Salamander

Crying out in rage and anguish, Tsu'gan saw three of his battle-brothers threaded by munitions fire. Power armour was tough; tough enough to withstand such weapons as these, but the sheer rate of shells increased their potency threefold.

Unfortunately, in Tsu'gan's eyes at least, N'keln had not been one of those caught in the ash slide. Barking swift commands from what was left of the ridge peak, he attempted to restore some coherency to his forces. Pinned down in the basin, though, the stricken Salamanders were getting slaughtered.

'Use the transports as armoured cover,' Tsu'gan implored. 'Bring them down into the basin. Our brothers are dying, damn you!'

Igniting columns of smoke spilled out across the ridge as Vargo's Assault squad took to the air. It was an act of desperation, an attempt to alleviate the relentless volley targeting the warriors in the basin and force the enemy to split its fire.

Vargo landed a few metres short of the wall, ahead of the redoubts, just as Tsu'gan knew he would. Chainswords whirring, primed melt bombs winking in their mag-locks, the Assault squad made ready to jump again.

Chained detonations erupted down the length of the wall, engulfing Vargo and his squad in exploding frag. It was a first-strike deterrent, designed to stun and weaken an impatient attacker who sought to sack the bastion in his first foray. Smoke and flame died away to reveal the casualties of that ill- conceived strategy. Brother-Sergeant Vargo was on his feet but dazed, his armour blackened and cracked at the edges. Three of the Assault squad were down, unmoving. Four more carried obvious injuries, limping and cradling arms as they tried to drag their prone brothers next to the wall and outside the firing arcs of the sentry guns stitching lines of ammunition into the area where they had faltered. Jump packs looked shot to pieces, their turbines shredded or full of frag.

Tsu'gan was ready to abandon his post, when at last the vehicles came roaring down the half-flattened slope.

'

Hellfire,'

he snarled into the comm-feed, the order reaching all four combat squads. 'Execute!'

Brother S'tang hammered the switch on a palm-sized detonator taken from his combat-rig and flung himself to the ground along with his squad.

Explosions rippled across the edge of the redoubts, sending thick clods of dirt spitting high into the air amidst clouds of smoke and flame.

The Salamander assault force had been prepared for this, thanks to the careful instruction of Brother-Sergeant Typhos. Using it as a distraction, the beleaguered Space Marines managed to regroup.

Tsu'gan was first out of the redoubt. Debris from his grenade line was still falling as he raced towards the wall, bolter blazing. Behind him, the mobile armour of the vehicles had slewed into position and was taking fire. Another missile-launcher

choomed

overhead and one of the Rhinos went up in a ball of flame, flipped onto its back and burning. Astartes crawled out of the wreckage, using what was left of the hull for cover as the inevitable shots rained down at them from the walls.

'Combine fire!' Tsu'gan cried, skidding to a halt and dropping to one knee to steady his aim. Through his bolter sight he found an autocannon sentry gun, its muzzle lit by barking munitions. It jolted and collapsed as Tsu'gan brought his wrath to bear, Brothers Lazarus and S'tang adding to the fusillade that destroyed it.

Once the killing was done, Tsu'gan ordered the squad to move on, making it as hard as possible for the automated guns to track them. 'Advance!' he yelled. 'We have their attention now.'

Tiberon was picked off by an accurate bolter shot. It took him through the joint at his knee, crippling the Salamander instantly.

'S'tang,' said Tsu'gan as he saw Tiberon fall, 'to your brother.'

S'tang obeyed at once, jinking as he doubled back the short distance to Tiberon and dragged him into the cover of a crater cut by the grenade line.

Whickering fire came down at Tsu'gan and the other combat squads in earnest, as the Iron Warriors realised the more immediate threat in their midst. Tsu'gan didn't have time to take out another sentry gun before he was forced to move on lest the remote weapons platforms draw a bead and shred him and his squad.

The sound of rumbling adamantium offered a solution as the

Fire Anvil,

using the momentum from the ridge ramp, bulldozed through the recently vacated redoubts, smashing them into rubble and slewing to a stop in front of the brother-sergeant.

The other combat squads took the initiative and rallied to the formidable assault tank. A missile

whooshed

overhead and struck the Land Raider's roof, spilling fire and shell debris like rain. Smoke dispersed quickly. The

Fire Anvil

was left unscathed and started to rotate on its tracks, one side locked whilst the other churned it into position.

'Flamers!' yelled Tsu'gan as he realised what was coming next.

Brother Honorious and the other special weapons troopers came forwards, bodies pressed against the Land Raider's rear armour.

'Cleanse and burn!' Tsu'gan roared as the

Fire Anvil's

flamestorm cannons erupted gloriously. At the same time, Honorious and his brothers stepped from behind the Redeemer- pattern battle tank and added their own fire to the conflagration.

Roaring promethium scathed the walls, spilling through murder holes and firing slits, invasive and consuming. Muffled cries rewarded the blitz attack, and Tsu'gan smiled. The traitors were burning.

The rear embarkation ramp of the Land Raider slammed down and out stomped Veteran Sergeant Praetor and his Firedrakes in full Terminator armour, wielding crackling thunder hammers and storm shields.

All around them, the Salamander heavy weapons had been revivified. Heavy bolters raked the ramparts, splitting sentry guns apart in showers of metal; multi-meltas drawn up to lethal range burned into the walls, stripping away ceramite; missiles zoned in on the towers themselves, blasting the stoic bodies within to fragments.

'Concentrate fire on the wall guards,' bellowed Tsu'gan into the comm-feed, tactical-band, so it reached all fighting forces. Advancing upon the fortress, the brother-sergeant had realised something that had been staring him in the face since the redoubts.

'My lords,' he said, turning to acknowledge the Firedrakes.

'I am at your disposal, brother-sergeant,' boomed Praetor, his squad behind him like silent green sentinels.

'Break the gate and we break this siege,' Tsu'gan told him. He released a melta-bomb where he'd mag-locked it to his battle harness. Sergeant De'mas did the same, whilst some of their battle-brothers palmed krak grenades. 'There's enough explosive here to rip down three gates,' Tsu'gan boasted, eyeing the stretch of open ground between the Land Raider and the wall. 'I just need you to get me there and finish the job.'

Praetor nodded, though whether he saw Tsu'gan's plan or simply trusted him implicitly, the brother-sergeant didn't know.

Another missile strike lit up the flank of

Fire Anvil

this time, even as the flamestorm cannons continued to spew burning death from their battle-scorched maws.