Salamander

our secondary mission. Finding Vulkan or whatever the primarch may have left for us here is of paramount concern right now.'

'I'll warrant our near-destruction to a solar storm wasn't part of Vulkan's vision,' growled Lok. The veteran sergeant had sustained a gash to the forehead during the crash, adding to his numerous scars.

'

And lo, they will be struck down by fire and their eyes opened to the truth.'

The voice of Chaplain Elysius sermonised as he entered the command bunker. Dak'ir and Agatone were in tow. 'So speaks the Tome of Fire, Brother Lok.'

'This was predestined, Brother-Chaplain?' asked N'keln. Elysius nodded solemnly.

'A pity then, we could not have been warned,' grumbled Lok.

The Chaplain turned his bone-visage back on to the veteran sergeant.

'Destiny, if forewarned, ceases to be destiny at all,' he chided. 'We were

meant

to crash upon this world. It is merely an element of a much grander design, to which we are not privy. Such things should not be interfered with, lest the balance of destiny itself be thrown out of kilter.'

'And what of the lives of those lost?' Lok countered. 'How are we to

balance

that?'

'Sacrificed in the fires of battle,' Elysius returned. A cold light burned behind the lenses of his battle-helm. The Chaplain did not like to be challenged, especially on matters of spiritual divination.

'It was no battle,' Lok growled, but under his breath. Scowling, he let it go, nodding his assent in spite of his outward disapproval.

'So be it,' said N'keln. 'We will follow whatever path has been laid out for us. Brother Tsu'gan is right. Fate has delivered us, and so we must seek out whatever is hidden on this world. To that end, scouting teams will assemble and conduct a long-range survey of the surrounding area. Population centres, military or industrial installations are our objective.'

Tsu'gan stepped forward. 'My lord, I wish to lead the scouting force.'

'Very well,' N'keln conceded. 'Gather whatever troops you need. The rest will stay here, protect the injured and consolidate our position. Argos,' he met the cold gaze of the Techmarine, 'establish a perimeter around our camp. I want no further surprises from the chitin-creatures. Deep frag mines and photon flares,' he added, glancing outside, where the yellow sun of Scoria was dipping below a grey horizon. 'It'll be dark soon and I want fair warning of any encroachment.'

The Techmarine bowed and went to his duties. The rest of the sergeants were dismissed soon after, saluting as they left the command bunker. Only Praetor and Lok remained, poring over the reactivated hololith and the cold resolution representing the barren plains of Scoria. No matter how hard the captain of the Salamanders stared, he could not discern the mystery beneath them that had brought them here.

'R

eminds me of

home,' offered Iagon, his gaze on the long dark horizon line. Something was building in the east. A faint glow, not caused by the dipping sun, painted the sky in hazy red. The chains of volcanoes on Nocturne exuded a similar patina across the heavens when they were about to erupt. Tiny tremors registered below the earth, too. They were deep, so deep as to emanate from the core of the planet and represented a fundamental shift in its tectonic integrity. Even as the seconds ticked by, Scoria was changing. Iagon felt it as surely as the bolter hung loosely in his grasp.

The Salamander had regrouped with his brother-sergeant after leaving Fugis following the crash, confident that the Apothecary would not speak of either his or Tsu'gan's indiscretion. He didn't mention this to his sergeant, who assumed that Fugis had taken him at his word and would say nothing more of it.

The scouts had left the camp behind an hour ago. Argos's bomb-laying servitors established a perimeter of sunken fragmentation grenades in their wake that was patrolled in turn by a pair of Thunderfire cannons the Techmarine had liberated from the hold of the

Vulkan's Wrath.

The tracked war machines, not unlike the mobile weapon platform that the Marines Malevolent had employed on the

Archimedes Rex,

were ideally suited to dissuading further assaults from the indigenous chitin-creatures.

Combat awareness filled Tsu'gan's mind now, as he crouched on one knee and allowed the dark Scorian ash to filter through the gaps in his half-clenched fist. He cast about, but all he saw were grey dunes stretching in every direction.

'It is more like Moribar,' he countered, scowling as he stood up and reached out a hand to Brother Tiberon, saying: 'Scopes.'

Tiberon handed a pair of magnoculars to his sergeant, who took them without looking.

Tsu'gan brought the magnoculars up to his eyes and swept them around in a wide arc.

'De'mas, Typhos - report,' he ordered through the comm-feed. It was no great surprise that Tsu'gan had selected two sergeants who had previously sworn fealty to him in the event of a leadership challenge to N'keln.

Both came back curtly with negative contacts. Tsu'gan lowered the magnoculars and exhaled his frustration.

Night was drawing in, just as N'keln had predicted. Chill winds were skirling across the ashen desert in low, scudding waves, kicking up swirls of ash that rattled noiselessly against the Salamanders' greaves. Besides the evening zephyr, the plain was deathly quiet and still.

'Yes,' Tsu'gan muttered grimly, 'just like Moribar.'

'T

here,'

T

su'gan hissed

. 'You see it?'

Iagon peered through the magnoculars. 'Yes…'

A fine smirr of grainy dark smudged the horizon, barely visible over a high dune. The two Salamanders were lying flat on an ash ridge. Brothers S'tang and Tiberon were either side of them, while the rest of the squad acted as sentry below.

'What is it?' asked Iagon, handing the magnoculars back to Tiberon.

'Smoke.' Tsu'gan's tone suggested a predatory grin behind his battle- helm.

It was the first sign of life they'd seen for several hours. On route to the ridge, they'd passed structures that might once have been the edges of cities. Whether ruined by war or merely dilapidation, it was impossible to tell under the ash fall that furred the buildings in grey.

In his marrow, Tsu'gan felt the sign spotted above the dune was significant. Through the rebreather mounted in his helmet, he detected trace amounts of carbon, hydrogen and the acrid stench of sulphur dioxide, carried towards them on the breeze - in other words, oil. It meant several things: that the chitin-beasts were not the only creatures on Scoria, and that these cohabitants had the technological ability to both mine and refine oil; not only that, but use it in a manufacturing process.