Chapter 317: Mortarion and Vulkan Cooperate
Vulkan's expression was grave, the layers of green leaves obscuring his view into the depths of the rainforest.
"The Eldar here are difficult to deal with."
As they advanced deeper into the jungle, the Salamanders had already suffered several ambushes. The Eldar were equipped with heavy plasma weaponry and charged from the undergrowth alongside massive beasts, tearing open the Salamanders' marching columns.
The Eldar warlocks were particularly troublesome to handle, and two full companies had taken severe losses because of them.
Their march was only halfway complete, and already the Salamanders were trapped in the suffocating jungle, struggling to maintain cohesion.
What made Vulkan even more uneasy was the message he received from Ferrus:
"Need more time."
Vulkan knew Ferrus well—the Iron Hands' primarch was the last one who would ever want to appear incompetent, especially in front of a brother he neither knew well nor liked.
The moment Ferrus sent that message, Vulkan understood this campaign would be brutal. He immediately began preparing to extend the operation's timetable—yet the Death Guard's response to his notice was nothing but a cold, curt "Received."
Vulkan pondered silently.
His contact with Mortarion had been brief, but long enough to see that the Lord of Death was a strange one—stubborn, quick to anger, and proud. Then again, far too many of the Primarchs were like that.
If the Death Guard were also running into trouble… then, Vulkan thought, their entire battle plan might have to be rewritten.
And indeed, he had already begun working on contingency plans.
What he did not know, however, was that Mortarion's campaign would soon far surpass anything he could imagine.
. . .
The storm rose with a surge of witchcraft, the Eldar seeress shrieking curses, "You mon-keigh—!"
The next moment, her face was smashed apart by a bolt from the Lord of Death's pistol. Amid the chaos of battle, one could almost hear the crunch of her breaking nose.
Mortarion's face remained expressionless as he calmly put down yet another overly talkative Eldar with his Lantern. The Lord of Death had quietly learned that most Eldar who tried to curse him seldom managed to finish their first sentence before dying.
All around him, the frozen plain shook rhythmically underfoot. Knights strode heavily across the battlefield, their thermal cannons glowing as they melted everything in their path.
The giant serpent that had entangled Garro moments ago had already been sliced into several steaming chunks and thrown aside by two Knights. Blood still dripped from their chainblades, hissing with a sweet, metallic vapor.
The serpent's dim eyes stared blankly at the retreating Death Guard, still seemingly wondering why the Eldar who once aided it had ceased their witchcraft.
The Zero Company descended from the skies. The Eldar's link to the Warp weakened, their spells growing frail and sluggish—and the battle turned sharply against them.
Countless Eldar burst forth from cover near the obelisks. They fought mostly alone, each warrior's movement a deadly dance of grace and precision. They closed with the Death Guard, striking at the weak points in the ceramite armor with blades and plasma.
At first glance, it seemed as though the Death Guard were bogged down, their scythes and swords clumsy and ponderous beneath the Eldar's flashing strikes—like drunken giants ensnared by serpents. But—
While the Eldar could attack a thousand times, the Death Guard only needed them to make one mistake.
And through those endless attacks, the Eldar would come to learn the true meaning of "Death Guard resilience."
What drove the Eldar to despair the most was that, no matter how they taunted or roared, the bone-white warriors never answered them.
For a people who lived for the glory of personal duels, that silence was maddening.
And as the battle dragged on, that suffocating silence turned their anger into something else—fear.
Aside from the engine roars of the Knights—deep, bestial, and deafening—the Death Guard advanced in silence, relentless and absolute.
Blood and shards of armor scattered across the muddy, snowy ground. They brought death. They were death.
At last, the Death Guard reached the obelisk. Mortarion stood silently, staring at the dozens of witches glaring at him from behind a shimmering psychic barrier.
He lobbed a single black grenade to test their defenses—then spoke curtly through the vox:
"Armoury."
The Lord of Death issued his order, cleaving another Eldar who had dared charge him. In the mere forty seconds that he had paused, the ground around Mortarion was already carpeted with corpses—two layers deep.
"Mortarion!"
Behind the shield, the lead Eldar sorceress screamed his name, her once-delicate features twisted and ruined by fury and tears.
Mortarion raised the Lantern and fired. The bolt exploded in a flash of orange light against the psychic field—a brief blossom of fire that quickly dissipated, leaving that same hateful face still there.
Beneath his hood, the Lord of Death frowned slightly in irritation.
"Armoury. Hurry up."
"Acknowledged, my lord! We're still loading—we need at least one more minute!"
One minute. Mortarion did the calculation instantly.
