[Word Bearers 02] - Dark Disciple

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  “I make no demands, lord,” said Atherak, “merely a request.”

  “Ah, a request,” said Drazjaer. “I refuse, then. Ja’harael will go. He and his kin are being well compensated for their service, and it is high time that they began earning it. We shall see how well he fares, since my warriors have failed me so. Go, half-breed. Get out of my sight, for your presence is beginning to offend me.”

  The mandrake grinned and then was gone, as if he had never been there in the first place.

  “I’d like to gut the filthy creature,” hissed Atherak, and the dracon smiled.

  “All in good time,” he said, stroking his chin. Then his gaze dropped once more to Keelan, who was trying to remain inconspicuous on his knees, praying that his lord and master might have forgotten about him.

  “Take him,” said the dracon, banishing any hope that Keelan had of escaping punishment. “Rhakaeth, see that he is suitably chastised for his failure. I leave the level of his punishment to your discretion.”

  Keelan felt his heart sink as he saw the hungry light in the haemonculus’s dead eyes.

  “Thank you, my lord,” said the haemonculus, and Keelan was dragged away.

  Marduk stood gazing down into the gaping hexagonal shaft that descended into darkness below. Yellow and black hazard stripes lined the edge of the impossibly deep drop-off, and a steel barrier stood along its rim to protect the unwary or the clumsy from falling.

  It had been time-consuming but not difficult to breach the guild city, nor to penetrate to its heart.

  Warning lights were flashing, and the immense cable that descended down the centre of the shaft vibrated as the lift rose from the stygian darkness. The cable was over five metres in diameter, and was formed of thousands of tightly bound ropes of metal. It connected the guild city to the mining facility on the bottom of the ocean far below, and it shuddered as the lift ascended.

  The surrounding loading area was vast, easily the size of one of the embarkation decks of the Infidus Diabolus. Scores of loading vehicles lay dormant in neat rows, as if in readiness to unload the next shipment of the ore transported up from the mining facility below. Over a hundred servitor units stood immobile within the arched alcoves lining the loading dock walls, their arms replaced with immense power lifters. Massive hooks and clamp-mouthed lifters hung from thick chains linked to heavy machines overhead that would come to life to lift the heavy containers of mining ore onto waiting transport pallets when a fully laden lift ascended from below.

  The lift rose from the shaft, water streaming from its sloping sides. It was shaped like a diamond, with powerful engines positioned in either tip that hauled it up the thick cable. It came to a grinding rest, and steam and smoke spewed from the engines as they powered down. The sides of the pressurised, octagonal lift hissed as they slid upwards, exposing the expansive interior.

  The lift was spartan, consisting of a single grilled, open floor-space where cargo could be loaded, with a barricaded area around the thick cable that spooled through its centre. In effect, the lift was like a massive bead through which the thick cable was threaded, and its interior, though the ceiling was low, was large enough to house half a tank company. Its sides were thickly armoured to withstand the intense pressure of deep sea.

  “Sabtec, Namar-sin,” said Marduk. The two named champions snapped to attention. “You and your squads are to stay behind, to hold this position. Khalaxis, you and your brethren will join me, Burias and the Anointed for the descent.”

  “You heard the First Acolyte,” barked Kol Badar. “Let’s get this done. Move out.”

  The chosen warriors stamped forward into the expansive interior of the lift. Buzzing strips of glow lights hung from the roof of the lift. More than half of them were dark, but the flickering remainder lit the space with a dim, unnatural light.

  “Darioq-Grendh’al,” said Marduk, his voice commanding, “come.”

  Impelled by the power in the First Acolyte’s voice, the magos stepped forward obediently.

  Marduk slammed his fist down onto a large button on the lift’s command console, and the sides of the lift began to close, venting steam.

  “May the gods be with you,” said Sabtec, bowing his head as the doors slid shut.

  “Oh, but they are,” said Marduk.

  Burias tensed, sniffing the air as an unusual scent reached his nostrils. It was the same odd scent that he had registered just before the dark eldar attack in the tunnels. His every sense alert for danger, he registered a flicker of movement outside the lift.

