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Well my fellow Dakkanauts...I've decided now would be a decent time to show you all the first and so far the only 40k fic I have yet written. Now, you'll have to bare with me as this one is a bit different, instead of following cannon or exploring cannon that has yet to be gone through, or even making up my own cannon, I have altered it. This story is set in an alternate universe of what has been set down by one of the best (in my opinion at least) writers for BL currently writing: Dan Abnett.

I know you're all thinking heresy at this point and probably a few of you wont even give this a read because it directly contradicts cannon but I was inspired to write it after reading the end of the second GG book: Ghostmaker. When I first undertook this project I was possessed by one thought: "The destruction of Tanith was never gone into in great detail in the story...who's to say it couldn't have failed if things had gone differently?" And so with that in mind I set out to write something not only to satisfy my own curiosity but to also see if others would be interested in it. In the story I bring my own characters into the mix to stand beside the characters you all probably know and love...I implore you to give my writings a try and please comment whether you liked it or not...so without further ado I give you my heart and soul's work...

Ghosts of Tanith: Homefront

Ten years after the holy crusade known by the name of the worlds it was fought over and by extension the blessed saint who had given them that name, the Warmaster Slaydo, a man some called foolish, a man some said was anointed by the Emperor's spirit, fell at his greatest accomplishment: Balhaut. The tale of that epic struggle for Imperial dominance would take many volumes in order to retell and contain all of the valor shown by the Emperor's own Imperial guard in those dark days. Balhaut, however, was something of a hollow victory. The crusade very nearly came to a halt there when its master fell clutching the corpse of Archon Urlock Gaur. Due to the Emperor's benevolence, however, the crusade was saved by the Warmaster's apprentice who took up his holy duty with fervor. Balhaut was a turning point but it was by no means the end of the crusade. In fact, the aftermath of the battle's ending brought doom to several Imperial worlds that had not yet been touched by the Crusade's fires. Five of these worlds fell to splinter fleets of Chaos dedicated armies that had escaped the Warmaster's victory. But the sixth was special, the sixth, the little green forest world of Tanith somehow survived its predations beyond all calculations or expectations until its valorous men were relieved by guard units attached to the Crusade. How such a miracle occurred in the face of such a debacle is still a mystery to many statisticians. Regardless, the happening can be considered one of the high points in the many battles to reclaim the Sabbat worlds...

-From A History of Later Imperial Crusades

Part I: A Curse in the Nals

"Scouting's not as hard as people think. All it requires is that you put your ear to the ground and listen."

-Scout Jaren Mktayl

~I~

The shoggies croaked...

In the twilight by the forest pool they played their song for all to hear. The crickets in the grass joined them to form the symphony of the woods. There were, however, no people around to enjoy the music, just the shadows.

Just the ghosts...

The ghostly apparitions slithered between the towering nalwood trunks like serpents on the hunt, only stopping periodically to pause, look, and listen. In silence the mirages darted in and out of visible sight, hooded in cloaks like the spirits of the forest incarnate. There were five in all to be counted, but they were never all visible at the same time, the ghosts played an intricate game of leap frog as they crept through the forest, making no sound.

The shoggies croaked, hidden by the cowl of his camo cloak's hood, Scout Corporal Jaren Mktayl smiled to himself. The sound was familiar and in these times familiar was good...

Familiar meant that there was still a job to do...

Familiar meant that there was still a home to save...

Mktayl was not an impressive sight to most from a distance. Like most of the Tanith he was a shorter than average, compact brute of a man with thick arms and a snarl of a face. What truly set him apart was the deep red of his hair, exclusive majorly to him and his kinsmen. He was considered one of the most feral looking of the men, even by the pale and sometimes barbaric Tanith standards, the full right side of his face, neck, right arm, and torso were covered in intricate, blue tribal tattoos, labeling him as one of the planet's fierce minorities. His shaggy hair was braided and deadlocked in a few places with matching braids in his facial hair. His facial features and cold blue eyes held the stoicism of sheer granite and the capacity for soft humor. Some of the others joked and said he looked more like a pirate than a Tanith scout, though they usually never did so in his presence, those that did soon regretted it. Though he could not say he appreciated the gossip about him, truly, he didn't care what they thought about him, they didn't understand, it had always been that way. He had seen others like him in the regiment, hard in body and stare from the rough work in the mountains, they were just another group among many that had been called up to defend their home, they were the Highlanders...

However brutish his appearance, he was true at heart, thought on his feet, had naturally quick reflexes, a wary eye, and more than enough know-how of stealth to be a scout, that's why Mkoll had chosen him to be one.

Absent mindedly, Mktayl and two others made their way forward and took cover behind the next set of trees, Mktayl looked ahead, listened, and signaled subtly for the next group of two to move up. The forest around them was full of the sights, smells and sounds of any Nal forest in twilight.

The fresh dew, dripping from the thick green leaves, the dark blue sky tinged with pink on the horizon as Tanith's sun rose to shine light on the evergreens below, but most distinctive of all, the shoggies croaked, making their distinctive burping call through the forest and masking all that rode through the woodland in a surrealism that made the scene almost seem like a fairy tale haunted wood rather than a marshy woodland of a forest planet.

The thick mist that shrouded these parts of the wood made visibility negligible and gave each ghostly figure that continued to creep through the forest that morning an even more ghoulish appearance.

Jaren again peeked out from behind another tree to make sure the way was clear and was about to signal the other scouts to move up and continue the leap frogging that they had been doing for the better part of two hours, when he sensed more than saw an irregularity in the ground ahead. Even though the mist was cutting detectability down to almost nothing, these forests were where Mktayl had grown up and if there were any in the Tanith scouts that would know something was up around here, it would be him, and the chief of scouts knew this.

That's why when Mktayl signaled a halt, Sergeant Mkoll gave the affirmative signal immediately and the scouts bled into the surrounding glades,

almost as if they had never been there in the first place...

Scout "Mach" Bonin was the man immediately behind Mktayl and watched him disappear into the mist ahead. Bonin could not help but be a little unnerved at this, they had combed the forest for a couple hours and had not had to stop for anything until now.

What could have made Mktayl stop the procession like this?

Bonin kept his apprehensions to himself and for several minutes just crouched there behind the tree not moving, not wavering the aim of his lasrifle away from the direction Mktayl had gone. Feth take this fog! He couldnt see anything and he desperately wanted to know where Mktayl had gotten to.

Why was he so jumpy? Bonin pondered as he waited. He tried to console himself with the notion that it was just the jitters from being constantly on the lookout for the enemy but internally he knew that wasn't why he was nervous. It was more than that. It was what the Tanith First had been finding as they chased the last remnants of the enemy through the northern forests.

It was-

a sound...

The slightest sound of a twig breaking to his right was enough to make Bonin almost jump out of his skin. He had been traveling in utter silence for so long now that noise of any sort seemed alien to him. He quickly switched his aim to the direction of the sound.

What was it?

A cricket hopping along the forest path?

A timber wolf stalking its prey in the distance?

A squad of archenemy troops looking for any opposition?

Bonin had no time to find the answer to this, suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood erect, he knew that feeling, someone was behind him only a few feet away...

Bonin spun suddenly pointing his weapon in the hooded face of his friend Mktayl, who, just as suddenly as Bonin had pointed it, had the barrel in his left hand pointing it away from himself and his right hand curled into a single finger over his lips for silence.

Bonin's eyes widened visibly as he pondered the speed at which Mktayl's hands worked, he'd seen the same sort of thing from the red haired scout in the barracks room over a card trick but had figured it was just a gimmick then. Bonin quickly revised that opinion..

"Its just me." signed Mktayl, the Tanith scouts constantly used an elaborate system of gestures to talk to each other while on the prowl. It was standard stealth practice as far as they were concerned.

"Feth! You nearly gave me a cardiac!" Bonin angrily signed back, his face overcoming the earlier surprise and replacing it with annoyance.

Mktayl smiled broadly and chuckled silently as he signed. "Get the chief over here, I've found something."

Bonin nodded silently and stood up from his crouch, he signaled with both hands for the other three to move up with them. quickly the mirages moved up to meet the two scouts and without words greeted them both. It seemed like if language had been invented these five men wouldn't have known it, for they spoke only with elaborate hand gestures.

"What have you got?" signed one, his face hidden behind his hooded cloak like the rest.

"More of the same, I'm afraid, Chief." Signed Mktayl. "More bodies, another ritual, more of these..." Mktayl held up a rusty brown object about a foot long and with a wide head at one end and a thick blunt point at the other. Mktayl passed the spike around to the other scouts who held it as if it were poisonous somehow, when the last of the group had seen it, he tossed it behind him onto the ground like garbage.

"Anything else?" another figure asked silently.

"Not much, Ven, just the same as we've gotten in the past week, cultists, all dead, bodies arranged in some sort of pattern, an altar in the middle, more dead cultists, drained of blood."

All the hooded figures seemed to shudder involuntarily, they could sense the machinations of Chaos at work here.

"Alright, enough, Mktayl, lets go check it out, we'll mark it on the map for the rest of the regiment to take care of and move on to our objective." Mkoll signed.

Mktayl nodded and signaled for them to follow, after about two minutes of moving forward in the criss cross pattern they had been doing earlier, they reached the site. The five scouts spread out to comb the site for any more clues. It wasnt a pleasant sight. Bodies sprawled spread eagled in an eight pointed cartwheel design around a fixed point in the center where a small dirt mound resided with more bodies piled on it.

Around the dirt mound a wide and shallow moat had been dug to contain...

well...

to contain the blood of what looked to be human sacrifices.

The bodies on the mound had been drained of all blood and the red liquid filled the moat ankle deep. Each body surrounding the moat had a rusty spike driven into it with small grooves made into a funnel from each one to the moat making a large gorey puddle in the clearing of the forest. Each body was that of a cultist, the evil archenemy that had invaded Tanith more than a month ago. They had identified themselves as "The Kindred", or at least partly identified themselves as such, it was the only two words the Tanith could make any sense out of from the graffiti the cultists had scrawled on the walls of their besieged cities. Each cultist wore some sort of black robes with red scarves draped over their heads so that nothing but the eyes were visible, in this way and so many blasphemous others, they pledged their allegiance to the darkness. When uncovered, the cultists were not much more appeasing. Each freak had his (or her, it was hard to tell) foreheads inscribed with an eight pointed star, and their heads and bodies each had ritual scars in ghastly patterns that made even the hardiest men queasy when they looked at them.

"Don't touch anything, it could be toxic." Signed Mkoll.

Not like anyone wants to touch these fethers, Mktayl thought.

Their kind had descended on Tanith two weeks after its first founding, giving the planet's military commanders, including the offworlder Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, little time to plan a defense.

Ibram Gaunt...

Mktayl rolled the name around in his head, and found himself grimacing.

