Chapter 32: Pious

No one ever liked to think about the more unpleasant aspects of cities and Hives. The crumbling infrastructure, the fact that countless people died from medical and safety cutbacks that no one with any power to help cared about, the constant gang violence, all that misery. But the more mundane things that no one living in a Hive ever liked to think about was just how much shit was circulating underneath the city. Despite a Hive been populated densely with figurative assholes, it also had a lot of literal assholes, and with that came shit. Literal tons of shit that the sewer systems had to deal with every day, safely out of sight of those with enough money to hide from reality.

I didn't have such a luxury. I was in the depths of a sewer system underneath one of Wasteland's cities, and I was getting bombarded by the scent of the waste of millions of people. It took me constant effort to not to gag, something that could potentially lead to puking, which was the very last thing that I needed right now. I just had to keep moving. If I stopped, even for a second, she could catch me for sure. So I pressed on, deeper into the collection of shit because what was behind me was so much worse.

Three more turns, a locked door that was quickly rendered unlocked by a well-placed las-bolt, and a grate I had had to slide under. All the while, the sound of masonry being smashed and metal being twisted was never far behind me. Making it all worse, I wasn't even sure where I was going, I could've been running in circles for all I knew. I didn't know the layout of this sewer system, and I was terrified that I was going to reach a dead end at any moment now.

I was about to duck through a narrow passageway when a booming voice echoed through the tunnel. It didn't seem to come from one singular direction, but from every direction at once. "Do not kill him! Wound him if you must, but bring him to me alive! Anyone who kills him will take his place!" Trying really hard to not think about how far that message had gotten, I jumped a drop instead of taking the ladder, landing hard on my feet. Right in front of a trio of cultists.

They all jumped back in surprise, but I was hopped up on enough adrenaline that I started shooting the second I saw them, catching one in the gut with a dozen las-bolts and vaporizing the face of another with three more. The last one managed to get a stray shot from his rifle off before I charged forward and slammed into him shoulder first, knocking him into the stream of sewage. Spluttering and coughing, he surfaced, his face filthy. Not hesitating, I took aim and blew his head off with an aimed burst, a horrible burning smell emanating from the sewage as some parts of it ignited.

"It just had to be an Emperor-forsaken sewer," I swore, taking a second to put a round in the head of the cultist I had hit with gut shots, just to be on the safe side, before moving on. It was around that point that it hit me. A horrible, overwhelming smell. Not the smell of feces, which was quickly becoming nothing more but a pleasant memory, but another smell I recognized. A coppery smell. The river of sewage below me was changing color from murky brown to bright red. Blood.

There were a couple of ways in which something like that could happen. The more mundane and more tedious method involved slaughtering copious amount of people and draining their bodies in order to get that much blood. A process that doubtless had to be tedious as all hell, but it was the kind of thing Chaos would waste their time doing. They probably did it to their own people as much as they did Imperial citizens and soldiers. If not more.

The other method was the method that I thought was a lot likely, that being sorcery. I didn't understand what the difference between psykers and sorcerers were, aside from the obvious hard-ons and moist pussies for daemons, and everything that came with that. But they seemed to be capable of doing rituals that got all kinds of results that just screamed "Chaos." The blood fetish, the obsession with death, the complete and utter shallowness of it all, that kind of thing. I'm not sure why the Chaos Lord would arrange for the sewers to be flooded with blood, nor how many cultists had been killed for it, either as a sacrifice or for their blood. But whatever the reason, I had a feeling that it wouldn't be anything good for me.

The blood started to bubble, and I decided that that was the point for me to continue running. I had no idea what blood bubbling signified, and I intended to keep it that way. The deep, rattling breaths that echoed in the tunnels behind me spurred me on, encouraging me to run even harder. The screeching was just the icing on the cake. I dared to take a glance behind me as I ran.

