‘I don’t see any.’ Spoke a tense, male voice. It’s bearer slowing beneath a dim lumen bulb to consider the passage in their wake. A soldier by his cut, with a standard issue las carbine held in a too-tense grip. He reached up to rub a bandaged palm over his face and shaven pate, rugged skin saturated with both condensation and sweat. It was the cleanest his face had been in days. ‘D-do you think they’re going to follow us?’ The man’s hesitation was less than a moment as he quickly fell back in step to catch up with the others, plunging from the light into the shadows at their backs.

‘Doesn’t matter, Dorval. The quicker we get there the better, keep it moving.’ Anther male, towards the front of the file, barked. If the extra rough around the edges were any indicator, this would’ve been the guy in charge. If not, the sergeant’s stripes on the shoulder of his battered flak armor worked too. He carried a deactivated chainsword in one hand and a las pistol in the other and kept narrowed eyes intent upon the darkness in front of them. ‘I think I can see it, up ahead.’ The sergeant hissed after a few moment’s silence, ‘Can you confirm, cogboy?’ There was a sputter of noise from the midst of the group as one of them fell out of step. This one of lighter stature than the rest, save one, and clad in robes which marked them as a priest of the Machine God.

‘I regret I cannot do so while at a full run, Sergeant Malkien.’ As much as human emotion may have been anathema to the devotees of the machine cult and as much as a vocoder can sound sardonic, Adept Phileas did. Though for all his ill-concealed ire, he set immediately to work on a wrist-mounted data slate as the others slowed ahead of him. Another hooded individual, in similar robes, stepped away to join him. Sergeant Malkien snapped off orders to the rest of the group in the mean time, his squad. They had stopped at a junction in the tunnel which meant there were now at least two other routes by which threats could approach. ‘This will require a moment, these plans are very dated.’

That would’ve been a bit of an understatement, to say the least. The passages through which they were currently racing were nothing short of ancient. The facility humming all around them was no typical piece of terrestrial architecture but rather a large part of the vessel once known as the Gloria Vidya – the Glorious Vision. This was, as planetary history held, the original colony ship to land upon the planet which would become Thordendal many millennia ago. While it was not at all uncommon – and indeed expected – that colony ships be stripped and cannibalized for parts, it was quite rare indeed for the reactor of one of them to remain fully functional after so long a period of time. While most of the ship had been recycled and dismantled, the reactor cores and superstructure surrounding them remained as one and now stood as a proud testament to the planet’s founders. And an even prouder testament to the Techpriests who had maintained the facility through the ages. It gave their mission here and immensely bittersweet edge which was lost upon no one in the group.

Dorval took up position at the corner of one of the side tunnels with Private Farsen posting up on the oposite. Wells Farsen was the youngest of their merry band with barely eighteen years under his belt and only one of them spent in the Thordendal PDF. The kid had availed himself well since the invasion began, not once yet loosing his cool and carrying himself and his combat shotgun with far more ease than Dorval was feeling himself at that moment. The other trooper caught his look and gave a slight quirk of the lips which betrayed only a hit of unease. Dorval nodded and returned the gesture, rolling his shoulders a bit in an attempt to loosen himself up.

‘I always thought the path to glory would be a little brighter.’ He chuckled with forced mirth and Farsen smirked lightly in response.

‘There is no darkness through which the guiding light of the Emperor cannot pierce.’ As the younger trooper spoke it was Dorval’s turn to smirk. He felt a momentary pang of sympathy for the kid but quickly decided that, given a choice, he’d rather go to his death filled with that sort of unquestioning resolve rather than the nest of apprehension currently gnawing into his core. It just didn’t sit well to be on a mission where, even in success, you were guaranteed to wind up dead. Instead of lashing out with some brash retort he found himself replying simply,

‘The Emperor protects.’ He murmured, with far more conviction than he truly felt. Bostian Dorval was going to die and he simply could not live that knowledge down. No amount of the Emperor’s Grace was going to put him at ease and on top of everything else, there was those two cogboys over there piddling back and forth with one another. Nothing considered human had any business making noises like that. It always made the trooper’s skin crawl to hear devotees of the machine god make exchanges in their queer language of clicks and chirps. It wasn’t that he had a lack of respect for machines and the spirits thereof, he blessed his own rifle at least once a day while cleaning it, but he blessed it in words which could be spoken by a human tongue. Dorval tried to drown them out, concentrating on the more mundane sounds of the machinery all round them as he fixed his eyes to the poorly-lit corridor he and Farsen were covering.

After a few moments longer, Phileas approached Sergeant Malkien,

‘Honored sir, we are indeed upon the proper track.’ His augmented voice rasped as he raised a many-fingered bionic hand to indicted the portal at the end of the corridor, ‘This door will grant us access to the heart of the Vidya and from there we may proceed with the final phase of our mission.’ Malkien took this in with a nod though there was a protracted silence which hung over the group as they all exchanged looks. Phileas did not quite grasp the reason for the pause though, for completely dissimilar reasons, he had his own apprehensions in the matter.

‘Alright then.’ Malkien grumbled and picked out two of his squad, ‘Bretz and Vintoben, you two cover them while they get the door open. Make it quick.’ The two troopers nodded assent and moved off towards the end of the corridor with the Techpriests in tow. Malkien took up one of the abandoned cover positions with the last remaining member of the squad, a flamer specialist named Eicher. It was down to the wire now, the prize was within sight. Ross Malkien shifted his grip on the weighty chainsword in his hand, the promethium smell of Eicher’s idling flamer nearby was welcome compared to the stale, antiqued air of the power plant. Some part of him was silently wishing for a more glorious end than that which awaited them though he supposed he should have been more satisfied that he’d be partly responsible for preserving the fate of the whole planet. Even still, he a was a solider and the thought of dying anywhere but the thick of battle chaffed at him greatly.

Meanwhile, Dorval had successfully tuned out the now-departed Techpriests and indeed, everyone else as well. Lulled into introspection and distraction by the hum of ancient machinery. He failed to notice private Farsen trying to get his attention as he starred off into the dimness of the adjacent corridor. He failed to notice as he watched the lines of conduits winking in the near-darkness. He failed to notice the rhythmic clink-clank above the drone of machines. He failed to notice that the shadows were moving in time with it.

‘Dammit, Bostian. What the heck has gotten into you, man?’ Farsen hissed, now standing next to the paralyzed trooper, a hand gripping his upper arm. Dorval, turned to look at the younger man. Sweat trickling in glistening paths down his rugged, dumbfounded features.

He failed to notice until it was too late.

Trooper Farsen was abruptly engulfed by a flash of emerald light and the sound like a great whip of electric discharge snapped Dorval from his reverie like a kick to the chest from a grox. He fell back against the wall, staring wide-eyed at the glistening skull which used to be Wells Farsen’s face. The boy’s shotgun clattered from his hands as he dropped like so much dead weight to the metal decking. From waist up the body had been stripped to the bone: armor, uniform, skin, muscle and meat. Gone. Blood began to pool from the lower half of the man’s body, unhurriedly for there was no longer a heart present to pump it.

‘They’re here.’ Dorval was repeating the words over and over, muttering to himself as the shouts of his fellows sounded meaninglessly around him. He saw the sergeant approach and felt someone drag him away, stumbling, towards the doorway at the end of the corridor. Dorval looked down to the hand gripping him. It was Farsen’s. Still attached to his upper arm, leaking blood down the front and side of his uniform.

Sergeant Malkien cursed harshly as he heard Dorval cry out while Eicher hauled him away. Though he saw what had unnerved the trooper so and couldn’t suppress the shock of ice which shot down his spine at the sight. The sergeant holstered his sword and pistol quickly and snatched up Farsen’s fallen shotgun, ducking to cover behind the corner of the passageway just as another lashing crack of energy snapped in his direction. Whatever technology these things were using, there was no denying its lethality. But there was only two of them. Hopefully.

‘Get that damn door open, now!’ He barked, as if the others needed any further encouragement. The figures advancing through the gloom were close enough by now for him to see them clearly and it was the first time he had. The way the light shifted almost organically across their glossy exoskeletons. The lambent glow of viridian light seeping from within their chest cavities and that same light peering out with implacable malice from their death-mask faces. Ross Malkien took in all these details in the split second it took him to calmly raise his shotgun and draw a bead on the closest of the two.

The report of the shotgun was almost deafening in the close quarters and the sergeant hammered out every round in its magazine with the steady ra-chink of the weapon’s manual slide. They’d discovered early on that the enemy were very resilient to most of the weapons at their disposal but there were few things which wouldn’t buckle under the kinetic abuse of solid slugs at close range. These things were no different. Malkien watched the skeletal machination buck and twitch through the shotgun’s sights as the slugs pounded into it, denting and deforming its exoskeleton in showers of sparks. Pieces of metal flew away as the thing stumbled and was knocked off its feet by the sheer force of the repeated impacts. He’d barely fired off the last shot when the other abomination lurched forward to close the remaining distance with alarming speed.

Ross bit out another curse and lept back from the opening of the passageway, holding the empty shotgun up defensively just in time for the bladed end of the thing’s wicked, alien firearm to come arcing straight for his head; he prayed, oh how he prayed the frame of the gun would hold. There was an awful, grating noise as the curved blade hacked into the metal of the shotgun’s receiver and Malkien turned with the impact, releasing his grip on the weapon and hoping to send the fiend off balance. It didn’t work as well as he had hoped but his head was still on his shoulders and a split second later his chain sword was back in his hand. But the thing was back on the attack almost immediately and the sergeant found himself parrying aside a vicious lunge even as the teeth of his sword howled to life.

‘Come on, you son of a bitch. Let’s do this.’ He growled and swung his chainsword in a punishing horizontal arc which scrapped across the thing’s breastplate in a cascade of sparks. It was somewhat disheartening to see that the gesture had done little but dull the finish on the strange metal. Even so, if this was how he was going to meet his end then it was better by far than the alternative. Ross kept his steel and soundly struck aside another powerful but graceless thrust from the alien weapon, this time aiming his response at the exposed joint of the thing’s shoulder. That one bit. He felt the diamond-edged teeth of his chainsword claw into the softer material, chewing through fibrebundles and wiring before tearing free. The effect was immediate as the thing’s gun arm sagged and its cumbersome back sweep was easily dodged. Malkian let the momentum of the sidestep carry him around his enemy’s flank, lashing out his chainsword to rake the exposed wiring on its side. It swung a metal fist for his head but he took it on the shoulder and stumbled with the impact, a feral grin cutting his features. These things weren’t so tough. He glared into the thing’s implacable death-mask and attacked again.

