"But... what about the weak women and children? What about the frail elderly? They have no ability to fight. We should be protecting them."
"Weak women and children? Protecting them?" Leman Russ raised a brow. "If your war were a bloody conflict among your own kind, a struggle between nations, then of course you could say such things. But the enemy we face has no such laughable concept as morality. They are the enemy of all living things, hunters who will never stop. Your wails and pleas will only stir a stronger desire to kill within them. Only battle—only a battle that squeezes an entire civilization to its limits—can give you hope of barely surviving. This sacrifice is not a burden for Kazimierz alone to bear. It is the responsibility that every living being on this entire planet must shoulder..."
Leman Russ closed his eyes, recalling the terrible price paid by worlds across the Imperium to resist the Warp Demons.
"Millions of soulless corpses hung in the cities. Entire sheets of flayed human skin were draped over spires, fluttering in the howling cold wind. Human bones were piled into pyramids taller than mountains. Rivers of children's blood could even wash away sturdy dams. Everyone struggled at the edge of madness. Even the worlds themselves slowly died amid the Demons' savage laughter. Teeth grew from your dependable weapon and bit into your palm. The house where you sought refuge became the digestive sac of some enormous beast. The wife and children you fought desperately to protect became ghouls that devoured flesh and thirsted for blood..."
Nearl remained silent for a long time. Her steadfast eyes had never looked so lost. In a drifting voice, she asked Leman Russ again, "Was all of that... what you saw in the wars of the