The Teorric 5th Light

by Stephen Basket

A culturally uplifted Imperial Guard regiment is enlisted in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade.

The Teor 5th Light Infantry

One

Teor

FAIR WINDS BLEW across the fields of rye and barley that lined the southern bank of the Massorn. It was late spring, and tired men worked the fields to prepare them for seeding.

A cluster of cottages was formed at a small hook in the rutted road that ran along the river. Less than thirty families lived here, the men working the fields, or hunting in the not-so-distant woods. Morning light bathed the small daub-and-wattle houses in warm reds and yellows.

The village was called Deorstun. Deor's Stone. Named for a long-dead thane who fell upon an orcish blade, it was a great stone of solid granite. Hard and dark, it had been carved with the harsh runes of these people, describing the life and death of Deor the Fallen.

In the early morning light a single man stood before the Stone. He wore brown breeches and high riding boots of worn brown leather. A cloak of deep green hung about his shoulders, the edges speckled with dirt and mud. And when he moved the light flashed against the matte-grey hauberk of mail he wore, clinking softly with every step.

The man was tall and fair, with short-trimmed hair the colour of honey and a neat beard a shade darker. Sunlight glinted in his kindly grey eyes.

He ran a gloved hand across the runes. "For four days and four nights," the carving read, "Deor stood valiant before the foe. He and his party cut down score upon score, but at last they were overcome by the chiefs and warriors of renown among the foe."

"Gods give you rest," the man said quietly. His voice was light and noble. Cockerels began to crow and he could hear chatter as the women of the village started their mornings. Babies woke crying, children laughing.

"Lord?" a voice asked from behind the man.

With a final silent blessing the man turned away. "Yes, Theomed?"

The other man, younger and dark where his lord was fair, looked questioningly at him. "It is morning, lord."

Smiling, the lord rolled his eyes at the young man's pointless observation. He walked past Theomed, whistling quietly.

"It's just," Theomed began, following his lord after a moment.

"Just what?"

"Well, lord, it's just that you told me to tell you when it was morning."

"And you did. Good man, Theomed." Bemused, the lord walked the short distance to the cottage the lord had claimed during his short stay. The family had been very welcoming once they realized who he was, and he had left a fat purse of silver with the father.

Inside was dark and gloomy. The cottage was sparsely furnished, only a couple straw beds and a table with three poorly-carved chairs. A simple shrine to the Gods was erected on the table; a wooden carving that showed the God of Gods standing, with his mighty Sons kneeling around him, nine warriors without peer, scholars of the highest learning, and servants of the most absolute loyalty. Theomed had left a candle burning at the altar, the lord saw.

The lord sat slowly in one of the chairs, the wood groaning slightly beneath his mailed weight. "Sit, Theomed," he told the other man who hovered hesitantly in the doorway.

"Are we to leave soon, lord?" Theomed asked after he sat.

"Yes," the lord answered. A silence descended on the two men. With a great, sad, exhale, the lord leaned forward. "Theomed, there is something I must tell you."

"Yes, lord?"

The lord shook his head. "I do not tell you this as your lord, Theomed the Kind." He smiled gently, "I say this as your brother, and with love."

Theomed, confused, tilted his head. "What is it, Edwurd?"

Edwurd son of Wulf, Lord of the West Pass, stared straight into the eyes of his youngest and only surviving brother. He found himself unable to speak for a moment, the words catching in his throat.

"I must leave, brother."

"I'll be glad to put the village behind us," Theomed said uncertainly, clearly aware that his brother had another meaning.

"No, Theomed, not the village. I must leave this land. I am called away on a great quest, myself and many others."

"But you are lord!"

Edwurd moved his chair closer and laid a hand upon his young brother's shoulder. "I have been. But I must go, and you shall be lord of this good land." Theomed looked even more confused, as if he refused to accept what Edwurd was saying. But his brother was loyal. As loyal as the Gods, their father had been heard to say. He would accept this truth.

"I must go, Theomed. I cannot tell you where. It is a duty, a high honour, a holy calling. You will be lord after me. You know what is expected of you. Raise your sons well, and take care of our mother, and be kind and noble and just and righteous and fierce." Edwurd knew he was rambling, and he could feel the pinpricks of moisture in his eyes. Private tears he dare only show his beloved brother.

In the end, as Edwurd knew, Theomed accepted his truth. They left the village near dusk, and made camp along the riverbank as the stars came out, coating the night sky with their sparkling brilliance. Edwurd lay upon his back in the wet earth for long after Theomed finally drifted to sleep.

At last he rose, in the darkness of night, and mounted his great warhorse Fier. Fear. He took one last look at his sleeping brother and turned away. He rode south-west, the opposite direction they had been riding, deep into the woods of the mountain foothills. There he met a party of strange men, and left behind forever this land he had loved so very much.

Two

In Orbit

Fourteen Months Later

"SO THAT'S WHAT it looks like." Beorn observed. He stood at the iron railing, hands clasped so tight his knuckles were white, and looked down on his world.

Edwurd stood beside him and said nothing. He studied the slowly spinning orb before them, a small gem of blues and greens set against the blackest black of space.

"All this time and I never saw it," Beorn said. He was speaking Teorric, the tongue of Teor. If any of the off-worlders had heard he might face charges but this was a private gathering. A final goodbye.

Teor, their homeworld, turned. Edwurd saw the single great continent and, with his new knowledge, could even pick out the lands of his youth, the Kingdom of Voran and the wide, savage Bay of Breaking.

Others gathered on the observation deck picked out their homelands. Some wept, but no words of admonishment were said. It was a feeling every man of Teor shared.

The vessel was making ready to depart. A massive, twenty-kilometre long beast called the Umpteenth Holds, it carried the ten thousand men of the 5th and 6th Teor Light Infantry. That was who they were now. Edwurd looked around, saw the men in their brown fatigues and dark green jerkins, padded garments reinforced with flak-armour panels to protect them in battle. Long cloaks of deep, forest green hung about their shoulders, and the officers wore peaked caps in the same shade. Their boots were black, high laced, with a shin-guard of bright-polished steel on which was formed the symbol of their regiment; a rearing stallion. The head of the beast rose to form the knee guards, and the officers wore the same pattern on their vambraces.

"Standby for set-off," a tinny, mechanical voice rasped over the ships' intercoms. With a deep rumbling the vessel began to move. One or two men groaned as Teor began to fade from view.

Edwurd, now Colonel Edwurd Wulfson of the Teorric 5th, cleared his throat. "Departure is achieved," he called, and the noises of chatter and sobbing faded, "Return to your quarters and make ready for shift." Sullenly, the mob of men broke up.

"That's that then," Major Bern Ravnson said brightly. The dark-haired, dark-eyed second officer had accepted their new purpose without complaint. Wulfson envied him that.

They had called upon by the God of Gods, Wulfson now knew. With a bitter, secret anger, he recognized where it began. Two years before a monk, filthy and lost, had been brought before his court, seeking shelter. Edwurd son of Wulf had accepted him with open arms, and the monk had become and advisor and friend. In truth he was a spy of the Imperium, surveying Teor for hardy warriors suitable for uplifting.

It was then, on a cold spring night, that Edwurd's fate was announced to him. The monk revealed his purpose, and opened Edwurd's eyes to the greater truths of the universe. The Imperium of Man and the God-Emperor and the raging holy wars that surged around their isolated, primitive world.

