Dark Apostle (word bearers)

by Anthony Reynolds

  Colonel Boerl held his arms clasped tightly to his side as he plummeted through the darkness out of the storm clouds towards the flashes of gunfire marking the target ridge below. Icy cold air and rain whipped at him as he fell, and his heart raced with the thrill.

  Forty-two thousand, nine hundred and twenty-seven drops, and over three hundred combat drops, the most of any Guardsman within the 72nd. And still it gave him an adrenaline rush like nothing else he had ever experienced.

  He and the other drop-troopers had launched themselves from their Valkyries at extreme high atmosphere, around forty kilometres above the ground, higher even than Marauder bombers operated when unleashing their deadly payloads. It was necessary to jump from such a height in order to avoid detection. Breathing through respirators, their bodies enclosed in tight-fitting jumpsuits beneath their reinforced carapace armour, the storm troopers had been free-falling for well over five minutes, reaching terminal velocity within the first thirty seconds of the drop, and leaving the cracking sounds of sonic booms in their wake as they hurtled towards the ground at phenomenal speed.

  The ground was rising up with astounding swiftness and Boerl made ready. The arms of the grav-chute were automatically timed to unfold and engage at the last possible moment, and he watched the click counter in his visor drop as he neared the ground.

  Pulling his arms out and splaying his legs suddenly, he slowed his descent fractionally and spun himself expertly in the air. The grav-chute engaged, barely five metres above the ground, and his descent dropped in an instant to a safe speed.

  His hellpistol was already in his hand, and Boerl rolled expertly as he hit the wet ground, rising to one knee and blasting the over-charged laspistol into the back of a towering, power armoured figure. With a flick of his hand, he nudged the release button on his bulky grav-chute, and it dropped to the ground behind him. His storm troopers landed around him, rolling smoothly to their feet, and began laying down a blanket of fire with their hell-guns. Super-heated air hissed as Sergeant Langer unleashed the power of his meltagun, the white-hot blast scything through the ceramite armour of another enemy.

  The other Guard units would be pushing up at the enemy from below, just entering range as the drop-troopers landed. They were well drilled, and he knew that the timing would be perfect. The micro-bead in his ear confirmed this expectation and he made his commands, short and clipped, as he ordered the platoons to converge. The enemy were strong, but they were vastly outnumbered. The Elysians would have the position within the hour.

  He was leading one contingent of the 72nd storm troopers, the other two arms of the elite regiment landing at the other main targets.

  Tearing the respirator mask from his face, it retracted automatically into the chest unit of his carapace armour. 'For the Emperor and the 72nd!' he bellowed, his powerful voice carrying over the frantic sound of battle.

  He drew his power sword in one swift movement as a huge, dark-red armoured warrior lashed out at him with a screaming chainaxe, and he raised his blade to block the swing. The unholy strength behind the blow was immense and he was knocked backwards even as his humming weapon carved into the axe, sparks and shearing metal screaming as chain teeth were ripped apart. The massive brute raised its heavy foot surprisingly fast and kicked Boerl squarely in the chest.

  He was knocked back once again, stumbling over the rocky ground. It felt as though a track had hit him, all the breath knocked from his body. The Chaos Marine loomed over him, savouring the kill. He threw his sparking chainaxe to the ground and raised his bolt pistol to execute the colonel. A blast of las-fire struck his knee joint and Boerl heard a deep, rambling growl of anger as the Chaos Marine's leg gave out beneath him. Swinging his bolt pistol around, the traitor fired and a storm trooper was killed instantly as the bolt-round exploded in his chest cavity.

  His sacrifice was not completely in vain, however, for it allowed the colonel a moment to gather himself, and he surged forwards, slashing his shimmering blade across the warrior's chest, cutting through ceramite easily and scoring a deep wound.

  The blow would have killed any lesser man, but the Chaos Marine was Astartes, and he grabbed Boerl around the throat, crushing the life out of him. Frantically, he thrust with his power sword, the blade entering the warrior's gut, sliding easily through his body and emerging from his back. Still the warrior continued to fight, and Boerl began to see stars before his eyes. He managed to raise his hellpistol, pushing it into the Chaos Marine's neck, slipping it between armour plates, and he fired once, twice. Hot blood spurted from the wound, spraying Boerl's face, his skin burning.

