I must confess, normally, when I start a narrative about my adventures, I like to begin with some sort of comment on how I got into this particular mess, or how I tried (and, near inevitably, failed) to find some way of avoiding whatever horrible situation the Emperor and his most holy bureaucracy decided to send the Valhallan 597th (and by extension, myself) into next.
Perhaps even include a comment on how if I had known what I was heading into, how I would have done something suitably desperate to get out of needing to attend to the situation.
Tragically, for myself at least, none of that was an option for this particular moment of my past, for a variety of reasons.
If the beginning of this narrative feels a tad abrupt, well, that was exactly how I experienced it.
So far as I could tell, I had found myself waking up in a well-exploded trench, artillery, lasfire and bolters detonating in the distance, and an angry Khornate wielding an axe just a few meters away from me.
Whatever my confusion, it hadn't dulled my reflexes, and a single laspistol shot downed the mad screaming cultist quite well.
"Fethin' hell!" A voice exclaimed near the fallen corpse, and I blinked, seeing a guardsman, covered in mud and various other, less pleasant substances associated with brutal trench warfare, laying on the ground, holding one half of a sparking lasgun.
Belatedly, I realized that the cultist had not actually been looking at me, had not been aware of my presence, and, in fact, had six friends, who were now quite aware of my existence.
I am more than a fair shot with my laspistol, I'll admit, as I always found their precision more useful than the sheer stopping power of a boltpistol, and three shots killed three of the cultists before the rest were upon me.
After that, it was time for my chainsword, a quick grasp drew it from its sheath and started its engine in a single movement.
Even then, I noticed the cultists seemed slow, though I hardly took paid it too much thought. Perhaps they were exhausted, perhaps they were startled, perhaps these were the dregs of the cult eager for a bit of bloodletting and weren't expecting an actual fight.
The first screamed as he charged, a crude axe held over his head, as he blindly charged forward, and I obliged his desire for spilled blood as I casually stepped past his guard and ran my blade along his belly, his guts spilling even as I shifted to parry a sword from the second, and shot the third with my last pistol.
There was a scream of metal as my chainblade held the sword in place before I shoved it to the side, and as the off-balance cultist stumbled, I brought my pistol to his face and fired once, removing most of his head.
With that, six cultists were dead, and I still wasn't quite sure what was going on.
"C-Commisar?" The guardsman spoke up from his position on the ground, a hint of fear in his voice.
"Guardsman." I gave him my most winning smile as I sheathed my chainsword, leaving my pistol in hand.
"I- I swear, I didn't mean to break from the unit, I'm," he pointed at the side of his head, "bomb went off, couldn't hear the order to pull back, just kept on shooting until-"
"Easy, there. That sort of thing does happen in war." I spoke as clearly as I could, making my mouth movements as clear as I could.
Truth be told, it made me somewhat nervous to see him so afraid. Normally, I wouldn't need to be concerned with Valhallans, since they knew me to be different from most Commissars, but this man seemed dazed enough to not recognize me. A soldier who had broken from his unit, however understandable the circumstances, suddenly confronted with one of His Emperor's loyal Commissars could get very nervous, and do something very, very stupid. However stupid it would be in the long term for him, in the short term, it would be very fatal for me, so I simply smiled and held out my hand, making it as clear as possible that I had no intention of killing him for the crime of being left behind in hostile territory.
He hesitated for a moment, before grasping my hand and pulling himself up, though he hardly seemed to need the help with how little weight he was putting on my arm.
He stumbled awkwardly to his feet, and mumbled a quick thank you.
"Sir, are we heading back to the bunker?"
"I don't think there are any more stragglers around here," I noted, hoping my comment was accurate, "so yes. Lead the way, private."
My still offering my help might have seemed selfless, considering the risks, but considering that I still had no idea what the tactical or strategic situation was, and indeed, no idea what direction friendly soldiers were in, well, having a guide was still quite worth the risk.
The soldier, whose name I still didn't know, began stumbling in a direction behind me, and I fell in line behind him, keeping an eye out, as we unfortunately, if predictably, walked in the direction of some of the distant gunfire.
It wasn't too long before we found a bunker, and, incidentally, the Khornates besieging it. My blood ran cold even as we slipped behind a ruined Chimera to observe. I could make out twenty for sure, but there seemed to be far more than that, judging by the sounds, all of them looking past the trench and, presumably, towards the safest place I knew of, which seemed a bit less safe. They were huddled, with some cultist occasionally brave enough to stick their heads out to take potshots at the bunker, every shot returned by a dozen from the -presumably- loyalist forces.