Dorval had regained his senses by the time Eicher slammed him up against the bulkhead a few times, a gesture to which Adept Phileas voiced considerable objection,

‘Sirs, I simply cannot work with all that banging.’ He rasped and blurted something in binary at the other Techpriest who was presently interfacing with the door control and attempting to coerce the spirits within to grant them access in the absence of proper security chants. Phileas worked furiously at his data slate, uttering an otherwise continuous stream of machine cant as his companion worked. Whatever they were doing was obviously having an effect as the cypher runes on the door’s control panel were slowly cycling from red to green.

‘Are you in yet?’ The trooper with the flamer inquired and found himself soundly ignored. With an anxious grumble he stepped back, standing near Dorval as the two of them watched the contest raging in the middle of the junction about thirty yards distant. The competitors looked evenly matched from that distance though it was obvious that one was not moving as smoothly as the other.

‘The Sarge is winning…’ Dorval murmured, riveted to the scene since the moment he’d come back to himself. The trooper was anxiously fidgeting with the las carbine he’d miraculously managed to hang on to despite not only his bout of nerves but the repeated jarrings against the wall. Beside him, Eicher muttered something he didn’t quite catch as the dueling figures clashed again.

Pain throbbed in Sergeant Malkian’s thigh where he’d underestimated his weakened opponent once already, just as another narrowly missed his upper arm. It was time to end this, the alien machination wasn’t a formidable combatant in terms of skill but it struck with implacable strength in even the most minute blow and despite obvious damage to its metallic limbs, showed absolutely no sign of letting up until it was completely dismantled. That could be arranged. With a few more sparking blows traded, the thing came in with a sweeping strike which Ross deftly turned and struck down two-handed with his own sword into the side of the machination’s knee. He growled with effort as the teeth of his chainsword screamed, chewing into the armor joint as the force of the blow shifted the thing off balance.

On the periphery of perception he heard something, but the moment was locked between him and the soulless fiend brought low on the decking in front of him. Those glowing eyes turned upward, devoid of any hint of understanding or emotion. Malkian even wondered if there truly was a sense of malice there or if his own, human mind had simply chosen to see that in the mute, morbid visage of his enemy. In the moments during which he considered all this, he brought his sword around, watching the thing before him attempting to bring up defense even as the whirring chainsword slammed downward into its neck joint. The diamond teeth skittered for purchase, squealing as they tore into alien metal and thick wire bundles. Malkian snarled and bore down, bracing a hand on the guard of the weapon to force it onward. His chainsword whined in protest as his hand clenched, gunning it wide open. Something sharp and hot tore across his cheek, a broken tooth from his sword, but he felt and saw it finally starting to tear into his foe’s neck even as it destroyed itself in the endeavor.

Finally, the sword choked, grumbled and fell silent. In the sudden absence of noise, the sound of his own breath and the hammering of his heart seemed huge and out of control. He immediately focused on drawing himself back to the present. The light had faded from his enemy’s eyes and its head now hung limp on the ragged remains of its neck. At least he could die satisfied, knowing he had beaten one of the bastards one on one. Ross chuckled quietly as he attempted to wrench his ruined chainsword free when the nagging intrusion returned in blaring clarity:

Watch Out.

‘It won’t fire, shit! It won’t fire!’ Dorval exclaimed, fussing over his las carbine as Eicher called out to sergeant Malkian. Another emerald flash punctuated the gloom with a crack like lightening as the trooper ejected the clip of his rifle and slammed it back in place, punching the prime rune and finally receiving the tell-tale whine of positive power diffusion. Eicher had fallen to his knees, moaning something. ‘I’ve got it!’ He was already shouldering the rifle to sight in on the new threat. The battered form of the other abomination had, somehow, dragged itself up and was drawing a bead on sergeant Malkian. As his eyes focused down the peep scope of his rifle, he saw the thing’s leering eyes snap in his direction. He forced himself to focus, waiting for the weapon’s power capacitors to signal readiness. Nothing less than an over-shot would even scratch these things. Dorval ignored Eicher’s cries and settled the red dot of his sight squarely on the center of the thing’s skull-like face. As it tried to drag its hulking weapon up to bear on him, his rifle issued a ready chime.

Dorval pulled the trigger and blinding flash of reddish light connected the end of his rifle with the forehead of the alien machination for less than a split second. A sharp crack echoed off the walls and the thing fell in a heap where it stood. When he lowered the rifle, he noticed that no one was left standing in the dimly-lit tunnel junction. Nothing moved but the dirty fog which permeated the place. He heard Eicher sobbing nearby. Sergeant Malkian was already dead. Dorval stared dumbfounded down the misty corridor until a rasping voice beside him broke the numb reverie.

‘Sirs. We have access.’ The locking mechanism of the door disengaged with a riotous complaint of ancient hardware and Adept Phileas moved to drag the bulkhead portal open on corroded hinges.

A cascade of dirt and chunks of slate rock tumbled down the embankment as Shagrath’s armored boots plowed down its steep incline. At the bottom his feet splashed heavily into a shallow stream of effervescent greenish water. The acidic water frothed irritatedly from the intrusion, fizzling as it ran down the armor of the marine’s greaves but to no ill effect. It had been discovered soon into their venture that the water here on… whatever the warp this barren rock was actually called, was highly acidic but given only to eating organic material. Shagrath halted there, listening to the debris shift down in his wake and feeling the agitated sizzle of the stream, its hunger denied as it lapped impotently at the thick ceramite of his boots, tickle his hypersensitive ears. Everything about this world spoke of death, even the water.

He panned his eyes across the landscape before him, the cool, sepulchral breeze of the place russling his long, raven-black hair and caressing bare, battle-scared features like the hand of a ghost. At one time long past, the broad gully had probably teemed with the strength of a mighty river that now, existed only as the sickly, corrosive stream in which he presently stood. Along the upper edges jutted escarpments of flat, brittle rock which gave way to the bowl of hard-packed dirt that comprised the riverbed. What scant vegetation there was to be seen was nothing but skeletons of whatever it used to be, dessicated and lifeless. They had found traces of human occupation on the planet’s surface and Shagrath considered briefly if those settlements had died because of this place, or because of whatever had killed it. Whichever it might have been, both were now well and fully dead. The blasted planet didn’t even have a name anymore. Or perhaps, no one had survived long enough to give it one.

That the sky had become a moderately lighter shade of grey indicated the coming of local dawn, such as it could be called. The entire planet sported a layer of dust in its upper atmosphere so uniform daylight could be measured only by the lightness of the monochrome sky above, for the sun itself was nigh to be seen. It would be near time for them to report on their progress and Shagrath did not intend to make that report and empty one, not when they were so close. His charcoal-flecked golden eyes darted about the opposite bank of the dry riverbed, hunting for the those he knew to be so near. There was a another tune of death upon the cold, dry breeze. Something lethal yet mellifluous and vibrant, certainly not borne of this bleak environment itself.

Shagrath trudged forward from the stream, trailing sizzling liquid across the parched earth and behind him came the sounds of more disturbed rock and splashing acid water as more armored figures followed suit. Clad in ancient power armor colored a deep violet and trimmed in faded gold, the hulking Chaos Marines fanned out across the basin, covering angles and advancing cautiously in the absence of any reliable cover. Some things not time nor the warp could ever dull and the martial precision of the Emperor’s Children as the Sons of Scorn embodied it was amongst them.

As they moved, Shagrath fancied he could hear every step and every movement of each of the seven other noise marines accompanying him, able to visualize their exact position and facing in his mind’s eye. Skvorjog’s precise motions as he trained his sonic blaster across the lip of the opposite bank. A contrast to the fitful, eager twitching of Irlvok and his ceaseless murmured entreats for pain and bloodshed. Close to his right there was Ktaarvad, advancing slow and steadily to keep the fanged muzzle of his blastmaster leveled at the ready. Within the potent sonic weapon the choirs of destruction and ruin primed their voices impatiently. Still, above it all, he heard the song of death which had been their shadow throughout the night.

Deus Machina,
Deus Omnia;
Ave Imperator.

* * *

The Brazen Heart represent a rare devotional harmony. Where the religious zeal of the Ecclesiarchy typically clashs with the more pragmatic ideology of Adeptus Mechanicus, both doctrines come together in equal measure within this unique Order. Though it is surely to the chagrin of more radical members of the machine cult that the Brazen Heart holds any sort of alien archeotech in the same contempt as they do religious heretics.

Though only an minor Order, the Brazen Heart bears prolific membership well beyond their home Convent on the planet Eiserne. Despite that both the Imperial church and machine cult at large may view them with dubious regard, their dual-association affords them many unique opportunities. There are in fact records of the Order’s members operating autonomously within Guard units across the Imperium, where they administer both to the spiritual as well as technological needs of the regiments they are attached to.

The wash of potent thrust blazing from her pack fettered and adjusted its push as she rolled aside and arched away from the dive, peeling off to make a shallow approach to the curve of a narrow river valley cut into the rocky ground below. The Raptor was already committed, going in sharp and trying to spare as much of his momentum as possible. It was a worthy gamble but it wouldn’t pay off. As she cut down hard in between the narrow cliffs she saw the black-armored heathen tear in ahead of her, kicking off a shower of rock and debris from the lip of the gulley and having to physically shove himself off the opposite wall of it to avoid an unceremonious end to their game of cat and mouse. Hers had paid off much better, the sweeping approach more than made up in speed what it had sacrificed in distance and she saw the black shape in front of her, trailing bits of soil and scrub from his armor, drawing nearer as she usurped his advantage.

Ahead the Raptor’s jets howled like a pair of enraged daemons, pushed to the limit by their brash host with tongues of lolling azure flame flicking back tauntingly at her. It was hardly just for show either, the chaos fiend moved and darted through the humid air as if he did in fact have the power of a reigned warp beast at his behest. She followed as he settled in low to surface of the tributary which had carved that narrow valley out. The sound of its swift, murky current rose up to compound the near deafening rush of wind already being driven across her ears with its own irregular roar. It wouldn’t be long before the traitor would begin taking a lead on her again, he was playing to his advantages. She might have been able to overtake him on an extended dash but the nimble Raptor was exploiting his agility and quick acceleration to the utmost by forcing her to follow him in every turn and obstacle along the landscape, and now this. The trench quickly narrowed and began adopting a fair amount of jink to its course, leaving the rate of closure to slip quickly from her favor.

