Artellus Numeon - Rampart: Xathen and Zytos would not risk the full-complement of Astartes aboard the Charybdis, and so, merely twelve legionaries in a single gunship, the Draconis, would make the descent to aid the beleaguered civilians. These twelve would however, include Numeon, both Xathen and Zytos, Epistolary Ushamann and Techmarine Far'kor Zonn, a powerful strikeforce. Using his long repressed psychic gifts, Ushamann screened the station beyond telepathically, confirming the presence of the unknown Astartes and the Death Guard's usual brutality, which in all likelihood had released toxic agents inside Rampart. However, overwhelmed by the psychic link, Ushamann began to lose control, prompting actions from another Legionary who knocked him out as a matter of precaution. Thus deprived of perhaps their most powerful asset within their small group, the Salamanders reached Rampart. Just before landing, Xathen and Zytos exchanged their opinions on Numeon's ability to lead. While having fully recovered, physically speaking, Numeon had failed to step forth and take command of operations or assume true leadership as both sergeants had hoped. This blooding on Rampart would not merely be an act of vengeance, it would be the anvil upon which Artellus Numeon would be broken definitely or reforged in the fire of battle.Setting foot on Rampart, the Salamanders found the landing zone desolate, with no Death Guard present to challenge their approach. Xathen and Zytos hopes were almost immediately deceived as Numeon stepped down and left command to Zytos. Hiding his anger as well as he could, Zytos ordered his squad to split into five-men combat squads, a novelty for the XVIII Legion which almost always had deployed only en-masse since their reunification under Vulkan in the Great Crusade. However, each and every Legionary present had been a survivor of Istvaan V and was by then well used to such guerrilla tactics. Since entering the station proper, the Salamanders had discovered traces and evidence of some toxic or viral agents being utilised by the Death Guard. A long-standing rivalry had always existed between the Death Guard and the Salamanders, both being reputedly the most resilient Legion, but Vulkan had always forbidden the use of such horrors such as Phosphex, dirty bombs and chemical warfare -- domains in which the Death Guard had always excelled. Fully ignoring the depths to which the Death Guard had fallen, the Salamanders initially simply believed to be facing a Destroyer-cadre. Advancing further into the complex, Techmarine Zonn, who had stayed behind, voxed ahead that he had found the crews of both Death Guard gunships dead, killed by precise head-shots of mass-reactive shells through the canopy of their Thunderhawks. Whoever opposed the Death Guard on Rampart was quite the marksman. Having still not encountered the enemy, the Salamanders reassessed their position, closing on the main generatoria of the facility where the survivors would without doubt be located. The Death Guard's methods of war had always been deliberately slow, mercilessly grinding their enemy into utter destruction.Encountering the enemy at last, the Salamanders fall upon the Death Guard rearguard, a single, seven-men squad, which went down fighting. Initially held back by heavy weapons fire of a Volkite Culverine, the Salamanders doused the entire corridor in cleansing flame. After Sergeant Zytos had clipped the enemy weapon carrier, Numeon led the charge, uttering his personal battlecry, "Vulkan lives!" Numeon struck two legionaries down with Draukoros and Basilysk, and engaged a third before the rest of the Salamanders could reach the hand-to-hand combat. Easily dispatching a Death Guard Legionary with a swing of his Thunder Hammer, Zytos saw the sole unengaged Death Gaurd Legionary grab for a bomb at his waist. Warning Numeon of the impeding danger, he shoulder-charged the Death Guard he was struggling with, into the path of his comrade, who absorbed a great deal of the blast but left him alive. It was only then that Numeon realised that he was now surrounded by a cloud of toxic and acidic vapours, eating away at his armour's hermetic seals. Although less close to the blast, Zytos' armour registered similar damage, the deadly vapours having easily been able to kill the entire squad in the limited confines of these corridors, Zytos had no other choice than to give the order to burn the toxic miasma. Again Vorko stepped forward, dousing the entire corridor in cleansing flames, only this time the blast was directed against their captain.The Salamanders Legion claimed their name from the hugely powerful predators of their home world Nocturne that resided in the planet's fiery depths. Their hides are extremely resilient and almost impervious to flames and it is customary for the Legion’s officers and elite troops to hunt down and kill such a beast as a rite of passage and to wear the beast's hide as a token of valour. As captain of the Pyre Guard, Artellus Numeon had also participated in these rites, however, his equipment had been irremediably lost on Istvaan and Traoris, meaning that he no longer had the fireproof protection of his noble