Salamander

destroying the enemies of mankind. We will not abandon them.'

Pyriel's voice invaded the deadlock. 'You are wrong. They will be returned to the Mechanicus for proper allocation,' he said. 'You are outnumbered by a superior force. Neither of us wants a conflict here. Relent at once or face the consequences.'

Harkane shifted, about to do something he would later regret, when he staggered a little as if stunned.

I

would collapse your mind before your finger squeezed the trigger!

Dak'ir heard the psychic impel that was meant only for Harkane, and it chilled him.

Lorkar, who had not been privy to the mental threat, continued undeterred, nodding with assertion. 'The weapons and armour

are

leaving this ship—' he paused mid flow, slightly bowing his head again as instructions were relayed through his comm-feed.

'Let us all hear your orders,

Malevolent,'

Tsu'gan growled contemptuously. 'Or is the voice on the other end of that comm-feed too craven?'

Rennard had got to his feet and was supporting his broken wrist, when he spoke up. 'You disrespect a captain of the Astartes!'

Tsu'gan turned on him next.

'Show me this captain,' he demanded. 'I hear only a whispering coward hiding behind the pauldrons of his sergeant.'

Ba'ken loomed suddenly behind the belligerent Rennard, who was slightly crouched with his injury and wise enough to make no further move, merely seething behind his macabre battle- helm.

Dak'ir nodded to the bulky Salamander, who returned the gesture.

'Well then?' Tsu'gan pressed, focused on the Marine Malevolent sergeant. 'Where is he?'

Lorkar stalked forwards, the ring of armour parting to let him through as he unhitched an item from his belt and came face-to-face with Tsu'gan. Going to his fellow brother-sergeant's side at once, Dak'ir noticed Pyriel making a similar move as Lorkar whispered:

'As you wish…'

Brace yourselves!

II Purgatory

I

t was the

last thing Dak'ir heard as the cryo-vault disappeared in a brilliant magnesium flash. Then came pain, so raw and invasive it was as if his organs were twisting inside out, as if the very molecular structure of his being was breaking down in a nanosecond, atom by atom, reforming and disintegrating again a moment later. Sulphur and cordite wreathed his nostrils, so overwhelming he couldn't breathe. The acrid taste of copper filled his mouth as all notions of time and existence bled away into a soup of primal instinct, like being born. The tangible gave way to the ethereal as all meaning fled from his senses.

The light subsided as an image slowly resolved around Dak'ir. The actinic stench remained, as did the blood lining his teeth and in his mouth. He saw metal, felt it concretely beneath his booted feet. A sensation of nausea followed, supplemented by a bout of sudden vertigo making Dak'ir stagger as the corporeal world reestablished itself.

He was on a ship. The device in Lorkar's hand had been a homing beacon, through which he'd teleported them aboard.

'The nausea will pass,' a grating voice Dak'ir recognised as Sergeant Lorkar's assured them.

Dak'ir was standing in a large circular room. It had a vaulted ceiling that led away into unfathomable darkness, and was poorly lit by sodium simulacra-lamps. Around its vast circumference, the room was papered with cloth banners describing numerous victories with rubrics daubed in High Gothic script, yellow-and-black armoured Astartes holding skulls and other grisly talismans aloft to the adulation of a horde. A hundred campaigns or more were arrayed across the chamber's ambit, each devoted to the Marines Malevolent Chapter's 2nd Company. The Marines Malevolent were not a First Founding Chapter, they had not fought in the Great Crusade, bringing thousands of worlds into compliance, but on the evidence of their laurels, one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

Accenting the self-aggrandising banners were other trophies - the actual macabre totems depicted on the cloth. Dak'ir saw the flayed skulls of xenos: orks, their jutting jaws and sloped brows unmistakable; the tyranid bio-form he recognised from the Chamber of Remembrance on Prometheus and the wing devoted to 2nd Company recounting their exploits on Ymgarl, when they cleansed the moon of a genestealer infestation. The bleached cranium of a hated eldar also sneered down at him, its countenance as haughty and disdainful in death as it was in life. The graven battle-helms of the Traitor Legions were also present, hollowed out and staring balefully. Disturbingly, he caught sight of a battle-helm that did not bear any Chaotic hallmarks he could discern, though it sparked a pang of remembrance in him. It was difficult to tell in the gloom and he was still fighting off the unpleasant lingering sensation of the recent teleport, but it appeared to be stygian black with a bony protrusion punching through the apex of the helmet like a crest.

'Idiot - you could have killed us all with that stunt.' Tsu'gan's voice arrested Dak'ir's attention. His fists were bunched as he directed his wrath at Lorkar. The Salamander sergeant was shaking, though Dak'ir couldn't tell if it was with anger or if he too was still acclimatising to their sudden transition from the

Archimedes Rex.

Tsu'gan was right, though. Teleportation was a dangerous and inexact science. Even with the benefit of a homing beacon, the chances of becoming lost in the warp or translating back as a gibbering morass of fleshy blubber as your insides became your outsides were still uncomfortably high. To engage in teleportation when those translating had not been primed or were not wearing Terminator armour to protect them from the physical rigours of the process was even more hazardous.

'I did it to make a point.' The voice was hard like iron, full of power and self- confidence. It echoed from the edge of the room where the gloom gathered, and the Salamanders followed it to its source.

Bisecting the circle of glory was a steel dais holding up a black throne upon which sat a figure in the manner of a recumbent king. Only the tips of the figure's boots were visible, together with the suggestion of a yellow greave cast in the corona of light issuing from a nearby simulacra-lamp. His identity was swathed in shadow for now.

He was evidently a student of war history. Above the throne were numerous maps of ancient conquests and crusades. There were weapons, too: esoteric firearms, blades of unknown origin and other strange devices. The throne room was a proud boast, designed to promote the captain's obvious sense of vainglory.

'I am Captain Vinyar and this is my ship, the

Purgatory.

Whatever control you think you have here, you are wrong. The Mechanicus vessel is mine, I lay claim to all its contents.'