A/N: This is a long one, and I'll admit it's a kind of clumsy way to give these characters more depth. Even so, I hope that by the end of this you'll feel like you've gotten to know our merry band of heretics just a bit better. Thanks to all who read and review! Now, without any further ado, here's the calm before the storm. Enjoy!


The following weeks began to blur together after a while. It started out feeling like an entire regiment's supply of sandbags had been dumped onto my chest; we never seemed to stop working. Whether it was finding ways to improve the base, organizing the supplies in the garrison, finding out how long we really had before the ammunition ran out, taking stock of possible explosives from the practical to the downright suicidal or simply sharpening our martial abilities with sparring, target practice and, in my case, private physical training, there was always something to do.

The ramshackle walls and fortifications were stripped down and rebuilt twice as high in a notably less orky manner. I actually caught Damantin leafing through the Uplifting Primer at one point, but elected not to tell him about it. When the fortifications he instructed us in building had a distinctly Imperial Guard-esque flair to them, I smiled secretly.

My shooting lessons with Damantin didn't slow in the least. The sorcerer actually ramped up our practice to twice daily, besides drilling contingencies. I learned to operate damn near every weapon in that armoury. After he got Thurion to teach me to use pistols – which took some convincing, the swaying factor being that if I knew how to defend myself, I would be more likely to be able to provide cover for everyone else and not die uselessly while doing so – the Luna Wolf's mastery with handguns saw to it that I became beyond confident in the use of such weapons.

By the end of his training, I was able to direct semi-automatic bursts of fire at several different foes at once, and while I wasn't and would never be anywhere near his skill level, I could reliably hit my targets while doing so.

Beyond that, I became familiar with autoguns and their variants. I was taught to use flamers, and while I never became quite proficient with them, I could handle one in a pinch. I learned to gauge when my plasma pistol might overheat and to switch weapons in the blink of an eye.

Unfortunately, we soon established that with my missing fingers, heavy guns were out of the question for me. The grip of my thumb, index and little fingers was simply not enough to brace the powerful blasts that such weapons let loose. Nevertheless, I was taught to man the heavy bolters that we set up on the walls, as their mountings made the issue of bracing less prevalent.

We dug through the garrison's explosives and turned the terrain around our base into a death zone. Razorwire and spiked barricades would make progress along the barren plain difficult for any large force to approach all at once. A number of these were already made, others we put together ourselves. Some of what the orks had already done was left in place; there were spikes enough there.

At some point, Thurion returned to the crashed Thunderhawk and returned having scavenged several heavy weapons, along with one very strange-looking gun. It looked like a cross between a bolter and a vox speaker, and Rosie took an immediate interest in it. A Blastmaster, she called it, and took to it with frightening ease. The thing unleashed ear-rending sound waves in controlled blasts, and the Daemonette pouted when I informed her that I wouldn't be going anywhere near her while she was holding it.

I had begun to notice an emergent bond between Damantin and Rosie that hadn't been there before. Though the sorcerer had denounced her to me as a malicious creature whose only purpose was to lure naïve, unsuspecting people to their untimely ends at its claws, I saw him watching her as she joyously practiced using her Blastmaster, and arguing with her over how best to hold the gun. Consciously or not, he now addressed Rosie as 'her' instead of 'it', and I realized that he must know about her state, so to speak. There was something between them that went beyond simply being summoner and servant. Sometimes, when Damantin spoke to her, I could hear what I thought might be the faintest hints of pride in his quiet voice.

As Marrlë's swollen face gradually returned to normal, it became apparent that his right eye was never going to open again. He didn't seem to mind, however, and cheerfully threw himself into the war preparations with unfaltering vigour, seeming to never tire no matter what Damantin put him up to. Now that we weren't wandering around aimlessly, it seemed that the sorcerer had essentially taken over as the leader of our group, and Marrlë accepted this without complaint. He knew that the time for spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment decisions was over, and he excelled at doing things quickly and efficiently. While he was no genius, he turned out to be better than me at putting up fortifications; if I hadn't known better, I might have thought he used to be a Guardsman himself.

Thurion kept his bladesmanship sharp through regular sparring with Marrlë and Damantin, and never lost a single bout. Still, the red-haired renegade put up a fearsome fight each time, and only Thurion's superhuman speed kept him from drowning under the Khornate's storm of blows. Similarly, while Damantin had assured me that he wasn't a bladesman, I wouldn't have known it by watching him spar. The sorcerer's force staff would whirl around him in a dizzying blur as he clashed with the black-armoured marine, closely matched in strength and celerity. Ultimately, though, Thurion's skill always proved the greater.

