There were none. Vulkan had found no evidence of carnodons hidden in the jungle depths. “Apparently, they are wary of our strength.”
Numeon stood up again. Varrun was behind him, sharpening the edge of his gladius, but did not offer a hand to the equerry. No warrior of the Pyre Guard would ever insult another by doing such a thing.
“You mean yourstrength, my lord.”
“My strength isour strength, Numeon. We are one, the Legion and I.” Despite his inner feelings of estrangement, this much Vulkan knew was true. Save perhaps Horus, who had his Mournival, all of the primarchs trod a solitary path. It was just the primarch of the Salamanders felt it more acutely than his brothers.
He was surveying the battlefield intently when his expression changed from one of aloof detachment to satisfied vindication.
A cadre of eldar had emerged into the open.
I’ve been waiting for you…
When he spoke, his deep voice was full of threat, presaging violence.
“Now we strike.”
Numeon turned to the others, brandishing his halberd like a rallying standard. “Pyre Guard. Embark!”
Supported by its landing stanchions on a patch of scorched earth behind them was a Stormbird. Its idling engines quickly built to loft speed and the vessel took off just as Vulkan and his inner-circle warriors got aboard. The other companies on the ridge would stay in reserve and could only watch as their lord took off.
The embarkation ramp was still closing when Numeon voxed the pilot from the hold.
“Lock assault vector on the node. Missile batteries and—”
Vulkan stopped him. “No. We do this hand-to-hand. Put us down at the edge of the node. I want to crack that thing with my hammer personally.”
JAMMING HIS CHAINSWORD into the eldar’s guts, Heka’tan bellowed for his warriors to drive on. “Advance 14th! Vulkan is watching you.”
Vulkan is always watching. As the anvil tempers us, so too does the primarch.
A welter of gore erupted from the corpse as he tore the blade free, and he was quickly pressed into defending against another attack. An eldar with an ornate sword struck at his guard. Sparks flared from the clashing weapons as Legiones Astartes aggression met alien finesse, but Heka’tan’s blood was up and he dispatched his foe with a close-range burst from his bolt pistol. Scorch marks blighted the forest green of his vambrace occluding the lines of arterial blood staining much of his armour. It was war’s baptism and he embraced it with a shout of triumph as he sought out another foe.
This was where he wanted to be, in the thick of battle, eye to eye with the enemy and taking eldar heads. Heka’tan originated from Nocturne, he knew the terror of the slave raids; he had lived through them as a boy. Though his apotheosis had altered his memory of those torments, the intrinsic enmity remained. These were not like the slavers, their anima was different, but they were of the eldar caste so Heka’tan’s contempt felt justified.
A spit of flame spewed to his right flank, warming his pauldron and burning up a clutch of eldar snipers intent on evening the odds. He didn’t slow. Momentum was everything. It was inexorable, methodical, and exacting as an avalanche. Gravius was fully committed too; Heka’tan had heard the shouts of the valiant 5th as they’d closed for the kill. In truth, the near defeat in the jungle had wounded them both. The chance to excise those feelings in the fires of war was the greatest boon his primarch could have granted them.
Hammer and anvil, brothers,the words resounded in his mind, let us show them that Salamanders are not easily bowed.
The melee was intense, a sweeping chaos of bloody images. Burning alien flesh was redolent on the breeze, mixed with the stale aroma of their reptilian mounts. Grunting and baying, they were finding the Legion a tougher foe to overwhelm without their massive carnodon cousins or the intervention of their witches…
…Until a lightning storm erupted around the psychic node and four enrobed figures stepped forth. Heka’tan was close enough to see it happen through the press of warring bodies. It was as if they’d been carried on the lightning itself, invisible passengers riding the eldritch energy, and merely let go of its arc. They embarked to set foot on the earth as any man would step from a ship. Bolts of verdant green still coursed over the arcane sigils covering the psyker’s trappings in the wake of teleportation. As three witches stood sentinel around the node, a fourth came forwards.
Though the eldar were an androgynous race, Heka’tan could tell that this one was male. He wore no helm but sported an array of sigilic tattoos upon his pale and imperious face. His long hair was swept back, tied up with a runic clasp that ran around his temples in two half-hemispheres that each terminated with a ruby-like gemstone at his forehead. It had the effect of a crown and once again the Salamander was struck by the sheer decadence and arrogance of the aliens.
Unlike the others, he wore viridian robes shot through with cerulean blue. He parted the ensemble to draw forth a glittering runesword of unimaginable beauty. The weapon was psychically linked to its bearer and the blade crackled actinically as witch-fire filled the eldar’s eyes.
A growing void expanded slowly around him as the other aliens backed away.
Heka’tan soon found himself with clear ground between him and the warlock.
Kaitar, Luminor and the rest of the command squad were in sync with their sergeant’s orders before they were even given.
“In Vulkan’s name, kill that thing!”
They charged together. The warlock watched them come, his blade held in a swordsman’s guard position. He wore the leggings and tunic of a warrior-ascetic, festooned with runic iconography and arcana. Moments before the clash he tipped his head in what might have been a salute.
Heka’tan’s first blow cut air and fouled in the ground, churning earth as the warlock weaved aside. Kaitar fared better but his gladius was repelled by the flat of the eldar’s sword. Luminor snapped off a half-clip from his bolt pistol but the shells detonated harmlessly from a kine-shield impelled by the warlock’s open palm. A blast of force put the Apothecary on his back, and Brother Tu’var threw himself in the way of the eldar’s sword to save him from the subsequent sword strike. The runic blade penetrated the Salamander’s guard easily, snapping Tu’var’s gladius, cleaving into his armour and sinking up to the hilt in his chest.
Tearing the blade free, the warlock spun and cut open Angvenon’s plastron and fed a jag of lightning into the blow, spinning the Salamander and launching him off his feet. Battle-plate smoking, Angvenon tried to rise, but fell onto his front and stayed down.
“Break him!” snarled Heka’tan, taking another swing. His world had condensed to this one fight, the rest of the battle a dim and bloody blur around him. This was the anvil, he realised, the moment when he would overcome and rise or capitulate and fall.
It was like three warrior-knights fighting a dancer as the eldar dodged their clumsy blows whilst attacking with rapid thrusts of his rune sword.
Heka’tan refused to give in.
I am Legion. I am a warrior born.
The warlock had reduced three of the Emperor’s Angels to oafs wielding lumps of noisy metal and that rankled at Heka’tan. He swung again but cut at shadows. Bringing up his pistol he pulled the trigger, but was hit by a barrage of lightning from the warlock’s clenched fist. Warning icons sprang into life instantly across the captain’s retinal display. Pain suppressors went to work in the same bio-mechanical reaction, keeping him on his feet. The bolt pistol was overloaded and exploded in his fist, showering Heka’tan with hot shrapnel. He was only dimly aware of the spasms jolting his muscles but knew he was injured when his vision started clouding.