by Nick Kyme
Dak'ir's brow furrowed as he listened intently to Illiad's story.
'You stayed like this… for millennia then?'
'Until several years ago, yes,' Illiad replied. 'The storms that blighted our planet lifted for no reason other than they had run their course. Soon after, the Iron Men came.' Illiad's expression darkened at this memory.
'''Iron Men'?' asked Dak'ir, though he thought he already knew to whom Illiad referred.
'They came from the stars, like you. Thinking they were akin to the Fire Angels, I led a delegation to meet them.' Illiad paused to take a steadying breath and marshal his thoughts. 'Sadly, I was wrong. They laughed at our entreaties, turning their guns upon us. Akuma's wife and son were slain in the massacre. That is why he is so distrustful of you. He cannot see the difference.'
'You say you led the delegation, Illiad. How did you escape from the Iron Men?' asked Dak'ir, keen to learn all that Illiad knew of the Iron Warriors and their forces, for there could be no doubt that it was the sons of Per-turabo who had perpetrated the massacre.
Illiad bowed his head. 'I am shamed to say that I fled, just like the rest. They didn't give chase and those who eluded their guns stayed alive. We watched them after that from hidden scopes bored deep beneath the earth.'
Dak'ir remembered the sense of being watched he'd felt outside the wreck of the Vulkan's Wrath, and assumed this must have been Illiad or one of his men.
'They built a fortress,' Illiad continued.
'Our brothers have seen it,' Dak'ir told him, 'out in the ash dunes.'
Illiad licked his lips, as if slicking them so the words wouldn't stick in his throat.
'We kept a vigil on it at first, as the walls and towers went up,' he said. 'But the men keeping watch began to act erratically. Two of them committed suicide, so I put a stop to it after that.'
'Your men succumbed to the taint of Chaos,' said Pyriel sternly.
Illiad seemed nonplussed.
'Do you know what the Iron Men are doing in the fortress?' Dak'ir asked in the lull.
'No,' Illiad answered flatly. 'But we encountered them again, this time at the mine where we used to extract the fyron ore. We never got further than their sentries and though they must have known we were there, they seemed disinterested in slaying us.'
Pyriel's silken voice interrupted.
'They come for the ore, and are drilling deep to get it,' he said. The Librarian turned his cold gaze onto the human. Illiad, despite his obvious presence and courage, shrank back before it.
'Where is this mine?' Pyriel asked. 'Our brothers must be told.'
'I can take you there,' Illiad answered, 'but that is not why I brought you here. The legends of the Fire Angels are just tales to protect our young and placate the ignorant. I alone, know the truth.' Illiad turned to Dak'ir. 'You are not the first Fire Angel I have seen. There is another living among us.'
That got the Salamanders' attention. All thoughts of the mine and the Iron Warriors faded into sudden insignificance.
'The duty of recording our history was not the only thing my grandfather passed on to me,' Illiad told them. He moved to the back of the chamber. Dak'ir glanced over at Pyriel but the Librarian's gaze was fixed on the human. 'Wait there,' Illiad called back to them, working at a dust-dogged panel in the far wall.
Dak'ir saw the faint glow of illuminated icons as Illiad pushed them in sequence. A deep rumbling gripped the chamber, and for a moment the Salamander sergeant thought it was another tremor. It was, but not one caused by Scoria's fragile core; instead, it came from the flanking wall.
Stepping back, the Salamanders saw a recessed line emerge in the encrusted metal, spilling out tracts of dirt as a portal formed within it and opened with a hiss of pressure. Old, stale air gusted out from a darkened chamber beyond.
'Until my grandfather showed me this place, I thought the Fire Angels were just a myth. I know now they are very real and lived by a different name,' said Illiad upon reaching them. 'Now, I am the old man and I'm passing on the legacy of my ancestors to you, Salamanders of Vulkan.'
Chaplain Elysius never got his gauntlets dirty during an interrogation. He was fastidious about this, to the point of obsession. This was an Astartes who knew how to inflict pain; agony so invasive and consuming so as to leave no mark, save the one in the victim's psyche.
