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
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.'
'He is shaken by Mordred's death,' Jurisian had pressed. 'He seeks his place in the Eternal Crusade.'
Helbrecht had sat musing on his throne, his cold eyes lowering the temperature of the room.
'In the coming war, I will give him the chance to find that place.'
Jurisian had spoken no more, and inclined his head in a bow. The Emperor's Champion was not so subdued, and had put forward his recommendations for warriors other than Grimaldus to succeed Mordred.
The High Marshal had kept his own counsel, but the voices of the Sword Brethren around Helbrecht's dais sounded out in jeers as fists crashed against shields. Grimaldus was the chosen of Mordred the Avenger, and skilled in personal combat beyond question. Two centuries of valour and glory; two hundred years of unrelenting courage and a host of enemy dead across a horde of worlds; his short years as the youngest Sword Brother in the history of the Chapter - there was no arguing with such truths.
Jurisian and Bayard had relented. The following night, they watched Grimaldus accept Mordred's mantle.
tilted as it rose over an ash dune, the anti-grav field changing its tone to a more strained whine.
On the horizon, a blanket of blackness rose from a burning city.
'Reclusiarch,' he voxed, trying once more to speak with the warrior that did not deserve the title he now carried.
L
eaving the
T
itan
had proved less of a trial than Asavan had feared.
He'd managed it two days ago, and had been on the streets of the city ever since. All it had taken was a slow descent through the decks, and what felt like about eight million spiral staircases, each one shaped from dense bronze and riveted heavily to the walls.
Well. Perhaps closer to four staircases. But by the time Asavan was approaching ground level, he was blinking sweat from his eyes and cursing his lack of fitness. On the Titan's lower levels, all was emergency red lighting, narrow corridors, and stuffy air filled with the smell of sacred incense holy to the Machine-God, as well as His disciples chanting blessings in His name. Through their devotion was
empowered. Praise be.
'Halt,' a machine-voice barked, and Asavan did exactly as he was told. He even raised his hands in the air, mimicking some unnecessary surrender.
'What are you doing here?' the voice demanded.
was at the base of the Titan's pelvis, in one of the lowest accessible chambers, lit by a flickering yellow siren light. Six augmented skitarii stood stationed around a bulkhead in the floor. The room itself rocked back and forth, tilting with the Titan's tread.
'I'm leaving the Titan,' the priest said.
The skitarii glanced at each other with focus lenses instead of eyes. The air buzzed with inter-vox communication. They were confused. This… this made no sense.
'You are leaving the Titan,' one of them, apparently their leader, said. His eye lenses revolved, scanning the unaugmented human.
'Yes.'
More vox-chatter. The leader, his face noticeably more bionic than the others', emitted a blurt of machine code. Asavan knew an error/abort complaint when he heard one.
'
is engaged in locomotive activity.'
Asavan was aware of this. The entire room was, after all, moving. 'The Titan is walking. I know. I still wish to leave. This service maintenance ladder will take me down the left leg struts to the shin-fortress, will it not?'
'It would,' the skitarii leader allowed.
'Then please excuse me. I must be going.'
'Halt.' Asavan did, again, but he was growing tired of this. 'You wish to leave the Titan,' the skitarii repeated. 'But… why?'
This was hardly the ideal setting for a debate on crises of faith and the sudden revelatory desire to walk among the city's people and help them with one's own hands.
Asavan reached for the medallion around his neck, marking him as an honoured member of the Ecclesiarchy of Terra and a minister ordained to preach the word of the Emperor in His aspect as the Machine-God of Mars.
The skitarii stared at the icon for several moments - the double-headed eagle and the divided skull backing it - and lowered their weapons.
'My thanks,' the sweating priest said. 'Now if it's not too much trouble, could you open that bulkhead for me?'
His stomach lurched at the sight beyond the opened trapdoor. Beneath, the broken rockcrete of Hel's Highway passed by, a good twenty-five metres down. Pudgy hands gripped the black iron service ladder as he descended, rung by rung, through the wind, hanging on to the Titan's thigh. Above him, the bulkhead slammed with a chime of finality.
So be it. Down, he went.
Behind the god-machine's knee, another bulkhead blocked his descent into the bulky lower leg section. Below, Asavan heard the servos of turrets mounted on the shin-walls panning back and forth, seeking targets.
It took almost a full minute to work the bulkhead's wheel lock, but he was energised now, drawing close to his objective. Once more, he descended into red-lit, downward spiralling corridors, avoiding the troop chambers where ranks of skitarii stood in tomb-like silence.
The Titan's movement now was almost unbearable, slamming him to the wall and rocking him from his feet on several occasions. This low, the gravitic stabilisers were little use against the sheer degree of movement necessary for each leg to make. His surroundings rumbled with sickening violence every eleven seconds, as the foot came down on the road below. Asavan vomited against a wall, and tried not to laugh. He was trying to keep his balance while walking through the steel bones in the ankle of a striding machine giant. Perhaps this wasn't such a wonderful idea, after all.
And now came the hardest part.
This last bulkhead opened onto the Titan's tiered claw-toes, which formed steps by which the skitarii battalions in the leg-fortresses could ascend and descend, when
was at
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