Revelation Chapter 37: Militia Est Vita Hominis Super Terram, a Warhammer + Worm Crossover fanfic

A/N: Chap 36 review responses are in my forums. Thank you all for reading. As thanks, and also as acknowledgment that you've been waiting a long time, I'm doing a double post this weekend. So when you finish this chapter, keep reading. Chap 38 is what you've been waiting for.

Thank you all again for reading and reviewing.

Chapter Thirty- Seven: Militia Est Vita Hominis Super Terram

On the morning of the seventh day of the Honor Guard's journey, high enough in the Sacred Hills to be coated in snow and whipped constantly with bitter wind, the column of Pardus Heavy Armor and Tanith transports came under enemy fire.

Taylor found herself in the transport chamber of an old, filthy chimera with the remnants of her platoon, as well as the remnants of the 7th. Brin Milo, the youngest Tanith, was acting as the platoon leader since Sergeant Baffels died at Bhavnager. Between them, both platoons barely had thirty able-bodied soldiers.

They heard the explosions through the armor and the cold, but their APC did not slow. In fact, it actually sped up. The entire battle occurred behind them. They could hear the exchange of tank fire; the explosions that rumbled up through the tracked chimera.

But they never stopped, and in time the skirmish was finished without the Tanith ever disembarking their transports.

~~Revelation~~

Night brought a blizzard. But also word that they were almost at the Shrinehold.

"Why don't we just go on to it, then?" Trooper Bar Tanden wore the axe-rakes on his collar like most of Taylor's platoon. Though Taylor was injured, once she rejoined them they simply fell back into the normal routine of her being their sergeant.

It was Oballa Durren, one of Taylor's original loom girls and a large, heavy-set young woman, who answered with a scoff. "Even a hiver should know you don't drive on the side of a mountain in the dark, in a blizzard."

Trooper Mkan moved about their shared tent with a flask of Tanith-made sacra, pouring small sniffs into the tin cups of his fellows. Their meal consisted of a common ration stew made over the heater unit that kept their tent hovering around freezing, instead of plummeting far below. The wind whipped at the heavy, double-layered canvas walls.

"Girl's not wrong," the Tanith man said. He poured a touch into Taylor's cup before sinking into his narrow cot. Like all of them, he'd used his camo cloak like a poncho, sealing it up around his heavy weather gear to help retain body heat. Even with hers, Taylor found herself shivering enough to make her head hurt.

"I want everyone to move their cots next to each other tonight," Taylor said. "Pair up. Stack your blankets."

"Smart," Mkan said. Tall, lanky and deceptively strong, Mkan was one of the experienced Tanith that Colonel Corbec seeded into the Verghast-heavy platoons. He could easily have been a platoon leader himself, but didn't want the responsibility. With Corporal Mktagrt wounded, he was her senior trooper.

The heavy winter tents had a sectioned-off entrance to reduce heat loss whenever the troopers had to come and go. Even so, a wave of bitter cold air whipped through their tent when Colonel Corbec entered.

"Too cold to stand," he said when those in the tent started to do so. Like the rest, he had his camo cloak sealed over his winter gear, effectively hiding the bandages holding the man together. "Listen up. If not for this fething weather, you'd all be able to see the Shrinehold right in front of us. Orders are at first light to begin digging in and fortifying until the mission's accomplished and we depart."

Taylor waited for the Colonel to mention her name, or summon her to meet with Colonel Gaunt. The summons never came and the injured Colonel left the tent.

"Finish up and get under covers," Taylor said when he was gone. "Long day, tomorrow."

~~Revelation~~

Dawn brought a chill, frozen beauty that reminded Taylor so much of her childhood winters in the White Mountains that she had to fight through the distraction of it as they made their way through the final stretch of the pilgrim's path. The lingering effects of the concussion had her mind moving in ways she hadn't experienced in lifetimes.

