There were just thirty-one survivors, in three of her regiment's Chimeras, traveling westward to link up with another unit—the stony, unknowable 212st Krieg—that may have held out against the heretics in the ruins of an old fortress. They didn't have any other options. Last anybody had checked, the 12th Valhallans next door had been annihilated to a woman, and the Eighth Pireans and 117th Mordians were gone, too, save for this motley band Commissar Vant had put together, the highest-ranking member of which was a sergeant.

They were outnumbered a hundred to one. Each street they entered presented fresh possibilities of landmines, snipers, and ambushes. All the civilians of this city, it seemed, had fled, joined the heretics, or perished where they'd stood—every ten minutes or so, the Guard rolled past another blood-splattered cluster of loyalists who had been surrounded and slaughtered in their makeshift fortifications.

Slaughtered like beasts. Pitilessly. There was no glory in it, yet this was Mrita's future, if she followed Vant and Enthilde and the others to their inevitable destination. Her guts would be spread across the streets of this awful backwater planet, in the name of a corpse god who didn't know her name and had no power to stop the madness going on around her.

Hours passed. One of the Chimeras broke down, so twelve people—Mrita included, she drew a short straw—had to walk alongside the two remaining vehicles.

"Try to raise them again!" ordered Vant, soon after sunrise, when they were trudging through terraced hab blocks that had largely collapsed into the street. The guardsmen's shadows stretched long on the rubble ahead of them.

"I think I'm almost getting something," replied Private Guidsan, the Mordian vox operator. The vehicles' fragile built-in antennae hadn't survived the heretic bolters, so to improve his reception as much as possible, he and his equipment were balanced precariously atop the lead Chimera. Up there it was only a matter of time before some sniper put a las-bolt through his head. "Yes… yes! It's the Krieg regiment! They're still holding out!"

Several people perked up at that. Mrita didn't. Their allies were about sixty kilometers away, and the Pireans would only have covered ten by nightfall, so one unit or the other would probably be annihilated before they finally met up.

"Let me talk to them, private." Vant climbed up onto the Chimera and spoke into the transmitter. "This is Commissar Emilia Vant, leading the remnants of the Eighth Pireans and the 117th Mordians. We're past the Jeweled District. Enemy action has been light so far, but the heretics are massing for more attacks. Can you give us an update on your situation?"

Indistinct chatter spilled from the other end, none of it sounding particularly encouraging. Vant's expression fell. "I see. How many did you sa—right. I'd best not keep you for long. We will reinforce as soon as we can, and until then, lieutenant, walk in the Emperor's light."

She jumped back off the roof, though the vox operator stayed there and fiddled with his equipment. The twelve footsoldiers trudged over piles of rubble as their Chimeras rumbled along beside them.

"Bad news?" asked Maukan. She and Enthilde were the only other survivors of Mrita's original squad.

"You could say so. They've encountered the enemy's second wave, and they're apparently down to fifty, sixty people remaining."

"They're Krieg," Mrita put in, scowling, not quite checking herself before she spoke. "Should be happy to die in droves."

Vant shot her a stern glance. "As should you, guardsman. Even a woman who has nothing can lay down her life."

"True, ma'am." She affected the sign of the Aquila. "The Emperor prote—"

The ionized-air crack of a lasbolt rang out, and the vox operator tumbled off the Chimera's roof, a steaming red hole blown through his skull. Vant reacted quickly. She drew her sidearm, shouted for the soldiers around her to take cover, but none of them needed to be reminded. Within a second Mrita had dived behind the remnants of a wall and shouldered her lasgun.

"Fucking sniper!" someone shouted. "Did anybody see where the shot came from?"

"East. That tower." Vant pointed with her chainsword, a pose for the propaganda reels, and voxed, "Chimeras, I want our guns strafing the building with the silver aquila hanging above the third-storey windows. Should make those heretics keep their heads down."

Another shot caught a second guardsman, one of the Pireans in flak armor, who sprayed lasbolts as she fell convulsing to the ground. Both vehicles fired autocannons in retaliation. Further away, concrete chipped in plumes off the face of the building Vant had indicated.

"That'll buy us some time," the commissar said. "Forward, guardsmen! Just another dozen meters and we'll be out of their line of fire!"

They trotted ahead as a group, aiming to put an office block between themselves and the sniper. As Mrita ran she looked again towards the enemy position. Up in one of those distant windows, she thought she saw the barrel of a lasgun glinting in the sun, undeterred by the brief spate of shells sent its way. It flashed red light—

"I'm hit!"

Maukan's voice. Mrita couldn't see her, because she couldn't see anything; the sniper's lasbolt had passed close enough for some light to spill out and blind her. Permanently, perhaps. A wall of searingly bright red faded to black.

"Dammit! Faster!" That was Vant. Boots crunched on gravel and Mrita smelled cooked flesh, while more lasgun shots cracked nearby, either her comrades' or the enemy's.

The world was black, hot, loud, as if she wore a sack over her head while someone was beating her with a truncheon. She tumbled to the ground, dropping her rifle in the process, and in the rubble a piece of broken rebar sliced across her cheek. People cried out around her:

"It's a fucking ambush!"

"They're right above us!"

"The windows! Get the windows!"

"Out of the Chimeras! Find firing positions! Move, guardsmen!"

There was an explosion, a wave of heat and pressure against her face, and all Mrita could hear for some time was an attenuated whistle. And screams.

Now, more of the cooked flesh smell. People were on fire.

She groped around for her lasgun, and finally found it wedged in a tangle of metal debris. A quick squeeze of the trigger confirmed that it still worked. As she stood up again, someone grabbed her by the arm, guiding her the rest of the way to her feet. She spun to face whoever it was.

"Mrita, it's me!"

"Enthilde? You're wounded, you're in no condition to help."

"Still in better shape than you are. Come."

Mrita nodded, and Enthilde led her off in some unknown direction, while around them the skirmish seemed to diminish. There were fewer las-shots, fewer desperate cries for help. That didn't stop her from nearly tripping over a body.

"Down here." Enthilde let go of her after they'd moved into some sort of shelter, where Mrita's arms brushed against rough, fractured walls. "It'll be safe, I'll hold them off."

Enthilde trotted away with no further comment. Her bayonet scraped against concrete, and just beyond the doorway she let off a burst of las-fire at an unknown opponent. Mrita clutched her own weapon even though she knew she could do nothing with it.

Outside, Vant's chainsword growled furiously, then made a much lower noise as it cleaved through something thick and wet. "Ruin to the enemies of the Emperor!" the commissar shouted. "Have courage, guardsmen! We are driving them from the field!"

Easy for her to say. She wasn't sitting in a hole, blinded, abandoned utterly by Him on Terra.

The minutes passed. More fighting, though it definitely was dying down, her own side victorious. The burning of the wrecked Chimera was a soft murmur, punctuated by groaning metal and the crackle of ammunition cooking off.

Towards the end, Mrita recovered her sight, just in time to look out from the bottom of a cellar and see Vant walking tall across the battlefield, pistol in hand, delivering the Emperor's mercy to heretics and mortally wounded guardsmen alike.