Chapter 3: Legion's Blade
By deep night the enemy had stopped their assault. Even the artillery had gone quiet. The traitors, it seemed, had decided the hillside position was not worth the shells.
The cult commander had been turning the question over in his head without an answer. The position had been on the edge of falling. Then, for no reason he could account for, it had not.
Inside the trench network, Duvette had his people collect whatever supplies were still usable from the surrounding area. He posted sentries and then withdrew into one of the dugouts.
In the dim light of an oil lamp, the surviving officers had gathered. The uncertainty on their faces was plain. They had held the line in that last engagement, barely, but the fact that this defensive position would eventually be breached was already settled. The question was when and how badly.
Stroud was the exception to the room's mood. He was stretched out on one of the cots with his filthy forage cap pulled down over his face, apparently unbothered. He had always been that way. Death was just another inconvenience, nothing to lose sleep over.
When Duvette entered, the officers got to their feet and saluted.
"Sir."
Their feelings about him were clearly mixed, and he understood why. This man had executed their company commander without formal authority to do so. He had also just led them through an engagement they should not have survived. Both things were true at the same time.
Duvette nodded and gestured for them to sit. He settled onto a cot and studied them in silence. Their complexions were somewhat ashen compared to standard Terran stock, likely a result of the environment on their homeworld.
He worked through what the original body's memories could tell him about these men and this regiment. The Ash Watchers had been founded on K3192, a death world. They were known for reconnaissance, guerrilla operations, and high mobility, with a reputation for maintaining combat effectiveness in hostile environments that would break other regiments. The 101st had been raised during the regiment's third founding cycle. Three thousand soldiers total, twenty companies, designated as light infantry. Each company held three platoons, each platoon five squads.
Sixth Company now had forty-three.
He broke the silence.
"Stroud. Still no contact with the regimental command channel?"
The bald lieutenant was off the cot before the question finished. He shook his head. "Nothing. Just that noise. The vox operators are starting to feel it after a while."
Duvette nodded and was about to reply when a new line appeared in his vision.
[Congratulations on holding the line against your first assault. The enemy has withdrawn. Reward: 100 Emperor's Wrath. The Legion's Blade system has been activated.]
He went still for a moment. "The enemy withdrew? What is the Legion's Blade?"
"What?" Stroud looked at him.
"Go try the regimental channel again." Duvette turned to him. Then, just as Stroud moved to find the vox operator, Duvette stopped him. "No. Wait. You." He redirected the order to the other officer in the room, a heavily built sergeant with a beard that covered most of his face. The contrast between Stroud's lean, hollow-cheeked frame and the other man's build was considerable. One looked like he had been starved for a decade. The other looked like he had been assembled from leftover Ogryn parts.
Duvette turned back to Stroud and studied the readout above his head. Something new had appeared alongside the standard status metrics. A golden aquila icon, and beneath it: [Potential Elite: Scout].
"Stroud." He kept his voice even. "What were you doing before you joined the Astra Militarum?"
Stroud scratched the back of his bare skull. "I was a hunter."
That clarified things. Duvette kept his expression neutral. "I have a job for you. Take a few men and go find out whether the traitors have actually pulled back from the hillside. Keep it quiet. Do not let anyone see you."
"I'll have a look."
After Stroud left, another prompt appeared in Duvette's vision.
[Spend 100 Emperor's Wrath to soul-bind Stroud? Once bound, personal loyalty is permanently fixed at 100%.]
He selected yes without deliberating.
A new skill tree opened before him, dedicated entirely to Stroud.
[Shadow Branch]
[If you hear the wind moving through the dark, that is us coming to see you off.]
[Starting Skill: Chameleon Camouflage]
[Even in standard-issue camouflage, the bearer becomes effectively invisible to the enemy. The bearer can deceive basic auspex and thermal imaging.]
Duvette looked at that for a long moment. Good. He could build something out of this. Something with edges.
While he was working through the implications of the Legion's Blade system, the bearded officer came back into the dugout at a near-jog. "Sir, our vox seems to have come back up. But..."
Duvette followed him to the vox operator's position. The regimental command channel had reopened, barely, fragmented and full of interference.
"All... this is... command post!... We are... surrounded by traitor main force... requesting all available support!... Repeat, this is..."
Static. The channel dropped.
"Sir." The bearded officer looked at him. "What do we do?"
Duvette looked at the man. "Your name is Anderson Walker?"
"Yes, sir." The big officer was visibly surprised that the probationary commissar had his name.
"Get everyone together. Tell them to be ready to move. We wait for Stroud's report and then we move to reinforce." Duvette had already worked most of it through. The System's earlier notification had said the enemy withdrew, which meant the traitors had decided to bypass this position entirely and redirect their main force toward the regimental command element. From their perspective, forty-three Guardsmen on a hillside were not a threat worth spending resources on.
"Yes, sir!" Anderson saluted and went to rouse the men resting in the dugouts.
Duvette did not have long to wait. Stroud was already back, slipping out of the shadows on the far side of the slope and back into the trench with his small team behind him.
Duvette was sitting over a map when he arrived.
"Sir." Stroud crossed to the dugout. "The main body has pulled out. There is a small holding force still in position down there, but the bulk of them are gone."
Duvette nodded and drew Stroud to the map. He put his finger on a marked point. "This is our position."
"Yes, sir."
He traced the terrain with his eyes for a moment. "We are the only high ground in this area. Without us, the main body loses precise fire correction. They are fighting blind." He paused. "That explains why the traitors hit us so hard. They needed to take this ground."
After a moment he moved his finger to another marked point, rear and to the right of their position. "Regimental command element."
"Yes."
"Our assigned objective was to hold this line and prevent the traitors from reaching the urban area behind us. Buy time for the other flanks." He let that sit. "That is not typically work you assign to a light infantry regiment. You would want something closer to the Cadian pattern for a static defensive line." He could not find any useful context in the original body's memories. A probationary commissar was not entitled to operational intelligence briefings. He scratched his jaw. "In any case. The enemy has decided we are no longer worth their attention. They have moved past us."
He tapped the marker indicating the traitor main force.
"They have left us sitting behind them." He let out a short, humorless sound. "They will regret that."
Anderson returned to the dugout. "Sir. Everyone is ready."
Duvette checked the company status overlay.
[Overall Supply: 60%] [Overall Loyalty: 80%] [Overall Morale: 70%] [Overall Stability: 65%] [Chaos Corruption: 30%]
"Good." He looked at the men assembled in the dim light of the dugout and felt something settle in his chest. Not calm exactly. Something harder than calm. "Let's give these bastards a surprise they will not forget."