How funny, the bastard really thought he was going to get away. Sister Raisa Dovreim was a Seraphim, angelic ward of the heavens by the name of the God Emperor. She’d be damned and dead before she let the heathen elude her. Close-fettered hair of rich earthen tone fluttered restlessly in the wash of thick air. A lightly tanned complexion was marred across one cheek by a burn-scar which began just below her temple and continued on past the concealment of the rebreather mask covering her lower face. Graceful, lithe limbs encased in bronzed ceramite power armor burned as she pulled herself through the turns of the narrow river valley. Not so much for the strain but rather with the simmering rage she was forced to hold in check to maintain her composure and keep herself on the heathen‘s tail. Though she mentally cursed the beast as a coward she knew in the back of her mind that the forces of Chaos never fled from battle, never for fear of their life, he had to have a good reason. She had caught his trail skirting away from the direction of their main battle formations in the area, surely he’d been scouting their position. The fact that he ran when she gave chase rather than stand and fight could do nothing but confirm as much. The Raptor’s duty to his corrupt master overrode his sense of pride and now he was playing like a stubborn game fowl to abscond with whatever knowledge he’d obtained. The uneven lay of the land and the close course they were keeping with it prevented him, making long-range vox difficult. That fact worked against both of them. No reply had ever come back from the rest of her squad when she signaled she was going after the Raptor. Unfortunately for her he wouldn’t need to call in help, he was leading her right to it.

As they pulled around another sloping curve the valley opened back up and the waters flowed still enough for her to see clearly the reflection of storm clouds further darkening the war-dimmed sky above. Out ahead of her the black-armored thing had regained his lead but the course was straight now and Raisa poised herself into the onrushing wind to elevate an empowering wail from her pack. With the added thrust and a backhanded slap across the surface of the water she was rising up and swiftly after the chaos bird. The moment of elation was short-lived as she saw the blue jet-trails in front of her suddenly flare black, why was the Raptor slowing down?

The Seraphim jerked herself over onto her side as the dark shape in front of her was suddenly illuminated by the jagged corona of his bolt pistol’s muzzle flash. A tight burst of fiery, high velocity slugs sung past her underside so close she could feel their heat on her armor. The mask across her mouth and nose spared her from the scent but the acrid contrails of bolts’ hot propellant stung her eyes when she passed through them. By the throne that had been close. The sudden braking had brought them dangerously near and the Sister had reached down to ready her own weapon but the Raptor was away, darting up over the lip of the river valley.

Curse him, she scowled behind her rebreather mask and cut upwards, pursuing through the shower of gravel and dirt dislodged from above by the chaos fiend’s close passage. Arcing high over the ledge she saw the black shape and its fiery blue exhaust plumes disappearing into a tree line. Still at near full throttle she turned in smoothly to intercept his course, an arm raised in protection of her bare face as the high entry sent her tearing through a screen of broad leaves and branches. The Raptor was there, just below her, weaving through the maze of thick trunks. Beneath the pitched scream of her pack she could hear the foreboding undertone of the coming storm rumbling through the misty darkness beneath the canopy. Raisa was growing tired of this game and not only for the fact that she had no idea how long it would be before she ran headlong into a reinforced squad of chaos minions. With graceful aerial strides she swooped down between the trees to settle back on the Raptor’s tail, forcing herself to focus in order to surrender as little as possible to his superior mobility. Thankfully he wasn’t wasting much time with evasive maneuvers, only enough to keep her from gaining too quickly, but even those had her careening uncomfortably close to the unyielding wooden pillars stacked around them.

A brilliant flash of white light shot down through the canopy accompanied by a crack of potent concussive noise. Just ahead of the Raptor a lance of electricity ripped down through the thick trunk of a tree, tearing it like paper and kicking up a cloud of splinters and smoke. The blue jets of the chaos bird dove beneath the falling lumber but the glare from the flash and upheaval of debris stole him from her sight a moment later. She pulled up over the falling tree-half glancing about frantically for her quarry but could seen nothing.

The crashing of brush from below covered the howl of his possessed jetpack as the fiend swooped in to broadside her.

Raisa growled when she felt the armored weight smash into her, shunting her thrusters and carrying her squarely into the trunk of a nearby tree. The blow jolted her nicely but the sight of the Raptor’s menacingly impassive helm before her was enough to keep her mind clear. A ragged wail made her jerk her head to the side just as the traitor’s chainsword swung for it, leaving the angry teeth nothing but a mouthful of bark. He apparently hadn’t been prepared to miss so she stole the opportunity to push herself away, scraping down the rough trunk in a moment of freefall before kicking her jets back in. As she did, the bolt pistol was swung up from her hip to make tangible, in a hail of streaking slugs, the curses she was laying upon the beast’s damned soul. With some satisfaction she saw at least two glancing hits but the Raptor was already on the move again, turning away and retreating skyward, paving a trail of snapped branches and falling leaves up into the forest canopy. Again she cursed and drove power to her jetpack to send herself after him, a broad, sloping ascent to allow her as much speed as possible, following an indirect path after the raven-black shape. Raisa pulled the powersword from her side as she rose towards the upper branches, swinging it in wide arcs in front of her to try and scythe a clear path. None the less she felt at least one of the sharp protrusions gouge a narrow chunk of flesh from her cheek.

The Seraphim’s grace had spared her. When she broke through the canopy she saw the Raptor, turned back towards the forest, beginning to unload his bolt pistol into the fractured limbs he’d just torn through. He’d obviously expected her to come up straight after him. Whether it had been a conscious tactical choice on her behalf or not, the bastard had expected wrong. She was pressing the full power of her thrust pack now, swooping up through the sky in a broad arc that would bring her around and down upon the black beast. He had seen her too late but was bringing his weapon to bear none the less. Raisa pulled her body into a gentle roll as slugs spat from the Raptor’s pistol, one of the rounds glanced off her thigh armor in a cone of molten shrapnel and flame but the rest went wild. There was one tactical decision she’d made quite consciously, and smiled smugly to herself when the creature’s weapon fell abruptly silent in his hands after its brief burst. It would have served as a lesson to never go into a fight with a half-loaded weapon, but he wasn’t going to live long enough to repeat the mistake.

She could hear faint sizzles across the energized blade of her sword as she drew it back to strike, it was starting to rain. The Raptor still clutched his chainsword, but obviously wasn’t ready to use it in battle, its wicked teeth were only just snapping into motion as she brought her blow down with a cry of damnation towards the traitor scum. Lack of solid footing was all that saved him as the blade slashed down squarely across his chest plate, cleaving the chaos-twisted icon of the aquilla upon it in two and driving a deep gash into the tainted flesh beneath. Had they been on the ground, she was sure the blow would have all but cut him in half. A wild chainsword swipe glanced off her armor as the chaos bird was knocked away with the strength of her blow. Apparently he was tired of running now for as soon as he’d regained his aerial footing he launched himself in her direction, otherworldly curses howling from his vox as he raised the chainsword over his head. Holding gently in mid air, Raisa calmly raised her bolt pistol and crushed the trigger. The remainder of her nearly-full clip unloaded at the enraged Raptor, casings arcing out from the pistol’s chamber in a glittering cascade amid the muzzle flash. With an impotent click the fire ceased and she watched through smoky haze as the crippled raven fell in a lazy spiral towards where the tree line broke upon a small, ruined settlement. Smart, he’d taken a good deal of the shots into his pack, but that meant his wings had been clipped, and it was time to end this.

Raisa popped the empty clip from her pistol and slammed a new one home, taking a moment to make a quick check of the vox channels for any response from her squad. There was still nothing and she hoped they wouldn’t be needed at this rate. Racking the pistol’s chamber, the Seraphim pushed off to follow the coils of black smoke left by her wounded quarry towards the ruined settlement. The sky above flashed and rumbled with discontent as a steady precipitation began to fall.

The place appeared to have once been some sort of small farming commune, thankfully long since abandoned by the locals. The recent scourge of their battles here had served to enhance its poor state of repair and many of the buildings had chunks torn from them and walls displaying the scars of heavy weapons fire and energy burns. In some places, where an artillery wound had blown open one of the vacant rockcrete hunks, there were smoldering fires still alive amidst the rubble.

Along one of the main streets the Raptor had settled down, his ruined pack sparking flares of blue and bleeding a steady stream of oily smoke above him. Raisa set down nearby, behind the fallen traitor and approached cautiously. Her bolt pistol was held up at the ready in one hand while the other clutched her powersword, its blade hissing with constant agitation at the patter of raindrops falling upon it. Over the echo of breath within her rebreather mask she could hear the heathen muttering arcane gibberish as she drew near. Something snapped then beneath the heel of her boot and the Raptor spun around to face her, it was immediately obvious that he’d not spared himself from her attack as much as she’d thought.

The thing laughed when it saw her, or tried to. One of her bolt shells had torn through the side of his helmet, and everything beneath it. It was little wonder his words had been unintelligible, he wasn’t speaking the language of chaos but merely trying to speak with only half a jaw. Foul purple-red blood stained the cloven chest plate of his armor and she noted another number of places where shells had punched through it to destroy the tissue within. He’d been making one final attempt at calling home, she was certain. The laughing ceased then and became a mangled howl as the heathen drug himself up to his feet, chainsword brought to life and sparking damaged teeth as he charged at her.

Even on the ground, and in such horrid condition the Raptor was still fast. Raisa blazed a pair of shots from her pistol which battered and then tore open one armored shoulder before he was upon her. She brought her blade up swiftly to knock aside the broad overhead strike but the unexpected force behind it knocked her off balance. Underfoot the rain was already working the dity streets of the old settlement into a layer of mud. The Raptor’s own wicked blade was on the rebound before she had fully regained her stance and it was the best she could manage to deflect the cyclic barbs from a direct blow. A rain of sparks sheered off the shoulder of her armor as the chainsword struck, digging out jagged notches from the bronzed ceramite. The fiend had caught her off guard and was pushing his advantage with everything he had left. The blow from his sword would be followed swiftly by a blunt smash from his armored gauntlet that connected square across her face, sending the already staggered Seraphim sprawling.

