The throng of prisoners huddled together in the afternoon haze, drenched in sweat and caked with dirt. It had been hours since they were marched to the Imperial camp, but defeat was fresh on their minds. It seemed only minutes ago the Sixth Host was at their moment of triumph, following their crimson-clad lord to the Imperial Palace. Vass had roared with his comrades when the walls fell; he was almost certain it had been the greatest moment of his life.
He couldn’t really remember that anymore. Years of fleeing from star to star took their toll, and now he mostly heard the wail of Manticore rockets and Lue shouting at him to drop the stubber and run. He wondered if Lue had made it. Vass had lost him in the undergrowth somewhere; the next thing he saw was the lasgun glaring at him with its little red eye when he stumbled into the enemy. The soldier who took him was standing by the gallows now, looking over the crowd with contempt and disgust.
But when they marched Lord Akhto onto the platform, time itself held its breath. There he was, proud son of the XVII Legion, avatar of the Gods and master of the Sixth Host, stripped and beaten and bowed to his knees but still towering over his Imperial captors. Vass had yearned and feared for this moment. His soul cried out to hear his lord one more time, imagining the giant’s terrifying baritone rising stern to the heavens and rousing them to a final act of defiance.
But there was no trace of such defiance to be found on the ancient warrior’s face – no, he did not even speak. And when the Imperial general hefted his blade, the great Lord Akhto shrank, his amber eyes squeezed shut, until the nobleman struck his warp-twisted head from his shoulders.
‘Thus always to traitors,’ said the Imperial general, and he wiped his blade as his guards heaved the massive corpse into the mud.
The prisoners fell silent. Vass collapsed to his knees but could not make a sound. He tried to look away, but that pitiful expression was burned into his mind. Even as the Imperials lined up row after row of the Host’s priests and shot them dead, that face leered always in the foreground. And suddenly, watching the bodies fall twelve by twelve into their shallow grave, Vass began to feel something he had not felt for many years.
He was afraid to die.
Yet amidst the panicked maelstrom of memories and the bubbling tide of terror, Vass heard one thing in perfect clarity: the Imperial’s voice bellowing aloud, sharp as steel and bold as thunder.
‘You are no less guilty than these,’ he said; ‘no less deserving of death! But the Emperor is merciful, and he has charged us with rebuilding that proud civilisation which you and your kind destroyed. We have killed the men who misled you. No one remains to bear punishment on your behalf. But follow me, fight for the Imperium and Mankind, and you may yet earn redemption with your blood. What do you choose?’
The call struck Vass like lightning. He thrust his hand into the air. ‘I will fight,’ he cried, quivering, ‘for the Emperor!’
It was a lie.
Shells burst across the mud, and Manticore rockets shrieked overhead. The black night fled from a hundred flames, a second sunrise behind the enemy line. Vass charged forward with a desperate slurring cry, the packed bodies of the Damned Battalion like a seething tide around him. They crawled through ditches and climbed over barricades; they dashed through crushed razor wire until their legs were sheathed in slashes. Stubber fire whizzed through the air and thudded into the earth. Men dropped like flies. Vass just kept running, screaming until his throat burned.
‘Forward,’ bellowed General Larveng, ‘Forward, for the Emperor!’ and the Battalion complied.
They crashed into the enemy line like a sledgehammer, two hundred wild-eyed men armed with nothing but bayonets and the will to survive. Vass was third over the picket. The man beside him caught three bullets on the way down and fell into the mud, but he hardly noticed. He gored a screeching cultist through the throat and fell to the ground with him, earning himself a coat of putrid muck. All around him, the soldiers of the Battalion fought a brutal melee against their former comrades. Vass could scarcely tell which was which as he crawled through the roiling mass of bodies. Slowly, the bunker came into view; the rattle of its heavy stubber grew louder, the flash of gunfire brighter, as he approached.
Then Vass pressed up against its rockcrete frame, reached his mudstained hands to his belt, and tossed a frag through the loophole. Someone cried out – then the structure shuddered as dust and debris sprayed from the opening. The gun fell silent.
The Sixth Host broke in minutes. Vass stood, exhausted, and circled the rockcrete bunker as the melee became a rout and the last of the cultists fled. He paused at the door. Inside was a mangled body, its right leg blown apart in the blast. It was Lue, manning the gun alone. His face was frozen in agony, and his blood darkened the earthen floor.
‘Here to pay your respects, soldier?’ General Larveng seemingly materialised out of thin air, his right hand resting casually on his sabre.
‘No, sir.’ Vass shook his head. ‘Not really.’ It was true, somehow. Maybe he should have felt something looking at those glassy eyes; he didn’t. Vass turned away quickly.
‘Then move,’ said Larveng, with a cold scowl. ‘You have a battle to win.’
‘Of course, sir,’ Vass replied, then hastily added, ‘for the Emperor.’ A smirk tugged at Larveng’s stern lip.
‘Aye,’ he echoed, ‘for the Emperor.’
This time, though, Vass almost believed it.
About the Author
Alex Gentem is an aspiring software engineer, borderline cryptid, and full-time human enthusiast from the eastern United States.
