Mechanicum

Cavalerio's brothers fought under the command of Lord Guilliman, and he could think of no better warrior to lead so august a Legio. He and the few Battle Titans now back on Mars were approaching the end of their refit after campaigning in the Epsiloid Binary Cluster against the green skin and would soon rejoin the war to assure humanity's birthright to rule the stars.

He eagerly awaited their redeployment, for life beyond the cockpit of a Titan was made up of long moments of incompleteness, every experience deadened. His physical surroundings were bland and tasteless without first being filtered through the Manifold of his Battle Titan.

The moment of connection with an engine was painful, as though it resented the time spent separated from its commander, and it took time to wrestle the warlike heart of the machine to compliance. But once that union had been achieved… oh, how like a god did it feel to be master of the battlefield and lord of so terrible and mighty a power?

Separation was no less painful; the angry need of the Titan to walk made it disinclined to allow its commander to leave without punishment. Aching bones, thudding headaches and searing dislocation were the hallmarks of a separation, and each time was harder than the last.

For now, it was possible for Cavalerio to retain some semblance of humanity, to walk as a man, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he would require a more permanent enmeshing within an amniotic float-tank of liquid information.

The thought terrified him.

He shook off such fears as he saw a ripple of motion near the floor of the chamber and heard a murmur of agitation pass through the Chamber of the First.

Cavalerio looked down from the gallery, seeing two warriors in long dark cloaks and grinning skull-faced helmets stride into the chamber with purpose and strength.

Legio Mortis had arrived.

'You deny that your order took part in the attack on Adept Maximal's reactor?' demanded Lord Commander Caturix. 'That engines of the Legio Mortis wilfully destroyed an artefact of technology and endangered the lives of warriors from the Knights of Taranis?'

'Of course I do,' snapped Princeps Camulos, his hooded features making no secret of his disdain for the accusation and his accuser. Despite Verticorda's cautious welcome to the assembly, Caturix had wasted no time in setting the tone by marching straight towards the senior princeps of the Legio Mortis and all but calling him out for the damage done to his warriors in the reactor's explosion.

Cavalerio watched the young lord commander, the youngest in the history of the Knights of Taranis, sneer at Princeps Camulos's answer, plainly disbelieving what he was hearing.

He watched as Caturix circled like a shark in the water with the scent of blood, forced to admire his nerve in facing down so senior a princeps.

Men had been rendered down into servitors for less.

Legio Mortis's disdain for the Knight orders was well known, as was their reluctance to share power in the Tharsis region from their fortress within Pavonis Mons. With the destruction of Adept Maximal's forge, it would be difficult for many of the local warrior orders to remain viable - leaving Mortis the undisputed masters of Tharsis, one of the most abundant and productive regions of Mars.

All of which was enough for the finger of suspicion to point squarely at Legio Mortis, but not enough to hang them. Mortis and Tempestus had long been rivals for dominance of Tharsis, but was that enough to condemn Camulos and openly damn his Legio with this new atrocity?

Camulos was a towering bear of a man, more suited at first glance to be the chieftain of a tribe of bloodthirsty barbarian warriors, but his sheer self-belief and aggressive nature made him a natural Titan commander, easily able to bend the will of a war machine to his own. His armour was black and glistening as though lacquered, the death's head emblem upon his broad shoulder guards a gruesome testament to his Legio's famed ruthlessness.

'I did not come here to be barked at,' snarled Camulos. 'Keep your young pup on a tight leash, Verticorda, or I may break him for you.'

Verticorda nodded slowly. 'The question is withdrawn, honourable princeps.'

Caturix whipped his head around to face his fellow lord commander, but a stern glare from Verticorda silenced the angry outburst that Cavalerio saw gathering in his throat.

'This council is not a trial or indeed any kind of inquiry,' continued Verticorda, his voice laden with centuries of authority and redolent with wisdom. 'It is an organised debate whereby the warrior orders of the Tharsis region might gather to discuss the troubles afflicting our world and decide how to meet them without further bloodshed. Adept Maximal has suffered a grievous loss to his holdings, but we are not gathered here to assign blame, but to see how we, as the guardians of Mars, might avoid such things in the future.'