Helsreach

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  Jurisian made no attempt to hide his presence. There would be little point in making the attempt, for he knew the approaching Titans would be able to read Oberon’s energy shadow on their powerful auspex scanners. So he waited, all systems active, as the Invigilata Titans drew near. The ground began to shiver with their closing tread, which Jurisian noted by the twisted metal and bodies across the desert floor shaking in rhythm with the god-machines.

  The wounded Reaver came to a halt, its immense joints protesting that it was still forced to remain standing. It was damaged enough that a second’s focus-drift might see the princeps losing control over the engine’s stabilisers. It slowly aimed its remaining weapon arm at the command module, and Jurisian looked up into the yawning maw of a gatling blaster cannon.

  With Oberon’s shields up, the Master of the Forge would have estimated the Ordinatus could tolerate several minutes of sustained assault even from a weapon as destructive as this Reaver’s main armament. But Oberon had no shields. They were one of many secondary systems that Jurisian had lacked the time, expertise and manpower necessary to reengage.

  He knew what a gatling blaster was capable of. He’d seen them devastate regiments of tanks, and rip the faces and limbs from enemy Titans. Oberon’s armour plating would last no more than a handful of seconds.

  The Titan stared down at him in silence, no doubt while the princeps decided how to deal with this unbelievable blasphemy. Hunchbacked and striding with arm-cannons raised in threatening salute, the two Warhounds circled the immobile Ordinatus. Their posturing amused the Forgemaster. How they played at being wolves.

  ‘Hail,’ he said into a broad range of vox-channels. In truth, he was growing bored of the silence. He was far, far from intimidated.

  ‘What blasphemy is this?’ crackled the reply through the command module’s internal speakers. ‘What heretic dares defile Oberon’s deserved slumber?’

  Jurisian leaned back in the control throne, elbows on the armrests and his gloved fingers steepled before his helmed face.

  ‘I am Jurisian of the Black Templars, Master of the Forge aboard the Eternal Crusader, and trained by the Cult Mechanicus for years on the surface of Mars itself. I am also in possession of the Ordinatus Armageddon, after subduing its defences and reawakening its soul, force-binding it to my will. And, lastly, I am summoned to Helsreach to aid wherever I am able. Aid me, or stand aside.’

  The delay was significant in duration, and in other circumstances, that would have made it insulting. Jurisian suspected his words were being transmitted to all nearby princeps, almost definitely summoning them to this position.

  Half a kilometre away, another Reaver Titan was breaching the city walls, emerging into the Ash Wastes. The knight watched it begin its halting stride in this direction, noting that it was relatively undamaged.

  ‘You are blaspheming against the Machine-God and its servants.’

  ‘I am wielding a weapon of war in defence of an Imperial city. Now aid me, or stand aside.’

  ‘Leave the Ordinatus platform, or be destroyed.’

  ‘You are not about to open fire on this holiest of artefacts, and I am not empowered by my liege lord to comply with your demands. That brings us to a stalemate. Discuss useful terms, or I will take Oberon into the city unprotected, surely to be destroyed without significant Mechanicus support.’

  ‘Your corpse will be removed from the sacred innards of the Ordinatus Armageddon, and all remnants of your presence will be eradicated from memory.’

  As Jurisian drew breath to offer terms, his vox-link flickered into life. Grimaldus, at last.

  ‘Reclusiarch. I trust the time has finally come?’

  ‘We are embattled at the Temple of the Emperor Ascendant. How soon can you bring the weapon to us?’

  The Master of the Forge looked out of the reinforced windows at the patrolling Titans, then at the city beyond, beneath a smoke-blackened sky. He knew the hive’s layout from studying the hololithics before his exile into the desert.

  ‘Two hours.’

  ‘Status of the weapon?’

  ‘As before. Oberon has no void shields, no secondary weapon systems, and suspensor lift capability is limited, hindering speed to a crawl. Alone, I can fire it no more than once every twenty minutes. I need to recharge the fuel cells manually, and regenerate flow from the plasma containment ch–’

  ‘I will see you in two hours, Jurisian. For Dorn and the Emperor.’

