Chapter 501: The Galaxy is but a Grand Game of "Searching for Sires"
Armageddon, Outskirts of Hive Hades, Interior of the Capitol Imperialis.
The Lord of Knights had fallen into a brief silence after the handover of tactical data.
Though it might have been mere lag across the interstellar vox-network, to the mortal senses of Commissar Yarrick, those few seconds felt like an eternity.
Has my plan failed? Is my understanding of the Beast insufficient? Have I narrowed my vision to Armageddon alone, failing to account for the ripples our stalemate sends across the neighboring sectors?
Time was a predator. Fatigue was beginning to gnaw at the defenders. The forces Armageddon could muster were dwindling, and the reserves Yarrick had concentrated for his final gamble were being slowly drained, piece by piece, to plug holes in a hundred different meat-grinders.
Yarrick surveyed the room. Command cycles rotated relentlessly. The Armageddon Command Center spit out a constant stream of directives to the outside world—a symphony of eternal noise that never ceased, even during "rest" periods. The mortals waited in this grinding environment, their souls worn thin.
Except for the Astartes.
Yarrick allowed a gaze of envy to settle upon Chapter Master Tu'Shan.
In the years since they had met on the surface of Armageddon, the Master of the Salamanders had been deployed to the front hundreds of times. He was the ultimate troubleshooter, solving problems that shattered mortal minds and executing orders too grueling for the Astra Militarum.
War had left its signature on him. Scars and dents marred his emerald plate, a map of his defiance.
Yet, he showed no fatigue. He remained a standard-bearer of the transhuman ideal. While the mortal officers around him sat with glazed eyes and slumped shoulders, Tu'Shan stood like an obsidian statue, immovable.
Yarrick pushed the thoughts away, rubbing a smear of dried caffe-residue from the corner of his mouth.
Achievement was the oxygen of command. He was not satisfied with a stalemate. A breakthrough was within reach, and like any soul craving greatness, he yearned for the chance to advance the cause.
He let out a long breath.
Whatever the outcome, I have petitioned the Sovereigns. Now, I execute.
The rigid protocols of the high command and the draconian military codes of the Chapters existed for this moment: so that when the word came, etiquette was discarded in favor of absolute obedience.
And—
He looked at the hololith. The projections of the Primarchs were blurred, yet their majesty remained undiminished.
These are the Sires.
"Commissar Yarrick," the Primarch spoke.
Yarrick snapped to attention, chest out, forcing his weary frame into a posture of peak discipline.
"Your strategy possesses significant tactical viability."
The Imperium was never short on tactical geniuses. Attend any War Council meeting on Terra, and you would hear plans of "perfect" beauty.
But the men who could translate theory into reality were rare. A plan was a fantasy if it could not be implemented. If the logistics failed, the brilliance of the design mattered not at all.
Yarrick could present this plan to a Primarch because he truly held the cards. He commanded a host of thirteen million Steel Legionnaires—the primary hammer—supported by five million PDF regulars. It was a purely mechanized force, backed by strategic-tier siege engines.
Furthermore, the Dawnstar's governance had borne fruit. Even the PDF, often recruited from the desperate and the disposable, had been transformed. Under the mandatory "Military Education" protocols enforced on Armageddon, every conscript was trained in the operation of the wargear they held. They were not the starving, parasite-ridden "underhive-scum" of previous centuries, enticed with the promise of food only to be used as fodder.
Arthur did not address Yarrick's specific deployment immediately. He turned his head toward Tu'Shan.
"Chapter Master Tu'Shan—" Arthur said.
"The numbers of the Salamanders are... insufficient."
In Arthur's clinical assessment, the XVIII Legion scions were currently a liability of scale. They could fill gaps and act as a support cadre, but they could not serve as the "Spear of the Vanguard" required for a breakthrough.
The Salamanders had brought only five companies. Two more remained on Nocturne to guard the homeworld.
