Five
He needed to hurry, because being caught in a Skanian snowstorm meant death. If one was lucky. If not, it meant a slow descent into madness and cannibalization and murder, out at the furthest reaches of society. So he hurried. He didn't try to walk on top of the snow already coating the ground, three or four feet deep in some places. Instead, he bulled through the white powder, not caring about the expenditure of precious caloric energy. Because he needed to hurry. He had to hurry.
In the distance, he could the air raid or storm sirens wailing. One rising, one falling, one rising blast meant a storm dangerous to be out in. The air raid sirens hadn't sounded in centuries. Now, in this dim forest he was searching through, he heard them. The air raid siren was a harsh, staccato noise, designed to break through the heaviest of sleep. How did he know what a Skanian air raid siren sounded like?
He called - someone's name. He didn't know it. He opened his mouth and called, and sound was made, but he didn't know who or what he was calling far. He needed to hurry. A chill went down his spine, beyond even the harsh cold that foretold a Skanian snowstorm, those storms that could last months and leave entire forest homesteads covered past the building roofs, that would steal the breath from even the throats of full grown, strong men. He took another step forward, and then he seemed to pause midair. A feeling of panic rose up in him, and he swallowed.
Who was he? Why couldn't he remember? He tried to remember why he had to hurry, but all he could draw to his mind was that he needed to find them. But who was them?
He tried to turn, to look for a trail or a sign, but all he could see were trees and snow and a dim, sullen sky. He felt the hair rise along his arms and the back of his neck, and his hand plunged to his belt for a dagger that wasn't there. He grimaced. Where was she? Was it a she he was hunting for? Why did he have to hurry against the storm?
He felt as if he couldn't move. He struggled to take another step, and couldn't. The warning sirens intensified their shrieking, and he knew that urgency was required like never before. He had to find them. He felt an electric shock run down his spine, stiffening him, and then he felt everything.
Suddenly, he knew as clearly as he knew there was a man named Alexander Folke. He could see himself standing in the trees, the cheerless clouds making the sky dull grey.
In the distance, almost invisible through the trees and dying light, he saw a figure. He knew without the shadow of a doubt that as he had had to find her so urgently, so she had found him, instead.
you need to come soon
Why?
Because I need your help.
I'll try.
You always did.
He had the fleeting feeling that she was smiling, and the faintest hint of something sweet-smelling, something soft and delicate. And then shackles around his wrists and ankles appeared, dragging him backwards, away from what he needed to be doing. He looked down and saw a double-headed eagle, blind in one eye. Face distorted with fury, he roared his rage and anger, his desperation. Something went through his chest, and he felt the throb of sharp pain, cutting in through his hate suddenly.
He looked down, and saw a sword run through his heart. He looked back up, and caught the slightest, most transient glance of red.
Alex Folke woke up. His eyes opened as soon as he was aware of the world, and the world he found himself in was wrapped in his sleeping blanket, using his greatcoat as a pillow. The room he was in was small, closer to tiny than anything else, and had only a desk for the report he needed to write about the previous day's action.
He sat up, dislodging the blanket, and saw his lasrifle and saber propped against the desk, with his combat webbing on top of it, the dataslate he had been issued on top of the webbing to keep from breaking the precious technology. Outside his small room in the rowhouse, his platoon was sleeping six or seven men to a room, with their lasrifles and webbing piled in hallways.
He stood, folded his blanket, and then placed it neatly atop his pack in the corner away from the door. He couldn't remember his dream. He remembered a bit - a flash of red, a smell he didn't know, but there was a pain in his chest like he'd been stabbed, and he wondered if he was dying. Commissar hasn't given you dispensation to die yet, old lad, so it's to it.
He tugged on his webbing, securing it in place with the side release buckles. The saber and lasrifle went next, one to its place at his hip, the other slung on his shoulder. The dataslate went into the pouch pocket of his pants on his left hip, and the heavy laspistol went into its holster. Ready to face his day, Folke went through the door into the hallway, and was confronted with organized madness.
