Word Bearers

by Anthony Reynolds

  Marduk scrambled to his feet, swept up the Dark Apostle’s discarded bolter and slammed a new clip into its base. He looked up to see the hovering, skeletal machine fire a blast of green energy towards Jarulek, who swayed to the side with nigh on preternatural speed, and leapt forwards with a shout, swinging the crozius towards the foe.

  The enemy lowered itself towards the ground, so that it hovered less than a metre above the floor, its claws clicking and flexing beneath it. Its shimmering shroud whipped around it and it flashed out with its double-bladed staff, blocking Jarulek’s attack with a screech of sparks and crackling energy. The other end of the staff swept around, its long curved blade slicing towards his throat. The Dark Apostle swayed beneath the lightning quick repost and swung his crozius again. The heavy blow was deflected easily and he stepped to the side, moving further around the flank of the creature and closer to escape.

  Marduk broke into a run, invoking the gods of Chaos, and fired the bolter one-handed. If the Dark Apostle escaped then his life was forfeit. The bolts slammed into Jarulek’s lower back, pitching him forwards. He roared in despair as he lost his grip on the metal sphere, and it flew through the air away from him.

  The hovering corpse-machine swung its weapon in a wide arc as the Dark Apostle fell, the blow carving through the chest armour just below the fused ribcage. Blood sprayed from the wound and from the blade as it passed through the Dark Apostle’s body and out the other side, severing his torso. Jarulek flailed frantically for the spilled sphere as he fell to the ground in two pieces, his lifeblood flooding the floor beneath him.

  Marduk leapt, landing with his right foot on the carapace of the enemy and hacked his chainsword into its head. Chunks of metal were torn loose by the whirring chainblade, turning almost instantly into tiny, metallic flying scarabs, and the death’s-head visage of the foe was snapped back by the force of the blow. Pushing off with his other foot, Marduk leapt through the air, his good eye focused on the falling sphere, and his hand reaching out vainly to catch it.

  The metal ball slipped beyond his reach and hit the ground with a heavy, reverberating thud. It did not bounce, but began to roll straight towards the pit from which the cursed alien creature had emerged. Marduk hit the ground and slid after the ancient artefact. His hand closed on it just as it rolled clear of the edge and the unnatural weight of it almost took him with it.

  He saw Jarulek’s eyes glaring at him, filled with bitterness and hatred. The Dark Apostle clawed his way towards him, pulling his legless torso across the blood-slick floor.

  ‘He unmarked by godly touch,’ spat the Dark Apostle. ‘You deceived me, Marduk. Somehow, you kept that mark concealed.’

  Jarulek was silenced as his head was skewered upon the blade of the massive skeletal creature. It lifted his severed torso high into the air and the dark crozius slipped from dead fingers to the floor. The Dark Apostle was hurled through the air, thudding wetly against the curving wall of the chamber. He slid down its slick surface and disappeared into the abyssal darkness.

  Marduk attached his daemon-blade to his waist and staggered forward to retrieve the fallen crozius. He raised it before him and it crackled to life, arcing blue electricity shimmering over its spiked head.

  He felt the baleful gaze of the enemy fall towards him and he turned and ran.

  Marduk staggered from the gateway, falling to his knees, the ice-cold sphere cradled under his arm.

  Had the Undying One allowed him to leave its realm? No, he told himself, my faith brought me back from that ungodly place.

  Gunfire blared around him and he stumbled up the black steps to the top of the dais. The Anointed, their ranks more than halved in number, had fallen back, forming an ever-tightening circle of warriors.

  Kol Badar spun as he saw the First Acolyte rise from the steps, and took a few paces forward, lightning crackling across the talons of his power claw, but he slowed his advance as he drew nearer.

  ‘Where is the Dark Apostle?’ he thundered.

  ‘Dead,’ spat Marduk. ‘He sacrificed himself that I may escape to lead the Host.’

  ‘That is a lie!’ roared Kol Badar, stepping forward to smash Marduk with his powerful fist. He halted his movement as Marduk lifted the crozius up between them.

  ‘The Dark Apostle gifted me this, his sacred crozius arcanum,’ said Marduk, his voice raised loudly to carry to all the Anointed. ‘He told me to lead the Host to Sicarus, to see me sworn in as Dark Apostle. He sacrificed himself that I could escape with that which we have fought so hard, my brothers, to attain. Come,’ he said, as more of the Word Bearers were cut down by the scything green flashes of the xenos weaponry, ‘we must vacate this world.’

