The bio-mechanical amalgamations had no lower torso or legs. Their upper bodies, replete with wires and cables protruding from their pallid flesh, were attached to multi-jointed mechanical armatures that whirred and hissed as they extended and retracted, accurately moving and placing the fleets, accordingly, as fresh data was transmitted into them. Augustine was so used to their movements that he barely registered their presence; they were merely part of the ship; one more tool to help him with his strategy.
Two other cruisers with squadrons of smaller escorts clustered in front of other populated worlds, the agri-world Perse, and the mining moons of Perdus Skylla and Perdus Kharybdis, rotating slowly around the uninhabitable gas giant, Calyptus.
Small, featureless scale models, representing a host of transports and carriers engaged in the evacuation efforts, were positioned touching the inhabited worlds. Several other models representing similar transports were positioned en route to the blockade. Almost two hundred million people were being evacuated from this system alone. Already, there had been problems with some of the mass transports associated with the fleet, as riots had broken out within the civilian populations already evacuated. He pushed these thoughts out of his mind; it was his job to enact the strategy laid down to him and see the worlds evacuated safely, not to police those populations once they were safely onboard the mass transport ships.
As he watched, an Imperial light cruiser was placed on the table on the lee-side of Perdus Skylla, and then removed. The arm of the servitor jerked spasmodically, and it placed the light cruiser back down upon the table.
‘What’s that?’ asked Admiral Augustine, pointing towards the ship, which was once again removed from the table.
One of his aides, a junior lieutenant, shrugged.
‘It’s been doing that for the past hour, admiral,’ he said, ‘interference from the hive fleet, or a radiation field, perhaps. The flag-lieutenant thinks it may be nothing more than a technical glitch in the servitor unit. He is speaking to the enginseers about it.’
Admiral Augustine raised an eyebrow and regarded the peculiar behaviour of the servitor with a frown. Once again it put the ship back on the table, and then removed it.
‘Useless bastards,’ said Cortez, shaking his head as he extricated himself from the enginseers and walked to Augustine’s side. ‘They say the unit was serviced last week.’
The servitor-unit seemed to be operating as normal, again, and the phantom ship was nowhere to be seen on the table.
‘Give me an update on the evacuations, Cortez,’ said Augustine.
‘Circe is almost completed, admiral,’ said Cortez. ‘The Valkyrie will be disengaging and pulling back within the hour.’
The flag-lieutenant was a stocky man of indeterminable age. A livid scar tracked across his chin, and a gleaming, bronze-rimmed lens stared from the hollow socket of his left eye. He was a natural officer and Augustine’s closest confidant, the one and only man that he would class as his friend.
‘And the evacuations of Galatea? And the Perdus moons?’ asked the admiral.
‘Galatea goes well; the moons of Calyptus less so. There are not enough transports. It’s going to take those transports that are available three trips to complete the evacuation of Perdus Skylla and Perdus Kharybdis.’
‘Three trips,’ mused Admiral Augustine. He hissed through his teeth, gauging the position of the moons and the advancing enemy hive fleet. ‘It’s going to be tight.’
‘If the evacuation is not completed before a ground invasion commences, anybody still on the moons must be forgotten,’ said Cortez, moving to the opposite side of the table to the admiral.
‘We shall buy the moons as much time as we can,’ Admiral Augustine said, ‘but you are correct, I cannot risk the fleet for the benefit of two moons. Our orders are clear.’
His orders were clear, as much as they rankled with him. They were the same orders that all of the fleets engaging Hive Fleet Leviathan had been issued, and he knew that they were being enforced all across the warfront.
The tyranids were a deadly menace, there was no disputing that, but it sat badly with the admiral that they were giving way before the xenos forces rather than making them fight for every bit of Imperial space. Of course, he would not allow his personal feelings to colour his judgement, and he would never go so far as to voice his feelings in front of his officers. Their orders were clear. He had sent an astrotelepathic message to the lord admiral on receiving the dictate, but once confirmation of the order had been returned, his path was set.
