Chapter 26: Purity Seal

I read and reread the latest edition of Stupid Deaths. Chapter 21 was included in this printing. Fuck me. There were some good ones in this chapter. I'm glad I finally got the one for tassels in. But 420...Emperor help me, how much did I drink that night? I must have nearly killed myself to not only write this, but send it to the printers.

I toss it down onto the desk, rubbing my good eye in frustration and exhaustion. As much as I don't want to admit it, everything I wrote down in 420 has been lurking at the back of my mind. I've been able to keep these bad thoughts under control for the most part, but the night I wrote that entry had been a particularly bad night. A nightmare where the Chaos Lord had been spooling my large intestine around her finger, slowly pulling it out of me, had tormented me that particular night. When I woke up from it, my wife wasn't there, having been called out of bed for a night time patrol. I had tried to calm down with either a drink or some writing, and somewhere along the line the two had mixed. And apparently they were a terrible combination.

I sighed, looking up at the ceiling. The one bit of good news was that Zamora had caught the newest edition and had kept it from being distributed. Probably for the best, if it had gotten out, around a tenth of my regular readers would've formed suicide pacts. Things were shit enough in the Imperium without me adding to it. In terms of printing, figuring out what I was supposed to do now was going to be a massive pain, but that was the least of my problems right now.

Time was running out. The Harlequins were excellent at their hit and run attacks, slowing down the Chaos Lord's movements, but that was it, they were only slowing her down. Hundreds of thousands of her men had died in viciously brutal lighting raids launched by the Harlequins, but that was barely a scratch in her massive numbers. She would be coming here, and we were barely getting any reinforcements to counter her. I had nearly blown a gasket when I learned that this planet had been labeled as a "minor front". Rage had flown through me, rage that had slowly been replaced with horror as I put two and two together. It was this bad everywhere, if not worse.

There had been a lot of sleepless nights for me. Nights were I had been fingering the plasma pistol I had taken off of her son. She would probably find it poetic, me killing myself with her brat's pistol. Half of the nights I put it down simply because I didn't want to give her the satisfaction. The other half were because my wife had gently pulled it out of my hands. Nowadays, she made sure it was nowhere near us when we went to sleep. I don't know what I did to deserve her.

I shook my head. I had been kept away from active duty ever since I came back. Constant debriefings and training, but no patrols or garrison duty. Not until they got every last bit of info out of me. Or maybe they finally thought the old man had cracked and they didn't want him to kill any of the younger kids. Wasn't exactly unreasonable.

Trying to get away from these unpleasant thoughts, I returned my attention to what I was doing. I was in one of the countless chapels on Wasteland. As an Imperium planet, it was only natural that it was dotted with shrines dedicated to the Imperial Creed, particularly in the planet's capital. The one I had found was one of the smaller and less popular ones, but I liked it that way. The last thing I needed when I was contemplated spiritual matters was overwhelming crowds and jewelry encrusted priests looked like the type that fucked underage kids.

I was sitting in front of a small shrine to the Emperor, a small tray of wax over a burner between me and it. The wax was just beginning to melt, but it wasn't ready yet. Three scraps of paper were next to the tray, prayers written on them in High Gothic. I rolled my eyes when blue bloods used High Gothic to communicate, mainly because no one but them spoke it, but everyone knew the parts of High Gothic that were dedicated to prayers. That was the role of High Gothic as far as I was concerned. The words of the Emperor, Primarchs, the Saints and other wise men and women, not rich twats showing off how smart they were.

Admittedly it had been some time since I had written out prayers in High Gothic. The prayers were rather messily written, even though they were my twentieth try and easily my best one at that. I could imagine my old primary school teacher if she saw me now, she'd throttle me for doing such a lousy job. She had drilled us in writing and understanding prayers and words of wisdom in High Gothic. I used to be good at it at one point...I think. Then again, I used to have a father, and I stopped going to school around the same time I started my exciting new career as an orphan. There was probably a connection.

Still, I had managed to get all of them written out. All of them were easily my three favorite sayings. I picked up one, looking it over.

Chaos claims the unwary or the incomplete. A true man may flinch away its embrace, if he is stalwart, and he girds his soul with the armour of contempt.

I gave a small smile. In many ways I was hardly the ideal follower of the faith of the Emperor. I never doubted that the Emperor was real, the god that deserved our faith and adoration, nor that he was the only one that could save the Imperium. Many would argue that I wasn't devout enough, wasn't zealous enough, or whatever other asinine thing. But everyone who ever got to know me agreed on one thing. I DESPISED Chaos.

