Yedrin was third on his ladder. The first trooper breasted the top and was immediately shot dead. She tumbled back onto Yedrin and slumped to the trench floor.

He did not even look back. He felt no fear. Or perhaps he was so terrified he felt nothing else.

The next Whiteshield was hit as well. And then it was Yedrin’s turn.

He scrambled up the ladder, and as he reached the top shouted, ‘Cadia stands!’ and threw himself forward. The tight confines of the trench suddenly fell away and he felt utterly exposed.

He was standing on an open rubble slope, with lines of wire and craters all around him. It was a world lit by fire and las-bolts. A world of silhouettes firing, falling, dying.

Yedrin ran forwards. He could see Major Luka away to his right, stumping resolutely forward with his augmetic leg, shouting out encouragement as the Whiteshields were mown down.

There were dead bodies everywhere. Yedrin flung himself down next to a dead ogryn. Its great, ugly face was turned towards him; it had been dead long enough that its eyes had already started to sink into the skull, its tongue beginning to blacken.

Yedrin’s heart was hammering, but Major Luka was still walking forwards, head bent, as if marching into a storm.

‘Forward!’ he was shouting. ‘Cadia stands!’

Yedrin was elated to still be alive. He saw other Whiteshields rushing forward. It was vital to maintain momentum. He took in a deep breath and pushed himself up.

‘Cadia!’ he shouted, to give himself courage.

Major Luka kept onwards up the rubble slope as hard rounds rico­cheted about him. By the time he reached the enemy trenches his laspistol was already hot in his hand.

It was a hasty construction, crudely dug out of the rubble. The footing was uneven, and it zig-zagged around great blocks of rockcrete that had been too large to move.

Traitors roared towards him, and there was a vicious struggle as he held his place. Within moments his chainsword was splattered with gore. To either side Whiteshields were locked in furious hand to hand battle with the enemy, widening the breach.

Major Luka’s voice was hoarse as he stumped along the trench. They were sweeping the enemy back. He paused at an intersection. A wounded traitor was sitting propped up against the trench wall. ‘For the Emperor!’ the traitor hissed.

Luka shot him in the face. ‘For the Emperor,’ he muttered.

A shell landed nearby. Luka ducked instinctively as shrapnel ricocheted off the rocks above his head. Rockcrete dust filtered down as he lobbed a grenade into the opening of a field latrine.

He risked a quick look over the top. The next trench was about fifty feet higher up the incline. The no-man’s-land between was a scree slope.