  ‘By your will, Reclusiarch.’

  ‘Heed these last words, Forgemaster. Do not bring the weapon too close. The Temple District is naught but fire and ash, and we are surrounded on all sides. Take the shot and flee the city. Pursue Invigilata’s retreating forces, and link up with the Imperial assault along the Hemlock.’

  ‘You wish me to run?’

  ‘I wish you to live rather than die in vain, and save a weapon precious to the Imperium.’ Grimaldus broke off for a moment, and the pause was filled with the anger of distant guns. ‘We will be buried here, Jurisian. There is no dishonour that your fate is elsewhere.’

  ‘Call the primary target, Reclusiarch.’

  ‘You will see it as you manoeuvre through the Temple District, brother. It is called the Godbreaker.’

  Four Titans soon barred his path.

  Mightiest among them – and the last to arrive – was a Warlord, its armour plating black from paint, not battle-scarring. Its weapons trained down – immense barrels aimed at the Ordinatus platform. The numerological markings along the engine’s carapace marked it out as the Bane-Sidhe.

  ‘I am Princeps Amasat of Invigilata, sub-commander of the Crone’s forces and heir to her title in the wake of her demise. Explain this madness immediately.’

  Jurisian looked at the city, and thought about his offer carefully before making it. He spoke with confidence, because he knew full well the Mechanicus had little other choice. He was going back into the city, and by the Machine-God, they were going to come with him.

  The graveyard – that immense garden of raised stone and buried bone – played home to the storm of disorder that had until recently been raging its way through the Temple District.

  The enemy had breached the temple walls at dawn on the second day, only to find that the graveyard was where the real defences stood in readiness. As tanks pounded the walls down and beasts scrabbled over the rubble, thousands of Helsreach’s last defenders waited behind mausoleums, gravestones, ornate tombs of city founders and shrines to treasured saints.

  Burning beams of las-fire cobwebbed across the battlefield, slicing the alien beasts down in droves.

  At the vanguard, a warrior clad in black and wielding a relic warhammer battled alongside a dwindling handful of his brothers. Every fall of his maul ended with the crunch of another alien life ended. His pistol, long since powered down and empty, dangled from the thick chain binding it to his wrist. Where the fighting was thickest, he wielded it like a flail, lashing it with whip-like force into bestial alien faces to shatter bone.

  At his side, two swordsmen moved and spun in lethal unison. Priamus and Bayard, their bladework complementing one another’s perfectly, cutting and impaling with the same techniques, the same footwork, and at times, even in the very same moments.

  With no banner to raise, not even the barest scraps left, Artarion laid about left and right with two chugging chainblades, their teeth-tracks already blunted and choked with gore. Bastilan supported him, precision bolter rounds punching home in alien flesh.

  Nero was always moving, never allowed to rest for even a moment’s respite. He vaulted the enemy dead, bolter crashing out round after round as he blasted the beasts away from the body of another fallen brother, buying enough time to extract the gene-seed of the honoured dead.

  This he did, time after time, with tears running down his pale face. The deaths did not move him; merely the feeling of dread futility that all his efforts would be in vain. Their genetic legacy might never escape this hive to be used in the creation of
more Astartes, and no Chapter could afford to bear the loss of a hundred slain warriors with easy dignity.

  Around the time Jurisian was entering the city, escorted by five Titans from Legio Invigilata, the Imperial defences were straining to hold the outer limits of the graveyard. Cries of ‘Fall back! Fall back to the Temple!’ started to spread through the scattered lines.

  Assigned squads, appointed teams, random groups of men and women – all began to back away from the unending grind of the alien advance.

  The Baneblade exploded, sending flaming shrapnel spinning in a hundred directions. The Imperials nearest to the tank – those that weren’t thrown from their feet – started to flee in earnest.

  But there is nowhere to fall back to. Nowhere to run.

  Like a lance pushed close to breaking point, our resistance is bending, the flanks being forced back behind the centre.

  No. I will not die here, in this graveyard, beaten into darkness because these savages have greater numbers than we do. The enemy does not deserve such a victory.

