Ancient autogun fire punched into the tree next to him, spraying Folke with splinters of tree bark and flesh. The small bit of dirt he'd thrown up as cover with his E-tool did nothing to protect his fighting scrape from the splinters coming from beside and behind him. "Throne damned armor," he snarled. The Skanian 312th was pinned in the trees and field behind them, with the river they needed to cross to their front.
He could hear the grumble of the enemy armor over the din of rifle fire and the lapping of the river against its banks. Folke thought it was only a single tank and the other three or four vehicles were just armored personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles dug in so that their heavy stubbers or autoguns could do the most damage to his men if they attempted to force the river.
Behind him, he could hear Viraden exhorting the men to fire faster and more accurately in the Emperor's name. The Third and Fourth companies had attempted a bayonet charge across the river, supported by fire from the rest of the regiment, only to be blunted by the entrenched enemy. "Do we have any more smoke grenades?" Scylfr was asking behind him.
"We're out," Folke reported curtly. He poked the barrel of his lasrifle, bayonet fixed, over the almost puny berm he'd thrown up in a scrabble of earth while lying belly down under a fusillade of enemy fire. "And they're really laying it on thick," he continued. "You think they're resupplying down the road we're going to use to resupply up?"
"Probably," Scylfr affirmed. Folke sent a desultory shot at the flash from an autogun's shot and was rewarded with a strangled-sounding scream. The fighting had eased down from a furious exchange of fire and grenades to both sides being content to sit and snipe across the river at the other, with an occasional burst from a heavy stubber or autogun emplacement sending some poor fool reeling back, dead or dying.
"Well, we've got to bloody do something." Scylfr slithered back from behind Folke, still belly down, and a short burst from a stubber stitched its way over both their heads.
"By the Throne, maystere, keep low," Carpelan said from a few meters away. Scylfr breezed aside his concerns with an almost dainty wave of his hand, entirely at odds with the bristling mustache he wore.
From across the river, the low grumble of vehicle engines going from idle to full speed became a roar. "Oh shit," Folke said. "Prepare to resist! For the Sky-Father and the Saint!"
"Easy now," came the reassuring voice of Colonel Vasa over the vox microbead. "Their armor might be getting ready to hammer us or try to turn our flank. Officers, look to your men. Men, look to your officers and sergeants. We serve the Sky-Father with our lives, and we serve His Saint unto death and beyond. Fix bayonets!"
"Fix bayonets," Scylfr repeated, then made the sign of the Aquila. "Throne preserve us," he muttered. Folke agreed. Bayonets against armor, even if it was light half-tracks or troop carriers, was suicide. To his left, five or six hundred meters down the line, he heard the beginnings of the enemy push. Automatic rifle fire and the krump of grenades echoed down the river, and Folke winced. "Stay as you are!" Scylfr roared. "Trust the man next to you, and the men down the line! They'll hold! Faith in the Saint will see us through!"
Firepower, courage, faith in the Emperor and faith in the Guardsman next to him. That was how the Guard won wars. And that was how the Guard would win this war. "Flank companies, concentrate your fire on the tracks and weapons," Vasa ordered over the microbead. "Center companies, prepare to push! They want to flank us, we will hammer their center. Sky-Father, Saint, and Skania, men!"
The regiment responded with the ancient cry that Skanian men had been marching to war with for generations: "Go pa!" First Company, the Light Company, was a flank company. The leftmost company, in this case, but the enemy armor sounded like it was hitting the right flank, held by the Grenadier company.
"Let's go," Scylfr said. "There's no push against us here, so we'll move up beside the center companies. First Company, advance!" The company pushed themselves to their feet or knees, still taking careful, aimed shots. Folke got to his feet with the rest of his men, and left his lasrifle dangling. He drew his sword, and waved it vaguely forward.
The company pushed through where they had been taking shelter, using trees and rocks for cover when they could. Autogun and lasrifle fire picked off one or two here and there, but the chatter of the company's support weapons kept them clear. Folke shouldered his lasrifle, banged a shot off at an enemy poking their head over a log, and then slid down the shallow bank, landing in the river with a splash that got water into the top of his boots and got his ankles wet.
