Commisar Lucien Fulkerin fired his laspistol over the trench into the mass of cultists sprinting towars them again and again. His men were fireing thier lasguns into the mass of traitorous, scum-ridden bodies but there were so many of them Fulkerin found it hard to belive.

They were close now and his troops were starting to waver and Fulkerin could smell it. He could see the glazed eyes of the cultists, close enough to see the frothy spittle drip down thier screaming, sore ridden mouths.

"Hold line damn you!" he screamed, his voice amplified by a mini loudspeaker attached to the lapel of his greatcoat. As his troops started edgeing away, he turned round and shot the nearest guardsman."No retreat you cowardly barstards or i'll shoot you all myself fuck you!"

Spread out over the huge line, he could see chaos marines. Emporer where were those bloody reinforcements? He had voxed them over twenty minutes ago.

The fire from the chaos marines started and men were dyeing all around him.

The men gave out cries of horror.

"Pay no attention, to the dead, men! The real horror lies over there in that whole mass of traitorous bodies! The enemy is upon us! Prepare for combat!"

Fulkerin drew his sword and activated the power rune. The blade was at once sheathed in a lethal energy feild.

One cultist leapt into the trench and landed right on top of Fulkerin, who was thrown to the floor. The cultist drew up his knife, a crazed look in his eye. Then his head split open and blood gushed out from a lasblast from Fulkerin's laspistol.

At once Fulkerin was up and fighting, he stabbed a youth who gave out a cry of pain, then kicked him off his sword blade and shot him in the heart. He ducked under the swing of a huge club then pistol whipped the man in the head before running him through with the energy-sheathed blade. He watched a hugely muscled, dark-skinned man just fighting with his bear hands, tear his men apart. Fulkerin gestured with his sword.

"Come on you bastard, you chaos wreathed scum!"

The man turned to face him slowly, then charged. He had obviously been mutated by the powers of chaos, for he had much faster reflexes than a normal man should, making a mockery of Fulkerin's mastery of swordplay. Fulkerin was thrown against the trench wall, and was at once winded. He brought up his laspistol and jammed it into the man's jaw and pulled the trigger. Fulkerin was sprayed with blood as the man dropped to his knees. Fulkerin started to laugh, was this all they could throw at him? He voiced this aloud at the blood-frenzied cultists

Then a chaos marine in black power armour bearing a symbol of a three headed hydra on his right shoulderplate leapt into the trench right infront of him. Fulkerin immiadiately raised his pistol to fire but the heretic astartes was quicker.

He felt a surge of pain in his chest as his carapace armour was smashed by an armoured fist. Then suddenly his world was spinning, and he fealt the impact of the muddy ground knock the breath out of him again. He had been thrown through the air and his armour had aabsorbed most of the impact, so he wasnt badly hurt thank the Emporer. He then heard the roar of the chaos marine's bolter and imperial guardsmen died all around him.

The chaos marine looked up to the skies now filled with explosions of the imperial navy battling enemy ships above and began spasming with evil laughter fireing his bolter at random intervels. But then another armoured figure leapt into the trench. An imperial space marine, bearing a lion's head on his left shoulder guard. An imperial space marine! Along the trench wall Fulkerin could see other space marines in bright yellow and orange armour leap into the trench, bolters on full automatic mode.

The space marine smashed into it's heretical counterpart, and the impact rang through Fulkerin's ears. The heretic astartes was thrown against the wall, then ducked under a cut to the head with a combat knife and to Fulkerin's astonishment, picked up the loyalist and threw him to the floor. The loyalist slid across the ground scambling for purchase and almost crashed into Fulkerin. Both displaying superhuman reflexes that no normal human could ever hope to match, they brought thier bolters to bare on each other at the exact same time.

Impact craters were blown in thier armour but none had caused any serious damage on the other. The loyalist used a corpse of a dead guardsman to sheild himself and got to his feet. He lobbed it at the chaos marine and darted in after it. With a roar the chaos marine swiped it aside with a single blow and caught the loyalist's knife arm. Both were locked in a grapple the like of which Fulkerin had never seen before. Such unimaginable strength, Fulkerin was mesmorised and all he could do was watch as the heroes of light and darkness battle it out.

The loyalist was flung against the wall. Both of them were holding each other's knife arms away from thier faces while pressing down with thier own. The heretic astartes brought his knee up into the loyalist's side and the loyalist who was flung to the floor by a further punch to the head. The heretic then brought down the knife and it slid through a crack in the loyalist's armour. He was rewarded by a scream of pain, and he laughed in pleasure and triumph. But the loyaist was not done. He seized hold of the heretic astartes' neck and rolled over so he was on top and began pressing it down against the floor. He ripped the chaos marine's helm free, dropped his knife and plunged his thumbs into the chaos marine's eye sockets. The heretic astartes screamed in pain. The loyalist space marine clenched his thumbs and began to pull, cracking the skull open and tore them free, stood up and stamped on the chaos marine's face to silence him.

He looked up at the commissar who was staring at him.

"Thank the Emporer for that" he laughed, his voice was very deep and masculine "the bugger's squeals were so loud they would have popped my eardrums"

He walked over, limping slightly and offered a hand to pull the dishevelled commissar up. Fulkerin took it and he was hauled to his feet.

"The name's Brother Fabius Fulkerin of the Emporer's Lions chapter"

"Fabius... Fulkerin?"

"Aye"

"Out of interest did you have a brother called Lucien Fulkerin?"

"Aye, did you know him?"

A broad smile crossed Fulkerin's scarred features.

"Fabius, how long has it been? Forty years? I thought you were dead!"

"Lucien? Throne, youre a sight for sore eyes"

They had been so absorbed in thier conversation they had'nt seen the second wave of cultists charging towards them!

Fabius' head suddenly turned to see another massive wave of bodies surging forward. A sight that would have had a man with absolutely no combat experience on his knees and vomiting met his eyes. Traitors were being blown apart by artillery shells, sprays of blood fountained out of heads, torso's, arms, legs and just about every bit of the body as lasfire from the surviving guardsmen errupted from the trench and Fabius's bolter started roaring, and every shell found home. But this time there was no doubting that they would be overrun, and this time a lot of the remaining guardsmen started climbing out of the trench to flee.

"Fucking cowards!" screamed Fulkerin impotently as he started fireing his laspistols at the guardsmen that were running, the lasfire from the trench slackened, and the cultist's charge increased in speed and ferocity.

His attention turned back to the oncoming horde, he knew he was going to die, he was sure of it. But he would fight the Emporer's enemies until he could fight no more, and nothing could change that.

Then suddenly Fulkerin heard the powerfull, high-pitched shreek of five landspeeder squadrens. Finally they were here. He looked back and he saw a blurr which only resembled the chapter colours of the Emporer's Lions chapter. They flashed across no-man's land sending down a hail of heavy bolter and assualt cannon rounds. Cultists died and the men cheered.

"And that is why you dont run away men!" yelled Fulkerin through the mini-microphone "You may still live to fight another day!"

"For the Emporer!" he screamed as the last cultist was shot dead!"

"Wow" muttered Fabius looking at him "You arent half bad at leading men! Youre a totally different person when shooting your them aswell"

"All in a good days work" smiled Fulkerin, having recovered from his rage at the imperial guardsmen "I say, will you be stationed at this trench for long now the attack has finished?"

"Yes, we will be here until further PDF reinforcements arrive"

"Good good, may I invite you to my quarters for a drink. We can catch up on eachother's times"

"Sure" said Fabius, he took off his helmet to reveal a handsome face with long blonde hair "Why not?"