“On even ground,” Tsu’gan snarled through clenched teeth. “Do not think this accord has anything to do with you, Ignean. It does not. We still have unfinished business, you and I.”
“Oh yes?” Dak’ir invited.
Tsu’gan leaned in close. The scent of acerbic oils on his skin was pungent and put Dak’ir in mind of sulphur.
“Your dreams and portents, Ignean — they are not natural.”
Dak’ir’s expression gave away his inner fear that this could be true. Tsu’gan continued unabated.
“I see how the Librarian watches you. I don’t know what it is you are hiding, but I will discover it…” Tsu’gan moved so close he was eye-to-eye with the other sergeant, “…and know this: I will not hesitate to strike you down should it mean you veer from the righteous path.”
Dak’ir took a step back, but his posture was defiant.
“You sound like Elysius,” he snarled. “This is not about me, Tsu’gan. It is about Kadai and Stratos.”
The certainty in Tsu’gan’s face flickered for a moment.
You fear everything…
Nihilan’s words had a habit of returning when he least wanted them to.
“I fear nothing,” he muttered, too quiet for Dak’ir to hear.
The other sergeant went on.
“Let your guilt go, brother,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “It will only destroy you in the end.”
Tsu’gan’s knuckles cracked and for a moment Dak’ir thought he would strike him, but he reined in his anger at the last moment and bit it back.
“I have nothing to be guilty for.” It sounded hollow, Dak’ir suspected, even to Tsu’gan’s ears. “Are we done here?” he added after a charged pause.
“I go to the mines,” said Dak’ir, not certain why he was telling Tsu’gan. Perhaps it was because of what he suspected he might find down there and that it connected them both somehow.
Tsu’gan merely nodded.
“They intend to fire the cannon to destroy the black rock,” he guessed.
Now it was Dak’ir’s turn to nod.
With nothing else to say, unsure why he had really come to speak with Tsu’gan, Dak’ir turned away. He was approaching the ramp when he heard the other sergeant’s voice after him. “Dak’ir…”
He seldom called him that; usually it was “Ignean”. Dak’ir stopped and looked back. Tsu’gan’s face was grave.
“In the chamber where we discovered the cannon,” he said. “I found burned metal and cinder.”
Dak’ir knew what that meant. Tsu’gan’s gaze would have clinched it for him, even had he not understood the import of his words. For Dak’ir had sensed them too. In the few days since they had crashed upon Scoria, the feeling had been there. It was merely bubbling under the surface like the magma lifeblood of the world, readying to burst forth and change Scoria forever.
“In Vulkan’s name,” uttered Dak’ir. His tone was solemn.
“Aye,” Tsu’gan answered, before turning away to pick up his bolter.
When he looked back to embarkation ramp, Dak’ir was already gone.
II
Old Foes
Experience is but a series of moments strung together across the web of time. Most go by unheeded, barely noticeable tremors through the lattice of personal chronology, but some, the truly momentous, are felt as wracking shudders that threaten all other moments. Such things can often be felt before they occur, a low tremble in the spine, a shift in the wind, a feeling. They are presaged, these moments; their coming is palpable.
As Dak’ir travelled through the darkened hollows of the subterranean world beneath Scoria, he felt such a moment was in the making.
“All clear ahead,” Apion’s voice returned through the comm-feed. A half minute later, the Salamander reappeared in the gloom of the tunnel having finished his initial recon.
There were seven of them in their party — a combat squad of five Astartes, and a guide as selected by Pyriel. The Librarian kept to the shadows, a silent, brooding figure as he reached out with his psychic senses to try and touch what might lurk ahead of them in the mines.
The boy Va’lin had brought the Salamanders this far. Dak’ir had at first objected to the use of such a young adolescent but Pyriel had reasoned Val’in knew the tunnels better than any other settler, and was likely to be far safer below the surface with them than above against the greenskin onslaught.
It had been almost an hour since they’d entered the emergence hole left by the chitin just outside the fortress confines, and found the trail that would lead them to the mines. Their pace was slow and cautious. Dak’ir thought it prudent.
Burned metal and cinder.
It could mean only one thing. Dak’ir’s thoughts went to his brothers above him, drawn in battle lines upon the surface of a dying world. By now, the first of the ork ships would have made landfall and the hordes would be converging on N’keln’s last stand.
