SOLACE


 	Steve Lyons


 	In this tale, Steve Lyons turns his attention to the Mordian Iron Guard as they face a threat away from the battlefield that may be more dangerous than the xenos they’ve been battling.

 	Separated from the rest of the regiment, Guardsman Maximillian Sturm and his squadron are lost deep within a forest rife with deadly aeldari. When they stumble upon the small village of Solace, they believe salvation is at hand. They can rest, regroup and resupply before heading out again. But Solace might not be the deliverance they need… 

 
 
 	 
 


 	They should have made it back to camp by now.
 	Guardsman Maximillian Sturm was footsore and weary. He didn’t complain, of course. His squad had been tramping through the dense, thorny forest for hours. The tangled canopy stole the sun’s light, making it impossible to tell the time of day. The temperature had dropped, however, and every­thing was washed in shades of grey, which suggested that evening was preparing to give way to night.
 	Sergeant Kramer called another halt. ‘Something wrong with this damn thing,’ he grumbled, tapping his chrono-compass again.
 	Kramer didn’t look well. The bandages around his chest were dark with blood. His normally steel-hard, angular face was slick with sweat. His pupils were dilated, his gaze unfocused, betraying the fact that a heavy dose of stimm was keeping him going.
 	‘We’ve been here before,’ said Sturm. ‘I recognise the shape of those trees there. We are going round in–’
 	He broke off as Ven Eisen snapped up his lasgun. Sturm and the others followed suit, their tiredness forgotten. For a minute, the only sounds were Sergeant Kramer’s laboured breathing, and a nearby rustle as a forest bird took flight. ‘What is it?’ Sturm whispered.
 	Ven Eisen lowered his weapon. His comrades took the cue to relax. ‘My apologies. I thought I saw movement. It must only have been a shadow.’
 	‘Here, the shadows can kill you,’ muttered Guardsman Zoransky.
 	‘We must press on,’ Sergeant Kramer resolved. ‘If we are caught in the forest at nightfall, we will be dead by morning.’ No one doubted the truth of those words. The sergeant clicked his tongue and rotated on the spot. He led the way onward, following his compass needle. It might be unreliable, but it was all they had.
 	Sturm had never felt so far from home, so out of place. He was Iron Guard, accustomed to the noisy, bustling hives and machine-planed lines of Mordian. His squad wore bright blue uniform greatcoats and caps with gold adornments, in violent contrast to the pastel shades around them. They were shining lures to the forest’s predators.
 	They broke step, but stayed in formation. Ven Eisen was dragging his left foot behind him. Ludo – the squad’s youngest recruit, as yet unseasoned – held his slashed arm in a sling. The morning’s battle had been brutal. They were lucky to have survived at all, and many of their comrades hadn’t. Kramer had voxed repeatedly for assistance, but no one had responded. Either the equipment was faulty, or no one was left.
 	Sturm felt he could have done better. He ought to have been more alert, more disciplined, fought harder. He felt ashamed of himself.
 	Ven Eisen stopped them again. He wasn’t seeing shadows, this time. Something, some creature, hung from a branch before them. Sergeant Kramer had missed it, which was unlike him. The creature made no move as the soldiers trained their sights upon it. Sturm struggled to discern its shape in the deepening gloom. With a jolt, he realised that it was hanging, almost bat-like, upside down.
 	Kramer sent Ven Eisen forward with a wordless nod. A moment later, the Guardsman signalled to the others to join him.
 	‘It’s dead,’ he reported. ‘Its throat has been slit. From the smell of it, at least a couple of days ago.’ The inverted face of the creature was striped with crusted blood.
 	It was an aeldari: a male, with the milky complexion and lithe build of its kind. Silken black hair tumbled around its tapered ears. ‘Who – or what – do you think did this to it?’ Sturm asked.
 	‘No man of Mordian,’ declared Kramer. Sturm knew what he meant. He didn’t mourn for the xenos. It had deserved a painful death. The means of its execution, however – its ritualistic nature – discomfited him.
 	‘Why hang the xenos like this?’ puzzled Zoransky. His heavy brow creased with the effort of deep thought.
 	‘A better question would be how,’ Kramer growled. ‘We’ve been in this forest for weeks, hunting these damn things, and barely laid a hand on them.’ He winced, and his hand went to his ribs reflexively.
 	‘It’s a warning,’ said Ven Eisen.
 	He had looked past the xenos and seen what lay beyond it. Sturm saw it too now: incongruous shapes between the trees, hard lines and angles. Falling silent again, the five soldiers crept forward – and the alien forest opened up around them. They found themselves looking at a huddle of dark, wooden buildings with sloping roofs. Well-trodden muddy tracks weaved around and between the structures.
 	‘A village,’ breathed Sturm. ‘I didn’t know there were any out here.’
 	‘A xenos village?’ Zoransky wondered.
 	Kramer shook his head. ‘Captain Venig believes the aeldari of this world are outcasts. His company found one of their settlements four days ago. They live in primitive hide tents. They could build nothing like this.’
 	‘Even so,’ said Sturm, glancing back at the strung-up corpse, ‘we should proceed with caution.’
 	No sooner had he spoken than a gunshot shattered the silence. It was loud – far louder than the report of a lasgun. A projectile hit the ground only feet in front of the troopers, kicking up a miniature dirt storm.
 	Instinctively, the Guardsmen sprang into action, separating and seeking cover. Before the shot’s reverberations had died down, Sturm was crouched with his lasgun to his shoulder, its barrel resting across a stout tree branch.
 	‘Stand fast,’ came a voice from between the buildings, ‘and identify yourselves.’
 	‘Sergeant Vulfgang Kramer of the One Hundred and Ninety-Third Mordian Regiment, the Emperor’s Iron Guard,’ Kramer responded. ‘My Guardsmen and I are engaged in His holy work, but have lost our comrades and our way. We require shelter for the night, no more. Praise be to the Emperor.’
 	There was a short pause – slightly longer than Sturm would have liked – before the disembodied voice repeated, ‘Praise be to the Emperor.’
 	Nothing happened for several minutes, during which time the Mordians maintained their rigid stances. Sturm heard low voices – too distant for him to make out. Then, a group of six men emerged from the settlement. They wore shabby breeches, shirts and jerkins. Their faces were steeped in grime, and most had straggly hair and beards. Five of them wore crude-looking pistols in holsters, strapped to thick leather belts at their hips. The sixth had an equally crude shotgun, which he had drawn.
 	This man rode a four-legged beast of burden, similar to a horse but with larger, nastier-looking teeth. His pinhole eyes, shaded by the broad brim of his hat, gave nothing away, while a drooping moustache lent him an air of melancholy. He halted his mount a few yards away from the troopers.
