The cloistered antechamber of the Temple of the Gloriatus had been sealed with psychic wards, and incense billowed from censers. The only light came from hundreds of brightly burning candles. Wax pooled beneath them.
Thirteen psykers of various abilities and specialities knelt in a circle, as if in prayer, their minds linked. They had been gathered from all across Boros Prime as the embattled fleet still fought to protect the Kronos star fort. Their number was made up of four blind astropaths, three haughty navigators from the Imperial Navy, three sanctioned psykers of the Boros Guard command, and three young inductees of the schola progenium who showed marked psychic abilities. All of them had been vetted by Librarian Epistolary Liventius, and judged worthy. The White Consul himself sat crosslegged in the centre of the circle, like a shaman of the old times.
It is time, said Liventius.
Those arrayed around him readied themselves, conducting their own rituals in preparation of the coming conflict, lending Liventius their strength. Each of them knew that the chances of them surviving this encounter were slim. Maddening glimpses of their thoughts and fears flashed through the Librarian’s mind.
Focus, he said, gently nudging the psykers’ minds with his own.
As their united trance deepened, the temperature in the room dropped markedly. Hoarfrost began to crystallise upon the blue plates of Liventius’s armour. Deeper he drew the psykers into him, focussing their power and uniting them, until he was no longer a single entity, but rather all of them bound together as one.
For two hours, the trance continued before Liventius judged them ready to proceed. He surged from his body and passed on up through the ceiling, striking heavenward.
Up and up and up he soared, cutting through the atmosphere of the tortured planet, passing effortlessly through its gravity and out into the airless vacuum beyond.
He saw the beleaguered Kronos star fort, and could see the glowing souls of every individual on board. Even as he watched, he saw scores of the glowing soul-flames snuffed out, blinking out of existence as they perished.
Liventius turned his attention towards the Chaos fleet. For weeks and months he had been probing their defences, attempting to locate the origin of whatever it was locking down the Boros Gate’s wormholes. At last, he had narrowed his focus down onto one ship, the hulking Infernus-class battleship, the Crucius Maledictus. And from what he had garnered from overhearing the gathering of the enemy Apostles, he now had a name for whatever it was – the Nexus.
With a thought, Liventius closed the distance to the immense warship. Immediately he came up against a wall of psychic force, an almost impenetrable barrier that actively resisted his presence. However, bolstered with the strength of the thirteen minds linked to his own, he began pushing through the defences, focusing all his will on worming his way through its intricate layers of protection.
Stabbing pain erupted in his mind, and he heard the psychic scream of one of the astropaths linked to him as he perished. Shielding himself and the other minds linked to his own from the trauma of the dying man, Liventius pushed on. It was like swimming though a viscous pool of acid, and agony rippled across his spirit-form.
He was less than halfway through the potent wall of psychic force when he felt a malignant presence swell into being around him. This was the psyker who had erected the barrier, and Liventius siphoned off a portion of his prodigious power to hide himself from its soul-eyes; for all his strength, he was as a child next to this being.
You cannot hide forever, boomed the presence. I will find you.
Liventius continued burrowing through the force wall, but even as he did, he felt the resistance against him redouble. He began losing ground, the wall repelling him, and he screamed out soundlessly as psychic shockwaves of pain flowed through him.
Another of the astropaths perished under the strain, further weakening Liventius. Knowing that he would never penetrate the ever-strengthening barrier while still trying to conceal his presence, he dropped his shielding completely, focussing all his will into cutting through the barrier before him.
There you are, little man, boomed the voice, and Liventius screamed in torment as his spirit was bathed in incandescent flames. Two of the minds linked with his own were instantly fried, blood exploding from their eyeballs.
Nevertheless, with all his strength now focused, Liventius was making headway once more, and with a final surge, he penetrated the psychic barrier surrounding the Crucius Maledictus.
Suddenly free, he surged through the corridors of the battleship, touching every mind that he passed, seeking answers. Roaring in fury, the spirit of the apostate dogged him, surging behind him like a tidal wave, threatening to drown him.
