‘Colonel Ryken,’ I greeted the flickering image.
‘That is not the case,’ the hololithic ghost replied, in a voice husky with flawed vox. Details of the soldier started to drift into resolution. It was not Colonel Ryken – as if the man’s reply had not revealed that already. ‘This link is not so good, eh? I have no visual feed. Also, forgiveness please, but Colonel Ryken is away doing other soldierly things. He is not here. He is gone.’
I took a breath, inwardly counselling myself to be patient.
‘I need to speak with him at once.’
‘As do I, I assure you, for the colonel owes me money. A serious matter, yes? If he dies before paying me back, my temper will be terrible to behold. I am Captain Andrej Valatok of the Legion. How may I be of serving use to you?’
‘Have your adepts relay this signal to–’
‘What is wrong with this vox link? Mountain bears growl less than you, I am thinking. You sound like a Space Marine.’
‘I am a Space Marine.’
‘Aha! I am, if not good friends, then at least well acquainted with Reclusiarch Grimaldus of the Black Templars. The Hero of Helsreach, you know? I saved his life one time. He even thanked me.’
‘Andrej,’ I replied, making every letter a slow threat. ‘This is Reclusiarch Grimaldus.’
‘Hail, Reclusiarch! You sound angry.’
‘Listen to me. I need to speak with Colonel Ryken, Adjutant Tyro or General Kurov.’
‘They are all gone from Forward Command, yes? But I am here. I am overseeing the storm trooper divisions in the northern and western engagement zones.’
Cyneric approached, gesturing to the hololithic image in its trenchcoat and steel helmet.
‘He is not what I expected in a storm trooper.’
I let that pass unanswered, but Andrej did not. ‘Technically, no, we are grenadiers. Yes. But it is slang. Also, it is for reference. The paperwork is a bitch. You know how it is, eh? The only easy day was yesterday. But I sense trouble. That is why you summoned me, no?’
‘Hear me well, Andrej. This is important.’
The conversation that followed took longer than was entirely necessary. Andrej, I gathered, was bored. Soldiers do not deal well with tedium, especially soldiers left in a command bunker with nothing to do and no one to shoot.
When Andrej disconnected the link, he had a wealth of orders to obey, and I was braced for several hours of coordinating Helsreach’s defences from high orbit. A great many Guard officers were going to vox skyward for confirmation in the hours to come.
Time passed, in the voices of eighty-one Imperial Guard officers and eleven Naval captains. Images were inloaded and exloaded from my data-slate in a constant stream of encrypted information. My clearance was Rubicon-grade. No one hid their answers from me. No one in Helsreach denied me the lore I sought. No one refused what I asked of them.
‘Is this not exceeding your authority?’ Cyneric asked me at one point.
I was still unused to being questioned, and swallowed the rising bile of my temper.
‘Elaborate,’ I said instead of snarling at him. It took some effort.
Cyneric had removed his helm, and was unhealthily pale beneath the blue-gleam illumination globes mounted in the walls. His expression was not challenging; rather, it was subtly keen.
‘May I?’ he asked, nodding to my handheld auspex. I handed it to him, and he cycled through orbital images of Helsreach suffering another storm. The wounded central spire remained constantly in sight, but the rest of the city swirled in frequent dustcloud obscurity.
‘Speak,’ I bade him.
He kept cycling through the images. ‘I was given to understand you surrendered active command over the hive city’s forces when you left the field after the Battle of the Temple of the Emperor Ascendant. General Kurov is listed as active commander in the Helsreach region.’
And he had heard General Kurov two hours ago, one of the many voices heeding my requests.
‘If you object to my actions,’ I said, ‘then say so without fear of retribution.’
‘It is not an objection, sire.’
I felt my blood run cold at his passivity. ‘If you are to be inducted into the secrets of the Reclusiam, I will need you to speak your thoughts.’