Of course, the Thousand Son never used his psychic powers during such bouts. That would have made the whole affair trivial.

Of all the findings we made in the garrison, perhaps the most significant one was the tunnel at its very end, leading on a winding course through the earth before surfacing several miles away. To prevent any unwanted visitors sneaking in from below, Damantin closed the earth at the far opening, but left the tunnel opening on our end intact.

It would be, he declared, an escape route, for when things inevitably went wrong. I wasn't quite convinced, seeing as dust shook from the roof of the tunnel whenever one of the Space Marines walked through it, but it was the only way out aside from Damantin's teleportation. Should we find the tunnel collapsed, he said, that would be our recourse.

And, as the days stretched into weeks, and the walls grew higher, and the Waaagh drew nearer, I found that I did not feel out of place anymore. Each morning I sought a mark of Chaos on my body, and each morning breathed a sigh of relief when I found nothing. Those first red nights when I lay on my cot, staring blindly at the ceiling with a Daemonette's arms encircling me, and hearing Marrlë's snoring from down the hall, I wondered if this was proof that I was a traitor regardless of whether I believed in the Emperor or not.

It was on the last night before the storm that I realized what it truly meant.

With Damantin's divination predicting that the Waaagh would arrive in no more than a day, Marrlë had us all gather around a fire in the yard that night, as the red in the sky slowly deepened. He had prepared ork n' squig stew, which was like regular ork stew but much richer and meatier, and we gratefully partook. While there were plenty of rations in the garrison, they were nothing special, and tonight seemed to be a special occasion, judging by the smile on Marrlë's face. Then again, since he was always smiling, it could've been anything. Whatever the case, we listened to him make his grand proposal as we ate.

"Everyone," he began, indicating us all with a broad, dramatic sweep of his arm, "I've asked you all to sit around this fire and eat my strange cooking as thanks, for everything. I guess I should be surprised that we haven't all betrayed and murdered each other, but knowing you like I know you now, I'm really not. I can't think of any gang of people I'd rather fight impossible odds beside."

I saw Rosie smile. Damantin hummed in agreement, while Thurion muttered an objection under his breath at being called a 'gang'. I watched him from the other side of the dancing flame, his face and iron teeth glowing orange in the firelight. By now, I knew better than to think I could guess what he'd say next, so I just held onto my seat and waited. He didn't keep us waiting long.

"Since tomorrow is probably going to be the bloodiest, most hard-fought day of our lives, I wanted to celebrate its coming-"

"Of course you'd see it as a celebratory occasion." Thurion smirked.

"-Wanted to celebrate its coming with a story night!"

"A…what?" I tilted my head curiously, and sensed the others doing the same.

"Something that us Khornates use to keep ourselves from ripping each other apart on the way to a battle. We'll swap stories about the most amazing fights we've been in, and then when we finally get there, we all try and make an even better story out of that!"

I understood now, and I wasn't sure I liked where this was going. Was he expecting me to-

"So, we'll go around the fire, and each of us will tell a story of some kind. Doesn't have to be about fighting – although, those are always the best stories." Sitting closest to Marrlë was Damantin, and so he was called on first to give us a tale.

After a moment spent in thought, the sorcerer nodded solemnly and rose to his feet. He raised a hand, and an image appeared over the dancing flame. It looked like a planet – a planet being skirted by several massive ships, and its surface aflame. "This is Prospero, on the day the Wolves came." I gulped, looking futilely at Damantin's scowling helm. He was gazing at the illusory planet, and I could sense intense emotion beneath that helmet, but couldn't be sure what it was.

"We burned, all of us together, in the crucible of fratricide. We did not want to fight the Space Wolves, and as we learned later, neither did they want to fight us. Through the inscrutable machinations of Tzeentch, all were deceived, and he laughed as Prospero burned."

"We fought bitterly, the Wolves and we, but at last the scale tipped. Leman Russ, the Wolf King, broke our Primarch's spine over his knee, and we were on the edge of total defeat. At the last moment, Magnus spirited us all away into the Warp, along with all that we had built and learned. The Thousand Sons were wounded, but not slain."

"Then, I was only an aspiring sorcerer. I was confounded and enraged by what had happened, and longed for vengeance. So did the rest of my brothers: our hearts grew cold at the treachery dealt to us, though its true extent was yet unknown to us."

"The next betrayal came at the hands of our very own Primarch. He told us to embrace Tzeentch, for our souls had already been bound to the Changer of Ways. Even the most brash and foolish among us knew not to confide in the Great Deceiver, but we were left without recourse. And with each day spent in the hellish turmoil of the Warp, our hatred grew. How could it not have? Our Emperor had ordered us to be killed like dogs, or so it seemed, and Russ had been happy to carry out that order."

