Helsreach (warhammer 40000)

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  'Throne, send the order. Send the order! Deactivate all remaining anti-air turrets in the docks district!'

  Around him, the tank's crew was silent. Waiting, watching.

  Sarren breathed a single word, almost fearful giving voice to it would shatter the possibility it was true. 'Reinforcements.'

  One ship. The Serpentine.

  Sea green and charcoal black, it dived like a dragon of myth through the enemy fleet while the rest of the Imperial warships hammered into the orkish invaders, breaking against the ring of alien cruisers surrounding the planet.

  One ship broke through, running a gauntlet of enemy fire, its shields crackling into lifelessness and its hull aflame. The Serpentine hadn't come to fight. As the Astartes vessel tore through the upper atmosphere, drop-pods and Thunderhawks rained from its ironclad belly, streaming down to the world below.

  Its duty complete, the Serpentine powered its way back into the fight. Its captain gritted his teeth against a screed of damage reports signalling the death of his beloved ship, but there was no shame in dying with such a vital duty done. He had acted under the orders of the highest authority - a warrior on the surface below whose deeds were already inscribed in a hundred annals of Imperial glory. That warrior had demanded this risk be taken, and that reinforcements be hurled down to the Armageddon no matter the odds facing them.

  His name was Tu'Shan, Lord of the Fire-born, and the Serpentine did his will.

  The Serpentine's end never came. A black shape eclipsed the fat-hulled orkish destroyers cutting the Astartes vessel to pieces. Another ship, a far greater ship, pounded the alien attackers into wreckage with overwhelming broadside fire, buying the Serpentine the precious moments it needed to escape the gauntlet it had run a second time.

  As they broke clear, the Serpentine's captain breathed out a prayer, and signalled across the bridge to the master of communications.

  'Send word to the Eternal Crusader,' he said. 'Give them the sincerest thanks of our Chapter.'

  The response from the Eternal Crusader came back almost immediately. The grim voice of High Marshal Helbrecht echoed across the Serpentine's bridge.

  'It is the Black Templars that thank you, Salamander.'

  The beasts have cracked open another of the above-ground civilian shelters.

  Like blood spilling from a wound, humans flood into the streets through the destroyed wall. When the choices are to die cowering, or die fleeing to a safety that may not even exist, any human can be forgiven for giving in to panic. I tell myself this as I watch them dying, and do all I can not to judge them, to hold them to the exalted standards of honour I would demand of my brothers. They're just human. My disgust is unfair, unwarranted. And yet it remains.

  As they die, families and souls of all ages, they squeal like butchered swine.

  This war is poisonous. Trapped here, locked away from my Chapter, my mind echoes with bleak prejudices. It is becoming hard to accept that I must die for these people to live.

  'Attack,' I tell my brothers, my voice barely carrying over the ranting of the engine. Together, we run from the moving Rhino transport, smashing into the enemy's rearguard.

  My crozius rises and falls, as it has risen and fallen ten thousand times in the last month. The adamantium eagle chimes as it cuts through the air. It flares with unleashed energy as its power field connects with flesh and armour. The brazier orb built into the weapon's pommel breathes sacred incense in a grey mist, like coils of smoke weaving between us all - friend and foe.

  The weariness ebbs. The grudges fade. Hatred is the greatest purifier, the truest emotion overriding all others. Blood, stinking and inhuman, rains across my armour in discoloured spurts. As it marks the black cross I wear on my chest, my revulsion flares anew.

  Crunch. The crozius maul ends another alien's life. Crunch. Another. My mentor, the great Mordred the Black, wielded this weapon in battle against mankind's foes for almost four centuries. It sickens me to know it may never be recovered from Helsreach. Nor our armour. Nor our gene-seed. What legacy will we leave once the last of us falls to the filthy blades of these beasts?

  One of them roars into my face, spattering my visor with his unclean saliva. Less than a second later, my crozius annihilates his features, silencing whatever pathetic alien challenge I was supposed to be answering.

  My secondary heart has joined the primary. I feel them thudding in concert, but not in unison. My human heart pounds like a tribal dram, fast and hot. Twinned to it in my chest, my gene-grown heart supports it in a slow, heavy thud.

