Salamander

ceramite. It kept burning, melting away at the armour around Dak'ir's head, who wrenched it off before the corrosive effects ate through it completely and started in on his face.

The ruined battle-helm clattered to the ground, half-disintegrated, as Dak'ir hit Ghor'gan with a roar. Swinging his chainsword two-handed, the Salamander tore into the heavy weapon that had ended Kadai's life, shearing it in two.

P

yriel got to

the end of the narrow span across the lava stream before he realised Ba'ken wasn't with him. He turned, with half a glance at Dak'ir hammering at the massive Dragon Warrior, before searching for Ba'ken.

The heavy weapons trooper was retreating back down the rock bridge.

'Brother!' cried Pyriel, a hint of accusation in his voice.

Ba'ken half turned his head.

'I cannot leave him, Librarian,' was his only explanation.

Pyriel was about to cry out again, when he saw that Ba'ken was heading for the boy, Va'lin.

Geysers of fire and lava were breaking the surface of the cavern now, the forked cracks in the earth splitting apart and allowing Scoria's blood to seep through. Va'lin had retreated to one corner of the cavern, keeping his head down and himself well hidden. Thick veins of encroaching lava webbed his retreat route to the entrance and spears of flame shot sporadically from the ground around him. The boy was crouched atop the skeletal frame of an excavator, clinging on for his life and too afraid to move.

In his determination to reach the Dragon Warriors, and perhaps the pain in his shoulder caused by the melta beam's savage caress, Pyriel had failed to hear Val'in's plaintive cry. Human life was important; Vulkan had taught them that. The Salamanders were protectors as well as warriors.

Ba'ken had heard the boy and was answering his noble calling as a Fire-born of Nocturne.

'In Vulkan's name, brother,' the Librarian muttered. Smoke was billowing into the cavern now and occluded his view. The hulking form of Ba'ken was lost in the grey and black.

Returning his attention to Dak'ir, Pyriel had taken just a step from the rocky span when a forked seam split the ground before his feet and a titanic wall of intense heat and fire impeded him.

Thrown off by the force of the flame-geyser's expulsion, Pyriel had to scramble back up so as not to be pitched into the lava stream. Warning icons flashed red on a status slate in his gauntlet. Tentatively, he went to touch the fiery barrier but withdrew his hand as the heat sensors in his armour spiked. His gauntlet came back badly scorched and partially melted.

Behind the flickering heat, the struggle between Salamander and renegade became an amorphous haze.

'Dak'ir!' he cried, venting his impotency and frustration. There was nothing he could do; the wall of fire stretched the width of the cavern. Dak'ir was alone.

T

he

D

ragon

W

arrior

let the cleaved ends of the multi-melta fall from his grasp, and jabbed his left claw into Dak'ir's neck like a blade, while the other slashed at his assailant's wrist. The Salamander's gorget took the brunt of the blow to the neck, but Dak'ir was stunned and lost his grip on the chainsword when Gor'ghan's scything talons ripped a chunk of ceramite from his gauntlet. The empty thud of the weapon hitting the ground, the churning teeth slowing to a stop, felt like a death knell.

Dak'ir recovered quickly, barely noticing the barrier of fire that had erupted behind him, butting the Dragon Warrior's helmet and crumpling the nose despite the pain it caused him. Ghor'gan staggered back with a muffled cry of pain, ripping off the helm to reveal a scaled visage as dark as burnt umber and perpetually flaking. He tore at the shards of ceramite embedded in his reptilian face, casting the bloody wreckage aside before flying at Dak'ir.

The Salamander met him mid-attack and the two of them locked together, neither with the strength or purpose to gain the upper hand.

'Murdering dog!' Dak'ir raged, about to spit acid from his betcher's gland into the renegade's face when Ghor'gan stopped him by shoving his forearm under the Salamander's chin and forcing his mouth shut. The caustic bile bubbled over Dak'ir's bottom lip harmlessly.

'Fight with honour,' countered the Dragon Warrior, his voice like crackling magma. In the frantic struggle, Dak'ir noticed a ragged wound, only half-healed, across his neck and assumed this was the reason for Ghor'gan's throaty cadence.

'You possess none,' Dak'ir accused when he'd pushed back the renegade's grip on his neck. 'I know you are the assassin that shot my captain when his back was turned.'

Ghor'gan's face darkened in what might have been regret.

'I am a warhound, like you,' he rasped, then granted as he tried to seize a hand around Dak'ir's throat. The Dragon Warrior was big, easily the size and heft of Ba'ken, and Dak'ir was finding his strength a severe test. 'I follow orders, even those I disagree with. It is the way of war,' he concluded.

'Pleading for mercy already, renegade?'

'No.' Ghor'gan's answer was flat, his tone almost weary. 'I just wanted you to know before you die.' The Dragon Warrior exerted his full strength, pressing Dak'ir into a crouch, and slipping his claws around his neck.

Dak'ir felt his throat constricting from the external pressure. He raked gauntleted fingers over Ghor'gan's face, trying to leaven his grip, but came away with a fistful of shed skin instead. Ghor'gan snarled at the ragged wound in his cheek but kept the pressure up, extending his arms to force Dak'ir away. The Salamander went for his holstered pistol but the renegade saw the move and smashed him into the cavern wall. White fire flared behind Dak'ir's eyes as hot knives stabbed his side where he'd struck the rock.

'Don't resist,' growled Ghor'gan, almost fatherly, 'Your pain is almost at an end…'

Dak'ir's lungs felt like withered sacks in his chest, as his throat was slowly being crashed. Darkness impinged at the edge of his sight and he felt himself slipping…

He reached out, trying to deny the inevitable. Pyriel was far away, behind the wall of fire. Dak'ir was alone with Ghor'gan, his old captain's killer about to add to his murder tally.

B

a'ken reached the

edge of the growing lava pool slowly encircling Va'lin on his island of metal. The boy was choking on the sulphurous fumes and smoke wreathed his tiny refuge. Ba'ken would have to jump. He couldn't make it and return with the boy as well if he kept on his heavy flamer rig. Without a second thought, he disengaged the locking straps and shrugged the bulky canisters off his back, laying them carefully on the ground with the weapon itself.

Muttering a painful litany as he traced his hand lightly across the barrel of the gun he had forged and crafted, Ba'ken rose to his feet and leapt to Va'lin.

'Climb on, boy,' he said, once on the other side. The skeletal frame of the excavator was already buckling under the Salamander's weight, whilst around them the lava crept ever closer.

Va'lin clambered onto Ba'ken's shoulders, clinging desperately to the Fire- born's neck and pauldron.