 	‘Magistrate Gideon Lymax,’ he introduced himself. ‘I’m the law in these parts – and any servants of the Emperor are welcome to our hospitality.’
 	The shotgun dangled lazily over his left knee, its threat implicit. His comrades’ fingers twitched close to their pistol grips. Sturm saw little discipline in their rounded postures, however. The Mordians may have been outnumbered and battered, but they were better equipped than these six men, and far better drilled.
 	Kramer stepped into the open. His lasgun was in its sling, allowing him to display empty hands. He called to his men to follow his lead and form up on him. Lymax’s beady eyes darted from tree to tree. ‘Is this it?’ he asked. ‘Five of you?’
 	‘Five of us,’ Kramer confirmed.
 	The magistrate gave a curt nod. ‘Then, gentlemen, welcome to our home – to our little sanctuary out in the wild here. Welcome to Solace.’
 	‘I don’t like this,’ muttered Zoransky as the wooden buildings closed in around them.
 	‘These people have been nothing but helpful to us,’ said Sturm, ‘and have probably saved our lives.’ He shared his comrade’s misgivings, however. A backwater village like Solace seemed out of place on a developed world such as this one. How could it even survive here, in the forest, surrounded by enemies?
 	Lymax had dismounted to stroll alongside his guests, leading his beast behind him. ‘How do you come to be here,’ Sturm asked him, ‘so far from civilisation?’
 	Lymax shrugged. ‘Our forefathers struck out from the city a hundred years ago.’
 	‘That can’t have been long after Silva Proxima was settled.’
 	‘Some dispute with the city overseers, so the tale goes.’
 	Sturm’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Your ancestors were lawbreakers?’
 	‘Pioneers,’ the magistrate gainsaid him. ‘They set out with the loftiest ambitions – to tame the forest. In the name of the Emperor, of course.’
 	‘Of course. Praise be to Him.’
 	‘Only they learned that the forest was already inhabited.’
 	Cheerful voices drifted out of a broad, two-storey structure ahead of them. They tramped on wooden planking, which strained and creaked beneath their boots. A crooked sign nailed over the building’s door read ‘Solace Tavern’.
 	Lymax pushed through a pair of swinging gates. Sturm and the others followed him. The air inside the tavern was hazy, diffusing the blue light of flickering lumoglobes. The odours of lho-leaf and cheap amasec played about his nostrils. Civilians were perched on wooden benches and stools, around circular tables. Fifty or so pairs of eyes turned to the newcomers, while as many tongues were abruptly stilled.
 	Lymax spoke into the ensuing silence: ‘As you see, we’ve picked up a few strays from the forest. They’ll be staying a night or two, perhaps longer. I’m sure no one needs telling to treat them right. They’re good Emperor-fearing folk.’
 	A thin-faced bartender stood frozen, eyes bulging at the newcomers, holding a glass and a towel. Lymax snapped his fingers to get the man’s attention. ‘Our guests have had a hard day. I’m guessing they might be a touch thirsty.’
 	‘Just water for us,’ Sergeant Kramer intervened. ‘We are on duty. We can pay.’ He dug into his pockets.
 	Lymax grinned a lopsided grin. ‘Your Imperial credits are no use to us. You can work for your keep, though, if you stay long enough.’
 	‘We’ll be leaving at dawn,’ said Kramer.
 	‘You sure about that? People have struck out from Solace before. We sent out scouts, to find the city and fetch help. Not a one of them ever returned.’
 	‘As soon as we are rested, we will be returning to our camp,’ insisted Sturm. He hesitated for a moment, before adding, ‘If you have a map of this area of the forest, that would be very helpful.’
 	A low buzz of activity was already resuming around them. They were still the recipients of many sidelong glances, but the novelty of their arrival was wearing thin. The bartender provided two jugs of water and five glasses. Sturm hadn’t realised how dehydrated he was. He had been rationing the contents of his canteen, until there was barely a sip in it. He emptied his glass in one gulp and poured another.
 	‘So, you came from the big city? I only know it from tales of old, of course.’
 	A man had sidled up alongside Sturm. He was in his sixties, balding, overweight, his slack chin carpeted with grey stubble. His cheeks were ruddy. He drained a glass of amasec, slammed it down and called for another. He hauled himself onto a stool, took Sturm’s hand and shook it enthusiastically. ‘Jerebeus is the name. Round here, they call me Old Man Jerebeus. I can’t imagine why.’
 	‘Maximillian Sturm. I haven’t seen your city. I come from another world.’
 	‘You don’t say. What brings you to this one?’
 	‘Xenos. The aeldari. The forest is infested with them.’
 	The old man’s rheumy eyes twinkled. He grinned, exposing gaps between his yellowed teeth. ‘You don’t say.’
 	‘No one in the city knew of them,’ Sturm recalled from his briefing, ‘until they started to clear the forest for development. Then they came under attack. My regiment was dropped in three weeks ago, to eradicate the xenos threat.’
 	‘Good luck with that. Elusive critters, aren’t they? Impossible to pin down.’
 	Sturm’s surprise must have shown, because the old man grinned again. ‘I wasn’t always this broken-down wreck you see before you. I did my share of sentry duty in my younger days, went on my share of hunting parties.’
 	‘I’m sure you did.’ Jerebeus still wore a gun at his hip. Sturm could see no man in the tavern who didn’t.
 	‘You see a shadow out the corner of your eye. Next you know, there’s a blade through the heart of the man beside you. Mocking eyes, boring into your head like a challenge. By the time you’ve drawn your pistol, they’re gone. Oh, I got off some good shots in my time, don’t get me wrong. I drew some blood. Once the wood sprites – your ‘aeldari’ – have set their sights on you, though, best thing is to run.’
 	‘Mordians don’t run,’ Sturm intoned stiffly.
 	‘You don’t say.’
 	‘Especially not from aeldari. It’s what they want. They’re faster than we are. They want the pleasure of hunting you down.’
 	His mind drifted back to the morning’s battle. His squad had walked into an ambush. The enemy had been everywhere at once, their swords a blur. They had shattered the Mordians’ regimented lines. The fight had raged for hours, and yet there had been no time to think, to plan, only to react. At last, when Sturm had thought he could endure no more, the ordeal had ended. Perhaps the aeldari had been hurt more than he had seen. Perhaps they had just got bored. Whatever the reason, he and his squad had found themselves lost and alone.
 	Old Man Jerebeus was right about the aeldari’s eyes. The memory of them would haunt Sturm for the rest of his life.
 	‘Where would you run to, anyway?’ he murmured.
 	‘Back here, of course,’ said Jerebeus. ‘Where else but back to Solace?’
