THE WEIGHT OF SILVER


 	Steven B Fischer


 	We liked Steven B Fischer so much that we invited him back to Inferno!. In this volume, Steven provides an emotional story that revolves around a platoon of survivors of the Cadian catastrophe. Showing us what it’s like for a new commander to lead these insular veterans, Steven’s descriptive writing and immersive atmosphere create a sense of consequence to every moment.

 
 
 	 
 


 	The body lying still in the dirt may have once been human, but there was little left to mark it as such, aside from the mangled remnants of a man’s face, sun-darkened and wrinkled and now caked in blood.
 	Lieutenant Glavia Aerand stood over the corpse, eyes ­tracing the tattered remains of its heavy, brown tunic to the broken limbs and gouged torso beneath. Her helmet’s lumen flooded the pool of blood beside the body, already grown thick and dark in the chill mountain night, and something flickered in what was left of the man’s calloused hand.
 	Aerand knelt as dark forms circled around her, the deep-green flak armour of her platoon a ring of ghosts in the night. As she reached down and lifted the small piece of metal, a gruff voice echoed behind her.
 	‘It’s silver,’ Sergeant Roderick Olemark whispered, his violet eyes flickering above the hoarfrost in his beard. ‘The locals believe silver can ward off cultists and the warp-taint they carry.’
 	Olemark was one of the few in their formation familiar with the planet. He’d come to Ourea nearly three years ago with the Cadian 873rd – before the slow bleed of counter­insurgency and desertion cost the unit nearly all of its soldiers and the 900th absorbed the remainder when they landed a few days ago.
 	Aerand rose awkwardly in her dark, heavy armour, trying to hide the difficulty of the gesture. She was still adjusting to the mountain world’s harsh gravity, but she’d be damned if anyone knew how much her legs burned after only a short patrol.
 	She dropped the metal trinket into her palm, its design crude but unmistakable – an armoured figure, wreathed in blistering sunlight. The Emperor of Mankind sat glorified on Holy Terra hundreds of light years away, but even here His hymns and prayers were sung. Even here He shielded human minds from the warp.
 	‘You don’t seem to share their confidence,’ Aerand replied, returning the effigy to the corpse’s hand.
 	Olemark chuckled, then patted his lasgun. ‘This is the only metal I trust to stop a heretic.’
 	There was a subtle condescension in his voice that grated on Aerand like the new, stiff boots tearing her feet apart. At first she had thought it was Olemark alone, or that his patronizing was directed only at her. Maybe because she was young. Maybe because this was her first command. Maybe because most people who heard her name assumed she’d gotten where she was on the coattails of her father.
 	But it wasn’t any of those things. There was a sense of superiority among all the veterans, and truth be told, she couldn’t fault them for it. Olemark and his men knew more about this planet than she ever would – knowledge they’d earned through misery and bloodshed. To make an issue of their arrogance would only sow dissention and alienate the few experts she badly needed.
 	Aerand motioned for the platoon to advance, and forty sparks of light drifted forward through the trees.
 	Corwyn, Delaver, Maltia, Artus. She knew the names and stories of every trooper around her. She’d made certain of that on the voyage to Ourea, because if her father had taught her any lesson, it was this: her soldiers were willing to fight for the Emperor, but few would die for anyone other than their comrades. But she didn’t know Olemark and his grizzled veterans, and that unsettled her nearly as much as the steep ridgelines around her or the dim glow of firelight in the valley below.
 	Up ahead, between the silhouettes of jagged, titanic mountains, a cluster of buildings was burning. Aerand motioned for the platoon to halt, and unfurled a crude, bulky map from the case across her shoulders.
 	‘Haggerty Homestead,’ Olemark mumbled as he strode past, the orange glow of the flames bathing his scar-crossed face. ‘Save you the time searching around on the map.’
 	Aerand bit her tongue and made a point of locating the small complex anyway. No other settlements nearby. No known cultist hideouts for miles. She turned to the young trooper beside her and pointed to the vox-caster strapped to his back. ‘Let headquarters know we’re investigating, Maresh. I’ll report back once we find something.’
 	Dead foliage and loose stones ground beneath Aerand’s feet as she descended the steep incline, squads fanning out in a crescent around her. This was a standard cordon manoeuvre – one she’d forced her platoon to rehearse hundreds of times – but even so, she felt her breath grow rapid. She was no Whiteshield anymore, and this was her first chance to prove it.
 	The complex had been built from wood and stone, a carryover from the time before Imperial voidcraft brought rockrete and machines to this world. In the centre of the valley, a large building was burning, smaller cottages already reduced to ash. No simple accident could have caused such a blaze, and there would be no survivors, she was certain of that.
 	A beam in the main building settled with a crash as her platoon strode past like smoke-shrouded shadows. In the light of the sparks it threw into the air, Aerand spotted a cluster of charred bodies ahead.
 	Fifteen, maybe twenty, mangled and marred like the man in the forest. As she neared, a strange apprehension grew inside her, the skin along her back prickling with unease. Aerand paused and surveyed the macabre scene as her soldiers pushed forward to clear the complex.
 	It was clear once she’d drawn closer that the bodies hadn’t been randomly scattered – they were arranged in a deliberate pattern. Eight gory rays extended from a central circle, a single naked body at its centre, less mutilated, but more disturbing than the rest.
 	‘Terra save us,’ Corwyn muttered as he led his squad past, crossing his arms in the sign of the aquila amid unsettled glances from his soldiers.
 	Aerand knelt in the wavering firelight and stared at the young woman. Across her chest and stomach, a symbol had been etched into the woman’s pale flesh – a twisting teardrop like a tongue of flame.
 	As Aerand stared at the pattern, an inexplicable horror washed over her. She’d seen her share of corpses, many mutilated far beyond this, but there was something obscene in the mark itself, even ignoring the way it had been fashioned. The scent of burning metal and rotting flesh replaced the odour of smoke in the air, and the taste of bile and blood rose in her throat. When she reached to cover the corpse with the torn cloak beside it, the young woman’s eyes snapped open and the sound of gunfire rang out from the ridge.
 	The roar of weapons and shouting voices split the night like a peal of thunder, and bursts of lasfire rained down towards her platoon. Aerand tried to tear herself away from the body, but found she could not look away from its empty, black eyes.
 	A rough hand shook her shoulder, Olemark’s voice towering over the sea of hushed whispers that had suddenly filled her mind.
 	‘Lieutenant!’ the sergeant shouted, shouldering his lasgun and laying into the trigger. ‘How do you want us to engage?’
 	Aerand stared at his face and the flashes of lasfire from his weapon. Beside him, Corwyn and Delaver crouched, pouring rounds into the dark trees.
 	Lieutenant,’ Corwyn shouted, the gold chevrons on his shoulder gleaming red in the firelight. ‘Fix and flank?’
