The shadow of the cruiser passed, and Marduk nodded his head to the Coryphaus. Kol Badar barked an order, and the Idolater turned onto a new bearing. The engines were fed more power, and the ship pushed through the blockade of the Imperial cordon and began to power towards Perdus Skylla.
It looked so insignificant from here: a tiny white moon circling in the orbit of a green gas giant.
“Five hours until planetfall,” said Kol Badar, consulting a glowing data-slate built into the command array of the bridge.
“See that the warrior brothers are ready. I want to move out as soon as the landing is made,” said Marduk, not looking at the Coryphaus.
Kol Badar’s lips curled back, and his ancient eyes burrowed into Marduk’s face.
“What?” asked Marduk, turning to face the larger warrior brother. “I am your master now, Kol Badar. Be a good dog and do as you are told.”
Kol Badar struck with a speed that belied the bulk of his Terminator armour, wrapping his power talons around Marduk’s throat, his eyes blazing in fury.
Marduk laughed in his face.
“Do it,” he barked. “Do it, and be cursed by Lorgar.”
Kol Badar released Marduk with a shove.
“Know your place, Kol Badar. Jarulek is dead. This Host is mine now, mine alone,” said Marduk. “Just as you are mine.”
“The Council of Sicarus will repudiate your claim over the Host,” growled Kol Badar. “They will strip you of your brotherhood, flay the flesh from your bones and have your eyes burnt from your sockets. Bloody and blind, you will be cast out into the corpse-plains, where the souls of the condemned will torment you, and the kathartes will strip the muscles from your limbs. You will wander in agony for ten thousand years, unable to die, your mortal body a wretched shell, your soul stripped and gnawed upon by the denizens of the darkness. All this awaits you, Marduk. Such is the punishment for one who plots against his Dark Apostle.”
“Jarulek groomed me as a sacrifice,” said Marduk, “and I know that you were party to his schemes, but I do not hold a grudge against you for that; you were following your Dark Apostle’s orders. The gods of Chaos chose for Jarulek to fall, however, and for me to flourish. They abandoned him in favour of me.”
“You fear to return there, and that is why we have not gone back,” said Kol Badar.
Marduk laughed, genuinely surprised.
“I fear to return there? I think not, my Coryphaus. I yearn to return, but I will not return without the secrets of the Nexus unlocked. I thought that you merely wanted me to return a failure, with a lifeless hunk of xenos metal, with no knowledge of what it did or how it is activated. I had no idea that you thought that the council would punish me. Punish me?” Marduk laughed. “The council will honour me.”
“You are a dreamer and a fool, then,” said Kol Badar, turning away.
Marduk moved in front of the Coryphaus, standing in his way. He stared up at the older warrior, the light of fanaticism in his eyes.
“Look into my eyes, Kol Badar, and tell me that the gods do not favour me. Ever since we left Tanakreg, I have felt their favour upon me. My skin is crawling with their power. I can feel it writhing within me.”
Something moved beneath the skin of Marduk’s face.
“I am the favoured of Lorgar, and the council will embrace me. Tell me that you do not see the gods’ favour upon me. Even you, who can barely feel the touch of the warp or the gods, must surely sense my growing favour. Tell me that you cannot.”
Kol Badar clenched his jaw, his eyes blazing with fury, but he did not speak. Marduk laughed softly.
“You do sense it then,” he said, as the Coryphaus stalked past him. Kol Badar barged his shoulder into Marduk as he passed, knocking the smaller man aside, but Marduk merely laughed again.
The Coryphaus turned at the doorway.
“Maybe you could trick the council,” he said, “but you have to make it there alive first.”
The armoured nose of the Idolator glowed red hot as the ship screamed down towards the surface of Perdus Skylla.
“Unto those who in ignorance and stubbornness refuse the Word, bring the fires of hell. Sunder their flesh, and burn them of their impurity. Take vengeance upon them for their failings, and teach them the weakness of their false idols,” roared Marduk, the vox-amplifiers built into his skull-faced helmet booming his words through the enclosed space of the transport. “Thus spoke Lorgar, and so it shall be done. Open their veins that the truth might enter them. Cut upon them and let their blood flow. With holy bolter and chainsword we shall slaughter the unbelievers, and usher the word of truth into the world!”
