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***
The lights flickered on and off. The pale light bounced off hundreds of helmets in front of him. Rank on rank of guardsmen packed in like cattle.
The roar around them was deafening. The corrugated steel floor below bucked and heaved intensely. He thought he was going to be shaken to death. The lights went out as the transport slammed into turbulence. They lit back up, dimly casting over the guardsmen. Their faces were inked out in shadow under their helmets.
"AND GREAT GOD-EMPEROR!" Sanario shouted over the explosive violence of their re-entry, "GIVE VICTORY UNTO ALL THY SERVANTS, AND UNTO EVERY HEART STRENGTH, AND MIND ABILITIES
TO THY MANY TASKS OF BATTLE!"
The transport heaved again. He would have been knocked clear across the room if not for the fact that he was packed in between his priest and his standard bearer like salted fish in a can.
He looked up at his standard. The golden hand of the king of Folera glinted down at him. It was in his royal grace that he must put his faith, and the might of all his servants.
"SO MAY
IT BE, NOW AND FOR ALL TIME,
WE BESEECH THEE!"
He muttered a silent amen to himself as the priest finished his prayer. Just about then, the transport lurched, this time not from re-entry, but from the retro-engines cutting in. The room went dark and the floor began to shake and tremble horribly, the shock of the vibration rushing up his legs and making him feel off-balance. The screeching of the engines washed over them in the pitch blackness.
The craft quickly decelerated, pinning the officer into the floor. He could feel the blood pooling into his brain. He gritted his teeth uncontrollably.
The lights flashed back on. Everything began to slow and to quiet. It was time. The guardsmen began to stir. Some of them began to take off their helmets, now that they weren't needed.
He took in a deep breath and looked at his priest. The two men nodded at each other and turned around to face the giant steel door in front of them. He braced for impact.
Not quickly enough, though. The craft suddenly slammed into the ground, sending a shockwave up through the floor, and knocking everyone down to their knees or into their neighbor. Shouts of surprise filled the chamber as guardsmen clambered back up to their feet in disarray.
Some looked for dropped items while others struggled to right themselves. The priest bent over and helped him up. The weight of his massive power fist had always been cumbersome to bear. He gave him a quick look to let him know that he was alright. A relative silence filled the room.
The lights went out again, except for a pair of large green ones in front. With a loud whine, two large pistons began to move into action, dripping grease down onto the walls and spattering a bit onto the guardsmen below. A bright crack of light opened as the giant door slowly swung down.
He gazed up into the sky, angry clouds swirling ominously above him.
He took a deep breath. The door clanged against the rocky ground below as it finished it's great swing open.
"CHAAARGE!!!" Sanario shouted at the top of his lungs. Guardsmen began to pour out of the landing craft in a great wave of brown and white.
His feet churned beneath him. He was right in front, with his standard. That was the only acceptable place for a Foleran officer to be at a time like this.
He and his men cascaded down the ramp and onto the rocky hillside. They poured down the hill with the momentum of a battle tank, shouting a war cry as they went. He could see the rocky outcropping in front of him. Silhouetted against the grey and swirling sky, a lone comms beacon stood out in stark contrast. Between him and the outcropping was the bottom of the hill, and a series of ramshackle barricades. They seemed unoccupied.
He frowned. Something wasn't right. Where was the enemy?
His forces made it to the bottom of the hill, and ran over the first defense line. Then they made it up to the next one.
The rocky bastion was in sight.
To the left, a massive city grew up, its ruined buildings casting jagged points against the sky. They were attacking a gateway from the side. The barricades made a V shape to funnel attacking enemy into the hardened gates of the city. The giant boulder before him must have been key to the gate's defense at some point.
He looked across the wide road to the other side of the barricades.
Then he saw them.
***
Justicar Gaius Floridan Maximus Penisius IV looked down over the battlefield. Everywhere behind him, the troop transports were screaming out of the sky. Soon there would be thousands upon thousands of Imperial Guardsmen. Even some nearby Space Marines of the Space Wolves chapter was nearby, ready to join the assault. Good, everything was going to plan.