 	The old man was distracted by something over Sturm’s shoulder. Suddenly, the Guardsman’s neck hairs prickled with foreboding. He turned. Someone new had entered the tavern. The gates were still swinging behind her.
 	She was a young girl, no older than five or six. She wore a dark red tunic and breeches like one of the men. A red bow nestled in her flowing, clean blonde hair. Her bright blue eyes shifted from Sturm to each of his comrades in turn; and each of them broke off from his conversation, or lowered his glass, transfixed by her.
 	‘Magistrate…’ Jerebeus sounded concerned.
 	Lymax had been talking to Kramer. At the old man’s urging, he turned and saw the girl. He snatched his hat from the bar and jammed it over his ears. He hurried up to her. ‘Now, Alyce,’ he cajoled her, ‘you know you shouldn’t be in here.’
 	‘Who are they?’ asked Alyce, still staring at the Mordians.
 	‘I’ll tell you as we walk,’ Lymax offered. He made to place an arm around Alyce’s shoulders, but changed his mind. He fixed her with an expectant look instead. She drew a breath and blinked – and Sturm blinked too, and tore his gaze away from her. The young girl allowed the magistrate to guide her outside, leaving Sturm to wonder what it was about her that had unsettled him so.
 	Jerebeus drained another glass and motioned to the bartender for a refill. ‘Should you be drinking so much?’ asked Sturm, with a hint of disapproval.
 	The old man wiped his lips on a dirty, tasselled sleeve. ‘Who’s to tell me I can’t? I’m the senior member of this community.’ He slurred the words a little. ‘I’ve lived here longer than anyone else – and this is my party, after all.’
 	‘What are you celebrating?’
 	‘It’s my leaving party.’
 	‘Oh? Where are you going? I thought the magistrate said–’
 	‘Although… I guess it isn’t, is it?’ Jerebeus laughed, exposing his ragged teeth again. ‘I guess I’ll be staying in Solace a time longer yet. Seems a shame to cut short the fest… festivities, though. So, I know, let’s call this my staying party.’ He hefted his freshly charged glass, sloshing amasec over its rim.
 	Sturm heard a crash behind him. Sergeant Kramer had slumped over the bar and knocked over his water, smashing the glass. In a second, Guardsmen Sturm and Ludo flanked him, hauling him upright by the armpits. Kramer shrugged them off, his eyelids fluttering. ‘I’m fine,’ he insisted. ‘Just tired. Why is it so warm in here?’ His dose of stimm was clearly wearing off. He fumbled in his belt pouches for an injector.
 	Sturm glanced around his comrades. In their faces, he saw approval for what he had to do. After Kramer, he was their squad’s most senior member. He had served longer than the sergeant, even. He had always felt more comfortable following orders than giving them, but now he had no choice.
 	He teased the injector from Kramer’s trembling fingers. ‘You don’t need this, sergeant. There is no enemy here. You need sleep – and a medicae to stitch that wound and redress it.’ He called over his shoulder to the room: ‘Is there a medicae in Solace?’
 	A pair of young men stood. ‘We can take you to Doktor Matthias,’ one of them offered. ‘We may not have the drugs and equipment you’re used to, but you won’t find anyone with a steadier hand than his.’
 	Sturm nodded, gratefully. ‘Thank you.’ As the men came forward, however, Kramer shrank away from them. He gripped Sturm’s arm with an urgent strength. Sturm saw the forbidding look in his sergeant’s eyes and knew what it meant.
 	‘Guardsman Zoransky.’ He was the strongest, and right now the healthiest, of them. ‘Stay with the sergeant. Don’t leave his side for anything.’ Kramer seemed content with that decision. Leaning on Zoransky, he allowed the two locals to lead him away. Moments after they had exited the tavern, Lymax returned alone.
 	Sturm looked for Old Man Jerebeus. He still felt unsettled, though he couldn’t put his finger on the reason. He had more questions about Solace. Jerebeus had been hijacked by other revellers, however, who were toasting his health exuberantly.
 	‘You fellows must be tired,’ said Lymax. ‘Time we talked about finding you a place to bed down.’
 	‘A place’ turned out to be a bunkroom upstairs.
 	There were four beds, with feather-stuffed mattresses and pillows – and a wood-burning stove, which was cold. Sturm removed his greatcoat and boots. He collapsed onto a bed and stared up at the rafters.
 	The festivities below had subsided, but he heard muffled voices and occasional bursts of laughter. His muscles were glad of the rest, but his racing brain kept him from sleep. Ludo had no such problems, snoring softly. Ven Eisen was awake, however, on the bed to Sturm’s left. ‘Do you trust these people?’ he asked.
 	‘We could not have endured much longer in the forest,’ said Sturm. ‘We had no choice but to accept their shelter.’
 	‘But do you trust them?’
 	‘I don’t. I distrust their reasons for being out here. They claim the aeldari keep them from leaving Solace, from returning to the Imperial city, but isn’t it their duty to try?’ He was struck by a parallel between these people and the xenos in the forest. Outcasts, Sergeant Kramer had called them.
 	‘What use are they to the Emperor here?’ Ven Eisen mused.
 	‘And what keeps them safe? They are not soldiers – and you have seen their weapons. I doubt they could withstand a determined aeldari assault.’
 	‘You think they’re hiding something?’
 	‘I am sure of it.’
 	‘Could they have made a deal with the xenos?’
 	Sturm mulled that disturbing thought over. ‘It is possible – but then, what of the corpse we found at the village limits?’
 	‘An aeldari that broke the truce, perhaps?’
 	‘And what would their side of the bargain be? What do they have to offer?’
 	‘The magistrate talked of Imperial credits,’ Ven Eisen recalled. ‘If his people have had no contact with civilisation in a century–’
 	‘You’re right. Would they be familiar with our currency?’
 	The conversation had helped Sturm to a decision. He swung his legs back over the side of the bed, ignoring his protesting muscles. He pushed his feet back into his boots. ‘I think I’ll take a stroll around Solace – this time without an escort.’
 	Ven Eisen sat up. ‘Let me come with you.’
 	‘This is just a scouting mission. We don’t yet know of any real threat here. I’ll be less conspicuous alone – and you are injured. You should rest. Keep your gun close by. I will vox you if I discover anything.’
 	‘What if you do not return?’ his comrade asked.
 	‘Give me one hour,’ said Sturm, fastening his greatcoat and checking his lasgun’s power pack. ‘Then assume the worst.’
 	A back door allowed Sturm to slip out of the tavern unseen.
 	Outside, night had well and truly fallen. He took his first long look up at the sky of Silva Proxima. It was brighter than he had expected – freckled with stars, and there was a large, full moon with a faint red tint.