Smiling, he returned his men's greetings as they pulled on webbing or saluted, pushed each other out of the line to the field kitchen fetched by one of the other platoons. The Light Company, living up to its name, even in a Light foot regiment, had divested itself of anything unnecessary. Folke made his way through the detritus of men preparing themselves to march fast and fight harder at the end of it. Tossed aside were small pocket books, entrenching tools, greatcoats, packs with spare clothing.
"What's with the tossed stuff, Sergeant?" He asked Carpelan. The lean Sergeant shrugged, his mustached upper lip curving up into a smile.
"'Nother fight, Lieutenant, what else? Word from Battalion HQ is we're moving out in a few hours."
"Why wasn't I woken up?" Folke gratefully accepted a steaming bowl of porridge, made with what he presumed were local grain supplies. Carpelan shrugged.
"I tried. You kept sleeping, so I figured you needed it. 'Sides, if anything really important had come up, I'd have dragged you to the briefing if needed."
"Thanks, Sergeant. I'll buy your next drink," he promised, and Carpelan smiled. Spooning some of the porridge into his mouth, Folke dodged past one of the men from his weapons squad cleaning and wiping down a heavy stubber. The long barrel had a bipod deployed to prop it up while the man worked on the receiver. He tipped his cap to Folke with one finger, eyes still on his work.
"Make sure she's ready for some serious business, Corp," Folke told the man cheerfully, and then took a cup of caf from a trooper holding it out to him. He clattered down the stairs of the rowhouse to find one of the older infantrymen of his platoon cheerfully regaling a group of younger men about the time he'd been caught out in a Skanian storm. There was a fire roaring in the hearth, and in the kitchen someone was singing Boria Igena.
Folke stood listening to the man while he finished his porridge and caf. Something about being caught out in a storm seemed familiar, but he ignored it- he had never been out in a Skanian storm, where snow could cover entire homesteads for months at a time. Folke was a hiver, born and bred, and the thought of being caught out in the wilderness, away from the cradling support of the Guard sent a shiver down his spine. His father's family had been working in the same iron foundry for over four centuries. Well, they had. Folke was a Guardsman, now, and proud of it.
He stepped into the kitchen after finishing his meal and handed the dishes off to a Private apparently told off to wash dishes as punishment for some slight. The Corporal that stood at the stove was taller than Folke, with cool blue eyes that regarded him for a brief instant, then turned back to a simmering pot.
Folke's combead crackled in his ear, and the voice of Captain Ljonhalm spoke. "Folke, report to Battalion HQ. It's in the center of town, in the town hall. They've got a job for the Light Company."
"Ja, herne," Folke responded. He hitched up his sword belt, tucked the flap on his laspistol holster closed, and stepped out of the side door in the kitchen of the rowhouse and into more snow.
His breath misted in front of him as he stepped outside, and he turned right back around and asked a Private to fetch his greatcoat. Folke stood just inside the doorway and then fetched a lho-stick from his tunic's breast pocket. The Private returned, greatcoat in hand, and Folke tugged it on over everything except his lasrifle. He stepped back out into the sullen morning, snow falling in flurries that stuck for a few seconds and then melted. A dismal fog hung over the town, low and gray. My life seems to reflect shades of gray, he thought. He set off for the Battalion HQ in the center of town, and decided he would start writing a letter to Elise once he was done there.
He picked his way past rubble turned into hard points defended by grim looking men from the line companies, saluted the Grenadier Captain, and nodded to the other Lieutenants he saw out on the business of their platoons and companies. None of them greeted him. He finished his lho-stick, tossed it aside, and then spat. Drawing his greatcoat tighter around him, Folke resolved that he'd show the bastards in the officer's mess why he deserved to be there.
