by Nick Kyme
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-dambered, 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.'
'As do I,' the Chapter Master returned darkly.
'Does it bode well or ill, my lord?'
Tu'Shan turned to face him, a stony expression etched upon his regal countenance.
'He will be our doom or salvation.'
The Regent of Prometheus allowed a pause before going on.
'Master Vel'cona,' he said. 'Brother-Sergeant Hazon Dak'ir: watch him very closely.'
The Chief Librarian's eyes, fathomless pits of knowledge, blazed with fire. He nodded then bowed, before slipping away into the darkness.
Tu'Shan returned to the armour suits, scrutinising them, trying to discern further clarity in their esoteric message.
'Watch him…' he repeated to an empty room, lost in thought. 'Watch him closely indeed.'
Dak'ir had met Ba'ken on a sandy rock plateau overlooking the Pyre Desert. Few had come to observe Brother Fugis as he made the ''Burning Walk''. Usually, it was not done. The pilgrimage, undertaken by a Salamander, was a spiritual journey, its inception supposed to be conducted in isolation as was the trial itself. Ordinarily, the old or the afflicted went on the Burning Walk. It was a way, according to Nocturnean custom and the Cult of Prometheus, that a warrior who had not died in battle but could fight for glory no more could claim some dignity and even myth in his last days. Fugis, like few others before him, had requested special dispensation to undergo the trial as a way to restore his fractured spirit. Dak'ir knew of none amongst the Chapter who had ever returned from the undertaking. Their bleached bones lay beneath the scorching desert now, he reckoned, the distant places of the Pyre a grave marking in more than name alone.
By treading the Burning Walk, Fugis was an Apothecary no longer. He had given up his power armour and his other Astartes trappings. He wore a sand-cloak now, with breathable mesh underneath, and a dust-scarf was wrapped around his neck and mouth. A specially modified Nocturnean hunting rifle was slung across his back - for he had given up the right to wield the holy bolter - and he carried a machete-knife strapped to his forearm and scant supplies of water. They wouldn't last long. After that, he'd have to find his own way to survive in the desert.
His natural successor was nearby, standing alone upon an adjacent outcrop of rock, head bowed and eyes closed in silent contemplation. Brother Emek had been saddened to leave his squad brothers, but the needs of the company outweighed sentiment and the Master Apothecary of the Chapter was to train him in the healing arts. One half of Emek's battle-helm was painted white to reflect his status.
A last plateau, the farthest distant of the three, held Agatone. He acknowledged the pair with a slight tilt of his head. As the soon-to-be captain of 3rd Company, his was a legacy of blood and a heavy burden. It showed in the weight of his downcast eyes.
Soon Fugis had gone from sight, just a shimmer on the hazy desert horizon. 'A long deserved honour,' uttered Dak'ir after a long silence.
It took a moment for Ba'ken to realise he was referring to him and the sergeant's rank sigil freshly worked upon his armour by the Chapter artisans. By contrast, Dak'ir's battle-plate was unadorned, stripped completely of its previous honours - a sergeant no longer.
'I can think of no one better to lead the squad than you, Ba'ken,' he added, clapping a comradely hand upon the hulking Salamander's pauldron.
'Aye, it's true,' Ba'ken replied.
They both laughed out loud at his mock arrogance, but their moment of levity was short-lived and eventually painful as it reminded them both of all they had lost and would never regain.
'The company is breaking,' muttered Ba'ken, giving in to melancholy. 'You bound to Pyriel's service. Emek joined to the Apothecarion. My brothers, ash in the pyreum,' he sighed, 'Even Tsu'gan—'
'Agatone will restore its strength,' counselled Dak'ir. 'He builds upon a solid foundation. Both Kadai and N'keln have a worthy successor.'
A shadow fell across them, interrupting the former sergeant.
'Brother Dak'ir.' It was Pyriel.
Ba'ken knew this was coming and bowed curtly to the Librarian before leaving them.
>
'I sensed the power in you long ago, Hazon,' Pyriel confessed, walking up to the edge of the plateau and staring towards the seemingly endless desert. Behind him, the dull and faraway sound of the volcanoes boomed across the sun-scorched heavens.
'What you did against Nihilan's sorcery…' he began, mastering his exasperation before he turned back around. 'It was nothing short of miraculous. It should not be. You should not be,' he said, drawing closer. 'Over four decades a Space Marine and your latent potential has only just surfaced.' He left a short pause. 'You are unique, Dak'ir. An enigma.' Pyriel turned away again, finding regarding the hellish sun easier. 'Chaplain Elysius wanted you conditioned, even branded and censured - I opposed it.'
'So what happens now?'
'Youare to accompany me.'
'You don't need them for me to do that,' Dak'ir replied, indicating the pair of hulking Terminators that had just lumbered into view at the Librarian's bidding.
'Don't I?' Pyriel asked, facing him. 'You are a mystery, and like all mysteries a shadow of suspicion hangs over you, but I will lift it if you prove worthy.'
'And how will you know that?' Dak'ir's tone betrayed his impatience.
The Librarian's response was pragmatic. 'After your trials, if you live, you will be deemed worthy.'
'Worthy for what?'
The cerulean flash returned to Pyriel's eyes by way of dramatic gesture. 'To be trained by me,' he said.
Dak'ir heard the engines of a ship growl into life. A dust cloud was billowing from below, where the landed vessel awaited them.
'Where are you taking me, Pyriel?'
The Librarian smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. 'To the Librarius on Prometheus, and an audience with Master Vel'cona.'
Tsu'gan followed a long and rocky path of darkened coals towards a great gate. From high above, swept up in the shadows of a mountain cave, sat Iagon, watching him.
