I awoke before dawn to a tremor rattling my spine as I lay in my cot. Propping myself up on my elbows with a groan, I rubbed my eyes and saw Marrlë standing in the doorway, a hungry gleam in his single crimson eye, and dressed in carapace armour from the neck down. I was about to ask what was happening, but realized what it was before I could. That spiky grin of his stretched from ear to ear. As I slid out of bed, he stated the obvious. "They're coming."
"I figured," I muttered as I slipped into the crumpled uniform at my bedside and threw on my flak armour. Marrlë vanished from the doorway without another word, and I was quick to follow – though not before making sure I had everything together. Combat knife, check. Flamer, check. Long las, check. Autogun, check. Forearm-mounted bolt pistol, check. Ammunition? In spades. Not nearly enough, but every one of my pockets was stuffed with ammo, and my new backpack was bulging with it. It also held an autopistol, a laspistol, and my old lasrifle. I had packed them in case my other guns jammed, but I doubted I'd be alive long enough to need them. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself and walked out of the garrison.
Upon entering the courtyard, I saw them all, standing on the wall, gazing through the windows we had made. The whole façade, while rather low-tech, had been piled high with sandbags, concrete slabs, and practically any solid material we could get our hands on, with stacks upon stacks of ammunition lying about the walltop within easy reach. The so-called windows were simply openings in this wall of hard scrap. Marrlë, Damantin, Thurion and Rosie each stood at one of these, their backs turned to me. I hurried up to join them, and took my place between Thurion and Damantin, staring into the dust clouds drifting across the wasteland. I could feel the vibrations from before traveling up the wall, and heard a distant thundering – the marching feet of thousands of war-hungry greenskins. My lips grew dry in anticipation, all while the sounds of the coming warhost grew louder and louder.
With a derisive snarl, Thurion hefted the missile launcher beside him, lazily took aim, and let a frag missile loose into the distance. It sliced away through the air with an appalling silence, and I held my breath for the entire duration of its flight. When it vanished into the dust, and the silence yet hung in the air I thought for a moment that he had missed them altogether, before realizing that the distant marching had stopped as well. And then-
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
The roar came blasting across the barren land and hit me like a missile of their own, instantly taking the place of Gorelady's revving as the most fearsome sound I had ever heard. I staggered back, my helmet slipping off my head and bouncing back down the stairs whence I had ascended. My breath returned in a gasp, and my grip on my lasgun tightened until my fingers hurt from the pressure. Despair filled me, churning in my stomach and rising into my chest; whatever had made that noise was not an enemy that could be fought. They would roll over us like a tide, and no amount of resistance would slow them, much less deter them. We were doomed. I took another step back, breath quickening, head spinning, and yelped: something had smacked into my shoulder, hard.
I looked over to see Marrlë, his fist still outstretched from the punch he had given my arm and a stern expression on his face. I searched for meaning in his eye, and he spoke before I could demand an explanation. "What's the matter, Fen? Getting cold feet before we even start, over that little whimper?"
I almost yelled at him, when I realized that in punching me he had brought me back from the edge of hysterical panic – my breathing had almost returned to normal, and my grip on my lasgun had loosened. Letting out a rattling breath, I shook my head and grinned. "Never."
"That's the spirit, Guardsman!" He cheered and gave me a thump on the back, returning to his spot at the window and looking across at the others. "Come on, let's show them what we think of that empty croak." Filling his chest with air, Marrlë clenched his fist around Gorelady's throttle – which was still the second most fearsome sound I had ever heard – and roared his response. "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"
Thurion wasn't far behind, firing a second missile into the dust. As the thunder of the charging orks filled the air, he drowned it out with a roar of his own. "Kill for the Living, Kill for the Dead!" he boomed, using the ancient war cry of the Luna Wolves. His mighty lungs carried the proclamation far and held it in the air, even as the sound of the coming orks grew louder.
With a twirl of his staff, Damantin pointed the force weapon's ornate tip at the unseen foe and blew the dust aside. Now we could see them: the green tide, numbering in their hundreds if not thousands. While daunting, it didn't seem like such an impossible number – until one considered that this was merely the Waaagh's vanguard. The host to follow would be many times larger, and they would be upon us before we could despatch all the orks currently racing across the barren plain towards us, if we even made it that far. The sorcerer didn't appear daunted in the least, and I had to guess that that old line about knowing no fear was more than just a saying. All of a sudden, my consciousness was filled with a vast chill, like being plunged into deep, dark water, and from that fathomless dark came a terrible proclamation that was at once a whisper and a howl.
All is Dust.
The entire front line of orks stopped, shocked by this fiendish psychic challenge, and were at once brutally trampled by their frenzied comrades in their rush to reach us. They, however, suffered an even worse fate; in their midst, a huge burst of vermilion lightning and obsidian flame rippled through the orks, lancing through them and melting the flesh from their bones. I had thought Damantin's powers before were worthy of awe, but this was another tier of devastation entirely.
