Seizing the carnodon’s neck with his power fist, Attion held its snapping jaws at bay as he attempted to wrestle it down. The pistons in the warrior’s legs strained against the beast’s ferocious strength. His helmeted head, not so unlike those of his brothers, showed no hint of emotion, though the retinal lenses glowed in simulation of a Salamander’s fiery gaze and the servos whining in the mechanisms feeding power to his arms betrayed the struggle that was playing out between monster and man-machine.
Attion released a spit of flame from a shoulder-mounted weapon and for a moment he had the upper hand, before the carnodon’s massively thick tail whipped out and swept the Salamander’s legs from under him. Attion lost his grip on the creature’s throat and fell.
Behind his faceplate, Heka’tan’s eyes widened. He’d never seen a Dreadnought downed so easily. They were warriors-eternal, honoured with interment in a potent suit of monstrous battle armour. Before Attion could retaliate, the monster had clamped its jaw around the torso section that housed the venerable warrior’s atrophied body and squeezed.
Oaths of moments and scrolls of parchment were severed by the creature’s razor-sharp fangs and loosed on the heady breeze. Decades of honourable deeds, promises of valour and loyalty kept, disappeared in moments. Impossibly hard adamantium buckled and creaked under the incredible pressure being exerted by the carnodon. Fissures ran up the torso section, widening to cracks as they met Attion’s helmet. All the while, the eldar rider looked on with hard-faced detachment. The Salamander’s sepulchral refuge was torn open. Beady, feral eyes regarded a Legionary awash with blood-flecked amniotic fluid. The carnodon emitted a bellow to express its prowess and hunger. Red-rimed fangs were exposed in a brutal snarl presaging Attion’s fate. He had fought during the Unification Wars and had been amongst the first of the Eighteenth to be born on Terra. It was not a fitting end for such a warrior.
After it was done, the carnodon lifted its ruddy snout, not yet gorged with the small morsel Attion had provided. The monster’s rider lifted its power lance, summoning the others.
Heka’tan’s struggles redoubled.
Bannon’s flamers were the next to bear the brunt. Several Legionaries were crushed underfoot upon impact with the carnodons, their battle-plate dented and scraped by claw marks. Another was bitten in half, the beast tossing the warrior about like a rag before the torso parted.
Superhuman blood and viscera rained down on the dead Salamander’s battle-brothers, invoking their anger. The same beast went for Bannon but the sergeant had his chainblade free and gouged a ragged line along the carnodon’s nose. Shed scales fell with a gushet of the monster’s blood, anointing his small victory. Bannon tried to shift his body to defend against another attack but the root bindings slowed him enough for a second beast to rip off his arm. Bannon fought on with his bolt pistol, bleeding profusely and screaming defiance at the monsters.
Heka’tan was watching, still half-pinned by the jungle, when the sergeant’s voice crackled over the comm-feed. His breath was ragged and speech didn’t come easy for him.
“We’re done for, captain…”
The lesser saurians were coming, picking off the injured, snapping at each other as they fought for dominance and for kills.
The flamers were already being butchered. Seven of the monsters roamed amongst them killing and maiming. As soon as the lesser raptors reached them…
Heka’tan clenched his teeth. Bannon was lost.
“Go with glory, brother. You will be remembered.” The captain would make certain of it. His account to the iterators and imagifers would leave out no detail of the sergeant’s heroism.
Bannon gave his last reply. “In Vulkan’s name…”
A blistering firestorm erupted across the jungle a few seconds later. Carnodons and the more eager raptors were engulfed by it as Bannon’s men detonated their flamers. The blaze swept across the front line, bathing the Salamanders in a cleansing fire, reducing the strangling roots to powder.
Of the entangled Army units in the vanguard, there was no sign. A few Salamanders lay dead or seriously injured, some half submerged by the earth.
Heka’tan shouted into the comm-feed. “Avenge them!”
Debris from the burned vegetation swathed the battlefield in sepulchre-grey. Heka’tan and the survivors powered through the dirty snowfall of drifting flakes. Ahead of them, where the flamers had given their lives, seven barrow-like mounds stood upon the killing field. They were only dormant for a few seconds before each one collapsed in a deluge of displaced ash. Singed but very much alive, the carnodons emerged from the ash mounds and gave a collective roar as they charged the Salamanders rushing to meet them.
Only a few of Bannon’s flamers had perished in the firestorm. Many, though blackened and burned, got to their feet and joined their brothers. Salamanders were a tenacious breed but it would take more than a stubborn refusal to die to defeat the monsters.
Heka’tan’s rallying shout became a scream resonating with the sound of his chainblade. Targeting matrices within his battle-helm aligned over one of carnodons on a direct collision course. This was the pack leader, the one that had killed Attion. Gathering momentum with every massive stride, it carried an amount of force equivalent to a battle tank. Its fangs were as long as Heka’tan’s chainblade and could shred his battle-plate with the ease of a power axe. No man, not even a Space Marine could hope to stand against such a monster…
But then Vulkan was so much more than either.
The primarch landed in front of Heka’tan like a scaled god. His battle-armour was ancient and inviolable, fashioned by his own hand. Dragon heads and fiery iconography wrought from rare quartz made it ornate and unique. Overlapping plates of deep sea green, scalloped at the edges, promoted a reptilian aspect. One shoulder guard bore the head of Kesare, a beast he had slain long ago. The other was draped with his mantle, a scaled cloak of near-impregnable firedrake hide. Behind the snarling faceplate of his drake-helm were eyes as deep as lava chasms, the heat of their intensity rising off the primarch in a palpable aura. Drake cloak flaring with the engine wash of the Stormbird above, he brandished his forge hammer and a crackle of caged lightning ran up the haft.
When he spoke it was like the shifting of the earth, as if his voice possessed the power to demolish mountains.
“I am Vulkan, and I have killed fiercer beasts!”
The carnodon slowed. Doubt flashed in its eyes.
The eldar upon its back shrieked a clipped command. Its tattooed face was bare and showed all of the alien’s hate for the intruders.
Baring its fangs, the monster rallied and opened its jaw wide for a killing lunge.
Squaring his massive armoured shoulders, Vulkan gripped his hammer two-handed and swung. He was fast, faster than anyone wielding such a weapon had any right to be, and it took the eldar and its mount by surprise. The impact was spectacular. A grisly fusion of bone chips, brain matter and blood exploded where the carnodon’s head had been. A tremor rippled from the blow, pushing Heka’tan and the onrushing Salamanders to their knees. It fed outwards in an expanding shockwave hitting the other carnodons, who reeled and careened into one another before crashing to the ground. The darting raptor packs were flattened. Riders tumbled. Momentum carried the beheaded monster in its death throes, carving a deep trench in the earth that became its grave.
Vulkan ignored it and drove at the monsters that still drew breath.
Seven warriors armoured in drake scale, bearing blades and bludgeons each unique in design, joined him.
He roared to the Pyre Guard, “Slay them!”
The hammer hand swung again. Three more times, lightning erupted from the god-weapon, equalled by the tally of carnodon bodies left broken and dead upon the charnel ground.
Inspired by their liege-lord, the Salamanders cut the rest apart.
Glory-fire burned in Heka’tan’s blood. To fight upon the same field as the primarch was a singular honour. He felt emboldened and empowered. The anvil had broken some, but he was alive and tempered into unbreakable steel. By the time it was over, his throat was hoarse and his heart sang with the litany of war.