Her head swam from the blow and the already dimmed surroundings darkened more so for a brief moment. The crushed remnants of her rebreather mask fell away as she shook her head to offset the daze. She saw the Raptor’s forked boots turning for her and quickly rolled away just in time to miss the chainsword that swung down for her, leaving it to plough the damp earth instead. Remaining on the ground she snapped her bolt pistol up and punched off a burst, yelling out a decree of damnation over the clatter of the weapon. The rounds shredded the armor on one of the chaos bird’s legs and blasted off chunks of pale gore and spats of his tainted blood from the flesh beneath. With a curdling howl the fiend fell upon the destroyed limb, the harsh rasps of his agonized breathing made all the worse by the grievous wound to his face.

Wasting no time Raisa quickly rolled back to her feet, a sneer curling bloodied lips as she spat crimson upon the muddy earth and lunged for the fallen traitor. Her powersword swung in a tight side-arm slash, hissing through the falling rain towards its mark. The Raptor’s head and helmet were split nearly across the brow line with the low splut of a ripe melon being cracked asunder as her energized blade struck home, its savage follow-through lashing the traitor’s purplish blood to spatter across the filthy muck the roadway had become.

Though he was quite surely dead, her blade came down upon him again before the armored hulk had a chance to slump to the ground, laying his armor and flesh open from shoulder to collar. A spray of blood puffed from the Seraphim’s lips as she brought a foot to the Raptor’s shoulder, shoving him over backwards onto the ground and flipping her powersword around underhanded to raise and plunge it down through the gash she’d previously cut across his chest plate. She twisted the embedded blade sharply before retching it clean of the corpse, drops of blood still feathering upon her lower lip against seething breaths as she stepped back from the body, watching its ebbing life disperse into the mud and shallow pools of rainwater in a dark stain,

‘This, the proper fate of the faithless.’ She spat her own blood upon the Raptor’s broken corpse, listening to the righteous hiss of its fowl blood being vaporized upon her blade.

Raisa de-powered her sword and slung it back at her hip, turning from the body and thinking to make a quick check on her vox when she heard the noise. A howl, the otherworldly wail that had become so familiar to her this day. She looked up just in time to see the Raptor slide around from behind the low building in front of her, his weapon immediately opening up in a hail of streaking slugs.

She cried out, cursing as she threw herself wildly away from the salvo, tumbling through the mud as shells erupted plumes of liquid earth all around her. Fire licked from her thrusters as they kicked back to life, helping to pull her towards the nearest safety as her boots slipped upon the muddy ground. It was not a great distance but for the moment it may as well have been miles. She urged more power as shells whistled by in close proximity, and pushed herself off the ground. As she lifted a round smashed across her upper arm, shattering ceramite and driving a spike of hot pain through the limb. It was followed quickly by another that tore into her hip, nearly knocking her sideways as the Seraphim launched herself towards cover, trailing ribbons of dirty water and scarlet.

The second black-armored fiend gave chase along the opposite side of the building as the Seraphim disappeared around its corner. It was some sort of warehouse structure, and didn’t provide as much protection as she’d hoped. Raisa glimpsed the chaos bird through slits in the building’s tarnished alloy siding. She heard muted gunfire and another hail of bolt slugs punched through the thin metal, one winging across her shoulder guard. Even the slight jolt made the pain in her arm throb behind her eyes. The blow to her hip seemed less severe but any strain of movement still made her entire side ache dimly.

Were there more on the way, perhaps already there? She prevented herself from doubting if she would be able to take the second traitor on in her state and settled for a simple, objective analysis of the situation. Whatever she was going to do had to happen now. With a pained grunt she pulled herself up, arcing through the air over the warehouse. The Raptor hadn’t seen her move and the burst she sent at him from her bolt pistol made the heathen jink violently to evade, scraping a cascade of sparks from the opposite building as his shoulder guard grazed it. He surged upward swiftly, returning fire wildly as he made ready his chainsword. Even if she’d had time to switch her pistol over to her now combat-useless hand there was no way she’d be able to keep hold of it. Of course there was little chance she’d be able to reload it either, but now, every shot had to count.

Straining her thrusters she shot upwards as well, aiming down to the rushing heathen and plucking off each remaining shell from her bolt pistol with single trigger pulls. The Raptor turned aside from most of them but at least one found a solid mark on his shoulder, blowing black armor open and shredding pale flesh to a pulp of streaming purplish blood. The fiend’s battle cry rose above the wicked howl of his engines, his flaying sword raised and ready to strike. The red ammo rune on her gun was informing her that her last round was chambered,

‘Emperor guide my aim.’ Her blood-crusted lips spoke softly and the pistol bucked in her hand. The explosive round smashed into the hilt of the Raptor’s sword, ruining the weapon and sending it spiraling from his grasp. It wasn’t quite the answer she had hoped for but at least it might spare her life for another handful of moments. She swung the empty weapon like a club as the armored fiend came upon her, knocking the futile blows away with a heavy gauntlet before clasping it upon the collar of her own armor. His mask, sleek and impassive glowered over her

‘Down you go, little angel.’ The wicked voice of the chaos scum was further maligned by the warped vox set built into his helm. Raisa felt her weight pulled away and she was suddenly being driven downward under the Raptor’s reign. The chaos minion seemed less than concerned with her attempts to fight him off and she could hear him simply laughing to her plight over the angry burn of his jetpack. Her own had flared out and were refusing to even attempt to restart. The alloy sheeting of the warehouse roof buckled and tore away as they crashed through it, slowing the decent just enough so the force of impact didn’t immediately snap her neck as the armored fiend slammed her down into the hard dirt floor.

The Raptor stood up over her, the blank azure slits of his visor glinting cold malice as he punched the clip from his bolt pistol and dug a hand into his ammo pouch for another. The crash landing had blown the breath from her lungs and surely bruised or ruptured internal organs, not to mention the pain in her arm and hip that now seethed into her battered frame from the agitation. A hand reached out across the packed dirt of the warehouse floor, seeking purchase to push herself upright and brushed upon something metal. Without thinking she clutched her gauntlet over it and swung with a cry born both of determination and pain. A piece of support frame, broken from the roof when they fell through it, whistled through the air and smacked across the Raptor’s hand just as he was making to reload his weapon, knocking the clip out of it.

With a distorted growl of rage the chaos fiend threw his empty gun aside and snatched the metal cudgel from her hand,

‘You silly wench! I will beat the life from your worthless bones then!’ She pushed back from him as he swung the bar, trying to deflect the powerful blows with her one good arm. Sparks flashed when the rusted metal struck and she could feel that after only a few hits that her weary arm wasn’t going to be able to fend off much more punishment. Turning onto her side, she hoped her now ruined jetpack would at least cushion the blows. The Raptor continued to curse her, laughing as he battered at her pack with the pole, bending and misshaping it against the sturdy ceramite. She heard the impotent piece of metal tossed aside to clatter against the outside wall of the warehouse and felt the Raptor grab her and pull her up to her feet.

He took hold of her suit pack and twisted it, inhuman strength tearing it from its moorings almost too easily. Electrical surges rippled from the rift as he slung her to the side, her weight tearing her away from the pack and sending her tumbling across the ground. Raisa was helpless to catch herself as the armor suddenly weighed down upon her tired limbs like a lifeless sack of scrap metal. The Raptor tossed her severed pack end over end across the dirt,

‘You’re nothing, girl.’ The ethereal growl of his vox-twisted voice echoed behind her as she tried to push an arm beneath her, painful, shallow coughs spitting blood onto the hard dirt, ‘Beneath your armor there is nothing but weakling flesh waiting to bleed.’ She turned her eyes to watch him, his back was to her, retrieving his discarded bolt pistol. With a grunt of agony she shifted her wounded arm to reach for the hilt of her powersword, drawing it slowly up from its sling on her hip.

With her back to the black-armored heathen she pulled herself up weakly onto one knee, every motion forced against the oppressive weight of her now dead suit. She propped the point of her sword into the dirt, resting her forehead against the wrapped leather grip as she heard the traitor finally loading a fresh clip into his weapon. The Seraphim closed her eyes, her thumb poised upon the ignition trigger of her sword and made a silent bid for strength to her blessed protector. The heavy footsteps of the Raptor came up close behind her and the sharp ratchet of his weapon’s slide being cocked back made her eyes snap back open,

‘You are nothing.’ He breathed a mechanically distorted hiss and was about to lower his bolt pistol to the back of the woman’s head,

‘You… are wrong.’ Raisa spoke grimly and forced herself to her feet, her powersword snapping to life as it tore from the dirt and swung around at the Raptor. The sluggish blow glanced off the forearm of his gun hand but he fired anyway, kicking up a blast of damp earth to the side of her before correcting his aim. A blast of shells slammed across her ribs as she moved upon him, it felt like walking in wet rockcrete. The Seraphim made another swing, cleaving a notch from the chaos bird’s chest plate as he punched off another slug that ripped through the shoulder guard of her already withered arm, ‘I am a servant of the living Emperor!’ Her voice cracked with strain as she lashed out at her enemy again, her weary swipe only managing to tear into his thigh, but deep enough at least to draw of gout of his putrid essence onto the dirt.

She ached, fresh wounds bringing a renewed throb to numbed pain receptors. Every bone and muscle simply wanted to collapse under the weight of her armor but the angel held her ground, leveling her blade at the Raptor’s chest,

‘I would bleed forever if my blood could wash your stain from existence!’ Crying out she lunged forward, lancing her blade for the enemy’s chest. She felt the tingling blade scythe into the black metal before a heavy blow knocked her away, stumbling off balance. The sword slipped from her hand and she was turned around, staring helplessly into the gleaming eye slits of her enemy.

Fire flashed across the Raptor’s black mask as he mashed the trigger of his bolt pistol and she felt the concussive impacts tear into her chest and stomach, ripping armor apart and kicking up a mist of broken ceramite and blood from her torso. A few of the heavy projectiles punched cleanly through her, undetonated at the close range, tearing trails of scarlet and gore out from her back. The Seraphim fell back, crashing down heavily into the cast of dim daylight created by the broken roof sections. Her breath left her in a sputtering exhale of bitter coppery liquid as she stared up into the cloudy sky. Her hands came to rest, with some morbid fascination, upon the front of her ravaged armor, feeling the thick heat of her life’s blood running out freely from her wounds. She blinked, almost dreamily, as the cool rain fell across her features and felt herself relax limply against the rain-soaked dirt.

‘And bleed you will.’ The Raptor mocked in his cruel mechanized tone as he stepped near to stand over her, the smoking muzzle of his pistol poised to finish her off. Her eyes were drooping closed when she saw a shadow in the sky above fall over herself and the chaos fiend. Perhaps simply a hallucination of her dire condition.

