25[Many, many centuries later]
Another spadeful of dirt leapt atop the pile already made.
Another heaving grunt, as he drove the shovel into the bottom of the trench.
Another blister forming on his palm.
And all of it to the rolling tune of the sermon. "—not, for in all things He is with His children and He shall not abandon them to the despoliation of the fallen. Let your hearts ring with joy as—"
Next to him in the trench, Hirdman Aksel muttered under his breath "If 'He' would join us down here with the shovel-work, I'd think a lot better of him."
Karl covered his laugh with another forceful dig into the waiting dirt, the same sound that hopefully covered his friend's blasphemy as their unit's priest droned on. "Bet you two-for-twenty that Father Valdemar still wouldn't get his robes dirty, though."
"Aye." Aksel grunted, and the lip of their trench grew one more clod of dirt in height. "Can't be seen laboring with us rough men of the hird, after all."
"Us rough men of the 'Planetary Defense Force'… whatever that means." Karl corrected. He paused to wipe sweat from his brow, taking the opportunity to tap the hammered-metal plates of his new uniform where it sat piled at the side of the hole. A siege-trench, as odd of a choice as that was to dig, up here in the mountains. But the Thegn had insisted... and, to be fair, this many men marching up so far from civilization was bound to attract some form of trouble sooner-or-later. "Until — and if — we actually see any more weight in our coinpurses at the end of the month, we may as well make the most of the new title as we can."
"Bah, you know as well as I that the Thegn was just bilking that foreigner, no more. Can't charge as much from a 'Lady Trader' if you just send your household lads to guard her party through the mountains, can you? So we're the 'Planetary Defense Force,' now?" Aksel spat onto the dirt at his side. "We'll be lucky to see so much as a single glint of the gold he's no-doubt getting for our services."
"I'd not be too sure of that, I would; we've already got these new—"
A loud crack split the air, and both men immediately froze in place. Two sets of eyes — and those of every other man in the area — turned to stare warily behind them, up the steep mountainside across which they were digging their trench.
If one squinted right, the distant dots of the Thegn himself as well as the 'Rogue Trader' and her single guard could be seen far above them. Poking around ancient tombs, those of ancestors too long-gone for even the kingdom's most wizened elders to remember… and too haunted for even the most foolhardy youngster to dare enter.
But noblemen were a rule unto themselves, and so here they were.
"What in His Holy Name was that?" One of the other men wondered aloud. "It is not the season for an avalanche."
"A falling tree, perhaps?" ventured another.
Even Father Valdemar, his aged neck craned just as much as the young hirdmen around him, paused in his ever-present recital.
Then came another crack, and this time a spurt of dirt flew skywards from a few paces below the rim of their trench.
"It is an attack, you bloody fools!" thundered Huscarl Andersson, sprinting over from where the intermediate commander had been lounging several paces behind the line. "Span your weapons!" A moment later, he corrected himself "Ready your weapons!"
Karl scrabbled to pull his clattering mail armor back over his head — he was pretty sure he'd got it on backwards, though — and reached for the weapon set carefully an arm's reach behind the trench. It seemed that he was not the only one who missed his trusty crossbow, but the 'stub-rifles' that the Thegn had so recently acquired were to be their arms now.
Hopefully the strange contraptions would work.
Metal clacked and clattered all along the trench as men fumbled with unfamiliar weapons. Karl braced the stock of his own against his stomach, and pulled with both hands at the so-called 'bolt.' He was pretty sure that it would not actually leave the weapon despite its name, but it did snap back and then forwards with a loud click.
Huscarl Andersson's meaty hand clapped him on the shoulder, the man crouched at the edge of the trench. "Good bloody job, now help Hirdman Aksel."
Who appeared to have somehow dropped the curved metal box from underneath his weapon. Hastily brushing dirt away from the gleaming metal cylinders within — their commander had sworn it was not gold, but it certainly looked valuable to Karl — Aksel promptly attempted to put the gray outer box into his weapon facing backwards.
All this time, more and more crackshissed overhead. A cacophony that he only belatedly recognized as the sound which his own weapon would make.
Which meant it was an attack, surely, but by whom? No war-horns sounded from the valley below them, no drums spoke orders to a foeman's army, no—
That was when the braying started.