  He roared a warning, but his cry was lost as the lift doors sealed shut.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sabtec and Namar-sin watched as the lift descended into darkness down the abyssal shaft in the floor. Neither of them had heard Burias’s cry of warning, and neither of them noticed the shadowy figure crawling head-first down one of the hanging chains ten metres above their heads.

  The black figure dropped soundlessly from above, twisting in the air like a gymnast and landing in a crouch, with one foot on each of Namar-sin’s shoulders and one hand steadying itself on the top of his helmet. Before the sergeant-champion could react, the shadowy creature punched a blade through the back of his neck, severing the vertebrae. Its serrated tip emerged from the front of his throat, the monomolecular blade sliding through his gorget as if it were made of paper.

  The Word Bearer champion fell soundlessly, blood spurting from the fatal wound as the blade was retracted. Sabtec bellowed a warning as he lifted his bolter. The shadowy creature, its skin as black as pitch and with glowing runes cut into its flesh, sprung from the dying Word Bearers champion’s shoulders, throwing itself into a back flip even as Sabtec began to fire.

  The explosive-tipped bolt-rounds passed straight through the creature as it became as ethereal as smoke, even as Namar-sin fell face-first to the floor, dead.

  Sabtec lost sight of the murderous eldar and threw himself into a roll as he felt a second presence materialise behind him. A blade slashed the air where he had been standing a fraction of a second earlier, and he came up firing. Again, his bolt rounds found no target.

  Shouts and screams echoed through the lift bay, accompanied by the percussive barking of bolt weapons as more of the ghostly attackers materialised, dropping from overhead and emerging from shadows that had been empty moments before.

  Moving faster than he could track, one of the insubstantial attackers darted around Sabtec, a fraction of a second in front of his coughing bolter, and the Word Bearer backed up a step, attempting to put some extra space between him and his ethereal attacker.

  The creature darted forwards, dissipating into mist as Sabtec fired upon it. It re-formed just to his left, and he swung his bolter towards it. A blade slashed down in a diagonal arc, slicing the holy weapon in two, and a second blade stabbed towards Sabtec’s throat. He swayed aside from the attack, but such was its speed that it still gouged a line across the faceplate of his helmet. Dropping his useless bolter, he grabbed his attacker’s slim arm. Feeling solid armour and flesh beneath his grasp, he hurled his attacker away from him, sending it spinning through the air, and drew his sword from his scabbard.

  “Thirteen!” he roared, bellowing the rallying cry that would bring the warriors of his coterie together.

  Thumbing its activation glyph, Sabtec brought his sword humming to life. The metre-and-a-half blade gleamed as a sudden wave of energy raced up its length, and he swung it around in a glittering arc to deflect a dark blade that sang towards his groin. The blade severed the attacker’s hand at the wrist, and the eldar warrior gave out a hiss of pain before becoming one with the shadows once more.

  “Thirteen!” roared Sabtec again, breaking into a run towards the bulk of his coterie, which was fighting its way towards him through the confusing blur of darting shadows.

  “Twenty-third, form up on me,” he roared, seeing Namar-sin’s warriors becoming isolated and surrounded.

  Even as he closed with his warriors of the 13th c
oterie, he saw one of them hamstrung by a slashing blade from behind and fall. Instantly, a trio of shadows materialised around the fallen warrior, looming like shades of death over him, and they dragged him backwards.

  One of the black-skinned eldar warriors made a slashing motion with its hand that parted the substance of the air, cutting aside the veil between real space and beyond. In an instant, the fallen warrior was bundled through the rent in reality, which sealed up behind him as if it had never been.

  Sabtec slashed with his blade, keeping the darting shadows around him at bay. He focused on one of the creatures as it materialised behind another of his squad brothers, its slanted, milky white eyes focused on its prey.

  Sabtec roared as he launched himself forwards and impaled the shadow eldar on his power sword, plunging the weapon into its throat. Its blood danced upon the energised blade, spitting and jumping. Sabtec freed his weapon, slicing it out through the side of the eldar’s neck. Its head flopped to the side, and it dropped to the ground. The glowing runes across its body blazed with sudden light, and then faded, smoking slightly, leaving just a shattered eldar corpse lying on the floor.

