THE FIRSTBORN DAUGHTER


 	Filip Wiltgren


 	Sweden-based Filip Wiltgren uses the classic fallen idol trope to explore internal strength, belief and loyalty, in a story that warns against putting your heroes on a pedestal. 

 	In the middle of an ongoing war against rebelling planetary forces, Ekaterina Idra must overcome her own doubts and those of her peers to prove she’s the equal of every officer in the Astra Militarum. When given the chance to work with her idol, Idra must come to terms with the realisation that temptation taints all. 

 
 
 	 



 	Major Jorun Haskel is everything Lieutenant Ekaterina Idra wants to be. Respected officer. Fearless leader. Doubly decorated with the Star of Saint Nadalya. His merit list is the stuff of campfire legends, and Lieutenant Idra is about to save his life.
 	The Vostroyan 262nd Firstborn Regiment’s position is a smudge of smoke on the horizon, a grey thread against the grey clouds.
 	‘A big fire,’ Sergeant Mathis Lokhov says, stroking his drooping moustache. ‘Will they be alive?’
 	‘The Emperor willing,’ Idra replies. ‘How long?’
 	‘Ten minutes,’ her driver says. ‘Unless we hit another gorge.’
 	Idra wants to tell him to speed up, but resists the urge. The men of Idra’s light platoon already resent being commanded by a woman. Even the low-born treat her with contempt. She bites back a harsh word and holds on as the Chimera’s tracks churn the razorgrass into paste.
 	‘I will not disgrace this family!’ Ekaterina’s father rages. ‘Eight children and not a single son!’
 	‘Calm yourself, Rhyslan,’ her uncle replies. The stack of empty rahzvod glasses before Davut Idrov puts a lie to his words. He, too, has sired only daughters. No Idrov line has produced a firstborn son to send away as atonement for Vostroya’s sins.
 	Ekaterina peeks from behind the massive oak of the chamber door. The door is black with age, hard as stone, brought by the patriarchs of the Idrov family from worlds where trees grow. From Holy Terra, her nana says. Ekaterina wonders if the Techtriarchs will take their holy doors away when they can’t send a son to battle.
 	‘What can we do?’ Uncle Davut says. It’s almost a whisper. ‘Even if our wives would bear a son now, he won’t be old enough for the coming draft.’
 	The silence stretches, a moment of infinite weight. Even the crackling of the fire is muted.
 	‘We will atone for our sins,’ Ekaterina’s father says. ‘We will send our firstborn to serve the Emperor.’
 	‘Rhyslan,’ Uncle Davut says, ‘you have no firstborn.’
 	‘I do.’ Her father raises his voice.
 	‘Ekaterina!’ he shouts.
 	The 262nd’s command post is a rockcrete bunker. Grey, like everything on this Throne-forsaken world. Grey skies, grey razorgrass, grey uniforms on the Tovogan dead that litter the ground. Only the bloodworms are red. The bloodworms, and the greatcoats of the fallen Vostroyans.
 	Lieutenant Idra steps out of her command Chimera. Mud stains the outside of the boxy APC, blending with the pale blue hull and covering the red Vostroyan unit markings. The Chimera’s multi-laser tracks across the plain, the gunner searching for targets. But everything here is already dead. Everything except Major Haskel and a handful of his men.
 	Haskel perches on a slab of blasted rock. His red coat is smeared with mud, his armour scorched by a lasgun blast. His short, black moustache droops, and greasy black hair pokes out from beneath his bearskin shako. Only his weapons are immaculate. 
 	He’s holding a power sword across his knees, cleaning it. The Crystal Sword, an ancient weapon as legendary as the major himself. The fist-sized ruby embedded in its pommel is cracked, a hairline fracture in the shape of the Imperial aquila. Idra knows this. Tales of the Eye of the Eagle, and the Crystal Sword, are barracks lore among the Firstborn on Tovoga. The major keeps rubbing at the spotless blade. A drop of old blood stains the aquila on the sword’s crossguard.
 	The major’s men are walking among the dead, looking for those who aren’t. There aren’t many of them, neither Firstborn, nor living.
 	A Firstborn of the 262nd, a giant of a man with his lasgun slung over his back and a huge, serrated axe in his hand, walks past, between Idra and her command Chimera. He doesn’t even look up. Neither does the major. The giant lifts his axe, brings it down on the head of a Tovogan rebel. Bone crunches. A moan Idra wasn’t even aware of is cut short.
 	‘Major Haskel, sir,’ she says. The major continues to wipe his sword with a grey rag, the torn-off sleeve of a Tovogan militia uniform. Idra waits silently beside her Chimera, keeping her face expressionless. It isn’t the first time she has been snubbed by a Vostroyan soldier. Her anger is a quiet, simmering flame deep inside her. No part of it touches her face. Anger is for those who can afford it. So she waits, impassionate, while her outrider squad, a stinking, petro-chem Tauros and two Tovogan bikes that tend to fail, drive in lazy circles around the outskirts of the battlefield. The major polishes his sword. Idra’s men look at him, enthralled. Idra wonders if he’s ignoring her because she’s–
 	‘A woman,’ says Haskel. ‘In the uniform of a Firstborn.’
 	His voice is like crushed glass and rock. Haskel’s giant spits. A few of Idra’s men snicker. Sergeant Lokhov’s glare silences them.
 	Idra doesn’t react. It is a challenge she’s faced hundreds of times. She has her own way of dealing with it.
 	She snaps to attention.
 	‘Lieutenant Ekaterina Idra,’ she says, saluting. ‘Light platoon, Eleventh Company, Vostroyan Eighty-Sixth Firstborn.’
 	The major looks up from his sword, fixes a sharp gaze on Idra. His eyes are grey, and bloodshot. His attention makes her want to squirm. She forces herself to remain still. Expects him to laugh at her. Propose to buy her a drink and show her to his barracks.
 	‘Can you fight?’ Major Haskel says.
 	‘Sir?’ says Idra, confused. 
 	‘Can you kill traitors?’ asks Haskel.
 	Idra nods, curtly.
 	‘For the Emperor, for Vostroya and for humanity,’ she says, making the sign of the aquila.
 	‘Good,’ says Haskel. He grins, showing too many teeth.
 	‘You are mad, Rhyslan Idrov.’ The lord hetman’s voice is quiet, but everyone in the council chamber hears. Ekaterina is sure of it.
 	‘I request my right, as a voyarin and a Vostroyan,’ says her father. ‘I demand the right to pay my family’s debt with our firstborn.’
 	‘You have no firstborn,’ says the lord hetman. ‘Your family will produce sons for the next generation. I will forget this conversation.’
 	Her father doesn’t move. Ekaterina doesn’t move beside him.
 	‘A woman can’t fight,’ says the hetman.
 	‘She is my firstborn,’ says Ekaterina’s father. ‘She can fight. By Saint Nadalya’s Grace, I ask the right to prove it.’
 	The hetman’s face colours, blood rising in his cheeks like paint dripping into the sky. A voyarin, the lowest of the nobles, contradicting a hetman.
 	‘Try whatever you want,’ the hetman says. ‘You will fail.’ He raises his hand to wave the council guards forward.
 	Her father nods. Ekaterina charges.
 	Her finger pokes the hetman twice in the gut before his guards manage to react, twice more before they pull her away. Beneath his red greatcoat, the hetman is surprisingly thin. His guards yell, four of them wrestling Ekaterina to the ground. The hetman bellows in rage. The courtiers shout. Only Ekaterina is silent, her sole noise a bitten-back cough as the guards slam her into the hall’s polished marble floor.
 	‘My firstborn can fight,’ says her father. ‘I demand my right.’
 	The lord hetman stares at them, his cap askew, grey hair sticking out, hate plain on his face. Her father doesn’t flinch. Ekaterina tries not to.
 	‘The warp take your right,’ the hetman growls. ‘The ashen wastes will take your firstborn.’
 	Ekaterina’s father smiles, a cold, dark, hungry expression.
 	The entire 262nd consists of Major Haskel and seven men. All of them look like rejects from a Vostroyan horror show. All of them look lethal. The giant with the axe. A thin, ghoulish Firstborn, half his face a mess of burns, the other black with soot. A marksman missing his left hand, his brass augmetics tarnished. They’re walking the battlefield, between the husks of Tovogan Chimera APCs and Leman Russ tanks, stepping over enemy dead.
 	The men of Idra’s platoon follow, their rescue mission transformed into a burial detail, the collection of the weapons of the fallen and carrying the Vostroyan dead to the bunker. The rockcrete stains red with blood. At least the dead are fresh, their flesh unspoiled by bloodworms. A lot of the Tovogans already squirm with the creatures’ larvae. On the horizon, silhouetted against the storm clouds, a pair of Thunderbolts strafe Tovogan positions. Two black dots ­rising and falling. Suddenly, one flashes into a pinprick of light and falls, trailing smoke.
 	The Chimera is filled with the rifles, blades and pistols of the 262nd. They are heirlooms, hundreds of years old. Their loss would be a blow to the honour of all Vostroya. They will ride in the Chimera. Idra’s men will ride on top, or cram into the unarmed and unarmoured Tovogan steel-wheeled trucks – unreliable vehicles, captured from the enemy. Always the best equipment for the light platoon. Idra is despised by more powerful men than those in her command. Her remaining transport, a captured Tovogan Taurox missing its turret, is for the major and his men. 
