Word Bearers

by Anthony Reynolds

  In a tide of screaming hatred, the 34th Host boarded the Sword of Truth.

  Exalted champion Khalaxis of the 17th Coterie was the first of the Word Bearers to step foot aboard the Sword of Truth. His cheeks were carved with fresh cuts inflicted by his own ritual khantanka blade, and his mane of thick dreadlocks swung wildly as he hurled himself into the enemy, roaring in hatred.

  Always the first into any engagement, and invariably the last to be extracted, the 17th Coterie were brutal warriors all, savage berserkers who wore the grisly trophies of those they had defeated around their waists. Their shoulder pads were draped with skins ripped from the corpses of powerful enemies overcome in personal combat; it was an old Colchis belief that by donning the flesh of powerful defeated enemies, you were able to harness a portion of their strength.

  While the Word Bearers as a Legion worshipped Chaos in all its glory, Khalaxis and his brood had a tendency to gravitate towards the sole worship of great Khorne, the Bloodied One, the Skull Taker, the brazen god of destruction and brutality. For the most part Marduk overlooked this failing, as had his predecessor Jarulek, merely for the fact that Khalaxis and his squad were such devastating shock troops, and that their pre-battle blood-rituals honouring Khorne lent them unmatched fury and savagery.

  With an animalistic roar of pure rage, Khalaxis hacked his chainaxe into the chest of a White Consuls Chapter serf, the screaming teeth of the weapon ripping apart carapace armour and hungrily shearing through his rib cage in a glorious explosion of viscera and bone. Hot blood splattered across Khalaxis’s face, which was twisted into that of a monster by battle-lust, the heady, metallic scent of the man’s lifeblood merely fuelling his frenzy further. He fired his bolt pistol at close range and another two serfs were slain, exploding from within as bolt rounds penetrated their bodies and detonated.

  The Chapter serfs that served aboard the Sword of Truth were bigger, stronger and more disciplined than regular men, and had arms and armour equivalent to Imperial Guard storm-troopers. Even so, they were like children next to the fury of the power armoured juggernauts of muscle and rage that were the members of Khalaxis’s 17th Coterie, who smashed into them with the force of a sledgehammer. Limbs were hacked from bodies and warrior serfs were tossed aside like rag-dolls, arms and spines shattering as the force of the 17th’s charge hit home.

  Automated defence turrets emerged from the battle-barge’s decks and autocannons began to scream, shredding the armour of several Word Bearers, misting the air with blood. More Dreadclaws struck home, filling the air with acrid black smoke as they cut through the hull plating of the battle-barge to disgorge their Coteries upon the enemy.

  Within moments, the silence of the lower deck corridors had erupted into roars and screams of pain, the deafening whine of autocannons and the deeper thump of bolters, as well as the painful grind of chainaxe and sword carving bone and armour. Word Bearers bellowed prayers and passages from their holy scripture. Khalaxis snarled as his enhanced hearing picked up the shouts of White Consuls sergeants as they barked their orders.

  From the deck floor rose thick armoured barriers, angled shields of dense ceramite, adamantium and rockcrete designed to aid in repelling boarding actions. Through the smoke, Kol Badar saw armoured figures in white power armour taking up positions behind these barricades, dropping down behind them and hefting bolters up, bring them to bear on the invaders. In a microsecond he had noted their number and position, and as he hacked the head from the shoulders of another hapless Chapter serf, he registered an enemy Devastator squad moving up to join the defence, hauling their servo-balanced heavy weapons. Their sergeant ducked down behind a barricade and pointed in Khalaxis’s direction as the last of the Chapter serfs were cut down, and the four heavy bolter-toting Space Marines accompanying him set their feet wide, bringing their immense weapons to bear.

  With a snarl of hatred, Khalaxis threw himself into a roll as heavy bolter fire began to rake across the battle line, the deep percussive roar of the weapons deafening. Great chunks were gouged out of the walls and deck floor beneath the explosive barrage of heavy fire. Three of Khalaxis’s Coterie were ripped apart, torn limb from limb by the annihilating rate of fire unleashed upon them.

