Marduk placed the helmet over his head, and he heard a mechanical whine as it adjusted to fit his cranium. It fitted firmly in place, and there was a hiss as coupling links connected. Then all sound was blanketed out, before the integrated auto-senses powered up and his hearing returned. He breathed deeply, sucking in a lungful of recycled air, and registered the flickering array of sensory information and integrity checks being relayed onto the front of his irises. Servos whined as he stretched his neck from side to side, and an enticing targeting matrix appeared before him, locking onto Kol Badar as he turned to look upon the Coryphaus. The towering war leader was scowling, and Marduk grinned. He dismissed the targeting matrices, somewhat reluctantly, with a blink, and dropped to one knee before the Warmonger.
“I have not the words to express the honour you do me, Warmonger,” he said, his voice growling from the vox-grills cunningly concealed behind the fangs of the death mask.
“Leave me now, my captains,” said the Warmonger. “The preparations for the final push against Terra must be made. Join your brothers, and rejoice in prayer and exaltation for within the month, we shall assail the walls of the Emperor’s Palace.”
“Rest well, Warmonger,” said Marduk, and he and Kol Badar backed away from the towering Dreadnought, recognising that the ancient one’s lucidity was slipping. Often it was this way, as the Dreadnought relived battles of days past.
The pair left the crypt, leaving the Warmonger to relive his memories. Marduk strode out in front, a triumphant strut to his walk. Kol Badar stalked behind, a deep scowl on his face as he glared at the First Acolyte’s back.
Cowled slaves pushed the skull-inlaid doors wide, and Marduk stalked out into one of the expansive docking bays of the Infidus Diabolus. The entire Host was gathered there, and, as one, the warrior brothers dropped to their knees as the First Acolyte strode through their serried ranks, heading towards the stub-nosed transport ship, the Idolater.
Indentured workers, their bodies augmented with ensorcelled mechanics and their eyes and mouths ritualistically sutured shut, hurried to ready the ship, pumping fuel into its gullet through bulging intestine-hoses and daubing its armoured hull with sacred oils and unguents. Four Land Raiders, massively armoured tanks that had borne the warriors of the Host into battle on a thousand worlds, were moved into position beneath the stubby wings of the Idolater, and reinforced clamps locked around them from above, securing them for transport.
Marduk was wearing the deaths-head helmet gifted to him by the Warmonger for the first time in front of the Host, and he felt awe and reverence ripple out across the gathered warriors. Passages freshly scribed upon the flayed flesh of slaves hung from devotional seals fixed to his armour, and he felt savage pride as he looked upon the warriors of the Legion.
He stalked to the front of the assembly, where a group of thirty warrior brothers knelt facing the rest of the Host. These warriors uniformly bowed their heads as Marduk came to a halt in front of them, his gaze, hidden behind the inscrutable red lenses of his helmet, sweeping over them.
With a nod to Burias, the icon bearer stood to attention and slammed the butt of his heavy icon into the floor. The sound echoed loudly, and with an imperious gesture, Marduk motioned for the thirty warriors to stand. Kol Badar stepped out of their ranks and began to prowl along the lines, inspecting them with a grim expression on his broad face.
The thirty warriors were gathered into four coteries and Marduk’s gaze travelled over the waiting warrior brothers, reading their eagerness for the forthcoming descent towards the Imperial planet in their faces and their stances.
Each holy Astartes warrior stood armed for war, his helmet held under his left arm, and weapons readied. They stood motionless and attentive as they awaited Marduk’s word, their heads held high. Each was fiercely proud to have been selected to accompany the First Acolyte.
Including Marduk, Burias and the enslaved daemon-symbiote Darioq, they would number thirty-two. It was an auspicious number that equalled the number of the sacred books penned by Lorgar. It augured well. Marduk had read the sacred number in the entrails of the squealing slave-neophyte he had butchered in the blooding chamber not an hour earlier, and he knew that the gods had blessed his endeavour.
“Brothers of Lorgar,” said Marduk, addressing the thirty, though his voice was raised, so that it carried to every member of the Host, “you are blessed, for amongst all the glorious Host you have been chosen to be my honour guard, to accompany me in doing what must be done to ensure that victory is ours, for the glory of blessed Lorgar.”