Suddenly she saw the muzzle of the gun jerked away, the heathen spitting curses as thunder and fire rained down on him from above. His black armor was pummeled by the onslaught, crushed into the flesh beneath with heavy, moist impacts that squelched out licks of purplish blood from his fractured suit. He fell over heavily, lifeless, onto the dirt floor of the warehouse and she could hear the dulcet chime of spent brass falling down amidst the rain,

‘Raisa! Great throne, are you alive down there?’ Her vox crackled with an urgent voice, distorted and weak. She heard the noise then, the vengeful roar of jetpacks above her and the twitch of a smile came across her bruised, bloodied lips as she stared up at the shadow. The shadow of an angel. A voice, strained and coarse, forced its way to her lips,

‘The Raptor scout is dead, Sisters… the Emperor is served.’ The remainder of her breath escaped gently from open lips as her head lolled to the side, bringing her cheek to rest against the cool, damp earth. The pain that cut every fabric of her being fell away as the world faded before her eyes, the garbled voice in her ear growing more distant with every word.

A great roar surrounded the embattled city, resonating like a clap of thunder sustained indefinitely as the Orks advanced in massed assault. Heavy weapons and artillery mounted up on and beyond the walls opened up with a cacophony of their own in response. Autocannon fire ripped across the Ork front lines, painting the wall of green with red stains of exploded flesh and separated limbs. Shells whined overhead to explode amidst the advancing mass, sending up eruptions of blackend earth and broken bodies but the greenskins continued unabated. They fell by the dozens, by the hundreds as they advanced across the killing fields which had once been the 72nd’s frontline emplacements. Still more explosions punched holes in the Ork’s advance as bobytraps left behind in the trenches were tripped, felling greenskin along side human. Though already dark with spilled blood, the ground drank the fresh offering of death without prejudice.

Lieutenant Artur Bandor watched the bobytraps do their work with a grim smirk, ‘That’s right, you bastards, you’re going to pay for every inch.’ He spit and ducked back down into his trench as the Orks began to unload more steadily with their notoriously inaccurate though still acutely lethal small arms. Even of he’d known the men couched in the trench around him he’d not have been able to recognize them. Each was covered helmet to boot with dirt and dry blood, so much that even their regimental colors were as obscure as their individual identities. Even so, for every weary mask of soil and death there was a pair of eyes steeled with a look of grim determination. Bandor nodded quietly as he met each of those eyes in turn. He thanked the Emperor to be in the company of such fine soldiers but knew there would likely be but one reward for their stalwart resolve.

He licked his chapped lips and slapped a fresh clip into his bolt pistol before retrieving the gore-encrusted chainsword leaning against the firing step. The motorized blade began to rumble anxiously as he thumbed it to idle.

Bandor keyed his microbead, ‘All eastern sections, this is it.’ He began. ‘They’ll be in range any minute. Take up positions and lets make the Orks think the road to Koridan was paved straight through hell.’

The atmosphere inside the Field HQ was no less chaotic than on the frontlines. Another attack had been more than expected but the fact that the Orks were now surging in on all sides in unison had tacticians and adjutants running and and relaying orders at a dizzying pace in an attempt to rally the forces defending Koridan effectively. For all the gusto they were putting in, each man in the command center knew as surely as those on the lines that the city stood not a prayer of withstanding such a massed assault, they were simply too outnumbered.

Muted thumps began to jostle the interior of the command center as Ork artillery opened up and Colonel Turo Arcwald had to chuckle. There was little within the city walls worth bombarding as every able-bodied individual in the city was somewhere near the frontlines. At best the Orks might score a hit on the Arvalone’s own artillery pieces but it was more likely they’d simply be battering the very spoils they sought to claim into oblivion. There was a sort of poetic justice in the whole thing as it was the threat of the Ork’s artillery which caused the Arvalone to withold wiring the entirety of the city’s Munitorium supply caches with demolitions charges, for fear they might be set off prematurely. Now it seemed the greenskins might just do the job themselves although there would still be plenty of surprises awaiting them when they arrived to secure their prize.

Arcwald had just turned his attention back to the tactical map which dominated the center of the room when something far more potent than Orkish artillery sent a shockwave through the HQ, causing his half drank metal cup of recaff clattering to the floor.

‘What the throne was that?’ He looked up to a room of confused expressions as another impact rattled the brass gears of cogitator banks and upset another wayward kit cup. The Colonel moved over to the main auspex array, seeing his second in command already in heated discussion with its operator. Lieutenant Colonel Erlis Matzon looked up quickly at Arcwald’s approach, anticipating the question.

‘Whatever it is, its outside the walls, to the east.’ Matzon said, reaching over to indicate the dense blob of contacts which represented the eastern front of the Ork assault. As the shockwaves of the last impact faded and another kicked in the thick mass of contacts seemed to break up a bit. Arcwald tilted his head, studying the auspex curiously. Even Earthshaker rounds wouldn’t be making that kind of racket.

‘Orbital?’ Arcwald asked, a barely repressed glimer of hope to his tone at the prospect reinforcements had finally arrived. Matzon shook his head, not in contradiction but in disbelief.

‘I can’t see what else would be causing it, sir.’ The two shared a few moments of stunned silence until the auspex operator cut in.

‘Colonel! I’m picking up ships in low orbit, Imperial!”

‘Are you sure?’ Arcwald looked down at the screen as if to confirm for himself, though in truth he could tell little beyond basic impressions from the machine’s many cryptic readouts.

‘Well, they definitely look Imperial, sir.’ The operator reported with a hint of apprehension. The Colonel looked up to the comunications officer.

‘Are you getting anything on the vox? Ship identification cyphers? Anything that’ll tell us what those ships are and whose side they’re on?’ The coms officer nodded distractedly, pausing flailing fingers to adjust thick-lensed glasses on the bridge of his nose. Streams of encryption runes flickered past across them as he worked the levers of his cogitator feverishly. The bustle of the HQ had ceased now, with the attention of all within hinged upon this new development. Slowly, a grin of triumph eased its way across the com officer’s lips.

‘The lead vessel is reading as the Cathedral class Battle Barge Blutrache. It’s the Sororitas, the Order of the Fervent Heart!’

Drown by a chorus of cheers and elation, someone in the command center cried out in horror.

Bandor’s ears popped as the shockwave from another ripple of massive explosions washed over the trench. The tremors were so great he’d bitten down on his tongue when the initial salvo hit and the metallic tang of blood now filled his mouth. Next to him one of the other troopers in the trench was looking up over the parapet and shouting excitedly. The Lieutenant leaned up to take a look, and his jaw dropped.

The Ork advance, now scattered and in disarray, was back lit by a seething inferno. Something roared past overhead and Bandor looked up to see a triad of large aircraft swoop over the walls of Koridan. Bright, bloody red, they stood out starkly against the black sky above and firelight glinted upon the bronzed crests on their flanks. Thunderhawks, but whose? Another string of explosions sounded off from further away and he could see from the tint of the sky to the north and south that whoever they belonged to was thoroughly carpeting all fronts of the Ork attack with munitions.

The Lieutenant looked to his vox man, but the trooper simply shrugged impotently. Signals were a mess with all the ordnance going off. Whoever the newcomers were, at least they seemed to be on the same side. Bandor looked back out over no-man’s land. The Orks were running scared in every direction, some still trying to press forward towards the city. Spats of las fire from the trenches were cutting down the few which got close enough and there now seemed to be weapons fire coming from behind the Ork lines as well.

‘So… what now, sir?’ A trooper on the firing step next to him asked. In truth, Bandor had no idea.

A pair of attendants from the medicae had gotten the priest propped up against a wall but the old man was utterly hysterial. He’d apparently lost consciousness for a moment after screaming but quickly came to and resumed his fit. Sedatives seemed to have no effect and it was all the medicae could do to keep him held still. A few of the troopers posted in the bunker stepped in to try and help while everyone else simply looked on aghast.

Arcwald and Matzon exchanged confused looks as another Ecclesiarchy priest ducked into the Field HQ. The newcomer moved quickly to his fellow and began inciting litanies of blessing and protection upon him, forced to shout over the weeping cries of the frenzied man.

‘Sir!’ I’m showing multiple new ground contacts, all fronts.’ The auspex operator called out. ‘The Fervent Heart is beginning a ground assault, they’ve got the Orks on the run!’

It took a moment for the Colonel to notice the chanting of prayers had ceased, and the newly-arrived priest had crossed to where he and Matzon stood,

‘You… what is that you say?’ The priest asked. He was a man somewhere in his mid forties and his face suddenly appeared pale and fretful at something. Arcwald looked at him warily, fearing another abrupt outburst of hysteria.

‘There are Adepta Sororitas, come to ward off the Ork attack.’ He spoke slowly, watching the priest’s fraught expression. ‘The Order of the Fervent Heart.’ At that the priest gasped and staggered back, narrowly bracing himself upon a cogitator bank. Matzon stepped up to help steady him. Colonel Arcwald shook his head, confused. Why were these priests so fearful? ‘Father, what is going on?’

The priest was obviously shaken, though retained his composure far better than his fellow. He simply smiled ruefully and looked up to Colonel Arcwald.

‘The Fervent Heart has not existed since its name was embossed upon and Inquisitorial writ of Excommunication…’ He spoke somberly and it was Arcwald’s turn to gasp. For those words the entire bunker fell silent, including the sobbing priest. ‘Their homeworld was purged and their name struck from the archives of the Ordos. The were pursued, to the very brinks of chaos, but never successfully brought to task for their heresy.’

At the sharp sound of a creaking floorboard the sentry at the window spun around, its battered lasgun barely raised halfway before a blow to the head jerked him violently sideways. A glint of silver flashed from the side of the corrupt human’s skull, dashing blood and gore across the opposite wall before a returning slash lay the heretic’s throat open clean to the spine and sent him to the floor in a flacid heap. There was a damp sputtering like that of a ruined water hose as the man’s death rattle struggled to surface through the torrent of brackish ichor pouring from the grievous wound in his neck. The shadow stepped around the blood pooling on the worn floorboards and moved up aside the window, a curved dagger of bloodied black steel in one hand and the lasgun of its victim in the other.