Eight long months of Indoctrination and Re-Education had cobbled together two regiments of five thousand men a piece. The men chosen were all already warriors, hardy and fit. Their prowess with axe and spear and sword was unquestionable, but it had taken the quartermasters and drillers of the Imperial Guard a long time to instruct them on the tools of modern war; lasrifle and grenade and vox. First aid drills and communication codes and hand signals. Small-unit tactics and bayonet training, urban warfare and jungle warfare and mountain warfare. Even now, with a two-month journey through the Warp ahead of them, the Teorric had much learning left to do.

"Any idea where we're going, sir?" Ravnson asked.

Wulfson grunted, "Somewhere called the Sabbat Worlds. Apparently, we're part of the Sabbat Worlds." He struggled to remember the briefings he had been forced to sit through, listening to harsh-voiced off-worlders shout at him in the Low Gothic he and his men had been made to learn. "Seems there's a Crusade to reclaim these worlds from the Archenemy." Whoever that is, Wulfson thought blithely. He and his men had been told quite clearly just who they were fighting; Warp-tainted madmen and heathens and heretics, the worst traitors gathered into vile, repulsive hosts. But beside from some pict's and stills, they had not seen any of the Archenemy in person. The officers of the other regiments aboard the Hold assured them they would.

"Well, if we're off to fight, may as well be doing something holy." The two men were walking down the long, bare-metal passageway that lead to their billet hall. Two guards in Teorric cloaks flanked the hatch, their lasrifles slung across their back as they chatted and smoked. Lho sticks had become very popular since their inception. In full combat gear, these guards had webbing belts heavily loaded with kit; bayonets and fighting blades, grenades, and spare ammunition, and little personal effects. One man had a longsword hanging from his hip, the other a mace. Though the drillers called them idiots for clinging to their antiquated weaponry neither Wulfson or Colonel Aldred of the Teorric 6th had ordered their disuse.

"Lads," Wulfson said as he approached. The two men flicked quick salutes.

"How's home look, lord?" One of the guards asked. The common troopers had a habit of using the old honorifics.

"Beautiful, Trooper Graeme." Wulfson answered. "But in our past now."

Graeme shrugged, "Maybe, lord. Still, beautiful is good."

Wulfson smiled and nodded as he walked past, entering the long, smoky, stinking billet hall afforded the 5th. Housed in six-man groups, the troopers shared small bare-steel holds that once clearly been used for bulk storage. Even the officers were forced to share space, many sleeping alongside the common troopers who only a year before had been their oathmen and inferiors.

Ravnson made his farewells, climbing the iron-grille staircase to the upper level of billets. Holds flanked the long passageway, wide enough for three men to walk abreast, on either side. Troopers sat on empty crates and played dice or tiles, or smoked and sipped the sludgy, brown drink the Imperial's call caffeine. Many seemed almost addicted to stuff, thriving on the energy boost it provided to the unfamiliar Teorric. The drillers had made it clear that caffeine was dehydrating and not actually that effective, but few paid heed to their warnings.

Walking straight backed, hands clenched at his side, Wulfson walked the hall quickly on his long legs. Troopers, their pale faces and fair complexions bathed in harsh artificial light, turned towards him with nods and salutes and grim smiles.

Passing the second-to-last hold on this level Wulfson was stopped by the single last person he wanted to be stopped by.

"Colonel!" A guttural, entirely non-Teorric voice accosted him.

Wulfson stopped and sighed. He turned and faced the short, red-faced man. "Good day, commissar."

"I caught three of the men speaking Teorric today," Commissar Ekan Qyl said without preamble. "They are awaiting punishment duties even now."

"By the Gods!" Wulfson exploded. Heads turned to watch the latest in a series of such confrontations. "Of course they're damn-well speaking Teorric, Qyl! They're in a Teorric billet, surrounded by Teorric men who, by Gods, also speak Teorric!" Wulfson was screaming now, in the unfamiliar Low Gothic, the fat commissar eating this with a look of slight disdain.

"They are Imperial Guardsmen now, colonel," Qyl made the rank a slur. "They must learn the basics of their new role. That is why I am here."

Wulfson snorted, "I knew there must be some reason for your presence. Gods alone knew it was to punish my men for talking." He threw his hands up in the air and turned away, cursing the fat political officer savagely in Teorric.

"Colonel, get back here!" Qyl yelled after him, but Wulfson ignored him.

Qyl stood around for a moment longer. He noticed the Teorric staring at him, smiles crossing their lips. He huffed and set a hand on his pistol holster scanning their insolent faces. "As you were!" he called angrily, and the troopers looked away. As the commissar strode away he heard gales of laughter rise. Even redder, and sweating fiercely, he moved on, shoulders set and scowling.

Three

Danstad

RAIN LASHED THE file of men as they moved, quietly, in the sucking mud beneath them. There was no chatter as the roar of the downfall, and the thunder of the armour duels to the west, made it impossible. With hoods pulled over their helmeted heads the Teorric moved north, crossing overflowing streams and flooded pastures.

Colonel Wulfson led four fyrds, Teorric slang for an Imperial Guard company, along the edge of the washed-out road. Flooding had destroyed the simple log-and-plank roadway the pioneers had laid through the marshes. The lightly-burdened Teorric had found it much easier to follow the slightly higher ground that ran along the right shoulder of the path. Still, they struggled to march in mud that reached halfway up their shins in some places. Boots sucked in the mire, and some men had to stop to retrieve footwear pulled off entirely by the stinking muck.

It was, the Tacticae office assured him, only fifteen kilometres along this 'road' from their dispersal point to reach to Sak River. There, an overweight, sweating man in the red and black of a tactical officer assured him, Wulfson would find the 98th Krekland, who the Teorric were to relieve from their position guarding a vital ford over the Sak. In this weather the Sak was sure to be raging too hard to ford anyway, but Wulfson had been informed by other, more sympathetic Guard officers aboard the Umpteenth Hold, to keep his opinions to himself.

It took them nearly ten hours of constant marching to reach the Krekland position. There they came to a straggling, exhausted halt, and were greeted by a tired major in filthy white fatigues. He took Wulfson on a quick tour of the water-logged positions defending what was indeed an unusable ford of the raging Sak River. Weary troopers in mud-plastered uniforms, barely recognizable as once being white, or even clean, traded places with the Teorric in their greens and browns.

"Hell of a place," Captain Rypan observed. He and the other fyrd officers had gathered after settling their men and setting the first watches. In the muddy foxholes and flooded trenches the Teorric collapsed into fitful slumbers. Others busied themselves with trying in vain to light their cooking stoves, or help the support teams try to dig out proper positions for their light stubbers.

"How long we here, lord?" Captain Ormod asked. One of the few non-noble men to be made an officer, Ormod was, like all Teorric, tall and lean and pale. He had long greying hair and sad blue eyes.

Wulfson spat into the mud, "Maybe two weeks? The Lord General said rotations were up in the air." He spoke Teorric, as did the others. Qyl had been left behind to accompany Major Ravnson and three fyrd's as they moved to occupy a ford further upriver. Wulfson pitied Ravnson.

The last of their group, Captain Heorot, cupped his hands to light a lho stick. Hiding the glow of the smoke as the drillers had taught them, he snorted and looked over the miserable fortifications. "They can't expect this to make any difference? A proper warband would sweep us away in an instant. Look how wide the ford is!" He pointed at the far bank, where the riverbank showed was rutted and bore the remains of the same log roadway. "Big enough to move fifty men across in a line! The ford of the Weorssian River was the same, and I led the charge that broke that open with only a hundred men!"

Wulfson grunted. He'd heard about Heorot's exploits back on Teor. "Maybe, captain, but that was back home, with sword and axe. Now?" Wulfson patted the wooden stock of his lasrifle, "Now we're fighting a very different war." Heorot said nothing.

"What about the enemy, lord?" Ormod asked. "Where are they at?"