 	Sergeant Lokhov carries the last of the dead Firstborn into the bunker. Idra recognises him, a low-born boy from Krikov Hive, a replacement from her own draft that landed a few weeks ago. Sarkhan or Kharkhan, she can’t remember his name. His torso has been hacked almost in half.
 	‘Major?’ Idra asks, holding out her igniter.
 	‘You do the honour,’ says Major Haskel. One of Idra’s men gasps, another curses. Major Haskel doesn’t react, so neither does Idra. Her men hiss and curse quietly, but their awe of the major overcomes their distaste for her. When Idra orders them into formation they form up crisply, the major’s seven in a line facing the war-scarred bunker, Idra’s platoon behind them. Sergeant Lokhov reads the catechism. To fight for the Emperor, to carry His will to the enemy, to follow the Tenets and the Creed. To pay the debt. Idra drops the igniter.
 	The bunker flames anew, fire consuming the flesh and bones of Firstborn. It isn’t a proper funeral, but better than leaving them for the bloodworms. When the platoon leaves, the pillar of flame reaches for the skies.
 	‘She will not survive,’ Davut Idrov says. ‘An untrained girl.’
 	‘I will train her,’ Ekaterina’s father says. He’s holding one of the twelve knives of the Idrov clan, an oddly balanced piece of silver-engraved steel. For five hundred generations, the Idrov firstborn have been given a knife by their fathers when they embarked on their draft. Twelve Idrov knives have returned to Vostroya.
 	‘What does Lumila say?’ Uncle Davut asks.
 	‘She understands,’ Ekaterina’s father says. He gives Ekaterina the knife, corrects her grip. Her fingers are very small around the steel hilt.
 	‘Don’t hold it as a shield,’ her father says. ‘This is a knife for slaying, not for brawling.’
 	The knife is heavy in her hand.
 	Idra hates the steppe. Bleak razorgrass dunes as far as the eye can see. The short, spiky grass will cut through anything given time, even the tracks on a Chimera. The tech-priests curse the grass and pray over the vehicles. Still the grass prevails. There is no cover, unless you come across one of the deep gorges that fill with flash-floods every time there is rain. Mud that gets into everything, then freezes. Clean your lasgun at every stop, or risk a misfire. Clean the vehicles’ engines, too, or haul them by hand. Top it off with a governor who’s gone traitor, refusing the tithe to the Emperor, and convinced his population to follow him. A bad leader and weak-willed natives, refusing the service of the Imperium. Now fighting for their lives on their own world because they did not wish to go fight elsewhere. 
 	But every human has their place in the Emperor’s Holy Order. Purge the heretics, kill the traitors, and the rest will come back into the fold. It is the way of the Throne, to eradicate those tainted by treason, and let the merely guileless pay their penalty and serve. And the Tovogans are decent fighters, too. Not as good as the Firstborn, but decent.
 	The vox-bead in Idra’s ear crackles, Wisniak’s voice coming in fits and hisses. He’s Idra’s lead scout and best marksman, and one of the few men who judges her by her record. She can barely see the rear of his scouting Tauros. The unarmoured body of the vehicle is hidden in the folds in the land. Only its top-mounted autocannon is visible, floating amongst the razorgrass.
 	‘Sir,’ he says. ‘There’s a convoy coming.’
 	‘Ours?’
 	‘No, sir. Drawn by mule-beasts. I see a Chimera with rebel markings.’
 	Idra grins, claps the shoulder of her Chimera’s driver, and points to where a short gully begins. Beside her, Sergeant Lokhov nods approvingly.
 	‘Get into cover,’ Idra tells Wisniak. ‘We’ll find a spot to ambush them.’
 	The caravan follows what passes for a road on Tovoga: a pair of deeply rutted tracks in a gully. Idra lies on the ridge, overlooking the shallow bend in the road, her platoon dismounting and readying behind her. The razorgrass cuts through her uniform, nicking her skin. Stay here long enough and her blood will attract the worms. Another reason to hate this place. The lead wagon is a half a mile away.
 	She scans the caravan through her magnoculars. Twenty heavy carts pulled by the big, six-legged mule-beasts. Two Chimeras, armed with inferior Tovogan lascannons. A war wagon.
 	The war wagon is dangerous. Like everything here, it is grey. A three-storey, heavily armoured tower rolling on eight steel wheels, each wheel as large as a Chimera. The sides are dotted with firing ports. The top is a fighting platform, with a pair of twin-mounted heavy bolters and a set of las­cannons in a Hydra’s anti-air quad mount. The gunners’ heads are indistinct black dots behind the guns’ splinter shields.
 	‘A squad in each Chimera,’ says Idra. ‘At least four more in the war wagon. Eighty to a hundred troops. Five heavy weapons.’
 	‘Make that ten, with the squad heavy weapons,’ says Sergeant Lokhov beside her.
 	‘Set Wisniak and Nye where the road bends,’ says Idra, indicating her snipers. ‘Take out the gunners on the fighting platform. One squad and the Chimera in front to block their route. Half-squad at the very rear to stop them from retreating. Situate the platoon’s remaining three and a half squads to pour fire down onto them, then move the blocking squad up to the opposite hill once they take cover. Trap them in the crossfire.’
 	‘Doable,’ says Lokhov. ‘Hard but doable.’
 	‘They might surrender,’ says Idra. ‘The colonel wants prisoners.’
 	Heavy boots crunch on the razorgrass behind her.
 	‘Considering your strategies, lieutenant?’ Major Haskel’s gravel-and-glass voice cuts through their discussion. The Taurox he’s been riding in stands idling behind Idra’s command Chimera, both hidden from the rebels in a fold in the ground. But Haskel’s standing on the ridge, silhouetted against the approaching storm, daring the heretics to spot him.
 	‘Yes, sir,’ Idra says.
 	Haskel glances at the approaching caravan, the Chimeras, the war wagon. His mouth turns up at the corners.
 	‘We charge,’ he says.
 	Idra pushes away the annoyance that floods her at Haskel’s casual disregard for her plan. Because it is a good plan. Even if the enemy would prove stronger than expected, the Firstborn can inflict heavy losses while taking minimal casualties themselves, and still have a way of disengaging while blocking the enemy’s pursuit.
 	Haskel’s idea of charging a stronger enemy is dangerous. Charging a stronger enemy in a fortified war wagon is insane. Sergeant Lokhov’s eyes go wide. Yet Haskel stands unconcerned. Defiant. And Idra realises why he is a hero.
 	This man knows no fear, his certainty absolute, contagious. Idra’s men keep glancing at him, walk taller when he’s present, parade when he looks their way. They whisper his name as a talisman: the Emperor and Haskel, Haskel and the Emperor. The men will charge, they will fight, and they will win. They are the carriers of the Emperor’s retribution. With Major Haskel to lead them, they cannot lose.
 	The caravan rumbles closer. Idra can see the individual drovers huddling beneath their grey cloaks. She feels herself grinning in anticipation, straightens. A bead of blood runs down her chin where the razorgrass cut her.
 	‘Firstborn,’ says Major Haskel. The lead cart passes his position. He lifts his sword to the skies.
 	‘Charge!’ Haskel screams.
 	The 86th charges. The world explodes around them.
 	‘It’s impossible,’ Ekaterina says.
 	‘Nothing is impossible,’ her father replies. The gun dummy in the middle of the room disagrees. Ekaterina stalks around the steel coffers set out as cover, her Idrov knife resting comfortably in her hand. The Idrov great hall’s oaken doors are shut. This moment is for Ekaterina and the gun dummy. She has to kill it before it shoots her.
 	It pivots, its low-power las-trainer flashing and adding another painful burn to the collection already on her skin. Her shirt and trousers are pocked with black circles where the thin material has burned away. Ekaterina curses. Her father resets the dummy.
 	‘Again,’ he says. He doesn’t correct her language.
 	‘It’s too fast,’ says Ekaterina. ‘I can’t reach it.’
 	‘Then don’t try,’ her father says. ‘Use your mind. You are high-born. You will be a leader. Think.’
 	Ekaterina pauses, thinks. The gun dummy twists on its pedestal, pointing the las-trainer at imaginary targets. It turns away from her.
 	Ekaterina steps out from behind her cover. She throws her knife.
 	They scream as they charge. Around them, the razorgrass burns from lasgun hits. But the slope is long, and steep. Firstborn stumble, fall, roll down to be met by bolter shells and lasgun blasts. Idra’s men start to waver, slow, start to take cover behind the low rocks that dot the slope.
 	The gully has become a death trap. If they stay on the slopes the Tovogans will kill them. The gun ports in the war wagon are open, spewing lasgun fire at the charging Vostroyans. Idra’s Tauros is trying to distract it, but its autocannon shells bounce off the war wagon like gravel. The hits sound like a demented drummer hammering away at a steel door.
 	An explosion throws Idra forward. An enemy lascannon has found her Tauros. Its autocannons fall silent.
 	She grabs a Firstborn crouching behind a rock, forces him up.
 	‘Move or die,’ she screams. A bolter shell removes the man’s head. She lets the body fall, rushes forward herself, firing her lasgun one-handed. The sword-bayonet at its end weighs it down, and all she hits is grass.
 	Sergeant Lokhov forces a squad into motion. The Tovogan heavy bolters churn up the slope around them, yet the Firstborn run through it. They are no longer screaming in defiance.
 	Forward, forward and downward. To stop is to die. Their only chance is amongst the carts, where the war wagon’s guns can’t reach them. Idra’s legs pound the ground. She stumbles, razorgrass tearing open her uniform, but gets up, keeps running.
