Helsreach

once, her heart aching like it would burst. Hearing only that an enemy was nearby, she walked in the fluid, her limbs moving.

The Titan shook as it took another step.

'My princeps?' both moderati said at once.

I will have vengeance.

Even in her own mind, she could barely hear herself in the words. A mechanical overtone twinned with her thoughts – and it was protective in its overwhelming rage.

I

will have vengeance.

'

We will have vengeance.'

Tower blocks passed by its shoulders as the Titan strode on.

'My princeps,' began Carsomir, 'I recommend we hold here and wait for the skitarii to scout ahead.'

No. I will avenge Jacen.

'

No,' the vox-voice was harsh. 'We will avenge

Draconian.'

Blind to the disparity between her thoughts and the emerging voice, Zarha pushed onward. Voices assailed her, but these she cast aside with a brush of willpower. Never before had she felt it so easy to disregard the chattering, needy voices of her lesser kin. Valian's voice, coming from the cockpit chamber rather than the cognitive link, was another matter.

'My princeps, we are receiving requests for Communion.'

There will be no Communion. I hunt. Communion with the Legio can come tonight.

'

There will be no Communion. We hunt. Communion with the Legio can come tonight.'

With effort, Valian turned around in his restraint throne. The cables snaking from his skull's implant sockets turned with him, like a beast's many tails.

'My princeps, Princeps Veragon is dead and the Legio demands Communion.' In his voice was the edge of concern, but never panic, nor fear. The rest of the battle group desired the momentary sharing of focus and purpose - the unity of princeps and the souls of their engines - that was tradition in the aftermath of loss.

The Legio will wait.

I

hunger.

'

The Legio will wait. We hunger.'

Forwards. Ready main weapons. I smell the xenos from here.

Her voice emerged as a crackle of static, but

Stormherald

marched on.

While Carsomir was not a man prone to extremes of emotion, something cold and uncomfortable crawled through his thoughts as he turned back to watch the cityscape through the Titan's huge eye lenses.

He may not have been as connected to

Stormherald's

burning heart as the princeps was, but his own bonds with the god-walker were not devoid of intimate familiarity. Through his weaker tie to the engine's semi-sentient core, he felt a depth of fury that was almost addictive in its all- encompassing purity. The passion transferred through his empathic link into grim irritability, and he had to resist the urge to curse the inefficiency of those around him as he guided the Titan onwards. Knowing the cause of his distracted irritation was no balm for it.

The Titan's right foot came down on a street corner, pulverising a cargo conveyer truck into flat scrap.

Stormherald

turned with a majestic lack of speed, and hull-mounted pict- takers panned to show a wider avenue, and the afternoon sunlight glinting from

Stormherald's

burnished iron skin. Valian was immersed, just for a moment, in the wash of exterior imagery fed through the mind-link. Hundreds of pict-takers, each one showing pristine silvery skin, or dense armour - cracked and pitted with its legacy of small arms fire.

Ahead, down the wide avenue, was the enemy engine that blinked like a red- smeared migraine on the cockpit's auspex scanners. Valian shuddered at the sight of it, breathing deeply of the scent-thick cockpit air. As always, living within

Stormherald's

head smelled of oiled gears, ritual incense and the burning reek of crew members sweating and bleeding, their bodies exerted despite remaining motionless in their thrones.

The enemy scrap-Titan was grotesque - unappealing on a level that went far beyond mere design distaste to Valian. Its junk metal appearance showed no reverence, no respect, no care in its construction.

Stormherald's

iron bones were thrice-blessed by tech-ministers even before they were brought together as the skeleton of a god-machine. Each of the million cogs, gears, rivets and plates of armour used in the Imperator's birth was honed to perfection and blessed before becoming part of the Titan's body.

This avatar of perfection incarnate faced its hideous opposite, and every crewmember piloting the Titan felt disgust flow through them. The enemy engine was fat, big-belled to hold troops and ammunition loaders for its random array of torso cannons. Its head, in opposition to the Gothic-style machine skull worn by

Stormherald,

was stunted and flat, with cracked eye lenses and a heavy-jawed underbite. It stared pugnaciously down the street at the larger Imperial walker, its cannons covering its body like spines, and roared a challenge of its own.

It sounded exactly like what it was: an alien warleader within the cockpit head blaring into a vox-caster.

Stormherald

laughed in response, its warning sirens slamming back with a wall of sound.

In her tank of fluids, Zarha raised her arms, her hand-less stumps facing forward.

In the street, with an immense grinding of gear joints,

Stormherald

mirrored the motion.

It never fired. The trap, as crude and simple as it was, exploded around the great Titan.

'Y

our request for

reinforcement is acknowledged,' the voice crackled.

Ryken lowered the vox-mic, readying his lasrifle again.

'They're coming,' he hissed to Vantine. The other trooper was with him, crouched with her back to the wall, sharing his slice of cover. Her expression was unreadable, masked by her goggles and rebreather, but she gave the major a nod.

'You said that half an hour ago.'

'I know.' Ryken slammed a fresh cell into his lasgun. 'But they're coming.'

The wall behind them buckled as it took the brunt of another shell. Debris from