If he kept fighting like this, his ammunition wouldn't last long enough to sustain another full minute of constant fire at that wretched witch.
He vented his frustration with another round from Lantern, then turned, ready to move to Garro's flank.
"Mortarion! Child of Death! Stay your hand! Blind persistence will bring you nothing but your own demise and drag both Man and Eldar into oblivion!"
Mortarion's respirator hissed, releasing a deep, toxic cloud of vapor. He stared at the witch, unblinking.
"Wraith Units 04 and 05," he said coldly, "out. Smash it."
Two Knights burst from the battlefield behind him, molten light streaming from their weapons until the very air seemed to ignite. The roar of their chainblades tore through the howling of the wind, slamming into the Eldar barrier with violent, blinding pulses.
Mortarion thought he could faintly hear the witch's scream through the storm.
He found it oddly satisfying—at least she'd finally done one right thing before dying: she'd stopped talking.
"Armoury. One minute, three seconds. For Hades' sake, I'm giving you one last chance."
The next moment, a massive missile streaked across the sky above Mortarion. With his superhuman vision, he caught a glimpse of the inscription painted on its casing: "Hades' Gift."
A dark chuckle escaped him. Good creativity.
He'd never imposed much discipline on his Techmarines—and considering Hades' prior time on Mars, it was no surprise the Death Guard's Techmarines were rather fond of the departed Master of the Forge.
That thought lightened his mood slightly. Mortarion followed the missile's trajectory, slow and deliberate, raised his scythe, and decapitated the witch.
Her head spun through the air, her expression frozen—a mix of rage and disbelief, as though she couldn't understand why Mortarion refused to hear out her prophecy.
Why should he listen? Mortarion was not one for the theatrics of battle cries and shouted exchanges. There were always fools who liked to scream back and forth at their enemies. He was not one of them.
Five minutes later, the Death Guard's Stormbirds unleashed a cleansing bombardment over the area.
The first node of Ibson was annihilated.
. . .
Near the node, the Salamanders were facing unimaginable resistance.
The Eldar fought with suicidal fury, hurling themselves against the Imperial line. Their heavy tanks could barely move through the jungle, and their aerial strikes only served to set the towering treetops ablaze—branches burning and crashing down upon them.
Countless beasts and Eldar surged from the foliage. Warstaves swung—roots and vines came alive, twisting around the Marines' armored boots.
Multicolored lights flickered wildly across the gloom, and shrill cries pierced the storm. Something vast and winged passed overhead.
Vulkan clenched his jaw, fury blazing through his massive frame.
He fought—hammer swinging, endlessly. To stop was to die.
"Time of Trial!!!"
Vulkan roared—and his sons roared back, "For Vulkan!"
The Salamanders would endure this trial.
But even as he lost himself in the fury of battle, a lazy voice crackled over the command channel—the voice of the Lord of Death.
"Longitude 117.2 east, latitude 27.6 west. Vulkan—you're there, aren't you?"
Without thinking, Vulkan answered. He didn't really understand what Mortarion meant, but Vulkan was not one to assume ill intent from his brothers. He replied honestly.
Mortarion's voice came again, calm and toneless:
"Acknowledged. Salamanders—do me a favor. Put on your helmets. Or at least, cover your respirators."
?
Still locked in combat, Vulkan frowned, not quite grasping what his brother was doing—but instinctively checked the integrity of his own helmet's filtration system.
Three minutes later, the vox filled with the codes of the Death Guard's aerial squadrons.
Then—it began to rain.
No, not rain.
A dense, gray-blue toxic fog seeped down through the canopy, like liquid venom dripping from the fangs of some colossal serpent.
Leaves withered the instant it touched them.
The great beasts that fought beside the Eldar leapt away from the thickening clouds—only to find there was no refuge, no clean air left anywhere.
The light dimmed.
The whole world seemed to invert—as though they stood within a colossal, overturned hourglass.
"?!"
Vulkan brought his hammer down with a crash and shouted over the vox, panicked, "Mortarion! We can't use—"
A great scythe whirled past him, spinning through the air and smashing apart the head of a shrieking witch before she could finish her spell. The weapon's chain clattered, coiling back toward its master.
"The armored forces can't enter this terrain. What, would you rather fight them one-on-one, Vulkan?"
The Salamanders around Vulkan instinctively spread out as the Lord of Death strode toward him, bone-white armor gleaming through the haze.
The Death Guard had arrived.
Mortarion shot Vulkan a mocking look—though his scythe never stopped cutting.
Vulkan's fury flared again. Still half-lost in the rhythm of battle, he snapped back,
"This land still has value! You can't destroy it!"
