Valley of Daemons, Perlia — Day 61 of the Siege
The wind worried at the canyon rim like a hungry animal, crawling over broken stone and slagged metal, slipping down into the valley to sniff the dead.
Above it all, the sun hung swollen and red—an infected eye staring without pity.
Ciaphas Cain stood on the hydrodam's upper deck and let that red light paint him in the same color as everything else: blood, rust, heat-haze, and old regrets. His boots were planted on cracked plasteel. His hands rested on the pommel of his chainsword, not because he needed the comfort—because he needed the pretense.
He hated the quiet.
Quiet meant the universe was inhaling.
Quiet meant something worse was coming.
Behind him, the "fortress" took shape in the desperate language of doomed men.
Sandbags packed with shattered rockcrete and broken hopes. Rusted heavy stubbers bolted to improvised mounts, crewed by PDF conscripts whose hands shook so badly the barrels trembled. An autocannon perched on a water tower like a drunk with a long rifle and no plan. Lines of lasguns being checked, rechecked, and checked again by boys too young to grow proper stubble—boys who had never seen a sunrise that wasn't on fire.
And beyond them, civilians.
Men and women with sharpened tools, stolen autoguns, knives meant for meat and now meant for greenskins. A broken planet's leftovers, pretending hard enough that it almost became true.
This was the army of Perlia.
This was all that was left.
And Cain—Commissar Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium, veteran of a hundred theaters and a thousand lies—was somehow in charge of it.
He stared down into the valley, into the flat scar of cracked earth and dead brush, and muttered the only prayer he still trusted.
"I should've stayed in orbit."
A smell hit him a heartbeat before the voice did.
Stale sweat. Promethium residue. Battlefield latrines and old socks. The kind of stink you could measure by rank.
"You always say that, sir," Jurgen rumbled, arriving at his shoulder with the easy inevitability of discomfort. His melta gun sat in his hands like it belonged there. "Then you don't."
Cain didn't look over. If he did, he'd have to acknowledge what he already knew: that Ferik Jurgen, with his impossible odor and impossible loyalty, had followed him through hells that didn't have names yet.
Cain allowed himself a thin, private smile. "That's because I'm not as smart as I like to pretend."
Jurgen grunted, which in his case served as agreement, benediction, and conversation.
Cain's gaze returned to the far end of the valley.
A faint dust cloud was rising there. Not wind-dust. Not weather.
Movement-dust.
It grew the way a storm grows, the way a disease spreads.
Orks.
Lots of them.
Cain's grip tightened on the chainsword, until he felt the worn texture bite into his glove. "Jurgen. Vox Tayber. I want the situation on our left flank."
Jurgen nodded and tramped away, heavy steps ringing on metal. Cain watched him go, then exhaled through his nose and tried not to think about the math.
This wasn't a battle they could win.
He'd known that the moment command handed him a ruined dam, a half-assembled defense, and a collection of survivors held together by duct tape and faith. The hydrodam wasn't a fortress. It was a monument to better times, leaning into collapse and daring the universe to finish the job.
They had one Leman Russ that still ran—most days. A few light transports that coughed like dying animals. No air support. No reinforcements. No glorious cavalry charge waiting in the wings.
Just them.
Which meant Cain had two choices, as always:
Run and die tired.
Or hold and die famous.
He sighed, and the sound came out like surrender. "Looks like I'm dying famous."
The vox crackled as he descended from the overlook, boots ringing on the dam's skin.
He passed exhausted Valhallans gripping borrowed lasguns, eyes narrowed against the sun, faces carved into the shape of endurance. Grim PDF squads with patched uniforms and empty expressions. Someone murmured a prayer in High Gothic, lips trembling. Someone else threw up behind a supply crate, then wiped their mouth and tried to look brave.
Cain took the headset from Jurgen when his aide returned, and barked, "Report."
Felicia Tayber's voice came through the static, tight as a drawn wire.
"Sir. We've got eyes on the Ork advance. Multiple mob clusters. Estimate—Emperor—easily five thousand bodies, maybe more. Vehicles too. Trukks, buggies, looted armor. They're… they're coming fast."
Of course they were.
Orks never approached like soldiers. Orks approached like a riot discovering momentum.
"Position the Russ at grid Delta-Three," Cain snapped. "If that canyon narrows even a meter, we make them pay for it."
He didn't wait for confirmation. He didn't need to. His people—somehow—had learned to move when he spoke. Over two months of desert warfare, this mess of survivors had become a force. Not disciplined. Not clean.