Fortunately, Nocturne was a Death World of such extreme hostility—volcanic chains, constant tectonic upheaval, and high-yield radiation—that it was virtually uninhabitable for anything that wasn't a son of Vulkan.
Even with the Octarius War raging nearby, Nocturne had seen little action. The 4th and 7th Companies remained there as a reserve for other fronts.
"My Lord..." Tu'Shan began, his tone one of weary frustration.
The Salamanders' homeworlds were twin hells—one cold, one hot.
While their selection process was as brutal as the Space Wolves', the Salamanders adhered to a "Voluntary Creed." Recruitment was never built upon the exploitation of the populace.
This had turned the Salamanders into a strategic curiosity.
In an age where other First Founding Chapters were "secretly" expanding—burying veterans in stasis to cheat the limit or maintaining "shadow" Chapters—the Salamanders remained a single, strange unit of barely seven hundred warriors.
Did Vulkan not wish to split the Legion? No. He simply lacked the numbers to divide.
The only notable successor, the Black Dragons, was a product of the Cursed Founding, plagued by bone-mutations that gave every Chapter Master a permanent headache.
To Arthur, the reason for the Salamanders' stagnation was clear: The Promethean Cult.
Influenced by their faith, the Chapter obsessed over self-reliance, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. These were the lessons of the forge. Patience and iron resilience were the only virtues they recognized.
But the cult's rituals involved "Branding" and "Searing"—acts of ritual self-mutilation meant to harden the spirit. They walked over burning coals and carried red-hot iron bars to test their inner fire.
This level of ritualistic cruelty acted as a deterrent for the modern recruits from the Dawnstar Sector. Young men raised on "Standardized Education" looked at the Salamanders and saw a Chapter of "Branded Zealots." They preferred the Dark Angels, the Blood Angels, or the Ultramarines.
The transmigrators viewed this with open disapproval.
They couldn't fathom why a warrior's resolve had to be proven through torture. The recruits entering the XIII or the IX were no less steadfast, yet they didn't require brands to prove it.
The Cult of Prometheus had survived for ten millennia. It had forged the Salamanders into the shield of the common man. It had its virtues, but it needed to be purged of its "Wasteful Dogma."
However, the "Black Sires" of the XVIII were as stubborn as the iron they forged.
It was becoming a strategic bottleneck. The Dawnbreakers wanted to promote the Salamanders' values—the protection of the mortal—but the Chapter's "Abstract Audit" prevented them from scaling.
I know you're right, Tu'Shan, but you're too quiet to be heard. Fix your recruitment, or we'll do it for you.
The Space Wolves were pushing two hundred thousand strong. The Salamanders were a footnote.
Arthur decided to handle this personally.
"My Lord, I—" Tu'Shan stammered.
This wasn't the first time they had had this conversation.
As a Chapter Master, Tu'Shan knew the reality. In an age where every Founding Chapter was breaking the shackles of the Codex to expand under the guidance of returned Primarchs, the Salamanders' weakness was a terminal risk to their influence. They were failing the expectations their Father had left for them.
But his devotion to the Creed made him fear that expansion would pollute the purity of their faith.
Religion: the ultimate poison of logic, Arthur thought.
Seeing Tu'Shan's inner conflict, Arthur and Ramesses exchanged a glance.
They were lucky their own origins provided a different blueprint. When they founded the Dawnstar government, they had moved like ancient Terran emperors, seizing the "Supreme Authority of the Divine" as a byproduct of their secular power. They wouldn't let a cult dictate their logistics.
"Can you project the artifact?" Arthur asked Ramesses.
"Affirmative," Ramesses nodded.
Vulkan's hand-forged artifacts were more than mere weapons; they were vessels of his essence, heavily bound to the Warp. Projecting a signature to trigger a genetic resonance was a simple task for the Formless Lord.
"I believe the archives of the XVIII record that Vulkan himself was perpetually aggrieved by the low numbers of his scions during the Great Crusade," Arthur said.
The Lord of Knights' projection grew more solid, every detail of his plate and features sharpening into a perfect image.