 	‘For the Emperor and Vostroya!’ she shouts. The bolters drown out her voice.
 	She grabs another man, pulls him out from behind the cover of a large rock. He starts to curse her, but the rebel Chimera has found his hiding place and reduces the rock to glowing slag. The man and Idra both yell, plunging downward.
 	They make it into the cover of one of the carts. Its mule-beast lies twitching in its yoke, a hole the size of Idra’s head spilling its bloody guts onto the ground. Its dead drover lies beside it, torn apart by an explosion. For a moment everything is stillness. On the slope, her men keep dying, but the Tovogan bolters can’t reach beneath the carts and the Chimera hasn’t noticed her, rumbling up to disgorge a squad of Tovogan infantry.
 	Somewhere, Haskel’s glass-and-gravel voice is howling, a sound of hatred and bloodthirst. It is accompanied by screams of fear.
 	Idra pokes her head around the edge of the cart’s towering wheel. The Tovogan infantry have their backs to her, firing up-slope at her men. She kills four before the others realise the danger and turn their guns on her. Again, she takes cover beneath the cart, its broad wheels and low-slung, iron loading bed sheltering her.
 	Over her head, the cart’s tarpaulin has split, revealing metal crates covered in shipping labels and the unmistakable warning sign for active melta weapons. Idra grins.
 	‘Distract them,’ she orders her trooper. The Firstborn nods and pulls out his pistol. He’s lost his lasrifle. He’s lost his tall bearskin shako. His head looks small and vulnerable without it. A lasgun blast scores the earth beside him, another drills into the cart above him.
 	Idra jumps up. Instantly the air is filled with lasgun fire. A blast hits her chest carapace, melting the armaplast. Idra ignores it – she’s used to getting hit, her chest marred with faded scars from las-trainers. She grabs the crate and pulls. It won’t budge. She hangs on it, yanking, while las-blasts scorch the cart all around her. Then something snaps above. The crate slides away, gathers speed, crashes to the ground. Idra rolls clear and lands amid a flow of oval objects.
 	The crate is full of melta bombs.
 	They’re the poor, Tovogan version. Large and clumsy, with a twist fuse and four magnetic hooks. Idra grabs a bomb, twists the fuse and hurls it at the Chimera. It bounces, rolls a few feet. The detonation is a wave of heat, showering molten metal in Idra’s direction. She dives into the razorgrass, putting her arms before her face. When she raises her head, her greatcoat is smouldering.
 	‘Keep firing,’ she shouts, but her backup lies still, a smoking hole burned through his face, a charred exit wound in the back of his neck. 
 	The Tovogans’ las-blasts crack into the wagon, the wheel, the crate. Burning shrapnel blasted free from the wagon mixes with spent bolter casings dropping from the war wagon behind it. Both rain down on Idra. She is trapped.
 	‘Lick.’ Babayev holds forth his boot, the sole towards Ekaterina. The boot is covered in mud and ash from the training platoon’s morning run. Babayev is the platoon’s acting sergeant for the week, a low-born from Tharkov Hive, bossing it over a high-born woman. The other boys in her platoon snicker.
 	‘Lick, Idra,’ says Babayev.
 	Ekaterina has her knife, the Idrov knife her father made for her. She considers killing Babayev, but that would get her removed from the Astra Militarum. She will die before disgracing the family.
 	‘You were given an order, private,’ Babayev says. He’s a big man, one of the oldest in the training regiment. The other boys look up to him. They are waiting for the chance to turn on Ekaterina, to prove that she is no Firstborn.
 	‘No,’ she says, setting her feet and raising her arms. In the end, there is stillness and blood.
 	Idra fires from behind the cover of the cart’s huge wheel, but the Tovogans in the Chimera fire back tenfold. She hits one, and he falls, screaming, but another soldier takes his place. All they need is to hit her once. 
 	A great, enraged bellow snarls its way past the sound of lasguns. Haskel, charging from up the line of wagons. He is covered in gore, his golden chest-plate the same blood-red as his flapping and tattered greatcoat. Only his sword is spotless, its power field flickering in black and red. He’s howling, face deformed by hatred, sprinting for the Tovogan Chimera.
 	Idra realises that he won’t make it. The heavy bolters atop the war wagon are shifting their aim, the trail of bolter shells mere yards behind the major. 
 	To hide is to die. To fight the enemies of the Emperor is to live. She scoops up an armload of melta bombs, running before she’s even consciously decided on her action. Running for the towering war wagon.
 	Lasgun blasts chase her, but she is invulnerable, a red shadow dancing across the ground, beyond fear, beyond pain. There is only the war wagon, and the melta bombs in her arms. A las-blast flashes before her eyes, turning the world white, then black. She keeps running, twisting the fuses by feel, as she dives below the war wagon. Its wheels run on four metal drive shafts, each as thick as her thigh. She slaps the first melta bomb to the closest shaft, next to the giant wheel, ducks beneath it, slaps the second on the next shaft. Runs, doubled over, the bottom of the war wagon inches above her head.
 	She can feel the timers ticking, small vibrations from the steel spheres in her hands. Three more steps, two.
 	Behind her, the first melta explodes, washing her with light and heat. The second goes, the blast wave pushing her forward. She slaps her last two meltas on the third drive shaft and rolls beneath it, thrown forward by the blast behind her, curling up, throwing both her arms over her head.
 	The last meltas explode, almost on top of her. The heat is like diving into a factorum furnace, like bathing in the heart of a nova star. The air is sucked from Idra’s lungs. She sees the wheels fall away from the war wagon, its armoured sides leaning down, the entire wagon tipping away from her. Every­thing goes black.
 	Ekaterina groans. Breathing hurts. Moving hurts more.
 	‘Stand to!’ The duty recruit’s call echoes throughout the barracks. Captain Twarienko bursts through the double doors. He is their lord and master, a veteran and the voyarin of the whole training regiment. All the Firstborn stand at attention, their red tunics glittering like blood. Ekaterina fights to her feet, forces herself to stand straight. Twarienko stops before her.
 	‘It is the Emperor’s will that a private obeys a sergeant,’ Twarienko says. ‘Are you aware of this?’
 	‘Yes,’ says Ekaterina.
 	‘You refused an order by a superior officer,’ Twarienko says.
 	‘Yes,’ replies Ekaterina. No excuses. No begging.
 	‘Taking responsibility for one’s actions is an admirable trait, encouraged in Firstborn and required in leaders,’ Twarienko says. ‘And a leader is responsible for the welfare of his men. Recruit Babayev, you are stripped of your rank. Recruit Idra, administrative punishment.’
 	Twarienko glares at the assembled Firstborn. ‘And the next recruit to lay a hand on another without my permission will be hung like a meat-rat and fed to the grox, is that clear?’
 	‘Yes, captain!’ the recruits shout.
 	Smoke. The metallic smell of burning razorgrass. Pain. Cold wetness on her face. Lieutenant Idra forces her eyes open.
 	‘So you’re still with us,’ Sergeant Lokhov says.
 	‘Uncle Mathis,’ Idra says. She tries to sit up, but Lokhov pushes her back down.
 	‘Lie still and let the medicament do its work,’ he says, checking the read-out on the medi-pack.
 	‘We won,’ says Idra. She should be joyous, but all she feels is tired, and a tiny bit surprised at being alive.
 	‘By His grace,’ answers Lokhov, making the sign of the aquila. ‘There was great sacrifice.’
 	‘The war wagon?’
 	‘Spilled its contents like a broken skull,’ says Lokhov. ‘The major has been mopping up.’
 	A scream sounds, ends abruptly. Idra forces herself to stand. Her golden chest carapace is black, the gash where it melted and ran still hot to the touch. She ignores it, like she has ignored so many pains in her life, and staggers to where Major Haskel is raising his sword. Its power field flickers and the drover on his knees before the major screams. Then the Crystal Sword descends, the scream ends. There is a line of dead Tovogans stretching to the left, a gaggle of prisoners to the right. The giant from the 262nd and the marksman with the brass augmetics drag a new prisoner forward. The major lifts the Crystal Sword.
 	‘Major Haskel, sir,’ says Idra. She has to shout it twice before the major reacts. ‘The colonel’s standing order is to bring prisoners whenever possible.’
 	‘We have no use for prisoners,’ the major replies. His face is a twisted grimace of vengeance.
 	‘They know things,’ Idra says.
 	‘They’ll know death,’ the major says. His sword descends. The Tovogan dies in silence. Haskel’s men drag the next one forward.
 	‘The Emperor is the Light of Humanity,’ Ekaterina screams. Her arms burn, the gravel is cold beneath her hands. Her arms shake, pain radiating from them. She ignores it, pushing against the ground, pushing herself upward.
 	‘Nine hundred eighty-nine,’ says the lord assessor. Ekaterina breathes in as she lowers herself towards the ground. Towards, but never touching. A thin, cold wind blows between her uniform and the rocks.
 	‘He once walked among men–’ Ekaterina’s voice falters, her arms refuse to budge. Her teeth grind against each other.
 	‘–but He has always been divine!’ She pushes at the ground with her will and her anger until her arms start to move. 
 	‘Nine hundred ninety,’ says the lord assessor. Ekaterina’s arms falter once more. All she can feel is pain. But she is used to pain. She forces them to move again. Up, down, up, down, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
 	‘Recite,’ says the lord hetman.
