Land Raider, rose several metres off the ground. It crashed back to earth a moment later, blasting dust in all directions.
‘Sacrosanct awakens!’ came the cry from hundreds of vox-altered voices. ‘Sacrosanct walks!’
The Titan answered the worshipful cries of its cult below. It roared again, the cry blaring from its speaker horns and echoing across the wastelands.
As impressive as the sight was, it was not why Grimaldus had led his men out here. Their goal was larger still, dwarfing even these mighty Warlords, paying them no heed as they stood or walked around at the height of its weapon-arms.
It was called Stormherald.
The battle-class Titans were walking weapons platforms, capable of levelling hive blocks. Stormherald was a walking fortress. Its weapons could level cities. Its legs, capable of supporting the weight of this colossal sixty-metre war machine, were bastions – barracks – with turrets and arched windows for the troops transported within to fire at the foe even as their Titan crushed them underfoot. Upon its hunched back, Stormherald carried crenellated battlements and the seven spires of a sacred, armoured cathedral devoted to the Emperor in His aspect as the Machine-God. Gargoyles clung to the edges of the architecture, carved around defence turrets and stained glass windows, their hideous mouths open as they wailed silently at the enemy from their holy castle above the ground.
Banners hung from its cannon arms and the battlements themselves, listing the names of enemy war machines it had slain in the millennia since its birth. As the birth cry of Sacrosanct faded, the knights could hear the sound of religious communion in the fortress-cathedral on Stormherald’s giant shoulders, as pious souls no doubt beseeched their ethereal master for the blessing of the greatest god-machine waking once more.
The Titan’s clawed feet were tiered stairs leading into the armoured chambers of its lower legs. With the immense structure still unmoving, Grimaldus made his way through scores of scurrying menial tech-priests and servitors. As his booted foot thudded down on the first stair layer, the resistant welcome he was expecting finally made itself known.
‘Hold,’ he said to his brothers. Troops, their features covered, filed from the archways into the Titan’s limb-innards. The knights’ attempted entrance was blocked by Mechanicus minions.
The soldiers facing them were called skitarii. These were the elite of the Adeptus Mechanicus infantry forces – a fusion of integrated weapon augmetics and the human form. Grimaldus, like many Astartes, regarded their unsubtle flesh-manipulation and the crude surgeries bestowing weapons upon their limbs as making them little more than glorified servitors, and equally wretched in their own way.
Twelve of these bionic creatures, their skin robed against the wind, levelled thrumming plasma weapons at the five knights.
‘I am Grimaldus, Reclusiarch of the Black Tem–’
—Your identity is known to us— they all spoke at once. There was little unity in the chorus of voices, with some sounding unnaturally deep, others inhuman and mechanical, still others perfectly human.
‘The next time I am interrupted,’ the knight warned, ‘I will kill one of you.’
—We are not to be threatened— all twelve said, still in unison, still in a chorus of unmatching voices.
‘Neither are you to be addressed. You are nothing; slaves, all of you, barely above servitors. Now move aside. I have business with your mistress.’
—We are not to be ordered into submission. We are to remain as duty demands—
A human would have missed the division within their unified speech, but Grimaldus’s senses could trace the minute deviations in the way they spoke. Four of them started and finished words a fraction of a second later than the others. Whatever mind-link bound the twelve warriors, it was more efficient in some than others. While his experience with the servants of the
‘Sacrosanct awakens!’ came the cry from hundreds of vox-altered voices. ‘Sacrosanct walks!’
The Titan answered the worshipful cries of its cult below. It roared again, the cry blaring from its speaker horns and echoing across the wastelands.
As impressive as the sight was, it was not why Grimaldus had led his men out here. Their goal was larger still, dwarfing even these mighty Warlords, paying them no heed as they stood or walked around at the height of its weapon-arms.
It was called Stormherald.
The battle-class Titans were walking weapons platforms, capable of levelling hive blocks. Stormherald was a walking fortress. Its weapons could level cities. Its legs, capable of supporting the weight of this colossal sixty-metre war machine, were bastions – barracks – with turrets and arched windows for the troops transported within to fire at the foe even as their Titan crushed them underfoot. Upon its hunched back, Stormherald carried crenellated battlements and the seven spires of a sacred, armoured cathedral devoted to the Emperor in His aspect as the Machine-God. Gargoyles clung to the edges of the architecture, carved around defence turrets and stained glass windows, their hideous mouths open as they wailed silently at the enemy from their holy castle above the ground.
Banners hung from its cannon arms and the battlements themselves, listing the names of enemy war machines it had slain in the millennia since its birth. As the birth cry of Sacrosanct faded, the knights could hear the sound of religious communion in the fortress-cathedral on Stormherald’s giant shoulders, as pious souls no doubt beseeched their ethereal master for the blessing of the greatest god-machine waking once more.
The Titan’s clawed feet were tiered stairs leading into the armoured chambers of its lower legs. With the immense structure still unmoving, Grimaldus made his way through scores of scurrying menial tech-priests and servitors. As his booted foot thudded down on the first stair layer, the resistant welcome he was expecting finally made itself known.
‘Hold,’ he said to his brothers. Troops, their features covered, filed from the archways into the Titan’s limb-innards. The knights’ attempted entrance was blocked by Mechanicus minions.
The soldiers facing them were called skitarii. These were the elite of the Adeptus Mechanicus infantry forces – a fusion of integrated weapon augmetics and the human form. Grimaldus, like many Astartes, regarded their unsubtle flesh-manipulation and the crude surgeries bestowing weapons upon their limbs as making them little more than glorified servitors, and equally wretched in their own way.
Twelve of these bionic creatures, their skin robed against the wind, levelled thrumming plasma weapons at the five knights.
‘I am Grimaldus, Reclusiarch of the Black Tem–’
—Your identity is known to us— they all spoke at once. There was little unity in the chorus of voices, with some sounding unnaturally deep, others inhuman and mechanical, still others perfectly human.
‘The next time I am interrupted,’ the knight warned, ‘I will kill one of you.’
—We are not to be threatened— all twelve said, still in unison, still in a chorus of unmatching voices.
‘Neither are you to be addressed. You are nothing; slaves, all of you, barely above servitors. Now move aside. I have business with your mistress.’
—We are not to be ordered into submission. We are to remain as duty demands—
A human would have missed the division within their unified speech, but Grimaldus’s senses could trace the minute deviations in the way they spoke. Four of them started and finished words a fraction of a second later than the others. Whatever mind-link bound the twelve warriors, it was more efficient in some than others. While his experience with the servants of the
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