Salamander

Greenskin bodies swamped them, a multitude of crude blades, cudgels and chains flashing out at the Firedrakes. It was like using a rubber hammer to bring down a bastion wall. But then the orks were not necessarily intending to kill, only to delay.

All the while, the warboss laughed loudly, revelling in the carnage it was wreaking.

Brother Elysius aimed to sour the beast's ebullient mood. Stepping into a void in the aftermath of the explosion, he brandished his crozius. Lightning crackled over the surface of the weapon, emulating the Chaplain's hatred. The bile-filled litany was already half-formed as it passed his lips.

'

…and the perfidy of the alien shall be met with cleansing fire and burning blade. Its form, reviled and repugnant, shall be cast down into the pit of damnation.'

Elysius swung his crozius in a short arc, making a jagged trail of sparking energy that hung for a few seconds in the air. It was meant as a goad.

'Face

me,

xenos filth,' he snarled.

Recognising another challenger, the warboss beat its chest in anticipation of a good fight.

Tsu'gan was still getting to his feet when he saw Elysius facing off against the beast. The Chaplain, ordinarily imposing, looked small against the sheer bulk of the massive ork. It was easily several heads taller, and almost twice as wide. Tsu'gan felt dazed; his ears were still ringing from the blast and black clouds circled menacingly at the periphery of his vision. He shook them away through force of will.

He must have been thrown from the blast. A skid furrow in the ash in the shape of his body, several metres long, bore testament to the sergeant's supposition.

Putting his foot forward, Tsu'gan realised he was bleeding. He felt it, wet heat behind his battle-plate, and bit back a rush of agony.

'To the Chaplain,' he croaked, tasting copper in his mouth and forged towards where man and beast faced off in uneven contest.

N

'keln was becoming

a distant figure. Dak'ir slew a greenskin at almost every stroke, his chainsword clogged with churned flesh, but still the captain bested him. A bloody path, ragged and limb-strewn, described his passage through the orks. It made following him easier, and as the carnage wore on, fewer and fewer greenskins filled the void left in

N

'keln's wake.

The Inferno Guard were closest, Shen'kar cutting down swathes of orks with his flamer, whilst Malicant held the company banner aloft. Fugis, Dak'ir had lost from sight. He had been left behind, ministering to the fallen even as he killed the enemy, the ultimate dichotomy of life and death expressed through an individual.

Dak'ir judged he was roughly four paces behind the Inferno Guard, and they four paces behind

N

'keln. The brother- sergeant had Emek at his side with Apion and Romulus. Ba'ken had opted to lag back and try to protect the settlers. Dak'ir lauded his heroism, but wished the bulky trooper was with him now.

Shattering an orkoid clavicle with a blow from his chainsword before burning a hole through its torso with his plasma pistol, Dak'ir saw the black armour of Chaplain Elysius in the gap left by the greenskin's falling body.

He faced off against the ork warboss. The shadow of its horrifying stature eclipsed him. Others were rushing in support; Dak'ir saw Praetor and two of his Firedrakes free themselves from a swarm of greenskins. Tsu'gan, too, was staggering towards him, his squad belatedly in tow.

Even from distance, Dak'ir could tell they would not reach Elysius in time. The Chaplain would have to fight the beast alone.

A

n ork truck

exploded somewhere off to Tsu'gan's right, a roiling smoke cloud obscuring his vision as he lost Elysius from view.

By the time it cleared, he saw the Chaplain was bent down to one knee. The beast loomed above him, pressing Elysius down into the ash by grinding his chainblade against the Chaplain's upraised crozius. There was a dark welt above the ork's left eye and an angry black scorch mark where the crozius had stung him.

Elysius was buckling.

Tsu'gan struggled to reach him, pain anchoring his legs and weighing them down. He watched, almost transfixed, as the Chaplain aimed his bolt pistol through a gap in the crackling arcs thrown off by the crozius, only for the warboss to lash down with its power claw.

The ground trembled as another tremor wracked Scoria. Elysius screamed in unison with it, and his anguish seemed to shake the world. His arm was severed at the elbow. Blood was gushing from the wound, creating an ugly red mire around the Chaplain's feet and bended knee. Elysius seemed to sink into it, the beast pressing down relentlessly as it stepped forward to crush the severed forearm into paste in a wanton act of mutilation.

He was only a few metres away, but Tsu'gan could taste the death blow coming, feel it like a change in the wind or a lurch in his stomach.

The Chaplain was about to die, and there was nothing Tsu'gan could do to prevent it. Another hero of the company slain, just like—

Then N'keln was there, drakescale cloak billowing with the rush of his charge, twin-bladed power sword gleaming, and fate was reversed. Bellowing Vulkan's name, he rammed the master- crafted sword into the ork's neck and drew it out in a welter of dark blood. The beast roared; a ragged cry emitted from its ruined throat where the gore was pumping readily. Elysius was forgotten and the Chaplain collapsed from shock and blood loss. N'keln took a blow from the ork's power claw against the flat of his blade and the air around them became electrified.

Tsu'gan tasted the ozone. It numbed his lips and tanged his tongue as if it were on fire. Despite the pain, he was running. His bolter was out, the promethium canister for the flamer attachment long spent too, so he drew his spatha.

The earth shook again, in eerie synergy with the titanic battle unfolding upon it. The ork warboss rained down blows upon the Salamander captain like an angry giant. Each was like a comet, skull-bound and destined to kill before N'keln's sword skill diffused or deflected it. A dark and viscous tabard of blood coated the ork's chest now, a second mouth cut by N'keln's power sword in its neck frothing crimson. Digging furrows in the ground, the Salamander captain was pushed back by the ork's fury, finding no purchase in ash.

Slow exsanguination was making the warboss sluggish. Its movements were heavier; its prodigious strength fading. The more it exerted itself, the faster its blood spilled from its body. N'keln knew it and based his combat strategy on attrition - it was a gloriously Promethean way to slay an enemy. None could match a Salamander for sheer tenacity. Fire-born never knew when they were beaten.

The warboss slipped, its intended death blow failing to connect, and N'keln took his chance. Having dodged the downward swipe of the ork's power claw, he stepped into its fighting arc and cut off the wrist holding the chainblade. N'keln then reversed the cut and brought it up into the beast's exposed flank. The mono-molecular edge of the power-charged blades melted metal and overloaded the narrow-field force generator rippling energy across the greenskins armour. It howled as the sword bit into hide then flesh and finally bone.

The stink of cooking meat assailed Tsu'gan's nostrils as he came at the ork from its blind side, ramming his spatha into an exposed patch of green skin between the plates and the chain links.