Though filtered through thick cloud cover and the even thicker smoke and cordite haze of war, the mid-day sunlight made the shadow, Kuril Eugen, flinch. Daytime was not a friend of the Alukard-born trooper or any of his kin. The same native affliction which made the Alukardian’s such peerless night-fighters served to hamper them in lighter hours although, contrary to much speculation and fabricated myths, they didn’t burst into flames at a glance of sunlight. Another of the legends, however, was quite true and it was all Eugen could do to block out the thick scent of fresh blood flooding his nostrils. The taint of corruption rendered the blood of heretics sour and unfavorable but the scent of it, fresh and still pumping from a dying heart, enticed his dark hunger none the less. There would be time later for such indulgence once we free are of this bitter place, he thought, and turned his attention to the rubble-strewn street below the window.

By quick tally he made no fewer than two dozen humanoid contacts and a pair of half-tracks manning the barricade. They had been right to assume a frontal assault would have foundered. The enemy looked to be well-established and double their number in manpower with heavy weapons emplacements and, from the distinctive scent his keen nose was catching, at least one plasma weapon.

‘So, how bad?’ Quizzed the trooper even he was hard pressed to have heard sneak up beside him. Eugen eased back into a crouch against the wall, sparing a rueful smirk for his fellow. The ash, dirt and blood smeared over lean features cracking at the corners of his mouth with the expression.

‘It’s not bad at all. Two-to-one odds, a pair of half-tracks, some emplacements and a plasma in a perigot tree.’ He said casually, reaching over to clean the blood off the black metal blade of his knife on the fatigues of its former owner. Beside him, Arro Marjas chuckled lightly.

‘Is that it? Why with all the sneaking around then?’ The other trooper was grinning a grin that told he was only half joking. The soil of war did nothing but deepen the wicked lines of Marjas’ gaunt, generously-scarred features. A strip of cloth torn off as a makeshift bandana kept back longish, black hair from his face and eyes the color of heated brass carried a habitual glimmer of malice. He leaned up slightly to peer over the windowsill, muttering about a longing for perigot ale, as another unannounced presence cut in.

‘I’m betting there are more in the building across the way from us, there’s regular traffic in and out of there. Probably a staging post.’ A female voice this time, speaking as if to no one but itself. Eugen glanced over to see Maia Kilvora peering out through a narrow fissure in the exterior wall. Dingy sunlight cast a trough across her face though the young woman’s crystalline eyes seemed intent beyond caring.

‘And that means? More heretics to kill.’ Marjas grunted, sitting back from the window and checking over his las-carbine, assuring especially that the serrated bayonet was fixed securely.

‘It means one of us should probably stay here and cover it.’ Eugen replied and Kilvora nodded almost imperceptibly. Marjas, through a few choice oaths, made it clear he was not volunteering for the duty.

‘Don’t worry,’ Kilvora cut him off mid-curse, ‘I’m a better shot than you anyhow.’ Marjas smirked but wasn’t about to argue.

‘Is it time yet?’ He queried, clearly impatient.

‘Most likely.’ Eugen was tinkering with the settings on the lasrifle, drawing an arch look from Marjas. He answered it with the press of a final button, setting the weapon’s capacitors to overload, and pulled the auto pistol from his thigh holster. ‘We need a distraction.’ He said simply. The other trooper was about to retort when a single click sounded in each of their com beads.

Something arced through the air and thudded off the hood of one of the half-tracks. Shouts of question and alarm were drown out a split second later when the thrown lasrifle went critical and exploded in a brilliant ball of fire and energy discharge. The blast cooked one of the troopers standing near the vehicle as well as the gunner outright and peppered a few more with shrapnel while the shockwave caused the front end of the track to slew a few feet to the side. The ambush was on and the enemy was dying before they’d even seen who was assaulting them.

Four stories straight to the ground, Eugen landed as if it were nothing. He sprung towards the nearest emplacement, a tripod-mounted autocannon, passing bewildered enemy troopers along the main barricade. They took notice of the intruder just in time to be caught blindside by las fire as Marjas joined the fray behind him. The enemy soldiers in the emplacement had noticed him as well and he took one out with a shot to the neck as he vaulted a slab of rubble. A few more seconds and his boot was on the edge of the sandbag barrier just as the mounted autocannon was coming to bear on him. Eugen sent the gunner reeling with a brutal kick to the jaw and put a pair of shots through the side of his face as he landed. Marjas shouted a warning behind him and Eugen turned in time to see the enemy soldier he’d shot in the neck struggling to aim his weapon one-handed while he clutched the gushing wound in his throat with the other. Eugen whirled aside as the gun fired wildly and brought his knife across the bridge of the cultist’s nose, the keen edge neatly bisecting the man’s skull.

The sound of something heavy chattering sent him to the dirt just as heavy slug rounds from the gun mount of the other track started tearing into the sandbags around him. The cover was bad at this angle with the barricades not designed to protect from rearward assaults. It was all he could do to wedge himself away from the violent explosions of dirt, any one of which could take one of his limbs clean off. A glance of the dirty sky above showed flashes of red streaking from the building nearest him and the gun abruptly fell silent; Kilvora was on point as always.

Eugen holstered his pistol and grabbed for a lasrifle leaning against the sandbags; full cell. He jerked the ammo belt off one of the dead cultists and peered up over the barrier. Marjas was covering behind the nearest half-track and systematically taking down enemies along the roadblock. He could see confusion on the other side of the street which meant, so far, their plan was working well enough. It was then he saw the cultist with a launcher tube taking aim.

‘Scathing blood, Arro, move. Now!’ He shouted over the clatter of weapons and shouldered his rifle just in time to see the white plume of rocket wash streak across the street.

The detonation wasn’t right. He’d fully expected to be knocked on his back as the half-track went up beside him but instead the concussion hit him from behind, and off center. When he saw the exhaust trail pointed skyward he didn’t even need to look to know that the cultist had been aiming for. Bits of stone and wood rained down on the street from a gaping hole four stories up. The shooter had ducked back to reload. He took about for Marjas but saw the news had already registered with his fellow. The spiteful Alukardian bellowed a curse of rage and charged out of cover. An enemy attempting to sneak around the half-track was caught first, taken under the chin by his barbed bayonet and dragged to the ground before having his head blasted free in a spray of blood and scorched bone.

The sound of roaring engines announced the arrival of the rest of their force and Eugen looked to the other side of the barricade to see a pair of wheeled attack vehicles tearing down the street toward them. The LAV’s were little more than 4×4 civilian trucks with some armor plates slapped on but at least one of them mounted a heavy stubber which opened up on the men now streaming from the enemy outpost on the adjacent street corner. Most of the enemy soldiers along the roadblock were dead or soon to be but now almost double that number were advancing across the street towards them. They had plenty of cover but were going to be overrun by sheer weight of numbers at this rate.

Or not.

Eugen tossed his pilfered lasrifle aside and took hold of the grips of the autocannon mount, twisting it to bear on the enemy advance, and mashed the firing stud. Berms of piled rubble provided enough cover to the incoming troops that the heavy weapon would do little but slow them down, at least it would give them some time to regroup and form a plan. The cannon chattered away, spitting shells into the dugout and stitching burning rounds into the enemy lines. That was when he smelled it.

Plasma, the thick odor of extreme heat and singed oil.

A white hot blast streaked from the opposite side of the nearest half-track, melting through a section of barricade before raking across the side of one of the oncoming LAVs. Rubber melted, metal deformed and the vehicle pitched forward into the dirt and rockcrete of the roadway and flipped, sending the gunner flying. The other skid to a halt, its occupants struggling to scatter as another blast of blue-hot fire struck it dead on, withering the vehicle like candlewax before exploding it in a brilliant fireball as the gas tanks touched off.

The autocannon was dry and Eugen sprang for his discarded rifle, bringing it up just in time to blast open the torso of an enemy trooper edging around from the back of the track. He heard it then, the shrill whine of power coils engaging, and threw himself to the side just as another plasma blast tore through the cab of the half-track and incinerated the autocannon emplacement.

He was there, looming around the glowing, melted husk of the track. Something once human now grossly distended to greater proportions; shy of the hulking might of a traitor marine but only just. The man, if it could still be called a man, wore armor bedecked with crude, riveted plates of metal which seemed to be fastened to his inhuman frame directly rather than worn. His face, a mass of scabs and scar tissue, bore lips peeled back in a permanent scowl to expose sharpened teeth stained with decay. A line of rusted bolts were driven in along the crest of his misshapen skull in place of hair. Eugan had already recovered, his lasrifle up and he realized he had already pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He looked down and saw a glaring red malfunction rune winking up at him.

‘Oh bloody throne…’ He cursed and felt an icy chill of impending doom wash over him. Somewhere in its rotten throat, the chaos scum before him was laughing as he took aim.

The whine of power coils…

Then he heard the cadence of the heretic’s laughter hitch and gurgle to nothing; the shadow hanging over him waivered. Eugan looked up and saw a haze of light slithering around the mishapen officer, there was foul, black blood curdling from his rictus grin which now seemed to sag in distress. The haze shifted swiftly and the heretic twitched in time with it, black blood flicking from unseen cuts in thin lashes. When the blur moved away he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, bleeding out swiftly into the dirt from a myriad of precise wounds. Something both utterly lethal and strikingly beautiful unfolded from the very air itself and poised over the fallen man like a predatory animal examining its kill.

‘Such a shame… blood… so tainted.’ The voice, sweet and mellifluous remarked with an acute note of sadness. Eugen jumped slightly when the beautiful creature punched its bare fist into the fallen heretic’s back, it rooted about a moment before dragging free the thing’s cancerous heart. The organ was torn free and inspected before being cast aside with a hiss, ‘So tainted… a waste.’ With a preternatural grace, the lithe female straightened and regarded Eugen with the woeful expression of a child denied its favorite toy.

‘Thank you, Lethyis…’ He finally managed at length, realizing there was still a battle being fought. The officer’s plasma gun lay a few feet away and he moved forward to retrieve it. Hopefully it would serve a bit better than that damned lasrifle had. The woman had turned away, already distracted. She sighed gently, an acknowledgment? And began drifting towards the lines of incoming troops.

Eugen watched her go, the thing which was human and yet… not. A L’sombra, those who had given themselves (willingly or unwillingly) to the madness of Alukard’s curse and survived with their physical humanity intact. There were differences, some subtle others not so. Their limbs were a bit longer, more flexible and all were whip-cord thin. They moved with an impossible grace that, it is alleged, surpasses that even of the alien Eldar. As those of Alukardian blood enjoy longer average lifespans than typical humans, the L’Sombra are said to be all but impervious to the passage of time. For all of this, it is the eyes which are most telling. He shook off the writhing sense of unease, that stare, branded in his mind from the first time he’d lain eyes on her kind and renewed each time since. Death… no, worse than death. Empty, utterly scathing empty.