Strapped into their harness restraints, the warriors of the Host roared their approval as the G-forces assailed them, the words of their holy leader fuelling their hatred and religious fervour.
“No mercy, no remorse,” barked Marduk. “Such things are for weaklings. We are the faithful, Lorgar’s chosen! None shall stand against us. Give praise to the gods of Chaos as you kill. Death will be our herald, and all who look upon us will know fear.”
The Idolater broke through the upper atmosphere of Perdus Skylla, streaking down through the darkness like a fiery comet from the heavens.
“Let us pray, brothers of the Host, and let the gods bear witness to our eulogies and bless us with their holy strength,” bellowed Marduk. “Great powers of the warp, guide the arms of your servants that they might let the blood of your enemies in your honour. Gird us with the strength and fortitude to do your bidding, and let our faith protect us from the blows of the faithless. Let your dark light shine upon us, filling us with purpose and belief. With thanks, we give ourselves unto you, pledging body and soul to your glory, for now and for time immaterial. Glory be.”
“Glory be,” came the response from the warriors of the Host, led by Kol Badar.
“And unto those who would do harm to your faithful servants,” said Marduk, locking eyes with Kol Badar, “bring an eternity of torment and pain.”
The Idolator continued its descent until, after several minutes, the relentless g-forces began to ease and the transport started to level out. Flying low, it screamed across the frozen wasteland, kicking up a great turbulence of snow and ice in its wake. Powerful winds rocked the transport, jolting its occupants from side to side, as it roared into the face of a fierce ice storm. Sudden drops in pressure and blasts of wind made the Idolator rise and fall by ten metres at a time, threatening to slam the ship into the ice crust at any moment.
Marduk grinned fiercely, exposing sharpened teeth. Adrenaline pumped through his system.
Kol Badar had plotted the approach course that the Idolator was now following with keen tactical acumen. They had entered the atmosphere along the equatorial belt of the moon, four thousand kilometres from the closest Imperial listening post, and they were now approaching the northern polar cap on the lee side of the moon, under the cover of darkness. The Imperials were based solely at the extreme northern and southern tips of the moon, where they had mining colonies, starports and fortress bastions. Immense defence lasers protected these settlements, each of which Kol Badar had estimated consisted of between eight and twelve million people, living beneath the ice.
Virtually nothing lived on the surface, its conditions too severe to maintain life or even any permanent structures other than the bastions. Even the starports were carved into the ice. Reinforced titanium roof structures covered the circular starports, protecting them and the vessels within from the harshest of weather conditions, and those roofs would open like the petals of a flower to allow transport vessels and freighters to dock.
From the information garnered from the Adeptus Mechanicus archive on Kharion IV, the most recent location of the explorator who held the secrets of the device had been ascertained, and it was towards this bastion station that the Idolator was bound.
They would get as close as they were able to the Imperial bastion, flying low across the windswept landscape and using the sweep-jamming ice stor
ms to conceal their approach. Kol Badar had factored in the swirling eddies of low pressure, continent sized cyclones that wracked the empty wasteland, in order to further conceal their approach, though he had loudly voiced his displeasure at such subterfuge.
Regardless of the Coryphaus’s misgivings, Marduk could not fault Kol Badar’s execution. They would be upon the bastion long before their presence was known, and it would be a simple matter of breaching its defences and locating the custodian. The portents had boded well, and Marduk felt assured that it would be a simple undertaking.
He freed the restraints that locked him to his seat, and stood up, easily compensating for the roll of the transport as it was buffeted by howling winds. Stretching out his shoulders, his gaze wandered up the rows of seated Word Bearers, assessing them each in turn.
Khalaxis’s teeth were bared, his aggressive nature mirrored in the expressions of his members of the 17th coterie. He jerked his head to the side, flicking his braided hair out of his eyes, concentrating on his knife as it carved into his flesh. He and his warriors had removed their left vambraces and were cutting ritualistic slashes across their forearms. Always the first into any breach, and the last to be extracted, his warriors were lethal combatants all.
