[Word Bearers 03] - Dark Creed

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  “Hold on, brother,” came Ashkanez’s voice across the vox. “Closing on your position. One minute.” Sabtec drew his power sword. Its hilt resembled bones blackened in fire. It hummed into life as he thumbed its activation rune. He dropped to one knee as a burst of bolter fire tore through the air above him, and fired his bolter one-handed, the shot taking a White Consul in the head, then rose to his feet again, slashing upwards with his power sword.

  The humming blade caught another White Consul under the chin, slicing up through his power armour like a lascutter and carving his jaw in two.

  Flamers roared, bathing the assaulting White Consuls in burning promethium, scorching battle plate black. A roaring chainaxe hacked the head from a loyalist, but the victorious Word Bearer was then himself slain, a plasma pistol fired up close slamming him backwards.

  Another enemy vehicle was halted, a missile impacting into its side and slewing it sidewards. The enemy attack was faltering, Sabtec realised, and he ordered his warriors to converge. He emerged from cover and began to advance upon the enemy, who had taken up position behind the same cover that the 13th had been using moments before.

  The concealing smoke fired by the enemy vehicles was drifting down the avenue, becoming patchy, but it suddenly cleared as the huge shape of a White Consuls Thunderhawk came screaming low over the rooftops and descended sharply. The downdraft of its powerful engines sent eddies of dust and smoke fleeing before it, and multiple heavy bolters opened up, their heavy thuds barely heard over the deafening Thunderhawk’s engines.

  Before the Thunderhawk’s landing gear touched the ground, the Land Raider held tight to the gunship’s belly was released, couplings unlocked, and it dropped the last few metres to the ground, where it bounced once before settling.

  More heavy weapon fire stabbed into the Thunderhawk’s hull, shattering one of the windows of its cockpit and damaging one of its engine turbines, and it lifted off again, engines roaring. It banked violently as it rose, and was gone.

  The massive Land Raider’s flanks were gleaming white and adorned with gold, and royal blue banners hung from its side. It was rumbling forwards, and unleashed a heavy fusillade that ripped one of his Havoc squads to pieces.

  “Enemy Land Raider has dropped in at my position,” said Sabtec coolly, raising his voice to be heard over the roaring gun battle.

  Backing away towards cover, snapping off shots with his ornate bolter one-handed, Sabtec gave clipped orders to target the heavy battle tank.

  A squad of Word Bearers was almost completely annihilated as the Land Raider unleashed its fury. It had a weapon outfit that Sabtec was not familiar with. Ranks of bolters had replaced the standard lascannon side-sponsons—six bolters per side—and twin-linked assault cannons were built into its front turret. Clearly, it was a pattern designed for frontal assault, and it performed that role admirably.

  Missiles and lascannons struck the Land Raider as it powered forwards, but they had little effect. It came through the heavy barrage like an enraged beast, shaking off everything that the Word Bearers threw at it. It smashed the smoking chassis of an immobilised Rhino out of its path. Sabtec gunned down another White Consul, then grunted in pain as a bolt hit him in the wrist. The explosive round took his hand clear off. It landed some metres away, still clutching his ornate bolter, and he frowned in irritation at having been disarmed.

  The hulking behemoth smashed a path towards the 13th Coterie, crushing a low wall beneath its tread. Sabtec registered that there were explosive charges set to either side of the Land Raider’s assault ramp a fraction of a second before they were fired, and he threw himself down behind a fallen statue. Above him, the air was suddenly filled with shrapnel as the assault launchers detonated, unleashing a swathe of destruction that tore one of his 13th brothers to shreds.

  Then the assault ramp of the Land Raider slammed down, and Sabtec glimpsed a massive warrior striding from within, bedecked in gleaming Terminator armour, a billowing blue tabard across his body. A golden metal halo framed his head. In his right hand he held a thunder hammer. Across his left arm was strapped a crackling storm shield shaped like an oversized crux terminatus. A Chapter Master, Sabtec realised.

