Salamanders - The Dawn of the Imperium, M30-M31: Assault of the Tempest Galleries (Unification Wars) (Unknown Date.M30) - Although it is entirely likely that the transhuman warriors of the XVIII Legion saw action before their assault on the Caucasus Wastes, the records of these engagements being either deliberately lost, deleted or sealed at the highest level, the first open battle honour recorded for the then-as yet unmatched XVIII Legion was the Assault of the Tempest Galleries during the overthrow of the Ethnarch of the Caucasus Wastes on Terra. It would also prove to be one of the most famous early campaigns for the Legion. Even though it occurred long before the XVIII Legion's reunification with their Primarch Vulkan on Nocturne, this conflict set its seal upon the nature of the Legion and had a profound influence that remains to this day. The conquest of the Caucasus Wastes was one of the last great battles of the Unification Wars that would see at last the Emperor as the undisputed master of Terra, but victory did not prove easy. The mutated eugenicist-oligarchs who ruled the Caucasus Wastes presented the Emperor's forces with one of the most difficult challenges they faced in open warfare. While few in number compared to the zealots of the Yndonesic Bloc or the savage warbands of Ursh, the Caucasus Ethnarchy's power was based on scores of relic-technologies and the terrible weapons in their possession which dated back to before the Age of Strife, while its military forces ranged from the armoured, gene-augmented "Ur-Khasis" troops, roughly analogous to the Emperor's Thunder Warriors, to narcotically-enslaved covens of psykers. The Ethnarchy's strongholds were concealed kilometres deep beneath the hollowed-out mountains of the Wastes and shielded from attack from above by near-impregnable power-field webs. An attempt by the Imperial forces to take the Ethnarchy's mountain-strongholds by storm earlier in the Unification Wars had ended in bloody defeat, with the loss of almost 10,000 Thunder Warriors and more than a million other casualties, but had seen the Caucasus Wastes contained and isolated thereafter. So it was that when the hour of the Emperor's vengeance came around, nothing was to be left to chance. The forces of six entire proto-Legions of the Legiones Astartes were mustered for the final assault on the Caucasus Wastes, along with the massed forces of the Legio Custodes, with the Emperor Himself to lead them, and countless other tributary armies, mechanised battalions and warrior bands beneath the raptor-and-lightning banner of Unification. But, of all of these, the first thrust upon which all else would depend the Emperor entrusted to the nascent XVIII Legion. The XVIII would carry the assault, utilising scores of freshly created gigantic "Termite" subterranean boring machines fitted with recently acquired technology from Mars. The full force of the proto-Legion, some 20,000 Astartes strong at this juncture, was committed to what was widely believed to be a suicide mission to destroy the vast geo-thermal furnaces which provided power for the Ethnarchy's impregnable defences. These were housed far below even the subterranean strongholds, and known of only through ancient legend, in a hundred-kilometre-long string of vast, artificially-created caverns known as the Tempest Galleries for the incessant storms of flame and electromagnetic force which bled from the ancient and little-understood relic machineries. Once they were ready, the XVIII saluted their Emperor and calmly mounted the untested Martian war engines of the Mechanicum and pierced the dark earth and rock at the edge of the Wastes, disappearing into a deadly and unknown world. Soon all signals were lost, and not even the power of the Imperial psykers could penetrate the turbulent depths to maintain contact with the Space Marine assault forces. Hours stretched into days and days became weeks, and nothing was heard from the assault force while the vast army of the Emperor waited in immediate readiness for the grand attack, and no sign or signal came. Pressed by His commanders, it is said the Emperor silenced them and replied; "They shall not fail me, they will return from the fire, thus it shall ever be." Reports claim that moments after the Emperor spoke, great tremors shook the region, their turbulence felt as far away as Gorodak and the Jade Citadel of Hangol. In their wake, the power-webs that had for so long shielded the Caucasus Wastes failed and the full force of the Emperor's wrath fell upon them to their utter destruction. The last Ethnarch of the Caucasus was dragged in chains to the Imperial prison of Khangba Marwu and the buried secrets that had been his strength were