Artellus Numeon - Flight of the Fire Ark: With the full treachery of the Traitor Legions revealed, and the whereabouts of Vulkan unknown, Numeon saw that retreat was the only viable strategy remaining. Droves of Loyalist survivors fell back to the dropsite, trying to climb aboard ships that were surging desperately into the sky to outreach the terrible storm of betrayal below. It was not a rout, though for any force other than the Legiones Astartes it would have been, faced with such violence. Many were cut down as the Traitors threaded the air with enough flak to wither an armada. Groaning, feeling the extent of every one of his many injuries, and ignoring the urgent cascade of damage reports scrolling down the left side of his one still-functional retinal lens, Numeon staggered to his feet.A piece of armour, one he knew well and had seen before, lay within his grasp. He took the sigil once worn by Vulkan and tucked it into his belt. His Pyre Guard brother, Leodrakk was with him, but he couldn't see Vulkan or the rest of the Pyre Guard. Smoke blanketed the ridge and the ash-fall had intensified. Heat haze from the still-burning fire blurred his vision. He saw the crater -- he had been thrown back from its epicentre -- and the hundreds of twisted bodies within. They were incinerated, fused into their armour. Some were still dying. Numeon knew he had to reach a Drop-Ship, he had to save himself and Leodrakk. They must have slipped into a narrow defile that had shielded their bodies from the fire. Numeon assumed that he had blacked out. There were fragments, pieces that he did not possess in his eidetic memory of what happened after the missile strike. He remembered Leodrakk calling out his brother's name. But Skatar'var had not answered. None of the Pyre Guard were answering.Finally reaching the dropsite with Leodrakk, Numeon found visibility was almost zero. Like tar turned into air, the blackness was virtually absolute. Auto-senses were of limited use, but Numeon managed to get as far as a ship. Leodrakk was retching in the vile smoke, so thick it would have killed a lesser man. He clung to Numeon’s left shoulder and let the Pyre captain guide him. But Numeon was struggling, too. The dropship was close enough to touch but the filth besieging them made it impossible to gauge the location of the entrance ramp or if it was even open. Out of the darkness, a hand reached for them, and together they stumbled onto the deck of a crowded Stormbird. It was black within the lander; smoke was also filling the hold and the internal lighting was out. Numeon slumped and rolled on his back, his eye burning like someone had thrust a knife into it and twisted the blade. He was more badly wounded that he had at first realised, having taken several hits during the descent as he shielded his Pyre Guard brother from harm. Leodrakk was on his knees, coughing up the wretched smoke from his lungs. Then unconsciousness took him and he was lost to it.Verud Pergellen, one of the Iron Hands' elite Honour Guard known as the Morlocks, had saved Numueon and Leodrakk's lives on the plains of Istvaan V. So few of the Morlocks had escaped, so very few of the Iron Hands' Clan Avernii left to continue its great and noble legacy. When the shells were falling and the full horror of the betrayal revealed, it was Pergellen who had fought his way back to the dropships when other Iron Hands warriors were losing their minds at the death of their Primarch Ferrus Manus. The survivors of Istvaan V had been a mess of disparate units and Legions. Not all had survived the escape. Some were simply too badly wounded or had been dead when they were dragged aboard. Of the forty-seven Legionaries that took flight on that vessel, only twenty-six survived. They lived long enough to be reunited with the Fire Ark, a Salamanders Strike Cruiser that had escaped the carnage -- one of the few. It had not done so unscathed. Many of the crew were killed during that desperate flight. Wounded, weary, they had levelled what guns they had on the dropship emerging from that self-same chaos, not realising they were friends, not foes.There were no Legionaries aboard, not one. Every single able-bodied warrior that could don war-plate had been sent to bring the disgraced Warmaster Horus to heel. It was extravagant, Numeon realised in retrospect -- a means of showing force to force and hoping the latter balked in the face of the former. How wrong they were. It did not seem like extravagance now; instead, it smacked of ignorant sacrifice. And how Horus had prepared his altar for their willing offering. The blades of his Traitors were sharp indeed on that slab of Istvaan V. Since finding the Fire Ark and the brave but depleted crew aboard, they had lost three more Legionaries. Numeon had allied them together, given them back some semblance of purpose. But it did not come without risk, and a vein of fatalism was growing in this company. He had expected it of the Iron Hands, but they bore the loss of their Primarch with a quiet and steely determination that did the Medusans much credit. No, it was the Nocturneans, the sons of Vulkan, that suffered most. Of all the Salamanders, only Numeon believed. In his heart, he knew that his father had survived. The rest, despite his impassioned arguments, were not so convinced, and fought for vengeance instead of hope and a desire to serve. Numeon knew these men were broken. Bereft of leadership, they would have destroyed one another, and with no way to return to their Legions they were cut adrift and aimless.Their vessel, the Fire Ark, had been badly damaged in the exodus from Istvaan V. Some weapon systems were still functional, though these were insufficient to last long against a fully operational ship of the same caliber. Life support, power for lighting on certain decks, the engines and warp drive still worked, albeit at a reduced and unreliable capacity. Communications were another matter, however. Shipboard Vox worked well enough but long-distance augurs and the sensorium arrays were beyond repair and use. Even ship-to-surface vox was extremely patchy. Captain Halder had achieved the near-impossible in effecting a successful escape, but they had limped on ever since and knew nothing of the greater war. Or even if there was a greater war. For all they knew, everyone was dead and Horus had won. Numeon refused to believe that. Just as he refused to believe that Vulkan had died along with Lord Manus. He had not seen the Primarch fall, but the news from their fellow survivors who had, was compelling as it was grim. They would fight on, hoping that others did too.