The center trenchline was gone.
Not just overrun, gone. The ground where they had stood and bled was now soaked in black fog and silence, a smoldering wound in the world. The Heretic Legion hadn't pursued them, not yet, but their presence still clung to the air like the taste of burnt scripture.
The survivors of the 33rd Redemption Corps, along with what remained of the Martyr's Right flank, had pulled back to a fortified shell of a position known as Plank Right, an intersection of trenches and devotional dugouts on the edge of the Hallowed Front.
It wasn't much.
But it was holy ground.
And holy ground was not to be abandoned.
Trenaxa stood atop a stacked altar-plate and looked over the makeshift command post, a half-collapsed chapel reinforced with bone-struts and wrapped in sanctified sandbags.
"Vox-Acolyte," she barked.
A kneeling figure beside a rusted, incense-coated vox-unit looked up, blood smearing his fingertips. "Yes, Prior?"
"Summon the commanders. All of them. Now."
"Yes, Sister Trenaxa."
"Use the Benedicta Vox. If you have to draw blood, do it. I want every surviving commander within reach on this line. The God-Head demands response."
The acolyte bowed and began his liturgies, his voice already slipping into rhythmic invocation.
Trenaxa turned and pulled aside a small cloth shroud protecting a Vox Reliquary, a comm device built into the skull of a saint. Its eyes glowed faintly. Holy sigils across its brow crackled with residual charge.
She pressed her palm to the top, letting the sanctified pinpricks draw blood. The vox crackled to life, a low hum turning to ritual tones.
"By the Fourth Benediction of the Blessed Signal, I reach the lines. This is Sister Trenaxa of the 33rd. Plank Right secured. I seek status of adjacent fronts. Repeat, I seek voice and flame from the field."
The air waited.
Then—
[Saint's Reach – Forward Line]
The voice came fast, heavy with smoke and conviction.
"This is Militant Irena at Saint's Reach. We hold the high crucifixion mound. Twenty percent strength. Wounds are cleansed. We lack fire but not fury. We await orders or martyrdom."
"Received, Irena," Trenaxa said. "Your wrath is noted."
[Reliquary Flank]
Another voice, higher—female, clipped and formal.
"Marshal of the Reliquary, Cassian speaking. We are intact. Seventy percent operational. Relic bearers are safe. One minor inversion in sermon-flow detected but corrected. Request reconsecration rites when possible."
"Acknowledged, Marshal. Your relics burn clean."
[The Ember Line]
A flame-voiced signal came through next, heavy with vox-feedback and fire-canticles.
"Bearer of the Flame Rite Kalvus. The Ember Line flickers but holds. One purifier cohort lost to Artillery Witch strike. Remaining flame-units await refueling and benediction oils."
Trenaxa's eyes narrowed. "Kalvus, do not lose that line. If the Ember fades, the whole flank goes cold."
"By fire and ash, we obey."
Then the Blessed Hinge answered.
But what came through wasn't language.
It was screaming.
Long, guttural, unnatural. Grotesque. A sound like someone was being pulled apart very slowly while singing a prayer made of vowels. Static warped behind it—like someone whispering secrets to a burning tree.
Trenaxa pulled her hand back as the saint-skull crackled with smoke.
"Blessed Hinge is compromised," she muttered.
She turned to Aleric, who stood watching in horror. "Mark that location as under influence. No further transmissions."
He nodded, eyes wide.
Next came The Martyr's Left.
The line opened with the voice of a child.
"They're feeding me…"
The sound of wet chewing followed. Dripping. Slurping. Something heavy dragging across metal.
Then—
"Saint Graves is here, isn't he? We remember him. We saw him in the fire…"
Trenaxa slammed the vox off.
The skull's eyes flickered and went dim.
The signal was lost.
The bunker fell quiet.
No one spoke.
The only sound was the distant boom of a fallen banner collapsing somewhere in the trenches.
Trenaxa's voice broke the stillness. "We are not losing this sector. We cannot lose more ground. If we give up Plank Right, we expose Cruciform Line and the sacred relic stacks."
She looked to the acolyte.
"Reach the Pilgrim Battalions. Use the Sermon Caster if you have to. Tell them their brothers bleed. We need reinforcements, sainted or not."
The acolyte nodded and turned to his second vox, a heavy, ornate machine decorated with relic glass and bone tubes, already humming with charged incense.
]Transmission – Sermon Caster]
"To the Blessed March of the Pilgrims, this is Sister Trenaxa, Canon-Prior, Archivist-Surgeon of the 33rd Redemption Corps. We have retreated to Plank Right. Heretics walk where saints once knelt. The Martyr's Left burns. The Hinge screams in unwords. We cannot abandon this ground."
"I call now to the following battalions:"
"Father-Commander Dren of the Crucible Walkers, bring your zeal."
"High Cruciger Lueth of the Iron Lantern, bring your banners."
"Saint-Captain Hema of the Gloried Dust, bring your dead and make them stand."
"Confessor-General Holwen of the Third Psalm Host, bring wrath."
"And any others who hear the Saint's whisper in your vox, march now."
"By the echo of the Wound, by the breath of the fallen, by the name of Graves, march."
She stepped back from the vox, breath shallow.
Aaron was seated behind the sandbags, map across his lap again, brow furrowed.
"I know what they're doing," he said, voice flat.
Trenaxa turned. "Speak, Saint."
"They're flanking us from the Blessed Hinge, not because it's tactically useful, but because it's weak in scripture. The soil's only been sanctified once. There's no relic-burial beneath it. No deep anchoring faith."
Trenaxa blinked. "How do you know that?"
"I read it," he said. "On a forum."
Aleric, still beside him, slowly nodded. "He's right. There was a discrepancy noted in the Benediction of Earth's Wards. The rite was rushed."
Aaron stood. "Then we don't hold Plank Right. Not alone. We reconsecrate the Hinge. We drag relics. We bury saints. We make the ground scream holy."
Trenaxa looked at him for a long moment.
Then she smiled.
"A prophet saint with a shovel," she said. "Now we're getting somewhere."