“Why will you not go?” Leto had asked him.
“I swore an oath of service to the guilds of Perdus Skylla. My leadership will be needed in the evacuation effort. It sends a message to the guilds, and the populace, if I remain.”
“Then I shall remain with you, sir,” said the boy.
Polio had promoted him to be his adjutant, and had been pleasantly surprised to find that the young man adapted to his role admirably.
Polio sighed, picked up the reports and flicked them to Leto. The young man caught them awkwardly, and scanned their contents. The guildmaster poured himself another drink as his adjutant looked at the first of the reports. Leto looked up in shock, his face pale.
“Keep reading,” said Guildmaster Polio.
The reports contained disturbing information: evidence of slaughter in three of the main mid-ice access highways that linked the Phorcys starport to the guilds. The attacks had occurred just hours earlier, and there had been no survivors nor any eyewitnesses. It was impossible to gauge the number of casualties, but there was something in the realm of twelve thousand citizens reported missing. Thousands more had been killed in the stampede to get out of the tunnels, and the Skyllan Interdiction Forces had shut the access tunnels down, pending an armoured investigation.
Three guilds, two of them major houses, had no direct access to the evacuation freighters. That translated as almost four million people, trapped on Perdus Skylla until the tunnels were opened, for it would be almost impossible for them to make the journey on foot.
Three days had been the estimate before the xenos fleet made planet-fall. It had been a logistical impossibility to evacuate all of Perdus Skylla in that time, but now with access tunnels locked down?
Guildmaster Polio was a realist. He did not delude himself into thinking that he ever had even half a chance of getting more than perhaps twenty per cent of the population of Perdus Skylla off-world; there were just not enough ships to facilitate the evacuation. He cursed the bureaucracy of the Administratum that had given his world such callously short notice of its doom.
He had finished his glass of amasec by the time his adjutant had read through all the despatches.
“What does it mean, master?” asked Leto, his face pale.
“It means,” said Polio, cradling his empty glass, “that there are enemy forces already on Perdus Skylla.”
“The… the tyranids?”
“I don’t think so, no,” said Leto. “Something entirely else.”
With a sound akin to the birth-scream of a fledgling god, the Infidus Diabolus ripped through the skin of the warp and entered real-space. Flickering arcs of energy danced across its hull, coalescing over the towering spires and cathedrals devoted to the dark gods of the ether. The full awesome majesty of the strike cruiser slipped from the protective womb of the immaterium, and the rift was sealed behind it.
Within the bridge of the colossal vessel, Marduk and Kol Badar leaned over the flickering data-screens before them, studying the stream of information being relayed. They saw an image of the sub-system, spinning slowly, and flashes of light began to appear, marking the positions of planets, ships and radiation fields.
Remnants of the warp remained within the ship, and scenes of depravity and bloodshed flashed up over the screens, momentarily disrupting the feed of information. For a fraction of a second, the screens showed a skinless face, its eyes on fire and its cheeks pierced by blades, before they returned to normal. A moment later, the screens flashed again, and an image of a writhing, blood-soaked figure appeared on the pict screens for less than a tenth of a second, accompanied by the blare of static, overlaid with unholy roars and screams.
The pair of Word Bearers ignored the distractions, peering through the ghost-images of daemons ripping apart flesh and bubbling blood that appeared on the screens, focusing on the wealth of sub-system information being picked up by the daemonic sensor-arrays protruding from the prow of the Infidus Diabolus. They saw the conglomeration of Imperial vessels forming an unbroken line across the system and the flickering waves of warp-energy that marked jump-points, and located the position of the target: the moon the Imperials called Perdus Skylla.
The sounds of Chaos croaked from grilled vox-speakers and discords throughout the ship, a blaring cacophony of madness and rage. Bellows and screams were overlaid with inhuman screeches and hateful whispers, and the painful squeal of scraping metal blurred with the relentless pounding of hammers and gears, the sound of flesh being rent by steel, the roar of the fires of hell and the plaintive weeping of children. It was a beautiful din, one that calmed Marduk’s mind, though to listen too deeply was to give yourself over to insanity.