  The grip around his neck slackened, and he kicked back from the massive warrior, who even on his knees was the same height as the colonel. Still the warrior was not dead, and he raised his bolt pistol. Gathering as much strength as he could muster, Boerl swung his power sword into the warrior's armoured head, the humming blade embedding deep in his skull. At last the warrior fell, the power sword slipping easily from the wound, blood spitting as it boiled on the superheated blade.

  Las-fire erupted as the other Guardsmen arrived, lending the storm troopers additional weight of fire. There was a roar of daemonic fury, and Boerl saw a Guardsman lifted five metres into the air by a pair of immense, mechanical claws before being ripped in half and hurled into the darkness. His eyes widened as he took in the mass of the hellish thing.

  It was a massive, eight-legged machine. No, not truly a machine, he realised with horror as he saw the fleshy torso that erupted from the body of the beast. Four times the size of a man, its black skin covered in glowing, blasphemous runes, the beast seemed to blend into the armoured machine that dwarfed it. The metal plates on the infernal thing rippled like muscle, and blood hissed from wounds scored on its armoured hide.

  It stepped forwards, its eight metal limbs ripping free from chains that bound it to rune-encrusted stone blocks. Black-clad figures recoiled from the thing, and several of them were instantly killed as it impaled their bodies on spiked claws that unfolded from its legs. Flames belched from its weapon units, engulfing a group of Guardsmen who screamed in agony as the flesh dissolved from their bones.

  'Langer!' roared Boerl. 'Take that thing out!'

  The Guardsman at his side blasted another searing beam of death with his meltagun and nodded to his colonel.

  'Storm troopers, with me!' shouted Boerl, and with Langer at his side, he charged towards the towering daemonic war engine, blasting at Chaos Marines that moved to intercept them. Several of the storm troopers were hacked to the ground by sweeping blows from the massive warriors, and others were torn to shreds by bolter fire. Langer ducked beneath a swipe from a Chaos Space Marine's barbed, short blade, and Boerl carved his power sword through the warrior's leg as he barrelled past, neatly severing the limb at the thigh. Still the warrior did not drop its weapons, despite the horrendous wound, and it fired as it fell, bolt-rounds thudding into die storm trooper beside Boerl, exploding his chest.

  A shot smacked into Langer's leg and he screamed in pain as he fell, his leg shattered. A power armoured foot slammed down onto his neck, silencing him instantly, and another running storm trooper was felled by the Chaos Marine's swinging forearm, his neck cracking audibly. Boerl stumbled, a fortunate accident that saved his life as self-propelled bolts screamed just over his head. He fell to his knees before the monster, and a burst of lasgun fire smashed it backwards. Boerl rose from the ground, impaling the Chaos Marine through the neck with his humming blade. The stink of the monster was staggering, and he gagged as he ripped the power sword free.

  Dropping his hellpistol and sheathing his blade, Boerl swept up the meltagun from Langer's lifeless hands and scrambled to his feet, continuing his advance towards the towering war machine that was killing his men in droves.

  Its back was to him. He raised the powerful weapon, aiming towards the beast's horned head. Wires sprouted from the back of its blasphemous cranium. He squeezed the trigger. The searing, white-hot beam of super-h
eated energy screamed towards the target, but as if alerted by some daemonic prescience, the creature merely swung its head to one side and the blast passed harmlessly by.

  An explosion detonated behind Colonel Boerl and he was thrown through the air, arms and legs flailing. He crashed to the wet ground, still clutching the melta gun, and grazed one of the war engine's spider-like legs. Pain ripped through him as his shoulder was sliced open by the sharp blades positioned on the daemonic machine's leg. Oblivious to him, it took another step, and Boerl found himself directly beneath the massive thing, lying flat on his back as hissing blood-oil dripped down upon him.

  Without hesitation he swung the meltagun and shouted wordlessly as he fired it straight into the underbelly of the mechanical beast. The searing beam tore up through the creature, and a splash of hot liquid washed over the colonel, burning his skin and hissing on his armour.