taken by the new, now uncontested Master of Terra. Of the fate of the XVIII Legion nothing was known until the closing days of the campaign when, far from the Wastes, a long-dormant volcano near Klostzatz shattered and one of the Termite machines hauled itself from the rubble carrying just over a thousand survivors from the XVIII Legion. Those who breached the carborundum-lined caverns of the Caucasus Tempest Galleries found a strange, imprisoned world as alien as anything the expeditions of the Great Crusade would find among the stars. Vast kilometre-high spindle-machines turned over caged seas of molten metal drawn from the planet's core, spewing forth coronas of blinding lightning while suspended on silicate webs across which unfathomable and inhuman machines scuttled like spiders. In this airless furnace beyond mortal endurance, the Legionaries of the XVIII found no warrior of the Ethnarch to contest them, for nothing human had set foot in this hell for millennia, but rather the defenders of these sleepless engines, that had turned since before the start of the Age of Strife, which were fire-blackened service-automata reacting to the outsiders' threat as antibodies would against an invading infection in a living body. There were thousands of these Tempest-automata, and all turned on the Astartes of the XVIII Legion in an implacable and unceasing attack. Only massive kinetic force applied at close range against their articulated joints was able to disable them. The XVIII Legion held out with a mixture of stoic resilience and suicidal fury, maintaining discipline and order despite the onslaught, while individual Legionaries hurled themselves willingly to their deaths to grapple with the killing machines so that they might be destroyed and their brothers' lives saved.  Showing the aptitude for technology and craft for which they would become justly famed in later centuries, they began to first use the wreckage of the attacking machinery that surrounded them as salvage to repair and augment their own expended wargear, and soon escalated to tearing from the automatons their central control systems and repairing them sufficiently to be sent crashing back into their own ranks as mindless berserkers. Soon something like a stalemate had been achieved, but at a terrible cost; for less than a third of the XVIII Legion's original number remained, and yet the body of the vast system had been badly wounded, but a mortal blow was not yet struck. In the inaccessible deeps, the ancient implacable Machine Spirit (Artificial Intelligence) that bound the Tempest Galleries together was manufacturing fresh robotic soldiers for its cause, and that was something the Astartes of the XVIII Legion could not match. Realising this strategic reality, the Legion hatched a plan to commit its forces to a single, coherent attack and destroy the Tempest Galleries or die trying. The plan was to attack and cripple the central power transmission node in the largest of the gallery chambers yet discovered, the reasoning being that, even if the vast generator-spindles were not put out of action, it would successfully interrupt the flow of energy to the Ethnarch's defences far above. A two-pronged assault strategy was devised. The first division would mount a series of diversionary attacks at other locations to confuse the enemy. Once this was under way, the second, larger division would assault the power node. It was assumed that while survival was in any way unlikely for the Space Marines of the XVIII Legion, death for the central assault force would be certain. For this reason, the XVIII Legion's surviving commanders acquiesced to the wishes of the Legion's rank-and-file and assigned Legionaries to it by lottery -- not because they had no volunteers for the main assault force, quite the contrary, but because it was the fervent wish of all to take part. When the assault came, the Legionaries thundered from their holdouts and defensive redoubts, many armed with improvised Power Fists and Thunder Hammers, Shock Cannons and cutting saws fashioned from the shattered remains of fallen tempest-automata. With them came their full reserves of munitions and manpower, for nothing was nor could have been held back. Attacked suddenly from many fronts, the inhuman intelligence which oversaw the Tempest Galleries responded with cold machine logic, efficiently dividing and dispatching its forces to deal with the threats. The fighting was savage but the plan was working, and the concentrated force of the main assault group managed to smash its way into the Great Gallery, its few remaining Dreadnoughts and rapier batteries leading the way. Like a hive of ants crudely kicked open, the tempest-automata responded