 	‘It is the duty–’ Pain. Breathe in. Pain. Breathe out. ‘–the duty of the faithful–’ Breathe in. Pain. ‘–duty of the faithful, to obey–’ Pain. Breath. Pain. ‘–obey the authority of the Imperial Government–’
 	‘I cannot hear you,’ says the lord hetman.
 	Pain. Breath. Hate. ‘–the Imperial Government–’ Pain. Breath. Hate. ‘–and their superiors, who speak in the Emperor’s name.’
 	‘And don’t you forget it,’ says the lord hetman.
 	His face is red. Ekaterina’s is white. Of them all, the lord ­assessor is the most animated.
 	‘A thousand,’ he says. Ekaterina’s arms are locked, rigid as tent-poles. The lord assessor helps her up.
 	‘Go, girl,’ he says, not unkindly. 
 	Ekaterina sways, her feet feeling a million miles away, her arms lumps of dead flesh. She forces herself to control her breath. Forces away the pain and the darkness threatening to claim her.
 	‘Am I Firstborn?’ she asks.
 	The lord assessor nods.
 	‘For now,’ he says.
 	Lieutenant Ekaterina Idra fills her cup with steaming ohx. The smell of powdered grox meat and spices usually calms her. Now she has to fight to keep her hands steady, keep the anger boiling inside her from reaching her face.
 	Sixteen of her men are dead, another twelve are in the arms of the medicae. Fully half her platoon gone. An officer is responsible for her men. Their lives belong to the Emperor; the officer’s duty is to Him, to make sure that His followers’ sacrifice isn’t wasted. There is a grand ceremony in Colonel Shostkov’s command quarters, celebrating Major Haskel’s victory over the Tovogan traitors.
 	Sergeant Lokhov barges into Idra’s quarters, trailing a flood of grey, Tovogan dust.
 	‘You look like you encountered chernobog and lost your father’s sword,’ he says.
 	‘High losses,’ Idra answers. She offers him the chair. Her quarters are spartan. A bed. A desk. A weapons locker. An image of the Throne, the Emperor radiant upon it, Saint Nadalya, patron saint of Vostroya, standing by His left hand. On a bare shelf are two printed tomes: the Treatis Elatii, the Grey Lady’s sacred text, and the Vostroyan version of the Tactica Imperium.
 	‘There are always losses,’ says Lokhov. He strokes his ragged moustache. A nervous habit.
 	‘Not like this.’ Idra’s anger shines through.
 	Lokhov purses his mouth, as if he wants to say something, but doesn’t. Instead, he brings out a flask of Tovogan black distilled. It looks like mud and tastes like petro-chem fumes. Far beneath the purity of Vostroyan rahzvod, even the cheap Mushovy rahzvod.
 	‘No good plan,’ he says, pouring a splash into Idra’s ohx, ‘survives contact with a superior officer.’
 	‘He’s a hero,’ Idra says.
 	‘So are you,’ Lokhov says. ‘The major mentioned you to the colonel.’
 	‘That I lost half my platoon?’
 	‘That you took out a war wagon.’
 	Idra shakes her head.
 	‘There’s something wrong there,’ she says. ‘Jorun Haskel is a responsible leader. His defence of Rittas during the Convalen campaign – holding the Froth River Bridge for two days so the One Hundred and Ninth could fight its way across. His push to relieve the Third Army, killing a heretic champion. This man… His entire regiment gone, abandoning a perfect ambush to charge headfirst against a stronger enemy. Today…’
 	Idra stares at the aquila on her wall, at the Emperor radiant.
 	‘Today he was more interested in killing than in winning,’ she says.
 	‘Ekaterina,’ says Lokhov in a low voice. ‘Do not share your thoughts with anyone.’
 	‘Only my uncle.’ Idra grins without humour.
 	‘It’s good for you that I have fond memories of the girl I carried on my shoulders,’ Lokhov says. ‘If the commissar would hear you…’
 	He doesn’t have to finish. Ekaterina remembers what a commissar can do. Remembers the bolt pistol pointed at her head.
 	‘Can’t do anything,’ she says. ‘No one will listen to a woman, and a shiny at that.’
 	‘Not so shiny any more,’ Lokhov says. ‘The tales of you taking down that war wagon are spreading. And you weren’t a shiny before that. You paid your dues on Vostroya, and in your father’s house. Any man with eyes in his head should see that.’
 	Idra snorts, but Lokhov looks serious. 
 	‘They should,’ he repeats, and rises, leaving the flask of black distilled on her desk.
 	‘Will you ask around?’ Idra says. ‘Find out what’s happened to the major?’
 	‘I will keep my ears unstuffed.’ Lokhov picks up his shako, placing the tall fur hat on his head.
 	‘Thank you, Uncle Mathis,’ Idra says. ‘And uncle?’
 	‘Yes?’
 	‘Be careful.’
 	Lokhov nods, and leaves.
 	‘Be careful,’ Captain Twarienko says. Ekaterina looks up, surprised. The barracks are empty, the men in the mess hall. Only Ekaterina remains, acting sergeant, going over the duty roster.
 	‘You cannot be blind to those around you,’ Twarienko continues. ‘A leader must know which among his men are dangerous.’
 	‘Babayev?’ Ekaterina says.
 	‘Babayev,’ Twarienko confirms.
 	The plan is to infiltrate the city of Dolemino after dark. There’s a company of Tovogans out there, harassing the Firstborn regiments in the area. Haskel is sure that they’re based in Dolemino, a mining community twenty miles ahead of the 86th’s position. Colonel Shostkov has given Haskel command of two companies in order to trap and eradicate the Tovogans. Haskel’s plan is to lure them with an easy kill, then block their retreat with his own companies while the colonel rushes in with the rest of the regiment and surrounds them while they’re distracted. A bold plan for a large catch on a small bait, the colonel claims. Idra’s platoon is the bait.
 	‘It ain’t right,’ grumbles one of her men, Radivil. He’s been with the platoon a long time, lost a lot of friends yesterday. His comrades agree.
 	‘Shouldn’t be us,’ one says. Others nod.
 	‘Sixth platoon hasn’t been out in a month,’ Radivil says. ‘Let them be heroes.’
 	Idra stands. The small storage room is cluttered, filled to the walls with crates, and men packing, stuffing their combat harnesses with charge packs, frag grenades, rations. A lot less rations than charge packs. Idra approves of their training. A charge pack can save your life, a ration will only fill your stomach. Still, she’s the leader. She needs to stop their grumbling, crush this sentiment right now, before it spreads. Before Commissar Grotschalk hears it.
 	‘It is the duty of the faithful,’ she says, ‘to obey the rule of the Imperial Government, and follow the orders of their superiors who speak in the Emperor’s name.’
 	The grumbling increases in volume. They don’t like what they hear. For a moment, Idra wonders if they’re going to shoot her. Accidents happen. She buries the thought. Digs for what she believes in.
 	‘We are Firstborn,’ Idra shouts. Heads come up. They’re listening. ‘We are here because of the infinite mercy of the Emperor, which gives every faithful human a place in His divine order. We have been given the chance to atone for the sins of our fathers. Are you going to complain of the dangers on the path to redemption?
 	‘We are Firstborn. We serve the Emperor’s will, and He wills us to find that traitor company, pin it until the major arrives, and then wipe them out. This is what we are going to do. And if you don’t dare to follow where a woman leads, then you can khekking well join the Krieg Death Corps and hide in a hole!’
 	Some of them look ashamed. A lot of them grumble. But when Idra orders them to fall in, they pick up their kit and march to the waiting Chimeras.
 	‘In the name of the Divine Emperor and Holy Terra.’ The commissar’s voice is soft, sing-song. Almost like a priest’s. His accent, from the Schola Excubitos on Terrax, sounds strange to Ekaterina’s ears. The bolt pistol in his hand is freshly oiled, the bore cleaned and huge, a gaping hole pointing at her head. This will be the gun that kills her. Ekaterina stands at attention, her fear a deep, cold stone inside her. She pushes it down into the depths of her soul, stands straight. She will not shame her family.
 	‘The crime is wilful slaughter of a fellow recruit,’ says the commissar. ‘The punishment is death. Does the court wish to speak?’
 	‘No,’ spits the lord hetman. He pushed for the crime to be named murder.
 	The lord assessor lifts his tall shako, scratches at the ash-blond hair beneath.
 	‘The exercise was under battlefield conditions,’ he says.
 	‘It is the duty of the faithful,’ says Captain Twarienko, ‘to follow the orders of their superiors who speak in the Emperor’s name.’
 	‘Does the recruit wish to speak?’ the commissar asks.
 	‘I would ask for my knife back,’ says Ekaterina.
 	The commissar bends, yanks the blade from Babayev’s cold, bloodless throat. The knife is still stained with a sheen of grey ash from their march. The commissar thumbs the safety rune on his bolt pistol.
 	‘Your reputation precedes you,’ he says, with a glance at the lord hetman. Then he very carefully hands Ekaterina her knife.
 	The red greatcoats look like black ink in the darkness. Only the occasional swaying shadow betrays the presence of the Vostroyans among the ruins. The broken walls of Dolemino rise around them, craters from orbital bombardment providing cover.
 	‘Shoot and fade,’ whispers Idra to her men. ‘We’re not here to be heroes. Save that for when the regiment arrives.’
 	Kolczak, her vox-operator, gives her a nod. He’s already voxed it in. Now all they need to do is wait until the regiment comes, then engage, draw the Tovogans in, and keep them from spotting the approaching 86th Firstborn.