Just like Corbec told them, the Temple of the Shrinehold of Saint Sabbat Hagio rose up out of a basalt promontory spur that reached out like a grasping hand from the glacier-blanketed mountain top above. It was a breath-taking sight, and Taylor wasn't alone among those staring at it in fascination.

To Taylor's eye, the Shrinehold was a castle, with two high concentric walls that could easily have been converted into strong defensive positions. Within the walls was the Shrinus Basilica, the primary monastery of the temple priests for the whole planet. One central, square tower sent out tendrils of prayer flags and votive kids in the powerful mountain winds.

The most striking aspect of it all was that the basalt used in its construction had a dull pink hue. Rather than dark, dour and medieval, the pink tone of the stone gave the shrinehold an almost fairy-tale aspect to it. The ayatani within heightening that feeling with liberal use of a bright, glossy red on their doors, window shutters and frames. Just beyond the shrinehold, at the edge of the promontory only visible to them because of their curving angle of approach, Taylor could see a massive pillar of black corundum. The mineral glistened in the harsh, sharp light of the dawn, almost like a starfield.

The column ground to a halt at the causeway that led to a fortified gatehouse. As Gaunt led a party of senior officers from both the Tanith and Pardus company, orders came over the vox to dig in. It was no surprise the troopers would not be in the shrinehold. It was a holy place–the last resting place of the Saint herself. They wouldn't want it defiled by the boots of infantry soldiers.

"Fourteenth, break into squads and prepare defensive positions," Taylor conveyed to her platoon. "Munitorum clerks will be by with space heaters. Every dugout has to have one. If you don't, let me know!"

~~Revelation~~

"All platoon chiefs, report to the Shrinehold for mission briefing."

Taylor's dugout was three positions down the front line of the Tanith fortifications. Around them, the tanks of the Pardus company were also taking positions on the narrow mountain pass leading to the causeway, prepared if the enemy followed them up the causeway.

Taylor touched her vox. "Fourteen, got summoned to the shrinehold. Stay put and stay warm."

"Say hello to the saint for me," Oballa said, half-buried under her blankets, but with her lasrifle ready if they saw any combat.

"I'm sure she'll say 'hi' back." With that mild blasphemy done, Taylor left her frozen ditch, already missing the space heater. She made her way tiredly up the hill, her still injured body further sapped by the high altitude and her throbbing headache. Around her, other platoon leaders fell in with her. Most were sergeants, but some were simply troopers acting in the capacity of a chief due to injuries or deaths.

As they walked over the broad causeway, Taylor stared at the open red doors, each easily eight meters high. Under the red gloss paint, she could see the smooth grain of a native wood. Over the doors, an Imperial aquila had been carved into the basalt above the gatehouse doors.

Esholi in cream robes led them up a wide flight of ancient stone steps. With her odd, thrumming headache and scattered thoughts, she had a strange moment of deja vu, as if she were walking through the halls of the old Vates on Earth. She half expected Pythia Jakobi to take her hand and start talking about what the trees told him.

The feeling faded as the effort of the walk left her panting. Finally, she and the others passed through the outer wall and into the vaulted entrance hall.

Mid-day light shone through high, stained-glass windows showing the saint through various points of her crusade. Mosaics filled the wall, illustrating the points made in the windows. The light from the glass shone the colors in beams across the long, narrow hall. The air smelled strongly of incense, and in the distance she could hear chanting.

The platoon leaders around her removed their helmets out of respect, and Taylor found herself doing the same just to fit in. It was an impressive piece of architecture, yes, but she felt nothing from it. She'd seen much older, more impressive structures. She was older, for that matter. More importantly, Imperial saints in her mind were not holy. Whoever Sabbat was, in life she was just another soldier. Yes, the Emperor shared his grace with her.

On the other hand, the Emperor was an asshole.

The esholi led them out of the entrance hall and into a large, yet also more humble anteroom. That's where they found all the platoon leaders and officers that preceded them into the Shrinehold that morning.

