There was scant respite as the enemy pressed its advantage, wired-mouthed maniacs hurling themselves into the furious bolter fire in their droves. Brother Ionnes was chewing through the belt feed of his heavy bolter with abandon, his fellow Salamanders adding their own weapons to the barrage, but the cultists came on still. Like automatons, they refused to yield to panic, the fates of their shattered brethren failing to stall, let alone rout them.

‘They’re unbreakable!’ bellowed Lok, smashing an insurgent to pulp with his power fist, whilst firing his bolter one-handed. A chainsaw struck his outstretched arm seemingly from nowhere and he grimaced, his weapon falling from nerveless fingers. Red-eyed eviscerator priests were moving through the throng, wielding immense double-handed chainblades. Dak’ir crushed the zealot’s skull with a punch, but realised they were slowly being enveloped.

‘Back to the entrance,’ he cried, taking up Lok’s fallen bolter and spraying an arc of fire across his left flank. The ones he killed didn’t even scream. Step by agonising step, the Salamanders withdrew. There was a veritable bullet hail coming from the enemy now, whose numbers seemed limitless and came from every direction at once.

Inside the comm-feed it was chaos. Fragmented reports came in, plagued by static interference, from both Anvil and Hammer.

‘Heavy casualties… enemy armour moving in… thousands everywhere… brother down!’

‘Captain Kadai…’ Dak’ir yelled into the vox. ‘Brother-captain, this is Flame. Please respond.’

After a long minute, Kadai’s broken reply came back.

‘Kadai… here… Fall… back… regroup… Aereon Square…’

‘Captain, I have two battle-brothers badly injured and in need of medical attention.’

Another thirty seconds passed, before another stuttering response.

‘Apothecary… lost… Repeat… Fugis is gone…’

Gone. Not wounded or down, just gone. Dak’ir felt a ball of hot pain develop in his chest. Stoic resolve outweighed his anger – he gave the order for a fighting withdrawal to Aereon Square, and then raised Tsu’gan on the comm-feed.

‘Vulkan’s blood! I will not retreat in the face of this rabble,’ Tsu’gan snarled at Iagon. ‘Tell the Ignean I have received no such order.’

Anvil had, under Tsu’gan’s steely leadership, broken free of the ambush without casualties, though Brother Honorious was limping badly and Sergeant Ul’shan had lost an eye when the trans-loader hit and the drums of incendiary heaped onboard had exploded.

Without use of their multi-meltas, Tsu’gan had torn through the vehicle wreckage himself, scything cultists down on the other side with his combi-bolter. They were falling back to defended positions in the wider street beyond when Dak’ir’s message came through.

At some point during the fighting, Tsu’gan had damaged his battle-helm and he’d torn it off. Since then he’d been relying on Iagon for communication with the other assault groups.

‘We are Salamanders, born in fire,’ he raged zealously, ‘the anvil upon which our enemies are broken. We do not yield. Ever!’