 	The traitor forces are arrayed in a semicircle, protected by bombed-out buildings. Slabs of fallen rockcrete shelter their meagre fires. They’re burning mule-beast dung and petro-chem fuel for warmth. A reinforced company, from what Idra can see. Lots of men, line platoons interspaced with heavy weapon squads, their lascannons stacked atop boxes of charge packs.
 	‘Nye,’ she voxes. ‘Anything?’
 	‘No,’ her sniper says.
 	‘Wisniak?’
 	‘Nothing here, sir.’
 	They’re posted at opposite ends of the town, Nye in a cracked bell tower, Wisniak atop the old mine elevator. Not much of an outer perimeter, but it will have to do. If the entire Tovogan company is here, there won’t be a need for a perimeter. Another twenty minutes and the major will be here with reinforcements, the Emperor willing.
 	Someone shouts, a challenge in the lilting Low Gothic of the Tovogans. There is a clatter, the grunt of men struggling. A las-blast illuminates the sky. Around the fires, men are standing up. The light platoon has been spotted.
 	‘The Emperor and Vostroya!’ Idra shouts. The night flashes into brightness as the Vostroyans fire. Tovogans fall screaming. They’re in the open, illuminated, surrounded by an invisible enemy. The Vostroyans are the best city fighters in the Imperium. The Tovogans are meat-rats for the slaughter.
 	‘Sir!’ Wisniak’s voice whispers in Idra’s vox-bead. ‘Company. Lots of it.’
 	‘Ours?’ Idra asks.
 	‘No, sir, Tovogans. An entire company just exited one of the mine shafts.’
 	‘Kolczak, vox it in,’ Idra orders. ‘Second squad, fifth squad, pivot right.’
 	‘Sir!’ It’s Nye. ‘Motion. Vehicles coming into town, Demolishers, a full company, and Hellhounds. They’re swinging around the south.’
 	‘Sir!’ Wisniak sounds stressed. ‘Another company just exited. More are coming.’
 	‘Kolczak,’ says Idra. She’s firing her lasgun, too busy to spare a glance at the vox-man. The Tovogans are getting organised, advancing by platoons, one laying down cover fire, the other rushing. Their officer yells them onward, waving a chainsword over his head. Stupid. Idra drops him with a blast from her lasgun. She throws herself flat behind a broken wall as his men retaliate, blasts and bolter shells chewing pieces from her shelter.
 	Star shells illuminate the sky, making shadows dance ­crazily over the town.
 	‘Sir!’ says Nye. ‘I count twenty Chimeras heading your way. Four companies, more incoming.’
 	The battle has just grown out of proportion. The amount of troops concentrated in this town is way too much to merely harass the Firstborn; the Tovogans are building their forces for a full-scale assault. The 86th isn’t strong enough to destroy such a force alone. They’re walking into a steel­spine hive, and like steelspines with their thick, black spines and razor mandibles, the Tovogans will stab them to pieces.
 	‘Kolczak, get Colonel Shostkov on the vox. Call off the attack,’ yells Idra. Kolczak doesn’t reply. She grabs him, and his arm comes off, cleanly seared away. The front of Kolczak’s body is missing, the vox-caster’s ornate case a puddle of molten metal.
 	From behind comes the roar of tank engines. The lead Tovogan platoons rush towards the thin line of Vostroyans.
 	‘The duty of a soldier of the Astra Militarum,’ the recruit company’s commissar lectures, ‘is to carry out the will of the Emperor.’
 	Ekaterina doesn’t know the commissar’s name. To the recruits, he’s simply ‘the Commissar’. Twarienko may threaten them with grox-feed, but the Commissar will shoot them at the first sign of treason.
 	‘The duty of a leader,’ says the commissar, ‘is to ensure that His will be carried out in the most effective way possible. Any deviation from this is treason.’
 	‘Do not fail,’ says Twarienko. ‘You have your orders. Bring all of your men through to the other side, or don’t come back. This exercise is under battlefield conditions. You will get no help. Understood?’
 	‘Yes, captain,’ the cadets say.
 	They are fresh from the scholam, their red uniforms trimmed with gold, the golden badges on their fur shakos gleaming. Only Ekaterina’s uniform is worn. Only Ekaterina has commanded previously. She is Firstborn, having survived the ash wastes and the recruit regiment. She is high-born, destined for command. Of all the lieutenant cadets, only Ekaterina is familiar with her troops. Only Ekaterina’s troops hate her.
 	‘To me, to me! The Emperor and Vostroya!’ Idra’s voice cuts through the flickering darkness. Her men respond, falling back to her position. The line contracts, Vostroyans moving and firing, firing and dying, always towards the familiar voice of command. They no longer care that she’s a woman. They no longer care that she’s a shiny. She’s a beacon of authority in a night that’s gone bright and bloody.
 	The Firstborn are racing the Tovogans, a line contracting into a knot before the hammer strikes it. Ten, fifteen, twenty, Idra’s Firstborn make a circle of red and gold, their bearskin shakos sticking up behind lasguns and stone. A tiny fortress of flesh and courage.
 	The Tovogans will overwhelm them. Their line is sweeping up to the edges of the ruined factorum that shelters the Vostroyans. In the midst of the Tovogan line stands a man in the black coat of a commissar, with a helmet on his head. A star shell detonates above, making the commissar’s coat shine with two clear blue lines, the mark of the Tovogan traitors. There is a large hole blasted in the coat, the traitor’s uniform visible beneath. And Idra knows what she’s going to do.
 	They are given las-trainers and ohx rations. Full packs and rebreather masks. Orders.
 	Make it across the ruins of Gurilov Hive alive.
 	That’s all.
 	‘Fix bayonets!’
 	Two dozen Firstborn stop firing. Two dozen Vostroyan sword bayonets, each the length of an arm, are clicked beneath lasgun barrels. The Tovogans reach the edge of the factorum, slow. They’re cautious of the sudden stillness, wary of the enemy. They’ve fought Firstborn before.
 	‘Wait.’ Idra’s whisper is a harsh sound in the silence. ‘Pick a target. Kill them. Then charge. We break out to the north.’
 	The Tovogans come closer. The man in the dead commissar’s coat is in their centre, chainsword in one hand, laspistol in the other. Idra has found her target. She aims.
 	‘Fire!’ she says, but her target slips, her las-blast striking the wall behind him.
 	‘The Emperor and Vostroya,’ she screams. ‘Charge!’ Around her, the Vostroyans yell, surge, rush forward.
 	The Tovogans hesitate. In that moment, the Vostroyans are amongst them, stabbing, slashing, firing at point-blank range. Idra jumps over a rusty steel beam, lands lightly. The false commissar is in front of her. An officer, a Tovogan captain’s uniform beneath the black coat. His chainsword screams. Idra blocks with her gun. The chainsword’s teeth bite into it, tearing chunks of wood from the stock. She lets it drag her weapon upward, holds it with one hand, draws her knife with the other…
 	Plunges the knife into the Tovogan’s unprotected chin. A sharp thrust, up and over. The Tovogan jerks, his fingers going limp and releasing his sword. Idra yanks out her knife.
 	‘Forward!’ she yells. ‘Forward, men of Saint Nadalya!’
 	Behind them the rubble lights up as the first Tovogan Hellhound covers it with burning promethium death.
 	They run, a knot of men in red and gold, black shakos bobbing through the ruins. They’re among the enemy now, hidden in plain sight. Behind them, the Tovogans fire on each other, unaware that the ruins are empty. The Firstborn are firing as they run, killing small groups of Tovogans, avoiding larger ones. A las-blast takes down a Firstborn and his comrades grab him, drag him forward with them. Idra checks for a pulse, finds a gaping hole in the armour, large enough to shove her fist into.
 	‘Dead,’ she says, and they drop the soldier, muttering a quick prayer for his sacrifice while moving, always moving. To stop is to die, to fight is to live. This is a time for the living. There will be a time for the dead later.
 	Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen. Her troops fall. They carry the wounded, leave the dead, scavenging only grenades and charge packs.
 	Sergeant Lokhov ties the grenades into bundles, cracks the activation runes. He wipes blood from his eyes as he works. When the Firstborn move, they leave their improvised mines behind. They can follow the Tovogans’ advance by the resulting explosions.
 	Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve. Idra orders her men forward, forward and onward. The town burns, rockcrete covered with promethium flames shining as bright as star shells. The night is no longer their friend; it has become a butcher, and they meat for the slaughter. Eleven. Radivil falls, wounded, and they can’t recover him. Idra leaves him prone in an intersection, huddling behind a chunk of stone cut with the Imperial eagle, firing at the approaching Tovogans. She promises herself to return and moves away.
 	‘Stand to!’ The voice screaming from Idra’s vox-bead is like gravel on crushed glass.
 	‘Major Haskel, sir,’ Idra voxes. ‘The town is overrun, we need to redeploy.’
 	‘No!’ the major growls. ‘Kill! Forward until you can bathe in their blood!’
 	‘Sir!’ shouts Idra, and a shape jumps through a broken window before her.
 	It is barely human, a flowing, moving, red-and-gold terror charging the traitors, its voice screaming hate and promising death. Haskel’s sword flashes, red and black, cuts through a Tovogan trooper, decapitates his partner, splits the lascannon and the gut of the soldier behind them. This isn’t a man, this is a force of fury, the Emperor come to life, a sword of bloody retribution, leading a tide of men, and the sight of him killing fills Idra with fear and admiration. It feels like riding an ash-snake, a need to hang on at all costs, lest it turn and eat you.