‘The Lions will march to their deaths tomorrow while the Eternal Crusader’s engines are priming to fire. We will be gone from Armageddon in pursuit of the alien warlord, and whatever transpires at the Mannheim Gap will take place without us. But you mean to save the Lions, do you not? To force them to preserve their Chapter.’
I looked at him, and at the streams of bio-data scrolling next to his austere features.
‘I do. You made it clear you believe their duty is to survive and rebuild their Chapter, as well. If you cling to that belief, how do you find flaw in my plans?’
‘Their survival would be for the best,’ he allowed. ‘It is the path of the greatest good. But you do so by deceiving them. There is the question of honour.’
Honour is life. More ancient words.
‘Nothing so crude,’ I replied. ‘My last words to Pride Leader Ekene were to refuse his request to perform a ritual, and to bid him die well among the bones of his brothers. There is no deception at work, here, Cyneric.’
Cyneric was relentless. ‘But if you deplete Helsreach’s defences to march alongside them at Mannheim…’
‘The city is vastly overdefended now, with entire battalions sitting idle and awaiting redeployment.’ An irritating truth; would that we had such a problem when the real war was being fought.
‘And are you not playing on the people’s regard for you? The Hero of Helsreach calls them to war. Of course they will follow. But is this their war?’
‘They are soldiers on an embattled world.’ I snarled the words at him, and forced myself to hold a facade of calm. He deserved commending for thinking of so many facets in this matter, not enduring my anger for daring to question me. Apprentices were a chore, and I wondered how often Mordred had struggled with me over the years.
‘It is their world, Cyneric. And it is the only chance the Lions have.’ I rested a hand on his shoulderguard, as Mordred had done with me in moments of quiet instruction. His eyes locked to mine, just as mine had locked to my mentor’s so often, through so many years. ‘The Lions’ unseen enemies may well allow them to die in the glory they deserve. But you were right to argue with Ekene. They must survive. Their deaths serve nothing but to ease the soreness of wounded pride. They must not die on Armageddon. Without help, the Lions are doomed. But if I can take Mannheim…’
Cyneric was immediately on edge. ‘If you can take Mannheim?’
I nodded, and handed him a sealed scroll case of black iron. ‘Bear this to the High Marshal. I have always despised farewells.’
He tensed, jaw clenched tight. ‘If you fight with the Lions, I will fight with you.’
‘That is your choice.’ I admired him for that decision, though it did not surprise me at all. Helbrecht had chosen this one well. ‘But you will take this to him now.’
He made the crusader’s cross, and went to do as I had asked.
Alone once more, I turned back to my plans. Everything centred on just how fast my former forces at Helsreach could break out from the storm, and redeploy halfway across the world.
VII
Ink
Helbrecht,
I am remaining on the war-world. Someone must fight alongside the Lions, saving them from futile glory and the worst excesses of their otherwise pure blood. I will rejoin you when I am able. We both know it is likely to be several years, given the whims of the warp, just as we both know my first prophecies may prove right after all, and I will die on this world.
Forgive these words reaching you in ink on parchment, but I have little time and even less inclination to hear you remark how Mordred would let the Lions meet the end they believe they have earned. I will not argue with you about which war matters more. I see no degrees of import in t
his. The alien king must pay for his transgressions on Armageddon, and it is the Templars’ glory to be chosen for the chase. But these are warriors of our blood. To abandon them is to betray Rogal Dorn, and the Imperium he fought to forge.
Both battles matter, so we will fight both battles.
Months ago, I cursed you for leaving me on the surface while you earned all the glory in the skies. How times change.
Hunt well in the stars. I will do the same on this world’s cursed soil.
If you cannot condone my decision, then remember this. The Lions have no Chaplains remaining, and they are our cousins. Honour and brotherhood demand this of me.
Honour is more than glory. If Helsreach taught me nothing else, it taught me that. Honour is loyalty. Honour is control over our baser instincts, mastering rage into the most potent weapon it can be, not spending it purely to earn a saga around the campfire, or an annotation in a roll of victory.