A face appeared on the central pict screen, its eyes black as pitch and its cheeks carved with bloody sigils, and it opened its mouth wide, exposing a mass of writhing serpents, spiders and worms.
“Enough,” barked Marduk, banishing the daemon with a wave of his hand. Instantly, the snarling image disappeared.
More flashing lights and runic symbols appeared on the representation of the surrounding galactic plane, and both Marduk and Kol Badar leant forward to peer upon them. Kol Badar snorted and leant back. A bitter laugh burst from Marduk’s lips, the sound making the image on the pict viewers shimmer with static.
“It would seem, Coryphaus, that the Imperium is engaged in a war in this little solar system,” said Marduk, “and they are losing.”
“Admiral,” someone shouted.
Rutger Augustine pulled his gaze away from the scale model representations of the fleet and turned to see one of his petty officers moving towards him.
“Go ahead,” he said.
The petty officer was flushed and he carried a transmission card, its waxy surface punched with a series of holes. He thrust it towards the admiral.
“Sir, Battle Group Orion has picked up a warp-echo emanating from jump-point XIV. It has been verified by our own Navigatorii.”
Augustine frowned at the transmission card, and then turned and fed it into the chest-slot of the servitor unit wired into his command console. The servitor jerked, and its needle finger began to punch away at a set of keys in front of it. Ignoring the drooling servitor, Augustine looked at the transmission data as it was relayed onto the screen.
“What is it?” he asked. “A rogue hive ship? Don’t say the bastards have got behind us.”
“No sir. Initial sweeps indicate a vessel of cruiser mass, but it is not an organic entity.”
“No? Probably another trade vessel come to aid the evacuations. Why are you bothering me with this?” asked Admiral Augustine. “The fleet is engaging the xenos threat, petty officer!”
“I’m sorry, sir, and it may be nothing, but the long-range scan that Battle Group Orion performed seemed to indicate that the vessel may be an Astartes strike cruiser or battle-barge.”
Augustine frowned.
“I was notified of no Space Marine presence inbound, though we could do with their aid.” He rubbed a hand across his freshly shaved chin. “Have Orion send a frigate squadron on an intercept course with the vessel, and keep me informed of any updates.”
With that, the admiral turned away from the petty officer. “Yes, admiral.”
The Infidus Diabolus ploughed through the vacuum of space, its plasma-core engines burning blue-white as it closed towards the vast red giant sun around which the solar system rotated. Solar flares a million kilometres in height burst from the daemonic red corona, leaping up from around dark sunspots that blemished its unstable surface.
The sun was dying. Five billion years earlier it was less than one hundredth of its current size, though it had burnt over ten times as hot. Having exhausted its gaseous core, it had expanded exponentially, engulfing its nearest planets. Even as it grew in size, it was diminished in mass, and the outer planets circling it began to pull further away, its gravitational hold over them weakening. Now it burnt the colour of hell itself, but in another billion years it would be no more.
/> The Infidus Diabolus dropped closer to the hellish, glowing corona, buffeted by solar winds. There, with intense spikes of radiation spilling around her hull, she drew anchor.
“I would hear your council, revered Warmonger,” said Marduk. He ran the fingers of his hand thoughtfully along the surface of a stone column. A cold wind gusted through the darkness, tugging at Marduk’s cloak, and a mechanical scream of insane rage echoed from deeper within the crypt.
Marduk and Kol Badar stood beneath the shadow of a wide archway, facing into a cavernous alcove set into the side of the expansive passageway. They were deep within the depths of the Infidus Diabolus, in the undercroft that housed those warriors of the Host that had long ago fallen in holy battle, but had not been allowed to pass on into blessed oblivion.
The damned warriors lived on in the deepest labyrinthine catacombs of the strike cruiser, condemned to a tortured limbo, neither living nor dead, the shattered remnants of their earthly forms interred in great sarcophagi that they might serve the Host even after their time had long passed.
