The Imperial trench lines stretched like a jagged scar across the blasted landscape of no man's land, a grim fortification of mud, blood and the misery of thousands. The air, thick with the stagnant Stench of Promethium, mingled with the sweet rot of decay caught in the troopers throats. The rotten corpses of the dead provide a feast for the carrion birds and what remains of the local wildlife unfortunate enough to have survived and to dim to take their own lives. Pools of stagnant water shimmer faintly in the pale light, ripples caused by the distant fall of artillery shells trouble the surface. The broken remains of tanks and the twisted piles of the dead provide the only cover in the shattered wastes of a once vibrant forest.
Inside the trench conditions are scarcely improved. The walls reinforced withTimber and sandbags sag under the constant pressure of bombardment. In some sections parts of the dead protrude from the trench walls, the dead swallowed up by the shifting tides of war. Crude drainage channels overflow with mud and the refuse of human waste, the floor a treacherous quagmire that sucked at the boots of guardsmen. Rats and other vermin scurry through the dark shadows, fattened on the corpses of the fallen, while the constant drip of water and the distant groans of the wounded provided an unsettling soundtrack to the uneasy quiet.
Major Cal Lewi leaned against the trench wall, his gloved hand absently stroking the hilt of his power sword. The air here felt wrong to him, too still, too heavy, like the moments before a storm ahis mother used say. Around him his men moved in tense silence cooking over a closed fire to avoid drawing the attention of the snipers they knew to be watching. Their faces pale and drawn beneath a thick layer of grim. Veterans of months of ceaseless trench warfare. They knew of what was coming.
"Can't even smell the artillery smoke no more" muttered trooper Payne, adjusting his lasgun for the hundredth time. His nerves directed towards the maintenance of his weapon "Just blood … and rot." He looks up nervously towards the Major.
"You think they will hit us again soon, sir ?"
Major Lewi looked at the boy, his expression unreadable behind his sharp blue eyes.
"They have been consistent with their bombardment. Sooner or later they will try again."He shifts his gaze out to the muddy fields beyond no mans land his eyes hardened from years of endless war. "We hold the line. That's all that matters in the end. That we hold the line."
Corporal Tannis, leaning against the trench wall scraping the last out of his mess tin grunted " every time that damn artillery hits, I think it's the last one. Doesn't help that we don't have any artillery of our own to answer in kind."
Lewi gave a short chuckle. "Welcome to the war Corporal." The major quickly stilled. Something was wrong. The world seemed stiller. Low, gruntal chanting, warped and unnatural carried across the wastes. An icy fog, heavy and unnatural, settled upon the imperial lines. It clung to the ground, curling and twisting in unnerving patterns as if alive with malicious intent. The temperature plummeted, frost forming on the rifles of the lasguns held tight in the hands of nervous guardsmen, the exposed damp timber supporting the trench's cracked as the fog crawled over them, weakening the already vulnerable imperial defences. The major exhaled, his breath now visible in the frigid air, the mist pressing into him. Where his skin was exposed the mist stabbed into him like icy daggers.
Sound became muffled around him. Sharp and disjointed at once, as if the fog itself played with the vibrations.
The distant chanting from the Heretic lines, once distant and faint, now seemed to come from everywhere at once, surrounding them with overlapping echo's of voices long dead. Even the rhythmic beat of the tribal drums which had been a constant for the guardsmen for those long months seemed warped somehow, the cadence erratic and unnerving.
Echo's of voices of comrades long dead chanted unholy words in the Major's mind. "Men to your stations, prepare to face the enemy." the Major grabs his lasgun and took his place on the trenches fire step. His gun resting on sodden Timber he sees shadows in the mist riding through wastes of no mans land.
Shadows danced and flickered through the fog like wraiths, their movements fluid and unnatural. Warp craft. The word burned in the majors mind unbidden. The Tension snapped when Trooper Payne let out a yelp, raising his lasgun and firing of a undisciplined volley into the gloom. The sharp red light pierced the fog with a sharp crack and the faint smell of Ozone common to laser weapons. His panic proved to be infections as all across the line, more las guns barked its deadly red light into the fog followed by dozens more.
"Hold your fire" the major bellowed, his voice cutting through the fog. Cold and commanding his order was echoed by veterans further down the line until eventually discipline was restored.
"Men of Albion, do not waste your shots. Trust in your training and the men next to you" his eyes scanned the trench silencing the mutterings of the men. But the renewed discipline came a moment to late.
