Burias-Drak’shal connected with a heavy backhand blow that sent the shadow-creature tumbling backwards. It came to rest on all fours, and its form once more became visible as it snarled up at him in hatred. Then it was gone, disappearing into thin air as if a veil had been drawn over it.
Burias-Drak’shal experienced an unfamiliar emotion: unease.
The creature had seemed at once familiar and alien. He thought he had scented the power of the warp within its being, but the creature had been no daemon, nor truly one of the possessed.
His slit eyes flicked from side to side, wary for another sudden attack, but none came. He slammed the butt of his icon into the floor, cracking the plascrete platform, and roared his defiance.
Marduk heard the roar, but pushed it out of his mind as he drew his chainsword, feeling the ecstatic bond as the daemon weapon melded with him. Thorns in the hilt burrowed into the flesh of his palm through the plugs in his gauntlet, and he surged towards the eldar warriors.
The disciplined warriors of the 13th coterie responded instantly to his rallying cry, rising from cover with bolters thumping. They began to advance on the enemy, bearing down on them, moving in two unstoppable phalanxes, the zones of their fire-arcs overlapping.
Each of the coteries had been joined by one of the Anointed, and these behemoths of muscle and metal stomped forwards, shaking off the fire directed against them and snapping off bursts from their twin-linked bolters.
The closest enemy was less than twenty metres away, and still, foolishly Marduk thought, advancing towards the Word Bearers.
“Slaughter the unbelievers!” roared Marduk, breaking into a run, his bolt pistol bucking in his hands as he fired.
The warriors of the 13th moved up in support, snapping off shots as they bore down on the enemy.
Marduk saw two of the enemy ripped apart by bolt fire. One-bolt round detonated in the shoulder of one of the eldar figures, ripping its arm clear in a spray of blood, and another was torn in two as a burst of fire caught it in its slender midsection.
A spray of splinters embedded themselves in Marduk’s chest plate, but he did not slow his charge, and pumped another burst of shots towards a pair of eldar raiders. Displaying inhuman speed, they darted to the side and his shots went wide, ripping chunks out of the wall.
He roared his hatred as he closed on one of the eldar, and swung his chainsword in a murderous arc that would have cleaved the frail warrior in two had it connected. The eldar swayed under the blow with a speed that, for all his Astartes genetic coding and training, made Marduk feel slow and awkward, and slashed a groove across Marduk’s thigh with the curving bayonet blade beneath the barrel of its rifle.
The blade bit into his flesh, and Marduk hissed in anger. He threw a backhanded slash towards the eldar’s midsection, the hungry teeth of his chainsword whirring madly. The black-armoured figure dodged backwards, the very tip of the chainsword scant centimetres from its belly, and stabbed with the tip of its blade towards Marduk’s throat.
The First Acolyte twisted his body as the blade darted towards him, and its length sank into his shoulder plate. Punching with his right hand, which held his bolt pistol, Marduk snapped the blade off, leaving the tip embedded in his armour. Dropping his shoulder, he threw himself forward, slamming into the frail xenos warrior even as it tried to sidestep.
The force of the blow shattered the eldar’s chest, and Marduk bore it to the ground. He smashed the pommel of his chainsword into the raider’s face, driving it downwards like a blunt dagger, smashing the faceplate of its helmet into splinters and pulverising its skull.
Rising, his chest heaving, Marduk grunted as a blade stabbed into his side, sliding between his armour plates and burying itself deep in his flesh. Dropping his bolt pistol, he grabbed the arm of his attacker, crushing the slender bones of its forearm. It struggled to get away from him, but his grip was like iron, keeping it pinned in place, and he hacked his chainsword into its neck.
Whirring teeth shredded through black armour and blood began to spray as Marduk forced the weapon into the alien’s body. It ripped through tightly bound muscle and sinew, and tore apart the delicate vertebrae of the eldar’s neck. With a heavy kick, Marduk sent the dead eldar flying away from him, and dropped to one knee to retrieve his bolt pistol.
