Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [141]
‘Nerovar!’ Priamus cried again.
It was Bastilan that reached him first. The sergeant’s helm was gone, revealing a face so bloody only the whites of his eyeballs revealed him as human anymore. Torn flaps of skin hung in wet patches, leaving his head open to the bone beneath.
‘The Black Sword!’
Priamus deflected another dozen cuts in four beats of his pounding twin hearts. He had no time to reach for the blessed weapon Bayard had dropped in death.
Bastilan’s ruined face vanished in a burst of red mist. Priamus had already rammed his power sword through the chest of the bolter-wielding ork behind the sergeant by the time Bastilan’s headless body crashed to the ground with the dull clang of ceramite on stone.
‘Nerovar!’
With Bastilan’s last words, something changed within the Templars.
Twelve remained. Of these, only seven would escape what followed.
The knights pulled together, their blades slashing and carving not only to kill their foes, but to defend their brothers alongside them. It was an instinctive savagery born of so many decades fighting at each others’ sides, and it spread through their failing ranks now as they stood on the precipice of destruction.
‘Take the sword!’ Grimaldus roared. His charge carried him ahead of the others, hammering his crozius in arhythmic fury, smashing a bloody path through to Priamus. ‘Recover the Black Sword!’
We cannot leave it here. It cannot lie abandoned on a battlefield while one of us yet lives.
Over the vox, the humans are calling us insane and begging us to fall back with them. To them, this bloodshed must seem like madness, but there is no choice. We will not be the only Crusade to violate our most sacred tradition. The Black Sword will remain in black hands until there are none left to bear it.
I have a moment – just a single moment – of reflexive pain when I see Bayard’s body next to Bastilan’s. Two of the finest Sword Brethren ever to serve the Chapter, now slain in glory. More alien bodies block my view. More xenos bleed as I force my way closer to Priamus.
A sense of bloodthirsty, eerie calm descends between us. The battle rages, weapons clashing against our armour, but I speak in a fierce whisper that I know carries over the vox to him and him alone.
‘Priamus.’
‘Reclusiarch.’
My maul sends two of the beasts flying back, and for a heartbeat’s span, there are no alien barbarians separating us. Our eye lenses meet for that precious second, before we are both forced to turn and engage other foes.
‘You are the last Emperor’s Champion of the Helsreach Crusade,’ I tell him. ‘Now recover your blade.’
Major Ryken spoke into his hand-vox, repeating the same words he’d been saying for almost a minute. His voice echoed around the nave in curiously calm counterpoint to the ragged breathing and moans of pain from the wounded.
‘Any armour units still outside the basilica, respond. The Godbreaker has been sighted due south of the temple walls. Any armour units still outside, engage, engage.’
From his viewpoint by one of the broken stained glass windows, he watched the gargant’s torso rising above the broken graveyard walls in the distance.
He didn’t recognise the voice that eventually answered. It sounded both bitter and disgusted, but it still made Ryken grin.
‘Engaging.’
‘Hello? Identify yourself!’
‘I am Princeps Amasat of the Warlord Titan Bane-Sidhe.’
The Bane-Sidhe, named for a shrieking monster from ancient Terran mythology, did everything in its power to gain the Godbreaker’s attention. Opening salvos from its arm-cannons and shoulder-mounted weapon batteries lashed against the larger Titan’s force fields. Siren horns, used to warn