Helsreach

None of us are seated now. The siren's drone has been lowered to less inconvenient levels, and speech is a realistic possibility for the unenhanced human officers once again.

'I am going to the view-tower,' I inform them. 'I wish to look upon this problem with my own eyes. Is the moderati primus still within the hive?'

'Yes, Reclusiarch.'

'Tell him meet to me there.' I pause as I stride from the room, and look back over my shoulder. 'Be polite, but do not ask. Tell him.'

CHAPTER IV Invigilata

Moderati Primus Valian

Carsomir scratched at the greying stubble that darkened his jawline. His time was limited, and he had made that clear.

'

You

are not alone in that position,' Grimaldus pointed out.

Carsomir smiled darkly, though not without empathy. 'The difference, Reclusiarch, is that I do not intend to die here. My princeps majoris is still in doubt if Invigilata will walk for Helsreach.'

The knight moved to the railing, his armour joints humming with the gentle motions. The viewing platform was a modest space atop the central spire of the command fortress, but Grimaldus had spent much of his time up here each night, staring over the hive as it made ready for war.

In the faded distance, over the city walls, his gene-enhanced sight could make out the skeletal details of Titans on the horizon. There, in the wastelands, Invigilata's engines also made ready. Fat-hulled landers made the wallowing journey back into orbit as part of the final phase of Imperial deployment. Soon, within a matter of days, there would be no hope of landing anything more on the planet's surface.

'This is the greatest of Armageddon's port cities. We are about to be assaulted by the largest greenskin-breed xenos invasion ever endured by the Imperium of Man.' The Astartes did not turn to the Titan pilot. He watched the gigantic war machines, blurred by the sandy mist of distant dust storms. 'We must have Titans, Carsomir.'

The officer stepped alongside the Astartes, his bionic eyes - both with lenses of multifaceted jade set in bronze mountings - clicking and whirring as he followed the knight's gaze over the city and beyond.

'I am aware of your need.'

'

My

need? It is the hive's need. Armageddon's need.'

'As you say, the hive's need. But I am not the princeps majoris. I report on the hive's defences to her, and the decision is hers to make. Invigilata has received strong petitions from other cities, and other forces.'

Grimaldus closed his eyes in thought. Unblinking, his skulled helm continued to stare at the distant Titans.

'I must speak with her.'

'I am her eyes, ears and voice, Reclusiarch. What I know, she knows; what I say, she has bid me speak. If you wish, I could - perhaps - arrange a conversation over the vox. But I am here - a man of not inconsiderable station myself - to show that Invigilata is earnest in its dealings with you.'

Grimaldus said nothing for several seconds.

'I appreciate that. I am not blind to your rank. Tell me, moderati, is it permissible to speak with your princeps majoris in person?'

'No, Reclusiarch. That would be a violation of Invigilata tradition.'

Grimaldus's brown eyes opened once more, drinking in the scarce detail of the war machines on the horizon.

'

You objection is noted,' the knight said, 'and duly ignored.'

'

What?' the Titan pilot said, not sure he heard correctly.

Grimaldus didn't answer. He was already speaking into the vox.

'Artarion, ready the Land Raider. We're going out into the wastelands.'

Four hours later

, Grimaldus and his brothers stood in the shadows cast by giants.

A light dust storm sent grit rattling against their war plate, which they ignored as easily as Grimaldus had ignored Carsomir's offended protests about the nature of this mission.

Crews of servitors laboured at the ground level, and while they were mind- wiped never to process or acknowledge physical discomfort, the abrasive wasteland grit was rubbing their exposed skin raw, and crudely sandblasting mechanical parts.

The Titans themselves stood watch over the wastelands in austere vigil - nineteen of them in total, ranging from the smaller twelve-crew Warhound-classes, to the larger Reaver- and Warlord-classes. Godlike, immune to the elements, the Titans were bedecked in the crawling forms of tech-adepts and maintenance drones performing the rites of awakening.

Despite their slumber, it was anything but silent. The grinding, deafening machine-whine of internal plasma reactors trying to start was a sound from primordial nightmare, ripped right from worlds where humans feared gigantic reptilian predators and their ground-shaking roars.

It was all too easy to imagine hundreds of robed tech-priests within the fleet of Titans, chanting and praying to their Machine-God and the spirits of these slumbering war-giants. As Grimaldus and his brothers walked in the shade cast by one Warlord, the relentless grind of metal on metal became a full- throated thunderclap that broke the air like a sonic boom. Heated air blasted outwards from the Titan's hull, and around the site, thousands of men instantly fell to their knees in the sand, facing the Titan and murmuring their reverence in the aftershock of its rebirth.

The Titan's birth cry rang out through its warning sirens. The sound was somewhere between pure mechanical sound and organic exultation; as loud as a hundred manufactories with a full workforce, and as terrible as the wrath of a newborn god.

It moved. Not with speed, but with the halting, unsure strides of a man that has not used his muscles in many months. One splayed claw of a foot, easily huge enough to crush a Land Raider, rose several metres off the ground. It crashed back to earth a moment later, blasting dust in all directions.

'

Sacrosanct awakens!'

came the cry from hundreds of vox-altered voices. '

Sacrosanct walks!'

The Titan answered the worshipful cries of its cult below. It roared again, the cry blaring from its speaker horns and echoing across the wastelands.

As impressive as the sight was, it was not why Grimaldus had led his men out here. Their goal was larger still, dwarfing even these mighty Warlords, paying them no heed as they stood or