The new tyranid advance was potentially more catastrophic than any ever seen before, and the strategy that had been decreed to be used against it was similarly extreme.
It was genocide. Those worlds that were already suffering under the first waves of ground assault were effectively condemned to death, along with their Planetary Defence Force and any force of the Imperial Guard that could not be extricated.
Admiral Augustine knew that the political ramifications and backlash from this modus operandi would be devastating, but he also knew that no fleet captain would fail in his duty. They would carry out their orders, and leave the politicking to the bickering bureaucrats of the Administratum.
Cortez cursed, and Augustine shook his head slightly as the malfunctioning servitor unit once again placed the phantom Imperial light cruiser back on the table.
‘Have a destroyer do a sweep around the moon, just to be sure,’ said Augustine, and Cortez nodded his assent, even as he was shouting for the enginseers to be returned to the bridge.
Augustine’s gaze focused on the spherical representations of the twin moons of Perdus Skylla and Perdus Kharybdis.
The evacuation of the moons would continue, and he would hold the fleet in position for as long as possible. However, looking again at their position, and the advance of the tyranid fleet, he knew instinctively that it would not be long enough.
Before the week was out, he would be ordering their Exterminatus.
The chamber was a shrine to death. Part of Marduk’s personal quarters within the labyrinthine Infidus Diabolus, its high, domed ceiling was formed from the ribs of sacrifices, and eight pillars, each constructed from thousands of bones, rose into the gloom. Oily candles had been set into the hollow craniums of the skulls set into the pillars, and an infernal glow exuded from fire blackened, hollow sockets.
Braziers of black iron burnt low, and black, acrid smoke rose from the smouldering coals. Hunched figures, their abhorrent faces hidden from view beneath deep cowls, stalked the darkness outside the circle of pillars, swinging heavy censors from which thick, heady incense spilled.
Inside the pillars, the floor was rough granite, carved into the image of a holy eight-pointed star, the symbol of Chaos in all its guises. A massive figure stood at its centre, his augmented arms raised out to either side as he was prepared for the forthcoming ceremony.
Marduk was silently fuming, still angry at Magos Darioq’s inability to unlock the secrets of the Nexus Arrangement. Silently incanting the Nine Levels of Enlightenment, he forced himself to calm. From the archive facility of Kharion IV, the magos had identified the location – a backwater Imperial moon called Perdus Skylla – of the one whose knowledge would release the artefact’s power, and Marduk forced himself to breathe evenly. Be patient, he reminded himself.
More than a dozen hooded figures, stunted creatures that stood not even to the mighty warrior’s chest, clustered around their master, making him ready for the ceremony. Their eyes had been ritually sutured closed with thick staples, for it was regarded as a sin for them to look upon such a revered warrior. They brushed his blessed armour with sacred unguents, and fixed icons and holy charms to his armour.
Marduk, First Acolyte of the Word Bearers Legion, acting Dark Apostle of the Host, stood over two metres tall, his limbs encased in thick reinforced plate the colour of congealed blood. His holy power armour had been worked upon by the artisans of the Host in recent months, the plates rimmed wi
th dark meteoric iron, and battle damage repaired.
Marduk had meticulously scrimshawed hundreds of thousands of words across them in tiny script, scriptures and sacred litanies of Lorgar that he knew by heart. The entire third book of the Tenets of Hate was inscribed around the armoured vambrace encasing his left forearm, and the titles of the Six Hundred and Sixty-Six Enumerations of Erebus were carved across the curved mass of his left shoulder pad.
The left shoulder pad had been dutifully painted black, as had those of the entire Host, in mourning for the loss of their revered leader, the Dark Apostle Jarulek. That Marduk had been integral to Jarulek’s death made the symbolic act particularly ironic, and he smirked.
Over his painstakingly worked armour, Marduk wore a bone-coloured robe, tied at his waist with chains hung with icons of dedication to the dark gods of the ether. A book of hymnals and battle-prayers from the Epistles of Lorgar hung at his side, its dusty pages bound in human leather.
