Word Bearers

by Anthony Reynolds

  However, with the Nexus Arrangement, the xenos device that Marduk had secured in his possession, that greatest strength would be completely undone.

  ‘The Boros Gate is a staging ground,’ Ekodas confirmed. ‘As the gods will it, it will be the staging ground; the site where the fall of the Imperium begins.’

  Marduk felt a shiver of anticipation.

  ‘We, my brothers are the vanguard of the End Times, its heralds and harbingers. In consultation with the Warmaster Abaddon, the Council of Sicarus has appointed us to take the Boros Gate. Five cardinals of Colchis born, united in Brotherhood – such is the prophecy.’

  None of the Dark Apostles spoke. All attention was locked onto Ekodas, all petty grievances and feuding temporarily forgotten.

  ‘Others have believed that they were the chosen ones, that it was their destiny to fulfil the prophecy, blinded by greed and ambition. But where they failed, we shall succeed. For we have with us what the Apocalyptica foretold: the “wondrys orb of ancynt death”.’

  ‘The Nexus,’ breathed Marduk.

  With a gesture, Ekodas turned the revolving hololith of the Boros Gate system into images of war. Word Bearers marched through crumbling shells of bombed buildings, bolters barking soundlessly in their hands. ‘And we know that the device works. The lifeless husk of Palantyr V is testament to that.’

  ‘Palantyr V was a poorly defended backwater, my lord,’ said Belagosa, his tone noticeably more deferential. ‘The scale of what we attempt at the Boros Gate bears no comparison.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Ekodas. ‘Once the device was activated, Palantyr V was doomed. The device shut the region down completely. The effect will be the same at Boros.’

  Marduk nodded.

  ‘And if it fails?’ asked Belagosa.

  ‘We’ll be dead,’ answered Sarabdal.

  ‘It will work,’ said Marduk. ‘It is prophesied.’

  ‘“With fury of hellfire, truth, and orb of ancient death, the gate shall be claimed”,’ quoted Ekodas.

  ‘We are committed to this now,’ he continued. ‘The Warmaster Abaddon watches our progress closely. Already his envoys are gathering support, scouring the Eye and the Maelstrom for all who will fight under his banner. Rivalries and blood feuds are being put aside, for all can feel that the End Times draw near. Our triumph at the Boros Gate will herald the last Black Crusade. Because of us, the heavens shall burn and the Imperium of man will be dust.’

  A heavy silence descended. Ekodas glared, as if daring any of his Dark Apostles to oppose him. After a moment, he nodded to his Coryphaus, Kol Harekh.

  ‘We take these planets in turn,’ Kol Harekh said, indicating the outlying planets of the system. ‘Once they have fallen – it should not take longer than a month – then we converge here.’

  He stabbed a finger towards one planet, five from the centre of the system.

  ‘Boros Prime,’ he said, ‘is the lynchpin. It is the heart of the system. Take that, and we take the Boros Gate.’

  Marduk peered at the sandy-coloured planet, rotating on its endless loop around the system’s two suns. It appeared such a little thing. He need only reach out to grasp it. What looked like a silver moon orbited around the planet.

  ‘The Kronos star fort?’ he asked.

  ‘A relic of the Dark Age of Technology,’ said Kol Harekh with a nod. ‘Its size and firepower is prodigious. It serves as the docking station for the system’s battleships. It must be neutralised before planetfall can be achieved. We’ll use Kol Badar’s strategem for tackling it.’

  ‘Prepare the way for Abaddon’s Black Crusade,’ said Ekodas, resuming his authority. ‘Glorify the Legion and bring about the end of mankind. Warp transference commences within the hour. Ready your Hosts. That is all.’

  Dark Apostle Sarabdal strode alongside Marduk as they marched back towards their shuttles. He spoke in a low voice so that only Marduk could hear.

  ‘We must talk, but not here,’ he said. ‘Ekodas’s influence even spreads into my Host. Doubtless it also grows within your own.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘It is not,’ said Sarabdal. ‘Be wary. Things are moving beneath the surface.’

  ‘Ekodas–’ began Marduk.

  ‘Ekodas is carving out an empire within the Legion,’ said Sarabdal, interrupting him. ‘He seeks to bend us to his cause.’

  ‘“His cause?” I don’t see–’ said Marduk.