 	Aerand opened her mouth to reply but couldn’t form the words. She looked back at the corpse, its black eyes fully open, the symbol on its chest reaching out through the night.
 	‘Throne,’ Olemark grumbled. ‘She’s shell-shocked already.’ He turned to the soldiers beside him, as Aerand struggled against the shackles on her voice. ‘Can’t be more than half a dozen up there. Keep your squads behind what’s left of the buildings and lay down suppressive fire. My troopers will flank up the draw.’
 	His troopers, not hers.
 	‘And someone send a medicae to grab the lieutenant! If she gets herself shot, you know they’ll blame it on us.’
 	Desperation rose in Aerand’s mind as her platoon streamed out into the night. She should be with them. She should be leading them. But for some terrible reason, her body wouldn’t listen. Instead, her eyes darted between the woman in the dirt and the ridgeline above, the same dark repulsion tethering her to both.
 	Aerand blinked as two medicaes rushed up beside her.
 	‘Lieutenant,’ Artus whispered, pulling a bioscanner from his pack and running it across her body. ‘We need to get you out of here.’ He shook his head as the readout came back blank.
 	In the darkness of the forest, the lumens of Olemark’s squad flashed like shooting stars, streaking up towards the sound of weapons fire on the ridgeline. The taste of rust grew stronger in Aerand’s mouth, the prickling of her skin now a veritable frenzy. ‘Fifth squad engaging,’ Olemark growled over the vox.
 	A moment later, the ridgeline flashed bright with lasfire and the explosions of well-placed frag grenades. The roar of rifle reports swelled like a wave, then drifted slowly away until only the crackling of flames echoed through the valley.
 	‘The heretics are dead,’ Olemark called, then continued in a sullen whisper, ‘As are two of ours.’
 	Aerand’s breath fell from her lungs. Two of her soldiers, dead, against a force they outnumbered nearly ten to one. The ringing in her ears began to fade, and the taste in her mouth slowly evaporated, replaced by a horrible weight in her chest.
 	‘Who?’ she asked, blinking and staring at the body beside her.
 	Olemark spoke the names of the dead troopers over the vox, but Aerand was too numb to understand anything but the anger in his voice. She reached down and grasped the tunic from the dirt, throwing it over the woman and the sigil on her chest.
 	The woman’s eyes were not black. The woman’s eyes were not open. They had never been.
 	Hours later, Aerand struggled to shake that moment from her mind as she marched beside her soldiers along a narrow mountain path. Apex Inruptus loomed tall on the mountainside ahead, the dark, jagged towers of the ancient fortress climbing like knives into the bleeding horizon, casting their shadows over the high mountain pass. For centuries this valley had been one of Ourea’s vital arteries, allowing caravans of livestock, then hulking, smoke-laden machines to bear timber and stone through the treacherous mountains. For the past decade that flow had been choked to a trickle, replaced by endless Astra Militarum convoys shuttling fuel and ammunition from one harried encampment to another.
 	Her platoon stretched beside her like a twisting, black river, Olemark’s veteran squad at the fore, bearing the bodies of Karletti and Vaughn on salvaged boards from the homestead. Aerand had hardly known either trooper, but they had been her soldiers, if only for a few days. And now they were dead because of her.
 	Her eyes met Olemark’s as she walked beside the formation – his expression was pure ice. His doubts had been muffled before, but she could scarcely imagine how his veterans must feel now that she had confirmed them. How her own soldiers must feel to know their leader had failed them in their first real trial.
 	For the first time in her life, she was glad her father was no longer alive. Glad he wouldn’t have to know how badly she had let him down. She’d been only a child when he died beside his regiment, holding Kasr Kraf as Cadia fell, all so that a few more transports could reach the evacuation zone. All so that she could reach the evacuation zone. It would break his heart to know this was how she’d repaid him.
 	Aerand trudged up the slope, the burning in her feet long since faded into numbness, dwarfed by the guilt that gripped her chest and stole her breath. The feeling only grew as she crossed the narrow bridge to Apex’s western gate, hardly noticing the mind-numbing chasm below. The thick, stone doors ground slowly apart, opening to a courtyard blanketed in thin snow.
 	Colonel Yarin waited within, her face drawn into a steely grimace as she stared at the pair of corpses leading Aerand’s platoon. Behind her, a field chirurgeon took one look at the ice on Vaughn and Karletti’s pale skin and packed his instruments back into a row of blood-stained crates.
 	‘Colonel,’ Aerand began, as Olemark’s squad laid their morbid cargo down onto the cold stone. ‘Let me–’
 	‘Stop,’ Yarin replied, her short, greying hair fluttering in the stiff, mountain wind. ‘See to your dead first, then meet me in my quarters. You can explain then.’
 	Aerand nodded and turned back to her platoon. In the centre of the courtyard, Olemark knelt beside Karletti and Vaughn, pulling an old, faded flag from deep within his pack. Cadia’s golden pillars glimmered on a crimson sea, the original standard of the 873rd. Slowly, he tore two strips from the fraying fabric and laid them over the corpses’ eyes.
 	This wasn’t the same ritual the 900th practiced, but Aerand recognized its significance well enough. She had been born on Cadia. She had stared into the Eye of Terror and felt its heavy gaze staring back. Karletti and Vaughn had spent most of their lives looking into that madness, and now in death, they were finally free.
 	Olemark’s squad gathered around him and lifted the two bodies from the snow, bearing them back towards Apex’s gate.
 	‘They’ve carried that weight far enough, alone,’ Corwyn said, stepping up beside Aerand. ‘The least we can do is help.’
 	She shook her head. ‘I think our help is the last thing they want right now. Take the platoon back to the barracks and give them some rest.’
 	As Olemark’s squad carried the bodies through the gate, Aerand followed. She had seen men and women die before. Throne, she’d killed her fair share during her years as a Whiteshield. But this was the first time she’d stared at her comrades’ corpses and known their deaths rested on her. Her troopers’ lives were her single greatest weapon, and she had just squandered two of them.
 	Aerand stood at a distance on the narrow stone bridge as Olemark and his squad lifted their comrades, then dropped them over the ledge. Bitter wind whipped up from the chasm as the corpses fell, vanishing into the shadow of the mountain fortress. In months, they would be nothing but bone. In years, nothing but dust. In centuries that dust would become one with the mountain and the fortress both men had died to defend.
 	Aerand nodded as Olemark returned to the fortress ahead of his squad. He brushed hard against her shoulder. 
 	‘Why don’t you step aside, lieutenant? Before anyone else gets killed.’
 	Aerand opened her mouth to reply, before her voice was drowned out by the sound of the wind.
