Helsreach (warhammer 40000)

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  'None of us had much hope pinned on the Ordinatus,' Ryken said, seeking to defuse the tension. 'It was the longest of long shots, any way you slice it.'

  'Have you tried the Mechanicus forces again?' Cyria Tyro asked. Her tone didn't hide the fact she still pinned a great deal of hope on the weapon, despite what Ryken had just said.

  'Of course.' The Reclusiarch gestured west along the Hel's Highway, in the direction of Stormherald fighting out of sight in the Ironworks. 'Zarha refused as she refused before. It is blasphemy to do what we have done.'

  'Still no word from Mechanicus royalty,' Sarren put in. 'Wherever this arch-priest of theirs is, he's not responding to any of our astropathic pleas.'

  He spat onto the broken roadway beneath his feet. Indeed, whoever this Lord of the Centurio Ordinatus was, his arrival in the Armageddon system would be far too late to make a difference to Helsreach.

  'At least the weapon may yet be put to use in the defence of other cities,' the colonel forced a chuckle. 'We stand on the very edge now. The fallback plan is, however, not something I wish to consider anymore. There are few enough surviving Imperial forces left in the city. Let us not gather together for the last days of our lives and offer an easy target.'

  'So it's over,' one of the captains said.

  'No,' Grimaldus answered. 'But we must keep the enemy locked in the city as long as we can. Each day we survive increases the chances of reinforcement from the Ash Wastes. Each day we hold out costs the enemy more blood, and keeps them here in Helsreach, where they cannot add their axes to the beasts besieging the other cities.'

  Ryken scratched at his collar, soothing an itching scar he'd earned the week before. 'Uh. Sir?' he said to Sarren. 'Major?'

  Ryken let his expression of disbelief do the talking. Sarren rubbed grit from his eyes with dirty fingertips as he answered. 'I have studied the hololithic projections in the wake of the dock siege. I have managed, blessings upon the Emperor, to actually maintain a conversation over the vox with Commissar Yarrick that lasted for more than ten seconds, and offered more productivity than merely listening to the crackle of static for once. We are following a pattern being used in several of the other hive cities. The Steel Legion will disperse throughout the city, centring at population centres that remain untouched.'

  'What about the highway?'

  'The enemy already claims most of it, Captain Helius. Let them have the rest. As of this morning, we are no longer fighting to preserve the city. We are fighting to save every life that can be saved. The city is dead, but over half of its people are not.'

  The captain scowled, rendering his handsome face immediately unattractive. Unreliable friends borrowed a great deal of money with expressions like that.

  'None of our remaining airstrips are anywhere near civilian population centres. Forgive me for pointing it out, colonel, but that was the very point of setting them up where we did. To hide them.'

  'You did well. And I'm certain you will hold off the enemy for an admirable space of time before you are overrun. Just like the rest of us.'

  'We need to be defended!'

  'No. You would like to be defended. You do not wish to die. None of us do, captain. But I command the Steel Legion, and the Steel Legion marches in defence of the hive's people now. I cannot spare regiments of men just to continue covering the air squadron's inexorable dance across the city. The plain truth is that there are no longer enough of you to be worth defending. Hide when you must, and fight when you can. If Invigilata stands with us, fly in support of them. If Invigilata leaves, then fly in support of the 121st Armoured Division, who will be based at the Kolav Residentia District, defending the entrances to the subterranean bunkers. Those are your orders.'

  The captain's salute was reluctant. 'Understood, sir.'

  'The coming weeks will go into Imperial records as the ''hundred bastions of light''. We no longer have the forces required to defend large swathes of territory. So we will fall back to the cores - the most vital points - and die before we ever give another metre of ground. The Jaega District, with its storm shelters. The Temple of the Emperor Ascendant, at the heart of the Ecclesiarchal sector. The Azal Spaceport in the Dis industrial sector. The Purgatori Refinery, that blessedly still stands on the docks. A list of primary and secondary defence points is being circulated over the vox-network and via hundreds of courier teams throughout the city.'

