by Nick Kyme
Brother Argos had arrived in Aereon Square within the hour, bringing the artillery and his fellow Techmarines with him. There would be no further reinforcements.
Ferocious lightning storms were wreaking havoc in the upper atmosphere of Stratos, caused by a blanketing of thermal low pressure emanating off the chlorine-rich oceans. Any descent by Thunderhawks was impossible, and all off-planet communication was hindered massively. Kadai and the Salamanders who had made the initial planetfall were alone – a fact they bore stoically. It would have to be enough.
‘How many of our fallen brothers will be for the long dark?’ Ba’ken’s voice called Dak’ir back. The burly Salamander was staring at the medi-caskets of the dead and severely wounded, aligned together on the far side of the perimeter wall. ‘I hope I will never suffer that fate…’ he confessed in a whisper. ‘Entombed within a Dreadnought. An existence without sensation, as the world dims around me, enduring forever in a cold sarcophagus. I would rather the fires of battle claim me first.’
‘It is an honour to serve the Chapter eternally, Ba’ken,’ Dak’ir admonished, though his reproach was mild. ‘In any case, we don’t know what their fates will be,’ he added, ‘save for that of the dead…’
The fallen warriors of Third Company were awaiting transit to Nimbaros. Here, they would be kept secure aboard Firewyvern until the storms abated and the Thunderhawk could return them to the Vulkan’s Wrath where they would be interred in the strike cruiser’s pyreum.
All Salamanders, once their progenoids had been removed, were incinerated in the pyreum, still wearing their armour, their ashes offered in Promethean ritual to honour the heroic dead and empower the spirits of the living. Such practices were only ever conducted by a Chaplain, and since Elysius was not with the company at this time, the ashen remains would be stored in the strike cruiser’s crematoria until he rejoined them or they returned to Nocturne.
Such morbid thoughts inevitably led to Fugis, and the Apothecary’s untimely demise.
‘I spoke to him before the mission, before he died,’ said Dak’ir, his eyes far away.
‘Who?’
‘Fugis. In the isolation chamber aboard the Vulkan’s Wrath.’
Ba’ken stood up and reached for his pauldron, easing the stiffness from his back and shoulders. The left one had been dislocated before Brother Emek had righted it, and Ba’ken’s pauldron had been removed to do it.
‘What did he say?’ he asked, affixing the armour expertly.
Not all of us want to be brought back. Not all of us can be brought back. ‘Something I will not forget…’
Dak’ir shook his head slowly, his gaze fixed on the darkness beyond Aereon Square. ‘I do not think we are alone here, Ba’ken,’ he said at length.
‘Clearly not – we fight a horde of thousands.’
‘No… There is something else, too.’
Ba’ken frowned. ‘And what is that, brother?’
Dak’ir voice was hard as stone, ‘Something worse.’
THE INTERIOR OF the Fire Anvil’s troop hold was aglow as Dak’ir entered the Land Raider. A revolving schematic in the middle of the hold threw off harsh blue light, bathing the metal chamber and the Astartes gathered within. The four Salamanders present had already removed battle-helms. Their eyes burned warmly in the semi-darkness, at odds with the cold light of the hololith depicting Cirrion.
Summoned at Kadai’s request, Dak’ir had left Ba’ken at the perimeter wall to rearm himself, ready for the next assault on Cirrion. ‘Without flamers and meltas we face a much sterner test here,’ Kadai said, nodding to acknowledge Dak’ir’s arrival, as did N’keln. Tsu’gan offered no such geniality, and merely scowled.
‘Tactically, we can hold Aereon Square almost indefinitely,’ Kadai continued. ‘Thunderfire cannons will bulwark our defensive line, even without reinforcement from the Vulkan’s Wrath to compensate for our losses. Deeper penetration into the city, however, will not be easy.’
The denial of reinforcements was a bitter blow, and Kadai had been incensed at the news. But the granite-hard pragmatist in him, the Salamander spirit of self-reliance and self-sacrifice, proved the stronger and so he had put his mind to the task at hand using the forces he did possess. In response to the casualties, Kadai had combined the three groups of Devastators into two squads under Lok and Omkar, Ul’shan with his injury deferring to the other two sergeants. Without reinforcements, the Tactical squads would simply have to soak up their losses.