"Forward! Go pa dom!" Someone, some blessed Trooper or Corporal or Sergeant had kept a couple of fragmentation grenades back, for later use, and they did their job, now. They detonated with krumps behind the enemy line, rippling them with shrapnel and concussive force. The company forced itself through the river, and at one point the small river had enough men in it that they halted its passage for a moment. Scylfr was the first man on the opposing shore, even with his gut, and he caught a lasrifle burst in his chest for his troubles.
Folke couldn't see the Lieutenant of the First Platoon, so he turned to the men behind him and encouraged them forwards. "Come on! Scylfr's with the Sky-Father, now, and the Saint and Imperator need to see us avenge him! Cut them down!" Another grenade detonated, this time behind Folke's men, spraying them with water and splinters of rock from the river bed. One man let loose a long spray of automatic fire from his lasrifle into the tree line, and he was rewarded for his efforts by a rebel rifle taking him in the chest. The man fell back, gasping for breath, and Folke leapt up onto the traitor's cover. He thrust through the man's neck with his bayonet, and let go of his lasrifle as the man fell backwards.
Folke jumped down and landed on an enemy, who collapsed under Folke's weight. The Skanian used his superior strength to drive the man's skull into the bloody mud and then drew his laspistol. His aim was jostled, and rather than shooting the traitor bearing down on him with an axe, Folke's shot dropped the man next to him.
A cry came up from behind him. "Tanks! They've got Throne-damned tanks coming at us from up the river! Fall back!"
"No!" Folke roared. "Come on, you bastards! The Imperator and Saint are watching! The Sky-Father demands the blood of traitors!" He drew his dagger and slammed it into the chest of a man trying to grapple the laspistol from him, then shot the man in the stomach. Folke kneed a man in the testicles, shot the man next to him, then cut another's throat. "At them! Come on! Go pa dom! Cut them down!" Someone put a knee or elbow into his kidney and Folke saw his world flash white. He shook his head to try to clear the pain, blinked his eyes, and was rewarded with a boot across his knee. He fell on it with a strangled cry, put his shoulder into a man's back and drove him down. A boot landed on his already hurt kidney and he pissed himself a little.
Folke lost his pistol in the mire of mud and blood. He drove his dirk into the back of the man he'd brought down, tried to force himself up to his feet so he could draw his sword. Someone kicked him in the head and Folke's world went black for a moment. He came to still struggling in the muck and gore, hefted to his feet by the huge Corporal Arne. "On yer feet, sar," he said cheerfully. "We've still got business t' attend t', sar." Folke turned to look and saw a thin line of Skanian grey standing and dying in the river, covering their brothers as they moved to attack the enemy defensive line.
The enemy tanks were low-slung, boxy in appearance, with round turrets and long main guns, and heavy stubbers attached to the commander's hatches. There was a thin smoke screen in front of Folke's men, covering them from being shredded by the main and coaxial guns on the tanks, which were five in number. A roar of flame came from above, with a screech of metal on metal, and five Astartes descended on wings of flame and fire and smoke. They landed on the tanks, which rocked at the weight of the Marines descending on them, clipped their chainswords to their sides, and then ripped up the top hatches on the tanks. They took something from their belts, dropped them in the hatches, and then slammed them closed again.
The Astartes leapt up in another wash of flame and smoke and noise, and left the tanks where they were, attempting to push up the river. Then the tanks detonated simultaneously with a roar of noise and a wave of concussive force that knocked Folke off his feet again. Corporal Arne helped him back up, and the Marines dropped down from the sky once more, landing before Folke. They were huge. Folke himself wasn't a small man - at 6'1", he well and away was one of the tallest men in his company. Only a few, like Arne, stood taller than him. But the Astartes before him easily topped Arne by two feet.
Folke knelt reverently, and made the sign of the Aquila with his head bowed. "My lord," he began. "We cannot thank you enough for the ai-" He stopped when he felt a huge hand attach itself gently to his shoulder and lift him up to his feet.