  The colonel turned to the hulking figures of the Astartes. 'Sergeant V'reth, the people of Helsreach and Armageddon offer their thanks to you and your brothers for the assistance. You'll quit the city today?'

  'The Lord of the Fire-born calls.'

  'Quite so, quite so. I offer my personal thanks. Without your arrival, many more would have lost their lives.'

  V'reth made the sign of the aquila, his green gauntlets forming the familiar shape to mirror the bronze eagle on his chest.

  'You are fighting with ferocity unmatched, Steel Legionnaire. The Emperor sees all and knows all. He sees your sacrifices and your courage in this war, and you are earning your place in the Imperium's legends. It was an honour to fight at your side, on the streets of your city.'

  Sarren glanced between the two Astartes - the warrior and the knight. He could not doubt the valour of the Templars in past weeks, but Throne, if only he'd had the Salamanders here. They were everything the Templars were not: communicative, supportive, reliable…

  He found himself offering his hand. A moment's tension followed the gesture, as the towering warrior remained unmoving. Then, with care, the Salamander held the colonel's small, human hand in a shake. The joints of the sergeant's power armour hummed with the minor movement.

  'The honour was ours, V'reth. Hunt well in the wastelands, and give my thanks to your lord.'

  The Reclusiarch watched this in silence. No one knew what expression was masked by his relic helm.

  Once the discussion is done, I walk from the gathered humans. V'reth remains with me, shadowing my movements. Away from the pitted and cracked hull of Sarren's Baneblade, I slow in my stride to allow him to catch up. Does V'reth not have his own orders to obey? Does the Hemlock not call? Curious that he chooses to remain.

  'What do you want, Salamander?'

  As we walk along the Hel's Highway, I cannot help but stare at the city below. The platformed road rises above the habitation blocks here, once allowing traffic to rattle through the heart of the city between the spires of its tall residential towers. Now it remains aloft - a rockcrete wave riding above urban devastation. The buildings here are flattened, reduced to rubble by the enemy's scrap-Titans and shelling from our own forces.

  Across the city, the Highway has come down in several places. Fortunate that it has not done so here, as well.

  'To speak, if you are willing, Reclusiarch.'

  'I would be honoured,' I tell him, but this is a lie. We have spent a week fighting together, side by side, and although his presence was invaluable, his warriors are not knights. Too often, they fell back to guard civilian shelters rather than press the attack and prevent the enemy from escaping. Too often they withstood repeated assaults rather than strike first and eliminate any need of further retaliation.

  Priamus loathes them, but I do not. Their ways are not our ways. It is not cowardice that drives them to these tactics, but rather tradition. Yet still, their valour is as alien to me as the disgusting savagery of the orks.

  It is difficult to hold my tongue. I wish him to leave before honesty stains the deeds we have achieved together, and before truth spoken too brutally threatens the alliance between our respective Chapters.

  'My brothers and I came to this city without the illuminating guidance of our Chaplain. We would offer reverent thanks if you would lead us in prayer before we quit the city and rejoin our Chapter by the shores of the Hemlock.'

  'I know little of your Chapter's cult and creed, Salamander.'

  'We know this, Reclusiarch. Still, we would offer sincere thanks.'

  It is a magnificent an
d bold gesture, and I know it honours me far more than it would honour them if I agreed. To lead brothers from another Chapter in prayer is beyond merely rare. It is almost unheard of. In my life, I can recall only one such instance, and that was with our gene-brothers and fellow sons of Dorn, the Crimson Fists, when the Declates system burned.

  'Think of the battle last night,' I tell him. 'Think of the rooftop battle in the Nergal district. There was one moment in the chaos that still preys upon my mind. It casts a shadow over us now, like an enemy's spear threatening to fall.'

  He hesitates. This is clearly not the way he thought his request would be answered. 'What aspect of the battle troubles you, Reclusiarch?'

  A fine question.

  * * *

  The beast falls from my hands, its skull broken, to die at my feet.

  I hear the burning hiss of Priamus's blade tearing through alien flesh. I hear the strained snarls of meat-clogged chainblades. I hear the yelling of panicked humans as they cower in the storm shelter, their fear reaching my senses through the armour plated walls.