 	‘I don’t know what it was, sir,’ Aerand confessed, as Yarin paced behind her crude desk. The colonel’s office had been an ammo depot only two days before, and a servo-skull twittered over a stack of papers atop the crates and shell boxes clustered at the centre of the room. Yarin’s face was drawn up into its customary scowl, the look somehow even more rigid than usual.
 	‘I’ve been through dozens of battles. Nothing like this has ever happened before.’
 	‘And you’ve never been in command during a single one,’ Yarin replied. ‘It’s different when you’re making the decisions. When there are others’ lives resting in your hands.’
 	Aerand couldn’t deny that, but it hadn’t felt like fear or panic – she’d learned to master those sins when she was just a child.
 	Yarin leaned against a thin, slit window, staring into the snow falling on Apex’s battlements. ‘Frankly, I don’t care what it was. I care that it crippled you in the middle of combat and forced your senior sergeant to take over command.’
 	‘It won’t happen again, sir.’
 	‘No. It certainly won’t.’
 	As she uttered the words, a shadow crept over the room, and Aerand turned to see a massive form in the doorway. Her father had fought with the Adeptus Astartes on Cadia, and he’d told her stories of the Emperor’s Angels when she was young, but seeing one in person was another thing entirely.
 	Slowly, the behemoth stepped into the room, his steps nearly silent, despite the fact his dark-grey power armour dwarfed both Aerand and the colonel. On his chestplate, the aquila shone in blood-red, mirrored on his shoulder by a crimson skull bearing lightning wings.
 	‘Colonel.’
 	The voice that spilled from the Space Marine’s dark helmet seemed not entirely human, its cold, rocky tenor as unyielding as the mountains outside. Aerand wondered how long the Space Marine had stood there, and how much of her stumbling conversation he’d heard.
 	Even Yarin seemed shaken by his presence, her confident demeanour shifting to something more guarded.
 	‘My lord,’ she replied, before turning to Aerand. ‘The Storm Wings have come to lead the push to retake Ourea. Across the planet, they will be leading key assaults against the cultists and traitors.’
 	The red slits of the Space Marine’s eyes fell across Aerand. ‘Indeed.’
 	‘Scouting patrols from Guard convoys have reported a group of cultists not far from here,’ Yarin continued. ‘Amassing in numbers we’ve not seen before, and converging on the spaceport at Noravis Opum. I don’t need to tell you how crippling it would be to lose one of the largest loyal settlements in the region.’
 	‘At nightfall, Lord Tarvarius will lead the 900th in a counter-attack to destroy this army, crushing the cultist threat in the region. You and your platoon will stay behind to secure Apex Inruptus against any retaliation.’
 	Aerand’s shoulders fell as her breath escaped her. Relegated to nothing but glorified guard duty. This was the single most important operation of the war and her platoon was going to be left behind. She had made a mistake. She had lost the colonel’s confidence. She could accept that. But her platoon was one of the best in the regiment, and there was no reason to punish her soldiers for her failings. She nearly began to protest before Yarin continued.
 	‘Commissar Burdain will accompany the main regiment on the mission, but when she returns there will be a full investigation into last night’s ambush.’
 	Aerand’s mind spun, as if she could suddenly feel the weight of the mountain above her head pushing down onto her shoulders.
 	‘Do you know why I chose you for command, lieutenant?’ Yarin asked. ‘Why, of all the young recruits, I selected you?’
 	Of course Aerand knew. It was the same reason she’d been chosen for anything in her life.
 	Colonel Regus Aerand had been a hero – it stood to reason his daughter must be, too. ‘Because of my father.’
 	For a moment, the colonel seemed to forget the titan standing beside her, because her expression almost crept into a smile. ‘In spite of him. I served with your father on Cadia and Rusk. He was a brave man and his soldiers loved him deeply, but he was arrogant and rash. I chose you because you seemed to be neither, and I hope I did not make a mistake.’
 	Aerand knelt on the dusty chapel floor, staring up at the statue at the front of the nave and mouthing the words of a whispered prayer.
 	‘My Emperor, forgive me, for I have failed you. My Emperor, forgive me, for I have failed myself. I have forgotten your light and wavered before the darkness. I have forgotten your strength and stumbled on your path. I ask not for mercy, but only redemption, that I may prove myself true in the battles to come.’
 	Dim light streamed through the building’s stained windows, bathing the image of the Emperor in a multi-hued glow. He always appeared fearless. An image that demanded obedience and respect. Aerand stared at her own hands, knotted in prayer, and wondered if He had ever felt the same doubt she felt now.
 	Olemark’s words rang like knives in her ears, spat so bitterly over the bodies of her dead soldiers. She could not step down, but maybe she should step aside. Olemark and his veterans had been on this planet for years. They knew its people, and their enemy, better than anyone else. And what did she know? How to lock up during battle and get her troopers killed.
 	Aerand sighed, and across the room a massive form emerged from the shadow of a soaring pillar.
 	‘There is desperation in your prayers,’ Tarvarius remarked. ‘That is good. We should all be desperate for deliverance from the evil that stalks this galaxy.’
 	The Space Marine was still adorned in his grey ceramite armour, but he cradled his helmet in one massive arm. His eyes, the colour of ink, watched her with careful determination, two black pools set against ghost-pale skin like dark stones rising from the snow-capped mountains outside. Aerand nodded. But it wasn’t just desperation she felt, it was guilt, and fear, and doubt, as well.
 	The Adeptus Astartes dropped to his knees beside her in a motion that made the chapel tremble. As he knelt, his eyes fell onto the image of the Emperor, and his lips mumbled a silent phrase.
 	‘I thought you didn’t worship Him, my lord?’ Aerand asked softly, pausing for a moment as she remembered who it was that knelt beside her. ‘At least not the same way we do.’
 	Tarvarius nodded slowly, surveying the arches and altar around him. ‘I do not need to believe He is a god in order to find comfort in the ritual of prayer, or to find peace and guidance in His holy places.’ He was silent for some time, then continued, ‘You saw something out there. Something that shook you more deeply than the others.’
 	Aerand pursed her lips, regretting opening her mouth, but unable to stop now. ‘And two of my soldiers are dead because of it.’
 	A muffled sound escaped Tarvarius, what she might have believed was a chuckle if produced by anyone else. ‘You say that as if it is some great evil.’
 	He motioned with a coal-grey gauntlet to the panes of stained glass surrounding the chapel, cluttered with bleeding bodies and wounded heroes.
 	‘Soldiers die,’ he said. ‘That is why we exist. It is our greatest service to the Emperor, and the greatest honour for one of his servants. If I led your entire regiment to death tonight, I would consider it no great loss in the grand weight of his galaxy.’
 	Aerand shifted uneasily. She had heard these words before, or words close enough to them from the mouth of her father. Your soldiers’ lives are your most valuable weapons. You cannot be afraid to use them.