A delicate mural decorated the back wall of the alcove, detailing the great moments of the Warmonger’s life before he had been condemned to an eternity of servitude within the towering mechanical form of a Dreadnought.
Once he had been amongst Lorgar’s most favoured and devout chaplains, the first Dark Apostle of the 34th Company Host that Marduk now led. He had fought alongside the god primarchs, and counted such exalted heroes as Erebus, Kor Phaeron and Abaddon as his battle-brothers. Marduk had listened in awe to the scratchy vox-recordings of his passionate sermons, and had pored over a thousand volumes of his thoughtful scripture, and his fiery rhetoric and hate-filled sermons never failed to inspire.
Though the other warriors interred within the Dreadnoughts of the Host had long ago lost any semblance of sanity, cursed as they were and unable to attain oblivion yet denied the physical sensations of holy war, the Warmonger retained a coherent self-awareness, and was a source of great wisdom and council.
It was his unshakeable faith that kept him lucid. Holy Erebus had once said, the power and conviction of his rapturous belief that kept him from toppling off the precipice into madness.
A thousand blood-candles ringed the mighty Warmonger, tended day and night by a pair of slave-proselytes to ensure that the flames never died, and their light cast a divine glow over the Dreadnought’s sarcophagus.
It towered over Marduk, even Kol Badar, standing over five metres tall with the armoured sarcophagus that held the Dark Apostle’s shattered remains at its heart. The Dreadnought stood on squat, powerful legs, and immense arms bearing ancient heavy weapons systems were held immobile at its side.
For hundreds of years at a time the Warmonger stood motionless within its own death shrine, lost in contemplation, waiting for holy battle to be joined once more.
“It is pleasing to my soul to see you once more, First Acolyte Marduk,” boomed the Warmonger, its voice a deep reverberating baritone, the words spoken slowly and deliberately, “and you, Kol Badar, finest of my captains.”
The two warriors bowed their heads in deference.
“The loss of Jarulek pains me,” continued the Warmonger. “Though in you I see a worthy successor, young disciple Marduk.”
“Jaruilek’s death cuts me deeply as well, revered Warmonger,” said Marduk. A slight smile curled his lips as he felt Kol Badar’s anger at his words. “I am honoured to fill the role of religious leader of the Host, though I feel… unworthy of such a hallowed duty.”
“It is only right that you step into the breach and guide the flock,” said the Warmonger. “Your star is in the ascendant. Feel not unworthy of the duty; be humbled by it, but never doubt your right to serve. The gods have ordained it.”
Marduk turned his head to Kol Badar and smiled.
“I fear that some amongst the Host feel I am not ready for such an exalted position, my lord,” he said.
“Tolerate no insubordination, First Acolyte,” boomed the Warmonger. “Crucify any who seed dissent, for theirs are the voices of poison and doubt.”
“I shall heed your council in this matter, revered one,” said Marduk.
“You are walking the black path, Marduk,” said the Warmonger. “You are the dark disciple, moving towards the light of truth, and you shall, in time, be granted enlightenment. You did not, however, come here for my acceptance, for you already know that you have it. What is it you would ask of me?”
“I had wished to descend on the Imperial world of Perdus Skylla with the full force of the Host, laying waste to the world and claiming that which is needed. While it pleases me to see the Imperium weakened in their battles with the xenos, for it will make our eventual victory in the Long War come all the sooner, the size of the battlefleet here in this sector forces me to change my intentions. Mighty as she is, the Infidus Diabolus would not survive long enough to get us to the Imperial moon.”
“I say we abandon this fool’s errand here and now,” growled Kol Badar. “Let us return to Sicarus and leave the Imperials to wage their war against the xenos hive-creatures. We will recoup our strength in the Eye while the Imperium suffers.”
“Kol Badar speaks, as always, with wisdom,” said the Warmonger, and for a moment Marduk thought he had horribly misjudged the way this conversation would go. He felt a flicker of unease at having instigated it in the presence of the Coryphaus as Kol Badar flashed him a look of triumph.
