Inquisitor Veyra and the Battle for Terra
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AJB Blog — https://blog.ajb.bz/inquisitor-veyra-and-the-battle-for-terra-wallpaper
Author: Alan Bollinger
Published: Oct 4, 2026
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The first thing Inquisitor Veyra heard was the guns. Not the thunder of them, because thunder was too soft a word. This was the grinding, hammering roar of an entire world being murdered. Bolters cracked across the avenue, autocannons hammered from the upper galleries, and somewhere beyond the curtain of smoke a weapon of truly unreasonable size fired once. The fortress shook. Stone rained from the cathedral towers. Veyra did not flinch. She stood amid the rubble with her coat snapping in the furnace wind, one hand raised, the other wrapped around her weapon. Around her, the blue-armoured giants advanced. They moved with the terrible certainty of machines, each step crushing masonry beneath ceramite boots. Their heraldry was scorched and bloodied, but still visible. Still proud. Still blue. Ahead of them came the enemy, red armour and black iron, horns and blades and things that had once been human. They poured from the burning streets beneath banners that seemed to move even when there was no wind.
"Forward," Veyra said. Her voice was almost lost beneath the guns. "Forward, and do not look at what comes behind them."
Brother-Captain Varro heard her over the vox. "Inquisitor, there are things behind them?" Veyra watched the horizon split open in red fire. Something enormous moved among the ruins, too tall to be a man and too deliberate to be a beast. Above it, gunships screamed through the smoke while distant vessels exchanged fire among the clouds. She saw the shape of a daemon emerge from the flames, its silhouette crowned with horns, its weapon dragging sparks from the street. For one instant, the battlefield seemed to pause. Then every gun opened at once.
"Yes," she said. "And I would rather they believed we were coming for them." She lowered her pistol and began walking.
The Space Marines followed. Behind them came the agents of the Inquisition, the wounded, the ammunition bearers and the nameless soldiers who had survived this long. Ahead, the enemy raised its weapons. The sky burned. The cathedral bells began to ring, though no one remained alive in the tower to pull the ropes.