But that wasn't why the justicar was here. Simply winning battles was far beneath Penisius. Anyone with half a wit could clog a battle full of guardsmen and come out victorious eventually. Of course, helping ensure that the forces of the Emperor were met with victory was a part of his jurisdiction, but he didn't feel the need to involve himself with direct intervention... yet.
No, the grey knight was here for a greater purpose.
His mind drifted into the warp. He felt more at home there than he did in the material world. What others heard as the screeching terrors of the darkness sounded to him as a strange yet beautiful symphony. In a way, the empyrian seemed more structured and settled than the realspace around him.
Then it awoke in his mind. There was a terrible disturbance around him. At once there was gathering up immesurable hatred and malice, and at once there was nothing at all. The two dissimilar realities conflicted with each other. The two seemed to be creating a swirling vortex like a whirlpool caused by two currents of water colliding. This was it. This was what drew the justicar to this place.
He looked down into the street. A ruined banedblade sat parked across the way.
It was pointing down towards one of the gates to the city. A gate which was now being charged at from the side by a massive cascade of guardsmen. Like ants charging a wounded spider.
Then he felt it again. It was a shadow in the warp that seemed to filter through the very fabric of existence itself. Like oil dripping through a cheesecloth. Drop by drop, it slowly made its way through.
There was some unseen threat nearby. If it materialized here, its power would undoubtedly rip apart the guardsmen outside the city into merciless shreds, but that was only a secondary concern to him. There would always be more guardsmen. No, what was important was that the threat was able to cloak itself in the very power of the warp itself. With this kind of power, whatever this malicious entity desired, it would have arcane means to achieve. THIS was the threat. Nothing outside of the light of the Emperor was suffered to have this type of power.
The justicar stood looking into the city as the clouds swirled angrily overhead. A single icy rain drop fell from the sky and pattered on his helmet.
There! He could feel it exactly now. He let his mind sink further, his soul completely enveloped in the warp. Only the servos in his armor kept his physical form upright while Penisius briefly left it behind.
He stared through the warp. A hundred lesser demons swirled around him - easily capable of ripping apart a dozen mortal men, but staying away in awe of his presence, knowing that they stood no chance against him. His mind reached into the vortex. In a brief moment of clarity, he understood.
His physical form gasped back into life. His heart raced frantically as he controlled the breathing of his again-functioning lungs. He sighed to himself.
One day, he wouldn't come back.
The justicar re-adjusted himself to his body. After straightening everything out, he regained his bearings.
He lifted his nemesis weapon before his face as his grey knight brethren stood silently behind him. Slowly, the justicar began to chant, returning only a part of his mind to the warp. He would only need that part for this.
The wind suddenly whipped up around him, sending his cloak billowing in the gathering storm. Penisius gathered in his powers. He began to re-order the warp in front of him. He could feel the strain as the two realities began to fight against each other. It built as a pressure and then eased into a scream.
He continued his chanting as the world around him desperately began to convulse under the weight of the warp. The justicar focused. Reality just didn't understand. He was trying to match the empyrian version of the material with the material version of the material. He wasn't at fault here, he was merely attempting to restore order. It was the unseen threat that was making such a disturbance. The empyrian didn't seem to understand, and was attempting to put up a feeble resistance.
And then it clicked. For a brief moment, the justicar was fully in both worlds at the same time, and both worlds finally came together to form a single reality.
Reluctantly, the enemy dissolved back into vision.
Penisius winced. Of course.
The justicar nodded to one of his knights, who immediately activated a small beacon. Moments later, the Justicar's army fell out of the warp, directly in front of the menace.
The battle began instantly. His dreadknight unleashed its massive flame thrower into a stream of enemy gaunts. The creatures roared in pain, but more came in over their flaming carcasses. With animal instinct, they leaped up onto the mighty machine. The grey knight began to bash at them with his massive hammer, but there were just so many of them.