If my blood was cold before, it turned frigid as I saw one hulking figure approach the edge of the trench, wearing what was once proud armor of one of the Emperor's loyal space marines, sullied and profaned with blasphemous symbols. Even crouched he seemed to vibrate with a barely contained desire for violence.
Traitor marines, and with no trusty aid with a melta available.
Before I could suggest retreat, a flurry of smoke grenades tossed from the trench, and with a hissing noise audible even from here, they emitted an ominously red smoke.
Lasfire immediately shot out from the bunker, attempting to suppress what they must have assumed to be an attempt to charge their lines, but that wasn't the cultist's plan, this time.
This time, I could see a number of them setting up heavier weapons, autocannons, large stubbers, and even a lascannon or two, six heavy weapons being placed upon the edges of the trench, even as lasfire arced above them.
The traitor marine yelled something I couldn't make out, and the weapons began firing, still blinded by the smoke, but certainly slowing down the rate of returning fire.
"We need to hit them," the guard by my side said, and I suppressed a wince. The guard had seemed pleasantly cautious before, despite the fact that the caution seemed directed at myself; it was some time to show a heroic side.
"Hold fast," I said, figuring I'd justify the command after.
"Sir, they'll be slaughtered!" He hissed, and for an illogical moment, I feared that our targets would have heard him over the hail of weapons fire.
"Hold fast, and stay ready."
As the smoke began to clear, the traitor marine yelled, chainaxe lifted into the air,and with a scream a tide of cultists charged out of the bunker, weapons firing, even as they were covered by the heavy weapons, the marine following shortly.
"Now!" I leaped out of cover, and quickly charged forth.
This was, believe it or not, an entirely calculated and reasonable decision.
Most of the enemy had charged out of the bunker. They had seemed to be reluctant to charge without suppressive fire from the heavy weapons.
With fewer heretics in the bunker, especially one fewer traitor Astartes, attacking them would be far less suicidal, and hopefully by taking out the emplaced weapons, the troops in the bunker would have a clear shot to eliminate the charging heretics. If not, well, we'd kill enough people that I wouldn't ruin my heroic reputation, and we could merrily run away in some other direction.
A leap into the trench found myself in the middle of three cultists, screaming incoherent blasphemies loudly enough they failed to notice my chainsword before it was too late, four of them dying in about as many seconds. Nearby, the guardsman stood above the trench, blasting his lasgun at full auto and killing another cluster of cultists. I simply ran to the next set, which happened to include the cultists manning the lascannon.
For now, I kept my laspistol holstered. The cultists might not have noticed the screams of the dying or the roar of the chainsaw over their own heavy weapons fire, but the flash of a lasgun might have alerted them, and I wanted to be in the middle of them and swinging long before they noticed my presence. The next group also died easily, and, on an impulse, I grabbed the cannon and looked across the trench.
I hadn't thought I'd be able to get the heretic marine, but it seemed he'd turned around once he noticed the heavy weapons stopping, and was trying to return to the trench.
If you've never seen an Astartes move, well, know that it can be unnerving to see how fast they are despite their bulky frames. I hardly expected to hit him as he began to weave towards my position, but a panicked, blindfired shot took him in the chest, directly center mass.
I was almost surprised to realize it was my own, as the marine fell, but I soon had other concerns, as seeing what must have looked to be friendly fire made the remaining cultists realize that the trenches weren't as friendly as they had thought.
Fortunately, they hadn't decided to shoot me from a distance.
Unfortunately, this meant they had decided to charge at me, screaming and waving what were very much not crude, scrap iron weapons like the others.
It was what felt to be a few minutes of desperate fighting, but couldn't have been that long, cutting, blocking, weaving, taking advantage of the tight confines of the trench and hoping no one circled around me.
Eventually, however, it was done, and the trench fell silent.
"Holy throne."
I glanced behind me and saw the guardsman, whose name I really should ask at some point, laying on the ground, his face pale and clammy even as he looked at me in awe. "Crawled over to see if you needed help, but, guess you don't, sir."
Despite the urge to glance behind myself and see exactly how many cultists had died, I simply gave one of my more humble smiles and said, "I was one of the best duelists at the Schola, you know."