Honour is not bowing to the whims and schemes of fearful weaklings. The Inquisition has already claimed its pound of flesh. I will not let a proud bloodline fall into shadow to sate the endless hunger of starving fools.
The Lions cannot call upon the resources of their hive city, but they will not fight alone. Let Volcanus hide behind its walls. Helsreach is going to war.
VIII
Gathering
Planning with Helsreach’s command teams took all night. I had wondered if the Lions would have already left their fallen fortress by the time we arrived, marching towards their last stand.
Dawn was less than an hour away as we broke the cloud cover. The Lions had not left us behind. The opposite was true – half of Helsreach’s army had already arrived before us.
Unwilling to secure one of our own Thunderhawks, Cyneric had arranged for a Navy shuttle to carry us down to the surface. We descended through a sky cut apart by the contrails of Lightning fighters, with hunched gunships alighting on the landing pads of the Lions’ ruined fortress stronghold.
One building – the crenellated central enclave – was plainly serving as the central hive of activity. Almost every other building was abandoned. Battlemented bunkers with anti-aircraft cannons stood in silence. The fortress’s walls were pulled down, bent beneath the aliens’ rage when they had first swept through the Lions defences in the hours after the massacre at Mannheim. But the final enclave still held firm. Four dust-blasted and paint-stripped Thunderhawks were nesting on the wide rooftop landing platform, marking where the Lions had touched down hours before. Dozens of inelegant, blocky troop landers were joining them there, as well as dusting off outside the enclave’s tumbled walls.
Cyneric looked through the shuttle bay window, down at the organised carnage of an Imperial army making ready for war.
‘I see a Baneblade,’ he said, gesturing to a bulk lander – beetle-ish in its densely armoured shape – releasing a gigantic tank from its payload claws.
‘The Grey Warrior,’ I replied, feeling my voice thicken in gratitude. ‘General Kurov is taking to the field.’ The tank’s storm-flayed hull was pockmarked and proud, so it had not been idle in the weeks since the war began to ease.
We wished to land at the central enclave, but the pilot struggled to locate an unmarked, untaken patch of ground, let alone a free few metres on a landing pad.
‘Break off the descent,’ I voxed to him. ‘Get back into orbit. Be ready to compensate for the bay doors opening in ten seconds.’
Cut off from our brothers in the void, we were ready for any eventuality. The shuttle’s confines were a testament to the fact it had been built to ferry a dozen humans in restraint thrones – not two warriors of the Adeptus Astartes in full battle armour. Our jump packs threatened to clang against the walls each time we moved, and we would have to abandon the additional ammunition crates at our boots, but no matter.
Cyneric struck the bay release plate with a fist, admitting the roaring wind. We stepped out to meet it, falling through the sky.
As far as I am aware, I do not dream. If I do, perhaps I simply never recall what takes place in the theatre of my subconscious, but the result is the same. Many medical records cite humans referring to nightmares of falling, ending abruptly the moment before impact. I have always found that curious. Humanity is such a fragile condition, fearing every imaginable loss of control. Nightmares of falling makes even gravity a psychological enemy to them.
Fear. The rancid piss-stink of it. I cannot envision a more disgusting emotion.
High altitude insertions are no rarity among the Adeptus Astartes, even without drop pods. We leaned forward, diving hard, plunging through the gold spit of tracer fire that had no hope of ever hitting us. Cyneric fired his back-mounted boosters once, to veer clear of an Imperial Guard hulk rising from the fortress.
Altitude runes chimed and flared as the ground rose. My engines whined into life a moment later, slowing the descent enough that it wouldn’t be terminal. We landed with twin thuds, denting the landing platform and spreading a cobweb of cracks from each of our boots. The sky above us was alight with the whirring, revolving anti-air turrets automatically and harmlessly tracking the inbound gunships and troop landers.
With portentous timing, a communication rune chimed on my retinal display the same moment my boots ground into the deck.
‘Reclusiarch? My lord… I demand an explanation for this.’
‘So ungrateful, Ekene.’ I found myself laughing for the first time since the cathedral came down upon me. ‘We thought you might appreciate the extra bodies.’