When Gaunt walked into the anteroom a few minutes later, something about him felt different than the man who led the convoy from the lowlands. It was, she realized, the set of his shoulders. He moved now the same way he did when she first met him on Verghast. Decisive. Determined, and strong.

He commanded the room just by entering, like the best leaders she'd known through the centuries. When he had everyone's attention, he began. "In the light of developments in the field and other considerations, I hereby inform you I am making an executive alteration to our orders."

"The feth is he talking about?" Beside her, Sergeant Meryn sounded unhappy. Other murmuring flowed through the hall.

"We will not be proceeding as per Lord General Lugo's instruction," Gaunt continued firmly. "We will not remove the Shrinehold relics. We will not desecrate the Saint's final resting place by moving her body. As of now, my orders are that the honor guard digs in here and remains in defense of the Shrinehold until such time as our situation is relieved."

The room burst into the noise of confused or angry soldiers. Some pleaded with Gaunt to reconsider. One of the tank commanders pointed out that the enemy was behind them, and they likely couldn't make it back to Doctrinopolis to evacuate anyway. The discontent grew so bad that Commissar Hark, the newcomer to the Regiment who seemed decent enough for his ilk, stepped forward and even tried to relieve Gaunt of command.

He found himself without support, though. While there was unhappiness with his order, they were Gaunt's ghosts. Hark was forced to stand down.

"Dig in," Gaunt finally said, when his sheer force of will brought the conversation to a halt.

~~Revelation~~

That night, as Taylor huddled back in her ice bunker with Oballa and another former loomgirl and one of Taylor's most experienced Vervunhive scratch fighters, Manri Lobass, her Vox bead beeped at her.

"All units, be advised heavy enemy formation spotted. On track for dawn."

Beside her, Oballa looked at Taylor with wide eyes. "Well, at least we won't have to wait too long. It's gakking cold out here."

"You and Manri get some sleep," Taylor said. "I'll take…"

Oballa snorted. "Girl, you can barely stand up straight. You're not even supposed to be here, and we all know it. You sleep. Manri and I will switch off."

"Is that an order, trooper?"

"It's common sense from a friend. If it were me, you'd do the same thing and you know it. I've seen you do the same thing."

"Right. Okay. Thanks."

There was no point fighting them. The shivering, the altitude and the cold just made her headache worse. The munitorum clerks were careful to make sure they had hot food and even caf to drink, and a chemical space heater sat in the back of their small dug-out, but it was still freezing. She curled into a little space behind the two other girls and closed her eyes.

It felt like not even a second went by when the rock under her shook so hard she startled awake. Sunlight streamed into their dugout and the air rang with artillery. Taylor scrambled out of her blankets and looked over the lip of their fragile fortifications.

In the distance, down the pass, she saw enemy tanks and self-propelled artillery blasting up at them. Most of the first rounds fell far short of the Shrinehold many shots flowing wide into the depths of the mountain valley. A line of six light and eight heavy enemy battle tanks were plowing through the heavy snow right at them, with at least four hundred enemy infantry right behind.

"I've got to pee," Taylor announced. "So if we shake too hard and you smell something, keep it to yourself."

Oballa and Manri both laughed, even as they all three took positions to meet the opening enemy salvo.

The incoming enemy tanks were met head-on by Pardus armor. One of the heavy destroyer tanks had four of the enemy machines dead before they could even clear the spur of the mountain pass. The three heavy weapons placements ahead of Taylor's own opened up on the infantry. The whole exchange took barely fifteen minutes before the enemy moved back.

"Good," Taylor said when it looked like they held. "I hate to pee my pants. Do we have anything to eat?"

~~Revelation~~

For the next five days, they buckled down in the cold, waiting for the enemy to come again. With the constant risk of battle, and the bitter cold, they had to depend on field sanitary towels for cleanliness. The towels warmed from their chemical packs, but quickly turned ice-cold. Such was trench life in winter.

When the enemy finally came, though, it became apparent why they waited. Their reinforcements had arrived.

