Prologue
“Well, boys, this is it. The big one.”
Sergeant Karto's words misted in the cold air of the first of Marcia, the first day of the year. Above him, a lone bird flew under the grey sky, unafraid of the carnage that had marked the previous week. The ground under it had probably once been beautiful, fields large enough to feed their owners and make them rich.
All that had ended. Life was put on hold for the sake of the Imperator.
The rumors are true then, I thought, we are all going to die today. I should have been thankful that I was still alive to stand here in the trench, two years into the war, but I was never the sort to be grateful or content.
And that's why I am here today to die in the biggest push of them all. That was my last thought before Karto raised his voice to show how unafraid of the enemy he was.
“You have suffered for two years now, soldiers of the Imperium! For your homes and your Imperator you have marched through heat and cold, have bled and watched your friends bleed! You have forgotten what it is like to be comfortable, what it is like to be loved, to be at peace!”
A soldier to my right muttered: “We'll all be dead in a minute, why bother reminding us how miserable we are?”
Already unbalanced, I said to him: “Don't talk that way about the sergeant! He's a smarter man than you!” There were days I doubted it, but today wasn't one I could afford to do so.
I had spoken a bit too loud. Apparently oblivious to the defense I had put up for him, Karto shouted: “Here's the first two who'll give their lives for Dolotius, Imperator, et Patria today!”
I was quiet after that, as quiet as everything around them, except for the cawing of that one incongruous bird, which flew low over the long trench, casting its shadow on Sergeant Karto as he took up his speech once more.
“Those days end today! Today the war is won! Today every single Dol-denying savage in those trenches dies! Today you become undying heroes whose blood will be sworn on for generations to come, who will be the idols of boys in every mudhole you came from!”
Karto paused for breath, as did the entire seemingly peaceful scene. The other sergeants in other sections of the trench, which was the front most of the Imperial trenches here in the Geinoth sector, paused their own speeches, which had doubtless been similar to Karto's.
“Let's get it over with!” cried a high young voice somewhere behind me. That voice seemed tinged with the utmost fear which characterized the untested. Probably his first 'big push' Ithought .
Karto didn't respond. No one took up the youth's cry. Every other one of the twenty or so men in the section knew what an assault was, and had no desire to embark upon it any faster than they had to.