in a tide of scorched-black metal and snapping servo-claws, slamming into the XVIII Legion head-on across the silicate bridges suspended between the sea of fire below and the hurricane of corposant lightning far above. Bodies by the hundreds, machine and Legionary alike, fell broken into the burning abyss, severed power cables sparked furiously, mechanical bodies exploded in sheets of fire and shrapnel, while spilled blood vaporised to steam in the superheated air. Slowly, tortuously, the Legion fought its way to the towering power node at the centre of the gallery, buying each metre of ground taken with dozens of lives. It was then the kraken rose from the depths. A vast articulated beast-machine appeared, the greatest of the robotic engines that maintained the Tempest Galleries, sheathed in armoured scales of synthetic black diamond, molten metal running off it like water. Its coils could have crushed a Battle Titan and were more than sufficient to enwrap and shatter the silicate bridge on which the Legion fought. Their weapons utterly useless against the new foe, the survivors were forced to attempt a fighting retreat they knew was futile as, one by one, the silicate strands were severed and hundreds more fell to their doom. What occurred next can only be guessed at, but the last garbled transmission from the Great Gallery was of one of the huge grav-propelled tunnelling-spheres used by the Tempest-automata crashing through the gallery wall and plunging past the kraken-engine and directly at the node-nexus. It is believed that the only possible explanation for this is that one part of the diversionary attack groups had used the confusion of the battle to gain control of one of the colossal serrated tunnelling-spheres and set upon using it as a last ditch weapon. Regardless of the cause, whether Legion-action or the calamity of one of their own automata gone haywire, the node structure exploded, collapsing the gallery around it and blowing out numerous surrounding caverns and tunnels, and creating the earthquakes and tremors felt across the region. The explosion also appears to have murdered the governing Machine Spirit of the galleries, for in the aftermath, the automata simply shut off, the machinery stilled, the vast spindle generators sinking slowly and silently into the fires below, never to turn again. Little more than 1,000 Astartes of the 20,000-strong XVIII Legion survived, and those who did were scattered across the Tempest Galleries, many conducting diversionary attacks at its fringes and once again displaying formidable fortitude and perseverance in regrouping and intelligence in rebuilding one of the damaged Termite transporters for the arduous journey back to the surface. Upon their return, the Emperor Himself gathered the survivors together and awarded them the Laurel of Victory for the campaign against the Ethnarch to be forever theirs, and their first battle honour, inscribed with the motto: In Fire and Darkness Tested. This was to prove prophetic, and the action at the Tempest Galleries a high bar indeed for the Legion's prowess, and a standard of sacrifice and victory against the odds that would prove a punitive taskmaster for the Legion in the early years of the Great Crusade. It is an interesting addendum to the record of this battle that the XVIII Legion's survivors brought with them from the Tempest Galleries metallurgy and machine craft predating the Age of Strife, the secrets of which, in addition to being given over to the Imperial Command, were retained by the XVIII Legion itself.Sedna Campaign (Unknown Date.M30) - The Sedna Campaign was another early campaign of the XVIII Legion. Serving alongside seven other Legions, the XVIII fought in utter darkness on the surface of a world constructed by alien hands at the outermost edge of the Sol System, finally leaving the entire Sol System in human hands for the first time since the start of the Age of Strife.The First Meeting (Unknown Date.M30) - When the Primarch Vulkan first meets the XVIII Legion born of his own genome, he does so in their hour of need. The Adeptus Astartes of the XVIII are making a last stand against a horde of Orks -- buying time for civilians to flee to safety, even at the cost of their own lives -- when Vulkan arrives with reinforcements and drives into the attacking Greenskins, a hammer to his Legion's anvil. In the victorious aftermath, amidst burning mounds of Ork corpses, the Legion at last meet their Primarch. Even as they kneel as one, Vulkan bids them rise. Saying that all his sons are his equals, it is the Primarch who kneels, in honour of the lives his Legion had saved.Liberation of the Shoxua Cluster (Unknown Date.M30) - Fighting alonside the Legion