. The signal originated from outside of the ship.
'Brother Techmarine Argos: 3rd Company, Salamanders Chapter, aboard the Vulkan's Wrath,' he began, observing protocol. 'Identify yourself.'
A clipped voice responded with all the warmth and smoothness of rusty nails.
'This is Brother Techmarine Harkane of his most noble lord Vinyar's strike cruiser, Purgatory. In the name of the Emperor, the Marines Malevolent bring you salvation!'
Brother-Captain N'keln's order to stand fast had kept his forces out of bombardment range and the worst hit areas of the meteor shower. The celestial storm had all but abated now and the greenskins, though battered and severely reduced in strength, still lived and fought.
During a brief lull in the battle, N'keln took stock of his surroundings. Mounted upon a high dune with his Inferno Guard and Sergeant Agatone, who had emerged alongside them with Fugis when they'd returned to the battlefield, N'keln surveyed the carnage. He saw tiny knots of Salamander armour out amongst the thrashing horde, lit by controlled bursts of bolter fire or plumes of igniting promethium. Their rear was anchored by the Devastators still. Lok was in able command, several hundred metres distant since the advance. The Dreadnoughts both functioned, prowling the edges of the Salamanders' deployment zone. Ashamon had lost his heavy flamer and meltagun but he continued to pound on the orks with his seismic hammer. Amadeus was wholly intact, but with several deep gouges in his protective sarcophagus where the greenskins had attempted to forcibly exhume him.
N'keln estimated they had lost approximately thirty-three per cent of their original number. He didn't know how many of those casualties would fight again. In light of the ork masses it was a lower rate of attrition than he'd expected. The greenskins, in contrast, had died in their thousands. A slew of carcasses lay strewn across the dunes, slowly decaying.
The company banner, held aloft by Malicant, began snapping violently in a sudden downdraft, drawing N'keln's gaze upward. Above them, the brother-captain saw the long, grey ventral hull of a ship he recognised. Fraught with interference, the comm-feed in his battle-helm opened.
N'keln listened intently to the voice of Brother Argos as he relayed exactly what Harkane on the Purgatory had said to him. Towards the end, the captain's face became grim.
'Tell him he has my word,' he replied, jaw clenched. He cut the feed and ordered the warriors around him back into the fight. N'keln suddenly needed to vent his wrath.
Pyriel ran to the edge of the crevice where he'd seen Dak'ir fall, expecting the worst. Peering over the edge, through smoke and flame and heat, he saw it was a short drop into a bubbling lava pool. Ghor'gan's armour was slowly disintegrating in it, along with the rest of the Dragon Warrior. There was no sign of Dak'ir.
Then the smoke and steam cleared slightly and Pyriel saw him. Dak'ir was climbing up the rocky face of the crevice and had almost reached the top. Pyriel reached down and dragged him up just as the lava flow pooled high enough to swallow up the corpse of the renegade completely.
'You are adept at cheating death, brother,' Pyriel remarked. His tone was an ambivalent mesh of relief and thin-veiled suspicion.
Dak'ir only nodded, too exhausted to speak for the moment.
The cavern was crashing down around them. Fire wreathed it and falling rocks and spills of dust fogged the air. Nowhere was safe to stand now, with fresh chasms opening from the webbed cracks that littered the ground and lava plumes spewing capriciously from the bowels of the earth. They had to get out, yet the way to the tunnel was blocked.
'Nihilan…' rasped Dak'ir as a geyser of steam erupted nearby.
Pyriel shook his head. The Librarian's dark gaze betrayed his anger.
'Stand close,' he said after a moment. Pyriel was dred too - breaking Nihilan's sorcerous hold had been taxing. He tapped into what psychic strength he had left and opened the gate of infinity.
Scoria was dying, and in its despair sought to take those upon its surface with it to oblivion.
The earth tremors were a constant rumbling now as they presaged further cracks opening up in the doomed planet's bedrock. Entire sections of the dunes were collapsing, sending greenskins in their thousands to fiery death in the rising lava streams below. Smoke wreathed the battiefield as if it were a gigantic pyre, the warriors locked in combat upon it fighting to avoid the touch of the flames. Spurting lava threw red and umber shadows into the greying haze, its glow grainy and diffuse in the clogged air.
Even the iron fortress had started to crumble. A few minutes after Elysius and Draedius had quit the keep a wide crack ran up its centre, splitting the bastion in two. Then several errant meteorites had struck it. A broken tower thrust up into the murder-red sky like a shattered femur, another was rendered a sullen stump. Walls partially collapsed, a yawning chasm in its courtyard, the iron fortress hung open a half ruin.
As far as he was from the site of its destruction, and though he could barely see it through the billowing smoke, N'keln sensed fear emanating from the iron fortress - fear and angry denial. The end of Scoria meant the end for whatever fell entity possessed the bastion's catacombs. Fire would cleanse it at last, after all.
N'keln heard the thunder ripping across the sky. It came in the form of gunships, both Salamander and Marines Malevolent. Through the thick grey smog, he thought he traced the flight path of receding engines venturing out to evacuate his battle-brothers.
Occasionally, bright lances of energy surged through the smoky cloud layer blotting out great swathes of the sky as the Purgatory unleashed its guns on distant mobs of greenskins. The grey veil lifted for a time as the heat of the strike cruiser's cannons burned it away, only for it to return moments later in the wake of their fury.
The orks were dying in droves and N'keln ordered a final push for victory, reinforced by what squads Vinyar had deigned to assist him with. The compart, agreed under some duress, with the Marines Malevolent captain still rankled but there was little other choice.
Upon N'keln's reluctant concession, a squadron of Stormbirds had roared from the Purgatory's fighter bays headed straight for the crash site and the Vulkan's Wrath. Aboard were Brother Harkane and several other Techmarines and servitor crews. With them they carried the machine parts necessary for Argos to repair the fourth ventral thruster bank and give flight back to the Salamanders' strike cruiser.
The Marines Malevolent had also secured the crash site. Between them and the Salamander forces still on the field, the remaining orks were being rounded up and destroyed. For that, N'keln was grateful.
The fight all but over, the captain had become estranged from his warriors and stood upon the field of war surrounded by smoke, seemingly alone. Grateful for the solitude, he heard the sounds of battle ending: the sporadic bark of bolters, the errant flash of flame or the desultory orkish roar of vain defiance. The greenskins were defeated. No more dark splinters from the sky, no more brutish ships making landfall. It was done.
Overhead, the Thunderhawks blazed, ferrying Salamanders back to the Vulkan's Wrath. He made a mental note to commend Brother Argos for his foresight and prudence in this matter. Even as fire rained from the sky with the last vestiges of the meteor storm and the world shuddered in its final death throes around them, the sound of Salamanders chanting drifted to N'keln on a hot breeze.
They echoed his name.
Prometheus victoria! N'keln gloria!
It was an old Legion custom, this shouted accolade, borrowed from their Terran cousins. N'keln was humbled by their respect and laudation.
His heart swelled with warrior pride as he watched the Vulkan's Wrath, visible despite the distance and the smoke, rise from the dunes, rock and ash cascading off its surface, aloft once more.
It was time to leave at last and return to Nocturne. N'keln hoped the ancient power armour suits and the geneseed of Brother Gravius might yield some revelations as to the fate of the Primarch yet and perhaps reveal the purpose of the Tome of Fire bringing them to this doomed world. For now, he was content with victory and the defeat of his enemies.