Hefting the pistol, Marduk found no new target to unleash his wrath upon. The eldar slipped away into the shadows with ungodly speed, moving like shadows being dispelled by the appearance of a lantern. They were gone in an instant, and Marduk stood breathing heavily as he surveyed the carnage of the frantic battle.
The fight had lasted less than a minute, all told, but the savagery, swiftness and effectiveness of the attack was staggering.
Three members of the 13th were down, one of them not moving as blood poured from a wound to his head, too severe for the potent larraman cells of his Astartes make-up to seal. Two members of Khalaxis’s 17th coterie were dead, two more injured. Nine eldar had been slain, and three more had been injured and callously abandoned by their brethren.
Marduk strode towards one of the injured lean warriors. Its left leg had been blown off at the knee, and it was trying to crawl away, leaving a bloody smear on the floor beneath it.
Marduk placed his foot on the lower back of the wounded eldar, pinning it in place as Kol Badar stalked to his side. The black armour was curiously soft and pliable beneath his foot, but as he exerted more pressure he felt it strengthen and grow rigid, resisting him. He kicked the eldar over onto its back, and it stared up at him through elongated eye lenses. Its hatred of him was palpable, and its hand flashed down to its thigh, reaching for a jagged blade strapped around its lean limb.
Its movement was crisp and precise, and the blade was flashing towards Marduk’s throat. He caught the eldar’s wrist and gave it a wrench, breaking its slender bones with a snap, and it dropped the blade to the ground, hissing.
“I’ve never seen their faces,” said Marduk, pinning the eldar’s broken arm beneath his knee and reaching for its helmet, ignoring the feeble attempts by the xenos humanoid to fight him off as he tried to work out the best way to remove it. Growing quickly frustrated, he simply hooked the fingers of both hands under the lip of the helmet around the eldar’s scrawny neck and pulled. With a wrench, he ripped the helmet in two, almost breaking the alien’s neck in the process.
The First Acolyte tossed the ruptured helmet aside as he stared down at the revealed face.
It was unnaturally long and thin, ethereal and otherworldly. High cheekbones and a pointed chin gave it a severe, angular shape that was at once delicate and darkly handsome, yet utterly alien. Its head was bereft of hair, and sharp, jagged runes or glyphs of xenos origin, similar in shape to the elegant blades of the eldar, were tattooed across the left half of its face. Its lips were thin and sneering, and its eyes were shaped like almonds, elegant, alien and filled with hate.
“It’s a frail as a woman,” said Marduk. “Reminds me of Fulgrim’s Legionaries.”
Kol Badar snorted.
Although the III Legion, the Emperor’s Children, were mighty warriors and had wisely thrown their weight in behind the Warmaster and embraced Chaos, there was no love lost between the Word Bearers and the Emperor’s Children.
Where the Word Bearers were severe, their lives dominated by ritual, prayer and penance, the Emperor’s Children were renowned for their flamboyant decadence, embracing excess in all its guises. Where the Word Bearers worshipped Chaos in all its varied manifestations, the Emperor’s Children dedicated themselves solely to the darkling prince of Chaos: Slaanesh.
The eldar glared up at Marduk hatefully.
“I agree, yet they are a worthy foe,” said Kol Badar.
“Worthy? They are xenos. They deserve nothing more than extermination,” replied Marduk.
“I do not disagree,” said Kol Badar, “but it does my soul good to fight against an enemy that can at least test us.”
“Their tainted, alien weaponry is potent,
” agreed Marduk, reluctantly, gripping the eldar roughly behind its neck with one hand. He raised his fist.
“And they are certainly quick,” said Marduk. slamming his fist down, punching through the eldar’s face, “but they break easily enough once you get a hold of them.” Marduk shook blood, brain matter and shards of skull across the floor.
CHAPTER NINE
Ikorus Baranov was an optimist. When he first heard of the plight of the worlds being evacuated in the face of the tyranid menace, he had smiled.