of the Iron Hands as part of the 184th Expeditionary Fleet, the Salamanders under Vulkan liberated the Shoxua Cluster from the vile Orks that had befallen it. The fighting proved to be extremely fierce, to the point that even the Primarch Ferrus Manus jokingly said that his arm was tired from all the killing he had done. Vulkan is said to have answered "The flesh is weak, but the deeds endure", from which the Iron Tenth would draw its motto.Compliance of 154-4 (Ibsen/Caldera) (ca. 001.M31) - This was an unusual campaign of the Great Crusade that involved bringing the world of 154-4, known as Ibsen by its inhabitants, into Imperial Compliance. This world had been discovered by the Iron Hands 154th Expeditionary Fleet led by Primarch Ferrus Manus. Upon closer inspection, the Iron Hands realised that this world was most unusual, as it was a rare example of Aeldari/Human coexistence. Upon further inspection, it was discovered that these human were in fact descendants of the Salamanders' home world of Nocturne who had been liberated from Drukhari captivity by their craftworld kin. The Salamanders Legion, lead by the Primarch Vulkan, were joined by the Death Guard and the Iron Hands Legions, both lead by their own respective Primarchs. The world was undeveloped, and largely inhospitable to human life, but possessed valuable mineral deposits. However, the Imperial forces faced stiff resistance for control of the planet from the Eldar, who had placed a garrison upon Ibsen. The Eldar forces -- including Seers, Warlocks and other combat Psykers -- could not have expected to defeat one Legion of Astartes, let alone three. The mystery deepened when the semi-feral, primitive human tribes inhabiting the planet seemed more sympathetic to the Eldar, or at the very least, not welcoming to their human liberators. The Salamanders and other Imperials defeated the Eldar relatively easily as expected. After the conquest, the Salamanders learned that the Eldar had been defending a network of menhirs which served as psychic nodes and that fed into a giant arch, where the final and most brutal confrontation between the Astartes and the xenos had taken place. The arch itself had been located thanks to a mysterious Remembrancer attached to the Salamanders, with whom Vulkan had had an unsettling conversation before the battle. After the slaughter ended, Vulkan saw the Remembrancer loitering by the arch and then suddenly disappearing. Following him, Vulkan and his elite Pyre Guard descended into the chambers beneath it, through a portal at its base. There they found a crude warding ceremony taking place, conducted by the primitive human tribal priests, who were ready to sacrifice an ancient Dark Eldar witch. Finally, Vulkan realised the truth: the arch was in reality, a Webway portal (though none of the Imperials, including Vulkan, knew this at the time); Vulkan had seen a "gate" like this before, in his Nocturnean youth, when Dark Eldar repeatedly utilised such a portal to raid and pillage the planet. The Eldar had taken control of the portal by defeating their dark cousins, and in the process had freed the indigenous human population of Ibsen from the horrors of Dark Eldar raids; the Eldar had been seen by the humans as liberators. Terrified by the defeat of their liberators at the hands of the Imperium, the natives had sought to sacrifice their Dark Eldar captive to ward off the inevitable return of her race; the mysterious "Remembrancer" who was nowhere to be seen had actually been the Emperor in disguise, who must have had a great interest in the particulars of this mission since He had ordered so many resources committed to it. Vulkan ordered Ibsen and its irredeemably corrupted population cleansed by flame. He renamed the scoured, Nocturne-like Dead World that remained Caldera. The world was now ready to receive new human colonists and to be exploited for the benefit of the Imperium.Compliance of 154-6 (Kharaatan) (ca. 001.M31) - Not long after the successful conclusion of the campaign on Caldera, Vulkan and his Salamanders Legion participated in another joint Imperial Compliance action on the world known as Kharaatan. Designated 154-6, the Salamanders fought alongside the Primarch Konrad Curze and his Night Lords Legion as well as Mechanicum forces of the Legio Ignis Titan Legion and several Imperial Army regiments. During this campaign Vulkan became infuriated with his brother Primarch and how his Legion brutally conducted themselves. During one notable incident, the Night Lords slaughtered the inhabitants of an entire city in order to seed fear amongst the general population. When he confronted Curze about his Legion's actions, a brief fight ensued between the two