Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [47]
From the battlements, the Imperial soldiers marked these symbols, and responded in kind. Standards flew above the walls – one for every regiment serving inside the city. The Steel Legion banners flew in greatest number, ochre and orange and yellow and black.
After he returned from D-16 West, Grimaldus himself planted the banner of the Black Templars among those already standing on the north wall. The Desert Vultures gathered to watch the knight ram the banner pole into the rockcrete, and swear an oath that Helsreach would never fall while one defender still lived.
‘Hades may burn,’ he called to the gathered soldiers, ‘but it burns because the enemy fears us. It burns to hide the enemy’s shame, so they need never look upon the place where they lost the last war. While the walls of Helsreach stand, so stands this banner. While one defender draws breath, the city will never be lost.’
In echo of his gesture, Cyria Tyro persuaded a moderati to plant the banner of the Legio Invigilata nearby. Lacking a banner suitable for handling by humans rather than the huge standards that were borne by the god-machines, one of the weapon-arm pennants from the Warhound Titan Executor was used in absentia – mounted on a pole and driven into the wall between two Steel Legion banners.
The soldiers on the wall cheered. Unused to such attention outside the cockpit of his beloved Warhound, the moderati seemed awkwardly pleased by the reaction. He made the sign of the cog to the officers present, and made the sign of the aquila a moment later, as if anxiously covering a mistake.
At night, the winds blew harder and colder. It almost cleared the air of the sulphuric stench that was forever present and, at its strongest, it dragged the standard of the 91st Steel Legion from the battlements of the west wall. Preachers attached to the regiment warned that it was an omen – that the 91st would be the first to fall if they did not stand defiant when the true storm struck.
As the sun was setting, Helsreach shook with thunder to match the maelstrom taking place on the wastelands. Stormherald was leading several of its metal kin to the walls, where the largest – the battle-class Titans – could fire over the battlements once the enemy came in range.
The Guard were ordered to abandon the walls for hundreds of metres around the god-machines. The sound of their weapons discharging would be deafening to anyone too close, and even being near the gigantic guns could be lethal, with the amount of energy they unleashed as they fired.
No one in Helsreach would be sleeping tonight.
He opened his eyes.
‘Brother,’ a voice called to him. ‘The Crone of Invigilata requests your presence.’
Grimaldus had returned to the city hours ago. He had been expecting this summons.
‘I am in prayer,’ he said into the vox.
‘I know, Reclusiarch.’ It was not like Artarion to be so formal.
‘Did she request my presence, Artarion?’
‘No, Reclusiarch. She, ah, “demanded” it.’
‘Inform Invigilata I will attend Princeps Zarha within the hour, once my ritual observations are complete.’
‘I do not believe she is in the mood to be kept waiting, Grimaldus.’
‘Nevertheless, waiting is what she will do.’
The Chaplain closed his eyes again as he kneeled on the floor of the small, empty chamber in the command spire, and once more let his mouth form the whispered words of reverence.
I approach the amniotic tank.
My weapons are not in my hands, and this time, in the close confines of the Titan’s busy cockpit chamber, the tension from before is distilled into something altogether more fierce. The crewmen, the pilots, the tech-priests… they stare with unconcealed hostility. Several hands rest on belts close to sheathed blades or holstered firearms.
I refrain from laughing at this display, though it is no easy feat. They command the greatest war machine in the entire city, yet they concern themselves with ceremonial daggers and autopistols.
Zarha, the Crone of Invigilata, floats before me. Her lined, matronly face is twisted by