At his side, Artarion looked similarly battered. The others remained in the cathedral above, maintaining a vigil now the orks were punished and slain for their blasphemy.
‘Your Titan,’ Grimaldus uttered the words, ‘is purged. Now stand, princeps.’
Zarha floated in the milky waters, not hearing him, not even moving. She looked as if she had drowned.
‘Stormherald has taken her,’ Moderati Carsomir said, his voice low. ‘She was ancient, and had oppressed her will over the Titan’s core for many years.’
‘She still lives,’ the knight noted.
‘Only in the flesh, and not for much longer.’ Carsomir looked pained even explaining this. His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed by dark circles. ‘The machine-spirit of an Imperator is so much stronger than any soul you can imagine, Reclusiarch. These precious engines are born as lesser reflections of the Machine-God Himself. They carry His will and His strength.’
‘No machine-spirit is the equal of a living soul,’ said Grimaldus. ‘She was strong. I sensed it in her.’
‘You understand nothing of the metaphysics at work here! Who are you to lecture us in this way? We were linked to the Titan’s core at the end. You are nothing, an… an outsider.’
Grimaldus turned to the crewmembers in their control seats, his broken armour joints snarling.
‘I shed blood in the defence of your engine, as did my brothers. You would be torn from your thrones and buried in the rubble of your own failure, had I not saved your lives. The next time you call a Templar nothing is the moment I kill you where you sit, little man. You are nothing without your Titan, and your Titan lives because of me. Remember to whom you speak.’
The crew shared uncomfortable glances.
‘He meant no offence,’ one of the tech-priests mumbled through a facially-implanted vox-caster.
‘I do not care what he intended. I deal in realities. Now. Make this Titan walk.’
‘We… can’t.’
‘Do it anyway. Stormherald was supposed to move in synergy with the 199th Steel Legion Armoured Division over an hour ago, and they are in full retreat due to being unsupported. The delay is finished with. Get back in the fight.’
‘Without a princeps? How are we to do that?’ Carsomir shook his head. ‘She is gone from us, Reclusiarch. The shame of it all, the rage of defeat. We all felt the Titan rush into her. Her mind has joined the union of all previous princeps, amalgamated in the Titan’s core. Her soul is buried as surely as her body would be in a grave.’
‘She lives,’ the knight narrowed his eyes.
‘For now. But this is how princeps die.’
Grimaldus turned back to the amniotic coffin, and the unmoving woman within. ‘That is unacceptable.’
‘It is the truth.’
‘Then the truth,’ the Reclusiarch growled, ‘is unacceptable.’
She wept in the silence – the way one weeps when truly alone, when there is no shame to be found in being seen by others.
Around her was nothingness absolute. No sound. No movement. No colour. She floated in this nothingness, neither cold nor hot, with no reference of direction or sensation.
And she wept.
Upon opening her eyes moments before, a thrill of fear had sliced up her spine. She did not know who she was, where she was, or why she was here.
Her memories – the fractured, flashing images that were all that kept her mind from being completely hollow – were of a hundred worlds she could not recall seeing, and a hundred wars she could not remember fighting.
Worse, they were each tainted by an emotion she had never felt – something inhuman, abrasive, sinister… and partway between exaltation and terror. She saw these moments of memory, and felt the unnerving presence of another being’s emotions instead of her own.
It was like drowning. Drowning in someone else’s dreams.
Who had she been before? Did it even matter? She slipped deeper. What remaining sense of self existed began to break away and diminish, sacrificed to buy a peaceful, silent death.
Then the voice came, and it ruined everything.
‘Zarha,’ it said.
With the word came a weak understanding, an awareness. She had memories of her own – at least, she had once possessed such things. It suddenly seemed wrong to no longer have access to her own recollections.
As she resurfaced slowly, the infiltrating memories returned. The wars. The emotions. The fire and the fury. Instinctively, she pulled away again, preparing to return deeper within the nothingness. Anything to escape the memories belonging to another soul.
‘Zarha,’ the voice clawed after her. ‘You swore to me.’