"The Tacticae say they're somewhere in those hills over there," Wulfson pointed northwest, to where a line of sharp chalk-downs was barely visible through the rain. "Holed up in occupied villages to wait out the seasonal storms, or something like that."

Wulfson remembered a little of what he heard about the enemy on Danstad. An off-shoot of the overlord of the Archenemy's massive hosts, the warband known as the Unchained had landed on this prosperous Imperial colony four months ago. They'd overrun the local forces quickly, but fortunately several regiments of Krekland infantry and armour were mustered nearby and had answered the frantic calls from the planetary governor. The fourth planetary governor in as many weeks, apparently.

Fought to a standstill on the world's single, small continent, reinforcements, including the Teorric, had been brought to bear. While several fierce bloody battles raged across Danstad's many archipelagos the weight of Imperial infantry had been landed to join the Krekland, massing for a final, decisive expulsion from the main continent. First, however, the exhausted Kreklanders needed time to rest and resupply.

Thus the 5th and 6th Teorric, along with five brigades of Norian Chem-Troops, had been sent to relieve the various fords and firebases that lined the two thousand kilometre long, mostly quiet, frontline.

Wulfson dismissed his officers and set to arranging the Teorric as best he could. His own fyrd had the first watch, and he positioned them in what he thought the best way. The night stretched on, and sometime around the high moon Ormod's fyrd woke and relieved his own weary men. Blissfully, Wulfson retired to one of the water-logged habitents that had been erected behind a small rise just back from the ford. Collapsing, soaking wet and covered in mud from head-to-toe, Wulfson fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

And woke, eleven hours later, to the smell of frying eggs and ham.

Rising groggily, Wulfson stepped out of his tent. The rain had stopped and the clouds cleared. Warm light from Danstad's twin suns bathed the camp. He saw that more habitents had been erected, in neat, ordered rows. Larger five-man units for the officers and smaller pup tents for the common troopers.

Wulfson walked the rows. It was early morning still, and Teorric troopers wolfed down a hot breakfast gleefully. At the centre of camp was a massive tent, much larger than the others. Inside, eighty troopers sat at simple benches and trestle tables, eating hearty meals of fried ham chunks and eggs, with hard toast and soft beans, washed down with steaming mugs of caffeine. The Kreklanders had left their mess hall erected, along with the medicae tents and some elevated ammunition dumps. Teorric men in grubby fatigues and simple aprons stood at open fires, cooking up meal after meal for the wet and ragged troopers. Many of the Teorric raised for the crusade had once been serving men and had happily brought those skills to their new roles.

Accepting a metal tray heavily loaded with warm food, Wulfson joined a random gaggle of troopers and tucked in. The men were chatting happily, for the first time since leaving Teor Wulfson thought. It was as if the simple novelty of hot meals had blinded them to their realities.

After breakfast, with his stomach grumbling happily, Wulfson took another tour of the defences. Though still a helpless mire, the Teorric had dug themselves a series of serviceable fighting positions to cover the ford from many angles. Three stubbers were dug into the small copse of evergreens that stood on the left flank of the crossing, while earth-and-log bunkers studded the trench covering the main approach. The men worked to fill sacks with mud for make-shift shelter, nervously scanning the north bank as they worked, exposed.

In one trench he came upon the company vox-men. One trooper from each fyrd was there, playing with the dials of their bulky vox-casters, simple olive-drab backpacks rectangular in shape, with a foot-long antenna sticking out of the top and a receiver handset locked into place on the side.

"Oh, colonel," Vox-Trooper Raedbora noticed his presence. "I was about to call for a runner. Message for you, lord." He handed Wulfson a sealed, tissue-thin message wafer.

"Thank you, trooper," he broke the seal with his thumb. Enemy movement noted by orbitals, it read. Be advised of movement towards Sak. By word of the Emperor, Lord General Haust sending.

Wulfson ripped up the message. "On second though, damn you, Raedbora," he said with a humourless smile.

Four

Sak River Post 19, Danstad

THEY CAME TWO days later. In the middle of the day, slogging across the still-drying mud fields. They came marching, bearing banners, unafraid of the Teorric. There were maybe five hundred of them. Wulfson couldn't pick out many details from this distance, but he saw the symbols on their banners. Symbols that made him sick to look at. Several troopers had reported vomiting, and he had issued a firm order not to look upon them more than they had to.

The Unchained dug-in maybe a kilometre from the ford. It was clear that they were awaiting reinforcements With four fyrds, four hundred men, Wulfson was confident he could see off many small-scale attacks. But if the Unchained brought tanks to bear, he was not sure they could hold firm, virgin and green as they were when it came to this kind of warfare.

For now, it was a tense stand-off. He'd voxed back to the Lord General's office requesting reinforcements. They'd only gotten back to him maybe fifteen minutes earlier, saying that Major Stedman was leading two fyrds to his position. Raedbora, from intercepted vox signals, got the impression that the enemy was massing at every ford of the river Sak.

"Wish the devils would just attack already," Heorot said. He and Wulfson were observing the Unchained with their field glasses, studying the dispersal of foxholes and gunpits they were digging. Bands of Unchained were spreading out, digging long, thin slit trenches in the mud. Clearly, so very clearly, they were expecting substantial reinforcements.

"Yeah," Rypan agreed, "Get it the hell over with. By Gods, the waiting is worse."

Ormod shook his head. He was studying the small maps the officers had been issued with. "We've no idea what fighting like this is like, Aedgar." Rypan snorted at the perceived insult, but Ormod held up a gloved hand. "I just mean, aside from drills and weapons tests, none of us has fired a weapon before. Our first taste of war will be hard for all of us."

"Ormod's right," Wulfson said.

"Still, Heorot has a point." Wulfson sighed and lowered his glasses. "We need to learn and fast." He moved over to where Ormod had spread out their maps on a small trestle table.

"The Sak is dropping quickly," Wulfson said. "It'll be passable by, Gods, tonight I'd say."

"The Unchained won't attack until they've been reinforced, lord," Ormod observed.

"Doesn't mean we can't," Wulfson countered. The officers fell silent.

Rypan cleared his throat, "Uh, sir, we can't cross the river. Orders."

"We can't advance, no." Wulfson smiled wolfishly, "But, Aedgar Rypan, nobody said we can't harry the foe."

Wulfson tapped a finger on the map, "We'll send a party across. Fifty men, at nightfall. We'll ambush their work teams, then scuttle back across the Sak before they know it. The dumb bastards are so spread out, we can wipe them out before the main host even knows."

Rypan nodded, "Yes. Good. Just like back home. Kill the foragers and the scouts, leave them blind and scared." He slammed a fist on the table, "By Gods, yes! I'll lead them, sir."

"I'll take the men across, of course," Heorot said at the same time.

Wulfson shook his head, "No. Neither of you. I will lead the men across. Tonight, at dusk. You all stay here, with your fyrd's ready for anything." The officers grumbled but accepted his word.

Wulfson ordered those not on watch to snatch as much rest as they could. It was about four hours before he wanted to cross the Sak. Despite the order, most of the men were too restless to sleep. Anxiety spiked as they realised that, for the first time, they would be engaging in this new form of warfare.

The sky clouded over as dusk fell. The moon helpfully obscured, Wulfson gathered his chosen men. With the rest of the force waiting, tense, for anything, he led the filthy Teorric across the Sak. The waters reached their chests, and footing was treacherous at best, but nobody fell. Soaking wet, they reached the far bank.

Five

Sak River, Danstad

WULFSON BROKE THE party into two groups. He led one east along the Sak for fifty metres before turning north, while Sergeant Wilbur led the rest north along a narrow streambed.