  They swarm over each other in their mindless fervour to claw at us. Fistfuls of scrap metal that have no right to function as weapons cough solid rounds that clang off our armour. Each shot tears more of the black paint from our war plate but sheds none of Dorn's holy blood.

  At last, they recognise the threat we represent. The aliens abandon their wanton slaughter of the fleeing civilians that still spill from the shell-broken wall. The mob of beasts, flooding the street, has turned to more tempting prey. Us. Our banner falls.

  Artarion's cry of pain carries across the close-range vox as a roar of distortion, but I hear his voice beneath the interference.

  Priamus is with him before the rest of us can react. Throne, he can fight. His blade lunges and cuts, every gesture a killing blow.

  'Get up,' he snarls at Artarion without even looking.

  I crash the faceplate of my helm into the barking maw of the alien before me, shattering his jaw and the rows of shark-like teeth. As he falls back, my crozius crunches into his throat, hammering his wrecked corpse to the ground.

  The banner rises again, though Artarion favours his left leg. The right is mauled, his thigh punctured by an alien spear. Curse the fact these beasts have the strength to violate Astartes war plate.

  Another vox-distorted growl signifies Artarion has pulled the lance free from his leg. I have no time to witness his recovery. More beasts shriek before me - a thrashing wall of sick, jade flesh.

  'We're losing this road,' Bastilan grunts, his signal marred by the sound of weapons crashing against his armour. 'We are but six, against a legion.'

  'Five.' Nerovar's voice is strained as he fights with his chainblade two-handed, hewing down the beasts with none of Priamus's artistry but no less fury. 'Cador is dead.'

  'Forgive me, brother,' Bastilan's voice breaks off as he fires a stream of bolter shells at point-blank range. 'A moment's lack of focus.'

  Ahead, our targets - three junkyard tanks that have long since ceased to resemble their original Imperial Guard hulls - continue shelling the shelter block. These have none of the security offered by the subterranean shelters, for they are not civilian evacuation shelters at all. Each of these squat domes houses a thousand at capacity, designed to resist violent sandstorms and the tropical cyclones all too common on the equatorial coast - not sustained shelling from enemy armour. They are used now because there is nothing else to use, with the city grown far beyond its capacity to shelter all its citizens beneath the ground.

  The beasts know us well. They seek to draw the city's forces into the most fevered fighting, so they hurl themselves at our defenceless civilians with sick cunning, knowing we will do all we can to defend these sites above any others.

  How easy it is, to despise them.

  'Gnnh,' Nerovar voxes, his voice wet and ruined by pain. I vault the falling corpse of the alien closest to me, and stand by his side - maul swinging with relentless motion - as our Apothecary struggles to rise again.

  He fails. The beasts have brought him to his knees.

  'Gnnnnnh. Not coming out,' he coughs. His hands clutch weakly at the axe hammered into his stomach. His gauntlets stroke without strength along the haft, gaining no grip. Blood from the sunder in his armour is painting his tabard scarlet. 'Can't do it.'

  'In the name of the Emperor,' my chastisement comes forth as no more than a low growl, 'stand and fight, or we all die.'

  With Nerovar wounded and prone, he becomes
a lodestone for the creatures desperate to deliver the death blow to one of the Emperor's knights. They bellow and charge.

  My crozius kills one. A kick to the sternum sends another staggering back long enough for me to bring the maul down on his head. A third is claimed by plasma fire, tumbling back as a blur of white-hot flame. Stinging ash, all that remains of the wretched alien, blasts back into the eyes of its bestial comrades. Too many.

  Even for us, this is too many.

  I have a momentary glimpse of human families fleeing in all directions down the burning streets, able to escape while the horde focuses its fury on us. Several of the civilians are cut down by sponson fire from the junk-tanks, but many more survive - even if only to run blind into the unsafe labyrinth of their dying city. Before this war, I would never have counted such a thing to be a victory.

  With a cry that mixes anger and pain, Nero tears the axe blade from his abdomen. Any relief I feel is swallowed, for he has no time to rise before the beasts are on us.