  ‘Not here,’ hissed Sarabdal. ‘I fear this is bigger than any of us could have imagined, perhaps bigger than Ekodas himself. I am close to uncovering its secret, but–’ said Sarabdal. He fell silent as Ekodas’s veterans, providing an escort for the Apostles, closed in around them.

  ‘Be wary. Be vigilant,’ he said after a minute, before boarding his shuttle. ‘We cannot act until we know. As soon as we make transference, we shall talk. Then you too shall understand what is at stake.’

  ‘Lorgar’s blessing upon you, brother,’ said Marduk.

  ‘And upon you, my friend,’ said Sarabdal. ‘We must speak, soon, you and I.’

  ‘It shall be so.’

  Turning away, Marduk strode up the embarkation ramp of his Stormbird.

  Back aboard his own battleship, the Anarchus, Ankh-Heloth knelt within his prayer cell. The doors were shut and sealed, and he had activated the null-sphere that would ensure that nothing that was spoken within could be heard from outside. He was alone in the room, and his eyes were tightly closed. A droplet of blood dripped from his nose onto the floor. His voice echoed off the bare cell walls.

  ‘I believe that Belagosa will turn, given the right leverage, my lord,’ said Ankh-Heloth.

  I agree, pulsed Ekodas, his voice spearing through Ankh-Heloth’s mind, making the Apostle wince.

  ‘Marduk I am unsure of. Nevertheless, once the captains of the 34th are turned, the Host will belong to us.’

  How far along are we?

  ‘Our order grows steadily within his Host, my lord. Several officers within the 34th were most eager to turn. It seems that some of them harbour personal grudges against their Dark Apostle.’

  Good. That is something that can be exploited.

  ‘Which leaves us with Sarabdal,’ said Ankh-Heloth. ‘I fear that he will not be swayed. Already he has exposed several members of our cult within his ranks. Its growth stifles.’

  He knows, pulsed Ekodas. He is a danger to us.

  ‘What would you have me do, my lord?’

  I believe that we can solve the problem of Belagosa and Sarabdal in one. Be ready.

  ‘And Marduk?’

  Let the Brotherhood do its work.

  The astropath screamed and went into wild convulsions.

  Hands held him down and the hilt of a knife was jammed between his teeth to stop him biting his own tongue. He registered them only dimly; his mind was filled with the horrific after-images of the searing vision that had brought on his fit.

  It was more than an hour before his convulsions ceased, leaving him shivering and aching all over. He lay immobile on a pallet, his arms and legs strapped down.

  A shape loomed over him and a voice intruded on his nightmare. It was insistent, and would not leave him in peace. He cried out for death, cried out for the Emperor to take him. He had seen too much, much too much, and he begged for release.

  ‘You shall be granted the Emperor’s mercy,’ said a deep voice. ‘Just tell me what you saw.’

  The words tumbled from him in a torrent, and while only perhaps every tenth word was decipherable, they painted a clear picture: death was coming to Boros Prime. He spoke of eyes of fire, of a burning flame upon an open book, of living flesh inscribed with symbols that made his stomach clench painfully even to think of it. He babbled insanely, speaking of souls devoured by ravenous gods that dwelt in the dark beyond. He spoke of spinning silver rings that rotated within themselves, conjuring darkness, and how hell was coming to claim them all. Finally, sobbing, he begged for release.

  The tortured as
tropath smiled in relief as the barrel of a bolt pistol was pressed to his temple. The shot was deafening in the holding cell. Blood splattered the walls.

  ‘What is it, Coadjutor?’ came the voice of Proconsul Ostorius over the grainy vox-unit. ‘What did the astropath foresee?’

  ‘Chaos,’ was all that Aquilius said as he holstered his bolt pistol.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Burias hurried to catch up with Marduk as he stormed through the corridors of the Infidus Diabolus.

  He glanced at Marduk’s face, which was a furious mask.

  ‘Will it work?’ he asked.

  ‘It has to,’ said Marduk, ‘else we are all dead.’

  Sirens blared, and Stormbirds and Thunderhawks were prepped for launch. The Host’s Dreadclaws had been roused, their daemon essences stirred for the coming engagement in case of potential boarding actions. The Host’s warrior brothers were undergoing final preparations, mournfully intoning catechisms of defilement and retribution.

  ‘I don’t trust Ashkanez,’ said Burias.

  Marduk’s silence invited more.