 	This was just as well, as there was no street lighting – only flickering pools of candlelight, seeping out between the slats of window shutters. The magistrate’s mount was tied up to a post, its muzzle in a trough. Whatever it was feeding on, it stank of blood and crunched like dry bones.
 	Sturm kept to the shadows. Subterfuge did not come naturally to him. Mordian Iron Guard did not hide, as a rule. They displayed their colours proudly, daring their foes to come at them – but these were unusual circumstances.
 	Perhaps he shouldn’t have worn his colours at all. Even without them, though, he would have stood out in Solace. His shaved hair and chin would have ensured it, as would his disciplined, straight-backed posture. Even his pale skin, sunlight-deprived on the World of Eternal Night, contrasted with the callused, weather-beaten locals.
 	There were several locals around. He could hear their muttering and boot scrapes even when he couldn’t see them. Sturm sensed a restless charge in the atmosphere. He ducked under cover as the door of a single-storey shack flew open. A couple emerged from within. They looked tired, but were twitching with nervous energy. They crossed the road, into an alleyway between two larger structures. One of these appeared to be a general store; the other had bars on its windows.
 	A group of four women hurried by, into the alleyway too. They wore full-bodied, patterned skirts – finer and cleaner clothes than Sturm had seen in the tavern. From the build-up of voices in the distance, he deduced that a crowd was gathering behind those two buildings. Perhaps, he thought, if he circled around the store…
 	He was interrupted by an already familiar sound. Two men pushed through the tavern’s swing gates, stepping onto the planking outside. They spoke in low murmurs, but he recognised the magistrate’s drawl. He crept closer, hoping to make out more. He thought Lymax had spoken Sergeant Kramer’s name.
 	‘–break for you, old man, them turning up just when they did.’
 	‘You don’t say.’ The second voice – a little louder than the first, slurred by drink – belonged to Old Man Jerebeus.
 	Lymax sucked air between his teeth. ‘Five of them, though – and more dangerous, to look at them, than any we’ve dealt with before.’
 	‘Ah, they aren’t so tough as they pretend. One down already, one more by dawn. That leaves only three – and two of them hurt, at that.’
 	‘I guess so.’
 	‘You know I was ready to take my turn. Still am. I’ve lived a good, long life. I can’t say I’m not glad of a few more months, though – to prepare. You know what it feels like, Gideon? It feels like the Emperor still watches over us, after all.’
 	Lymax sighed, heavily. ‘I wish I could feel that too.’
 	The pair moved away, and Sturm didn’t catch the old man’s rejoinder. He considered whether to follow them, in case he could learn more. He was startled by a sudden voice behind him: ‘Are you lost?’ He whirled around.
 	The young girl in the red tunic stood a few feet from him. Her eyes were bright circles of light in the gloom. Sturm didn’t know how he had failed to hear her creeping up on him. He must have been more tired than he thought. He had to quieten her before she gave him away.
 	He took a step towards the girl. She flinched and backed away from him. Sturm dropped to his haunches, so as not to tower over her, and forced his facial muscles into an unaccustomed smile. ‘Your name is Alyce, isn’t it?’
 	Alyce nodded.
 	‘My name is Guardsman… My name is Max – and yes, you’re right, I am lost. My friends and I were fighting, uh, wood sprites in the forest. Do you know what they are? Have you seen them? Have you seen them in the village?’
 	‘The monsters can’t come into Solace,’ Alyce declared – thankfully now in hushed tones matching Sturm’s own.
 	‘Is that because your men protect you? With their guns?’
 	‘Your gun is different to theirs. It’s very shiny. I haven’t seen a gun like that before. Can I hold it?’
 	‘No. It’s dangerous if you don’t know how to use it.’
 	‘I’m old enough to use a gun.’
 	‘Do you have other weapons? How do the grown-ups defend you? How do they keep the aeldari at bay? Alyce, tell me.’
 	He was being too insistent, making the girl flinch from him again. Before he could stop her, she bolted, racing out in front of the tavern. ‘Magistrate Lymax!’ she cried. Sturm ground his teeth in chagrin. He thought about running, but this too was not the Mordian way. He straightened up and marched after Alyce instead.
 	He found her with her fingers wrapped around the magistrate’s thick belt. As he walked into view, her blue eyes reaffixed themselves to him. Lymax had both hands on his shotgun and was frowning. ‘Guardsman… Sturm, isn’t it?’
 	‘I’m sorry,’ he said, as if nothing was wrong. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten her. I saw her outside, alone, and was worried for her.’
 	‘And what brings you outside, alone?’
 	‘I couldn’t sleep.’ That much was true. ‘My mind was racing. I thought some air might clear it.’
 	Lymax nodded. ‘There’s no cause for concern,’ he reassured the clinging Alyce. ‘No one wants to hurt you. No one can hurt you in Solace. Why don’t you run along now? Go and find Deputy–’
 	‘I want to stay with you,’ said Alyce, stubbornly.
 	‘Now, Alyce, please. I just have a couple of things I have to deal with. I’ll follow you on in a minute or two. I promise.’
 	Alyce detached herself from the magistrate and scuttled away, giving Sturm a wide berth as she passed him. She ran towards the store. He wanted to look, to see if she went down the alleyway – but Lymax was bearing down on him, his features still tight with suspicion.
 	‘Don’t her parents wonder where she is?’ asked Sturm.
 	‘Alyce’s mother died in childbirth,’ said Lymax, gruffly. ‘She’d had the fever for weeks, but held on for the baby’s sake. We’d lost her father only weeks before. He rode out on a hunting expedition and never returned. We all take a hand in caring for young Alyce. She is family to all of us in Solace.’
 	‘For some of us, the only family we have,’ agreed a cordial voice. Old Man Jerebeus tottered up to the pair, insinuating himself into the conversation.
 	‘I was wondering–’ Sturm began, but Lymax interrupted him.
 	‘Your sergeant talked about an early start tomorrow. You should sleep.’
 	‘Where is Sergeant Kramer?’ asked Sturm.
 	‘In the doktor’s office, all freshly bandaged up. Your other friend is with him too. Both were spark out when last I looked in on them.’
 	That was a lie. Zoransky had been charged with watching Kramer. He would never have allowed himself to fall asleep. Sturm kept his expression neutral, however. The last thing he wanted was a gun battle, which would be heard across the village. Not yet. Not until he knew what he was facing.
 	He didn’t have to fake a yawn, only let it happen. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘you’re probably right. I should try to rest.’ He took his leave of Lymax and Jerebeus, heading back to the rear of the tavern. The whole way, he felt their eyes on his back, and he listened intently for the sound of a gun being drawn. He unlatched the rear door, opened it and swung it shut again. He waited until he heard footsteps moving away.
