"Is this truly necessary?" Thurion asked, annoyance plain in his deep voice.

"It is," Damantin affirmed flatly. "It is necessary, not only for Fenwick, but for all of us. Thus far, we have all been able to hold our own in combat despite our disorganization. Now, things are different. A human is among us, and we must make up for his fragility by improving our tactical approach to engagement."

"Hey, that's not fair!" Marrlë protested. "I'm human too!"

"Marrlë, dear, for all intents and purposes, you're about as human as I am." Rosie smirked, crossing her slender arms while her crab-clawed ones snapped idly at the air.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He scoffed, to which Damantin sighed.

"Meandering argumentation will only slow this whole business down," he said. For a near-whisper, his voice was remarkably authoritative. "Marrlë, Thurion and Rosie, the three of you will start in front of us and gradually fan out as you cut through the opposition. Meanwhile, Fenwick and I will stand further back at either end of you. Depending on the emergent tide of battle, we will either fire into the gaps between you as they widen, or cover your retreat by aiming for the side we are positioned at, so that you aren't overwhelmed on either end."

I raised my eyebrows, realizing the logic in this strategy. It wasn't terribly complicated, but it seemed effective in theory. Of course, we had yet to try it out, but it appeared sound nonetheless. I could see myself doing as he'd said.

"Fenwick."

Hearing Damantin's hiss addressed to me, I looked up into that inscrutable helmet of his. "Yes?" The impulse to add 'sir' to the end of that hit me hard. I realized that if I were speaking to an actual loyalist Space Marine, the appropriate address would've been 'my lord', but nevertheless, the idea that I had almost spoken to a heretic as if he were my superior gave me pause. Still, just speaking to Damantin, I would never have guessed he was a traitor marine unless told as much. He was wholly unlike Thurion – tolerant, patient, and radiating an almost unsettling serenity. If he weren't a heretic, I was sure that he would have both my respect and complete trust. As it was, he was getting dangerously close to earning those anyway.

"Last time we engaged in combat, your performance was… spectacular to behold, but in truth, it was less than ideal." He managed to say this without actually sounding admonishing, but I still felt a pang of shame. It was true. Besides aiming (roughly) at the enemy, I'd had no idea what I was doing.

"We are going to fix that today," he told me, and I perked up, repressing a hopeful smile. Heretic or no, I couldn't believe my luck. I was going to receive a marksmanship lesson from a Space Marine!

"Oi, why can't I teach him? I can actually hold a lasgun without it looking like a child's toy." Marrlë had come to the rescue. For a moment, I despaired, seeing the unique opportunity slipping away. Damantin seemed on the verge of answering, but it was Thurion who responded first.

"Because, Khornate, you couldn't hit a Land Raider if it were about to roll right over you," the spike-covered marine jeered, and I winced. Though I doubted Marrlë truly cared, considering his preferred method of engagement, I still felt sorry for him. Irrepressible as always, the Khornate simply snorted and waved the retort off. It may have been my imagination, but I thought I heard a chuckle echo from within Damantin's helmet.

"Be that as it may, we will finish practicing our formation first. Then, we shall eat, after which we will have our lesson in cover fire." No one disputed this, and soon we were back to the formation drill Damantin was putting us through. For once, Thurion was more reticent with his derision about the way things were proceeding, and I suspected he was secretly enjoying having some form of order, or perhaps something that reminded him of being a member of a Legion. In truth, I didn't know in the slightest how things worked among Space Marines, but I was sure organized drilling was an important part of their lives.

Once the drilling was over, the others rested, and Damantin sat with me while I ate my rations. Ork stew wasn't on the menu that day, and wouldn't be until we ran into another squad of Boyz. Until then, I surmised they would be able to stave off whatever hunger Chaos hadn't robbed them of.