  Kol Badar clenched his fist but did not move. Did he know that Jarulek had always intended to see him dead, pondered Marduk? Most probably, he surmised.

  ‘The Host must honour the Dark Apostle’s last wishes, else his sacrifice has been made in vain,’ said Marduk loudly, a smile curling the right side of his mouth. The left side of his face was a mess of torn and missing flesh. ‘Come, Coryphaus, we must leave here.’

  Kol Badar’s face twisted in anger and hatred, and he lashed out violently with his power claw, the talons curling around Marduk’s neck, crushing the ceramite of his gorget and lifting the smaller Word Bearer up into the air before him like a child. The muscles of his neck straining against the immense grip, Marduk still managed a crooked smile.

  ‘Just like our encounter upon the cursed moon so many years past, Coryphaus, ‘and all because I killed your worthless, heathen blood-brother.’ Marduk’s face turned red as Kol Badar tightened his grip. ‘He was a worthless dog, not fit to be named Word Bearer,’ gasped Marduk. ‘He brought nothing but shame to the noble Host. Lorgar himself would have done as I did that day.’

  ‘Your words are poison. They mean nothing to me,’ snarled Kol Badar, exerting even more force, hearing the enhanced muscles and vertebrae of the First Acolyte groan in resistance to his pressure.

  ‘You would try to kill me here, Kol Badar?’ snarled Marduk, his voice strained.

  ‘You wouldn’t be able to stop me,’ growled the big warrior.

  ‘No,’ said Marduk, with difficulty, ‘but he would.’

  Kol Badar glanced to his side to see Burias-Drak’shal’s hulking form beside him, staring at him. Great horns rose from the possessed warrior’s forehead and his corded muscles were tense. His massive clawed hands clenched and unclenched as he stared at the Coryphaus with glittering, daemonic eyes filled with bestial rage.

  The possessed warrior rose to his full, towering height, his chest rising and falling heavily as he drew breath, steam billowing from his flared nostrils. He was quivering with anticipation for the kill, veins bulging within his hyper-tense muscles.

  ‘You would stand against me, Icon Bearer?’ growled Kol Badar.

  ‘I would not stand against the holy leader of the Host,’ replied Burias-Drak’shal, forming the words with some difficulty, his jaw having altered in form to contain his thick, tusk-like teeth.

  ‘And this is not he!’ thundered the Coryphaus.

  ‘The Dark Apostle entrusted me with his holy writ,’ said Marduk. ‘Go against me and forfeit your life. Choose your words carefully.’

  The Coryphaus was silent. The sound of bolters firing echoed from the glossy black walls, accompanied by the death groans of falling Anointed warriors.

  ‘We cannot leave this place without the Dark Apostle,’ Kol Badar said, at last.

  ‘He is dead!’ snarled Marduk.

  ‘Then we must bear his holy body back to Sicarus,’ roared Kol Badar, his grip around Marduk’s neck tightening. Burias-Drak’shal hissed and grasped Kol Badar’s arm, his claws digging deep, cutting into the thick armour. Their strength was evenly matched.

  ‘You would dare put hands upon me,’ Kol Badar growled. Burias-Drak’shal snarled, digging his talons in deeper, blood pooling around them and flowing over the Coryphaus’s sacred Terminator armour.

&nb
sp; ‘And you would dare defy my command?’ asked Marduk. ‘Your life is on tenterhooks, Kol Badar. We leave this place, now. Choose your path. Follow me, or die here in this tomb. Your name will be cursed by the Legion for time immaterial, a traitor to the Legion and a traitor to Lorgar.’

  Kol Badar stared at Marduk, who returned the glare, staring back at himself in the eyes of the Terminator’s helmet.

  ‘Choose swiftly, Kol Badar. The warriors of the Legion are dying.’

  ‘This is not over,’ growled Kol Badar, releasing his grip around Marduk’s neck with a shove. ‘Remove your hands, Icon Bearer.’ Burias-Drak’shal looked to Marduk, who nodded, and the possessed warrior released his grip, blood upon his talons.

  Kol Badar swung away, shouting orders.

