Helsreach

name='FontStyle46'>Truth's Tenacity.

It was the colonisation seeding ship that brought the settlers to Helsreach. The four pillars house a void shield generator system, protecting the tome. This is the Major Altar. Sermons are given here, among the city's most precious relics.'

I look at the tome's curled, age-browned pages. Then at the archive banner once more.

Last of all, I replace my helm, coating my senses in the selective vision of targeting sights and filtered sounds.

'You have my thanks, prioress. I appreciate what you have shown me here.'

'Am I to expect any more of your kind arriving to bolster us, Astartes?'

I think, for a moment, of Jurisian, bringing the Ordinatus Armageddon overland, uncrewed, at minimal power and of little to no use once it arrives.

'One more. He returns to join us and fight by our sides.'

'Then I bid you welcome to the Temple of the Emperor Ascendant, Reclusiarch. How do you plan to defend this holy place?'

'We are past the point of retreat now, Sindal. No finesse, no tactics, no long speeches to rally the faint of heart and those that fear the end. I plan to kill until I am killed, because that is all that remains for us here.'

B

oth the

R

eclusiarch

and the prioress turned at the pounding upon the door.

Grimaldus blink-clicked the rune to bring his vox channels live again, but it wasn't any of his brothers seeking his attention.

Prioress Sindal waved her hand in a magnanimous gesture, as if there were a crowd to impress. 'Do come in.'

The great metal-wrought doors rumbled open on clean but heavy hinges. Eight men stood framed by the doors and the austere corridor beyond. Each of them bore a filthy share of blood, mud, soot and oil stains. They carried lasguns with the practiced ease of men who had become utterly familiar with the weapons, and all but two of them wore dirty blue dockworkers' overalls. One of those that did not was dressed in the robes of a priest, but not the cream and blue weave of the temple's own residents. He was from off- world.

The leader of the group raised his goggles, letting them clack back on the top of his helmet. He regarded the knight with wide eyes.

'They said you would be here,' the storm-trooper said. 'I beg the many forgivings of this holy place for my intrusion, but I bring news, yes? Do not be angry. The vox is still playing many unamusing games and I could not speak with anyone in any other way.'

'Speak, Legionnaire,' said Grimaldus.

'The beasts, they are coming in great force. Many are not far behind us, and I have heard vox-chatter that Invigilata is leaving the city.'

'Why would they leave us?' the prioress asked, horrified.

'They would quit the city at once,' Grimaldus admitted, 'if Princeps Zarha was gone. Mechanicus politics.'

'She is gone, Reclusiarch,' Andrej finished. 'An hour ago, we saw

Stormherald

die.'

Behind the Guardsman, a warrior-maiden in the white power armour of the Order of the Argent Shroud caught her breath, staring at the prioress with her features flushed. 'Prioress!'

'Take a breath, Sister Maralin.'

'We've received word from the 101st Steel Legion! Invigilata's Titans are abandoning Helsreach!'

Andrej looked at the newcomer as if she had announced that gravity was a myth. He shook his head slowly, a deep and solemn pity written across his face.

'You are late, little girl.'

T

he first wave

to break against the walls was not a horde of the enemy.

Close-range vox detected them first, with reports of elements from three Steel Legion regiments engaged in panicked retreat. Grimaldus responded with the temple's vox-systems, boosted far beyond what the squad-to-squad comms systems were currently capable of.

He gave the order to any Helsreach forces receiving the message to fall back to the Temple of the Emperor Ascendant, abandoning any further struggle to hold the few remaining sectors in the Ecclesiarchy District. Several lieutenants and captains sent affirmative responses in reply, including a captain of the hive militia still leading over a hundred men.

The fleeing Imperials began to arrive less than an hour later.

G

rimaldus stood with

Bayard at the gates, looking out into the city. A dark-hulled Baneblade command tank rolled past, guided into the graveyard sector by a platoon of Guardsmen waving directions to the driver. Behind it, a cadre of Leman Russ battle tanks with various turret weapons trundled in loose formation. Mingling between the rolling armour and trailing behind were several hundred Legionnaires, ochre-clad and visibly weary. Wounded were being stretchered by their fellows in serious numbers, and there were plenty of wails and moans calling out over the grind of tank engines.

Two soldiers passed by the watching knights, bearing the writhing body of a junior officer on a cloth stretcher. The man had lost an arm and a leg, at the elbow and knee respectively. His face was a contorted mess of whatever he really looked like, his visage ruined by the pain flowing through him.

One of the stretcher-bearers nodded to Grimaldus as he passed, and muttered a respectful ''Reclusiarch''.

The Templar nodded back.

'Fought with them?' Bayard asked over the vox.

'Desert Vultures. I was with them when the first walls fell. Good men, all.'

'Very few left,' Bayard said, a strange edge to his voice.

Grimaldus turned his skulled face to the Champion. 'There will be enough. Have faith in your brothers' blades, Bayard.'

'I have faith. I am sanguine with my fate, Chaplain.'

'My rank is Reclusiarch. Use it.'

'By your will, brother, of course. But we stand vigil over the city's death with a handful of bleeding humans, Reclusiarch. I am sanguine, but I am also a realist.'

Grimaldus's vox-snarl drew stares from the soldiers passing nearby. 'Have faith in the people of this city, Champion. Such condescension is beneath you. We are the last guardians of the relics prized by the first of Armageddon's colonists. These people are fighting for more than their homes and lives. They are fighting for their ancestors' honour, on the holiest ground in the entire world. The survivors of this war across the globe will take heart from sacrifices made by the thousands destined to die here. Blood of Dorn, Bayard… the Imperium was

born