  Khalaxis slammed down behind a steel-plated storage crate, spitting in fury as bolter rounds screamed through the air around him. He thumbed a pair of grenades into his hand and rose from his position, hurling them towards the Devastator squad before ducking back behind cover. As quick as he was, a bolt round struck him in the neck, a glancing hit that passed through his flesh and out the other side. It penetrated one of the exhaust arms of his power plant backpack, which exploded in a shower of superheated shrapnel, peppering the back of his skull with razor shards.

  The grenades detonated, and while none of the White Consuls dropped, they were forced to hunker down behind cover. It would be a second or two before they had set themselves again, and Khalaxis launched himself towards them, bellowing in blood-frenzy as he closed the distance, the last of his Coterie a step behind.

  A bolt round whizzed past his ear, scant centimetres away, and one of his brethren was felled as a burst of plasma caught him in the head, turning his horned helmet molten. Khalaxis leapt a barricade, planting his foot upon its top and leaping towards the Devastators that were even now swinging their heavy weapons in his direction.

  They began to fire a moment before he got there, taking down two more of his brethren before they were overrun.

  Their sergeant, whose helmet was royal blue with a white laurel painted around its crown, rose to meet the charging Word Bearers, and Khalaxis threw himself forwards to meet the challenge.

  Chainaxe met chainsword in a clatter of rapidly spinning ceramite teeth. The White Consul was Khalaxis’s equal in height and strength, and he turned his blade expertly to the side, using the exalted champion’s momentum to sidestep him. The White Consul fired a plasma pistol blast square into the chest of another of Khalaxis’s Coterie as the blood-crazed champion staggered, sending the warrior brother flying backwards, his armour a molten ruin.

  Snarling in anger, Khalaxis recovered quickly and slammed a kick into the sergeant’s midsection, knocking him back into the barricade. His brethren were amongst the Devastators now, hacking them down without mercy, hot blood splattering across the White Consul’s alabaster armour plates. The sergeant lifted his chainsword defensively, but the arm holding it was hacked off as Khalaxis struck downwards with his chainaxe, the biting teeth of the weapon grinding through power armour, flesh and bone.

  Blood pumped from the wound and Khalaxis brought his knee up hard into the sergeant’s groin, cracking ceramite. With a backhand slap he knocked the plasma pistol from the sergeant’s hand, sending it spinning across the deck floor and planted the barrel of his bolt pistol against the White Consul’s chest plate, right over his primary heart.

  ‘See you in hell,’ said Khalaxis, and he squeezed the trigger.

  It took three shots to penetrate the thick power armour and the bonded ribcage of the White Consul, but the fourth detonated within the warrior’s chest cavity, pulping the organs within. Still, the Consul was Astartes, and did not die. He continued to grapple with Khalaxis, who pounded his fist repeatedly into the White Consul’s helmet, shattering one lens and caving in his rebreather.

  With a wrench, Khalaxis tore the Space Marine’s ruptured helmet from his head, so that he could see the face of the one he was about to kill.

  The Consul’s face was noble and proud, and three metal service studs protruded from his brow. His genetic lineage was readily apparent, for he had the same arrogant cast to his features as had the despised Primarch Roboute Guilliman, making Khalaxis’s hatred surge all the more hotly.

  ‘For Calth,’ hissed Khalaxis, drawing his fist back.

  ‘You did not win then, and you shall not win here, infidel,’ said the White Consul, his voice defiant and haughty.

  With a snarl of rage, Khalaxis drove his fist into the Astartes’s face,
killing him instantly.

  Breathing hard, Khalaxis rose above the now unrecognisable White Consul. He spat upon the corpse and gave it one last kick.

  There was a series of concentrated explosions as krak grenades were used to neutralise the automated turrets still peppering the warriors of the XVII Legion with heavy calibre fire, until the last of the guns were silenced.

  ‘Deck secured,’ growled one his warriors.

  ‘We move,’ said Khalaxis. ‘We have our orders.’

  With that, the warrior brothers of the XVII Legion advanced deeper into the hulking battle-barge, moving inexorably towards the main engine-core, their mission briefing explicit – bring the Sword of Truth to a halt.

  In the upper collegia decks, the push towards the plasma core was faltering. The Word Bearers Coteries were pinned down between carefully staggered lines of White Consuls defence, their lines of fire overlapping.