 	When Lymax had talked of the doktor’s office, he had made an involuntary movement. His head had jerked in a particular direction. Sturm crept from shadow to shadow again, following that pointer. He left the narrow alleyway and the sounds of the gathering crowd behind him.
 	At the village’s edge, he found a two-storey building with a sign that read ‘Physician’.
 	There were no lights inside and no sounds of movement, so he forced the door as quietly as he could. It splintered open with little resistance. Sturm readied his lasgun and stepped into the darkness beyond, waiting for his eyes to adjust.
 	He was in a narrow hallway. He made out doorways to his left and a wooden staircase ahead of him. Checking the downstairs rooms, he found an office and a parlour, both empty. He climbed the stairs, his eyes scouring the shadows that darkened his path. His stomach felt tight. The creak of every wooden step beneath his feet sounded like the screech of an alarm.
 	There were three more rooms upstairs. In the first of them, Sturm discerned the outlines of a bed with a chair alongside it – and a large, crumpled shape on the floor. His nostrils twitched at the mingled scents of gunpowder and blood. Fearing the worst, he crossed quickly to the window. He yanked its shutters open, flooding the room with reddish moonlight.
 	Guardsman Zoransky was dead.
 	Sturm turned the body over. Its armour-reinforced overcoat had been blasted to shreds. He teased a bullet out of the bloody mess of Zoransky’s chest, aching with regret for having sent the big soldier to this fate. He took a deep breath, reining in his feelings. Feelings were the ruin of discipline, and Sturm had work to do. Of Sergeant Kramer, there was no sign. There was more blood on the bed, however, and its sheets were tangled and torn. His comrades had put up a fight.
 	He hissed into the comm-bead at his collar. ‘Ven Eisen. Do you read me?’
 	A creaking floorboard behind him alerted him to danger.
 	A man appeared in the doorway, well dressed and clean-shaven, with a pair of small, round spectacles. He was bringing a pistol to bear. Sturm snapped up his lasgun and fired first, shooting for the heart. The would-be assassin gasped and reeled backwards. He fired one bullet, at the ceiling – then crashed through a banister rail at the top of the stairs.
 	Sturm raced from the bedroom and descended the stairs four at a time, seeing no point in stealth now that the world had erupted into noise. He yelled Ven Eisen’s name into his comm-bead, but there was no response. He had to get back to the tavern.
 	The assassin lay sprawled in the hallway. The elusive doktor, Sturm wondered? It hardly mattered. Broken bone protruded through the side of the corpse’s neck. The shack door caught on its dead weight, and Sturm had to kick it out of his way.
 	He raced into the crisp night air, keeping his head down: a sensible precaution, as two more bullets thudded into the wall behind him. ‘Hold it right there!’ a gruff voice rang out, belatedly. Ignoring it, he dived behind a cluster of rainwater barrels and strafed the shadows around him with las-beams.
 	Suddenly, villagers were coming at him from every direction, some with pistols drawn, others wielding makeshift clubs or pitchforks or knives. Sturm loosed off five more shots into the advancing mass. He struck three men, maybe four, but the rest fell upon him, shouting and screaming and clawing and battering at him. Above their cries and the drumbeat of his own heart, he heard another voice, a familiar one: ‘Don’t shoot him. Do you hear me? If we take him alive, we buy ourselves another month.’
 	The crowd wrenched away his lasgun, punching and kicking until his grip on it was loosened. A dozen hands latched on to his uniform, hauling him to his feet. An old woman spat on him as they dragged him to meet the man who had called out.
 	Old Man Jerebeus stood straight-backed, eyes agleam with malice. He seemed perfectly sober now. ‘You should have slept – you and your friend in there.’ He nodded towards the physician’s shack. ‘We just wanted to get tonight over with and deal with the rest of you later, but you forced our–’
 	Sturm lunged at him, with a roar of effort. He took his captors by surprise, wrenching himself free of them. He knew for sure now that Jerebeus was the Emperor’s enemy – and this would likely be his only chance to slay him.
 	His fingers almost reached the old man’s throat. Then, something – a pistol butt, he would later assume – cracked the back of his skull, dislodging his cap. For a second, he deluded himself that willpower would keep him upright. Then a rain of fists drove him to the ground, and the stars above him seemed to pinwheel and explode.
 	The next thing his senses registered was the clanging of a heavy iron gate.
 	Sturm opened his eyes and instinctively lifted his head. A flash of pain blinded him and teased a groan out of his throat. His lasgun was gone, as was his combat knife. He felt a rush of shame, leavened with fear for his comrades, and he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Bedsprings creaked under his weight.
 	‘I thought you’d be out for the night. I’m starting to wonder if you off-world types ever sleep at all.’
 	He was in a square cell that smelled faintly of cleaning agents. It was bordered by wooden walls on two sides and bars on the others. A crude symbol, meaningless to him, had been etched into the stone floor in blood. Someone had tried to scrub it away, but only partially succeeded. A tiny window above the bed was barred too. Sturm guessed that he was in the building he had seen before, beside the store. The gaolhouse. Through the bars to his left was a second cell, furnished like this one with a basic bunk and a chamber pot, otherwise empty.
 	Behind the bars in front of him was Magistrate Gideon Lymax. He was backlit by a candle sitting in a brass holder on a desk, casting his face into shadow. He had just locked the cell gate with a key: one of many, attached to a jangling ring. He tossed it casually to an older, grizzled man, who sat with his heels up on the desk.
 	‘How long have I been unconscious?’ asked Sturm.
 	Lymax shrugged. ‘Not too long. Long enough.’
 	‘Give me one hour,’ he had said to Ven Eisen.
 	‘Don’t expect your friends to come rescue you,’ said Lymax, as if he had read Sturm’s mind. ‘We had to take them prisoner too. You gave us no option, in the end. I thought it best to hold you separate from one another.’
 	‘Those of us you haven’t killed,’ Sturm spat.
 	‘The big fellow, you mean? Zoransky? That wasn’t meant to… He should have known when to stop fighting. He should have known when he was beaten.’
 	‘We are Mordian Iron Guard,’ Sturm growled. ‘We are never beaten.’
 	‘Begging your pardon, that’s not how it looks from over here.’
 	‘What did you do to Sergeant Kramer? Where is he?’
 	Lymax’s gaze dropped to his boots. It seemed he felt some shame for his actions, despite everything. ‘He wouldn’t have survived long, in any case. His wound was infected. We don’t have the medicines to treat him.’
 	‘What did you do to him?’ Sturm demanded again.
 	‘This village is more than our home,’ said Lymax. ‘Solace is our shelter. Here, we are protected. You’ve seen the monsters. You know what they can do. They’re waiting for us out there, in the forest. For a hundred years, they have been waiting.’