"Beast-men!" shouted Andersson, his eyes widening behind the visor-holes of his helmet. "Where the feth did they come from? They haven't been seen south of the Great Fjord in generations!"
"It's that damn foreigner." muttered the man to Karl's left, as both of them stood on the 'parapet' they had been ordered to dig. None of the men-at-arms had known what the point was to leave such a strange half-step, but Huscarl Andersson had simply pointed to the illustration in the bound parchments which had come in the same box with the stub-guns.
And that had been that.
But now its purpose was revealed, as the men could see comfortably over the lip of their trench.
The sight before them, however, was not so comfortable.
The treeline a thousand paces farther down the mountainside boiled.
Foliage was brushed aside or wildly trampled underfoot — underhoof — as misshapen half-men thundered forth out of the forest's shadows.
Bloodcurdling cries gurgled out amidst a forest of raised spears and swords, no doubt looted from the corpses of the vile herd's previous victims. But those were not the only weapons that the mob boasted, and where in the God-Emperor's Name had they gotten their corrupted hands on stub-guns!?
No matter the source, their few purloined guns rattled and clattered; the sound echoing painfully loud in the high valley. Such unnatural noises were bound to draw ill fortune even by themselves: either by drawing forth an avalanche from the mountains above… or by angering the ancient spirits which everyone knew slumbered beneath those snowy peaks.
"Level your weapons!" Barked Andersson, half-crouched just enough to peer over the soft-piled dirt. "And any one of you whore-sons who looses his weapon before my command will be fed to the monsters!"
Karl carefully kept his finger away from the trigger, as strangely small and delicate as it was for such a deadly weapon. It was so minuscule compared to the long trigger of his familiar crossbow, yet none of the men who had watched the stub-gun's demonstration in the Hall barracks last week would doubt the deadly effect that it could bring.
Those men down-range had been convicted criminals, aye, but that didn't make their blown-apart corpses any less horrifying. At least an honest bolt or arrow left enough for a funeral.
"Brace your weapons!" their Huscarl ordered. "Hold..."
Karl pulled the stock into his shoulder, closing his eyes against the wallop which he knew it would deal him in a moment. The earth shuddered under him, the sound of a thousand thundering hooves seeming to come all the louder now that he was half-buried.
Hopefully the evening would not find him fully buried… although if the massive horde below closed with such a small number of men-at-arms, there would be no burials.
Yet even above the rising crescendo of impending violence, Father Valdemar's reedy voice somehow managed to be heard. "—in this time of our greatest Need, be not worried! For He is with us, as He is with the storm-tossed sailor and with the—!"
Farther down the line, one of the other men noisily retched.
And Aksel muttered darkly "I've never known no damn fisherman worried about getting eaten."
"Aye, the fishes drown you first." By the look on his friend's face, Karl's weak attempt at a joke had fallen flat. Perhaps his own throat was merely too dry for striking the proper tone?
Unfortunately, unlike last time, it seemed that the two men's mutterings had drawn their priest's attention. Somehow keeping his footing even as the earth shook and rumbled, he stood defiantly upright — or as much as his stooped back could manage — even as the monstrous foe approached. "Be not afraid, Hirdman! For He from Beyond sees it good in His eyes to always grant us those boons which are most sorely needed against His foes!"
Oh Throne, here we go. Karl had heard this speech a dozen times just during his training, and by this point could probably recite it just as well as the priest could.
Then again, a bit of mundane familiarity — however well-worn — was reassuring in its own way just now.
"When the Southern Lords turned from His Light, He then blessed our kingdom's Jarls and Eorls with the Cunning of Saint Drusus! When the numberless Ork crawled from the Western Desert, He then blessed us with the Determination of Saint Katherine! And—!"
With a soft thump, the tall square cap of Father Valdemar's holy office was punched from his scalp by a passing boulette. One wizened hand rose, trembling, in momentary confusion, rubbing at the few thinning hairs now exposed above his confused brow. "And... and—" For once, the old man seemed to have lost his train of thought. In a quiet voice, the holy representative mumbled "Oh, where was I—?"
"The Chaos-touched, Father." For a moment, Karl didn't recognize the voice who spoke.