Watching the partly dismanded Warsmith in the flickering half-light of the cell, Tsu'gan fancied that Elysius could even wrest a confession from one of the tainted.
After the brief battle in the torture chamber-cum-workshop - for Tsu'gan was convinced it was a union of both - the half-conscious Warsmith had been dragged above ground and taken to an abandoned cell in the upper level. There he lay now, as Tsu'gan watched, chained to an iron bench and bleeding from the wounds the Salamander sergeant had given him.
The tools the Chaplain had requested induded a pair of chirurgeon-interrogators that he'd had stored in the Fire Anvil's equipment lockers. The creatures, servitor-torturers, had unfolded from their metal slumber like the jagged blades of knives extending. Wiry and grotesque, the interrogators' mechadendrites were fashioned into an array of unpleasant devices, excrutiators, designed to inflict maximum pain. Elysius had constructed the servitors in part himself - at least, he had taken the Mechanicus stock and modified them for his own purposes.
'Is this butchery strictly necessary?' asked N'keln, looking on from the shadows.
Since the battle to take the fortress and Tsu'gan's squad's near miss in the catacombs, the brother-captain's stock had depleted further. Though no one spoke of it openly, his disastrous command at the gates of the iron fortress was viewed with ever more critical eyes. Tsu'gan could feel the discontent building like a wave, whilst his own standing had been greatly increased, especially in the eyes of Veteran Sergeant Praetor. The Firedrake had commended the brother-sergeant several times for his valour and strategy. Undoubtedly, it was Tsu'gan that had prevented further deaths and restored parity in the battle.
'I can break him, brother-captain,' Elysius replied. The Chaplain stood back, directing his chirurgeon-interrogators expertly.
'Have you even asked him anything yet, Brother-Chaplain?' said N'keln.
The Warsmith's bionic arm had been removed and dismantled, bloodily. His right arm had been severed and the wound cauterised so that he wouldn't fall unconscious from blood loss. Nor would he be able to morph a weapon from his flesh. Stripped of his body armour, the injuries Tsu'gan had dealt him were visible as a dense patch of welts and purple bruises. Elysius had allowed the Iron Warrior to keep his battle-helm on, for it was his belief that none should look upon the face of a traitor. Let him hide it in shame.
'I am about to,' the Chaplain hissed, a little strained under his captain's scrutiny. After Elysius had issued a sub-vocal command, the chirurgeon-interrogators retreated, taking their blades, their wires and their torches with them. The stench of burned flesh and old copper wafted over to Tsu'gan and the other onlookers, which included Captain N'keln and Brother Iagon.
Tsu'gan's second had requested he be allowed to observe the Chaplain's techniques. Most within the company, like N'keln for instance, found Elysius's methods distasteful, at the same time acknowledging their necessity. Iagon, it seemed, did not, and since Tsu'gan saw no reason to prevent him, he allowed the battle-brother to bear audience with him.
The shadow of Chaplain Elysius fell across the traitor like a deathly veil.
'What precisely were you constructing in the vault?' he asked simply.
Burned copiously, the vault had been resealed again following Techmarine Draedius's analysis. He had yet to ascertain the exact nature of the weapon.
Something fell and evil lurked in the darkness below their feet. Tsu'gan had felt it all the while he was down there and had no desire to reacquaint himself with it. More than once, he had fought the urge to take out his combat knife and press it against his flesh. He knew whatever malign presence lurked in the fortress's lower levels was just preying o
n his inner guilt and the manifestation of that guilt in his addictive masochism.
The Iron Warrior laughed, breaking Tsu'gan's reverie. It was a hollow, metallic sound that echoed around the small cell like a discordant bell chime.
'What did it look like to you, lapdog of the False Emperor?'
It was a small gesture - like the twitch of one of Elysius's fingers - that brought one of the chirurgeon-interrogators forward. Something happened, hidden by the servitor's body, and the Iron Warrior shuddered and grunted.
'Again,' ordered the Chaplain in a low voice. There was a pause and the Iron Warrior shuddered for a second time. Smoke issued from his flesh, though Tsu'gan couldn't see its source. The Iron Warrior laughed again.
But it was pained laughter this time and when he spoke, his voice was cracked and hissing.