Mortarion regarded him silently. Vulkan could see the mockery—even the provocation—in his brother's eyes, but Mortarion said nothing.
Then, with a subtle roll of his eyes, Mortarion extended one gauntleted hand into the waist-deep mists of gray-blue toxin that now swirled around them.
He snapped his fingers.
A tiny spark flickered between the pale plates of his armor—and flames erupted.
Blinding, roaring, beautiful.
The inferno reflected in Vulkan's eyes, shrinking his pupils to pinpoints. For an instant, even the Lord of Fire was struck speechless.
The gas was flammable.
That was… that was brilliant.
If not for the battlefield raging around them, Vulkan might actually have embraced Mortarion on the spot.
He opened his mouth—then simply smiled beneath his helm. For a brief moment, he chose to forget Ferrus' earlier warning. A flicker of guilt passed through him, but the warmth and glory of the fire burned it away.
Vulkan's voice boomed across the Salamanders' vox-net:
"My sons."
"I ask you—let the flames burn bright!!!"
The sound of equipment shifting filled the air, followed by the unmistakable hiss of igniting promethium.
Beside him, Mortarion let out a sharp, unmistakably mocking chuckle.
But Vulkan didn't care. The Lord of the Salamanders loved fire more than anything—and he knew the worth of this volatile gift. Mortarion had, in his own grim way, shown sincerity.
—Though Vulkan would never know that, somewhere behind the front lines, a few Death Guard apothecaries were quietly collecting samples of Salamander flesh and blood.
And, of course, Mortarion clearly had his own reasons—he wanted a sample of the Lord of Fire's blood.
The arrival of the Death Guard rekindled the Salamanders' morale, and the sudden rise of the flames sent their battle-fury soaring.
For a time, the rainforest thundered with their war cry—"For Vulkan!"—loud enough to drown out even the agonized roars of the dying Eldar beasts.
The Death Guard's silence confused them somewhat; their allies fought without shouts or oaths, seemingly without passion. But their sheer presence relieved enormous pressure from the Salamanders. The Death Guard willingly took the brunt of the assault, allowing the Salamanders the freedom to unleash their firepower without restraint.
Scorching heat and toxic fumes—no living race could withstand such torment.
But the Death Guard and Salamanders were both Legions forged by the Imperium to survive hells like this.
Here, amid poison and flame, the two forces felt alive.
The rainforest withered—and then erupted.
Now, this was their domain.
…
When the flames finally died down, when the last trace of green had been reduced to charcoal and the final beast had fallen from the skies under Stormbird bombardment, only charred Eldar corpses remained—twisted and blackened, frozen mid-scream.
At the end, the Death Guard's rear batteries fired three unusual missiles, detonating the runes and gemstones embedded in the Eldar structures, annihilating the last traces of resistance.
Vulkan looked upon the aftermath with a strange, heavy feeling. The Eldar's deaths had been cruel—the choking poison, the convulsions. He would have preferred they'd died by fire, or by the clean blow of a hammer—something swift, something with dignity.
Still, the battle's ferocity filled him with a fierce satisfaction.
The dense jungle that had once choked the land was gone; sunlight now poured freely over the scorched earth. This was proof that his sons had endured the Time of Trial.
Vulkan was proud—proud of every one of them.
Behind him, Mortarion cast a sidelong glance at his brother, who was clearly in high spirits. Based on the battle they had just shared, the Lord of Death's own assessment of Vulkan rose considerably.
Vulkan was pure—when he fought, he simply fought. Nothing else cluttered his thoughts.
That, Mortarion decided, made him easy to handle.
Not in the sense of a one-on-one duel—Vulkan was undeniably powerful.
But strategically, rhetorically. He was easy to fool. Easy to mislead.
Mortarion made a quiet mental note, his judgments of his Primarch brothers always sharp and merciless.
The battle was over. The two Legions began post-combat cleanup operations.
Mortarion and Vulkan approached the obelisk together—this one was far larger and more ornate than the three nodes Mortarion had already purged.
But as they circled the structure, both of their helmets suddenly received a transmission.
Ferrus Manus' armor signal had appeared—close, very close—but there was no accompanying Iron Hands unit code.
Tracing the origin of the Primarch's armor beacon, they found a massive door beneath the obelisk, leading deep underground.
The two stood before it. After six or seven unsuccessful attempts to contact Ferrus, Mortarion spoke first:
"My recommendation is to flood it with gas."
Vulkan's shout was immediate, indignant:
"Brother, you can't do that! It might be a trap, but—"
Mortarion cut him off:
"I can guarantee the gas won't kill Ferrus. But it will kill—or at least cripple—any beasts or Eldar inside. This is helping him."
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