"It is we who honor you, Lieutenant of the Guard. You men are where we cannot always be, and it is who men like you who stand before the horrors of this galaxy with the staunchest of courage and strength. I am Sergeant Ceslaus of the Iron Knights chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, and it was a joy to aid men who fight for the Imperium with such courage. Lasrifles and fragmentation grenades against tanks? Such courage might even be suicidal."
His voice was deep and rich and warm and well educated, and Folke realized with a start that the Marine was addressing him as an equal. The Marine took off his helmet. Folke swallowed, stared up at the Astartes' eyes, a warm brown. He swallowed again, tried to find the words that wouldn't make him look a fool. "We did what is necessary, my lord Astartes. The Sky-Father expects every man do his duty, and the Saint rejoices when we do." The Astartes nodded, then glanced at one of his fellows. They were all as tall as Sergeant Ceslaus, but they still wore their helmets.
"You men have a mission, yes?"
"Yes, my lord Astartes." Folke turned, and gestured east, to where they had been heading for the bridge they needed to secure. "We were moving to rescue and assist a local regiment of PDF infantry, with four companies of Cecjan Drop Troopers, who are defending a town with a bridge that General Beauregard views as necessary as a supply route for our advance. We were to ford the river here, where it's shallow, then move to hit the enemy from the rear while the 79th Merdvennan Tank Regiment assaults from our lines."
"A worthy goal, Lieutenant. What is your unit?"
"Second Platoon, First Company, Second Battalion, 312th Skanian Light Foot, sir!" The Astartes nodded.
"Where is your Captain?"
"Dead, sir," Folke said. "He caught a rebel lasrifle in the chest, but he was the first of us across the river."
"He died well, then," Ceslaus said, and Folke knew it reflected on not just Scylfr, but the regiment as well, in the eyes of the Marines. The Marine glanced at his comrades, then looked back to Folke. His face was unreadable, and Folke wondered what the Astartes was thinking or planning.
"We will assist you, Lieutenant." Folke thought he'd misheard for a half a heartbeat, and then he blinked.
"I'm sorry, lord, but di-" The Astartes smiled. He moved his hand away from Folke's shoulder, and used it to gesture at the kneeling infantrymen behind him.
"Stand, all of you! We shall march to you men's objective together! Secure it together! And you shall be able to tell your grandchildren that you marched, and fought, and won! Beside an Astartes!" They cheered the Iron Knight, because they were men, and they had been feet away from being ground beneath the treads of the enemy's tanks, because they were cold and wet and tired. They cheered because they were Imperial Guardsmen, and their beloved Emperor's Angels of Death had seen fit to grace them with their presence, with their aid, and with a story to tell each other and grandchildren until the end of days.
They cheered, because, at heart, they were Imperial men set to the task of the Emperor's wars, and his very sons would be joining them. Folke cheered, too, swept up in the thought that he would be blessed enough to fight beside the Emperor's Astartes. "Vox your regimental commander, Lieutenant and inform him that we're taking command of your company," the Astartes ordered. "Then we'll tune ours to your regimental frequency."
"As you will, lord Astartes." Folke beckoned for Johansen to come, and Johansen held the handset out for Folke to take. He mouthed that it was set to Regimental, and Folke took the handset.
"Come in, Company-1, over."
"Company-1 actual acting, Scylfr is dead. We've broken an enemy tank push from the flank with the aid of a squad of Astartes, and they're taking command."
"Copy, Company 1 Actual. Which Lieutenant am I speaking to?"
"Folke, sir,"
"Well done, Folke. You may have rescued the regiment, man, over."
Folke smiled. "It is the men that did it, sir. I just led them, over."
"Then continue to do so. Over and out." Folke handed the handset back to Johansen, and turned to Sergeant Ceslaus.
"We are at your command, my Lord Astartes."
The Iron Knight put his helmet back on, and the voice that came through the amplified vox in the helmet's grille was booming and echoing, the better to terrify the Emperor's enemies with.
