Tsu’gan turned – his heavy Terminator armour whirred and clanked as the hidden servos went to work shifting his bulk – and his red eyes blazed in the gloomy hold. He found the cumbersome suit a challenge, but relished the power it gave him. Tsu’gan valued strength above all else.

He appraised the rest of his squad in a glance.

Ankar and Kai’ru were as still as sentinels, their grav-harnesses locked and widened to accommodate their bulk.

Gathimu, the ‘spear’, was anointing his heavy flamer with ash. He drew a wide slash with his armoured finger then followed it with a drake’s head. It was Kalimar, the creature he’d slain below Mount Deathfire and whose flesh he now wore as a mantle on his left pauldron. So focused, so honed was Gathimu.

Praetor was his sergeant, a veteran of over a hundred campaigns, a hero of the Chapter. Apart from Tsu’gan, he was the only one yet to don his helmet. Praetor’s face and scalp were bald, polished to mirror sheen by his brander-priest. The scars upon his cheek and the three platinum service studs above his left brow were marks of honour and service. His Terminator armour was more ornate than Tsu’gan’s. Fashioned by a master artificer, it bore the heraldic devices of dragon heads and gilded laurels. It came with a cape of salamander hide that went almost down to the floor.

Praetor glowered.

‘To your harness, brother. It’s not much farther.’

Tsu’gan obeyed, still finding the unfamiliar sensation of walking in Tactical Dreadnought Armour unsettling. Once he was mag-locked and secured by thick metal bracers, he relaxed.

These men, these super-men, were his brothers. Not by blood but by battle. Born in Vulkan’s forge, their bond was stronger than adamantium. They were Salamanders, Fire-born. No, they were more than that. They were the Chapter’s First Company, to which their armour and its proud iconography testified, their Firedrakes.

As Praetor leaned forwards to look through one of the vision slits, the green of his Terminator suit caught a shaft of light from outside and turned a lurid purple.

‘The sky is red as blood.’

‘Yet we defy it, going against the tide.’ Gathimu had finished his rituals and looked over at Tsu’gan through the cold lenses of his battle-helm. Ornate drakes’ teeth gave the helm a feral snarl. ‘Flex your muscles, cycle through your pre-battle physical routines. It will help.’

‘I am ready,’ Tsu’gan snapped, a little too quickly.

‘You are untempered.’ Gathimu’s even tone suggested he meant no offence.

Tsu’gan bit back a reply. He glared through the vision slit and saw again the red sky of the shrine world. Fat clouds gorged on blood smashed against the gunship’s hull, painting it crimson and riming its edges with a visceral gum. Escaping ships sped past them too, headed away from the battle towards the hopeful salvation in low orbit.