Salamander, page 40
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 tired 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 battlefield 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 compact, 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.
N’keln was about to raise Argos on the comm-feed to congratulate him and request extraction, when a burning pain flared in his side. At first, the captain wasn’t sure what had happened until he was stabbed again and felt the knife dig deep. Incensed, he made to turn to confront his would-be assassin, but was stabbed again and again. Blood flowed freely from the wounds where the knife had exploited the gaps in his power armour, half-ruined from the incessant fighting.
Biological warnings appeared on his helmet display as his armour notified him, belatedly, of the danger he was in. Hot agony raked his side and he fell forward, his body starting to numb. The weapon, still beyond N’keln’s sight as was his attacker, wrenched from his flesh and a half gasp, half cry betrayed the captain.
Mind reeling, his gushing blood painting his fingers red, N’keln tried to comprehend what was happening. Orks still moved in the smoke, bent on petty vengeance. Had one of them managed to sneak up on him, aiming for a pyrrhic victory of sorts?
Struggling to breathe, his lungs punctured and smoke billowing around him, N’keln ripped off his battle-helm. Forcing his body up, he staggered onto his feet as the blade went in again. He tried to fend off the attack, still unsure where it was coming from, but could only slump onto his back.
At last, N’keln looked up and saw the face of his attacker. The captain’s blood-rimed eyes grew wide. He tried to speak when the thick, orkish blade was thrust into his exposed neck. Blood bubbled up into his throat and all that escaped his mouth was a watery gurgle. N’keln’s fists bunched briefly before the weapon was rammed into his chest and his primary and secondary hearts.
The captain of the Salamanders died with rage in his eyes and his fingers curled into talons of impotent hate. The sounds of his victory and the chants of his name faded in his ears as blackness overtook them…
Fugis moved through the dense fog of smoke, despatching wounded orks or administering the Emperor’s Peace to the fallen and extracting their geneseeds. A faint cry echoing through the murk got his attention and he followed it through the grey world around him.
Upon a bloody dune of ash he found Brother Iagon. The Salamander was clutching the ruined stump of his left hand, trying to staunch the gory flow. Three dead ork corpses were strewn around him. A fourth body lay partially hidden by the rise of the dune, having tumbled into a shallow depression in the ash. Its boots were marred with grey but glimmered green underneath.
For now ignoring Iagon, whose eyes were urging him to go to the other body, Fugis rushed to the edge of the dune and saw N’keln, his rigored faced locked in fury, lying dead below.
Distraught, the Apothecary half-clambered, half-fell to the base of the depression where the slain captain lay. He was checking for vital signs, knowing really he would find none, when the rest of the Inferno Guard arrived on the scene.
Praetor and the Firedrakes, along with Tsu’gan and some of his squad joined them. It was the veteran Terminator sergeant that broke the disbelieving silence.
‘In Vulkan’s name, what happened here?’ A barely tempered rage affected the Firedrake’s voice as he directed his questioning first at Fugis, then at Iagon.
Iagon was shaking his head, as Fugis relayed his ignorance of the heinous act to Praetor and went to the other Salamander’s assistance.
‘I saw them… moving through the smoke,’ Iagon’s reply was broken by painful pauses as Fugis worked at cauterising the terrible wound. ‘Three of them, clad in stealth… and closing on the captain,’ he went on. ‘By the time I could reach him, N’keln was already dead. I slew two of them without reply, when my weapon ran empty and the third took my hand. I finished it with the stock, but I was too late to save him…’ Iagon’s voice trailed away, his head downcast.
Praetor regarded the bloodied bolter, its stock caked in gore, and the demolished face of the ork nearest the wounded Salamander. The other two carried bolter wounds, blood-slicked cleavers half-gripped in their meaty fists. Iagon’s armour was spattered with dark crimson.
Grave-faced, Praetor nodded slowly and turned his back on the tragic scene. He opened a force-wide band on the comm-feed and issued a full retreat order. All he said in addition was that Brother-Captain N’keln had been incapacitated and that he was assuming full command of the mission.
Dak’ir learned of Captain N’keln’s death sitting in the Chamber Sanctuarine of the Thunderhawk, Fire-wyvern. A melancholy mood descended upon the troop hold of the gunship as the black news filtered through to all. First Kadai and now N’keln – Dak’ir wondered what fate was next for 3rd Company.
He and Pyriel had emerged onto the battlefield in a maelstrom of lightning and noise. The nauseating effects of teleportation faded swiftly faced with the immensity of the burgeoning cataclysm about to destroy Scoria. A Thunderhawk was already hovering to land nearby. Dak’ir remembered feeling slightly aggrieved that he had not had a chance to fight alongside his battle-brothers against the orks before the evacuation. But there was no time for introspection.
The boarding ramp of the Fire-wyvern clanged open as soon as it touched down. Dak’ir, Pyriel and several others in the vicinity embarked without a word. Moments later, they were airborne and tracking across the ravaged ash desert slowly being consumed by fire.
It was only a short journey to the Vulkan’s Wrath. Their pilot, Brother Hek’en, voxed through to the troop hold, reporting that the strike cruiser was before them on the horizon, aloft and ready to take them off the doomed world.
Muted cheers greeted this news, tempered by the earlier communication from Praetor that he had assumed command and N’keln was down. Scattered word from Salamanders still out in the field followed swiftly, confirming that their captain was actually dead.
Gazing out of the occuliport in the side of the armoured gunship, yet to assume his transport harness, Dak’ir was saddened further when he saw the ground tear apart. He imagined the inert form of Brother Gravius, lava billowing up and rolling over the ancient Salamander, swallowing him under its fiery depths. The entire world was burning, waves of magma like tsunamis cascading over the fractured surface of Scoria turning it into a gelatinous sun.