That day marked the first time I have ever been embraced by a human. Less than an hour after we landed, Cyneric and I walked outside the fortress walls, surveying the gathering battalions. Vulture gunships rattled overhead. The very air breathed with engine smoke from the idling tanks. Entire regiments of Steel Legion soldiers were packing munitions, and themselves, into Chimera transports and six-wheeled Shedu-class overlanders.
The man to embrace me was not, as one might have guessed, Captain Andrej of the Steel Legion. It was General Kurov – an otherwise distinguished and greying gentleman officer, who greeted me with a sabre at his hip and tears in his eyes.
‘Reclusiarch,’ he said by way of greeting. The embrace was swift, and surprising enough that I had no reaction to it. His head scarcely reached the heraldry on my chest before he stepped back, looking up at me. ‘The Hero of Helsreach calls, and his city answers.’
My skin still crawled in the aftermath of his nearness. His affection made sense, in that he was born, raised and trained in Helsreach; the War for Armageddon represented a bitter homecoming for him, and he held me in a paragon’s regard. Amazing, however, the difference in this meeting, and our very first. The levels of warmth in the latter, and coldness in the former, were difficult to align.
‘It is good you are here, general,’ I replied, trusting he would not be offended by my absolute neutrality.
Cyneric, sensing my unease, stepped to my side. ‘I am Cyneric,’ he greeted the general, looking down at the man, and I heard my brother’s dark little chuckle at the way Kurov performed the crusader’s cross rather than the Imperial aquila.
‘Such an effect you had on these men, sire,’ he voxed to me.
The war council that day was a blunt and brutal thing, as our plans were ordained before a battalion of revving tanks. Guard officers crowded around Cyneric and myself, several of them touching my armour for good fortune in the coming fight. These I ignored, as I had ignored the embrace. Let them keep their strange superstitions if it would work to the betterment of morale.
‘Did you bring what I left in Helsreach?’ I asked Kurov, during a pause in proceedings.
He nodded in the affirmative, smiling to himself.
The plan was simple. We would march into the Mannheim Gap, and we would destroy anything that moved or breathed.
‘I like this plan.’ Andrej was sitting on the dozer blade of a gunmetal grey Chimera, thumping his ankles on the hazard-striped metal. His opinion was
met with nods and murmurs of agreement from the gathered Legion officers, who stood at ease in their trenchcoats, helmets and gasmasks not yet fixed in place.
Ekene stood with me at the heart of the impromptu conclave, silent all the while. His anger was a palpable thing, an aura he bled in my direction. Only at the end did he speak, as if almost a hundred human officers were not nearby, and as if they had not just dedicated their lives to aiding his last charge.
‘You overstep your authority,’ he said to me. His helm’s vox speaker made the words a growl, though I suspected they needed little assistance in that regard.
‘I do as my duty bids. Nothing more, nothing less.’
He aimed a chainsword to the horizon, where the mountains rose and his brothers’ bodies rotted.
‘This is our fight.’
I could have struck him, knocking him to the ground for addressing me in such a tone. The temptation was there, and I certainly had the authority to do so. I refrained partly because I did not wish the Guardsmen to witness division in the ranks of the Adeptus Astartes, and partly because I understood Ekene’s rage; even sympathised with it. It simply needed redirecting. Now was a time for me to be cold-blooded, not hot. He needed guiding, not beating and shaming.
‘It is still your fight,’ I told him. I doubted he had missed the way many of the Guard officers had clutches rifles tighter or rested their hands on their holstered pistols, when Ekene had addressed me with such aggression. ‘The difference is, cousin, now it is a fight you can win.’
He turned – ever so subtly – to regard the crozius maul I had over one shoulder. I perceived the true nature of his complaint in that moment. It was not that I had summoned thousands of Guardsmen to aid his assault. The humans had nothing to do with it.
It was me. I was the source of his unease.
‘If we face the warlord…’ Ekene began, and I silenced him with a gentle gesture.
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