They had never been more ready.
Banners lined the Blessed Hinge like stained-glass spears, fluttering in rhythm with whispered prayers. The trenches thrummed with relics, sealed runes, and soldiers singing in chant-rot cadence. Pilgrims walked in procession, carrying flame canisters and saint-bones like blessings waiting to detonate.
For the first time in weeks, the front didn't feel doomed.
Aaron stood beside Father-Commander Dren, who was casually impaling relic stakes into the trench floor with one hand and sipping sacramental stimulant with the other.
"You did well," Dren said, not looking at him. "The soil sings again."
Aaron shifted. "We'll see if it still sings when artillery hits."
Dren chuckled and slapped his chestplate. "Let them come. We've turned back worse. The ground remembers."
Around them, commanders murmured plans:
High Cruciger Lueth coordinated mortar sanctification cycles.
Saint-Captain Hema deployed her bone-walkers like chess pieces made of vengeance.
Confessor-General Holwen paced with his vox-priests, chanting prep-benedictions into the Chorus Line.
Even the scribes looked confident.
Acolytes high on relic incense filed up and down the trench passing out field rosaries and ampoules of sainted ash.
Aleric handed Aaron a flare.
"For miracles," he said with a smirk.
Aaron stared at it.
Then the fog came.
It didn't roll in like a storm or drift like smoke.
It arrived.
The sun dimmed—no clouds, just a pressure in the air. A shifting fog, not rolling in, but descending, as though the earth had exhaled a thousand sins.
The first watchman sounded the alarm.
"Fogfall!"
A curtain of black, heavy and wet, dragged across the sky and slammed into the front like the hand of a god made from mourning. Within seconds, all visibility was gone. The trenchline became a world of muted prayers and flickering torchlight.
The relic lamps hissed and died.
Even the holy lanterns dimmed.
The Iron Lantern on Lueth's back sparked once, sputtered—and went out.
That had never happened before.
The cry echoed across the trenchline.
Scribes scurried to seal relic scrolls. Purifiers locked in formation. Choirs flipped their psalm orders to Reverse Flame Canticle.
Aaron grabbed Aleric. "This isn't standard Heretic fog. That's not Swine smog. It's too—thick."
"It's Heretic," Trenaxa said. "But not their normal advance."
"I know," Aaron said. "I can feel it."
Then the screams began.
Not near. Not far.
Everywhere.
Thousands.
Inhuman, layered, echoing like hymns sung by dislocated jaws. Screams that weren't fear, they were ecstatic. Joyful. Like charging into war was a divine romance.
Aaron gripped his rifle.
"Positions!" Trenaxa barked from somewhere behind the dark. "Hold! Hold to steel!"
The vox units lit up.
"This is Martyr-Four, do you see them?"
"No visual! Chanting in the fog! I can't—"
"Reliquary Flank reporting fog penetration—flame lines not activating!"
"This is Ember-One. The fire isn't catching. The oil's cold."
Aaron opened his mouth.
And then they came.
At first it was just shadows.
Running.
Crawling.
Marching.
A tide of silhouettes, barely visible, Heretic Troopers, Wretched, shapes with blades for limbs and faces wrapped in inverted scripture. Every time one of them screamed, a soldier behind Aaron started praying louder.
Artillery fired blindly.
Mortars rang.
The Chorus Line blasted Flame Psalm Thirteen.
But none of it seemed to land.
The fog ate the shells, the sound, the heat.
The Heretics didn't stop.
They just charged.
A dozen Redemption soldiers opened fire. Bullets ripped shadows apart. One of Hema's bone-walkers tackled a hulking Wretched into a burning pit. Pilgrims ignited oil trenches that refused to burn until prayers were screamed at them.
"Focus fire on the left flank!" Trenaxa shouted. "Redirect Purifiers! Bring the Second Psalm Forward!"
Acolytes relayed orders with bleeding hands.
Aaron ducked behind the sandbags, scanning the fog. His eyes twitched.
The defense was working. Barely.
Until he came.
From the fog emerged a figure.
Tall.
Broad.
Walking slow.
Unbothered.
The screams fell quiet when it stepped forward, as if the Legion themselves made way for it.
It was wrapped in stitched skin—flayed martyr flesh, sewn together like a cloak. Scrolls burned to ash were nailed into its chest. Its face was covered by a cracked iron mask glued with dried blood, and in one massive hand, it held a hymn-ringing cleaver longer than Aaron was tall.
It hummed as it walked.
A low, droning tune—once a prayer, now inverted.
Every word twisted, its melody unfamiliar and wrong.
Relic-lights flickered again.
Aaron's stomach flipped.
Some of the soldiers fell to their knees, not in reverence—but in fear.
The artillery switched targets.
Three consecrated shells hit the figure.
Smoke.
Dirt.
Silence.
Then the smoke cleared—and it was still walking.
Faster now.
Bullets hit its skin and bounced.
Mortars rang but did nothing.
The hum got louder.
Aaron couldn't breathe.
He felt something in his spine recognize the shape.
"I've seen that before…" he muttered.
"Where?" Aleric asked.
"I don't know. It's old. Maybe... Maybe one of those approved lore zines—God-Head, it looks familiar."
He stared.
And then it looked back.
Right at him.
Its head cocked.
And then it started running.
Heavy. Fast. Terrifying.
Scribes screamed.
One priest emptied a relic pistol and collapsed, praying.
"The God-Head protects. The God-Head protects. The God-Hea—"
Didn't matter.
The brute charged straight at Aaron.
And then—
"I SEE YOU, BEAST!"
From the center trench, Father-Commander Dren stepped forward, spear in hand, cloak ablaze with psalmic flame.
"I name you! I cast your hymn back into the pit!"
The brute stopped.
Tilted its head.
The ground shivered under its feet.
Dren raised his relic-spear, its tip glowing with bloodfire.
"By Saint Rautha's Third Strike, I stand."
He stepped between the beast and Aaron.
Behind him, the trenches held their breath.
And the fog screamed again.
Aaron stared in horror as the brute raised its cleaver.
The hymn grew louder.
The cleaver began to sing.