Salamander

detachable portion of his torso under-mesh had been removed. Emek had just finished bandaging Tsu'gan's chest. The bindings were tight and muddied dark pink with his diffuse blood beneath them. Salves and unguents had been applied to his body to speed up the recovery process. They smelled of ash and burning rock. Dak'ir also saw the many branding scars visited upon the sergeant's skin. They were deep and wide, and he wondered how Tsu'gan's brander-priest could've been so crude in his honour marking.

'I'll leave you, brothers,' said Emek, ever the diplomat, and moved to the other side of the hold where another patient awaited him. Dak'ir nodded as he passed, but his attention was upon Tsu'gan who had got up and was replacing his plastron.

'What about his duties here?' Dak'ir asked. 'And what mission?'

'There was little for him to do, save the removal of the progenoids from our fallen brothers. That was done upon the field of battle, the rest are patch-ups that your trooper, Emek, seems more than capable of performing.' Tsu'gan fitted the armour in place and clasped the front and back, betraying a wince of pain for his efforts. 'Perhaps Fugis is grooming him for a role in the Apothecarion.'

Dak'ir clenched a fist at the brother-sergeant's deliberate goading.

'Where is Fugis?' he asked again.

'Gone,' Tsu'gan answered simply, flexing his left arm and rotating his shoulder blade within his pauldron. 'Stiff,' he said, partly to himself.

'Tsu'gan…' Dak'ir warned. In their time apart, he'd almost forgotten how much he despised the other sergeant.

'Calm yourself, Ignean. N'keln sent him to the chamber where you found the ancient. He's going to extract his geneseed.'

'And Illiad would be leading him there,' Dak'ir muttered, but not so quietly that Tsu'gan couldn't hear him. It also explained the missing Rhino APC.

'The human you arrived with, yes.'

Dak'ir felt a pang of regret. It was only right that Gravius's geneseed be preserved, but there was so much that the ancient Salamander knew that given time they could have unearthed. Instead, now, it would be forever condemned to oblivion, the same fate as Gravius's body.

Dak'ir had hoped they could restore him somehow, at least return him to Prometheus and the Chapter. It saddened him to think that this was the old hero's end. It didn't seem fitting.

'Is that why you came, to speak to Fugis?' asked Tsu'gan, interrupting Dak'ir's reverie. 'He is unlikely to return here and we'll be neck-deep in orks before you have another chance.' A mirthless grin passed over his features, and Dak'ir was reminded of a sa'hrk, one of the predator lizards of the Scorian Plain back on Nocturne.

Dak'ir moved a step closer, so the two of them were just under a metre apart, and lowered his voice.

'I came to speak with you,' he admitted. 'I saw the way you looked at N'keln after he slew the beast. Am I to believe your opinion has changed?'

'The fires of war have made their judgement,' was Tsu'gan's only reply, before he double-checked the pressure seals on his power armour.

'An end to clandestine meetings then and your ambition to lead the company?' Dak'ir's tone was leading.

Tsu'gan looked up sharply. There was anger, even violence, in his fiery gaze.

'Petty threats are beneath even you, Ignean,' he said, misunderstanding. 'Don't test me,' he warned.

Dak'ir matched his defiance with steel of his own.

'Nor you me,' he said. 'And I make no threats. I merely seek to know where we stand on this.'

'On even ground,' Tsu'gan snarled through clenched teeth. 'Do not think this accord has anything to do with you, Ignean. It does not. We still have unfinished business, you and

I.'

'

Oh yes?' Dak'ir invited.

Tsu'gan leaned in close. The scent of acerbic oils on his skin was pungent and put Dak'ir in mind of sulphur.

'Your dreams and portents, Ignean - they are not natural.'

Dak'ir's expression gave away his inner fear that this could be true. Tsu'gan continued unabated.

'I see how the Librarian watches you. I don't know what it is you are hiding, but I will discover it…' Tsu'gan moved so close he was eye-to-eye with the other sergeant, '…and know this: I will not hesitate to strike you down should it mean you veer from the righteous path.'

Dak'ir took a step back, but his posture was defiant.

'You sound like Elysius,' he snarled. 'This is not about me, Tsu'gan. It is about Kadai and Stratos.'

The certainty in Tsu'gan's face flickered for a moment.

You fear everything…

Nihilan's words had a habit of returning when he least wanted them to.

'I fear nothing,' he muttered, too quiet for Dak'ir to hear.

The other sergeant went on.

'Let your guilt go, brother,' he said, shaking his head sadly. 'It will only destroy you in the end.'

Tsu'gan's knuckles cracked and for a moment Dak'ir thought he would strike him, but he reined in his anger at the last moment and bit it back.

'I have nothing to be guilty for.' It sounded hollow, Dak'ir suspected, even to Tsu'gan's ears. 'Are we done here?' he added after a charged pause.

'I go to the mines,' said Dak'ir, not certain why he was telling Tsu'gan. Perhaps it was because of what he suspected he might find down there and that it connected them both somehow.

Tsu'gan merely nodded.

'They intend to fire the cannon to destroy the black rock,' he guessed.

Now it was Dak'ir's turn to nod.

With nothing else to say, unsure why he had really come to speak with Tsu'gan, Dak'ir turned away. He was approaching the ramp when he heard the other sergeant's voice after him. 'Dak'ir…'

He seldom called him that; usually it was ''Ignean''. Dak'ir stopped and looked back. Tsu'gan's face was grave.

'In the chamber where we discovered the cannon,' he said. 'I found burned metal and cinder.'

Dak'ir knew what that meant. Tsu'gan's gaze would have clinched it for him, even had he not understood the import of his words. For Dak'ir had sensed them too. In the few days since they had crashed upon Scoria, the feeling had been there. It was merely bubbling under the surface like the magma lifeblood of the world, readying to burst forth and change Scoria forever.

'In Vulkan's name,' uttered Dak'ir. His tone was solemn.

'Aye,' Tsu'gan answered, before turning away to pick up his bolter.

When he looked back to embarkation ramp, Dak'ir was already