‘With Fugis gone, I’m reluctant to risk more of our battle-brothers heading into the unknown,’ Kadai said, the shadows in his face making him look haunted. ‘The heretics are entrenched and well-armed. We are few. This would present little impediment should we have the use of our flamers, but we do not.’
‘Is there a way to purify the atmosphere?’ asked N’keln. He wheezed from a chest wound he’d sustained during the withdrawal to Aereon Square. N’keln was a solid, dependable warrior, but leadership did not come easily to him and he lacked the guile for higher command. Still, his bravery had been proven time and again, and was above reproach. It was an obvious but necessary question.
Brother Argos stepped forward into the reflected light of the schematic.
The Techmarine went unhooded. The left portion of his face was framed with a steel plate, the snarling image of a salamander seared into it as an honour marking. Burn scars from the brander-priests wreathed his skin in whorls and bands. A bionic eye gleamed coldly in contrast to the burning red of his own. Forked plugs bulged from a glabrous scalp like steel tumours, and wires snaked around the side of his neck and fed into his nose.
When he spoke, his voice was deep and metallic.
‘The hydrogen emissions being controlled by Cirrion’s atmospheric processors are a gaseous amalgam used to inflate the Stratosan dirigibles – a less volatile compound, and the reason why bolters are still functioning normally. Though I have managed to access some of the city’s internal systems, the processors are beyond my knowledge to affect. It would require a local engineer, someone who maintained the system originally. Unfortunately, there is simply no way to find anyone with the proper skills, either alive amongst the survivors or amongst those still trapped in the city.’ Argos paused. ‘I am sorry, brothers, but any use of incendiary weapons in the city at this time would be catastrophic.’
‘One thing is certain,’ Kadai continued, ‘the appearance of civilian survivors effectively prevents any massed assault. I won’t jeopardise innocent lives needlessly.’
Tsu’gan shook his head.
‘Brother-captain, with respect, if we do not act the collateral damage will be much worse. Our only recourse is to lead a single full-strength force into Cirrion, and sack it. The insurgents will not expect such a bold move.’
‘We are not inviolable against their weapons,’ Dak’ir countered. ‘It is not only the Stratosans you risk with such a plan. What of my battle-brothers? Their duty ended in death. You would add more to that tally? Our resources are stretched thin enough as it is.’ Tsu’gan’s face contorted with anger.
‘Sons of Vulkan,’ he cried, smacking the plastron of his power armour with his palms, ‘Fireborn,’ he added, clenching a fist, ‘that is what we are. Unto the Anvil of War, that is our creed. I do not fear battle and death, even if you do, Ignean.’
‘I fear nothing,’ snarled Dak’ir. ‘But I won’t cast my brothers into the furnace for no reason, either.’
‘Enough!’ The captain’s voice demanded the attention of the bickering sergeants at once. Kadai glared at them both, eyes burning with fury at such disrespect for a fellow battle-brother. ‘Dispense with this enmity,’ he warned, exhaling his anger. ‘It will not be tolerated. We have our enemy.’
The sergeants bowed apologetically, but stared daggers at each other before they stood down.
‘There will be no massed assault,’ Kadai reasserted. ‘But that is not to say we will not act, either. These heretics are single-minded to the point of insanity, driv
en by some external force. No ideology, however fanatical, could impel such… madness,’ he added, echoing Fugis’s earlier theory. The corner of Kadai’s mouth twinged in a brief moment of remembrance. ‘The hierophant of the cult, this Speaker, is the key to victory on Stratos.’
‘An assassination,’ stated Tsu’gan, folding his arms in approval.
Kadai nodded.
‘Brother Argos has discovered a structure at the heart of the temple district called Aura Hieron. Colonel Tonnhauser’s intelligence has this demagogue there. We will make for it.’ The captain’s gaze encompassed the entire room. ‘Two combat squads made up from the Devastators will be left behind with Brother Argos, who will be guiding us as before. This small force, together with the Thunderfire cannons will hold Aereon Square and protect the emerging survivors.’
Tsu’gan scowled at this.