"As if that wasn't enough, the tragedy that ensued was perpetrated by one of our legion. Perhaps the greatest sorcerer among us, Ahzek Ahriman, conceived and cast a mighty spell, to prevent the rampant mutations that assailed us in the Warp. He succeeded – at a terrible price. Nearly all of the Thousand Sons, save those psychically gifted enough to resist his spell, were turned to dust; sealed inside their armour like gruesome, undying automatons. Soulless husks of the proud brothers they once were."

"Though his intentions were good, it was still inexcusable. Upon learning that this was once again Tzeentch's perfidious hand at work, Magnus banished Ahriman, and I was one of those who went with him. Seeing treachery at every turn and unable to forgive Magnus for his surrender to Tzeentch, eventually I parted from Ahriman's warband and went my own way. They sought to undo the spell and restore our lost brothers; my goal was not quite as lofty, but it seemed impossible nonetheless."

"Horrified at what had befallen my Legion, I sought with all my might to escape the bond of Tzeentch. Every waking hour, I could hear him, laughing in the back of my skull, tauntingly telling me to go onwards, to keep pursuing my emancipation, and so I did. I read every forbidden tome I could find, walked secretly in cathedrals of the perfidious Imperial Cult, and moved parallel to the Inquisition, watching them do their dirty work and strove to find some form of salvation within it all. My efforts seemed to come to nothing, until at last I made some tangible progress."

His helmet turned to glare at Rosie. The Daemonette's eyes narrowed. "Me?"

"Yes. You, Ruzal'kara. You were proof that all my searching has borne some kind of fruit. When I cast that summoning ritual, and you emerged from the Warp, I knew that something had changed. A sorcerer of Tzeentch does not summon daemons of Slaanesh, and yet, here you are, bound to me as I am bound to the Deceiver. He laughs more quietly now – a sure sign that his hold on me is weakening."

Thurion was staring at him in wonder, as was Rosie. "Do you mean to imply that you are escaping Tzeentch's grasp?"

"It seems impossible, I know," the sorcerer admitted, his gauntleted fists clenching hard enough that the ceramite of his palm ground audibly from the pressure. "It is… unlikely… that Tzeentch would allow me to escape. But I have come this far. Deliverance is close, I know it."

"Careful," Thurion growled. "It is not for nothing that Tzeentch is called the Great Deceiver. You cannot assume that things are as they seem; it is far more likely he is simply toying with you."

"It is a risk I am prepared to take!" Damantin snapped, and I flinched. It was the first time I had heard him really raise his voice. "Even if my damned soul is snatched up by some other god, it does not matter. The point is, I will have defied Tzeentch, and in doing so, opened the way for my lost brothers to do the same!"

A gust of dusty wind caused the firelight to glow against Damantin's armour, and for the briefest moment, his blue livery seemed to shine a burnished red. We sat in stunned silence, looking upon him standing there – a pillar of unyielding faith and fortitude, prepared to give up everything so that his brothers might have a chance, however small, at freedom. From then on, I knew I would never be able to think of him as a traitor again. Chaos sorcerer or not, Damantin was nothing short of a gilded hero in my eyes.

When he sat down again, Marrlë nodded appreciatively and gestured to Thurion. The taciturn warrior did not bother to stand, instead staring into the flame. I thought he might refuse altogether, but then he started, his deep voice easily carrying around the fire and resounding through the air.

"Before the rise of the Imperium," he rumbled, "I was a young member of the Space Marine Legion known as the Luna Wolves. Even then, nigh on eleven thousand years ago, the Space Marines were famed and revered as the unstoppable hammer of the Emperor's might. We were feared as no others were. We, the indomitable host, raced across the stars, fire in our hearts and glory on our minds."

"If the Space Marines were the tip of the spear, then the Luna Wolves were the lightning that lanced forth thereof. All our brothers knew us to be the mightiest and finest warriors of the Great Crusade, and under the guidance of the primarch Horus Lupercal, we grew mightier still. Nothing could stand against us."

"I had the honour of serving under one of Horus's close advisors: Ezekyle Abaddon, a great warrior even by the high standards of our Legion. The foes of the Emperor were many, and we rolled over them like a storm. Our primarch was as a father to us, and Abaddon like an older brother." He paused for a moment, orange eyes staring into the flames. Letting out a deep breath, he continued. "So when Horus turned on the Imperium, we turned with him."

My expression tightened. I knew the next part; everyone did. The story of the arch-traitor, and the great heresy that sundered the Imperium and laid the Emperor himself low.