From what Liventius gleaned from the repulsive minds that he touched, there was something unnatural aboard the vessel. As he got closer to its source, he felt its touch, and he was at once repelled and attracted to it. It was anathema to a psychic’s mind, and yet he was drawn towards it, like flotsam pulled inexorably into a whirlpool. Rather than resisting its pull, Liventius went along with it, hurtling towards the source at a speed far beyond anything capable of physical matter. He burst into a high-ceilinged room located centrally within the Crucius Maledictus’s bloated belly, and came to an abrupt halt, desperately pulling up short before he was consumed.
Here was the source that had locked down the Boros Gate, he knew that instantly. It appeared to him as a pulsing sphere of utter darkness, drawing all psychic energy into itself. It was all Liventius could do to hold himself back from being sucked into that emptiness. Two of the minds linked with his own were not so strong. Their souls were dragged into the darkness screaming and snuffed out, as though they had never been. The blackness shuddered, growing stronger.
A number of souls burned fiercely in the room, one so bright it caused him pain just to look upon it. Word Bearers.
With a thought, Liventius slammed into the mind of one of the traitors. It was vile and repellent, and the Word Bearer struggled against him, but he drove into him with all the focus of an assassin’s knife, overcoming his will completely.
He blinked and turned his meat-puppet towards the psychic black hole, so as to see it with physical eyes.
It appeared before him: a spinning orb of silver held captive within a series of rotating arcs.
Seven other Word Bearers stood in a circle around the device, but if they realised an impostor was within their midst, they did not show it. There was another being within the room, reclined as if in a trance upon a high-backed throne, and Liventius knew instantly that this was the psyker who had erected the defences around the Word Bearers fleet, the one who was hunting him now. He dared not let his gaze linger, lest the monstrously powerful psyker feel his touch.
Not yet fully in command of this borrowed flesh, Liventius’s movements were sluggish and awkward. He took one ponderous step forwards, breaking the circle of Word Bearers. He felt the attention of the others turn towards him. In his hands he held a corrupted bolter, and this he lifted towards the spinning silver device, the source that held the Boros Gate in its thrall. His finger tightened upon the trigger of the borrowed weapon.
The awesomely powerful mind of the Word Bearers apostate caught up with him, slamming into him with staggering force. He was almost dislodged from the flesh of the Word Bearer, but he clung on, ignoring the searing pain. He was desperate to finish his task, knowing the fate of the Boros Gate rested with the destruction of this infernal device.
The Word Bearers puppet was fighting him once more, attempting to regain control of his own movements, and he began to lower his weapon. Redoubling his efforts, Liventius dragged the bolter back up towards the spinning device.
Bolt rounds struck him as the other Word Bearers turned their guns on their brother, and he staggered. Again, the Apostle struck him psychically, this time with even more force, and he was knocked out of the borrowed flesh.
Now you are mine, thundered the voice of the Apostle.
Live
ntius roared in agony as his spirit was wracked with soul-fire. Agonising psychic shackles closed around him, but he thrashed and struggled against them, until with a final surge he tore himself free.
With a gasp, Librarian Epistolary Liventius opened his eyes. Agony crashed in upon him, and his vision wavered. Steadying himself, wiping blood from his nose, he looked around him. All the candles in the antechamber were out, but even in the near pitch darkness, Liventius could see the thirteen psykers that had aided him were dead.
He had failed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ostorius knelt before the holo-images of Chapter Master Titus Valens and his Captain, Marcus Decimus of 5th Company. His head was bowed, and he held his power sword flat in his hands as he waited for an answer.
‘If I allow this,’ said the ghostly image of the White Consuls Chapter Master, ‘it will leave Kronos critically undermanned.’
‘If you do not allow it, we stand no chance of ending this war,’ said Captain Decimus. ‘Liventius failed in his attempt. A direct assault upon the device is the logical next step.’
‘If it fails, Kronos will belong to the Word Bearers.’
‘If it fails, then none of this matters anyway,’ said Decimus.
‘Were it practical, I’d lead the attack myself,’ said Valens. Ostorius could hear frustration in the Chapter Master’s voice. ‘But I believe you two are right. This is our best chance to end this war. Do it.’