His eyes darted between my legs, "I can tell that, sir." He winced, as he tried to set himself up to a sitting position, and that was when I noticed the mangled stump that he'd once called his leg.
He caught me staring, and winced. "One bastard was less dead than I thought he was, managed to get my leg with his chainaxe. Managed to tie it up, but, don't think I'll be making it back to the bunker with you, sir. Just leave me my gun and I'll cover you."
"If you can shoot," I said, holstering my chainsword, "You can shoot over my shoulder. Come on," I approached and grabbed his torso, and with a single, surprisingly smooth motion, managed to get him over my shoulder. I suppose he had just lost some weight.
"Sir-"
"None of that, we have a clear shot if we go now." And with that, I stood up, and climbed my way out of the bunker, single handed, idly wishing I'd thought to make sure that the Aquila on my forehead was sufficiently shiny, hoping that I wouldn't drown in friendly lasfire the moment I stuck my head out.
Fortunately, I didn't, and a quick dash had me approaching the bunker, a modest structure, squat, crude and simply built, and looking heavenly to myself at the moment.
And that was when a lasbolt went over my shoulder.
"Feth."
I wasn't quite sure which of us said it, but there it was.
As much as part of me was tempted to simply drop my burden and run, I'd planned on using the heroic entrance of carrying a wounded man to help smooth things over while I figured out what in the Warp was going on. Simply dumping a wounded soldier onto No Man's Land and running with my coattails between my legs would rather ruin that image. So I blindly fired my pistol behind myself, joined by the soldier on my shoulder as well as a hail from the bunker, willing my legs to move even faster.
"Duck, sir!"
That was one command I never had difficulty following as I simply collapsed to the ground, my passenger falling and rolling forward even as I felt my hat being ripped from my head.
I glanced behind me even as I reached for my chainsword and I almost wailed in despair- a Bloodletter.
It stabbed towards me and with a quick roll I barely dodged as its hellish blade burned and pierced the ground where I had laid, and I used the momentum to clumsily force myself to my feet.
A few lasbolts from the bunker struck at it, and it shifted, putting me between it and the friendly troops and coming in with a wide sweep of its blade.
I stumbled backwards, but it hadn't seemed to even want to hit me then; it was challenging me, I realized with a start, letting me recover while keeping itself out of the line of fire of the bunker.
Meanwhile, the heretics were shooting in the direction of the bunker, meaning that I also wanted to keep the demon between me and their lines.
So, I indulged the demon, giving a token slash in its direction to let it know that I had, however reluctantly, accepted its challenge, as somehow dueling a demon of the blood god seemed the least suicidal option available to me.
If I was some fresh-out-of-the-schola Commissar who had taken the words of the Uplifting Primer to heart, I might have been surprised at how it fought. Certainly, it was a creature of madness and rage, but there was a cunning to it. It fought aggressively, but it wasn't an idiot, madly swinging a blade and hoping for a kill. It feinted, it could draw back, it could think.
It took all I had to dodge some blows, and parry blows that hadn't built up enough momentum to shatter the bones in my arm for trying to block them.
Just then, a single lasbolt struck the thing in the side of the head, staggering it, and I carved my chainsword through one side and out the other, halving the demon even as it melted into warpstuff.
And while I was temped to stand there and relish in my continued survival, I wanted that survival to stay continuous, so I quickly knelt, grabbed my hat and my surprisingly-helpful-and-yet-unnamed guardsman, tossing him onto my shoulder as I dashed with a renewed speed to the bunker.
"Over here!" A voice yelled out near an open doorway, and I needed no more invitation, running to the door and barely keeping the presence of mind needed to not collapse, considering the guardsman I was till carrying. "Set him down on the stretcher here, we have a medical station." I did so, gladly, and made a note to check on his status later.
"That was amazing, sir," one of the guards said, before being glared at by his fellows.
Distantly, I noticed the lasfire had dimmed down again.
"Just serving the Emperor to the best of my ability."
I glanced around myself, noticing the markings on their armor. Good, I was back with the Valhallans and hadn't somehow stumbled into an entirely different regiment's fortress.
"Thank you for that, we thought we were goners. You even brought back Williams!"
"He killed a good number of heretics by my side, it wouldn't have felt right leaving him behind."
With a cough, the Sergent of the group interrupted my bragging in as humble a manner as I could, and spoke. "All due respect, sir, I hadn't heard of a Commissar in this part of the battlefield. What's your name?"