Bloodletters were emerging from the blood, mouths open wide in screeches, flaming swords in hand. I didn't like the odds of taking on a single daemon, let alone a group. As they started to clamber out of the river of blood and chase after me at an unnaturally fast pace, I fumbled with my belt of grenades. I half considered using the kraks and sparing the frags for later before I ripped the pins off of all of them, scattering them behind me with a desperate throw. There were a few agonizing seconds as they scattered to the ground and the daemons drew closer before they detonated.

The sound was deafening. Lower levels of sewers very rarely had repair crews sent down to take care of them, as it was such a "poor people" problem, and therefore local nobles tended to not give a shit. It had a tendency to lead to a good deal of unspeakable substances making its way into the water, it helped me right now. As all the grenades detonated, it took out some support structures that probably would've given out on their own some time in the next decade, at least that was my guess.

All I knew for sure is that, as I ran, I heard the sound of metal grinding and bending, which was quickly overwhelmed by shattering masonry, cracking stones, and a whole lot of very heavy objects tumbling downward. I didn't look back. If I was lucky, my cluster of grenades would have killed one, maybe two of the daemons, with some wounds on the others. A collapse that made that much noise would have certainly killed them, but only if it landed directly on top of them. If they had been behind it, then it would slow them down as they worked through the wreckage. I had no idea how long it would take an unholy daemon sword to work its way through sewer wreckage, though it was a safe bet to say that it wouldn't hold forever. For all, I knew it would only take ten seconds for them to get through all of that. And if they hadn't even been on the far side of the wreckage, I wasn't sure and I wasn't looking back, then I had better move my ass. I should move my ass no matter the circumstance, but that last outcome was very much a "FUCKING RUN ASSHOLE!" situation.

I found myself at a ladder after a couple more turns, grabbing onto it and sliding down, stopping at a random point halfway down. Going all the way to the bottom would be a little too obvious, this might throw them off the trail a little bit. Getting a brainwave, I removed my helmet, normally I would scream at anyone who did this in a combat situation, but the chase had reached the point where Daemons were being sent after me, a helmet wasn't going to help much, and dropped it down the shaft.

Hoping that would fool them, I started to run again when an utterly awful feeling spread over me without warning. Stumbling, I fell to the ground, clutching at my head in agony. It felt like spikes were drilling into it from the inside, piercing my skull in order to do so. My entire body felt like a flash fever had just overcome it, my muscles felt drained, an unnatural warmth was spreading over me, and I felt an unnatural disorientation flood my sense. I struggled to get back to my feet, my hand slipping on something and almost causing me to crack my head open on the sewer floor.

DAD! a voice screamed in my head. I can feel it! Her psykers are trying to pin down your location! I'm trying to hold them off! It felt like her psykers were trying to do more than track me, down, it felt like they were trying to hold me in place to make me an easier target. But whatever my daughter had done, it had lessened the effects on me. I still felt weak, feverish, and disoriented, but I could at least get to my feet now. Panting, my head still throbbing in agony, I started to run again. Only this time, I was going nowhere near as fast as I did last time, my body simply not being up to maintaining that original high speed.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I whispered to myself as I realized that a moderate jog was all I could handle, and anything more would quickly result with my ass back on the ground. There was a particularly heavy throb and I almost stumbled again. The symptoms were magnified, not the point where they had once been, but quickly working their way back in that direction. The Chaos Lord wanted me bad, and she was doubtless pushing her psykers to the breaking point to track me down.

Dad just holds on a little bit longer, my daughter's voice echoed in my mind. We're almost there, you just need to hold out for another minute or two. I nodded, not really recognizing that the little plan we had put together was almost in motion. Just a little longer. Just a little longer. Forcing myself forward, leaning on the wall here and there for support, I made my way to the end of the passage, and the door on the far side and slid it open.

She was right on the other side. My heart dropped as I saw her in her pitch black armor, stained with dry blood. Her red, raw daemon arm, the shiny golden arm she had taken from the Sister of Silence, one carrying a massive battle axe and the other a sword. I froze, fear paralyzing me as she took a step forward into the same passage as me, brandishing her weapons as she did. A horrible, cruel smile spread across her barely human face. "Oh I've imagined this moment for so long," she said.