Marduk strode along the line of warriors, seeing the fire of religious fervour and devotion on their faces. They stared at him passionately, fanaticism in their eyes.
Each member of the four coteries was a veteran of a thousand wars fought across a thousand battlefields, and each had been tested and found worthy time and again in the forge of battle. These were the most vicious, fanatical and devoted of all the vicious, fanatical and devoted warriors of the Host. Each was a holy warrior, who would follow his word without question, for his was the voice of the gods, and through him their infernal will would be enacted without question and without remorse. Devout, holy warriors, they would not flinch in their duty, and their fervour lent them great strength.
Each of the four coteries was led by a favoured warrior champion of the Host.
Kol Badar stood before four of his anointed brethren, each of them enormous in their heavy Terminator armour. The other coteries consisted of eight warriors each. Towering Khalaxis, his cheeks covered in ritual scars, stood before his 17th coterie, brutal warriors all. Namar-sin, shorter than his brothers, though he made up for this deficiency with sheer bulk, stood before his warriors of the 217th coterie, Havoc heavy weapon specialists. Last of the champions was Sabtec, who led the highly decorated 13th coterie. Neither as tall as Khalaxis, nor as broad as Namar-sin, Sabtec was a lean warrior whose tactical nuances had won countless glorious victories for the Host. A row of horns protruded from the skin across his brow, a clear mark of the god’s favour upon him, and his hand rested upon the hilt of his power sword, gifted to him by Erebus.
“Kneel,” commanded Marduk, and the gathered warriors dropped to their knees instantly. He placed his fingertips upon the forehead of each champion in turn, murmuring a benediction. He felt heat radiate beneath his fingers, and the smell of burning flesh rose. The imprint of his fingertips remained on each champion’s brow, five searing points where the skin had blistered away to the bone.
Having completed the ritual, Marduk turned towards the remainder of the Host, gathered in silence as they witnessed the blessing. He saw yearning and jealousy in the eyes of the warrior brothers who had not been chosen to accompany him. Their champions would castigate the coteries not chosen, and when next they entered the field of war, they would fight with redoubled ferocity.
“Look upon your chosen brothers and feel pride, my brethren,” roared Marduk, spreading his arms out to each side. “Glory in their successes as if they were your own, for they fight as representatives of you all. Pray for them, that your strength may buoy them in the days to come, for they will return victorious or not at all. In the true gods we place our trust.”
Burias slammed the butt of his icon onto the floor once more, and the Host as one hammered their fists against their chests in response, the sound echoing through the docking bay.
Turning back towards the chosen thirty, Marduk dropped to one knee and drew forth his serrated khantanka knife. Thirty other blades were drawn instantly. Each warrior of the Host carried a sacred blade, and it was with his own khantanka knife that each warrior brother had been blooded when first inducted into the Legion. Each khantanka blade was individual, fashioned by the warrior it belonged to, and it was said that the true essence of the warrior could be read in its design.
Marduk’s blade was curved and serrated, while Kol Badar’s was broad and heavy, bereft of ornamentation. Burias’s blade was masterfully fashioned and elegantly
curved, and its hilt was fashioned in the shape of a snarling serpent.
“Gods of the ether, we offer up our blood as sacrifice to your glory,” growled Marduk, cutting a deep vertical slash down his right cheek. The gathered warriors echoed his words, mirroring the First Acolyte’s action. Blood ran from the wounds, running down the faces of the warriors before the powerful anti-coagulants in their bloodstreams sealed the wounds.
A pair of murderous kathartes flickered into being high above, the skinless daemons circling down over the congregation, borne upon bleeding, leathery wings, and settled upon the Idolater to witness the ritual.
With his sacred blood dripping from his jaw and onto his armour, Marduk carved a horizontal line across his cheek, bisecting the other cut to form a cross.
“Garner us with strength, and let your dark light flow through our earthly bodies,” intoned Marduk as he made the incision. Again, his words and actions were replicated by the chosen thirty, and more of the kathartes flickered into being, breaching the skin between the real and the warp.