A long line of Infardi armor charged out of the gorge, shelling the Shrinehold itself. The rush was so sudden the Imperial forces lost one of their heavy tanks and two of their chimeras in the first seconds of the attack. The smoke stained an otherwise perfect, morning-blue sky.

This time, the fighting actually did reach Taylor's team. The infardi troopers rushed forward in a crazed charge, climbing over their own dead in a desperate attempt to overcome the Tanith weapons emplacements.

Taylor didn't need to tell her girls how to fight. The trenches in the outhabs of Vervunhive taught them better than any drill instructor. Oballa and Manri both conserved their fire and called their targets. They were frankly shooting better than Taylor was. Her lingering headache and the altitude made focusing harder. She fired anyway.

The one danger that they faced in greater proportion than their male colleagues was close-quarters. Oballa was a strong woman, but their ship-board CQC training showed that most of the Tanith men could take her down nine out of ten times no matter how hard she fought. Taylor had better technique, but most of the men she fought were also trained, and significantly stronger.

Which is why when the infardi infantry broke past the dugout ahead of them, Taylor switched to full-auto. Oballa did the same, while Manri threw tube charges. Their odds went down exponentially if the enemy reached their ditch.

In that immediacy of battle, everything else fell away from her mind. She could see the hints of the enemy's eyes through their snarling chaos-inspired masks. She could see the body armor under the green robes meant to mock the ayatani priesthood robes. The enemy tripped and fell over their own dead with the need to kill Taylor and her girls.

They covered points of space rather than targets. They had a relatively narrow kill field in their box, with other infantry positions holding.

It wasn't going to be enough.

Suddenly a fuselage of laser fire melted the rushing infantry. Taylor pushed herself down in her ditch and watched as a chimera rolled up the path, laying into the enemy infantry with its heavy multi-laser, while around it the heavier tanks beat back the enemy armor. When the laser fire ended and the chimera moved back, the path was filled with violated, obliterated bodies.

"It's kinda nice having some armor around," Oballa decided between gasping breaths.

~~Revelation~~

The next day passed in freezing cold anticipation. Even from her dug-out, Taylor could see the enemy encampments and armor in the distance. The afternoons usually brought a storm, gathered from the lowland moisture by the mountain tops and released in a flurry of more snow.

Their skin grew chapped and raw. The munitorum brought petroleum jelly for those in the ditches to help reduce frostbite and windburn, but it barely did its job. But worse than the cold and the food and the filthy conditions was the anticipation. It was never a matter of 'if', only 'when'.

When at last the enemy came, two days after their last, the Chaos forces once more charged forward in force. Shells blasted over the defensive positions and slammed into the shrinehold's walls and tower. It was a testament to the shrinehold's construction that it weathered the fusillade with little visible damage.

Las fire blasted into the Imperial ranks, quickly killing anyone foolish enough to look. After a few minutes of heavy, consistent fire, the Infardi cultists charged.

Thousands surged forward between the tracks of their advancing war machines. Her vox bead pinged. "Three to all fireteams. Fall back in force to secondary line by team."

"Three, fireteam one falling back!"

The front emplacement abandoned its position as the next one down opened up with flamers and heavy autostubbers. Around them, the war machines engaged in a vicious exchange of destructive fire power as shells and plasma bolts scoured the air in the ocean of weaker lasfire.

"Full auto," Taylor ordered. The Infardi were following almost on the heels of the first group, running right into the path of the second placement.

"Three, fireteam two falling back!"

The first position to escape rushed passed Taylor's girls. She and her fellow fire team opened up with everything they had as the second dugout fled. She saw the flamer cry out in horror a second before an enemy shot ignited his tank. "Three, fireteam three falling back! Go, go, go!"

Oballa was not their fastest runner and Taylor wasn't top form; Taylor stayed with her as Manri sprinted ahead, until they reached the fourth position.

It was gone, the whole area blasted by a tank shell that reduced the three troopers in it to a blood paste lost in the churned much and melted ice. "Three, fireteam four is gone! Moving to five!"

