Ollanius Pius

Chapter 1: 94 Rifles

The district was a graveyard – its main road a choked artery of burning metal and broken bodies. Every few dozen meters, the path ruptured and spilled its contents to the sides, bleeding dead men and machines alike. Most of them old, burned out, bloated, decaying. Some of them still fresh.

And around this road of death, for miles in all directions, only the husks of grey buildings remained. Pillars of metal and concrete stretched upwards, the rubble at their bases deeper than any man is tall. And above, a thick orange smog lingered.

From the tallest building still standing, barely 9 floors tall, a command rang out, shouted through clasped hands.

Cease fire!

It jumped from building to building, floor to floor. It split and multiplied. From lonely firing positions in cellars and barely concealed gun emplacements, men and women passed the words along.

“Cease fire!” Olly leaned out of a broken ground level window and shouted down the street. His voice was carried by others, through smoke so black and thick he could barely see the fruits of today’s ambush. A hundred traitors died today, maybe more.

His lasgun buzzed in his hands, a high-pitched whistle at its front, the barrel beyond hot. He slung it around his shoulder and some of the hair on his neck curled up and died. With heavy steps in ill-fitting boots and awkward tugging and pulling on a red auxilia coat too large, Olly climbed through the window onto the street.

Men he knew – friends – rushed from corpse to corpse, from one burned out wreck to another. Some laughed, some celebrated, most were silent. Under his feet, the shrapnel and debris were so thick, it sounded like walking on snow, or dried leaves.

“We’ve got a live one!” A man with tall widows peaks and a necklace of ears shouted – Borik. A moment later four soldiers were pulling a traitor from beneath a burning transport. His hands were raised. He was pleading. Every karkin’ time there’s someone playing dead, hoping to be missed. Every time it would have been better to just catch a shot and be done with it.

At first, it’s slaps and insults. Hair pulling and spitting. Borik screams something and smears his collection of rotting ears in the poor lad’s face. Then come the punches, rifle butts and kicks. Then the knives.

One day, Olly hoped, he would get used to the sound of a scalping. He kept watching. As the first sliver of bone peaked out from beneath blood and skin he wondered, why a Terran would ever betray his home.

A young Terran girl with freckles and a round face walked towards Olly through the smoke, lasgun at her side. A clerk, maybe once. Or perhaps a mundane worker. Her goggles she stole from a workshop that fell two weeks ago. The scarf around her face was a patchwork mess of cloth and coarse thread. The only thing that betrayed her as a faithful soldier of the imperium was a golden armband with a volunteer regiment identification – 13-69-ZeNaWro. What that meant, nobody knew.

“Zena!” Olly greeted her with a tired wave. She waved back, carefully stepping over broken stone, wobbling back and forth like on icy ground. “How many on your side?”

“Two. What about yours, Olly?” She responded, freeing her face from the scarf.

“One. Alik from across the street. Bolter tore off his head.” Olly didn’t know him well. They just waved to each other now and then. A few days ago, they shared a can of some jellied meat.

And then today – boom. A hit somewhere to his lower right jaw. A wet rag of skin, hair and blood was all that remained of his head. He was gone.

“Alik? What a shame.” She said, without sadness in her voice.

They met a few steps behind the sound of knife on bone. Zena lifted a pack of Lho sticks from a pocket on her chest.

“Want one?”

“Nah. I heard those things kill you.”

For a moment they froze. A quick glance to the rivers of death around them. Then they laughed.

With stick in mouth, Zena leaned on the broken façade of a building. Olly slid down to the ground next to her. Before them, behind them, all around them there was only stone, metal and death. If the fighting in a small district was this bad, Olly could not imagine what must have still been happening in the macro cities.

Olly scratched his greasy black hair, a sharp kind of itch that returned stronger each time. It was better not to scratch at all. Underneath his fingernails yellow gunk gathered. Water was sparse these days. Ever since the red rain, only pipes and tanks could be trusted.

“You think ours will come back?” Zena asked.

“What do you mean?” Olly responded, eyes dry from smoke and dust. Two volunteers rushed past them, giving a short nod to Olly; he raised his hand to greet back.

“Last Astartes was two weeks ago. Last Auxilia eight days. Besides Borik and the pelt hats, there aren’t even regulars around anymore. Folks left before and came back, sure. But it feels different this time.”