"We fell upon those we once called our brothers. The wars fought today among the stars are but paltry shadows of the clashes we knew then. Unshakeable in our faith in Horus, we surged on, and on, and on, butchering our way through our former allies. They pleaded for us to see reason, for us to recall our oaths. There was no need – we saw reason enough for them to die, and we fulfilled our oaths to our primarch."

The zeal and unswerving devotion in the black-clad marine's voice made me shiver. He still spoke Horus's name reverently, and it twisted my stomach in revulsion.

"And then, Horus fell. He was broken by the Emperor, and so the rest of us broke – forced to withdraw from that final glorious assault by the death of our guiding light. We lost ourselves in the Warp, and as the future grew hazy and uncertain, a new light appeared. Abaddon declared himself the new Chosen of the Chaos Gods, and slew any who dared to tell him otherwise. With little alternative, the Sons of Horus painted our armour in the colour of the empty void, renamed ourselves the Black Legion, and set forth on the first Black Crusade."

His wolfish eyes flickered to me, and I gulped. "I do not think I need to tell you how that unfolded." I shook my head, prompting Thurion to sigh heavily and continue. "The Crusade was a disaster, of course. Our new leader promised us that we would bring that festering hole, Terra, to its knees, and we never came close to doing so." His jaw clenched. "Upon being repelled, Abaddon immediately set about preparing for a second Black Crusade, which resulted similarly. At this point, my faith in him was shaken."

"And, well… ten more damned Crusades ensued, and by the end of it all, that faith had gone from 'shaken' to 'nonexistent'. At the very peak of the twelfth Black Crusade, when we began losing traction and the forces of the Imperium started to overcome our own, I at last denounced Abaddon for the overzealous incompetent that he clearly was, and left the Black Legion behind."

He chuckled deep in his chest, and the rest of us did too. Though the destruction that Abaddon and his many Crusades had wrought across the galaxy wasn't funny, his perpetual failures were, and the mental image of Thurion calling him an idiot in front of his warriors, while the proof of that assertion raged on all around them, was both hilarious and amazing.

"I fled into Ultramar, knowing that Abaddon's lackeys wouldn't pursue me there. While eluding both my old Legion and the Ultramarines, I realized two important things. The first was that the rogue Legions would never defeat the Imperium – at least, not with that posturing bungler at the helm."

Still biting my lip to keep from laughing at his flippant dismissal of the fearsome Warmaster, I arched an eyebrow. That was something I'd never expect to hear come out of Thurion's mouth – or any heretic's, for that matter. The fact that none of the other heretics assembled around the fire made any move to shout this down made the statement even more interesting.

"The second, which hit me even harder, was that the men I had stood alongside as the galaxy burned; the legion with which I surged across the stars; we Wolves who hunted down a hundred thousand foes together – were gone. Horus's death had weakened them, and they were now nothing more than Abaddon's lapdogs, serving a master who would never, could never come close to Horus's glory. They were Wolves no longer, and unworthy of my allegiance."

"When this realization struck me, I decided that only I, who had seen the degradation of the mighty Legion I once belonged to, could keep that ancient torch lit. And so I, the last Luna Wolf, set forth to find new allies, for whom I could be proud to wield my blade and bolter. And so I search still, seeking those fit to bear the title of Battle-Brothers. Seeking Wolves."

With a start, I realized that I finally understood Thurion. And with that understanding, I could see it all – a disillusioned, nostalgic warrior, ferocious and proud beyond mortal ken. After all, how many could say they had battled their way across the stars under the banner of the Emperor's once-favourite son? I watched him still as he turned his orange-eyed gaze on Rosie, who stretched gracefully and smiled.

"Is it my turn?" At an encouraging nod from Marrlë, the Daemonette began her story, that dazzling smile lingering on her lips.

"It was… the thirty-sixth millennium, I believe. I can't be bothered to remember exactly, but it was sometime around then, because fashion among Imperial nobles was especially hideous."

"It still is," I interjected, which earned me a playful jab in the arm.

"Anyway – on a hive world somewhere in the Calixis Sector, one particular nobleman was totally addicted to a particular series of highly illegal drugs. He also happened to be a secret follower of Slaanesh, and so, with a deal here and a sacrifice there, managed to summon me. Immediately he asked me to give him the same ecstasy that those drugs provided, and I gave him a scratch from one of my claws. That had him convulsing on the floor, and I thought, 'Another job well done, away I go,' but apparently that wasn't good enough for him. No – he wanted some truly nasty chems, which only came from a few very secretive dealers in the Underhive."