  A Librarian emerged alongside the heavily armoured commander, a nimbus of shimmering light emitting from his psychic hood. A command squad followed them. Caught between these newcomers and the other White Consuls closing in to either side, there was nowhere for Sabtec to fall back to, no room for manoeuvre. For all his tactical savvy and strategic brilliance, all the experience garnered from thousands of years of constant warfare, he had few options.

  Nevertheless, death held no fear for him.

  “Thirteen!” he roared, rising from his cover, one side of which was pockmarked with shrapnel. “With me!”

  His surviving Coterie brothers rose from cover and charged after him. Bolters pumped shots towards the Chapter Master and his entourage, then Sabtec broke into a run, brandishing his humming power sword.

  He saw one of the enemy, an Apothecary, lose an arm, and a dozen holes were shot through the banner that was unfurled as its bearer stepped from within the Land Raider. The banner bearer was felled a moment later, his faceplate shattered by a concentrated burst of fire. The standard of the Chapter teetered and started to fall.

  Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.

  Bolts screamed past Sabtec’s head, missing him by centimetres, and he registered one of his 13th brothers’ dying roar as he fell beneath a melta gun blast. Another brother fell as the twin-linked assault cannons of the Land Raider tore him in half at the waist. Sabtec heard the warrior still shouting litanies of Lorgar as he crawled towards the enemy before a bolt silenced him.

  A warrior armed with power sword and buckler, his blue crusade-era helmet adorned with a red crest of stiffened hair, stepped in front of the Chapter Master, his voice ringing with challenge.

  Sabtec rolled beneath the enemy’s attack and smashed his power sword into the enemy champion’s head as he came to his feet. The warrior fell silently, leaving the path to the White Consuls Chapter Master clear.

  With a snarl, Sabtec leapt forwards. His first blow was smashed aside by his enemy’s heavy storm shield. His second was cut short as the White Consul’s immense thunder hammer smashed down on his forearm, shattering his bones. His power sword, that revered weapon that had been gifted him by Erebus himself, dropped from fingers that no longer worked, and Sabtec stared up into the face of the White Consuls Chapter Master.

  “Emperor damn you, heretic,” said the White Consul.

  “We’re all damned,” Sabtec breathed, “You, me, all of us. This whole galaxy will burn.”

  “That time is not yet upon us,” growled the White Consuls Chapter Master, and hefted his thunder hammer to deliver the killing blow.

  A plasma blast struck the Chapter Master’s hammer-arm, distracting him just long enough for Sabtec to roll away. He rose to see the arrival of First Acolyte Ashkanez, firing a plasma pistol. Two-score warriors charged behind him, and now outnumbered, the enemy began to fall back.

  “Your timing is impeccable, First Acolyte,” said Sabtec.

  Marduk cursed as he slammed his last sickle clip into his MkII bolt pistol.

  Almost half the warrior brothers that had accompanied him in taking the enemy defence tower had fallen. He and the last survivors were holed up in the lower levels, guarding the way down to the defence laser’s controls, ensuring that the potent weapon did not come back online.

  Another of his brothers fell, a crater in his chest, splattering Marduk with blood.

  “Kol Badar,” snarled Marduk as he leant around a corner and fired. He ducked back as White Consuls returned fire. “How long until those damned transports are down?”

  “Five minutes more,” came the reply.

  “Five minutes,” said Marduk. “And how long until I get some support?”

  “Entering the compound now,” said Kol Badar. “Two other towers have fallen. It’s
just minutes before their defence lasers are back online.”

  “Perfect,” said Marduk.

  The sound of distant gunfire and shouting came to Marduk’s ears.

  “You are in?” said Marduk.

  “Affirmative. Perimeter breached,” said Kol Badar.

  “Come brothers,” snarled Marduk. “Let us drive these loyalist filth before us like dogs.”

  “We go to kill the Emperor?” said the hulking Warmonger, standing before the defence laser’s control panels, clenching his power talons in eagerness.

  “His minions,” said Marduk. He motioned towards the corner. “After you, revered one.”

  The Dreadnought growled and broke into a run that made the ground shake. He rounded the corner, smashing loose marble slabs from the walls, and hundreds of bolt rounds pinged off his armour.

  “Kill them all!” roared Marduk, right behind the Warmonger.

