"Ok, so here we are." Traitor sergeant Edsin pointed to a spot on Irritus' map. "Right next to the manufactorium and we need to go…" He trailed off and looked at Irritus. "Where do we need to go?" He asked. The cultist smiled his broken toothed grin that Edsin disliked already.

"Here" He pointed to an out of the way hive. "That's where the apostle instructed the whole Host to attack." Edsin looked at the name. Traxis. He didn't recognize it, or really care to, but made a point to remember the name. "Looks like our best bet is to follow this road." Irritus continued tracing a road with his finger. Edsin nodded and gaged the distance on the map to be at least a three day walk. He sighed, unhappy with the prospect of three days worth of exertion and made to leave when Irritus found something. "Humm, I thought that was on the other continent."

"Huh?" Edsin said looking back at the map. "What was on the other continent?" The cultist pointed to a point between their location and Traxis marked O.M.L. Edsin racked his mind for a possible meaning but came up empty.

"Our Martyred Lady." Irritus said guessing his thoughts. "A smaller convent of a large order of battle sisters. I wonder what became of them." Edsin shrugged. He didn't care. And he was cold.

"Let's get moving." The sergeant said. Edsin hated the cold.

~/~/~

CRACK!

Maria felt the sharp, shocking pain of the neural whip on her bare back. "Onward sinners!" The mistress of repentance yelled behind her. Maria grit her teeth and hefted her eviscerator chainsword.

'Two years.' She thought as she trudged through shin deep snow. 'Two throne-damned years I've been a repentia.' It was true. It had been just over two years ago that she had taken the oath of the repentia. Stripped of her rank, armor, and placed into a suicide squad to atone for her sins. At first she had embraced it. She had always had a fairly one track mind, the higher theories of her order on the Emperor and Chaos lost on her, and had focused on the enemy and her atonement. She flung herself at the enemy. Time after time she charged the enemy, hoping for absolution. But time after time, they failed to kill her. And worse each time when the mistress would declare who had atoned for their sins her name was never called. She had been forced to suffer the indignity while others came and went. When this war started she began to look for an opportunity to leave the Ecclesiarchy altogether.

"Foreword! Faith in the Emperor!" The Mistress cried.

"Faith, Faith unyielding!" The other repentia replied, not Maria though. She mouthed the words but had long ago stopped saying them. Her own faith had been faltering for nearly as long as she'd held the massive chainsword. In her opinion, the Emperor had forgotten her, so she had taken steps to forget him. She just needed an opening to get away now.

Their patrol had found a small group of the heretics and traitor guard they'd been fighting in this area since the Word Bearers had arrived in force months ago. The bolters of the other squads had routed them quickly, and it now fell on her single repentia squad to chase the survivors down and finish them off. They were unarmored and in many cases unarmed. Easy prey if they could close the distance. They fled into woods ahead and the sting of the neural whip on her back made her follow. Immediately she knew it was a bad idea. The trees were thick and the forest was dark. There could be anything in there.

~/~/~

"Hold up." Edsin said, bring his left fist up in the hand signal for halt by reflex. He pulled his hellgun out from its holster and listened. Irritus stopped as well and was silent for a moment but not hearing anything asked.

"What do you hear ser-?"

"Can it." Edsin said through his teeth and in the silence that followed both men heard the sound of chain weapons. "Get down." Edsin said in a volume barely above a whisper and pointing to a ditch on the side of the icy road. He and Irritus both dove into the ditch as a couple of cultists and traitor guard sprinted out of the wood line and ran across the road making for the woods on the other side. Seeing fellow cultists Irritus began to stand, but Edsin grabbed the collar of his looted jacket and pulled him back down. The heretic gave him a confused look but Edsin nodded back towards the woods.

Right where the traitors had come through a squad of women in rags and wielding massive chainswords burst through the woods. Irritus tried to make himself less noticeable, but Edsin watched to see what they would do. Unsurprisingly they started after the traitors they'd no doubt been pursuing. However they drifted a bit, coming to within thirty feet of where they lay.

'Not a big deal.' Edsin thought, 'We'll be fine as long as they don't-' his thoughts were interrupted by a savage war cry and for the second time that day Edsin realized he was in the wrong place in an ambush.

