Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [138]
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