From behind, strike squadsmen arrived and began pouring fire into the enemy as it rushed up the street. The ones nearby began to peel off, but a great mass of them continued to rush the gate. There was some intelligence at work here. Something was directing the horde to merely delay him while the rest charged the landing craft. What was it? Who was out there?
With a cruel laugh that echoed in his mind, the last of the unreality around him finally gave way. The warp snapped back into place, like a blanket whipped back out over the bed sheets. Penisius turned and looked. There was his enemy, towering over him.
The swarmlord hissed down at him, seemingly recognizing the justicar.
With a flash, Penisius sent a psychic signal to those around him. Immediately his grey knights responded, one of them charging in front of the justicar. Despite the lingering malice of the monstrous creature, the justicar moved nearly instantly through the warp. He found the minds of several nearby Imperial Guardsmen who were manning lascannons. He jerked their minds towards the new threat while implanting a sense of urgency. His mind found a pair of his psychically-charged dreadnoughts and immediately controlled their metal tombs to manually present their rotting drivers with their target. He reached out and picked a drop pod out of the sky, and altered its course nearby.
The world began to move again, despite Penisius' protests. There was too much work to be done.
Before him, the world moved in slow-motion, trying to rapidly speed back up into normal time. The swarmlord before him lifted six massive bony weapons and immediately went to work. Two of them chopped at the grey knight in front of him, while another parried a halberd strike, while simultaneously striking for the knight's head. One of them flung out at the Justicar himself. He quickly dodged out of the way.
A headless grey knight fell to the ground, as more charged in after it. The justicar watched the insanely fast movements of the swarmlord. One of his knights parried four attacks at the same time, while another lost his force weapon. It was graceful. It was awful. Penesius looked, carefully noting... there! That was the pattern.
The justicar stabbed forward with his weapon. He unleashed a psychic blast as the blade bit flesh. The warp screeched in horror as the two psychic minds touched for the briefest of moments.
The justicar was filled with fear.
His psychic attack found itself canceled with contemptuous ease, the weapon on his hand winked out, and became nothing more than a mundane piece of sharpened steel. The weapon burrowed itself into the giant creature's flesh.
The swarmlord screeched and lurched backwards as it continued to attack with six massive swords at once. As it viciously hacked, it could tell that it was now before one who could bring it injury.
As it reared up, from behind it came under a torrent of attack from the nearby guard lascannons. Heaving pulses of power ripped through its carapace, spraying ichor onto the platform. While it writhed in pain, it mercilessly hacked apart a grey knight with a massive blade, cutting him in two from head to feet. Everything was dying all at once.
The justicar took a moment to see the rest of his reinforcements arrive.
Penisius turned back in front of him. There the giant creature stood, towering above him. The lower half of its chitinous body was soaked in blood, dripping down onto the corpses of the entirety of his knights. The upper half of him was coated in ichor, pulsing out of a dozen gaping holes. Its vacant eyes stared at him.
The gargantuan creature began to shudder. It let out a long, hissing breath as it began to lean forward.
The creature began to shake itself, flinging gore everywhere like a wet dog leaving a pool of water. When it had wicked itself clean, it let out another shuddering breath.
No... it was... laughter.
The justicar looked down at where his blade had pierced the monstrous hide. The flesh writhed and pulsed, scar tissue frothing up to the surface and closing the wound. He looked up at the massive armor plates. The ichor stopped spurting as the wounds began to close themselves.
In a few terrifying seconds, the creature was nearly whole.
He could feel in the corner of his mind that his reinforcements had all been butchered save a few now too far to be of aid. The guardsmen would be on their own against the tyranid menace. Just like he was alone, now.
Penisius lifted his worthless piece of non-psychic steel, gripping the handle tightly. The swarmlord lifted all of his dripping boneswords into the air.
It attacked with all six of them at once.
The enemy continued to advance up the street.