The mud was mostly dry by now, but patches of deeper, stinking ooze still existed. Slowly, crouched low, the two groups moved in parallel. Observation during the day had identified the furthest spur of the Unchained's growing trench network. Maybe two score were estimated to be engaged in this end of the fortification work.

Wulfson made an abrupt hand gesture and his men dropped onto their stomachs. Slithering through wet grasses like snakes, they approached the Archenemy. With a shock, Wulfson noticed his hand was shaking. He made a fist, then sent the hand signal for fix blades.

As quietly as possible, the Teorric fixed their long bayonets to the end of their lasrifles.

Slowly, they crawled up to the trenches. He could hear the Unchained; snoring and grumbling. Sentries chatted in some ugly, unpleasant tongue. A fire crackled, and slow, plodding footsteps squished past in the damp earth.

On my go, he signed. He held up three fingers, then two. Then one.

With a whisper, the Teorric rose and scrambled into the half-dug Unchained emplacement. They bayoneted sleeping figures, or knocked blurry-eyed sentries to the ground and broke their skulls with rifle butts.

Up close, he saw the enemy at last. They were short and stocky, for the most part. Disgustingly dirty grey jumpsuits, festooned with symbols that were painful to look upon, were weighed down by pieces of ragged webbing and kit, almost certainly looted from battlefield dead. They wore flat-topped helmets and sacking hoods that hid their features. Somehow, Wulfson knew he was glad of that. Some wore heavy chains across their torso, others had armour made of square plates of iron or steel held in place with ropes. Their weapons were a motley collection of Imperial lasguns, locally-manufactured autorifles, and rusted pistols paired with curved, serrated blades and long-toothed axes.

The Teorric had killed at least a dozen before the first shot was fired. An Unchained warrior raked a long burst of automatic fire across the Teorric, killing three outright with shockingly bright blasts of red lasfire. "Open fire!" Wulfson roared, letting loose with his rifle. He pumped three quick shots into the chest of the Unchained, blowing tight-grouped holes in his torso with brilliant lines of pure white las.

Soon the small dugout was a wild confusion of smoke and weapons fire as the two sides opened up. Wulfson and his men took cover in one of the unfinished trenches while the Unchained clustered in a series half-dug foxholes, or behind mounds of earth from partially-completed emplacements.

The trooper next to him was blown backwards, a smoking black hole in his forehead. The noise was immense, like nothing any of them had ever experienced. There was screaming too, from the wounded. But the Teorric had been warriors, hacking each other to pieces in the messy wars of their homeworld, and they were used to screaming.

"Gods!" Wulfson cursed as hard rounds stitched the small lip of the slit trench. He realised their estimates had been wrong, or the enemy had brought up more men since they had been observing. There were easily sixty shooters among the Unchained. As soon as they realised the weight of numbers they would charge the Teorric. And the larger force at the main encampment would be rousing itself even now.

"Where the hell is Wilbur?!" he screamed at the corporal next to him. But the corporal had lost his eye and the back of his skull to a hard round, his corpse propped up on the trench. Grenades began to go off around them, spraying some men with mud and others with shrapnel.

The gunfire increased exponentially. At first Wulfson thought that another squad had arrived to reinforce the Unchained. Then he recognized the distinctive whip-crack of Teorric lasguns.

With a roar of hatred, Sergeant Wilbur led his men into the rear of the Unchained. Outnumbered though he was, Wilbur had surprise and tenacity on his side. Many of the Teorric had slung their rifles and drawn longswords and axes. Blood and gore flew as the screaming Guardsmen tore into the Archenemy.

Sensing his opportunity, Wulfson rose and waved his men forward. He slung his own heavy rifle and drew the fine longsword he had brought from Teor. With a practiced flick he swept aside the dirty bayonet of the nearest Unchained. He cut the bastards screaming head off, then thrust the tip of the blade into the stomach of the next one.

Caught from two sides, the Unchained were overwhelmed. They fought like the monsters they were, blasting Teorric troopers apart at close range, or hacking into them with rusted bayonets and savage hand weapons.

But the Imperial's had the momentum. Only ten minutes later, Wulfson watched Wilbur smashed the skull of the last Unchained to pieces with his flanged mace. Dripping brains and blood, Wilbur saluted Wulfson with the mace and laughed a gleeful, warrior's laugh.

"Fall back!" Wulfson yelled. In the gloom, he could see shapes coming their way from the rest of the Unchained lines. Too many shapes.

Carrying the wounded and dead alike, the Teorric double-timed it back to the Sak. The pursuing enemy grew closer. They could hear their blood-curdling battle cries, their baying hatred.

"Come on, come on!" Wulfson urged. He stood at the ford with a dozen other men, snapping hasty shots at the oncoming Unchained. Figures buckled and fell, but not enough. They'd really roused the nest; easily two hundred of the enemy approached. Las- and hard-rounds began to crack past them.

There was a mass of splashing in the ford behind him. Wulfson turned, and saw Captain Rypan leading his fyrd across, rifles held above the water line. He wanted to tell Rypan to get back, but it was too late. The thirty or so members of Wulfson's party still on the far side had to form a paper-thin line and meet the charging foe.

Wulfson snapped his rifle to his shoulder, raking the front row with automatic fire. Then his rifle clicked and fizzled. His pack was empty. With a roar of frustration he ran forwards, the others beside him, and met the first Unchained with a bayonet to the throat.

They had only seconds before the enemy overwhelmed them. Desperately, he sliced and hacked at the foe. The tide rushed over the men around him, cutting down five more.

Then, with a clatter of knocking kit and striking blades, Rypan's fyrd joined the fight. "Send these heathen bastards to hell!" Rypan roared, wading through the melee with a sword in one hand, a shield in the other.

The Teorric were forcing the Unchained back. Metre by metre, they fought their way out of the shallows and onto the river bank. Captain Heorot arrived next, his fyrd turning the Unchained's left flank and tearing into them. More bands of Archenemy warriors arrived.

With a certainty, Wulfson knew that this was all of them. Five hundred or more against two fyrds. Little supporting was coming from the other bank of the Sak. For fear of hitting their own men, the Teorric were holding fire.

Above the din, he could hear more men crossing the river. His own fyrd, led by Sergeant Modig, slogged through the mud, stepping over the burst corpses of friend and foe alike.

"To me, to me!" Wulfson cried, waving his sword in the air. He'd slung his rifle again and was slicing left and right. Teorric men in green cloaks and brown fatigues surged in around him.

He cut down a chanting Unchained, then took off the arm of another before he was swept away. A sobbing Unchained officer hacked at him with a chainsword, the motor keening. He deflected the scything weapon by striking the outside of the blade. Strong as they were, simple Teorric steel swords would stand no chance against the adamantium teeth of a chainsword.

His guard open, the Unchained died with Wulfson's sword in his mouth. He thrust the spasming corpse to the ground, careful to avoid the still active chainsword, and moved on. He sliced open an Unchained from behind, and killed another seconds before he planted an axe in a distracted Teorric trooper's skull.

With a moan of dismay, the Unchained broke. Routing, the Teorric pursued them, tearing them apart as they fled. Other troopers held fast and gunned them down.

Keening an ancient Teorric war poem, Rypan led a charge that overwhelmed the last of the fleeing foe, massacring them in a welter of blood only metres from the incomplete defenses.

Breathing heavily, Wulfson lowered his sword. Around him, Teorric moaned and wept and laughed. Some stalked the killing grounds, plunging blades into the surviving Unchained.

Captain Heorot approached him, coated in blood. He smiled broadly, his teeth shockingly white against the crimson covering his face.