Everything about it filled me with boiling anger. A lot of supposedly wise words said by men who claimed to be holy had always sounded like fluff that had tried to ride on the Emperor's coattails. The Armour of Contempt though? After all I had been through, the Armour wasn't something to believe in, it was simply something that was real. I had spent five long years neck deep in corrupted worlds, fighting the Archenemy, and I had never been tempted by them. And I truly believed that it was because of the Armour. I had sunk low during those years, I had done a lot that I regretted, but I had NEVER stopped hating Chaos. All those around me who truly hated Chaos had never faltered in their faith to the Emperor, Chaos had never been able to corrupt them.

It was good to remind myself of this right now though. The Chaos Lord had struck fear into my heart. I need to strangle and murder that fear. Murder it and replace it with hatred. Hatred would keep my mind clear and I would need that for what was coming.

Placing it down, I examined the second piece of paper, which had a very old Imperial hymn scrawled on it.

Love the Emperor

for He is the salvation of mankind

Obey His words

for He will lead you into the light of the future

Heed His wisdom

for He will protect you from evil

Whisper His prayers with devotion,

for they will save your soul

Honour His servants,

for they speak in His voice

Tremble before His majesty,

for we all walk in His immortal shadow

My smile here was a little more shaky. I liked to think myself as a man of the Emperor. Not of the Ecclesiarchy, I'm fairly certain my book was deemed as heretical as far as they were concerned, but I wasn't stupid. I had read holy texts, the ones that carried the Emperor's words personally. I did my best to commit them to memory, follow their example, and many nights I had thought that was enough. The past few nights, I had had doubts.

When you dig into the word of the Emperor, you can't help but notice he didn't actually say anything about some of the practices the modern Imperium hold near and dear. I didn't see anything about him claiming that the nobility had any value whatsoever, for example, and I'm still trying to track down the bit where he advocated for the killing of anyone who looted enemy weaponry.I was a man of the Emperor, through and through, and I followed HIS word, not the word of those who used his image to their advantage.

Despite this, small part of me (ok, a large part of me) was worried that I faltered in my faith at times. That period in my life where I was separated from my sister during the Chaos Lord's conquests comes to mind. I can't remember half of what I did there, but there's no doubt a good chunk of it would have gotten me a bolt to the face if the situations had been a little less dire.

Emperor, that had been a dark point in my life. And it was almost repeating itself. Well, only one thing to do. Something that I really should have done a lot more of all those years ago. Dropping to my knees, I clasped my hands in front of myself and began to pray. "Emperor on this Throne. I know you, but I don't know if you know me. I am one soldier among trillions, and no doubt there are far more important matters that require your focus."

"I've given two centuries of my life to defend your realm and your people. I admit, I have stumbled and fallen, more than many Guardsmen ever will, but I have stayed loyal to your creed and your cause. I have stood against the Archenemy, slain countless of their servants, and done all I can to rid your Imperium of their taint. I know this pales in comparison to the duty done by your Angels of Death, but it is all I am capable of doing."

I swallowed. "Forgive me if I am arrogant, but I must ask something of you. I don't ask for selfish gain, or for my burdens to be lightened. There is a woman coming, a woman who has killed and corrupted billions of your followers. All I ask is this. When the time comes, let me have a steady hand and a clear mind. I beg you Emperor, give me the strength to carry out your will."

I knelt there, hands clasped together. In all my years, I had never heard the Emperor answer the prayers I offered up. I didn't take it personally, he spent his existence enabling space travel across over a million planets. I was but a tiny speck in the massive monolith that was the Imperium, spark lost in a raging wildfire.

I was about to assume this time would be no different when, all of a sudden, I felt something. Something all around me, invisible to the eye, but very much there. I sprang to my feet, looking around for the cause of this odd sensation. There was nothing new around me, but I could still feel the same strange sensation. Like something was pressing in , watching me from all sides. Observing and calculating me. Then, just as fast as it had begun, the feeling vanished.

Not letting my guard down, I stayed upright, eyes darting around just to be safe. When nothing made itself clear, I knelt down again. Not bothering to read the third paper, I undid the straps holding my chest plate on and placed it near the papers. Lifting up the pieces of paper, I gently placed them on the armor, smoothing them out as best I could. Checking the tray of wax, I saw that it had fully melted now.

