Numeon had carried the human, allowing Pergellen to lead the company in his stead.

‘I am not Helon, I am no Apothecary,’ Shen’ra griped, up to his vambraces in gore.

‘Nor was Helon, brother,’ said Numeon, looking askance at the pyre his brothers had erected outside on the factory floor. ‘He adapted, as we all must.’

‘Life signs are beyond faint. He barely draws breath,’ said the Techmarine. ‘If he were a servitor, I would see his parts rendered down for scrap. That is what remains now.’

‘But he is flesh,’ insisted Numeon. ‘And I would see him restored if it is within your considerable abilities, brother.’

‘Faint praise will not alter the course of events here,’ Shen’ra reminded the captain.

‘Just do your best,’ said Numeon and left the Techmarine to grumble in peace.

Leodrakk was waiting outside.

‘He fades?’ he asked.

‘Was it etched upon my face?’

‘Actually, yes. Coupled with the fact that when he went in there, the human was almost cut in half by that deflected shell.’

‘Prognosis is bleak,’ muttered Numeon, starting to walk. ‘Even if Helon had lived…’ His eyes strayed to the pyre. ‘I doubt we would have had any better chance of saving the human.’

‘Is it wise?’ asked Leodrakk, following his captain’s gaze. ‘The smoke may signal to our enemies.’

‘We aren’t staying for long,’ said Numeon, ‘and, besides, there are fires burning throughout the city. How could they tell one from another?’

Leodrakk agreed, before his expression darkened.

‘May I speak my mind?’ he asked, walking in lockstep with his captain.

‘I suspect you would anyway.’

Leodrakk didn’t bite, his thoughts were elsewhere. At a belated nod from Numeon, he gave voice to them.

‘Is he really that important? The human – this Grammaticus, or so he claims.’

‘I would dearly like the answer to that question, but unless he pulls through I fear we will never have it.’

‘I don’t understand, why does this mortal possess such meaning to you?’

‘I don’t know. I feel something…’ Numeon pressed his hand to his stomach, ‘in my gut. An instinct.’

‘A belief?’ Leodrakk assumed.

Numeon met his questioning look with one of determination. ‘Yes. The same belief. That Vulkan lives and this man, however insignificant, seems to know something of that.’

Leodrakk scowled. ‘What?’

‘He told me Vulkan is alive.’

‘Where? On Isstvan?’ Something as dangerous as hope affected Leodrakk’s tone.

‘He didn’t say. Or at least, I have not had a chance to ask him yet.’

The other Salamander’s mood rapidly soured. ‘And when did he say this?’

‘During interrogation, after you left.’

‘You cannot believe this,’ he scoffed, disbelief obvious on his face.

Numeon remained sincere. ‘I do,’ he said, with certainty.

Leodrakk was unconvinced. ‘An act of desperation, brother.’

‘I thought so too, at first, and dismissed it, but I went over his saying it again and again. I can tell a lie from truth, Leo. Humans in the presence of legionaries tend not to be very good at it.’

‘Then he is a rare breed, this Grammaticus. He’s probably had training. It doesn’t make what he said true.’

‘Then why say it? Why that, specifically? I went over it in my head and could find no legitimate reason for the nature of this lie. A dozen other stories would have been more effective for any other legionary, but he chose specificallyto tell me this, as if he knew it was what I, and only I, would want to hear.’

‘Then there is your answer. He’s a psyker. Even we can be read by telepaths. Evidently he’s a powerful one.’

‘Hriak was there throughout. If my thoughts were being read, he would have known. So I ask, how?’

‘I don’t know. But does it matter? I know you haven’t forgotten what happened at the dropsite – our brothers were lost. The only survivors are those warriors who boarded ships. I saw Vulkan engulfed in conflagration. It killed Ska, and it most likely killed the rest of our kin too. This mortal knows he is in trouble. Likely he is from one of the cults, a defector or a supplicant. He wanted to spare his life. He would’ve said anything to keep us from silencing him.’

‘Is that what we are now? Murderers?’

‘We’re warriors, Artellus. You and I, peerless amongst them. But we are not a Legion, not any more, and we do what we must to survive, for our own protection.’

‘But to what end,’ Numeon urged him, ‘if there is no hope?’

‘To the only end left to us, brother. Vengeance.’

‘No. I have to believe there is more than that. I dobelieve it.’

Leodrakk smiled, but his mood was melancholy.

‘You always were the most devoted of us. I think that’s why he made you captain, Artellus. It’s your spirit. It never falters.’

Further debate would have to wait for another time. They had reached the edge of the pyre where the rest of the company, barring Hriak, Pergellen and Shen’ra, had gathered in a broken circle.

Numeon was left alone to ponder Leodrakk’s parting words as the other Salamander took his place in another part of the circle. But he was unconvinced by any of the arguments he had heard, and hoped the human would survive, so he could understand the full truth of what Grammaticus knew. With K’gosi igniting a torch with the dulled fire of his flame gauntlet, thoughts turned to the imminent cremation.

Not only Uzak and Helon, but Shaka also lay in silent repose at the summit of the pyre. All would burn, die the warrior’s death. For the sons of Corax, tradition demanded they be divested of all trappings and left for the birds to pick clean, but tradition was in short supply and fire was readily available. An even compromise was reached, so all three would become ash together.

As K’gosi knelt down to light the base of the pyre, he began to incant words of Promethean ritual as described by Vulkan in the earliest days and adopted from the first tribal kings of Nocturne. This recitation spoke of ending and the return to the earth, of the circle of fire and the belief of all Nocturne-born Salamanders in resurrection and reincarnation.

The mood was sombre, heads were bowed throughout, helmets clasped under arms, the eyes of the sons of Vulkan burning with sober intensity.

As the fire grew, quickly burning through pallet stacks, wooden beams and broken furniture the company had scavenged for the rite, so too did K’gosi’s voice grow louder and more vehement. The final verses were spoken by the throng and interspersed with words spoken by Avus alone, of the raven taking flight and the great sky death that was the sacred right of all Corax’s sons.

The blaze swallowed the warriors swiftly, burning hungrily through the gaps in their armour, made all the more intense by the measure of promethium dousing the pyre before it was lit. This was a sacrifice – it would mean K’gosi and the other Pyroclasts would have to share the remaining ammunition, but all deemed it a worthy cause.

Until the moment when the ritual was ended, Domadus stood apart from the circle and looked on stoically. When there began talk of bonds deeper than blood, forged through mutual suffering and the shared desire for retribution, then he rejoined them.

The pyre shifted and cracked, fell apart under the weight of the armour at its summit and the wood slowly disintegrating beneath. A few seconds later it collapsed in a flurry of scattered sparks, the flames flickering dulcetly as a narrow pall of smoke rose into the air above. Ash was falling, and it covered all the legionaries on the factory floor in a fine, grey veneer like a funerary shroud.

‘And so it is done,’ intoned K’gosi and a moment of silent reflection prevailed.

It was broken by Shen’ra emerging from the infirmary. The Techmarine looked less like he had been operating and more like he had been in battle. Both, in fact, were true.