“But to be cowed like this…” muttered Ba’ken.
“I believe our brother’s warrior spirit is offended, sir,” offered Emek, who seemed intrigued by the presence of the humans, scrutinising every structure as the Salamanders passed it, and analysing the subterranean populous that lived in them.
Dak’ir smiled thinly to himself. Ba’ken was wise, but was warrior-born, a native of Themis, whose tribes valued strength and battle prowess above all else. For all his great wisdom, once Ba’ken was affronted his view became myopic and intractable. It was a useful trait in combat, one Dak’ir likened to attempting to shift a mountain with one’s hands, but at peace it bordered on cantankerous.
Romulus and Apion held their tongues. Their silence suggested an accord with Ba’ken.
“Show humility, brothers. This is not the time to act,” Dak’ir warned. He turned to Emek, then gestured to the Salamanders’ human escort. “What do you make of them?”
“Brave,” he said. “And afraid.”
“Of us?”
“Of something like us,” Emek replied. “These people fled into the darkness for a reason and have stayed here for many years.” His eyes narrowed, as the tone of his voice changed to become more speculative. “When we removed our battle-helms, they didn’t seem shocked or even perturbed by our appearance.”
The domestic dwellings, the pseudo-caves of rock and metal, started to thin and fade away as Illiad then led them to another structure that loomed large ahead. A pair of grand blast doors, at least they might once have been grand, framed by ornate designs but buried under caked dirt and encrusted grime, stood before them like weary bronze sentinels.
“They may have seen Salamanders before,” Dak’ir ventured, unable to suppress a tremor of anticipation. If they had, it could mean…
Pyriel’s voice intruded on his thoughts.
“I suspect the answers lie within.” He was indicating the bronze blast doors.
A few metres from the entrance, Illiad stopped the column with a gesture and went the rest of the way alone. All the while, the one called Akuma watched the Salamanders vigilantly, readjusting his grip on his lasgun every few seconds.
Rapping on the blast doors three times with his gun stock, Illiad then stepped back. Grinding gears broke the silence moments later as an ancient mechanism was engaged. Dust poured from the inner workings, dislodged with their sudden activation. The blast doors parted shudderingly and within yawned a barren chamber, more metal and calcified rock, but with thick buttressed walls and no exits.
“You mean to incarcerate us, Sonnar Illiad?” asked Dak’ir as he was confronted by the hangar-like dungeon.
“Until I can decide whether you are friend or foe, yes.”
Ba’ken stepped forward upon hearing this, the muscles in his neck bunched, fists clenched.
“This, I cannot abide.” His tone was threateningly level.
Apion backed him up.
“Nor I, sir.”
Dak’ir turned to regard Romulus.
“Are you of the same opinion?”
The Salamander nodded, slow and evenly.
Glaring down at Illiad, Dak’ir knew the time for indulging the humans was at an end. To his credit, the old man didn’t flinch. He kept his warm, dark eyes on Dak’ir, staring up to him as a child might an adult. Yet, he did not appear diminutive. Rather, it only enhanced his stature.
“I am in agreement with my battle-brothers,” Dak’ir concurred.
Illiad matched his gaze, perhaps uncertain what to do next.
“How many are in your colony, Illiad?” the brother-sergeant asked him.
Akuma came forwards quickly, his mood agitated.
“Don’t tell them, Sonnar,” he warned. “They seek to gauge our strength and return with numbers. We should seal them in the vault now.”
Illiad looked at his second-in-command, as if considering his advice.
Ba’ken turned on Akuma, who retreated before the Salamander’s bulk.
“How though, little man, will you do that?” he growled.
Akuma raised his lasgun protectively, but Ba’ken snatched it from his grasp. It was met by a frantic bout of lasguns priming as the human guards prepared for a fight. None of the Salamanders reacted, not without word from their sergeant.
Illiad raised his hand for calm, though Dak’ir could detect the increase in his heart rate and see the lines of perspiration beading the side of his head.
“Just over a thousand,” Illiad replied. “Men, women and children.”
“This settlement you have fashioned for yourselves, it was once a ship, wasn’t it?” said Dak’ir, the pieces falling into place as he spoke.