‘Assemble your kill-team, Ostorius,’ said Captain Decimus.
‘Thank you, my lords,’ said Ostorius.
‘May the Emperor guide your sword, Proconsul.’
Burias-Drak’shal raced across the battlements in bounding leaps, his claws gouging deep rents in the marble. Like a shadow chased by the sun, he moved across the rooftops in a blur.
Bunching his powerful leg muscles, he exploded off the top of a bastion, his leap carrying him clear over the wide-laned street far below. Chimeras and front-line Leman Russ battle tanks were advancing along that boulevard, completely unaware that their movement was being shadowed by the possessed warrior high overhead.
Arms bulging with daemonic muscle, Burias-Drak’shal came down hard, clearing the thirty-metre expanse with ease. He turned in the air, landing on the rooftop of the lower bastion. He rolled and came to his feet smoothly, and again was off, bounding and leaping on all fours.
He launched himself off another vertigo-inducing drop-off and landed halfway up the side of a vertical antennae-pylon, clinging to the sheer surface like a spider. With swift movements, barely pausing to find handholds, he scurried up the vertical incline, pulling himself hand over hand to its peak. There he paused, tasting the air and cocking his head to one side, listening. All his daemon-enhanced senses were utterly focussed on the hunt.
The sound of battle was loud; a major confrontation was playing out less than ten kilometres away. It was a battle that the Chimeras were angling towards.
He was ahead of the armoured column now, and as it rounded a corner, it was forced into single file to navigate past a fallen building.
Burias-Drak’shal’s eyes focussed on the third Chimera in the line. The APC had a cluster of communication arrays rising from its hull, like the spines of an insect, differentiating it from the others. This was the one that Burias-Drak’shal had seen the White Consul enter, several hours earlier.
The possessed Icon Bearer dropped off the pylon, falling like a stone. He landed thirty metres below, crouched on all fours. His bestial head turned from side to side, sniffing. Then he set off once more, closing inexorably with his prey.
The full extent of the 34th Host had come together, and the warrior brothers of the Host fought shoulder-to-shoulder, laying waste to all that dared oppose them.
The turrets of corrupted Predator battle tanks rotated, spewing torrents of high-calibre shells down boulevards and byways, killing hundreds. The air crackled as Land Raiders unleashed the power of their lascannons, targeting armoured columns and tank formations.
The heavy, bipedal forms of Dreadnoughts ranged out in front, roaring with mechanised insanity as they killed, gunning down scores of Guardsmen with heavy gauge weapon systems and ripping them apart with power talons and electro-flails. The Warmonger stalked amongst them, bellowing catechisms and holy scripture, reliving the days when he was a warrior of flesh and blood, fighting upon the walls of the Emperor’s Palace and exhorting his Host to kill and kill again in the name of Lorgar and the Warmaster Horus, ten millennia earlier.
Daemons numbering in their thousands had been summoned forth from bleeding rents ripped in the fabric of reality, and they brayed in fury and bloodlust as they charged into the densely packed ranks of Guardsmen. Kathartes descended upon the Imperial soldiers in flocks a hundred-strong, dragging their victims high into the air before ripping them limb from limb and dropping them into the streets below.
Titans as tall as buildings stalked in the distance, their bestial howls reverberating across the city. Their princeps and moderati had long been subsumed into the substance of the Titans, and powerful daemonic entities bound and infused with them, making the mighty engines more living, breathing beasts than mechanised constructs.
Heavily armed Warlord- and Reaver-class engines laid waste to entire city blocks with the power of their ordnance. Their armoured hulls were pitted from ten thousand years of warfare, and kill-pennants hung from their weapons.
Comparatively smaller Warhound-class Titans loped through the streets, hunting. Unnervingly stealthy for engines four storeys high, they stalked through the mayhem of battle, annihilating colonnades of battle tanks, and butchering entire brigades of Guardsmen with salvoes of their Inferno cannons. Their bestial howls ululated across the city as they claimed another kill.