Most of the Tanith left in the one regiment that had been agglomerated together after the siege had been broken by Imperial reinforcements, had a deep, protruding distrust, if not an outright hatred for the off world commander. It seemed to the Tanith that the Imperium's arrival had brought with it the curse of the Chaos invasion, and for that most of the Tanith resented the newly christened Imperial Colonel-Commissar. Even more so because when given the news, actually considered abandoning the planet and running away with what forces he could.

The Tanith held their ground though, most simply refused to leave their world to the Chaos hordes, and eventually Gaunt was convinced to dig in, much to the satisfaction of the general soldiery.

But one had to admit, that man is a damn fine commander of men, Mktayl surmised.

It was true, Gaunt had led the Tanith from the front, during the siege of the planet, and had held the three regiments and multiple militia and volunteer units together by force of will and charisma to defend Tanith's main hives, cities, resources, and spaceports. Now that the enemy splinter fleet had been destroyed, the remnants of the Archenemy went to ground on Tanith, and it was up to the remainder of the Tanith and the Imperial forces to snuff them out. Already the Vendoland 712th airmobile regiment and the 7th Radimir Armored Panzers had landed to lend the lightly clad Tanith the heavy support that would be needed. Not only guard units had been mobilized to save the valuable Agri/Hive world of Tanith, but the Navy had also come with reinforcements; the 375th air corps with its Thunderbolts, Lightnings and Marauders had nullified many positions, that the Archenemy had managed to turn into hard points, from the airfields that had been Jerry rigged on Tanith's fields.

Now the mop up was nearly complete as the straggling forces of the enemy retreated north into the highlands.

Home. It was a word that gave Mktayl mixed feelings...

Mktayl again looked to the pale, bloodless bodies on the ground. As the Tanith moved North chasing the enemy in this final pursuit, this strange scene of ritual sacrifice had repeated itself in every clearing and town the Tanith had reclaimed since the siege had broken. No enemy contact, besides a few ambushes, no bodies besides the sacrificed ones, not even so much as a spent laspack. It was extremely unnerving for all the Ghosts, that's what they called themselves now; "Gaunt's Ghosts" for their obvious stealth and reconnaissance skills as light infantry specialists and because by "winning" the bitter fight for Tanith most of the planet's populace had been displaced and had lost their homes, their lives, their loved ones. Suffering, pain and death were all a part of an enemy incursion, and Tanith's main cities had nearly succumbed to the fierce siege of the planet. Millions were killed, millions more were left homeless, starving, cold, and destitute.

It would take years, decades even, but Tanith would live again, and she would be stronger for it, like a ghost from the grave she would live again. Mktayl smiled at the thought, happy that what could have been was not, as he finished his search.

Nothing more to find here, the damn enemy didn't leave any pocket full.

"Why are you smiling?" Signed the last of the ghostly group to Mktayl when he finally looked up.

"Just thinking about the beating those fethers are in for when we corner em." Mktayl signed back, Hwlan smirked halfway and lightly shook his head in mock disapproval.

"Get over here, the chief wants to go over the game plan." He urged Mktayl who nodded his affirmative and hustled over to the grouped scouts who were waiting.

"Anybody find anything abnormal?" Was what Mkoll signed to them initially.

The other scouts blinked at him, Mktayl thought he was joking for a second to relieve the tension. Just a second, and then he remembered Mkoll was speaking, he meant it.

"Well besides the whole fething ritual sacrifice here, I didn't find anything." Mktayl signed, all the other scouts signed their agreement and this seemed to satisfy Mkoll.

He pulled out a thin, off-white parchment from his cloak and marked a symbol on it, the map to take to Gaunt and report the position for cleansing once the circuit was complete. Mkoll put it away and signed rapidly,

"Okay lets get to our main objective, the crossroads town into the foothills of the mountains is just a few kilometers away. We do a quick sweep, get out, quick, clean, and silent, get back to the regiment and tell them what we've found. Any questions?" There were none.

"Lets go, Tri-spread, Ven and Tayl have point this time, move out!"

The scouts nodded and silently slithered off into the forest line, soon the ritual site was motionless yet again as if the Ghosts had not been there at all. The next hour went on as silently as expected for the five scouts, with no enemy encountered and the trees and cover thinning out to open into farmland as the procession encountered the bare foothills. The scouts were forced to use the ditches along the ever widening roads to continue their sweep. Although it was predictable, the ditches were the only cover around the flat, plowed fields, even though the scouts hadn't yet encountered enemy resistance, it didn't mean that they wouldn't. The group came upon the first few farmhouses without incident.

Just like the others...Mktayl thought as he crossed a farmhouse's front yard. Nobody home and everything as it should be, like they just disappeared...

The scouts continued past the farmhouses into the heart of the town, the town of Hangasroc according to the briefing, but Mktayl had already known that, where the buildings became thick together and roads became even wider. The scouts continued to search houses and buildings, finding nothing of interest.

No bodies, nothing ransacked, nothing destroyed...yet.

The scout team crested a hill in the town road, and Mkvenner saw it first...

"Oh feth" he whispered, the other scouts immediately looked up to see what Mkvenner had seen...

I really enjoyed it, a good read! +1

Thatguy91 wrote:I really enjoyed it, a good read! +1

Thanks...I'll be uploading the second part to this if I get some good feedback.

~II~

All of the buildings in the center of town had been flattened by explosives, the pattern of the buildings flattened made an eight pointed star that poked inwards to the city square.

Bodies, both Tanith and archenemy lay sprawled, spread eagled in the streets nailed to the ground with little grooves going from the bodies to the town square where a moat had been built to catch the slowly trickling blood flow. In the center of the large moat in the town square sat a large mound with at least a hundred bodies piled onto it, their vital fluid making a pool hundreds of gallons deep in the moat. Flies surrounded the bodies, buzzing two and fro from one cold corpse to the other

The entire center of the town had been turned into a ritual site for the ruinous powers, like the ones they had found in the forests and other towns, except much bigger. The Scouts stood in stunned silence and stupification for what seemed like a few seconds but was actually several minutes.

The rotten smell of so many decaying bodies was almost unbearable, the enemy had obviously been through here at least a few days before.

Finally Mkoll spoke up. "Alright start poking around, try to find anything that will give us a clue as to what the feth went on here."

Mkoll motioned for the scouts to split up and each went a separate way. Mktayl went towards the center of town and began to go through the door of a ruined building when someone behind him called his name, it was Mkvenner.

"Be careful, mate." he said

Mktayl arched his eyebrow as if to wonder how he could have ever cautioned of such.

"What? You think I'm gonna go settin fire to everything like Brostin?"

Mkvenner shrugged "Just be careful."

Mktayl made a dismissive gesture with his hand "Quit worrying about me and go find something for us to kill."

Mkvenner left without another word, Mktayl watched him leave. He hadn't figured out Mkvenner yet. The man seemed most times like he intended to keep his distance from everyone in the unit. In certain instances, like that one just now, Mktayl saw something in his eyes that nobody else but the scouts he knew saw in him...

Care...

Emotion...

Mktayl knew Mkvenner better than anyone in the unit with the exception being Mkoll and maybe Bonin. And that wasn't saying much honestly. He'd heard the rumors about him, he'd heard that word tossed around reverently plenty of times off duty by whispering Ghosts...

Nalsheen

He knew why Mkvenner kept so distant, it was in the man's nature, Mktayl knew the rumors were true, though most Ghosts thought of it as just another regimental myth. Mkvenner hadn't told him, Mkoll hadn't told him either. He knew because he'd seen the way Mkvenner moved, talked, acted, Mktayl had seen it before only once, in another time and another place...

Mktayl turned and entered the building and Mkvenner went into another. Mktayl found himself in a cozy living room with a fireplace, the wood was cold, it hadn't been used in at least a few days. over the fire place was a mantle piece and on that were framed pictures of what looked to be a happy family. A farmer, a homely but attractive woman, and two beaming children, a boy and a girl both not even in their teens. Mktayl picked up the picture, sat down on a table and looked at it. It was things like these that reminded him that his home, his planet, though saved from horrible death, would never again be the same. It was things like these that filled him with a sense of loss. He remembered his own family...

His father, so proud and strong, his mother, so loving and compassionate, his brother, so fierce and determined, his sister, so delicate and headstrong...

his nephew...

He smiled, and tears ran down his cheeks from the memories of a happier time and a happier place...

Mktayl put the picture back on its dusty place, just as he was doing so, he heard the slight sound of a door opening slowly...

Someone was in the house with him, not only that...

but it was someone who wanted to be quiet, Mktayl had barely heard him.

Mktayl activated his mic twice, sending two short jolts of static to the team, he had made contact with something. Mktayl moved into the shadow of a wall crevice in a blind turn of the hallway between the back door and the living room. He slid his lasrifle into the sling on his shoulder and unsheathed his Tanith silver knife, thirty centimeters of Tanith pride through the heart or throat usually put an opponent down no matter what. Whoever or whatever it was, it was getting closer, nearing Mktayl's bolt hole. Mktayl could hear the man's footsteps even though they were muted severely.

Suddenly, he could see a long shadow coming across the path, slowly ever so slowly, the shadow pushed on, looking for him...

Almost, almost...Mktayl said to himself...wait for it.

Mktayl saw the end of a lasgun poke around the corner, held out in front of whoever was behind it.

In a blur Mktayl jumped out of cover and used the back of his left hand to push the gun muzzle up and way from him as it fired and filled the ceiling with holes, with his right leg, foot and hip, he masterfully pushed the surprised figure over and fell on top of him, straddling his opponent as he had done so many times before, both in combat and in practice. The lasgun fell out of his target's hands as he lay sprawled on the ground, dazed. In his right hand Mktayl held his straight silver, a poised coil ready to come down into his enemy's heart.

"For Feth's sake!" The figure cried.

That was strange, the enemy didn't usually use Tanith slang...

"Wait, don't! Get off you dolt, its me Doyl!"

"Doyl?" Mktayl said confused.

The figure pulled his cowled hood back to reveal a fair and pale Tanith face, "Yes, Feth it! Now get your big highland arse off me!"

Mktayl sheathed his knife and got up, he helped Doy to his feet as Mkoll and Bonin ran through the front door.

"Whats going on here? Report." Mkoll asked as if it hadn't been obvious.

"I was checking out this house sir." Mktayl started "I heard someone come through the back and I gave the contact signal over the mic, I wasn't able to make visual contact without being seen so I hid. I ambushed Doyl here who I thought was a hostile."

Mkoll nodded slightly, he turned to Doyl

"Where's the rest of your team?" He asked.

"Spread out on the other side of town, I was looking to meet up with you when Tayl here jumped me."

Mkoll nodded to Doyl

"You should have signaled us Doyl, that's how black crosses happen, stupid feths not doing their job right, you know better." The scout sergeant advised coldly and efficiently, when Mkoll was giving advice that was the only way it was given. "Tayl, good work." Mkoll finished flatly, to anyone else it would have sounded as if Mkoll was playing favorites but in fact he was just being frank, Doyl had erred and as a result Mktayl had thought him an enemy, the scouts knew this so they said nothing and followed their leader out of the house.

