Aaron Aaron Dembski-Bowden: Cadian Blood

The first troops to walk the surface encountered fewer threats than the Reclamation’s initial spearhead had faced. Never concerned with reinforcing the world for conquest, no Archenemy vessels arrived to save the heretics of the Remnant and its splinter cults drawn from the treasonous populace. With all global production shut down and off-world imports utterly ceased, the still-living humans of Kathur began to die of thirst and starvation before long. Those that maintained supplies of food and water eked out an existence as territorial warbands until the Imperial Guard’s main force annihilated them completely in what scholars came to know as the “True Reclamation”.

The Guard units arriving at the headquarters of Overseer Maggrig and the fallen regiments he commanded, encountered a fortified base of jury-rigged prefab structures and salvaged tank cannons mounted on scratch built fortress walls.

As the gates to this rather humble fortress opened, General Millius Rylo of the Hadris Rift 19th descended from his command tank—a pristine Leman Russ Demolisher—and was greeted by a man in ragged Cadian-pattern armour painted black with grey fatigues.

“Welcome to New Solthane,” said the man with a captain’s stripes on his shoulder. He scratched at a black beard that had been growing for the past few weeks at least. Water rations apparently hadn’t allowed for luxuries like shaving. “I sincerely hope you’ve brought us some ammunition.”

The man next to him, equally filthy, raised his hand.

“I wouldn’t say no to some food, either.”

“Shut up, Taan,” the captain said.

“Shutting up, sir.”

The general observed these scruffy examples of Guard discipline, clearly less than thrilled at the sight before his eyes.

“You look like death, both of you,” he said, his lip curling. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. The captain—and the men joining him from the buildings around—all stank to high heaven.

Evidently bathing hadn’t been on the cards, either.

My Lord Castellan,

I recommend First Lieutenant Parmenion Thade for the highest citation in our world’s defence. Despite grievous injury and a shattered chain of command, he assumed leadership of Shock and Interior Guard forces stationed in the recent retreat at Kasr Vallock arranging for the evacuation of seventy-zone per cent of citizenry even as the fortress-city fell. All survivors bolstered the defences at nearby Kasrs, including the wounded governor-militant and his family.

I also have reports from over fifty eyewitnesses that First Lieutenant Thade duelled and slew a Traitor Astartes of the Thousand Sons Legion with the assistance of his command platoon.

As a final note, I offer the eyewitness reports listed in the attached fife, listing Mechanicum personnel who will testify to the destruction of the enemy Titan (Reaver-class) designated “Syntagma” at the fall of Kasr Vallock. Thade’s sappers and tech-priest contingent were responsible for the overloaded generatoria within the city’s industrial sector that fed to the Syntagma’s immobilisation. The following deployment of Interior Guard and Shock forces storming the crippled Titan resulted in the war machine’s destruction.

Creed, I heard about the new medals. Give one to Thade. Too many are being given posthumous, and we’ve little to be proud of since the Despoiler set foot on Home. He deserves this, and with the losses sustained to our regiment, I’m making him a captain immediately.

We will march together again, Lord Castellan, under Cadian skies. Until that day, may the God-Emperor watch over you.

Thade lowered the dataslate.

He’d never read his citation before, and Colonel Lockwood’s words to Lord Castellan Creed sat uncomfortably in his mind. Melancholy at the disaster of Kathur months ago mixed with the bitterness of Kasr Vallock still less than a year before. It had always seemed ridiculous to him—earning a medal and a priceless sword for the first time in his life he’d ever had to run from a battle. The first battle he’d ever lost. In failure, he was rewarded. Promoted, even.

He’d told Lockwood the truth once. The truth behind Kasr Vallock.

“I wanted to stand and fight,” he’d said. “It was Osiron who talked me down, gave me a long speech about fighting the good fight when it counted most for Cadia and not when it counted for my pride.” He’d clenched his fists; one familiar and warm, the other—freshly implanted—unfamiliar, still numb to most sensation beyond a sense of aching cold.

“Throne, I wanted to die there. It was home. We left our own home to burn. Now we’re being shipped off-world while the enemy pisses on the rubble of the city where we were born.”

“Stop whining, Thade,” the colonel had said. “Slap a smile on your miserable face tomorrow when the Lord Castellan gives you that sword, and get over yourself. We’re all hurting. Half of Home has fallen, son. Cadian Blood, eh? Ice in your veins.”

Thade had chuckled then, and forced a smile. Lockwood was right, of course. He’d always had that damnable ability and Thade admired him for it.

“You win.”

“Of course I do. You gave the Warmaster one hell of a black eye, and you’ve every right to be proud instead of wallowing in this self-pitying nonsense I’m seeing right now. But shake Creed’s hand at the ceremony tomorrow and remember: this isn’t all for you, you selfish bastard. It’s for the 88th. The men need some inspiration to take with them after all this. Home still needs a lot of our sweat before it’s all ours again.”

Thade drifted back to the present, feeling the shiver of the ship around him.

“Colonel?” asked a voice nearby. Thade looked out of the porthole, comfortable in the flight seat, staring out into the void of space. The troop carrier Infinite Faith rumbled onward, and a planet slowly hove into view. A planet of blue oceans and silver cities, a planet that Thade knew better than any other, ringed by a colossal war fleet that looked like twinkling stars from this distance.

“Colonel?” Darrick repeated. Thade turned his head.

“That’s ‘warden-colonel’ to you.” He grinned and turned back to the window, looking out at the planet as they slowly drew closer. The night side of the world showed glints of flame flaring on the surface, like distant candles in the blackness. War, viewed from orbit, had a beauty all its own. Darrick moved around Rax, who sat polished and oiled by his master’s side, and he nodded to the porthole.

“How does Home look, Par?”

“Same as always, Taan.” He stared at the planet below, watching parts of it burn.

“Unbroken.”