'A weapon…' The breath wheezed in and out of his lungs.
'We know that.' Elysius went to order the chirurgeon-interrogator for a third time.
'A seismic cannon…' gasped the Iron Warrior.
Tsu'gan knew of no such weapon. Had this warband somehow acquired knowledge of an undiscovered standard template construct? It seemed impossible. Still thinking on it, the brother-sergeant detected the faintest tremor of movement in the Chaplain. The chirurgeon-interrogator retreated.
'How long have you been on this world?' Elysius asked, deliberately altering the course of his questioning to try and disorientate the prisoner.
'Almost a decade,' the Iron Warrior rasped, as if his breath were raking against his throat.
'Why are your brothers dead?'
'Killed in battle, of course!' Sudden rage gave the Iron Warrior strength and for the first time he struggled against his chains.
Bonds of loyalty and brotherhood were still strong, Tsu'gan considered, even in traitors.
Elysius struck the Iron Warrior's ruined chest with the flat of his palm. It was a hard blow that pushed the air from the traitor's lungs and smashed him against the bench.
'By what or whom?' demanded the Chaplain, patience thinning.
The Iron Warrior took a few seconds to catch a ragged breath.
'They will come again, the ones that bested my brothers,' he said, his yellow lenses flashing maliciously. 'Very soon, much too soon for you to save yourselves…' A clicking sound scraped from his mouth, growing steadily faster and louder. The Iron Warrior was laughing again.
Elysius was about to send the chirurgeon-interrogators forwards when Sergeant Lok interrupted them. The veteran was in command of the outer defences and the wall, and had rushed in from outside.
'Captain,' he uttered sternly, his face grave.
N'keln gestured for him to give his report.
'It is the sun, my lord,' Lok began.
'What of it, sergeant?'
'It has been partially eclipsed.'
N'keln was taken aback.
'By what?' he asked.
Tsu'gan felt fresh tension suddenly enter the cell. Lok's tone suggested he had seen something that troubled him. For a veteran of Ymgarl, such a reaction was not to be treated lightly.
'A black rock, as large as the sun,' he said. 'Parts of it are breaking off. Many parts.'
'Explain yourself, Lok,' demanded N'keln. 'Are they meteors?'
'They are moving erratically, and at different speeds. More and more fragment each minute.'
N'keln scowled, reaching for his bolter instinctively. They all knew what was coming next.
'Whatever they are,' said Lok, 'they're headed for Scoria.'
'And with the dark comes a swarm of war, and beneath it the sun shall die,' Elysius intoned, now facing Lok.
Grating laughter issued from behind him.
'You're too late,' croaked the Iron Warrior. 'Your doom has come…'
Illiad stepped away from the recently opened portal, bowing his head in reverence.
It was difficult to see within; the gloom was thick and a pall of disturbed dust hung in the air like a grey veil. Dak'ir was aware of his primary heart thundering in his chest. It was not because he was about to go into battle; it was excitement and something approaching fear that gripped him as he stood before the threshold to the room. He turned to look at Pyriel.
'Your lead, brother-sergeant,' he said, a faint cerulean glow limning his eyes as he used his witch-sight to better penetrate the half-dark.
Dak'ir muttered a litany to Vulkan and stepped forwards. A few metres into the chamber and he saw musty-looking consoles, veneered by dirt. Cables hung down from the ceiling like the tendrils of some unseen sea plant. Brushing them aside with careful sweeps of his hand, Dak'ir half expected to be stung. His entire body seemed numb, yet electrified at the same time. The pounding cadence of his heart smothered the echoing report of his boot steps against the metal floor. He was only dimly aware of the presence of Pyriel behind him. The Librarian kept at around a metre's distance, surveying the murky surroundings slowly and cautiously.
It was like descending into a dream.
At last, the hanging cables gave way to a metal esplanade Dak'ir recognised the symbol embossed in its cenue Though weathered and evidently damaged during the crash, the icon of the Firedrakes was discernible.
A set of stairs led off from the esplanade Dak'ir followed their trajectory with his gaze. There at the summit, his eye alighted on a command throne and the figure sitting in it.