demi-gods. After the successful conclusion of this campaign, Vulkan reported Curze's conduct to both Warmaster Horus and his brother Primarch Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists Legion. This incident would later sow the seeds of animosity between Vulkan and his brother Curze, causing a rift that would further widen as the Great Crusade wore on. The events on Kharaatan would have far-reaching affects that wold later play a key role in what happened to Vulkan after the tragic events of Isstvan V played out.Drop Site Massacre of Isstvan V (566.006.M31) - Noted as one of the most devastating defeats in the history of the Space Marines, and certainly in the history of the Salamanders, the Drop Site Massacre of Isstvan V saw the Raven Guard and Salamanders Legions nearly annihilated as effective fighting forces and only the quick thinking and initiative of the Salamanders allowed a bare few Space Marines of those two Legions to escape that dreadful day. In response to the treachery of the Warmaster Horus and his betrayal of the Loyalist Astartes in the Sons of Horus, Emperor's Children, World Eaters and Death Guard Legions at Isstvan III, the primarch of the Imperial Fists Legion, Rogal Dorn, on the direction of the Emperor, who had learned of Horus' actions from the Loyalist survivors aboard the Eisenstein, ordered 7 Loyalist Space Marine Legions to Horus' base on the world of Isstvan V to challenge the Traitors. They would attack in two waves and fall under the supreme command of the Iron Hands' Primarch Ferrus Manus. The Legions comprising the first wave were the Iron Hands, Raven Guard and Salamanders. The Legions comprising the second wave were the Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Iron Warriors, and a large contingent of Word Bearers that their Primarch Lorgar had stationed in the star system. Unknown to Dorn and Ferrus Manus, the Night Lords, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors and Word Bearers had all turned from their service to the Emperor and pledged their loyalty to Horus, and been instructed to keep their new allegiance to Chaos a secret. The first wave secured the drop site at a heavy cost. Horus ordered his front line troops to fall back, tempting Ferrus Manus to overstretch his already thin lines. Against the advice of Corvus Corax and Vulkan, Manus led his Veterans against the fleeing Traitor Marines unsupported. Manus then brought his brother Fulgrim to combat. As the two Primarchs drew their weapons, the Raven Guard and Salamanders fell back to regroup and allow the second wave's Legions to advance and earn glory. However, as they returned they were mowed down by the four Traitor Legions that had landed to supposedly support them, thus revealing their new allegiance to Chaos. At the same time the apparent rout of the Sons of Horus, the World Eaters, Death Guard and Emperor's Children suddenly halted and the Traitors pressed their attack. As Horus pressed the counterattack he managed to sandwich the Loyalists between the two Traitor forces, killing most of them. The Iron Hands were cut off and slaughtered to a man -- the veteran Morlock Terminators cut down and the Primarch Ferrus Manus beheaded by Fulgrim. The Salamanders and Raven Guard could do nothing to help the Iron Hands, and were forced to make a costly break out with precious few of their forces. Those Thunderhawk and Stormbird gunships that lifted off and escaped Istvaan V were far fewer than those that had landed. Corax, the Primarch of the Raven Guard, was badly wounded and Vulkan's fate was unknown for some time after he and his surroundign forces were seemingly slain by the detonation of a tactical nuclear warhead. The remainder of the Iron Hands Legion arrived to find their veterans and Primarch dead and the Salamanders and Raven Guard reduced to a fraction of their full strength, with both Legions nearly wiped out. The Salamanders spend the remainder of the Horus Heresy rebuilding their shattered Legion.Imprisonment of Vulkan (ca. 006-007.M31) - Vulkan managed to survive the nucleonic bombardment of the Urgall Depression during the Drop Site Massacre, due to his unknown regenerative abilities as an immortal Perpetual. When he finally awoke in the aftermath of the explosion, he found himself surrounded by hundreds of Iron Warriors and Night Lords Legionaries. Prepared to fight to the death, the Traitor legionaries proceeded to shoot, stab and bludgeon the Primarch into unconsciousness. Seeing the opportunity to torment his brother, Konrad Curze took Vulkan prisoner, and secured him aboard his flagship Nightfall. Over a period of several solar months, Curze would proceed to torture Vulkan mercilessly in an attempt to break his