"First Company, gather in," it roared, and Folke had the feeling that Ceslaus hadn't even raised his voice. "Your comrades in arms are pinned in Kinmen, mere minutes from us. We go to rescue them, and carry the Emperor's guiding light to those shorn of its comforts once more. You will advance to the town, eradicating all enemy resistance, while we aid your brethren in the rest of your-?"
"Battalion, lord," Folke supplied helpfully. The massive helmet nodded.
"Battalion. You have your orders, men of the Emperor! See them through to victory, advance and destroy the enemy!"
The company saluted, and Folke turned back to them. "Forward by fire and maneuver, men, just like we practiced on the Founding Field and then the transport ship." One of his men handed him the lasrifle he'd lost in the melee, and Folke knew that when General Zweibroken heard about this, heard about five Knights saving a battalion of Zweibroken's beloved Skanians, he would swear an oath of loyalty and friendship to the Iron Knights. If the worst were to happen and the Iron Knights Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes needed assistance, be it recruits or military support or even currency to help pay for warships, Skania would return the favor, tenfold.
"Butcher's bill, if you please, Theo," he asked. Instead, it was Carpelan that answered.
"Sergeant Theodorus caught a round crossing the river after you, sir."
Folke swore, and Carpelan's cool blue eyes held a hint of worry in them. "This is unbecoming, Lieutenant Folke," the Astartes rumbled from behind him. Folke blanched, concerned that the Space Marine's good opinion of them had soured because of him. "You have lost your Platoon Sergeant? This is war. Losses will happen. Instead of lamenting the loss of the man, mourn the loss of his experience. Your Sergeants are Sergeants for a reason, yes?"
"Yes, lord," Carpelan nodded. Folke hefted his lasrifle, checked his dagger and sword, laspistol and grenades.
"Butcher's bill, then, Carpelan."
"Scylfr, Theo, six others in the crossing, three in the firefight."
"We thank you for your assistance, lord Astartes," Folke told Ceslaus. The Marine nodded once. "We shall see you in the town or beyond, my lord."
"Fight well, men of the Imperium." Folke made the sign of the aquila, then turned back to his men.
"Come on, you sorry lot! Let's show the Astartes what Skanians can do! Go pa!"
They walked into a town of death, and it started to snow. Bodies lay piled like cordwood, wearing local PDF uniforms and Cecjan Drop Trooper uniforms. There were more of the former than latter, and some wore armbands decorated with the Imperial Aquila. Folke's company, for it was his company, now, with none of the other Lieutenants willing to step forward and take over, and Scylfr dead, picked their way through the piles and stacks of corpses. Every now and then, a man would fall out of formation and void his stomach's contents. There were bodies with their skulls blasted apart, brains leaking out. Folke saw one body with its hands covering its stomach, trying to shove blue intestines back into the gaping hole of his stomach.
He felt his own gorge begin to rise, but Folke did his best to ignore it. They had a job to do, and as they went past burnt out houses and dead soldiers, he had one question: where were the bodies of the enemy? He turned his head, searching, looking. He swallowed again, took a sip from his canteen. Was that movement in a second level window? No, he decided. The sounds of the firefight at the river crossing turned desultory, slowed, and then finally ceased.
There were few sounds in the town. A door creaked. A man puking behind Folke. The soft clatter of men's equipment knocking against other equipment filled the road, and Folke finally gave in. He turned aside and was sick. When he was done, he wiped his mouth with his tunic's rolled sleeve. They pushed past a dead loyalist PDF trooper, lying dead where he had fallen. The company stayed in staggered column on either side of the road into town.
Folke was unwilling to commit to fully spreading out and clearing the town, wary of ambushes attempting to shred his ad-hoc command piecemeal. At the same time, he knew that if they didn't, the enemy, if they did hold the town, would have the chance to circle his command through the houses and back alleys, and shred it from the sides. Damned if he gave up, and unwilling to press forward without greater numbers, he raised one hand in a clenched fist, signalling his men to halt. They knelt or took cover behind burnt out shells of civilian ground vehicles, painted in a wide stripe of different colors.