  Having formed up, the 13th coterie fought back to back, protecting each other’s vulnerable flanks. The enemy was coming at them from all directions, yet the warrior brothers had fought alongside each other for countless centuries, and each could predict his brothers’ movements with the understanding that came from a lifetime of shared battle.

  Heavy bolter-rounds from one of the Havoc Space Marines of the 217th ripped a swathe through the shadows, tearing two of the eldar apart. A pair of blades punched into his back and he was dragged into another dark rift that swallowed him, closing off behind him.

  Sabtec’s 13th blazed away at the shadows, most of their shots missing their targets, but a few striking their attackers, blasting bloody chunks out of armour and flesh.

  The attack ceased as quickly as it had started as first one of the mandrakes stepped into shadow and was gone, and then another and another, until the Word Bearers were alone, smoke rising from the barrels of their boltguns, and steam venting from the cooling chambers of plasma weapons. The sudden silence was eerie, and Sabtec’s breathing sounded loud in the confines of his helmet. The warriors of the 13th took the moment’s respite to load their bolters, dropping empty clips to the floor.

  Sabtec turned his head left and right, seeking the enemy, but it seemed they had truly gone. Still wary, he broke from the circle of his squad, and moved cautiously forward.

  “Report,” he snapped.

  Of 13th coterie, two members were dead and one was missing, taken by the dark eldar. Three of the surviving members were wounded, but not seriously. The 217th Havoc coterie had fared even worse, with three members dead, Namar-sin included, and two of their squad missing, leaving only three members remaining.

  Sabtec swore.

  “You three,” he said, stabbing a finger towards the remaining warriors of Namar-sin’s coterie, “you are 13th now. 217th is dead.”

  The brother warriors bowed their heads in assent. It was a great honour to be taken into the hallowed 13th coterie, but they had fought as part of the 217th under Namar-sin for centuries.

  Ammunition was running low, and the Word Bearers moved amongst their deceased kin, stripping them of weapons, grenades and clips. Sabtec knelt alongside each of the fallen warriors, speaking the oath of the departed over each in turn. With his combat knife, he carved an eight-pointed star into the forehead of each warrior, solemnly intoning the ritualised words, and daubed their eyelids with blood.

  Kneeling over the corpse of Namar-sin, Sabtec removed his helmet, and placed it on the floor alongside his fallen brother. Then, he reverently lifted one of the champion’s hands up, and stripped it of its gauntlet. Cradling the warrior’s meaty fist in one hand, he reached again for his knife, and began to saw through the champion’s fingers, using the serrated edge of his blade.

  After hacking through each of the digits in turn, he tossed a severed finger to each of the members of Namar-sin’s coterie. He kept one for himself, for Namar-sin had been his battle-brother since the Great Crusade, and he had respected the warrior greatly, and valued his comradeship.

  He began to strip his battle-brother’s body, removing his shoulder plates and placing them carefully at his side, before moving onto his gorget and outer chest plates, removing each piece carefully and reverently. The other members of his squad stood by solemnly.

  He pulled the breastplate away with a sucking sound, taking with it the outer layer of skin that had long fused with the armour.

  The flesh of Namar-sin’s broad torso was heavily muscled, and the tissue of that muscle glistened wetly. With a deft movement, Sabtec sliced a deep cut from the breastbone to the navel. Inserting his hand into the cut, he searched around in the chest cavity, groping behind the thick, fused ribcage. Grasping Namar-sin’s motionless primary heart, he pulled it free, cutting it loose with his knife.

  Sabtec stood and lifted the heart up in his bloody hands.

  “Namar-sin was a mighty warrior and devoted brother of the true word,” said Sabtec. “We mourn his passing, yet rejoice, for his soul has become as one with Chaos. In honour of his service in the name of Lorgar, we eat of his flesh, that he may live on with us as we continue the Long War without him, and that we may carry his strength with us, always.”