His head was bare. A bolt round fired by his former master, the Dark Apostle Jarulek, at point-blank range had rent the helmet beyond repair, and Marduk’s features bore testament to the damage that shot had wrought. The entire left half of his face had been blasted away, and it had taken all the skill of the Host’s chirurgeons and chirumeks to rebuild his facial structure.
Adamantium had been fused to his skull, and he had grinned as the procedure had taken place. Pain, it was taught, was a blessed gift that fortified the spirit and brought one closer to the gods. As such, it was a sensation to be welcomed. No proud warrior of the Legion would ever consider allowing a chirurgeon to distance him from the blessed pain of his battle wounds with narcotic opiates or psychotropic injections, for such a thing was regarded as blasphemy.
His shattered left cheek was rebuilt, and the muscles and tendons of his face re-grown or replaced with bionic implants. Marduk’s skin had yet to grow across this new facial structure, and the ceramic gleam of his sharpened teeth could be seen through the strands of muscle tissue that linked his upper and lower jaws.
His left eye socket had been blasted to splinters, and the eye turned to molten jelly by the concussive force of the bolt round. Once the socket had been reconstructed, a replacement eye grown in a culture of amniotic-fluid infused with warp energy was surgically attached to his brain stem. The daemonic flesh hybrid replacement stared out from his adamantium eye socket, an angry, red, lidless orb. The pupil was little more than a sliver, like that of a serpent’s eye, reflecting all that it saw.
For all his reconstructive surgery, Marduk’s face bore the patrician features that spoke of his genetic ancestry. Every warrior in the Legion bore the genetic makeup of his lord, the blessed daemon primarch Lorgar, and the similarity between them was marked, characterised by their pale skin, their noble profile, their proud bearing and their hair, which was as black as pitch.
Marduk’s long black hair had been combed and oiled by his robed attendants, before being tied into a long braid and secured behind his head, atop the cluster of cables that entered his flesh at the base of his skull. A cloak of matted fur, skinned from a blood-beast that Marduk had slain on the death world of Anghkar Dor, was draped over his shoulders and fixed to leering, daemonic bronze faces on his breastplate. The inside of the fur was lined with velvet, and symbols of Chaos resplendent had been scorched into the fabric.
Holy scriptures of Kor Phaeron, cut into the flayed flesh of innocents, were driven onto the spikes rimming his shoulder pads, and fresh blood, drawn from the bodies of mewling sacrifices artificially bred in vats on the lower decks of the Infidus Diabolus for that sole purpose, was daubed reverentially onto his gauntlets.
One of the attendants lined his right eye with coal, and smoke rose from the holy mark of Lorgar on Marduk’s brow as the servant’s withered hand brushed it. The stink of scorched flesh rose from the attendant’s hand, and it pulled it back sharply as smoke rose from the mark. Marduk growled in annoyance, and the attendant was dragged away into the darkness by two of its kin. Its flesh would be consigned to the cleansing fires, its body fed to its kin and its soul, if it had one, subject to eternal torment for displeasing its master.
Marduk’s eyes lit up as his weapons were brought forth, led by a procession of censer-bearing attendants. They were the tools with which the Dark Faith was delivered to the heathen masses of the galaxy and as such, they were borne with reverential care. They lay upon black cushions, and were carried upon the backs of creatures whose flesh was completely swathed in black cloth to hide their obscene forms.
Marduk picked up his customised bolt pistol, its squat barrel protruding from the carved maw of a daemon. It felt natural and light in his hand, though a mere mortal would struggle to bear its weight, and he rammed a sickle-shaped clip into place before holstering it at his hip.
Even in times of relative peace the brothers of the Host bore live weapons, for though they were disciples and custodians of the Dark Creed, they were holy warriors first and foremost, and it was part of their tenets to be always reminded of the Long War against the cursed Imperium, to be ever in readiness for holy battle. Bitterness fuelled their beliefs and passion, and the holy bolter and chainsword were the tools with which the proper order of the galaxy would be instated. No warrior could forget the betrayals of the Corpse Emperor, or the fallacy of his church, while they held their sacred weapons.