Dak’ir resisted the feeling of despair that gnawed at him. Even if they managed to secure the fyron needed to fire the cannon and used it to destroy the black rock, there was still no guarantee they would be able to overcome the orks that had already landed. If such a victory should prove possible, the Salamanders still had no means of leaving Scoria, a planet that was slowly tearing itself apart with steadily greater vigour. They might defeat their foes only to be consumed by a rising ocean of lava or swallowed down into the deep pits of the earth as the world’s crust cracked open. Dak’ir supposed it would be a fitting epitaph for a company of Fire-born.
“Your orders, brother-sergeant,” whispered Ba’ken, who was standing alongside Dak’ir with his heavy flamer readied.
Dak’ir suddenly became aware that Apion was awaiting instruction. Brothers Romulus and Te’kulcar, too, taking up rearguard positions, appeared anticipatory.
The sergeant swung his attention around to Va’lin. Dak’ir recalled the bravery the boy had shown during the chitin attack on his settlement. He seemed equally stalwart now, watching the shadows, listening and assessing the sounds emanating from the rock.
“How far, Va’lin?” Dak’ir asked, crouching slightly so as not to intimidate him.
The boy kept his gaze on the tunnel darkness ahead, regarding the curvature of the earth, the shapes — though largely indistinct to Dak’ir and the other Salamanders — that were as clear as a road sign to him. After a moment’s cogitation, he spoke.
“Another kilometre, maybe a half more.”
Another kilometre deeper into the earth, where the air grew hotter by the metre and the glow of lava could be seen flickering against the black walls of rock. Descending into the dark was like crossing the gateway to another world, one of fire and ash. For the Salamanders it felt more than ever like home.
Dak’ir remembered the scent of smoke and cinder that he had experienced in the tunnels just before they’d clashed with the orks and been reunited with their battle-brothers. It came again to him now, only this wasn’t just a sense memory, it was real. A draft was stirred up from somewhere, channelled up to them as an acrid breeze that held the reek of burning and the faintest trace of sulphur.
Dak’ir thought of red scales, of a serpentine body uncurling amidst a pall of cloying smoke. It was as if the thing in his mind’s eye had emerged from a fell pit of fire, hell-spawned and terrible.
“They are close,” the voice of Pyriel intruded upon the gloom. His eyes were blazing cerulean orbs when Dak’ir turned towards him.
“Who are close?” asked Te’kulcar. He was not with the squad when they had fought on Stratos. Brother Te’kulcar had been a replacement for the slain Ak’sor, recruited from a different company altogether.
Dak’ir’s voice was grim.
“The Dragon Warriors.”
Raking the slide of his combi-bolter, Tsu’gan felt a slight twinge in his chest. The explosion from the dead ork warboss’ wartrike had cracked his ribplate and punctured a lung. Enhanced Astartes biology was healing him quickly, but the
ache still remained. Tsu’gan ignored it. Pain of the body was easily mastered. He thought again of Dak’ir’s words about guilt and its consumptive nature. How many deeds of heroism would it take to wipe away the stain of conscience he felt at Kadai’s death? He hated to admit, but the Ignean was right. It wasn’t the presence in the walls of the iron fortress speaking this time, either.
The Salamanders had quit the confines of the traitor bastion. Tsu’gan was glad of it — the protection it offered was no sanctuary and they were better off without. The Fire-born were arrayed in front of the wall in stout, green-armoured battle lines, the stone and metal of its construction several metres behind them, bulwarking their backs. They were so advanced in order to cover and protect the emergence hole that Pyriel and the Ignean had taken to the mines. Should they prove successful and retrieve the fyron ore, they would need a clear run to the fortress and the catacombs of the inner keep where Elysius and Draedius awaited them.
Casting his eye across the army, Tsu’gan saw Captain N’keln in a position of prominence at the front, the Inferno Guard arrayed around him. The banner of Malicant hung low but stalwart on a weak breeze.
Fire Anvil and the other vehicles, barring the Rhino APC Fugis had taken to the Vulkan’s Wrath, punctuated the line at strategic anchor points. The transport tanks had little in the way of meaningful firepower but the mobile protection they provided was useful.
Venerable Brothers Ashamon and Amadeus stood stoic but ready. The unyielding forms of the Dreadnoughts were like armoured pillars amidst the field of Salamander green. As their weapon mounts cycled through preparation routines, the occasional flicker of electricity across their close combat armaments was the only betrayal of impatience for battle.