body, mind and spirit. During this time, Curze severed Vulkan's head, ripped out his throat with a utensil, impaled him through the chest and tore him literally limb-from-limb. Separately, he eviscerated Vulkan, shot him with hundreds of Bolters at close-proximity, left him to die in the venting shaft of a starship engine and even threw him into the open void of space completely nude. Each time, Vulkan died, but his body would always regenerate completely, leaving Curze both frustrated and angry. Bored and frustrated with his inability to kill Vulkan, Curze eventually attempted to get his brother to admit that he was less a monster than himself. He then had several Davinite Priests utilise their fell Warp-given gifts to ensnare Vulkan's mind and run him through multiple trials in his mind, ensuring that he always failed and that innocents died. Despite the extremes of this torture, Vulkan would still not break. Exasperated, Curze ultimately decided to settle things once and for all, with a duel. He forced Vulkan to navigate a labyrinth, where, at the centre of it, lay his personal warhammer, Dawnbringer. But this was no ordinary maze. At the request of Night Haunter, the Iron Warriors' Primarch Perturabo had crafted him a singular prison, unlike any other, in imitation of his own private sanctorum known as the Cavea Ferrum. As Vulkan attempted to navigate the twists and turns, trying to reach the center of the labyrinth, Curze performed ambush attacks, wounding Vulkan without killing him, repeatedly. Finally, Curze then opened up a path in the labyrinth to the centre, where Dawnbringer rested under an energy shield. There he met the Night Haunter, and they engaged in melee combat. Though armed with a blade, Curze gave into Vulkan's taunts of his physical weakness, and attempted to engage Vulkan with his fists alone. Vulkan easily grabbed Curze and, swinging him like a hammer, broke the energy shield. With his weapon in hand, he managed to overpower his gaoler, and activate the secret personal teleporter built into the head of the finely wrought warhammer. Vulkan immediately transported halfway across the galaxy, and reappeared in the upper atmosphere of the Ultramarines Legion's homeworld of Macragge. Before burning up during reentry, Vulkan was confident that he would wake up in the care of his cousins.Return of Cassian Dracos (570.007.M31) - Still ignorant of the events that occurred on Istvaan V, Lord Chaplain Nomus Rhy'tan despatched Chaplain-Lieutenant Xiaphas Jurr and 30 Firedrakes aboard the Ebon Drake to ascertain the fate of their Legion. When the Ebon Drake arrived to the black sands of Istvaan V, they were unable to locate their missing Primarch, but they were able uncover the battered shell of the Dragon Revenant, far from intact but not yet willing to surrender to his final inevitable death. Called "The Twice-Dead" and the "Avatar of the Sacred Flames" by his brothers, Cassian Dracos returned to the battlefields of the Imperium to enact his vengeance, but he would not be as once he was. His time beneath the black, blood soaked sands of Istvaan V had left him changed, fey and of unpredictable temper and able to exert a disturbing control over the creations of the Machine God and those bound to them. The presence of Cassian Dracos reinvigorated the demoralised crew of the Ebon Drake, and they continued their search for their missing Primarch, convinced that he yet lived.Third Siege of Mezoa (ca. 007.M31) - The Salamander Cassian Vaughn and the crew of the Ebon Drake, all members of the Shattered Legions who were survivors of the Drop Site Massacre, traveled to the beleaguered Forge World of Mezoa in the Segmentum Obscurus and joined its defenders against the 114th Grand Battalion of the Iron Warriors and the 78th Chapter of the Alpha Legion of Consul-Legatus Autilon Skorr. With the approval of Mezoa's regents, the Norne-queens, Cassian Vaughn received the blessings of the Machine God, his Vulkan-forged Dreadnought-shell being sanctified before leading the decisive counterattack against the Iron Warriors. Facing the enemy commander Nârik Dreygur personally, and upon showing him that the Alpha Legion had abandoned them, Vaughn convinced the Iron Warriors to join forces with the Loyalists and chase the Alpha Legion from Mezoa.Vulkan Lives (ca. 007.M31) - Vulkan's charred remains were later recovered by the Ultramarines as he had expected, who initially assumed the massive corpse was some kind of grotesque statue. But over the following days, Vulkan's body began to regenerate, and eventually life returned to it, which shocked the Ultramarines Apothecaries. The Primarch Roboute Guilliman was summoned immediately to the Apothecarion, and much to his