 	He had ignored Sturm’s question. Did that mean Kramer was dead? Sturm balled his fists, suppressing his righteous anger. It would do no good to scream at Lymax. As calmly as he could, his voice trembling a little, he asked, ‘How are you protected?’
 	‘They cannot reach us here,’ said the magistrate.
 	‘Why not? Some kind of weapon?’
 	‘They can’t set foot across the village limits.’
 	‘What happens if they do?’
 	Lymax turned away, and Sturm thought he would say no more. In a hoarse voice, however, he confessed: ‘I only saw it happen the one time. A female wood sprite. She made it as far as the tavern. We stepped out to meet her, those who could muster the nerve for it. We thought this was it, the final showdown. Only, then…’
 	His words ran dry. Sturm prompted him, impatiently. ‘Then what?’
 	‘Something, some force, set about her. I was standing just ten feet from her as she was pounded into the ground. I heard her bones snapping one by one. I couldn’t see a damn thing, but I felt… My heart was pounding fit to burst out of my chest, and there were voices screaming in my ears, screaming for blood.’
 	Sturm swallowed down a rising tide of bile. ‘“Some force”, you said.’
 	‘Some invisible force.’
 	‘You must know what you are describing.’
 	‘That I do. Our protector. Our shield.’
 	‘You must know what that–’
 	Lymax turned back to Sturm, and now his eyes were defiantly ablaze. ‘The Emperor doesn’t see us way out here, or chooses not to. Our ancestors faced slaughter. What choice had they? What choice have we, but to honour the deal they made?’
 	‘You could choose to die with honour,’ argued Sturm.
 	‘At last count, this village houses one hundred and fourteen souls. My duty is to them. We have a deal – and it is a good deal, if hard to bear some days. We are protected in Solace – but yes, there is a price. There is always a price.’
 	Sturm had miscalculated. He had thought he could reason with the magistrate. He knew now that he was beyond reaching.
 	Lymax tipped his broad-brimmed hat, his old cordial self returning like a well-worn mask. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ he drawled, ‘I have business to attend to. I’ll leave you in the hands of my trusted deputy here. Until the morning.’
 	He turned and strode out of the building. In the silence that followed, the deputy rocked back on his chair. He rummaged a bottle out of the desk and poured himself a drink, which he sucked through his ratty grey beard. He lit up a lho-leaf stick, filling the room with pungent smoke. He barely glanced at his prisoner at all. Sturm doubted there was much point in talking to him either.
 	He had to do something. He had a shrewd idea of what Lymax’s ‘business’ must be, and he had to stop it. He levered himself to his feet, and was overcome by dizziness. He paced the cell to get his blood circulating again. He tore the threadbare sheets from his bed, and set about plaiting and knotting them together.
 	At this point, he imagined he had the deputy’s attention. He kept his back to him, as he fashioned his sheets into a noose. He heard a scrape from the deputy’s chair. He cast his makeshift rope over a ceiling rafter, as footsteps hurried up to the cell gate. He looped the rope around his bed frame and knotted it.
 	The deputy pounded his fist on the bars. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
 	‘I refuse to sit here waiting to die,’ said Sturm. He stepped up onto the bed.
 	‘But you aren’t dying tonight. You could still have months yet. If you do as you’re told and accept the way things are, you could even have a comfortable–’
 	‘The Golden Throne I will,’ spat Sturm, reaching for the dangling noose.
 	The deputy drew his pistol. ‘Now, you step down from there.’
 	‘Go ahead,’ Sturm challenged him. ‘Shoot me. That way, I die resisting the Emperor’s enemies. That way, I die with honour – on my own terms, not on yours. My soul remains undefiled by whatever dark powers you have conjured here.’ He slipped the noose over his head.
 	The deputy gave a start and fumbled with his jangling key ring. He thrust a key into the lock, cursing as it wouldn’t turn.
 	Sturm tightened the noose around his own neck. As his gaoler found the right key at last, unlocked the gate and burst into the cell, he took a powerful leap from the bed. The slipknot he had tied around the frame unravelled. He cannoned into the deputy and sent him reeling backwards into the bars.
 	Sturm pressed his attack with two punches to the head, one more to the stomach. Dazed and winded, his victim slid gracelessly to the floor. Sturm snatched his weapon from him. He only wished there had been a more honourable way.
 	The deputy was conscious, though only just. ‘Can’t… stop them,’ he groaned.
 	‘How old are you?’ asked Sturm. A few years younger than Old Man Jerebeus, he estimated. ‘How long before your turn comes?’ The deputy didn’t answer him. His eyelids fluttered, and he slumped into unconsciousness. Sturm locked him in the cell and searched the outer room for his equipment, finding nothing.
 	He was left with the deputy’s gun. Its operation seemed simple enough, similar to a stub pistol he had fired in training. It had no scope, just a notch at the end of the barrel to sight along. There were shells in each of its six chambers.
 	It wasn’t much, but it was all the Emperor had granted him. It would have to be enough. Sturm heard a swell of excited voices. The crowd behind the gaolhouse was being whipped to fever pitch. He had no time to search for his imprisoned comrades. He hurried out of the building and plunged into the alleyway alongside it.
 	One hundred and fourteen souls, Lymax had said.
 	Almost all of them had assembled at Solace’s heart. They filled an open square, at the centre of which had been erected a scaffold. The magistrate himself stood atop this, Old Man Jerebeus alongside him. Four younger men, between them, supported the limp, bound form of Sergeant Kramer.
 	Lymax was appealing for quiet. At length, the crowd subsided enough for him to speak. Concealed in the mouth of the alleyway, behind their backs, Sturm watched and listened.
 	‘This past month has been uncommonly kind to us,’ said Lymax. ‘Young Karib shook off his sickness to become a fine, strapping young man. Our hunting parties returned safe from the forest, having gathered all we need. We celebrated the arrival of a new member of our community.’
 	A smattering of applause greeted this pronouncement, as if childbirth were a rare event in Solace. It probably was.
 	‘Even more crucially, no wood sprites dared enter our village. We were kept safe from the monsters that would slaughter us all in our beds. Our children were kept safe. We were protected. Now, it is the night of the Thanksgiving Moon once again, and time for us to show how we appreciate that protection.’
 	These words dampened the crowd’s enthusiasm. Lymax continued, however: ‘It pleases me to say that here too fortune has favoured us. Tonight, we were to say farewell to a long-time pillar of our community.’ Old Man Jerebeus shuffled forward and took a half-bow. ‘Thank you, my friend,’ said Lymax, ‘for what you were willing to do for all our sakes. It will not be forgotten. That sacrifice is no longer needed, however – because, tonight, five strangers came to Solace.’