  'I see some knights,' Andrej said. This announcement was followed by a whispered 'Damn it,' and the humming of his hellgun powering up again.

  The work gang kept their backs to the rooftop's low wall, with only Andrej peering over the edge to look down into the street. 'Everybody, load rifles and be very ready.'

  'How many?' Maghernus asked. 'How many knights?'

  'Four. No, five. One is injured. I also see thirty of the enemy, and three tanks that were once our Leman Russes. Now, no more talking. Everybody take aim.'

  The dockworkers did as ordered, drawing beads on the melee unfolding below.

  'Aim low,' Maghernus told his men, drawing a silent smile from Andrej. 'Aim for legs and torsos.' No one needed to be told to be careful with their fire and not hit the Templars.

  The storm-trooper fired first, his bright lance of laser the signal for the others to join in. Lasguns bucked in increasingly sure hands, focusing lenses burning as they spat their lethal energy into the street below. The tearing laser fire punched into shoulders, legs, backs and arms, and the Imperials had managed three volleys before the beasts ripped their hungry attention from the knights and returned fire up at the men crouching on the warehouse rooftop.

  'Down!' Andrej ordered the others. They obeyed, sinking back into cover. The storm-trooper hunched lower, but remained where he was. He risked another shot, and another, splitting two aliens through the skull with pinpoint fire.

  Around him, around them all, the low wall edging the roof was shredding under the surviving aliens' fire, but it didn't matter. The knights were free. Andrej crouched at last, after seeing the figure of one Templar, the knight's armour more gunmetal grey than black now from battle damage, hurl aside three attackers and lay waste to them with his monstrous, crackling relic hammer.

  His last act before falling back was to untrap his last det-pack, and set the timer for six seconds. With a roar of effort, Andrej hurled it down at street towards the tanks. It exploded a half-second after clanging against the lead tank's turret, decapitating the war machine in a burst of noise and fire.

  The Templars could deal with the other two.

  'Back!' the storm-trooper was laughing. 'Back across the roof!'

  'What the hell is so funny?' one of the dockworkers, Jassel, was complaining as they ran in crouches away from the disintegrating roof edge.

  'They weren't just knights,' Andrej's voice was coloured by a sincere grin. 'That was the Reclusiarch we just saved. Now, quick quick, down to the street again.'

  In the calm that followed, the streets gave birth to an atmosphere that was somewhere between serene and funereal. A very different warrior greeted Maghernus this time. The towering figure was far from the regal, impassive statue that merely acknowledged his existence with a nod.

  The Reclusiarch's armour still set his teeth on edge, its active hum making his eyes water if he stood too close. But Maghernus knew machines, even if he didn't know ancient artefacts of war, and he could hear the faults in the war plate now. Its once-smooth, angry purr had a waspish edge to its tone now, and intermittent clicks told of something internal no longer running at full function. The joints of the battered armour no longer snarled with tensing fibre-cable muscles - they growled, as if reluctant to move.

  Five weeks. Five weeks of fighting, night and day, in the same suit of armour, with the dock assault rising as the most punishing week yet. It was a miracle the armour still functioned at all.

  The tabard was ripped and stained grey-green with alien blood. The scrolls that had adorned the warrior's shoulders were gone, with only snapped chains showing they were ever held there at all. The armour itself was still impressive in its violent potential and faceless inhumanity, but where it had been blacker than black before the war, most of the blackness remaining was from scorch marks and laser burns marking the armour like bruises and claw wounds. Much of the war plate was revealed in a dull, unpolished grey now that the paint was lost to a thousand weapon chops and glancing gunshots.

  Somehow, it had the inelegant presence of a rifle or tank churned out of an Armageddon factory: plain, simple, but utterly brutal.

  The other Templars looked no better. The one who bore the Reclusiarch's standard now bore battle damage akin to his leader. The banner itself was a ragged ruin, little more than scraps hanging from the pole. The one with the white helm was barely able to stand, supported by two of the others. The voice that rasped from his mouth grille was a wordless, hacking cough.