As I ate, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. The Chaos sorcerer seemed distracted in his spare time, often staring aimlessly off into space. I could never tell if he was simply zoning out, or if he was navigating such complex trains of thought that the world faded around him. Regardless, I found him intriguing, and I wondered how he had ended up on Armatura with the rest of the group. Resolving to ask him later, I finished eating, and was about to get up when he stopped me.

"Take your pack," he said, motioning at the bag of rations and ammunition I carried. Before I could ask why, he enlightened me: "In an actual engagement, you'd be carrying the pack. It only makes sense that you should learn to shoot while bearing it."

That made plenty of sense, at least to me. I hoisted the pack onto my back and slipped my arms through the straps, lasrifle in hand. Giving me a curt nod, which was less than subtle thanks to the headdress on his helmet, the Thousand Son rose to his full eight feet in height and started off across the wasteland. I was quick to follow, briefly glancing back at the others. Marrlë and Rosie were watching us go, while Thurion, sombre as ever, seemed to have entered a staring contest with the ground. The Daemonette waved, and before I could think, I waved back. That earned me a smile, and I turned to follow Damantin before they could see me blush. Daemon or no, that smile almost made up for the lack of direct sunlight on Armatura.

The sorcerer led me to a crude setup of sorts; he appeared to have found two large rocks and stacked the one on top of the other, which resulted in them being roughly the same height as your average ork. I questioned him about it, to which he shrugged nonchalantly, citing the notable lack of trees as the reason for us having to resort to this. It looked quite inconvenient and vague as a target to me, and I was beginning to have my doubts. Then, he asked me to close my eyes, and uttered a Word of Power.

When I opened them again, there was an ork standing where the rocks had been. I yelped and aimed my lasgun, ready to let loose, when I heard the Thousand Son chuckle. An illusion, he explained, and I at once felt relieved and quite silly. In my defence, the ork looked real. It was even breathing. The only discrepancy, I found, was that it made no noise. Orks, at least in my experience, are not quiet.

Nevertheless, I took to firing with as much aplomb as I could, and Damantin quickly ascertained that my aim wasn't the problem. Even missing two fingers on my right hand, I could shoot just fine, since that wasn't my trigger hand; it was my lack of strategic aiming that was the issue, according to him. Apparently, this had been partially what had inspired him to create a formation for the group to fall into. This made me self-conscious once more, but he assured me that it was for the betterment of the group's survival chances, regardless of my presence. Slightly reassured, I continued shooting under his direction. He'd told me not to worry too much about ammunition, since I had close to a dozen reserve power packs in my backpack, so the rock in ork's clothing was spared no quarter.

Despite rarely if ever having handled a lasgun, Damantin was quick to grasp the weapon's strengths and shortcomings. My trusty lasrifle was – as guns went – reliable, had enormous ammo capacity, and little to no recoil, allowing me to fire rapidly without struggling to maintain a target. Its key weakness, as evidenced by the rather underwhelming marks it left on the ork-rock, was the lack of power behind each shot, something in which even the simple stubber surpassed the lasgun. Despite this, Damantin showed me how to make even this work to my advantage.

"Las shots are, in essence, rays of intense heat," he explained. This I knew already, but he was quick to expand upon it. "Ork technology is incredibly unstable, you see – it functions and is loosely held together only by their belief that it will work." That was shocking to me. I had no idea that the orks had such a potent trick up their sleeves, but recalling the almost primitive crudeness of their guns, I could believe it. "Their power of belief is just enough to keep their tools functioning – but only just, as they are liable to jam or overheat. The instability of it all is a key weakness, and one that you must learn to exploit."

"Orks themselves are very durable, able to weather far more damage than a human. This applies to las shots especially, which generally take multiple shots in the same spot to burn through an ork enough to really hurt it. In this way, you may in fact meet with better luck firing on the orks' weapons than the beasts themselves. A well-aimed las shot might go a decent way towards getting them to overheat. Failing that, the face is the only place liable to take serious damage from your gun."