Another layer of comprehension returned. Within the revelation were her own emotions, waiting for her to reclaim them. The overwhelming sensory storm of the other mind’s memories no longer frightened her. They angered her.
She would not be so easily shackled. No false-soul’s thoughts would conquer her like this.
‘You swore to me,’ the voice said, ‘that you would walk.’
She smiled in the nothingness, rising through it now like an ascending angel. Stormherald’s memories assailed her with renewed vigour, but she cast them aside like leaves in the wind.
You are right, Grimaldus, she told the voice. I did swear I would walk.
‘Stand,’ he demanded, stern and cold and glowering. ‘Zarha. Stand.’
I will.
The voice came without warning, emerging from the vox-speakers on the coffin.
‘I will.’
Crew members flinched back from the sound, their hands white-knuckled as they clutched the backrests of their thrones. Only Grimaldus remained where he was, face to face with the glass sarcophagus, his blood-smeared skull mask glaring into the milky depths.
The old woman’s body twitched once, and her head rose. She looked around slowly, her augmetic gaze at last coming to rest on the knight before her.
Rubble scattered in an avalanche, and a dust cloud rose again as the wreckage of fallen buildings went tumbling aside. With a thunderous grinding of gears and the clanging-hammering of a multitude of tank-sized pistons in its iron bones, Stormherald raised its immense bulk, metre by painful machine-squealing metre.
The avenue shuddered as its bastion of a right foot pounded onto the road. The sound was loud enough that the nearby buildings still untouched by orkish demolition charges lost their windows in a blizzard of breaking glass.
As the crystal rain fell to the scarred streets below, the Imperator raised its weapons, standing – once more – defiant.
‘Shields up,’ the Crone of Invigilata demanded.
‘Void shields active, my princeps,’ responded Valian Carsomir.
‘Make ready the heart.’
‘Plasma reactor reports all systems at viable integrity, my princeps.’
‘Then we move.’
The chamber shuddered with a familiar rhythm as the god-machine took its first step. Then a second. Then a third. Throughout the metal giant’s bones, hundreds of crew members cheered.
‘We walk.’ The ancient woman turned in her tank, looking at the tall knight once more. ‘I heard you,’ she told him. ‘As I was dying, I heard you calling me.’
Grimaldus removed his filthy helm. Although he didn’t look a day over thirty, his eyes told his true age. Like windows into his thoughts, they showed the weight of his wars.
‘There is a story of my father,’ he said to Zarha.
‘Your father?’
‘Rogal Dorn, the Emperor’s son.’
‘The primarch. I see.’
‘It is a tale of a once-strong brotherhood, broken by Horus the Betrayer. Rogal Dorn and Horus were close before the Great Heresy. None of the Emperor’s sons were bonded as truly in the years before the malignant darkness took hold of Horus and his kin.’
‘I am listening,’ she smiled, knowing how rare this moment was. To hear a warrior of the Adeptus Astartes speak of their gene-sire’s life outside of thei
r Chapter’s secret rituals.
‘It has always been told among the Black Templars that when the two brothers crusaded together, they would compete for the greater glory. Horus was legendarily hungry for triumph, while my father was – it is told – a more reserved and quiet soul. Each time they made war together, they were said to have made an oath in blood. Clasping hands, they would each swear that they would stand until the final day dawned. “Until the end”, they would say.’
‘That is a touching legend.’
‘More than that, princeps. Tradition. It is our most binding oath, spoken only between brothers who know they will never see another war. When a Templar knows he will die, it is the promise he gives to his brothers that he will stand with honour until he can no longer stand at all.’
She said nothing, but she smiled.
‘Yes, I called you back to this war.’ He nodded, his gentle eyes fixed upon her bionic replacements. ‘Because you made a similar oath to me. Promises like that – they matter more than anything else in life. I could not let you die in shame.’
‘Until the end, then.’
‘Until the end, Zarha.’
PART TWO
Knightfall
CHAPTER XIII
The Thirty-Sixth Day
DARGRAVIAN.
