Legion's Last: Chapter One

Let me speak to you of us. We are nine, all told, and have the grand honour of being living memory. Our brothers are dead, or have crossed the rubicon and been reborn. We have not. We cannot, or choose not to, but nevertheless, we are all that is left of a grand history that has stood against the dark for more than ten thousand years. There are those that stand with us that bear our names, our symbols, our colours, but they are not us. We stand as relics among their vitality, their brightness, their... innocence.

We are the Legion's Last.

The midday rush had finally petered out and, at last, the bar was mercifully quiet. He'd sent the kitchen staff and the servers to get themselves something to eat, to enjoy an hour away from work. The sounds of the street outside seemed so distant, so inconsequential. He was alone in here, as far away from the troubles of the Galaxy as one could hope to be. Teso sighed, and smiled. He walked around the room, calmly cleaning up glasses and plates, placing chairs under tables. His big, dark hands worked a cloth over spills and crumbs as he cleaned the space. He tutted at a half eaten meal, the food left to go cold. A waste. Chela and Venn worked so hard. The room cleaned, not meticulously, not clinically, but enough that one could feel comfortable, he returned to his position behind the bar. Picking up the well-thumbed novel one of his serving staff, Meiya, had given him, Teso began to read, the paperback small and quaint in his broad hands. Yet he turned the pages with a craftsman's grace. This book was a gift, precious beyond the words in ink on its pages. He was at a part describing a battle. He chuckled. Would that it were so, that war provided so many opportunities for charismatic heroism as this. 

The door chimed.

"Kitchen's closed for an hour. You just missed lunch, I'm sorry" Teso said, looking up at the new arrival. His eyes narrowed as he saw the figure in the doorway. Massive, cloaked and shrouded. Teso reached under the counter and gently, authorativly, place a bolt pistol on the countertop. "Speak, friend," he said, carefully, calmly, in a voice laden with quiet threat.

"There will be no need for food. Or that," the stranger said, nodding towards the pistol resting on the polished stone. "I am not here to cause trouble. I have been travelling. You are the last person I need to visit." With that, the stranger lowered his hood. His face was tanned, lined with age and scars, his mouth framed with a long, thin moustache.  His narrow eyes were tired but determined and now, when he spoke, Teso recognised his accent. Chogoris.

"I am Arban, of the White Scars, though I have not ridden with my brothers for some time. It is good to finally meet you, Teso Y'llen, last of the Salamanders.

Teso blinked. He had not heard anyone use his formal title for more than a decade now. It had stopped fitting him years before he'd cast it off officially. He gestured to Arban to sit, and the old white scar took a stool in front of him.

"That is quite the entrance, son of Chogoris," Teso said "but I am far from the last Salamander. This is Nocturne! Did you not see my brothers outside? Our banners in the streets?"

Arban regarded him with weary patience. "I call you the last because you are the last of the Legion, firedrake. You are the last of the breed of warrior who marched alongside your father, and the Emperor himself. These primaris... they are Astartes. But they are not us."

"Us?"

"I am the last of my chapter. Of my Legion, Teso. Across the galaxy there are nine of us left. You understand? We are the last."

Teso gasped in realisation. He'd never thought beyond himself, but of course. The other chapters must have lost their old guard too, to death and advancement. He looked at Arban, his face a picture of disbelief that didn't match the truth he knew in his heart.

"Nine? Only nine Astartes who are not Primaris?"

Arban nodded. "One in each of the founding chapters, through some providence. I have been travelling, as I said. I have been collecting their stories. I am here for yours."

"Mine?" Teso was taken aback. His life had been quiet for so long, and his past achievements were proudly displayed as a matter of public record, though he never felt any need to bring them up any more. "My brother White Scar, I have no stories of valour for you that you cannot find in our archives, what do...?"

"I am aware of your record. Your triumphs on Armageddon. Against cultists, and uprisings, and insurecctions. 'The saviour of Stellengrad'. They still speak about you in reverence there. You are a folk hero, did you know that?"

Teso shrugged, a little sheepishly. "Can I offer you a drink? We've got a Sauvignon Blanc in from the Embervine vinyards that's particularly good."

"I want to know why you are here. In this tavern. Out of your armour and serving meals to mortals," Arban softened his posture. "I wish to know where you will be when the last of the Salamanders passes from this galaxy."