When he finally made it to Battalion HQ, he was patted down by two grim looking grenadiers with their lasrifles held at port arms, greatcoats open over their carapace breastplates decorated with gilt Imperial aquilas, and with the much coveted knitted, dark blue wool caps with flat crowns on their heads. They saluted Folke after patting him down and allowed him through into the town hall that now functioned as the HQ.
He stepped inside into a brightly lit hallway, with the HQ aides moving back and forth at a fair clip dodging around him. Folke took his own cap off, squashed it flat, and shoved it in his tunic's breast pocket. An aide took in his appearance, from the sword, laspistol, and rifle slung over his shoulder, to his unshined boots.
"Lieutenant Folke?" The aide was a Lieutenant himself. Folke nodded, and was greeted with a salute. "Captain Ljonhalm and Colonel Vasa are in the town officer's office. The other Light company platoon officers are all on their way in, too. I'll show you the way." The aide turned before Folke could respond and led him through the brightly lit hall into a side hall, up a set of stairs, and down another hall. The aide knocked on the door, was told to enter, and held open the door for Folke.
"Thank you," he told the younger man. Folke stepped into the room past the aide, and saluted the four men inside. Commissar Dubreton, Colonel Vasa, Major Bielke, and Captain Ljonhalm all returned his salute.
"You're here early," Ljonhalm said. "Good. We'll be briefed when the other three Lieutenants arrive. What's your platoon strength like, man?" He made it sound like Folke had wasted his men's lives, and Folke wanted to swear at the man bitterly. Instead, he swallowed his anger and pride.
"Thirty-six," Folke said. Thirty-six from fifty, from fifty that should have been sixty-five but for sickness and injury before they had even made planetfall. He wanted to snarl that Ljonhalm wasn't Light Company, couldn't understand that he had spent his men's lives as sparingly as he could, but that sometimes war was war and that if he had had a choice none of them would be lying beneath their bedrolls or greatcloaks, eyes closed forever, awaiting the Final Fire and then the carving of their names into the Regimental Stone.
Instead, he swallowed his anger and pride and waited for his superiors to speak their judgement. Commissar Dubreton and Colonel Vasa merely looked down at a sheaf of paper on Vasa's appropriated desk, Vasa made a note, and that was it. Ljonhalm stared at Folke, and Bielke said nothing.
The other three Lieutenants arrived then, into the heavy silence of Folke silently castigating himself for the loss of his men, and he almost wanted to be sick as they filed in. Instead, Folke swore silently that he'd do better next time, and that he would get most of his men home. By the Saint, I'll make it happen!
"Now that we're all here," drawled Major Bielke. "We can begin. The Light Company, commanded by Captain Ljonhalm, is going to push back across the river, at the bridge here-" here he indicated on a map a bridge a kilometer to the north of where the Skanians had forded the river in blood and steel. "You're to secure it and meet the 24th Atalantan Armored, and then guide them back here. The other three battalions of our 312th are on their way. With the 24th Atalantan in support, we're going to push further in towards the planetary capital."
"Aw hells," Ljonhalm swore. "Where's their mechanized infantry regiment?"
"Munitorum cock-up means that they're half a planet away, and the 24th are just going to have to make do with us poor light Skanians," Colonel Vasa answered. "Now we're turning it over to Commissar Dubreton for the portion of the briefing regarding civilians and local PDF units that put down their arms."
Dubreton watched Folke for a moment before he started, his eyes unreadable. Folke thought about stepping outside after the briefing and finding a nip of some akvavit that one of his men undoubtedly had.
"Civilians are to be treated with all respect due citizens of the Imperium, and PDF units that surrender are to be rearmed and used to supplement Guard forces" Dubreton said. "This from Commissar-General Berne himself." Vasa snorted, clearly disbelieving of Berne, notorious for being a hard-ass, even for a Commissar, being so soft on the citizenry of a planet in open revolt. If Folke was a wagering man, he'd be willing to bet that it was because of the Adeptas Sororitas facilities on the planet, and the Commissariat and Guard weren't willing to make enemies of the Emperor's Daughters.