My instincts coming back to me, I raised my hellgun and fired on full auto. Dozens of las-bolts impacted on the Lord's front armor, doing nothing to her as she slowly walked forward. Whether it was the natural strength of the armor or some sort of magical enchantment that had been put on her by the Ruinous Powers, I had no idea. But I might as well have been aiming a wooden parade gun at her and blowing raspberries for all the good it was doing. Her lip curled up into a smug smirk as the bolts harmlessly bounced off her armor. One even struck her unarmored head right in the mouth and she didn't so much as blink.

She came to a stop, looking at me with amusement, content to watch as I kept firing until my hellgun ran dry. As the last las-bolt left my weapon and I realized my power pack was dead, I hastily threw the backpack off and drew my sword with one hand and the plasma pistol I had with the other. "As amusing as this is becoming," she said, "you may be more concerned with what's behind you." Normally I would never look behind myself because someone trying to kill me told me to, but at that moment I heard a rather familiar deep, rattling cry.

Spinning around, I saw a Bloodletter. Only one, dragging a broken and useless arm behind it, but still charging towards me with a blazing sword in hand and a long, thin tongue dangling out of its mouth. Swearing a mile a minute, I raised my plasma pistol and fired it as fast as my trigger finger would allow. Normally, being stuck in a small enclosed space with a daemon is a surefire death sentence if you were a Guardsman. This time was different, however, most Guardsmen didn't have high-quality plasma pistols. But still, I wasn't exactly feeling confident.

The first bolt of plasma missed, the next two struck home in the unholy thing's torso, blowing a good chunk of it off in a spray of charred meat, but it still charged. The fourth blew off the upper top of that elongated dick it called a head, but even then it had no trouble bearing down on me. Without thinking, I threw myself back to avoid the blade swing that would've taken my arm off, falling to the ground and firing as I went. The fifth and sixth shots took out one of the daemon's legs, while a seventh tore into the open torso wounds and got my a loud snap for my efforts. The servant of Khorne stumbled backward, its spine sticking out of its back, snapped in half. The eighth, ninth, and tenth shots reduced everything from its breast up to a blackened mess, and it finally died.

"Hm. That's fine." My blood ran cold. Nothing like a servant of Chaos trying to kill you to make you forget about a bigger, badder one that wasn't. Not yet anyway. "Makes things more interesting." I turned, aiming my pistol, a dozen different plans going through my head. I could try and move away from here while pumping her with as many plasma bolts as I could, whatever protection she had would have to give out at some point, no matter how far down the road it was. Failing that, I could use my sword, power weapons worked even on Space Marines, so it wasn't impossible. A direct assault would be suicide, she would try and crush me with that arm of hers, but if I was quick, I could always try and feint to the side and try my hand and cutting the arm off when it came down for me.

I never got a chance. My weapons were barely up when her arm smashed into my chest, palm open, and pinned me into the wall, my blade clattering to the ground. I gasped silently, my voice failing as the wind was knocked out of me. A blinding pain tore through my chest as I felt ribs splinter. My left arm was pinned to my side, and my right couldn't reach much. Slowly, she closed the distance between us. "Months. For months I've imagined this moment," she said softly, her voice full of poorly hidden glee. "I've imagined what I would do to you, what I would say. My wildest fantasies would run wild. And now that I'm here, it's almost embarrassing to admit, but I can't actually think of anything. I'm too excited."

She shook her head, letting out a genuine laugh that was more terrifying than any cackle I've ever heard. "Well, I supposed I'll just have to do what comes naturally." At moment, she squeezed down on me. I had initially formed half-baked thoughts over not giving her the satisfaction of hearing me scream. A noble endeavor that died a quick and undignified death as I roared in pain as more ribs snapped, along with my left arm. Raising my plasma pistol, I fired three shots that hit an invisible barrier right before her face, before she slapped the weapon out of my hand so hard that it dislocated my wrist. It was a mild pain compared to the rest of my body, but it still earned some howls from me.

