In the loyalists trenches officers moved down the lines offering encouragement to their troops. Lasguns were checked for the last time. Armorers counted out grenades, then went to their own places on the firing steps. Behind the officers and the armorers, the commissars moved slowly, their eyes fixed on the faces of their own troops, not on the advancing rebels. The defenders were ready they had only to hold the line.
Smeared with blood, the rebel dreadnoughts lumbered towards the loyalist positions. The heavier guns began firing, scoring hits on their mechanical targets. Then the smaller weapons joined in, a hail of fire that staggered the rebel advance. The dreadnoughts drew closer. Above the thumping of heavy shells, and the whine of lasguns, there was the sharper crack of commissars pistols, reminding the faithful of their duty.
The dreadnoughts reached the loyalist lines. They stood in line abreast pouring fire into the trenches, but unable to climb down into the dugouts. Behind them, the rebel infantry companies poured forward across the broken ground, a wave of shrieking, murderous maniacs. Their gray uniforms were stained with war paint. Death songs carried on the burning wind, they echoed across the hills.
Beyond them a second wave was leaving the rebel trenches. Tiny figures, hidden and wreathed in smoke lurched upright. Banners of red and gold, along with black Horus-eye flags, were unfurled above another traitorous regiment. The second wave was ready.
The first line of rebels swept past the dreadnoughts and dropped into the trenches. The advance dissolved into a hundred smaller combats. No pattern to the battle could be made out as the rebels charged into the trench system; only the deep red flashes of laser fire and the smoke of grenades marked the progress of each small fight. The separate battles spilled beyond the front line of trenches, joined and then split again. No clear winner was emerging, but the rebels were forcing the loyalists back slowly.
A dreadnought exploded, another toppled slowly into a trench, crushing the men fighting below. It burst, spraying fluid across the dead and dying; it was jammed into the trench, a bridge for the rebels to charge further into the earthworks, and a barrier to anyone moving down the trench itself. Up and down the line the rebels pushed their own dreadnoughts into the trenches. The rebels paused for a moment, and then they were behind the front line and into the secondary system of communications earthworks and support trenches.
The rebel attack had broken the Imperial Guard defenders. The loyalists were fleeing, running down the remaining trenches, or clambering up and across the wasteland between. The few who tried to stem the flow were crushed underfoot. In their panic few of the terrified Guards noticed the Space Marines who stood directly in their path. They could only see the pursuing enemy. What had been a retreat became a rout.
The Marines could wait no longer to counterattack. The rebels had to be driven from the captured positions before they could consolidate, the fleeing loyalists dissolved into a new cloud of explosions. The Marines were cutting through their own fleeing troops to reach the enemy.
The rebels' triumph would be short-lived.
Guardsman Gurrant absently toyed with his identity tags as he gazed across the blasted battlefield towards the Traitor lines. Even from almost a quarter mile away he could hear the unsettling sound of their strange music and the lilting laughter of voices not quite human.
It was all so unreal. Not more then a month ago he was at a celebration with many of the foes he now faced, toasting to the Emperors good health and to the Imperium. Now he was fighting for his life, and if you believed the rumors from the front, his soul. He could not understand how the Arch-traitor Horus convinced so many to flock to his cause?
With a grimace of distaste he spat on the ground. A quick glance from a roving Commissar made him quickly regret it. He never could quite get used to their presence they looked as if they were just itching to use their pistols. As the Commissar moved further down the line he grunted in distaste and looked back out over the no mans land.
He immediately noticed that things were quiet. Only the soft moaning of the wind and the mechanical sounds of weapons being readied could be heard. Almost immediately the hairs on his neck rose. He was scrambling over the final Verses of Weapon Blessing as the com-net crackled to life with the obvious news: the Traitors were preparing to attack.
Garret almost dropped his lasgun power cell. His hands were shaking badly. Forcing his breath in and out in rhythm calmed him enough to place the cell into the gun and charge the capacitors. Chanting his faith in the Emperor he raised his macro-goggles and looked out over the battlefield. What he saw made him gasp.
All along the battle line the colors of the Traitor companies were being raised. He focussed on the section of the line that the intelligence reports had said his cousins old unit was located. As he focussed in on the companys colors he first saw that they had changed their colors to a tan and red. The flag was an interesting design, one he had never seen before. The pattern was quiet remarkable, he could feel as if something was behind the flag, calling to him from some dark corner of his mind.
As he zoomed further he finally saw what the flag was made of. He jerked the goggles off and promptly proceeded to retch.
The banner of flesh waved in the wind, calling the forces of the damned toward. With an almost exaggerated slowness the Traitor forces emerged from their trenches. Thousands of the rebels emerged almost as if on cue.
For a few moments that seemed like eternity nothing could be heard. Even the buzzing of insects seemed to disappear. Guardsmen Garrack could only stare slack jawed at the display. Even from this distance he could see the hideous banners and multitude of the Traitors. Here and there he could make out flags flying the Eye of Horus as well as those displaying strange twisting runes of the feral cults many of the rebels now followed.
With a roar the rebels began to charge across the blasted no mans land that separated their positions. With the spell of silence broken the air was quickly filled with the crack of lasgun fire and the dull thud of mortar shells being fired from the support trenches to their read.