"We're making our way to the center of town to see exactly what happened" Bonin stated matter-of-factly.

"Looks like just another debrained slaughter if you ask me." Doyl stated bluntly.

Mkoll fixed him with a withering stare, the kind that could turn a man to stone. There was a strained pause.

"Regardless" Mkoll started "We will do our duty and make sure it is safe for the regiment to move up and take care of this." At this last phrase Mkoll gestured to the center of town that had been turned into an unholy ritual site.

"Hwlan and Ven are already searching the heart of this...monstrosity over, lets go join them and then we can get out of here."

Mktayl and Doyl nodded and together the four scouts made their way to the center of Hangasroc where the two scouts were indeed searching the bodies for anything that might give the Tanith forces an edge. They were joined by Caober, Leyr, Baen, and Mkeller, the team Doyl led in the counter sweep of the same area. Each scout greeted each other quietly and got to work looking through the mutilated bodies to find anything of value.

Mktayl hated desecrating these people any further than they already had. But he had a job to do, and he would do it, by the Emperor, until death claimed him. He passed Hwlan who was busy trying to move a couple bodies away to be examined.

"Find anything?" Mktayl inquired quietly.

Hwlan simply shook his head and didn't take his eyes off his work. Mktayl turned and continued his work. Mktayl went through the pockets of an archenemy soldier and had finished searching the clothing pockets when he found something sticking out of the cultist's webbing pouch, he reached for it.

It was a piece of paper, scribbled on it were patterns of lines and more eight pointed circles...

Numbers with foreign gibberish written out to the sides were displayed on the side of the patterns like a key of some sort...

Mktayl knew he had a map that the enemy must have missed and was about to call out to Mkoll when he heard the small popping crack from a distance...

Behind him he heard and saw Hwlan yelp and hit the ground and begin cursing, clutching his shoulder which bled profusely from a slug wound.

Mktayl dived to one side taking cover behind a trough in front of one of the buildings just in time for the second slug aimed for him to pass harmlessly through his camo cape. Mkoll waved to him from behind some cover at the other end of the street.

"Did you see where that came from?" he signaled.

Mktayl said that he hadn't and Mkoll began talking to Mkvenner beside him. Mktayl could see that all the other scouts had likewise taken cover. Hwlan rocked back and forth holding his shoulder and spewing curses left and right.

"Hold on Hwlan, just hold on, you hear? I'm gonna be right there." Mktayl said placatively, almost pleadingly, another shot rang out and kicked up dirt not a foot from where Hwlan was.

Mkoll signaled Mktayl again "Me and Ven see him, he's using the windows on the top floor of the building at the end of this street, when I give the signal run across the street toward Hwlan but keep going until you get to the other side so Ven can get a bead on him."

Mktayl hesitated, he really didn't like that plan, it meant that he could possibly not come back form this.

He had to put his trust in his sergeant and Mkvenner.

"Okay, tell Ven not to miss."

Mkoll nodded and smiled grimly "Can do." he signed, "Standby..."

Mktayl readied himself for the sprint of his life, he got into a sprinting crouch and waited for Mkoll's signal. Agonizing moments passed as he watched Mkvenner line up on the upper floor of the building on the end of the street, about a two hundred meter shot. If Mkvenner made this shot, Larkin would be damn proud, if he didn't, well...

Mktayl tried not to think about that.

Mkoll signaled him "Go!"

Mktayl blasted off into the street like an Olympic champion starting a one hundred meter sprint, in reality it was more like thirty meters but to Mktayl it might as well have been a kilometer away. He passed Hwlan who was now lying in a small pool of his own blood from his ruined shoulder, it was trickling slowly into the moat at the center of it all and Mktayl shuddered involuntarily. His cloak flew behind him and his hood fell away to reveal his face, he looked into the top floor window to see a shadow pointing the end of a long autorifle straight at him. It seemed to him to be trained right between his eyes. His sprint took him, finally, to the other side, time seemed to slow as he dove and slid feet first into cover as the wall corner of the building above him shattered into dust as the heavy slug bullet passed just where his head had been a millisecond ago.

At the same moment Mkvenner fired one bright blue lance into darkness of the window he thought the shot came from.

All was silent and the air itself seemed to hold its breath as the scouts waited.

Well only one way to find out...Thought Mktayl.

He stepped out into the street toward Hwlan who had fallen unconscious, when he wasn't killed the others stood up as well and made their way to Hwlan. Mktayl began to dress the wound and put a tourniquet on to stop the bleeding as someone stood behind him.

"Remember what you said about being careful Ven?"

Mkvenner's face contorted into a dull question. "Vaguely" he said seeming bored.

"Well that wasn't." Mktayl said mockingly harsh.

"Oh wasn't it?" Mkvenner came back.

"Yeah, just like you, daring, dangerous, risky, and in the end totally worth it."

Mkvenner smiled and chuckled grimly at the remark and shook Mktayl's proffered hand.

"He who dares, wins." Mkvenner said simply.

"Nice shooting, that one will make Larkin unhappy." Mktayl complemented, Mkvenner smiled again ever so slightly.

"Nice run, didn't know if you had made it at the end there, saw the burst out of the corner of my eye."

Mktayl nodded slightly, "Yeah, that's gotta be the second best run in the regiment." Mktayl said simply.

"Second best?" Mkvenner asked, interested.

"Yeah, right behind that time Bragg ran to the latrines when he learned the shoggy soup at the mess hall wasn't made from real shoggies."

Mkvenner laughed at this, which was impressive on Mktayl's part, Mkvenner never laughed at anything.

Mkoll came over from where the rest were reviving Hwlan and pointed to the two.

"You two come with me, we're checking the house and then we're getting back to the regiment."

Mkoll turned to go, Mkvenner and Mktayl followed silently. No affirmation was needed. When Mkoll gave you a command you did it, no questions.

The three scouts made their way down the street into the house where the sniper had been moments before. Mktayl put his ear to the door and gave the downhand motion for no sound. Mkoll put up three fingers and let each one drop in turn, at the last finger drop, Mktayl hammered in the door with his boot and it swung open. He advanced in scoping his lasrifle to his shoulder ready to fire, checking corners, and crevices. A few seconds after entry Mkoll gave the all clear and the team moved up the stairs into the upper third floor of the building.

There they found a lone archenemy cultist with a long barreled autorifle slumped into a corner with an ugly black chest wound. Mkoll checked him and they were all astonished to find the man still alive, he was mouthing something silently, a sly and blood soaked smile gracing his face, he looked up into Mktayl's eyes and said in a sandpaper dry voice...

"So sure of your victory, you have seen nothing. The blood tide comes...the door will open and the destroyer of worlds comes with it...this world will be drowned in blood and death."

The cultist slumped limp, a shadow of a chuckle coming from his gurgling throat, and died there in the corner of the room. Mktayl shuddered inwardly as the impact of the man's words sank in.

it all made sense now...

the ritual sites...

the blood sacrifices...

the destroyed towns...

the alien chaotic patterns of the enemy...

they were trying to summon something...

Unholy.

He sat down and looked at the floor.

"What do you think he meant by that?" he asked, his voice shaking a little.

"Nothing good, I'll tell you that much." Mkoll stated.

The events that unfolded as the siege of Tanith came to a close (especially after Imperial reinforcements arrived) is still somewhat of a mystery. Most information on the subject has been quarantined by the Inquisition, but it is obvious from astropathic records of the space around the planet during the siege that the warp boiled and possibly broke the surface of reality around Tanith, whether there were any aftereffects of this remains to be seen...

End part one

Really good stuff! Im not usually one to read, even short stories like this, but your writting really captures the audience. My brother said the same thing. Cant wait for the next part! +1

And btw if this really is your first, its damn good!

Thatguy91 wrote:Really good stuff! Im not usually one to read, even short stories like this, but your writting really captures the audience. My brother said the same thing. Cant wait for the next part! +1

And btw if this really is your first, its damn good!

It was actually written a while back I'm just posting it on Dakka to get more feedback in manageable chunks...

Thank you for your compliments...

Nice work WARORK...

... I always thought you should be a writer...

cool! you got it up here!

I had a bit of trouble finding it onFF.net. a lot easier this way.

Thanks all for their compliments...I'd especially like opinions on my OCs, I worked hard to fit them into the story and give them personalities and believable places in the story...

next part coming up soon!

Some of You readers may recognize the name of this character from...other places...its interesting to note that this incarnation of him came before the one in BM...I'm horrible at coming up0 with names so when I found a good one its easier to just reuse it...

Part II: Killzone

"Life is so much easier when its measured between the walls of a scope."

-Sniper Syd Harlow

~I~

Two weeks earlier...

Through the narrow tube he could see the figure lurking on the other side of murky treeline. Slowly, very slowly, painfully slowly, the silhouette of the figure crawled through muddy craters, and over piles of flooded rubble, the man crept as carefully as he could. He thought he was being sneaky,

he thought he was safe...

But the fact was that he had been tracked ever since he came out of the treeline beyond the besieged city of Tanith Magna.

Today it was overcast, and rain fell heavily to the ground dropping visibility greatly. Through his scope, he could just make out the cultist scout reaching the building line of the town and ducking out of sight. The figure poked his head out of the window of the building he had managed to crawl into. He gazed out into the outhabs of the great walled city, he gazed up at the many ancient stone towers and temple spires that rose above him while he was at ground level. His hand went up to his ear to activate his micro bead, probably to signal an all clear to his comrades.

"This guy thinks noooobody can see him... " Whispered Syd Harlow as he gingerly lined up his long, fat scope on the cultist, he could just make out the cultist's red head scarf and dark eyes through the mist kicked up by the rain.

'Well its about to be his last thought.' Harlow smiled at the notion, his breathing slowed to a snails pace, his heart's usual tattoo of beats came to almost a complete standstill, just like he had trained himself to do. He slowly closed his left eye and in one smooth action, he squeezed the trigger of his long, large caliber hunting rifle. The crack was loud, the recoil harsh, but lessened by the absorbers built into the nalwood stock of the rifle. About six stories below him and about seven hundred and thirty meters southeast of his position, the cultist had just begun to whisper in his guttural language into the micro bead when he saw the tiny flash of light from the window near the top of the tower.

He didn't live to hear the crack of the rifle echo over the plane below. His head, brain, and skull, exploded violently back and outwards from him as if someone had struck a ripe melon with a sledgehammer. The blood, brain matter and bone fragments splattered the wall behind him in a random pattern of gore as the fifty caliber armor piercing stub round cleared his brainpan and struck the back wall of the building, cratering it and making a hole into the rain outside the size of a man's palm. The cultist's headless body tumbled backwards without another movement and all was silent again except for the patter of rain. Harlow saw this all through his rifle's scope. He sat up and smiled a wicked smile of triumph.