Yet even such a horrific and mighty attack as that was only a small dent in the green tide, and they came ever onward. Instead of a battle cry, Rosie gleefully fired up her Blastmaster and sent a sonic beam lancing into their midst, causing those hit by the wave of sound to crumple like beaten metal. Heads exploded and bodies were twisted by the sheer force behind that noise, and ever on they came.
With a flick, I set my long las to overcharged mode and stepped up to the window. As I looked down the sights, aiming for a particularly large and ugly Nob, I felt a familiar feeling pushing down any residual panic in my gut, spreading through my limbs and filling me with warmth. I laughed aloud as I recognized it, from when I'd driven my chainsword through the one-armed Boy's mouth: good, solid, human hatred, the kind the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer so zealously went on about for pages on end. Whenever I had leafed through it before today, that part had always struck me as the most curious. Besides the blatant lies about the strength of standard-issue gear and the general deadliness of the Imperium's many enemies, I had always found the constant ranting and advocacy of hatred to be both unnecessary and useless. What good was mere hatred in a battle? Now, as I took one of the Nob's eyes and saw it howl in pain, I knew: this hatred was fire, this hatred was passion, but above all else, this hatred was human. I poured every ounce of that righteous human hatred I had into that shot and every shot thereafter, and roared a battle cry of my own as loud as my human lungs could voice it.
"For the Emperor!"
None of my companions protested. Imperium and Chaos were forgotten as we worked in unison to mow down our foes before they crashed against our walls like a clamoring wave of flesh and steel. I lunged behind a heavy bolter and unleashed it on the Waaagh, scraping all along their front with explosive, fully automatic fire. Thurion, deadly accurate as ever, picked Stormboyz out of the sky with one of our full auto-capable autocannons, shooting each one down before they could clear our walls. Damantin shouldered a lascannon and sent crippling shots into warbikes and warbuggies as they raced along towards us. While Marrlë was – much to his chagrin – unable to engage in melee combat without leaping over the wall and being instantly slaughtered by the slavering mass of orks, he had begrudgingly accepted multilaser duty, and I thought I saw the tiniest of smiles on his face as he sent powerful rapid-fire las blasts lancing into the advancing horde. All the while, Rosie continued happily firing away with her sonic weapon, each strike hammering a wave of resounding doom against our enemies' ranks. And still they came.
If we hadn't voiced our battle cries, if Marrlë hadn't punched me in the shoulder, if we hadn't bared our souls to each other around the fire, I might have broken file and ran. But I was on fire within, the Emperor's flame blazing through my veins and out through the barrel of my lasgun. For my friends and for my own sake, I held the line, and we stood unyielding as the green tide finally crashed against our wall. The façade shook, and the gates below us groaned in protest, but our guns were strong and our wills were stronger. I quickly stepped out from behind the heavy bolter and cocked my flamer, and along with Marrlë's multilaser, we turned the front of the gates into a focused kill zone, forcing the orks to fan out and seek another way in.
Dozens raced for the eastern wall, seeing a flaw in the stonework from where the Gargant's cannon had blasted apart a section of the wall. We had repaired it, but the stone there held more loosely than elsewhere. Before the orks could reach it, though, Thurion had turned on the thrusters in his jump pack and soared across the wall in a single rocket-propelled bound. He landed among the group of orks with such force that those nearest to him were knocked off their feet, and those further staggered back before gathering themselves and charging. Marrlë huffed jealously, quietly bemoaning his inability to meet the orks hand-to-hand. I might've chuckled if I wasn't busy scorching through the Slugga Boyz below us, the terrifying wrath of the flamer licking forth and covering them in deadly washes of burning promethium.
As usual, the Luna Wolf was doing a masterful job of turning everything around him into mincemeat, power sword flickering to and fro with inhuman grace and celerity. A dozen orks were slain in as many seconds, falling to blade and bolter, and another two dozen rose to replace them. Just as it seemed as if Thurion would be overwhelmed by the massing monsters, his jump pack awoke once more, sending him flying back over the wall in time to bisect a Stormboy in midair. He landed near us and picked up Damantin's discarded lascannon while the Thousand Son hurried to man the autocannon on the far wall. Since the sorcerer usually moved so little when he fought, it was easy to forget that he was capable of physical feats rivaling his black-armoured Battle-Brother's. He wasted no time in reminding us of this, gunning down the gathered orks below the eastern wall with quiet, brutal efficiency. Those that escaped his cannonfire fell to their knees, howling as their minds were bent and broken by the sorcerer's psychic might.
We ripped into them so furiously, so violently, so relentlessly that it seemed for a moment as if we might actually overcome them. I felt the beginnings of a misguided smile on my lips, before the boom of a distant gun and the explosion of the wall next to me dispelled any illusions I had. I was sent tumbling back as the window and part of the upper wall collapsed, overturning the mounted heavy bolter. Ears ringing, I pushed myself to my feet in time to see Thurion firing his lascannon at the source of the destruction: an ork trukk, trundling quickly towards us. More trukks were coming into view, and along with them, Shoota and Loota Boyz, carrying heavier guns than the initial charge of orks. Our troubles would ramp up significantly once those arrived.