Dak’ir turned away and found Pyriel staring at him. The rest of the Salamanders had their heads bowed in remembrance. The Librarian’s expression was anything but grieving. It told Dak’ir that the Epistolary was thinking about how Nihilan’s sorcery should have destroyed him, but left the Salamander sergeant barely scathed. It was not possible. And it was then that Dak’ir realised it wasn’t over for him, that there would be a reckoning upon their return to Nocturne.
EPILOGUE
‘Don’t think of me as a fool, Captain Vinyar…’ The deep and resonant voice of Chapter Master Tu’Shan filled the vast Hall of the Firedrakes on Prometheus with its authority and power. It was an inauspicious start to their initial meeting.
Vinyar stood stock still and silent, a prudent move given that he was in the throne room of another Astartes Chapter, facing their liege lord having forced one of his dead captains into a compromise he did not approve of but had no choice but to honour.
‘I know you and your troops were tracking the Vulkan’s Wrath,’ the Regent of Prometheus continued. ‘How else could you have heard its distress beacon and responded in such timely fashion, offering aid but only for the extortion of war materiel.’
Brother Praetor and a squad of Firedrakes looked on with barely restrained anger. The Marines Malevolent had tainted Brother-Captain N’keln’s sacrifice with compromise. They had outstretched the hand of salvation in return for the arms and armour they had wished to ‘liberate’ from the Archimedes Rex. Vinyar it seemed was bent on re-appropriating what he felt was his by right – a necessity for his warmongering in the Emperor’s name.
If the small retinue of warriors he had brought with him, indeed, the captain himself, felt anything at this show of aggression, they, to their dubious credit, did not show it. But nor did they dare speak whilst the Salamanders Chapter Master admonished.
‘I do not believe in coincidence or even providence,’ he told Vinyar, leaning forward in his throne to emphasise the point. Tu’Shan lowered his voice and there was a trace of very real menace in it. ‘If I thought your intention by tracking my ship was to exact some petty revenge for the Archimedes Rex, then you and I would be having a very different conversation to the one we are conducting now, brother-captain.’
A charged silence filled the Hall of the Firedrakes, Tu’Shan allowing his gaze to burn into Vinyar for a few moments before he signalled to the shadows.
A grav-sled emerged into view, lit by the fiery sconces blazing on the wall that hinted at the dozens of glorious banners lauding the deeds of the 1st Company. Apart from that, it was an austere chamber with a throne and several archways leading off into darkness.
The Marines Malevolent had followed the Salamanders all the way back to Nocturne. Vinyar’s display of audacity was as bold as it was incredible when he insisted on being given an audience with the Chapter Master before the war materiel was handed over to them. Tu’Shan had agreed without preamble, keen to set eyes on this upstart dog of a Space Marine captain.
The grav-sled was but the first in a long train. Accompanied by a stern-faced Master Argos and three of his Techmarines, the sleds accommodated all of the bolters, armour suits and other munitions the Salamanders had taken from the Archimedes Rex.
As the grav-sleds slowed to a halt, Master Argos and his coterie stepped back into the shadows and were gone from the chamber once more.
‘We Salamanders are warriors of our word,’ there was a snarl to Tu’Shan’s tone this time, as his patience began to ebb, ‘but I promise you personally that this is not an end to it, Malevolent. You have earned the ire of a Chapter Master this day, and that is not a thing to be taken lightly.’
Vinyar absorbed all of this and merely bowed. His body language was almost unreadable as was his expression, unhelmeted as he was before the Regent of Prometheus. But Tu’Shan detected an arrogant mien about him, a disdainful swagger in his deferent movements that riled him.
‘Get out,’ he growled, before he was forced to do something with the rising anger in his marrow.
The Marines Malevolent left without ceremony, escorted by Praetor and his Firedrakes.
Tu’Shan slumped back onto his throne once he was alone. A sequence inputted on a slate worked into the throne’s arm resulted in a hidden door opening in one of the flanking walls. Inside the vault, lit by more sconces, were the suits of power armour recovered in the catacombs of Scoria. Arrayed in rows, yet to be tended and polished as revered artefacts of war, Tu’Shan scrutinised them. The vial containing Gravius’s extracted geneseed was nearby, encased in a cryo-tank, its glass confines rimed by liquid nitrogen hoarfrost.
A voice that hummed with power came from the darkness.
‘You wonder why the Tome of Fire directed us to Scoria, if this is all we were meant to find,’ said Master Vel’cona. The Chief Librarian of the Salamanders did not need his prodigious psychic talents to guess the Chapter Master’s thoughts.
It wasn’t a question and Tu’Shan didn’t answer. Instead he looked. Something had caught his attention. It was, at first, just beyond his reach. But as he pored harder, he began to see… For in the arrangement of the armour in Legion formation, Tu’Shan discerned the fragments of a symbol prophecy. It was only visible when the armour was viewed together, at a certain angle, the components of the hidden shapes confluencing to produce a whole that only then possessed meaning.
Even after those conditions were met, only a Chapter Master had the necessary cognition, intellect and insight to recognise it.
‘What do you see, my lord?’ asked Vel’cona, the faint sound of his approaching step betraying his eagerness as he realised Tu’Shan had started to read…
‘A great undertaking…’ the Chapter Master’s eyes narrowed as he replied, ‘…A momentous event… Nocturne in the balance… A low-born, one of the earth, will pass through the gate of fire.’
‘The prophecy speaks of one amongst our ranks,’ breathed the Librarian. ‘I know of him.’
