Some of the likely lads were adjusting the straps of their rebreathers. Others had clearly just snatched up their weapons. One or two had bare feet. I could see the whitish mould on their toes, the places where the skin had cracked and leaked pus. They had probably been washing their feet when the alarm sounded. They were out of luck now. They’d better hope we didn’t run into any contact gas. Then they’d have more than losing their toes to worry about.

Chapter Two

More and more heads popped out of the bunkers and blockhouses. Men picked up guns and stood ready to defend their trenches. I ran along the front and shouted at the Grosslanders to get back in. As senior NCO, command had fallen to me since Lieutenant Jensen had taken a bullet through the brain. There were enemies coming across no-man’s-land who would be on us before those coming through the trenches. They needed to be shooting at them first.

I raised the periscope again. The black-clad assault troops had vanished into the cover of shell-holes and behind ridges, but a new wave of heretics was sometimes visible in the distance through the gaps in the mist haze and gas clouds. They were throwing themselves over the lip of their trenches and scuttling forward in a half-crouch that suggested they were somehow less than human. Perhaps it was the case. Rumour had it that some strange things were born in vats in those distant mountain citadels.

Lieutenant Prost of the 66th Grosslanders moved along the line. His gaze passed studiously over us. We were not part of his command. I was a mere NCO but I was also part of Macharius’s personal guard and, even with his fortunes at a low ebb, Macharius’s name meant something. He was still supreme commander of the crusade, and who knew what influence we might have. It was amazing how much that counted with certain officers in certain line regiments.

The Undertaker had dispatched us here to check on this section of line when communication went down and we had not been able to get back to our own section. Our cold-minded former lieutenant had not become any less strange as he had worked his way up to field command, but his grasp of basic tactics was as sound as ever. We were stuck here in our ambiguous position. We carried papers that told people who we were and they were marked with the seal of the Lord High Commander’s office. I had been in such situations before – I knew that if we asked for something we would most likely get it, just so long as we did not provoke the prickly pride of the officer class.

Prost barked orders emphasising what I had already said. I thought about that great human wave advancing across no-man’s-land. With proper artillery support it would be smashed even as it set out. Hell, with old Number Ten, the Baneblade that Ivan and Anton and I had started our careers on so long ago, we could have ended the attack there and then.

Screams sounded now as the bunkers opened up across no-man’s-land. Lasguns lit the night.