Disclaimer.
Got bored, so this came along.
Thank you for those of you who gave "Before the Battle" a chance! I really didn't expect anyone to read it. :)
hope you like!
The harsh, cold wind bit at the Sister as she hurried back towards the camp. Blood seeped through the gaps in her beaten and broken armor. Her hair was matted with the blood of those who had shoved her out of the way as blasts from a servant of Chaos came flying towards her; it was so soaked and matted it looked dark, almost black, whereas her unharmed and awaiting-battle comrades were waiting for her back at the camp had their white hair.
This Sister was one of the best, one of the youngest, and one of the finest that the Emperor had to offer up in battle. Hell rained down on those who stood in her path and death hit her foes by force wherever she went, but this night was different.
The Sister had encountered the Chaos Lord in battle this day, as snow storms raged around and fire fights had broken out as both Chaos and those who served his Holiness lost many of their soldiers, booth bloods staining the pure white snow, bodies filling the nooks and crannies of the ice and rocks beneath the layer of the forever white snow.
Seeing through the one eye as she made her way through the night, this Sister of Battle, who served under the command of the Living Saint and the Emperor himself, trudged on, letting the falling snow cover up her bloody trail of footprints her armored boots left in the snow. She held her left side gingerly, having taken a few hits herself, prepared to die for her comrades.
The Chaos Lord was not one for mercy, unless he demanded it, and gave it to his foes. But apparently he had been in a merciful mood this bloodstained day. By merciful, he had been horrific, barbaric, and monstrous. The Sister winced as she stumbled in the snow but kept going on, refusing to limp as she neared the top of the rocky cliff. Her foot had been crushed by one of the Chaos Marines while she had been trying to save another Sister. Before the servants of the Chaos Gods could wipe out the invasion of Sisters completely, when only a dozen exactly remained, the Chaos Lord had ordered those below his rank to cease fighting.
Instead of killing them, he had informed this particular, faithful Sister of another comrade, one who had seen him months before the first battle of the Holy War against the hellish forces of Chaos. He had felt the faith of this soldier, this scout, as he called her, dwindling, weakening, dying within the soul of the woman. He had felt the rage rolling off of her, although he had been certain that it had been from one of his own kin at the time.
This scout, one of the remaining dozen held in shackles by Chaos before suffering overtook them, had admitted to this. Her Sister's words rang in her head as a sharp gust of wind nearly knocked her down, the searing cold stinging her bare cheeks, seeping in through the cracks of her armor and numbing her to the bone.
"Sisters, hear me now!" We all stood to attention. Could this really be true? Could our Comrade really have dwindling faith in his Holiness? The Eighth Sister from the Valor Squad, my squad, the elite squad that had been sent in with the basic, trained soldiers that always went into battle first, began speaking, sitting on her knees while she bled out in the snow. "Sisters! How can we be his Holy servants if all we do is die for him? Do we not matter to him? Is his immortal greatness is what we truly need for us to survive? We cannot win these fights by our lone selves, by prayer, or by the help of our allies and the defeat of the servants of the Powers of Chaos! Tell me, my dearest Sisters of Valor, how can you stand to see your comrades die beside you, for you? How can you sleep without seeing the faces of the fallen, who have shown the Emperor just how far we will go to prove our faith of him? I cannot see why we must trust in an immortal, Holy leader while he sits back and allows our friends, our families, our Sisters to die for him without consequence! Do you not remember the wounds you have taken for another, do you not remember the pain you have taken on for your comrade, do you not remember died for you, to save you, to protect you, so that you may keep on fighting, only to die for another Sister again, to die until we are only bones and ash and blood spattered on a hillside, being covered by our enemies, by the people who need us, by the Emperor himself?"
Shock hurt the Valor Squad more than the Chaos servants had. Silence covered the snow and the adversaries. We all could never have imagined this problem within our own ranks. Did not all the Sisters have undying faith towards his Holy wrath?
But then I understood the pain in our Sister's eyes.
And slowly, those who had been given the name of Valor did, too.
"We hear you, Sister," I said. I was the leader of this squad, I was supposed to enforce faith, enforce the Emperor's Holy wrath.
But I understood her.
"We hear you," I said again, "Sister, I hear you pain and your dying faith; I can feel your truths in your words; I see it all in your eyes!"
"We hear," echoed the others.