A sudden, sharp crack split the air. The unmistakable bark of the autogun sniper rifles favoured by these heretics. The Major turned just in time to see trooper Havlain jerk backward, his helmet blown clean backwards as bone and brain matter added their morbid decoration to the trench walls. The body slumped lifeless into the mud his blood mixing with the filth of the trench bottom. Around the Major the guardsmen froze. Their faces draining of what courage remained to them. The majors jaw tightened as he spat out a curse. "Eyes on the fog. They're toying with us. Steady your hands and steel your hearts or you'll give them every advantage." Breathless He looked down to Havlains now lifeless, and headless, corpse then back into the mist. The enemy was close and they were playing their cruel games. The chanting had stopped. A moment of pure silence followed by unholy laughter. The Heretics surged forward like a torrent of madness, their general war cries mixed with the incessant drone of their dark chanting. Thousands of them poured across no mans land. A chaotic mass of writhing bodies armed with rusting auto guns, jagged blades and the repurposed tools of agriculture redesigned for slaughter. The very mist seemed to part for them before dissipating into the night sky. It's unholy purpose served.
"Fire at will!" Bellowed Major Lewi, his firm voice carrying above the sudden explosion of violence rocking the imperial lines. Imperial heavy weapons emplacements barked to life, the deep bark of heavy bolsters and the searing flash of las cannons ripping through the night and cutting deep into the onrushing horde of mad lightly armed heretics, their ragged dirty forms collapsing in heaps. The men of Albion stood firm, their veterans voices sharp and commanding as they barked orders to wavering recruits steadying the line.
"Hold men ! Reload and fire ! They are nothing but meat let them taste the Emperors Mercy! "
Bellowed Major Lewi shoving a trembling trooper back onto the firing line. Around him
guardsmen fought with grim determination, volleys of precise Las fire cutting swaths out of the enemy even as the heretics climbed over the seared remains of their fallen comrades.
Still the tide of heretics failed to lessen. The charging swarms of mad Heretics charged over no man's land eager to join the slaughter crying out the names of their dark gods undeterred by the growing masses of the dead. Piles of their dead grew higher with every second that passed, a grotesque barricade of shattered limbs and bloody torsos of those who in death still served the dark gods, their fallen bodies offering cover to those who still lived. From behind the mounds of dead autogun fire rattled and sprayed wildly into the imperial trench's forcing guardsmen to duck and take cover. The air reeked of ozone, blood and cordite as the battle raged on, the heretics pushing ever closer to the embattled imperial lines. His Las gun was steady in his hand, its barrel snapping from one target to the next with the brutal precision of a man well accustomed to war. He felt calm, that part of his brain that dictated fear and panic was closed to him in that moment. Thousands of baying heretics screamed dark curses intent on his brutal death yet that didn't matter. Each pull of the trigger was deliberate, each shot deadly. A Heretic wielding a crude axe buried it in the skull of one of his comrades to slow to move out of his way. Lewi saw his head explode as he exhaled after his shot. Inhale, hold, squeeze the trigger, exhale, repeat. Another holding a brutal barbed spear, crumpled mid charge. A neat hole blown through her throat, Lewi could see blood well up from the wound as she choked on her own blood before switching targets.
Lewis's sharp eyes scanned the battlefield with cold focus. His mind phrasing targets for his body to kill. He shifted aim to a trio of heretics attempting to scale the trench wall and scythed them down with a well placed burst. Two went down instantly their bodies blown apart by the energy of the las shots, another one had his legs blown clean away. Lewi discharged his dead energy pack and swiftly slammed a fresh one home just in time to see the heretics smile in his scope as he threw the distinctive black shell of a Krak grenade into the trench.
Lewi's eyes widened "Granade !" His warning came to late. The explosion ripped through the trench. A defending blast that sent up a shower of mud, blood and bodies. Several guardsmen were torn apart where they stood, their screams swallowed by the deafening roar of the was thrown clear from the trench, the force slamming him into the ground hard, the wind knocked from his lungs and his las gun clatter to the ground beside him. Mud and blood blinded him as he lay in the quagmire of no man's land beside the broken bodies of corrupted men and women. For a moment everything was disjointed, shadows moved around him with glee toward the now silent line of the trench. The major staggered to his feet, his face caked in mud and blood, his uniform in ruins Lewi staggered to his feet gritting his teeth his vision blurred he doesn't react in time to stop a heretic impaling him on a rusty pitchfork. Searing pain and distant shouts are the last thing he remembers before the darkness overtakes him.