Of course, Folke wasn't willing to make an enemy of an Emperor's Daughter if he had any choice about it, and with luck, they would be operating in an area far removed from himself and his men. He'd heard rumors from older officers up from the ranks, in other regiments, that the Sisters were something truly remarkable to fight beside.
"This is a fairly straightforward task, gentlemen," Bielke took back over. "Guide the armor here, and then in the probing attacks that General Beauregard has ordered we're to find the points the armored boys need to crush." Ljonhalm nodded seriously, his face drawn with concentration.
"Understood, sir," he said. "When are we to depart?" Folke thought it a good question, but kept that to himself. Instead, he pulled a small, black-leather bound notebook from one of his tunic pockets, found a pen, and readied himself to begin making short-hand notes. Beside him, the other two Lieutenants and one Platoon Sergeant taking over for the injured Lieutenant Singr did the same.
Bielke repeated the briefing, and then kept on. "Light Company is to depart at 1100 hours, the better part of two hours from now. Ljonhalm, your total strength is 217 men, out of 260. That should be enough to take care of any bushwhackers in the trees, but don't be afraid to have the Armor shoot things." He stopped, then, almost as if it were an afterthought, added: "Don't let the men ride on the tanks, Captain. Light infantry don't ride when there's marching and fighting to be done."
Ljonhalm nodded, and then the briefing was broken up. Folke finished his notes, shoved the booklet back into his tunic pocket, and waited until he was outside of the Regimental HQ to comm his sergeants. He disseminated his own briefing, emphasizing that they'd be headed into an area unlikely to have been cleared, and that their main job was to provide a cover for the armor regiment from any enemy infantry. As he went through what he knew with his men, he watched the center of town. A few civilians had emerged, whether from hiding or from outside of the town, and were now picking through the ruins of their lives. The Droptroopers and PDF unit that had held the town had wrecked it thoroughly in their staunch, and ultimately fatal, defense of the place.
He finished briefing his sergeants, and Folke decided he had enough time to visit the shrine tent set up where earlier there had been rows and rows of bodies, covered with blankets and shrouds, awaiting burial. Now the tent that stood in their place was dark blue, with the sides down from where they could be pinned up. Folke made his way across the square, greeted the two Grenadiers standing guard outside of the shrine tent, and stepped through the cloth doorway. Inside it was dim, with burning incense, ferried from holy Ophelia VII at huge expense to the Skanian planetary government to grace a regiment's shrinal tent before embarking on the Emperor's holy wars.
On the tent wall facing the entrance, there were gilded images of the Emperor, his martyred son Sanguinius, and the Skanian's own beloved Saint Langley. The Emperor's noble brow seemed creased with worry, Sanguinius appeared rapturous, and Langley, with her red hair and blue eyes, seemed far too young in the depiction Folke saw before him to have saved his world. Folke went to his knees before the images and the gold Aquila above the regiment's standard, bowed his head, and made the sign of the Aquila.
"Lend me the strength and wisdom to see my men through this," he said. "I am but a mere man, and I fear I shall not see the way through to victory in Your name, noble Emperor." The incense was heady, and Folke's head felt heavy. On his shoulders, he thought he felt the weight of his men's lives, the burden of command, the burden of leading, even though it was entirely metaphorical. Folke grimaced, but he knew he wouldn't change it for anything- as the God-Emperor shepherded men's souls through the Empyrean darkness of the Warp, so too was it up to Folke to shepherd his men through their time in the Guard, and try to keep them alive as long as possible.
He dry-swallowed, throat suddenly dry. The weight of his burdens bore down on him, and the Emperor stared at him from the icon. With a conviction that he didn't know he had, Folke knew in his heart that the Emperor knew his sins as surely as Folke did, that he was being judged. He knelt there, head bowed, and there came no answer to his prayers.