Red lasers shot out from every direction impacting all around and on the unarmored women. Deformed, multi-eyed, inhuman creatures charged out from where they'd been hiding as well. The women had walked into a rather well done ambush and Edsin and Irritus were between the two sides.

To Edsin's surprise and their credit they didn't scatter or break formation at all. Rather the women pulled into a circle then spread out and began slicing the mutants as they came towards them. Edsin noticed the armored figure in the center of their circle and it all clicked. These were some of the Battle Sisters. Edsin had only seen them in person once and though he couldn't remember when that was, he did remember that they were armed differently. For whatever reason they didn't have their bolters or their power armor Edsin couldn't guess, but to him that was just their luck. His position was relatively safe, and he was content to watch the ambush destroy the sisters. A handful of minutes passed, but except for two deaths they were still going strong. That wasn't right. He reassessed the squad. There were six of them still left, plus the armored one in the center. Edsin watched that one strike one of the others on the back with a whip and decided the she must be the leader. 'Probably using that whip to make sure that none of them run.' He thought. 'Smart.' Edsin decided that with that one still alive, whatever chaotic forces in the trees would be at this all day.

He looked next to him at Irritus. Edsin made eye contact, mouthed 'Stay here', and holstered his hellgun. Irritus only watched as Edsin unhooked his chainsword and stood in a crouch. The sergeant ran as fast as he could quietly. He needed to get as close to the armored leader as he could without being seen. However, since he was wearing armor painted black on a road covered in white he was spotted almost immediately. At twenty feet away the first sister announced his approach to the others. At fifteen feet Edsin broke into a sprint. At ten the sister raised her massive chainsword above her head. At five Edsin dropped to his knees and slid along the icy road. Right past the woman and taking off a leg as he did. The woman fell over and Edsin stood and turned just in time to see moving blades coming at his face. He fell backwards and the eviscerator sailed over his head, coming close enough to take off some hair.

"Die heretic!" The woman screamed. Edsin reached out with his left and grabbed one of the wrists holding the large chainsword. It was stronger than he expected and he realized that he couldn't disarm this opponent. Using the grip he had, the sergeant pulled himself up and found that he was now standing behind the rag clothed woman. The move caught her off guard and Edsin used that time to get a stronger grip on her wrist and move his own chainsword to her neck. Fighting the sister for control, Edsin forced the eviscerator into another unarmored sisters side, cleaving her in half. His captive howled in a mixture of anger and furry and rocked her head back. The move nocked the back of her skull into the front of Edsin's and he fell backwards. Reactivating his weapon as he fell back, the chainsword gouged into the sisters neck and became lodged there as the body fell on him. The fall stunned Edsin for a moment and the now lifeless body pinned him to the snowy ground. As his head cleared, he saw the armored sister approaching him.

Immediately his adrenaline shocked him back to focus, and he tried to pull his chainsword from the dead woman's neck. It was stuck in the neck meat good. He tried activating it but the weapon had broken there. The leader was upon him now and Edsin went to draw his hellgun. He almost had it out of the holster when he felt a cold round shape on his forehead.

"Don't move heretic." She commanded. Edsin froze. The only thing that moved was his pupils as they looked up at his soon to be killer. She had an icy smile on her face and Edsin saw her raise the neural whip above her head. "Atone for your sins!" She cried. "I will make you suffer before I end yo- AAAHHH!" She began to convulse and blood began to flow from her mouth. Edsin didn't understand what had caused her to convulse, then he saw the tip of an eviscerator cutting from above the sister's right shoulder. The moving blades went through her chest and exited at the opposite hip. As the halves fell away Edsin saw his savior.

She looked exactly like the other unarmored sisters save for a few subtle differences. Her hair was longer than the others, her rags seemed somewhat older, and most noticeably, her face had a massive smile on it.

"Thanks!" She said, still smiling. "I've been waiting for something like you to distract her for a while now."

~/~/~

With their leader dead the rest of the sisters lost their fervor and began to make mistakes. It was only a matter of minutes before they were all dead. All except for the one who had killed the leader. As Edsin rolled the body off himself, he noticed an outstretched hand from that sister.

"Thanks." He said letting her help him up. As he stood, he saw Irritus running up from the ditch.