"Our first blood," he said, sweeping his gaze across the mounds of Unchained dead. Medics had arrived, escorting wounded Teorric back across the river.

"You were right, Leofwine," Wulfson replied. He wiped the blood off his sword with a rag he kept in his webbing and sheathed the blade. He stalked away, barking orders at the milling Teorric. They left the Unchained corpses to rot, and piled all their weapons in one central foxhole. Then they strung the incomplete fortifications with mines and improvised tripwires.

Retreating as dawn broke, Wulfson was the last to cross the Sak. In the distance, across the flat pastures and fields, he could another mass of Unchained approaching. They approached quickly, sprinting the last distance to reach their devastated lines. Unchained banners had been erected in a long line and left to burn. Many of the men who had been set to that task were now sick, and Wulfson feared he may have damned them with that order.

Watching through his field glasses, Wulfson grinned as the Unchained spread out. There were about four hundred of them. If they had attacked in full strength, Wulfson was not sure they would've held on.

There was a crump and geyser of dirt fountained into the sky. Linked into one long chain, the explosives left by the Teorric detonated, destroying the entirety of the make-shift emplacements. He saw Unchained throw into the air and land, arms flailing. As the dirt settled less than half the enemy were still standing. They roared defiance, but even their savage intelligence accepted they had been defeated. They stalked back the way they came, bloodied and angry.

Six

Sak River, Danstad

MAJOR STEDMAN ARRIVED early the next afternoon. He led two fyrds, fresh from the regiment's reserve. They made good time, much better than Wulfson had, because the road had mostly dried up by now.

Stedman also brought orders. He walked into Wulfson's tent without waiting and sat at the small table in the centre.

"Gods damned mess, isn't it sir?" Stedman said slowly. He was a short man, for a Teorric, with no hair on his head but a long, bushy beard of spun gold. Scars criss-crossed his beard, signs of his long days as a warrior in the King of Voran's household.

Wulfson set down the small scissors he was trimming his beard with. "What's a mess?"

"This! All of this!" Stedman chuckled softly, his voice like gravel. He fished a hand under his cloak and pulled out a sealed message envelope. "Straight from the Lord General," he said, holding out the paper.

Wulfson snatched and read quickly. "You're kidding me, right Stedman?"

"If only." Stedman sighed, then helped himself to the left-over bread from Wulfson's lunch.

"'Advance in strength'?" Wulfson read off the sheet. "Just like that?"

"Not just us, sir," Stedman said, spitting crumbs from his full mouth. "Every ford detachment is moving north. A general advance, like."

Rubbing his half-trimmed chin, Wulfson frowned. "Still, seems a little premature."

"If I've learned one thing this past year, sir, it's that these Imperial's don't think much in terms of long-term."

Wulfson snorted. He snatched the last piece of bread before Stedman could devour it. Chewing, he thought about the orders. Advancing had a certain merit. If, as Raedbora's vox indicated, every crossing of the Sak had faced similar attacks the enemy might just be on their backfoot, wasting their strength in a pointless harrying action instead of forming a fist and forcing their way across in one big move.

Regardless, the orders were direct and personalised. The next morning Wulfson lead five fyrds across the Sak, leaving Captain Heorot to watch the crossing. Heorot had been furious, refusing to see the rest off and, Wulfson had been told, was heard to curse the name of every officer accompanying him. Wulfson paid him no mind; at his core Heorot was an oathman, and he would follow his command.

They followed the same path the Unchained had used to approach the Sak. At first the land was gentle fields and pastures, unused since the invasion. Weeds had begun to spread through the fields and saplings lined some of the ditches. There was no livestock in sight, not even bones where they might have been killed. Ormod supposed the Unchained had claimed them all to feed their ravenous hordes.

About ten kilometres north the fields gave way to thick woods. Slowly, with scouts leading the way, the Teorric entered the woodland.

The forest was utterly unlike the warm woods of home. Where Teor boasted gentle broadleaves and tall, noble pines, Danstad had twisted trees hanging thick with creeper vines and moss. It was cooler here, and in many places the trees formed a solid canopy. Little wildlife moved through the gloom either. There were no bird songs, no herds of deer sliding through the trees. Insects thrived in the soil, and amphibians and reptiles were thick in the small bogs the Teorric encountered. The near complete silence spooked many of the men, though, warriors that they were, they would never admit it.

Other forces moved through the woods. To their west was Major Ravnson and two fyrds of his own. Further east moved companies of Norian Chem-Troops. Two days into their advance Wulfson's force made contact with the Norian's, their furthest edges stumbling upon each other beneath the trees.

The Norian's were hulking, thickly muscled men in navy blue fatigues and black body armour. They had rounded bowl helmets and heavy rebreather masks connected to bulky backpacks by a series of hoses. Unlike the Teorric, light-armed and light-clad, the Norian's made an undisguisable amount of noise as they moved through the woods.

Captain Dresh Kulliar commanded this axis of the Norian advance. Pale, his skin almost grey in its lack of colour, and hairless, he had bloodshot yellowed eyes. When he spoke, sound issuing through his rebreather, his every breath was accompanied by a wet sucking sound.

"Well sir, sshhcuk," Kulliar wheezed when Wulfson first met him, "Tacticae says we're fifteen kilometres from an enemy fortress, sshhcuk."

"Estimated strength?"

"Sshhcuk, maybe four, five hundred? Well dug in, too, sir."

Wulfson grunted. He found it hard to look into the Norian's eyes, and instead pretended he was scanning the tree line. The shapes of his men slinked through the trees. To the east, the harsh forms of the Norian's were far less secretive about their advance.

"My men aren't exactly fit for siege work, captain," Wulfson explained.

The Norian's eyes twinkled and a harsh, ugly sound rattled through his mask. Wulfson realised he was laughing.

"Don't worry, sir. Siege work is ugly work, sshhcuk, and ugly's what we do."

Seven

Foothill City, Danstad

WULFSON HAD BEEN right. The Unchained's pitiful attacks on the Sak were the last of their field strength. As the Imperial's advanced, unopposed, into the northern reaches of the continent, on a front nearly two thousand kilometres long, the Unchained withdrew to fortified fastnesses. Bastions, some Imperial, some converted from existing structures, some carved from the living rock during the Archenemy's occupation of the world, studded the flint hills that made up the lower reaches of the unimaginatively named Northeast Mountains.

Foothill City was the latest such holdfast. It had been a small mining town before the war, only a few thousand souls clustered around a stony riverbank that drew its wealth from the rich iron mines dug right beneath the town. The Unchained had taken it after heavy fighting with the local defense forces. The civilian population, reduced to slaves, had laboured long to erect stout stone walls around the town, demolishing much of the existing city for materials.

As the Teorric and Norian's advanced the entirety of the slave population, roughly two thousand men, women, and children, had been thrown into the massive trench surrounding the town and doused in promethium, then set alight. Their screams had greeted the Imperial's, bouncing off the valley walls and chilling every man to his bones.

Captain Kulliar had proven his words. The Norian's, joined by several more companies, had encircled the town from the east, digging deep trenches and establishing protected gunpits for their artillery complement. The fields guns began lobbing high explosive shells at Foothill City, blowing huge holes in the walls and setting much of what was left ablaze.

But that was just a diversion. In their trenches, unseen by the enemy, the Norian's were digging. Digging deep, following pre-invasion charts of the various mining shafts beneath the city. Kulliar hoped to break into those tunnels and come up in the centre of the Unchained. His troopers, he assured Wulfson, were used to tight quarters. Something to do with their homeworld, a hive world. Wulfson had seen many picts of hives since his uplifting, and he could never accept the awesome scale of them. Kulliar boasted that his men could win a tunnel war against any foe in the stars.