  A hundred soldiers of the Boros Imperial Guard surrounded Coadjutor Aquilius as he pushed on the enemy position. He could feel the pride of the soldiers to be fighting alongside Astartes, and he smiled grimly. He towered over them, like an adult amongst a sea of children. One of the defence lasers that the Guardsmen, his Guardsmen, had retaken fired suddenly with a crackling boom that made his ears ache.

  One of the huge, cylindrical mass transports descending planetward was struck, shearing a devastating wound up its side and destroying one of its mass stabilisers in an explosion of fire and sparks. They were the largest drop-ships he had ever seen, and he felt some consternation as he looked upon them, knowing the terrible machines they contained. Consternation was about as close to fear as he had ever come since his indoctrination into the Chapter. He vaguely remembered the emotion from childhood, but it meant nothing to him now.

  With some satisfaction, he saw the mass transport begin to accelerate towards the ground, tipping to one side as it came down, its stabilisers unbalanced. It accelerated past the other transports, its velocity increasing rapidly. In satisfaction, he saw another defence laser strike a second of the descending transport cylinders.

  “Brace yourselves,” said Aquilius.

  The container struck the surface of Boros Prime fifteen kilometres away. A section of the city five hundred metres in diameter was crushed beneath its weight. An obscuring cloud of dust and smoke spread in all directions like a widening ripple in a pond, shaking the city to its foundations. The ground shuddered and a rising mushroom cloud of dust erupted hundreds of metres into the air. The deafening boom of the impact reached them a moment later, so loud it was as if the planet were splitting in two.

  As the sound of the collapsing city section subsided, there came the horrible death cry of something unnameable. Images of the warp, of tentacles flailing from the void, filled Aquilius’ mind.

  “What do they contain, sir?” said the recently promoted trooper, Verenus. The soldier’s superior, the regiment’s ageing Legatus, had died just minutes earlier, his torso torn apart in a bloody explosion as a bolt detonated within his chest. Aquilius had promoted Verenus to the position as acting regimental commander of the Boros 232nd.

  “Corrupted engines of the Adeptus Mechanicus,” said Aquilius.

  He regarded the trooper. Verenus was still in shock at his sudden rise to power, but was handling it well. The poster child for the ideal Boros Prime Guardsman, Verenus was strong and self-assured, his eyes an icy blue and his hair bleached pale from sun and radiation. Aquilius had been impressed by the 3rd Prime Cohort’s combat record, but it had been because of Verenus that Aquilius had chosen them to accompany him on this mission. The man had impressed him on the parade grounds of Boros Prime months earlier.

  Throne, he thought. Had it been only months? It seemed like a lifetime. There were few regiments on Boros Prime that had as much combat experience as these men, and they had not disappointed. Aquilius could see the effect that fighting alongside Astartes was having on them—the Guardsmen stood taller, their chests puffed out proudly, despite having recently lost their commanding officer.

  A great cheer went up from the Guardsmen as the mass transport crashed to earth, but Aquilius’ mood was still grim. One had been destroyed and another was plummeting to the ground, but that still left three untouched.

  They descended to the ground seemingly in violation of the laws of gravity, coming down slowly and steadily, grav-motors, stabilisers and thrusters bearing them sedately towards the surface of Boros Prime. They were hateful, vile things, with giant, mechanical tentacles beneath them that waved lazily in the air like sea-fronds in a current.

  The first of the massive transports touched down in the middle of a distant square, causing another violent earth tremor. Instantly, giant tentacles flailed, ripping at the armoured sides of the cylinder, tearing the armoured sheath away like it was sloughed off skin.

  Until now, the reality of the situation had not been fully driven home to Aquilius. The enemy had a foothold on his beloved home world. Worse, they had unleashed terrors of such power entire cities would be razed to the ground.

  An ululating roar echoed across the city, followed by another. Aquilius glimpsed two of the terrible engines as they loped from their cylindrical cages. They stood as tall as a five-storey building, and though he knew these were but the smallest of the enemy Titans—corrupted Warhounds—he felt again a stab of consternation.

  “Titans,” hissed Verenus, his eyes widening.