Damantin's psychic blasts ripped across the battlefield, decimating the ork infantry, but there were always more to replace them. Within five minutes the reinforcements were within maximum firing range, and the hail of bullets started banging against the wall while shots streaked wildly above us. Feeding a new chain of ammunition into the heavy bolter, I hauled it back onto its mounting at another window and answered the orks in kind. The storm of bullets was such that I was essentially hiding behind the gun, and even that wasn't quite enough to fully protect me; I felt bullets ripping past my flak jacket and zinging off the top of my helmet. One caught me full on in the leg, and I grunted and gritted my teeth as pain pulsed through me. Driven ever onwards by my righteous hatred, I let out a savage yell that wouldn't have been out of place coming from Marrlë's throat and clenched my finger around the trigger twice as hard as before.
The sky grew redder as the hours progressed. Rockets tore chunks from our wall and we answered in the same language. The barricades slowed the progress of infantry and light vehicles, leaving them vulnerable, and many unfortunate orks discovered that the ground they walked was riddled with explosives of varying potency. More than one trukk went up in flames, blasted apart after rolling over a mine. Hundreds of orks fell, and hundreds more came from the dust.
We held our position against that endless horde for another day. Nearing the end, the Space Marines' mighty armour was looking scratched and beaten, much of their coloured livery having been shaved off by bullets. Well-armoured as they were, they could afford to stand in lines of fire that the rest of us could not, and their boldness was starting to wear on them. Rosie had been shot several times, but her injuries healed swiftly, and didn't seem to bother her while they lasted. At one point, a bullet hit Marrlë right in the mouth, and for a horrible moment I'd thought the Khornate was done for, until he turned his head to face me with a grin and showed me the round he'd caught in his iron teeth.
At last, Damantin psychically signalled to us that it was time to abandon the walls, and looking out at the enemy, still innumerable and bearing forth more heavy guns and vehicles than ever, I had to concur. The dust-shrouded silhouette of another Gargant in the distance was the clincher; I abandoned the heavy bolter, snagging the single remaining bolt chain and limping down the stairs as fast as I could. I had wrapped a hasty bandage around my leg, but it hurt terribly every time I put weight on it. Several of the guns I had carried into battle had been discarded, their ammunition completely spent. The flamer had run out of fuel, and both the autogun and the long las had actually jammed; I'd stripped the latter of its telescopic sight and shoved that into my backpack.
As the pounding thrum of the bolter and multilaser died down, the sound of the Waaagh grew louder, until it was a deafening roar from ten thousand tusked mouths. I hobbled down the stairs as fast as my wounded leg would carry me, and met the others at the garrison door. Unnaturally quick as she was, Rosie was the first inside, vanishing down the hallway towards the tunnel at the very back of the building. Marrlë seemed on the verge of turning and facing the horde, until Damantin shoved him through the open door. Only Thurion remained on the wall. I watched as his nearly-dead jump pack blasted him up one last time to intercept another Stormboy, rocketing towards us over the wall. I also saw what he could not: a stray rokkit streaking through the air, straight for that airborne Stormboy. My eyes widened in horror, and I cried a warning, but it was useless, and even if he heard me, it was far too late. Space Marine, ork and rokkit all collided in midair, resulting in an explosion of charred green flesh, metal and ceramite. Damantin stepped in front of me, shielding me from shrapnel with his hulking armoured frame, and I watched under his arm as Thurion plummeted to the courtyard, landing on his side with an awful noise.
I couldn't believe it when, even after that, the black-armoured marine started to pull himself up, supporting his weight on his deactivated power sword. He faced sideways to us, blood streaking across the side of his face that we could see. He turned his head to catch Damantin's eye, and I gasped: half of the marine's face had been reduced to a seared mess of muscle and bone, half of his hair burned away and his teeth visible through no-longer-extant lips. He rose to his feet, his body still facing sideways, and nodded.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Damantin return the nod; then, as the gates burst open and the howling mob surged into the courtyard, the Thousand Son plucked me off the ground, tucked me under one arm and raced into the garrison after Rosie and Marrlë. I was dimly aware of Thurion running after us as bullets filled the air, of the hallways and chambers blurring past as Damantin ran through the building with inhuman speed. I heard the door blow off its hinges, heard the myriad booted feet thundering after us, heard the cries of "WAAAGH!" echoing along the halls and through the thick-walled rooms. And then, when we reached the tunnel, I lifted my head and saw Thurion stop, just behind us. At the very entrance of the passage, he stood, and met my stare with his one good eye.
I saw him then, that Luna Wolf; saw him stand tall, pride and fortitude beyond measure; saw him flourish his indomitable blade, in salute and in farewell; saw the full extent of the damage that had been wrought upon his mighty body, and knew that he would not be following us, that we would never see him again.
Thurion smiled, and I screamed.
Damantin would not look back, though, and neither would the warrior in black. The Space Marine bearing me away raced onwards, while the other one turned and faced the endless tide of orks by himself. I tried to protest, but my voice had escaped me, and Thurion's receding silhouette grew dimmer and dimmer, until it was lost forever in the darkness of the tunnel.