  And rather than humanise them, rather than reveal the warriors beneath the trappings and the knightly war gear, this damage instead stole what little personality had ever been in evidence to human eyes. How could any men, even ones shaped by genetic forges on a distant world, withstand so much punishment and survive? How could they stand before others of their own species and seem so utterly unlike them?

  'Hello, Reclusiarch,' said Andrej. He carried his hell-gun, uncharged now, resting on his shoulder. He thought this made him look rakish and casual, and he was right. He looked that way to the dockworkers, at least.

  Grimaldus's voice didn't growl or boom - it intoned, a low and bleak and grim drawl. It was all too easy to imagine this man back aboard a great, gothic warship, speaking a sermon to his brothers in the endless cold of void travel.

  'You have the thanks of the Black Templars, storm-trooper. And you, dockworkers of Helsreach.'

  'It was good timing, I think,' Andrej continued, a vague nod and the same smile showing he thought nothing of conversations with badly-wounded towering inhuman warriors surrounded by slaughtered aliens. 'But the docks, they are not looking good. I am hearing no orders anymore. So I see you, noble sirs, and I am wondering: perhaps they can give me orders.'

  There was a pause, but not a silent one. The city was never silent, offering up a background chorus of gunfire rattles and the crump of distant explosions.

  'All units are called to the shelter blocks. Guard, militia, Astartes. All.'

  'Even without my captain's voice, we have followed that path. But there is more, sir.'

  'Speak.' Grimaldus looked away now, the silver skull that served as his face glaring in the direction of a burning commerce district several streets away.

  'One of your knights fell at the docks. We have hidden his body from the enemy jackals. The etchings on his armour named him as Anastus.'

  The white-helmed Astartes spoke, his voice emerging like a man speaking through a mouthful of gruel.

  'Anastus died… as we deployed… last night. Life signs faded fast. Warrior's death.'

  Grimaldus nodded, his attention restored to the humans.

  'What is your name?' the Reclusiarch asked the storm-trooper.

  'Trooper Andrej, 703rd Steel Legion Storm-trooper Division, sir.'

  'And yours?' he asked the next man in line, taking every name until the last, whom he recognised without needing to ask. 'Dockmaster Tomaz Maghernus,' the knight grunted, finally. 'It is good to see you on the field. Courage such as yours
belongs at the vanguard.'

  Maghernus's skin crawled, not with distaste but raw awkwardness. How does one reply to such a thing? To say he was honoured? To admit that every muscle in his body ached and he regretted ever volunteering for this madness?

  'Thank you, Reclusiarch,' he managed.

  'I will remember your names and deeds this day. All of you. Helsreach may burn, but this war is not lost. Every one of your names will be etched into the black stone pillars of the Valiant Hall aboard the Eternal Crusader.'

  Andrej nodded. 'I am very honoured, Reclusiarch, as are these handsome and fine gentlemen with me. But if you could tell my captain about this, I would be even happier.'

  The harsh sound emitted from the Reclusiarch's vox-speakers was somewhere between a bark and a snarl. It took Maghernus several moments to realise it had been a laugh.

  'It will be done, Trooper Andrej. You have my word.'

  'I am hopeful this will also impress the lady I intend to marry.'

  Grimaldus wasn't sure how to reply to that. He settled for ''Yes. Good.''.

  'Such optimism! But yes, I must find her first. Where do we move now, sir?'

  'West. The shelters in Sulfa Commercia. The alien dogs are taunting us.' The Reclusiarch gestured with his massive hammer, the weapon's power field deactivated for now. Between warehouses and manufactories, distant domes were aflame.

  'See them. Already, they burn.'

  Priamus didn't look where the others did. His attention was lifted higher, to the smog-thick skies.

  'What's that?' He gestured skyward, to a ball of flame trailing down. 'It can't be what it looks like.'

  'It is,' Grimaldus replied, unable to look away from the sight.

  'Ayah!' Andrej cheered as several similar objects appeared, blazing earthward, leading fiery contrails like comets.

  'What are they?' asked Maghernus, caught off-guard by the storm-trooper's capering and the knights' reverence.

  'Drop-pods,' said the Reclusiarch. His silver skull turned amber with the reflection of the burning tank hulls nearby. 'Astartes drop-pods.'