Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [118]
‘But they have not.’
‘No. They have not. I will die on this world.’ Grimaldus looked at the Apothecary again. ‘My master died, and mere days later, I was consigned to die on a world that has no hope of surviving an ugly war, far from my brothers and the Chapter I have served for two centuries. Even if we win, what does victory buy? We will be kings astride a ruined world of dead industry.’ He shook his head. ‘And this is where we will die. A worthless death.’
‘It is glorious, in its own way. The Helsreach Crusade. Our brothers and the people of this world will remember our sacrifice forever. You know this as well as I.’
‘Oh, I know it. I cannot escape it. But I do not care for glory. Glory is earned through a life lived in service to the Throne. It should not be a consolation gift, or something sought to sate a hunger. I want my life to matter to my brothers, and I want my death to further the cause of the Imperium. Do you not recall Mordred’s last words to me? They are written in gold upon the plinth of the statue that honours him.’
‘I remember them, Reclusiarch. “We are judged in life for the evil we destroy”. And we will be judged well, for a great many have fallen before us already.’
‘Our deaths inspire no one. They benefit no one. Do you recall the Shadow Wolves? When we saw the last of that Chapter die, I felt my heart sing. Never before had I craved the taste of alien blood as I did in that moment. Their deaths mattered. Every warrior clad in silver armour died in true glory that day. What of Helsreach? Who will draw courage from a footnote in the archives of a fallen city?’
Grimaldus closed his eyes. He did not open them again, even as he heard Nerovar approaching. The fist crashing against his jaw knocked him to the ground, where he at last looked back at the Apothecary. Grimaldus was smiling, though in truth he had not expected the blow.
‘How dare you?’ Nero asked, his teeth clenched and his fist still tight. ‘How dare you? You throw filth on our glory here, yet you dare tell me Cador’s death means something? It means nothing. He died as we will all die: unremembered and unburied. You are my Reclusiarch, Grimaldus. Do not lie to me. If our glory matters to no one, then Cador’s death is meaningless and I have every right to mourn him as you mourn for all of us.’
The Chaplain licked his lips, tasting the chemical-rich blood that marked them. In silence, he rose to his feet. Nerovar did not back away. Far from it, he stood his ground, and activated his bracer-mounted storage pod. A plastek vial slid from its secure housing, and Nerovar threw it to Grimaldus.
The Reclusiarch caught it in hands that threatened to shake. NACLIDES, the script on the vial denoted. The gene-seed of a brother fallen days before.
‘Nero…’
Nerovar ejected another tube and tossed it to the Reclusiarch. DARGRAVIAN, it read. He had been the first to fall.
‘Nerovar…’
The Apothecary ejected a third vial. This one he held in his fist, his gauntlet clutching it just shy of crushing it into shards. CADOR showed between Nero’s fingers.
‘Answer me,’ the Apothecary demanded. ‘Is what we do here worthless? Is there nothing to be proud of in our sacrifice?’
Grimaldus didn’t answer for several moments. He looked around the modest, broken temple, the light of thought bright in his eyes.
‘The city is falling, brother. Sarren and the other humans faced that fact today. The time has come for us to choose where we will die.’
‘Then let it be where we will be remembered.’ Nerovar reverently handed the vial bearing Cador’s cryogenically frozen gene-seed organs to the Chaplain. ‘Let it be where our deaths will matter, and give birth to tales worthy of being recorded in humanity’s history.’