As he raised his hand, a massive furnace core—burning with the intensity of a permanent solar flare—manifested before Tu'Shan.
This was the result of Cegorach's intelligence and the technical support of Eldrad and Trazyn.
Since the Dawnbreakers had set the "Return of the Sires" as their primary objective, the Harlequins had been put to work. Beyond performing "History Lessons" for the Eldar in "The Park," they had been scouring the galaxy for the artifacts of the Primarchs.
Compared to Ferrus Manus—whose artifacts were scattered across a galaxy of secrets—Vulkan's legacy was a map with nine points.
The Nine Artifacts.
The "Trio of Vulkan": the Spear of Vulkan (Entropy-Weapon), the Drakescale Cloak, and the Gauntlet of the Forge.
The Chalice of Fire, a forge-ship with autonomous production capabilities far beyond standard Imperial capacity—the reason the Salamanders never lacked for master-crafted gear.
The Eye of Vulkan, an orbital laser array capable of shielding Nocturne and its moons—the reason the Chapter could deploy its strength elsewhere during the Tyranid wars.
And the four missing relics: the Engine of Woes, the Obsidian Chariot, the Song of Entropy, and the Unbound Flame.
Vulkan had destroyed most of his works, fearing they were too dangerous for the hands of lesser men. Ferrus had mocked him for this "anxiety," hiding his own dangerous findings across a hundred worlds behind security systems so lethal that the Iron Hands had to fight their father's ghosts just to reclaim them.
But Vulkan's nine were saved by the plea of the master-smith T'kell.
"If used correctly, they will serve Humanity. They will aid Dorn, and Guilliman—and even Russ!"
Vulkan had relented. He chose to believe that the love and loyalty of Man would ensure his tools were used for the light.
After Vulkan's second disappearance during the War of the Beast, the Salamanders had found a prophecy in the Tome of Fire: Gather the Nine, and the Promethean shall return.
The Emperor had audited the prophecy. It was valid. Vulkan's "death" on Ullanor had been catastrophic; he required a physical ritual to anchor his essence back to reality.
And in the brief time since their arrival, the Dawnbreakers had found it. The relic that Trazyn the Infinite had been stalking for centuries.
The Unbound Flame.
"My Lord... this is...!"
Feeling the visceral call of his own blood, Tu'Shan's face twisted in shock.
"The Unbound Flame," Ramesses intoned. "One of the Nine."
Dogma was all well and good, but the sight of a Primarch's relic changed the equation entirely.
The Astartes of the First Founding had always viewed the Dawnbreakers with a measure of nuance. Respect and awe were present, but there was a lack of "Practical Reality." Except for the Dark Angels and Blood Angels, the other Chapters treated the Dawnstar Lords as "Proxies" for their own missing fathers.
But the "Resurrection of Ultramar" and the grand ceremony on Macragge had changed everything.
The "Chapter-Circles" were buzzing with one fact:
Arthur walked to Caliban; the Lion woke.
Romulus reinforced Ultramar; Guilliman woke.
They held a party on Macragge; Corax returned.
There were rumors from the Iron Hands, too—their warriors were currently on a "Glorious Suicide" run to find their own ghost.
Wherever the Dawnbreakers walk, the dead rise!
If the Dawnstar was a hope for the galaxy, to the Astartes Chapters, they were a literal light in a pitch-black forest.
Vulkan and Ferrus are 'dead' in the records. And yet, here we are.
"I do not believe Vulkan would wish for his sons to be a dwindling few," Arthur said. "Nor would he wish them to be powerless to protect the beauty they yearn to safeguard."
"I speak to you as a Primarch, Chapter Master Tu'Shan. I require an answer."
"I... I..."
Overwhelmed by Arthur's "exaggerated" benevolence and the envious glares of the Black Templar Marshal on the vox-link, Tu'Shan hesitated.
The weight of ten thousand years of tradition was meeting the irresistible force of the future.
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