 	‘But they didn’t have to die,’ she replied. ‘They died because I made a mistake. They died because of me.’
 	Tarvarius nodded, reaching his gauntleted hands around his neck and pulling out a chain of thick, dark iron links. He held the chain before him, then set it gently in Aerand’s hands.
 	Her arms nearly buckled with the weight of the metal, but holding it closer, she saw that each link had been crafted in the shape of two interlocking talons, like birds of prey bound in combat. Aerand winced as one link dug into her palm, the razor talon drawing a thin streak of blood. Only then did she notice the row of pale scars lining the Adeptus Astartes’ neck.
 	‘Do you know what this is?’ he asked, his voice quiet but dangerous, like a storm about to break.
 	Aerand shook her head.
 	‘This is a record of my Chapter’s failures, forged on our home world of Eyrie.’ Tarvarius took the chain from her shaking hands, running his fingers across each time-worn link. ‘One link for every battle we have lost. One for every mission we have failed to accomplish.’
 	The Space Marine paused upon a single, ancient ring, time-eaten and tarnished, but larger than all the rest. ‘When our primarch Corvus Corax led the Raven Guard against the heretic Horus, he stumbled into a trap that killed nearly all of our brothers. We were almost purged from the galaxy, and Corax fled in disgrace. It was millennia before the Raven Guard and their successors recovered from his departure. Centuries more before we learned to embrace our failings as strength rather than weakness.’
 	Tarvarius replaced the chain onto his broad, scarred shoulders. ‘Your past is either a shackle or an inspiration. You will make mistakes. And your soldiers will die for them.’
 	He pointed a massive finger towards the gleaming silver bar inlaid on her shoulder guard. ‘But that is the weight of the silver on your shoulders. That is the weight of the iron on mine. The Emperor has no perfect servants, and so he must make do with broken ones like us.’
 	Slowly, with unexpected grace, the living war machine rose and strode towards the door. ‘Say your prayers, lieutenant, but do not linger on your knees. Your Emperor needs your leadership more than your repentance.’
 	Olemark’s glaring eyes flashed in Aerand’s vision. ‘What if I lead and they don’t follow, my lord?’
 	‘Then move alone,’ the Space Marine replied.
 	From the portico along the citadel’s western wall, Aerand watched a storm roll into the valley. Somewhere beyond the black clouds and peals of thunder, the Cadian 900th was closing in on its target. She should have been with them – her soldiers should have been with them – but instead, they lingered here.
 	Aerand reached her hand out from beneath the ancient shelter, drops of half-frozen rain splattering into her palm. She shivered slightly as she surveyed the fortress before her. Apex Inruptus had stood for a thousand years, built in the dark ages before the Imperium returned to Ourea in order to secure one of the few passable routes through the titanic summits that blanketed the planet. As she studied its pinnacled, razor walls, nestled into the mountain like just one more peak, she knew it would stand for a thousand more, regardless if anyone remained inside to defend it.
 	In the three soaring towers along Apex’s outer wall, squads held vigil beneath needle-like spires, pairs of soldiers manning the autoguns mounted within. Twelve troopers to watch the narrow mountain pass, while the rest of her platoon took shelter inside.
 	As she stared into the approaching storm, a flash of lightning struck a high peak nearby, toppling snow and stone into the valley below. When the light faded, Aerand felt the hair on her neck rise, her skin prickling just as it had the night before.
 	She took a deep breath and willed her racing heart to slow. Had she become so fragile that even a simple storm could leave her on the brink of terror?
 	Aerand sighed and turned back towards the barracks, but as she passed beneath the portico, two dark forms hurried down the corridor towards her.
 	‘Lieutenant,’ Corwyn said, ‘Lord Tarvarius is calling with word from the regiment.’ Beside him, Maresh held out the receiver attached to the vox-caster on his back.
 	Aerand nodded. If Tarvarius was reporting back, that meant the battle was already won. She should have been relieved, but instead, a wave of trepidation washed over her.
 	‘They are gone,’ Tarvarius said the moment she lifted the receiver.
 	‘Praise the Throne,’ Aerand replied, feeling anything but joyful.
 	‘You mishear,’ said Tarvarius, the first hint of something other than confidence in his tone. ‘Your intelligence was deceived. We have scoured the sector and there are no cultists here. What is your status?’
 	As he spoke, the prickling along Aerand’s neck grew, memories of the night before washing over her like a wave. Her mind spun with a sudden imbalance, and the taste of bile rose in her throat. Suddenly, the air smelled of smoke, and her arms grew heavy as she raised the transmitter to her lips.
 	‘Fine,’ she whispered.
 	But they were not fine – she was suddenly confident of that. The cultist army had not simply vanished; if they’d abandoned Noravis Opum, it was for some other target. A target like the fortress she currently held.
 	Tarvarius broke back through the static. ‘Are you certain?’
 	Aerand heard her breath begin to race, shallow and rapid like the night before. Her armour settled heavy on her shoulders as Corwyn stared at her, confused, untouched by the terror that burned through her bones.
 	But it wasn’t just terror she felt anymore. Something even stronger grew beside her fear. She was angry and determined. Whatever was coming, she would meet it this time.
 	‘No,’ Aerand replied. ‘But it will be.’
 	‘You feel it,’ Tarvarius said. Not a question, but a statement. ‘The same presence as during the ambush.’
 	She paused. If she said yes and was wrong, she’d be a fool once again. If she said yes and was right, that could mean something even worse.
 	‘I do,’ she replied, staring at the soaring citadel above her head. Apex Inruptus had not fallen in a thousand years, and she would not let it tonight.
 	There was silence, then a muttered curse over the vox as Colonel Yarin shouted orders in the background.
 	‘We are coming,’ Tarvarius replied. ‘Hold the fortress.’
 	The door slammed open before Aerand, Corwyn and Maresh stumbling in at her heels. Soldiers lingered throughout the barracks, most lying on bed rolls cleaning dusty lasguns or checking power packs before it was their turn to hold watch.
 	It was obvious, now that she could see it. Noravis Opum had never been the cultists’ true goal. The settlement was exposed, practically indefensible, vulnerable from both the ground and the air. Even if the cultists had captured the spaceport, they never could have held it. But if their feint allowed them to take Apex Inruptus, they could cut off reinforce­ments and resupply from Noravis to a dozen other settlements, then take any they wished after starving them to the bone.
 	‘All bodies on the wall in five minutes,’ she called. ‘Full battle gear and loadouts, ready to fight.’
 	As Aerand stormed into the room, they should have risen to attention. Instead, the few closest to the door stood slowly and leaned up against the wall while the rest continued their business, unbothered. In the back of the room, circled around steaming rations, Olemark and his veterans stared at her, unimpressed.