While he was doing that Wulfson spread his men out on the western flank. They covered the gates and sally ports, preventing the enemy from making any attempt to strike out. The Teorric were tense, and they flinched every time the Norian artillery fired, completely unused to the harsh, overwhelming sound.

After four days, Kulliar sent him a brief vox-blurt. It was two words, clipped by the vox and in a harsh, guttural Low Gothic.

"We're in." Was what it said.

Wulfson roused his men. The plan was, ten minutes after Kulliar entered the tunnels, the Teorric would launch an attack of their own on the western side. Norian gunners would open up with hidden guns and blow apart the walls, allowing the Teorric to swarm in and storm the town.

The sky had clouded over again, dark, black clouds. There was moisture in the air, and, distantly, Wulfson could hear thunder, though that easily could be an armoured duel. It was unnaturally dark, even though it was only a little after high noon, which played to the Teorric's advantage.

Rypan's fyrd would lead the way in. Wulfson had been hoping to join up Major Ravnson's men, but Raedbora told him he joined a battalion of Kreklander armour in an assault on a major enemy fortress to the west. Even so, he had five fyrd's with him, and at least as many Norian's.

Time clicked by slowly on the cheap, Guard-issue watch Wulfson had been issued. Thunder boomed, closer now, and the first drops of rain drifted in on the cold winds.

His watch hands turned. On cue, the Norian guns opened up. Explosions dotted the western walls, blowing stones and bodies alike into the air. Wulfson waited as the dust cleared. When it did, there were four massive breaches in the walls.

Screaming in Teorric, Wulfson waved his sword in the air. "Forward, by the Gods!" Cheering, the Teorric rose from behind the slit trenches, pouring forward in a broad wave, cloaks flapping wildly behind them. Trooper Caflice put a warhorn to his lips and blew three long blasts.

Haroooooo, haroooooo, harooooooooooo, the horn screeched, chilling and low.

Wulfson led his fyrd through the right-most breach. A thin wall of Unchained met them with blade and bayonet, but they crumbled beneath the fury of the Teorric. Men in green cloaks and brown fatigues flooded into the ruined city. Many of the Teorric had already switched to their hand weapons, and they hacked the Unchained to bloody pieces wherever they found them. Wulfson, hanging back with his rifle, snapped off quick shots that blew Archenemy soldiers off their feet. Rypan's fyrd lanced straight into the heart of the town, with Ormod and Stedman branching left.

Bellowing unholy war cries, mobs of Unchained warriors met the Teorric on every street and in every alley. Splashed with blood, the streets running red with gore, the Teorric forced their way deeper and deeper into the fastness.

Beneath his feet Wulfson felt detonations. In some places parts of the road fell away, collapsing into yawing sinkholes that swallowed men in clouds of dust.

"To me, men of Teor!" Wulfson shouted. He waded through the crowd, stabbing and slashing with his long bayonet. An Unchained hacked at him with a two-handed axe. He caught the weapon on the haft with his blade and pushed it aside. Wulfson shoulder charged the Unchained and knocked him to his feet, stabbing his bayonet into the vile creatures throat before he could react.

At the very centre of the city was a long grey warehouse of rockcrete. Unholy images had been daubed on the walls in what Wulfson was pretty sure was blood. Ragged banners flew from it, their symbols making his eyes water. The Unchained seemed to be defending the structure, falling back from the streets to form a ring around it. The Teorric held back, spreading out to surround them. Lasfire and hard rounds cut through the air. It stank of blood and shit and fyceline, clouds of smoke obscuring vision on either side.

The enemy chanting grew louder. Repulsive words were audible even above the din of battle. The sounds made some men wince and others moan. Wulfson walked the line, chanting old Teorric prayer-oaths to keep the men focused.

"What the hell is that?!" a voice wailed. Heads turned towards a shape moving through the smoke, something only tenuously human that slowly walked out of the structure. The figure raised its hands and suddenly the smoke cleared, and Wulfson saw it clear.

It was, or had been, a man. Tall, ten feet at least, skeletally thin and pale as new-fallen snow. The arms were too long, the legs too short, it was swathed in grey robes and crested grey helmeted from which hung wrought-iron charms. The figure carried a rusted sword as long as a man is tall in one hand and waved a filthy, blasphemous banner in the other.

Imperial briefings had identified a single leader amongst the Unchained. A heathen prophet called Cxulk the Liberator, the Tacticae had no idea where he was or what he looked like. Staring across the broken road at the nightmarish figure approaching the Teorric, Wulfson was pretty sure who he was looking at.

"Remember your faith!" Wulfson cried. "Remember your oaths! Remember your honour! Stand fast, and the Gods stand with you!"

Cxulk opened his mouth. It kept opening, far further than a mouth had any right to open. His teeth were short spikes of black steel, his mouth bleeding as his cheeks began to tear. Screeching, painfully sharp, filled the air. Teorric men doubled over, clutching their ears and weeping.

Wulfson forced himself to his feet. Cxulk was striding across the cobbled roadway, smiling insanely. He raised his sword and ugly lances of purple lighting crackled off, striking Teorric at random and instantly setting them on fire. The horrible, mind-churning screams of burning men overwhelmed everything else. Overhead, the sky opened up, rain falling in sheets so thick that visibility instantly dropped to less than ten metres.

The Teorric were running. Stumbling blindly, sobbing, praying, the men ran back the way they had came. Wulfson roared and cursed and threatened, gathering maybe fifty men around him to check the Unchained that followed on their leader's heels.. Cxulk came on, his lanky form half-seen through the rain.

Terrified, hands shaking, Wulfson raised his rifle and started firing at Cxulk. The shots lanced through the rain and impacted on the dark shape. In answer, deep, piercing laughter cut through the noise, and Cxulk turned towards him.

"By Gods, to hell with you daemon!" Rypan roared, leading a charge of a hundred men. At the forefront were a dozen Norian men carrying heavy flamers, left by Kulliar to bolster the Teorric assault. The Norian's swept gouts of liquid flame across the Unchained, focusing on Cxulk. The heathen roared, and swept his long sword across the front rank of Rypan's charge. Six men, including two of the Norian's, fell, bisected at the waist. One of the flamers, his dead hands still depressing the firing switch, swept across the Teorric. Rypan was engulfed, stumbling through the streets, a screeching, human torch.

The Norian's pressed the attack. Cxulk slaughtered more, tearing into the frantic Teorric, but the Norian's flamers began to overwhelm him. Cxulk's robes caught, and his chanting carried a stressed, pained undertone.

Sensing the shift, Wulfson ran forward, charging into the line of Unchained marching behind Cxulk. The Teorric followed him, forty or so scared troopers, hacking into the Unchained with unbridled hatred.

The Unchained crumbled, but Cxulk stood strong. Even as his flesh began to blacken and slough off he killed, picking up one Teorric and dashing his head against the ground until it was a pulp.

A flurry of lasfire tore into Cxulk's back. Wulfson looked, and saw hundreds of Norian troopers flooding out of the central building. Kulliar led them, slicing left and right with a chainaxe, a weapon favoured by the Norian's. Blood and gore misted the air around him.

Wulfson rallied more of his men, calling them back as the last of the Unchained died. Kulliar and his men joined the scrum around Cxulk, and the two forces hacked the giant to his feet. Burning, dripping blood and melted flesh, Cxulk lost his left leg at the knee to a screaming Norian's chainaxe. The beast fell to the ground, and the Teorric and Norian Guardsmen set in, hacking and stabbing with bayonets and blades until the heathen's massive corpse was entirely disassembled. Wulfson ordered them back and Kulliar brought up his flamers, washing their purifying fire across the gory mess.

