Aaron Dembski-Bowden: Helsreach

The second tried to run. It turned its back and ran, hunched and ape-like, back in the direction it had come.

Grimaldus was faster. He caught the creature in a handful of heartbeats, hooked his gauntleted fingers in the ork's armoured collar to halt its flight, and smashed it against the corridor wall.

The alien grunted a stream of curses in Gothic as it struggled in the knight's grip.

Grimaldus clutched at the creature's throat, black gauntlets squeezing, choking, crunching bone beneath his grip.

'You dare defile the language of the pure race…' He slammed the alien back, breaking its head open on the steel wall behind. Foetid breath steamed across Grimaldus's faceplate as the ork's attempt to roar came out as a panicked whine. The Astartes would not be appeased. His grip tightened.

' You dare desecrate our tongue?'

Again, he bashed the greenskin back, the alien's head splitting wide as it struck a girder.

The ork's struggles died immediately. Grimaldus let the creature fall to the metal decking, where it hit and folded with a muffled thud.

Priamus.

The fury was fading now. Reality asserted itself with cold, unwanted clarity. Priamus lay on the deck, head to the side, bleeding from his ears and open mouth. Grimaldus came to his side, kneeling there in the darkness.

'Nero,' he said quietly.

'Reclusiarch,' the younger knight returned.

' I have found Priamus. Aft, deck four, tertiary spine corridor.'

'On my way. Assessment?'

Grimaldus's targeting reticule flicked over his brother's prone body, then locked onto the scrap-weapon carried by the orks he'd killed.

'Some kind of force-discharging weapon. His armour is powered down, but he's still breathing. Both his hearts are beating.' This last part was the most serious aspect of the downed knight's condition. If his reserve heart had begun to beat, there must have been significant trauma done to Priamus's body.

'Three minutes, Reclusiarch.' There was the dampened suggestion of bolter fire.

'Resistance, Cador?' Grimaldus asked.

'Nothing of consequence.'

'Stragglers,' Nerovar clarified. 'Three minutes, Reclusiarch. No more than that.'

It was closer to two minutes. When Nerovar and Cador arrived at a run, they smelled of the chemical combat stimulants in their blood and the acrid tang of discharged bolters.

The Apothecary knelt by Priamus, scanning his fallen brother with the medical auspex bio-scanner built into his arm-mounted narthecium.

Grimaldus looked at Cador. The oldest member of the squad was reloading his bolt pistol, and muttering into the vox.

'Speak,' the Chaplain said. 'I would hear your thoughts.'

'Nothing, sir.'

Grimaldus felt his eyes narrow and teeth grind together. He almost repeated his words at an order. What held him back was not tact, but discipline. His rage still boiled beneath the surface. He was no mere knight, to give in to his emotion and remain flooded by it. As a Chaplain, he held himself to a higher standard. Putting the chill of normality into his voice, he said simply: 'We will speak of this later. I am not blind to your tensions of late.'

'As you wish, Reclusiarch,' Cador replied.

Priamus opened his eyes, and did two things at once. He reached for his sword - still chained to his wrist - and he said through tight lips, 'Those whoresons. They shot me.'

'Some kind of nerve weapon.' Nerovar was still scanning him. 'It attacked your nervous system through the interface feeds from your armour.'

'Get away from me,' the swordsman said, rising to his feet. Nerovar offered a hand, which Priamus knocked aside. 'I said get away!'

Grimaldus handed the knight his helm.

'If you are finished with your lone reconnaissance, perhaps you can stay with Nero and Cador this time.'

The pause that followed the Chaplain's words was pregnant with Priamus's bitterness.

'As you wish. My lord.'

When we emerge from the wrecked ship, the weak sun is rising, spreading its worthlessly dim light across the clouded heavens.

The rest of my force, the hundred knights of the Helsreach Crusade, is assembling in the wastelands around the broken ship's metal bones.

Three Land Raiders, six Rhinos, the air around them all thrumming with the chuckle of idling engines. I think, for a strange moment, that even our tanks are amused at the pathetic hunting on offer last night.

Kill-totals scroll across my visor display as squad leaders report the success of their hunts. A paltry night's work, all in all, but the mortals behind the city walls have the first blood they so ardently desired.

'You're not cheering,' Artarion voxes to me, and only me.

'Little was cleansed. Little was purified.'

'Duty is not always glorious,' he says, and I wonder if he refers to our exile on the planet's surface with those words.

'I presume that is a barbed reference for my benefit?'

'Perhaps.' He clambers aboard our Land Raider, still speaking from within. 'Brother, you have changed since inheriting Mordred's mantle.'

'You are speaking foolishness.'

'No. Hear me. We have spoken: Cador, Nero, Bastilan, Priamus and myself. And we have listened to the talk among the others. We must all deal with these changes, and we must all face this duty. Your darkness is spreading to the entire Crusade. One hundred warriors all fearing that the fire in your heart is naught but embers now.'

And for a moment, his words ring true. My blood runs cold. My heart chills in my chest.

'Reclusiarch,' a voice crackles over the vox. I do not immediately recognise it - Artarion's words have stolen my thoughts.

'Grimaldus. Speak.'

'Reclusiarch. Throne of the God-Emperor… It's truly beginning.' Colonel Sarren sounds awed, almost eager. 'Elaborate,' I tell him.

'Battlefleet Armageddon is in full retreat. The Astartes fleet is withdrawing alongside them.' The colonel's voice broke up in a storm of vox-feedback, only to return a moment later, '…breaking against the orbital defence array. Breaking through, already. It's beginning.'

' We are returning to the city at once. Has there been any communication from The Eternal Crusader?'

' Yes. The planetary vox-network is struggling to cope with the influx. Shall I have the message relayed to you?'

'At once, colonel.'

I embark and slam the Land Raider's side hatch closed. Within the tank, all is suffused in the muted darkness of emergency lighting. I stand with my squad, gripping the overhead rail as the tank starts with a lurch.

At last, after the vox-clicking of several channels being linked together, I hear the words of High Marshal Helbrecht, the brother I have fought beside for so many decades. His voice, even on a low-quality recording, is filled with his presence.

'Helsreach, this is the Crusader. We are breaking from the planet. The orbital war is lost. Repeat: the orbital war is lost. Grimaldus… once you hear these words, stand ready. You are Mordred's heir, and my trust rides with you. Hell is coming, brother. The Great Enemy's fleet is without number, but faith and fury will see your duty done.'

I curse him, without giving voice to my spite. A silent oath that I will never forgive him for this exile… For damning me to die in futility.

Behind his words, I hear the cacophony of a ship enduring colossal assault. Dull explosions, horrendous and thunderous shaking - The Eternal Crusader's shields were down when he sent me this message. I cannot conceive of any enemy in history that has managed to inflict such damage to our flagship.

'Grimaldus,' he says my name with cold, raw solemnity, and his final words knife into me like a bitter blade.

'Die well.'