A Space Marine’s memory was eidetic. It was a useful trait when reviewing battle plans or on long-range reconnoitre to ascertain the lay of the land or an enemy’s strategic positions. Dak’ir used that flawless recall now to form accurate pictographic memories of some of the human dwellings they had passed, those where the extruding rock had crept over metal to obscure it. Examining details in his mind, cycling through images in milliseconds, interpreting and cross-analysing, Dak’ir stripped away the calcified rock. Clods of dust fell away in his mind’s eye to reveal metal corridors, barrack rooms, minor strategiums, deck plating, defunct lifters, extinct consoles and other structures. Broken apart, forcibly disassembled, it was a ship nonetheless.
“One that crashed long ago,” said Illiad. “Its reactor still functions and we use its power to generate heat, purify the air and water. The sodium light rigs are kept burning through the conversion of fusion energy.”
“And this, a sparring hall?” Dak’ir had stepped out of the column to approach the frame around the blast door. It had sunk into the rock; or rather the cave had grown around it. He tore at a section of it, gauntleted fingers prising off a layer. Grit and dust came with it and an origin stamp became visible beneath, fusion-pressed in blocky Imperial script.
154TH EXPEDITIONARY
Dak’ir shared a meaningful glance with Pyriel. The shattered remnants in which the human colony had made its home had once been a vessel of the Great Crusade fleet. He tried not to consider the ramifications of that discovery.
“I cannot say, for certain,” Illiad replied. “All we really know are legends, passed down by our ancestors.”
“Sonnar, don’t—” Akuma began, but Illiad scowled and cut him off with a sharp gesture.
“They could have killed us in the tunnel, or at any point from there to here,” he snapped, ire fading into resignation as he turned back to Dak’ir.
The sound of a commotion echoing from the tunnels behind them interrupted Illiad. A young boy, Dak’ir recognised him as the one who had fled from Ba’ken earlier, ran into view. He balked a little at the sight of the armoured giants again — Ba’ken’s posture seemed to relax upon seeing him — and was panting for breath.
“Chitin,” he rasped, forcing out the words between gulps for air, hands pushed down on his thighs as he fought to compose himself.
“Where, Val’in?” asked Illiad, concern creasing his features.
The boy, Val’in, looked back nervously.
“In the settlement.” Va’lin’s eyes were wide with terror and filling with tears. “My papa…”
Las-fire echoed down the corridor in sharp cracks of noise.
Screaming followed it.
“They don’t stand a chance,” said Emek, his voice low. Dak’ir’s expression hardened as he looked behind them into the half-light. “Then by Vulkan, we’ll even the odds.”
“We have fought the chitin-beasts for generations,” growled Akuma, with a half-glance at the green-armoured warriors running alongside them. “What do we need them for?”
“I doubt we could stop them even if we wanted to, Akuma,” answered Illiad.
Dak’ir saw that the old man’s face was grave at the sounds of carnage just ahead of them. The Salamander felt the human’s pain, and his anger boiled at the thought of the settlers’ suffering
.
The weak will always be preyed upon by the strong. He remembered the words of Fugis many months before, outside the Vault of Remembrance at Hesiod. The words of his reply then came swiftly to his lips now, like a catechism.
“Unless those with strength intercede on behalf of the weak, and protect them.”
Emek turned to the sergeant as they were nearing the invisible boundary line of the settlement. The crack of las-fire and the flat bangs of solid-shot rifles were like a discordant chorus to the shrill of terror, ever rising in pitch and urgency.
“What did you say, sir?”
Dak’ir kept his gaze ahead as he answered.
“We must save these people, brother. We must save them.”
Akuma’s voice intruded suddenly as they ate up the last few metres. He was addressing his men.
“Once we reach the settlement, break into squads. Surround them and aim for the eyes, between the plates. No chitin will ever…” The words died on Akuma’s lips as they emerged into the open and saw their home.