The Chaos Lord turned to me. "You," he said, taking a step over a dead Chaos Marine towards me. "You are their leader?"
"We would not have anyone replace one as she is," my second in command told him.
"I would not have this any other way," the scouting Sister told him, and he turned to face her. His mercy was apparent, but his wrath had not yet been dealt out on us. We would suffer still, unless we escaped. I had to do something. My weapons lay in the snow at my feet, useless as my hands were shackled to my squad.
"Your lacking of faith deceives your strength in battle," he told her.
"I will feel how I wish, regardless of the consequences," she spat, fury rising in her voice, igniting a white hot light her eyes, making her stand up straighter. They had broken her back.
How was she standing with so much pain to bear?
"Even if I am punished by my Emperor himself, I shall perish true to myself and my comrades. For the ones I shall die for, for the ones who have died and will die for me, and for these soldiers standing in shackles before you, who will die for each other without hesitation, as how it should be. Faith is not the driving force anymore behind my actions. I shall die not a traitor, not a saint, not a hero, but as a soldier. As one of the squad belonging to valor, I will no longer give up my life and save my Sisters for the Holiness of my leader: I will give up my life, my weapon, my heart, and my soul for those who have been created for the cause of cleansing this universe of its filth. I will die for those who leapt in front of me to spare me from death itself, and I shall do the same, but not for his Holiness, not for the Emperor, but for the fallen, the rising, and the fighting."
We could only stare.
And I promised her then and there, before all as my witnesses: "Sister, I hear you. We shall die this day. But I shall die for you, and for the fallen, and for the rest who have given their lives to the leader we have never seen before, but we love and trust with all our hearts."
My faith wasn't dwindling, but I knew her words would haunt me. And then I did something incredibly foolish: I stood up to my full height, my matted hair sticking to my face, mingling with sweat and more blood, picked up my weapons, and began to fight.
Fight for my Sisters.
Fight for the fallen.
Fight for the risen.
Fight for the surviving.
Fight for the comrades, who had given their lives so that we may fight with their fury, their passion, their belief in a better word if we died for them.
We had fought valiantly, but only the scout and I survived that firefight. She lay in the snow, coughing up blood, smiling at me.
"Sister, you have heard me," she said.
"I shall come for your body and give you the honor you have deserved this day, Sister," I told her, grasping her hand in mine the way the Space Marines did, as a sign of farewell in battle, or of comfort in defeat or victory.
"Do not," she began, but I would save her if I could.
"I will be back," I told her softly, and took my leave, trudging towards the camp.
I left my Sister bleeding out in the snow, broken and beaten by the Chaos Lord who how somehow slipped away during the fire fight.
Her words rang through my head like constant wind chimes during a hurricane as I left her line of sight.
The Sister repeated her comrade's words as she entered the camp in her mind, crying out as she fell to her knees, "Living Saint, hear me now!"
The beating of Holy wings could be heard as she herself appeared before her, looking down in her glowing glory.
"What is it?" she asked the kneeling woman.
"We were slaughtered by the Powers of Chaos," she said, rising to her feet shakily. Sisters began standing, taking in her bloodied, beaten, broken, frozen form, picking up their weapons, preparing for battle. "My comrade is waiting for me. We must return to her."
"Why bother?" the Saint asked her. "We have done enough here. It is time to move on from the next world."
She felt her faith fading fast, and embrace this feeling.
"I do not fight for his Holiness any longer," she shouted, her voice strong, ringing out through the silent camp as they listened. "I fight for my Sisters, for the fallen, risen, surviving, and those who have died for me! We shall go back for her, out of honor, out of respect. She is lying in the snow, dying for me and the Valor Squad."
The Living Saint regarded her words as moments ticked by.
Finally, she said, turning away, "retrieve your Sister."
And with that, this particular, broken Sister turned around and began running back into the night, but she felt a tug on her bleeding arm, and saw that it was one from a higher-ranking squad, the Victory Squad.
"His Holiness will wish to know of your dwindling faith," the older woman told her, "but we shall retrieve your dying comrade, because she is ours, and we will die for her as she is dying for you and has died for you squad. We would do the same."
And they were off, the most elite squad, lead by a lone, broken soldier.
Fight for those who have died for me.
Fight for those who have taken away my pain.
Fight for those who have saved me.
Fight for those who have died before us.
Fight for the fallen.
Fight for my Sisters.
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