Just beyond my reach…

‘Into the fires of battle…’ he intoned, and led the Salamanders out.

Dak’ir awoke, startled and awash with cold sweat. He was acutely aware of his beating hearts and a dense throbbing in his skull. Disorientating visions were fading from his subconscious mind… An ashen world, of tombs and mausoleums lining a long, bone-grey road… The redolence of burning flesh and grave dust… Half-remembered screams of a brother in pain…

…Becoming one with the screams of many, across a dark and muddied field… The touch of rain, cold against his skin… and a bell tolling… ‘We are here…’ ‘We are here…’

The first was an old dream. He had seen it many times. But now new impressions had joined it, and Dak’ir knew they came from Vaporis. He tried to hold onto them, the visions and the sense memories, but it was like clutching smoke.

With the thinning of the unreal, the real became solid and Dak’ir realised he was flat on his back. A wire mattress with coarse sheets supported him. The cot groaned as he tried to move – so did Dak’ir when the daggers of pain pierced his body. He grimaced and sank back down, piecing together the immediate past. The attack by the spectral preacher came back to him. A remembered chill made him shiver.

‘You’re pretty well banged up,’ said a voice from the shadows. The sudden sound revealed just how quiet it was – the dull reply of heavy artillery was but a faint thudding in the walls. ‘I wouldn’t move so quickly,’ the voice advised.

‘Who are you?’ rasped Dak’ir, the dryness in his throat a surprise at first.

A high-pitched squeal grated against the Salamander’s skull as a Phalanx officer sitting in a wheelchair rolled into view.

‘Bahnhoff, my lord,’ he said. ‘You and your Astartes tried to save my men in the killing field, and I’m grateful to you for that.’

‘It’s my duty,’ Dak’ir replied, still groggy. He managed to sit up, despite the horrendous pain of his injuries and the numbness that lingered well after the preacher had relinquished his deathly grip. Dak’ir was gasping for breath for a time.

‘Lieutenant Bahnhoff?’ he said, remembering; a look of incredulity on his face when he saw the wheelchair.

‘Artillery blast got me,’ the officer supplied. ‘Platoon dragged me the rest of the way. Took me off the frontline too, though.’

Dak’ir felt a pang of sorrow for the lieutenant when he saw the shattered pride in his eyes.

‘Am I alone? Have my brothers gone to battle without me?’ Dak’ir asked.

‘They said you were too badly injured. Told us to watch over you until they returned.’

‘My armour…’ Dak’ir was naked from the waist up. Even his torso bodyglove had been removed. As he made to swing himself over the edge of the cot, enduring still further agonies, he saw that his battle-plate’s cuirass was lying reverently in one corner of the room. His bodyglove was with it, cut up where his brothers had needed to part it to treat his wounds. Dak’ir ran his finger over them. In the glow of a single lume-lamp they looked like dark bruises in the shape of fingerprint impressions.