***
"Incoming!" Melchoir shouted as he and his troops began to pass over the second barricade.
The enemy had set its sights on their position, and waited until they crossed into the roadway before they opened fire. Enemy heavy weapons poured in, strafing all up the hillside. A large crackling boom pealed from next to the officer. He turned and looked as the dust blew away and saw that an enemy vehicle had managed to wipe out nearly a whole squad of conscripts in a single shot. He turned and looked at his regular infantry. He had equipped them well with heavy weapons just for this task. He pointed at the enemy vehicles.
"Fire!" he shouted as the men rushed forward to get set up behind the second barricade. Basilista were wheeled forward and their large power packs clipped into the side of the guns. Shortly the booming snap of the large laser cannons started to fill the air. The vehicle that had thrown the blast at the conscripts suffered a direct hit. The officer could see a prismatic flash as its quantum shielding went down.
"And that one!" he ordered, pointing at a fast-moving skimmer. He had seen this enemy's command barges before, and he could well-appreciate just how big of a threat they were. "Bring it down!" he shouted, and his own veterans took careful aim with their basilist cannon. With a perfectly-timed shot, they blew the vehicle out of the sky, sending wreckage scattering across the field.
He looked back at the advancing forces, glad to see some space marines that were on his side for a change rolling up behind him. He observed the rest of his forces pouring out of the massive transport. He looked down and caught several of his lascannoners up the hill shifting fire away from his targets and onto something in the city that he couldn't see from down on the road.
Melchoir was about to get more forceful with his orders when he felt something strange. A low rumble seemed to well up beneath him, lightly shaking the earth. The officer looked at his priest, who was too busy shouting at others. It slowly crescendoed beneath him until the ground was shaking like an earthquake.
Then, in a spray of rock and dirt, a massive, monstrous creature blasted up out of the ground, and then another. They stood there, dozens of feet tall, a swerving, writhing pile of blue razors as long as a man was tall. The giant creatures shreiked as they burst from the earth, rearing up on their tails, looking for fresh prey.
From over their heads, the angry clouds spewed forth a torrent of enemy fighters, breaking out of the sky to begin their strafing runs on his position.
Melchoir stood with mouth agape.
Those guardsmen who had any sense to them dove for cover as the enemy fighters came in. Heavy weapons fire from the sky and from across the road tore into them. As he stood stunned in front of the barricade he watched an enemy flier swoop down and engulf an entire squad of space marines in a baleful fire, wiping them out in a single shot.
Those in the front row near the monstrous creatures that didn't immediately break in panic were suddenly and brutally eviscerated. The guardsmen had to choose to leave cover and get shot by their aerial foe, or stay put and get ripped to gory pieces by the monstrous ones. Panic gripped everywhere.
Before one of the creatures, the conscripts stood in frozen horror. Without so much as lifting one of it's claws, the psychic creature stared at its foes and made its attack. Suddenly, all of the conscripts around it began to scream in inhuman tones. Blood began to spurt from their eyes, mouths, and noses. Choking on their own blood, their very souls began to boil and rip out of their mortal flesh. The officer and his priest looked on as the monster seemed to grow and pulse as the minds and bodies of the terrified guardsmen were completely ripped apart.
Those not immediately in the blast ran away as fast as they could. A complete rout from the barricade was forming.
"That..." Melchoir began, trying to find his courage, "That one!" he finally managed, "Bring that one down!" Those guardsmen near him unleashed a volley of lasguns, but it was the meltaguns and lascannons that had the most to say to the new monsters. The enemy was in force, but the loyalist reply was equally fierce. Space marine autocannons opened up along with other specialist anti-tank units. They shredded up at the sky, desperate to pick off enemy aircraft while others targeted the monsters in front of them. A nearby dreadnought's lascannon blew open the psychic menace with a single shot while the other shreiked as Foleran meltaguns and space marine plasma began to pierce its hide.