Syd Harlow was a tall man, in his late twenties, his long, chestnut, unkempt mane came down the back of his neck. Similar colored hair lined his face from his jaw down to his chin Like almost all of the Tanith he had blue tattoos which denoted his clan or family; a spider web-like spiral tattoo was splayed around his left cheek. The men of the Tanith first regiment often gawked at how young many of the men in the militia like him were.

'Like they've never seen a kid fight.' Harlow thought darkly.

Harlow knew a thing or two about how to fight and even more about how to hunt. He was from the Nals outside of Tanith Dale after all. Early on his dad had taught him how to hunt, how to kill from a distance, how to kill from just an arm's length away without even being noticed. Harlow knew his skills and damn anyone else who doubted them, he was a sharpshooter first and foremost, drafted into the militia when the call went out for volunteers when it was learned that the archenemy was coming to their planet. Harlow frowned at the thought, wide scars he had across his nose and right cheek crinkled some and ached slightly from the contortion.

Harlow had received those in an especially fierce hunt where he was ambushed by an especially pissed off nal wolf. Harlow rubbed his scars, he didn't think them damning, he liked them, they made him look older, meaner.

"Nice shot Eagle six , I saw that from here."

'Speaking of old, there's the geezer himself.' thought Harlow cockily.

Harlow racked the bolt of his large rifle back and emptied the chamber of the massive spent shell, The rifle was his, like it had been his father's before him, he brought it with him from his home where he used to be a Frontiersman; keeping to the remote places of the area and reaping the rewards of living off the land. He took a lho stick out of his pocket and lit it in his cupped hands before answering.

"Yeah, wasn't as hard as you'd think" Harlow said over the mic, almost bored.

"You know the drill, six, relocate before they get a fix..."

The rest Harlow blocked out, more nagging, he thought. Harlow took his sweet time getting his big rifle up and climbing the stairs of the watch tower to his next position, he set up his rifle, setting the bipod just right. He fixed his scope and adjusted for the range he was looking for, He racked another bullet into the chamber and checked the internal magazine. Only when he had everything the way he wanted it did he say "Alright I'm good, old man" Harlow said mockingly, the response was swift

"Hey, protocol is code words, you hear me six? don't start fethin around."

"Alright Larks, don't get that messed up head of yours in a fix." Harlow mocked again

"I said-forget it...damn militia think they own the city." He heard Larkin mutter over the vox. Harlow chuckled to himself.

"How many does that make today five? six?" He asked

"Seven, learn to count you feth head" Came another more sinister voice

"I don't remember asking you, Captain" Harlow responded, testing his limits.

"Oh yeah? I don't remember telling you to shut it before I come up there and stick my silver in your-"

He was cut off by a louder and huskier voice "Alright enough! Both of you! Quit actin like damn toddlers and act like the fethin archenemy is here in force!"

"Yes Major..." Came both Harlow's and the Captain's voice at the same time. 'Seven scouts' Harlow thought to himself 'They must be planning something.'

Harlow pulled off his brown, leather, wide brimmed frontier hat, it wasn't militia protocol to wear hats like that but then again the militia needed sharpshooters so Harlow usually got slack in some areas. Harlow rubbed the back of his fingerless gloved hand across his brow and replaced his hat. He snuggled up the scope's eyepiece and gazed back out at the surrounding gloom. The outhab town laid before him was bare and gray, the rain that spluttered into the streets did nothing to repair the area's dreariness. Harlow stifled a yawn, he had been on watch since dawn and it was now late in the afternoon. The rain made his countenance no livelier and he had to keep shaking himself awake to keep from dozing off. The chatter in his ear was a dull buzz and his eyes heavily drooped as he tried his best to keep them open.

Something got him to open his eyes quickly as he suddenly registered a flash of light on the edge of a treeline.

He had seen that kind of flash before, it was the flash only made by a scope in the sudden light of the broken clouds.

With lightning reflexes Harlow lunged to one side, not a half a second later a large crater was plowed into the back wall where his head and rifle had been. the crack of the rifle came next and Harlow rolled to his feet in the hall of the tower he was in. Astonished at the events that had just taken place he was unable to move but began to shake. the lho stick in his mouth dropped to the ground as his jaw dropped from suprise. Suddenly he was aware of a voice yelling into his earpiece

"Eagle Six! Eagle Six are you there? Respond Eagle Six!"

"Yeah I'm here." Said Harlow shakily.

"Feth kid you gave me a fethin cardiac there! Someone's got your scent relocate now!"

"Standby." Was all Harlow could force out of his mouth.

He went over to the crater in the wall and something caught his eye, he used his fingers and pulled it out of the wall. It was the crumpled form of a silver slug round about the size and shape of his own and it had nearly taken his head off. Harlow shoved it into his pocket and picked up his rifle, he fished out his binoculars and gazed into the treeline, he could just make out a flash of movement, a ghost of a silhouette among the trees before it disappeared. Harlow watched for a minute more until Larkin got back into his ear.

"Eagle six, are you repositioned yet?" Harlow lowered his binoculars slowly, reluctant to take his eyes off the treeline, and moved down the stairs to his next position.

"Yeah I'm on my way." He said embarrassed.

~II~

Already he was making his way through the trees back to the base camp. His thoughts were dark as he contemplated the task before him. He had to be back in time for the main assault planned for tonight. Rothgar smiled as he remembered the fear in the other marksman's eyes when his shot had struck home. His gleaming white teeth were set in rows of sharp points and his face and skin was ritually scarred. His black robes and red head scarf denoted him as one of the archenemy, but he was no ordinary cultist. He had been chosen by the powers he served to be a sniper in the name of the dark ones. Rothgar patted his rifle ruefully as he made his way through the damnable conifers. He would rejoice when this world burned in the fires of the warp. His challenge earlier had been abrupt and conclusive. "I come for you, curs of the False Emperor." Rothgar's smile widened. He loved the thrill of the hunt and he wouldn't stop until his darkly divine task was completed...

I seem to remember Syd Harlow from somewhere other than BM...

... I could be mistaken though, where was it from?

Shas'ui T'au Kais wrote:I seem to remember Syd Harlow from somewhere other than BM...

... I could be mistaken though, where was it from?

I may have used the name in other more obscure RPs which didn't turn out so well...but BM is Harlow's main claim to fame...

~III~

Harlow had made it to the bottom floor of the outown's watch tower, he stopped before he went out onto the road to cross to his next vantage point.

'What if that sniper is out there still? Looking for me? Waiting for another shot?' Harlow pondered suddenly, he poked his head out of the entrance just far enough to see the treeline with his right eye. He jerked back suddenly, sure that a bullet would tear his head off as soon as he stepped out of cover.

Feth! He thought. Is this what being pinned by a sniper was like? He almost feel sorry for those cultist bastards.

Harlow activated his mic and spoke into it.

"Hey, Eagle One, you gotta fix on that bogey in the woods that took a crack at me?" There was a slight pause.

"Negative, no movement after he left, your just gonna have to take your chances, six, use your training, use stealth, be quiet, keep low, be the fethin sniper your supposed to be!"

Harlow snarled back into the mic "Alright, alright, feth, I didn't ask to be lectured!"

Harlow let it drop and took one last peak around the corner of the exit. He put his back to the inner wall of the tower and his right hand reflexively came up to something around his neck. It was a silver aquila symbol on a chain, he held it tight, closed his eyes and recited one of the many prayers he had memorized.

"Oh Father who sits on the Throne, lead me through the valley of darkness and death to the eternal light of salvation..." He whispered just audibly, when he was done, he opened his eyes and almost before he even knew what he was doing he was crouch sprinting to the other side of the street.

What felt like hours were actually seconds, Harlow was tempted to jump for the cover of the buildings on the other side, but instead he slid feet first and hugged the wall tight. When he realized that he was still in one piece, he breathed again.

Feth that was some scary gak, he thought darkly. Well, at least its over...Harlow trailed his thoughts off as he went in search of a new hiding spot.

He ducked through back alleys, down ditches, through crawl spaces. Cat an mouse now, Harlow summarized.

He went through many buildings, most had been cleaned out in a hurry, some had been ransacked, and all had sustained damage of some sort. Harlow felt his lip curl, he detested what had come to his planet, he would fight until his dying breath to ensure that the invaders didn't get what they wanted on his home world. Harlow finally found a suitable structure: a still intact water tower, not many high place were left intact in the outowns around Tanith Magna, the heavy shelling of the current siege had seen those off.

Not all of em... Harlow mused. Just meant he had to be more careful.

Harlow eventually climbed to the very top of the tower, he dragged his belly across it like some desert reptile and began the process of setting up his rifle when his mic squawked. "All callsigns be advised, long range auspex has picked up massed numbers approaching the southern half of the city just beyond the treeline."

Harlow now noticed the sound of machinery: tanks, tracks, engines, and rumbling coming from south, it was faint but it was there.

No more than a few klicks out, and there had to be a feth of a lot of em too. Harlow felt his body shiver. This is the big push command had been talking about eh? Well it was about fethin time.

Harlow's thoughts began to trail off again as he fine tuned his rifle's scope and began to set way markers with his scope's rangefinder. The voice of the Major came over the comms next;

"Alright lads, this is it, the moment we've all come here for, lock and load, and remember your engagement orders: don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!"

From all over the south side of the outowns affirmation calls came back down the comm, when the airways were finally clear, Larkin finally spoke up.

"All Eagle units sound off and confirm standby."

Quickly and in concert the calls filtered back.

"Eagle two, here and ready!" That was Rilke,

"Eagle Three, prepped for launch!" came Raess' voice.

"Four, here, standby" Mertt,

"Five, good to go!" That was Harlow's buddy Mkalister, they had both come from Tanith Dale with the rest of the militia units.

Finally, it was Harlow's turn "Six, lets get this over with!" Harlow barked, there was a pause over the mic and then:

"Alright, all Eagle units, as of now the muzzles are off, you are cleared to shoot anything moving beyond the five hundred meter mark."

Harlow could feel his scars on his face crinkle as he grinned, the gloves were coming off and there would be no remorse...

Harlow made a few more minor adjustments to his rifle, draped his camo cloak just right over his exposed body and snuggled, once again, to his scope. The rubber of the scope's eyepiece was reassuring and light, his eye probed the inside of the scope and he looked down onto the fields before the city and could make out the treeline. Darkness was falling, if the enemy didn't attack soon, Harlow would have to switch to night vision, and that took the fun out of his job.

"Come into my web, the spider said to the fly..." Harlow whispered to himself, reciting the old children's fable.

He panned his scope into his intended target area. A wide thoroughfare lay before him, a main highway which led to one of the handful of main gates for the walled city of Tanith Magna; Tanith's capital and main spaceport. The highway was wide, big enough for at least five tanks to stride it abreast, each side was covered with low stone buildings, the highway had craters pounded into it by the besieging guns, more obstacles the archenemy had made for themselves. The challenge of covering such a large, copious space was lessened by the fact that Harlow wasnt the only one who was watching it. There were two of these highways on the south side of the city, each one was covered by at least three snipers and three companies of Ghosts and militia each. Harlow continued to gaze down at the thoroughfare. Not a soul could be seen, even with his powerful scope, but this didn't concern Harlow in the least, he knew each and every Ghost was right where they should be.

