Vulkan felt his wrath for the eldar renewed. Painful reminders of Nocturne during the Time of Trial, when fire rained from the sky and the earth cracked, flickered in his mind. He remembered their fear and the grim resignation that all they had striven for, when everything they had created was about to end. Perhaps the tribes of Ibsen were not so different after all.
Ibsenagain. He saw this world through a fresh lens, but why?
Ferrus was right: flesh wasweak but because he was strong, Vulkan was duty bound to protect them.
Whatever the cause of the frantic flight, the humans were at terrible risk. Entire families raced madly through the fading fog, screaming and wailing as a pervasive hysteria overtook them. Some even attacked the Army divisions in their desperation to escape, throwing rocks or beating them with their fists. None dared approach the Legionaries for fear of the consequences.
And if they’d carried carbines and rifles instead of sticks and rocks?
The tribal tattoos, the apparent ease with which they’d been conquered, coupled with the eldar’s total infiltration—in spite of his empathy, Vulkan began to wonder just how far from the Emperor’s light the natives had fallen.
Through the smoky bloom of a grenade detonation, a mother and daughter emerged unscathed. Vulkan saw them running; they were just a few metres from the primarch’s position, then he noticed the unexploded shell in their path. The girl-child was already screaming when a second grenade, fallen from a dead troopers grasp, rolled up to the shell.
“Pyre Guard,” Vulkan roared. “Shield them!”
The praetorians were catching up to the primarch but had reacted to the danger. Hot frag pierced the shell’s casing and it erupted in a firestorm. Numeon and Varrun put their bodies between it and the cowering humans, crouching over them and wrapping their drake cloaks around them. The rain of fire and shrapnel vented to nothing without causing harm.
Numeon was shaking the dust from his helmet lenses when a tiny infant hand pressed against his plastron. He met the girl-child’s curious gaze and was abruptly stunned.
Then they were gone, lost to the madness. The mother wasn’t about to wait for another stray bullet or lurking shell to claim them. For Numeon, the moment of connection passed as swiftly as it had materialised.
Vulkan reached them quickly. “Thank you, my sons.”
Both nodded, but Numeon’s eyes went briefly to the fog the girl-child had vanished into.
“Protect them,” said Vulkan softly, following his equerry’s gaze.
“With our breath and blood, my primarch,” Numeon replied. “With our breath and blood.”
Vulkan opened the comm-feed. “Ferrus, despite their agitation, these are innocents. Be mindful.”
“Concern yourself with killing the enemy, not saving the natives, Vulkan.” The Gorgon scowled, but his face softened before engaging the carnodons. “I’ll do what I can.”
A band of iron was tightening around the eldar’s defensive strongpoint. Vulkan knew if he continued to advance through the centre and Ferrus maintained his pace into the flank, their paths would meet. Together they would destroy the arch and end the eldar’s occupation of Ibsen. He only hoped it would not take an unconscionable loss of human life to achieve it.
As of yet, nothing had penetrated the psychic shield emanating from the coven of eldar witches surrounding the arch. Vulkan had also yet to see the female seer who’d almost defeated his Legion back in the jungle. She was the one the eldar looked to for leadership. Despatch her and the aliens would be all but defeated. Victory was near. But something still gave the primarch pause. Above him, the jungle canopy was vast, dark and labyrinthine. Like his brothers, Vulkan had good instincts and harboured the sense that something watched him from those lofty arbours; something predatory. But his hesitation was not merely on account of that. Monsters he could kill easily enough. He’d been unsettled ever since speaking to Verace. The feeling was not one he was accustomed to, nor was the way the human had spoken to him, and yet the primarch had allowed it unchallenged. Verace was hiding something. It was only now, his thoughts purified by the anvil of war, that he realised it. Stern of face, Vulkan resolved to get answers from the remembrancer.
For now, such truths would have to wait.
Through the haze, a small band of eldar emerged to attack the primarch. Their armour was different to the others, azure plated and more martial in aspect. Crested helms, more ornate in design than those of their ranger brethren, concealed their faces and from within the folds of vermillion capes they drew long angular swords. A low hum presaged a crackle of energy fed down the blades.
Vulkan signalled to his praetorians.
Several eldar kindreds had been drawn to the primarch to try and slow or even stop the obvious threat, but his retinue were killing everything around them.
“Pyre Guard… make it swift.”
Despatching the last of their enemies, they rushed ahead of Vulkan and into the eldar blademasters.
They weren’t alone. An ululating war cry announced a vast herd of raptors, powering through the dissipating fog. Energy lances dipping, they thundered towards Vulkan from the side. The blademasters, trading flashing blows with the Pyre Guard, had deliberately drawn off the praetorians.
“Cunning,” Vulkan muttered.
Facing off against the raptors, he hefted Thunderhead. “Those tiny spears cannot scratch me!” he roared, and smashed the weapon into the ground.
The earth… splinteredunder the incredible hammer blow, cracking and fragmenting outwards in an ever-widening crater. Through sheer strength, Vulkan projected the bone-shattering force into a massive earth tremor that radiated lethally towards the charging raptors. Chunks of dispersing rock spewed up from the ground in a brittle spume of grit and shards. The raptors screeched and faltered, rearing madly as the quake hit. Riders toppled or were swept from their saddles by the earthy deluge. Staggered, all but annihilated, the front rankers disappeared in the mud storm and were crushed by the momentum of the stampede behind them.
Hindered by the dead and dying, the survivors could only cry out as Vulkan rose to his haunches and sprang into them.
The eldar and their saurians didn’t last long. By the time Vulkan was done with the grisly work, the Pyre Guard had slain the last of the blademasters. Ganne had a savage dent in his battle-plate and Igataron had lost his helmet during the fight but otherwise the praetorians were intact.
“We are losing ground,” said Vulkan, seeing that Ferrus had killed the last of the giant carnodons.
Numeon gestured with his bloody halberd blade. “Scattered remnants are all that stand in our way, primarch.”
The equerry was right. The eldar were almost done. They’d fought tooth and nail against the Imperium, but with the destruction of the carnodons their resistance was at an end.
Only one feat remained before total victory was assured.
The monolithic arch stood unharmed behind the psychic shield, the coven of witches in place around it, their chanting uninterrupted since the battle began. Vulkan scoured their ranks, peering through the psychic energy veil, but he could find no sign of the female seer. Yet, the sensation of being watched from overhead persisted.
“She is here somewhere,” he muttered, turning his gaze from the enshrouding jungle canopy to the battlefield. “The aliens have one last card to play before this is over.”
By now the other Salamanders were close at hand. Even the Army divisions were nearing the outer boundaries of the arch. Ferrus Manus wasn’t about to wait for reinforcement. He was advancing on the coven. Vulkan turned to his retinue. “Come on.”