  My boots clang on the sloped armour plating as I leap and sprint up the roof of the crippled, burning Baneblade. In the maelstrom around the rocket-struck tank, I see the 101st Steel Legion and a gathering of dockworkers trying to fall back in a panicked hurry, their forward ranks being scythed down by bloodstained axes in green-knuckled fists.

  Enough of this.

  The beast I am seeking seeks me out in turn. Huge, towering above its lesser kin, packed with unnatural muscle around its malformed bones and reeking of the fungal blood that fuels its foul heart. It launches itself onto the tank’s hull, perhaps expecting some titanic duel to impress its tribe. A champion, perhaps. A chieftain. It matters not. The brutes’ leaders rarely resist the chance to engage Imperial commanders in full view – they are loathsomely predictable.

  There is no time for sport. My first strike is my last, hammering through its guard, shattering its crossed axes and pounding the aquila head of my crozius into its roaring face.

  It topples from the Baneblade, all loose limbs and worthless armour, as pathetic in death as it had been in life.

  I hear Priamus laughing from the tank’s side, voxing it through his helm’s speakers, mocking the beasts even as he slays them. On the other side, Artarion and Bastilan do the same. The orks redouble their assault with twice the fury and half the skill, and though I could reprimand my brothers for this indignity, I do not.

  My laughter joins theirs.

  Asavan Tortellius was serene, and that surprised him given the shaking of the walls and the sounds of war’s thunder. This was no Titan’s fortress-cathedral back, where he had learned to worship in safety. This was a temple besieged.

  It had not taken long to find work to do within the basilica. He quickly came to realise that he was the only priest with experience of preaching on the battlefield. Most of the lay brothers and low-ranking Ecclesiarchy servants spent their time attending to their daily tasks in hurried nervousness, praying the war would remain outside the walls. Several others cowered in the undercroft with the refugees, doing more harm than good and failing to ease a single soul with their stuttering, sweating sermons.

  Asavan descended into the sublevel, immediately marked out from the other preachers by his grimy robes and dishevelled hair. He walked among the people, offering gentle words to families as he passed. He was especially patient with the children, giving them the blessing of the God-Emperor in His aspect as the Machine-God, and saying personal prayers over individual boys and girls that seemed the most weary or withdrawn.

  There was a lone guard stationed at the bottom of the stairs. She was slight of frame, both short and slender, wearing a suit of power armour that seemed too bulky to be comfortable. In her hands was a boltgun, the weapon held across her chest as she stood to attention.

  Asavan moved over to her, his worn boots whispering across the dusty stone.

  ‘Hello, sister,’ he said, keeping his voice low.

  She remained unmoving, at perfect attention, though he could see the tremor in her eyes that betrayed how difficult she found it to bear this rigid nothingness.

  ‘My name is Asavan Tortellius,’ he told her. ‘Will you please lower the weapon?’

  She looked at him, her eyes meeting his. She didn’t lower the bolter.

  ‘What is your name?’ he asked her.

  ‘Sister Maralin of the Holy Order of the Ar–’

  ‘Hello, Maralin. Be at ease, for the enemy is still outside the walls. Might I ask you, please, to lower the weapon?’

  ‘Why?’ she leaned closer to whisper.

  ‘Because you are making the people here even more nervous than they already are. By all means, be visible. You are their defender, and they will take comfort in your presence. But walk among them, and offer a few kind words. Do not stand there in grim silence, weapon held tight. You are giving them greater reason to fear, and that is not why you were sent down here, Maralin.’

  She nodded. ‘Thank you, Father.’ The bolter came down. She mag-locked it to her thigh plate.

  ‘Come,’ he smiled, ‘let me introduce you to some of them.’

  The Bane-Sidhe’s void shields rippled and rained sparks, brought into visibility as another layer was stripped by the explosive shells raining against them. A short growl of accumulating power ended in a blasting discharge of energy as the Warlord annihilated the tanks laying claim to the Hel’s Highway ahead.

