Salamander

flesh of his bald head, with a nest of wires and cables that wormed around the back of his neck and into his nose. His armour was old, an artificer suit but not in the same respect as that worn by another veteran of the Chapter. Festooned with mechanical interfaces, tools and power arrays, it was utterly unlike any power armour, relic or otherwise. It carried the cog symbol to show his allegiance to the Mechanicus, but this was married up with the icon of his Chapter displayed proudly on his right pauldron. A device on his gorget translated his hollow, metallic speech into binaric as he directed the servitors.

'The origin stamp was very clear,' stated Dak'ir as the first of the cryo-caskets was brought aboard the

Spear of Prometheus.

'

It came from Isstvan.'

Ba'ken exhaled deeply as if trying to mitigate a heavy burden.

'Now that is an old name, gratefully forgotten.'

Dak'ir said nothing. The fell legend of Isstvan need not be spoken aloud. All of the old XVIII Legion knew of it.

The Isstvan system was notorious in the historical annals of the Astartes. It held perhaps no greater resonance than that felt by the Salamanders Chapter. Though now the substance of myth and ancient remembrance, it was during the Great Betrayal when the Warmaster Horus lured Vulkan and his sons into a terrible trap and almost destroyed them. The Salamanders had been a Legion then, one of the Emperor's original progenitors. Turned upon by those who they thought were their brothers, the Salamanders, together with two other loyal Legions, were devastated on the planet of Isstvan V. In what was later recorded as the Dropsite Massacre, thousands were slain and the sons of Vulkan pushed almost to extinction.

What miracle transpired, allowing them to avoid that doom, was a mystery some ten thousand years old, as was the fate of their beloved primarch who, some believed, never returned from the battle. Verses were still sung of Vulkan's heroism that day, but they were the stuff of conjecture and halcyon supposition. The truth of what happened during that disaster was lost forever. Yet the pain of it remained, like an old wound that would not heal. Even replenishing fire could not burn it from the Salamanders' hearts.

'So the mission into the Hadron Belt is over?' asked Ba'ken as the last of the caskets was brought aboard the gunship and the Salamanders started making ready for their final departure from the

Archimedes Rex.

'

For now,' Dak'ir replied.

The two Salamanders were apart from the rest of their battle-brothers who stood in discreet groups of two and three, dispersed across the fighter bay, watching proceedings, staying vigilant and awaiting the order to embark.

'And we are going back?'

'Yes, brother. To Nocturne.'

Dak'ir felt ambivalent about a return to their home world. Like all Salamanders, his planet was part of him and to be reunited with it was cause to rejoice, despite its volatile nature. But to come back so soon… it smacked of failure and only made Dak'ir's concerns about Captain N'keln's leadership deepen. 'Pyriel wants to bring the chest before Tu'Shan and have him consult the Tome of Fire.'

'What do you make of it?' asked Ba'ken as Dak'ir's thoughts were steered back towards that moment in the storage room when he'd found the chest with Vulkan's icon upon it.

'The chest? I don't know. Pyriel was certainly unsettled when he ascertained its provenance.'

'It seems strange to have been amongst weapons and armour,' said Ba'ken. 'How did you even find it amidst all of that?'

'I don't know that either.' Dak'ir paused, as if admitting the next part would confirm the reality of it, one that he was unwilling to face. The fact that the two Salamanders were engaged in private conversation and that he trusted Ba'ken like no other was the only reason he spoke up at all. 'I thought the artefact was in plain sight. It was as if I homed in on it, as if a beacon was attached to the chest and I had locked in to its signal.'

Dak'ir looked at Ba'ken for a reaction but the bulky Salamander gave none. He just stared ahead and listened.

'When Pyriel found me, I wasn't even aware I had picked it up. Nor did I remember ransacking the munitions crates to unearth it,' Dak'ir continued.

Ba'ken remained pensive, but his body language suggested he wanted to say something.

'Tell me what you are thinking, brother. In this I am not your commanding officer and you my trooper - we are friends.'

There was no sense of accusation in his posture as Ba'ken faced him, no distrust or even wariness - only a question. 'Are you saying that the chest was

meant

to be found, and by you alone?'

Dak'ir nodded almost imperceptibly. His voice came out as a rasp. 'Am I somehow cursed, brother?'

Ba'ken didn't reply. He merely clasped his battle-brother's pauldron.

It would be

several days before Tu'Shan and his council emerged from the Pantheon. The chamber was one of few in the Salamanders fortress-monastery on Prometheus. Though, in truth, the bastion was not much more than a space port linked to an orbital dock where the Chapter's modest armada of vessels could be refitted and repaired. An Apothecarion saw to the outfitting of new recruits and their genetic enhancement as they became battle-brothers. Trial arenas were sunk into the basement level. It was here in these pits that initiate and veteran together could undergo tests of endurance and self-reliance, as was in keeping with the tenets of the Promethean Cult.

Walking across hot coals, lifting massive boiling cauldrons, enduring the searing pain of the Proving Rod or bearing red-hot iron bars were just some of the labours expected of the sons of Vulkan to show their faith and will. There were dormitories and relic halls, too, though again relatively few in number. The most prestigious of these was the Hall of the Firedrakes, a vast and vaulted gallery hung with the pelts of the great salamanders slain by the warriors as a rite of passage, and from which the hall took its name.

The Firedrakes, of which Tu'Shan was captain as well as regent, were barracked on Prometheus along with the Chapter Master himself. These venerable warriors were almost a breed apart; the transition they made to the vaunted ranks of the 1st Company changing them in myriad ways as they embraced the full evolution of their genetic encoding. Unlike their fellow battle-brothers, the Firedrakes were seldom seen on the surface of Nocturne where the other Salamanders would readily cohabit with the human populace, albeit often as part of a solitary lifestyle. Their rites were ancient and clandestine, conducted by the Chapter Master himself. Only those who had undergone the most heinous of trials and endured hardship beyond imagining could ever hope to aspire to become a Fire-drake.

Akin to that sacred and revered order, access to the Pantheon was also restricted. Dak'ir for one had never seen it, though he knew it was a small deliberation chamber located at the heart of Prometheus.

Only matters of dire import or of profound spiritual significance were ever discussed in the Pantheon. It had eighteen seats, representing their original Legion number - a fact that remained unchanged during the Second Founding, an act in which, due to their debilitated strength, the Salamanders had been unable to participate.

The head seat was reserved for the Chapter Master, an honour that had been Tu'Shan's these last fifty years or so. Thirteen were for the other masters: six to the captains of the remaining companies; one each for the Apothecarion, Librarius, Chaplaincy and Fleet; with a further three devoted to the