Olly did not know what to say. He noticed it too. There was no reaching any sort of command. What little they knew, they were told from others passing by. Even the buildings were too small to climb on top and get a better view. And that damn smoke above. Last he heard, they were bleeding the traitors dry before the Helios gate. But that was weeks ago.

“Who knows.” He said, standing up. He snapped his fingers like a pair of scissors and Zena passed the Lho stick. He pulled deep, his lungs stung, but this time, he beat the cough. Breathing out, he continued speaking with strained voice.

“We should be thinking about leaving ourselves.”

Zena swiped the Lho stick back.

“Oh piss off with that defeatist attitude. We’re grinding them up good out here.”

“This morning we were down to 94 rifles. It was kind of charming to be regiment in name only, but we aren’t even a company anymore.”

“Well, we’re just in this tiny district, no? There must be so many more of us out there.”

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her: I just want to go home.

Paint and canvas, a hot drink and laze around in bed all day.

A familiar voice woke Olly from his daydream.

Council! The HQ shouted.

With a short nod, Zena yelled down the street towards Borik. “Council!”

Smeared in blood as thick as oil, his teeth stained red but his smile big and happy, Borik rose from the ground and passed the word. The whole road erupted in a staccato of repetition. The man beneath his feet was not moving anymore and on Boriks chain a new ear dangled.

It took only a few minutes for the remnants of the 16-12^th volunteer regiment Pius to assemble in the bombed-out ruins of a small gallery they called Headquarters these days. Everyone was there. Borik, the pelt hats, the gun crews, the mortar brothers, Mecky the knife and even solitary Bontyr. Everyone but the sentries.

The hall was filled with a mess of uniforms and armors. Greaves taken from fallen Auxilia brothers, plates donated by regulars. The helmets alone could furnish a decent museum. Hugs and handshakes. Waving and smiling. Half the men were drunk, all of them tired. Trophies were passed around and packets of lho sticks flew across the room. Rare for the volunteers to get together like this. It helped numb the nightmares and strange sights of the last few days. Olly smiled.

The hall was a gallery once. Not too long ago, Olly dreamt of being one of the artists on show. In the few displays still standing, there was Tavior, who only used shades of black. Vantis de Porol and Belur na Nassi hung on the walls, their artworks were smears of colors over masterpieces that could have been holopics. A broken frame lay on the ground, an unknown master who used only red, beige and black.

Olly thought about smearing something on a wall himself, but there was nothing left to draw.

In the middle of the hall, standing on a small podium, square-jawed Sargeant Pellas spoke to someone, for just a moment. Then he whistled and the regiment fell in order.

“Good work today!” He yelled, his voice scratchy and much higher than his face would suggest. Some found it odd, to Olly it was endearing – inspiring even.

Then Pellas fell quiet. He chewed on his lower lip, once and smacked his tongue. A rare sight for stoic Pellas. Murmurs in the ranks.

“We got the auction cogitator running again. The lads across the palace are using wired communication meant for waste transport to write each other. We’re keeping our heads down, talking in code as much as possible, not disclosing where or how many exactly we are. It’s slow, definitely intercepted and unreliable but it’s something. You have to ignore all of the traitor nonsense though. They like writing as much as we do.”

Olly held his breath. A quick glance to Zena, her brow a deep wedge.

“It’s bad.” Pellas said, his pauses becoming longer and longer.

“The gate’s gone.” He continued, arms stretched out in a silent there’s nothing we can do “The trenches fell weeks ago.”

Silence in the hall.

Zena yelled.

“So they took Helios, so what? Look at how we’re bleeding them here. The megacities will be-“

“Not just Helios.” Pellas shouted back, lowering his head. “Indicus and Tropic, Montagne too. Kushito- our Kushito is gone as well.” Pellas said, voice barely raised. “The outer defenses are no more.”

“Piss.” Zena hissed, eyes wide open.

Ollys heart stung, a beat or two went missing. His mouth was cold and dry and his breathing droned in his head.

Pellas raised his head and took off his cap. With a slow look across the ranks he ran his hand over a thin layer of sweat on his naked scalp.

With empty voice he said: “We’re behind enemy lines.”