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May 15, 2024 02:11
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- The Rat
- Aug 29, 2004
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You will find no one to help you here. Beth DuClare has been dissected and placed in cryonic storage.
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The author of that, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, is legit good. He only writes 40k stuff though, so it makes him kind of hard to recommend to non-40k goons. This one is probably the best stand-alone novel that isn't part of some larger series.
quote:The city was ready. The enemy was coming. It was time to face up to why he was exiled here.
Grimaldus took a step up onto the battlements.
The wind was strong – an atmospheric disturbance from so many heavy craft making planetfall – but despite the powerful gale that whipped the greatcoats of the human soldiers, Grimaldus remained steady.
He walked along the edge of the wall, his weapons drawn and activated. The generator coils on the back of his plasma pistol burned with fierce light, and his crozius maul sparked with lethal force. As he moved, the eyes of the soldiers followed him. The wind tore at his tabard and the parchment scrolls fastened to his armour. He paid no heed to the anger of the elements.
‘Do you see that?’ he asked quietly.
At first, only silence followed. Hesitantly, the Guard soldiers began to cast glances to each other, uncomfortable with the Chaplain’s presence and confused by his behaviour.
All eyes were on him now. Grimaldus aimed his mace out at the advancing hordes. Thousands. Tens of thousands. And only the very beginning.
‘Do you see that?’ he roared at the humans. The closest ranks flinched back from the mechanical bark that issued almost deafeningly loud from his skull helm.
‘Answer me!’
He received several trembling nods. ‘Yes, sir…’ uttered a handful of them, the speakers faceless within the masses behind their rebreather masks.
Grimaldus turned back to the wasteland, already dark with the teeming, chaotic ranks of the enemy. At first, his helm emitted a low, vox-distorted chuckle. Within a few seconds, he was laughing, laughing up at the burning sky while aiming his crozius hammer at the enemy.
‘Are you all as insulted as I am? This is what they send against us?’
He turned back to the men, the laughter fading, but amused contempt filling his voice even through the inhumanising vocalisers of his helm.
‘This is what they send? This rabble? We hold one of the mightiest cities on the face of the planet. The fury of its guns sends all skyborne enemies to the ground in flames. We stand united in our thousands – our weapons without number, our purity without question, and our hearts beating courage through our blood. And this is how they attack us?
‘Brothers and sisters… A legion of beggars and alien dregs wheezes its way across the plains. Forgive me when the moment comes that they whine and weep against our walls. Forgive me that I must order you to waste ammunition upon their worthless bodies.’
Grimaldus paused, lowering his weapon at last, turning his back on the invaders as if bored by their very existence. His entire attention was focussed upon the soldiers below him.
‘I have heard many souls speak my name in whispers since I came to Helsreach. I ask you now: Do you know me?’
‘Yes,’ several voices replied, several among the hundreds.
‘Do you know me?’ he bellowed at them over the firing of the wall-guns.
‘Yes!’ a chorus answered now.
‘I am Grimaldus of the Black Templars! A brother to the Steel Legions of this defiant world!’
A muted cheer greeted his words. It wasn’t enough, not even close.
‘Never again in life will your actions carry such consequence. Never again will you serve as you serve now. No duty will matter as much, and no glory will taste as true.
We are the defenders of Helsreach. On this day, we carve our legend in the flesh of every alien we slay. Will you stand with me?’
Now the cheers came in truth. They thundered in the air around him.
‘Will you stand with me?’
Again, a roar.
‘Sons and daughters of the Imperium! Our blood is the blood of heroes and martyrs! The xenos dare defile our city? They dare tread the sacred soil of our world?
We will throw their bodies from these walls when the final day dawns!’
A wave of noise crashed against his armour as they cheered. Grimaldus raised his war maul, aiming it to the embattled heavens.
‘This is our city! This is our world! Say it! Say it! Cry it out so the bastards in orbit will hear our fury! Our city! Our world!’
‘OUR CITY! OUR WORLD!’
Laughing again, Grimaldus turned to face the oncoming horde. ‘Run, alien dogs!
Come to me! Come to us all! Come and die in blood and fire!’
‘BLOOD AND FIRE!’
The Reclusiarch cut the air with his crozius, as if ordering his men forward. ‘For the Templars! For the Steel Legion! For Helsreach!’
‘FOR HELSREACH!’
‘Louder!’
‘FOR HELSREACH!’
‘They cannot hear you, brothers!’
‘FOR HELSREACH!’
‘Hurl yourselves at these walls, inhuman filth! Die on our blades! I am Grimaldus of the Black Templars, and I will cast your carcasses from these holy walls!’
‘GRIMALDUS! GRIMALDUS! GRIMALDUS!’
Grimaldus nodded, still staring out over the wastelands, letting the cheering chant mix with the howling wind, knowing it would carry to the advancing enemy.
quote:‘We’re all dead,’ a voice spoke out.
‘What did you say?’ Commissar Falkov sneered.
‘We have done all that can be done.’ The protests came from an overweight lieutenant in the uniform of the conscripted militia forces. He was calm, sanguine even, speaking with what he hoped was measured wisdom. ‘Throne, three hundred enemy vessels? My men are stationed at the docks, and we know what we can do there. But the defences are as thin as… as… drat it, there are no defences there. We must evacuate the city, surely. We’ve done all we can.’
Commissar Falkov’s dark stormcoat swished as he reached for his sidearm. He never got the chance to execute the lieutenant for cowardice. A snarling, immense blur of blackness sliced across the room. With a crash, the lieutenant was slammed back against the wall, held a metre off the ground, short legs kicking, as the Reclusiarch gripped his throat in one hand.
‘Thirty-six days, you wretched worm. Thirty-six days of defiance, and thousands upon thousands of heroes lie dead. You dare speak of retreat when the day finally comes for you to spill the enemy’s blood?’
The lieutenant gagged as he was strangled. Colonel Sarren, Cyria Tyro and the other officers watched in silence. No one turned away.
‘Hnk. Agh. Ss.’ He fought for breath that wouldn’t come as he stared into the silver replica of the God-Emperor’s death mask. Grimaldus leaned closer, his skulled face leering, blocking out all other sight.
‘Where would you run, coward? Where would you hide that the Emperor would not see your shame and spit on your soul when your worthless life is finally at an end? ’
‘Pl– Please.’
‘Do not shame yourself further by begging for a life you do not deserve.’
Grimaldus tensed his hand, his fingers snapping closed with wet snaps. In his grip, the lieutenant went into spasms, then thumped to the floor as the knight released his grip. The Reclusiarch strode back to the table, ignoring the fallen body.
It took several seconds for conversation to resume. When it did, Falkov saluted the Reclusiarch. Grimaldus ignored it.
I love this poo poo.
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Oct 29, 2015 08:57
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Oct 29, 2015 08:21