The 5th day. Meritorious defence of the Torshav refuelling complex.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
FARUS.
The 7th day. Discovered in the Kurule Junction surrounded by no fewer than twelve of the slain enemy.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
THALIAR.
The 10th day. Lost in the petrochemical explosions at White Star Point.
Gene-seed: Unfound / Unrecovered.
KORITH.
The 10th day. Lost in the petrochemical explosions at White Star Point.
Gene-seed: Unfound / Unrecovered.
TORAVAN.
The 10th day. Lost in the petrochemical explosions at White Star Point.
Gene-seed: Unfound / Unrecovered.
AMARDES.
The 11th day. Unable to survive 83% body tissue immolation suffered at White Star Point. Granted the Emperor’s Peace.
Gene-seed: Ruined / Unrecovered.
HALRIK.
The 13th day. Eyewitness reports from Armageddon 101st Steel Legion relate intense personal courage and heroism in the face of overwhelming odds. Awarded posthumous Crusade Mark of Valiant Conduct for rallying Guard forces at the fall of Cargo Bridge Thirty.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
ANGRAD.
The 18th day. Single-handedly destroyed five enemy tanks at the Breach of the Amalas Concourse. Brought down by alien treachery and lost beneath enemy tank treads.
Gene-seed: Ruined / Unrecovered.
VORENTHAR.
The 18th day. Fought at the Breach of the Amalas Concourse.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
ERIAS.
The 18th day. Fought at the Breach of the Amalas Concourse.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
MARKOSIAN.
The 18th day. Fought at the Breach of the Amalas Concourse. Notably slew an enemy warlord in single combat, atop the alien’s command tank. Awarded posthumous Crusade Mark of Unbroken Courage. Body was incinerated by the enemy in wrathful response.
Gene-seed: Ruined / Unrecovered.
It was always going to happen.
That did not make the reality any easier to bear, or the defeat any less bitter. But preparations were in place. When it happened, the Imperials were ready.
It happened first on the eighteenth day, at the Amalas Concourse, Junction Omega-9b-34. That was its assigned identifier according to the Imperial hololithic displays.
Colonel Sarren was watching through heavy, fatigue-dulled eyes as the flickering holo-images moved silently back from the location of their barricade. It was such a small thing – no more than a few marking runes blinking back a few centimetres, moving away from the point of the map marked Amalas Concourse, Junction Omega-9b-34.
Behind the flickering holo-runes was an illusory ramp, which in turn threaded into a much, much, much wider road. Sarren watched the runes falling back along this ramp, and tried to breathe in. In took four attempts, his breath catching in his throat on the first three.
‘This is Colonel Sarren,’ he spoke into his hand-vox. ‘All units in Omega Sector, Subsector Nine. All units, prepare to retreat. Cancel assigned fallback locations, repeat: cancel withdrawal to assigned fallback locations. When the order comes, you will retreat, retreat, retreat to contingency positions.’
He ignored the storm of demands for confirmation, letting his vox-officers respond on his behalf.
‘We did well,’ he said to himself. ‘We did damn well to keep the bastards away for this long.’ Eighteen days – over half a month of siege warfare. He had every reason to colour his bitterness with that fierce core of pride.
The minutes passed in unblinking slowness. An aide came to his side, and quietly asked for his attention.
‘Sir, your Baneblade stands ready.’
‘Thank you, sergeant.’
She saluted and moved away. Finally, Sarren reached for his vox-mic again.
‘All units in Omega Sector, Subsector Nine. Retreat, retreat, retreat. The enemy has reached Hel’s Highway.’
MALATHIR.
The 19th day. Missing in action since the successful enemy siege of the Yangara Installation.
Gene-seed: Unfound / Unrecovered.
SITHREN.
The 20th day. Fell in personal combat with an enemy Dreadnought at the Danab Junction, Titan rearming site.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
THALHAIDEN.