  ‘I do not understand why you allowed him into the Host. He is not one of us. It is bad enough that Kol Badar still lives, but Ashkanez?

  ‘I don’t need to explain myself to you, Burias.’

  The Icon Bearer scowled. ‘They will betray you. Mark my words. The First Acolyte covets power, and Kol Badar hates you enough to help him take it. Then, the 34th will become just another subservient Host under Ekodas. Let me deal with them.’

  ‘I will deal with Kol Badar myself. For now, he serves a purpose. As for Ashkanez, he is First Acolyte. Of course he seeks to replace me, just as I sought to replace Jarulek, and he the Warmonger before him. It is our way.’

  ‘Let them do it? You need warriors around you that you can trust! You need a Coryphaus–’

  ‘I trust no one!’

  ‘You trust me,’ said Burias.

  ‘You I trust less than most, Burias,’ Marduk replied.

  The possessed warrior looked affronted. ‘I am your loyal comrade and friend. I always have been.’

  ‘A Dark Apostle has no need of friends,’ said Marduk.

  ‘My loyalty has and ever will be to you,’ said Burias, ‘and as long–’

  ‘Don’t think me a fool, Burias,’ snapped Marduk. ‘You are loyal to me only as long as it benefits you. I know this. You know this. Let us not pretend.’

  They glared at each other for a long moment before the Icon Bearer lowered his eyes.

  ‘You are a warrior, Burias, a fantastically gifted one, and you serve well in that regard. The same can be said of Kol Badar. Ashkanez has yet to prove himself. If he does not, then I will dispose of him. Be my champion, Burias. Forget the rest. Now get out of my sight,’ said Marduk. ‘Go do something useful.’

  ‘Whatever you wish, blood-brother,’ said Burias, before stalking away.

  The chambers set aside for Magos Darioq-Grendh’al’s workshop were located deep within the stern of the Infidus Diabolus. They were crowded and claustrophobic, packed with salvaged mechanics, tech-implements, crippled servitors, discarded weaponry and engines of all kinds. Cylinders filled with bloody amniotic fluid stood in rows against the walls. The magos’s experiments bobbed inside, vile blends of living flesh, metal and daemon. Further products of his enthusiastic tinkering crawled amongst the heaps of machinery, repulsive by-blows that moaned and twitched.

  Once, Darioq had been a devotee of the Cult Mechanicus of Mars, a techno-magos worshipping the so-called Omnissiah, the God in the Machine. Now he was much more than that. Now he was Darioq-Grendh’al.

  His body was concealed within a black robe, its edges hemmed with bronze wire. A single gleaming red eyepiece shone from within his deep cowl. As bulky as one of the Terminator-armoured Anointed, Darioq-Grendh’al moved with stilted, mechanised movements. Four immense, articulated arms extended from the servo-harness affixed to his frame, one pair curving over his shoulders like the stabbing tails of a desert arachnoid, the other extending around his sides like pincers. A pulsing cluster of umbilical cords and semi-organic cables trailed behind the tainted magos, hard-plugged into his spine.

  Spread-eagled upon a table before the magos was a slave, arms and legs restrained. The magos was working on the figure, clinically cutting and dissecting flesh and organs. The tortured slave’s skin had mostly been ripped from its body, exposing musculature, and it moaned in torment beneath the magos’s ministrations.

  Banks of brain-units sat in bell jars within refrigeration tanks, thin needles puncturing their lobes. The magos had up to five brains plugged into his mechanised body at any one time, picking and choosing which of the hemispheres would best suit his current pursuit. Many of them bore evidence of corruption.

  Unfettered by petty moral constraints, the corrupted magos revelled in a universe of studies that had formerly been disallowed, and he now worked at a feverish, obsessive pace.

  Thinking machines, xenos tech, mech/daemonic blends, experimental warp-based weaponry, engines utilising the immaterium itself as their power source; all these things had been deemed heretical and blasphemous, outlawed as deviant and fundamentally incompatible with the reverence of the Omnissiah. None of the strict and uncompromising edicts of Mars mattered to him any more.

  Servo-arms, fleshy protuberances and mechadendrite tentacles worked independently of each other as the corrupted magos busied himself at his work. He needed no rest and gained what sustenance he required from the bodies of the slaves. Day and night the magos toiled. The Mechanicus code inhibitors implanted in his brain-stems had long been removed, and he found himself with a whole wealth of new areas of study now open to him – enough work for a thousand lifetimes.