 	‘The sky is falling out there,’ Olemark replied, turning back to polish his lasgun’s barrel. ‘If you wanted to get the rest of us killed, you could find a faster way to do it than making us catch rot.’
 	Aerand bristled at the contempt in his voice. She could make a show of force. She could shout or fire her laspistol into the ceiling. Throne, she could drag those still sitting onto their feet and demand at gunpoint they show her the respect her rank merited. But what good would that do? She had lost their trust, though she desperately needed it now, and no amount of anger could bring that back.
 	‘I made a mistake,’ Aerand said, her voice cool and level. Her father may have been brash, but he understood his soldiers, and for those who were accustomed to screams and berating, a quiet tone was often harder to ignore.
 	Never let a failure hide, because they have a way of growing in the shadows, and if you let a mistake fester long enough, you may find it has rooted too deep to correct.
 	‘I made a mistake last night and two of us are dead because of it.’
 	Throughout the room, all eyes turned towards her, the exhausted, dirty faces of her soldiers awash with frustration and lingering hope.
 	‘I don’t have an excuse for that, but I do have a reason.’ Aerand motioned to the open door behind her, where rain and lightning poured down in a deluge, out on the saw-toothed peaks and plummeting valleys rising and falling like the teeth of some unholy maw.
 	‘I felt something last night – something I’ve never felt before, not on a dozen missions on half as many worlds. I’m not certain what it was, or why I alone felt it, but I feel it again tonight.’
 	Olemark scoffed. ‘What you felt was fear.’
 	Aerand’s fingers drifted slowly towards her laspistol. He was bordering on insubordination. She could kill him for that, and Throne, she wanted to.
 	But she needed Olemark. She needed his veterans. She needed every soldier in this room with their eyes locked on her every movement.
 	Violence can never ensure discipline. Executions do not inspire loyalty.
 	‘A storm is coming,’ she said resolutely. ‘Who will stand with me against it?’
 	One by one her soldiers’ gazes drifted away, and not a foot budged from their positions.
 	‘Very well,’ she muttered and stepped out into the night.
 	Aerand climbed the steep steps alone, rain drumming across her helmet and armour, seeping through to her skin and chilling her bones.
 	Her legs burned as the stairs fell away behind her, the yawning abyss at the base of Apex’s walls a constant reminder to watch where she stepped. Flashes of lightning bathed the craggy pass in light. The doubt she felt in the barracks evaporated like smoke as she inspected the dozen tired soldiers on her wall. Twelve troopers to hold the most important fortress on the planet. If the rest would not stand with her, then these would have to do.
 	As she stared out into the shadow-strewn valleys, the slow stomping of bootfalls reached her ears. She turned to see a group of green-clad figures, the dull sheen of their helmets glimmering in the rain as they ascended the dark stone stairs behind her.
 	Corwyn reached the tower first, an embarrassed smile stretching across his sun-darkened face. ‘We couldn’t let you freeze to death out here alone,’ he mumbled, then pointed to the group of soldiers behind him. ‘First squad will man the northern wall.’
 	As they passed, twelve fresh bodies took their place, Artus grasping her arm with a slight bow. ‘If you say you sense something, then we sense it, too.’
 	In piecemeal fashion, the rest of her soldiers trickled out of the barracks and took up positions along the walls, until only Olemark’s veterans remained inside. Finally, their dented, cracked armour ambled up the staircase with more grace and speed than any of the others.
 	Olemark paused before her, his eyes still sharp. There was no apology, no admission of guilt, merely the slightest of nods and a stiff salute. ‘Where do you want us?’ he asked, unflinching in the rain.
 	‘West wall,’ Aerand replied, too certain of the coming evil to make issue of his prior disrespect. Beneath her armour, her skin burned like fire, each breath laden with the scent of charred air. ‘Hold the gate and the bridge however you must.’
 	The sergeant nodded, then marched off along the rampart, rain beading silver on his helm like the stars above.
 	‘Sergeant,’ she called, staring out at the storm. ‘I think you should hurry.’
 	As she spoke, a bolt of lightning lit the canyon, arcing between dark clouds before striking the citadel’s spire. As the valley burned blue, dark forms burst from the mist, and a hail of lasfire tore through the night towards the fortress.
 	‘Incoming!’ Aerand shouted, dropping below the crenulations. The blistering volley crashed against Apex’s walls as her troopers dropped with her, some not rising again.
 	‘Return fire!’ Aerand rose to a knee and aimed her lasgun over the wall, pulling hard on the trigger.
 	Far below, a wave of bodies rushed towards the fortress, shrouded in the smoke of roaring weapons, but even at this distance she could see their enemy was well-armed and determined.
 	Beside scores of cultists, rows of silver-armoured Ourean guards marched with traitors in Imperial armour. At their head rolled three Eradicator battle tanks, patched and precarious, but functioning well enough to heave shells straight at the western gate.
 	‘Vox-caster, on me!’ Aerand bellowed over the din of the firefight, sprinting along the slick rampart and scanning the silhouettes of her soldiers for Maresh.
 	‘Corwyn,’ she roared, sliding into place beside the sergeant and pulling him back from his post by the shoulder. In the tower above them, a turret lay empty, a heavy stubber jammed between the rampart and a charred body, firing aimlessly into the valley below. ‘Get that weapon back in service.’
 	‘On it, sir,’ he called, pulling two troopers in his wake. ‘Looks like we’ll be in the fight, after all.’
 	‘Indeed,’ she replied grimly, as a salvo from the Eradicators burst against the northern wall. As she sprinted along the rampart, she spotted the chevrons of Delaver’s armour lying still on the stone in a puddle of rain. Beside him, a section of the wall had crumbled, casualties of the Eradicators’ ordnance.
 	Next to the rift, troopers poured fire at the approaching force, one bearing a corporal’s insignia on her shoulder. Their las-rounds streaked red and brilliant through the rain.
 	‘Maltia,’ Aerand shouted, crouching beside the corporal. ‘Where the hell is the rest of second squad?’
 	‘You’re looking at it.’ Maltia pointed her weapon over the precarious ledge. A cluster of bodies lay broken on the rocks in the valley below, Maresh’s vox shattered beneath his still form.
 	‘Throne,’ Aerand swore.
 	The oncoming swarm was now close enough to see clearly, but far too large to count. A group of scarcely clad men and women surged forward ahead of the main assault, crude weapons in their hands and madness in their eyes.
 	From the turret above, Corwyn’s stubber dropped dozens in seconds, but the rest did not slow. It was only then that Aerand noticed the symbol carved across one man’s chest. The same flame and eye she’d seen at the homestead.
 	An image of the dead woman’s open, black eyes flashed into her mind, that same weight returning to her limbs. Maltia stared in confusion while her soldiers’ weapons roared out into the night.
 	‘Any orders, sir?’