"Um, Sergeant?" He said, keeping his voice low and looking at the sister. "You know that this is a-

"Maria." The woman but in, her tone a bit louder than Edsin thought she intended. "Sister, uh… former sister repentia." She held out her hand. Neither man took it. "You two must be…Heretics?" She said perhaps too eagerly.

"He is I'm just a traitor." Edsin said with a nod to Irritus, who for his own part said nothing but eyed the woman with suspicion. Edsin opened his mouth to continue when a sound he hadn't heard in seven years stopped him. It took him a moment to place it and when he did it only raised more questions. The group turned to see another group coming out of the woods, the leader of which was clapping.

"Well done there sergeant! Most impressive." The leader, Edsin guessed, was a tall, skinny man dressed in what once had likely been the clothing of the planets nobility. His neck bore an odd blue squiggly line tattoo and Edsin recognized it as something chaos related but he couldn't quite remember just what.

'Probably not too important,' Edsin thought, 'Though he might not be undivided like us, so that might mean something.' The noble was not a soldier in any sense of the word, but his companions very much were. There were about two dozen of them all armed with lasguns and wearing blue flack armor. Edsin noticed that many sported the blue tattoos as well.

"Well done indeed." The noble continued, "I must say I thought I'd planned that right out, but you took it a step further. Using my ambush and this woman to your advantage and having planned it all along. Very impressive sergeant." Edsin didn't understand any of what the man was saying, but given the number of armed men he had behind him he thought it smart to nod. The noble poked one of the dead sisters with his boot. "You wouldn't believe the trouble these bitches have been giving us. Even before the war, they were a constant pain in my side." He paused and cocked his head to one side. "Tell me, are you with those Word Bearers that made planet fall a few months ago?" Edsin nodded.

"We are." The noble nodded as well.

"I see," The man paused. "Under which apostle, if I might ask?" Edsin hesitated at this having not bothered to remember the chaos marine's name.

"The Dark Apostle Farthas." Irritus spoke up. The Noble bit his lip and seemed to be searching his mind for something.

"Farthas's host…the last I heard you were heading to hive Traxis. Is that right?" Edsin knew better than to discuss troop movements with people he'd just met in the woods.

"It may be." He said plainly. The noble smiled and began to chuckle.

"Ah, making more plans I see." He glanced behind him at his men. "Well, we have some business to take care of, but we'll be heading to hive Traxis ourselves. Perhaps we'll meet again sergeant." Edsin nodded.

"Perhaps so." The nobles smile grew wider.

"Plan on it." And with that the entire group turned around and began walking back into the forest. After they disappeared from sight Edsin relaxed and Irritus did so visibly.

"That could have gone really bad." The cultist observed.

"Yeah." Edsin said trying to remember just what the tattoo might mean. As before, he concluded that it probably wasn't important.

"Ahem." Edsin and Irritus both turned to see that the sister was still standing there. "So you two are with the Word Bearers then." It was a statement not a question and neither man tried to deny it. "I don't suppose that their…recruiting right now are they?" Irritus frowned and opened his mouth but Edsin spoke up first.

"Why?" It was the same question he'd asked Irritus and the cultist noticed. The sister only shrugged.

"I still want my revenge for the indignity I've been forced to suffer last two years." She pointed to the armored sister. "This is a good start, but I want more and I can't do that alone." She hefted her large chainsword. "I've spent my life in the Soroitas and killed more heretics than I can count. I don't really know much about chaos. I was only taught that their sworn enemy of the Imperium and the Ecclesiarchy." She smiled. "Right now, that sounds like something I want to be a part of." Neither man said anything for a long moment. Irritus looked from Edsin to the sister and back to Edsin. Finally the traitor-sergeant spoke.

"What was your name again?" He asked. The ex-sister smiled more.

"Maria." Edsin nodded.

"Well, Maria, you better see if you can find something warmer to wear. We've got a long walk to hive Traxis." She kept smiling and began looking through the bodies on the ground around them. When she was out of earshot Irritus leaned closer to him.

"Are you sure about this Sergeant? She was one of the battle sisters. Their more faithful than the space marines plus this one doesn't even really know anything about chaos." Edsin looked at him then walked over to the nearest woman's corpse. Placing his boot on her head he ripped his chainsword out of her neck and pushed it into Irritus' hands.

"Time for you to make good on that promise."