Slowly, her new golden hand slid around my face, clenching it tightly. Like a hunter admiring her new trophy. "That. Was my son's pistol," she said, her voice a hiss. "I gave it to him. He had killed a planetary governor on one of your worlds in single combat. It was the first time I had ever seen him duel a servant of your corpse emperor one on one before." She blinked, and tears started to flow out of her eyes. "I was...I was so proud. I took the man's sword and pistol and gave it to him. Told him he had done well and that I knew he would go far." And now anger was etched onto her face, replacing the temporary sorrow. "YOU TOOK MY SON AWAY FROM ME!"

Her golden hand tightened around my head, and I could feel my skull straining under the pressure. I didn't want to think about how much harder she would have to grip before something cracked, because I knew it was within her capability. "But first. I want to taste it. I want to feel your fear. Let's see if your thoughts show just how terrified you are." With that, I felt her pour into my mind. Images flashed through my head. The asshole I had made dig his own grave while I held a bolt pistol to his head. Zamora desperately working on her husband to be late into the night. Me sobbing uncontrollably as I held my daughter for the first time. My father burning to death while my sister watched with morbid satisfaction. My daughter-in-law going from hardened gangster to someone afraid I would bite her head off as she asked for my permission to propose. My wife laughing as she tossed our five-year-old daughter up and down.

And the one thought I had kept at the back of my mind this entire mission. I could feel her looking at it with me. I reached back with my tongue against one of my back molars and pressed against it twice. There was a click. She blinked. Then fury spread across her face. "No," she said softly. Then, it was a roar. "NO!"

In spite of the situation, I forced out a ragged laugh. "Yup!" Grinning at her fury, I noticed that one of my purity seals had fallen off my armor. My third and favorite had come loose and was resting on the ground. Looking down, my handwriting was just barely visible in the poor light.

"Where I fall, ten more shall take my place! And one hundred each of them! So strike me down! I am the harbinger!"

It was fitting, in a way. Chuckling, I looked back at the Chaos Lord, who was seething with rage. She knew it all. This whole time. I had been bait. And it seemed that I had just enough time left for one last word. "You! Died! STUPID!" I shouted, my voice hoarse from the pain, but it was alive with triumph.

The Chaos Lord released me as I started to laugh, collapsing like a heap on the ground. She pressed her golden hand to a Vox in her ear. "Teleportarium, emergency extraction, I need-" but it was too late. There was a reason I had been needed to detonate the trigger manually or with the dead man's switch connected to my heartbeat. No time for escape. I laughed and I laughed and I laughed, even as the bright light filled the room and swallowed us all up. They were the last moments of awareness for me. Last moments of awareness of a life well spent. Spent quite literally, in a trade that was nothing short of highway robbery.

I was content.

XXXXX

The continent that the Chaos Lord had dedicated so many of her forces to was devastated. Seven hundred and forty-two different atomic weapons were detonated at various places all around the continent in key areas that were expected highly concentrated with enemy forces. All major cities, having been evacuated of civilians long before the invasion ever began, were destroyed in the first stage of this trap, and what ecological diversity there was on the continent was devastated.

After the atomics were used, seismic charges that had been buried deep in the planet were activated. Normally capable of carrying out an Exterminatus when used in high enough numbers, they had been placed carefully and sparingly. The earthquake they generated snapped the continent clean in half, and tsunamis flooded the ruins of it. In fact, the earthquake caused such severe damage that much of the continent sunk below sea level, the cities within lost forever.

Normally a radioactive continent sinking into the ocean would have devastated the marine life, but fortunately, that was avoided by the simple fact that most marine life had been killed the first time the Chaos Lord had invaded the planet. Her armies, however? The majority of which had landed? Only a paltry handful of dropships escaped, having realized the trap was being sprung while they were moving to land and aborting. The rest though? Between the atomics, earthquakes, and flooding, the Chaos Lord's army, all that she had, was wiped out to a man. All her preparation, her hosts, her Chaos Space Marines, her Titans, all of it gone.