"I told him that I could replicate the high provided by the chems he was asking for, even exceed it – but no. He wanted those chems, from those dealers, for some ridiculous reason. Finicky summoners are the worst, honestly." Rosie sighed in displeasure at the memory. "So his order was for me to go creeping into the Underhive like some wayward street urchin and swipe the chems from those dealers."

"By then, I was rather miffed with my treatment, and his absurd declaration that my claws weren't cutting it, so to speak. I pride myself on these claws, you know." I nodded and gave her shoulder a squeeze, eliciting a purr from her and prompting Thurion to roll his eyes and Damantin to cough uncomfortably. "Anyway, I went creeping into the Underhive, silent and invisible, and I was almost ready to just kill my idiot summoner and move on with my existence when I came across these gangers, completely hopped up on the very chems that my master had me searching for. I was about to snag a pouch of the stuff and be off, when I thought of something a bit more fun."

"Oh?" Marrlë's eyes gleamed, and I chuckled nervously. Rosie's definition of fun could get a little scary at times.

"I informed these gangers that, if they could round up some of their friends, there was a decadent household in the Upper Hive that I could get them into, and if they were careful, I could divert any Arbites or PDF they might find on the way. Of course they agreed; the corruption of nobles is infamous among Underhivers, and while the truth behind that infamy varies from noble to noble, in this case the gang I spoke to had struck gold. They didn't even ask questions about just how I was going to get them up there undetected; I suppose they assumed I was some kind of psyker. Not quite true, but I managed to keep up appearances. I do that rather well, don't you think, Fenwick?"

"Er… yes," I concurred quickly, without thinking. I might have considered her words a bit more carefully, but the feeling of one of her claws gliding over the back of my neck hastened my agreement. Flashing me a sweet smile, she continued.

"Of course, me being me, I made good on my word. They encountered no difficulties rising through the hive; I cleared the way for them and pointed them in the right direction if they looked lost. It took some time, but they ascended all the way up the hive, to the noble's enormous house, overlooking the entire city. When they rose above the layer of smog that choked the lower levels, I swear those gangers took in the first gulps of clean air they'd had in years, and nearly keeled over in shock." She smirked at the memory, gesticulating with all four of her arms to better illustrate her words to us.

"They arrived at the noble's house, guns blazing, and when they killed him, I was forced out of the Materium – for a bit. Of course, things came together rather smoothly after that. The Arbites and PDF found a lead and made it up to the house. They found not only the gangers, but the chems on them as well. A little bit of psychic prompting was all it took for one of the Arbites to try the chems, and from there, it began to spread through the police force.

The Arbites began raiding the Underhive to get at these rare drugs, which eventually prompted the people there to strike back. Civilians got involved in those exchanges, riots broke out, and it wasn't long before the entire hive city was consumed in wild, wonderful Chaos. And all because of little old me." Rosie flowed to her feet and gave an exaggerated yet graceful bow, which was met with genuine accolades from Marrlë and more sardonic applause from Thurion. Damantin and I remained silent. I couldn't bring myself to congratulate her for turning an Imperial city to Chaos, no matter how much I liked her; Damantin, it seemed, had another reason for his silence.

"The Daemonette who corrupted the city and the one who recounted doing so are not one and the same, I think," said the Sorcerer. "You have changed, Ruzal'kara."

Her merriment dulled as she grew thoughtful, reaching over to touch my hand. "I have," she agreed, gazing into the flame just as Thurion had. "I wonder if I can truly be called a Daemonette anymore. Emotion fuels me as ever, but… not quite like it did before. I can appreciate things other than wild excess." Her black eyes narrowed. "How long have you been aware of this, Damantin?"

"Marrlë has yet to tell a story," was his non-answer, and I repressed a snicker at his evasiveness. The crimson-haired warrior nodded emphatically and rose to his feet, resting Gorelady's head against the ground. He grinned at each of us in turn, and, pushing a red forelock away from his one good eye, began.

"This story actually takes place before I met Gorelady. You all know how that happened, right?"

"You've told us how that happened at least five times," Thurion muttered. "Yes, we know." The rest of us nodded. Not to be discouraged, Marrlë drew himself up and went on. "The story of how I met That Radical Dame – do you know that one, too?"

Thurion opened his mouth to say something, but I piped up before he could. "I haven't," said I, and assiduously ignored the glare shot my way by the Luna Wolf. Unsurprisingly, this made the red-haired renegade smile, and that was all he needed to launch into his tale.

"There I was, stuck in the snow-blasted mountains of Xurunt, with nothing but my wits and my axe."

"So nothing but your axe," Rosie quipped, and Marrlë flashed her his iron teeth as she giggled.