Normally, guard protocol was to set up static defenses and entrenchments and fight an invading force every step of the way until it was weak enough to counter assault. Tanith's commanders had thrown that plan out the window and now every Ghost was positioned int any dark crevice they could find, waiting until the archenemy fully committed before springing the trap. This had gone on for the better part of a week, the Tanith continually switching positions, finding new holes, going back to old ones, each time the company dispositions were distributed throughout the buildings and alleys to ambush the enemy from new angles. But this was different, tonight the enemy massed in much larger force than they had earlier that week, the enemy outnumbered the Tanith heavily but the Tanith would fight with every last drop of blood and sweat to keep their homes.

Each time before had only been a test of the defenses, now the main assault was beginning, command knew it, every Ghost knew it, Harlow knew it, it had to be coming any day now.

And it looked like that day was today... Harlow mused, keeping his eye trained to his scope.

They had actually been lucky, Harlow knew that too. An elaborate ruse, a great risk had been played in the opening stages of the siege. The commanders of the Tanith forces knew that certain doom awaited the forces the planet could muster. That was a fact no matter how anyone tried to spin it, the enemy was too numerous to have any hope of standing against them. This is where "The Gambit" had come in, that was what many Ghosts now called it. It involved tricking the archenemy into thinking that the main Tanith forces were still in the middle of founding and vulnerable at muster point when they arrived in the system. Fake radio traffic, fake troop movements, fake encampments, fake everything-a-regular-army-does was put up like some big party trick on the founding fields while most of the Tanith forces began to dig in around the hives in secret. A small force, led by a junior Tanith officer, was left near the founding fields to intercept and ambush the landing enemy forces If they landed at the founding fields and took the bait. That was a big if as far as Harlow was concerned, he wouldn't have taken a risk like that. But it worked, the enemy landed on the founding fields in force and spread out to take out, what they supposed, was most of Tanith's military in one fell swoop.

What followed was the most one sided slaughter of archenemy troops the system had ever seen. In a course of three nights, the small force of Tanith guard who had been left behind had pinned the archenemy in the valley of the founding and had harried them every step of the way. Needless to say, the Tanith didn't stop them, there were just too many archenemy cultists landing to kill them all or rout them. Instead the small force focused on harrying the invaders all the way back to Tanith's main cities, and by then they had carved a huge chunk of troops out of soldiers out of the invaders.

Lets just hope it was enough...Harlow thought, those hard fethers had made an opening, and now it was their turn to stick the silver into it.

Harlow was fidgety, he could hear the machinations of an advancing army just beyond the treeline yet he couldnt make much out on his scope. He decided, at last, to have a smoke to calm himself. He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a lho stick and a lighter. His hands shook slightly as he placed the stick in his mouth and cupped his hands around the end as he light it. He put the lighter back in his pocket and began to take a drought. When he was about halfway through, just beginning to breathe slower than he had a minute ago, all fething hell broke loose in the out-town. It came slowly at first, the 'crump crump' of distant mortars firing could barely be heard over the dull roar of the machines advancing in the treeline. Their detonations were much, much louder, many falling into the roofs of buildings around the outown, blasting everything for ten meters apart in a hail of stones and wood. Next came the duller 'Punk Punk' of bigger field artillery which could be heard clearly. Now the Ghosts well and truly ducked and covered, the artillery shells blew houses to dust and rubble causing the town for blocks around to be pelted in the upturned debris of the now non existent buildings. A few of the towers that still stood came down in a tumbling boom of collapsing rubble. Harlow covered his head as the tower he had been in earlier that afternoon was brought down explosively by two artillery shells a few blocks away. Dust now filtered from the many great disturbances of the night, light flashed thunder rolled, and the Ghosts held on. Somewhere, Harlow noticed through the ringing in his ears, had blown a whistle.

In a few seconds, he realized that it was not one but thousands of shrilling, high pitched whistles had gone off at exactly the same moment from the direction of the treeline surrounding the city.

This, however, wasn't the reason for any of the Ghosts' discomfort, what came next was the howl of every invading throat on the planet. Millions of voices screaming out oaths to their dark powers. Drums beat, men wailed, Harlow began to shake, more nervous than he had ever been, he leaned over the edge of his perch as he felt his bowels go loose and retched out what had been breakfast about eight hours before. Weakly, he wiped his mouth and face and sneered at himself for his weakness. Harlow's hand brushed something around his neck, it was his silver aquila necklace. With it in his hand he forced himself to calm and began to recite one of the "Psalms of Victory":

"Oh Father who sits on the Throne, lead me through the valley of darkness and death to the eternal light of salvation..."

As he began, he shakily but surely regained control of his nerves and relined his scope onto the fields just ahead of the treeline. Just as he did this, an image of his worst nightmares spawned out of the beloved Nals.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands, of cultists streamed out of the treeline all charging forward with their rifles outstretched, bayonets fixed. All screamed their oaths and their blasphemies. Some carried not weapons, but banners, streaming sinisterly like snakes in flight, whipping in the wind and displaying the baneful marks of Chaos across them. Behind the charging mass of insanity came the armor, tracks rolled and engines revved madly as tanks plowed ahead crossing the distance almost as rapidly as the foot troops. Halftracks and other transports of all sizes came next, bringing in mechanized infantry to support the armor pieces ahead. All the while this was happening the bombardment of the mortars and artillery continued, although it was now joined by the Tanith's heavy guns. Everything from field guns to a few heavy artillery pieces, to heavy and light mortars along with the city's wall guns lit the encroaching night into bright-as-noon day. The toll that was reaped was horrendous, hundreds of cultists died in the initial sprint for the outskirts of the city, huge swathes of cultists simply ceased to exist as they blindly ran into the waiting Tanith guns. disemboweled body parts flew around the freshly dug craters like confetti at a celebration. The parts, the blood, and the viscera rained down in a red mist onto the heads of their comrades who only seemed to get more agitated. A few of the artillery hits got lucky and Harlow could make out several blooms of fire and black smoke that signaled the end to dozens of armored vehicles. The mass of filth and guns continued to roll on, however, almost unaffected to the ravages that the heavy guns were doing to it. The mass of cultists and tanks continued to stream out of the treeline like an endless wave of death. There was no stopping numbers like that, they would have to be stopped in the streets and suburbs just like they had been before.

But how long could they hold against...that? Harlow pondered, watching the conglomeration of ants surge toward the city.

~IV~

The shells fell all around him but he did not fear it. He continued to make his way from one piece of cover to another. His task was close now, just beyond the outskirts of the town he would do his duty to the gods and to the Archon. Rothgar smiled, his shark's teeth gleaming in the night. Making it to the outskirts, Rothgar scoped in and calibrated his instruments. He found a target in a window not three hundred meters away and used this shot to measure his calibrations.

The Ghost's head came apart in a mist of red and his comrades recoiled and took cover.

Ah the wondrous work of a marksman, one shot and the entire city ducks...Thought Rothgar as he crouched low and began to make his way forward ahead of the advancing forces.

He snuck into the city a way no Ghost would expect. They were fixed onto the raging mass of cultist's advancing down the main pathways.

The perfect diversion...Rothgar mused as he made his way deeper into the outown unnoticed.

The task would be completed, the prey would be killed...

~V~

The front vanguard of the invading force hit the outskirts of the outown. They began to find cover wherever it was left. Harlow could see the congregating masses in his scope but he didn't dare shoot now no matter how much he wanted to. He had to wait for the cultists to come into the killzone, and that, Harlow noticed, was only about a hundred meters from his position, beyond that only about seven hundred and fifty meters separated Harlow and the great host. As the armor approached the outskirts of the city and the heavy guns began to wail, the cultists began to form up into a formation. Apparently, they had learned from their past mistakes and were now taking the assault of the city seriously. With a few barked commands from some officers, the cultists and armor began to advance down the wide thoroughfares. Harlow began to mark targets as the mass of enemy advanced toward him. He found his first target, an officer with a power fist strode on top of an advancing tank. He stood on the turret with his power glove pointing toward the city, a banner with the sigils of Chaos marking it was clutched in his enclosed left fist.

It must have been an inspiring site, but the cultists wouldn't know that for long...

Harlow lined up on the moving tank, specifically its clinging parasite on the turret. He waited a few seconds more, the tank had not entered the killzone yet, the moment it did was stretched and slowed to make it seem almost like time had stopped.

Harlow held his breath, slowed his heartbeat, and began to squeeze the trigger.

"You are my shelter..." He whispered as he squeezed the trigger.

The officer's head exploded in a red mist of brain and bone, his limp body convulsed and fell from the top of the tank, dragging the banner to the ground with it. Suddenly, the crack of Harlow's rifle wasnt the only sound assaulting the invaders. Heavy bolters and autocannons began to spit death into the advancing forces. bright blue las shots whizzed out of windows toppling more of the enemy. Precise volley fire from five other snipers began to pelt down on the heads of the invaders. Grenades were lobbed into the advancing mass. Cultists fell, faces, stomachs, chests, legs, and arms blown way by the munitions thrown at them. Still they came on, a tide of unstoppable death come to claim its victim. Harlow could hear voices blaring on the mic and tried his best to ignore the shouts of his comrades as they plowed into the enemy. Harlow tracked another charging officer with a bolt pistol, rallying his troops to advance.

"My everlasting joy and peace..." Harlow continued to recite as he blew the second officer to whatever devil it worshiped.

The night had become frenzied with flashes of light, the boom of cannons, and the cries of death. the tanks of the enemy began to lob their shells at the defenses, many hit the Ghosts heavy weapons which ceased to fire. The tanks and men continued to advance almost as if unhindered. Harlow zoned in on a tank commander who had stupidly poked his head out of the top hatch.

"By your grace my victory is won..."

He whispered as he sent the incompetent commander into the oblivion. The cultists had advanced about two hundred meters down the thoroughfare and the Ghost's fire continued to cut huge swathes out of the enemy. Just then a tank on the thoroughfare exploded violently, leering to the side of the highway, it spluttered and died, its occupants jumping out on fire from head to toe and fell onto the ground. Harlow wondered if it had been hit by another artillery shell when he remembered the mines. The Ghosts had placed a huge number of mines on the thoroughfares, both anti tank and anti personell. Just as he was thinking this, more hidden munitions went off under the cultist's feet. Cultists were blown into the air, more vehicles exploded as they ran headlong into the city, disappearing in smoke and blood mist. Soon, the thoroughfare was clogged with bodies and burning tank chassis. Here the cultists faltered, most began to hunker down behind whatever cover they could find and finally began to return fire.

Some charged on, too maddened by their blood lust to stop, and were cut down mercilessly by the Ghosts vengeful fire.