 	‘Light platoon, about face!’ Idra shouts, charging after the major. Her men turn, joining the wave of Firstborn flowing behind Haskel.
 	They run up to the intersection where Radivil crouches behind his makeshift barricade, his leg a bloody pulp, bone visible through his tattered trousers. A Tovogan Leman Russ clanks towards him, the commander’s head poking through the open hatch.
 	Haskel charges. He grabs the tank’s side-armour and dances upward like a wave of red fire. His sword rams into the tank commander, forcing the corpse down into the tank. Haskel dives in behind, stabbing. His dangling legs are briefly illuminated by the flashes of his bolt pistol. Then he re-emerges, the Crystal Sword trailing a spray of bloody ruin. He glances down at Idra, his face twisted into a grin of too many teeth. For a split second, Idra thinks he will kill her, but then a Tovogan fires on the major, drawing his attention, and Haskel is off again, charging into fierce bolter fire.
 	They kill, and they kill, and they kill, the night bright with burning vehicles and the shine of spilled blood. Still the Tovogans come. Firstborn rally to Idra’s call, die, rally again. She loses track of Haskel, loses track of her men. A lasgun scorches her shoulder, a chainsword bites into her newly repaired chest carapace. Her greatcoat catches fire and Sergeant Lokhov tears it off, burning his hands in the process. There is no end to the Tovogans.
 	Idra glimpses Colonel Shostkov leading a charge, his command squad a fist of men around the 86th’s banner. She sees Commissar Grotschalk whipping a wounded Firstborn forward with his pistol, then shooting the man when he turns to flee. Still the Tovogans come.
 	The night is a hell of death, a monster chewing its way through the 86th. Idra assaults a Taurox, drops a krak grenade through the driver’s hatch, doesn’t stop to see it burn. Sergeant Lokhov pulls her back from the flame of a Hellhound. She sees Wisniak firing point-blank into the back of a line of Tovogans too busy, too pinned, to notice him. Still the Tovogans come.
 	The ground shakes beneath the heavy threads of their attacking tanks, the town blazes with the fire from their flamethrowers. They die, and they die, and the Firstborn die with them until the very ground erupts with the fires of hell.
 	A screaming whine, louder than even the firefight, fills the air. Then the town starts to disintegrate.
 	‘Emperor’s teeth!’ cries Idra. Lokhov pulls her down, into a hole, the very hole where Radivil made his stand an hour, a lifetime, ago. Wisniak drops in behind them.
 	‘Bombards,’ yells Lokhov. ‘The One Thousand and Fifty-First Siege Regiment!’
 	‘They’re firing on us!’ Idra shouts. The ground is shaking, throwing them into the air with each blast.
 	‘They’re razing the town!’ Lokhov shouts back. His voice is almost inaudible among the explosions. Wisniak holds his hands over his ears, pressing his head down into the ground. Idra tries to stand up but Lokhov pulls her down again.
 	‘You’re hurt enough already,’ he shouts into her ear. A Firstborn Sentinel rushes by, steel legs churning, its pilot trying to outrun the barrage. A bombard shell drops into the cab, turning the machine into flying shrapnel. Idra ducks, remaining in the hole as the 1051st pounds the town into rubble, then pounds the rubble into dust.
 	Darkness returns. The night is no longer rent by huge explosions.
 	‘To me,’ Idra calls. ‘To me, Firstborn! For the Emperor and Vostroya!’
 	Men crawl from the ruins, red coats grey with dust, gold armour red with blood. Five, ten, twenty. The knot around Idra grows. She starts splitting men into squads, sending them to secure parts of the town.
 	There isn’t much to secure. The city of Dolemino no longer exists, the ruins turned into piles of dust and gravel. Firstborn crawl over them, digging firing positions, dragging wounded to safety.
 	‘Lieutenant.’ The medic looks almost shamefaced at interrupting her.
 	‘What?’ Idra says.
 	‘Your side, sir,’ he replies, pointing. Idra glances down, then looks again. A piece of tank armour protrudes from her side, through her carapace. Her golden armour is black with old blood.
 	‘Throne and Emperor,’ she curses.
 	‘You’d better sit down, sir,’ the medic says.
 	In the west, the pale, greyish Tovogan dawn arrives.
 	Gurilov Hive stretches before them, broken fingers of black steel poking towards the Vostroyan sky. The frozen ash shifts as Ekaterina steps upon it, toxic black motes swirling into the air. Without a rebreather mask, it would kill her.
 	‘Forward,’ she commands her platoon. The men remain standing, weighted down by their packs and masks. Ekaterina wonders if she should repeat her command. But that would be showing weakness before a pack of wild grox. She glares at them instead, until one man steps forward.
 	Babayev adjusts his pack and starts marching. The men fall into line behind him, and Ekaterina notices their gear. They’re all carrying swords.
 	The medical station’s ceiling is grey like the Tovogan sky. The medic-apprentice changes Idra’s bandages, praying over her wounds. Around her, bunks are filled with wounded Firstborn. Someone is praying to Saint Nadalya, a deep baritone of supplication. Vidrun Wisniak sits by Idra’s bunk, carving a whorl on his mule-beast leather gun belt. The belt is full of them.
 	‘Another kill mark?’ Idra asks her sniper.
 	‘Yah,’ says Wisniak. Then he registers who he’s talking to, changes his tone. ‘Yes, sir.’
 	‘How many?’ Idra asks.
 	‘Twenty-nine,’ says Wisniak. ‘I lost track. Not counting those.’
 	‘Why are you here, Wisniak?’
 	The marksman sheathes his knife, inspects his lasgun.
 	‘Sergeant said to watch you,’ he says.
 	‘Since when does a Firstborn officer need watching in a Vostroyan medicae chamber?’
 	‘Lots of people are unhappy, sir,’ Wisniak says. ‘Half of the regiment’s wiped out. Colonel’s dead, flag-major’s dead, commissar’s dead. Even the psyker is dead.’
 	The scale of their losses stuns Idra. Four full companies, and the regiment’s entire leadership, gone?
 	‘Who’s in command?’
 	Wisniak shrugs, as if it is no concern of his.
 	‘I expect they’ll tell us, sir. Or maybe you are.’
 	The medic ties off Idra’s bandages, pulls out an injector. Blue and red fluids slosh around in the cylinders.
 	‘The Throne protects you,’ he says, and stabs Idra in the thigh. The world fades into the sky grey of the ceiling.
 	‘Ekaterina.’ Idra floats towards consciousness, slips, fades back into the comfortable grey warmth. Is dragged up by a hand shaking her shoulder. ‘Ekaterina.’
 	Sergeant Lokhov stands by her bunk. He’s in full field gear, lasgun cradled in one hand, shaking her with the other. His armour and coat are still covered in blood and dust from the battle at Dolemino.
 	‘I’m awake,’ says Idra. It comes out all garbled, like talking with a mouth full of ohx and mashed oats.
 	‘Half the regiment’s gone,’ Lokhov says. ‘Fourth Company is down to a single squad. The Eighth lost all of their tanks. And we’re moving out.’
 	‘Moving where?’ asks Idra.
 	‘Dolemino,’ says Lokhov. ‘Going to hunt the remaining Tovogans. We’re moving with no support.’
 	The news hits Idra like a spear of ice.
 	‘What about artillery?’ she asks.
 	Lokhov shakes his head.
 	‘General command got ash-pox when they heard about the One Thousand and Fifty-First shelling our position. Threatened to have the colonel court-martialled, except the colonel was already dead.’
 	‘Who commands?’
 	‘Haskel,’ says Lokhov. He turns to spit, remembers himself, swallows instead.
 	‘He’s taking the regiment out. We’re going to clear out the mines. Make sure the Tovogans can’t use them as a staging area against us.’
 	The Firstborn in the next bunk moans. His face is covered with cloth. Only his mouth and part of his singed moustache stick out through the bandages. His right arm ends at the elbow. Pus seeps through the bandage there.
 	‘What about the other commanders?’ Idra asks.
 	‘Trzewik is dead, Kaluza lost an arm and both legs, Orkacz is following Haskel’s lead. And ’Trina…’
 	‘Yes?’ says Idra.
 	‘It was Haskel who ordered the strike by the One Thousand and Fifty-First. That big brute of his dragged the colonel’s vox-man away and one of Haskel’s other men voxed it in. Didn’t mention us being in the target zone.’
 	‘Emperor’s mercy!’ Idra curses.
 	‘It gets worse,’ Lokhov says. ‘Sorokov in Third Company saw Haskel and his brute following the colonel into the charge. The line broke, the colonel and Haskel remaining to hold off the traitor’s counter-attack. Next time Sorokov sees him, Haskel’s slaughtering his way through a line of Tovogans and there’s no sign of the colonel or the command squad.’
 	‘He left them to die,’ Idra says. Lokhov nods.
 	‘More interested in killing than in winning,’ the sergeant says. He picks up his pack, slings his lasgun over his shoulder. ‘We’ve lost the commander and the commissar. Haskel’s men are threatening to execute anyone who doesn’t follow. There’s no one to stop them.’
 	Idra goes cold, memories burning through her mind. A leader killed. A subordinate taking command. You cannot be blind to those around you. A leader has to know which of her men are dangerous. She sits up, the stitches in her side straining against her shifting skin. Warmth starts to seep from her wound, blood staining the bandages.
 	‘I’ll go reach general command,’ Idra says. ‘And uncle…’
 	‘Yes?’