  Another creature snarls in my face, spitting thick saliva over my faceplate. It dies as Artarion's bolter kicks once from a few metres away, shearing its malformed head off in a burst of gore.

  'Focus,' he grunts over the vox.

  I return the favour a moment later, my maul pounding into a beast that sought to leap at him from behind.

  The battle is close, down to pistols, blades and the crashing beat of fists into faces. In the centre of the expansive plaza, the thickly-armoured storm shelter endures siege from close to two hundred of the enemy.

  Footing is treacherous. Our boots are stamping down on pools of cooling blood and the bodies of dead dockworkers. The Salamanders are…

  Curse them all…

  Priamus blocked a cut from the closest ork, the beast's chopping sword deflected with a shower of sparks from the brief blade contact.

  He killed it with the riposte - an ugly strike he felt no pride for, slipping past the creature's non-existent guard and ramming the blade's point into the beast's exposed neck.

  The brute's axe slammed with clanging force against the side of his helm. His vision receptors showed angry static for two seconds.

  Not deep enough. The swordsman yanked back with the blade, and on the second plunge he hilted it in the ork's collarbone. The beast collapsed in a heap of dead limbs.

  Priamus resisted the urge to laugh.

  The next ork to leap at him came with two of its brothers. The first fell to Priamus's blade lashing out to carve through its torso, the energised blade going through meat and bone like soft clay. The second and third would have had a fair chance at overpowering him, had they not been battered to the ground by a sweep of the Reclusiarch's maul.

  'Where are the Salamanders?' he voxed, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

  'They're holding.'

  'They're what?'

  Bostilan's fist vibrated with the crashing judder of his bolter. Streaks of alien blood painted his battered armour yet again.

  Recriminations spilled out over the vox. The Salamanders weren't advancing with the Templars. The Templars were pushing ahead too far, too fast.

  'Follow us, in the name of the Throne!' Bastilan added his voice to the vox-chatter.

  'Fall back,' came the staid voice of Sergeant V'reth. 'Fall back to the eastern platform and be ready to engage the second wave.'

  'Advance! If we strike now, there will be no second wave. We're at the warlord's throat!'

  'Salamanders! V'reth spoke calmly, 'Hold and be ready. Cut down any stragglers that seek to breach the shelter!

  Bastilan kicked a hunched alien in the chest, breaking whatever passed for its rib structure. In the moment's respite, he ejected his spent bolt magazine and slammed a fresh one home.

  They were advancing unsupported, away from the shelter, in pursuit of the fleeing orks. Ahead, through the crowd of panicking beasts, Bastilan could see the armoured warlord of this wretched tribe, its staggering gait made all the more pronounced by the ablative armour plating that seemed surgically bolted to its nerveless flesh.

  Bolts slashed after the retreating warleader, roaring from the muzzles of Templars fighting their way through a bestial and ferocious rearguard. Several shells detonated against the creature's armour, while others smacked into the backs and shoulders of fleeing orks around their commander.

  'He's getting away,' Bastilan grunted. The words shamed him even to speak them.

  'Fall back,' came the Reclusiarch's growl.

  'Sir,' Bastilan began, coupled with Priamus's decidedly more annoyed 'No!'

  'Fall back. This is not worth dying over. We do not have the numbers to spill the warlord's blood now!'

  V'reth, to his credit, nods.

  'I see. You consider this a stain on your personal honour.'

  He does not see. 'No, brother. I consider it a waste of time, ammunition, and life. Two of your own squad were killed in the successive waves that followed. Brother Kaedus and Brother Madoc from my own force were slain. If we had pursued in unity, we could have broken through to the enemy leader and taken his head. The rest of the beasts would have scattered, and the bulk could easily have been purged by kill-teams in the aftermath.'

  'It is tactically unsound, Reclusiarch. Pursuit would have left the shelter undefended and vulnerable to regrouping waves attacking from other sectors. Three thousand lives were saved by our defiance last night.'