‘Aereon Square is like a refugee camp as it is. The Aircorps cannot move the survivors fast enough. All they are doing is getting in our way. Our mission is to crush this horde, and free this place from terror. How can we do that if we split our forces protecting the humans? We should take every battle-brother we have.’
Kadai leaned forward. His eyes were like fiery coals and seemed to chase away the cold light of the hololith.
‘I will not abandon them, Tsu’gan. We are not the Marines Malevolent, nor the Flesh Tearers nor any of our other bloodletting brothers. Ours is a different creed, one of which we Salamanders are rightly proud. We will protect the innocent if—’
The Fire Anvil was rocked by a sudden tremor, and the dull crump of an explosion came through its armoured hull from the outside.
Brother Argos lowered the ramp at once and the Salamanders rushed outside to find out what had happened.
Fire and smoke lined a blackened crater in the centre of Aereon Square. The mangled corpses of several Stratosan civilians, together with a number of Aircorps were strewn within it, their bodies broken by a bomb blast. A woman screamed from the opposite side of the square. She’d fallen, having tried to flee from another of the survivors who was inexplicably clutching a frag grenade.
Tsu’gan’s combi-bolter was in his hands almost immediately and he shot the man through the chest. The grenade fell from the insurgent’s grasp and went off.
The fleeing woman and several others were engulfed by the explosion. The screaming intensified.
Kadai bellowed for order, even as his sergeants went to join their battle-brothers in quelling the sudden panic.
Several cultists had infiltrated the survivor groups, intent on causing anarchy and massed destruction. They had succeeded. Respirator masks were the perfect disguise for their “afflictions”, bypassing the Stratosan soldiery and even the Astartes.
Ko’tan Kadai knelt with the broken woman in his grasp, having gone to her when the smoke was still dissipating from the explosion. She looked frail and thin compared to his Astartes bulk, as if the rest of her unbroken bones would shatter at his slightest touch. Yet, they did not. He held her delicately, as a father might cradle a child. She lasted only moments, eyes fearful, spitting blood from massive internal trauma.
‘Brother-captain?’ ventured N’keln, appearing at his side.
Kadai laid the dead woman down gently and rose to his full height. A thin line of crimson dotted his ebon face, the horror there having ebbed away, replaced by anger.
‘Two combat squads,’ he asserted, his iron-hard gaze finding Tsu’gan, who was close enough to hear him, but wisely displayed no discontent. ‘Everyone is screened… Everyone!’
‘Now we know why the survivors came out of hiding. The cultists wanted them to, so they could do this…’ Ba’ken said softly to Dak’ir as the two Salamanders looked on.
Kadai touched the blood on his face then saw it on his fingers as if for the first time.
‘We need only get a kill-team close enough to the Speaker to execute him and the cultists’ resolve will fracture,’ he promised. ‘We move out now.’
FIVE KILOMETRES FILLED with razor wire, pit falls and partially-demolished streets. Cultist murder squads dredging the ruins for survivors to torture; human bombers hiding in alcoves, trembling fingers wrapped around grenade pins; eviscerator priests leading flocks with wire-sewn mouths. It was the most expedient route Techmarine Argos could find in order for his battle-brothers to reach Aura Hieron.
Only two kilometres down that hellish road, after fighting through ambushes and weathering continual booby traps, the Salamanders’ assault had reached yet another impasse.
They stood before a long but narrow esplanade of churned plascrete. Labyrinthine track traps were dug in every three or four metres, crowned with spools of razor wire. The bulky black carapaces of partially submerged mines shone dully like the backs of tunnelling insects. Death pits were excavated throughout, well-hidden with guerrilla cunning.
A killing field; and they had to cross it in order to reach Aura Hieron. At the end of it was a thick grey line of rockcrete bunkers, fortified with armour plates. From slits in the sides constant tracer fire rattled, accompanied by the throbbing thud-chank of heavy cannon. The no-man’s-land was blanketed by fire that lit up the darkness in gruesome monochrome.
The Salamanders were not the first to have come this way. The corpses of Stratosan soldiers littered the ground too, as ubiquitous and lifeless as sandbags.