  ‘We leave, now!’ he roared. ‘Form up!’

  ‘Your forehead,’ growled Burias-Drak’shal. ‘You bear the mark of Lorgar.’

  The burning pain on his forehead was as nothing to the pain covering the rest of his head, but it was worth the feeling of satisfaction that he felt as he looked upon the crozius in his hands.

  ‘Let us leave this forsaken world,’ said Marduk. ‘It has served its purpose.’

  At Marduk’s psychic call, the Infidus Diabolus returned to the shattered wreck of Tanakreg, tearing a rift in reality as it emerged from the warp to meet the Thunderhawks, Stormbirds and other landing craft streaming up from the planet’s surface.

  The Imperial ships that had remained in orbit around the planet moved to engage, though they were sluggish to respond to its appearance. Their astropaths’ senses were dulled by the warp field projected by the Gehemehnet and they had no warning as to the strike cruiser’s sudden appearance. The Imperial ships kept a respectful distance from the field of unbridled Chaos energy that the tower continued to project into the outer atmosphere. Flights of fighters swarmed from the bowels of the Infidus Diabolus to slow the enemy’s approach, though the Chaos ships were outnumbered and outclassed by those of the Imperial Navy.

  Several transportation craft were destroyed as they sought to dock with the Infidus Diabolus and the powerful strike cruiser took damage from incoming torpedoes fired from an Imperial Dictator class warship.

  The Host had suffered heavy casualties and many of the holy suits of armour worn by the Anointed had been lost in the xenos pyramid. The revered religious leader of the Host had fallen, and long would be the requiem services dedicated to his honour. The First Acolyte, mourning the loss of his master and spiritual guide, would lead these ceremonies of lamentation and grievance.

  The Infidus Diabolus returned to the roiling seas of the Ether, forging a path towards the Eye of Terror and Sicarus, the world claimed by the Daemon-Primarch Lorgar, and the religious seat of the Council of Apostles. There Marduk would face trial, to prove his worth to be embraced into the fold and become a true Dark Apostle of the Word.

  EPILOGUE

  The twitching magos was held against the back wall of the cell, deep within the Infidus Diabolus. His legs had been sheared off above the knees, and he hung suspended by dozens of chains. His wasted arms, covered with cancers and black malignancies, were outstretched and clamped with spiked manacles attached to further chains. Those arms had not been moved or utilised for centuries, and they were little more than canker ridden, skin-covered bones. They had broken as they had been pulled away from their position across the magos’s chest, where they had been held unmoving for countless centuries.

  Marduk moved beneath the sole, flickering glow-globe that buzzed overhead. The entire left side of his face was covered in augmetics and the skin around these bionics was puckered and a deathly shade of blue. His left eye was an angry, lidless, red orb, the pupil slender and slitted like a cat’s. He had rejected the bionic eye replacements that the Chirumeks had offered, instead demanding this daemonic flesh hybrid, and he was pleased with the chirurgeons’ efforts.

  The sparking stubs of four mechanical servo-arms flailed spasmodically from the priest’s shoulders and the remnants of mechadendrites quivered. Most had been ripped from the magos’s spine and those that remained were little more than shorn off, useless protuberances. The haemoncolyte that had been attached by umbilical tubes to the machine priest had been severed from him and its repulsive, diminutive form opened up by the chirurgeons for study. It had squirmed as their knives had cut into its cankerous flesh. Large bell jars filled with viscous liquid protruded from the hunched back of the magos, though several of them had been smashed open, leaking pungent green-blue liquid, and sparking electricity flashed from within them occasionally. The contents of the jars had been placed under close scrutiny to try to tease the secrets from the preserved, ancient brains.

  The red robes of the magos had been stripped from his mechanical body, and without its all concealing hood, the priest’s head was exposed. Little human flesh remained of its face, and what existed was corpse pale and twitched uncontrollably. Tubes and pipes fed via thick needles had been shoved into his exposed flesh, pumping him with serums and foul secretions.

  ‘It would seem that it has some kind of protective field generator around it,’ Kol Badar had explained when the magos had first been discovered amongst the wreckage of the crashed airship.

  ‘I would presume that this is what enabled it to survive the crash,’ he had said. ‘Allow me to demonstrate.’