But willing.
And on Perlia, willingness was the rarest resource left.
The ground began to tremble.
The first Ork vehicles crested the far end of the canyon—a tide of crude metal and green muscle. Their engines screamed. Their gunners fired into the air as if the battle was already a celebration.
Cain keyed the dam's vox-amplifier. His voice boomed across the structure, across every barricade and firing step, into every shaking throat.
"This is Commissar Ciaphas Cain. There is no retreat. Not today. You fire until you melt your weapons, then you use your fists. You fall back, you'd better be dragging someone wounded with you. We hold here or we drown in blood."
He leaned closer to the mic, as if volume could become fate.
"Make it their blood."
For a moment there was nothing—just wind and distant engines.
Then one cheer, cracked and raw.
Then another.
Then fifty.
Then hundreds.
The dam shook—not from Ork guns yet, but from the sound of human defiance trying to pretend it was immortal.
The Ork charge hit like a hurricane.
The first wave slammed into the canyon mouth and vanished as Cain's minefields woke up. Fire and earth erupted, turning green bodies into red vapor and metal into splinters. The survivors' gunlines opened up. Lasblasts stitched glowing lines across the valley. Heavy stubbers hammered until their barrels smoked. The Leman Russ roared, belching plasma that disintegrated mobs in sizzling, obscene sweeps.
And still—still—they came.
A stubber nest went silent as a looted warbuggy tore through the barricade in flames, crushing crew and sandbags alike. Cain grabbed a dropped lasrifle and put two shots into the Ork driver's face as it staggered from the wreck, laughing even while it bled.
"Jurgen!" Cain shouted. "Right flank's folding—plug it!"
Jurgen didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
His melta howled, and an oncoming Nob became a molten silhouette collapsing into slag.
Cain looked down the valley, eyes narrowing, mind running ahead of the moment like it always did.
It's working.
For now.
The canyon funneled them. Choked them. Made them easy to kill.
But they had numbers.
So many damned numbers.
Cain wiped sweat from his brow and muttered, "This is working too well."
Which meant something worse was coming.
It always did.
A shadow passed overhead.
Then another.
Cain looked up.
His blood went cold.
Six Ork aircraft screamed across the sky—green-painted monstrosities banking into attack runs like hungry birds.
"…Emperor help me."
The shriek of their engines ripped through the air like a god being murdered.
The first Dakkajet strafed the dam, and the world exploded into ricochet and screaming metal. Oversized bullets punched through sandbags and men alike. A Valhallan gunner vanished in a burst of red mist. His heavy stubber toppled with a hollow clang.
"Skyfire!" someone screamed. "Ork aircraft incoming!"
No shit, Cain thought, throwing himself behind sandbags as another fighter screamed low and spat flaming shells across the rear line. A PDF truck detonated. Bodies flew like dolls.
Jurgen was already firing upward.
The melta beam lanced into the belly of a Fighta-Bommer, carving a molten scar. The plane wobbled, trailing black smoke, but stayed airborne through sheer Ork stupidity.
The vox became a choir of panic.
"Command, we need anti-air—"
"They're everywhere!"
"Where's the damn Russ—?!"
Cain yanked the headset back up. "Tayber! Report!"
"They came out of cloud cover, sir!" Tayber's voice was strained, terrified. "Six craft—Dakkajets and Fighta-Bommers. No pattern, no control. Just diving and shooting everything that moves! We've lost four positions already!"
Cain watched one Dakkajet clip a makeshift watchtower. It spun, tumbled, and slammed into the cliffside, sending a fireball rolling down into the canyon.
Small mercy.
Cain slammed his fist into the wall beside him. "Emperor's bloody ass—of course they won't let us win clean."
Jurgen returned, armor scorched, one shoulder bleeding through a rent in his fatigues. "We need to finish this, sir."
Cain nodded, jaw tight.
The charges were set.
The dam was rigged.
They could fall back, detonate, and drown the valley in an apocalypse of water and steel—take most of the Orks with it.
But now?
Now there were six flying bastards making the dam itself a shooting gallery.
Lasfire lanced upward, mostly useless. The autocannon fired twice and then melted into ruin. Three civilians tried to mount a salvaged flak turret; it jammed on the first burst and exploded, killing all three in a bloom of cheap heroism.
Cain sprinted to a new barricade, peered over, and saw the valley below boiling with green bodies.
The Ork advance had slowed.
But it hadn't stopped.
And above—
The aircraft turned again, lower this time.