Then he felt it again. That rumble. "Look out!" the officer shouted, "From below!" It was too late.
From beneath them more burrowing tyranid burst out of the ground. These were smaller, but no less horrific. Instead of reeling from the ground and attacking with a myriad of rending talons, these monsters swelled up and then belched out great blasts of flame onto his guardsmen. Those that had managed to run from the barricade were caught completely helpless in the incineratrion. Everywhere in front of him, a great sheet of flame rolled forward, swallowing up more and more guardsmen.
The panic of the combined tyranid assault from beneath their feet was total. Everywhere guardsmen and space marine alike began to run backward. From behind, though, more guardsmen were still running forward down the assault ramp from the transport. So long as there were guardsmen, there was always defense against the foes of the Emperor.
A fleeing guardsman practically bowled over Melchoir. He got himself back up when the priest grabbed him by his flak armor. "You have a meltagun, guardsman!" Sanario shouted in his face, "USE
IT!"
The guardsman was shaken to his senses by the priest and turned towards the new monstrous creatures that had belched fire at them. He pointed his gun over the burning corpses and fired as he ran towards the enemy. One of the two creatures began to peel apart, chitin melting away as the guardsman ran back up the hill towards them. With a sudden high-pitched squeal, the tyranid began to disintegrate.
Then, without warning, it erupted in a massive fireball. The detonation sent the nearby survivors reeling.
"See men?" Sanario shouted, "Who now can stand against the knights of Folera!"
"Keep firing!" Melchoir added, "Keep up the pressure!"
The scattered remnants doggedly obeyed. One of the basilista opened up at the remaining creature of the initial attack and threw a lascannon blast right into its head, knocking it clean off of its writhing torso. Its brain disconnected from the rest of it, the tyranid creature flopped to the ground, spasming erratically, its huge claws uselessly scything into the air.
"Come on!" Sanario shouted again, "Forward men, in the name of the King, you will press the assault!"
From up the hill poured even more guardsmen in an endless human wave. A tight bundle of conscripts rushed forward against impossible odds against the remaining monster in front of them as it prepared another great flaming blast of its fiery breath.
In a blinding spray of unaimed lasfire, the conscripts bowled into it. A thousand shots pierced its thick, chitinous hide, followed by a thousand more. Bit by bit the creature simply broke apart under the unyielding torrent of their lasguns. The thing died spectacularly just as the first of the guardsmen made it up to its carcass.
Immediately a few began to pull out cutting tools to get themselves a trophy when another wave of enemy attack aircraft swooped down shredding into the victorious conscripts. Caught between the fliers and the crossfire from the other side of the road, the second wave quickly began to meet their bloody end on the hillside before they could even make it to the second barricade.
As the survivors began to scatter, Melchoir noticed that, with the exception of his command staff, a few priests, and a few remaining survivors he was now nearly alone at the front of the attack. A widening gap was opening up between him and the next wave of his troops rushing down the hill towards their doom.
Meanwhile, the enemy across the street slowly began to advance. Skimmers started to float towards him, continuing to lay down their murderous barrage. The officer looked up at the rocky outcropping. The enemy had taken it.
But then he saw something else. The enemy had hammered on him and his guardsmen, but their numbers were so great that the enemy had been slowed down. They had been distracted killing guardsmen.
Meanwhile, from the other side of Melchoir's hiding place, a contingent of space marines had managed to push forwards against all odds up to the base of the rock. Melchoir could feel it. The balance was about to tip. The officer could see a handful of skimmers, but no other ground forces. The enemy on the ground had been slowly ground away by attrition. The moment was right. The officer turned to the priest. "Do it."
Sanario turned around and looked at the men of the next wave charging down the hill into enemy fire.
"Men of Folera!" the priest bellowed over the sounds of war, "Look here how I stand! Look here how your officer Melchoir of the house of Theleos stands by my side. See the hand of the king on this standard here. We are yet in the fight! We are not beaten! We shall never fail nor surrender! Onward! Onward men! Charge!" the priest waved his massive eviscerator over his head as he stood up onto the barricade.
