It was moving.
He was moving.
Richards couldn't tell really but all he knew was the soldier was still alive. What willpower, what sheer amount of perseverance allowed him to push on! The poor man was just a torso, crawling up the edge of a crater, the other half of him floated in a pool of blood and muddy water in the crater's basin. Richards took cover behind a burned out tank, watching the poor soul slowly squirm to the crater's rim. It was a Krieg soldier, a grenadier Richards remembered, he could tell by the skull motif on the mask and the unusually large amount of armor for a guardsman. Not that the armor could have saved him from a direct artillery impact. Lesser men would have surely been killed, but the Krieger powered on.
The grenadier crawled out of Richards view. Richards peeked out from behind the tank to nearly have his head blown off by the spray of bolter fire. He quickly hugged his cover and watched as several Korpsmen charged the enemy nest, to only be cut down like the grenadier. Only the grenadier trudged on. He clawed under the coils of razor wire and over the shredded bodies of his comrades to the enemy lines. He picked up speed, whether the drive was fueled by adrenaline or fury, Richards couldn't say, but he watched in amazement as the grenadier's crawl sped up. He scrabbled over the rubble of the battlefield, trailing thick smears of warm blood and small bits of entrails and organs behind him. Richards saw him reach under his coat, and continue with one hand, up the side of the enemy's ramparts.
He pulled out a handful frag grenades and clutched them by the handle. He strung them on his shoulder armor, around his neck, and over his heart, the sign of the Aquila. He quickly ripped out the pins before flopping into the bolter nest. Richards ducked away just before the explosives went off.