Word Bearers

by Anthony Reynolds

  ‘You are important to the Host, Burias, and you have a role to play. But Coryphaus? Really?’ said Marduk.

  Burias’s jaw jutted forward stubbornly, and though he did not speak, his silence was confirmation enough to Marduk.

  The Dark Apostle shook his head and chuckled. He placed a hand upon Burias’s shoulder.

  ‘Ah, my brother, you do so amuse me,’ he said.

  Burias shrugged off his hand.

  ‘I do not see what is so amusing,’ Burias said, his voice heavy with bitterness. ‘We are blood brothers. You owe me–’

  The Icon Bearer silenced himself, perhaps hearing the words spilling from his own lips, perhaps seeing the murderous light that was flaring in the Dark Apostle’s eyes.

  ‘I owe you?’ said Marduk in a quiet, deadly voice.

  ‘What I meant–’

  Burias didn’t see the blow coming. Marduk slammed his fist into Burias’s face, snapping the Icon Bearer’s head back sharply, breaking his nose. He staggered, and touched his fingers to the blood dripping down his face.

  ‘You dare–’ he began, but Marduk struck again, the blow catching him on the temple as he tried to turn away from it.

  ‘I dare?’ snarled Marduk. ‘I dare? I am your Dark Apostle, you insolent wretch. You dare question me? You dare suggest that I owe you somehow?’

  ‘I felt that–’ began Burias, but Marduk did not let him finish. His face was a mask of fury. He stepped in close to Burias and raised his hand to strike him. The Icon Bearer stepped back instinctively.

  ‘Do not recoil,’ snarled Marduk, and Burias froze, waiting for the blow to fall.

  Marduk unclenched his fist, and sighed. ‘Burias, you are my champion, and the Host’s finest warrior. Is that not enough?’

  The anger simmering in Burias’s eyes said that it was not.

  ‘I had hoped that we would not need to have this conversation, Burias,’ said Marduk. ‘I had hoped that you would come to accept your place in the Host, but I see now that I will have to speak even more plainly. Accept what you are, Burias, and stop trying to become something you will never be. Let me make this perfectly clear: you will never be Coryphaus, Burias. Kol Badar is Coryphaus, and your superior, and that is not changing.’

  Burias stood glowering at him.

  ‘You are my champion, and the Host’s Icon Bearer, but you a warrior, Burias, just a warrior. You will never be more than that. Never.’

  Marduk let these words sink in, holding the Icon Bearer’s gaze, before he added, ‘Now get out of my sight. Six hours on the pain deck. Perhaps that will help you learn to accept your place.’

  Without a word, Burias turned and marched from the bridge. Marduk stood there silently for a moment, before slamming his fist down onto a console.

  Standing unseen in the shadows outside the bridge, having overheard the entire exchange, First Acolyte Ashkanez smiled.

  A blinking vox-bead interrupted Marduk’s brooding. It was Kol Badar.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘I have just received word from Sabtec. The Black Legion sorcerer has been found.’

  ‘Have him wait for me in my quarters. I am returning to the Infidus Diabolus now.’

  ‘There is a problem,’ said Kol Badar.

  Anger radiated off Marduk in waves. Together with Sabtec and Kol Badar, he stood inside a little-used, dimly lit storage space located on one of the lower decks of the Infidus Diabolus. Humming fan units spun overhead. All three of the Word Bearers were focussed on the body strung up in the centre of the room. It hung there like a martyred saint, arms wide, wrapped in razor wire that cut deep into its armoured wrists and ankles.

  It was the body of Inshabael Kharesh, Warmaster Abaddon’s personal envoy within the Host. Blood had pooled and congealed upon the deck floor beneath him.

  Kol Badar made a warding gesture. The killing of a sorcerer was a blasphemy said to bring down the ire of the gods.

  ‘It is a bad omen,’ said Sabtec.

  ‘You think?’ said Marduk.

  He lifted the sorcerer’s head. His neck had been slashed open, a cut so deep that it had reached the spine. The sorcerer’s eyes had been put out, and there was a runic icon carved into his alabaster forehead. It was Colchisite cuneiform in origin, he knew that, but the symbol meant nothing to him.

  ‘Abaddon will have our heads for this,’ said Kol Badar.

  Marduk’s mind was reeling – first his only ally, Sarabdal; now the Black Legion sorcerer.