Half-shrouded in shadows, details were hard to see, but the armour the figure wore looked old and massive.
Dak'ir reached out a hand without realising. His heart had actually stopped beating for a second of time that felt like minutes. When he spoke, his voice was little more than an awe-struck whisper and he felt an overwhelming compulsion to sink to knees.
'Primarch…'
CHAPTER NINE
I
Black Rock, Green Tide
Tsu'gan joined Lok and the others on the wall. N'keln was handed a pair of magnoculars by the veteran sergeant and he peered up at the dark shape blighting the sky.
An almost penumbral cast had engulfed Scoria, the ash deserts made supernatural in its eerie lustre. The sun was all but gone, little more than a dwindling sickle of yellow light swallowed in the maw of something black and massive. An odd sense of stillness had fallen and Tsu'gan felt that niggle at the back of his mind again, as if he was down in the lower levels once more.
He detected the same tremor of unease in his brothers standing alongside him on the wall. Only Chaplain Elysius had stayed in the cell, intent on his prisoner. The rest had followed Lok outside to bear witness to the coming of something terrible.
Tsu'gan's eyes narrowed.
'What is it?' he asked.
Dark slivers were peeling off the black object steadily blotting out the sun, gradually forming a cloud that arrowed towards the planet.
N'keln handed the sergeant the magnoculars.
'See for yourself,' he replied grimly.
Though the magnoculars didn't have the range to penetrate beyond the planet's outer atmosphere, they did reveal the black shape to be a massive asteroid. The dark slivers, like fragments of its body, were in fact ships. Details were hard to discern but Tsu'gan managed to make out the ramshackle design of the nearest vessels. They moved at speed, spilling plumes of black smoke, engines roaring fire. There could be no mistaking the nature of the enemy closing on them.
Tsu'gan scowled as he lowered the magnoculars.
'Orks.'
A rush of activity greeted Tsu'gan's revelation. Extrapolating the sheer numbers of greenskins heading towards them from the ships breaking off from the black rock, N'keln had ordered the fortress to be re-fortified at once.
Techmarine Draedius set about constructing a makeshift gate that would be further reinforced by the Land Raider and one of the company's Rhinos. All Salamanders were mustered at once and squad sergeants barked clipped orders to their troopers, who assumed defensive positions along the wall. Some undertook their oaths of moment, swearing muttered litanies as icons of th
e hammer and the flame were pressed to lips.
Though the ramparts were chipped and in varying stages of ruination from the Salamanders' earlier battery, they were still defensible. The automated guns had all been destroyed. It mattered little. Despite their pragmatism, no Salamander would ever turn to the weapons of the Traitor Legions for deliverance. Instead, N'keln ordered the three Devastator squads to occupy the chewed-up gun towers. With four towers in total, the last post went to Clovius and his Tactical squad due to the nature of their weaponry. The towers provided a serviceable vantage point, even though a long-range view was impossible due to how the fortress was situated in the ash basin.
Sergeant Vargo's depleted Assault squad and Veteran Sergeant Praetor's Firedrakes were kept in the outer courtyard just beyond the gate as reserves. The Terminators were too bulky to climb the shallow stairways leading up to the wall, so had to content themselves as guardians of the inner keep. That left two Tactical squads, those of Sergeants De'mas and Typhos, strung out across the wall with Captain N'keln and two of his Inferno Guard, Shen'kar and Malicant. The company standard bearer unfurled his banner proudly and it snapped in the growing wind. It seemed a long time since it had last been upraised, but it instantly lifted the spirits of all who saw it. The last of the troops on the wall were a combat squad, led by Battle-Brother S'tang. The other half of the combat squad were operating outside of the fortress, climbing the ridge that would allow them to see much farther across the ash plain and report the enemy's movements back to their brother-captain.
An arid wind was blowing off the ash desert, kicking up gritty drifts that painted the Salamanders' armour a dull grey. The view through Brother Tiberon's magnoculars was grainy in the building storm, but Tsu'gan could see the approach of vehicles by their spewed smoke and the displaced ash gusting away from them. The cloud was massive, hugging the horizon in a dense, black pall. The air that came with it was redolent of oil, dung and beast-sweat.