drake-hide. As the horrified Salamanders looked upon their leader, now entirely surrounded by flames, few doubted that they now witnessed the funerary pyre of Artellus Numeon. The Salamanders thought they had roasted their own commander alive. But to their astonishment, Numeon's voice could still be heard on the squad's vox channel, invoking Vulkan's name, followed by silence. As the fiery inferno abated, Numeon's bent form could be seen, clutching Vulkan's sigil in his hand. The servos of Numeon's armour had been seared shut and the proud drake-green livery had been burnt away and replaced by soot. His helmet was a ruin while in some places his armour's ceramite was bare and glistened with heat, but ultimately Numeon had somehow survived. As the Salamanders were about to rejoice, a Death Guard Legionary attacked from Numeon's flank, clenching their captain's throat with his hands and tried to suffocate him. Numeon grasped for the gladius at his side that Sergeant Thiel had gifted to him on Macragge, and rammed the weapon deep into the Death Guard's skull, thus ending the fight. Galvanised by this new miracle, the Salamanders pushed on.Having been forewarned by their comrades in the corridor, a small detachment of Death Guard had been ready to receive the onrushing Salamanders, confining them for the time being to the role of spectators: three Aegis Defence Lines had already been overrun by the fourteen remaining Legionaries of the XIV Legion, which marched unimpeded through a deluge of las-fire and solid slugs, their Power Armour impervious to such weapons. Yet the Death Guard had not gone unbloodied, as attested several dead legionaries brought down by precise Bolter-fire. Their would-be ally could be seen firing from one of the gun towers -- a grey Legionary in plain armour of an unknown but undoubtedly advanced pattern. With Vorko impeeded by his leg-wound, having been clipped by the Death Guard's Volkite Culverine in the corridor, the four remaining Salamanders split up in teams of two and used the wreckage as cover to close in with the XIV Legion's rearguard. The four Legionaries opposing them, already compromised and burning from Vorko's sustained fire, went down swiftly, stalling the Death Guard's advance which now needed to split their attention between the Salamanders and their quarry. The "Angel" -- as they had taken to call him -- laid down suppressing fire to further disturb the reorganising Death Guard. Vorko switch to his side-arm to lay down suppressing fire as well, the enemy now beyond range of his flamethrower. The loss of his right eye had impeded Numeon more than he had readily anticipated, as the loss of depth perception severely compromising his ballistic skills. However he had always excelled in close combat and only needed his brothers to allow him to close with their enemy. Following Numeon, the Salamanders quickly went for hand-to-hand combat where their superior weapons would make the difference, Zytos smashing the enemy with his thunder hammer and Numeon slashing with Draukoros. The grey Legionary also charged in, killing two Death Guards in quick succession, his fighting style brutal and not elegant -- a pugilist more than a fencer.With the Death Guard defeated, Numeon finally stepping up as the group's leader asked the "Angel" for his name. The situation was tense, Numeon still aimed Draukoros at the grey Legionary's heart. On closer inspection, Numeon realised that the Legionary's armour was not totally bereft of iconography as they had previously thought, but was adorned with the rune of Malcador the Sigilite. Raising his hands in surrender, the Legionary presented himself as Brother Kaspian Hecht, and that he was indeed one of Malcador's Knights Errant. With matters sufficiently resolved, to allow a plan of evacuation for Rampart's survivors, the combat squad was joined by Xathen's group, which had been exploring another part of the station and had thus missed the battle. This reunion was however cut short by Techmarine Zonn's urgent communication, advising the landing party that a third gunship of the Death Guard had appeared and were now trying to destroy the Draconis. Quickly redeploying, the Salamanders had little hope of seriously damaging the gunship, as they carried no heavy weapons, but a lucky shot from Xathen's Bolter blew out the port-side turbine which considerably destabilized the gunship. Almost on cue, the Draconis’ rear ramp lowered and Epistolary Ushamann stepped out, his armour illuminated by blue-green witch-fire. Directing his fingertips at the looming gunship, he relased a serpent of eldritch fire against the vehicle, gutting the gunship before its fuel-reserves ignited and the gunship exploded mid-flight. The Death Guard had had no time to evacuate the striken craft, and those who had survived the explosion and the fall were quickly despatched by the Salamanders. Ushamann, exhausted from the use of his powers, fell to his knees, explaining to the onrushing Zytos that he had beheld a vision of their Primarch compelling him to rise and aid his brothers. "Vulkan lives..." he told them, and none present, doubted his worlds, even Kaspian Hecht was convinced.