The sand had teeth on this world. 

They’d been a jungle regiment once. Their fatigues were still a blotched green, unsuited to this sun-blasted hellhole. The requisition order to issue heat cloaks had been “pending” for six months and counting. Tulakan had been all ferns and swamp gas and things with too many teeth. He would have killed for a mouthful of stagnant swamp water.

Everyone said it was the new inquisitor’s fault they were in this mess. Some fanatic from central command who’d descended from orbit full of holy fire and optimistic casualty projections. Pushing the Lord Commander, the commissars, everyone. Results. Offensives. Aggressive spirit. Hydration rations, apparently optional.

“He likes to do the torturing himself,” Corporal Denal had said in a conspiratorial whisper weeks ago, over a ration brick and recycled water. “Lost half his skull to a cultist’s chainblade on Rakaan IV. Got a plate in his jaw and a cog-eye jammed in his head. Looks like a servitor that learned to preach.”

Ral uncapped his canteen, stared at the muddy dribble inside, then upended it over his head.

The water was halfway to boiling, but it ran down his throat like a benediction. He laughed again, giddy and breathless.

“Praise the Emperor,” he said, voice slurring. “Protector of the faithful. Provider of… everything but canteens.”

Something growled across the horizon.

Ral blinked, shading his eyes. Dust plumes were rising in the distance, dirty smudges against the brutal white of the sky. Engines. More than one. For an instant he tasted panic, ork warbikes, trukks, maybe a whole mob.

Then the sun flashed on an aquila. A proud, two-headed raptor, stenciled in black across the prow of an armored bike.

He let out a ragged cheer that was mostly a cough and waved both arms.

The scout bike skidded to a halt beside him, sand spraying his legs. The rider’s goggles were dust-flecked, his face mostly hidden behind a scarf. 

“You out getting some sun, trooper?” the sergeant shouted over the idling engine.

Ral sagged against the bike’s side, laughing. “No, sarge. Just trying not to die alone. Patrol got hit. Orks. Whole squad’s… gone.” His throat clenched on the last word.

Inside the lead Chimera, the air was almost cool by comparison. Filters hummed, grinding desert into something breathable. Hardened veterans sat in the cramped benches, desert cloaks draped over sand-stained carapace, goggles hanging loose, rifles held muzzle-down and ready.

Ral collapsed onto a bench. Someone shoved a canteen into his hands.

“Slowly,” a guardsman’s voice advised. “Or you’ll redecorate the deck with your last meal.”

He ignored him and drank, gulping greedily. Warm, metallic water poured down his throat, and if it had been recycled through twenty men’s bladders he wouldn’t have cared. He splashed some on his face, hissing at the shock.

“Emperor’s mercy,” he said, grinning wildly. “You lot actually look like you know what you’re doing. New arrivals?”

“Been here the whole time,” the guardsman said shrugging at Ral’s jungle fatigues, “we just got the memo that it’s a desert, not a tropical resort.”

Laughter rippled weakly through the compartment. 

Ral retorted, “wish someone had told the Lord Commander. Man thought we could just hop from jungle to sand, no problem. No re-kit, no extra water, nothing. ‘Seize the initiative,’ he said. Been six months now sitting with our initiative around our ankles.” 

Across from him, a trooper shifted, eyes flicking toward the front of the Chimera. Ral barely noticed.

“We were fine in the swamps,” he continued. The words tumbled out in a delirious rush, now that he wasn’t actively dying. “Knew how to fight there. Knew how to sweat there. Here? Half the boys dropped from heatstroke before they ever saw an ork. Sand eats the guns, eats the boots, eats everything. Should’ve thrown the Lord Commander out the airlock before we landed.”

Another glance. Boots scraped. No one spoke.

Ral snorted. “Not that it’s really his fault. Poor bastard’s got a bolt pistol permanently aimed at the back of his skull these days. You heard about the new inquisitor?”

A few of the veterans went very still.

Ral took that as encouragement.

“Real piece of work,” he said cheerfully. “Word is he sends people to the pain engines if their salute’s crooked. Likes to pull the nails out himself, really get hands-on. Lost half his head to a cultist. Looks like someone tried to make a servitor out of a sermon.”

He laughed, dry and hoarse. No one joined him.

Silence settled in the Chimera, heavy as dust. The veterans shifted, suddenly fascinated by their boots, their lasguns, anything that wasn’t Ral. A man near the front swallowed hard, eyes flicking up and away.

An officer at the very front, who had been leaning over the driver, consulting a flickering holo-map, turned slightly.

Until now Ral had seen only his back, a cloak the color of baked earth, vox-bead pressed to one ear, bandana pulled high over nose and mouth against the dust. The officer had the stillness of someone used to being watched by nervous underlings.

Now he half-turned, bracing one hand on the ceiling, the other on the holo-projector.

His head tilted.

One eye was a dull, glassy green, the other a cold red gem sunk into scar tissue. The augmetic lens whirred almost inaudibly as it focused on Ral.

The officer reached up, slow and deliberate, and tugged the bandana down.

The face beneath it was an education in pain. Old burn scars, puckered seams where flesh met ceramite, the sunken ridgeline of a missing cheekbone. The metal plate along his jaw caught the dim cabin light.

Ral felt the borrowed water go to ice inside him.

For a heartbeat no one spoke. Even the Chimera’s engine seemed to hush.

“Guardsman,” he said, voice dry as the desert outside, as if about to start a lecture on theology. 

He paused just long enough for Ral to understand.

“I,” the man said, the augmetic eye glinting, “am the inquisitor.”