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Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum and thought I would post up my first 40K fanfic, which I recently completed. This is the first of fifteen parts. Hope you like it! Comments and feedback would be much appreciated.
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One foot in front of the other. Over and over and over and over.
Mikael trudged through the ruins of Valerion, dozens of other guardsmen spread out around him. All walked as he did; listless and lethargic, their energy sapped by the months of relentless conflict. Even the captain and the commissar had given up trying to force a greater pace from the men; perhaps they viewed any progress made as a triumph of sorts. Perhaps their spirits were as enervated as those of the men they commanded. Mikael didn’t know. Didn’t care.
A piece of rubble shifted under his foot and Mikael’s ankle twisted. He flung out a hand to catch himself as he fell, hissing under his breath as a stone dug into his palm. He slowly got to his feet, wincing slightly as he put his weight on his ankle. It seemed fine. At the beginning of their campaign in Valerion, Mikael would have cursed quite graphically if such a thing had happened; the priest attached to their regiment had told him on more than one occasion that he had a remarkably foul mouth. Now, however, it had happened so many times that he no longer had the energy. He started forward, stopping after a few seconds as a thought occurred to him. He went back, and retrieved his lasrifle.
Nobody else seemed to have noticed.
Valerion stretched around him in all directions, or at least what remained of it. Every square inch of the city seemed to have been fought over at one time or another; every road had been churned up by explosions and coated in rubble from toppled structures. Not one building had avoided being damaged. Most had been ripped apart by explosions, or had their interiors gutted by fire. Now only the skeletal remnants of the once-proud structures still stood. They reminded Mikael of blackened, bony fingers protruding from the earth; clawing at the sky as if pleading for succour. There would be no aid from there, though. Mikael didn’t look at the sky any more; nobody did.
They didn’t like what it had become.
The distant rumble of explosions was constant, to the point that Mikael barely noticed it any more, except in his dreams. There it was Valerion’s heartbeat; the stuttering, irregular spasms of a failing organ. Sometimes he dreamt that the heart faltered and finally stopped, expelling a great torrent of semi-congealed blood to ooze through the streets and parks of the city, coating everything with the texture and foetid stench of death. In his darker waking moments, and they were many, he reflected that such a vision was not all that far from the truth.
He wondered just when his dreams would become reality. Would he even notice?
A scream split the air, and everyone stopped walking. It was an anguished howl, ripped from the throat of someone in tremendous pain. Just the sound of it told Mikael that whoever, or whatever, had given voice to the cry did not have long to live.
A whistle blew, and Mikael looked round. It was the captain.
“Forward, men”, he bellowed. “For the Emperor!”
Mikael clutched his lasrifle tightly to his chest, hesitating for a brief moment. A figure approached, clad in a once-black trench-coat now so stained by dust and blood that barely a hint of its former colour remained. The commissar. He looked deep into Mikael’s eyes.
“You heard the captain”, he hissed. “Forward!”
Mikael began to run. The scream echoed inside his head.
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One foot in front of the other. Over and over and over and over.
Mikael trudged through the ruins of Valerion, dozens of other guardsmen spread out around him. All walked as he did; listless and lethargic, their energy sapped by the months of relentless conflict. Even the captain and the commissar had given up trying to force a greater pace from the men; perhaps they viewed any progress made as a triumph of sorts. Perhaps their spirits were as enervated as those of the men they commanded. Mikael didn’t know. Didn’t care.
A piece of rubble shifted under his foot and Mikael’s ankle twisted. He flung out a hand to catch himself as he fell, hissing under his breath as a stone dug into his palm. He slowly got to his feet, wincing slightly as he put his weight on his ankle. It seemed fine. At the beginning of their campaign in Valerion, Mikael would have cursed quite graphically if such a thing had happened; the priest attached to their regiment had told him on more than one occasion that he had a remarkably foul mouth. Now, however, it had happened so many times that he no longer had the energy. He started forward, stopping after a few seconds as a thought occurred to him. He went back, and retrieved his lasrifle.
Nobody else seemed to have noticed.
Valerion stretched around him in all directions, or at least what remained of it. Every square inch of the city seemed to have been fought over at one time or another; every road had been churned up by explosions and coated in rubble from toppled structures. Not one building had avoided being damaged. Most had been ripped apart by explosions, or had their interiors gutted by fire. Now only the skeletal remnants of the once-proud structures still stood. They reminded Mikael of blackened, bony fingers protruding from the earth; clawing at the sky as if pleading for succour. There would be no aid from there, though. Mikael didn’t look at the sky any more; nobody did.
They didn’t like what it had become.
The distant rumble of explosions was constant, to the point that Mikael barely noticed it any more, except in his dreams. There it was Valerion’s heartbeat; the stuttering, irregular spasms of a failing organ. Sometimes he dreamt that the heart faltered and finally stopped, expelling a great torrent of semi-congealed blood to ooze through the streets and parks of the city, coating everything with the texture and foetid stench of death. In his darker waking moments, and they were many, he reflected that such a vision was not all that far from the truth.
He wondered just when his dreams would become reality. Would he even notice?
A scream split the air, and everyone stopped walking. It was an anguished howl, ripped from the throat of someone in tremendous pain. Just the sound of it told Mikael that whoever, or whatever, had given voice to the cry did not have long to live.
A whistle blew, and Mikael looked round. It was the captain.
“Forward, men”, he bellowed. “For the Emperor!”
Mikael clutched his lasrifle tightly to his chest, hesitating for a brief moment. A figure approached, clad in a once-black trench-coat now so stained by dust and blood that barely a hint of its former colour remained. The commissar. He looked deep into Mikael’s eyes.
“You heard the captain”, he hissed. “Forward!”
Mikael began to run. The scream echoed inside his head.