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	Fire Drake Ly’tren limped behind the cover of two Imperial Guard IFVs and almost slumped to the ground.  He managed to steady himself on the side of one of the vehicles – Salamanders, ironically.

	“Lord Astartes?” one of the Conservator troops taking shelter behind the IFV asked hesitantly.  “Are… you ill?”

	“Quite possibly,” Ly’tren lied.  No, he was not ill, but the chunk of rebar that last SDF bombing run had blasted out of the collapsing office tower beside them was still stuck in his flank, and it was overwhelming his clotting mechanism.

	Asvar was busy, kneeling beside Calrus and Holgein and administering the medicines he had left, which was very little.  The past four hours had been unrelenting, brutal battle, non-stop.  The bodies of the dead spat these maddening bone constructs out, the Glasians were landing troops by the hundreds of thousands, the PDF and Guard were doing the same, and the battle overhead had barely abated.

	Ly’tren had served during the Salamanders’ savage war for Nocturne against the Dragon Warriors as part of the Third Company, so he was no stranger to defensive city fights.  That, though, had been against enemies scaling a wall, not mindless hordes of strange monsters.  It had also had effectively no air component, thanks to the constant presence of the cities’ void shields.

	Asta Grand had no void shield.  It had no walls.  The Glasians were landing at random across the city.  The Guard and the surface navy had held the ports, including the all-important naval base at the river mouth, but there were so many Glasians, so Throne-cursed many…

	All but Gregorius had cuts or battle damage to their armor, now.  Holgein had taken a Ruin Gun to the shoulder; half an inch lower and he’d have been missing an arm.  Calrus was down and bleeding like a stuck balloon.  He had taken a frag grenade square to the stomach, and his less-than-perfect armor’s power cables had cracked from the blow, sending live electrical wire into his stomach.  Asvar was confident both men would be up and about before too long – they were Astartes, after all – but the damage was impossible to treat properly in such a mad war.

	Astia Grand was all but dust.  Ly’tren was no architect, but he was a Salamander, and he knew the ways of metal, plastic, alloy, stone, even wood.  The city was reparable, but it would take decades of hard work.  The evacuation effort had been abandoned.  Anybody left in the city was either a combatant or too stupid to save.  The PDF had taken the populace to the great tunnel networks that the highways fed, outside the city proper.

	Ly’tren slowly straightened up, wincing and biting his lip at the shocking pain from the rebar in his flank.  It had punched clean through his Terminator armor, right at the junction of two plates, and it was the Warp’s own luck.  He supposed bleakly that some of his own good fortune had gone to poor Holgein.

	“Brother, the rate of dispatch of Glasian transports has dropped precipitously in the last fifteen minutes,” Jergal said.  His helmet was a melted blob after a Glasian had landed an acid grenade on it.  He had managed to rip it off and shoot the alien before his own head had taken much damage, but there were some gruesome acid pocks around his left ear now.  Jergal knelt beside the Command Salamander and stared intently at its radar feed from the navy base’s great dish.  “Indeed… the PDF and SDF aircraft are reporting fewer new contacts.”

	“The bird trash may just be out of transports,” one of the Guardsmen mumbled wearily.  He clutched a gold Aquila to his chest and idly clicked the safety of his rifle on and off with his free hand.  “I mean… they’ve been sending them in for… what… ten hours?”

	“And they had sent many to Primus and Secundus first,” Jergal agreed.

	A missile detonated against the plaster wall over their heads.  It was a testament to the Marines’ training that they didn’t flinch.  The Guardsmen were so tired that they probably didn’t even notice it.  “Blessed Throne, Emperor on Earth, spare us this turmoil,” the Guardsman practically whispered.  After a silent moment, he looked up at Ly’tren with dead eyes.  “Master Astartes?”

	“Hmmm?” Ly’tren replied idly, counting his remaining grenades.  One white phosphorous, one frag.

	“Are… why is the sky red?” the Guardsman whimpered.  “Is this the Warp?”

	“I genuinely haven’t the faintest idea,” Ly’tren sighed.  “I am no psyker.”

	“But… you are one of His angels,” the Guardsman pressed.

	Ly’tren scowled behind his saurian mask.  He started to snap something back, but amended his words at the last moment.  The man was clearly having a nervous breakdown.  “We’re not all-knowing, Guardsman.”

	“Quit coddling him, Ly’tren,” Calrus muttered from where he sat slumped against the crushed front wall of the building.

	Ly’tren’s temper flared again.  Gregorius looked over at them both with a scowl on his face, but looked away again when he saw Ly’tren bring his rancor back under control.

	One of the Salamander IFVs lurched as its Hunter-Killer missile suddenly deployed.  Ly’tren jerked instinctively away from the sudden plume of smoke.  Two blocks away, a Glasian hovertank suddenly slewed sideways into a statue of Sanguinius and exploded.  The statue slowly toppled on top of the tank and exploded into shards.  Ly’tren heard one of the Guardsmen start crying, and he couldn’t muster a moment’s scorn.

	Calrus could, and had even opened his mouth to comment on it when a merciless look from Holgein and Ly’tren at once clicked his mouth shut.  The eight men sat in weary silence as they waited.