The ground in front of the rebels filled with explosions and shrapnel. Hundreds died as the pre-ranged mortar rounds fell on their positions. The horde continued to charge on, unswayed by the massive casualties. As they came closer Garrack could see that many had painted themselves with strange runes and war paint. They looked nothing like the humans they once were, their faces were twisted in a grimace of pain and ecstasy - he could see only bloodlust in their eyes. Without him even consciously noticing he raised his lasgun and fired. The rebel in his sights dropped as his entire left side was explosively turned into steam by the lasgun blast. He did not even notice his shaking had stopped as he coolly fired, switched targets, and fired again.
Out of the smoke he saw that the rebels dreadnoughts were approaching. Their blood -smeared carapaces were festooned with strange icons and symbols. One had a banner made from a crucified human. They blazed death as the trundled towards the loyalist position. But even as they approached he could hear the sharp crack of Tyrens heavy weapons platoon began to score hits with their las-cannons. One fell, its legs blasted into a twisted ruin. The others continued on their course.
With a curse at the incompetence of the heavy weapons members Garrant took careful aim on the nearest dreadnought, cranked his lasgun up to maximum power, and fired. The shot neatly burned a hole in the dreadnoughts left sensory cluster. The dread seemed to pause, and with a scream of tortured metal fell over.
Garrant did not even have to smile over his kill, that trick of killing the dreadnoughts motor control system with a sensor eye hit would not be easy to repeat. Especially when the massive human wave of rebels was quickly approaching his position.
The next few minutes blurred into a haze. Load, aim, fire his sense of hearing seemed to be lost, he could not even hear the massive explosions as the defending artillery fired almost right on top of his position. Sheets of earth blotted out his view as artillery round exploded just ahead of him. He felt a sharp pain as something hard impacted on his helmet. With almost exaggerated care he reached up to feel his forehead. He started to laugh when his hand came down bloody.
He was still laughing when everything began to turn red, then black.
His mother had once told him that a mans dreams held the secrets of the universe. He wondered what secrets he was learning as he was tormented by daemons and enemies from his childhood. He floated from nightmare to nightmare. Always there was a soft voice in the dark recess of his mind. Promising release, promising an end to the pain and the indecision.
He tried to concentrate on the voice but it always seemed to be nowhere and everywhere at once.
"Come come manthing. Join join us us." it whispered.
Garrek was almost ready to accept the voices promises when he was thrust back into a new nightmare.
He was in his trench again. It was dark but a red glow seemed to illuminate the area. Everything sounded as if he was hearing it underwater. But what he did hear chilled him far deeper then anything he ever heard. He could not understand the words but his mind conjured images of dark things chittering the dark void between space. He felt a dark brooding power, palpable like a storm about to break.
He caught movement and slightly adjusted himself to see it better. Even that little movement brought a wave of pain and a sheet of red threatened to engulf him again. The realization that he was alive struck him just as he saw what was making the movement.
The man appeared to be hunched over something in the corner of the trench pit. He could hear something cracking and sounds of eating. He slowly moved his head to get a better look around. He was surrounded by dead bodies both rebel and loyalist. Some of them were partially draped over him, obviously they had taken him for dead when they overran his position. He was almost ready to speak to the person in the trench his pain was so great that he was willing to risk it being a rebel. Surely the rumors were not true about their treatment of prisoners? He must have been hallucinating during the battle. No human beings could do what he saw during the battle.
Confident in his rationalization he opened his mouth to speak. All that emerged was a low croak. His throat was so parched that he could not even form words. Garrack cursed his luck and tried to make enough movement to attract the persons attention.
As he tried to move he heard the sound of bolter fire in the distance. Immediately the person in the corner bolted upright and turned towards the sound.
Garrack froze as the persons figures came into view of the ruddy red light.
Where a mans face would be there was only a gaping pit filled with teeth that shone wetly in the light. It held a detached arm, and as he watched he could see. Things...moving below the creatures skin. Dark beady eyes seemed to look right at him as it looked out over the lip of the trench.
Garrack lay perfectly still as the creature appeared to judge the situation then settle back down into the trench and proceed to crunch noisily on its spoils. The sound of bolter fire remained faint in the distance.
As he surveyed his situation he spied his laspistol not a foot from his position, half hidden by the bloody ruin of a rebels head. With exaggerated care he slowly reached out and grabbed the weapon. With a sly glance he noted the weapon was fully charged. He flicked the arming lever and raised the weapon.
At the soft click of the weapon release the creature spun around. Its horrific mouth was full of human flesh, and even as time slowed and he raised the pistol he could see the tattered remains of his units insignia on a tattered remain of uniform still attached to the meal.
The creature seemed to stand there for a moment, a neat black hole burned into its skull. Then with a whimpering moan it collapsed.
Garrack slowly raised himself up, fighting pain and nausea. He spent the next few minutes reciting the Rites of Medication and applying medkit applications to his wounds. Soon the metallic perception of the stimpacks took his mind off the pain and he gathered up what he could.
Making as little a profile as he could he peeked over the top of the trench and rolled over the lip. He could still smell the stench of ozone and death, mixed with other, much stranger odors as he began to crawl away from the battlefield towards the distant sounds of combat.
This was not a good day.