Free Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden Page B

bones, and slake my bloodthirst in holy slaughter.’
    The others, as they stood in their foolish ranks for the benefit of the mortals, had cheered. They had cheered .
    Priamus remained silent, swallowing the rise of bile in his throat. He had known in that moment, with clarity sharper than ever before, that he was unlike his brothers. They cared about shedding blood now, as if this pathetic gesture mattered.
    These warriors who called him vainglorious were blind to the truth: there was nothing vain in glory. He was not rash, he merely trusted in his skills to carry him through any challenge, just as the great Sigismund, First High Marshal of the Black Templars, had trusted his skills to do the same. Was that a weakness? Was it a flaw to exemplify the fury of the Chapter’s founder and the favoured son of Rogal Dorn? How could it be considered so, when Priamus’s deeds and glories were already rising to eclipse those of his brothers?
    Movement ahead.
    Priamus narrowed his eyes, his pupils flicking across his field of vision to lock targeting reticules on the brutish shapes swarming in the darkness of the wide, lightless corridor.
    Three greenskins, their xenos flesh exuding a greasy, fungal scent that reached the knight from a dozen metres away. They lay waiting in a puerile ambush, believing themselves hidden by fallen gantries and a half-destroyed bulkhead door.
    Priamus heard them grunting to one another in what passed for whispers in their foul tongue.
    This was the best they could do. This was their cunning ambush against warriors made in the Emperor’s image. The knight swore under his breath, the curse never leaving his helm, and charged.
    Artarion licked his steel teeth. I heard him doing it, even though he wears his helm.
    ‘Priamus?’ he asks. The vox answers with silence.
    Unlike the swordsman, I am not alone. I walked with Artarion, the two of us slaying our way through the enginarium decks. Resistance is light. Most of our venture so far has consisted of kicking xenos corpses out of our path, or butchering lone stragglers.
    Most of the Templars were sent across the wastelands in their Rhinos and Land Raiders, chasing down the crash survivors who sought to hide in the wilderness. I have given them their head, and let them hunt. Better the greenskins die now, rather than allow them to lie in wait and rejoin their bestial kin in the true invasion. I took only a handful of warriors into the downed cruiser to purge whatever remains.
    ‘Leave him be,’ I say to Artarion. ‘Let him hunt. He needs to stand alone for now.’
    Artarion pauses before answering. I know him well enough to know he is scowling. ‘He needs discipline.’
    ‘He needs our trust.’ My tone brooks no further argument.
    The ship is in pieces. The floor is uneven, torn and wrenched from the crash. We turn a corner, our boots clinging to the sloping decking as we head into a plasma generator’s coolant chamber. As huge as a cathedral’s prayer chamber, the expansive room is largely taken up by the cylindrical metal housing that encases the temperamental and arcane technology used for cooling the ship’s engines.
    I see nothing alive. I hear nothing alive. And yet…
    ‘I smell fresh blood,’ I vox to Artarion. ‘A survivor, still bleeding.’ I gesture to the vast coolant tower with my crozius. The mace flashes with lightning as I squeeze the trigger rune. ‘The alien lurks beneath there.’
    The survivor is barely deserving of the description. It lies pinned under metal debris, impaled through the stomach and pinned to the floor. As we approach, it barks in its rudimentary command of the Gothic tongue. Judging from the pool of cooling blood spreading from its sundered form, the alien’s life will end in mere minutes. Feral red eyes glare at us. Its porcine face is curled in a rictus of anger.
    Artarion raises his chainsword, gunning the motor. The saw-teeth whine as they cut through the air.
    ‘No.’
    Artarion freezes. At first, my