Namar-sin, in stark comparison to Khalaxis, was composed and silent, though his one eye gleamed with a fervour no less passionate than Khalaxis’s. His Havocs were dutifully tending their weapons, apparently oblivious to the shuddering transport and the roar of the engines. They went about their duties with utter focus, silently incanting benedictions of the dark gods upon their revered heavy weapons.
Brother Sabtec’s face was serious, his stoic demeanour familiar and unwavering, and he led the hallowed 13th coterie in a low chant as they checked over their life-systems, and ensured that grenades, spare ammunition clips and devotional chapbooks were secured at their sides.
The final coterie, Kol Badar’s veteran Anointed, glared ahead blankly, their expressions grim. Their faces were covered in ritual tattoos and each in turn lowered his head in deference as Marduk looked upon them.
Burias was looking at his hand as the fingers fused and elongated into talons, before he forced the daemon Drak’shal back and his hand took on its natural form once more. Marduk realised that his control over the daemon was growing. Often the possessed would become little more than screaming wretches, their will enslaved to one of the myriad entities that inhabited the warp, but Burias’s mastery over Drak’shal was almost complete. Again, Burias let Drak’shal begin to rear within him, and his hand blurred into daemonic talons, before he reasserted his dominance and pushed the daemon back within him. Feeling Marduk’s gaze upon him, Burias’s eyes flicked up, and he winked at the First Acolyte.
Darioq stood apart from the brothers of the Legion. The corrupted magos could not sit even had he wished too; his mechanical body was not constructed to accommodate such luxury, and the bulk of his servo-harness would have made it impossible. The activated electromagnets within his heavy, augmented boots kept him locked to the floor, and his four mechanical servo-arms were braced between two bulkheads. Weighing well over a metric tonne, nothing was going to move the techno-magos.
“You have a wish to converse, Marduk, First Acolyte of the Word Bearers Legion of Astartes, genetic descendent of the traitor Primarch Lorgar?” said the magos. The timbre of his voice was different, a growling, daemonic presence underlying his usual robotic monotone.
“Speak the word ‘traitor’ once more when referring to the blessed daemon-lord of our Legion, Darioq-Grendh’al,” said Marduk, “and I shall allow Kol Badar to rip your limbs off one by one, and no, I have no wish to converse with you.”
The Idolator made its way through the darkness across the featureless surface of the moon for two hours, and as they drew near the target, Marduk intoned a final benediction, and the warriors of the Host made ready to disembark. With his skull-faced helmet in place, Marduk ritualistically ran through his final diagnostics, checking his life-systems and those of his revered power armour.
At last, throbbing blister-lights warned of the final approach, and Marduk rammed a fresh sickle-clip into his bolt-pistol. Retro-blasters fired, slowing the Idolator, and the nose of the transport craft lifted as its momentum dropped.
Kol Badar relayed his debarkation orders with curt commands, ensuring that each of the four coteries knew their position.
Restraint harnesses were thrown off as the rear landing legs touched down, and the vacuum seals of the rear embarkation ramp were released with a hiss. Before the Idolator had even settled, the ramp was thrown outwards, and snow and ice blasted into the interior, swirling around in blinding eddies.
“Get him moving,” shouted Kol Badar over the screaming of engines and the howling of wind, pointing towards Darioq, and two members of Namar-sin’s coterie urged the corrupted magos towards the lowering ramp.
The first warriors were already pounding down the ramp, moving towards their allotted positions, filing off left and right. Marduk stomped down the assault ramp and stepped onto the frozen surface of Perdus Skylla. The enhanced auto-sensors in his helmet allowed his sight to pierce the raging blizzard, though mere mortal eyes would have seen nothing but a blinding sheet of white.