  The daemon engine roared horribly and its legs began to buckle. Scrambling frantically, Boerl pushed himself from beneath the monster before it fell. With the roaring, sucking sound of air filling a vacuum, the daemon essence of the machine vacated its host, and Boerl felt himself reel, his head spinning. A blast of energy knocked him from his feet, and all the Guardsmen within a radius of twenty metres of the departing daemon spirit were thrown to the ground. The Chaos Space Marines were buffeted, but retained their feet, and they fired into the prone Elysians, executing them mercilessly with head shots.

  Colonel Boerl was spared this fate as a platoon of Elysians swept into the area, las-fire pounding into the Chaos Marines. It took dozens of shots before any of the traitors fell, and they exacted a heavy toll on the Guardsmen, killing more than ten for each one of their own that succumbed to the weight of fire.

  'Facing heavy resistance,' came Captain Laron's voice through Boerl's micro-bead. The captain had led one of the other assaults, targeting an area some five kilometres away.

  'No shit,' he muttered as he picked himself up from the ground, retrieving a lasgun from a fallen Elysian and firing it into the Chaos Space Marines.

  Burias rose from his position and moved swiftly across the rocky ground, running low and fast. He covered the open ground quickly and dropped behind a group of boulders.

  Pausing for a moment, he looked out through the darkness that was as clear as day to his eyes. Rain and wind whipped at him, but he didn't care. The other members of his team were all but invisible, even to his eyes, as they moved through the night. They were spread wide and were closing on their prey swiftly. They had fanned out in a wide arc, heading away from the enemy, racing through ravines and massive cracks in the mountainous terrain before swinging back around to encircle the foe.

  This was the kind of warfare that Burias lived for, and he excelled at it. He had built a fierce reputation amongst the Host for his hunting and stealth missions, and the Coryphaus would often utilise his particular talents to sow terror and throw the enemy into disarray while the warlord led the main attacking force into the heart of the enemy's battle force.

  Burias scrambled on all fours over the rain-slick boulders and ran into a tight ravine that rose up on either side. Water was flowing down through the ravine. He moved swiftly and quietly despite the bulk of his power armour, leaping lightly from rock to rock and stepping easily over cracks that dropped hundreds of metres beneath him.

  The walls of the ravine dropped away in front of him suddenly, exposing a massive drop, and without hesitation Burias leapt, clearing the five metre expanse with ease, landing smoothly and continuing his kilometre-eating pace. His mental map of the area told him that they were close. He heard the heavy thump of mortars and picked up his pace, snarling.

  He scrambled up a steep, near vertical, rain-slick incline without pause and leapt from the top to a nearby boulder, and from there to another. Up and down the broken, steep ground he traversed, leaping and rolling, always in motion. The mortars thumped again, closer this time, and he leapt onto a steep wall of rock, pulling himself swiftly up. The cliff-face angled beyond vertical, a dangerous overhang with a drop of hundreds of metres. With a snarl, he kicked off the rock face, lunging for a handhold near the lip of the rock. He grabbed it one-handed and hung there for a moment before he secured another handhold and hauled himself over the edge.

  Burias paused, crouching for a moment, scenting the air. The rain dulled his senses somewhat, but the taste of meat in the air was strong. Then he was moving again, running along a thin ridge of rock barely two hand spans wide. The drop on one side must have been almost a thousands metres, but he traversed it at a full run before dropping behind some boulders. Glancing down, he grinned and looked back the way he had come, seeing the dark shapes of several of his brethren racing swiftly across the rocks. The thud of mortars was right beneath him.

  He leapt from his position out over the drop, landing on a ledge on the other side. He waited for a few breaths, and then launched himself over the edge. He landed behind some large rocks and waited for the heavy weapons to fire once more. As they did, he rose from his position and ghosted up behind the Guardsmen, who were still oblivious to their imminent demise and were quickly reloading the six powerful mortars set on the rocky ground.

  Grabbing the first Guardsman from behind by his helmeted head, Burias pulled him violently backwards, ramming his massive knifeblade into the base of his neck. The blade, easily the length of a man's forearm, severed the spinal cord and continued up into the brain. Burias hurled him away.

  The other Guardsmen gaped in horror at the red-clad devil in their midst, even as Burias leapt amongst them. He ripped his blade across the throat of one and plunged it into the neck of another with the return, backhand motion.