Carefully picking it up, I poured a small amount of wax on each of the prayers, coating the top of the prayers in it. Making sure that I had enough on each prayer, I produced a small stamp from a pouch on my side, and pressed down on each of the blobs of wax. When I pulled away, each one had been pressed into the shape of the winged skull that symbolized the Imperial Guard.

A trio of purity seals would be fixed to my armor when the wax hardened. It wouldn't do anything to make me armor sacred or repel the forces of Chaos, but they would serve their purpose. They would remind me that I was a soldier of the Emperor. Right now, that was going to count for a lot. I needed to remember that.

Stepping away from my armor to let the wax cool, I looked around the shrine. I had no idea what I had just felt. Maybe I was finally losing it, I had certainly been through and seen enough for it to happen. But maybe, just maybe, there was a sliver of light reaching out to me. I certainly wasn't going to be questioning it.

There was a creak of aging wood and metal that broke me out of my thoughts. Someone was opening the door. "I thought we'd find you here." Zamora and my daughter and law were at the entrance. Both were in their wargear, Zamora having scrubbed all the dirt out of her gilded armor, so that it shone brightly. I had to fight back the urge to roll my eyes at that. Honestly it would've been better to leave it dirty, to permanently get rid of the glint, but she took the time to clean it after each operation that required it to be dirty. Something about it being passed down seventeen generations from mother to daughter and therefore she had to treat it with respect. Zamora was better than most blue bloods, but she was still a little pretentious.

"Mom and auntie were a little worried," my daughter said, taking a few steps forward. Her hair was long and brown, more her mother's than mine. It scrapped the top of her shoulders, far longer than I was comfortable with. In battle she tied it up in a bun, but like with Zamora's armor, things would've been much better if she simply took a much more permanent option. Though, I admit, I didn't push this issue as hard as I did the armor issue. It was a small weakness on my part, every time I tried to bring it up, an image of a giggling five year old with a missing tooth jumped into my head. It took the fight out of me.

"Sorry," I said sincerely, slumping into the pew in front of the shrine. My daughter gently walked around it and sat down next to me. She smiled as she looked at me, running a hand through her hair. It was starting to turn grey. Fuck me. When did she get that old? "In my defense though, the last time I was in a situation like this, I went on a five year booze and adrenaline bender. And no one was trying to hunt down me specifically. All things considered, I think I'm handling the situation surprisingly well, considering I only had one night of drinking and utterly losing it." Even as I spoke, I wasn't sure how much of that claim was a statement and how much was a joke, and I really didn't want to think about it too hard.

My daughter seemed to have the same mindset, and for a moment we shared a rather awkward laugh that died a quick and sudden death. "It won't happen again," I said. I had every intention of making sure that the night that lead to 420 being born would never even come close to happening again. Alcohol was something that felt very much like grox poison to me right now.

"I know," she said simply. There was an awkward moment of silence before she leaned forward to read the purity seals on my armor. "Good choices," she said. Her eyes lingered on the third one and her hands tightened into fists for a second before they slackened.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Nothing that can really be done about it, is there?" she said. There was an awkward silence. "Good news from the colonel. We've been getting a few million extra soldiers diverted to this front. But the problem is that they're 80% penal legion forces. Well, 80% penal legions and their Adeptus Arbites handlers." I groaned. Of course. A Chaos Lord on the loose and we were getting rapists, murderers and thieves sent to shore up the bulwark. I got the idea of penal legions most of the times, they were assholes that no one would miss and we might as well get some use out of them, but I always held the opinion that they shouldn't be sent to fight Chaos. They were ideal corruption material. Part of me wanted to send all the prisoners back and just keep the Arbitrators.

"Are things really that bad?" I said, not really expecting an answer. "Last time we got a company of Space Wolves and eventually the entire chapter. If what I've been hearing is anything to go by, we've only got a couple of squads of Space Marines here to help us this time. Everyone else is being pulled back to protect worlds closer to Holy Terra."

My daughter nodded sadly. "Though this time we do have the Harlequins on our side. It's something. At the very least, they won't stab us in the back like the rest of their kind, and they're good fighters." I suppose even xenos could have one or two virtues. Here's to hoping they weren't expecting a medal for it.

"It's something," I said. I had seen the Shadowseer dance around a pair of Chaos Space Marines, deftly slicing away at their armor. They were not insignificant allies, but at this point I was wondering how much of a difference they were going to make in the grand scheme of things. "Our orders haven't changed? We're still to defend this part of the planet?"