Some were so awed and disheartened by the display of firepower before them, they dropped their weapons and ran and were then cut down mercilessly by their own troops.

The officers were doing their best to rally the stagnated force into advancing. Harlow and the sharpshooters were doing their best to keep the officer from doing their best. Already Harlow had lost count of how many officers he had killed who were waving their arms frantically or beating their nearest insubordinate, trying desperately to continue the advance. More armor moved in behind the stagnated infantry and, with dozer plows lowered charged on, pushing bodies and hulls alike out of the way in a mad bid to continue the slaughter. At this point Harlow quit being selective over targets and shot any person who came into his cross hairs. He counted the number of kills in his head between recitals:

"Twelve...Give me the strength to topple my enemies...Thirteen...the power to crush my foes...Fourteen..."

Suddenly someone was screaming about a sniper over the mic, Harlow listened intently as someone blared on about how a sniper had taken out his sergeant and pinned his squad down. Harlow frantically searched the fields for any sign of an enemy marksmen but found none. Frustrated, he returned to volleying shots at the oncoming mass. The cultists, despite their losses, had advanced more than five hundred meters into the thoroughfare and the city. Charging forward again, the cultists began to randomly fire off their rifles as they came forward. Harlow noticed that the cultist forces were dispersing some now. Teams moved through the smaller streets an back alleys, sent to seek out and destroy the defenders. Harlow continued to volley fire onto the cultist's heads, at this range it was impossible to miss something in the screaming masses. Suddenly a shot wound past his head, instinctively Harlow ducked as more whizzed past.

The enemy had found his hiding spot and were volleying rifle fire into his perch. Harlow knew he had to act fast if he was going to live, pretty soon they would lob more than rifle fire to him. He scrambled toward the exit and keyed his mic.

"Eagle one, Eagle one! this is six, they got my position! Moving to my next position!"

There was a pause and then...

"Negative six! Fall back to phase line bravo, the frontline is about to pull back or its going to be outflanked."

Harlow continued to race down the ladder to the ground, he thought about what Larkin ordered. The Ghosts were falling back to strengthen their defense which seemed like a good idea right about now to Harlow. He dropped the last few feet and began to sprint, slinging his rifle over one shoulder and crouching low. Just as he crossed the street, he could hear the crash of metal and stone and looked back. The enemy had lobbed tank shells into his perch and sent it toppling over into the ground. Harlow shook...

that could have been him...

~VI~

Rothgar watched as the marksman fumbled his way off the tower, through his rifle's scope he could make out the fear on his face and smiled. He yearned test his skill against this man who had killed so many of his comrades. He watched as the figure hit the ground and disappeared out of sight. The task was upon him and he would do it, by this time tomorrow his forces would rejoice over the remains of the ruined city. Rothgar smiled and crept to find another firing point...

~VII~

Harlow advanced up the street heading toward his next position. He found it in the next few minutes, a large administrative building that was in the center of the Ghost's defense. Harlow looked around and saw many Ghosts hurrying to set up a new line of defense further back. They carried weapons, ammo crates, anything that could be salvaged from the first line. Harlow walked up to the building which was to be his next perch. Strangely, there was nobody around that Harlow could see. No lasguns or silhouettes appeared in the windows, nobody could be seen from the outside.

"What the feth?" Harlow muttered to himself as he came up to the building.

Now wary, Harlow reached down into his holster and pulled out a large stub pistol. The caliber was almost the size of the rifle he was carrying but instead of a bolt action mechanism, it had a revolving cylinder holding some massive stub rounds. Harlow held his pistol out in front of him and cocked it as he walked into the building.

As soon as he had entered the building, he was grabbed by a pair of strong hands and hauled to the wall. Dazed, Harlow struggled and tried to pull his gun up but it was knocked out of his hands. Harlow began to fight the hands holding him when he heard a dull "Thuk!" in the wall beside his head and turned to see his own reflection in the thirty centimeter long blade shoved into the wall near his head.

Harlow looked back at his attacker and stopped struggling long enough to see that he wasnt dead yet. He also saw that he was being pinned to the wall not by an enemy soldier but a Ghost who sneered an ugly expression in his face.

"Hey Cap, whaddya make of this?"

The Ghost called to another man standing near him. Harlow looked over to the man he was talking to. He wore a black beret and his pins showed that he was a captain, his dark sinister face glared at Harlow and seemed to bore right through him. Harlow could make out the starburst tattoo around the Captain's eye and finally realized who he was.

"Let him go Murt, he's here to help." said Captain Rawne of the Tanith First and Only.

The figure Harlow supposed was Murt let him go and replaced his blade into his scabbard. Harlow noticed that all around him Ghosts had materialized out of the darkness, there were at least thirty in this main room alone. Harlow finally spoke up,

"Feth, what did I do?"

Rawne's gaze was uncompromising

"You came in here without even the slightest notion of stealth." Rawne began "We thought you were the enemy because only they move so blunderingly. But what can you expect from the Militia boys eh?"

Harlow bristled at the last comment but held his tongue.

"Alright you got me, I was ordered to this position so where do I need to be?"

Rawne regarded Harlow for a moment, as if sizing him up for a fight, Rawne pointed to the stair case

"Get to the third floor, you can see the line from there and do what you do, get ready for a feth storm because we're in for a fight."

Murtan Feygor gave him his pistol back, Harlow nodded and went upstairs. He ignored the Ghosts who began to look at him funny as he set up at a window. Quickly he ran through his checklist of preparations and snuggled to the scope. He felt into his ammo satchels, not good, he was running low, he had barely more than three dozen shots left plus the bullets in his pistol and a few extra clips for that. This was gonna get nasty before it got better.

If it got better...

"Alright listen up!" came a voice over the mic "We hold here and we dont give another inch! The enemy is at the gates, we're all tired, and battered, but hang in there lads, we can do this together! Fight like the bastards I know you all are and give the enemy nothing! We're the first and last and only defense our home has! Make Tanith proud this night lads! Give them nothing, but take from them, everything!" came the Major's voice.

At this Harlow heard one blessed noise over the tumult of the battle outside. The roars of defiance that sprang from every throat of every Ghost in the city, daring the enemy to come onto their guns. Harlow and the rest of the Ghosts with him joined the roar and it felt good to shout. Harlow felt invigorated, his adrenaline surged and he felt invincible.

"Alright you lot" came Rawne's voice over the mic "You heard Major Corbec, give them hell, For Tanith! For the Emperor!" Rawne spat in the mic.

In Harlow's scope the enemy advanced into the streets outside the administrative building. Somewhere, Harlow heard pipes began to wail. From atop the walls of the city not a few hundred meters back, the wail of several Tanith pipes joined the first one until one shrieking wailing note held above the roar of the encroaching battle. The Ghosts roared their defiant battle cries and unleashed hell on the advancing foe. Lines, droves and piles of cultists convulsed and fell on their faces. some were blown away by explosives as the Ghosts lobbed tube charges and grenades into their ranks. Harlow could hear the cracking of bolters and the thumping autocannons, the louder whump of the sparsely mounted wall guns opened up and focused on taking out armor.

More orange blooms blossomed like bright flowers in the streets...

fire was pelted back and forth...

men on both sides died in the night...

Harlow could hear the men in the building open up with the whine-crack of their lasguns. He focused on the gathering enemy outside through his scope.

"Oh Father who sits on the Throne, lead me through the valley of darkness and death to the eternal light of salvation..." Harlow began again, reciting absent mindedly.

He continued to pour shots into the enemy. Another officer, a flag bearer, a vox operator...

One large man strode into his scope. The man was rank from head to toe, he wore a welder's mask and heavy leather gloves, in his hands a huge nozzle sat menacingly its pilot light burning bright blue.

Harlow could see the flamer tanks on the mans back, he reloaded as the berserker swept fire into the bottom floor of the building, setting at least three Ghosts on fire...

Harlow could hear their piteous wails of pain, his lip curled, he could feel tears of hot anger streaming down his cheeks...

He lined up his scope on the monster's tanks and fired. The bright orange fireball exploded for fifteen meters and set at least seven cultists on fire. The torches stumbled around aimlessly until they either dropped or were put down by the Ghosts...

Harlow grinned his wicked grin of triumph...

"Take that you bastards!" He yelled at the top of his lungs.

His joy was short lived, however, as he reached into his webbing and found one bullet left...

Mortars were blowing into the street now, enemy mortars began to bracket Harlow's position, he could hear the thump and feel the rumble of the building as it shook on its founding. Harlow risked a look out the window as he slung his rifle, the enemy was charging forward now despite the raging stream of fire coming from the building. By sheer weight of numbers, the enemy was right on them, in mere seconds they would be flooding the bottom floor. Harlow cursed loudly and turned back for the staircase-

a thump and roar, and then blackness...

Harlow hadn't heard the mortar shell that hit the third floor of the administrative building but he felt its concussive wave as it blew in the windows and showered him with chunks of roof. Harlow got up off the floor dizzily, he was seeing double, his vision swam, he could hear nothing but ringing in his ears, that and what now seemed to be the distant sound of fighting. Harlow rose to his feet and propped himself against the back wall, he turned his head to look at the wall the windows were at.

Or rather the sudden absence of a wall...

Harlow gazed out of the now walless third floor and saw carnage as the enemy streamed forward. He saw Ghosts on the streets and in the buildings fighting hand to hand and shooting point blank at anything that came close. Harlow noticed he was covered with dust and he brushed himself off slightly. Harlow's mind seemed to slow with the concussive force of the mortar, he just now registered the sounds of battle just below him.

He shook his head clear and forced himself to focus. They might all be dead now but they would all fight like daemons and make a good account of themselves tonight. Harlow grabbed his pistol in his right hand and primed it, he grabbed his huge fat hunting knife in the other, it wasnt protocol weaponry but then again neither was his rifle or pistol, it was made out of the same material as the straight silver dagger but it wasnt double edged. What the blade lacked in finesse or speed it made up with stopping power. Harlow clutched it with his left fist and descended the staircase.

When he got to the bottom floor he witnessed pure brutality unleashed...

Men were everywhere, Ghosts and cultists alike, stabbing, thrusting, clubbing with improvised blunt objects, wrestling for weapons and killing men with their bare fists. Harlow saw one Ghost kill two cultists with his lasrifle and get disemboweled by a third. He saw one cultist braining a Ghost with a rock, only to be grabbed from behind and have his neck broken. Harlow saw Rawne and Murt back to back slashing throats and kicking in faces.

Harlow was stunned at what he saw, he stood their for a few moments until someone screaming at him snapped him out of it.

A Ghost yelled at him, he didn't know what exactly but Harlow had heard enough oaths to galvanize him into action. Harlow saw a cultist try to finish off a prone Ghost who had fallen on his back with a jagged bayonet, Harlow raised his pistol and fired, the huge crack and recoil was reassuring. The man's chest tore open and Harlow could see his ribcage had been mulched by the huge round. The cultist fell to the ground and Harlow helped the Ghost up and pushed the lasrifle that he had dropped into his hands.