"My warband was nowhere to be found. It might've been that they escaped, or maybe they were taken out by the members of the Inquisition that happened to turn up –"

"Or perhaps they grew sick of your unrelenting cheer and went to find something to mope about."

"Or that. Anyway, I was stranded up in the mountains, fending off the ferocious native predators of Xurunt. It was cold, and I was starting to wonder if I'd actually make it down alive. But then, in the distance – a flame! I thought it was a campfire at first, but then the flame started to move further up the snowy slope, towards an old ruin. Being pretty much stuck up there until the snow faltered, I headed over to find out what was going on."

"Now, back then, I wasn't quite as scary as I am now. I mean, my hair was red, but my eyes weren't, and I had a nice set of flat, white teeth – just like you've got, Fen." I squinted across the fire, trying to imagine Marrlë without his spiked iron teeth and crimson eye. The resolution of that mental image was surprisingly normal-looking; I could easily picture him in a flak vest and fatigues.

"As you can imagine, I didn't look terribly conspicuous. Also, this was the axe I owned before I met my Gorelady. Sharp and strong, but much less gaudy. I decided I was feeling lucky, and followed the light to its source. Just my luck – it was an Interrogator from the Ordo Xenos on her first assignment!"

"Normally, I would've just fought her and her five-man retinue on the spot, but this once, survival instinct won out. Fortunately, I spied her rosette sticking out of her coat pocket, so I managed to cobble together a cover story as I came out of the snow with my hands up. 'Don't shoot', I said. 'I'm with the Ordo Hereticus.' They seemed pretty suspicious, and rightly so, but after a tense moment they lowered their guns and asked me what I was here for. 'Top secret', I said, 'but it's got to do with those ruins up there.' What a coincidence, their orders are to investigate those same ruins. I was lucky she didn't have a psyker with her, or I'd have been in real trouble."

"In we all went, into the depths of the mountaintop ruins, and they were crawling with all sorts of weird metal stuff. I figured that the Interrogator must've been hunting for alien technology, and I told her that I'd come looking for a heretek, so our goals aligned. At first, I thought it seemed like a passable cover story. But then, as we went deeper and deeper into the dark, it started to look like I had inadvertently hit the nail on the head."

"Green lights on the walls, our enemies taking on a distinctly skeletal mien and metal bugs crawling across the floor. Two of the others died from traps and Dark Mechanicus machines, leaving us five trudging uncertainly through what was looking more like a tomb with each passing hour. I was having the time of my life – secretly, of course. I pretended to be just as miserable and scared as everyone else, with some difficulty."

I had only ever seen Marrlë frightened once, and it had been at the prospect of dying outside of a fight. To feign terror for an extended period of time must have had him seething inside.

"So, three days in, we finally reached the bottom of the ruins. A huge laboratory, spanning the entire floor, stretched out before us. We could see servitors shuffling around, glowing green tubes implanted in their bodies, at which point I was pretty sure that I'd come up with the perfect cover story. Creeping through the laboratory, we found him, or her, or it, hunched over a table, stripping metal sheets off the body of what looked like a necron."

"Not a moment later, the heretek turned around, leveled a gauss cannon at us, and tore the goon to my left in half. Combat servitors sprung to life around us, and while the Interrogator and her two remaining flunkies started shooting at the servitors, I charged the heretek. A whole bunch of mechadendrites popped out of its back and we went at it, the two of us."

"It was one of the best fights I'd ever had; there were flames scorching through the air over my head, plasma and las blasts riddling the ground near my feet. I was jumping around as best I could, trying to avoid the point-blank hail of death. Bastard actually shot a hole right through my bicep." Marrlë flexed his arm to show us; sure enough, there was an old burn mark in the center of his upper arm.

"Slowly but surely, I hacked off every one of the heretek's mechadendrites, but tripped over a power cable. He actually had the gauss cannon up to my face, and that would've been the end of me if the Interrogator hadn't blown his head off with a well-aimed plasma shot. When I looked back, I saw her standing alone among the dead goons and broken servitors, plasma pistol still smoking."

"We nodded at each other, then it was back up the ruins, to the mountaintop, where a ship was waiting for us. Well, for her, but she told them I was an Interrogator too, so they let me on. I asked her to drop me off at the nearest port, and she talked the captain around to it. When we arrived, I got ready to vanish, when she asked me if I was actually with the Inquisition."

"I admitted I wasn't, and she laughed and told me to get lost. According to her, letting me go was thanks for helping her out on Xurunt, and if she ever saw me again, she wouldn't think twice about putting a plasma round through my head for the crime of impersonating an Inquisitorial agent. Then she was gone, and I found myself wishing I'd spoken to her a bit more." An uncharacteristically melancholic sigh issued from our current storyteller, who made to sit back down.