The town smelled of wholesale death, men's voided bowels and lasrifle fire, the acrid stench of smoke grenades and cruel fire from grenades. Folke grimaced, and motioned to the vox-operator.
"Vasa, contact Regimental and request they get a move on." The vox-operator saluted, then trotted away while a heavy-stubber team covered him. Once he was a few feet away from Folke, Vasa leaned against a wall and was heavily sick, losing his breakfast and probably last night's dinner as well. Vasa had done well to last until this point, Folke decided, and it didn't reflect badly on the lad that he lost his stomach now. Once he recovered, the younger Vasa knelt and began speaking quietly on the vox-caster in their war-cant.
Folke turned, looked down the street, and grimaced. There, lying sprawled against a wall, was a child. No more than five or six, the young boy wasn't peaceful in death. Instead, he laid face up, like he was sleeping, but the sight of the small hands cradling at a twisted stomach drew a scowl from Folke, and he stood.
"On your feet, lads. We're pushing in, and we're going to rout the bastards." He kept the lasrifle clutched tight to his chest, and there was a burning sensation in his gut. Not sickness, not anger. He knew it intimately, of course, had let it drive him to literal murder for his sister, and now Folke welcomed it. If it had been the locals, loyalist or otherwise, that had done this, then he'd see the Emperor's Justice done. If it had been the Droptroopers, then he'd still see the Emperor's Justice done. It might be slower in coming, might take years, but he'd see the Sky-father's justice done, and that always came. He reached a hand up to touch the symbols of his faith, and then he turned to Carpelan.
"No psalms, no battle cries. We are the Sky-Father's vengeance, and his vengeance is silent." Carpelan nodded, and turned to repeat it to the trooper behind him. Down the line it went, and Folke motioned to Vasa. "Stay close, and inform the Lord Astartes that we're pushing up to the center of the town."
He led the company forward in silence, fury and hate burning in his heart and gut, all thoughts of being sick lost. There was no time for being weak. They headed further into town, past more piles of bodies, burnt out ruins of buildings, shells of vehicles riddled with scorch marks from lasfire. Someone wanted this town, and badly, and the loyalist unit put up a staunch enough fight that everything was silent as Folke led his men through the aftermath.
They went into the center of town and found naught but more death, more destruction. The stone gray sky seemed a surly reflection of what had to be every man's mood as they moved through the town. They went forward, and found no enemy to unleash their wrath upon. In the center square, they took cover and knelt around a statue of a man of noble bearing and brow, coronet upon his head, with a longsword with an up-curved crossguard held point down into the plinth. A plaque, in a language Folke couldn't read, no doubt described who the hero was. Snow began to fall, and his men, rural districtmen from the aett Ahelmil, lifted the black scarves tucked into their tunics over their noses and cheeks, protecting their lungs from the cold air. Folke did the same, and Carpelan spat before he did so.
"Snow won't stick," he promised once his face was secure behind the black cloth. "'Tisn't cold enough. Set my warrant 'pon it, sir." Folke didn't say anything behind his face covering. Instead, he clenched his lasrifle tighter and turned to cover a different direction. There was no opposing fire, no grenades, not even a taunt. With a hand motion, Carpelan gestured at two squads to begin clearing the buildings around the outside of the square. They split off, lasrifles held at the ready, bayonets flashing in the weak sunlight starting to break through the cover of the heavy gray clouds. They went fast and hard into their designated buildings, shooting doors off their hinges before entering behind the fastest soldiers in the squads, their speed translating to surprise and quickness in the clearing.
There came no sound of lasrifle fire, no sounds of a struggle, and when his men returned, Folke nodded. "There's naught but dead bodies, sir," one of the sergeants saluted. The town is clear." Folke ordered the rest of the company that was answering to him to spread out, to secure the square, and there they awaited the rest of the regiment and the Astartes. Now, with no prospect of combat imminent or directly upon him, Folke felt the first churning in his guts, and his knees were weak. His hands, he noted, weren't shaking.