  Another Dreadclaw penetrated the hull, its talons piercing the inner skin of the ship and spitting the thick circular drilled core of the battle-barge’s armour. The bladed arcs of the assault pod slid aside, belching smoke, but before the Coterie cloistered within could launch itself into the fray a missile was fired into its interior. It exploded inside, fire billowing forth in a rapidly expanding cloud, and the survivors staggered out, their armour blackened and peeling.

  Concentrated bursts of bolter fire tore through the Word Bearers, cutting them down mercilessly as they fought to gain some cover. The last of them crawled across the deck, trailing blood in their wake, before carefully aimed shots took them in their heads.

  ‘Assault group X5.3, requiring assistance,’ said Sabtec, champion of the exalted 13th Coterie. His voice was calm and measured. ‘We are at location P3954.23, facing heavy resistance. We are pinned down. Request heavy support.’

  ‘Acknowledged, Sabtec,’ came Kol Badar’s voice, crackling through the vox-comms integrated into Sabtec’s helmet. The sound of bolter fire could be heard accompanying Kol Badar’s voice; the Coryphaus was currently marching his way towards the bridge of the Sword of Truth, accompanying the Dark Apostle himself with his Anointed brethren. ‘Secondary Dreadclaw launch initiated. Heavy support inbound.’

  ‘Received, my Corpyhaus,’ said Sabtec.

  With a quick glance around the barricade, he saw that the enemy were flanking them, moving into position that would catch the pinned-down warrior brothers in a brutal enfilade. Assessing the situation instantly, he passed his orders with short, concise commands relayed through his vox-comms, shifting the position of three of the pinned Coteries under his command to counter the threat.

  ‘Brother Sabtec,’ came the warning from one of his sub-champions.

  ‘I see them,’ he replied.

  Moving up in support of the White Consuls were more Astartes, several of whom had heavy plasma cannons.

  ‘Brother Sabtec,’ hissed another champion, his voice tense as the destructive cannons were brought to bear.

  Sabtec checked the flood of data being projected down the head-up display array of his helmet with a glance.

  ‘Twelve seconds,’ he said.

  The plasma cannons hummed, powering up, but didn’t fire.

  They are waiting for more support, Sabtec assessed. Good. They were not the only ones.

  The seconds passed with painful slowness, then the battle-barge shuddered as more Dreadclaws struck home.

  As before, a missile speared into the yawning aperture of the first Dreadclaw that penetrated, but this time there were no warrior brothers stumbling from the flames to be cut down by bolter fire. No, this time there was a deep roar of outrage that reverberated deafeningly from the confines of the assault pod. As other Dreadclaws burrowed through the thick outer plating of the Sword of Truth to disgorge their lethal cargoes, Sabtec smiled in anticipation.

  The deck shook as the immense armoured form of the Warmonger advanced out of the Dreadclaw, emerging unharmed through the inferno unleashed by the missile fired into the assault pod’s interior, which had been modified to accommodate the hulking Dreadnought.

  ‘For the Warmaster Horus!’ blared the Warmonger, the booming, sepulchral sound projected from grilled vox-amplifiers to either side of the sarcophagus that forever held his shattered body. Bolts ricocheted off the Warmonger’s armoured shell and the Dreadnought advanced through the weight of fire, seemingly oblivious.

  With an ungodly wail, a plasma cannon fired. Sabtec’s monochromatic auto-compensators reacted instantly to the painfully bright white/blue expulsion, dimming his vision momentarily so as not to blind him. The blast glanced off the Warmonger upon his armoured left shoulder, melting the outer casing of his thick plates but doing little substantial damage.

  The blow rocked the Dreadnought back a step. With a bellow of fury, the Warmonger set its clawed feet wide and began firing. Heavy-calibre cannon slugs tore across the deck, shredding barricades and several White Consuls. The White Consuls’ plasma cannon exploded with a sucking roar, spraying super-heated plasma as its core was breached.

  With a bellow the Warmonger broke into a loping charge, smashing barricades aside. A missile glanced off its angled armour plates and veered up into the ceiling before exploding harmlessly. The heavy flamer slung beneath the Warmonger’s crackling power talons roared, pouring burning promethium. Pristine white plate blackened and peeled beneath the inferno.

  Sabtec rose from his cover and charged forward, his bolter bucking in his hands as he fired it from the hip. His 13th Coterie were with him, moving swiftly from cover to cover while laying down a blanket of suppressing fire, and other squads moved up in support.