He dragged himself from the dirt and sprinted across the street join up with the rest of the platoon. Marjas was covering from behind the other half-track now and met him with a fanged grin as he approached.

‘Spared from death by death itself.’ He chuckled, clapping Eugen on the shoulder, ‘Thought that ugly bastard had your number.’

‘He did.’ Eugen grinned mirthlessly, looking about for their sergeant. ‘What’s the damage?’ He grimaced at the twin wreckages of their LAV’s on the roadway. Marjas leaned up to unload a flurry of shots over the hood of the track.

‘Not a clue. The Sarge is over there.’

It was a scene of utter chaos.

The dark shadows of Castern’s city walls loomed over the killing field, sparkling with the glints of muzzle flashes. They had come up short, way short. Scores of half-buried bodies and ruined armor units littered the collapsing trench lines to the south of the city already and now they were going to add to them. She could hear voices shouting over the clamor of weapons and rain and see the momentary red bolts of las-fire streaking through the darkness and tried to move towards them. It was impossible to do much besides crawl, the muddy earth seemed intent upon holding her fast to wait for death.

A sharp whistle abruptly cut above the din and a violent blast snapped the world into a mute, darkened blur. She flopped along the ground like a discarded rag doll for a short distance before coming to rest on her back, incoherent and dazed. From an inverted vantage point she watched the streak of billowing fire that had been her transport arcing downwards until it crashed in a brilliant bloom of orange just beyond the wall. The cloud billowed out in slow motion and she felt her eyes flutter, a stifling ringing in her ears having replaced the noise of battle.

The more she blinked the heavier her eyes felt and the last thing her dulled senses registered before slipping into total darkness was a sublime feeling of weightlessness.

That smell, a sharp knife of stimuli straight into her head. A wave of noise crashed in around her suddenly, aching limbs and the weight of mud and rain soaking her uniform. She doubled over and coughed, spitting up a mouthful of grit.

‘Well thank the damned Throne you’re alive.’ A seemingly distant voice spoke and something jerked her upright, a few sharp impacts to the cheek jarring her hazy mind back into focus. That acrid smell tweaked her nose again and she raised a heavy arm to shove it away. ‘And still kicking, too. How many fingers am I holding up?’ The voice came again, nearer now as she blinked at the shadow standing over her.

‘Six, you damned mutant. Get that stuff away from me.’ The young woman listed groggily and slumped back against the side of the trench.

‘Yeah, right. Do you know who you are… where you are?’ A hand reached out to prise one of her eyes wide open and flick the beam of the stablight into it.

She flinched away from the light, raising a mud-caked hand to massage aching temples. ‘Sergeant Matsuko Suzume… and we are half-past gakked, if I recall.’ The sergeant grumbled and looked up again, the man was smirking.

Mamoru, the platoon medic, chuckled and clapped her on the shoulder, ‘Welcome back to the land of the not-quite-dead, Sir.’

The ground was restless with the crash of incoming shells and the constant streak of small arms fire from the city walls buzzed through the rainy night like a cloud of irate insects. Up and down the trench line were men shouting and clambering to return fire. Her microbead was a fit of static and sentence fragments, desperate calls for order and situation reports. Thankfully her shotgun was still slung across one shoulder.

Seeing his patient was well the medic moved off quickly to tend other wounded and Suzume switched her vox to her squad’s channel.

‘Third, this is lead, sound off.’ She winced at a whine of static in her ear, ‘Damn this thing… Kyosu! Is anyone reading me?’ With a curse she flicked the vox bead jostled next to her,

‘I’m right here, stop shouting.’ Jinkato Kyosu crouched down below the edge of the trench, a shotgun gripped restlessly in his hands. At this distance the Dragoons were mostly helpless even at full strength with at least half of the platoon being armed for close-quarters rather than ranged firefights. ‘The vox is next to useless, just like the rest of this fecked operation.’ The snide, rat-faced trooper peered over the lip of the trench.

‘Have you seen anyone else from third squad?’ Suzume leaned up to share the vantage point, immediately having wished she’d just left it to the imagination.

Before Kyosu could reply something cracked like thunder high above and they both looked up to see the trail of a missile where it gave way to a fresh plume of debris and fire spraying from the fuselage of another Kaitos transport directly above them.

‘There goes fifth platoon…’ Kyosu muttered, his features lined in orange by the expanding explosion.

Suzume shook her head and spat, ‘What in the hell happened? Why did we drop way out here?’ She unslung her own shotgun and started digging the muck out of its external creases. Kyosu settled back against the wall of the trench with a smirk.

‘First platoon’s Kaitos took a hit and Major Takafumi lost his nerve, ordered the jump. Second and third tried to peel off and come back around but second got blasted right out of the sky and third kept on going, we think they might have gotten some over the wall.’ Kyosu paused to savor the look of disdain on his Sergeant’s face before continuing. ‘We kept on going as well but, well.. you know that story I’d imagine.’ Suzume nodded and glanced up.

‘And fifth… dammit. That gakking idiot… now what are we supposed to…’ She paused mid-sentence, something was screaming and it was getting closer — fast. They both looked around for the source and suddenly something brilliant and hot slammed down on the opposite edge of the trench.

A man, charred and still burning, lay there. He writhed in pain and hollered incoherently as the rain hissed into the flames consuming him. Suzume and Kyosu sat dumbstruck for a moment before the private finally raised his shotgun and blasted the man’s tortured expression into a bloody, ashen pulp. He racked another shell, his features intent as he stared at the now motionless, immolated Dragoon.

‘Sweet bloody Emperor.’ Suzume mouthed quietly, staring at the burning man in front of her, so close she could feel the heat of the flames as they cooked his flesh away; she tried not to inhale the smell.

‘I’ve got some of the squad gathered further down the trench.’ He tilted his head, speaking in an even, sobered tone, ‘Whenever you’re ready to move just give the order.’ Suzume nodded slowly, her eyes turning away to search the trench until they spotted the distinctive shogun helm of an officer further down.

‘Get back to them and keep trying to raise the rest of the squad, I’ll be there soon.’ She racked her cleaned shotgun and moved off in a crouch along the trench, leaving Kyosu to head back to where the rest of their depleted unit waited.

The trench was a swamp. Thick, soupy mud stained with blood half-concealed fallen bodies both old and fresh. All along it men shouted and died as they desperately tried to return fire on the city’s looming walls. She saw the officer, a major, hunkered down with what she assumed was his squad and could hear him frantically yelling between his men as she approached.

‘Major Takafumi!’ She called out and offered a quick salute, ‘The vox seems to be down, Sir. What’s our situation, we need orders!’

The major spun around, looking at Suzume as if she’d just crawled out of a mutie commune, ‘What do you want, Sergeant? Can’t you see I’m busy trying to orchestrate this righteous grox-fething?’

‘Orders, sir, what are your orders?’ She repeated, ducking down low as an explosive round punched the ground a few feet shy of the trench line, ‘The vox is down and…’

‘I know the vox is down, Sergeant, I watched the vox man get turned inside out by a mortar round with my own two eyes!’ The Major cursed and rose up to snap a few shots off with his laspistol. Given the extreme range, it was quite an affectation to say the least. ‘Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of and wait for orders. We’re not going anywhere until I can raise reinforcements or extraction, this drop is a catastrophe!’

Suzume’s jaw clenched. They were the reinforcements, and no one was going to come in here and bail them out, ‘Yes, sir!’ She snapped tersely and turned to bolt back down the trench. She was about halfway to Kyosu’s position when someone on the firing step called out,

‘Incoming!’ it seemed like an understatement but discipline prompted her to dive to the muck of the trench’s floor anyhow, and thankfully so.

The concussion of the blast blurred the edges of her vision and made her ears pop. A large calibre round, most likely a battle cannon, gouged a huge chunk out of the trench ahead. Water, mud and bodies flew in the air and Suzume sprang back to her feet. They were not staying here. She picked up her pace, ignoring the renewed cries of agony from those caught in the most recent bombardment.

The rain was still coming down so hard she almost tripped over Kyosu before sliding to a halt. It was better than she had expected. She counted seven troopers which meant they had only lost three so far.

‘So?’ Kyosu looked up from bandaging his forearm and Suzume shook her head gravely.

‘Hey, its the boss. Nice of you to join us!’ A trooper poised on the firing step glanced in her direction before loosing a volley of full auto las-fire towards the city walls then ducking back down to reload, ‘It’s a beautiful day here outside Castern.’ He chuckled.

Suzume wasn’t amused. ‘Stow it, Saburo. And stop wasting your ammunition.’ She cut sharply and it was Kyosu’s turn to chuckle. He turned to his Sergeant with an expectant look,

‘That’s what we’re supposed to be doing, no? Sitting here waiting for backup while we get picked off one by one?’ He tapped his shotgun on his shoulder.

‘No, Kyosu. We’re supposed to be assaulting that city.’ Suzume was gazing out across no-mans land. ‘They have tanks, hell… they have whatever we had in there. How do you think they shot down the Kaitos? Even if we were going to be reinforced we’d be dead long before they got here.’

‘Hydras, yeah, I saw them.’ Kyosu nodded and gritted his teeth as another battle cannon shell slammed into the ground just beyond the trenches, sending a slough of loose mud pouring between fractures supports. ‘So what are our orders, Sir?’

Suzume looked over each remaining member of her squad in silence before turning back to the dark, imposing facade of Castern. The glare of explosions and gunfire flashed across muddy, rain-streaked and yet indescribably beautiful features; contrasting the sheer deviltry which burned in her eyes.

‘We’re going in.’ She said simply.

It is not power which corrupts
but the greed of a weak mind.

It was some time in the late afternoon yet the sky overhead was pitch black. The artificial twilight lifted at regular intervals in the criss-crossing flashes of lightening amidst the thick clouds above with occasional, violent jabs of searing white punching earthward. Rain was coming down like a solid wave of water, lashing and quite thoroughly drenching everything for miles. In spite of this, twilight would likely settle, clear and unmolested, within the hour. As if the storm had never existed.