Upon realizing this, her orbital forces fell apart. With her over-reliance of quantity over quality, many of the Chaos ships had panicked when they had realized that their ground force had been eliminated, falling out of formation, many of them trying to run. It had given an edge to the Imperial Navy forces that had previously been stuck in a stalemate, enabling them to turn the battle to their advantage. One of the Chaos Lord's sub-commanders had taken control of the Chaos armada and led those who had not fled in a bitter last stand, one that cost many an Imperial sailor their lives, but in the end, they had lost. While some Chaos vessels escaped, their heaviest ships had all been destroyed or, in a handful of cases, captured.

As for the Chaos Lord herself, it is all but certain that she was killed. If she had still been alive, she would have never had allowed her forces to fall apart the way that they did. There was some paranoia over the matter as the nature of the trap that had been sprung made searching for a body impossible, but she was dead. There was no question about it. Not only were the weapons used to crack that continent the type that would bring even Greater Daemons to their knees, not only were there no signs of her scattered forces regrouping, there was one fact that made her death certain. And with her not having transformed into a Daemon Prince, it would be a permanent death.

I had watched her die through my father's eyes. I had seen her scream in rage as the atomic blasts consumed them both. I had borne witness to my father dragging her down to hell.

I took a shallow breath. It had only been three weeks ago, and yet I still had a hard time wrapping my head around it, even though the plan had been established months before its execution. On the one hand, the shadow that had been hanging over my family since before I was born was finally gone, out of my life and purged from the Imperium for good. On the other hand...dad was gone.

It was stupid, and I knew it. My dad was damn old for an Imperial Guard vet, NCOs practically never lived as long as he did, and he had died in circumstances most of them would've killed for. But it hurt. It fucking hurt. No matter how it happened or how long you had, it would always sting worse than any wound.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Hey," a soft voice said. It was my wife. I had been sitting behind a small tree in the backyard of Zamora's family estate. After the battle and the cleanup campaign, massive numbers of the Guard that had been stationed on Wasteland had been moved. Many were sent on a lightning campaign to retake the worlds that the Chaos Lord had held, but even more, were being sent to a rally point where countless Guard regiments were gathering. By a small miracle, it had been the planet where Zamora's family lived, and she had pulled enough strings to allow my family to stay there in comfort for three blissful days. I had been spending a lot of time sitting quietly in the garden.

My wife had just found me.

"Hey," I said back hoarsely. Without a word, she sat down next to me, folding her legs as she did. There was a silence that followed that, but it was a pleasant silence. Mom had always said that I would know I had found the person meant for me when I found the person I could speak volumes without saying a word. Silently, she adjusted her body just the right way for me to rest my head on her shoulder. I did, both of us leaning back the tree. She squeezed my hand.

I broke. It wasn't a dam bursting, no tidal wave of heaving sobs with me curled up on the ground, more a soft trickle. A steady stream of tears began to pour down my face, the occasional sniffle escaping me as we lay there in the pleasantly warm weather. Without saying a word, she gently rubbed her cheek against mine. It was rough and coarse, a souvenir from her rough childhood in Gunmetal City, but it was warm and familiar to me. I lay there, feeling the comfort of her body, while I continued to cry, silent except for when I was overtaken by the occasional hiccup.

I lost track of time. I had no idea how long we stayed there, her holding my hand tight and comforting me, but eventually, my tears began to dry. Gingerly, I rubbed the tears away with the inside of my arm, before moving to stand up. "If you ever need to talk," she said, getting to her feet with me, "I'm always here for you." Smiling, I nodded. I knew. I had always known. "Ready to go back inside?" I nodded again. Taking my hand, she led me back to Zamora's family estate.

We passed through the garden, alive with exotic trees of strange colors from foreign worlds, and scattered with elegant tables and seats for a party goer to enjoy the view. I appreciated the lush plant life before we were on the entrance of the towering mansion of marble and gold that Zamora had called home. The back door led straight into the banquet hall, which was alive with guests helping themselves to the fifth course of a meal that had been going on for hours, a celebration over the victory over the Chaos Lord.