  None of this mattered to Inshabael Kharesh, sorcerer of the Black Legion. He was Warmaster Abaddon’s personally appointed envoy, and all that interested him was the device.

  The sorcerer’s face was devoid of colour. Black tendrils pulsed within his flesh, runes of Chaos that were in constant flux. His hair was straight and long, as pale as spiders’ silk. The colourless hue of the sorcerer’s skin and hair made the glittering brilliance of his sapphire eyes all the more startling.

  The sorcerer was staring at the device.

  It hung motionless in mid-air, caught in a beam of red light. It was a perfect silver sphere roughly the size of an unaugmented human heart.

  The Nexus Arrangement.

  Three immense hoops of black metal surrounded the sphere. Each was carved with Chaos icons and runes of power. It was this construct that bound that device to the will of the Word Bearers. Those rings were currently motionless. Only when the device was activated would they begin to turn.

  ‘It is remarkable,’ said Inshabael Kharesh.

  ‘The power the device harbours is like nothing recalled in any Mechanicus data record,’ said Darioq-Grendh’al. ‘Nothing stored in any of Darioq-Grendh’al’s brain-units compares to this sublime construction. Darioq-Grendh’al is only able to tap into the smallest fraction of its power – no more than 8.304452349 per cent of its attainable output – and yet even so it can achieve much.’

  ‘The Warmaster is very interested in the device,’ said the Black Legion sorcerer. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the cries of the slave the magos was torturing.

  ‘My lord will be interested in you as well, Darioq-Grendh’al,’ Kharesh added.

  ‘Lord Abaddon, Warmaster of the Black Legion and genetic descendant of Horus Lupercal, will be interested in the mech/flesh unit daemon symbiote Darioq-Grendh’al, formerly Tech Magos Darioq of the Adeptus Mechanicus?’ said Darioq-Grendh’al, his emotionless voice overlaid with the growls and snarls of the daemon infused into every muscle, fibre and cell.

  ‘Of course,’ said Kharesh, smiling. ‘You are a singular creature, a true blend of human, machine and daemon.’

  The magos did not answer, intent on his plaything. The slave’s cries had been stifled now, which pleased Kharesh. One of Dar
ioq-Grendh’al’s tentacles had pushed down its throat, and it pulsed with peristalsis as it bored through the slave’s stomach lining, feasting upon organs.

  ‘You have no ties to Marduk or his 34th Host,’ said Kharesh, picking his words carefully.

  ‘It was Marduk, Dark Apostle of the 34th Host of the Word Bearers Astartes Legion, genetic descendant of the glorified Primarch Lorgar, who brought Grendh’al forth from the empyrean,’ said the corrupted magos. ‘It was Marduk, Dark Apostle of the 34th Host of the Word Bearers Astartes Legion, genetic descendant of the glorified Primarch Lorgar, who released Darioq from the shackles imposed upon him by the Adeptus Mechanicus of Mars,’ he added.

  ‘True,’ said Kharesh, smiling. ‘But it is also true that the Warmaster Abaddon has a far greater access to archeotech caches and Dark Age technology than the XVII Legion.’

  The magos paused. Only for a second, but it was enough to show the Black Legion sorcerer that he’d been heard.

  ‘The Warmaster is benefactor to many Dark Mechanicus adepts,’ he added, ‘and many Obliterator cults. I think you would find much to your appreciation were the Warmaster to become your benefactor, Darioq-Grendh’al.’

  ‘That is a most interesting notion, Inshabael Kharesh, sorcerer lord of the Black Legion, formerly of the Sons of Horus, formerly of the Lunar Wolves, genetic descendant of Warmaster Horus Lupercal.’

  ‘Something to think about,’ said the sorcerer, hearing the mag-locked doors hiss as they opened.

  Marduk strode in, closely followed by his First Acolyte and Coryphaus.

  ‘And how is Darioq-Grenhd’al today?’ said Marduk.

  ‘Darioq-Grenhd’al,’ said Darioq-Grenhd’al, ‘has been having an interesting conversation with Inshabael Kharesh, sorcerer lord of the Black Legion, formerly of the Sons of Horus, formerly of the Luna Wolves, genetic descendant of Warmaster Horus Lupercal.’