 	Aerand’s mind raced with a sudden terror. Not again. Not now. Not when they needed her more than any moment in her life.
 	She froze and stared down at the weapon in her hands. A thin streak of blood rolled down the handle of her lasgun, from the spot on her palm where Tarvarius’ chain had bled her.
 	The Emperor has no perfect servants. So he must make do with broken ones like us.
 	Aerand breathed deeply and snapped her eyes back to Maltia. ‘Aye,’ she replied. ‘Hold this damned wall, and make those heretics sorry they came here tonight.’
 	‘Will do, sir,’ Maltia replied with a grin.
 	Aerand darted towards the north gate as two missiles blazed from the tanks along the path, crashing into the gatehouse, and shaking its massive stone doors. Atop the building, Olemark ran between his soldiers – lasfire was pouring from their weapons towards the horde gathered below.
 	All along the wall, her soldiers were fighting bravely but dying fast. Attack groups closed on all three gates, and her platoon was barely slowing them down.
 	The army outside was far too large. Far too many for a simple cultist uprising. Bolstered by Astra Militarum deserters and the forces of at least one traitor feudal lord, it was only a matter of time before the approaching darkness overwhelmed them. Their only hope was to hold until the regiment returned.
 	Aerand clambered down a set of shattered stairs, careening over rubble and dancing beside the mind-numbing preci­pice. Apex hung on the wall of the mountain, and three bridges were all that connected the fortress to the world outside. Perhaps her soldiers could not stop the approaching army, but without a way to cross, they’d have no way to take the fortress.
 	The roar of krak missiles tore past Aerand’s face as two bright streaks of metal darted down from Corwyn’s tower towards the Eradicators below. The first tank crumbled into a cloud of smoke and glowing metal, while the second missile detonated along the valley wall, dropping a heap of stone onto a platoon of Ourean guards.
 	Up ahead, Olemark’s men were following suit, a pair of troopers loading a krak missile into its launcher and positioning themselves at the edge of the gatehouse. Aerand leapt the rest of the way down the steps, sprinting across a small stretch of open ramparts, lasfire and bolt rounds soaring past her head. She dropped to her knees beside Olemark just as he raised the missile launcher.
 	‘Wait!’ she shouted, lungs heaving with each beat of her heart.
 	Olemark turned in surprise.
 	‘The bridges,’ she panted, pointing over the ledge.
 	Only a few hundred yards from the edge of the wall, the vanguard of cultists streaked towards the gate, the two remaining Eradicators loosing another salvo. Beneath them, the gatehouse shuddered, and with a horrible crash, one of its stone doors toppled open.
 	‘Blow the bridges,’ Aerand ordered, lifting her lasgun slowly, uncertain if she’d be firing over the wall, or at a target much closer.
 	Olemark stared, then nodded in understanding. ‘It’d be my pleasure, sir,’ he replied, and a streak of flame darted over the wall.
 	As the missile found its mark, a promethean crack pierced the night, and the northern bridge toppled into the chasm. Moments later, two matching explosions echoed across the courtyard as Corwyn and Maltia directed their soldiers to follow suit. Aerand smiled and breathed a sigh. Only then did she notice the searing pain in her leg and the blood oozing from the hole through her thigh.
 	Nearly an hour later, and the fortress still stood. Blowing the bridges had stalled the assault, and the fever pitch of the initial battle had faded into a steady siege. Corwyn, Olemark, and Aerand huddled in the courtyard, Apex’s scorched, splintered citadel overshadowing the trio as they stooped over Aerand’s map.
 	‘Noravis Opum is nearly two hours away,’ Olemark said. ‘Even if they left the moment you voxed Lord Tarvarius, we’d still have the better part of an hour before they return.’
 	Corwyn nodded. ‘Then we hold the wall for another hour.’
 	Aerand shook her head and surveyed the heap of stone beside them, leaning up against a crumbling staircase to hold the weight off her injured leg.
 	Toppling the bridges had stalled the cultists and forced the Eradicators to stay out of krak missile range. But even at a distance, they’d nearly razed Apex’s walls and had taken another dozen of her soldiers. Now, without towers or autoguns and only a handful of troopers, her platoon was doing all it could to keep the army from finding a way across the chasm.
 	‘We fall back,’ Aerand muttered, staring at the hulking stone spire behind her.
 	‘And give them the outer wall and the courtyard?’ Corwyn asked.
 	‘They have it already.’ Aerand grimaced as she twisted to motion to the toppled wall, and a bolt of pain shot up from her thigh. ‘It will take them time to devise a way across the chasm, and with any luck, the regiment will be here before they do.’
 	Olemark nodded, condescension long absent from his voice. ‘It’s a good plan. It’s the only good plan.’
 	‘Then make it happen.’
 	Aerand limped across the courtyard as Olemark and Corwyn retrieved their soldiers from their posts. As she forced her way towards the shadow of Apex’s citadel, lazy bursts of enemy lasgun fire arced over her head, splattering harmlessly against the bastion walls. She scarcely noticed the sound after nearly an hour of it, simply one more voice in the chorus of battle, along with the rain and the constant, rolling thunder.
 	She pulled to a stop as a streak of lightning lit the valley, silhouetting a figure atop the peak above Apex’s walls. It was impossible that any human could have scaled the sheer ridgeline from outside the fortress, and yet there someone stood. Her lasgun was already on her shoulder when the shadow dropped from the mind-numbing peak and landed before her with little more than the sound of stirring air.
 	‘I am pleased to find you are not dead yet.’
 	Tarvarius surveyed the decimated outer wall and the small group of soldiers withdrawing towards him. ‘Although I had hoped to find more of your platoon still standing.’
 	Despite the grim setting and the fire in her leg, Aerand found herself on the brink of smiling. ‘As had I,’ she replied, limping towards the Adeptus Astartes. One Space Marine was not a regiment, but perhaps he was even better.
 	‘The rest of the 900th?’ she asked, hope lacing her voice.
 	Tarvarius motioned towards the north. Outside the wall, the sound of lasfire picked up, followed by a series of heavy explosions. ‘Yarin pushed them hard.’
 	Aerand limped towards a gap in the wall, where Olemark stood staring.
 	‘It seems we may have to share some of the action, sir,’ he remarked, a tired smile creeping across his face.
 	Through the rain and over the scorched battlefield, the Cadian 900th approached, pouring withering fire into the cultists from behind. Already, their assailants were falling back, unable to stand up to the dauntless assault, and charging instead towards the fortress and the waiting, ­gaping chasm.
 	Aerand lifted her lasgun, prepared to open fire, when a sudden weight dropped her to her knees. The taste of blood and burnt flesh assailed her again, stronger than before. She retched onto the dark, slick stone, feeling her mind spin and her skin spark with fire. Slowly, she raised her head, expecting the stares of her confused soldiers, but they were all in a similar state. Even Tarvarius leaned against the wall awkwardly, scanning the night.