Panting hard, fighting with every ounce of his being not to weep, Wulfson stepped back. Teorric troopers stumbled past him, shaking with exhaustion and fatigue and fear, tears streaking down their filthy cheeks. They stammered prayers or vomited, or just stared, hollow-eyed.

Captain Kulliar limped over to him. He was coated thickly in blood and dirt, bleeding freely from a messy blade wound in his side. The Norian tore off his rebreather and sucked in a deep lungful of the stinking, smoky air.

"Victory, sir."

Wulfson looked at the older man. "Is it always… like this? Is it always this awful?" His voice broke, and he felt tears in his eyes. Kulliar smiled sadly and led him away from the common men. In the ruined shell of a building, the two men sat, and Kulliar said nothing as Wulfson wept and wept and wept.

Eight

New Handir, Danstad

THE FALL OF Foothill City marked the end of the northern campaign. Bands of Unchained guerrillas retreated into the mountains, and fighting raged still on the many islands of Danstad, but the phase of open war was over. The Teorric and the Norian's were retired, called back to long-liberated southern cities for a week of rest and relaxation, by order of Lord General Haust himself.

Foothill City cost the Teorric 5th one hundred and eighteen men dead or too injured to return to service. Sergeant Cyneric was promoted to take over Rypan's fyrd. The grim-faced former farmer smiled at the news, then winced as the expression creased the bandaged cuts on his cheeks.

Two days after Wulfson and his men arrived in New Handir Commissar Qyl joined them. The commissar, with the battered remains of Ravnson's force, arrived in a long convoy of cargo-8's. Raedbora cautiously entered Wulfson's quarters to inform him. The Teorric had been quartered in a former hotel, the grand structure once frequented by local elites but playing host to bands of filthy, uncultured warriors. They had been joined by their regimental followers, the motley collection of whores and wives and armourers and the like, many of them taken from Teor with the fighting men, others from the locals, or the followers of other regiments that had been aboard the Umpteenth Holds.

"Uh, lord," Raedbora said, cracking open the door. When Wulfson didn't answer, he opened the door more. The room was dark, but a shaft of light from the hallway illuminated the sleeping colonel, and the red-haired woman that was curled around him.

Raedbora coughed, "Colonel? Lord?" He had to duck as Wulfson sleepily threw a pillow at him. He tried again. "Lord, it's important."

"Ughhh," Wulfson groaned. He rolled over and glared at his nervous adjutant. "What?" Beside him, the camp follower sighed and rolled the other way. The sheets pulled away and Raedbora saw that she was naked.

"Uh, lord, Qyl has returned with the rest of the men."

Wulfson opened his eyes fully and sat up, also naked. He pulled on his brown breeches and jackets then put on his unlaced boots. Raedbora handed him his cloak, then made an excuse to leave the room.

"I'll be back, my love," Wulfson whispered to the woman.

She laughed drowsily, "Take your time, m'lord." Her name was Taesi, and while she wasn't a whore by the strictest sense of the word, Wulfson had no illusions as to her real feelings for him. She was asleep again before he even left the room.

Raedbora was waiting in the hall, nervously fiddling with the hem of his cloak. The colonel's adjutant was young, with honey-coloured hair that fell to his shoulders and bright green eyes. He smiled awkwardly when Wulfson walked out of the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

They walked down the hall in silence until they reached the lifts. Wulfson jabbed the down button. As they waited, he coughed slightly and looked down at Raedbora.

"So, Qyl?"

Raedbora shook his head, "Yes, lord. He returned just now, with Major Ravnson's men."

"What about Beorn?"

"Nobody mentioned Major Ravnson, lord." Raedbora shrugged. "Maybe he's back with the wounded. They haven't all been processed yet." The lift indicator buzzed and the doors slid open. Wulfson pressed the button for the ground floor and leaned back against the wall. The elevator, though dilapidated, still boasted fine gold-flake trim and had-carved wood panelling.

With a sudden thud, the lift reached the ground floor. The buzzer was malfunctioning and only issued a harsh crackle from the speaker box. Wulfson sighed, and stepped into the lobby.

Where arch men in starchy, decorative uniforms once worked, scowling Munitorum drones now ran the hotel. They barked quick, contemptuous responses to the inquiries of the milling Teorric troopers, or just stared at them with hooded eyes and ugly frowns.

Wulfson saw some of his officers gathered in a small huddle, speaking quietly around a folding table heavily laden with caffeine and baked goods, gifts from the locals.

"Outside, lord," Captain Ormod greeted him. He was grimacing, trying hard to avoid eye contact.

"What's outside?" Wulfson helped himself to a mug of caffeine. Compared to the stuff provided by the Guard it was heavenly.

Ormod shrugged. "The Commissar, and Ravnson's men."

"Kind of," Captain Heorot muttered. Wulfson narrowed his eyes but neither men seemed eager to elaborate. Annoyed, Wulfson set down his mug and stalked towards the front doors. After a moment, he heard the others behind him.

It was raining again outside, cold and icy rain that made the stone stairs out front slick and treacherous. Carefully, he stepped down and came onto the street.

And stopped, shocked.

Commissar Qyl was marching at the head of a column of Teorric men. The political officer, sweating fiercely, his fat cheeks red with even this mild exertion, was dirty and wounded. Behind him were troopers, many of them also wounded, shuffling along slowly.

Major Beorn Ravnson had lead three fyrd's forward. Three hundred men. By Wulfson's estimate, there were less than eighty walking towards him.

Wulfson strode down the street and came face-to-face with the commissar. He glared, lost for words. Qyl snorted quietly and snapped a hard salute.

"Colonel, force reporting!" he barked.

Wulfson scanned the line of troopers slowly. "Where," he said, not looking at Qyl, "Are my men? Where, is Ravnson?"

"Lost in the line of duty. Glory and place at the Emperor's side are their reward." The bastard was smirking. Wulfson's hand twitched.

"Ranking officer!" he cried to the gaggle of Teorric. They looked at each other, muttering, and eventually a young man in a corporal's stripes stepped forward.

"C- Corporal Ealdgyd, lord," he stammered.

Wulfson sniffed, "I'll want a full report, corporal." He as staring at Qyl again. "I'll want to hear your tale."

Qyl ground his teeth, then turned hard on his heels and strode away.

Ormod, Heorot, and the others joined Wulfson. The troopers, ragged and hurt, broke into small groups. Wulfson angrily ordered Ormod to see to them, then wrapped a supportive arm around Ealdgyd's shoulders and led him into the hotel. He snapped at Raedbora to bring food and drink to his room as he passed.

Inside, sitting at the flaking table in Wulfson's room, Ealdgyd told him his tale.

"We were ordered forward, the Major said, lord," Ealdgyd said, sipping at his caffeine. He was speaking Low Gothic, even when Wulfson spoke to him in Teorric. Taesi, dressed more conservatively, sat silent next to Wulfson, and watched with warm blue eyes.

Ealdgyd continued. "Lord Ravnson, he said we had to go fight the enemy, head on like. So he gathered us, two full fyrds, his own and Captain Osgar's , with Captain Wemba to stay behind and watch the crossing.

"We moved north for two days, then met up with some Kreklander tankers. Tanks!" His eyes were glossy. "Never would have imagined seeing something like that back in my village, lord."

"It's a galaxy of wonders," Wulfson said quietly.

"We joined up with their outfit. There were some enemies held up in a hillfort overlooking a major farm district. All the farmers were dead, crucified every ten metres along the highways." Ealdgyd shuddered at the memory. He finished his caffeine and set the mug down. Taesi refilled it, then, after a pause, took a bottle of liquor from a cabinet and topped off the cup. Wulfson said nothing.

