[@jbeil][@Andreyich][@BCTheEntity]


The Sister-Celestian did her best to take to heart the words of the Confessor, well chosen for the situation and inspiring to the extreme to those of true faith - it just may have been better had there been more people around to hear them.

Making sure that her comrades were about her - and more than prepared to smite the unbeliever with righteous fury - she advanced cautiously into the settlement to find out what awaited them...

...and what she found filled her with an anger that could only be quenched with the blood of the enemy.

They say that you never get used to the stench of burnt flesh, of scorched skin and cloth, of non-combatants slaughtered mindlessly by fanatical heretics, and the smell directed toward you by a softly rising wind and filtered through helmet sensors could not make it any worse.

"Emperor guide my hand," muttered Victorine inside her sallet-style helm, treading as lightly as she could through the central part of the village - the sound of combat on the flanks only increasing with each pace - the outlines of corpses picked up in the highest definition by her visor, burn markings, bullet holes and blunt-force wounds as visible to her as if she had been kneeling next to them.

"Be ready sisters," she spoke into her helm-comm, her fingers twitching at her trigger "the enemy is near."

On either side rose up what had previously been thatched abodes, cottages inhabited by Sartons former workers and farmers but filled with nothing but ash, flames and death since the enemy came.

Speaking of which...

The first enemy to even be seen was a curled up body, one that had clearly been beaten to death by an angered populace as shown by the bodies surrounding it, as well as the many marks and broken limbs of the deceased. Although a cruelly carved mask of wood covered the face - shaped roughly into a screaming face engulfed in sharp cornered flame - the size, weight and long hair showed them to have been female, not that you would be able to tell by the flame-blackened hands or the orange factorium worker fatigues that pointed to a more urban origin.

Now not far from what had once been the village green, it came as no surprise that the number of corpses rose and the smoke thickened, autogun fire echoing from all around, the largest surprise was yet to come!


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Corporal Delafare squeezed off another shot from his las-pistol, giving a smile as his bionic eye confirmed his target was dead, the shockingly organised ranks of the orange-clad enemy giving his troopers a hot fight indeed...one that would only get hotter.

Everything came to a head when he heard the screams and smelt the stink of melting flesh and flak of his soldiers, flames flickering out to consume two more as Delafare yelled for them to fall back to the village centre.

Flamer-wielding enemies came forward - large packs visible on their backs, swishing with flammable liquid - fire pouring forth and driving the Cekrov soldiers back.

Organised as it was, it was nonetheless a withdraw.


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"Sisters, to the left!"

Cekrov guardsmen came sprinting from the left flank, lasguns cracking even as they came, herded back by fire and flame and a mass of masked heretics firing solid-slug weapons into the air as much as at the enemy.

Highlighted by the sensors of her helmet Victorine picked out at least fifteen attackers surging through the ruins of the village, at least three of them using flamethrowers to melt person and home with impunity, the Cekrov guard forming up around the living figures of the God-Emperor's wrath to regather morale and strength.

"Heed the words of the Confessor, my kin, and destroy these heathens with bolt and with blade. Attack!"