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== Hollow Men ==


This is what we call victory.

The scarred hulls of starships visible in low orbit. The taste of ash, drifting across the skies of Terra. The wind carrying rumours, scourging a blasted cradleworld with tales of a dead Warmaster and the fallen Emperor.

I would care if I were able. I have tried. But my mind is a numb thing, now.

The commander of our company trudges in. He is as ragged as we are, soot-smeared and waxy-eyed, as if half of him is somewhere else. It is a look I recognise well.

‘Get yourselves ready, lads. We head out in five minutes.’

I check the fuel and propellant tanks of the flamer as I do every day, tapping the indicators that always seem to stick. I confirm the functionality of the triggers and wait for the others in my platoon. In the corner of my eye, my wife waits, quietly indistinct. The children are not with her, and for that small mercy, I am thankful.

I keep my eyes on the battered metal door of the repurposed manufactoria and the sunlight that creeps in as it begins to rise.

We go out, the day a grey haze, and we burn the filth from the earth.

*

The world is different now. It is traumatised by what Horus unleashed, and abnormalities linger in the churned imprints of God-Machines' feet. Wreckage that defies explanation litters the landscape while singularities of the surreal haunt the ruins. All of it must be purified before the Imperium can rebuild what was lost.

We enter the gutted shell of a building. The low, relentless hum of flies greets us as we pick our way between rubble and dead traitors and las-seared Beastmen. Some of our own lie amongst them, but it doesn’t matter. Fire to remove the taint and fire to honour the martyrs, as they say now.

A sweet scent drifts down the corridor, a spoor that somehow cuts through the heavy stench of promethium. Faint laughter follows it, an echo of the demented Astartes who stormed the hive, and the air around me seems to blush with amethyst light. I straighten in response and step forward, holding my breath as I listen for it to come again.

Shouts admonish me and I rejoin the others, flicking the safety catch before thumbing the ignition on the flamer. The laughter doesn´t repeat; the only sound I hear is a mad preacher shouting outside.

‘It is the Emperor’s work you do! Death to the traitors and praise to Him on the Golden Throne!’

His voice disappears amid the comforting roar of flame.

*

The days blur into one. Searches and demolitions and clearances scouring traitor taint from the earth. Creeping exhaustion and terrors made mundane as we eat bare rations and drink brackish water in the shadow of dead Titans.

I strike out away from the others increasingly often, my wife shadowing my steps as I pursue the intangible. I find nothing, and the whoosh of flame tanks' exhalations brings me back, the stench of promethium making my head swim.

‘They’re converted Malcadors,” says a man I don´t recognise, pointing at the trundling vehicles with a too-wide grin. “Infernus pattern. Just what we need for burning heretics, eh?’

I turn the words over in my mind. Heretics. Malcador. The rumours say he is dead, too.

*

A fog descends on the morning, silent wings smothering the tortured world and hiding it from our sight.

We move to a new sector, accompanied by a detachment of Sanguinius´s red-clad sons. I watch them with wary eyes as they converse with the commanders, for none of us truly trusts the Astartes anymore. Yet as we are deployed, I realise that they are every bit as broken as I am. They have taken their grief over their lord´s death into themselves, and it has become part of them.

That they are here at all means a rare danger. A small frisson penetrates my desensitised brain as the fog separates me from the others and their subdued chatter.

Hours pass, and I find myself alone. Low noise comes from somewhere up ahead, a teasing of derangement.

I move quicker, stumbling over the uneven ground in my rush, enticed by perfume both alluring and simultaneously repulsive.

‘It will be different this time,’ I say, though I don´t know if she hears me.

The legionnaire is not where I ever expected to find one. He crawls across open, cracked ground, and if it were not for the fog, he would be easily visible. The reason becomes quickly apparent. His purple and gold armour hides what must be a broken back, and the withered tentacles that lie in place of his left arm look to be a dead weight. It is difficult to believe he was a man, once.

He leers as he inches along, muttering canticles of the insane. This is not the one who murdered my family and threw me from our hab as if I were refuse. But he will do, for revenge, and for an end to torment.

I sense a presence behind me as my trembling fingers release the safety catches. I turn, and my wife is close, bloodied hair hiding the face he flayed during his orgy of depravity. Tears sting my sunken cheeks as she fades silently into the fog. The legionnaire laughs, a low gurgle of madness, and I face him again, advancing and squeezing the trigger of the flamer. He shrieks in a fusion of agony and ecstasy as the fire begins to consume him, and behind me, the fog erupts with shouts.

The indicators on the flamer spike into the red, but I continue walking forwards. When the explosion comes, it will kill us both.

He grins at me through the fire eating his face, this paragon of perfection fallen into insanity, and as the flamer whines towards critical, I grin back.

This is what I call victory.


Note: Originally published by Cold Open Stories as part of their 'The Scouring' fast fiction anthology


== Other Stories ==

1. The Penitence Enduring: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/813264.page
2. Shattered Jade: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/811207.page
3. Hourglass: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/809658.page
4. The High Branches of Alder: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/808350.page
5. Siren: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/806653.page
6. The Scream that Steals: https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/The_Scream_That_Steals
7. Sustenance: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/803390.page
8. Prime Helix: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/801724.page
9. Cromlech: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/801259.page
10. One Million Years of Solitude: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/800679.page
11. Aquila: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/794055.page
12. Acts of Defiance: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/792560.page
13. Afanc: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/790050.page
14. Changeling: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/786931.page
15. The Man Who Killed Rogal Dorn: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/783881.page
16. Duty: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/777469.page
17. Paper Heart: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/773175.page
18. The Things That Come After[b]: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/751822.page