  Several Word Bearers were cut down by bolter fire. One warrior brother screamed in anger when his left arm disappeared from the searing blast of a meltagun. Sabtec slid his serrated power sabre from its scabbard and thumbed its activation rune, firing his bolter one-handed. Hot energy vibrated up the length of the blade, and the champion of the 13th Coterie closed the distance with the nearest White Consuls swiftly.

  The potent weapon had been gifted to him personally by Erebus after the 13th’s heroics upon the stinking deathworld of Jagata VII, when the Coterie had brought down the defences of a war shrine of the Adeptus Sororitas, ensuring a crushing victory against the hated sisters holed up there. Every last sister had been stripped of their armour and their flesh ritually debased before being staked out around the outskirts of the defiled shrine, their bloodied forms affixed to crosses hammered into the earth. There they were left to perish, vast swarms of blood-sucking insects rising from the surrounding death-marshes and descending upon them. Their screams had been sweet music to Sabtec that night.

  The humming blade passed effortlessly through the power armour of a White Consuls warrior as Sabtec brought it slicing down into his neck. The sabre cut down through the gorget and deep into the tactical squad member’s flesh. Arterial blood pumped from the wound, an injury that would have been fatal to any but one of the Astartes. Sabtec planted a bolt in the White Consul’s brainpan to finish the job, and turned smoothly to deflect a stabbing combat knife aimed at his sternum. With a deft twist of the wrist Sabtec disarmed his attacker before running him through, sliding the blade of his power sabre through the Astartes’ body all the way to the hilt.

  Whipping the blade from the body of the White Consul, Sabtec turned and dropped to one knee. A pistol raised to blow his head apart fired over the top of his helmet harmlessly, and Sabtec swept his blade around in a low arc that sliced the legs of the warrior from under him.

  The Warmonger was in the middle of the enemy now, and the mighty Dreadnought backhanded one Astartes warrior into a wall with a sweep of its crackling talons. The sheet plating of the wall buckled inwards and the White Consul was crushed to pulp, his armour wrenched out of shape by the force of the blow. Another warrior was snatched up in the Warmonger’s grasp, lifted clear off his feet. His bolter barked as the warrior fired frantically, but it dropped from lifeless fingers a moment later as the Dre
adnought clenched its bladed talons, the Space Marine falling to the deck in half a dozen separate pieces.

  The Dreadnought fired into the other members of the tactical squad as they pulled back in the face of the rampaging behemoth, knocking several of them off their feet and bathing the others in flame.

  More Coteries of Word Bearers emerged from Dreadclaws, heavy weapon toting Havoc squads bearing missile launchers and autocannons. Faced with the sudden reinforcements and seemingly unable to halt the enraged Warmonger, the White Consuls began to pull back, under the covering fire of Scout snipers located further back. It was no rout; the Consuls fell back in good order, moving from cover to cover and laying down fields of fire to allow their brethren to extricate themselves. Sabtec had to admire their coordination and discipline, even as he hated them with every fibre of his being.

  A final Dreadclaw gnawed its way onto the deck before disgorging its sole occupant. Immense and shrouded in black robes, the corrupted Magos Darioq-Grendh’al stepped heavily aboard the White Consuls battle-barge, mechadendrites waving excitedly and four heavy servo-limbs curving around from his servo-harness as if ready to stab anything that came near him.

  ‘Escort the magos to the central cogitation chamber, Sabtec,’ said the Dark Apostle Marduk in his ear. ‘Let no harm befall him.’

  ‘Your will be done, Dark Apostle,’ said Sabtec, motioning for a pair of Coteries to form an honour guard around the corrupted magos.

  He needn’t have bothered.

  Darioq-Grendh’al strode straight towards the retreating enemy, eschewing any form of cover. Each step was heavy and mechanical, accompanied by the grind of motors and the whine of servo-bundles.

  ‘My lord Sabtec?’ questioned the champion of one of the Coteries he had designated to guard the magos.

  ‘Leave him,’ said Sabtec, shrugging.

  A cough of a sniper rifle firing echoed through the deck, and a bubble of coruscating energy appeared around Darioq-Grendh’al, absorbing the force of the incoming shot and stopping it short of hitting home.