This was how they watered the crops on an agri-world, regularly-scheduled tropical downpours. It was somewhat comforting, actually. I would have been a bit worried if every piece of the plot had fallen too perfectly into place. The storm served to set a nicely grim mood for my arrival planetside and the task I was here to see through; best to curb too overbearing a sense of vanity, anyhow.

There were ribbons of fire wrapped around the horizon line, the only trace of a sky beyond the oppressive clouds above. Great fields sprawled out to either side of the rocky ridge we had landed on. An indigenous crop, prized for its raw nutrient value and high seasonal yield. This place, Maitzte Secundus, vital Imperial agri-world that it was. I cared little for the facts and figures. What interested me more were the broken shadows of stonework which wove their way up the side of a craggy hill further along the ridgeline.

I pulled my stormcoat tight and moved towards the ruins as quickly as the gravely, rain-soaked dirt would allow for. Making way behind me were the ex-Arbiter Devi Sutano and Anun Malsaard, a psy-knight. Sutano I was fairly sure I could trust in the matter but Malsaard could’ve been questionable. I only hoped the literal simplicity of his vastly-powerful mind would work in my favor. The three of us comprised half of the soon-to-be late Inquisitor Duvious’ personal retinue, the man who was my master. The man we were here to kill.

There was a vehicle parked at the base of the ruins, a chimera of some scout or command variation judging by the vox and auspex arrays sprouting from its roof. The chimera had its forward stablights fixed upon the large door which marked the entrance to the ancient sanctuary, plucking the area out vividly from the darkness which pervaded around it. As we drew closer I saw movement around the vehicle, figures moving in our direction. I assumed these would have to be local PDF forces and could but hope they recognized an Inquisitorial seal when they saw one.

I continued on with stride unbroken though I could sense Malsvaard’s psychic aura bristling and was quite certain I’d heard the distinctive if lightly muffled rack of Sutano’s autopistol. Truth be told, I found their excitability a bit disheartening.

‘Stop immediately and identify yourself, this is a restricted area!’ One of the troopers aimed a portable stablight in my direction though the effect wasn’t blinding enough that I didn’t notice the other moving off to the side with his lasgun shouldered. I did as ordered and stopped in my tracks. Peering through the glare of the stablight so that I was certain I was making eye contact with the trooper. I raised my left hand, palm out.

‘Alastor Krahle, of the Immortal Emperor’s most holy Inquisition.’ I spoke with some sneer of satisfaction. Junior Inquisitor, albeit; the former matters not so long as the latter is present. I doubted he would be able to discern the difference in one from the other by the design of the rosette inlaid on the black metal of my artificial arm’s palm at any rate. It seemed to do the trick as both the light and the lasgun quickly lowered.

‘A-ah, of course, sir! We’ve been expecting you.’ The trooper stammered out. He seemed young and perhaps rightfully edgy, but that was no excuse.

‘Then get out of my way.’ I spoke, lowering my hand and continuing on towards the ruins, ignoring the pair of slackened jaws and their banal ramblings. A subdued red glow towards the rear of the chimera told its hatch was opened, there was another guardsman standing near it with his lasgun held ready.

‘We’ve taken one of Inquisitor Duvious’ retinue into custody, sir.’ A few of the trooper’s words managed to work their way to my ears,

‘Oh?’ I offered a curious look. He nodded and made about ushering me towards the vehicle, where I was heading anyhow. There were three possibilities who might be in there and I was pretty sure of which it was. The guard at the back of the Chimera as I approached and ducked my head inside to confirm my suspicion.

Seated within, opposite yet another notably anxious PDF trooper, was a large man in a tattered blastcoat and a wide-brimmed hat. I have to admit, I personally found it comical to see him there and in such a state. Silent and handcuffed, with a bulk nearly twice that of the man who assumed to detain him. Kaleb Faust lifted his head in my direction, two sparks of smoldering red peering out from the shadow under his hat.

‘Alastor.’ His heavily augmented voice growled like broken machinery and he nodded a slight greeting. I had to express at least a huff of amusement.

‘Kaleb, good to see you are well.’ I offered the old gun a genuine grin. Fact was, it would have taken quite a number more troopers to actually have detained the seasoned Interrogator. Being well over fifty-percent cybernetic and thoroughly schooled in all manner of combat, I had no doubt he could have massacred this particular squad three times over. He seemed to be acting in good faith, and certainly not in league with Duvious in any sense, which I was thankful for.

I turned from the chimera to regard the trooper standing watch outside.

‘Give this man his weapons and let him go.’ I spoke evenly. The man’s mouth flapped momentarily but a nicely fixed glare seemed to do well in silencing any objection he might’ve had to the notion,

‘Of course, Inquisitor.’ He finally snapped, if not exactly crisply.

Father Mathieu Richter stood at one of the front windows of the church, overlooking the central square of Kaltwald. Down the wide main avenue of the town he could see the foe coming. A mass of soldiers, clad in the liveries of Dornreich’s own PDF garrison, advancing towards the town centre. With indiscriminate volleys of weapons fire they scattered the citizens foolish enough to stand in their way and calmly cut down those who attempted to flee from their assault with disciplined ease. Some among the population had bravely taken up arms against the turncoats but their disorganized resistance was of little consequence to the attacking soldiers and the enemy pressed onward unabated.

At the window on the other side of the church’s main door a heavy bolter opened fire, spewing lines of explosive death into the ranks of traitors as they filed into the square. This, at least, seemed to be cause enough for them to slow their advance and take cover but it was certainly at best only a temporary setback.

The aged priest shared glances with a few of the other men standing vigil in the church’s interior. Fellow clergy like himself yet most far younger and appearing quite unaccustomed to the feel of weapons in their hands. Never the less, the air of quietude which had once blanketed the town of Kaltswald seemed still to hold some reign within the walls of the church. Every man assembled carried a look of fierce resolve, waiting upon a final note of calm for the coming battle. Their lives had steeled them for this moment despite the awkwardness with which they now took up arms. They carried pristine weapons, well-kept and untested like the very men who bore them. Both would be tried today. Peace and prosperity would be shown for the fleeting dreams that they were. The inevitable, the grim reality of existence, had finally caught up.

There is only war.

Richter turned and moved away from the window, taking deliberate strides down the central aisle of the church towards the raised altar at its far end. Though his weathered features creased with the same resolve as his fellows they carried something else none of them could have possessed. In just under a century of life the precious few years of peace he had enjoyed back here on his homeworld did little to dim the memories of the decades of bloodshed which came before them. While the aged priest bore a posture and vital gait which defied the truth of his long years there was nothing which could disguise the horrors of a past his ice blue eyes spoke so easily of.

As he ascended the broad steps up to the altar he paused to make the sign of the aquilla to the great statue of the Emperor which loomed above it before continuing. He approached the altar and lay a hand upon its edge, letting the pad of his thumb press to a hidden sensor which would verify his identity as he spoke a quiet incantation of opening to the mechanism’s machine spirit. With a resonant click the top of the altar swung slowly upward on a concealed hinge to unveil the items secreted within.

Most prominent of the items was a large chainsword which lay across the entire length of the hidden compartment. Etched with catechisms of damnation and adored with long-faded purity seals, the wicked teeth of the sword glinted even now like diamonds in the prismatic light of the chamber. Situated next to this was an elegant pistol of artisan design. It was slender and appeared almost fragile, with a mirror-polished blade which extended out a full foot from beneath its narrow barrel. Despite its delicate appearance, Richter smiled inwardly as he took it in hand and felt the weapon’s surprising, reassuring weight.

The priest quickly went about sifting through his effects, securing the sword and pistol in a mutual holster which situated them across his back. Most of the trinkets were just that, tokens from his past which had no immediate use. He fished out a small monocle from amongst them and affixed it over his left eye, its translucent screen flickering to life with a blinding scroll of unintelligible diagnostic information. Even so, a momentary jab of pain in his temple assured that the interface was still functional.

There was only one other thing Richter could think of and it was not something safely hidden away in secret. Moving away from the open altar he approached the pulpit where a thick tome lay open.

Bound in black and edged with plates of antiqued gold, the book was quite certainly ancient; written and expanded over the course of many centuries. Richter’s own hand had even contributed to its pages though such latter additions seemed almost out of place compared to the faded texts worn into the bulk of its pages. This was the same volume from which he read almost every day before his congregation, yet it was also the same he had carried on journeys to purge feral and alien worlds in the name of the God-Emperor. He ran his fingers reverently across the open page before turning unerringly to another, one far more familiar to him. The litany of battle.

Somewhere at the head of the patchwork crowd of soldiers an officer was hollering out commands and attempting to effect some measure of order. He was a considerably larger than average individual with a crop of dirty blonde hair and one augmentic eye which seemed to radiate his evident dislike for his present assignment in its baleful red glow. One after another he read down a dataslate of regiment names, alphabetically calling out the orphaned troopers into ranks.

‘Diablomunda 21st!’ The officer finally bellowed and the three troopers in black, still rubbing their spurned eyes, glanced in his direction.

‘That’d be us…’ Ario Kaspar grumbled, blinking a few times as his pale eyes finally began to adjust to the flood-lighted hanger. He regarded the officer for a few moments before sharing a look with his companions, another man and a young woman.

Liore Masreka, with a mop of restless platinum blonde and drooped eyes, appeared totally disinterested in anything but resuming the nap she’d been enjoying on the flight in. The other man was distracted in rummaging though his kitpack. A bit heavier in build and with blonde hair to Kaspar’s jet black, Dien von Belloch sported a suit of black carapace armor rather than a flak jacket and fatigues like his companions. The right arm of the suit had been removed, leaving the black metal of his augmentic arm to fend for itself. Belloch finally looked up as he produced a pair of sun shades from his pack and slid them down over his eyes with a look of smug satisfaction.

Up front the address was repeated with an intone of impatience and Kaspar gestured his comrades to follow before pushing off through the press of bodies himself. The black shapes wove their way deftly to the head of the crowd and fell in where the officer was indicating. As they approached the red glare of the man’s eye struck them all in turn like a targeting laser.

‘That it?’ The man grunted and Kaspar, at the head of the three Diablomundans snapped to attention and answered.

‘Sir, yes sir!’ He spoke crisply and the officer, now identifiable as a Lieutenant from closer up, sneered down at him.

‘Welcome to the Praedus 44th, you’ll know me as Lieutenant Dross. There will be someone along shortly to figure out just who the heck you are.’ Dross said, finishing with a flash of faux amicability across his weathered features before he continued down the line shouting out more names.