A churning ash cloud, building on the horizon, grasped Tsu’gan’s attention. The orks were making their approach, as they’d done before. More were coming this time. Their ships hung like a shroud overhead, blighting the sky in a swarm.
The primary enginarium deck of the Vulkan’s Wrath was hot like a steaming caldera. Haze made the air throb and flicker as if only partially real, as if it were overlaid by a mirage. Gouts of expelled gas plumed the air, thick and white, whilst dulled hazard lighting illuminated sections of machinery, hard-edged bulkheads and sweating deck serfs.
Fugis found Master Argos amongst the throng, a pair of Techmarines assisting him as he toiled at the ventral engines. Lume-lamps attached to his servo-rig bored lances into the gloom of the sunken chamber where he worked, large enough to accommodate twenty Astartes shoulder-to-shoulder. The Apothecary discerned the reek of unguents and oils designed to placate the out-of-kilter machine-spirits. Doleful chanting emanated from the attendant Techmarines on a recycled breeze, thick with carbon dioxide. There was the hint of engine parts, of blackened metal and disparate components revealed in the half-light.
“You’ve come from the Apothecarion, brother,” the voice of Argos echoed metallically from the darkened recess where he was working. The whirring action of unseen mechadendrites and servo-tools provided a high-pitched refrain to the Master of the Forge’s automated diction.
Fugis noted it was not framed as a question. Even if Argos hadn’t known the Apothecary was returning to the Vulkan’s Wrath, he knew every square metre of his ship intimately. He felt its every move subconsciously, as certain as if it were one made by his own body.
The Master of the Forge continued, “The power armour suits have been secured in the aft armorium of deck twenty. You’ve come to ask if our efforts in retrieving them and the geneseed of the ancient are in vain.”
Fugis gave a small, mirthless laugh.
“You demonstrate as much prescience as Brother-Librarian Pyriel, Master Argos.”
The Master of the Forge’s head appeared out of the gloom for the first time. He went unhooded and Fugis saw the bionic eye he wore retracting as it readjusted to observe him from whatever detailed work it had been analysing.
“It is merely logic, brother.” He went on. “The Vulkan’s Wrath is repaired as best as I am able without a Mechanicus workyard at my disposal. Nothing has changed — we still require four functional banks of ventral engines. Three are primed and ready, the fourth — the access conduit to which you see me in here — is not. Crucial parts, damaged in the crash, and not salvageable from other areas of the ship, are needed for its operation. It is a relatively quick and rudimentary procedure to effect, the correct rituals are short and simple to perform but the machine-spirit will not be coaxed into life half-formed, Brother Apothecary.”
Fugis looked impassive at the Techmarine’s clipped and precise reply.
“Then let us hope something does change so we might avert our fate,” he said.
Fugis was not certain he believed in fate or destiny. As an Apothecary he was practical, putting his faith in his hands and what he saw with his eyes. These few days upon the doomed world of Scoria had changed that. He had felt it most strongly in the ruined bridge of the old Expeditionary ship, where Gravius had sat like a recumbent corpse. By the laws of nature, the ancient Salamander should not still be alive. As Fugis had approached him, a sense of awe and reverence slowing his steps, Gravius was nearing the end of his endurance. It seemed he had held on for millennia, waiting for the return of his brothers.
Fugis didn’t know what the significance of this discovery was. He was following the orders of his captain, but experienced a peculiar sense of woe and gravitas as he’d administered the Emperor’s Peace through a nerve-serum injection. It was almost like defilement as he cracked open the ancient armour and retrieved the ancient’s progenoids. In them was the genetic coding of the Legion, undistilled by time or generations of forebears. The experience was genuinely humbling and called to his fractured spirit.
“Brother Agatone and I are returning to the iron fortress,” he told Argos. The sergeant and his combat squad had accompanied Illiad in the Rhino APC. Agatone had waited outside the bridge when Fugis had gone to meet Gravius. Right now, he and his troopers were directing the evacuation of the settlers, those who had fought against the orks included — N’keln had decided no more human life would be lost to the greenskins if it could be avoided. All would return to the Vulkan’s Wrath in the hope that the ship be made void-worthy 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 blood-strewn 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 daemon-possessed..
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.
[Tome of Fire 01] - Salamander Page 36