  The Coryphaus had fired a burst of fire from his combi-bolter towards the magos and an energy bubble surrounding the priest of the Machine-God shimmered as it absorbed the momentum from the incoming bolt-rounds, slowing them enough for them to fall harmlessly at the magos’s feet.

  But this device did not protect him any longer. No, the device had been prised from his flesh and the Chirumeks of the Host were even now examining its workings. Marduk could do whatever he wanted to the magos, who now had no defence.

  ‘Greetings Magos Darioq.’

  ‘I will not aid you Marduk, First Acolyte of the Word Bearers Legion of Astartes, genetic descendant of the traitor Primarch Lorgar. My systems are failing. This flesh unit is dying and I shall soon become one with Deus Machina.’

  ‘You will aid me, and you will not be granted release. Yes, your flesh is dying since we removed your filthy dwarf clone, but soon you will be… changed. A daemon essence is being nurtured especially for you; you should feel privileged. Soon it will merge with you. Daemon, human and machine will become one within you. You will become that which your order loathes.’

  Marduk smiled, the buzzing glow-globe lighting his face daemonically.

  Soon you will be a puppet, dancing to my words, thought Marduk, and then you will beg to do my bidding. You will unlock the secrets of the Nexus Arrangement and a new era of destruction will be unleashed upon the Imperium of Man.

  PROLOGUE

  It felt like his body was on fire. Every nerve ending was awash with agony. He had never dreamed that such excruciating torment could be possible.

  A shadow leant over him, the image of death itself: skeletal, hateful, merciless. Eyes as black as pits bored into him, savouring his torment.

  ‘Your suffering is only just beginning,’ it promised, its voice matter-of-fact and even.

  Needles plunged into his veins.

  Then the prisoner heard a cry, the bestial roar of an animal in pain, and it took him a moment to realise that it originated from his own raw throat.

  Blades slid from the tips of Death’s long fingers and sliced through his skin, each deft incision drawing forth a wave of pain. Blood welled beneath each cut and was hungrily sucked up into tiny tubes attached to the grooved scalpel blades. The tubes ran along the back of Death’s fingers and joined the protruding veins on the backs of his hands, feeding the filtered vitae into its bloodstream.

  ‘Give in to the pain,’ it said calmly. ‘Beg for mercy.’

  He gritted his teeth, and felt the metallic taste of blood on his lips. The vision of death leant closer.

  ‘Fear me,’ it whispered, and fresh agony jabbed thr
ough his body.

  A needle appeared in front of his left eye, its barbed tip dripping with fluid. His muscles strained to turn away, but his head was held fast, and he could do nothing as the needle was pushed agonisingly slowly into the soft tissue of his eyeball. He hissed as it slid through his pupil and deep into his cornea.

  The prisoner whispered something, and his tormentor turned, straining to hear.

  ‘You will never break me,’ the prisoner said again, this time with more force. ‘Pain holds no fear for me.’

  ‘Pain? You know nothing of it yet,’ said his tormentor calmly.

  Flaps of skin were teased back, exposing the vulnerable flesh beneath. Nerve endings were seared and his body jerked spasmodically as agonised muscles tensed involuntarily. His primary heart palpitated erratically and the needle in his eye twisted, grinding against the inside of the socket.

  ‘You will come to fear me, in time,’ mused the softly spoken image of death, plucking at his captive’s exposed tendons, making the fingers of his left arm twitch. ‘We are in no rush.’

  Memories struggled to surface on the edge of the prisoner’s mind. He tried to grasp them, but they were as elusive as shadow, taunting him, just out of reach.

  Fresh agonies assailed the captive as dozens of barbed needles stabbed into his spinal column, sliding between his vertebrae and plunging into the tender flesh within.

  Darkness rose to claim him, but he fought it with all his being, straining to possess the elusive memories that hovered just beyond his reach.

  Abruptly, a name rose to his lips from the very depths of his being.

  His name.

  ‘Marduk,’ he whispered. Fresh strength flowed through him as the dam holding his memories at bay broke. He smiled, his sharp teeth stained with blood.

  ‘My faith is strong,’ Marduk whispered hoarsely. ‘You will not break me.’

  ‘Every living thing can be broken,’ said his tormentor, black eyes gleaming. ‘Everything begs for death come the end. You and I, we will find that point together. You will beg come the end. They all do.’