Salamander

'We advance under the blaze.' Tsu'gan had to bellow to be heard.

'Into the fires of battle then, brother…' The voice came from the shadowy confines of the Land Raider. It was harsh and filled with steel. Chaplain Elysius emerged into the half-light, though it was as if the gloom of the tank's hold clung to him like a shroud. The grinning skull mask of his battle-helm made him macabrely jocund.

'Unto the anvil of war,' Tsu'gan concluded. 'I am honoured, Brother- Chaplain.'

Elysius swung his crozius arcanum loose from its strap and impelled its power field into a vivid coruscation. He bade Tsu'gan go on.

The brother-sergeant turned back to Praetor. 'Can you make a mobile shield wall, brother?'

Praetor's loud laughter sounded like thunder. With well-executed precision, he and the Firedrakes formed a barrier wall with their storm shields, warding the front and flanks of Tsu'gan, De'mas and seven other battle-brothers. Elysius stepped outside of the protective cordon.

'Shoulder them, brothers,' Elysius bellowed with stentorian conviction. 'The Emperor and the will of Vulkan is

my

shield.'

Praetor wasted no further time. 'Forward, assault pattern

Aegis,'

he boomed, and the Firedrakes began to move.

Heavy weapons fire hammered against the Terminators and their upraised storm shields, but fell away harmlessly against their locked defence. Elysius strode alongside them, matching their ponderous pace, hurling canticles of faith and the litanies of the forge at the traitors like barbed spears.

'

…and lo, upon the anvil did Vulkan smash the heretics, his hammer like a comet that falleth from heaven. Into the blood of Mount Deathfire are they consumed…'

Rosarius field flickering with every blow, the Chaplain did not once relent.

'

…quail, base traitors, and receive the promised price of your perfidy. Burn, malfeasants, burn! Flayed in fire before the Emperor's glory!'

A rattling chorus of staccato gunfire joined Elysius's diatribes and was heard by Tsu'gan from within the protective shell of the Firedrakes' storm shields. Four Terminators formed the brunt of the armoured wall, shields locked in a seamless barrier. The energy fields generated by the shields crackled and spat with their joining, throwing off azure sparks and the reek of ozone. Two further Firedrakes guarded each flank, their shields held up and combined to configure a makeshift roof with the storm shields of two of their brothers that bisected the front line of four and acted as the spine of the formation.

The power-armoured Salamanders, crouched low and clutching their grenades, were interspersed between them, five Space Marines either side of the ''spine'', each led by a sergeant with a Terminator at both flanks.

Tsu'gan counted fifteen steps, the weapons fire intensifying with every one. Outside his mobile redoubt of reinforced ceramite, he heard the shuddering reports of the Salamanders' guns and felt the heat from the venting flamers blazing overhead.

'

…and slay the enemies of the Imperium with bolt and blade…'

Elysius continued. His voice, normally cold like iron, burned with a zealot's passion now. The caustic rhetoric was amplified by the vox-emitters in his battle-helm, and his fiery sermons rang with the clarity and force of a loud hailer.

'

…commit their vile forms to the flames of purgation…'

Ten more steps.

'

…hurl the wretched into the abyss to be torn asunder by claws of iniquity…'

Five more.

'

…and the tainted shall burn within the pit, smote from the earth…'

Three.

'

Heed me traitors and tremble!'

The gate was before them.

Praetor's shield wall broke. An aperture in the barrier of ceramite was forged to allow Tsu'gan and his commandoes through. The line divided into two, storm shields facing outwards, the Terminators drawing as much fire as they could from the remote guns.

Hunter-killers emerged from concealed firing slits, triggered by proximity. De'mas took out one, the incendiary in the rocket exploding in the wall, spitting out debris like iron hail. The other released; its target, the Chaplain who had stalked forwards to join his brothers at the gate.

Elysius disappeared amidst a cloud of fire and shrapnel. Tsu'gan fully expected him to be dead but when the dust cleared the Chaplain was down on his knee but very much alive, his Rosarius field flickering intermittently around him. The hunter-killer had retracted, only to return seconds later with a fresh payload.

'Dare bend me to my knee, craven tool of heresy,' spat Elysius, standing straight. 'With the fury of Prometheus,

I

smite thee!' His bolt pistol roared with the voice of damnation and the hunter-killer was no more.

Returning to the squad outside the gates, the Chaplain unlocked his own melta-bomb from his belt.

'Let the tainted be purged,' he intoned, tendrils of smoke rising off his armour from where the missile blast had breached his shield of faith.

Standing before the gate, Tsu'gan felt the baleful influence exuding from its central icon as tangible as heat. It was raw defiance and aggression, promised destruction and bloody threats. Brother-Chaplain Elysius smothered it with his mere presence, though it was an act of will to defy the malignity imbued within the symbol of iron. Tsu'gan and his brothers were emboldened by the Chaplain's example, drawing on their own inner belief to overcome the terrible gate. One conviction was left in their minds: the fortress

must

fall.

Together, the Salamanders attached their grenades and bombs, priming the charges for a three-second delay before retreating back behind the Terminators and their storm shields as they closed around them again.

The blast wave was like a baptism. Tsu'gan revelled in it washing over him and began to laugh, deep-bellied and loud.

'What is so amusing, brother?' asked Sergeant De'mas, the incendiary vapours dissipating from around the gate.

Tsu'gan's eyes burned like hellfires behind his battle-helm, aglow despite the darkness of his lenses.

'War at last, brother,' he intoned. 'Only war.'

Though, incredibly, the gate still stood, it was bent and crippled. Tsu'gan could see the inner fortress beyond it through fist-wide cracks as the Terminators parted slightly.

'Are you ready to face the traitor garrison, brother?' bellowed Praetor, the wild glint of anticipation in his eyes.

Tsu'gan matched it, grinning ferally behind his battle-helm. 'It's a small matter.