"They're lining up for another pass," Jurgen said, voice raw. "Low sweep."
Cain bared his teeth.
Then the vox crackled again.
Tayber's voice came through—but not panicked now.
Terrified.
"Sir… they've got jumpers."
Cain blinked. "Say again."
"They're launching Orks! Jump packs—rocket trukks—Emperor, they're flying. Nobz in the air!"
Cain turned toward the eastern ridge.
And there it was.
A line of Ork wartrukks, each fitted with ramshackle launchers that hurled screaming armored Nobz into the sky like living artillery.
"…Of course they are," Cain muttered, because if the universe had a sense of humor, it was an ugly one.
He raised his chainsword just as the first Rocket-Nob hit the dam like a meteor.
It landed on the southern rampart in a crash of iron and meat, sending defenders sprawling. It roared with pure joy and tore a trooper in half with a single swing of its power klaw.
Then another landed.
Then another.
Then ten more.
A rain of berserkers, jetpacks sputtering, armor welded from scrap, screaming as they fell.
Some overshot and splattered on the rocks below.
Enough landed.
And every one that landed brought murder.
"Hold the line!" Cain bellowed, meeting the first Nob head-on.
Chainsword met klaw in a burst of sparks.
Cain moved like a duelist, not a soldier—ducking under swings that would have turned him into paste, cutting where armor was thin, never giving the Ork enough time to realize the prey had teeth. He kicked one in the knee, drove the chain-teeth up into its gut, and listened to it scream wetly as it died.
Another landed.
Another.
Jurgen fought at his side, melta beam roaring like a furnace. He melted one attacker in half, then used the steaming corpse as a shield against another's charge. Blood soaked his fatigues. His helmet was gone. His hair burned at the edges.
"Sir," he gasped. "We're being overrun!"
Cain didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
All around them the dam became hand-to-hand hell: the upper deck slick with blood, bodies heaped against sandbags, lasguns abandoned for bayonets and crowbars and naked hands. Civilians swung wrenches like clubs. A PDF trooper drove a trench knife into an Ork's throat and got dragged over the edge a heartbeat later, both of them vanishing into the mist below.
Still they fought.
Still they held.
Cain ducked behind a ruined stubber nest and snarled into the vox. "Tayber! Status of the charges!"
"Intact, sir!" Tayber's voice came back ragged but alive. "But if this keeps up—"
"Prep detonation on my signal. Begin pulling back the rearguard. We're blowing the dam."
"Understood."
Cain looked to Jurgen.
His aide was limping now, bleeding from a dozen wounds, but his eyes were steady. Focused. Determined in the simple, brutal way only Jurgen could manage.
"We run," Cain said. "We give the order. We blow the valley. We hope to the Emperor there's something left when it's over."
Jurgen nodded once.
And that should have been it.
That should have been the ending Cain wanted.
But fate—ever spiteful—had other plans.
From the sky came a scream that made the Dakkajets sound like toys.
A shadow grew.
Something heavier.
Something meaner.
Cain looked up and felt his stomach drop.
A rocket-trukk had fired again.
Not a Nob this time.
This one was twice as big, armored in rusted plate, festooned with glyphs and trophies, power klaw the size of a man.
Gargash Korbul.
Warlord.
Monster.
Architect of Perlia's ruin.
And he was coming straight for Cain.
Korbul hit the center of the dam with the force of an orbital strike. Concrete cracked. Railings collapsed. Two defenders were thrown screaming into the valley. The shockwave drove Cain to one knee.
The Warlord rose from the crater, steam hissing from his armor like breath from a furnace.
"I'Z FOUND YA, LITTLE UMIE!" Korbul bellowed. "DIS DAM'S MINE NOW!"
Cain spat blood, stood, and thumbed his chainsword alive.
The teeth roared.
"You'll have to kill me first."
"DAT'S DA PLAN!"
The world narrowed.
The screams, the gunfire, the thud of boots—everything blurred into background noise.
There was only the Ork in front of him: a mountain of metal and rage advancing with the weight of a falling thunderhead.
Korbul's tusks were yellow with old gore. His eyes burned red behind a rusted helm. Pistons hissed as the power klaw opened and closed, eager.
"I'Z GUNNA RIP YER 'EAD OFF AN' STUFF IT IN YER ARSE!"
Cain's reply was short, almost polite.
"Come try, you pus-oozing bastard."
He charged.
So did Korbul.
They collided in the center of the dam in an explosion of sparks.