 	Sergeant Kramer was dragged to the hanging frame. He was awake, but barely so. Sturm saw purple bruises on his face, even from this distance. Three of the young men lifted him, while the fourth looped a rope around his ankles. They were planning to hang Kramer upside down – like the aeldari out in the forest. Sturm felt anger overtaking him again, even as his stomach muscles cramped in disgust.
 	‘They are not like us,’ Lymax proclaimed. ‘We know this from hard-won experience. As city-dwellers, they live their lives protected by great walls and armies. They haven’t endured what we have been forced to endure. They cannot comprehend our ways, and will never approve of them.’
 	The crowd rallied now. Many yelled out in anger – which made Sturm resent them all the more, because what did they have to be angry about? He sensed that proceedings were building to a climax. His every nerve screamed at him to act – but what could he do? Every man and woman here was armed as well as he was. Moonlight glinted off a blade in the magistrate’s hand.
 	‘The lives of these strangers will buy more life for all of us – their leader tonight, the others during the moons to come.’
 	Sergeant Kramer was hoisted by his ankles, the crowd hooting and jeering at him. Someone threw a bottle at him, which shattered on the hanging frame. For Sturm, it was the final straw. These people, every one of them, were traitors, consorting with the vilest forces imaginable. The thought of what they had done to Zoransky, what they were doing now, made his blood run hot in his veins. He wished he had killed the deputy at the gaolhouse. He wished he could kill every one of them.
 	‘The appointed moment arrives once more,’ Lymax intoned. He brandished his knife and stepped up to the hanging Kramer. He uttered an incantation in some arcane, blasphemous language. Sturm threw his hands to his ears, but couldn’t quite blot out the terrible, painful words.
 	Then the crowd began to chant along with their magistrate: a grumbling undercurrent at first, but swelling to a resounding roar. They pounded their fists in the air. The moon was still full, the stars bright, but the sky seemed to have darkened. Sturm could feel the villagers’ hyped-up emotions like a physical wave crashing over him, making his heart beat faster. The veins in his temple throbbed.
 	He had to force himself to breathe. He had to think clearly, now more than ever before. He raised his salvaged pistol. He could get off two shots, perhaps three, before the crowd saw where he was and fell upon him. He had to make them count.
 	He rested his sights upon Magistrate Lymax, whom he hated most of all. Think clearly… Would his death halt this unholy ceremony? Probably not. Someone else – Old Man Jerebeus or one of the younger men – would only take over from him.
 	‘He wouldn’t have survived long, in any case. His wound was infected.’
 	Sturm saw no way to save his comrade’s life. He could save his soul, however. Vulfgang Kramer was a good man, a devout man. He deserved the Emperor’s mercy. One bullet for him, then; one for the magistrate after. Sturm shifted his aim to his faithful comrade, his friend. He prayed for the fortitude to do his duty. He took a deep, steadying breath. His finger tightened on his trigger.
 	Then, with his peripheral vision, through the crowd, he saw her.
 	She was standing at the front, a hundred yards away from him. Her back was to him, but her vivid red tunic and flowing blonde hair were unmistakable.
 	Suddenly, Alyce’s head snapped around. She couldn’t have seen him in the shadows, not from that distance. It was impossible. While all other eyes were fixed upon the stage, however, her bright blue orbs stared directly at Guardsman Sturm.
 	His bullet ricocheted off the hanging frame. He cursed in frustration. He had allowed himself to be distracted, and the strange weapon’s recoil had surprised him. He re-aimed and fired again, hastily – even as Lymax dived for cover. Sturm was just in time to see his broad-brimmed hat dropping behind the scaffold.
 	The villagers turned on him, howling in indignation. He knew he had to run, lest he take Kramer’s place. Then he realised that no one was moving towards him. The raging crowd parted, creating a channel from him to Alyce. She was skipping towards him, her eyes shining coldly, a smile pulling at her lips.
 	She raised a hand towards Sturm, and something struck him in the stomach. He doubled over with the force of the blow, which was followed by another and another. Invisible punches assailed him from every direction, filling him with pain, making him jerk like a broken puppet. His nostrils filled with the scent of blood, though he didn’t think he had been cut. The faces of Solace’s inhabitants leered before him, twisted into nightmare masks. Their raging voices filled his ears, building in intensity until he felt like his head would explode.
 	He recalled Lymax’s tale of the aeldari that had penetrated the village, of the dark force that had destroyed it. In a moment of adrenaline-sharpened clarity, he knew that force had been the anger of the villagers themselves. A force that was killing him too. A force collected, directed, embodied – somehow, in some way that he couldn’t understand and feared to try – by a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl.
 	Alyce had almost reached him. Sturm fell to his knees at her scuffed leather, open-toed shoes, tears and sweat blurring his vision. He gaped up at three images of her face with its fixed look of detached amusement. ‘No,’ he gasped. ‘I am Mordian Iron Guard. No remorse, no mercy, no forgiveness.’
 	He had never encountered a psyker before. He had been trained to resist their malign mental influence, but had never imagined the effort would hurt so much. He felt as if his mind would shatter.
 	‘Not a single step back, not a single moment of hesitation.’ He recited the words of Colonel Drescher, when he had raised the legendary 18th Regiment – words that had been drilled into every Iron Guard recruit since.
 	‘You will not… will not succumb to fear or… doubt…’ His right arm was a dead weight, but he willed himself to raise it. The primitive pistol trembled in his grip. Three images of Alyce became hundreds, twisting and whirling in front of him as if he were looking at her through a cracked kaleidoscope.
 	‘…and you will relent only after you have given your last moment for…’
 	Sturm screwed his eyes shut. He tried to focus past the pain that wracked his body, his mind and his soul. He tried to slow his breathing, which had become a series of tortured gasps, slicing into his lungs like icy blades. He couldn’t see his enemy, couldn’t hear her, but he knew where she was by the waves of hatred emanating from her.
 	‘…for the Emperor!’ he bellowed. And fired his pistol.
 	It felt like the world had stopped.
 	For one eternal moment, Sturm drifted in silent darkness and knew the Emperor’s peace. Only gradually did he become aware of his surroundings again. He was still at the edge of the square, still on his knees. His pistol was still warm. It pinned his hand to the ground, as if it had become too heavy to bear.
 	Many members of the crowd were kneeling too. They might have been praying – assuming they had anyone left to pray to. Their anger had drained out of them, leaving them spent. Someone let out a keening, despairing howl. It was Old Man Jerebeus, on the scaffold. Some followed his lead, while others wept self-pitying tears over Alyce’s body or just into the dry, dusty soil.