"Get back to it! Kill something before its all over!" Harlow yelled at him.

The man's eyes grew wide as he looked at something over Harlow's shoulder, the man shoved Harlow to the floor and in return was speared by the cultist's sword that was aimed for him. The dead weight of the Ghost took the sword out of the cultist's hands, Harlow shot the cultist in the gut and again in the chest and got to his feet as the man tumbled to the floor. Harlow's blood pounded in his ears and he still couldnt hear clearly, the ringing now a subtle shriek in his eardrums.

Harlow got to his feet shakily, as he was doing so a cultist charged in at him wielding a massive billhook over his head and screaming some blasphemy Harlow didn't want to know the meaning of. The cultist, his rage blinding him, had left his guard wide open with his wild charge. Harlow didn't have the time or space to bring up his gun but he swung the massive knife in his other hand and plunged the silver blade into the man's sternum with a dull thud. Brackish blood seeped from the wound and stained Harlow's dust covered hand to the color of gritty rust. The cultist gurgled, and dropped his weapon clattering to the floor, he slumped, blood and foam dribbling out of his mouth. Harlow wrenched the knife free with a twist. The blade came out sheathed in the rust colored blood. Harlow looked at the blade, he let his gaze run out to the carnage around him...

the sounds and sights blended together...

slow and sluggish until everything seemed like...

it was being viewed...

underwater...

Oh Feth! Harlow thought.

He'd heard of veterans talking about winding down from a wound they didn't know they had received during an intense melee. Everything seemed to slow and stop, everything was distant and hollow, Harlow looked down at his body. the dust from the upstairs explosion still covered his uniform pasting it a dirty gray. He could see no wounds but that still didn't convince him.

A strangled cry broke him out of his reverie and time snapped back to life.

Harlow spun his sight around one hundred and eighty degrees and he saw three separate cultists charging forward at him. Backed into a corner Harlow knew this was it, his final dance.

Never thought it'd come to this... He mused as the cultists came ever closer.

Futilely, Harlow raised his pistol and fired a single round into the face of one screaming cultist who toppled forwards, head detached from body. Harlow swung the pistol around for the second wailing cultist and had it batted out of his hands, a bayonet was thrust forwards, its jagged edge gashing his ribs. Harlow yelled in pain and anger and shoved the cultist away as the next one charged in. Instinctively, Harlow bent at the knees and caught the cultist's legs with his shoulder. He stood up and flipped the cultist over himself on his backside as hard as he possibly could. In the same moment he swung his knife around and took the throat of the first cultist who had thrown his pistol away. Harlow's arms were covered in rusty blood. As the first cultist fell, the second wrenched his own knife around gashing the back of Harlow's leg in a wide slice. Losing his balance, Harlow fell on his back, a growl of pain on his lips. With his adrenaline boiling in his blood, Harlow deftly switched the grip on his knife as he fell on his back and plunged the blade into the cultist's chest and let gravity do the rest. As the cultist fell limp and began to stain the floor with his blood Harlow rolled to his feet and warily limped to the front wall.

The pain in his chest and leg was excruciating, he practically fell against the wall as the battle raged on around him, he waited for a cultist to charge forward and finish him off.

He would make his peace as he died...

"Oh Father who sits on the Throne, lead me through the valley of darkness and death to the eternal light of salvation..."

Harlow sank to his knees and waited for the end; helpless to act by the hell he'd just been through. The world shrunk until Harlow could only sense the pain in his side and leg, he felt the hotness streaming down his body from both wounds. It was strange to Harlow, he thought he'd be dead by now, but he could still feel the pain, smell the blood, feel the desperation in the air. He was still alive and Harlow couldnt help but wonder why. Finally with shaky conviction, Harlow looked up. He saw into the streets of the city outside the building...

The enemy was breaking, the fight had gone out of them and they were fleeing. Tanks revved madly backwards and retreated with them or were destroyed before Harlow's eyes...

Why would they be running? They had the Tanith dead to rites!

Harlow found the answer cresting the hill to the east...

over the battlements of the next street came a single man, clad in the black of the Commissariat, a gleaming chainsword held high above his head in one hand and a massive bolt pistol in the other...

Beside him a boy no older than his teens was playing a set of pipes. Distantly, Harlow recognized the tune "Behold! the Triumph of Terra!" His heart leapt...

On his other side a huge grizzly man stood with the green and gold banner of the Tanith first flowing on its standard in one hand and a lasgun in the other, Harlow recognized him as Major Corbec.

The Major waved to something behind him and the blessed sight of almost three hundred screaming, blood hungry Ghosts came into view, charging down the hill with the none other than Colonel Commissar Gaunt leading them with a battle cry of:

"Men of Tanith! Do you want to live forever?"

The archenemy fled in terror at seeing this display of defiance...

Even if they outnumbered the Tanith, each cultist had had his fill and the stubborn close quarters fight had turned into a full blown rout. The sound of the lad's pipes was like a beacon call for all Ghosts to rally.

Men cheered...

Men charged...

the Ghosts pressed the advantage the counter push had given them. Harlow watched this all, unable to move in utter disbelief at the respite from certain death they were all given. He thought about joining them, he knew he should be trying to find a weapon and charge out there with them. He'd charge out there and prove his worth, he'd-

a thump and roar, and then blackness enveloped Harlow...

~VIII~

Silence surrounded him as oppressive as the darkness that accompanied and the weight on his chest. Struggling to come to, Harlow coughed and gagged as his lungs tried to fill to capacity. Momentarily, he thought he was dead and had entered the afterlife, the dark cramped, oppressive afterlife. Slowly trickling like sand in an hourglass Harlow began to remember who he was, where he was, and more importantly what had happened. He had been fighting a desperate last stand against the invaders, then the Colonel Commissar had come and...

He couldnt remember...

The oppressive weight on his chest was killing his lungs. He tried to shift his weight in the oppressive blackness and the gash on his side flared into life as well. he snarled in pain and tried to move his legs, the slash across the back of his knee protested harshly, the snarl turned into a suppressed yelp and Harlow gave up trying to move. Lying still he could hear movement outside. He heard voices, fear swelled inside him as his thoughts raced...

It was the archenemy come looking for survivors to snuff. Harlow continued to squirm in his trapped state and shifted something off of him which clattered to the ground. The voices were alerted and Harlow cursed himself silently as he heard the footsteps come closer. The weight on top of him started to shift, Harlow could hear things being moved, the sound of stone and metal clangs filled Harlow's ears. Harlow knew his time was up and as soon as the enemy found him he would be skewered or worse tortured and then skewered. Harlow closed his eyes and waited for the end...

Suddenly a light appeared in the distance as if the salvation he had prayed for since yesterday had come. A head popped into the light and Harlow squinted to look up into the face. Harlow's apprehension turned into unparalleled relief. The face presented to him was a pale and dark haired Tanith face.

"Hello?" it called "Anyone alive down there?"

Harlow was so overcome with joy at his salvation that he was almost rendered speechless, instead he laughed as much as his wounds would let him and shouted "No you Feth brain, I'm dead! Get me outta here!"

Fifteen minutes later, Harlow was helped out of the giant mountain of rubble by two Ghosts. The older lanky one he already knew...

"Good to see you Larks." Harlow coughed.

The other was unknown to him but Harlow didn't care, he was just thrilled to be alive.

"Damn! You sure your alive kid?" The other Ghost exclaimed when he saw how disheveled Harlow was.

It was true, Harlow was covered with a thick layer of dust and dirt. The areas around his wounds were stained dark red, and his fatigues were shredded.

"Alright, Varl" Larkin started, identifying the other Ghost, "Give the kid a break, he's had his first taste of hell... Lets get you to a medic."

"Yeah..." Harlow simply replied, he was still too dazed to make much conversation.

The two Ghosts half helped, half carried Harlow to an aid station made in the temple Larkin was posted in. Harlow sat down on a cot and looked around. There were many men like him, walking wounded with just scratches in comparison to the others. Harlow saw men blackened and burned, some had their guts shot out, some had thick bandages to their heads, some were missing arms or legs, or both. Harlow looked away into one of the stain glassed windows above his head where a depiction of the Emperor sat in silent glory. Harlow quietly thanked the Emperor that he had been saved last night. Varl and Larkin had decided to stay around the aid station to help out until they were given other orders. Soon, A medic came over to him, he was old, with thinning hair, but had soft, kind eyes and a set determined face. He began to check Harlow over and treat his wounds.

"So, How did this happen to you?" He asked continuing his work.

"How d'you think Doc?" Harlow answered honestly. The Doctor stopped what he was doing and caught Harlow's dazed gaze and lifted his eyebrows in a 'fair enough' gesture. As the doctor finished his work cleaning and bandaging Harlow's wounds, he continued to talk

"My name is Dorden, I'm the senior medic for the Tanith regiment, I've never seen you around, are you with the militia?"

Harlow nodded.

"Well, your pretty lucky then, most of militia boys are either dead, dying, or maimed."

Harlow thought about that for a minute and realized really how lucky he was, suddenly concern splashed across his face.

"Hey Doc, did you happen to see a trooper by the name of Mkalister pass through here?"

Dorden thought about this for a minute and reached into his pocket, he pulled out a bloody pair of dogtags and handed them to Harlow. Harlow looked at them, already knowing what was on them, the name of his best friend.

"Yeah, he passed through here, and left, we tried to save him, but..."

Dorden trailed off sadly and finished his treatment.

"I'm sorry son, a friend of yours?"

Harlow's gaze wandered around the temple and he nodded faintly

"Yeah..." he said in a hoarse whisper. Dorden nodded too, said his goodbyes and walked away to treat other wounded.

Harlow stayed sitting on the cot for several minutes just looking at his friend's bloody dogtags. Soon, Varl and Larkin came back over to him and found places to sit next to him. For a few minutes, the trio sat in silence. Harlow finally spoke up and asked

"So what happened exactly?"

Varl looked over.

"What d'you mean?" he asked.

"I saw the Colonel-Commissar lead a charge against the flank" Harlow started "I guess the fact that us three and everyone else is still here means that he won it for us."

Varl nodded "Yeah, a Fething beautiful thing that was, him and Milo, and Corbec I mean."

"Milo?" Harlow asked

"The regiment's piper boy, Gaunt's runner" Larkin answered. Harlow nodded. The silence continued for a few moments.

"I guess the building fell in on me when I was watching him because that's the last thing I remember."

Larkin nodded, "Yeah I asked around, the building was bracketed with mortars so badly it fell in, there weren't many people in it when that happened, most had charged out when Gaunt led em into the flank."

Harlow remembered feeling a number of presences surging around him in the final few seconds of consciousness he'd had last night. He had thought those were the footfalls of the cultists come to tear him apart but he knew now it was the Ghosts, following their glorious leader into battle.