Chitin swarmed from emergence holes, dragging screaming settlers to their deaths. Bloodied bodies, mangled by bone-claws or rent with razor-sharp mandibles, were strung out over the ground, or slumped in the archways of once peaceful dwellings like butcher’s meat. There were women and children amongst the dead, as well as armed men. Some were so badly mutilated that it was impossible to tell either way.
A sudden tremor wracked the ground, pitching a man sniping off the roof of a hab-shack. He screamed as a chitin scuttled over his prone form with surprising speed. It severed his torso with a snip of its claws and the screams were abruptly silenced. In his wake came a woman carrying a shotgun who’d managed to hold on. Scurrying into his place, she started firing.
Two men and a lean-faced youth fended off a chitin with long, spiked poles. Screeching, the xenos creature rolled back onto its hind legs as its soft belly was pierced and its blood spilled out in a grey morass. The victory for the humans was short-lived as two more chitin took its place, one smothering a pole-wielder with its bulk, before the second gouged another with a snapping bone-claw. The youth fled in terror only to be lost from view in the desperate battle.
A woman brandished a flare like a spear, thrusting it towards the eye of a chitin intent on devouring her and the two children she protected. The flare, like the life of her and her children, was slowly fading.
Everywhere, the humans fought. Some only had spears or crude ineffectual rifles, and they were badly outnumbered, but these were their homes and families, so they battled on regardless.
“I have never seen so many…” breathed Illiad. He staggered as another tremor rippled through the cavern, sending chunks of rock and dust spiralling from the roof. “Each time, the chitin hordes increased, pouring from their emergence holes like vermin. The quakes must have disturbed them.”
“That or they were driven here,” Dak’ir muttered darkly. “I’ll take my weapons back now, Illiad.”
The old man gestured to Akuma who had the chainsword and pistol in a heavy pack on his back. He unveiled them swiftly and returned them begrudgingly.
Dak’ir nodded grimly to him, testing his grip on pistol and blade before turning to his brothers.
“The preservation of human life is priority. Do all that you must to protect the colonists. In Vulkan’s name.”
Dak’ir raised his chainsword, the dim light reflected off its ancient teeth as if relishing the blooding to come.
“Into the fires of battle!” he roared, leading the charge.
“Unto the anvil of war!” his brothers replied as one.
“This place reeks of death,” snarled Tiberon, sifting through the wreckage of the Warsmith’s tools.
The captive Iron Warrior was gone. The ghoul-drones had been removed too, and burned upon the same smouldering pyres as the slain Iron Warrior garrison.
Chaplain Elysius had already left, going to his duties. Tsu’gan and his squad had remained behind.
Another flamer burst lit up the outer corridor as Honorious and his brothers continued to purge the walls and alcoves where Tsu’gan and his warriors had almost met their demise. Cleansing by fire had quietened the voices, but not engulfed them completely. The brother-sergeant was grateful this would be a short stay. Their mission was to search amongst the wreckage for anything that might shed light on the Iron Warriors’ presence on Scoria and stand guard over Techmarine Draedius.
The Mechanicus adept had been sent from the Vulkan’s Wrath, at N’keln’s behest and Master Argos’ concession, to examine the device the Warsmith had laboured over so manically. It was a cannon: forged of dark metal with a long, telescopic barrel and angled towards a blast door mounted in the ceiling. Though hidden in the metal floor plating, the weapon was obviously elevated into position via a pneumatic lifter. Its intended target, however, remained a mystery.
Tsu’gan knew artillery and he likened this one to the Earthshaker cannon most commonly employed by regiments of the Imperial Guard. Few Astartes Chapters had need for such a static bombardment weapon. Strike cruisers and Thunderhawk gunships provided all the long-range support a Space Marine army needed. Surgical strikes, swift and deadly, that was the Astartes’ way of war. Patient, grinding shelling went against the Codex, but then the Iron Warriors followed no such tome. Tsu’gan knew enough of the Traitor Legion to be acquainted with their use of long-range artillery. Siege-specialists as they were, the sons of Perturabo preferred to employ such weapons to crush their foes from distance, before closing in to apply the killing stroke.
Only cowards feared to attack and finish an enemy before it was already beaten. Tsu’gan felt his rancour for the Iron Warriors deepen further.