Teso nodded. He poured them both a glass of wine anyway, and gestured to the unfinished meal he'd collected. "Leftovers. Somehow better than the first time the meal is served." He grinned. Arban raised an eyebrow but took an olive from the plate anyway. "It actually took a long time for it to sink in that I was the last non-primaris Salamander. The physical discrepancy did not harm my tactical acumen or my authority, and a thunder hammer swings just as good no matter what armour mark you're wearing." He turned and gently lifted a beautifully-wrought maul from a bracket above the bar. Teso turned it over in his hands, running his fingers along the haft where his grip had left marks over the years. He tested its weight, holding it as he used to, long ago. "Some things, you get used to. You like the fit of them, even if something better comes along. We Salamanders, we build things to last. Our weapons, our warriors. But, eventually I noticed. The thought dwelt in the back of my mind. I couldn't shake it."

Arban took a sip of the wine. Truth be told, there was little more than a sip's worth in the glass for an Astartes. "So you were no longer able to fight? Did you fail? Was it disgrace that lead you here?" 

"Disgrace?" Teso laughed. "Brother no, I was not disgraced! I retired!"

Arban almost spat his drink out. He looked in astonishment at the beaming face of the old Salamander. "What?"

Teso roared with laughter at this. "I retired! The only Astartes to ever hang up his weapon and step away. On conditions, of course. I can't leave Nocturne, and they get my body when I finally die."

"That's impossible. Why would they let you retire? Like a... mortal?"

"It didn't make sense for me to be a warrior anymore. The way I had learned to fight, to fight as part of something, didn't exist anymore. Just being able to swing a thunder hammer wasn't enough. So I offered the chapter council a proposal."

"Why would they just... let you go? We are made for war. War is our life. It is our reason to exist. Forgive me brother but this is... unprecedented."

Teso held up a hand for Arban to stop. "We Salamanders have always lived among humans. Our way is not to be aloof. We are a part of these people's lives. We understand that we are here to serve these people, with our bodies, our skill at arms, our lives. What was I to do if my martial prowess was no longer needed? If there were those better able to relate to and lead the troops? Hide in the chapter vaults, scribing ancient lore? Continue forging weapon after weapon? How does another masterwork hammer help people?" He turned back and re-hung the thunder hammer on its bracket. "I wanted to continue to serve. I considered being a preacher, but honestly, scripture was never my strong suit."

"So... you became a bartender?" Said Arban, rubbing the bridge of his nose in disbelief. "I... What?"

Teso shrugged. "One of my arming serfs suggested it, actually. He works in the kitchen now. Honestly, it was a disaster at first. You have to do a lot of listening and empathising in this job. That was... tricky."

"Was it the glowing red eyes?" Arban said sardonically. "Or that you are a foot taller and wider than even the largest of them?"

Teso grinned again, and laughed. "Yes! A bit. But it was more trying to find the enthusiasm to listen to their little stories. Some tale about an old pet or a difficult day at work... It tends to pale in comparison to your own story of the time you decapitated an Ork warlord with his own cleaver, or when you dropped a heretic Titan into a ravine by blowing up the bridge it was walking on. Nevertheless, I learned. Here to serve."

Arban grunted. "And the council? They were fine with it?"

"They know where I am. I'm just another space marine in the community, only on a more permanent basis. Maybe this couldn't happen in any other chapter. But the Salamanders are who we are."

The old white scar leaned back and took stock of the other space marine. The salamander's enhanced musculature hadn't gone to fat, in the way of retired mortal soldiers, and there was still that precise, post human quality to the way he moved, but there was something about him that seemed relaxed. At peace. "You are happy here, aren't you? Doing this."

"I would say I'm content. Yes."

"I think you're mad, to be perfectly honest. I couldn't imagine a space marine who would... stop fighting. But then, I am not you. And that might be exactly what I've been looking for."

"Come again?"

"I have been collecting stories. But I am on the run, brother. I cannot stop. I do not fear death, but these stories cannot die with me. I must ask a favour."

"I think I know what you're going to ask. Go ahead."

"You are safe, Teso Y'llen. War will not claim you as it will the rest of us. You will outlast us all. So I ask of you. Hear the stories I have to tell. Carry with you, for as long as you can, the remembrance of the Legion's Last.