dismay, found that Vulkan was in a mentally unstable state, violent and incoherent. This was due to the perverse bond that had formed between Vulkan and Curze during the solar months he had been continuously tortured and killed while being a prisoner aboard the Nightfall. Vulkan reacted violently because he could sense the presence of Curze nearby, somewhere on Macragge itself. Meanwhile, the Dark Angels Legion had recently arrived in the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, having been drawn to Macragge by the empathic beacon of the alien artefact known as the Pharos. It acted much like the Astronomican as a stellar beacon. Following the defeat of the Night Lords Legion during the height of the Thramas Crusade, Curze had led a desperate boarding action on the Dark Angels' flagship Invincible Reason. With the death and capture of most of his warriors, he had escaped and sought sanctuary within the bowels of the mighty flagship. But eventually, Curze managed to steal a Drop Pod and make his way towards the surface of Macragge, where he spread as much terror and chaos as he could. Vulkan broke free of his bonds and pillaged Guilliman's private armoury before setting off to hunt for the Night Haunter. The two Primarchs eventually faced one another, fighting across the length of Macragge's capital city. Realising he possessed regenerative abilities, Vulkan used them to his advantage. By focusing his will, he was able to regenerate his wounds at an exponential rate. The Primarchs' duel was eventually temporarily halted by another Perpetual, John Grammaticus, who had been charged by the mysterious alien coalition known as the Cabal to permanently kill Vulkan with a Fulgurite, a petrified bolt of the Emperor's own psychic abilities. He was supposed to give the Fulgurite to Curze to use as a weapon to kill the Salamanders' Primarch. Fortunately, the Eldar Farseer Eldrad Ulthran appeared before Grammaticus, and convinced him to do the deed himself. If he stabbed the Primarch in the heart with the Fulgurite, it would cause him to give up his immortal Perpetual nature forever and restore Vulkan's mind. The Cabal sought to eliminate Vulkan because the abilities of another Primarch added to the strength of the Loyalists would tip the balance of the conflict against Horus in the Imperium's favour. The Cabal sought Horus' victory in the belief that this would eventually result in the destruction of Chaos, though at the cost of Mankind's extinction. Grammaticus stabbed Vulkan in the heart, killing both of them in a great psychic explosion. Vulkan did not regenerate after being stabbed. His corpse was later reclaimed by Roboute Guilliman, Lion El'Jonson and Sanguinius, and placed within a stasis-capsule, hand-crafted by Guilliman himself, with the words Unbound Flame engraved on its side. However, this would not be the end of Vulkan's story.Rebirth (ca. 007.M31) - Following the death of their Primarch, Shattered Legion survivors of Istvaan V of the Salamanders Legion, who had also been drawn to Macragge by the empathic beacon of the Pharos, were allowed to stand vigil over their fallen Primarch's casket. Their surviving First Captain Artellus Numeon was convinced that Vulkan yet lived, and eventually took his Primarch's body on an arduous expedition back to Nocturne. He was convinced that if Vulkan's body were to be lowered into the cleansing fire of the Unbound Flame of Mount Deathfire, he would be restored to life once again. The Salamanders vessel was pursued by a large Traitor fleet consisting of both Death Guard and Word Bearers Heretic Astartes, whose commanders each had their own personal reasons for acquiring Vulkan's body. Miraculously, the Salamanders found their way through the turbulent Ruinstorm, and arrived at their homeworld of Nocturne. There they were greeted by Nomus Rhy'tan, Lord Chaplain of the XVIII Legion and Keeper of the Keys of Prometheus. A battle ensued between the Traitor and Loyalist forces, in which the Salamanders eventually emerged victorious. Following this victory, the Salamanders conducted the burial rites of Vulkan, and returned their Primarch's body to the fires of Mount Deathfire, in the hopes that Vulkan would be resurrected. After over a solar week of waiting, this turn of events sufficiently broke Numeon's spirit. As the next Time of Trials drew near, Numeon renounced his rank and position. He then wandered away into the burning ash wastes around Mount Deathfire and offered himself as a final sacrifice so that his father and Primarch could be restored. In truth, Vulkan would regenerate once more, though he would not be encountered again for over a thousand years, during the War of the Beast of the mid-32nd Millennium.