"Did you ever see her again?" I asked, before he could. He paused, and met my eyes with a mischievous smile.

"Yes," he said, and left it at that. "I'll tell you that story if we survive. There's incentive for you, as if you already didn't have enough." I laughed, until I realized that they were now expecting me to tell a story, and was at a complete loss. Three pairs of inhuman eyes and one impassive helm stared at me across the leaping fire, and I tried to make myself as small as possible, which resulted in the stares intensifying. A nervous chuckle came unbidden from my lips, and I reached up to scratch my head sheepishly.

"Um… I don't have any stories like the rest of you have. I haven't been in any glorious battles or gone on great quests or had life-changing epiphanies. Or brought Chaos to hive cities, thank the Emperor." Rosie laughed and swatted me on the arm. Thurion opened his mouth, and I winced pre-emptively, but he was cut off by Marrlë.

"No matter," he declared, cheerfully dismissing my protests with a wave of his hand. "A good story doesn't have to have quests or epiphanies or battles – although those last ones are always the best."

"Indeed," seconded Damantin. "A story is good if you care, and succeed at making your listeners do the same."

That didn't make me any more confident. Still, though, they'd shared their stories, and I owed them one as well, regardless of whether it was good or not. Swallowing my trepidation, I frantically dug through my memories and yanked out the first coherent one I could grasp. I almost threw it back and continued digging, but the combined intensity of their expectant stares was enough to dissuade that cowardice, and I went for it.

"Near the core of the Calixis Sector, there's a small, miserable hive world called Fenksworld. Looks decent on the surface, but when you add up all the little details and glance under the covers, you realize the truth of the matter is a lot more unpleasant than first impressions might suggest. For one, the Chaliced Commissariat presence there is basically nonexistent. The PDF exist to keep out threats from beyond, but the real danger is what's beneath.

Under the spires and burgs of Nova Castillia, there are two lesser hives, kept in squalor through servitude to the greater one above. The first, Magnagorsk, is bad enough; hazardous, thankless industrial work on overdrive. Ash fumes in the air and awful heat, it's the first level of hellish underhive. The second, Volg, is even worse. Nothing but toxic slums, waste, and darkness down there. Murder and worse are everyday occurrences."

"You'd think the awful quality of life down there would be bad enough, but actually, Fenksworld is riddled with Chaos cults from the highest spires to the lowest hellholes. Not enough for the Imperium to declare it a lost cause, but just enough so that the collective nastiness of the whole world rises some more."

"Most commonly, it'll be the Arbites who deal with that sort of thing, but when something a bit bigger spreads, witch hunters from the Inquisition will descend into the dark to root out cults before they grow dangerously large. For the rest of us on Fenksworld, these secret cults and Inquisitorial ventures have become a part of life, to be ignored as best as possible. Sometimes, though, you become involved without realizing it."

I saw the others shifting to get comfortable, mild interest on their faces. Slightly emboldened by this, I continued.

"I lived on one of the lowest levels of Nova Castillia. It wasn't pretty, but better than the subordinate hives by several orders of magnitude. Didn't have any brothers or sisters growing up – not that I knew of, anyway. One kid's expensive to maintain as is. I did have a good friend, though, who lived further up the hive."

"My dad had worked for her dad at some point before I was born, and they'd remained friends ever since. That's how I was introduced to Mava, when I was only five or six years old. From the moment I first met her, I remember thinking that her smile was too bright for the frakked world we lived on. That's what first got me thinking about leaving."

"There are two ways off of Fenksworld. The first is to become a Rogue Trader and strike out across the stars on your own course. The first way is also quite impossible. The second is to join the Imperial Guard. Though it isn't nearly as common as some other hive worlds, Fenksworld does recruit people to serve in the guard. Recruits are usually iron-eyed killers from the Volg hive, but folk from above can get in too, if they prove their worth.

I talked to Mava about this, and we made a pact – when we were old enough, we'd join the guard and ship out of that miserable world. Every time we met, we'd spend a while in the alley behind my parents' hovel, firing on imaginary targets. Played Guardsman and Xenos a lot. Most of the time, I was the xeno." Marrlë snickered.

"We stayed close for years, but our parents fell apart. Her dad hired a different person in place of mine, and we got poorer while they remained relatively successful. Seeing each other got tougher, but we held on to our hope of leaving. At one point, it had been several months since I'd seen her last, and I wondered if she'd forgotten about me. Then, on my doorstep, I found a letter addressed to me. Mava was inviting me to come see her for her twelfth birthday, which happened to be that very afternoon."