  “They are the remnants of one of the cursed Legios that sided against the Emperor in ages past,” Aquilius told him.

  The White Consul felt the resolve of the soldiers around him waver in the face of the daemonic Titans.

  “By the grace of the Emperor,” breathed one soldier.

  “Titans?” muttered another. “What hope have—”

  “There is always hope,” Aquilius said forcefully, cutting the soldier off. “Always. I am a son of Boros, as are you. As are we all. Our bloodline is a bloodline of heroes, and this is our world. The enemy thinks they can take it from us, but we will show them their error. We will punish them for every metre of ground they take, striking hard and without fear, for we are sons of Boros, and we shall not falter. The Emperor is with us, my brothers, and mark my words: Boros Prime will not fall.”

  Marduk’s eyes burned with zealous fury as he picked his way through the sea of bodies left in the wake of the Warmonger. Belagosa and Ankh-Heloth were inbound, leading their warriors against the other prime targets. He smiled grimly, exposing serrated, shark-like teeth. It had been costly, but Marduk had gained their foothold on the planet. Now its corruption would begin.

  BOOK FOUR:

  THE TAINT

  “A man can be convinced to do anything, no matter how abhorrent, with the right motivation!”

  —First Chaplain Erebus

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The clear blue skies of Boros Prime were long gone. In their place, the atmosphere was thick with rust-coloured haze, choking pollutants and vile toxins. The twin suns, bright and clear before the arrival of the Word Bearers, were now barely discernible, hidden behind the festering cloud. The temperature and humidity of Boros soared. An ever-thickening pall of smoke hung low over the war-torn cities of the Imperial world, heavy with cinders and ash that caught in the throat and made breathing for the unaugmented difficult and painful.

  Tens of millions had already perished, and the corruption of the planet and its occupants was well underway.

  Legatus Verenus, acting regimental commander of the Boros 232nd, slammed the butt of his lasgun into the face of the cultist, splintering the traitor’s nose across his face. The man refused to go down, growling and hissing like an animal, hands like claws scrabbling for Verenus’ eyes.

  The traitor’s face was so twisted with hatred that it was barely human at all. Fire-blackened hooks pinned the man’s eyelids open, and an eight-pointed star had been cut into his forehead, leaking blood. He was a vision of depravity, but what sickened Verenus most of all was that the man wore a
breastplate of the Boros Guard; once, mere weeks or days past perhaps, this man had given praise to the Emperor of Mankind and fought alongside him. What had the enemy done to him to make him fall so low?

  Verenus smashed away the man’s clutching hands and again slammed the butt of his lasgun into the man’s face. The savage cultist staggered back a step, giving Verenus the space he needed. He reversed his grip on his weapon and shot the man in the chest. The traitor collapsed with a gargled sigh, a searing black hole burnt through his chest. The stink of melting plastek and charred flesh stung Verenus’ nostrils.

  More cultists were rushing his position, a veritable flood of heretics that bayed for blood like wild dogs.

  “Back!” roared Verenus, snapping off shots into the mob as he walked steadily backwards. “Move to the fallback position!”

  The Guardsmen of the 2nd Cohort fell back along the war-torn street, gunning down scores of screaming heretics as they moved. Explosions from grenades and rockets rocked the ground beneath Verenus’ feet, and aircraft screamed overhead through the smoke and fire. Heavy stubbers positioned behind shuttered windows above opened up, providing covering fire for the retreating soldiers.

  Muzzle flare spat from barrels of the clattering weapons, and empty shells fell down to the street below in a deluge, the sound of them hitting the ground like the jingling of wind-chimes. In the distance, the heavy thump of siege mortars and Whirlwinds could be heard, followed a few seconds later by the shriek of incoming artillery.

  The street was a shattered ruin, lined by the skeletal shells of buildings. Rubble was piled high, and the dead littered the ground, piled in gutters and at the base of crumbling walls. An all-pervading stink hung in the humid air, rancid and foul, like rotting meat. Verenus blinked soot and sweat out of his eyes as he backed away, snapping off shots with his lasgun, too busy just trying to keep his soldiers alive another day, another hour to allow the direness of his situation to press upon him.