‘There is no way around.’ Dak’ir’s reconnaissance report was curt, having tried, but failed, to find a different angle of attack to exploit. In such a narrow cordon, barely wide enough for ten Space Marines to operate in, the Salamanders’ combat effectiveness was severely hampered.
Captain Kadai stared grimly into the maelstrom. The Inferno Guard and Sergeant Omkar’s Devastators were at his side, awaiting their rotation at the front.
No more than fifty metres ahead of them Tsu’gan and his squad were hunkered down behind a cluster of tank traps returning fire, Sergeant Lok and his Devastators providing support with heavy bolters. Each painful metre had been paid for with blood, and three of Tsu’gan’s troopers were already wounded, but he was determined to gain more ground and get close enough to launch an offensive with krak grenades.
The battle line was stretched. They had gone as far as they could go, short of risking massive casualties by charging the cultists’ guns head on. The insurgents were so well protected they were only visible as shadows until their twisted faces were lit by muzzle flashes.
Kadai was scouring the battle line, searching for weaknesses.
‘What did you find, sergeant?’ he asked.
‘Only impassable blockades and un-crossable chasms, stretching for kilometres east and west,’ Dak’ir replied. ‘We could turn back, captain, get Argos to find another route?’
‘I’ve seen fortifications erected by the Imperial Fists that put up less resistance,’ Kadai muttered to himself, then turned to Dak’ir. ‘No. We break them here or not at all.’
Dak’ir was about to respond when Tsu’gan’s voice came through the comm-feed.
‘Captain, we can make five more metres. Requesting the order to advance.’
‘Denied. Get back here, sergeant, and tell Lok to hold the line. We need a new plan.’
A momentary pause in communication made Tsu’gan’s discontent obvious, but his respect for Kadai was absolute. ‘At once, my lord.’
‘WE NEED TO get close enough to attack the wall with krak grenades and breach it,’ said Tsu’gan, having returned to the Salamanders’ second line to join up with Dak’ir and Kadai, leaving Lok to hold the front. ‘A determined frontal assault is the only way to do it.’
‘A charge across the killing ground is insane, Tsu’gan,’ countered Dak’ir.
‘We are wasting our ammunition pinned here,’ Tsu’gan argued. ‘What else would you suggest?’
‘There must be another way,’ Dak’ir insisted.
‘Withdraw,’ Tsu’gan answered simply, allowing a moment for it to sink in. ‘Loath as I am to do it. If we cannot break thr
ough, then Cirrion is lost. Withdraw and summon the Firewyvern,’ he said to Kadai. ‘Use its missile payload to destroy the gravitic engines and send this hellish place to the ocean.’
The captain was reticent to agree.
‘I would be condemning thousands of innocents to death.’
‘And saving millions,’ urged Tsu’gan. ‘If a world is tainted beyond redemption or lost to invasion we annihilate it, excising its stain from the galaxy like a cancer. It should be no different for a city. Stratos can be saved. Cirrion cannot.’
‘You speak of wholesale slaughter as if it is a casual thing, Tsu’gan,’ Kadai replied.
‘Ours is a warrior’s lot, my lord. We were made to fight and to kill, to bring order in the Emperor’s name.’
Kadai’s voice grew hard.
‘I know our purpose, sergeant. Do not presume to tell me of it.’
Tsu’gan bowed humbly. ‘I meant no offence, my lord.’
Kadai was angry because he knew that Tsu’gan was right. Cirrion was lost. Sighing deeply, he opened the comm-feed, extending the link beyond the city.
‘We will need Brother Argos to engage the Stratosan failsafe and blow the sky-bridges connecting Cirrion first, or it will take an entire chunk of the adjacent cities with it,’ he said out loud to himself, before reverting to the comm-feed.
‘Brother Hek’en.’ The pilot of the Firewyvern responded. The Thunderhawk was at rest on the landing platform just outside Nimbaros. ‘My lord.’
‘Prepare for imminent take off, and prime hellstrike missiles. We’re abandoning the city. You’ll have my orders within—’ The comm-feed crackling to life again in Kadai’s battle-helm interrupted him. The crippling interference made it difficult to discern a voice at first, but when Kadai recognised it he felt his hot Salamander blood grow cold.
It was Fugis. The Apothecary was alive.