  ‘Why would anyone want him dead?’ said Kol Badar.

  ‘To dishonour the 34th? To spread disharmony and doubt?’ said Sabtec.

  ‘Or to ignite antagonism between us and the Black Legion,’ said Marduk.

  ‘What is this symbol?’ said Kol Badar.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Marduk.

  ‘There were more than two hundred warrior brothers onboard the Infidus Diabolus at the time when this took place,’ said Sabtec. ‘I will begin verifying the whereabouts of each of them.’

  ‘We do not have the time,’ said Marduk, shaking his head. ‘This is what they want – to sow confusion and dissent.’

  ‘Ashkanez,’ said Kol Badar. ‘He’s the only one of us who is not of the 34th.’

  ‘The First Acolyte was aboard the White Consuls ship,’ said Marduk.

  ‘If not him, then we must face the fact that there is one – or more than one – working against us from within the Host,’ said Kol Badar.

  The thought was not a comforting one.

  Burias was lying upon his spike-rimmed pallet, his flesh awash with agony, when there came a knock on his cell door.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, and dragged himself to his feet. His pain receptors were still burning with residual agony from the ministrations of the black-clad wraiths of the pain deck. Serums had been injected into his spinal column that retarded the accelerated healing of his body, ensuring that he felt every nuance of his punishment. It was not the physical pain that bothered him – in truth, its purity was a welcome – but rather the fact that his blood-brother had humiliated him so. Anger seethed within him, coiling around his twin hearts like a serpent.

  Rising to his feet, nerve endings searing, he pulled a robe around his body.

  ‘Come’ he said, his voice raw, as he tied the black rope of his robe around his waist. First Acolyte Ashkanez entered.

  He gazed around the cell, taking in its few details. A MkII bolter and twin bolt pistol hung upon one black iron wall, and a heavy chest was at the foot of the Icon Bearer’s austere pallet. A small bookshelf holding scripture and texts hung upon one wall, and a myriad of sacred symbols of Chaos and assorted severed body parts dangled from chains overhead. A buzzing red blister shone its dim light down upon the cell. The tanned flesh of a human being was splayed out across another wall, the skin covered in tiny scripture. There was a scent of blood and meat in the air, detectible even above the incense.

  ‘What do you want?’ snarled Burias.

  ‘You are the Host’s champion. It was a slight on your honour not to face the enemy captain. The Dark Apostle shamed you.’

  The First Acolyte kept his eyes upon Burias, studying the reaction to his words.

  Burias felt the serpent of hate tighten its grip around his heart.

  ‘And you have come here why? To gloat?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Ashkanez. ‘I feel that the Dark Apostle erred in his judgement. You have fought together for a long time, have you not?’

  ‘A long time,’ agreed Burias.

  ‘He’s holding you back,’ said Ashkanez.

  Burias said nothing, eyeing the First Acolyte warily.

  ‘We understand each other, you and I, I think,’ said Ashkanez.

  Burias opened his mouth to rebuke the First Acolyte, but he held his tongue. His eyes narrowed. Was this some trick? Had Marduk sent his First Acolyte down here to test him, to see if he needed more time in the pain deck?

  ‘There is something that I would like to show you, Burias.’r />
  The First Acolyte opened the door to Burias’s cell and stepped outside, looking up and down the corridor beyond. He turned back towards Burias, who had remained motionless, eying him suspiciously.

  ‘If you wish your eyes opened, to see the true face of things to come, then come with me. If you wish to remain blind in ignorance, stay here,’ said Ashkanez, shrugging his shoulders. ‘The choice is yours.’

  The First Acolyte turned on his heel and walked out of Burias’s cell. He paused outside.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  Moving warily, Burias stepped out of his cell. Its gate clattered shut behind him, and the First Acolyte smiled.

  He led Burias deep into the bowels of the Infidus Diabolus. The Icon Bearer tried to ask Ashkanez several times where he was leading him, but his questions were answered with silence.

  Their route was circuitous and indirect, backtracking on itself a dozen times as if the First Acolyte was wary of being followed. Finally, in the lowest of the ship’s dimly lit sub-decks, Ashkanez drew them to a halt.

  ‘We are here,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’ said Burias.

  Ashkanez pointed at a small symbol scratched into a rusted wall-panel besides a narrow side-passage. He would never have noticed it had it not been pointed out.