Marduk filed off to the right just as the Land Raiders, two tucked beneath each stubbed wing, were lowered onto the ice. They growled like angry war-beasts as they were released from their locking clamps. Their engines revved, and smoke billowed from their daemon-headed exhaust stacks. Marduk ducked his head as he entered the armoured hull of the closest Land Raider and locked himself into a seat. Burias slammed into the seat opposite, a feral grin upon his features. As usual, he did not deign to wear his helmet; his witch-sight easily the match of any automated sensors. Long strands of oiled black hair that had escaped their binding whipped around his head like a gorgon’s serpents.
Brother Sabtec and his esteemed 13th joined them, piling into the Land Raider and taking their seats, and the assault ramp was slammed shut. The frenzied wind died away instantly, and the shower of snow and ice settled on shoulder pads and greaves.
The Land Raider’s massive tracks spun on the ice for a second before catching, and the heavy assault tank lurched into motion. Less than thirty seconds after the Idolator had landed, the four Land Raiders, each filled with blessed warriors of Lorgar, were speeding across the surface of Perdus Skylla.
Marduk was shaken as the assault tank hit a bank of snow, and there was a moment of weightlessness as the front of the vehicle lifted up before crashing down again with titanic force.
“Twenty minutes to target,” growled Kol Badar over the vox.
Burias’s features shimmered like a faulty pict viewer, and the face of the daemon Drak’shal was momentarily superimposed over his features. Tall, uneven horns rose from his brow, and deeply slanted, hate-filled eyes blinked. Then Burias shook his head, pushing the daemon back within, and the image was gone.
“Not long, Drak’shal,” said Marduk in the guttural tongue of the daemons. Burias grinned at him once more.
CHAPTER FIVE
Hundred-kilometre winds whipped across the ice flow, and the roar of the storm was such that no human ear would have heard any shout or the staccato reverberations of gunfire. The darkness would have concealed anything from the naked eye, and the blinding swirl of ice, snow and fog was such that all but the most sophisticated sensor arrays were rendered useless. Still, Marduk was taking no chances as he elbowed his way cautiously forwards, edging nearer to the Imperial bastion.
He could see the dark shadow of the structure rising before him, though even his advanced auto-sensors and magnifier auspexes had difficulty piercing the blinding gale. It was built into a massive pinnacle of rock that pierced the thick ice, the first geological landmark that the Word Bearers had thus far seen on Perdus Skylla. Marduk snarled up at the hateful silhouette of the fortress. It had been constructed in the form of an immense aquila, the two-headed eagle that was the symbol of th
e Imperium and the Emperor’s rule.
It rose some three hundred and fifty metres above the ice plains, the highest point on all of Perdus Skylla. If the weather had been clearer, it could have been seen for kilometres all around, an immense structure that dominated the landscape. Doubtless it had been built to remind the populace of Perdus Skylla of the Emperor’s authority, to cow the people it loomed over and never let them forget who it was that ruled their lives.
To the ignorant people of Perdus Skylla it might have been a symbol of reverence, but to Marduk it represented all that he hated about the Imperium, all that he desired to see toppled.
What sort of empire would allow a lifeless corpse to be venerated as a god, and let pompous fools and bureaucrats dictate how a galaxy was to be run? For the millionth time, he cursed the holy warmaster for being laid low by the trickery of the enemy. Had Horus overthrown the Emperor, the galaxy would never have fallen into stagnation and torpor. The Great Crusade would still be underway, wiping all xenos and non-believers from the universe. Humanity would be united in faith.
Marduk froze, pushing himself flat to the ground as his keen auto-senses flashed a warning before his eyes. The massive gates of the bastion began to open, folding in upon themselves and sliding into a hidden recess within the rock. Four armoured vehicles emerged, the sound of their engines lost in the howling wind.
They were non-standard template vehicles protected by thick plates of white-painted armour. Marduk’s targeting arrays locked onto the foremost vehicle, and a flood of data streamed in front of his eyes. A heavy weapons sponson unfolded from behind the main engine block, sliding forward and locking into place, and the weapon panned left and right. They were light vehicles, roughly the size of Rhino APCs, and they were clearly built for traversing the ice flows, with heavy, thick tracks at the rear and a single upwards flaring ski as broad as the tank at the front.
[Word Bearers 02] - Dark Disciple Page 7