“It is more than just death that pervades the air in here,” replied Brother Lazarus with obvious distaste.
Tsu’gan scowled.
“I smell cordite and sulphur.” It was more than that. The stench was redolent of a memory, an old place just beyond reach that Tsu’gan would rather not revisit.
“Here, my lord,” called Iagon from across the chamber. “I may have something.”
Tsu’gan went over to him and knelt down next to the crouching trooper who gestured to a dark stain seared onto the floor.
“The metal is fused,” said Iagon as his brother-sergeant traced the edge of the stain with his finger. “It would take a great amount of heat to do that.”
“Looks old,” Tsu’gan wondered aloud, “and shaped like a boot print. What’s this?” he added, smearing a fleck of something with his finger. He tasted it and grimaced. “Cinder.”
The grimace became a scowl.
“The Iron Warriors are not the only traitors on Scoria.”
The voice of Techmarine Draedius intruded on Tsu’gan’s thoughts.
“There are no shells, no ammunition of any kind for this cannon,” he said, almost to himself. “It is powered by a small fusion reactor.”
“Nuclear?” asked Tiberon, who was closest.
Draedius shook his head. “No. More like energy conversion. I’ve found several receptacles containing trace elements of a fine powder I have no records of.”
Tsu’gan looked up. The sense of unease that permeated the lower deep of the fortress had still not abated.
“Retain a sample but hurry with your work, brother.” A blast of fire from the purging that continued outside threw haunting shadows over the side of the sergeant’s face. “I don’t wish to linger here any longer than is necessary.”
Coruscating fire ripped from Pyriel’s fingertips in blazing arcs. It lit the cavern in smoky shadows and burned a ragged hole through an advancing chitin. The xenos swarming the human settlement reacted to the sudden threat in their midst. They faltered, losing purpose in the face of such fury. In contrast, the settlers were galvanised, redoubling their efforts as the spark of hope became a flame.
Dak’ir took the blow from a chitin’s bone-claw on his pauldron, where it dug a jagged groove in the ceramite. He lunged with his
chainsword, forcing it into the creature’s abyssal-black eye up to the hilt. As he wrenched the weapon free, the chitin-beast screeched. Fluid spurted from its ruined eye socket, painting Dak’ir’s armour in watery grey. The Salamander moved inside its death arc, weaving around retaliatory strikes, before severing a champing mandible and burying his blood-slick chainblade into the chitin’s tiny brain. Shuddering, the creature shrank back and died. Dak’ir sprang off its hardened carapace as he vaulted over the chitin, its insectile limbs spasming still, and flung himself towards another enemy.
The boy, Val’in, was running again.
He’d followed Illiad and his warriors after the Salamanders had charged, and now found himself in the midst of the fighting. Clutching a shovel in trembling hands, he came face-to-face with a chitin. The creature’s blood-slick mandibles chattered expectantly as it scuttled towards him. Val’in backed away but with a hab-shack suddenly at his back, could retreat no further. Tears were streaming down the boy’s face but he held his shovel up defiantly. Rearing back, the chitin chittered in what might have been pleasure before an armoured hulk intervened between the creature and its kill.
“Stay behind me!” Ba’ken yelled, grunting as he held back the chitin’s bone-claws that it had thrashed down upon him. He couldn’t risk the heavy flamer — the blast would have torched the boy too. Instead, he had stowed the weapon in its harness on his back and went hand-to-hand instead. Back braced, his legs arched in a weight lifter’s stance, the Salamander heaved. Furrows appeared in the dirt as the creature was forced back, scrabbling ineffectually with its hind legs as it tried to regain balance.
Hot saliva dripped from the creature’s mandibles as they snapped for Ba’ken’s face. Finding purchase, the chitin dug in and pushed. Its body closed with the Salamander. Ba’ken scowled as the stench of dank and old earth washed over him in a fetid wave. The chitin was about to bite again, aiming to take off the Salamander’s face, before Ba’ken spat a stream of acid and seared the creature. Squealing, the chitin’s mandibles folded in on each other and retracted into its scalded maw.
[Tome of Fire 01] - Salamander Page 25