Hundreds of inhabited worlds were being abandoned. Countless millions had already perished, either consumed to feed the insatiable hunger of the xenos hive fleet, or utterly destroyed by the zealous policy of Exterminatus employed by the Imperium. Any world not fully evacuated before the tyranid ground invasion began was stricken from the Imperial records and bombarded from high orbit. Already a score of colonised planets had been put to the sword, every living thing—tyranid, human, animal, vegetable—utterly consumed in purifying flame.
Baranov cared nothing for the millions of destroyed lives. He saw the positive flip-side of every ill turn, and while others regarded this time as one of terror and darkness, he saw it as a time to make himself filthy rich.
His ship, the Rapture, was docked at landing zone CXVI, a privately-owned docking pad of the Phorcys starport. Only those wealthy few with the required access privileges were allowed entrance onto this private dock.
Baranov had heard that the regular docks were overrun with tens of thousands of frantic guild workers and their families, desperate to secure passage off-world. In contrast to that mayhem, landing zone CXVI was a veritable Utopia of peace and tranquillity.
The private lounge adjacent to the dock was opulently decorated with extravagant off-world flora, for it had been designed to mimic a fecund, semi-tropical rainforest. Paths of fine gravel wove through the undergrowth, and ferns and broad-leafed plants grew up overhead, hiding the strip lights in the high domed ceiling. A waterfall crashed down over rocks imported from a distant feral world, creating a mist of warm water vapour in the air, and butterflies, with wingspans as wide as a man’s forearm is long, bobbed lazily through the air.
Baranov shook his head in amazement and envy. Perdus Skylla was a desolate wasteland of frozen, wind-swept plains, the crude worker class living beneath the ice, and yet there were those with enough wealth to create an oasis of life like this in its midst.
The pursuit of wealth had dominated Ikorus Baranov’s life, and he liked to think that he had achieved much from his humble beginnings, but it was at times like these that he was reminded that his wealth was not so great. This was the wealth that he desired. He wanted to be able to build a sub-tropical rainforest in the middle of an ice-locked ocean world just because he could. Of course he didn’t literally want to build a rainforest—he found this place with its high humidity and crawling things quite unsettling—but he wanted the wealth to be able to do so at a whim had he desired it.
These were the people to lift him to that stage of wealth.
There were thirty-two men here, most with young, surgically enhanced women clinging to their arms like leeches. Some were accompanied by older women, fierce beasts that clearly dominated their husbands or lovers, but they were few in comparison to the glittering array of nubile young women, bedecked in fine jewels and headdresses.
Baranov smirked. Clearly many of these high-ranking guild officials had chosen to bring their courtesans along with them rather than their wives. If he had not been a callous man he might have been offended by how easily these men cast off their wives, abandoning them to their fate while they fled for safety. A few had brought both wife and courtesan with them, but that was rare. The price that Baranov was charging for a berth on his ship was nothing short of extortionate, even for this upper echelon of the truly elite.
“Lords and ladies,” began Baranov, his voice silken, “may I please have your attention.”
The group was gathered upon a decked clearing in the middle of the rainforest facade, seated on cane high-backed chairs. The hum of conversation died as the gathered social elite turned to regard Baranov. Baranov saw fear in their eyes, which was understandable for their world was being abandoned in the face of an alien menace that would destroy and kill everything in its path. But even so, they regarded him with considerable distaste, as if he were common vermin that had somehow infiltrated into their elite company.
Baranov suppressed a grin. In truth he was vermin, but he was vermin that was about to get seriously wealthy.
He gave a mock bow, waving his hand in a flourish. He was a short man of middling build, and he wore a long-tailed coat of regal blue with overly prominent gold buttons. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail that hung down his back, and his fingers were bedecked with rings. He knew that to these rich guilders who were born to their wealth, he looked like a rogue or a pirate, an individual who had some wealth but not the class to know what to do with it, but he didn’t give a damn what they thought of him. Right now, he was their only ticket off this cursed world, and he fully intended to milk that for all it was worth.
“Thank you for your patience, my esteemed friends,” said Baranov. “My ship, the Rapture, is refuelled and provisioned, and is now ready for embarkation.”