"That building had already been searched for survivors by the time me and Varl walked past, then I heard something making a racket and figured someone might have still been trapped in the rubble, and there you were like a stuck pig." Larkin said patting Harlow's shoulder with his bony hand. Harlow smiled, Varl's expression changed from dull boredom to interest.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I found these in the rubble."

Varl held out Harlow's knife and pistol, Harlow thanked Varl and sheathed the knife, his holster had been torn away in the fight so he put it into his pocket. Harlow found that the strap of his rifle remained resolutely strapped to him as well as the rifle was to his back. Harlow swung it around, he frowned, the thing had dust choked into it and was banged and scratched in several places. It would take Harlow forever to get his beloved rifle back to inspection status. Harlow fished out a vizzy cloth and began to clean the bolt and barrel.

"Hey" he said absent mindedly "Wheres the big cheese now anyway, did he live?"

"Yeah" Varl said squarely "He charged the flank of the pocket the fethers made in our line, he pushed em back all the way to the treeline, they left all their gear, heavy weapons, tanks, wounded even, and ran back into the woods like a bunch of scared fethers."

Harlow nodded and gazed out of the entrance into the courtyard of the temple, he saw the very same man he'd seen last night conversing with a group of Tanith Ghosts, he recognized two of them as Captain Rawne and Major Corbec, the other was unknown to him.

"That him?" Harlow said tipping his head toward the small group outside.

Larkin looked and squinted, "Yeah, he's out there figuring out how to clean the mess up with Rawne and Corbec, you know troop dispositions and Feth like that."

Harlow nodded, his gaze switched to the only member of the group who had his back turned to Harlow.

"Who's that?" Harlow said nodding to the figure who was standing ramrod straight even though he looked tired.

Larkin looked again and sighed "That is Lieutenant Mkarth."

Harlow looked around at Larkin at this, "THE Lieutenant Mkarth?" Harlow asked incredulous.

Varl nodded, "Yeah that's him all right."

"The same guy who led 'The Gambit'? The same hard feth who took out a hundred thousand cultists?" Harlow asked his voice slowly rising.

"That's a bit of an exaggeration but yeah, he's already a legend in the regiment, lots a Feth he cooked up for the poor archenemy."

Harlow sat in fascination for a few moments more, and went back to busily cleaning his rifle while the congregation of officers outside continued to converse...

~IX~

Rothgar knew his time was up, the assault had failed and it was all that infernal Colonel-Commissar's fault. Despite the situation, Rothgar smiled. He would soon remedy that situation. The curs of the False Emperor thought they had won when in reality they had lost the minute Rothgar had gotten to the outer limits of the city. Rothgar snuck through damaged and destroyed buildings, crawling like a rat toward his final target. Rothgar could practically smell his prey now, he was close...

Rothgar climbed into a listing four story building and made his way to the second floor, below him, Ghosts milled around or moved with purpose in groups. The prey was close, he could almost smell him. Rothgar fished out his binoculars and gazed into the courtyard of the temple where the aid station had been set up less than a kilometer away. A few seconds of scanning revealed the congregated group of officers in the middle, next to the well. Rothgar smiled as he spied the tall man with the peaked cap and black dress uniform...

There, there! There was his prey!

Rothgar smiled a wicked toothed smile and hefted his rifle,

he was only going to get one shot,

perhaps he needed a better angle, a more sure angle. Chuckling to himself, Rothgar moved to the fourth floor and began to set his rifle up...

~X~

Harlow continued to rub away the dirt and grit from the firing mechanism. He looked up every few seconds. It was a nervous tic, something that he had started doing ever since he had woken up earlier that morning. This tic would go on to save Colonel-Commissar Gaunt's life...

Harlow looked up, with Varl and Larkin still by his side. Harlow was just about to go back to his cleaning when his trained eyes spotted something he had been attuned to so finely that only he saw it. Movement, a silhouette, on the edge of his vision, in that tilting building, just a shimmer in the window of a faraway derelict. Harlow was just about to play it off as a trick of the light when he remembered the silhouette he had seen along the treeline just yesterday. Harlow stared at the point for a few moments, nothing happened...

'He's changed positions.' Harlow thought.

Quickly he rose to his feet and looked at Larkin.

"How high is the bell tower in this building?"

Larkin looked at Harlow confused

"About three stories up, why?"

Harlow didn't answer, instead, he said "It'll have to do" and hustled toward the stairs with his rifle in tow. Larkin looked at Varl for an explanation, but Varl just shrugged his shoulders. In the crow's nest of the bell tower, Harlow got into position. There was no time to set up his bi-pod or make precise adjustments...

this was sniping at its purest:

no tools...

no calculations...

just two marksmen and their rifles...

Harlow looked through his scope at the derelict building and couldnt see it through the glare. Absent mindedly, he remembered his hat and reached behind his head to pull the wide brimmed hat onto his head, shielding his eyes. Harlow opened the bolt rack and reached into his webbing, he had only one bullet left, he had to make this count. Harlow scanned the building in the distance for movement. Finally he saw the snout of a long autorifle and a few agonizing moments later, a head settled behind it. It was smiling a wicked toothed smile and had sighted up on...

Harlow knew it in his gut who the bastard was aiming at...

It was an almost one kilometer shot...

he had to make this...

~XI~

Rothgar's soul laughed heartily as he zoned into the killshot. Finally the crosshairs were aimed right over the mans head, his peaked cap rising just above where the crosshairs met. Rothgar had done it, he had won, he had-

A flash...

He had seen that kind of flash before, it was the flash only made by a scope in the sudden light of the broken clouds. Rothgar quickly zoomed out and repositioned his scope to where he had seen the flash. To his suprise he was looking into the crow's nest of the temple's bell tower-

right into the face of another marksman aiming a rifle at him through his scope...

The man had a wickedly scarred smile on his face.

'no...No...NO!' his mind screamed.

His final shout of disbelief was followed shortly by a slug round and a crack like thunder...

~XII~

Harlow saw the shooter clearly and was sure that it was the same man who had shot at him the day before. Harlow grinned as he saw the man seemingly switch his gaze in slow motion to Harlow. He noted with pleasure the look of disbelief in the man's face. Harlow decided to add insult to injury and recite the rest of his prayer from earlier

"Give me the strength to topple my enemies, the power to crush my foes..." He whispered, he felt his breathing slow, he felt his heart go almost to a standstill just as he had taught himself.

'The last thing you never see...'

His finger squeezed the trigger...

A crack of thunder followed by the harsh recoil of the weapon was all Harlow needed to know about to know that it was done...

~XIII~

Larkin was puzzled. Why had the kid taken off so quick?

Why had he gone to the crow's nest?

Why had he taken his rifle?

Suddenly realization hit him like a fiery coal. Larkin jumped up and ran out into the courtyard with Varl right behind him. Larkin ran straight out, his hands raised, and began to yell to the congregated officers

"Get Down! Get Down! Enemy shooter! Enemy-"

The last part of his warning was cut off by a loud crack of a bolt rifle. Larkin's heart sank, they had failed and he knew what that meant. He looked up, but strangely none of the officers were dead. The were all still alive, now in cover and heads looking in all directions to try to figure out what had just happened, but still very much alive. Men began to shout and run for cover, some jumped out of cover and began to shout questions.

Larkin looked up at Harlow in the crow's nest. Harlow was standing in the bell tower, smiling, when he caught Larkin's gaze, he held up a thumbs up signal.

Larkin grinned and began to laugh. He couldnt help it, it had been a good day...

~XIV~

Harlow walked into the four story building alone. He remembered the events of the last two hours. His shot, the cultist sniper exploding backwards, the laughter of his mentor Larkin. He remembered how he'd come down from the crow's nest and been met by Larkin, Varl and to his amazement the first four officers of the Tanith First regiment. The Commissar wore a proud smile on his face, he held out his hand to shake Harlow's and Harlow took it sheepishly. Gaunt thanked him for saving his life and so did the other officers. Harlow remembered the next few moments as if he had dreamed them. Gaunt had taken off his own regimental cap badge and handed it to Harlow. Harlow had, at first been confused, but everyone had just been smiling at him. Gaunt put his hand on Harlow's shoulder and announced that his militia unit was, effective immediately, being folded into the Tanith First regiment to replace losses. Harlow had been at a loss for words. He was sill at a loss for words as he walked past every Ghost on his way out to the street, they all nodded at him or gave subtle salutes. Harlow had never felt so...accepted, in all his life. As he walked out of the Temple Larkin told him something he'd never forget.

"Welcome to the Ghosts, Harlow, good to have you onboard."

Harlow continued to walk up the stairs of the listing building. He finally found the sniper spread eagled on the floor, his rifle scope had been exploded through. There were tiny glass shards everywhere. Harlow looked at the corpse and saw that most of the cultist's head had been taken off around the right eye. Harlow smiled his wickedly scarred smile. He picked up the cultist's rifle, it was same in operation as his.

Harlow opened the bolt rack. Inside he found a silver slug round, the bullet head was roughly the size of a nalwolf's fang. Harlow continued to smile and put the bullet in his pocket along with the one that cultist had fired at him the day before.

Harlow laughed as he left the dead cultist to join his new regiment...

Later that day, Larkin sat next to Harlow in the entrance of the same temple, watching men move supplies and machines move men through the streets of the city. Harlow continued to clean and repair his banged up rifle that he prized so. Despite his earlier misgivings about its condition, he had nearly finished restoring it to its former glory. Larkin sat beside him, against a crate of medical supplies and gazed out into space.

"So..."

The voice came so suddenly, it almost made Harlow jump, he looked at Larkin as the older sniper spoke.

"My count was twenty six...whats yours?"

Harlow propped his rifle beside him and pulled out the bullet he had taken form the rifle of the cultist sniper he had taken out earlier. He mulled it over in his hand. It had been etched with the number "27."

Harlow smiled, and put the trinket back in his pocket. He chuckled a little and Larkin joined him in his humor...

They couldn't help it, today had been a good day...

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The Siege of Tanith was the most horrific battle the system had ever seen. In only a month of fighting thousands of men and machines were lost in the battle for Tanith's main cities. These sacrifices, however, were not in vain, an army of millions descended on Tanith and was held by only a few thousand defenders until reinforcements arrived to extinguish any other opposition. Thanks to the brilliance of the leadership, the bravery and courage of every Tanith soldier, and the benevolence of the Emperor, the planet was held despite all odds and calculations and, consequently, became the launching point for the Imperial counter strike which retook the salient that had been carved into the crusade's flank by the splinter fleets which had fled Balhaut...

Most heavy was the last few nights of the siege, Tacticae computations plot that up to a million archenemy soldiers were killed in the last week alone. the Tanith took amazingly only around ten thousand casualties during the entire siege. Regardless, after the dust had cleared there were only enough fighting men left on the planet for to form one regiment, officially dubbed the Tanith 1st Recon Regiment (known by its soldiers as the "Tanith First and Only") by the Munitorum. The regiment was shortly assigned to another crusade battlegroup shortly after and, unfortunately, did not have much part in the rebuilding process.

End Part two