Va’lin looked down at the aspirant’s hand. It was bloody, soot-smeared and painfully small compared to his own. So used was he to only being with his battle-brothers, even as a Scout, he had forgotten some of the simple interactions that came with dealing with mortals. He clasped the human’s forearm and held it firmly.

Za’tenga reciprocated. ‘If we are to live or die here,’ he said, coughing hard through his words but determined to say them, ‘then I would prefer you to know my name.’

‘Va’lin,’ the Scout replied, releasing his grip.

Za’tenga half turned, ‘And he is… Illion!’

The hawkish aspirant had collapsed, his lungs finally giving in to the soot and smoke.

Za’tenga tried to help his comrade before he too was overcome by the fumes.

Va’lin was impressed they had lasted this long. To have endured such a trial of fire and lived to almost the end of it.

He fell to one knee, his wounds getting the better of him or perhaps some latent effect of the serrwyrm venom his immune system had failed to fully neutralise.

‘Vulkan…’ he snarled, getting to his feet and staggering over to the aspirants.

He hauled them both onto his shoulders, carrying them like ammo drums for an autocannon.

‘Don’t let go,’ he told them through a cage of teeth.

Weak beyond the facility to walk, both aspirants had enough presence of mind left to seize the straps of the Scout’s armour with every last iota of strength they possessed.

The glow of the phosphor-flare was dwindling, but Va’lin was fading too. He tried to deny it but the fall, his wound, the endless smoke and ash were all taking a toll.

‘I must endure…’ Va’lin muttered, trudging weary steps towards the slowly dying light.

If he could just reach it, find a way out.

‘Vulkan…’

The flare died, the last of its fire sucked away on the breeze and obliterated by thickening smoke.

He had been so close. Va’lin could almost see the edge of the fire canyon but now it was lost to him, so too his sense of direction. Like a drowning man in the mist, metres from a shore he couldn’t see, Va’lin was lost.

He trudged on a few more steps as the last vestiges of his defiance bled from him leaving a well of pain, rage and anguish.

Throwing back his head, he roared to curse the heavens. ‘Vulkan!’

Something blazed in the darkness, scarcely bright enough to see at first, let alone follow.

Va’lin squinted, dredging up every last mote of concentration and presence he had left.

The flare brightened. It became a surging flame, a firebrand guiding him towards safety.

‘Ba’ken.’ His mountainous captain had found him. In spite of all the odds, he had located Va’lin and come into the fire canyon to drag him out.