Salamander

and facing his rescuer.

Tsu'gan sneered.

'I do my duty. That's all. I wouldn't let a fellow Salamander die, even one that has not the right to bear the name. And I pay my debts, Ignean.' He turned his back, indicating it was the final word, and focused his attention on the human crew.

'Get them to the lifter, armsmaster,' he said sternly.

Vaeder was on his feet, barking orders, hoisting men up, kicking those who thought to wallow. In a few seconds, all fifty were trudging towards the faint light and the solace represented by the lifter.

Tsu'gan went after them, aware of Dak'ir following behind him. Again, he cursed at being shackled with him of all his battle-brothers. He hated being in the Ignean's presence. It was his fault that Kadai had died at Aura Hieron. Wasn't it Dak'ir that had sent Tsu'gan after Nihilan and exposed his captain's flank? Wasn't it Dak'ir that saw the danger but failed to reach Kadai in time to save him? Wasn't it Dak'ir that… Or was it? Tsu'gan felt the weight of guilt upon him like an anvil strapped to his back whenever he wasn't spilling blood in the Chapter's name; that guilt multiplied tenfold whenever he saw Dak'ir. It forced him to admit that perhaps the Ignean wasn't solely responsible, that maybe even he…

Armsmaster Vaeder was raking open the lifter's blast doors with the assistance of two of the other crewmen. The raucous screech of metal was welcome distraction. It didn't last long, as the Ignean spoke again.

'We need to get these men to a flight deck, abandon ship with as many hands as possible.'

Tsu'gan faced him as the humans were clambering aboard the lifter. Though large, the lifter reached capacity quickly and they would need to make several trips.

'It's too late for that,' he answered flatly. 'We must have entered Scoria's upper atmosphere by now. The ship will be at terminal velocity. Any escape would be suicide. We get them to the upper deck.'

Dak'ir leaned in and lowered his voice.

'The chances of these men surviving a crash are slim at best.'

Tsu'gan's response was cold and pragmatic. 'That can't be helped.'

The lifter was coming down again, chugging painfully on overworked cable hoists. Ten metres from the deck it lurched ungainly, emitting a high-pitched scream, until finally churning to an uneven stop.

Something approaching despair registered in the eyes of Vaeder and the ten crewmen yet to ascend. Compounding their misfortune, an orange glow lit up the Salamanders' armour from a rolling wave of fire spilling up from the chasm and over into the deck where the humans cowered.

'Meet it!' roared Tsu'gan, and the two Astartes formed a wall of ceramite between the brittle crew and the raging flames. Heat washed over the Salamanders, but they bore it without flinching.

When the backdraft had died down, sucked into the chasm like liquid escaping through a vent, Dak'ir turned to Tsu'gan again.

'So, what now?'

Tsu'gan eyed the crewmen in their charge. They were huddled together, crouched down against the recently dissipated blaze. Steam was issuing off the Salamander's armour and face, his view filtered through a heat haze.

'We are going to crash in a vessel that is not meant to land, deliberately or otherwise, on solid ground. We shield them,' he said. Wrenching metal resonated loudly in Tsu'gan's ears, as forbidding as a death knell. 'And hang on to something.'

CHAPTER SIX

I Planetfall

T

he chitin-creature died

amidst a welter of exploded bone-plates and shredded mandibles. Grey, sludge-like blood oozed from ragged wounds in its carapace. In its death throes, it flipped onto its armoured back, insectoid legs spasming once and then curled up to remain still.

'Death to the xenos!' spat Brother-Chaplain Elysius, unleashing a storm from his bolt pistol. 'Suffer not the alien to live!'

The

Vulkan's Wrath

had struck the surface of Scoria like a meteorite, its hull still burning from its rapid re-entry into the planet's atmosphere. Impelled by its momentum, the strike cruiser had dug a massive furrow into the earth, hull antennas, towers and engines ripped apart as they met against unyielding bedrock. Hundreds died in the crash, smashed to paste and broken as they were bounced against barrack rooms and hangars in the massive ship. Fires broke out instantly, burning those unlucky enough to be in their path to ash. Some were crushed as the fragile sinews holding up vast sections of damaged upper decks and ceilings capitulated, sending tons of metal debris crashing down onto their heads. Long swathes of armoured shielding had punched inwards, pulping hapless crewmen when the corridor they were clinging to became a single sheet of beaten metal. Others were tossed into chasms of fire and darkness, ripping open like yawning mouths in the deck and swallowing them whole.

In the aftermath, chainswords and cutting tools buzzed into life, the smoke and dust still clinging to the air in a veil, as crewmen sought to cleave escape routes through the bent metal. Hydraulic steam vented in a wave as saviour portals were opened in the hull in a staccato chorus of disengaging locking bars. Survivors spewed out sporadically, some carrying the injured, others forlornly dragging the dead. The Salamanders, who had sustained casualties of their own, organised the evacuation from the worst affected areas and soon a large body of men and servitors had gathered on Scoria's ash-grey soil.

The crash had lasted only minutes, yet they had stretched into hours, even lifetimes, for those aboard praying to the Emperor for deliverance. The furrow ploughed by the strike cruiser's prow ran for almost a kilometre and had disturbed something lurking beneath the ashen surface of Scoria.

The creatures came from the below the earth, whorled emergence holes presaging their arrival. Screams from crewmen dragged under the ash plain were the first indication that they were being attacked. Hordes of the things came on after that, shaking their squat, solid bodies free of clinging ash before wading in with bone-pincers and clicking mandible teeth. Thirty-five crewmen died, swallowed into the earth, before the Salamanders mounted a counter-assault.

Brother-Chaplain Elysius led the Fire-born and he did so with zeal and unrestrained violence.

'Purge them!' he bellowed, his blood-curdling voice amplified by the vox- emitters in his battle-helm, 'With bolt, blade and flame, eradicate the xenos filth!' Barking fire erupted from his pistol, raking a chitin-beast's torso and blasting away one of its mandibles, before the Chaplain advanced and rammed his crackling crozius into its body, gutting it. Grey viscera flecked his skull-face, anointing him in the blood