  'There were no attacks from other sectors.'

  'There may have been, had we pursued. And there was still no guarantee we would have overpowered the rearguard quickly enough to reach the warlord.'

  'We weathered six further assaults, wasted seven hours, lost four warriors, and expended a hoard of ammunition that my knights can ill-afford to throw away.'

  'That is one way of seeing the final cost. I see it more simply: we won.'

  'I am finished with this… debate, Salamander.' Again, I recall the grinding cut of Nero's medicae-saw, and the puncturing retrieval of cutting tools extracting glistening gene-seed organs from the chests of the slain.

  'It grieves me to hear you speak this way, Reclusiarch.'

  Listen to him. So patient. So calm.

  So blind.

  'Get out of my city.'

  CHAPTER XIX

  Fate

  The giant stood above its worshippers in silence.

  Its skin and bones were harvested from crashed and salvaged ships, each column, gear, pylon, girder and plate of armour that went into its birth stolen from something else. Although the giant was not alive, living creatures served it in place of blood and organs. They clambered through the god's form, insulated by the armour, hanging from the metal bones, moving like the blood cells in sluggish arteries.

  The giant had taken over two thousand labourers over a month to build. It had finally awoken outside the walls of Hive Stygia three days before, to great roars of praise from its devoted faithful.

  And then, in its first hours of life, it had wiped the hive city from the face of the planet. Stygia was a modest industrial city, defended by the Steel Legion and its own militia with little in the way of Astartes or Mechanicus support. From the moment the giant awoke to the moment the last vestiges of organised Imperial resistance was crushed, the city lasted a total of five hours and thirty-two minutes.

  And now, the giant stood silent, idle, making ready for its journey south.

  Its face was piggish and round-eyed, all jagged jaw and red-iron tusks. Behind the broken windows that served as its eyes, hunched crewmembers moved in loping gaits, attending to their bestial imitations of Imperial Titan command.

  The giant's name, splattered across its ugly, fat-bellied hull in crude alien hieroglyphs, was Godbreaker.

  With a slow tread that shook the earth around it, Godbreaker began to move south, toward the coast.

  Toward Helsreach.

  If it could remain mobile without breaking down - a difficult feat give
n the skills of its creators - it would arrive by dawn the following day.

  In a fateful sense of opposed unity with the Godbreaker, another powerful war machine drew nearer to Helsreach. Its journey was a far longer one, and its progress was a melancholy fraction of what it might have been in a better age.

  Waves of ashy soil blew aside in the land train's wake, as its gravity suppression field exerted its influence on the ground below the rattling, serpentine vehicle. Jurisian felt its resistance in every touch upon its controls. The soul of the machine was rising from its slumber now, finding itself disrespected and on the edge of lashing out at the living being responsible.

  'Reclusiarch,' he spoke into the vox again, once more receiving no answer.

  Oberon'sexistence in his mind was akin to a beast alone in the woods. Jurisian could keep it at bay as long as he focussed on its presence, just as a traveller could face down a wolf in the wild if he kept watch for the beast and carried a torch of flame to ward it away. It was a game of focus, and despite his weariness, the Master of the Forge possessed focus in abundance. He was a conscientious and patient soul, devoted to each of his tasks like a predator hunting prey. This demeanour and dedication, coupled with his ability and deeds of honour, had seen him promoted to his rank aboard the Eternal Crusader nineteen years before.

  Jurisian had been present at Grimaldus's induction into the inner circle, and though it shamed him to admit it now - even silently, even only to himself and the lurking soul of the war machine - he had cast his vote against the Chaplain ascending to Mordred's role as Reclusiarch.

  'He is not ready,' Jurisian had said, adding his voice to Champion Bayard's. 'He is a master of small engagements, and a warrior beyond peer. But he is a not a leader of the Chapter.'

  'The Forgemaster speaks the truth, High Marshal,' Bayard had added. 'Grimaldus is flawed by hesitation. A second's delay in all he does, and it is no secret why. He holds himself to his master's standards. Doubt clings to him, darkening his place in the Chapter.'