Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [31]
The walls.
During the opening phase, Helsreach’s defenders would stand upon the city’s walls and be ready to repel an archaic siege. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and militia, standing vigil on walls that were as tall as a Titan.
Several bold ork drop-ships sought to land within the city. Spiretop platforms, wall guns and cannon batteries mounted upon the tops of towers annihilated those that made the attempt. The luckier failures managed to climb with enough altitude to escape the city’s reach and crash on the wastelands. Most were torn apart by unrelenting weapons fire, pulled apart and cast to the ground in flames.
Guard units stationed throughout the hive and pre-selected for the duty moved in on the downed hulks, slaughtering any alien survivors. Across the city, fire containment teams worked to put out blazes that spread from the crashing junkers.
Grimaldus looked along the walls to either side, where thousands of uniformed men stood in loose groups, every one clad in the ochre of the Armageddon Steel Legion. These were not Sarren’s own 101st. The colonel’s regiment remained at the command centre, as well as being spread across the city in platoons to defend key areas.
Artarion’s words still burned behind the Chaplain’s eyes.
‘Brothers,’ he spoke into the vox. ‘To me.’
The knights drew closer – Nerovar watching the distant landings without a word; Priamus, his blade already in his hands, resting on one pauldron; Cador, projecting a sense of implacable patience; Bastilan, grim and silent; and Artarion, holding Grimaldus’s banner, the only one of them without his helmet. He seemed to enjoy the uncomfortable glances he received from the human soldiers as they saw his shattered face. Occasionally, he’d grin at them, baring his metal teeth.
‘Helm on,’ Grimaldus said, the words emerging from his vocaliser as a low growl. Artarion complied with a chuckle.
‘We must speak,’ Grimaldus said.
‘You have chosen a curious moment to realise that,’ Artarion said. The wall shivered beneath their feet again as the turrets unleashed another volley at an alien scrap-cruiser shaking the sky overhead.
‘The city has awoken to its duty,’ Grimaldus intoned. ‘It is time I did the same.’
The knights stood and watched as xenos landers touched down on the plains several kilometres from the city. Even from this distance, the Templars could make out hordes of greenskins spilling from the grounded ships, mustering on the wastelands.
Reports clashed with each other over the vox, telling of similar landings being made to the east and west of the city.
‘Speak,’ Grimaldus demanded in the face of his brothers’ silence.
‘What would have us say, Reclusiarch?’ asked Bastilan.
‘The truth. Your perceptions of this doomed crusade, and the way it is being led.’
The ork ship that had passed overhead minutes before now came down in the wasteland with slow, grinding, earthshaking force. It ploughed into the dusty ground, throwing up a trail of dust in its wake, and Helsreach shook to its foundations.
A cheer went up along the wall – thousands of soldiers crying out at the sight.
‘We hold the largest city on the planet, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers,’ Cador said, ‘as well as countless experienced Guard and militia officers. And we have Invigilata.’
‘Your point?’ Grimaldus asked, watching the crashed ship burn. ‘Do you think that will be even half of what we would need to repel the siege that we’ll soon suffer?’
‘No,’ Cador replied. ‘We are going to die here, but that is not my point. My point, brother, is that the city has a command structure already in place.’
Bastilan pitched in. ‘You are not a general, Grimaldus. And you were not sent here to be one.’
Grimaldus nodded, his mind flashing back from the fire on the wastelands, snapping into recollections of the endless command staff meetings when the mortals had requested his presence.
He had thought it was his duty to be present, to grasp the full situation