“We give of ourselves unto you, oh great gods of damnation, and open ourselves as vessels to your immortal will,” said Marduk, making a third cut that bisected the other two diagonally.
“With the letting of this blood, we renew our pledge of faith to the Legion, to Lorgar, and to the glory of Chaos everlasting,” said Marduk, completing the ritual and making the final cut upon his face, forming the eight-pointed star of Chaos upon his cheek.
A flock of thirty-two kathartes had gathered atop the Idolater, silent witnesses to the conclusion of the ritual. They kicked off from their roost, and circled low over the heads of the Host, blood dripping from their skinless muscles, and their hideous faces contorted as they screamed. Then they scattered, filling the air with their raucous cries, and one by one they flickered and disappeared, rejoining the blessed immaterium.
Again Marduk raised his arms up high, and his vox-assisted voice boomed out across the docking bay.
“The portents bode well, my brothers, and the true gods have blessed this venture; let us go forth, and kill in the name of Lorgar.”
“For Lorgar,” echoed the Host, their voices raised, and Marduk smiled.
“Let’s get this done,” snapped Kol Badar, and the thirty warriors boarded the Idolater. Darioq was brought forth from a side-door, having been rightly excluded from bearing witness to the khantanka blooding ritual, and was marched towards the waiting transport ship. Marduk had allowed him to reconstruct his servo-harness armatures, though he had ensured that the weapons systems of the unit had been stripped, and had personally branded an eight-pointed star upon his hooded forehead.
The First Acolyte was the last to enter the transport ship, and the engines roared as the boarding ramp slammed shut behind him.
“Gods of the ether, guide us,” he whispered to himself.
The three Firestorm-class frigates of Battle Group Orion sent their sweeps out in front of them, searching in vain for the suspected Astartes vessel. Every scan came back negative, and attempts to locate the ship through astrotelepathic means proved equally fruitless. It was as if the ship had never existed.
“It could be a ghost-image from a jump a thousand years ago,” remarked the captain of the Dauntless, the lead ship of the patrol. “There is nothing out here.”
With reports of the escalating engagement with the tyranid hive-ships coming in and eager not to miss out on the hunting, the captain ordered the frigates to come around and rejoin the rest of the battle group.
Unseen and invisible in the radiation field of the red giant, an Imperial-class transport vessel blasted from the hangar decks of the Infidus Diabolus and began to make its way across the gulf of space, heading towards the Imperial blockade and the moon of Perdus Skylla beyond.
CHAPTER FOUR
Marduk felt his anger rising as he stared out at the Imperial armada. He could see dozens of ships, ranging in size from immense battleships bristling with weapons to small civilian transports. The warships were long, inelegant vessels with thick armoured prows, like the ironclad ships that he had once seen ploughing the oceans of the Imperial world of Katemendor, before that world had been put to the sword. Cathedral spires rose behind the giants’ command stations, immense structures that housed thousands. Marduk clenched his fists in hatred as he looked upon the giant twin-headed eagle effigies at the tops of the spires, and snarled a benediction to the gods of Chaos.
They glided by the vast and silent Imperial ships, and Marduk stared at the immense cannon batteries, torpedo tubes and lance arrays. If the enemy suspected them, they would blast them to pieces in an instant, and nothing could be done to stop them. The shields of the transport vessel were enough to protect it from showers of small meteors and other space-born debris, but a single broadside from even the smaller battle cruisers would easily overpower them, and the ship would be ripped apart.
“This is insanity,” said Kol Badar.
“Have faith, Coryphaus,” said Marduk mildly, masking his own unease.
At the dawning of the Great Crusade, before the Warmaster Horus had led his divine crusade against the Emperor of Mankind, the Legion had been outfitted with hundreds of Stormbird gunships, impressively armed and armoured transport ships that doubled as attack craft. Borne within the Stormbirds, the Word Bearers had sallied forth from the docking bays of their strike cruisers, bringing the word of the Emperor to the outlying planets on the fringe of the empire. As the crusade ground on, many of the Stormbirds were replaced with the newer Thunderhawk gunships, which were less heavily armed and had a smaller transport capacity, but had the benefit of being quicker and cheaper for the forge-worlds to manufacture.