Next, he lifted his archaic chainsword from its cushion. His grip closed around the hilt of the weapon, and he felt the familiar rush as it bonded with him, barbs piercing the flesh of his palm. The power and rage of Borhg’ash, the daemon eternally bound within the chainsword, surged through him, and he restrained the urge to lash out, to feed the beast’s hunger. The blood of thousands had been shed beneath its biting teeth, and it was with some reluctance that he sheathed it, allowing the locking clamps to secure it at his waist.
‘Soon you shall feed, dear one,’ said Marduk to appease the daemon, and he felt a twinge of unease as his bond with the daemon weapon was severed, as if a part of his body had been cut from him.
Marduk dismissed his servants with a wave of his gauntleted hand. They retreated into the dark recess-hollows in the chamber walls, disappearing from mortal sight.
Whispering a prayer, he turned and walked across the chamber. The great doors reared up before him, intricately carved into a representation of the maelstrom, replete with daemonic forms and the souls of mortals writhing in agony. The amorphous carving shifted maddeningly, souls screaming out in silent torment as flames consumed them and devils cavorted.
Pressing his palms against the doors, Marduk pushed them open, and they swung aside soundlessly.
An entourage of twelve chosen warriors knelt upon the flagstones beyond the doors, their heads bowed low. At their fore was the icon bearer, Burias, his head lowered to the ground before his master.
‘Arise, my brothers,’ said Marduk.
The devotional ceremony lasted for twelve hours, and the mournful voices of the Host rose and fell as they intoned their hymnal responses. The morbid peal of bells echoed out across the cavernous expanse of the cavaedium, signalling the end of the communal worship of the gods. Marduk’s throat was raw from his elocutions and recitals from the books of Lorgar, but he felt refreshed and invigorated by the communion with the great powers of the ether. It was always this way for him.
For three months it had been this way, with prayers, sermons and services dominating the lives of the Word Bearers as their ship, the Infidus Diabolus, ploughed its way through the roiling sea that was the warp. The Host was eager for battle, for the fields of war were the truest halls of worship to the gods, but these hymnal services served their needs, while not engaged against the enemy, and they fuelled the hatred and stoked the fires of vengeance that burnt within the breast of every warrior brother.
Warp travel allowed the Infidus Diabolus to travel vast distances in months or years rather than decades or more, but Marduk would allow none of his battle-brothers to enter stasis w
hile on these journeys, for these times were important lulls during which affirmations could be renewed and dedications and oaths of servitude to the great gods blooded anew.
As the Host filed away, returning to their cells for individual, silent communion, reading of scripture, the blessings and refitting of holy bolters and other daily rituals, Marduk found himself gazing upon the blessed crozius arcanum, lying dormant upon a plinth at the front of the alter overlooking the nave where the Host had gathered.
The crozius arcanum was the hallowed staff of office of the Dark Apostles, the bearers of the true faith. Once it had symbolised belief in the Great Crusade, in the Imperium of Man and the optimism of the Crusade bringing enlightenment to the galaxy, but the Emperor’s lies had long been revealed.
The Emperor had claimed that gods did not exist, that they were merely the creations of weak minds. Hypocritically, it was this same Emperor, though his body was now a mere rotting corpse, that the Imperium prayed to as their patron deity. The fallacy of the lie and its hypocrisy filled Marduk with bitterness and rage. In truth, that anger had not waned with time, but rather had grown stronger and deeper.
In ignorance, blindness or perhaps fear, the Emperor had proclaimed that there were no great godly powers in the universe, but he had been wrong. He had lied. There were deities in the depths of the warp, tangible and very real, and they were more powerful than anyone could have imagined. It was to these ancient gods that the Word Bearers had pledged their allegiance, and it was the faith in them that they sought to bring to the universe.
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