The 21st day. Fell in personal combat with an enemy Dreadnought at the Danab Junction, Titan rearming site. Survival depended on extensive and immediate surgical augmentation. Granted the Emperor’s Peace.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
DARMERE.
The 22nd day. Body discovered with massacred elements of the 68th Steel Legion at the Mu-15 barricades.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
IKARION.
The 22nd day. Body discovered with massacred elements of the 68th Steel Legion at the Mu-19 barricades.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
DEMES.
The 30th day. Missing in action since the fall of the Prospering Haven habitation sector. Significant civilian casualties recorded.
Gene-seed: Unfound / Unrecovered.
GORTHIS.
The 33rd day. Led a counterattack after the defences at Bastion IV were overrun. Also lost in the engagement were two Warlord-class Titans of the Legio Invigilata.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
SULAGON.
The 33rd day. Missing in action since the failed defence of Bastion IV. Last sighting reported his honourable conduct in the face of overwhelming enemy numbers.
Gene-seed: Unfound / Unrecovered.
NACLIDES.
The 33rd day. Orchestrated and inspired the last stand defence at Bastion IV, seeking to hold the militia fortress until reinforcements could arrive.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
KALEB.
The 33rd day. Part of the counterattack at Bastion IV. Body suffered extreme mutilation and dismemberment at the hands of the enemy.
Gene-seed: Ruined / Unrecovered.
THORIAS.
The 33rd day. Pilot of the Thunderhawk Avenged – vehicle destroyed by gargant anti-air fire on routine patrol.
Gene-seed: Unfound / Unrecovered.
AVANDAR.
The 33rd day. Co-pilot of the Thunderhawk Avenged – vehicle destroyed by gargant anti-air fire on routine patrol.
Gene-seed: Unfound / Unrecovered.
VANRICH.
The 35th day. Lost in an action to mine the road before an enemy armour division.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
Nerovar lowers his arm, his attention drifting from his narthecium bracer-gauntlet.
Cador lies on the cracked
road, the old warrior’s armour broken and split.
‘Brother,’ I tell Nero, ‘now is not the time to grieve.’
‘Yes, Reclusiarch,’ he says, though I know he does not hear me. Not really. With mechanical dullness, his movements are leaden as he lowers his hand to Cador’s chest.
Around us, the shattered highway is deserted but for the bodies of our latest hunt. The war here is a distant thing, and though the sound of battle in other sectors reaches our ears, this far behind enemy lines, all is quiet and still. The skies are calm and untroubled – unbroken by wrathful turrets.
The sharp crack! of the reductor doing its work splits the silence. First once, then again. The meaty, wet sound of flesh being pulled open follows.
Nero lifts his arm, the surgical gauntlet’s armour-piercing flesh drills buzzing, spraying dark, rich Astartes blood against his armour. In his hand, with great care, he holds the glistening purplish organs that had rested within Cador’s chest and throat. They drip and quiver, as if still trying to feed their host with strength. Nero slides them into a cylinder of preserving fluids, which is in turn retracted into his gauntlet’s protective housing.
I have seen him perform this ritual too many times in the past month.
‘It is done,’ he says, dead-voiced, rising to his feet.
He ignores me as I approach the corpse, occupying himself with entering information on his narthecium’s screen.
CADOR.
The 36th day. Ambush along enemy-controlled portions of Hel’s Highway.
Gene-seed: Recovered.
The thirty-sixth day.
Thirty-six days of gruelling siege. Thirty-six days of retreat, of falling back, of holding positions for as long as we are able until inevitably overwhelmed by the insane, impossible numbers arrayed against us.
The entire city smells of blood. The coppery, stinging scent of human life, and the sickening fungal reek of the foulness purged from orkish veins. Beneath the blood-scent is the stench of burning wood, melted metal, and blasted stone – a city’s death in smells. At the last gathering of commanders in the shadow of Colonel Sarren’s Baneblade, the Grey Warrior, it was estimated that the foe controlled forty-six per cent of the city. That was four nights ago.
Almost half of Helsreach, gone. Lost to smoke and flame in bitter, galling defeat.
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