She caught a glimpse of Gaunt himself at the foot of the first wall of the shrinehold, fighting just as fiercely as his men. Oballa screamed as a shot took the lower half of her left leg off just below the knee.

The girl fell face-first into the rocky snow. Cursing, Taylor knelt down beside her. "Go!" Oballa screamed. "I can't run!"

"Then shoot, damn you!"

Suddenly Gaunt was there, screaming "For Tanith! For Verghast! For Sabbat! First and Only! First and only!"

He waved his power sword and his bolter pistol as he led other fireteams right into the middle of the enemy charge. He charged after, aiming for one specific target. He shouted something Taylor couldn't hear, nor did she care. She concentrated on laying down fire on the forces trying to flank Gaunt's thrust.

Trooper Caffran threw a tube-charge with an expert hand and eye. It landed right at the edge of a blurry field that Taylor realized was a personal refractor shield. It was a brilliant throw. The blast couldn't piece the shield, but it could absolutely remove the officers footing and send him sprawling.

Gaunt charged right after, showing the same insane bravery he demonstrated against Heritor Asphodel on the Spike. This time, Taylor was too far away to help him, but she didn't need to. His power sword popped the cultist officer's shield like a balloon, providing no resistance as the Colonel-Commissar ran the enemy officer through.

Chaos was ruled by fear and emotion. If life after life had taught Taylor anything, it was that a chaos attack never survived the deaths of its leaders. Those Infardi nearby saw their officer ruthlessly and efficiently cut down by the fierce Colonel Gaunt, and ran.

In that one small part of the raging battle, they had a pocket of relative peace. It happened in war, as lines moved and shifted. Gaunt turned back to the wall and saw Taylor kneeling by her wounded trooper, both of them with their weapons ready.

"Beltayne, help get Trooper Durren inside!"

Beltayne was a strapping farmer's son back on Tanith. He shouldered his lasrifle and knelt down beside Taylor and Oballa. "Alright, Durren, let's get you to Doc."

Taylor quickly applied a tourniquet so her friend wouldn't bleed out, and then the two of them got her up on her good leg, arms over each of their shoulders. Oballa wept silently the entire time, but didn't make any other sound as the battle continued to rage behind them. They made it into the entry hall where Dorden had set up his impromptu medicae bay.

They got Oballa situated before Beltayne glanced at Taylor. "Think we're going to make it?"

She slowly shook her head. "No. But we'll take a gakking load of 'em with us."

He laughed grimly. "Better head on out."

The two ran back out of the shrinehold to rejoin the fight, but they barely made it to the first wall when the skies overhead went mad.

The white of wind-blown snow and frozen wisps of cloud in the sky exploded into putrid yellow swirled about with crimson and green clouds. Hot wind that did not melt the snow but burned against their skin swept up from the gorge below. Beltayne stumbled and fell to his knees. All around the mountains, purple lightning sizzled down to caress the mountain like a perverted mother's caress, accompanied by artillery-like bursts of thunder that caused avalanches from the surrounding mountains.

"Chaos storm," Taylor breathed in horror.

She feared the worst–that the Infardi had a chaos sorcerer among them. But the enemy surge through the tattered Imperial ranks actually faltered and came to a halt as the cultists stared fearfully around them. More terrified even than the Imperials, the cultists turned and ran back the way they came, leaving their wounded and their machines.

Taylor was too far away to harry the retreat, and the others were too shocked to take advantage of it. The effects were not just visual, though. She could see war machines grind to a halt as engines failed. Her vox bead squealed loudly until she pulled it out.

The fact that the enemy ran showed this wasn't intentional on their part. It was something wild that not even the enemy anticipated. Somehow, Chaos itself saved them from the forces of Chaos.

Taylor never saw the streaks of vapor in the chaos-infused sky that marked, like the passage of angels falling from heaven, the arrival of something new from the Chaos.

A/N: Double post. Keep reading.