Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [134]
One of the stretcher-bearers nodded to Grimaldus as he passed, and muttered a respectful ‘Reclusiarch.’
The Templar nodded back.
‘Fought with them?’ Bayard asked over the vox.
‘Desert Vultures. I was with them when the first walls fell. Good men, all.’
‘Very few left,’ Bayard said, a strange edge to his voice.
Grimaldus turned his skulled face to the Champion. ‘There will be enough. Have faith in your brothers’ blades, Bayard.’
‘I have faith. I am sanguine with my fate, Chaplain.’
‘My rank is Reclusiarch. Use it.’
‘By your will, brother, of course. But we stand vigil over the city’s death with a handful of bleeding humans, Reclusiarch. I am sanguine, but I am also a realist.’
Grimaldus’s vox-snarl drew stares from the soldiers passing nearby. ‘Have faith in the people of this city, Champion. Such condescension is beneath you. We are the last guardians of the relics prized by the first of Armageddon’s colonists. These people are fighting for more than their homes and lives. They are fighting for their ancestors’ honour, on the holiest ground in the entire world. The survivors of this war across the globe will take heart from sacrifices made by the thousands destined to die here. Blood of Dorn, Bayard… the Imperium was born in moments such as this.’
The Emperor’s Champion watched him for a long moment, during which Grimaldus found his heart thumping faster. He was angry, and feeling the anger rise was as purgative as his time within the temple’s serene halls. Bayard spoke, his voice sincere despite the crackle of vox-breakage.
‘My voice was one of the few that spoke against your ascension to Mordred’s rank.’
Grimaldus snorted, returning to watching the arriving forces. ‘I would have said the same in your place.’
Seventy soldiers of the Steel Legion 101st came together in a battered convoy of Chimera transports. The ramp slammed down as the lead vehicle pulled up to a halt. A squad of Legionnaires disembarked, not a one of them free of bloodstains or bandaging.
‘Leave the Chimeras outside,’ Major Ryken ordered the others. Half of his face was wrapped in grubby cloth bandages, and he leaned heavily on an aide’s shoulder, limping as he walked.
‘Shouldn’t we take them inside?’ Cyria Tyro asked. She looked back over her shoulder at the tanks being abandoned.
‘To hell with them,’ Ryken spat blood as she led him to the two knights. ‘Not enough ammunition in the turrets to make it worthwhile.’
‘Grimaldus,’ she said, looking up at the towering warrior.
‘Hail, Adjutant Quintus Tyro. Major Ryken.’
‘We got cut off from Sarren and the others. The 34th, the 101st, the 51st… They’re all in the central manufactory sectors…’
‘It does not matter.’
‘What?’
‘It does not matter,’ Grimaldus repeated. ‘We are defending the last points of light in Helsreach. Fate brought you to the Temple. Fate sent Sarren elsewhere.’
‘Throne, there are still thousands of the bastards out there.’ He spat pinkish spit again, and Tyro grunted as she took more of his weight. ‘And that’s not the worst of it.’
‘Explain.’
‘Invigilata has gone,’ Tyro said. ‘They left us to die. The enemy still has Titans – and there’s one that you’ll never believe until you look upon it with your own eyes. We saw it march from the Rostorik Ironworks, collapsing habitation towers in its wake.’
‘The 34th Armoured rolled out to stop it,’ Ryken winced as he spoke. His bandages were growing more stained, around what was likely an empty eye socket. ‘It flattened most of them in the time it takes a desert jackal to howl at the full moon.’
A curious local expression. Grimaldus nodded, catching the meaning, but Ryken had more to add.
‘Stormherald is down.’ he said.
‘I know.’
‘This Godbreaker… it killed the Crone, and slew Stormherald.’
‘I know.’
‘You know? So where’s the damn Ordinatus? We need it! Nothing else will kill that gigantic clanking… thing.’
‘It is coming. Move inside and see to your wounds. If the end is coming to these walls, you will need to stand ready.’
‘Oh, we’ll all be ready. The bastards took my face, and that made it personal.