As wide and as tall as a lesser cathedral, golden chandeliers hung from the ceiling over a magnificent wooden table that was long enough to seat a hundred and was in the middle of doing just that. Zamora was sitting at the head of the table with a wispy looking man who looked half dead, only stopping her conversation with him to give him an affectionate kiss on the head. Auntie was near the middle with a couple of her Sisters of Battle, using a pipe, a bottle alcohol, and a lighter too, somehow, create great rings of fire that would flare in the are for a single glorious second before vanishing. I couldn't see Mom.

"Dear, I won't hear another word of it. Now stop apologizing, you didn't even know the plan." My head snapped around as I heard her voice. Mom was standing with her arms folded, looking good-natured, if a little exasperated. A young girl that looked less than eighteen was bowing her head at her, her face twisted in guilt.

"But-but ma'am!" the young girl protested, "I should have-"

"Oh hush," Mom said, giving her a tussle on the top of the head. "Your enthusiasm is appreciated, but it was something well out of all of our hands. The conversation is over, now enjoy yourself, dear. You fought hard, you earned it. Besides, there's going to be a lot of hard fighting ahead of us, and we'll need you rested then." As we approached, Mom turned. She flashed a wide smile at us, one that faltered as she approached. "Are you ok?"

I considered lying to her, saying that I was. But she would see through that in half a second, so I told her the truth. I gave a weak shrug. "I don't know."

"That's normal," she said, putting her hands on my shoulders and pulling me into a hug. Dad had told me that I had been a very odd baby and that I had liked the cold just as much as the warm. He had always blamed it on Mom's cybernetics, which were often cold to the touch, and that as a baby, I had gotten too fond of sucking on her thumb when I was upset. Whatever the reason, a cold that would be an unpleasant sting to everyone else felt like a friendly welcome to me. "We'll get through this. I promise you." She pulled back, her smile wide. "Have you heard the news? No, you wouldn't have. We have our new orders. The 23rd EDR will be fighting under a new theatre commander. Roboute Guilliman."

I had thought nothing could break me out of the odd emotional limbo I was in. Mom had proved me wrong. "What?" I whispered in disbelief. "The Primarch of the Ultramarines? We'll be taking orders from him?"

"He's launched a new crusade. The Indomitus Crusade. He's gathering forces for it right now, with plans to push humanity's enemies back. Countless Space Marines chapters are at his back, along with thousands of warships. There's even rumors about some sort of new and improved Space Marines in this crusade." All the forces rallying on this planet will be joining it." She smiled at me. "We couldn't ask for more. And with the work we've done with the Chaos Lord, the crusade can focus on larger enemy forces. We saved him a stop."

I felt dazed. I looked out the window, for lack of a better thing to do. I saw the novice Sister of Silence talking with Brand, translating for her master, the Harlequin watching from a distance. A very safe distance. The younger sister had a mechanical arm to replace the one she had lost. Those champions had barely been able to hold their own against the Chaos Lord, and they would probably be joining them on a campaign too much darker corners of the galaxy. I shook my head. They had made their choices. And so had I.

A couple of younger children, apparently Zamora's parents were still biologically healthy and still very...enthusiastic, slowly moved up to brand, looking rather scared. I couldn't hear what they were saying, and both looked like they were about to run, only for Brand to easily scoop them up in a hand each and place them on his shoulders, where they had more than enough space to sit. After that, he sat down and began to talk to the children, both of whom had their eyes glued to him as they waited on every word. I chuckled before I turned away. There was something I needed to do.

Reaching into my rucksack, I produced the thing I had promised to handle for dad. The last of his book. I would give it to Zamora later so she could print it. But right now, with the news that we had orders, a little bit of inspiration had hit me. Slowly, I moved over to a small side table, pressed the manuscript down, and drew a stylus. I took a great deal of the blank scrap paper Dad had kept and filtered it out. I lay one flat, thought for a second and drew on it.

"Surviving in the Hell of the 42nd Millennium."

I smiled. A good start. A new beginning.