"This dinky little continent, the main army is still on the mainland, and the navy is hovering above it," my daughter said wryly. "All according to plan."

"Great," I said dryly.

"Look," my daughter said, leaning back in the pew and looking at the ceiling. "I really don't want to think about what's coming. Can we talk about what's we're going to do after that?" I nodded. "Good. Well." She paused, sounding a little embarrassed. "Look. I've been talking with the Mrs. and we, well, we're thinking about kids. At least I am."

"Adoption?" I asked, making sure to keep my tone neutral.

"Well, we both lack the necessary parts to homebrew one, and if there's any technology out there to get around that, I haven't heard about it. So yeah," she replied, going a little red in the face. "You can't throw a rock in a hive without hitting an orphan. Most of them war orphans at that. So I'm thinking, if there's ever a time in my life where I'm too old to hold a rifle, or I get banged up to the point where they won't or can't fix me anymore, or maybe if I finally get assigned somewhere where things are calm, I'll want something to fall back on. If you're anything to go by, raising a kid is a pretty worthwhile pastime."

She smiled at me. That made this whole fucked up situation a little more bearable. "There's a lot of things you're going to have to keep in mind," I said, relaxing back into a role I hadn't played in awhile, the lecturing father. "If you raise a kid on an active front, odds are someone else will be doing most of the raising. A carry on to the regiment, one of those people that follow us wherever we go. You'll only see them when you're off duty or away from the front lines, and that will never feel like enough. I got down to raising you when we were far away from active combat zones, and even then I didn't get to see as much of you as I would've liked."

"I know, we're going to wait for the right moment," she replied, giving me an exasperated look. The "don't be such a dad" look. I smiled. "We're going to wait until after this battle is over, of course. After this whole mess is over and we actually have time to sit down and think." She looked away from the ceiling and at me. She gave a nervous grin. "I honestly still don't know how we work. She was a gangster when we found her. A gunslinger running around with a bunch of idiots who got in way over their head. She killed all of her former allies when we found her, and yet not only did we recruit her...well...you know," she finished awkwardly.

"And when I first met your mother, she ripped a Commissar's heart out with her bare hands," I replied, earning a laugh from my daughter. She had always liked that story, possibly because I had a tendency to leave out the part where I was at a point in my life where I was willing to let Orks kill me. "We're the people stupid, insane, and crazy enough to still be fighting in the Guard after all these years. When you're stupid, insane, and crazy, you can only really court people who are also stupid, insane, and crazy. Name one person in our little makeshift family that doesn't fulfill that description."

Zamora coughed loudly from where she was standing in the doorway. My daughter laughed. "Fair point. But, you know, I kind of like it that way."

"True, but it'd be nice if we actually got one normal person," I replied, fighting back the urge to laugh. "Try and raise your kid to be one."

"I'll have you know I married a perfectly normal person!" Zamora called from the hallway. "I get weekly letters from him you know. He's doing perfectly fine on my family's estate. Eating proper food prepared by twenty chefs instead of the gruel we eat!" I really did envy Zamora's husband at times. Medical discharge because that Dark Eldar poison fucked with his muscles, living at his wife's place, not a care in the world and having his every whim catered to. What was missing? Oh right, the wife he no doubt was worried sick about and he couldn't do anything to help. Actually, I take that back, that poor son of a bitch was easily the most miserable member of our little group. He probably had had trouble sleeping for years.

"Normal though," my daughter said, her smile sliding away. "Normal for a Guard brat is growing up to be another Guardsmen. That's what happens isn't it? When soldiers have kids, the kids become soldiers too. I mean, it's what happened to me."

I had to admit, this was something that had put me off the idea of having a kid for a good long time, the idea that they would follow in my footsteps. I would say that I would've preferred a better life for her. The problem is that I honestly don't know what would have qualified for a better life, outside of somehow landing a nobleman for a husband. I mean, what exactly was there to do for the trillions that served in the Imperial Guard? What would we all do if we weren't Guardsmen? I couldn't think of anything. "It's not an easy thing to live with," I admitted. "But it'll be the kid's decision. And you will be so proud of them." I put a hand on her shoulder. She smiled before leaning in to hug me.

"Dad, let's go home," she said.

"One second," I said. "Have a prayer with your old man."

The smile was back on her face. "Ok." Following my lead, we both knelt before the shrine. We knelt and prayed.