  A black, smoking scorch smear was all the evidence that the tanks had ever existed. Behind the striding Bane-Sidhe, Oberon drifted forward on its gravity suspensors, gently cruising over any obstructions in its path. Bringing up the column’s rear were the clanking, ungainly Warhounds that Bane-Sidhe had ordered back into the city.

  The agreement made was monumentally simple, and that was why Jurisian was certain it would work.

  ‘Defend Oberon,’ he’d said. ‘Defend it for long enough to take a single shot, to down the enemy command gargant. Then the Ordinatus will be surrendered into your control during the retreat towards the Hemlock River.’

  What choice did they have? Amasat’s voice over the vox was harsh with the promise of recrimination should the plan fail to run smooth. Jurisian, for his part, could not have cared less. He had the support he needed, and he had a primary target to destroy.

  Infantry resistance was met with punishing and instant devastation. Armour formations endured no longer. Through the Temple District, they encountered precious little in the way of enemy engines.

  ‘That is because, blasphemer, Invigilata left the enemy Titan contingent in ruins.’

  ‘Except for the Godbreaker,’ the Forgemaster replied. ‘Except for the slayer of Stormherald.’

  Amasat chose not to retort.

  ‘I have nothing on my auspex,’ he said instead.

  ‘Nor I,’ reported one of the Warhound princeps.

  ‘I see nothing,’ confirmed the other.

  ‘Keep hunting. Draw closer to the Temple of the Emperor Ascendant.’

  The Mechanicus convoy traversed the urban ruination in bitter dignity for another eight minutes and twenty-three seconds before Amasat voxed again.

  ‘Almost one quarter of the enemy inside this hive is embattled at the Temple of the Emperor Ascendant. You are threatening Oberon with destruction as well as desecration? Does your heresy know no end?’

  It was Jurisian’s turn to abstain from the argument.

  ‘I have a thermal signature,’ he said, studying the dim auspex console to the left of his control throne. ‘It has a plasma shadow, much too hot to be natural flame.’

  ‘I see nothing. Coordinates?’

  Jurisian transmitted the location codes. It was on the very edge of scanning range, and still several minutes away.

  ‘It is moving to the Temple.’

  ‘Locomotion qualifiers?’

  ‘Faster than us.’

  The pause was almost painful, broken by Amasat’s sneering tone. ‘Then I will give you the vic
tory you require. Talisman and Hallowed Verity – remain with the blessed weapon.’

  ‘Yes, princeps,’ both Warhounds responded.

  Bane-Sidhe leaned forward, its armoured shoulders hunching as it moved into a straining stride. Jurisian listened to the protesting gears, the overworked joints, hearing the engine’s machine-spirit cry out in the stress of metal under tension. He said a quiet word of thanks for the sacrifice about to be made.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Knightfall

  Andrej and Maghernus skidded into the basilica’s first chamber, their bloody boots finding loose purchase on the mosaic-inlaid floor. Dozens of Guardsmen and militia dispersed through the vast hall, catching their breath and taking up defensive points around pillars and behind pews.

  The final fallback was beginning in earnest. The graveyard outside was blanketed in enemy dead, but the last few hundred Imperials could no longer hold any ground with their own numbers depleted.

  ‘This room…’ the former dockmaster was breathing heavily, ‘…doesn’t have much cover.’

  Andrej was unslinging his back-mounted power pack. ‘It is a nave.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This room. It is called a nave. And you are speaking the truth – there is no defence here.’ The storm-trooper drew his pistol and started running deeper into the temple.

  ‘Where are you going? What about your rifle?

  ‘It is out of power! Now follow, we must find the priest!’

  Ryken fired with his autopistol, taking a moment between shots to regain his aim. It was a custom, heavy-duty model that wouldn’t have been out of place in an underhive gangfight, and as he crouched by a black stone shrine to a saint he didn’t recognise, the gun barked hot and hard in his fist, ejecting spent cartridges that clattered off nearby gravestones.

  ‘Fall back, sir!’ one of his men was yelling. The alien beasts crashed through the graveyard like an apocalyptic flood, a unbreakable tide of noise.

  ‘Not yet…’