 	Sturm had just shot a child. The thought made him feel nauseous. He would need to pray too, for forgiveness. Not now, though. The villagers appeared to have forgotten all about him. Doubtless they would pull themselves together soon and turn on the architect of their woes. Sturm knew he had to move – only he couldn’t muster the energy to stand.
 	He saw a blur of movement, then another. He blinked, in case his vision was at fault. He witnessed an explosion of blood and gore in the crowd directly ahead of him, but couldn’t see its cause. Momentarily, he glimpsed a milky-white face, silken black hair and mocking eyes. Then, there was more blood – and the screaming started.
 	There were aeldari in Solace. They must have been waiting all this time for their chance. As ever, there may only have been a handful of them; there may have been dozens. It was impossible to tell. Sturm only glimpsed them out of the corners of his eyes. He tracked them by their deadly wakes.
 	He saw the flashing of their slender blades. He saw one villager after another cut down before they could apprehend their peril. Some were just beginning to rally. Pistols were drawn and fired, their bullets striking more friends than foes.
 	Sturm pushed his way through them. He elbowed and punched them aside when they stumbled into his path. His duty, first and foremost, was to his endangered comrades. He reached the scaffold and pulled himself up onto it. He was too late.
 	Kramer was still hanging, inverted, from his ropes. His throat was slit. Old Man Jerebeus knelt beside him. Tears rolled down his ruddy cheeks. His hands dripped with the sergeant’s blood. His clothes were plastered with it.
 	‘I thought… I prayed, if I completed the sacrifice,’ the old man bleated. He raised his head to the moon and cried out, ‘Take me. Please. Take my body. My soul. Do with them as you wish. Just, please, do not desert us. We need you. My people. My family. Don’t let the lives we have lived here count for–’
 	Sturm shot the old man in the head.
 	He heard the heavy double-clack of a cocking shotgun. He knew, before he turned, who he would find behind him. Lymax marched across the planking towards him, with both barrels levelled at Sturm’s unprotected head. His pinhole eyes blazed with contempt. ‘You did this,’ he spluttered.
 	‘I defended myself and my comrades from you.’
 	‘From the moment we took you in here, you judged our way of life.’
 	‘Your way of death.’
 	‘We only defended ourselves too. We did what we had to, to survive.’
 	‘But at a price.’
 	‘A few lives – most of them close to ending, anyhow – in exchange for a hundred years of peace. Now, you have destroyed us.’
 	‘Yes,’ Sturm acknowledged, proudly. ‘I have.’ He straightened his back and puffed out his chest. Lymax could hardly miss him at this range, but he would die with honour. He had served the Emperor dutifully. His life was a price worth paying.
 	Suddenly, the magistrate stiffened. Blood trickled from one corner of his mouth and the shotgun slipped from his numbed fingers. It took Sturm a second to see the blade protruding from Lymax’s chest. Then he noticed the shadow beside him. He fired at it, but the shadow, along with the blade, was gone. He whirled around, half expecting to find both looming behind him, but saw nothing.
 	Lymax’s corpse hit the planking with a hefty, wet thud. Sturm was left alone on the scaffold at the eye of a maelstrom. He checked his gun: two bullets left. He decided to save them. He took a breath and leapt back into the heart of the melee.
 	He fought his way through it, through a writhing mass of anger and fear and despair, back the way he had come across the square. Some villagers yelled out as they saw him. Some even made hopeless grabs for him, but most were only concerned with themselves. Sturm saw no more aeldari, but he felt their presence in the spasms that wracked the crowd each time they struck.
 	He found himself trampling an increasing number of dead and dying. Hemmed in as he was, he was no less vulnerable than anyone else around him. He probably wouldn’t even see the creature that slew him.
 	‘Mordians don’t run.’ His own words returned to haunt him.
 	He fought his way along the alleyway between gaolhouse and store.
 	Beyond this, the crowd was dispersing. People streamed into their all-too-flimsy shacks, bolting doors behind them. One man, locked out of his home, hammered on the shutters, pleading with his family indoors. Seconds later, he lay dead on the ground, criss-crossed with livid red cuts. The aeldari were here too. ‘They’re faster than we are. They want the pleasure of hunting you down.’
 	Sturm heard the cracks and whines of a pair of lasguns. He found the sound – something familiar, amid so much that was not – reassuring. Guardsmen Ven Eisen and Ludo stood back to back outside the tavern, ensuring that no one could sneak up behind either of them. Ven Eisen’s posture was awkward, favouring his injured foot, while Ludo struggled to aim one-handed. They fought on, nevertheless.
 	Sturm hurried up to them. ‘Where have you been?’ Ven Eisen greeted him, breathlessly. He loosed another beam into the shadows, punching a hole through a barrel. ‘What the Golden Throne is happening in Solace?’
 	‘A long story,’ said Sturm, ‘best saved for our debriefing.’
 	‘Armed men burst into our room. I was unarmed, and Ludo was sleeping. They held us captive. When the shouting started, one of them panicked and fled. We sprung on the other two and overpowered them.’
 	‘We’re leaving. Now,’ said Sturm.
 	Ven Eisen gaped at him. ‘What of Sergeant Kramer?’
 	Sturm shook his head. ‘He’s dead. Zoransky too. That leaves me in command of this squad, and I say we’re leaving.’
 	How could he explain all he had witnessed here? Already, he questioned his own recollections, as if his mind knew they were too dangerous to retain. He felt as if he had just stumbled through a dream, and now reality’s cold air had slapped him hard across the face. He only knew he had to get away from here.
 	He led his two surviving comrades out of the village, the same way they had entered it. The aeldari didn’t bother them. By sheer good fortune or the Emperor’s grace, he wondered? Perhaps they saw the villagers as the greater threat to them. Or they knew three Guardsmen wouldn’t get far in the forest.
 	It was a few hours yet till dawn. ‘My guess is, our compasses will lead us back to our campsite now,’ said Sturm. He even half believed it himself.
 	They reached the branch from which the dead aeldari had hung. Someone had cut down the body and taken it away. From among the huddle of wooden buildings behind them, they heard a woman’s scream, abruptly curtailed. Ven Eisen faltered. He had obeyed his orders, as any Mordian would. Now, however, he could hold his silence no longer. ‘Shouldn’t we fight for them? They are men, after all, facing the xenos scourge. Is it not our duty to protect them?’
 	Sturm shook his head emphatically. ‘Not this time. Not these men. You haven’t seen all I have seen. They have amply earned this fate. Our duty now is to survive to fight again – and choose a better battle, a worthier cause, next time.’
 	His comrades saw his grim expression and the shadows in his eyes, and they questioned him no more. They formed up and straightened their backs, adjusting their bright blue uniform greatcoats. As one, they stepped out into the dark, foreboding forest.
 	They shook the dust of Solace from their shoes to whatever fate now awaited them.