Cain ducked low, chainsword carving a line across Korbul's thigh plating. The Ork howled and swung wide—its klaw missed Cain's head by inches and pulverized a barricade instead. Cain moved like a fencer, not a commissar: weave, step, strike, never lingering. He fought like a man who knew he shouldn't be alive and was too irritated to die.
Korbul matched him blow for blow.
Not fast—just relentless.
A glancing strike sent Cain skidding across the deck, ribs screaming. Blood poured from a fresh gash along his arm.
"Yer quick," Korbul growled. "But not quick enuff."
Korbul charged again.
Cain rolled, came up slicing—chain-teeth bit deep into the Ork's side, grinding against bone. Korbul howled and backhanded Cain across the face.
Cain crashed into sandbags, vision blurring, ears ringing.
Jurgen's voice echoed distantly through the vox like a ghost.
"Sir—! Charges ready—! Fall back—!"
Cain didn't have time.
Korbul advanced, leaking blood and oil, laughing with every step.
"DIS'LL LOOK GOOD ON MA WALL, UMIE!"
Cain rose on shaking legs. His chainsword sputtered, coughed—then roared back to life.
He didn't speak.
He simply ran forward—ducked a killing swing—and drove the chainsword up into Korbul's chest, burying it to the hilt.
Korbul screamed.
Cain twisted the hilt, watched teeth and armor shear away under the blade.
The Warlord reeled. Dropped to one knee.
"Izzat… all you got…?" Korbul rasped.
Cain stood above him, breathing like a furnace.
"No."
He raised the chainsword for the finishing strike—
And then the bomber hit.
A sound like the world breaking screamed overhead.
One of the Dakkajets—trailing smoke, spiraling in its own death dance—clipped the dam's edge, tumbled, and crashed directly into the deck behind Cain.
Fire.
Thunder.
Light.
The impact detonated the explosives rigged beneath the structure.
The charges—meant for remote detonation, meant for control—went off all at once.
The dam shattered.
Cain felt the world lift him as stone, water, and steel erupted upward.
He saw Korbul's broken corpse swallowed by the rising flood.
He saw the wreckage of the bomber fold into molten ruin.
He saw Jurgen reaching for him, mouth open in a silent scream—
And then—
Nothing.
The dam broke like a titan's spine.
For half a second, the battlefield fell silent. Even the Orks paused, heads turning as if the universe had finally done something impressive enough to earn respect.
Then the flood came.
Billions of tons of black water surged through the canyon mouth and erased everything in its path. Ork mobs drowned mid-warcry, green faces vanishing under foam and blood. Trukks and looted armor tumbled end over end like children's toys crushed under a god's heel.
In less than a minute, Korbul's Waaagh! was broken.
High above, on the northern ridge, Felicia Tayber stood frozen over her vox panel.
"Commissar… do you read?"
Only static answered.
Alaric Tayber climbed up beside her, soaked in blood and grit, face blank in the way grief sometimes made a person.
"Did… did he make it?"
Felicia didn't answer.
She only stared down at the valley, where there was no dam anymore.
Only a river of mud and wreckage.
And distant green dots scrambling in disarray.
Some time later…
They searched for three days.
They found Jurgen downstream—half-dead, unconscious, clinging to a floating corpse like stubbornness made flesh. His melta was fused into slag. His leg was shattered.
But he lived.
Cain's body was never recovered.
Some said he'd been vaporized in the blast.
Others said the flood had swept him away into the desert's veins.
A few—always the worst sort of witnesses—claimed they'd seen him at the last moment, dragging Korbul's bleeding corpse into the depths, both of them laughing as they vanished.
Scene VII: The Legend
Excerpt from Inquisitor Amberley Vail's post-action file:
"There is no conclusive evidence regarding the Commissar's death. No remains. No genetic residue. Nothing definitive."
"And yet… the victory at Perlia was real. The destruction of the Ork forces was total. The dam fell. The valley was cleansed."
"The locals call him The Liberator. Others refer to him as The Saint of the Dam."
"I call him what he always was: a survivor."
"But maybe this time… he finally didn't survive."
The statues came later.
Cain, sword raised, carved in marble across the new dam they built in the old ruin's place—heroic, noble, defiant.
No one ever told the sculptor that the real Cain would have hated it. That he would have made some snide remark about statues being a waste of good rockcrete.
But none of that mattered.
Because heroes don't get to protest their own legends.
And Ciaphas Cain—coward, liar, and savior of Perlia—was now the greatest hero the Imperium never saw die.