"Thanks. So, we joined the tanks in their attack. I'm a gunner, lord, so I was dug in with my partner, covering Lord Ravnson's advance. Enemy bombs tore gaps in the line, and their own support weapons scythed down our lads like corn at harvest time. We watched it, Hereweald and I. watched Captain Osgar blown apart, watched his fyrd crumble and rout. Ravnson got in among them, exhorting them, rallying them with prayer and war-song. Even so, he led them backwards. The enemy was too strong. Even the Kreklander's were retreating, lord!" Ealdgyd's hand began to shake.

Wulfson smiled at the young trooper. "Continue, son. It's okay."

Ealdgyd took a deep breath. "Ravnson ordered us back too. We packed up our gun and double-timed it back to where our fyrd was gathering. Along the way, we came upon Commissar Qyl. He was advancing, with fifty troopers at his back, and no sign of the Major.

"'Where in the hell are you cowards going?' he roared at us. When Hereweald tried to explain, tell him that the Major ordered us back, Qyl spat in his face and shot him. 'Coward' he said, while I tried to wipe the blood and brains of Hereweald off my face."

Taesi gasped. "He shot him? Just like that?"

"Yes my lady," Ealdgyd nodded at the whore, "Just like that." He drained his spiked cup of caffeine and set the mug down heavily. "We were from the same village, lord, Hereweald and I. Came up as lads together, joined Lord Saewine's household together, agreed to serve the God of Gods together." He shuddered again, and fell silent. Wulfson paused a moment, then clapped the man on the shoulder.

He got the rest of the story over the next few days. During the attack, Ravnson had ordered his men to fall back under the withering enemy fire. Qyl objected to this, calling it cowardice. When Ravnson ignored him, the commissar drew his pistol and executed Ravnson, and three others who tried to defend their commander's honour. Then he took command, ordering the men forward, despite the odds. He choked emplacements with bodies. When Captain Wemba and his fyrd arrived, hitching a ride with a secondary column of Krekland infantry, he was forced into the commissar's pointless attacks.

Wemba had died too. Officially, he died on an enemy blade, leading a charge. But Wulfson heard enough from the troopers to convince him that Wemba too faced Qyl's displeasure. Of the three hundred men Ravnson had led forward, less than a third returned. Something about them was off, and it took Taesi's idle observations to make Wulfson realise what it was.

"They only speak Gothic," she said once, while the two ate a simple meal on their last night of rest. Wulfson looked up in shock. She was right, the Teorric that had gone with Ravnson returned speaking Gothic. The next morning answered why; Qyl had shot more than a score of men just for speaking Teorric. 'Detrimental to your adaptation to Imperial standards', he had explained when confronted by the Teorric. Usually, he shot the man who asked next.

Nine

New Handir, Danstad

"IT'S THE WAY of the Guard, blessed be." Kulliar said. The officers of the Norian's and the Teorric were gathered, waiting for the shuttles that would ferry their units back to the fleet. Routing orders had come through for another front. The Teor 5th were gathered almost in full in New Handir. A couple hundred injured were still dispersed in various field hospitals, and the regiment had suffered more than four hundred dead in its first campaign. Their sister regiment, the Teor 6th was engaged somewhere else, but would be joining them off-world.

"Commissar's are bastard's," Kulliar continued. The various regiment's of Norian Chem-Troops were gathered too, several thousand hulking troopers encamped in the open fields outside the city. Kulliar had set aside his rebreather this morning, letting Wulfson see the full extent of his colourless skin, ashen and grey.

"He shot my men," Wulfson said bitterly. The two were standing in the empty storefront of a burned-out bookstore, trading a bottle of cheap amasec between them.

Kulliar barked a humourless laugh. "That's what they do. Inspire the dog-troops through fear and hatred and pain. My first commissar, Emperor rot his black soul, carried a whip." He pulled down his collar and showed Wulfson a knot of scarred flesh on his collarbone.

"I had a mouth," Kulliar muttered dejectedly.

"Is there nothing I can do?" Wulfson took a long swig and belched.

Kulliar shook his hairless head. "No. Didn't the drillers tell you anything?"

"Of course. There was a commissar there, training with us. Ghur, or something like that." Wulfson sighed. "He died during transit, and one of the other regiment's transferred us Qyl. Bastards."

"Ah. Well, sir, I'm sorry to say, short of him dying, there is no way to rid your regiment of Commissar Qyl."

"Gods damn it." Wulfson swore. He finished the amasec and threw the flask into the dirt.

Kulliar sighed. "That's another thing."

"What is?" Wulfson was aware he was slurring slightly.

"The 'Gods' shit. There is only one God, the God-Emperor. To say otherwise?" Kulliar let it hang.

Wulfson sighed. "That's just how we worship Him. I spoke about this for a long time with the Ecclesiarch on board our transport. We worship the Emperor as the God of Gods, and the... uh, Primarchs?" Kulliar nodded. "The Primarchs, we worship as the Gods, the nine sons of The God."

"I don't doubt your devotion. But commissar's? Jumpy, gun-twitchy. Especially fat swine like Qyl. Just keep it in mind." Kulliar held a hand up to his ear and listened to his earpiece. "We're ten minutes from leaving," he said after a moment. He breathed deep, then shuddered, and refastened his rebreather. "Sshhcuk, that's better."

Wulfson arched an eyebrow. "Why do you wear those, even here, out of battle, in this good, fresh air?"

Kulliar laughed one of the Norian's ugly, mask-twisted laughs. "Because fresh air kills us, sir. My people spent fifty centuries poisoning our atmosphere with industry and dirty nuclear warfare. Now, with the aid of the Blessed Mechanicum, our air is breathable. But only to our adapted physiology. Our lungs can process the poisons better, and last longer without air. Took our leaders a looong time to convince the Imperium it was not a warp-mutation."

He slung his rifle and looked into the sky, where the first shuttles were barely visible. "Of course, the trade-off is that we can't breathe normal air, hence the masks. The packs mix fresh oxygen with the chemicals our bodies are used to. I can breathe this air, sir, but it will poison me slowly, the same way our air would poison you." Wulfson grunted. Across the field, shuttles began to land, heavy Destrier transports that could carry entire platoons. The Norian's started to form ranks.

"I'll see you in the sky, sshhcuk, sir," Kulliar said, and trotted off to where Norian officers were waving light paddles. Standing alone, Wulfson thought about what the Chem-Trooper had said. 'Short of him dying, there is no way to rid your regiment of Commissar Qyl'.

It took four hours to fully embark the Norian's. Then it was their turn. Blowing whistles, Teorric officers formed up their fyrds in orderly blocks. Sixty metres away, the two thousand or so camp followers milled about in a much less disciplined mob. Wulfson, still swaying slightly on his feet, could see Taesi's red hair weaving through the crowd. He smiled drunkenly and turned back to his men, shouting and cajoling.

One of the troopers in another fyrd started pounding a hand on his rifle and belting an old Teorric chant. It was a raunchy tune, a tale of a miller's daughter and the many lads-turned-men of her village. The men all sang along, pounding their feet in tune with the song, their voices shouting the Teorric words in the smooth, sing-song accents of their homeworld.

All except the men of Ravnson's old fyrd. They stood, silent and grim, while Corporal Ealdgyd waited at attention at their front. Sergeant Wilbur, promoted to lieutenant, had been put in charge of the dispassionate mob, and looked perplexed at their silence. Wulfson scowled at the sight. Distantly, he could see Qyl, furious at all the Teorric speech but, for the time being, saying nothing.