 	A creeping horror built within Aerand. Whatever had crippled her on the ridgeline was here in their midst. Whatever evil she had felt when the cultists approached had waited until now to show itself fully. As she stared out at the oncoming army, she suddenly understood her mistake.
 	They were not retreating, they were charging towards the gate, where a cloud of massive boulders were rising from the chasm, wreathed in flickering blue firelight, forming themselves into a bridge.
 	‘Witch,’ Aerand muttered, her voice hoarse and weak. A sudden desperation filled her as she stared through the gate. She had held the fortress against an army with only a few dozen soldiers – if the horde outside was allowed to enter, not even the entire 900th regiment could dislodge them. She forced her leaden limbs to move, stumbling towards Tarvarius and laying a hand on his colossal armour.
 	‘What?’ The Space Marine blinked, then shook his head slightly as if trying to rid himself of an invisible pest. A moment later, his confident posture returned and he fixed his gaze on Aerand. ‘They have a witch.’
 	No sooner had he spoken the words than that same blue glow lit the peak of the citadel’s tower. Aerand looked on in horror as a form emerged onto the high terrace, fire dancing around its twisted body, streaking out over the battlefield towards the approaching Cadian regiment.
 	Beside her, Olemark struggled to his feet, his shoulders bent by an invisible burden. The cultists had nearly reached the bridge, the fire of their weapons becoming dangerously accurate.
 	‘By the Throne,’ Olemark mumbled, turning to help one of his troopers rise. ‘He’ll lay the entire regiment to waste.’
 	‘No, he won’t,’ Aerand replied, limping towards the base of the citadel. ‘We’re going to kill him first.’
 	Aerand stumbled onto the high terrace, legs burning and mind swimming, while Olemark, Corwyn, and her few remaining troopers lumbered up the final few stairs. In the shadows of the pillars and stonework beside them, Tarvarius moved like a patient ghost.
 	The sorcerer stood at the centre of the platform, bathed in the horrible blue light of witch fire, bright streaks pouring from his body like vines, arcing down towards the raging battle below. Behind the darting, swirling inferno, the sorcerer himself was harder to discern, a thin, emaciated form buried beneath thick, dark smoke. If not for the fire pouring from him, Aerand might have thought the man on the brink of death, weak and haggard, as if the forces he channelled had taken not only his soul but his life.
 	Eight bodies knelt prostrate on the ground around the witch, hands clawing at writhing, moaning skulls. A thin tendril of flame connected each to the sorcerer, their naked bodies covered in tattoos and deep scars, each bearing at least one variation of that sinister flame and eye.
 	There was something terrible in that sigil, made even more awful in the witch’s unnatural glow. For a moment, Aerand felt she was a child again, staring up into the sky on a planet she hardly knew, a twisting wheel of fire marring the blue canopy above her.
 	‘You come at last.’
 	The sorcerer’s words spilled out from the flames like the falling of night as the sun disappeared, dozens of voices layered to form one. As he turned, a glimpse of the sorcerer’s empty, black eyes held Aerand firmly in place, and she was struck by the sense he was speaking directly to her.
 	The same black eyes she’d seen at the homestead. But instead of fear, they now filled her only with hatred.
 	‘Kill him,’ Aerand ordered, lifting her weapon and pulling the trigger.
 	A wall of lasfire streaked towards the sorcerer, lighting the balcony in a blinding display. For a moment, the flame around the witch seemed to dim, before it swelled again and the volley split harmlessly around him.
 	As the witch raised his hand, Tarvarius rushed forward, his chainsword roaring to life. Whatever share of the weight that crowded Aerand’s mind and limbs the Space Marine might have felt before was gone, for he moved like a raptor striking on the wind. As his weapon dropped towards the sorcerer’s head, a streak of fire split from the witch’s inferno and rose up to meet it, halting the chainsword while Tarvarius continued forward, leaping over the stalled weapon and skidding to a stop as his legs met the terrace’s ancient railing. The row of dark stone posts cracked but held, debris careening over the ledge into the smoke of the firefight below as Tarvarius turned and reengaged.
 	The witch’s fire rose up to meet him once again, streaks of flame and lasfire darting from the pair as they danced across the terrace with blinding speed.
 	Aerand dove to the side as they careened towards her, landing beside one of the cowering cultists, as a streak of blue light shot out from the sorcerer in her direction. The tether of flame between the woman and the witch seemed to swell as Aerand’s soldiers poured fire towards him, as if the witch’s magic was feeding off the bodies around him.
 	Aerand rose to a knee and stared at the woman. Beneath clawing fingers and a face contorted in pain, she could see the woman’s lips moving slowly, mumbling something incomprehensible.
 	As a fresh salvo of lasfire arced towards the sorcerer, the woman’s face calmed slightly and her eyes flashed open. She stared at Aerand with a terrible sincerity, then reached out and grasped her by the wrist.
 	‘Kill me,’ the woman whispered, voice laden with desperation. ‘Please. They didn’t tell me it would be like this.’
 	As the lasfire crashed into the sorcerer again, and the tendril connecting him to the woman swelled, her eyes snapped shut and she let out a scream. Aerand lifted her weapon and granted her wish.
 	The woman fell to the ground, and the thread connecting her to the sorcerer vanished. The witch’s black eyes turned towards Aerand in anger.
 	‘The bodies!’ Aerand shouted as a wall of flame rushed towards her, and she dived behind an ancient stone pillar. ‘Kill the bodies! He’s drawing power from them!’
 	The sorcerer’s attack abated for a moment, and Aerand spun to fire at the creature’s back. As she did, Olemark and Corwyn dropped two of the cultists, and Tarvarius lunged forward, gripping a pair of cowering, flame-wreathed bodies and tossing them over the precipice like refuse.
 	As the cultists shattered on the bulwark below, a sound like rushing water burst from the sorcerer – myriad voices crying out with rage. The sphere of fire around him grew bright as a star, until Aerand dropped to her knees from the sheer brilliance of him. She shivered to think of the terrible darkness that supplied that power, if it could afford to funnel so much strength into a single one of its servants. The flames swelled and tightened, then burst outward like a breaking wave, throwing her through the air.
 	Something struck Aerand’s shoulder with a sickening crunch, then her chest collided with unmoving stone. When her vision cleared, she stared over the edge of the high terrace, saved from falling only by the railing pillars that had broken her shoulder and ribs.
 	Beside her, Olemark grasped the shattered remnants of a pillar, body dangling over the towering precipice. Below him, several green-armoured bodies clattered against black stone, the darting glow of lasfire bursting around them from the battle below. Across the platform Tarvarius rose to his feet, tossing aside the debris of a shattered statue after bearing the worst of the sorcerer’s assault.
