This had happened so many times, Varens was close to losing count. He didn’t bother to repaint his unit markings any more, not that they could be seen under the mud and filth of Espandor’s battle­fields anyway.

He rotated his shoulder. The tickle returned with the hint of a sting. Another fly, probably, looking for weaknesses in his double-thickness uniform. The damn things were bloodsuckers, all of them.

A civilised cardinal world with broad expanses of wilderness, Espandor had been a place of cool forests. With human settle­ment restricted to the cities of the western continent and the lesser agri-complexes scattered across its warmer zones, the planet’s woods and oceans had been left in a near pristine state. Or so the pre-mission edifications had depicted Espandor before Varens arrived, six interminable years ago now. He had only ever known it as a sea of mud, a moribund place plagued by the dead who came shambling from the wastelands of shattered trees every seven hours, regular as manufactoria shift changes.

Several of the larger cities were gone, and trench lines surrounded the remaining three civitae. Their hinterlands were seas of mud, the patchwork of forests and argicolae levelled to provide fields of fire. The assaults of the dead were therefore severely hampered. The dead were slow, and the Ultramar Auxilias’ guns many. The enemy’s diseases were rife, the population was a shadow of what it had been and the planet had ceased to be a productive part of Ultramar in any way, but if Espandor was sick, at least it was still alive.

‘Still Imperial, still Ultramarian, still living. Fight for it with every breath in the primarch’s name, for that is the will of the Emperor,’ Varens whispered to himself. After that, he had no more time for prayer, for the seventh-hour klaxon blared, and the enemy came lurching out of the mist.

‘Here comes today’s batch!’ shouted their lieutenant, his amplified voice distorted by the voxmitters attached to his comms operator’s pack. ‘Hold the line. Prepare to fire on my mark.’

‘Respirators on, men. Goggles down.’ said Bolus. He snapped his equipment into place over his mouth by way of example. His next words were muffled. ‘Make sure the seal’s tight on your body suit. Don’t get their filth on you.’

Varens got down off the firing step to help a panicking young soldier who was failing to get his gear set right on his face.

‘Your clip’s twisted, that’s all,’ said Varens. He tugged off one dirty glove – not with his teeth, never that – and adjusted the balaclava around the soldier’s face, wiping rain from the trooper’s face and untwisting his strapping.

‘With goggles and respirator on, there should be no exposed skin, and so the Emperor protects,’ he said, setting the youth’s mask in place, and then his own. ‘Whisper your thanks to your battlegear, trooper. It will keep you alive.’