“And yet,” continued the Warmonger, “Jarulek saw in the xenos device something of great import. He was always a gifted zealot and the power of his gods-gifted dream visions were stronger than my own. If he saw that the item was worth waging war for, then it is an artefact of great importance, and is destined to further the spread of the holy Word of Truth.”
“We already have the device in our possession,” said Kol Badar. “We need not tarry here and risk it further.”
“We have the device, that is true,” admitted Marduk, “but as it is, it is worthless to us; its secrets are locked within it. It is nothing more than a xenos curio, an inert and useless sphere of metal.”
“The chirumeks of the Legion will unlock its secrets, whatever they may be,” said Kol Badar.
I will not return to Sicarus in anything but glory, thought Marduk fiercely, glaring at the Coryphaus. Were he to return empty-handed, he feared that the council would not endorse his rise to Dark Apostle. With the secrets of the Nexus Arrangement unlocked and his to command, they would be forced to heap honour upon him.
“You know that the knowledge that will unlock the device will be attained upon this Imperial world?” asked the Warmonger.
“I do,” said Marduk. “It is held within the mind of a servant of the false Machine-God.”
“You base that belief only on the word of another servant of the Machine-God,” snarled Kol Badar. “The Enslaved’s loyalty does not lie with the Legion. For all you know, he may be leading us into a trap, to deliver the device unto his Mechanicus brethren.”
“The Enslaved is mine,” growled Marduk. “It has no will of its own any more. It is not capable of such duplicity.”
“Speak with respect to your First Acolyte, Kol Badar,” chided the Warmonger. “Marduk, if you trust the knowledge you have, then the path is clear.”
“The Infidus Diabolus cannot approach Perdus Skylla,” said Kol Badar, changing tack. “If anything, we should return to the Eye and gather the Hosts to our cause. Then we can return, and take the moon by force.”
“The xenos threat will have obliterated it by then,” snapped Marduk. “We have both seen worlds ravaged by their kind; nothing is left behind. The secrets will be lost forever.”
“You do not need my council, then, disciple Marduk. Kol Badar, if brute force will not suffice, explore more subtle ways of gaining victory for your First Acolyte.”
Marduk smiled as he saw Kol Badar’s jaw twitch in anger.
“As always, Warmonger, you are the voice of wisdom,” said Marduk, bowi
ng. “My purpose is clear; you have allayed my fears and stripped away the shadow of doubt. I am confident that my loyal Coryphaus will find a way forward.”
“One last thing, Marduk. I am disturbed that there are those within the Legion who doubt your holy right to lead them. I would have it known that I fully endorse your appointment.”
The Warmonger shifted its immense weight, servos and gyro-compensators hissing. It turned on the spot, each step making the floor shudder, and reached out with its immense power-claw, scooping something up in its grasp. Then it turned back towards Marduk, and the First Acolyte strained to see what the Warmonger held.
The sickle-bladed talons of the Dreadnought’s power claw opened, and Marduk saw a gleaming helmet, its porcelain features moulded into the form of a grimacing skull. An eight-pointed star of Chaos was carved into its forehead, and its sharpened fangs were fixed in a grinning rictus. A crack, not battle damage, but rather a carved affectation, ran across the left brow and continued below the glimmering eye-piece onto the cheek.
It was a revered, ancient artefact of the Legion, and had been crafted by the finest artisans of Mars in the years before the commencement of the Great War for the Warmonger himself.
Marduk stared at the sacred helmet with covetous eyes.
“I ordered my helmet removed from its stasis field within the bone-ossuary,” said the Warmonger, “though at the time I did not understand what it was that urged me to do so. I see clearly now that it was the will of the gods for you to have it, young Marduk.”
The First Acolyte stepped forwards and lifted the helmet from the Warmonger’s outstretched claw, marvelling at the mastery with which it had been rendered. The morbid visage, a dark reflection of the helmets worn by the chaplains of those blinded Legions that had not joined with the Warmaster, was a potent symbol of death, the face of damnation for all those who refused to cow to Lorgar’s word.
[Word Bearers 02] - Dark Disciple Page 5