 	As Aerand dragged herself towards Olemark, shoulder and sides screaming in protest, the dark shadow of the sorcerer moved towards them. The light around him had faded into a dull flicker, his three remaining disciples reduced to nothing more than scorched husks.
 	‘No,’ Aerand whispered, as the witch’s eyes locked on Olemark. She reached out towards the sergeant, praying she had the strength to pull him up over the ledge. But instead of taking her grip, Olemark reached one hand over his shoulder, slipping dangerously as he pulled a weapon off his back.
 	‘Take the shot, sir,’ he said, dropping a missile launcher on the ledge beside her, then glancing up at the tower above them. The citadel’s pinnacle arced overhead like an executioner’s blade, the damaged, worn pillars lining the balcony barely supporting its weight. ‘He can’t hold the whole mountain up,’ Olemark muttered, then his hand slipped, and he dropped over the ledge.
 	As Aerand snatched the launcher from the ground, the sorcerer extended a shadowy hand towards her, a thin blue flame dancing across his fingers. She felt the launcher kick as a missile tore from its barrel, streaking towards the pillar beside them and shattering the stone into a cloud of dust.
 	For a moment, the tower above them hung steady, as if after standing for so many centuries, it did not remember it was able to fall. Then a single block dropped loose from the pinnacle, followed by another, then a horrible crash, as the tower slid from its bearings and toppled towards them.
 	The sorcerer cast both his hands over his head, the fire around him streaking towards the collapsing wall. At first, the stone held, shaking in place as a sinister blue glow swelled around it, but the witch himself was laid horribly bare.
 	Aerand reached down to her waist, snatching her laspistol from its holster and aiming towards the heretic’s dark, withered form. She pulled the trigger, and a bolt of light streaked towards him, this time unhindered as it pierced his skull. Instantly, the flame above him extinguished, and the stone over her head came crashing down.
 	Aerand felt her leg shatter first, then her ankle gave way as the air around her filled with dust and the sound of stones crashing like water.
 	‘I offer my life to the Emperor,’ she whispered. ‘I pray He accepts it.’
 	A weight descended on her chest, stifling her prayer. But moments later, when she found herself still breathing and the air had grown quiet, she heard her words echoed back on stern, iron lips.
 	‘I offer my strength to the Emperor. I pray He redresses it.’
 	Slowly, Aerand opened her eyes, staring into the dark-grey form of Tarvarius’ helmet. The Space Marine raised himself slowly, casting aside the avalanche of stone that had toppled onto them.
 	‘There will be enough time for prayer later,’ Tarvarius muttered, a flash of lightning gleaming off his dented, rent armour. ‘Right now we have a battle to win.’
 	Behind him, over the edge of the balcony, green Cadian bodies swarmed over the walls and back into the heart of Apex Inruptus.
 	‘Tell me once more what you experienced that night.’ Commissar Burdain’s voice rang out in clear, metered staccato, her arms and shoulders rigid beneath a flawless uniform.
 	‘Of course, sir,’ Aerand replied. In contrast to the commissar’s perfection, she was externally a mess. Her right arm was bound in a heavy sling, her left leg braced by crude metal bars burrowing into the bone beneath her skin. She leaned heavily on the desk beside her, ribs screaming with every breath, as Colonel Yarin watched in silence from the back of her chamber. A week ago, the commissar’s severe demeanour would have shaken Aerand, but now, after staring into the sorcerer’s black, warp-swallowed eyes, Burdain’s grey ones held little sway.
 	‘It’s difficult to describe the sensation I felt, other than to say it was deeply, horribly… wrong. The other soldiers of my platoon all describe similar feelings on the night of the Apex assault.’
 	‘But not on the night of the ambush,’ Burdain replied. ‘That night you were the only one who felt anything.’
 	And saw it. Aerand hadn’t lied to the commissar, but she hadn’t told anyone about the vision of the dead woman’s eyes. ‘That’s correct, sir.’
 	Burdain’s mouth drew into a stern line. ‘And on the night of the assault, you felt it first.’
 	‘Yes, sir.’ Aerand knew where this was headed – knew what question would come next – because she’d asked herself the same thing for the past three days while her body slowly stitched itself back together.
 	‘Why do you think you alone felt these things?’
 	She’d considered every possibility. Perhaps, as an officer, the sorcerer’s presence had been directed more strongly at her. Perhaps her proximity to the ritual had simply caused the sensation to be more intense. Maybe she’d just been more exhausted, or more anxious. Maybe her fear of failing had given the darkness a foothold to exploit.
 	‘I don’t know, sir,’ Aerand replied, and that was honest. Burdain began to pace slowly, certainty growing in Aerand with each of her steps. She’d be removed from her position if she was fortunate. Executed if she was not.
 	Somehow, though, that thought didn’t bother her. She had done her duty – let the consequences be what they may.
 	After some time, the commissar paused and looked as if she was about to speak, but before she could, a quiet knock rang in the doorway, and a green-armoured figure limped slowly inside.
 	Corwyn had not escaped the citadel unscathed, and he walked clumsily on a gleaming prosthetic leg.
 	‘My apologies, sirs,’ he said quietly, unable to conceal a small grin as he stepped past Aerand bearing a piece of parchment. ‘I’ve been sent to deliver an urgent dispatch.’
 	As Corwyn handed the scroll to Commissar Burdain, Aerand caught a glimpse of its seal and felt her heart begin to race. Pressed into dark-grey wax was the wing-wreathed skull of the Storm Wings Space Marines.
 	Corwyn took his leave of the room, and the commissar’s face grew sterner still as she read through the message. When she finished, she sighed, then re-rolled the parchment and placed the scroll in Aerand’s hand. Aerand gripped it tightly – there was something firm and heavy inside.
 	‘The Adeptus Astartes send their regards,’ Burdain said. ‘As well as an endorsement of the lieutenant’s valour. In light of these events, and the… unique… circumstances surrounding the Apex Inruptus assault, I think it is reasonable to sentence Lieutenant Aerand to only minor discipline for her lapse during her platoon’s ambush, administered at Colonel Yarin’s discretion.’
 	As the commissar walked brusquely from the room, Yarin rose and placed a hand on Aerand’s shoulder, leaning in towards her ear. ‘You must have done something right to get her so upset,’ she whispered, her normally harsh face softening slightly. She looked as if she might say more, then paused and shook her head. ‘I best not keep you too long, lieutenant. You have a platoon to return to.’
 	As Aerand limped slowly down the dark stone hall, she opened the scroll and read the final few lines. A small token for the commander of the Cadian Storm Guard, from another of the Emperor’s broken servants. May it be the first link in a chain of your own.
 	A small smile spread across Aerand’s face as she gripped the iron-claw link wrapped inside the parchment.