  ‘What does it mean?’ said Burias.

  ‘A meeting place,’ said Ashkanez. ‘For like-minded souls.’

  Without further explanation, Ashkanez pulled his hood over his head, hiding his features in the gloom. He gestured for Burias to do the same, and stepped into the dimly lit side-passage.

  From the shadows, a voice challenged them. Burias could easily make him out in the darkness, though a deep hood obscured his face too.

  ‘Who goes there?’

  ‘Warriors of Lorgar, seeking the communion of brotherhood,’ answered Ashkanez.

  ‘Welcome, brothers,’ came the voice. The figure backed away, and Ashkanez swept past.

  ‘What the–’ began Burias, but Ashkanez gestured for silence.

  Burias was led into a dark cave-like room. Immense pistons rose and fell within the gloom above, filling the air with their hissing and venting steam, and Burias realised that they were located beneath the fore-engine drive shafts. Withered fingers protruded from beneath the grilled decking, desperately seeking the attention of the Word Bearers walking above them, and their pitiful cries ghosted up from below.

  As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Burias came to a halt as he saw that there were other figures located here in the dim confines, hugging the shadows, their faces obscured by hoods. There must have been several hundred gathered, and more were filing in from side-entrances and service tunnels; a sizeable chunk of the Host was arrayed here, warriors that Burias had fought alongside for thousands of years.

  ‘What is this?’ he growled.

  ‘This,’ said Ashkanez, spreading his arms wide and speaking at last, ‘is the Brotherhood.’

  BOOK THREE:

  THE CLEANSING

  ‘Faith, hate, vengeance and truth; these are our tenets. Embrace them.’

  –Keeper of the Faith, Kor Phaeron

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘I pray that Boros Prime will pose more of a challenge,’ said Kol Badar. ‘Taking this backwater was beneath us.’

  The Coryphaus stood alongside the Dark Apostle Marduk upon the world known locally as Balerius II, the ninth planet of the Boros Gate. A tall, gleaming hab-spire could be seen in the distance, breaching the jungle canopy. Smoke was billowing from its ruptured sides.

  ‘I yearn for the challenge,’ said Kol Badar. ‘Not one of the White Consuls cowards dared face us here.’

  ‘We will face them again soon enough,’ said Marduk.

  Having defeated the Imperial armada at the battle of Trajan Belt, the XVII Legion pushed deep into the Boros system, spreading like a malignant cancer, and the process of subjugation and indoctrination was begun in earnest. Each Host struck out for a different quarter of the system, and world after world fell before them. Spouting catechisms of revilement and hate, the Dark Apostles had led their Hosts against the PDF and Imperial Guard regiments, butchering tens of millions – a grand sacrifice to the insatiable gods of the æther.

  In less than a month, over half the Boros system’s inhabited worlds had fallen to the advancing Word Bearers, as planned. On worlds where the Astartes of the White Consuls stood side by side with the PDF the battles were fierce and bloody, but the loyalist Space Marines were but few and scattered, isolated beacons of hope trying to hold back a ravening tide of destruction. All they had achieved was merely to forestall the inevitable.

  One by one the core worlds of the Boros Gate binary system fell. The enemy fell back before them, towards Boros Prime, the core planet in the system. A steady stream of escape pods, mass transits and shuttles ferried Imperial Guard regiments and citizens towards the fortress world. Of those left behind, the millions who died in the fierce bombardments and firestorms were the lucky ones; those that survived to see their planets overwhelmed by the Word Bearers were either sacrificed in mass killings dedicated to the Dark Gods, or were enslaved, chained together in endless lines and subjected to horrors unspeakable.

  The XVII Legion had already taken millions and once pristine core worlds were being steadily reduced to hellish realms of madness and despair. Hives, cities and entire continents were levelled, their remains used to construct immense towers and monuments of unholy significance, and the ritual debasement and insidious corruption of Imperial citizens advanced steadily. The minds, bodies and will of the slaves were slowly broken down, all hope and faith ground out of them, their souls as tortured as their flesh by the horrors unleashed upon them.

  Discords drifted amongst them, horrific floating constructs trailing tentacle-like limbs blaring a barrage of noise from their speaker-grilles, a maddening cacophony of deafening roars, screams and pounding heartbeats – the sound of Chaos itself. Voices within this insane din whispered into the hearts and minds of the slaves, corrupting their souls even as their bodies were corrupted. In time they would come to understand the truth of the Word that the XVII Legion bore, giving in gladly to Chaos.