"Charge I say! Destroy our accursed enemy! Send these foul xenos to whatever hell the Emperor has for their wretched souls!"
Melchoir turned and looked as the enemy formed up around the hill. The first space marines in slowly began to succumb to the weight of enemy fire as they tried to scale the height. Guardsmen rushed past the officer in an avalanche of imperial might. They funneled between the barricades and charged forward into the murder zone of enemy fire.
"Yes!" Sanario continued, "Eviscerate the foes of your God-Emperor. Destroy the foes of our blessed king, his faithful servant! Onward now! Nothing can stop us!"
Wave after wave of guardsmen were cut down in their bloody assault. Wave after wave stepped in to fill the gap, pushing ever forwards. Supporting fire began to take down the enemy vehicles one by one. Melchoir directed his lascannon team, blowing up an enemy skimmer and sending its few passengers flying with the burning debris.
The enemy began to buckle at the thunderous weight of the Imperial Guard. The enemy at the top of the hill shot down at the conscripts, taking fire in return. As they started taking casualties, they began to withdraw against the crashing wave of guardsmen. Melchoir looked on, inspired, as the first of his forces climbed onto the rocky outcropping, shouting as they reached the summit.
The priest continued to shout. "Keep moving forward, you are ordered to-"
Suddenly, an explosion hit the barricade. The blast of shrapnel end debris threw the officer off his feet. Sanario suddenly engulfed in a blinding spray of light and sparks as the shockwave hit his rosarius field, flinging the hapless priest through the air. Everywhere dust and debris scattered in the wind.
Melchoir winced in pain as he tried to get himself up, the concussive force of the blast leaving a horrible ringing in his ears. Dazed, he managed to make it up onto one knee, only to see his command squad and every other guardsman flung around him as a casualty.
He looked around for the source of the blast, and then he saw it. There were enemy hiding in the city itself. They had come rushing down the road from the other side, and were just now coming out of the gate to counterattack. The officer thought to himself frantically. On his left, the enemy were fast coming in. On his right, the enemy had attacked the hill again, and had driven the conscripts off, causing them to run in a panic.
He needed to get out of there.
Behind him, he caught his basilist team making a break for it, dragging their gun behind them. They had somehow miraculously survived unharmed, and were trying to make it back to the relative safety of the first barricade. Stumbling over the ruins, the enemy strafed at him unsuccessfully as he freed himself of the barricade and caught back up with them.
"Stop!" he shouted. The lascannon team ignored him. "Stop I say, that's an order!"
The basilist gunner turned and saw Melchoir running after them. The gunner looked at the loader uncertainly. They stopped moving backward, letting their gun rest back onto its struts.
"Here. We. Will. Stand. And. Fight." Melchoir instructed them. Pausing between each word as his mind tried to catch up with itself. They were in front of the first barricade. More guardsmen were pouring in behind them.
From overhead, an enemy flier swooped down. The officer recognized it from before. It was the great mechanical dragon that had been wiping out whole squads of space marines. This time, it lunged down from the gathering storm and opened its mouth.
A gushing jet of pale green flame lashed out from the flying machine. Instantly the conscripts reaching the first barricade burst into flames. The flier continued a long, graceful dip, leaving a long line of incinerating guardsmen, panic overtaking them in the holocaust. Again, they began to break and run.
"I am so... SICK... OF THESE DAMNED AIRCRAFT!" Melchoir shouted in a rare burst of anger. "You!" he shouted, pointing his finger at his lascannon team, "You will set up your gun and prepare to fire!"
Shocked by the officer's suddenly intimidating presence, the heavy weapon crew quickly went to work preparing their gun on the hill side, oblivious to the incoming enemy fire that was now being drawn at them from the road and the city gate. The loader hot-swapped a new battery as the gunner knelt down and grabbed the trigger. The officer wheeled around the gun and stood behind them.