They didn't recognize me? "I must be grimier than I thought." I stood up straight, and gave one of my most dashing smiles, "Commissar Caiaphas Cain, at your service."
They froze at that, staring at me with wide eyes.
"Cain?"
"Indeed."
"I thought you were dead!"
That was when the puzzle pieces began clicking into place, though admittedly, as it turns out, into the wrong pattern entirely.
"I've been claimed dead before, but I live in service to the Emperor."
I almost frowned at a muttered, "Holy Terra," the reaction seemed a bit much, even though my comment was also a bit much. I'd clearly taken a knock to the head, which explained my confusion with the whole scenario, and been assumed dead. It was an unfortunately familiar scenario to me, but the expressions of awe were a bit exaggerated. Come to think of it, oddly enough, I didn't recognize any of the faces here, and I'd almost expect to know at least some of them.
"I'll, get on the vox and let the general know you're alive, sir."
"Ah, thank you. If you don't mind, I'll rest my feet over there for a moment."
"Of course, sir."
They had an odd reverence in their voice that I found distinctly disturbing, but at the moment, I didn't think too much about it. They had just seen me duel a daemon, after all, and none of them knew me personally.
Still, I did overhear some conversation as I sat, my back to the wall and my eyes closed. I might have even fallen asleep, for a time, but no longer than a few minutes.
"Should we, I don't know, call the Sisters, too? I mean, this is, their thing, right?" Ah, the Sisters of Battle. I'd met some who were good company, but many fit their reputation as Emperor botherers to a T. I wondered why they'd be necessary.
"Probably.
"Fething warp."
"Don't- don't swear in his presence!"
"What, you think he has a problem with swearing?" Some Commissars did, but I stayed silent on that.
"It's- it's inappropriate!"
"Fine, fine."
I heard some yelling from where the soldier on the Vox had went, so despite myself, I got up to blatantly eavesdrop.
"Fethin' warp I believe it, he dueled a damned bloodletter, killed him one-on-one, carved him in half with a single blow." That was- Williams, they'd said his name was. "The Emperor's angels strike me down here and now if I'm lying damn it, Cain lives!"
There was speaking on the other end, and Williams growled, "Yes, I swear it on my life, if he's a fake you can kill me too, it's fethin' Cain reborn again, standing right fethin' here, and he saved my damned life."
I admit, that probably should have clued me in, but at the time, I was too distracted by being confused as to why they'd be so surprised that I had survived whatever caused my head injury. I was also touched by the level of loyalty that the soldier had shown, but one good turn deserves another.
"No need for an oath like that, Williams, I'll sort things out myself."
"I- sir, erm, your holi-uh," he was stammering for some reason.
"Sir will do fine, Private Williams."
"I- are you sure- I mean, of course- ah, hold on," he put his ear to the vox again, listening. "Wait, she's coming personally? Well, I suppose she met him." He paused, seemingly in surprise, before forcing his face into a gruff expression once more. "And once she confirms it, I expect a cup of tanna as an apology." He gave a final, half hearted growl as he slammed the receiver in a way that would irritate any witnessing tech priest.
"Right sir, the General's coming to verify your identity personally."
The General? Zyvan was- no, he'd retired, hadn't he? What general would know me personally?
And he'd said she, hadn't he?
"By the Throne." He said, slumping fully into his chair, looking at me in something of a daze. "You know, a lot of soldiers pray to the Emperor for salvation when they're desperate. Hoping for a bit of luck, or maybe one of his Angels to arrive." He gave a weak and slightly manic chuckle. "Didn't expect a Throne's-damned Saint to throw me over his shoulder like that. Didn't even introduce yourself."
At that point, I'm afraid my mind came to a complete halt.
"I'm sorry, Williams?" I asked after a moment's pause, assuming that I'd misheard him.
"A, uh, feth, sorry sir, sorry your holiness, Throne's blessed Saint throwing me over his shoulder, and you shouldn't have needed to introduce yourself, sir!"
"At ease." I said, mind racing.
He took several deep breaths, while my mind raced without any coherence, slowly forcing itself back into order despite the madness before it, but he managed to speak first.
"I didn't realize it was you at first, so I understand why they doubt. Still, even though its, uh, been awhile, it, I think the Lady General Sulla will be happy to catch up with you, uh, sir."
Somehow, that revelation was as shocking as the first.
