Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [99]
At shelter CC/46, one of the few shelters still intact as the second day of the dock war stretched on, annihilation was averted at the very last moment.
The first drop-pod came down with a thunderbolt’s force, striking into the roadway leading to the front doors of the sanctuary dome. The ork rabble that had been clamouring in the street was thrown into disarray, and several of the beasts were incinerated in the pod’s retro burst or crushed beneath its hammering weight.
The pod’s sides blasted open, slamming down into descent ramps which pulverised the beasts that had recovered enough to start beating their axe blades against the green hull.
Across the docks, several more pods rained down, their arrival mirroring the destruction unleashed by the first.
With bolters raised, crashing out round after round, and flamers breathing dragon’s breath in hissing gouts of chemical fire, the Salamanders joined their Templar brothers in defence of Hive Helsreach.
‘We are seventy in number,’ he says to me. Seven squads.
His name is V’reth, a sergeant of the Salamanders’ 6th Company. Before I speak, he says something both humbling and unexpectedly respectful. ‘I am honoured to fight at your side, Reclusiarch Grimaldus.’
This confession throws me, and I am not certain I keep my surprise from my voice when I reply.
‘The Templars are in your debt. But tell me, brother, why you have come?’
Around us, my knights and V’reth’s warriors stalk among the dead and the dying, slaying wounded orks with sword thrusts to exposed throats. The storm-trooper and his dockworkers follow suit, using the bayonets of their rifles.
V’reth disengages his helm’s seals and lifts it clear. Even having served with the Salamanders before, it is difficult to look upon one of the sons of Nocturne and feel nothing at all. The gene-seed of their primarch reacts to their home world’s viciously radioactive surface. The pigmentation of V’reth’s skin is the same charcoal-black as every unhelmeted warrior of the Chapter I’ve ever seen. His eyes lack pupils and irises. Instead, V’reth stares out at the world around us through orbs of ember red, as if blood has filled his eye sockets and discoloured his eyes in the process.
His true voice is a low, aural embodiment of the igneous rock that leaves the surface of his home world dark, barren and grey. It is all too easy to see how these warriors come from a world of lava rivers and volcanic mountain ranges that turn the sky black.
‘We were the last of the Salamanders in orbit. The Lord of the Fire-born called us to him, and we obeyed.’
I am familiar with the title. I have heard their Chapter Master referred to by this name many times before.
‘Master Tu’Shan, may the Emperor continue to favour him, fights far from here, brother. The Salamanders bleed the enemy many leagues to the east, and the Hemlock river runs black with alien blood.’
V’reth inclines his head in a solemn nod, and his red-eyed gaze rises to take in the shelter dome at the end of this very street.
‘This is so, and it gladdens me to know my brothers fight well enough to earn such words from you, Reclusiarch. The Lord of the Fire-born makes his stand with the war engines of Legios Ignatum and Invigilata.’
‘So answer my question, for time is not our ally. Helsreach burns. Will you stay? Will you fight with us?’
‘We will not stay. We cannot stay.’
I bite back the wrath that rises from disappointment, and the Salamander continues, ‘We are the seventy warriors chosen to