The arcane enemy flier whirled around to take another pass at the guardsmen. The team on the ground had a clear side shot as it traversed across in front of them.
"Wait for the flier to begin its dive," Melchoir ordered, "it will lose its sideways flight as it turns to attack down. Be ready."
The mechanical dragon continued its flight, oily smoke pouring out behind it. The officer saw that one of the wings had been torn up. It was only going to be able to make a clockwise turn to dive. The creatures head turned and acquired a new target on the ground.
"NOW!" Melchoir shouted. The gunner pulled the trigger, and a massive laser blast rent the air. The beam of light shot forward up into the sky. The shot passed clear through the gaping hole in the flier's wing, and punched into the other one from behind, ripping half of the wing clear off.
The mechanical beast attempted to stay airborne as it sped into its dive, but its new groundward trajectory and its inability to steer itself caused the flier to plummet towards the ground like a meteor hurtling towards the earth. The beast careened out of control, ramming into the city gates, it's head and neck snapping off before the body crashed into a ruin, heaving out a massive, oily plume of fire and smoke.
"There," the officer exclaimed in satisfaction, "Now all we've got to do is..." his voice trailed off.
Behind him, more of his guardsmen were advancing, but the flood had waned to a trickle.
"Sir!" came the voice of a junior officer. "What?" Melchoir replied, turning towards him, "Yes?"
"Sir, we have done all we can, we have to get to a position of safety."
"What?" Melchoir demanded, "We're still winning this fight. Send in more of my guardsmen!"
"There are none to be had, sir," the junior officer pleaded.
Melchoir looked around him. His junior officer was right. All around him were the bodies of his group. Many dead, many wounded, some run off. This was it. There simply was no more of Melchoir left to attack with.
The officer looked up at the rock ahead of him. The desperate fight was continuing, with more space marines flooding in, and the enemy crushing in to counterattack.
"There is nothing for us here, sir," the other officer implored, "this fight must be left to others now."
Reluctantly, the officer was forced to agree. Another giant landing craft was starting to touch down near him, as the one that he had arrived in began to take off. In moments hundreds more guardsmen would be pressing down on the enemy.
"Very well," Melchoir replied. "I want you to find Sanario and the other priests and get back as soon as possible. I'll meet you on the other side of the hill."
The junior officer reluctantly saluted before he and his squad sprinted towards the second barricade. Melchoir himself scrambled up the hill, trying to make it out of the fight as best he could.
***
It was raining now. That same damned freezing sleet as when he had left. Melchoir vainly huddled down into what would generously be called a shallow dip, trying to defend himself against the weather.
In the wrinkle in the hillside, a few dozen conscripts sat around him. A few of his regulars were there too. The junior officer had done his job, and had managed to save Sanario and two of the priests, as well as bring back the standard. Unfortunately, he had been shot down in the process.
From the other side of the hill, they could hear the battle continuing to rage, the occasional enemy gunfire sweeping over their heads as they huddled in defilade behind the hill.
"What do we do now, sir?" one of the conscripts asked.
"We hold here until we get a new unit," Melchoir replied.
"Oh," the conscript replied.
The wind picked up in a gust and lashed the guardsmen with more tiny droplets of sleet.
"So," the conscript said after awhile, "You know, since I survived the battle and all, does that mean that I can get promoted to full guardsman?"
"No," the officer replied.
"Oh," the conscript replied again.
"But you know what I can do, I hereby promote you to the rank of first conscript," the officer proclaimed as he huddled down for warmth.
"What does that mean?" the conscripts asked, uncertainly.
"You don't want to know," Melchoir replied.
"Oh."
The conscript looked anxious.
"Who's up for a prayer?" Melchoir asked the remnants of his group. No one replied.
The officer motioned towards Sanario anyways.
The priest flipped through his book, looking for a good one.
***
Cratfworld Alaitoc (
Order of the Red Mantle (
Grand (little) Army of Chaos, now painting! (
