Salamander

interrogators' mechadendrites were fashioned into an array of unpleasant devices, excrutiators, designed to inflict maximum pain. Elysius had constructed the servitors in part himself - at least, he had taken the Mechanicus stock and modified them for his own purposes.

'Is this butchery strictly necessary?' asked N'keln, looking on from the shadows.

Since the battle to take the fortress and Tsu'gan's squad's near miss in the catacombs, the brother-captain's stock had depleted further. Though no one spoke of it openly, his disastrous command at the gates of the iron fortress was viewed with ever more critical eyes. Tsu'gan could feel the discontent building like a wave, whilst his own standing had been greatly increased, especially in the eyes of Veteran Sergeant Praetor. The Firedrake had commended the brother-sergeant several times for his valour and strategy. Undoubtedly, it was Tsu'gan that had prevented further deaths and restored parity in the battle.

'I can break him, brother-captain,' Elysius replied. The Chaplain stood back, directing his chirurgeon-interrogators expertly.

'Have you even asked him anything yet, Brother-Chaplain?' said N'keln.

The Warsmith's bionic arm had been removed and dismantled, bloodily. His right arm had been severed and the wound cauterised so that he wouldn't fall unconscious from blood loss. Nor would he be able to morph a weapon from his flesh. Stripped of his body armour, the injuries Tsu'gan had dealt him were visible as a dense patch of welts and purple bruises. Elysius had allowed the Iron Warrior to keep his battle-helm on, for it was his belief that none should look upon the face of a traitor. Let him hide it in shame.

'I am about to,' the Chaplain hissed, a little strained under his captain's scrutiny. After Elysius had issued a sub-vocal command, the chirurgeon-interrogators retreated, taking their blades, their wires and their torches with them. The stench of burned flesh and old copper wafted over to Tsu'gan and the other onlookers, which included Captain N'keln and Brother Iagon.

Tsu'gan's second had requested he be allowed to observe the Chaplain's techniques. Most within the company, like N'keln for instance, found Elysius's methods distasteful, at the same time acknowledging their necessity. Iagon, it seemed, did not, and since Tsu'gan saw no reason to prevent him, he allowed the battle-brother to bear audience with him.

The shadow of Chaplain Elysius fell across the traitor like a deathly veil.

'What precisely were you constructing in the vault?' he asked simply.

Burned copiously, the vault had been resealed again following Techmarine Draedius's analysis. He had yet to ascertain the exact nature of the weapon.

Something fell and evil lurked in the darkness below their feet. Tsu'gan had felt it all the while he was down there and had no desire to reacquaint himself with it. More than once, he had fought the urge to take out his combat knife and press it against his flesh. He knew whatever malign presence lurked in the fortress's lower levels was just preying on his inner guilt and the manifestation of that guilt in his addictive masochism.

The Iron Warrior laughed, breaking Tsu'gan's reverie. It was a hollow, metallic sound that echoed around the small cell like a discordant bell chime.

'What did it look like to you, lapdog of the False Emperor?'

It was a small gesture - like the twitch of one of Elysius's fingers - that brought one of the chirurgeon-interrogators forward. Something happened, hidden by the servitor's body, and the Iron Warrior shuddered and grunted.

'Again,' ordered the Chaplain in a low voice. There was a pause and the Iron Warrior shuddered for a second time. Smoke issued from his flesh, though Tsu'gan couldn't see its source. The Iron Warrior laughed again.

But it was pained laughter this time and when he spoke, his voice was cracked and hissing.

'A weapon…' The breath wheezed in and out of his lungs.

'We know that.' Elysius went to order the chirurgeon-interrogator for a third time.

'A seismic cannon…' gasped the Iron Warrior.

Tsu'gan knew of no such weapon. Had this warband somehow acquired knowledge of an undiscovered standard template construct? It seemed impossible. Still thinking on it, the brother- sergeant detected the faintest tremor of movement in the Chaplain. The chirurgeon-interrogator retreated.

'How long have you been on this world?' Elysius asked, deliberately altering the course of his questioning to try and disorientate the prisoner.

'Almost a decade,' the Iron Warrior rasped, as if his breath were raking against his throat.

'Why are your brothers dead?'

'Killed in battle, of course!' Sudden rage gave the Iron Warrior strength and for the first time he struggled against his chains.

Bonds of loyalty and brotherhood were still strong, Tsu'gan considered, even in traitors.

Elysius struck the Iron Warrior's ruined chest with the flat of his palm. It was a hard blow that pushed the air from the traitor's lungs and smashed him against the bench.

'By what or whom?' demanded the Chaplain, patience thinning.

The Iron Warrior took a few seconds to catch a ragged breath.

'They will come again, the ones that bested my brothers,' he said, his yellow lenses flashing maliciously. 'Very soon, much too soon for you to save yourselves…' A clicking sound scraped from his mouth, growing steadily faster and louder. The Iron Warrior was laughing again.

Elysius was about to send the chirurgeon-interrogators forwards when Sergeant Lok interrupted them. The veteran was in command of the outer defences and the wall, and had rushed in from outside.

'Captain,' he uttered sternly, his face grave.

N'keln gestured for him to give his report.

'It is the sun, my lord,' Lok began.

'What of it, sergeant?'

'It has been partially eclipsed.'

N'keln was taken aback.

'By what?' he asked.

Tsu'gan felt fresh tension suddenly enter the cell. Lok's tone suggested he had seen something that troubled him. For a veteran of Ymgarl, such a reaction was not to be treated lightly.

'A black rock, as large as the sun,' he said. 'Parts of it are breaking off. Many parts.'

'Explain yourself, Lok,' demanded N'keln. 'Are they meteors?'

'They are moving erratically, and at different speeds. More and more fragment each minute.'

N'keln scowled, reaching for his bolter instinctively. They all knew what was coming next.

'Whatever they are,' said Lok, 'they're headed for Scoria.'

'

And with the dark comes a swarm of war, and beneath it the sun shall die,'

Elysius intoned,