I smiled ruefully. It had been one of the happiest moments of my childhood, and though it might not seem like much, things like that stand out in a life of squalor. I recalled showing my parents; my dad forcing a smile for my sake; my mum's telling me to get ready, Mava'd be expecting me soon.

"I ran out of the house, ran all the way up through the winding streets of the hive, through the yards and under the highways and down the alleys, and reached her street." The image returned to the forefront of my memories, so vivid and haunting even after all this time. "Normally, that street was quiet. That day, it was loud – so loud. I saw Adeptus Arbites establishing a perimeter, heard the bang of a bolter going off and the scream that followed. I felt, you know, that sick feeling that rises through you, until you're paralyzed, because you don't know what's happened but you're certain it's nothing good."

"I watched from a distance as a man in power armour, with a red augmetic eye and a smoking bolt pistol, stepped out of that house. He looked both ways, shouted something to the Arbites, and started off down the road in my direction. I stood there, frozen, as the man came closer and closer, until he was looking down at me. The expression on his face was unreadable; it was like looking into a cloudy night sky. But somehow, I knew that this man had killed more people than I had ever met in my life, and if I gave him any reason to, I would join that number."

"He studied me, I guess, for a bit, and finally asked if I'd known the people who lived in the house he'd come out of. I couldn't lie to those eyes; I told him that I'd come for my friend's birthday, and asked if I could see her. Then I saw something like pity on his face, and he told me to go home and forget about her."

I heard Marrlë suck in air through his teeth. An exhalation issued from Damantin's mask, and Rosie gently squeezed my hand. For once, Thurion was silent, watching my face; now it was my turn to stare into the flames, as the others had. There was some strangely comforting about looking into the blaze, perhaps because nothing looked back. It cleared the mind, wiped away the building grief in my chest, and I was able to go on, though my voice had become decidedly more bitter.

"I ran home in tears. I wasn't blind; that man had been an Inquisitor, and my friend was as good as dead. Rumours circulate and die quickly in a hive, and within a few days we knew the story. Mava's father's pub had been a front for a Chaos cult. They had been on the verge of creating a daemonhost, when the Inquisition had caught wind of it and stormed the pub. Following that, they came to his house, and the rest is history."

My eyes hardened, and the fire seemed to grow cold. "I never did find out what happened to Mava; whether she was spirited away by the Ordo Hereticus, or sent down to the Volg, or… whatever else might have befallen her. But I decided, no matter what, that I'd join the Guard and escape the nightmare that spawned us for both our sakes. I signed on, and was shipped out with a bunch of conscripts from the same planet. A tough bunch, but they'd never fought xenos for real, and when we landed here, it made all the difference in the end."

"So here I am. I've traded one world of filth, dire straits and heretics for this one, it seems. Only as far as heretical company goes, I think I could have been a lot less fortunate." I looked around at each of them, and at last understood what that feeling when I stared up at the ceiling in the dark was. "I owe you all my life, and I've been doing my best to even that debt. And if we…" My breath hideously caught in my throat. I forced the words out, and to my immense relief, they sounded sure and honest. "If we die tomorrow, or if we find some way off this forsaken planet, I want you all to know I'm glad I met you."

We sat in warm, thoughtful silence. No further words were needed; on that night, sitting around Marrlë's fire and eating his special stew, we five bared our souls to each other, and glimpsed the grim darkness of the 42nd Millennium through each other's eyes - dark indeed, but there were stars scattered amidst that void. For a short while, the red, dust-filled night sky didn't seem quite so bleak, and I felt the sentiment pass around us. I looked at them and saw heresy, but beyond that, I saw the same hope that I myself harboured, only clad in different armour.

At last, our bowls were empty, and the fire burned low. This time, Thurion offered to take first watch, and the rest of us gratefully headed for the garrison door in search of sleep. I looked back for a moment at the high walls of our base, and at the Luna Wolf standing guard atop those walls. It was not foolhardy confidence that filled me, but relief: knowing that we had done everything we could, and that we would fight our hardest and make the orks pay dearly for every step forward.

When I stepped inside the garrison, Damantin bid me goodnight with a quiet nod, Marrlë with a brotherly punch in the shoulder, and Rosie with a long, passionate kiss. The daemon warned me not to die or she'd haunt my soul in the Warp, and instead of blanching in terror at the notion, I laughed, assured her I'd do my best, and headed off to bed. As I pulled the covers over my body, I felt warmer and more comfortable than usual, and spent little time staring at the dark ceiling before falling asleep. Until now, I had stood by necessity alongside heretical allies; tomorrow, I would fight by choice beside friends.