That was eye-opening, to say the least. It all made sense, in a weird, orky way. That nugget of knowledge, of understanding my enemy, suddenly made them seem that much less threatening. A foe to be wary of, sure, but one that could be conquered with the proper tactical approach. Damantin must've seen the look of enlightenment on my face, because he gave me an approving nod and changed the shape of the illusion.

"What you're seeing now," he said, "is a Mekboy. These are the orks who slap together those crude constructs and weapons of theirs. Now, if you look closely, you'll notice it is carrying what they call a Stikkbomm – an oversized grenade."

I was pretty sure I understood. "If I see one of those – aim for it?"

"Precisely." The Space Marine nodded. "The same extends to all explosives. If they carry no such explosives, simply aim for whatever gun they're holding." The image shifted to an armoured Nob carrying a twin-linked shoota. "You know where to shoot, Fenwick. Begin."

For the next half hour or so, I practiced shooting at the guns and any unstable pieces of machinery Damantin's illusions happened to be carrying. About once every minute, he would change the shape of the illusion, from a simple Boy, to a Weirdboy, to a Nob, to a Mekboy, and seemingly everything in between. Damantin made me change positions every few minutes to create a different shooting angle, made me practice a measured retreat while firing, and by the end of it, was making the orks actually shift around, to give me moving targets. By then, I was feeling much better about myself. I was in the midst of taking apart a Flash Git's snazzgun when the sorcerer asked, "What do you think of Rosie?"

The lasrifle nearly slipped out of my hands. I scrambled to catch it, trying to collect myself, and looked at him in surprise. "I… I don't know what you mean," I stammered, hoping that it wasn't what I thought it was.

"It is plain to see," he elaborated, his voice remaining ever gentle and calm. This did nothing to reassure me as I stood there shuffling my feet. "Though perhaps it would be a stretch to say you have developed a romantic interest in it-" My eyes widened in shock, and I started sputtering my agreement just before he continued: "You are, at the very least, attracted to it."

"It?" I couldn't help asking. Damantin sighed.

"Fenwick, you must understand – the thing that calls itself 'Rosie' is a daemon of Slaanesh. Luring the weak-willed to their doom via fatal attraction is their modus operandi." His fingers drummed on his armoured knee. "Granted, it is… unusual, in its demeanour and its curious acts of charity, but do not be fooled. It would be vexing to me if I were to find that your mind had been lost in a haze of beguilement on its behalf."

My face fell, unable to meet his helmet's scowl. He had seen right through me, and now that I thought about it, Marrlë and the others probably had too. Odds were Rosie was, even now, smugly thinking I was on the verge of becoming her plaything. For some reason, though, I couldn't believe it. Part of it had to do with her being so unfalteringly nice and helpful to me thus far. Between that, my conversation with Marrlë and Damantin's tutoring, my views of Chaos had, if not been turned entirely on their head, then at least questioned.

"What about you, though?"

"What about me?" His tone of voice suggested he was taken aback. I wondered if I'd offended him, but I had to know.

"You're a Chaos sorcerer of the Thousand Sons. From what you've told me, the Thousand Sons are under Tzeentch's thumb, aren't they?" His nod prompted me to continue. "Why should I trust you, then? By your own logic, shouldn't you be trying to trick me into becoming some Chaos thing, or using me in some long-term nefarious plan?"

He was silent for a long moment, and once again I feared that I might have gone too far, until I heard him exhale and dip his head.

"You've surprised me," he said at last, and not for the first time I wished I could see his face. "In my experience, Guardsmen tend not to be paid enough to think beyond what lies at the end of their guns."

I was pretty sure that was grounds for me to get offended. Instead I crossed my arms and smirked. "Your experience with Guardsmen must be lacking, then, given that we're actually not paid at all. Anyways, I'm not a proper Guardsman yet, and the way things are shaping up, I don't know if I ever will be."

He laughed – quietly, as always, which I still found odd. "That is fair. Come, Fenwick – it is time you learn a little about the Chaos your Imperium so reviles."