Editing If I Had Known...

PROLOGUE

The chainsword bit deep. I put all the force I could muster behind the strike. In the next moment, it had sawed all the way through the greenskin’s sternum and was free. The ork’s halves falling with two satisfying thuds, staining the soil with its blood. Flecks of gore were flung from the whirring metal teeth as I held it aloft. My arms felt like rockcrete weights, my shaking hand could barely hold on to my blade. As nauseating as the air was when I first set foot on this barren place, now my lungs could not gulp it down fast enough. My exhaustion was finally overtaking my utter terror. The steady rain splattering hard on my torn greatcoat offered no relief from the ghastly humidity. But then I already suspected that nothing would. The only thing holding me up was my sheer will to not die on this Emperor-forsaken world and the rigidity of my carapace armor. Though, if I were to be rather honest with myself, I was just about empty on the sheer will. 

Why was I here, all of you may ask? Well, if I had known two months ago that I would find myself on a planet wrapped in eternal twilight on the arse end of the galaxy, hunted and cut off from Imperial lines with no communications, yet again, and forced to toss my coin in with a pair of rather colorful individuals, I would probably have just told my aide Jurgen to blast me with that melta of his; at its highest setting, of course. But then the alternative was to be sent to the Cadian sector and reinforce the defenses against another one of the Despoiler’s black crusades, and I very much liked my sanity to remain intact, thank you very much. 

Suddenly, a tingle ran all the way down my spine and my instincts hurled me to the ground. Not a moment too soon, as the ork choppa would have done to me what I had done to the previous greenskin. I turned as I rolled and came to a kneeling position. It was Nob. Nine–perhaps ten feet tall, heavily armored, more grotesque that its other kin, and wielding a wicked double-headed axe in one beefy hand like it was a mere kitchen cleaver. It roared a terrible challenge at me and prepared to lunge. I had been fighting for three full hours. I would not have been able to avoid its blow as I quite simply could not even stand anymore.  But then my eyes caught a flash of steel to its side and the monster staggered in its advance. The next thing it knew, the arm holding the axe fell to the floor as if the confused appendage forgot it was supposed to be part of a body.

The Nob stared at the stump of its elbow, but even as its strange xenos mind began to realize that its arm was indeed missing, the dark figure next to it simply reversed his grip on his blade and rammed the thing right up into the Nob’s skull, effectively silencing all further thoughts; however few they would have been. There was the small moment before the light in the ork’s eyes dimmed and then the entire thing fell forwards with a mighty boom like so much dead lumber.

“Gaunt,” I said in greeting, getting slowly to my feet. 

“Cain,” he said with a nod, he was probably as tired as I. 

He was clad from head to foot in the same dark commissarial uniform I wore: peak cap, red sash and all. Blond hair could just been seeing beneath the cap, and sweat-drenched as he was, his narrow patrician features combined with his bearing gave him a regal look. He appeared to be about my age, late 30s, though that was not the least bit accurate as I was well under my second juvenat treatment thanks to an Inquisitorial acquaintance. I had little doubt that Gaunt has undergone similar. In essence, he was rather similar to all other commissars I have met. However, there were a few oddities to this one. He sported a camo cloak for one thing, a rather unconventional article of clothing for a commissar to wear. We are meant to be seen after all. As much as I try to avoid it being as every time someone takes notice, it usually ends with me running and screaming for my life, Commissars are supposed to inspire men with our mere presence. Then there was the fact that Gaunt held the rather unusual military rank of Colonel, when Commissars are supposed to be outside the standard military chain of command. 

A Colonel-Commissar. Truly peculiar. 

Finally, there was the rather antique but very much deadly power sword he carried. He held it loosely now, sizzling softly in the rain, but I had seen him wield it with lethal efficiency in battle. A calm and precise style, good enough if a rather bit more economical than the fencing style I preferred. No doubt a rather colorful history indeed lay behind his acquisition of that elegant weapon. Yes, the oddities piled high with this one, but he was decent enough to get along with, if rather dour. He was not as bad as the other one. There was a clunk and then a low whistling sound, like an engine releasing steam some distance off to my right.

“Are you both just going to stand there having an impromptu tea party, or are we actually going to get back to Imperial lines sometime this millennium?”

We turned in unison, hardly surprised.

Another commissar, rather more bedecked in honors than I would think was proper for a battlefield, stood twenty yards from us. This one, against the odds, was even stranger than the one standing next to me. An ornate breastplate covered the upper portion of his commissarial uniform, physically protecting his torso though I knew that a powerful energy shield protected the rest of his body. In one hand the man wielded a stormbolter, though I do not know how. The sheer weight alone would have made it unwieldy for any other man to carry in both hands. His features were hard, what little could be seen passed the large bionic eye; an eye that could also fire a las blast at any foe under his gaze. As such, I always tried my best to inch away from his direct field of vision. He had the look of a man who had endured much hardship but stubbornly continued to punch hardship in the face. Of course, everyone knew of Sebastian Yarrick. He was a legend amongst commissars, slaying monsters and nightmares even when I was still a young Cadet at the Schola Progenium. He carried the badge of his legend upon his severed right arm. For in place of a human hand, fused from the elbow down was the crude bulky form of an ork power klaw. Supposedly, ripped from the same ork that had taken his own arm. 

You would think that sharing a battlefield with such a man would inspire me with righteous zeal and utter pride. A fair presumption, but then you would be quite unequivocally wrong. The man was not only a magnet for enemy fire, he very nearly went out of his way to intercept it...with his body. Granted, he did have some kind personal shield, but I did not. Therefore, I made it my personal mission to stay well clear of twenty yards of the man whenever I could.