 	‘Don’t get yourself killed.’
 	Ekaterina labours to breathe through her rebreather mask. With every step, the ashes of Gurilov Hive swirl up, clogging the filters. Behind her, the men are cursing. Pegasov yanks his mask off, breathes, starts to cough.
 	‘Idiot!’ Ekaterina slides down the slope she’s been climbing, yanks the mask from his hands and presses it over his face. ‘Do that again and I’ll have you court-martialled for stupidity!’ Pegasov glares at her, but refastens his mask. Ekaterina starts to climb again.
 	They make it over the hump, start down the ash-slope on the other side, half sliding, half falling. A hundred yards beneath the summit, a slab of broken rockcrete sticks out over the abyss. Ekaterina calls for a halt. She glances over the edge.
 	It is a long way down, where steel spars spear up from the ground. Like a field of broken teeth, waiting for the unwary. She plots the route, following thin trails with her eyes.
 	‘Move out,’ she says. ‘There, then down left, and over to the other side.’
 	Her men don’t react. They stand in a half-circle between her and the sloping mound of ash. Behind her is the long drop into the abyss.
 	Babayev draws his sword.
 	‘Lieutenant!’ Sergeant Dalsik, the regimental vox-operator is wild-eyed. His thin, waxed moustache trembles. Idra hobbles up to him, follows him to the vox-room.
 	The halls are empty, every able-bodied man in the regiment gone with Haskel. Dalsik shoves a chair in front of the vox-set, rests his broken arm on the table, presses the runes, turns the wheels.
 	‘Eighty-Sixth Firstborn, Eighty-Sixth Firstborn. Emperor’s mercy, Dalsik, answer!’
 	It’s Lokhov’s voice. There’s something in it that Idra’s never heard before. Desperation.
 	‘Lokhov, we’re here,’ Dalsik says. Only crackle comes from the vox-set.
 	‘Eighty-Sixth, Eighty-Sixth,’ Dalsik says. ‘Lokhov, can you hear me?’
 	Sergeant Lokhov’s voice comes muted, like he’s talking from the bottom of a lake of ash. Explosions and bolter fire wash over it.
 	‘Traitors,’ Lokhov says. ‘Got us–’ Heavy bolter fire drowns him out, an extended bakka-bakka-bak. ‘–get the One Thousand and Fifty-First, get them to shell Dolemino.’ More bolter fire. ‘–all going to die!’
 	The vox falls silent.
 	‘Get him back,’ Idra says.
 	Dalsik twirls the dials.
 	‘Can’t,’ he says. ‘Sir.’
 	Idra bites back a retort.
 	‘I’m coming, uncle,’ she says, softly. ‘We’re going to relieve you.’
 	‘With what troops?’ Dalsik asks, and Idra grins, a cold, hard, hungry expression.
 	There aren’t any Firstborn in the barracks. Everyone that’s left is in the medical station. Idra walks among them. Some of them lack arms, others legs. Some are burned. A lot of them are dying. Idra is going to ask them to die quicker.
 	‘Firstborn!’ she yells. ‘Vostroyans!’
 	Heads come up around her. Eyes open. Moans escape parched lips.
 	‘We have been betrayed,’ Idra says. ‘Our regiment is trapped in the rubble of Dolemino, our brothers fighting for their lives with no relief available. There are Firstborn dying out there, without support, without rescue. The closest forces, if general command is willing to release them, are four hours away. We are not.’
 	She pauses, lets it sink in.
 	‘It is the duty of the faithful to obey the will of the Emperor, and the Emperor wills every human to have a place in His divine order. We are here, we are alive, by His grace and His mercy. We are here because it is His will that we be here, outside the trap that has snapped shut around our brothers.’
 	She coughs, blood splattering her lips. She wipes it away, forces herself to stand straight.
 	‘You are hurt,’ she says. ‘You are in pain. You can let that pain rule you, or you can honour Vostroya and stand to fight against the enemies of the Emperor.
 	‘We are Firstborn. We are the Hammer of the Emperor. Our brothers are dying. Now get up, and save them.’
 	Idra turns, and starts to march. Behind her, every soldier able to hold a gun follows.
 	They are an army of the dying. Red and gold, interspaced with the white of bandages, dotted with more red. Twice, they’ve stopped to leave dead behind. They’re not even halfway to Dolemino.
 	They’re riding into battle atop soft Tovogan transports, a hundred men who can barely hold a lasgun. They go to fight for their regiment, for their planet, and for the Emperor. Idra is leading them to die. She is immensely proud of them all.
 	Pillars of smoke rise from the ruins of Dolemino. ­Scattered shots and las-blasts echo among the broken walls. A trail of dead Firstborn lead into the town.
 	‘Double line,’ Idra says. ‘Those who can walk on their own help those who can’t.’
 	She leads by example, supporting a wounded missile gunner.
 	‘Thank you, sir,’ the Firstborn says, struggling with his launcher. The brass tip of a krak missile glitters in the tube.
 	‘Vostroya and the Emperor!’ The scream is drowned out by a massive explosion. Somewhere in front of Idra, Firstborn are dying.
 	Idra’s men move, hobble forward as fast as they can. Their lines are straight, their lasguns ready. They stop.
 	Ahead of them, a clump of Firstborn are running. Half a company, maybe. And a big, burly sergeant in their middle, directing their flight.
 	‘Uncle,’ Idra shouts. ‘Sergeant Lokhov.’
 	Lokhov stops, looks confused. Spots the reinforcements.
 	‘By the Throne!’ he breathes. ‘Run, girl!’
 	Behind him comes the growl of massive engines, and the crunch of steel threads. Over a pile of broken rockcrete rumbles a Leman Russ.
 	‘Fire!’ screams Lokhov.
 	The missile gunner goes down on one knee, the launcher coming up. Idra recognises the markings of the 86th Firstborn on the Leman Russ.
 	‘Hold fire!’ she shouts, clapping the gunner on the shoulder. ‘Hold fire!’
 	Standing in the tank’s hatch, like a martyr emerging from the maw of a beast, is Major Jorun Haskel.
 	He sees the line of Firstborn. His grin shows too many teeth, the tongue lolling between them impossibly long. He howls, an inhuman sound of splintering glass. 
 	The lines of Firstborn waver, fear visibly slicing through them. Idra feels the hair on her neck and arms like a thousand needles. The monster emerging from the tank wears Haskel’s skin, Haskel’s face, but it can’t be human, it can’t be Firstborn. Whatever that thing is, it is an abomination against all of humanity, an affront to the Emperor. Idra’s stomach churns, her legs shake, but her hate for the monster that’s killed her men burns fiercely through her, driving the fear away with red-hot rage.
 	‘Die!’ she rasps, lifting her lasgun.
 	The Leman Russ opens fire.
 	Its heavy bolters spit flame, carving into the line of Firstborn. The missile gunner is cut in half, bolts blasting from his back to splatter against Idra’s chest armour. Both of them fall, as the tank advances, its engine impossibly loud. The bolters seek Firstborn flesh, tearing into the wounded, their white bandages overflowing with red.
 	‘Blood for the Blood God!’ Haskel howls. The tank’s guns keep blazing.
 	Idra struggles up from beneath the dead gunner. She hoists the missile launcher. The tank is almost upon her. It is so close that there is no need to aim. She pulls the trigger.
 	The missile whooshes out, flames enveloping her, the explosion turning the entire world red.
 	Silence.
 	There is a soft, high-pitched whine in her ears, red before her eyes.
 	She’s on her back, pain lacerating through her.
 	Faint screams cut through the silence.
 	Idra blinks. The world snaps back into focus. Haskel stands a few yards from her, on the other side of the burning Leman Russ. His uniform is ripped, his naked flesh thicker than any skin has a right to be, sliced into geometric slabs, red scar tissue visible between them, obscene symbols carved into them. He hoists one of Idra’s wounded into the air with one hand, slams him into the ground, breaks his back. Hacks the Crystal Sword into the dying man in passing.
 	The hand holding the ancient power sword is crowned by long, black claws. Budding horns adorn the major’s head. His blue tongue stretches below his chin. Whatever Jorun Haskel is, it is no longer human. More interested in killing than in winning, indeed.
 	Fear of the monster battles the rage in Idra’s heart, crushing her questions between them. What manner of disease can turn a Firstborn hero into a beast like this? She tries to push the thought away, is frozen in indecision.
 	The Firstborn around Idra cringe, waver. Idra wants to shout them forward, wants to lift her lasgun and fire upon the thing, but her legs shake, her arms refuse to move. Calling upon the aid of the Throne, she lifts the lasgun, but it refuses to fire. Around her, the Vostroyan line breaks.
 	Haskel is stalking the Firstborn. Their las-blasts can’t touch him, flying past him or scorching him with no more effect than las-trainers. A Firstborn dies beneath Haskel’s sword, the man’s head rolling away, a surprised expression on its face. Haskel slides down the pile of rubble, reaches for his next victim.
 	Lokhov.
 	The sergeant swings his sword-bayonet, but the major parries, his powered blade slicing through the common steel of the sergeant’s weapon. The major lifts his sword over his head.
 	Idra bellows. She hurls her lasgun at Haskel, the stock bouncing off his head. The monster turns, rage dripping off Haskel like sweat. 
 	‘Lieutenant,’ he says. The sound of his voice makes Idra’s skin crawl. It goes beyond gravel and glass; it is the crunch of bones among splintered steel. No human throat can produce a sound like that.
