Salamander

outcrop when Dak'ir let his bolter hang lose on its strap and unsheathed his chainsword. His voice buzzed like the sound of the blades churning with their sudden activation.

'Charge!'

Dak'ir led, bounding over the rocks with his brothers on his heels. A flash of cerulean blue in his limited peripheral vision told him that Pyriel had drawn his force sword.

The Salamanders descended on the battered remnants of the ork vanguard. And tore them apart.

It was over in seconds, and as the dust finally cleared the greenskin dead were revealed, littering the ground. Orks possessed strong constitutions; they were hard beasts to kill. Amongst the carnage there'd be those that still lived, but none posed a threat to the Salamanders at this point. Beyond the dissipating smoke and ash, the rest of the splinter horde was closing. It was a sobering sight that dispelled the heady battle-euphoria of their recent victory.

Over a thousand orks: more heavily armed, more resolute, more wrathful.

Whatever Argos was planning, Dak'ir hoped it would be ready soon and powerful enough to level a small army.

'Fall back,' he ordered, 'and recover any partially spent clips. We're going to need every single round.'

T

hey arrived at

the main Salamander deployment almost at the same time as the Thunderfire cannons and Dreadnoughts.

Agatone had ordered the withdrawal of the heavy guns as soon as the ork vanguard was in the ''dragon's mouth'', as he would later refer to it. Dak'ir's troops had fallen back a short time after that, but the better foot speed of the battle-brothers had averaged out the head start fairly equally.

The brother-sergeant seemed distracted. As Dak'ir approached him, he realised it was because Agatone was listening intently to the comm-feed in his ear. He nodded curtly, his face grim.

'A much larger horde of greenskins has amassed against the iron fortress. Captain N'keln is currently under siege,' he announced.

'How large a force are we talking about, here?' asked Dak'ir, aware that the main horde they would soon face numbered in the thousands.

'Estimations are hazy,' Agatone replied. 'They reckon tens of thousands.'

Dak'ir shook his head ruefully, before pointing to the lunar eclipse. 'The black rock up there orbits this planet, and when it closes the orks will increase in number again.'

Agatone looked up to the ghastly planetoid, like a baleful black orb, and frowned darkly.

'

We

must reunite our forces,' he decided. 'Find a way to get to Captain N'keln and our brothers before they're worn down by the siege.'

'We are in no position to lift it, Sergeant Agatone,' Pyriel interceded, displaying a cold pragmatism normally associated with their Chaplain. 'Our brothers will be measured against the anvil, as will we all.'

Agatone nodded at the Librarian's wisdom, but said in a low voice:

'Let us hope it doesn't break them.'

After that he summarised the troop dispositions one final time and went to rejoin his squad, leaving Dak'ir to do the same. With Zo'tan leading the human auxiliaries a few hundred metres back from the line of Salamanders, Dak'ir would have been a trooper down if not for Pyriel appending himself to his squad.

The Librarian had taken a keen interest in Dak'ir; for good or ill, the brother- sergeant did not know. The only certainty was that Pyriel would not let him out of his sight.

A rugged defensive line of metal storage crates, partially broken down prefab bunkers and empty ammo drums was strung out for the Salamanders to take cover behind. Battle-Brother G'heb raised his fist to indicate to his sergeant where they would be stationed. Dak'ir could feel the questions in his burning gaze, reflected in the eyes of all the Salamanders, of what happened below the earth and who this human was in their midst. Discipline let them compartmentalise the desire for veracity; survival and the protection of innocent human life overrode it for now.

Answers would come if they lived out this next battle.

Dak'ir was reticent to leave the armour suits, the settlers and especially ancient Brother Gravius behind, but was afforded little other choice. He reasoned that they had survived this long without intervention, and so they were as safe as anywhere could be on Scoria. At least while the orks' attention was fixed on their foes on the surface, they would not decide to probe any deeper.

A rhythmic chant pervaded on the breeze, interrupting Dak'ir's thoughts. The orks were marching in time to beaten drums. They saw an outnumbered foe, out of tricks, who had shown their hand and was now in the open. It galvanised them. Dak'ir felt their belligerent confidence as an intense pressure at the front of his skull. He put a hand to his forehead in a vain effort to ward off the discomfort. The others seemed affected to, but not nearly as badly.

Stand straight, sergeant,

Pyriel's voice was little more than a whisper in Dak'ir's mind.

It is the subconscious psychic emanation of the greenskins that you can feel.

It was crippling. Dak'ir felt like his head was about to explode with it. He gritted his teeth, unaware that he'd stooped, and straightened up.

'Dak'ir…' Ba'ken, on the other side of his sergeant to Pyriel, reached out to him.

'I'm all right, brother,' he lied. The noise in his head was deafening and blood tanged his mouth.

Ba'ken edged closer to his sergeant; the Salamander lines were packed so tightly they were almost shoulder-to-shoulder anyway.

'Lean on me until the fighting begins,' he breathed, lowering his heavy flamer slightly and using his free hand to support Dak'ir surreptitiously beneath the elbow.

Dak'ir found he had no voice to respond. Was this another vision, but manifesting in some physically debilitating way? The approaching ork horde blended into a single note of raucous white noise that eclipsed everything else. Hot, angry green light burned like sunspots before Dak'ir's eyes and he lost focus. Rage: gratuitous, boiling rage filled his mind, and he felt his fists clench in defiance of it. Something primal within him was waking, and Dak'ir fought the urge to cry out and hurl himself at the orks. He wanted to tear into them with his bare hands, to rip their flesh apart with his teeth, to beat upon their bodies until there was nothing left but bone splinters and viscera.

Through the haze of mindless anger that descended, the world was tinted an ugly green.

Listen to my voice, Dak'ir.

It was Pyriel again.

Remember what you are.

He clenched his fists tighter. Blood flowed into his mouth as Dak'ir bit into his lip.

Fire-born,

said Pyriel.

Fury like chained lightning wracked his body and it began to tremble against the strain. Synaptic warning icons behind his helmet lens that were slaved to his body's biorhythms started spiking.