Black and White
The impact of the mortar shell fell not three feet from private Dellwick sending a geyser of scalding steam and mud screaming heavenward to a thunderclap applause. Rifle held grimly in hand he dove for the nearest cover in reach, a fragment of wall still standing desolate and solitary, for the scant protection it offered. What the wall had been part of was anyone's guess as the land was as ruined as the structure it had once been a part of. Nothing but desolation as far as the eye could see, a landscape of beauty defiled by men, mud slick with the blood of the slain and sullied by soulless mechanisms of war unholy. Bodies lying unburied loyalist martyr and rebel monster alike, now both sharing the sleep that could never be broken as Lady Death stole their soles from the world and made them leave it as equal to each other as they had entered it. And some would say before their time. All across the field of carnage men scurried forward like ants in the teeth of a gale. Such was the ferocity of the hell storm loosed against them. Such was the malice and hate of the false gods their rebels worshiped. A million sacrifices upon the alter of battle, a million souls gone from the land of the living, a million bodies gutted and mutilated for the relentless laughter of the gatteling guns, the snigger of laser weapons and the deep guffaw of the oath breakers heavy artillery.
Mustering the courage that he knew he rightly did not have private Dellwick scampered across the writhing tortured earth in the direction of the enemy trench on the far side of no-mans land, now seemingly as distant as the slopes of hell and just as inviting. Shells smashed into the earth like hammer blows and all around a background noise to the rain of death, the screams and moans and wails of the dying. A stubber shot flattened its self against his PDF issue soup-bowl helmet and Jonston Dellwick silently gave praise to the Him on Terra for the sparing of his life. The force of the shot had driven him backwards and flat on his back against the mud. His uniform and armour now utterly coated in spilt blood and mud intertwined he sprinted forwards the last closing yards over the lip of the enemy trench and into the pit of traitors and oath breakers that had once been brothers in arms now Chaos scum.
Staggering over the lip of hell and into the abyss of damnation. A man in the defiled uniform of a Sergeant received a bayonet through the eye and into his brain pulling the weapon free private Dellwick turned to see another man bearing the stigma of chaos induced mutation raise his weapon and would but failed to shoot as a laser beam from Dellwicks own pierced his heart.
A stabbing pain shot through his body as the cold of steel sliced through his armour and into his flesh. Plunging deep and tearing upwards with a wet gristly sound as the pain threatened to overwhelm him and plunge him into unconsciousness. The blade was removed with a grunt and his assailant moved on, stepping over his prone form. Pain blossomed as his lifeblood drained away to add its slickness to the thirsting ground. The enemy soldier, once so like him, strode away along the length of the trench. Private Dellwick tried to raise his weapon at the retreating back but his arms were far too heavy and his rifle had become made out of lead.
Suddenly a shower of blood and gore and broken bone streamed out of the rebels back in a fountain of crimson and the corpse hit the floor with a squelch of ruptured innards. Striding through the fading light and the fog of battle a colossal form emerged its footsteps like the hammering of vast artillery shells and its deathly scream emanating from its skull formed helm was not a cry of battle but a lament that it could never cause enough death and carnage. The Aquilla proudly displayed upon its chest. The Emperor had sent one of His angels to avenge him. And a name arose unbidden in his mind of story his mother had taught him when he was but a child. This was The Black And White Space Marine. And Dellwick died with a smile upon his lips fore he knew his world and all he held dear would be saved.