With the advent of the crusade against the Emperor, the Adeptus Mechanicus forge-worlds that had thrown their weight behind the warmaster produced more of the Thunderhawks for his Legions, and the Stormbirds were all but fazed out within the XVII Legion. However, with the shocking defeat of Horus, and the subsequent retreat to the Eye of Terror, the majority of the forge-worlds that supplied the Legions of Horus were virus bombed, and thus the Word Bearers Legion had no way of replacing its lost attack craft.
Few original Stormbirds remained in service within the 34th Company Host. Those that remained had had their hulls patched and repaired a hundred times. Many of the original Thunderhawks were still serviceable, though they had been altered and modified over the millennia to fit the needs of the Host and as a response to limited manufactory facilities.
The flotilla had also been increased with vessels stolen from enemies. One Thunderhawk gunship, a new model fresh from the forge-worlds of Mars, had been claimed from the loyalist White Consuls Chapter, out on the fringe of the Cadian Gate, and an ancient, near fatally damaged Stormbird that had been claimed from the cursed Alpha Legion in a raid upon one of their cult worlds was currently being refitted for use.
As well as these original Astartes-pattern attack craft, there were dozens of recommissioned civilian transports, assault boats, refitted cargo ships and auxiliary vessels that had been captured by the Host, rearmed and armoured for use as makeshift assault craft. These had all been modified and refitted by the chirumeks of the Host, and some of them barely resembled their original model.
Marduk and his hand-picked entourage of Word Bearers were aboard one of these salvaged and refitted vessels as they made their way towards the Imperial moon of Perdus Skylla.
It was an ugly brute of a ship, a squat, stub-nosed vessel that the Host had crippled and boarded centuries earlier. Dubbed Idolater by its new owners, it had been part of a small convoy used by smugglers running the blockades of Imperial space, rogue traders that had been circumventing Administratum taxes on the outskirts of the Maelstrom. The Infidus Diabolus had scattered the convoy, emerging from the darkness behind a shattered planet and ripping two of the ships apart with full broadsides. The Idolater had been crippled with lance strikes, and a single dreadclaw had been launched from the Infidus Diabolus. The boardin
g pod latched onto the hull of the Idolater like a limpet, cutting through its armour with ease, and a boarding party of Word Bearers, led by Kol Badar, had stormed aboard. The crew were slaughtered, and the reeling vessel claimed by the Host.
Marduk stood with Kol Badar looking out through the curved blister portal of the bridge of the Idolater. Behind them, serfs of the Host were guiding the ship to its destination, directing it in towards the Imperial moon. They had once been men, but their humanity had all but abandoned them. Their flesh was stretched and covered in vile, cancerous blemishes and the hands of the pilots had become fused to their controls. Tears of blood ran down their cheeks.
The bridge was dim, the only light coming from the crimson-tinged sensor screens, bathing the room in a hellish red aura.
The Coryphaus glared balefully out at the Imperial vessels, and he clenched and unclenched the bladed fingers of his power talon unconsciously.
“If they realise what we are, all the faith in the warp will not save us,” he snarled.
“They will not,” said Marduk calmly. “We are but another transport vessel, aiding the evacuation efforts.”
“Such deception is beneath us,” said Kol Badar. “It belittles the Legion. We are the sons of Lorgar; we should not need to conceal ourselves from the enemy.”
“Were we to have an armada of our own, I would joyfully engage them,” said Marduk, “but we do not. Have patience, Coryphaus; we will take the fight to the cursed Imperium soon enough.”
One of the Imperial cruisers, not one of the larger vessels by any stretch, though it dwarfed the Idolater, rotated on its axis and moved above them, throwing them into deep shadow as it blotted out the system’s dying sun. Its port weapons batteries came level with them, and Kol Badar hissed.
The cruiser continued to turn, and its weapon arrays slid away from the Idolater. They passed beneath its mass, and though hundreds of kilometres of empty space separated the two ships, it seemed that every intricate detail of the cruiser could be made out. It felt close enough that Marduk had but to reach out his hand to touch it, and he wondered if people aboard it looked even now upon the Idolater. Did any of them realise that their mortal enemy was passing beneath them so close?
[Word Bearers 02] - Dark Disciple Page 6
