The fog didn't roll, it curled.
It licked at the trench edges like a tongue made of smoke, thick and heavy with the stink of burnt relics and something even fouler, sick faith. The kind of scent that made holy men flinch and dogs bite their own tails.
Aaron stood just behind the firestep, eyes straining against the unnatural grey. It wasn't mist. It was intent.
Around him, the Redemption Corps locked into position, their movements crisp and devout. Trenaxa barked orders, her voice calm and commanding despite the low thrum of dread crawling through the trench.
Aleric stood beside Aaron, clutching a flare pistol like it was his last sacrament.
"Do we have a plan?" Aleric whispered.
"I think we pray and reload," Aaron muttered.
"Proper order is reload, then pray," Trenaxa said flatly as she passed.
Aaron ignored her.
He reached into his coat, pulled out the folded war map, and dropped to his knees behind a collapsed sandbag. He smoothed it on the mud with shaking fingers. The Heretic Legion's advance hadn't come from a standard flank. This was deliberate, surgical. Too many units converging from angles that shouldn't align.
They're trying to surround us without moving in a circle.
Classic Goetic triangulation. That's what the Triune does before rewriting battlefield orientation.
He muttered under his breath.
"Goetic Warlocks… they're prepping a paradox wedge. If the Choristers start singing now, it'll destabilize local faith anchors…"
"Which makes it easier for Wretched to breach without resistance."
"And the Wolves... they'll go straight for the voxlines."
Trenaxa appeared behind him, crouching. "What are you doing?"
"Planning," Aaron snapped. "Not praying."
She studied the map. "You know this formation?"
Aaron nodded grimly. "Better than I want to admit."
The first scream cut the sky wide open.
Not a voice, but a song. A high, tremulous keening that slid down the spine and clutched the gut like a cold iron hand. The sound of a Heretic Chorister, calling out with a voice not made for throats.
Soldiers buckled. One man dropped his rifle and began reciting wedding vows. Another started laughing and wouldn't stop until a bolt round put him down.
Aaron's head throbbed.
He turned to Trenaxa. "We need counter-chants. Low frequency. Non-liturgical."
"You mean heresy."
"I mean survival."
She didn't argue.
The Wretched came first.
Like a tide of forgotten corpses. Misshapen. Broken. Screaming in half-formed prayers. Dozens of them climbed the trench lip and poured over the front, clawing, biting, writhing through bullets.
One soldier emptied a clip into a Wretched's face—it didn't stop. It exploded in a swarm of seraph-flies, chewing at his eyes.
Aleric screamed and fired the flare. Red light bathed the trench. Trenaxa opened up with her sidearm, putting down two Wretched mid-leap. Aaron ducked behind the firestep, yanked a relic rifle off a corpse, and started firing.
Center mass, then head. Or else they mutate.
He'd read that on the wiki. He prayed it was still true.
Then came the War Wolves.
Massive, plated beasts with tusk-shaped teeth and devotional chains dragging behind. Each step shattered sandbags. One leapt into the trench and crushed two Redemption troopers before being brought down by a blessed rocket to the ribs.
Its death howl reverberated, and when it died, three men dropped to their knees and began weeping. One kissed his own boots until he choked.
Psychic imprint. Aaron remembered. Wolves are emotionally bound to their kill zones. Their deaths cause despair recoil.
He climbed up the step, took aim, and shouted:
"Aim for the riders! Don't kill the beast first, it'll backlash!"
To his amazement, they listened.
And the second wolf went down with its rider first. No psychic shock. Just a crash of muscle and fur.
Trenaxa turned to him. "Keep doing that."
The next wave came with fire and screaming steel.
Anointed Heavy Infantry stomped over the ridge, glowing with inverted blessing sigils. Each step was a thud of metal and faithless force. They carried relic-hammers and spoke in tongues only known to those excommunicated while still alive.
Their leader roared a single word: "CLEANSE!"
Two Redemption bunkers collapsed under hammer blows. One soldier tried to stab one in the eye, it didn't notice. Trenaxa threw a blessed mine into the Anointed's path, then shoved Aaron backward.
"Fall back! We'll lose the trench but not the flank!"
They retreated through a haze of smoke and prophecy. Aleric was muttering fragments of liturgy as they moved, broken and scrambled.
"...The Saint of Paint... he walks among us… canon is color… basecoat of bone…"
Aaron grabbed him. "Focus. Breathe."
"I don't know what I'm saying."
"I know. Neither do they. That's the problem."
The back trench was worse.
Artillery Witches were active now—lobbed shells bursting midair with strange effects. One landed nearby and turned the world sideways for a moment. Aaron blinked and saw his own face looking back at him from a crucified statue.
Then it was gone.
He vomited behind a mortar nest.
Hours blurred into carnage.
It wasn't a battle—it was a siege of belief.
Every time Aaron gave a command, soldiers followed it like gospel.
Every time he corrected a misused relic, it began to function properly.
Every piece of lore he muttered, half-remembered from late-night forum threads, became real.
A priest asked him if they should "reverse-bless the blood" before applying it to a bayonet.
Aaron just nodded.
And it worked.
By dusk, the trench was half-held. The Heretic Legion wasn't gone—but it was slowed. Aaron sat in the muck beside Trenaxa and Aleric, who were both bleeding and breathing hard.
Around them, Redemption survivors tended to the wounded. Wretched corpses dissolved into script-mud. A Wolf twitched in the distance, missing half its body.
Aaron looked up.
The fog was lifting.
For now.