  Another Word Bearer loomed up behind the group, and a further Guardsman died as a bony, bladed arm was rammed into his back. The daemon within that warrior-brother had already surged to the fore, Burias saw, as the possessed Word Bearer ripped the fallen Guardsman's throat out with a tusk-filled, gaping wide maw.

  Feeling Drak'shal begin to surface as the daemon responded to the presence of its kin, a jolt of daemonic power and adrenaline shot through Burias's body. He snarled and leapt at the remaining Guardsmen, who had recovered themselves enough to have drawn laspistols, at least those that were not already scrabbling over rocks in a vain attempt to escape.

  Las-fire streaked past Burias's head, singeing the skin, and he grabbed the offender's hand, crushing bones as he turned the pistol away from him. Pulling sharply forwards, he ripped the man's shoulder from its socket and drove his blade up into the man's stomach, twisting it mercilessly.

  A blast of las-fire struck him from behind and Burias turned, hurling the body of the man he had just gutted into the shooter. The power of the daemon within rose screaming to the surface and Burias-Drak'shal leapt on the man as he tried to rise. He lifted the trooper into the air, holding him by the head and the groin, and he brought his hands together sharply. The man was neatly folded, his back cracking sickeningly under the force.

  Other possessed Chaos Marines leapt from the rocks above, crashing down through the rain to land amongst the enemy hacking and slaughtering, ripping and rending. Blood sprayed the rocks as the Guardsmen died.

  Letting the power of the daemon overcome him, Burias-Drak'shal and his possessed comrades slew until there were no more foes to kill. He stood, chest heaving for a moment before leaping off through the darkness on all fours, scenting other enemies nearby. He howled into the night and felt the rest of his pack spread out to either side of him, to encircle the next gathering of meat.

  Heavy bolter fire tore through the Guardsmen, taking down five men in a screaming burst. Their bodies were ripped apart, bolts tearing through armour as if it were made of paper, and punching through the soft flesh beneath. Blood sprayed out, and Boerl swung his head to see a massive armoured shape turning its rapid-firing guns in his direction. It was at least five metres tall and nearly as wide.

  'Emperor above,' swore Boerl as fresh shells fed into the twin
-linked heavy bolters of the Dreadnought, and it unleashed its barrage of deadly fire. He leapt to the side, rolling as the heavy bolts tore through more of his men, and came to his feet running.

  He blasted a Chaos Space Marine in the head with his lasgun as he moved, the shot striking the warrior's helmet, rocking him backwards but failing to pierce the powerful armour. Ignoring the reeling Chaos Space Marine, Boerl charged towards the towering Dreadnought. He reached to his belt and pulled loose a melta bomb as he neared the hellish machine annihilating his men.

  The thing was huge and the ground reverberated with its step, servos whining. Skulls and helmets, rammed upon black iron spikes, adorned the machine's shoulders. There were helmets of loyal Space Marines there as well as dozens of skulls, some human, but many from various xenos creatures.

  The Dreadnought swung a heavy, taloned fist at Boerl, flames gushing out from the underslung flamer on the massive, armoured arm. Ducking the blow, the colonel hissed as the flames washed over his back, and he almost fell to the ground as overwhelming pain assailed him. Gritting his teeth, he flicked the activation switch of the deadly melta-bomb and hurled it onto the armoured bulk of the machine. It struck a pitted and inscribed armoured shoulder plate above the heavy bolters that continued to roar, flames spitting from the barrels. It clanked loudly as it stuck fast, the powerful electro-magnets stuck fast to the metal.

  Boerl ducked another swinging arm that would have ripped his head from his shoulders and leapt away before the melta-bomb did its destructive work. Rolling to see the results of his handiwork, his heart sank as the Dreadnought picked the grenade off its armoured bulk and flicked it away with its surprisingly dextrous power claw.

  Boerl scrambled to his feet just as the Dreadnought swung its heavy bolters around to bear, and dozens of shots ripped through his armour. The Dreadnought continued to pump shot after shot into the colonel long after he was dead, keeping his body dancing in the air for a moment. Colonel Boerl's body was finally torn completely in half, and it fell to the ground, bloody and unrecognizable.