Colonel Vasa strode into the center of the village with Sergeant Ceslaus of the Iron Knights and Commissar Dubreton beside him, a squad from the Grenadier Company keeping pace with them. The Grenadiers moved with their lasrifles held up to their shoulders, scanning the village for targets that were a threat to their Colonel. Folke and his men were moving in shirt-sleeves and suspenders dangling, their lasrifles, tunics, and webbing stacked in neat piles by threes on the edges of the town's center. They had laid the corpses of their fellow Guardsmen, the First Cecjan Drop Troopers, out neatly, organized by unit and rank. Then they'd covered them with blankets, greatcoats, sleeping rolls. Anything that the Skanians had been able to find. Folke stood from where he had been about to lift one more Droptrooper, and then carefully picked his way through the lines of dead Drop Troopers. He made it to Vasa, snapped to attention, and saluted.
"Lieutenant Folke," Vasa greeted. Folke dropped the salute, then relaxed. Vasa was a tall, powerfully built man - he'd earned his officer's commission as a dog-body trooper in the 287th Skanian, an infantryman. He'd carved a bloody swathe for twenty years with the 287th before returning home to Skania, and the eyepatch and scar near his graying hair said that it hadn't been easy.
"Colonel. We've secured the town and begun performing what last rites we could without the aid of a chaplain for our men and the Drop Troopers." Vasa nodded, then turned to Sergeant Ceslaus and Commissar Dubreton. They conferred for a moment, and then Vasa stepped forward. He held out a hand, and Folke took it to shake.
"Well done, Folke. You're on the short-list for Captain, now." His grey eye held a cool regard for Folke, who nodded.
"I can't take credit, Colonel," he said. "It was Sergeant Ceslaus and his squad that did most of the work of pushing into town for us. If they hadn't saved us from those tanks, I think I wouldn't be here." The Space Marine's head swivelled to gaze at them, his brown eyes and pale face unreadable.
"The Lieutenant is humble," the Sergeant said. "Humility is good in a soldier and a warrior, Lieutenant. But he assigns us, and myself, too much credit. He, and his men, were willing to turn on five tanks with naught but frag grenades and lasrifles to save their comrades. Their courage is an inspiration, even to Astartes."
Vasa glanced up at the sky, then glanced back at Folke. He nodded once. "I'm putting Scylfr's company up for a Unit Citation, then. General Zweibroken is friends with High General Haybart, he'll push it through." Folke swallowed, then nodded.
"It was what was our duty, Colonel," he protested. But not too hard. His men would be glad of recognition of their courage.
"There's duty and then there's going beyond and above it, Lieutenant," Commissar Dubreton broke in. "Karolus, with your leave, I'm going to speak with the Sergeants in the town. We need to know what wiped out the allied troopers and the enemy."
"All right," the Colonel said. "I'm sure you'd like to go back to your men, Folke. Lieutenant Ljonhalm from Company Four will be the Light Company's new Captain." Folke nodded, then saluted. Vasa waved it away, and turned to go. Folke turned back to his men once Vasa's attention had left him, and went back to the body he had been in the process of working on. He knelt, closed the man's green eyes forever, and then snapped one of the man's identification tags off the chain worn around the neck. He placed it in the pouch he'd attached to his pants belt for that purpose, with the two hundred eighty-nine others. Then he gently, oh so gently, lifted the body up as though the man were a bride to be carried across the threshold of a new home, and carried him to the appropriate position in the formation of the dead. When he turned, he almost dropped the body. He didn't, though, because that was an indignity he wouldn't force upon the dead.
Behind him, Ceslaus of the Iron Knights loomed, silently. He cocked an eyebrow, the motion incongruous because of the lack of hair on the man's head. Folke shrugged. "They're the honored dead of the Imperium, my lord Astartes. From the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Imperium. Doesn't it say that in the Sayings of Thor?"
Ceslaus nodded. "It does," he rumbled. His helmet dangled from a chain at his belt, and the two-handed chainsword Ceslaus carried was leaned against a shoulder. "If you were to fall, you would want someone to do the same for you?"