“About time,” stated one of the guilders, a scowling, porcine individual pawing at a girl who looked little more than a child, though she was clearly his mistress. Other men muttered and huffed impatiently. These people were not used to having to wait for anything.
“I regret to have kept you waiting, noble lords, but I assure you that the Rapture is now ready to receive your esteemed selves. She is a humble craft, but I trust that you will find her suitable for your use.”
“Get on with it, man,” snapped another man, an imposingly tall individual with a hooked nose.
“I shall forestall you no longer, my lords,” said Baranov, holding up a hand. “However,” he added with a rakish grin, “there is just the small matter of my compensation.”
With a snap of his fingers, four of Baranov’s crewmen stepped out of the shadows of the foliage to join him. Two of them guided a container forward, which hovered just above the ground, held aloft by anti-grav technology. They were rough sorts, and Baranov saw the noses of the lords and ladies crinkle as they stared disdainfully at them. He grinned again.
One of the crew, sat down at a desk facing the nobles, a data-slate and stylus in his hands. An immense brute with a shaved head took his place behind him, standing with his thick arms folded across his chest.
“If you would be so kind as to make your monies ready, my associates will collect your dues,” he said. “Step forward if you will, and make a line behind Lord Palantus. This will be as quick and painless as possible, and we shall all be on our way shortly.”
The nobles shuffled into line, huffing and muttering, angry at being treated like commoners. The first in line, Lord Palantus, Prime Magnate of Antithon Guild, stepped forward and slid a slim hand-case onto the desk.
“Name?” said the seated crewman, tapping at the data-slate.
“Oh, for the love of the Emperor,” said Lord Palantus, outraged at having to commune with such a lowborn cur. The seated man looked up at him, eyebrows raised.
“Get on with it, Antithon,” muttered one of the other nobles.
“Palantus,” the lord spat, glaring down at the man before him as if he were a bug that he had just found in his food.
“Open it,” said the seated man, indicating the hand-case with the tip of his stylus.
“You are going to check it’s all there, Baranov?” asked the noble imperiously. “I am a noble of Antithon Guild, and my word is my honour. It is all there, as agreed.”
“My dear lord, of course I trust your esteemed word,” said Baranov smoothly, “but please, indulge my men. They are unused to dealing with such luminaries. Please, open it.”
The prime magnate huffed and folded his arms, looking away. He nodded to hi
s mistress at his side. She clicked the release nodules of the case with her thumbs and it opened with a hiss.
With a nod, the seated man made a mark on his data-slate. The heavily muscled crewman standing behind the desk sealed the case, and it was placed inside the hovering container.
“Now, my dear Lord Palantus,” said Baranov, guiding the man to the side with his hand on his elbow, “if you would please go with my associates, they will see you safely onboard.”
The lord looked outraged that Baranov dared lay a hand on him, but allowed himself to be guided away.
“Next,” said the seated man, tapping with his stylus.
With all paying customers aboard the Rapture, Baranov smiled and let out a slow breath. He had made an absolute killing today, and he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. The engines of his ship roared, and he gave a last look around the starport before climbing the embarkation steps.
“A good day’s work,” he said. Keying a sequence of buttons, he sealed the hatch behind him.
Minutes later, the Rapture was cleared for take-off. The wedged segments of the dome far overhead peeled back like the petals of an immense flower, opening up the landing pad to the fury of the elements outside. Wind swirled furiously, ice and snow spiralling in mad eddies as the Rapture’s engines roared into life, flames gushing from the powerful downward-angled thrusters. The ship lifted, rising vertically out of the landing dock, and as the petal segments of the dome began to close once more, the Rapture’s thrusters rotated backwards, and it screamed up towards the heavens, leaving the doomed ice-world of Perdus Skylla behind it.
Marduk shot an Imperial soldier in the face, and the back of the man’s head exploded outwards, spraying blood and brain matter across the wall.
“That the last of them?” he growled, kicking the corpse out of his way.
“There are a few survivors,” said Kol Badar. “They are being executed as we speak.”
“Move in, secure the area,” ordered Marduk.
[Word Bearers 02] - Dark Disciple Page 15