  A dozen naval engagements had been fought as the ships of the White Consuls launched lightning attacks upon the Chaos fleets, but these were little more than skirmishes. The Imperialist Astartes were unwilling to stand and fight in a full-blown engagement, preferring to strike hard and fast before pulling back when the enemy fleets turned to engage. They were irritating, and the Consuls managed to destroy and cripple a handful of Chaos vessels in their hit-and-run strikes, but these skirmishes had little bearing on the overall outcome of the war.

  The Boros Defence Fleet and the ships of the White Consuls had drawn back to the protection of the star fort orbiting Boros Prime. The stage was being set for a grand confrontation.

  The time drew close for the Hosts of the Dark Apostles to come back together, to converge on Boros Prime. There, the final battle for the Boros Gate would take place.

  From out of the jungle, a Land Raider rolled towards Marduk and Kol Badar. It growled like an angry beast as its massive tracks crushed a path through the thick undergrowth. Its armoured hull bristled with rotating sensor arrays and antennae, and its assault ramp opened like a gaping maw as it came to a halt before them, belching blood-incense.

  First Acolyte Ashkanez stepped from the red-lit interior, Icon Bearer Burias, sullen and brooding, behind him.

  ‘Well?’ said Marduk.

  Ashkanez held a data-sheaf out to Marduk, the bone-coloured parchment punched with holes. The Dark Apostle gestured to Kol Badar, who stepped forwards and took it. The Coryphaus fed the data-sheaf into the reader unit inbuilt into his left forearm, and the information was relayed across his irises.

  ‘Finally,’ said Kol Badar.

  Marduk raised an eyebrow.

  ‘We move on Boros Prime,’ said Kol Badar. ‘The 34th has been chosen to act as vanguard. It is our role to achieve pl
anetfall.’

  ‘Ekodas honours us,’ said Ashkanez.

  Marduk grunted in response, certain that there was more to it than that.

  ‘What of the other Hosts?’ asked Ashkanez. Marduk scrutinised him, certain that his First Acolyte had already read the dispatch. Indeed, it’s what he would have done in his place, when he were First Acolyte. The heavy-set warrior-priest gave away nothing, his expression a blank.

  ‘Ankh-Heloth and Belagosa will make planetfall once we have established a landing zone. The 11th Host will assault the frozen polar north, the 30th will land on the dark side of the mega-continent and push towards the equator. Ekodas will take the star fort itself.’

  ‘Grand Apostle Ekodas,’ said Ashkanez in a low voice, making Burias scowl.

  ‘He gets the glory, while we bleed,’ observed Kol Badar.

  ‘Fine,’ said Marduk. ‘The 34th will not shirk from this challenge. Ready the Host.’

  Almost four hundred warriors were gathered within a long unused underdeck slave pen deep within the bowels of the Infidus Diabolus. All were cloaked and hooded. In the time since Burias had been embraced into the Brotherhood, its numbers had swollen, and more brothers of the 34th Host were being sworn into the sacrosanct, secretive ranks of the cult with each passing week. It had become a close-knit community, a brotherhood within a brotherhood.

  ‘We are the legacy of Colchis,’ said First Acolyte Ashkanez to the hooded gathering of Astartes brethren. ‘The blood of our home world flows in the veins of each and every one of us. We are brothers in faith, and brothers in blood. Twice before has the Brotherhood been needed. Twice has it performed its duty.’

  Burias was in the front row, his hood pulled low and his eyes filled with fanaticism as he listened to the First Acolyte’s sermon.

  ‘The Great Purge,’ growled Ashkanez, ‘was a time of blood and faith, a grand cleansing that saw one in three men, women and children of Colchis burn. In their arrogance, there had been those amongst the holy Covenant that had sought to defame our blessed primarch, blinded by jealousy. They led their devoted, ignorant flock against Lorgar, who wept as he was forced into conflict with those who ought to have been his brothers. With great reluctance he empowered the Brotherhood, warrior-monks handpicked and indoctrinated by our lord himself, to act as his foot soldiers, and thus began the first great cleansing. Over a billion souls perished in that grand conflict, but it only made us stronger. Our faith became as iron.’