Folke inclined his head in agreement. "Aye, my lord Astartes. Skanian regiments burn our dead and inscribe their names on boulders carried from home, but aye. I'd want someone to do the same for me." Ceslaus drove his chainsword into the cracked cobblestones that made up the ground of the town's square, and knelt. Reverently, he picked up a body of his own, closing the man's eyes with a gentleness hidden by his size.
"Lead on, Lietuenant," he said, and the two soldiers carried their somber load to where the corpses' comrades awaited in death. When the carriers of the dead made it to the corpse's appropriate location, they laid them down as gently as they could. Behind Folke and Ceslaus, Chaplain Viraden was reciting the Litany of Last Rites, and Ceslaus tilted his head. He knelt, the better to listen, and glanced at Folke.
"Will you translate for me?" Ceslaus whispered. Folke nodded, unwilling to interrupt the chaplain. He waited until the Chaplain had finished at one man, made the aquila over him, moved on, and then started.
"Sky-father, great and terrible in your wrath, we entrust this man's soul to your mercy and salissa, where he will sit at your feet until the Day of Reckoning comes. Grant that he fight beside you in the End Battle, where all shall kneel before your might. Or, should it please you, let him rest as long as you wish. Ours is the service unto you, Immortal Emperor who shelters and guides us in all things and in war. As you will it, so let it be." Viraden made the aquila again, then stepped to the next man.
Ceslaus watched, and Folke thought he could hear the gears turning the machinery of the Astartes' mind. He stood and gestured for Folke to follow him, so the Skanian did. The wound he'd taken in the thigh at the first set of defensive positions a day ago or so was troubling him now, and so Folke followed the Iron Knight with a slight limp. One of the medics had slapped a bandage on it and told him to rest is as soon as he could, but the forced march to Beecher's Grove, the fight there, and then the fight earlier in the day at the river had left Folke hurting.
He wanted to lie down and sleep for two days, eat something hot, and then sleep some more. Instead, he stopped when the Space Marine did. Ceslaus knelt once more, facing Folke.
"A powerful prayer, Lieutenant. The Emperor and Dorn will receive the dead of this day with joy at having such heroes beside them."
"Thank you, my lord Astartes." He wondered why the Marine wasn't wearing his helmet, or even gone- everything Folke had heard on the troopship about Space Marines had led him to believe that if they struck, they struck fast and then were gone.
In the distance, as space was being cleared from the central square by burial parties, a working party from the Sixth Company was setting up the regimental shrine tent. It contained gilded icons of the Emperor, Saint Langley, and the regimental standard topped by an aquila worked in gold and silver, and when the weather was good and campaigning permitted it, the sides of the tent would be rolled up and the chaplains would hold Sevenday service in it for the assembled regiment.
The Astartes' eyes and face were unreadable. Folke tilted his head, popping his neck. A voice came over Folke's microbead, and he recognized it as the new Captain for the Light Company.
"Folke, Ljonhalm here. The Company is billeted in a row of townhouses near the north side of town. The company designation is chalked on them. Get your platoon here and prepare to bed down. The Colonel has ordered us to have a rest."
"Yes, Captain," he said, and it burned Folke to know he would have to salute that aristo piece of filth, barely worth the gilding on his tunic's shoulderboards. Instead, he spat. Ceslaus watched, unspeaking.
"I must go, lord Astartes. I need to see to my men." The giant stood and inclined his head.
"I understand, Lieutenant. An officer's duty never ends." Ceslaus made the sign of the aquila. "The Emperor guide and protect you, soldier."
Folke returned the Aquila, and then, spurred by something - gratitude or something else, he didn't know - he gave the Astartes his own benediction: "The Sky-father preserve you and grant you many enemies to slay, lord Astartes." He turned and gathered his platoon around him, now thirty-odd men instead of fifty. He shared a joke with Squad Two's marksman, Jan Värja, lit a lho-stick, and led the men that trusted him with their lives to where a bed, and hopefully dinner and sleep, waited.