Somewhere out there was the enemy that had come to be known as the White Angel. That individual was the lynchpin of the enemy’s resolve. Kill him, and the world would soon falter.
‘Come on, Burias,’ Marduk hissed.
The tainted stench within the Word Bearers Thunderhawk was vile, yet Ostorius repressed his revulsion. He had claimed the assault shuttle a week earlier, and although he could not have said why at the time, he had not ordered its immediate destruction.
Now, as it carried him and his carefully chosen kill-team of White Consuls across the gulf of space between Kronos and the largest of the enemy battleships, he hoped that his decision had proved a wise one.
Priests of the Ecclesiarchy had cleansed the shuttle of the worst of its taint, yet Ostorius could still feel its corrupting touch all around him. It made his skin crawl, and he repressed a shudder of disgust. He wore his helmet so as not to breathe the foetid air within the Thunderhawk, yet even so he could taste the poison of Chaos in his throat. He was not alone in his discomfort. The White Consuls of his kill-team murmured prayers of purification, and several of them held holy icons tightly in their hands.
At any moment Ostorius expected the Thunderhawk to be gunned down. Even as the shuttle entered the shadow of the monstrous enemy flagship, the Crucius Maledictus, and began to angle down towards one of its gaping launch bays, he still expected the enemy to see through the ruse and obliterate them.
His fears proved to be unfounded, and after what seemed like an eternity, the Thunderhawk’s landing gear touched down. They were onboard the enemy vessel.
‘Move out,’ he said grimly.
There was an almighty crash that shook the occupants of the Chimera, and it ground to a halt. Voices were raised.
‘What was that?’ said Aquilius. It had not sounded like ordnance.
Gears ground together, and the Chimera began slowly backing up.
‘Apologies, my lord,’ said one of the other occupants, Versus of the Boros 232nd. ‘There is a blockage ahead. This area has suffered heavy shelling, and is structurally unsound. We are being forced to re-route in order to rejoin the column.’
‘Casualties?’
‘None, my lord.’
Aquilius shif
ted his weight in discomfort, and cursed as his head hit the roof with a dull thud. The APC had not been designed to hold the bulk of a Space Marine.
‘I’m going up,’ he said, and began clambering awkwardly across the tight enclosed space within the Chimera towards its cupola.
Climbing the slender ladder, his shoulders only barely fitting through its aperture, Aquilius popped the cupola hatch and pulled himself up. He breathed in deeply, pleased to be out of the enclosed space. A pintle-mounted heavy stubber lay at rest within arm’s reach.
A massive statue lay smashed across the boulevard twenty metres in front of the Chimera. Dust filled the air. Shielding his eyes, Aquilius looked up to see from where it had fallen.
There was a heavy thump behind him, and the Chimera rocked. Aquilius’s first thought was that more falling masonry had struck the APC, but then the tainted smell of Chaos reached his nostrils.
‘Enemy!’ he shouted, reaching for his bolt pistol.
There was a blur of movement behind him and he caught a glimpse of a horrific, daemonic creature crouched upon the back of the Chimera’s hull. He lifted his bolt pistol as the thing snarled and leapt towards him, but the weapon was smashed out of his hand. A taloned claw grabbed him around the neck and he was hauled out of the Chimera and hurled aside.
Aquilius hit the ground hard, crashing down onto a pile of rubble that had been pushed up against a shattered building wall. He heard frantic shouting above the growl of the Chimera’s engines.
He came to his feet quickly, reaching for his blade, but his daemonic foe was faster. It leapt from on top of the Chimera and tackled him to the ground again, snarling and spitting. The Astartes was hauled back to his feet and slammed face-first into the side of his turning Chimera, denting its armoured plates and shattering Aquilius’s nose.
The Chimera’s rear hatch was thrown open, and he heard boots hitting the ground as the APC’s occupants leapt out to aid their Coadjutor.
A lasgun burn seared across the back of the possessed warrior’s head, and he snarled in anger. It drove Aquilius’s head into the Chimera once more before releasing him and leaping towards these new enemies, its jaw opening wider than should have been possible.
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