Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [88]
The knight wasn’t dead. His face was awash in blood, the dark fluid filming over his eyes and darkening his features as it ran from his nose and clenched teeth. Astartes blood was supposed to clot within instants, so the tales told. It wasn’t happening here, and Andrej doubted that was a positive sign.
‘Can’t move,’ the Templar growled. His voice was wet from a burbling throat. ‘Spine. Hearts. Dying.’
‘There is something inside you, I know,’ Andrej spared a glance around, making sure they weren’t in immediate danger. ‘Something important inside you, that your brothers must reclaim, yes?’
‘Progenoid,’ the knight’s breathing was as raw as a chainsword’s snarl. The warrior’s oversized armoured hand gripped the front of Andrej’s armour. It was strengthless.
‘I do not know what that is, sir knight.’
‘Gene-seed,’ the Templar spat blood as he forced the words through numbing lips. His eyes were lolling now, half-closed and rolling back. It was clear he was blind. ‘Legacy.’
Andrej nodded to Maghernus. ‘Help me move him. Do not argue. It is important that his brothers find his body. Important for their rituals.’
‘Emperor…’ the knight grunted, ‘Emperor protects.’
With those words, the hand gripping Andrej’s chestguard went slack, thumping to rest on the heraldic cross on the warrior’s own breastplate.
Their eyes met once, and the dockworker and the career soldier started dragging the dead knight.
We are dying.
We are dying, scattered across kilometres of docks, mixed in with the humans, torn from the unity of brotherhood.
‘Wear your helm,’ I say to Nero without looking over my shoulder at him. ‘Do not let the humans see you like this.’
With tears in his eyes, our healer does as I order. The list of failing life signs is transferred from his wrist display to his retinal readouts. I hear him draw a shaking breath over the vox.
‘Anastus is dead,’ he says, adding another name to those that came before.
I lean forward, the racing wind clawing over the surface of my armour, sending my parchment scrolls and tabard streaming in its grip. We are several hundred metres up, making ready to drop on the beasts below. The Thunderhawk’s turbines lower their growl as they throttle down.
The docks below us are already in ruin. They burn – black and grey, amber and orange – making the view from the polluted skies like staring down into the mouth of some mythical dragon. Percussive thumps signal the crash landings of more submersibles, or our own munitions stores going up in flames.
‘Helsreach will fall tonight,’ Bastilan says, giving voice to something we must all be thinking. I have never, in over a century of waging war at his side, heard him speak such a thing.
‘And do not lie to me, Grimaldus,’ he says, sharing the bulkhead’s space with me. ‘Save your words for the others, brother.’
I tolerate such familiarity from him.
But he is wrong.
‘Not tonight,’ I tell him, and he doesn’t look away from the skull I wear as my face. ‘I swore to the humans that the sun would rise over an unconquered city. I do not mean to break that vow. And you, brother, will help me keep it.’
Bastilan turns away at last. What closeness had been near to the surface cools fast, leaving us distant again. ‘As you command,’ he says.
‘Make ready to jump,’ I vox to the others. ‘Nero. Do you stand ready?’
‘What?’ He lowers his narthecium, retracting surgical saws and cutting blades. I see the empty sockets for gene-seed storage withdraw and lock under smooth armour plating.
‘I need you, Nero. Our brothers need you.’
‘Do not lecture me, Reclusiarch. I stand ready.’
The others, Priamus especially, are taking note now. ‘Cador is dead. Two-thirds of the Helsreach Crusade will not live to see the coming dawn. You will carry their legacy, my brother. Grief has its place – none of us have suffered such losses before – but if you are lost in sorrow then you will be the death of us all.’
‘I said I stand ready! Why do you single me out like this? Priamus is likely to see us all dead because he cannot follow orders!