  Lifting the heart to his mouth, Sabtec took a bite, ripping the flesh away with his teeth. Blood covered his chin, and he chewed the lump of flesh briefly before swallowing it. Then he stepped in front of the first of the three remaining warriors that had belonged to Namar-sin’s coterie, offering the heart.

  Marduk stared through the thirty-centimetre thick porthole into the inky blackness beyond as the lift continued to power its way down into the Stygian depths of the ocean. Little could be seen apart from occasional bubbles of expanding gas, and the visage of his skull helmet was reflected back at him, distorted in the curved therma-glass.

  “There is no going back now; we have not the time. I feel the threads of fate weaving together. The time of the completion of this… necessary task, draws close,” said Marduk with a hint of impatience and irritation. “Sabtec and Namar-sin are veterans. They can look after themselves.”

  The lift strained and creaked alarmingly as the building pressure of the water outside pressed in. The thick metal plates of the hull, supported by countless brackets and thick bolted girders, flexed inwards, groaning like a beast in torment.

  The lift had descended at a steady rate, down the shaft carved from solid ice. The rate of descent slowed as they reached the lower crust of the ice and plunged into the sea, before increasing in speed once more as they sank further into the icy depths. They were some four thousand metres below the surface, nearing halfway to the ocean floor.

  Burias was pacing back and forth like a caged animal, glaring hatefully at the bulging hull as if daring it to give way.

  “Be calm, icon bearer,” snapped Marduk, turning away from the porthole. “Your restlessness is distracting.”

  Marduk could feel Burias’s impatience like a living thing, intruding on his spirit.

  “What is the matter with you?” asked Marduk in irritation.

  “I am envious,” said Burias, pausing in his pacing for a moment, flashing Marduk a dark glance. “I had wished to fight the eldar again. I wish to test my speed against them.”

  “You sound like a spoilt child,” spat Marduk. “Recite the Lacrimosa. Begin at verse eighty-nine. It will calm your nerves.”

  Burias glowered at Marduk.

  “Eighty-nine?” he said, furrowing his brow.

  “‘And when the accused are confounded and confined to flames of woe, rejoice and call upon Me, your saviour,’” he quoted.

  “The Lacrimosa has always been a favourite of yours, hasn’t it, brother?” asked Burias.

  Marduk smiled. Alone amongst all the warriors of the Host, he tolerated Burias referring to him as brother, i
n honour of the blood-oaths that the pair had sworn aeons past, when they were both idealistic young pups, freshly blooded in battle. Nevertheless, Marduk allowed the icon bearer the honour only when they were alone, or out of earshot of the other warrior brothers of the Host, for such familiarity was unfavourable, especially now that he was certain that his ambitions of becoming Dark Apostle were fated to be, at last, fulfilled.

  A Dark Apostle must be aloof from his flock, a symbol of the undying faith of the holy word. He had learnt that from Jarulek, and it was, his arrogant master had taught him, part of the reason why the role of the Coryphaus was important. The Dark Apostle must be more than a warrior; he must be an inspiration, a saint, the holiest of disciples. He must be raised above the warriors of the Host, for the gods spoke through him. A Dark Apostle had no brothers except others of his rank, for it was deemed that familial relations within the Host humanised him too much, weakening the awe he was held in by his warriors. Such a thing led to a weakening of the strength of the Host, and a lessening of the faith.

  “A Dark Apostle,” Jarulek had lectured him condescendingly, “must be above reproach, above question. He cannot have close ties with the warriors of his flock. Your Coryphaus is your closest confidant, and your will is enacted through him. He is the bridge that spans the gap between the Dark Apostle and the Host.”

  Marduk pushed the distracting, errant thoughts back, his mood darkening.

  “The Lacrimosa brings me great calm,” said Marduk. “It at once soothes my soul and rekindles my hatred.”

  “I shall do as you suggest, brother,” said Burias. “So long as Sabtec leaves a few for me, I guess I can wait.”

  Another loud groan shuddered the lift, and Burias scowled.

  Kol Badar stamped towards them, and the cordial companionship between Marduk and Burias evaporated. At once, they were no longer long-time friends and blood brothers; now they were once again First Acolyte and icon bearer.