name='FontStyle34'>Vulkan's Wrath,
nor her crew. At any account, there could be no envoys sent to the rest of their brothers - nothing could get through the green tide arrayed against them and live.
The creatures mobbed in indistinct groups that the brother-sergeant likened to rough approximations of battalions or platoons. Each mob was led by a massive chieftain, usually riding a battered wagon, buggy or truck; all bolted metal, hammered plate and the bastardised components of enemy vehicle salvage. Tsu'gan assumed the beasts' ships, the ones that had brought them to the surface, had landed farther off in the ash dunes and were beyond the reach of the magnoculars.
At least the falling slivers, peeling off the black rock like bullet-nosed hail, had abated.
Fights broke out intermittently amongst the orks. Their diminutive cousins - cruel, rangy creatures known as gretchin - lingered at the periphery of such brawls, hoping for scraps, an opportunity to defile the loser or simply to hoot and bray for more carnage. Often these lesser greenskins would be seized during the indiscriminate and seemingly random affrays and used in lieu of a club to bludgeon an opponent with bloody consequences for both.
Orks were a breed of xenos that lived solely to fight. Their behaviour was largely inscrutable to the Imperium, for the creatures possessed no discernible method that any tacticus logi or adeptus strategio had ever qualified. The aliens' predisposition towards battle was obvious in their musculature and build, however. Trunk-necked, their skin as tough as a flak jacket, they were hard beasts to kill. Broad shouldered with thick bones and still thicker craniums, they stood as tall as an Astartes in power armour and were also his match in strength and raw aggression. The ork's only real weakness was in discipline, but nothing focused a greenskin's mind like the prospect of a fight against a hardy foe like the Space Marines.
Judging by the sheer mass of green approaching them, Tsu'gan knew this would be one battle not easily won.
Discipline and loyalty, Tsu'gan reconsidered. The greenskins have no loyalty to speak of; they possess no sense of duty to guide them. Yes, ''loyalty'' - that is our strength, that is our… His thoughts tailed off.
'How many?' asked Brother Tiberon.
Ever since they had fallen back in good order from the advancing greenskins, the horde's numbers had increased. Tsu'gan had related his best estimates to the forces in the iron fortress, but suspected they were now wildly conservative.
Brother-sergeant and combat squad had rejoined the rest of their battle- brothers on the wall, two sections down from where N'keln and his entourage were positioned. Iagon caught Tsu'gan's errant gaze as he looked away from the magnoculars to regard his brother-captain.
This
was the unspoken exchange between them.
Brother Lazarus seemed to pick up on the vibrations between Iagon and his brother-sergeant. All in Tsu'gan's squad shared their leader's desire to see N'keln no longer at the head of 3rd Company.
That is not disloyalty, Tsu'gan told himself, still unsettled by his previous thoughts, It is duty - for the good of the company and the Chapter.
'If he falters,' said Lazarus in a low voice, 'then Praetor will step in. You can be sure of that.'
It was almost as if Tsu'gan could read the thoughts in Iagon's earlier expression.
Tsu'gan had his battle-helm mag-locked to his harness, preferring to feel the growing wind on his face and hear the bestial roars of the greenskins without them being distorted through the resonance of his armour. He narrowed his eyes as if trying to fathom his captain's demeanour.
'Let the fires of war judge him,' he said in the end. 'That is the Promethean way.'
Tsu'gan turned to Tiberon, the deep-throated bellows of the greenskins growing louder by the second.
'There are thousands, now, brother,' he uttered in answer to Tiberon's earlier question. 'More than my eye could see.'
In the wake of the dissipating smoke from the hidden grenade line, the orks stopped. Night was falling across the ash desert, just as Tsu'gan had predicted. The infighting amongst the greenskins ceased abruptly. They were intent on the killing now, on the destruction of the Salamanders.
In the fading light, the orks began to posture, slowly stirring themselves up into a war frenzy.
Chieftains jutted out their chins, like slabs of greenish rock. Their skin was darker than the rest and swathed in scars like that of their minders, who roamed protectively around them. The darker an ork's skin, the bigger it usually was and the older and more dominant. Irrespective of their brutish hierarchy, the orks began to beat their armoured chests, clashing fat-bladed cleavers and axes against scale, chain and flak. They hollered and roared, discharging their noisy guns into the air, creating a pall of rancid smoke from the cheap powder.
Tsu'gan could feel the energy within the creatures building. He was no psyker like Pyriel, but he still recognised the resonance of its effects. Orks generated this energy when in large groups and it was magnified when they fought. It prickled at the Salamander's skin, made his teeth itch and his head throb. Tsu'gan put on his battle-helm. The time for soaking in the coming battle's atmosphere was over.
The orks began to roar in unison, and Tsu'gan sensed an end to the savage ritual was near. Though their brutish tongue was virtually unintelligible, the brother-sergeant could still discern the meaning in their crude, bellowed words.
'DA
BOSS! DA BOSS! DA BOSS!'
Flurries of ash came spilling down the ridge as if fleeing, disturbed by the passage of something large and indomitable.
Through the ranks of green, a huge ork emerged. It battered its way to the front of the horde, clubbing any greenskin that dared get in its way with a clenched power fist that rippled with black lightning. Unlike the Astartes' power fists, this orkish device was akin to a massive, plated claw and bore talons instead of fingers. Not only was it a deadly weapon that left any greenskins it struck bludgeoned to death, it was also a sign of prestige, as limpid as any rank insignia or Chapter honour a Space Marine might carry.
The beast wore a horned helmet with a curtain of chainmail hanging from the back and sides. Its armour looked to be some form of mesh-carapace amalgam, daubed with glyphs and tribal tattoos, though Tsu'gan thought he caught the glint of power servos in the ork's protective panoply. Its boots were thick and black, dusted by ash that collected in the armoured ribs of metal greaves. Grisly trophies dangled from its neck like macabre jewellery: bleached skulls, gnawed-upon bones and the chewed-out husks of helmets. Dark, iron torques banded its bulging wrist and arm; the other was taken up with the power claw. A thick belt girdled the ork's even broader girth and was heavy with a bulky pistol and chained-toothed axe.
Miniscule eyes, pitiless and red, held only menace and the promise of violence.
Tsu'gan felt his face tighten into a scowl. He would only be too happy to oblige
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