Trial of the Mountain

The Iron Skull Archmagos stumbled and crawled to the sealed hatch, clinging to it.

Through a palm-wide blastproof window, he watched as two Titan Adjutants supported Li Qinwu and led him deeper into the cockpit.

He let out an enraged roar:

"I served you for twenty years! Twenty whole years!! Do you really not have a single word to say to me?

Just one word. I only want one word, I'm begging you!!"

The two Titan Adjutants supporting Li Qinwu stopped. They turned back and looked calmly at the hysterical Iron Skull Archmagos.

Because the Titan was sealed inside and out, their voices could not carry through. So they spoke to the Iron Skull Archmagos with their lips:

"We are components."

"Components are not responsible for thinking."

"We are only responsible for operating!"

With that, the two led Li Qinwu through the isolation door. It closed, completely cutting off the Iron Skull Archmagos's despairing gaze.

He collapsed onto the Titan's armor, his eyes vacant.

Even the violent mushroom cloud erupting in the distance failed to make his mechanical pupils contract.

The shockwave from the nuclear blast swept over him, blowing his worm-like body off the Titan's armor and sending him crashing hard onto the railway tracks below. Yet he did not move.

He was not dead, but he felt as though he were.

He lay on the tracks, head tilted back, looking up at the towering Titan with numb eyes.

The surviving Tech-Priests and Skitarii around him gathered in silence, waiting for orders.

After Li Qinwu climbed aboard the Titan, the Astartes withdrew with the bodies of their fallen comrades.

The escort mission had been completed. The Astartes were now fighting the Greenskin Orks on the front lines.

Their hearts were filled with grief and fury, but that rage had