 	‘You threw away your gun,’ Haskel says. He’s stalking her, his legs bending in the wrong direction. The Crystal Sword hums, flickering between black and red.
 	‘I don’t need a gun,’ Idra says. Her side bleeds. She’s backing up, searching for a weapon.
 	All she has is her knife.
 	Ekaterina stands poised. Everything is clear in her mind. Her back is to the abyss, her front to Babayev.
 	‘This is treason,’ she says. ‘The Emperor will curse you.’
 	‘The Emperor,’ says Babayev, ‘doesn’t want women among His Firstborn.’
 	His sword is a low-born’s blade, poor quality. It will probably break when he stabs her.
 	‘You could have let things be,’ Babayev says. ‘But no.’
 	‘Captain Twarienko will punish you,’ Ekaterina says. ‘It is the duty of the faithful–’
 	‘The lord hetman will be happy,’ Babayev says. ‘I see how he looks at you. Maybe he’ll make me a voyarin. A poor boy becoming a voyarin, eh?’
 	Ekaterina searches for a way to charge, to disarm Babayev, but they have trained together. He has enough respect for her to be careful, pushing her towards the edge, sliding step by sliding step.
 	Her foot reaches the edge, her heel hanging in the air.
 	‘Nowhere to run,’ says Babayev. He’s grinning. He lifts his sword for a killing stroke.
 	Ekaterina throws her knife.
 	The knife leaves Lieutenant Idra’s hand with all the power she can muster. It flies true, burying itself in Haskel’s throat.
 	He grins.
 	‘Good,’ he says, his voice rasping worse than ever. ‘You are a killer.’
 	‘You are a traitor,’ Idra says.
 	‘I am strong!’ Haskel bellows. ‘I am Vostroya’s honour. I am blood and death.’
 	He stops, fingers Idra’s knife in his throat. Tries to pull it out, but it’s stuck in the hard, red folds of his too-thick skin.
 	‘You lack the power,’ he says. ‘Think of what you could do if you had the strength.’
 	‘The Emperor is my strength,’ Idra says, but her voice shakes.
 	She’s climbing, scrambling backward as Haskel steps towards her. A steelspine stalking a meat-rat.
 	In the street, below the ruins of the factorum she’s climbing, Idra’s troops are fighting Haskel’s giant. The man is cleaving them with his axe, shrugging off lasgun hits. The axe moves with his hand, is his hand, the blackened steel part of his flesh, the blade a great upside-down cone, like the markings on Haskel’s flesh.
 	‘Join me,’ says Haskel. ‘You have the will. Think of what you could do with the strength. Think of the enemies of Vostroya, dying by your hand.’
 	‘The Emperor is my will,’ says Idra. ‘He is my strength and my protection.’
 	Her hand lands on a smooth stone, a piece of a cracked Imperial eagle. She grabs the aquila, a cold, heavy weight in her hand. Haskel grins, his too-many teeth sharp as daggers.
 	‘You are a killer,’ he says. ‘And the Emperor cannot protect you. But join me, and you will have the power to protect yourself. No more grovelling before disdainful officers. No more struggling while those who’d support you sit back and drink and laugh and your men die.’
 	‘You are a traitor,’ says Idra.
 	Haskel nods.
 	‘The world is full of traitors,’ he says. ‘Become one of my men, and you could be killing them by the thousands. We will purge this planet of them, no matter what uniform they wear. We will fill the void with rivers of blood and send the souls of the dead screaming into the warp.’
 	‘Heresy!’ shouts Idra.
 	‘Truth!’ growls Haskel. ‘You think the Emperor will protect you? He cannot protect you. He is a shell of a man inside a shell of a machine, and with every battle He orders, every death He causes, He’s pushing us closer to the Ruin. You think this is the path of murder? This is the path of honour, of courage, of the will to fight. This is where all roads lead, but not all roads are the same. You can choose to bathe in blood, or have others bathe in yours.’
 	‘Lies and heresy,’ says Idra, still backing away.
 	Her foot slips. She is at the top of the mound of ­rubble. Behind her gapes an abyss of broken rockcrete. There is nowhere else to go. Haskel licks his teeth. There is hunger in his expression, a terrible hunger.
 	‘The Emperor cannot protect you,’ he says. He lifts the Crystal Sword, the ruby in its grip sparkling.
 	A giant explosion rips through the Leman Russ. Haskel’s gaze darts to the flaming wreck. For a split second, his weight shifts.
 	Ekaterina Idra charges. Haskel twists, fast as a blindsnake, but she is inside his reach, lifting the piece of the aquila, slamming it into the knife caught in the folds of Haskel’s throat.
 	They fall. Two bodies tumbling down the long, jagged slope. Tumbling towards the burning Leman Russ.
 	Idra lands dazed, her hand closing on the warm grip of an active power sword.
 	A bellow of rage chases the fog from her mind. Haskel’s giant.
 	The man charges, his axe trailing gore. But as he closes, Idra twists aside, lifts the Crystal Sword. It shears clear through the giant’s massive bulk, spilling black blood onto the stones. The giant falls. Behind Idra comes a rasping laugh.
 	The laugh turns into a cough, then a gasp. Major Haskel is lying on his side, legs and arms bent at unnatural angles, Idra’s knife buried deep in his throat, its tip protruding from the back of the major’s neck. Still, he does not die.
 	‘I serve the Emperor,’ says Idra. She walks over to the major, lifts the Crystal Sword.
 	‘For the Emperor, and Vostroya,’ she says.
 	A look of regret passes over the major’s face. His tongue twitches.
 	‘For Vostroya,’ he whispers. The sword comes down.
 	Ekaterina’s men stand in a huddle around the corpse. She kicks Babayev’s sword over the edge. Stares at her recruits.
 	‘You will,’ she says, ‘khekking move when I say you move. Now pick that traitor up, and khekking move.’
 	They move.
 	There are no Tovogans left in Dolemino. The town is silent but for the whispers of the Firstborn as they collect their dead.
 	‘Idra,’ her men whisper. ‘Ekaterina Idra. Blessed. Blessed by the Emperor.’
 	As Lieutenant Ekaterina Idra helps her men gather the multitude of dead, she does not feel blessed.
 	Her bed is hard. Her weapons locker has been removed. The image of the Throne, the Emperor radiant upon it, still hangs on her wall. The Treatis Elatii lies open in Idra’s lap, but she’s too distracted to read. Besides, she knows most of it by heart. 
 	At least they’ve let her out of the cell.
 	The door opens. For a moment, she thinks it’s Lokhov. But no, it’s the commissar. She strides into the room, a presence of black upon black, her pale face hidden in the shadows beneath her black cap. She speaks without preamble, her voice hard as ice.
 	‘You disobeyed your superior officer,’ she says. ‘And killed him.’ It is a statement, not a question.
 	Idra nods. The stitches in her side have come out, but moving still hurts. She’ll be damned if she shows it to this non-Vostroyan, though. So she snaps to attention, ignoring the jab of pain in her ribs.
 	‘No excuses?’ the commissar asks.
 	‘He was a traitor,’ Idra says.
 	‘How did you know?’ says the commissar. ‘Before you saw him at Dolemino.’
 	‘He was more interested in killing than in winning,’ Idra says. She’s told the story before.
 	The commissar barks a short laugh. If a bolter could laugh, this would be the sound.
 	‘Killing is what we do, lieutenant,’ she says.
 	‘We kill for the Emperor,’ says Idra.
 	‘That we do,’ the commissar says. She smiles, a faint glimmer of teeth beneath the shadowy brim of her hat. ‘Very well, lieutenant, the investigation has proven your story. You are freed from suspicion, although I dare say you have made a fool of a number of highly ranked men, and rank seldom appreciates being wrong.’
 	She turns to leave, but Idra stops her.
 	‘May I have my knife back?’ she says, and the commissar grins a feral grin. She hands Idra’s knife back to her, hilt first.
 	‘And I believe,’ the commissar says, ‘that this is yours by right of conquest.’
 	She lifts the Crystal Sword. The Eye of the Eagle glimmers like blood.
 	The Tear of Saint Nadalya stands on the launch pad, a big, black, ugly ship, swallowing hordes of Firstborn in crisp red uniforms. Ekaterina Idra shoulders her pack. This is the ship that will take her to the Imperial Navy ship Blessing of Mars, which will transport them to another world. To fight for the Emperor.
 	A man blocks her path, a familiar face looking down on her.
 	‘Captain,’ Ekaterina Idra says.
 	‘Lieutenant,’ Captain Twarienko replies.
 	They stand there, windblown flakes of ash scattering across the launch pad, the old campaigner and the fresh graduate.
 	‘Captain,’ says Idra. ‘Why did you defend my actions before the commissar?’
 	Twarienko twists his moustache.
 	‘Colonel Sebastev,’ he says, smiling at Idra’s confusion.
 	‘Sebastev was the first low-born to gain a field commission and survive to return to Vostroya,’ Twarienko says. ‘A good commander, too, and skilled tactician, for all of him being low-born. Now there’s been a score of them. Who knows, maybe there will be a score of female Firstborn one day.’
 	‘Do you think so, sir?’ asks Idra. She fingers the Idrov knife at her belt. There is no need to remind the captain of what the other Firstborn think of her.
 	‘If the Emperor wills it,’ says Twarienko and stretches to attention. ‘Stand to!’ he says, and throws her a salute.
 	Lieutenant Ekaterina Idra returns it with a smile.