But as he turned his head to stare up and behind him, he saw the 'Rogue Trader' herself standing tall behind the siege-trench. Unimpressed purple eyes scanned the valley below — and the charging beastmen — from a painted-blue face framed by orange hair. He would have sworn that she had made no sound even descending the scattered stones and scree of the mountainside, nor had Thegn Bjarke who stood beside her.
Although the Thegn's utterly-white face perhaps indicated that they'd taken their descent rather faster than was safe or wise…
"So I was!" Father Valdemar bared his remaining teeth in a smile. "Thank you, My Lady."
The aged priest opened his mouth further to continue his sermon, but was interrupted by the Thegn. With a visible swallow, he ordered "Keep your weapons spanned, men, but do not loose until I give the word." None of the men-at-arms were feeling quite brave enough to correct their liege-lord on the new weapon terminology.
Dirt shifted aside as Huscarl Andersson side-stepped closer to the Thegn, and Karl was close enough to hear the mid-commander ask under his breath "My Lord? There must be two thousand beastmen down there, to our forty men. These weapons you have graced us with are mighty indeed, but—?"
Their noble lord only shook his head slightly, before nodding towards the Rogue Trader. "Lady Jardin has insisted that she and her sole guard will handle this by themselves."
Karl's heart skipped a beat, and he and Aksel exchanged a wide-eyed glance. The foreigners clearly had weapons and armor unknown to the Islands, aye, but surely even they could not be so sure of their martial prowess?
Gravel-laced dirt crunched aside as the Lady Trader leapt nimbly across the two-pace width of the trench right next to Karl. Mud clung to the beige material of her boots — they were of no leather he had ever seen — yet the gold-and-green material of her grandly-decorated robes appeared unmarred. A braying roar rose from below, as beastmen set blood-maddened eyes on that which they hated most: beauty.
A dusty cough from behind him made Karl realize that he had been staring. "The Chaos-touched, then!" Father Valdemar continued, seemingly having cleared his throat enough for his scratchy voice. "For when the Chaos-touched surged forth from the sewers and the crypts and the hidden places of the land, did then He Most Holy not bless us as well with the weapons most attuned to such a foe?"
The foreign Lady raised one hand to her forehead, long fingers as shockingly-blue as her visage itself.
"Guess it's not face-paint, then." muttered Aksel warily, his left hand leaving his weapon to trace a one-handed aquila across his chest. "Foreigners, and all that."
At least the Lady Jardin's sole guard was human enough, even if he surely did not come from the peoples of the Isles. A face at least as lined as that of Father Valdemar was barely visible beneath the wrapped-cloth of his headdress, the exposed tasseled tail of which flapped in the mountain breeze as he leapt awkwardly across the trench to rejoin his Lady.
He retrieved some form of metal tiara from within his foreign armor, and held it out to the Lady Trader. Tucking it into place atop her brow, she stood atop the piled dirt to face the closing horde from what must now be barely a hundred paces.
Bloody crazy nobles, to be worrying about their finery at a time like this!
As if it were the most normal thing in the world, Lady Jardin held out one hand. Her guard clasped it.
"And so it was," Father Valdemar continued "That in our Hour of Need, He made His Beneficence most clear and scoured the Corrupted from the land with the Fires of Saint Leinnol!"
No sooner had the declaration left the wizened preacher's chapped lips than the charging ranks disintegrated.
Twisted abominations shrieked with agony, collapsing to the ground and writhing madly. Fallen weapons cut into their flanks, yet the red-black blood which wept from their wounds only worsened their madness.
The following ranks made to vault their fallen comrades, only to meet the same fate mid-air. As if they had struck an invisible barrier, they hurtled to the jagged rocky slope with pained bellows.
The bodies which had fallen first then burst into flames, red-golden fingers licking high into the thin mountain air. Thank the Throne they were downwind!
"Do you see, my children!?" Father Valdemar did his level best to shout over the ear-straining racket. "He is with us! The Emperor Protects!"
Incredulous cheers erupted down the line of doomed — formerly-doomed — men-at-arms. Somehow, indeed, the God-Emperor of their weekly sermons had indeed interceded on their behalf.
For what else could the sudden and inexplicable obliteration of their hated foes be?
Amidst the shouting that echoed louder and louder through the valley, Karl barely overheard a dry murmur from the Trader's guard "Well, I think that your grandmother would have appreciated it."